A Visit to King Creek Farm

My new route to work takes me past Sapowsky's Farm Stand (become a fan on Facebook) and Dickinson Farms, and I enjoy popping in on my way home to pick up apples, squash, flowers, pastries, bread, tomatoes, and other such fresh & local items. And so it saddens me that this is the final week for them to be open (they both close Oct 31, though Dickinson Farms does reopen for the holiday season). However, it seems that there is one farm stand that will remain open for a bit longer (I'm hoping), and it is the newest farm stand of my local experience -- King Creek Farm.


King Creek Farm (also on Facebook) is located on Rt 9 in Ware on the Belchertown side and is open Friday through Sunday. Their featured product is their beef, which is 100% grass-fed -- not finished with corn. They also carry pastured pork, eggs, and a variety of seasonal vegetables, flowers, cider, cheeses, sauces, salsas, honey, syrup, Pierce Brothers coffee, and home-baked bread. My husband has been the go-to guy for that farm, stopping in on his way to work and picking up beef, squash, donuts, and even our holiday pumpkin; my first visit didn't happen until 2 weeks ago, on Columbus Day weekend.

The first striking thing about KCF is the setting. Located at the top of a hill, it overlooks fields, pastures, wooded areas, and more hills. A spectacular view -- especially in the autumn. The farm itself has been around since the 1800's, and was purchased by the current owners in 2004. Since then the farm has been completely renovated, and it is now clean, bright, and welcoming (be sure to check out the pictures at the farm stand about the renovations).


We went on a Saturday morning when the barn was also going to be open for their barn sale. Our first stop was at the farm stand itself to see the vegetables, meat, and other available products. They were colourful, bright, well-arranged, and plentiful -- I would have happily walked out with a car-ful.
The day was nice, so we took a few minutes to enjoy the rocking chairs on the farmer porch before heading off to check out the chickens.
After our chicken visit we went to the barn -- I'm a sucker for barn sales, antique sales, tag sales. The barn was stocked from floor to ceiling with everything imaginable -- coats, dishes, games, toys, antique stoves, armoires, kitchen gadgets, liniments, clothes, books, decorations, windows, buttons, milk bottles, pewter pieces, suitcases, jewelry -- and even a string bass.
We had a delightful visit, and I highly recommend the farm and its goods.

The King Creek Farm website offers information about the farm, current produce available, barn sale dates, info on raw milk, and even tips on how to cook grass-fed beef. If you get on their e-mailing list, you will be privy to updated food availabilities and recipes (see below for this week's recipe).

KCF is located at 337 Belchertown Rd, Route 9, Ware, Massachusetts 01082

**Pictures in this post are courtesy of our Columbus Day Arizona guest, who remembered her camera when I forgot mine.**

Sausage, Kale, and Bean Stew

Ingredients:

1 pound bulk mild sausage

12 ounces kale

2 tablespoons water

1 cup mushroom caps, sliced

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper

3 cups white beans

1 14 1/2-ounce can vegetable broth

Directions:
Shape sausage into 1-inch balls. Arrange sausage balls in a single layer in a 12-inch nonstick skillet. Cook over medium heat until brown on all sides. Remove sausage from skillet and drain. Remove any fat left in skillet.

Meanwhile, remove center stalks from kale; discard stalks. Coarsely chop kale (should have about 16 cups). Add kale and water to skillet; cook, covered, for 10 minutes or until kale is just tender, stirring occasionally. Add mushrooms, garlic, salt, pepper, and red pepper. Cook, uncovered, over medium heat for 5 minutes more. Add sausage, beans, and vegetable broth; bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes or until kale is very tender.

Tasty, Tasty, Mmmm...

Coming this weekend, and starting on Thursday (for a long weekend), is the annual Taste of Amherst. This is not an event I have attended before, still being new to the Valley, but it certainly sounds good. Food, entertainment, people, and fun -- what more could you ask for on the Amherst Town Common in the middle of June? More than 20 restaurants will be represented with tasty vittles to tempt the palate -- and menus to take home. Entertainment in the form of music will include Unit 7, Swing Caravan, Client 9, Rusty Belle, and Wild Wood -- the full music schedule can be found on The River website. And there are fun things for the kids, too! The Kids Carnival will be in full swing with pony rides, face painting, and more. It sounds like a great time -- and four days of fun leave plenty of time for even busy folks to get out and enjoy it.
FOOD! (I love food!)

Bulk Flour

Since my home is a part-time gluten-free and lactose-free environment, and since I love to bake, I am frequently looking for stores that sell non-wheat/non-gluten flours in bulk (more than 2 lbs at a time). Most stores rarely have any decent selection; in fact, the store I would think would have the best selection (considering the number of bulk bins they have filled) actually doesn't.
In Ohio, my mother has a bulk food store in Amish country, and she often loads up on stuff for me before coming for a visit -- and sometimes she even mails it to me (of course, once when she did I got a call from the Post Office regarding a package leaking white powder...) -- it can actually be cheaper for her to purchase and mail it than for me to buy it myself, which is amazing, considering she ships around 5 pounds at a time -- or more.
I've been in the Pioneer Valley for about 6 months now, and this is all I've discovered:

Oat Flour: Maple Farm Foods (Hadley), $1.89/lb (recently went up)
Rice Flour: Maple Farm Foods, $1.89/lb (recently went up)
Brown Rice Flour: Whole Foods (Hadley), $1.99/lb (organic)
Corn Masa Flour: Maple Farm Foods, $3.49/4.4lb bag

You can find spelt flour at Whole Foods, but I don't know the price, since I can't use it. And you can purchase rye flour in nearly every well-stocked grocery in ~5lb bags.
Also, Ocean State Job Lot in Palmer often has Bob's Red Mill flours at prices a little bit cheaper than the regular stores (but there again, small bags).

Finding this kind of information online can be difficult, so if you, too, are a gluten-free baker and know of other places in the area where such flours might be bought in bulk (or where the grains might be ground into flour), please add a comment!
What I'm looking for:
Corn starch
Soy flour
(Tapioca flour)
(Bean flour)

Kristina's Kafe & Bakery

In the last few weeks, I have had a couple of sets of out-of-town visitors -- and each set I took to Kristina's Kafe for lunch, with great success. Kristina's is just off the town square and serves breakfast and lunch Tuesday through Sunday (closed Mondays) -- hours are 6am-2pm.

Kristina's has a warm and friendly atmosphere and just-right food options. For breakfasts they offer egg sandwiches, omelets, pancakes, a number of sides (such as cereal, pure maple syrup, bagels with cream cheese, homemade toast of the day), and at least 10 breakfast combos (with eggs, sausage, bacon, toast, homefries, pancakes, french toast, etcetera), and all at reasonable prices. The breakfast combos range from $2.29 (egg & toast) - &7.99 (the 3-eyed monster).
On Saturdays and Sundays, when breakfast is offered all day, there are also Weekend Wonders: Bakery Benedict, Homemade Quiche of the Day, Steve's Sensational Scramble, and Belgium Waffle Served with Butter and Powdered Sugar.

Lunch offerings mostly consist of sandwiches -- you can create your own or choose from one of Kristina's specialty sandwichs: the North Main, Firehouse Reuben, Quabbin Club, Stonehouse, Un-Commoner (which is quite tasty, by my own recommendation), and the Men in Blue. There are also hamburgers, hot dogs, grilled cheese, veggie burgers, chicken filets, and other such grilled sandwiches. Kristina's serves hot and hearty meals, as well, for those nasty-weather days (like today) -- things like pot pies, stuffed shells, stuffed peppers, and open-faced turkey sandwiches. There are salads, too, full-size and side. All the sandwiches come with chips and a pickle (at least, from the six examples I've been witness to).

You'll also find daily specials, bottomless cups of coffee -- and of course, the bakery! Donuts, croissants, pastries, fresh-baked breads, custom cakes, pies, and more grace the bakery cases, and though I've not had the opportunity to try many of them, they look quite delicious.

9 North Main Street (Rt 202), Belchertown: 413.323.5733
(Prices and specific menu items from KK&B take-out menu.)

Atkins Cider Donuts

Cider donuts are a popular autumn experience 'round these parts, and you'll find many markets and farm stands selling them. Saveur.com recently posted an article that includes Atkins Cider Donuts in their article "A Dozen Choice Doughnut Spots." If you haven't taken the opportunity to pick up a half dozen of these delights, be sure to do so soon -- and while you're at it, compare them to other donuts in the area and see if you agree with Saveur. I pretty much guarantee you won't regret the donut experience. (I had company this weekend, and we must have gone through nearly 2 dozen of these cider donuts -- delicious!)

Dickinson Farms & Farm Stand

I made another roadside farm stand visit last week, but haven't had time to post it until today because of long weekend company, so here it is, a few days later.

Dickinson Farms on 202 in Granby is a larger farm stand than Sapowsky's, but smaller than Atkins. They offer a variety of things from milk and local eggs and cider (not their own), to kettlecorn and granola and homemade preserves, fresh local fruits and vegetables, sausages and cheeses, breads and pies and cakes, and of course, their own apples and tomatoes. For someone who eats simply and naturally, they could be an entire market -- the only catch is that many of their vegetables are Green Giant, and not local.

Dickinson Farms also has a ton of pumpkins and squash available, as well as flowers (like chrysanthemums). They have large greenhouses set up, and I look forward to seeing what comes out of them as the year progresses.


Dickinson Farms has an orchard which provides the apples they sell (macouns, macs, cortlands, and empires at the moment), and they also do pick-your-own on the weekends.

Sapowsky's Farm - or The Unknown Apple

I made a trip this week to a yet-unvisited farm stand -- Sapowsky Farms Roadside Stand on Rt 202. Rumour had it, and their roadside sign confirmed, that they had had Honeycrisp apples earlier in the season, and to date, Honeycrisp are my favourite eating apples.
Honeycrisps are out of season now -- they are an early apple. However, the farm stand did have 5-lb bags of "sauce apples" for $3 per bag. When I queried the manager about the kind of apple in the bag, she informed me that they were Zestar apples -- an apple I had never tried and had only once heard the name of. I asked her to elaborate -- what's the texture, the flavour -- in other words, why a good sauce apple?
Zestars, I was informed, are juicy and sweet with a firm flesh that softens easily, making them great cooking and canning apples. I bought 2 bags.

Friday, I finally canned applesauce, and this is what I learned this year -- 5 lbs of zestar apples makes 4 pints of sweet applesauce, no sugar needed. Zestars can get a little mealy, and when they do, they begin to peel themselves (very odd, I thought). But they still make a great applesauce, and I'm hoping Sapowsky's has another bag or two available when I get back there this week.
(Last year I loved Macouns for applesauce, and I intend on using them again this year when I find the right price, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to try new apples, and I'm glad I did.)

Sapowsky's has more than just apples of course. As of mid-week, they had Cortlands & Macs for $1.29/lb and Macouns for $1.69/lb. They also had goldens, red delicious, and galas. Their own tomatoes ran at $1.99/lb, with a quart for $2.49. They also had bushels of decorative gourds for 2/$1, cabbage, lettuce, squash, pots and pots of mums, a few baked goods -- and a friendly little Corgi, who was not for sale.

Roadhouse Cafe

On the corner of Rt 9 and Bay Rd is a little cafe with picnic tables and a small (but usually full) parking lot -- it's the Roadhouse Cafe. Curiosity piqued from the first view, we finally made a visit on Labor Day to check it out (after I had picked up the menu from Stone Soup Farm and determined what kind of place it really was). The name of the place evokes pool tables, smokiness, and greasiness (at least if you have the background I have), and doesn't quite seem to reflect all the goodness you'll find inside -- or on the menu.

Reasonable-sized portions from fresh and local (when available) foods are organic and made from scratch, and have a variety of options for those with special diets. The place was bustling at mid-morning -- we waited for about 4 minutes before getting a table, which isn't long at all, and we probably could have been seated earlier if we'd wanted to sit outside. We spent that extra time admiring the hand-painted Roadhouse Cafe mugs that were for sale and the printed caps.

When a table cleared out and we were seated, we snagged a menu from the table and tried to make up our minds about our breakfast. And we thought we were done when I noticed a sign advertising gluten-free baked goods that could be added to the order -- biscuits, toast, bread. That made our decision just slightly longer. We finally ordered up a #5 with a plate-sized blueberry pancake, scrambled egg, and bacon (also comes with homefries); and a #6 with gluten-free toast, lox, and scrambled egg (also comes with homefries); plus, tea and juice and milk. The food wasn't fancy, but it was hearty and tasty, and we left the place decidedly satisfied.

Atkins Farms Country Market

One of the first places people directed me to once they found out I was coming to Belchertown was Atkins Farms Country Market on the corner of Rt 116 and Bay Road. Atkins is not just a farm -- it's a specialty foods store, a make-a-meal business, an apple orchard, a local produce provider, an ice cream shop, a gift shop, a florist, and more. Plus, they have plenty of family events like Cruise Night. A great favourite among locals, Atkins is accessible by bus and also has a large parking lot.

At this writing, I've made but 2 visits to the market, and it was completely different than I expected. Instead of a smallish farm stand or a slightly larger orchard store, this is an actual grocery of sorts, with everything from cereal and chips to imported chocolates. Since some items seem to be a bit costly when compared to other locations, I wouldn't recommend this as a one-stop shopping location if you're on a budget. But the bakery looks delightful (jack o'lantern cakes, fruit pies, cider donuts) and there's a salad bar and deli, as well, and plenty of local fruits & veggies, of course (with very reasonable prices). The ice cream (served outside and around the corner) was dished up with a friendly smile and totally beat out the ice cream I had in the metro-Boston area by size -- I got a medium cone, soft serve, and it was nearly a foot tall!

I'm sure I'll have more to write on this later, when apple season is in full swing and after a few more visits for ice cream and/or donuts and/or pie, so be on the lookout.

One more point to mention -- there are public restrooms available inside. They are clean and smell of fresh herbs & flowers (at least on the ladies' side).