Blue Crush

Blueberry season has been upon us for the last few weeks, and lately I've been out enjoying the gorgeous summer days, picking the last of the tiny fruit in what is now the end of the season. I was a bit of a late bloomer in getting out, mostly because I thought that the berries only grew in certain carefully-guarded secret patches and that only the locals would know where to go. People around here had not been very forthcoming with directions other than a general area, so it was only a few days ago that I, New to the North, decided to wander out on my own to see what I could find. Armed with a bucket, sunscreen, OFF and the knowledge that blueberry bushes like shallow, rocky ground, I bravely (if somewhat sceptically) drove the truck out of town. I was not to be disappointed. In fact, I now curse myself for not having ventured out earlier in the season.

Blueberries are everywhere! I found a spot to park by an exposed section of the Canadian Shield and did not have to wander more than five metres before the little blue dots caught my eye. At first they were sparse, and I wanted to walk a bit further from the road before I started picking in earnest anyway, but it wasn't long before I found a few good patches and my bucket was slowly filling up. And oh, are they delicious! The wild ones are a good bit smaller than the commercially grown blueberries, and they're tastier too, although maybe the difference in taste comes from eating them fresh off the stem versus from a store. I have never had sweeter or more flavourful blueberries, that is for certain!

Of course I needed to do something with all of the berries I have picked. Most I have frozen to use later in the season. To do this I rinse the berries and lay them on cookie sheets to dry, then pop the sheets in the freezer. Once frozen completely, the berries can simply be put into a freezerbag and stored for a later day, either for baking or to be thrown in a smoothie mix or sangria. Frozen berries also make a nice garnish for a cocktail or in iced tea, and they help keep your drink cold by acting as tiny ice cubes.

For breakfast the other morning I made a delicious yogurt parfait with homemade granola. The granola recipe is one I believe I found in an issue of the magazine Women's Health, but I cannot recall for sure if that is indeed the source. The recipe below is tweaked a bit from the original anyway and really you can add or omit anything as desired.

Homemade Granola

2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup ground flaxseed
1/2 cup craisins
1/2 slivered almonds
1/2 cup shredded coconut
3 Tablespoons all-natural peanut butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup honey
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Mix all ingredients and press into a pan. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 45 minutes.

For the parfait layer yogurt, berries and granola to fill half the bowl and then repeat.


Lastly, I found a recipe from Canadian Living for Blueberry Oatmeal Squares that is now one of my favourites of all time. It's like eating blueberry crisp in bar form, and maybe it's just the fresh wild berries but I don't think I've eaten anything quite so good in awhile. I think I'm in love. The only alteration I made from the recipe in the above link is to omit the orange zest, as I'm not a huge fan of orange flavouring. I did keep the orange juice in the blueberry filling, as I suspected (and was correct) that it would be overpowered by the juicy berries anyway.

The recipe was really easy to follow, except for the unfortunate space between the bulk of the dry ingredients and the brown sugar. I accidentally missed adding the sugar because of this, and I didn't realize it until I had nicely layered the dessert in the pan and it was ready for the oven. All of a sudden I thought: "Oh, sugar!" and then cursed for real. I quickly dismissed a crazy notion that I could try baking the squares without the sugar and see how they turned out. That would not do. I put a lot of effort into picking the berries, and if the recipe didn't turn out that effort would be for naught. I carefully skimmed the oatmeal portion off the top, then scooped out the filling, then mixed the oatmeal base with the top and the required brown sugar. The result after re-layering was a slightly sloppier but much sweeter version of my previous attempt, and despite my blunder the squares turned out perfectly, as you can see below.

I already can't wait for next year's blueberry harvest...and I'm going picking sooner this time!

Creature Comforts

It is a cold and rainy day in The North, so I decided to warm up by making soup for lunch. Homemade soup is one of the best feel-good foods around. It's wholesome, it's warm, and with a few slices of thick bread iced with salted butter (gotta be salted), it can be a hearty lunch. 

Curry-Pumpkin Soup

2 Tablespoons butter

1 medium onion

1 clove garlic

1 Tablespoon curry powder

2 cups pumpkin

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1 bay leaf

3 cups vegetable or chicken stock

Salt and pepper to taste

1 cup milk

In a large pot saute the chopped onion and garlic in butter until translucent. Add curry powder and stir until onion and garlic are coated. Add pumpkin, nutmeg and bay leaf. Stir in broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 15-20 minutes. Season further with salt and pepper to your taste. Stir in milk and allow to simmer for another 5 minutes.

In the fall I love to make the soup with fresh pumpkin, although I only had canned today so that's what I used. To bake fresh pumpkin, I cut it in half, remove the innards and seeds, lay the halves in a dish skin-side up with a bit of water in the bottom. Bake at 400 degrees Celcius for about an hour (it varies depending on the size of the pumpkin); you'll know when it's done when you can cut a knife through it like butter. I think this year I'll cook up a whole bunch of pumpkin flesh and then cube and freeze it so that I won't have to buy so much canned stuff (especially since the grocery store is 2 hours away!). Also, I always save the pumpkin seeds, rinse them and then drizzle them with olive oil and sprinkle on some celery salt or cajun spice. Toasted in the oven, they make a smart garnish tossed in the individual soup bowls or can be eaten by the handful as a yummy and nutritious snack.

Today, I added some diced carrots with the onions and garlic because I had a few extra lying around, but not too many because then the carrot taste would overpower the pumpkin flavour. Also if the carrots are not cut small enough or cooked through enough they'll still be a bit crunchy so the soup will need to be blended a bit (I need an immersion blender!). I toasted a few pumpkin seeds for the garnish, although I burnt them slightly while running Reina outside. Ah, puppies. Sigh. 

On that note, I've found one of the things that our new little Northerner loves most about rainy days...

 

 ...my rubber boots!

The Newest Northerner

Please allow me to announce the newest member of our northern family...Reina! Our new darling is a 12 pound, eight-week-old German Shepherd puppy who was born in Southern Saskatchewan, about 50 kilometres north of Regina. Thus, Reina is also new to The North, just like us. 

Mostly black with tan legs, Reina's left ear seems to have been permanently warped so that it points toward the other. I think the result gives her Justin Bieber style, since the floppy ear is so unnaturally swept across her forehead just like Bieber's hair. Additionally, Reina has been kind enough to show off her beautiful singing voice, forcing another comparison to the Teen Sensation from Stratford, Ontario. Apparently the ear will eventually perk up and then flop down again correctly. We'll see. I kinda like it.

As with any  puppy, it's hard to get Reina to settle down for photos when she's awake. I learned quickly that my new iPhone is not good for taking pictures of such rapidly moving objects; the result of my first photo-shoot was blurry action shots or sleeping stills. Other than her ears, the cutest thing about Reina is the disproportion of her feet to the rest of her. She is adoringly clumsy and when she runs her large paws seem to have been borrowed from another dog.

Happily, at least for the ride home and through the night, Reina's favourite thing to do seems to be sleeping. She slept for the majority of the 8 hour journey by truck and will pretty much curl up anywhere, although this may have more to do with the weather than her lack of desire to play for long periods of time; it's been hot here for the last couple of days, with temperatures nearing 30 degrees Celsius.

Heat shouldn't be an issue for much longer as we move through August and into fall. I suppose that Reina (and I) will have a greater issue with the cold, cold winters to come than with the odd warm summer's day. Our biggest challenge while living in The North with a dog will most likely be dealing with the "Rez dogs", as there are quite a few rascals on the loose in our community. In fact, hardly anyone keeps their dog contained, although we have a decent fence which my partner has fortified after a successful trip to Canadian Tire, so she should be relatively safe in the yard. Despite this, we will have to keep a close eye on Reina, especially while she is still a puppy. When she gets bigger and stronger we will be able to keep an eye out for each other. If someone can stay awake long enough.

Reina (pronounced Ray-na) means "queen" in Spanish, a throwback to the time I have spent in South America. Also my very first farm dog was named Queen, and my spouse really likes the name, so it seemed appropriate for our very first dog together. And while she may not be royalty, Reina is from exceptional stock. She was acquired from Last Mountain Kennels which is just outside of Strasbourg, SK. We had a wonderful experience dealing with the owner and felt that the puppies were extremely well cared-for. Our current living situation was taken into consideration, as were the qualities we are looking for in a pup. I would highly recommend Last Mountain to anyone looking for a pure-bred German Shepherd, as I simply felt good during the communication in the months leading up to picking her up and also while driving away with Reina. I know I can contact the owner any time for advice or to share stories about Reina's progress, and that means a lot. Because she may not be true royalty, but she sure is the Queen of The North.

The End of the World

What a beautiful day it was today! It was under a gorgeous sunny sky that I drove the F150 over the roller-coaster that is our hallowed path to civilization, a.k.a. the town closest to us where we can buy a decent amount of stuff. As I returned from town, I couldn't help but think of a particular country road that my parents would drive when I was a kid. Bouncing over big bumps and small, I was suddenly reminded of a scene from my childhood that involved travelling by car (also a Ford, if I remember correctly) to a destination that I can no longer recall. The route in question was memorable because a lengthy leg of it was quite hilly, and at certain points the road would suddenly spring up enough that we were unable to see anything on the other side of the hill. From the backseat, my sisters and I would yell out "It's the end of the world!" and hold our breath in the anticipation that our car might actually fall off the edge of the earth. Our eyeballs bulged as we tried to peer over the acme of the hill to the other side, attempting to determine whether or not we would plummet to our doom. We never did. And I didn't yesterday either, although I sure did grin to myself remembering those topsy-turvy times.

 

The above picture quite possibly shows the edge of the earth as seen in Northern Saskatchewan. Another thing the picture shows is something that does not incite happy thoughts...graffiti on the Canadian Shield. I really detest seeing fluorescent markings on the magnificent rock that is the foundation of half of our country and wish that people had  more respect for our beautiful surroundings.

On this road constant turns keep one's attention to the foreground so the eyesore on the face of the rock quickly became peripheral and then vanished behind me. I didn't notice anything further out of the ordinary until I got closer to home, where such vandalism is sadly quite frequent. Luckily the day was too lovely to be ruined by a little ill-placed paint. On the final hill before town I stared down the blue sky that was all I could see ahead of me. I knew that my small Northern Town was on the other side. And a whole lot of breathtaking nature. And not much else. "It's the end of the world!"

Berry Delicious

A few days ago I was out for a walk and I came across some berries that I was unable to identify. They looked kind of like blueberries, kind of like cranberries, and were growing on a shrub that was taller than I.Upon consulting several locals (and a few experts from farther away) I was confident that these are Saskatoon berries, which are not only edible, but quite yummy. Indeed, they taste somewhat like blueberries but with a strong cherry after-note.

Being the baker that I am, my first though was - "what can I make with these berries?" so I searched the net for some recipes and came up with a couple that seemed good. I wasn't able to get enough for pie, since the season seems to be coming to an end and a lot of the fruit was starting to dry up, but I was able to pick enough plump berries for a couple batches of muffins.

Generally when I bake I find recipes to use as a base and then I tweak them according to my taste. The recipes below are no exception, although I will include the link to the original recipe as well.

Saskatoon Berry-Oatmeal Muffins

1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup orange juice
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup plain yogurt or sour cream
1 egg
1 1/2 cups saskatoon berries
2 Tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 Tablespoon oatmeal

Soak rolled oats in orange juice. Stir dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl, beat egg and then add oil and beat until light in colour. Add yogurt or sour cream and stir again. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and add egg mixture and also oatmeal mixture. Fold wet ingredients into dry and add berries. Mix only until just combined. Spoon batter into muffin tins and top with the sugar, cinnamon and oatmeal mixture. Bake in 375 degree oven for 20 minutes.

Based on a recipe from Food.com. I liked the idea of the orange juice, although I didn't really taste orange in the muffin; I would maybe put a little zest in next time to get a stronger orange flavour. I like to use plain yogurt or sour cream in muffins as a substitute for part of the fat, and I used canola oil instead of vegetable oil because it's healthier. Next time I would substitute half of the flour for whole wheat and add a bit more juice. Blueberries or cranberries could be substituted for saskatoons if you don't live Up North like me :) This muffin is not only tasty, but healthy too!

Zesty Lemon Saskatoon Muffins

1/12 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup saskatoons

1 egg

1/4 cup canola oil

3/4 cup milk

Grated rind of 1 lemon (reserve 1 Tablespoon for topping)

2 Tablespoons sugar

Stir dry ingredients together. Stir in saskatoons. In a separate bowl, beat egg and then add oil and beat until light in colour. Add milk and lemon rind and stir.  Add wet mixture to the dry ingredients and mix only until just combined. Spoon batter into muffin tins and top with the lemon rind and sugar mixture. Bake in 400 degree oven for 25 minutes.

Based on a recipe from the Prairie Fruit Growers Association. The original recipe only called for the lemon zest in the topping, but I love lemon in baking so I threw the rest of the rind from the lemon into the batter with great results. A delicious, fluffy muffin that could would also be great with other berries instead of saskatoons.







The saskatoon berries have been a lovely discovery! I enjoyed my afternoon with one of each creation and a cup of earl grey tea with a light lavender aroma. The mug in the picture is one of my favourites: I bought it in Finland at a store called Iittala.The company is Finnish and I love that their products are "inspired by lasting everyday design and against throwawayism". I simply adore their pieces, although they are admittedly quite pricey (for my budget, at least). A link to the website can be found here if you'd like to check them out. Finnish people are very proud of this store and its Finnish products planned by Finnish designers. As a Canadian who like to buy local when I can, I can certainly relate.

New in Town

The Canadian North. Wild. Majestic. Vast. And Brand New!

A trek has been made from South-Western Ontario to Northern Saskatchewan. Over 3,000 kilometres of road, trees and lakes rolled by as we (my spouse and I) crossed one provincial border, then another. We said good-bye to the last Tim Horton's long before we reached our destination and savoured the crunch of gravel under the truck tires that would lead us to our new home. The clear, calm lakes glimpsed between the pines were our landmarks. The setting sun to our left the only GPS we would require. A forest of birch was our welcoming committee. We had at last arrived in The North.

 So what, you are probably asking, are my first impressions of my Northern Surroundings?  

Talk about a bad first impression...found this guy on the windshield of our truck on the way up. His body was about the size of my thumb. Thankfully there was a pane of glass between him and myself because I NEVER would have gotten this close to him otherwise (on purpose). I believe it is a type of spruce beetle. I hope I never, ever meet him again; I've heard that they take chunks out of you. Chunks!

Otherwise my initial impressions have been more positive. Longer days (although that will drastically change come winter) and picturesque forest and lakes. There is obviously a considerable difference between a some-what isolated northern community and a bustling southern urban centre, thus it remains to be seen how we will cope being so far from the restaurants, stores and other amenities that we had been so used to Down South. Only time will tell. But that's for another post...