First Loaf of Gluten-Free Bread

Last weekend was Thanksgiving and I was desperate to still have turkey with homemade stuffing. As convenient as buying bread off the shelf is right now, paying $6 a loaf for gluten free bread is not my idea of a good buy so I decided to finally take a crack at making my own gluten free loaf.



It worked! There was this amazing freshly baked smell, something I had been missing and it actually seemed a bit easier to make than regular bread, just with a few extra ingredients. The stuffing turned out wonderfully and we had our regular Thanksgiving dinner. I used cornstarch in the gravy instead of flour. The only thing missing was a apple dessert of some sort. We opted for ice cream because I just didn't have time that weekend for dessert making.

Not Quite the Same

Apple season lacks that bit of spark this year. In years past I would take over the kitchen with my bushel of freshly picked apples and endeavor to make apple crisps and unbaked pies for the freezer. One year I made 10 of each and that entire winter we were in baked apple heaven. I won't be doing that this year and it makes me very sad.

Remember this summer when I stopped eating wheat after a holistic friend recommended it to me? I worked wonders for my energy and weight. My husband was impressed and joined me. He soon found out, after years of elimination diets, food journals and excruciating pain that he has Celiac Disease. He has suffered (not so silently) for 16 years with major stomach pain, frequent bathroom visits and doctor visit after doctor visit. He was erroneously diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Sydrone a few years ago but never found relief from his symptoms until now. It's confirmed. Gluten is out.



Slowly but surely I am adapting. I am discovering new family favourites and converting old favourites if I can. It has been a big change for me who is used to baking bread and treats without much thought to anything but cost. Now these things, baking from scratch, are no longer cost effective and have, for the most part, not found a new place in our diet. A batch of rice flour cookies won't be on our menu any time soon because 1) it costs too much and 2) it's not the healthiest anyway.

That means those oddles of pies and crisps are out of my seasonal routine. As is bread baking, muffin making and most methods of stretching our budget with regard to home baking. I just don't do it anymore. I have however rev'd up my processing of fruits and veggies knowing that our diet consists mainly of this food group.



We went apple picking today but it just wasn't the same. We purchased half a bushel which will last a few weeks until we head out for another batch. I am getting used to this but it feels like all those years of getting into a homestead routine are for not, because I will have to rely on imported rice flour, potato flour and the like just to make a loaf of bread. I am hoping one day I won't notice the change, and that it will become second nature but for now I am finding it difficult.

Tomato Season

I came home from a 10 day vacation expecting my garden to be toast. I had canned 8 jars of tomatoes before we left so I figured I would be lucky to be able to do a few more once I got back. The plants looked a little worse for ware, all limp and brown with only a few tomatoes left on the vines but once I started rooting though and picking good (as in non-squishy, non-rotting) tomatoes I filled basket after basket. All the baskets were full and I had only gone through half of the garden.



So the last 5 days have been a flurry of blanching and canning. I processed 10 more jars of tomatoes and then I made 13 jars of salsa.I also picked another wicker basket full but I ran out of canning jars. I think I probably have enough for 15 or more jars.



This is very exciting. I have never had such a prosperous garden. Some things went wrong this year but a fair number of things went right. I still lost a fair amount when we went away and those tomatoes are waiting to be worked right into the soil for next year. I still need to harvest my carrots and parsnips. I am also happy to report 6 smallish pumpkins have turned orange.

Corn on the Cob

Nothing beats fresh from the farm corn on the cob but blanching and freezing that corn is a good second best. I started blanching and freezing locally grown corn a few summers ago. Once I figured out the technique I was blanching everything I could find.



Blanching is like semi-cooking food, halting enzyme production which ultimately spoil food over the long run. It is a better technique than just washing vegetables and throwing them in the freezer. Blanching creates a nicer texture while simply freezing vegetables can make them stringy, too soft and just not palatable.







So here's what I do:



De-husk corn and remove silks. Wash and set aside.



Boil a large pot of water on the stove. Once at a rolling boil add as many corn as you can fit. Let corn sit in the boiling water for 2 minutes, no more. Then immediately removed and plunge in ice cold water to stop the cooking process.







Now you may cut the corn into niblets or leave on cobs and freeze whole. I use to use individual bags but found it very wasteful so now I use larger freezer bags.







These two bags equal approximately 18 cobs of corn. I did the math last summer and found this to be very cost effective vs the frozen corn purchased from a store.

When Good Tomatoes Go Bad: Round Two

I have made an unpleasant discovery among my tomato plants this week. The ones which turned orange first have an unmistakable rotting spot on the bottom. I picked nearly an entire basket of rotten tomatoes from my 30 plants and just about cried. I still have more ripening as I type and upon inspection they all seem to be doing fine, so what the heck happened to this first round of tomatoes.







Apparently I have a crop suffering from Blossom Rot, which is a condition brought about by lack of calcium in the plant and surrounding soil. This can also be an issue for plants experiencing a higher than normal dry spell because moisture helps the plant soak up calcium.



I don't think my problem was the soil, more than likely the root of the cause (no pun intended) was the three week period when we had a municipally imposed watering ban. For nearly four weeks in July we experienced less than 2 inches of rain fall. This would not have been an issue had I installed rain barrels but as it is, rain barrels are on my extremely long list of household needs and I simply had not gotten there yet.



As I was canning pickles and jams, I let my canning "bath water" cool before spreading it over my plants. I did whatever I could to keep them alive and prayed for rain lest I loose my whole crop. It seemed to work because the plants are alive but the fruit is lacking calcium.



A suggested cure is sprinkling Epsom salts while planting next spring. Another source suggested egg shells. I shall have to try this in the future and see how my tomatoes fair. For now I shall watch and wait, hoping I get enough to can whole or even mix in to make salsa. Only time will tell.



In other news I harvested some more goodies from the garden; a cantaloupe (musk melon), three green peppers and some more onions hiding in the dirt. Not all is lost. It's still been a great year.

Garden of Eatin'

I am amazed at how much food my garden has provided me this summer. I spent a number of hours in the spring building raised beds, hauling soil and planting but after that, harvesting is the easy part.



This is a basket I brought to my sister with homegrown potatoes, onions, and carrots. I included some jars of homegrown, home canned pickles and jams.

Last week I harvested my onions. The tops fell over signalling their finished state. I let them dry on my deck at first but then brought them inside because of threatening rain.













The tomatoes are almost ready and the melons too. Corn is nice and tall but I think I planted them too close together so next year I will spread them out more.



Pumpkins

cantaloupe

The potatoes have finished as well. I waited for them to flower but they never did. The green tops just fell over so I dug them up. They are very tasty and ever so easy! I am definitely planting more next year.





I also found a fully grown apple tree in my backyard. This was a delight to find. We planted three trees in the front (and two pear trees) but currently we only have two apples on one of the trees. They will take a while to produce. This one in the backyard is bending under the weight of the apples. The apples are small and I think the tree needs to be pruned but it's still a young tree, no more than 7 years so I should be able to bring it back to life.



All in all, my new garden at my new house is doing excellent!

ARCHIVED: Freezing Summer Fruits

Busy time of year. Here's a refresher on how I freeze fruits for my family in the summer to enjoy them all year long. The process is the same for all summer berries.

Enjoy!

Archived Post:

We've been busy the last few weeks, picking, canning and freezing strawberries and raspberries. Blueberries will be ready soon.




By August my freezer is always packed with numerous frozen summer berries. We use them in cereals, yogurt, pies and my personal fave, smoothies!

I use the flash freeze method for berries. Using a cookie sheet you pile on the berries in a single layer and place in freezer uncovered. Once frozen, pull out the cookie sheet and place all the berries in a large freezer bag. This method keeps the berries from clumping together allowing me to remove only as much as I need at one time.



Be very gentle with the berries, raspberries especially are highly delicate. Next up, blueberries!

Sensational Summer

I am already feeling really good about my garden this year. I have never harvested so much in so little time. Every day I head out to the gardens I am floored by the progress. The greens are flourishing and I have already had many salads. It's great to be able to take my bowl out and fill it up with nutritional goodness.



The radishes are divine. I planted them for my husband who eats them like a carrot. I, on the other hand, slice them up for salads and force them down because I know they are good for me. I planted my radishes between my rows of onions. By the time the onions really take off these radishes will be eaten. I am going to plant another small patch of radishes and try to keep the supply lines moving all summer. Radishes only take 20 days to reach maturity so they are a very fast and easy addition to the summer garden.



The broccoli has been threatening to flower so I cut them off and I am now searching for recipes to use them in. There is not enough to freeze. I will have to try my hand for a fall crop and see if I can get some more.




Things are moving along tickety-boo. Going out to my garden is not a chore. It revives me and makes me happy.

Thanksgiving

It was Thanksgiving this passed weekend. If anything I am so thankful for a couple days of rest. We have been going full tilt lately looking for a house and spent Saturday viewing seven more. All in all we have seen 20 houses so far. I am trying not to think about it but the process seems all in compassing. It's a very stressful time and this process has consumed me.

Photo from a Harvest Festival at St. Marie Among The Hurons, Midland

My house seems almost void of celebration. I have done minimal decorations and despite my best efforts, botched a pair of pumpkin pies. We did enjoy a good, relaxed meal with the standard fare. We went for a rather lovely walk in the woods, in which Daniel and I spoke nearly nonstop about possible homesteads. I am grateful that this time is here. It has been a long time coming. We are in the final stages of moving into our very own home but at the same time I will be even more grateful when it is all over. This process is maddening, necessary but maddening.


I apologize for not being more 'present' with this blog for the time being. Once this is all done, I will have tonnes of lovely things to blog about but for now, finding the right homestead is all I can think about.

Varmits!

Last year it was the deer. This year I am battling the raccoons. In my farthest raised bed I have been growing corn and cantaloupe, with a few extra onion bulbs just to see what would happen.



Yesterday I went out to check on my nearly ripe cantaloupe and found my 'mini' corn field decimated. The stalks were knocked over, the ears ripped off and the the little nibbled on cobs were left lying in the dirt. My heart fell. They were almost ready. They had been doing so well.

It is hard when I have spent a number of hours preparing, and planting, weeding and watering only to have an uninvited guest come and help themselves.

On Monday we stopped by a local farm, one of our favourite farm stands and bought two dozen corn cobs that we blanched and froze for winter. We will probably have to do that at least one more time before September. Last year, I froze just one dozen and it barely lasted until Christmas. The ones I was growing in the back were an experiment, something we could eat and offer to neighbours at a barbecue. Not anymore I guess.



Perhaps a scarecrow would have worked. I may try that next year.

Today I did end up harvesting one cantaloupe and hope it is ripe and ready since I really have no idea what I am doing. There are four others that are not quite ripe.



The pumpkins are growing still, the strawberries as well. Tomatoes are ripening as I type but other than that the garden is coming to a slow close. Next year I will try harder at extending the harvest but while we are still living here, there is very little I can do. For now we make do visiting farms, buying local produce and freezing, or storing for winter.

Giving Thanks

This time of year is so magical. It is the time when the crops are in, stored away for winter. It's the time when people come in from outside and spend more and more time beside one another.

I have always had reverence for autumn but this year for some reason my wonder is so much more pronounced. I have put more up for winter than I ever had in years passed. I have canned more, blanched more and prepared more than ever. It feels good to have a stocked freezer and pantry.

I am more thankful for what we have now that we have pared down our lifestyle. I am grateful for the time we have. I am aware of the many blessings in my life today. I can not say things are really all that different from the way they were last year. We still live in the same house. We still hang in the same circles and we still enjoy (endure?) the same level of income.

I feel my new found gratitude is rooted in my increasing self-sufficiency. I have more control over our successes and failures than ever before. I am finding my true self, (my authentic self if you will allow me to be entirely cliched).

For all these things I am giving thanks.

The 100 Mile Diet

Has everyone heard of the 100 Mile Diet? When I first heard of it a little more than a year ago I thought it was another crazy scheme to loose weight, you know something like the cabbage soup diet or grapefruit diet. Turns out the authors of the book, Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon, meant DIET in the traditional sense, the make up of what we eat.



You'd be surprised at the amount of food that, although grown right down the road, is being brought in from other provinces or states, even other countries. My family and I, well actually I mostly, have been shopping the last year with this in mind. I noticed a massive display of strawberries in my regular market. It was the height of strawberry season here so naturally I thought I can enjoy a summer delicacy without much guilt yet when I looked at the package I noticed all plastic clam shell packages had been imported from California. There is a fairly large berry farm right down the road and I knew their fruit, picked fresh from the plant was sweeter, redder and would last longer.

It angered me to think that my local grocery could not support our local farmers, save the environment and our taste buds. Locally picked produce is so much better when picked in it's prime and eaten shortly after. Even my 9 year old daughter notices the difference between store bought strawberries and the ones we pick ourselves from the field.

I have known for a long time that I wanted to exert more control over where my food comes from. I am a locavore at heart but have fallen short of actually sourcing out all the local food until recently. My resistance to actually taking on the diet is purely financial. If money was no object it certainly would be nice to rely solely on the food produced locally but let's be honest, local food and local farmers can not compete with the large agribusinesses who's profit margins matter more than animal well being. Local food is expensive and my inner tightwad has been sabotaging my efforts to live completely from food produced here.

On some things I have had to swallow back my Ebenezer tendencies but in others I just can't. I can not see paying $5 for a dozen eggs even if they are organic (in my house local trumps organic considering how many hoops small farmers must jump through around here to get an official designation).

I came up with a plan, not an excuse but something my family and I can better live with while making the transition. We're calling it A Whole Lot of Local. It's a combination of Whole foods (foods closest to it's original source, without processing) with a lot of Local. And when I say a lot, I mean a lot... 75 per cent local is a number I have in my head but we will see how the winter goes.

We kissed Tim Horton's goodbye with one last shabang. We've been traveling around checking out farms and farmers markets sourcing out our food. Even my daughter has reminded my son that we can't go to McDonald's "because it's not a 100 Miles"... he thinks the diet means we have to walk a hundred miles before we can eat anything, got to love kid logic.

Certain things we will allow. Sugar, for the time being while I source out conversions to honey or maple syrup sweetened recipes. Black tea for my husband, who has also promised to give herbals another try. Yeast for my baking, and a small amount of lemon juice for canning. We plan to treat ourselves with a box of clementines at Christmas like the pioneers. There will be other exceptions I am sure but let's face it, so much of the world economy is driven by international trade that many places in Canada that would have produced flour or yeast have migrated down south. One of the points of this diet is to keep what we have alive and thriving here in Ontario and perhaps encourage more producers to give it a go here as well.

Thanksgiving is the perfect time to give local eating a try. An entire meal can be prepared using only locally sourced ingredients. Even if most people don't think an entirely local diet is not for them, making small local purchases can go along way to help the bigger picture.

Happy Thanksgiving Canadian readers!

Apple Harvest

We went apple picking at a local farm and truly enjoyed ourselves. My husband found this lovely gem among all the apples we picked (a bushel) and presented it to me. "I must have picked this one for you." He can be so sweet.

I usually make 10 apple pies and 10 apple crisps and put them in the freezer unbaked. We bake and eat them throughout the winter. Last year we barely got through them all so I think I will only make a few of each. But I still wanted to pick a whole bushel with a plan to store the rest.

Since I have a rather large sack of potatoes in my back room (our pantry) that space is a 'no-go' for my apples. Apples and Potatoes don't get along well, you see, and I would hate to have rapidly ripening bushel. So I stashed them in my linen closet up stairs. The hideaway gets no light and there is no nearby furnace vents which keeps the spot relatively cool. We have no basement and the temperatures in our attic vary so greatly I would not trust anything to survive up there.



There are a few things to worry about with apples: Bruises and close contact with other apples. These two things can wreak havoc on an apple harvest. To combat this apples must be sorted. Any fruit with breaks in the skin, bruises or soft bits should be used for pies right away. All reasonably 'perfect' apples can be wrapped in newspaper (not the coloured paper) and placed in a container. The apples are kept from touching each other so if one does decide to decline, apples sitting around it won't degrade as well.




Apples should stay firm for a good three to four months if stored like this.