Archive for January, 2011
Back home in YYC. Crackers and cheese and leftover leek and potato soup for dinner last night as we cranked the heat back on. If it makes you all in YYC feel any better, the wet, sloppy -1 in Vancouver didn’t feel much better than -20 in Calgary. Although it was nice to see a little green on the ground.
It was a fantastic, if busy, trip to Vancouver. The two and a half days we were there I was lucky enough to preview a few locations of the upcoming Dine Out Vancouver event, take a class at the hip Dirty Apron cooking school, visit Granville Island and the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts (where, it must be said, I ate one of the best pain au chocolats of my life – and it was still warm), got a preview of one of Swallow Tail’s Secret Supper Soirées, and got a hard hat tour of the old Hotel Georgia (above) in the midst of her extreme makeover.
We got to check out some of the new street food carts (like Re-Up BBQ, specialists in pulled pork),
and met James & Amy of Vancouver Street Eats, who chatted as we (a group of mostly writers – all shuffling notebooks and cameras with mittened hands, trying not to drip ketchup, chili or noodles on ourselves) sampled all manner of dolled-up wieners at JapaDog.
If you visit their website, you’ll see their mission statement:
Our Mission: Making the world happy and alive through hot dogs.
I think I need to seriously rethink my own mission statement. Or come up with one, maybe. It might be something like this: TO LURE IN A RICH BOYFRIEND WITH A PENTHOUSE IN VANCOUVER. AND MAYBE NEW YORK, TOO.
M and W were confined to the hotel (not a bad thing, when you’re staying at a place like this) – Mike hobbling with gout, W not wanting to leave the (outdoor) pool. Nor the bathroom. Because you guys? Check out that mirror – see the grey rectangle in it? IT’S A TV, EMBEDDED IN THE MIRROR.
You know, in case you need to watch your stock prices as you pluck your old lady chin hairs first thing in the morning.
Yesterday morning, people watched in awe out the window of their warm rooms at me, shivering in a long coat and umbrella beside the pool as W showed me his tricks.
Doesn’t this look like it was taken in the seventies? On my to-do list: play around with photoshop. (It’s more fun than: redo blog index and organize filing system.)
Also on my to-do list: make dinner tomorrow.
January 13 2011 | leftovers | 20 Comments »
How completely awesome are these? Eggs baked in bread bowls! With a dusting of cheese, shreds of fresh herbs, or whatever bits of bacon or sausage you have lurking in your fridge. You can toast the lids alongside, then cut them into egg soldiers for dipping. Or if you’re a fan of the fried egg sandwich, YOU CAN PUT THE LID ON AND EAT THE WHOLE THING WITH YOUR HANDS. It’s like a deep dish fried egg sandwich, without the fried.
I posted the recipe over at the Family Kitchen.
January 12 2011 | leftovers | 15 Comments »
I’m a huge fan of grainy granola bars – the homemade kind, that is, which are every bit as portable as the kind that come in wrappers and boxes. Bonus: you can add whatever nuts/seeds/dried fruit you like, wrap them individually and keep them in a big jar on the countertop, and pretend your kitchen is a hip little café.
I posted the recipe over at Family Kitchen.
January 11 2011 | Family Kitchen | 9 Comments »
It’s funny, when I get swept up in weeks and months of eating poorly – too much grazing on too much junk (I really am more lowbrow than people think I am) – how quickly I forget how much I love grainy salads like this. Quinoa with black beans and mango, wild rice and lentils, brown rice with barley and chickpeas – all jumbles of good things that make me feel and function so much better (and far wider awake) than a diet of toast, Cheezies, coffee and wine. Funny, that.
Funny too how my body never seems to forget how much it adores Cheezies and chocolate.
I do need to wean myself off of a few things. I’ve been dancing around the subject of the new year here – I haven’t quite embraced it with as much chutzpah (yet) as I usually do, but I suppose I should go ahead and address the obvious before it turns into February. Apologies in advance for the rant.
I’m so tired of the same old new year, new YOU! message we’re all inundated with every January. (Although, admittedly, the old me is in need of a bit of an overhaul. Emphasis on the haul.) Post-holiday, everyone talks about a need to detox – yet I don’t think of Christmas and all the wonderful things that came with it as a toxin we need to cleanse ourselves of. It’s like the idea that food is sinful and dieting and exercise is our penance. Although I can certainly appreciate the concept of self-improvement, I despise the (first-world) message that comes every January: that we’re not good enough and we’d better get working on becoming the very best we should be, that version of ourselves that we’re all capable of achieving if we just work harder at it. No pressure.
What’s wrong with the old me? The old of all of us? Whatever happened to being happy with what we have, and who we are? And really, is a constant reminder that we all need to be improved upon the best motivation? No wonder so many of us wind up unhappy, defeated and discouraged, annoyed with ourselves that we can’t be all that, do all that, and pull off a bikini by summertime.
I’m almost done. Feel free to skip all this and scroll down to the recipe.
Of course this new year, new you season does act as a catalyst, the tipping point where our environment changes, encouraging a collective jump onto the healthy bandwagon.
And yes, it will come as no surprise that I too need to lose weight. Confession: I’m up almost 50 pounds from this time last year. 50! Pounds! I could cite various and myriad injuries (to my foot, knee, back, psyche) of 2010 that slowed me down, physically and motivationally, but I don’t want to excuse it away. Because really it was all that Salted Peanut Butter Hot Chocolate, Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie (I see a trend here), more time spent in front of the computer, an increasing number of food events and a higher than average love (obsession?) of it all. I’m a food writer. I spend my days thinking about, writing about, researching, preparing and photographing food. Case in point: I leave for Vancouver first thing in the morning for a few days touring restaurants and checking out other food-related events and locales. Please don’t hate me. The point is, I need to ensure my hobby, passion and job, while paying the bills doesn’t also cause my physical ruin.
I also need more sleep. It’s the most fun thing on my to-do list.
Which is all to say you’ll likely see more of this sort of thing around here in the coming weeks, and also – I may be cranky. Don’t worry, we won’t go without brownies and the occasional waffle. I’m trying to remind myself of all the good-for-you stuff I do love – beany, grainy salads keep well and travel well, so they’re easy to stash away in the fridge for security reasons (defense against take-out) or bring with you when you need something good to go. Nutty, chewy wheat berries (the entire kernel of wheat, minus the hull) are well worth seeking out; they make a great foundation for a salad – similar to barley but mahogany-coloured and smooth. Great for breakfast, too.
Barley & Wheat Berry Salad with Chickpeas and Feta
of course the measurements here are approximate – add as much or as little of everything as you like.
1/2 cup wheat berries
1/2 cup pearl or pot barley
1/4-1/2 cup golden raisins or chopped dates
1 19 oz (540 mL) can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup crumbled feta
2 celery stalks, chopped
a big handful of Italian parsley, chopped or torn
1/4 purple onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive or canola oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar or lemon juice (or to taste)
salt and freshly ground black pepper
In a medium saucepan, cover wheat berries with a few inches of water; bring to a boil. Remove from heat and let stand for an hour. (Alternatively, soak them in water overnight.)
Pour off most of the water from the wheat berries, add the barley to the pot and cover with water by a few inches; bring to a boil and cook for 40 minutes, until both barley and wheat berries are tender. Drain and rinse under cold water to stop them from cooking; drain well and transfer to a bowl. Stir in the dates and let cool completely.
Add the chickpeas, feta, celery, parsley, onion and walnuts; drizzle with oil and vinegar and sprinkle with salt and pepper; toss to combine. Serve immediately or refrigerate until needed. Makes lots.
January 09 2011 | beans and grains and one dish and salads | 40 Comments »
Happy bean day! Oh yes it is. I wonder why Bean Day doesn’t get as high billing as Christmas?
Fortunately our freezer is stacked with enough bags and containers of chili (some labeled, most not) to keep us fed until Thanksgiving. I keep making large batches of practical, freezable, beany things like chili to stash away for mealtime emergencies at a rate that does not at all sync with the number of mealtime emergencies there actually are in this house. I suppose when I’m completely unorganized in all other areas of my life, it makes me feel totally on the ball to be making dinner ahead of time.
I eat vegetarian black bean chili because I love it, not only because it’s the new year and good for me. I added a ballast of mac & cheese partly because I still had leftover cheese stubs from our polyester & cheese Christmas party, and partly because I adore church supper-style chili, which is traditionally served on a bed of mac & cheese. If you haven’t tried it this way, you should. Isn’t anything better served on a bed of mac & cheese?
Also, my friend Lauren is hosting this month’s Go Ahead Honey, It’s Gluten Free (GAHIGF) – a monthly online event for which a theme is chosen, and bloggers create gluten-free dishes based on the theme. Lauren’s theme of choice: Follow the Calendar. As in, check out all the food-related Official days of the month, and pick one. January 6th happens to be Bean Day. (It’s also Shortbread Day. Whomever assigned that one kind of missed the mark.) Beans are totally my bag, baby.
The beans are kind of a no-brainer in terms of gluten-free-izing a recipe, but mac & cheese – I would miss that if I couldn’t eat gluten. There had to be some sort of a challenge here. There are gluten-free pastas out there – some made of quinoa, some corn – I’m a particular fan of brown rice pasta, which has a smoother mouthfeel than whole wheat pasta (which of course isn’t gluten-free, but we can eat it in our house) – be warned that it will make the cooking water much muggier than your regular pasta.
If you want to skip the pasta, this chili would also do just fine over a baked potato. Still, I’d likely add a dose of cheese on top. Or a blob of sour cream to offset the heat of the chili.
Note: just before I took this, as I was heating up the chili in a small pot on the stove, I opened another can of beans for something else, and got the 7 bean blend by mistake, and so dumped half the can into the chili. Which is why you see more than just black beans and chickpeas in the photo. Really, you could use any beans you like here.
Vegetarian Black Bean Chili
canola or olive oil, for cooking
2 onions, chopped
2 red, yellow or orange bell peppers, seeded and chopped
5-6 garlic cloves, chopped
2 Tbsp. chili powder
1-2 tsp. chopped chipotle chili en adobo (optional)
1 tsp. cumin
2 19 oz. (540 mL) cans black beans, drained
1 19 oz. (540 mL) can red kidney beans or chickpeas, drained
1 19 oz. (540 mL) can diced or fire-roasted tomatoes
1/2 small can tomato paste (a couple heaping spoonfuls)
sour cream, chopped avocado, grated cheese, chopped green onion and/or chopped fresh cilantro, for garnish (optional)
Toss everything but the garnishes into a slow cooker and cook on low for 6-8 hours. Alternatively, saute the onions, pepper and garlic in a drizzle of oil in a large pot set over medium-high heat, add everything else, bring to a simmer, turn the heat down and cook for an hour, or until thick. Chili is always better the next day – if you like, cool and refrigerate it, then reheat the pot or individual servings.
Gluten-Free Mac & Cheese
An adaptation of Pam Anderson’s Shells and Cheese, Gluten-Free, from Perfect One-Dish Dinners- by way of Gluten Free Girl and the Chef.
1 lb. gluten-free macaroni or pasta shells (brown rice, quinoa, corn-your gluten-free fave)
a drizzle of canola or olive oil
1 lb. grated sharp white cheddar, Gouda, or your favourite meltable cheese, grated
1 cup ricotta
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese (I use my rasp)
1/2 cup sour cream
Topping:
1 cup gluten-free breadcrumbs (here, Danny demonstrates how to make them)
2-3 Tbsp. melted butter (I usually use half butter, half olive oil)
Preheat the oven to 350° and spray a baking dish with nonstick spray.
Boil the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water – allowing enough water to give the pasta space to move around – according to the package directions or until it’s al dente (tender but still firm). Drain the pasta immediately, drizzle with a bit of oil to keep it from sticking together, and set aside.
In a large bowl, stir together the grated cheese, ricotta cheese, Parmesan cheese and sour cream, in a large bowl; dump in the pasta and toss it to coat. Season to taste with salt and pepper and pour into the casserole dish.
Mix the gluten-free breadcrumbs and butter, then sprinkle evenly over the top of the pasta. Bake until the pasta and cheese are bubbly and the crumbs are golden brown, about 35 minutes.
January 06 2011 | beans and freezable and one dish and slow cooker | 15 Comments »
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