Beef Stew & Canada Agriculture and Food Museum

Every weekend, we make a grocery list.  About 80% of the grocery list rarely changes: milk, bread, salad fixings, bananas, grapefruit, etc.  Then, we come up with 3 dinner ideas and make sure that the ingredients we need are added to the list.  For the other days, we'll either have leftovers, something from the freezer or an easy meal (e.g., grilled cheese, breakfast for dinner).  

Among a list of regular meal ideas, stew comes up as a suggestion fairly regularly and I'm usually the one to nix it.  I'm so tired of the same old stew recipe.  So, I decided to try out a new stew recipe.  I went with a Jamie Oliver recipe -- you can find it here.

It was delicious!  The pictures don't do it justice.  I loved the flavour that the wine added to the broth and the texture and sweetness of the squash.  I'll definitely be making this recipe again.  Though, next time I'll probably use the slow cooker.

We also took advantage of the long weekend to visit the Agriculture Museum at the Experimental Farm.  The museum is part of a fully-functioning farm, with a variety of animals (cows, horses, pigs, goats, sheep, etc.).

Of course, I loved watching E pet the kid.  This is really the heart of the museum: up close and interactive opportunities for kids to be around farm animals.

The cows are regularly inseminated so that they continue to produce milk. This calf was just born.  I got a bit teary-eyed when I read that the calves are separated from their mothers after 48 hours.  At least they get the colostrum.  

Giz likes to make fun of how it'll be difficult for me to go back to work without singing nursery rhymes at inappropriate times.  But, tell me this picture doesn't make you want to break into "Mary had a little lamb"!

I'm looking forward to the opening of their new learning centre.  The Learning Centre will have an exhibition gallery, learning labs, lecture hall and improved visitor and group amenities.  

The museum is changing names and becoming the Canadian Agriculture and Food Museum, recognizing the museum's enhanced focus on food literacy. I'm really interested to see what types of food-literacy exhibits they'll have.  The inaugural exhibition for the Learning Centre will look at what would be involved in baking an apple cake if you had to produce all of the ingredients yourself.  Sounds very interesting!  I hope they can drive home a similar message with respect to meat.