project365: week forty two November 5th, 2011 - November 11th, 2011

November 5th, 2011 Autumn in Niagara Falls, Ontario.  Looking over the Canadian Horseshoe Falls with a perfect double Rainbow.

November 6th, 2011 Rebecca does an impromptu dance under the peach trees at The Good Earth Food and Wine Company.

November 6th, 2011 We don't buy much jam but how could I resist Pear & Ginger or Blue Plum & Raspberry?

 November 7th, 2011 the last of any real colour in the garden now.

November 8th, 2011 today we sorted beans. All day long.  It was pretty great especially since I can put her to work now.

November 9th, 2011 pulled the last of the bulls blood beets and roasted them with brussels sprouts.

November 10th, 2011 We spent the day at the Royal Winter Fair feeding goats.  Rebecca has developed a gentle ear rub and snack combination that was really working for everyone.  More photos to come once we recover from our adventures.

project365: week thirty seven September 17th, 2011 - September 23rd, 2011

Whoa! Week 37 of project 365 and the blog has been going strong for a whole year.  Thanks everyone!

September 17th, 2011 Self Portrait while Apple Picking!

 September 18th, 2011 Golden Swiss Chard at the farm.

 September 19th, 2011 Back in the city enjoying a drink in a bar.

 September 20th, 2011 Spent my birthday taking pictures of apples and pears.

 September 21st, 2011 Hydrangeas from the garden dried for Becca's bedroom.

 September 22nd, 2011 Beans from the garden for dinner.

September 23rd, 2011 Beets, carrots and mint from the garden for dinner.

Beans Glorious Beans & A Hip Girl Giveaway

This year is the year of the bean in our garden.  Our soil composition and amount of sun light limits the amount of tomatoes we can grow so I've planted them in other gardens and am replacing two beds of tomatoes with beans.

Since we're growing so many beans we're also building quite a few trelisises for them.  A few months back I was sent a copy of Kate Payne's The Hip Girl's Guide to Homemaking
 and have used the adorable instructions for guidance and inspiration while building my bean climbing structures.
I'll be giving away a copy of this fun, well illustrated book at the end of this post.


Here's a photographic list of our beans so far.  Don't worry, I know this is completely insane.

Stunning Poltschka Pole beans from the Populuxe seed bank.

Petaluma Goldrush from the Natural Gardening Company.  A gorgeous bush bean for drying that was originally brought to America from Peru in 1840.  These are the only bean I actually purchased, how could I resist?

Sunset Runner Beans from a trade with Julianna who I met years ago over on www.yougrowgirl.com.  These pole beans are jaw dropingly beautiful, light and dark purple markings on giant beans and the flowers will be salmon coloured setting it apart from the similar Scarlet runner bean.

Some Gold Rush snap beans I found in my seed stash.  Who knows where these came from. They're ancient too so I'm thinking they'll be a fairly low germination rate.

Mr Tung's from Kelly at the Populuxe seed bank.  These pole beans are a heirloom from originally from China with 100 years of history in British Columbia Canada. Almost extinct, some beans were discovered in an old shed on the deserted family farm & germinated after 50 years! If you are interested in growing these please contact Kelly to be a grower for her seed bank.

Monk Peas.  Not actually a bean I know.  An excellent soup pea from Fox Fire Farm and the Sister's of Providence Seed Sanctuary. 

 Rebecca found these Purple Peacocks in Almerida's shack. Described as a beautiful pole bean with dark purple pods, twinning stems, light purple flowers, dark leaves and white beans I'm very excited for them and will be planting them in the backyard bathtub this evening.

Dragon Langerie were a gift from Almerinda, also from Fox Fire Farm and the Sister's of Providence Seed Sanctuary.  These bush snap beans have purple striped pods, are Dutch in origin, have been documented since 1880, and are also known as Dragon Tongue beans.  They can be eaten right away or used for baked beans.

Slenderette Beans are a bush bean that make perfect 5' green long french snap beans in a relatively short season (45-55 days).

Vermont Cranberry.  I think I am most excited for these New England Heirloom beans.  A bush bean that dates back to 1797 know for its reliability and hardiness.

Musica are a from the seedbank and produce 9 inch pods on 9 foot plants or something crazy like that. I am not planting these in my yard but have tucked some into my friend Sarah's garden.  Surprise!

Orka beans.  A mexican heirloom, these are Almerinda's favourite.  Look closely, they look just like little whales.

Black turtle make a dwarf bush plant so I'm trying these in a container.  These pre 1832 beans are well suited to Northern regions.

Mystery bean.  hmmmm, this is why you need to label things right away.

Mayflower beans from Julianna.  A prolific pole bean perfect from soup that was brought to North America on the Mayflower.

Cannellino beans are the quintessential milestone soup bean,  another bush bean from Julianna that is growing in Sarah's yard.

Here's a happy Sunset runner seedling with true leaves.

The Chickpeas from Gayla are really growing now.

I've built numerous trellises, teepees and ladders for all these beans but they're really hard to photograph. Mine are also not as cute as Kate's book would like them to be.  See what I mean?

My rustic-ness vs the books tidiness aside, this is a nice addition to my DIY library.  With great green instructions on basic preserving, gardening and home repairs I will be sharing it with friends and I'd like to start by sharing a copy with one of my readers.

To win your own copy of the book The Hip Girl's Guide to Homemaking
 just leave a comment telling us what you're most excited to grow this year and a email or twitter address so I can contact you.  Rebecca will choose a winner at random one week from today on Wednesday June 8th and Harper Collins will send you a copy.

How to Have a Perfect Day

Take 1 mini muffin tin

add 8 types of heirloom beans

and 1 bad cat 

and a mother with a new lens 

for hours of pure bliss.

Hours (!) of bean sorting by Rebecca and bean chasing by Zooey.

My gorgeous beans all mixed up.

May Flower and Poltschka Pole Beans. I think they are sorted by size.

Gold Rush and Cannellino Beans sorted by colour.

Poltschka beans from the populuxe seed bank.

The sun even came out just in time to build the beans some trellises much to Hazel's dismay. She was pretty sure we went to the park to bring her home a stroller full of sticks.

Zooey guarding his bee house and the first new bean trellis.

Then she took a miracle nap.

So I got to admire our great find...

...and play with the new macro lens.

If you need some of your own beans, please check out the Seed Bank's Etsy shop.  All money raised from the selling of heirloom seeds go towards supporting the seed bank's efforts to preserve heirloom varieties.

Soup Swap Recipe: Catherine's lemony-not-like-chilli Black Bean Soup

This week I will be sharing all our delicious vegetarian soup recipes from our soup swap.


Enjoy!

Catherine's lemony-not-like-chilli Black Bean Soup (from Laurel's Kitchen)


1 1/2 cups black turtle beans
1 1/2 quarts/litres vegetable stock
2 T oil
1 carrot
1 onion
1 potato
2 stalks celery
1 bay leaf
1 t oregano
1/4 t savoury
2 t salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 lemon, thinly sliced

Wash the turtle beans and put them in a saucepan along with the stock and 1 T oil. 


Cover tightly, bring to a boil, and simmer for 2 1/2 hours or so, until beans are quite tender.

Chop the onion and saute in the remaining oil until soft. 


Chop the celery, including the leaves. 


Grate potato and carrot on a large grater. 


Add celery, potato, and carrot to onion and cook over medium heat for several minutes, stirring all the while. 


Add the vegetables to the beans, along with the seasonings, in the last hour of their cooking. 


Bring the soup to a boil and lower the heat to simmer until the beans and vegetables are done.

Add the lemon juice

Add lemon slices when the soup has finished cooking.

Makes about 9 cups.

Real Food Recipe: Heavenly Baked Beans

We have always been relatively healthy eaters but everybody has their vices, mine is canned beans.  So this is the first instalment in a series of processed food replacement recipes. Due to the baby’s soy allergy/intolerance, our participation in the Nestle boycott, and the desire to eat more whole foods we’ve been making things from scratch.  There’s little as satisfying as taking an over processed comfort/junk food and using it as inspiration for a delicious meal.

Baked Beans are very easy in a Crockpot but do take a long time.  It sure is worth it though. As is all the sugar (I didn’t say this was health food).  They also freeze well.

1 lb of beans (if I can find solider beans I use those, generally I use navy beans)

1 large peeled onion studded with 3 cloves

½ cup of brown sugar

½ cup of molasses

¼ cup of maple syrup

2 tsp of apple cider vinegar

½ tsp of salt

1/8 tsp of ground pepper

2 tsp dried mustard

1/2 cup of butter (or vegan or carnivore fat of your choice)

Rinse your beans under cold water.  Cover with water and soak overnight/all day.  This soaking helps soften up the beans and starts the germination process, which helps you digest them. 

12 hours later, drain and rinse the beans really well. Toss any split beans, loose skins or generally ugly beans.

Put them in your Crockpot/slow cooker with the clove studded onion.

Add all your ingredients in no particular order.  Stir around a bit.

Turn the Crockpot on low and start the cooking.  Cook them for 12 or more hours.  I have let them cook for as long as 20 hours if that’s how the timing works out.  I know it’s a little excessive, but they really are delicious and the smell of molasses filling your house is spectacular.  Check them a few times, if the liquid has reduced too much, add a little water, if the beans seem close to ready and they’re too wet, take the lid off for a bit.  Pull out the onion bits before serving.

Although the cooking time is long, the amount of work is minimal, probably 5 minutes worth of actual labour.

I like to eat them with mustard and whole wheat toast.  I hear this is an East Coast thing.  I think I need to go have some right now…

Happy to be participating in Vegetarian Foodie Fridays.