Canning for a New Generation - Review

Although it doesn't seem very timely to be reviewing a book published in 2010, fresh produce is nearly upon us! I have started to pull my canning titles off the shelves after their winter hibernation, and Liana Krissoff's Canning for a New Generation was the best place to start. Having used this for two seasons already, I have found this book a pleasure to read and cook from.

For me to purchase a cookbook, I need to know that it contains more than a handful of recipes I will use; furthermore, it should teach me something new about working with food. This book falls strongly into the latter category, though I have tried several recipes from it each year with great results.

Krissoff's approach to preserving is actually very traditional. She avoids commercial pectins by straining and boiling down her product, working with with the pectin content naturally available in the fruit and amending it as necessary. This makes for lovely, flavourful preserves, even if they are a bit time consuming. For the total newbie, she thoroughly goes over the various aspects of canning, providing some rarely seen detail about your pectin options. For the more experienced cook, her recipes are at once classic and innovative, each jar presented in tantalizing photography. She has something for everyone, including the "new generation." Will your friends stare blankly at a jar of strawberry preserves? Maybe these friends might be more impressed with one of the book's more ethnic options, such as Persian Tarragon Pickles or Japanese Fermented Bran Pickles. Ooooo. Food cart-y.

Inter-dispersed among the recipes for canned goods are recipes in which you can use them, which I typically don't like to see. Let canning books be about canning, I would say. For this book, however, these are sometimes quite necessary. I might make Do Chua (Vietnamese Carrot and Daikon), but how will I use it? Krissoff tells me, and clinches the deal: her "Asia Tacos" look delicious. I planted daikon this year. Furthermore, the narration in this book is so engaging I was surprised to find how much I liked the personal voice and anecdotes she carried through the recipes. She won my trust, and for that, I will try her scones (or rather, Reagan's scones).

Krissoff's pantry (Canning for a New Generation Facebook page)

The book's Facebook page is well maintained. Krissoff carries on excellent dialogue with her followers, and displays some mouth-watering shots of her preserves.

On my "must make list" this year? I am hoping to start her Pickled Young Spring Garlic recipe by the end of the week, to help my desperately overgrown garlic patch. Last year's batch of apple butter is nearly exhausted, and from the looks of things at the market so is last year's apple harvest, meaning that I suspect we will be picking up cheap butter-grade apples again soon. And I will absolutely be making one of her strawberry jams or preserves, and something with rhubarb. For a start.

The life changing magic of tidying up: review

In the midst of feeling completely overwhelmed by all the stuff in our house, I heard of this title, published last year in English (translated from Japanese): The life changing magic of tidying up, by Marie Kondo. I jumped on the holds list at the Brantford Public Library when it was only a few people long; now there are almost 20 in line behind me.

I'll get right to the point: reading this book was a good experience for me. Entertaining, thought provoking, and very likely useful in helping me to keep a better house. At the beginning I was a bit shocked at Kondo's obsessive behaviors. As I read on, I became impressed that she made herself so vulnerable by sharing these things. I found the book very readable, and wasn't turned off by some of the zanier suggestions she makes, such as communicating with your house or thanking possessions for their service to you. I am fine with these things.

I respect that Kondo sticks to her mission, in focusing totally on tidying and discarding (the latter of which is really the main event). In its directives, the book is very simple and I don't think I will have problems following the instructions even after I return it to the library. However, I think she does have a blind spot; there is a lack of comment on responsible disposal of your discarded stuff. If you slow down to recycle and re-home goods, will it impede the discarding process? Possibly. She doesn't discuss this. While she is impressed with the number of garbage bags that her clients discard, I cringe at the thought of throwing out 60 bags at one go.

Donate it, you may say. While I do use trips to the thrift store as a way to destash, I often feel like this is making my garbage problem someone else's problem. You may be aware that unsold thrift store goods are sometimes donated or sold in developing countries, where in some cases they may be supplanting local textile industries. Eek. What started as a way to be environmentally friendly - recycling your clothes - can have a whole other set of consequences for people in southern countries. Value Village states on its website that they ship unsold product to "developing countries to help supply economies with a steady stream of high-quality goods." However much negative impact this has at a local level I am unsure of, but it makes me wary. What about locally made products? I haven't ever thought of my used t-shirts as "high-quality goods".

But really, is my problem with disposing of things in a manner that I feel comfortable with Marie Kondo's problem? No, not at all. She stays on topic. While certain things in this book don't feel realistic (turning over a seasonal wardrobe is fairly important in a country where temperatures spread over 60 degrees Celsius, for one), I also believe that things hold an energy, and that having too many things often means you don't get to appreciate the ones you have. There are many Konmari before and after pics out there, but this set from the New York Times is particularly good, I suspect because it shows a room Marie Kondo worked on herself. I'm not ready for before and after pics yet, but I do think I will start with getting rid of some items. Once I figure out where to send them.

Shorts for the week

I don't remember watching the original airing of the season of Friends where Chandler seems to gain 5 pounds and then lose it again every other episode.

When did we stop caring about aluminum in deodorant?

Walked behind McDonald's carrying the babe. She started coughing from the McStank.

Thinking now that it is shower-every-day weather, I am screwed.

Writing on a time budget

Since going to Toronto at the beginning of the month, my blog activity has dropped off. The two week break took all my steam away; I don't approach my posts with the same excitement as I did a month ago. Part of this, I feel, is a lack of focus with the topics I am covering. At the moment I am passionate about gardening. Our new kitchen means more cooking. And of course the baby, who is the most exciting thing in my life, always. Too many adventures, but perhaps not enough of any of them to classify this as a gardening, knitting, crafting, cooking, reading, or mommy blog. And to focus on one - and the requisite online presence in that area - would require giving up time devoted to those other hobbies.

To that end, I am going to reduce my posting goal from three posts to one quality post per week. Since I haven't widely publicized this blog, I feel like I am writing this to a bit of a non-dience, who in their nonexistence will not care if I do not write, or if I cease to write about their topic of choice. If I am wrong about this, please let me know.

I hope to update my About page shortly with my other online coordinates.

BBQ Ribs

Ted Reader is my go-to for BBQ recipes. He celebrates good, rich, barbequed food, and following him on Instagram or Facebook will seriously inspire you to grill something. So when ribs went on sale before the long weekend, I decided to try his back rib recipe from Everyday Gourmet Grilling.

Horrible picture, delicious ribs.

I always BBQ my ribs. While there are a few different ways to do it, I give them a good rub with something and letting them sit for awhile, then put them on the grill low (around 325) and slow (for at least 2 hours). Turn on one side of the grill and place the ribs on the other, with a drippings pan underneath. My ribs tend to take a bit longer than the recipe calls for, probably because I open the lid far too many times - usually to add other items to the grill. Sunday evening I also grilled sweet potatoes and baked some brownies on the BBQ.

I also treated myself to Ted's Thai Chili Lime Coleslaw, a recipe I have been wanting to make since I got the cookbook. I made a few omissions: didn't grill the pineapple, didn't add the chili (I know this is nearly unforgivable), and didn't add the rum. Yep, you read right: no rum in this coleslaw.

May Garden Pics

Working on the Instagram photo challenge hosted by Sweet Domesticity, I caught this shot of my thyme one evening:

#thyme in the sloping bed out back - such a dainty texture #garden365

A photo posted by edud5 (@edud5) on Apr 28, 2015 at 5:02pm PDT

I once read that to get the best shots of your garden, you should try getting out first thing in the morning, or last thing before the sun sets - this one was taken at just the right time.

Book sale haul

One of my favorite events of the year is the Brantford Symphony Orchestra book sale, which happens every April. Book donations are collected and sorted for weeks before the sale, and it is fair to say there are thousands of items. This year's venue was the closed Brantford campus of Mohawk College, but it has also been hosted at closed factories and schools.

Books are priced between 50 cents and roughly 5 dollars, though there are plenty of 25 cent finds and the rare book that costs more.

This year I arrived within half an hour of opening. I was so excited I could hardly stand to park the car; I wanted to run inside, to stop people from getting to my wonderful book deals. In addition to very keen readers, opening day is also marked by dealers pushing around shopping carts filled with books, with boxes of more books piled on top.

This year I walked away with 16 books, 5 patterns and a tape of awesome hits from the early 90s for $28.50. That is about 10 dollars more than I usually spend, but this year I started looking at the 3 and 4 dollar books (which I usually set aside because of their "high price" and then regret this foolishness when I get back home).

Please don't judge me for the Twilight books - as an MLIS holder I consider it a kind of research to read the YA smash hits.

Though I am very excited about my patterns, my favorite score at the book fair was a beautifully laid out Audubon bird book. I have been looking for an affordable source of Audubon prints for our living room, and this book almost appears to be made for it - one picture per page,  high quality paper. If I can bring myself to cut it up.

The spring thing

I took a break from blogging during our kitchen reno, as we lived out of our car until my cousins in Toronto warmly welcomed us. Now that we're back it is obvious spring has overcome this small town.

Looking forward to writing more as daylight extends.

Spring stitchery

What's it going to be?

Granola bars vs. Lemon buns

Yes, I will eat you granola bar. But I am not going to enjoy it.

Ok, I will enjoy it. But not as much as I would have if I wasn't limited to what was available in my cupboard, baked in the spirit of "use it up." Based roughly on Sprouted Kitchen's recipe, minus the dates, plus raisin paste, wheat germ and hemp seeds.

But you! I am going to love eating you, you delicious sticky lemon roll.

Made using the Kitchn recipe, but in a bread machine using the dough cycle. I reduced the yeast to 1 1/2 tsps, and probably should have reduced the flour to 3.5 cups. I had to hand knead it at the end of the cycle, as not all the flour had worked in to the dough. I let it rise an extra time for good measure.

The Ornamental Vegetable Plot

I can't recall where I first heard of potage gardens, which have now become a source of inspiration to me. Books on the subject and it's related subjects - potager,  kitchen gardens, ornamental vegetable gardens - are the ones I turn to most for developing my garden plans. After inheriting some very high-maintenance gardens with the purchase of our house 3 years ago, I have slowly started to convert the beds to be 1) more easily maintained and 2) able to produce food.

Nowhere on our property is there a chunk of land eligible for the perfectly rectangular veggie bed that I grew up with, so I had to get creative. Our house backs on a river, making the backyard a regular wildlife sanctuary. Yes, groundhogs. Yes, deer. Yes, fluffy bunnies. I decided that it would be better to grow food closer to the house, as the larger, hungrier animals tend to stay "down by the river." However, this means working with oddly shaped beds, and ones that are already occupied (overtaken, in most cases) with perennials and even some wildflowers. And serious weeds. Eek.

So I started the conversion with the least populated, most rectangular bed, a front bed that lines our driveway up to the sidewalk. While formal French potage gardens require fairly large spaces to incorporate their geometric layouts, I simply tried to make a "pretty" veggie plot, incorporating some patterns into planting and including flowers throughout. I planted radishes, cabbage, kale, beets, and runner beans with nasturtiums, marigolds, borage, and ageratum, which was completed buried under the foliage from nearby cabbages. Tomatoes reseeded themselves from last year and I was literally pulling them like weeds. By the dozen.

These pics show the garden shortly after planting on June 10th, on June 27th, and July 11th. I clearly tried to squeeze too many plants into the bed. But that is kind of my style.

I try to take road traffic and potential pollution from passers-by into consideration when planting. While it seems wonderful in theory to grow food on your front lawn, you don't want dogs to water your lettuce. For this reason, much of this front bed was planted as it was purely because I liked the look of the plants, and as a growing experiment; I was hesitant to harvest much leafy growth from a road-side location. This year I am going to try to push back the edible plants even further from the road by moving more blooming perennials to the front of the bed, and will try to find another location for my leafier plants.

Tilling near bulbs isn't practical, meaning most perennials don't mix well with annual food plants. In the top most photo, you can see two bean tee-pees; I roughly allotted the space in between them for tilling and vegetable growth. However, easy grow annuals that don't need much tilling can easily by set amongst your perennials to add a decorative effect - I personally love nasturtiums.

Though this bed wasn't a total success, I did learn some things about what thrives in it and what doesn't. And most importantly, the bed is better organized for growing this year.

Can't get enough of that butterfly weed

I didn't manage to snap as many garden shots as I had hoped this week, partially due to a cold. Partially due to the constraint of shooting pics with a wiggly 16-pounder strapped on to my chest. While enjoying the sun this week I have also been fighting off a cold.

I did like this shot of butterfly weed reaching for the light.

seedlings stretch towards the sun. #garden365 #butterflyweed #seedlings

A photo posted by edud5 (@edud5) on Apr 11, 2015 at 4:43pm PDT

I had no shortage of seedlings posing for the job, but the photogenic butterfly weed stole the show again. After weeks of cool weather, this is a delicate time for seedlings, even indoors, as they can quickly get dehydrated. I almost lost some bloody dock this week to dehyrdration, their stems so spindly that their tired leaves lay on the soil in defeat. Yikes. Gotta be a better seedling mama.

Seed starting

Since moving to this house three years ago, I have very enthusiastically been starting my own seeds in our sunroom.  Growing from seed is satisfying, gives you many more varieties to chose from than are typically available locally, and is theoretically cheaper than buying seedlings.

Theoretically because I tend to go bananas at the seed store.

Currently I have 6 flats and a few miscellaneous containers of seed started,  and I will likely start 2 more flats. I am not in any particular rush to get things started, as the increased daylight further into spring helps seedlings grow in a less spindly fashion.

While most of my seeds are started in the pots you see pictured, I am also trying some tomatoes sewn in a larger container (a pre-washed lettuce container from the grocery store). I babysat my mother-in-law's seedlings last year and they performed beautifully in that kind of setting, I think because of the larger amount of medium they could draw nutrients from, and the added moisture that medium retained.

Although I enjoy watching all my veggie seeds grow, and I like trying out new annual blooms, I love growing tomatoes. Love. Love. Love. In addition to the lettuce container, I seeded a flat of tomatoes on the weekend, including some Sicilian Saucer tomatoes from William Dam. Last year I tried to encourage my friends and family to compete with me for the title of the biggest Sicilian Saucer tomato, but no one adhered to my astringent reporting regulations, despite good reporting yields. I look forward to seeing whether someone takes my title.

Baltic un-Birthday Bread

One of my favorite treats to make for a party is a Baltic Birthday Bread, from this super duper Canadian-flour bread machine book. It looks very impressive, and I consider myself somewhat Baltic in origin, as my father's family comes from the former Konigsberg. While that particular region of the Baltic has, and had, little cultural similarity to Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, I still am drawn to Baltic culture. I am not sure how authentically Baltic this is, but I did find another recipe for it citing Estonian origins.

I simply couldn't get a picture of it whole. It is that good.

While I technically made this to clean out the cupboards (it uses sliced almonds, candied fruit, and saffron), the only reason those ingredients were in the cupboard were my aborted attempts to make it over the last few months. The texture and flavor is reminiscent of hot cross buns, soft and doughy with hints of fruit.

Garden photos and treelace

After staring longingly at rhubarb pics at Sweet Domesticity,  I noticed her #garden365 photo challenge. This immediately appealed to me for a number of reasons:

1. I take a lot of garden pics. Maybe this will be a way to focus my efforts and (possibly?) make them less boring.

2. A daily photo means I need to take a walk in the garden every day. This affords me some quiet, restful time every day. This is a good goal for a new mother.

3. I have been looking for a reason to start using Instagram other than Mindy Kaling.

Each day, I use a one word prompt to take a pic outside. My favorite pic this week is of the trees in our backyard (#treelace!).

today's grey SKY #garden365

A photo posted by edud5 (@edud5) on Apr 9, 2015 at 5:00pm PDT

Cleaning out our cupboards

We are getting kitchen renos done in 2 weeks. This is excellent motivation to clean out the cupboards.

Personally, I am going to use this opportunity to find the perfect granola bar recipe. I made a batch of Pioneer Woman bars a month or two ago, and found they didn't stick together well. Our biggest need - to - empty cupboard is the baking one, which is full of granola bar worthy ingredients.

I managed to use over 7 cups of miscellaneous cupboardry while attempting to make some yesterday.  I roughly followed this recipe, but added in peanut butter (because I love it) and a banana (because I had it). They are ok. But not perfect.

Rhubarb sighted

I was ecstatic to see the first appearance of rhubarb today!

These plants were divided and replanted in a more spacious location, closer to the house, in spring of last year.

First seedlings

Butterfly weed.

The Wedding Maps

We have wedding maps.

 

Please disregard the wilted flowers.

I love maps. I could look at them for hours. So when planning our wedding for August 2012, I thought it would be neat to have our guests look at maps too, and contribute a few of their thoughts onto the map:

• Where they were born - green
• Where they live now - red
• A neat place they have been with the bride and the groom - blue
• Where they could go if they could go anywhere - yellow

I can verify that some of these dots have been misplaced.

I have been looking at these maps as I am trying to straighten things up lately. They have been hanging around our office for the last two years, constantly getting in the way, never getting hung on the wall. Because even though Europe, all of Canada, and a world view fit into a nice, rectangular frame shape, how to manage the map of Southern Ontario eluded me.

It's wacky shape is what you see hanging off the top of the picture frame on the top left (above). I know I should have been able to make it a more manageable shape, but I love Ontario - cutting any part out of it is painful, so I wanted to retain as much it as I could. After consulting with someone more artistic than I, I decided to laminate it and cut it out, to display all its irregularly-shaped wonder.

Off the to do list. Almost on the wall.

How not to make yogurt

1. Drink small coffee. You haven't drank a coffee in a couple of days, so enjoy it.

2. Put milk in Dutch oven. Snap a pic for your blog! Who cares if the Dutch oven is kind of dirty looking.

3. Start doing other stuff around your house. You should drink coffee more often!

4. When you are moving the 3rd load of dirty laundry downstairs,  notice your milk is boiling over, and that it is 20 degrees hotter than it was supposed to be. Turn it off. Curse quietly so your baby doesn't hear.

5. Know that you probably already messed up your yogurt but decide to keep going. Just in case.

6. Put Dutch oven in ice water bath. Check in between loads of laundry. When it only has a few degrees left to cool decide you won't forget about it if you only do ONE thing and come back to it.

7. Dust off your television screen. Then play with the baby. Then fold the blankets and organize the pillows on the couch. Then - crap. The yogurt.

8. Check on the milk cooling in the ice water bath and see that it has cooled 10 degrees cooler than it was supposed to.

9. You don't really have time to think about it. Let's just keep going with the yogurt. You are getting a lot done today.

10. Barely remember to add yogurt to the milk before you put it in the slightly warm oven. Don't measure, this obviously isn't going well anyways.

11. Check milky substance after the required 4 hours and confirm that you have not made yogurt, as you suspected. Toilet it.

The Kitchn has great instructions for how to actually make yogurt. And it isn't that hard.