Meet our new bunny rabbits, Flopsy (on the right) and Mopsy (on the left)! They are just adorable and we are so grateful to our friends Debbie & John at Lingerfelt Farms for letting us adopt them. If you look between them you can see our old bunny’s ears and one eye peaking at the newcomers. We’ve renamed her “Cottontail” and now our bunnies are all named after Peter Rabbit’s sisters from The Tale of Peter Rabbit, one of our favorite children’s books.
Come meet Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail on Sunday, December 15th, from 1:00-5:00 p.m., when our farm will be open to the public for free self-guided tours. There are lots of fun things to see and do on our farm!
***Our next Family Fun and Market Day on Fox Trot Farm will be Sunday, December 15 from 1:00-5:00.***
Come see us at the Waxhaw Farmer’s Marketthis coming Saturday, December 7th, from 9:00 a.m. till Noon. It’s our Christmas market day and we’ll have lots of extra special farmhouse gifts to help you with your holiday shopping. We’ll have all our cuts of our pasture-raised lamb and our Granny Bee’s pure, raw honey, too, for your holiday entertaining!
Here is a list of some of the goods we will have Saturday. First, our meat:
Farmer Debbie’s been busy, with lots of embroidered kitchen linens, coiled rope baskets, hand-twined (woven) table mats, quilted table toppers, and natural wool dryer balls that are beautiful, too. We’re also fully restocked with our popular Country Gentleman, Lavender Luxury, and Patchouli Patch honey & beeswax soap. We’re introducing our beautiful new Rosie Posie pink & white swirl, softly rose-scented soap just for the holidays. Enjoy a preview of some of our gift items:
Uptown Collard Greens When we moved to our farm from Pennsylvania in 1985, I was surprised to find that collard greens were a traditional holiday side dish here in our community. We embraced all the Southern vegetables, such as these delicious greens, and I created this recipe to dress them up for special occasions.
3 pounds of washed, trimmed, and sliced collard greens* 3 cups water 2 tsp. salt 3 cups low sodium chicken broth 2 cups half and half 8 tablespoons butter 1/2 cup flour ¼ tsp. ground nutmeg Salt & pepper to taste 2/3 cup Parmesan cheese 1 cup ricotta cheese 4 ounces Mozzarella cheese
Oven: 375°
For Greens: Bring 3 cups of water to a boil in a large stock pot; add salt. Fill the pot with greens, adding more as they cook down, until all have been added. Cover, bring back to a boil, lower heat to a fast simmer and cook until tender, stirring and checking water level frequently. Add water as needed to keep from burning. Greens should be JUST tender, and not mushy. Pour into a large colander and drain completely. While greens are draining, make sauce.
We have a good supply of our delicious leg roasts for the holidays. They range from about 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 pounds. They are bone-in for extra flavor, and we’ve had the shanks removed so they’ll fit easily into your roasting pan. They are $10.99/pound, which is a great deal for pasture raised local lamb. The roasts are lean and tender and mild, and, if you do want to remove the bone, it is easily done and I can show you how.
Some of our customers are curious about our favorite ways to prepare our leg roasts, so we’ll post a traditional roast recipe as well as a grilled recipe on our blog. This first recipe is for roasted, and the grilled recipe will appear next week. We hope you’ll give them a try over the upcoming holidays.
Fox Trot Farm Herb Roasted Leg of Lamb
So delicious and so simple to prepare! This is our lamb at its finest,
tender and succulent and mild tasting with just the right amount of seasoning
to make your mouth water!
We’ve had quite a few customers ask us how they could prepare our Fox Trot Farm lamb liver, so I decided to post a great recipe. With the holiday entertaining season in mind, I decided to do a paté!
I found a great recipe on a Welsh food website HERE. I followed the instructions almost exactly but, since it’s a bit cumbersome to read, I’ll write it out for you here. I’ve also include some adjustments that I made.
Fox Trot Farm Welsh Paté
1 Fox Trot Farm Lamb Liver (about 1 pound), roughly chopped 1 medium onion, chopped 2 cloves garlic, crushed 1 1/2 teaspoons butter 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary 1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme 2 tablespoons port or sherry 4-6 tablespoons mascarpone cheese Salt & pepper 2 tablespoons melted butter Suggested toppings: slices of fresh stone fruit, apples, pears, chutney, honey
Saute the onion and garlic till softened, then add the chopped liver and herbs, with a good dusting of salt and pepper. Continue to cook, stirring, until the meat is browned and there is no pink inside. Stir in the port or sherry, and simmer a bit to cook off the alcohol. Pour onto a plate or tray to cool to room temperature.
We have pastures filled with bouncing little lambs, so come get your fill of lamb cuteness on Sunday, October 27th, from 1:00-5:00, when we’ll be open to the public with free self-guided tours, hay wagon rides, and lamb petting!Continue Reading →
®® I know a lot of you folks love to use our meaty lamb soup bones to make stock and bone broth, but you can also make a nutritious and delicious food for your favorite canines. I’m not making any official claims here, and we don’t have our dog food analyzed, but we see the increased luster in our dogs’ coats, and they eat the food with great enthusiasm. Farmer Bob feeds it to them as a supplement to their regular grain-free dry kibble. Since we don’t sell our dog food, I am going to show you how I make it. Call or text me at 803-804-3541 to come to the farm for your purchase of bones and offal, or to place an order for theWaxhaw Farmer’s Market on Saturday mornings from 9:00-Noon. Come to the farm on our Farm Market Day, October 27th, to pick up your lamb, eggs, soap, honey, and crafty items!
Here’s the basic recipe for 5 pounds of dog food and, following that, pictures and tips. This is the quantity if you use your 6 quart Instant Pot®. If you have an 8 quart Instant Pot®, I suggest you use two lamb heads for the increased amount of meat and connective tissue they contain. I have the Instant Pot® Duo 6 quart model so, if you have another brand, adjust accordingly. Using the Instant Pot® with the natural pressure release locks in flavor and nutrients, which would otherwise evaporate into the air. (It’s that evaporation that makes your house smell so good when you roast in a crock pot or the oven!)
I love my Instant Pot® (IP) and I know many of you do, too, so I’m going to include some IP recipes for you for those days you decide to cook at the last minute, or you just need a fairly quick weeknight supper. I have found no difference in quality between cooking methods with this recipe, whether you use your Dutch oven on the stove top, in the oven, or braise in your slow cooker all day, the meat is tender and the broth is so tasty. However, since all the steam stays in the IP instead of evaporating with other cooking methods, all that wonderful flavor-enriched aroma that otherwise wafts through the house stays right in the IP, and perhaps that makes this method a bit more flavorful. That’s my testimonial, and now here’s my delicious recipe for our meaty lamb neck roasts made into the best lamb pot roast ever. (Continue reading after the recipe for step by step pictures and tips.) Lamb neck roasts are available by appointment at the farm, at the Waxhaw Farmer’s Market on Saturday mornings, or our October 27th Farm Market Day here on the farm. While supplies last.
Fox Trot Farm Lamb Pot Roast (An Instant Pot® Recipe!) (Serves 4-6)Continue Reading →
Here’s a very quick and easy AND super-delicious seasonal meal to throw together using our Fox Trot Farm wine & garlic lamb sausage, just perfect for a busy night!
Fox Trot Farm Lamb Sausage & Apple Stir-Fry (Quick & Easy!) Serves 4Continue Reading →
Whew! What a long hot summer it’s been! So hot that we took a hiatus from our Sunday market and tours here at the farm. Visitors were melting, we were melting, and our farm animals didn’t want to come out of the shade. We were one of the lucky farms among our neighbors, and got the occasional heavy shower throughout the summer so our ponds remained almost full and the pastures green, but oh my! The heat and humidity! Whew!
In the steaming hours of the summer, during chores and the many projects underway, Farmer Bob suggested that maybe we should open our farm market just one Sunday each month instead of weekly. With just the two of us manning the farm market, and Farmer Bob still working his weekday job, many projects are left for the weekends and, besides, with our return to the Waxhaw Farmers’ Market on Saturdays, we’re often wishing for a day of rest or “catch up” on Sundays. So, our next market day here on Fox Trot Farm will be Sunday, October 27th. We’ll have lamb meat, honey, soap, and crafty things for sale, and Farmer Bob will be conducting the guided tour at 2:00 with hay rides, too. We’ll continue doing by-appointment guided tours for groups of 10 or more.
Now we are in the middle of lambing season. Hobart was fast asleep in the shade when the first lambs were born but, as soon as he discovered he had babies in the field to watch over, his normal no-monkey-business fearsome expression turned all soft and happy.
What a nice lamb for our first of the season! You can see the big girl behind the fence, a “lady in waiting.”Continue Reading →
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