Monday, April 22 is Earth Day. There are those monumental things you can do, like plant a tree. In fact, I'm reminded frequently about Earth Day when I see Allyson's elementary school Earth Day tree in my in-laws yard!

But on the day to day, you can celebrate Earth Day just by eating well. Farmers are the stewards of large tracts of land. The decisions we - farmers - make each day - like the example above regarding letting my beef out too early - all impact our planet for years to come.

Your choice of supporting small, local farms is probably the biggest impact you can have on the planet.

Thank you for your conscious effort to support sustainable agriculture and our planet.

Sweet Potatoes - 3.5# bag - $5

Our farmer called last week and said he had some sweet potatoes that have held up just great in the root cellar. He graded them out and we have the last sweet potatoes on sale until fall harvest.

3.5# bags for just $5.

Duck Days - 30% off of Duck

We are scrambling to get all the broilers outside to clean out the brooder just in time for ducklings to hatch.

That's right, this year's ducks will be born on Wednesday and we'll harvest the first ones around 4th of July.

If you haven't enjoyed duck before at home, it's really quite easy. Read below for a duck confit recipe.

Pork Sirloin Roast - $12

(2 to 2.5# roast)

Here is a photo of a pork sirloin roast. It's a little dressed up as that's how we cut it at OCP for our case, but same concept as how our packer cuts for Fresh Fork.

The pork sirloin is literally the cut after the loin. It has about 3 muscles that come together between the ribs and the ham on a hog. It's great cut into chops, but also a very economical and delicious family meal.

Simply season with salt and pepper, sear and roast in a hot oven (375) until and internal temperature of 135 degrees. Remove and allow it to rest. The temperature will climb about 10 degrees and at 145 you have a tender, medium center.

This cut can also be cubed and used for city chicken or kabobs. It takes great to marinades.

The pork sirloin is a leaner cut than the pork shoulder roast, so it is not suggested to use it for pulled pork or in the crock pot.

Grassfed Beef Steak Burgers - $11 for 1.25# package (4 burgers)

100% grassfed beef is about as Earth friendly as you can get. Let's celebrate grilling and Earth with our tender steak burgers - a blend of trim from the ribeyes, strip, sirloin, and tenderloin.

Lard - $3 per lb

Being sustainable means using everything on an animal. At most slaughter plants, you'd be amazed at what goes in the trash.

There, it's called a "render can." The feathers, guts, excess fat, etc all go into that. Then there are big "stink plants" where they cook this into animal by-products to be fed back to livestock in confinement feeding operations. Again, think about where cheap food comes from and what it takes to make it cheap.

On the contrary, we save everything. The bones go into the kettle to make stock to used for things like last week's gravy or the base for this week's broccoli soup. The fat is also saved and rendered to make lard. We utilize most of the extra lard at the farm in pie crusts and as fryer grease, but we also package quite a bit.

The modern consumer is accustomed to their liquid oils. They are room stable and easier to use. I personally keep a tub of lard by the range at all times. It's cheaper than butter or oil. It's a neutral flavor. And it's healthier than hydrogenated soy or canola oils.

Lard is also the perfect medium for confit. See the recipe below for duck confit this week.

Ramps

That's me digging ramps Easter morning in our woods. I don't have a big patch nor the time to dig a bunch.

But Harvey in Middlefield has been harvesting ramps for us for over a decade. He is very careful to selectively harvest, allowing the patch to stay healthy, reseed, and grow. In fact, his patch is bigger today and more productive than ever before.

If you aren't familiar with ramps, they are a wild onion with a strong flavor. Kind of a cross between garlic and onion. I love them. They go great in egg scrambles, on pizza, with pasta, on a burger, in sausage, and so on and so on.

The season is coming on quick so this will probably be the only time they are featured in the bag. Next week we'll wait for the bulbs to get a bit more mature and well be focusing on pickling some in the farm kitchen.

Rosa Lee Apples

For the vegetarian members this week, we have a new apple offering. It's a cross between honeycrisp and fuji.

There aren't a lot of these planted yet and we were lucky enough that our friends at Sunny Slope Orchard in Navarre were able to spare a few bushels. Enjoy!

Flour Pasta Dry Pasta

Many of you have enjoyed the fresh pasta from Flour Pasta Co. For us, it's very difficult to handle and we had a lot of challenges with the packaging and humidity control. It became a product we had to have as a feature instead of a staple.

But now Flour developed a new line of 100% shelf stable dry pastas. That's what is in this week's bag. Enjoy!

OMNIVORE

Whole Chicken

Bacon Breakfast Patties

Broccoli Soup

Frozen Sweet Corn

Flour Pasta Co Pasta

Spinach

Lettuce

Ramps

VEGETARIAN

Frozen Sweet Corn

Flour Pasta Co Pasta

Spinach

Lettuce

Ramps

Guernsey A2 Yogurt

Strawberry Stuff Preserves

Herb and Cheese Rolls

Red Russian Kale

Rosa Lee Apples

Ducks are like little feathered hogs...that like water. They eat a lot more than a chicken, and when you cut the carcass, there is no shortage of fat.

A duck was born for duck confit. When cutting a whole duck, the grease rendered from the breast and cut from the bones is enough to naturally slow cook the legs in fat.

Step 1: Make a Cure

A cure is essentially a "dry brine." It's a rub based in salt, herbs, and spices. This is where you can get creative. The salt is the one you really have to control.

Start with weighing your duck. Let's say it's 4#. I convert that to grams as it makes the measurements easier. 4 x 454 g per lb = approx 2,000 g. You want no more than 3% salt, so do 60 grams of salt. That's your base.

Then add herbs, spices, and aromatics. Aromatics can be things like lemon zest, fresh rosemary (herb and aromatic), or thyme - things you can smell easily. Spices that play well with duck include red pepper flake, black pepper and even exotics like ginger or lavender.

Be creative but also don't go too far. You don't need much of each spice. I usually like just rosemary, thyme, lemon zest, a little allspice and clove, a little juniper, red peper flake, salt and sugar.

Step 2: Rub your cure on the duck.

Coat the duck liberally in the cure on all sides. Place it on a resting rack over a sheet tray. It will drip. Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 24 hours.

Step 3: Rinse the cure off. Get a big pan of cold water and quickly rinse off 75% of the cure.

Step 4: Arrange duck into a baking pan. Warm your lard or oil to liquid state. Add wedges of lemon or fresh herbs to the pan. Pour the oil and cover the meat.

Step 5: Wrap it tight. Use plastic wrap (yes, in the oven) and foil. Or put parchment paper down first to keep the duck submerged, then wrap with plastic wrap, then foil. You are cooking really low heat so it won't melt.

Step 6: Bake at 225 degrees. This takes a while. Approx 4 hours. Until two sets of tongs can be used to pickup the duck and it essentially falls apart.

Step 7: Remove or vent foil, and refrigerate. Put in the refrigerator overnight to setup.

Step 8: Warm slightly and slowly. You are just trying to get the duck legs out of the gelled up fat the next day.

Step 9: Sear or broil. Serve your delicious duck confit.

It takes time but really isn't difficult. Save your leftover confit fat for a future use.