Pears and Honey Available Now!

Yep, that's right — we'll be at the Farmer's Market this Saturday with our Bartlett pears and wildflower honey. You can also pick 'em up here at the ranch, where we'll have plums and other fruits and veggies for sale as well. And, if you're looking for a large quantity of pears for canning, we can set you up!

Call 530-823-9096 for questions or farm pickup orders, or look for our "Pears" sign on Dairy Road. We'll be at these Farmer's Markets through September:

• Auburn Old Town, Saturdays 8am–noon
• Roseville Fountains/Whole Foods Tuesday 8:30am–1pm
• Auburn De Witt Wednesday 10am–1pm

For directions and details: www.foothillfarmersmarket.com

Pears are only available for a limited season, and our honey sells out fast, so get yours quick!

Fresh From The Garden: Zucchini Gratin

Finally — a way to use all that zucchini! (And, no, we're not talking about zucchini bread that only takes a squash or two; this will use a whole basket full!)


This recipe is adapted from Richard Olney's Simple French Food (which, incidentally, has a considerable section devoted to zucchini.) Flip through the "vegetables" chapter and you will come to a delightful revelation: just about anything can be made into a gratin, and furthermore, once gratinéed, it will be absolutely delicious. Case in point: the infamous zucchini, staple of summer gardens, the very definition of overabundance. No matter how many (or few) seeds you plant, there always seems to come a point where the zucchini far outnumber the willing zucchini-eaters ... cue the recipes for zucchini bread, zucchini pancakes, zucchini chocolate cake, et cetera...

... or just find a little parsley and garlic, some cheese, a couple of eggs, and a handful of other ingredients and cook up a scrumptious gratin — perfectly simple, perfectly summer!


Zucchini Gratin (Gratin de Courgettes)

2 - 1/2 lbs small zucchini, sliced coin-thin (we use a mandoline for this)
4 Tb olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 c bread crumbs
About 1/4 c milk
2 eggs
4 cloves garlic, pressed or finely chopped
One small bunch parsley, chopped
8 ounces cheese — Gruyere, Jack, or a mixture
2 Tb butter

Toss the zucchini with olive oil in a large skillet over high heat — I do this in two batches — until limp and just barely starting to brown, about 7 minutes. (As you heat the zucchini, it will release water; toss gently until most of the liquid is evaporated.) Season with salt and pepper to taste.


While zucchini cooks, mix together bread crumbs, milk, eggs, garlic, and parsley in a large bowl. Add zucchini and cheese; toss to coat evenly. (Add a little extra milk if it looks too dry — the mixture should be moist but not soupy.) If you like, reserve about 1/3 c cheese to sprinkle over the top.

Pour into a buttered gratin dish; top with dots of butter and, if you like, the remaining cheese. Bake at 400° for about 25 minutes, or until browned and bubbly. Serve warm or at room temperature.

We brought this to the marvelous Placer County Slow Food pot luck picnic earlier today — what a fantastic array of homemade foods and local ingredients!

Honey Harvest Time

Way to go, bees! We just harvested 150 pounds of honey from our hives — more photos and the details of the process forthcoming (when we're not too sticky to type...) And, yes, we'll be at the local Farmer's Markets soon with scrumptious B H Ranch honey for sale!

The Perfect Peach Tart

It's always a race to see who gets to the peaches first — the birds, or us. This year, we were feeling particularly protective of our small crop, as a late frost took just about all our stone fruit; a handful of peaches looked like all we'd get. To our surprise, as the peaches started to ripen and turn to a more obvious and easy-to-spot color, we were thrilled to see that we'd actually have a decent, albeit smallish, crop of peaches this year — enough to make some jam, and this simple, scrumptious rustic tart. I love love love this recipe because it's so simple — flour, sugar, butter, peaches. All you need. Of course, when you're working with so few ingredients, they all should be the best you can find... especially the peaches. Make sure they're fragrant, fresh, and ripe but ripe!

These peaches came from a tree that my grandfather started from a peach-pit! The little sprout is now a tremendous tree, and it makes some of the best and prettiest peaches I've tasted. When storing peaches, remember to set them on their stem ends, with their pointy blossom ends facing up; they'll keep better that way.

OK, now for the recipe!:

B H Ranch Rustic Peach Tart

For the crust:

1 1/4 c flour
1 stick (1/2 c) salted butter (or unsalted butter plus a generous pinch of salt)
1/2 tsp sugar
about 1/4 c vodka + ice water *

*Trust me on this one! It sounds weird, but it works. Fill half a 1/4 c measure with vodka; top it off with ice water, and proceed as usual with your recipe. Too much water allows gluten chains to form and toughens the dough, but the vodka — being alcohol, not water — lets you add extra liquid to the dough without toughening it. It's magic — perfect pastry every time. Cooks Illustrated Magazine ran an article on this technique several years ago in their December issue, and I've used it ever since. You can apply the same trick to any pie-crust recipe; just swap out half the water for vodka. The alcohol evaporates during baking, but if you'd rather skip the vodka, you can go ahead and use all ice water; just be careful not to over-mix.

For the filling:

2 lbs peaches, preferably freestone, peeled and sliced
2 Tb sugar
1 Tb flour
1 Tb butter

Place flour and sugar in food processor; pulse to blend. (You can also use a pastry cutter for this recipe if you prefer.) Add butter in 1/2" chunks; pulse until the mixture becomes a coarse meal with plenty of butter chunks visible. Sprinkle the water/vodka mixture over the dough and mix (carefully, just barely) until the liquid is evenly distributed. (You may need to add slightly more than 1/4 c. The dough should look chunky, kind of like cottage cheese.) Place dough on a sheet of plastic wrap; shape into a flat circle, wrap, and chill for about an hour (can be made in advance).

Make the filling: place sliced peaches in a bowl; gently toss with flour and sugar.

Roll out the dough between sheets of waxed paper, making a circle a little larger that 12 inches in diameter. Transfer the dough to a sheet of parchment paper and place on a baking sheet — I use a small pizza pan — preferably something with a rim, in case it gets a little juicy while baking.

Pile the peaches in the centre of the dough circle, and gently lift and fold the edges of the dough over the filling. Pinch the dough to seal and hold it in place. Dot the peaches with bits of butter. Use your fingers to dab a bit of water on the pastry, and sprinkle with sugar.


Bake the tart at 375 degrees for about half an hour, until the crust is golden and the peaches are tender. I like to sprinkle a little extra sugar over the hot peaches as soon as I remove the tart from the oven; the sugar melts and forms a pretty glaze. Serve the tart warm, preferably with whipped cream or ice cream!

Reasons To Love Summer — And to Quit Complaining About the Heat!

Well, it's hot. Finally. Really hot. The usual California strategy of coping with the scorching summer — reminding one another that, "well, at least it's a dry heat" — is now more often than not being met with an exasperated, "yes, but it's still too darn hot!" The air conditioner is getting a workout, but there's still plenty to do outside... so, after a week of hundred-degree-plus days, it's time for a cheerful reminder of why we love summer. With any luck, it'll inspire you — and us — to head back outdoors and soak up the best of the season!

1. Everything's growing! The garden has gone from this...

to this...

...in a month and a half!

2. Blackberries! (More on those soon.)

3. Bastille Day (and of course the Fourth of July too) — the perfect occasion for a picnic with plenty of fresh produce. Plus aïoli and pyrotechnics!

4. Fresh herbs galore... which means some scrumptious pesto!

5. Timmy, our handsome rooster, is molting. It's just too funny watching him strut around, trying to maintain some shred of dignity with only two of his magnificent tail-feathers left. (Sorry, Tim — we know this isn't helping!)

6. Washing the car seems like less of a chore and more like a pleasant activity. (...on the other had, though, mucking out the chicken coop seems less like a chore and more like a form of torture. Of course, the girls find it all quite entertaining to watch:)

7. Should we need to raise a small army, I'm pretty sure we could feed it quite well on zucchini for the rest of the summer. (Check back soon for a scrummy zucchini gratin recipe.)

8. Farmer's market season is in full swing!

9. The peaches are ripe — which means peach jam, peach tarts, peaches straight off the tree...

10. And finally, one word: Tomatoes!!