I Love Alberta Beets

Moving

2010-09-22T22:32:00.000-07:00

After several months of feeling very meh about posting anything online, I’ve moved my cyber self over to tumblr. This will likely result in less pontification and more linking to what I see going on around me, which is much more my speed right now. Keeping it simple.
http://ilovealbertabeets.tumblr.com/

Sour Pickles

2010-08-19T08:20:00.000-07:00

I've got a peck of pickles in my cupboard. Every time I grab a cookbook I get a whiff of dill flowers! Before hot bath canning came along, there were sour pickles. Like sauerkraut, they are preserved using salt and lactobacilius. You make a brine (which means a mix of water and sea salt), put garlic, dill flowers, spices and cukes in a large jar, weigh the pickles down with a smaller jar, and cover them with the brine. Then you let it burble away in a dark place for a week or two. Everyday, I check on them and skim off the scum that forms on the surface (old style fermentation is not for the faint of heart, or the scum averse..). I got the ratios for brine and the instructions from the book Wild Fermentation. They are almost done, I'll be sure to report with a taste test.

What I wish I had to add to the mix is grape or horseradish leaves, which improve the crunchiness of the pickles. Horseradish is definitely on my 'to-grow' list. Check out this article on growing horseradish. I think this qualifies as gardener-foodie porn..

The garden grows, finally... it was a late start. But now there are cabbages for future kraut, and green tomatoes for future green tomato relish. MAYBE they'll become red tomatoes before the season is over, we'll see.

I've started some more greens, after a blessed season of arugula, chard, lettuces, and spinach. I planted mizuna and mache, and plan to put in some kale soon, for my fall cold frame experiments. I am going to a seminar on extending the growing season to learn more about using passive solar heat. I've got to figure out a way to harness the energy in our compost too. We bought a compost thermometer (keeping an eye on the temp can help you to speed up the process in certain ways), and last night at 8:00 pm it was 30 degrees C in the centre of the pile.

Jardin des Plantes

2010-07-25T21:28:00.001-07:00

I'm not in a blogging mood so often these days. It seems like a sacrilegious activity in my free time given how gorgeous it is outside, and given that my day job requires me to be attached to the computer for the most part. Recent highlights include a meal of Manitoba pickerel I bought at Kingsland Farmer's Market and several glorious weeks of arugula salad from the garden with Little Creek Dressing, or as it is known affectionately in my household, Little Crack. I do love arugula. It has a wonderful horseradish-like kick. I'm looking forward to trying mizuna in the fall, another spring/fall crop that does best when things cool down. It is another spicy green. The pickerel was pricey, but GOOD. I guess that must be because it was flash frozen. The texture was the best I think I've ever had from frozen fish. In Paris there was no messing around with frozen fish of course. My favorite meal was fresh grilled sardines.
Another contender for best meal of the trip was salmon tartare. It was flavored with sesame, and served with a crunchy coleslaw that was a great contrast to the fish. E had grilled trout. The meals were all very simple and so, so tasty.
Here are some pics from the beautiful Jardin des Plantes in Paris, the national botanical gardens.
As you can see, it is huge. There is even a zoo. I was very sad to find out that they phased out the last of the potager (food) gardens three years ago. I'm guessing the trend toward more decorative gardens will turn back to food eventually, but for now I had to content myself with the traditional medicinal plant garden. I saw many of the plants that traveled with my ancestors to North America.

Chamomile

Stinging Nettle: Good for treating hay fever and inflammation.
I tried the Salvia, alas no exciting effects. Actually this is Salvia officinalus,
(common sage) and is much less dramatic than its Latin American cousin.
Nevertheless, it has been used as medicine throughout history and
the name is derived from the Latin 'to save'.

It's nice to be back to enjoy the garden and the wild world coming into bloom. I am starting to think of preserving already, as all the plants come into flower and fruit. It has been a long wait! But finally, the season of walking in the park and having dessert at the same time (the Saskatoons are amazing this year due to all the rain we've had..) is here.

Paris

2010-07-10T20:42:00.001-07:00

Where to begin with Paris. We had a terrific time, despite being there in the hot, muggy season because we were attending a wedding during our trip. Good food and relaxing days were our main goals, as my husband and I had both previously been in Paris when we were younger and had done the tourist thing. We had the pleasure of staying at the apartment of a friend of E's parents. She apologized in advance for how small her place is, which is funny considering the size of my apartment in Korea (see below..). It was one room. Yes, that's the kitchen and washing machine in the front hall.

Instead we found ourselves in a beautiful classic French apartment, with the requisite three flights of narrow stairs, huge shuttered windows, and a bustling cafe below. Dreamy.

We were a bit outside of the city, which meant a 30 minute commute in, however this had its advantages, namely friendly shopkeepers who were patient with our rusty French (a more elusive quality in the city..). I had read about the different markets in Paris at Chocolate and Zucchini, and so we set off to track down the 'bio' (organic) market that takes place on Sundays. It was pretty easy to find, it's located in the 6th arrondisement, at Boulevard Raspail, between rue du Cherche midi and rue de Rennes.

The market was also dreamy.

This stall amused me given my blog name.. she was selling limited edition organic perfume, scented with carrot and coriander. It was very nice, but it was also $120 euros. Non merci.

I should have taken more pictures but I was busy soaking it all in! I bought some terroir honey, and some orange leaf tea, which I haven't tried yet, but given how much I like neroli (orange flower essential oil) I suspect I'll enjoy it. We also bought some olives, a vegetable tourte and some cheese. The cheese was the only miss. It was called chevre sec (dry goat cheese), and I picked it because it was small. Turns out it was small because it was hard as a rock, and was a bit of a punch to the face taste-wise. Like an extremely funky goat parmesan. Not exactly what we were looking for. But the tourte and the olives were great (the olives tasted incredibly fresh, like they had just come off the tree..), and were even more enjoyable in the park.

More dispatches to come!

Calgary Blogger Bake Sale

2010-06-17T20:55:00.001-07:00

How fantastic is this picture. Real safe, right? I wish I could say it was me.. it's from the website of the camp I spent summers at as a kid, dated 1985. Odds are I was there that year, covered in bug bites and high on candy bars. I loved the air rifle range...

I just dropped off my contribution to a Calgary blogger bake sale this evening, set up to raise funds for Meals on Wheels. I went with S'mores Bars, because I've been reminiscing about summer camp lately. I hope I'll get the chance to volunteer at a summer camp at some point in the future, it was such a great experience as a kid. For a good decade, I spent a week or two every summer at a church camp near Calgary, and it was good times. Running around playing tag, chasing boys, food fights, staying up late, singing around a campfire and, in a time before helicopter parents and lawsuits, shooting an air rifle. What more does a ten year old need really.

The bake sale is on at the Market Collective this weekend, Saturday 10-6 and Sunday 11-5 at the old Ant Hill Fabrics building in Kensington. Vincci organized it, what a great way to inspire us all. There will be some amazing treats by very talented local foodies, some much more gourmet than marshmallows and chocolate. But then, those are good too sometimes.

Some of the participants include:
Julie
Pierre
Jennifer
Cheryl
Vlad
Chelsea

Beet the System

2010-06-13T21:39:00.000-07:00

Check out this sweet logo. I got a t-shirt from Black Sheep Heap on Etsy. I am also tempted by Yes We Can. How awesome is that?

In other news, E and I joined the Bowness Railway Community Garden. We are looking forward to meeting other like-minded green thumbs. I was quite entertained to hear from the coordinator that the problem at community gardens in Bowness is not teenagers vandalizing, but senior citizens helping themselves to vegetables.

Gardening on a budget

2010-06-06T21:40:00.000-07:00

My SO and I have taken on the (little did we know) epic task of converting a former RV pad covered in sod into a productive garden. We are also aiming to do so on a budget. This has meant tilling the soil the old fashioned way.. pulling out stones one at a time. We discovered, much to our dismay, a huge amount of pea gravel underneath the sod. Here is the garden in process, SIX WEEKS after we (and by 'we' I mean mostly E, with me pitching in for a few hours at a time..) began. We have removed over 20 wheelbarrows full of gravel, no joke. Filled every pothole in the alley, with some to spare.

We could have done raised beds and avoided all this, however that's where the budget factor comes in. That much wood and trucked in loam is expensive. It probably would have cost us $600.00 or more. We have brought in some loam ourselves, which reduced costs significantly. Locally, a delivered square yard of loam is $125, but if you go pick it up yourself at Burnco it's $20.

We did build two planter boxes. In that case we spent the big bucks on cedar, because it is the longest lasting untreated wood (treated wood is out of course, no one wants arsenic salad..). I did want to treat it with something, but found that the natural deck oil available in town is $50 a can. So instead I followed a suggestion I saw at Mother Earth News, and bought some linseed oil and turpentine. Linseed is flax oil, and turpentine is derived from pine trees. A 50/50 mix is a great wood treatment and costs $35 a can.

After a ton of work, we have one third of the garden space ready for planting. We amended the soil with two garbage cans of organic matter and compost, and some composted manure. Hopefully we will only need manure for the first two years as we build up the soil. We will also need to add some phosphate rock and blood meal (that just sounds gross, doesn't it?) as we discovered through testing that the soil is depleted in phosphorous and nitrogen.

Finally, it's time to plant! Next on the to do list, constructing some mini greenhouses to use as the plants get going.

Tempeh

2010-06-04T19:15:00.000-07:00

It's all about comfort foods this week. Noodles and curry coconut sauce in this case.. I started with one of Bittman's braised tempeh recipes. Have you ever tried tempeh? I have come around to really liking it, although I was laughing with friends recently that I can't even tell what a normal person would consider good anymore, because my taste for food is so varied these days. I do drink fermented beet juice, after all (yes, yes, it sounds horrific.. but you don't even know how good it is). I think tempeh falls in to the same category for many people.

I remember years ago buying tofu and putting it in stir fries, and then eating around it because the truth was, I didn't like it. But now that I have learned the tricks to cooking it up properly, it is a fantastic satisfying meal.

I had the same experience with tempeh. Tempeh is an Indonesian invention, traditionally made of whole soy beans formed into a cake and fermented. It is very high in B vitamins. Like all fermented bean foods, it has a full, earthy flavor, and can be a bit much for some palates. When I first tried it out I would use entire blocks of the stuff, grilled or whatever, and I just didn't like it. Bittman is a genius with these kinds of things though. In his discussion of tempeh, he explains that because it is so strong, it does well paired with really rich or sweet and sour tastes. Also, he suggests crumbling it into dishes instead of trying to eat a huge piece of the stuff. In this recipe, you crumble it into an oiled pan and fry it with garlic, ginger, and curry powder and then add even parts veggie stock and coconut milk and let the sauce boil down for 15 minutes or so. The original recipe calls for some chopped cabbage added near the end, but I had some kale on hand and it worked nicely.

Fortunately kale, like other substantial and slightly bitter greens, also mellow out beautifully with the addition of something rich (coconut milk) or sweet and sour (for example, try kale sauteed with some apple cider vinegar and maple syrup).

I served the dish with rice noodles. With help from Bittman, the tempeh was fantastic.

Millet

2010-05-21T07:57:00.001-07:00

I've been looking for alternate grains to wheat, and millet has proven to be a great option. I especially appreciate that I can find local millet, as I read that it is best consumed within 6 months because it is technically a seed, not a grain and therefore contains volatile oils. It is high in B vitamins, and one cup of cooked millet provides 26% of daily magnesium requirements. In looking into millet, I found that it is a major subsistence crop in Africa, often ground into flour for injera, which is a crepe-like fermented bread. Injera is definitely on my to do list.. I have had the pleasure of home made injera in the past and it is really, really nice. In Ethiopia, the bread serves as a base for meals, and is used to scoop up the food in the same way naan is used for Indian dishes. Our friends told us that forks are associated with the colonialist oppressor! Injera is a powerful cultural symbol in Ethiopia, in the same way that rice is in Asia. (In South Korea, the friendly 'how are you' greeting is 'have you eaten rice today?')
I cooked the millet and made cakes with a Mark Bittman recipe similar to this one, but also included a bit of flour and an egg as a binder.

Daikon

2010-05-17T21:24:00.000-07:00

The Asian food kick continues. A trip to Superstore led to a fridge full of gai lan (what I would do for organic gai lan, sigh..) and many delicious meals. I also picked up some daikon, which became daikon kimchi and Dubu Mu Jorim (tofu and daikon in soy sauce). I hadn't had the tofu dish since I was living overseas and it was as good as I remember. Daikon is really nice cooked, it feels like comfort food. I don't think I've ever seen it in a cooked dish in Canada.

Korean Tofu and Daikon

1/4 lb. white radish, cut in 1 inch x 1/2 inch pieces
1/2 cup dried sliced shitake mushrooms (easy to find and well priced at Asian grocery stores)
4 oz. firm tofu, cut in 1 inch x 1/2 inch pieces
1 cup water
2 T soy sauce
1 T honey
1 T. Korean red pepper paste (gochuchang).

Soak the mushrooms in boiling water. Place the radish and water in a pot, season with soy sauce, and simmer on low heat for 20 minutes. Add the drained mushrooms, red pepper paste, tofu and honey and simmer for 5 more minutes.

The spring tonic adventures continue as well. I went to a really interesting weekend workshop with Daniel Vitalis on wild nutrition, and he taught us how to make drinks and tinctures from wild plants. We also went out to the mountains to drink mineral water from the springs around Banff. I learned that the idea of water being 'sweet' comes from mineral water that's high in calcium. We also tried sulfurous water which can be used medicinally as it is acidic and stimulating. I didn't know until this weekend that the water coming up out of a spring is often 10,000 years old or older.

Sushi

2010-05-02T13:27:00.000-07:00

During my cleanse I was craving avocado for some reason, so I decided to finally try my hand at rolling sushi myself. This photo looks much more impressive than it actually turned out.. I quickly learned that I was overdoing the rice as I ended up with rolls that were too big to eat and that fell apart. Also, using brown rice meant they were less sticky that they normally would be with white, which made rolling a challenge. Post Punk Kitchen says don't bother with brown, but I did enjoy the taste..

I followed Marissa Baggett's approach for the rice; I like the idea of using honey and vinegar instead of pre-made seasoned rice vinegar, which is (predictably) sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. I also made Tuna Soboro to include in some of the rolls. We buy Raincoast Trading hook and line caught Pacific albacore tuna, which is still considered a sustainable source according to Seafood Watch. The soboro is GOOD. Very moreish.

Overall, it was quite straightforward. I was always impressed at the availability of these kinds of rolls in every corner store in Korea.. convenience food that has actual food in it. Koreans cut up a roll and wrap in in tin foil in the log shape, and take it hiking or on a picnic. I'm looking forward to trying it with other fillings.

In other news, the yard is slowly starting to be transformed. We discovered that the area we plan to have as the garden is sod on top of 5 inches of gravel, with better soil underneath. So lots of hard work ahead, but that's the fun part, right?

Tonic

2010-04-17T11:51:00.000-07:00

Spring is springing! Seeds are sprouting.. I always forget what a delight all this sunshine is. Here is self portrait with spring tonic, in my natural environment, which is thesis writing at the kitchen table. Try as I might to use the office, I always end up back in the kitchen with the south facing window and a view of the Paskapoo Slopes. It feels like the appropriate season for some tonifying.. which means dropping refined sugar, caffeine, dairy, gluten and junk food for a little while. I am also taking daily doses of nettle juice, milk thistle and lacto-fermented ginger tonic.

A herbalist friend introduced me to nettle as a way to eliminate hay fever. I can't believe how well it works. The only downside is drinking a bottle of green stuff that tastes like a cross between grass and hay... a bit nasty. 10 ml twice a day, which is half of a shot (yes I shoot my nettle, out of a shot glass with a quote from Dylan Thomas on the side 'An alcoholic is someone you don't like who drinks as much as you do.') But when I am done the bottle, my allergies are gone. This year I am planning to make a point of finding some fresh nettle, as I hear it is quite nice as a cooked green. Seems like a more pleasant way to get a dose.

Milk thistle is a liver tonic that has also been shown to regulate insulin. I started taking it last year and found that it almost completely erased my pms related pain. The syrup I take is made with sea buckthorn berries, which are pretty tasty and are good for digestion.

I used this recipe to make the ginger tonic. Next time I'll add less salt, because I found it came forward a bit too much for my taste. Aside from the benefits of ginger, this offers a good dose of lactobacillus without eating dairy.

The tonic in the photo is made from boiling rose hips that I harvested last fall in water for 15 minutes or so, and straining out the solids. I then mixed it 50/50 with mineral water. I've never been one for drinking enough water, partially because I hate the chlorine taste so prominent in Calgary tap water. So I've started getting a 2 litre bottle of mineral water to keep in the fridge, and am also experimenting with a homemade carbon filter. I simply have a glass pitcher on the counter with several sticks of bamboo charcoal floating in it. I found the charcoal at the local health food store.

In Asia charcoal is used therapeutically in many different ways. I went to a spa in Korea where a dry sauna had walls entirely covered with huge pieces of charcoal, stacked like cordwood. People even eat it, you can find charcoal ice cream and charcoal cake! When I went for traditional treatment (similar to TCM, traditional Chinese medicine), the doctor had me drink packages of powdered charcoal in water for a few weeks.

The bamboo charcoal isn't powdery however, it just sits in the water. And the water does taste much better than straight out of the tap.

Because I'm taking a break from dairy, I also made almond milk. All that is required is soaking a cup of almonds in 2 cups of water overnight, blending it in the blender, and straining out the pulp. I added a bit of maple syrup. It was very nice, a light flavour. I found it was better the second day, with a kind of amaretto smell and taste. I used the pulp to make veggie pate for a party. It was really tasty. I'm definitely going to make it again.

Almond veggie pate:

1 cup almond pulp
1 T olive oil
1 T nut butter
1 T rosemary, or herbes de Provence
1 t bouillon concentrate
1 T miso
1 T chopped sun dried tomatoes

Blend well, refrigerate to set and let flavors blend. Serve with crackers or fresh bread.

Eccles cakes and other adventures

2010-04-05T19:40:00.000-07:00

Here is a view of a usual lunch break around here, the only thing not in this shot is Hera the dog sleeping on her side, drooling on the floor. This soup recipe was from Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.. Green Tea Broth with Udon. I found it rather plain, not my best effort. I used cheap green tea in a bag, as opposed to loose, that probably had something to do with it.

The Bittman book rarely fails... tonight was a successful risotto primavera. I have tried many recipes but this one finally resulted in the creamy but not too sticky risotto I have had in good restaurants. I've always found vegetable risottos to be lacking flavor, but finally learned the secret. Butter! 6 Tbs of butter. Whoa. Makes sense though, given that scientists have confirmed what we already knew, that fat is a flavour.

Speaking of fat, I made Eccles cakes for dessert this Easter. They are a traditional British cake that taste a lot like a mincemeat tart, made with currants and citrus. They were a lot of fun to make, although I was nervous when I realized they were a quarter of the size of the ones I remember my mom getting at the bakery when I was young. However they were well received, everyone said they preferred a small dessert with more fruit than pastry. Also, there was no added sugar in the recipe, which surprised me. They baked up nicely though, and the currants provided more than enough sweetness.

I used frozen puff pastry left over from Christmas (which is where the fat comes in..). Not quite ready to try making it on my own. Although reading the ingredients on the side of the Pillsbury box is enough to scare me into it. Mmm, hydrogenated GMO soy oil.. Next time something calls for puff pastry, I'm going to try Delia's recipe, in which you freeze butter and grate it into the mix. It won't be as puffy but it won't be as cancer-y either. That's a fair trade.

I've learned that we will be making a trip to Paris, London, and Cambridge this summer! Very excited. I've started researching places to eat with help from David Lebovitz and Clotilde Dusoulier at Chocolate and Zuchinni. There are organic markets to see, vegan French peasant foods to eat, and some amazing gardens that I learned about in the Four-Season Harvest, like the Jardin des Plantes. In the nineteenth century, gardens in Paris provided a significant amount of the fresh produce to the citizenry. They extended the growing season by piling horse manure between the beds in greenhouses, which then let off heat as they composted and heated the greenhouses. Then the compost was turned into the soil. Cool, huh. Except for the part about steaming piles of horse crap, of course..

Foraging!

2010-03-19T06:16:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking of seeds and foraging despite the new snow that fell last night. Spring equinox is only a week away, after all. I read more interesting articles this week about people who define life and 'career' success little differently.

Goodbye Rat Race Hello Vegetable Garden (Globe and Mail)

Raising the World Leaders of Tomorrow (FFWD)

Also, I have found another book for the expanding 'to read' list..

Am I am femivore?

2010-03-14T09:59:00.001-07:00

Perhaps so. The NYTimes featured an interesting reflection on the intersection of feminism, the local food movement, and motherhood.

The Femivore's Dilemma

Noodly

2010-03-07T21:13:00.000-08:00

Oh dear it has been too long. The dream of life has been distracting me from the internet dream world.. not such a bad thing I suppose.

I am getting into Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian these days.. it is such a great book, full of unique recipes and reliable basics. His philosophy is simple: not too many ingredients, not too much fussiness. He provides templates for you to experiment with with whatever you have on hand.

Recently I've tried chickpea fries, which you make up a lot like polenta; an even mix of water and channa (chickpea) flour, salt and pepper, simmered briefly and then poured on to a baking pan to chill for 15 minutes. You then cut them into fries or wedges and fry in oil. A great way to sneak more protein into a meal.

Also, you can make egg 'noodles' by making a Japanese-style omelet (ie: poured extremely thin, like a crepe...) and folding it up and slicing it. I made this simple mushroom soup with egg noodles the other day, which took about 20 minutes to prepare and really hit the spot (the spot being a Japanese food craving).

There are also several great seaweed recipes. I had been trying to replicate the Planet Organic edamame and arame salad to no avail, but Bittman's salad is bang on. I have grown to love seaweed over the years.. I remember when I first lived in South Korea I couldn't handle the texture, but by the end of my time there myeok guk was a go-to comfort food. It, like all seaweed dishes, is very high in iron and other minerals harder to obtain from a vegetarian diet. In Korea it is known as the best food for pregnant women.

I've also been enjoying the recent chatter around town about food, sustainability, and local issues. Interesting to see these conversations enter the mainstream.

Avenue featured an article about urban foraging and another about chickens in the city.
There is talk of an actual farmer's market in the city, as opposed to a warehouse that sells organic produce from Mexico.

Also fighting the temptation to start sprouting seeds.. this time of year in Calgary is always a tease, promising spring but I know there are months of snow ahead. So instead I just troll seed catalogs, and live vicariously through bloggers further south. I'm looking forward to a workshop in May with Daniel Vitalis through The Light Cellar which promises to be interesting.

English Muffins

2010-02-17T10:10:00.000-08:00

Having a sourdough starter is great because it forces you to attend to it and use it on a regular basis. I now regularly make sourdough blueberry muffins, which come together really quickly. The funny thing about sourdough is, in most of the recipes I use there is absolutely no sour taste. The bread is usually sweet, in fact. I have read that getting a sourdough to actually taste sour requires some practice. E had wistfully mentioned English muffins a few times recently.. because I use SPUD, buy in bulk in a food co-op and use other diverse sources for groceries, I make it to a mainstream grocery store about once a month. A few things are massively cheaper, and there is no where else to get decent cottage cheese. Even though I'm pretty sure it has gelatin in it, and I know it has guar gum in it.. what can you do. I tried live culture cottage cheese once; never again.. It was too funky for me.
Anyhoo. English muffins are another thing only found at the MSGS.. but after seeing Nicole's post I was inspired. How hard could it be? This answer is: not at all, if you've made buns or bread before. And they are very good with butter and Bunny Honey. Bunny Honey is produced in the Peace Country (terroir honey!) and the tetra pak container is genius. Very environmentally friendly (almost no packaging) and no sticky lid to contend with.
I used a recipe at The Fresh Loaf for the muffins.

Chigae

2010-02-12T22:22:00.001-08:00

This will only be exciting to fellow Korean food o philes.. Kimchi Chamchi Chigae from scratch! Translation: Kimchi stew with tuna, but I used wild salmon instead. It worked alright, although salmon is stronger tasting than tuna so I don't know if I'd do it again. It came forward a bit more than I would have liked. But wow, the face-burny deliciousness of kimchi stew really did it for me the other day. Perfect for when the winter blehs take hold. Any cold that is thinking about getting in your head will flee.

I used this recipe and the kimchi I made myself a few weeks ago. I'm also flipping through a new book, Wild Fermentation, and have lots of ideas for the season ahead. I'm definitely going to try my hand at injera after watching my Ethiopian friend make it at home. It's really tricky to make flat bread at home that is chewy instead of crispy.. but injera is wonderfully soft and holds together well when used like roti to eat lentil stews etc. Like a crepe, essentially, but the dough is fermented for two days ahead of time.

My favorite Korean food blog is One Fork, One Spoon. Makes me homesick for my other home.

New toy

2010-02-03T12:17:00.001-08:00

Here's a pic taken on my new iPhone. I can admit it.. this new toy makes me very happy. Mostly because I can use the GPS when I get lost.. and to find the phone when I lose it.

The first thing I did was download the free Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch App. Looking forward to seeing what other foodie apps come in handy.

I also look forward to using it to take food pics. Here's the first; at my favorite coffee shop, Beano. I try to like the coffee at other shi shi spots in town, but nothing compares, really. They are also firmly in first place because they have sandwiches full of Janice Beaton cheese, toasted Wayne's bagels with peanut butter and banana slices, and hot chocolate made with shaved Bernard Callebaut chocolate and ginger. AND scenes like this.

Great Food Blogs

2010-01-23T15:35:00.000-08:00

Here are a few blogs I enjoy. 'Tis the season for reading about gardening instead of doing it, and reading about recipes instead of making them..

101 Cookbooks. I made the homemade bouillon this week, it is a great cheat for making stock.

Food in Jars. If I don't have time to can I can at least look at pretty pictures of someone else doing it.

No Recipes. A terrific collection of international un-recipes.

Trout Caviar. Interesting recipes and foraging info, also where I learn about hunting and fishing if I should ever choose to take on such an activity.. I remember one of the food rules suggested to Michael Pollan by readers of the NYTimes. If you want to eat it, you should be able/willing to kill it. Agreed.

The Cottage Smallholder. Many unique recipes for preserves. Pine needle vinegar anyone? Also, pretty pictures of England.

Little House in the Suburbs. ... because they have goats in the back yard.

Dinner with Julie ... because it's Julie. Also: Kale Chips.

Just Hungry. For all your MSG-free Japanese food recipe needs. Check out the furikake recipes; all kinds of toppings for rice that are easy to take on the road. I made the salted salmon; it was really tasty. Looking forward to trying it with local trout sometime.

Happy reading..

Sprouts

2010-01-19T09:29:00.000-08:00

I have been doing a little sprouting lately. Yet another activity that is an unknown mystery to many but is in fact is easier than easy. Now, you really must try fresh sprouts. They are nothing like the ones in the store. They are sweet and tasty and more-ish. We do buy greens from the closest place possible over the winter, which is California most of the time, Hotchkiss if we are lucky, but I am still aware that they have been dying for a week before they get to me. And also, if they are from Hotchkiss, they are growing in a heated (read: heated by propane, most likely.. ) greenhouse in Canada in February, which is a bit ridiculous when you think about it. Next year I hope to get some micro greens going in the house over the winter months, but until then.. sprouts. A great way to get really fresh greens, and if you use beans, also a source of protein. I bought a package of Mumm's Spring Salad Sprouting Seed, which is a combination of Broccoli, Radish, Red Clover, and Alfalfa. This is the lazy way, as the package is 2.50 and if I bought the seeds in bulk it would cost pennies. In the end I'm glad I went with the mix though, as the radish sprouts are GOOD. If I had done my own mix it would have been mung beans, chickpeas, and lentils since that's what's in the cupboard.

To grow sprouts, put 3 Tbs. of seeds (more if they are beans, since beans are larger..) in a mason jar, and cover with water. Soak for 5 hours. Place cheese cloth over the opening, and secure with an elastic or a canning lid ring. Drain the water and rinse with new water. Drain again. Put the jar in the cupboard, and let the sprouts do their thing. Rinse once a day, and they will be ready in 2 or 3 days. I ate these with salad dressing, like a leaf salad. We also use them to make pad thai, and they are great in a sandwich with cream cheese.

I also tried my hand at seitan from scratch this week. Previously I have used 100% wheat gluten to make seitan, and found it a bit rubbery. I thought I would try it from scratch to see what the texture difference would be. To make seitan from scratch, you start with 6 cups of flour, make a dough, and immerse it in water. You then knead it under water, rinsing out the starch and only gluten will remain at the end. At least in theory. In reality, you are wrestling with a big blob of goo, and using gallons and gallons of water to rinse off the starch. Also, it takes about an hour of rinsing and kneading. Hmm.

Admittedly, the seitan that resulted was pretty tasty. Although it was almost too soft and broke apart easily. But after sitting in the fridge overnight it had a much better consistency. I made Balsamic-Braised Seitan with Winter Vegetables from Quick-Fix Vegetarian and it was really, really good. I had tried several similar recipes that used liquid smoke or dark beer to get a full flavour but they didn't compare with this one. My conclusion is that I'll work on finding a mix of homemade and pure gluten to get the best texture and to spend my time wisely.

Bread of life

2010-01-08T17:28:00.001-08:00

"Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of all feasts." - James Beard

This is Flax Seed Sourdough. As Cookie Monster would say, om nom nom nom...

On the menu this evening; fish en croute using puff pastry left over from the holidays. I used chard from the garden and pacific cod instead of the requisite spinach and flounder. It's challenging to figure out which fish are about to be trawled into oblivion and which are doing alright.. here is some great information about which seafood choices are the safest and most sustainable.

Perusing my favorite food blogs this evening, I came across this delightful article about a Persian food tradition. Isn't it beautiful?

Kraut redux and other adventures

2010-01-04T11:35:00.000-08:00

These are beets I put into our mini root cellar in September. Not bad, eh? As you can see, they went soft on the stem ends (where the sand is obviously sticking), but that leaves 3/4 of a beet for borscht! I guess this means I should have been more careful that there was no water or broken peel on the stem ends. Also, the 'cellar' spent September on the floor in our rather warm kitchen, as I was unwilling to lug it to the basement only to lug it back up in November when we moved. The remainder of the beets are not at all soft, and still tasty. The sand is a messy pain, as I suspected it would be. The last thing one wants to do is wash beets in a basin (to avoid getting it down the drain) and dumping it outside when it is - 25 C. I hope to switch to perlite when I find some at a reasonable cost.

Another experiment, fermenting in the cupboard. Poor E, every time he opens a cupboard or fridge door there is another unidentifiable concoction bubbling away...

This one is Kimchee-style kraut. I used this recipe again, but learned from my last failed attempt to add brine if salting the cabbage doesn't create enough liquid to cover the veggies. More in-depth information on the joys of letting cabbage go funky can be found here. I added garlic, ginger and Korean hot pepper powder, hoping that the potent combo will serve as an immune booster in a few weeks. The only unfortunate side effect (for those around you, anyway..) is garlic coming out your pores for a few hours.

Speaking of human being repellent... have you heard that eating a raw clove of garlic kills a cold? I started coming down with one a few days ago and tried a home remedy suggested by our Ethiopian friends.. crushed garlic in hot milk! Bleargh, you may be thinking. That's not too far off. However I found the addition of milk a vast improvement over chewing a raw clove by itself, which is the most common approach for insane/brave North Americans. The sniffles were gone 4 hours later.

The Blob

2009-12-31T12:26:00.000-08:00

... A completely unrelated photo, of candied oranges I made but didn't get around to finishing (dipping in chocolate..) or gifting. And now after three weeks of nog, irish cream, cookies, Callebaut, and pie, I couldn't possibly eat one of these little sugar delivery vehicles. Ah well.

Best xmas present evar.. a jar of 50 year old sourdough starter. It is oddly satisfying to have a blob in the fridge that must be fed, and returns the favour by producing amazing bread.

Also, sourdough is better for you than conventionally yeasted breads. Sourdough culture creates lactic acid, which breaks down the proteins in the dough and results in a lower glycemic index, better absorption of minerals, and easier digestion for people sensitive to gluten. If some of the lactic acid makes it through the baking process, it also supports lactobacillus growth in the intestine. Optimum mineral absorption is especially important for vegetarians.

Incidentally, I have been trying to increase my iron intake lately, and have found a most agreeable form; blackstrap molasses. I stir one tablespoon into my morning cocoa and get 4.5mg of iron; as much as one gets from eating a steak! The cow-free form is pretty tasty; sort of gingerbread-latte-esque. Yes, I did just use a Starbucks drink as an attributive adjective.

So far I have made biscuits and blueberry muffins with the sourdough starter. The muffins were really nice because the sweetness mostly came from the berries instead of the usual half cup o' sugar in muffin recipes.

Currently I am using Sunny Boy 100% Whole Wheat flour. It's local and well priced. As I couldn't get my hands on the all purpose flour, I bought the whole wheat and sifted it to remove the bran. I find this almost easier than buying and storing two kinds of flour. I've been using the wheat bran in a recipe that has been a recent revelation; galettes. Apparently this term has multiple meanings (it is often used in reference to french style hand pies), but it also refers to a whole germ pancake, which I read is a popular breakfast for french women. All I know is that they are really tasty, and a great way to balance out my recent interest in eating large amounts of flour (not the best for digestion, or for blood sugar levels, which tend to spike and crash on white flour). All things in moderation, etc. etc. I eat these with more yogurt and a bit of jam on top.

Flour-free galette:

1 T. wheat bran
2 T. oat bran
1 egg
1 T. of yogurt

Mix and let sit for 10-15 minutes. Fry like a pancake in a bit of oil or butter.

Actually the sourdough gift is tied with a new Le Creuset dutch oven I can use to make no knead bread and other delicious things. A canny move on my husband's part, as he will be the main beneficiary...

Plans for the new year:

Learning how to make kraut and kimchi, with the help of Wild Fermenation.

Building a solar dehydrator in the summertime.

Making chevre from scratch.

Creating a food garden from the ground up!

Cheese-a-palooza

2009-12-24T06:10:00.000-08:00

'Tis the cheese season. So good but I am almost at the point where enough is enough. Several parties and gifts have resulted in at least three rounds of brie in the fridge. How much double creme brie can one person consume in a week? I am boldly determined to find out.

I plan to foist some on family over the next few days, in the form of brie en croute. Having consulted the fine culinary advice of the pillsbury puff pastry dough box (don't even think about judging me, even I am not insane enough to make puff pastry from scratch.. ), I'm going for a braid. See the pic for an idea of what that looks like. You simply slice up the cheese and walnuts, caramalised onions or whatever you decide to add, and braid it in. This results in a much more edible version of brie en croute. I have tried the other version, where one wraps a whole cheese round in puff pastry. Tastes just as good, and looks rather impressive, but it tends to result in a pool of inedible cheese and pastry flakes about half way through. It just isn't right to waste good brie.

Other holiday food plans - my contribution to the family Christmas potluck will be a nut roast for the non-meatatarians in the crowd. I wish there was a better name for this, as it sounds dull and strange. But it is actually delish and I don't miss the turkey when it is on the table. I'm also bringing along homemade cranberry sauce, as my love affair with cranberries continues this season. The recipe is called "Cranberry Sauce with Spirit", and includes 1/2 a cup of port. Most things are improved upon with the addition of booze, no?

Charcaroons

2009-12-17T21:23:00.000-08:00

Success! Sort of.

This evening I made Clementine Curd.. it's so funny making these things from scratch.. I remember my trauma at figuring out that mayo is essentially whipped oil. Gross. Well, most fruit curd recipes call for a POUND of sugar and a CUP of butter. Eep.

Technically you can preserve citrus curd with a water bath canning method, and keep in on the shelf for three months, but that seems like too much responsibility on myself and gift recipients, given the heightened risk of spoilage. Most curd recipes not meant for canning say you can keep in in the fridge for three months or in the freezer for up to a year. That's more like it..

It was a time intensive recipe, and involved half an hour of stirring the pot at the stove. Next time I will be sure to have a thermometer on hand, as it was hard to tell if it was thick enough. Right now it's in the fridge setting, fingers crossed.

Also in the photo; macaroons I made with the left over egg whites. A google of 'what to do with extra egg whites' took me to David Lebovitz's recipe. It was easy and very tasty (hard not to eat the dough before it got on the baking tray..) but I managed to burn them despite following directions. I suspect my oven is out of whack, I'll have to check on that. Luckily I only baked half of the dough up, you can freeze it for up to two months. Not that it will last that long. Also lucky; because they are burnt on the bottom we will be forced to eat them all and not give any away.

I also made some cranberry juice this week; it's great with sparkling water. I'm loving cranberries these days. The acidity of the berries feels very tonifying, at a time when everyone's immune systems are low. I stewed some up with as little sweetener as I could get away with and have been eating it on rye toast with chevre. Amazing.

Warming up the house

2009-12-14T10:49:00.000-08:00

We had a house warming this weekend, it was a great day. We received a card with a saying that we had already put up on the wall; "May your house be too small to hold all of your friends". That sums up my household philosophy, pretty much.

For the open house I made Raincoast Crisps a la Julie Van Rosendal. They were almost identical to the ones that are $8.99 (!) a box. The recipe makes the equivalent of about four boxes, and probably cost around $10 to make. Also, it wasn't as fussy as you might think; I think it took 20 minutes of actual work, not counting the time it was in the oven.

I also made Wonton Cups with Cream Cheese and Chutney. I used my dad's homemade apricot chutney, and Cranberry Mustard I made this week instead of the recommended Dijon. Very more-ish. The wonton cups were surprisingly easy to make also, and have a great crunch and lightness. I have wonton wrappers left over and think I'll make Wonton Crackers with the rest.

The mustard is the only canning I've done this year, because of the move and lack of time. It was a great recipe because it only makes three half pints; one thing I have learned is the importance of small batches unless you are putting away huge amounts of food from the garden. We are still trying to eat our way through preserves from 2008, well aware that they are almost beyond the point that we should be eating them. It's all a learning curve I guess, learning how many pickled beets you actually eat in a year (answer: not many). But I sure don't want to throw any food away unless I have to. Did you know that the average US household throws away up to half of the food they buy? Pretty obscene. I'm guessing Canada is not much better.

Figuring out the balance between celebrating with plenty and buying so much food that some ends up in the garbage is a tricky thing. This time around was alright I think; we have left over blue cheese but that's alright with me!

The fail of the party would be a spinach artichoke dip that tasted pretty bleh and looked like pea soup. I think I'm giving up, I have made nothing but mediocre spinach art dips from scratch. My guess is that the ones you have in restaurants have cups of mayo and cream cheese, which is why they are so, er, 'good'.

I managed to get as far as having all the ingredients for Rūpjmaizes kārtojums (layered Latvian rye bread dessert) but ran out of time to actually make it. It looks so interesting! And the toasted sweetened rye crumbs smell amazing. Hmm. Now I've got to figure out how to just casually show up somewhere this week with this huge somewhat complicated desert. Any takers?

In the works in the next little while:

Clementine Curd
Orange Liqueur (from a recipe in Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It)
Homemade Irish Cream

Cruciferous love

2009-11-21T20:52:00.000-08:00

Bloog, how I've missed you... things are still a bit unsettled around here, as life slowly moves from boxes into this new space. So far so good. Figuring out the new routine, where to buy food, where to get a good cappuccino.. (As discussed with Kathy, Stuff White People Lik e has got me nailed, basically). Nothing too exciting on the food front, except for a resounding success with Brussels Sprouts Carbornara Pasta. Even better than the last pasta and Brussels recipe I tried.

Brussels Carbonara

1/2 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb. Brussels, chopped
3 shakes of chili flakes
3 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup grated parmesan
2 cups penne or rotini

Saute onion, garlic, and chili in olive oil, add Brussels, saute until soft. Cook pasta, toss with veggies, eggs and cheese over low heat until egg is cooked through.

Photo courtesy of the very generous Donna Ruhlman, who has mercy on the less talented and shares her photos.

Moving

2009-11-07T12:53:00.000-08:00

I have moved house. Whew. Objects are such a drag.

I'm too tired to be excited yet, but I'm sure excitement to try out all the techniques I've read about on my very own garden will grow in the new year...

Haven't been doing much (read: any) cooking or baking the last few weeks, but on Tuesday I found my muffin tins and time to make carrot cake muffins with help from this recipe. I used pineapple glaze (3 T. pineapple juice, 2 T. melted butter, 1/4 c. icing sugar) instead of cream cheese icing. They got the husband seal of approval; he said they looked worrisomely healthy but tasted great.

I'm pretty sure the rose hip syrup is sustaining my immune system these days, amazingly I haven't gotten a cold despite all the hacking humans in the halls at the university.

Here is the view from my new back lane, which makes me deeply happy.

Rose hips

2009-10-16T18:10:00.000-07:00

A bit of warm weather led to a trip to the wild park and two pounds of rose hips picked in 15 minutes. There were thousands of them. So now I have a local source of Vit C over the winter. The internet tells me (so it must be true..) that compared to oranges, hips have 20-40% more vitamin C, 24% more iron, and 28% more calcium. They also contain bioflavonoids (anti-cancer) and B-complex vitamins.

My plan is to dry some for tea, using this technique to remove the hairs inside the hips that tend to itch the throat.

I'm also going to make some syrup to add to drinks when I'm fighting a cold.

Rogue Squash

2009-10-03T17:51:00.000-07:00

We made a delightful discovery while harvesting the last of the garden -- a squash gone rogue! We had been disappointed with the apparent lack of squash, despite miles and miles of vines (which I'm sure we should have been pinching back.. ), but as we were bringing in the last tomatoes and root vegetables saw this huge specimen on the other side of the chain link fence in our neighbor's yard. It was a good spot to be, lots of full sun. After a recon mission under the fence, we now have the largest spaghetti squash I have ever seen.

This week we are working our way through a few pounds of carrots... I tried the Moosewood Carrot Mushroom Loaf, which is really nice. It is reminiscent of a nut roast (staple of British vegetarian cookery), but more moist, which I prefer. In the past I've found the nut roasts I've attempted a bit dry. I think next time I'll add some sunflower seed meal and make a hybrid of the two.

On the roster for this week:

A recipe for Beet and Ricotta Risotto that I found in Swerve, a local entertainment newspaper.

Packing for a move to Bowness, my new neighborhood. I'm excited to have a dishwasher for the first time since I moved out of my parents' place twelve years ago. I'm excited to be able to walk to Cadence Coffee and the Irish Cultural Centre, where they have Guinness on tap. I'm excited to be in a part of the city that feels rather 'townish' and yet is, technically, still inner city.

Question: Is it really so insane to pack up the compost pile for the move? (I got some funny looks when I announced my plans over family dinner.. ) So much work and vegetable goodness went into that thing!

We got the beet

2009-09-26T08:52:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure how to feel about our week of plus thirty temperatures... it is nice in some ways, but seems to portend of future water shortages and wacky growing seasons. Learning to simply accept what happens is something I need to work on. Chris Vester is a great example of that. The fundraiser was fantastic, kudos to Sunnyside Market for putting it together. It was heartwarming to see so many people willing to lend a farmer a hand. And he is the epitome of grace, really... not angry or discouraged but simply accepting that his living is at the mercy of the earth and willing to accept that risk in order to live the way he does. Pretty admirable.

I had forgotten how much I like Matt Masters. He sang odes to the Bow River and a great riff on Johnny Cash's I've Been Everywhere called I Can't Go Nowhere, all about traveling post 9/11. I'm loving the roots country music these days, thanks in part to listening to a fair bit of CKUA. Corb Lund is another great Alberta artist. There's something special about listening to songs about the place you know.

This week we pulled up the beets. Which, we learned the next day, when we had record breaking temperatures, was a bit early. Ah well. The harvest this year was twenty five pounds.. not to shabby..

So far we have enjoyed roasted beets as sweet as candy and beet fritters when it's too hot to turn on the oven. (too simple to require a recipe. grated beets, breadcrumbs or a bit of flour, egg, ginger, salt, pepper. fry up in spoonfulls.)

We are experimenting with cold cellar techniques this year. The basic approach is to cut the tops off, leaving an inch of stem intact, brush off excess dirt, and leave them out to cure for a few days. We then buried them in a large bin of sand, which is bloody heavy but what can you do. The other options are sawdust, which sounds messy to me, or vermiculite, which costs a lot more. Perhaps we will move to vermiculite when we get tired of sand in the kitchen sink.

Here are some recipes I am interested in trying:

Cypriot Beet Preserves

Chocolate and Roasted Beet Pudding Cakes

I'll have to make another batch of kvass as well. That stuff is weird and addictive and I don't know why. And of course, borscht. The Moosewood Cookbook recipe is my favourite. I think the secret is caraway seeds and apple cider vinegar.

Eating my way through the season

2009-09-16T08:18:00.000-07:00

I really shouldn't be blooging when I have a hundred other things to do. But I miss having a moment to write down my thoughts..

Some recent highlights.. we continue to revel in the season of not buying any veggies from the store; right now there are piles of tomatoes to be eaten. We have been eating mountains of Caprese salad, and last night I tried roasting cherry tomatoes, which was a hit. I didn't have proper goat cheese, but I did have some goat yogurt, which I had bought under the false impression that I could convince myself to enjoy it because it is better for me (less lactose). Bleah. I cannot get used to it. On savory things, no problem. With granola, ew. So I made it into yogurt cheese and it was terrific in the tomato dish.

The one concession I made to actually spending money on produce was to get my yearly three pounds of basil from the farmer's market. I also picked up a few pounds of Alberta garlic from the Hutterites. It is three times stronger than the stuff from China and makes me very, very happy. The basil became pesto, puree with olive oil, basil and garlic oil, and herb vinegar. I froze the first two. The second two recipes are from The Complete Book of Small Batch Preserving.

This Friday, I will be attending a fundraiser for Blue Mountain Farms, who lost most of this year's crop to a nasty hailstorm. I am so happy that this event is happening, I think it shows that the ties between some local farmers and the 'co-producers' in the city are getting stronger. More information is available at Sunnyside Market.

Fall just as it is

2009-09-06T20:46:00.000-07:00

This seems like the first time I have fully embraced the fall season. This probably isn't entirely true, but it certainly feels that way. This year I have really noticed the calm feeling of the season.. everything is dampening down and getting ready for hibernation. There is also the other side of fall -- working to conserve the garden harvest, getting back into the flurry of school and work. The animals are taking a last run at life.. lots of angry, lumbering wasps around, and in the mountains some hiking trails are closed as bears scrounge for the last bit of fruit before the big freeze. The trees along the Bow River are particularly beautiful right now.. the aspens are turning bright yellow.

Cheryl at Backseat Gourmet wrote about the fact that when you are connected to a CSA farm, you start to get annoyed at all the talk of sunny 'good weather' and rainy 'bad weather', when your dinner is dependent on a fair balance of the two. I think the same is true of the seasons, especially for gardeners -- in Calgary fall means the end of fresh food and days in the sun, shorter days and colder nights. So summer is 'good' and winter is 'bad'.

I've been reading Rudolf Steiner's reflections on the seasons. Of fall, he writes:

If we are to participate in this waning of nature, just as we do in nature's growing time, we must learn to experience the dying away of nature in our most inner being. For is a person becomes more sensitive to the secret workings of nature, and thus participates actively in nature's germinating and fruiting, it follows that he [sic] will also livingly experience the effects of autumn on the outer world. ... When the events of autumn and winter draw on, he certainly must enter sensitively into the processes of fading and dying. But he must not, as he does in summer, give himself over to nature-consciousness. On the contrary, he must then devote himself to self-consciousness. In the time when external nature is dying, he must oppose nature-consciousness with the force of self-consciousness.

So autumn has its own purpose; it can be a time to turn inward and to see what's hiding in the inner garden.

Four Season Harvest

2009-08-31T11:21:00.001-07:00

I have recently been turned on to the work of Eliot Coleman, who grows lettuce in Maine in December. !!! That's the rub of seasonal gardening in a Northern climate, going from delicious fresh food in September to tasteless veggies with a huge carbon footprint, and an even bigger ethical footprint given the work conditions of most agricultural production in the developing world, in December. Not to mention the price. Coleman has developed ways of extending the season despite snow and freezing temperatures.

I'm loving Google books these days. I've started reading Coleman's book The Four Season Harvest in preview mode. Almost the whole book is available online, which is probably no accident as it requires publisher permission. I'm glad the authors are willing to share their knowledge.

Pickles

2009-08-31T07:20:00.001-07:00

Courtesy/copyright of Lucy Knisley. Her comics make me smile. I first saw her work via Melanie.

I could get used to this.

2009-08-28T17:16:00.000-07:00

Meaning I could get used to only buying flour, butter, milk and eggs at the grocery store. It is profoundly satisfying to pick your dinner and then put it in the pan. Chardfest 2009 continues, and we aren't sick of the stuff yet, somehow. I made Green Tomato and Swiss Chard Gratin this evening, and it is fantastic, I don't mind saying. It seemed like a bit of a travesty to pick some of my tomatoes early, considering how few we actually manage to grow ourselves, but it was worth it. Yes, I know my photos are embarrassingly amateurish, but it's all I've got until a new camera falls into my lap. I really wish they looked like the ones in NYTimes... Also -- I should have taken a picture before I dug in, but it wasn't until I'd had some that I knew how good it was! I call this one 'Still life with the things I didn't take out of the shot'.
Also popular this week 'round the urban homestead, Peach Ginger Hand Pies. I had been somewhat intimidated at trying pastry from scratch, but the kitchn writers pointed to Martha Stewart's Pate Brisee recipe which uses a food processor, and I couldn't believe how easy it was. Aside from getting flour on every surface within a two metre radius, but that probably had more to do with my rusty rollin' skills...

Lighting a fire in the kitchen

2009-08-24T15:18:00.000-07:00

I have continued to learn about the role of the tenzo in zen practice. This site has some reflections on what happens when you cook with attention and compassion.

"You will practice nonattachment by creating meals that feed practitioners rather than your ego; by planning meals that use what's available and accommodate everyone; and by doing your best with no expectation of return--serving up the meal and letting it go.
Tenzo service is an opportunity for transformation. The kitchen fire burns away ego, attachment, expectation and discrimination."

I am thinking about this because I will help to make the meal for a one day meditation retreat with Calgary Soto Zen in a few weeks. I made some food for previous retreat, and what I remember most vividly was that because we practiced silence all day, from 8 am to 5 pm, I could not apologize for or criticize my food. It helped me to see what a strong habit I have of criticizing my own work. I'm looking forward to finding out what lessons I will learn this time around.

August 30 Canning and Preserving Workshop

2009-08-24T13:20:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of the Clean Calgary Association:

SOUTH CALGARY COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION CANNING AND PRESERVING WORKSHOP

Sunday, August 30, 2009 @ 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM

Enjoy local fruit and veggies throughout the winter by preserving your produce. Pat Ingliss, a food safety expert, will be presenting the best and safest ways to preserve a variety of produce. Recipes will be included in the presentation.

ADMISSION: $20.00

Location

South Calgary Community Association, 3130 16 St S.W.

Seitan Worship

2009-08-21T20:41:00.001-07:00

..the title of this post comes courtesy of my witty husband. It was all I could do not to eat this right out of the pan, but I plated it and took a picture for you, dear reader. That's what I'm willing to do for you. This was one of the hottest days we've had all summer, which is not saying much, it was 31 ℃. However the weather had me craving barbecue, and eventually I settled on making seitan.
For the uninitiated, seitan is a wheat based food that has been around for a few thousand years. Sometimes known as 'wheat meat', it is often found in the scary looking fake meat products you see in the grocery store. It used to be made through a laborious process of rinsing wheat flour in water until all that remained was pure gluten (the stuff that makes bread chewy..). These days you can buy pure wheat gluten in the store. And get this, gluten has more protein per gram than red meat.

I followed this recipe: Barbecued Seitan Ribz

It worked out quite well, although I baked mine in mini loaf pans and had to put them back in the oven for a bit longer because they didn't cook all the way through. I made the basic bbq sauce from Martha Stewart's website, and grilled them up on the stovetop in my cast iron grill pan.
This is one of the easier seitan recipes out there, many of them call for boiling, steaming, and frying to get a good texture. That's the key to seitan, if the texture is wrong it ends up too chewy. I go for the easiest recipes most of the time -- not willing to spend hours over the stove. The other handy recipe is Veggeroni (I do apologize for the names...). As Debra at Culiblog points out, why not enjoy seitan as seitan instead of expecting it to be meat. However it does work great as a meat replacement in all those recipes you grew up with. With all the worries over GMO soy, and therefore GMO tofu, seitan is a good local alternative.

Beet Beer

2009-08-14T15:11:00.000-07:00

Is it just me or has this blog been a bit booze obsessed lately? Ah well, no need to question that at all.. LOOK WHAT I FOUND! This may be the holy grail of my local foodie aspirations. Beet beer? How crazy is that. Or should I say, wacko. I have participated in beer making, thanks to the ghost of boyfriend past (like the ghost of Christmas past but more awkward on facebook..). It's easier than you'd think. Albeit smelly, or at least grain based-beer is when it's burbling away on the stove. I am getting used to brewing funky concoctions (see kvass, yogurt, vinegar, and kraut..) so what the heck. One day I'll have to take this strange brew on. Also, what a charming website name.. The Local Beet.

Let the onslaught begin..

2009-08-12T11:13:00.000-07:00

... the veggie onslaught, that is. This year has not been the best for veg gardens round these parts, sadly, but nevertheless there is more produce in my community than any of us know what to do with. I have the privilege of 'garden sitting' a huge garden this week, with piles of greens to be harvested right now; last night we left with a recycling bin full of kale and chard. Much success with Julie's roasted kale chips recipe.. totally wacky concept but really good in actuality, they taste a bit like popcorn and a bit like pringles, as one blogger pointed out... maybe they will cure me of my potato chip addiction. Maybe.

Here's a recipe to deal with surplus zucchini that will make you many friends. It is a modified version of a recipe from The More-with-Less Cookbook by Doris Janzen Longacre.

I grew up with this cookbook, and it contains many of my go-to comfort foods. It was written in 1976, and was a compilation of recipes created by missionaries from the Mennonite Central Committee. Despite my mixed feelings about aid that is attached to religious evangelism, I cannot help but admire the work of the MCC. Mennonites have a long history of non-violence, for example refusing to go to war for nation states, and have pursued peace and social justice according to their convictions. The More with Less Cookbook aims to bring awareness to the realities of world hunger and overconsumption in developed countries. I learned from the MCC website that you can order it online, and that they have a newer title out called Simply in Season.

Zucchini Egg Foo Yung

1 med. onion, finely chopped
1 or 2 cloves garlic, minced
1 t. salt
1/8 t. white pepper
3 eggs, beaten
2 T. flour
2 med. zucchinis, grated

Mix ingredients and fry in 1/2 cup amounts in a hot pan with a bit of oil, like an omelet.

Sauce:
1 c. stock
2 T. soy sauce
1 T. cornstarch

Heat stock and soy sauce in a saucepan. Make a slurry with the cornstarch (mix it with a bit of water until it is smooth) and add to sauce. Heat until thickened.

Can be served with rice or on its own.

Mead

2009-08-09T21:22:00.000-07:00

I was at Millarville Market this weekend, and had a chance to chat with Cherie Andrews of Chinook Honey Company. Bees have been on my mind lately; just this week I read an article about colony collapse disorder.
I heard Cherie speak about the disorder and its worrisome effect on bee colonies at Local 101. Scientists have concluded that it is brought on by a combination of a pathogen that has become drug resistant, and.. wait for it... pesticides. What a shocker huh. Apparently the pesticides from pollen build up in the honeycombs, which result in weaker bees who are then susceptible to the pathogen.
It's encouraging to know that that scientists have been able to make these connections and track the consequences of heavy pesticide use. Hopefully these realities will result in action by governments and citizens very soon. In the meantime, I try to support local producers like Chinook Honey. Thankfully, they make it easy for me; they produce some really fantastic meads (honey wines) at Chinook Arch Meadery that you have to try to believe. Unlike midieval style European meads, which are a bit thick and funky for my taste, Chinook Arch's meads are light, like a sweet white desert wine.
On Saturday at Millarville, I also picked up a new product, Cinnamon Twist Honey, which is honey, cinnamon, and apple concentrate. It's good enough to eat off the spoon, and it was all E and I could to to stop ourselves from doing just that. Who says local eating is all about deprivation?

Waking up in the kitchen

2009-08-04T21:42:00.000-07:00

I am learning about awareness and waking up to the world from Zen teachers and writers. One of them is Dogen, the founder of the Soto school of Japan. He wrote instructions for the temple cook in the Tenzo Kyokun. I plan to read his instructions over the next little while.

He wrote:

Following the midday meal, go to the offices of the prior and comptroller and get the ingredients for the next day's meals: rice, vegetables and so on. Having received them, protect and be frugal with them, as if they were your own eyes. Respect and value them as if they were ingredients for an imperial repast. ... The Rules of Purity say, "When preparing meals, one should reflect intimately on one's own self; [the food] will then itself be pure and refined."

I think that's a wonderful thing to wake up to -- imagine protecting and valuing food as if it were your own eyes.

Garlic Scapes and Rhubarb Cordial

2009-07-31T20:12:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite culinary discoveries while traveling was scapes. They were sold at the hippie grocery store on Galiano Island, and looked so delightfully out of control on the shelf. I had read about them online previously but had never had the pleasure myself.

We grilled the scapes on the barbecue. They were really nice, although I only ate half of what I had served myself as they are pretty potent. They have the texture of asparagus or beans, with the punch of spicy garlic flavor.

Right before I left, I harvested the rhubarb plant so that it would come back up while we were away. I found this recipe for Rhubarb Rosewater Cordial. The big breakthrough with this recipe is not having to strain the rhubarb -- which I did last year -- what a mess. Instead you put the fruit in jelly bags. I didn't have any rosewater on hand so just went for plain cordial. Compared to past attempts, this one was easy, not sticky, and done in 20 minutes.

Apricot kernels

2009-07-30T21:30:00.001-07:00

Whoa, forget what I said about apricot kernels. Apparently they are a miraculous cure for cancer, according to some, but on the other hand consumption tends to lead to death from cyanide poisoning. The crazy thing is, I got the idea after seeing a package of them for sale at my local health food store. Won't be trying those as a snack any time soon...

My hands hurt

2009-07-29T20:33:00.000-07:00

... from pitting cherries. Lesson #1 of this year's season: Never try to pit 20 lbs of cherries by hand. I have a pitter that looks like a pair of scissors; and after a few dozen cherries my right hand was hurtin'. I am nursing it with Forbidden Fruit Plumiscuous Wine, a new discovery that makes me very, very happy. I got hooked on plum wine (aka SeolJoongMae) when I lived in Korea. My friend Nessa and I drank the stuff by the bottle while comisserating about our love lives and other foreign worker drama.

It, like Plumiscuous, is 'fortified'. Good times.
When I came back to Canada the plum wine from local liquor stores was pretty bad. Syrupy and not the mildly tart kind I was used to, so I gave it up. Enter Forbidden Fruit. Their plum wine is gorgeous, and tastes like summer. Highly recommended. I have seen thier wines at Silver Springs Liquor Store in Calgary. Pearsuasion is also really good.

Bonus: no headache! I discovered, thanks to a good friend and booze afficionado, that organic wines don't have added sulphites (a preservative) and therefore result in little to no headache the next day. In the past I had headaches from even one or two glasses. Some sulphites exist naturally in wines, but the quantities are much lower than in the non-organics. This is a good reason to also buy organic vinegar, by the way... sulphites are added to almost all non-organic ones. We didn't make it to The Vinegar Works in Summerland on this trip, but will be sure to drop by there sometime. My husband's mom bought Gerverstraminer vinegar there last month. Yum.

Lesson #2 from this season: Plan fruit buying carefully. E and I were so happy to see cases of affordable organic fruit that we took home more cherries than we could eat, and I realized when we got back that they don't can well. Also we are not big into sweet stuff, we don't eat a lot of jam or desert, so it's hard to know what to do with so many. (Did you know that most pies are made with sour cherries not sweet ones? Um, neither did I.) Ah well, we soldiered on, it was so difficult, stuffing our faces with fruit all week.. Also I froze a bunch and made Amaretto Cherries (because sweet cherries do preserve well this way, aparently..).

The apricots were much easier to figure out. I froze some, dried some, and made nectar, which was a bit of a handful in my tiny kitchen (wash, pit, slice, puree, cook in giant pot, add sweetener, cook again, spill some on the floor, put through food mill to strain, heat up jars, hot water bath.. ta-da!) but the result was great. I got 10 1/2 cups of concentrate from 3 1/2 pounds of apricots. The nectar can be diluted for drinking or used in recipes. Also, I threw the leftover pulp in the dehydrator (which has been whirring for two days now..) and made fruit leather. I'll provide an update when I figure out what to do with the pits, I hear you can split them and eat the kernels like almonds.

Where to start?

2009-07-28T10:28:00.000-07:00

I have had a fantastic couple of weeks with many highlights. Evan and I went on a honeymoon of sorts; we drove out to the coast, visiting relatives along the way, and enjoyed a blissful week on Galiano Island, an alternate universe where no one wears a watch and you are welcome to bring your dog into the pub. I have about two months worth of foodie posts, and since we filled the car with fruit on the way back I am trying to preserve it all in the shrinking window before it goes off, so I don't have time to write just yet. In the meantime, here are a few pics of our adventures.

On Heffley Lake. We woke up to loons warbling that morning.

Garlic Scapes!

Garlic Scapes on a plate!

Sheep (and a goat with four horns..) on a ferry!
Ok I'm done with the exclamation points now.

Hera meets the ocean. Showed her prairie upbringing
by not allowing her feet to leave
the ground when she was in the water.

One of the bantam chickens that live at the B & B we were at on Galiano.

As you can see we were roughing it.

Fruit! Did you know that the Similkameen Valley has
the largest concentration of organic farms in Canada? We celebrated
this new found fact by buying a case of apricots.

Wine! I guess I'm not done exclaiming. It was a delightful trip.

Abundance

2009-07-14T09:41:00.000-07:00

The strangest season of Calgarian summer is upon us.. when all the food shoots out of the ground at once and we have more than we could hope to eat! It is wonderful and flies by in a flash. Of course it happens at a crazily busy time of year, and I find myself blanching spinach at 11:00 at night in my pj's, remembering that I ran out of frozen greens in November last year. Our garden has been a mixed bag this year, great weather but things haven't come up very quickly. I suspect we need to do more to build up the soil. As much as I wince at the thought of paying for compost, we don't have the capacity to produce a lot of it ourselves at the moment. I am just beginning to learn about green manure and such, so I'm looking forward to applying more permaculture techniques next year. Luckily for us, the neighbor has too much chard and spinach, and has begged us to thin it out for him. Well, if we must. Actually the pic above is the thinnings from our beets, aren't they purdy.. also in the frame: spice rack built by Evan's dad, spice labels courtesy of martha stewart's website.. on the left in an old salad dressing bottle, a bit of that white wine vinegar I made a while back. I highly recommend giving vinegar making a try, the end result is really nice and is adding a lot to the endless salads of this month. A good way to deal with old plonk. The beautiful red and white enamel collander was given to me by my step-grandmother, Candace.

Speaking of pretty things, here I attempted to take a pic of the current pride of the kitchen, goose measuring spoons given to me by my dear friend Kathy. Even though I try to practice non-attachment I must admit I am rather attached to these. Especially since they get along so well with the squirrel holding acorn salt and pepper shakers. Just pretend this is a proper photo instead of a terrible point-and-shoot atrocity. Curse you glossy red wall paint.. one day I really will learn how to take proper photographs.

100 Mile Challenge

2009-07-10T19:27:00.001-07:00

I was happy to find that foodtv has the 100 Mile Challenge reality show available online (in Canada at least..). This is especially exciting as we don't pay for cable... Yes it is oversimplified etc. for television, but it still makes for good free tv :)

Episode 1

There are some good recipes and other resources on the show website:
http://100mile.foodtv.ca

The Big Day

2009-07-09T09:44:00.001-07:00

I don't have my hands on many of the pics from the big day yet.. but thought I'd share the one I do have. Here is Evan thanking everyone for a terrific day. We had tons of support from friends and especially from family. Everyone was accommodating of our wishes for a relatively waste-free wedding, even if it meant lugging crates of rented dishes and glasses around. Impressive. We had a beautiful wedding cake with red currants from the bushes in the garden behind us (the reception was in Evan's parents' back yard). We ate quiche made from local free range eggs and spinach from the garden, wine from the Okanagan (that's as close as we can get, ah well..), and even some Ethiopian-style home brew mead. A good time was had by all.

Convenient

2009-07-08T21:19:00.000-07:00

Just saw this article at Grist on how convenience foods take about the same amount of time to make as unrefined food, contrary to what you might expect. I had just had a conversation along these lines at the dinner table. I wondered aloud.. 'Why would anyone buy prepackaged food when you can make this is 20 mins?' We were having my go-to comfort food, a riff on al olio and arrabiatta pasta. Evan pointed out that the individual ingredients did take time to get our hands on; cheese from the italian store, tomatoes from the organic store, olive oil from The Light Cellar. But once you have the staples, it takes no time at all.
When you are hungry and need dinner now, try..

olive oil medium low
4 cloves of garlic minced
a shake of hot pepper flakes

optional:
cherry tomatoes sliced in half
bread crumbs
grated parmesan or cubed feta
artichoke hearts

Boil up some fettucine, toss it in with the garlic, bada bing bada boom.

Rhubarb

2009-07-06T09:00:00.000-07:00

Can you believe some people don't like rhubarb? It's a mystery. It's high season for rhubarb at the moment, and the scramble is on to make good use of it before it gets too woody and overgrown. Cheryl at Backseat Gourmet's post brought back memories of eating it straight up as a kid. These days, I prefer it cooked. Evan made a giant batch of stewed rhubarb last week.

We have it with yoghurt in the mornings, or in smoothies that made us both very happy. On Sunday, I put a pan half full of stewed rhubarb in the freezer and stirred it every 30 mins until it was frozen. Voila, sorbet. It was easy and a hit at dinner. Next I'm going to have to try Rhubarb Curry. Sounds wacky but potentially good. I imagine that it might work really well to replace the tang that tamarind brings to many curry dishes.

The preserving begins..

2009-07-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

Time to get started preserving. I already have offers of spinach from friends and neighbors. I am going with my so far successful method of blanching and packing in half litre milk cartons for freezing. It works well for soup and veggies -- if I am organized I can let them thaw on the counter, if not I just tear the cardboard off and throw it in a pot with an inch of water. While searching for graphics for wedding stuff, I have stumbled upon the wide world of DIY graphics and paper crafts (who knew?) and found this Martha Stewart template for freezer labels that will make things easier.

At the moment I have a relatively empty freezer after eating all the food in it over the winter season. I read somewhere along the way (including at Lifehacker) that empty fridges and freezers are really inefficient. I read that you can use boxes full of insulation to fill the empty space, but it just ocurred to me the other day to put the pile of styrofoam packaging I have (which is not recyclable in Calgary and I cringe to toss in the garbage..) in the freezer. I guess I can add that to my list of green micromovements (as SARK would call them).

Post Script: My friend Jodi passed along this gem -- Food in Jars

Lamb's Quarters

2009-06-30T05:50:00.000-07:00

Life is rather busy these days, but fortunately for my sanity, I signed up for a 'medicine of wild plants' course through Wild Rose College of Natural Healing a year ago before wedding plans had been made. Which meant I got to spend the weekend before the big day working on my freckle collection in Nose Hill Park instead of in the mall. It was a wonderful way to refocus and soak up the goodness of the wilderness there, spending time getting to know the plants I had previously walked by without a second thought. If you take a course like this your life is changed forever... weeds will never be the same. Now instead of weeding I'll be making salad. I had tried lamb's quarters previously, and had been looking for them in shishi grocery stores.. but guess what, they are in my backyard. Ha! I have learned that they are a wild cousin to spinach and are 'one of the most nutritious wild foods you can eat'. So remind me why anyone would pay 5.99 for 128 g (that's a direct quote from a local grocer..) of week old greens from California? Now that I am paying attention to what grows nearby, I am interested in finding out what's what. The ALCLA Native Plants site has a catalogue of local plants with descriptions that has come in handy.

Why I pay 5.50 for a dozen eggs

2009-06-18T19:39:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed this kitchn post on the many considerations at play in our food choices. 'Why I pay 7.50 for a dozen eggs' So many discussions I have with people curious about organic food revolve around whether it's worth the money. The idea that we should always pay as little as possible for everything, especially food, is so ingrained into our cultural psyche it is difficult to even recognize. However the negative consequences of that kind of thinking can be seen all around us, especially in the lives of farmers and agricultural workers. Free market captialism at its worst squeezes profits out of any exchange of capital, since the system requires profits to always go up in order to benefit shareholders. Unfortunately the most easily squished parts of the system are human beings; usually the human beings who are most vulnerable. I learned a great deal about what is going on in Canada and Alberta from Yessy Byl, a lawyer with the Alberta Federation of Labour. She discusses the problems with the current temporary foreign worker program at changingthecanvas.org.

The Blueboxing

2009-06-13T20:43:00.000-07:00

Did you know that there is an entire phenomenon on the internets called unboxing, wherein people document reverentially removing a new gadget from the box? Wacky. Well I guess everyone has their thing, because I actually screamed out loud when we pulled up to the house this afternoon and saw someone unloading our big blue recycling bin. Curbside recycling has come to pass in this city of giant malls, trucknuts (yes, I actually saw 'a pair'... shudder... the other day) and no garbage bag limits. So here you have, ladies and gentlemen.. the first blueboxing.

It took us about four minutes to fill it. I think it'll be a few more weeks before the basement is free of a thousand yoghurt containers. For an interesting look at residential waste in Alberta, take a look at Evan Osenton's (disclosure: I am marrying this person in three weeks) feature on the subject in Albertaviews, Beyond Landfill.

LINX!

2009-06-11T21:25:00.000-07:00

Two local sites/blogs I've been impressed with lately..

The New Resilient
From the 'About' section: "The economy of scale is over, and the decentralized, self-sufficient local economy has a real chance to change things for the better. The New Resilient is meant to spark dialogue and bring resources on food policy and the public economy together so we can do such thing."

Calgary Is Awesome
...because it's good to know what the young people are up to these days..

Ode to local broccoli

2009-06-11T20:31:00.000-07:00

I'm not finding a lot of time in my schedule for blogging these days. It would be rather silly to sit inside and write about gardening with a beautiful garden calling to me right outside the door.. especially since the Calgary growing season is about eight weeks long, and getting shorter with every passing year of global weirding. I have to say, despite my love/hate relationship with this city of my birth, summer in Calgary is a dream. It really feels like a different world. One day, it's minus two and snowing, and the next day, it's plus 25 and there are thousands of people on the river pathway, drinking Trad on the patio at the Ship, and walking up and down 17th Ave. in a quarter of the clothes they were wearing the day before. It's hilarious.

A few recent highlights:

Let me start with the most important. Yesterday at the market I came across some LOCAL BROCCOLI, courtesy of the heroes at Hotchkiss Herbs and Pro duce. This is totally unheard of round these parts. I don't know anyone who has managed to grow it themselves. I don't think I have ever in my life had broccoli from anywhere other than California. It is weird to wax poetic over a bunch of broccoli? Because it really did taste better. It had a quality I had never experienced.. it was more flower-like somehow.. and the stem had a buttery quality that was rather spectacular. Ok, I'll try to get a grip now. But seriously, local broccoli, get it while it's in season.

Also exciting.. Albertaviews, the local magazine where my very talented partner works, was nominated for and won 'Magazine of the Year' at the National Magazine Awards. Not too shabby.

non-stick

2009-06-01T02:28:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to phase out as many strange chemicals as possible from everyday life. This includes the ubiquitous Teflon and Scotchguard products (otherwise known as PFOA -- Perfluorooctanoic Acid) .. given some of the evidence slowly accumulating regarding the dangers they present to human health and the environment. The notoriously conservative Environmental Protection Agency in the States reported on the dangers of low level exposure to PFOAs back in 2003, which would indicate that a very real and likely under-reported risk exists. Just try searching online for info on this, you mostly get 'articles' put forward by the companies themselves. The chemicals in these products have been linked to cancer, immune system disruption, and more recently to infertility in women.
It's a challenging feat to remove this chemical from one's everyday environment, because it really is everywhere. It is found in food packaging such as microwave popcorn bags, carpet cleaner, spray cleaner, nonstick cookware, products like Febreeze, and is sprayed on most new soft furniture.

Some of the solutions I have found:

I make my own spray cleaner (dead easy and can be scented with essential oil, much better than
'Tahitian Vanilla' or some such horror..)

I ditched the old non-stick pan for an All Clad pan that was a little pricey but is a dream to use. We use it at least twice a day. (Here's a NYTimes article about one cook's search for a non-Teflon pan..)

I have a dog, so I steam clean the carpet pretty often. I recently tried replacing the cleaning solution with vinegar, and it worked beautifully. I've heard adding a bit of borax helps as well.

I'm not sure about the current couch, because I got it off of craigslist, but if I must buy new I try to support Ikea, as they have a good track record when it comes to chemical regulation. They don't use super toxic glues in particle board, unlike most manufacturers. And they also eschew spray treatments for soft furniture.

Real coffee!

2009-05-25T13:47:00.000-07:00

Evan and I have made some Ethiopian friends via the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society's host family program. It has been quite the adventure, having to explain the quirks of one's culture really makes you think... 'yeah, why DO we do that?'. We asked Haile, the head of the family, what was the strangest thing he had come across, and he said it was seeing ads for apartments that said, 'no kids, pets ok'. That completely mystified him. And now that I think about it, yep that's weird.

Anyhoo I digress. A significant result of our new found friendship is that it has ruined me for regular coffee. Coffee is a major part of social interactions in Ethiopian culture. There is a ceremony involved in drinking coffee together, and everyone drinks three shots that have a ton of sugar in them. It's an afternoon ritual; they think it's strange that we drink coffee in the morning. Genet, Haile's wife, roasts the green beans herself over a burner in a pot, or has one of the children roast it. Because of the smoke alarms in their place (a feature of Canadian life they find VERY annoying..), they roast it on the back stoop. Usually Eyob does. Picture a 13 year old boy, wearing shorts, rubber boots, and a ski jacket, roasting coffee in the snow. That was the scene this winter...

The coffee is amazing, sometimes Genet grinds it with some cardamom or cloves. Out of this world. And it is beautifully smooth, no bitter bite at the end. There really is no comparison to pre-roasted beans. I've been wondering how to roast my own without ruining a pot or setting off the smoke alarm, and then I found this post, which recommends using an air popcorn popper. AHA! a solution. now I just need to track down some green beans, a feat in itself..

Ven. Hyon Gak Sunim

2009-05-20T14:22:00.000-07:00

I met Hyon Gak Sunim when I was in Korea. It was great to hear his voice again when I found these videos, he has a kind of English Korean hybrid way of speaking, with Korean inflection and these great expressions that echo the way his great teacher Zen Master Seung Sahn would speak. I met Zen Master Seung Sahn twice when I was in Korea -- once at 5 in the morning when he was walking around the temple grounds, and once during a retreat. They say the three keys to gaining enlightenment are: 1. To be born a human, 2. To meet a great teacher, and 3. To wake up to your true nature. So I'm already two thirds of the way there! The last step should be easy, right?

Canadian Gothic

2009-05-20T09:23:00.000-07:00

Here we are, or I should say here's Evan, getting the garden started. Yumi and I avoided the hard work and made cookies instead. Spring is kinda sorta here, although the forecast calls for frost tonight. Could someone remind me why I live in a place that frosts on May 20?

Julie's Kitchen

2009-05-12T22:49:00.000-07:00

For anyone who enjoys Julie Van Rosenthal's terrific blog, Dinner with Julie.. thekitchn is featuring a tour of her kitchen, and it is as beautiful as you might expect. The cyber-snooping Apartment Therapy enables is just way too much fun...

Simplify

2009-05-10T10:02:00.000-07:00

Evan and I are living in a 1913 600 square foot house, with a 60 lb pup. We are looking for a home to buy, which will probably mean being in another smallish house if we want a big yard for growing food. I've always been fascinated by tiny houses -- trolling tinyhouseblog and oogling minihome. These spaces seem so harmonious. My house, on the other hand... we try but clutter is a sneaky thing. It really does feel like there is some kind of switch in our heads, embedded young, that if you have a problem you must buy something to solve it. This habitual view is so ingrained it is easy for marketers to flip the switch, even for those trying to consume less. I went to an eco trade show in Vancouver, and there was a slogan at the entrance that read: "Buying Your Way to a Better World". Yeesh.

It is a constant process, trying to purge objects with no function and find solutions that don't involve buying something new. I find it really challenging to counter that instinctual reaction. It's the same one that causes me to go to the grocery store and buy more groceries because I'm heading home and am not sure what is in the fridge. Which results in beautiful food going bad before we can eat it. Doing better in that department is definitely going to take more awareness and planning. I am so used to instant everything that planning ahead to avoid waste and clutter is stretching a whole set of muscles I didn't know I had.

Fortunately for me, my choices and priorities mean that I will likely be in a small house for the rest of my life. Which is just fine, it will mean less clutter out of necessity. I am really enjoying learning about the Not So Big House approach. In this clip, the author Sarah Susanka talks about the role of home in our lives. Please excuse the mildly annoying intro, what Susanka has to say is worth the wait..

Propeller Sustainability Series, "SHELTER: Part 1" from Alexia Prichard on Vimeo.

Spring energy

2009-05-08T21:23:00.000-07:00

I love the energy of spring, it is carrying me through right now. I need all this mania and new life energy, to make it through many career and school related obligations that come to a head this time of year. Oh, and I have to get married somewhere in there as well.

So there hasn't been too much creativity in the kitchen going on. Actually, I've made some pretty good food, but don't have time to take pictures of it! Also, I need to learn how to take proper photos. My pics remind me of the ones my grandma used to take on this long skinny camera that had a cube flash you snapped on the top. The viewfinder wasn't lined up with the lens on the other side, so there are a few dozen photos of me as a child, headless. I've got to work on the photography thing.

One AMAZING food I have recently enjoyed.. sunchokes fried in butter. I bought a pound of them at Blush Lane weeks ago and didn't think they would be any good after a few weeks in the fridge. But they were spectacular. If you have never tried this food you really need to.

This is all the photography I can handle at the moment.. self-portrait with broad bean plant. Sprouted from bean, no less! I didn't even need to get off the couch for this one..

What's the difference between Edmonton and yogurt?

2009-04-29T14:57:00.000-07:00

... Yogurt's got culture. Sorry, couldn't resist... And really, that joke is quite equally applied to Cowtown.
OK technically this is penicillin, for some reason they don't have lactobacillis stuffies at Giant Microbes. What the heck. Maybe I should knit one. I followed this very useful article on the cost-effectiveness of making staples at home, courtesy of Nicole, and followed the link to this NYTimes article about making yogurt. I've been meaning to for months, but have never had free time, a gallon of milk, and leftover yogurt in the same point in the space time continuum until now. Now I know what the Slate author meant when she said "The first time I watched this metamorphosis, I felt like a sorcerer." It's true! It's a little strange actually, putting the mix in a warm oven and letting the cultures multiply away in there. It does feel like sorcery. Delicious sorcery. And cheap too, it is half the cost of buying it in the store. Also, no frikin plastic container for my conscience to contend with. A win win win. I'm looking forward to trying my hand at peach frozen yogurt this summer.

Doha Chebib

2009-04-24T20:06:00.000-07:00

A Calgarian artiste made craftzine's blog. I like her work..

Slow Down

2009-04-23T21:04:00.001-07:00

.. this was the general message of Carl Honore at last night's talk at the Public Library. **sidenote, the library's community relations guy gave a plug for the library as an important centre for public life, and he was pretty convincing. I'm looking forward to what happens when the central library expands. I have paid for most of the expansion in fines, so I might as well enjoy it. Ha! I kill me. anyway..** Honore's book covers the slow movements that have taken root around the world. Did you know that in Japan there is a Sloth Club? Love it. Honore is quite a good speaker, what with his stories of divorce proceedings begun because the wife had checked her blackberry during an intimate encounter... or the emergence of DRIVE-BY FUNERALS.. you cannot make this stuff up. He pointed out that more and more brain research shows that the human mind really suffers when multitasking, and actually ends up performing tasks slower and less effectively. Sounds familiar. I'm looking forward to slowing down in the garden this summer.

Here he is speaking at TED.

Piss in Bed

2009-04-16T00:46:00.000-07:00

.. also known as Lion’s Tooth, Puff Ball, Cankerwort, Prince in Paupers Clothing, Royal Herb. Taraxacum officinale F. Asteraceae. I remember giggling over the French name for dandelions when I was a child.. pissenlit! Piss in bed. Hilarious when you are eight.
Well, right now I am not in bed.. hit with another fit of insomni-argh. The silly thing about insomnia is that you lie awake, getting angrier and angrier at being wide awake.. which doesn't exactly help the mind to be still. I'm trying dandelion root tea with dandelion honey in it at the momment.. hoping for the rumored body calming and sleep inducing effects. This link has got me convinced to cultivate it instead of pulling it out of the lawn this summer. Never mind that the leaves make me gag, try as I might to enjoy them in salad.. oh well after the long winter I think I'll be like Hera in the back yard.. eagerly wolfing down anything green. She has been having grass salads in between regular meals since the snow melted. Have I mentioned that my dog sits and begs for raw kale? She's a true omniovore.

Local Booze 101

2009-04-11T20:08:00.000-07:00

Evan and I have been looking around for local food and drink to serve at our wedding. We were at Calgary Farmer's Market today, despite the carbon footprint that got us there, and the regrettable fact that a good one third of the food available at CFM is decidedly non-local. Ah well.. we still check it out every once in awhile. They do have some really wonderful regional producers like Gull Lake Greenhouses and Blush Lane Organics.

We did find Saskatoon berry juice concentrate from Pearson's Berry Farm. And, more importantly, we found the new Field Stone Fruit Wines booth. Marvin Gill was graciously offering samples. The wines are quite interesting.. the fruit lends the wines a very strong character, that is not overly complex compared to grape wines, but is really nice. We tried cherry, strawberry-rhubarb and raspberry. We left with a bottle of raspberry wine and a fortified black cherry dessert wine (16%, yeah that's fortified alright.. ). After the field trip, we had a beautiful evening in the back yard with our neighbors, watching our dogs chase each other around and sampling the wines. They went down pretty easy, surounded as we were by springtime and the sounds of birds in the trees... happy easter all..

Local 101

2009-03-30T09:53:00.000-07:00

Still coming down from a great event on Saturday that gave me hope for a raised consciousness in Calgary.
Wade Sirois of Forage and Infuse Catering organized the gathering, which brought together interested eaters (..or co-producers, as they are known in locavore/slow food circles..) and producers to talk about the state of food production in Alberta.
It was a great event in so many ways. For one thing, people cried. Sounds crazy, but several of the speakers, tough AB farmers no less, got choked up talking about their experiences. It just goes to show how personal food is to our experience of the world. And for them it is about livelihood and a mission of sorts as well.
Some of the speakers were born to be advocates for this work -- Wade and Chris Vester from Blue Mountain Biodynamic Farm had the crowd hooting and applauding as they waded into some of the difficult issues no one wants to talk about (such as the government subsidization of cash crops that push out small producers, and the fact that most of Calgary's 'farmer's markets' make it very hard for actual farmers to sell food..).
Peter Haase of Buffalo Horn Ranch explained to the crowd of city folk how hard it is to be a farmer in Alberta, giving people a sense of the challenges farmers face. For me this was the most important part of the event. I think the farmers were in shock up at the front as a room of 200 people beamed appreciation and admiration toward them. For the last 50 years there has been an antagonistic relationship between the city and the rural areas in this province, and the hard work farmers do has been ignored.
Here is a short speech on the subject by Roger Epp, Dean of the University of Alberta's Augustana campus, entitled "The Need of a Beloved Country".

Another highlight.. at the end we got to eat, huzzah.. and sample local booze. I sampled (and then re-sampled..) mead from Chinook Arch Meadery. I HAD NO IDEA. It was gorgeous. I had tried European mead in the past and it is rather, er, medieval. Thick and strong. This mead was light and smooth, it tasted like a sweet white wine. Evan and I decided we'll be serving it at the wedding.

The photo above is Wade Sirois preachin' it to the masses.

Another book for the reading list..

2009-03-27T11:58:00.000-07:00

How cool, a book on how to store bulk foods. How crazy is it that we have completely lost this knowledge in one generation. Thank goodness for authors like this.

Brussels Sprouts Pasta??

2009-03-25T16:11:00.000-07:00

I am slowly slowly learning how to avoid waste in the kitchen and use what I have on hand instead of choosing a recipe and then buying more ingredients to make it. Thanks to the internets, I have found so many good things just googling what I have on hand.

Today I am trying Pasta with Hashed Brussels Sprouts and Pine Nuts courtesy of Orangette. It would never occur to me that brussels would work in a pasta.. but it is really tasty. Comfort food for sure.

Check out the pic, I had no idea they looked so bizarre on the plant... it's from http://www.allotment.org.uk.

Local(ish) Hoisin sauce replacement

2009-03-24T18:56:00.001-07:00

It has started to bother me that the only things left in the fridge with either high fructose corn syrup or other unpronounceable chemicals in them are sauces. I can make my own vinaigrette etc., but what about some of the things I can't duplicate (no local source of lemongrass or tamarind as far as I know..)?
I just recently got some amazing miso from The Light Cellar. It is out of this world, and I don't care if admitting that makes me a total veggie geek. It is non-soy.. rice and garbanzo beans, produced in Canada although I'm not sure where.
I found a recipe for a stirfry sauce that was really nice:
2 t. green thai curry paste
1/4 c. maple syrup
2 T miso.
It was fabulous, and very reminiscent of hoisin. So from now on, maple syrup and miso will replace hoisin in my recipes. I won't be able to avoid buying some pastes if I want to make asian food.. but I'm happy to find a cheap alternative to buying a sauce shipped from China. Sometimes you gotta start with local continent and work from there..

How cool..

2009-03-19T15:19:00.000-07:00

Check out this design student's idea for a fridge of the future.

Food storage on the go

2009-03-17T21:07:00.000-07:00

I've been looking all over for these, and have finally found some Canadian suppliers. My goal has been to find food containers that are portable, can bang around at the bottom of my bag without leaking, and allow me to heat up food without nuking in plastic.

Ashton Green has Lock and Lock Glass Containers.

... and the very cool Loomm bowl.. not that I can justify $35.00 for something I might lose. It has a ceramic bowl with a silicone outer shell and a lid that seals the top.

I also found Kids Konserv e, in the US, that sells stainless steel containers and lunch kits.

Spring is sproinging

2009-03-17T20:26:00.000-07:00

I have pussy willows in the back yard which I take as a good sign of things to come! Here is a pic of the good times to hold me through the delirious highs and soul crushing lows of the next month, which is sure to be full of gorgeous sun and mud followed by snow and frost.. As my friend Karen said, in Calgary you learn to hold the current conditions lightly and not get too attached, because they are sure to change..

The growing interest in local issues and connecting with one's food supply is starting to gain traction in the mainstream, even in Cowtown, AB, "The Texas of Canada" as Wonkette so aptly put it.

This week's Fast Forward Magazine, the local entertainment paper which, interestingly, has become the best source of critical local journalism around town (aside from the vaunted Alberta Views of course..), features an 'Activist Guide' with a focus on local food and sustainability issues.

The Rise of the Locavore

Green mashed potatoes

2009-03-11T15:19:00.000-07:00

I have tried, really tried to like dandelion greens. They are pretty bitter though, and anytime I have tried to cook with them I've ended up with something gag-inducing. This recipe for Green Potatoes looks pretty appealing however, maybe I'll give them another shot. I'm guessing the potatoes mellow out the bite of the dandelion. Bittman says that potatoes mashed with olive oil are a wonderful thing, and I have to agree. At the Cookbook Co. demonstration meal with Scott Pohorelic we had mashed potatoes with canola oil. The recipe called for 1/2 c. of canola oil for 5 lbs. of potatoes, which I initially thought was a lot.. but the taste wonderful. I think I will try Bittman's recipe with local canola instead of olive oil and see how it goes. Here's the video demonstration. Image from the NYTimes.

Which Milk Container Has the Lowest Carbon Emissions?

2009-03-05T19:45:00.001-08:00

Which Milk Container Has the Lowest Carbon Emissions?

These are the kinds of calculations one does at the grocery store.. I have stopped getting glass even though the milk tastes better and keeps a week longer. Maybe one day I'll be able to get Vital Greens milk delivered to my door..

Split Pea Soup

2009-03-05T11:55:00.001-08:00

Another soup recipe. I cannot believe how good this is.. I made this at 10 pm, as I am wont to do, but it was too good to pass up so I had my first bowl of it at 11.30 at night. Ridiculous. I took suggestions from several recipes and hacked it all together. Some vegetarian recipes suggest using veggie bacon, but I skipped that (have you seen the ingredient list on premade fake meat? scary..) in favor of a bit of liquid smoke. The smoke plus the cloves and mustard give this an unnervingly convincing ham flavor.

Split Pea Soup

Ingredients

2 cups dry split peas
7 cups of water
2 bay leaves
2 Tsp salt
1 Tsp dry mustard
2 medium onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
3 stalks celery, chopped
1 small potato, sliced
5 whole cloves
2 shakes of liquid smoke
1 Tbs canola oil

Directions

Put split peas, water, salt, bay leaves, and dry mustard in a large stock pot. Bring to a boil, then simmer on low for about 30 minutes.
Add vegetables, garlic, and cloves and simmer for an hour. Add water if necessary.
Stir in two shakes of liquid smoke and the canola oil and serve.

Choose Recycled Content Toilet Paper: Save Ancient Forests

2009-03-02T12:52:00.001-08:00

Choose Recycled Content Toilet Paper: Save Ancient Forests

Posted using ShareThis

Seedy Saturday

2009-03-01T08:12:00.000-08:00

This will be my first year going to Seedy Saturday.. a seed exchange meant to encourage seed collection by local gardeners. One of the reasons community seed banks are necessary is because most of the seeds one buys at the store create plants that produce infertile seeds. This is in suppliers' self interest, because it means you will buy seeds every year. Even seed distributors that appear environmentally friendly can partake in some questionable practices, for example Seeds of Change (which I bought last year thinking they were a good thing..) See Homegrown Evolution's post on the subject. Canada has a national seed bank called The Seed Sanctuary.

Redonk

2009-02-28T11:51:00.000-08:00

This is awesome.

Demonstration Class at Cookbook Co.

2009-02-26T21:33:00.001-08:00

My brother and I attended a demonstration class at Cookbook Co. last night. The chef was the River Cafe's Scott Pohorelic. When he confessed upfront that he had become somewhat obsessed with creating regional sustainable meals, I knew I was in for a great night.

The menu was West Coast Oysters to start, followed by Arctic Char, Great Pacific Octopus with Wild Boar Chorizo, Pekin Duck, and Lemon Custard. Eep! A bit daunting for someone who tries to eschew meat. But I decided to give it all a try for the sake of the experience.

I learned many fascinating things during the demonstration. The chef and his sous chefs prepared all the food in front of us and explained techniques, the River Cafe's food philosopy, and tons of little details regarding local sources for organic food.

Here's a short list of things I learned:

- Giant pacific octopus is a sustainable source of seafood! Who knew!

- When you pick one up off the table, it makes a sound just like those plastic suction cup darts I played with as a kid. kinda creepy.

- I don't like giant pacific octopus.

- I also don't really like wild boar.. after a few years not eating red meat it was just not pleasant to eat. Not sure how to describe the feeling, it just seemed too strong and heavy. But I guess I satisfied my curiosity about how my taste buds would receive it..

- Most sources of Arctic Char are farmed, and it is a much more sustainable source of fish than other species from the region. It is very similar to trout.

- Highwood Crossing Canola Oil is indeed organic. I had heard no canola can actually be organic, because odds are the next field over is GMO, and canola polinates through the air. So there is bound to be cross contamination. But the owners of Highwood actually purchase canola from the Peace River area, where there are so few fields of canola that they can guarantee that it is in fact organic.

- The folks at River Cafe make their own butter, vinegar, bacon, crackers, bread, chutneys, pickles, and prosciutto. Impressive...

Scott spoke a lot about sustainable seafood, and let us know that River Cafe stopped serving farmed salmon ten years ago. He said because it is a carnivorous fish, "It's basically like putting a bunch of cougars in a pen, feeding them beef, and then eating them. It doesn't make any sense." Powerful analogy. Except in the case of farmed salmon, they are fed bottom trawled fish from poor regions like Thailand, with a bit of pink dye thrown in to make the fish appear healthy.

The duck was pretty good actually.. again pretty strong tasting, and probably more fat than I'd eaten in a year.. but good. Joel laughed at me because I was more interested in the vegetables. Lamb's lettuce, which I had never had before, is amazing! A really wonderful light taste. We also had a cranberry mostarda which was to die for. Definitely something I'll try making next canning season.

We finished the meal with a beautiful lemon custard, garnished with huckleberry sauce. The sauce was a really strong punch of berry flavor. River Cafe has stopped using corn starch for the most part, due to the concerns with GMO corn. They use agar instead, something I've read about in tons of vegan recipes but will have to try.

Overall a great experience. Time to start saving my pennies for my next meal at River Cafe...

Peeeeanuuut... peanut butter... (jelly)

2009-02-23T20:11:00.001-08:00

Only Canadian children of the eighties would remember the Sharon Lois and Bram song about peanut butter. Tragically I couldn't find it on the internets. I did find THIS however, and it totally cracked me up. Argh, short shorts! Eek, tube socks! Do play it if you'd like to have a horrific eighties jingle in your head for the rest of the day, and vivid flashbacks of after school tv.

OK, back to peanut butter. I may just be getting a tad obsessive about made-from-scratch.. but I do enjoy knowing what goes into the things I eat. Also, made from scratch generally tastes better. I recently made Gomashio and it is really nice. Bonus: it cost $1.50 to make, and is sold in stores for about $6.00 for the same amount.
Elizabeth Seward at Planet Green posted a recipe to make your own peanut butter. Sounds simple enough. I didn't realize I could do this with my food processor. Easy peasy.

Another terrific lecture on food and agriculture

2009-02-19T18:47:00.000-08:00

This one comes courtesy of the Terry Talks at UBC. I'm impressed with the articulate arguments presented by these students. Here is one on, what else, urban agriculture :)

Redefining boundaries: Urban Agriculture: Tiffany Tong from terrytalks on Vimeo.

Little green steps

2009-02-18T20:25:00.000-08:00

At the beginning of the year, I pledged to take one action a week to reduce my environmental impact. I haven't exactly been able to keep up that pace, but I have been working away at it.

1) I have started freezing food in repurposed milk and OJ cartons. My logic is that the waxed cardboard is the cheapest, lightest, and safest alternative to freezing in plastic or glass (one cracked bottle of veggie stock was enough for me to give up on glass). And I can recycle them when they have worn out. Although, odds are it's petroleum based wax. Sigh.

2) I have decided to purchase only local beer from now on, and to look for sources for local spirits. Oh the sacrifices I make.

3) I bought a good stainless steel stove top espresso maker, so that I stop spending money, fuel, and self-respect on cappuccinos at Starbucks.

4) I am phasing out bath soap in plastic bottles. I started with a bar of shampoo.

Next book to read

2009-02-18T20:17:00.000-08:00

Reading this interview of local foodie Dee Hobsbawn-Smith led me to my next book to read: The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry. Michael Pollan also mentioned it his book, so my interest is piqued..

Homemade veggie stock concentrate

2009-02-16T15:18:00.000-08:00

In my ongoing quest to reduce the number of prefab foods I use, I've given some thought to the prepackaged items I use a lot. One of them is vegetable stock for soups - the options are make your own giant pot and freeze it (time consuming and freezer consuming.. also I rarely plan far enough ahead to defrost a litre of stock in advance..), or buy it premade. I've found the powders and cubes to be lacking in taste and it feels like a silly thing to spend money on. So I'm trying Just Bento's recipe for making your own veggie soup concentrate. I pureed the concentrate to use it for stock, and plan to freeze it in a silicone ice cube trays to avoid having to use plastic wrap.
I'm not sure that I trust silicone, but seems marginally safer than hard plastic for freezing. Are there any ideas out there for freezing without using plastic? It seems to be my biggest food storage conundrum..

Mark Bittman at TED2007

2009-02-16T09:38:00.000-08:00

Mark Bittman, a food writer for the New York Times who writes 'The Minimalist' series (a great source of simple, fresh recipes), sums up the current threats to the world, created in part by the way we approach food.

Michael Pollan at TED2009

2009-02-13T09:31:00.000-08:00

Michael Pollan talks about looking at the world from a plant's point of view.

Upcoming event on food security

2009-02-12T12:23:00.000-08:00

Onion soup

2009-02-12T12:21:00.001-08:00

Evan and I were both feeling just on the edge of the flu this week.. I found myself craving warm mellow soups like this one. Tasty onion soup is a challenge without the ubiquitous beef broth, but in this recipe the seasonings and especially the miso and beer give it the same full flavour.

Vegetarian Onion Soup

Ingredients

2 large yellow onions, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
dash tamari
2 tbs butter
dash vegetarian worcestershire
salt and pepper to taste
1 bottle dark beer
1 tbs miso

Directions

Saute the onions in butter on a medium low heat for 1 hour until caramelized.
After 45 minutes, add the garlic.
Add all the other ingredients except for the beer and miso, bring to a boil.
Turn down to med-low and stir in beer and miso.
Serve over toast and parmesan cheese.

Casaubon's musings on food storage and eating seasonally

2009-02-03T17:59:00.000-08:00

I really love Causaubon's thoughts on 'foodie' food storage and the return of peasant food.

Fun with Fermentation

2009-02-01T23:06:00.000-08:00

Reading In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan has almost convinced me to give up on vitamin pills entirely. He points out the giant holes in the science of nutrition, and argues that eating the food itself is the best way to go. I'm going to try to be more conscious of getting enough nutrients, since I'm a vegematarian... I should be keeping an closer eye on my consumption of zinc, omega fatty acids, and minerals.

Enter beet kvass, which I read about on Doug DiPasquale's site. Apparently kvass is good for the blood, liver and digestion. Fermentation makes the nutrients from the beets more available for absorption. DiPasquale lists a really easy way to get whey, which you need to get it started.. you simply strain some organic yoghurt with cheesecloth, use the solids as fresh cheese, and use the liquid as your starter.

I have to say, I really like the stuff. I've been having 2 oz of it a couple of times a day. Rather hard to describe, it tastes like beet juice mixed with salty tonic water. Not delicious, exactly, but refreshing in a strange kind of way. I knew that it was addressing some gap in my diet when I got home from a long day at work and thought to myself "I really want some beet kvass right now." Wierd. It may be the sea salt that I'm craving -- I have read that people with 'delicate constitutions', ahem, benefit from drinking sea salt and water as it supports proper adrenal function. I am going to add ginger juice to the kvass next time around and I think I'll have a winner.

I'm going to have to try some other lacto-fermented recipes, like ginger ale and homemade orangina. Googling the topic led me to www.culiblog.org, an amazing blog, and her awesome post on kefir, called "Water Kefir is Like Fresca for Hippies". So now water kefir is on the list now too. I am NOT a fan of yoghurt kefir, I thought it was pretty nasty. But I'll try anything once.

Like home-sickness, but with dirt under my nails

2009-01-27T21:08:00.000-08:00

I am planning a class presentation for the course I'm taking.. a 10 minute mini-lesson on whatever you want. I'm doing 'Advantages of Eating Local Seasonal Vegetables' of course. Searching for content caused me to stumble on several cool bloggers, like My Tiny Plot and Eat Local Northwest. AND to have summer garden-sickness, from sorting through pics.. almost time to start sprouting for next summer! Well, that's a lie, who am I kidding I'm in Calgary.

Ah well, time to turn my mind to the present, to try whackiness such as Old-Fashioned Ginger Ale (fermented like kombucha), and milling my own wheat. Because why do it the easy way! A friend gave me an extra flour mill she had and I could hardly hide my glee at being given a tool I had hoped to have at some point, but seemed too expensive to buy.

Advantages to milling your own wheat:
1) Cheaper. Yes wheat is arguably quite cheap, but organic can be pricey.
2) Tastes better.
3) Stores better. Whole grains store much longer than flour.

Now all I need is a full time baker to make the bread and I'll be set..

Chard pie

2009-01-21T21:21:00.000-08:00

I actually buckled and bought chard in the store, even though it was trucked from California (forgive me birds and bees...). But we got great mileage out of it, and I finally made a recipe I'd been meaning to try forever. I modded this recipe, since I didn't have any feta, and used a bit of 3 yr old cheddar (there is no going back btw..) and some soft tofu for protein. Don't be scared, it was pretty good. I just upped the salt in the recipe to account for the salt that would have come from the feta and that was that.
Phyllo is fun to work with, silly and time consuming but it looks impressive when it's done. I figure it takes as long as it would to make my own crust, so there you go. Here is our pretty pie before it was devoured. Note the rather awesome Battle of Britain tea towel courtesy of Evan's mom.

Cheap Vegetable Gardener Blog

2009-01-16T19:30:00.000-08:00

A blogger after my own heart! I'm going to have to keep an eye on this one for good ideas heading into spring. Check this project out: a cheap way to make a grow box for starting seeds using LED Christmas lights. Clever..

I dream of greenie

2009-01-13T18:08:00.000-08:00

Seriously, this is a dreamy greenhouse. So beautiful.