100 Mile Diet Table for One

(my Roma tomatoes)
DH has been away working as a kayak jedi on the west coast for the last few weeks. I've been dining solo and relishing the local bounty that marks this glorious season.



Cooking has been kept fast & dirty. Partly because it's just me eating but mostly because I wanted to spend any spare moment I could squeeze out of my schedule to finish my Fire and Ice sweater!
For more photos and knitting jabbering about the final chapter of Fire & Ice , check out my knitting blog.

















Back to our normal programming...
Here's a sampling of what I've been enjoying in my feast for one.
It's prime tomato picking time. I've got all my tomato plants squatting in my dining room and makeshift solarium. They're all warm and cozy and ripening up nicely.
My currant tomatoes came up as sweet as candy this year. Great for snacking and salads.














All my tomatoes were either from locally raised seeds or seedlings. Most are heirloom varieties. They're all so flavorful and juicy. It's been so much fun discovering all the nuances in flavor and texture of them.














Open-faced tomato and cheese sandwich made with local organic olive bread from Slow Rise Bakery in Island, local cheese and, of course, my tomatoes.














A few minutes under the broiler and it was comfort food heaven!










Bowl of summer. What I happened to have on hand.














With the summer's bounty and a can of organic black beans, a glass of Cherry Point Coastal white wine and a herbs from the my garden I made a summer veggie chowder














For lunch: Some local organic greens from my produce box, a gorgeously ripe barlett pear, local beet, Hilary's Belle Anne cheese, smoked proscuitto from Nanoose Sausage House.














A little of slicing and dicing and we have a Vancouver Island Chef's Salad. I also added some leftover roasted turkey breast, locally raised, of course. For a dressing, I made a blueberry basil dressing (recipe below)














Last, but not least, dessert. Here's a nectarine and homemade berry jam oat bar.














I popped over the Gabriola Island's farmer's market with my little green cart. It's a good thing I brought the cart because I picked up 10lbs of apples from Berry Point orchard vendor. Good thing I had my green cart. It would have been murder on my back to carry all that home. Berry Point grows a crazy awesome assortment of apples. They're the only ones that I know of that carry both of my favorite baking apples, Belle de Boskoop and Bramely Seedlings. Berry Point apples can sometimes be found at QF stores for a limited time. Their Paula Reds are one of my favorite sweet apples.
With my apple bounty I made a simple, rustic crisp. They're fairly tart but also have quite of bit natural sweetness. For a huge crisp, I only added a couple spoonfuls of honey to heighten the sweetness.














Fast & Dirty Blueberry Basil Dressing
1 part homemade local blueberry (or mixed berry) jam
1 part pesto (I used my own local homemade)
1 part basalmic or red wine vinegar
2 parts EVOO

Mix ingredients well. I just throw everything in a jar, close the lid tightly and shake vigorously.

BTW, Yellow Point Cranberries is having their Happy Turkey Night tonight. They are offering a sampling of unique cranberry dishes and the money is going to raise money for Ladysmith Secondary School. Give them a call to reserve your ticket.

Happy eating!

Booze and a Fast and Dirty Stew

Well, the Nanaimo 100 Mile Diet Challenge Week is over. So, how it did go for you? What did you do? What wonderful culinary discoveries did you make? Enquiring culinary minds want to know.

I’ve heard folks have been hosting 100 Mile Diet potlucks and parties. Some have pledged to try one new local item a week. There are even some people that are hard-core 100 milers that are aiming to eating only foods grown within a 100 mile range. That’s awesome to hear! Of course, this is just the beginning. Next, we're aiming for a 100 Mile Thanksgiving. I'll post more info on that once I get my crap together.

One of my biggest recent discoveries was the local booze industry. Vancouver Island has some pretty fine wines and ciders. Unfortunately, the government liquor stores don’t carry any Vancouver Island booze. Fortunately for us, there are a couple of beer and wine stores in Nanaimo that are spirited enough to carry them. Black Bear Liquor Store, North Gate Liquor, Wellington Hotel Beer & Wine, Wheatsheaf Beer & Wine, and the Jolly Miner store are some of the Nanaimo beer and wine stores that carry Vancouver Island booze.

Cherry Point vineyards in one of the highlights of out of Cowichan Valley. They put out a great table white called ‘Coastal White’ which is a blending of Vancouver Island grapes. Their Bete Noire (Black Beast) 2005 is my favorite wine discovery for the year. Deep and complex, a bit fruity to keep all the wine snobs away. The wine comes with a great back story that reaches back in history to 1552 in Hungary. Winemaster, Simon Spencer, is planning on putting our three volumes of this wine. Each volume will continue on with this mythical black beast of a wine. The vineyard is now out of the first volume of this wine and so grab whatever you can find at the wine stores. They will be releasing a new batch of wines within a month or two.

There’s no barley grown here on the island, so no locally grown beer. I’ve heard rumors of island barley experiments but nothing on tap yet. There is cider though. And good, cider. Not the candy apple cider that you used to get drunk on and throw up all over the backseat of your boyfriend’s Impala. Grown up cider made from undiluted apple juice from the wonderful apple orchard that surrounds the Merridale Cider House. Everything from a traditional dry cider to a champagne-style cider is made on the premises. My favorites so far are the Scrumpy Cider, a sharp, dry cider made from crab apples and no sugar, and the Merri Berri which is a sweeter cider mixed with local berries. The ciders have a clean, crisp taste and none of that murky aftertaste that other ciders that have sulphur dioxides or are made from concentrated juice have.

They also make an apple cider vinegar but are out of stock at the moment. Never fear, many local apple orchards are making an apple cider vinegar. I picked up a bottle of First Fruits Farm Apple Cider Vinegar a few weeks ago at the Duncan farmer’s market. At $3 for a 16oz bottle! It’s an organic, unpasteurized cider that needs to be diluted before using, it’s so strong. They also do a milder vinegar with Jonagold apples. BTW, farmer’s markets are brimming with local organic apples. Last I checked, they were going of a dollar a pound and not a single mealy Red Delicious in sight. Instead, there’s a variety of apples that you probably never have heard of before but should get to know better. The farmers selling them will also be able to tell you which ones are best for pies, sauces and just eating. Westwood Orchard on 170 Westwood Road off of Jinglepot Road has been suggested as a great local orchard. I think I may have to give them a visit some time this week.

Speaking of vinegar, I have had some folks asking me about locally grown balsamic vinegars. So far, I’ve only sussed out one locally grown balsamic vinegar, Venturi-Schulze Aceto Balsamico. This is true, traditional balsamic vinegar with no fruit concentrate, no caramel colouring, no blended wine vinegars. This is true artisan vinegar. The sort of thing that the Foodies swoon over. A little goes a long way. You can order up a bottle from their website. MacLean’s Foods also carries the vinegar.

Marley Farms is also making fruit vinegars. They make a blueberry and a kiwi vinegar from fruits grown on the island. I picked up a bottle of each from the North Gate Liquor Store on Metral, just off the Island Highway. The vineyard themselves are out of the vinegars, so pick a some up while you can. A new batch won’t be released for a few more months yet. The blueberry vinegar is light and makes a great vinaigrette. You could also use it to tang up a chicken or pork dish. I’ve drizzle a bit over baked fruit.

So last night, to celebrate the end of the Nanaimo 100 Mile Diet Challenge Week, Kevin and I had an intimate 100 Mile Feast. With veggies and fruit from the Nanoose Edibles produce box and local farms, South African boerwurst sausages from Quist Meat Market in Duncan, and Cherry Points Bete Noire we had quite the meal.

I made a South African version of my Fast and Dirty stew recipe that tastes like something that took hours to make. Here’s the fast & dirty instructions. You can use any fresh sausage. Piper’s Meats has a whole line of sausages made with locally grown grain-fed beasts.

Fast & Dirty Sausage Stew:

1 to 1 ½ lbs fresh sausage

1 onion – chopped into big chunks

2 cloves garlic –crushed and chopped coarsely

2 cups tomatoes chopped in half or quarters

2 carrots –peeled and cut into bite size chunks

2 sweet bell peppers – chopped into chunks

1 stalk of celery – chopped

1 cup of good red wine (I used Cherry Point’s Bete Noire but you can use whatever wine you’re planning to drink with the meal. You have to drink wine with this stew. It’s the rule. I don’t make the rules. That’s just how it is. If you’re going to be a snot-nosed rebel and not use wine, you could use cider or a good stock)

Fresh herbs – ripped/ chopped right before serving

Also – a few glugs of oil, salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 350F. In a heavy oven-proof pot, heat up the oil and then brown the sausage on both sides over med-high heat.

Toss in all the veggies, pinch of salt and let the veggies get a bit of colour.

Dump in the wine (or whatever liquid you’re using) and scrape up all the caramelized goodness that’s stuck to the bottom of the pan. Throw the pot into the oven for 30-40 mins.

Since you’ve got the oven going anyways, you might as well wash up a bunch of potatoes (I used locally grown Peruvian Purple potatoes last night). Cut them into smaller pieces of needed. Toss them onto a small roasting pan with a drizzle of oil and a sprinkle of salt and slide those in beside the stew pot in the oven. You could just toss the potatoes into the stew pot too. They would help thicken up the stew. I just wanted nice crusty roasted potatoes last night so I did them separately.

I also threw in some unpeeled beets wrapped up in foil to roast beside the potatoes and stew. You might as well use the heat and roast up stuff for the next few days. Cooked beets keep a week in the fridge and can be used in so many ways. I’m thinking of making a fast and dirty borscht sometime this week.

Once the timer goes off and the stew is done, turn off the oven and pull out the beets to cool. I just leave everything else in until serving. I blanched up some local organic green beans for a side dish with the beets. Once the beets are cool enough to handle, you can peel them by simply slipping the skin right off. I do it under the tap of cold water to help the process and prevent my fingers from looking like Carrie’s after the school dance. I had some homemade pesto to accompany the side veggies.

A quick blueberry vinaigrette with Marley Farm’s blueberry vinegar and some oil would also go well with beets and green beans. One part vinegar to one part oil. Some dried herbs and a smidgen of Dijon mustard is all you need. Mix it up. Yep, fast and dirty.

Upon serving, cut/rip the fresh herbs into the stew and season according to taste. I used only basil and oregano since that’s all I have left in my garden.

For dessert, we had the last of a rhubarb and apple crumble that I had made a few nights back. Basically a bunch of rhubarb chopped into ½ inch slices and apples ( I used Brambley Seedlings and Gravensteins) chopped into 8ths. Altogether about 6 cups of fruit. A tablespoon of cornstarch and a 1/2 cup of local dark fir honey. You could also use regular sugar. I prefer organic cane sugar because adds a nice deep, caramel flavour. A heavy pinch of cinnamon, some ground ginger were also tossed into. Mix everything up. I chopped up a bunch of hazelnuts and tossed those as my crumble topping. Baked in a 350F oven for 30 mins. Drizzle more honey if you want it sweeter. Or top it with some local fruit syrup or jam. I popped a couple of blackberries I gathered.

So good. I’m having leftovers for lunch. I’m such a lucky kid!

Happy Eating!

Jen

I'm on a diet!

Ok. Before you all think that I've fallen off my brioche-lined rocker, the diet I'm on is the 100 Mile Diet. In fact, I'm such a believer in this diet that I'm leading the campaign to spread this way of eating and consuming through the Rusty Coast. The diet focuses on eating foods grown within 100 miles of where you live. We even have a website! For me here in Nanaimo, 100 mile is from Campbell River, to the west coast of the island, past the southern end and all the way east past Agassiz. That's a pretty big garden to draw from.

The 100 Mile Diet Nanaimo campaign is being launched with a Challenge Week from Sept. 11th to 17^th. I figured, I’d get a head start and start upping my local produce consumption this week. Though with a produce box from Nanoose Edibles, local free-ranged eggs from Nanaimo Sausage House where I pick up my produce box and oodles of fruit gleaned from friend’s trees and berry bushes, I’m well on my way.

On Saturday, a ravishing redheaded friend and I wandered over down the island to the Duncan Farmers Market to do a little chatting with the farmers and their patrons. Farmers are such real people. You know? They are literally and figuratively grounded. Some are a tad too grounded but they have a sense of place and time that has relevance. Time is not measured by some arbitrary ticking of a clock, place is not marked by convenience.

All the farmers I spoke to were thrilled by the idea of a 100 mile diet campaign in the area. They pressed business cards in my hands, they waxed poetic about their product, and they invited me up to their farms for a tour. They spoke of the simple joys of being part of a community and enjoying good whole foods and a real meal. I met Steve Miller from the Shadybrook Farm who raised cattle and lamented the possibility of not being able to sell their beef to the public due to bureaucratic red tape that’s trying to shove them down. From his stand, I picked up an inside round steak for dinner that night. All his cattle are raised in an ethically and environmentally sound manner. His stand also carried chicken in every cut imaginable, from stock bones to boneless breasts to whole chickens.

A few stalls down was the Cottage Farm stand where I found strawberries and blueberries still being sold. I picked up a huge box of prune plums, a bunch of huge oblong beets, a bunch of multicoloured carrots (yellow, purple mixed in a with their orange buddies, a beautiful head of cabbage). I spoke briefly to Helma Stewart, the farm’s proprietor, who insisted that call her to chat more and even gave me her cell phone number. Right beside her was the Gabriola Gourmet Garlic guy, who also makes the wonderful Definitely Different Chocolate line. He sold me a bag of garlic for planting and when asked when I should pop them into the ground, he advise that it be best that I plant them on midnight of October 15th, naked by the light of the full moon. Frisky vampires beware!

One of my favorite cheesemakers happens to sell at the Duncan Farmer’s market: Hilary’s Cheese Company. Hilary Abbot is a cheesemaker after my own heart. A charming man who loves cheese and the craft of cheesemaking. His Belle Anne, a French inspired cheese that has been washed in a locally made blackberry port is one of my favourite cheeses. He also an ash-ripened camembert that has revived my love for camembert. The milk for his cheeses comes from a farm minutes away from his cheese operation. That day I picked up a goat feta which tastes nothing like the industrial frog farts cheese that you find shrink-wrapped in the grocer’s dairy case.

We popped over to Hilary’s store in Cowichan Bay shop later that day. He shares store space with Tru Grain Breads, a real artisan baker who also brings in a Red Fife wheat grown in Saskatchewan and a spelt grown in Armstrong, BC. I picked up a couple bags of Red Fife wheat and some spelt. I know, Saskatchewan is way out of the 100 Mile radius but it is milled right there in the bakery and it’s organic. There’s no way I can make it without bread. The original 100 Milers got some precious flour from The Roost, a bakery that’s part of the Highland House Farm in North Saanich. On this hobby farm, Hamish Crawfood has planted Red Fife wheat which he turns into bread for the bakery. I may just have to plan out a Southern Vancouver Island food trip and see if I can beg or bribe some of this flour from him.

Many of the stands were boasting the first harvest of local apples. Organic apples for a buck a pound! Yippee!! I picked up a bag of Gravensteins, which are a wonderfully tart, crisp apple perfect for baking. I also love it with some good old cheddar. I also picked up a bag of Galas which are sweet and aromatic and put those industrial farm gala apples to shame. My backpack was already getting pretty full so I only picked up 3 pounds in total. It’s crazy that produce aisles at big grocery chains are inundated with mediocre apples from everywhere else but only offer one or two local apples. And usually one of those is the industrial farmed Red Delicious which looks great on the outside but has the taste and texture of wood pulp. Thank goodness for small local farmers that are keeping a variety of apples going and understand that there are some of us that don’t like the plastic aftertaste of the factory farmed apples.

I got to talk to wide range of folks from farmers to their patrons. I even ran into Mara Jernigan, resident chef for the Fairburn Farm B&B in the Cowichan valley. The farm boasts the only herd of authentic water buffalo in North America. There is a freaking water buffalo dairy in my 100 Mile region! (Jen does happy buffalo mozzarella dance). She’s also a rep for the Slow Food movement and a cooking instructor. And she has great tastes in shoes :)

It’s amazing how the farmer’s market has become a true community hub. Farmers, food producers and chefs that have organically (pun intended) formed a network of culinary wisdom and culture. There were many food and beauty producers selling as well. From soap to lavender products to jams and preserves to baked goods, one would wonder why anyone would ever need a grocery store.

It was apparent which vendors there were there to be part of a culinary community and which ones were there to simply make money for themselves with no intent of supporting the larger community. I suppose those vendors that don’t utilize any local produce in their products would have little immediate financial advantage to helping out the local farmers. Luckily, not all of them are of that mindset. Many of the other vendors were was happy the chat and were supportive of the 100 mile diet campaign even though it wouldn’t profit them directly, however others were downright chilly when I visited their booth.

BTW, I found gomashio at the market which is basically black sesame and salt. Who would’ve thought that this standard Japanese macrobiotic diet condiment would show up at the Duncan farmer's market? It was all packaged up pretty and labelled and, of course, overpriced. My Japanese friends would have a good laugh over how much people pay for this prepackaged condiment considering that most of them make it in bulk at home for pennies. You can make it yourself for a fraction of what it costed there by picking up a bag of black sesame seeds for $2 in the asian food aisle and adding a bit of sea salt. I use 1 tsp of salt for a ¼ cup of dry-toasted black sesame seeds. Just toast up the seeds in a dry pan, whirl it in your grinder with the salt or pound it in your mortar and pestle. It’s easy!

Check back soon and I’ll be telling you all about this great restaurant I found in Duncan! Maybe I'll even share one dressing turned my farmer's market bounty into a great 100 Mile diet meal.

Until then, treat yourself to a locally grown apple.

Jen