Berried Treasures: How to Freeze and Dehydrate Berries

Our blog post today comes from Food Action Committee volunteer extraordinaire, Katrina Ross.  You can check out her blog at www.happybodyfoods.wordpress.com.

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In my limited experience with preserving fruit, the only way I know how to do so without using a sweetener is by freezing or dehydrating. I guess there are a few exceptions such as preserved lemons in which salt is used. Both methods are very simple and easy to do – you are only limited by the space in your freezer.

Freezing Berries (strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, cranberries & raspberries)

1) Clean and hull berries
2) Place berries on a tea towel or between paper towel until dry
3) Lay berries on a cookie sheet in a thin layer, making sure that berries are not clumped together as they will freeze this way.
4) Freeze for 1- 2 hrs. Some people layer their baking sheets with parchment paper. I have not done this in the past and have not had a problem.
5) Put berries in a large freezer ziplock bag (make sure it is suitable for the freezer) and try to get as much air out of the bag as possible.
6) Label with the date frozen and what the item is

Tips for non seasonal fruit
There are many times when organic fair-trade bananas are 50% off at the grocery store. Bananas can either be sliced into thin disks and dehydrated or peeled and frozen.

Dehydrating Berries
The only berries I have had success dehydrating are strawberries and cranberries. Any berry with lots of seeds like raspberries & blackberries will not dehydrate well at all (you end up with a bunch of seeds) and wild blueberries end up so small it is not worth it. High bush blueberries, which are much larger, may work but I have not tried them.

Strawberries should be rinsed, hulled and sliced. I usually slice the strawberry in about 4 slices. If they are sliced too thin they will be impossible to get off the dehydrating rack. You could leave the berry whole or sliced in half; it will just take longer to dehydrate.

Cranberries should also be rinsed and then put into boiling water until the outside skin “pops” or cracks. This requires more time than just blanching. I have tried this method once and the result were ok but not all the berries cracked and they took forever to dehydrate. The second time I dehydrated the cranberries I just cut them in half which decreases dehydration time. I do not soak the cranberries in apple juice or honey as I don’t mind the tartness of the berry.

Lay berries in a thin layer and set temperature to 135F and dehydrate for 12 – 24 hrs checking several times. I have found that it is better to lay the strawberries on a teflex sheet as in the picture as the berries are easier to remove. If you don’t have enough sheets parchment paper can be used.

Miscellaneous items that I have recently dehydrated:
Cherries – clean and slice cherries in half and dehydrate
Kale – wash remove thick stem and dehydrate (spices and tamari can be added for kale chips). I usually just grind up the dried leaf and use in powdered form
Stevia Leaf – Dehydrate and grind into a powder

-Katrina Ross

Brined Pickles in Bridgewater

Last Saturday the Food Connections gang had a fantastic time at Bridgewater’s Growing Green Sustainability Festival.  It was a beautiful South Shore summer morning and everybody we met had big smiles on their faces!  It was easy to see why – the festival had music performers, a ‘walk and roll’ parade, an expanded farmers market, kids activities, and lots of booths with information on helping you live greener and healthier.

We were there to talk about making natural brined mixed pickles using lacto-fermentation, the ultimate method in low-energy food preservation.  Just like sauerkraut, these pickles will become sour over time, simply by fermenting in a salt brine.  This is a great way to preserve your veggies on hot summer days when the last thing you want to do is boil a huge pot of water to can your produce.  All you need to do is use impeccably fresh produce (which wasn’t hard for us to do with vendors like the Broadfork Farm, Indian Garden farm, and Watershed farm surrounding our booth!) and cover it in a salt brine and maybe throw in some herbs.  Then you let it sit at room temperature for a few weeks. That’s it. 

We used a two-litre commercial pickle jar to brine our vegetables.  You don’t normally want to use this type of jar for hot-water canning, but they’re perfect for a brined pickle.  The jar is not sealed during the fermentation process so you can taste your pickles from day to day as they go through changes – in fact, you know when your pickles are done when they taste nice and sour!  (Jars are a nice way to ferment small batches of pickles, but you could definitely use the classic method of filling a crock or big plastic pail and weighing your vegetables down with a weight if you have a big batch.)

 

We used plastic sandwich-sized Ziploc bags full of brine to cover our pickles.  The advantage of using this method is that the liquid-filled bag changes shape to fit your jar really easily, and will ensure that your veggies remain submerged in the brine.     During the fermentation process it is normal for a little bit of scum to form, and you can just lift the plastic bag out of the jar and rinse it off if it starts to develop. 

You can leave the jars out in room temperature to ferment for a few weeks - warmer rooms speed up the fermentation, but some say you get better flavour out of your pickles, if it’s a bit cooler . 

 Our three big jars of mixed pickles are now starting to bubble away in our kitchen at the Ecology Action Centre.  I snuck a green bean out of one of the jars today, and I’ve got to say they’re tasting great.  The transformation is starting to happen!

Ornamental veggies

 

Spot the veggies!

 Gardeners around the world were outraged by the recent story about the American woman who was fined and even threatened with jail time for simply building a vegetable garden in her front yard.  The municipal by-laws in her town of Oak Park, a Detroit suburb, stated that front yards must be covered with suitable plant material, and her five tidy raised beds filled with petunias and tomato plants were clearly unsuitable.  The charges have since been dropped, but it was a great story which has inspired many people to follow her lead.

So what is suitable for a front yard, anyway?  A lot of folks think planting veggies and herbs in the front yard is perfectly suitable, and perfectly attractive. 

Scarlet runner beans growing up the trellis

I myself have planted tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs and scarlet runner beans in my front yard in the past when I lived in a house with a very shady back yard – it was the only space on my land that things would grow!  The scarlet runner beans in particular were an absolutely lovely climbing vine that covered a trellis in bright red flowers that later turned into tasty beans. 

A lot of cities are also starting to mix vegetables with flowers in municipal ornamental plantings. On a recent trip to Minneapolis/St Paul I saw lovely planters full of swiss chard, Thai basil, nasturtiums and purple peppers.  Closer to home, we have the intrepid Halifax City Gardener, David McLearn who has been quietly adding vegetables to public flower gardens for years and was recently awarded with Halifax Regional Municipality director’s award and a chief administrative officer award for his efforts.  All the vegetables grown on these plots are donated to Hope Cottage  – over 200 grocery bags full in 2009!  (Click here for a recent story on David by The Coast.)

So everybody out there – make your front yard your grocery store!  Plant some herbs in a windowbox, or grow tomatoes or cucumbers in a planter! 

 

If you want to plant veggies directly in the ground in Dartmouth or on the Halifax penisula, you can check out the following link for information and recommendations regarding possible soil contamination in your yard: http://www.ecologyaction.ca/files/images/file/Community%20Garden%20Heavy%20Metal%20Contamination%20Study.pdf

Planning for Preserving & Recommended Reading

This weekend, I sat in the sun and hulled strawberries for over an hour. I bought a flat of them at the farmers’ market to freeze for the winter. I’m not a big jam or jelly person, but I do love frozen berries for smoothies.

Last year's tomatoes

As I was hulling, I started to daydream about all of the delicious foods I was planning to put away for the winter. I always do canned tomatoes and peaches with a friend – last year we did 120 lbs and 40 lbs respectively. Last year I acquired a bucket of plums from a coworker with a plum tree in his backyard and I canned those also. I also like to dry mint from the garden and freeze blackberries picked at my favourite spots around town. I generally also freeze some cooked pumpkin for muffins, and grated zucchini for mid-winter chocolate zucchini cake.

Every year I add a couple other things to my preserving plan. Maybe some more dried herbs this year? A canned salsa? Some dilly beans? Hmmm…

While preserving can seem daunting to newbies, I assure you, it’s not that hard. I didn’t grow up learning this from my mother or grandmother. The first time I canned anything was three years ago. One very hot Labour Day weekend, 4 friends gathered in a small apartment to can 40 lbs peaches in honey syrup. We had 40 lbs of peaches, it took most of the day and evening, and we scared ourselves silly reading about botulism. Only one of us had ever canned before, and we had several canning books and websites open in the living room to compare techniques.  But, the canning process worked (just like the books said it would), the peaches were delicious, and no one ended up with any food borne illnesses.

Prepping Peaches

My advice (aside from following up to date food safety standards and following the recipe to the letter, especially if you’re a beginner) is to start small. It’s really tempting to buy 100 lbs of tomatoes and try to can them all at once. But (and I speak from experience) canning is generally less fun at 2 am than it is at 2 pm.  Also, preserve foods that you like to eat, in quantities that you would realistically eat.  (Maybe this is obvious.  But, as someone who made large quantities of sauerkraut last year, because it’s easy and makes a great farmers’ market demonstration, perhaps it’s worth mentioning.  And perhaps I need to follow my own advice. )

Anyway, we’re curious to hear your preserving tips and questions and we’ll be blogging about preserving all summer and into the fall.  So, let us know what you’re thinking about. (And don’t forget to enter our preserving contest!)

In the meantime, here are some of my favourite resources and those recommended to me by others:
Foods of Spry’s Field: Cooking and Preserving Then and Now by the Urban Farm Museum Society
Busy Person’s Guide to Preserving Food by Janet Chadwick
Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods by Sandor Ellix Katz
Putting Food By – by Janet Greene
Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning by the Gardener and Farmers of Terre Vivante
Preserved by Nick Sandler
Bernardin’s website
National Center for Home Food Preservation website

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We are also offering preserving workshops this summer.  There are still some spots available, so register soon!

(Update: We added a post called Canning 101.  Check it out if you’re looking for some canning basics.)

Potato Love

I admit it.  I’m a potato lover.

I grew up in rural Manitoba and my parents always grew a really big garden that had, among other things, rows upon rows of potatoes – enough to feed our family of five throughout the winter.  To me, potatoes kind of symbolize the feeling of ‘plenty’ – because even if there’s not much else in the kitchen, you can always do something if you have potatoes in your root cellar.  In fact, one of my favourite soups when I was a kid was ‘butter soup’ which was an extremely simple soup made with potatoes, onions, and fresh egg drop noodles – with a pat of butter added to the pot right before serving.  So good!

During my years of urban gardening in Winnipeg, I had miserable luck growing potatoes.  If I planted them in my community plot, the plants always got vandalized, and my own yard was too tiny.  Our 95 year old neighbour across the street lent us space in her backyard garden in return for mowing her lawn, but it was quite shady back there and they didn’t do too well either.

When I started my garden this year in Nova Scotia for the first time, I knew that this year was going to be MY POTATO YEAR.  I have about a dozen small raised beds in my veggie garden at home, and I immediately set aside the two largest plots for potatoes and bought just enough seed potatoes to fill them up.

The next week after I planted my garden, somebody at work found a bag of organic potatoes in the basement of the Ecology Action Centre that were definitely past their prime – some of the sprouts were a foot long.  They were going to toss them into the compost, but I thought I would do some potato-planting experimentation!

I tossed these babies everywhere I could find a spare spot.   Any bare patch in my perennial flower garden that hadn’t already been filled with a vegetable got a potato.  As space opened up, new potatoes went in.  And they’re all growing!

My most interesting experiment is with growing potatoes in containers.  I found an old rubbermaid bin in our shed that I thought would make a lovely potato garden, so I drilled lots of drainage holes in the bottom and started filling it with dirt and compost.  When there was 3 or four inches of dirt in the bin, I tossed in some potatoes, and covered them up with a few more inches of dirt.

A few weeks later, and I have little baby potato plants in my bin!  When they get around six inches tall, I’ll cover them up with some more dirt, and keep on doing this until the whole bin is full of soil and the plants are at the top!

That’s the theory, anyway.  I’ll keep you posted on how this actually turns out!

Yours in food,

Alison

Summer Cooking Series Night 3: Local Food Asian Style

For the third and final evening of our summer cooking series, our instructor Nanci coached us through a menu of Asian flavours: Pork (and Tofu) and Greens stirfry, Fresh Spring Rolls, and homemade fortune cookies.  Nanci grew up in her parents’ Chinese restaurant and has also traveled extensively.  Her advice about Asian cooking: Cook at a high heat and quickly.  If you’ve ever had wilty stirfry, it’s because the greens were cooked too long.

We started the evening with the hardest part – homemade fortune cookies.  (For the record, Nanci’s father told her she was crazy to make her own fortune cookies!)  We all got to practice the technique on round pieces of paper before attempting the cookies.  They may not have been the prettiest cookies, but they sure were tasty!  We also made our own fortune’s in the style of mad libs.  Everyone wrote a noun, a verb and an adverb on pieces of paper, which Nanci distributed amongst the finished cookies.

Next up, the group tackled the spring roll sauces and chopped all the vegetables for the stirfry.  The vegetables and herbs (swiss chard, baby bok choy, chinese cabbage, cilantro and basil) all came from the Halifax farmers markets, as did the pork, tofu and eggs, showing that it is possible to cook international cuisine with local ingredients.

With spring rolls tightly wrapped and the stirfry quickly cooked, we sat down to enjoy the meal.  My fortune: You will run passionately with apples.  Hmmm… apt.

Martha Stewart’s Fortune Cookies
•    Makes 15
•    30-40 minutes
Ingredients
•    5 tablespoons unsalted butter
•    4 large egg whites
•    1 cup superfine sugar
•    1 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
•    Pinch of salt
•    3 tablespoons heavy cream
•    1 teaspoon almond extract
•    Nonstick cooking spray

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a cookie sheet liberally with cooking spray. Melt butter in a small saucepan over low heat; set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine egg whites and sugar, and beat on medium speed, about 30 seconds. Add flour and salt, and beat until combined. Add butter, heavy cream, and almond extract, and beat until combined, about 30 seconds.
Pour batter on baking sheet in tablespoons for each cookie. Cook 3 to 4 per cookie sheet allowing room for some spread. Spread with the back of spoon from the centre outward into a thin 5-inch circle.

Bake until the edges of the cookies turn golden brown and have pocked holes like pancakes. It will take about 7 minutes but watch carefully to make sure that they do not burn.

Transfer baking sheet to a heat-resistant surface. The next step needs to be done as quickly as possible since the batter will dry quickly and once it does it cannot be folded.

Slide a wide thin spatula under each of the cookies. Using your fingers, fold the cookie in half, pinching the top together to form a loose pouch or semicircle. Hold the cookie with your middle fingers inserted at each open end. Then place your thumbs up in the middle of the cookie and with your middle fingers bring the two sides down and together so that your middle fingers are together.
It can take some time to get this right. If you do not want to waste batter, practice folding with a circle of paper first.
Write your message on a long strip of sturdy art paper, such as Japanese moriki. Place the fortune in one of the open ends of the cookie once it has cooled.

Fresh Spring Rolls

•    Makes 10-12 rolls (20-24 once cut in half)
•    30-40 minutes

Tahini sauce
•    3 tablespoons finely chopped onion
•    1 small garlic clove, minced
•    1/2 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes
•    1 teaspoon vegetable oil
•    6 tablespoons water
•    1 tablespoon tahini
•    1/2 tablespoon hoisin sauce
•    1 teaspoon tomato paste
•    3/4 teaspoon sugar

Chop onion and mince garlic. Cook onion, garlic, and red pepper flakes in teaspoon of oil in a small heavy saucepan over moderate heat, stirring, until pale golden, about 4 minutes. Whisk in remaining sauce ingredients: tahini, hoisin, tomato paste and sugar. Simmer, whisking, 1 minute, then cool.

Cilantro-chili sauce
•    4 cloves of garlic
•    2 shallots finely minced
•    1 teaspoon sweet chili pepper or chili paste
•    2 tablespoons finely chopped cilantro stems
•    2 tablespoons sugar, preferably brown
•    1/4 cup of water
•    2 limes or lime juice

Mince garlic and chop shallots finely. Simmer garlic, onions and cilantro stems in shallow frying pan in water. Add sugar, chili. Bring to a boil, simmer until reduced a bit. Let cool. Add lime juice to taste.

Fresh Spring Rolls
•    ½ package rice vermicelli noodles
•    2 tablespoon seasoned rice vinegar
•    1 package (8-inch) rice-paper rounds, plus additional in case some tear
•    ½ head red-leaf lettuce leaves, ribs cut out and discarded and leaves halved
•    1/2 cup thinly sliced Napa cabbage
•    1/4 cup fresh mint leaves
•    1/4 cup fresh basil leaves
•    1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves
•    1/3 cup coarsely shredded/julienned carrot (2 medium carrots)

Preparation
Cover noodles with boiling-hot water and soak 15 minutes, then drain well in a sieve. Pat dry between paper towels and toss with rice vinegar and salt to taste.

Chop various vegetable ingredients and place them in separate serving bowls.

Rolling
Use a large cutting board and shallow bowl or baking pan filled with tepid water. Soak 1 rice-paper round (make sure there are no holes) in water until pliable for about 12 seconds. Rub with the palm of your hand on cutting board.

Arrange 1 piece of lettuce on bottom half of soaked rice paper, folding or tearing to fit and leaving a 1-inch border along edge.

Spread a dollop of tahini sauce over lettuce and top with with mint, basil, cabbage, and noodles. Roll up rice paper tightly around filling and, after rolling halfway, arrange cilantro and carrot along crease. If this separate step is difficult cilantro and carrot can be added with the other vegetables. Then fold in sides and continue rolling. Transfer summer roll to a plate. Cut each roll in half.
Use the cilantro chili sauce and any remaining tahini sauce for dipping sauce.

Pork & Greens Stir-Fry

•    Serves 4
•    25 minutes in preparation
•    10-15 minutes to cook
•    200g (7oz) pork tenderloin OR tofu with 1 1/2 tbsp ginger, 2 cloves garlic minced and 2 tablespoons of soya sauce and 1 tablespoon water
•    2 bunches of greens such as bok choy, turnip greens, chard or other substitute
•    3 tbsp vegetable oil salt and ground black pepper
•    2 sliced green onions
•    1 red chilli
•    1/2 cup vegetable broth

Sauce
•    1 tbsp cornstarch
•    1 tbsp vegetable broth (from earlier half cup)
•    2 tablespoons soy sauce
•    1 ½ tsp. sesame oil
•    2 tbsp sherry/red wine/port (can substitute any acid- orange juice/ red wine vinegar)
•    1 ½ tsp hoisin sauce
•    2 tbsp water
Garnish
•    2 sliced green onions & ½ tbsp ginger & handful of chopped cilantro

Preparation
Cut the pork into strips and place in a non-metallic dish with 1 ½ tbsp ginger, 2 tbsps soy sauce, 2 cloves crushed garlic, 1 tbsp water. Set aside to marinate for at least 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, boil water for vegetable broth (if using cubes). Prepare the sauce so that it is ready. Mix cornstarch and vegetable broth together until smooth. Add port & hoisin. Set aside.

Cook
Heat a wok over a high heat and add the oil. It should be hot enough to evaporate a drop of water quickly. Stir-fry the pork for 2-3 minutes until pink is gone. Season and set aside. Add the trimmed spring onions and the deseeded, sliced chilli and cook for 30 seconds or until fragrant. Add the vegetables and cook for 2-3 minutes using vegetable broth to steam/stir fry. Do not let the leaves go wilty. Put them aside.

Add the sauce ingredients to the pan: soy sauce, sesame oil, sherry and hoisin sauce, then stir-fry for 2 minutes or until the sauce is syrupy. Continue to add tablespoons of water until the sauce is desired consistency. Bring back pork/tofu and greens. Sprinkle the remaining green onions and remaining half tablespoon of ginger and cilantro. Serve.

Garden Tips: Halifax Garden Network Blog

Here at Adventures in Local Food, we tend to focus on cooking, preserving, root cellaring and other similar food skills, but rarely do we write about gardening. “Why is this?”, you might ask. “Don’t they know that growing your own food is the ultimate local food adventure?”

Well, what you might not know, is that we share an office with the lovely staff members of the Ecology Action Centre’s urban garden project and they and their garden partners have been working on a little blog of their own. So, please wander over to the Halifax Garden Network blog and check out what’s growing over there.

Yours in food,
Marla

Preserving Herbs: Sign up for our Summer series

A few people have been asking for more details about the upcoming preserving workshops. Here’s what’s in store for the July 27 Herbal Workshop.

This workshop will be led by local herbalist Oren Hercz.

We’ll start with a short introduction to herbal medicine and why it’s great to preserve herbs and use them all year round. Next, we’ll discuss general preservation of herbs: what can be dried, frozen, etc. and techniques for preserving them in this way.  Oren will show examples of traditional herbal culinary preservation, such as vinegars, honeys, wines and liquors.

And then the hands-on piece: we’ll make a herbal honey and a herbal vinegar. The herbs we end up preserving in the class will depend on what’s ready in the garden at the time of the workshop.

If you’d like to join us for this workshop, or any of our other Wednesday evening workshops, fill out the registration form found here.

And here’s the full summer schedule:

July 27 – Herbs – Herbal Honey & Vinegar

August 3 – Beans – Dilly Beans

August 10 – Zucchini & Cucumber – Pickles

August 17 – Blueberry – Jam

August 24 – Stone Fruits (peaches or plums) – Halved in syrup

August 31 – Cabbage – Sauerkraut/Kimchi

We’re very excited about the summer line-up and hope to see you at workshop or two!

Community Root Cellar Grants

The Ecology Action Centre is looking to support community root cellars throughout Nova Scotia.  We will be awarding between 2 and 6 $400 grants to help communities purchase materials and/or hire a builder to construct a community root cellar.

Potential root cellars must be located in community owned spaces.  Root cellars in private homes or businesses are not eligible.  Root cellars must also be located in Nova Scotia.

To apply for community root cellar funding, please complete the form below and email to Marla MacLeod at foodaction@ecologyaction.ca by August 26, 2011.  The applications will be reviewed by a committee of staff and volunteers and decisions will be made by September 9.  Depending on interest and available funding, we may consider a second round of applications in the fall of 2011.

We have collected a variety of resource and information materials on root cellaring.  We have also completed construction on a root cellar of our own, located in the basement of the Ecology Action Centre.  We are happy to provide advice and information for organizations and individuals building root cellars, regardless of whether your application is successful.  If you are considering building a root cellar in your community, but are not yet in a position to construct a root cellar, please send us an email and tell us more about your project.  We are looking to gauge interest in this type of project.

Application form

Contact Name:
Organization:
Email:
Phone:
Address:
Website (if applicable):

Please tell us about your organization.  What is you mandate?  What population do you serve?  (up to 200 words)

Tell us about the root cellar you would like to build.  Where will it be constructed? What type of root cellar are you planning to build? (up to 200 words)

Who will benefit from the root cellar? (up to 100 words)
Budget
: What will you spend the money on?  Do you have matching funds, donated materials, or volunteers to cover the remaining costs?

Marsh Grass

It’s always fun to go to a new farmers market because you will inevitably find something that you’ve never seen before!

On a recent trip to the Truro Farmers Market, the three of us discovered Marsh Grass, AKA Goosetongue, AKA Passe-Pierre.  After doing a bit of research on the internet, I found that this stuff is a type of seaside plantain called Plantago maritima. According to Bill Casselman,  “Passe-pierre is an edible marsh green picked in midsummer, a tidal maritime plant whose spicy saltiness makes it an Acadian favourite picked fresh for salads or pickled in brine for winter use. Briefly, after the expulsion of the Acadians, passe-pierre was one of many subsistence greens for  some Acadians who escaped deportation by hiding in remote areas of the Maritimes.’

You’ve got to love food with history!

So what do you do with this stuff?  It’s much saltier than your average greens, but otherwise cooks up very similarly and keeps a nice texture after it’s cooked.   Marla tried hers a few different ways, but liked it best simply tucked into an omelette.

I played around with mine a bit too, and found that it tasted absolutely phenomenal sauteed in some unsalted butter, and topped with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar right before serving.   Just for fun, I topped it all off with some toasted almonds – probably not the most traditional Nova Scotian preparation, but it sure was tasty, and pretty enough for company! 

Yours in Food,

Alison