Summer snacking has become a new event in our house. But rather than picking up the individual plastic wrapped treats from the shops we are making the effort to make our own. The results are very tasty!
We did a bit of a cupboard raid for these and added some peanut butter and pecans. You can add any chopped nuts you fancy to the chocolate topping. Raisins would work here too!
Save this recipe to try. And please let us know if you do, we love to hear from you. As usual, find all the organic ingredients you need in the shop- most are in plastic free packaging.
2 tablespoons pecans, chopped (or what every nuts you fancy)
Method:
Step 1: Line a small tray or lunch box with parchment paper 15cm x 20cm approx.
Step 2: Add the oats, cocoa powder, peanut butter and honey to a blender. Blend until combined. Check the consistency of the mix, if its dry add a small spoon of water and blend again. And add more water if it’s still dry. Then mix should stick together when it’s ready, test a piece with your fingers.
Step 3: Tip the mix onto the tray and smooth it into the corners using a second piece of parchment paper.
Step 4: Melt the chocolate and coconut oil in the microwave or in a heat proof bowl over a pot of simmering water. When melted add in the chopped pecans. Pour this over the base. Then put it in the fridge to set completely, at least 1 hour.
Purple, creamy, simple, quick and tasty! We have been stocking and selling Organic Irish Blueberries they are selling really well this season. This recipe is a nod to our friends at Banner Berries (Co. Clare), keep up the great work.
Blueberries are packed with antioxidants that are great for our bodies and skin. Blended with bananas this makes a delicious healthy treat and a super substitute for regular ice cream.
Check out our organic blueberries and add them to the cart along with your fair trade bananas and give this a whiz.
Enjoy,
Lou 🙂
PS- We made this in a Ninja nutri blender – any smoothie blender will do.
Courgettes are part of the squash family that originate in North America. But did you know these tasty dark green beauties were only grown and developed in the second part of the 1900’s in Italy! And now they have adapted to Irish soil and grown happily in our fields.
Home grown courgettes taste delicious with cheddar cheese. These fritters take just minutes to prepare and minutes to cook. We made garlicky tzatziki sauce to serve with them. Eat them warm from the pan.
Drop a couple of Irish courgettes and cucumbers in your basket for this one.
Step 1: Coarsely grate the courgette and put it in a bowl. Add in the grated cheese, flour, salt and pepper. Give it a mix, whisk the egg and add that too.
Step 2: To make the tzatziki. Coarsely grate the cucumber put it in a sieve and squeeze out the extra liquid. Use this cucumber liquid for smoothies and juices. Add the grated cucumber to the yoghurt along with the finely grated garlic, lemon zest, salt and pepper, mix.
Step 3: Warm a non stick frying pan, medium heat, on the hob. Drizzle some oil to coat. Add a tablespoon of the courgette mix, fit 3-4 on the pan. Cook for a few minutes, flip and cook for another few minutes until golden brown. Lift them off onto kitchen paper, repeat with the next batch.
On recent days it has been pleasant and invigorating to walk the farm and experience the soft warm rain on our faces. An unusual experience for the west coast of Ireland if the truth be told, cold biting wind and stinging rain being the more customary Irish weather! The warm weather has been gratefully accepted and unlike many places we are happy to receive the rain at least now, at this point in the year, when many in other parts of the world are suffering from drought.
The rain has made sticky muck out of the dusty dry soil, The land is now slippery, and sticky and you must move with care, lifting and carrying heavy crates is a more fraught affair. Nevertheless, there is an enlivening feeling in the warm rain and without it there would be no growth.
The rain and heat have brought on growth at an astounding place. We have observed unimaginable crop and weed growth in the space of a week, and we are now presented with the unenviable fact that there is a lot of hand weeding to do.
Many would say that weeds have their place, and they do, but it would be naive on a commercial organic farm to take this laissez-faire approach to weeds, we would have no harvest. Weeds compete for light, nutrients, and oxygen, they harbour little creatures (and especially slugs) that will eat the crops and they can restrict airflow leading to increased disease.
Not all weeds are “bad”, weeds provide a haven for good creatures, for wildlife, birds eat their seeds and hide in their shade. It is when they get out of control that you have a problem.
Weed control is one of the key distinctions between organic and conventional farming. Conventional farmers are not faced with this relentless pressure to weed. Their weed control comes out of a white plastic bottle, sprayed onto the crops and the ground to kill the unwanted plants.
In conventional farming, the farmer sprays, he starts with roundup to “clean” the land then may apply pre and post crop emergence chemicals/herbicides. Crops can be sprayed several times in their lifespan. All these chemicals can reside in the food that is ultimately produced. The impact on of these chemicals on biodiversity is large and destructive. There are no chemicals used on our farm nor will there ever be, but despite our best efforts we now face days of hand weeding.
So we walk the farm feel the rain on our faces, touch the warm courgettes on the plants, examine the healthy and vibrant lettuces (Of which we have too many) taste the first baby carrots, pull the best beetroot we have ever grown on the farm and all in all, although there is still plenty of work to be done we are grateful for the beautiful and healthy bounty of the land. The food feels clean and healthy and powerful, and just to hold it whilst standing in the rain feels like you are increasing your life energy.
We are harvesting this produce every day, from tomatoes to beetroot, we are picking and bringing it straight to our pack house to be packed into your boxes. We hope that you at home are feeling a little bit of that energy we are feeling and are enjoying your positive contribution to you and your families health and know that you are making a meaningful positive commitment to the planet.
Our beautiful Irish courgettes are in season, they are plentiful, glorious and glossy green! And we will be eating them in every way possible over the next couple of months! This time we are going creamy and cheesy. Just one pot is required to make this comforting bowl of goodness.
We love all sorts of pasta in our house and orzo is a particular favourite. We always have the “Is it rice?” conversation, I’m guessing most families do! Its always great to add variety to mealtimes and especially if you have curious kids in the house!
Do you fancy making this tasty one pot meal? Let us know in the comments we love to hear from you.
Step 2: Warm a pot on a medium heat, add a tablespoon of cooking oil, add with the leeks, garlic, a small pinch of salt and pepper and stir. Cook gently to soften.
Step 3: Next pour in the orzo and veg stock and simmer to cook for 10 minutes, stir occasionally to stop the pasta sticking on the bottom of the pot.
Step 4: Add the cream to the pot then coarsely grate the courgette, and add this too. Simmer for a further few minutes, then stir in a handful of parmesan cheese.
If the sauce looks too thin, turn up the heat for a couple of minutes and let the sauce bubble, but stir it so it doesn’t stick. Add some more salt and pepper if needed.
It is always with a great sense of irony that we head into July. It is the official end of the hungry gap. We are catapulted from a frenzy of farming activity and a dearth of harvest in early June to a level of activity bordering on the insane and an overflowing harvest basket.
July is the time when we have a plentiful harvest, and it is the very same time that many of you our customers break your routine with cooking and many people are going away on holidays and are taking a well-earned break.
It is hard to assess our harvest need a year in advance and the last three years we have seen so much volatility; we are not sure what way is up anymore. But plans were made back in November and now we are harvesting the fruits of our labour.
This summer is proving to be a big challenge; We have so much of our own freshly harvested food right now and we have developed relationships with other local organic farms and now when the time of Irish plenty arrives, we find that you our customers are taking a break for all the usual reasons, holidays, not cooking, routines out the window and we understand completely.
The downturn this summer for us is leaving us with surplus harvest with nowhere to go but back into the ground.
This time of every year we also see a large increase in labour costs on the farm. It is a double downturn for us, as our costs go up and our sales go down. Anybody will tell you this is not a good way to run a business.
The initial start of the growing season on our organic farm, seeds, plants, fertiliser (organic), compost, contractors and labour are high, before you harvest even one bean. All of this is necessary to make the food in the fields happen.
Growing food at the best of times is not a money-making enterprise, far from it, we only ever expect the farm to break even and most years this is a stretch to achieve. We grow the food, because we love to do it, because sustainable agriculture is something we strongly believe in, and we believe is the key to a healthier future.
We have PV cells generating our electricity, we have invested in a zero-emission electric van, we collect our rainwater, we plant trees, and hedgerows, we use only plastic free packaging. We educate people on how important biodiversity is with free farm walks on the first Saturday of every month. To get everybody involved in thinking about the planet and the environment, where our food comes and how it is produced is our critical philosophy.
All of this takes time and energy, it all costs money and at the end of the day although everybody wants to enjoy their job and although nearly everybody that works with us believes in our values and our mission, they still need to get paid.
So, this is a plea, a plea to ask you to order next week, to find a way (if you can at all) to continue supporting us over the summer, to tell your friends and family to order from us, or let us deliver to you if you are on holidays in Ireland, (we deliver to every county with sustainable packaging).
The boxes next week are loaded with the most amazing fresh local Irish organic produce, including, spinach, salad, lettuce, courgettes, cucumbers, kale, scallions, tomatoes and we even have new IRISH organic potatoes.
This is such an easy spelt soda bread. And that makes it easier, is if you buy Dunany Organic Spelt flour their recipe is on the back of the packet. I’ve followed their recipe here and modified it slightly, it makes 2 delicious loaves.
Spelt bread is a great choice it’s more digestible than most wheat breads and it can help improve the immune system, lower blood sugar, and reduce bad cholesterol levels. This is a fantastic Irish product from the east coast that makes beautiful home baked bread. We love ours with real butter, jam and a mug of tea.
How do you like yours? Let us know in the comments, we love to hear from you.
This recipe calls for buttermilk. I don’t buy it, I make my own sour milk with milk and vinegar see the recipe below.
Lou 🙂
Recipe credit goes to The Workmans @dunanyflour – thank you for making it so easy to use your fantastic flour.
400ml buttermilk (or *make your own 370ml milk + 30ml vinegar)
200ml water
2 tablespoons of mixed seeds – optional
Method:
Step 1: Preheat the oven 200ºC and line 2 loaf tins with non-stick paper liners or grease really well to prevent sticking.
Step 2: Measure the spelt flour, salt and brown sugar into a mixing bowl. Sieve in the bread soda. Mix well, I like to use a whisk.
Step 3: Measure the buttermilk into a jug along with the water. Crack in the egg and mix well with a fork.
Step 4: Pour the wet ingredients into the mixing bowl and stir to combine. Divide between each loaf tin, smooth to make even. Sprinkle with mixed seeds.
Step 5: Bake for 15 minutes, then turn the oven down to 180ºC and bake for a further 30 minutes until fully baked.
*To make your own buttermilk, simple mix the milk and vinegar together, it sours the milk immediately, and continue from step 2.
Courgette season is in full swing and we are harvesting these dark green beauties both from the tunnels and from the fields. Fantastic in savoury dishes, of course, but did you ever bake a courgette cake?
Click on the bold part to go directly to each recipe
It’s barbecue season! What better way to use some beautiful courgettes than these BBQ skewers
A handy snack for hungry adults and children alike: Lunch box muffins
It is July and there are ripe red cherry tomatoes being harvested on the farm, they are then packed and delivered across the country to your doorstep. My kids and I saw them growing first hand, in the tunnels, at the farm walk last Saturday and it truly made me appreciate how special they really are.
A simple dish like this really celebrates the cherry tomato. This recipe was shared by an Italian Nonna (granny) she said using the best ingredients is what matters most. I think she’s right. Like her I added some bicarbonate of soda to the sauce this balances the acidity in the tomatoes and really elavates the sweetness. Try it and tell us what you think!
Step 1: Rinse the cherry tomatoes and cut them in half. Finely slice the garlic cloves.
Step 2: Warm a wide pan on a medium heat. Add a good glug of oil to the pan along with the sliced garlic, cook for a minute.
Step 3: Pour in the cherry tomatoes cook for a few minutes. Then add the bicarbonate of soda, chilli flakes, sugar and salt. Simmer for 5-10 minutes, until the tomatoes start to soften.
Step 4: Meanwhile, cook the pasta in boiling salty water. Then add straight to the cooked tomatoes, stir to coat, add the fresh basil leaves and serve up. Bellissimo!
