Beedy Parker of Camden noticed a kale plant that “appeared at the bottom of the garden in the ‘80s. I have no idea how it got there. Just kept reappearing.” She propagated the plant and says it’s related to Siberian kale but has much looser waves, is more silvery and is much sweeter. We planted some of her kale seeds in our garden late in fall to see how it would overwinter, and now we have lush plants of a very unique and tasty kale.

Farmer/Chef Ike decided to go kale krazy in the kitchen last night and used a whole pile of Beedy’s Camden Kale.

First, he made a soup with a pile of chopped-up Beedy’s kale, a bunch of chopped chives, and a whoppin’ load of minced garlic.

Ike says that when he’s not too sure of a recipe he’s creating, he always leans on one or more of his key ingredients: garlic, cheese, or chili powder. He figures he can’t go wrong with much of anything if he’s got one of those in the mix. In this case, he really loaded on the garlic. Woweee! I loved it, although I wouldn’t plan to eat it before being in a confined space with a non-garlickified person. That would be just too mean.

Next, he served up a casserole of ground beef (from Lindenhof Farm), chopped Beedy’s kale and onions, pasta and a homemade white sauce. Kind of alfredo style (that’s where the key ingredient ‘cheese’ comes in on this one. He used cheddar from Hillacres Pride Farm).

For a guy who could not eat even a little itty-bitty bit of kale a couple of years ago, this is quite the turnaround. Ike has really gone Kale Krazy!

We’ll have Beedy’s Camden Kale for sale at the Phoenixville Farmers’ Market tomorrow (Saturday, 10 to 11:30).

You can go Kale Krazy with ideas like those above (although you may want to watch it on the garlic levels), or check out the blog 365 Days of Kale. There are so many ideas there, you’re bound to find something yummy to prepare for even the most finicky of greens eaters in your household.

Eat those greens!

Farmer Ike can finally get back to some cooking after the adventures of last week’s chimney removal. That’s not to say that all is in order; there’s still a gaping hole in the corner of the kitchen. But, there was room to move the oven back into place and get cooking!

This is an easy soup for a cold, dreary day.

Liberal amounts of chopped kale and sweet onions, cooked in vegetable broth and spiced solely with garlic and (the spice of the day) coriander. Just delicious!

….all is quiet. Sorry, strike that. How about this – nothing is coming out of Farmer Ike’s Kitchen this week. Wrong on that point too. Ok, let’s just say I have no drool-producing pictures of Farmer Ike’s culinary creations to post this week. That’ll do!

It’s not for lack of trying, but Farmer Ike has found it rather difficult to cook much of anything while the kitchen is being torn asunder in one corner, which just happens to be where the stove is located. So we’re relying on the microwave for the moment. And, not being well-versed in the art of microwave culinary arts, there’s only so much he can do. Thank goodness for leftovers and the local pizza shop!

So – what HAS been coming out of Ike’s kitchen this week?  Noise. Dust. Bricks. Rocks (strike that – make it small boulders), insulation, plaster, more dust.

This project, if truth be told, started way back in 2006 when we bought this 200+ year-old log house. It was a wreck when we bought it, although we could tell it had been well taken care of up to a certain point about 20 years ago.  We began the process of taking care of it again by: replacing all the electricals, scouring and painting floor to ceiling, replacing the roof, redoing one bathroom, redoing the kitchen, installing French drains in the basement (I didn’t care for the fountainous swimming pool that showed up in there from time to time), and adding insulation everywhere, including in the attic where Ike and friends pulled up the wide wooden-plank floor (keeping the planks numbered and well-ordered like Foghorn Leghorns feathers), added insulation, and then replaced the wood planks. Sheesh – such projects!

But all along, Farmer Ike has said he’d like to get rid of the unused and covered-over chimney and fireplace which take up big corners in our kitchen and bedroom. And all along, I’ve said “No way. Not ever. I don’t want to open THAT can of worms!” Well, maybe old nests of mice would be more accurate that a can of worms, but you get my drift.

At the end of 2009, we had solar panels installed on top of and next to the house to provide home-grown electric. I thought this to be quite amusing; this old, old house with high-tech modern gizmos on it. Then skip forward then to January 2011 when we decide to have geothermal installed to provide sustainable heat and cooling; it’s the next crazy modern thing this old house gets.

Problem is, geothermal requires ductwork, but this house has nothing but pipes running all over the place to cast iron radiators. This is JUST the absolutely perfect excuse Ike needs to force the issue on removal of the chimney/fireplace. “We’ll just tear that chimney and all out so the ductwork can go from the basement to the attic.” he said enthusiastically. Meanwhile, Barry (our geothermal guru) and I chuckled and rolled our eyes. Sure, it’s the logical thing to do, but the “just” part of the sentence had us laughing. Actually, it had Barry laughing and me cringing at the thought of what we might be getting into.

Skip forward to this week when the project got under way. The chimney in the attic came down easy-peasy, except for needing to cart buckets of brick down two flights of stairs every couple of minutes.

The next challenge was removing the chimney section that goes through our bedroom. We didn’t really want to deconstruct the bedroom wall which hides the chimney, so that meant climbing INTO the chimney to chisel out bricks and hand them up to someone in the attic. This is NOT a job for a person with claustrophobia, dirtaphobia, dustaphobia, or for one who has seen a few too many horror movies. As progress proceeded downward, the view from the top looked as though the chimney miner was descending into the bowels of hell. Come to think of it, that kind of theme was in a number of horror movies, right? Chimneys + fireplaces + basements = hell. Maybe those filmmakers conducted their own chimney/fireplace removal projects and became inspired.

In the meantime, our chimney miner did find a can, although fortunately it was not full of worms. Honestly, sometimes you really wonder in an old house. A can? Of yellow peaches? Have we now entered the realm of “Holes“? It’ll be added to our growing collection of old-house artifacts.

Anyway, finally the chimney miner-of-the-moment made a connection with Ike who was in the kitchen starting to tear down the wall blocking the chimney and fireplace on the first floor.  Eureka! The worst of the project is over.

Not.

Again, who can figure out the mysteries of an old house. Certainly this old place had a kitchen fireplace at one time, but what we found behind the wall and under the now non-existent chimney was a pile of rock. Like huge chunks of rock. I can’t imagine the owners of the house at the time were very thrilled with the contractor who did that one. “What we really wanted was a nice fireplace to cook on and heat the house with, but what we got instead was a pile of bedrock. We are NOT giving that guy a good reference!”

So, our intrepid deconstuction crew went from being miners in tunnels to miners of rock – like those scenes in the movies from prison camps. Fortunately, rather than chisels and pickaxes, we had a compressor-powered air chisel. I hadn’t known such a thing existed, but just think of it as the opposite of an air hammer (but nothing like an air guitar).

Twenty-four manpower hours later and I’ve got a pile of rocks in my yard. The passersby on Rte. 10 really must wonder what the heck we’re doing, as we had, just the day before, put out a huge pile of bricks. Anyone out there have a building project in mind? We’ve got raw materials – cheap!

“How’s the chimney deconstruction going?” Barry asked over the phone. “Oh, it’s going.” I replied. Chuckle on the other end of the line.  It’s a good thing he’s not starting his geothermal work here ’til Wednesday because we still have to mine our way through the kitchen floor and through the basement.

In the meantime, we’re thankful to have an invitation to dinner at someone else’s house for tonight.

BTW – does anyone out there have a pathological drive to rid the world of dust? Because you can start right here at our place.

Well, blarmy. This dish was just a wee bit late for St. Patrick’s Day – but you gotta just love the color anyway!

True to form, Ike has no recipe for this dish, and in fact he’ll change the greens he’s using depending on what’s available. He’s made the same dish using spinach (as pictured here), Swiss chard, kale, and arugula.  And the non-green portion? That’s the “plain” section for the dinner guest who is too leery about greens of any sort!

Ingredients from our farm: potatoes, one full bag of spinach, garlic

Ingredients from other places: cheese! We like to use shredded cheddar from Hillacres Pride.

Cook and mash the potatoes first. Into the mashed potatoes, mix in chopped greens, garlic and cheese (and whatever else strikes your fancy!). Bake for about 40 minutes until cheese has melted and the whole thing is nicely browned.

Most of Farmer Ike’s dishes are loaded with locally-grown products, either from our farm or from those of other farmers we know at the various farmers’ markets we attend. While this week’s Sesame Pork includes non-local items like Basmati rice, sesame seeds, and out-of-season (aka ‘grocery store’) celery, the bulk of it was made from locally-sourced food.

The carrots, cooked to perfection with a great amount of texture/crunch intact, were dug just before preparation (on March 19th). We experimented with an outdoor winter garden this year, so that’s where they came from. Those of you who may remember, winter came on strong and a tad earlier than we expected this year, with super-cold temperatures in December. While we were hoping to harvest many of the winter garden carrots and beets in December to take to market, the soil froze solid right around the end of November, so there was no digging to be done! So, we figured we’d adopt a “wait and see” approach and hope the carrots and beets would make it through the winter.

Come late February, we had a bit of a warm-up and were able to dig a few of the carrots. We were not particularly impressed. They had a reasonable carrot-y flavor, but were somewhat grainy due to cold injury. Our thought at that point was to “wait and see” again. Ike’s thinking was that perhaps as things warmed up more, they’d ‘outgrow’ any cold injury. Sure enough – that’s what happened! By mid-March the carrots are getting large, flavorful and they’re not grainy at all. Awesome!! (BTW, we’ll have them available for sale at the next Phoenixville Farmers’ Market winter market on Saturday, March 26th)

The pork in this dish was from pork chops we bought from Country Time Farm at the Phoenixville Farmers’ Market. Country Time Farm raises heritage black pigs (called appropriately enough, “Large Black Hog”). Everything we’ve bought from Country Time has tasted fabulous, and these pork chops were no exception; they were super-tender and flavorful.

Other ingredients (remember, I’m just doing my best here, as Farmer Ike will never take notes in the kitchen!): orange bell peppers (you could use frozen ones from last year’s harvest or bite the bullet [and don't tell anyone] by purchasing some shipped in from Mexico), plus some large chunks of celery. Sesame seeds and a sesame-garlic sauce round out the flavors of the dish, which is served on a bed of basmati rice.

Yummy!

If Farmer Ike ever decides to quit farming, he should open a bistro. Seriously, since he took up cooking several years ago, this farm family has been treated to the most amazing and flavorful dishes, basically on a nightly basis! This is a great deal for me, since I really dislike cooking. I don’t mind cleaning up the kitchen, however, which is a task Ike really dislikes. So, we’ve got a great arrangement going.

I’m planning to post pictures and descriptions of his various creations over the coming months, both as a means to remember some of these dishes (which are often one-of-a-kind), and as an inspiration to some of you who perhaps are looking for some new ideas. Unfortunately, Farmer Ike does not use a cookbook, nor does he write down his ingredients or recipes. Honestly, if I ever have to cook again, I’ll be lost; I’m getting spoiled on awesome food! So, these photos and descriptions will have to do.

Ike’s basic ingredients are locally-grown produce, meats, cheeses, and herbs. Sometimes he’ll use commercial cheeses, but the meats are always sourced from local farmers.

The first item to whet your appetite is a creamy Swiss Chard/Corn soup he made just the other day. He used frozen sweet corn, Swiss Chard from our unheated winter greenhouse, broth and spices, and a bit of neufchatel cheese to make it creamy. It had a nifty color and an absolutely lovely flavor. I’m sorry it’s gone!