Last week I seized the opportunity of a dreary, rainy Wednesday morning to get some errands done. We’ve got an outside to-do list a mile long right now so I try to take advantage of those times when being outside is miserable to do those things that need to be done indoors — like shopping.

At one of the stores I visited the cashier and I started talking about the unseasonable weather we’re having and as we bantered about which is better snow or rain I mentioned that I operate a hog farm and the rain can be a source of a whole lot of extra work and hassle (though so can the snow, just for different reasons). Upon hearing this the cashier said what most people say when it’s muddy and they know you own swine: “I bet the pigs are loving it though! This is their kind of weather!”

But here’s the thing; it’s really not. Pigs don’t like mud, just because it’s mud. They like mud under certain circumstances because it helps them be more comfortable. When it’s not quite forty degrees and drizzly, cold mud isn’t more comfortable.

Pigs wallow in mud when it’s warm outside. Ours begin to seek out water and mud when the daytime temps reach about seventy-five and the sun is shining.

One of the reasons for this is swine don’t sweat. Pigs don’t perspire the way humans do so they must get themselves wet in order to benefit from evaporative cooling. The water in mud wets the skin and then cools as it evaporates off, much in the same way we’re cooled off on hot days by lounging in the pool or lake. In fact, our hogs are known to be quite appreciative of a freshly filled kiddie pool in their paddocks on extra hot days. Some summers when it has reached well into the hundreds we’ve frozen jugs full of water and then dropped them into the pools for the pigs to lay against and play with. For them getting wet is all about keeping cool.

The other reason for wallowing in mud is also loosely tied to the temperature by way of bugs. If you were to watch pigs wallowing in mud you’d probably notice that they toss and turn in the mud, coating most of their bodies in it. This is a hog’s natural bug repellent. As the mud dries it creates a protective coating over the skin that prevents biting bugs from making a meal out of the hog’s hide. When it’s cold outside biting bugs aren’t active so the protective coat isn’t needed.

If you were to come and observe our pigs on a wet day when the temperature is cool — like most of the days we experience in the spring and late fall — you’d actually see them avoiding getting muddy. In the cool season they choose to bed down on dry spots and in their straw filled huts. Cold and wet actually affects them much the same way it does us; making them uncomfortable. That’s why — like we showed you back in March — sacrifice areas are constantly being rebedded with fresh straw during the wet seasons.

We call this time, between one season and the next, our down time. And it is less busy than the beginning of spring, or the middle of summer, or the harried weeks of final fall harvesting, but ‘down’ isn’t exactly accurate. There is still, to put it lightly, much to be done and we thought you might like a sneak peek at how we’ll be spending the long, cold months ahead.

Planning – There is so much to be done during the growing season that we couldn’t possibly accomplish all of it without some extensive planning to back it up. Seed catalogs and reminders from suppliers started rolling in through the Mailbox and our email before Thanksgiving. Even though planting won’t begin in earnest until spring now is when we have to decide what we’ll be growing and how much of it we’ll need. Since the weather plays such a tremendous roll in the success of any given variety of vegetable this can make for an interesting guessing game. If we plan too much for the warm season and have another spring like last year — long, cold and wet — we could end up with a lot of crop failures. On the other hand, if we plan for a heavy cool-weather crop and the spring shoots quickly into summery temperatures as it sometimes does we could have failures there, too.

We also have to start looking ahead at demand for turkeys and geese — both as meat animals and as breeding stock for other farms — and get our rough hatching schedules down on paper. These are another interesting game of guessing and balancing as both geese and turkeys are seasonal breeders. We have to plan for what will work best for our farm’s demand and then hope that the birds breed at an optimum time for our schedule. And some years they just don’t cooperate.

Prepping – Once the planning is complete we start getting things ready for the busy months ahead. Seed starting supplies are gathered from storage, washed and readied; we’re on the hunt for more efficient CSA transport bags or baskets; we’ll start printing tags for next seasons batches of jams; nesting areas are prepped for the geese and hog breeding schedules are double checked to make sure we don’t have any sows farrowing in the coldest part of the year if we can help it; we cross reference our supplies with our projected needs for the year and fill any gaps.

Networking & Education – Community has long been an integral part of the success of agriculture and we think that’s more the case today than ever before. When we have a little extra time during the cold months we like to spend it catching up with fellow farmers, discovering interesting new ag initiatives and reading up on the latest developments for the industry.

Sustaining – Unfortunately, though the winter months tend to be quieter here, chores take longer to complete when they’re compounded by thigh deep snow, ice and below freezing temperatures. More bedding is required for the hogs to be comfortable and warm, water buckets must be de-iced and refilled regularly to keep all of the animals hydrated and eggs have to be collected several times a day to keep them from freezing and cracking right in the nest boxes. It almost takes more time just to sustain the farm in the winter months than it does to grow it in the spring, summer and fall.

Every year, about this time, I pull out the year’s receipts, print off the spreadsheets I’ve maintained since January, consolidate notes I’ve taken, and gather my planning supplies. I grab a drink, a pen, a notebook, my trusty laptop, a pad of post-it notes and my favorite highlighters — and I get comfortable. Because, inevitably, I’m going to be there for a while.

I crunch numbers, note what worked and devise new plans for dealing with what didn’t. I dream big dreams about where we’re going and then cut them down to size as I project the coming year’s expenses and decide what additions we can feasibly make and which will have to wait.

I like to call this an exercise in determining The State of The Farm and — this year, just like last — I’d like to share the results of it with you.

Where We’re At

Wow! I conduct a similar examination of the state of affairs in my personal life this time of year and as I recently did so I came to the conclusion that whirlwind is the best description of life in 2011. But as I sat down and began to think about the year as it relates to the farm I think it fits even better.

As spring dawned we were nervous about our first year with a CSA program, but as the summer wore on we came to a great rhythm with our members and really enjoyed the entire experience; even despite one of the most difficult growing seasons we’ve ever encountered in which the spring was slow to kick off and the summer came with a vengeance. The expansion of the market garden was a huge success, we added two new breeds to our heritage hog herd — Tamworths and Gloucestershire Old Spots — refined our American Buff Goose breeding gaggle and even added a beef steer to the farm family this fall.

Failures happened and lessons were learned in the fall when almost an entire batch of dual-purpose meat chickens came up missing when the farm was unattended one day — and our hearts were broken as we had to consider theft a real possibility in our quiet rural area — but the successes and relationships we were able to foster this year with new and returning clients far outweighed that heartbreak and certainly shaped where we’re headed.

Where We’re Going

• Streamlining – If whirlwind describes 2011 it’s our hope that streamlined will describe 2012. Our aim in streamlining is to increase our ability to provide affordable, local meat and produce to new and existing clients for years to come. We’ll be refining everything from the way we feed to the way we answer emails looking for places where we can be more efficient without sacrificing quality. Every item on this list is either part of that effort or, in the case of Education at the bottom, part of the reason for it.
• Newsletter Scheduling – In the past we’ve sent out our News From the Farm monthly, in 2012 we’re going to reduce the publishing schedule to quarterly instead. We regret that this will put us in less frequent email contact, but look forward to breaking more news and elaborating on more activities from around the farm on the blog in-between issues.
• Livestock Re-Focusing – Our roots go back to just 25 chickens in our backyard, an attempt at feeding our own children a better meat product and we will never forget where we started, but as we move forward the heritage hog, goose and turkey flocks will be getting more of our attention. Chickens will no longer be available outside of CSA shares and chicken-containing CSA shares will be available only in very limited numbers. We know this will come as a disappointment to many who have grown accustomed to our chickens and are sad to report that we do not know of any other farms who are raising the types of chickens we raised in the way that we raised them, but we will keep you posted should we locate one. We also hope that you’ll consider trying some turkey, pork, goose and beef (that’s right, don’t forget we have a couple small beef shares available each year!) instead. We’re also working to smooth out regulatory requirements to possibly include these things in our omnivorous CSA in the future so that we can offer more shares of that particular type of CSA.
• Growing Plans + Increased Sustainability – We’ll certainly be trying out a few new varieties for human consumption in the market garden this year — blue potatoes and bright-red yard-long beans, anyone? — but we’re also excited to announce an expansion of the garden to include a livestock specific growing area. As we strive for efficiency in order to provide affordable local foods growing at least a portion of the concentrated feeds we give our livestock only makes increasing sense. Amaranth and mangel beets will be amongst the crops we put in for fall and winter consumption by the stock.
• Education – Reclaiming small-scale farming as a viable occupation and helping other farmers do the same has always been a passion of ours. This fall we had the wonderful opportunity to feed that passion as we gave a presentation on farm-direct pricing at the ALBC annual conference. In the spring we’ve been invited to speak at the MidWest Poultry Federation and we’ve begun cultivating other opportunities that will help us both share our knowledge and experience with other farmers and bring their experiences back to Michigan. We’re really looking forward to a year filled with these opportunities in 2012.

And, I think, that’ll just about do it for this year. We’ve got an exciting twelve months ahead of us and we couldn’t ask for better company as we move forward. Thank you for your continued support and patronage; we can’t wait to see you on the farm again soon!

Wishing you and yours a safe and happy Thanksgiving Day, from all of us here at Olive Hill.

Last week, in our email to members, I promised a fun surprise would crop up on the blog after we returned from our trip to Kansas for the ALBC Conference. Here she is:

Amelia is a seven-week-old Gloucestershire Old Spot gilt who has joined our herd by way of Southern Illinois. We picked her up on our journey back from the ALBC Conference and she’s settling in nicely.

We’ve started with just one Old Spot because there isn’t a lot of data currently available for how well Old Spots fare in outdoor setups in cold climates like ours. Her large, floppy ears — a trademark of the breed — could make it difficult for her to retain body heat in the cold and predispose her to frostbite. If she does well — and we hope she does — we’ll breed her next year and begin looking for more Old Spots to establish the breed within our herd.

We’re always on the look out for new, inventive ways to use pork and this pork chili has quickly become a staple in our home.

(2) Pork Steaks, Cubed (If using the smaller, AGH steaks use four.)
(1) Medium Sweet Onion, Diced
(2) Cans Black Beans, Rinsed and Drained
(1) 10oz Can Green Enchilada Sauce
(1) Quart Diced Tomatoes
Garlic, to taste
Hot Peppers, Diced, to taste
Olive Oil

In a large stockpot drizzle just enough olive oil to coat bottom. Add pork steak, onion, hot peppers and garlic, stirring to coat. Cook over medium-high heat until onions are translucent and pork has browned. Add Black Beans, Tomatoes and Enchilada Sauce to pot. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until cooked through and bubbly.

We serve it over cornbread. Enjoy!

Geese have a bad reputation, but they’re kind of like the fifth grade bully: a lot of talk and very little action. Still, they’re probably among the smallest and least dangerous of animals that can have a grown man running and screaming like a school girl. And that reputation combined with the relatively little information available on the intricacies of goose management can leave owners confused and frustrated — especially come breeding season when hormones and tensions run high with ganders taking chase.

It doesn’t have to be so difficult though, in fact, effectively handling geese starts exactly where effectively handling any species begins: in observation.

One only needs to observe a gaggle of geese interacting with one another to know what they do and do not understand; to gain knowledge of the language they speak and thus the language needed to communicate with them.

With geese — and most other species — that language is heavily dependent on physical interaction. As humans it’s drilled into us from a young age to view physical means of communication as bad, especially in confrontational situations, but animals have no such preconceived notions. For animals getting physical doesn’t make one inherently bad, in fact, the animal who is best at physical altercation is often the most respected individual in the group.

Because of our preconceived notions about physicality it’s often hard for humans to stomach the idea that effective discipline with many animals wholly depends on being absolutely committed to following through with a physical altercation should it be needed. One thing to keep in mind here is, done right, dominant physical interaction with your geese is a positive thing. Geese are social birds. Their very survival depends on a secure position within a hierarchal social group. Having a strong, confident and consistent alpha in their group increases their safety and guarantees them better access to food, water and shelter. As long as your interaction with your goose is done in a way he can understand, backing up your direction by physical means only reinforces your position as alpha and reassures your goose of his secure position in your social group. How, exactly, do you do that? You speak goose!

For the purpose of this post we’re going to focus on a typical gander vs gander fight, learning from the way geese interact with each other in order to determine how we should interact with geese. Since any aggression in a gaggle is usually either a gander vs gander fight or mimics one, and almost all goose vs human fights are the result of gander aggression, this particular scenario will serve us well. Before we go there though, let’s get one important preventative measure out of the way.

Goslings are CUTE. Allow me to demonstrate:

See? Even ganders are heart-wrenchingly adorable as babies. This leads people to hold them and cuddle them and otherwise treat them like kittens. Unfortunately, geese are not kittens. And, unlike in cats where familiarity breeds friendliness, in geese familiarity breeds confrontation. Domestic geese are far more likely to challenge a person with whom they are intimately familiar than a person with whom they are only vaguely familiar. If you have not already done so, avoid imprinting young ganders onto humans. Handle them sparingly, do not feed them from your hands and refrain from coddling them. A healthy dose of unfamiliarity can go a long way in preventing dominance challenges from ever happening because the gander will not see you as an entity to challenge.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s get to exactly how we speak goose. The stages of a typical goose altercation:

The Discipline

A goose fight almost always begins the same way. One goose, whom either believes himself alpha to or wishes to be alpha to another, hands out discipline for a behavioral infraction. It may be that Goose A believed Goose B grazed too close to him, or Goose B may have walked between Goose A and his favorite mate. Whatever the infraction, Goose A disciplines Goose B. This may be a nip, it may be a snaked neck and a wing spread, it may be a hiss. Whatever the discipline Goose B has two choices. 1) He may accept it and obey by refraining from the behavior in question (and generally removing himself from Goose A’s immediate vicinity) or 2) he may challenge Goose A to exert his own dominance thereby proving his actions were not wrong — the dominant goose does as he pleases and therefore, if Goose B proves he is, infact, dominant then his behavior was not punishable.

Let’s stop here and relate this to a human goose interaction. Say you have a gander. You are weeding your flowerbed when the gander nips you. Here we have Goose A disciplining you, Goose B. This means that the gander either believes himself alpha to you already or wishes to be alpha to you and has chosen this opportunity to try to exert that dominance. You have two choices. You can accept the discipline by not effectively reminding him of the true hierarchy of your relationship. Or you can put him in his appropriate place in your social group: below you. Obviously, we know the appropriate choice here. You need to challenge his discipline to determine, in no uncertain terms, that you are alpha to him.

The Challenge

If we go back to our typical gander vs gander interaction here we can learn how that should be done. Goose B has decided that he will challenge Goose A’s discipline. What does he do here? He meets Goose A’s advance with an equal advance of his own. Usually this is the point in the interaction where wings begin to spread and necks snake. Goose B snakes his neck and spreads his wings at Goose A. This says “You may NOT discipline me!”

This is why, in a human vs goose interaction, I always encourage people to spread their arms, posture and snake their neck as the first line of defense against an advancing Gander. This is what he understands as the first step in a challenge to him. This gives him the option to back down before the interaction must escalate to a physical one. Most ganders will stop right here. They are bluffers, those geese. They like to talk a big game, but are not often prepared to actually play the game they talk. This is also why I addressed our inherent reluctance to physical altercation above. Because geese are bluffers themselves they’re also skilled readers of poker faces. If you’re not committed to escalating your interaction to whatever level it takes to win the goose will know it and he will be far less likely to back down in the early stages of your altercation. So what if he does “call your bluff” and doesn’t back down, regardless of how much you mean business?

The Dance

If Goose A decides not to back down when Goose B does not accept his discipline this is the point at which their interaction gets physical. They will dance around at one another, much like boxers in a ring, until one sees an opening to grab the other by the base of the neck. Once one grabs on, they both grab on.

Now, it’s not really reasonable for you to be dancing around in a circle with a goose waiting for an opening to grab him by the base of the neck so you can beat the tar out of him with your “wings” (we’ll get to the beat the tar out of one another portion in a moment). It’s also not fair to the goose because you don’t have a base of the neck at his level onto which HE can grab. So what’s a goose owner to do? Look at what comes next in the goose to goose interaction.

The Chest Bump

Once they have a hold on one another, before the beating begins, what happens in this natural position? Their chests bump. Hard.

So what can you do that he will understand as the second step in a challenge? Bump his chest. Hard. This is also why blunt toed boots are excellent foot wear for barnyard chores. A good, hard chest bump tells the gander you will fight him over this. He understands it, it the normal progression in a challenge. It also mimics the natural dynamic between two geese as when you bump him he will be tossed back a little bit, losing his ground on you. When two geese are bumping one another it causes them to occasionally lose their grip on the opposing goose.

What happens if the chest bump isn’t sufficient? Do it again. It would truly be a rare gander that would escalate an interaction to the bump stage and then not follow through after just one bump. In a goose on goose fight they will repeatedly bump and push one another with their chests. I, personally will bump up to five or six times before taking it further. This also mimics their natural progression in that it gives him ample opportunity to rethink his actions.

The Wing Beating

But what if he doesn’t? What comes after the chest bump? Here’s where the goose on goose action gets ugly. What comes after chest bumping, to put it bluntly, is beating the ever loving poop out of one another with their wings. This can take a long time, is likely to result in many large bruises and sometimes only ends when one or both geese are literally so exhausted they cannot possibly carry on.

I do not recommend getting into a wing beating match with a goose. It will hurt. And the bruises will last for weeks. I have never been in a wing beating match with a goose but I have had to break up wing beating matches between geese and the size and severity of the bruises, I can assure you, are not worth engaging them in the exact language they speak. Instead, like the grabbing onto the base of the neck, we need to look just a little bit further in the fight to see what happens.

The Exhaustion | The Pinning | The Retreat

Now, some goose fights resolve themselves during the wing beating match. Those are usually the less evenly matched fights. Your goose does not realize he is not evenly matched with you however, so it’s okay if we ignore those fights and focus on the fights that progress to the sheer exhaustion stage. In these fights the beating continues for what seems like forever, when one or both (usually both in an evenly matched fight) begins to tire it slows, they start throwing those chest bumps they used in the beginning back into the mix as it’s less taxing and eventually one goose will fully pin down the other. In essence, whichever goose is more exhausted ends up pinned — and therefore the loser. The pinning goes on for a few seconds to a minute, however long the winner feels like punishing the loser and then the loser is let up to tuck tail and run.

So if we skip the wing beating for our human-goose interaction what we need to do is skip straight to the pinning. You can do this one of two ways, you can literally pin him to the ground or you can pick him up and hold him very firmly with an attitude of meaning business. Both accomplish the same thing. They immobilize the goose, with force, for an amount of time the goose has no control over. One thing to remember when doing this is the goose should be positioned to run from you when you set him down. So if you pin him on the ground, you should swing him around to face away from you and if you’re holding him you should face him away from you when you set him back down.

For most geese a five to ten second hold is enough to get your point across. If you have a particularly persistent gander however — and those do exist, even among the non-imprinted masses — do not be afraid to hold him for as long as it takes. If you’ve gone through a full bout of discipline with him before and he’s come back for more you could choose to hold onto him for a few minutes to reinforce your dominance. Hold him firmly, keeping his wings under wraps, for as long as you desire. This doesn’t hurt him physically, it simply reiterates to him that you are dominant and make the decisions here — including when he will be free again.

The Victory Lap

And finally, in a goose vs goose fight, we have the victory lap stage. No matter how exhausting the fight you will not see an alpha gander let a good beating go unacknowledged. He will spread his wings, stand tall, run to his gaggle and honk his head off about it. Now, your neighbors may find you quite amusing (and possibly insane) if you were to run around your yard honking with your arms spread out like wings. But you can mimic the effect by saying something aloud in the retreating goose’s general direction for good measure. This is, of course, optional. Though a good touch, I must say.

To recap, in a goose vs goose fight you have ten stages of altercation:

1. The Discipline – Can manifest in many ways.
2. The Challenge – Usually snaked necks and spread wings
3. The Dance
4. The Neck Grab
5. The Chest Bumping
6. The Wing Beating
7. The Exhaustion
8. The Pinning
9. The Retreat (for the loser)
10. The Victory Lap (for the winner)

For human to goose interactions we can cut the list down to six, or five if you’re not up for a victory lap.

1. The Discipline – Can manifest in many ways. Any unacceptable behavior by a goose should be interpreted as this step.
2. The Challenge – Snake your neck, spread your wings, posture over him, hiss for good measure.
3. The Chest Bumping – Remember: it’s a rare goose who will give up after just one. Give him 3 – 6 bumps to change his mind.
4. The Pinning – Grab the neck, turn the goose away from you and pin him with force. Either on the ground or in your arms. Hold.
5. The Retreat (for the loser) – This is why you turned him away from you. Set him up for success, give him a clear retreat path.
6. The Victory Lap (for the winner) – Optional, but if you’ve come this far you may as well go all out.

Today we’re participating in AgWeb’s Day in Agriculture, a nationwide initiative aimed at showing the world how food is made. Farmers of all types and sizes are tweeting, facebooking, photographing, videoing and blogging a day in their life. We’ve been documenting our day with pictures and tweets and will be posting two posts here today to give you an in-depth glimpse at what today looks like for us. It’s not an average day, as no two days are the same on the farm, but it gives you an idea of what we’re working on right now. Be sure to check back later this evening for the afternoon edition, too. Enjoy!

5:00 am – I squint into the light coming from the bathroom doors. Ben is up before me every morning, for his off-farm work. I admire his ability to handle early mornings — he loves them — but they are not for me so I roll back over, bury my head in his pillow and hope for a few more minutes of sleep. I woke up several times throughout the night because of ruckus caused by the dogs, cat and a couple of times even woke because I heard the hogs outside so I need it.

6:00 am – So much for more sleep. With the way the dogs are behaving you’d think there was a full moon afoot, in fact, I looked at the calendar when I got out of bed to be sure. As it turns out they’re acting like hooligans for no apparent reason. They woke me up three times in the hour. I’m up, I’m dressed. Time to get the kids up and ready for school, too. I send the dogs outside; they’ve annoyed me enough for the morning.

7:00 am – Time to send the kids off to school for the day. Once they’re on their way I check and return emails, scan the food and agriculture news google alerts that are sent to my inbox and my feed readers. I spent some time spreading the word about A Day in Agriculture on Twitter and Facebook while waiting for it to brighten up outside. These dark mornings are not my favorite.

7:30 am – Finally! Light! The morning chores always begin with opening up the chicken coop. Each night the door is locked behind them when they go in to roost. With poultry security is a top priority, they’re tempting and tasty to almost every varmint in the area — raccoons, mink, fox, possum and coyote all love fresh chicken. With free-ranging we do lose some despite the nighttime lock up, but daytime is far less dangerous. As you can see, they’re always quite excited to start the day. After the chickens are out it’s time to feed the hogs breakfast. It’s a small meal since they spend most of their day foraging. I check their water troughs while I’m out there, they don’t always need to be filled, but sometimes they do. Today was a pretty easy day. I snapped a few more pictures to share in spirit of The Day in Agriculture before heading back into the house.

8:30 am Breakfast and desk work time. On today’s agenda is finishing up the October Newsletter, sending it and reminders for the Winter CSA out in emails, updating the front and newsletter pages of the website and updating our Local Harvest listing. I also have to respond to a few messages — some from clients and one from another farmer I’ve been helping with some questions. This part of the day isn’t pretty or exciting, but it’s important. Farming is as much business administration as it is outside labor — sometimes more so. On a small farm one person often has to wear all the hats from day labor to CEO, CFO, Director of Marketing and more.

11:00 am With the emails, newsletter and web work wrapped up for the morning it’s time to turn my attention to some phone calls and filing. Receipts need to be added to the tax files and tallied in the financial spreadsheet. We stopped into a local screen printer/embroidery shop to check on having hats and sweatshirts made with the farm logo yesterday and I also have to follow up on those bids. Ben calls in the middle and we talk strategy for the coming year. The planning starts before the current harvest is even over. We have to be ahead of the game if we hope to make any of it work.

11:43 am That’s the exact time at which I sat down to write this post. It’s 12:19 p.m. now. I’m going to publish and take a quick lunch break before heading back outside. Don’t forget to check back later for the afternoon update!

The glut never ends. We’re still grating, freezing, cooking and baking with zucchini and, though the end does seem to be in sight with the cool weather we’re having now, it still seems that the supply is endless.

Recently, I discovered Panera Bread’s Garden Vegetable Soup and this week as I stared at a mountain of giant snap beans and baseball-bat-sized zucchini I was compelled to “recreate” the lunch I’d had just a few days prior. The result isn’t exactly like Panera’s — in fact, I think it’s better — but it’s a good use of zucchini and a filling meal on a cold autumn evening. And the bonus: those of you who are CSA members are probably getting most of the ingredients in your weekly basket, lately.

Garden Vegetable Soup

Ingredients
8-10 Medium-Large Ripe Tomatoes
1 Large Onion
1 Medium Zucchini
1 Quart Fresh Snap Beans (I used both green and dragon tongue)
2 Whole Cloves Garlic
Olive Oil
Sea Salt
Cumin

1. Preheat Oven to 350 degrees.
2. Halve and core tomatoes. Place cut side down on a lined baking sheet. Drizzle with Olive Oil, sprinkle with sea salt.
3. Slice Onion into strips. Place on lined baking sheet, toss in Olive Oil.
4. Roast both onions and tomatoes in oven until onions are soft and sweet and tomato skins have begun to crinkle and brown.
5. Meanwhile cut beans and zucchini into bite size pieces.
6. Using a fork, carefully remove and discard skins from roasted tomatoes.
7. Combine tomatoes, onions, beans, zucchini and garlic in large pot over med-high heat. Add cumin to taste. Bring to boil. Reduce heat to simmer. Simmer until beans are cooked through.

Serve with grated parmesan and fresh bread.

Enjoy!

It’s an inside joke amongst gardeners and growers; the willy-nilly way in which zucchini and summer squashes grow. Setting fruit fast and furious, if there were a contest for prolificacy they would probably beat out even the bush beans for the champion title. Growing from tiny stubs to baseball bats seemingly overnight they are the one vegetable, despite almost any extenuating circumstance, you will never be without. But that means you can almost never have enough recipes for using them either. Sure, there are the old stand-bys: grilled zucchini with onions, garlic and a drizzle of olive oil; zucchini bread and muffins; garden goulash; and you can always grate it into just about anything, including a gallon sized ziploc bag to be frozen for later use, but what about recipes that think outside the box? We’ve rounded up a few that do just that.

The first is indian inspired, a trait that earns any recipe instant bonus points in our house, and comes from one of the internet’s most useful recipe boxes, All Recipes.

Curried Zucchini Soup

Ingredients
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced
1 tablespoon curry powder
sea salt to taste
4 small zucchini, halved lengthwise and cut into 1 inch slices
1 quart chicken stock

Directions
1. Heat the oil in a large pot. Stir in the onion, and season with curry powder and salt. Cook and stir until onion is tender. Stir in zucchini, and cook until tender. Pour in the chicken stock. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer 20 minutes.

2. Remove soup from heat. Use a hand blender, or transfer in batches to a blender, and blend until almost smooth.

Enjoy!

:: :: ::

The second comes from the cooking blog Cinnamon Spice and Everything Nice and combines a crunchy exterior with the zucchini’s normally soft-when-cooked flesh. She serves hers with a nice basil dipping sauce.

Oven Fried Zucchini Chips

Ingredients
1 cup seasoned breadcrumbs
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, fresh grated
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup milk
2 small zucchini cut in 1/4-inch-thick slices
Cooking spray or vegetable/olive oil

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 425° F. Grease a large oven-proof wire rack set on a baking sheet.

2. Whisk together bread crumbs, Parmesan, salt, onion powder and pepper in a medium bowl. Place milk in a separate shallow bowl. Dip zucchini slices in milk then in breadcrumb mixture patting the crumbs on. Place slices on wire rack. Repeat until all are coated.

3. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown. Serve immediately with basil dipping sauce if desired.

Enjoy!

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And the last, but certainly not least, comes from another blog, Freckles & Fun, and is the simplest and quickest zucchini recipe we’ve seen yet.

Easy Italian Zucchini

Ingredients
Zucchini, Sliced
Tomaoes, Sliced
Mozzarella Cheese
Italian Seasonings of your choice

Directions
1. Layer Zucchini, Cheese and Tomatoes in a baking dish. Season with seasonings of your choice. (We like garlic, basil, oregano, a little onion and parsley.)

2. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 – 20 minutes or until cheese is bubbly.

Enjoy!