Ninja Cow Farm LLC

We are busy getting ready for the CFSA farm tour this weekend, but Lucy will be manning the store today as normal from 2-6 pm. The good news for you is that we are stocking up in anticipation of the farm tour so sneak in here early and get your goodies before the masses wipe us out this weekend.

Everything at the beach wasn’t boring old dinner though. We also had snacks and goodies.

We’d tried all the goat cheeses here and there over time, but with some down time at the beach, we decided to try all the cheeses together and compare one against the other. The surprise of the day was that jalapeno was SWMBO’s favorite. She thinks black pepper is spicy and hot so liking jalapeno cheese was out of character. However she thought the cheese really dampened the spice and you could instead taste the jalapeno itself. Whatever the pros and cons, all the cheeses were scarfed up before you could blink.

I’d mentioned before that we just picked and juiced our muscadine grapes growing here on our farm. Of course a gallon of grape juice made it to the beach.

Don’t let the ice fool you, that’s Adam’s Vineyard wine in the wine glass. SWMBO strangely likes ice in her wine. She cooks for me so I don’t point out that it is weird.

We also took the opportunity to test out a new product not on the shelf yet. I met a small farmer who had a dried herb product where the herbs were already packaged and ready to be used. You just mixed in sour cream or whatever. We had skyrr tikk (goat’s milk sour cream) from Celebrity Goat Dairy, our goat farmer. Skyrr is basically sour cream and it’s really good. Mix in some herbs and it’s awesome. We scarfed up the dip for a snack, then had some left over for breakfast omelettes.

Speaking of our goat farmer, we also had some of his AWESOME goat fudge. I know what you’re thinking. Goat…Fudge? Huh? Oh good Lord you need to try some! It’s the best fudge I’ve ever had. If you don’t believe me, then trust the kids.

It was a great trip to the beach. Thanks to Miguel and Vicente for keeping everything shipshape on the farm while we were gone. While we may have vacated, we were also doing research on our products and doing more than talking the talk. We were definitely walking the walk of farm fresh suppliers of your families meals.

Ever been to a restaurant and see staff eating takeout from somewhere else?

Or go to a wine store where the owner doesn’t drink?

It reminds me of this old saying.

People who don’t use their own product are telling you something about themselves, or about their product. At Ninja Cow Farm, we have the opposite problem.

You see, last week we had a trip to the beach planned. I know what you’re thinking, “Didn’t they just get back from the mountains?” Yes, yes we did. However for years I’ve not been able to go with the family when they went to the beach and this year I was determined to make it. Had I known how much of a dent SWMBO was going to put in our store’s inventory, maybe I would have stayed home and worked!

In preparation for leaving, SWMBO popped into the store and went shopping. We were only gone a few days but we cooked every meal so we needed enough goodies to get us by. Two baskets worth should cover us. The only discussion I was part of was what proteins did we want to take? Lamb? Chicken? We never get the prime cuts like steaks because they are always grabbed by customers but what did we want to take? Is there something that’s getting old in the freezer (nope), is there something we have too much of? (Yep) In the end we decided pork chops, chicken breasts, and boneless stew beef.

Our first dinner was a quick one.

Pork chops thaw pretty fast on the counter and I was happy to open some wine and cook when we arrived in late afternoon. However this being the beach, I couldn’t find anything in the cabinets and I’d forgotten to bring my cast iron pan. The chops cooked slowly because of the poor pan quality and electric stove. They also seared poorly because the pan was warped and didn’t get hot enough. The end result is they were fairly tough and the flavor was lost in the overcooking. I’ve said before, cooking matters, and boy does it. But it is always eye opening to see what a difference it makes between good cooking and bad cooking. These exact same chops, cooked properly, are stunning. Overcooked, they are meh. But we were tired and now full so it all worked out.

Breakfast each day was eggs, yogurt, omelets, etc. Our milk from our milk cows, our own eggs, our bacon, our sausage. You get the idea.

The next dinner was my wife’s favorite, chicken marsala. It’s one of the first things I ever cooked for her and she claims it’s why she married me. She loves it when I cook chicken marsala, claiming hers is never like mine (it isn’t).

However what you see here is not my chicken marsala. You see I sat on the beach, in the sun, and fell asleep, for about 5 minutes. “Get up, we’re going to the pool.” Groggy, I went to the pool and sat down in a different chair. I dozed back off for about 5 minutes when SWMBO decided we needed some together time and started chatting. I woke back up, groggier still. Then shortly it was time to go up to the room. I went in and fell asleep in the bed, this time sleeping about 30 minutes before I was awoken with the request to come out and make dinner. Folks, I was done. Starting and stopping my sleep like that had hit the master reset and I couldn’t form a sentence, much less cook. SWMBO, sadly, had to cook her own meal and I barely drug out of bed to eat then went back to bed. Sorry Sweetie!

The last meal was a special one because it was one of Lucy’s recently posted recipes. This one was beef stroganoff. SWMBO always likes to fact and quality check the recipes on our site from both Lucy and Drew. One, it’s a quality assurance thing. We don’t want to give you bad recipes, or not notice an ingredient is missing. Two, if the recipe is off, we can give the writer a hard time so we get to have that fun. And three, the ingredients are all ours, so the shopping is easy.

After these three meals, we asked the kids what they liked the best. The votes were overwhelming for the stroganoff however there was some discussion over whose is better, mom’s old stroganoff recipe or Lucy’s new one. Looks like we’ll be having a cook off at the Moore house shortly. I love cook offs!

 

Every year we have the pleasure of picking our own grapes. These grape vines were old when I moved to this farm, and that was nearly 40 years ago. Today they are doing better than ever and they give us an annual treat in late August/early September.

This year I wasn’t able to be there for picking because I was committed elsewhere. Normally that means we’d just wait for another day but we were leaving to go out of town so SWMBO and the kids took time off from school and instead picked grapes. The only thing I did to help was to remind the kids of the one and only rule of grape picking, which they all knew off the top of their head, “One for the basket, one for your mouth!”

All the grapes were waiting for me in the kitchen when I got back. As usual, I juiced all the grapes and made pulpy muscadine grape juice which is our house favorite. We carry crystal clear grape juice in the store, but the stuff we make ourselves has a lot more body to it. We only get it once per year and it’s a real treat.

This year we produced about 3 gallons of juice. As usual, it didn’t last long.

This coming weekend we will be closed for normal tours as we are going to be one of the host farms for the Carolina Farm Stewardship’s Eastern Triangle farm tour. If you’ve never been on the farm tour, it is a great way to meet and discover local small, sustainable farms.  The tour is from1-5pm both Saturday and Sunday next weekend. We are on the orange route but you can mix and match any farm you like to visit. All you do is buy a ticket for the entire tour and you can visit any and all the farms that you’d like for one price. The price is per car as well so grab some friends and make a day of it.

It looks like the weather is going to be perfect so plan on getting out next weekend and seeing some local farms. And stop by and see us. We’ll be giving walking tours, cooking sausage samples, and generally having a large time meeting lots of new folks.

Oh, did I mention the girls will have cookies?