Lima Beans with Lemon and Parmesan

I thought I didn't like Lima Beans..until now! When I was a kid my mom used to serve lima beans occassionally with dinner, they were usually soggy, gross things from a can or mixed in a box of frozen vegetables!

I had never had fresh lima beans, but today everything changed. A few weeks ago I planted a row of lima beans at the farm because at some point someone said if I did, they would buy them. I've long forgotten who that was, but I decided it would be a fine thing to plant as they are legumes and legumes add nitrogen to the soil. So in the ground they went.

They grew very nicely and about the only difficult part is getting those little beans out of the pods!

They didn't look like lima beans when I shelled them

I've had a couple of pounds sitting in the cupboard for several weeks now, procrastinating on cooking them. Finally I decided today was the day. I wanted to do something different, so after a couple of searches on the internet I found this recipe and boy is it good! Even Mike liked them, although he informed me several times as he was eating his second plate full, that he hates lima beans!

I do believe a big part of how good these taste was using fresh lima beans, so don't blame me if you use canned and get something soggy!

If you do use fresh beans, then you will need to get them ready before you mix up this recipe. We put our beans in a pot 1 to 3 ratio on beans to water, eg. 1 cup beans needs 3 cups water. Bring the water to boiling and then let the beans sit for 1-2 hours.

After they had soaked they looked more like what I expected to see and they were much larger!

Then cook them for an additional 30-40 minutes at a low heat with a little salt and butter added to the water.

I ate the beans still warm in the recipe and thought it was great. Haven't tried them cold, so will get back to you on that!

Enjoy!

Lemony Lima Beans with Parmesan

1 cup fresh lima beans cooked
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1-2 tsp butter
1-2 fresh lemons
1-2 tbsp parmesan
Salt to taste

I like to add my ingredients to taste, so I add a little of each seasoning at a time, taste it, then modify as needed. I really liked the lemon on the beans, so I added much more than the original recipe called for.

I found this recipe on the Martha Stewart website at:  http://www.marthastewart.com/315512/lemony-lima-beans-with-parmesan

I hope you enjoy this as much as we did!

We got a Tiny House!

A very needed structure has arrived at Skinny Lane Farm - a Tiny House! We now have a place to get out of the sun, use a REAL toilet and store our vegetables after harvest. We have some work to do to make it just right, but here is the house being delivered. Now the most important question - what color should we paint it! I'm thinking burnt orange and a longhorn on the back!

 The house arriving on a trailer

 Being unloaded - this was a lot more work than I realized!

 Once they got the house in the right spot it had to be leveled

The house is approximately 200 square feet

 The tiny house has a tiny living room

 A tiny kitchen

 And a full size bathroom!

Ahhh...no more hiding behind trees!



How to Process a Chicken

As the summer break winds to an end, we decided to send Farmer Anna off with a chicken to remember Skinny Lane Farm by...  Only catch - she had to help process the bird!  So for those who are curious about how that get's done, here is a little blog that describes the process.

FIRST:

Gather your equipment! The most important thing is some sharp knives, a pot for scalding water and a means to heat it, something to hang the chicken with (in our case, wire) and some sanitizer and cutting boards so that you can keep things clean!

You also have to catch a couple of chickens and isolate them the night before.  It's easier to clean the birds if they have not eaten for about 24 hours prior to processing...

We had chosen two of our older birds for processing...  One for Farmer Anna and one for our soup pot!

PROCESSING DAY

When we arrived and brought out the chickens we had put aside, we found a tree to setup our tables, close to plenty of water from a hose and a nice branch for hanging the birds.

Farmer Anna and I are now ready to get on with the processing!

First things first, we hung the bird from the tree - hanging them like this calms them down and they don't fuss too much.  We don't use a "killing cone" as we don't do a lot of these, but the process is the same.

Once the bird has calmed down, you simply find the major artery in the neck, and cut the vein.

It's a pretty quick and painless process and the chicken bleeds out after only a few minutes.  And now we are ready for the next step!

Once we take the chicken down from the tree, we remove the head with a very sharp knife!  We take the chicken over to the pot of scalding water (about 130 degrees) and dunk the bird and get it good and wet as this helps loosen the feathers...  We then spend about 10-15 minutes plucking all the feathers off!

Once the feathers are off, the bird starts looking like something from the store, but we are not done.  Next you slit the skin by the neck and get the "crop" out...  It's a white bag that sometimes has food in it, but you just pull it out...  You do the same on the other end, cutting off the tail bone and the part under it where the eggs come out... (there's a word for that, but it escapes me... :-))  You then open up the body cavity being very careful not to cut the intestines and pull it all out.  If your lucky, you may even find an egg or two.  You then carefully clean out the body cavity, scrape out the lungs and clean it all the way out to the neck, making sure everything is gone.  When complete, it looks like this!

When you have it done, put it in some ice water for 30 minutes or so, and then bag it up in the fridge for about 48 hours as the chicken needs to sit before you freeze it or eat it...

Thanks Farmer Anna for a great summer and enjoy the chicken!!

Herbed Summer Squash and Potato Torte with Parmesan

I have had alot of zucchini and yellow squash from the garden! Every week those plants continue to give me several pounds of squash, we have had zucchini bread, zucchini saute, squash soup, and we have lots of zucchini and squash frozen in the freezer!

I was looking for a new recipe to use some squash and came across a great recipe on Epicurious from a 2001 issue of Bon Appetit. I was having a dinner party and wanted to cook something fancy using vegetables from the farm and this fit the bill. You can use either zucchini or yellow squash. I chose zucchini since I had already made a soup with yellow squash.

Here's the recipe, I made this early in the day then reheated it at dinner and it was great, we ate it two more times and each time we reheated it, it just got better!

Herbed Summer Squash and Potato Torte with Parmesan

• 1 bunch green onions, thinly sliced
• 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 3/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled, cut into 1/8-inch-thick rounds
• 12 ounces yellow crookneck squash, cut into 1/8-inch-thick rounds
• 6 teaspoons olive oil

Preheat oven to 375°F. Butter two 8-inch-diameter cake pans. Set aside 1/4 cup sliced green onions. Toss remaining green onions, cheese, flour, thyme, salt and pepper in medium bowl to blend.

Layer 1/6 of potatoes in concentric circles in bottom of 1 prepared pan, overlapping slightly. Layer 1/4 of squash in concentric circles atop potatoes. Drizzle with 1 teaspoon oil. Sprinkle with 1/6 of cheese mixture. Repeat with 1/6 of potatoes, then 1/4 of squash and 1 teaspoon oil. Sprinkle with 1/6 of cheese mixture. Top with 1/6 of potatoes. Drizzle with 1 teaspoon oil. Sprinkle with 1/6 of cheese mixture and press gently to flatten. Repeat procedure with second cake pan and remaining potatoes, squash, oil, and cheese mixture.

Cover pans with foil. Bake until potatoes are almost tender, about 40 minutes. Remove foil; bake uncovered until tortes begin to brown and potatoes are tender, about 25 minutes longer. (Can be made 6 hours ahead. Cool. Cover with foil and chill. Rewarm, covered with foil, in 350°F oven until heated through, about 30 minutes.)

Cut each torte into wedges. Sprinkle wedges with 1/4 cup green onions; serve.

YUM!