This gal swears she’s a great radio voice.

Last Wednesday Arlo and I traded the juicy tomatoes and the excruciating heat of the farm for some blessed A/C and delightful conversation at the WRIR studios in Richmond. (Don’t get us wrong: we love the farm! But the cool of the studio was something else.)  We joined our good friend Eli of Eli’s Greens and Sunny Gardner of Lightly on the Ground for a great chat about farm life and local food systems.

Have a listen!

Lightly on the Ground radio interview, 21 July 2010

Y’all, homemade mayonnaise is so easy, so cheap, and so delicious, you’re going to kick yourself for never having tried it before.

But don’t do that!  Just try making some.  We think you might never go back to store-bought.

This (plus a blender and about five minutes) is all you need:

mustard, canola oil, olive oil, lemons, salt, eggs

Convinced yet?

It’s good on everything.  Is there a more perfect midsummer lunch than a tomato sandwich on a couple slices of multigrain with some basil leaves and a few smears of fresh mayo?  You can add a fried egg or a couple slices of cheese but that’s gilding the lily.

And of course it’s fantastic on summer barbecue salads of all ilk: potato, egg, chicken, tuna.  Last week we made a potato salad with Yukon Gold potatoes, minced scallions, minced parsley, finely chopped sweet pepper, salt, pepper, and homemade mayo.

Quite often we smear it on half a hard-boiled egg for a mid-morning snack, or (ahem) even just sneak a fingerful from the jar.  Arlo loves it too!

Ali is the resident mayo maker around here.  He stresses that it’s a very forgiving recipe!  This is how he does it:

Whir together in the blender or food processor for a few seconds two eggs, some dried or jarred mustard, the juice of a lemon or a roughly equivalent amount of vinegar, and a bit of salt. Then, while still blending, add about 1 1/2 cups oil (usually equal parts extra virgin olive oil and a mild oil like canola) in a slow stream, and process until it reaches a consistency you like.  Add a bit more oil if it doesn’t seem thick enough.  You can also stir in more lemon juice, mustard, salt, or pepper at the end to taste.  Refrigerate and use within a week.

A few notes:

This recipe halves easily.

The eggs and oil emulsify best when the eggs are at room temperature.

We love adding flavor to the mayo: a bit of chipotle pepper in adobo sauce is our favorite, and fresh herbs or flavored vinegars are also very good.  Add garlic and it becomes aioli!  We add any extras with everything else in the beginning, before adding the oil.

If you’re so inclined, you can also make mayonnaise with a whisk and some elbow grease!  This will get you started.

You’ve seen the disclaimers on restaurant menus about raw and undercooked eggs and dairy, so here’s ours: raw eggs carry a small risk of salmonella contamination, so read up on the issue and decide whether you feel comfortable using them.  We do.  We use very fresh eggs from our own chickens, and recommend that you seek out eggs from healthy pastured birds if at all possible.  Here are instructions for pasteurizing eggs at home should you want to do that.  Be sure to refrigerate your mayo immediately.

Our apologies for the light posting ’round these parts — and to anyone who’s had a hard time reaching us — over the last week or so.  Half this farm family was out of town for several days.  The other half, along with our wonderful crew, had their hands quite full under early July’s blazing sun: picking, washing, sorting, picking, loading, mowing, picking, irrigating, staking, picking, weeding, seeding … and picking.  All hands are back on deck, so check in here at the farm blog often for news and recipes and a couple new features as well!

And now, the last week (or maybe two) in pictures!

Afternoon, y’all!  79° and breezy and a long lunchtime nap — we’ll take it!  We hope the eatin’ has been good where you’re at.  Here at the farm, we’ve been eating lots of salad, lots of homemade pizza, and lots of tomato sandwiches.  Those three things could keep us fed and happy for a very long time!  But sometimes we manage something new.

Down below the photos, we’ve listed a few recipes we’ve been loving lately.  Some CSA members have also been sharing recipes via email, the comments sections here on the blog, and over at our Facebook page.  We’ll try to highlight some of those soon as well.  And plans are still afoot for adding forums to this website, so you can share your recipes and cooking adventures directly; we’ll keep you posted!

Here are some tasty ideas for working through these early summer CSA shares and farmers market finds.  Most of them would be fantastic fare for your Fourth of July BBQ!  Lots of these posts link to other great recipes too.

Ginger Scallion Sauce at Chocolate & Zucchini

Red, White & Blue Roast Potatoes and Firecracker Potato Salad (two recipes) at Babble

Fondant Fennel from Edward Schneider at Mark Bittman

Raw Beet Salad at Just Braise

Quick Sauté of Zucchini with Toasted Almonds at Smitten Kitchen

Chard, Onion, and Gruyère Panade at Orangette

101 Fast Recipes for Grilling at The Minimalist

Soon, it should be easier to search recipes we’ve posted or linked to here on the farm blog.  In the meantime, you might enjoy just browsing the posts with recipes.

Enjoy your holiday weekend!  What will you be eating?

Let us rejoice!  Summer is here!  How do we know?

Was it yesterday’s record high of 102° and the accompanying sweat in our eyes, grime behind our knees, and grumpy baby in our arms?

Is it the wild blackberries turning deep purple and plump along the edges of our fields?

Is it the hum of the fans, the buzz of the flies, the pleasant cracking and clinking of the ice in our sweet tea?

It is all these things — but mainly, we know it is summer because of this:

and especially

especially

especially

especially because of this:

Here at Frog Bottom last Friday:

Miles and Katie and Shannon and Ali hunched over the cucumber rows, plucking the mature ones from the undersides of the vines and filling their buckets for the weekend farmers market and CSA pick-up. It was a sticky sticky day, like all the days have been of late.

I ate my first cucumber salad of the season: two or three cucumbers halved lengthwise and sliced, minced scallions, minced parsley, olive oil, lime juice, feta cheese, salt and pepper.  Easy, fast, and unbelievably delicious.  We eat some iteration of this salad as often as possible during the summer!

And Arlo tried his first cucumber.  Tasty enough, he decided, but also really fun to squish between your toes.

* * *

Last July we wrote a post called “How to be cool as a cucumber” — definitely worth another look during these sweltering first days of summer.  Hie thee!  Learn a bit about the cucumber’s origins, learn about the different varieties we grow, and get some recipe ideas, including our go-to cucumber salad recipe, easy fridge pickles, and even a cucumber cocktail!

(Here’s Shannon showing off an Asian cucumber.  It’s a bit funny looking, to be sure, but it’s our favorite. Read all about it!)