Tag Archives: food

Pizza Crust

Posted on by under pork, Recipes

pizza

Pizza. I once heard it is the perfect pregnancy food. All the food groups can be added and it’s hard to despise the taste. For us, it satisfies every child too. A favorite pastime for us is to ask ultimate questions like, “If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?” 99% of the time, we settle on pizza. The toppings are so versatile and now, with cauliflower crust, almond flour crust, coconut flour crust or even zucchini crust (yes, I’ve made this), the crust can be versatile too.

Hopefully, with the recipe I have for you today, you have some tomatoes you’ve preserved from last year’s harvest, because you’ll want to make tomato sauce and pick up some mozzarella. As for extra toppings, think Italian sausage or brats. My boys love these thin sliced and placed on top.

We currently have a sale on for some tasty, local meat too. Check out our recent email newsletter: Click here! Or browse what we currently have available: Click here!

Today I want to share our favorite crust. We’ve been using this for years. You can substitute some or all of the flour for freshly ground or whole wheat too and it still works great. Add some extra olive oil to a bar pan with raised sides and it makes great deep dish. Roll it thin and it also makes an excellent thin crust. I’ve even used this for calzones.

Best part? Mix it up and, after getting all the toppings ready, it’s ready to be put in the oven just twenty minutes later. If you don’t have a favorite pizza crust, give it a try. I think you’ll like this one!

Favorite Pizza Crust

  • Servings: 4-6
  • Difficulty: medium
  • Print

Ingredients

  • 2 1/2 cups flour, additional if needed
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 1 Tablespoon yeast
  • 1 cup warm water
  • 1 teaspoon or more olive oil, to seal finished dough
  1. In a bowl, combine the flour, salt, sugar and yeast.
  2. Add the water and knead for about ten-fifteen minutes or eight minutes in a mixer. Use the stretch test to see if the dough is ready to rest. Simply stretch the dough and if it can become thin without breaking, it has been kneaded enough.
  3. Pour a bit of olive oil over the dough, sealing it, cover and let rise for 20 minutes.
  4. Preheat oven to 450 Fahrenheit.
  5. After the dough has risen, knead it a bit and place it on a pizza pan. Roll it as thin or as thick as you like.
  6. Add all the seasonings, toppings, and cheese you prefer.
  7. Bake for 11 – 15 minutes at 450 Fahrenheit.

Enjoy!

DIY Stocking Stuffer

Posted on by under Recipes

I don’t know about you, but I grew up opening a stocking of little goodies on Christmas day. It’s still one of my favorite traditions. I especially enjoy thinking of and finding things throughout the year that my family will enjoy. Don’t tell, but I will be including some of my favorite handmade lotion in the stockings that I’ve made for extended family. I know they love this stuff and it’s the perfect winter gift.

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I know most people don’t have tallow lying around, but if you’ve saved some from deer or beef cattle, I’ve got the recipe for you:


Do-It-Yourself Tallow Lotion      Time=1 hour       Difficulty=medium

1 cup tallow, beef, deer, sheep or goat (with the addition of lavender oil I did not notice the scent of the deer tallow)

2 Tablespoons olive oil or sweet almond oil

1/2 tsp essential oil (be sure you test a drop on your skin first so that you don’t have a batch of lotion that will irritate your skin – e.g. cinnamon oil often irritates skin)

Place tallow in double boiler or other pan and warm it on low heat until it is just melted. Once melted, remove from heat and add olive or almond oil. Let it cool to room temperature then add the essential oil(s).

Once the tallow, olive or almond oil, and essential oil(s) are combined, pour the mixture into a container if you are not going to whip it. Otherwise, place your pan into the fridge until it is just hardened. It takes about 30 minutes. Then remove it from the fridge and whip it with a hand mixer until it is the consistency you desire (Usually 3 minutes for me). Scrape it into your final container and enjoy!

 

If you don’t have tallow, you can buy it online or sometimes find it at a local meat processor. We also have some beef tallow for $3 per pound. And if you’re not up to making it yourself, our tallow lotion is $2 for a 4 ounce jar. Email or give us a call.

Also, one last reminder for orders before Christmas. We can make gift certificates or provide pork and chicken by the pound or in large quantities. Let me know by Saturday if you’d like me to make you up some lotion. Let us know before December 23, 2017 and we can even deliver to the Aitkin or Crosby areas and anywhere between here and the Twin Cities.

Don’t forget our $15 off promotions run until the end of December 2017. Read more by clicking here: $15 off!

We hope you are enjoying this advent season!

Fall Update and Great News

Posted on by under chicken, Farm, pork

IMG_4390Wonderful news. We have been given a great gift and long-awaited happiness in our lives. On September 21, Asher George Nix was born to us. Asher is the first Hebrew word of the Psalms and one of Jacob’s sons in the Bible. The word means Blessed or Happy! George is Mathew’s amazing dad and the name also means farmer, rather appropriate huh? Please rejoice with us.

In farm news, we are still plodding along and continue to enjoy the fall harvest. Today was our first big frost with the temperature last night reaching 23 degrees F. With the high tunnel, we still have a bit of a growing season, but most of our produce is done. We’re also stocking up on hay for winter so the cows and pigs have plenty to enjoy.

Available products on the farm still include pork and chicken. We will also have tomatoes, spaghetti squash, peppers, watermelon, possibly purple potatoes, and tallow

lotion until they are all sold or the high tunnel gets too cold. Spaghetti squash is a wonderful keeper. The seeds we planted this year were from a squash I cut up in March that was still good from the 2016 harvest. Small are $1.50 and large are $3. Our tomatoes are down to $.75 per pound for seconds and $1.75 per pound for unblemished tomatoes. I highly recommend my favorite green zebra tomatoes. Our peppers are Marconi and $0.50. They are long and a lot like a green pepper, but without the belly ache that some people get from green peppers. Tallow lotion is great for winter skin and only $2 for a 4 ounce jar.

IMG_4249We ordered more chickens than were sold, so we still have some chicken in the freezer. On farm purchase of chicken is $4.00 per pound. Delivered to the Twin Cities is $4.25 per pound. USDA inspected chicken is $4.50 per pound.

Pork! We still have six hogs available for October and IMG_3488November butcher dates, mainly because our main marketing person recently had a baby… We sell in half or whole hogs. Some people have ordered with a friend and split up half a hog. Hogs are normally around 200 pounds. We charge $3 per pound hanging carcass weight plus the butcher fees which varies with your custom order of ham, bacon, pork belly, sausage, pork chops, roasts, etc. As with chicken, we also have USDA inspected pork in 1-4 pound packages for $6.50 per pound. There are still some tasty pork chops, roasts, ground pork and side pork. Small hams are available for $7 per pound and 1 lb. bacon packages are $8 per pound.

As always, our chickens and hogs are pastured and moved regularly. They are fed non-GMO feed and are soy free. We grind the grain ourselves and source much of it from within 30 miles. That also means the grain is fresh increasing the nutrient quality of the food given our animals.

Thanks for being part of our farm family. Without your supporting local, sustainable agriculture, we couldn’t strive to exercise careful dominion over the resources that have been entrusted to us.

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