Archive for the 'grains' Category
I think I’ve found my new favourite Christmas food gift. Granola, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways:
1) By the time we actually get to Christmas, some of us are feeling Christmas cookie burnout. (No offense, shortbread. I’ll still eat you.)
2) I have friends who are gluten free, dairy free, egg free – this makes everyone happy without seeming like a compromise.
3) I make a big batch every year for my dad, anyway.
4) It’s easy to stir together and bake, and fun to package in glass jars or Christmassy little bags.
5) It has a long shelf life, so will still be fine if the recipient doesn’t get around to eating it immediately.
6) No one will regift it or get rid of leftovers before their new healthy resolutions.
Have I sold it strongly enough? Today it’s about all I’ve been eating – with plain Vital Green Farms yogurt – on account of picking up Mike’s stomach flu sometime mid-Christmas afternoon.
Christmas Granola
use melted butter instead of oil for particularly decadent granola, or add some flax oil to boost omega 3s.
4-5 cups old-fashioned (large flake) oats
1 cup sliced or slivered almonds, pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts or a combination
1/2 cup shredded coconut
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup honey, Roger’s Golden Syrup or maple syrup
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla or coconut extract
1/2 cup green pumpkin seeds
1/2-1 cup dried cranberries, raisins, slivered apricots or other dried fruit
Preheat the oven to 325F. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat baking mat.
In a large bowl, mix the oats, nuts, coconut, cinnamon and salt. In a small bowl, stir together the oil, brown sugar, honey/Roger’s Golden Syrup/maple syrup and vanilla. Pour over the oat mixture and stir until well coated.
Spread out onto one or two baking sheets, making clumps by squeezing some of it together if you like. Bake for 20-30 minutes, stirring two or three times, until golden. Remove from the oven and stir in the pumpkin seeds and cranberries. Cool completely, then package in jars or sealed bags.
December 26 2010 | breakfast and grains | 13 Comments »
We’re in Tofino, in the rain.
It was a long drive, snowy in parts, impossibly overloaded with the groceries we prematurely piled into the car in Vernon. I had a meeting in Vancouver I was late for due to poor calculations and too much construction on the highway. We’ve been behind and trying to catch up since leaving Calgary, and I kind of wish we had just waited out the rest of Tuesday and left at a leisurely pace.
My late meeting had a domino effect, and we found ourselves doing that crazy stressful right-at-the-wire mad dash to the ferry to make the 5 o’clock. As we were pulling up to the booth, I reached down for my wallet, and it wasn’t there.
It appears someone either lifted it while Mike took the boys for a walk during my meeting, or I left it on the roof after our stop in Hope to find a tiny old-school bakery that sells, among other things, big squares of puff pastry filled with pineapple and cream. (I also bought a pie – strawberry-rhubarb – for $4.79.) One guess which scenario is more likely. If anyone in Hope is reading this, a bright blue wallet may be somewhere on the road between Dutchie’s bakery, Tim Horton’s, and the highway.
Needless to say our already heightened stress level took another leap skyward as we excavated the car in the ferry lineup, removing well-arranged suitcases and shoes and toys and groceries onto the pavement while trying to keep the boy and the dog from wandering away. The wallet wasn’t there. My cash (good thing I loaded up before we left), credit cards, business cards, receipts and notes and gift cards and a thousand or so membership cards, all in the brand-new wallet I just bought at Uppercase. My still exhausted mind did not take this well. The ferry ride was an unhappy one, spent morosely trying to figure out which credit cards to cancel and going through everything in the car again. We ate Cheezies for dinner. It didn’t help.
Of course it could be worse. Of course it could. It still sucks.
Sue fed us brown rice pudding before we rushed out this morning. I’ll likely make another pot of it here, to dip into for breakfast, elevenses and snacks.
Brown Rice Pud
3 cups cooked short grain brown rice
2 cups milk
2/3 cup evaporated milk (or half & half)
2 Tbsp. sugar, honey or maple syrup
2 tsp. cornstarch (optional)
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. vanilla
Combine everything but the vanilla in a pot; to prevent lumps, stir the cornstarch, if you’re using it, into the sugar first, or stir it into a bit of the cold milk. If you do use cornstarch you’ll need to bring it to a simmer for a minute to reach its full thickening potential and prevent any starchiness. The great thing about rice pudding is that you can add milk in splashes, cook it until it absorbs, add more, and so on until you get the consistency you want. Even so, the next morning it will likely have thickened and need to be loosened up with a little more milk or cream.
Cook, stirring often, until the mixture is as thick as you like, adding more milk if you want. At the end, stir in the vanilla. Cool.
April 01 2010 | breakfast and grains | 27 Comments »
OK, this is a good one. I have little mental capacity left, and am holding on to my reserves in order to get necessary work done before bed, never mind packing for Tofino (we leave tomorrow – I hope), but I can offer up this. (I’ve been up before 5:30 for almost two weeks, and not compensating at bedtime – I feel like I’m 90, with far fewer IQ points. How do people function on no sleep?)
The good news – Ataulfo mangoes are here, which means there’s a case of them ripening on my kitchen counter, and I’m cutting one for W approximately every five minutes. (Ataulfos are the slightly smaller, slimmer, yellow-green mangoes you might start seeing in the produce section – they’re creamier, smoother and lack the sinewy fibers you may associate with the big green-red Haden or Tommy Atkins varieties that are hardier and thus available year-round.) There are a ton of things I’d love to do with them, but I suspect most are destined for a spoon, or W’s Empire Strikes Back bowl. But one did make it into a batch of quinoa salad:
Curried Quinoa Salad with Black Beans and Mango
1 cup quinoa
1-2 ripe mangoes, peeled and chopped
1/2 red or yellow pepper, chopped
1/4 English cucumber, chopped
2-3 green onions or a chunk of purple onion, chopped
2 cups (packed) baby spinach, torn or sliced (optional)
half a 19 oz. can black beans, rinsed and drained
handful of torn cilantro (optional)
Dressing:
1/4 cup canola oil
2-4 Tbsp. white wine or white balsamic vinegar
1 Tbsp. mango chutney, chopped if chunky (optional)
1 tsp. honey
1 tsp. curry powder or mild paste
1/4 tsp. cumin
Rinse quinoa well under cool water in a fine sieve, then cook in a pot of boiling salted water over medium heat until tender but still firm to bite, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes. (Just like you’d cook pasta.) Drain well, return to the pot, put the lid back on and let it steam – this will produce fluffy quinoa – until cooled.
Combine the oil, vinegar, chutney, honey, curry and cumin in a jar or small bowl and shake or whisk to blend. If you like, season the dressing with salt and pepper.
Put the quinoa, mango, vegetables and beans in a large bowl, drizzle with dressing and toss until well coated. Serves 4-6.
March 29 2010 | grains and salads | 26 Comments »
Just home from emceeing the Food: Today, Tomorrow, Together conference, where I ate many things – perhaps most notably absolute perfection in the form of a salted caramel macaron (from the new M at the Calgary Farmers’ Market), meaning I didn’t make dinner, left M and W to their own devices and thus have nothing to offer, recipe-wise. But last weekend Sue fed me a suitably grainy-yet-delicious salad of the sort that makes one feel virtuous, well balanced and light on their feet. I even took photos, and totally meant to tell you about it. But then I thought rather than ask her for the recipe I’d ask her to do a guest post, since that seems to be a thing other bloggers do. And it sounds fun.
Figures she’d have to throw in a preface being all complementary of me. As if I wasn’t wearing rugby shirts (and crushed pink shimmery synthetic shirts with tails from Le Château, with my painstakingly crimped hair – I bet I have a photo somewhere in the basement) right alongside her.
So without any further ado, I give you Sue (hey, that rhymes!):
Hi everyone! My name is Sue, and like many of you I’ve been riveted to the computer for the last couple years, reading every Dinner with Julie post I could get my eyes on.
Julie got me hooked on food and cooking right from the start of our friendship, and I’ve known her for a few decades now. I still find myself amazed when I look at one of her new recipes (SO simple! SO PERFECT!), floored by her work ethic, and more often than not absolutely slayed by her humour. The thing about Julie I know best though, is her capacity for friendship. Julie has been an amazing friend to me since we met in Junior High. She never laughed at my appalling Grade 8 fashion sense (rugby shirts and brown-tinted glasses), or at my horrific first boyfriends when they finally appeared a few years later. We’ve both grown up a bunch, or at the very least we’ve quit drinking Southern Comfort and switched to wine.
It’s because Julie is an amazing and generous friend that she invited me to do this guest-post, and I’ll try really hard not to screw it up. I’m hoping that if you can bear having a sub from time to time, it might mean that Julie can take a night off work and just hang with Mike and W, and isn’t that something we’ve all been asking her to do? But not too often, I promise.
Introduction now aside, I’d love to tell you about this salad I make. This is a salad that’s really great to have on the table when you have things like ribs or burgers or smokies there too. Rich meat dishes, especially the all-indulgent ribs are one of life’s great pleasures after all, and I prefer my eating pleasures to be unsullied by guilt. This is a magical, guilt-erasing elixir of lentils, whole grains and raw vegetables and it’s full of lemony flavour (definitely use fresh lemons if possible!), and there’s feta too. Whenever I’ve ever served this salad to people outside my immediate family, they always take the recipe home.
And it’s one of those salads that keeps well for a few days in the fridge, so you can dip into it for lunch the next day, have a couple spoonfuls when you get home from the gym and put it back on the supper table the night after that.
Like most things of this nature, the proportions and ingredients are extremely fluid. I love the wild rice in it because the texture stays that little bit crunchy, and really, it only needs about 1/2 cup uncooked, but wild rice is stupidly expensive. Feel free to substitute brown rice or omit it altogether. Other times if I need to feed a crowd, I’ll keep the wild rice but bolster the salad with some whole wheat couscous. Some of the vegetables should be crunchy, and if you’re planning on leftovers it’s best to cut the core (ie the watery bits) out of things like tomato and cucumber so as not to have an unappetizing soggy mess the day after tomorrow. Other than that, use what you already have in the fridge, or whatever looks good at the store.
You may notice in the photo a total absence of tomato and fresh herbs. That’s because I live a half hour’s drive to the grocery store, and I was already a glass of wine to the good when I started making this. The salad was fine without, and don’t you think it’s good to be happy when things turn out differently every time you make them? One last thing: you may want to keep an additional lemon on standby, or I suppose a couple tablespoons of red or white wine vinegar would work fine too. I’m always wanting to add that little bit more, but then I’m a bit obsessive with all things lemony.
Lentil & Wild Rice Salad
1/2 cup French blue lentils (green/brown lentils have worked fine in the past – they’ll likely need a little extra cooking time)
1/2 cup wild rice
2 med carrots (grated, but I suggest you grate the carrots when most of the salad is assembled so as to prevent that slight greyish brown colour they’ll otherwise acquire)
2 sticks celery
1/2-1 red, yellow or orange bell pepper
2-3 roma tomatoes
1/2 english cucumber
4-5 green onions, sliced thinly
1/4 cup fresh dill, chopped or 1 tablespoon dried
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
150 grams (about 5 oz) feta, crumbled
juice of 1 lemon, seeds removed
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and black pepper to taste
In a small saucepan add the lentils to about 1 1/2 cups of water. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down to med-low and cover. Cook for about 15 minutes or to taste, but don’t cook so long they lose their shape. Drain and cool.
In the same pan (no need to wash it), add the rice to about 2 cups of water. Add a good pinch of salt and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to med-low and cover. Cook for about 35 minutes, then turn off the heat and let the rice rest in the pot, on the stove for about another 5 minutes. At this stage I usually find that some, but not all the grains have split open. I like the soft crunch at this stage, but if you prefer all the grains open, by all means let it rest for an additional 5-15 minutes. Drain and cool. (I suggest cooking the rice and lentils in the morning, or even the day before if you like, and keep them in the fridge until you’re ready to proceed).
Put the rice and lentils into a large bowl. Chop the celery, pepper, tomatoes, and cucumbers into smallish chunks (bigger than 1/4″ but less 1/2″ works for me), add to the cooled rice and lentils. Add the green onions, herbs, feta, and lemon juice and give the salad a good toss. Add the freshly grated carrots, the olive oil, sugar and a good grinding of black pepper. Taste before you add salt as the feta often does the job! Chill for however long you have, or up to a few days. Makes about 8-10 cups.
February 19 2010 | grains and salads | 23 Comments »
Two years ago tonight I wrote about the loss of a great love in my life named Rachael. Looking
back I’m reminded of likening her to a guru – I had at the time, like everyone else, been reading Eat, Pray, Love, and learned that the idea behind having a guru is that the merits of your guru will reveal to you your own hidden greatness. I’ve never heard a better definition of true friendship.
Of course I have other friends who could be described in much the same way, but I’ll always miss Rachael. Her laugh. Her feet. Her wonky hair, and the way she lost only half of it, on one side, including one eyebrow. Her touchy-hugginess. Her stunning voice (that girl could sing). And her absolutely genuine enthusiasm for every little thing she’d come across in a given day, from the leftovers she brought to work for lunch to her rainy bike ride home. She was so enamoured with food that one day in late November, in the palliative care ward, barely speaking and having not had much actual food to eat, another friend fed her a perfect strawberry and she leaned her head back on her pillow and said the F word. I remember her laugh with perfect clarity some days, but as soon as it comes I worry that it may fade, like a photocopy of a photocopy, each time I replay it in my memory; that it might be tarnished and twisted into something that’s not quite right anymore. And other days I think about beet risotto.
Rach told me about a beet risotto she made once soon after we met – raved about it, even. It was in a copy of Australian Women’s Weekly or some such; she could never quite find it, but it always brought it up, oohing over how fantastic it was, how brilliantly coloured and just so delicious. She never did find me the recipe, but still I think about it more often than not when I pick up a beet.
I half-heartedly flipped through a few websites this morning to see if I could find one, but none jumped out. I kept thinking about it, and her, and when it came to be dinnertime and the boys were at the dog park, I decided that if I was going to think about it, and her, I might as well be peeling and grating a beet while I’m at it.
And that’s how the risotto came to be. I had a little over an hour before having to leave for my Artemis meeting, so it’s not like the evening stretched out before me in which to revel in creative dinner preparation. But risotto is the sort of thing that’s perfect to do while cleaning up Play-Doh, unloading the dishwasher, running down to the laundry, and jumping over to your laptop. You can step away from it. Just don’t forget it entirely while you check your email.
I gave the (large!) grated beet a turn in the pot with some butter and oil, then added about a cup of short-grain (Arborio) rice, and added a 1L tetra pack of chicken stock in bits, stirring as often as was needed, until it turned into risotto. I finished it at the end with a little blob of butter and a whack of grated Parmesan for good measure. I had a pork roast in the oven that had spent some time in a plastic bag with some balsamic vinegar, olive oil and barbecue rub, and some mixed greens. Mike loved the risotto – very intense he said, very potent. I wasn’t enamoured at first, but it grew on me. When I got home from my meeting I managed to shovel a few cold mouthfuls in before bed, so I must have liked it. I’m not sure I’ve done Rachael’s recipe justice, but at least I finally made it. And had she not planted that seed, the combination would never have occurred to me. (I mean look at it – it resembles some sort of fluorescent red ground beef or sea coral or something.)
Thanks Rach.
One Year Ago: Olives, Goat Feta, Roasted Carrot Hummus, Spiced Pecans, and Bubble and Squeak
December 01 2009 | grains | 24 Comments »
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