What I'm eating...

I very much enjoy sushi (although not with fish, raw or otherwise) and we do sometimes make it at home when the craving strikes, but let's face it --- rolling enough sushi for a family is quite time consuming.

Enter...

 

...the sushi bowl. 

Sticky rice (1 part rice to one part water, bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes, turn off the heat and let it steam with the lid on for 20 minutes) ---

with sushi rice seasoning (for 2 cups of rice I use 1/4 rice vinegar, 2 tbsp sugar, 1 tsp salt - heat until dissolved, pour onto sticky rice and cool) ---

and then everything I would normally put into the sushi, except it is cut into bite sized pieces.

I serve it with edamame, and I try to always include a bit of protein...shrimp, "crab", leftover roast beef or pork.  The fun part is I chop up all the toppings and everyone makes up their own plate with what they want.  N and I also scoop some onto squares of seaweed.  No complaints (gasp).

As you can see from my plate...we have had to revert back to much less seasonal eating for the remainder of the winter.  Although I am still trying to buy local produce (the peas, peppers, and mushrooms) we are clearly also eating imported food (it really is a shame I can't grow avocado, mango, etc) to get some variety.

We are on our last jar of jam.  All of the "good" pickles are gone and we are down to the jars of jalepeno dills I made for my husband.  It seemed like a lot by the time I was done canning last summer, but I have a better idea of how much we will need this year.  Herbs, I still have a-plenty! and there are still berries in the freezer, although not too many.  For the "eat what you grow/grow what you eat challenge" we are down to about 5 days a week instead of every day.  There is room for improvement...and so we shall try...

What are you eating this week?

Linking up with: Homemade Mondays at Frugal by Choice, Cheap by Necessity 

                         The Backyard Farming Connection

                         Eat Make Grow Blog Hop at Pocket Pause 

A twist on a Classic and an Eat what you grow update

I am pretty sure that every French-Canadian family has it's own tourtiere recipe (a kind of meat pie, I suppose) that is passed down through the generation.  I imagine that every generation puts a little twist of their own to suit their tastes and their needs.  Although we love the flavour, "someone" in my household is not to keen on the idea of eat pie for dinner.  So, here is my twist on the classic tourtiere...

Saute one chopped onion with about a cup of chopped celery in a tbsp or two of butter until they are soft.  You want the leafy, inside bits for this, not the green outside stems (which suits me just great because for eating raw, I only like the green outside stems).

Add in about 1 pound or thereabouts of ground pork (or whatever ground meat you like to use - I like pork - my mother uses a blend of meats in her tourtiere) and saute until the meat is cooked through.  Add 1/4 cup boiling water, 1 tsp each salt and pepper and dried thyme.  Cook down until the water has pretty much evaporated.  Then add a sprinkle of cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves (don't add these earlier on or the whole thing will become bitter).

Normally, at this point you would refrigerate it until cool and then put it into a pie crust to bake...but we twist it up...

Cut a baguette in half and remove some of the inside "guts" to make room for your filling.

I save these, dry them, and use them as bread crumbs...unless someone sneaks into the kitchen and polishes them off before I can dry them out.

Spoon your filling "generously" into the bread trough.

Side view so you get a better view of the spooned out bread.  I serve this with a salad on the side, or some nice sauteed green beans and mushrooms.  Really any vegetable that you like will work.
It's a quick weeknight meal because the filling doesn't have to cool, and then you don't have to bake the pie.  How awesome is that?  Oh - we cut a baguette into 4 pieces, but the filling is more than enough for that...someone usually takes the rest of it in their lunch the next day.

I realized that it has been a while since I posted about my self-imposed eat what you grow/grow what you eat challenge, mostly because I thought it would be a little boring for my readers to read the same list all through the winter.  I also realized that when we are home (not on holidays or visiting family) we eat something from the garden every day without even trying or thinking about it.  Jams, pickles, salsa, relish, pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce made with home-canned tomato juice, dilly beans, etc have kept us in good supply.  The mainstay though, are the herbs.  I put them in almost everything I cook.  Plus we use them for tea.

They were on several different shelves before, but when we were putting the dining room back together after painting (that nice light green in the background) I put them all together so the boys don't have to look for them.  Look at that - I grow 18 food herbs in the back yard (plus that red jar which is dried strawberries that I want to test out in the boys tea - N, I think, will like that). Huh, if I had guessed, I would have said 10 to 12.  Interesting.

So, the jams are almost all used up now, but I have some berries in the freezer to turn into jam when we run out.  We are about halfway through the pickles and tomato juice.  We have hardly touched the hot sauce, but only have about 3 jars of salsa left.  It will be interesting to see what we have left when we get back around to the new garden season.  Some of the herbs I am afraid will run out - specifically the thyme and lemon thyme.  Others, I have aplenty - specifically the mint and lemon balm.  I will update again near the end of winter.

Linking up with: Creative Friday at Natural Suburbia
                         Tutorial Thursday at Marigold's Loft even though I am linking up a day late.
                         What I am eating over at Townsend House a new link up.
                         Simple Meals Friday at Nourishing Traditions  a new to me blog I am excited to have found.

Eat what you grow/Grow what you eat - October

It is time once again for the update of my challenge.  For those of you who are new here, I have challenged myself (or someone in my immediate family) to eat something from my garden every day for a year.

So, how have we done in the last month?  Not too bad, until Sunday.  Can you believe that on Sunday, I just plain forgot about it?  No reason, no excuse, I just simply wasn't paying attention.  Usually jam or mint tea saves the day, but we didn't even have that.

So, here is the rundown:
In the last half of September, we had peanuts:

lots of tomatoes and jalapenos(which we were giving away by the basket full to spread the love), the first carrots, cabbage, green peppers and lots and lots of herbal teas (the weather was starting to change, so this was a lovely way to "eat" from the garden).

I pulled some of the frozen tomatoes out of the freezer to make some spaghetti sauce.   Another batch was made with store bought canned tomatoes, but with our own tomato juice, peppers, jalapenos, and herbs added in.

We have enjoyed another round of chocolate zucchini bread and muffins with some zucchini I froze in the summer.  I was sneaky and also added an eggplant in there and nobody even noticed.  I have a lot of eggplant to use up!  Note to self:  plant more zucchini next year.  I only planted 2 this year...I think I need 4 at least next year.

The first half of October has been interesting as we start to put the garden to bed.

The carrots are being used in soups, stews, school lunches.  Herbs are being used in soups/stews/stuffing/ stuffing bread and spaghetti sauce, plus of course - tea.  I have pulled and used leeks for the first time ever.

He are still enjoying some of last year's salsa.  We have already broken into the jam (Homemade english muffins with homemade "rhuberry" (strawberry/rhubarb) jam was N's birthday breakfast of choice on Friday - with a repeat on Saturday morning.

We have also enjoyed the first of the pickles.  It has been difficult to wait for them, but it was worth it.  My husband does not like garlic (*what??*) so we replaced the garlic in our pickles with lemon thyme, with the dill of course.  Oh my land's sakes!  It was so so so good.  I plan on trying a whole variety of herbs in the pickles next year. 

We were excited to try this heirloom watermelon. We weren't sure we were going to get one at all because they were still quite small, but I thought I would just go ahead and harvest it anyways before the frost got it and it happened to be ready after all.  It was truly delicious.  I will be planting these again next year.  I couldn't collect the seeds as I only got one melon from the 4 plants (we may still get one more if we are lucky, but I am not holding my breath).  I will be starting them earlier in the house next year.  I actually did start them early this year, but the squirrels ran away with the first 2 batches and I ended up planting the seeds directly in the ground when it was almost too late.

And arugula.  I didn't used to like arugula...now it is my very close friend.  I love it on burgers.  I love it on sandwiches.    I really enjoyed an arugula pesto (that the boys did not enjoy at all).  I just whizzed it up in the food processor with some olive oil, lemon juice, salt, parmesan, and walnuts.  I tossed it in with the tiniest pasta I could find.  I enjoyed it for 3 days since the boys wouldn't eat it.  Oh well, I will still do it again. 
Most of all, I enjoy that it replants itself and keeps on going.  We have had a few frosts, and the temperature has hit 2 degrees C a few times and it is still going strong.

What are you eating from your garden this month?

Eat what you grow, Grow what you eat - September

So here we are on the 15th, and once again, I almost missed it.

This is the September installment of my eat what you grow/grow what you eat challenge.  The May through August editions can be found here (May), here (June), here (July), and here (August).

I have decided to change my tactics this month...rather than give you a list of what I ate each day, I will just keep you updated on what is of note in the last month.

I am quite pleased that even on vacation, we were able to stick with the challenge.  For the beginning of the week, we brought some fresh garden produce with us (cucumbers, tomatoes, blackberries) and for the end of the week, we brought some jam made from our own raspberries, and a jar of peppermint for making mint tea in the evenings.  We were actually able to eat something we grew every single day while we were gone.  And also, our neighbours, friends, and family came over to harvest for themselves while we were gone.

We came home to this...

...which made it quite easy to meet the challenge in the week following our vacation.

We sampled our own peaches, we made homemade spaghetti sauce (by we, I mean I), and had our first eggplant parmesan (a hit with the adults...not so much for the kids).

 The week we returned, I did some canning to help meet the challenge through the winter.

I think I was overestimating how much we would get from our own garden.  Although we have had enough that I have had to buy very little produce over the summer months, the potatoes, corn, and green beans I was relying on to preserve did not do very well at all.  I dug up the potato bin this past week and found a total of 8 potatoes.  Disappointing to say the least.  I will not be using the potato bin again...this was round 2 and it was a failure both times.  The green beans...I missed most of them because they were ready exactly when we were on vacation, and the third planting I put in was pretty much dug up by the squirrels.  The corn...still growing, but I don't think anything is going to be ready to eat before the frost comes, so I am not holding my breath on that.

All is not lost though.  I have plenty of pickles and tomato juice (which we use for spaghetti sauce), a variety of jams, pickled items, and tomato based sauces.  I am still canning what is still coming from the garden, and we will just see what we will see.

We have also been enjoying the fresh cabbages.  This is the first year I ever planted cabbage.  I planted 4, and each one gave us enough to make coleslaw twice.  I plan to plant at least 8 next year - 12 if I have room.

I was able to make spaghetti sauce almost entirely from our own garden.  I had to get an onion and some celery at the farmer's market, but the tomatoes, herbs, jalapenos, and peppers all came from our garden.  There is still some in the freezer, and as I am still getting tomatoes, I might see if I can pressure can some spaghetti sauce.  I just have to find out how to go about doing that as I have still never used a pressure canner before.

We roasted some sunflower seeds, which turned out great.  We harvested the peanuts.  I was pleasantly surprised by the crop...however I have had no luck roasting them as of yet.  The first night I tried, I accidentally spilled the whole pan of them in the oven...the gas oven...while it was still on.  Right into the flame part.  I had to unscrew and remove several pieces of the oven to get them out before using the oven again.  Attempt #2 - I followed some directions I found on the internet, and although they smell good, they are still super soft inside.  I think I will have no choice but to shell them all to roast them.  Not looking forward to that.

And finally - here is where I admit to the tally.  I missed a night.  On the 12th.  My husband had to work late...it was the night of the dropping the peanuts in the oven fiasco, so what was planned for dinner couldn't be made without smoking us all out of the house.  So I made some french toast, with strawberries from the market...no component of our dinner came from our yard.  Neither had we had anything at any point that day...and I was going to make some mint tea, just to have the day "qualify" and then I forgot.  Oops.

So, the grand tally so far:  From May 15th to September 15th, I have missed 2 days.  Regardless, I am not giving up.  I want to see what the winter brings.

How about you?  Is your garden bearing the fruits of your labour?  And are you eating it?

Eat what you grow - Grow what you eat Challenge - July

It's that time of the month again to record my progress and notes for the Eat what you Grow/Grow what you eat challenge (in which I try to eat something that I grew every single day for the whole year - from my city garden...in Canada).

I have to say, I thought that late June and early July would be a little easier.  It has been so dry though that a lot of the crops have suffered.  

June 16 - a couple of raspberries and currents
17 - Strawberries in our oatmeal
18 - a variety of berries and peas while harvesting
19 - the boys and I took peas and raspberries in our lunches, and then we had a big bowl of peas with dinner
20 - gooseberries and peas in school lunches, lettuce with dinner
21 - gooseberries in school lunches, lettuce with dinner
22 - peas and strawberries
23 - raspberry sorbet

24 - strawberry/rhubarb preserves, gooseberries, and the rest of the raspberry sorbet
25 - raspberries in our waffles
26 - peas in our stir fry and all kinds of berries
27 - lettuce, spinach and radish seed pods, and N took gooseberries to school to share with the class
28 - radish seed pods in pasta salad
29 - berries...again.  If it wasn't for the berries, I wouldn't be getting through this challenge at all.
30 - all kinds of this and that while harvesting what is ready.

Radish seed pods - I didn't know these were edible until this year.

July 1 - Our first tomato (just one), sauteed radish seed pods (we all prefer them raw) and mint tea.

2 - mint tea and lots of herbs in spaghetti

3 - mint tea, our first cucumber, and our first 2 zucchini

4 - mint tea, peas and lettuce

5 - the first potatoes, more zucchini, and I made the boys each a tub of currant sorbet so they can eat straight from the container while we are at work...they quite like it because it is so so tart.

6 - lettuce, last year's salsa verde, and last year's salsa

7 - our very first handful of our own homegrown blueberries (and some lettuce).  I am worried about the bushes...there are a lot of dried leaves on them.  I am hoping they will survive.

I am pretty sure this is all I will be getting from home, so we plan to go pick some at a nearby farm.

8 - one tomato, one cucumber and some herbs - like I said...it's growing in bits and pieces at a time

9 - strawberries - frozen from earlier in the season

10 - cucumbers

11 - strawberry rhubarb preserve on toast 

12 - green beans at our beach picnic

13 - full disclosure - today was a fail...I ate nothing from the garden.  We left early to go pick blueberries at a farm over an hour away, ate lunch there, and then ended up coming home late after unexpectedly having dinner at my mom's.  So...one day so far this year with nothing from the garden. 

14 - cucumber with our campfire dinner

15 - tomatoes, zucchini ( I am posting this on the 14th because I won't be able to tomorrow, but those are on the menu, and they are even already picked)

 

There is quite a bit of herb harvesting going on to enjoy through the winter.  I have started a bit of preserving here and there...but I haven't tasted any of it yet, so I think I will share once we have tasted to make sure it is good...all new things I am experimenting with.


So, what are you growing?  What are you eating?  What are you preserving to enjoy in the winter?
Share a blog post...leave a comment...or leave a link to inspire us all.

If you missed them before, here are the other posts from this challenge:
June
May
The self imposed rules

Tally so far:   Success Days: 61   Days I didn't meet the challenge: 1
Come on back again next month.

I'm going to link this one up with Barn Hop over on Homestead Revival

Preparing for winter...in June

 I am always looking for new home remedies to try rather than buying over the counter medications filled with strange ingredients (not to mention I have strange reactions to said over the counter medications and usually can only take a 6 year old's dose of children's medicine - if even that).  Last year, I was thrilled to find out that currant juice can be used for sore throats.  I tried it and it worked like magic.  And I just happen to have currant bushes in my yard.  The problem...what do you do in the winter when the currant bushes are sleeping?  The answer - I hope...preserve the juice!

 Basically I just boiled the currants until most of the colour was gone from the berries and put them through a sieve.  Last year, I mixed the black and red currants, but this year I used only the red because I am wanting to use the black ones in a mixed berry jam.  Unfortunately, after I made the juice, I read that it is actually the black currants that are more effective for treating sore throats...I will have to wait and see what happens.

 I tried to squeeze as much juice out as possible using a cheesecloth, but I have to admit, I ran out of patience.

 Then I just poured the juice into hot sterilized jars.  The pH of berries is probably low enough that I didn't need to actually do anything further BUT if you are making currant jelly or jam, I believe you have to put the jars in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes, so I did that with the juice just to be safe.

I used small jars because really, I am hoping that the sore throats won't last that long.  You take one tablespoon at a time as often as needed (because it is, after all, just juice).  Last year, I found that it was effective much much  longer than the kids' lozenges I usually use when I am desperate.  The three jars above is the whole yield from my bushes this year.  Next year, I am hoping the bushes will yield a little more (as they will be older) and I will again mix the black berries with the red ones to go a little farther (and ...if it is actually the case that they are more effective, then I guess that is the smart thing to do).

Note: refrigerate the jars after opening...the cold helps the sore throat too.

Anyone else have a good home remedy I can try?

Linking up with Laura William's Musings for Carnival of Home Preserving
                                                                    Wildcrafting Wednesday at Mind Body and Sole

Eat what you grow/Grow what you eat

Here we go... as promised, today is the official launch of my challenge.  For one year, I am going to try to eat something I grew myself every single day.  A little, or a lot...it doesn't really matter.  It's more of a journey to see just what we can grow and preserve here in our city garden.

Wanna come along?

So far, the main crops are rhubarb and green onions.  I had enough rhubarb to make Jamie Oliver's recipe called "My favorite hot and sour rhubarb and crispy pork with noodles" from Jamie at Home.

I also thought I would share what I have done to get ready for my challenge so far.

1.  I have bought a pressure canner.  I have used a boiling water canning pot for years for salsa, pickles, pears, that kind of thing, but I thought I would branch out a bit and try some new things.
Note for my Canadian readers:  The only pressure canner I could find around here was from Home Hardware (for more than I wanted to pay) but then after I bought it, and opened it, and washed it, I found one for $20.00 less at Canadian Tire...it isn't in their on-line catalogue but it was in the store.

2.  I have pulled out a few books from my shelves...The Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer,  "the cook's garden" a compilation from Canadian Gardening Magazine, and I have purchased "Preserving Food without Freezing or Canning" to try out a few new things.

3.  I have expanded my garden a little bit more and am trying a few new things I have never grown.

4.  So far I have planted, among other things:

Brussel Sprouts

Peas...pea shoots will be in salads shortly.

Pak choy...almost ready to eat.  I believe some time this week it will hit our plates.

The herb bed is coming along nicely...

as is the new strawberry patch.

I have also planted carrots, potatoes, leeks, radishes, cauliflower, kale, cabbage, peanuts, lettuce...not a lot of each as several are new trials, but enough to see how they do in my yard.  I will be picking up my jalapeno seedlings from the market on Wednesday, and I get my tomato seedlings in just under two weeks.

5.  I have already harvested my first cuttings of mint and oregano to dry for use in the winter.  If you are just starting out, I would highly recommend herbs as a jumping off point.  The flavours are fantastic.  I can get pots of herbs at the farmer's market for $1.25 so you can start out with a very small investment.  They are super easy to preserve ( I have just hung the mint and oregano in small bundles in my dining room.  When fully dry, I crush them a bit and put them in glass jars and they last me through the winter).  Chances are, you will get enough harvest to share with a friend or neighbour, so if space is limited, you could each grow a few different herbs and share your harvest.  I have also pulled out an old screen with a wooden frame that I use for herbs that I have cut too short to bundle up.  

6.  I still have several jars of last year's home grown salsa in the pantry, as well as a couple bags of berries in the freezer.  Hopefully they will last until the fresh berries start coming in...

For a few things it won't be too much longer!

Next month, on the 15th, I hope to share what we have been eating as well as what we are preserving.

Now, for all of you joining along:  what are you growing?  what are you eating?  what are you preserving?  what are you planning?  Leave a comment with your link and if you would be so kind as to leave a link on your blog so other people can join the party.  If you don't have a blog post to share, please leave a comment   as well, with your details.

A Challenge---want to play along?

On my last post, I mentioned I would be setting forth a challenge.  This is a challenge for myself, but I more than welcome anyone who wants to come out to play with me.

So here we go...I am going to try my hardest to eat something I grew myself every day for a year.  Now, I know that there are many out there who are darn near self sufficient, and this might seem like a no brainer for many of them...and in the summer, we do eat from our garden a lot...but I want to see just how much actually comes out of our city yard.

Here are my self imposed rules.
I am going to start May 15th just because I have to pick a date.  I have noticed that we have actually been doing it already all month so far but I just want an official starting date.
I will update (hopefully) every 15th of the month with progress and will welcome any comments, suggestions, stories, links, etc.
Any thing consumed will count...even a cup of mint tea.
If all the produce we eat one day comes from the yard, it does not accumulate if we don't eat anything from the yard the next day.
If anybody eats something from the yard, it will count...the boys each ate a rhubarb stalk today, but I did not...so if my challenge had officially started, I would check today as a successful day.

Now, I invite everybody to come along for the ride, on any level they see fit.

If you have a garden, try growing something new.
If you have a little patch of herbs, try drying a few for tea through the winter.
If you already preserve, perhaps you might try something new.
If you don't have a garden...maybe grow a pot of lettuce, or a pot of strawberries on your balcony.

Let's just see if we can motivate each other and learn something new.

In preparation of my challenge, I have been reading a few books on preserving and have ordered one of them  (this is the book I ordered), and I have bought a few plants from our farmers market this past Saturday.

 I have found cardoons at the market which I hadn't heard of until this past week.  I will update once I know what they taste like and what I can do with them.  I bought 2 to try them out.

The Jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes) which I have been looking for for a couple of years...I found some at our nursery and this one has decided to finally peek it's head out of the ground...the other two are still waiting.

In order to clear out more growing space in my veggie patch (in the back behind the bales of straw and right by the compost) I have am digging a new garden bed which is being planted with the strawberries that are currently in the veggie patch.  I think I might have enough strawberries this year to freeze what I normally freeze and maybe make my first ever strawberry jam.

So, what do you think...want to come along for the ride?  I will welcome any and all comments and if there is enough interest, I might even try to figure out one of those mister linky's.

I'll be linking this one up with Homestead Revival for Barn Hop