prairie berry clafoutis

Berries are a healthy choice

Prairie Palate: Better for you than just about any other fruit and can be served in a variety of ways

Long before there were Florida oranges and an apple a day, berries were keeping us happy and healthy through the long winter months. Fact is, berries are better for you than just about any other fruit. Berries were vital to the well-being of the indigenous population, who made a kind of fruit leather by pounding […] Read more

Seed bread

Canary seed approved for humans

And why not? It’s nutritious and gluten free

I got the news, appropriately, via Twitter, i.e. a tweet: Canary seed has been granted the status of human food. Last month, regulatory authorities in Canada and the United States gave canary seed the human stamp of approval. Which raises the question, if canary seed is for the birds, why would we humans flock to […] Read more


Apple Honey Oatmeal and Chocolate Oat Clusters. 


What’s more Canadian than a bowl of porridge?

Prairie Palate: Canada is the second-largest oats producer and the largest exporter and they were a staple for pioneers

I started my day with a bowl of oatmeal porridge. Nothing could be more Canadian. We grow more oats in Canada than anywhere else but Russia. Canada is the second-largest producer — and the largest exporter — of oats in the world. Mountains of our oats are turned into brand-name breakfast cereals, oatmeal cookies and […] Read more

That’s the way we’ve always done it

That’s the way we’ve always done it

How much can large-scale farmers to change to meet urban consumer demands?

Traditions are thoughtless, lazy, convenient, oh, I could go on. Because you’ve always done something a certain way is not a reason for anything. It’s not an argument. And it’s certainly should never be used to retaliate against new ideas, new ways of doing things, that creep up in the agriculture world. Before you get […] Read more


Do you have a collection of empty ice-cream pails?

Do you have a collection of empty ice-cream pails?

If you do, you probably use some to fill with Christmas goodies to have on hand in the freezer

My parents never threw out anything that might be used for something else. This was never more evident than in the stack of plastic ice-cream pails leaning like the Tower of Pisa in a corner of the laundry room. No kidding, it’s taller than I am. Growing up, we ate a lot of ice cream. […] Read more

Bigos (Polish stew)

Bigos — a Polish stew made for sharing

Perfect for a cold winter meal and gets better as it’s reheated

Nouvelle cuisine has its place, but I prefer food with a long and storied history, especially when the recipe and story come from a dear friend. But this recipe does not begin in her kitchen. It begins on a winter road trip along the Crowsnest Highway between Alberta and British Columbia. After a long day […] Read more


cake

Prairie Palate: Getting tired of zucchini yet?

Make some cakes with them – perfect from the freezer or eating warm from the oven

When my husband and I got married 20 years ago, we had one pre-nuptial agreement, at his insistence: that I would never plant more than six zucchini at a time. Talk about tough love. Zucchini is my favourite summer vegetable, for a number of reasons. It grows quickly, it’s lush and attractive, the flowers are […] Read more

We find the taste of dehydrated tomatoes batter than canned ones.

Storing food for the winter — here’s what works for us

Our preferred methods are dehydrating the tomatoes and freezing the spaghetti squash

This past summer was definitely busy. We had the pleasure of hosting a seven-year-old and a nine-year-old boy from Alberta, and they helped watch our year-old grandson while his mom ran the post office. As I don’t like to use the water canner with young children underfoot, I used our dehydrator for the tomatoes. Really […] Read more


Daniel Tomelin, 54, holds a Painted Serpent cucumber grown on a trellised vine in his Kelowna, B.C. garden. From tip to tip this monster of a cuke measured an astonishing 112 cm (44-1/2 inches) in length. Read what else the Singing Gardener has to say in this connection.

Painted Serpent cucumber — this one’s a whopper

Singing Gardener: Plus, more on carrot and sugar cough syrup

Celebrating Thanksgiving Day now past, is an annual noble event that we Canadians enjoy each October with family and friends. For many folks it encompasses the entire weekend. Next, a lot of households anticipate preparing for Halloween, especially where young children are involved. Europeans of earlier times observed an autumn festival that included feasting on […] Read more

Thoughts of upcoming election bring thoughts of Dief’s dinners

Thoughts of upcoming election bring thoughts of Dief’s dinners

John Diefenbaker was a proud Prairie boy and his mother was an excellent cook

Since we’re in the midst of a federal election campaign, I’m thinking of John Diefenbaker’s dinner. The Dief was Canada’s 13th prime minister and a proud Prairie boy… especially proud of his mother Mary’s good Prairie cooking. Diefenbaker was born in a small town in Ontario in September 1895. In 1903, when he was seven, […] Read more