Category: Local Food (Page 5 of 15)

All about local food finding in the Twin Cities

Growing Joi Choi + Recipe

June 23, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Let’s get you growing Joi Choi! This is the Pak Choi (aka Bak Choy) everyone can (and should) grow.

Close up of Joi Choi pak choi plant growing in garden

There are few veggies that bring me as much JOI in the garden and on my plate as this veggie, so I’m declaring myself a founding member of the Joi Choi Fan Club! She’s as delicious as she is beautiful!

This has consistently been one of the easiest veggies to grow. It is also one of the fastest maturing early spring veggies, ready to harvest within 30 days of transplanting in all but the coldest spring weather. This means I can usually get at least three successions of Joi Choi in each season in my Zone 4 gardens.

Read more about Succession Planting HERE

It is way more heat tolerant than other Pak Choi I’ve tried. Meaning it keeps growing a lot longer, and therefore bigger before it bolts. I mean, look at those thick stalks! All that stem equals weights of close to 2 lbs. per average plant if harvested all at once. Last fall I harvested a single Joi Choi that was over 4 lbs. heavy and still tender and crisp in October!

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Growing Strawberries: How to Grow, Harvest, and Preserve

May 31, 2023 / / 1 Comment

Nothing ushers in summer like fresh-picked strawberries. These perennial fruits are an essential for small-scale homesteads, and growing strawberries is easier than you think!

A handful of ripe strawberries

To make the most of this fleeting, yet oh so sweet taste of summer – we’ve got tips and tricks on growing, picking and preserving all the local strawberries you possibly can.

I promise, you will thank yourself as you make a strawberry smoothie or strawberry muffins come winter.

Strawberries are one of our little homestead’s most anticipated foods by every member of our family. So, we spend some time prepping and loving on the gardens so they produce to their fullest. Here’s how we work at growing great strawberries.

How to Grow Great Strawberries at Home

Strawberries are as close to instant gratification as you can get with a perennial fruit. I recommend planting bare root plants, as you have more choice on suitable varieties. They’re also less expensive than potted plants, and the bare root plants seem to do better in the long run. The catch is you want to plant them in late May, before the heat of summer comes on too strong. You’ll soak the roots for an hour or two before planting. During the first growing season, plan to pinch off the first few buds that form, but let the next rounds of flowers mature to pick fruit later in the season.

Growing Strawberries in Minnesota (Zone 4–5 Tips)

Winter Protection: Cover with 3-4 inches of straw or pine needles after the first hard freeze to protect roots from severe cold.

Frost: Cover flowers in early spring if frost is predicted to avoid blackened, sterile flowers

Birds: Use bird netting to protect ripening fruit.

Slugs: Use beer traps or sand to deter slugs.

Water Well: Consistent moisture (1-2 inches/week)

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Corn Chowder Recipe

March 1, 2023 / / 1 Comment
Eleven glass jars of preserved corn and two ears of corn on the cob.

This corn chowder recipe is such a perfect blend of sweet corn nostalgia and winter comfort that I can get a craving for this soup just about any season… but it feels especially fitting during that ‘hungry gap’ when many of the frozen veggies are gone and we’re down to sprouting potatoes and mason jars from the pantry.

This recipe can skew simple or a little more involved depending on how you’re feeling, but on way or another, make this while it is still soup season!

The author holding a glass jar of preserved corn.

My latest version included the last of a batch of ‘corn and vegetable stock’ from the summer. This simple seeming stock is rather magical in my opinion. You make it from the leftover cobs after canning the sweet corn this past summer. This just pulls all the deliciousness out of every cob of corn.

After you cut off the corn kernels off the cob, just toss cobs, and onion peelings, celery leaves, carrots (or just their peelings), garlic and a bay leaf into a pot and simmer for at least 4 hours, strain off the stock and either freeze (leaving a good inch of headroom in the jar) or pressure can with the cans of corn.

Like all my recipes, especially soups, there is a lot of leeway to use up veggies and ingredients that you have on hand. If you have zucchini but not celery, go for it- or parsnips instead of carrots- OK! Make this corn chowder recipe yours, you are in control in hte kitchen!

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Small-Scale Homesteading Book

February 14, 2023 / / 0 Comments

There’s so much information in the pages of our book, Small-Scale Homesteading we know it will both inspire and educate you!

Michelle Bruhn and Stephanie Thurow, coauthors of Small-Scale Homesteading at the St. Paul Farmers Market.

Stephanie and my collective knowledge has been distilled down to what we wished we’d known when we started down this homesteading road.

…And I know that’s said about a lot of books by a lot of authors, and I understand why- we write what we know. We end up knowing a lot about what we love.

And we love homesteading, in all it’s beautiful forms.

The twist with this book is that these pages hold BOTH of our combined experiences and the different ways we’ve settled into doing different homesteading skills.  We’re obviously big believers in there being  more than one way to do just about everything.

GET YOUR COPY HERE

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Winter Squash Lasagna

January 30, 2023 / / 0 Comments

This vegetarian squash lasagna is comfort food and pantry cooking combined! Using large, thin slices of squash as noodles creates a hearty, satisfying lasagna without the carbs. Did you know that pasta has about SEVEN TIMES the carbs as squash! There’s also something that happens with the baked squash and cheese that makes it’s own sauce, so no need for extra cream here.

Fancy enough to impress guests but cozy for a small family meal – and it makes great leftovers. Hello “Meatless Monday”!

We use the old stand-by winter vegetables of butternut squash, potatoes, kale, and red onion with a few tweaks. This recipe can also both work as vegan if you sub in some vegan cheese.

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Growing ginger in the north, zone 4.

Growing Ginger in the North!

January 20, 2023 / / 2 Comments

Like anything you grow at home, ginger from your garden just tastes better than store bought. And with how much I love ginger’s bold and distinct flavor, of course I grow it. Plus, growing an exotic, tropical plant up in zone 4 is pretty darn empowering.

Then there’s the fact that most ginger sold in the U.S. is imported from China, Brazil, or Thailand…and has been grown without much regulation and then shipped thousands of miles. Add in that it is a beautiful plant that smells amazing, and you’ve got to try growing ginger at least once!

Ginger Botany

Zingiber Officinale roscoe
Classified as an aromatic herb, the part of the ginger plant we most often eat is called a rhizome, the underground stem of a plant. But with homegrown ginger you can enjoy the stems as well. I chop the stems and enjoy them in tea!

Native to Southeast Asia, this plant likes it hot and humid. So if you have a greenhouse, you’re a step ahead, but dedicating your warmest space to this plant should get you a happy harvest too. Growing ginger is an 8-10 month project, so we try to get started at the end of January here in Minnesota zone 4. And yes, these plants will be LARGE before they head outside, so plan for space similar to a tomato and they may even have to stay inside longer.

Here’s a Ginger Growing Timeline

  • Jan 20-Feb 20: Start soaking your rhizomes
  • Jan 27- Feb 27: Pot up into soil, in a tray to sprout
  • March 1-15: Pot up again into deeper pots with ample space
  • June 1-15: Once temps are 65+F outside, you can move to final growing space outdoors

Growing Ginger

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Homestead Year In Review 2022

January 1, 2023 / / 0 Comments

I’m finally slowing down enough to take the time to get in that frame of mind where I can rewind and somewhat clearly peer back at 2022, the year in review.

Thankful for 2022

I distinctly remember being so very grateful for the late spring as I was frantically writing/editing/revising so many pages (so many times) along with Stephanie Thurow for our upcoming book, Small-Scale Homesteading.

I felt lucky that the maple sap held off until we got back from our March vacations. We brought home and raised a new brood of chicks into a healthy, happy (and spoiled) backyard flock. I took my local Master Gardener coursework and completed 50+ hours of volunteer hours. I helped grow vegetables and flowers at my son’s elementary school.

New Additions to the Homestead last Spring

We took time up north in Minnesota to walk through and wonder at creation. I taught classes on companion planting, composting, growing garlic, garden planning and preserving the harvest, wrote for magazines new and old. I got to manage our 6th annual Winter Farmers Markets. My family all got Influenza A at the same time and we nursed each other back to health with homegrown remedies. And I grew as much food as ever- including so many new favorites.

We celebrated life as we lived it. What a year both in and out of the garden!

Click HERE to watch some fly-over drone footage of the garden from this summer.

Weather Woes

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DIY Cocktail Infusion Kit

December 18, 2022 / / 3 Comments

Are you ready to take your cocktail game to the next level? With a DIY cocktail infusion kit, you can create deliciously unique flavors at home, transforming your favorite spirits into personalized concoctions that will wow your friends and add a special touch to any gathering. Making your own infused spirits to add flair to your cocktails is simple and fun!

A mason jar with infusing orange slices, cinnamon stick and cloves

I love playing in the kitchen—being able to coax out intense or subtle flavors from high quality ingredients lets you taste the herbs and spices in new ways! Infusing spirits feels like magic to me…

And magic is always a good gift to give!

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photo of hardneck garlic harvest

Growing Great Garlic

August 25, 2022 / / 2 Comments
Garlic growing in the garden.

There are few crops as funky, dependable, and well loved as garlic. For good reasons too! Garlic, and the other bulbs in the Allium family (like onions and shallots), add the base flavor to meals the world over. They’re easy to grow, easy to store, and easy to cook with.

Humans have been cultivating garlic for over 7,000 years! In that time, we’ve selected variations in flavor, size, growth habits to come up with roughly 700 current varieties.

This article will help you grow your own garlic too!

I presented a companion class
Grow Great Garlic via the
Minnesota State Horticultural Society,
available in their Webinar Shop for $8.

Michelle
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Summer Spaghetti Recipe

August 3, 2022 / / 1 Comment
The author with a basket of vegetables fresh from the garden.

Welcome to summer at its best—fresh garden-to-table eating that celebrates so many of our favorite flavors of the season!

This is a great flexible recipe that can be changed to what you have on hand.

We eat this summer spaghetti recipe is as a chilled meal during high summer. While some might call it a salad, I see it as more of a base to add other things to; from leftover grilled chicken, some sourdough slathered with pesto… We’ve also added cooked and cooled cannellini beans to this for a protein boost. If you add beans, plan to add more dressing to keep the flavors balanced.

Summer spaghetti with vegetables and garnish on a plate.

We’ve garnished with balsamic vinegar, pesto, fresh mozzarella, parmesan, olives, or whatever Italian flavors feel right that night. The main idea with this meal is to let the flavors from the garden shine. All the herbs in this recipe are easy to grow.

You can make this with regular pasta or use zucchini noodles (zoodles) or both if you have split family preferences like we do.

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