Millet

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

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

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

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

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..