It's "that" time of year again...

For the second year in a row, where my house smells overwhelmingly like tomatoes and my kitchen is stacked with bushels boxes! With help from my husband (read about the dangers of canning alone here), I've managed to "put up" two bushels of tomatoes in the form of sauce, and I've got to say, it's much yummier than last year! If you're like me and eccentric enough to take up the bizarre endeavour, then you probably want to check out the Bernardin website for the basic idea of canning and some recipes. I used their basic procedure for tomato sauce. You don't want to add any oils or fresh veggies since it alters the pH and apparently that can allow botulism to grow and potentially kill you and yours.

Last year, inspired by Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle book, I used her recipe for Family Secret Tomato Sauce. However, I didn't seed or peel. I admit, that haste does indeed make waste, and the sauce was too bitter. I also wasn't crazy about the hint of cinnamon and nutmeg and the huge amount of basil (Sorry Barbara!). This year, I bit the bullet and did the seeding. Much tastier! However, I did add (without measuring, just to taste...):

1/2 cup brown sugar
6 tbsp of garlic powder
2 tbsp of dried basil
2 tbsp of dried oregano
2 tbsp of ground pepper
2 tbsp of sea salt
(***don't forget 2 tbsp of lemon juice PER 1L jar to maintain acidity***)

Boiled down for about 2-3 hours to make a moderately thick sauce. Divine!

Tomorrow is the big day, TomatoFest 2011, my now annual canning party. We've got 5 women and 7 bushels of tomatoes. The plan is to make diced tomatoes and whole canned tomatoes. Hopefully we get it done before the wine takes effect!

Gardening Season in Review

I didn't post throughout the summer, but it doesn't mean that I my garden doesn't make me feel like a proud mama to some baby garlic! Here's the season in review:

This was April...starting from seed. The kids did some watering and planting. But they also upended a whole tray a week later. So much for my careful labeling of the different varieties!
The garden in June...garlic was up nice and early in the season and made it feel like a real garden as soon as the snow melted! Though they are smiling, I think I was more excited about the bean teepee than the kids were!

July filled things in a bit...lots of kale (the nasturtiums and marigolds seemed to help keep the aphids away this year), way too much chard to possibly eat, beans, peas, spinach, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, unusual "banana legs" tomatoes, cucumbers, purple peppers, jalapenos, beets, dill, a few carrots, a failed zucchini (who can KILL zucchini you ask?), and a nice round pumpkin!
The biggest hit of this year was the addition of my garlic patch. You can read back about the planting part from last October here, but really, all that matters is that the results were AWESOME and so easy. We ate the "scapes" in June...

...and harvested 60 heads at the end of July. It was the juciest, tastiest garlic I'd even tried! I ate some right away and was advised that it was starting to smell, then I used some of the garlic to make 2 bushels worth of dill pickles (not my best batch, but I'll leave that for another day), and the rest is hanging in my basement keeping the vampires away.
Other than garlic this *could* have been my favorite harvest. These are my shiitake mushrooms. Dead easy, and delicious if you don't forget about them in the oven when you're drying them. Ahem.


Finally, our pumpkin!

Festive Treats

Despite my (admittedly inconsistent) efforts to control junk food, my 6 year old daughter's dentist just informed us that she has 8 (yes, EIGHT) cavities. The shame!
Oh well, I can take most of the blame, but man, they eat a lot of sugar at school! Birthdays are complete with cupcakes (that's 20 days with cupcakes), the warm weather has involved at least 5 occasions that involved freezies, and I believe the ice cream truck handed out free ice cream on the last day of school.
So, when my daughter asked if I would send something in for an early celebration of her summertime birthday, I wondered what would be appropriately "healthy" yet not be thrown in the garbage. We decided on fruit kebabs, and somehow in a moment of weakness I allowed a fruit candy to top each one. This, admittedly, is a pretty poor plan from a cavity point of view, but hey, at least it involved fruit.
Next year no candy, they are pretty enough all on their own!

Shroom Harvest!

My first shiitake mushroom "flush".
It was stupidly easy, but not without ups and downs. When I first got my logs, they were longer than I expected. I tried to fit them in the bathtub for a soak, but it wasn't really a great plan. First off, they didn't quite fit. They also got my tub filled with bits of bark and other outdoorsy crap. Then there was the issue of actual bathing. So, the logs soaked for about 5 hours before I moved them outside under the sprinkler overnight. Eventually I did get a few mushrooms, maybe 6 or 7. I'm pretty sure raccoons realized that shiitakes are tasty, because they started scratching out any teeny mushroom cap that attempted to pop out. Defeated, I chalked it up in the loss column of my garden experiment. After a few weeks, I got my second wind and took the logs to my dad's place, cut them in half and gave them a less half assed soak - this time for a full 24 hours. A couple of weeks later just when I'd almost forgotten about my 'shrooms - TA DAAA!
Above is the first true harvest!

Since I use this blog to be positive, I won't get into the story where I put most of my harvest into the oven to dehydrate them - and then forgot about them. I now have a big bowl of what can only generously be called mushroom "crisps". But that does bring us to the best part of growing mushrooms, you only have to wait a few weeks for the next harvest!

Black Bean "Brownies" (Seriously!)

We don't eat alot of dessert, but every once in awhile, I get a sweet craving. I'm trying to avoid dairy and wheat right now (as an experiment to get rid of chronic sinusitis), so that cuts out ice cream and most baked goods. I stumbled across a black bean brownie recipe at Whole Foods, and was surprised how many good reviews they got - and how good the pictures looked. I figured it was worth a try. They are super-quick, especially if you have a blender or food processor.

Now in all honesty, I cannot say that these health-nut alternatives are seamless substitutions for the real thing. I think to call them brownies sets them up for failure. However, if you just think of them as a dessert that has some health potential, they're totally passable, even yummy. We don't usually eat many "real" brownies, so my kids didn't really have a frame of reference. They especially liked eating the batter before it was cooked. I had to snicker to myself a little seeing them literally lick drips of black beans off spoons and even try to shove their little heads into the bowl to get more. The finished product didn't meet quite the same enthusiasm from my son (always the pickiest one), but he had a few. My daughter liked them, and most importantly, I found them to be a great wheat free alternative.

I made some very minor modifications from the Whole Foods recipe. See below:

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed (I like Eden Organics, since their cans are BPA free- btw the Canadian Government has recently passed a regulation to phase out BPA in all cans over the next few years.)
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/3 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup cocoa
2 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/3 cup chopped walnuts or pecan-s (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Place the black beans, sugar, eggs, melted butter, cocoa, vanilla and salt in a blender (or food processor) and blend until smooth (use a spatula to push the stuff off the sides). Pour into an 8″x8″ pan that has been greased. Sprinkle chocolate chips and nuts on top (optional). Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until slightly puffed and set. Cool and cut. Eat!!!

Bite Sized Lentil Snacks

I've been looking for some creative vegetarian options lately. Mostly because we're running low on our organic meat supply and are due for a trip to the farm. It's also healthy and easy and cheap. I was searching for lentil recipes, since I've fallen out of the habit of soaking beans, and lentils don't need to be pre-soaked. I came across a recipe at Just Bento that I modified to include what I had on hand (sweet potatoes and peas). I served them as part of a "make believe" dinner (which means a whole bunch of stuff thrown together). I liked to dip my lentil bites into guacamole, my daughter dipped hers in ranch dressing, and my husband used his like falafel in a pita with lettuce and tomato. My son, however, didn't like them. No surprises there.
I brought the leftovers for my lunch for a couple of days and if nothing else, they were WAY yummier than anything the cafeteria serves up. I do highly recommend some sort of dip or else they can be a bit dry.

Snacker alert--they are great to have in the fridge and just pop one if you're feeling snacky for something savory and want to avoid the temptation of junkier items.

Lentil Bites
2 cups uncooked red lentils
1/2 cup cooked brown rice
1 big onion or 2 small, chopped into teeny pieces
2-3 garlic cloves, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil (or coconut oil works too)
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. ground coriander
1 tsp. curry powder
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
1-2 tbsp tamari, soy sauce or Bragg's liquid
Salt and pepper
Sesame seeds or flax seeds (or a combination of both)
Optional additions - 1 small sweet potato (diced - I pre-cooked for a minute in the microwave), 1/2 c green peas, 1/2 c cauliflower (chopped into tiny pieces), pretty much anything goes here.

Rinse the lentils, and cook them (put them in a pot and cover them with about an extra inch of water). Cook for 15-20 mins. Skim the goo off the top. Drain off any excess water.

In the meantime, put the chopped onions, garlic, spices and olive oil in a frying pan with any of the optional added veggies. Fry until the onions are softened. Add the brown rice and tamari or soy sauce.

Mix everything together. If you're not deterred by the sloppy look (see above), you can just eat it right now. Or, if you're in the mood for something more tidy looking, let it cool. Once cool, scoop it out on a baking tray lined with parchment paper into golf ball sized dollops. You can flatten them or roll them or just leave them alone. Sprinkle with sesame seeds or flax seeds. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes or until the surface is a bit crispy.

Eat, freeze, or refrigerate, whatever works.

Experimenting with 'shrooms!

Okay, so I'm not referring to a foray into hallucinogens...it's a bit more tame than that. This week I placed my order for 4 logs inoculated with shiitake mushroom spawn from Mycosource. Apparently I just have to soak them in cold water, rap them with a hammer once or twice, and forget about them in a shady place for awhile. Word on the street is that I should be able to harvest a couple of pounds of fresh shrooms...ahem, I mean shiitakes, from each log...for the next 4-5 years! To a novice backyard garden geek like me, the idea of growing my own shiitake mushrooms this season with next to no work is mind boggling in it's own (non-hallucinogenic) way.

Shiitakes are gaining recognition for their health benefits. They contain lentinan, a component praised for anti-tumour properties. There is also evidence that shiitakes can lower cholesterol and stimulate the immune system. If that doesn't get you interested in mushrooms, then maybe the fact that they are just so much fun will. Get a load of these cool facts about growing mushrooms:
You soak the log in cold water to simulate winter...then they grow, you harvest them, and you soak them in cold water to simulate winter again which shocks them into growing again. Cooler still is the reasoning behind the hammer raps. The idea is that the jarring from the hammering simulates a tree falling in the forest onto the log. The mushrooms get the message that there is a new log to colonize and to get a move on and grow already!

Oh, the magic of mushrooms...heehee.

Coconut Convert

I hosted a "nutrition night" last night that included a fair bit of wine, but also heaps of accessible yet detailed information from Lauren at Ginger Roots. I was happy to hear that I was on the right track with my recent coconut conversion! Up until a few months ago, I thought coconut oil was a no-no because it's a saturated fat. Apparently, it's actually a pretty good bet for cooking because it's naturally saturated, (not "hydrogenated" artificially, leading to trans fats) so it remains stable when heated, and it's easily digested. I appreciated Lauren's hint that I can even use it as a moisturizer in a pinch.

My new addition to the weekly rotation uses coconut oil and coconut milk. A close cousin of this recipe arrived in our weekly organics box from Mama Earth Organics and after a few experiments, I ended up settling on something like what you'll find below. It's a got a hint of curry, and a tropical feeling much needed in this slushy month of March. Even though the curry powder has tumeric, I like to add a fair bit extra. The book Anti-Cancer makes an excellent case for tumeric as a powerful anti-inflammatory agent. Keep in mind that it is necessary to combine it with black pepper to get the full benefits.

Coconut Curried Rice and Veg
1 & 2/3 cups long-grain rice, rinsed and drained (brown rice is obviously healthier and not revolting in this recipe, but I'd be lying to not admit that it tastes the best with white jasmine)
1 sweet potato, peeled and cubed
½ cup shredded coconut
1 ¼ cups water
1 can chick peas (or use chicken if you're in the mood)
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp coconut oil
several bunches of bok choy, chopped (any non-lettuce leafy green will work here)
1 can coconut milk
½ tsp salt
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp curry powder
1 diced onion
1 tbsp tumeric
1 tsp ground black pepper

Mix rice, sweet potato, water, coconut milk, shredded coconut and salt. Boil, simmer until rice is fully cooked.

Meanwhile, mix chick peas (or cubed chicken pieces) with garlic, onion, soy sauce and curry powder, tumeric and pepper. Stir fry until cooked. Add in the bok choy for a few minutes. Toss with the rice (if you have picky eaters around, you can serve the coconut/sweet potato rice to the picky eaters first and then combine the curry mixture with the rice for everyone else).

Gratitude

I read an article in the Toronto Star this week about something called Gratitude Journals . Oprah concept, but still, it gave me pause. Like most of us, I usually forget to catalogue the small and big things for which I'm thankful. This weekend, I broke character. I was very grateful for snow.

I've always hated winter. Those people who get excited about snow usually strike me as a bit suspect. It's a season of hibernation for me - sugar cravings and heavy duvets. I will even admit the embarrassing nugget that I take a hot water bottle to bed with me from pretty much September until May. This year though, I was determined to find the upside of winter.

We were invited to go winter camping this weekend at the Pinery. Not quite as hardcore as it sounds, it involved a heated hut (yurt) with bunkbeds. After some dithering, we finally agreed. Then we talked it up to the kids, and got excited about skiing, snowshoeing, skating, and tobogganing. Within days the trip however, the temperature soared and the snow all melted. So, not wanting to camp outside in slush with nothing to do, I found myself wishing for snow.

And as it turns out, I got lucky. The evening before our departure, it snowed. The morning of our departure, the ski trails reopened. And the whole time we were there we had sparkly fresh snow. The kids were giddy as they skied along the trails and shrieked down the toboggan hills. I had the chance to snowshoe along deserted trails, listen to the forest, spot a wild turkey, and go for a long solo ski (which justified the big bag of jalapeno kettle chips I polished off). And I caught myself many times this weekend being very thankful for the simplest parts of winter. It was lovely.

Now get me a box of chocolates, a duvet and a hot water bottle and wake me up when spring is here.

Sweet Potato Chews

I bought dog food. I don't have a dog. I bought it for me, 'cause I thought it was yummy locally grown whole food. For humans.

My initial thought was "Sweet Potato Chews? What a good idea!". The label on the front attracted me with the promise that it was "made from the finest Ontario grown sweet potatoes" with "no additives, preservatives or colors". The ingredients were simple. Just sweet potatoes. Yeah, I could make it myself, but I thought I'd give it a try and see if it was even worth bothering. Last night, feeling snacky (as usual), I prepared to crack into my new treat. Luckily I happened to notice in the small print that there was "less than 4.67% ash". Ash? Why would there be ash in my food? As I read more carefully, I noticed "Feeding Instructions: Feed to your dog as a healthy treat". Then I got suspicious.

Let me just say, I didn't think dogs ate sweet potatoes. Aren't dogs carnivores? Are there vegetarian dogs now? Hmmm. Weird. I don't really know what to take away from this curious development, except that my consumer literacy might need a bit of work...and that soon I might be wrestling dogs in the park for their treats.

Inspiration

I began this blog last year around this time. I managed 9 months of regular (OK, sporadic) blogging. Eventually I ran out of words. And out of interest I guess. But a few things have happened in the last few weeks that have got me typing again:
1) My seed catalogues arrived. As I browsed the "Thai Pink Egg" tomatoes, the "Bull's Blood" beets, and the "Tennis Ball" lettuce, I couldn't help but get excited at the prospect of starting the garden experiment all over again.
2) The world issues class I teach has begun it's exploration of the global food system. It's always a shocking unit for my students, particularly for the bright ones who have learned alot about digestion, enzymes and the Canada Food Guide, but not much about the political and social side of food. The best part of teaching is always to "see the lightbulb turn on" and we're just about at that point where I'm going to see alot of shining light! It's put me in wordy state of mind.
3) Our family started working with Lauren from GingerRoots Nutrition. Her blog has heaps of great recipe ideas and she is so full of energy and enthusiasm about food (and pretty much everything else) that it was contagious. We've had the good luck of sampling her lentil muffins, spicy salsa soup, coconut squash soup and a few other items. YUM.

Today I decided to try actually cooking Lauren's Spicy Salsa Soup recipe (it's a black bean soup with carrots, red pepper and onion) to see if it really was as easy-peasy as she claimed. Indeed it is - and only has to cook for 5-ish minutes! Now, it's not a pretty soup, it's brown...but with shake of salt on top, it was a major hit with my five year old. Who knew?

Giving thanks for the humble pumpkin

It's Thanksgiving Day, and of course I'm thankful for the usual things. To shake things up at bit, we all had to say one frivolous thing that we were thankful for. Today, after an amazing discovery, I've got to say pumpkin! The happy orange of a field of pumpkins always makes me smile, and what other food can be carved into a Halloween decoration? Best of all, you can eat it!

Today we took the kids to Cooper's CSA (CSA being Community Supported Agriculture where you buy shares in the farmers crop and get a weekly box of seasonal veggies, thus offering the farmer stability and the non-farmer seasonal, healthy food). It was a great day, and much less tacky and jam-packed than some of the "agri-tainment" closer to the city. Besides, it's Local Food Plus certified, and that gives me confidence in it's sustainability. Long story short, we ended up carting home a van-load of pumpkins because I discovered earlier in the weekend the amazing versatility of the pumpkin!

Why didn't anyone tell me before that it can taste so good? I know, pumpkin pie's okay...but that didn't seem very connected to an actual pumpkin. In my mind it was like the connection between dill pickles and dill pickle potato chips -a loose association at best. I now realize, thanks to a wine soaked Friday night tutorial from a pie-master friend, that you can make pumpkin pie from an actual pumpkin. Will wonders never cease? It got me thinking that if you can make pie from a real pumpkin, maybe you can make other things...which led me to this recipe for pumpkin bread. It is, to quote my mother-in-law, "to DIE for". It's similar to banana bread, only based on a local crop. You can substitute any type of squash, I tried a batch with butternut squash too- delish! Next step, pumpkin soup!

If interested, I played around with the recipe a bit, but this is more or less what I used:

1 1/2 cups flour (I used half white and half whole wheat)
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup agave nectar (or just use 3/4 c of sugar and ignore the agave nectar)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup mashed up cooked pumpkin (apparently the little "pie pumpkins" are tastier...just cut it in half, bake it for about an hour at 350, discard seeds and mash up pulp)
1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup plain yogurt
2 eggs
1/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Mix wet ingredients, mix dry ingredients, mix it all together. Bake in a buttered loaf pan at 350 for 50-60 mins. Enjoy fresh or freeze for later!

Garlic's in the ground!

Garlic is planted! I got my 20 pretty heads of Russian, Salt Spring, Tibetan and Persian garlic in the mail two weeks ago from The Cutting Veg. I spent a day last weekend adding bags of sand to the clay soil at my "allotment garden" at my dad's. Then coating it all with sheep shit.
This weekend it was ready to plant and then cover with leaves and wait a long 10 months til it's ready.
My experiment with patience is about to begin.

Pioneer Retro

Our Tomato Stock 2010 canning party was hard work, but left us all with a sense of accomplishment and community. I rarely spend time doing "work" with friends, and now I see that it can be an effective way to socialize and accomplish things. If only my friends would want to come over for a cleaning party... Anyway, 5 of us women (and my husband) managed to can 81L of tomatoes. That was 5 bushels, or 265 lbs! We learned some lessons about how we could be more efficient next year (ie. get an outdoor burner, invest in a tomato mill rather than blanch, seed and peel), it did take us a collective 43 hours. My husband (nerd), did a humiliating analysis of the cost of this exercise and let's just say it didn't save us much money, but we're already booking a weekend for next year!

Sauce Rage

A few weeks ago, I made salsa and tomato sauce. I did it late at night after my kids were in bed. Some evenings I started this ridiculous endeavour at 9:30 pm only to collape exhausted into bed at 1 am. Let me explain that I am on summer holidays and my husband is not. His alarm goes off at 6am and I have learned to sleep right through it. So when I got it in my head to start a canning binge on a Sunday night, my husband, while supportive in theory, was not particularly enthusiastic. So I did it myself.

The first day was fine. I made a test batch of tomato sauce. No problem. But that didn't even make a tiny dent in the massive pile of tomatoes in my kitchen. So I got to work on salsa, diced tomatoes, roasted tomatoes. Over the course of the week (one that also included taking the kids swimming, to the zoo, the beach, the library, and making 3 meals a day), the nighttime canning experiment began to get ugly. I began to vent in my head, I started to bang pots and pans around, I took to angrily elbowing my snoring husband when I crawled into bed late at night. I recall at one point being reduced to screeching something to the effect of "I'll remember that this is NOT YOUR FOOD and won't serve you ANY! Jackass!" when he made a comment about the mess in the kitchen not being his idea. Or something like that.

Turns out, I was suffering from Sauce Rage. Seems it stems from anger at the futility of spending countless hours to make something that you don't really need to make. And, for me, from some deeply instilled feminist voices in the back of my head.

After my first week of canning was done, and my mountain of tomatoes reduced to a mere molehill, I was able to think again. I was able to use real words to express what had been eating at me. And that was, "6 years of university and two degrees and here I am toiling for hours over a hot stove to make food for us that I could just buy at the store with the money I can earn in less than an hour of work?" Indeed, in all this waxing poetic about the joys of the "old ways", there is certainly a tense undercurrent of "there is a reason women wanted out of the kitchen". I still can't quite wrap my head around the gender politics of this endeavour, but I certainly found some food for thought (sorry) in an article by Peggy Orenstein, The Femivore's Dilemma. Despite the unfortunate title (femivore=one who eats women?), I found the article both inspiring and cautionary. It made me glad that I said " Next time, let's do this together so I don't feel like a harried hausfrau" and we agreed to use weekends instead of evenings. My next batch involved spousal assistance in peeling, seeding and chopping. It was kind of fun, and overall left me blissfully free of the dreaded Sauce Rage. Moral of the story, don't sauce alone. You'll want to kill someone.

Bye Bye to Chinese Garlic

This summer I got my first delivery of fresh Ontario garlic from Mama Earth. I didn't recognize it...it tasted and smelled, well, fresh. It seemed barely related to the dry supermarket imposters (Product of China) I've been buying for years.
I started going out of my way to look for local garlic. It was nowhere to be found in supermarkets - the closest I found was Mexico, and that took some time. At my local farmers market there were plenty of choices, however, I had to be ready to pay up to $3.50 a head. Shocking to be sure...especially since I could fill my car with Chinese garlic for approximately the same price. But I bought it whenever I could find it. And now, I can't go back. Especially after stumbling across an article about how difficult it is for Ontario garlic growers to compete. How Ontario had 4000 acres devoted to commercial garlic production in 2001. Now there are less than 500. How Ontario garlic growers have been devastated by Chinese imports which flooded our market in 2001. But Canadians like me are beginning to get a taste of the fresh stuff, and we're excited to bring Ontario garlic back to the mainstream.
I just placed my order for 20 heads of organic "seed garlic". I belatedly discovered that you plant garlic in the fall (which explains why my spring planted garlic gave me cloves the size of TicTacs), let it "overwinter" and then harvest it the following summer. Fingers crossed, I'll have evil garlic breath this time next year. I ordered 4 different varieties from The Cutting Veg and can't wait till it arrives. It's going to get it's own bed! It's obvious now that I did not take the photo in this post, but I'm hoping it counts that it is my imagined harvest for next year...no? Photo credit here)
I also ramped up my weekly garlic order from 3 head to 15 heads of fresh organic Ontario garlic for next weekend's (hopefully) annual Tomato Stock. My backyard and kitchen will play host to a group of likeminded friends getting together to make tomato sauce and "put up" (haha..just testing out my new lingo) about 5 or 6 bushels of tomatoes. Since I've been experimenting this summer, I guess I'm the expert. Uh oh, I hope no one gets botulism.

Priorities

My university "sister", travel companion, bridesmaid, and confidante of many years was killed in a car accident last week. She was driving to the Yukon on a spur of the moment roadtrip, that's the kind of girl she was. She was 35 years old.

It is only in retrospect that I realize how many opportunities I missed to spend time with her, to send her a long email, or to find an hour for a real phone conversation. These are regrets I will carry with me. Rosie lived up to her name, she was always generous with her time and her affection. She was open, honest, and totally without guile. There are many lessons that I can draw from her examples, and I will try my best to live up to the honour of being her friend by working on these qualities.

Rosie's tragedy has made me ask myself (among other more common questions you ask in these times) why I have found time to peel and seed 53 pounds of tomatoes when I haven't had time to pick up the phone. It makes me question some of my priorities. Does good food trump good friends? Would I be a better mother if I was playing Snakes and Ladders with my kids instead of making them natural ice cream?

I guess the best compromise is to combine the two. Involve the kids in making ice cream, and invite friends to eat tomato sauce together.

The Elusive Organic Peach

All the markets and grocery stores are brimming with fresh, local peaches, so why not take a trip to an orchard and make a day of it? I got online to look for an organic peach orchard in the Toronto area. No such luck. I could find organic berry farms, organic spinach, broccoli and the like. But few tree fruits. My organics delivery box was even bringing me peaches from British Columbia. My grocery store's organic peaches came from the USA. Why?
I learned the answer at the East York Farmers' Market. For the first time, I saw a few baskets of relatively small organic peaches. Curiosity piqued, I asked the farmer. He said he's been experimenting with growing 5 acres of organic peaches because the demand is high. However, he explained that Southern Ontario's humidity makes the peaches very susceptible to disease. That's why almost nobody grows organic peaches. He said in the end, he's not sure if growing organic peaches is sustainable. Organic peaches are still sprayed, just with different stuff. And they require significantly more applications of the "different stuff" because of the climate. It was some food for thought. When asked which ones he'd choose to eat, he said he's perfectly happy with his conventional peaches. So, which to buy? I couldn't decide, so I bought some baskets of both and cut them up to freeze for those dreary winter days when summer fruit is a big treat. I'll let myself ponder the question of local conventional food vs. distant organic some other day.

How to freeze peaches: Peel, slice and lay out on a tray lined with parchment paper. Put them in the freeze until they are solid. Transfer to a freezer bag. If you just throw them in a bag without the tray step, you'll end up with one giant mass of peaches that you can't break apart!

Green Tomato Salsa Verde

Bad news: Most of my tomato plants got some weird blight and are dying fast.
Good news: I found a great recipe for Salsa Verde to use up my giant bucket of green tomatoes. I didn't even have to peel them. Usually salsa verde is made with tomatillos, but this one is good enough for me.

My Bernardin Home Preserving Guide redeemed itself with this one. It uses lime juice instead of vinegar. Maybe canning is getting a bit more popular with the under 80 crowd after all.

Salsa Verde:
7 C chopped green tomatoes
5-10 chopped jalepeno peppers
2 C chopped red onion
1 head of garlic
1/2 C lime juice
1/2 C chopped cilantro
3 tsp cumin
1 tsp oregano, salt, pepper

Wash and seed and chop tomatoes. Drain excess liquid. Put tomatoes in a pot, add all ingredients. Bring to a boil, simmer for 5 mins. Eat, or can. It makes about 6 250ml jars.

**(March 2011 update: Okay, so many months later, I can admit that this salsa is gross. Might as well soak your corn chips in lime juice and sprinkle with cumim. The hot-ness of the peppers disappeared over the months and it got bland and just plain ick.)**
argh.

Slow Roasted Tomatoes

My piles of tomatoes have been accumulating, and I've decided that the best, laziest, way to reduce the pile is to slow roast them. So easy.
Cut them in half, toss them in olive oil, salt, pepper. Sprinkle with chopped garlic if you want to (I do). Lay on parchment paper and roast at around 300F for 2 -3 hrs. Stick with 1.5 hours for cherry or grape tomatoes. They taste like sun-dried tomatoes, but jucier! Throw them in freezer bags or use them to make a sauce. No peeling, seeding, boiling required.
The only problem is that my husband had a bad episode of food poisoning years ago that he equates with sun-dried tomatoes (funny how he doesn't feel that way about the beer that was the more likely culprit) and won't eat them. More for me.