Winter Herb Shares NOW AVAILABLE - order by Dec 1

NEW!  This season's Winter Herb Share CSA (or Community Supported Apothecary) is now available.  We have limited shares left, please order by December 1.  One-time pick up of your share by mid-December at Little City Farm (or by another arrangement).   

WHAT IS INCLUDED IN YOUR WINTER HERB SHARE

Give the gift of health & wellness to yourself or your loved ones!

Herbal CSA's are modeled after farm Community Supported Agriculture programs, where members purchase a "share" in the season's harvest and receive regular installments of farm goodies throughout the season. Our seasonal herb shares features locally grown and wild-harvested medicinal plants, tended and harvested by us in small-batches. We wish to promote health through preventative care, using "medicine as food" in daily life. Our herbal CSA will include hand-crafted items such as: herbal loose-leaf teas, herbal salts, medicinal honey, syrups, tonics, herbal vinegars, as well as soaps and body care items.

By participating in our Winter Herb Share project you are:

• SAVING 20% off from our regular prices by buying this share instead of individual items
• allowing us to continue to promote wellness in our local community through the use of and education about locally adapted plants
• learning about using locally grown plants for your own food and health
• minimizing waste (all products come in recycleable/reusable containers)
• supporting our local small business venture
• enjoying plants that are grown, harvested and prepared with the utmost respect

The Winter Herb Share includes 8 full-sized products. Find loose-leaf teas, elderberry syrup, fire cider tonic, winter salve, and winter lipbalm.

Other Herb Share member benefits: Also included is a short newsletter describing featured herbs, product descriptions and usage, herbal folklore, plant profiles, and additional recipes to try at home.

READ MORE & ORDER DETAILS HERE

Tomato harvest begins!

We've had a few tantalizing samplings of the first ripe tomatoes over the past weeks, as some Yukon Reds and Early Girl varieties tend to ripen on the early side of summer.  However, this week it became tomato season in earnest  in our garden, and we need to keep diligent watch for those ripening beauties hanging off the vines and hiding under the cascading leaves waiting to be picked every day.  I say keep watch, because our free-roaming hens (in particular Gypsy and Sadie) love to find these tomatoes and take one peck out of them, leaving the rest to rot on the vine.  We are trying not to lose too many tomatoes in this way, though we certainly have enough to share and don't really begrudge the hens enjoying a few bites of the bounty (but they are equally happy with tomato compost scraps, which is a much better arrangement for us).  So now it's Manitoba Reds, Moonglows, Mennonite Oranges, Sungold Cherries, Isis Candies, Peacevines, Sweet Baby Girl Red Cherries, Yellow Pears, Cherokee Purples, Patios, Brandywines, Green Zebras, and loads of Tomatillos that are filling every basket and bowl in our kitchen.  Needless to say, meals are centring around tomatoes, as many of these aren't really the sauce or canning variety.  We're eating toasted tomato sandwiches, tomato pizza, tomato soup, stuffed tomatoes, salsa fresca, bruschetta, tomato tabbouleh, and today two varieties of tomato pie.  Delicious!  A rustic savoury free-form tomato tart (with olive oil pie crust, four kinds of colourful heirloom tomatoes, and local goat feta), and an Italian zucchini pie (to which we of course added tomatoes, plus loads of fresh basil, thyme, oregano, and sweet vidalia onions).

Both of these recipes, plus many we have been using during this season are from Simply in Season, a wonderful cookbook that is based around seasonal eating, and celebrates meals made with local ingredients (local for much of North America that is).  The recipes have been tested by many kitchens, and sent in from contributers across the country - generally simple, wholegrain, healthful fare that highlights the abundance of each season.  Recipes are by name of vegetable (very helpful!) as well as title of recipe.  The book also includes short essays, nutritional notes, information about farmers markets and CSAs, food advocacy (food justice, food politics), and other brief commentary from each contributor to accompany their recipe.  We have two earlier cookbooks from the same series, Extending the Season, and More With Less Cookbook - also both with many well-worn annotated pages from years of use.  For anyone looking for one simple cookbook to encourage you toward more local eating, this is a great one to have close at hand in your kitchen.

Little City Farm B&B: 100-Mile food...wood-fired pizza, apricot custard tart, and yogurt-berry parfaits

We had a lovely couple from Ottawa staying at our B&B for their 4th wedding anniversary.  They were interested in our wood-fired pizza dinner for the evening, as well as our "100-mile breakfast" option for the morning meal.  I decided to do both meals using all locally sourced (within 100-mile radius) ingredients.  They also needed the food to be wheat-free, which was fine given that organic spelt flour is grown and milled not far from here - good sources are: Oak Manor Farms, Grassroots Organics EcoFarm, and Laepple Organic Farm!  Here's what we served (plus a few photos below):

Wood-fired pizza made with an organic spelt crust, homemade tomato-garlic sauce, loads of fresh garden zucchini, cherry tomatoes, green & purple basil and oregano, shiitake mushrooms from our logs, local organic mozzarella from Millbank Cheese

Tomato-cucumber salad with fresh chives, basil, sweet onions and green onions from Fertile Ground CSA, topped with edible nasturtium blossoms, Hempola hemp oil and Filsingers apple cider vinegar

For dessert, slices of sweet local organic watermelon from a friend's farm (the first this season!), and individual apricot-blueberry custard tarts (custard made with local organic milk, eggs from our backyard hens, and local maple syrup), baked on a spelt shortbread crust, topped with a dollop of local creme fraiche, a nasturtium and a mint sprig...the fruit was purchased through a local fruit co-op that sources no-spray and organic fruit from Niagara and delivers to this area each week

The 100-mile breakfast included our B&B "signature" yogurt-granola parfait (made with local organic yogurt - usually either Mapleton's or Pinehedge Farms), plus homemade oat-maple-hemp granola, and fresh blueberries and cherries...mmmmm

Sometimes we have faint dreams of opening a bakery or small cafe or tea house, but for now our bed & breakfast is the perfect opportunity to explore our culinary skills, delight in sourcing and showcasing local food, and find creative artful ways to use our burgeoning garden produce. I love the season of edible flowers, so I try to incorporate them where I can (salads, desserts, breakfasts...)

Late October garden tasks

We're looking forward to the winter months, where we take time to reflect, read, research and plan for next season's activities. One point that I took from Vandana Shiva's presentation at the university last week was the imperative to link ecological food production, poverty reduction, and climate change together - any solutions or actions we come up with should be addressing all three areas to be truly effective and sustainable. I hope to delve more into this topic through her latest book, Soil not Oil, this winter. Also, included on the ever expanding reading list are Arundrati Roy's Living with Grasshoppers, Novella Carpenter's urban farming book, a SPIN-Farming manual, and Eliot Coleman's Winter Harvest Handbook, as well as a few crafting books like the Handmade Home (I plan to keep my basket of sewing right near the woodstove, so I take real time to settle down and work on some projects each day). By the way, yes, we did finally take the plunge and decide on a woodstove - a small Jotul model - it has arrived and is awaiting installation. More on this in another post when we install it, light the first fire, warm a pot of soup on the cookplate and take a few photos...

For fall wrap up we are now pretty much done in the yard and garden. Seeds collected, vines pulled out, mulch spread, compost turned, winter greens planted...The garlic still needs to be planted, and as we are planning on reworking out garden layout for next year (putting in smaller 30-inch wide beds, instead of 48-inch as we now have them, and narrower paths - all to maximize our growing potential), I have yet to measure out where to plant garlic so it will be in a proper bed next season. The coldframe has been planted with greens, spinach, chard, herbs, chicory, and mizuna, and the plastic cover is reinstalled to keep the bed warm on sunny winter days. We need to transplant some flats of seedlings into the greenhouse beds (various lettuces for winter consumption) and then we're ready for winter.

What's going on at the homestead?

We've had hardly any free time to spend on the computer! Now that the weather has finally warmed, everything is ripening quickly in the garden and our more serious harvest has begun. Tomatoes, beans, basil, zucchini...

With harvest also comes preserving. We do a fair share of canning (salsa, jams, peaches, chutney), freezing (corn, zucchini, pesto), as well as drying in our dehydrator. The best canning books I'm using these days involve small batch preserving, so that I can make one canner load (7 jars) at a time - manageable with a toddler underfoot - and it doesn't have to become an all-day process. Books I've been referring to are "Small Batch Preserving", and "The Busy Person's Guide to Preserving Foods", as well as a tattered 30 year-old copy of "Putting Food By".

However, in midst of this heat, and considering energy use, I am growing much more interested in fermentation techniques for preserving foods. Fermentation (lactic acid ferment) not only preserves the flavour, but in fact enhances nutrition (whereas by canning you essentially boil off much of the nutrient value). It is simple, quick, does not require stove top energy or heating up the house. Fermentation is an age-old, global practice - well-known foods like miso, tempeh, sauerkraut, beer, sourdoughs, and so on, are all traditionally made with the fermenting process. All you need is a series of large glass jars or ceramic crocks, and you are set. This week I'll be making crock pickles as well as dilly beans. Here is the recipe for dilly beans, which we made back in January as part of the fermentation workshop here at Little City Farm (see earlier blog post). An essential fermentation book is by Sandor Katz, "Wild Fermentation".

Dilly Beans
3 cups organic beans
1 cup garlic scapes
dill blossoms
cayenne
2 Tbsp whey

Add 2 Tbsp sea salt per litre of water, to filtered water, bring to a boil, and cook beans for 5-10 minutes. This denatures the toxic protein called phasin. Sterilize 1 litre jar, and put a dill blossom and a pinch of cayenne in the bottom. Pack in beans densely, with garlic scapes intermingles, then pour cooled cooking water to cover beans to 1 cm. Add 2 Tbsp whey, put on the lids, and leave at room temperature for 8-10 days. Store cool and in the dark.

100-Mile Desserts: Peach & Blueberry Semifreddo

Here is a 100-mile dessert recipe using fresh peaches and blueberries that are in season right now. It's an Italian dessert, a frozen mousse, somewhere between rich creamy icecream and light fruity sorbet. It's a low-stress dessert as it can be made ahead of time and left in the freezer until you are ready to serve it. The recipe comes from the LCBO summer "food & drink" issue, and I've adapted it to be 100-mile (so no tropical coconut, mangoes or sugar as they suggest!)...here's the locavore version:

Peach & Blueberry Semifreddo
4-5 ripe peaches (about 2 lbs/1 kg) chopped
1/3 cup honey
4 large egg yolks
1 cup organic local whipping cream
1 cup blueberries

1) Oil a 1.25 litre loaf pan and line with smooth layer of plastic wrap.
2) Place peaches in blender and puree until smooth. Set aside.
3) Place 1 inch of water in bottom of double boiler or large pot, and bring to a simmer.
4) Combine honey and egg yolks in the top section oft he double boiler or a metal mixing bowl. Place over simmering water.
5) Using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat honey and eggs until very thick and pale yellow, doubled in volume and hot but not boiling.
6) Remove egg mixture from heat, add pureed peaches and beat for 1 minute longer or until well combined and cool.
7) Place whiping cream in another mixing bowl and beat to soft peaks. Fold whipped cream into peach mixture. Then fold in blueberries.
8) Spoon peach mixture into loaf pan. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze for at least 4 hours or up to 3 days ahead of serving.
9) When ready to serve, dip base of pan into warm water to help loosen the semifreddo from the pan. Remove top layer of plastic wrap and pull on the plastic lining the sides of the pan to loosen. Invert semifreddo onto a serving plate and peel off any remaining plastic. Use a knife warmed in hot water to cut semifreddo into slices for serving.
10) Serve with a side of a small amount of berries or fruit salad.

Shelling peas, drying tea herbs, & other homesteading tasks

We've been busy - this time of year is not only full with planting, tending and harvesting the garden, but also preserving the produce for the coming winter months. Today's job, shelling a huge harvest of peas...

This week we also began harvesting and drying herbs for our herbal tea blends which we sell to a local buying club, to our "herb share" members, and on our website during the fall-winter, also freezing cherries, strawberries, mulberries and raspberries for making jams, smoothies and fruit sauce in the winter, the first batch of pesto, and mint chutney.

For those readers who are particularly interested in the art of homesteading, check out Nikki McClure's artwork - she creates gorgeous cards, calendars and other artwork made by papercut - along the theme of garden, harvest, homesteading, family, motherhood, community, activism, nature, connection to the land, etc. Her calendars have graced our walls for several years now and we love her work! www.nikkimcclure.com

Farmhouse Meal

Speaking of delectable, even gourmet local foods prepared in simple ways in the home kitchen (see previous post on fermented foods), we felt so lucky to consider our meals of the day. We eat many local grown or prepared foods including many from our own garden, and try hard to eat in season as much as we can. Often we can start to take this for granted, but the day's meals seemed especially wonderful in the context of the earlier fermentation workshop. Here is what we had - no photos were taken as we were simply enjoying the foods as a family.

Brunch with our friend who dropped in from out of town:
- buckwheat flapjacks made with local organic flour (buckwheat and whole wheat) and local free range eggs from our backyard hens
- served with local maple syrup, homemade organic yogurt and strawberry/peach sauce made from organic fruit we harvested and preserved this past summer
- maple glazed tempeh made with locally produced tempeh (produced in a small-scale production facility on the next street over from our house), made with local maple syrup, and cayenne, garlic and herbs from our garden
- herbal tea from our own herb garden
- our baby Maya, who's just started solid foods, ate local pure applesauce we'd canned in the fall for her (made from wild harvested apples, and apples from our own property)

Dinner as a family consisted of this:
- creamy roasted carrot soup with local organic carrots, herbs from our garden
- served with a small dollop of organic yogurt and fresh rosemary (from our greenhouse)
- herbed biscuits made with local organic flour, served with organic goat chevre
- assortment of ferments - stuffed local wild grape leaves and dilly beans made by one friend; the best sauerkraut I've ever had, prepared by another friend; sour cherry wine made by another friend who led a winemaking workshop here last year
- as we were finishing up dinner, the same winemaking friend made a surprise visit with another large carboy of freshly racked local homemade rhubarb wine he wanted to share with us!
- fresh greens are sprouting in the greenhouse and soon we'll harvest our first salad of 2009

We felt well nourished, and so blessed by our incredible array of talented friends who are making such bold and wonderful forrays into local foods!