Freedom Farms

Official Tumblr of Freedom Farms, home of the Farm Kings. www.FreedomFarmsPA.com

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Farm sunsets are the best sunsets

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Our scarecrows are ready for Fall Festival...are you?

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Connect with your food source. Talk to a farmer.

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From the hands of the earth, straight to our loyal customers

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Happy National Donut Day, stop in to our Donut Shop on Route 8 in Butler, PA to celebrate!

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Why Farms Matter

Wow – What an awesome production sponsored by Dollar Bank to feature some of the best local farmers and food providers in our region. Catch an interview with documentary producer Julia Hannan in our May magazine as she describes her passion for good food, good stories, and why the story of local food is so important.

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The freshest milk on Freedom Farms!

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Why Farms Matter: Freedom Farms in Documentary

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Springtime on the farm--just the best!  Our piglets are the cutest!

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This week on the blog UPMC Health Plan gives us some easy tips on how to get, and stay, organized >>> http://www.freedomfarmspa.com/blog/get-organized-with-upmc-health-plan

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Hello #2016 - 2015 was a great year. We are eager to see what will come in the months ahead and are excited to share it all in our monthly magazine.

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Lisa’s Kitchen - Merry Appetizers!

It’s the holiday season, and it’s time to celebrate. You may be hosting, or you may be invited to attend a party and bring a side dish. Everybody loves a good appetizer, so this month I’m sharing some of my favorites. These recipes are quick and easy to prepare and taste delicious.

Tomato Basil Dip

There’s a story behind this dip. I’ve always been famous for my tomato basil pie. Last year, I was asked to a Christmas party and they requested a dip instead of a pie. Well, of course I told them I could make anything, and then I turned that pie upside down and made it into a dip. It was a huge hit.

This dip is the perfect holiday party appetizer. You can serve it with chips or crackers. The colors are festive, with red, white and green for the holiday season. The taste is out of this world. Try the recipe for yourself, or if you’re short on time stop by our Farmers Market and pick some up!

You will need

1 cup Mayo

½ cup Mozzarella

¼ cup Parmesan

1 cup Basil, chopped

5 cloves Garlic

1 cup Tomato, chopped

To begin Pre-heat oven to 350ºF degrees. Mix together mayonnaise, shredded mozzarella cheese, and parmesan. In a food processor, grind basil and garlic together. Add to mayo and cheese mixture. Sprinkle chopped tomatoes on top. Bake in an 8x8 inch pan for 10 minutes.

Tomato Basil Tarts

Here is another take on the Tomato Basil Pie. At a party, it’s easier to serve a tart than a slice of pie. These are beautiful and the taste is beyond amazing. You can create the tartlets using my pie dough recipe for a base. The recipe for my pie dough can be found in my cookbook, which also makes a great Christmas present! Using a muffin tin, form the dough into individual tartlets. Sprinkle with mozzarella and bake lightly in an oven at 350ºF. Remove, fill with tomato basil pie topping and bake an additional 10 minutes at 350ºF.

Sweet &Smoky Kebabs

This recipe is a fantastic pairing of our smoky sausage, the sweetness of red bell peppers, and the earthy richness of brussel sprouts. It’s a truly seasonal recipe. Top it off with our maple mustard to complete the mixture of sweet and savory that makes this appetizer so good.

You will need

1 package Freedom Farms Smoked Sausage

2 Red Peppers

1 cup Brussel Sprouts

⅛ cup Olive Oil

1 tsp Italian Seasoning

Freedom Farms Maple Mustard

Wooden Skewers

To begin Pre-heat oven to 350ºF. On the stovetop, steam your brussel sprouts lightly. You want to soften them up a bit, but you don’t want them mushy. This should take about 3 to 5 minutes, depending on the size of the brussels. Remove from heat and slice brussels in half. Slice smoked sausage into quarter inch rounds. On the skewer, layer sausage and peppers. Top with brussel sprout halves. Place on a baking pan and glaze with olive oil and Italian Seasoning. Bake at 350ºF for 10 minutes. Remove from heat. Serve with Freedom Farms Maple Mustard.

Spinach Tassie

If you’re mixing up a batch of tomato basil dip, you may as well make a double batch and use some of it to create this extraordinary spinach creation. This recipe can be used to make tarts, a dip, or a pie. Remember, you can always pick up a homemade Take-N-Bake pie crust from me at the Market! Also, a note on the spinach. You can use cooked spinach, but to preserve the nutritional value I like to freeze it instead. I tossed a bag of spinach into the freezer, and pulled it out the next day to toss into this recipe.

You will need

1 cup Tomato Basil Pie Topping

1 cup Sour Cream

2 cups Frozen Spinach, chopped

1 jar of Pickled Artichokes, chopped

To begin Pre-heat oven to 350ºF. If using a pie or tart crust, sprinkle with mozzarella and bake until lightly browned. If using as a dip, fill 8x8 inch pan. Place in oven and bake at 350ºF for 10 minutes.

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Ask Farmer Tim - Winter Greens

Winter is here, but Tim King, head of Field Operations at Freedom Farms, is still harvesting and selling greens. From delicate greenhouse lettuce to freshly harvested Christmas trees, Tim tells how Freedom Farms provides greenery as the snow begins to fall.

What’s happening in the fields of Freedom Farms these days?

TK: We’re finishing up the last of the field harvest and moving into the greenhouses. My main focus is to clean up any produce left in the field. At the end of November, we’re still picking swiss chard and spinach. Lettuce production has moved into the greenhouse. We’ll continue harvesting brussel sprouts and kale.

After the frost hits, how long can you continue harvesting greens from the field?

TK: It all depends on the year. The last frost date in our region is mid October. Sometimes we are hammered with extreme cold in November and it’s all over. This season, the weather has been very mild. If it stays above 30 degrees, the hardier greens will last. We’ll be cutting brussel sprouts and kale into mid December. Other than that, we are cleaning up from last season and getting ready for the next. Our harvest is moving into the greenhouse, so we’re working on that transition.

How do you transition into the winter greenhouse season?

TK: In late summer we start seeding our winter crops in the greenhouses. Once we are finished harvesting the bulk of our outdoor crops in November, we begin harvesting from the greenhouses. Early in the season, we still have warm weather crops like tomatoes and peppers. We have lots of greens. We’ve got arugula, watercress, spinach, kale, and swiss chard. This year we are also going to plant some pea microgreens. We have lots of lettuce.

What is your favorite variety of lettuce?

TK: I really like the Pannisse oak leaf lettuce. The texture is very similar to a buttercrunch or a bib lettuce. It’s a very pretty variety. The color is light green- it almost glows.  It’s a versatile lettuce, and makes a great sandwich. It tastes great, and it grows well throughout the year. A lot of varieties only do well in the spring, summer, or fall. This variety has done well for me in every season we have. It grows well in the field and in the high tunnel. It’s definitely my favorite.

How long will you continue harvesting greens from the greenhouse?

TK: At this point we’re harvesting almost year round. We only have about month out of the year where we aren’t harvesting. If winter gets extremely hard and the weather drops below zero for a week straight that will kill the lettuce, but generally we can continue to harvest lettuce from the greenhouse well into January, using the double protection of wire hoops and remay fabric detailed in the last issue of the magazine. Eventually we will have heated greenhouses and will be able to extend head lettuce season year round.

What other projects are you working on this December?

TK: We’re pulling up plastic from last year and mapping out the layout of the farm for next year. It’s very important to plan out our crop rotations and decide what to plant where. We’re getting the animals moved off the pasture and getting ready to till the soil.

Equipment maintenance is also very important. We’re winterizing our equipment, cleaning it, fixing anything that is broken. We pull out our irrigation system and check it over thoroughly. The sprayers and pumps of our irrigation system need to be cleaned out, because if there is any water left in them they will explode.

We’re also busy selling Christmas trees at the Market.

What kind of Christmas trees are you selling at the Market?

TK: We have both live trees and cut trees available. All of our trees are the freshest, highest quality trees available. They are grown and sourced from local farms. We go out to the farm, select the varieties we like, and discuss the size and quality of the crop with the grower. We look for long lasting, waxy, healthy needles. We tie ribbons on the trees that we want. We make sure that our customers are getting the best possible tree available.

Most of the Christmas trees on the market are coming out of North Carolina, and they are cut up to a month before they are even shipped up here and put on the market. Our trees are cut on November 17th. When you buy a Christmas tree from us you’re getting a tree that is a month younger, you are supporting the local economy, and you can be confidant that your tree is hand selected and high quality.

We also offer live trees wrapped in burlap. If you’re looking for a sustainable Christmas tree option, this is a great one. The live trees will be dug in mid November. The beauty of the live tree is that you can decorate it outside, and then you can plant it after the holiday season. It’s an environmentally friendly way of having a Christmas tree. You have the tree to display at Christmas and then you get to plant it the next spring. If you buy a live tree and you want to plant it, buy some straw or wood chips. Don’t bury the tree, simply mound up heavy straw and wood trips around the burlap root ball. What kills a live tree in the winter is the freezing and thawing cycle. You can keep the tree from freezing and thawing using straw and wood chips and then plant it in the spring when the soil thaws. Originally published in the December 2015 Freedom Farms Magazine by Kate Stapleton

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Plenty of greenery available 🎄 Stop by to pick up a wreath, tree or some stocking stuffers inside! (at Freedom Farms)

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@farmkingjoe bottled up more of our awesome raw, local honey. Taste the difference and then stock up with our 3lb bottle, available at select Giant Eagles and the #FreedomFarms Farmers Market. (at Freedom Farms)

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Even our coffee tastes like donuts ☕️🍩 Stop in for a treat Wed-Sun, 5am-1pm (at Freedom Farms Donut Shop)

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Bacon Upside Down Stuffing

In order to make this recipe, you will have to prepare three separate components: bacon, stuffing, and sweet potatoes. I’ve broken them down into three steps for you. Remember, any of these parts make great side dishes on their own! Let’s start with the bacon.

Bacon You will need: 1lb Freedom Farms Bacon

To begin: Lay out bacon in the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking pan, lining the entire pan. Place in oven and set oven to 375ºF. Bake for 20 minutes, or a little more or less depending on your bacon preference. We like our bacon crisp, so I made sure ours was well done. Remove from oven and set aside.

Stuffing You will need: 2 cups water 1 stick butter 1 cup diced onion 2 cup diced celery ½ loaf bread, dried and cubed 2 eggs ⅛  cup powdered chicken bouillon Dried spices to taste. I suggest rosemary, thyme, oregano, and sage

To begin: In large saucepan, melt butter and lightly sauté celery and onions until tender. Add water and bring to a boil, and add powdered chicken bouillon. In a separate bowl, place dried, cubed bread. (Note: to create my bread cubes I used half a loaf of Freedom Farms multigrain bread, place in the oven at 250ºF for 10 minutes. If you have more time, you can use my mother’s method, which is to leave bread out overnight on a cookie tray.)

Pour liquid mixture over bread crumbs and stir. Do not pour all the liquid at one time, because you don’t want excess moisture. You want just enough to hold the bread crumbs together. After liquid is added to bread cubes, whisk two eggs and mix into liquid / bread mixture. At this point, you can add fresh, dried, or frozen spices to taste. I always use rosemary, thyme, oregano, and sage. This is also a great time to add any personal twists to the recipe. You can add whatever you’d like – pine nuts, walnuts, craisins.

Sweet Potatoes You will need: 2 medium sweet potatoes, cubed and frozen

To begin: About a week before I made this recipe, I cubed and froze the sweet potatoes for this recipe in a gallon freezer bag. This really cuts down the prep time, because there is no cutting time and frozen

vegetables cook much faster. Simply pull frozen and cubed sweet potatoes out of the freezer and place immediately in

boiling water. Boil until a fork goes through them. This should take about 5 minutes. Drain.

Bacon Upside Down Stuffing – Bringing it all together!

You will need: Fully prepared bacon, sweet potatoes, and stuffing.

To Begin: In the 9x13 inch bacon lined pan, layer boiled and drained sweet potatoes over bacon. Top with stuffing. Return to oven and bake at 350ºF for about 20-25 minutes. Remove from oven, and let cool for 5 minutes. Run a knife around the edge, place large serving platter over the top, and flip the dish quickly so that the bacon creates a beautiful and tasty topping.

Take out, add sweet potatoes, top with your stuffing. Return to oven and bake at 350ºF for about 20-25 minutes. I run a knife around the side, place serving dish over the top, and flip the dish quickly so that bacon creates a beautiful and tasty topping.

Originally published by Lisa King in the 2015 November issue of Freedom Farms Magazine.