Category Archives: Food

Guilt-Free Fridge Cleaning

I’ll admit that, as a single gal, I quite often purchase the vegetables I plan to eat and then, a week or so later, clean out the fridge, removing the vegetables that never made it to the table. I realize that it’s a waste. Really I do, but what am I going to do with mushy, expired vegetables?

A sign at the Coquitlam Farmers’ Market a while ago has ended all that:

“Hand-weeded fields”

What? Somebody has spent hours on their hands and knees weeding their field so I can have quality produce?? I now rarely chuck produce (and save some dough in the process), even the bits that don’t work in soup.

Here are some clever ways to end the waste and save those people’s knees!

  • Wiggly carrots: clean them up, wrap them in foil, adding butter (or olive oil for the vegans among us), salt and pepper, and place them on the BBQ. Ten minutes later, beautiful, sweet carrots emerge.
  • Wilty spinach: Heat up your favourite soup, place the spinach at the bottom of the bowl and ladle over the soup. The spinach adds zillions of nutrients to your soup, and you won’t care that they’re not at their most crisp!
  • Mushy berries: I cannot handle the mouth feel of mushy berries (like a 5-year old, really) and often end up blending them up and adding them to toast (with a bit of sugar), cake, or ice cream.

Do you have any veggie-savers to share? Leave a comment below.

Fresh, Gabriola Lettuce

Fresh LettuceCheck out the pics my friend Peggy sent from the Gabriola Island weekend Farmers Market.

“Check out this lettuce I bought this AM at the farmer’s market: the blackest I’ve ever seen! It’s not really red on the outer edges – it truly is black, and neon green at the center.”

Thanks for the delicious pics!

Check out your local farmers market for funky food that tastes amazing.

Eat Fresh, Local Blueberries for Charity

Hmmm, sounds like a difficult challenge — eat delicious, fresh blueberries straight from a local farmer and benefit your favourite charity at the very same time.

Twin Berry Farms’ Goodberry Program donates up to $2.00 per 5 lb. flat purchased to Twin Berry’s charity of choice, Canuck Place Children’s Hospice, or your favourite charity.

Here’s how it works: you sign up your company, promote the Goodberry Program, interested parties place their order, and the blueberries are delivered straight to your office farm-direct. It takes out the middleman and the turnaround time meaning you support a local farmer and a charity, while getting fresh, fresh berries at their prime.

That sounds like a recipe for success to me.

Golda’s Cilantro Pesto

goldas-cilantro-pestoI stumbled across Golda’s Fine Foods all natural Cilantro Pesto a few months ago at Famous Foods, an independently owned grocery store in Vancouver where I buy rice milk and a wide variety of other healthy, unique, and delicious groceries.

I’m a fiend for cilantro, but it’s one of those herbs that evokes a strong reaction from everyone — they either love it or hate it. Not sure what to expect, I took it home and used it as the base for one of my über delicious, healthy pizzas (Lebanese flat bread, paste/pesto, browned ground Italian sausage, shredded zucchini, diced sweet peppers, other finely chopped veggies, a dusting of parmesan, a dusting of feta, warmed in the oven till the cheese melts).

Delicious! Not only did I use it as the pizza base, I drizzled it all over the topping once the pizza came out of the oven. It is now a regular grocery list item and I simply cannot get enough!

Don’t kid yourself, this is not low fat, but it IS made from all natural ingredients and Golda’s is a local success story, based in Mill Bay, British Columbia. Find a store that carries it near you.

Oh, and if the ones you love hate cilantro, tell them it’s coriander pesto. You won’t be lying and they just might thank you.

Have you tried this product? Add your feedback, post a comment…

Granola Leaves Me Dry

I’m working my way through a package of New World Natural Foods organic, barley malt granola. It’s slow going.

I liked all of the things that the packaging had to say:

  • Locally made here in BC
  • Organic
  • High fibre
  • Low sodium
  • No sugar added

What I can’t get past is the crunchy chew. I don’t mean the traditional crunchy granola texture that’s a result of a toasted, sugar coating. I mean a crunchy, the-oats-didn’t-quite-get-cooked-through texture. Like rice that’s taken off the stove too soon and is still crunchy inside.

Maybe that’s what they were going for, but I like even my healthy food not to wear out my jaw.

On the upside, New World is pretty conscientious about their product. They source locally as much as possible, pack in recyclable or biodegradable containers, add no processed sugar and very little salt.

And I recognize and can pronounce everything on the list of ingredients.

Have you tried this product? Add your feedback, post a comment…

An Adventure in Your Own Neighbourhood

Interested in exploring local food producers at their own locations? Yes, but where to begin, you might be thinking.

Why not start with a Circle Farm Tour? What is that? A Circle Farm Tour is basically a road map that directs you to a variety of specialty farm-gate vendors, open air markets, charming eateries, heritage sites, fairs, and other special events. In the Greater Vancouver area, there’s a brochure and map for each participating community – six in total.

Simply go to the Circle Farm Tour website, download the tour, choose your destinations and go! Abbotsford, Agassiz-Harrison Mills, Chilliwack, Langley, Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows, Mission all participate and all offer unique destinations for every member of the family.

Abbotsford offers such destinations as:

  • Birchwood Dairy offering gourmet ice cream, gelato, frozen yogurt, milk products & Feta cheese
  • Fraser Valley Trout Hatchery offers self-guided and guided tours, educational programming, birthday parties, fishing instruction & summer camps
  • Campbell’s Gold Honey Farm & Meadery offers a variety of flavoured & natural honeys, as well as beeswax candles, tasty honey comb, soothing ointments & salves, honey soaps, and hand creams

A little closer to Vancouver, Langley offers great locations such as:

  • Vista D-Oro, a culinary agri-tourism operation featuring culinary herbs, heirloom tomatoes & orchard fruits grown on the farm, as well as fresh pastries, preserves, local cheeses, hard to source ingredients, kitchen tools & more
  • The Fort Wine Co. offers an old fashioned saloon bar to sample a delicious selection of multi award-winning table & dessert fruit wines. Tours are also offered of the state-of-the-art winemaking facilities
  • JD Farms features specialty turkeys that are certified free of antibiotics & animal by-products. Visit the farmgate store to sample fresh & smoked sausages & ready-to-eat meals or order a turkey for your next special event.

So, what are you waiting for? Download your adventure today, pack up friends or the family, and enjoy!

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)

In my attempt to purchase organic produce whenever possible, I often come up against two things: produce flown in from Mexico (not exactly environmentally sensitive) or prices that necessitate re-mortgaging the condo to afford it (not tempting). Finding a good-quality, consistent source of organic produce can be a challenge.

I was very interested, therefore, to learn of a new-to-me concept in produce: Community Supported Agriculture. Instead of a small farm only selling their harvest through farmers markets or retail outlets, they divide the harvest into manageable parcels (for example, 60 shares) and pre-sell the parcels to the local community. Harvest shares are often delivered to a pick-up point each week.

Many of these farms are family-owned and several are certified organic. Harvests usually begin in May, run through October (18-20 weeks), and shares are approximately $500-600 for the entire season. Some farms even offer egg shares, as well, for an additional fee.

So, if this concept is as attractive to you as I found it, take a look at the following farms and see if CSA is for you:

Nathan Creek Organic Farm is in Langley and offers many drop off locations throughout Metro Vancouver. The farm expanded last year and now offers 100 shares.

Klippers Organics Farm is in the Okanagan but offers four pick up locations around Vancouver. This is the farm’s first year with a CSA program.

UBC Farm also offers organic produce and is entering its fifth season. Pick up is at the farm.

Bigger is Better?

While many farmers markets are restricted to local products only, the Minneapolis Farmers Market allows resellers with non-local produce and wares to participate. While it may fly in the face of strict direct farm-to-consumer marketing, the larger overall size and greater number of options at the Minneapolis market draws out many more vendors and attendees than I’ve seen at other markets.

This approach may be behind their success in maintaining both a daily market and a downtown weekly market, with a season that is 26 weeks long. In offering consumers so much choice, the market is more mainstream and therefore more accessible to Joe Public. If I insist on buying oranges, I can also get my locally grown green onions, Brussels sprouts, mushrooms, and squash right there.

The biggest benefit may be that people who might not think much about eating local do, because it’s there. It’s a bit like hiding finely chopped vegatables in the spaghetti sauce so kids will eat them, unwittingly.

Increased sales, as a result of thoughtful consideration or simple convenience, can only have a positive benefit on the local agricultural economy.