The Great Canadian Bacon Festival
The Great Canadian Bacon Festival This is going to cause a stir. It’s bacon, it’s Canadian and it is happening on Canada Day! Oink, snort and grunt your way to this festival which is being held on Friday, July 1st at The Arva Flour Mill. Organizer Sarah Reynolds wants you to know: “Canada’s first ever bacon festival is a showcase of bacon delights to help raise funds towards the Arva Flour Mill Restoration Project. Each bacon enthusiast pays $5 for a wristband at the door (kids enter free) and then has the chance to sample treats directly from local pork producers/butchers. Even though we have the word festival in our title, we’re nothing like other food festivals. Our only focus is to invite bacon lovers to share a great meal with us and celebrate what Canada Day stands for, community culture and great food. Doors open at 11 am . The festival provides free parking, free educational arts & crafts for children, a silent auction table, some fantastic music and a shuttle bus from the Masonville Farmers Market every half hour. We’re also providing a full vegetarian menu with gluten free items for those who want to check things out but may not wish to consume meat products.” Thanks Sarah! I have told you all about The Arva Flour Mill before. It is one of my all time favourite, locavore destinations. If you still have never been – this is the perfect opportunity to go and check it out while the festival is on. If you are an ole’ regular of the mill – it is a great time to go and see some changes that have happened there. For instance, there is a new sign and a super fancy truck (see below), which I was able to snap a photo of one day as I was walking past the Mufflerman in London. The proceeds of this festival are actually going to a Restoration Project for the mill, so I am sure there are big plans to bring this ol’ beauty back to her original glory. I love the mill, I love the mill! You should love the mill too. It is a real gem to have a historic mill that is producing organic, local flour right here in our city, let’s show them we love them (and bacon!). Arva Flour Mill Truck Baconfest, Canada Day. Will you be there? I will. See that poster up at the top? It’s printed on meatpacking paper, how cool is that? I am going to eat bacon, get a t-shirt and love my mill. Will you join me? Read More
Lavender Fairy Cakes
Lavender Fairy Cakes | Photo: Kelly Hunt It”s true. These lovely little cakes are called Fairy Cakes. Do you believe in fairies? It”s okay, you can admit it, I am Irish, so it is part of my heritage to believe in leprechauns, TÃr na nÓg, unicorns and fairies, so I certainly won”t be judging. I have a load of lavender growing in my front garden this year and it is now starting to bloom. I have a potluck for my book club this evening, so I decided to harvest some of the lavender and make these very traditional lavender fairy cakes. They are very flowery and the texture is very different from a cupcake, try them out and let me know what you think. I really should create a whole post one day on edible flowers, it is a subject unto itself. Lavendar Fairy Cakes For Cake 1/2 cup super fine sugar (I used regular sugar) 1/2 cup butter unsalted butter, softened (Gay Lea is local) 2 local eggs 1 tablespoon of cream 1/2 teapoon of vanilla (maple syrup is an excellent local substitution for vanilla) 1 and 1/4 cup of Arva Flour Mills All Purpose Four 1 and 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt one teaspoon Finely Chopped local lavender For Icing 1 and 1/2 cups of icing sugar water Decoration Sprinkle of fresh lavender buds Silver balls (dragees) DIRECTIONS Preheat oven to 400Ëš In a big bowl beat together the butter and the sugar until fluffy. Add in a egg (one at a time), beating for about a minute for each egg. Add in vanilla and cream and beat for another minute. In a separate bowl, mix together flour, salt and baking powder. Fold this mixture into the wet ingredients, just until combined, don”t over mix. Line muffin tin with cupcake liners. Put an equal dollop of mixture into each liner, pop into oven and bake for about 18 – 22 minutes. Start looking at 18 minutes. The cake should act like a sponge when you push on it, it should push back at you. Once they are slightly golden they are done. Move to a wire rack to cool. Just before the cakes are done baking, mix together your icing sugar and enough water (not much) to make a thick white icing. Drop a glob onto each still wam cake and let it drip around the edges, it will harden – but before it does, sprinkle with lavender and any other little decorations you like. Read More
Easy Irish Soda Bread
Irish Soda Bread | Photo: Kelly Hunt Sometimes trying to eat local includes having to bake a lot of things from scratch. This can get very time consuming and often overwhelming at times. As an example, let”s take baking bread. Mustering up a delicious loaf from scratch can sometimes be scary, take a whole afternoon and hell, some breads (sourdough) can take days to make! Well, if you are anything like me, you may lack the patience for such recipes and sometimes you just want a nice warm bread fresh out of the oven that does not take hours to make and consists of super simple ingredients. I”ve got one here for you that has 4 ingredients and takes under and hour to mix, bake and eat. So, want to make some ridiculously easy bread that taste delicious? Try this, you”ll like it. Easy Irish Soda Bread 4 cups of white flour (Arva Flour Mill) 1 tsp baking soda 1 tsp course salt 1 3/4 – 2 cups of buttermilk Butter for pan Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Grease your dutch oven (cast iron pot with lid), or baking dish that will hold a big ball of bread. Mix the flour, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Add the buttermilk (start with 1 and 3/4 cups and add a bit more if you feel you need to). The dough should be moist and sticky. If you add too much buttermilk, no worries,just add a bit more flour in to fix it up. Dust a working surface with flour and knead the dough a few times on the surface and shape into a rough ball. Place dough into dutch oven and with a sharp knife,slice a cross on the surface. Place lid on dish and bake in oven for 30 minutes. Remove lid and bake for about 18 – 2o minutes more, until crust is golden. The bread should sound hollow if you tap on it. Let the loaf rest for a few minutes and then turn out to cool on a wire rack. Traditionally, the Irish would cover the bread with a damp cloth to keep it moist, but you might eat it all right away and not have to worry about this step. dee.lish.ous. Read More
The Arva Flour Mill
Arva Flour Unbleached | Photo: Kelly Hunt This post is long overdue, I would say about a year and a half overdue. Yes, I have been at this blog for just under a year and a half now and I have not featured the Arva Flour Mill. I mention them all the time, but I have not highlighted them as of yet, which is weird – because I shop there often. I was telling someone about this just the other day and what I concluded was that that I never seem to have my camera on me when I go there. Mister Blue | Photo: Kelly Hunt Mister Blue, what a scene stealer! Well, I was there again today and (again!) did not have my camera. But I thought, I will just post some pictures of my purchase from home and make it happen already! So, what you see above is the 10 kg bag of Daisy Flour – it is the Mill”s Unbleached White Flour. That 10 kg bag rings up at $12.50 which I think is a great price. The grain used to make the flour is brought in from local farms that surround the mill. The coolest thing about the Arva Flour Mill is that it is run on water power from Medway Creek – how cool is that?!! The very first time I visited the mill, there was a young German exchange student wearing a beret and working a summer job at the mill and he actually started it up for me and my friend to see. It was the coolest thing ever! There are all these compartments that the grains come spilling down into and then the hydro from Medway Creek gets the power running into the big grinding belts that move quickly back and forth – the sound is deafening and amazing. The different compartments are for different grades of flour, I believe that the Daisy Unbleached White Flour is one of the finer flours available, I should have asked – but it makes sense that it is. Because it is a white flour,it would get ground down to remove the grain husks and then again and again until it is smooth enough for baking. Another thing you might like to know is that the Arva Flour Mill was started in 1819! There are resident white ducks and geese on the grounds of the mill,so make sure you don”t drive over them with your car or your bicycle! The Mill Store has many goods for sale – you will be amazed. There are Greaves Jams and Jellies, all kinds of baking supplies, nuts, dried beans, other flours, some dairy products and even fresh local eggs. Don”t forget, on Saturdays Jeff from On The Move Organics may be there selling organic produce. Oh – and yes, the rumors are true – Jack and Meg White of the “The White Stripes” played a totally spontaneous and unannounced concert at the Mill in July of 2007 – see here: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ie8a_the-white-stripes-at-the-arva-flour_music Boule Boule! Getting back to the baking, and to help you think of what you might do with 10kg of flour!! I made this amazing Boule Bread. It was my first artisan bread, and it turned out so well I am just thrilled! The shape is a bit off – Boule means “ball” in French, so it should have been a bit more circular. This bread is from the latest addition to my cookbook collection and it is called “Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day”. This Boule bread is the base recipe of which most of the breads in the book are based on. I would love to publish the recipe here to share with you, but that would not be fair to Zoe – one of the authors, whom I just started following on Twitter. She also has a great website for you foodies out there – check it out! Please visit the Mill! I know it is all too easy to buy flour at the grocery store and I even do sometimes when I am desperate. Remember, something like this Mill is available to us – right in our own city! It seems too good to be true – it is a hidden gem, really. So get there, vote with your food dollars to keep The Arva Flour Mill running! Kelly hearts the Mill. xo View Larger Map Read More
This O is for You
If you like organic produce, this post is for you. Now, if you like your organics to also be local, well then – this post is really for you! This is Jeff Pastorius. Jeff is super passionate about getting organic foods to us – the people. What is even better is that Jeff believes in the local food movement. He tries very hard to source his food locally before he goes anywhere else. This means that Jeff actually goes around in this funky bus/truck to all kinds of organic farms that surround London and picks up the food and brings it to the market. This is a great thing for the farmers that would otherwise not have their product make it to a London Market and it is an even greater thing for the consumer, because we know local organic is hard to find. Jeff also delivers organic produce through the week by bicycle – did I tell you he is passionate about food? Well, you would have to be, to be lugging it all around town on a bicycle. If you are interested in ordering one of the food boxes instead of visiting the market – please visit the On The Move Organics website at http://onthemoveorganics.ca/ You may have bought some things from Jeff in the past and if you have, you will know that he is super friendly, chatty and likes to take the time to tell you about the farm that the food came from – he is really knowledgeable. What you may not know is that On The Move Organics has been setting up a stall at the Arva Flour Mill on Saturdays for the past month or so – weather permitting. The Arva Flour Mill is an amazing place, a historic flour mill that still operates – as long as we all go there and spend our money. Vote with your food dollars people! The Arva Flour Mill is a gem just north of the city (in Arva), that I beg you all to go and visit. There are ducks wandering around the lawn and all kinds of other products in the store besides flour. Besides running a produce stand at the mill, the rest of the time you can find Jeff and possibly his sister helping out at the Friday North London Market. He is also at the Western Fair Market. If you choose to visit the Arva Flour Mill (and I hope you do!) and would like to know if Jeff will be there that weekend,kindly just email him. His email and contact info can be found on his website. Read More
Baked Goods Spotlight – Covent Garden Market
Rhubarb Tart Today was the opening day for The Covent Garden Market. As any of you know that made it out today, the weather was not the greatest . Even though very windy (so windy that the tents were threatening to jump their ropes!), the sun still managed to make a brief appearance and it was reasonably warm for a few minutes. That was time enough for me to make a decent dent in my grocery budget. I went for asparagus and rhubarb, but I left with 2 kinds of bread, green onions, mint, tarragon, rhubarb tarts, breakfast muffins, lemon tartlettes, a jar of carrot & cardamom preserve and a few other nibblies that we ate there. There are three vendors at the outdoor market that sell baked goods: International Bakery, Made From Scratch and Bake*Well. I purchased my very artisanal looking breads from International Bakery,I happened upon the rhubarb tarts and the breakfast muffins from Dee at Made From Scratch and Stefanie at Bake*Well provided me with the lemon tartlettes,carrot cake with cream cheese icing and the home made carrot & cardamom jam. I have not had the doughy pleasure of diving into the breads just yet, but how can I go wrong with a professional baker baking such rustic breads? They look and smell delicious, every time we got back in the car as we ran our Saturday errands it smelled like a bakery in there -Vundenbar! Moving on to the rhubarb tart and breakfast muffins – yes, I ate them both in one day! You see, Sean and I went in for a coffee at the Little Red Roaster where he ate what was left of his carrot cake – for the record, he did allow me a small nibble and it was delicious! Then there was my rhubarb tart – I need to take my time on this one… it was soooooooo good! First of all, it was flaky in all the right places. Secondly, I am guessing that there must have been two kinds of sugary goodness in there to combat that tarty playfulness of the wonderfully rouge rhubarb. Lastly, the pastry was light and crumbly, topped with oats and all the right spices, it was just devine! Dee tells me she is using Arva Flour Mill flour for most of her baking needs. She goes in and gets a 50lb bag of flour! She was giggling as she told me, I did too – I can just imagine this tiny woman hauling her 50lb bag out of the mill. Dee was lovely and I am glad to meet her. Later on in the day, Sean and I shared the breakfast muffin, we made it a lunch muffin – it was full of seeds, nuts and many other good things. It was slightly sweet, just the right amount, and it was full of complex flavours and it did not even contain sugar! Quite satisfying and although it felt like a treat, it also seemed like it was good for us. On to Stefanie at Bake*Well. … On her table there were assorted tarts, preserves and I think there was a quiche. I am not so sure, my memory is vague as I was distracted by Sean drooling all over a very large carrot cake before I even finished paying! I purchased a super intriguing looking preserve type thingee – it”s a jam, it”s a preserve.. it”s Carrot & Cardamom! I am very excited to try this at a later date, and I will be sure to post the results at that time. I chatted with Stefanie for a few minutes – people, you have to meet her – she”s adorable and she believes in supporting the local food movement. Almost everything on the table was made from mostly local ingredients. For instance, she also uses the Arva Flour Mill and takes advantage of seasonal ingredients like berries and nuts in her baked goods and preserves. So now you are saying okay, okay – but why are those lemon tartlettes on there? Yes, the other thing I purchased was two lemon tartlettes, and of course the lemon filling is not from a local lemon, but the crust and other ingredients are! I bought these for a special treat for me and my mum tomorrow for her special Mother”s Day lunch. Can”t wait to dive in! Thank you Stefanie and I am SURE I will be back. Once again, The Covent Garden Market surprises me with its various treats supplied by its local producers, it is such a great place to go on a Saturday morning and when I am there I feel that it has it”s own little vibe and this particular visitor just loves it! Read More
