Gyoza

Gyoza, or Potstickers, are one of our favorite foods to eat because they cook quickly and are in a way, a meal in themselves.  Flavorful and a finger-food for those of us who have yet to master the art of chopsticks (and of course 2 year olds!)  Almost all of us adore them.  Recently, I ventured into making them myself rather than buying them out of the freezer section at the grocery store.  Except for the skins.  For now.

Ingredients:

1/2 lb Ground meat (pork, beef or chicken)
1/2 medium Cabbage, shredded
4 med. Carrots, shredded
6 crimini mushrooms, diced or shredded
1 small onion diced (or leek or green onion
fresh ginger, shredded, 1 med branch
minced garlic, 2 tbsp
salt, pepper to taste
soy sauce, 2 tbsp
gyoza skins, about 1 1/2 pkgs

Filling:

mix all ingredients together in a large bowl.
fill a small bowl with a couple of table spoons of water
line two cookie sheets with wax paper for freezing finished gyoza






Place a gyoza skin in the palm of one hand, use the other to place approximately 1 tbsp of filling on the middle.  Wet the edge of one side of the skin with water.



Fold the skin nearly in half around the filling.  Pinch one side to the other utilizing approximately 6 small folds on one side.  The resulting gyoza will end up in a slight half-moon shape with a flat bottom side.



Cooking:
(Fresh or frozen)
In a heavy frying pan (I like cast iron, but use your favorite), heat about 2 tbsp of oil over med-high heat (just shy of smoking).




Set gyoza in pan with space in between.  My size 8 pan holds about 10.
allow to fry until edges brown and gyoza release from bottom of pan.










Quickly pour in about 2 tbsp of water and cover until water evaporates.








When gyoza release from pan and are browned on the bottom, they are done!


Dip in soy sauce, gyoza sauce or your favorite sauce and Enjoy!



My home-made Gyoza came out beautifully!  There is a bit more ginger in these than many people are used to but it tastes great!  I also thought about making a veggie-only, adding more mushrooms, less meat in general, and about all the different versions I could make as the fresh veggies changed during the summer.

Every family has their own taste preferences.  Think of this recipe as a guide.  Mix, Match and change it around as you like until you find it perfect for your family!

Have Fun!

Site Updates

Check it out!

I've finally figured out how to post links to PDF documents on our Website!  I've got all the newsletters from last season up on our "NEWSLETTERS" Page.  Hooray!

Next up for pdf documents will be copies of all the forms and flyers that we will be using this season.

2012 CSA

We are so excited to be starting our very own CSA this season!  I was looking through one of the many seed catalogs that we've been receiving and very nearly drooling!  Fresh veggies are sounding so good this time of year when we are all relying on veggies from our storage larders or even from the grocery store that is bringing veggies in from California or Mexico.  I know I didn't can enough for this winter but then again I'm still learning what we actually eat all winter long. and just how much work it takes to preserve all that food.

If you haven't yet decided on where you'll be getting your fresh veggies from May to October, take a look at our CSA Here.  For $300, your family could be eating veggies picked the day of or the day before they are delivered at the most.  To get any fresher you'd have to be growing it yourself!  Some folks say they can't taste the difference but I can't even get our kids to eat carrots that aren't still dirty they're so fresh.

Shoot us an email at OmacheFarm@gmail.com and we'd be happy to answer any questions you may have as well as send you a pdf copy of our brochure.  Our brochure has the form we need signed and returned if you decide to participate.

As for preserving food for next winter, we hope to be doing some planned sales for preserving in addition to folks requests for enough of whatever vegetable they'll need for a batch of canning.  And even if you're not canning Omache Farm produce, we'd be happy to offer any advice we can to assist you in your home preserving adventures.  That is, after all, what a community is isn't it?  A group of people who work, live, play and best of all, Eat together!

Smart Farmers

 Every now and again, I find some method or piece of equipment or even sometimes simply a mindset that completely changes how things are done around here.  When we took our last batch of lambs from 2011 into slaughter a few weeks ago, Jason took the time to clean out the old loading chute and ramp.

Perhaps now would be the moment for a tiny bit of farm history...

The property we are renting last had cattle on it about a decade ago and the last time the owners of the property had animals was about two decades ago.  Suffice to say, the original animal handling facilities were built a LONG time ago.  Since then the facilities haven't exactly been kept up.  Jason spent most of a day ripping old fencing material out of frozen layers of mud in the chute and loading ramp.  He also spent a good chunk of time sawing the mostly-dead elderberry tree out of the middle of the ramp so that animals can walk all the way up.  Needless to say, he was a wee bit sore the day after.

Our first experiences with catching and loading sheep involved a lot of worked up sheep, three adults and some spectacular catches along with a nearly broken knee.

Our second experiences with catching and loading sheep involved a lot of making do with lots of random bits of fence and lots and lots and LOTS of baling wire.  And a busted rib from a confused ewe.

On our own farm, our two favorite pieces of equipment for working with our sheep is cattle panels and spiral  Panel Hinges from Premier 1 Supplies.  It's flexible, light-weight, mobile and effective.  We can set it up anywhere and have a pretty good facility for handling and sorting our sheep.

Third time's the charm, right?

Back to the original chute and loading ramp.

With our panels cut into 4 and 8 foot sections and hinged together, we can sort out individuals with one person when everyone cooperates.  Once that's done, we can use the old gates to get the appropriate lambs into the old chute, ready to go.  We even managed to do all this with a minimum of "Baa-ing."  That means they're relatively un-stressed.

Once we set up the rack on our little truck and backed it up to the old ramp we realized the ramp had obviously been built for BIG trucks.  Luckily, our sheep have no problem with hopping down the couple feet into the bed of our truck.

We opened up the gates to allow the lambs up the ramp to the back of the truck. They took a minute to navigate where the elderberry had grown through the heavy boards and then hopped down into the truck without needing to be pushed from behind at all.  We closed up the truck and stood around wondering what we had missed doing.  In the past we always needed to collect more animals or re-collect escapees or otherwise do more work after loading our charges that we felt like we were missing something!

I can now say I have three favorite pieces of handling equipment: panels, hinges and a well-built loading ramp.