Category Archives: preserving

“the sauce”

This morning I jarred up a new batch of Curious Farm Chili-Garlic-Ginger Sauce for tomorrow at the Beaverton Farmers Market.

I love all the products I make, but I’m really excited about this sauce. It has concentrated heat from the chili flakes — which have some meaty sweetness to them, too, not just fire. The garlic gives the sauce a round, earthy warmth, and there’s just enough ginger to add sweetness and lift.

The sauce hits all of the taste spots on the palate — sour, pungent, sweet, bitter, and salty — and those flavors linger in just the right way. Even better, because Curious Farm’s Chili-Garlic-Ginger Saunce is live-cultured, it’s still full of probiotics, anti-oxidants and raw goodness.

“The Sauce” (and it needs a name so come taste some at the booth soon and help me come up with a lively name) is unlike anything I’ve ever tasted. It’s not quite a salsa — though it could be used wherever one would use salsa or tabasco. It also is different from the fermented chili sauces available in Asian groceries. There’s more flavor dimension in this “Sauce,” and that might be because it’s still alive and hasn’t been shelf-stabilized.

Come give it a try at the Beaverton Farmers Market some Saturday! A 9-oz jar is $6.50, and — if you bring me back the jar — I’ll give you $1 off your purchase next time.

rosa villosa

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I’ve been so busy pickling for the Market that I haven’t spent as much time as I usually do admiring the wonder outside and harvesting herbs we’ll need for the year ahead.

But who can ignore these gorgeous baubles?

They are the hips from rosa villosa — or apple rose — and are as big as crabapples. Whenever I pick these, I’m reminded that apples, roses, and raspberries are all related. When dried, these taste like raspberry fruit leather.

I dehydrate them for use in healing teas during the winter. Eloise likes to pop them in her mouth and suck on them like candy. Rose hips have more than twenty times the amount of vitamin C as oranges. They also help boost the immune system and relax inflammation. If I’m feeling blue, a couple of rosehips and a sprig of rosemary in a cup of hot water will brighten my mood.

When you harvest rose hips, you have to remove the little hairs (and seeds) inside the hip. These hairs were the source of the “itching powder” advertised in the back of comic books and in gag shops. The little fibers are easy to remove in hips that are this large. Most rosa rugosa — shrub roses — will produce big, meaty hips.

and i love…

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and I love this beautiful garlic — still juicy from its recent harvest. It’s sitting outside in baskets so that it will cure in the sun before I bring it in to store safely.

I am using this home-grown garlic in the new, very concentrated, curious farm chili-garlic-ginger sauce . This sauce is great for eggs, tossing with noodles, basting chicken and seafood, adding a smidgen to your own sauces and dressings.

Live-cultured, curious farm chili-garlic-ginger sauce is full of probiotics, raw goodness, antioxidants, and flavor.

sauerkraut cake on June 4th!

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Come to the Beaverton Farmers Market this Saturday, June 4th, and try some sauerkraut cake! We’ll give you the recipe, too.

Come early. We’ll try hard to bring enough cake for absolutely everyone, but please come early if you love sauerkraut, cake, or discovering old-fashioned recipes. The cake is free. It’s my birthday, and I just want to share sauerkraut love with everyone.

We’ve been surprised by demand for our live-cultured foods — sauerkraut, kimchi, kvass — and are working hard to produce enough so that we don’t run out at the Market. Hundreds of pounds of vegetables are fermenting in the Pickle Lab right now, and we can’t wait to share them with you.

Later this week, I’ll post the menu of what we’ll bring to the Market on our Fresh This Week page.

Can’t wait to see you on Saturday!

checking in, looking forward

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During the first two Market Saturdays, we sold out of four products. Last Saturday, many of you came back for favorites you discovered the first day of the Market. Yay!

We’re thrilled. We love that your favorite curious farm products are also our favorite products — like the Leek-Horseradish Sauerkraut, which is just so lovely and full-flavored. If you’re looking for Leek-Horseradish Sauerkraut this Saturday (5/21), come early because we will sell out. The next batch of L-HS will be ready in late June. (Be patient… it will return! All those sweet leeks I showed you need time to relax and get to know the cabbage and horseradish.)

New special sauerkraut flavors are coming down the road. Remember that sauerkraut takes 6 to 8 weeks to ferment. We’re increasing our number of crocks/fermenting capacity here in order to have more batches in process.

We’re excited that many of you are discovering kimchi for the first time. As I hoped, some customers come to the booth and say, “I’ve heard a lot about kimchi, and I’ve always been afraid of it… but I’m curious…” It’s wonderful to watch customers’ faces light up when they try the Mild Spring Kimchi. It has just enough heat (from friendly ginger) to show kimchi-newbies how the taste of a well-made kimchi hits several spots on the palate all at once — including that elusive 5th taste called “umami.” Every batch of our Mild Spring Kimchi is slightly different, depending on what’s fresh from the garden. However, the overall spice profile will be fairly consistent because we want this kimchi to be your… ahem… “gateway” kimchi.

It also is great to hear from kimchi veterans that we’re producing surprisingly good kimchi. “Surprise” is the operating word, it seems. The givers of these compliments expertly navigate a taut bridge over areas of ethnicity and skin color and are so warm and gracious when they tell me how much they enjoy the full flavors in curious farm kimchi. These compliments mean a lot to me. I love making all of the products we offer at the booth, but making kimchi is a joy from beginning to end.

(Some of you also are certain that I’m using fish in the kimchi because the flavors are so deep. Nope. No fish. All of our products are vegan — including the kvass.)

I’m thrilled that you all love the Spicy Radish Kimchi as much as I do. If you missed it last week after we sold out, be assured that I will bring another large batch of it this Saturday (5/21), and today I made yet another batch that should be ready in a couple of weeks. Your interest in spicy varieties of kimchi gives me permission to explore new recipes. I can’t wait to share them with you.

Many of you noticed the sign for Beet Kvass and hoped I was selling pickled beets. This week (5/21), I’ll bring curious farm’s Grown-Up Pickled Beets. Be forewarned: these are not the pickled beets your Grandma made.

Cucumber pickle lovers: there will be pickles. If you’re anxious, do a sun dance, please, because the cucumber plants won’t grow until it’s sunny and warm. I understand your frustration and disappointment. I can’t wait to share curious farm pickles with you.

You can see a menu of what we’ll bring to the Beaverton Farmers Market right here. We’re in spot #15. Remember that you can try a sample of anything and everything we offer each Market day. Our offerings change as the seasons change and as new things become ready in the garden.

To your health!

kimchi: early autumn

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I know… it’s been almost a month since I posted here on the blog. I have been making pickles and wondering how to clone myself so that I can make some progress in the garden, too. (I am very, very behind out there…)

But I come here today to tell you that Curious Farm now offers crunchy, lively, seasonal kimchi. The first batch is called Early Autumn (and until I get inspired on the names, we’ll be literal and calendar-based). It’s really nice — not too hot but still sassy.

I like all kinds of pickles and krauts, but I love making kimchi the most because of how it can capture a moment in the garden and keep it all year. Early last spring, I made a batch that included some of the very first succulent snow peas. Our new Early Autumn batch (available to you!) has some baby end-of-season green beans with a few barely ripe cayenne peppers from the garden.

Every batch is different, yet each captures bright, fresh flavors. $5.00 each 9 oz jar. When they’re gone, they’re gone… but a new batch — filled with the new season’s goodness — is right around the corner!

curious farm pickles win blue ribbon

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first place to curious farm pickles Grand Central Bakery awarded Curious Farm Pickles a blue ribbon during its Fair and Urban Farming Expo this weekend. We’re thrilled!

Just a week out in the world, and these delicious pickles have already won a pretty ribbon… yay!

If you’d like to try some of these pickles yourself, send email. For a short while, 32oz jars are $7 each.

My next step: introducing the pickles to chefs and specialty markets in the Portland area.

And more: a special Curious Farm preserve also won a ribbon at the Grand Central Bakery fair this weekend, but there isn’t enough of that preserve to share so we’ll have to wait until next June for a batch of those garnet-colored jars to come out of the pot.