Prairie kimchi adventures

At last week’s Food Preservation Drop In, we started a batch of prairie kimchi. What on earth is such a thing, you may be asking? Well, if you’ve ever eaten Korean food, you’ve probably tried kimchi. Traditionally, it’s Chinese cabbage, radishes, scallions and other vegetables seasoned with garlic, hot peppers and ginger fermented until it

Rhubarb Three Ways (Part 4: Drying)

The third and final way we preserved rhubarb at Food Preservation Drop In (Week #1) was to make it into fruit leather! Dehydration is less energy intensive that freezing or canning, and properly dried foods can store for a year or more (depending on the food). There are many ways to dry foods, including using

Rhubarb Three Ways (Part 3: Canning)

The second way we explored preserving rhubarb at this week’s Food Preservation Drop In was to can some rhubarb chutney. In the past I’ve canned rhubarb butter, which is basically just stewed and sweetened rhubarb that we use on cereal. This year I wanted to try something new, so I adapted a rhubarb chutney recipe

Rhubarb Three Ways (Part 2: Freezing)

At the first of our weekly Food Preservation Drop Ins we focused mainly on rhubarb, and explored preserving it three different ways: frozen, canned, and dried. Freezing is the most energy intensive way to preserve food. It also involves the ongoing cost of electricity and the constant potential of power failure (unless you’re off the

Rhubarb Three Ways (Part 1: Sourcing & Harvesting)

The inaugural Root & Branch Food Preservation Drop In happened yesterday! The idea is that I will be preserving whatever is in season every (or at least most) Wednesdays from 5:30 to 7pm for the duration of the growing season. Folks are invited to drop in to help and learn about different ways to optimize

Amaranth dreams fulfilled over breakfast

I’ve been enjoying amaranth as a cooked cereal for years. The tiny seeds are tasty, pack a complete high protein punch, and are fun to eat. (At our house, meals with amaranth somehow manage to inspire song and dance!) Plus, it’s been in cultivation for more than 8,000 years! So last spring, when we finally

Back on the horse: growing onions & peppers from seed

Having had limited success starting onions and peppers from seed, I regrouped and got a good start on both this year. We rigged up some grow lights on a rickety old utility shelf in our otherwise dark and inhospitable basement, and I planted seeds early, putting in four varieties of onions and five varieties of

Further adventures with naked seeded pumpkin

The naked seeded pumpkin experiment continued this week with attempts at pumpkin gnocchi and seed saving (click here to read my last pumpkin post). We came across a recipe for pumpkin gnocchi in Amy Jo Ehman’s wonderful local eating resource Prairie Feast: A writer’s journey home for dinner, and since gnocchi is (in my experience)

Naked-seeded pumpkin success…sort of

As a kid, my mom would scrape out the seeds from a pumpkin (usually a Jack O’Lantern) and bake and season them for a snack. As an adult I discovered the kind of pumpkin seeds you can buy in the store, and started adding them to all manner of things: on top of salads, in

Snuggling up with my seed catalogues

It’s chilly outside today, as it should be in January in Saskatchewan. But I’ve got my mind on the warm days of summer, when my garden will be growing and I’ll be seeking shade and an ice cold lemonade. I’m already pouring over seed catalogues, dreaming about favourites from last year and new varieties to