Good Food from Fresh Ingredients

We agree with Julia Child, who said, "You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces – just good food from fresh ingredients."  Tonight we enjoyed the kind of supper we strive for, one made with fresh ingredients from our mini-farm. The main dish was duck from our flock with a side dish of green beans picked this afternoon from the garden, and for dessert, peach sherbet made with peaches picked this evening and this morning's milk from our herd.

The ducks were our Khaki Campbells. We chose this variety of ducks

Khaki Campbells

because they are prolific egg-layers, not a meat breed. However, some of us cannot eat the eggs. So we are now culling our flock of these. Though they don't have a lot of meat on them, they are very tasty. Today, we slow-cooked two older ducks, expecting them to be a little tough as older birds tend to be. We were pleasantly surprised! Tender and tasty. One drawback to using the slow-cooker is that the skin is not browned and crispy, unless of course it is browned in the oven first or to finish or both. We skipped this part. Yummy anyway. We'll let the drippings cool and skim off the fat to use for future cooking.

Purple, green and yellow pole beans

The green beans didn't start green. We grow a pole variety that produces purple pods. This makes them easier to pick--they contrast with the green leaves of the vines. When cooked, the beans turn a dark green--letting the cook know that they are heated through. So these beans show you where to find them and show you when they're done! Easy.

Our latest oberhaslis, Ilsa and Inga

The milk is from our oberhasli goats. These Swiss goats are compact, quiet, and good milkers--perfect for our situation.

The peaches for our sherbet are from one of our three peach trees. We grow three different varieties that ripen at three different times, extending the harvest. We also planted all three trees in a space less than four feet square. In this small space the trees compete with each other for water and nutrients, slowing the growth of the trees. This helps us to keep the trees pruned and trimmed to a manageable size. We prune them after the harvest to control upward growth, and then in the winter to encourage the most fruit possible. Read more here at Dave Wilson Nursery.

 Peach Sherbet Recipe

Peach sherbet in the ice cream maker

4 cups ripe peaches, chunked (you can leave the skin on)
1 1/2 cups milk
1/3 cup honey (more to taste)
pinch of sea salt
juice from two lemons

Put everything into the blender. Blend until smooth. Chill in the fridge for an hour or two.

Once mixture is chilled, freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's directions.

We served ours right away and it was perfect. You could spoon it into a container and let it firm up in the freezer for a couple of hours.

This is the electric ice cream maker we use. We like the old-fashioned crank-style better, but this one does pretty well and isn't as much to clean up. We're not too keen on some of the recipes that come with it, however. The internet has plenty of yummy recipes--just about any combination of ingredients you can think of is out there.