Farm Fresh Butter and Cream, PLEASE!

My mother and I made our way down to the Salisbury Greenhouse Farmer's Market yesterday evening to enjoy the products of Johnson Family Farm (Bonnyville).
She picked up a litre of cream for her mom (my Baba :) ) and I skipped all the way home with butter and cream in tow. They also had eggs and cottage cheese and buttermilk and a whole bunch of other goodies that I unfortunately didn't have time to go through as we had to rush back to the city so Mom could get to her meeting.

On the Johnson Family Farm business card they have listed: Pork-Meat; Cows-Meat, Cream and Cheese; Turkeys and Chickens-Eggs and Meat; Lamb-Meat.
Definitely worth going back for :)

With my butter I'm sure I'll be greedy and put it on 100mile homemade bread :)
And perhaps make some shortbread cookies. Because there's no other cookie that you can really taste the butter in quite like a shortbread :)

Now the cream... I bought it mainly just to say I found some lol It is pasteurized, which is wonderful. What to make...
Ice cream?
Custard? Pudding? Creme Brulee?
Soup? Chowder?
Make -MORE- butter and then make buttermilk biscuits? Or buttermilk pancakes?? (and then put the fresh butter on them :) )

oh dear.

I think I need more cream... :)

- DJK

Cheesemaking and Lamb

I've been following Kevin Kossowan's blog for a short while now... He always has great articles and wonderful tales of his adventures! I've now put him as one of the HomePage Tabs on my browser so I don't forget to check it :)


His latest posting is about Tangle Ridge Ranch, a lamb ranch. It's definitely worth the read, and I'm seriously considering purchasing from them. I'll have to discuss it with my hubby first, of course. But he likes lamb, so that shouldn't be a problem :) And I'm sure I could get at least one of my sisters/aunts/etc in on it as well...

"Hello? Yes, I'd like to order 4 whole lamb please..."

:) Yes, they only sell whole lamb. Which is the way to go in my opinion. How will you ever know what you like if you only purchase/cook/eat "prime"/"choice" cuts??? That's one way to really miss out...


And now for CHEESE! :D
If I'm gonna make cheese this summer I better get on it... My basement is almost organized enough that I should have a good cool spot to keep it. Otherwise, it'll be stored in my mother's or my baba's cold room. Which I guess would be ok, but not ideal.


Again, thanks to Kevin's Blog, I'll be looking into Glengarry Cheesemaking. Their site so far is very straight forward, easy for a novice (like me!) to understand and be able to order the right ingredients and equipment with only the beginnings of research under my belt.


So, go check the sites and be adventurous with your cooking!! :D


- DJK

Are you eating local yet?

Spring has finally come to Edmonton!
We had a bit of a rough start with more snow than usual over the winter and a cooler than normal spring, but most of the snow is gone and the sun is shining bright :)

I'm taking the Spring Mushroom course through the Devonian Botantical Gardens May28th with my Aunt and Sister. It is now full, so if you haven't signed up by now you're out of luck.

My family and I went out to the Strathcona Farmer's Market this morning. We walked/squeezed our way through the crowds of people (spring fever? I think so!), sampled goodies from the stalls and bought a carrot cake (the sample was REALLY good! The cake didn't disappoint.)

I've been interested in Lamb lately. One of my favorite FoodNetwork shows is Jamie at Home. He's always cooking and really enjoying it! When I look for it at the grocery stores there's hardly ever any selection and the price is always ridiculous. So, when I found a vendor at the market that does ONLY lamb, I grabbed a pamphlet and checked out their site when I got home.
Farm Fresh Lamb
I sent them a msg asking the price on a whole lamb and what age they take the lamb for slaughter.

I'll let you know what I find out.

For all you gardeners, Bedrock Environmental Services Ltd. has a wide selection of native flowers, grasses, shrubs, etc for Alberta.
Just one more way to go LOCAL!