Community Supported Agriculture in Brandon, MB

Picking up a share at the park!

Community Supported Agriculture has been around a long time.  From what we've been able to find, it started in Europe in the 1950's, when some people in a Swiss city got tired of high prices for poor quality vegetables.  Those with a rural background knew there was better food out there, so they went to visit some local farmers and made a deal for the farmer to deliver directly to them ever so often.  The concept has slowly spread across the globe, and taken on many different forms.  The basic concept is that members, or shareholders, buy a share of the farmer's harvest and then receive a box of food at designated times.

The CSA concept has seen huge growth in the last ten years or so, as consumers become more interested in  fresh and local food, lowering their carbon foot prints, supporting local economies and knowing who's growing their food and how it's being grown.  There are many variants: some CSA's require the members to work on the farm, there are (often illegal) raw milk CSA's, there are grain, egg and meat CSA's, in warmer climates there are year-round shares, there are winter CSA's of vegetables from the farmer's root cellar.  Any way people want to eat, there is probably a CSA for it, if there are enough people interested!

We certainly can't take responsibility for bringing CSA to Brandon.  That was done by the ever progressive Evelyn and Menno Isaac, long time Farmers Market vendors and some of the first to use organic growing methods in Brandon.  They started a CSA about fifteen years ago with customers interested in a regular supply of their great produce!  We got to know them through Farmers Markets and about eight years ago, they asked us to do one week of CSA so they could have a wee summer vacation - something almost impossible for those of us of selling at Farmers Markets!  We helped out a bit in the next few years, and when the two were ready to largely retire, they asked us to take over the CSA.  What a gift they gave us!  We love growing for our CSA members!  Everyone involved is interested, enthusiastic and committed to healthy food!

The way it works is that people buy a share in the Spring.  They pay at a time when the farmer needs cash flow - Spring is when we're buying our seeds and compost, using extra electricity to keep our green house going, repairing and maintaining equipment, filling the big tank of gasoline for the equipment, hiring a few people to help with planting and weeding.  That's part of the 'support' in Community Supported Agriculture - our community helps to support us in what would otherwise be our 'leanest' times and we support the community by providing a few jobs.  We start pretty much all of our own seeds; indeed seedlings of tomatoes, peppers and herbs are started in the house right now!  By July, when crops are getting going, our shareholders begin to receive their weekly boxes of fresh food.  They'll receive a weekly box through September, until we've 'spent' the money they paid for their shares.  We meet once a week at a designated spot, or home delivery is available for an extra fee.  We offer three different 'sizes' of shares so there's something appropriate for single people, couples, large families or vegetarians.  The pick up is fun: we're there to answer any questions, share recipes and identifying anything that might be new to our families!  We also have a Farmers Market table there with extra selections so that members can 'trade' anything in their baskets that they might not use!

CSA day is both a joy and a frantic scramble!  Our CSA is based on fresh food and we take that seriously!  We might dig potatoes the night before to give them a chance to dry off but everything else is harvested, cleaned and packaged on the meeting day.  We take a walk through our fields the day before to see what is ready and ripe and we make a plan for the next day.  We also work with a couple of other like-minded, chemical-free, local gardeners, to ensure a wide variety of food and we've got to be in touch with them, to see what they'll have ready.  The interesting part is always how much can be harvested and then how we split it among our families!  A lot of decisions, and math calculations, are made on the fly: we harvested eighteen pounds of lettuce and have twenty five families so everybody gets....

When we started organizing Farmers Markets, the Isaacs were one of the first growers to join us.  They introduced us to Samaritan House, our local food bank.  The Isaacs invited Samaritan House to come at the end of Farmers Markets to collect any left over produce that might otherwise go to waste.  Samaritan House would distribute it to their clients the next day, such a brilliant idea as fresh food is often missing at Food Banks!  As we got to know the staff of Samaritan House and as we learned more about the need in our community, we had the idea to promote sponsored CSA shares for Samaritan House.  People can sponsor a share or part of a share for a family, and it is a tax deductible donation; we donate a part of each share, so it's a lower price than a regular share.  We've been so proud of this effort, and so inspired by our CSA members who stepped right up and donated what they could!  Samaritan House supporters have also sponsored families and it really makes a difference in the lives and health of struggling families!

It may be March, but CSA registrations for 2012 have just gone out to our members!  We've been gratified that a number of families immediately emailed that they'd be joining again; some even came to visit us at Seedy Sunday with their cheques in hand.  The support is so invigorating and inspiring!  We can hardly wait for the snow to melt so we can get on the land to grow for 'our' families!  If you're reading this and you're not in Brandon, check out the Manitoba CSA website, Buy Local Think Global website for Canadian and US farms, or in the US check Local Harvest.  Will you be eating fresh and local food this summer?

Homemade Dog Treats!

In the flurry of baking that went on just before Christmas, I finally got around to something I've been meaning to do for quite a while: homemade doggie biscuits.  As we progress in our quest to be more self-sufficient and eat as local as possible, we're working on including our animals as well.  I also like the idea of our doggies not having preservatives, colourings and other unpronounceable ingredients in commercial biscuits.  I chose to try this recipe for cheddar cheese dog biscuits, because our dogs love cheese!

The recipe calls for whole wheat flour, rolled oats, corn meal, eggs, milk, butter, water and chicken bouillon cubs, plus the cheddar.  I used a combination of local whole wheat, rye and spelt flours because I wanted to use up some of the grains in the pantry.  I also substituted my local oat flakes for the rolled oats.  The eggs, of course, came from our chicken coop.  Butter, milk and cheddar came from the store - but we're hoping to remedy that by spring when our goats, hopefully, have babies and start producing milk!  The corn meal and bouillon cubs were store brought, but I'm thinking I could replace the water with my homemade stock to get that 'meaty' flavor.  The recipe comes together quite quickly and is oven baked.

The result - a hit with my dogs!  The cookies are chewy, not crunchy like the commercial biscuit we've been using.  We gifted some little bags of the biscuits to friends with dogs, so I'll be interested to see what the reports will be!  Because there are no preservatives, the biscuits must be refrigerated and last up to a week.  We kept enough for about five days in the fridge and froze the rest.  We made a small size, an inch square, because we (mostly) have small dogs.  Because of the fiber, we've been cautious about feeding them - too much fiber can be a bad thing!

In an interesting coincidence, opening our presents Christmas Day, my sister Cathy had sent a great little kit for making doggie treats: a paw-printed container, a recipe book with eighty recipes and some cute cookie cutters shaped like a bone or a cat!  Stay tuned as we try some of these new recipes!

Making Largely Local Lip Balm

We're rather interested in anything we can make for ourselves these days.  And the more local the better!  If you're not aware, we're participating in The Dark Days Challenge, a group of bloggers writing about the challenges of eating local food through the winter.  If you follow us on Facebook, we're sharing links for everything from making dog biscuits to Christmas decorations to bath and beauty products!  It's interesting to contemplate just how self-sufficient we could be - supplying most of the ingredients ourselves!

We're working on bringing a little boy goat here shortly, so that we will have our three little goatlings pregnant for the spring and will be milking by April.  We hope to provide ourselves with milk, cheese and butter, and to add to our farm income by making and selling goat milk soap and creams!  I use goat milk soaps now, which are fantastic for my somewhat sensitive, dry skin.  Selling milk and milk products is way out of our means, involving regulations galore and investment in a commercial grade kitchen and equipment. In the quiet days of winter, I'd like to get started on trying some products.  Stay tuned for an easy entry into soapmaking!  I remembered a great little recipe for lip balm in one of my favorite magazines, The Herb Quarterly,  in the Summer 2010 issue.  The recipe is by Janice Cox, whose excellent book Natural Beauty At Home I've owned for a while.  With cold weather here to stay, lip balm is something we'll be using regularly!

The basic recipe in the magazine calls for 1 tsp. coconut oil, 1 tsp almond oil and 1/2 tsp. grated beeswax.  You simply microwave the ingredients on low for in short bursts for a total of one to two minutes, mix well and pour into little jars or tubes.  Little pots and tubes are easy to access at craft stores, or online at eBay and the many websites for DIY soap/body product makers.  I tried a batch of this last week using local canola oil, and it is quite nice, but light.  I didn't even think to take pictures, just got motivated one afternoon to make it after I ran across some beautiful, local beeswax from Hive on the Hill at a craft market!  I think I was a little light on the beeswax, got to pack it a bit after grating.  We've got coconut oil here, which we've been experimenting with for cooking and baking because of its health benefits.

I decided on trying a batch with Manitoba Harvest hemp oil, which we use regularly in our smoothies because of it's high level of essential fatty acids; it's local, organic and has some great skin benefits (I'm using a lotion from Manitoba's Hemp Lady right now)!  Because hemp oil has a very low boiling point, I melted the coconut oil and beeswax first, in ten second increments, stirring between blasts, until it was liquid, than added the hemp oil for another twenty seconds.  Total microwaving was about sixty seconds!  I stirred well, than poured into little waiting pots.  I like this balm much better: it's richer and more emollient.  Because of the hemp, it is a lovely green shade, but that doesn't show up on the lips.  It does smell and taste a wee bit 'grassy', but I don't mind that!  Now, I'm wondering what local product could replace the coconut oil, but that's a tough one!  Coconut oil is solid at room temperature, which makes it great for balms, and it has it's own skin benefits.  Maybe a vegetable shortening, although everything in the stores has soy or cottonseed or something not even slightly local.  More research is definitely required!  I've also been thinking about natural colors: I've read about dehydrating beets and carrots and grinding them to powders to add color.  I'm wondering if that would make the balm more prone to spoiling, again more research is required.  I've also got some strawberry 'leather' here that I made this summer but it does have the seeds in it; it might give flavor and color but again, might spoil!  But, I've got all winter to work on it!  Have you ever made your own balms or lotions?  I'd love to hear about it - please leave a comment!

Have You Got A Date With Joel Salatin?

Is Joel Salatin in your datebook?  Don't forget he's going to be in Brandon on December 13th!  He will be here as one of the keynote speakers for the Manitoba Conservation Districts Association annual conference.  Get all the information you need here!

If you have any interest in local food, sustainable food systems, freedom of choice in your food, well, you'll want to hear Mr. Salatin.  He's an interesting and passionate speaker - should be good!  Hope to see you there!  If you're not familiar with him, check out Polyface Farms, his family farm in Virginia.  Polyface and Joel Salatin are on Facebook and Twitter.

Dinner Rustica!

We could say that we were practicing for The Dark Days Challenge, coming up.  We could say it was because we were organizing and cleaning the freezers.  Nonetheless, we ended up having a largely local meal, from disparate parts.  I made tomato sauce for the first time this summer.  I used a marinara recipe from Sherri Brooks Vinton's excellent 'Put 'em Up!'.  It's a multi-purpose sauce that, with tweaking, can become almost anything: pizza sauce, pasta sauce, bruschetta base.  I had some cooked, cubed butternut left from making this delicious pilaf with quinoa, cranberries and nuts for Meatless Monday.  In tidying the freezers, we found one small package of a gift from our neighbors Mike and Naomi of homemade deer/pork sausage.  There is a good chance the deer was harvested from our farm, and the pig was raised by a friend of Mike's.  The sausage was delightful with a smokey flavor and coarse texture.  After cooking the sausage, everything went into a skillet to warm.  We boiled some spaghetti, store bought admittedly.  We'll get back to making pasta from scratch, now that things are almost closed up on the farm.  We accompanied the meal with home made bread from the much-used 'Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day' by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois.  The pasta was topped with some grated parmesan, also store bought.  This time next year we hope to be having homemade goat's milk parmesan.  Dinner was followed by a cup of tea from homegrown spearmint, hung to dry in the back room! Now, that's not bad for eating local without really trying!  Are you still eating local food?

Stocking Samaritan House's Pantry!

Marla and daughter Sonia working through the chill!

Farmer Man trying to hide!

We decided on a new venture for this October: a Farmers Market to benefit our local Food Bank, run by Samaritan House.  Our friends, and farmers market mentors, Menno and Evelyn Isaac had suggested we invite Samaritan House to come at the end of markets we organized.  Any produce unsold would be put to good use by the Food Bank, and we loved the idea!  Over the six years we've been organizing markets here in Brandon we've come to know Marla and Marcia, the driving forces at Samaritan House, quite well and we have sooooo much respect for what they do in the community.  A few years ago, we instituted a sponsorship for CSA shares for Samaritan House clients and it's been quite successful!  It's been a joy to share the veggies with them: so enthusiastic, so appreciative, so interested in sharing cooking and preserving tips!

Our friends at the local businesses Stream 'n' Wood and Lady of the Lake have been interested in a farmers market for a while, so it seemed like a natural to try it out at these side-by-side businesses with a great, visible location!  Today was our second Saturday, and even though it was blustery and chilly, we had a great day!  Both businesses jumped on board with nice bonuses for people who brought something for the Food Bank and we offered a discount of 10% at our table.  It was a good vibe - drop something off for the Food Bank, get your coupons, shop at the Market, shop at the Stream, lunch at the Cafe!  Word's getting out and we had a better turn-out today, with more donations for the Food Bank!  Marla is keeping track of donations, and we'll give you a total at the end of the month!  Meantime, if you're in Brandon on a Saturday in the next three weeks, come on out!  Bring an item (or items!) for the Food Bank, get a deal on great local produce, get a deal at Stream 'n' Wood and make time to take advantage of a deal that day on lunch at the Cafe at Lady of the Lake!  And don't forget: if you've had a great year in your veggie garden, Samaritan House will happily take any excess for their families!  Hope to see you there; stop by and say hi Saturdays in October from 10:00 AM until Noon!

Selling at the Friday Night Farmers Market!

Arrival!

We've had a pal visiting from Vancouver; George wanted to come for a little visit and have a day-in-the-life experience of the little farm in Manitoba.  It's the weekend, so that means the Friday Night Farmers Market and Saturday morning at the Farmers Market at Riverbank Discovery Centre!  It was a great opportunity to get some 'action' photos.  We find that setting up for a market is always a scramble and a bit stressful - there is just never enough time no matter how organized you think you are!  We put George to work in a small way, he helped clean and bundle carrots and beets.  His big job, though, was getting photos of the process at the Farmers Market!

The canopy is interesting on
a windy day!

What goes where?

By the time we arrive at the Friday Night Farmers Markets we've already been at it for six to eight hours!  Farmer Man is usually out the door by around 6:00 AM; first he opens up the chicken coops and turns the goatlings out into their pasture, as well as checking everybody's food and water.  Then he has a quiet tour around, checking on what's ready to harvest.  By 8:00 AM when our little staff arrives, he has a plan and dispatches everyone on their tasks.  This Friday Henry and Blake were off to dig a specific list of seven different kinds of potatoes, Cheryl and Nataliya were off to pick beans.  The harvesting goes on all morning, with the garage being the depot.  As veggies come up to the garage, they are set up for washing, cleaning and drying.  By noon, Cheryl has started to package: weighing and bagging potatoes was first on her list.  Nataliya and I kept harvesting: tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, flowers.  Blake and Henry helped Farmer Man cut summer and winter squash, dig carrots and beets.  By 1:00 PM, Carissa has arrived.  Carissa comes to help sell at the Farmers Market, and immediately jumps into the bagging.

The final touch - prices!

And we're off! 

As always, as the time approaches to leave for the Market, there's a flurry of activity!  Farmer Man is loading the truck with crates of vegetables, I'm picking out baskets for displays and making sure I have a float for change and bags, Carissa is still packaging.  We always run out of time:  this week I kind of forget to cut herbs for Friday Night - it's always something!  By 2:30 we're ready to leave.  Shortly before 3:00 we arrive at Shoppers Mall, the Zellers parking lot.  Buddy George is the official photographer today.  First, the little canopy: always a challenge on a windy day.  This is important to keep the sun of the veggies, protection in case of rain (it was a little cloudy Friday, with something like a 20% chance of a shower) and it gives us a little 'presence'!  Next folding tables get set out, table clothes go on, our sign goes in front of the table, baskets come out of the truck.  We start unloading crates from the truck; we need to get some emptied into baskets because we use empties as the base for little 'tables' of crates of squash.  Sorting, arranging, displaying, all with that deadline of a 4:00 PM start.  Next, clips for little cards with the name, price and maybe a little description on each item.  This time of year, there is really not enough room for all the goodies.  A last check: everything is out, everything is accessible, everything has a price!  The big whistle at 4:00 PM and we're having a Farmers Market!  George found it so crazy, busy and crowded that he had to get out of there!  He didn't know people were so enthusiastic about fresh, local vegetables!

Back at home, Farmer Man starts after supper with harvesting for Saturday mornings' Farmers Market.  Henry came back for a couple of hours and helped dig more potatoes and onions.  Farmer Man and I are in touch by phone, so I can let him know what's selling out.  I'm home from the market by shortly after 7:30 PM, and Farmer Man, George and I have a little visit and a bite to eat.  We're up early Saturday morning to dig more carrots and such.  That gets a little harder as we get later in the season because it gets dark earlier on Friday evenings and stays dark later on Saturday mornings!  Farmer Man has been known to harvest late in September with a head lamp on over his ball cap!  Cheryl will come at 8:00 AM on Saturday morning to help clean and package and then her and I are off to the Farmers Market at Riverbank Discovery Centre, leaving at 9:00 AM for at 10:00 AM start.  By Saturday afternoon at 2:00 PM - it's nap time!  Whew!

Entertaining at the Friday Night Farmers Market!

Roxanne from Maple Valley 

'Diamond Dust' doin' it up!

A great night at the Friday Night Farmers Market!  'Diamond Dust', a great little duo from Vancouver, dropped by to play on their cross-Canada tour!  Added a great vibe to the Market!  Gardens are finally kicking into gear here in Brandon - Maple Valley Farm's table was really 'groaning' with good stuff for the first time this year!  We had a great pick on raspberries, the first good pick of beans, and finally some summer squash: some zucchini, some Italian Largo and one nice Patty Pan!  Our herbs are doing really well, and we made some people really happy with some fresh dill to go with our baby potatoes, and a nice cut of basil!   If you'd like to hear 'Diamond Dust', a folk/rock singer/songwriting duo - they'll be at the fabulous Siesta Cafe in Clear Lake on Sunday night at 7:00 PM I do believe!

That's What I'm Talking About!

After a slow start, the Farmers Markets are kicking into gear.  With a little warm weather this week, gardens are starting to take off, and more market gardeners have something ready to sell.  Local food is getting a whole lot easier in Brandon!  We have made the tough decision to cancel the Thursday Night Farmers Market at Riverbank Discovery; there is just not enough produce or vendors to fill four markets a week.  Some of our poor grower friends are still under water from flooding, and will never make it to market this year.  The Friday Night Farmers Market had more vendors, more customers and more action this week!  Fresh strawberries from Portage were a nice addition, since strawberries are going to be a little rare around here this year due to the flooding.  Saturday Morning at Riverbank Discovery Centre was also bigger and better, and nice strawberries from Glenboro were a hit.  For us, a good cut of some lettuces (finally) including baby romaine, a buttercrunch type and a gorgeous, frilly loose leaf.  We had the first little dig of baby potatoes, the last cut of garlic scapes and loads of fresh herbs with a nice cut of cilantro!  The 2010 jams are selling out, with lots of interest in my sugar free jams, made with honey using the awesome Pomona's Pectin.  Coming home with me both nights: strawberries!  Let the jamming begin for 2011!

We've Got Mushrooms!

Wow, this is easier than I thought!  In just a short time, we've got Shiitake mushrooms.  Posted here about receiving a mushroom log from Richter's Herbs.  With just a little maintenance, we've got mushrooms!  And lots of things bubbling on the surface of the log, which should become mushrooms soon.  The process has really been quite simple: make slits in the bag the log was shipped in, run water through the bag, find a cool place with indirect light.  We've had to keep up the humidity which we've achieved by wrapping the log, on a seed tray, in a clear plastic bag.  What's really exciting:  the oyster mushroom log just arrived!

We're Growing Mushrooms!

Yep, we're giving it a try.  Got a shiitake mushroom kit from Richters Herbs, which arrived in the mail a couple of days ago.  It's a block composed of alder sawdust, millet grain, wheat bran and crushed limestone, about the size of a shoebox.  It comes already inoculated with shiitake spawn.  Looks weird:  kind of lumpy, almost moldy, muddy.....Apparently, we must keep it cool, in the 10 - 18 Celsius range (50-65F), and it needs some indirect sunlight or the light from a fluorescent lamp 3 meters (10 feet) away will do.  We must retain humidity around it.  We're going to keep it in the foyer closet, for the coolness, and we can keep the closet door just cracked a bit to let it some light.  We're going to keep it in one of our seeding trays with the plastic lid to keep the humidity up.  It requires attention; not only to keep the humidity up, but also as mushrooms start to grow we've got to be prepared to slit the plastic bag holding the block.  Fingers crossed, we'll be eating some local shiitake mushrooms in 2 - 3 weeks.

Making Manitoba Maple Syrup, Part 2

Let the cooking begin!  Managed to check in with Amanda and Ed this afternoon.  The sap flow is slowing (it's about a two week window of opportunity Ed figures), but they have buckets and buckets of sap so it's time to start making syrup.  Now, everybody has heard of the sugar shack, right?  I asked why all the cooking is done outside and Amanda told me that it's not only because you're boiling off most of a five gallon bucket of water.  The humidity from that alone would be a little wild in the house but the bigger problem is that the moisture produced is heavy with residue; the sugar shack's roof close to the boiling pots already felt a little 'slimey'.  Amanda told me that even cooking outside, she will feel the residue in her hair and on her face tonight!  One certainly wouldn't want that in the house!

Amanda and Ed's sugar shack is a pretty easy A-frame of wood and metal siding.  It's really just about cutting the wind and keeping snow, rain and debris from getting into the work area.  Inside, they've repurposed a wood stove that used to be in the house.  They also have a little propane camp stove going on the side.  Apparently, the camp stove is a bit more efficient; it brings the pots to a boil faster and keeps them boiling easier.  The wood stove is more cost-effective because they're using wood from their own lot, which they cut each year for their indoor heating.  Beyond that it's really a matter of scraping together all the old pots, pans, roasters and anything else that will hold liquid and heat up!  The length of time the sap is boiled varies widely: it not only depends on the sap itself, but the temperature of the stove, the temperature outside and such variables.  It is possible to boil the sap too long, and end up with something more like taffy or even, if you're really not paying attention, hard candy!  Amanda will largely be monitoring the 'boil' all the time!

I still find it rather incredible that a five gallon pail of clear sap will boil down to one little pint of golden syrup.  Amanda and Ed will pour the syrup hot into canning jars and the jars will seal themselves.  They don't filter their syrup, so they sometimes end up with a little bit of sediment on the bottom of the jar.  The jars are not put into a water bath canner or anything like that.  Amanda and Ed know they stay good for, well, almost a year is about all they've ever been around!  They've usually run out before it's time to tap again!  After opening a jar, it should be kept in the fridge!  Makes it all seem rather easy, doesn't it?  

Making Manitoba Maple Syrup, Part 1

It must be Spring - people around here are starting to make maple syrup!  The sap is rising and, as our friend Dave Barnes says: "The trees are bleeding for us!"  Now, first you must know that around here nobody is tapping sugar maples (Acer saccharum); the true sugar maple just doesn't grow well here, we're a little too cold and too dry.  They are hard to get established as they seem to suffer severe die back during a lot of winters.  Around here people are tapping Manitoba maples or box elders (Acer negundo).  Our neighbours Amanda and Ed are experienced 'tappers' and they describe the sugar maple syrup as having a slight vanilla flavor not apparent in Manitoba maple syrup.  I have always thought of our local syrup as having a hint of an herbal taste.  The point being it's not the same, but it's still darn good.

I was at Dave's place yesterday and he's got a lot of trees tapped throughout his wood lot.  Dave is, of course, our local Green Party candidate, so he's a little busy and I just hope he finds the time to cook his syrup.  I was down to visit Amanda and Ed today and had a great chance to learn a few things.   Ed tapped a tree while I was there: drill a hole (looked to be an inch deep, I forgot to ask) and tap in the special spigot.  Really, it was that easy!  Within seconds a slow drip started.  The sap coming out is crystal clear and tastes, well, like nothing.  This really surprised me; it's not sweet in the slightest and has virtually no taste, maybe a faint, grassy note.  Even more surprising to me is that a five gallon bucket of this clear liquid will be boiled down to a mere pint of golden goodness.  No wonder it's a little pricey - that's a lot of work for a pint!  How fast the sap is produced is totally weather dependant - cooler days it is flowing more slowly.  This doesn't hurt the tree because it's only tapped in one of the many 'veins' that carries the sap.  Ed told me that he had heard that some established sugar maples that were not getting tapped as usual due to poor travelling conditions and  were bursting from an excess of sap in the trunks.  Isn't Mother Nature amazing!

Homemade Pasta - Round Two!

Our first foray into making pasta didn't go that well. It tasted good, but was a sticky mess and jammed up our new pasta machine. We were at our friends Joe and Calla's for dinner last weekend and they had made great pasta. So, we knew it was time to get back at it! This time, we had some good advice from Joe and Calla, and we'd watched some videos on YouTube. The old adage 'A picture is worth a thousand words' seems to be very true for us when it comes to making pasta. We had a few 'aha' moments and the second try at making pasta went much, much better. Check out Jamie Oliver making pasta here and some other guy here. It's really quite easy when you know what you're doing! And quite fast! The basic recipe: 100 grams of flour and one egg per person. We actually had a lot of pasta for the two of us. The secret seems to be dusting with lots of flour as you run it through the machine. We tried Jamie's way of cutting the pasta by hand instead of changing over the machine to the pasta cutter. We cut it at about fettuccine width (we thought) by it cooked up super fat at about an inch wide! Maybe we overcooked it. Nonetheless, is was not a big lump and it was very tasty! We'll do that again, soon! The pasta was using local flour and our eggs (the sauce was totally not local - we won't even go there). Give the videos a watch, and then try it yourself!

Dark Days Challenge: Kaput, but.....

Poor Laura, at The Urbanhennery, the host of The Dark Days Challenge. She's had one heck of a winter! Outrageous weather, old farm house damaged, power problems, road problems, the loss of some hens and even the loss of a beloved horse. It's more than anyone should have to bear. So, everyone participating in the Dark Days got an email a while back that she had ended up just toooooo far behind to ever catch up. And we all understand. But have we stopped eating local? No way!

Eating local is, to some extent, a way of life for us now. Not that we're trying to be off-grid, self-sufficient hermits or anything! It's just that we're in the position to supply ourselves, to know how our food was raised, have great tasting and healthy food, save some money and stuff like that. Plus, since we're in the business of selling our stuff, we like to buy from people around here and support them, lower our carbon foot print - you know! So, just as we were running out of our own garden carrots, just after Christmas, we saw an ad on eBrandon advertising carrots! They're lovely - almost as good as ours. If you're in the Westman area, they came from Peters Market Garden in Virden, email petersmarketgarden@rfnow.com; Marlin comes into Brandon fairly regularly so it's not hard to connect with him for pick-up! I was also rushing through the Town Centre last Friday to pick up honey from Mann Apiaries and I think I saw some carrots on a vendors' table. Of course, if you're looking for potatoes, we can help with that!

We've also received an awesome gift to help us eat local! Our good neighbours Mike and Naomi have been reading about the Dark Days Challenge here on this blog and our foray into pasta making. They've given us some of their homemade canned tomatoes and sauce! They've also been making sausage this week, probably from deer that Mike has harvested right around here! They've offered to share some of that with us, too! Love that - thank you, Mike and Naomi. Now I know who to call, too, when I give canning tomato sauce a try for the first time this summer!

Jam Swap!

I love blogging for the connections and on-line friends you can acquire! And all the stuff you can learn! I became aware of Lindsay, of 100 Mile Locavores thru the Dark Days Challenge, which she participated in for the first time this year. We've got a lot in common: both trying to eat local, both growing and preserving food, both selling at Farmers Market. She also has an awesome canning site called Uncanny Preserves - Thinking outside the jar. Some great info on that site, not only preserving, but using preserves in some great recipes! She emailed me inquiring about nanking cherries, something she's not familiar with. She proposed a swap: some of her homemade wild blueberry jam for a jar of our homegrown, homemade nanking cherry jam. So, she sent a little package from New Brunswick with the wild blueberry jam but also some carrot apple butter, I sent a package with nanking jelly and grape jelly to New Brunswick! The wild blueberry jam is awesome: some of the best blueberry flavor I've ever had out of jar! We've haven't tried the butter, but I'm currently fascinated by butters. I've been reading about them on some of my other fav canning site like Tigress in a Jam and Food in Jars. I'm going to give butters a try this summer! Also loved seeing someone doing something a little different with their presentation: Lindsay has great little inserts on the top of the jars, with her logo, and ties on a nice little card with the same logo with info on the product. Looks and tastes great! Are you canning?

Dark Days Challenge: Week 7

A couple of good scores this week! Finally, local butter! In a little trip to Two Farm Kids, I found butter from Notre Dame Creamery, from Notre Dame de Lourdes, which is southeast of us. And, local seafood! Fresh pickerel from Lake Winnipeg showed up at the big-box grocery store! It's a little, wee bit out of the official range, but so close......!!

So, pickerel breaded and baked, with steamed garden carrots, the last of our beets, cubed buttercup squash and some parsnips. Mashed German Butterball potatoes completed the plate. A nice change from our home grown pork! The buttercup squash was delightful! I think it's getting sweeter in storage! Peeled and cut into one inch cubes, it steamed up very quickly.

We've also been thinking French Canadian meat pie or tortiere! We've got the stuff, and it would be a nice change from the meatloaf we make so often. Online, the recipes are numerous, with a myriad of variations. We made the crust with local flour, and adapted the recipe for the meat mixture. True tortiere involves cinnamon and all spice, and we passed on those totally non-local spices and used our own dried thyme and sage. Simply browned the meat, adding some homegrown onions and some of the left over mashed potatoes from pickerel night. Into the crust and baked! We ended up using organic ground beef and lamb from our friends at Logan Farms; our pork is a little fatty, but I think it would work well. Next time! Served with steamed buttercup squash and some fresh sprouts! The leftovers were good the next day, too! The variations on this are quite limitless; next time we may work in some of our (dwindling) carrots or other veggies.

Dark Days Challenge: Week 5

Eating local through the dark days of winter: that is the Challenge! Now, if you follow this blog, you know that Aagaard Farms is well on it's way with our own homegrown pork, fresh eggs from The Hens and a root cellar full of potatoes, winter squash, some onions and a wee bit of garlic. There's still a small amount of carrots and parsnips in the fridge. We're on the Prairies, so local grains are quite readily available. Surprisingly, even though there are cows everywhere around here, local milk, butter and cheese are really, really hard! I have sourced some great goat cheese from Iles de Chenes, Manitoba - just a wee bit out of the mileage limit. So far, though, it's a rather limited diet. We're missing greens! So, it was definitely time to get out the Biosta Sprouter. This is a great gadget to get sprouts going for fresh, local, organic greens. As we get our seed orders in, we're also getting some micro green and mesclun mix seeds, which we'll start in flats as soon as they arrive. So, we've got breakfast down, with our own eggs, bacon and local grains for oatmeal. Now, lunch is looking better, with sandwiches of homemade bread, fresh sprouts and (sort of) local cheese. Making bread has become a part of the regular routine - love that 'Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day' by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois! (If you grab a copy of the book from the Amazon link in the sidebar, The Hens will get some extra treats!) I'm going to give another try at making cheese, soon. If nothing else I can find organic milk, even if it isn't local! Dinner, well, we know it's largely going to involve pork, potatoes and winter squash - we've just got to find some new recipes to keep things interesting!

Hey, Manitoba Gardeners - Get Some Schoolin'!

With frigid weather upon us, what are Manitobans going to do with some spare time? Aside from leaving for warmer climates? Yes, there's skating, skiing, snowmobiling and the like, but we can only spend so much time outside before, well, frost bite sets in! So, how about some warm and cozy classes! Some great things are being offered over the next few months in Manitoba, particularly in Winnipeg! First, the Organic Council is offering 'Crop Rotation for the Market Gardener'? on January 15th in Winnipeg. Or 'Marketing for the Farmers Market Vendor' later in January. Check out these classes and others here.

Manitoba Eco Network has some great listings! They've got film festivals, community forums and some great workshops coming up. I like 'Naturescape: Prairie Transformations for Urban Gardeners' and 'Naturescape: Urban Eatin' garden Co-op Indoor Gardener Workshop'. Check it out here!

And don't forget the 'Growing Local Conference' organized by Food Matters Manitoba, February 24 - 26 in Winnipeg. Feature speaker this year is Joel Salatin of Food Inc., yes, the Joel Salatin! I think our friend Dwayne of Logan Farms will be speaking, too! Lots of great info if you're interested in eating local and producing local food! Get more info on the conference here.

Dark Days Challenge: Week 1

With Farmer Man working long hours and every day at the Christmas Tree Lot, we're not sitting down together for a lot of meals. But, we knew he'd get off early yesterday, so we planned our first Dark Days meal. We did good, too! Roasted organic lamb chops from our friends Duane and Shelley at Logan Farms in Nesbitt, Manitoba. Some of the nicest lamb we've every had, just yummy. A trip to our own root cellar yielded a spaghetti squash and some lovely 'Blue Mac' potatoes from our garden. 'Blue Mac' potatoes have a purple/blue skin that cooks up pale beige. It's kind of in between the smoothness of a red potato and the fluffiness of a white potato. We cooked up extra for some nice hash browns one of these mornings. The storage drawer in the fridge has some of our own garden carrots and some fresh rosemary came from the little bush in sun room. We roasted the squash and the lamb in the oven, steamed the potatoes and carrots. Simple but good!