Colcannon

by Liz Child

This St Patrick’s Day favourite combines the two best vegetables of all time – potatoes and kale. Don’t let anyone tell you these humble vegetables are nothing less than extraordinary!

Potatoes (especially when you leave the skin on) are a delicious source of fibre, energy giving carbohydrates, antioxidants, potassium (more than a banana!) and magnesium. They also contain vitamin C, calcium, folate and vitamin B6.

Kale is well known for being a superfood. The humble kale, grown right here on our farm in Galway, is one of the most nutrient dense foods on the planet and contains well over 100% of your daily needs for Vitamins A, C and K as well as a whole host of other vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, fibre and even an omega 3 fatty acid!

So we say this dish is not just for St Patrick’s Day, make colcannon regularly as a side dish or as a topping for your pies.

Liz x

Ingredients (per person)

  • 1 large or a couple of smaller potatoes, scrubbed and chopped into even chunks
  • 3 kale leaves, rinsed, tough stems removed (save the stems, they are delicious finely chopped and added to stir fries, stews, soups etc)
  • 1 scallion, sliced
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • salt and pepper to taste

Method

  1. Get your potatoes boiling in a large pot of water. Meanwhile tear up your kale leaves into small pieces and place them in a steaming basket or metal colander.
  2. When the potatoes are nearly cooked through, place the steaming basket/colander of kale over the pot and put the lid on. Let the kale steam until wilted and soft – this only takes around 3 minutes so keep an eye on it.
  3. Remove the kale and drain the soft potatoes, then tumble them back into the warm pot. Mash the potatoes with the butter and season with salt and pepper to your taste. Then stir through the wilted kale and chopped scallions.
  4. Serve with an extra dollop of butter as a side dish. It’s also delicious as a shepherd’s pie topping, baked in the oven to crisp up – see pic below.

Hope for the Future

by Kenneth Keavey

What a week it’s been. It seems wrong to feel you are struggling with everyday issues when there are such terrible things going on in the world, and yet life goes on. We still need to get up and do our jobs and get on with all the other things that life brings to our door.

As we push on into 2022 it is hard to know which way to look to understand what kind of a year it will be. A few weeks back there was plenty of reasons to be optimistic, finally we were emerging from a dark period and there was a sense of relief and hope for the future, much of that now seems to have changed.

Our heart here on the farm has gone out to the people of Ukraine, and there have been some emotional discussions, and discussion too about what we can do as a small business to help. We decided there certainly were things we could do, easily and quickly, so we did them. We have changed our donation box to the “Ukraine donation box” it is €30 and we are topping up the value by an extra €10 for each box. We are also donating €1 for each delivery we make this week (and next). All of the money raised will be given to UNICEF Ireland. We have decided to keep the appeal going for another week and we have already raised close to €3000! So, thank you so much to all who have bought a donation box or received a delivery this week.

I have found at times this week as the real pressures of business bear down and the cost of living and the inflationary pressures increase that there is no where to turn to. We seem to be caught in a perfect storm, we are in the food production and delivery business, the cost of everything has gone up so much, it is eye watering as I am sure most of you are feeling these cost of living pressures too.

We have been looking at this issue every which way you can imagine and have been trying to keep things on an even keel. We are doing what we can, if you look in the special section of our website you will see discounts on some of the staple products, it may not be much but it is a start and hopefully a help. Remember too we deliver to your door and if that means you save a trip in car not only are you helping the planet now you will also be saving money.

While all of these things are flying around in my head I find that there is always one thing that gives me an unequivocal feeling of progress, hope and optimism for the future and that is the farm. The season is starting again we have ploughed our first fields, we have sown our first crops, we are planting our first plants the week after St. Patricks week. The earth smells wonderful, the birdsong is amazing and the break in the clouds to give us the most amazing blue skies with a frosty farmscape have been intoxicating.

So, whenever things are getting that little bit too much, remember you have been one of the people that have contributed to nearly €3000 for people who need it much more that we do, and the fresh air, the blue sky and the earth beneath our feet are always there we just need to stop and look.

Here’s to a great St Patrick’s week ahead.

Kenneth

PS There is also a 15% off all of our orders for next week just use the code “STPADDYS” when you order.

From the farm or IRISH this week: Potatoes, leeks, spinach, kale, mushrooms, parsnips, cabbage (3 types), purple sprouting broccoli, celeriac, swede and chard.

Also Remember we are not delivering by courier next week as DPD are not operating on Thursday or Friday.

The Benefits of Buying Local

by Liz Child

With recent world events, it has become startlingly clear how important being self sufficient as a country can be. Don’t get us wrong, we love to trade with the world, we all love oranges, olives, wine, tea, coffee, chocolate etc. Keeping our fridges full with a healthy variety of fresh fruits and vegetables year round means importing from our organic farming connections around the world (by the way, we never use airfreight). Trading with the world is a positive thing, being friendly with our neighbours and part of unions benefits us all – nutritionally and to promote peace and prosperity. But, it’s also important to us to support local and buy local food as much as possible. Food security is a real issue and supporting local farmers and paying them fair prices (we’re looking at you supermarkets!) is always going to be an important topic that we will talk about regularly. So this week, with St Patrick’s Day on the calendar, we are celebrating all things local and Irish.

Good for You

Local food is fresh, more flavoursome and even more nutritious than food that has travelled! When there has been less time between harvest and your home, there are more nutrients. Did you know that as soon as a fruit or vegetable is picked it starts to loose nutrients? So the quicker it gets to your plate, the better. Locally grown food intended for local consumers will be picked when it is ripe too, so you’ll be getting the best flavour as well as avoiding waxes and preservatives found on food that has travelled a long way.

Good for the Planet

Buying locally produced food, of course means less food miles. ‘Food miles’ is the term for the distance food is transported from the time of its making until it reaches the consumer. Choosing local food requires less transport, therefore less fuel/energy is used to get the food to your plate – so local food has a smaller carbon footprint because it produces less transport related emissions. Less transport usually means less need for packaging too. We use as little packaging as possible to get our food to you, and where we do use packaging we choose paper or compostable bags over plastic.

Good for your Community

Supporting local food producers means more work and more money in your community. Spending money with Irish business will mean more Irish jobs, more Irish tax and therefore better services for everyone. Shopping locally strengthens the local economy too. Local businesses are more likely to recirculate the money locally – not just on wages and taxes, but also on local suppliers and services. This leads to a stronger financial foundation for our neighbours and communities and a more recession-resilient local economy.

Will you support the local economy and help Ireland build better food security by buying a box of organic fruit, vegetables and groceries from us today? We deliver nationwide. Have a look at all we can deliver to your door here.

Clean Dirt

by Kenneth Keavey

What is hiding in our food? 

Simone’s oranges picked in Italy contain nothing but a good helping of Italian sunshine and healthy nutrients from his soil. Our parsnips contain nothing but a good helping of Irish rain and the healthy nutrients from our soil. What then about their conventional cousins? Hmm well as it turns out, the story there is very different.

Dirt, clay soil the stuff that gets stuck under your fingernail is good for us. It is actually pretty healthy to get it on your hands, in fact research has shown that getting your hands stuck in clay may actually ease depression. (Mycobacterium vaccae the bacterium is found in soil and may stimulate serotonin production is currently under study)

Some of our produce comes with dirt on it and we are pretty proud of that, we know it takes a little more effort in the kitchen and time can be in short supply, we know when you have a busy household the last thing you want to do is to wash dirty carrots or parsnips. We get that, I know the feeling and sometimes I reach for that bag of washed carrots and am just thankful they are washed!

But here’s the thing we are not hiding anything, you can see the dirt and it has a very important function. It is a natural preservative, it keeps the veg fresh, it keeps the flavour in. You can smell the freshness when you wash one of our dirty parsnips. Crucially leaving dirt on your veg actually helps reduce food waste!

The great thing of course about soil is it can be washed off.

This unfortunately is not the case with chemicals. Many are systemic in nature, (simply put they get inside the plant or food and stay there). 

Some chemicals are applied to the skins of fruits and vegetables to preserve them. The most commonly known ones are the fungicides mixed into the waxes and applied to citrus fruit. 

We stumbled upon some pretty eye-watering facts during the week. It turns out that one of the big supermarkets are now kindly putting the names of the chemicals mixed in with the waxes on their loose citrus fruit on their website. Have a look see for yourself. (Check out the description on loose lemons on this retailer’s website. I’ll give you a hint the name of the multinational supermarket begins with T.)

This is what is found on your conventional (Non organic) LEMONS:

Here is the list we found (Depending on country of origin, the treatment varies)

Spain: Imazalil/Thiabendazole/Pyrimethanil & Wax E914, E904 

Morocco:  Propiconazole/Pyrimethanil/Imazalil & Wax E914, E904 

Egypt: Imazalil/Thiabendazole & Wax E904, E914 

RSA: 2,4 D/Imazalil/Thiabendazole & Wax E914, E904 

And if you were wondering what these wonderful preserving chemicals may do to us unsuspecting humans here are some fun facts:

Imazalil is a suspected carcinogen and a probable endocrine disrupter (compounds that mimic or inhibit the body’s hormones, generally not good for us)

Thiabendazole is a probable endocrine disrupter 

2,4-D falls into a class of compounds called endocrine-disrupting chemicals. 

Here is another fun fact, the amount allowed in a piece of fruit is set by something called the MRL (Maximum residue limit) and this is generally set by what works to kill a pest and not what is safe for human consumption. (Recently The EU proposed reducing the MRL for Imazalil to 0.01mg/kg  for citrus from 4mg/kg, but this was overturned by growers, so what is the safe limit?)

So, unlike the dirt on our parsnips which is harmless, and could be argued is actually improving our health, extending shelf life, locking in flavour and can be seen, these hidden compounds reside on much of the conventional fruit that is purchased in supermarkets and is bad for our health. It is refreshing to see at last that there is some transparency creeping into our food supply chain. 

Kenneth

https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/citrus.php

Learning From the Past

by Kenneth Keavey

So much has changed in one generation. A couple of years ago a customer sent me a paper clipping from 1939 featuring an article on seasonal vegetables. Imagine back then, there was diet and health advice: “Fresh green or root vegetables….should be the staple part of every family dinner”.

But the food back then was different to our food today in so many ways. It was fresher, it was local, it was plastic free and it was free from chemicals. Can you imagine if our food today was produced without artificial fertilisers, without toxic chemicals, not wrapped in plastic and was produced locally.

Our ancestors did not contribute to the mass of plastic pollution choking our planet. Plastic didn’t exist. My grandad would have grown his own veggies, and if he didn’t grow it, he would have bought them in the local market or in a green grocer. Supermarkets didn’t exist back then. There was no such thing as Roundup the food was clean. Fresh produce was highly valued, it was not discounted, loss leading was not a thing and as we have seen today this is sending Irish farmers out of business.

Today we live in a world of everything and anything all the time. It is amazing to have such choice, but there is a cost, a cost hidden behind the plastic: the chemicals, the exploitation of workers, the clearing of rainforests, the destruction of habitats, the pollution of our oceans. The list goes on.

THE SUPERMARKET MODEL OF FOOD PRODUCTION IS THE ROOT CAUSE OF ALL THESE PROBLEMS, A MODEL WE ALL RELY ON AND YET ONE THAT NEEDS TO CHANGE. HOW CAN A BAG OF CARROTS COST 49C? COST LESS THAN THE ADDITIONAL OF AN EXTRA ESPRESSO TO OUR COFFEES?

Life seemed much simpler in my grandad’s day, life was certainly tougher, food was scarce at times, but the food was clean, healthy and did not leave a trail of pollution behind. We don’t need to return to a land of scarcity, but maybe a mindset change to see value in fresh food again would be a good thing, it is after all the building block that we put into our bodies every single day.

Being out in the rain and wind, harvesting leeks and pulling parsnips, is no fun, and it takes a certain caliber of person to persist with this work well into the winter. But this is seasonal food, this is the reality of local food production. The smell of freshly harvested parsnips, is quite frankly amazing, covered in muck they feel alive and real and you get the feeling that just by holding them in your hand you are doing something positive for the planet!

Producing good clean food, while respecting the ground beneath our feet that gives us so much deserves to be valued. Because if we don’t value and respect the earth then there will not be much left for the next generation to enjoy.

I THINK FOOD PRODUCTION HAS SUCH POTENTIAL TO CHANGE OUR LIVES, TO CHANGE THE WAY WE EAT, TO CHANGE HOW WE WORK, TO CHANGE OUR WORLD.

Here’s to learning from the past!

Kenneth

When It’s Gone It’s Gone

by Kenneth Keavey

If Joe, or Ella or Hannah take on the vegetable growing gene, that will make us 5th generation vegetable growers here in the West of Ireland. We are lucky, our model of growing and distributing food protects us, to an extent at least.

“When it’s gone it’s gone” the words of Cathal Lenehan the second biggest brussel sprout grower in the country as he calls a halt to his farming career for good this week. As prices in supermarkets continue to erode any chance of vegetable farmers in this country surviving, Cathal has put a call out, a plea for them to recognise that farmers just can’t survive on what they are receiving from supermarket buyers.

In 2006 the last of the sugar beet farms closed in Ireland. A whole industry disappeared overnight, the skills, the experience, the infrastructure disappeared, lost forever. As we face down the inevitable pressure of producing more food for more people from the same land area, it seems extremely short sighted that there are not adequate supports put in place now to ensure farmers such as Cathal are protected.

Cheap imports undercut the market. Supermarkets devalue our fresh food, they use them as loss leaders. It is all about the bottom line. Supermarkets are in the food supply industry, they have a responsibility to mind their suppliers, pushing them to the edge in the short term, in the long term will not yield stability, resilience or loyalty. Ultimately this will lead as with the sugar beet industry to devastation for the fresh vegetable industry in this country, farms that have been growing vegetables for generations will suddenly disappear.

How sad would that be? Losing the art of being able to produce our own food, the art and skill of taking care of the land, of being able to produce viable healthy food on a commercial scale. That is not something you can just make happen overnight, it is learned over time and passed down from generation to generation.

I have never had any time for the supermarket model of procurement (buying). In 2016 we said good-bye to supermarket supplying for good. We were told one Monday out of the blue we needed to decrease our prices, and collect any unsold produce from the supermarket and reimburse the supermarket for it. We were told there would be no order that week until we complied, they were our single biggest customer, they had all the power. Well so they thought.

We were one of the lucky ones we had our home delivery business to fall back on, and although it was a major financial hit and in the short-term things were very shaky it was the best decision we ever made.

The good news is you made that decision possible. Your support means more than you know. It means we can breathe a little, it means we can plant trees, it means we can rest the ground and allow it to recover between crops, it means we can support biodiversity on our farm. It means we can give the attention to producing healthy happy food for you.

Thank you.

Kenneth

Do Small Changes Make a Difference?

by Kenneth Keavey

When I was younger, I believed that by convincing my parents to recycle glass bottles and joining Green Peace that we would make a difference, I was utterly convinced, I never doubted it for a second, I knew the planet was precious and that our changes made a difference.

All young children have a connection with nature and they believe they can do anything, what happens as we grow up? Why do we lose that sense of value for the natural world that we had as children? 

When we started the farm, I believed growing sustainable food would change the planet, and that all we needed was a tractor, some seeds and we would have a successful farm. 

At times on this journey, there has been disillusionment, pressure and stress, the fighting to do the right thing when it seemed it was all going against us. But ultimately, we stayed the course and stuck to our principles. 

I am not sure how long it normally takes, but it took (and continues to take) a long time to realise that no one change in isolation changes anything. Real change and success is built on lots and lots of little things done consistently over time.

This is as true for building a new habit as it is for fixing the planet.

So maybe one by one and little by little all our changes taken together can effect real change. Maybe your choice to plant a tree, to avoid weed killer, or to tell your kids about biodiversity and educate them in the beauty and preciousness of nature contribute to real positive change.

By buying from us you are effecting real change, you are choosing a different way to eat and are supporting serious changes behind the scenes. You are supporting your health, and the planet, sustainable food production and a new system of growing and selling food.

Your choice to support us means you are one of a community that are choosing a new and better way to eat, you are supporting farming and food for a better planet.

Does it matter? Does it matter that you support a zero-waste circular economy, a sustainable means of growing food and a better food future, does that matter?

Well in my book that does matter it matters a lot.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
― Margaret Mead 

Thank you for your support.

Kenneth

PS We deliver nationwide, explore our range here.

One of Those Weeks

by Kenneth Keavey

Last week was a terrible week. Have you ever had one of those? Where everything that can go wrong, does go wrong. We are a small family business, we are based on our own family farm in county Galway and small things can have a big impact. 

Have you ever faced into a time when you really can’t figure out which way is up? Everything is going against you? Things are unravelling before your eyes? Well if you have then we can certainly empathise. 

Last week was the week, we have had quite a few of “those weeks” over the last two years, and we know we have been the lucky ones, many businesses have not been so lucky, we have managed to stay open and stay going. I think maybe even Florence and George our pet rescue pigs knew there was something amiss last week.

Most of you our customers will hopefully have been none the wiser that there was anything amiss.

The week started with several staff not being able to come in to work due to close contact related stuff, we were down people and were on the back foot from the start. But we got busy, the guys and girls working put in amazing effort.

Then there were delays to deliveries, disruptions to our transport partners that meant we were left with significant stock shortages. Again, everybody got pretty busy both harvesting extra on the farm and changing contents in boxes to make sure everybody got as close to what they wanted as possible.

Then in the middle of it all more of the team were out,  so we had to put a stop on most of the harvest temporarily and drafted the farm team into the packing shed to help with packing. We were working flat out. 

By Wednesday we were stretched, stressed and there was just too many plates spinning.

But on Thursday the ultimate disaster struck our whole website and all the software we rely on to keep the wheels turning crashed and was not back online again properly until Friday afternoon. That left us with a backlog of nearly 300 orders to pack in one day, as close to an impossible task as there is. 

Not only that but an already stretched customer service team were trying their very best to get back to the many queries that were coming in as a result of the outage.

It was intense, busy, stressful, and at times energised, fuelled by pizza and loud music, but the team came through in the end. 

The final icing on the cake was not having our orders ready for our usual transport link to Dublin and we had to hire our own truck, which arrived and was not big enough, so we had to make two runs though the night to get the orders to Dublin for Saturday morning delivery, 4.45 am the last boxes were loaded onto the truck on our farm on Saturday morning.

Not only that but the team were back in on Saturday again to try and mop up the missed pieces and Darragh our Limerick Agent was even packing his own orders by hand on Saturday and Sunday to ensure they were done for delivery on Monday.

It was close to the most difficult week we have had. But you know what we got through it. The team here were remarkable and did an astounding job, and I am grateful for all their hardwork. 

Thank you guys.

Kenneth

Happy New Year!

by Kenneth Keavey

I am not one for new year resolutions, it’s not that I am against them or for them I just don’t make them. But there certainly is something about the new year that seems to encourage change. Maybe it’s having passed the shortest day and being on the trajectory to better weather and longer days gives a feeling of hope. Maybe it’s the over indulgence and excess of the Christmas period. Maybe a little niggling feeling that’s been there all along just bubbles closer to the surface.

For the farm it marks at least on paper the start of a new season, the planning begins and the seeds must be selected and the rotation planned. I am always a little bemused at how long ago the start of the last growing season was and at the same time how fast time passes. It is one of those mysteries of getting older, I guess. It’s very difficult to make plans anymore. For the farm last year we were a little too ambitious with our planning, we planned and grew too many crops. This year we are taking a more sensible approach and scaling back a little of certain crops and a growing a little more of others. That being said, the winter has been benign, mild and not too wet and the crops remaining in the fields are in good order and we have plenty to harvest over the coming months.

Whilst there has been plenty of good hearty vegetables consumed here over Christmas we have also had our fair share of chocolate. I am guessing that there will have been few houses or few people in the country who did not encounter a box of ‘Milk Tray’ during this festive Season. Growing up they were the main stay of our family evening, and my mother for some reason never trusted me with them, I can still hear, “only one Kenneth” every time I see a box. That instruction was always reserved for me and never aimed at my siblings strangely enough. These sweets today seem to be a far cry from the sweets I remember as a child.

If you happen to have a box lying around take a look at the ingredients. I didn’t recognise most of them. Apart from sugar I couldn’t say yeah that’s in our cupboard. The result of course is not good, the food itself is now a synthetic engineered product from ultra-cheap and highly processed ingredients. Sugar is the first ingredient, followed by palm oil as the second, for those that don’t know, ingredients are listed in the order of quantity. Then there is the cheap waste by products from the milk industry and more. The intention it seems has been to make the product as cheap as possible and to sell as much as possible for maximum profit, with scant regard for taste or quality. This unfortunately is a common approach to many foods today.

Compromising on taste and quality never leads anywhere good. This race to the bottom can end up costing us our health and the planet too pays a high price for these unsustainable cheap ingredients. So, while I do not embrace the idea of new year resolutions, the one that I come back to every single year without fail is to “Eat more fresh fruit and veg”. I know too that I won’t have to worry about my mum’s mantra of “only take one”! as I reach for another apple.

Have a great new year, thank you for all you have done for us. We are back with our normal deliveries next week. Take care.

Kenneth

Mustard & Maple Swede Roast

by Liz Child

Whole roasted vegetables are one of my favourite things. The long roast means there’s always a sweet, juicy centre and interesting textures and flavours on the edges. This recipe for whole roast swede (pretending to be ham) is inspired by eco-chef Tom Hunt. It makes a fun festive centrepiece and it’s delicious too! Not ham flavoured of course, but a celebration of the humble-but-hearty swede. These bulbous roots are a real Irish staple and they are well overdue their time in the limelight. Swede is slightly peppery and sweet and the mustard-maple glaze works wonderfully. Delicious served in slices alongside pickled red cabbage, roasted potatoes and winter greens. The vegetable and red wine bed makes a brilliant base for a veggie gravy too.

What are you serving for Christmas dinner?

Liz x

Ingredients

  • 2 onions
  • 1 bulb of garlic
  • 2 carrots
  • 4 bay leaves
  • 2 stock cubes
  • a large glass of red wine
  • a large glass of hot water
  • 1 swede
  • whole cloves (approximately 50?)
  • 4 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp ground black pepper
  • 6 tbsp wholegrain mustard
  • 6 tbsp maple syrup

Method

  1. Turn the oven on to 200C. Find a casserole dish with a lid that your swede will fit comfortably in (alternatively use a deep roasting dish and a sheet of foil or a baking sheet as a lid).
  2. Start preparing your swede. Peel it with a potato peeler and trim off any unwanted bits with a large, sharp knife. Score it with shallow cuts, criss-crossing to make lots of diamond shapes. Using a toothpick or a skewer, push a hole into the centre of each diamond. Then push a whole clove into each hole to stud the surface of the swede.
  3. Cut the bulb of garlic in half along its equator. Quarter the onions (leave the skin on) and the carrots. Put the vegetables in the casserole dish, these will impart lots of flavour to the juices in the bottom of the dish. Pour in the wine and hot water and crumble in the stock cubes. Add the bay leaves. Now place the prepared swede on top.
  4. Drizzle the swede with the olive oil and season it with salt and pepper. Put the lid on and place the pot in the oven to steam-bake the swede for at least 1.5 hours (depending on the size of the swede) or until the swede is cooked through. You can test this with a skewer.
  5. Remove the swede onto a clean baking dish. Mix the mustard and maple syrup together and brush half of it over the top and sides of the swede. Return it to the oven for 10 minutes. Then brush the remaining mustard and maple glaze over the swede and put it back in the oven for a final ten minutes. Then it’s ready to carve and enjoy!

Roasted Garlic & Red Wine, Onion Gravy

  1. You can make a gorgeous gravy from the juices left in the casserole dish. Remove the carrots, bay leaves and onions skins. Squeeze out the garlic and remove the skins from the pot. Then use a whisk to blend the roasted garlic into the sauce.
  2. Add 2 tbsp of cornstarch that has been mixed with 3 tbsp of cold water. Whisk it into the gravy and simmer and stir until the gravy is a good consistency. You may wish to add more water.
  3. Add a generous knob of butter and taste the gravy for seasoning. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper if needed. I usually add a splash of soy sauce to enrich and darken the gravy too.