New Workshops for Spring! Homesteading Skills, Fermented Foods, Permaculture & More...

Our new 2014 Spring Workshop Series is now posted and open for REGISTRATION HERE.

Improve your homesteading kitchen skills with topics such as cultured foods (sourdough, sauerkraut & kimchi, kombucha, and yogurt/kefir making); learn more about how to identify and use wild edible plants; work on a permaculture design for your yard!  We look forward to hosting all these workshops again and hope to see you there.  All workshops are held right here at our little homestead in the city Little City Farm, in Kitchener.

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SAT, MARCH 15 from 1-4 pm - INTRO TO TRADITIONAL SOAP MAKING
Cost: $50 - Limited space - pre-registration required.
With Karin Kliewer, from Little City Farm.
Learn to make beautiful all-natural healing soaps using nourishing oils, organic botanicals, and pure essential oils. During this popular busy hands-on workshop each participant will make their own 2 lb batch of cold process soap from scratch using recipe and ingredients provided. We'll talk about various soap making techniques, where to source ingredients, and the properties that various ingredients such as clays, botanicals, oils and essential oils add to your soap. Participants will need to bring a few simple supplies.

NEW THIS YEAR: Participants have the option to purchase a handcrafted wooden soap mold from Little City Farm in advance. More details about what to bring will be provided upon registration.

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 SAT, MARCH 22 from 1-2:30 pm – CULTURED KITCHEN SERIES: SAUERKRAUT & KIMCHI
Cost: $35 - Limited space - pre-registration required.
Learn about the health benefits of making live-cultured ferments at home. In this practical hands-on workshop we'll be making a batch of sauerkraut and kimchi from scratch. You'll leave with all the knowledge you need to make delicious successful cabbage ferments at home. Take home jar of sauerkraut/kimchi – all supplies, instruction and recipes provided. Please bring an apron, cutting board and knife.

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SAT, APRIL 5 – from 1-3 pm - CULTURED KITCHEN SERIES: YOGURT MAKING
Cost: $35 - Limited space - pre-registration required.
Learn about the benefits of live-cultured foods, including homemade yogurt. In this practical hands-on workshop we'll be making a batch of yogurt, and yogurt cheese. Take home jar of live cultured yogurt and bowl of yogurt cheese! Please bring apron, thick towel, stainless steel bowl and colander. All supplies, instruction and recipes provided.

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SAT, APRIL 12 - from 1-3 pm - CULTURED KITCHEN SERIES: SOURDOUGH STARTERS
Cost: $35 - Limited space - pre-registration required.
Make beautiful healthful sourdough bread from your own starter at home! The sourdough process uses wild yeast and fermentation, and often this type of bread is more digestable than bread made with commercial yeast. Learn how to maintain a sourdough starter, benefits of eating sourdough bread, and other ways to use your starter (e.g. pancakes, muffins). Experience the sourdough bread making process from start to finish, take home your own jar of sourdough starter and taste samples of sourdough bread. All supplies, instruction and recipes provided. Please bring along an apron.

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SAT, APRIL 26 - from 10-11:30 am - FELTED SOAP!
Cost: $25 - Limited space - pre-registration required.
Felted soap combines soap with washcloth, all in one! Learn the art of making beautiful felted soap with natural wool, dyed in colourful shades. In this hands-on workshop participants will learn about wet felting, and each make 2 small bars of felted soap to take home. All supplies and instruction provided. Bring apron or old clothes. Children aged 5+ welcome if accompanied by an adult (if you wish to bring your child please notify us in at time of registering).

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SAT, APRIL 26 - from 1-3 pm - INTRO TO PERMACULTURE
Cost: $25 - Limited space - pre-registration required.
With Tracie Seedhouse of Earthchild Design
Permaculture is a design system that incorporates agriculture, culture and sustainability to create a self-sustaining, life enhancing landscape/lifestyle. In this practical workshop you will be walked through the basic principles of permaculture, look at some examples of permaculture at Little City Farm, and have the opportunity to use these concepts to work on design ideas for your own garden/yard. Supplies, instruction and resources provided. Bring along a pencil/pen/marker and coloured pencils for simple sketching. This is an outdoor workshop, so please dress for the weather (we will move indoors in case of extreme weather)

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SAT, MAY 10 - from 1-3 pm - WILD SPRING EDIBLES
Cost: $25 - Limited space - pre-registration required.
With Jackie McMillan, local wild foods educator.
This popular annual workshop teaches you all about how to find, safely identify, carefully harvest, and prepare wild spring edibles for eating. We'll talk about wild foods such as wild leeks, dandelion, fiddleheads, wood sorrel, violets, burdock root, and many other commonly found edible greens, flowers, roots and herbs. Taste delicious samples as part of this workshop. Please dress for the weather as this is an outdoor workshop.

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SAT, JUNE 15 - from 1-3 pm - CULTURED KITCHEN SERIES: KOMBUCHA
Cost: $35 - Limited space - pre-registration required.
With Jon Spee.

Kombucha is an ancient probiotic tea beverage that is delicious and nourishing.  Luckily it just takes a few ingredients and supplies and can be made at home.  Learn about the art of fermenting Kombucha, taking care of a SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast), adding flavours, and bottling, as well as a few other naturally fermented beverages that can be made at home.  Workshop will be hands on and attendees will leave with their own batch of Kombucha started and ready to ferment at home.  Instruction, recipes and supplies provided. Please bring an apron.
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Making your own yogurt

We're not milk drinkers, but we do love to eat live culture yogurt with homemade applesauce and granola for breakfast - mmmm - a great alternative to our usual winter oatmeal.  We try to make our own yogurt as often as possible, and it's much more economical, as well as satisfying, to do so.
 
Here is our easy no-fail yogurt method:

You will need:
1 gallon (4 litres) milk (use raw, or not ultra high pasteurized milk)
1/4 cup live culture yogurt from your last batch (or from the store)
Dairy/candy thermometre
Clean sterilized mason jars, rings and lids

Large stainless steel pot
Wooden spoon
Several towels or old blanket

Heat the milk to just under 100F (do not go over 100F, as this kills the living cultures).  Heat over low to medium heat to avoid scalding, and stir occasionally.  Have your jars ready - washed, dried, and sterilized by pouring boiling water in them.  Set them into a heat proof baking pan (I use a large glass cake pan).


When milk has warmed sufficiently, take off heat and gently stir in the yogurt culture.  Pour into your clean jars, cap with lids but do not tighten lids too much.  Pour boiled water into the pan around the jars, and wrap in old towels.  Set in a warm, draft-free place like a kitchen counter.  Add more hot water throughout the day to keep the temperature as even as possible.  Other people set the jars on a heating pad, or near a wood stove or oven.  The milk will still form yogurt if you don't keep heat even, but it will be a nicer thicker yogurt if it's warmed longer...pour off the whey which may have separated, and use this in smoothies, or baking, etc.

Unwrap the next day, after aprox. 24 hours.  Add honey or fruit if you like for sweetener.  Refrigerate and make sure to reserve a little of this yogurt for your next batch!  Enjoy!

Raw Milk and easy homemade yogurt

We were gifted with a surprise 2 litres of raw milk from a friend on a nearby farm (thank you Rosemary!) I was surprised to realize I had never tasted raw milk before in my life. The cream that rises to the top certainly is divine. It's currently illegal to sell raw milk in Ontario it's not that easy to come by (unless you find a farm family who will gift or barter it to you).

Many Ontarians will have heard about Michael Schmidt, the farmer from Grey County who tried numerous times to offer raw milk to his long list of customers who clamour for it. He set up a dairy co-op (Cow Share), with members "owning" their cow, while Schmidt housed, fed and milked them. Members would then be able to pick up their raw milk as necessary - a great arrangement, until the government caught up with him and shut that project down. He has been battling this out in the courts for years, even doing a hunger strike at one point to raise awareness about his cause and legalizing the sale of raw milk. When recently interviewed on CBC radio, he made a good point - we can purchase almost anything else in a raw state in the store (raw fruit, vegetables, meat, sushi, etc), not to mention cigarettes and alcohol (which have obvious health impacts), yet consumers aren't given the right to buy raw milk if they so choose. (see www.glencoltonfarms.com)

So we felt blessed by this unexpected gift of the precious raw milk. There are many theories about the health benefits of raw milk as well as other traditional foods (see, for example, www.raw-milk-facts.com). As we are not in the habit of drinking cow's milk, but do love to make homemade yogurt, I decided to make up a batch of yogurt last night. This morning, we had the richest, creamiest dense yogurt we've ever tasted! With canned peaches from last summer and homemade granola it was quite a breakfast treat, more like dessert really!

Here's the recipe (plus a few tips from my mom, who grew up on a largely self-sufficient farm in the 1950's). I'm going to attempt to make mozzarella with the remaining milk, something which is difficult to do with regular store-purchased milk as the high pasteurizing results in problems with cheesemaking (at least in the reading I've done, and the one dismall attempt at making mozzarella last year which resulted in something more like cottage cheese crumbs!). With the left-over cream I'm going to make butter.

Easy Dependable Yogurt (from Simply in Season)

4 cups (1 litre) raw or store-bought fresh milk
1/8 cup yogurt starter
1/4 cup honey or maple syrup (optional)
1 tsp vanilla (optional)
fresh fruit (optional)

1) Put milk in saucepan and scald by heating until tiny bubbles form on edges of the milk, but do not bring to a boil. Pour into another container to cool. Insert cooking thermometre to measure temperature.

2) Fill canning jar or thermos with hot water. Set in hot water bath (in a baking pan). Wait for milk to cool to 105-110F / 40-45C.

3) Once milk reaches the desired temperature, stir in yogurt starter (we use 1/8 cup natural yogurt left-over from last batch, or live-culture natural plain yogurt from the store). Empty canning jar or thermos, pour in milk mixture and screw on the lid. Do not move this canning jar or thermos during incubation period.

4) After 4-6 hours, check yogurt for desired consistency. The canning jar/thermos should stay at aroun 105-110F / 40-45C for the full length of incubation. Tips on keeping the jar warm: - keep in warm water bath, and continue to top up the warm water during incubation time
- wrap jar in towel to keep insulated
- keep jar in oven with pilot light on (or lowest setting)
- keep jar in cooler/ice chest that's filled with hot water
- set jar in pan of warm water on the stove and occasionally turn the stove on briefly
- set jar under a tea cozy

5) Do not stir finished yogurt too much. Fold in sweetener and fruit. If you forget about the yogurt and leave it too long, pour off water (whey) that forms on top and add additonal sweetened if necessary.