Rhubarb Crumble

Wow, short of the fiddlehead pasta I've been really slack on posting seasonal recipes! This was brought to my attention with the new books I've been reading:

and

So in all my guilt I've decided to post a recipe. Really after this one I'm not that far behind. I don't have anything brilliant to show you about asparagus (just cook it lightly and eat - can't get any better) so with fiddleheads, asparagus & rhubarb down I'm on to June which of course brings to mind strawberries so I'll see what I can do about that one soon! Roots are also available right now but because they're so easily stored I say enjoy them all year round.

Here's my favourite rhubarb crumble.

Preheat the oven to 350.
In a large bowl combine 3 cups chopped rhubarb, 2 medium apples chopped, 1 egg and 1/2 cup maple syrup. Sprinkle in a few nice warm spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. Pour into a large baking dish.
In that same bowl (don't bother cleaning it) combine 1 cup flour (I've tried this recipe with 3/4 cup rice flour and 1/4 cup tapioca starch - it was great), 1/2 cup sucanat or brown sugar and a pinch of sea salt. Then cut in 1/2 cup cold butter or Earth Balance.
Crumble this mixture over the fruit and bake for 45 - 55 minutes.



There's no picture. We ate it all right away. Every time.

Community Shared Agriculture

I just attended a great talk at the Western Fair Farmers' Market through On the Move Organics. It featured a farmer from Aylmer, Ontario who runs the Triple Cord CSA.

A CSA is a program where people pay up front to secure a number of weeks of fresh produce. In this case it is $400 for a small, or $600 for a large, box of organic fruits and vegetables, grown in Aylmer, for 20 weeks - starting May 21st and ending October 1st. Boxes can be picked up Saturdays between 8am and 3pm at the farmers' market. They are packed full of fresh, organic produce ranging from spanish onions to potatoes to kale and even berries. There is also an opportunity half way through to visit the farm and get a tour of where and how everything is grown.

Reasons to join a CSA:

Support a farmer! These hard workers incur all of their costs at the beginning of the season and all of their profit at harvest - it's not easy on their bank accounts. By paying up front you give them both income for purchasing seed, etc. and a guaranteed market so they know exactly what to grow. It saves them from wasting a work day at the market when they could be tending to the crops. This in turn promotes the local economy.

Receive quality produce! You know this stuff will be fresh and organic. It will have high nutrient content and the very person who grew it will be giving it to you with pride. Grocery store produce is not often picked ripe and doesn't receive full nutrition. Instead it sits in a truck pumped with ethylene gas until it looks ripe. You eat a red tomato, but you get the nutrition of a green tomato. And grocery store produce is genetically bred for shelf stability and looks not taste and quality. Besides if you have a box of fresh vegetables sitting in the house you're going to eat a lot healthier than usual.

It's better for the environment! Rather than shopping around for avocados grown in Chile that must use gallons and gallons of gas getting to your plate why not eat the local food that your body was designed for that has only traveled less than an hour. When you accept a box of produce you eliminate the incredible food waste that goes on in grocery stores because people pick and choose what they want that week. And if it's organic you can be sure the soil and water practices are ethical and planet friendly.

Enjoy a new experience! Not only will you learn a lot about farming when you're touring the land but you'll come to see what crops thrive or don't in certain weather. Perhaps the melons in your box will be smaller this week because rain fall has been short, or your box will contain more spinach than arugula because weather's been unseasonably cold. You will also learn about vegetables that you wouldn't normally cook with (kohlrabi, turnips, bok choi), forcing you to experiment. If you receive an abundance of something one week that can't be eaten or shared before going bad maybe you'll learn a new method of preservation. This also grows community because it gives other CSA contributors a chance to talk amongst each other about uses for certain vegetables.

You can get more information about the Triple Cord CSA by emailing Jeff at onthemoveorganics@gmail.com or visiting the farmers' market on a Saturday.

Roasted Vegetables

About this time of year, every year, my mom and I get the last harvest panic and begin doing crazy things like taking out a second mortgage to buy things at the farmer's market and canning things from the garden for a full day without breaks. It's just a scary thought that, in this climate, we're heading into a few months that local vegetables won't be fresh and available. This type of thinking can explain my mad posting streak about things I preserved with family and friends a few weeks ago, and can also explain my recipe today.

Root vegetables are hardy enough to make it through the winter. Some varieties (carrots, parsnips) can be left in the soil til spring. Because my only garden is in clay pots on my outdoor kitchen table, I store mine in hard paper bags. The key is to sort out the bad seeds (anything rotting) so that the ethylene gas won't spread and ruin the whole batch. If only a few pieces are bad, separate them and make sure to use them first, cutting off the bad sections. Most vegetables are best stored with their follage intact (darn it, I bought beets with no greens) and unwashed. They do the best in a very dry, cool place with no light. That place, for now, is my balcony. It's not a bad idea to empty the bags once a month and check for anything weird like roots growing from your potatoes. If they go green, they're poisonous. When it gets really cold (indicated by the inability to bike to work anymore) put a blanket over the potato sacks so that they stay above 0.

I picked up some bulk root vegetables and around 4 o'clock today realized that dinner was in a few hours and I had no plan. Then I did this:

Preheat the oven to 425F.

Chop 4 cloves garlic into a large dice.
Eighth 4 medium yellow onions.
Wash and dice 1 large beet.
Wash 2 large carrots and chop into large coins.

Then I mixed it all together with a few Tbsp oil and a few tsp sea salt infused with rosemary.

I baked it for an hour in a cast iron skillet.

During this time I threw on some brown rice in the steamer and had Jordie BBQ some hot sausages that Calvin picked up. These things are probably not local - sorry!

I added the grilled sausage to the mix once I chopped it up and served it on rice. Voila! Tasty enough that the boys won't care that it's good for them and the environment. Mission accomplished.

I will make one note of suggested improvement: the beets were slightly less tender than the rest of the dish. It seems to me they require a longer roasting time. In the future I will either send the beets in the oven for a 15-minute prep roast before adding the remaining vegetables, or I will chop the pieces much smaller so they'll roast quicker. I will also wash my cutting board right after doing the prep, but if you try this recipe you'll already know what I mean. Enjoy.

Next week: honey?

100 Mile Diet and DIY Home Roasting Coffee

I've recently started reading 100-Mile Diet by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon. It is a book about a couple who spend one very interesting year consuming only food and drink grown within 100 miles of their BC home. This time last year I attempted to organize a 100 mile diet Thanksgiving dinner for my friends and I but convincing people to go out of their way to research and source southern Ontario foods was harder than expected. The moral of the story is that it's great and honourable to attempt local eating, however the theme of this blog is, ironically, how to roast coffee at home.

Coffee is quite a beast for me because on one hand it is my favourite beverages, hands down, and I am often asked if I love it so much why don't I marry it? (The answer is because I'm already married, and that's the only reason.) On the other hand, it is one of the most underpaid industries in the world, bordering on slave labour in some parts, and it is a crop that simply can't be grown around here, necessitating long transportation and the inevitable toll on the environment. Here is where the two themes collide.

In my opinion, Fair Trade* practices and certification alleviate some of the moral burden of purchasing and consuming items like coffee, tea, cocoa, spices and sugar. These are things that we have to import if we want to enjoy them - they will not grow here. I will note that there are many teas and spices that are native to Canada, and there are also sugar alternatives like maple syrup and honey that are equally if not more delicious, but that's neither here nor there (I've always wanted to use that phrase in a blog). Now on to what I do with my fair trade coffee, besides the obvious.

A few years ago I began roasting my own coffee, both to save a few dollars per pound and to do something fun and productive with my mom. It's truly one of the funnest Saturday morning activities a person can get up to, after they're home from the farmers market of course. Here's what you'll need:

85 grams of green (unroasted) coffee beans - if you live in London go see Dave, Pat or Jason at the Fire Roasted Coffee Company in the Western Fair Confederation Building - www.fireroastedcoffee.com
An air popcorn popper - just the cheap kind you buy in a hardware store or at a garage sale
A metal colander
A wooden spoon

Begin by measuring out 85 grams of green beans.While you are seeking out a professional baker or drug dealer to borrow a scale from, heat up your popcorn popper so it's good to go when your beans are. A minute will do.

Drop the beans into the popper and immediately start mixing them around with the back of the wooden spoon, even if your popper is doing a nice job of stirring them around with its whirling motion.

Watch as the colour changes from light green-grey, to golden to dark espresso. The aroma will change dramatically too. As you roast more often you will be more in tune with what the smells and colours mean. I keep the lid off because I roast outside and don't care about the chaff flying around. If you do this inside, you need to know a few things: number one, there will be smoke, and number two, the outer layer of the coffee bean is separated during the roasting process and will be lifted up in the air creating a mass exodus of papery chaff that won't be fun to clean up no matter what childhood song a clown named Luna is singing (ha ha?).

Less than 5 minutes in, if you're listening, you'll hear a cracking noise. This is aptly named first crack and signals the beginning of the time that you can choose to finish roasting. Beans taken off at first crack will be quite light in roast, best suited for a Latin American coffee as far as I'm concerned. Not long after you'll hear a second, different crackling noise and this, as you may guess, is second crack. Finishing the roast at second crack or beyond will yield a dark roast, so you should probably invite me over. Dark roasts are nice for African coffees or anything you'll be using for espresso. When you want to pull the beans, turn off the popper and quickly dump the beans into your metal colander, then sift the coffee around like you're looking for gold. This will remove any last chaff and will get cooler air flowing through, thus stopping the cooking process.

Now the hardest part: rest the coffee for 1 - 5 days. It needs time to degas. This is why you should be doing a roast a few times a week. Don't worry if you make too much coffee, I will drink it. When your newly roasted coffee has had time to sit, then pull out a fresh press, just some filtered water heating, and grind up a batch.

Congratulations, you roasted coffee. 




* For more information on what Fair Trade means, request that I write a blog about it!