Support local cheese-making

I’ve written before about my CSA shares in Monforte Cheese, a local cheese-making company that used a CSA program to raise funds to build their own space. Well, they’ve just announced they’re selling another round of shares between now and December 31:

This second round of offerings is a means to continue development in the production of cheese, but also our goal of strengthening our local food infrastructure through a number of different means (production, education and innovation).

Three levels of investment are available, starting at $200. Find out more on Monforte’s website.

New juice blend: Pear-carrot-kiwi-lime

I invented this one based on what I had around the house. Between the green kiwis and the mixed bag of carrots (white, purple and orange), I was expecting an ugly colour, but instead it turned this lovely pinkish orange (it’s almost a salmon in real life). Four pears, six kiwis, six or so big carrots and a lime – made a lot of juice.

Drink your beets: Beetroot Frappé

The Beetroot Frappé is one of my favourite drinks at Fresh, and their cookbook includes a recipe. Ginger, beets, apples and carrots, blended up with nutmeg and ice. I skipped the blending part and just whisked in the nutmeg.

Beets and carrots from Grow for The Stop via Fiesta Farms. Apples from Plan B.

Also: pumpkin chia pudding is excellent folded into plain Greek yogurt and topped with maple syrup and pecans.

Pretty, pretty juice

This is a citrus-cranberry blend (no beets this time) from The Juicing Bible. Grapefruit, lime and orange. Delicious! I love getting a power shot of vitamin C this time of year, and this is way healthier than chewing those tablets.

A wintry-looking lunch this week

Purple kale salad, squash/leek/corn/wild rice salad, and farro with lentils, caramelized onions and feta (I made mine with spelt and red onions). Looks very wintry – appropriate for the first week after daylight savings ends.

Kale, squash, leek and onions from Plan B. Feta from Ewenity and beluga lentils from Mountain Path both via Fiesta Farms.

Garden-fresh fried green tomatoes

I headed up to the garden this morning to do the fall clean-up and found a bunch of green tomatoes left on the vine. I don’t think I’d ever made fried green tomatoes before, but they were really easy and made a great lunch with a salad (fresh indoor-grown greens from Plan B) and smoothie. I did a rough (not very measured) version of this recipe from Allrecipes.

Another yummy lunch: kale, squash and chickpeas

I went to the Green Barn market on Saturday and stocked up on some deliciousness from Vicki’s Veggies, including bags of spinach, arugula and kale and a giant butternut squash. The squash was so big I used it for two squash salad recipes (both from Smitten Kitchen) that I’ve been enjoying for lunches all week: one with lentils and goat cheese (although I used a soft sheep’s cheese from Monforte) and one with chickpeas and a tahini dressing. It’s the latter that you see in the picture and that I’m eating for lunch today, alongside my standard kale salad.

Raw chocolate buckwheat granola

I love “traditional” granola, but I don’t love that it has to be super high in sugar and fat in order to clump and get crunchy. (Go ahead – read the label of your favourite boxed granola.) So I was thrilled when I discovered raw granolas, which are typically based around buckwheat and clump due to their time in the dehydrator.

Buckwheat, despite its name (and here I feel like I’m repeating a million other articles, sorry if you know this already) isn’t related to wheat and isn’t technically a grain at all – it’s a seed. (Although I have to say, I’m no biologist, but the line between grain and seed seems odd. I mean, you can plant both of them to get another plant.) In any case, it’s gluten free so safe for those with celiac or other gluten-related problems, and it’s very nutritious and high in protein. Toasted whole buckwheat is common in Eastern Europe but the buckwheat we’re talking about today is untoasted. You can tell them apart in the store by their colour – toasted buckwheat is a lot darker.

Your basic raw granola recipe involved soaking buckwheat overnight and then rinsing well (it gets a slimy texture naturally – don’t worry about this, just rinse it off) and combining with other ingredients, including a liquid sweetener, so that a sticky almost-dough (which will be crumbly) is created. Then it’s dehydrated until dry and crunchy.

This time, I reproduced a recipe from Live – if you live in Toronto, you might have seen their packaged granolas for sale at places like Fiesta Farms and The Big Carrot. I recently downloaded their recipe e-book so I could make things like this and save a bit of money. (Although fairly priced due to quality ingredients and a lot of effort, packaged raw foods aren’t cheap.) It’s a chocolate granola (yum!) with tons of raw cacao powder and cinnamon, dried (but soaked before using) apricots and cherries (my sub for their raisins) and pecans (my sub for their walnuts). As a sweetener I used maple syrup.

Ready to dehydrate:

And ready to eat! I serve with homemade hemp milk.

Now I’m ready for the week month.

Sweet potato juice!

I had never even considered juicing sweet potatoes, until Doug McNish suggested it to me. Lo and behold there’s a recipe in my Breville juicer booklet for a sweet potato/orange/celery/ginger blend. Lacking oranges, I went with sweet potato/celery/pineapple, which was not bad at all.

The sweet potato juice is very pretty and a little bit tangy, with a slightly starchy taste. On its own I didn’t love the texture (reminded me of bubble tea) but it blended really well with the pineapple. (Photos are all of straight sweet potato.) My taters were purchased at the Green Barn Market from… well, the sweet potato stall (can’t recall the farm’s name).

Squash and kale: An easy, healthy, work-friendly fall lunch

Just started my lunch and snapped a photo to share. It’s a meal I’ve been enjoying all week and (with a bit of prep work) it’s super easy.

I got two acorn squash in my organics box last week so on Sunday, I cut them in half and roasted them in the oven until tender. I also washed, tore and spun dry a bunch of black kale to keep in the fridge all week. Kale keeps well without dressing – I will often just put the whole salad spinner in the fridge as I find greens keep well in it, but sometimes I’ll transfer to a reused plastic container that I’d bought greens in from the store. Also make sure you have on hand some goat cheese and some nuts or seeds to sprinkle – I used a blend of hemp and chia but I could see using squash/pumpkinseeds, pecans or walnuts as well.

The morning of (or the night before, which is less ideal), make your kale salad for that day. Put the leaves in a bowl and drizzle over it some oil (I used hemp), the juice of half a lemon and a bit of maple syrup or honey. Then massage the kale until the dressing coats it and it wilts a little bit. To measure, I stuff the kale leaves into the container I intend to use before I put them into the bowl. Then I know they’ll fit.

Bring to work your salad, half a squash (or more if you can store in a fridge at work during the week), the goat cheese and the seeds/nuts. Then, at lunchtime, just microwave or heat your squash for a minute or so, mash on some goat cheese and sprinkle with seeds, then serve with salad on the side.

This is a light lunch so I’ve been finishing with a dessert of yogurt. This week I’m eating maple sheep’s yogurt from Ewenity, but Greek yogurt is also a good choice as it’s high in protein so very filling.

Enjoy!