Wildtree & Simmons Farms - Happy Anniversary!

Hanging out tonight with Wildtree's founder Leslie Montie. 

The message; knowing our customers and their needs. She went into detail about Wildtree's commitment to quality organic food you can trust.

Leslie traveled over a year ago to Cincinnati from RI and shared her company with Simmons Farms. Once again tonight I got to talk with her about the people we serve and what they want and need when it comes to food and health. We are proud to continue working with Wildtree and what they stand for.

She asked about YOU. Simmons Farms is PROUD to be a part of this community. We value you and your families. We are committed to bring to you honest food, and keeping families together at the dinner table. If you have food concerns or questions, please contact us! We are happy to help!

Simple. Healthy. Dinner. Meal Plan Bundles

Every month you can order a different Simple Healthy Dinner Meal Plan bundle.

Each Simple Healthy Dinner bundle contains:

• 8 Amazing yet simple, complete recipes, all under 600 calories.
• Step by step directions for each recipe with pictures.
• All of the Wildtree products to make all 8 recipes.
• A grocery list of the meat/proteins and produce needed to complete the recipes.
• The nutrition information for each recipe is also included.

Wildtree Simple Healthy Dinner Plans are very accommodating for people with food sensitivities and special dietary needs. The Wildtree Simple Healthy Dinner recipes are flexible. Swap out any ingredients you don’t like, can’t eat, or want to avoid. If you need help coming up with suitable substitutions please contact me.

Each of the Wildtree dinner recipes is simple, healthy, and easy to make. With pictures of each of the step by step directions Wildtree dinner meal plans are doable for even kitchen beginners. Wildtree’s non-gmo products result in delicious food your whole family will enjoy.

Simple Healthy Dinner Meal Plans are different from meal prep workshops because each meal is assembled the night of cooking with fresh ingredients.

If you’d rather prep several meals at once to freeze for later check out our meal prep workshops.

Did you know that: The average family’s eating habits over the course of a week generally look like:

• 1-2 days a week, families are going out to eat, spending way too much for generally unhealthy food, just because it is convenient!
• 2 days a week families are eating leftovers, or taking the easy way out with plain old grilled cheese or ramen noodles.
• Only 3-4 days a week are families taking the time to sit together and have a home cooked meal.

In the article found at https://www.human.cornell.edu/pam/outreach/upload/Family-Mealtimes-2.pdf which references twenty other researches on the matter Cornell University states that a major predictor of a family's success is mealtime with their families!

It should be easier for busy families to eat good, simple, healthy, dinners,together! So we created this new program called Simple Healthy Dinners. 

To order this month’s current Simple Healthy Dinner plan, go to http://www.mywildtree.com/SimmonsFarms

Flowering Farm

     Oh how I love this time of year! I've been out walking our farm and just had to take some photos of a few of our plants in bloom.

One of our Red Bud trees:

 

Apple trees:

A lot is blooming along the the creek and around the house A whirlpool formed before the dam, spinning beautifully in the water. Our dogs loves to play in the creek. It's also a favorite past-time of the families. There's evidence of raccoon feeding along the creek, deer rubbing their antlers, the birds are leaving nests all along the wood line, and turkey performing in the field. They love crayfish.

The Buckeye Tree is beginning to bloom along with other flowering shrubs putting on their show around the farm. The cherry trees are covered with blooms making it look like the trees are filled with snow from the front porch.

We still have a few daffodils still in bloom, and our evergreen trees are showing signs of life hiding among the winter grass growth.

I hope you're enjoying the spring ~ The Farmer's Wife

Bringing Home the Beef

So I've spent a few days researching, thinking, evaluating what to do with this beef.

Okay, so here's the story. We went in with our neighbors on one of their aunt's cows. After the processing time, we brought home the meat. Added to our family's purchase was the liver, tongue, and heart. My neighbor jokingly says, " we figured if anyone knew what to do with it, it would be you." I razzed her back about how I don't eat organ meat, but I have to be honest. If any of you know me you know that I do not like to let a living thing have waste. I feel it's insulting to its energy and lowers the value of the sacrafice of life. Call it crazy, but for me part of good stewartship is keeping a high regard (as much as I can stand to taste, that is). But I digress.

Believe it or not, I think I've come across a few really insightful posts regarding these cuts of meat. You heard me neighbor, I'm planning on serving them up. I can't promise they won't be meals where we still may feel a bit hungry after we "try" them, but here's the plan.

I know these meats are supposed to be extremely good for you, and that is very important to me for my family. I do remember having these cuts on rare occasions at home, and they should be rare occasions. I mean there's only 1 heart in a cow. It truly SHOULDN'T be a common dish if you're consumming fairly. Maybe I should have, but I did not start with looking up my old family recipes. Okay, okay I'll go there next. (If you want to know more about these old time mountain recipes comment below and let me know. Maybe I'll share a few with you.) But I did start with some professional chefs who have studied this area. Michael Ruhlman at http://ruhlman.com/2011/08/how-to-cook-beef-heart/ did an excellent job directing me in preparing the beef heart. I had no idea though that I needed to get a good look at a video HOW TO BUTCHER A BEEF HEART by Chris Cosentino of offalgood.com that did such a great job explaining how to trim the heart to get good cuts of meat. An idea that I thought was great came from Kitchen Stewardship. From there, Katie writes about putting your organ meats into the food processor then putting small amounts into an ice tray and freezing it just like that. She says that when you're browning ground beef, etc. place a "cube" in with the other beef (approximately 1 cubes per 1 1/2 pound of beef). Then you're giving your family the health benefits of the organ meats without so much of the taste and texture.

In addition, here are a couple good references posted by the 2012 Cattlemen's Beef Board and National Cattlemen's Beef Association.
Download "Matching Cooking Methods" Guidelines

Download your own beef cuts chart (pdf).



~The Farmer's Wife

Cooking with Honey

I'm always looking for fun, easy, yummy recipes made from products we produce here on our farm...

here's our snack for tonight.

Vanilla Honey Peanut Butter Popcorn

This recipe was written by 

amybutze

Location: Minneapolis
Amy says: 

"This super addictive sweet treat has hints of vanilla."

Her recipe can be found at http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/vanilla-honey-peanut-butter-popcorn/a65b9770-8684-4d0c-a10d-c8846bbd0f51

It takes 30 minutes to make, only has 5 steps, and serves 10.

Deep Spring Cleaning begins

So I've printed off my April calendar for organizing around the house, thank you...

 

Then I downloaded the weekly household cleaning template and checklist from Money Crashers. I then made a "Goal List" (I made one for my classroom as well.), put it in a clear page viewer, added to it my cleaning goals for that period by cutting the ones I wanted our family to focus on and attaching them to the list, and hung it on the fridge. 

Wish me luck with the ever balance of being The Farmer's Wife, The Lil' Farmers' Mom, and the Keeping the Classroom Creative Teacher!

~ The Farmer's Wife

Welcome to the Farm

Hello. I'm the farmer's wife. I'm also the lil' farmers' mom and a school teacher for the local elementary school. I'll add a link to follow my school experiences later. Come back and look for that. Here however, I'll be sharing our adventures on our farm. You can visit our farm website at https://sites.google.com/site/simmonsupickfarms/
or "like" us on facebook to stay up on the business end.

It is March here in Ohio and everything is beginning to turn green. 
We've had to shift into high gear preparing the fields and tending to the babies growing on our farm.

Here are our newest additions: 10 Golden Comet Chicks and 10 Barred Plymouth Rock Chicks in the nursery.


This week my Lil' Farmers and I painted tree branches The Farmer cut back to place an additional chicken coop for these girls above when they get bigger.

We then blew up balloons and wrapped them with string and paste, let it dry and pop the balloons for colorful Easter Eggs.



So I simply couldn't end the day without sharing two of my favorite products we have here on our farm.
1) Our caged-free, free ranged, beautiful brown eggs from our Golden Comet hens.
  Eggs Order Form $2.00 a dozen. I'll post my favorite egg recipes next.

2) And our local HONEY - YUMMY! $16 for a quart jar. I have a recipe for Shoo Fly Pie you're gonna want. I'll be adding that on the next Blog too.
  Honey Order Form