Apples and Honey; An Inspired Apple Crisp

Almost a year ago I,  along with a few other bloggers were contacted by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs to participate in some short Foodland Ontario videos featuring our blogs and small businesses.  It was a pretty great experience, and one of the best things about it was being introduced to some other fabulous bloggers.  Here it is if you haven't seen it, the garden pretty much looks the same right now; All beets:

One of the other Ontario bloggers featured was Dallas of South Western Ontario Foodie. Her video includes this awesome apple crisp, check it out:

We haven't met in person yet but after a year of chatting and cooking her recipes I'm ready to share the best crisp recipe out there and then the Cubit's version inspired by apples and honey.  

Here is how we do Dallas' Recipe; A perfect mix of maple syrup and cranberries really liven things up:

7 small sized apples unpeeled and chopped into thin slices

1 cup of fresh or frozen cranberries

1/3 cup flour

1 cup oatmeal

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup maple syrup

1 tsp cinnamon

1/3 cup melted butter

Preheat the oven to 375F. Put the apples and cranberries at the bottom of a pie pan. Mix the other ingredients together but not too long or they will clump. Sprinkle the mixture over the fruit and pat it down. Bake for 20 minutes. Serve warm or cold.

This is seriously the best thing I have ever tasted and we make it weekly during apple season.

Sometimes you need a little variation.  So let me introduce you to the wonder that is apples, honey, raisins and cinnamon. We're using these lovely little apples from our heirloom apple adventure.  These ones keep their shape and colour while cooking and we think they are Chestnut Crabs or a close relation.

7 small sized apples unpeeled and chopped into thin slices

1/2 cup of raisins

1/3 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup oatmeal

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup honey

1 tsp cinnamon

1/3 cup melted butter

Preheat the oven to 375F. Put the apples and raisins at the bottom of a pie pan with half the brown sugar and the cinnamon mixed in. Mix the other ingredients loosely together, but not too long or they will clump. Sprinkle the mixture over the fruit and pat it down. Bake for 20 minutes. Serve warm or cold.

Now I make one of each every time. It's so easy and I have two pie plates so why not?  

Both versions are excellent for desert either alone or with some ice cream, or for breakfast, sometimes with yogurt.  I've made us some to eat while we press the cider tomorrow.

How to Can a Bushel of Peaches in 7 hours with Some Swearing, a New Pot and 29 Jars

As mentioned in last week's peach lemonade post and in our #canning play by play on twitter, we spent most of last Tuesday turning 1 bushel of gorgeous, perfect, marvellous Red Haven Ontario peaches from Bizjak Farms into 29 jars of assorted canning goodness.  

I feel like this post is a little late as once I actually got a bushel of peaches into jars I was sort of done with the whole thing for a few days. There was some swearing and lessons learned but I think I'm ready to share now.

First things First, we went to the Leslieville Farmer's Market to eat croissants and the last of our Monteforte CSA cheese curds.  I then moved on to driving the poor peach guys crazy with distracting chit chat and placed an order for a bushel of freestones (lessons from Well Preserved on this one) to be picked up the following week. I think half of twitter was at the market that day.

The next week rolled around. We went back, obtained a ridiculous amount of peaches, fed some to the babies, let everybody take some photos and then got  Ryan and Andrew to carry them to the car while I went & got more cheese curds.

So after eating a dozen and taking about 2000 photos it was time to get cracking. Or smashing as its now known. 


Growing up, canning peaches was one of the few "old fashioned" canning activities my mother did. In fact she has 4 pages of scribbly notes about it which is the 1980's equivalent to blogging.  I bet there are photos too. I have fond memories of eating these and admiring them in their jars.

Our objective was to can peaches to eat all winter. It's my seasonal depression defence strategy. Let me tell you, when you bite into a Niagara Peach in the middle of February life is good.


Really it's simple and once we got going things moved smoothly. 
Start by preparing all your jars; we did this the night before. Dallas has a good run down of safe canning practices on her post about her easy-peasy co-opertive peaches.  We used 2 dozen 1 litre wide mouth Jars.

Next make up a light syrup of 1 part sugar to 2 parts water.  We used the organic stuff in a carton so it has a darker colour which really looks nice with peaches.  I think we used 4 cartons, something like 16 cups of sugar by the end of the day. We made a big pot on fairly low heat and kept adding to it as needed. Just keep to the ratio and you're fine. 



You want to wash your peaches really well.  These were low spray peaches as organic are really hard to find especially in bulk. You want to wash off the fuzz and the pesticides. Peaches are always up there on the dirty dozen.

Next 

Blanche

Peel (we'll get back to this)

Cut (we did some halves and some quarters)

As you cut the peaches, sprinkle lemon juice on them to prevent browning.

Then add slices of peach to suryp over low heat for 5 minutes. Prep your jars and start packing hot peaches into hot jars. Cover with syrup and leave a 1/4 inch head space.

We processed for 25 minutes but processing times will depend on where you live and the size of your jars.

Blanching and Peeling was a total disaster, greatly reducing the yield and quickly raising the panic level. These perfect lovely peaches were crumbling in my hands.

2 large baskets were reduced to 7 litres of ugly frustrating peaches.  We quickly moved on to not blanching or peeling, leaving some in halves, some in quarters and had great results.  I will never ever peel another peach and haven't a clue why all the instructions and recipes I looked at were all peeling peaches.  What a mess.

Our other near-disaster was not having a large enough pot. I have canned many things but never used the giant jars before; so there I was, with hot peaches in hot jars and Ryan running out to buy a bigger pot.  I love my new giant pot.

All in all, we have some lovely peaches and learnt some valuable lessons; always make sure you have a big enough pot (this is a lesson is optimism perhaps?) and never-ever-no-way-no-how bother with blanching or peeling your peaches; especially when there are approximately 120 of them.

PS these were the last 4 peach halves and we were out of jars so this is 1 peach in one jar.  I think they're for lunch.

Peach Lemonade For Alanna {or When Peaches & Lemons Combine}

So we spent 7 hours on Tuesday turning 1 bushel of gorgeous, perfect, marvellous Red Haven Ontario peaches from Bizjak Farms into 29 jars of pure canning goodness.  

Then the thirst struck, quickly followed by one of those brief moments of genius, pure peach genius.

What you want to do is take Monday's Real Lemon Lemonade but instead of using the simple syrup,

USE THE LEFTOVER PEACHY SYRUP!  Yes I'm yelling. Take the syrup that has had lovely sliced Ontario peaches soaking in it all day and make lemonade; Peach Lemonade. You know that syrup that's left over in the bottom of the pan.  You'll thank me. Once again, it's even better out of a jar.

If this is as exciting to you as it is to me you'll need to read how Well Preserved cleans their jam jars.  I highly recommend it.

PS Alanna, I'm bringing this to your house tonight. Also we are up too late and  have had waaaay to much sugar.

project 365: week thirty one: July 30th, 2011 - August 5th, 2011

July 30th, 2011 Cottage chives and chioggia beets from Sarah's garden.

July 31st, 2011 Nursing on the dock at the cottage.  It's World Breastfeeding Week from August 1st-7th so take a second in the next few days to offer your support to a mother if your life. We have the same picture from last year but she's a lot smaller then :)

August 1st, 2011 Catherine and I made Peach, Raspberry, Thimbleberry jam at the cottage. We really know how to have a good time.

August 2nd, 2011 Some Fava Beans all in a row.

August 3rd, 2011 Wonderful Ontario plums from a road stand in cottage county.

August 4th, 2011 Home from 30 days on the road just in time to harvest the garlic from the front yard.

August 5th, 2011 Visited Sarah & Lisa's Garden & stole their pink swiss chard.

Recipe: Potato Salad with Yogurt, Dill, Curry & Mustard. Lots of Mustard.

We're busy preparing for Rebecca's 2nd birthday party by making some of our favourite salads.  I am a strict mayonnaise hater and mustard lover so this is our family's version of potato salad. 


It's made with new Ontario potatoes, herbs from the garden and a hearty amount of yogurt and mustard.

2 pounds of potatoes
1 cup of organic yogurt
1/4 cup of chives 
1/3 cup of fresh dill
A few springs of fresh parsley
1 teaspoon of curry
1 teaspoon of dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon of mustard seed
1/2 teaspoon of salt
ground pepper to taste

Boil your potatoes for 10 minutes.  Cut them each in half.

Mix your dressing, that's all of the ingredients except the potatoes and parsley.  Add to your potatoes and cover them gently.  Garnish with the parsley and Volia! Who says you can't make friends with salad?

In the past I've used blue potatoes and its just gorgeous, the yellow of the curry looks great with the blue spuds.  Somehow I don't have a picture though.  This time we're enjoying a basket of fresh Ontario potatoes that I bought on Wednesday and bet were still in the ground on Monday. They are heavenly.

Here are last year's blue and purple potato harvest that were promptly turned into this salad for her 1st birthday. 


We'll be posting a few more recipes from this weekend's celebration, just as soon as I actually get a minute to finish making everything, since almost 2 year olds apparently stop napping?! really.

Recipe: Asparagus & Arugula

Pesto is one of our summer standbys, and anyone who had been to the cottage with us will know that we always like to keep some authentic italian pesto on hand for a quick and easy lunch. Ha!

I normally grow enough basil to make our basil pesto once a week, but what to do in the spring when things are starting to grow but the basil isn't quite in pesto quantities yet?

My good friend Shana inspired me to use my evesthrough arugula for something besides salads. 

Inspired by her arugula pesto recipe posted over on folks gotta eat along with what is in season in my garden and at the farmers market, I combined our favourite pesto recipe with Shana's and made this amazingly peppery pesto that stays perfectly green even after a few days in the fridge. 

Here I am with the clingy toddler picking garlic and arugula for dinner.

4 cups of washed arugula

4 young garlic shoots and scapes

4 cloves of garlic

1 cup of pine nuts

½ cup parmesan cheese 

½ cup of olive oil

1/8 teaspoon pepper

½ teaspoon of salt

Whizz it all up in the food processor or blender.  I do nuts and cheese first followed by greens and oil and then the salt and pepper. We also threw in some chives because we have them in the garden and they're perfect right now. 

Like arugula, this is pesto is perfect on a tomato sandwich. We served this batch up on some ravioli with the last of this year's fiddleheads and some fabulous Organic Asparagus from Nightingale Farms.  Nightingale is quite the operation, with 1500 acres in Norfolk County which is where Ryan is from. 

Deliciously Green!

Check out this great video from OMFRA and Foodland Ontario on how Asparagus is harvested.  Its sort of mind blowing.

Recipe: Fantastic Fennel and Fiddleheads!

Here's one of our favourite recipes, a grilled summertime salad especially for new mothers, cottage trips & vegans.  It's excellent to bring over when visiting new babies as its delicious and easy to eat with one hand as well as fennel being a great galactagogue that also seems to help with a colicy or refluxy baby.

This is inspired by Molly Katzen‘s Asparagus and Fennel Salad from the Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special, which is such a great book.

It has been tweeked by Laura and Catherine who have made it an awful lot.

Prepare your Ingredients

Roasted vegetables:

1 fresh fennel bulb - cored and thinly sliced

1 pound asparagus – stemmed

1 cup stemmed & blanched fiddleheads

2 cups cherry tomatoes

2 tablespoons olive oil

Additions:

8 ounces penne 

 Dressing:

4 tablespoons olive oil

4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

2 large cloves minced or pressed roasted garlic

1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/3 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 cup chopped fresh herbs (parsley, basil, chives blossom and all, garlic scapes, whatever is growing in the garden)

Heat your grill to 400. Place the fennel, blanched fiddleheads, asparagus, cherry tomatoes and garlic in the grill basket, drizzle with the

olive oil, sprinkle with salt, and toss to evenly coat. Grill for about 30

minutes, stirring about every 7 minutes. The vegetables should still be brightly coloured and slightly crisp. 

 

While the vegetables are roasting, whisk all of the dressing ingredients (except the garlic which is still roasting) and then cook your pasta al dente.

Drain your pasta and combine with your roasted veggies, add it to the

bowl, pour on the dressing (which now has the garlic added), and toss well.

Serve warm or at room temperature.

Some great optional additions:

Pitted Kalamata olives

Sundried tomatoes

Feta cheese