Summer

September 11, 2009

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Snack Foods for the Apocalypse

This is how I see canning: making snack foods for the apocalypse. Because in truth, with the exception of the plain tomato jars and sauces, many of the items I put up tend to be condiments, pickles, and intense fruit preserves — food I could probably live without. If, say, we were to suffer through an ice storm or prolonged power outage this winter, I’m not sure how long we would stay alive on tomato salsa, brandied peaches, elderberry syrup, and chutney.

Although, that’s hardly the point, is it? I’m not really putting up food for emergency preparedness. It’s really about having that extra something special to enjoy during the off season. That and the fact that the process of canning makes me feel good.

I canned up a storm this summer. It’s really not appropriate to speak of it in the past tense because frankly, I’m not done yet. I went way overboard this year, and even put up a few batches of foods I won’t and can’t eat myself. I think the reason why I went so nutty was that I needed a come-down off of the book project that was active and creative. I didn’t feel like doing any of my regular go-to creative outlets. I just wanted to play with food.

I’ve been canning long enough that it has become like meditation in motion. It’s one of those activities that allows me to focus one part of my brain on the doing while another part relaxes and opens up. I gave myself permission this year to jar up anything that caught my interest and experiment to my heart’s content rather than sticking to healthier fare. For that reason I was able to be much more creative and at times even focused on making purely aesthetically pleasing jars rather than worrying about the nutritional content.

This is my current favourite jar, pickled crab apples. It is the only thing I have ever canned that I couldn’t (and still can’t) visualize as a flavour. I used the blemish-free crab apples that I had schlepped all the way from Montreal. They were perfect for it. I followed a book recipe exactly, rather than experimenting with my own ideas and flavours (how I usually do it). The recipe called for both vinegar and a TON of sugar. This is not something I would ever make in a typical year but I made it anyways. And it was so worth it. Man, is this jar beautiful.

I know that making food I won’t or can’t eat makes no sense and sounds wasteful, and if it were another year I would not have gone that route. However, I can’t tell you how many times I have stood, savoring the visual delight of those pretty jars and it’s not even fall yet. During the winter months I occasionally sit on the kitchen floor next to the main storage cupboard (everything else is stashed away in boxes here and there) and pull out several jars, soaking in the colours that are so desperately lacking in mid-January. I’ll give away the extra food we can’t eat as gifts to friends who will enjoy them, so why not?

As a part of my series on kitchen gardening (scroll down to where it says “Microfarming with Gayla Trail”), The Globe & Mail recently published an article I wrote on canning tomatoes, including three recipes: plain tomatoes, catsup, and green tomato chutney. You can also see a slide show of me canning in my cramped kitchen. Proof that you do not need a lot of space to can.

I also gave a workshop on canning tomatoes at The Workroom last Friday. Karyn has done an amazing job recapping the event on her blog. She also recounted her follow-up experience here.

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September 10, 2009

46 Comments

Let’s Make Tiny Vaginas, Each One Beautiful & Unique

And make our own edible version of Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party!

There has been a long and harried internal debate raging in my brain for days over that title. I have avoided making this post, worried that I will offend people by using the anatomically correct word for part of the female anatomy on a website about gardening. NO! The Horror! Because flowers and gardens and pollination and the like has nothing to do with sex at all.

I asked myself questions like, “Do I pull an Oprah and use the hideous colloquialism “vajay-jays” for those who think the word vagina is inappropriate?”

Both penis and vagina within the span of a month? What next, Gayla? What horrible word will you assault us with next?

Monsanto.

So then I thought,” Really, if I’m going to use appropriate anatomical terms I should have said “labias” or “vulva”, right?” I eventually decided against it because I figure some will find those words more offensive than vaginas and 70′s era feminist art.

Now that I’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about making what are really just oven dried plums.

As soon as tomatoes come into season I begin making batches of oven dried tomatoes. I’d love to make real sun-dried tomatoes and skip the energy consumption, however the climate here is far too humid (and this season is especially too wet) to properly dry tomatoes the natural way. If you have never made oven-dried tomatoes you must do it. They are so much better than store bought sun-dried tomatoes which are often laden with sulphite preservatives. My recipe for making them is in my next book so I can’t repeat it here.

My first tomato batch of the season fell a bit short of filling up the oven so I looked around to see if there was anything else on hand that could benefit from an afternoon in the oven. Plums! Yes, dried plums are really just prunes, and while I can’t remember the last time I ate a prune (if ever), I am absolutely certain these are a whole lot better.

I used Italian purple plums but I’m sure just about any will work.

To make them simply turn your oven to the lowest heat and line a baking sheet with a silpat or parchment paper (this step is important since they drip sugars and can stick).

Cut the plums in half and remove the pit.

Sprinkle or coat the plums with sugar if you like. This is not necessary if you want to keep it low-sugar since the heating process concentrates the plums’ own natural sugars.

Photo by Gayla Trail All Rights Reserved
Lay each half, cut side up on the baking sheet.

Set in the oven for several hours. Drying time depends on the wetness/ripeness of the plums you use so check back after the first 2 hours to determine the drying rate and go from there.

Once cool, store the dried plums in freezer bags or reusable freezer safe containers.

Save a few for eating right away but try not to eat too many at once. I think you know why.

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August 24, 2009

18 Comments

Experiments in Garlic Growing, Part 2

Let us turn our minds back four months (almost to the day by coincidence) to April of this year. Way back then, in a season that felt not so much unlike this one in many ways, what with the rain and the fact that I was wearing rain boots and long sleeved shirts, and it wasn’t winter but it wasn’t exactly hot either (I spit on you Summer 2009), I happened to mention that for various reasons this would be a year of garlic experimentation.

To recap:

October 2008 – I did not plant any garlic. Boo. Hiss.
April 2009 – I planted some sprouted garlic cloves purchased from a local garlic farmer. These are next up for harvest, but so far, so good from the surface. The seemed to reach maturity and definitely produced scapes.
I happened to notice a few garlic leaves popping out of the soil, remnants of a bulb from the previous year’s crop that must have been missed during the harvest. Based on placement in the garden, I guessed that the variety is ‘Music.’

This brings us to today, or rather, yesterday to be precise. Most of the garlic growing at my community garden plot has died back and it’s time to start harvesting. I pulled up the “accidental” garlic and low and behold this is the result:

Despite growing very closing together, all of the cloves seem to have produced bulbs. It definitely looks like ‘Music’. If memory serves, they are smaller, but not much smaller than bulbs of the same variety I pulled up in late summer 2008. Now, if I were to leave one of these bulbs in the ground and come back at this time next year, I’d predict that they would be even smaller. And so on, and so on. However, for a completely accidental crop, I’m calling it a happy success.

Hooray for screwing up and missing a bulb while harvesting! Let’s do this again.

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August 14, 2009

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‘Gezahnte’ Tomato

Behold, the first of the non-cherry, indeterminate tomatoes that has reached maturity for 2009. And it’s a beauty. Incidentally, I’ve managed to grow several ruffled tomato varieties this year purely by happenstance. Well, that and the fact that I have a very obvious preference for that shape.

I’m yet to try it out, but I believe this tomato is a stuffer, which means it is fairly hollow on the inside and great for stuffing with veggies and rice and baking in the oven. I’m waiting for another to ripen so it can be put to the test.

And this is where I admit that my rooftop, container-grown tomatoes are doing pretty well this year despite the troubles that most in-ground gardens are facing with so much rain and cool weather. Don’t hate! These are the sort of conditions under which rooftop and container gardens have the upper hand (finally). I can regulate excess water, I rarely have to pull out the watering can to keep things moist enough, and the garden is warmer than gardens on the ground because it’s up high and exposed. In a typical year I am fighting the excess heat, sun, and drought but this year is almost too easy.

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August 5, 2009

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‘Mini Purplette’ Onions

Every year I go a little nuts growing large crops of onions such as ‘Egyptian Walking’ over at my community garden plot.

Onions grow easily in the ground, but they tend to take up a lot of space in containers. In the past I have grown smaller, bunching onions in pots as a way to have the odd onion on hand without wasting the kind of space that could be dedicated to coveted crops like tomatoes and basil. I like onions well enough, but nothing, not even a batch of slowly caramelized onions is coming between my mouth and a caprese salad.

Speaking of which, I made my first caprese salad of the season last night.

But I’m always on the lookout for something different to try, just in case. In the early spring I nabbed a pack ‘Mini Purplette’ onion seeds with the promise that I would have bulbous, miniature yet mature red onions come late summer. [I got mine from Urban Harvest however, Seeds of Change has them in the U.S.]

And sure enough, this afternoon I reached my hand into the soil of a medium-sized pot and discovered several round, golf ball sized red onions.

I’m very pleased with them and plan to grow more next year. I grew mine in fairly deep containers (about 10″) but am absolutely certain they would size up well in a window box. In fact, I would like to see that — several little onion tops neatly lined up in a row.

Or not. Because really, who am I kidding? My gardens are anything but neat.

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