Loving Fall

Fall is my favourite time of year. Despite the fact that summer ends and school starts back up again. It gets a little cooler so it’s much nicer to be outside. The vegetables that we have spent the summer (not so) carefully tending are finally starting to be actual food. The markets are in full swing so we rarely have to go to an actual grocery store. We seem to eat much more fresh, local, whole foods. There are tons of local community events, such as fall fairs and harvest events. I get to can and preserve our food and feel just a little self sufficient by re-filling our cool room shelves. And of course, my all time favourite, apple picking! I can’t wait!

Canning Season 2013- Tomatoes

The weather hasn’t cooled and we’re getting a shocking amount of rain, but despite all that, canning season has begun. Last week we did 38 jars of whole tomatoes and this weekend we made tomato paste and pizza sauce frozen pucks as well as tomato sauce. This should get us through the year. It was quite a bit easier this year because Kurt helped and we have a food mill now. It was made slightly more difficult because our kitchen is about a third of the size as our apartment’s kitchen was.

Garden Colcannon

We harvested our potatoes and onions to make room to try some more carrots (don’t tell the bunnies). We weren’t really expecting either crop to do much since they were planted from some old grocery store vegetables that got left in the garage and became rather…dubious. We were quite surprised that we got what we did.

The onions were pretty tiny, but they tasted really good.

We picked some kale from the garden and made colcannon. It’s an Irish dish that comes as a side at one of our favourite restaurants. It’s basically just mashed potatoes with cabbage or kale. We also added onions and butter.

Delicious, healthy and everything but the butter came from our yard! I love that.

Being Home…And Beets

Well we are finally home for a week or so. Then we are heading back north for Kurt’s birthday. So. Much. Travelling. After staying at my mom’s for a while (or anywhere for that matter) it’s so nice to come back and be in my own space. I really miss cooking for Kurt and I in our own kitchen when we are away for extended times. It’s just so enjoyable to be in my own space. We’ve been eating from the garden and biking to the market just down the street. The corn is ready and it is fantastic this year.

Anyways, we’ve had quite a few beets from the market and from thinning out our own patch. Beets are one of those brilliant vegetables where the entire thing can be eaten. Beets greens and beets are so different, yet both are delicious.

As for greens they are great in salads or sauteed. Really anything you’d use other greens in works.

Garden Update

While we were away the garden did surprisingly well. There was enough rain in the area to flood quite a few basements (ours was fine) so it seemed to make the plants happy. We were able to harvest a bunch more kale. Our strawberries are done, but the plants grew substantially. Sadly I only got to eat two strawberries since the rest were nibbled on by some creature and by the time were covered them in chicken wire they were done producing for the year. Our tomato plant has flowers and our pepper plants have tiny peppers. The beets had died from something, but they came back nicely while we were gone (making us think it was probably us killing them) and the potatoes, leeks and onions are huge. Harvest time should be pretty good!

The rose bush that is growing in the yard looks great. I don’t usually like roses, but this one has no smell (which is a good thing to me and my sensitive nose) and it just looks so pretty with all of the flowers in full bloom that I can’t help but like it. The only thing that is behind is our lilies. Everywhere else in town is full of beautiful, colourful lilies (they seem to grow like weeds here), but ours only have a couple of flowers open. They should be all open next week, but we will be out of town and will miss it! I’m so glad we finally have a backyard of our own.

Freezing Strawberries

Strawberry season is short. If you don’t pay attention to when the fields are open, you may miss it. Luckily, I drive by the farm where we pick fairly often, so I can stay on top of it. Despite rain and partly flooded fields, we headed out to pick one evening. We picked about 12 litres (two big baskets), as well as two bellies full. We saved some for strawberry shortcake, but since the rest we froze. We only really use strawberries in smoothies and for eating with granola so frozen is what works best for us.

The first thing I did was dump half a basket’s worth into a strainer and washed them well. Next I cut the green off, and checked for any yucky spots. Once cleaned I placed each one on a cookie sheet. When the cookie sheet was full without the berries touching, I popped it into the freezer. I can fit one cookie sheet in the top of my freezer and two round cake pans in the baskets below. Once the strawberries were thoroughly frozen I took them off the pans and put them into large freezer bags. This way we can take out however many we need since they aren’t frozen together. We got 3 large freezer bags worth. Now we can enjoyed strawberries that we picked and processed ourselves, hopefully all year long!

Kale Pesto

Our garden kale is growing really well. Luckily it has escaped the notice of the wascilly wabbit visiting us at night (sadly, our carrots did not fare so well). I saw a recipe for kale pesto and decided to try it. I usually do not like pesto because I do not like strong basil flavour and pine nuts make my mouth feel weird (it’s a condition called ‘pine nut syndrome’, seriously). Anyways, I don’t like pesto, but Kurt really does so I thought I would try this.

It was super easy to put together, you just put kale, toasted walnuts, lemon juice, parmesan, salt, garlic and olive oil in the food processor and buzz it all together. It took me maybe 10 minutes, and that includes toasting the walnuts and washing the kale. I just cooked some pasta the put it over and baked some sweet potatoes for a simple, healthy meal.

As for how it tastes, well it is fairly strong. If you don’t like kale very much you might try doing half kale and half spinach, or basil. We like kale (or at least have grown used to it) and so we enjoyed it. It’s a super quick and really healthy thing to make in a hurry, plus the left over pesto can be used for a bunch of things. Be creative.

Give it a try, you might like it!

Mary Mary Quite Contrary….

Our garden (or should I say, random vegetable patches throughout the yard) is doing wonderfully. I’m very proud of all of those little green shoots. This is our first year having a garden of our very own at our new house. This year we didn’t plant very many things since we plan to be away a lot. We tried to focus on low maintenance plants and fall harvesting plants. We have strawberries, blueberries, leeks, beets, carrots, potatoes, garlic, kale and peppers.

Our weirdly tall strawberry plants (planted from shoots from a friend’s yard)

Little beets.

Our first kale harvest of the year!

First garden kale salad of the year, with Homer looking sad that he cannot enjoy said salad. Poor guy.

Sprouting

The other day I was at the grocery store and I saw a big bag of mung beans for 90 cents. I grabbed them because it was a good deal. When I got home I remembered that you can sprout mung beans.

Here’s how:
Grab a clean mason jar and ring. You don’t need the flat part of the lid.
Rinse off your desired amount of beans. I used about ¼ of a cup. Put them in the jar.
Cut a square of cheesecloth to fit over the lid. I just put the cheese cloth over, then screw the ring lid over and cut the excess off after.
Twice a day pour some water in the jar through the cheesecloth. Swish it around and then pour it out again. Leave the beans somewhere where they will get a little sunlight.
In about three days you will have delicious sprouts. Once they have little white tails about an inch long, put them in the fridge. They will last about 4 days in the fridge.

They are super healthy, and almost free to make!
They are great in salads, stir-frys, with cream cheese on crackers, or just eaten by the handful.
Now I’m on to sprouting lentils.
Here’s a link for different things you can sprout and the nutritional information on each (soybean sprouts are super healthy, I thing I will have to look for those next).

30X30 Challenge

Tomorrow is the first day of May (I’m sure you already knew that though). I’ve found this great challenge for the month of May. It’s been created by the David Suzuki Foundation and the challenge is to spend 30 minutes outside every day of the month. Once you join they give you great tips and ideas for keeping your time outside interesting. Some days this will be easy for me because as a teacher I spend a lot of time outside with the kids in the spring. Other days will be tricky because we get a lot of rain here this time of year. Maybe I will have to invest in a pair of rain boots!

Directly behind our house there is a conservation area with a river and walking trails. I literally only have to walk through a gate at the end of the backyard and I am in nature. This challenge will be great for spending more time there. It will also encourage me to get more exercise and spend less time in front of screens. The 30X30 website has a lot more information on why spending time outside it good for you. I will let you know how it is going throughout the month, and any changes I notice.

P.S. I finally joined Instagram, I can’t figure out how to leave a link (I’m finding the thing a little tricky to navigate), but you can search for me at tisty82.