{"id":2220,"date":"2014-11-21T19:21:27","date_gmt":"2014-11-21T23:21:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.orchardhillfarm.ca\/?p=2220"},"modified":"2014-11-25T01:44:38","modified_gmt":"2014-11-25T05:44:38","slug":"picking-field-corn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.orchardhillfarm.ca\/?p=2220","title":{"rendered":"Picking Field Corn"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Giant<\/a>
Giant Winter Kohlrabi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Picking<\/a>
Picking Kale in the Snow!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We are getting ready for the 3rd Fall CSA Pick-Up. Fortunately we spent the better part of last week digging root crops and washing them before instant winter descended! We left some crops in the field and wonder if they will survive under the snow. We had winter kohlrabi this year that grew to be giant in size. Last year I thought it was a bit small and planted it earlier this year. Perhaps I went too far in the other direction. I was able to harvest kale out of the snow and it looks fine. We picked our first greens from the hoop house today. I am always amazed \u00a0by how the small greens can grow so nicely in an unheated hoop house. It seems so special to be able to pick them when there is snow outside.<\/p>\n

\"Bill<\/a>
Bill with his Ears of Corn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Heading<\/a>
Heading Up with the Afternoon’s Picking<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I decided to try and grow some field corn for cornmeal in our CSA corn plot. I found a source of white open pollenated organic seed. Ken heard of growing white corn because if it cross pollenates with GMO corn the kernels would show up as yellow corn. \u00a0I ended up with more seed than I had asked for initially and as a result Ken decided to plant a bigger block of corn. We had to wait for it to dry down enough before we picked it and now the snow has come. Jim Conrad has been building a little corn crib to hold the cobs. This afternoon we headed down to start the picking job. It wasn’t too bad with five of us, but we only got about half of the plot picked when the sun was starting to go down. Jim is hoping for some cornbread. We will see what we can do about that once it dries down some more so that we can grind it in our mill powered by the horse treadmill.<\/p>\n

Ecological Farmer’s of Ontario is having a conference the beginning of December and they were requesting 8×8 cake recipes and asked me for my parsnip cake. I have copied the recipe here.<\/p>\n

Parsnip<\/span>\u00a0Cake<\/span>\u00a0Recipe\u00a0<\/b>for 8 x 8 inch pan from the kitchen of Martha Laing<\/div>\n
1 cup granulated sugar<\/div>\n
1 cup flour<\/div>\n
1\/2 teaspoon fine sea salt<\/div>\n
1 1\/2 teaspoon baking powder<\/div>\n
1 tsp cinnamon<\/div>\n
1 tsp ginger<\/div>\n
3\/4 cup sunflower oil<\/div>\n
2 eggs<\/div>\n
1 1\/2 cups grated\u00a0parsnips<\/span><\/div>\n
1\/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts<\/div>\n
1\/4 cup crystallized ginger<\/div>\n
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.<\/div>\n
Combine sugar, flour, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger; beat in oil until mixture is light in colour, about 3 minutes.<\/div>\n
Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating for about 30 seconds after each addition. Add\u00a0parsnips<\/span>, mixing thoroughly.<\/div>\n
Spread in well-greased and floured 8 x 8 inch baking dish. Bake for 50 – 55 minutes or until tester inserted in centre comes out clean. Let cool in pan before spreading with Cream Cheese Frosting.<\/div>\n
* Recipe can be doubled for a 9 x 13 inch pan recipe. It can also be doubled and divided between 3 – 9 inch round\u00a0cake<\/span>\u00a0pans for a layered\u00a0cake<\/span>. For a fancy\u00a0cake<\/span>, I put caramelized apples between the layers and add crystallized ginger pieces to the cream cheese icing.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Cream Cheese Icing\u00a0<\/b>for 8 x8 inch pan<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
8 oz cream cheese, softened<\/div>\n
1\/2 \u00a0cup butter, softened<\/div>\n
1 cup icing sugar, sifted<\/div>\n
Milk<\/div>\n
In mixing bowl, beat together cream cheese and butter, add enough milk to make fluffy spreadable consistency.\u00a0 Double recipe for layer\u00a0cake<\/span>.<\/div>\n
Caramelized Apples\u00a0<\/b>for filling between layers of fancy\u00a0cake<\/span><\/div>\n
6 tablespoons butter<\/div>\n
1\/3 cup sugar<\/div>\n
2 pounds Golden Delicious or Honey Crisp apples(or other firm apple variety), peeled cored, cut into 1\/2 inch slices.<\/div>\n
2\/3 cup whipping cream<\/div>\n
Melt butter in large skillet over medium heat; cover with sugar. Stir until sugar begins to melt, about 1 minute. Add apples.\u00a0 Cook until apples are brown and tender and juices form, about 10 – 15 minutes. Add cream and simmer until sauce thickens, about 5 minutes. Cool before assembling\u00a0cake.<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
\"Jim<\/a>
Jim Picking Field Corn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/a><\/div>\n
\"Clay<\/a>
Clay Moving the Wagon Ahead<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Grayden<\/a>
Grayden Picking Field Corn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  We are getting ready for the 3rd Fall CSA Pick-Up. Fortunately we spent the better part of last week digging root crops and washing them before instant winter descended! We left some crops in the field and wonder if they will survive under the snow. We had winter kohlrabi this year that grew to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[63,64,100,56,91,83,58,57,59,65,69,66,67,61],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.orchardhillfarm.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2220"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.orchardhillfarm.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.orchardhillfarm.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.orchardhillfarm.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.orchardhillfarm.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2220"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.orchardhillfarm.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2235,"href":"http:\/\/www.orchardhillfarm.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2220\/revisions\/2235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.orchardhillfarm.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.orchardhillfarm.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.orchardhillfarm.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}