On the third day of Christmas; Home made goodies as gifts!

Banana Bread is a popular choice, or Orange Cranberry loaf  makes a perfect holiday treat.

This year we will be giving some home made gifts as well as a few store bought ones. We have already done a lot of the work over the summer and fall when we canned fruit, made jam and antipasto!

We usually bake at the holidays. Cookies, cakes, and loaves make perfect gifts that will not be wasted!  

Peaches  in syrup from the Okanagan this summer.

Strawberry Jam we made in June.

Cynda's Antipasto made in November.

It is easy to plan ahead and make large batches of fruits, jams and even more "complicated" things like antipasto. They are colourful and thoughtful gifts you can feel good about giving to people.

Lemon Balm -

This summer we grew an herb garden!
We planted a number of herbs, including mint, oregano, rosemary, thyme, parsley, dill, chives, and three types of sage. To our delight, five wild Lemon Balm plants grew on their own!
Lemon balm is a native plant in the mint family.

Lemon balm can be used in tea, in cooking and baking, medicinally it can be used for skin care and it even repels insects.



I dried the plants for quite a while, first outside on the back porch but eventually moved them into our games room in the basement.
Finally today I harvested the plants and now I have four 500 ml jars full!

Such abundance and free! Gifts from the universe :)

Kale Chips!

I don't know what is going on in the culinary world, but it seems that Kale chips have sprung onto the menu everywhere!!


I first heard about this crispy delight a few months ago at a food sustainability seminar hosted at the public library. The speaker was a well informed foodie. whose true love is food sustainability. (her name escapes me but I will fill in later) She has many ideas and information to share about growing and sustaining local foods. Either by backyard gardening, buying in local co-ops, farmers markets and other food sharing programs like the fruit tree sharing project.



One secret she shared was a fantastic recipe I just made again today to go with lunch.

Crispy Kale Chips! The recipe is simple;

De-stalk kale and cut into 3 inch pieces
place on roasting pan
add Olive oil,a small amount of apple cider vinegar, and salt
bake in hot oven at 350 for ten minutes
the kale will crisp up like chips in a few minutes
serve and enjoy!

A few weeks after the lecture where I first hear of the kale chips, a mum brought Kale chips to a home learing drop in. It was on someone else's blog yesterday and then again today I heard a reference to "Baked Kale" and "Kale chips"! I guess good news travels fast.

Besides being an extremely healthy and surprisingly delicious snack it is also an incredible sustainable crop as it grows year round in B.C. _ this does not explain why I have yet to find any of locally grown variety at the major chain groceries over past few weeks.
I will check out the winter farmers market this weekend and hopefully find a local source of this super food soon!

P.S. My kids and husband love these "chips" and that's enough for me!


Photo credit: EcoQuaker