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Good Karma Garlic

Savory Turkey Tart

carrotTart
This savory tart will have the family vying for the last crumb and demanding to know when you’re preparing it again. Turkey acquires new flair when smothered in cheesy kale and feta filling and topped with a layer of twice-baked caramelized baby carrots. The pastry shell is a tried and true recipe that pairs just as beautifully with savory fillings as it does with sweet.

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Return of the Nerdy Locovors

Thursday trip to the market
We’re doing that thing again, the one where we spend the summer eating only fresh food produced within a 10-mile radius of our house and what we forage from our own garden [queue the laugh track for that last part, not even I can say it with a straight face].
I recently read an excellent piece of advice posted by my personal life coach Pinterestthat, aside from being a mash-up of stuff Michael Pollan has been saying for years, gets to the heart of it:
“Avoid eating anything with an advertising budget.” 
Yep, that.
Yesterday was the Skaneateles Farmer’s Market and here is the resulting simple meal:
Feta and Spinach Burgers


Feta & Spinach Burgers
           1 October Rose Farm egg (our girls have mysteriously suspended laying at the moment)
1 pound Byrne Black Angus beef
2 cups chopped Elderberry Pondspinach
2 cloves Good Karma Russian Red Garlic, diced (we’re down to our last bulb from the Fall harvest and eager for the new stuff to come in!)
                                                                                                       4 ounces crumbled feta (comment         below if you know a local source)
Buy these.
Directions: Mix ingredients; form into patties; throw on the grill. Top with slices of Horsford Farms onion and place on a SkaneatelesBakery roll; serve with a side of Navarino Orchard pickled tomatoes.
On the topic of Navarino Orchard Pickled Tomatoes which I impulse purchased and may or may not have subsequently eaten half the jar thereof using chopsticks: I am prepared to release a statement at this time informing the public that These. Are. Yum. That is all.
And, continuing in that spirit of preparedness, I rolled a few meatballs after dinner for today’s TGIF bento box:
http://onegirlsbento.blogspot.com
Happy Friday!

January 1st Thanksgiving

January 1st. I dearly love the first day of a new year. Before us shines self-fulfilling prophecies, the link between Belief and Behavior so clear on this day that it blazes like the sun and beckons for us to follow.
Thank you, October Rose Farm,
for all the sage advice.
More importantly, hardly any of us have had time or opportunity to really screw the year up yet. It really is a very good feeling.
New Years is my Thanksgiving and on this day I give thanks for the good people and things that 2012 brought into my life:
I am so thankful for my husband, daughter and brothers who are also friends and for friends who have become like family.
Thank you, Elderberry
Pond Farm, for the
gardening tips.
I am thankful for the people who grew or produced the food that nourished us so deliciously this year, and for the friendships we have forged with each of them. 
I am grateful that we live in a place where fresh local food is abundant. I am thankful for the little seeds of change that are slowly shifting our thinking about food. And I am thankful for a husband who loves to cook, the obvious disadvantages of this fact notwithstanding.
My NB 510’s: a.k.a. life changers.
For which I am so thankful.
I must also give thanks to the New Balance 510 cross trainer running shoes I bought in August at the Bass Pro Shop for undoing 10 years of burning Achilles pain caused by a pair of badly fitting pink sneakers I bought off the internet a decade ago. To be free of foot pain after so many years is life altering, and certainly one of this year’s highlights. Yes, I bought a second pair of the NB 510’s to replace this pair when it wears out.
Thank you, Wake Robin Farm, for 
putting family and community first.
Thank you, Owen Orchard, for
growing our favorite apples.
And I am thankful for the restless internal voice that keeps reminding me I’m not there yet; urges me to keep going; helps me visualize the link between belief and behavior when it doesn’t seem nearly as real nor blaze quite as brightly as it does on the first day of a new year.
Thank you, vendors at the 2012
Skaneateles Farmers Market. 
So onward and upward. Vacation is over and the grind is at hand. What better way to get through the awfulness of a New York winter than by preparing for its inevitable concession to Spring? Did you know we northerners have just six weeks before our garden seeds must be started indoors? There are many choices to be made between then and now!
Thank you, Good Karma Garlic,  for
turning your hobby into a product
we cannot live without.
I spent the last two days of 2012 plotting and scheming our 2013 Heirloom garden. And I have plans, people, big ones. It is time to find out if we can actually grow stuff in the back yard.
Thank you, Byrne Black Angus Farm,
for raising happy cows.
Of course there is always the possibility that we will look back on these ambitions in September over a glass of wine and guffaw. But just in case, a quick, final note to The Husband concerning our new garden: you know the bench in the corner of the yard that’s all set in cement? We’ll need to yank that out.
Quite possibly the maple tree, too.

My Diabolical 2013 Heirloom Gardening Plans.

Good Karma Garlic

Good Karma Garlic

On October 11th The Husband and I made our final journey to the Skaneateles Farmer’s Market, lamenting the insufferable shortness of Upstate New York’s growing season. What a delicious summer we had! And what passionate and inspiring people we met. And yet, here we were, at the end.
Since practically everything The Husband and I cook contains garlic (for which we are staunchly unapologetic), and since the folks at Good Karma Garlic grow the very best in our region, we bee-lined to their table to stock up.
“You should come out to the house and see what we’ve been up to,” Marty said with a twinkle in his eye. “We’re experimenting with ways to extend the growing season.”
Extend the growing season? Experiments? Yes, Marty, we will come.
Just four years ago, inspired by Chester Aaron’s book Garlic is Life, Good Karma Garlic’s Barb and Marty purchased and planted a variety pack of garlic bulbs. Just for fun.  They planted a second crop from the resulting bounty. Then a third. Four short years later their gardening hobby has blossomed into a fresh-food family farmette of garlic, tomatoes, peppers, lettuce greens, beans, melons and much more from which The Husband and I – and many fortunate others in our area – happily feast.
And now there’s a hoop house.
“We want to see if we can grow our food through late fall and be the first to market in the spring,” Marty said. Inside the warmth of the hoop house we found growing newly-planted rows of peas, carrots, salad greens and beets.  We mentioned to Marty how happy all this made us considering The Husband and my plans to take up canning and food preservation to carry us through the winter never actually materialized, and he immediately shared with us his tried-and-true tips for canning. Once again proving food is in his soul.
Now that their property is transforming into large garden patches, and Good Karma Garlic’s reputation for providing real food to the region is spreading, Marty and Barb have new plans for next season: they hope to start a long season, short season, and working share CSA. “We love growing things; it’s weeding we don’t really care for,” Marty confessed. Many hands make light work, and many folks eager to reap the benefits of locally-grown food will likely keep the gardens of Good Karma Garlic beautifully weed-free.
Garlic husks.
Thousands planted;
thousands more to go.
Because we can all use a little good karma in our lives.






To learn more about Good Karma Garlic’s 2013 CSA plans and farmer’s market schedule, contact them on Facebook.


























Garlic & olive oil @ 400 degrees
 for 45 minutes.
Spread on toast.