Archive for June, 2011

Welcome Sagan!

It is my sincere pleasure to welcome and introduce Sagan Morrow as the Coordinator of Fruit Share.

Sagan will be setting up the systems and processes necessary to grow and operate Fruit Share with the help  of our amazing volunteers.  Sagan’s work with Fruit Share will officially begin on July 1, 2011, although she’s already been working hard behind the scenes.

Sagan comes to us with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Winnipeg.  She has great passion, skills  and experience in communications, promotions and event coordination.  Her commitment and interest in promoting nutritious whole foods is unwavering as evidenced by her role as co-founder of the Food Label Movement, her health column for the Uniter, and her own blog Living in the Real World.

Over the last week, I have had the opportunity to work with Sagan and have thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it.  She is warm, bright and eager to take on the challenge of growing Fruit Share.  I know you will enjoy working with her and getting to know her as much as I have.

If you have any questions about Fruit Share this picking season, please contact Sagan at [email protected].  And stay tuned for more information as we gear up for our upcoming cherry and apple picking season.

Welcome Sagan!

The People of Fruit Share

Fruit Share is all about fruit, or is it?

On the surface, it sure looks like that’s what it’s about, but the fact is, Fruit Share is so much more. It’s as much about people and community as it is about fruit. The fruit is really just an excuse for bringing together people and giving them an opportunity to get to know and help their neighbours.

That’s why I love when people share their stories with us. Being the one to receive the emails and phone calls, I often get the chance to hear and read these stories. They have such a positive impact on me, I often wish I could “share” them with you. The other day, I received an email that was a great example of the enthusiasm and passion that many of our volunteers have. Ellen has allowed me to share a bit of her email with you, I hope you find it as delightful as I did.

I’m SO glad to have found this fruit connection!

We have just settled back into the city, after raising our kids on a farm for 25 years. While there, we grew mega gardens, fields of pumpkins, and harvested and processed tons of wild and domestic fruit. I miss some of that, and have spent the last year searching for fruit in the city, especially fruit that folks don’t know what to do with! In our new yard, I have planted one saskatoon bush, a chokecherry tree, some strawberries, and a patch of raspberries, but there won’t be much coming off those for a few years… So you can see why I am very excited and just registered to be a volunteer with your project.

I am a retired school teacher who always took my classes to the farm, had them plant gardens, hike berry trails, and show them how nature and food grow hand in hand. We used a juicer, a dehydrator, and explored the many ways we could work with food.

Since I have retired, my sister, Lydia and I have been picking and processing many types of seasonal fruit, and have made it our mission to produce jellies that have more fruit than sugar, thereby deeming them semi-healthy. Those jellies made good use of everything we could find to pick: apples and crab apples, cranberries, saskatoons, wild plums, chokecherries, grapes, mint, and elderberries. As we experimented with interesting combinations of the above, we also played with naming them creatively (you can tell we were spending too much time in the kitchen heat…). We made labels that read Grapple, Crabby Elder, and Crap (!), as well as more traditional names. In fact, we have a lovely collection of photos of our process, from picking, through washing, cooking, and jarring – such BEAUTIFUL colours!

Elderberry, the fruit of the elder tree, was new to us. It offered a lovely flavour and colour. When we researched its properties, we learned that it used to be used in parts of Europe, to “cheat” in the making of wine (instead of grapes), to the point that it was outlawed in places! It has a deep red, rich flavour. It can also be used in hair dye – we tried and have some VERY interesting pictures to prove it!

So, we’ve had a lot of fun with fruit the last while!

My sister is out of the country at the moment, so she doesn’t know it yet, but she’ll be signing up as well, because she and I are a team, each with our experience and expertise. (She is a retired Home Ec. teacher – hence the jelly recipe adaptations!)

Having enjoyed the bounty of country living for many years, now that we are back in the city, it’s exciting to find a bit of what we left behind, thanks to Fruit Share.`

Yours Fruitfully,

Ellen K.

Thank you for your story, Ellen and Lydia!  I can’t wait to see some of those pictures and try out some of your recipes.

Please note, while Ellen and her sister have tons of experience with fruit, everyone is welcome to participate in Fruit Share.  Fruit Share is a great option for anyone new to the world of backyard fruit.  Rather than planting your own fruit tree, why not explore different varieties and see which one you like best – or if you like them at all?!  Young or old, novice or expert we welcome anyone to be part of Fruit Share.

Many Winnipeg homes (at least those 40 years or older) have an obligatory rhubarb plant stuck somewhere on their property.  Some, who enjoy rhubarb, even have two or three plants.  But rarely are there homeowners with over 20 plants.  So, when we got a call from Melissa offering up her 20-30 rhubarb plants we were thrilled!

Our volunteers picked a whopping 62 pounds of rhubarb in Melissa’s backyard.  That’s over 400 stalks of rhubarb which would make about 60 rhubarb pies, or five batches of Grandmere’s Rhubarb Marmalade, a family recipe submitted to us by Summer, one of the volunteers who helped on this pick.

We know Winnipeg Harvest was able to put their 1/3 to good use as well.

Grandmere’s Rhubarb Marmalade

Ingredients:
12 lbs rhubarb
10 lbs. sugar
6 oranges

Preparation:
Squeeze the juice of six oranges and use the grated peel of three.

Wash and chop rhubarb small.

Layer rhubarb with the sugar and orange in a large, heavy pot (traditionally:  cast iron was always used!) and let it sit overnight.

Stir once to mix in the sugar.

Next day, cook slowly for 6 hours or until thick, stirring often.  Pour into sterilized jars and seal.

Enjoy!

Savory Rhubarb

Green rhubarb lends itself nicely to some savory rhubarb recipes.  I decided to try my hand at Rhubarb Ginger Relish and Rhubarb Barbecue Sauce.  Oh yes, I kid you not!

Rhubarb Ginger Relish

A compilation of various recipes I found, again on a quest to find something with as little sugar as possible.  But, hey, it’s rhubarb – some sugar required!

Ingredients:

2 cups diced rhubarb

2 cups chopped onion

1 cup white vinegar

1 cup sugar

2 tsp grated fresh ginger

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1/4 tsp allspice

1 tsp salt

Preparation:

In a saucepan, combine all ingredients.

Bring to boil and continue to boil gently until mixture becomes thick, about 20-30 minutes.

Taste and adjust seasoning according to your preference.

Place in hot, sterilized jars.  (see previous post)

Heat process your jars if saving for more than 3 months in the refrigerator. (see previous post)

 

Rhubarb Barbecue Sauce

Who would have thought!  This one came from the Washington Post and I almost followed it exactly!

Ingredients:

2 tsp canola oil

1/2 cup chopped onion

2 cups rhubarb

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

2 tbsp water, plus more as needed to thin the sauce to your preferred consistency

2 tsp dijon mustard

1 tbsp cider vinegar

1 tbsp honey

1/2 cup ketchup

1/2 tsp salt

Fresh ground black pepper, or cayenne pepper

Yield: 1 1/2 cups

Preparation:

Heat oil in a saucepan.

Cook onion in saucepan until soft and translucent -do not brown.

Add the rhubarb, brown sugar and water.  Bring to boil and cook until rhubarb is soft, about 6 to 7 minutes.

Remove from the heat and let the mixture sit in the saucepan for 15 minutes.

Add mustard, vinegar, honey, ketchup, salt and pepper to taste, stirring to combine.

Transfer to a blender and puree, or use an immersion blender in the saucepan to puree until smooth. Taste and adjust the seasonings.

To serve, warm the sauce. For a thinner sauce, add water, apple juice, if desired, or the cooking juices from whatever main ingredient the sauce is being served with.

Enjoy!

 

You’re in the sharing spirit.  You have fresh fruits or veggies you’d like to donate.

There’s just one problem, you’re not sure where, when, how and to whom to donate your fruit.

Problem solved.  Here is a handy, dandy reference listing nine Winnipeg organizations that will accept fresh fruit and vegetable donations.  Included in this document are all the logistical details you’ll need to know right from where to park to which door to enter.

Sharing the Harvest: When, Where and How to Donate Fruit 

And, if you need help in getting to your chosen charity, check out this MapQuest map which shows all nine locations.

Winnipeg Fruit Donation Map

But don’t forget to consider some of the other groups and individuals that might exist in your neighbourhood.  Perhaps there’s a seniors’ centre nearby, a garden club or a neighbourhood group that would welcome a fruit donation for a specific program or event.

These resources were developed as part of the Guide to Backyard Fruit funded by the Manitoba Alternative Food Research Alliance(MAFRA) and the Canadian Home Economics Foundation (CHEF).  For future reference they will be listed in the top right corner of this website under “Guide to Backyard Fruit”.

Thanks for sharing!

 

Rhubarb Jam

For the first time in 2011, I’m actually adding something to our pantry rather than taking it off the shelf.  It feels good to put aside some goodies for another season. I know when the time comes, we’ll enjoy that sweet/tart rhubarb taste even more.

Preserving rhubarb for future use can be as easy or complicated as you want.

When I want easy, I simply wash it, cut it, let it air dry and then freeze it in freezer bags.  It can be used for crisps, muffins, bars and most of the other rhubarb recipes listed on this blog.  I have never had a problem using frozen rhubarb.  While we usually use all of ours within 8-10 months, I believe it would last for at least a year.

As an alternative to freezing, I tried making rhubarb jam for the first time.  I was hesitant to make “green” jam, so I opted for using the red and red/green rhubarb stalks for the jam.  The green stalks will wait for another recipe.

Here are the two jams now gracing my pantry.  Classic Rhubarb Jam and Rhubarb Pineapple Jam.

Classic Rhubarb Jam

Courtesy of a fellow Professional Home Economist who used to test recipes for Winnipeg Hydro.

Ingredients:

4 cups  diced rhubarb

3 cups sugar

2 tbsp lemon juice

Yield: 3 cups or 3 x 250ml jam jars

Preparation:

In a large saucepan combine all ingredients.  Let stand for 15 minutes to draw out some of the rhubarb juice.

Bring to boil.  Boil for 13-15 minutes stirring frequently.

To test for the proper jam consistency, put a small plate in the fridge to get it really cold.  When you’ve boiled your mixture for about 13 minutes take a teaspoonful and place it on the cold plate.  Place it back in the fridge for just under a minute.  Now tilt the plate and look at your “jam”.  What does it look like?  Is it runny or fairly stiff?  If it’s too runny, boil the mixture some more and test again. Repeat this process until what you have on your plate looks the way you like your jam.  This tried and true test simulates what your end product will look like, so what you get on the cold plate is what you’ll get in the jar!

Carefully place the jam in jars that have been sterilized according to the instructions below.  Leave a 1/4 inch headspace.

Remove any air bubbles by sliding a spatula along the inside of the glass.  Wipe the rim of the jar with a clean, damp cloth.

Place lid on top followed by the screw top lid.  Tighten the screw top lid and then undo by a quarter turn.

Heat process your jam to give it a shelf life of 1 year.  (There seems to be some debate (Bernardin vs Kraft) about whether or not to heat process jam.  Bernardin says you should, Kraft says it’s not necessary.)  I did, but for three jars of rhubarb jam that will probably be eaten within the next 3 months, I may not the next time around.  If you choose to, here are the basic instructions.

Place jars in a large pot of water with a rack and a tight fitting lid. (If you don’t have a rack for your pot, make a temporary one using screw top lids from extra canning jars.)  Cover the jars with 1 inch of water and allow room for a rolling boil.  Bring the water to a boil.  Once the water is boiling, continue to boil for 10 minutes.

Remove jars from water and let rest on counter for 24 hours.  You should hear the jars “pop”.

Check the seal after 24 hours of cooling.  If the lid is curved down and remains like that when pressed, it is sealed.

Put on toast, waffles, pancakes or ice cream and enjoy!

Rhubarb Pineapple Jam

Ingredients:

3 cups  diced rhubarb

1 can  (19 oz /540ml) crushed pineapple

2 3/4 cups sugar

1 box Certo Light Pectin Crystals

Yield: 4 cups or 4 x 250ml jam jars

Preparation:

In a large saucepan combine rhubarb, pineapple (with juice).

Combine pectin with 1/4 cup of sugar.  Add to rhubarb.

Bring to boil.

Add remaining sugar.

Boil until rhubarb softens, about 10 – 15 minutes.  Stir frequently.

Carefully place the jam in jars that have been sterilized according to the instructions below.  Leave a 1/4 inch headspace.

Remove any air bubbles by sliding a spatula along the inside of the glass.  Wipe the rim of the jar with a clean, damp cloth.

Place lid on top followed by the screw top lid.  Tighten the screw top lid and then undo by a quarter turn.

Heat process your jam to give it a shelf life of 1 year.  Place jars in a large pot of water with a rack and a tight fitting lid. (If you don’t have a rack for your pot, make a temporary one using screw top lids from extra canning jars.)  Cover the jars with 1 inch of water and allow room for a rolling boil.  Bring the water to a boil.  Once the water is boiling, continue to boil for 10 minutes.

Remove jars from water and let rest on counter for 24 hours.  You should hear the jars “pop”.

Check the seal after 24 hours of cooling.  If the lid is curved down and remains like that when pressed, it is sealed.

Put on toast, waffles, pancakes or ice cream and enjoy!

 

Sterilizing Jam Jars, Lids and Equipment (from Kraft Canada)

You can pre-sterilize jars & lids by using one of two methods:

  1. Sterilize all jars, lids and filling equipment in a 225ºF oven for 10 minutes, then keep in the oven, with heat turned off, until needed so they stay warm.
  2. Sterilize all jars, lids and filling equipment in boiling water for 15 minutes and keep warm.

 

1000% Increase in Volunteers

 

At 4:50 pm today, we had our 100th volunteer sign up.  That’s a 1000% increase in the number of volunteers from last year.  Can you say WOW!

We also had our 51st fruit owner sign up.

That’s a lot of fruit that we’ll be rescuing this summer.

Thanks everyone for your interest and support.

 

 

Beautiful Rhubarb

Rhubarb is beautiful.

Rhubarb is colourful.  There are numerous varieties of rhubarb ranging in colour from celery green to strawberry red.  But take note, colour is not an indication of sweetness.  Trust me, when I tasted these three varieties, they all tasted equally tart to me!

Rhubarb is tart.  It does require some form of sweetener, which may leave you wondering, why bother?  If you have to load it up with sugar, isn’t it better not to eat it at all?

If you’re a purist and you don’t consume jam, syrup, muffins, crisps, bars, or fruit beverages then yes, you probably would find rhubarb of limited use.  However, while our family is trying to cut back on sugar, we still eat those foods, and when we do, I want our choices to be good ones.  As much as possible, we prefer food that’s home grown, local and homemade so that we control the ingredients.  Why not take advantage of the fact that rhubarb is local, cheap, and a source of fibre, vitamin C, Vitamin K and calcium.

Which would you prefer for your family?

  • toast with store bought fruit jam or homemade rhubarb jam
  • pancakes with syrup or stewed rhubarb
  • muffins with store bought frozen cranberries or local rhubarb
  • koolaid or rhubarb slush

And, of course all things in moderation.  I’m more likely to give my kids water or milk with their meal than rhubarb slush, but on those special occasions I would much rather serve a glass of rhubarb slush than koolaid or pop.

Why not give rhubarb another chance?  Try some of Fruit Share’s favourite rhubarb recipes.

Spotlight on Winnipeg Harvest

When we have a large amount of fruit, Winnipeg Harvest is a great place to donate.

Winnipeg Harvest

Winnipeg Harvest is a non-profit, community-based organization. They are committed to providing food to people who struggle to feed themselves and their families. They are also committed to maximizing public awareness of hunger while working towards long-term solutions to hunger and poverty.

Winnipeg Harvest uses donated fruit to prepare meals, fill food hampers and share with other organizations.

Contact Information

Street Address: 1085 Winnipeg Avenue

Phone: 204-982-3663

Website: www.winnipegharvest.org

Donations Accepted

Fruit

Apples, apricots, berries, crab apples, grapes, rhubarb, sour cherries, plums

Other Food Items

frozen fruit (labeled & dated), garden vegetables, commercial canned, frozen and dry goods.  For a list of top food items currently needed visit the list of most wanted items at Winnipeg Harvest.

Non-Food Items

none

Donation Logistics

When

Monday to Saturday from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm

Where

– Front door of 1085 Winnipeg Avenue for donations under 30 pounds

- Loading dock at back of 1085 Winnipeg Avenue for large donations

Special Notes

Please phone 982-3663 to indicate the type and quantity of fruit you have to ensure someone will be able to assist you with unloading.

 

Rhubarb

Let the picking begin!

This week we had our first rhubarb harvests.  Check out the tally on the side to see how much we’ve collected and where we’re donating it.

Thanks to all our fruit owners for giving us access to their rhubarb and thanks to the volunteers who are picking and sharing it.

Now, to enjoy that rhubarb here are some great recipes submitted by our volunteers and fans in 2010!

The following are some recipes that were submitted to our blog in 2010.  Just click on the link to get the full recipe.

Rustic Rhubarb Tart

Honey Oat Whole Wheat Muffins

Classic Stewed Rhubarb

Rhubarb Parfait

Rhubarb Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Rhubarb Slush Beverage

Rhubarb Crisp

Rhubarb Oatmeal Bars

Check out the article in the Winnipeg Metro today!  Click here for link –  Fruit Share in Metro June 8

Fruit Share Hiring Contract Coordinator

We’re growing and are looking for an amazing individual who can make Fruit Share’s expansion a huge success.  Please help us find the right person by sharing this job posting.

Click here for full visual - Fruit Share Coordinator Ad

 

A great article about Fruit Share and well, yes me!  http://www.wrha.mb.ca/wave/2011/05/getty-stewart.php

Novel idea bears fruit

Riverview woman’s food sharing plan helps build community

Getty Stewart

BY BOB ARMSTRONG
Winnipeg Health Region
Wave Magazine, May / June 2011

A carpet of rotting apples beneath a fruit tree is more than just an unsightly magnet for wasps to Getty Stewart.

It’s a waste of food and a lost opportunity to bring neighbours and communities together.

That feeling is what prompted the Riverview mother, home economist, activist and blogger to launch Fruit Share, a volunteer program that connects people who own fruit trees with volunteer pickers and social agencies.

Her work with Fruit Share, combined with her popular gardening blog and the initiatives she’s spearheaded as president of the Manitoba Association of Home Economists, earned her a Healthy Living Award at a ceremony in April sponsored by the Reh-Fit Centre Foundation.

Living in the Riverview area, where many homes have apple trees, she knew that a lot of delicious fruit goes to waste every year because owners of trees don’t have the ability, time or energy to pick their apples, or don’t know what to do with the fruit. When she read of a program in Edmonton called Operation Fruit Rescue that connects pickers with unused fruit, she wondered if it would work in Winnipeg. After connecting with the South Osborne Urban Community Co-op, she decided to give it a try last May.

The results in the first year were beyond her expectations. She and her 10 volunteers picked nearly 1,700 pounds of apples, as well as rhubarb and Evans cherries (a large, sweet, bright-red kind of sour cherry). She stresses that the apples were in most cases full size and sweet, noting “We didn’t pick any crab apples at all.”

The program is all about sharing nature’s bounty. Owners of the trees and the volunteer pickers each receive one third of the fruit. The other third is shared with social agencies, including the nearby Fred Tipping Place seniors’ housing complex. Agape Table, Siloam Mission and other agencies also reaped sweet rewards.

Last year, the program focused just on the Riverview/Osborne area. This year, with approximately 40 volunteers already signed up by late April, Stewart is expanding Fruit Share to Wolseley, West Broadway, St. Vital, Daniel McIntyre, St. Mathews, Spence and North End neighbourhoods, where the program will partner with local community development organizations.

She hopes to harvest 7,000 pounds of fruit this year.

Stewart sees sharing food as a unique way to build community. She recalls how a trip last year to drop off apples at Siloam Mission was a profound experience for her whole family and relishes the connections she made with residents at Fred Tipping Place. “They started recognizing me as The Fruit Lady.”

Using the fruit that would otherwise go to waste is also a way of rediscovering knowledge about the environment and food that many of us have lost. She notes that many people with cherry trees in their yard aren’t even aware that the fruit is edible. “It takes me back to when we used to go to the Souris Riverbend and pick chokecherries,” she says, recalling her childhood on a farm family in the Wawanesa area.

Her formative experiences as a farm girl are also part of what prompted her to create her Manitoba Veggie Delight blog about gardening.

“I wanted to get the kids to experience gardening and have that appreciation of where food comes from,” she says. “That’s the farm girl in me. I just love to have dirt under my fingers.”

After gardening a community plot near Churchill Drive for the last four or five years, last year she began blogging about what she was planting, what weeds she was pulling, what insects were nibbling at her veggies and how the harvest was coming.

“It’s a mix of techniques, tips and advice,” she says. “As I was blogging, all the things that I learned as a kid on the farm came back to me. I remembered all the things that my parents taught me about gardening and I was thinking, ‘What will my kids learn from this?’”

And it’s not just her kids, Aidan, 10, and Melanie, 7. Last year the blog had hits from about 300 people per month.

That combination of new technology and old-school appreciation of growing food is carrying over into another project: a booklet on harvesting backyard fruits and berries. Stewart has received funding from the Manitoba Alternative Food Research Alliance and the Canadian Home Economist Foundation to prepare a booklet to show people how to identify what kinds of fruits or berries they have in their yard and give them ideas of what to do with them.

The booklet will include recipes, tips on preserving fruit, information on how to get help with harvesting and details on how to share the backyard bounty with social agencies. The last point is a significant one, she says, because not all agencies accept preserves or baked goods (though some do) and there may be a specific time and place to take donations.

The booklet will be posted on the Fruit Share website, as well as be available through Fruit Share’s partner organizations.

While Fruit Share and the gardening blog are focused on growing food, Stewart also is involved in a program that sells locally grown food.

As president of the Manitoba Association of Home Economists, she has helped to develop the Farm to School Healthy Choice Fundraiser, in partnership with Peak of the Market and the Manitoba government.

The idea is simple. Instead of selling chocolate bars to raise money for school programs – an awkward fit with the effort by schools to promote healthy eating – participating schools sell bags of Manitoba-grown vegetables from Peak of the Market. Peak of the Market, the Manitoba vegetable marketing company owned by producers, sells the veggies to the schools at cost and provides free delivery to the school.

Last year the program was piloted in 66 schools in urban, rural and northern Manitoba. Feedback was so positive that this year it’s spreading to every school in the province. And many of those schools have incorproated the veggies into lessons on food and nutrition.

During her time as president, Stewart has also worked to raise the profile of home economists – and spread the news about healthy family activities – through a monthly Home and Family segment on Breakfast Television.

Getty’s emphasis on a healthy balance between work, family, and community is something she shares with her husband, Darryl, who runs a business called Ibex Payroll that the couple founded before they had children.

At one time, she found herself juggling motherhood with work at Ibex and her own work in a public speaking business she operated for 12 years.

“It was hectic and rushed and I thought, ‘There’s got to be a better way.’”

She’s still involved with the company – she’s listed as “Head of the Home Range,” one of many quirky job titles that staff at Ibex have on their business cards – but focuses more of her energies on family and community. And she still makes sure to set aside volunteer work for healthy activity, whether taking in a fitness boot camp at the Riverview Community Centre or leading hikes as camp naturalist this summer at Camp Wasaga near Riding Mountain National Park.

It’s all part of her belief that healthy living is found in a balance of social, physical, and emotional well-being – and that healthy living requires getting involved to make it happen.

“We’ve got to create the kind of world we want for ourselves,” she says.

Bob Armstrong is a Winnipeg writer.