Because everyone is a "foodie" in our family, we thoroughly enjoy the opportunity to try new things and I guess this blog will always have something to do with local foods (something which has become a passion for us).
I never thought that moving to the country in Southern Ontario would expose us to new food experiences (certainly not after having traveled the World). We have been conditioned to accept the "standard" produce of grocery stores in Canada, yet there is so much more that is offered by the land surrounding our big cities.
One great example of this is Winter Squash. Until this year, the only squashes we had been accustomed to were the "standard" pumpkin, butternut, acorn and spaghetti squash. This year, the farmer across the street opened our eyes to the incredible variety available. So without thinking twice we acquired a bushel (winter squash can keep for up to 6 month in a dark place where the temperature is consistent and not extreme).
PS. These large "fruits"also provide a significant amount of food at a very low price (the going rate here is 20$/bushel).
So what did we get, well a whole bunch of squash (large and small) with names like Blue Hubbard squash, Sweet Potato squash, Pink Banana squash, and Blue Ghost squash. There's even another for which I've forgotten the name.
Squash are quite versatile and all are either reminiscent of the pumpkin or the sweet potato. Usually we find the differences are in the sweetness or the tenderness of the flesh. As a result, one squash recipe will usually work equally well with another.
The first squash we had to try was the Pink Banana. Not only does it have a "cool" name but the squash itself is a pink "monster". It is a very large oblong and pink squash. So we decided to try some variations of our Butternut squash recipes with this pink oddity.
The first step was to peel and cube this "monster". Surprisingly this was easier to do than tackling a Butternut squash. The Pink Banana has a thinner shell making it easier to peel and the flesh is somewhat softer than a Butternut.
Our first recipe was simple: we took our cubed squash, added some wedged parsnips, chopped garlic and our garden parsley with some olive oil and popped the whole thing in the oven. It did not take long to cook (I think this is a reflection of the tender meat of this squash) but the results were great and make a fabulous side dish.
Of course since we had a lot of Pink Banana squash (a whole lot of it in fact), we extended this recipe to soup. We took some of our roasted squash and parsnips and put the whole thing in some stock. Cooked a bit longer, added a touch of milk (cream would probably make this even better) and placed the lot in a food processor. The result is a delicious soup which I figure we could can and preserve (if I could get the family to stop "inhaling" everything that comes off the stove).
Looking for versatility in squash we also decided to make a Pink Banana Squash pie. For this, we again roasted the cubed squash (on its own). We coarsely mashed the squash, added a couple of eggs, some white and brown sugar, cinnamon and ground cloves. We put the whole thing in a homemade pie crust and baked.
The result of this experiment were again surprising. Everyone loved the pie (it was somewhat similar to a good pumpkin pie). With a dollop of whipped cream or some vanilla ice cream it would have been magnificent.
On the farming front, Tristan got an early Christmas present in the form of a rotary tiller.
Over the past few weeks we have been trying to work out how to establish new rows of canes or vines in a well sodded area. We did not want to completely turn the soil and re-sod it, preferring to keep as much of the soil's ecosystem intact. The concept would be to till some rows this fall and then re-till them in the spring with some manure prior to planting our new stock.
Using a small rotary tiller would have done the trick. However, after renting a rear tine (blades behind the wheels) rotary tiller - something which should have been powerful enough, we discovered that our sod was very difficult to break. With a standard machine we would have had to make perhaps half a dozen pass over each rows.
We were faced with a quandary, a small rotary tiller could not break our sod, a tractor pulled rotary tiller would have created rows much too wide for our intended vines (and it would also be a very expensive option).
The solution is what I call Tristan's Ferrari. A BCS 732 professional tiller. I call it a Ferrari because frankly it does have that "feel and look"....but of course it's also made in Italy. PS. It also has the price of a Ferrari when compared to your conventional tillers! One note about this machine, although made in Italy, the engine is from Honda so we can expect reliability and servicing is simple.
This machine turns out to be much more than a tiller. In effect, it is a small two-wheel tractor with a PTO (Power Take Off) for many different kinds of attachments. This means that for the tiller, the tines (blades) are not driven by a belt, but rather directly into gears allowing the tines to turn much faster than those of conventional machines. This makes it a very powerful "beast".
The results were everything we expected. Even after one pass, we already had broken our sod.
It turns out that these small two wheeled "tractors" are very popular in Europe where farms are constrained by the size of their lots. I think this machine will turn out to be the ideal tool for our small farm as well, where we expect to effectively grow a variety of fruits on small dense lots. We can now equip our BCS with everything from a brush cutter to a wood chipper so its versatility will go a long way to getting us a payback on this investment.
This week however was not very productive. Our weather was greatly affected by Hurricane Sandy. The Hurricane "landed" in New Jersey and then crossed Pennsylvania where it became a tropical storm. Just to give everyone a sense of our location, from the highest point in the Niagara Peninsula (just a couple of kilometers from our farm), on a clear day you can see Toronto - across lake Ontario, and the Pennsylvania Blue Mountains - across Lake Erie.
The result for us was a miserable week of rain with only a few clear patches of sky. We also saw winds gusting to over 80 km/hr. We were in fact worried about flooding on our land (not the house since we are on a highly elevated ridge on a very sandy soil), but closer to our ponds and in the gullies between the rolling hills that encompass our farm.
It turns out that although the ponds were almost overflowing (one pond was raised by at least a meter)....everything was fine. We lost a few old shingles (from the roof which is not yet complete) and saw a few dead branches drop. But that was the extent of it. The homestead has been here for well over 130 years and I suspect it is going to do so for at least another century.
So I leave you this week with some photos showing the impact of Sandy and how our ponds have made out (note: the beavers now have some work to do to raise their dam since it was actually breached at one point).
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