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They're here! Our first two lambs of the year were born this week, happy and healthy! Weighing in at an even eight pounds each, these strong lambs are starting our lambing season off right. Within the next month or so, the rest of the herd will deliver as well, so be on the lookout this spring! By April, the pasture will be full of small, springing, white Cheviots. What is it like working on a farm during lambing season? I imagine it's pretty close to working in a maternity ward during a full moon, the day before a big storm, in September. Except all of the patients are wearing white fur coats and demanding all-you-can-eat hay. But seriously, here's a look at a normal day in February, inside the Erdenheim Farm Sheep Barn. Early, every morning, we wake up to check on the progress any expecting mothers have made. By watching their movements, milk bag size, and manners, we can predict which mothers are going to be next. Throughout the day, periodic assessments are made and if one of the ewes gives the signal, we move her to her own deluxe birthing suite in the barn - equipped with a warm heat lamp and plenty of soft straw. After the lamb or lambs are delivered (we have twins and triplets quite frequently here are Erdenehim!), the mother cleans them off and gets to know her babies. We check the mother's milk supply to make sure she is ready for nursing. During pregnancy, ewes prepare for the birth of their young by producing milk. During this process, a wax like plug is created  inside the teats to block any bacteria or dirt from entering the milk supply. We give the [...]

Happy Saturday Everyone! This afternoon we decided to make some apple hand pies with our orchard's Macintosh apples. We were inspired during a raucous freezer cleaning session where we came across a disk of leftover pie dough from last season (Sitting Pretty Peach Galette). If you don't have a squirreled away frozen crust in your freezer, here's our basic pie dough recipe:   Ingredients: Dough: 2 1/2 cups (315 g) flour 1 tablespoon (15 g) sugar 1 teaspoon (5 g) table salt 2 sticks (8 ounces, 225 grams) very cold, unsalted butter ¾ cup ice cold water (put ice cubes in it but dont add them to the dough)   For the dough, combine flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Cut in cold butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in water, a tablespoon at a time, until mixture easily forms a ball. You may need a little more or less. Divide dough into two pieces, wrap each in plastic and refrigerate for an hour.   Now for the hand pies! Before we start, let's talk about these little pockets of gold. Hand pies are the perfect food for children and adults alike! They are incredibly cute, delicious, and the perfect size for snacking. Sometimes it just isn't convenient to sit down, have a big slice of pie on a plate, dirty a dish and a fork and listen to your kid brother tell you why he's renouncing all meat and becoming a gypsy. For those times - reach for a hand pie.   Ingredients: Pie Dough Recipe   Filling: 4 Macintosh Apples 1 tsp lemon juice 1/4 cup sugar 2 Tablespoon AP Flour pinch of salt 1 tsp cinnamon dash of allspice, nutmeg, [...]

It’s Thursday and that means yet another delicious apple recipe from the Erdenheim Archives! It took a little convincing, but we’re ready to give away our secret recipe in honor of the delicious Gala apples we have growing here in our orchard. Today we baked up a special favorite, a recipe we created after many years of testing! And when we say many, we’re talking 10 years of test tasting and baking heartbreaks. The best part about it is that all you need, as far as equipment, are two mixing bowls and a cast iron pan. It’s rich, moist, full of flavor and perfect with an afternoon tea or coffee. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, Kristina’s Champagne Walnut Apple Cake!   Ingredients: 5 Erdenheim Farm Gala Apples 2 teaspoons cinnamon 1/3 cup granulated sugar 1 cup ground walnuts 1/4 teaspoon of salt   2 cups AP flour 1 cup cake flour 1 tablespoon baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 1 cup oil (flavorless - vegetable, safflower, grapeseed, canola) 1 ½ cup granulated sugar ¼ cup Champagne (you can substitute sparking cider if you'd like) ½ vanilla bean (or ½ teaspoon vanilla extract) 4 Erdenheim Farm Eggs   2 tablespoons of soft butter for pan greasing   Directions:   1)      Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter a large cast iron pan and set aside. 2)      Peel, core, and dice apples into 1/2 inch chunks. 3)      In a medium mixing bowl, combine apple pieces, cinnamon, sugar, ground walnuts, and salt. 4)      In a separate large mixing bowl, whisk together flours, baking powder, salt, and sugar. 5)      Pour oil, champagne, and vanilla into dry ingredients and stir until just combined using a spatula or wooden spoon. The batter [...]

It's another cool day here on the farm so in celebration of our own Heirloom Apple variety, we're making Heirloom Apple Sauce.   On our property we have four grand apple trees that have been around for over 200 years! The apples are blushed with red and green, and yield a delicious, full apple flavor. They are truly a special and rare treat. We used them today in some old-school apple sauce.   This recipe makes enough for tonight’s dinner, tomorrow's breakfast, and this winter's stash! We had enough left over to can and add to our winter preserves collection.   Yield: 5 1/2 pints   Ingredients:   20 (4.5 pounds) Erdenheim Heirloom "Farm Apples" cored, peeled, chopped 3 1/2 cups water 1/2 cup granulated sugar 2 tablespoons brown sugar 1/2 lemon 1 tsp cinnamon   1) Fill a medium size pot with 3 1/2 cups of water. 2) As you chop apples, add the chopped pieces to the water in the pot. This will help them to keep from getting oxidized and brown. 3) Bring apples and water to a boil, then turn the heat down and simmer for 40 minutes. 4) Remove pot from heat and add granulated sugar, brown sugar, lemon juice, and cinnamon. Stir until combined and let cool.

If you tackled yesterday’s Challah recipe, hats off to you and this recipe will taste even better because of your valiant efforts! If you haven’t had a chance to bake your own Apple and Raisin Challah, any soft white bread or brioche will do. But trust us, you’ll want to try this one in the future with the real thing. Today was the first official day that we left for work in our official Erdenheim Farm sweatshirts. The chill in the air brought us back to our childhoods, taking that brisk walk to the bus stop each morning. We spent the better part of the today's early activities on a trip down memory lane. But now we’ve returned, it’s lunchtime, and we brought a little something back for you! This warm slice of nostalgia gets a grown up boost with crisp, tart, Erdenheim Farm Apples and sharp white cheddar cheese. We used some leftover pancetta from breakfast as well. You can add ham, tomato jam, any greens or perhaps some caramelized onions? It’s up to you!   Ingredients: 2 thick slices of Apple and Raisin Challah 1/2 Erdenheim Farm apple, thiny sliced 2 oz (or maybe 3) of thinly sliced sharp white cheddar cheese Dijon mustard ¼ cup crumbled pancetta 2 tablespoons room temperature butter     1)      Butter the bottoms of one of the slices of challah. 2)      Flip the butter side down and spread a thin layer of Dijon mustard on the top. The top will be the inside of your sandwich. 3)      Place one layer of white cheddar over the Dijon, then a thin layer of apple slices. 4)      Top the apples with the crumbled pancetta and place another layer of white cheddar [...]

We’re in FULL APPLE FRENZY here at the farm and we’re welcoming ourselves back to the blog with a classic Apple and Raisin Challah recipe that uses EF Apples, honey, and eggs. On that note, we should mention that all of the recipes we make here at the farm use our super large brown eggs. If you can’t get to us early on Saturday mornings to pick some up, any extra-large variety will do. But make sure they’re extra-large, not just large by commercial standards. Last week, over brunch with an old friend, we got to talking cooking for specific diets. We ran the gamut from gluten free, lacto-veg, all the way to Kosher. This got us to thinking, Challah time is right around the corner and what better to serve it with than some fresh apples from the orchard? We love breads, and especially enriched ones. Making a loaf of Challah is something different for us, as we usually enrich our breads with dairy (butter). After getting our hands on someone’s great aunt’s, cousin’s, sister's, mother-in-law’s recipe, we knew we had to try. In the end, our house smelled delicious and the product was just as we imagined. Tender, golden, and large. Really large. In fact we feel compelled to tell you that if you aren’t planning on making apple and white cheddar grilled cheeses (stay tuned for tomorrow’s entry) the next day, you could probably cut this recipe in half. Or, make two loaves and freeze one of them after it’s cooled. I, on the other hand, AM planning on making apple and white cheddar grilled cheeses tomorrow and I live with a hungry farmer and a pug. This loaf won’t last 24 hours [...]

Here at the farm, we like to stay active, get fresh air, and eat the freshest fruits and vegetables we can find. With that being said, what is the famous phrase? Work hard, play hard eat everything? It was probably about 9:00 at night, we had just settled in for some late night television and began our Friday tradition of speed flipping between Discovery channel and A&E. Amongst the crime solver stories and trips to Singapore, there it was. The biscuit commercial. The one where that strange, blue eyed, dough man wearing nothing but a scarf and a chef’s hat convinces you to buy his roll of ready to bake biscuits. You know the guy, his baked good are usually so good that you lose all sense of etiquette and stick your finger right into his stomach until he “hoo-hoo’s”? Well it’s time to show that little guy that YOU wear the pants in your kitchen. Scarf and hat optional. We call these our [almost] healthy buttermilk biscuits. The “almost” reminds us that there is significantly less butter in them than many recipes I’ve found and they also contain 3 tablespoons of Erdenheim Farm honey. A lot of biscuit recipes we’ve tested use the drop method. Similar to chocolate chip cookies, where you spoon the batter out onto a tray for baking. This recipe borrows a technique from puff pastry dough. And don’t worry, it’s the easy technique. After your dough is rolled out, you’ll fold the sheet like you fold a standard 8 x 11” paper for an envelope. It is also important that you work quickly and keep all the ingredients as cold as possible. In recipes like this, the butter acts as [...]

It’s the last few weeks for Erdenheim Farm’s micro greens. As the days get longer and sun shines brighter, our greenhouse gets much, much hotter. Because of this, our delicate micro greens and lettuces are only available during the cooler months. Today, we gave our greens a proper send off with some shaved spring vegetables, goat cheese, and crunchy spiced almonds. We had a few ramp leaves left over from our last foraging trip and tossed them in for good measure.   While I don’t normally believe that recipes are the best way to navigate the construction of a salad, I think the almonds at least deserve a little guidance. Everything else is up to you and that’s the beauty of a salad. It’s one of the few dishes where you can eyeball every ingredient, throw caution to the wind and be a little unorthodox. Usually, with the resounding approval of those you are serving. Odds are, if you have ripe, fresh ingredients, salt and pepper, and a little olive oil and acid (vinegar or citrus), you’re going to have success.     Here’s our favorite spiced almond recipe: 1/8 cup granulated sugar 2 tablespoons sea salt 1 pinch cayenne pepper 8 ounces sliced almonds ½ egg white Procedure: 1) Preheat oven to 350°F 2) Combine all ingredients in large mixing bowl and toss to combine. You want every almond coated evenly. 3) Pour almond mixture onto a sheet tray lined with parchment paper and spread evenly in one layer. 4) Place tray in preheated oven and set a timer for fifteen minutes. Every few minutes, stir the almonds on the tray to promote even toasting and browning. If they lay flat on one side during the [...]

It’s the end of April and that means it’s that strange time of year where everyone is ready to eat spring food but nothing is close to harvesting. After this year’s particularly long and harsh winter, our spring crops still have a month to go before we will have any yield for our farm stand. This is always a concerning time of year for restaurants, when guests show up for dinner in sundresses and short sleeves, tired of celery root and beets, yearning for the sweet taste of peas, young carrots, and fava beans. In most cases, what “spring crops” are available at this time in the store, come from warmer climates like California, Florida, and Mexico. Yikes! I won’t point the finger of morality at you, I’m guilty of impatience with seasonal vegetable locality. But it’s a new season, a new year, and we’re all trying to do better, right? Luckily, you don’t have to wait until June to start tasting the bright local flavors of spring. In our area, ramps are in full effect! Yesterday we harvested the first big, beautiful bulbs of the season from our ramp bed. Some people call ramps “wild leeks”, “spring onions”, or “wild garlic”. They are normally found along creeks or streams, sprouting out of the hillsides under hardwood trees such as birch, maple, poplar, hickory, and/or oak. They thrive in areas that receive ample sunshine and have rich, moist, well-drained soil. The more fallen leaves and organic debris, the better!     In recent years, the demand for wild ramps has grown so much that fields of the leaves have been decimated to small patches. Ramps are bourgeoisie, trendy, so-hot-right-now. Because of this, if you’re lucky enough [...]

When spring is here, the temperature is just right, and the hours of daylight are finally in our favor, we can't get enough of Forbidden Drive. The name sounds spooky but the winding trails along the Wissahickon are anything but. Joggers, bikers, pedestrians, dog owners, and horseback riders have been finding respite from the busy life of the city in the shady sanctuary that stretches from Ridge Avenue to Northwestern Ave at Bell's Mill Road. Once while jogging on the trail, I spotted a Bald Eagle gliding across the tree canopy and have seen chipmunks and ducklings crossing the paths right in front of me. So many people enjoy this territory but don't know the story behind it. Today, Erdenheim Farm celebrated the beauty and tranquility that is Forbidden Drive by acknowledging the riders who made it possible almost 100 years ago.   Every year, on the last Sunday of April, the community comes out to recognize the year that Forbidden Drive was closed to automobiles. In 1921, there was a proposed road change that would allow development and traffic on the stretch of trail we know and love today. After the plans were made public, 600 riders and their horses protested on the trail making it impossible to drive down and the action was dropped.   Today’s celebration started with a horse show at Northwestern Stables, featuring carriages, and English and Western riders. Our very own Jenna Marie competed in the Western class and won second place with one of our own Morgans, Whisper. After the horse shows and a fancy hat competition, the parade started joined by four of our own Morgans with riders, and the Generals pulling the Erdenheim Carriage.