Nourish Your Body, Excite Your Taste Buds, and Give Back to the Earth
We are clearing out the freezers for another batch of pork coming in and have an abundance of pork chops! Usually $11/lb, we are selling packs of 2 bone-in chops each for $10. Each package is roughly 1.2-1.6 lbs and usually sells for $16! You can find some listed at the discounted rate this weekend online at the Clemson Area Food Exchange or hop by the farm (call/text/email first) and pick some up…we’ll be here all weekend! Get em’ while they last!
Need some recipe inspiration?
This has been a standard for Farmer B and I for years. Originally based off this recipe , I have adapted and simplified it over the years, to suite our needs and likes. My kids enjoy this dish as much as we do (don’t worry, the alcohol from the whiskey cooks off entirely!), I mean, who doesn’t like pork chops and mushrooms in a creamy sauce over mashed potatoes. Truly a stick to your ribs, comfort food night!
In this recipe, I pair it with some seasonal rutabaga available from a neighboring local farm. Rutabaga’s are in the brassica family (brassica napus which is a cross between a cabbage and turnip), so do have some bitterness to them, but they’re also a root vegetable and can have some of that sweetness if you know how to prepare them right! I do a 50/50 split with rutabaga and Yukon gold potatoes to achieve a similar but slightly different taste and feel to your normal mashed potato side.
I hope you enjoy this dish as much as we do!
For the Pork Chops
Rosemary Rutabaga Mash
Directions:
1. Season pork chops with salt, pepper and fresh thyme leaves on both sides. Let sit while you prep your ingredients.
2. In a large pot, boil rutabaga and potatoes until fork tender, about 25 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, in a small wide saucepan, brown the butter. On medium, let the butter melt and then continue cooking. It will start foaming and then milk solids will drop to the bottom and the butter will start to smell nutty and delicious. This takes about 5 to 10 minutes depending on your heat. Keep a watch and don’t let it burn! Once it’s browned and smelling great, remove from heat and drop the rosemary springs and garlic cloves in — they will sizzle. Swirl to combine and set aside to let the rosemary and garlic infuse into the butter.
4. Heat oil in a large cast iron skillet over medium- high heat. Brown the pork chops for three minutes on each side to create a nice, brown crust. Remove from the pan and set onto a plate. Cover with foil. Set aside. This is the initial step to create flavor, but you will complete the cooking later.
5. Turn the heat down a bit to medium, and melt butter in the same cast iron skillet used for the chops. Add the onions and mushrooms, and season with salt and pepper. Sauté for about eight minutes, stirring frequently, until the mushrooms release some liquid and onions are well-cooked and browning.
6. Turn the heat back up to high and deglaze the pan with the whiskey, scraping up any bits on the bottom of the pan. After about a minute and the alcohol has cooked off, turn the heat to low. There should still be some liquid, you don’t want it to evaporate entirely. Add the sour cream and stir to combine. Taste to adjust your seasonings, and when you’re satisfied, place your pork chops and any accumulated liquid back in your pan. Cover with foil and let it cook on your lowest setting while you finish your mashed rutabaga.
7. Strain the rutabaga and potatoes, and place back in the same pot. Discard the rosemary and garlic from the browned butter and add any remaining butter to the potatoes. Season with salt and pepper and start to mash. If you need more liquid, slowly add only a splash of milk/cream. Rutabagas have a higher water content than potatoes so you’ll find you don’t need as much liquid when mashing them. Keep mashing to desired consistency and taste as you go.
8. Test your pork chops to ensure they’re done cooking. If you’re a temp person, you’re looking for an internal 145 degrees, and if you’re a feeling kinda person you can test by pressing for firmness to your liking.
9. Load your plate with mashed rutabaga, top with a pork chop and a heart helping of the creamy mushrooms and onions. We served it with a Caesar salad!
We are stocked with pork right now! We realize how busy this season can be and know that sometimes it’s just easier and more convenient to buy from the grocery. So, in an effort to make things easy and accessible for all, we’re offering a pork sampler pack with discounts and various options for pickup and delivery! Here’s how it will work:
The possibilities are endless as to how to use them up! Here are some awesome ideas of how to use pork for this holiday season!
Can’t wait to see what you’ll create with yours!
As always – thanks for choosing to support our little family farm this holiday season. It means the world to us!
Spring Green Shakshuka
This first appeared in the Clemson Area Food Exchange newsletter, edited by Ellie Sharp
Traditional shakshuka is a spiced tomato-based egg dish that originates in Israel where it is served for breakfast. In the United States it is more popular in the evening and is a perfect eggs-for-dinner-kinda-meal. Since tomatoes aren’t yet in season locally, I created an alternative by highlighting fresh greens. A bed of local spring ingredients really showcases the beauty of goose eggs. And, wow, the goose eggs are truly spectacular. Chicken and duck eggs are great, too, and can be used in place of goose eggs. You can easily swap the base of spring greens with whatever you have on hand: sub in kale and spinach for the Swiss chard and escarole; use asparagus instead of Brussels sprouts. Do try to include escarole if you can! If you haven’t tried it, this dish is a perfect intro for you as its nuttiness really comes through.
Ingredients:
Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Select a large, oven-safe sauté pan.
3. Melt the butter in the pan. Add the leeks and Brussels sprouts, sautéing until they start to soften. Add the chopped greens and minced garlic and cook just until the greens are wilted. Season with salt and pepper. Be careful to not to cook too much here as everything will go into the oven soon.
4. Using a spatula, create “dents” in the greens into which you will crack the eggs. I used 3 goose eggs, so I made three nice dents/craters in the greens. Crack eggs into place. Season each egg with salt and pepper.
5. Place in the oven at 350 degrees for 18 to 22 minutes depending on how well done you want your eggs. If you like your eggs easy, start checking at 15 minutes for their firmness. If using chicken eggs, start checking around 6 minutes. You can gently shake the pan to see how set the egg whites are.
6. When ready, remove from the oven and top with crumbled goat cheese. Add pea shoots in the center (microgreens make an excellent substitute) and drizzle everything with a few splashes of a nice herbal/finishing vinegar. You know you have that weird one in the back of your pantry and this is a great time to use it!
This article was first featured in the Clemson Area Food Exchange newsletter
Baby Hakurei turnips are in full force right now. They are easy to grow and have a shorter window to maturity than a traditional turnip, making them an appealing crop for fall, winter, and spring. They are great as a cover crop, helping loosen and prepare beds for summer crops and recover after them.
If you’re thinking, “I don’t like turnips!” Then you might try these. The roots are smaller, sweeter, and less turnip-y than the average purple topped traditional ones. Because of their shorter growing window, the greens reap the same benefit and are not as bitter and bug infested either!
Roasting the roots, enhances the natural sweetness and worked with the slightly bitter greens, they are truly delicious. This makes an excellent side for supper or a great little farmers lunch. Either way, you should try this super-simple way to introduce tender baby turnips and greens into your repertoire!
Ingredients:
2 bunches of baby Hakurei turnips with their greens
2 TB neutral oil
Salt and pepper
½ small onion, sliced or chopped
2 slices thick cut bacon, jowl or fatback chopped into small pieces
1 TB apple cider vinegar or lemon juice
Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
2. Remove the greens from the roots. Wash roots to remove any dirt and slice greens into ribbons and wash.
3. Cut turnips in half or fourths if large. On a baking sheet, toss with oil, salt and pepper. Roast in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Remove from heat, set aside.
4. Meanwhile, in a large skillet over medium heat, add chopped bacon/fatback and render until crispy. Add the onion and cook for about 5 minutes until translucent. Reduce heat to low, add greens to the skillet, stirring until wilted, 2-3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, add lemon juice or apple cider vinegar. Taste and add more seasonings, as needed.
5. Serve the roasted turnips over the greens!
This was first featured on the Clemson Area Food Exchange newsletter in October 2021.
Recipe and pictures by Amanda Callahan, Edited by Ellie Sharp
I’m a big fan of “sheet pan” meals — those glorious, easy-peasy all-in-one dishes perfect for quick and healthy dinners. They are incredibly versatile and (mostly) require minimal attention. Think of them as an ideal “clean out the fridge” technique great for pairing local ingredients you often don’t know what to do with: combine proteins, veggies, and starches however you feel moved. I love putting fresh greens on the top toward the end of cooking, too, like in this recipe!
My friend recently passed along a huge sweet potato from his garden, and I had a bunch of radicchio that I honestly didn’t have a plan for but was excited to use. I thought both would pair well with sausage and debated how to proceed. I was leaning towards a soup, but then remembered I had a couple packages of cauliflower gnocchi in the freezer, and I LOVE roasted gnocchi. Whether it’s frozen cauliflower gnocchi or the shelf stable potato based gnocchi, if you haven’t tried roasting it, you’re missing out my friends! Gnocchi is traditionally boiled like pasta, but when roasted the edges become brown and toasty taking on a nutty flavor that is perfection when paired with fall flavors like sweet potatoes and sage.
Try this easy sheet pan meal this week and make sure to snap a pic and tag us on social media!
Ingredients:
Directions:
Callywood Farms 