Recipe: Vinegret

Not to be confused with the salad dressing that shares its name, vinegret is a traditional Russian salad that's always found on the table at a dinner party or festive gathering. It's popular both because of its colourful look and the fact that it's made from hardy storage veggies that can be pulled out of the cellar in the depths of winter. Growing up in a household of Russian emigrees meant vinegret was present at every single celebration, although picky kid eater that I was, I usually wanted nothing to do with its vinegary flavour. With a more grown-up appreciation for this vibrant salad, I decided to oven roast the beets and carrots instead of boil them so as to better bring out the earthy sweetness of these delicious root veggies. It takes longer, but the taste is well worth it. If you're interested in other more traditional touches you can try adding some peas and sauerkraut, although if adding the latter I would dial back on the white vinegar and pickle brine.

Ingredients (serves 4-6):

Salad:
- 2.5 cups (375 g) each of beets, carrots, potatoes
- 1-2 dill pickles
Dressing:
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tbsp white vinegar
- 2 tbsp pickle brine liquid
- 2 tbsp diced white onion
- salt and pepper to taste

Steps:

1) Drizzle unpeeled beets in olive oil and wrap individually in aluminum foil (if beets are large, cut in half or quarters first to save time in the oven).

2) Peel carrots and place in shallow baking pan, drizzle with olive oil. Place foil wrapped beets in same pan and roast at 425 F until tender. The carrots will likely take about 30 minutes, the beets about 60 minutes.

3) Peel potatoes and boil until tender, about 20 minutes.

4) While the veggies are cooking, assemble dressing ingredients and dice pickles. Set aside.

5) Drain potatoes and dice when cool enough to handle. Place in colander and rinse under cold water to wash off the starch and separate the diced cubes.

6) Remove carrots from the oven and dice when cool enough to handle.

7) Remove beets and take foil off. Rub peels under running water to remove. Dice beets when cool enough to handle.

8) Combine ingredients with dressing in a salad bowl and mix well. Chill until ready to serve. Can be stored in the fridge for 3 days.

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Recipe: Roasted Salsa

Dry roasting all the ingredients in this salsa gives it a lovely deep and smoky flavor. The hot peppers in this week's box are a medium heat cayenne pepper, so you can add as much or as little as you'd like depending on your preferred level of spiciness. The seeds and ribs of the hot pepper have the most heat so you can leave these out if you would rather make a very mild salsa. Always make sure you wear gloves of some kind when handling hot peppers in the kitchen or you will live to regret it.

Ingredients:
- 1 lb tomatoes (preferably paste tomatoes such as Roma or plum)
- 3 large sweet peppers
- 1-3 hot peppers (depending on spiciness preference)
- 1 medium onion
- 1 bulb of garlic
- 1-2 tsp lemon juice
- salt to taste

Steps:
1) Slice tomatoes in half and destem. Slice sweet peppers in half and clean out seeds. Peel and slice onions in half. Lay tomatoes and sweet peppers skin side up and onions cut side up on a cookie sheet or shallow roasting pan. Don't cut the hot peppers, just place on the pan. Place garlic bulb unpeeled and uncut on pan.

2) Roast veggies under broiler until peppers and tomatoes have blackened, blistered skins.

3) Put sweet and hot peppers in a bowl and cover with a pot lid or plate for at least 10 minutes. Leave onions, garlic and tomatoes on the pan until cool enough to handle.

4) Peel and discard tomato skins. Peel and discard sweet pepper skins. Peel garlic (or you may be able to squeeze softened garlic directly out of peel if well roasted). Separate onion rings and toss into a food processor. Add tomatoes, sweet peppers and garlic to food processor as well. Save the hot peppers for last and WEAR GLOVES while you peel the skins.

5) Pulse food processor until salsa is chunky but well combined.

6) Add 1 tsp of lemon juice and taste. Add another tsp is more acidity is needed. Salt to taste. Refrigerate and serve cold.

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Recipe: Smashed Potatoes

These crispy roasted potatoes are sort of a cross between hash browns and baked potatoes. Easy to whip up and very versatile too with lots of options for toppings either before and after they come out of the oven. Try smashing different types of potatoes and enjoy the different, tasty results. The fingerlings I used for this post are waxy potatoes and hold their shape better, ending up thicker and more tender. Russet style potatoes are the classic ones for roasting and will be deliciously crispy without any burnt edges.

Ingredients:
- potatoes
- olive oil
- salt
- additional suggested toppings: garlic (minced or dried), oregano, thyme, rosemary, parmesan, zatar, chopped onions, ground pepper, paprika, cumin

Steps:
1) Chop potatoes into 2-3 inch segments and boil until tender but not quite cooked through. The total time will depend on the type of potato used and thickness of the segments, but typically 10-15 minutes.

2) Strain potatoes into a colander and leave until cool enough to handle. You can also refrigerate for up to two days and then smash and roast later.

3) Line a cookie sheet or shallow roasting pan with parchment paper. With the heel of your hand lightly press down on potato segments until resulting smashed potato is about 1/2 inch thick, or the thickness of a fat hash brown.

4) Drizzle with olive oil and rub oil over each potato to ensure an even coating. Sprinkle salt and whatever additional toppings you want (see ingredient list for suggestions).

5) Roast at 425F (ideally on convection setting if your oven has it) until golden on top and brown around the edges, about 20-30 minutes.

6) Serve immediately. Delicious whether eaten plain or with a variety of toppings. Try sour cream, crème fraiche, salsa, avocado, smoked salmon, roast chicken or just a few drops of hot sauce. For a fresh garden topping finely chop the parsley in this week's box and sprinkle it on liberally.

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Kids Garden

This spring the kids and Eric planted a little mini garden in the front near the house. Rose was heavily invested in all the planning work that went into it, being the sort of nerdy kid who loves making lists and grids and so on.

All through the spring and summer the kids visited their garden daily and watched its progress. Help with weeding and maintenance was less enthusiastic, but they did get involved to a small degree. In total they planted 8 veggies plus a small corn field which you can see in the tall grass behind them.

You can also see the dry, dead grass all around the little garden, which is typical of what everything in this area looks like thanks to the severe drought conditions we're experiencing this summer. You couldn't tell just from this photo but the tall grass in the back hasn't been mowed all season which is very unusual as we typically need to bush hog it at least once before mid-summer or it grows out of control.

Of course the best part of a veggie garden is harvesting! My favorite part is the look of pride on Rose's face.

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Recipe: Corn Relish

Corn relish is a sweet summer treat that captures the fresh taste of some of August's best offerings like corn, sweet peppers, tomatoes and sweet onions. Use it on anything that comes off the barbeque like burgers, hot dogs, steaks and grilled chicken. You can also toss a spoonful of corn relish into a simple chef's salad to liven it up a bit or mix it with rice and beans for added flavor. It's about as versatile a condiment as it gets. It will last for weeks in the fridge (if you don't devour it first), but you can also preserve it via the hot water canning method and enjoy opening up a jar of summer freshness in the deepest, darkest months of winter.

Ingredients (makes about three 500 mL jars):
- 6 ears of corn
- 1 1/2 cups white or apple cider vinegar
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 sweet bell pepper
- 1 tomato
- 1/2 sweet onion
- 1/2 tbsp salt
- 11/2 tsp mustard powder
- 1/2 tsp cumin

Steps:
1) Bring a pot of water to boil and cook corn for 3 minutes. Drop the corn in large bowl of cold water after removing from heat.

2) When the corn is cool enough to handle, cut the kernels off the cob. Any small, sharp knife will do the trick, but my favorite tool for this job is a corn zipper.

3) Dice tomatoes and place in a strainer over a bowl or in the sink. Sprinkle very lightly with salt to pull the water out of the tomatoes and let drain at least 10 minutes.

4) Dice peppers and onions.

5) Add vinegar, sugar, salt, mustard powder and cumin to a large pot and bring to a boil. Add corn, peppers, onions and tomatoes and simmer gently for 5 minutes.

6) Spoon corn relish into jars and make sure the veggies at the top are covered with a thin layer of liquid. There will likely be a bit of leftover liquid in the pot when you're done and you can discard this. Refrigerate relish and serve cold. Will last several weeks in the fridge.

7) For hot water bath canning pack corn relish into hot 250 mL or 500 mL canning jars and process fully submerged in water at a rolling boil for 15 minutes. Remove and allow jars to cool before storing on a shelf at room temperature. Check that the lids have fully sealed once cool. Refrigerate after opening.

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Drought

We're several months into a serious drought here and there's no end in sight. According to Agriculture Canada we are experiencing a D2 condition or "severe drought" at this point. We had low snowfall over the winter to charge the groundwater and since the end of March we've only had about 4 inches of rain, where we would normally expect closer to 12. We're feeling lucky that we are surviving so far this year, given how bad it has been for some farmers. Nonetheless, we are feeling the heat and so are the crops. The grass is a sea of brown, with just a few deep rooted perennials (like the chicory above) still making a go of it.

We've had a few things fail to establish at all early on - early carrots, beets, spinach, scallions and turnips. These are normally planted early enough in the spring that they will reliably germinate and get going with rainfall and soil moisture. Simply seeding and forgetting about these crops for a couple of weeks usually works out during the busy rush of spring as the season gets going. This year, I ended up replanting and coaxing along quite a few things, and still ended up with a few total losses. Fortunately the early transplants fared better, as they reliably get a bit of water to help them get established.

By now, I would have expected to have carrots going out every week, but they have hit a size plateau and seem to be waiting for more moisture. Lettuce, broccoli and baby greens have been missing from the boxes since the first few weeks because although I have been able to get them growing, without more water they are small and bitter. Yesterday I finally gave up on the last planting of broccoli and plowed it under to plant some drought tolerant cover crops and make some space for a few more fall crops. Out of my three broccoli plantings, I was only able to harvest the first.

We are fortunate to have some irrigation equipment (although not nearly enough to irrigate everything easily) and I have been putting in a lot of hours moving hoses and drip lines around to make the most of it. In the past couple of weeks, however, I have cut back to the bare minimum to keep things alive because I am starting to get worried about running out of water. We have one very good well with good flow but if we run out it will be real trouble. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

Here's a test hole I dug in a bed that hasn't received any irrigation. It is dusty dry a full 12 inches down. The little bits of rain we do get are barely wetting the surface here. It's quite strange to dig after a rain and find dry soil underneath a thin layer of moist soil on the surface. By my estimates and based on the soil type here, we need 2.5-3 inches of rain just to recharge the moisture in the topsoil, to say nothing of the groundwater.

Speaking of dust, even simple tasks like raking a bed flat kick up big clouds of dust. To a farmer, that's precious topsoil blowing away forever, so I have been trying to avoid excessive disturbance, but it can be tricky when a planting fails and needs to be replaced.

Here's a side by side comparison of the early and late summer squash. On the left is the first planting, which managed to get to decent size before the ground dried out completely. On the right (wilting) is the third planting, which I would be hoping to have take over production in two or three weeks from now as disease pressure increases on the first planting. It has been in the ground for almost a month and is barely hanging on. Needless to say, this squash won't be picking up the slack any time soon.

The sweet corn is doing better than the dry grass next to it, although it is quite a bit shorter than usual. The dry conditions stress the corn, but at least the heat we've had has been good for ear formation. In the foreground you can just see my high tech bird prevention technique for this year - paper bags over nearly-ripe ears, held on with rubber bands.

Ultimately, worrying about and being affected by the weather just comes with the territory as a farmer. Right now we're feeling fortunate to have been able to make it this far in the season under such difficult conditions. Still, we're definitely worried about getting some rain in the back half of the summer so that our fall crops have a chance to put on some growth before the weather starts to cool. Come on, rain!

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Eva Mae Farm