Welcome to our Newest Little HKS

From the City...

One of my very nearest and dearest best friends had a incredibly special baby girl (Theo's future wife).  From dealing with bullies in the high school halls, to the best road trips in her parents car, to crying and laughing simultaneously (the only way girlfriends know how), 

you're pretty lucky Ms. Ella Grace because your mom is about one of the coolest people I know.  

Love, love, love and more love to the growing family.

xoxoab

Never Not Nursing

From the city...

Nothing better.

Off to market we go..

From the City...

Theo and made the trip to visit Laura at the Evergreen Brickworks Farmers Market here in Toronto. It was my thirdtime being there and I again, was completely blown away by how fun of a spot it is. Us Torontonians are sure lucky to have it.

Laura, of course, had this incredible table of sprouts and micro greens, eggs, parsnips and carrots. Itwas a beautiful sight. Fresh, good green stuff growing right here in ontario. It's about friggin time! Man it was a long winter.

laura and i were like the poster mamas for attachment parenting with our babies slung up on us, it would have been a good pic had i taken one. Butlet me tell you, people love a baby. M&T were just eating up the attention.

Heres a link to the website so you can check out for yourself all of the pretty incredible stuff that goes down at Evergreen Brickworks.

Good day.

Me and the new little ones....

From the country...

Myself, Little Miss Millie Mae and Mr.Theo Tree respectively.

Two peas wrapped up in a Momma/Auntie pod.

Birthday Brownies

From the City...

So I missed Luc's 4th birthday this year due to the birth of my own little boy so we decided to have a better late than never birthday party here in the city. Mark and Laura stopped in Kensington market and picked up all of the most delicious fix-ins for mexican from The Tortoria and I made a batch of ooey gooey yet crunchy brownies.

This recipe came from Martha, of course, right??? So you can assume that they are extremely heavy and buttery and delicious. Surprisingly, unlike most of Martha's recipe, they don't take three weeks to make. From beginning to end, you can whip these up in about two hours.

I suggest not making these if you're say on maternity leave and home alone during the day...only badthings can come from that.

here's the recipe:

Double Chocolate Brownies:

1 stick unsalted butter, cut into large pieces

6 ounces bittersweet chocolate

1 1/2 cups sugar

3 large eggs

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp all purpose flour

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8 inch square baking sheet with parchment, leaving a slight overhang on all sides. Melt butter and chocolate in a double boiler of heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water, stirring until smooth. Remove from eat and whisk in sugar. Whisk in eggs, 1 at a time, until combined. Whisk in cocoa and salt. Fold in flour until combined.

2. Pour batter into pan. Bake until set and toothpick inserted into the center comes out with moist crumbs, 35-40 min. Let cool slightly in pan, about 15 min. Lift brownies from pan using parchment. Remove parchment and transfer to a wire rack. Let cool completely. Cut into 9 squares.

Oh and here's a pic of my little tree that I couldn't help but share. I swear this boy get cuter, and crankier, every single day. Already three weeks old, how time flies!

Newest Editions To The Harvest Kitchen Family...

From the country but in the city...

a picture that tells a thousand words...

So, so much..

From the country...

It has been an unforgivable amount of time since us sistas have written a blog entry. Life has gotten the better of us and farm life has swallowed me whole. So much has happened, many highs and some lows but life keeps on truckin’ that is for sure. I am writing from my kitchen, looking down at a belly full of baby, yep that’s right, kid number three is on the way (February to be exact) and my lovely sister, Amelia is not too far behind with her first due in March. Oh yeah, and her and Simon tied the knot on 10/10/10, it was a beautiful warm, sunny autumn day.

Photo credit: Megan Ward

Lets just call this the icebreaker blog where I attempt to explain the total time warp that happens when kids and farm life blur together.

The farm is finishing up. The weather this year was great, my ambition on the other hand lost to the whirl of being a tired, sick momma. Some successes have managed to pull through the fog though; it has been a great season for certain produce. I had a bumper crop of green house poblano peppers, green zebra tomatoes and just finished pulling in the last of the most beautiful heads of raddichio that I have ever grown. The zucchini’s were free flowing in their prime and the basil was picture perfect. The turkeys have grown beautifully into adults and I am excited to continue breeding them for next year. Looking after a rafter of turkeys is a part time job though, those suckers can really fly! Some turkeys are finishing up to be sold just in time for Christmas.

The chickens are maturing as well with the new hens laying their tasty pullet eggs and the roosters have begun the start of their journey into maturity with their incessant crowing, fighting and the like. I will keep a rooster of each variety and try my hand at breeding chickens next year. I have already started thinking about next season and which direction I will steer the farm, keeping in mind that I will have three children next year and one will be a newborn.

I just got back last Tuesday from Terre Madre, which is a large Slow Food conference in Turin, Italy where I was a delegate from Canada, the Toronto Slow Food Chapter to be exact. It was a whirlwind 5 days in which I met some inspiring like-minded people in search of change when it comes to food. I was lost a little in translation and being a traveller with a belly maybe didn’t suit me, as there was a lot of walking and lack of sleep. I am glad to be home though, every time I go away it just solidifies where I was meant to be. I ate some super yummy tangerines, salumi, gellati and cheese! I love that Europeans LOVE food, the support for quality food almost brought me to tears. So, so much food culture is lost on us in North America, where the majority of our population choose commodity over artisanal/sustainable products any day. Italy opened my eyes to see an unabashed love for food. No calorie counting or “lite” products here. Just a prociutto that melts in your mouth and a wedge of parm cheese cured eight years. I attended seminars on food policies, setting and communicating fair prices, women’s rights and the right to land, amongst others. I am still trying to wrap my head around that. Like I said, it was a whirlwind and I am just shaking the last head nod of jetlag. It was indeed an eye opener, but was it necessary for hundreds of people to be flown into Italy? I question whether it was the most sustainable choice to educate people.

Well, I will let you chew on this entry for the time being. Hopefully this was the kick in the butt I needed to get back on the blogging train!

Woodstove warmth to all, as the weather turns and winter starts to settle in (at least here in the Kawartha Lakes)!