Working for our food

On Saturday, I spent most of the day either in the garden, catching up with the produce that ripened while we were away, or in the kitchen, turning the harvest into soup.

Root veggies and my over-abundant kale were the day's focus. I made about 14 liters of kale soup just from our onions, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, garlic, beets and kale. The only things that didn't come from our yard were the sausage, kidney beans, and chicken broth. Here's the recipe (which I multiplied by four) in case you'd like some of your own:

1 lb kale

1 lb potatoes

1 lb beets

1 lb sausage 

1 cup chopped onions

1/2 cup chopped carrots

2 tsp chopped garlic

2 Tbsp olive oil

2 Tbsp butter

8 cups chicken broth or combination chicken and beef broth

3 lb peeled, seeded and chopped tomatoes (or a large can or two)

1 cup kidney beans

Salt and pepper

Strip the leaves from the washed kale and cut diagonally into wide slices. You should end of with 6 - 8 cups lightly packed kale. Wash, peel and chop potatoes and keep in cold water. Prick sausage; blanch in boiling water for 5 - 10 minutes to release fat. Drain; cut into 1/2 inch slices; set aside. In a large saucepan, saute onions, carrots and garlic in oil and butter, cooking until softened, about 5 minutes. Add potatoes, beets and broth, and simmer, partially covered, for 15 or 20 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked. Stir in tomatoes and kidney beans and simmer for 10 - 15 minutes. Add the kale and sausage, cook 5 - 10 minutes longer and season to taste. (Serves 6 - 8)

I love that our freezer is filling up with hearty and nutritious stuff from our garden. It hasn't travelled thousands of miles to come to us, and it's organic. All those frozen strawberries, raspberries, beans, zucchini and my sisters' cherries mean that we have some local food to carry us through the winter.

But what really blows my mind is that my grandma spent all spring, summer and fall every year to put away food to carry her family through the year -- in the early years of her family's life, she couldn't turn to a grocery store every time she ran out of something. Preserving food, butchering animals, baking and parenting (12 kids) were her full time job. Especially in August and September, I find myself thinking of her and all her hard work, realizing that I don't do half of what she did. The planning alone boggles my mind!

And I think about how far our society has come from knowing how to create our own food -- how my daughter's 12-year-old friend didn't know that salsa was made from tomatoes! So much of what we find in our grocery stores comes in manufactured packages of "food-like substances" from Ontario or the US because we just don't have the time to do much from scratch any more. But I know that I'll never appreciate any of that packaged stuff as much as I will enjoy the soup made from scratch on August 22, pulled from my freezer in the middle of January, warmed and served with some homemade bread or biscuits.

Somehow, there's something satisfying about working for our food instead of taking the store-bought, easy way out...

Simple Suggestion #135...Try canning

I'm a latecomer to the world of preserving food. It's only since I've had a decent-sized garden that I've taken a real interest in it.

Wait a sec, that's not true. I bought the odd box of peaches or plums before that, and wished I knew how to can things because it would be so nice to taste peaches in mid-winter!

Eventually, my mother-in-law gave me her canner, and my mom donated a few jars to my cause. My girlfriend sent me her Best Batch Salsa recipe, and I trepidatiously embarked upon my career as a canner by making one batch of salsa. It was tastier than storebought, had no MSG or preservatives, was made mostly of things I grew myself, and made me feel proud of my achievement. I was hooked!

Since then, I've inherited a barrel full of gem jars from back alley Ruby, who is now almost 102 and in a retirement home. I blessed Ruby this week as I was canning spaghetti sauce, and I blessed the women who figured out canning in the first place. I bless my grandmother and my mother for being canners before me. I bless my neighbour Mary and my Auntie Cathy for sharing their dill pickle recipes with me. I bless my friend Cathy for being the first person my age who canned her own salsa, for inspiring me to try it myself.

There's no shortage of information on the internet, or at most libraries, about how to go about preserving food. Sure, it requires more effort than going to the grocery store and picking a jar off a shelf, but if everyone on the planet were living more simply and sustainably, we'd all be taking part in trying to produce and preserve at least a little bit of what we eat. Better than having it jacked up with chemicals and shipped thousands of miles from canning plants in faraway places with strange-sounding names. Tuesday, a few hours' work gave me 13 jars of very yummy spaghetti sauce that we'll enjoy throughout the year, no chemicals or grocery stores required.

You may be thinking, "Easy for her to say. She has a garden." But farmer's markets have great deals on produce this time of year, and Canadian Tire has all sorts of canning supplies (I know -- my hubby had to go get me some more snap lids last night). Yes, there are original outlay costs for a canner and jars, but remember, they're reused dozens of times at very little cost! There are also "canning clubs" in some places, like 'The Fruits of Sherbrooke' that came from a group of women in the Sherbrooke Community League here in Edmonton.

Canning is just one of many small, self-reliant things we can do for ourselves that is also good for our planet.

And if I can do it, anyone can! Pun intended.

Looking for more Simple Suggestions? Try here.