Category Food Businesses, Products, & Recipes

Olive is happy to report that local field asparagus season has begun! Despite the looming storm clouds, I was determined to drive out to Andrews’ Scenic Acres yesterday morning to do something I’ve long wanted to do: pick my own asparagus. It turned out to be a beautiful morning.

It is early in the season and the asparagus has just begun to come up alongside the rhubarb. Farmer Bert Andrews says the asparagus season will run from now to about mid June; the first of June will likely be the ideal pick-your-own period. The pick-your-own rhubarb season will run from now to about the end of June.

The asparagus field looks like a a little comical with single spears poking up up from the ground, here and there. In the photo above, you can barely see them poking up along the horizon.

To ensure the asparagus will grow back again next year, cut the asparagus about one inch below the surface of the earth; it’s easy and Andrews’ will supply you with a knife. Wear rubber boots and protect yourself from mosquitoes.

You can’t get farm-to-table fresher than picking your own. I couldn’t resist trying a spear raw: it tasted green and robust and sweeter than the raw spears I have tasted from the grocery store. If you are tempted to try one of the many raw asparagus salad recipes that are trending right now, I recommend picking your own asparagus and eating the salad as soon as possible the same day.

I decided to treat my Dad to a bundle of ready-picked asparagus that Farmer Bert Andrews (below left) brings in from Simcoe County while his asparagus is still so early in the season. Manager Stephanny (below right) helped me pick out a bundle of Andrews’ ready-picked rhubarb; I’ll turn it into stewed rhubarb to eat with my breakfast yogurt. Oh my, how Olive loves spring!

Farmer Bert Andrews and Manager Stephanny

I prefer to eat my asparagus the day I buy it but it will keep in your fridge okay for a few days if you stand the stem ends in a jug of water or wrap them in a damp paper towel and cover the bunch in plastic wrap. I snap off the woody ends where they break naturally and wash each spear under cold, running water, paying special attention to the head where sand and grit get trapped. For tips on choosing, storing, and preparing asparagus visit Foodland Ontario.

My preferred method of cooking asparagus is oven-roasted. Oven-roasting caramelizes the asparagus and I find I don’t need to serve anything with it but a squirt of lemon juice. My Simple Oven-Roasted Asparagus recipe is here: http://olivetoeat.com/?p=858

But what better way to celebrate the start of the local asparagus season than with a splurge of hollandaise sauce? A dear friend (and fabulous cook) recently gave me a great recipe for an easy and delicious blender hollandaise sauce. Scroll down to the bottom of this post for the recipe.

Andrews’ Scenic Acres (established in 1980) and Scotch Block Country Winery (a fruit winery opened in 1999), is family operated and grows a wide variety of pick-your-own or fresh picked fruit, vegetables, and flowers. The barn market sells jams, jellies, pies, tarts, honey, maple syrup, juices and frozen fruit. House-made frozen yogurt and ice cream is made from farm-grown fruit. Family fun and harvest festivals.

Andrews’ Scenic Acres
9365 10th Sideroad
Halton Hills, Ontario

Telephone: 905-878-5807

Please call to confirm dates and time open.

Open daily: May 3rd to November 1st, from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.

Open November 1st to December 31st, Saturday and Sunday plus the week before Christmas: 11am to 5pm.

Andrews’ Scenic Acres also sells their farm fresh produce at several local farmers’ markets. Click here for a list: http://www.andrewsscenicacres.com/farmmarket.php

Website: www.andrewsscenicacres.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AndrewsScenic
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AndrewsScenicAcres

Easy Blender Hollandaise Sauce

Makes 1/2 cup

This recipe was passed on to me by a dear friend and fabulous cook. Use a blender or food processor for best results.

Ingredients:

3 large egg yolks
1 tablespoon of water
3/4 cup unsalted butter
Freshly squeezed juice of 1/2 a lemon
1/4 teaspoon salt
Pinch of ground white pepper, freshly ground black pepper, or ground cayenne pepper.

Directions:

1. Place butter in a small saucepan over low heat to melt.
2. Plop water and egg yolks in a blender or food processor; blend for about 90 seconds.
3. Turn the heat under the melted butter up to medium high, just until the butter starts to bubble.
4. With the blender motor running, slowly pour the hot melted butter through the feeder tube in a thin, steady stream (don’t include the milky, foamy bits); sauce will thicken at this point.
5. Again with the motor running, add the lemon juice, salt, and pepper through the feeder tube. Unplug the machine and taste to adjust seasonings, if necessary.
6. Serve immediately with steamed asparagus, steamed artichokes, steamed new potatoes, poached eggs, or roasted fish.

Though the eggs are lightly cooked by the hot butter, as a safety precaution follow all food safety guidelines concerning the consumption of raw eggs.

Olive Charky, full of malarkey, how will your garden grow?

With chocolate mint and orange mint…

…and pretty lavender all in a row?

Flavoured mint and gorgeous lavender found at Sheridan Nurseries.

 With Elephant garlic and French shallots…

…and Russian Blue potatoes all in a row?

Gourmet seed potatoes, garlic, and onion found at Terra Greenhouses.

With locally-grown, heirloom tomato seedlings all in a row?

About twenty varieties of beautiful, heirloom tomato seedlings available at Heatherlea Farm Market.

I’d love to hear how YOUR garden will grow!

Pinch me! After this winter’s relentless polar vortex, it’s hard to believe the local growing season has finally arrived. The seasonal markets are starting to open up! I can’t wait to grab my basket and head over to my local market for fresh, locally-grown produce. Or grab a friend and head out on an adventure to the many wonderful markets across our region, stopping at whim along the way to antique or discover new foodie gems.

I’ve updated my Farm / Farmers’ Market Directory for the 2014 season with current hours, locations, links, and maps; a few of the farmers’ markets have changed locations and dates this year. You’ll find my Farm / Farmers’ Market Directory at the top of my site, in the green top menu bar. Hover your mouse over it and a drop down list will appear:

1. Click on Farms / On-Farm Markets for a list of my favourite farms in Halton, Peel, Simcoe, and Wellington Regions. Check back here occasionally; I’ll add more as I discover them. If you have a local farm market favourite that you don’t see on my list, please let me know. I’ll add it to my directory and share it with everyone.
2. Hover your mouse over Farmers Markets for a drop-down list of farmers’ markets in the Greater Toronto West area, by region. Click on a region for a list of markets: Halton, Peel, Toronto, Waterloo, and Wellington County / Guelph. It’s a growing list; if I’ve missed your favourite, please let me know. The Toronto list only includes a few that I would drive to, including the fabulous St. Lawrence Market, ranked number one of the world’s top ten food markets by National Geographic. I love that I can slip down to the St. Lawrence Market at the crack of dawn and be back before traffic; it’s open at 5:00 a.m. on Saturdays.

I am gradually building a Grocery / Gourmet Store Directory on the top menu bar too. Check back often and watch it grow.

Happy Market Season everyone! Hope to see you at the markets.

Here is a sweet idea for a Mother’s Day gift: a cookbook written by a Canadian interior designer who had dreamed of owning her own bakery since she was six years old and finally took the leap. In 2007, Rosie Daykin opened up a nostalgic neighborhood bakery, Butter Baked Goods, in Vancouver.

Next thing Rosie knew, her gourmet marshmallows became famous. Now they are sold throughout North America and Japan. I found the cookbook and the marshmallows at Indigo.

The artwork in the cookbook is inspired by the bakery – pistachio and pink and so very pretty.

The recipes awaken childhood memories of sweeter times when favourite recipes were time-tested and baked from scratch. Rhubarb Almond Muffins, Graham Crackers, Butterscotch Walnut Bar, and Butter’s Classic White Cake with Butter’s Famous Butter Cream Frosting (tinted a pretty shade of pink) are on the top of my to-try list.

There are plenty of beautiful photos and step-by-step instructions, including the recipe and photo instructions for Butter’s Famous Marshmallows in flavours such as mint, raspberry, coffee, and cinnamon.

Butter Baked Goods is as delicious to look at as it will be to bake from. Maybe it will inspire Mom to follow her own dreams and do what she really loves; or at least bake up something really yummy. Happy Mother’s Day.

Butter Baked Goods by Rosie Daykin. Published by Appetite by Random House, 2013.

What makes my labours on this blog so rewarding are the exceptional people I discover. Perhaps the most inspirational is the poised and passionate Hoda Paripoush, founder and director of Sloane Tea Company. A Toronto-based alliance of boutique fine tea merchants, certified Tea Sommeliers, and culinary experts, Sloane Tea Company represents a guild of small-batch, premier tea gardens throughout the world.

Sloane Tea’s Founder & Director Hoda Paripoush

Hoda’s passion for tea is rooted in her childhood. Of Persian descent but born in India, she was raised in a family of tea lovers, who come from a land of tea gardens and perfumed flower blossoms. After her family immigrated to Brockville, a very young Hoda experimented in her mother’s kitchen, blending her tea with aromatics within her reach (orange blossom water, ginger, rose water or cardamom).

As a creative and ambitious young adult, Hoda studied perfumery in Grasse, France (the world’s perfume capital) and became a certified Tea Sommelier. Hoda now travels the world in search of the finest teas, individually sourcing them directly from point-of-origin. In the process, Hoda has built genuine, close-knit, and exclusive relationships with the world’s most esteemed artisanal tea gardens. Hoda brings these splendid loose leaf teas back to Canada. Using her perfumery expertise and exotic ingredients (such as herbs, flowers, and real fruit pieces), Hoda and her team of certified Tea Sommeliers and culinary experts blend some of the leaves into ambrosial teas with fragrant top, heart, and base notes that linger and enchant; others are offered unblended, straight, pure, and stunning. Hoda insists on perfection every step of the way, from crop to cup.

Sloane Tea selections are categorized by taste (citrus, sweet, fresh, spicy, floral, or creamy) or by type (white, green, oolong, black, herbal, and iced). Estate Reserve teas are rare, limited production, hand-rolled artisan teas from premier estates. Each tea is packaged in gorgeous tins with designs inspired from something meaningful on Hoda’s travels: a vintage Japanese kimono was the inspiration for one design.

I could pick a different Sloane tea to delight my every mood. My top favourites include the unblended, medium-bodied Estate Reserve Darjeeling 2nd Flush black tea, revered as the “champagne of teas”. Its designation of origin, highly prized tea leaves are plucked between May and July on the award-winning Jungpana Estate in Darjeeling (Sloane has the exclusive North American rights). I find it slightly brisk and incredibly refreshing.

Both my husband and I are enamoured with the silky Signature Blend Oolong Crème and its fragrant, buttery sweetness that reminds me of a hint of dulce de leche. Hoda shared a wonderful legend about this tea:

 “This signature oolong from the Wuyi Mountains in China is said to have come about when the moon fell in love with a comet. The comet passed her by, as comets will do. The moon cried milky tears which chilled the tea fields, withering the leaves and giving them a delicate creaminess.”

Hoda says Oolong Crème is also remarkably refreshing steeped as an iced tea. Scroll to the end of my post for Hoda’s Iced Tea Brewing Instructions.

Sloane’s most popular tea, Heavenly Cream, is a medium-bodied, smooth and creamy, long leaf Ceylon black tea blended with hints of bergamot and vanilla. It’s especially rich with a splash of whole milk.

The Shop For All Reasons recently invited Hoda to present her teas at Tea 101, second in a series of informative tasting seminars from some of The Shop For All Reasons’ outstanding suppliers. Hoda taught us how to taste tea (called cupping by the industry): taste with your nose first, inhaling the fragrance, and then sharply slurp the tea into your mouth, sucking in oxygen and rolling the tea along your tongue to reach all of your taste buds. We compared the exquisite notes between six of Sloane’s delicious teas.

I learned so much about tea. Black, oolong, green, and white teas are derived from the same plant, Camellia sinensis; the differences between them are the result of different levels of oxidation. More importantly, they need to be brewed using different temperatures of water; the easiest and most precise method is to use the Breville IQ Kettle (a variable temperature control kettle). Brewing instructions are on the bottom of each Sloane tin.

The Shop For All Reasons has apothecary jar testers (taste with your nose) of each of the teas in Sloane’s line. Drop in and marvel over the fragrant differences between each tea.

A luxurious Mother’s Day gift for the tea lover, Sloane Tea will transport Mom to an estate of old-world luxury (Downton Abbey’s Carson not included). And the tins are so elegant I am willing to bet she’ll find another use for them once they are empty.

Hoda’s Iced Tea Brewing Instructions (to make 1 litre/quart)

1. Boil 2 cups of water and pour over 7 tsp. (approximately 14g) of tea, in a heat-safe pitcher.
2. Steep for 12 min and then fill with 2 cups of cold water.
3. Remove tea leaves (Sloane Sachet) from pitcher.
4. Garnish with fresh mint, blueberries, or citrus slices.

Where to buy, how to make the perfect cup of tea, and more on Sloane’s website: http://about.sloanetea.com

Follow Hoda on Twitter and Facebook for information on upcoming Sloane Tea tasting events. Laura from Laura Slack Chocolates and Hoda will be conducting a Tea & Truffle Pairing at the Toronto Botanical Gardens on May 11th.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/sloanetea

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sloane.tea

For upcoming supplier seminars at The Shop For All Reasons, visit their website or sign up for their newsletter.