Tag Archives: garden bounty

Plumy Cranberry Sauce

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plumy-cranberry-sauce-1

Adding local ingredients to a traditional recipe is a great way to develop unique regional flavors.

This recipe is safe for someone on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, GAPS or the modified paleo diet.

This Thanksgiving I didn’t have enough cranberries to make enough sauce to satisfy my family. It looked like I was going to have to make a last minute trip to the grocery store. I’ve made it a habit to always look around the house for possible substitutes before jumping into the car. By thinking before acting, I save time and money.

Since we had a bumper crop of prune plums this year, finding interesting ways to use plums has become a priority. I knew plums produce a beautiful red color when cooked so I decided to try adding the plums to the cranberry sauce. Using plums we grow on the property means the cranberries we have to buy go further, which saves our family money.

Plumy Cranberry Sauce

1c garden prune plums, frozen
1c organic cranberries, frozen
2/3c filtered water
1/2tsp sea salt
1-2T raw local honey
In a sauce pan, simmer the plums, cranberries and sea salt in the filtered water for 20-30 minutes until the cranberries burst. Remove from the heat and allow the sauce to cool down. Add the honey one tablespoon at a time and stir very well. This is easier if the sauce is still warm. Be careful not to add too much honey. Chill before serving. This sauce goes well with turkey, chicken or pork.

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Using plums we grow on the property means the cranberries we have to buy go further which saves our family money.

Paleo-Plum Cake Cockaigne

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paleo-plum-cockaigne

This recipe is a grain-free version of the traditional cake cockaigne. It’s a great way to use up the bounty of fruit in your garden.

This recipe is safe for someone on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, GAPS or the modified paleo diet.

Every year the permaculture garden produces something to excess. Storing this bounty by drying or canning is one solution. Giving some of the it away is another. I also like finding new recipes to utilize the excess food. Each year that goes by, I learn more and more new recipes and how to see these windfalls as a great blessing and not a result of bad planning!

This year the permaculture garden has a bounty of plums. Plums, plums and more plums. We enjoy eating pounds and pounds of the fresh fruit but sometimes a cooked dessert is welcome. This recipe is a grain-free version of cake cockaigne. Finely grinding the flaked coconut is the secret to a creamy cake-like topping.

Filling
4-6c pitted garden plums, sliced
1 garden apple, chopped
1T local honey (optional)
1T organic unsalted butter

Cake Topping
1c organic coconut flakes, very finely ground
3T organic unsalted butter
pinch of sea salt
1T honey
3 whole organic eggs
3T organic whipping cream

Preheat the oven to 400F. Butter the cake pan well. Cut up the apple and plums and mix together well. Add some honey if the plums are too sour though this dessert is naturally a bit sour. Press down the fruit into the cake pan.

In a Vitamix machine, finely grind the coconut in small amounts and put the finely ground coconut into a bowl. I usually do about 1/3c at a time for the best results. (You could substitute coconut flour for the coconut flakes but I prefer to use whole ingredients whenever possible.) Add the salt and crumble in the butter. Add the eggs, honey and cream in the Vitamix machine and blend well. Add the coconut mixture in three amounts and blend very well. The cake mixture should have the yellow colour and texture of a normal white cake. Spoon the cake mixture on top of the filling and spread evenly over the fruit. Cook for 20-25 minutes until brown on top.

This dessert is best served at room temperature with whipping cream which also cuts the tart taste.

Seasonal Foods: Gazpacho Soup

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gazpacho-soup

Gazpacho is a great way to enjoy our seasonal bounty of tomatoes and cucumbers.

Are you overwhelmed with too many tomatoes and cucumbers? Gazpacho is the answer to late summer bounty. Gazpacho is traditionally served cold which is nice during the hot days of summer. There are many Gazpacho recipes; most are made with fresh, seasonal ingredients. Use the seasonal ingredients found in your garden or at the Kamloops Farmer’s Market. Experiment!

1 large garden sweet onion, chopped
1 large garden garlic clove, chopped
1/2c garden parsley, chopped
1/4c garden basil, chopped
1 hot pepper (optional)
1-2tsp sea salt
6-8 large tomatoes, chopped
6-8 large cucumbers, chopped
1/2c organic extra-virgin olive oil
In a food processor, finely chop the onion, garlic, parsley, hot pepper and sea salt. Move this mixture into a large bowl. In the empty food processor, puree the tomatoes. Add the tomatoes to the large bowl. In the food processor, finely chop the cucumbers. Add the olive oil and mix everything together well. Add more sea salt, herbs or spice to taste. Chill and serve.

gazpacho-salsa

Gazpacho can be used like salsa on burgers.

gazpacho-kale chips

Gazpacho makes a good “salsa” and kale chips are a good substitute for “corn chips”. These make wonderful seasonal snack foods that can be found in your garden.

Here is the recipe for Crunchy Kale Chips.

Garden Harvest: Photo Essay

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curry-garden-harvest

This is a beef curry made from shank meat from our bull. The tomatoes for the curry came from last year's harvest at Gardengate. The yellow pear tomatoes and green peppers came from our garden. Shaen made Baba Ghanoush from the first eggplant he has ever managed to grow.

tomatoes-cumcumber-peppers

Shopping for dinner is a short walk through the garden to the hoop-house. Everyday something different is ready for picking. This is fresh produce at its best.

I just wanted to share some of our garden harvest for this year. We are still managing to get lettuce and assorted greens from the garden for daily salads. We have been enjoying a range of summer squash and our winter squash are finally coming along. Shaen and the girls have been enjoying freshly dug potatoes from our potato permaculture patch. We have picked this year’s crop of raspberries and sour cherries. A friend harvested our currents so she could make jam. My girls had some wormy, scabrous apples that they thought were the best apples they ever tasted. We are just starting the harvest of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and eggplant. My girls love the yellow pear and cherry tomatoes and just pop them into their mouths right off the plant. A weed called mallow is taking over my garden; I am researching the medical uses of this plant, which are many.

sunchokes-seeding-lettuce

The sunchokes are way over my head. The lettuce has finally bolted but I still can get leaves for salad everyday.

hoop-house-haven

At our elevation the nights are already getting cool. The hoop-house is becoming a warm haven. Shaen realized he has too many plants and will reduce the number next year.

As promised I have let my garden go wild. The only weeding I am doing is in the spring and mostly we are sheet mulching with straw. Shaen wants to try deep mulching for next year to try and reduce the need for watering. Shaen is also letting the plants go to seed for two reasons. One is to have a more of a permaculture garden and the other is to collect seeds for next season.

plum-tree-bounty

Our plums still need to ripen. Plums are my favorite dried fruit. I have never found a commercial dried plum as good as the ones I dry myself.

We have had a number of wild visitors to our garden this year. We have had a numerous visits from what we think are Black-chinned Hummingbirds. Sonja saw what she thought was a very strange hummingbird. Erika later identified it with her Peterson’s Field Guide to Birds of North American as a Sphinx Moth. The Tree Swallows have disappeared with the last of the mosquitoes to be replaced by the Oregon Junco. The most exciting visitor for Meadows our warehouse cat, was a big green caterpillar with pink stripes and a big spike on its tail. Meadows wisely decided not to eat this strange meal. The caterpillar looked most like a Privet Hawkmoth but they are not found in North America.

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If you have very little space, container gardening can be the answer . Look for the micro-climates around your home. Here are some hot pepper plants.

We have become converts of container gardening. Container gardening allows us to find the micro-climates around our house and use these spaces for food production. At our elevation, frost comes early, and many of our plants are just starting to produce when the season is over. With container gardening, we can move the plants to more protected areas around the buildings. We can move them into the hoop-house if only a few weeks are needed for the harvest, or even bring them indoors to extent the season even longer.

grow-anywhere-food

Containers allow you to grow food anywhere. This tomato plant is right in the middle of the GO BOX Storage parking lot. This plant is a real producer.

Updated October 26, 2012: Earlier this week I had special visitor to my garden. I was just about to exit the back door, when there in the Russian Olive was a Burrowing Owl. We both looked at each other in shock. I gasped, those yellows eyes took me in, and the owl flew away. I have only seen Burrowing Owls in pictures, but the long legs and size made me sure I was seeing a Burrowing Owl. It was my understanding that this rare, endangered species was not found this far north. Thanks to the internet I found a video of Burrowing Owls in Lac Du Bois Grasslands Conservation Area.