Mike's Desperation Carrot Sauce

I know it's the time of year where people try to impress one another with their culinary expertise for pot-lucks, parties, and food blogs. I'm not above such self-aggrandizing (I roasted and served an acorn squash stew inside a pumpkin last week) but in choosing a staff recipe, I decided upon a different take: the slacker chef approach.

One winter, I found myself hungry and in no mood to go outside the house (or shower, likely). All I could scrounge around was the remains of a large bag of carrots of which I had probably only needed a couple for a previous recipe and an onion. As an Italian, I always have pasta in the house, but I had no sauce or tomatoes. I did have a can of cheap condensed tomato soup, however. So I conceived of the idea of roasting the carrots and onions and then blending them with the soup. How bad could it be? Turned out it was crazy delicious and my friends now request it all the time.

Ingredients:
10 Large Carrots
1 Onion, preferably Vidalia
1 10.75 oz. can of Condensed Tomato Soup
olive oil
garlic salt
dried oregano
dried basil.

Directions:
Chop the carrots and onion, but not too small. No reason to over-extend yourself.

Turn the oven to bake at 350 degrees. Toss the vegetables with enough olive oil to coat and some garlic salt. Arrange the vegetables flattish on a baking pan. Roast in oven for 45 minutes, stirring every 15. Put roasted vegetables in a bowl and add the can of soup (the more generic the brand the better) along with the basil and oregano. You may want to add a half a can of water. Make sure not to add too much. Blend the mixture COARSELY, until it is the consistency of mashed potatoes. A hand blender works best. I would use a hand masher before a regular blender. Pureeing will make it too liquidy! Don't do it.
This goes great tossed with pasta drained over frozen peas, or as a dip with pita or fried ravioli, or as a spread for sandwiches, or just right out of the bowl! Served hot or cold, it's orangenious!

As an added bonus, and if you're into the surreal, I cooked this recipe on television once when I worked for the local PBS station and it's pretty mind-blowing, if I do say so myself:

Save Online Transaction Fees with Dwolla

We are excited to announce the launch of our newest checkout option for Member Assembler: Dwolla. This is exciting because Dwolla works with ACH transactions between the member's bank and the farmer's bank and bypasses the whole credit card industry. Due to this, it only costs $0.25 per transaction with no percentage. This is essentially free as compared to credit card transactions which normally costs between 2-3% of the transaction plus per transaction fees.

Dwolla has been around for several years, but they have just launched a new featured called guest checkout that allows someone who does not have a Dwolla account to make a purchase on a merchant's site. Members who pay with Dwolla will need to enter their bank account number and routing number to make a payment, but if you explain how this saves your farm on fees, members will be happy to keep more money in their farmer's hands!

Read more on this new feature from Dwolla. We need a 3-5 early adopters to work with us to set up Dwolla on their Member Assembler sites, so please email us and we'll be in touch with next steps. After we have worked through the process of creating a new Dwolla account and connecting it with Member Assembler, we will create some comprehensive help documents with screenshots and open Dwolla up to everyone.

So, please let us know if you want to be the first to use this exciting new payment option!

Simon's Refried Beans

I thought it would be fun for us to do a series on the blog of 'signature recipes' of the staff members here at Small Farm Central. Starting with me!

Refried beans are a staple in my house for a quick burrito meal or to make nachos. I almost always have these around. Since I find myself cooking beans so often, I splurged on a spanish olla (clay bean cooking pot) this summer. This brings even more pleasure to this process.

You can buy wonderful heirloom beans from Rancho Gordo, but for these every day refried beans I use basic pinto beans from the grocery store.

This a vegetarian recipe for refried beans, but I'm sure they would be wonderful refried with lard, too!

Simon's Signature Refried Beans

Ingredients:

• 1lb dry pinto beans (or black beans)
• 1 large onion, peeled, roughly chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, peeled, roughly chopped
• 3 stocks of celery (optional), roughly chopped
• 2 tsp crushed cumin (for best flavor, crush whole cumin seeds in the mortar and pestle) or 1/2 bunch of cilantro, chopped
• 2 tablespoons butter

Process

1. Cover beans with cold water and soak 6 hours or more (or use your preferred bean soaking method).
2. Strain the beans from the soaking water and add enough fresh, cold water to your pot to cover the beans with 1-2 inches of water.
3. Bring the beans to a boil. While the beans are coming to a boil, roughly chop the onion, garlic, and celery and add to the bean water.
4. Allow beans to boil for 5-10 minutes, then lower the heat to a simmer and cover.
5. After about an hour and the beans have begun to soften, add one tablespoon of salt (or to taste).
6. Turn off the heat once the beans are very soft (usually takes 1.5-2 hours on low simmer).
7. Often I'll eat some of the beans at this point and then refry the next day.
8. To refry the beans, melt the butter in a large skillet and then transfer the cooked beans to the skillet and bring to a boil. Allow the beans to boil the cooking liquid away until it reaches a pretty thick consistency. While the beans are boiling, use a potato masher to mash some of the beans (but not all! I like my refried beans a little bit chunky). Near the end of the refrying, when the beans are thick, you will need to stir often to keep the beans from burning on the bottom.
9. When thick consistency is reached, add the cumin or cilantro and taste for salt.

Eat beans on tortillas, in nachos, or in any mexican dish that uses refried beans!

It is my habit to make 2lbs of dry beans and freeze 1 or 2 quarts of the cooked beans before refrying. Then I can pull the frozen beans out in a week or two for another round of delicious beans!

Holiday Gift Giving - Small Farm Central Style

It's that time of year again...time to start thinking about holiday gifts and wish lists. We keep coming across lovely goods featured on our many Small Farm Central websites, so we thought we'd do a quick post about a few products. Farm products are a great solution for the hard-to-buy-for relative or friend.


1. Beeswax candles from Full Moon Honey. 2. Lemony Sage Mustard from Twin Oaks Farm. 3. Salami Gift Box from Foothill Farms. 4. Honey Oatmeal soap from Cherry Valley Organics. 5. Peach, Tarragon, Tangerine Sage Jam from Heritage Line Herbs. 6. Maple Syrup from Spring Harvest Maple. 7. Door County Whitefish Caviar from Ruleau Brothers, Inc.