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Recipe: Brussel Sprouts

Maple Dijon Brussel Sprouts Recipe

Brussel Sprouts are a super versatile little cabbage. They can be cooked so many ways it can be hard to choose which amazing recipe to choose.

The United States grows a lot of Brussel Sprouts, around 30 tons per year. Which sounds like an awful lot until you learn that The Netherlands grown over 80 metric tons per year! With all these sprouts kicking around the globe you bet there are some pretty interesting recipes to choose from.

Maple Dijon Brussel Sprouts Recipe
Halved Brussel Sprouts

But we have one today that’s pretty darn easy and take very little prep time. It will take just over an hour in the oven, but the result will be well worth it. This recipe also tastes awesome the next day, cold, right out of the refrigerator.

Our recipes are never exact. We couldn’t tell you how many Brussel Sprouts to use by weight, but we just use one stalk. For the purposes of this blog and our website we try to get amounts down. So for this one we did what we could.

Maple Dijon Roasted Brussel Sprouts

What you’ll need: 

One stalk Brussel Sprouts (halved)

1/4 cup local maple syrup

1/4 cup Dijon mustard

1 one gallon bag

Salt and pepper

Maple Dijon Brussel Sprouts Recipe
1 Gallon Bag of Goodness

What you’ll do: 

Take the sprouts off the stalk and cut them in half. Then put them in the plastic bag. Pour in the maple syrup, the dijon, and add salt and pepper to taste. Mix well in the bag and then let sit for an hour. Heat your oven to 375 degrees. Spread the seasoned sprouts out on a baking sheet. Line with foil or parchment paper. Use a little pan spray for easy clean up. Bake on the top shelf in the oven for about an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes or until the sprouts start to caramelize and crisp.

 

 

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Recipe: Corn Salsa

Roma Tomatoes and Jalapenos - Fisher Hill Farm

There is nothing like fresh vegetables right out of the field to kick up any meal. They can also BE the meal. But this little dish is easy enough to make and can be side dish, a nacho topper, a salsa, or a salad. 

It’s super easy to make and doesn’t take very long to prep. If it can sit in the refrigerator for a few hours before you serve it cold that would be best. But you could also heat it up to help meld the flavors and use it as a side dish with chicken or pork. It would be great on tacos too!

Roma Tomatoes and Jalapenos - Fisher Hill Farm
Roma Tomatoes and Jalapenos – Fisher Hill Farm

Whenever we make this dish we use the rule of three: For every ear of corn you will want to use 1 tomato, 1 jalapeno, and 1 clove of garlic. This will render this dish quite spicy and if that’s not your thing you can easily replace the jalapeno with a less spicy pepper like a banana pepper or a bell pepper.

Start by cutting the kernels off the ear and place them in a bowl. We just rough chop the rest of the ingredients and put them in the same bowl and then toss with salt and pepper to taste. That’s it. But when these ingredients are fresh you don’t need to do much with it to make it taste great.

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The Uncertainty of Farm Life

Fisher Hill Farm

Every day is something new on the farm. You never quite know what’s in store for you. Go in with a strong monthly, weekly, or daily plan and those plans can change in the blink of an eye.

It could be anything, too. Truck breaks down, tractor gets stuck, unexpected rain storm washes you out, anything to throw you off your game suddenly can happen. You kind of start to expect the unexpected, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating when you have to stop what you’re doing to take care of something that you weren’t prepared for.

We’ve always been farmers so we can’t speak from personal experience, but in talking with friends and family it doesn’t seem that much different from any other job out there! Things come up constantly and you are always having to find new ways to make it work.

Life really isn’t much different. Things come out of the blue to throw you off your game all the time. Could be something as simple as a child getting the flu or as serious as someone close to you getting seriously ill. Those things are game changers in one way or the other and there’s no real way you can prepare for something that you don’t ever expect.

All you can do is try and keep your cool, stay centered, and make smart informed decisions as much as possible. The other thing you can do is ask for help. Never feel bad about asking for help when you need it. Too often we try to tackle projects that are just beyond our scope of comprehension and it only makes us more frustrated which never helps to solve any problems.

This is all stemming from us losing water pressure the other day and finding out there was a massive leak that needed to be dug up. Turns out it was a pinhole leak in the plumbing. But, man can that be frustrating. We had to bring someone else in to fix everything up and get the water back on. Never ideal to stop during peak harvest season to fix something you didn’t expect. But that’s life, the uncertainty of farm life!

 

 

 

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How to Freeze 10 Ears of Corn

Fisher Hill Farm Local Corn - Frozen

Corn may be one of the easiest things to preserve. When the summer is getting late it can be a good idea to buy some fresh corn and get it in the freezer. There’s nothing like pulling out some frozen local corn at Thanksgiving instead of grocery store bought or even worse…canned!

It doesn’t take much effort at all really and it will come out perfect every time. No need to blanch ahead of time or anything. We used a food saver sealer for ours but you certainly don’t have to. Instead, just buy some freezer bags (Make sure they are Freezer Bags and not gallon storage bags. The plastic is different. Storage bags will result in freezer burn!) place the corn in there and use a straw to suck all of the air out. You’re corn will stay good for up to a year!

Fisher Hill Farm Local Corn
Fisher Hill Farm Local Corn

Use a sharp knife to take the corn kernels off the ear itself. Try and clean out as much of the hairs as you can but if you can’t get them all don’t worry about it. We pack ours up into one pound bags but you can easily do whatever size you like if you have room in the freezer.

10 ears of corn yields a little more than three pounds of kernels!

Fisher Hill Farm Local Corn - Frozen
Fisher Hill Farm Local Corn – Frozen

We packed up the three pounds and had a heaping cup of corn left. So we decided to chop half of a zucchini and mix them together with a clove of chopped garlic. Then we beat two eggs with a little bit of flour and mixed it all together with salt, pepper, and a little honey to make corn and zucchini pancakes. Optional if you’d like to top yours with chili garlic sauce! We did.

Fisher Hill Farm corn and zucchini pancake
Fisher Hill Farm corn and zucchini pancake

They were delicious! 10 ears of corn is lots of frozen goodness and a meal for the family. Gotta love the summer, but it’s nice to bottle some of it up for later in the year, too.

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The First of this Year’s Cantaloupe

Fisher Hill Farm Local Cantaloupe

Well, they’re finally starting to get ripe enough to take to the market with us. They came out beautiful this year despite the late start and we couldn’t be happier.  They’re a little smaller this year but they are super sweet!

There’s nothing quite like a nice ripe cantaloupe especially if its local. It’s healthy, delicious, and so juicy that it’s actually thirst quenching, especially on a hot dry day like the days we’ve had recently. It’s a pretty soft start so far so our supplies might be limited at market this weekend but we’ll bring as much as we can. We’ve been getting a lot of questions about them so we’re glad we can bring some!

In other news, we’ve spent a lot of time planting. Beets, chard, and kale are constantly being planted since April so we have a steady supply for the whole season. We also planted broccoli, lettuce, scallions, rutabaga and kohlrabi for fall harvest and winter storage. The season is absolutely flying by. Can you believe it’s August already?

Eggplant and peppers should be coming soon for those of  you who have asked. They’re almost ready. We don’t expect to see them this weekend at the market. The sweet corn has been a huge hit. Thanks to everyone for the compliments. Nothing makes us happier than hearing about how much you enjoyed what we grew and how you cooked it. We like recipe sharing too so don’t be shy!

Here’s a list of what to expect this weekend:

Bunched Beets

Spring Onions

Sweet Onions, bunched with greens

String Beans

Shallots

Swiss Chard 

Kale (curly, red russian)

Lettuce

Radishes

Zucchini and Summer Squash

Cucumbers

Basil

Sweet Corn

New potatoes, red

Carrots

Cherry & Grape Tomatoes

Hope you have a great weekend. Come by and visit us at the Rochester Public Market and the Brighton Farmers Market!