For today's blog post, I want to highlight a fantastic local-to-Calgary supplier of quality olive oils and vinegars. If you haven't heard of Blue Door Oil & Vinegar yet, you are in for a treat. Their slogan hits the nail on the head: Your New Secret Ingredient. Their olive oil is top shelf, excellent and fresh quality. Part of their work is to educate consumers on the health benefits of olive oil, and the questions you need to ask in order to find out if the olive oil you are purchasing is of fresh and good quality. (Tom Mueller, a columnist with the New Yorker exposed the fraud that some olive oils are not what they appear to be back in 2011.) I assure you that the olive oil you purchase from The Blue Door are indeed true and pure, fresh and absolutely packed with micronutrients (antioxidants!) and macronutrients (healthy anti-inflammatory fats!). We're talking nutrient dense foods here folks, to fuel your very best selves!
Read moreMY FAVOURITE FERMENT
I've had fermenting on the brain for the better part of the last three years, discovering the health benefits, enjoying the variety of flavours and appreciating the complexity of time married with salt and vegetables, or playing with those flavours and dreaming up new taste combinations for my adventuresome palate. Through my travels and explorations, it has become clear to me that there is one ferment that really stands out above most for me, for many different reasons. Let me explain.
Read moreA MONTH OF PUTTING UP THE HARVEST - Day 7
Making fresh pesto and freezing it in cubes is a brilliant way to preserve the season's bounty. #harvest2015
Yesterday, it was quick-and-easy-dried-herbs. Today, another clever (and most delicious!) way to conserve that summer herby bounty: may I introduce you to MAKE YOUR OWN PESTO. WITH WHAT YA GOT ON HAND. See, I was up in the NE part of the city this morning and I stopped, as I always do when I'm there, in my favourite foodie haunts. One of these is the Italian Store, a side business to Scarpone's next door. They carry lots of fun things that may be hard to find in your regular grocery store, and one of my favourites: copious amounts of arugula and basil. They also tend to, from time to time, have some local produce and so I thought I'd stop by there this morning to see if inspiration would hit. AND AYE CHEE POW it did.
Read moreA MONTH OF PUTTING UP THE HARVEST - Day 6
Sage from the garden. So fragrant!
Today is Monday, a perfect day for a harvest. This is one of those things that is dead easy, and for whatever reason, I have a hard time ever getting around to this most summers. I don't know why, it's really so quick and again, big bang for your investment/buck/time. Let's keep this one short and sweet kids. Hanging herbs to dry. It's really just what it seems: you pick herbs, and tie them together, and leave them to dry. Done deal.
Read moreA MONTH OF PUTTING UP THE HARVEST - Day 5
Bug ravaged and hail damaged greens. Not all is lost, my friend!
To end this first week's roll call of how I am putting up the harvest 2015, I am going to make plenty from the spoils of Mother Nature. Well, not really spoils, but to some may be seen as spoils. See, here in Calgary this week, we've been hammered by a few big storms as they have swept through our town with deluges and flash floods and huge garden-decimating hail. There was even a tornado spotted just outside of the city this week. I don't know how it is where you live, but our summers here are so very brief that for one to dedicate your time and love to growing a vegetable patch in this so very short season (always turbulent; hey, it's the Prairies!), it's pretty heart-breaking when in one fell swoop of Mother Nature's whim, your hard work and dedication can be wiped out just like that.
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