Sharing the Love!

Here's a funny thing: usually I do a year end wrap up and include a list of my favourite blogs for the year. This year time got away on me and I only recently wrote a small post on some the year's highlights but skipped the bloglist. So I am ever so grateful to FarmGal for awarding me a Liebster Award, not only for the pleasure of being one of her favourites but for giving me the opportunity to honour a few blogs that I enjoyed over the last 12 months.

There some guidelines that go with this my first ever blogging award. Liebster is a German word that means 'beloved' so that is the criteria I used when choosing the blogs I am passing the award to. It's a shame you can only choose five tho.

Here are the rules:

1- Choose FIVE up and coming blogs to award the Liebster to. Blogs must have less than 200 followers.
2- Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.
3- Post the award on your blog. List the bloggers you gave the award to with links to their sites.


Here are my five, with a strong Canadian slant:

Harvest Kitchen Sisters: Two sisters, one blog. One lives in the country and the other in the same city that I do. Full of practical advice and great recipes. Oh and lots of pictures of babies!









Backward Leonard: A self described city girl gone country, Liz and her family live near Peterborough and get up to all kinds of antics. Funny blog name, even funnier writing!






Wet My Plants: Best blog name ever! Ellie is a fellow city dweller and as her blog title suggests she's a hardcore plant lady and she delights in all things unusual. We swapped stuff last year and I grew a beautiful moonflower vine thanks to her. I have serious envy of her green thumb!








Twig and Tree Farm: Linda has a small "organic" (italics hers) farm in the Niagara region where she grows hundreds of heirloom tomato varieties, among other things. If there's such a thing as tomato porn, this blog is it. I'm going to make it to one of her open door events this year even if I have to walk there!

Your Place or Mine: Elsie posts about multiple topics and not so frequently but her sense of style is fabulous! She is my dear friend but she left me to live and work in UK. Now I am lost without my personal fashion guide so it's all her fault if I appear frumpy.

So that is my five but I wish I could award it to so many more. Share the Liebster love!

Dark Days Updates

As usual the holidays were a blur and trying to eat SOLE and find time to blog about it proved to be an impossible dream. So I lost a few weeks and don't know what week I'm on any more. Since I did manage to cook a few things recently that encompassed the spirit if not the letter of the Dark Days Challenge I thought I'd do a quick update.

Post holiday eating is always a bit of a challenge. We've been oversaturated with rich food and haven't had time to shop for much in the way of fresh produce. And on top of that, the Sorauren market was on hiatus over the holidays so I've been missing my most ready available source of local ingredients. So I've been dependant on whatever we have in the freezer or pantry. Luckily both were fairly well stocked.

I made this dish based on something my mom used to make us when I was a child. I don't think it actually has a name but I jokingly refer to it as her fusion style because it has a base of her frugal Scots heritage mixed with elements of her French Canadian roots. In this case I used local smoked bacon and duck fat(I rendered myself) which we didn't have growing up but I'm sure Mom would approve.
1 leek, white and light green part, chopped
3 cups coursely chopped cabbage
1 med cooking onion chopped
1/2 cup of bacon cut in small pieces
1-2 tbsp duck or bacon fat
1/3 c maple syrup or to taste

Melt fat in a cast iron or similar frying pan. Add bacon pieces and saute for about one minute on med heat(longer if you like your bacon crispy- I don't). Add all veggies and saute until soft,about 5-7 minutes. Add maple syrup, stir to coat evenly. Turn off heat and allow to rest so flavours mingle but sugars don't burn. Serve as a side or a meal on it's own (feeds 2).


I mentioned in my first Dark Days post that I have issues with maple syrup made in Ontario and I promised to expand. My mom's family is from Quebec, near Montreal and maple syrup is a way of life- my grandfather was known to eat it on everything from eggs to coffee. Sugaring off time is a big community celebration and the most treasured syrup is the first run. I've grown up with this as the ideal syrup and although I am born and raised in Ontario, when it comes to syrup, Quebec will always be my gold standard. Ontario syrup has two things against it for my tastes; darker syrup (which I think tastes like molasses) is far more popular here, and it's common here to tap species of maples other than sugar maples. It's for the latter reason that my grandmother always referred to Ontario syrup as "fencepost syrup"; in her mind they'd tap anything in Ontario!

I've found I'm not the only one with very stong opinions when it comes to maple syrup. I've even been accused of liking 'flatlander' syrup by a native Vermonter, which I found funny since my ideal syrup is produced high in the Laurentian mountains. Apparently the light grades in Vermont are sold only to tourists.
There are different standards, as well as grading scales for maple syrup in Canada and the US (Vermont has it's own). "In Canada, syrups must be at least 66 percent sugar and be made exclusively from maple sap to qualify as maple syrup. In the United States, a syrup must be made almost entirely from maple sap to be labelled as "maple"." (from Wikipedia).

In Canada, maple syrup comes in 3 grades and each grade has colour classes. Canada #1 is broken down into Extra Light (sometimes known as AA), Light (A), and Medium (B); Grade #2 is Amber (C); and Grade #3 is always Dark (D). In Ontario, Canada #2 Amber may be labelled "Ontario Amber" when produced and sold in that province only.

The United States only uses two major grades: Grade A and Grade B. Grade A is further divided into three subgrades: Light Amber (sometimes known as Fancy), Medium Amber, and Dark Amber.

The lightest syrup to me is the best because it has the appropriate sugar content without the strong mineral content that many people believe is the 'maple' taste. The darker syrups are produced later in the run and because the sugar content is lower they must be boiled longer to concentrate the sugars to the correct density. The last syrup produced in a season is sometimes jokingly referred to as the 'frog run' since it may be far enough into spring that you can here frogs croaking. A good syrup producer will stop tapping long before that; the sugar concentrations in sap are extremely low by the time the first buds begin to open. Anything darker than Light in my books isn't true syrup so I wait until I can receive my annual share from Quebec and then hoard it like liquid gold. The syrup pictured above it is the last bit left from last year's run and has darkened over time in the fridge but it still retains it's delicate flavour.

So call me a maple syrup snob if you will- I can live with it. Just don't try to serve me 'fencepost syrup'.

Surviving January

It's probably a bit early to be posting about the winter blahs since here in Toronto we've barely even had any winter yet. In fact it was balmy 7 degrees C yesterday and today is looking to be even warmer- yes that's laundry on the line! But it's been mostly grey and bleak for what feels like months already and even sunny days seem too short. It's so easy to slip into a funk when all I feel like doing is reading or watching movies, and even getting dressed seems like too much effort. In my defence I did receive a lot of great books for Christmas, including these beautiful clothbound editions of classic novels that the Russian gave me!

In the video dept I have my dear friend Kate to blame for my latest addiction- Downton Abbey is a beautiful period piece set in England in the early 1900's and I've been devouring the first season which I was able to download entirely along with a Christmas special. I was also delighted to discover that Season 2 begins airing on PBS this Sunday at 9pm!

I never did get around to doing a year end wrap up post so I thought I'd post a few moments in pictures. The highlight of the year was of course my trip to England: my aunt and I had a fabulous time and I hope very much to make another trip there soon.

My search there for both Kilner history and Kilner jars was a success and then my friend Leigh trumped the list with this beauty she recently brought back to Canada with her. It's a vintage 3lb jar that is going to look great on the wall of jars.

The gardens on the other hand have had better years. In fact the less said about them the better. The best thing about a new year is the ability to forget all the heartbreaks of last year's garden because it's a clean slate again. I'm already dreaming of what I want to grow this year!

The one sad note of 2011 was losing my beloved Casey in Sept. I still occasionally forget she's gone and then miss her all over again- 20 years of habit I guess.


I'm grateful to still have my other two Farmcats even now that it's winter and they are as stir crazy as we are. They get restless being inside so much and need regular amusement lest they find some on their own (hide the toilet paper and lock up the yarn!)Our favourite method of entertaining them in the winter is the mini disco balls we have strung in the sunporch. At this time of year when the sun does shine, it streams in the windows; sunbeams reflect off the mirror balls and bounce all over the place. The cats think it's a marvelous game. Best cat toy ever!

And of course I am full of joy that the Russian is still here in Canada. Although it's been a year since he was granted permission to stay, he's still awaiting the documents that make him a permanent resident and until he has those in his hand he won't believe it 100%. Government bodies move slowly and at times it's still frustrating-the longer it takes the more he doubts it will really come to be no matter how much I try to reassure him. Having those papers will mean we can make more plans, as well as allow him to travel outside of Canada again and he hopes to be able to see his daughter who he hasn't seen in 4 long years. Hopefully he won't have too much longer to wait.



Despite my earlier grumbling, 2012 looks to be a promising year. Colette and I have decided to emulate our Can Jam experience by attempting to can one recipe a month again and we have our eyes on Meyer lemons for January. And speaking of canning I finally splurged on a pressure canner just before Christmas but I've yet to try it out so I'll be sure to record my first attempt!

We've also got some other great plans for this winter, including building window farms and of course tapping maple trees again- mmmm, syrup!
At work we're putting together a number of interesting projects as well. I'm still amazed that I'm getting paid to come up with gardening plans and related projects and I can't wait to get going. There's even a rumour that I might be working with bees and possibly even chickens!!

Maybe I should enjoy the quiet time while I can!