1. Bison Tagine is a rich stew with fruit and vegetables that are slow cooked. Serve with couscous or brown rice for a hearty meal packed with warm flavours.

2. Best Squash Soup is like a warm hug on those chilly nights. It will be a new family favourite in no time.

3. Apple Compote with Buckwheat Flake Crumble is that traditional family recipe with a modern twist. Apples are readily available year round so this recipe is super easy and delicious any time of year! The vanilla sauce is a delicious cream-like accompaniment.

There is no right or wrong with comfort foods, these are the most popular ones from our Recipe Box. Take a look, maybe you’ll find a new recipe that gives you comfort! 

Be sure to check back often as we regularly post new recipes from our cooking classes.

A program created by Poppy Innovations to help connect kids to where their food comes from

by Holly Quan published in City Palate May/June 2016

We hear it all the time: Canadian children suffer diet- related health problems, from obesity and diabetes to food allergies and sensitivities. Not only that, but busy families don’t have time to shop or prepare nutritious meals, much less share quality family time over a tasty, healthy dinner. And, except if you’re among those who shop at farmers’ markets, we’re all becoming ever more distant from our food’s producers. Ask a kid where milk comes from and they’re likely to say, “The fridge.”

Enter Sharon McCormick, founder and CEO of Poppy Innovations, a business she established to reconnect adults and kids to healthy food – and  to each other. She’s created a cool new program, hosted at the Calgary Farmers’ Market, to engage both kids and adults in learning to grow their own food.

Describing herself as an “agri-preneur,” McCormick’s philosophy and the programs she’s created are founded on her life and career experience. For one thing, she recalls spending many summer hours as a kid in her family’s large garden, planting, weeding, thinning, and picking. “I didn’t appreciate the bounty of fresh, nutritious food at the time, but as an adult I have a different outlook,” she says, adding that she subsequently put her four kids to work in the family’s home garden – an experience that continues to bear fruit, so to speak.

“Every summer we get together to make and preserve salsa from our own vegetables,” she says. “My kids are older now, but they still love this event, and they’re proud that we create preserves and gifts as a family, entirely from our own garden and effort.”

Seeing an opportunity to put that passion into practice, McCormick founded Poppy Innovations in 2012 and now creates interactive education and activity-based programs across the food spectrum – growing to cooking – that she calls “gate to plate.” McCormick also built upon her business acumen and her background in kinesiology, which takes a holistic approach to health. She says, “I design opportunities for edible education. It’s a hands-on, learn- by-doing approach that’s fun for both kids and adults.”

McCormick’s programs include a parent and child culinary class at various locations in Calgary (check her website for details). Although her focus is on kids, she also offers classes for adults and teens and has organized a community garden in De Winton with garden plots for lease.

But it’s her partnership with the Calgary Farmers’ Market that embodies everything both organizations stand for: involving people, regardless of age, in learning about, appreciating, and using fresh, seasonal, locally produced  food.

A PERFECT PARTNERSHIP

For the past couple of years, Poppy Innovations has partnered with the Calgary Farmers’ Market to offer unique cooking classes and demonstrations on the market’s stage. “It’s quite a feat,” says Amanda Langbroek, director of marketing and events at the market. “Everything from the sink to the induction cooktop is on wheels, so we can quickly put together a mini-kitchen. We feature particular vendors or themes, and vendors often talk about the ingredients we’re highlighting, everything from honey to seasonal fruit and more.”

The program McCormick is excited about is the Kids’ Garden Club, hosted at the market’s outdoor patio. Every Thursday in July and August, parents can drop their kids at the patio for up to 90 minutes of games, learning, and hands-on gardening in a big planter supplied by Agrium Inc. The club is oriented to ages 4 through 12, and can accommodate about 20 kids each week. To participate, pre-register via the Poppy Innovations website. You can choose as many sessions as you like.

“We’ll show kids how to take care of the plants and soil and how to pick and prepare yummy food from the garden,” McCormick says. “Market vendors will talk about the difference between gardening and farming, the impact of weather, and it’s also a chance for city kids to actually talk to real farmers, ask questions and learn about good food and where it comes from.” Every participant will also receive $5 in “market bucks,” so after the class they can shop the market with parents and apply what they’ve learned.

There’s a big kickoff planting event on June 4, from 11a.m. to 2 p.m. “We’ve selected fast-growing plants like salad greens, but other vegetables take time to grow and mature, so we need to plant early,” McCormick explains. “The June planting event is open to everyone, no registration required. Bring your kids and help us get our garden started.”

McCormick’s ultimate goal is to empower kids and parents to make healthy, nutritious food choices, to inspire curiosity about new foods, and learn where food comes from. “It’s about fun,” she says, “the learning part comes along for the  ride.”

 For more information:

Poppy  Innovations: www.poppyinnovations.ca

Calgary  Farmers’  Market: calgaryfarmersmarket.ca

Holly Quan adores fresh peas, baby carrots and tomatoes warm from the vine, among other home-raised summer treats. However, she describes herself as “the world’s worst gardener.” Fortunately, there are lots of great farmers’ markets.

Healthy eating is so much easier when the veggies are right in your garden. Being in control of what, if any chemicals or pesticides are used, satisfaction of watching your plants grow and of course seeing your harvest on your family’s dinner plate are just some of the reasons that make gardening worthwhile. Are you a cucumber enthusiast? This article from Bonnie Plants is full of great advice.

A tropical vegetable, cucumbers thrive when the weather is hot and water is plentiful. Plants are so frost-tender that they shouldn’t be set into the garden until soil temperatures are reliably in the 70-degree range (no less than 2 weeks after the last frost date).

Cucumber plants grow in two forms: vining and bush. Vines scramble along the ground or clamber up trellises, while bush types, such as Burpless Bush Hybrid, form a more compact plant. Generally, vining cucumbers yield more fruit throughout the growing season. Bush selections are especially suited to containers and small gardens. You can increase the season’s yield of bush varieties by planting several crops in succession 2 weeks apart.

Whether you want a cucumber for slicing or pickling, there’s a variety to suit your taste. Lemon cucumber offers smaller fruits perfect for a single serving, while Boston Pickling boasts classic heirloom taste. The long Armenian cucumber is a specialty ethnic cucumber prized for taste and the fact that a single cucumber yields so many slices.

Soil, Planting, And Care

Set cucumber plants at the base of your trellis and mulch after planting unless the soil could use a little more warming.

Cucumbers need warm, fertile soil with a pH of 6.0 to 6.8, although they will tolerate a bit more alkaline soil to 7.6. Work compost or composted manure into soil. Plant seedlings 36 to 60 inches apart, depending on variety (check the stick tag). For vines trained on a trellis, space plants 1 foot apart.

In areas where spring is long and cool, you can warm the soil 3 to 4 degrees by covering the hill or row with black plastic.If you do not plant in black plastic, then mulch with pine straw, wheat straw, chopped leaves, or your favorite organic mulch shortly after planting. If the weather is unseasonably cool, you can wait a while to mulch until the ground is warmed by the sun. Mulch is especially important to keep the fruit clean for bush types and vines not growing on a trellis. Straw mulch is also thought to be uncomfortable for slugs and creates an uneasy footing for cucumber beetles, helping to keep them at bay.

If you can, trellis your vines. This keeps the fruit clean and saves space. A 12- to 18-inch diameter cage made from 4- or 5-foot welded wire fencing or hog wire will support 2 or 3 vines. Wire is easy for the tendrils of climbing cucumbers to grab as the plant grows.

Cucumbers grow fast and don’t demand a lot of care. Just keep the soil consistently moist with an inch of water per week (more if temperatures sizzle and rain is scarce). Inadequate or inconsistent moisture causes oddly shaped or poor-tasting fruit. If possible, water your cucumbers with a soaker hose or drip irrigation to keep the foliage dry. This helps prevent leaf diseases that can ruin the plant.

You can fertilize with a liquid food, such as Bonnie Herb & Vegetable Plant Food, every 2 weeks, applying it directly to soil around plant stems. Or you can use a granular, slow-release fertilizer worked into the soil when you plant or sprinkled around the plants later.

Troubleshooting

Cucumbers bear male and female flowers. Female blooms have a small swelling at the base, the makings of a fruit.

If vines bloom but don’t fruit, something is probably interfering with pollination. First, make sure that you see both male and female blooms. Male blooms usually appear first and then drop off, so don’t be alarmed if this happens. Within a week or two, female flowers will also appear; each one has a small cucumber-shaped swelling at the base that will become a cucumber.

Several pests bother cucumbers. Squash bugs may attack seedlings. Slugs like ripening fruit. Aphids can colonize leaves and buds. Straw mulch helps keep slugs at bay, as can trellising vines to get the fruit off the ground. Vines are also bothered by cucumber beetles, which chew holes in leaves and flowers and scar stems and fruits, but worse than that, they spread a disease that causes the plants to wilt and die. Powdery mildew is a disease that leaves white, mildew-like patches on the leaves. Apply fungicides at the first sign of its presence. To minimize disease spread, avoid harvesting or handling vines when leaves are wet.

Harvest And Storage

You can pick cucumbers whenever they’re big enough to use. Check vines daily as the fruit starts to appear because they enlarge quickly. Vines produce more fruit the more you harvest. To remove the fruit, use a knife or clippers, cutting the stem above the fruit. Pulling them may damage the vine. Don’t let the cucumbers get oversized or they will be bitter, and will also keep the vine from producing more. Yellowing at the bottom (blossom end) of a cucumber signals overripeness; remove the fruit immediately. Harvest lemon cucumbers just before they begin turning yellow. Although they are called lemon cucumber because the little oblong or round fruits turn yellow and look like a lemon, by the time the fruit turns yellow it may be a little too seedy for most tastes.

You can keep harvested cucumbers in the refrigerator for 7 to 10 days, but use them as soon as possible after picking for best flaor. If you don’t eat a slicing cucumber all at once, cover the unused portion in plastic wrap to prevent dehydration in the refrigerator. In fact, it’s a good idea to wrap your whole cucumbers in plastic or store them in a zipper bag in the fridge to keep them crisp.

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Thanks for helping us grow; together we can build a healthier community.