Farm Blog

Don’t be afraid to decorate for Halloween!

gardengirlfarm — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 13:41:51 +0000

We just started to decorate the farm for Halloween. Will add more photos as the decorations progress.

Plant sale

gardengirlfarm — Sun, 27 May 2012 16:48:41 +0000

Hi everyone: I am having such great luck with the new green house we built that I need to have a plant sale! I have a great selection of flowering shrubs, succulents and veggies. I will be available today until 12:30 and by appointment after that. Sorry I have not been posting. I have been doing my farmy-landscapy thing instead. We will try to post more often as Scott has new recipes to share with you and our farm has changed so much! Any one interested in a fava bean pesto recipe?Thanks for staying with us! Yours in dirt,Cassie

CASSIE HAS MOVED!!! Come on over….or else….

gardengirlfarm — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:38:48 +0000

New year, new site, new stuff….ooops, old year, new site, new stuff….

www.gardengirlfarm.com

Change your bookmark! Change your Favorite! Believe in change!…..ok, let’s not get too excited….we’ll take things slow.

Change your Bookmark.

This url will go the the big url heaven in the sky soon.

Cassie is working on her ThanksGiving Day festus and will post over the next week….at the new url!

Once more, for the cheapseats….http://gardengirlfarm.com

Happy Halloween from my fat frog.

gardengirlfarm — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 03:29:42 +0000

Please enjoy my silly video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suxiQYpo-MI

Garden Girl Farm has fresh eggs in Pt. Richmond

gardengirlfarm — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 04:14:20 +0000

For the non-vegan we have farm fresh blue,green and brown eggs. Gathered from our free range girls twice a day. They are fed organic grains, oyster shell and tons of garden scraps. Fertile for those that want to hatch beautiful babies.

A bird in the hand… Will bite the crap out of you if given a chance!

gardengirlfarm — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 16:33:18 +0000

I love fishing on the Marin Rod and Gun Club pier. I know that once the door closes behind me I will be by myself with Mother Nature and my thoughts. Last Sunday I was fishing with my friend Kate and between the two of us we caught 35 Jack Smelt. Most people throw them back as they are smallish and can have worms.I learned from my new friend Kate that they are delicious when smoked! Like “Bay trout.” Kate and I work as a team to get the work done so we can go home and be with our Hubby’s, she got married last Thursday. Nothing like a “fresh” husband to go home to. Scott and I will be Married 4 years this month, he is still pretty new so after spending a windy overcast morning on the pier home/Hubby is where the heart is.

Kate and I packed up our gear around 2:30 and headed back to the cleaning station to process our catch. I really want to call it the KILLING station just to screw with the lame ass Vegans that seem to love to hate me. I always throw my line in the water while I am cleaning fish just in case a stray hungry striper swims by. We dumped out such a huge bucket of fish on the KILLING station that every seagull in the bay showed up for guts and scraps. Kate scales and washes them off I fillet them then give them back to her,she looks for worms and removes them with a pair of tweezers. During this process my rod jumped and the line went out like crazy! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ I yelled “HOLY SHIT! I got a striper.” My rod almost flew off the pier as I tried to grab it. I thought I had a REALLY BIG FISH or a bat ray so I screamed over to the lawn for my friend Bob to please come help me. He dropped his drink and ran out to help. No one had been catching much of anything lately and a big fish is fun to haul in. No such luck. A Juvenal seagull had some how tangled its wing tip in my line. Bob said” Fuck it! just cut your line.” Kate who is apparently terrified of birds ran away at first. LOL I am laughing just thinking about it again. I said “NO WAY, if you catch it and are responsible for freeing it.” I had Bob reel it in and I gently pulled it over the rail and held it to my chest to keep the wings from beating me up. This is where things went wrong. I let go of its head to try to free the line and it bit the living shit out of my hand! They don’t just peck, they BITE hold on and shake like a pit bull. I yelped pulled my hand out of its mouth and grabbed the beak and hung on! Kate came back with some scissors and cut line and only the smallest tip-off of the feathers,then she ran away again. I loved holding that bird, it was strong and feisty like me. I checked it over just to make sure it did not have any line on it from “other” fisherman. Bob snapped this photo and I threw it up into the air. I yarked a CAW and flew away. That was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. I do not recommend playing with gulls they are dangerous. This just worked out well. I have heard other stories that involve rangers, blankets and a plastic bag. I feel like I earned some good fishing Karma points and it made me feel great! How is that for a fish story?

The Sea bass are biting and so am I! Salt crusted whole sea bass recipie by Master Scott

gardengirlfarm — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 03:15:24 +0000

After battling Vegan’s all day on the Internet I felt like I needed to kill something, but we’re fresh out of rabbits. With this nasty weather I simply don’t feel like cleaning a chicken. I checked the weather for rain and packed my fishing gear and split for the Marin Rod and Gun club pier. As I walked out onto the pier I announced to a fellow fisherman that I was “going to catch a fish on my first cast, my witch sense told me so.” Sure enough I reeled in a 10 inch striped bass first cast! I removed the hook doing no damage to the fish while wishing he was bigger! I gave him a quick kiss and hucked him back into the bay to grow up. Fishing was looking good or so I thought! I have not caught a striper since August 20th of this year. I then stood in the wind and spitting rain for two hours with nothing more than two Jack Smelt and a pretty big crab. I took great pleasure in feeding live Jack Smelt to the gulls, they eat the fish then weigh too much to fly away. I love the chatty gulls! I always give them treats. My friend John was fishing a few feet away and mentioned that “the fishing here really sucks.” I agreed announced that” I was cold, wanted a drink the fishing here really frigging suck’s ass and I am going in.” Then our dinner struck!

I was so surprised I almost dropped my rod in the water! What a fun fight! John expertly netted the fish and we hauled him in over the rail. I was worried that it might be under 18 inches the legal limit, but NO!!! 19 inches. YEAH! I looked up and Scott was walking down the pier towards me Smiling. I feel so good about catching and growing our dinner!

******

I was planning on making bacon-avocado cheeseburgers for dinner because some vegan a-hole was messing with Cassie. With Cassie, however, I always expect the unexpected. So, baked, salt-crusted sea bass. When I was preparing the fish, it was still twitching, so it doesn’t get any fresher than this.

Pick and finely chop whatever fresh herbs you have on hand. I harvested from the garden:

baby fennel fronds; flat-leaf parsley; variegated sorrel; a small amount of rosemary; new-growth leaves of lemon, lime and orange leaves (about 3 leaves of each type of citrus, more or less). For the herbs, it really doesn’t matter too much, except for the rosemary. For fish, it’s a strong herb so I only used a chopped teaspoon. I also added a medium green zebra tomato, de-seeded.

Remove the tough center vein from the citrus leaves. Chop 1-2 cloves of garlic — to taste. Mince everything together and place the chopped herbs & garlic in a small bowl. Add about 1 tsp each of lemon juice and white wine. Freshly ground black pepper to taste. Add a few tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Allow this mixture to marinate while you prepare the oven and salt crust.

Heat the oven to 450 degrees. In a bowl, combine one 3 pound box of kosher salt and about 1.5 cups of water. Mix together — the salt should have the consistency of just-wet snow. For a larger fish you’ll need to double or triple the salt (such as a salmon).

Stuff the fish cavity with the herb mixture. Rub about half of the mixture on the outside of the fish.

Place about one-third of the salt slush on a baking sheet lined with foil — spread out to create a “salt pad” for the fish. Place the fish on top of the salt pad and cover with the remaining salt slush. The salt should cover the entire main body of the fish — ok to have the head and tail uncovered by salt.

This will take a while to cook — this 3 pound striper will take about 45 minutes to completely.

Remove from the oven and let rest for about 10 minutes. Crack the salt crust, brush off any excess salt and serve!

What a properly butchered Vegan should look like

gardengirlfarm — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 20:23:29 +0000

I think this guy has a crush on me! He did two blog posts on me in two days! I don’t know if I should be flattered or load a gun??? The more I learn about him the more I just plain feel sorry for him. He is truly confused and conflicted. My advice for him is exactly this. ” Stop speaking/blogging then people will only suspect you are an idiot.” Another thing find a new hair dresser as the one you have now clearly hates you. And who the fuck dressed you for the GRIST photo??? Do you still live with your Mother?

Thank you again for the free press! Ass

http://eatingplantsdotorg.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/eat-local-kill-local-the-backyard-slaughter/

http://eatingplantsdotorg.wordpress.com/author/veganeducation/

http://www.grist.org/article/food-2010-12-08-james-mcwilliams-meat-industry-defender-and-aggrieved-vegan

Fall is here and savory food is one the menu. Royal Palm turkey info.

gardengirlfarm — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 16:53:06 +0000

Hello friends: the Summer that was never really here has turned to Fall and Fall means savory food. Turkey is one of my favorite savory dishes and I wanted to share some information with you on turkeys we choose to breed for pets as well as food. I hope you all had a wonderful Summer. We will be sharing more Fall recipes soon. Thanks for following us!

The Royal Palm is a strikingly attractive and small-sized turkey variety. The first birds in America to have the Palm color pattern appeared in a mixed flock of Black, Bronze, Narragansett, and Wild turkeys on the farm of Enoch Carson of Lake Worth, Florida in the 1920s. Further selection has been made since then to stabilize the consistency of color and other characteristics. As an anonymous breeder wrote to Feathered Worldmagazine in 1931, “Turkeys of this type of coloration do crop up by chance where different color varieties are crossed . . . but it takes years to perfect their markings.” The Royal Palm was recognized by the American Poultry Association in 1971. It is similar to a European variety called the Pied, Crollwitz, or Black-laced White, which has been known since the 1700s.

Royal Palm turkeys are white with a sharply contrasting, metallic black edging on the feathers. The saddle is black which provides a sharp contrast against the white base color of body plumage. The tail is pure white, with each feather having a band of black and an edge of white. The coverts are white with a band of black, and the wings are white with a narrow edge of black across each feather. The breast is white with the exposed portion of each feather ending in a band of black to form a contrast of black and white similar to the scales of a fish. The turkeys have red to bluish white heads, a light horn beak, light brown eyes, red to bluish white throat and wattles, and deep pink shanks and toes. The beard is black.

Royal Palms are active, thrifty turkeys, excellent foragers, and good flyers. Standard weights are 16 pounds for young toms and 10 pounds for young hens. The Royal Palm has not been purposefully selected for either growth rate or muscling, being used primarily as an exhibition variety.

The Royal Palm lacks the commercial potential of the other varieties, but it has a role to play on small farms, for home production of meat or where its ability to control insect pests would be of value.

What a properly butchered rabbit should look like.

gardengirlfarm — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 16:56:22 +0000

I finally got my brother Scotty to help me butcher and cook a male rabbit with a nasty disposition. No home for Mr. Scratchy. I thought I would post graphic photos of a properly butchered and skinned rabbit. The testicles are still attached which shocked me as they usually tear off with the hide. We cooked the rabbit over an open oak fire and had a salad from the garden. As an added bonus I had gone fishing that morning with my friend Sarge at Bon Tempi lake and we caught two beautiful trout. We grilled/smoked the trout and added them to our salad. I love Summer’s generous bounty.