Wild saskatoons are very abundant locally and last year we picked a massive amount of them!

Foraging and Gardening Goals for 2019

January 14, 2019 by Kelsey Fast in Grow, Find

Dandelion leaves are very nutritious and abundant! Consider allowing them to grow in your yard and you’ll have the lowest maintenance food crop ever!

This year I have decided to pare down my goal setting just a little bit. I used to write out ten different goals for each of these categories, but I realized I wasn’t achieving even half of them. I also realized while looking over my goals for the past few years that I would write one or two larger scale general goals, and then the rest would be just about specific plants. While this isn’t a terrible way to set goals, I’ve found so many things - from weather, vacations, family growth, to other random surprises - can derail the search for growing or finding specific plants, and various things in my life kept doing just that. This year I have a new baby coming, and a smaller garden, so I figured five goals for each category would be a much more fulfilling way of going about things! We’ll see how I like that for this year and maybe next year I’ll do something different. Who knows!

The whole point of why I set these goals is so that I have some inspiration for the year going forward, not about the number of things I actually accomplish in the end or not. I hope you find some inspiration from my goals, and maybe you’ll set some of your own! If you do please let me know in the comments below because I’d love to hear about it!

I hear magnolia is edible, but it doesn’t grow a lot here. I’d love to try it some day since I saw so many people posting lovely things about it on their instagram feeds last year.

Foraging Goals

Learn more from the local indigenous community.

I feel really strongly that to forage ethically anywhere in North America you have to consider the fact that there is already so much history here of people and their relationship - sometimes even a spiritual relationship - to wild plants and resources. I’ve done small amounts of online research in the past, but I’d ideally love to learn more from actual people. if this is impossible I will definitely be seeking out other resources like books and museums. I feel like this is an important step as I continue to respectfully forage and explore in land that is unceded traditional Secwepemc territory.

Mushrooms

You might be thinking that you remember just reading me say that I wasn’t going to include specifics in my goals list this year, and you’d be correct, but I still want to include mushrooms as a goal of mine this year regardless. I’ve included this as a goal in my past lists, but aside from finding someone selling morels at the farmers’ market last spring, I haven’t really done much in this area. This is such a broad category that I have very little experience with, so even if I don’t end up going out and picking huge amounts to bring home and eat, I still want this to be a focus of learning for this year. One small thing I’ve been doing is to photograph and research the mushrooms I do come across, and I feel that has been a really great start. I missed my local opportunity to do a guided mushroom walk last year, so making one of those happen this fall is something I am very interested in.

With the help of the amazing Mushroom Identification group on Facebook, I think this is an old Turkey Tail mushroom that I came across last spring near the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, BC. Even in its old age it is still beautiful!

Fishing

I know this one is also kind of specific too, but we actually didn’t get out fishing once last year! I’m not totally sure how practical this will be now that we’re going to be a family of four, but I still want to make sure I give it a try this year. Or maybe it’s something I can delegate to Mr. Forager to go find a fishing buddy and bring back some of the delicious local trout that are abundant here! Either way I’d like to try to make it a priority to go out at least a few times this year.

Wild Staples

I definitely want to concentrate on this one more strongly this year. I am very curious about using acorns, and other plants - maybe even pine bark - to create wild flours. There are also other plans I’ve heard about but have very little experience with like cattails that are so useful and nutritious.

If you don’t want to keep dandelions in your yard consider digging up the plants rather than spraying for them. Every part of these little cheery flowers is edible from root to blossom!

Find more flavours.

This might be a bit of a catchall category, but one of the things that I have loved about this foraging journey I’ve been on is finding the new flavours of these local plants. Last year I got a chance to experiment with Douglas-fir cones, for example, and they turned out to be so delicious, and the cookies and flavoured sugar I made with them were so lovely. I’ve also been having so much fun with sumac in the kitchen, so I can’t wait to get out there and find some more delicious flavours to experiment with this year.

Haskap bushes in my old garden just as they start to get their leaves in the spring.

Garden Goals

Research container gardening.

If you’ve been following along with my blog over the past little while you’ll know that recently I’ve had to say goodbye to my garden of the past four seasons. This year’s garden will be a balcony one, so I am making it a priority to look into what container garden systems work best. I’ve had to consider a lot of different things so far since my deck is south facing, and there is no spigot for watering. I’ll be posting in a few weeks about the kinds of solutions we’ve come up with, and I can’t wait to share it all with you since I know I’m not the only one who would like to continue producing at least some food with only my balcony as garden space.

Research varieties that work best in small spaces and containers.

This one is very related to the above goal, but I felt it was different enough to be considered its own focus. Not only will my garden be dependent on coming up with a system that works (above goal), it will only be successful if I grow the right plants for my environment. I am actually a little bit excited about my new challenge, because I am going to get a whole lot more sun than I used to in my north facing, shady garden. I am thinking I might actually have some decent success with heat loving crops like tomatoes and peppers, and I can’t wait to see what happens!

Same view, after a few months of growing.

Continue to produce food.

This goal is very important to me. I know I’m not going to be able to do this on the scale that I am used to, but I still want my garden to be a way to provide at least a little bit of food for my family. I really like working with food crops - especially heirlooms and other interesting varieties. There will always be flowers in my garden too since I want to attract lots of pollinators and beneficial insects otherwise the food crops on my balcony will struggle.

Look into Community Garden options.

I’m not sure if this is something I’ll have time for with the new baby on the way, but I do know that there are lots of community gardens in town, so I’d like to at least look into it a little bit and see what kind of commitment would be involved. I rented a community garden plot one season, and it really didn’t work out, because of the location. I wasn’t able to get there as often as I wanted, and nothing I grew there thrived. After that experience, I know now what kind of things I would grow in a community plot, and what I would keep at home. I think it might be something I could handle if I was growing garlic, rhubarb, or other things that don’t need as much daily attention.

One of my springtime harvests from last year. Lots of leafy greens!

Grow lots of herbs.

This one will be very convenient to focus on for me, since a lot of herbs do well in smaller spaces, and that’s definitely what I’ll be working with! I also think they will help create a nice environment on my balcony, and help add a little bit of biodiversity to my other plants. This is one of the easiest ways I can still grow things to eat as well, since snipping some herbs from the balcony and bringing them right in to my kitchen is so easy. I’m excited about this goal, and am planning to cultivate a large collection!

Calendula blossoms harvested from my garden last summer.

Sumac Curd and Frangipane Galette des Rois for Epiphany

January 08, 2019 by Kelsey Fast in Eat

This year our Epiphany celebrations were pretty low-key, although I did spend a couple days making a really gorgeous galette des rois for our dessert. Even though we didn’t have a big event or anything to write that much about both the glaze for the ham and the dessert featured locally foraged sumac that I gathered in the summer it seemed appropriate to write something up about them. This is “A Forager’s Home”, after all! I am also super happy with how the galette turned out, so even though you wouldn’t be able to make it in time for Epiphany this year, I highly recommend that you try it out sometime for some different event!

Sumac grows everywhere in my neighbourhood. It is native to North America, and loves a dry environment, so a lot of people here have used it in the landscaping. If you can’t find some wild, you might see some in a neighbour’s yard and they probably won’t mind sharing a few of the bright red cones with you. Just make sure you ask permission for any foraging you’re doing on private property! There are lots of tutorials online for how to process your own sumac, but I’ve found the easiest way is to dry the drupes, and then pulse them in a blender (this removes the berries from the large, very hard seeds), and then sift the red powder out from the larger pieces leftover. For this recipe you can just use the whole berry clusters submerged in water rather than going through the trouble of grinding them, or you can do what I did - pulse the water and drupes together so they will infuse to their fullest potential.

Epiphany dinner this year was ham, mashed potatoes, roasted veggies (roasted in the pan underneath the ham for maximum deliciousness), and Brussels sprouts (roasted with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and dried cranberries).

The dinner was delicious, although the cut of ham we had was a little difficult to work with. I love the quality of the pork we received from our friends’ farm, but the butcher seemed to do some interesting things to it. There was a lot of connective tissue in the middle of what was labelled a “bone in ham” (note the conspicuous lack of a bone). I’m not sure if this was just because one large ham was portioned into smaller roasts, or because it was actually boned, and that this was the result. Either way I was disappointed not to have the bone to do a split pea soup with afterward, but sometimes that’s how things go.

I am happy to report that the honey glaze I wrote about a few days ago worked perfectly on this ham. I used Jaime Oliver’s method of poaching the ham first, and then finishing it in the oven. I think it turned out fairly nicely although I’m not sure if the poaching was necessary or not. I may have left it in the oven too long afterward because some of it was a bit on the dry side. However, I am planning on using the poaching liquid to use as soup stock now since I don’t have a bone in this ham to make any with.

Sumac drupes infusing in water. Such a beautiful colour!

The main thing I wanted to share in this post was the recipe for the galette. You can use store-bought or make your own puff pastry. I recently did a workshop at Blue Bunch Farm on making laminated pastry, so I thought I’d give it a go making my own. I am really pleased with the result, although I am sure it doesn’t look terribly professional. I have to say that now that I understand the process of making puff pastry it isn’t as intimidating as it seemed, and if you’re interested in giving it a shot I’d say go for it! My pastry has a really rich colour and flavour because I used GRAIN Red Spring Wheat Sifted flour.

I started it all by infusing some sumac drupes in water overnight in the fridge (you can also use ground sumac you purchased for this infusion - just try googling a recipe for “sumac tea”, or do a bit of experimenting to get the right ratio of sumac to water). The resulting liquid was such a gorgeous colour I was immediately excited to make it into a curd for the galette. Sumac has a tangy, fruity flavour reminiscent in some ways of citrus. To turn the sumac liquid into a curd, you follow the basic process for making a lemon curd. Combine the sugar and eggs, add them into the sumac liquid in a double boiler, and cook it gently - stirring constantly - until thick. Add a few pats of unsalted butter at the very end (optional if you need to be dairy free - this is just for looks and a bit of texture, but it will still be delicious without) and you’re done! The only downside was that If found once the sumac infusion was heated it lost it’s brilliant red colour and turned sort of brownish. Because I knew I was going to be layering this with frangipane I decided to add some food colouring to make it a bit more visually appealing. I don’t love using artificial colour in my recipes, but we really do eat with our eyes first, and I wanted the two layers to be visually distinct in the finished tart, so I felt it was necessary. If you have strong feelings about it feel free to omit it. It will still taste delicious!

For the frangipane, I’m sure my methods weren’t exactly orthodox, but they were effective! I just threw everything together in my Vitamix blender and pureed until it was all smooth. This may not be typical frangipane, but it was delicious, and very smooth. I was happy with the result in the end, so either copy my method, or follow something more traditional. Either will be just perfect.

For the puff pastry, I used the recipe I learned from Monika at Blue Bunch Farm during my workshop (I’ll be reviewing my experience with the workshops there in a future post, so if you want more information “watch this space”). I really like making it, and the most difficult part is just the amount of time it takes to put it together. Feel free to use store-bough if you like, but this will taste a whole lot more delicious if you try to find some that uses real butter in their recipe. I also found I had very little problem with the filling escaping my pastry this year. In my previous post about Epiphany you can see the frangipane seeping out the sides of my tart. My finished tart dough was flavourful, and very flaky. I think it has a bit more personality than one made with conventional flour as well since the GRAIN flour I used is sifted, but nothing at all like your standard bleached all purpose flour. It’s not exactly whole wheat, but there is a lot more of the whole grain in the finished product which leads to more flavour. This flour is also milled so freshly that you need to keep it in the fridge or freezer, because it will go rancid at room temperature. It’s beautiful flour and I love working with it.

Once you have your pastry and your fillings, cut in a circular shape, spread a layer of frangipane, and then cover that with a layer of sumac curd. Put the top layer of pastry over everything and crimp the edges tightly so that none of your filling escapes. Make surface level slits in a pattern you like on top, and brush with an egg wash. I also sprinkled some sugar over the top just to make it all a little more special and delicious.

Galette des rois! Put one whole almond in the filling if you want to be really traditional. Whoever finds it in their piece wins a special prize!

Sumac Curd Frangipane Galette des Rois

Ingredients

Sumac Curd

1 cup sumac infused water (pulse 3-5 sumac drupes in 1 cup water in a blender and leave in the fridge overnight to infuse)
5 Egg Yolks
1/2 cup sugar
5 tbsp unsalted butter

Frangipane

1/2 cup freshly ground blanched almonds
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

Finished Tart

1 recipe puff pastry
1 egg
1 tbsp cream
sugar for dusting

Takes Several Hours, serves 1 tart.

Instructions

To make the curd, whisk the egg yolks into the sugar, and then combine with the sumac infused water. Cook in a double boiler until mixture is thick and coats the back of a spoon. You should be able to see trace lines when you draw your spoon/whisk through while stirring. Remove from heat and stir in butter. Push through a fine mesh sieve just in case some of the egg didn’t cook perfectly.
Combine all the frangipane ingredients in a high powered blender or food processor, and blend on high until smooth. Alternatively whip the butter and sugar together in a mixer until thick and creamy and you can see no sugar crystals. Add the egg and emulsify, and then stir in the vanilla and ground almonds. Beat the mixture until thick, creamy, and homogenous.
Roll out your puff pastry according to your recipe’s instructions and cut two circles. I used an 8 inch cake tin as a pattern to trace. Spread a thick layer of frangipane, leaving a little bit uncovered around the edges. Cover that layer with a layer of sumac curd, and then cover with the other circle of pastry. Crimp edges so that no filling will escape.
Using a sharp knife cut some steam vents on top of the pastry, but don’t cut all the way through to the filling. Whisk the egg and tbsp of cream together and brush on top of pastry. To get a really burnished crust do this in several layers, allowing each coat to dry before adding the next. Sprinkle with sugar
Bake in a 425 degree Fahrenheit oven for about 5-10 minutes until the pastry has started to colour. At this point turn the temperature down to 375 degrees, and continue baking for roughly 20 more minutes, or until your pastry is obviously puffed, golden, and fully cooked.

Honey Glaze for Epiphany Ham

January 03, 2019 by Kelsey Fast in Eat

A view of the Christmas tree and my 30 week baby bump.

I’m not sure if you know, but we are still in the middle of what was traditionally the Christmas season! I believe today specifically is the 10th day of Christmas, and while I’m not expecting to receive ten lords-a-leaping today I’m still enjoying my Christmas tree, and soaking up a little more holiday season. It seems right to me to continue a little longer since it only just started snowing around here and the tree and other wintery decorations seem appropriate. I do have to say that our new place is so small that a small part of me is looking forward to getting the square footage back in my living room that the tree is taking up right now.

The 12 days of Christmas all lead up to Epiphany, and while that isn’t part of how my family traditionally celebrates the holidays it seemed like a really nice thing to add to our celebrations and a nice way to cap off the season.

We’ve got our Epiphany dinner set for Sunday and I’ll be making a ham. I thought I’d share the recipe I used for the glaze today. Feel free to adjust this to whatever flavours you like. I you don’t have something or don’t like a flavour go ahead and try something different (and if you do I’d love to hear about it in the comments)! Because the dinner hasn’t actually happened yet I won’t have anything in this post about cooking the actual ham, but I’ll try to remember to take a photo to update this post when I do!

Our first time celebrating Epiphany in Kamloops with some dear friends. Read all about it here.

For this glaze, I started with the sumac in my mortar and pestle. I’ll be talking more about this ingredient and where I find it in a later post, but for now you should be able to find it in specialty spice shops. I think I’ve been seen ground sumac powder in the spice section of my local Bulk Barn. Sumac berries have a hard seed inside, so I crushed them with my mortar and pestle, until the dried berry surrounding the seed was crushed and sifted that through a fine mesh sieve. Don’t discard the larger bits either - you can steep those in cold water in the fridge overnight and make a lemonade-ish drink. I’d say from one drupe of berries I wound up with about 1/2 a teaspoon of powder, although I could have been more thorough and gotten more out of it. I wasn’t too worried about that though because I’m going to be steeping the larger pieces anyway for another upcoming recipe.

After the sumac berries were broken down, I added the other whole spices and continued to crush them. After that I added fresh ginger and a clove of garlic, and continued to grind it in my mortar and pestle until the whole mixture formed a sort of paste. At this point I took it out and mixed it with local honey, nasturtium flower infused white wine vinegar, a little bit of molasses, and salted the mixture to taste. It’s a delightful mixture of tangy, sweet, and warm from all the spices and ginger.

Honey Glaze for Epiphany Ham

Ingredients

1/2 tsp sumac powder
3-4 whole allspice berries
3-4 whole cloves
1/4 tsp multicoloured peppercorns
1 dried smoked chilli pepper
1 thumb fresh ginger
1 large clove garlic
1/2 tsp salt
4 tbsp honey
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
1/2 tsp molasses

Takes 15 minutes, Serves enough glaze for one small ham.

Instructions

If you are using dried sumac berries, pound and grind them in a mortar and pestle or spice grinder until the berries are mostly powder and the hard seeds are all exposed. Sift this mixture and use only the powder for this recipe. Discard or save the larger pieces that don’t make it through the sieve.
Add the whole dried spices and chilli to the mortar and pestle along with the sumac powder. Continue grinding until all the pieces are a fine texture and roughly the same size.
Add the fresh ginger and garlic one after the other, and continue grinding the mixture together in the mortar and pestle until it all forms a paste.
Transfer the paste to a small bowl, and combine with the honey, vinegar, molasses, and salt to taste. Adjust all the spices as necessary - go ahead and grind more of anything that you feel is missing. This is all about adjusting to your own preference, but remember you are making a glaze, so the end result should be rather on the sweet side. You want it to caramelize on the ham in the oven while you are cooking it. If you think you might not have enough for your ham, feel free to scale up the ingredients until you have enough to cover it.
Follow your preferred method for roasting your ham, and add this glaze when there are about 30-60 minutes remaining to the cooking time. You want this to caramelize on the outside of the ham, but not to burn.

Reflections on 2018

December 31, 2018 by Kelsey Fast

In the above collage I have what Instagram deems as my top nine posts of 2018. I think they are pretty good, and they hold a lot of memories, but I wanted to do a fuller reflection on my year and share a few other photos that might not have got as much attention based on Instagram’s algorithm, but were very special to me.

I read my 2017 reflections over again before starting to write this one, and was again struck by how busy December is. I had so many ideas and plans that will have to be put off for another time, but I’m really happy with what we were able to accomplish this year.

We had a lot of little trips throughout the year, and we were so happy to be able to take a flight to visit family in Manitoba. There were so many firsts in Little Forager’s second year, and we enjoyed soaking up every minute of them - especially his first real experiences with the ocean, and his first airplane trip!

This year was the first full year the A Forager’s Home Shop was open for business, and it was really nice to have that outlet for my creativity. I really enjoy making things for others, and I have been so blown away by your support in this endeavour! I look forward to what the coming year brings!

In addition to my regular topics, I also took more of a focus on eco-friendly home decor and/or organization on a budget on the blog. There are not a lot of gardening and foraging topics to cover in my area in the winter, so last year I shared how I redid my bedroom spending only $10. I also was able to feature a few of my products in there including the now out of stock autumn forage wreath, and the golden pinecone garland (still in stock and available in gold or silver via the link to the right).

I was able to make so many beautiful wreaths for the shop this year! Some of them were absolutely one of a kind, and will not be made again, others I will probably recreate like the sagebrush wreath and twig wreaths below. The Autumn Forage Wreath (pictured above in my bedroom), and the Summer Forage Wreath (pictured below, second from the right) were made from what was available at the time, and while I might make something like them again, I won’t be able to exactly recreate them. You can shop the current wreath collection by clicking here.

I was also able to work on lots of items from recycled fabric this year, and that gave me a lot of joy. I get my fabric scraps from various groups that are doing really worthy work. Some of them come from a few of the ladies that are a part of my Church’s “Sewing for Dignity” group that makes clothing, baby blankets, and feminine hygiene packs for underprivileged communities. Some also come from my Grandma who is a part of her Church’s used clothing ministry and helps sort out what is quality, and what is unusable from the various donations they get. Previously all of these bits would have just become garbage, so I am happy to give them life as useful, beautiful objects.

I also got a chance to be a vendor at the inaugural season of the Dallas Barnhartvale Farmers’ Market this summer. It was a really great opportunity to meet a lot of local people, and the support from my community was incredible. I’d be absolutely happy to do it over again next season!

This year also involved a lot of winter! It snowed straight through until April, so we made great use of our snowshoes, and skates. Kamloops is very beautiful in the snow! This year Little Forager also began what might be an undying love of skating and hockey. He’s now a diehard Blazer’s fan, and loves watching the Canucks on TV. This Christmas he got his own pair of tiny skates and is hard at work learning how to stay up by himself on them.

This year - unbeknownst to me - was my last season with my garden. I have so loved working on that project, and feeding my family with my own two hands. Balcony gardening is my future, and I am looking forward to the challenges and learning experiences that will bring. Even without the space I am used to, I will still be keeping the “grow” category of topics alive here on the blog.

2018 also featured a lot of recipes! I enjoyed writing the “meals from the pantry” series, and might pick that up again this winter if there is interest, and I also love creating and sharing the recipes I make from foraged ingredients. This is “A Forager’s Home”, after all!

If you have been reading this blog for the past little while you’ll know we recently had to move house. I was hoping to do some sort of “holiday home tour” this month and show off how we set up our new place, but our crazy schedule got the best of us, and all I have to show you are these few photos below.

We spent Christmas with my side of the family in my parents’ new place. This was the first year they had enough room for a full Christmas tree, and I have to say it made it feel a lot more like Christmastime knowing that my parents had their tree set up!

This photo of Little Forager sleeping in the glow of the Christmas tree is possibly a candidate for my absolute favourite photo of the year.

I’ve saved our biggest news of the year for last - although we’ve already shared it quite a bit so you might already know. This year we were so thrilled to find out that our little family would be growing by one in Spring of 2019! We are expecting a little girl to join us, and we couldn’t be more excited!

2018 was a complicated year, but filled to the brim with good things, and we can’t wait to see what 2019 has in store for us! How was your year? I’d love to hear how things were for you in the comments.

Favourite view of the past month so far. Taken through the car window while on a drive to visit some friends.

Friday Favourites

December 14, 2018 by Kelsey Fast

One Friday each month I like to link up to various other blogs and resources I find on the internet and share some of the things I’ve found to be helpful or interesting. Take a look and maybe find out something new!

Grow

Garden Therapy helps you identify what type of air plant you have.
Empress of Dirt explains how to keep your poinsettias alive and get them to rebloom!
Guide to winter gardening from Westcoast Seeds.

Find

This article from Shuswap Passion details traditional Secwepemc uses for the native plants in the Kamloops and Shuswap area.
Where to go snowshoeing locally from Hike Kamloops.
Guide to foraging acorns from Eat the Weeds.

Eat

Amazing tutorial on sourdough bread from Wholehearted Eats
Give some sweet treats this holiday with this list of holiday baking and candy making over at Food in Jars.
Holiday baking recipe roundup at The Farmer’s Daughter.

Make

Wrap your presents this year with fabric scraps! Chiot’s Run will show you how.
Try out furoshiki wrapping with this tutorial on Remodelista for a zero-waste wrapping solution.
Hand stamped fabric napkin tutorial over at Garden Therapy.

Miscellaneous

Get a discount on Nuggles products through this link. These are awesome diapers, wet bags, and other baby items and are designed by a local mom here in Kamloops.
Handy household items for zero-waste living from Ahem! Waste Free Life.

Some of these links are affiliate links for which I will receive a small commission from any sale made. Any product linked here is something I have tried and would absolutely recommend from my own experience with the company.