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Friday, May 10, 2013

The Good Earth Garden Party



Last Spring I started working at The Good Earth Organic Gardening Center in Hope, RI. A beautiful place just outside of Providence (but seemingly much farther) that carries an enormous range of organically grown plants and gardening supplies. They also farm organic vegetables and have a small CSA (Community Supported Agriculture).

I had never worked at a garden center or farm before, but I wanted to learn about how food is grown from the ground up! In order to achieve this I went to Farm Fresh RI's job fair and met Joyce and John of The Good Earth, who were interested in my willingness to learn despite my lack of experience.

A year later and I still have a lot to learn about organic farming and gardening, but its been great fun so far!

If you have never visited The Good Earth before, stop by tomorrow for The Good Earth Garden Party! In addition to their usual abundance of organic vegetable plants, perennials, annuals, and tropicals there will be free demonstrations on gardening and cooking, live music, kids activities, and a huge range of amazing artwork!

My friend Brett Mayette, a wild foods chef and cooking instructor with Conscious Cuisine, will be giving free cooking demonstrations and food samples of foraged foods! He will share cooking techniques, nutritional tips, and food samples, applying his culinary creativity to organic produce from The Good Earth as well as a variety of wild foods and herbs. Brett will teach you how to prepare roasted wild root vegetables, scrambled eggs with nettles, a wild greens salad, as well as fried dandelion flowers! Learn the health benefits of wild foods and herbs and how to incorporate them into your diet.

Screenprint on organic cotton t-shirt
In case you need another reason to attend, my friends at Process Initiative will be screenprinting on-site!!! Bring a t-shirt, tote bag, or even just a piece of fabric and get it screen printed with this awesome design! We will also have printed shirts available on organic cotton.

Click here for a schedule of events and more details.

1800 Scituate Ave. Hope, RI 02831
10am to 5pm

See you at the party!!!

Friday, May 3, 2013

Herbal Root Stew

A couple of months ago I made an herbal root stew for my Farmacy Herbs "graduation potluck". Everyone really liked it and one of my classmates asked me if I could post the recipe. Replying with an astounding "yes!", I made a mental note to share the recipe soon.

I see this particular person nearly every Saturday at the Pawtucket Wintertime Farmer's Market and it is only then that I think to myself, "Gosh darn it, I keep forgetting to post that soup recipe!" We'll this week I remembered on a Friday and I hope that I see this person tomorrow so that I can finally say that its here!

Herbal Root Stew  

A few tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 ounces of ginger
2 yellow onions
about 6 ounces of burdock root (I used 3 pieces, each about 1 foot long)
2 pounds carrots
2 pounds parsnips
2 pounds sweet potatoes
2-3 cloves of garlic
1 can of chick peas
6 cups vegetable stock* + 6 cups water
1/4 cup dried nettles
juice of 1/2 a lemon
1/4 cup fresh thyme

*I made the vegetable stock beforehand by simmering a collection of vegetable scraps that I had saved in the freezer. It included primarily sweet potato skins, mushroom stems, carrot scraps, onion scraps, garlic skins, and some stems of greens. You can read more about that process here.

In a large saucepan, saute onions in a few tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil for 5 minutes or so. Add ginger and burdock root, saute for a few more minutes, then add the carrots, parsnips, chick peas, garlic, and sweet potatoes. Cook vegetables in pan for about 10 minutes then add approximately 6 cups of vegetable stock and 6 cups of water. Simmer for 15-20 minutes, or until vegetables are tender, but not too soft. Add nettles and fresh thyme, turn off heat and let sit covered for 10 minutes or so. Add the juice of half a lemon.

Enjoy!