Outdoor baking day to celebrate the first days of winter

We love using our wood-fired cob oven in all seasons, but there is something so especially cozy about firing up the oven for baking bread on a cold morning.   December is here, and the winds are chilly!  We celebrated the first bits of snowfall with warm flatbreads (these were hearty gluten-free flaxseed pitas) fresh from the oven, and then baked pears in the left over heat after the bread was done (my daughter's idea!). 

Come check out our wood-fired oven on Sat Dec 10 during our Little Bird Told Me handmade holiday sale.  The fire will be lit so you can warm yourself after browsing our wonderful vendors.

Winter-Spring 2016 Workshops for Sustainable Living NOW POSTED!!

Winter-Spring 2016 Workshops for Sustainble Living NOW POSTED!

We are so excited to share our new line-up of classes with you, coming this January through May (more classes to come for summer-fall).

Workshops fill up quickly so please check our website here to sign up for your choice of classes.  Consider giving a workshop as a unique holiday gift to a family member or friend.  We now offer gift certificates for Little City Farm classes, events and B&B stays.

Workshops include soap making, cheese making, fermenting foods, sourdough, kombucha, herbal winter remedies, and much more!

Also don't forget to check out our special Homesteading Club for Kids this coming March Break, our Family Whole Food Series (come make pie and bread with your kids!), and the Practical Herbalist Series. 

Baking Whole Grain Bread with Children

What a fun workshop we had here today!  Thirteen eager kids (aged 4-12) were over to learn about baking bread: working with sourdough, kneading and shaping their own loaves, making their own sourdough starter culture, grinding whole grains into flour, and baking the loaves in our wood-fired cob oven!  We talked about breads from around the world, and what makes up bread (flour/grain, water, salt and yeast - and heat!).  And there was lots of bread eating, laughing, creating, more eating, and playing - not to mention lots of flour and dough everywhere!   Hands-on learning is always so inspiring to watch - we see the transformation of words and ideas into tangible knowledge that is learned through tactile experience (ideally using all the senses like today - taste, smell, touch, etc - as the ideal way to let a new concept really sink in). We hope to offer more bread classes (for kids and adults) again soon. 

Service berry season & pie recipe

The service berries are ready!  Service berries (aka. June berries, or Saskatoon berries) are small trees or large shrubs, with delicious edible sweet berries that almost have a taste similar to wild blueberries.  It's looking like an amazing year for these berries so far, as all the trees that line boulevards in our neighbourhood are loaded with berries.  We have been so pleased for discover the service berry over the past years, as we wild forage around the city.  It seems to be a common tree to be planted by the city as part of their landscaping design, and we counted 30 service berry trees lining the sidewalk of one street not far from our house.  These trees eventually get too big to fully harvest without using ladders, and the birds do love the berries too (so they take the higher ones which works out just fine).  However, on our daily walks around town (now always with extra bags and containers along, just in case we need to harvest something) my daughter and I have been able to gather small handfuls from various trees we pass - enough to make a batch of mini pies, a few dozen muffins, and put away some berries in the freezer for winter.

Service Berry Pie with Butter Crust

Best Butter Crust
1 1/2 cups spelt or kamut flour (or wheat, or combination)
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup chilled organic butter (or coconut oil)
3-4 Tbsp ice water

Mix flour, salt and butter with hands to form small pea-sized bits.
Add water one Tbsp at a time, mixing just until dough comes together.  Do not overmix.
Chill for at least 30 min, then roll out dough using extra flour on table top.
Makes 1 large pie.

Service Berry Filling
4-6 cups service berries (or mix of berries)
2 Tbsp arrowroot
a few Tbsp water
cinnamon
maple syrup

Mix filling, add to unbaked pie shell.  Bake at 350F oven for about 30 min.

New Favourite Sourdough Bread

We are back to making our weekly sourdough and oh, how we love baking bread.  Usually our daughter makes her own mini loaves and loves to embellish them with seeds, nuts, spices, fancy patterns on the top, or just turn them into fun shapes.  We love the children's book Suzie's Sourdough Circus, by Kathy Sager, which is actually an entertaining story that clearly and creatively describes what is happening during the sourdough process (in the words of the little sourdough critters, they say "food scrumptious food, we forget all our troubles.  Eat it all up, and then we blow bubbles.  This is a sourdough starter celebration!  We sing and we dance in wild fermentation!").  In the back of the book are several amazing recipes (like sourdough bread, sourdough pancakes, and sourdough marbled chocolate cake which makes a superb birthday cake).  We've been using her sourdough bread recipe lately.  It's a new favourite - so dense yet moist, and nicely works it's sourdough magic overnight so we can take our time fitting bread making into our busy life.  Our latest family winter favourite snack is fresh sourdough bread spread with tahini and apple butter - yummm!

What to do on a cold snowy morning? Two delicious ideas

Oh, what to do on a cold snowy morning? Well we could stay in bed and read books, or make a cozy fire and play a boardgame...or bundle up and have some snowy adventures outside.

We always try to head for the outdoors.  Today, to make things different, we decided to use two winter cooking ideas from The Kids Outdoor Adventure Book - which is packed full of simple seasonal ideas for getting you and your kids outside.

First we collected the most pristine newly fallen snow to make snow icecream (strawberry coconut was our blend - yum), and then we built up a little bonfire in the backyard to bake bannock. There is nothing like hot smoke-flavoured bannock covered with melting butter and jam or applebutter, eaten right off a stick (it needs to be slightly burnt too to be just right). What a delicious morning it turned out to be, and no one seemed to feel too cold.  Here are our own slightly healthier versions of tried-and-true recipes.

Easy Snow Ice Cream (vegan, gluten-free)
Ingredients:
10 cups freshly fallen clean snow
1 1/2 cups organic sugar or slightly less maple syrup or sweetener of your choice
1 cup organic coconut milk
1 cup frozen strawberries (or other fruit)
1 tsp pure vanilla

To do:
Blend half the snow and the rest of the ingredients well in a blender.
Keep it moving quickly so the icecream doesn't get too warm.
Fold in the rest of the snow and stir gently.  Eat immediately.  It tastes like sorbet.
Store the rest in a tub in your freezer.

Wood-Fired Bannock (on a stick)
4 cups spelt flour
1 1/2 cups water
1 tsp sea salt
5 Tbsp baking powder

To do:
Mix dry ingredients in mid sized bowl
Mix in water and knead gently to form a sticky ball.
Take bannock outside to your fire (best to have some embers or coals on the side to toast over).
Wrap a small piece of bannock into a log shape around a thumb-sized stick.
Hold over the embers and let the bannock toast to a nice golden brown, so it's baked all the way through.
Enjoy with butter and jam, or applebutter (or your favourite spreads).
Best eaten outdoors on a winters day, near a hot bonfire, with friends.

  

Fluffy Chia Spelt Biscuits

Oh yum!  We've been enjoying winter soups and stews to warm us these past colds days.  I love to always keep a pot of soup going on the stove, ready for a cozy quick nourishing meal.  We like to have sourdough bread or these chia biscuits alongside a bowl of hearty soup.  Here is a simple recipe for the fluffiest chia biscuits I have ever made.  We experiment with different grains, but like whole spelt flour the best.  They can also be made gluten-free by substituting GF flours for the spelt.  These biscuits cut out well, and are fun for kids to shape or cut to their heart's desire.  Isn't eating a star or heart shaped biscuit more delicious, especially if it was made by little hands?

Fluffy Chia Spelt Biscuits
Yields: approx. 10 large biscuits

1 1/4 cups whole spelt flour (or flour of your choice)
3/4 cup arrowroot flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
3/4 tsp sea salt
10 Tbsp organic butter
1 cup coconut milk (or other dairy or substitute)
2 Tbsp black chia seeds, ground finely

1) Preheat oven to 425 F.
2) Lightly oil baking sheet or line with parchment paper.
3) Mix together the dry ingedients in one bowl, and then add butter.
4) Blend butter using your fingers so the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  It's ok to have pieces of butter left in the mixture as this makes the biscuits flaky.
5) Mix wet ingredients in another small bowl and let sit for 5 minutes to thicken.
6) Then form dough by mixing wet into dry.  Mix lightly to knead dough into two balls.
7) Pat dough into 1 inch rounds on a floured surface.  Cut into rounds or shapes.
8) Bake for 15 minutes.  Serve warm with butter or another delicious spread.

Easiest Gluten-free Vegan Granola Bars with Options!

Here's a new simple granola bar recipe that even our 6 year old daughter can make (with only a tiny bit of help)!  They store well, pack a good amount of protein, and are delicious.
 
Easiest Gluten-Free Vegan Granola Bars with variations

Basic Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups whole oats (gluten free if you want a gluten-free bar)
1 1/2 cups brown rice crisp cereal (or use ground nuts for slightly different texture)
1/2 cup dried fruit (we love sour cherries, or cranberries)
1 cup total dried seeds or nuts of choice (we love pumpkin, sunflower, sesame seeds, or walnuts)
1/4 cup unhulled hemp seeds
1/4 cup coconut (unsweetened, shredded)
2 Tbsp chia seeds
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup liquid sweetener (maple syrup or brown rice syrup, or honey if not vegan)
1/4 cup almond butter (or tahini, or peanut butter)
1 Tbsp flax or hemp oil
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (at least 70%) or cacao nibs

Instructions:
1) Combine all dry ingredients, other than chocolate chips/cacao nibs.  Mix well in medium sized bowl.
2) Melt the liquid sweetener and the almond butter (or nut butter you are using) in medium saucepan over low heat, just stirring to combine.
3) Mix wet into dry and blend well.
4) Now add flax oil/hemp oil, and chocolate chips/cacao nibs.  Mix well to combine, using your hands if necessary.
5) Press firmly and evenly into 8x8 inch pan that is lined with parchment paper. 
6) Let chill for 20 minutes, then slice into bars.  Makes 24 bars. 
7) Wrap individually or store in sealed container.  Keep well in freezer for several months, although you will enjoy these bars long before that!

Our favourite variations:
Pumpkin seed & cranberry
Sour cherry & chocolate chip
Coconut-lemon (add one tsp lemon oil)
Hemp seed & cacao nibs, with extra flaked sea salt sprinkled on top of bars

Holiday baking begins! Gluten-free gingerbread cut-out cookies

Last night the house smelled so festive!  It was a cold evening, so baking cookies was the perfect after dinner project to warm up the house.  We made our first batch of gingerbread cookies and I tried a gluten-free recipe from this book called The Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook..  The authors (a wife & husband team) also have a great website called Nourishing Meals: Healthy Meals for a Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen, which includes recipes and advice for eating a whole foods gluten-free organic healing diet.  Great suggestions for lacto-fermented vegetables, detoxification eating, and more.  I absolutely love both their cookbooks which have taken a prime spot on the main cookbook shelf in our kitchen!  They have a version of gingerbread cut-out cookies on their blog which looks delicious but is not actually the one from the cookbook - this version has hazelnut flour and an egg, whereas the book recipe I used had brown rice flour and ground flax seed (no egg, no nuts).

This gingerbread is so delicious - it is very likely the BEST gingerbread cookie recipe I have ever tasted.  The dough does get sticky, so chilling it is very important.  They advise rolling the dough between two sheets of parchment paper, and I don't think you could roll it out any other way without a lot of sticking.  Also the cookies definitely needed to be cooled before removing from the pan, as they were a little breakable when warm.  It was a fun project do with my 6 year old daughter, who loved helping mix the dough (especially shaking in ALL the spices we added).  We made a 4 x batch so it was a huge amount of cookies, many to give away to friends, and some of which my daughter hopes to sell at her own little booth during our Handmade Holiday sale on Nov 29.  Making them gluten-free and vegan should assure that almost everyone in the room can eat them.  The icing (still to come) is a cashew butter-coconut oil based mix, which pipes well out of an icing bag after it has chilled.  So not only do these cookies taste amazing, they were beautiful to roll out and cut into shapes (we used "woodland themed" cookie cutters - fir trees, gnomes, stars, reindeer, owl), but they are nutritious and healthful too.