Get your Garlic Chocolate Chip Cookie here!!

In spite of a horrendous start with just about everything that could go wrong doing so – temporarily losing the back poles of our main tent (later found in the barn, and I swear to you I checked in that EXACT PLACE three times before Gary found them); the second, ahem, BRAND NEW tent self-destructing amid gale force winds during Friday afternoon setup; scorching heat on day 1 of the festival and threats of rain on the second day – we did alright. [The Poconos Record thought so, too.]

Our garple elixir sold better than expected, largely due to our friend Bobby’s comedic (and at times evangelical) antics. He sure knew how to draw a crowd! We actually sold out of the inventory that we’d brought along. Speaking of selling out…

The garlic chocolate chip cookie was quite a success at the Poconos Garlic Festival this weekend. Some folks from last year came to Mountaindale Farms’ stand specifically after tasting our garlicky chocolate wares last year. We even had a customer say that our concoction was pure genius. (Thank you, thank you.) Once again, we had chocolate-covered roasted garlic on offer, too. Both sold out hours before the festival closed on Sunday. This after much complaining about Farmer Gary’s order to make 1,000 each of the delectable chocolate-dipped morsels and cookies. They’re hard work!

Since we made a ridiculous number of cookies this round, you might imagine that there were a few casualties. The broken cookies made their way back home and we salvaged them via some gigantic garlic-infused ice cream sandwiches like this one…

Want to make your own? Well, you’ll need to find us at one of the upcoming garlic festivals this fall to get your garlic chocolate chip cookies. The next one is the Hudson Valley Garlic Festival in Saugerties, NY (Sept 29 & 30). If you miss that, come find us at the Easton Garlic Festival (Oct 6 & 7). You’ll need to provide your own ice cream, though.

4th of July garlic salad (featuring potatoes)

When one hangs out with garlic growers, one must not be surprised to eat lots of garlic.

Take Gary's contribution to the 4th of July barbecue at Poppy's house: ostensibly a potato salad, but really, the key ingredient was homegrown, organic garlic. And lots of it. Two full heads! Talk about potent! Good thing we all ate it though aside from the watermelon, everything else we ate -- Joanie's baked beans and spinach pie, roasted Spot (pork ribs), and a free-range chicken I brought along from one of my favorite local farmers outside of DC -- was infused with garlic as well.

Boy, oh, boy was that potato salad good. I've been eating it for breakfast the last two mornings. Though Farmer Gary tried to get out of giving me the recipe, as he insisted it was always changing, based on available ingredients, I would not relent. Here, more or less, is the recipe for his 4th of July version.

Garlic Salad (Featuring Potatoes)

Ingredients

• 3 pounds freshly dug organic potatoes, unpeeled
  
• 2 heads of organic garlic, peeled and minced
• a handful of lemon thyme
• 4 small onions (white or red or a mixture), @ silver-dollar sized
• 3/4 cup garple elixir (you can pick up a bottle at the Pocono Garlic Festival this fall!)
• 4 TBSP olive oil
• 4 TBSP mayonnaise
• salt and pepper, to taste

Directions
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add potatoes and boil for about 20 minutes, until tender but not mushy. Run cooked potatoes under cold water until cool enough to chop into chunks. Toss potato chunks in a large bowl with remaining ingredients, then chill garlic salad... I mean potato salad... in the fridge until it's time to eat.

If you're a busy farmer, you might use Gary's quick chill method of popping the warm potato salad into the freezer for 20 minutes to cool. Me, I would eat that salad however I can get it: hot, cold, lukewarm, with green eggs and ham....

The secret ingredient in homemade BBQ sauce...

Turns out it's garple elixir. I know. I wouldn't have guessed it either, before my first ever barbecue sauce making adventure yesterday, but it's true. Equally delicious on spent-grain veggie burgers as pastured pork sausages or as a dipping sauce for sweet potato fries, this sauce is sure to be a winner. It's an original recipe, based on the Kansas-style of barbecue (or so I've been told that's what it tastes like):


Ingredients
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup organic ketchup
1 small can (8 oz) tomato paste
1/3 cup garple elixir
2 TBSP molasses
1 large shallot (or about 1/4 cup Mountaindale Farms french shallots), minced
2 cloves garlic, minced (what, there wasn't quite enough in the garple for my taste)
1 TBSP freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp celery salt
1 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp habanero sauce

Directions
Combine all ingredients in a pot on the stove. Stir until uniform in texture, then simmer for at least 20 minutes. (I left mine on low for about an hour while I was doing some editing work and boy, oh, boy did it perfume my apartment.)

It made about 1 1/2 cups of sauce, all told, and has been making its way onto just about everything.