A few years back, I learned how to make traditional Italian tomato source from 92 years old Italian neighbour of mine. She also taught me a simple way to can the sauce with using an oven. Now around this time of the year, we make a pot full of tomato source from our own garden tomatoes and canning them for the winter.  Today I am going to share you this simple and easy canning method. I found this method to be much safer and much easier then using boiling water.

Hope you can start enjoying the local food all year by canning by your own!

What you need:

• Clean glass jars and lids
• Oven, preheat at 200F
• Cooking gloves
• Things to be canned (has to be still hot)
• Labels

Direction:

1. In a preheated oven, place empty, clean glass jars (without lids) for 20-30 minutes. Check the jars, in a beginning the jar may fog a bit, but as you continue heat them up, it will become all clear, and when it is all clear, then it is ready to use.
2. Take out a jar with cooking glove on, and put the things you want to can inside the jar and close the lid tightly. Put back the jar in the oven (temperature is still at 200F)
3. When you finish canning all of the jars and put them back inside the oven, turn the oven to “OFF”. Let it cool by itself for a several hours (or over night). Because of this temperature change, it creates a vacuum, and lids are now tightly sealed.
4. Label them with contents, dates it was made etc and keep them in cooler place until you use them!

Oven heat (dry heat) can be also used as a sterilization for the glass wear. To kill the most resistant organisms, make sure to heat the glasses for 60 min.

Note: you do not need to use a canning method for fermented food.

I think one of the nutritious food items that is so hard to introduce in Canadian daily meal is KELP (Kombu in Japanese). Here in Toronto is especially so faraway from the ocean, that smell of “sea” is somewhat foreign to people.

Making a soup stock is one idea of using kelp in quite paritable way! The bonus is it is super simple!  

This is a traditional way of taking soup stock from kelp in Japan. We use this in any type of soup, hot-pot, and cook with vegetables (nimono). When you mix this stock in soup (such as miso soup, chicken noodle, stew etc),  you will hardly know there is kelp in it. So I think this would be a good way to introduce kelp to children, too!

Kelp Soup Stock 1 (cold-water extracted)

Ingredients:

• Dried kelp, about 4′ x 8′ (about 30g) 
• Filtered water, 1L

Kelp Soup Stock 2 (hot-water extracted)

Ingredients

• Dried kelp, about 4′ x 8′ (about 30g) 
• Filtered water, 1L

Spring is just around the corner!

Spring is an exciting time for the gardeners and I hope you to experience that this spring through growing and harvesting your own sprouts!

As you may heard about, the health benefit of sprouts is more than just amazing. Sprouts are considered as a “living” foods or biogenic (in Greek, life generating) foods. Because the sprouts need a full nutrients and energies to grow, the nutrients in sprouts are anywhere 50 to 400% greater than nuts and seeds and sprouts contain higher quality of protein. Also sprouts have a rich supply of enzymes; thus easy to digest, assimilated, and metabolized by the body!

Last year, I did a week project with kids for them to create own sprout garden in a jar. They rinse the sprouts everyday, watch them grow, and we created a big salad to nourish us in the end. I believe making your own sprout is a wholesome, joyous activity for the spring!

Sprouting in a Jar

You will need:

• wide mouth glass jar
• cheesecloth to cover the top of the jar
• rubber band
• uncooked nuts, seeds, and/or legumes (wheat, rye, mung beans, aduki beans, sunflower seeds, fenugreek, alfalfa etc)
• clean water

1. In a clean glass jar, put any of the single or mix of nuts, seeds and/or legumes (please note sprouts becomes 4-5 times bigger, so leave the enough space for sprouts to grow in a jar). Add enough clean water to cover the seeds and soak for one day.
2. Cover the top of the jar with cheesecloth and fasten with a rubber band, place in a darker place (by placing the seeds in darker place, it mimics the seeds growing in a soil, and this process maximize the biogenic energy).
3. Next morning, discard the water in a jar through the cheesecloth, and rinse with fresh clean water few times to make sure get rid of all the phytates (natural insecticide that is on the skin of seeds) in the first soaking water. After the first day, the seeds do not need to be soaked in a water, but just a little amount of water through rinsing is enough to grow. So after a few good rinse, just place the jar back in the darker place.
4. At night, rinse the seeds 2 times, and place the jar back in the darker place.
5. Next morning and night continue rinsing 2 times and place the jar back in the darker place.
6. You will be able to eat sprouts anywhere in 4 days to a week. It is best to eat sprouts on the day they are ready, but you can also store them in a fridge if needed.

“Nothing is so rewarding, so tremendously beneficial in relation to the small amount of effort required, as the sprouting…requiring only a simple rinse morning and night…”–The Essene Way Biogenic Living

Using this space, I want to thank my sprouting teacher, Paul Hall!

Recommended further reading on sprouting: http://www.sprouting.com/

I was making a chicken soup today, and thought it’ll be great to share some of the herbs you can add in your chicken soup (or any food, of cause) which can help you fighting a cold! I will list by its actions:

• Antiviral: onion, garlic, ginger, thyme, summer savory, oregano, cinnamon, licorice, turmeric, sage
• Antibacterial: garlic, thyme, oregano, cinnamon, turmeric
• Sore throat: sage, thyme, ginger
• Stuffy nose: thyme, coriander, rosemary, garlic, fenugreek, licorice
• Improve immune system: ginger, licorice, oregano, rosemary, shiitake mushroom
• Cough: cayenne, ginger, fennel, anise, cardamon (spasmodic cough)
• Chills: ginger, cayenne

As you can see, your kitchen herbs are quite a wonderful medicine! I recommend you to try tasting the herbs a bit, and learn the taste, so you can start to imagine what food it may go well together. Enjoy cooking!

Note: there are more herbs that are indicated to specific symptoms. It is always better to get some professional advise.