Sweet Local Farm

Join me for tea at the farmhouse.

I bought myself a beautiful primrose at our local greenhouse this morning. I always buy myself one every time they hit the stores in late winter. It is just the cheery boost I need to make it through till Spring. It inspired me to set a pretty Spring themed tea time tablescape.

First I started with an antique lace tablecloth:

I added this Princess House Vintage Garden teapot that was a gift from my mother. She picked this teapot out because I had blue hydrangeas as my wedding flowers last September.

For something unexpected I added this adorable cat sugar and creamer set. They are vintage and either from a tag sale or a thrift shop, I can’t remember!

I set the table with my ivory Fiesta ware salad plates and these beautiful hand embroidered antique napkins that belonged to my husband’s grandmother. They are from Sicily and were a gift to me from my mother in law.

Blue tea cup and saucer from a thrift shop:

So have a seat and relax!

To see more tablescapes, visit:

On Sunday we had guests over for brunch. We drank sparkling Mimosas and spicy Bloody Mary cocktails. Our hens continue to lay throughout the winter, so we had plenty of eggs for some delicious omelettes.

I made my own vegetarian Bloody Mary mix:

The table set with ivory Fiesta ware:

A fresh fruit salad in a cabbage bowl with rhubarb serving utensils:

I love the old fashioned Fiesta disc pitchers:

Omelette bar all ready to go:

The hen tablecloth is from Portugal and is perfect for a farm house kitchen:

Enjoy other tablescapes here:

Cooking in our Lodge cast iron skillet is fun! It is great for stovetop to oven recipes, stir fries, eggs, and more. Tonight we had a craving for cookies so Luke baked one giant chocolate chip cookie in the skillet.

Here is the cookie before we popped it in the oven:

Here is the recipe: Skillet-Baked Chocolate Chip Cookie

And here is our delicious cookie all baked:

This is a obviously a farm blog. I love to garden. I love the challenge of starting with a teeny tiny seed, nurturing it and providing the proper care so it can become a full grown, food producing plant. That process is exciting and challenging, but then you are left with the food- the fruit or vegetable you spent hours fussing over. Now you have to eat it! That brings me to my second love, cooking!

Last night I watched Julie and Julia. It is the tale of a young woman like myself blogging along as she cooks the entire collection of recipes from Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” in one year. It was a real blog, a real book, and now a real movie that is probably “on demand” on your cable television right now. If you love food or blogging, I recommend it. It inspired me to feature more recipes on this blog in the future so those of us that are growing all kinds of weird, heirloom veggies, like purple carrots or zebra striped tomatoes, can share our experiences of cooking them.

So here is a link back to one of our most popular recipes on this blog, the Skillet Upside Down Pear Cake.

Now that the leaves have fallen the sky is more exposed. I captured these shots of a beautiful orange and purple sunset the other night. If it has to get dark at 4 o’clock, at least I can enjoy the sunset.

Here is Luke coming in from a days work:

A shot through the window from one of the bedrooms upstairs:

We are still eating plenty of food from our garden. Here is a basket full of swiss chard, broccoli, herbs, and big fat carrots:

Luke picked this fresh crisp salad from our greenhouse. It is baby spinach and arugula. I made a delicious cilantro dressing to serve with it and topped it with sunflower seeds. So yummy!

We got a sweet cast iron skillet for our wedding. The beauty of this heavy piece of cookware is that it can go from burner to oven. I had read about depression era skillet cakes that used other fruit, including peaches, but since I am up to my ears in pears (still), I decided to try with that.

For the “cake” part, I used this amazing vegan recipe from post punk kitchen for cornbread. It is dense and moist, and I happened to have some local cornmeal on hand.

Start by peeling your pears:

Then slice them thinly:

Heat up 3 tablespoons of “butter” and a quarter cup of sugar in the skillet:

Line up your pears so they cover the bottom of the skillet and let them cook on medium heat for 10 minutes:

Start scooping your batter on top of the pears and use a spatula to spread it evenly:

Throw it in a preheated oven for 30 minutes:

This is what it looks like done in the skillet:

To flip your cake, let it cool for a few minutes then put a big plate face down on the skillet and flip:

This cake is perfect for a healthy dessert or a hearty breakfast:

What to do with all these cucumbers?

Make pickles! We followed a recipe from ReadyMade Magazine:

Ready Made Magazine’s FRESH-PACK PICKLES
1 Clean Pint Jar
1and1/2 C. Vegetables or Fruit, cut into slices or chunks
1 C. Vinegar
1/2 C. Sugar
1and1/2 Tsp. Kosher Salt
Herbs (about 2 Tbsp. chopped) and Spices (about 1 Tbsp.)

1. Place your chosen fruit, vegetables, herbs, and spices, in the jar.
2. Cover and shake gently to mix. Uncover.
3. In a small saucepan, bring vinegar, sugar, and salt to a boil. Boil one minute, then pour over the raw ingredients. Cover loosely with lid; allow to cool.
4. Cover tightly with lid and refrigerate for up to a week.

The pickles are SO good. We are getting rave reviews from friends and handing out jars to family.

We made spears and stackers:

Luke pouring the vinegar:

We pickled wax beans too and added some dijon mustard to the jar on the right: