Terra Madre Day in Saskatchewan

Yesterday, December 10, is Terra Madre Day -- A time to celebrate the local bounty around the world. So, last night in Saskatoon, we made a thoroughly local meal:

Ravioli filled with lamb and chanterelle mushrooms.

I make the pasta dough and fillings and my husband puts them together.

 

(Lamb from a local farmer; chanterelle mushrooms from the northern forest frozen in season; dried herbs -- sage, rosemary and oregano -- from my garden.

The pasta was made with eggs purchased at the sawmill at Rosthern, a product of the owner's sons.)

Ravioli filled with beet greens and ricotta cheese in

a sage butter sauce.

(Beet greens and from my garden sauteed and frozen in season; sage freshly picked from under two feet of snow!)

Maple Walnut ice cream

(Cream from a local farmer; maple syrup tapped near Kamsack)

 Extras for another meal!



Mushroom Season - Newspaper column

Isn't spring just lovely! Morels and fiddleheads kick off the summer eating season. Read more in my monthly newspaper column Home for Dinner, where you'll find the recipe for this lovely leek and chanterelle tart. Chanterelles will be in season in late July, so get ready! 

Soup Weeks 33 & 34 - Mushroom

There was a tub of Saskatchewan chanterelles in the frigo so I experimented with mushroom soup. The second version had a much more satisfying ratio of mushrooms to broth.

Why skimp when mushrooms are plentiful, if only for a short period of time! 

"Best Mushrooms in the World"

My mushroom supplier was the subject of a Globe and Mail article by roving food writer Ian Brown, who paid a visit to Saskatchewan a few weeks ago. I had no idea just how many mushrooms Lorne and Lois supply in chanterelle season -- 2,000 pounds every three days! They sell to a broker in Vancouver who says Saskatchewan chanterlles are the best! Read on...

Newspaper column - MUSHROOM GOUGERE

This column appeared in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix on 21 June 2010.

I’m a big fan of eggs. What other food is just as welcome at breakfast, lunch or dinner, as an appetizer, main course or dessert? In my quest to eat all things local, I buy eggs at the farmers’ market. But it’s nice to know that between markets, locally-laid eggs are as close as the grocery store. Many of the major brands in eggs—from the Co-op to Costso—are provided by Star Egg of Saskatoon, a family business that has grown into an egg empire.

Star Egg processes a million eggs a day, give or take, collected from more than 50 farms around the province, supplying 85 percent of Saskatchewan’s egg market according to Dana Haynes, whose grandfather started the company almost 80 years ago.

Yet only 35 percent of those million eggs stay in the province; the rest supply grocery stores from Manitoba to British Columbia to the North West Territories. “Of course, the Saskatchewan market isn’t as big as some other markets, but we’re proud of where we come from,” says Haynes.

Her grandfather Walter Harman started the Harman egg company in the 1930s on his farm near Prince Albert after he was laid off from his job in a local factory. In the 1960s, his son Bert Harman joined the company and expanded by purchasing Star Egg in Saskatoon and, two years ago, moving into a new facility on Quebec Ave.

Haynes has fond memories of gathering eggs with her grandfather on the farm: “Grandpa was very jovial, but he worked hard, too. If we dropped an egg, he’d say, ‘That’s 10 cents off your wage.’ We learned that an egg is a valuable asset and you don’t want to be breaking them.”

Star Egg is almost fully automated, but even the machines are gentle. The eggs flow in a steady stream through the cleaning and inspection booth, roll over the weigh scales, glide down the conveyor belts to a row of soft round brushes that place the eggs within reach of the automated “clam shells” which gently pick them up and set them into their awaiting cartons.

Egg consumption in Canada has dropped from about 23 dozen per person per year in the 1960s to about 14.5 dozen today (including processed eggs), and is rising slowly thanks in part to a range of new custom egg products. These include liquid, powdered and separated eggs—you can even buy pre-packaged hard boiled eggs—and eggs with special qualities such as free-run, organic, vegetarian and omega-3. Star Egg markets its specialty eggs under the label GoldEgg.

“I think it’s important to listen to the public and try to provide different options, because everyone’s purchasing choices are based on how they feel or what they believe. We always want to be cognizant of that,” says Haynes. “At the end of the day, an egg is an egg. It’s an affordable, quality source of protein.” And each egg is one in a million!

Mushroom and Chive Puffs (otherwise known in French as gougere)

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup butter

1 tsp coarse salt

1 cup flour

3 eggs, room temperature

1 cup aged cheddar cheese

1/4 cup powdered dried mushrooms

1 tbsp chopped fresh chives

Note: I used dried chanterelle mushrooms picked last fall in Saskatchewan and powdered in a spice grinder.

Heat oven to 400F. Heat the milk, water and butter in a saucepan on medium low until it starts to boil. Add the flour all at once and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until the flour forms a ball that is no longer sticky and a dry film forms on the bottom of the pan. Remove from heat.

Using a handheld mixer (or place the dough in a mixing bowl) beat lightly for two minutes to release some heat. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing each one fully into the dough before adding the next. The dough will be smooth and waxy, thick enough to scoop with a spoon.

Incorporate the cheese, mushroom powder and chives. Using a teaspoon, scoop the dough into balls and place them on a baking sheet lined with a silicone pad or parchment paper. Bake at 400F for 20 minutes. Turn off the heat, open the door and leave puffs in the oven for 10 minutes. Makes about 24 puffs.

The Morel of the Day

I popped downtown to meet Lorne from White Fox, where he handed over a basket of fiddleheads, then he threw in a goodly number of just-picked morels. So, now the dilemma. What's for supper tonight, fiddlheads or morels?

It's Mushroom Heaven

We may be complaining about the cold, damp summer, but the mushrooms love it. To quote my mushroom man, Lorne Terry, of Whitefox: "We've had real miserable weather, so it's good."

The morels were good this year -- better then BC with its heat and fires -- attracting pickers and buyers from across the West.

Then the chanterelles came on strong. As long as the weather stays warm, not hot, with a mix of sunny and rainy days, Lorne says the mushrooms will continue to produce. Which means I'm in mushroom heaven, too!

It's morel season - MOREL & TOMATO PASTA

Aren't they lovely! They were picked up at Jan Lake, Saskatchewan, and shipped to me on the STC bus. I kept what I needed and resold the rest to my friends (at $10 a pound).

Morel and Tomato Pasta
First, I made a rue: Melt 1 tbsp butter in a pot on low. When melted, quickly stir in 1/4 cup flour. Stir until all the liquid is absorbed by the butter. Add 1 cup milk and whisk vigorously until the flour/butter mixture dissolves in the liquid, with no lumps. (You really do need a whisk; a spoon won't do it.)

Keep warm on a low burner, stirring now and then to prevent sticking. It will thicken. Add more milk, whisking well to incorporate. If the sauce becomes too thick, add more milk until you have a desired consistency. Season with salt.

Meanwhile, cook pasta according to package instructions. Drain the pasta.

Melt 1 tbsp butted in the pasta pot. Add a handful of chopped morels. Saute until soft. Add two tomatoes, chopped. Cook until they get soft and juicy. Stir in 1/2 tsp dried thyme. When the mushrooms and tomatoes are gently cooked, stir the mixture into the rou. Heat through. Taste and add more salt if needed.

Place the cooked pasta back into the pot and heat, stirring now and then, until the pasta is hot again. Scoop noodles into a bowl and top with morel sauce. Like many pasta sauces, this one is even better the next day!

A pheasant dinner - PHEASANT CACCIATORE

Before --------------------------------------------After

Of course, this pheasant has story: Sue and Vance bagged it down by Grasslands National Park. They gave it to me on New Year's Day, which was so bloody cold that I left the bird in the back of my car for a few days. One evening I met some friends (Sue and Vance among them) at Boffins for a drink and a skate, and I told them there was a pheasant in the back of my car. Later, when I came out to my car, the pheasant was gone.

Who on earth would steal a dead bird from the back of a car? No one, as it seems. We found Mr. Pheasant behind the steering wheel buckled in as if he were the chauffer! Quite a sight, I tell you. The funny thing is, we'd been making pecker jokes all evening -- as in Keep Your Pecker Up -- which in England means Keep Your Chin Up -- the pecker being a beak. So, in my best fake English accent (apologies to Tina), may I say that The pecker was in the driver's seat!

All that aside, it was quite tasty in the slow cooked Italian dish called cacciatore. You'll find the recipe at this post.

Newspaper Column - MUSHROOM AND LENTIL SOUP

Published in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix, 15 September 2008.

Eating locally can cut the miles on the food we eat, but it certainly hasn’t cut the mileage on my car. There is no “one stop shopping” for local food, so filling the larder requires some creative logistics and more than one trip. For instance, for a couple of weeks in August, I was a regular at the STC bus depot in Saskatoon. I was there to pick up a relatively rare and coveted commodity: chanterelle mushrooms from the woods near Nipawin. About sixty pounds in all, most of which I resold to family and friends.

For a couple of years, I drove to La Ronge to search for wild mushrooms. Given that I wasn’t all that successful, the STC method provided a lot more mushrooms for a lot
less miles. In the past, I have driven into the country to pick sour cherries at a u-pick farm, but this year, my friend Judith went to France for a month and invited me to pick her cherry tree while she was gone.
However, I did get down Valley Road once to pick strawberries and twice for wild saskatoons. My family owns a piece of prairie on the Saskatchewan River where, after picking our fill of saskatoons, we shared a picnic on a high bluff with spectacular views.

In recent years, I’ve been to a fish farm, a spice farm, a salt mine, a bison ranch, a blueberry festival and a flour mill. I don’t mind driving all over God’s green acres in the pursuit of food. It’s a lot more fun and a lot more scenic than a trip to the grocery store, and it’s great to meet the people who produce the food I eat. There is a growing controversy about food miles and the assumption that closer is always better for the environment. Food that is shipped in large quantities in fuel-efficient trucks might emit less greenhouse gas than something produced locally and brought to the city once a week in an old gas-guzzling jalopy.

On top of that, the distance travelled is just one factor in the equation. Other processes can contribute to the carbon footprint such as whether the food is produced organically (less fossil fuels) or refrigerated for a long time (more fossil fuels). To illustrate this point, a study found that grass-fed lamb raised in New Zealand and shipped to England had a smaller carbon footprint than grain-fed lamb raised in England. Another researcher calculated that it takes less fossil fuel to fly beans from Kenya to England than to grow them in England, in part because Kenyan farmers work the land by hand, not big machines, and fertilize with natural manure (synthetic fertilizers are made with fossil fuels).

So, in terms of the environmental footprint, is it better to buy local greenhouse lettuce in winter or imported organic lettuce grown in warmer climes? I’m not sure, and frankly, I’m not counting.

There are other good reasons to eat locally. Local food is usually fresher, healthier and tastes better. I meet the people who produce my food and ask questions about how it was grown or raised, what’s been added to it, where it was butchered or when it was picked. Every dollar I spend stays in the local economy supporting farm families. It also encourages local processors, which creates jobs in the community, and it builds a sense of interest and pride in what Saskatchewan agriculture has to offer here at home and around the world. And every now and then, I have an excuse to jump in my car, get out of the city and go for a little drive.

If you’re interested in local food and environmental issues, check out the annual Sustainable Gourmet Dinner Oct. 4 in Saskatoon, where I’ll be a guest speaker. Details are available here.

Curried Mushroom and Lentil Soup
1 tbsp canola oil
1 onion chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp ginger root, minced
1 lb fresh mushrooms, sliced
2 tbsp curry powder
1 tsp dried thyme
2 cups Saskatchewan lentils
8 cups chicken stock or water
Salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a soup pot. Sauté the onion, garlic and ginger until soft. Add the mushrooms, curry powder and thyme. When the mushrooms begin to wilt stir in the lentils, coating them well with the oil and spices. Cook, stirring until all the moisture has been absorbed. Add the chicken stock (or water). Simmer until the lentils are cooked, about an hour. Add more liquid if the soup gets too thick. Season with salt and pepper to your taste.

The Mushroom Bus

Yea for provincial buses, which this week brought me 50 pounds of chanterelle mushrooms from the forest near Nipawin. Well, I didn't eat all 50 pounds myself, but resold them to my foodie friends. It would be nice to be able to buy Saskatchewan mushrooms in the grocery store (so why aren't there any?) but failing that, thank goodenss for the bus.



Tonight I made pasta with mushroom sauce. On the side, that's a couple of deep fried zucchini flowers, baby zucchini still attached. Yummy...

I'm a fun-gal - MOREL AND FIDDLEHEAD ORZOTTO

Well, I am having fun in the kitchen! I just came into a heap of fresh-picked morels and fiddleheads from north-east Saskatchewan, and I wanted to cook them together in the same dish. This orzotto was delicious served with grilled porkshops and asparagus. (Orzotto is what I call a risotto-type dish made with pearl barley instead of rice - a very Saskatchewan substitution.)

Morel and Fiddlehead Orzotto

1 cup fiddleheads
3 tbsp butter
1 cup chopped fresh morels
3 green onions
4-5 cups vegetable stock
1 small onion, diced
1 clove garlic
2 tbsp olive oil (or canola)
1 cup pearl barley
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 tsp fresh chopped rosemary
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

Soak the fiddleheads in well salted water for 30 min. Drain. Rinse the fiddleheads several times to remove little flecks of brown husk. Melt 1 tbsp of butter and cook fiddleheads until wilted. Season with salt and pepper.

Finely chop the green onions, white part only. Melt 1 tbsp butter. Cook morels and green onions until softened. Season with salt and pepper.

Heat the stock to a simmer. In a heavy-bottomed pot, melt 1 tbsp butter with 1 tbsp olive oil. Sauté the diced onion and garlic until soft. Add the pearl barley, stirring, until all liquid is absorbed. Add the wine and cook until it has evaporated. Add one cup of vegetable stock, stir well, and cook until the liquid is almost absorbed. Add the remaining stock, one cup at a time, cooking and stirring until the barley is creamy and tender to the bite.

Stir in the fiddleheads, mushrooms, rosemary and cheese. Taste and season with salt and pepper as needed. Serve with an extra sprinkling of cheese.

Flavours of the Orient - HOT & SOUR SOUP

Hot & Sour Soup
Despite its Asian flavours, most of the ingredients in this soup can be found locally in and around Saskatoon. Here is a list of the ingredients in my soup, but feel free to substitute what is available to you. Measurements are not precise—use as much or as little as you like:

Mushrooms – sun-dried Saskatchewan chanterelles (rehydrated in hot water)
Chicken broth – homemade from a farm chicken (see technique)
Tofu – locally-made; purchased at Chung Wah Chinese Grocery in Riversdale.
Bean sprouts – sprouted from the Asian blend sold by Mumm’s Sprouting Seeds.
Chives – from my garden
Green onions – from the grocery (local when available)
Hot sauce – made by Droolin’ Devil (a Saskatoon company)
Bamboo shoots, sesame oil, white wine vinegar, soy sauce, rice noodles – imported brands.

Bring 4-5 cups of chicken broth to the boil. Add the mushrooms and their soaking liquid. Add sliced bamboo shoots (perhaps 1/2 cup). Add firm tofu cut into bite-sized cubes. Add one bunch of rice noodles (thick or thin). Reduce heat and simmer a few minutes, until the noodles are soft. Add a few chopped green onions and a big handful of bean sprouts. Stir in:

1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp cornstarch mixed in 1/4 cup water

Stir soup until thickened by cornstarch. Remove from heat. Beat one egg. Pour egg in a stream into hot soup, stirring all the while. Season with salt to taste. Spice up with hot sauce to your liking. Serve in bowls sprinkled with chives.

(In the past, I have varied the ingredients to include: chopped leftover chicken, snow peas and/or broccoli.)

Newspaper - MUSHROOM ORZOTTO

This first appeared in the Saskatoon Star-Phoneix on 16 January 2006.

My husband gave me a cookbook for Christmas that’s heavy enough to be a door stop. It’s called The Silver Spoon, or in Italian, Il Cucchiaio d’Argento. It’s been the most popular cookbook in Italy for 50 years. With 2,000 recipes, it’s massive.My goal is to adapt it to Saskatchewan.

This is, for the most part, an easy task because so many traditional Italian recipes can be made with Saskatchewan ingredients. Pesto, for instance, is a popular pasta sauce. The primary ingredients are basil and garlic, which thrive in our hot dry summers. Opening the book at random, I come to Tomato and Mozzarella Packets. It calls for cherry tomatoes, basil and parsley (all grown here), mozzarella cheese (made by Saputo in Saskatoon), eggs, pancetta (bacon or ham will do) and pastry.

I should explain my motives: Since last spring, I have been eating almost nothing but Saskatchewan foods in my own home. It’s an experiment in local consumption that’s good for the economy, for the environment and for my health. My taste buds like it, too. In fact, I have adopted some habits of a traditional Italian cook. I shop at the farmers’ market, I buy foods that are fresh and in season, and I choose recipes that fit the ingredients on hand (rather than buying "imported" ingredients to fit the recipe).

The first thing I cooked out of The Silver Spoon was Mushroom Risotto, which I made for New Year’s Eve dinner with grilled steaks, coleslaw and, for dessert, cake with cherry sauce.
Risotto is a rice dish named for the Italian word for rice, riso. For risotto, the water is added one cup at a time, until the rice is plump and creamy, not dry and fluffy like boiled rice. The risotto section in The Silver Spoon is eleven pages long. Of course, white rice is not grown in Saskatchewan, but no matter, because I have discovered it is equally delicious made with pearl barley.

Which raises an important question: What do you call risotto made with barley instead of rice. Since the Italian word for barley is orzo, I’ve decided to call it orzotto. There you have it – the invention of a new Saskatchewan dish.

My pearl barley was purchased last summer from the Daybreak Farm near Estevan. As for the mushrooms, I used chanterelle I picked myself in the forest near La Ronge, which I sautéed lightly in butter and froze. (The Italian recipe calls for dried mushrooms; you might be able to get some at the Saskatchewan Made Store on 8th Street. Soak in water before cooking.) I also used my garden tomatoes (frozen), rosemary (dried), parsley (which is miraculously holding out in a vase of water in my fridge) and fresh sage (which is still green underneath the snow).

Mushroom Orzotto
1 cup sliced mushrooms, sautéed in butter
2 T butter
2 T olive or canola oil
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 sprig each rosemary, sage and parsley, chopped
4-5 tomatoes, chopped
salt and pepper
6-7 cups water or vegetable stock, boiling
2 cups pearl barley
1/2 cup red wine
1 cup Parmesan cheese


Melt the butter and oil in a stockpot. Sauté the garlic, onion and herbs until soft. Add the tomatoes and cook for 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add the barley, stirring until the grains are shiny and little liquid remains in the pan. Add the wine and cook until evaporated. Add a cup of boiling water (or stock), stirring until it is absorbed. Continue to add water, one cup at a time, stirring until each one is absorbed before adding the next. As you get closer to done, the barley will need more stirring to ensure it does not stick to the bottom of the pan. When the barley is almost done, add the mushrooms. Stir in the parmesan cheese. The orzotto is ready when the barley is just tender to the bite. Sprinkle each serving with some cheese and perhaps some fresh parsley.

Week 17 - PINE MUSHROOM AND BARLEY RISOTTO

Saskatchewan Menu of the Week -- 10 August 2005

Breakfast -- Scrambled eggs with chopped tomato.
Lunch – Open-face cheese, tomato and basil (toasted).
Dinner – Pine mushroom and barley risotto. Fried fish. Raw kohlrabi.

PINE MUSHROOM AND BARLEY RISOTTO
I picked these mushrooms myself near La Ronge. They are a great delicacy in Japan where they are eaten by men for verility. (A young mine mushroom has the same shape as a certain male body part.) The pearl barley came from the organic mill at Daybreak Farm of Estevan.

Melt 2T butter is a saucepan. Sauté 1C sliced mushrooms. (I used pine mushrooms I picked near La Ronge, but any mushroom will do.) Remove the mushrooms and set aside.

Add 1C pearl barley and stir until the barley is coated in butter and starting to stick to the bottom of the pan. Pour in 1C warm broth. (I used homemade chicken stock). Cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquid is absorbed. Add 1/2 C white wine and cook until evaporated.

Continue adding broth, one cup at a time, until the liquid is absorbed and the barley is creamy and just tender to the bite. Season with salt and pepper. Return the mushrooms to the barley before serving.

Week 8 - BARLEY RISOTTO

Saskatchewan Menu of the Week - June 10.

Breakfast – Yogurt and raspberries (thawed).
Lunch – Lentil salad.
Dinner – BBQ pork chops, barley and mushroom risotto, berry crisp.

Barley Risotto
Risotto is an Italian dish made with short-grained Arborio rice. Luckily, it can be made just as well with Saskatchewan pearl barley. The cooking method is important – hot liquid is added gradually so the grains absorb maximum liquid and become soft and creamy.

2 tbsp butter
1/4 cup dried Saskatchewan mushrooms, soaked in water
small ionion, chopped
2 tsp fresh herbs (thyme, rosemary and chives)
salt and pepper
1 cup pearl barley
4 cups chicken stock or water, simmering
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

Melt butter in a pot on low heat. Drain the mushrooms, adding the liquid to the chicken stock. Sauté the mushrooms. Remove with a spoon and reserve. Sauté the onion and herbs, adding salt and pepper. When the onion is soft, turn up the heat. Add the barley and cook, stirring, until the butter is absorbed and the barley is starting to stick to the pot.

Add one cup of simmering chicken stock. Stir briefly. Cook until the liquid is absorbed. Add another cup of liquid. Continue this process until the barley is creamy and tender enough to eat, 30-40 minutes. You should not stray too far from the stove or risk burning the barley on the bottom of the pot. If you need more liquid, add water.

Stir in the mushrooms and parmesan cheese. Taste and adjust the salt and pepper. Serve warm.

Sources: barley from Daybreak Scheresky Mill, mushrooms from the Saskatchewan Made Marketplace; herbs from the farmers' market, homemade chicken stock.