Blog (Kansas City CSA)

Redfearn Farm CSA Week 2- Independence, MO and Lee’s Summit, MO

Week 2 of the season season includes, beginning in the bottom left of the photo (clockwise):

Spinach

Stir-fry mix

Green onions

Kale (Full shares only)

Mini heads of lettuce

Baby Bok Choy

Sugar snap peas snack pack (Full shares only)

Radishes

Arugula

We will also have turnip greens available, free for those who want them, while supplies last!!

Here are some storage and using/ cooking instructions for each item. All of the items in the CSA week 2 box should be stored in the refrigerator. The lettuce, arugula, stir-fry mix and spinach can be pre-washed, spun dry in a salad spinner and put in a plastic bag layered with some paper towels to absorb extra moisture. It is important that the greens are not stored wet.

Spinach (small): Store in plastic bag in refrigerator. Use fresh in salads or make a spinach wilted salad. Salad idea: top with sliced radishes and green onions, crumbled bacon, chopped hard boiled egg and blue cheese dressing. Top with fresh berries and a vinaigrette or poppy seed dressing. Cooked spinach is also great; try this Butter Braised Spinach! To preserve spinach: remove stems, wash spinach, boil water and boil spinach for 3 minutes, drain, chill in ice water, drain again and press out the moisture.

Stir-fry greens mix: Store in plastic bag in refrigerator, use within a couple days. Basic cooking instructions: wash and spin dry, slice or chop greens, heat oil (olive or vegetable) over medium-high heat. Gradually add chopped greens, stirring to just wilt. Season with salt and pepper. Variations: add chopped garlic when you add the greens. Top the cooked greens with a fried egg(s). Here’s a detailed sir-fried greens recipe.

Green Onions: Store in a plastic bag in refrigerator. Sliced green onions are great in salads or baked in quiche.

Kale: a hearty green, can be used raw in salad or smoothies or cooked, with eggs, pasta and others. Here is recipe for a Kale Frittata that we have enjoyed!

Baby Bok Choy: Here is a basic bok choy recipe with great instructions: Stir-fried Bok Choy

Sugar Snap Peas: EAT FRESH!

Radishes: Store in plastic bag in refrigerator. Crisp radishes in ice water. Sliced radishes add great flavor to salads. You can just eat them straight with butter and a sprinkle of salt. There are many variations of radish salads, here are a couple: Radish and Mint Salad and Smitten Kitchen’s chopped salad

Arugula: Salad green with a bite. Use fresh in salads. This is a favorite salad of ours: Roasted Sweet Potato and Arugula Salad

Looking ahead to next week we should have more of the same plus sugar snap peas and kale for all share sizes (if the weather cooperates)

Eggs will be for sale on CSA pick-up days: $4/ dozen.

Not a member but jealous for all this great all-natural produce? We’ve still got some shares available. Join the CSA today and get in on the goodness!

Spinach and Bacon Crustless Quiche

Spinach is in season at Where the Redfearn Grows Natural Farms here in Independence, Missouri and one of my favorite dishes to make with spinach is quiche. I didn’t have time to make the crust because it was our first CSA pickup day, so we had to settle for a crustless quiche. But, we didn’t miss the crust at all! In fact it was better than my usual spinach quiche.

Spinach and Bacon Crustless Quiche

8 oz bacon, half of a typical package

8 to 12 oz. fresh spinach

4 to 6 green onions, white and green parts, thinly sliced

2 to 3 cloves garlic, chopped (optional)

6 eggs

1 1/2cup cottage cheese (about 12 oz.)

1 cup sour cream

1/2 cup grated parmesan

1/4 cup flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

1. Preheat oven to 325F. Grease a 9″ x 9′ pan with butter.

2. On the stovetop in a skillet, cook the bacon until crisp. Remove bacon and drain on paper towels, crumble or chop into small pieces. Pour out all but 1 to 2 Tablespoons of the bacon grease. Reserve the pan with grease for cooking the spinach.

3. Prepare the spinach by removing the stems from the leaves.

Then thoroughly wash and dry the spinach in a salad spinner. and chop into small pieces.

4. Cook the spinach in the bacon grease until wilted and tender, then add green onions and optional chopped garlic, season with salt and pepper if desired. Remove from heat and set aside. Alternatively, if you have leftover Butter-braised spinach, use that instead.

5. Using a food processor or blender, blend the eggs, cottage cheese, sour cream, parmesan cheese, flour and salt and pepper until smooth. Add the shredded cheddar cheese and pulse once, to mix in.

6. Distribute the cooked spinach mixture and crumbled bacon on the bottom of the baking pan, pour in the egg mixture and stir gently with a fork to distribute the spinach and bacon.

7. Place in the 325F oven and bake for about 40 minutes, until the quiche is set and slightly puffed.

Enjoy!

Stir-fried Mixed Greens

We are harvesting mixed Stir-Fry Greens at Where the Redfearn Grows Natural Farms this week for the first week of the CSA. This colorful Stir-Fry Greens mix is a mixture of Bok Choy, Napa Cabbage, several varieties of Mustard Greens and probably some other greens. I fixed this dish for my own family tonight in addition to other Chinese inspired dishes, although the stir-fried greens would go with nearly any meal.

Stir Fried Mixed Greens

8 to 12 oz. small greens

2 to 3 cloves garlic, chopped

pinch red pepper flakes (optional)

Oil

Variation: Top the cooked greens with fried eggs for a nutritious breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Variation: At the end, add soy sauce, oyster sauce or other asian sauce.

First, wash and dry the greens in a salad spinner, if you have one. I had to pull out a few blades of grass out of my harvest of greens.

Then, I chopped the all the greens on my huge cutting board, making sure I didn’t leave any long pieces of stem. I also chopped a couple cloves of garlic.

Get everything ready before you start cooking, because it goes fast. Heat a couple tablespoons of neutral-flavored oil (I used canola) over very high heat until the oil is shimmery (but not quite smoking), it is important for the oil to be very hot before you add the greens. Add the chopped garlic (and red pepper flakes) and IMMEDIATELY start adding the greens, to avoid burning the garlic. You might need to add the greens in a couple batches and stir the greens until JUST wilted (or not quite wilted, because it continues to cook). Add salt to taste, and sauce if desired. Serve immediately.

Delicious stir-fried mixed greens from your organically grown produce!

Redfearn Farm CSA Week 1- Independence, MO and Lee’s Summit, MO

Week 1 of the 2014 CSA season has arrived! The early weeks of the CSA will have an abundance of leafy green vegetables, like salad greens, lettuces, spinach, and greens for cooking. The CSA shares normally do not include farm fresh eggs, but we wanted to add eggs to the shares this first week to start the season well! Here is the bounty CSA members receive:

Free Range Chicken Eggs, Full share- 1 dozen, Partial share- 1/2 dozen

Spinach (overwintered), best for cooking

Radishes, multi-colored

Stir-fry greens mix– Full Share Only

Green onions

Spinach (small), for salads

Arugula

We would recommend that you use your arugula and stir-fry greens mix (for full shares) first, because they have a shorter storage life. If you have never cooked fresh spinach, the larger spinach would be a great time to start. Cooked spinach is excellent and is a great way to consume a larger quantity of the healthful vegetable.

Here are some storage and using/ cooking instructions for each item. All of the items in the CSA week 1 box should be stored in the refrigerator.

Eggs: Store in refrigerator. Fried, Hard-boiled, cooked into an omelet or a quiche are some of the best ways to enjoy farm fresh eggs. Or combine with your spinach for spinach quiche, or spinach stuffed omelets.

Spinach (overwintered): Store, unwashed in loosely closed produce bag in refrigerator. This (larger) spinach is best cooked. Try this Butter Braised Spinach.

Radishes: Store in plastic bag in refrigerator. Crisp radishes in ice water. Sliced radishes add great flavor to salads.

Green Onions: Store in plastic bag in refrigerator. Sliced green onions are great in salads or baked in quiche.

Arugula: Salad green with a bite. Use fresh in salads.

Looking ahead to next week: spinach, arugula, radishes, green onions, baby bok choy, head lettuce?

Eggs will be for sale on CSA pick-up days: $4/ dozen.

Not a member but jealous for all this great all-natural produce? We’ve still got some shares available. Join the CSA today and get in on the goodness!

Mid-May Vegetable Frost Damage at the Redfearn Farm CSA in Independence, MO

Well, it could have been worse. We were fortunate that most of our frost sensitive plants were still in the high tunnel (unheated greenhouse). The forecast was for a low of 39 degrees but we hit 32 at the Redfearn Farm in Independence, MO this morning, May 16, 2014. One of those times when procrastination saves the day! I had planned to plant most of the tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers last weekend because we should be safe at this point, but ran out of time and then decided to hold off when I saw the forecast, just in case. According to the USDA, the average date of last frost for Kansas City, Missouri is April 15. There is certainly a chance of vegetable frost damage after April 15 in the Kansas City area, so I definitely don’t plant these plants until at least after May1, but generally May 15 is considered extremely safe in Kansas City.

So what vegetables had frost damage? We lost about 75 cucumber plants as well as the first planting of green beans to frost damage. I’m not sure about the Fennel bulbs yet. The potatoes were all growing nicely, and will probably be set back quite a bit. Frost should not have killed the potatoes outright, but their green foliage above ground will die, reducing and delaying the harvest.

The good news is, most of the crops in the ground do not suffer vegetable frost damage because they are frost tolerant early season crops. So, Redfearn Farm CSA members, don’t despair; we’ve still got a lot to look forward to in the coming weeks. Spinach, kale, broccoli, kohlrabi, cabbage, arugula, lettuce, baby salad greens, green onions, leeks, and sugar snap peas will be fine (though some of these have not reached harvestable size yet because of the cool stretch in early spring).

Some vegetables are in jeopardy: radishes, Turnips, and Fennel. We’ll see how they respond as the day warms up.

Those of you with gardens out there, I hope you didn’t have too many of the frost sensitive tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and eggplants outside. If you did, I hope you had a bucket over them!

In this day of hyper-control, where we control our surroundings with climate control through web-enabled thermostats and have information at our fingertips 24-7, and Amazon Prime brings nearly any product to our door in two days, it’s easy to think that we are masters of our own destiny. But when you garden or farm, you realize how little is actually within your control. Even with all the advancements we’ve made technologically, weather is outside of our hands–God’s great equalizer, if you will. “He sends the rain [or the frost or the lack of rain] on the righteous and the unrighteous.” I think that’s part of what I love about farming and being close to the land. You can only trust in yourself so far, but you are reminded on a daily basis that your destiny is not squarely riding on your own shoulders.

Some would call it Chance or Fate; I would call it the Providence of God, but so much of our lives (besides farming) is beyond our direct control. Think of your own success in school or work. Did you earn your own genes or intellect? Did you choose your family upbringing and the character traits you learned/inherited? Did you choose the country in which you were born and the opportunities that were in your path for education, employment, or even political or religious instruction and ideals? In America, we like to think we are self-made men and women. This is the land of idealistic individualism where we convince ourselves that we are the masters of our fate. But are we really?

Though I’m waxing philosophical here, I really do think that there is Truth to be gained from working the land, watching the seasons, and taking the good and the bad that we encounter. It’s humbling to see your work ruined by forces outside of your control. When I think of farmers I know, most of them are pretty humble people, probably because of all of these types of experiences. We could all learn a thing or two from them (I’m still a transitioning farmer, so don’t gage farmer’s humility from me:)).

Our CSA members, by sharing in the risk of farming get a chance to experience this sense of humility before forces greater than themselves.

We’re in this together and unfortunately this turn of events will delay the enjoyment of some of our favorite crops as well as probably cut down on the selection for the first few weeks, but God-willing we’ll bounce back and enjoy a big harvest later in the season.

Thanks for your understanding and for learning these lessons with us!

Butter-Braised Spinach Recipe CSA

Our family is getting ready for the CSA season to begin on our farm, so that requires some recipe testing by the cook of the family (aka, the Farmer’s wife). We have some spinach that we planted in the fall, covered with straw and it survived the winter and began growing again in the spring. Our family has been having spinach salads, and tons of this butter-braised spinach. The butter-braised spinach can also be used in spinach quiche, spinach omelets and spinach balls.

This spinach recipe works well for using the spinach leaves that are too tough to put in spinach salad. I harvested the largest spinach leaves I could find, and the finished dish was tender and silky smooth.

Butter-Braised Spinach

2 to 4 T butter, divided

8 to 16 oz. fresh spinach, any size

Salt and Pepper to taste

Variations: add chopped garlic to the pan when the spinach is added; add heavy cream to the cooked spinach after uncovering and then stir to coat

Here’s my heaping bowl of large spinach. The spinach leaves had thick stems, so I removed them by folding the leaves in half and pulling off the tough stem. If you have smaller, younger spinach leaves with thin stems I would either leave the stems on and chop with the rest of the leaves or cut the stems off at the base of the leaves.

Here’s my pile of stems (to be composted) and the spinach leaves.

Then, I wash the spinach thoroughly in my trusty salad spinner and spun it mostly dry.

I like to chop my spinach up pretty small, into approximately 1″ pieces, by piling the spinach onto my huge cutting board and slicing one direction about 1″ apart and then perpendicular slices about 1″ apart. You don’t have to cut the spinach pieces that small, but I have found my children eat more cooked spinach when it is chopped well, so that’s what I do!

To cook the spinach, it is best to use a frying pan with sides. Heat 1 to 2 T of the butter in the pan over medium heat until melted, then gradually add the chopped spinach, stirring to coat with butter and allowing the spinach to wilt down between additions (covering the pan makes it go faster); after all the spinach has been added, turn down the heat to medium-low and cover and allow to cook for 3 to 4 minutes until the spinach is very tender, stirring a couple of times. The spinach shrinks a lot during cooking! Uncover the pan and stir in an additional 1 or 2 T butter to add a silkiness to the dish and salt and pepper to taste. Note: If you are cooking young tender spinach, don’t cover the pan, just gradually toss the spinach into the hot butter until it wilts, and season to taste.

The spinach as it is added to the pan:

The spinach shrinks a lot during cooking:

The finished butter-braised spinach dish is a wonderful side dish to pasta, meat or nearly any main dish. And leftovers, if any, are amazing in egg dishes or mixed into pasta.

I hope you are looking forward to the first week of the CSA next week when you can try out this recipe on your own bunch of spinach!

Want to get in on the spinach action and all the other home-grown goodness. There are still a few shares available. CLICK HERE to learn more.

Independence, MO CSA Shares and Discount Available!

Healthy Organic Vegetables on the Wooden Background

If you haven’t met us, we’re the Redfearn’s and we would like to offer our Blue Springs, Grain Valley, and Independence neighbors a fantastic Independence, MO CSA opportunity! Our farm is in Independence, MO just north of Blue Springs, MO on hwy 7. We are proud to be the most conveniently located all-natural farm for Blue Springs, Grain Valley, and Independence residents. We offer a dazzling assortment of seasonal vegetables in each week’s box of produce (look for your favorites in the list below).

Our family farm is committed to growing the highest quality and healthiest produce we can grow without the use of chemical pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers. Read more about our natural growing practices here. If you have been looking for ways to develop a more healthy diet, we still have some openings in our vegetable CSA coop and there is a coupon code at the end of this post good for $40 off your subscription! By joining Where the Redfearn Grows Natural Farms Independence, MO CSA, you’ll receive a box of vegetables every week for 24 weeks. Prices start as low as $17 per week with two share sizes to choose from. The season begins the week of May 19 and spaces are filling up fast, so don’t delay! Sign up Here!

Would you like to know what we are growing for you in the CSA? We’ve got over ten varieties of tomatoes and peppers including green, yellow, orange, red and purple bell peppers and red, yellow, pink, orange, and purple tomatoes both heirloom and some choice hybrids. We have hot peppers to: anaheim, jalapeño, poblano, hot hungarian wax, habanero, and chiles. We’ve got the best green beans you’ll ever taste and we have Italian and Asian eggplants, four types of cucumbers, swiss chard, fennel bulbs and tons of fresh herbs. We’ve got five varieties of new potatoes, sugar snap peas, two types of leeks, three varieties of kale, four types of cabbage, 5 varieties of lettuce, arugula, mixed baby salad greens, bok choy, 3 varieties of carrots, four varieties of radishes, kohlrabi, broccoli, tons of onions and garlic, and spinach already in the ground and that’s not all.

Click here to view an interactive map showing both the Independence, MO CSA farm and the optional Lee’s Summit CSA pickup location. Read on to learn about an exclusive discount available for a limited time!

Our CSA is a 24 week subscription service that begins in mid-May and goes to the end of October. Our vegetables are all grown without chemical pesticides, fertilizers, or herbicides through USDA organic approved practices. Our plant seed is all certified GMO free and we buy organic seed whenever possible. We harvest the day of pickup so you can be assured your seasonal box of produce is fresher than anything you can find at the store! We have two share sizes to choose from as well as discounts for extra work shifts at the farm.

Besides the vegetable CSA, we also have free range eggs for sale, so keep us in mind for your egg needs as well!

Won’t you consider letting us be your farmers, Jackson County?

Join our Independence, MO CSA and use the promo code: CSANow to get $40 off your subscription! Sign up for the CSA today! Your weekly box of gourmet produce is only days away!

Green Herons at the Redfearn Farm in Independence, MO

We at Where the Redfearn Grows Natural Farms is committed to preserving wildlife habitat and preventing pollution to area streams and ponds. Our son, Josiah, loves to watch birds! He goes on frequent bird walks an has learned a great deal about dozens of species that call our farm home. We thought we’d post some of his descriptions of these native missouri species from time to time. Here is a paragraph he wrote about the Green Herons he frequently sees in our pond.

Green Herons

by Josiah Redfearn

Green Herons are a small type of heron, smaller than Great Blue Herons. Green Herons live in marshy areas and ponds with lots of weeds, like cattails. Green Herons have blueish green wings with a darker blue-green head with vertical white strips on its rusty breast. When upset, Green Herons raise their feathers on the top of their head to make a sort of crest. It’s call is a sharp “Caa! Caa!”

Pictures by Grandpa Lentz

Heroic Weeding at CSA Workday in Independence, MO

Weeding Peas in Independence, MO CSA Farm

This weekend, we saw firsthand what “Community” means in regards to Community Supported Agriculture. As part of our CSA membership, besides receiving heaping boxes of fresh, naturally grown produce each week, CSA members have the opportunity to take part in regularly scheduled CSA workdays. Basic CSA membership include a commitment to three, 4-hour work shifts chosen from scores of available time slots throughout the growing season. Besides this, we occasionally make calls for emergency help from any members or friends available to help. This weekend we had just such an emergency CSA workday.

The weeds, though small, were threatening to overtake some of our earliest crops of spinach, arugula, kale, cabbage, broccoli, sugar snap peas, lettuce, Chinese Cabbage, garlic, radishes, and kohlrabi. With all the frenzy of spring planting ahead of us, including greenhouse plantings of the first bell peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers and continuing preparations for bulk plantings of the much beloved summer crops, we were afraid that we would not do justice to the impending weed problem. So, we called for the help of any and all available for an emergency “Save that Spinach CSA Workday”!

Working alongside many of you was a humbling experience. We appreciated so many CSA members taking time out of their weekend in some of the most beautiful weather of the year to come out there and pull/hoe/burn weeds with us! We were reminded that Where the Redfearn Grows Natural Farms is not just a family farm in Independence, MO, it is a community farm where friends from Lee’s Summit, Blue Springs, Grain Valley, Kansas City, Independence and Liberty can meet up in Independence, MO and work toward a common goal: “Together we’ll change the way you eat”

We hope that you all enjoyed your time with us and with each other as much as we enjoyed the camaraderie as we cultivated the soil on a beautiful spring day. Hopefully everyone slept well that night and didn’t wake up too sore the next day!

These horse pastures turned intensively planted organic vegetable fields have a lot of weed seeds left in the soil and we are determined to root them out little by little! When you don’t use Roundup, weeds are a lot bigger problem than they could be, but we remain committed to natural methods for growing the healthiest food for our family and yours.

If you haven’t yet signed up for the CSA, we still have a few shares left. If you’ve been considering making the change to all-natural, local produce through our CSA, we encourage you to make the leap before our slots are full. We’re confident you will not regret the decision to join the community at Where the Redfearn Grows Natural Farms.

Aronia Berries, Elderberries, and Black Currants in Independence, MO

We recently planted over 400 native berry, fruit and nut trees and shrubs at Where the Redfearn Grows Natural Farms in Independence, MO. Although our farm focusses on the fresh vegetable CSA program as our centerpiece enterprise, we also offer a wide array of products including free range eggs and raw honey. In coming years we’ll also offer berries and fruits for sale from our berry patches and orchards. We have blackberries and raspberries in the ground along with apricots, plums, cherries, pears and ten varieties of apples. In addition to that, we are adding some super foods to the list: aronia berries, elderberrries, and black currants which all are native to Missouri.

Our farm has a creek running through it. The creek already makes an excellent habitat for birds*. We wanted to add some of these shrubs and trees to make it an even better habitat, help control erosion along the stream as well as someday offer some unusual and incredibly healthy berries for sale.

We already had some wild elderberries growing on the property and Sheri used them to make a fabulous syrup that the kids LOVE on their pancakes as well as the best jam she’s ever made: peach-elderberry! We’re running low on both, so we can’t wait until our elderberries are ready to harvest and we’re looking forward even more to when these new aronia berries, elderberries, and black currants are producing in a few years.

In addition to the aronia berries, elderberries, and black currants, we also planted serviceberry, wild black cherry, wild plum, persimmon, hickory, pecan and white oak trees. It will be years before we or the birds and squirrels enjoy anything from these native species, but we look forward to them just the same. It’s fun to steward a property in such a way as to make it more productive while at the same time, insuring that wildlife flourish.

We can do this only because of our commitment to natural growing practices without the use of chemical pesticides or herbicides that could harm us, our customers who share in the harvest or the many species that call our farm home.

* Our son Josiah goes on bird walks on the property nearly every day and keeps a running list of the many species he sees each year. If you would be interested in going on a guided bird walk with our family, let us know. We’d love to share and Josiah can teach you a ton about birds!