In your share

• Chicken
• Pork or Beef Roast
• Ground Beef
• Brats
• Bacon

On the Farm

Now that the worst of the winter weather is behind us (hopefully), our focus is now oriented towards gearing up for spring and summer. This month, that means getting all of our poultry chicks ordered for the entire year (about 1,500 baby birds in total), interviewing our potential farm help and getting their schedules aligned with our calendar, making repairs to all of our mobile chicken shelters, and literally watching the grass grow to determine when we can start our grazing season.

The off-season is also when most farm conferences are held, and this month I’ll be attending the Oregon Small Farms Conference in Corvallis and presenting a workshop on integrating poultry and ruminants at the California Small Farms Conference (it’s an online session, so I don’t have to travel to CA). Then I’m gearing up to teach a rotational grazing workshop for the East Multnomah Soil & Water Conservation District in April or May, and finally, in June I’m considering attending a highly regarded week-long course in Billings, Montana called Ranching for Profit. That one is more about running the business end of a livestock operation, which is information that is mostly left our of most farm curricula. But, it’s $3,000, not including food or lodging, so we are looking for any creative sources of funding to help offset those costs. I’m sure the information gained will pay for itself, but the five grand it’s likely to cost is a big chunk for a small business like ours.

Recipe

Fried Chicken from the Terra Farma kitchen

Here’s another one of our go-to meals. You will need to cut up the chicken into parts, which is intimidating for some, but it’s not that difficult. There is a great YouTube video from the Everyday Food channel called, “How to Cut a Chicken Into 8 Pieces in Under a Minute” that we’d recommend checking out.

Ingredients

• One whole chicken, cut up
• 2 cups milk or buttermilk, roughly
• 1-2 teaspoons of your favorite spice blend
• 2 cups flour
• 2 quarts oil for frying – we use lard, but any oil that can handle high heat is fine

Directions

1. Mix the flour and spices in a large bowl
2. Dip the chicken pieces in the milk and then dredge them in the flour mixture until coated
3. Place the coated chicken on a cookie sheet or tray, and cover it with a clean dish towel or waxed paper. LET SIT UNTIL THE FLOUR IS OF A PASTE-LIKE CONSISTENCY. THIS IS CRUCIAL!
4. Heat the oil in a Dutch oven or large cast iron skillet until very hot
5. Add the chicken to the pot, and when they are browned on both sides, lower the heat, cover, and cook for about 30 minutes.
6. Remove the cover, raise the heat again, and fry until crispy.
7. Let drain on a rack over paper towels
8. Enjoy!

In your share

• Chicken
• Lamb stew meat
• Ground beef
• Ground pork
• Pork chops
• Chuck eye steak

On the Farm

Now that we are at the time of year where the day lengths are getting ever so slightly longer as the calendar ticks by, the farm is also seeing its first inklings of spring. Our first pair of lambs was born on January 6^th, and this of course follows the litter of puppies that arrived the day before Thanksgiving. In between those, we helped put another farm that was forced to make some changes by agreeing to purchase their boar, sow, and 11 piglets. Even with all that, though, things are still a bit more of a leisurely pace this time of year, that is until the snow and ice storms arrive. I’m writing this before the big storm that is predicted to hit in a few days, so we’ll see if we have to make up for that decrease in workload soon.

Recipe

Cider Braised Pork Chops from our kitchen

This is our favorite way to eat pork chops and this was adapted and modified from a recipe that used scallops instead of pork chops. Amounts of ingredients resented here are kind of vague because we usually just wing it, but this dish is very forgiving.

Ingredients

• 1 package Terra Farma pork chops
• 1 pint apple cider (the juice kind, not the hard cider – but we’ve never tried that, so who knows?)
• ¼ cup butter
• Fresh sage, to taste
• Julienned apple

Directions

1. Heat the cider in a small saucepan over medium heat until it is reduced by about half, set aside.
2. Pan fry the chops in an oiled skillet on med-high heat until they are almost done, then remove from skillet and set aside.
3. Add the butter to the hot skillet and simmer it until it browns, stirring as needed to keep from burning
4. Once you have brown butter, add the reduced cider and sage to the butter, then add the chops to simmer in the sauce until they are done.
5. Add the julienned apples right at the end, so that they can warm and soften a bit, but still maintain their shape.