Category Archives: fresh now

pink lady sauerkraut for valentine’s day!

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Here’s a treat for you:  I’ve just opened a crock of Curious Farm’s Pink Lady Sauerkraut, and it’s delicious!

pink lady applePINK LADY SAUERKRAUT:  blushed, spiced, and sassy with Pink Lady apples.

Cabbage and apples are age-old friends in Eastern Europe.  We combine crunchy red and green cabbage with sweet, tart Pink Lady apples (a cross between Cripps and Lady Williams varieties) and savory spices to create a proud, magenta-hued sauerkraut that will dance across your sandwich and then take a bow on your charcuterie board.

Curious Farm Pink Lady Sauerkraut is on sale  for $7 (16oz jar) through February 2014, so that you can give your sassy sweetheart a jar of tart, scrumptious sauerkraut for Valentine’s Day.  This offer is good for local, direct sales only from Curious Farm in Cedar Mill/NW Portland.  Please send email (cathy at curiousfarm.com) to arrange a purchase direct from our farm.  (We’re a small family farm without a storefront so these sales need to be arranged in advance so that I can make sure your order is out front in our cooler, with the right amount of ice.  Thanks for your patience.)

Sadly, this is the last batch of Curious Farm Pink Lady Sauerkraut that will be made for the foreseeable future.  I have made the hard decision to cease commercial production of Curious Farm products.  I will continue to teach classes here so that you can make wonderful fermented foods for your families, but I am stopping production.  I know that my Pink Lady Sauerkraut has a devoted following so I am happy to share this last, delicious batch with you at a special discount, with much love for all of your support.

alchemy

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leek scapes and other vegetables

Last week I plucked some leek scapes from the garden.  Have you ever eaten green garlic scapes?  You can find them at farmers markets in the Pacific Northwest in June.  Well, leeks send up flower heads, too, and they’re delicious pickled — more sweet than garlic scapes.  Into the crock they went with some other crunchy vegetables…

And today this batch of Giardiniera came out of the crock!

curious farm giardiniera with leek scapes

Crunchy, garlicky, refreshing, sour, infused with oregano and thyme…  just right for a picnic or a cocktail party or next to your sandwich.  Curious Farm Giardiniera with Leek Scapes is available direct from Curious Farm until it’s gone.  And, if you’d like to learn how to make your own live-cultured vegetable pickles, think about taking a class at Curious Farm!

 

garlic scapes

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garlicGarlic is so fun to grow.  In this climate, hardneck garlic produces scapes from mid-June until mid-July.  These are the curly, snake- or swan-like stems that come up from the middle of the garlic plant.  We want to remove them so that the garlic bulb can focus its energy on growing bigger.

Usually, I make rustic pesto with scapes from our garden, sautee them with the last of the season’s asparagus, or put them in kimchi.  The taste is clean, green, and pungent — a young pungent, not the mature pungent flavor that you taste in a garlic clove.  When cooked, the flavor softens a bit and becomes more vegetable-like.

This year, since we’ve planted more garlic than ever before, I decided to ferment the first scapes by themselves.  I hear that this is a wonderful way to have mild garlic flavor in the kitchen all year long.  Perhaps this experiment will turn out brilliantly.  If it does, I’ll let you know when jars of potent green scapes will be available at the Beaverton Farmers Market.

Curious Farm Spicy Radish Kimchi now at Food Front

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daikon radishFood Front on NW Thurman Street in Portland now carries Curious Farm Spicy Radish Kimchi.  This variety of kimchi is very traditional, spicy, yet balanced in the way that it delivers heat.

Spicy Radish Kimchi is wonderful served with meats and fish.  It’s also delicious when tossed with rice or noodles.  Sometimes we even put it inside a quesadilla for a little fusion fun.

And speaking of Food Front, I’ll be down there sharing tastes of Curious Farm products on Saturday, January 21st, from 11 – 3pm.    I’ll have Curious Farm Sauerkrauts there, our Chili-Garlic-Ginger Sauce, the Spicy Radish Kimchi, and our Beet Kvass tonic drink.

sunshine!

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ginger turmeric tonic sauerkraut

I am uncrocking a batch of Curious Farm Ginger-Turmeric Tonic Sauerkraut this morning, and the color is glorious.  The smell is delicious — gingery, warm, uplifting.

Come to Food Front on NW Thurman Street this Sunday, December 11th, from noon – 3pm and try some of this healing sauerkraut.  It’s a burst of sunshine to give us all hope until the sun begins to grow again after Solstice.

pink lady at food front

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curious farm pink lady sauerkrautTwo bits of news: Food Front on NW Thurman Street now carries Curious Farm Pink Lady Sauerkraut. During the Beaverton Farmers Market season, Pink Lady became a real favorite — even among customers who swore they didn’t like sauerkraut. The organic pink lady apples mix with the cabbage to make a sassy, bright-tasting sauerkraut that looks gorgeous on a sandwich and will beckon you from the refrigerator late at night when you’re looking for a delicious bite of something.

And… I won’t be wearing pink (even though I resemble an apple), but I will be at Food Front this Sunday, December 11th, to share samples of Curious Farm Sauerkrauts, Beet Kvass, and our special Chili-Garlic-Ginger Sauce.  I’ll be at Food Front on NW Thurman Street from noon to 3pm, this Sunday.  Come say hi and let’s talk about live-cultured foods!