Local Delicious

In further pest and pestilence news from the community garden, my garlic has developed a nasty rust fungus problem.  And mine is by  no means the only affected plot, thanks to a miserably cold and wet April and May. And June.

Thank heavens for our garden Education Committee of One who knew what it was and tenaciously spent time researching how to deal with it.

Notes-to-self if you are encountering this issue:

• The fungus can spread to leeks and onions also, but not other types of plants
• Caused by excess rain and lack of light and/or soil inadequacies
• Possible solutions: Create sprays with either baking soda, milk, neem oil (huh?) or chamomile tea (see recipes below)
• Cut off the leaves then dispose of them (NOT in your compost bin, people!) to ensure the fungus does not spread. Word on the street is, the stalk continues to photosynthesis even if you remove the leaves
• Disinfect your clippers, etc. also to ensure the fungus does not spread from plant to plant (this is serious, folks!)
• The good news is garlic rust does not appear to affect the garlic bulb — I pulled one to test and it looks just fine

Organic, Rust Fungus Spray Recipes

1. 1 gallon water, 1Tbsp baking soda, 2.5 Tbsp vegetable oil
2. 1Tbsp milk per gallon water
3. 1 tsp neem oil, 1Litre water or chamomile tea

These teas may be more preventative than cures; spray on infected leaves in morning for several days in a row (especially if rain is washing off leaves – the oil helps spray stick to leaf).

I have cut off all the leaves and am trying the baking soda recipe. I have no great hope of eradicating the rust, but I do hope to minimize any further infestation on both mine and my neighbours’ plants.

More on Garlic

If you want additional general info about garlic such as how and when to harvest and cure it, check out the Garlic Farm website, which I found in my garlic research travels.

They are located in British Columbia (middle of the province at the US border in a town appropriately named Midway), and sell organic garlic seed in Canada and the US. They start taking orders July 2nd on a first come, first serve basis for delivery in September. Get your order in now!

Method cleaning products has masterfully hit the mark with their message in the following commercial, and used some brilliant humour to do it. Somehow lecturing and statistics never quite gets the point across nearly as well. I couldn’t stop laughing…

I love Famous Foods grocery on Kingsway in Vancouver, BC. I like that they have such a great variety of locally produced food. I like that the staff are always friendly and helpful – they are friendly with each other, too, which is a good sign. They always offer carry out when I purchase by the case.

And I love that I always find interesting, local, and healthy food there. Most recently it was a cashew and date snack bar. That’s all it had in it. Nothing else. Especially no added sugar. Yum.

I love that I can buy lots of whole foods in bulk. One of the many fringe benefits of eating local is a focus on eating more healthfully. The bulk products may not all be local, but food that is unprocessed is a healthy option to have and that works for me.

I’ve “discovered” a few local products at Famous Foods that have become regulars on my shopping list, including Golda’s Cilantro Pesto and Spring Creek natural beef (no hormones or antibiotics).

And I found a new supplier of hemp hearts, Canada Hemp Foods, based in Gibsons, BC and sourced from Manitoba. As a Prairie girl at heart, I’m happy to be supporting my country’s farmers. Frankly, that’s damn cool.

Woman may not be able to live by bread alone, but if I had to try I’d be choosing Silver Hills. Silver Hills bakery has been around for a long time with their signature Squirrelly bread, but you may think they’re new because they’ve recently re-branded (good job!). They’ve got a fresh new look, and a fun new cheeky attitude. I burst out laughing – out loud – at the grocery store, reading the backs of each package. (Each flavour has its own story, take a moment to look for them next time you’re in the bread aisle.)

In addition to Squirrelly, there are 8 other flavours. Hardy Hearty Harvest is my favourite…I think. It’s hard to choose.

A BC home grown success story, Silver Hills keeps ingredients simple and literally easy-to-read. Their sprouted grain innovation, which uses various grain sprouts in place of flour, gives gluten sensitive souls some it’s-hard-as-a-puck options. Wait, I think I hear dancing in the street.

I was very pleased to discover that with the new look their bags are now biodegradable. I have a little experiment going in my community garden compost pile, to see if I can prove it.

One of the many great fringe benefits of buying local food is that it can often lead to reduced packaging and therefore a reduced need for recycling. Buying producer-direct at a farmers market is a prime example of this. You buy from a bin, you bring your own reusable bag and bingo, no extra packaging necessary.

That’s ideal, but not always possible. For me that means I’m looking for reduced (or reduced-impact) packaging when no-packaging options aren’t an option. Confused?

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned having discovered that the meat I’d purchased to make my Liz’s World Famous Pizza came on a non-recyclable tray. (From the label I had surmised that the product would have a Canadian processing plant, and therefore be more locally produced than a product from the US — Johnsonville is a US company. Having looked at the website, I’m not so sure.)

Anyway, I asked Johnsonville about the non-recyclable trays they use, but never got a response. I’m not really surprised. So I did what I said I’d do and bought truly local, this time from Freden Fine Foods. Turns out Freden wholesales to my local grocery store and the store uses recyclable trays for their meat.

It’s not no packaging, but it is reduced-impact packaging. Sweet.

I made my “world famous pizza” again today — world famous because it’s on the Internet so theoretically anyone in the whole world could know about it. And famous because…well… my friends know and love it.

When I made it this past summer with my 17 year old niece, Falisha, she was skeptical, but after the fact she conceded that I had a point. (That’s as much credit as you’re going to get from a super cool teen on her way to graduating high school.) This despite that fact that she doesn’t like zucchini or sweet peppers. Kudos to her, she was “willing to try anything once” and ended up liking the veggies in their lightly cooked state. The fact that it was also actually healthy, slipped right by her.

My pizza is a favourite when I have guests coming for dinner. The whatever-I-have-in-the-fridge-and-garden recipe allows me to prep a variety of ingredients and let each guest make-your-own to suit individual tastes, including vegetarian.

Liz’s World Famous, No Guilt Pizza

So, here is my recipe for über delicious, world famous, healthy pizza. The beauty is, in summer even more of the ingredients can be local, straight from the garden:

• Lebanese flat bread — local producer Kandoo Bakery (looks like the restaurant gets rave reviews too)
• Pesto base — my favourite is Golda’s Cilantro Pesto but you can mix it up for variety
• Spicy Italian sausage, removed from casing, browned — local producer Freden Fine Foods, made fresh daily
• Zucchini, shredded, sliced, diced or however you like it
• Sweet peppers, any/every colour, diced small
• Tomatoes, cherry, grape or other — when I can get them fresh from the garden
• Fresh herbs — available from the balcony garden, I pick an assortment and mix/match
• Shredded Parmesan cheese, to taste — I don’t like a lot of dairy, but if I have it I want the good stuff
• Crumbled feta cheese, to taste — ditto above, a sprinkling is perfect to add a bit of zip

The instructions are pretty complicated, so pay attention here:

1. Cut a slab of flat bread
2. Slather on some base
3. Layer on an assortment of ingredients, to taste
4. Heat in the oven at 350 till the cheese melts, about 10-15 minutes

Here are some additional tips:

• All veggies can be optional; mix, match and add depending on what’s readily available. But just so you know, it won’t officially be Liz’s World Famous Pizza if you mess with the above.
• The flat bread comes in a big long flat and freezes extremely well. I cut it into sections before I freeze it, then pull out just what I need. It thaws lightening fast.
• Ground beef, chicken, or turkey work as well. Ditto the rule about messing with the recipe, noted above.
• I prefer pesto, but I guess a traditionalist could use tomato paste. Do I need to repeat the Messing with Recipe rule?

Mmmm, aren’t you hungry just thinking about it?! Oh, and if you don’t tell the kids it’s healthy they’ll love it.