Veggie Sandwich

This is my new go-to sandwich: cream cheese, some hard cheese, peppers, red onion, and alfalfa sprouts. Sometimes I add avocado.  I came out of the hospital with a hankering for, of all things, the sprouts.  I have been eating this sandwich fairly faithfully since I got out of hospital.

It's fairly low in sodium (the only value I don't know in this case is the bread, which is a sourdough from Cobs), but I used cream cheese (Island Farms brand, as it was the lowest in sodium) with 50mg/tbsp and I used a smoked cheddar purchased from Costco that, for a serving of 30g, has 8% of my sodium intake for the day in it.  I am pretty much done with deli meat. There are some lower sodium brands of deli meats, but I have decided to stay away from the stuff as much as possible because I know they're full of chemicals etc.

But oh, a pastrami sandwich with a huge dill pickle would go down really, really really well right now...

Cream of Tomato & Dill Soup

This is the soup I made the other night that I made the cornbread to go with.  I've made this before and it's so easy and delicious...And I really don't even like tomato soup that much.  The aroma from this was so tantalizing that my roommate was drawn from a rather important phone conversation to come into the kitchen demanding to know what I was making that was torturing her so!

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo - my bad.  I don't know where my brain was because I did take photos of the cornbread.  Oh well!  Here is the recipe.

Cream of Tomato & Dill Soup

2 lbs tomatoes, peeled, then roughly chopped (de-seed if you feel like it; I didn't)
4 cups water, with an adequate amount chicken boullion dissolved in it (use veggie stock if you don't want to use chicken stock)
1 carrot, 1 onion, and 1 stalk celery, chopped
dill, to taste
1 cup half & half cream (10%)
2 - 3 cloves garlic, or to taste, grated

Saute the carrot, onion, and celery until soft.  Add tomatoes and water/chicken and bring to the boil. Add dill.  Simmer until all the veggies are soft. Add more dill as you feel necessary.  With an immersion blender, or in batches in a food processor or blender, whiz until smooth but still has texture; don't puree.  Add garlic.  Finish with cream and serve.

Sooooooooo good, let me tell you!

And I did a food pricing breakdown, too.  This soup cost me about $0.85/serving.  Way better than canned!

Cooking with Betty Crackpot: Scalloped Potatoes

This is my first time making scalloped potatoes, which is kind of pathetic at my age. I love this classic side dish, but for some reason it always seemed like too much for one person. Now that I live with two other people, maybe I'll make them more often. I decided to make them for tonight's Easter dinner, which was not ham. My roommate sprung for gigantic T-bone steaks, which we had with roasted asparagus and a decadent flourless chocolate cake that I'll get to in a future post.

Betty has two scalloped potato recipes, this one and a creamy version, for which you make a white sauce. This one below seemed simpler to make and it's what I recall my mom making. Mom used to, I believe, slice the potatoes in a food processor. I did mine by hand, and I also didn't peel the potatoes first since I like the peels and that's where most of the nutrients are.

Scalloped Potatoes, Betty Crocker's Cookbook, page 435

2 lbs potatoes (about 6 medium)
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
3 tbsp flour
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 cup butter or margarine
2 1/2 cups milk

Heat oven to 350F. Wash potatoes; pare thinly and remove eyes. Cut potatoes into thin slices to measure about 4 cups.

In greased 2 quart casserole, arrange potatoes in 4 layers, sprinkling each of the first 3 layers with 1 tbsp onion, 1 tbsp flour, 1/4 tsp salt, dash pepper, and dotting each with 1 tbsp of butter. Sprinkle top with remaining onion, salt and pepper, and dot with remaining butter. Heat milk to just scalding; pour over potatoes. Cover; bake 30 minutes. Uncover; bake 60 to 70 minutes longer or until potatoes are tender. let stand 5 - 10 minutes before serving. 4 - 6 servings.


I also didn't finely chop any onion; rather, I did it my mom's way and finely sliced a whole small onion and added it to the layers of potato. I didn't get 4 layers out of mine, but only 3, probably because I used a slightly smaller casserole dish than what was called for. Also, I specially went and bought homo milk (3.25%) for this recipe as I was pretty sure my usual 1% wouldn't work so well.


I baked the dish on a cookie sheet lined with one of my silicone baking mats, and that was a good call because there was some overflow during the baking process. The top layer of potatoes got a little dry & crisp, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

The verdict: delicious and successful! I will definitely make this again because it was really good. I don't know why I put this off as long as I did!

Cooking with Kylie: Chinese Broccoli with Oyster Sauce

So, I needed a break from bok choy after the caterpillar incident last week, and I went back to Simple Chinese Cooking to find another veggie dish try. Now that I have easy access to a Chinese grocery store, I made a list of veggies Kylie cooks with in the veggie chapter of the book and went to the grocery store to look for them. I found gai choy, AKA Chinese mustard greens, but because I'm not a fan of mustard I kind of didn't want to risk it. Luckily, there was gai lan, AKA Chinese broccoli, in abundance. There were actually two kinds and it looked very similar to another choy of some kind, so I asked a produce staff member to A) help me pick the right veggie and B) explain to me the difference between the two types of gai lan.

The difference, apart from 30¢ in price, is that one gai lan was younger than the other gai lan, and the younger one would be more tender and less fibrous. That is the one I went with. It was $1.99/lb.

The method for this recipe is exactly the same as the method for the bok choy recipe.

Chinese Broccoli (gai lan) with Oyster Sauce, from Kylie Kwong's Simple Chinese Cooking, page 194

1 bunch Chinese broccoli
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp oyster sauce
dash sesame oil
1 tbsp peanut oil

1. Trim 5cm/2" from ends of broccoli, cut bunch crossways into 3 lengths, and wash thoroughly.

2. Fill a large saucepan with water and bring to the boil. Stir in vegetable oil, add broccoli and simmer until bright green & tender - about 1 minute. Using tongs, immediately remove broccoli from water and place on platter. Drizzle with oyster sauce and sesame oil.

3. Heat peanut oil in small frying pan until moderately hot and carefully pour over broccoli. Serve immediately.

OK, I skipped step 3 all together because I don't do peanut oil, and I didn't bother adding any vegetable oil to the boiling water.


Chinese broccoli is very similar to broccoli rabe, but is only mildly broccoli-flavoured. I made this for my roommate and I tonight, and we both liked it. This is a completely new vegetable for me, and I think it's a keeper (providing I don't find any caterpillars in it). I told the produce guy I spoke to earlier that I might put it in soup, but the look on his face said that was a no-no. He told me they don't usually put it in soup, but rather stir fry it or boil it. Well, I might just add it to soup - probably some Mama noodles - anyway. But, whatever, this was another good side dish to add to my repertoire. Go Kylie!

Adventures in Ramen

First of all, I have to share this with you. I bought more baby bok choy for super cheap at T&T last week, and as I was cutting it and cleaning it to put in this soup I'm about to tell you about, I came across a nice little surprise:


Yes, it's a nice juicy caterpillar! It was dead. But it totally grossed me out to the point where I had to chuck out the rest of the head.

Anyway, on this trip to T&T (I went to the bigger store at Surrey Central), in addition to buying bok choy, I wanted some soup. I love ramen. I know I should not, but there you go. There is a TON of ramen and ramen-like instant noodle packages at T&T it's almost ridiculous. I hardly knew what to choose because I wasn't used to any of the brands other that Sapporo Ichiban, and that was 99¢/package and there was stuff there that was way cheaper. I went for some that was 39¢/package, made by this company from Thailand. The noodles are called Mama something, the something being in the Thai language that I obviously don't read. But this is basically the deal:


Inside the package with the noodles were 3 seasoning packs. One was a powder, one was a paste, and one was marked chili powder. The paste had a shrimpy scent to it, which made sense because it was a package of shrimp-flavoured noodles. I tossed the chili powder.

This is the soup I made, with shrimp and caterpillar-free bok choy:


I will never buy Sapporo Ichiban again! This was great. There was a bit of heat in it, and it did not have a salty fake taste to it like other ramen. This tasted like a more "authentic-ish" broth. The noodles were better, too.

And at 39¢ you can't go wrong, really. I have two more packages in the pantry, one is chicken.

And I think I'll be giving bok choy a break for a while...

Cooking with Kylie: Bok Choy with Oyster Sauce

I've always liked bok choy. In my new favourite grocery store, T&T Supermarket, I've seen it in three different forms: regular bok choy, baby bok choy, and bok choy sprouts, which looks like mini baby bok choy. Baby bok choy was on for 99¢/lb the other day, bundled up in pre-packaged baggies. One of these baggies cost me $1.66 or something ridiculously cheap like that. I had plans for it, but they kinda fell through (long story involving a piece of salmon I left too long in the fridge...), but today I felt like making some comfort food in the form of Kylie's dressed wontons and after looking through the veggie section in Simple Chinese Cooking, I found exactly what I was looking for: a simple bok choy side dish.

The recipe is HERE.

Incidentally, did you know that bok choy gets pretty yellow flowers?


I adapted this recipe slightly because I don't do peanut oil. Apart from that, I followed the rest of the recipe as written.


It was ridiculously easy, and I'm glad it wasn't stir fried. I like, and always have, the texture of steamed bok choy in soups and stuff like that, so boiling the bok choy appealed to me. This was really good, and I'll definitely make it again. I still have bok choy left, in fact.

Here is a look at my wonton dish, too:


If you have not tried this recipe yet, YOU HAVE TO! It's soooooooooooo good!

Simple Stir Fry

I have at least three more posts coming up of Seattle-related food content, but for now, something simpler and less rich than the fare I had in that fair city: a simple stir fry.

As my trip neared its end - I got home last night, or more correctly this morning, at 12:35am - I knew I had to kind of come down from the eating high I'd been on for six days, so today, once I was up and lucid, I went to get some groceries. Pineapples were on sale at Kin's Farm Market for $2.99 each and they looked great, and Kin's also had asparagus on for cheap as well, two bunches for $4. After that, I made my obligatory trip to Wally World to buy my milk on the cheap, and I also picked up a bag of coleslaw mix, too. I then went to my favourite grocery store in these parts, T&T Supermarket, where I stocked up on veggies - cheap baby bok choy, spinach for salads, mushrooms, and a few other things - and I got a mini watermelon for $2.99. I also scored a piece of west coast salmon that should last me for two meals, and some really nice, thinly sliced sirloin. A can of mini corn and a can of water chestnuts completed the deal. The asparagus I got at Kin's reminded me of a great Kylie Kwong recipe that utilized that particular vegetable and mini corn, so I made myself a nice stir fry tonight. A little bit of rice and voilà.

I really love how Kylie's recipes are versatile and adaptable. I have learned so much from her books, and now that I have access to all kinds of actual Chinese grocery stores, I can start looking for ingredients I couldn't find at LOGS or in the Kootenays, and start exploring her cuisine again.

Bye Bye LOGS!*

*Y'all remember LOGS, right? The local overpriced grocery store I had to rely on back home in Rossland?

I've been volunteering at a refugee resource centre in the neighbourhood of Hastings Sunrise for a few months now, and I'm really enjoying it there. There's a community kitchen and once a week I make lunch for the staff and clients and do some baking, too. The clients love it; many of them live in poverty. Since this is a non-profit organization that has a small operating budget, I have to keep my meals cheap without sacrificing healthiness, and to facilitate this I've learned where to shop for the best deal in the neighbourhood. And there is a lot of choice when it comes to small, independently-owned markets.

The one we utilize the most is John's Farm Market at 2438 East Hastings. Their produce is hands down the least expensive of all the stores in the three block radius I try to keep myself to when I go out to do the grocery shopping for my meal.

John's is a very cultural experience for me. Right out front, facing the street, is a roaster/display thingy that usually has in it a selection of whole roasted birds and parts of roasted pig. It's touted as "Chinese BBQ" and man, does it ever smell good! Here is a closer look:


Cool, eh?

In addition to produce, John's does a bustling hot Chinese food take-out business that also smells amazing.

Price-wise, they cannot be beaten. I made a big pot of veggie soup for $6. Onions were 99¢ for 3lbs, cabbage was 49¢/lb...And I decided to do some personal shopping there after I was done volunteering, and I got bananas for 59¢/lb, mushrooms for 99¢/lb, pineapples were two for $5, green peppers were cheap...And the place is always busy! Even their canned stuff was cheaper than other places, and I wound up getting all my spaghetti sauce ingredients there for under $5.

I love this place! And I love the fact that it's a small independent business and I don't have to have that whole big name grocery store experience when I go there. I'm so glad I don't have to rely on LOGS anymore for my groceries! The staff are attentive and friendly, and the place has a nice feel to it. I'll be making it a regular stop on my way home from volunteering each week! And I'll have to try the take-out sometime, too!

Magazine Monday #69: Sesame Chicken with Snow Peas - and Hostessing Duties

Thanks to my mom, I now have a subscription to Food Network Magazine! I love it!

After a series of heavy meals around Thanksgiving, I craved something lighter. I found a deal on snow peas at LOGS, and after a cross border shopping trip a few weeks ago, I finally had some chicken breasts on hand. And I found a recipe for this meal, which is actually supposed to be a healthier version a take-out dish, nutritionized by Ellie Krieger. I actually adapted the recipe to suit me more, leaving out the chili paste and doing this as a stir fry instead of steaming the snow peas separately. It was a tad bland, however. I love the idea of this recipe but next time I'll have to up the flavour a bit to make it pop a bit more.

The recipe is here.

This week I am also hosting Magazine Monday in order to help my good buddy Creampuff out, so here is a run-down of the other magazine recipes that were submitted by busy foodies intent on getting through their piles of magazine clippings!

Lynn of I'll Have What She's Having made Summer Rolls with Peanut Sauce from Gourmet Quick Kitchen.

Lorie of A Savory Nest made Roasted Winter Vegetables with Feta from the March 2010 edition of Food & Wine.

Sue of Couscous & Consciousness made Fig & Blue Cheese Wontons from Dish Magazine's spring 2004 issue.

The awesome Heather of Girlichef made two things: Currywurst Sauce from Saveur and Bacon & Four Cheese Mac from the Oct. 2010 issue of Family Circle.

Jamie of Life's a Feast made a beautiful French Apple Flognarde (AKA a clafoutis) from Saveurs' Sept./Oct. edition.

Ranjani of Four Seasons of Food made Peanut Butter & Banana Bread from Cooking Light's Oct. 2010 issue.

Jan over at Kitchen Heals Soul made Pumpkin & Spinach Lasagna from the Jan. 1998 issue of Food & Wine Magazine.

Thanks for entering, everyone!

Edit @ 9:15pm: We have a late addition! Melissa of It's the Way She... made Rustic Spinach & Cornmeal Soup from this month's Bon Appetit.

Solstice Dinner, Part 2, and Christmas Eve Dinner

I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays this fine Boxing Day morning, and that you are all not too hung over from last night's festivities! I am just relieved this trying time in my life is over and that life can now return to normal.

Which includes posting here!

Let me just briefly finish my round-up of the Solstice meal I served on Monday (though the dessert will be Monday's Magazine Monday post so, really, I'm only covering the side dishes right now).

So, in addition to the sausage-stuff, bacon-latticed pork loin roast I served, I made three sides.

One was very simple, and that was steamed yellow beans from my garden, which I took the time to blanch and freeze immediately after picking in August. I was a little concerned about how they would turn out because when I removed them from the freezer, they looked odd...Not freezer burnt, but kind of translucent and splotchy. But, they steamed up just fine and were great!

I also made the same Brussels sprouts recipe I used last year. You can see that here. Really simple dish, even if slicing all the sprouts is a pain in the ass. Instead of the pine nuts, though, I used some of the pecans that came in the package from Jodi, and let me tell you, they totally elevated this dish to a new level! And once again, when I added these to the heat of the pan, they had an out-of-this-world aroma! Brilliant!
And then, finally, everyone's favourite, the Caramelized Onion & Brie Bread Pudding. Again, this was a smashing hit. I think a lot of people get potatoed-out over the holidays, and this is a great idea for a starch in your meal. In addition to using brie, and party because of the exorbitant cost of brie in these parts, I had a bunch of mozzarella left over from the pork loin, so I cubed it up and put it in, too. It was awesome and everyone was really happy with it.

So, apart from dessert, which as I said I'll post about on Monday, that's a wrap for Solstice 2009!
Now, onto Christmas Eve, which happens to be my father's birthday. We always have a big family get-together for this and my SIL does most of the cooking. Usually, Dad gets his favourite, steak & kidney pie, which is quite disgusting. This year, though, Shan decided to make another of Dad's perennial favourites, Beef Wellington.

But before we get to the main course, let's talk about the appies! Because we always have appies! First of all, Shan's aunt brought some West Coast prawns her brother had caught himself over the summer. These were to die for! There is absolutely no comparison between these prawns and the ones you buy frozen at the grocery store. They taste way richer, for one thing, and they have a much more tender texture and a more subtle colour. In the dish Shan's aunt brought, she paired the prawns with a sour cream mixture, cocktail sauce, and then topped with the prawns. We ate this with crackers and it was so good! Shan's aunt also makes a wonderful crab dip that has sambal olek in it. It was gone very quickly, I can tell you that. And finally, because my dad doesn't touch seafood with a 10-foot pole, Shan made him some stuffed mushroom cups, which were also excellent.
So, if you don't know what Beef Wellington is, basically, it's fillet mignon wrapped in puff pastry with shallots & mushrooms. Shan added gorgonzola this time, though not for me as I cannot stand moldy cheese. She did an outstanding job and everyone in attendance was thrilled to bits.For side dishes, we had steamed asparagus and green beans, salad, roasted butternut squash, and a risotto made with aged Asiago cheese.
This was a meal you'd pay a lot of money for in a restaurant, let me tell you! It was incredibly impressive. Thanks to Shan for all your hard work!

And yes, there was dessert. But that deserves a post of it's own, so you'll have to be patient with me!

Cooking with Kylie: Stir-Fried Asparagus with Baby Corn

I haven't made anything with Kylie's book Simple Chinese Cooking in a little while, but I am back on the bandwagon! This time, I made a simple stir-fried side dish that was really quick and delicious. Now, obviously, asparagus is not in season here in my little corner of the world, but I have to say that the LOGS has been carrying asparagus from Peru that has been a very decent price, like $2.99/lb, and it has been very tempting. So, I caved. And actually, the asparagus was very good. I always have mini corn cobs on hand for stir fries and snacking - I love these things!

I made half a recipe and had enough for two meals, but I made the regular amount of sauce because I didn't want to deal with the 1/3 cup of chicken stock the original recipe calls for. I never have small amounts of stock around like that, and I have no intention of starting to keep ice cube trays of stock in my freezer because I simply don't have the space or the inclination. The sauce was yummy, so I have no regrets! I also skipped the green onions.

Stir-fried Asparagus with Baby Corn (page 205 of Simple Chinese Cooking), adapted by yours truly

1 bunch asparagus
1 tbsp safflower oil
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 can baby corn, drained and sliced in half lengthwise
2 tbsp sake
2 tsp oyster sauce
2 tsp malt vinegar
1 tsp white sugar
1/4 tsp sesame oil

Wash & trim asparagus, discarding woody ends.

Heat oil in wok until surface seems to shimmer slightly. Add garlic and stir-fry for 10 seconds. Add asparagus and corn and stir-fry for about 1 minute. Add sauce ingredients and stir fry for a about three minutes, or until asparagus is bright green and tender-crisp. Serve immediately.

Awesome! I really enjoyed this, and plan to make another version of it tonight, incorporating chicken into it as well as some water chestnuts. I loved the sauce, too; it's light, like a vinaigrette, almost. Another fabulicious Kylie recipe!

Family Dinner: Veggie Curry & Chicken Kebabs

You might recall the wonderful gift that my good blog friend and fellow foodie Palidor sent me last month. It contained a packet of Palidor's dad's own homemade curry powder, and I thought it would be great to share this with my own family, who are quite partial to curries. My SIL, Shan, suggested a veggie curry to go with some chicken kebabs she was making, so that's what we did. The results were amazing!

Here's what I did for the veggie curry.

Veggie Curry with Palidor's Dad's Curry Powder

1 onion, sliced
1" piece of ginger, peeled & grated
several cloves of garlic
3 tomatoes, diced
1 zucchini, sliced
1 red pepper, sliced
1 large carrot, sliced
a couple of cups of sliced mushrooms
1 can coconut milk
1 tbsp curry powder
cilantro

1. I sauteed the onion and ginger in some olive oil until the onions were nice & soft & translucent. I then added all the other veggies and sauteed them until they cooked down. I added the curry powder and let this all cook for a bit. The fragrance rocked! Everyone's mouths were watering and we couldn't wait to try the curry!

2. Near serving time, I added the can of coconut milk & the garlic & simmered for a few minutes until we were ready to rock 'n roll. I garnished with cilantro. I had made some nice rice to go along with our meal, too. The end result:
What beautiful colour! And it tasted awesome! Everyone was totally in love with this!

Shan made chicken kebabs by marinating chicken strips in some Greek yogurt, paprika, garlic powder, and lemon. Then she threw them on the BBQ. They were great! It was a fabulous meal all around, and we even had naan to go with it.Thank you so much, Palidor, for sharing a piece of your family with me and my family! This was a great gift!

Chicken Fajita Salad

This salad helped me with a recent fajita craving. Avocados were on sale at Save-on Foods, four for $2.99 - an excellent price! Use whatever veggies you like.

Chicken Fajita Salad

1 boneless skinless chicken breast, cubed
2 tsp fajita seasoning
3 tbsp water

salad greens
sliced avocado
sliced red onion
chopped peppers
kalamata olives
shredded cheddar cheese

for the dressing: 2 tbsp salsa, 2 tbsp light sour cream, a couple squeezes of lime juice

Fry chicken until cooked, add seasoning & water & simmer a couple of minutes until thickened.

Place chicken on top of salad greens & other veggies. Top with dressing, cheese, and olives.

Excellent!

Thanksgiving Dinner - Again!

Tonight was my second Thanksgiving dinner of the week, as most of my family was away last weekend for our holiday last weekend. My SIL Shan had a 15lb turkey for 6 people so there were a ton of leftovers. As usual, this was a spectacular feast as only Shan can put on. On the menu:

• turkey
• stuffing
• mashed potatoes
• green beans & carrots sauteed in garlic, olive oil, and lemon
• Brussels sprouts
• spaghetti squash gratin, made by your favourite coyote
• gravy, cranberry sauce, buns
• no-bake pumpkin pie, also made by your favourite coyote
  

I did promise you recipes from this meal, did I not? Well, here is the spaghetti squash gratin recipe I used, that I totally made up on my own, using squash I grew in my garden this year. The squash were very, very small, fitting in the palm of my hand, but they tasted pretty good. I love spaghetti squash - it's the only squash I'll eat other than zucchini. Usually I just bake it and mix it with some butter, but I wanted to do something different with it (I have, actually, used spaghetti squash in place of pasta at times, and that's a great idea; it's a very versatile veggie). I got some very cheap ricotta cheese on my last cross-border shopping spree, and off I went!

Spaghetti Squash Gratin

• 2 1/2 cups roasted spaghetti squash (this turned out to be three of my smallest squashes)
• 1 cup low-fat ricotta cheese
• salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 cup butter
• 2/3 cup fine bread crumbs
• 3 cloves garlic, grated
• 1 cup grated cheddar cheese

1. Combine squash, ricotta, seasonings, and Parmesan cheese in a large bowl. Place in a medium-sized, well-greased or parchment-lined casserole dish. Top with cheddar
2. In a skillet, melt butter until bubbly. Add breadcrumbs and garlic, and season with a little salt & pepper. Toast until the bread crumbs are toasty & golden.
3. Put breadcrumbs on top of casserole. Bake casserole at 375F until hot through & cheese has all melted.

This was a hit! It was great and everyone enjoyed it! I will definitely make this again!

Next post - the pumpkin pie. But let me rest a bit first, eh?

Garden Bounty 2009: Patty Pan Squash

I planted two kinds of squash this year, spaghetti and patty pan. The plants grew most excellently and in the case of the spaghetti squash, I got for small squash that fit in the palm of my hand. In the case of the patty pans, I got nearly didley freakin' squat. I did get lots of flowers, though, which was a nice consolation for an otherwise pathetic patty pan crop.

I don't know exactly what went wrong, but as I was reading a section in Earth to Table, I wondered if it was the plant: I seemed to have more male flowers than female flowers. A lot of flowers just dried up and died; very few of them produced any squash at all. I have no idea why this was or what I can do to remedy it, and I had to wonder at nature: surely these plants would have figured it out!

Anyway, I think I got about 5 patty pan squash out of a huge pile of plants. These plants took up a lot of room in my small plot, and I felt annoyed that I got so little product from them.

Though the flowers bloomed early, it was a while before any sign of squash showed up, and as we had a series of early frosts I had to harvest the little guys earlier than I wanted to. In the end, this is what I got:Yeah, these are SMALL, man! The smallest is less than 1cm in diameter. I was not impressed. I even had a recipe from Canadian Living for patty pan squash skewers that I wanted to make, but it wasn't going to happen. In the end, I tossed these with a bit of oil, salt & pepper, and roasted them off with the potatoes I cooked for my spatchcocked chicken meal. This is a very close up view of this "side dish:"Grrrrrr! I will not be growing these again next year. The spaghetti squash, on the other hand, is another story.

Thanksgiving Rundown

This year it was just Dad and me because my brother & SIL were visiting family in another province. But, just because there were only two of us, we did not simplify anything and had the full-on, slap-up Thanksgiving turkey dinner we wanted. On the menu:

• turkey breast roast (my dad hates everything about turkey except the white meat, so he only buys turkey breast roasts and usually has 3 or 4 of them in his freezer at any given time) roasted with double smoked bacon & sausages made by a local butcher
• potato cakes made with garlic & Parmesan cheese; a departure for us, but this is an old dish my grandmother used to make apparently
• stuffing, gravy, yams (only dad eats yams)
• Brussels Sprouts sauteed with bacon & pinenuts & topped with Parmesan (made by yours truly)
• and for dessert, Bakewell Tart, also made by yours truly

Here is a nice collage I made of the meal:Everything was delicious! The recipe for the Brussels is basically this one from this post, only I used regular bacon instead of pancetta, and I topped the dish with Parmesan cheese.

As for the dessert, Bakewell Tart, my dad has been nagging me for this for a long time, and I finally gave in for this special occasion. He was so thrilled and so impressed and as soon as he bit into it, he said, "This is it!" I don't know why I put him off on this so long, because it was ridiculously easy to make. Alas, I'm not going to post the recipe because I want to use it for my next Bread 'n Molasses article, so you'll have to wait until January! But here is another collage:The cool thing about this year's Thanksgiving is that we're getting two of them in the family! When my brother & SIL get back from their trip, we're having another turkey dinner! This will be later this week, and I'll be making two dishes for it, too. Those recipes I will definitely share, so stay tuned!

I hope my Canadian readers are having a great long weekend!

Full Flickr set is here.

Camping Grub 2009 Part 3

When my SIL Shan cooks a meal, she really cooks a meal. On top of her day job, she & her mom, C, also have a catering business, so Shan can cook, man, and there is always a ton of food. Camping trips are no exception. You know if you camp with Shan, you will get a huge, slap-up, tasty meal.

So for night #3, there was a feast: chicken marinated in white wine, garlic, and herbs; marinated grilled green peppers; fried potatoes; grilled corn on the cob; and sauteed asparagus.It was totally excellent! The corn, again, was sweet, tender, and delicious. The asparagus was a bit tough, but still good. My dad came for dinner this night, on his way back from Nelson, and he brought us a trifle for dessert from Save-On Foods. Sorry for the crappy night shot...Tomorrow's post: S'moreos! Woo-hoo!

Magazine Monday #46: Bean & Barley Salad

Before we get to my recipe selection for this week, answer me this simple question: which of these things is not like the other:Yeah, one of my 8 or 9 bean plants is producing green beans. They are tough and stringy and not very good - obviously the product of a bad seed. Hmph.

Anyhoo, let's get onto today's MM recipe. Since I have beans coming out of the old wazoo, I have to start getting creative with how I use them, or else I'll become bored very easily. So, I found this recipe in Canadian Living's July 2009 issue while looking for a side dish to serve with the huckleberry pork loin I made.

Recipe here.

I made a few substitutions. I used spinach instead of arugula and I used cider vinegar instead of the white wine vinegar. All in all, this was a great salad! Light, hearty, nourishing, nutritious - a huge hit. Definitely a keeper!

Also joining me this week:

Cathy of Accountants Can Cook? made a roasted cauliflower risotto from Canadian Living's most recent issue.

Andreas of Delta Kitchen made an absolutely mouthwatering Chanterelle Carbonara from German magazine Essen & Trinken.

The Magical Fruit

This year is not only a bumper crop year for huckleberries, but my 8 bean plants appear to be on some kind of manic growing spree that is providing me with about 86 bazillion yellow wax beans. I am already sick of the sight of them. Yesterday alone I picked 1.25kg of the suckers, which is about 2.75lbs. It was the third picking - and there are so many more on the way.

The whole point of this garden is to help feed myself without depending on the grocery store, so obviously I had to do something to preserve my bean crop since becoming bored with them & letting them just rot on their stems would be counter-productive. So, I blanched & froze.

Bear in mind that I have no idea what I'm doing, OK?

Blanching involved boiling for a short period of time and then immediately plunging the veggie into an ice bath to stop the cooking process. The goal is to break down the cell walls of the veggie so that when the veggie is frozen, the water in the cells doesn't crystallize and expand, then rupture the cell walls, which is what causes a veggie to go mushy upon thawing.

So, here is what I did.

I washed the beans well & trimmed them. I then brought a large pot of water to a rolling boil and threw in a bunch of beans.After 2 - 3 minutes, I lifted the beans out & plunged them in an ice bath. (Yes, that is an ice pack; we have no cubes!)

Once the beans were completely cool... ...I packaged them up in small freezer bags, making sure to squeeze out as much air as possible, then I put the bags of beans in a larger freezer bag (double bagging like this helps prevent freezer burn). And into the freezer they went.

I suspect I'll be doing this a lot in the next few weeks...

Corn Update

Ok, so yesterday I went to a local fruit stand with my dad in Castlegar. The produce there comes from all over the place in BC, and there was a whole bunch of corn there labeled as "peaches & cream" from Chilliwack, which is in the Fraser Valley (about a day's drive east of here). It was 99cents/cob. While I think that's an outrageous price for corn, I was drawn by the "peaches & cream" claim and purchased two.

At home, I husked the corn and got this:WTF?

The top cob is indeed peaches & cream, but the bottom cob is most certainly not.

After cooking, I slathered my corn in leftover feta butter from the other night, and...

The peaches & cream was tough and absolutely flavourless. It was sooooooo disappointing.

The non-peaches & cream tasted sweeter and was much more tender, but it was still not much better than the corn from the previous night.

Well, that concludes my corn experimentation for this summer. It's either a shitty year for corn in the west, or I was just too spoiled out east.