Summer pasta salad

by Nessa Robins

This summer pasta salad contains ten different plants, which are bursting with nutrients and flavours, and when served this way they mingle so deliciously together. Kale, carrots, onions, garlic, and cucumbers are now in season in Ireland, so it’s a great time to make this salad. The dressing coats everything so perfectly. It’s creamy but also plant based. I’ve topped the finished dish with sesame seeds, but a scattering of fresh herbs would also be delicious and would add even more plants to this scrumptious salad.

Enjoy!

Nessa x

Summer pasta salad

Ingredients

  • 150g dried pasta
  • 50g cashew nuts
  • 100g kale, stalks removed and roughly chopped
  • 2 carrots, diced
  • 1 red pepper, diced
  • ½ red onion, finely diced
  • ½ cucumber, finely diced
  • 25 g sesame seeds

Dressing

  • 100g cashew nuts
  • 50g grilled peppers, from a jar
  • 25ml recently boiled water
  • 2tbsp olive oil
  • 1 lime
  • 1 clove garlic, crushed
  • 1tsp maple syrup
  • Salt and black pepper

Method

  1. Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the pack. Drain, hold the colander under a running cold tap for a minute to cool the pasta quickly and stop it from clumping. Leave to drain fully. 
  2. Add 50g of cashew nuts to a hot pan and toast for a couple of minutes. Remove and roughly chop. 
  3. To make the dressing, add the 100g of cashew nuts into a heat-proof bowl. Cover with boiling water and leave to soak for 20 minutes. Drain and add to a food processor with the rest of the ingredients for the dressing, and season with salt and pepper. Blitz for a minute or two until smooth. Refrigerate until ready to use. 
  4. To a large bowl, add the cold pasta and cashews, kale, carrots, red pepper, onion, and cucumber.  Pour over the dressing and combine well. Top with sesame seeds, cover and refrigerate until needed. This salad will keep well for about three days in a sealed container in the fridge. 

Woes and Wonders…

by Kenneth Keavey

Do you ever feel like you are wading through thick treacle? And it seems like everywhere you look there is a problem waiting to be discovered? Welcome to this week on the farm, up and down we go with the waves of life, this week has been one giant wave, and I am wondering if we have reached the crest yet, I think we may have.

By all accounts we should be delighted, and to an extent I know that delight is there, I just can’t seem to access it right at the moment of writing this (we all know the blue sky is always there but mostly at least in this country we can’t see it!), as all those newly discovered problems seem to be overshadowing the good stuff and there actually is plenty of good stuff.

But before that the challenges. So let me start by saying I consistently make the mistake of reading comments by different people that organic farmers use chemicals, I think if I hear that “misinformation” again I will go out of my mind.

Of course we use chemicals. We use soil and water and air, all of which are made up of atoms and molecules that constitute chemicals, and there are natural elements in the soil, my Ph.D. in chemistry seems to be coming in useful at last. I think the insinuation is though we also use synthetic pesticides and insecticides and fungicides.

So how can I be any clearer, we don’t use synthetic man-made toxic chemicals, we simply don’t. Copper Sulphate may be used at times as a preventative for potato blight, but even if this was used, it is not systemic it is not absorbed into the plant, it is not on the potato.

Whereas Roundup is systemic, it gets absorbed into the plants when it is sprayed on them, like it is on cereals in certain countries, it stays in them, and it is toxic. Brand new research has shown that even at levels previously deemed safe it has been shown to cause cancer in animals. (link here https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-025-01187-2)

Then there have been the practical challenges, with system malfunctions, and breakdowns of cold-rooms, and poor plants that we can’t transplant, and having fewer orders due to holidays and loads of harvest and not being able to sell it to support the farm, and general this and that issues.  When all these challenges come all together, they can on some days be too much.

On the other hand, we have in fact got amazing crops this year, the best cucumbers I have ever seen on our farm, and so much more besides. So much so that we are giving away 500 free portions of something next week, a surprise to 500 people chosen at random, so keep an eye out it will say “free from our farm”.

We get to work on the land doing something that is truly worthwhile, producing and selling good quality healthy organic food that is improving our planet and hopefully helping humankind be just a little bit better.  We cannot do that without you, your support keeps us in business, keeps the tractors rolling and the bees buzzing, so as always, a heartfelt thank you.

I hope this pouring forth of my woes for the week was not too much.

As always thank you for your ongoing help and support.

Kenneth

PS Every week you order with us over the summer makes a big difference as many people are taking a well-deserved holiday and this makes keeping all the plates spinning that bit harder here.

Maple-Glazed Crispy Sweet Potatoes

by Nessa Robins

These maple-glazed crispy sweet potatoes are a dairy-free twist on the viral crispy parmesan potatoes. This recipe went viral for a reason as cooking potatoes this way makes them so deliciously crispy and flavoursome. Sweet potatoes work perfectly in place of white potatoes and add a nice nutrient boost to the dish. Sweet potatoes are packed with goodness, and one potato counts towards one of your five-a-day. They are an excellent source of fibre, even more so when baking them with their skins in place. I’ve paired these crispy potatoes with a simple sauce consisting of dairy-free mayonnaise, garlic, and chives, but any dip of choice can be used in its place.

Enjoy!

Nessa x

Maple-Glazed Crispy Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients

  • 3 small, sweet potatoes
  • 2tbsp olive oil
  • 2tbsp maple syrup
  • 1 tbsp smoked paprika
  • Sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
  • 4-5tbsp nutritional yeast
  • To serve
  • 4 tbsp dairy-free mayonnaise
  • 1 clove garlic, crushed
  • 1 tbsp freshly chopped chives

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/fan 180°C /Gas Mark 6. Line a large baking tray with parchment paper. 
  2. Wash, dry, and cut the sweet potatoes in half. In a bowl combine the olive oil, maple syrup, and smoked paprika together with some sea salt and a good grinding of black pepper. Add the potatoes and coat well.
  3. Cover the parchment paper lined tray with an even layer of the nutritional yeast. 
  4. Place the sweet potatoes, cut side down on the tray. Carefully drizzle over the remaining oil mixture from the bowl over each potato.
  5. Bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes, depending on the size of the potatoes. 
  6. While the potatoes are cooking, in a small bowl, combine the mayonnaise with the garlic and chives. Refrigerate until needed. 
  7. Once the potatoes are cooked, serve straight away, with an extra scattering of chopped chives and the garlicy dip on the side. Enjoy!

Veggie Satay Skewers

by Nessa Robins

These veggie satay skewers are so scrumptious, as the flavour of any finished dish will always be enhanced by the inclusion of seasonal vegetables. Mushrooms, courgette, and peppers work well in this recipe as they’re soft enough to thread onto a skewer, but they also retain the flavour so perfectly from the garlicy marinade. The peanut sauce is quick to make and pairs nicely with the cooked vegetables. To serve, a scattering of chopped scallion, chilli, coriander, and peanuts add a delicious finishing touch. Metal or wooden skewers can be used, but if using wooden skewers soak them in cold water for a couple of hours before threading on the vegetables, to avoid the sticks from burning.

Enjoy!

Nessa x 

Veggie Satay Skewers

For the skewers

  • 150g mushrooms
  • 1 red pepper
  • 1 green pepper
  • 1 courgette
  • 1tbsp soy sauce
  • 1tbsp red wine vinegar
  • 1tsp olive oil
  • 2 cloves garlic, crushed
  • Salt and freshly ground pepper

For the dressing

  • 100g peanut butter
  • 50ml water, recently boiled
  • Juice of 1 lime
  • 1 clove garlic, crushed
  • 1tbsp light soy sauce
  • 1tbsp olive oil
  • 1tbsp maple syrup
  • 1tsp sesame oil

To serve

  • 1 scallion, finely chopped
  • 1 red chilli, finely chopped
  • Handful of peanuts, roughly chopped

Method

  1. Prepare the vegetables by cutting them into bitesize chunks. In a large bowl, combine the soy sauce, vinegar, olive oil and garlic, along with a little salt and pepper. Whisk to combine, before adding the vegetables. Stir well, cover and place in the fridge for about an hour.
  2. Make the peanut dressing by adding the dressing ingredients to a mini chopper and blitzing gently for a few seconds to combine. Refrigerate until ready to use. 
  3. Preheat the oven to 200°C/fan 180°C/Gas 6.
  4. Take the marinaded vegetables from the fridge and thread onto skewers. Cook in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes. 
  5. Once the skewers are cooked, serve with a generous drizzle of the peanut sauce, and a scattering of scallion, red chilli and peanuts. 

There is no difference between organic and conventional produce!?

by Kenneth Keavey

It was the “green revolution” in the 1950s that changed our agricultural landscape for ever and not in the way you may think when you consider what we understand by the term “Green” today.

Dr. Norman Borlaug, an American agronomist often called the “Father of the Green Revolution” was awarded the Nobel peace prize for his work in 1970, that led to the aversion of famine in many poorer countries.

But where this Green Revolution led, I don’t think anybody could have fully imagined, and it was this very industrialisation of agriculture that led to Rachel Carson publishing “Silent Spring” in 1962 which was a remarkable reflection on the damage that the widespread use of chemicals wrought on our planet. 

Today we use chemicals to force nature to behave in the way we want, we have tried to impose factory type controls onto the natural environment that we rely on for our food. But nature is not a factory, and the same rules do not apply, you cannot indiscriminately apply chemicals to our food and not expect a fall out.

I have been pulled up many times for the use of the word “chemicals” and people rightly point out that everything is made of “chemicals”.  In fact, I have spent a good portion of my life studying chemicals, having a Ph.D. in organic chemistry. In another twist I left this life to pursue a belief that chemicals do not belong in our food system by becoming an organic farmer.

When I speak about chemicals, I mean synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. My purpose in this is not to alarm, and I believe that we are all better off eating more fresh food, organic or otherwise than some of the crap that lines the supermarket shelves, that is an absolute given. But when it comes to fresh produce, I firmly believe that if you can at all organic is the best option for so many reasons, to protect biodiversity, to keep chemicals out of our bodies and to be kinder to animals. 

Another point that has been raised recently is that organic farmers use “chemicals” just the same as conventional farmers, well let me put that one to bed straight away. That is nothing short of rubbish. 

If I speak for our farm, we don’t use any “synthetic chemicals”, we may use natural products at times, such as sulfur or magnesium, or boron, all of which are chemicals, but not pesticides, or herbicides, they are also not systemic meaning they are not absorbed into the plant, like many of those used in conventional agriculture.

Something we do use is biological controls at times, and we see more and more of this being adopted by our conventional farming brethren. Right now we are doing very interesting trial working with William Deasy in Teagasc as part of their “Growing organics programme”, using a mite to eat the red spider mite (if you grow cucumbers this little red guy can be devastating). We release a predator mite to eat the pest mite, not a chemical in sight, and by all accounts the trial looks really promising.  

As we head into Holiday season now, we also head into harvest season, so if you can at all please support us, right now over the next few weeks we need your support more than ever.

Thank you 

Kenneth

Cheesy Veggie Pastry Rolls

by Nessa Robins

These cheesy veggie rolls are best enjoyed straight from the oven, when the cheese is oozing, and the pastry is deliciously crumbly and crisp. They are, however, also very tasty as a cold snack, and would be well placed at a picnic or outdoor get-together. When transporting these rolls for a picnic, ensure you pack them into a container alongside some icepacks to keep them properly cool while travelling.

Enjoy!

Nessa x

Cheesy Veggie Pastry Rolls

Ingredients

Makes 15

  • 1 sheet of puff pastry
  • 300g mushrooms
  • 1 small red onion
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 25g butter
  • 125g spinach
  • 1tbsp chives, finely chopped
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 50g cheddar cheese, grated
  • 1 egg
  • 1tbsp sesame seeds

Method

  1. Take the puff pastry from the fridge 30 minutes before using. Preheat the oven to 200°C/fan 180°C/Gas Mark 6. 
  2. Add the mushrooms, red onion, and garlic to a processor and blitz until fine.
  3. Heat a large pan over a medium heat and add the butter. Once melted add the blitzed vegetable mixture and cook for about ten minutes, stirring regularly. 
  4. Stir through the spinach and chives. Season with a little salt and pepper. Once the spinach has wilted a little take from the heat and allow to cool. 
  5. Cut the pastry into three strips. Spoon a third of the vegetable mixture along the long edge of the pastry. Sprinkle over a light layer of the grated cheese.
  6. Fold over the pastry to cover the mixture and press down the sides using a fork. Repeat for the other two strips of pastry.
  7. Using a sharp knife, cut each strip into five and place on a greaseproof paper-lined baking tray.
  8. Whisk the egg gently and brush over the top of the rolls before sprinkling over the sesame seeds. 
  9. Place in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes, until golden in colour and cooked through. These rolls are best enjoyed on the day they are made or refrigerate in a sealed container to enjoy cold the next day. 

profit is all that matters, right?

by Kenneth Keavey

There must be more to business and farming than the bottom line? If we pursue profit above all else where will this lead us? I often feel a little discouraged and depressed with the state of the world, the cruelty and destruction we as human being are inflicting on our planet seems endless and unrelenting, it can at times feel overwhelming.

Factory farms, chemical destruction of biodiversity, plastic pollution, the unravelling of our food system and indeed our humanity, clearing the last of the earths forests to grow more food to feed yet more cows, all ultimately in the name of profit and chasing the cheapest product or ingredient. Is this all there is?

In one way there is no denying we all are complicit but how are we to act any differently? We operate within a loaded system supporting a model that is breaking us and our planet. The supermarkets and food companies and large retailers, chase the same goal: make money and keep investors or shareholders happy.

But as the native Americans used to say: “When all the trees have been cut down, the last fish caught, and the last stream poisoned, you will realise that you cannot eat money”

I’m not naïve enough though to think that profit is not important, having been on the hard edge of not being able to pay the bills over the years. We have struggled to reach profitability for many years and producing and selling food as a small retailer couples all the hard points of both industries and we are up against the fierce competition of the global retailer supermarket chains. But here is the thing: Our food choices matter a great deal! I wanted to take the time today to thank you for choosing to support us.

We know you can walk into a supermarket and generally buy produce cheaper than we can sell it at, in fact sometimes you can but this same produce cheaper than we can produce it at. It is funny though, what we consider is acceptable spending. Just today as a reward for completing her first junior cert exam, I bought my daughter her requested almond milk cappuccino, costing a shocking €5.40! Is this the norm now?

But carrots at less than a €1 are considered too expensive, it seems we may have mixed up our priorities here or have I missed something along the way? The convenient road of picking up a cheap plastic clad product from a supermarket is so easy and so habitual but YOU choose to take the more difficult road, the road less travelled even.

Spending a bit more and taking a delivery at a set time each week, we know this is a big commitment. I don’t know if you know, if you fully realise the difference you are making. You have given us the green light to buck the trend, to grow without chemicals, to invest in biodiversity, to focus on products and crops that mitigate climate change and produce and support other farmers than share common values are organic in practice and in spirit.

This is surely the better path? A path that focuses on caring for nature, and ourselves, and not putting profit before all else? To me it seems that this change is all that is needed to fix the world, maybe that is naive? It will take work on your part, the path of least resistance is not always the best way, in fact it is usually only when we put in some effort that we receive the very best rewards.

So, thank you for your time, money, patience and determination to help create a food system that protects our beautiful land and is ultimately a long-term investment in our own future health.

Thank you

Kenneth

Rain at last, and we didn’t ask for it 

by Kenneth Keavey

Rain at last. We never asked for it, we have definitely learned our lesson there. But we couldn’t have asked for a better run of it. Between the amazing sunshine and rain just when we needed it, it has been a miraculous start to the season and for once we are absolutely delighted with progress on the farm. We are so busy at the moment, as the three main tasks are starting to coalesce. We are planting, harvesting and the big one, weeding has just started too.


Our first sowing of carrots and parsnips have just poked their little heads through the soil, which was earlier than expected, but they look good. You know what we will do between now and harvest? We will weed with machines and by hand and we will cover them with nets to exclude the carrot root fly, and that’s it.


In my view, it would make a remarkable difference to how we perceive the value of food if we knew how it was produced, what if the list of chemicals used on the produce were mentioned on the pack, how would that influence our decisions I wonder?
For conventional carrot production right here in Europe and in the UK, here are some of the lovely hidden extras you may be getting. Behind the bright orange crunch is a complex spraying programme involving herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides – some systemic, some not – all used to ensure a blemish-free, marketable crop.
Carrots are sprayed with herbicides, usually starting with Glyphosate prior to planting, then a couple of other stars Pendimethalin and Aclonifen. They can be sprayed 2-3 times per season.
Then it is over to insect control, expect possibly Cyantraniliprole (Benevia), which is systemic (goes into the plant) and Lambda-cyhalothrin (Karate Zeon) which is toxic to bees and aquatic organisms.


It wouldn’t be right to leave out a whole group of chemicals, so not be missed next it is the turn of the fungicides, the likes of Prothioconazole and Azoxystrobin + Difenoconazole (Amistar Top), both are systemic and the last one is an endocrine disruptor, not good for us.
In 2023 the UK found chemicals in 43% of carrots tested, so nearly half.


It is so hard these days to connect how our food has been produced, what has been sprayed on it, and how those in our food system, humans and pollinators alike, have been treated, it seems to me that supermarket led cheap food comes at great cost.
The best way to avoid chemicals and the damage they do to biodiversity is if possible, to choose organic.


Growing some of your own food is an amazing way to connect us with the miracle of nature and the true value of our food.


As always thank you for your support

Kenneth

Cheese & Tomato Toastie with a Nutty Green Salad 

by Nessa Robins

When you have good quality, fresh ingredients to hand, a recipe never needs to be overly complicated. A simple toastie with a plain green salad is instantly elevated by the quality of ingredients used. To start with, real bread, fresh and thickly cut. A good-quality Irish cheese, and while we wait for Irish tomatoes to return into season, some flavoursome sun-dried tomatoes can be used in their place. Plus a drizzle of a nice extra virgin olive oil is all that is needed for this sandwich to taste delicious. Irish, organic lettuce benefits from the quality of soil it is grown in, and this shines through in its flavour. A simple dressing with the addition of some nuts for extra flavour and a little crunch serves perfectly alongside the toastie.

When preparing a green salad in advance after washing the lettuce leaves it’s important to fully dry them. The best way to do this is with a salad spinner. Then add the dried leaves to a large salad bowl and cover with a damp tea towel or kitchen paper, and refrigerate until ready to use. To avoid the salad becoming soggy, only add a small amount of the dressing and toss through the leaves just before serving. 

Enjoy!

Nessa x


Cheese & Tomato Toastie with a Nutty Green Salad 

Ingredients

 
For the toastie

For the salad

For the dressing

Method

  1. Wash the salad leaves and dry well using a salad spinner. If the leaves are large, tear into smaller pieces. Add the dried leaves to a large bowl and cover with a damp tea towel or kitchen paper. Refrigerate until ready to use.
  2. In a small bowl, combine the dressing ingredients. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use. 
  3. Drizzle one side of each slice of bread with a little olive oil. Take one slice, olive oil side down, and layer on the cheese and tomato, and top with the other slice of bread, olive oil side up. 
  4. Place the pan over a medium heat on a hob and add the toastie. Press down gently using a clean saucepan lid. Cook for about 4 minutes on each side. Once the toastie is golden and crisp, and the cheese has melted, take from the pan, and cut in half.
  5. Enjoy straight away alongside the green salad, drizzled with the nutty dressing.

Would we survive another 50 years without our insect friends?

by Kenneth Keavey

1 teaspoon of the neonicotinoid Thiamethoxam can kill 1.25 billion bees, that is more than all the bees in North America! The “Insect Apocalypse” is already underway, some areas, like German nature reserves, have seen insect biomass drop by 75% in 30 years.

“If all insects were to disappear it is thought that all life on earth would end within 50 years, if all human beings were to disappear within 50 years all forms of life would flourish.” – Jonas Salk.

It is impossible to picture our farm without insects, the bees, the flies and the butterflies, it would be empty, over the last couple of weeks with the amazing weather they have been out in abundance. Insects are crucial to life on earth, and pesticides and climate change are having a massively negative impact on them.

When a farmer or a gardener goes and sprays glyphosate on the land, they kill all plants. Have you ever seen a bright yellow field that has been sprayed with Roundup, it is not pleasant. This herbicide in one fell chemical swoop destroys all biodiversity that would have been home to millions of our little insect friends. Conventional agricultural nearly always starts with Roundup.

Have you ever noticed “tram lines” in cereal fields, these lines are there to allow the tractor to follow the same path to prevent damage to the crop. They are used so the conventional farmer can spray chemicals on his crop multiple times. These include, fungicides, growth promotors to prevent cereals from lodging (falling over), pesticides and herbicides and they can be sprayed several times in one season.

So, removing chemical from our food supply is critical to the health of our pollinators and we need our insect friends because if they disappeared, we would have a few very serious problems:

1. Pollination Collapse

About 75% of global crops depend at least in part on pollinators, Without insect pollination, yields of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and many oilseeds would plummet.

2. Food Web Disruption

Insects are the base of many food chains. Birds, amphibians, reptiles, and many mammals depend on insects for food. A collapse in insect populations would cause cascading extinctions, weakening ecosystems and agriculture alike.

3. Decomposition and Soil Fertility

Insects like beetles, ants, and flies are crucial decomposers. Without them, dead organic matter would accumulate, slowing nutrient cycling, degrading soil health, and impacting plant growth.

4. Pest Control

Many insects prey on crop pests. If all insects vanished, pest populations (like mites and some plant diseases) could explode without natural enemies, further devastating crops.Insects are not just pests—they’re fundamental to life on Earth. Their disappearance would trigger a slow-motion ecological and agricultural collapse.

Organic may not be a perfect system, but it at least give biodiversity a fighting chance and keeps chemicals out of our food chain.

As always thank you for your support, without it we would not be here.

Kenneth