Roasted Red Tomato Sauce
Do you ever have tomatoes that are kind of bland and not as flavorful as you hoped for? Here is a trick to bring out their flavor – roast them!
Select your tomatoes:
Put them in boiling water for about a minute then plunge them in cold water to make the skins easy to slip off.
Slice, then place in an oven on low heat to roast.
Once tomatoes are well roasted put through a food mill then spice according to taste.
Flax
Flax seeds add a nice nutritious nutty flavor to many dishes and the fibrous stalks can be spun into fiber. Growing this plant in the Northwest is so easy that it’s almost seen as a weed.
First grow the flax:
Picture from: www.flaxandhemp.bangor.ac.uk/
Once it has matured and the seed pods are fully formed, harvest it and let it dry in a dark place. Once the seed heads are dry lay them on a cloth and crush the seed heads to release the small seeds.
Next winnow it to separate the grains from the chaff.
Here is the final product; lovely golden flax seeds.
To learn more about how to process the stalks into fiber visit here.
Kimchee!
What’s crunchy, spicy hot and really good for you? Kimchee! Here’s how to make your own. It’s much easier than you would think.
The first step is to chop your veggies and spices:
Next mix the spices together:
Mix in the veggies:
Once all is well mixed put in a jar and let sit until it’s fermented:
Once your kimchee is ready invite friends over and eat!
Here’s a recipe with more detailed instructions.
Shareable Food and the Law
From Shareable here’s a really comprehensive and interesting article on innovative ways that people are sharing food.
The Health Department didn’t show up when I made dinner for my neighbors last night. Fortunately, our health and safety laws don’t usually dictate how we prepare food in our personal and private realms. But humans have a natural tendency, an urge to feed each other, and the shareable food movement is taking that to new levels – levels that bring up some legal curiosities.
“The Underground Food Movement” has become a thing lately. It’s a foodie’s utopia in Oakland these days, where I’ve snuck off to meals at “underground restaurants” and sampled urban homesteaders’ goat cheeses and preserves.
But this movement goes deeper than its sheer yumminess. We thrive on food. When we share in efforts to grow, process, prepare, and serve food, we greatly enhance our abilities to eat well, provide for ourselves, and build livelihoods around food. Sharing food is particularly important during hard economic times and many small food projects develop out of unemployment.
The realm of shareable food is flourishing with community meal sharing, potlucks, gift-economy restaurants, community food growing projects, food swap events, pop-up stores, stone soup gatherings, food-buying cooperatives, goat-sharing, chicken cooperatives, events like The Big Lunch, and so on. Plus, restaurants step aside! A handful of start-up companies are creating peer-to-peer platforms to help people feed each other. Check out Grubly, Munchery, Gobble, and EatWithMe which connect chefs with foodies and/or catalyze community food events. More…
Beacon Food Forest Update
Food Foresters, Friends and Neighbors,
www.beaconfoodforest@weebly.com or http://www.facebook.com/beaconfoodforest
While we can’t offer Beacon Hill grown popcorn this year, it is on our list of plants to grow at the Food Forest. We’ll make due with other organically grown corn this year, and an assortment of beverages suitable to the season. There will be an opportunity to purchase some small stocking stuffers and support both organizations.
So, join us! Admission is free, but donations will be accepted at the door (as will items for the local food bank). Let’s make this the first of many movie nights.
Yours cooking it slow and nutritious,
Friends of the Beacon Food Forest
Portage Bay Grange welcomes urban farmers
Joshua and Annette make whole-grain waffles
Portage Bay Grange in Seattle’s University District recently welcomed The Urban Farm Handbook authors Annette Cottrell and Joshua McNichols to their first Open House on November 19. While we enjoyed fresh-pressed cider, Joshua and Annette described local grain sources, grain mills, and whipped up delicious spelt, sourdough, duck egg, and goat milk waffles.
Urban farming tastes great!
Portage Bay Grange hosts Seattle 4H at Open House
Portage Bay Grange sells small livestock, feed, and a variety of thoughtful urban homesteading mercantile including BPA-free Weck canning jars.
A great place to visit with young kids, the Portage Bay Grange Open House also showcased the very urban and active Cooped-Up in Seattle 4H Club.
This white paper from the Center for Health Design summarizes well the current issues with our food system and why it results in poor health.
Over the last century, we have radically altered the way we produce and distribute food. This transformation of our food and agricultural system has fundamentally affected the health of our planet and its inhabitants. We are already experiencing significant impacts in the form of increased antibiotic-resistant bacteria, poisoned air and water, food-borne pathogens, and collapsing rural communities. We are at the brink of inability to provide future generations with fresh air, water, and food.
The current obesity crisis is receiving attention, yet lacks the context of food production and ecologic impacts. Poor nutrition is a risk factor for four of the six leading causes of death in the United States: heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer. Our current food system favors the production of animal products and highly refined, calorie-dense foods, rather than the fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and other high-fiber foods important in prevention of these diseases. Hidden behind these nutritional imbalances is a food system reliant on and supported by methods of production and distribution that hurt our environment and us. Perversely, it is the obesity crisis that is providing the opportunity to re-examine our twenty-first century food and agriculture practices through a new health-conscious lens.
I Like the Urban Farm Handbook
The Urban Farm Handbook is a really good book. I have read a ton on gardening, homesteading and cooking so when I got this manual in the mail my expectations weren’t all that high. But as soon as I read the phrase about Annette’s husband calling her plan to grow as much of her family’s food as her “Crazy Bus” I was hooked. This book weaves together practical knowledge on how to grow your own food with great recipes and wonderful stories on local urban farmers.
I like how the two authors, Joshua and Annette, have different levels of commitment, (an example is Annette kneads her own bread by hand, Joshua uses a bread machine.). So often people act as if it’s an all or nothing proposition; grow your own or you are not doing right by your family so this take what you want approach is really refreshing.
“These brussel sprouts are good!” said my daughter as she bit into another serving of the roasted brussel sprouts with bacon. This recipe and several others like the power pancakes made with freshly ground grain are sure to become family favorites.
I would like to write more but I want to try the sausage recipe on page 288. Homemade sausage just sounds amazing!
Hyper Local Brew
From the Globe and Mail here’s news on a super local brew. Hops grow really well here in Seattle and we do like our micro-brews? Anyone up for the challenge?
When an average Canadian beer-drinker hoists a pint at their local pub, they likely give little thought to where the ingredients come from. That’s something Michael Clark and Luke Pestl, co-founders of Toronto’s Bellwoods Brewery, are hoping to change.
Mr. Clark and Mr. Pestl launched their City Hops project this summer, an experiment in growing hops in eight different locations in downtown Toronto (hops are flowering plants that are used as flavouring agents in the production of beer). It’s the beginning stages of an initiative to create specialty craft beer made from local ingredients grown in the city, while creating partnerships with local businesses.
Fun with Seattle Farm Co-op!
Want to barter?
Please join Seattle Farm Co-op’s Inaugural Membership Party and Harvest Bartering Event!
October 23rd from 5:30 PM to 9 PM at the Phinney Neighborhood Center (6532 Phinney Ave N).
BARTER: Start filling your larder with stuff to barter! Non-food (handmade knits, jewelry, art) items welcome. Have a skill or services to trade? The only rule: no money!
POTLUCK: Bring something homemade to share for dinner!
SQUARE DANCE: Kick up your heals and swing your partner. No experience necessary. Hosted by the Seattle Subversive Square Dance Society.
BOOK RELEASE: Be the first to own The Urban Farm Handbook. A local how to book from local authors. The Co-op will sell the book.
KIDS CORNER: fun kid crafts and activities hosted by the kids of Seattle’s 4H Cooped up in Seattle
BEER FUNDRAISER: Purchase a collectable bottomless pint glass and enjoy local beers.
MEMBERSHIP ROLLOUT: Become a member of the Seattle Farm Co-op.
BACKYARD BARTER WEBSITE KICK OFF!: Want to barter your extra crafts, harvest and services year round? Check out Backyard Barter’s new website and service to help connect folks with too many zucchinis with others who don’t have enough!
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