Category - Weekly Emails
Welcome To our Backyard!
Those of you who have been following our emails and blogs over time may remember the photo tours of our large-and-lush backyard urban garden/mini farm in Live Oak last summer. We loved that garden! So much time was spent in the special hide-a-ways between sunflowers and trellised tomatoes and peas, snacking and finding some shade.
This season, we’re planting a large garden once again, but we’re starting fresh. In December, we moved from our Live Oak home into the heart of Santa Cruz. Our new home is an amazing 1 acre parcel tucked away behind some redwoods with an old walnut orchard out back. Between the walnut trees and other fruit trees, Noah is crafting vegetable beds by following the contours of the gently sloping land, which makes for some uniquely-shaped beds. In the past weeks, Noah & housemates of ours have been planting the first round of direct-seeding; Salad greens, peas, kales, collards, broccoli, beans, squash, potatoes, onions, and TONS of flower seeds have been spread all around. These recent rains have come at just the right times to keep our seedlings quenched, and our well-mulched beds have been keeping that rain water cozy against the babies’ roots — not much city-water-watering neccesary just yet. Here are a few photos, and as more sprouts up, we’ll be sure to keep you posted!
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Posted by Santa Cruz Local Foods in Weekly Emails
South County here we come!
We’re re-opening our Freedom location this week, although we still find ourselves without a host in Aptos, where we had previously dropped off orders along the way. If anyone knows of a local business or private residence that would be interested in hosting, send us an email to
info@santacruzlocalfoods.com . We are also considering opening a Seascape location in the next week or two — stay tuned.
Pasture-raised Meat, Eggs, and Dairy return!
We’ve just hooked up with Marin Sun Farms out of Point Reyes. These guys produce / co-produce a wide variety of high-integrity, high-quality pasture-raised animal products, including beef, pork, chicken, duck, lamb, and eggs too! Wondering why we’re heading up to Marin?
We also recently discovered that Saint Benoit, a small family creamery in Petaluma, just began bottling their rich and creamy Jersey cows milk. This milk is processed at a low pasteurization temperature of 145° in small batches to maintain the integrity — and we think it tastes amazing! We also added Strauss Maple Yogurt, Lightly Salted Butter and Half and Half to the dairy category – great!
For variety lovers
With the new foods online we’ve upped the selection in or popular “Variety Box” category. Our Abundance Box and Fruitful Box have been a win-win since we introduced them last winter: Our customers love the surprise of not knowing what’s inside yet knowing it’s always good as well as the simplified shopping experience, and we love putting them together! So, this week , we’re introducing three more boxes to expand beyond produce.
Here’s the low down:
Bigger than a Bread Box: Companion Sourdough Round and Baguette, St. Benoit Milk, Pasture-raised eggs, and a stick of Strauss butter $24
The Udder Box: St Benoit Milk, Strauss Yogurt, one Stick of Struass butter, and two select wedges of artisan cheese. $20
Grassy Pastures Box: Ground Beef, Ground Pork, 1 of either (Beef Stew Meat, Ground Lamb or Sausage) and 1 (cut of Pork or Beef or Bacon) $35
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Posted by Santa Cruz Local Foods in Weekly Emails
New Raw Cow’s Milk Cheese
We’re excited to bring two new cheeses to market this week. Rebecca of Garden Variety Cheese has been crafting award-winning artisan farmstead cheeses from her farm’s sheep herd since 2009 — some of the best cheese we’ve ever tasted! So we were excited to hear the other day that she is launching a line of raw cows milk cheese under a new label: Royal Oaks Artisan Cheese. Rebecca amazes us once more with the rich flavors of these aged cheeses, which are created with milk from two of our other favorite dairies in the area: Claravale Farm and Schoch Dairy. Damselfly, made from Schoch’s milk, imparts the flavor of its wine washed rind, with a creamy texture and a somewhat nutty flavor. Monarch, made from Claravale milk, is imbibed with the richness of brews from Santa Cruz Mountain Brewery, and offers a tangy counterpart to Damselfly’s smoothness.
Escarole is back, and you need to try it!
This is one of our favorite winter greens to saute. It melts down into the most tender of the winter greens, with a slight bitterness that turns sweet when cooked. We’ve been winging it when cooking at home, but we found this recipe below that is similar to some of our recent creations. We hope it inspires you to try something new this week!
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Escarole with Eggs and Cous Cous
An excellent way to enjoy this winter green
Ingredients:
2 large heads of escarole,
1 cup pearl couscous or fregola sarda*
About 5 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1/2 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
4 large chicken or duck* eggs
View the Whole Recipe. |
That’s right folks! When you’re experiencing that mid-week / weekend kefir craving and you already drank your stash, head down to River Cafe for an ice cold sparkling pint of our favorite probiotic beverage, complete with a frothy head. They will be serving our Raspberry flavor later this week. And while you are there, enjoy some of their amazing cuisine featuring local, organic produce!
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Posted by Santa Cruz Local Foods in Weekly Emails
Spring Time? The Trees think so..
For those of you who don’t know us personally, we just moved into an amazing old farm house (built in 1893) in the upper-ocean neighborhood, complete with a sloping acre hillside already planted with a great array of fruit trees. Right now it seems like everything is in bloom out there. They are bursting with all of our favorite spring time pastel colors — pinks and purples, and yellows oh my. This, combined with the stunningly warm weather, really shifts my attention to spring plantings. We’re starting to gear up for this season, and I am already planting out kales, chards, salad greens, sugar snap peas, onion sets, potatoes, lettuces in the fields and some tomatoes and peppers in the green house… definitely something to look forward to. At our homestead farm, we pay close attention to each plant — something the big guys don’t necessarily have the time to do. This makes for extraordinarily healthy and resilient plants, meaning more flavor and nutrition for all of us. We’ll be posting pics soon, so keep an eye out on our blog.
SCLF’s favorite Raw Cow Milk Cheese!
For those of you who haven’t tried
Schoch Dairy’s Monterey County Jack (The only Jack made in Monterey County!) or the
Junipero (Swiss style) raw cow milk cheeses, now is the time. We just picked us the wheels from Beau and Ty, and we’re cutting them up fresh for you! We love to make quesadillas with the Jack and grilled cheese sandwiches with the Junipero, but we also enjoy just cutting off hunks and devouring them on their own.
That’s right folks! When you’re experiencing that mid-week / weekend kefir craving and you already drank your stash, head down to
River Cafe for an ice cold sparkling pint of our favorite probiotic beverage, complete with a frothy head. They are currently serving our
Citrus Spritz flavor. And while you are there, enjoy some of their amazing cuisine featuring local, organic produce!
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Posted by Santa Cruz Local Foods in Weekly Emails
Perhaps few things have a greater force on keeping Santa Cruz weird than the Pacific Ocean. We often feel we’re blessed to have always unpredictable weather, especially when it means:
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Posted by Santa Cruz Local Foods in Weekly Emails
Wow — many great new products this week to mention. But first, we want to point out that we narrowed the pick-up time for the Live Oak Grange once again. It will now be from 4:00-5:00pm. We would also like to announce the specifics on our three new locations:
Felton: 4:30 – 5:00pm, The corner of Hihn st and Highway 9, (Near Rite Aid).
Scott’s Valley: 3:50 – 4:20pm, King’s Village shopping center parking lot, In the back near Tony and Albas & next to the bus station
Los Gatos: 4:00 – 5:00 pm, Levy Family Campus APJCC, 14855 Oka Road (Lark Ave. Exit), Far entrance near the back of the building.
Tell your friends!
We’re wandering outside of our radius this week to bring some juicy fruits onto the scene. We can’t seem to find a good supply of citrus close by (let us know if you are aware of one!), so we are hooking up with Twin Girls Farms on their farmers market route. They fall within a 150 mile radius instead — and they are bringing us Satsuma Mandarins, Valencia Oranges, Pomegranates, and Hachiya Persimmons this week!
We’ve also added bottled Apple Juice, Pear Juice, and Apple Cider Vinegar from Nana Mae’s Organics in Sebastopol, which is a few miles outside of a 100 mile radius. They use their estate grown heirloom apples and pears to make their delicious juices and vinegar. Find the juices in the “Preserved Food” section.
Also, noticing our apple selection has gotten slim, we’ve reconnected with Silva Orchards from Watsonville for some Newtown Pippin and Pink Lady apples. We’ll be adding two new cheeses from Garden Variety Cheese by tomorrow — Moonflower and Black-eyed Susan. Rebecca of Garden Variety let us know that she will be out of cheese for the season by next month, so enjoy it while you can. She will spend the winter focusing on nurturing her little lambs (if anyone wants to help, let us know, and we can link you up) and she will return to cheese making in the spring.
See you Tuesday!
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Posted by Santa Cruz Local Foods in Weekly Emails
