Food

Waffle Recipe

Published on March 18, 2017March 24, 2017 by clarkridgefarmLeave a comment

While Dan and I were living in Chicago, we started a tradition of making waffles every Saturday morning. Now that we’re back in New Hampshire the tradition has continued.

Below is the best waffle recipe ever. There are three things that make this recipe great.

First, the whipped egg whites. It’s a little extra work, but it’s worth it. Do it once – you won’t go back.
Second, using grass-fed, raw milk from Benedickt Dairy . If you’re local and haven’t checked them out yet, you need to. They are amazing farmers up on Shirley Hill Road.
And last but not least, the maple syrup. Real maple syrup is the only option. I’m obviously biased and think our is the best, but just make sure you’re not using Aunt Jemima or some other “table syrup.”

Lowell Drott’s Waffle Recipe (from a North Park an old North Park cookbook)

2 cups flour
1 T.baking powder
1 T. white sugar
dash of salt
2 eggs separated
1/2 cup oil
2 cups milk

Mix together dry ingredients. Add the egg yolks, oil, milk, and stir until combined. In a separate bowl, whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold the egg whites into the waffle batter. Pour onto a hot waffle iron and enjoy!

Smokin’ Social

Published on August 11, 2014April 20, 2015 by clarkridgefarmLeave a comment

On Tuesday night High Street Farmhouse in Goffstown is having a Smokin’ Social. They are going to have Clarkridge Farm meat and other delicious food! There will be drinks from a new brewery in Merrimack, Able Ebenezer. It will be a fun night and we’re excited to go! See you there!

New Hampshire Maple Sugar Weekend 2013

Published on March 25, 2013 by clarkridgefarm1 Comment

My new favorite weekend = New Hampshire Maple Sugar Weekend SAM_2716 We had a good run of sap earlier this year and we made some of our own maple syrup! It was a learning experience for me, and this weekend I was able to see how other people in our town and neighboring towns run their maple sugaring operations.

We probably visited about 6 or 7 different sap houses. We don’t have a sap house, so sometimes our maple sugar equipment is hard to use.

It’s difficult to boil down the sap when all the equipment is covered in snow! And it’s not fun to boil it outside if it’s raining. However, when it’s not covered in snow and the sap is flowing, it works great!

I wish you could smell it. There’s nothing better. A sweet and smokey smell. You’ll just have to come visit sometime so you can smell it for yourself.

The set up we have now is good for a couple of gallons of sap. We have about 15 taps out and have gotten about 1 or 2 gallons of maple syrup. (Keep in mind 40 gallons of sap = 1 gallon of syrup.) We easily have the potential to put out about 1,000 taps, but we would need a sap house to boil the sap into syrup.

Seeing all the sugar shacks was inspiring for Dan and I. It made us think that maybe we could do that here!

They all varied. Some were big full-time operations.

And some were small family-run operations. I loved the ones with a small kitchen for making coffee and treats while hanging out in the sugar shack.

Each sap house offered tastings of their delicious fresh maple syrup. And then there was lots of donuts, coffee, maple butter, pancakes, cookies, and people to talk to! My favorite treat was coffee made with sap instead of water. It’s my new favorite way to drink coffee. (As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a coffee drinker, so we don’t have a coffee maker. I’m going to need to get one though so I can make coffee with sap. There’s nothing better!)

People were also selling maple sugar and maple pepper. I’ve never heard of maple pepper so of course we bought some. If anyone knows what to do with it, let me know!

Dan loved this contraption that allows you to easily bring the wood from the outside in.

And this is a real big operation!
Maybe someday we’ll have an evaporator that big. There are definitely plenty of trees around to tap. Right now, I’m enjoying the little pan in our backyard.

I’m already looking forward to NH Maple Sugar Weekend 2014. Maybe we’ll be hosting an open house on our farm! There’s lots to do though, so I’ll keep you posted…

Farewell from the farm,

xoxo Britta

Grass Fed Beef

Published on March 22, 2013March 22, 2013 by clarkridgefarmLeave a comment

It’s spring, but it still feels like winter here.

Although I love winter, I’m definitely ready for it to be over.

A week ago, Dan took a bottom round roast out of the freezer to cook up. The trick to cooking grass-fed beef so that it’s edible is to cook it slow and low. We took this recipe, Super-Slow-Roasted Beef, from The Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook. This book is great and is teaching us some great new recipes. Currently, we have it checked out of the library, but I think we may need to just buy it so we’ll always have it on our bookshelf to refer too!

The first thing we did was rub it with the garlic-herb rub of consisted of thyme, rosemary, oregano, fennel, garlic powder, salt and pepper.

We covered it in plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature for 2 hours. Then we put it in the oven at the lowest temperature the oven would possibly go, ours was 250 F.

After about 3 hours we took it out and cut it up. It was delicious! The meat was tender and the rub on the outside was a flavor burst of goodness!!

I’m thankful that it’s Friday. Dan and I are celebrating with a night in, playing one of our favorite games, Ticket to Ride, and eating snacks. Tomorrow I’m hoping to check out the craft fair at the Apotheca. It’s also NH Maple Weekend. There’s lots of places we’d like to go visit. Here’s to a good weekend!

Farewell from the farm,

xoxo Britta

p.s. – All the baby lambs are doing fine – we’re up to five now!

Saturday Morning Doughnuts

Published on February 1, 2013February 1, 2013 by clarkridgefarmLeave a comment

One of my favorite things is waking up on Saturday mornings and making a delicious breakfast! Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day and during the week I’m too busy to make a really good breakfast. Last Saturday Dan and I made a special treat!

So simple, but oh so delicious – the egg sandwich. There’s nothing better than an english muffin, fried egg, cheese and meat (in this case – salami). Although it’s probably not the healthiest breakfast, it’s definitely a treat!

While Dan was making the egg sandwich, I decided it to make some baked chocolate doughnuts!

A couple of years ago, when I was away on a girls weekend in Lake Geneva, my good friend Maria and I each bought a doughnut pan! In her family there is a birthday tradition where on the morning of your birthday you get doughnuts. I thought it was fun tradition and would love to start in our family someday, so therefore it was essential that I bought a doughnut pan. Unfortunately, Dan didn’t fully understand this (actually, I don’t think I ever explained it to him) and just saw a doughnut pan sitting in our cupboard that we never used. He kept asking me if we should get rid of the doughnut pan, but I kept telling him that I was going to use it to make doughnuts soon. So after about two years of asking to make doughnuts, I decided last Saturday it was time!

I’d made doughnuts once before using this recipe from Lara Ferroni. She also wrote a cookbook with tons of other doughnut recipes. If they’re anything like the doughnuts I made on Saturday, I’m sure they’re all delicious!

I was skeptical about the nutmeg in the recipe, but it definitely adds a great flavor to the doughnuts.

With some red sprinkles on top, these doughnuts would make a great Valentine’s day treat!

Dan and I are going to a Raising Backyard Chicken workshop on Monday. I’m excited about what we are going to learn since we’re hoping to get some chicken’s this spring!

Farewell from the farm,

xoxo Britta