1. Start Mom’s morning off right by spiking our Sparkling Strawberry Sippers with Champagne!

2. How about a little breakfast in bed with our easy, homemade Blueberry Buttermilk Pancakes.

3. Not a pancake person?  Try baking some tart Cranberry Muffins.

4. Make Mom a healthy lunch with our Three Herb Black Barley Tabouli.  It’s both nutritious and addictive!

5. Not big on cooking?  Try our 10-minute Hummus to win Mom over with your culinary skills!

6. Prefer to chop your way to culinary paradise?  Our Southwestern Style Black-Eyed Pea Salsa will make Mom swoon.

7.  Need a healthy side dish in a pinch to impress Mom?  Try our no-fuss Roasted Rosemary Sweet Potatoes.

8.  Make a special dinner for Mom that’s ready in minutes.  Try our delectable Spinach & Hearts of Palm Corn Quesadillas.

9.  Bake a Three Berry Crisp for Mom and show her how much you love her with dessert food.

10. End Mom’s day right with our yummy Blueberry Cookie Crumble.

Here are some shots of our gorgeous strawberry fields that are blossoming right now!  We can’t wait for it to be strawberry season!

We invited a few lucky people to come out to the farm and lunch with us.  It was a fun opportunity to educate them about the farm, have them try some of our food, and get to know us a little better.  We served a farm salad with garbanzo beans and wheat berries, a vegetable saute with spinach, onion, broccoli, and super sweet corn, pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, and a sparkling strawberry sipper to wash it all down.  Can you tell we love our food here?

Cauliflower’s subtle nutty flavor and satisfying crunch made it a favorite among France’s royal court in the late 1800′s.  Today, it’s loved for its healthy benefits and yummy taste.  Cauliflower is loaded with sulforaphane, a cancer fighting compound that can help kick cancer cells to the curb.  It’s also packed with vitamins C and K.

Cauliflower is in the cabbage family and is one of the more finicky vegetables to grow.  It must be planted at just the right time to avoid the extreme cold of early spring and the extreme heat of summer.  Some cauliflower varieties can easily get “sunburned” which can effect the color and taste.  With those varieties, in order to achieve the trademark milky, white color, farmers have to go out into the fields and tie the leaves in place around the crown.  Despite all of these little quirks, cauliflower is quickly becoming one of the go to vegetables for heart healthy, delicious snacks and entrées.

Top 5 Recipe Ideas:

Spiced Cauliflower: combine cayenne pepper, ground coriander, cardamom, nutmeg, and cumin in 1⁄3 cup olive oil and let set for about an hour. Place the cauliflower on a baking sheet, toss with the oil and bake at 350°F until tender (about 30 minutes). Salt to taste.

Mashed Cauliflower: substitute cauliflower for mashed potatoes. Boil or steam until very tender (about 6 to 8 minutes). Drain well and mash with a combination of your favorites –  olive oil, butter, baked garlic, salt and pepper.

Lemon Parsley Cauliflower: Combine parsley, lemon, garlic, pine nuts and cauliflower in this deliciously simple recipe.

Cheesy Cauliflower Bake: A rich dish with Gruyere, hazelnuts, breadcrumbs, and cauliflower.

Other ideas: use as an ingredient in a salad, casserole, or quiche.

We set up a succulent potting station for staff to learn about water-wise landscaping, gardening, and to get their hands dirty while potting baby succulents.

Did you know that 30 to 40 percent of urban water use in Oregon is used for outdoor activities?  Planting water-wise landscaping can not only save you big bucks, but also help conserve our resources.   Happy Planting!

How to pot and grow your succulent:

Select a plant
Fill pot with soil, and pack soil
Create a hole in the soil with a pencil
Place stem into hole
Press soil from the edges so there is no air space between the soil and the plant.
Water pot until water fills the pot.
Let drain.
You’re Done!

Once at home keep the plant in full sun and keep the soil moist but not soggy.  New leaves on the plant means it is growing new roots. When you can lift the plant and soil from the pot in one piece, it is ready to be transplanted to a bright, sunny, dry spot!  Keep watering it for the first year until it has the chance to grow more roots.

Warning: your co-workers will be pea green with envy.

1. Hummus and Raw Vegetables: An all-time favorite snack.  Takes about 10 minutes to prepare and keeps for about a week.

2. Spinach Dip with Raw Vegetables:  Who doesn’t salivate at the thought of spinach dip?  This recipe is just plain yummy!

3. Health Berry Blend Smoothie: smoothies are a delectable way to curb your appetite and give you a healthy dose of berry antioxidants.

4. Palamino Salsa: Cranberries, ginger, cilantro, cinnamon, and hot pepper sauce…oh my!  This salsa will add a tart, spicy boost to make you forget your Monday Blues.

5. Sparkling Strawberry Sipper: A fizzy, delicious blend of strawberries, mint, and sparkling water to ease you back into a completely sated state and a happy work environment!

6. Cinnamon Butternut Bake: for a sweet relief toss butternut in the microwave with a little cinnamon and sugar.  It’s not only a sweet treat, but also an excellent source of Vitamin A!

7. Southwestern Black-Eyed Pea Salsa:  This recipe is so good and good for you!  Black-eyed peas are high in fiber and packed with protein.

8. Two Herb Green Beans: Microwave green beans with butter, salt, pepper, dried oregano and thyme for a delicious afternoon snack.

9. Rosemary Sweet Potatoes: Microwave sweet potatoes with a little olive oil and rosemary for a sweet and savory snack.

10. Baked Oatmeal with Blueberries: Make this recipe the night before and munch off it throughout the day.

BEANS: A study in Diabetic Medicine was searching for a natural way to lower medication requirements for people suffering from Type 2 diabetes.  What they stumbled upon was not only a way to achieve their objective, but also a food substitution that stimulated visceral fat burning. Swapping out animal proteins for beans every once in a while is not only heart healthy but can also help you loose weight.

WHOLE GRAINS: A while back Penn State University released a study that suggested eating whole grains could help burn belly fat.  Researchers believe that the fiber and magnesium in whole grains is the catalyst behind the tummy fat blasting properties in the food staple.

Do you need some recipes for your beans and whole grains?

Three Herb Black Barley Tabouli

Green Bean & Black Barley Salad

Smokey Black-Eyed Peas

Black Bean & Corn Salad

Butternut Squash & Goat Cheese Burritos

Stahlbush is gearing up for the Oregon School Nutrition Association (OSNA) show on Saturday in Salem, Oregon.  One of our biggest passions is to get children to eat healthy.  We hope to see Stahlbush in more Oregon schools!!

Fresh strawberries from the fields

Frozen is Fresher! Fresh produce travels an average of fifteen days before it reaches the consumer. More often than not, fresh produce is harvested before it’s ripe, which guarantees that it will be edible by the time it reaches consumers. In 1985, Bill and Karla Chambers, the founders of Stahlbush Island Farms, watched as truck after truck of green blueberries, strawberries, pumpkin, and corn lined the highways.

“Produce gets most of its solids, or rather nutrients, antioxidants, and other healthy benefits, during its maturation on the vine,” says Karla Chambers.

Following extensive research, the couple made a decision and after over two decades that decision still shapes and defines the company. The newlyweds designed and built a food processor on the farm. As both the farmer and the processor, Stahlbush Island Farms was able to lock in a just-picked, fresh taste in the fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes that came off the farm.

“Mother Nature couldn’t be happy with the food system as it stands today. Most of the benefits of healthy eating are not transferred to the majority of fresh produce that people are eating,” says Chambers.

Stahlbush uses a special freezing process called Individually Quick Frozen or IQF, which flash freezes produce within hours of harvest. Chambers says that one of the biggest factors in discerning whether produce has more solids than water is in the color.

“Big, bold colors translate into fresh, pure taste and fully vine-ripened produce.”

Frozen strawberries straight out of the package

In addition to offering the freshest frozen fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes, Stahlbush is an environmentally friendly farm and food processor. In 2009 Stahlbush Island Farms turned agricultural waste into energy with the first Biogas Plant of its kind in North America.

“It’s a closed loop cycle. We’re producing electricity, using the engine exhaust to make steam and blanch our vegetables. We take the hot water out of the jacket for our food processing plant and keep the digester warm. We use the hot air that radiates off the engine to dry seeds with. And we’re getting a rich, wet, and dry fertilizer as a byproduct,” says Bill Chambers.

The biogas plant generates enough electricity to power the farm or about 1,100 homes. One year later, Stahlbush released the first 100 percent biodegradable freezer bag. Bill Chambers says that the company didn’t patent the packaging in order to make it easier for other companies to follow suit.

“With sustainability, you’re never there. We’re constantly thinking about how we can improve,” says Bill Chambers.

The Chambers family still lives and works on the farm. They have raised four healthy children, which are currently learning to be the next generation of Stahlbush farmers.