I love the idea of 100 Mile Markets.  There is so much wonderful food produced in Ontario but I don’t have time to drive around to the sources.  It’s not environmentally friendly either.  It’s funny how things change.  10 years ago I wouldn’t have thought twice about driving miles to find something special.

Shepherd’s Watch is the brainchild of Lynda Sauve and Carol Sampson who run a sheep and dairy farm of the same name.  They initially saw it as a place to sell their products – cheese, milk, lamp, wool, yarn, blankets and sheep skins – but realized that they could use the space to showcase other local products.

There’s a cafe and in nice weather you can sit on the prorch.  The baking is from 4 different local bakers.  It all looked delicious.  There was a nice choice of cheese, meats, and local veggies.

For me the best thing was completely unexpected, a good choice of knitting books and a wonderful choice of wool and yarn.  I’m allergic to wool and have had trouble finding interesting natural yarns and am now lusting after the linen and the cotton yarns at Shepherd’s Watch.

The choice of socks was amazing.  Unfortunately for me they were all wool.  I saw a shepherd’s cloak that was so beautiful I seriously considered a life of antihistamines but sanity prevaled.  If you’re looking for sweaters, socks, or blankets this is the place to go.

Linda and Carol are always looking for local products so if you’re a producer in the area and are looking for somewhere to sell your products give them a call.

Shepherd’s Watch 100 Mile Market and Cafe
211 Smith St, Arthur
519-828-2228

Open Wednesday to Sunday
9 am to 6 pm

We’ve had a bumper crop of tomatoes and will be harvesting until the frost.  So far we’ve had lots of pasta sauce, tomato, black olive and pine nut salad, tomato and mozzarella salad, roasted tomatoes – in salad, on sandwiches and in pasta sauce, and, of course, tomato sandwiches.

And we’ve been making ketchup and tomato sauce.  We’ve made three batches of ketchup, each from a different recipe.  The first batch tasted a lot like barbeque sauce, not a fave of mine, but good.  The second batch was pretty good and the third batch was stunning. The recipe is at the end of the post.

We’ve also made three batches of tomato sauce.  It’s all canned and processed waiting to be transformed into pasta sauce in the winter.  It’s a pretty basic sauce, tomatoes, a little oil, a little wine vinegar, chopped onions and chopped garlic, fresh oregano, and salt and pepper.  The tomatoes, garlic, onions and oregano are from the garden.  It’s the first time I’ve ever grown stuff and preserved it.  I feel so smug.

Today, just as I finished labelling the last batch of tomato sauce, the furnace man arrived.  There had been a very strong oil smell which didn’t seem good.  He was laughing. We had told him we thought we might have an oil leak.  "Oil leak!  Look at the floor!"

Oops!  I thought that was water from the heavy rain last week.

He cleaned the floor and put down some magic stuff that pulls the oil out of the concrete.  We have to leave it for about a week.  He also put down some kind of odour absorber.  He fixed the pump, that was the problem.  It wasn’t spraying in oil the way it’s supposed to, it was dripping it in a continuous stream so it wasn’t all burning.

After he’d done all that he turned on the furnace to burn off the oil that was still there.  I opened all the windows and doors to try and get rid of the smell.  The chimney belched black smoke for about half an hour.

Disgusting!

Fresh Tomato Ketchup Recipe

3 hours | 30 min prep
yields 4 cups

If you like your ketchup a bit chunky you can skip the food mill or blender step.

•   5 lbs tomatoes, ripe, quartered
•   3 medium red onions, finely chopped
•   1 red bell pepper, cored and seeded
•   1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
•   1 tablespoon black peppercorns
•   1 tablespoon mustard seeds
•   1 tablespoon allspice berry
•   2 teaspoons whole cloves
•   2 teaspoons celery seeds
•   1 slice fresh ginger
•   1 cinnamon stick
•   2 bay leaves
•   1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
•   1 teaspoon sweet paprika
•   1/4 teaspoon ground mace
•   1 cup cider vinegar
•   1 teaspoon coarse salt
•   1 pinch cayenne

1.    Place the tomatoes, onions, bell pepper and garlic in a large pot.
2.    Bring to boil over high heat, reduce the heat to medium-low and
simmer, stirring occasionally until the vegetables are very soft, about
30 minutes.
3.    Pass through the finest blade of a food mill to make a
semi-smooth puree Alternatively, puree in the blender until smooth and
pass through a fine strainer Place the puree back in the cleaned soup
pot.
4.    Place the peppercorns, mustard seeds, allspice berries, cloves,
celery seeds, ginger, cinnamon stick and bay leaves on a piece of
cheesecloth and tie it up to form a bag.
5.    Add to the tomatoes, along with the brown sugar, paprika, mace, cider vinegar, salt and cayenne.
6.    Simmer slowly, stirring frequently, until the ketchup is very
thick, 1 1/2 to 2 hours Remove the cheesecloth bag and discard.
7.    Ketchup can be cooled and stored in a sealed plastic container in the refrigerator for 2 weeks.
8.    Alternatively, you can put ketchup in sterilized jars To do so,
first wash the jars in hot, soapy water Rinse well Bring a large pot of
water to a boil Add 4 pint jars and lids and boil 1 minute Remove with
tongs and drain.
9.    While the ketchup is still hot, pour it into the sterilized jars,
leaving 1/4-inch headroom Seal and place in boiling water bath for 12
minutes Remove and cool.

We arrived at about 9 am and I was amazed at the number of people there.  I had thought that we’d be early and it wouldn’t be too crowded.  It opens at 6 am; a little too early for me but obviously not for a lot of other people.  Some of them were already having burgers and fries when we arrived.  Breakfast?  Lunch?

It’s a big market, kind of like a tiny village with streets – and booths instead of houses.  Too big for me to look at every booth.  A lot of booths that I really didn’t want to see.  Stuff I call ‘market tat’. 

My goal at a market is to buy local.  I don;t really want to buy the same stuff that I can get in a supermarket – unless the price is incredibly low.

There were lots of strawberries.

And beets. mmmmm

And peas and carrots and garlic and new potatoes.  Even some very early corn.  It was delicious. 

We had corn and pierogies and beet greens for dinner.  I haven’t had pierogies for years.  Don’t know why not. 

The Keady Farmer’s Market is open from 6 am to 2 pm on Tuesday from May through September.

It’s at RR 4 Tara, about 15 km southwest of Owen Sound.

Worth a visit.

If you’re interested in 100 mile eating in this part of Ontario you should visit Seasonal Ontario Food – a blog about …uh…seasonal Ontario Food.  Lots of recipes and pictures.

They also make delicious muffins and a honey glazed donut that is to die for.  Someday I may try the bread.

If you’re planning to go to the Lucknow Reunion next week make sure you take time to try the butter tarts.

Armstrong’s Home Bakery
644 Campbrell Street
Lucknow ON
519-528-2211

closed Sunday

Years ago I made jam a few times but stopped because it was more trouble than it was worth.  All the recipes were for huge amounts, I’d have jam for a decade even after I gave a lot away.  We really weren’t huge jam eaters.

The kitchen would look like a war zone, sticky puddles of jam on the surfaces that weren’t covered with sugar, jars of jam, fruit peelings, and the containers the fruit came in.  Probably bushel baskets!

That was in the days of adding pectin and I remember that it took no time at all to make the jam.  Certainly there didn’t seem to be time to clean up as I went.

Here’s how to make perfect jam –
Get a scale! 
Weigh the fruit – don’t measure it.
Then weigh an equal amount of sugar. (I think you could use less than an equal amount and it would be ok.  I’m going to try that next week)

Put the fruit and sugar in a pot and bring it to a boil.  Turn down the heat but keep the mixture boiling gently.  Cook it for about half an hour.  You can mash the fruit if you want or let it break down as it cooks and have chunkier jam.

Stir it once in a while.  You’ll know when it starts to gel.

You can check to see if it’s ready by dipping a spoon in the jam and then letting the it cool.  You’ll be able to see if it’s gelled.  It seems to set more once it’s in the jar so next time I’ll probably cook it a little less.  I like strawberry jam to be a bit runny.

The thing about jam is that it’s a bit like making stock; you can cook it til it’s the way you want it.

And the best thing?  You can make one or two jars at a time.

It’s not big as markets go but I like it a lot.  I bought baby beets, strawberries – more about them on another post – cookies from Janice Grootendoorst – we call her the cookie lady, she makes amazing cookies, and banana and carrot bread – 2 separate breads- from Tanya Pisani.  Delicious.  Yet another reason to visit her in Maxwell.

And for something not food related … there’s always someone with free kittens.  There were two kittens this week and they were a bit older than usual.  They had to go in a carrier because they kept climbing out of the pen so they could explore.

The Flesherton Market runs from May to October on Saturday morning.

There are a lot of markets in Grey County and in Bruce County.  You can find a farmers’ market near you at the Grey Bruce Foodlink site.  An excellent site.

And then saw the butter tarts, great big piles of butter tarts. Very good butter tarts.  Not the ultimate butter tart but more than acceptable.  Definitely worth a stop.

Last night we had beets.  Garden to table in about 45 minutes.  It doesn’t get fresher than that.

Looks like we need to do a bit of weeding!

I’ve always loved beet greens but for years I didn’t think I liked beets. My mother always used to make Harvard Beets, cooked beets with some kind of sweet  corn starch thickened sauce.  UGH!

When my daughter was about 8 we planted beets.  I just kept cutting the leaves for greens. One day she said “Mum, are we ever going to pick the beets and eat them?”  It hadn’t occurred to me.  We picked them, they were huge by then, and ate them and I discovered beets.

I still cut the leaves for beet greens.  You can do it for quite a long time, new leaves appear.  It’s like a little beet green factory.

We haven’t planted enough beets.  I don’t know if it’s too late to plant more but I’m going to try.  If nothing else we’ll get greens.

We detoured a bit on the way to Meaford yesterday because Tanya had left a comment on one of my posts about butter tarts.  She said hers had won prizes. Prize -winning butter tarts are definitely a reason for a detour.

Tanya’s butter tarts are delicious.  Sort of old-fashioned in that they aren’t muffin-tin deep.  I think she must actually have tart pans.  She makes them with pecans and plain.

There was other delicious looking home baking but I was on my way to dinner so I exercised some restraint.  Tanya makes jams and jellies and pickles too.

Maxwell General Store
Maxwell, ON
519-922-2013

Closed Sunday