Manitoba Pickles - tried, tested and true

I recently unveiled a new seasonal product at the Farmer's Market called Manitoba Pickles and the most common question I get about them is "Why are they called Manitoba Pickles?". My answer is "I have no idea." Now it doesn't just stop there, see...there is a story behind this mysterious pickle.

Last year, I was at Withrow Market and this lovely lady came up to my tent and she engaged me in conversation. We were chatting away about the different samples I had out and she asked me if I ever made Manitoba Pickles. I told her flat out that I had never even heard of them. So she said she was going to go home and get the recipe and bring it to me. To be honest, I didn't think I would see her again. No disrespect to her, but you hear quite a few things at the market ;).

But within a half an hour she had returned with the recipe in hand. Now I don't recall if it was a family recipe or something she had gotten out of a magazine or from a friend. I was still working full time and doing Manning Canning part time, so my time was stretched pretty thin and I just didn't get around to trying her recipe last year.

But this year, we planted cucumbers in our garden and they have been producing like rabbits. I have given some away to neighbours, my in-laws and we have been eating them on a daily basis and still I knew if I didn't preserve them there would be no way to consume them all.

When I sat down to think about what I should do...I remembered the recipe tucked away in my recipe box and immediately dug it out. I had my answer. Manitoba Pickles here we come.

Ingredients

6 cups sliced cucumbers

2 cups sliced onions

2 cups vinegar

2 cups sugar

1 tbsp salt

1 tsp mustard

2 tsp tumeric

1 tbsp corn starch

Slice your cucumbers and place in a bowl. Sprinkle 1 tbsp of salt over them and give them a good stir. Let them sit for an hour and then drain and rinse.

In a medium sized pot, combine onions and cucumbers with vinegar and sugar. In a separate bowl dissolve tumeric, mustard and corn starch with a little bit of water to make a thin paste and then add to the pot with the cucumbers and onions.

Place the pot over medium heat and stir until the sugar completely dissolves. Increase the heat to medium high and bring the mixture to a boil Reduce heat and cook for 10 minutes stirring frequently.

Ladle into sterilized jars leaving 1/2" headspace. If necessary, wipe rims with damp paper towel. Centre lids on jars; screw on bands fingertip tight.

Process jars in a boiling water bath canner for 15 minutes.

When time is up, remove jars from pot and let them cool on a kitchen towel. When jars are cool enough to handle, remove rings and test seals. Place any unsealed jars in the refrigerator and use promptly. All sealed jars can be stored in a cool, dark place for up to 1 year.

Ontario Canadian Food Hero: Brian Hamlin

Photo: Fairmount Farmer's Market

There are only a few flavours that I have come across in my lifetime that no matter how many times I taste, I just can't convince my tastebuds that they are anything less than horrible. I have swayed them over the years that olives can be enjoyed and they are even starting to believe that venison is edible, but the two flavours resisting all attempts are watermelon and honey.

But now I have someone else on my side working to convince my tastebuds that not only is honey delicious naturally but once flavoured it can become otherworldly and his name is Brian Hamlin.

I have the pleasure of being at a couple of the same Farmer's Markets in the Greater Toronto Area with Brian and even though his honey hasn't fully convinced my taste buds to enjoy the flavour, Brian has my husband and I contemplating keeping bees ourselves. He speaks passionately and articulately about the importance of bees and breaks down any mental barriers one might have when it comes to the thoughts of keeping bees yourself. We all know how important bees are to agriculture and articles like this that came out earlier this summer simply reinforce their importance.

But honey is not only important to our local agriculture, it has huge health benefits, that Brian talks about in this article.

Brian is a self described hippy who has been keeping bees for almost four decades and his passion for his bees is completely contagious. His bees are raised as naturally as possible. He keeps them away from sprayed fields and uses no antibiotics or sugars. But it wasn't just his delicious honey which my husband eats by the heaping spoonful or his laid back personality that has us leaning towards beekeeping.

First off Brian has hives in suburban as well as downtown locations. They are not all out in the country as one would imagine. He has hives on the Toronto Islands, at the UTSC (University of Toronto Scarborough Campus) and even the 8th floor of University of Toronto's New College at College and Spadina. According to Brian, the diverse vegetation in the city changes the flavour of the honey leading to more complex tastes than honey from rural areas, where bees generally gather pollen from mono-cropped fields.

Photo: Fairmount Farmer's Market

He uses his beekeeping as an educational tool to promote awareness of local food sustainability and the importance of pollination for environmental health. Honeybees pollinate crops and flowers, and have taken on greater importance lately given the population decline of other pollinators like butterflies and wild bees. He is active in the Urban Toronto Beekeepers Association and the mentor of the University of Toronto students bee club.

He talks a lot about how even though bees are just small insects that they play a huge roll in our survival and when he talks, others listen. He may just be a small Ontario beekeeper, but he is collecting a hive of followers in his path.

Brian's passion and commitment to Ontario bees, his local presence at farmer's markets and his mentorship of students is why he is my Canadian Food Experience Regional Food Hero for August.

Photo: Fairmount Farmer's Market

The Canadian Food Experience is a collection of Canadian bloggers sharing our stories through regional perspective bringing clarity to our Canadian culinary identity.

 

Preserved Peaches and Peach Mango Chutney

I always look forward to my preserving classes at The Depanneur but next Monday's class is really blowing my skirt up. You see I LOVE peaches and I mean LOVE. For many varied reasons.

I could start with the fact that I HATE and I mean HATE winter. Having those jars of golden peachy preserved goodness stacked on my shelves in the basement makes me feel like I have somehow managed to trap a little bit of summer inside each and every jar. And when the snow is falling or the wind is whipping or even when it is dark at 4pm, I know I can crack open a jar and magically be transported mentally back to the middle of August.

The next reason is grounded squarely in nostalgia. My mom used to preserve a lot when I was growing up. But her two, knock it out of the park items were raspberry jam and preserved peaches. So each time I open a jar of preserved peaches it is like she is right there with me. Funny how something as simple as a flavour can bring back a wash of wonderful memories.

And then there is the wonderfulness of the smoky peach chutney we are going to be stirring up. My mouth waters just thinking about it.

If this all sounds intriguing, you are just a click away from learning more about the class.

Quick and Delicious Basil Vinegar

I have neglected my vegetable garden for several days and at this time of year that can mean numerous things await you. You can walk out and have vegetables that have grown past their prime, it can mean weeds have taken over places you wished they hadn't, that rabbits have eaten all of your carrots or that there is just a lot of stuff ready to be picked and consumed.

This morning it was the latter. There were green beans ready, so I picked them and they will be in this evening's salad. There were cucumbers galore, so I picked all of those and they will come with me tomorrow to the commercial kitchen and get turned into Manitoba Pickles (more on that in an upcoming post). The carrots are almost ready, so I picked one just for the flavour...delicious. And finally, the sage and the basil are in full swing. I already made several large batches of pesto and have that frozen for consumption at a later date. And I have plans for the sage. So what to do with the basil that is ready today and just simply can not go to waste?

The short answer - Basil Vinegar. It is a wonderful addition to pasta sauces and chicken stock and it is so simple that you can get it 50% completed in less than 20 minutes.

Basil Vinegar

2.5 cups lightly packed fresh basil leaves

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and slightly crushed

8 cups white wine vinegar

Rinse your basil thoroughly and then pat dry with paper towel. Once basil is completely dry, roughly chop and place in 2 separate clean and sterilized 1L jars. Add 1 clove of garlic per jar and set aside.

In a larger stainless steel pot, heat the vinegar, but do NOT bring it to a boil and remove from the heat.

Pour the hot vinegar over the basil and garlic into the jar, stir gently and then allow to cool. Once it has cooled down, place 2-3 layers of saran wrap over the top of each jar and screw on a jar lid. Place in a cool, dark place for a minimum of 2 weeks shaking the jar gently every couple of days to distribute the basil leaves around. NOTE: the leaves will float in the jar and this is ok.

After a couple of weeks, taste the vinegar and if you are happy with the intensity of the flavour move onto the next steps immediately. Otherwise, continue to let it sit until the flavour is where you want it.

Strain the vinegar over a bowl using a fine meshed sieve and disgard the basil. Rinse your sieve and using either cheese cloth or several layers of coffee filters, strain once again.

At this point in time you can pour the vinegar into your bottles (which you have of course washed and sterilized ahead of time, right?) leaving 1/2" headspace if you are using a screw cap. If you have a cork top, you will want to leave 1/2" headspace between the basil vinegar and the bottom of the cork.

Delicious basil vinegar that you will find no shortage of uses for through the fall and winter months.

Pickling Cucumbers - an important tip

It is cucumber season, which in my books means it is time to make some pickles! My cucumbers are in full bloom and every morning I walk out to pick more and more cucumbers. Last week I made Manitoba pickles, but I think the time has come to make classic dill pickles.

If you have decided to try your hand at dill pickles and are perusing recipes out there, you may notice that in a lot of recipes they instruct you to cut off the blossom end of the cucumber. Well what might follow in your mind are a couple of different questions, such as 'What is the blossom end?' and 'Why do I need to cut it off?'

The second question is easy to answer in a few quick words. The blossom end contains enzymes that can cause softening of your pickles.  Remove at least 1/16th inch from the blossom end in order to give your pickles a fighting chance at being nice and crunchy!

If you are picking the cucumbers from your garden it is easy to determine the blossom end...it is opposite to the stem. But what do you do if you are getting the cucumbers from a farmer and are just not sure which is the stem end?

The stem end is indented and smooth (left image), the blossom end is rough (right image).

Happy Crispy Pickling ;)