Up until today, I had never even thought of eating pumpkin leaves. Yes, leaves. Of course, I have grown squash and pumpkins most of my life, and waited impatiently for those big orbs to ripen so I could make pies and stews and one of my favourites, curried ginger and squash soup. But I did not eat the leaves. 
Pumpkin leaves are prickly. Anyone who has grown pumpkin or squash knows it is best handled with long sleeves and gloves, for even though the prickles are small, they are very scratchy and pointed. But when the pumpkin leaves are cooked, the texture is very much like any green, such as collards or kale or beet tops. The prickles disappear. That is similar to stinging nettles, which was a first forage food for me this year too. They were delicious sauteed in butter and garlic, with a little salt and pepper, and no sting! 
I picked both young and mature pumpkin leaves, because I was trimming the runners so no more fruits would develop and the plant could send its energy and nutrients to the fruits already on the vines. The animals leave the leaves alone, likely due to the prickles, but I gave them the vines. The goats ate them, of course. They can even eat stinging nettles and Canada Thistles!
The pumpkin leaves were washed well in warm water and then cut into bits. That was accomplished by taking the largest leaf and laying the rest on it, then rolling the whole thing up. I sliced through the roll and voila! the leaves were cut exactly right. Today, I just did a simple dish with them, cooking the cut leaves with buckwheat. The buckwheat cooked before the leaves, because the only one I had was a cereal, similar to instant oats, though still in chunks. I let it sit for a while, but the pumpkin and squash leaves could have cooked a bit longer. All I added was a dollop, a large one at that,  of some butter, salt and pepper. 
It is really good! Next time, I will pre boil the leaves slightly before adding the buckwheat, and possibly sautee some onion and garlic to add as well. Tonight I served the buckwheat and pumpkin leaf dish with 24 hour stove top roast goose and scrumptious gravy. I already ate the coleslaw I made because I was starving waiting for the delciousness to be ready. Tomorrow, I am going to cook carrot tops. 
I had been doing some research on edible plants and learned that pumpkin and squash leaves are regularly eaten in other countries. There is a pumpkin leaf and rice roll I would like to try, maybe adding a little of the farm's own smoked pork to the rice and some Asian spices and flavours. I do not have green onions, but the chives are still going strong, so some chopped parsley, carrot tops, chives and of course, garlic (did I mention I love garlic?) will be included in those rolls. Carrot tops have more nutrition than the roots. Pumpkin leaves are right up there too! I am considering drying some and shredding them for inclusion in winter soups and stews. 
So, how about it? Would you eat pumpkin or squash leaves? 

There are times when you want something to eat, something like a bit of cake or a muffin, but do not want to bake a whole recipe, especially if you are fond of eating those morsels you have just created. I think I have the perfect solution. Mug cakes and muffins. 

I first read about mug cakes a while back, but at that time, I was convinced I would die if I used a microwave oven. Since then, with new data, I now feel microwaves are safe enough to use on occasion. So, initially, a mug cake was out of the question, since it was 'baked' in a microwave. 

I am also developing recipes that are compliant with restricted diets. The muffin I just made tonight was flour free, entirely flour free, not made with substitute flours either. The dry ingredient was milled organic flax seed. There was no requirement for flour then. 

I created a recipe with a little knowlege or a flax bread made from milled flax, oil, a liquid and a fat. I did not like that bread one bit as it reminded me of eating brown paper. Definitely lacking in flavour and texture, it was also dry. It did, however, suffice as a piece of 'bread' for a sandwich and is extremely low carbohydrate. So I modified it to make a peanut butter muffin and I must say, it was delicious. 

The muffin was moist, not sweet but full of flavour and had just the right amount of peanut butter to give it the extra oomph it needed. I suppose other nut butters or sunflower butter even could easily be substituted for the peanut butter if allergies are a concern. This muffin did have a bit of organic raw sugar, though honey could be substituted or it could be ommitted and the flavour and texture would only slightly change. It definitely qualifies as gluten free, low carbohydrate and tasty! 

Here is the recipe: 

1/4 cup of organic milled flax seed
1 egg. I was fortunate because today, one of my young pullets laid her first egg!
1 tbsp of melted butter
1 tsp raw cane suger, coconut sugar or honey
3 tbsp coconut milk
1/8 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp organic peanut butter with no ingredients other than peanuts
1/8 tsp baking powder
dash of salt (easily omitted since the butter has salt)

Method: 
Melt the butter slightly, 
Whip the egg and whip the butter into the egg
Whip in the coconut milk 
Whip in the peanut butter
Whip in the vanilla extract
Whip in the cane sugar and salt if using
Pour into the flax seed and combine well, but do not over beat. 
Pop into the microwave for 2 minutes. That might not be the right amount of time for every microwave, but mine is 1200 watts of good power. 

Remove from the microwave and let cool for a few minutes. Microwaved food is hotter than you think, so be careful. 

I ate it plain, though I can see another pat of butter would have been spectacular or a fruit sauce or even whipped cream, or whipped cream and the fruit sauce! Yum! I ate it out of the mug, though it would be fine to remove it gently and split it in two to add the condiments or toppings. 

​I hope you give it a try and let me know how it turned out. Thanks for that!

Head cheese. What is that? We sometimes hear, "He is the head cheese around here." But this is not about that sort of thing, it is the real thing, an edible, delicious dish made from a pig's head, then refrigerated. The broth is full of collagen, vitamins and all the goodness of bone broth, but is gelled with the meat from the skull of the pig. There is not a lot of meat on a pig's head actually, just the cheeks and some muscles in between.  Some folks boil the pig's head for a day or two to get the best goodness, but I did not have a pot large enough to boil this head, which was quite big. It is a bit gross though. The eyeballs are there, but sunken, and you can see the teeth and the mouth, the snout and nostrils and ear canals. The whole thing goes into the soup pot, or in this case the oven. Long slow cooking is necessary to break down some of the connective tissues which then creates the natural gelatin from the connective tissues. When the head is boiled, the skin can be eaten too. It is removed and then the fat scraped off and cut into bite sized pieces and put in the broth. 

To flavour the head cheese, I use salt and garlic. By adding crushed garlic just before putting the head cheese into the fridge, the garlic has the most flavour because it is raw. In the old days, the hocks and the head were boiled together in a very large pot outside for a couple of days and the whole process of extracting the meat and skin happened after turning out the pieces onto a huge platter. 

One can buy a commercial head cheese in the delicatessen department today. It is not really at all similar to making your own though. Commercial processed meat uses gelatin and not the broth of long cooked body parts with a high percentage of connective tissues. It also does not use what most consider waste, but odd bits of meat not really large enough for a cut. 

Some people add vinegar to make a pickled version of the head cheese and others add vinegar when it is served as an option These days, a few cultures still make their version of this, the Ukrainians being one. Only the pork hocks and sometimes the feet are used, boiled for a long time, the meat and skin gleaned off and then included in the broth, which does turn to jelly. 

I got two pork heads for free. I froze one whole and used the other and there is enough head cheese for at least 3 meals. Plus, this is delicious and highly nutritious, and the dogs will have the skin, ears and skull to chew on and enjoy as well. Would you like to try some?

The trouble is that we are so far removed from the food we eat, that we no longer seem to understand how to feed ourselves appropriately. Even people my age and a little older seem to have forgotten their roots, how they ate when they were young. Part of the problems is we have become lazy, complacent with so so food and are always in a hurry. 

I started a discussion with a young lady who does not earn much money to live on. She said she cannot afford to eat well and she has an autoimmune disorder. When I was in several Paleo groups, there were many young people with similar health concerns and they were finding relief with the Paleo diet, but they also complained that it was not affordable. 

Let's see. 
I seldom buy drinks, not coffee, not water, not pop or juice, nada. I often bring a drink from home or if I do purchase coconut water, I will port a can of that with me on a road trip. I take along a mason jar of lemon water in the summer, brew coffee at home all year long and never buy sweet drinks at all. The average cost of a drink is around $3 with some being less expensive and some more. If you buy 2 drinks a day, let's say you spend $5 per day (per person) and that is $150 a month minimal. If there are two of you, that can easily be doubled. Buying beverages is the biggest waste of money going, especially bottled water, which has been shown over and over again to be no better than tap water and sometimes worse, plus the numbers, hoards of bottles, is killing our world. Save the money. Bring something from home. 

The second great expenditure is food you buy as convenience food when you are out. Hamburgers and fries, the occasional bag of chips, chocolate bars and such - these items are triple priced in convenience stores and fast food joints. Do not spend money there. It is empty nutrition full of terrible things anyhow. It is pretty easy to spend upwards of $200 a month of these junk items without paying much attention to it. 

Try not to buy drinks or convenience or fast food for a month and instead put the money in a jar. See how much you have at the month's end. 

The largest spending on food that you could make at home is bakery products. Bread, buns, crackers, cookies and such, are all cheap to bake at home, even using organic ingredients. Kellogg's shut down the Canadian plant so Frosted Flakes are imported now. The cost today at Walmart of a 1.06 kilogram box of this cereal is $7.98 or $2.30 per pound. Bread is terribly expensive too averaging $4 per loaf of decent bread, if you want to call it that, because it has a lot of chemicals in it too. A loaf is often 1 pound, so that is $4 per pound. You can buy 10 pounds of organic flour for 40 cents a pound. All it takes to make bread is flour, salt, yeast and water, so it costs maybe 42 cents a pound to make your own bread. It costs 40 cents a pound to buy organic whole grains, which can be sprouted if you do not have a grinder and made into bread just like that, if you have to have bread. Forget the sugary cereal altogether. 

Anything that comes out of a package with more than a couple of ingredients has been processed and that equates to being expensive. Anything that you do not have to prepare, like precut carrots, are very expensive too. 

So, to eat well on less, there are only a few tricks. Buy whole raw food, including raw whole organic grains if you want to use them. Culture whole milk (goat is better than cow, because it is less regulated and not homogenized) into kefir or yogurt on your own. Eat less meat but when you do choose bone in cheap cuts and slow cook them for 12 hours or so and make soup, stew and gravy to extend the meat. Avoid rice, pasta and premade starches and go back to eating potatoes.

Our town permits people who do not live where they can grow gardens to use some land just out of town for that purpose. There are also ways to garden in pots on patios and balconies. There were many ads on Facebook at the end of the gardening season giving away free produce. A small freezer would be handy to freeze some produce, but learning to can is also a good way to save free food for the winter. 

I lived on welfare and raised three children. We grew a garden, and I preserved, pickled and canned food. I got free food from places that had an abundance and picked food for free too. Everything we ate was made from scratch and nothing came out of packages. We ate well. You can too. You just need to learn how to do so. 

​Will you?

Ingredients: Select Roasted Peanuts, Corn Maltodextrin, Sugar, Soybean Oil, Salt,Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (Cotton Seed And Rapeseed Oil), Mono- And Diglycerides.

from the label of Kraft peanut butter


from the label of President's Choice organic peanut butter

Ingredients: fresh roasted organic peanuts. 

Hmmm. Things that make you go hmmm. 

In Kraft peanut butter after peanuts come corn maltodextrin from GMO corn, Sugar from GMO sugar beets, soybean oil from GMO soy beans, Hydrogenated vegetable oil (cotton, maybe GMO but for sure heavily sprayed with pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and defoliation chemicals, Rapeseed (GMO canola) and mono and diglycerides, which I am sure most folks are unsure of. They are emulsifiers, that is ingredients which bind the mix together to make and keep it smooth. Most are derived from palm oil. 

To make peanut butter cookies with Kraft peanut butter, if enough flour is not added, the oil will separate under heat and create one ugly mess. 

But to make organic peanut butter cookies from organic peanut butter, only organic eggs and organic sugar with optional organic vanilla extract are needed. 

Organic Peanut Butter Cookies
1 cup of organic peanut butter, stirred to make it smooth first (keep the oil in)
1 cup of organic blonde cane sugar
2 organic eggs ( I used the ones from my farm picked fresh this morning)
1 teaspoon of organic vanilla extract, or make your own from vanilla beans with vodka. 

Mix the ingredients together until the dough leaves the sides of the bowl. Form into medium size balls and flatten by hand or with a fork. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 6-8 minutes, longer for larger cookies. Remove the cookies when they are still soft and let them cool. Who can let peanut butter cookies cool? 

They are incredible with Enjoy Life no soy chocolate chips if you like chocolate and peanut butter together. Who doesn't? 

So, which peanut butter will you use from now on? Come on over and enjoy some cookies. 

Nothing says winter like a hearty home made soup!

Coming home from work and cooking for one is not always an exciting thing to do, but thinking about supper tonight, I was excited. I love thick, creamy soups, but am avoiding grains and dairy to some extent too. So, I wanted to make a creamy soup without flour, but full of flavour and hearty enough to be the entire meal. 

I made some new kefir a couple of days ago of 18% fat coffee cream. It is so good! You will simply have to try making some yourself. It is much easier than yogurt, because the milk does not have to be scalded and temperature really does not matter. You just add the kefir grains and let it sit overnight or for a few days, as it creates its magic. The milk or cream thickens and is lush, like Greek yogurt, but with a smooth and mild flavour. I thought it would go well with the soup and yes, it surely did, adding just enough of a unique flavour to make the soup memorable. 

I sprinkled a little grated old cheddar on top, because, well, broccoli and cheddar are made for each other and it does supply a bit of protein to round off the meal. 

Here is the um, recipe. I say recipe, but really I just winged it as usual. 

Broccoli Cream Soup

5 medium potatoes, peeled and cut to similar sizes.  I used the organic Russets from the summer garden. 
1 medium large onion, sliced. 
5 cloves of fresh garlic (garlic powder, not salt, would work if garlic was not available)
3 heads of organic broccoli
salt. I used Himilayan pink salt, about a heaping teaspoon. 
pepper, a heaping teaspoon
and about 3 cups of cold water

Cook the potatoes and onions in the water until tender, then add the broccoli and cook only until a fork goes through easily. Add salt and pepper, remove from heat. Add the garlic, sliced into smaller pieces. Blend with a stick blender, water and all, until the mixture is smooth and creamy. If you have not overcooked the broccoli, the soup will be green. 

Add two big dollops of kefir cream and gently stir in. Heating the kefir too much destroys some of the beneficial bacteria so basically, it is on the top and not mixed right in. Top with a sprinkle of sharp cheddar cheese and voila! Now that is a good soup for an Alberta winter!