Local Chicken News:

Hello Group!


A VERY fast note being sent to let everyone know the last of this great FIRST season of the Metchosin Poultry Swap & Sale will be on Sunday October 17th, 2010 11am to 12:30pm. This has moved from the 'second Sunday' (Oct 10th) to allow friends and family to celebrate a long Thanksgiving weekend.


I will send out another reminder email & do my post on UsedVic next week..........with more details, so stay tuned.


There is the possibility of some Point of Lay hens coming............if you are looking for POL let me know asap, to help encourage this breeder to attend! :-)


If you have poultry you will be bringing to sell, let me know and I will include in the reminder email next week to help spread the word of what you have.


There are now close to 120 email addresses in this group and many spread the word to other forums, friends and family, so do let me know so I can add what you have for sale or are looking for!


Until next week............enjoy the super Autumn weather we have been graced with.


Cheers,


Liz

Dunlop House Restaurant @ Camosun

This year I do not want miss eating at Dunlop House.   Dunlop House is part of the culinary program at Camosun College Landsdowne campus.   They are only open on Tuesday and Wednesday for lunch from October to March.

I last ate at Dunlop house in 1989 when I was a Uvictim.  I remember the food was good and interesting, but this was 21 years ago - Victoria was not a foodie place at all and I was only 24 and had not been introduced to much food in my life.   I have meant to go back for ages, but the limited openings simply means I keep forgetting.

This fall and winter their menu is as follows:


Appetizers

• Soup du Jour - Our Student Chefs selection of the Day
• Local Greens - Artichoke Hearts, Crispy Okanagan Apples, Sweet Baby Tomatoes, White Balsamic and Mustard Vinaigrette
• Seafood Cakes - Red Onion Compote, Lemon Aioli
• Benedictine Blue Cheese and Sweet Onion Tart Balsamic Reduction, Green Apple and Grapes

Mains

• Cowichan Bay Farms Chicken Confit Veloute of Leek, Onion and Truffle Goats Cheese Potatoes
• Smoked Pork Tenderloin - House Smoked Filet of Pork, Seasonal Veggies, Red Currant Demi
• Halibut Nicoise - Filet of Halibut, Grilled Fennel Nicoise, Baby Roasted Potatoes, Asparagus Cream Sauce
• Chef's Special Creation - Our student "Chef of the Week" presents their personal selection in every changing variety. Please allow for a greater amount of time for a quality preparation.

Desserts

• Vanilla Bean Brulee - Pure Vanilla Decadence, One Spoonful at a Time
• Lemon and Lime Tartlet with Hazelnut Biscotto
• Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate - In Ever Changing Variations. Please Consult your Server for Today's Selection.

Reservations are recommended.

As I understand it, the food gets better over the year - this is being done by students and they are learning.

Anyone interested in joining in a week or two and go check it out? Drop me a line through a comment on this page. If there is interest, I will book a table.

Tomato Sauce This Weekend - And Kaffir Limes at Root Cellar

I am have ordered 100 pounds of tomatoes from Glanford Greenhouses for Friday.   They are charging me $0.80 a pound this year for them.

My plan is to make a very basic reduced tomato sauce/puree out of them and can in them in 250ml, 500ml, and 750ml jars.   Sheila asked that I make as basic as possible so that it can be used for more applications.   The 100 pounds should net me about 15 to 20 litres of tomato sauce.   My Victorio food mill will get a good workout, one of the best investments I have made. The pressure canner is another one.  It is because of the two of these that I can process and preserve as much food as I do.

If I have the time, I will order another batch of 100 pounds and make more sauce, but also make some basic canned diced tomatoes as well.  

________________________

The Root Cellar has Kaffir Limes from Thailand available at the moment, I bought some and I going to try and experiment with them.


I have been reading up on them and it looks like I will have to make some sort of Thai food.  


The limes are very tart, almost antiseptic in their acid.   The skin and fruit are very fragrant.


I have to thank the Root Cellar for consistently have interesting fruits and vegetables to choose from for experimentation.   It is also amazing how cheaply they manage to do it for.

Garden 2010

OK, it has been a bad year for my garden, the start was late and the growth has been weak for everything but the scarlet runner beans, those I have more than enough of.

So why the bad year? 

I got a late start - I planted some stuff early but it suffered, then it took my a long time to get the bulk in.
The soil needs more fertilizer - I know I was low in what I added this year and I can see the results.  I need to add more manure and compost.   My plan is to plant a bunch of fall rye as a green manure crop.

I also seemed to be short of time to get outside to get into the garden this year - I know this had to do with the scope and scale of renovations I took on in the spring and summer.

I have a whole bunch of strawberry plants to plant, I just need a location, I think will simply dig a whole and plant them all there to keep till the spring.

The chickens are slowing down and one has died.  I am getting only about 2 eggs a day at the moment, sometimes less.  I wonder about how well they will do this winter and if they are coming to the natural ends of their lives.   I actually have had to buy eggs for the first time in several years.

Total value of my crops this year?   Maybe $1000 this year and most of that is from the eggs.  

Dry Dog Food

I have now made the dra dog food for the second time and  I am happy with how it turned.   Louie seems to love it, he prefers it to the kibble we used to feed him. 

 I know that the homemade kibble looks a bit like one bit brownies, but when you see and feel them, they are quite different.

Louie sitting on the stairs watching the world outside

The cost is also quite reasonable, my estimate is that it costs me about $12 to make this recipe.   The time it takes is also no very long, you can put the mixture together in ten to fifteen minutes.   The baking and cooling process will add another two hours or so, though you are not very busy during that stage.

Here is the recipe:

• 5 cups of whole wheat flour
• 3 cups brewer's yeast
• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1 cup skim milk powder
• 9 cups stock
• 6 eggs
• 5 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 5 tablespoons peanut better
• 3 cups of pureed vegetables
• 1 tablespoon salt

1. Set the oven to 400 degrees
2. Steam and puree the veggies with about 1 cup of the stock - I use a lot of soy beans for the protein
3. Combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix
4. Mix all the wet ingredients 
5. Pour wet into the dry and mix till a smooth pancake batter consistency
6. Pour the mixture onto cookies sheets covered in baking paper - keep you depth to 1/4 - 3/8s of an inch.
7. Bake for about 35-40 minutes
8. Pull out the cookie sheets and let cool
9. Take out of cookie sheets using the baking paper to lift it and turn over onto a cutting board.
10. Cut the slab into thin long strips and return these strips to the oven and back for a second time for about 20-30 minutes, you are looking something that has the consistency of a biscotti.
11. Take out of oven and let cool and then cut into chunks.

The recipe can be vegetarian, the only meat product I use is my stock.

Dry Dog Food

I made up the one dry dog food recipe I found online and I am impressed with the result.  It took almost no time to make up the batter.   It was of the consistency of pancake batter and poured really nicely into the baking pan.

When it came out of the oven 40 minutes later, it was the consistency of gingerbread.  When I cut it into chunks I saw that I probably should have baked it a bit longer.

Louie is a fan of this kibble, I suspect using salmon stock made it irresistible to him.

Next time I make it I will triple the recipe.  The amount this made is enough for a week for Louie, he is a big dog and eats a fair bit.

Dog Food, the Next Step

I am going to try and make my own dry dog food.   At the moment I pay $43 for 8kg of decent dry dog food, this is about 64 cups by volume.  Based on a recipe I found that will make 60 cups of dry dog food, I can do it for less than $20.

The reason I am going to do this is because I was struck by how expensive decent quality dog food is and how awful smelling the cheap stuff is.  It was as I was buying my latest 8 kg bag that I wondered what it would take to make my own and if their would some sort of recipes online.   I got home and found quite a few to try, I am going to start with a recipe from this page.

The core of all the recipes is effectively making a dough that gets baked into a hard cracker.   The doughs all contain a fair amount of fat which means it will go rancid fairly quickly, but if I make a reasonable amount at a time this will not be an issue.   Louie eats about 3 cups of kibble along with 1.5 - 2 cups of wet dog food each day.   A 20 cup recipe should be enough to feed Louie for about a week, though I suspect I will make more like 40-60 cups of the food at a time, the bin we have for the dry dog food can hold about 80 cups.  I wold prefer not to have to make dog food each and every week.

I will post some pictures of the kibble and write about how it all turns out especially the verdict from the hound.