Darienne

Hello Ted from outside Peterborough, ON and welcome. You'll find quite a number of Ontarians and Canadians on this list...always looking to find those elusive items which you can't yet buy in Canada.

Oh, recipe, please! It looks scrumptious!

Rotuts: Where exactly do you spray the 'light oil'? David Ross: We don't use anything on our trees, not fertilizer nor pesticides. Not a big problem. If there's a worm, we do as the 'old-timers' did: cut the worm out with a paring knife. As DH was telling our B-i-L yesterday...one use to eat and apple with a paring knife in hand to cut out the bad parts and the fauna.

Not yet apple season here in East Central Ontario. We have at last count 20 apple trees on our 100-acre hemp farm although many are hardly edible now. Some are heritage apples no doubt, going back over 100 years. We don't know...no one has documented any of this. Some taste OK. Some are well...we don't want to eat them. All are growing wild. In our back yard we have two nicely-producing trees - a Macintosh and a Northern Spy. And you can't beat a Northern Spy for pies. (Which Canadians eat traditionally with sharp cheddar...not whipped cream, not ice cream.) Two years ago we had WONDERFUL apples up the wazoo. We juiced as many as we could stand to juice and froze the results. And apple-sauced the rest. Some were pies. Nothing noteworthy except for the incredible abundance of the apples. Next year we had lots of apples...but small and not really that good. Didn't really do anything with them. This year the Northern Spy has NO apples on it. And the Mac has a very few, up high in the branches and we haven't tried one yet. The pattern above is not new over the last 19 years. I have no idea why. It's time to call in a professional apple grower I think. Any advice is gratefully received. I realize that this post entails more than the cooking of apples. Sorry.

Update on foraging on the farm. The tree has been identified as a choke cherry by an expert and already much of the berry production is gone, eaten by local birds. I don't think I'm going to make anything with it. The berries are still red and I'll watch this year and see if they turn darker as time passes. Ed's puffball up at the Drive Shed was allowed to grow too big and the innards were beyond eating. Ugghh. However, this must be the year of the puffball because yesterday on our perimeter walk with the dogs we counted at least 10 puffballs growing. They're little now, but they can expand so quickly you can hardly believe it. I'll report back if we eat any more of them. Smilax or the Carrion Flower. We have two of these on the farm, with one being gorgeous to watch. The green berries turn navy blue as time passes. It's called the Carrion Flower because the flowers smell like carrion. Simple. The references state that it is edible however...I just don't feel comfortable with the idea. Maybe I'll try... Last year was the first time I had ever seen it in my life and the local go-to naturalist had never heard of it. The spheres of berries are quite unusual. This photo was taken last week and already the navy blue coloring has spread a lot. My camera just officially died a couple of days ago, so that's it for photos for now.

I know that you mentioned salads...but for me Tabbouleh is ALL about mint...tons of mint.

I am going to check it all out again tomorrow morning. I've Googled pin vs choke cherry and have some good points to note. I'm pretty sure these are choke cherries. Pin cherries form in umbels for one thing while choke cherries are in racemes. And they are attached slighted differently. And pin cherry leaves are more scalloped while choke are serrated. All in a day's work.

Kerry as usual is correct...but then DH likes to wait until they are ginormous. The one up by the Drive Shed is huge. (My camera refused to work this afternoon. It's a dreadful camera.) I'll try to get a photo again tomorrow and see if I can convince Ed to pick it and then cut a slice off it for a photo. I should admit that I have long ceased to be much of a mushroom lover.

And there's a second one growing up at the Drive Shed as we speak. If you asked my DH what they taste like, he might go on at some length about how delicious they are. I think they taste like nothing much and if you fry them in butter, they taste like buttery nothing. But that's just my opinion.

Thanks Kerry. Just read a post from FB, from my B-i-L, who speaks also of the large seed. I'll test for the seed tomorrow. And then I'll watch for deepening of the colour. Google images do show both the bright red and the later darker colour. It's not the end of the summer yet...although it sure feels like it with this weather lately. The photo does not show the trees very clearly...they are not small. But this is the very first year that any berries have been on them, so they are teenage trees I guess. Choke cherry juice? I'll google it and see how much sweetener it needs.

And now for the Choke Cherries? Are they Choke Cherries? They look like the item described online and in our Peterson book. What on earth can one do with them besides jam or jelly...which we don't eat more than 4X a year? If that. Is there anyone nearby who can identify these trees for sure? Or who wants the berries? (Don't suggest local folks coming to the farm and picking them please. I'd love to allow that, but our insurance would not cover any ensuing law suits. And we don't have pathways for us to give them to anyone that I know of. At this point. I'll investigate.) It's a shame if they go to waste. The trees are so heavily laden...if they are choke cherries...which I don't know for certain. I'll pick a puff ball any day...but choke cherries I've never seen before.

In our house, it's just plain apple and sugar and I am more than welcome to add cinnamon to my own pieces as cut if desired. Mostly I don't bother and we eat apple pie with 5-year old cheddar. The cheddar provides all the 'spice' needed. But then we are Canadians.... I would tend to try cardamom.

They're back.... Puffballs which grow in random places on the farm. This one we have been watching for a week now and finally DH picked it today. Heaven only knows how big it would actually grow. It's not the biggest we have ever picked, but close. It will be sliced, fried in butter, some eaten and the rest frozen for later use. Forgot: 11 " (28cm) high with a circumference of 38" (96.5 cm)

This all sounds good and exciting too. I'm so glad that you have returned to eG and now a cookbook to follow too. All best.

We live in east central Ontario, Canada, and use Kadoya sesame oil. My big complaint is that we can't get the favored coconut milk, Mae Ploy.

Ed and I have been cooking together peacefully for over 54 years now. In fact, he taught me how to cook when we were first married and he still does almost all the short order stuff. For certain, he does bacon, potatoes, eggs and toast. I couldn't stand the tension. One of our best 'togethers' is Chinese food. He does the mises and I do the cooking. (He does a lot more work in this one than I do. )

I got the recipe and I'm a Canadian posting from Canada.

I have long wanted to make a trifle and even have a trifle-suitable bowl although it has no pedestal and is...(ooops)...plastic. Yours is gorgeous and I just might go for it for the upcoming Dog Weekend. How to win friends and influence people. I guess.

I completely agree with Anna re frozen peas and carrots.

You can make tortillas roll-ups, spread both sides with butter, cinnamon and sugar. Pin with a toothpick and bake for a few minutes. Use small tortillas.

I have a couple of recipes for little kids to make Tootsie Rolls without any cooking...as I recall. I could look them up.

We bought them decades ago in Ottawa, ON. They looked like hamburger buns more or less, but were egg bread so they were tasty on their own. Honestly, it was a V-E-R-Y long time ago...the baby is now 49. They were squishy ...if you squished them. You could use any bread stuff at all. It was the magic of the cheese puffing way, way up that did it.

First thing to come to my mind was Rice Crispie Squares. Then reading about the cheese sandwiches reminded me of my own children's favorite, cooked only when Grandmom came and she brought the stuff. Soft stuffy egg buns with American cheese slices. You simply lay the cheese slice on top of the bread and then under the broiler and the cheese puffs way...way...up and the kids loved that with a passion.

You two do the loveliest blog. Enjoy it every time. I made the Impossible Chocolate Pie and it was a great success with homemade Vanilla Ice Cream...but then our guest was a single gentleman and he loves anything made at home. Next I'm gonna make that Torte. Haven't decided what fruit to use. Thanks for both of these recipes.

Monty Cristo. Interesting. Unlike most folks I have encountered, I was raised on salted French toast and that's how I eat it, when I do. But I don't know about this fully loaded version.