Heritage Farmers Market

A few days ago I stopped in at the Heritage Nursery year round farmers market in Rapid City where Dee Holmberg and Black Hills Milk sell their products and noticed that Trudy Draskovik is now selling dried tomatoes, eggplant, and chili peppers there. I invited her to tell us more about them, and here is what she wrote:

Just some info about this ancient practice of preserving foods from before the days of refrigeration, canning, and freezing. The practice of drying foods was used by many indigenous peoples and our ancestors to insure food would be available in the leaner times when the ground was covered with snow and the availability of fresh produce was non-existent.

Dried tomatoes or eggplant can be reconstituted by boiling water and soaking for about 10 minutes. Then chop them up or add them whole to pasta dishes, homemade artisan breads, grain dishes, stews, cheese dips, lasagna, minestrone, cream cheese (for that bagel in the morning!) or almost any food that your imagination can think of!

To use the chili peppers–I crumble them between my fingers and flavor my olive oils with them before adding my foods to the oil, or crumble them into soups, meats, potatoes, or anything that needs a little heat. (Warning) They are hot so don’t rub your eyes after crushing!

My plans are to offer many more dried foods this summer at the Farmers Market, if the state rules will allow that.

Check back tomorrow for Trudy’s recipe for penne pasta with sun dried tomato spinach pine nut sauce. Mmmm.

Everything Herbs
Trudy Draskovik
Spearfish, SD

Selling dried tomatoes, eggplants and chili peppers at 3500 W. Chicago, Rapid City, in the Heritage Nursery building. Also selling fresh herbs and canned items at the Black Hills Farmers Market in season.

Today as I write this is Friday the 13^th and it’s a good luck day for those of us who like real bread right out of the oven. The Great Harvest Bread Company bakery is now open, providing amazingly good bread at a convenient location and an affordable price.

I stopped in and was impressed by the quality of the bread and the friendly service. The apple crunch bread was just out of the oven—too hot to put in a plastic bag. The cheddar garlic had such big chunks of cheese it couldn’t go through the slicer. Cranberry orange was not on the menu and is one I’ll be picking up another day, along with the honey whole wheat and the nine grain. Not every flavor is baked every day, so pick up a printed schedule while you are there.

These breads are the real thing—Montana flour, water, honey, yeast, and salt are the basic ingredients. No dough conditioners. No preservatives. No ingredients with unpronounceable names. The whole wheat is ground daily.

In addition to breads GHBC serves sandwiches daily from 11:00 to 3:00. Then there are the cookies, the muffins, the mixes, the granola….

Great Harvest Bread Company is owned by Rob and Marsha Hengen, longtime residents of Rapid City. The bakery is open Monday through Friday 7:00 am to 6:00 pm and Saturday 7:00 am to 4:00 pm. It is located at 721 Omaha Street between Verizon and Dunn Brothers. Bread lovers rejoice!

The Black Hills Health and Education Center, home of Battle Creek Gardens, now has a full time baker, and the certified kitchen has expanded to become Battle Creek Bakery. BCHEC has, from the beginning, set the standard for eating healthy locally grown food. To add to the nutrition of their clients, they now produce a variety of home-baked foods made with organic whole grain wheat from Dry Creek Ranch near Norris, South Dakota, and grinding it just before baking.

I’ve tried the whole wheat bread, the orange date bread, and the walnut raisin bread and can recommend them all. Vegans take note: bread from BC Bakery contains no milk, butter, or other animal products.

Battle Creek Bakery breads are available Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Black Hills Farmers Market through October and every day (until they run out) at Breadroot Co-op, 130 Main Street, Rapid City.

Last year we interviewed Waldo Armstrong of Stony Field Vinyard, who was then shifting from wheat farming to grape growing on his New Underwood farm. This year we are happy to see him back at the Black Hills Farmers Market, this time with grape juice for sale.

State rules for farmers markets get confusing at times. Let’s just say that to comply with those rules, Waldo calls his juice “grapes in syrup.” Whatever the name, the product is excellent. It’s grapier than any juice you have ever tried, possibly because there are grapes in the jar. And the right cultivar, the right soil, the right weather–those things matter, too. Let’s just say that 2011 was a good year for Stony Field grapes.

Waldo says, “Our harvest was late this year, and canning is a lot of work.” True enough, and the result is worth it. When you’re at the market, ask for a sample.

You have two chances this year to buy this juice by the quart or by the case. To be sure, show up at BHFM on Tuesday morning, October 4. If there’s some left at the end of the day, Waldo will be back at the market on Thursday, October 6, and that’s your last chance until 2012, which we hope will be another good year.