Fahrmeier's Tomato Day 2010

Tomato Day 2010 is this Saturday! There is a small gate fee of only $5 but from 5-7 p.m. you will enjoy tomato tastings, food samples from fabulous area chefs, a buffet dinner that will be out of this world good, games for kids, music, plus beer and wine. Bring your friends and have fun with us! If you’re not familiar with our location, the farm is right off 24 hwy about 2 miles west of Lexington MO. Our buffet dinner will be prepared by Bradley Gilmore, manager of Trezomare Restaurant located at Briarcliff Village in North Kansas City. Here’s what’s will be on it:

Pulled Pork
Spaghetti Squash with a tomato vegetable sauce
Fresh Fruit Salad
Slaw
Potato Salad
Tomato Salad…of course!
Green Beans with Onions

All that for only $10! Along with our excellent buffet we will also have tastings from Yummy’s Choice, The Tasteful Olive, Trezomare Restaurant, No Name Restaurant from Lexington MO, Green Dirt Farm, Chef Renee Kelly, Homemade Fudge and we will have a table featuring our Fahrmeier Farms private labeled products that are amazing.

The music for the night is Brother Bagman from KC…this group alone will be worth the trip!
We hope that you can make it. This event continues to grow year after year and this one promises to be the best yet!

Time? What Time? Summer? What Summer?

The summer is flying by and we can’t believe it’s almost August! So far the month of July has been filled with lots of tomatoes and fresh grown produce, busy market weekends, visitors to the farm, late nights working and did I mention the produce? We’ve been gearing up for our Tomato Day on August 7th and new this week are new solar panels to help improve our energy efficiency. Be looking for those pictures soon! The heirloom tomatoes are beautiful and bountiful as well. Every year we’re amazed at their color and taste. They are truly a treat!

Speaking of treats…because of our long work days, our supper times have moved back considerably in recent weeks as well. The other night after a long day delivering tomatoes and running errands it was obvious that we were in for another late night nosh. We some of our produce in the crisper and I came up with this yummy concoction. It’s not an earth shattering recipe on the difficulty scale but in worked in a pinch and tasted really good with grilled steaks and tomato and mozzarella salad. Give it a whirl! It has 2 of our favorite food groups…Bacon and Butter!
Crisper Fried Corn

4 ears corn- cut off the cob
½ diced green pepper
½ small white onion diced
4 tblsp. Bacon bits (don’t skimp, use the real ones)
2 tblsp. Butter
Add all ingredients to a frying pan and heat until butter is melted and vegetables are warm throughout. Enjoy!

Tomato, Oh Tomato, How We Love Thee...

Is it weird to write a love poem about tomatoes? Yeah, ok, it is but our season that began in late May is now in full swing! We love them so much that we have a one day festival celebrating them each year. Tomato Day 2010 is scheduled for August 7, 2010. See below for a little bit more information! It’s sure to be a good time.

In more tomato news…simplicity saves time. Time saved is time that gets to be spent with family. So, simple time saving recipes are what we love! I made this yummy salad for the big party we had a few weeks ago. The same party in which “Stella Salad” was created. There are lots of tomato salad recipes out there; this one is just our variation. The centerpiece is our Fahrmeier Red Tomato’s and a few herbs and seasonings that everyone typically has in their cabinet or can be requested in your next CSA delivery. I made this for a large scale crowd so that means I had to go back to the drawing board for closer ingredient measurements. Keep this one handy...the tomato’s are coming!

“Who Doesn’t Love a Fahrmeier Red Tomato Salad?”

3 lb. Fresh Tomato’s– or use different varieties for an added splash of color! (Cut them in eighths)
1/2 C. Feta Cheese (white or yellow cheddar cheese curds, shredded parmesan or cubed Gouda would be really good too)
Dressing:
¾ cup Olive Oil
2 tblsp. Minced Garlic
Small handful of minced fresh basil
½ tsp. Cayenne Pepper (for a little kick of course)
2 tblsp. Celery Salt
2 tblsp. Dried Oregano
Salt and Pepper to taste
How to:
With a wire whisk mix all ingredients for the dressing in a small bowl until fully blended and set aside. Place cut tomatoes in a large salad bowl. Take dressing and pour over salad and stir lightly. Let them marinate for an hour or so at room temperature so the flavors will marry. Right before serving top with cheese. We like to eat this at room temperature to get the full tomato flavor. It’s so easy! Enjoy!

Check out these early Heirloom's fresh from our farm garden...

Stella Salad

Cooking is just what we like to do. Well, the eating part is the most fun but cooking brings us together and doesn’t include as big of a calorie intake. Especially considering how much butter gets used around here. A couple weeks ago we had a family party at the farm and in typical Fahrmeier “can do” fashion, we decided to do our own catering for it. We made a series of salads and other good stuff. As usual, I didn’t have a recipe to follow, just some gut instincts on what would be a tasty combination at the end. Well, right as we were packing up my car to take our food treasures to the farm the sky decided to open up and pour. This was not a light sprinkle by any sense of the word…more like buckets, boots and barrels with wind…lots and lots of wind. Well in the panic of trying to pack the car without getting completely drenched, Stella, our beloved puppy, decided to go for a frolic through the rain. It was a fast paced yet slow motion moment that happened all at once. 2 giant tubs of salad were left unattended in the backseat of my car with the door wide open and then the 3 fateful words crossed my mouth…”Load Up Stella” and slick as a cat, I had a soaking wet border collie puppy sitting in the middle of one of the tubs of salad that my friend Julie and I had thoughtfully prepared. Stella wasn’t budging and all we could do is laugh at the site of the dog in a bright blue bucket filled with fresh spinach, raspberries, onions and feta. Needless to say, that batch got tossed in pretty quick fashion and the surviving tubs were devoured that evening at our party. The bonus is that we came up with an instant name for our salad that also brings up fond memories. I hope you enjoy the recipe as much as we did!


Stella Salad

2 small bags of fresh baby spinach
1 small tub of feta cheese
½ c. red onion diced
1 pt. fresh red raspberries
½ c. pecan pieces
Your favorite raspberry vinaigrette to drizzle

Prepare: Dump spinach into large salad bowl and sprinkle all other ingredients on top and serve dressing on the side. Simple and done in 5 minutes. It’s delicious and very colorful!

Sometimes it's just easier to look...

The past few weeks have gone by very quickly and luckily we've captured lots of it with photos. So without going into great detail with lots of words we thought pictures could better explain the progress on the farm!

Sweet Corn is here! And it's super tasty! Everyone has enjoyed it, including our dog! We will have it ALL Summer long!

Our eggplants are dark purple, beautiful and yummy. I'm currently seeking a recipe to wrap, roll or stuff it with something really fatty!

Pumpkins! Orange, white, green, warty, baby and cute. Our early patches have taken off and are looking great. The vines are officially growing together which means they will be one their way very soon. Fall is coming which is kind of a scary thought considering at the end of everyday we are drenched in sweat from a hard day's labor in the summer heat.

And tomatoes...the pride of our produce. We will grow litterally tons of the juicy, flavorful, big, small, yellow, RED, green and purple fruits. Our varieties are extensive as my jewelry collection and we love them all! Ron, aka "Dad" is pictured here sorting, grading and cleaning our first large picking of the season. This will be a familiar sight as our summer on the farm continues! Now, onto trying to keep up with everyone...that's a job within itself!

We're All Ears!

Although the heat has been turned up for a while now, this week is the official first of the summer. The crops are going looking good as we continue to put in hours and hours of hard work to make sure we produce the best product we can. With that comes lots and lots of tomato’s, zucchini, greens beans (oh the taste of fresh green beans cooked in bacon with potatoes) and of course sweet corn! Check out these photo’s of our early corn. It’s going to be ready hopefully within the next couple weeks and we can’t wait to have some.

To tide you over here is a yummy looking recipe I stumbled across in Southern Living Magazine.

I believe I’m going to give it a whirl tonight. Sacrficing heating up the house with the oven will be worth it. It looks super easy and let’s face it… Cheese, corn and bread can’t be all that bad!

Fresh Corn-and-Asiago Cheese Bread Pudding

1 1/2 cups milk

1 cup whipping cream

3 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

1 (12-oz.) French bread loaf, cut into 1-inch cubes (8 cups)
4 cups fresh corn kernels
1 1/2 cups (6 oz.) shredded Asiago cheese

1. Whisk together first 5 ingredients in a large bowl; add bread, tossing to coat. Let stand 30 minutes.

2. Preheat oven to 375°. Stir corn and cheese into bread mixture; spoon into a well-buttered 13- x 9-inch baking dish. Bake at 375° for 45 minutes or until set and golden brown.

Off and Running!

Wowza! What a great week we had last week. Time flies when you’re having fun and working like crazy people. Last week we stretched ourselves to the limit by going to several different locations to promote the farm and sell our fresh grown produce but it was completely worth it! I mentioned last week that we were heading to Columbia to the Farm to Table Festival on Mizzou’s campus. We met lots of people, reconnected with old friends and the best part is that we had the chance to tell them all about what we do. We were even fortunate enough to have the photo of our booth on the cover of The Missourian newspaper. Check out the photo!
Even through more rain over the past few days, the crops are still growing well. The pumpkins are starting to peep through the soil and we’re looking forward to the tomatos coming in full force. Here are a couple pics of Tomato Berries. They’re a new variety we’re trying out this year. Cute little guys aren’t they? They look like strawberries, a favorite fruit around here, but taste like tomatoes. Tasty!