Farmer's Table

So everyone has been asking "When is the next farm dinner?" and I am pleased to let you know that it will be October 11.
We have been enjoying cooler days with much less humidity and we hope by then we will have cool fall evenings.
This will be our Fall Harvest Dinner spotlighting all our favorite fall foods and flavors.

Social Hour

Artisan Cheese and Bread

Chutney

Dinner

Sweet Potato Ravioli with Local Greens and Applewood Smoked Bacon

Harvest Beet Salad with Pears and Spiced Pecans

Glazed Autumn Vegetables

Brussel sprouts, turnips, carrots and parsnips

Pork on Pork

Pork shoulder and belly(bacon cut) simmered in a rich Bourbon Sauce with Creamy Grits

Harvest Pie Table

back by popular demand

Selection of our favorite pies for Fall

$65 per person

As always seats are limited so reserve yours early, no reservations will be held without payment. Call Waterberry Farm @ 334-886-2454 or e-mail waterberryhydrofarm@yahoo.com

This will probably be the last week we have figs. sigh. Oh well there's plenty going on at Waterberry right now. The Kieffer pears are just beginning. Kieffer pears are old pear variety that grows everywhere here in the Southeastern U.S. It's a very hard pear that is best picked green and allowed to ripen after picked. Although these pears aren't good to just eat, they are great canned. Because they are a hard pear they make wonderful preserves and pies. This week, for market, we used our pears to make Pear, Pineapple,and Apricot preserves. Stop by our booth at the 84 west Farmers Market to pick up a jar. Get there early and you just might get one of the last pints of our figs! We'll also have pesto and sun-dried tomatoes. Of course we'll have plenty of our hydroponically grown butterhead lettuce. See you at the market!

Farmers Market

This past week at the Farmers Market we featured fresh figs and our homemade fig chutney. They were a real hit. We sold all we had in about an hour and a half!
We are at the 84 West Farmers Market on Thursday's from 3-6pm (many times we sell out by 5pm) Get there early to get the best selection! Check back later for a list of what we'll be selling this Thursday.

Summer perfection

So I can see that great minds think alike, with summer in full swing and tomatoes at their peak I can't think of a better lunch than a tomato sandwich. Although I do like the classic tomato and mayo my all time favorite has an Italian twist.
Start with a nice hunk of sourdough, next add some fresh pesto, then fresh mozzarella, top with garden fresh tomatoes some fresh ground black pepper and sea salt finish with a drizzle of balsamic. Enjoy all the summer flavors at their best.

Figs ripe for the picking

You say tomato, I say... summer!

Summertime, summertime, sum, sum, summertime... Warning: A really good ripe tomato may make you want to break out into song. What could be more summery and delicious than a red ripe juicy tomato? This year, dad planted a heirloom variety of tomatoes in the hydroponic system. Wow, the taste is amazing. They taste and smell like, well, a tomato! The heirloom varieties are not high bred to produce a uniform size and shape. So they often look less than perfect than grocery store tomatoes but taste so much better. The variety, combined with the fact that the tomato is allowed to ripen on the vine, is what we think make our tomatoes so tasty! (And of course, no herbicides or pesticides were used on these babies.)

They taste so good, in fact, that I prefer to just slice them, and put them on bread with some mayo and maybe just a sprinkle of sea salt. Nothing fancy but one of the best things you'll ever eat! You can taste the hot summer sun in every juicy delicious bite!

Farmer's Table Summer Solstice

Here is a little more about the farm dinner we hosted last Saturday. We held it outside, on our family farm. When we decided to hold one of our farm dinner's in the summer, we knew that we'd be tempting Mother Nature. Here in south Alabama in the summer, you never know what the weather will do. Tropical storms, 100 degree temps, 99% humidity...you get the idea. So the week before our dinner we watched the weather, held our breath, and said more than a few prayer's, that the weather would participate. As the week-end neared we had a 50% chance of scattered showers in the forecast. Around here that means it may rain at your house but half a mile away the sun may be shinning. Would it rain or not? It was any ones guess. Our back-up plan was to put all the tables on the wrap around porch of my parent's house.
With our guests arriving at 5:30, at about 4:00 we decided to go ahead and set up outside. It would be nearly impossible to move everything if it did start to rain. Lots more prayer's were said!
At 5:30 our 22 diner's began to arrive. We had a table with various cheeses, homemade cherry chutney, and a tomato, basil, and garlic salsa, for them to munch on while they mingled. Our famous mint tea and a strawberry lemon-aid were on offer to drink.
Just before we planned to have everyone sit down for dinner, Splat! Some fat raindrops began to fall! NO! was the collective cry, and God listened. The rain stopped, the clouds right above us parted and opened to a patch of blue sky. The dinner was wonderful, featuring fresh local ingredients, with as many as possible coming from our farm. Here's what was on the menu:

Farmer’s Table Menu
Summer Solstice


Artesian Cheese Table


Grilled Flank Steak with Portabella Mushrooms
Grilled Alabama Shrimp Skewers

Blue Cheese Potato Salad with Apple wood Smoked Bacon
Grilled Slocomb Corn on the Cob with Basil Butter
Summer Grilled Vegetables with Picnic Vinaigrette
Waterberry Farm Green Salad with Purple Radish and White French Dressing



Blue Ribbon Dessert Table

Fried peach hand pies

For dessert, we had a friendly competition. Mom, my sister, a family friend and I, all made fruit desserts. Then we let the guest tell us their favorite. Everyone had a great time tasting and retasting all the desserts, but we never did come up with a clear winner. Maybe that's because all the choices were delicious. We had quite the spread. There was old fashioned apple pie with sour cream topping, a mixed berry crisp, freshly fried peach hand pies, mini blueberry tarts, rhubarb cake, cherry cobbler and strawberry and blueberry ice cream. With choices like those it's no wonder we never could pick a winner!

About 45 minutes after dessert was served, everyone was still sitting around the table talking. All of a sudden the rain started to fall lightly. Perfect timing! It was a truly wonderful evening.
If you didn't make it to this dinner, we plan to host another dinner this fall. We'll post the date and menu for that dinner in late summer so you can make plans to join us!
The pictures in this post were taken by Angela Davidson