A friend shared the qoute below and then commented that they didn’t feel that right now that Canadian’s would feel the same way at all..
I totally agree, I think right now at this point that anything like this would indeed create massive ripples and blowback on all levels of goverment..
So here is my real question for you.. do you think its coming or do you think its already here?
“The most important factor that actually changed the way Canadians shopped for, cooked, and ate food on the home front was the introduction of a universal price freeze starting in December 1941 followed by the introduction of coupon rationing of sugar in July 1942, tea and coffee in August, butter in December, and meat in March of the following year. These controls on food consumption came shortly on the heels of months of periodic food shortages and a precipitous spike in food prices. Price and rent controls, it was argued, would help to ensure that Canadians could continue to afford necessities like food, fuel, and shelter while rationing promised all Canadians a fair share of scarce necessities. The penalties for breaking the rules ranged from small fines to imprisonment, but both controls – and rationing, in particular – maintained strong popular support throughout the war. In separate polls done in March and July 1945 more than 90 percent Canadians agreed that rationing had done a good or fair job in achieving equitable distribution.11 As one postwar analyst summed up Canadians’ attitudes, “rationing has consistently given evidence of being the most popular among Canada’s wartime controls, a fact that is especially significant when one remembers that it has been more a part and parcel of every day living than any of the other controls have been.”
My personal view.. Its already here, in so many ways..
However I am not going to explain why I feel that way in this post, I really do not want to sway the readers view point, I would truly like to hear your thoughts on this? I will do a part two, where I will share my personal thoughts, along with clips from the response’s from this post (without names etc)
Everyone that grew squash this year has some younger immature squash that needs to be used up right away but its not as sweet or full bodied as a properly cured and stored squash would be.. This is a great recipe to use that almost there sized up sqaush but not turned color..
It will also work perfectly with normal mature squash as well.. The key to this soup is pre-roasting the squash ahead.. Take all your need to use up now squash, peel, seed them out (if you have chickens or pigs otherwise, compost pile it goes) then cube it with a bit of olive oil, whatever your favorite base herb blend and lots of cracked salt and pepper.. oven roast till tender.. cool and use fresh or can then pack these up into 2 or 4 cup freezer tubs or bags for winter use.. lay flat to freezer then stack them.
This makes a good hearty 4 person bowl of soup and could easily be stretched out to a 6 portion as a side or starter soup.
Lamb Squash Soup Recipe
In your heavy bottomed pot at med heat, add a touch of oil, meat, onion and garlic and cook till browned on med heat. You want some nice brown bits on the bottom and the onion cooked till clear.. then add a cup of the broth and deglaze the pan, bring up all the brown bits into the broth, then add the rest of the broth, the peas and the pre-cooked squash.
Bring to a simmer for 5 min or till the peas are tender and ready..
Serve as is.. this is right at the border between soup/stew.. you can easily add another 2 cups of broth if you wanted more..
Say Horseradish and most peaple in canada that I know will think of horseradish sauce or the added spicy in Mustard or Seafood Sauce. The history of Horseradish is long, as in thousand plus year long and yet here in canada, FAR TO FEW GARDENS have a patch of horseradish tucked into spot in the yard.. (not in the garden itself as this is a spreader!)
Lets talk about some of the reasons you really should have horseradish in your food growing plan. The first part is that it can be grown darn near anywhere, when I went to Holland, I was so surprised to see big old pots of waving horseradish leaves.. They even have fancy white and green versions.. So anyone who can have a pot or tub of soil can grow horseradish greens and roots.. I have never tried to over winter it in pots but it clearly does just fine in the warmer climates. Here in canada, bring the pot in for the winter or plant in the ground and it will go down for the winter nap and be one of the first greens back up in the spring.
Horseradish is NOT fussy on soil type.. I mean it will have some root forking if you put it in clay or gumbo soil straight up and it can turn sideways to grow but in almost all soil types it will grow big thick roots..
You will only need to beg a friend for a small root or find a fresh root at the store and plant it up and you will have the ability to grow as much as you want in the future.. I feel pretty safe in saying that in most places if you ask for bit of starter root on your local garden group, or you local community site or ask at church or just put the word out that it will come to you.. there are many plants that peaple can be like.. I need it all.. horseradish is not typically one of them.. because we understand that we can take the big root for harvest and gift you a couple baby side roots and you are going to have your own patch soon enough.
So in keeping with the roots, its hottish without being crazy hot, its need vinegar to make it stable and holding for months and it can be used in place of pepper in many ways in a number of dishes.. we take getting and having pepper for granted here in the north but we certainly can not grow it.. we can grow horseradish and its a lovely “heat” to dishes.
But the truth is that you should be growing this for the greens first and formost!
The young are mild and just hints of pepper, they are not more spicy then other young greens you will find in mixes in the store.. but what they are is far easier to grow.. They are productive and then some, you can have a short row of them and they will provide you greens from the earliest spring until hard frosts..
The older ones are going to have a stronger flavor and do better as a cooked green then a fresh young eating green, with or without the main stem, you call on what you and your family likes..
the leaves are thin, which is makes them a ideal drying green.. dried and crumbled this amazing green acts as a replacement for Basil in winter use.. it can also be grown in mass and dried in bulk as the base for a dried green powder for winter use in terms of smoothies, or as homemade soup bases.
I tend to put up a couple quart jars of the dried greens each year and they are so worth doing so.
Farmgal’s Eat what you Grow, Grow what you eat!
This post is going to be part of a series of recommendations in regards to find ways to “grow what you eat” in our local climate to replace different items that are subject to both “global shipping challenges and also climate change challenges)
In the same way it also will help keep things local and frugal..
I will Pause to Reflect and Remember in honor of my Great-Grandfathers, Uncles, Step-father and brother who all served. In honor of my personal friends that have served and are still serving our country.. For the next generation that will have challenges seen and unforseen..
Bells is so much fun to take photography’s of but in this case, I am going to use it to express that feeling of WHAT.. WHAT!! that many of us are feeling at the moment..
Early Fall is shifting to true fall, the hunters are out, we are looking for late Oct season mushrooms in the bush, the garden is finally! winding down, all over my facebook feed locally garlic is going into the ground for next year..
For some, they are right in the middle of the fourth wave and for others they are breathing big sighs as things are opening back up and they are planning for thanksgiving (ok we already had our Canadian Thanksgiving) but many of my readership is from the USA and they have not.. Many more are planning christmas, and other holiday’s and markings of the passing of the season’s, marking of the new year, turning of the wheel..
What everyone no matter where you live, no matter what you are dreaming or hoping for, a winding down, a slow down into the calm sleep rest of winter, or a gear up into the heat of summer (some of my readers are in AUS and they are coming into their gardening time) everyone is feeling that the effect of “inflation”
Been to the grocery store lately.. See the Kitten above at the bill..
Been to the feed store lately.. See the Kitten at the selection and the Bill!
Been to the lumber yard lately.. See the Kitten, grasp and shake your head and refuse to buy anything more then you need and then still curse the Bill!
Been to the gas pumps.. in cases, peaple are still happy to get gas no matter the price, others are SEE the Kitten above.. in canada, we talk about the weather ALL THE TIME.. because its a huge part of our day.. right now on facebook, peaple are posting the gas price or what it cost to fill their truck or car likes its the top news.. I paid this! O ya.. mine is at! WTF Gas is at..
Got the letter yet from your propane company or gas company.. up to a 300% increase is coming this winter.. SEE the KITTEN ABOVE.. Lift your head back and let it out..
O this is going to be challenging finish to 2021, and 2022 I SEE YOU! grumble, grumble, grumble..
Spicy Horseradish High Bush Cranberry Mustard Recipe
Pick your High Bush Cranberries, sort, wash and put in a pan with just enough water to cover them bring to boil on med heat, mash to help them pop and then strain them making sure to get all the juice and the pulp you can, add your sugar/salt to this and stir together. It will make around? 3 to 4 cups of sauce.. it depends on so many factors in regards to the berries.. its all good..
Measure your mustard seeds and place them in a bowl, measure your vinegar and pour it over the seeds, let them sit for ideally a hour or so, the seeds will swell and take up most of the vinegar but not all..
Add the prepared seeds/vinegar to the the bowl of the prepared high bush cranberry sauce, mix together.. In your food processer, add your prepared horseradish and pulse blend it to a finer point.. then add the rest of the mixture and blend till the mustard comes together at the thickness you desire for it..
If you want that delightful pink hue.. pack into a clean/water bath boiled jar and cool for a few min and put in the fridge.. for shelf stable, water bath for 15 min but it will come out more of a brown mustard color after being cooked.. The picture above is the non-waterbath, into my fridge for fresh use..
This is a zippy mustard.. that hit of horseradish, with the deeper hotter undertones of the rich brown mustard seeds with just tiniest bit of sweetness and a bit of salt to balance it all out..
Of course this would be outstanding on a sandwich .. but it would also make a amazing mustard crust on a roast, or mixed with mayo for a mustard dipping sauce.
It made me 7 4oz jars.
The amazing version of the colors that can be found that are all Turkey Tail Mushroom is a delight to our eye and mind.. these ones are so pretty in person.. outstanding..
Most this beauty is to old to harvest and I am just fine with that.. I will know where to find it next year in its prime and I will be back..still I was blessed with a very good harvest of perfect young, fresh as you can see above in the bowl..
These were hand picked, then carefully trimmed and into my dryer on the lowest heat setting possible for herb, and I will do just as much as needed, I am drying then allowing to cool and air dry, then another bit of drying as needed.. they will be kept as whole as possible till use.. only once I take my bit off will I grind it to get the biggest possible surface to reach the water as part of a immune boosting tea.
Do you look for and harvest Turkey Tail Mushroom or do you buy it from the health food store? or do you just admire it from afar for its beauty!
High Bush Cranberry BBQ Sauce
High Bush Cranberry Note* Pick the berries, wash the berries, into a pot just covered with water, simmer them 5 to 10 min at med heat and then give them a mash with a potato masher as they are cooking as you want as much of the fiber as well as the juice for this recipe.. cook with some stirring and mash again if needed till all are popped for another 5 min..
Strain into a screen or a seed remover, and stir with a clean big spoon until you have the juice and all the pulp in the bottom bowl and the seeds and the few bits of skin that did not soften and get small enough to throw out..
Put that back into a clean pot (med heat) add all the rest, stir well, bring to a simmering boil, turn down if needed and cook slow and low to thicken it to your desired thickness.. if you want it more like a HP type BBQ you will want it a bit thinner then I did it, I wanted thick.. so I simmered down till I have lines when I ran the whisk in it.. you can see how thick it settled out after being canned
This is a smaller batch 4 or 5 small jars only.. water bath can for 15 min or pressure can for 12.. your call.. Its clear this will be amazing on a Roast beef or Moose roast sandwich but I can’t wait to try it on chicken..
Its got good fruit undertones while clearly being in the BBQ sauce family.. delightful!
Yes.. Today Nov 6th I headed out to harvest the last 5 celery plants growing in Kitchen Garden Plot 1.. way back in the very early spring..
we started so many celery seeds.. that grew into a tray with so many celery babies.. they were used small and fresh, they were given in sets of 4 to 6 to fellow gardeners local to me.. those wee celery babies have grown into healthy leafy celery that has added intense flavour to many dishes.
Got to love with you can share the bounty.. I have never harvest Celery this last in the year before but it was holding and I was just going out and cutting what I needed for cooking fresh.. still even with the extra microzone cover from other plants it was reaching with the harder frost we were getting.. the outer thick leaves were solid heavy frosted in the morning but was still shaking it off and the densely covered tight packed bottoms suffered very little damage and they seemed to just shed a layer like a birch tree would and the rest was perfect under it..
Anyone that has grown Celery at home knows that its intense stuff.. that sweet, watery big thick stemmed celery we get at the store is nothing like the brighter rich green insanely intense CELERY you get on home grown.. and I always get at least as much green leaves tops as I do stalk..
I had done a quick little video or so I thought to show you in the garden.. turns out I didn’t in fact take it.. opps.. I took my pocket instead lol..
after a bottom trim, and a dirt off wash.. everything was cut into 3rds and into a cold, cold salt water bath/soak for 10 min for bugs and so on.. then stacked to drain for 5 min before being chopped..
Now you can use it for canning at that point if you wanted, you can lay it out flat on trays and freeze it then break it into chunks and double freezer bag it for future soup/stew use.. or you can be like me.. chop, chop, chop.. and into the dryer it goes.. trays worth.. I will dry it down and use the leaves in crumble form and the stalk dried.. sure a space saver and a little goes a long way..
Is there anything you are harvesting really late this year?
Just another Day on the Farm 