kittycafe

The Story of an Unplanned Apple Tart. SOLE Food, part 1

 

I am taking part in the Dark Days Challenge, documented at Not Dabbling in Normal, making meals following the SOLE criteria - Sustainable, Organic, Local and Ethical.

I had a meal planned but it just worked out that I made dessert first!

On my day off, I was driving down to my neighbour's , where I buy my eggs (and had a little chat with an older gent who had also stopped at the roadside cooler and we discussed how good theses eggs were) and a little ways down I noticed an apple tree, still full of late November apples on the side of the road.

I stopped to have a look. They looked pretty good,  so I picked some of these and went on to my next stop, which was a sheep farm to photograph, well, sheep of course, for the Wovember 100% wool contest. After scraping the mud from my boots before I got back in my car (will it ever stop raining?) I had a plan.

(insert random sheep photo for local colour)

It was only a short distance to Whole Circle Farm, where I purchased some  lard and a few other things.

I had the local honey and flour already at home.

And thus, the makings of an apple tart:

Apples - foraged.

Egg for pastry - my neighbour

Lard- Whole Circle farm

Flour  - Hockley Valley 

 Honey - Caledon Honey

And there it is, no recipe, just an intuitive process, just like the "shopping" for the ingredients.

The Porcupine and Walnut Liqueur

Not at the same time..

but there is a segue here.

First the porcupine. I was busy gardening the other day and out of the corner of my eye I noticed something in the grass not far away but I didn't stop to look up. One of the cats will often find me when I am outside. It wasn't until I stood up I saw that it was not a cat at all. He or she was very close, closer than I would have liked but other than moving through the grass at a ridiculously slow speed and sniffling the ground it wasn't bothered by me at all.

I still took a few steps back.

Now this fellow has been a nightly visitor. We have two apple trees outside the back door and he or she has been after the windfalls.

This night, a family of raccoons was also interested in the windfall apples but when I went to go outside I found the porcupine standing guard at the bottom. The raccoons were trapped in the tree. You can't see them but we certainly heard them. The porcupine froze when the security light came on but other than that was not bothered by me at all. My daughter's friends dropped her off and they stood two feet away from him as he munched apples, unconcerned.

So, fast forward to walnut picking day, for it was at long last time to make the nocino.

I was surprised to find a large bush of black raspberries very near and decided to pick those first. I was surprised because I was sure I had never seen raspberries there before and I have radar for my favourite fruit. Sadly, many were already dry on the vine.

That would not be happening again.

(I find out later that my darling husband has been mowing it all down for two years, thinking it was weeds. That would not be happening again, either.)

Notice the asparagus fronds right behind. Double bonus.

Anyhoo, I did notice the cats coming to see me this time, although by the time I had finished picking and was ready to move on to the walnut tree behind me, I found this scenario.

Three cats guarding their territory. One porcupine in the tall grass. A stand off at the edge of the property.

Obviously there were words about boundaries. See the fluffy orange and white cat?  He may look like a cuddly puff ball but he's The Boss.

Eventually the porcupine moved off sloooowly (Apple bloat? He had been eating them for three nights straight) into the woods and I breathed a sigh of relief no spines needed removing from territorial felines.

So, yes, now we are at the nocino or walnut liqueur. I picked the still green, still soft walnuts and away we went. All four of us.

Ever seen a green walnut? - there you go. Don't be fooled by the colour, though, they can still stain. This cut one darkened from pale yellow/green just in the time it took to pick up the camera.

You can use grain alcohol for this but it's not available in Canada, so vodka it was. I had to buy more vodka because I only had half a bottle from another DIY experient, homemade deodorant. I don't exactly ever drink the stuff.

So basically you dump all the ingredients (sugar, walnut quarters, vanilla bean, 2 cinnamon sticks and 5 cloves (I was a rebel and used more) organic peel and vodka in the jar, shake it and wait for centuries or forty days.

Eat the orange or lemon while you are waiting.

Then it will be strained and bottled and we wait some more. This is the edge-of-your-seat stuff you've come to expect here, right?

Must work on those instant gratification projects.

And this non-vodka drinking,rarely-jam eating blogger is going to do just what you've come to expect - I'm going to make more jam tomorrow.

 

Living It

Rather than blogging it, I'm afraid.

June that is.

June kicked my butt.

There are a lot of weddings in June, and if you work for a food shop that caters these things, that's what you will be doing.

So we will do a random catch up, okay?

There was food to make. Yes, I make food at work all day and then I make it at home.

Some of these foods were unplanned. Like jam.

One Saturday at work, we picked through flats of fresh strawberries (for another wedding) and there were a lot of bruised ones.

"Would I like to take them home to make jam?"

"Sure" I said, without really thinking.

Now if you've been following this blog at all, it seems like I make a lot of jam, which is kind of funny for someone who doesn't eat a lot of it at all. Strawberry jam is perhaps my least favourite but I knew it would get eaten and gifted. Still, I wasn't entirely jazzed about cranking out a regular batch. (If you follow this blog at all, you also know I will search out something a little unusual, mostly for my own amusement) Admittedly, after dinner on that Saturday night, I wasn't jazzed about making jam AT ALL but the berries were not going to wait.

I found this recipe at Canadian Living for Strawberry Balsamic Black Pepper Jam and I knew that was the one.

The balsamic vinegar smoothes out the harsh sugariness and the black peeper adds just a subtle hit of zing. Very nice. Oh, and forget about that "boil hard for 1 minute" in the recipe. You need to boil the you-know out of it for about 15-20 minutes if you want jam rather than dessert sauce.

You ever see a recipe and have to make it right away? First there was iced coffee. Again, funny 'cause I  drink coffee maybe twice a year but I like it iced. And okay, confession, it's the sweetened condensed milk that does it for me.

I also had to try these snack bars right away.

It just so happened that I was on my way out of rural back-roads to civilization or rather, to the pottery supply store and at the very last corner was Whole Foods. So I stopped in for some Kamut puffs for the recipe - and they were on sale. Karma, right?

I also picked up some yoghurt. It was less than two-for-one because it was close to it's sell-by date and one of my favourite brands (Olympia) of vanilla yoghurt. Not all vanilla is created equally. 

The snack bars were everything I thought they would be, healthy, delicious, devoured.

As for the yoghurt, one litre was eaten and the other one sat in the fridge until I woke up one morning with the idea to do this:

Frozen yoghurt pops, swirled with that strawberry jam. I didn't even have any popsicle molds any more, since my kids are no longer wee, so I had to run into town and buy the only ones available.

I have all my best ideas upon first waking up, it seems. This one was a keeper, especially since it is turning out to be a hot long weekend. Finally!

Notice, by coincidence, that the yoghurt treats are also colour-appropriate for Canada Day today :)

(By the way, am I the only one who has ever got out of Whole Foods for under $10? hee) 

Lest you think I'm all about food, I have also been making soap. A lot of soap.

Here we have carrot tangerine, coffee, lavender, cedarwood, the bug deterrent one, (which needs a better name), cinnamon coconut milk and peppermint. I tried to make a soap on my days off to sell them next month at market.

And while I was doing what I was doing, the garden was busy too. These leeks over-wintered and so were ready early. Thankfully something looked tall and green out there. It has been a cool and wet season so far and things have been slow to get growing. 

I have harvested and dried some nettle for tea (use those weeds!) and have a large supply of sprouting seeds from the fellow who supplies the shop with organic sprouts. I have pea and sunflower here in large un-photogenic jars. I was given a little more than I expected (small exaggeration) I think this will last us through the winter. I am in no hurry to sprout them as the greens are flourishing in the garden. 

I'm still waiting patiently for walnuts and raspberries, though.

Oh and for wedding season to be over.

If you need me today, I'll be in the barn throwing pots.

Canadians, have a great long Canada Day weekend.

Right Now

...I'm finally sitting down.

I have to remember as the weather gets warmer and I am torn by how much there is to be done outside, as well as all the usual inside business - to just sit down.

It's the last day of my 'weekend' and as usual I am trying to do too much.

I have crossed some things off my list because they are done and other things because they aren't going to get done, not today anyway. Can somebody else clean the BBQ, please?

In getting to know everything growing around the property and using it, last year I made violet jelly.

This year, I harvested another big bunch of nettles and decided to try dandelion wine.

I didn't even make a dent in the dandelions.

For one week this mix carried a wonderful scent through the kitchen and made a very busy fizzing sound when one came near. (Those are oranges and lemons and cloves)

 

Today I bottled it. Sometime in December we get to try it.

I was inspired by this recipe here as well as getting a little advice from this site here.

I also made two batches of soap, one with natural bug repellants in it  (citronella, lemongrass, orange, eucalyptus and litsea cubeba)- which we need right now- hello black flies! (coffee soap is shown)

It's a good thing it has been so rainy and the rhubarb is a bit slow to grow because I can't wait to try some rhubarb nectar, but no time to make it yet.

And I have a little more time to wait for the walnuts because this walnut liqueur is also calling my name. (There is something about drinks this year, I guess) The tree is just starting to fill out; there are no nuts yet.

But the sun is here now, finally and the garden is planted and hopefully all the tiny seedlings did not drown in the record rainfall.

Oh and inexplicably, a seasonally inappropriate bulky-weight sweater is on the scene. More on that soon.

Okay, maybe not too soon :)

 

 

Adventures in Elderberry

 

Norma first convinced me about the benefits of elderberry syrup. I admit to a brief moment of skepticism but Norma is fierce when it comes to these matters and it wasn't long before I was a believer. I was buying it at my health food store and then last year when I was reading down the list of available fruits at a pick your own farm I happened upon elderberries and thought I would make my own. Last September turned out to be such a transitional mess that it didn't happen.

I often pick berries with my friend F, the biologist and I mentioned the elderberry syrup idea to her.

She knew of a few spots they were growing in the wild. I put her on Berry Watch and she called me last week to say that they were ripe and we should go soon.

I borrowed The Husband's rubber boots, put on jeans and long sleeves, a mosquito jacket, brought a fork and a basket and headed over to her house. She had warned me about having to cross a stream but I didn't realise my boots were not quite high enough for the task. I had read about picking the elderberries off the stems with a fork and we quickly realised this was in fact a great idea. Elderberries are small.

Guarding these bushes was a rather large stand of stinging nettle, thank goodness for the long sleeves. 

At least there are no mosquitoes, we each commented.

After dropping the fork in the stream once, and soaking my socks we headed down and across the road and found an even larger patch. Picture taking came to a halt  as I would have needed five hands. There was no water here, just lots of ripe berries and a bumper crop of... mosquitoes. Now by September mosquitoes should be long gone but clearly nobody told these mosquitoes that. F abandoned her picking but I put on the bug jacket and carried on, although I abandoned the fork method and just grabbed the whole stems.

I think the reason for the outrageous price of elderberry syrup in stores was brought home as we went along. This was slow work, with lots of bending down of high branches to reach the fullest stems, sped up only by the biting bugs.

But it's also great to be out on a warm, sunny late summer day in the country, puttering around in wellies... and uh, wet socks. You can't put a price on that.

F is from England and she had many old cookbooks with elderberry recipes and also interesting wartime ones, with recipe notations such as, "If you can spare the sugar..."

This one explains the benefits as well.

She also has only dial up internet so is never that interested in looking up recipes online like I did.

We both made syrup and came out with exactly the same amount. One large bottle and a little left over, which went into the freezer in my case in two small containers.

F was thinking of going back out to try to find a few more bushes. 

We thought maybe a little jam would be nice.

Jam is always a good idea, isn't it?