Living and Promoting a Sustainable Life
Meet the owners of Five Feline Farm and hear about how the Farm got it’s unusual name.
Stop by our on-line store at fivefelinefarm.com/mercantile.
If you are interested in Julia’s book “Simply Delicious”, you can find it through this link: www.books2read.com/simplydelicious
It’s that time again. The break in the calendar that prompts a natural desire to look at the past year and make plans for the next.
We do the same at Five Feline Farm. 2017 was a great year for us. If you follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, in person at the 18th Street Farmer’s Market or even here on the blog, you know we expanded our business in several ways during the past year.
Perhaps our biggest achievement was opening our on-farm store—the Farm Fresh Mercantile. Finishing the store was a huge task. We reclaimed as much material as possible and did almost all of the labor ourselves. The grand opening was in October and we are now open the first Saturday of each month. Keep an eye on our social media for any last minute specials or announcements.
We expanded our presence at the 18th Street Farmer’s Market with a double size booth last summer. This extra space allowed us to enhance our displays into a more customer friendly presentation plus we added a grower. Martha B. produced additional vegetables, most notably potatoes. Her fingerling and specialty potato varieties were a huge hit.
A highlight for us was the inagural publication of Five Feline Farm Press. Simply Delicious is a compilation of recipes and stories that debuted on October 24. This book answers the many questions posed to us about what we cook and eat on a regular basis.
We also found ourselves in demand as speakers. In 2017, we presented at two events: Spring Into Gardening and Web@ through EIU. In addition we hosted a farm tour for Lincoln Log Cabin and the Academy of Lifelong Learning. Each of these events showcased a different section of our farm; from honeybees to nearly organic gardening practice.
How do we top all of that? What is coming in 2018?
As you might expect from us by now we are dreaming big. We will be expanding and refining the garden plots again, adding some special features to the landscape to add to our destination experience and continue to improve our product offering. We can’t really tell you too much right now, but keep following our news feed on all the social media channels.
Do you ever find yourself in a cooking rut, making the same boring meals over and over?
When that happens, we do kitchen experiments here at Five Feline Farm. No, not the mad scientist kind where you blend chemicals while cackling wildly.
The mystery food ingredient kind of experiment. No, not the “wonder what this fuzzy stuff in the back of the fridge is?” kind either.
We do the kind of experiment where random ingredients are combined to make a meal. Like the TV show “Chopped” but without the time limit and pressure. And, sadly without the possibility of a cash prize.
One recent round had the following ingredient list:
Canned Pumpkin
Cheddar Cheese Soup
Quick Cooking Barley
A Blood Orange
Sprig of Fresh Rosemary
Yes, that is the actual randomly selected list of ingredients awaiting me (Julia) when I arrived home from work. This was going to take a few minutes of brain time to come up with something for supper. But this is how I learn to be creative with cooking.
The rules are simple: use each of the mystery ingredients at least once in the meal. Any other items from freezer, refrigerator or pantry can be used.
Green salad with blood orange sections, a chunk of blue cheese and an oil and vinegar dressing
Pumpkin ravioli with a mushroom rosemary cream sauce
Cheddar barley focaccia
I was mostly concerned about the cheese soup and how to make that palatable. I’m not even sure how a can of cheddar cheese soup ended up in the pantry. It worked out fairly well, adding texture, moisture and flavor to the focaccia. The ravioli filling needed something to mellow out the intensity of the pumpkin and the focaccia was best hot from the oven. The mushroom rosemary cream sauce was really good.
This will not make it into the grand repertoire of meals. But it does inspire me to make more flavored homemade pastas. It also helped use up a few random ingredients and step away from another boring weeknight meal.
If you want to learn more about how I cook and meals designed to use up leftovers, pick up a copy of my book Simply Delicious, available in digital and print formats in our Mercantile or on Amazon.
As a special bonus, email your receipt to simplydelicious@fivefelinefarm.com and get a free photo ebook download.
Don’t forget to follow all the happenings here at the Farm on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
