Microwave Winter Squash Recipe

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Everyone knows that winter squash should be baked.

This is true, but what if you want something home-made and fresh for lunch?  With a little preparation at time and a microwave at school or work, you're set!  You'll also have the rest of the building or lunchroom drooling!

You'll have to tailor this recipe to suit your tastes, as always, but I have the basics to begin upon here.

Microwave Winter Squash Lunch
Makes enough for 1 person.
Time: 15 minutes preparation, 8 minutes cooking.

Ingredients:

One small winter squash, softball size or appropriate to your appetite.

Filling:
Whatever strikes your fancy.  My favorite choices are below
1. Cranberry
       2 tbsp dried cranberries
       1 tbsp honey
       1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
       cloves
2. Sausage Rice (sweet with brown sugar or savory with seasonings)
       1/4 cup of your favorite breakfast sausage, cooked.
       1/2 cup cooked rice
       seasonings (salt, pepper, sage) (optional)
       brown sugar (optional)

Instructions:
@ Home
1. Gather your filling ingredients.  You can mix them all together in a sandwich bag (cranberry) or microwave-safe container (sausage) and store it in the refrigerator.
2. give your squash's skin a scrub.  (Generally a good policy no matter who you got it from!)
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3.  With a knife, stab the squash so that steam can escape.
4.  Microwave the whole squash for about 4 minutes, turn it over, microwave for 4 more minutes.
5.  CAUTION!  HOT!  Let the squash rest for a few minutes until you can cut it open without burning your hands on the steam.
6. with a spoon, scoop out the seeds and toss (or compost!) them.
7.  if you chose the sausage filling (or something similar), reheat it while your squash is cooling.
8.  Mix and Enjoy!  if you have extra room in your container for the sausage filling, scrape the squash from it's skin into your container.  If you just had your squash and your sandwich baggie of yummies, you'll have to scrape the squash filling loose and mix with your filling in the skin.

YUM!

Please share in the comments your favorite filling for squash, baked or microwave!

Ginger's Memoirs - Ringing Hogs

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Every year, Mom, Dad and I would ring hogs before they went outside to the fields.  The hogs were run through the chute, rings put in their nose and castrated.  Needless to say, there was a lot of squealing in the barn on those days!  Mom’s job was to open the gate from the chute so the hog could run out the shed and into the fields outside.

            There was on instance where Dad and I both turned around when we heard Mom screaming.  A hog had run between Mom’s short legs and she was riding the animal!  The hog took her with on its mad dash down the chute and outside.  Louder even than the hogs, she screamed the whole way out!

            Dad and I nearly fell over we were laughing so hard.  Once she made her way back in to the gate at the head of the chute, she laughed just as much as we were.

            That is one sight I’ll never forget.  I’ll bet she didn’t either!

Cilantro-Lime Coleslaw

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We made this recipe on the 4th of July and it was FANTASTIC!  Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS:
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1 lime, zested
2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
1/2 teaspoon rice vinegar
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons sweet chili sauce
2 teaspoons white sugar
3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh
cilantro
1/4 red onion, finely diced, or more to
taste
4 cups shredded green cabbage, or more
to taste

DIRECTIONS:
1. Whisk mayonnaise, lime zest, lime juice, rice vinegar, garlic, sweet chili sauce, and sugar in a large bowl, stirring to dissolve sugar. Mix cilantro and red onion into dressing. Stir cabbage into dressing mixture, about 1 cup at a time, until all cabbage is coated.

NOTES:
We added in shredded carrots and didn't use sweet chili sauce because we didn't have any to hand.
1 whole large-ish head of our cabbage plus carrots and the rest all fit into our 6-quart KitchenAid mixer.

Cilantro-Lime Coleslaw from AllRecipes.com

Ginger's Memoirs - The Raspberry Thief

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Every year, Mom and I would make delicious red raspberry jams and preserves to enjoy all winter long.  We had grown two of the best thirty foot rows of raspberry bushes just for that purpose.  There was one particular year that was looking like a bumper crop.  The morning we went out to pick our berries, there wasn’t a single ripe berry on a single branch.  The whole patch was picked clean!  A few days later, as more berries began to ripen to perfection, we found the culprit!  Our collie-shepherd farm dog had discovered the perfect way to curl his lips and use his teeth to gently pick each ripe raspberry.  We never thought we would have to fence out the dog more than the birds from our berry patch.  Every summer after that we had the most forlorn looking dog sitting outside the new raspberry fence.

Ginger's Memoirs - The Geese

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My folks were new to farming but wanted to raise geese. So, they ordered them and Mom and I picked them up at the Eldridge Post Office in a three foot by three foot, five inch tall box. We took them home and put them in a pen in our summer kitchen. After a couple of weeks, Mom and I decided to let them swim in the two foot deep horse trough. They loved it! They paddled around, bobbing their heads. Everything was great! We decided to run into town (about 20 minutes away) and leave the goslings to play. What we didn’t realize is that goslings get their waterproofing from their mother. Since they did not have a mother goose, we returned to find 23 little heads and beaks just barely floating above the water and little feet going like crazy to keep themselves afloat! We spent the rest of the afternoon drying off and warming up drenched goslings under a heat lamp and keeping them moving. We were lucky and saved all twenty three goslings.

WE FOUND MORE PIGS!!!

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See? I told you we'd let you know.

We have discovered that one of our neighbors who is less than 5 miles from us is getting back in the hog business after several decades.

Their pigs are of various breed mixes so this'll be very exciting.

We have not yet finalized pricing on custom hogs yet but we anticipate having pricing finalized by the end of July at which point I will publish our Info Sheet for all to see!  You'll be able to find it here and at all the markets.

If you are interested, you can see what last year's pricing was HERE.  If you know you want to be at the top of the list to buy a whole or half hog, please email us at OmacheFarm@gmail.com.


Hooray!

We've got Chickens!

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Our farm is really starting to feel alive!

Every morning we have to let chickens out, check for eggs, go out to the barn and feed our little bottle lambs.   all before breakfast!  Each morning and evening as we are letting out or shutting in the chickens, finding more eggs is exciting and a bit of a surprise!  They are funny and beautiful creatures too!

Feeling like a “Real” Farmer!

Jason answered an ad last week from someone liquidating an estate that included lots of farming equipment.  Some of that equipment is small enough that the tractor we have access to can pull the tools!  And, we got it all for incredible prices!

Technorati Tags: disc,harrow,farm equipment,tractor equioment,tractor,growing up,farm,farmer,Omache

A two bottom plow (not that it will have a ton of uses) a set of discs, a feed trailer and lots of small bits and pieces essential to every farm.

Not only have we now made purchases of some “large” farm equipment, but we now have some items that are truly ours and not borrowed.

Both of us felt like we’d grown another notch.  Even more so after reassembling the discs and playing with them a bit.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

Market Boxes

We are going to offer this week what we like to call "Market Boxes!"

A Market Box is essentially a No-Committment CSA type box.  Each week, we'll put together a group of produce and take 10% off the regular price of the produce if you were to buy each part separately.  We will also include a recipe that will utilize the contents of your Market Box or the box will be themed such that one won't need a recipe.

For Example:

1 Bunch Kale                $1.75
1 bunch Chard              $1.75
1 head Napa Cabbage  $2.00
Beets                            $2.00
Beans                            $2.00
Green Onions                $ 1.75
Regularly: $11.25
Market Box: $ 10.00
Pretty good Deal!

The exact contents and price of the market boxes will change each week as produce moves in and out of season.

Some future themes we are looking at for our boxes during the rest of the season include a Grilling box, a Dorm Dweller box, and a Salsa box.

HannaMae Saved the Lamb

About a month ago, we had a surprise lamb in late May.  He came from a yearling ewe that we had previously thought had lost her lamb.  Just like her mother, Penny gave no signs of being pregnant and dropped her first lamb with nothing more than the bleat of a baby to announce it's own arrival.

The afternoon that Penny dropped her lamb, Jason moved the sheep, as planned, into a pasture that encompassed a section of the creek running through the farm.  We have a small bridge spanning the creek but as the creek is not very wide, it is common for the sheep to simply hop the creek to get where they're going.

Being a first-time mom, Penny had yet to learn what her baby could and could not yet do.  While Penny had no problem hopping the creek, her toddling lamb still wasn't quite strong enough and ended up hopping into the creek instead.

HannaMae watched Penny's lamb try to follow it's mother and when she saw the lamb fall into the creek, she ran to her Papa who she knew could save the lamb.  After a moment of translating "the lamb is bubbling!" into "the lamb is in the creek!"  Jason took off for the creek.  He threw himself on the ground and pulled the lamb from the water.  a moment of inspection determined the lamb to be fine and he gently tossed the lamb across he creek to his mother.

The lamb had indeed been bubbling, being able to only get his nose above the water about half of his jumps.  Being spring the water in the creek easily runs several feet deep and had HannaMae not seen the lamb, he may have very well been lost.

Three cheers for HannaMae!  Who still will begin telling you some version of how she saved the lamb whenever she gets the chance!