New Website

Dear Customers

We have relocated our website. This version is no longer usable.

Please visit us at www.goldforestgrains.com for products and pricing, ordering and retail locations.

Cheers!

John and Cindy Schneider

New Website Coming Soon!

We are currently underway with our new website and ecommerce platform. Please stay tuned or visit us on Twitter and Instragram for current updates and farm stories. @goldforestgrain

Dalsland, Sweden Culinary Tour - 2016

Kevin Kossowan announces a new collaboration with Johan Postma for a 6 day wild food adventure in Sweden. This trip will replicate the week we spent with Johan last October, hunting, fishing, hiking, foraging...and most importantly, cooking!

Details can be found here: Johan Postma

New Crop for 2016 - Hulless Oats

Hulless Oats

This year we have seeded a new crop for us. After many requests for a raw oat product, it was natural for us to grow and harvest a hulless variety. This eliminates the need for expensive dehulling, steaming and rolling equipment and allows us to be in control of this product from the time we seed in May until the day you grab it off a store shelf in September. These oats don't taste any different from our previous version of rolled oats, it's just that they are milled fresh, on-farm; or, you can simply purchase the whole oat groat for rolling or milling at your home. We are excited to see how they grow on our certified organic land near Morinville. It is a first for our farm. Follow along on twitter @GoldForestGrain for crop updates over the summer. 

From The Wild S2E7 Fly-fishing Southern BC

What a tremendous episode from the James Beard Foundation nominated series From The Wild by Kevin Kossowan. 

My personal favourite so far. Kevin, Garreth and I head to southern BC for some fly-fishing and adventure. Forest fires, drought, and a little vehicular drama add to the stunning videography and scenery. I hope you'll get a chance to watch this episode for less than the cost of a Starbucks drink.

And here is a tremendous article to get you out on the water fly fishing. Very comprehensive, and for the beginner fly fisher!
Ultimate Guide to Fly Fishing by Tackle.org



FROM THE WILD - S2E7 - CLOSED  from Kevin Kossowan on Vimeo.

Chana Masala Recipe

I have learned that Chana Masala is typically an Indian or Pakastani street food, Chana is hindi for chickpea and Masala refers to spice mix. Chana Masala is usually served either wrapped in a tortilla like flat bread or some other bread for dipping or scooping. However it is served, it is wickedly good. Chana Masala is spicy and a touch warm on the tongue. It is a dish that is loaded with amazing textures, smells and taste. And, it is incredibly easy to make at home, in one dish. I suppose that is why it is a popular street food. Here's how to make it yourself.

Ahead of time soak 2 cups of dry chickpeas. You can even soak them overnight. The longer you soak them, the shorter the cooking time. I soaked ours for about an hour. They were chewable, but still rigid.

1 - In a large skillet with 4 tablespoons of hot oil saute:
1 medium onion - diced
4 medium cloves of garlic - diced
1/2 diced pepper. Here you can take your pick of peppers. Hot, Sweet, etc.

Cook down the above ingredients until soft.

2 - Now comes the Masala (spice mix). Add the following ingredients to the hot pan and mix into something that resembles a paste. A little oil can be added if necessary, but don't worry too much about the consistency here.
3 tblsp Curry powder
1 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp cayenne
1/4 tsp tumeric
1 tsp salt
There are also different masala mixes you can purchase if you don't wish to purchase all of the different spices. 3-4 tablespoons of the masala mix would probably suffice.

3 - Add the soaked chickpeas to the masala mixture and then cover with water. Simmer on medium heat until a good bubble is started and then reduce heat and cook until the chickpeas are mushy or to the consistency you desire. The finished dish should have a chickpeas in thick gravy consistency. If you've added too much water, just cook it down until you have what you're looking for.

The tortilla recipe can easily be found online or purchased at the grocery store or bakery. Tortillas are terribly easy to make at home though, so I hope you'll try it. A good flour for tortillas would be Park Wheat  

Grainswest Magazine Article - Bakeries & Farmers & Millers

http://www.grainswest.com/2015/08/rise-and-shine/

Nana's Rhubarb Cake

Growing up on the farm north of Bon Accord, AB there was a rhythm to the day, especially at Nana and Papa's place across the valley. The passing of the day was marked with meals. Breakfast, coffee, lunch, coffee, supper. No matter the tasks of the day these meals were observed. My favourite, of course, was coffee time. This was when treats were usually presented on the kitchen table. Peanut butter cookies and Rhubarb Cake seem to me to be the usual suspects for coffee-time treats, but I'm sure Nana mixed it up more than I recall.

In the summer, Rhubarb Cake ruled. I still think of Nana and Papa, the squeaky kitchen floor of the old farm house and the weird whirring and grinding of the electric clock on the wall above the telephone every time I cut rhubarb. I love that smells like these can trigger my memories so easily. They are very fond memories indeed.

So, here is Nana's Rhubarb Cake recipe. I hope it creates fond memories for your family as it did for me.

1-1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda dissolved in 1 cup milk
2 cups flour
2 cups cut rhubarb

Mix all ingredients together and place batter in 8" x 12" pan.

Topping
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp butter
Mix and sprinkle over batter

Bake the whole thing at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.

Award Winning Commercial

2015 Rosies - Best Commercial under $50k.

A Farmer's Philosophy - Bon Ton Bakery from Leven Creative on Vimeo.

Einkorn Flour!

Einkorn Bread!

We are falling in love with Einkorn here on the farm. It is such a lovely flour, light and fine after milling. pic.twitter.com/UiXYVqdQfC

— John Schneider (@GoldForestGrain) March 12, 2015

Organic Box - organic foods...delivered

Organic Box statement

Organic Box is one of our biggest supporters and is a great venue for us smaller, organic farms to distribute our products. Organic Box is a tremendous success story and a proud Edmonton, family-run business. They have consistently expanded in a sustainable way and have grown their team of energetic staff over the years. We love dealing with Organic Box in every imaginable way!
In addition to regular home deliveries within Edmonton, Organic Box also delivers to surrounding Northern Alberta communities. Below is a list of towns and the pickup locations. This is a great way for folks to obtain organic food in areas where an organic food store may not exist.


Morinville and Sturgeon County - Our home town and county!
Saturday pick up only at Highstreet Interiors Inc. 10031-100 Ave, Morinville, AB


Athabasca - Pick up at the Train Station - Sundays (biweekly)

Our farmers daughter in the Spelt field

Peace River
Peaceful Pantry 9911-101 Ave - Wednesdays (biweekly)

Ft. McMurray
Two locations for pickup only on Thursdays
Wood Buffalo Food Bank - 10117 King Street
Sangsters Organic Market - 395 Loutit Road

Stony Plain
Saturday pickups
Multicultural Heritage Centre, OpportshauserHouse, 5411-51 Street

Cindy on our first seeder and tractor! I miss that outfit.

To find our products on the Organic Box website simply click on the Catalogue then click the Pantry category. Finally, click the Flours & Grains icon. Or...just click the link that I've taken the time to set up for you. lol

There are many options for purchasing quality organic foods, but as always, reading the details about the product will help you make the best choice for you and your family. We hope you'll choose our heirloom, organic, stone-milled, fresh, whole flour and grain products.

Cheers

John Schneider
Gold Forest Grains Inc.

Parkallen Home Kitchen Double Chocolate Cookies

Another great recipe from Jacquie at Parkallen Home Kitchen

Whole Grain Double Chocolate Cookies

Photo courtesy Parkallen Home Kitchen

I see that Jacquie has chosen to use GFG Soft White Wheat flour. This is NOT white flour, a common question from our customers. Instead, it is an Entire Grain flour stone milled from Soft White Wheat as opposed to Hard Red Wheat.

http://parkallenhomekitchen.com/2015/01/25/whole-grain-double-chocolate-cookies/

Tip: An interesting thing that @gfgcindy does with our cookies at home is to add a little whole or ground flax to the batter. She insists on getting as much "health" into our food...and it actually tastes great!

A new stall at Strathcona Farmers Market

We've been at the Old Strathcona Farmers Market for about 4 years now. We started the first few months being shuffled around a bit and eventually found a permanent home along the wall on the East side of the market next to August Organics. It was a standard 8' stall and served us well for a few years. However, I was sure starting to find it cramped in there. Our products somewhat limited because we just didn't have the shelf space. Over a year ago, I applied for a corner stall. These corners are highly sought after and almost never become available. A couple weeks ago, the market manager Stephanie let me know that there was a corner available and would I be interested in being considered for it?

Our old spot on the east wall

The new corner spot...under construction

It would seem like an easy decision, but one thing I've noticed is how customers are used to seeing things in their particular place. I was a little worried that once we moved, there would be folks who would see our usual stall occupied by someone else and then just assume we've gone from the market altogether. After assurances from the market and talking to several other vendors who offered to help spread the word about our move, I've gone ahead and pulled the trigger. Yesterday morning, before the big storm, I spent several hours moving our fixtures, painting and setting up a new layout on our corner. I still don't have it exactly the way I want it, but I also didn't spend a dime (other than paint). It will be a work in process for awhile until I can figure out an optimal layout.

The plan now that we've moved is first to make sure our customers are aware of the change and then to implement some new products and to maximize the available display space. I hope to add a couple video monitors to be able to show our customers how we farm organically, how the grains are milled and how our farm is progressing.

There is a process to be able to add products to our stall, but they are all related exactly to what we are doing currently so I am not anticipating a problem there. New products will include poultry feed, new pancake mixes (buckwheat, etc.) and perhaps other mixes like cookies and muffins. These products will compliment our existing flour and grains.

So...when you arrive at market this Saturday, we will be at the far North end of aisle #2. Right across from Gull Valley Greenhouses and immediately behind/beside Peas On Earth. This is still the same alley, just at the far end, away from the large doors.

I hope you'll help us spread the word about our products and our new location. We're still a small, growing company and we rely on as much help as we can get from our amazing customers! Thank you.

John Schneider

A new store!

photo courtesy Amaranth Whole Foods

Cindy is putting the order together today and will be delivering to Amaranth Foods in St. Albert! This will be our second store in St. Albert so we're excited to have a really good foothold in one of our home towns (we have 2 home towns...Morinville and St. Albert). Grapevine Deli, located in historic downtown St. Albert has done very well for us in sales for 2 years now, but Amaranth Whole Foods Market located in the Enjoy Centre will help us cover all of the bases for customers in St. Albert.

As our retail locations expand, we are happy to be able to introduce new customers to our whole and healthful grain and flour products. I do know that Amaranth has ordered our Einkorn Flour as well as other popular products that we produce. Please help support these great local businesses as well as our own. And if you don't see something that you want in their stores, I know they appreciate hearing from you.

Enjoy!

Is Local The New 'Sacred'? + Vegetable Upma with Gold Forest Grains' Steel Cut Oats ~ The Tiffin Box

A beautifully written article by Michelle Peters-Jones. Michelle is an impressive chef with a very interesting upbringing in rural India. One of my favourite people to be sure.

Is Local The New 'Sacred'? + Vegetable Upma with Gold Forest Grains' Steel Cut Oats ~ The Tiffin Box

Royal Palm Turkey

This is our prize Royal Palm Tom. He's so beautiful and such a show-off. We hatched him ourselves along with his two siblings. We actually lost another Tom earlier to a fox. But he and his brother and sister are still doing fine. Easter supper I suspect.

Einkorn Fettucini

There are few things in the culinary world that are easier to make with flour than pasta. The ingredients are as simple as they come. Flour. Eggs. A pinch of salt...and then a little kneading.

If you cannot make fresh pasta with our flour then you just aren't trying. 

Here is a great recipe for fresh Fettucini made with our own organic Einkorn Flour.

2.5 cups of fresh GFG Einkorn Flour (you can also use Red Fife or Park)
4 eggs
Salt (pinch)

In a mixing bowl the flour and salt can be combined. Make a well in the centre of the flour and add the eggs. At this time an optional ingredient can be added - 1tbl of olive oil. I don't think this is necessary, but it doesn't seem to hurt and probably gives the pasta a little buttery texture when all is said and done.

Knead the ingredients together until a smooth consistency is reached with the dough. At this stage you can set your pot of water to boil. I always add a splash of olive oil to the water.

Come back to your dough and proceed to roll it out onto a floured surface. You need to roll it very thin so perhaps dividing the dough into two balls is better. You can use a rolling pin or the bottle of wine you happen to be sipping from while you cook to roll the dough.

Once the pasta is thin enough go ahead and cut strips that are fettucini sized...about 1cm. I used our pizza wheel to cut the pasta. It occurred to me after that you can simply fold the sheet of pasta over itself a couple times and then cut the strips! Duh. Once you have your pasta cut into strips, the water will be at a rolling boil and you can toss it all in. It will cook very quickly, perhaps 2 minutes, so be ready!

Served simply with a little butter, lemon, salt and pepper it is a remarkably simple lunch or dinner. Of course it also goes along beautifully with any pasta sauce you can dream up. Enjoy!

Nana Schneider's Pie Crust

Here is a great pie crust for you to try out. This recipe is used extensively in our home and works great. It is a more traditional, rolled pastry crust and is super easy.

Nana Schneider's pie crust. A rolled pastry that works every single time with most of our flours. I usually use Park for this recipe and I sift it before it goes in the mixer. Nana didn't make a lot of pies that I remember, but she sure made butter tarts at Christmas time. As I grew older, that was my annual Christmas present from her. A tin of homemade tarts. Even now I can still smell the aroma as I lifted the lid off the tin. As far as I know, this recipe is her never fail pastry.

Nana (Marguerite) Schneider's Pie Crust
 
2.5 Cups flour (I sift our Park flour for this recipe)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 lb lard (I always use butter)
2.5 tsp water
1 Tbsp white vinegar
1 egg

Dry ingredients go into the mixer bowl and are blended well. I use the kitchen aid.
Cut the lard into small cubes and incorporate into the dry ingredients with the mixer until it is coarse looking. Stop the mixer.
Add the egg and vinegar and start mixing once more.
Add enough water as you are mixing so that the dough just starts to come together. It may be less water and it may be more. Don't worry about it.

At this point, take the dough out of the mixer bowl and shape into 2 small flattened balls. These can now go into the fridge for about 15 minutes or you can go ahead and freeze one for later use. Depends on how much dough you need for your baking project.

On a floured surface, roll the dough as thin as practical. You will need to add small dustings of flour to keep the rolling pin free of dough. The thinner the pastry, the more tender and flaky it will be. Now you can go ahead and use in your favourite pie or tart recipe!

Back to hunting...

After an absence from hunting of about 6 years, I finally accepted an invitation by Kevin Kossowan and Jeff Senger to join them in Southern Alberta for a few days of shotgun swinging and bowstring pulling. What an amazing time I had and something funny happened on the way to the field.

I've hunted for most of my life. For whatever reason, since I can remember, I have wanted to hunt things and eat them. Some of my fondest memories of childhood include wandering the nearby forests with bow in hand and a folded section of tin foil in my pocket. The hope was to be able to get an arrow into some form of small game and then cook it up.

Over the years, my hunting evolved into something different. Evolved is perhaps the wrong word, for it evokes a sense of improvement or development in a positive direction. That is simply not the case though as I discovered on my most recent trip with food minded hunter friends Kevin and Jeff. For whatever reason, my hunting over the years had morphed away from food and became strictly trophy based. The meat became almost an inconvenience, something that had to be dealt with by law so as not to be wasted. I eventually became both disconnected and disappointed with my hunting activities. Switching from efficient compound bows in the mid-90's to more and more primitive weapons kept things interesting for sure. But the hunting became a chore, something that kept me from my family and made unsuccessful trips all the more unacceptable. Eventually, I quit hunting altogether.

Enter this most recent trip. Traditional bow in hand, the joy of good friends and laughing. A chance to get away from a hard Fall season of business and harvest. But most importantly...a chance to make some food! Back to my youthful feeling of the joy of the field with the prospect of getting to eat something I had a hand in harvesting from the wild. But the bow, an heirloom Bear Kodiak from 1956, while beautiful and easy shooting, was viewed by one particular friend as "pretentious". What?! Me pretentious? While the comment was made in the most friendly of contexts, it really hit home. Here I was with only 3 days available and desperately wanting to make some ingredients for charcuterie with a weapon in my hand that made it ever more difficult to achieve my goal.

Kevin Kossowan's Photo

The day after I arrived home from such a great trip, the laptop opened Ebay. Within two more days I had purchased my first modern compound bow since more than 20 years ago. I look forward already to enjoying next year's hunting season with a much more efficient weapon and a greater chance at putting something in the charcuterie cabinet...and friends that find me ever so slightly less pretentious.

Winter Cooking Classes - #1 Indian Cuisine

I am proud to introduce the first in our series of winter cooking classes. On Sunday, November 2, 2014 we happily introduce you to Michelle Peter-Jones and Addie Raghaven. Michelle and Addie are both passionate foodies and expert cooks. It also helps that they are both of Indian origin and both have studied Indian cuisine during long stays in exotic India! You will learn the art of Indian cooking from two true experts on the subject. You will also enjoy learning about India and it's amazing culture of flavour.

The classes will be held in the warm and cozy kitchen of our Strawbale Farm House. A gentle fire rolling in the wood stove will make you feel right at home. The kitchen not large, so class sizes are limited to 8 participants. We will also utilize the outdoor cob oven for much of the menu...the taste of wood-fired dishes are beyond compare.

The day begins at noon and will run until we are finished enjoying the days cooking. Fine refreshments are included, the food will be amazing and the things you learn will be with you always.

To register for the class RSVP to goldforestgrains@yahoo.ca 

GFG's Ultimate Peanut Butter Cookies

This is a family favourite on our farm. I like them crispy for dunking in my afternoon coffee. This instantly brings me back to when I was a kid on Nana and Papa's farm where the same ritual was played out 40 years ago. Cindy and the kids like them a little more chewy and with Chocolate Chips. So, take your pick how you like your peanut butter cookie. Either way, they're pretty darn good.

1/2 cup butter - room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup peanut butter - It has to be crunchy peanut butter or it's not a peanut butter cookie.
1-1/2 cup GFG Park or Red Fife flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

1 - Cream the butter and sugars
2 - Add egg, vanilla and peanut butter and beat well
3 - In a separate bowl mix the dry ingredients
3 - Add dry to wet and mix until incorporated

Drop suitable spoon fulls of dough onto a cookie sheet and make a criss cross pattern with a fork. Again, if you don't do this...it's not a peanut butter cookie.

In the meantime, you will have pre-heated your oven to 400 degrees. Once the oven is ready, bake your cookies. This is the tricky part. The cookies go from chewy to crispy really quick. So if you like chewy cookies they will cook in about 8 mins. Once they just start to turn colour around the edges. Leave them to colour fully for another 2 minutes or so and they will be crunchy when they cool, ready for coffee.

Rain, glorious rain!

With seeding about 1/2 complete I was getting nervous about the lack of rain in our area. It was dry...very dry. While that made the seeding operations steam along, it did nothing for my anxiety over whether we would get to harvest anything that we were busy seeding. 

With organic farming, the weather and timing are absolutely critical. A good, quick germination immediately after a light tillage means that the crops will get ahead of any possible weed infestation. It is all about competition for resources at ground level. Seed the wheat too early or when it is too dry and it sits in the ground waiting while all around it existing weed sprouts happily push to the sky soaking up the snow's valuable moisture. At times, it is a very complicated process for me. I am glued to the computer monitor watching the latest radar tracking timing the seeding process as precisely as I can. 

This year has been especially crucial as there simply has been no moisture to contend with at all. Luckily, we had a fairly good snow pack and our clay loam soils have retained a lot of moisture. The seeds that were sown earlier are now starting to show themselves. First up is Buckwheat!

This Buckwheat was seeded about a week ago. It is only intended as a plow-down so it was sown earlier than Buckwheat normally would. Buckwheat is a short-season crop, maturing in as little as 90 days under ideal conditions. Normally, I would till the fields from time to time getting rid of the weeds until early June and then seed the Buckwheat that would then be harvested in October. 

Finally, the rain came today! After days of rain all around us I was ready for a psychiatrist. Overnight last night, we had some moisture. Off and on all day today we've had good periods of rain. This will go a long way towards germinating the wheat and flax that have also been seeded.

Nothing stresses me more than a drought...

How to Order and some Pork!

We are getting a lot of questions about how to order products so I thought I should post something formal. All of the products that we have for sale are listed on the Products and Pricing page. If it isn't listed there, we don't have it for sale.

To place an order for pickup at either the farm or Strathcona Farmers Market simply refer to the aforementioned page and then drop us an email with what you'd like to pick up. It will require up to 4 days to fill your order! Please don't order products with the intention of picking up the next day. That makes us feel bad that we are letting you down. We do not keep an inventory of milled flour. We mill fresh to order.

Pork...we now have a limited selection of pork for sale. Inspected. Organically grown/fed. We have chops, cutlets and ground pork for sale. Prices are in the mid to high teens per kg. so it's comparable to other similar pork products around.

One other thing...we are a small farm. We have modeled our farm on our ability to grow just enough grains of various species to mill in to flour for sale direct to consumers. This adds the most value to the grain farming side of things and enables us to at least try to be profitable. If you'd like to purchase grains for home milling, we will still have to charge the same price as we would achieve for our flour products. This is simply a function of supply/demand as we only grow what we anticipate needing for flour sales and future seed supply. We rarely have more than that. The only grains we have enough of to be able to offer for sale at reduced "grain pricing" are Rye and Park Wheat. We hope you understand.

Tis' the season...Butter Tarts!

I am a huge Butter Tart fan! Butter Tarts have always been a family favorite and my Nana was awesome at making them every Christmas. Christmas for me would not be the same without those syrupy, sweet treats. As I got older, that became my present from her. For as long as she could bake I received a tin of butter tarts each year. That is a very fond memory for me.

I don't think that I have her recipe anywhere...I have flipped through the family's All-Star recipe book that my Mom put together for us. But, this recipe comes close and is really easy to prepare.

I used our Soft White Wheat for the pastry. It is still an Entire-Grain flour, but you wouldn't know it. The pastry is light, tender and flaky....but, it is SO flavourful; beyond anything available at any store.

So, here is the recipe for you that I use from food.com.

http://www.food.com/recipe/award-winning-butter-tarts-14756

For the pastry I don't use a recipe. Here is my description of what I do.

1) A certain amount of Soft White Wheat flour...perhaps 4-5 cups.
2) A pinch of salt
3) A certain amount of lard. I'd say around a cup
4) Ice cold water

I use our Kitchen Aid with the whisk beater. I add the salt to the flour and stir. Then I add the cold lard that I've cut into small pieces.
I start the mixer on medium and let it blend in the lard until it is starting to break down into smaller pieces. The ideal goal with be to have "pea" size pieces of lard in the flour
I then turn the mixer to low and slowly start adding the cold water. I add very little at a time and I let it mix well. Add enough water so that the mix finally comes together into a dough consistency. It will take awhile. Ball up the dough and keep in the fridge until you need it.

Memories of Fall '13

Fall is past. Winter is most definitely here. And I am not prepared. This was such a hectic fall once again and my winter preparations were left to the last minute. With our farming properties spread out so much we are able to mitigate any damage from any one particular storm that usually occurs somewhere around us. The downside to this situation is the amount of time it takes to move equipment and get parts for repairs. We seriously need to consolidate our land holdings. The other thing that really hampered our harvest was breakdowns. There were two periods when the main combine, our Allis Chalmers L2 was down for days at a time with major repairs necessary. The end result though was that we did indeed finish our harvest. It was tough though. Many difficult days.

My daughter showed me this picture though the other day. I didn't know that she and her friend had taken some photos out in the Spelt field. They were beautiful! It made me realize that even though I had had a difficult Fall, she had enjoyed it. It brought me back to my days as a farm kid in the Fall and it made me smile.