Food

Summer Canning

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I don’t normally can in July or August. It’s just too darn hot to have the stove on that much. Most of my summer preserving is done with the dehydrator on a table outside. One day I will find a man handy enough and who loves me enough to build me a solar dehydrator but until that day I use the electric variety.

However this year has been unseasonably – um – damp, which would make solar dehydration a little bit tricky. A conversation with a friend revealed the fact that I have never had canned cherries. (more…)

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Bokashi – the movie

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Bruce Mol is a friend of a friend and I was introduced to his inspiring project the other day. Last year at the Armstrong IPE they introduced a bokashi pilot program of sorts where they collected the food waster from the fair over 5 days in 45 gallon barrels. All in all they collected 1 ton of organic waste that they then shredded, added bokashi mixture, sealed and let ferment for three weeks. (more…)

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Saving Seeds.

Around this time of year many communities now celebrate Seedy Saturday a local exchange of seeds collected by backyard gardeners and small scale farmers. Only a few short years ago I remember Seed Saturday being a tiny gathering that likely meant a long day cooped up in some tiny community hall (the packing house in my hometown) with grandmothers who gardened to save on the grocery bill before it was the ‘in’ thing to do. Today it’s a highly publicized, busy event that hosts workshops, demonstrations and seeds from all sorts of people.

It is encouraging to say the least. Sort of. (more…)

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Daylight Savings

Tonight we all lose an hour of sleep, the groundhog saw his shadow and I got a notice in my mailbox yesterday that said it was time to clean up my yard all of which point to one very exciting fact: spring is in the air.
And as I go through my notebook and review the list of goals I sought to accomplish I am pleased to be able to put a great big checkmark next to most of those things. On to the outdoor goal list.

Living in a trailer park I realize that it is going to be even more difficult to push the boundaries than if I were in your average subdivision or even back at my great little place downtown. (more…)

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Frozen Food Anyone?

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We had a bit of a cold snap here this past week. It got more than a little frosty (-20ish C ) and while I am in a new place I was also out of my home during much of the cold weather and neglected my food storage situation.  I have been using a covered porch that has been closed in as additional storage and a mud room. The room was pretty much just as cold as outside but not as exposed to the elements. I should have known better but alas I did not and much of my food froze. (more…)

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Chutney & Rootbeer

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I have taken a step back from canning in recent years in search of less energy intensive ways to preserve my harvest. However that simple life I was looking for got a little complicated over the summer and I wound up putting an entire tree of apricots into the freezer.
A couple years ago I discovered that my friends Garden Curry Spice Blend mixed into a jar of apricot jam made what was quite possibly the tastiest chutney ever. (more…)

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Read more about the article Dehydrating Greens

Dehydrating Greens

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This past Tuesday I helped a friend of mine with a bit of an experiment. She harvested all of the greens from her mother’s garden and instead of freezing them she is going to try drying them to store instead. We have a lot of the same mindsets when it comes to food storage. The main one being that we would like to rely less on our deep freezes and more on our pantry’s or cold rooms. (more…)

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A Gift of Salmon

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I have had a truck for sale for the past few months. The truck doesn’t run and has been sitting since I moved here. It successfully got my horses here and hasn’t started since. Well for me anyway. Apparently it will start if you lay a screwdriver over the solonoid. What does salmon have to do with my truck you might ask? (more…)

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mmmm Cheese.

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I love cheese. There is nothing as good in the world as potatoes covered in parsley, butter and cheese. And as of last week I can make all of the above happen in the space of my backyard. Life does not get much better than that. Had I known how easy it was to make cream cheese from raw milk it is likely that I never would have bothered to do anything else with it so perhaps it is for the best that this discovery took until now to make. (more…)

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Apricots and Raspberries

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We are still picking raspberries. My God. Still. I need a scale to weigh just how many kilos of raspberries we’ve picked. A bloody lot. Raspberries, berries in general do not travel well and by the time the bucket is full and the berries are rinsed they are pretty much mush. Which makes good fruit leather and that is what we have been making.
Note to self: Wax paper is not a good substitute for a fruit leather tray in the dehydrator.
Second note to self: purchase additional fruit leather trays.
(more…)

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Summer Diets

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Our affiliations with food fascinate me. What we eat, when we eat, how we choose it, historically and on an individual basis are all things that I (pardon the pun) am hungry to learn.

I do not eat very much. It’s not a diet or weight thing, I certainly eat when I am hungry I just am so darn busy that I don’t have opportunity to eat a whole lot. Apparently this is a common theme among those who work with the land. This weekend I had the opportunity to chat with one of my favorite local farmers, at a music festival of all places, and apparently his primary diet in the summer is beer! Ha! (more…)

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