Before the Season of "Everything Pumpkin" - Take time to Savor the Apple

I do adore pumpkins. Soon enough it will be the Season of Everything Pumpkin. But for me, September is the season of the apple.


Apples are the glorious gifts of late summer and early fall. There are so many varieties to choose from, and in New Jersey we have a plethora of pick your own farms. Some apples, like Cortlands, are on the sweeter side. Empires are great for eating raw and have a bit of tartness. Fuji's are wonderfully sweet and last a very long time. Granny Smiths are lovely if you prefer the tartness of apples. Jonathans are great for making applesauce, but not for baking because the mush. Yorks are great for baking. I could go on and on, since there are over 100 types of apples grown for commercial use. Actually, there are over 7,000 types of apples grown world wide, but that would take us rather far afield.

There is so much that apples give us. Not just for eating and cooling. On these first cool nights as summer fades to autumn, there is nothing like some warmed apple cider with a cinnamon stick in it. Around here, Delicious Orchards has the best cider. A great place for pick your own apples is Terhune Orchards. They also make some yummy apple wine. And of course there are the amazing benefits of apple cider vinegar.  We use it in many of our products because it is so good for you on the inside and on the out. Ooh - and I've recently discovered the fun of hard cider, but that again is another story.

Apples are packed with nutrition and fiber. They contain lots of vitamins like A, B, and C. They have antioxidant components, quercetin, collagen, and elastic which make then wonderful for your skin, boost your energy, and aid in digestion.

Applying apples to your outsides might seem strange - but your skin will certainly appreciate it. Here are a few quick tops to try:

• Take a nice fresh apple and run it through the blender with just a little water or green tea. Take that fabulous smelling mush and rub it in to your skin after a hot day. Rinse with cool water and you'll be washing away the heat and damage you've imposed on your face.
• Kick the apple treatment up a little by blending apple mush with honey and make yourself a skin loving face mask. It will brighten and soften your skin.
• Use a little apple mush or gently run a slice of apple under your eyes to help alleviate those dark circles. 
• After shampooing, pour some apple juice through your hair and then rinse. It will help with dandruff and add some nice shine.
• The pectin and tannin in apples helps soothe bug bites. Rub a piece of apple on a bite or apply a little mush.

Of course the best thing you can do with an apple, especially fresh and in season, is eat one a day. It may help keep the doctor away, and it will definitely taste great and make you happy.

Beeting the Summer Heat

I'm lucky enough to have a number of wonderful local farms not to far from where I live. One of my favorites, Giamarese Farm, has a CSA and we're happy to be members. The last couple of shares

have had a wonderful selection of rich, sweet, beets. I LOVE beets.

With this abundance, I decided to boil our last couple of batches. Then I freeze some, mash some, finish it up by roasting them, or pickling them. But there was all this lovely water that I thought, "There has to be something I can do with this."

Figured something out that's VERY yummy.

I took the water and strained it out well. I made a wonderfully fruity blend of ice tea with limes, pineapple, cherries, raspberries, and rooibos tea. (Sorry there's not more detail, this was very much a little of this and little of that recipe). I sweetened it with just a little honey and added the beet water. Delicious, refreshing - and healthy!

Beets are nutritious little jewels. They are rich in Vitamin B, C, magnesium, folate, lutien, copper, and more. And low in calories! Although the water isn't quite as powerful, it still carries some of those health benefits.

My suggestion - play with your food. Think about what else you can do with the juice or water. I may try it again by adding some beet water to rice, or maybe as part of a stock. So many options that I never thought of before.

Hey - I wonder if it would work making a sherbet. Hmmmm. Maybe next time!

Have a Little Honey, Honey, it's National Honey Month!

As you may have gathered from our previous post about honey - which you can find here
- we're a little sweet on honey. What's not to love!? Honey is a natural sweet treat that's nourishing for your outside as well as your inside.

In celebration of National Honey Month, here are two honey based recipes to get you venturing into the wonderful world of honey.

For your outside:

Honey Hair Shine
Honey's softening power will keep your hair soft and shiny.

5 cups of warm water
2 teaspoons of light honey
Optional: a squeeze of lemon juice, strawberry, or a few teaspoons of chamomile tea

Stir the honey into the warm water. Add option of your choice. After shampooing, pour the mixture through your hair. Don't rinse, just dry and style as usual. Not only will your hair be soft and shiny, it will smell wonderful, too!

For your inside:

JP's Glazed Carrots
This is a family favorite - particularly my son's. He started making them with his grandmother when he was about 5 (he's now 25).

Carrots:
2 pounds baby carrots
water to cover

Glaze:
3 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup pineapple juice
4 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
Optional: just a pinch of hot pepper flakes or a dash of hot sauce.

Directions

Carrots:
Cook to carrots in the water until just fork tender but still firm. Don't over cook them or they'll be mushy. Drain carrots and return to put.

Glaze:
Set heat to low and add the butter to the carrots, . Add honey, brown sugar, and pineapple juice. Stir until well combined. Turn up the heat to medium when sugar has dissolved. Let simmer in the glaze until the liquid cooks down and thickens (usually about 5 to 7 minutes).

Place into a bowl, toss the option of your choice, if you'd like. The glaze with thicken slightly as it cools. Yum!

For the best in local honey, check out Herbertsville Honey or E&M Gold. They have wonderful information, terrific products, and are great people.

Have a little honey every day and celebrate the sweetness of National Honey Month.

The Joy of Well Sweep Herb Farm

Several times a year, including in the winter, I take a pilgrimage to one of the most interesting and beautiful places in New Jersey. Well Sweep Herb Farm is one of those amazing spots that you can get lost in, and I love getting lost there.

I don't remember quite how I discovered Well Sweep (and yes, it is Well Sweep, named after the water fetching devise for the well). I think it was on the Internet about 3 years ago. In search for a close location where I could look over the herbs I was studying, I came across what sounded like a slice of heaven on earth. Little did I know the education I would get, and the delights I would find.

The real treasure of Well Sweep isn't the multitude and vast selection of herbs and perennial plants, it's the Hyde family that runs the farm. Louise is chief cook and bottle washer, charged with running the events the farm offers throughout the year. Last time I was there she made a wonderful Rose Geranium punch. I'm still trying to duplicate it at home. Cyrus is the herb aficionado. You can always find him in the gardens, and he gladly give advice, history, and lore of the plants you can see that he clearly adores.

Well Sweep and the Hyde family have been honored by the Herb Society of America, the International Herb Association, as well as the New York Botanical Garden. Their plants range from the everyday basil to the exotic frankincense.

If you like herbs, or plants, or gardening, Well Sweep is a stop you must make. It's educational, peaceful, and a true celebration of the wonder of herbs.

Next stop - Jersey Fresh Food and Wine Festival

We are VERY excited to be participating in our first Garden State Wine Growers Association wine festival. Won't you join us at:

JERSEY FRESH FOOD & WINE FESTIVAL
FEATURES HUNREDS OF WINES,WINE EXPERT SEMINARS AND GOURMET RESTAURANT FARE
August 9 & 10, 2008 (Noon to 5:00 p.m.)
at Hopewell Valley Vineyards
Pennington, New Jersey

We've heard such marvelous things about these festivals, and what could be better than spending a day sampling wines, shopping and enjoy a beautiful vineyard on a lovely summer day?

Now, I'm not a wine drinker. Oh, I'll have a well watered down glass of sangria once in a blue moon, and some champagne on New Years. But, in general, I really don't drink - well anything. Cindy, on the other hand, is very knowledgeable about wines. We both enjoy cooking - and adding wine to different dishes makes for a wonderfully unique flavors and depth. So we thought - why not mix pleasure with pleasure. We love getting

to see all of our customers and talking about our products, and we love learning about wines and food and all the wonderful products and farms available in New Jersey. This one event pulls all of that together.

There will be executive chefs giving cooking demonstration, professors and farm experts talking about organic farming and how to be a wine expert, samples and so much more. Plus there will be an amazing array of culinary treats and samplings. Me - I can't wait to try gelatto from The Bent Spoon. Ever since I read about them in edibleJersey, I've been dying to try some of their interesting creative confections.

How does all this food and wine go together with amazing skin care products? Can't you picture settling in for a nice warm bath with our Soft Skin Soak or Lavender Champagne Bath Vinegar, and sipping some fine wine to help relax away the day? Or enjoying a deeply softening Honey Pumpkin Face mask with a glass of sangria and maybe some Bent Spoon sherbet? Sound like a match to me!

Hope to see you Hopewell Valley Vineyard in Pennington, NJ on Saturday and Sunday. Check the Garden State Wine Growers Association website for all the details.

Fáilte Lughnasa - Celtic Festival of the Harvest

Welcome to August! Summer begins to wind down and the fruits of our gardening labors are ready for picking. In Ireland and the Celtic nations of old, this was a great festival time - the end of summer growing, the start of the harvest.

As with most Celtic festivals of old, there was a lot of celebrating going on. Lughnasa was a day to honor Lugh, a Tuatha De Dannan king who is often referred to as an ancient god of light. There is some wonderful information about the Irish and Scottish celebrations of Lughnasa - both ancient and modern - at the All Saints Parish website.

This is a wonderful time of year to enjoy the fruits of your labors and cherish the

warmth of summer. I'll spend Lughnasa baking some bread, making yummy tomatoe sandwiches, and visiting our local farmers markets.

With the harvest comes lots of work - putting up fruits and herbs into jams and jellies, drying herbs, making herb vinegars and tinctures, freezing fruits and veggies. After the dog days of July, August begins the flurry of activity that leads to the cool of Autumn.

So Happy Lughnasa everyone! Let the celebrations begin.

Farmers Market discoveries are more than just Food

I told you about the wonderful Farmers Market at Rutgers Garden. The handmade kielbasi is killer when grilled! But the best part of this market is that everything is local. And the nice thing about New Jersey is that local covers just about the whole state!

While I was at the farmers market this past week, I came across an interesting looking magazine. I freely admit that I'm one of those folks who collects all the papers and business cards from fairs and expo's and conferences. So, naturally, I picked up this magazine, called edibleJersey. After I brought my collection of cheeses, fruits and veggies home, I pulled out edibleJersey. I was enthralled from the cover all the way through to the last page. Informative and entrancing articles are partnered with wonderful photographs to create the perfect picture of the charm and enchantment that

the farms and restaurants of New Jersey hold.

I happened to pick up the summer issue. The style is charming and inviting, with stories of successful vineyards next to information about basil and enticing recipes for its use. This is a true magazine reflecting all the great things in the Garden State.

I could go on and on, but I encourage you to take a look for yourself. edibleJersey is a delight and much needed publication that boasts the good and has something for everyone all over our state.

Fresh From the Farm is the Way to Go

I love summer. I love the hot summer sun, gardening, going to the beach, barbecuing, warm sultry nights, walking in the woods, and - most of all - the lovely, fresh fruits and vegetables found at farms and farm markets.

The gardener in me loves to pick fresh tomatoes off the vine, the never ending supply of zucchini, and bright tasting blackberries nibbled from the the bushes. This year we're trying for cucumbers again - if we can keep that rascally gopher out of the yard. He seems to have a true passion for my cucumbers.

But my very favorite thing is to go to a farm or one of the local farm markets to

gather those sweet fruits and essential vegetables that I don't have the room (or patience) to grow at home.

And New Jersey is still packed with great farms and markets to satisfy any whim or craving. Interestingly, farms are making a come back, thanks in large part to the return to green we all seem to be feeling. Bouts of bacteria tainted produce that's been shipped in have heightened the desire to return to local choices for our produce. It's a nice thing - for the farmers, the economy, and our tables.

Two of my favorite spots are the Rutgers Garden Farm Market on Ryders Lane in East Brunswick. Nestled in a field among the trees, this market offers a wide selection of goods - not just produce either. I picked up some terrific Kielbasi from Stefan's Pure Blends while I was there, although I was too late for the bread from the Village Bakery - he had sold out already. You can bet I'll be there earlier this week! There were some amazing sheep cheeses from Valley Shepherd Creamery. I didn't even know New Jersey had any place that made cheese! It was a wonderful adventure that I look forward to attending again this week.

My other favorite stop for fresh and fabulous is Terhune Orchards. They have an amazing selection of pick-your-own fruits and veggies. Cindy and I always run down for apple picking in September, but there are some outstanding picks early in the season - including blueberries! Not always having time for the thrill of the hunt, their farm market offers a full selection of the farms finest. The staff is always wonderfully helpful and knowledgeable. It's a wonderful place to visit and learn and spend a sunny summer day.

I hope you'll make it a point to go local when you can. Maybe I'll see you at one of the hot farm spots this summer. Feel free to share any of your favorites in the comments section below. Right now, I'm going to go grab a Jersey Fresh Peach and have a healthy, summer munch!