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
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.
First, I want to show you something: Darragh Wynne from the charity Goal Ireland was here a few weeks back and invited me to talk for a video, if you want to learn a little bit more about and see some cool drone footage of our farm (and even catch a glimpse of George and Florence check this video out.
George and Florence are happy pigs, they couldn’t actually have a better life, I really don’t think they could. Not only do they get to roam around nearly 2 acres of old and newly established forests, they have a dry straw lined shed to sleep in and probably best of all they get fed waste organic veg once a day. They are as happy as two pigs in muck could be.
But they fit into this story very well, as they are the last step in our grandly termed food waste reduction strategy, we don’t have a formal document or anything like that, but we do have a belief system around food waste.
So here is a crazy fact, one third of all food produced on the planet is wasted. The area required to produce that food is 16 million km2, which is roughly an area the same size as Russia, which is a very big place.
We all know we need to take urgent steps to reduce our impact on the planet, no surprise there, and as we pass yet another mind boggling climate record with September being the warmest month ever by a long way, that action is critical.
So wouldn’t it be an amazing if we could cut the land used for agriculture by 16 million square kilometers and instead grow forestry? Of course, it would.
But where is all this wasted food coming from? Well, that is where I will tell you the second part of my story, last week we took a delivery of carrots, we weren’t very pleased with these carrots, they were Irish, they were organic, but they were massive, and I mean they were big but we got our heads together and figured out how we could prevent them ending up in the bin.
So, we set about trying to use them to sell them, to make sure we wasted as little as possible. There is one thing I can absolutely guarantee had these carrots landed at the door of a supermarket they would have been rejected, sent back, or wasted.
Herein lies one of our bugbears, supermarkets insisting without remorse on unforgiving specifications and when produce does not meet them refusing to sell it or accept it. We have been there many moons ago, once upon a time having supplied supermarkets. In the growing season we have had this year, produce may come out maybe a little smaller or bigger or twisted or forked and that in our view is the beauty of nature. We wont grade out twisted parsnips, or forked carrots.
Of course, there is still the possibility that produce will not meet our quality requirements, and this is where we do have a very well-defined system and we put a fair amount of effort into it to make it work.
Maciek our quality manager has done amazing work creating his “Rescue boxes” each week these boxes are filled with “Class II” produce. If we can’t use the produce in the rescue boxes our team get it, and if it is unusable it ends up in one of two places, actually one of three places!
It either A. Goes to one of our three compost bays, or B. go to George’s belly or C. goes to Florence’s belly!
(Interesting fact: We have to make two separate piles of food when feeding the pigs because Florence always bullies George and tries to keep all the food for herself!)
So that is the end of the story for this week, just know you are supporting a little business that manages in our own way to keep the food waste mountain from growing at least on our watch and continues to step by small step help build a better food system.
You are making it possible, thank you.
Kenneth
PS Darragh Wynne from the charity Goal Ireland was here a few weeks back and invited me to talk for a video, if you want to learn a little bit more about and see some cool drone footage of our farm (and even catch a glimpse of George and Florence check this video out.
Blushing beautiful beetroot so vibrant and sweet. They are a nutritional powerhouse, good for your heart and blood and gut. We’ve increased the nutrient value by adding some wholesome ingredients to make these delicious dosas. Eat them as they are, add a sandwich filling with roast veggies or eat along side a spiced dahl. My kids called them pink wraps and thats a good description too.
I love to steam all my beets and then use them in various ways like roasting with balmasic vinegar for a salad, slicing to eat in a sandwich, grated to add to chocolate muffins etc.
How do you like to cook with beetroot?
Lou 🙂
PS – it may not be an authentic dosa recipe but it is really tasty all the same.
Step 1: To a powerful blender add all the ingredients apart from the water. Blend the ingredients and add the water a little at a time to make a batter. The consistency of the batter is really important it should be pourable like crepe batter.
Step 2: Heat a frying pan on a medium heat. Drizzle with oil and carefully wipe with kitchen paper to coat the pan.
Step 3: Add a ladle of the batter to the pan, use the back of the ladle to thin out the batter and form a round shape. Cook on a low heat for a few minutes then use a spatula to carefully flip over and cook for a further minute. Repeat.
This week has seen another reasonably dry week on the farm which has made life that little bit easier, our harvesting machine for parsnips has worked well, and we are pulling them out of the ground fresh and clean, the kale is vibrant and amazing and we are harvesting lovely sized heads of broccoli. The tomatoes, cucumbers and courgettes have nearly run their course, our weekly harvest of courgettes is down from a near high of 500kg a week to just over 100kg now, soon they will be finished for the year.
It is at this time of the year I often reflect on our food system as a whole and whilst there is plenty of good I find myself wondering that there must be a better way to grow our food, there needs to be a better way. The planet simply cannot sustain business as usual. Amongst other things, our food system as run by giant food corporations is crippling out planet, not only that it is destroying biodiversity. Loss leading of fresh food by supermarkets, simply does not leave enough on the table to allow farmers to protect the land, to work with nature, it is a road to nowhere.
What will we do when we have exhausted the soil, when we have polluted the rivers and lakes, when we have pumped enough greenhouse gases into our atmosphere to cause the planet to warm up beyond critical tipping points. We will not be able to sustain ecosystems never mind a healthy balanced food system.
What then? All that profit and greed, and short termism will mean little. Where do we look then for fresh water, for healthy food, how will we feed 8 billion or more people? How will all the other life we share this planet with be sustained?
Can we continue to consume resources and food as we do now? Do we not need to consider what we are eating (and how it is produced) now. The animal industry consumes a disproportionate amount of our land mass and contributes relatively little relative to grains and plants to our calorie and protein intake:
Of our habitable land, 46% is used for agriculture, of that land area 77% is used for animals, and this only produces 18% of our global calorie supply and astoundingly only 37% of our protein consumption. (Source: UN Food and Agriculture association)
And that is without even beginning to talk about animal welfare in the large factory farms that produce the cheap meat? When did chicken literally become cheaper than chips?
Clearly this is not just unsustainable, you can imagine that future generations may look back and wonder at our insanity. Using land to grow more vegetables and eating more plants allows us to reduce the land mass required to produce our food. This is not an argument for not eating meat or dairy it is simply a fact that we need to use our land wisely and cut down on the consumption of foods that have a high land high carbon footprint, low calorie output.
Would it help to approach our living world with a little more empathy, for the land, for the creatures we share the planet, for the environment? Things could and would be so much different if we were all to be a little more mindful and showed a little more respect for our one home.
We all can make a difference; we can all take steps that will help. Of course, bigger stuff needs to happen, governments need to act, net carbon zero needs to occur, policy and infrastructure and systems needs to change, and they are changing but the speed of change needs to increase.
Can our mindset around food change? Embracing the idea of eating more plants, understanding that cheap does not always mean good value, these are the things that will help save our health and that of the planet.
We here on our farm find ourselves struggling to standstill, it is always a tough battle to compete in this supermarket dominated landscape. It is difficult to continue to support local organic Irish farmers including our own farm, it costs more, but that is the course we have taken, and one we will never deviate from.
Your support is making a difference. You are making a difference.
Thanks for your support.
Kenneth
PS The autumnal winter crops are definitely creeping in now, with the harvest of swede and parsnip truly beginning, we are also delighted to have the first delivery or Irish organic carrots next week. It has been a tough year for root crop growing, but finally we are getting there.
Need an incredible tomato sauce? Just 4 ingredients needed for this deep, sweet, intense sauce. We grow the sweetest cherry tomatoes in the summertime. During peak season the vines are heaving with juicy fruit just waiting to be picked, packed and delivered to homes all over Ireland. And while we can’t grow them in the colder Irish months we can find ways to preserve them just like this simple recipe that only requires a few ingredients.
The joy of pulling your own organic tomato sauce from the freezer is truly satisfying. And the sweetness remains to add to your stews, soups and sauces all through the winter.
This recipe could not be easier, we hope you try it.
Lou 🙂
Ingredients: makes 1kg of sauce (1 big jar or 4 small jars)
Step 1: Preheat the oven 200ºC. Have 2 large baking trays ready to go.
Step 2: Wash the cherry tomatoes and discard the green stems. cut in half, place them on the trays cut side up.
Step 3: Drizzle with a small bit of oil, and season lightly with salt and pepper. Roast in the oven for about 45 minutes, until they are soft and char around the edges.
Step 4: Scoop into a blender and blend until the desired consistency. Keep it chunky or smooth if you prefer.
Step 5: While warm pour into freezer safe jars or containers. Date and label for the freezer.
Defrost your preserved homemade organic roast tomato sauce in the winter months, when fresh ones are not available. Use it for soups, sauces, stews and more.
I remember as a child picking peas in my grandad’s garden. He had apple trees, he grew his own veg. I remember sitting on his lap drinking a mug of turnip juice, (I can’t imagine trying to get my kids to do that today!) most of the food was grown on his farm. (Photo: backfired, me trying to feed my daughter broccoli many moons ago!)
Things have changed so much in a generation.
When was the last time you tasted a freshly harvested carrot, can you remember what it should taste like? There can be such pleasure in the simple foods, and there are of course remarkable ways to cook these amazing seasonal gems.
September is a month of local seasonal plenty. The tomato season is still in full swing still, and there is a myriad of great Irish vegetables available, courgettes, leeks, swedes, cabbage, scallions, kales, beetroot, broccoli and so much more.
As an organic farmer, the arrival of September allows a sigh of relief. The relentless pressure of the summer is finally winding down and we are settling into a routine of harvest.
The trees are starting to turn, the wild-flowers have gone to seed, the hedgerows are full of berries, the bees are slowing down too, even the birds are relaxing a little, everything seems to slow down. Something we could all do a little bit more of.
September too can be a time for reflection. As a farmer the simple things like tree planting, growing hedgerows and leaving wild patches can give immense pleasure. This is easy stuff that pays the most amazing dividends for the person and the planet, but in modern food systems it is often dismissed as non sensical and left to one side in favour of production. The irony of course is that food production is facilitated and improved by all these positive things.
Cheap food has a price and a story. The real stories are hidden behind the glitzy shiny wrappers, there is always a story, a story of environmental or human exploitation.
The truth ironically can be hard to swallow, but it doesn’t have to be like this.
There are amazing and positive alternatives. Our parents chose well, they ate seasonally and locally, they ate less meat. Who doesn’t remember cabbage and turnip and the endless ways to cook potatoes!
We have more power than we realise.
We choose our phones, our clothes, our cars, our jobs, and yet our food and our planet can be relegated to the bottom of the decision pile if they are thought about at all. Time is short we are all busy but maybe just maybe they deserve a little more consideration because our choices matter a lot and when it comes to our food positive choices will improve our health and the health of our planet.
What we eat and how our food is produced can literally change the world.
Back to school and back to busy schedules for the whole house! September can be a great time to reset your eating habits, its a bit like new year. We love to pull out the recipe books and plan some wholesome hearty meals, using lots of vegetables from the farm, to make September run smoothly and enjoy the cosy autumn evenings.
We’ve put 5 of our favourite recipes together for you. Most of them just need one pot and some need an extra one for the rice or pasta, so minimal fuss. The vegetables from the farm make each dish sing, cauliflower, courgettes, cherry tomatoes, squash, spuds and kale. Theres something for everyone.
We like to get back to having family meals together in the evening, talking about the school day, new friends, new subjects and all the time taking enjoyment in the food we eat.
We hope you enjoy these recipes, please let us know if you try them in the comments below.
Lou 🙂
Click on the recipe below to bring you to each recipe:
The summer months seem to fly by in a flash! The kids will be back to school really soon and that means the return of the lunch boxes too! We will be making lots of yummy homemade snacks to help fill them. We love using wholesome organic ingredients to keep little tummies fuller for longer and help add some much needed nutrition for their growing bodies and minds.
Theres a few reasons why love to make homemade snacks for the lunchbox. They are cheaper to make than buying pre-made shop bought snacks. We know exactly whats gone into them, we can make them mostly organic and they are not individually wrapped in plastic. We can get our kids to help make them and thats pretty special too!
Here’s 5 recipes for you to save and try. They include healthy oats, dates, seeds, fruit and veggies, our online shop stocks most of the ingredients you need. We hope you give them a go, please let us know if you do, we love to hear from you.
Lou 🙂
Just click on the link below to bring you to each recipe:
I met Gerry who looks after the beehives on our farm a couple of weeks back. He comes onto the farm once or so a week and checks on the bees. On the day we met there was two acres of phacelia (a beautiful purple flower) swaying in the wind behind us and it was covered in bees. Gerry looks after 6 apiaries and of the 6 the one on our farm produces three times more honey than any of the others. The bees are vibrant and strong, and they are in amazing health.
The reasons are not complex, they have an abundance of food, the phacelia being one major food source, but not only that, the early apple blossoms, the courgette flowers, the tomato flowers, the cucumber flowers and all the flowering weeds (good and not so good) that spring up between the plants. The bees are thriving.
The bees have little reason to roam further than our farm and as result they never encounter agrochemicals routinely used in conventional agriculture that can damage our pollinators. One class of chemical that is thankfully now banned were the neonicotinoids, these chemicals when used damaged bee health by affecting their immune system, navigation skills, capacity to forage and communicate, and ability to reproduce.
Without the bees and the other hosts of pollinators we rely on for our modern-day food system we would not be living such a life of food luxury. Our always on food system, the year-round availability is only possible due to a complex and precarious food system and a logistics chain that spans the planet. It is a system dependent on large scale production of crops, heavily dependent on agrochemicals and cheap labour in other parts of the world. We have seen this year that as the climate crisis deepens, climate shocks to our food system can be sudden and deep, the future effects of the climate crisis on our relatively fragile food system will be large.
Nature is a complex web of interactions, it is strong and resilient and can recover from manmade interference, but when we continuously damage nature, or change the climate that local ecosystems work in then we risk damaging nature and our ability to grow food immeasurably.
But, as with the bees on our farm, when we get it right and give a little back then the results can be startling, amazing and larger than anything we expect, and we reap the benefits too: as food producers we have a bumper courgette and tomato crop. The phacelia adds organic matter back to the soil when we cut it, and it allows us to grow something for nature while resting the land.
Something so simple as growing a strip of wildflowers or planting a small area of trees makes a massive positive difference to nature, surely instead of focusing purely on intensification of farming activities, it would not be so hard to weave this into our current agriculture policy as a critical requirement of all farms.
The bees are one of our constant companions here on the farm, but there is a myriad of other unsung heroes that quietly go about their business and never get the recognition they deserve. The flies and beetles, the butterflies and birds, the bacteria and fungi, this whole beautiful complex web of nature all working together help produce better food and make up a rich and vibrant local ecosystem.
Whilst there is much to be done, there is much that is within our power too. Removing chemicals from this chain of life is one clear step we can take to make an instant and recognisable difference to the diversity of nature we share this world with. Choosing more local food strengthens our local food system and crucially reduces our carbon foot print too.
As always it is your support that makes it possible here on our farm and the farms of our other supporting farmers to do the right thing.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
We are spoiled with beautiful organic Irish blueberries in the summer and autumn. They are gorgeous to eat fresh as they are but if you are looking for a recipe to bake try these delicious crumble bars. They do crumble so keep one hand under to catch those crunchy crumbs.
We were paying a friend a visit so make a batch of these to have with tea and a catch up. My kids adore them, they are just sweet enough with lovely pops of jammy berries.
Shop for the wholesome organic ingredients in our shop.
Let us know if you make it, we love to hear from you.
Step 1: Preheat the oven to 180ºC and line a 8in tin with parchment paper.
Step 2: Measure the flour, oats, brown sugar and baking powder into a bowl, mix well. Then add the butter and work it into the oats and flour with your fingers until it starts to clump together and feels like wet sand, this will take a few minutes.
Step 3: Tip HALF the mix into the tin. Push down into the tin until its spead out and even, make sure to get into the corners. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes. In the meantime mix the blueberries with the granulated sugar, cornflour and lemon juice.
Step 4: When the base comes out of the oven top with the blueberries and scatter over the other half of the crumble mix. Put it back in the oven to bake for another 25-35 minutes.
Leave it to cool for an hour to set and then cut into bars.
