Morning Song Farm News

Okay, this doesn't look much different than spinach or bok choi, but it enjoys some remarkable attributes that its competitors lack. A half cup of cooked greens boasts 300 mg of calcium (Swiss chard has 88 and spinach 93-- to offer a comparison.) Cheno is also packed with Vitamin A at 11,600. (With Swiss chard at 6500 and spinach at 8100) And among the reasons that Cheno has been labeled a "famine plant," is because it has over 4% protein. Michael Pollan, author and true food advocate, labels Cheno (along with purslane) “two of the most nutritious plants in the world.” Interstingly enough, the plant is used by Biodynamic farmers to feed the soil. Indiginous people all over the world have cultivated Cheno, and archeologists have reported that there is evidence that the plant has been consumed for thousands of years. Ancient South Americans developed Chenopodium Quinoa (a very close relative) for its nutritious seed grain, while we North Americans are only now seeing Quin...

I don’t bother to actually measure ingredients, so I guess this isn’t technically a recipe, but here’s the process. Dump all your kumquats in a food processor or blender. I use a Vitamix which I can’t live without, but for this, probably a cheap blender would work all the same. I add water to just cover the fruit. Hit puree. Then I dump the contents of the blender in a strainer, and using the back of a soup spoon, I force the juice through the strainer, and toss out the mash with the seeds. The juice that’s left I put in a saucepan and heat with a little added sugar to taste. Don’t try this without sugar, although I’m a huge advocate of stevia and reduced sugar recipes, this concoction won’t thicken properly if you omit sugar. Stir over a medium heat until it’s thickened. I stop “reducing” when it’s about the consistency of maple syrup. That’s it. I drizzle this absolutely gorgeous reduction over crepes. I use it to sweeten lemonaide. I use it as the base for margaritas and for daiquir...

Click on image to enlarge for easy reading. You'll find an usual bunch of greens this week, a leafy green that Michael Pollan writes about being under appreciated. Truly, it offers one of the finest leafy green stir fry ingredients I've ever enjoyed. Chenopodium (Alba) is related to amaranth and the grain quinoa. We're boosting our sprout production, and we're investigating eco packaging for them. They're the last thing we put in the boxes, harvested minutes before the truck leaves the farm. Although most of our long timers have seen our Kumquat Reduction recipe, I'm including it here. After you've tried a reduction from a Nagami Kumquat, you may never want something as flavorless as pancake syrup again. The reduction also makes a killer margarita.

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Click on image to enlarge for easier viewing.

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Click on image to enlarge for easier viewing. Well, we're still harvesting macadamias, meager harvest that it is. Our nuts are delivered to you in their raw state which is quite different from the ones you may have enjoyed in Hawaii or from the grocery store here. Most macadamia nuts are dehydrated for shelf life purposes which makes them crunchier. Many are roasted in coconut oil with salt added, which makes them even more calerie dense than they are straight from the tree. Originally, we sold MSF's macadamias at the Santa Monica farmer's market both raw and dehydrated. We found it hard to keep the two kinds separated, and that was worrisome because the raw foodists at that market were pretty vigilant about not eating anything that had been heated. So we decided to just offer the raw version, and sold out every week with a lot less work and worry. We've never gone back to dehydrating our nuts. The downside, is that they must be cracked out the day we deliver, so one o...

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