Vine & Virtue Blog

Recipes, Updates, News

Real Food Brownies... with Chocolate Mint!
Okay, before you click out of this post because you're offended about the inclusion of mint in a brownie, don't worry - you can omit the mint and the brownie will still be delicious. I promise. Secondly, people ask me all of the time if this is a "healthy" dessert recipe. If I am comparing it to a box of brownies that is found in the store (even in the organic junk food aisle), then yes. Every ingredient that I choose to put in these brownies is recognizable and easily found... Read more...
The Beginner's Guide to Whole Chickens
I recently had a customer ask me if I had any tips on using a whole chicken. She'd recently been a vegetarian, partially due to concerns about animal welfare in the conventional meat industry, but was now eating meat selectively, choosing farms she can trust. This was a great question - Shane and I have been eating locally raised chickens for about 6 years now (growing our own for the past 4) and I can easily forget how intimidating it is to start eating food that looks drastically different than... Read more...
Turkish Scrambled Eggs
Breakfast is a tricky meal for us. We don't want to spend all morning in the kitchen, leaving it a mess, but also don't want to eat the same thing every morning. We have rotating breakfast staples in our house, but every once in a while we enjoy mixing it up with a fun recipe like this. The hands-on time for this recipe is about 25 minutes, and it takes about 45 minutes total. Maybe not the best option for a busy morning before work or school, but a great... Read more...
Localize your Taco Night!
Tacos are honestly a beautiful vessel for farm fresh food. They are so versatile and so easy to make! Skip the seasoning packets from the store and incorporate some of these tips to elevate your Taco Night to the next level while supporting your local farmers and businesses!Tacos are one of those meals that can be done in so many different ways. You can have taco salad, taco over tortilla chips, traditional tacos, Korean tacos... the possibilities are endless. Shane and I like to keep tacos as a part of... Read more...
Chicken Tortilla Soup
We love finding ways to preserve the fresh produce from our farm while it's in season to enjoy all year long. If you had a chance to look at our blog, 3 Ways to Preserve Tomatoes at Home, you may have noticed that we preserve this chicken tortilla soup in the heat of summer to enjoy as a quick and easy meal in the winter months. Inspired by a recipe from the Whole Fed Homestead, this recipe is definitely one we will add to our yearly freezer stash. This year I froze 4... Read more...
3 Ways to Preserve Tomatoes at home!
I'm often met with questions when I tell people that Shane and I no longer buy any tomato products from the store. People often assume that we don't really consume tomato products, or ask how we get tomatoes in January. The short answer is, we don't. Tomatoes are in full production at the end of August into September - this always coincided with going back to school. We will get cherry tomatoes earlier, as well as a few early slicers/canning tomatoes, but the bulk are ready to process and eat... Read more...
Carrot Pesto
Pesto is one of those ingredients that screams summertime! The bland, and often expensive, jars in the supermarket just don't do this flavor powerhouse justice! Prior to gardening and making our own pesto, I had thought "what's the big deal? I don't understand the hype." However, once we made our first batch of pesto from scratch, I changed my mind!Our first batch of pesto was made from a basil houseplant we kept in our apartment! We kept that tiny plant alive for over a year in a sunny window on... Read more...
BBQ Chicken Quesadillas
Looking for a quick and easy recipe when you're not wanting to spend hours in the kitchen? These BBQ Chicken Quesadillas use up leftover chicken, and will be something to spice up your quick and easy meal. We love eating these in the height of summer, when we don't feel like heating up the oven on a hot day, and when we can include ingredients from the garden in peak freshness!These are totally adaptable quesadillas, use whatever you have on hand! We always want to encourage creativity in the kitchen.... Read more...
Loaded Chicken Nachos
The Super Bowl is coming and people are planning to watch with their friends and family. Whether you're the one who knows every stat on every player, the one who can't wait for the halftime show, or the one who is watching for the commercials, we have a recipe that will make all Super Bowl viewers smile. These loaded chicken nachos are so easy to make - they can be thrown together in less than 15 minutes, perfect for someone preparing to host a party in their home! You can easily... Read more...
All things SEEDS!
Winter can definitely feel like the hardest time of the year for the gardener. We go from spending hours a day outdoors to being stuck inside for a week straight due to the wind chill! There is a bright spot, though, to the long winter months. Planning for the upcoming garden season! Around the end of December seed catalogs begin to fill our mailboxes. At this point, the garden overwhelm of August is in the past and we are eagerly awaiting the first fresh morsels of spring. We have since forgotten... Read more...
Our Harvest Calendar
Sep 6 Written By Kenna Kanneberg When you don’t work a typical 9 to 5 job, it can be difficult to remember what day it is. Days on the farm are long and full. Days as a mom are long and full. Yet somehow both pass by so quickly. I am struggling to understand how we can be reaching the beginning of September. It’s a bittersweet season for me. Prior to farming and motherhood, I was a teacher. I loved my job. This summer I am stepping into a new... Read more...
2023 Garden Update
Aug 21 Written By Kenna Kanneberg One evening’s harvest from July A little goes a long way… Shane and I bought our home in the year 2020 with big dreams of raising chickens and having sprawling gardens. We had tended a garden in my moms backyard and in community garden plots, but this would be our first venture into a permanent garden bed on our property. Well, more permanent; we always have big dreams for how to continue to develop our property! The family before us didn’t have an existing... Read more...