April 1st-NO JOKE!

We have purchased the domain and are shopping around for hosting while working on the content and design of the new site!

We've set April 1st as our own personal deadline to launch. I'm very excited and looking forward to the outcome and all of the possibilities!

In the meantime, follow us on twitter!

Tansy & Fern

Here are some photos from the crafternoon and cupcake swap that I hosted pre-christmas.

We made a really nice little mess!

TEA!

CUPCAKES!

Happy Family Day!

It's that time again...

Seedy Sunday Toronto

2011’s Seedy weekend events are now in three locations!

* Hart House, U of T
* North York
* Scarborough

for locations and directions, please visit http://www.tcgn.ca/

Seedy Sunday and Saturdays are hosted by the Toronto Community Garden Network (TCGN) to provide gardeners, plant-lovers and the general public with a head-start on their spring gardens. Featuring a grassroots seed exchange, seed vendors, garden and food organizations, and free workshops.

This year, the theme is Increasing Access to Seeds/Gardening/Food.

By adopting this theme, TCGN hopes to raise awareness of the full spectrum of access issues. This is why we keep entrance costs low, strive to have wheelchair friendly venues, and provide family-friendly children’s activities at the Seedy events. Our aim is to encourage community gardens in Toronto to be even more inclusive and mindful of those with special needs.

For more information:

Contact Name: Melissa Benner
Website: http://www.tcgn.ca/
E-mail: melissa.benner (at) gmail.com

Additional Contacts & Websites:

Seedy Saturdays across Canada
http://seeds.ca/ev/events.php

planting a seed

There is a brand new food/garden blog in the works and it should be up this spring! I am partnering up with one of my very smart and talented pals to make sure that recipes, book reviews, hilarious how-to videos and subpar photography flow freely!

I'm totally excited and ready to have more focus. Who am I kidding!? I have not updated this blog since November so any focus is better than my current focus, right?

The new blog will be based on healthy recipes made with real foods. Whole food cooking, mostly free of refined ingredients (as much as possible!), raw foods, and food we can grow ourselves. We are not professionals and although she has a natural nutrition background we are learning as we go which I think is a great way to approach it. We will be trying things for the first time and we will also be able to share our knowledge on gardening, sprouting, preserving and general cooking from our own experience.

I am excited! Stay tuned!

Halloween: The Food

Some pals I work with planned an amazing Halloween party and asked if I would help them out the the food. I said, "heck yes!" since it meant getting to hang with them, cook and bake stuff and not have people come to my house! Jokes! I actually love it when people come to my house but my place could never accommodate a full-scale party situation. Ben and Nat own a stellar home north of Queen Street in Parkdale and have lots of space for smoke machines, spooky decorations, dance floors and dead bodies.

My favorite part was meeting up to chat about what they wanted for the party. We went for drinks at a new place in my 'hood called Drift where we checked out some hilarifying stuff online for inspiration. Nat asked if I could make a sacrificial red velvet lamb cake to celebrate a girl who was having a midnight birthday. I did it but I'm still trying to track down some snaps because I didn't take any. You will just have to trust that it was delicious and disgusting at the same time. Success! All the cheeses were picked up at the Green Barns farmer's market. They are from my favorite cheese freaks, Montforte.

Nuclear waste punch made with grapefruit perrier, melon liquor, vodka, lemons and limes and a bunch of fruit.

These cupcakes were fun to make! The are filled with a rockmelon sago pudding and topped with green tea frosting.

I wish I would have got a close-up of the meathand but you get the idea. Check out the slimy mud pie in the background (beer and nut brownies with gummy worms).

Have you seen more frightening crudites? Unlikely! The pumpkin housed "Day of the Dead" dip. Ah hum...black beans. We also had roasted bat wings (blackened chicken wings) and shark attack skewers with "chum" sauce (satay chicken with a red dipping sauce) but they were not ready for their close-up at picture time.

Oct 25, 2010

I don't want to tell anyone what to do but if I went through life without having any beliefs strong enough to share I think I would have lost at it.

I want to let anyone who might be reading this know that I'm voting for Joe Pantalone. I met him when we were working to get the community garden set up at Christie Pits and he was a huge advocate of our efforts. He was at our community meeting in the beginning and he came out to support us and celebrate our success at the ground-breaking event last summer. Speaking from personal experience and from the experience of others who have known him for years, I could not imagine a better fit for my city.

On an even more local note, I spoke to Kevin Beaulieu on my front steps today about Dufferin Grove. We spoke about the problems they have been facing including conflicts between the city and longstanding community groups. I was so impressed by his understanding of the issues and his confidence that the events and market will continue to happen. He strongly agrees that it is an important part of the city. I think he is the most progressive and engaged candidate in my Ward and has decidedly secured my vote.

If you support urban farming, parks, diversity, and a healthy city, I hope you will come out and vote. Be informed and don't be swayed by the polls or the media. Vote for your first choice for mayor. Our city is beautiful, not broken.

There are things about the fall that include layers and delicious art.
These tiny donuts deserve a mention. Especially the ones they make in coconut fat at the Wychwood farmer's market. (Also the ones at the EX.)

Having a craft thing and cupcake swap on November 12th at 1:00pm. The girl who made my gorgeous blue scarf will be there.

Be still
Last year fall fairs.

Garden Blogging.

It seems I have managed to go through the summer without writing about gardening. Not even once. How embarrassing. It may not seem like I have been gardening but I have! I swear I have!

In fact, I have been spending my time not writing about gardening actually gardening. Gardening, feeding friends, preserving, drying, and baking. All the while, learning more and more. I don't feel so bad. I feel a little bad but not hardly bad at all, actually.

Free food has been the theme this summer! We ravaged a pals cherry tree in early summer getting more than 40lbs of cherries. We froze and canned them all after spending hours pitting.

A few days ago I cleaned our backyard concord grape vine of all it's delicious purple orbs! This morning I transformed them into a spiced jam. It tastes like the weather. A comfortable combination of fall and summer.

I flew north at the end of August for family visits and spent much of my time foraging, picking and processing our bounty. We made a kalyna-apple jelly, hawthorn berry apple butter and a sweet and tangy beet relish. I also inherited a few large bags of wild blueberries to restock our freezer. I wasn't able to pick myself since the season ended early this year due to warmer weather.

The hawthorn berries were a bit of an accident. My m

om thought they were high-bush cranberries. When we got back my dad was disgusted! "Tamara! You've lived here your whole life and you don't know what a high-bush cranberry is!" The silly thing is we also accidentally picked high-bush cranberries thinking they were choke cherries. OOPS! At least we had our kalyna for the planned jelly.

My mom passed me down this very cool strainer that was my grandpa's. It's called a chinois. I used it for my grape jam today and can imagine myself using it for years to come. It is so simple and obvious and much easier to clean than a food processor or the complicated attachments for my stand mixer. It's also OLD. Old is sometimes good.

So I guess I've managed to avoid blogging about gardening again.

In the Garden and Ancient Grains

I spent the morning drinking tea and working in a wet and muddy garden. I like to do my weeding when it's a little damp because it's so much easier to pull out those pesky things. I know it's not good to work in a wet garden because it's easier to spread disease and such but it's a price I am willing to pay for easier weeding. Weeding is the worst!

This year is turning out to be such a great garden year. My garden is bursting with green! We've been harvesting herbs and lettuce regularly and I can't wait until we have fresh peas and beans! My fingerling potato plants are basically skyscrapers and our strawberries are turning red and almost eatable! After weeding, I sat in my chair and listened to the birds, sipped cherry blossom green tea and blissed out for an hour until my stomach took over and I was ready for breakfast.

What's for breakfast?!

Amaranth is considered a "pseudograin." It was grown by those crazy-smart Aztecs for thousands of years. If they liked it, I am most decidedly down with the stuff. Amaranth is high in protein, fiber, vitamin B, and good fats and is gluten-free. Is there anything wrong with amaranth? Sometimes it can be difficult to cook since the seeds tend to stay crunchy while creating a soft consistency on the outside. It can take on a sandy porridge quality. You should still try it out for yourself because you may just love it like I do!

I like to make hot cereal with this stuff! You can even prepare a pot the night before and keep it covered in the fridge. It will be ready to hit the stove while you work on your face in the morning.

This recipe will make enough for two people.

1/2 cup amaranth rinsed

1-1/2 cups plain soy milk (or sweetened if you so desire)

pinch of cinnamon

pinch of sea salt

1 large apple (or other seasonal fruit that will stand up to cooking)

Place everything in the pot and bring to a boil stirring frequently. Cover pot and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 20-25 minutes or until amaranth is soft. Top with your favorite nuts and more soy milk if you like your cereal to be swimming.

Have a great weekend my people!

Kinda Healthy Cookies

I haven't eaten a cookie in over a month. That is far too long to live without a cookie! I've been avoiding sweets (yes, even homemade, delicious sweets) for the last while to help get my bod in shape for summer and possibly the rest of my life! It's also been an experiment in controlling my moody 'tude and avoiding my daily ups and downs. It has been working to my delight but the cravings have not ceased. I made a deal with myself that I can have things in moderation and on special occasions. I also decided to make my treats better for me and to include some healthy bits!

I found this recipe in a book that a pal lent to me called The New Whole Grains Cookbook by Robin Asbell.

Chocolate Chunk Buckwheat Cookies

1/2 cup unsalted buter, softened

1 cup brown sugar

1 large egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon almond extract

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons whole wheat pastry flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup buckwheat groats

6 ounces dark chocolate chopped into chunks

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. In a stand mixer or bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, vanilla, and almond extract until well mixed.

In a small bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, salt, and buckwheat, and add to the butter mixture, beating to incorporate. When the flour is mixed in, add the chocolate and stir until combined.

Drop 2-tablespoon-size balls of dough onto the ungreased sheet pans, leaving 3 inches of space between the balls. The cookies will spread while baking. bake for 6 minutes, reverse the position of the pans in the oven, then bake for 4 to 6 minutes more. A pale, soft center surrounded by golden brown cookie is the desired result.

Let the cookies cool on the pans for 5 minutes, then transfer to cooling racks with a spatula let cool completely before storing in an airtight container for up to a week.

Try applesauce if you are not down with ovum and margarine if dairy is not your friend!

I skipped on the almond flavor and used vanilla bean instead of extract.

ENJOY!

The end of the blueberries.

My dad knows where all the best, biggest and most tasty blueberries grow in Northwestern Ontario. He knows where they grow so thick that picking them is easy and delicious. The reason he knows is because wild blueberries really like to grow up around old logging roads and areas where the forest has been harvested. They have room to stretch and get lots of needed sun for sweetening their round, purple fruits. I have been known to sit on the ground like a black bear, filling my face and staining my fingers until dusk. My dad is a logger and he's got the inside scoop.

Every summer when we visit we bring back bags of frozen blueberries. Their taste does not compare to conventional, farmed berries. Wild blueberries are deep in colour and sickly sweet in taste. They are smaller and have less of a grainy texture. I don't like regular blueberries and will only eat them if times are desperate. Thankfully, we have been rich with wild blueberries these last few years and have even had enough to share with pals. Until now!

This morning I woke up and had a hankering for pancakes. Blueberry pancakes to be exact (as if you didn't know where this was going). I made up a batch using our last bit of blueberries and here's how it went...

These serve two people two large pancakes each.

1/2 cup buckwheat flour

1/2 cup quinoa flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

3 tbsp chia cereal mix

1/2 cup frozen or fresh blueberries

pinch of salt

I used a chia mix as a sort of binding agent. You can get these cereal blends at most heath food stores. They are high in fiber, calcium and iron. Heat up some water on the stove and add a small amount to the chia mix to moisten and set it aside.

Mix all of the dry ingredients in a medium size bowl. Add 3/4 cup of water and stir. Add more water in small amounts until you get the consistency of batter you desire. (I find these pancakes to be better with a thinner batter.) Add the cider vinegar and stir. Stir in the chia mix and then the blueberries. You can add a touch more water if the mix has become too thick.

Cook up the pancakes as you would regular pancakes and enjoy with your favorite fruit or some maple syrup!

*Next time I make these I'm going to add toasted, unsweetened coconut which will taste lovely with the nutty flavours of the flours.

Happy Birthday to my Daddy! He is 49 years old and is the best guy I know.

High Park

This tree means everything to me.

This weekend was truly a gem of a weekend! One of the best since I don't remember when. I wish I had more photographic evidence of it's uhmazingness but I was just too busy enjoying it. We spent a lot of time outside, walking around the city. We also drank a variety of brews and ate a lot of delicious cheeses.

Jordan helped me in the garden.

Corey came by and ate some cake that he found in the fridge.

Here are some tomato babies. Just wee-little guys, hardly out of the gate.

So right now I am just watching Dolly Parton vids on You Tube and making fun of J for pretending he's going to go see Awesome Color when I know he is gonna get snuggly in bed instead. What a sucker!

Easter Peeps!

I wouldn't really call Easter a holiday. I'm not religious, but I feel like it's too serious to be a holiday in the traditional sense of the word. Maybe I'm way off base but I've always just felt different about Easter. That being said it is my very favorite of all those government issued days-off. All the pretty colours! Nests, eggs, and bunnies! These are my kinda things! It's also a very nice way to celebrate spring and I think for me, that is just what it is.

My mom always did Easter right. When I was a kid I remember being given all kinds of amazing things. Sometimes my sister and I received spring inspired gear like pink and yellow raincoats or rubber boots. Eggs were always hidden in amazing places and we always had multicoloured baskets filled with pink plastic grass that cushioned socks, chocolate bunnies and blown glass ornaments. My grandma who skipped casually over birthdays, always gave us goodies. Every year she gave me a white chocolate hen and I think she secretly died laughing every time thinking of my crippling fear of chickens as a small one. She was a little sick, in the best way.

This year it's just J and me. We're not heading anywhere, no plans for a ham. I think I will tidy up the garden and maybe go to the gym. I think we will hide some eggs though, and I will be thinking about family and being small, I'm sure.

Cupcakes from Sweet Paul

Garden Season 2010

So the other day I went outside to check out the backyard. It's pretty messy but I can see some stuff already starting to grow back. I have to admit, I have not been very excited about gardening this year. Last year sorta felt like a bust. I was sure that gardening would be like most things and get easier as I gained experience but I feel like there are so many variables and that it might NEVER get easy. It is a complex thing and there is so much to learn. Also, fuck a cold summer man. Seriously.

I had this brilliant and zany idea that I would just sprinkle the whole area with wildflower seeds.

Just kidding.

Here is a list of seeds that I have purchased but failed to start yet. Eeek!

Bean-Refugee

Bean-Fin de Bagnol

Carrot-Tonda di Parigi

Chard- Five-colour Silverbeet

Eggplant-Diamond

Lettuce-Little Gem (Sugar Cos)

Lettuce-Bronze Arrowhead

Lettuce-Buttercrunch

Melon-Montreal

Pea-Spanish Skyscraper

Radish-Cherry Belle

Straight Eight Cucumber

Tomato-Aurora

Tomato-Believe It or Not

Tomato-Black Giant

Tomato-Camp Joy

I really love all the names. How does one get to name a plant? I would like that job.

Wild things for Amy

Liquid Levain

From from Piano, Piano, Pieno by Susan McKenna Grant

"Creating your own natural starter or sourdough culture will take a few seconds of your time each day for a week. Once you have achieved a healthy, bubbling mass of starter, you are ready to bake. If you look after your starter properly once it is made, it will last a lifetime. This formula is based on one I learned at the San Francisco Baking Institute. It's really the simplest, most foolproof and sensible method I've found, after trying many. When working with natural starters, I like to use unbleached, organic flour, as it is apt to contain more wild yeast than bleached flour. This starter should have a batter-like consistency, something the French term a "liquid levain."

Ideally, feeding should be 12 hours apart from Day 1 to Day 4.

Day 1 Evening:

28 g (1 oz) (1/4 cup) rye flour

28 g (1 oz) (2 tbsp) water

1/8 tsp liquid honey

Stir well, cover and slow to ferment in a warm area.

Day 2 Morning: First Feeding

28 g (1 oz) (2 tbsp) of the mixture from above (discard the rest)

28 g (1 oz) (1/4 cup) rye flour

28 g (1 oz) (2 tbsp) water

Stir well, cover and allow to ferment in a warm area.

Day 2 Evening: Second Feeding

28 g (1 oz) (2 tbsp) of the mixture from above (discard the rest)

28 g (1 oz) (3 tbsp) unbleached all-purpose four

28 g (1 oz) (2 tbsp) water

Stir well, cover and allow to ferment in a warm area.

Day 3 Morning Through Day 4 Evening: Feeding

Continue feeding as above, twice a day, using unbleached all-purpose flour.

Day 5: Final Refreshments and Build-up Day

You should have an active, bubbling mass of goop that smells yeasty. (If not, keep up the twice-daily feedings until you have a powerful, active starter. It may take another day or two. I find that hot, humid weather is the best for getting a starter going; in the winter in tends to take a little longer).

Today is the build-up day, a day you will always need before your baking day to reactivate your starter with three refreshments and to build up it's volume. Feedings ideally should be 8 hours apart.

Morning:

28 g (1 oz) (2 tbsp) starter

28 g (1 oz) (3 tbsp) unbleached all-purpose flour

28 g (1 oz) (2 tbsp) water

Stir well, cover and allow to ferment in a warm area.

Midday:

28 g (1 oz) (2 tbsp) starter from above (discard the rest)

28 g (1 oz) (3 tbsp) unbleached all-purpose flour

28 g (1 oz) (2 tbsp) water

Stir well, cover and allow to ferment in a warm area.

Evening:

To the above add:

85 g (3 oz) (2/3 cup) unbleached all -purpose flour

85 g (3 oz) (1/3 cup) water

Stir well, cover and allow to ferment in a warm area.

Day 6: Baking Day

At this point you are ready to bake. Before you make your bread, you should reserve and feed some starter for your next bake.

Take:

28 g (1 oz) (2 tbsp) starter (reserve the rest)

Add:

28 g (1 oz) (3 tbsp) unbleached all-purpose flour

28 g (1 oz) (2 tbsp) water

Stir to mix, put in a jar and let sit at room temperature for 2 hours, then refrigerate. In the meantime, proceed to bake!

How To Use And Maintain Your Refrigerated Starter

If you are not baking regularly, you need to keep your starter alive by feeding it every 3-4 days. To do this, take 28 g (1 oz) (2 tbsp) of the starter you have save in the fridge (discard the rest) and an equal amount of flour and water. Stir, leave at room temperature for 2 hours, then return to the fridge.

To make bread with your refrigerated starter, begin at "Day 5" on page 41. You need a day to refresh and build up your starter, and then you can bake the next day.

If you are going to be away for an extended time, there are a few ways to keep your starter alive:

1. For a short absence of a week to 10 days, give your starter a final refreshment, using twice as much flour as you normally do. Essentially, you're giving it a lot to eat at once so it will keep longer without being fed.

2. You can make an even drier starter in your mixer or food processor by mixing in enough flour to make a powder. This dry starter will keep for several weeks in the fridge. You will need a few days when you return home to revive it--use equal parts flour and water, twice a day, to return to active liquid levain.

3. Some bakers freeze their starter, but I find it just as easy to make a new one. If you do freeze it, you'll need to thaw it and give it two or three refreshments a day for several days until you see that it is very active again. It should be kept at room temperature during this time."

Grandma

This is a photo of my Grandma Fern who died in December. I'm pretty sure this was taking in Devlin where my parents live now and near where she loved up until her death. She is 18 in this photo. What a Swedish babe.

Seedy Sunday

Hey there green thumbs! Don't forget to hit this amazing event. Go early! Last year was a mad house but so fun and so many amazing seed peddlers!

More info here...

Progress Report

Michael Pollen says that you can eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.

I'm not sure he meant for me to make chocolate pudding at 9pm. I know the trainer at the YMCA would NOT APPROVE. Either way, I'm looking forward to when the pudding is set and I can top it with some whipped cream and shove it into my face. Tomorrow I will stuff the rest into chocolate cupcakes to bring to a Superbowl party. This will be my first Superbowl party but I should probably get used to it since I am such an athlete now. I do yoga, guys.

Jordan is noodling on the guitar and I am drinking a glass of red wine. Long live the weekend!

Magical Zucchini

I just killed a magical zucchini.

It lived to be a ripe old age of 5 months. Truly ancient, in zucchini years. I don't know how this zucchini kept so long and the real tragedy is that I don't know it's variety. It could be one of two kinds that I planted this year, neither of which were very prolific compared the the never-ending supply last year.

This zucchini sat for months, patiently waiting on our dinning table with the thick-skinned butternut and a widowed potato squash. Every week she changed a little in colour and every so often I would stop to give her a gentle squeeze. I would confirm that she was still eatable and my sense of wonder would grow. By December, I stopped wanting to eat her out of pure curiosity! Her skin changed from a green so dark it was almost black to softer shades of emerald and orangey yellow. A friend was over and upon her inspection I stated "it's going bad." She said, "Oh no, I think it's ripening."

About 2 weeks ago I moved the zucchini, now a little softer and a bit sensitive, to a place on the kitchen counter. I was preparing her, without realizing, for a better fate than rotten mush. Today when I woke, I knew it was time. I couldn't hold out much longer without chancing it becoming heartbreakingly unusable.

I grated her up--she was slightly soft and a buttery yellow in the middle but her skin was tough and she smelled like the end of summer. I carefully measured out my ingredients and mixed her up in a fragrant, gooey mess. She slid willingly into a bread pan and I popped her into the oven with a the same sense of wonder I had when I first noticed how special she was many months before.

In less than an hour I will eat her, slathered with melting butter and still warm. She lived a good life and died an even better, deliciously smelling death. Rest in peace magical zucchini.

The recipe I used is from the lovely book, "Grazing: Portable snacks and finger foods for anytime, anywhere" by Julie Van Rosendaal. My mom got this for me years ago and it's filled with wonderful low-fat recipes that you would hardly guess to be low-fat since they are so yummy.

Zucchini Lemon Walnut Bread

2 cups flour

3/4 cup sugar

1 Tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon (optional)

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup canola oil

2 large eggs

grated zest of 1 lemon (optional)

2 cups grated, unpeeled zucchini

(about 1 large zucchini)

1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.

In a small bowl, whisk together the milk, oil, eggs, and lemon zest and add to the flour mixture along with the grated zucchini and nuts. Stir by hand just until combined. Don't worry about getting all the lumps out.

Pour into a 8" x 4" loaf pan that has been sprayed with non-stick spray and bake for one hour, until golden and springy to the touch. Cool in the pan on a wire rack.

Makes one loaf, about 16 slices.

*I made some variations to this recipe since I didn't have all the right stuff. I used raw sunflower seeds in place of the nuts and I used grapefruit zest instead of lemon.

changes

I have cut back on my internet time by about half. I am facing some serious resolutions and need to really focus on sticking to them. I have been doing extraordinarily well considering I have NEVER seriously made or stuck to flimsy resolutions of the past. This year is different. I am approaching 30 and while most people decide to "get it together" at 30, I have decided to "get it together" in preparation for 30. I would like to slide into home base feet-first and feeling awesome instead of face-first with a mouth full of dirt, an empty bank account and a really awesome Facebook profile, but a giant ass.

So, here's to saving money, dressing well, eating better, working out regularly and deleting that nasty Facebook habit and all the ex-girlfriends, ex-friends, ex-party pals and extended family that goes with it.

Wish me luck in 2010. Somebody is on my side already--I got a great promotion at work and I have an awesome new gym buddy.

Failure is not an option dudes!