April 2019 - Range Road Garden Farms

18 April 2019

Eggs and Cress

Eggs and cress, these two just seem to be made for each other. Certainly the British feel so with their love of watercress on egg salad sandwiches for tea time. These curly cress are different that watercress. Watercress have a wide round leave and a more woody stem so what you find these days are baby watercress. Curly cress have a slender pointed leaf. They are a very pretty microgreen, whether served in food or sprinkled on top.

I think you can start the day beautifully with lovely, soft eggs, scrambled and lightly tossed with beautiful, peppery curly cress microgreens. Who needs something with hollandaise sauce just to make a fancy breakfast dish? Of course a great bread, with or without gluten. For this breakfast I used a delicate kolach bread, but any bread with a slightly sweet, soft texture will make a tender toast. I buy our kolach from Robert and our eggs from Brenda. Both at the

Deville Market at North Cooking Lake.

I love La Vache qui Rit from Fromageries Bel. It’s just about my favorite cream cheese. I’m also passionate about the combination of generous folds of delicate cold smoked salmon with scrambled eggs. My favorite is J. Willy Krauch & Sons smokehouse salmon, if you can find them. It’s a treat I enjoy any time I am down east. Going to the smokehouse is a guilty pleasure and well worth the drive, if you are taking a Maritime holiday. But I digress. If you aren’t a fish fan, a soft and mild prosciutto is also equal to the task.

Farm fresh country eggs are just about essential for a good scramble, as far as I’m concerned. Fresh eggs from a local coop almost always means the chickens were fed a better diet, frequently allowed to scratch for a living and are a happier chicken. All to give us eggs with a beautiful, upright yolk, a firm shell and just an all round better tasting, never mind more nutritious breakfast.

Of course we respect those eggs by cooking them over gentle heat, in butter, not oil, after having whipped them to fluffy perfection. Adding water to the eggs, not milk when whipping makes for a fluffy scrambled egg. The water will steam during the cooking process. The perfect scramble is pushed around the pan while cooking to keep it tender and soft, and still a bit runny. It shouldn’t take more than 2 minutes, making this a breakfast that doesn’t have to wait for the weekend. Note the addition of a tsp of water to the eggs. A lot of people add milk to scrambled eggs, but milk makes a tougher egg.

Ingredients per person:

2 large eggs
1 tsp of water
1 tbsp butter
2 slices smoked salmon
2 pinches of Curly Cress
1 triangle of La Vache qui Rit
1 slice kolach bread
Salt and Pepper to taste

Method:

Whisk together eggs with the bit of water until light and fluffy.
Heat a saute or fry pan over barely medium heat. Melt the butter in the pan.
Make your toast, spreading with the cream cheese. Fold your salmon and place on the toast so you can see the edges of salmon draping over the toast. Eating is all about appearance, so it’s worth the extra couple seconds to make the first meal of your day pretty.
Pour the eggs into the heated pan. Immediately and gently push around in the pan with a firm silicone spatula, don’t stir. The idea is to have nice, full, fluffy eggs. That requires a gentle touch. As soon as the eggs are showing signs of starting to set, sprinkle with the cress.
Eggs should be just done, still having a slight creaminess to them. That will take barely 2 minutes.
Mound the eggs onto the prepped toast and sprinkle with salt and pepper, as desired.
Mmm, now that’s breakfast.

14 April 201915 April 2019

Making Earl Grey Jelly

Who’d have thought to make tea from jelly? Our daughter is a fan of all things tea, so it wasn’t surprising that she wondered if I could make jelly from tea. Making jelly is as much science as it is art. When you have the right balance of sugar, acid, pectin, time, temperature, etc you have jelly or jam. That’s pretty simplified, which is why it is usually recommended that you follow the recipes inside the Bernardin or Certo box until you get the hang of jam making and can branch out.

The tea jelly was quite an experiment. The Strawberry Jammin’ was bit of an easier one. Perhaps because the tea has bits of fruit in it. Earl Grey a little less forgiving. I had to increase the lemon juice and the pectin to get it to set. Amazingly, the Lemoncello tea was the hardest recipe to make set.

In your leisure you can Google all about the science of jam making. Not that it is boring, but it is quite a dry read , especially when all you want to do is fire up the jam pot. It’s all about collagen, a history of jam making, sugars, etc. So let’s get steeping shall we?

In the recipe I have laid out the process for preparing to make jelly. This is as important part of the procedure. You want to have everything in place so you aren’t rushing to measure sugar or wash jars, during the one minute your jelly is boiling.

Ingredients:

5 cups boiling water
5 tbsp Earl Grey de la Creme tea leaves.
2 tbsp Lemon juice. You can squeeze a lemon or use a bottle of lemon juice like RealLemon
1 pkg Pectin. This method uses Bernardin.
5 cups or 1000 g of white sugar
A flat of 125 ml Mason Jars

Method:

I used Earl Grey de la Creme from Sipology. It’s a lovely Earl Grey and a good quality tea. Measure 5 tbsp of tea leaves in 2 steeping sacks and seal.
Boil 5 cups of water, reduce to a simmer and add the steeping sacks. Brew for 15 minutes.
Wash mason jars, disks and rings in hot soapy water, then fill with boiling hot water and set aside.
Measure out the sugar and set aside.
Prepare a surface for filling your jars. I use a large cookie sheet and a cooling rack.
On a plate lay out a ladle, rubber scraper, and a slotted plastic spatula or a slotted spoon for skimming foam. In jam and jelly making it is important to keep everything involved in the process as clean as possible to minimize risk of contamination.
Filling your canning pot half full of water and set to boil.
Place a small plate in the freezer. This is for testing the set of your jelly.
Remove and discard the steeping sacks. Measure the liquid tea to ensure you have 3 1/2 cups.
Return the steep tea to the cooking pot and add the lemon juice.
Whisk in the pectin and return to the heat, bringing to a boil quickly.
As soon as the pectin mixture boils slide the pot off the heat and add sugar stirring thoroughly to dissolve the sugar. Scrape down the sides and return the pot to the heat.
Bring jelly mixture to a fast boil. Over boiling will give you a very tough jelly, so don’t walk away from the stove. As soon as the mixture boils, set the timer to one minute.
Remove the jelly pot from the heat and place on your prepped surface.
Take the plate from the freezer and spoon out enough to make a small circle. Two inches across is plenty. Return plate to the freezer.
Carefully skim any foam from the surface of the jelly. I use a slotted plastic spatula. You will notice over a couple of minutes that it becomes easier to skim. Don’t stir.
Check the plate in the freezer. Drawing your figure through the mixture should give you a jelly texture. If it is very soft you can decide whether or not to increase the lemon juice by one tablespoon and the sugar by 1/4 cup and repeat the boil.
Drain the jars of the hot water and turn upside down on the cooling rack.
With a ladle, quickly fill the hot jars to within 1/4″ of the top edge. That’s about half way up the threaded part of the jar.
Anything you can’t ladle, or pour out stays in the pot. Everything left in the pot can go on your sampling toast, but you don’t want it in your pretty, clear jars of jelly.
With a hot, damp paper towel, wipe off the rim and the outer threaded part of the jar. I say paper towel as you want a single use, not a damp tea towel. Run your fingertip around the rim of the jar to make sure there aren’t any sticky spots that will prevent a good seal.
Place the hot discs and rings on the jars and finger tighten. Too tight will prevent sealing.
Place the filled jars in holder of your canning pot and lower into the boiling water. Make sure there is at least 1 inch of water covering the jars.
Cover and set your timer to 10 minutes.
When boiling has completed remove the jars from the canner and set on a rack to cool.
As the jars cool you will hear distinctive pops ensuring that you have an airtight seal on each jar.
Try not to move until the jars have completely cooled. That means you don’t rock the jars to see if the jelly has set. That will break the surface of the jelly most certainly cause a jelling failure.
Check to see that “button” in the center of the lid has drawn down, ensuring a seal. If you push on it and it goes down and stays that way, it is fine. Any jars that don’t seal will have to be refrigerated.

And there, you have a tea jelly to enjoy and share.

14 April 2019

Learning to Grow Hydroponic Strawberries

I love strawberries. I don’t know too many people who don’t. Even people allergic to strawberries find themselves inexplicably drawn to them. But I don’t love those little red triangles that we get in the grocery store from Sep to Apr that come from somewhere way south of us. I know, it’s consumerism at it’s worst to want something so very much out of season, but I do.

But let’s back up the story. I grow hops, indoors, in special buckets. It’s in a system called hydroponics. Like those guys growing the funny weed that has been the topic of news for some time now. Well I have been reading about growers who been working out the kinks and creating a variety of hydroponic systems for growing these beloved little berries. I looked at my little hydroponic hops farm and realized I have unused real estate under those big plants. They take the same level of light and the same water and nutrient levels as strawberries. And there it was, the beginnings of an idea.

I phoned wonderful Apache Seeds and asked about starter stock for strawberries. These are the same starter plants farmers use to grow in the fields, tiny little runners, tied in bundles, virtually bare root. Sure enough they could get them for me. I had previously brought in runners from my backyard plants, and you could, if you wanted to carefully wash the roots. I have experienced first hand, the time it seems to take for them to acclimatize to the hydroponic system. These little starter stock plants have settled right in. In fact within a month of being planted they are already rewarding me with blossoms.

Why Hydroponics?

By now you are probably asking why hydroponics? Why not plop the little things in soil and let them do their thing? Some people argue that plants grown in soil taste better and maybe, to some, they do. The internet is full of arguments for both sides, but we’ve come a long way from the basic fertilizers and florescent lights. Much study has been done on the nutritive values of hydroponic plants, grown under lights. Certainly they have to taste better than those grocery store red things that have traveled thousands of kilometers to get to us. For me and many other indoor farmers, hydroponics is a clean way to grow. I can create a wonderful environment for plants grow in: the lights overhead; the medium in which they are grown; the chemistry of water; and the nutrients they receive. I am learning about the use of biological controls to balance insect predators and what to do to minimize problems like powdery mildew. Research has made it easier for my green thumb to work. All that being said, and science aside there is something magical about coming into the farm in the morning and seeing the first buds turning into blossoms. Especially in an Alberta winter. I can’t wait for a few more to open up so I can wield a paint brush and start pollinating.

Could you do this? It’s sounds complicated. Well, yes and no. There is a lot to learn and after asking a bunch of questions, you may decide that soil is the way for you. Just know that if you really want to grow great food indoors, there is still a learning curve, but the results are so worth it. Your local hydroponic shop can set you up with just about everything you need, if you want to grow hydroponically and a good garden center has experts to help with soil based farming. There is lots of great information online about growing both ways. I’ve learned a lot, reading and taking courses. There are kits you can purchase with everything you need to start with a few herbs, greens or microgreens before you started something more complicated, like strawberries, but certainly you could.

The Basics of Hydroponics – Water

Strawberries grown indoors require water with a pH of 5.3 to 6.5. You’ve probably not thought of testing the pH of your water before you water your plants. It might surprise you to know that our Edmonton city water rates at the 8.5 mark, which makes it more alkaline, what they call hard water. It’s that residue in your tea kettle and around the edge of your bathtub. A pH of 7 is considered to be neutral. If you have ever struggled to grow anything in your backyard, someone from a garden center may have suggested that you get your soil tested for pH. For your houseplants 5.5 to 6.5 is ideal, unless you have something that requires a more acidic soil. There are all kinds of amendments you can add to garden soil to change the acidity, but in hydroponics, a product called pH Down and a simple test kit is all you need. Even your houseplants would benefit from water that is adjusted for pH.

Along with higher pH, what comes from your tap has chlorine and sometimes chloramine in it. Anyone with a fish tank knows about the importance of treating for that. Have you ever collected rainwater for your plants, or noticed how green your lawn is from the rain compared to watering it? Chlorine and sometimes the disinfectant chloramine are added to our drinking water to keep it safe. The problem with those two chemicals for watering your plants, particularly in hydroponics is the removal of any beneficial fungi and bacteria which help plants take up nutrients. You can remove chlorine by allowing it to sit out in the sun for 24 hours, but chloramine has to be removed by filtering or chemically. Campden tablets will remove the chlorine and chloramine from your water, but they also increase the sodium levels. Before I lose you to all the science, if you want to grow better plants, and especially if you are thinking hydroponics, find yourself a good shop and ask about your options. If you are like me and just have to do the research, check out this article from High Times.

Growing Media and Containers

Back to my strawberries. They are growing well in their Bato or Dutch Buckets, wedged in between the hops. Bato Buckets are a frequently used system for growing a variety of tall or vining plants such as: tomatoes; cucumbers; or peppers. To learn more about setting up a Bato Bucket system, check out this great article from Upstart University.

So far I have used perlite as the growing media, especially for the hops as it drains very well. The side effect of perlite is the dust. You need a mask to work with it. There are other options but you need to consider drainage. Each media has a system for which it is ideally suited. Perlite drains well, but with little water retention, you have to set up a timed watering or be prepared to hand water every few hours, depending on plant requirements. Rockwool holds a lot of water is not ideal for Bato. Perlite/vermiculite mixtures are good but vermiculite holds a lot of water. Coconut fibre is becoming much more popular and is something I will be testing for the growth of the strawberries. From GPN an older article but it talks about a variety of growing media. Whatever you choose, if you are using Bato Buckets you need to keep the media from clogging the system. Painter’s filter bags are a great way hold the growing media and prevent it from being washed down into the watering system and into the pumps.

This article barely scratches the surface of growing hydroponically. I have much to learn but so far, with the strawberries, I have blossoms, and soon I hope to have berries. Whatever you choose to grow and however you choose to grow it, have fun, much luck and enjoy.

5 April 201915 April 2019

Ahi Tuna with Sunflower Shoot Risotto

I’m on a bit of a mission. The question is constant, customers would like to know, besides the obvious, salads and sandwiches, how they can add more greens to their kitchen. So my task, in this case, is how I can incorporate sunflower shoots into dinner because, well cress, dill, etc, those are pretty easy. But sunflower, that’s a little less obvious. As a customer commented this weekend, she added bok choy greens to a recipe and it wasn’t the best flavour. I wanted to take advantage of the eye candy appeal of those round, crisp leaves. Sunflower shoots have the same delicious, nutty flavour as the seeds. It’s a taste millions have come to love.

Now combine this thought process with the inspiration from a recent conversation with Chef Sonny Sung, Bistecca, about pan toasting rice before making risotto. It’s the secret to taking rice from those bland white kernels, a supporting cast we bury in sauces, to a flavour infused part of our meal. I have to say, this was probably the best risotto I’ve ever made and really, and it didn’t change the length of time or effort to make.

Okay, we have crisp/tender, toasty flavoured arborio rice; crisp, nutty sunflower shoots; that just called for the ahi tuna steaks I had in the freezer, and….. garlic. I roasted the garlic to bring out its nuttiness, then combined with a good olive oil. If you have never had roasted garlic, it’s pretty easy to accomplish. Drizzle a bulb with a bit of oil, wrap in foil and toss in a 450 degree oven for about 30 min. As soon as you can smell it, it’s done. Use some of that, olive oil and a bit of butter to toast the rice. Brush the steaks lightly with the garlic oil and pan sear. Toss sunflower shoots into the riscotto just before plating. Sounds really good and I haven’t hit the stove yet.

Rice serves 4. One tuna steak, or a protein of choice per person.

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups chicken stock

1/3 cup white wine

3 tbsp lemon juice

3 to 4 cloves garlic

1/4 cup olive oil

1 tbsp butter

1 cup arborio rice

3/4 cup sunflower shoots (about 1/2 a 5×5 square)

1 tuna steak per person

Salt and pepper to taste.

Method:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. To roast garlic, cut the top off a bulb, exposing the cloves. Drizzle with a bit of olive oil, or another oil if you prefer. Wrap in foil and place in oven. Turn off the oven. It will stay hot long enough to gently roast the garlic, without the risk of overcooking. Take the garlic out when you can smell it. Usually that is roughly 30 minutes. To remove the cooked garlic easily, turn the bulb over a plate and squeeze from the bottom.
Blend garlic and olive oil. Set a bit aside to garnish the plate, about a tsp for each plate.
Brush garlic oil on both sides of each tuna steak and set aside to marinate. I marinated them for about an hour.
Combine chicken stock, lemon juice, and white wine.
Harvest the sunflower shoots and rinse. Set aside. Remember before combining with the rice to keep a few to garnish the plates.
In saute pan over medium heat add a couple tbsp of the garlic oil and the tsp of butter.
Toasted rice for risotto.
When the butter is melted add the rice. Push around in the pan until the tips of the rice are toasted.
Set the timer for 20 minutes. Add about half of the stock to the toasted rice and simmer and stir until the stock is almost taken up by the rice. It is a good a idea to give the pan a shake occasionally. At this point you will be slowly adding the remaining stock and stirring. Rice is cooked when it still has just a bit of bite to it.
During the last few minutes of the rice cooking, heat another saute pan for the tuna steaks. It’s ready when a drop of water bounces around the pan from the heat.
You have 3 minutes from the time the steaks go on, until they are seared. Tuna steaks are served rare, overcook and you will basically have canned tuna taste. Place the steaks straight down in the pan and set the time for 1.5 minutes. Don’t move until the timer goes off. Turn the steaks and set the timer for another 1.5 minutes. Add the sunflower shoots to the rice. Toss lightly to combine and spoon onto the plates.
Remove the steaks from the heat and plate. Garnish with the remaining sunflower shoots. Add a swoosh of the garlic oil to decorate the plate.
Serve and prepare for the oohs and aaahs.