June 2016 – Can-Do Real Food

June 29, 2016

ANTICIPATION

Michelle Burger is the owner of the organic Bethel Springs Farm and sends out a weekly newsletter to her customers so they can place orders that she delivers to them weekly. I received my newsletter this morning and was very excited to see that she is beginning to harvest carrots and zucchinis.

We have lots of uses for both of those:

Carrots and zucchini both go into the Loaded Pasta Sauce. We have to wait for the tomatoes to process that yumminess, so the veggies will be shredded and frozen to bide their time until the tomatoes start flowing.
The carrot marmalade Naughty Bunny is only so-so popular, so we won’t make another batch for a while but the Naughty Zuc flew off the table at the Farmers’ Market. You’ll be seeing more of that soon.
Both carrots and veggies will be making numerous appearances in our new dehydrated line. In soups, in dips, and in snack mixes, be prepared for new taste sensations!

Summer is here!

June 28, 2016

Rare Fruit to Share

This area of Oregon has massive landscaping plant nurseries and many grow specifically for other areas of the country. Together, with the grass seed that is raised here, you probably have a bit of Oregon in your yard.

A few of the nurseries specialize in plants that are not native to this region but can grow here without being invasive. We were introduced to one last year when we arranged with a farmer in the nearby town of Amity to get pears. She took us over to this bush, already harvested, but a few desiccated berries still clung to the branches. They were sweet and reminded me of raisins.

That was my introduction to the goumi berry, eleagnus multiflora, a little-known berry that is a nutritional power house. Goumis are a great source of vitamins A and E, and have the highest lycopene content of any food – even higher than the widely touted tomato. They are found naturally in Central Asia and have no parasites or insects that affect them. They fruit out annually and the bush is loaded. However, there is an issue: they are small and the pit is large. You can see the shadow of the put in the berries above.

Today we harvested about 8 quarts and will use them, with another fruit, to make a jelly. Not sure yet if we will use apple or plum. If anyone has any experience with these berries, let me know.

Meanwhile, we will enjoy sharing something new with the local consumers. I will be surprised if anyone knows this fruit, but any who want a taste will get one. We enjoy playing with our food and we want you to enjoy it too!

June 21, 2016

Tackling a Standard

When we moved to Oregon almost 3 years ago I realized I was surrounded by orchards of hazelnuts. I decided I would make nutella for my kids for the holidays and so I did. The recipe called for refrigeration and the next year I called the Food Safety hotline at Oregon State University to find out if I could keep canned nutella in the cupboard. They took a few days and called me back with a simple answer: no. So I once again made nutella for the holidays but in small jars, promising to make more midway through the year. I didn’t.

The next year, last year, I had become a professional commerical food processor and still had no answer, but in January of this year at several trade shows I saw lots of nut butters and I spoke with the processors. I learned the “secret”.

By roasting the nuts until they are held above 185 degrees for 30 minutes, any bacteria of concern is killed. The nuts can then be ground and voila! your home processed hazelnut butter is shelf safe. Finding a European recipe for the chocolate version sealed the deal and then I faced a hurdle that was even harder. Finding the nuts at a discounted price proved to be difficult.

Here in Oregon most orchards have contracts to deliver their crop to the distributor and few producers hold out any for their own use or sale. I chatted with a few but was told it was not possible.

Then last week Graham and I headed over to the optician we have learned can do amazing things with difficult prescriptions and there, in the shop, were signs about hazelnuts for sale.

So we quickly got to work and prepared the nuts by soaking and then roasting and then we got to work grinding them.

Last week we were able to produced about a dozen jars of plain hazelnut butter we called Nutty Hazel’s Spread in time for the farmers’ market. We teased customers with the coming attraction of Filbert’s Chocolate Revenge and heard squeals of delight in anticipation.

So today we once again soaked and roasted and went through the grinding but this time we added creo’s 73% chocolate. Creo is a small producer of chocolate working closely with the farmers. They receive the beans, roast and then produce chocolate in Portland.

Adding a small amount of coconut oil to help the spreadability, we were able to jar up 2.5 dozen. Yeah!!!

Now, it is important to note that it does not taste like the commerical Nutella you may know and enjoy. Here is their label.Here is our label. You will notice the list of ingredients is considerably different.

I would hope it would taste different.

June 8, 2016June 8, 2016

Respect for Agricultural Workers

I know a couple from church who own a commercial strawberry farm about 10 miles from my house. He has about 30 acres of strawberries and arranges for pickers to come in to fill his contract with a company that uses his strawberries for their product. After they finish, he notifies the church we are free to come in and pick whatever we want. Essentially, glean.

Last year Graham and I picked about 20 pounds and made a huge batch of strawberry syrup to be used at the church’s Saturday Morning Breakfast. It was received enthusiastically by the patrons and ran out pretty quickly.

This year Graham, Jana and I worked for about two hours and managed to get 54.5 pounds. They are now in the freezer at the church to start the syrup process when we go back in on Monday.

These strawberries will not be used for Can-Do Real Food products as we try to only use produce that has been raised without sprays. There are a lot of reasons why a farmer chooses to use pesticides and herbicides. There are also many reasons why others choose not to.

I made a decision about five years ago that my personal eating will avoid those chemical applications to the food I eat and I think about 85% of our diet comes from farmers we personally know.

However, these strawberries are food and available and Can-Do Real Food has a driving mission to reduce food waste. Making the syrup for the Saturday Morning Breakfast at McMinnville’s Cooperative Ministries is about the best WIN-WIN I can imagine.

And whenever I spend time harvesting, I understand how back breaking this work is. We should never look at any of our food without thanking the farmers who made it possible for us to eat. I am not a good farm worker, nor a clean one.