Tag: neighbourhood

Goodness Can Come from a Can

We made this tasty dish earlier in the week: Salmon Pasta Pesto Toss. It all started with some basil and walnut pesto, made from basil we grew here on our urban farm. So many good things to make!

We cooked some whole grain pasta from Better Bulk. In the meantime, we tossed some veggies together with a little EVOO and cooked them until they were tender-crisp. In this case, we used celery, broccoli, yellow peppers, red onions, mushrooms, and carrot, all from the East York Farmer’s Market. Then we stirred in a large chopped tomato from Larry’s garden (not for sale – neighbour-ness has its privileges). We put the lid on and let it simmer while the pasta finished cooking.

Then at the end, we stirred in the drained pasta, a heaping tablespoon or two of the pesto, and a can of wild salmon. We popped on the lid and let it sit for 3 or 4 minutes for the flavours to develop. Quick comfort in a bowl. (For cold comfort, you could easily refrigerate this and serve it as a salad!)

Chop Chop! (Pork, of Course)

It’s true. Alfresco dining days are disappearing. But while we can, we’ll keep enjoying the backyard dining opportunities.

We grilled a regular grocery store Ontario pork chop (from Valu-Mart, down the street). It would be nice to do butcher shop chops every day, but it’s hard on the budget, so we do that as often as we can. These were dusted with a little bit of ground coriander.

On the side, we served cauliflower from the East York Farmer’s Market, and a grilled tomato topped with ermite cheese from Quebec. The tomato was fresh from our neighbours’ garden – even closer than the farm! The cauli came from the East York Farmers market. Go farmers!

Cool as a Cucumber

Last week I tweeted about the cucumber watermelon salad we were making – some folks wanted a recipe. It’s not much of a recipe, really, but here it is:

Peel some English cucumber and cut into thick chunks. Cube some watermelon about the same size, and remove the seeds. Place these in a bowl.

In a small prep bowl, whisk together 15ml (1T) olive oil and 30ml (2T) cider vinegar. Drizzle this over and give it a toss. Grind on a few good grinds of pepper. Then julienne some basil leaves and sprinkle over the top. We’re lucky enough to have lots of fresh basil growing on the urban farm, but it’s plentiful in stores right now, or in farmer’s markets.

Put the whole thing in the fridge until it’s well-chilled. It’s a sure-fire solution to cool you off on a sultry summer day.

Strawberry Shortcake, Maritime Style

We East Coasters like our shortcake a certain way. First, it doesn’t really involve cake. It takes biscuits. We make fresh, hot tea biscuits. We top them with sliced strawberries that have been sprinkled with a spoonful or two of sugar (no more!) and allowed to make some juice.

Then we give each shortcake a dollop of delicious, cool whipped cream with vanilla and just a hint of sugar. Summer on a plate!

A Heartwarming Breakfast

Berry season!

There’s no better breakfast than some fresh-made jam from your own kitchen (we made twoberry, our combination of raspberry and blueberry). Serve it on top of flaky tea biscuits and a hot cup of joe – and you’re golden!

 

Delicious Berry Goodness!

Sweet Berry GoodnessWhen we were kids, all the women would gather in the kitchen to put up jams and preserves during harvest season. These days, we go walkabout, and make some delicious berry jam. It probably doesn’t cost less than store-made jam, but it has amazing flavour and there’s nothing like saying, “I made it myself”.

Best ways to use it: for breakfast in the middle of winter, on toast, or next day, on homemade biscuits.

Ultimate Summer Coleslaw

No time for food styling, it’s coleslaw time! This is an ultimate summer dish because it’s cool, crunchy, and fast to make on a hot day. Given that we’ve been having record high temperatures for weeks on end, that’s vital!

Moreover, the great thing about coleslaw is that it only takes a few ingredients, usually easily available. In our case we went to Kelly’s Fruit Market and Plank Road Market for a cabbage and some carrots. We could have hand-grated, but in this case we used a food processor to shred them together. Then we mixed in a generous dollop of mayonnaise. (Disclaimer alert: the mayo wasn’t walkable, exactly. We walked to a store in France and we walked it home in our suitcase. It’s from Maille, the famous mustard people. And it’s full of egg-y goodness, just like mayonnaise you’d make yourself, if you had time. We also gave a good splash of white wine vinegar, and a liberal shake (probably a teaspoon, for a bowl this size) of celery seed. That’s it. Stir it all together, let it stand for a few minutes in the fridge (or longer if you’d like) for the flavours to develop. We served it with the amazing halibut in yesterday’s blog, and it was a big hit.

Skewered!

The Belanger Brothers favoured us with some lamb leg steaks recently. They were a little big to just fire on the grill (if we wanted to keep in fighting trim). So we diced them into nice cubes and threaded them onto skewers. In between, we had mushrooms, baby tomatoes, yellow zucchini, and onion. When they were grilled, we served them on platters, with some creamy avocado, sprinkled with lemon. It’s not local – but it’s our kind of local. We bought it down the street at Kelly’s.

Red Deliciousness

Recently we had some Copper River Salmon from Hooked. It looked sublime, even before it was cooked. We took the fillet and rubbed it down with a little olive oil, then chopped some herbs over it – green onion, tarragon, oregano, and garlic chives. We sprinkled some dry mustard over, and gave it a very light grind of salt.

We cooked it on the grill, on a sheet of foil, since we didn’t have a plank. The smell was glorious. While it was cooking, we boiled up some baby red potatoes, and sliced up a radish or two. We mixed those in with the bean salad from the day before. It was an amazing feast.

Another Grain in your Bread? How's that Spelt?

A week or so ago we picked up some amazing spelt flour from Monckton Organic Farms. It makes tremendous bread, and also pasta. We even made some pizza this week, using their amazing flour in the crust. Every bit turned out to be delicious.

If you don’t have the time or inclination to make the bread yourself, you can find the good folks from Monckton at the East Lynn Farmer’s Market. Stop by and say hi, and buy some flour or bread. You won’t regret it.