Sweet Treats - Sole Food Farm & Earnest Ice Cream

Working at the farm gave me a constant supply of fresh produce, totally delicious. We especially had a steady stream of eggplant, peppers, zucchini, tomatoes, and greens that didn't sell at market. So many delicious savoury dishes - ratatouille, stir fry, pizza, frittata, salads. 

My ultimate favourite though was when we had friends visit in August and served chocolate buttermilk Sole Food zucchini cake and strawberry basil ice cream from Earnest Ice Cream made with Sole Food basil. So good!

Earnest Ice Cream started this summer - they make ice cream by hand and focus on using local ingredients in seasonal flavours. Andrew made a video for them and as a result, we got free ice cream all summer. They were always at the farmer's market and sold glass pints at independent shops. If you are Vancouver - check them out! 


Here is the video - it will make you seriously want the ice cream!

Earnest Ice Cream from Andrew Norton on Vimeo.

Zucchini

Costata Romanesco Zucchini - an Italian heirloom variety with a delicious nutty flavour and firm texture. We would harvest them fairly small so that they maintained that firmness and not be too watery or spongy. We would sell them at the market with the blossom still attached - a way for us to distinguish ourselves and also a great way to chat with market goers about different ways of preparing and cooking parts of the zucchini plant. One of our regulars told me about a Mexican dish of slicing up the blossoms, cooking them with onions and lots of cilantro and serving with fresh corn tortillas, yum! This variety also has ridges along the side of the fruit which makes for a beautiful shape when you slice it up. Once they got too big (if you leave zucchini - it will get bigger than your head, folks) then they make some delicious zucchini bread!