August 2016 – Can-Do Real Food

August 15, 2016

The Flood in Oregon

By this time last year we were hip deep in tomatoes but then again, we had a 10-day spell of 100 degree days the end of July and that zipped up the ripening process.

This year we had a warm spring and for a while crop ripening was about three weeks ahead of normal but then, we cooled down.

Oh, it was delightful to be in the low 70s but that meant that the temperature dipped to the low 40s at Bethel Springs Farm, my largest farm partner. So, for several weeks the farmer has been telling me “three more weeks” and she is still telling me that.

However, this past Saturday I got a call from Sarah at Wood Mallet Farm located in Yamhill. She and her husband Elliot are in their first year of farming the land they bought and so had no idea of how marketing would go. They attend the farmers’ market in McMinnville every other Thursday and one in Sherwood on Saturdays, but found themselves with about 60 pounds of surplus tomatoes that afternoon.

I had met Sarah one of the first market days and had explained the mission of Can-Do Real Food, so she found my card and made the call and now we are perhaps ankle deep in tomatoes.

We have tried to streamline the prep process, but if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to toss them out! We wash and trim spots and stem ends and then chop in the food processor.

The recipe calls for first cooking the onion and added carrots and zucchini and garlic.

Then we add the tomatoes and let it simmer for about an hour.

Finally we add the herbs, continue the simmer for a bit. Check the pH and adjust for food safety and then can can can.

We will repeat tomorrow with the rest of the produce and both Wooden Mallet and Can-Do Real Food will be able to offer our very popular Loaded Pasta Sauce this week!

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We also made some mild tomatillo salsa today and will make another batch tomorrow with significantly hotter peppers for those consumers who enjoy something that makes them reach for a beverage as well.

August 10, 2016

The Many Steps to Approval

The decision to become a commercial food processor was made with a great deal of thought, good advice and, amazingly, a lot of naivety. You just don’t know what you don’t know on any new endeavor and I was in for an interesting ride the first 18 months.

I understood I needed to get certified by the Better Processing School and when I checked to see when the course would be offered in Oregon I discovered it was two weeks before I looked. Okay, not a horrible roadblock, in fact, there was no roadblock at all. The program is one that is established on a Federal level, so although each state offers it generally through its land grant college, University of California Davis offered an online program and so, that was that. Easy enough.

I needed to find a commerical kitchen and that was easier. I knew the kitchen at McMinnville Cooperative Ministries had been designed about ten years ago to enable a crew of novice volunteers to work together to feed 300-400 people each Saturday morning. The space is amazing. The features are abundant. The kitchen is well known to the local Health Department and to the other officials who must approve features before a kitchen is allowed for commercial operation. All was well.I needed to obtain a food processor license from the Oregon Department of Agriculture and there were a myriad of requirements for that. I obtained the license to make jams and other concoctions with sugar but the recipes requiring lemon juice or vinegar fell into another category. Those needed a sample analyzed by a lab specializing in food and only those with numbers meeting or exceeding a safety standard could then move on to the next step. Any delinquents could be modified and then, if passing the lab step, could join the others.

The next step was for those lab numbers and the recipe itself to be reviewed and approved by the Processing Authority. Here in Oregon it is Mark Daeschel, a PhD of Food Science at OSU. He determines the safe parameters for processing and and then issues a letter indicating those requirements.

Only then can I submit all recipes with a copy of Dr. Daeschel’s letter to the Federal government for acceptance. They are working on streamlining that system; the first time it took 5 weeks, this time it took about 15 hours.

Following all those levels of approval I have another visit by the state Department of Agriculture to review my record keeping and make sure all those pesky i’s are dotted and t’s crossed.

Then I can start to cook. Good thing the weather was cooler so far this summer and the tomatoes are still on their way, not stacked up waiting on my action!

So, basically, the step most home canners take is deciding what they want to preserve and finding a good recipe. While Can-Do Real Food is small and makes batches of food just a few times larger than the home canner, we must comply with all the food safety rules and regulations like the mega corporations.

And happy to do so. We are a local to local enterprise, sourcing our ingredients as much as possible within 20 minutes of McMinnville and selling to consumers also within that small area.

August 3, 2016

Figs, Take Two

So we went to pick figs last Sunday and came home with about 20 pounds and plans to return for more. These are green figs, maybe Spanish King and we picked the ones that were slightly to mostly squishy, letting the rest ripen a bit more.

The choices for processing are endless but right now we have narrowed it down to three ways. We will dehydrate for snacking, make a fig paste for eating with cheese or baking into fig newtons, and try to replicate an amazing fig orange marmalade I tasted at the Fancy Food Show.

Yesterday we started cooking the figs down into a paste and since it was taking FOREVER, we stopped after four hours and refrigerated it. Today we continued and a couple of hours later were able to can it.

I brought a pint home and prepared the dough which needed to chill in the frig for about four hours. This gave the fig paste a chance to cool itself.

So, after supper this evening, I tackled one of the fig newton recipes I pulled from the internet.

I am not a superb baker, but boy oh boy, if you like figs, you need to stop at out table at the farmers’ market this Thursday to taste and to buy!

Almost done baking

And about to be eaten!!!