Last weekend I visited Fiesta Farms to do a little shopping for that aforementioned rabbit, among other things.
While I wandered the aisles, one of the other treats I came across was a lovely 2 pound clamshell of those alluring Meyer lemons. Surprising even myself, I resisted the urge to buy up the whole stand on sight.
You see, I’ve been enjoying the taste of Meyer lemons in restaurants for ages, but until now had never seen them at the grocery store. Of course, since I use an organic delivery service I rarely go to a grocery store to begin with, so I should hardly be surprised. I’ve been pondering where to find Meyers (as well as the more ornate Buddha’s hand) for quite some time, so when I spotted these I immediately had to snap some up.
Coincidentally, days later I happened on a fellow Torontonian’s entry in Tigress’ Can Jam who had managed to find Buddha’s hand lemons (Whole Foods apparently carries them – go figure!) in Toronto, so I imagine I will be visiting them soon, too. I’m not entirely certain what I intend to do with a Buddha’s hand lemon yet, but I’ve been rolling a concept similar to limoncello around in my mind along with the possibility of infusing it into some rye. But that is a different tale for another day. Back to those Meyer lemons…
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Tags: Baking, cookies, Epicurious, Fiesta Farms, frosting, lemons, Purveyors, Recipes, Restaurants, The Hoof Cafe, Whole Foods, whoopie pie
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When I was growing up I wasn’t exposed to much in the way of game meat. Aside from the occasional curried goat roti (a nod to my mother’s Caribbean heritage) or a festive Cornish rock hen (often my father’s answer to preparing holiday meals for 2) I didn’t really develop a taste for wilder fare until I was in my early 20’s.
Without a doubt, the one meat I’ve been an exceptionally slow adopter to is rabbit. This is partly because the skinned carcass of a whole rabbit too closely resembles that of the small felines that share my home. I make no bones about eating cute, fuzzy animals if they taste good, but the possibility of questionable provenance has held me back in the past.
It’s taken a few years, but I’ve gradually warmed to the idea of rabbit. It may have started during a meal at Cowbell or perhaps tasting a terrine from The Black Hoof, I’m not quite sure. While we were in Quebec City in the fall I enjoyed shredded rabbit confit linguine at Le Lapin Saute, and for our anniversary I consumed a similar dish at Splendido. I’m still not a fan of rabbit rilettes, but I think I’ve made substantial leaps and bounds (har har!) towards getting over my mental distaste for it.
Recently, I even went so far as to buy a saddle of rabbit at Fiesta Farms, a place I know I can steadfastly trust not to sell me skinned kittens. But for several days the packet of rabbit sat on the bottom shelf of the fridge, taunting me.
At first I’d considered using the Ratio app to make another batch of dough for tagliatelle, but pasta seemed an awful lot of work, and also not very far outside of my past 2 rabbit experiences. I briefly toyed with confit as well, until I realized the duck fat was frozen. (more…)
Tags: Cooking, Cowbell, Fiesta Farms, grainy mustard, Grant Van Gameren, Le Lapin Saute, Mark Cutrara, Michael Ruhlman, New Projects, Purveyors, rabbit, Recipes, Restaurants, Splendido, The Black Hoof, Victor Barry
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I don’t venture out into the great big wide world full of corporate consumerism often.
And by that I mean I don’t spend an awful lot of time in shopping malls and grocery stores.
Although, suffice it to say that since moving my working life to the ‘burbs, I spend more time at the mall than I ever used to, if only to stave off the insanity and boredom that comes along with a lack of decent food.
Perhap my naiveté is showing, but I prefer the small scale operation; one where you can still get a sense of the human touch. Because of that, we buy 95% of our food groceries from an organic delivery service called The Clean Food Connection, and whatever they don’t have I source from small local grocers (like Friendly Magnolia Fine Foods or Fiesta Farms) in my area.
So, it would be safe to say that I’m not really up to speed on current grocery store trends, which is partially why I was so gobsmacked by my visit last night.
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Tags: Fiesta Farms, Friendly Magnolia, grocery, Grocery Gateway, Loblaws, Mrs. Butterworth, No Frills, Pocky, Purveyors, shopping, Taste TO, The Clean Food Connection
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As nothing more than an honorary Italian, I decided some time over the course of the summer that this year I wasn’t going to “do the tomatoes”.
We still had plenty of canned whole romas and sauce from last year, and the bruschetta recipe I’d canned turned out to be one big, mushy failure, so it didn’t seem necessary to go through all of that dirty, steamy work again this fall. But, as with all of my best laid plans, more exuberant intentions got firmly in the way.
And so, that was how on the 1st of October I found myself reaching out to every resource I could for advice on where to procure a few bushels of roma tomatoes. The time of year coupled with our supremely awful growing season left me with some pretty slim pickins’. Even my old standby, Fiesta Farms was completely sold out of their cache of bushels, with every grocery store I contacted between here and Mississauga all but laughing at me. One gentleman from Highland Farms was particularly morose, simply stating the the tomatoes were all done, in a manner similar to one used to inform someone of a death in the family.
But, nobody can ever say I do things by half measures.
Wracking my brain for alternatives, I remembered the many organic grocers we’d tested out prior to settling on Bob a few years back. After a few more calls, I found that Front Door Organics had two bushels of organic local tomatoes left, and in that moment I decided I was taking all of them. Last year I processed close to 150 pounds of tomatoes. This year, I was going to have to make due with 40. Of course, the one catch to the situation was that in order to buy the bushels, I had to order one of their weekly “fresh boxes”, because you can add to an order, but a fresh box is mandatory. Total cost for 2 bushels of tomatoes plus a fresh box? Just slightly above $100. However, I was only personally using 32 of the 40 pounds of tomatoes, and the fresh box replaced my weekly jaunt to the farmer’s market, so the actual cost for 32 pounds was $55. Still steeper than last year’s $15/bushel, but these were organic tomatoes, and it was the end of the season, so I’m sure the price was reflective of supply and demand.
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Tags: Books, catsup, conserva, Cooking By Hand, Fiesta Farms, Foodgawker, Front Door Organics, Golda's Kitchen, Highland Farms, Paul Bertolli, Preservation, Purveyors, Quattro Staggione, Recipes, tomatoes
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A few days ago, I kindly coerced the Everyman into taking me over to Fiesta Farms after work.
Aside from being a really beautiful, locally-focused grocery store, it’s invariably the place I turn to when I’m in need of large quantities of foods that Italians tend to be passionate about. For instance, a few of the bushels of tomatoes that I canned and sauced last year were procured from their garden centre.
On this particular visit, I was in search of a flat of figs. You see, this past weekend I was standing in front of my shelf full of canned edibles in the sunroom, admiring my handiwork when I realized I was down to my last two 4 ounce jars of fig jam. Horrors! I’ve been making fig jam for several years now, but the Everyman’s relatives are such fans of it (being the lovers of cheese that they are) that inevitably I end up gifting at least half a batch to them each time it’s made.
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Tags: cacao nibs, chia seeds, Cooking, Fiesta Farms, figs, goji berries, jam, New Projects, Preservation, Purveyors, Recipes
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Well, gentle readers of the internest, it has been almost 5 days since I threw down the gauntlet and decided to undertake the great tomato project. And now, as I sit here at 7:30 pm on Thursday, I can say that it is finally over, and I emerged victorious. No, really!
It started out simply enough, but, as with most of my best laid plans, it spiraled out of control into a massive undertaking quite quickly. Originally I had just planned to can some homemade bruschetta; just enough to last through the winter, and it was going to be with my homegrown heirloom tomatoes. Unfortunately, that was before I understood how there are specific chemical balances required in canning, and that you can’t just process whatever random recipe you feel like putting in a jar using a home canning setup. At this point I thought to myself that if I was going to go to all that trouble, I might as well just do several things together anyway.
And this is how I ended up with close to 140 pounds of tomatoes littered on my kitchen and living room floor. You see, I’d ordered two bushels from my friendly, neighborhood organic delivery guy, but he ended up bringing me forty pounds, thinking that I really couldn’t need that much. And at the time, those tomatoes were hopelessly under-ripe and not ready for my canning. So, that is how the Everyman and I ended up at Fiesta Farms on Monday, purchasing two huge bushels of tomatoes.
When I got home Monday night I set to work sorting and cleaning and coring and peeling tomatoes. That night I canned half of the twenty four cup bruschetta recipe, and ten litre jars of whole crushed tomatoes. I was probably on my feet from 6 pm until almost midnight and the floor was still entirely covered in tomatoes. Oh calamity, what have I gotten myself into?
Tuesday morning saw me finish processing the rest of the jars of whole crushed tomatoes and head off to work with tomatoes on the brain. When I returned home that evening I set to preparing the other half of the bruschetta recipe, and several trays of oven roasted tomatoes. By the time I went to sleep that night the bruschetta was put to bed and the oven roasted were well on their way to being done too.
On Wednesday morning I awoke to find our house reeking like a pizzeria. The oven roasted tomatoes had been cooking overnight, and were just about done. If you are ever so inclined to make these, make sure that you plan accordingly, as it can take as little as 10 hours and as many as 14. And I suggest that you do make these, because they are absolutely marvelous, like biting into a pizza without the dough.
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Tags: Cooking, Fiesta Farms, insanity, New Projects, oven-dried tomatoes, Preservation, Recipes, tomatoes
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