February 2014: A Canadian Worth Watching

Photo credit: Sauer and Steiner Toolworks

In my previous life, before I became a full time preserver, pickler and jam maker I worked in Marketing. I started off my career in packaged goods, spent a while in traditional marketing and eventually ended up in digital marketing. In the span of years where I was working in traditional marketing I had the pleasure of working with Konrad Sauer. He was an art director at an agency where I was a Project Manager. Kon and I got along like a house on fire. Not only did we work well together but we enjoyed one another's company. He got my sarcastic sense of humour and I think I can go so far as to say he even appreciated it.

Kon took the leap and followed his dreams well before I even knew what my dreams were. See, not only was Konrad an extremely talented designer but Konrad had a talent for woodworking like few others and he had a passion for wood planes.

He had been doing woodworking for long enough to realize that there were not a lot of people out there making quality wood planes and he decided to start a business doing just that. Like me, Konrad didn't just quit his day job and launch into his new business overnight. He moonlighted for quite some time. Being an art director by day and a husband, father and wood plane builder by night. Eventually the time came where he knew it was time to transition and he hasn't looked back since.

Photo credit: Sauer and Steiner Toolworks

I cheered Konrad and his decision to follow his dreams on from the sidelines, and occasionally sit down to read his blog and admire his work. I believe him to be one of the most talented people I know and I am thrilled for the success he has achieved. And I know that Konrad is sitting on the sideline cheering me on in my new venture. 

You should really take a few moments and get lost in his blog. His projects are amazing, his approach is fascinating and the work he does is astounding. He is a Canadian to keep an eye on.

This post is part of The Canadian Food Experience, it began June 7 2013. As we share our collective stories through our regional food experiences, we hope to bring global clarity to our Canadian culinary identity.

January 2014: A Canadian Resolution

I love lists. Yes, that may sound strange, but it is true. Nothing pleases me more than a well thought out list, except maybe the joy of crossing things off that list. What a sense of accomplishment that simple act of putting a line through something on your list produces.

So it may now seem strange for a list lover like myself to admit that I have never really been the type to make New Year’s Resolutions. It almost seems like when you make a resolution you are just putting something up on a ‘What I will Fail at This Year’ list. And while that in itself is a list, it isn’t the kind of list I love.

Instead I try to set goals for myself that include a sublist of all of the steps required to help me achieve that goal. These goals don’t get set out at the onset of a New Year, it is an ongoing process; things get added, things get removed.

There are a couple of items on this list that I will share with you. The first is something I knew would be a struggle the moment I decided to hand in my resignation at my full time marketing job back in May of 2013 and go full time on my small preserving business. 

1)   Work/life balance.

While 2013 was a wonderful year filled with many great and wonderful exciting things for Manning Canning, it was definitely a year that fell heavier into the work side of the pendulum. It was to be expected and I weathered the storm, but in 2014 I am going to make a real effort on swinging that back over just a touch.

2)   Carry on family traditions.

Just over a year ago, my nonna passed away. She was 96, she went peacefully in her sleep as she always wanted and she had lived a good life. But after she passed, the hole that she left behind started to feel larger and larger with each passing day. I thought about all that our family had lost with her passing. Not just her presence, but the memories of the past and the skills she brought to the family unit.

I started to want to learn to make all of the wonderful things that she used to bake, I wanted to somehow carry on whatever bits of her knowledge that I could. Last year, I took on her infamous butterhorns and cream puffs and on the list for this year is her Italian Sweet Bread and her gnocchi to start.

My first attempt at the sweet bread produced a heavy, dense bread that was nothing like the light, fluffy bread she would make in her coal/wood burning stove. I could blame my instruments but in actuality I know it is my own personal skills that need tuning. I am not fazed by my failure, quite the opposite. It feels like a challenge and one that I am going to enjoy facing head on. After all, my nona made that bread hundreds of times. I am sure her first batch was not the 'light as air' loaf that I remember from my childhood.

Whatever your approach to your New Year's Resolutions may be, I hope you all succeed at the one's that are the most important to you.

Happy New Year!

This post is part of The Canadian Food Experience, it began June 7 2013. As we share our collective stories through our regional food experiences, we hope to bring global clarity to our Canadian culinary identity.

December 2013: A Drayton Valley Christmas Tradition

I grew up in a small town in Alberta called Drayton Valley with my mom and 4 older sisters. Christmas was generally a very busy time of year as we spent it with my Mom’s brother (Uncle Rudy) and his wife (Auntie Dena) and their 3 kids as well as my nona (grandma).

We alternated locations each year. One year everyone descended on our house and bedrooms were overflowing, couches transformed into beds and the house was filled with the smell of Christmas cake, polenta, chocolate chip cookies, spaghetti sauce, etc. And then the next year, we would pack up the car and travel to Sparwood, BC where we would all stay at my nona’s house and travel back and forth across the yard to my Aunt and Uncle’s. Here the food wasn’t that much different, except you could always count on a bowl of hot soup for lunch.

 As you can imagine, a house filled with 4 adults and 8 kids got pretty rambunctious at this time of year. We were in and out of the house all day long traipsing snow across my mother’s porch when we were told to come in for lunch. The sound of someone running up and down the stairs was almost a constant, like a drum beating. Laughter (or cackling) practically shook the windows as stories were told, Christmas movies were watched and the teasing commenced.

As a child, my nona had a wood burning stove in her basement. And this is where she would bake her bread, her butterhorns and something so delicious that to do this day my mouth waters simply at the memory – cream puffs.

Christmas, simply would not have been Christmas without them.

Quick and Delicious Cream Puffs

Cream Puff Ingredients

1/2 cup butter

1 cup water

1 cup flour

1/8 tsp salt

4 eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla

Filling ingredients

2 cups Whipping cream

2 tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

Bring 1 cup of water to a boil in a medium sized sauce pot and then add butter and salt. Stir over heat until butter melts and then bring the mixture to a vigorous boil. Add the cup of flour and continue to stir until dough forms a soft ball and leaves the sides of the pan clean. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 5 minutes. Be careful not to overcook.

Fold in eggs one at a time and stir them into the mixture briskly until the mixture thickens and becomes quite stiff. Repeat this process with the remaining 3 eggs. Using a spoon,  place the mixture on an ungreased baking sheet.

Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

While the puffs cool on the counter, you can make the filling. Place the 2 cups of whipping cream into a medium sized bowl and using an egg beater, whip the cream until it begins to thicken. Add the sugar and the vanilla. You can also choose to add chocolate or raspberry jam or a combination of other tasty ingredients should you choose.

Slice the cooled cream puffs in half and spoon in your filling of choice.

This post is part of The Canadian Food Experience, it began June 7 2013. As we share our collective stories through our regional food experiences, we hope to bring global clarity to our Canadian culinary
identity.

November 2013: The Canadian Harvest in Ontario

I took the dog out for a walk yesterday as I do every day. We are fortunate that we live in an area of the city where we are only 5 minutes away from great paths through the forests which are perfect for her. I have been able to watch the changing of the seasons on my daily walks. In the spring you get to watch with excitement as the young buds begin to poke their way up through the dead leaves and everything begins to peel back the brown and become vibrant green once again.

In the summer each week seemed to produce a different flower in bloom and countless types of birds tweeting, chirping and fluttering through the trees.

And now fall has arrived and the leaves are changing colour and falling back down to the earth to start the cycle all over again.

I put my vegetable garden to bed last weekend. It was a great year for my garden. The cucumbers and green beans went absolutely wild and I could barely preserve fast enough before it was time to go outside and pick some more. Lettuce, arugula, sorrel and rocket grew like weeds and in such quantities that the few rabbits in our backyard could do little to spoil our harvest, although they certainly tried. I made pesto from the basil, hung lavender and sage to dry in the kitchen, pickled the cucumbers and crunched on the carrots. I never wanted it to end.

Our 12 tomato plants grew heavy with the weight of tomatoes in late September but sadly their season started too late so we ended up with a lot of tomatoes that stayed green right up until the first frost. In previous years, I have always picked the green tomatoes and simply added them to the compost. But last year this changed. I couldn't bring myself to compost all of these beautiful tomatoes and so my experimenting in the kitchen began.

 

I dug out my husband's grandmother's recipe for pickled green tomatoes and made a batch. I adapted that recipe and made another batch. But then I stumbled on green tomato gold - a recipe for green tomato salsa. After reviewing the recipe I decided right off the start to make a few changes. First off, if this was going to keep me warm through the winter months it needed to be spicier. So I got to work and I think if you get to work with this recipe you will not be disappointed.

Green Tomato Salsa (adapted from Food.com)

Ingredients

5 lbs green tomatoes, chopped small
4 cups chopped yellow onions
1 cup jalapenos, chopped with seeds
3 large red bell peppers, chopped small
8 large garlic cloves, minced or chopped small
1 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1 cup lime juice
1/2 cup vinegar
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon dried oregano leaves
2 teaspoons pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1 -2 teaspoon sugar

Directions

Combine all ingredients in a large pot, stirring to mix well. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to simmer, and cook for 30-40 minutes, stirring occasionally until you reach desired consistency.

Bring salsa to a rolling boil.

Ladle salsa into hot sterile jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Wipe lids and jar edges clean before finger tightening lids and placing them back in the hot water bath. Process (boil) jars for 15 minutes.

OCTOBER 2013 Preserving: Our Canadian Food Tradition

I can't believe a month has passed and once again it is time to post for the The Canadian Food Experience and that this month I get to talk about something that means so much to me personally.

Sometimes I take my preserving skills for granted. It is just something I feel like I have always known how to do without actually remembering being taught. I feel fortunate to have grown up in a family where jam was always homemade, peaches were preserved so they could be enjoyed in the middle of winter and pickles were always available and on a shelf in the basement.

I always assumed that it was the same in everyone’s house. That when you ran out of jam you went downstairs and could choose from the selection of jams that always seemed to be there; raspberry, peach, cherry or blueberry.  Not that you ran to the grocery store or put it on the grocery list.

I remember vividly sitting on my nona’s front step with my mom and my aunt shelling peas that had just been picked from the garden, making raspberry jam from the raspberries we just picked out of my aunt and my nona’s garden.

I never thought it was weird that I knew the meanings of words such as suspension, headspace, set and waterbath at an age when my friends were talking about smurfs, then Sweet Valley High or Flowers in the Attic.

I spent almost 2 decades working in packaged goods, fashion and digital marketing before I finally found what I now consider my “calling” and it turned out to be preserving. And of course, it was something that had been sitting there right in front of my eyes for years.

Recently I was asked what my favourite thing to preserve was and without hesitation my answer was Raspberry Jam. I love absolutely everything about it. I look forward to raspberry picking from the moment the last snow flake melts, I love the smell of the raspberries as they cook, I thoroughly enjoy beating the crap out of the berries to release the pectin from their seeds and I love spreading the deliciousness on my morning jam.

This recipe was the very first jam I ever made and I love it for it's simplicity. It is how my mom made her raspberry jam and one day, I hope it is how you will make your own raspberry jam. Just remember…if you don’t feel like making your own you can always just buy it from me ;).

Super Simple and Delicious Raspberry Jam

600 gram bag of fresh or frozen raspberries

3 cups granulated sugar

Sterilize your jars and lids.

Place the sugar in a pot or pan and place in the oven for 15 minutes at about 250 degrees. Warming the sugar helps it to dissolve.

Place the 600g of raspberries in a large saucepan and heat over medium high heat. While it warms mash it furiously with your potato masher. The seeds in the raspberry contain pectin and beating the crap out of them helps release it. :) Bring it to a boil, stirring constantly for one minute.

Add the 3 cups of warm sugar, stir constantly and bring it back to a boil. If you have a candy thermometer you can use this to make the whole process even easier. Keep stirring until it reaches 200-220* F. Don't have a thermometer? That's ok, just put a glass plate in your freezer at the same time as you start to sterilize your jars. After the jam has been boiling for about 5 minutes, take the plate out of the freezer and drop about a half of a spoonful of jam on the cold plate and let it sit for about a minute. If a gel forms then your jam is ready. If not keep cooking and try it again until you are happy with the set.

Ladle into hot jars, wipe the rims and seal. Place in hot water bath for 10 minutes and then remove. Now comes my favourite part - when you hear the popping of the lids as they seal.

This recipe yields 3-4 jars of delicious home made jam. That's right...in your FACE store bought jam.