The Weblog

We send out cool articles and farmer highlights using a different email program. You can see the archives of those emails here and through our facebook page! We use this “weblog” every Friday evening to let you know the market page is accepting orders (look for the little add to cart buttons next to products). Northeast Georgia Locally Grown was officially OPENED on Monday, April 26th, 2010 and we are so thankful that you are helping support fresh local foods each week.



 
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Locally Grown - Availability for May 15, 2013


This post expired on May 13, 2023.

Hey Local Food Lovers,

We’re off to an amazing start with our expanded Locally Grown shopping hours that we kicked off on Friday. Just a reminder that from now on market will open Friday nights at 9pm and close as it always has on Monday nights at 9pm. That’s two whole extra shopping days. It looks like its already popular as 21 of you have already placed orders.

Luckily it’s not too late. There’s still tons of items available, 281 in fact. And the selection is better than it’s ever been. We want to welcome several new farms to the market (and several more on the way). Here’s a quick list of new growers and their items.

BERRY PASTURES – It’s a real treat to have PASTURE CHICKENS raised right here in the mountains. I’m buying one this week and look forward to talking about next week. Many of you may already know Cameron Smith who has been at LoganBerry Farms for the last several years. This is his new personal farm project. Go take a look at his photos on the Growers page if you want to see exactly how your chicken was raised.

HAPPY HOLLOW FARM – I love unusual and unique items and I also love BEER so of course I’m pumped about Happy Hollow’s fascinating array of herbs, native plants and HOPS! I never thought I’d see Hops on here. Teri Parker had just asked me recently if I’d heard of cooking with Hops, and I hadn’t, but I hop, I mean hope to become a regional expert very soon. Check out their other interesting array of products including trillium wildflowers. And here’s a quick tip. You can select items just for one farm by scrolling down to SHOW SPECIFIC GROWERS under Display Options. It’s a really useful way to make sure you don’t miss things.

And you’ll want to come back soon as in a few weeks we’ll have OYSTER MUSHROOMS for the first time from Orchard Valley Farms (Julius Miller). I’ll be the first in line to try these when they come out.

As I perused the market this week one item I noticed we have in abundance that took me ages to figure out how to fall in love with is CHARD. Here is the recipe that made me fall in love with Chard. And one quick tip. If your Chard is longer than 10 inches, think about cutting (or simply pulling) the rib out.

CHARD GRATIN
This is an Alice Waters recipe, my go to gal for eating veggies.

Oven 375
Wash and stem 2lbs chard
Parboil for 1.5 minutes
Drain, squeeze and chop into 3/4 inch pieces
Peel garlic and chop

Melt butter and add chard
As it wilts add garlic
Cook 7-8 minutes

Warm 2 cups milk in saucepan
Sprinkle 2tbsp flour over chard and stir
Cook 1 minute then add milk slowly 1/4 cup at a time until chard absorbs milk

Season with salt, pepper and optional nutmeg
Place chard in buttered gratin dish
Should be about 1 inch think
Cover with bread crumbs
Bake 35 minutes

This is a great way to get your kids to enjoy some vegetables, and more nutritious than your average cheesy casserole. You’ll be surprised how rich it’ll taste without cheese or cream.

Ok, I’d better leave it there for tonight. Thanks to everyone who helped spread the word about Locally Grown. We’ve had quite a few new customers in the last week and its a real thrill to introduce new people to the market. We hope you’ll slowly shift as much of your grocery shopping as you can away from the grocery store and towards local farms producing much more nutritious and delicious foods.

It’s a great way too…..

EAT WELL,
Justin in Habersham
and
Chuck in Rabun