Canada Day Party quick and easy

July 1st is Canada Day and you can celebrate it Big or Small.  I have a few tips to have a small get together on a dollar store budget.   A couple of years ago we blew the budget at work but this year was scaled way back and it still worked out.

First thing to do is scope out your local Dollar store and pick up anything you can find with Canadian Flags on it or Maple Leafs or even Beavers or Moose if you like.


Must have:

Plates- If you can find Canada Day plates great, but if not just get red and white or just red even.
Cups - I found Maple Leaf cups at Party City
Cutlery - Just get clear or white to keep it simple.
Tablecloth *optional - you can use a Canadian Flag or just use a white tablecloth and add a big paper Maple Leaf on it if you like.

Food and Drinks:  There are lots of options including these things:

• Coffee Crisp chocolates
• Maple Leaf Cookies
• Tim Horton's coffee and donuts
• Crush drink
• Caesar drinks are Canadian
• Canadian Flag Cake
• Ketchup Chips
• Butter Tarts
• Canadian Craft Beer
• Wine from the Niagara Region

Make a simple dessert in a snap with fresh local strawberries and whipped cream by layering them in little mason jars.  Who doesn't love strawberries in cream when the berries are at their peak at the end of June.  Recipe for the butter tarts is in a previous Canada Day blog post.

Props and Decor:

This is where the budget goes from small to big.  You can go nuts on props and decor and here are some ideas if you can't think of what to get.

• Canadian Flag,  large, small, medium, hand held
• Hats with Canadian flags, from caps to headbands
• Signs,  you can use a lightbox or a DIY bristol board sign that says Happy Canada Day
• Canadian symbols,  you can get things like statues or stuffed toys of Moose, beaver.
• Canadian pillows with whatever designs inspire a Canadian Vibe.  I have a Sorry Pillow from Colin and Justin designs
• Maple syrup bottles.

Games:

• Canadian Trivia - Music, Famous People, Geography
• Word Search games
• Jeopardy like questions, someone can be Alex Trebek who is Canadian.
• Justin Bieber or Drake Trivia, that could take a while.
• Basketball games because now that we are the Champions and the Basket was invented in Canada it's the perfect game.

Music:  Pick your vibe, 80's, country, current, chill etc.

• Shania Twain
• Justin Bieber
• Drake
• Michael Buble
• Sarah McLaughlin
• Tragically Hip
• Honeymoon Suite
• Loverboy
• Platinum Blonde
• Glass Tiger
• Jann Arden
• on an on .... you get the picture.

Whether you have a party or just get together with friends you can still celebrate Canada Day in little and big ways or however you choose to do it.

Here are some past Canada Day fun with friends.

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!

Farm Food Care Tour - Dairy and Mill

I love it when I get invited to Farm tours by Farm Food Care.  They are always fun and educational.  This was my 3rd time doing the Farm Tours.  I broke my lucky streak of good weather this time and I blame the Vaughan Centre station for that.  Every time I have to meet someone at Vaughan Centre Station it pours.  This was the 3rd time that happened but at least I had a fairly easy way to connect up with the bus this time.  I say fairly easy because I poured just as we got there and the bus was about 15 minutes late so we all huddled inside the TTC entrance.

A bit of info about Farm Food Care first,  they are a coalition of various businesses in the food production industry who do consumer research, promotion and program education about the agriculture industry.  These farm tours are run by the energetic and organized Jennifer MacKenzie who is a food writer, cook book author and excellent tour organizer.

As I briefly mentioned we started our day by hopping on a tour bus in Vaughan at 8:30am and were given a little bag full of goodies which I unfortunately forgot on the bus because I had too much stuff to carry home.  I will get to that in a bit.  Jennifer makes home baked treats for the drive to the farms and we had coffee too.

Our first stop was the very popular Sheldon creek Dairy  located at 316 RR#2 5th Concession in Loretto, Ontario  

We had a great tour through the bottling area and where the cows were and saw the whole process from start to finish.

Sheldon Creek are the first farm in Canada to produce A2 milk.  It is milk that comes from cows that naturally produce milk with A2 version of beta-casein.  Normally cows produce A1.  It is easier on the digestive system.  They likened it to the Red Head gene in humans.  The A2 protein is comparable to human breast milk or goat, sheep and buffalo milk which is easier to digest for dairy sensitive people.  As I have grown older I appreciate this a whole lot.

We learned a whole lot of things about their system including the fact that 4 degrees is the perfect temperature for milk.  They use a voluntary milking system for their cows in a system that is kind of like a cow car wash.  They walk up to a platform that allows the cows to be scanned by sensors and connected to the milking machine.  They have fitbit kind of tracking that tells their computer sensor which cow it is and tracks the quantity of milk that is milked at a time and how many times a day they milk as well as the milk breakdown so they can tell if there is any illness that may occur in the cows.  The cows are given a treat but they have it set up so that they can't keep going back just to get treats.  Very smart.  Cows are trying to out smart the machines but nope they can't do it.  The cows all have definite personalities.  It was obvious that there were selfie loving cows and ones that couldn't care less that there were a bunch of humans taking photos of them.  Obvious from the sounds of the food going in and out of the cows if you know what I mean?  We also fond out that they are feed a pickled hay concoction that inhibits bacteria growth and they lay in sand beds instead of hay beds or grass because it molds to their bodies making them more comfortable.

After learning about the dairy we all went crazy in their little store that stocks their fresh milk right from the back bottling area and they also sell local products.  I can tell you that I filled up a cooler bag and it was heavy.  I got one of their little bottles of heavy cream and coffee milk, chocolate milk and strawberry milk which is colored with beets. And I picked up some local gouda.  I wanted more but had to haul it home and as it turns out it's a good thing I didn't get more because I could barely carry everything home.  They were preparing to have an open house on the weekend and I wish I could have gone back to get more things.

After shopping like crazy and seeing the cows we trucked through the wet farm back to the bus to go for lunch at the Gibson Centre.   We were all very hungry and ready to get out of the rain by that time.  The Gibson Centre is a beautiful community centre that hosts food festivals and lots of weddings apparently. 

  Lunch was fantastic.  I shared a table with fellow food industry writers and friends Suzie from Just Crumbs,  Fina the Healthy Italian and Mairlyn Smith the home economist and cookbook author and tv personality.  Such a delicious and fun lunch.  All of the food was from Ontario.  We had chicken with crispy chicken skin and gnocchi with peas, roasted radish and asparagus, rillette on brown bread and strawberry shortcake for dessert.  There was a pickled veg platter and everyone went crazy for the pickled brussel sprouts but I didn't have a chance to taste them.  There was a speaker from Saskatchewan Canola who were the lunch sponsors and there was also a speaker from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture talking about how the new tariffs are affecting farmers like Canola farmers. Farmers are at the mercy of the weather and things like tariffs and government regulations so it's a really tough business to make a decent living sadly.

After lunch we hopped back on the bus to go to K2 Milling in Beeton. Owner Mark Hayhoe has been in the industry for 28 years. I am not sure they were quite prepared for all the foodies looking for fresh new things.  Unlike the dairy everyone was looking to buy something to take home but they weren't really set up for grab and go sales as they normally sell to other businesses. 

They mill non traditional things like hemp, flax, spelt, quinoa, pea, amaranth, rice and lentils.  They also experiment with things like grapes and have a merlot flour and they have spices like turmeric and cinnamon. They also do unusual things like blueberry flour and cranberry flour using dried berries. Their motto is "grinding against the grain".  I opted to skip buying a bag of flour at this point because I already amassed a bag of stuff and a centrepiece and dairy products.

I couldn't hear everything about the milling process but I could tell they like to think outside of the norm of the traditional milled wheat.  We did learn about why things like ground oats aren't always the best thing to mill and different milled products react differently when baking which explains why gluten free products are never the same as wheat products.  Some flours gum up and can't hold the structure.  I think he said that spelt can't be over mixed or it breaks down. 

And just as we finished having a look at the mill and picking up some milled products it started to rain again so i dashed back onto the bus to head back to the Vaughan drop off location.  Back on the bus we were given surveys and then it was time for trivia and prizes.  I won the centre piece at lunch and one of the trivia question on the bus and got a silver travel cup and straw and an ice cream scoop.  I will use that for sure.

It was a super fun day even with the gloomy skies, muddy pathways and wind and rain.  Spending time with great food industry people and learning how our food is produced is always rewarding.

Visit a farm, meet the people that produce your food and thank them for the hard work they do to feed your families safe food products.  We have some of the highest food standards in Canada.  We do not allow milk to be sold with hormones and the pasturization process is strictly regulated.  I have visited some fantastic farms run by great people and you should do the same if you have the opportunity to do so.

Respect the food that is harvested so that we can continue to have this high quality food.

 www.farmfoodcare.org

Sial Canada 2019 - Food innovation

SIAL CANADA 2019

https://sialcanada.com/en/article/sial-toronto-kick-off-2019-edition/

I had the privilege of attending this year's Sial Canada Show at the Enercare Centre in Toronto.  I attended the 3 day Food Industry trade show on May 2nd, 2019.  Sorry for taking so long to get to this post but there was so much there that I took loads of pics and have lots to write about here.

Samples,  there are so many samples that I have to strategically choose what I want to try because I can't possibly try it all.  I learned after the 1st year when I stuffed my face on the massive quantities of cheese available from mostly the Quebec region and after the cheese indulgence I had no room to try anything else.  So now I try and look for things I haven't tried before or things I can't resist.  The 2 items above fall into the things I couldn't resist category.  The spinach Spanokopita were so light and flaky if there weren't a thousand other things to try I would have ate a whole lot more of the.  The arancini on the right were gooey cheesy rice goodness.  These 2 things are the kind of things I would buy myself to keep in my freezer for guests and for myself for time saving snacks.  Both Spanokopita and Arancini are labour and time intensive and these were as good as homemade.

And here's Chuck...... Chuck Hughes is now a Brand.  He has a new line of products like Antipasto's, oils,  and a few other products.  I have tried the oil before and it's great, it's from Greece I believe.  I tried the antipasto at the show before having a great chat with Chuck about his new APTN show about Indigenous cooking traditions.  Looking forward to seeing that soon.

After chatting with Chuck we went over to the Chef Demo stage where we sat through 3 demos which familiar Chefs like Chuck who was with his sidekick Tracy Winkworth who does most of the prep work while Chuck does his stand up routine in front of her then he adds the finishing touches and everyone claps.  Yes Chuck is the fun but Tracy brings the food.

Brad Long is the owner of Cafe Belong at the Brickworks and he has also spent many years cooking for Elite Chefs for MLSE organization.  Now he has a new book about butter so of course he was making a dish that featured butter so we caught most of the demo and my friend Jenny was chatting up the woman next to her and it turns out she was the maker of the butter that was featured by Brad.  After the demo she gave my friend, myself and our other blogger friend Carol some of her Thornloe butter.  We were all very excited about that because it's great butter and really expensive too.

It was also good to see Emily Richards who made an Onion soup and a crostini dish.

The unique thing about this show is the Sial Innovation Award for the best new products.  One of the ones that I loved was the ICE coffee which won one of the awards.  I also took home a container of the tofu spread.  It does not taste like tofu.  I didn't try all of the Innovation Award nominees,  just too many things but I tried a bunch of them.  The other interesting one was the Yummy doh.  Pre mixed cookie dough. 

I also enjoyed this Pear hazelnut spread,  definitely an elevated dessert spread. I think I remember them saying they were from Quebec as well.

I didn't try this but this Cauliflower quick meal looked kind of interesting.

I tried this Iceberg water.  I admit that packaging gets my attention and I liked the bottle and of course the Water was very good too.

There was LOTS of meats this year,  With Keto going strong Meat is back.  There were lots of cured hams,  massive steaks and more.

I also had to stop and take a photo of this guy from Bad Dad Tea.  He gave me a nice little sample pack and I told him I loved the branding.  It stands out from most of the tea brands.

I don't know what this thing is called but it was pan fried kind of like shreds of phyllo with pistacio's on top.  I think it's a Persian dish kind of like a Baklava type of thing.  Because I was in a hurry I just blew by as much as I could and didn't take the time to find out more about it unfortunately.

Chef Stefano Failto also entered the product market with his line of sauces.  I wanted to try these but by this time I just didn't have time to wait for a sample and was really full but I hope to get a chance to try these in the stores soon.

The one product that had myself and fellow blogger Carol Nelson Brown stop dead in our tracks were these flavour spheres.  The grapefruit one on the left was a game changer.  I took home a honey one.  These things have the texture of fish roe and just burst with fruit flavour or honey when they hit your tongue.  This would make your appetizers literally POP.

I missed so much because I was only able to go to 1 day of the 3 day massive show and would have loved to have more time to explore more.  I found out later that my friend Vicky was representing another Sial Innovation product the UnBun.  I passed the booth but didn't see her and didn't stop to check it out because it was the end of the show.

You really have to have time and a strategy at this show.  If you are in the food industry you focus on making connections and sales.  For myself and my blogger friends we try and see as much new food and chef demos as we can.   It's also great to run into people we know at the show after going a few times you become familiar with some of the people who do the show often.

It's not open to the public but I hope that I gave you a peek at what's coming to specialty food stores, grocery stores and restaurants in the future.  I hope to have more time next time to showcase a lot more products.

If you are a Food Industry Professional and would like to find out more about the show or would like to find out more about the products check out the website for more information:

https://sialcanada.com/en/article/sial-toronto-kick-off-2019-edition/