100th Post: Book Giveaway

From the City and the Country...

We've finally reached it, our 100th post! In celebration we've decided to have a giveaway of one of our favorite farming books. We've both read it and loved it and decided it only made sense that it should be our giveaway.

All you need to do is simply comment on this post. You can just leave your name, tell us why you want it, share what you're making for dinner or let us know what your favorite post has been thus far.

We will announce the winner Thursday night and we'll send the book right to your door.

Farm City; The Education of an Urban Farmer

" I love this book in a way that makes adjectives seem puny and inadequate. It is just flat-out amazing (see? lame) - all that Novella did, the place that she did it in, the things she grew and raised and loved and killed and ate and learned. And how deeply and utterly it paid off- both for her and for anyone fortunate enough to be reading this book. Novella made me want to get up off my ass and go buy a pig! Plant heirloom tomatoes! Build a chicken brooder! Fortunately for all involved, the book was too good to put down, and I just kept on reading instead."

-Mary Roach, author of Stiff and Bonk

On a side note, a warm thanks to all of our followers for reading about our adventures of growing, eating and living in the City and in the Country.

Cheers,

The Harvest Kitchen Sisters

Laura and Amelia

My Zetor 2011

From the country...

I am not really a tractor person. I do feel a tad kick ass when I cultivate the field or pull a friends car out of snow or mud. But I really like doing my farming with 2 major implements, my hands. I will admit a tractor on the farm is worth its weight in gold for the heavy-duty tasks (think ploughing an acre or taking chicken manure from the barn to the compost pile).

I bought this particular tractor a few years ago from one of our neighbours, Bud. He was upgrading his fleet and had it for sale. A few thousand dollars later and it was mine.
Now this particular tractor was bought brand new from a man who had a strawberry operation way back in the 80’s and when it ended (due to hard times and family heartaches), Bud bought the ol’ Zetor 2011. The original owner was my Dad.

As a kid, I would ride the wagon to the strawberry fields with the hoards of people eager to pick strawberries, baskets in hand. The sweet ripe scent filled the summer air. I would ride that wagon all day, back and forth, loving farm life.

Now I am 30 years old, have 2 children and a family of my own and the smell of summer still makes me giddy like a kid. And in the very tractor seats where I used to ride in, my boys eagerly jump up into. I see the excitement in their eyes when a chick is hatched or the first tomato ripens. This is where multigenerational farming is born, in the eyes of a child, and we are so lucky to be here on this land, working with our hands, learning about nature and agriculture firsthand.

And although I am following in the footsteps of generations past, my path has its own twists and turns.

May at the Farm and Other Good Things

From the City...

On the weekend Simon and I made the trek to Laura's farm to visit (little boys, baby chicks and piglets), eat amazing food (waffles, bbq pork chops, pasta salad) and marvel at the amount of work that needs to get done (weeding, watering, transplanting etc etc x 12)

Here's some pics:

A bird Nate rescued from the front yard

Nate's blind pet turkey (do you notice a trend here?)

A fresh hatched chicken (sadly the rest weren't so lucky)

Also, after lots and lots (and lots) of consideration, Simon and I have decided to ditch the city for a couple of months and move to a small town. Here are some pics of our garden up north.

Red devil bushes that Simon ripped out with his hands

Simon digging

Weeded, seeded and watered (Mixed salad greens bed)

We also dug a similar size bed to house all of our favorite herbs; basil, thyme, oregano, spearmint, chocolate mint, cilantro and rosemary.

Happy Sunday everyone!

Heat waves and thunderstorms

From the country...

So apart from being ridiculously busy with the farm, I have done a few pretty fun trips to local greenhouses for my started plants for the gardens. The kids and I took a trip to Richter’s Herbs to pick up an order of 120 rosemary plugs and 120 marjoram plugs which have made their herby ways into the soil of the ol' chicken coop garden nicely. We also picked up a French sorrel plant (it just sounds so tasty and cultured, doesn’t it?) and N got an Autumn Sage for a clay pot on our porch.

Last weekend my Auntie Ann and I made our way to Spring Break Farm for our annual trip to the Heirloom Tomato Seedling sale. Although I need more tomatoes like a hole in my head, I came home with some beauties. I must confess I am a sucker for the names of these oldies.

Cherokee Chocolate, Scotia, Stupice, Eva’s Purple ball, Red Fig, Amana Orange, Omar’s Lebanese, Tangella, Black Giant, Lime Green Salad, Russian Red, Tiger’s eye….

Due to this little heat spell, I have been crafty with my work, sneaking a few hours in here and there, mostly doing tasks as the sun is descending for the day. And watering has been an ongoing chore, with me frantically watering in the early morn and evening, returning to the house, sopping wet. Darn leaky hoses and make shift sprinklers!

And although my incubating of eggs was a bit of a bust this year, to my surprise Momma turkey and her trusty companion, Auntie Hen have hatched a brood of 14 baby heritage turkeys! Maybe I should toss the incubator and let things happen the natural way. Little do Momma and Auntie know, none of the little gaffers are biologically theirs….

All the chickens are becoming teenagers and are finding their way in the barnyard life with the older chickens, and fingers crossed, I haven’t lost any babies to predators! I hope I just didn’t jinx myself!

Oh, and check out these piggies! They arrived last week their names are P. Chop, Smokey Trotter, Mr. Sausage, Mrs. Fatty, and Roasty, respectively.

Amelia and myself are about to celebrate our 100th post! So stay tuned for a celebratory giveaway!

Enjoy the heat but not too much and enjoy the impending thunderstorms!

P.S I don’t actually name my farm animals as a rule because as much as I love and respect them, after they live their short but sweet pastoral lives, they will end up in the bellies of many a person.

Nothing like Milk and Cookies

From the Country and the City...

This recipe is so so so good and relatively easy to make, it's from Martha Stewart's Cookies book and has quickly become Laura's and my favorite sweet treat. The recipe calls for less butter and brown sugar which makes them thicker and fluffier than most chocolate chip cookies. We made them on Sunday night and they had all completely vanished by Monday morning, they really are that good.

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
14 tbsp (1 3/4 sticks) butter
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tsp coarse salt
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together flour and baking soda in a bowl.

Put butter and both sugars in the bowl of an electric mixer (hand blender should do) fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about two minutes. Reduce speed to low. Add salt, vanilla and eggs; mix until well combined. Add flour mixture, mix until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips.

Drop tablespoons of dough onto baking shets lined with parchment paper, spacing two inches apart. Bake cookies until centers are set and edges are golden, 10 -12 minutes, totating sheets halfway through. let col on baking sheets for two minutes. Transfer cookies to wire racks; let cool completely.

Enjoy.

A Greasy, yet delicious, Holiday Monday

From the City in the Country...

Fresh cut chip truck fries with malt vinegar and salt. It really is the beginning of summer.

Know your Ingredients! The answer!

From the country...
And the answer is... drum roll please... Cool Whip! (a.k.a "whipped topping"!). Twistie you hit the nail on the head, congrats! So here is my point in all this fun, if you can't make out what is in the list of ingredients, then maybe it should be left on the shelf! And real whipped cream (the stuff that cows make) is freakin' delicious and takes a second to make, am I right ladies? This little quiz, I will do again!

New Recipe

From the City...

So I just recently bought a cuisinart Food Processor and it has pretty much totally changed my life. Last weekend I did nothing but puree. I came up with the best black bean burger recipe in the world. It's so easy and can be suited to whatever you have on hand and what's in season.

1 can black beans

3 cloves garlic (I used 4 because I like things very garlicky)

1 large carrot

a handful of spinach

a handful of cilantro (optional, only if you like it)

1 egg or 1 tbsp olive oil

1 cup corn

1/2 cup oats

1/2 cup flour

1 tsp cumin (optional, only if you like it)

salt and pepper to taste

In your food processor, puree carrot and garlic.

Add black beans, spinach, cilantro, egg/oil, oats, flour, cumin, salt and pepper. Puree until everything is mixed in nicely.

Scoop out mixture into a bowl and add corn.

If you want to make the burgers right away I suggest putting the whole mess in the freezer for a couple of minutes, bowl included. Let them chill while the oil or grill is heating up.

If they're for later, form the patties and place them on a baking sheet (lined with foil or plastic wrap) and put them in the fridge to chill. If you just want to freeze the whole mess and bring them out later, form the patties and freeze them on a baking sheet, take them out when they're frozen and stack them in a ziplock bag individually separated by a piece of parchment paper.

You can grill, fry or bake (350 for 20 min) the burgers.

I like mine with avocado, greens and a little goat cheese but come up with your own creations and let me know how it turns out.

Buff Orpington Bottom

From the country...






...almost a chicken, think teenager of the poultry world.

Dog Tired...

From the country...

There is so much to do and not enough daylight hours.

Know Your Ingredients!

From the country…

Here is an ingredient list from a product found on grocery store shelves.

Water, corn syrup,hydrogenated
coconut and palm kernel oils,
sugar, sodium caseinate, polysorbate 60
and sorbitan monostearate (for uniform
dispersion of oil), natural and
artificial flavours, xanthan gum and
guar gum (thickeners), artificial colour

What is the product?

Can you guess it?
Hint: it’s kinda gross and literally weightless!

Would love to hear what you think it is!

Black Sesame Sunflower Bread

From the City...

So i've been trying out new recipes lately and came across this raw bread recipe. I thought it was pretty interesting and decided to give it whirl. I know very little about raw food aside from the obvious, the foods must be all served...raw, needless to say I was a little intrigued about the whole mess.

A rule is that foods cannot be considered raw if they're cooked above 104 degrees. Ideally you want to use a food dehydrator to make the bread but I don't have one. So instead I set my oven real low and baked them on and off for about 4-5 hrs. I must admit, it's definitely more of a cracker than a bread, don't expect fluffy layers of heaven or anything.

Here's the recipe, it's pretty great and I'm really happy with the results. If you have some sort of gluten allergy or you wanna try out raw foods, this bread really is ideal and very easy to make.

1 cup ground flaxseed

1/3 cup whole flaxseed

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 clove garlic, minced

1 1/3 cup water

2/3 sunflower seeds

1/4 sesame seeds (I only had white sesame seeds, not black, and it seemed to work out fine)

Lightly grease a baking sheet. Mix all seven ingredients together until you get a thick paste. Pour the paste out onto the greased baking sheet making sure to get all four corners.

Bake long and low for about 4 to 5 hrs. Flip the bread in one large piece at about the 3 hr mark so that you get a nice crunchy crust.

The final product...

Try them for yourself. Serve with jam, peanut butter, hummus, goat cheese or avocados....

Enjoy!

Check Out the Hornby Eagles!

From the country...

As of today our new fun pastime is to check on the Eagles of Hornby Island. A web cam is set up at the nest of two proud Bald Eagle parents as they tend to their new little gaffer. We checked on it for the first time this morning and just happened upon the Momma Eagle feeding her new baby. We sat mesmerized for awhile! Very entertaining, in a peeking at wildlife kinda way!

Rhubarb, my first love (first of the spring that is…)

From the country…

First of all, Happy Mother’s day to all Momma’s out there!

Now let’s talk about Rhubarb, one of my favourite spring treats (there are too many, really). *Rhubarb, also known as pie plant, originated in Asia, is a hardy perennial plant, and is botanically a vegetable but was classified as a fruit by the U.S Customs Court in 1947 (the ruling was important because vegetables were charged a higher duty).

It is a staple for us around here in the spring. It lends itself beautifully to just about any dessert you can come up with (pies, tarts, custards, stewed plain, crisps) I have made (in the past week, I might add…) a rhubarb sour cherry crisp, a rhubarb custard pie and stewed rhubarb in everything from oatmeal to yoghurt to fruit compote. Another nifty fact about rhubarb is it freezes fantastically all you need to do is chop the stalks up, throw in a bag and plop in the freezer- instant rhubarb all winter too!

So as I fiddle with a canker sore on the tip of my tongue and contemplate my next recipe containing rhubarb, I will leave you with this pie recipe. Enjoy!
Rhubarb Custard Pie

INGREDIENTS
Pastry for a 9-inch single-crust pie, crimped and chilled in pie tin,
3 generous cups (1 1/2 pounds) rhubarb cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 3/4 cups sugar
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat the oven to 375°F. In a large bowl, add the sugar, flour, eggs, butter, and nutmeg and mix just until combined. Spread the cut rhubarb in the chilled uncooked pastry shell and pour the liquid mixture over it. Give it a little jiggle to settle it in evenly.
Bake the pie for 45 minutes, or until the center looks cooked and does not jiggle when the pie is nudged. Cool the pie almost to room temperature before serving.
This pie is really best served on the day it is baked but will keep for 3 days, loosely covered in the refrigherator.

Note: the pie in the photo was a Mother's day treat for my Gran and didn't actually get to taste said pie, it looked really yummy though...

*Information pulled from The Food Encylopedia

Queen of the Potluck

From the City...

I'm a big fan of Mollie Katzen. She has a ton of cookbooks but I use her Moosewood Cookbook as pretty much my kitchen bible, just don't tell my Joy of Cooking. I lean towards it in the summer when there is more fresh veggies than you know what to do with and even in the winter when you're freezer is stocked with frozen blocks of harvest waiting to be turned into a soup or casserole.

When I was at my local vegetable market this morning I noticed that there was a pretty good assortment of ontario grown veggies, hot house tomatoes and some herbs that would nicely fill out the vegetable component of the salad. The great thing about the recipe is that it's pretty adaptable based on what's in season. I omitted the cucumber and instead chose to sneak in a bright (not local) red pepper, I cheated, just a little but yes I cheated. I also totally pillaged my new herb garden by snipping off the baby shoots of dill, mint and like three tiny sprouts of oregano.

This recipe is the best for potluck's. You serve it cold, it tastes better when left for hours, days even and looks so pretty and colorful in the bowl. The recipe also calls for dry lentils and dry bulgur wheat but I prefer quinoa for the following reasons:

• It tastes amazing
• A relative of the green vegetables like spinach and swiss chard
• Not only high in protein but also considered a complete protein meaning that it includes all nine essential amino acids
• I have a huge bag of it that Simon's mom bought me for christmas last year

Here's the recipe, make it and totally rule your next potluck. By rule I mean graciously accept everyone's compliments and requests for the recipe while stating that it was something you just came up with with the leftover contents of your fridge.

Cooked bulgur (cooled) Follow the directions on the package.

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup lemon juice

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp oregano

2 tbsp freshly minced mint

2-3 tbsp minced dill

3 tbsp parsely, minced

fresh black pepper to taste

1/3 cup minced red onion

1 small bell pepper (any colour) diced

1/2 cup crumbled ontario feta

1 medium ontario greenhouse tomato, diced

1/2 cup chopped toasted walnuts, optional

*note: I use all of the herb measurements very loosely, I never ever measure herbs. I start with a little and gradually add until I have found the perfect taste.

Add everything to the cooked/cooled bulgur except the tomato chunks and walnuts. Mix gently but thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate.

Before serving, add tomatoes and walnuts.

Organic Milk, Is it really worth the money?

From the City...

I'm in a bit of a blogging slump these past couple of days. Therefore I am going to take this opportunity to do a little research. Research topic numero uno: Organic Milk. Simon and I have bought and drank organic milk for years, I've always known it was the best purchase mainly for the fact that my own personal natural food guru Mark Trealout (Laura's Man), only bought it (They now drink non pasteurized from an amish farmer in the community but that's just a little too hardcore for me, plus cows and amish are slim pickins 'round here). Therefore I felt confident that I was making the right decision. But as I get older, I've started to realize that I should be just a little more informed on these topics and saying "well Mark says..." doesn't really hold up that well in an intense agriculture debate.

*Note: I did not take this picture, it is stunning and I wish I had. Follow this LINK to the article where I got a lot of my juicy, er, milky facts as well as the stunning pic.

For starters, organic cows are fed on grain and pasture that contains zero pesticides or fertilizers. There is also no bovine growth hormone (used to produce more milk) allowed. BGH was banned in Canada, Europe and Japan but is still used in the United States. Cows are not treated with antibiotics unless they are very sick, if so, they are treated and will not be returned to the herd for a year making sure the antibiotics are out of their system. Organic milkers also have access to pasture*, meaning they can graze on grasses etc.

I * the word pasture above because the term seems very flexible in the farming world. For some farmers pasture means wandering the country side and basking in the sun for hours on end while for others it means opening up the factory doors for 10 minutes of sunshine. Follow this LINK to check out a report card of 'organic' farms and how they measure up. The report only looks at american farms but the results speak pretty loudly. Basically, be wary of organic milk/milk products that are owned by corporations (PC organics, organic products from Walmart, Shoppers Drugmart). It is easy to term yourself organic while still following an industrial farming model.

We buy Organic Meadows milk because they farm in a way that suits our needs. They are a collective of over 100 organic family farms that follow a similar growing model. We also buy Harmony Organic milk because it's what our local health food store carries. They follow a similar model as Organic Meadow by connecting certified organic milk producers that follow environmentally sustainable farming practices. Plus they put their product in glass bottles, which is like, super retro and you can't help but feel like the milk man just dropped it off fresh from the dairy and you're a 1940's housewife with curlers, pearls and an apron on, which works if you're in to that sort of thing.

Organic milk is more expensive because it requires more of a financial and time investment to feed and pasture as opposed to factory milkers which remain indoors and are fed cheaper grains, primarily corn and soy.

Also, some organic farmers are doing there part to preserve the earth by using environmentally sustainable farming practices which include using organic herbicides, not using genetically engineered grains or any form of animal by-product to feed cattle.

Another quick note: Studies have shown that organic pasture raised milk has higher levels of beneficial nutrients than conventionally produced milk.

Antibiotics:

Antibiotics are used when a cow gets sick. A fear for humans is that we can become resistant to the antibiotics that they cows are being injected with and therefore we can become more susceptible to bacteria and diseases. Organic cows are not treated with antibiotics unless they are very sick, if so, they are treated and are not returned to the herd for a year making sure the antibiotics are out of their system.

Organic milk is a decision you gotta make for yourself but before you make a trip to the grocery store and pick up whatever is cheapest it may be worthwhile to do a little research on your own and ask yourself a couple of q's:

Did the cow who made my milk suffer?

Did the farmer who produced my milk make any money off this carton?

Will I get sick from this milk?

How does my purchases affect the planet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SXVpvgXo9Q&feature=player_embedded

Short clip of a documentary that was done on hormones produced by Monsanto, an agriculture company.

Like your mom used to say, drink your milk, every last drop.

Beautiful Beans

From the country...

Tiger's Eye, Speckled Bird's Egg, and Black Orca dry beans, respectively.

Yoghurt Cheese

From the country…

I made this cheese for dinner tonight and it was super tasty! It is rich and creamy with the texture of cream cheese but has the sharp tang that only yoghurt can deliver. This recipe is really easy and is a great way to show off some springtime herbs.

1 container of yoghurt (full fat stuff, always)
salt to taste
finely chopped herbs

Plop yoghurt into a cloth bag and hang (the longer the better, I hung the bag for the better part of the day) over a bowl or the sink to strain the whey (liquid) from the solids. When the whey is completely strained, press the cheese in the bag to remove any additional liquid. Place the cheese into the bowl of an electric mixer with the whisk attachment. Whisk the cheese until light and creamy. Add chopped herbs (I used chives) and salt to taste.
Enjoy!