Category Archives: A Year of Re-Skilling

A Year of Re-Skilling

Yogurt: The Easiest DIY Ever

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Making yogurt is so easy that I’m just going to post photos.

Step 1: get a good teacher (e.g. Katie, Renaissance Women member and Cowichan Recyclist)
(This is a fancy yogurt maker. You don’t need this.)
Step 2: get some yogurt (homemade or store-bought). This will be your mama culture.
Step 3: Measure 1 litre of milk (thicker milk, e.g. homogenized, makes thicker yogurt).
Step 4: heat milk to 180-degrees. Stir frequently and use medium heat so it doesn’t burn.
Step 5: cool the milk to 115 degrees in the kitchen sink filled with cold water.
Step 6: add 2 tbsp of the mama yogurt to the 1 litre of 115-degree milk.
(As an alternative to mama yogurt, you can use a packet of yogurt starter.)
Step 7: whisk the starter into the milk.
Step 8: pour the milk into one 1 litre or two 500 ml jars. Screw on the lid, then wrap in a tea towel. Here, Patti shows off her swaddling skills.
Step 9: place your yogurt jar(s) in the oven with the oven light on. This provides just enough warmth for the yogurt to set in 6-12 hours. Then refrigerate and eat!

See how easy that is? Yogurt is a living food, like kombucha or sourdough, and therefore yet another DIY food that’s good for you. Go heat some milk and give it a whirl!

A Year of Re-Skilling

Edible Weeds and Other Apocalypse-Friendly Foodstuffs

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Our past four years at Makaria Farm have been a gradual process of getting to know our land: which path the water takes across the field when it rains in the winter; where the wild rabbits live; where the deer are mostly likely to attempt to breach our fence. After my July workshop with the Renaissance Women, I took this relationship with my farm to a new level.

Roger Foucher and Renaissance Woman Sheila discuss the medicinal properties of St. John’s Wort.

In July, Roger Foucher took us for a walk around McAdam Park, pointing out edible, medicinal and poisonous plants. I was astonished to learn that we have wild pepper (not peppercorns, but a respectable substitute), plums, grapes, cherries and mint growing wild here in the Cowichan. I ate a peeled thistle stalk: it tasted like celery.

Later that month I decided to take a walk around our farm, to see if I could identify any of our “weeds.” After four years on this property the landscape is familiar and ordinary, but that changed when I took the time to sit and look up plants in my reference books.

Here’s what I found in our overgrown, “weedy” yard:

Chicory. In case of apocalypse, dig up the root, dry it, grind it, and use it as coffee substitute.
Chicory flowers have serrated ends.

I found abundant St. John’s Wort, lots of clovers and wild peas (or maybe it’s vetch?), and way too many thistles for Brock’s comfort.

St John’s Wort: nature’s Prozac. Now that I’ve learned to recognize this plant I see it everywhere in the Cowichan.
When you hold St. John’s Wort up to the light, you can see little pinholes in the leaves.

I found chicory, burdock, daisies, nettles, as well as dandelion and all its look-alikes.

Hairy Cat’s Ear looks like a dandelion, but the leaves are hairy. The dried leaves smell like chocolate.

I found plantain, wild carrot, a thick stand of blackberry bushes, and much more.

A tiny wild, edible carrot. In its second year, wild carrot flowers and goes to seed: it’s known as Queen Anne’s Lace.

My best find was two healthy patches of Heal-All: nature’s polysporin.

I literally squealed when I found a patch of Self-Heal (or All-Heal). I felt like I’d won the wild food lottery.

Exploring the pockets and crannies of our land, I also discovered the secret grass bed where our lone hen, Mandela, had been laying her eggs!

Mandela’s cache of eggs.

Being able to name and understand our many “weeds” makes me feel more at home on our farm. It feels like I’m finally getting to know my neighbours.

Adapted from a version published in Cowichan Valley Voice magazine, August 2011.