We were called the Three Creampuffs

Normally baking day is Monday. Unfortunately I have been spending my Mondays–for several weeks in a row–at the Summerside branch of OKTire. The combination of 17-year-old driver and 10 year old car is not a good place to be, especially if you have limited funds and even more limited time. This winter we have replaced 3 tires, had the car towed twice and personally rescued the car and teen driver twice. It really helps to have a mechanically-inclined husband with lots of tools and gadgets.

Despite the aforementioned husband, I have spent so much money at OKTire this winter I should just give them my ATM card and pin number. This Monday was relatively pain-free, just an annual safety inspection.

So this week, baking day is Tuesday.

I am, as usual, already behind before I even get started. I have a LIST of things to complete before the restaurant opens, and it is long.  When the alarm clock rang at 4:00 am, I got up. Lots of work to do and no backsliding today.

It is really dark at 4:00 am and the house is quiet. I enjoy this time of day, and I enjoy working alone. Once the bed and breakfast guests are here in the summer I will change my schedule and bake in the afternoons or be extremely quiet in the early morning and not wake anyone upstairs who is on vacation. But this morning I can bang around all I want. I weigh flour and start the mixer for a double batch of bacon bread first. While it is mixing I proof the yeast for 100 dinner rolls. We will need enough for the cafe for the coming week and extra to stockpile for a big supper we are catering a week from today.

CBC has interesting programming on in the middle of the night, broadcasts from the BBC  and Radio Australia, stories of the Roma in the Czech Republic and albinos on the run in Tanzania. Who knew that May is Zombie Awareness Month?

Bacon Bread dough ready to be panned

By 7:00 am when the rest of the family is getting up, the bread and rolls are ready to be panned and I feel accomplished. The bacon bread, in particular, is always a big hit for sandwiches. When you toast it for breakfast, it fills the house with a comforting bacony smell.   The recipe is surprisingly simple. (The hardest part is actually having some cooked bacon on hand–every scrap of ours is usually snarfed up as soon as it is cooked. Bacon leftovers? Never!)

Bacon Bread

makes 2 loaves

1 and 1/4 cup warm water

1 tablespoon dry yeast

3/4 pound cooked bacon, finely diced

3 and 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/4 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons salt

additional flour as necessary

1. Mix warm water and yeast, set aside 10 minutes to proof.

2. In the bowl of a standing mixer with a dough hook, put in flour, bacon, oil and salt.

3. Add water and yeast, then mix at medium speed for 5 minutes. If dough is too thick, add additional warm water. If too thin, add small amounts of flour until dough is smooth and elastic.

4. Transfer dough to a greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap or a damp towel. Let rise to double in size. (How long this takes depends on the temperature in your kitchen-usually 1 to 2 hours.)

5. Punch down dough and divide into 2 pieces. These can be placed as free-form rounds on a parchment-lined baking sheet or placed in greased loaf pans. Let rise for 1 hour.

6. Bake at 400 degrees (F) for 30 minutes.

This recipe was adapted from The Easy Way to Artisan Breads and Pastries by Avner Laskin.

That’s it for now. More to do before we open at 11:00.

Bacon Bread

Anita Price and a basket of fiddleheads

The fiddleheads are ready to pick!

We’ve been desperate for something locally-grown, fresh and green for weeks now, so I was delighted when Anita Price of FORAgE PEI called and offered to take me on an old-fashioned wild food hunt.

Fiddleheads are the uncurled fronds of the Ostrich Fern (mattteuccia struthiopteris) that begin to appear around late April or early May. Called ‘fiddleheads’ because they resemble the head of a fiddle, they grow in   clumps from a shallow root ball. You can find them along river and stream banks, at the edge of woodlands and in marshy areas. But I’m not telling you where we found ours–go find your own.

Know Your Ferns

Ostrich Fern is on the left, other (non-edible) fern on right

There are many kinds of ferns, but only the Ostrich Fern is recommended for consumption. (That’s why it is important to have someone like Anita handy!) She showed me the tell-tale signs of a good fiddlehead hunting ground, dried foliage from last year.

Pick Quick

The fiddleheads have to be picked when they are very young and still tightly coiled–it takes only a matter of a day, or even a few hours, for the chance to harvest to come and go. It was cold and raining when we set off on our food hunt. When we spotted last year’s dried fronds, we lept out of the car in search of new growth. We found clumps of baby ferns popping up all over in a narrow band of field just alongside woods and a stream. We used paring knives to cut the heads, but they easily broke off by hand. We only harvested about 1/3 of the tender shoots, leaving many to grow and ensure a future harvest. The fiddleheads sometimes had a papery brown skin over them that we easily brushed away. Our basket filled up quickly.

Tiny fern heads just emerging.

Highly Valued…in Some Places

I have seen fiddleheads in the produce section of the grocery store and read that Canadian fiddleheads are exported to Europe as a specialty food item. Evidently the Ostrich Fern resists cultivation, so wild fiddleheads are an expensive treat for some. We Islanders are lucky, though–a free supper is right here for the picking. Now that I have a good supply, I will be trying several fiddlehead recipes in the restaurant for the next few weeks. I’ll be reporting on the yummy results soon!

Thanks again, Anita Price of FORAgE PEI, for your willingness to share your knowledge of wildcraft and for keeping the tradition of foraging for food alive on Prince Edward Island.

An abundance of ferns, but too late for harvest

Charlottetown Farmer's Market

Canadian Geographic magazine recently published its list of the ‘Top 10 Farmer’s Markets’ across Canada, and the Charlottetown Farmer’s Market made the list! To view the entire article, follow the link here.

Way to go, Charlottetown Market!

According to Farm Markets Canada, an advocacy group promoting local farm markets, direct sales from Canadian farm to consumer were valued at 3.09 billion dollars in 2008. That organization’s brochure describing the impact of farm markets can be downloaded here.

By next summer we have no doubt that the Summerside ‘Spring Street’ Farmer’s Market will join the list as well.

It just goes to show that people really do want fresh, local and organic foods and are willing to go out of their way to find them.

What a difference a month makes! On my last post (Easter), we were blanketed in snow. Now on May 15–exactly 30 days later–things are growing, growing, growing! It is difficult to describe the transformation that has occurred from the gray and bleak winter that wouldn’t leave to the vibrant season that seems to have settled in. The local CBC affiliate has been asking listeners to send spring photos and there are some beautiful ones posted on the website here.

This is that beautiful time before the mosquitoes arrive. We are getting anxious for locally-grown veggies, but it is still a bit too soon. At the market today I saw a few bags of spinach and lettuce, must have been grown in local greenhouses. One vendor had bundles of radish, but the poor little premature things were the size of grapes! (And not those big grapes with seeds inside–the tiny red grapes!) People are just desperate for tender and fresh foods!

Our tomato and cucumber transplants–in every sunny spot in the house–are waiting to get outside. Jim has the frame of the greenhouse up but the cover isn’t on. Although we haven’t had a freeze at night for the last week or two, it still gets cold and is too soon for anything not frost-tolerant to be planted.

I want to be a salad when I grow up!

The lobster fishers set traps on April 30 and landed the first PEI catch of 2009 on May 1. The lobster seem in good supply, but buyers aren’t, so prices are low. Early visitors to PEI will be pleasantly surprised to snag fresh lobster for around $5 a pound. We’re doing our part by adding lobster rolls to the lunch menu and lobster pasta to supper. And we hope the demand side will pick up soon so that the fishers see a better return on their hard work.

PEI lobster boat on trap setting day

This is a holiday weekend, Victoria Day, so rain is practically guaranteed. I have more work to do around here than I could finish in a month of holidays, so there won’t be any break for us. We Islanders spend the entire winter waiting the busy season to arrive, and when it does…well, it does. The price of gasoline jumped 7 cents a liter overnight, so the tourist season is officially here. There will be no breaks now until Christmas.