Getting There

Raspberries!

Bright and early this sunny morning, my dear husband and eldest child drove out to the berry farm, and came back a few hours later heavily laden with fragrant, juicy, crimson raspberries.

Aren't they lovely? And they smell so delicious. I wish I could share with my readers the sweet fruity scent that lingers in my kitchen right now.

Since raspberries spoil quickly I set to making jam right away. I just made the full sugar kind this time, since I had a box of regular pectin that came with my canning kit. The jam does taste sweet, but oh my! It's just bursting with raspberry flavour. I always though chocolate was my favourite sweet, but dare I say it? I think homemade jam might just be my new favourite. :)

This year is the first I've done any canning at all, so I'm sticking to the basic traditional recipes. In the future, I'd like to experiment more with canning using natural sweeteners like honey. Recently, Sara at Farmama was talking about a book coming out this fall entitled The Natural Resource Canning Book,  which looks very interesting!  The author talks about using all natural ingredients and sweeteners, and also explains how to make your own pectin to avoid the commercial pectins which contain preservatives. I think I'll be asking for this book for Christmas this year.

We stil have a lot of raspberries even after making jam, so I am trying to think of what else to do with them. Chris wants to make a big jar of raspberry juice to add to lemonade (raspberry lemonade is his favourite drink in the world). Probably the rest will be frozen, to make raspberry sauce at some later date. If anyone has any ideas for amazing things to do with raspberries, do tell.

Oh, and Happy Canada Day to all my Canadian readers!

Banana Berry Muffins.

A short while ago I posted about finding blackberries growing in the corner of the nearby school yard. We've been enjoying them constantly since then, and I have since learned that they are not blackberries, but black raspberries. I learned from my dad that my grandfather used to pick the exact same black raspberries which grew wild in their backyard as my dad was growing up--which is pretty cool, because the house my dad grew up in is only a few blocks away from where we live now, so these berries may have been an offshoot of the original patch!

Anyhow...I thought at first that I would have enough of these dark purple berries to make jam, but then the harvest started to decrease each time I went back to the berry bush, so I guess not. But I did have more than enough to make muffins...so that is what I did. They were quite yummy so I decided to share the recipe.

This recipe is a banana muffin recipe I created by combining several different recipes, with berries added. :)

Banana Berry Muffins

Mix together:

1 cup flour

1 cup oat flour (made by grinding oats in blender)

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cinnamon

In another bowl, mix together:

1/2 cup melted butter

1/3 cup white sugar

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 cup mashed bananas (about 3-4 medium bananas)

2 large eggs

Stir both mixtures together just until combined, then dump in some berries--raspberries, blackberries or blueberries--about one cup should work. :) A few strokes of the spoon should mix the berries in. Spoon into greased muffin cups and bake at 425 F for 15 minutes or until lightly browned.

These muffins make a delicious snack along with some homemade iced tea--more on that another day, I'm trying to perfect my recipe. :)

Blackberries.

The other day we were taking a family stroll along the perimeter of the nearby school yard which borders our park, and we struck gold! Or rather, black...blackberries.

Nestled into the very corner, where two lines of fence meet, is this huge berry bush...I'm very surprised that it's laden with berries, being on the edge of a school yard. I suppose the children must not be allowed into that corner!

We enjoyed the berries which were ripe, and came back yesterday evening for more. The berries had a very tart, strong flavour which reminded me of berry flavoured candies I've had. In other words, they were delicious. Nothing at all like the completely tasteless blackberries I've had from Mexico.

I've found that if you are careful to look, even in an urban setting it's possible to find edibles outside. We found these berries at the school yard...there are raspberries growing along the edge of our condo's property, and rhubarb in one corner too...although I've never been in time to enjoy either of those! Then of course there are dandelion greens, which are always in plentiful supply everywhere you go. :)

I've heard many times that in the Great Depression, people foraged for a weed called lamb's quarters, but I never knew what they were. Funny thing, I just looked it up, and found that lamb's quarters is a weed that grows all over the place...in fact it's one that I pull out of my garden regularly, but I never knew what it was! Perhaps next time I see some, I'll try cooking it up.

Foraging for wild food is a subject I'd love to learn more about in the future...in the near future though, I think we'll be heading back to that blackberry patch soon!

Have a lovely Friday everyone...we are heading back to Point Pelee today, to spend the day at the beach. On that note, I must away...:)

Strawberry Cream Pie.

After making two batches of jam, I still found myself with a heck of a lot of strawberries. And they weren't getting any fresher. So yesterday I went looking for strawberry recipes. I found a recipe for Strawberry Cream Pie in my trusty old Joy of Cooking (1972 printing). We were having hamburgers for supper, and I thought a strawberry cream pie would be just the ticket for dessert.

Of course, I didn't see in the recipe that it's supposed to be chilled for up to 12 hours...and I started making it about 3:30 in the afternoon. So we didn't have cream pie for dessert last night...but we did have it for breakfast this morning. And it was good! Very rich and strawberry-y. Not an orthodox breakfast, but hey, it's Sunday...

I decided to share the recipe, in case anyone else out there is finding themselves with more strawberries than they know what to do with. (Note: the pie should be a bit taller than it is, but I poured the filling into the crust while it was still a bit runny, so this is all I could fit. If you let the filling set longer, you could fit more in.) :)

Strawberry Cream Pie

Crush 1 quart (4 cups) hulled and washed strawberries. Add 1 cup of sugar and let the mixture stand for 1/2 hour.

Soak 1 packet of gelatin (1 tbsp) in 3 tbsp water. Dissolve this mixture in 3 tbsp boiling water. Stir this into the berries. Add 1 tbsp lemon juice.

Cool the gelatin mixture. When it is about to set, fold in lightly 2 cups of whipped cream.(To make this, whip about 1 1/3 cups of whipping cream.)  Pour this mixture into a cool prebaked pieshell (pastry recipe to follow). Allow to set in the fridge at least 6 hours. To be safe, I would make this first thing in the morning, and allow to chill all day if it is to be eaten in the evening.

For the pastry, I used my favourite pastry recipe. I like this recipe because it makes a big batch. so I can put most of it into the freezer and then take it out any time I feel like making a pie or tarts. And the pastry it makes always turns out flaky and delicious.

Easy Pie Pastry

In a large bowl, combine 5 1/2 cups unbleached flour with 2 tsp salt. With a pastry blender, cut in 1 lb (1 package) of chilled lard until the mixture resembles coarse oatmeal.

In a glass measuring cup, beat 1 large egg with 1 tbsp white vinegar. Add enough cold water to make 1 cup. Drizzle into flour mixture a bit at a time, mixing with a fork, until dough looks evenly moistened and holds together when pressed between fingers.

Press dough gently together and then divide into 6 equal balls. Wrap each ball in plastic wrap and and pat into 4-inch (10 cm) discs. Chill for at least 30 minutes before using. Dough can be stored in the fridge for up to 2 days. Put any dough you won't be using right now into the freezer; it will keep for up to 2 months. (Note: I've probably used dough that was more like 3 months old, and it was fine!)

Roll on lightly floured surface. Each disc rolls to fit a 9-inch pie plate. Hint: roll on waxed paper, place the pie plate upside down on the dough, then flip the whole thing over to avoid having to pick up the rolled dough.

This recipe makes 6 single crust or 3 double crust pies.

There you have it! If anyone makes this pie recipe, I'd love to hear how it turned out. I hope everyone has a lovely Sunday!

Canning Adventures.

Yesterday was a beautiful, warm, sunny day, so we took the opportunity and went strawberry picking as a family. It was challenging to keep Jasper from trampling all the poor strawberry plants (he was a little bit too excited), but overall we had an enjoyable time. The strawberries were very ripe and red and sweet.

After berry picking we had a picnic at our favourite park just down the road, and then on the way home we stopped for some delicious soft icecream.

After supper, I cleaned the kitchen, got out all my supplies, and got to work making my very first batch of jam. I used the "light" pectin crystals, which require less sugar.

The end result was jam which was quite frankly, the most delicious jam I've ever tasted. Just bursting with vibrant strawberry flavour, and not too sweet either. However, it did not set at all. It's quite runny, and as you can see in the picture all the fruit chunks rose to the top.

This morning when I got up and realized it had not set, I looked it up in my canning book, and apparently it's not a good idea to use overripe fruit to make jam, as it doesn't contain as much pectin as regular fruit--it's even recommended to add in a few unripe berries for added pectin. The berries I used were quite ripe, and exceedingly juicy and soft, which would explain the runniness (and also the delicious flavour!). It's also extremely important to boil the jam hard for the full minute the recipe specified, and I can't quite remember how hard it was boiling when I started timing, so that might have been a factor as well.

Overall, I think this isn't too bad for a very first attempt at canning. The end result was still delicious. It's too runny to spread on bread, but I imagine it will make a yummy oatmeal topping throughout the winter.

This morning I made another small batch of jam, using a full-sugar recipe. This time I made absolutely sure to boil it hard for one minute, and it seems to be slightly firmer than my first attempt, but not as firm as it should be. This leads me to believe that the fruit was just too ripe and juicy. Lesson learned! Next time I'll be sure to use ripe but not overripe berries.

Dandelion greens.

I've noticed that the most expensive salad mixes at the grocery store, usually labelled "mixed spring greens," contain a fairly high percentage of dandelion greens. Also, I've seen dandelion greens sold by the bunch. I can't remember how much they cost, but I'm sure they weren't free, which seems rather amusing to me when dandelions proliferate almost everywhere and are available at no cost to anyone who cares to dig them up with a knife. 

Have any of you seen the Youtube series of videos called "Depression Cooking With Clara?" I highly recommend these videos if you are trying to feed your family frugally! In this video the 94-year old Clara shares how she makes salad out of dandelion greens from her front lawn.

Inspired by this video, as well as the knowledge that dandelions are very good for you, I decided to try digging up a few from my own backyard, since I know that no dangerous chemicals have been sprayed there, and no dogs have been around. :)

Even in our tiny yard, there were quite a few to be found. This is what I dug up:

After removing the roots, soaking and rinsing them well, I added them to some romaine lettuce for our salad tonight. The verdict? Tasty. Dandelion leaves are definitely more bitter than romaine, and not as crispy either, which makes them not really too kid-friendly. I don't think my family would appreciate it if I served them a salad of only dandelion greens, as Clara made. But I personally enjoy that bit of bitterness in the salad, and I will continue to mix in dandelions with our regular lettuce. 

Has anyone else ever eaten dandelions from the back yard? What did you think?

Recipe for a rainy day--Cooked Oatmeal Scones.

So far, this spring has been just lovely weather-wise, and my children have been spending rather enormous amounts of time playing outside, which is wonderful. But yesterday arrived dark and dreary, and it rained steadily all day long. So I decided to plan a fun activity for the afternoon before the kids started to feel stir-crazy.

I decided that a spring tea party would fit the bill. I sent Kira outside (with an umbrella) to collect some wildflowers we could put in a vase, we put a pretty tablecloth on the table, and since there was leftover oatmeal from breakfast that morning, I made up a batch of my favourite scone recipe (see below). We dressed up a bit,  sat and enjoyed our tea and scones, and read poems about rain to each other while the rain pattered on the dining room window. It was a pleasant way to pass some of the afternoon. :)

I originally found this recipe online, but as I've altered it I think it's okay for me to post it here. These scones use leftover cooked oatmeal. You'd think that would make them heavy, but instead they are tender, light and fluffy, quite delicious in fact, and just perfect with a little butter and honey (or jam) and a nice pot of tea. 

A tasty scone with butter and drizzled with honey

Laura's Oatmeal Scones

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp honey

1 cup cooked oatmeal

2/3 cup milk

1 cup unbleached flour

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp cinnamon

4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Melt the butter and honey together, and pour them over the cool, cooked oatmeal. Add in the milk and whisk this mixture together until it's evenly combined.

Mix the dry ingredients. You may want to adjust the salt depending on how salty your oatmeal was.

Combine the two mixtures with a wooden spoon. If it seems too moist, add a little more flour. You want the dough to form a rough ball.

Scoop it up in your hands and gently pat into a nice circle about an inch thick on a cookie sheet well greased with butter. If the dough still seems really sticky, dust it with some more flour until you can pat the surface down smooth. Cut into 8 wedges.

Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 20-25 minutes, or  until nicely browned on top (but not too dark). You need to enjoy these while still warm, so the butter will melt. :)

More sprouting adventures.

Last week I talked about making sprouts with lentils. I thought that this was such an interesting (and tasty) experiment, that I went to The Bulk Barn last weekend and came home with some new things to sprout: mung beans and wheat berries. 

With these, I had only limited success. First, the wheat berries. They seemed to sprout just fine, and after a few days I had this:

I tasted a few, and they tasted like...well, like sprouts. But then I looked closer, and I realized that almost all of those white things were not actually sprouts, but roots. If you look closely at the picture, you can see that there are some thickish looking sprouts, which sort of come to a point, but most of the stuff is hairy white roots.

Is this what is supposed to happen when sprouting wheat? Did I do something wrong, or maybe start with the wrong kind of wheat berries? If anyone knows about this, please leave a comment and enlighten me. :)

Here is a closeup of the sprouted grain, and you can see that there are three root pieces.

Go figure!

Next I tried mung beans. As far as I know, these are the beans used to make the "bean sprouts" you can find in the grocery store. The dry beans look like this:

After sprouting a small amount them for several days, I ended up with this (I removed the green hulls):

These sprouts definitely didn't look like the bean sprouts they sell in the grocery store. Much smaller, for one thing. But maybe I'm just not a "professional" sprouter yet. I'll do some research online and see if I can figure out what (if anything) I did wrong. 

These bean sprouts, along with some more lentil sprouts, were fried along with some chinese instant noodles, making a very cheap and reasonably healthy meal for us.

I am definitely going to continue experimenting with sprouts. From what I have learned so far, I can see that they are an easy, and more importantly inexpensive, way to enjoy vegetables all year round. You don't need a yard to grow sprouts--even someone with a tiny apartment can do it. And their earthy flavour and chewy texture would be a welcome addition to all kinds of meals and salads.

Laura's favourite recipe for no-knead bread.

Although in many ways I'm an utter neophyte to the world of homemaking skills--I can barely sew, and I've never even made my own jam!--one thing I do know how to do is bake bread. Now that I think back, this was probably the first step towards a simpler life that I took several years ago, when I started experimenting with different recipes.

Like most things, in bread baking you make a lot of mistakes before you hit your groove. And I made plenty of mistakes! But although I think I'm pretty competent now at making "regular" bread, most of the bread I make is of the oh-so-easy "no-knead" variety. It's so easy, anybody can make it with success, no matter how much of a beginner you are. I'm going to share my favourite recipe here--I think it's safe to call it my own, as I have altered it quite a bit from the original. (Note: that is my 1-year old's hand in the picture below--he always tries to steal Mama's toast!)

Laura's Favourite No-Knead Bread.

Take a mixing bowl--not too large. I use the stainless steel bowl from my mom's old electric mixer.

Dump in:

1 1/2 cups unbleached flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup multigrain mix (I use the 12-grain bread flour from The Bulk Barn)

1 tbsp ground flax seeds

1 1/2 tsp salt (reduce the salt if you like, this is the amount I think tastes good though)

1/4 tsp active dry yeast (yes, this is all it needs!)

Mix all this together with a wooden spoon. Then, pour in 1 2/3 cups warm water. Add more water if you need to. I find that this recipe is pretty forgiving with the amount of water used--you can accidentally use too much, and it doesn't seem to matter, because you're not going to be kneading it. The important thing is that you need enough water to incorporate all the flour.

Stir the water into the mixture until you have a gloopy, lumpy looking mass, with no dry flour visible.

Cover the bowl with a plate (this is why you can't use a really big mixing bowl) and put the bowl somewhere safe for 18 hours.

Like the water, this amount of time is kind of flexible--Sometimes I forget about the dough for a few hours too many and it's always been fine.

After 18 hours, pick up the lumpy gooey dough (it will also look stringy now too, from the gluten) and plop it into a loaf pan. I find that a stoneware pan produces the nicest crust, and I also find that butter works better than anything else for greasing this pan.

Let the dough rise another 2 hours or so, or until it is slightly above the level of the top of the pan.

Bake at 425 degrees for 45 minutes. If you take it out, and it isn't nicely browned on the bottom, put it back in for 5 or 10 minutes. Once again: The amount of baking time need not be exact, as long as you bake it enough. Because of the high moisture content in this bread, you can accidentally leave it in the oven an extra half hour (um, not that I've ever done that!) and it will be fine, except that you might want to cut the crust off. :)

No-knead bread uses a high moisture content to bring out the gluten, rather than kneading as in traditional bread. This high moisture content gives you a very dense, chewy bread. I admit, it's a bit heavy for making sandwiches. But for toast, it can't be beat, no question. Cut a couple of thin slices (once it's cooled of course), crank up the setting on your toaster (because it takes a lot longer to toast than regular bread), and when it pops butter liberally. Enjoy with a hot cup of tea!

I make this recipe twice per week, and use it for breakfast. I have eggs and this toast for breakfast every day, and often it's what I give the children, too. I have tried many fancy breads from the grocery store, but nothing comes close to homemade no-knead bread for good old chewy, yummy toast first thing in the morning.

As a bonus, it's cheaper than store-bought bread, and healthier, because it has no preservatives, and because the long rising time makes the grains easier to digest.

There you have it!