News

Natural Egg Dyes

Leave a comment

From Lakewinds Natural Foods Co-op

This Easter try coloring eggs the natural way. Use hard cooked brown or white eggs. After eggs are cooked, quickly cool the water or rinse in cold water. This helps to prevent “greening” of the yolk. Natural dyes take a bit longer to color the egg, so plan on extra time, or leave the eggs in the refrigerator overnight.

Blue/Teal: Chopped Red Cabbage
Put 2-3 tbsps. chopped red cabbage in heat safe cup. Add boiling water. Add 1 tsp. white vinegar.  Let sit overnight.

Light Peach to Gold/Orange: Onion Skins, Yellow
Use 1 large handful of onion skin for each cup of water. Simmer 20 minutes then add 1 tsp. of white vinegar.

Magenta Red: Grated Red Beets
Put 2-4 tbsps. freshly grated beets in heat safe cup. Fill 2/3 with boiling water. Add 1 tsp. white vinegar.  Orange beets may be used to obtain saffron color.

Green: Red Cabbage & Turmeric
Pour scant tsp. of turmeric and 2-3 tbsps. of chopped red cabbage in a heat safe cup then add boiling water.

Purple: Red Cabbage & Beet
Put 2 tbsps. grated beet and 2 tbsps. red cabbage in heat safe cup. Add boiling water.     Striking and intense.

Pale Green: Onion Skins, Red
See directions for yellow onion skins.  Allow long steeping time.

Featured Local Product: Misty Knoll Free-Range Chicken

Leave a comment

From Misty Knoll Farms website: Misty Knoll Farms is a family-owned and operated farm producing the finest naturally raised free-range turkeys and naturally-raised chickens available from Vermont.  As stewards of Vermont’s working landscape, we treat our farm as a precious, irreplaceable resource, and follow sustainable farming practices to ensure our cropland will be productive for future generations. We raise our birds with the utmost care, feeding them whole grain, free of antibiotics and animal by-products. Our chickens range free in spacious, specially designed enclosures.

Misty Knoll Farms Chicken is now available at the Hannah Grimes Marketplace.

Farm of the Month: Daloz Mill & Farm

Leave a comment

By Jan Sevene, Monadnock Localvores

Daloz Mill & Farm
4 Tannery Hill Road
Hancock, NH
Charles Daloz
603-525-3788
cdaloz(at)myfairpoint.net
Mill info: http://www.dalozcsa.org/millbrochure2008.pdf
CSA: http://www.dalozcsa.org

Water!  We drink it, we bath in it, we swim in it, and we use it for our livestock and to grow our food. And for centuries, man has used it successfully as a natural resource to power industries.  Hancock’s Charles Daloz is trying to revive one of these industries, and take it a step further.

At one time, the New England hills were covered with rushing streams tumbling down rocky slopes dotted with water-powdered mills and filled with scurrying hired hands busy manufacturing everything from wooden clothespins to boxes, pails and barrels. One of those mills is what is now known as the Daloz Mill, in the family since 1958.

Located on Ferguson Brook, according to Daloz it is the last of three known structures on that site. In 1900, the second mill’s beams were incorporated into the current structure, a mill used for the manufacture of boxes and barrels for the apple trade. Water still drives two turbines (a third was removed in the sixties). “A smaller Francis turbine still runs the machinery,” Daloz explains. “A newer 12-inch cross-flow turbine is limited to powering the lights for the building. The mill? It’s still operating. Right now we’re making bushel boxes with water power.”

Because the old building and its aging machinery need attention, keeping its use limited, Daloz has a vision to “give the mill a life of its own.”  His objective: an operating mill for processing wood and agricultural products using hydro-electric power, combined with an educational center to demonstrate and study the use of water-power and alternative energy technologies. Working to create a Friends of the Mill group, he says, “We can use all sorts of skills: mechanics, welders, carpenters, and planning and administrative people for this non-profit venture. For those people who like this kind of stuff, it’s interesting and fun.”

Daloz also practices sustainable farming at the Daloz Farm organic CSA gardens. The CSA is still taking members. Contact Charles Daloz for more information, and to schedule a visit to the CSA and historic mill.

Other Water Ventures in New Hampshire:

Chamberlain Springs LLC
Pure, clean spring water
“Joy Hill”
166 Old Wolfeboro Road
Alton, NH 03809
603-875-7562

Water Barn:
Sunny Slope Farm
118 Old Wolfeboro Rd.
Alton, NH  03089
603-875-2220
info@ChamberlainSpringsNh2o.com
http://ChamberlainSpringsNh2o.com