When we were looking for a classic sweet cornbread recipe to make in our Kamado, or ceramic charcoal-fired barbeque, we came across this one that is perfect for homegrown heirloom corn and White Sonora wheat and uses honey for the sweetener, instead of sugar.
This recipe comes from Alice Berner, who farms wheat in northern Montana without chemical fertilizers or pesticides. Alice developed this recipe using their local honey and the wheat that they farm. Even without white flour, this cornbread is light, moist and very flavorful with a sweetness that is warm and inviting. It is great with a roasted chicken like our Herb and Vegetable Roasted Chicken!
The Farmhouse Cookbook by Susan Herrmann Loomis supplies this recipe and is a treasure of simple, honest, delicious and yet surprisingly sophisticated recipes from farms all across America.
Recipe notes: We adapted this to our cast-iron cooking by preheating a round cast-iron deep frying pan in the oven before starting the recipe. Let the batter sit for a few minutes to thicken and mix a final time before pouring into the hot cast iron. You will get a wonderful crispy crust that just isn’t possible with standard baking pans.
Preheat oven to 425F and oil a 9 x 13 inch baking pan.
Combine the dry ingredients and mix well.
In a small bowl, mix eggs, honey, oil and milk until thoroughly combined.
If using a Kitchen Aid or similar mixer, slowly add the liquid ingredients to the dry and mix well. If mixing by hand, make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and gradually stir in the liquid, working quickly and gently.
Pour batter into baking pan, or cast iron as per our recipe notes above and bake until the cornbread is golden and springs back when lightly touched, about 20 – 30 minutes. Check at the 15 minute mark to see how it is progressing. It will cook from the outside in, so watch the middle to see when it is finished baking.
White Sonora Wheat is enjoying a resurgence of popularity today all across the country, thanks to restoration efforts in Arizona and South Carolina. Introduced in the early 1700s by Jesuit Father Eusebio Francisco Kino to the Sonoran region of Mexico and Southern Arizona, White Sonora Wheat was the staple wheat for the western United States for almost 200 years, from the early 1700s to the 1900s. Starting in the early 1800s, California planted Sonoran wheat almost exclusively.
Its popularity was partly due to its resistance to Fusarium fungus, drought tolerance and its exceptionally sweet flavor for baking. It was also prized as a brewing grain, again for its flavor it gave the beer. During the Civil War, much Sonoran wheat was exported from Arizona and California to the eastern states making up for lost production due to the war.
Several factors contributed to its demise as the staple variety of wheat, from expanded cattle ranching in Mexico, the droughts and loss of water as a power source in the 1950s, the closing of many flour mills in Sonora in the mid-1960s, the Green Revolution with its hybridized wheat varieties and the switch from wheat production to vegetables as dams closed off the rivers in northern Mexico. By about 1975, there were no more commercial sources of White Sonora Wheat available.
Modern Interest
A lot of attention is being paid to wheat today, mainly due to the rise of gluten intolerance or celiac disease in which a person cannot digest the gluten part of wheat in their diet. For a more in-depth look at this issue, read my article “What’s Wrong with Our Wheat?”.
This is one of several areas where White Sonora Wheat really shines, as it is lower in gluten and higher in protein than today’s super-hybridized dwarf varieties. White Sonora Wheat is an extremely flavorful semi-hard white spring wheat that can be used for whole wheat flour in breads, cakes, pancakes, tortillas, and more. By many accounts this is the best flour for cakes, breads and tortillas ever. Because it is a white wheat, not a hard red wheat, it makes lighter products that have a sweeter and lighter flavor than those typically associated with whole wheat. The berries can also be boiled and used like rice or sprouted for wheat grass.
Another advantage the White Sonora Wheat has is a thinner, more paper-like husk, unlike other ancient cereal grains that require a mill to remove the husk and then can be ground. When we recently visited our grower, we were shown a large bag of the wheat that had just been harvested, with no other cleaning or sorting. You can see the video below, and see the weed seeds among the wheat, but also the very few seed heads that have any husks on them. The husks are removed by the mechanical action of the harvester, with the remaining ones rubbed off easily with a couple of fingers.
Processing and Cleaning
For the home gardener or small scale grower, this can be done fairly easily with some hand or kitchen tools. Depending on how much wheat you have to process, a kitchen food processor such as a Cuisinart fitted with the plastic dough blade can separate the husks from the grains. Pulse the blade to prevent from breaking too many of the grains and making it harder to separate the wheat from the husks or chaff. Fill the bowl up about 1/2 to 2/3 full and work in batches.
Another method is to use a 5 gallon bucket with a paint mixer attachment on a hand power drill, either the spiral or traditional cross or paddle type. Use a moderate speed and move the mixer around the bucket to create the friction that loosens the husks. You will need to stop and check the progress, but will quickly get a feel for how long to use the mixer.
White Sonora Wheat has a root structure much like a perennial prairie grass with long taproots and a web of smaller feeder roots, unlike the simple and shallow hybrid roots of today’s wheat. These longer taproots bring water and nutrients from deeper in the soils, making the plant less susceptible to moisture fluctuations. It also helps to open up the soil when the wheat is harvested as the root system decays, leaving behind a network of air and water passages. The wheat can thrive on marginal soils and actually produces better flavor on these soils, though production volume is lower than modern ones.
With all of its advantages, flavor and nutrition, ease of growth and harvest, along with being adapted to dry climates and improving the soil, it is easy to see why White Sonora Wheat is regaining its rightful popularity! It is usually planted as winter wheat in areas with mild winters and as spring wheat everywhere else.
Customer Processing Method
One of our customers graciously sent some photos showing how he processed the wheat after harvesting it. He started with 3 oz. and the end results are pretty impressive! Thanks to Paul from California for sharing these with us!
He starts with dumping the uncleaned wheat into a sack or heavy pillowcase – heads, chaff and remainder of stems – all of it.
Then using a large, lightweight wooden mallet, he applies physical friction to the bag and wheat, loosening the hulls. This isn’t a pounding action, and he tries not to hit through to the bottom of the sack, only gently thumping the top and going down about halfway into the wheat.
After a few minutes of friction, this is what the wheat berries look like – very much the same as what comes out of the combine, but with some stalks and stems in the mix.
Next is winnowing the wheat, or separating it from the husks or chaff. The basics of this process haven’t changed since it was written about in the Bible – use a breeze to blow the lighter chaff off of the heavier wheat berries. Paul said he had to repeat this step a couple of times, but got a really clean batch of wheat.
Here are the results! Pretty good harvest from a 3 oz. start. This is fairly typical return with wheat, it should be in the range of about 40:1, meaning if you plant 1 oz. your harvest should be around 40 oz.
https://w9j002.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/White-Sonora-Wheat-Head.jpg?time=1730917219478850Stephen Scotthttps://w9j002.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Survey-Header.jpgStephen Scott2013-09-18 12:39:002024-06-23 12:56:48White Sonora Wheat – Perfect Grain for the Home Gardener
We are constantly talking about and promoting local, sustainable agriculture and the power of an individual’s choice. Many of the things that are going right in our world of agriculture, food, nutrition and health are the direct result of the intersection of local agriculture and an individual’s choice. One such example is the local Yavapai County Farm to School program that is in the beginning stages as a result of Paradigm Permaculture Coalition’s work.
Here is the press release for their work and first fundraiser, to be held this October 18th and 19th. We are pleased to share this with everyone as an invitation to help this particular program, but also to be inspired and invited to work within your local community to create something similar!
Dear Northern and Central Arizona Friends and Customers:
We are excited to be involved with a new grass-roots organization based right here in Yavapai County, the Paradigm Permaculture Coalition with the goal of bringing a Farm to School program to Yavapai County. Getting fresh, local foods into our schools here and across the nation is important in growing the next generation. We wanted to share with you more about this organization and upcoming events in October that we hope you will support.
History
Farm to School is a nationally recognized and USDA supported program with its inception in 1996-1997. A Farm to School initiative in Yavapai County was seeded in 2012 by a group of local educators and concerned citizens. The Yavapai County Farm to School Grant Advisory Committee applied for the 2012-2013 USDA Farm to School Planning Grant. In 2013, this group of invested partners grew to include Quad-City school districts, local agencies, and non-profits that are in alignment with providing nutrition education, access to fresh local produce for school meal programs, and hands-on gardening activities for school children. The committee applied for the 2013-2014 Planning Grant and will be notified in October if a recipient. The outcome of these efforts was the founding of Paradigm Permaculture Coalition. We are a 501c-3 in partnership with Cornucopia Community Advocates located in Sedona.
Mission & Vision
Paradigm Permaculture Coalition is an educational organization that inspires regenerative living practices in the desert southwest by promoting locally based agriculture through education, community outreach and networking. The term Permaculture was coined over 25 years ago by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, as a “Perennial Agriculture for Human Settlements” or a conjunction of “permanent-culture, permanent-agriculture”. This is a technology that mimics eco-systems and therefore, society via a system of zones or guilds.
We envision healthy relationships, happy hearts, and empowered people through the lens of permaculture principles of: care of the earth, care of people, and a fair share for all. These actions encourage abundant growth and distribution of local and regional food, provide experiential education opportunities, and enrich local economies that nourish our communities for future generations.
Get Involved: Farm to Table Fundraiser
Our inaugural event will celebrate National Farm to School Month while informing parents, local educators, administrators, businesses and government officials through the engagement of an experiential education field day and ‘Cultural Connections through Local Food’ fun-raising event.
Mark your calendars for October 18th and 19th, 2013. Friday evening fun-raiser will feature local foods dinner, keynote speakers, multi-media presentations, silent auction and raffle. Saturday’s field day will include a visit to the Prescott Farmers Market, a tour of a local farm, and a luncheon with Q & A Farm to School Panel. These comprehensive groups of speakers are instrumental in their own Southwest communities, working toward Farm to School efforts. They offer us valuable information to guide our initiative in the planning and implementation for Yavapai County.
Friday, October 18, 2013 5:30 pm to 9:00 pm
Cultural Connections through Local Food – Yavapai County Farm to School Fundraiser
This fun filled evening will feature informative agricultural presentations by speakers from the Dine’ and Pima Indian Tribes, multi-media presentation on Farm to School, silent auction and raffle, with local foods dinner. $20/per ticket, a portion of which is tax-deductable. All proceeds go toward the successful development of a Farm to School program in Yavapai County. Register for the Yavapai County Farm to School Fundraiser here!
Saturday, October 19, 2013 8:00 am to 3:00 pm
Educational Field Day
To include a visit to the Prescott Farmers Market, a tour of Mortimer Family Farm in Dewey, Chino Valley Farms in Chino Valley and a luncheon buffet with Q & A Farm to School Panel. This comprehensive group of speakers is instrumental in their own Southwest communities, developing and enhancing Farm to School programs. The panel will also include individuals working in our local school districts and Health Department to address food safety issues. They offer us valuable information to guide our initiative in the planning and implementation for Yavapai County. Register for the Educational Field Day here!
Thank you for supporting this project, please forward this email to your friends and neighbors to help spread the word!
https://w9j002.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Farm-to-School.jpg?time=1730917219291345Stephen Scotthttps://w9j002.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Survey-Header.jpgStephen Scott2013-08-27 16:08:352024-04-30 17:34:01Farm to School Program – Local Food for Our Schools
The intense aroma of fresh basil is one of the hallmarks of summer and a garden in the full swing of production. The Greek name for basil – βασιλικός – also translates as “royal”, showing the regard that it has had for a long time. It is also a symbol of love in Italy, where it is used generously in many dishes.
For the absolute best aroma and flavor, basil must be used fresh – the fresher the better. Luckily for us, it can be preserved through several different methods and brought out in the depths of winter to remind us of what summer was.
The easiest way is to freeze or dry the leaves. To freeze, just puree the leaves with a little water to a thick consistency and put into ice cube trays. When completely frozen, pop out into a gallon sized Zip-lock bag and store in the freezer until ready to use. They will brighten up soups, sauces and can be used to make a very tasty tapenade. Drying the leaves reduces the fresh aroma, but keeps most of the flavors for soups, stews and sauces. Make sure that they are dried to a brittle stage to avoid any moisture that can spoil the leaves in storage. Use sparingly when dried, as they rehydrate and can overpower milder sauces.
Yet another method to preserve those delicious summer-fresh flavors is to make pesto and freeze it, either in ice cube trays or in 6 – 8 ounce containers. It won’t have quite all of the punch of fresh pesto, but is mighty close when you are longing for the fresh flavors of summer! Read further for a traditional Pesto alla Genoves recipe, along with a video demonstration from Slow Food Terra Madre last October in Turin, Italy.
When you are absolutely overrun with basil, consider making herb-infused vinegar with basil, rosemary, thyme, marjoram or any combination for beautiful, thoughtful and highly tasty gifts. Just half fill a one gallon glass jar with air-dried herbs (leaves and stems, everything but the roots) and fill with almost boiling vinegar. High quality vinegar will give a better flavor; consider using apple cider or rice vinegar for great flavors. Cover loosely with a lid and let the herbs steep for at least one month or more. Taste occasionally to see when the flavors have developed to your taste, then strain the vinegar through cheesecloth and fill a decorative bottle.
Mention basil and immediately pesto comes to mind. Exactly when the combination of basil, cheese, garlic and pine nuts came to be is uncertain, but we do know that the Romans ate a paste of crushed cheese, garlic and herbs that was called moretum. The first recipe that we know of is from 1863 in La Cuciniera Genovese written by Giovanni Battista Ratto, so this delicacy has captivated us for quite some time!
Here is the classic Pesto alla Genovese followed by a video demonstration that we filmed at Slow Food Terra Madre in Turin, Italy in late October 2012.
This is the time honored, traditional method that really does yield a superior flavor, if you have the mortar and pestle and the time.
Wash the basil, pulling all the leaves off, and put them in a colander.
Start the crushing process with the garlic, pine nuts and a pinch of sea salt.
When a paste has formed, add the basil with another dash of sea salt. The rule of thumb is a clove of garlic per thirty leaves of basil, but you don’t have to count the leaves!
Gently roll the pestle against the mortar walls, shredding the leaves.
As soon as basil juice starts to form in the bottom of the mortar, it’s time to add the two grated cheeses to the mixture and continue to stir until a nice green paste is formed. After a few minutes a smooth, consistent paste will be formed and you will have the tastiest pesto!
With a food processor:
Purists will cry foul at this, but with care a food processor can give you very good results. It may take some experimenting to create a truly memorable pesto, but it is worth it.
To avoid spoiling the pesto flavor by the food processor, take care to minimize the heat produced by the blade.
Chill the blade and bowl assembly in the freezer before starting and monitor the amount of time the pesto is being processed.
Using cheese fresh from the refrigerator helps control any heat as well.
You’ll want to stop the processor three or four times to scrape the pesto from the sides with a spatula.
You are looking for a bright green, smooth consistency. When that is achieved, stop.
Serves 4 – 6
To see how pesto is made in the traditional, handmade method, watch this video we shot at Slow Food Terra Madre last October.
The following best-practice rules and delicious recipe are courtesy of Farm Fresh Now!, a project of The Land Connection, an educational nonprofit that preserves farmland, trains new farmers, and connects people with great locally-grown foods. This series is made possible with generous support from the Illinois Department of Agriculture.
The best way to enjoy healthy, seasonal produce is to buy it from your local community farmer. To locate the farmers’ market or CSA nearest you, visit Local Harvest.
Basil Rules
Ahhh, basil! Even the word carries a whiff of its invigorating scent.
But it’s the aromatic leaves themselves that contain dozens of volatile essential oils. Their relative concentration is the difference between “regular” Genovese basil, Thai basil, Lemon basil, Holy Basil, Cinnamon Basil, African Basil and all the other basils you’ll find your local farmer growing.
There are a few rules to remember when buying and using basil.
Rule #1: Use only the freshest basil. The fresher it is, the better it is. The fragrance of basil is never as seductive as when it is first plucked from a live plant and eaten raw, as quickly as possible after plucking. This is why you should think about having a pot of basil of your own – on the kitchen window sill or in your back yard. The next best thing is to get basil from a local farmer at a Farmer’s Market or through a CSA.
Rule #2: Don’t cook basil – don’t even heat it up if you can help it. When adding basil to a pasta sauce or a pizza, do so only at the last minute, while tossing with the pasta or after the pizza has emerged from the oven. Basil pesto too, should always be used raw, never warmed up or cooked.
Rule #3: Stay away from knives. The cut edges of basil will blacken and the overall flavor will be diminished. Instead, simply use whole leaves or tear large leaves into small pieces with your hands before scattering them over a tomato salad, mashing them into a basil butter for corn on the cob, sprinkling on green bean salads, or roasted eggplant, zucchini, or peppers. For more summer fun, experiment with the many scented and colored basils that farmers are now bringing to market, including lemon, anise, Thai, cinnamon, and purple basils.
Rule #4: Use basil only in the summer. This relates back to Rule #1, bringing us full circle. Basil is the ultimate summer herb. Its rich perfume evokes warm sunny days and mouthwatering combinations with other summer vegetables – tomatoes, zucchini, peppers. Sure, you can get it year-round in the grocery store, but like tomatoes, basil tends to be insipid when grown in a greenhouse or flown in from California. Some things in life are definitely worth the wait. Basil is one of them.
Homegrown dill is delicious, easy to grow and easy to harvest. We’ll show you how! One thing to remember – you want to harvest almost mature dill seeds, not the green ones or the completely dry ones. The green ones won’t have the flavor you are looking for and the dry ones will have already dropped most of their seeds, giving you much less seed than you bargained for!
First you need a few simple tools:
Next, you might want to consider some accessories! Puppies make the job much more fun!
Seriously, though, harvesting the dill seeds couldn’t be much simpler, even with puppy assistance. What you are looking for is almost-dry seeds like this:
This is what the green or immature seeds look like, along with some very welcome Ladybugs!
Simply snip off the almost-mature seed stalk,
and drop it into the box you’ve brought. Some of the more mature and dried seeds are on the bottom, having fallen off when the seed head or umbel hit the bottom of the box.
This is what the seeds and one of the smaller umbels look like:
Once you’ve collected all of the dill seed, store the box in a room where it can finish drying for a couple of weeks. Then bounce the seed heads on the bottom of the box a few times to get the rest of the seeds to drop, empty the box into a storage container and you have dill seed for the winter and next year!
As a seed company we get a lot of plant related questions over the course of the year. Many of these questions are from customers looking for varieties that do not normally grow from seed. To help you understand more about the different type of plants and how they reproduce, we want to give you a quick botany lesson.
Corms, bulbs, rhizomes, tubers, and tuberous roots are the primary food storage organs for the plants which grow from them, as well as the reproductive parts which can be divided or separated.
Here are a few examples-
Bulbs – Amaryllis, Iris, Tulip, Garlic
Corms – Crocus, Gladiolus
Tubers and Tuberous Roots – Cyclamen, Dahlia, Potatoes, Yams, Horseradish
Rhizomes – Canna, Mint, Rhubarb, Hops
Many of these examples are propagated or reproduced by dividing and/or cuttings. This requires the actual shipment of plant material, not seeds. Many varieties will produce seed but are usually grown by dividing or cuttings because it is faster and easier. Garlic can and will produce seed but is a very tedious process. Rosemary and Lavender will also grow from seed but are usually propagated by cuttings for quicker results. Potatoes are always propagated by planting whole or cut tubers, “the eyes” of the potato. They can and will produce potato seed balls but almost never grow true to type. The one famous exception is that of Luther Burbank, where he collected a potato seed ball, planted the seeds and got lucky with a viable new variety of potato, known today as the Burbank or Russet potato.
When you think about fruit trees and grape vines, they are hardly ever started from seed. Many varieties, like the apple, just don’t grow true to form from seed. If you planted all of the seeds from an apple, you would get as many different varieties of new apples as there were seeds that germinated! Thus the fine art of grafting was developed.
Asexual reproduction is the propagation of a plant by cuttings, division, layers, grafts or other vegetative means, rather than by seeds. This process is used to produce plants that will be identical to their parent. This is different than a Biennial plant that takes two growing seasons to complete its life cycle. They bloom and produce seeds in the second season of growth. Almost all Brassicas fall into this category like cabbage, kale, broccoli, cauliflower as well as onions.
So, if you are looking for a specific plant and can’t seem to find seed anywhere for it, than it probably falls into the category of asexual reproduction. To learn more about how and why asexual reproduction is used and the importance of planting breeding over the ages, study many of the early plant breeders.
To learn more about the botany of seeds and plant reproduction we highly recommend Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth. This book will walk you thru each botanical classification and how and if seed is produced, as well as regional planting tips, what needs each species and variety has for vegetable and seed production, germination details and a whole lot more.
https://w9j002.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Elephant-Garlic.jpg?time=1730917219300300Stephen Scotthttps://w9j002.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Survey-Header.jpgStephen Scott2013-08-11 17:10:372024-04-30 17:34:01Where Does That Plant Come From? Botany 101
Alice Berner’s Cornbread
When we were looking for a classic sweet cornbread recipe to make in our Kamado, or ceramic charcoal-fired barbeque, we came across this one that is perfect for homegrown heirloom corn and White Sonora wheat and uses honey for the sweetener, instead of sugar.
This recipe comes from Alice Berner, who farms wheat in northern Montana without chemical fertilizers or pesticides. Alice developed this recipe using their local honey and the wheat that they farm. Even without white flour, this cornbread is light, moist and very flavorful with a sweetness that is warm and inviting. It is great with a roasted chicken like our Herb and Vegetable Roasted Chicken!
The Farmhouse Cookbook by Susan Herrmann Loomis supplies this recipe and is a treasure of simple, honest, delicious and yet surprisingly sophisticated recipes from farms all across America.
Recipe notes: We adapted this to our cast-iron cooking by preheating a round cast-iron deep frying pan in the oven before starting the recipe. Let the batter sit for a few minutes to thicken and mix a final time before pouring into the hot cast iron. You will get a wonderful crispy crust that just isn’t possible with standard baking pans.
Ingredients
Directions
Makes 8 – 10 servings.
White Sonora Wheat – Perfect Grain for the Home Gardener
History
White Sonora Wheat is enjoying a resurgence of popularity today all across the country, thanks to restoration efforts in Arizona and South Carolina. Introduced in the early 1700s by Jesuit Father Eusebio Francisco Kino to the Sonoran region of Mexico and Southern Arizona, White Sonora Wheat was the staple wheat for the western United States for almost 200 years, from the early 1700s to the 1900s. Starting in the early 1800s, California planted Sonoran wheat almost exclusively.
Its popularity was partly due to its resistance to Fusarium fungus, drought tolerance and its exceptionally sweet flavor for baking. It was also prized as a brewing grain, again for its flavor it gave the beer. During the Civil War, much Sonoran wheat was exported from Arizona and California to the eastern states making up for lost production due to the war.
Several factors contributed to its demise as the staple variety of wheat, from expanded cattle ranching in Mexico, the droughts and loss of water as a power source in the 1950s, the closing of many flour mills in Sonora in the mid-1960s, the Green Revolution with its hybridized wheat varieties and the switch from wheat production to vegetables as dams closed off the rivers in northern Mexico. By about 1975, there were no more commercial sources of White Sonora Wheat available.
Modern Interest
A lot of attention is being paid to wheat today, mainly due to the rise of gluten intolerance or celiac disease in which a person cannot digest the gluten part of wheat in their diet. For a more in-depth look at this issue, read my article “What’s Wrong with Our Wheat?”.
This is one of several areas where White Sonora Wheat really shines, as it is lower in gluten and higher in protein than today’s super-hybridized dwarf varieties. White Sonora Wheat is an extremely flavorful semi-hard white spring wheat that can be used for whole wheat flour in breads, cakes, pancakes, tortillas, and more. By many accounts this is the best flour for cakes, breads and tortillas ever. Because it is a white wheat, not a hard red wheat, it makes lighter products that have a sweeter and lighter flavor than those typically associated with whole wheat. The berries can also be boiled and used like rice or sprouted for wheat grass.
Another advantage the White Sonora Wheat has is a thinner, more paper-like husk, unlike other ancient cereal grains that require a mill to remove the husk and then can be ground. When we recently visited our grower, we were shown a large bag of the wheat that had just been harvested, with no other cleaning or sorting. You can see the video below, and see the weed seeds among the wheat, but also the very few seed heads that have any husks on them. The husks are removed by the mechanical action of the harvester, with the remaining ones rubbed off easily with a couple of fingers.
Processing and Cleaning
For the home gardener or small scale grower, this can be done fairly easily with some hand or kitchen tools. Depending on how much wheat you have to process, a kitchen food processor such as a Cuisinart fitted with the plastic dough blade can separate the husks from the grains. Pulse the blade to prevent from breaking too many of the grains and making it harder to separate the wheat from the husks or chaff. Fill the bowl up about 1/2 to 2/3 full and work in batches.
Another method is to use a 5 gallon bucket with a paint mixer attachment on a hand power drill, either the spiral or traditional cross or paddle type. Use a moderate speed and move the mixer around the bucket to create the friction that loosens the husks. You will need to stop and check the progress, but will quickly get a feel for how long to use the mixer.
White Sonora Wheat has a root structure much like a perennial prairie grass with long taproots and a web of smaller feeder roots, unlike the simple and shallow hybrid roots of today’s wheat. These longer taproots bring water and nutrients from deeper in the soils, making the plant less susceptible to moisture fluctuations. It also helps to open up the soil when the wheat is harvested as the root system decays, leaving behind a network of air and water passages. The wheat can thrive on marginal soils and actually produces better flavor on these soils, though production volume is lower than modern ones.
With all of its advantages, flavor and nutrition, ease of growth and harvest, along with being adapted to dry climates and improving the soil, it is easy to see why White Sonora Wheat is regaining its rightful popularity! It is usually planted as winter wheat in areas with mild winters and as spring wheat everywhere else.
Customer Processing Method
One of our customers graciously sent some photos showing how he processed the wheat after harvesting it. He started with 3 oz. and the end results are pretty impressive! Thanks to Paul from California for sharing these with us!
He starts with dumping the uncleaned wheat into a sack or heavy pillowcase – heads, chaff and remainder of stems – all of it.
Then using a large, lightweight wooden mallet, he applies physical friction to the bag and wheat, loosening the hulls. This isn’t a pounding action, and he tries not to hit through to the bottom of the sack, only gently thumping the top and going down about halfway into the wheat.
After a few minutes of friction, this is what the wheat berries look like – very much the same as what comes out of the combine, but with some stalks and stems in the mix.
Next is winnowing the wheat, or separating it from the husks or chaff. The basics of this process haven’t changed since it was written about in the Bible – use a breeze to blow the lighter chaff off of the heavier wheat berries. Paul said he had to repeat this step a couple of times, but got a really clean batch of wheat.
Here are the results! Pretty good harvest from a 3 oz. start. This is fairly typical return with wheat, it should be in the range of about 40:1, meaning if you plant 1 oz. your harvest should be around 40 oz.
Farm to School Program – Local Food for Our Schools
We are constantly talking about and promoting local, sustainable agriculture and the power of an individual’s choice. Many of the things that are going right in our world of agriculture, food, nutrition and health are the direct result of the intersection of local agriculture and an individual’s choice. One such example is the local Yavapai County Farm to School program that is in the beginning stages as a result of Paradigm Permaculture Coalition’s work.
Here is the press release for their work and first fundraiser, to be held this October 18th and 19th. We are pleased to share this with everyone as an invitation to help this particular program, but also to be inspired and invited to work within your local community to create something similar!
All About Basil
For the absolute best aroma and flavor, basil must be used fresh – the fresher the better. Luckily for us, it can be preserved through several different methods and brought out in the depths of winter to remind us of what summer was.
The easiest way is to freeze or dry the leaves. To freeze, just puree the leaves with a little water to a thick consistency and put into ice cube trays. When completely frozen, pop out into a gallon sized Zip-lock bag and store in the freezer until ready to use. They will brighten up soups, sauces and can be used to make a very tasty tapenade. Drying the leaves reduces the fresh aroma, but keeps most of the flavors for soups, stews and sauces. Make sure that they are dried to a brittle stage to avoid any moisture that can spoil the leaves in storage. Use sparingly when dried, as they rehydrate and can overpower milder sauces.
Yet another method to preserve those delicious summer-fresh flavors is to make pesto and freeze it, either in ice cube trays or in 6 – 8 ounce containers. It won’t have quite all of the punch of fresh pesto, but is mighty close when you are longing for the fresh flavors of summer! Read further for a traditional Pesto alla Genoves recipe, along with a video demonstration from Slow Food Terra Madre last October in Turin, Italy.
When you are absolutely overrun with basil, consider making herb-infused vinegar with basil, rosemary, thyme, marjoram or any combination for beautiful, thoughtful and highly tasty gifts. Just half fill a one gallon glass jar with air-dried herbs (leaves and stems, everything but the roots) and fill with almost boiling vinegar. High quality vinegar will give a better flavor; consider using apple cider or rice vinegar for great flavors. Cover loosely with a lid and let the herbs steep for at least one month or more. Taste occasionally to see when the flavors have developed to your taste, then strain the vinegar through cheesecloth and fill a decorative bottle.
Mention basil and immediately pesto comes to mind. Exactly when the combination of basil, cheese, garlic and pine nuts came to be is uncertain, but we do know that the Romans ate a paste of crushed cheese, garlic and herbs that was called moretum. The first recipe that we know of is from 1863 in La Cuciniera Genovese written by Giovanni Battista Ratto, so this delicacy has captivated us for quite some time!
Here is the classic Pesto alla Genovese followed by a video demonstration that we filmed at Slow Food Terra Madre in Turin, Italy in late October 2012.
Pesto alla Genovese – Classic Pesto
Directions:
With a pestle and mortar:
This is the time honored, traditional method that really does yield a superior flavor, if you have the mortar and pestle and the time.
With a food processor:
Purists will cry foul at this, but with care a food processor can give you very good results. It may take some experimenting to create a truly memorable pesto, but it is worth it.
Serves 4 – 6
To see how pesto is made in the traditional, handmade method, watch this video we shot at Slow Food Terra Madre last October.
The following best-practice rules and delicious recipe are courtesy of Farm Fresh Now!, a project of The Land Connection, an educational nonprofit that preserves farmland, trains new farmers, and connects people with great locally-grown foods. This series is made possible with generous support from the Illinois Department of Agriculture.
The best way to enjoy healthy, seasonal produce is to buy it from your local community farmer. To locate the farmers’ market or CSA nearest you, visit Local Harvest.
Basil Rules
Ahhh, basil! Even the word carries a whiff of its invigorating scent.
But it’s the aromatic leaves themselves that contain dozens of volatile essential oils. Their relative concentration is the difference between “regular” Genovese basil, Thai basil, Lemon basil, Holy Basil, Cinnamon Basil, African Basil and all the other basils you’ll find your local farmer growing.
There are a few rules to remember when buying and using basil.
Rule #1: Use only the freshest basil. The fresher it is, the better it is. The fragrance of basil is never as seductive as when it is first plucked from a live plant and eaten raw, as quickly as possible after plucking. This is why you should think about having a pot of basil of your own – on the kitchen window sill or in your back yard. The next best thing is to get basil from a local farmer at a Farmer’s Market or through a CSA.
Rule #2: Don’t cook basil – don’t even heat it up if you can help it. When adding basil to a pasta sauce or a pizza, do so only at the last minute, while tossing with the pasta or after the pizza has emerged from the oven. Basil pesto too, should always be used raw, never warmed up or cooked.
Rule #3: Stay away from knives. The cut edges of basil will blacken and the overall flavor will be diminished. Instead, simply use whole leaves or tear large leaves into small pieces with your hands before scattering them over a tomato salad, mashing them into a basil butter for corn on the cob, sprinkling on green bean salads, or roasted eggplant, zucchini, or peppers. For more summer fun, experiment with the many scented and colored basils that farmers are now bringing to market, including lemon, anise, Thai, cinnamon, and purple basils.
Rule #4: Use basil only in the summer. This relates back to Rule #1, bringing us full circle. Basil is the ultimate summer herb. Its rich perfume evokes warm sunny days and mouthwatering combinations with other summer vegetables – tomatoes, zucchini, peppers. Sure, you can get it year-round in the grocery store, but like tomatoes, basil tends to be insipid when grown in a greenhouse or flown in from California. Some things in life are definitely worth the wait. Basil is one of them.
Basil Caprese Salad
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Ingredients
Instructions
Seasonal Cook’s Notes:
Makes about 4 individual salads
Secrets of a Seasonal Cook
Article © Terra Brockman
Photo © Cara Cummings
Harvesting Dill
Homegrown dill is delicious, easy to grow and easy to harvest. We’ll show you how! One thing to remember – you want to harvest almost mature dill seeds, not the green ones or the completely dry ones. The green ones won’t have the flavor you are looking for and the dry ones will have already dropped most of their seeds, giving you much less seed than you bargained for!
Next, you might want to consider some accessories! Puppies make the job much more fun!
Seriously, though, harvesting the dill seeds couldn’t be much simpler, even with puppy assistance. What you are looking for is almost-dry seeds like this:
Simply snip off the almost-mature seed stalk,
and drop it into the box you’ve brought. Some of the more mature and dried seeds are on the bottom, having fallen off when the seed head or umbel hit the bottom of the box.
This is what the seeds and one of the smaller umbels look like:
Once you’ve collected all of the dill seed, store the box in a room where it can finish drying for a couple of weeks. Then bounce the seed heads on the bottom of the box a few times to get the rest of the seeds to drop, empty the box into a storage container and you have dill seed for the winter and next year!
Where Does That Plant Come From? Botany 101
As a seed company we get a lot of plant related questions over the course of the year. Many of these questions are from customers looking for varieties that do not normally grow from seed. To help you understand more about the different type of plants and how they reproduce, we want to give you a quick botany lesson.
Corms, bulbs, rhizomes, tubers, and tuberous roots are the primary food storage organs for the plants which grow from them, as well as the reproductive parts which can be divided or separated.
Here are a few examples-
Bulbs – Amaryllis, Iris, Tulip, Garlic
Corms – Crocus, Gladiolus
Tubers and Tuberous Roots – Cyclamen, Dahlia, Potatoes, Yams, Horseradish
Rhizomes – Canna, Mint, Rhubarb, Hops
Many of these examples are propagated or reproduced by dividing and/or cuttings. This requires the actual shipment of plant material, not seeds. Many varieties will produce seed but are usually grown by dividing or cuttings because it is faster and easier. Garlic can and will produce seed but is a very tedious process. Rosemary and Lavender will also grow from seed but are usually propagated by cuttings for quicker results. Potatoes are always propagated by planting whole or cut tubers, “the eyes” of the potato. They can and will produce potato seed balls but almost never grow true to type. The one famous exception is that of Luther Burbank, where he collected a potato seed ball, planted the seeds and got lucky with a viable new variety of potato, known today as the Burbank or Russet potato.
When you think about fruit trees and grape vines, they are hardly ever started from seed. Many varieties, like the apple, just don’t grow true to form from seed. If you planted all of the seeds from an apple, you would get as many different varieties of new apples as there were seeds that germinated! Thus the fine art of grafting was developed.
Asexual reproduction is the propagation of a plant by cuttings, division, layers, grafts or other vegetative means, rather than by seeds. This process is used to produce plants that will be identical to their parent. This is different than a Biennial plant that takes two growing seasons to complete its life cycle. They bloom and produce seeds in the second season of growth. Almost all Brassicas fall into this category like cabbage, kale, broccoli, cauliflower as well as onions.
So, if you are looking for a specific plant and can’t seem to find seed anywhere for it, than it probably falls into the category of asexual reproduction. To learn more about how and why asexual reproduction is used and the importance of planting breeding over the ages, study many of the early plant breeders.
To learn more about the botany of seeds and plant reproduction we highly recommend Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth. This book will walk you thru each botanical classification and how and if seed is produced, as well as regional planting tips, what needs each species and variety has for vegetable and seed production, germination details and a whole lot more.