RECIPE: Pumpkin Granola

Yes, I'm a bit obsessed with granola! Homemade granola is the only "cold cereal" my family eats. I've been know to go on rants about how ridiculously expensive (and lacking in nutrition) commercial cereals can be.

While I'm routinely urging folks to go forth and make their own granola, I've noticed there seems to be some misconception that homemade granola is a seriously labour-intensive endeavour. Not so! I can get a batch ready for the oven in under 5 minutes. Either hubby or I routinely does this while we're cleaning up the kitchen after dinner, so we're already in there when it needs to be taken out and stirred in-process.

Seriously, homemade granola is super easy to make, delicious, packed full of nutrients, and way less expensive than any boxed cereal you could buy. So what are you waiting for?

This pumpkin granola has a nice spicy kick to it, while the pumpkin flavour is fairly subtle. This is a perfect way to make good use of that jack o' lantern come Nov 1st!

Ingredients:

3½ cups rolled oats

1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

½ cup pumpkin seeds (pepitas)

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

¼ tsp cloves

¼ tsp nutmeg

¼ tsp allspice

3 tbsp brown sugar

¼ cup honey

¼ cup coconut oil

⅓ cup pumpkin puree

Instructions:

• In a large mixing bowl, combine the oats, coconut, pumpkin seeds, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg and allspice. 
• In a small saucepan, combine the brown sugar, honey, coconut oil and pumpkin puree. Heat gently and stir until thoroughly combined.
• Pour pumpkin mixture over oat mixture and stir until oats are evenly coated.Spread on a rimmed cookie sheet and bake at 300°F for 30 minutes or until golden brown, stirring every 10 minutes. Let cool, then store at room temperature.

Makes about 6-10 servings

Optional add ins:

If you want to jazz up your granola even more, try adding any of the following:

• 2 tbsp cocoa powder (for Chocolate Pumpkin Granola – add to honey mixture)

• chopped walnuts or pecans

• dried cranberries (add after granola is baked and cooled)

• dried apple chunks (add after granola is baked and cooled)

Want even more granola options? Check out these recipes:

Chocolate Chai Granola

Chocolate Peanut Granola

Christmas Granola

For more simple, tasty and family-friendly recipes like this one, check out my book: Cheap Appétit: The Complete Guide to Feeding Your Family for Less Than $400 a Month (While Eating Better Than You Ever Thought Possible) 

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RECIPE: Green Beans with Bacon & Mushrooms

Fresh-from-the-garden green beans are hands-down, my favourite summer vegetable. I even have a favourite variety (Slenderette). Unfortunately, this year I have the worst green bean crop I've had since I started growing green beans. The critters really went to town on them and I lost a lot of my plants in the early going. Despite a replanting to try and help offset the damage, I still have a scanty supply in comparison to a typical year.

These are the types of situations where I'm glad I don't have to rely 100% (or anywhere close to it!) on the food I grow myself to feed my family. While beans from the grocery store or farmers' market aren't going to compare to the ones from my garden, it's better than having none at all!

As you might suspect, when green beans are in season, we take full advantage of it and eat a LOT of them. While they're wonderful simply boiled or steamed til tender-crisp and seasoned with a little salt, pepper and butter, if you're looking to up the ante a little and put an impressive-looking side on the table with your midsummer meal, this is a delectable combination, indeed. So good that there was *very* little left over of that generously full pan in the picture after the four of us had at it.

Ingredients:

1 lb green beans, trimmed

4-6 strips of bacon

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic

½ lb mushrooms, sliced

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

Instructions:

• Cook the beans in a saucepan of boiling water for about 5 minutes (they should still be crisp). Drain and set aside.

• Meanwhile, cook the bacon in a medium frying pan until crisp; remove to a paper-towel lined plate. If there is more than 2 tbsp of bacon fat in the pan, drain some of the fat. Return the pan to medium heat and saute the onion, garlic and mushrooms in the bacon fat until tender; season with the salt and pepper.
  
  
• Add the green beans to the frying pan and cook for about 5 minutes longer or until beans are tender; crumble bacon over top and serve.

Serves 4

I shared this recipe at Full Plate Thursday.

This is just one of the many simple, delicious and inexpensive new recipes featured in my August menu plans. Go HERE to find out more about them - more brand new tasty, family-friendly dishes are on the way for the September edition.

Are you a huge green bean fan, too? What is your favourite way to serve them?

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Celebrating Local Food Week: Five of My Favourite Local Food Deals

Photo courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It's the first official Local Food Week here in Ontario! To help celebrate, I figured this would be a great time to share some of my favourite local food deals here in the Hamilton area.

1. Ground beef at VG Meats: You can buy a 30 lb box of their (frozen) regular ground beef for just $60! This is a super awesome deal. Their meat is antibiotic and hormone free and they raise their animals humanely. We've been buying their beef for a couple of years now and anything else just isn't good enough anymore :) They regularly offer great specials on other meats as well, and have excellent freezer packages available if you're looking to buy a LOT of meat at once. Visit their site to find out more.

2. Local, organic rolled oats from Grain Process: For under $25, you can buy a 10 kg bag of organic rolled oats from Grain Process. A school in our neighbourhood purchases their products as a fundraiser so it's really convenient for us to order through them. They also have a retail outlet in Scarborough; it has weird hours though so make sure you check to see when it's open before you go! They have a pretty extensive range of products, both organic and conventionally grown. The prices do fluctuate up and down a bit but are generally very good. If you're wondering what on earth we do with all those oats, our routine consumption of homemade granola, baked oatmeal, muffins and cookies makes pretty short work of that big bag!

3. Bulk honey from Dutchman's Gold Honey Shop: If you bring your own jars to the Honey Shop up in Carlisle, you can purchase bulk honey (either Wildflower or Summer Blossom) for $9.25/kg. This is a fantastic price for local, unpasteurized honey. Their prices do fluctuate from season to season, but are always a good deal.

4. Stirling Creamery butter from Vos Eggs: You can buy locally produced Stirling butter for $4.45/lb at the Vos Eggs stall in the Hamilton Farmers' Market, top level. Stirling has been churning out world-renowned butter since 1925 (Saveur magazine has called it "one of the world's 30 great butters". You can't say no to something that great for such a good price!

5. Produce from smaller, local growers at the Mustard Seed Co-op: The local growing season is just getting underway, and I've already found some very good deals on fresh, local greens from small local producers at the co-op. This is going to be my second stop (after my backyard garden) for produce this year. Members will also be able to order bushels of produce as the season progresses (perfect for canning, can't wait for the tomatoes!) They're having their official grand opening this Saturday, too, from noon-6 p.m., so it's a great time to stop by the store and check it out!

Are there any other great local food deals I should know about? Please share them with us in the comments!

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What's New in My Garden This Year: Herbs Galore & Some New Fertilizer Options

Spring has FINALLY arrived here in Southern Ontario, and the planting has begun!

I have a surprising number of new additions to the garden this year - it wasn't something I really planned on, it just kind of happened :) The photo above is calendula seedlings which I was thrilled to see coming up; I was given a calendula plant by a local herbalist last summer and it did very well for me. I was hoping it would reseed itself vigorously and it seems to have done just that! If most of them thrive, I may actually be able to give a couple away myself. I dry the flowers all summer long to use for making salves and balms.

You may recall that I tried 2 new food plants last year: sorrel and ground cherries. While I loved the taste of the sorrel, it hasn't come back up this spring :( (it was a division from a friend last year). The ground cherries were a bit of a bomb, they didn't seem to ripen properly before the husks went all brown on me (they were probably in a less-than-ideally-sunny location, which may have contributed to the problem). They also took up a lot of space, and given that we didn't adore them, I don't think I'll grow them again.

Onwards to 2014 - here's a quick tour of what's new in my garden this spring:

Lots of herbs!

 On the top row are lavender and sage and the bottom are thyme and lemon mint (which was subsequently planted in the clay pot before putting it in the ground so it doesn't take over the entire bed!). The sage and thyme I picked up at the Mustard Seed seedling sale; the mint and lavender came from William Dam.

The lavender, sage, and thyme are all planted in my front bed that gets plenty of sun so I've got fingers crossed that they all thrive there! And I'm hoping these perennial herbs will finally fill out the bed along my front walk that's been looking a bit scruffy the past few years. The calendula seedlings are in the same bed with all these herbs, so I'm looking forward to a robust and great smelling herb garden along my front walk as all these plants fill in.

The lemon mint was selected by my 14 year old son - he requested a few plants of his own to grow this year and fell in love with this mint when we were at William Dam. He also picked out a few jalapeno pepper plants which are now in one of our raised beds. He has committed to doing all the care for these plants - we'll see how long it takes for him to get tired of the weeding and watering routine :)

I decided to give garlic a whirl last fall, and while it looks like critters got at a lot of it, I have 3 plants coming up strong. I was also given some lemon basil seeds by my lovely friend Roseatta, so a bunch of them have gone in the ground and I'm anxiously waiting to see how many of them germinate! The photo on the far right shows some of the perennial onions we were given last year by a colleague of my husband's. These are VERY robust - even after the brutal winter we had, they popped right back up in early spring and as you can see they are already producing huge amounts of green onion tops for us (which is good, because I put them in just about everything that isn't dessert).

For the first time ever, I broke down and got some lettuce seedlings so we could start enjoying our lettuce harvest a lot sooner. I picked these up at the Mustard Seed sale and I believe the variety is "Red Flame", but don't quote me on that because I have a terrible memory for that sort of thing :) I have direct sown some lettuce seed as well, so if all goes according to plan we should have a steady lettuce harvest for quite a few weeks (of course, things seldom go entirely according to plan in my garden!)

I was also gifted some strawberry plants, so in the ground they have gone, and a welcome addition they were, too. I haven't been tending to my strawberry patch very well since I transplanted them to another raised bed a couple years back, and the plants are looking far from robust. I am going to work on getting these guys back to good health this summer!

New Fertilizer Options

The plants aren't the only new thing in my garden plans this year. I'm going to be trying a few new ideas for fertilizing (something I've typically been not so great about). I have three new options I'm going to use, two of which are free and the third extremely inexpensive.

First up is this milk and molasses plant food recipe - super easy to whip up and something I might actually remember to do on a regular basis!

The next option is Freebie Fertilizer #1 and I might add I was quite relieved to discover this tip! As many of you know, I have been brewing kombucha for a couple of months now, and I am starting to get overrun with scobys (that's my scoby hotel on the left in the photo above). Of course, I am happy to give them away to friends who want them, but there are only so many takers (especially when each person who takes one starts getting overrun with them too, and my whole circle of friends is swimming in scobys). You can imagine my excitement when I discovered that people have had great success using them to fertilize their plants. Here's hoping my strawberries, tomatoes, rhubarb and raspberries all benefit from a little "scoby" treatment. Apparently many chickens go nuts for scobys, so if you are also overrun with them and know someone who has chickens, that might be another great alternative. I may just offer some to our egg farmer!

Photo courtesy of pd4pic.com

Freebie Fertilizer #2 is another one I just discovered after being given a comfrey plant (my plant is still looking a little worse for wear after being transplanted, so that's a stock photo). Comfrey can be used for fertilizer in a variety of ways; here's a good summary. I'm most likely going to go with the mulch option as it's the least involved and I am, after all, a pretty lazy gardener :)

I'll be sure to share how my fertilizer experiments work out later in the season!

What new and exciting things are happening in your garden this year?

 

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Finally - A Cooperative Grocery Store in Hamilton!

The Mustard Seed, Hamilton's first cooperative, non-profit grocery store, opened its doors for business this past Friday.

The store opening has been eagerly awaited by many Hamiltonians, but especially by the many volunteers like myself who spent countless hours over the past two years working to help make this happen!

The store was abuzz all opening weekend, with over 1000 folks dropping by to check the place out and shop for tasty local treats.

While there are still a lot of rough edges to smooth out, there are plenty of little details that give the store a personal, local touch.

Shown below: the produce section (large photo) and (from top to bottom) the barn doors made by a Mustard Seed member from reclaimed wood; a lineup of shoppers waiting to pay for their groceries, and the whimsical sign for the restroom.

One of my very favourite design touches at the store is all the photos of local food producers hanging on the walls. What a great way to bring to life exactly where our food is coming from and the people who are growing it for us!

Of course, I was also thrilled to see my book nestled on the shelves at the co-op. And particularly pleased to see it tucked in beside the More-with-Less cookbook, one of my longtime favourites. I grabbed this photo from the Mustard Seed's Facebook page - there are a ton more photos there  if you want to see the whole process of creating a grocery store.

It was really fun to walk around the store and be able to say "I helped put up those shelves", "I helped paint that" and on and on.

Of course, while the look of the store is important, the food is the main reason for the co-op's existence. Over the coming weeks and months I think the selection of products and producers will evolve quite considerably with lots of input from members. At the moment there is a fair amount of product purchased through distributors; as we connect with more smaller local producers I expect there will likely be a shift towards carrying more items from these types of businesses.

I'm most excited about being able to easily source more local and/or organic produce to supplement what I grow myself. I'll now have a consistent source for organic lemons, something I've often had trouble tracking down elsewhere. And the organic green onions I bought on opening day were a heck of a lot fresher than the ones I've been able to buy at other local grocery stores (not to mention I was able to get a smaller bunch so I can use them up before they spoil!) As we move into spring and the local growing season begins, the produce section is sure to be the highlight of the store.

Do you have a local co-op grocery store? What's your favourite thing about it?
 

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RECIPE: Cranberry Apple Compote

Cranberries are one of the Ontario-grown fruits that I don't think are all that well utilized. Sure, they get a lot of press at Thanksgiving and Christmas but we seem to forget about them for the most part over the rest of the winter when we could certainly use an injection of the colour and pleasant tartness they provide.

This winter I'm particularly motivated to incorporate them into our menus as my hubby went and bought half a dozen packages of organic, Canadian-produced cranberries when they were on sale right before Christmas.

This cranberry apple compote is really easy to whip up and it's plenty versatile. It makes a great topping for waffles or pancakes or plain baked oatmeal. You could also layer it with granola and yogurt to make breakfast parfaits, or serve it over vanilla ice cream for dessert (for an adults-only indulgence, add a shot or two of rum at the very end of cooking time). My kids are actually quite happy to polish off a bowlful of this straight up without any embellishment whatsoever :) 

Ingredients:
2 tbsp butter
3 medium apples, chopped

2 cups cranberries (fresh or frozen)

¼ cup honey

2 tbsp sugar

1 cup apple cider (or sub apple juice or water)

1 tsp cornstarch

Instructions:

• In a medium frying pan, sauté the apples in butter for a couple of minutes until they start to soften.

• Add the cranberries, honey and sugar and cook for a few more minutes over medium heat until cranberries start to pop.

• Mix cornstarch with cider and add to cranberry mixture. Simmer over medium heat for about 5 minutes until thickened.

Do you have a favourite way to cook with cranberries?

 

For more simple, tasty and family-friendly recipes like this one, check out my book: Cheap Appétit: The Complete Guide to Feeding Your Family for Less Than $400 a Month (While Eating Better Than You Ever Thought Possible)

 

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RECIPE: End-of-Summer Corn and Tomato Salad

Yes, the kids are back in school - but technically summer doesn't end for another week and a half. And because fresh, local summer produce is only here for such a brief season, I want to make the most of it before I begin the long fall and winter sojourn of endless root vegetable dishes. I don't have anything again root vegetables (in fact I'm fond of many of them), their season is just a much longer one here in Southern Ontario!

So, always looking for more ways to incorporate the sacred, short-seasoned corn and tomatoes into our lives, I came up with this salad. It was a hit with my family and also when I prepared it for a Cooking at the Market demo a week and a half ago.

I admit that cooking and cooling, then stripping the kernels off, several cobs of corn is a bit time consuming, but the taste of fresh corn in this salad is so worth it! The corn can be cooked and chilled ahead of time; and the whole salad can be made in advance if you have company coming or just want to have less work to do at mealtime.

This salad lends itself well to improvisation, so feel free to add whatever other embellishments you feel inspired to include. Diced avocado or sweet peppers play nicely with these flavours, and cubed or crumbled cheese is another nice addition (mozzarella or feta work well). If you want to make this into a heartier main dish salad, toss in about 1 1/2 cups of cooked black beans, or some leftover shredded chicken or pork. You could also add some cooked quinoa or barley to the mix! See, the options are nearly endless :)

Ingredients:
6 cobs corn, cooked and cooled
2 cups of cherry or grape tomatoes, halved (I used a combination of red cherry and yellow pear tomatoes)
6-8 green onions, sliced

Lime & Cumin Vinaigrette:
1/4 cup olive oil
3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 cloves garlic, minced
zest and juice of 1 lime
1/4 tsp dry mustard powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

Instructions:
-In a medium serving dish, combine the corn, tomatoes and green onions.

-In a small mixing bowl, whisk together all vinaigrette ingredients until well-blended. Pour over corn mixture and stir gently to coat evenly. 

Serves 6 as a side dish. 

For more simple, tasty and family-friendly recipes like this one, check out my book: Cheap Appétit: The Complete Guide to Feeding Your Family for Less Than $400 a Month (While Eating Better Than You Ever Thought Possible)

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An Early July Vegetable Garden Update

It's been about 6 weeks since I planted our veggie garden and it finally feels like the plants are starting to take off! While the weather's been somewhat uncooperative (bouncing back and forth between hot and humid and cool and rainy), the garden has managed to hold its own for the most part.

This is what the ground cherry plant looks like now:

 As you might recall, this is the first year I've ever grown ground cherry, so I haven't been too sure what to expect from it! The fruits will form inside the light green orbs that look like paper lanterns. I have no idea how to tell when they're ready to harvest - I need to do a bit of research on that I think! It's definitely a plant that adds some texture and interest to the vegetable garden; I hope we'll enjoy eating the fruit, too.

The cherry tomatoes are starting to get close to full size, although it'll be a while before they turn ripe unless we get a decent burst of warm sunny weather:

The sweet peppers are starting to come out; this Gypsy variety starts out pale yellow then ripens to a deep red - they are some of the sweetest peppers I've ever tasted! It's hard to be patient waiting for them to ripen :) I have some jalapeno plants too, but they don't have any peppers growing on them yet.

Over in this little corner of the garden, things are coming along nicely. There are a few re-grown green onions and an abundance of herbs (oregano, purple basil, garlic chives, lemon thyme) plus the nicest crop of lettuce I've had in just about forever.

And to the left of these herbs and lettuce is my parsley patch! Can you tell I love parsley? I've gotten pretty addicted to quinoa tabbouleh this spring so I need lots and lots of parsley. I think it's one of the most underrated herbs and I like to toss it in everything from omelettes to grain salads to salad dressings. I also like to have some to dry at the end of the season to add to winter soups and stews.

Finally, here are my scraggly-looking green beans. This is usually my most vigorous, productive crop, so I have no idea why they are doing so pathetically this year. I'm hoping they will start to perk up if we get some warmer weather - they are absolutely my favourite fresh-from-the-garden vegetable! And the variety I grow (Slenderette) is so superior to anything you'll get at the grocery store that it doesn't even seem like the same vegetable. Come on green beans, get it together, please.

I also realized as I was writing this post that I'd forgotten to snap a pic of the raspberries on the other side of the yard, which have started to ripen. It doesn't look like we'll be getting quite as much of a yield as we did last year, but there are still enough for us all to do some decent nibbling while we're out in the garden and sprinkle a few on some yogurt or granola.

How are things growing in your garden so far this year?

Project: Fermentation

I think I have a commitment problem. I'm supposed to be working on The Great Room Shuffling and Reorganization Project, but I got obsessed with distracted by another activity I've been wanting to try for ages: fermenting things.(Does this Project ADD happen to anyone else, or am I the only one?)

Technically I *have* already done plenty of fermenting, as that is the process that takes place when you make yogurt and I've got that one down pat. Somehow, though, taking the step from yogurt making to lacto-fermenting fruits and vegetables was a bit of a leap for me, and I felt quite apprehensive about taking the plunge. One of my close friends happens to be quite experienced at fermenting things, so with her encouragement I finally JUST DID IT!

Lacto-fermentation is actually quite simple. You don't need any special equipment to get started, just some Mason jars, sea salt and your fruits and veggies of choice. Some recipes also call for whey, which you can easily obtain by making yogurt cheese; it's the liquid that drips out, SAVE IT! If you don't use up all your whey fermenting things, there's a list of other ways to use it here. I think the biggest thing to get over when starting to ferment fruits and vegetables is the leaving-jars-of-cut-up-produce-on-the-counter-for-days aspect; we are so conditioned to refrigerate everything in our culture!

The photo above shows my two initial fermented food experiments: a quart jar of cabbage (sauerkraut) and 2 pint jars of fermented lemons. I followed these basic instructions for fermenting the cabbage, and this recipe for the lemons. They have already spent their allotted time on the counter and have been moved to the fridge to "brew" further. I have been told the sauerkraut is usually good to start eating at this point; from what I've read, the lemons usually need a few weeks of fermenting in the fridge before they are ready to enjoy (they become much less salty tasting over time). 

Why bother to ferment foods? It's a very inexpensive way to add more probiotic bacteria to your system. There are many health benefits to increasing the amount of probiotic bacteria in your diet; they improve your gut health as well as your immune system. Probiotics have been shown to boost resistance to colds, flus and infections, and research has also shown a link between probiotic food consumption and lower levels of stress hormones and depression. For more details about the health benefits of fermented foods, check out this article.

Health benefits aside, it's just plain fun to pound a bowlful of cabbage with my meat tenderizer (actually, that just may be conferring some mental health benefits, lol). If you'd like to learn more about how to ferment foods, I recommend Sandor Katz's website, Wild Fermentation, and his book of the same name: Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods (yes, that is an Amazon affiliate link!). 

My next lacto-fermentation projects will likely be gingerale, ketchup (because my boys put it on everything!), ginger carrots and this cranberry chutney, which my fermenting-enthusiast friend Linda says is "the bomb" :)

Is anyone else out there a lacto-fermentation enthusiast? What are your favourite foods to ferment?

A NOTE FOR LOCAL READERS: IT'S HERE! My "Feeding Your Family On a Shoestring" course will be running this spring semester through the Continuing Education department at Mohawk College. There will be 4, three hour sessions and you will get to pick my brain about any ...and all aspects of feeding your family well on a small budget. We will be baking bread, making yogurt and flour tortillas, and cooking a variety of healthy, low budget dishes to add to your repertoire. I will also be sharing many tips and strategies for shopping and managing your kitchen to get the most out of your food dollars.

Course fee is $160 which includes a copy of my book, there is also an additional $25 fee for food costs. Classes start Monday April 29th, 7-10 p.m. More details on p. 52 of the spring 2013 Mohawk Continuing Ed calendar or follow this link and click on the "Creative and Visual Arts" section.

For families of four spending more than $700 a month on groceries, this course can easily pay for itself in 1-2 months!


DID YOU KNOW? I now have an events page! Come find out where you can catch up with me at a signing, seminar, workshop or food demo HERE.

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Starting an Egg Buying Group

Photo by Simon Howden/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Longtime readers of this blog (and those who've read my book) will know that two of the strategies I recommend for keeping your food costs down are buying in bulk and always keeping an eye out for new food sources.

As the local food movement continues to gain steam, there are an ever-increasing number of options for sourcing your food in many cities and towns across North America. This is exciting news, and it means that even if you've lived somewhere for a long time (as I have), there may be food purchasing possibilities of which you're not aware.

A couple of months ago I wrote about how excited I was to find a source of affordable, local free-range eggs. While these were wonderful eggs at a fantastic price, for a variety of reasons this source hasn't proved to be a viable option for regularly purchasing eggs.

About a week ago, a member of my ONFC buying club asked if anyone knew a good source for local free range eggs. I decided to take a quick peek on Kijiji to see what I could find and as it happened, a listing I had not seen before had just been posted less than half an hour before I checked!

This source seemed nearly perfect: free range chickens fed organic feed, a steady supply of eggs, and a fantastic price when eggs were purchased in bulk - only $2.50 a dozen when you buy more than 6 dozen! Eggs of similar quality sell for $6-7 a dozen around here when bought at grocery stores or even direct from some of the larger farms. The only problem was that this farm was a 35-40 minute drive from my house, making it impractical for purchasing eggs a couple of times a month.

I decided to ask members of my buying club, plus a few of my other local foodie friends if anyone would be interested in setting up a small egg buying group and within a couple days it was clear that this could be a viable possibility. After inquiring with the egg farmer, I was assured she could meet our needs for a large bulk pickup and she seemed thrilled to make a regular bulk purchase arrangement with our group.

My husband and I drove out to the farm this past weekend to pick up our first batch of eggs and it's looking like this will be a wonderful long-term arrangement for both the egg producer and our little group of egg buyers. While we're still getting ourselves organized, it looks like we will have somewhere between 8-12 families in our group, ordering in the neighbourhood of 16-20+ dozen eggs from this small-scale producer every 2 weeks. Forming a group makes it practical to buy from this source; because we will take turns picking up eggs at the farm, each family will only be responsible for making the drive out there 2-3 times per *year*! The eggs will be dropped off at a central location (right now it's my house) for everyone to come fetch. Since we all live in the same area of the city, it makes it very convenient and accessible for everyone.

This is just one example of how forming a buying group can make purchases both feasible and worthwhile that otherwise might be neither. In this case, the distance to the producer made it impractical for regular, individual twice-a-month purchases (if it was a more shelf-stable product, like grains, or something you could pack in the freezer, like meat, facilitating larger and less frequent purchases, the distance might not be an issue). We are also getting a better price per dozen by purchasing in bulk. In this case, the price was still great even without the discount ($3.00 per dozen). In some cases, buying large quantities at once can cut your costs by 50% or more.

While this setup is certainly not as simple as walking around the corner to the store to buy eggs, it should work out to be a fairly smooth and consistent way for us to purchase great eggs for a fantastic price while supporting a small-scale local producer. Investing a little time and creativity into finding a solution that worked will be well worth the effort as we enjoy these high-quality eggs on a regular basis!

Have you found any creative solutions to accessing more fresh, local foods on a small budget in your area?

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My Latest Food Find: Affordable Local Free-Range Eggs!

I'm thrilled about my latest adventure in hunting down affordable local foods: some awesome free range eggs from a small-scale local producer.

If I had the choice, my preference would be to keep my own backyard chickens to have easy access to fresh eggs from happy chickens. Unfortunately, it's currently illegal to keep backyard chickens in my city, and while the issue is currently under debate, I'm not sure it's going to be resolved any time soon.

So, while I wait not-so-patiently for a verdict on backyard chickens, I've been hoping to find some good local eggs that were affordable enough to buy on a regular basis. We just can't afford to shell out over $6 a dozen for the ones at the grocery store! I was Skyping with an American foodie friend one night recently and lamenting that I couldn't seem to track down eggs from a small local producer. She mentioned that one of the ways she has found some of the smaller local food producers in her area is by looking on Craigslist, and suggested that I do a search on Kijiji to see if anything came up (Craigslist is not really active in my area). Well, sure enough, I typed in "free-range eggs" and a few different options popped up! I zeroed in on one listing that was located closest to us and also gave the most information about their eggs.

After a flurry of texts back and forth between the"egg lady" and my husband, we set off on Saturday afternoon to acquire our first non-supermarket-purchased eggs. Here is what we came home with:

We had originally requested 3 dozen chicken eggs, but she didn't have that many available so we came home with an interesting mix of eggs from three different kinds of birds. The top carton is a mix of different coloured chicken eggs. The two large eggs in the bottom carton are duck eggs, and the small speckled eggs are quail eggs. We paid a grand total of $4.50 for all of these eggs, which is ridiculously inexpensive for the quality of the eggs. They are not "certified organic", but they are definitely from happy, free-range chickens. We were told they receive organic feed (as well as whatever insects, greens and other goodies they munch on while they're wandering around) and no antibiotics.

 Aren't the quail eggs just gorgeous? I'd never seen one before! They look so much like a work of art that it's almost a shame to eat them...

 

We got to visit the birds while we were there. Here are some of the lovely ladies who laid our eggs:

This hen is known as an "Easter Egger" and is the one who laid the greenish coloured eggs:

We also got to pet a turkey while we were there! Specifically, this friendly female:

 She stuck close to us the whole time we were wandering around her turf, kind of like dogs sometimes do :)

It's pretty neat to meet the birds that laid your eggs!  As we were getting back in the van to come home, I glanced up and noticed that a whole parade of birds had followed us out of the yard. By the time I thought to snap a photo, the little crowd of fowl had already started to disperse, but it was awfully endearing in the moment. Our two boys, who declined the offer to come with us to get the eggs, have been busy showing them off to all their friends (with accompanying "oohs" and "aahs"). After we showed them pictures of all the birds, I think they wished they had come with us after all. Maybe next time they will decide to join us.

When I was making a blueberry clafouti for breakfast on Sunday morning, I couldn't resist an opportunity to do a visual comparison between one of our newly acquired eggs and a grocery store egg:

Can you guess which is which? The free-range egg is on the left and although it's not as dramatic in the photo as it is in person, the yolk of the free-range egg is definitely much darker than that of the grocery store egg.

One of the advantages of buying directly from food producers (aside from knowing a lot more about how the food was produced) is that you often end up with a more eclectic and interesting selection of offerings than you would at the grocery store. I doubt I ever would have purposely set out to buy quail or duck eggs, but since the opportunity presented itself, it's fun to explore these less familiar options. I was told by a friend that duck eggs make particularly moist and fluffy baked goods, and the muffins we made with one on Sunday do seem to have turned out particularly well. We still haven't cracked open the quail eggs, but I have plans to use them in a potato hash later in the week. It's a pity none of us like poached or fried eggs as I suspect the quail eggs would make really quaint little versions of each!

While this method of purchasing eggs is certainly not as convenient as grabbing them from the neighbourhood supermarket, it's definitely a lot more fun and interesting. Plus, it's good to know we are helping to support a local young couple (even if it's just in a small way) and that these are well-treated, happy birds supplying our eggs.

Have you made any great local food discoveries lately?

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Four Delicious Things to Do with a Cabbage

Photo by Summai/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 "It is the cabbage which surpasses all other vegetables. What virtue and health-giving qualities it has." ~Cato the Elder 

Cabbage is one of those foods that is just about perfect: packed full of nutrients, locally grown and readily available here in Southern Ontario, and CHEAP - really, really cheap. They go on sale routinely around here for $1.50. And a large, robust cabbage is a LOT of food. You can easily get three family meals from one of these formidable veggies. So I have to wonder why more people haven't embraced this amazing vegetable! Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that when most people think of cabbage, they think of cabbage rolls - a rather labour-intensive dish (and one, I might add, that I don't particularly care for) which seems to be enjoyed (at least in my social circles) only on special occasions like holiday buffets. I admit it's not a vegetable I grew up eating, and if you're not familiar with various methods to prepare it, it might seem a trifle overwhelming to figure it all out.

Here I am to the rescue with the recipes I hope will convert everyone into enthusiastic cabbage eaters! All of these dishes are in regular rotation in our home during the months cabbage is in season. I might note that none of them have a really strong bitter-cabbage taste that you can sometimes get with cooked cabbage. So I encourage you to give them a whirl, and expand your repertoire of ways to use this overlooked powerhouse of frugal cooking.

(The page references given are where you'll find the recipes in my book)

1. Cabbage and Beef Soup, p. 167
This makes a BIG batch of soup, perfect for when you need to feed a crowd, use up a bunch of rapidly-wilting produce or want some planned leftovers. It's one of my family's favourite soups, packed full of veggies and very satisfying.

2. Colourful Cabbage Salad, p. 207
A staple in our fridge, this salad will keep well for a few days if it lasts that long! (And goodness, I can't believe I *still* keep forgetting to take a photo of this one).

3. African-Style Vegetable Stew, p. 161
This dish is much heartier than you might suspect based on the ingredients - the substantial amount of peanut butter makes it quite filling.

4. Pork with Cabbage, Apples and Onions
Although it's not the most attractive looking dish, it's quite tasty and eagerly gobbled up by all of my family members whenever I serve it.

What's YOUR favourite way to cook cabbage? Please leave a comment and share it with us!

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