The rain, the muck and being grateful

by Kenneth Keavey

As I was walking the crops the other evening and the sun was setting on our fields, so early now compared to even a month ago, it struck me as it always does how beautiful and bountiful our natural world is.

The rain of the last week or so has left the land sodden and mucky. Thankfully we had harvested a decent haul of parsnips before the land became unmanageable, parsnips can be very difficult to get out of the ground when you are knee deep in water. We are harvesting the last of the outdoor celery this week and not a moment too soon, as the mild wet conditions have led to the start of a fungal infection in the plants which is common at this time of year (in the absence of chemicals). We will move into the polytunnels which should give us another 2-3 weeks supply of IRISH organic celery. Our first harvest of celeriac is starting this week, a very underrated and sometimes labelled “UGLY” vegetable. I would heartily disagree on that one, after all its often what is on the inside that counts, and its beauty is definitely on the inside: the smell and the flavour of fresh celeriac is something that is quite amazing!

Our own freshy harvested carrots are still in season but not for much longer, thankfully we have a great supply of fresh Irish carrots for some time to come yet. We are delighted to be getting the first harvest of Irish organic brussel sprouts from Padraigh Fahy of Beechlawn organic farm this week.  They are easily one of my favourite vegetables of the year, and his sprouts are definitely worth the wait. Emmanuel and Brenda have been very busy harvesting our own leeks every week and they are spectacularly fresh, so rich in flavour and taste, and there is nothing like smelling the crates of leeks as they come out of the field. There are all the other usual Irish organic staples, kales, mushrooms, herbs, winter cabbage, potatoes and more. We are grateful for the food we can produce here and feel lucky to have deep fertile soil and plenty of water to allow the plants to thrive.  (Too much water by a long way in some parts this week).  Some areas of the world are not so lucky.

A new report from the UN University (UNU) in Germany has set out a series of risk tipping points that are approaching. The groundwater risk tipping point has already been passed in some countries, such as Saudi Arabia, and is close in India, the report said. Saudi Arabia was a major wheat exporter in the 1990s but now imports the cereal after the groundwater wells were exhausted. It is undeniable that we are deep into our planetary overdraft with the limit looming, the natural equilibrium that leaves earths ecosystems in balance has been dangerously tipped towards the unsustainable, and we now find ourselves in unchartered territory. The floods, the fires and the droughts that are now occurring with a ferocious intensity and a frequency that was unthinkable only a decade ago.  The highest monthly surface temperature ever recorded was in July and was probably the hottest the planet has been in 100,000 years. We have accomplished all of this is in the last 200 years.

But there is much to be hopeful about too: the speed of adoption of renewable energy, the electrification of our transport system, the shift to local more plant-based diets, and an overwhelming desire for change and demand for sustainable practices from businesses and government by you and I. This is the world we advocate for a new world where nature is respected as a resource to be protected. After all, it provides everything we now have: our food, homes, and clothes and even the peace of mind that a walk in nature brings.

This is the future that we vote for, this is the future that we fight every day for. We know that we don’t always get it right, that we have a long way to go, that we are not perfect, but we aspire to doing better every single day.

Thank you for your support and Happy Halloween!

Kenneth

Delicious Turnip Gratin w/ Maple Cream & Walnut Crust

by Lou Robbie

Turnips or swedes are a superb reliable Irish winter root vegetable and they grow happily here on the farm.  They are sweet and slightly peppery, crisp when raw and buttery when cooked. They are often overlooked but given a bit of thought and attention turnip can be totally delicious.

This dish is closely based on a recipe by Denis Cotter, chef and owner of the well known Cork restaurant Cafe Paradiso. Cotter has added sweetness with the slow cooked leeks, maple syrup, toasty notes from the walnuts and breadcrumbs and lots of flavour from the herbs. We couldn’t wait to dive into this delicious gratin and neither will you!

Enjoy,

Lou 🙂

Ingredients: makes 6 portions

  • 1 large swede/turnip – 550g approx
  • 2 leeks, halved lengthways and well washed
  • 30g butter, plus extra for greasing
  • 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 2 sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves only
  • 100ml dry white wine or vegetable stock with a dash of cider vinegar
  • 250ml double cream
  • 3 tbsp maple syrup

For the crust: 

  • 8 fresh sage leaves, chopped
  • 1 tbsp chopped chives
  • 50g white bread
  • 50g walnuts
  • 30g butter

Method:

Step 1: Preheat the oven 170ºc fan. Butter an oven dish, approx 9inc x 6inc.

Step 2: Wash and peel the turnip and chop into quarters. Slice the quarters thinly 5mm with a mandolin or sharp knife. Heat a pot of salted water until simmering, add all the sliced turnip and cook for 10 – 15 minutes until soft. Strain and set to one side.

Step 3: Meanwhile, chop the leeks in to 2 cm slices. Melt the butter on a pan and sauté the leeks and chopped garlic until soft then stir through the thyme leaves, wine or stock with vinegar, cream, salt and pepper. Simmer for a further few minutes.

Step 4: To the buttered dish, add a layer of turnip, a layer of creamy leeks and repeat 3 times. Push down and bake in the oven for 30 minutes.

Step 5: To make the crust, blend the bread first, then add the walnuts, sage, chives, salt and pepper blend again, finally add the butter blend again. Scatter the herby breadcrumb on top and bake for a further 10 minutes. Allow to cool for 10 minutes then serve.

This would work as a main dish with some greens and mushy pulses or as a side dish too.

Apple & Spice Oat Cookies- Halloween edition

by Lou Robbie

This is a lovely bake to try with the kids over the Halloween break. Its a one bowl recipe where they can use their hands to mix the ingredients and shape the cookies. We’ve added juicy organic Irish apple and spice to make a delicious tasting cookie. White chocolate and googly eyeballs are optional, but big glasses of milk are a must!

Baking with kids is a great opportunity to talk about the food we eat. I like to tell my young kids where and how food is grown. We talk about sugar cane and how flour comes from wheat, we talk about bees playing their part to pollinate the plants etc. Apples are grown around the world and in orchards in Ireland too.

Happy baking-BOO!

Lou 🙂

Ingredients: makes 12

  • 200g oats 
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon or autumn spice mix **see below
  • 4 tbsp brown sugar
  • 2 tbsp honey
  • 2 eggs, whisked
  • 60g butter at room temperature
  • 1 organic IRISH apple, grated – I leave the skin on

To decorate:

  • 80g white chocolate – melted – optional
  • googly eyes – optional

Method:

**To make your own autumn spice click here

Step 1: Preheat the oven 170ºC fan. Line 2 baking trays with parchment paper.

Step 2: Measure the oats, brown sugar, cinnamon or spice mix, baking powder into a mixing bowl, stir to mix.

Step 3: Next add the butter, eggs, honey, and grate the apple straight into the bowl, skin and all. With clean hands give it a good mix – get the kids to do this part!! Shape into a round in the bowl.

Step 4: Scoop or spoon 12 cookie dough balls onto the baking trays. Push down to flatten and keep in a circle if you can. Bake for 25 mins until golden brown.

Step 5: Drizzle with melted chocolate and add eyeballs if its Halloween.

Roast Pumpkin, Kale & Feta Salad w/ Roast Garlic Dressing

by Lou Robbie

You can have your Pumpkin and Eat it!! Pumpkins are not just for decoration around Halloween they are sweet, earthy and delicious to eat. The skin is edible too, just wash them well and slice into thin wedges. You can make this salad with butternut squash too if you wish, it will be equally delicious.

Salads are not exclusive to the warmer months. We like to serve the pumpkin and roast red onions warm from the oven with shredded kale and crumbled feta. Pomegranate is recommended for colour and pops of sweet and sourness.

Organic ingredients are “Better for you and Better for our Planet”.

Lou 🙂

Ingredients: serves 4

  • 1 small pumpkin, chopped deseeded, sliced into wedges
  • 1 medium red onion, sliced into wedges
  • pinch salt/pepper/paprika

For the dressing

  • 1 bulb of garlic – roasted until soft
  • 1 tablespoon light tahini
  • 100ml neutral oil
  • 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
  • salt and pepper

To finish

  • 1/2 pomegranate, deseeded
  • 100g kale, washed, stripped off the stalk & very finely chopped
  • 180g feta- sheep’s cheese feta used here
  • 1/2 tin chickpeas – drained (200g)
  • 2 tablespoons toasted pumpkin seeds

Method:

Step 1: Preheat the oven 180ºC. Prepare the garlic bulb, chop off the top of the bulb to expose the cloves. Put the pumpkin wedges, red onion wedges and garlic bulb on a baking tray. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and a bit of paprika drizzle with oil, rub the veg to coat in the oil and seasoning. Roast veggies for 30 minutes. the garlic may take 10 minutes longer.

Step 2: Add the finely chopped kale to a mixing bowl, drizzle with a small amount of olive oil, season with salt and pepper and massage with your hands to tenderise.

Step 3: To make the dressing add the soft roasted garlic to a small blender along with the tahini, oil, cider vinegar, salt and pepper. Blend until completely smooth. Taste and adjust if needed.

Step 4: Build the salad. Add the kale to a big serving plate, top with the chickpeas, layer on the roast pumpkin, red onion, break over the feta. Roll the pomegranate to loosen the seeds, with a wooden spoon to dislodge the seeds and scatter over the salad. Sprinkle with pumpkin seeds and top with the roast garlic dressing.

Crispy Parsnip Rosti w/ Apple Aioli

by Lou Robbie

Sweet Irish parsnips are plentiful in October. They are a wonderful root vegetable with a distinctive flavour that fills the house when its cooking.

My mother would always serve them mashed with carrots with our Sunday dinner. I don’t remember having them any other way as a child! Now I like to roast, steam or slow cook them to intensify the flavour. Here we’ve swapped the common potato for parsnip in a really tasty rosti. Made even more flavoursome with the punchy apple aioli on the side, you wont regret trying this one.

Lou 🙂

Ingredients: Makes 12 small rosti and a pot of aioli

For the rosti

450g parsnips, peeled and coarsely grated
1 medium white onion, peeled and coarsely grated
1 egg
6 tbsp plain flour
pinch salt and pepper

For the apple aioli
2 apples, peeled, cored and cut into chunks
1 garlic clove, peeled and finely grated
1 tbsp cider vinegar
180ml mild olive oil. salt and pepper

Method:

Step 1: Grate the parsnips and onion and put them in a bowl, squeeze out any excess liquid, and season with salt and pepper. Crack in the egg and spoon in the flour. Mix well with your hands.

Step 2: Make the aioli. Cook the apple in a small pot with a splash of water until soft for 5-10 minutes. Set aside to cool. Then add to a small blender along with the grated garlic, cider vinegar, salt and pepper. Blend again and very slowly pour the oil in to emulsify the sauce. Taste it and adjust if needed.

Step 3: Cook the roti. Warm a non stick frying pan on a medium heat, add some oil to coat the pan. Spoon on 3-4 parsnip mounds and gently push down to flatten. cook for a few minutes on either side until golden. Repeat. Fry in a small bit of butter and then serve alongside the delicious aioli.

Pumpkin Banana Bread

by Lou Robbie

Organic orange pumpkins are sweet and delicious and marry perfectly with banana, spices and chocolate! While the supermarkets are jammed with ornamental pumpkins, in October, that will be carved and go to waste we think its much better for the planet that we roast them and cook and bake with them as nature intended.

This recipe will give you a delicious bread that isn’t too sweet or spicy its just right. Add butter if you like and tea or pumpkin spiced latte!

Keep cosy with this one.

Lou 🙂

Ingredients:⁣
⁣
▪️100g pumpkin puree (*homemade see below)
▪️⁣2 large ripe banana
▪️4 tablespoons neutral oil
▪️2 medium eggs ⁣
▪️70ml maple syrup ⁣
▪️300g plain flour⁣
▪️2 tsp baking powder⁣
▪️1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda⁣
▪️2 tsp mixed pumpkin spice or ground cinnamon ⁣
▪️80g chopped dark chocolate

Method:

  • *Follow the link to make your own pumpkin puree and pumpkin spice mix- Click here
  • Step 1: Preheat the oven 160ºc and line a loaf tin with a liner or parchment paper.
  • Step 2: Mash the bananas well and add them to a mixing bowl along with the pumpkin puree, oil, eggs, maple syrup, mix well.
  • Step 3: Sieve in the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, mixed spice. Stir gently, then add 3/4 of the chopped chocolate. Spoon into the loaf tin. Smooth the batter and sprinkle with the remaining chopped chocolate.
  • Bake for 35-45 minutes until cooked through. Test with a skewer. Cool and slice.

Do you have 2 minutes to help?

by Kenneth Keavey

Glyphosate Aka Roundup; we all have heard the name it is the most ubiquitous herbicide used on the planet, nearly 10 billion kg have been used globally.  

It is a probable-carcinogen and it now contaminates most non-organic food stuffs. 

Today Friday there is a vote to renew the licence for it’s use in the EU for a further 10 years, please if you have a minute put your name to this petition to stop its renewal. 

Using chemicals to fight nature will never work. In the short term it may give a temporary reprieve from a certain disease or pest, but that pest will come back stronger and more resistant next time. It is in a way a self-perpetuating industry and GMO’s are another extension of this very lucrative business. 

Bayer the company that bought out Monsanto (the makers of Roundup) are lobbying heavily for its continued use, it’s a massive money spinner for them, why wouldn’t they? They argue its safe, remember tobacco companies said the same thing about smoking! 

But we don’t need this stuff on our food, we don’t need it contaminating our waterways, destroying our biodiversity. 

Generally, the application of Roundup is the first step when a conventional farmer sets about reseeding fields, or prior to sowing conventional grain, or in fact for weed control prior to harvest of conventional tillage crops. The application of roundup to grain crops prior to harvest is mind-blowing. This stuff is systemic meaning it gets absorbed into the plant, it stays there, and as the grain goes to be processed to flour it stays there. 

As a trained chemist, I feel strongly that these chemicals have no place in our food chain. They hurt our bodies, they hurt our land, and it begets the questions are these chemicals necessary? Is there an alternative path we can thread? A resounding ‘of course there is’ would be our answer. 

If you follow us on Instagram check out our most recent video there are plenty of “weeds” growing between our kale plants and yet the kale is amazingly healthy and happy and vibrant. Not only that some of these “weeds” are carry over from our green manure of clover and phacelia from the year pervious. They serve many valuable functions, they allow biodiversity to flourish, nature is diverse it is not a monoculture. They also help prevent leaching of valuable nutrients from the soil, effectively acting as a winter cover crop. 

When we first took on my granddad’s land here, it was not in great, shape nutrient levels were low and there was a very challenging dockleaf problem, but over the years through careful management we have reduced the burden of docks, there are still dock leaves growing but they are not a problem now. Total elimination was not necessary. 

We feel that there is a viable alternative path we can follow for growing good quality, tasty food without the use of chemicals, we have been at it for 18 years now, we still have a lot to learn but one thing is for sure, we will never ever look to the chemical cabinet for a solution to any of our challenges. 

Thanks as always for your support. 

Kenneth

PS Don’t forget that our Farm shop is open every Saturday from 10am to 5pm, H91F9C5. Also we have the first amazing savoy cabbage and crown prince pumpkin available from Padraigh Fahy in Beechlawn, plus our own gorgeous bunched carrots, fresh parnsips and leeks, see all the great IRISH organic produce we have here.

Recipe Roundup – pumpkins

by Simone Kelly

Autumn is well and truly upon us, and it’s my favourite season. Pumpkins are a firm favourite here, and so versatile.

Click on the bold text below to go directly to the recipes.

Enjoy x

Autumn Roast Squash Soup

by Lou Robbie

Autumn squash soup with lots of roast garlic and warming spices. This is a hug in a bowl and we’ve even added a cheese toastie for extra comfort. You can easily swap the butternut squash for Kuri (pumpkin) squash to make an equally delicious bowl of soup.

Roasting the veg first is key to getting in those extra sweet and caramelised notes and we’ve made the prep part easy by just chopping everything in half and loading it on to the roasting tin. We’ve added some lovely sweet Irish carrots, cherry tomatoes from our tunnels and the best of Irish organic onions.

Nutrient dense and perfect for cosy autumn days.

Lou 🙂

Ingredients: makes 4 generous portions

Method:

  • Preheat the oven: 180ºC.
  • Step 1: Prepare the veg: Chop the squash in half and scoop out the seeds. Wash and chop the carrots in half, slice the top off the bulb of garlic, peel and half the onions. Wash the tomatoes. Put all the veg on a baking tray.
  • Step 2: Sprinkle with paprika, cumin, salt and drizzle in oil. Roast in the oven for 40 -50 minutes, test everything is cooked by piercing with a sharp knife.
  • Step 3: Put all the cooked veg into a powerful blender along with hot stock. Blend and then add to a pot with the coconut milk, gently heat through on the hob and serve.

Autumn Plum Crumble Cake

by Lou Robbie

A delicious way to bake with ripe sweet plums. But please make this with Irish apples too, it would work perfectly! The smell of warm autumn spices in the house is very inviting. My granny would make huge trays of apple and cinnamon crumble for special family occasions and serve them up with stewed plums and jugs of custard, I can still remember the smell from her busy kitchen.

There is real comfort in the food we eat and share. And when the nights draw in its the kitchen table that pulls us together. Its good to remember the hands that sowed the seeds, that watered the soil, picked and harvested the fruit and the hands that made the food.

Good food will always be remembered.

Lou 🙂

Ingredients:

  • For the crumble topping
    50g plain flour
    40g soft butter
    30g sugar
    20g flaked almonds
  • 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • For the sponge
  • 180g butter, room temp
  • 180g sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 50g sour cream
  • 180g self raising flour
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp mixed spice
  • 75g ground almonds
  • 4 ripe organic plums – sliced (250g approx)

Method:

  • Preheat the oven 160ºC fan. Line an 8inch cake tin (with loose bottom preferably) and grease with butter.
  • Step 1: Make the crumble topping. Add the flour, sugar, cinnamon and butter to a small bowl. Rub the butter into the dry ingredients with your fingers until it resembles sand, mix through the flaked almonds, set aside.
  • Step 2: For the sponge. Put the sugar and butter in a mixing bowl and whisk until smooth, use an electric mixer or regular whisk. Next beat in the eggs one at a time then stir in the sour cream. Sieve in the flour along with the mixed spice and cinnamon. Fold in the ground almonds.
  • Step 3: Transfer the sponge mix into the cake tin. Top with an even layer of most of the plum slices, keep a few back. Then sprinkle the crumble mix evenly over the plums. Top with the remaining plum slices.
  • Step 4: Bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour. Until a skewer comes out clean.
  • Cool on a wire rack, serve with warm custard.