Moving

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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..

Foraging!

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?

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

The Femivore's Dilemma

Noodly

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

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

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

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

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..