Make the most out of ripe Roma tomatoes by preserving them in this simple passata. Simply delicious on it’s with pasta or used in your favourite recipe. Cream of the Crop Once the unmistakeable scent of Autumn is in the air, the giant crates of ripe red Romas begin to…
Small batch preserving these Pickled Carrots is easier than you think. Grow your own or buy carrots in season, then pickle them with dill and garlic for a dillicious treat! Starting from Scratch in a New City We moved to Calgary in 1998 when our daughter Julia was 3 weeks…
Wild Leeks or Ramps are only available during a short Spring season. Make the most of your foraging harvest by preserving them in this delicious and versatile pesto. Spring Foraging in North America In North America Wild Leeks are one of the first Spring time wild edibles to emerge as the…
A Simple Fish Pie made with home canned (or store bought) canned fish, eggs, and herbs. Easy to prepare and absolutely delicious for lunch or dinner. Childhood Fish Pie Memories I hated Fish Pie growing up. On the days that I came home from school, tired after an hour long…
Weekend Marmalade Project Weekends are a great time for planning the BIG projects. In the Spring, there’s always yard work to be done. A clean year is like a fresh slate for growing projects. The weather doesn’t always cooperate, so when Spring showers appear to ruin your best laid plans,…
Food and Memory How is it that so many memories come back to our minds when we smell, taste, or create traditional foods? The foods that I grew up with weren’t haute cuisine by any stretch of the imagination but they were wholesome and honest. They carried their particular flavours…
Preserving a Bumper Rhubarb Crop The daylight hours are shortening and I have picked the last bunch of rhubarb from my very productive plants. Since I’ve been busy making jam, pickles, and preserving right now I was also in the right frame of mind for doing something special with the…
When I was a child in the 1980’s, canning and preserving food from our farm was a way of life. I’m not going to say it was essential for survival like in pioneer days, but our family has always had large gardens that produced enough to almost get us through the…
A couple of weeks ago I just couldn’t stop myself from bringing home a 10 kg box of Roma tomatoes and a 2 kg bag of tiny pickling cucumbers from our local farmers market. I think there is some inherent trait in my being that wakes up every fall and…
Picking Nanking Cherries to our Hearts Content I think it’s true what they say about chefs fingers being impervious to pain. They are able to reach into a saute pan and flip over meat with their bare hands with barely a flinch and eventually they lose the burning sensation all…