I made this on a whim with kohlrabi we got in our first installment of this year’s CSA.  A trick of mine for making nice uniform julienned style slices for the carrots and kohlrabi is to cut them into 2 inch pieces and then stack them in the top of the food processor with the grater attachment on.  By stacking them lengthwise they grate the long way and result in a more julienned style.  I hope that makes some sense!

Anyway, this salad was great the first night we had it and actually improved after sitting in the fridge.  It was well received by my family and the people we shared it with.

It has been a long time since I posted, basically a year!  In that year I have been working as a high school science teacher at a local private school here in Kitchener.  It’s been great to be back in a school teaching biology, chemistry, and even math.  In my free time I’ve been eating lots of homegrown kale (mostly in salad form) and brewing with local hops.

One of the projects that I had wanted to work on for a long time but kept dragging my feet about was an idea called “Homestead City.”  My brother-in-law, Graham, and I came up with a few pilot episodes featuring my family and a couple of our good friends from our neighborhood.

The premise of this project was an idea I’ve talked about before on this blog, that you can’t do or make everything from scratch when you live in the city, have a job, a family, a small yard (or no yard), and so on, but you can do something!  And when you connect with your neighbors, friends, and other community members, together you can create a homestead out of your city.

In the past year Graham has taken the project to Toronto where he has worked with a crew to develop a series of episodes for television.  Stay tuned for more news about when you can see the full series, and in the meantime here’s the pilot episode featuring The Local Kitchener and his family:

There are a few ways to stay up-to-date with The Local Kitchener.  Here they are:

One.  Just check the site on a regular basis.  This is probably not too reliable, but at least there’s no commitment!

Two. Sign up for email updates.  This means getting a monthly email with a link to a few posts.  This works pretty well, at least if you like email.  You can even subscribe to our mailing list right here:

Three.  Like us on Facebook.  This is good but Facebook is a bit weird because it doesn’t always show everybody everything.  For example sometimes a new post is only shown to about 5% of the people who like the page. Nonetheless, it’s very user-friendly and is a decent way of staying connected.  (Click over there on the right, down a ways to like the site without leaving.)

Four.  Follow on Twitter.  To be honest I’m not sure this is really that useful since Twitter is so crowded with information.  Although maybe the problem is that I just am not very good at tweeting!  Still, it’s an option for updates so go for it.

Five.  Use an RSS site of some sort like BlogLovin’.  I like this method, it presents all the blogs you follow in a nice layout. Follow my blog with Bloglovin!

Cheers and Happy Easter.

–Jon

Everyone has their priorities, but I would appreciate having a bunch of meals that I could make in a day and then eat simply by pulling them out of the freezer in the morning and stuffing in a crock pot.  Alas, I don’t think we’ll have the freezer space any time soon.  Furthermore most of those meals I see  feature large amounts of meat, and we prefer to not eat large amounts of meat all the time.  However, we do have pantry space and a pressure canner….

This summer I was on the National Center for Home Food Preservation website (yes, very long name, shall we just refer to it as the Food Pres site?  No, I agree, we will keep referring to it by it’s easy name, the National Center for Home Food Preservation) and I came across directions for canning soup.  Let’s all read what it said together, because if they said it’s safe then it works for me!

They go on:

And then the table:

Thanks to that info I have felt sufficiently confident this harvest season (which, from what I can tell just ended) that I can cook up delicious soups like Cream of Broccoli, sans the cream, can the heck out them, and stick ‘em on the shelf until we need a quick and easy meal.  Now, you’re thinking to yourself, “well I have a huge empty freezer so I’m going to stop reading and just freeze me some soup and I will take the time to defrost it and cook it for an easy dinner” and that’s fine for you but like I said before, I don’t have the room in my freezer.  But really even that’s not why this appeals to me.  For me it’s the convenience of food in a jar.

How I Arrived Here:

Two months ago I came home from the market garden I volunteered at over the summer with the biggest zucchini ever.  It was a nasty ogre of a zuke.  It barely fit in my bike’s saddle bag and I had an even harder time figuring out what on earth to do with it, besides take a picture of it on my rustic wood table….

Next time I’ll put something next to it to show how big it was.

Anyways, point of the story is I ended up cooking a pretty big batch of Cream of Zucchini and Potato soup and decided to stick it in jars and pressure can it.  I then stuck the jars in the basement pantry until a few weeks later when we were in a hurry to eat and we decided to have one.  It was great!  Compared to eating a frozen meal which either requires forethought or liberal use of the microwave, this soup was simply cracked open (easier than Campbell’s) and heated up on the stove.  A bit of cream was added and we had a simple, tasty dinner of soup and leftover bread.

Then I started feeling sad that we had one less jar of soup in the basement.   (These are the kinds of things that make me sad, I know, lame).  So I started scheming (my word for planning, and others call it “prepping”).  Next up came Cream of Broccoli with a few heads of broccoli that I had forgotten in the fridge.  They were nearing the end of their freshness but made a great soup and got us three more large jars to add to the pantry supply.  We enjoyed one of them a few weeks later when in a rush again for a meal.  And once again I was very pleased with the results but also sad at the declining supply of easy meals on the pantry shelf.

This past Saturday I came home from the market with what will likely be the last broccoli of the season.  I bought quite a bit.  I had ridden my bike to the market and had a lot of trouble fitting everything in my bike saddle bags and backpack.  It also snowed while I was there and I rode home on snowy roads.  It was kind of absurd, but also fun!

On Sunday afternoon I washed the broccoli, cooked up a large pot of Cream of Broccoli without cream (look back at the instructions from the National Center for Home Food Preservation website and see that cream does not go in the jars), and then canned it to smithereens!  Well, not quite, but I did can it.  I mean I can did it.  I mean, you can do it.  No, the first was right.  Well, the last was true too, I can and so can you can!  Even Toucan, Pelican, Pecan, and Republican.  Okay, enough gibberish and rambling, see below!

(Canned) Cream of Broccoli

Recipe from (IMO) the most useful cookbook ever.

Enough to can 6-8 quarts/liters (I got 7, which is just between 6 and 8).

• 1-2 Tbs. olive oil (be sure to keep oil to a minimum when canning)
• 3-5 onions, chopped
• 4-5 celery stalks, chopped
• 5-7 lbs broccoli, washed and coarsely chopped
• 1 gallon (16 cups) broth (chicken or vegetable)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• No cream now, but when you cook up your canned soup later, add ¼ – ½ cup cream or milk
• Dash of nutmeg when you cook up later.

Heat oil and fry up onions and celery until beginning to soften.  Add  broccoli, and stir briefly with the onions and celery.  Add broth and bring to a simmer.  Because you’re about to cook this under extreme pressure you do not need to fully cook the broccoli, just get it soft enough to puree with an immersion blender or working in batches in the food processor (I’m thankful for a lovely neighbor who lent me her immersion blender!  I shall have to give her one of my precious jars of soup…).  Add salt and pepper to taste and get ready to can!  Keep the soup at simmer.

Canning Instructions

• 8 quart/liter jars
• 8 lids
• 8 rings
• Pressure canner (we have this one)

Wash and sterilize jars, lids, and rings.  Prepare pressure canner by filling with water to recommended fill line and boiling.  Heat jars in 220◦ oven or in boiling water.  Fill jars, leaving 1-inch headspace.  Clean the tops of the jars and attach lids and rings.  Put lid on canner, blow steam out for 10 minutes to get all air out of the canner.  Attach pressure regulator and process quarts/liters under 11 PSI for 75 minutes.  Make sure to allow the pressure to completely drop before opening the canner to remove the cans.  When they are cool (hey man, they were always cool, wait, what?) the next day remove the rings and store until you need an easy meal!

Instructions in Photo Form:

FYI: The intense heat of the pressure canning process may cause the soup to lose its nice green color.  The flavor won’t be effected but if you’re wanting soup that retains its color try making a soup with vegetables of a different color.

For advice on using a pressure canner see here and here for a video.

Disclaimer: I have used Amazon Affiliate links in this post, which have rarely earned me any money.  How they work is if you decide to purchase something I’ve recommended then I get like a 4% commission if you click though my link to buy it.  Pretty cool.  However, seeing as it has almost never earned me any money I’m not sure why I keep including these links!

Today I tackled a more present problem in the fridge—2 small baskets of fruit that were looking sadder each day.  The grapes were purchased from a farmer two weeks ago at the St. Jacobs Market and the arctic kiwis were a gift from a friend who had received them from another friend who grew tons of them this year.

No, the problem isn’t that the squash have sprouted eyes.

I figured the two might as well go together in a jam because I didn’t know what else to do with them.  So, here’s the recipe, just as it happened this morning!

Arctic Kiwi Grape Jam with Honey (makes 2-3 ½ pint jars)

• 2-3 cups local grapes (these were Concord)
• 2-3 cups local artic kiwis, chopped into small pieces
• ½ cup local honey
• 2 tsp. dry pectin (the pure stuff, not the crummy kind with tons of sugar in it)

Crush the grapes in a pan and bring to a boil, then simmer for 10 minutes.  Push to strain them through a colander.  Return the strained grapes to the pan and add the arctic kiwis.  Bring to a boil then simmer until the kiwis have softened and crush them a bit as well to form a consistent jam*.  Add the pectin to the honey and stir thoroughly.  Add the honey-pectin mixture to the jam and bring to a good boil for several minutes.  Prepare jars for canning, fill them to ½ inch from the top, process in boiling water for 10 minutes and allow to cool.

My opinion of the final product?  It mostly just tastes like a grape jam, but with a slightly deeper flavor that’s hard to place, unless you know it’s kiwi.  I like it and my young assistant does as well!

* If you’re like me and worry about your jam setting up you can always cook it longer to thicken it up that way.

Kitchener/Waterloo is a great place to live for a locavore. The surrounding region provides many incredible foods at affordable prices. Much of that food is easily accessible within the city year-round, thanks in part to Bailey’s Local Foods, The Saint Jacobs Market, and of course the Kitchener Market. But sometimes I want more. I often picture my dream locavore town and it would look something like this:

The local food economy is so well supported that there is constant growth in the number of small organic farms in the region. In general it is expected that most farms are organic, resulting in the fact that those who still practice “conventional” farming are the exception. Their products are not readily sought after since the community believes in the value of organic, sustainably produced food.

In this locavore town, local-mindedness goes beyond local food. A local mentality also encourages local artists, musicians, writers, filmmakers, and architects. Being local helps to foster an appreciation for the things that members of the community create, fostering as well as a sense of pride.

Restaurants in my locavore dream rely on local farms and have menus that change constantly throughout the seasons. It is also easy to find meaningful work because all work done in the community is necessary and valuable to the community. Since the majority of foods and products required are produced locally there is an appropriate balance between supply and demand, resulting in less price fluctuations and better use of our resources. The community creates what it needs and the economy responds to its needs efficiently and fairly.

There is no need to declare oneself a “locavore” here because it is the default option for consumers. The town is filled with many small, locally owned grocery stores which feature vegetables, fruits, preserves, grains, cereals, breads, meats, dairy products, and much more grown, produced, and processed in the region. The only non-local products are ones that could never be produced here, and these are sourced sustainably and fairly.

In this town, the environment is well cared for because it is seen as valuable to the continued sustainability and resilience of the community.  The city has committed to containing growth within its boundaries and not sprawling into surrounding farmlands, while also working to encourage the growth and viability of small family farms that practice good stewardship of the land. 

That’s more or less how my dream goes.

In some ways we’re not that far from my dream here in KW. I can find most of those things here, but I have to be willing to look for them. When I go to the grocery store I can find local products if I stop to read labels and ask questions. I can talk to growers at the markets and visit farms. However, the only people who live this way are the ones who make the conscious decision and commitment to eating and buying local.

One thing I love about KW is that it has its own unique and original culture.  This is because the foundations for many of our local businesses originated here, including food businesses.  It is food that has the potential of shaping culture and when food is produced in and for a local community it is inherently unique, catering to local tastes and preferences.

Though unique, the city is not an island, cut off from the world. Our culture still exists within the larger culture of North America (and the world), but it does not always depend on the larger cultures to define or guide it. The local economy in KW is vibrant although at times overly dependent on one or several large businesses and employers.  As the local food economy grows other aspects of the economy will grow to support it, growing the resiliency of our community as we strengthen the bonds of our interconnectedness.

I love living here, and feel that KW is a wonderful place.  However, I do hope we can find even more ways to increasingly live like my locavore dream town.

Apples.  This has been an incredible apple season, so good that many are free (if you know where to look!).  My friend Jake and I got a ton of apples from his friend’s tree and I took several bushels of them out to a Mennonite farm called Rolling Acres that presses apples into juice.  You can have it bagged in 1 liter “milk bags” or just put it in a bucket, so we got a bit of both.   We actually ended up going twice, using pears that another friend had bought as seconds from a farm for really cheap to make one of the batches half pears.

On the left are canned jars of cider, the right is 23 liters of cider fermenting contentedly…

All in all we ended up after two trips with close to 150 liters of juice.  Jake and I canned about 40 liters of it, another 46 liters are fermenting in two large 23 liter carboys, another 30 or so are frozen, and the rest was consumed fresh.  Yes, it’s a lot of juice.  It’s also going to be a lot of hard cider for enjoying in the winter months.  And yet there are more apples.  So we’ve made applesauce.  In our basement there are now about 30 liters of applesauce.  It’s been fun, but it definitely gets exhausting.

Making applesauce.  Top the apples cook until softened, below my young assistant strains out the skins and cores using a food mill.

I’ve also done a lot of canning of tomatoes and salsa and think I’m done with that now, with around 30 liters of salsa, and about 40 half-liters of salsa.  You never know how long supplies will last but just see how far it goes and then plan accordingly the next year.  Jake has been even more prolific than I have, putting up probably about 200 jars (maybe he’ll comment with exact numbers, hopefully I’m not too far off the number…).

We definitely need more shelf space.

Thus, no recipe post this time, just saying I’ve been busy getting ready for winter.  I will return with some recipes in the next few weeks, but in the meantime I’ve still got a bit more preparing to do….

This post is linked at The Homeacre Hop.

Our vacation was not focused on food but I made sure to sample local beverages while in Michigan, which is home to more than 100 craft breweries!  According to USA Today, Michigan ranks 5^th in the US for number of craft breweries.  Anyone who is from Michigan (I count myself as one, since I was born there, and spent my college years there) knows that the state has amazing breweries (Founders, Bells, Brewery Vivant, Short’s, New Holland…).  In the last year Michigan took 3 out of 5 of the BeerCity USA awards (although this is a somewhat biased award, since it is based on popular vote and the state had the most voters).

One tradition that we upheld on this visit to Michigan was blueberry picking, which (once again) in many people’s opinion Michigan is home to the best blueberries!  Sadly, we were maybe a week early and struggled to fill our buckets.  Nonetheless, we picked several pounds and enjoyed the wonderful fruits all week long and even made ice cream with them.  Interestingly, the best blueberry ice cream recipe I found came from a blogger based in the place we live, the Waterloo Region!

I evened managed to find “local” sugar while in Michigan which I was pretty excited about.  I came home with 15 pounds of the stuff!  The Michigan Sugar Company is a cooperative based on the east side of the state so I felt like it was much more local than any cane sugar I’m ever going to buy.  I’ve been working to minimize my use of sugar, replacing it as much as possible in cooking with honey and maple syrup, but some recipes just work best with sugar.  This sugar is made from sugarbeets!

We returned home late Saturday night (well, actually it was very early Sunday morning) to a town that had been ravaged by a huge storm!  We were very amazed and thankful to find our backyard looking totally normal.  There were even new vegetables to pick, including Sun Gold tomatoes and two huge zucchinis.  We made eggplant parmesan but substituted one of the zucchinis for the eggplant, and it was great!

So, vacation is over, we are home again, and I’m back to work on various projects around the house, the newest being Kombucha and Ginger Bug.  I will hopefully be successful with these wonderful live culture beverages soon and will share more about them.  It’s all part of my attempt to work with local cultures!  First things first though, we need to catch up on some laundry….

Ok, so I know I’m stretching things with my Wednesday variations but anyways… here’s another song about plants.  It’s called “If I Leave You Too Long You Might Rot.”  I think the title pretty much sums it up, but if you want to know what I’m talking about give it a listen:

Oh yeah, that’s a hilarious beardy pic of me, taken right after a car stopped and the guy leaned out and was like, “hey, Fidel!”

Anyhow, here’s one of the songs from that album: