Blueberry Peach Scones

This is a short little post on some delicious scones we just had to share! This summer is so weird for where we live. Usually blueberries are in season from late June to mid July, then peaches come in to season with blackberries in August. Not this year though, all three are over lapping which is so exciting! We got to use fresh blueberries, and fresh peaches in these scones. We usually used dried blueberries, and dried fruit, so it's a bit of treat to use fresh fruit.  Work has been so busy with harvest that this is really the first time we've had a chance to bake in what feels like forever.


What You'll Need:

• 2 cups all-purpose Certified Organic flour, plus more for hands and work surface
• 6 TBSP  Certified Organic Sugar
• 2 1/2 TSPCertified Organic Baking Powder
• 1/2 TSP Salt
• 1/2 C Certified Organic unsalted butter, frozen
• 1/2 C Certified Organic heavy cream
• 1 Large Certified Organic Egg
• 1 TSP Vanilla Extract
• 1 Cup Certified Organic Fresh Blueberries
• 3/4 Cup Fresh Peaches, chopped

What You'll Do: 

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat, or spray with non-stick spray. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt. Grate the frozen butter (a food processor is perfect for this). Mix in the grated butter into the flour mixture and combine it with your hands until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Set aside.
3. In a small bowl, whisk cream, egg, and vanilla together. Slowly pour into the flour mixture and stir the two together with a spatula until everything looks like it's been moistened. Slowly, and carefully add in blueberries and peaches. At this point the dough will be very wet, and a bit sticky, you'll want to work the dough into a ball.
4. Transfer the dough ball onto a floured surface, press into a flat disk and cut into four quarters. Then cut each of those in half so you have a total of 8 equal wedges. Because the dough is overloaded with fruit it's ok if the dough doesn't want to stay as a wedge. When baked they will just be a bit more on the round side.
5. Place wedges onto prepared baking sheet, at least two inches apart from each other. Place in over, bake for 20-25 minutes or until lightly golden brown and cooked through. Remove from oven and allow to cool on cooling rack.

Make A Head Tip: These scones are awesome to enjoy in the mornings all week long. They be kept at room temperature for 2-5 days. They also are awesome to freeze, and will keep for up to 3 months. Just thaw them out and heat up to your liking!

June 2017 News & Updates

June Is Here!

Finally the rain is letting up and the beautiful sun is shining through! We had a pretty wet spring and because of that we are currently about 2 weeks behind with the growing season. If we get some really hot weather that can change really quick. It just depends on Mother Nature now.  

WE HAVE NEW PRODUCTS!

What a great reception we have received from our powders! We are so happy to hear that so many of you enjoy them! For those who missed last months newsletter, we have new berry powders up in the shop.  You can now purchase:

• Red Raspberry Powder
• Blackberry Powder
• Aronia Berry Powder
• Black Raspberry Powder
• Blueberry Powder

Our berry powders are a supercharged way of getting your daily fruits into your diet. You can mix our powders into baking, oatmeal, smoothies, milk, ice cream, and more! Just like our dried berries, there are no additives or preservatives, so we're keeping the product as natural and nutritious as possible! 

*Note: Our powders are not soluble*

We've also added a new size to our powders. Now you can purchase all of our powder varieties in 2 lbs. quantities for $110.00.  

We would also like to mention that our free shipping amount has increased to $235.00 after coupons are applied. Our spreads and frozen do not qualify for free shipping. 

Changes Are Coming:

Most of you are aware that last summer we were crazy busy during harvest. In the summer of 2016 we harvested about 2 million pounds of fruit, this year we are projecting at least 3 million. With that much fruit to be harvested we have had to make some hard choices in where to cut back so a balance can be achieved. This has resulted in our decision to not have a U-Pick this summer. We are sad that we can not continue, but our harvest is our first priority. 

We will still be offering already picked & washed blueberries in 30 pound boxes and 5 pound bags. For these you pull around to our office and we help you there. The price for those this year will be the same as in the past at $100 (30 pound box). 

We would like to thank everyone who has come out and supported us over the years. We hope you will continue to enjoy our berries. 

We will have a blog post late May about all the changes we are making why we are making them. 

This Month On The Blog:

Our blog is becoming more active! We will be having a variety of topics, you can expect these posts over the next month:

• Blackberry Crostini
• Spring Superfood Bowl with Blueberry Ginger Dressing
• Blueberry Broccoli Spinach Salad
• Raspberry Chia Seed Jam
• Super Berry Bars
• U-Pick Update

And did you see our delicious post this month? Oatmeal Aronia Berry Cookies. A surprisingly soft, delicious treat!

Have you seen this awesome spotlight video on our farm? It's just a little over 2 minutes so take a look!

Our Normal Office Hours: Monday - Friday 10 am to 4 pm PST  These will also be the hours during harvest this summer. Please note: Do not respond to this email, it does not reach us.  Cold Weather Shipping  Cold Weather shipping is now over until fall. Thanks to everyone who called an placed an order, we are so glad we can provide a cheaper method of shipping so more people have the chance to enjoy our nutrient dense berries. When we get to September we will start looking at temperatures again to see if we can offer this method again sooner rather than later. Typically it won’t be available until mid-October though. If you have questions about frozen and shipping please call us at 541-752-0460 Monday through Friday 10 am to 4 pm PST. We will be having a First Day of Summer flash sale. Details will be posted on our Facebook page on June 20, the sale will take place on June 21st. No-Bake Nutrient Dense Raspberry Energy Bites Original Recipe from sunsetvalleyorganics.com Ingredients: 1 TBSP Coconut Oil 1/3 C Almond Butter (or nut butter of your choice) 1/4 C Honey* (or maple syrup) 1/2 C Old Fashioned Oats 2 TBSP Chia Seeds 2 TBSP Raspberry Powder Directions: Prepare baking sheet lined with parchment, set aside. Melt coconut oil in a large bowl. Stir in the nut butter*, honey (or maple syrup) until smooth. Add the oats, chia seeds, and mix ins of your choice. Roll into 1 tablespoon balls and place on prepared baking sheet, and place in freezer for up to an hour. Remove from freezer and transfer balls into plastic bag. Store in the fridge for up to one week or the freezer for up to 3 months. *If your nut butter is really hard you can try warming it up in the microwave, it makes it a lot easier to stir in!

U-Pick Updates For the Summer of 2017

What is happening this Summer?

As most of you are aware, last summer we were crazy busy during harvest. In the summer of 2016 we harvested about 2 million pounds of fruit, this year we are projecting at least 3 million. With that much fruit to be harvested we have had to make some hard choices. The biggest change is that we will no longer have a farm stand in the summer, nor will we have the U-Pick for blueberries.This also includes any pre-orders for Raspberries, blackberries, and black raspberries. We hope our loyal customers can understand our decision. 

Please know this was not an easy decision for us to make. We spent the better part of the winter and spring trying to work out how we could make a it work. And finally, we just had to face the truth, that we've reached a point that we have to make some cuts. Last year we had to cut back our U-Pick and farm stand to being open only for 2 weeks, and during that time we felt strained in making sure everything was getting the attention it needed. We take customer service very seriously, and we just felt like we were not meeting our expectations during those two weeks. Additionally, finding workers is becoming harder and harder, and this too has played a part in our choice of closing the farm stand and u-pick. 

We will still be offering already picked & washed blueberries in 30 pound boxes and 5 pound bags. Like in past years, for these you will pull around to our office and our office staff can help you there. The price for those this year will be the same as in the past at $100 (30-pound box) and 5 pound bags for $24.00. We will post here, on facebook, instagram, and twitter when these are ready to be picked up. You can also call us and place a pre-order if you are wanting to pick up two or more boxes at a time. Our office phone number is 541-752-0460. The hours for pick up will be Monday to Friday 10 am to 4 pm, our normal office hours. 

We would like to thank everyone who has come out and supported us over the years. We hope you will continue to enjoy our berries. 

SVO August Newsletter

August Already?! 

This summer is just flying by! We have never been so busy as we are this summer. Because berries were early our blueberries and blackberries are having to be harvested at the same time. Which makes for a lot of excitement. It seems that this year we are having to deal with all kinds of new problems, such as we had to figure out if we had enough crates to put berries in, in contrast to how fast we were processing them. These are the kind of problems we want to have. 

Follow Us on Social Media! Facebook Twitter Blog Pinterest Instagram

Details of our Harvest

Machine Picker Unloading Blueberries on Truck

If you have been following us on any of our social media we have been sending out weekly updates called “Harvest Reports” in which we summarize what is going on for the week, what we have available for purchase at our farm stand and how we think our berries are ripening. This is the best way other than giving us a call, to find out how things are going. Click here to read our latest Harvest Report. 

We are officially done with the fresh season, our Farm Stand is now closed, and that means our U-Pick is now closed as well.  We had a great season and are already looking forward to next years harvest! 

We are still processing blueberries and blackberries. So if your on our list to call we have some updated information for you: If you ordered Jersey (the small berries) you should have received a phone call from us by now. If you ordered Blue Crop (the bigger berries) we are still processing them and will be calling you soon. If you haven't gotten a call and think you should have you can call us at 541-752-0560.

Fresh Picked Blackberries

We are also excited to be harvesting a baby crop of Aronia berries. We are hopefully to start experiments for products this fall (including freeze dried powder!). 

We expect to be done processing all of this years fruit some time in mid August. 

We will of course continue to offer frozen berries all year round. We expect to have raspberries back in stock sometime in late September. We have frozen blueberries available, and strawberries. For blackberries we currently have 5 pound cases, and later on after harvest we will have the 25 pound cases back in stock. 

Once we have a product back in stock we will announce it on our twitter and Facebook so be sure to be following us! 

Other Useful Links: SVO Website  Local Harvest

Back to Fall/Winter Hours

We are switching back to our fall/winter hours of Monday to Friday 10 am to 4 pm PST. 

Nutrition Tests

Back in 2010 we sent our blueberries to a lab to have some independent testing done for the nutrition of our berries. Well this year we sent them away again to see where we stand and if we had improved at all. We are happy to announce the following table are our results. (This is for blueberries only)

We will be updating our website to reflect these new results. We are very excited about our improvements, and that we are continuing to uphold a standard of healthy living for our customers. 

Social Butterflies!

We have had a very busy month on Facebook, Twitter, and our Blog. It’s the best way to keep up to date with our harvest this year. Each week we post about our harvest, recipes, and more! On Facebook this summer we have a goal of getting to 1,000 likes, we are currently at 852, at 1000 likes we will be having a give a away of a gift basket full of our products. So if you haven't liked us please do so, and share our page with all your friends & family! We will announce details for the give away on our Facebook once we have hit 1,000 likes. 

We would also like to announce that we now have an active Instagram account. You can follow us@SVOrganics . On our Instagram you can see more details about our harvest and yummy recipes we love to make! 

This month Pinterest we will be doing a few different things. First we have a brand new board celebrating all the great things about America, especially the delicious food! We are also adding to our Blueberry, Raspberry, and BlackberryInspired boards, as well as Harmonious Berry Blends. We also have a new board,Summer Adventures.

Blueberry Chicken Chopped Salad

Ingredients: 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts Salt and pepper 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 head Romaine lettuce, finely chopped 1 pint (2 cups) fresh blueberries 1 cup roughly-chopped toasted pecans 2/3 cup diced red onion 1/2 cup blue cheese (or any soft cheese) Dijon vinaigrette (see below) To make the salad: Season chicken breasts on both sides generously with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat.  Add chicken breasts and cook for 4-5 minutes per side, until the chicken is cooked through and no longer pink inside. Transfer chicken breasts to a separate plate and let rest for at least 5-10 minutes.  Then chop into small, bite-sized pieces. Add the chicken to a large bowl with the lettuce, blueberries, pecans, red onion, blue cheese, and vinaigrette. Toss to combine.  Serve immediately. Number of servings (yield): 3-5 Dijon Vinaigrette 1/3 cup olive oil 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar 2 teaspoons honey 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard Pinch of salt and black pepper To make the vinaigrette: Whisk all ingredients together until combined.

Harvest Report: Last Call for U-Pick Blueberries

We had a very exciting weekend, not only was it perfect picking weather for blueberries but we also had a new "toy" at the farm stand.

We got a square, and it is so great! We are really loving it so far.

Things have been so crazy around the farm over the last week, we are machine harvesting, we are picking more fields that have baby crops of blueberries on them, and we are machine picking blackberries. So people are literally running from one point to another, there is always fruit being loaded into our cold rooms (which are full, almost over flowing) we have been able to pick (from the field) and process (for the mass frozen market) at about the same rate so any time something comes in something is finished processing. We have never had this happen before, but it is great! Our crops are producing so much!

First big announcement we have is that this is the last full week we will be open for U-Pick blueberry picking. Our last day is going to be SUNDAY AUGUST 2, 2015. We will have normal hours for that day, 9 am to 6 pm.

And everyday leading up to it we will be open at the farm stand from 9 am to 6 pm, however Wednesday through the weekend is looking to be 95+ degrees, which means we may be closing in the afternoons for U-Pick to cool the field. We will post on Facebook and Twitter about any closures. You can also call us at 541-752-0460 before heading our way to see if we have the field open or closed.

At our farm stand we still have fresh picked blueberries, their variety has changed to Liberty, its a newer variety, not as sweet as the Blue Crop but just as huge. We also have fresh picked blackberries, their variety is Chesters.

Now for those of you who are on our waiting lists of wanting to pick up 30 Pound boxes we have started that process, but we are also super busy making sure all the fruit we can pick is done so before we get into this 100 degree weather. We have finished the Jerseys and they have been processed, it will take a few days for the boxes to be frozen, when they are that is when we will start calling people. For those of you who Ordered Blue Crop, today is the first day we are processing those, so it will still be a while before we call you about them.

Thank you for your patients with us this week, we have never been so busy at one time with so many berries and fruit coming off at once!

Women's Health: Healthy Mediterranean 7 Layer Dip

Healthy Mediterranean 7 Layer Dip

Inspired from Cookincanuck

Prep Time: 15 Mins         Total Time: 15 Mins

Ingredients:

• 8oz hummus
• 1 tomato, diced
• 1/2 cup diced cucumber
• 1/2 cup nonfat greek yogurt
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp paprika
• 2 canned artichoke hearts, chopped
• 2 roasted red peppers (4 halves), diced
• 1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
• 2 tbsp minced flat-leaf parsley
• Kalamata olives, chopped (optional) for garnish

Directions:

1. In an 8- by 8- square serving dish, spread the hummus evenly on the bottom. Layer the tomatoes and cucumber over top.
2. Dollop the yogurt over the vegetables, then gently spread with a rubber spatula. Sprinkle the yogurt with salt and paprika.
3. On top of the yogurt, layer the artichoke heart, roasted red peppers and feta cheese. Sprinkle the parsley over top and garnish with olives.
4. Serve with fresh vegetables, pita chips or crackers.

Calories 49.4 / Total Fat 3.6g / Saturated Fat 0.9g / Cholesterol 2.4mg / Sodium 122.4mg / Total Carbohydrates 4.0g / FIber 1.0g / Sugars 1.2g / Protein 2.4g / WW (Old Points) 1 / WW (Points+) 2 (Calculated without olives)

Serves: Makes 4 cups