Andrea the Gastronaut

Dinner tonight: A mix of odds ‘n’ ends. Got kale, got nettles, got scapes, got eggplant… Getting creative to stretch groceries.

That was my tweet, at 8:19pm on Thursday.

I realized, once again, how much food I waste living alone. I buy perishables such as vegetables that I intended to use. I don’t use them up fast enough. They go bad. I buy ingredients for particular recipes and don’t get around to using or I only use some. They go bad. Leftovers don’t always get eaten, and then I find myself greeted by a peculiar smell when I open the container at lunch time and then have to go buy my lunch. I’m sure that some of you know exactly where I’m coming from. It’s not only a waste of food but a waste of money as well.

So, Thursday’s dinner was a game of, “Throw a bunch of stuff together and hope it works” based on what’s available in my kitchen, sort of like those Top Chef challenges in which the cheftestants are provided with limited ingredients and told to be creative.

Here’s a rough recipe. Apologies if you like your recipes written in a traditional, linear fashion, but I’m a “handful of this, spoonful of that” kind of cook and I didn’t think of posting this until I went to eat some of the leftovers today so it’s more in narrative style:

• I decided on a base of brown rice, cooking one cup. Bring two cups of water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add brown rice. Stir, reduce heat to low, cover and simmer until soft It takes 30-40 minutes to cook.

• I sauteed 1/2 an onion, 1 glove garlic, and a small hand full of frozen garlic scapes (left from last summer).

• I added kale and stinging nettles (which I still have, but now they’re in the freezer) and cooked until wilted.

• I added half an eggplant (I’d bought 2 a month ago and for a casserole and used one). I still have half left.

• Added 1 spoonful each of tahini and peanut butter and some water to thin it out.

• I let it cook in my wok, lid on, on medium-loaw until the vegetables were cooked through (ideally I think that the eggplant should start cooking first but I was improvising on the spot).

Served it on the rice with some garlic chili sauce.

Being a dish based on improvising with what you already have, I imagine that any greens will do. Try beet greens and mustard greens. Cabbage. Collards, dandelion greens, whatever is in season. Broccoli could be added. I think I may have used up my arugula too and in retrospect I think that I should have used one of my two packages of tofu.

How do you use up odds and ends? Any favourite uses or recipes?

Eat well, be well.

Food, recipes cooking

I’ve been intending to make granola for weeks, to have something to snack on and occasionally deviate from breakfast smoothies. Granola requires a chunk of time and undivided attention. Divide it, and your granola can be ruined. I sometimes let my oven timer go for a few moments or longer if I’m in the middle of something. Attention divided. And so, with nothing else to distract me, Sunday morning seemed like the ideal time to get to it. Furthermore, my granola ingredients seemed to tie in with Meghan’s 5 Days Healing with Superfoods challenge.

For my granola, as with many things that I cook and bake, I consulted a number of recipes to guide me. This article from Oregon Live has formed the base of many of my granolas. I’ve consulted Alton Brown‘s recipe on the FoodNetwork website (he’s great) and Ina Garten’s. Things I notice about different recipes: Oven temperatures, some recipes tell you to mix wet ingredients separately and then add, some have fewer ingredients, some have more. Play around. You really can’t go wrong unless you burn it.

I realize that my instructions are verbose and maybe I need to learn to separate the narrative from the recipe. Be patient.

Here’s my process:

Preheat oven to 300 (temperatures in recipes vary between 250 and 350)

To start:
Get out a big bowl. Dump in rolled oats. For this batch it was 3 cups (Garten’s calls for 2 cups).

Add:

• 1 cup shredded coconut (I used Organic Traditions brand)
• 2 cups mixed nuts and seeds: This time it was slivered almonds (my usual), pecans that crumbled in my hands as they went into the bowl, crushed walnuts and cashews, also pumpkin seeds. The almonds dominated.
  …You could use flax seeds, sesame seeds, hemp seeds, or any other seeds.
• 1/2 cup or so of unsweetened apple juice
• 1/4-1/2 cup of melted coconut oil. You know how good for you coconut oil is, right?
• 1/4 cup maple syrup, which has anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer and antioxidant properties.
• A generous sprinkling of cinnamon
• A grinding of pink Himalyan sea salt.

Now, bake it!
Bake on two cookie sheets for 15 minutes at a time, checking and stirring after each 15 minutes. After 45 minutes check every 5 minutes. When I made it this time, at the 30 minute mark some parts looked barely cooked but a bit at the edge was burnt, possibly the result of 2 pans baking on different racks in my small oven.  I stirred the burnt stuff underneath. Sure, I could have tossed it out but I get kind of lazy when it comes to lifting my heavy stone cookie sheet.

When it’s all a golden brown transfer to a bowl and add 2 cups of mixed dried fruit, chopped if necessary. I used cranberries, cherries, chopped apricots and goji berries, and added chia seeds and cacao nibs (the last 3 are superfoods!). Any dried fruit will do. I’ve used crystalized ginger in the past. Apples would be good.*

One recipe says to add the fruit while it’s still in the pan and press down for clusters. I forgot to do that and don’t know if it works. I like clusters in my oatmeal but forget how I’ve gotten them in the past. In attempt to add clusters, after transferring the granola to a bowl I added more coconut oil (extra virgin), stirring and letting it melt into the hot mixture, then added more maple syrup. It didn’t appear to work but there were a few clusters in the final product. I’ll try something else next time.

Also, some recipes say to add the fruit after the granola has cooled, others say to add when it comes out of the oven. Don’t be afraid to experiment.

Play around. Try different fruit, nuts and seeds. Try adding nutmeg or cardamom. Make it yours. Suit your style and your mood. The possibilities are endless. (Though I’m sure that Sheldon Cooper would tell me why they’re not.)

*A note if you’re in Toronto: I saw dehydrated watermelon at Essence of Life in Kensington Market last week. They’ve got all sorts of dried fruit that makes me wish for a food dehydrator, and their dried fruit is organic and free of sulfites.

Eat well, be well.

recipes cooking

Brownies!

Ten days ago Sarah posted a recipe for vegan brownies on her blog, What Smells So Good? Immediately I thought of what ingredients I had and what I needed. These were going to be made in my kitchen, no doubt.

I followed her recipe more or less. Below is her version with my modifications next to her ingredients:
*With my modifications, the nutritional information that she listed no longer applies.

High – Protein Vegan Brownies (AKA “Cadillac Brownies”)
Makes 24
4 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
2.2 oz (10 tbsp) flour
2 oz (7 tbsp) soy flour [I used a blend of organic brown rice, soy, tapioca & arrowroot flours - it came pre-blended.]
6 tbsp unflavoured isolated soy protein powder [I used Ruth's hemp protein powder with flax and maca because I used up my rice protein powder last week and decided to give this one a shot again.]
2 tbsp ground flaxseed
¼ tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 oz (12 tbsp) cocoa powder [I used raw cacao powder]
10 oz silken tofu
4.5 oz (2/3 cup) granulated sugar [I used organic cane sugar]
7 oz (1 2/3 cup) brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla [homemade, in my case]
1/4 cup canola oil [I used coconut oil because it's healthy & I thought that the flavour would work. After pouring my melted chocolate into the batter mixture I melted the oil in the still-warm metal bowl over the still-hot water, but with no additional heat.]
1/2 cup plain soy milk [I used almond, initially using only 1/4 cup - see notes immediately below.]
2 oz (5 tbsp) miniature chocolate chips
[I also added cacao nibs as well as instant dark coffee, dissolved in 1/4 cup water - hence 1/4 cup milk. You might have a better way to incorporate coffee, such as adding ground beans to the dry ingredients.]

1. Preheat oven to 350°F, grease a 9 x 13” pan and line the bottom with parchment.
2. In a small microwave safe bowl (or in a pot over medium-low heat), gently melt the chocolate (use no higher than MEDIUM power so chocolate won’t scorch). Set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together flours, isolated soy protein powder, flaxseed, baking powder, salt and cocoa. Set aside.
4. In a food processor puree tofu, granulated sugar and brown sugar until smooth.
5. Add melted chocolate, vanilla, canola oil, and soy milk to the processor and blend in well.
6. Add the dry mixture to the ingredients in the processor. Pulse in until just incorporated, do not allow processor to run continuously.
7. Add miniature chocolate chips and pulse in briefly, just to mix in.
8. Scrape into the prepared pan, smoothing the top.
9. Bake for 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out with moist crumbs (but not wet batter).
10. Cool completely in the pan before cutting and serving. Frost if desired.

Here’s what I changed about the method:
I don’t own a food processor so I used rotary beaters to cream the tofu and sugars. I added half the dry ingredients at a time, first beating with the beaters, then folding the second half with a wooden spoon. In the “olden days” they didn’t have food processors and stand mixers. When 25 minutes was up the batter still seemed raw (a knife came out with wet batter) so I put it back in for ten minutes.

What might have gone wrong:

• I fear that the hemp powder might make it taste kind of sandy. Maybe soy or rice would have been better choices.
• After plopping it into the pan I decided that the pan was too big and the batter too thick, so I transferred the mixture back into the bowl, added a few more splashes of milk and stirred after each addition, watching for consistency. Then I put it into my smaller cake pan (greasing another pan, cutting another square of parchment, dirtying another pan).

Smells awesome.

They will be tasted when cooled, this post will be updated*. Then the brownies will go to work and to one of the yoga studios.

I was tempted to make these gluten free but was afraid of doing too much experimenting. Without eggs it’s got one less thing to make it rise. It’s still got baking powder, but I suspect that it might still need the gluten. On the other hand, it would be a tasty experiment even if it ‘failed’.

Eat well, be well.

*update: They’re tasty with an intense chocolate taste, a bit crumbly but also dense. There’s something not “normal” about these and I suspect that it’s the hemp but maybe that’s all in my mind because that’s what I expected.

Update:
Now with photo. Ta dah! (I don’t excel at food photography. Perhaps I need a photographer houseboy/housegirl.)

That’s cinnamon on top.

Food baking, chocolate, cooking, vegan, vegan baking

On Monday I made cookies. I subsequently composed a post about it with the intention of posting it the next day but didn’t get to it (was busy at work and in the evening I settled in with two episodes of Angel, season 7). Here it is, as promised on Facebook:

Last month I came across Meghan’s recipe for Ultimate Healthy Cookies. I’ve now made them three times. After the first two I learned that the oven temperature could come down from 350 to 325. They burn easily. What other modifications have I made? I use a gluten-free flour blend that I bought on sale once at a natural food store. The first time I made them, and today, I used almond pulp leftover from making almond milk. The time in between I used almond meal (ground almonds).

The last two times I’ve used Ghiradhelli 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate chips. Today instead of just using apple sauce or apple puree I pureed a peach (microwaved it first, though if I had patience I’d have cooked it in the oven) and then topped it up with apple sauce. The batter seemed too thin so I put in some wheat germ, using up a bag that had been sitting in my freezer for years (oh, how I enjoy cleaning out). The raw honey I used, this brand, was actually raw honey with propolis. I bought it last week for the first time to try. I’m not a fan of the taste.

Today’s cookies [Monday's] taste too sweet and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the honey. Next time I’ll use less. I’m also wondering if all of the beneficial properties of propolis are lost when cooked.

I wish that the taste of the peach had come through in the final product but it didn’t.

I took the cookies to acquaintances and friends on Monday. All seemed to like them (or pretended to) even though they weren’t my favourite. I’ll keep working at it.

Try these cookies, and use your own modifications. Then tell me what you did and how they are.

Eat well, be well.

[Ed: Damn, I need to remember to start taking photos!]

Food baking, cooking

I used up the last of my store-bought almond milk today and took a look at the ingredient list.

From the box of Almond Breeze^®, original:

purified water, evaporated cane juice, almonds, tricalcium phosphate, sea salt, potassium citrate, carrageenan, soy lecithin.

The website (a U.S. website for the company based in Sacramento CA) lists the following ingredients as well: Dalpha- tocopherol (natural vitamin e), vitamin a palmitate, vitamin d2.

Not bad, actually. Let’s see what Wikipedia has to say about some of these ingredients, shall we?

Tricalcium phosphate is generally used in powdered spices as an anti-caking agent, rising agent and nutritional supplement. I’m guessing that here it is the added calcium, 20% Daily Value per 1 cup (240mL) serving.

Potassium citrate “may be used to control kidney stones due to either uric acid or cystine.” “effective in reducing the pain and frequency of micturition when these are caused by highly acidic urine.” “an effective way to treat/manage gout and arrhythmia,” “widely used to treat urinary calculi (kidney stones), and is often used by patients with cystinuria.” “also used in many soft drinks as a buffering agent.”

I guess in this case it’s the buffering agent, which “adjusts the pH of a solution.” I’d like to know why almond milk needs a buffering agent. Anyone know?

Carrageenan: Now here’s one that I know about. Without looking it up, I can tell you that  it’s a thickener. Sea vegetable based, I think.

Soy lecithin: An emulsifier. Again, this is something I know.

Evaporated cane juice: A sweetener

The other ingredients are vitamins. .

The Blue Diamond/Almond Breeze has nutritional information on their website.

The empty carton in front of me indicates 10% Daily Value of vitamin E, 0% vitamin A (though the American website indicates a vitamin A additive), 2% iron, 10% phosphorus (from the tricalcium phosphate or naturally occurring?) and 6% magnesium.

What’s in home made almond milk?

Almonds, water, and sweetener such as dates. I used hazelnut flavoured agave nectar as sweetener yesterday.

1 cup (143g) of whole almonds is rich in protein, containing an equal amount of protein and carbohydrate, which is mostly fiber. Almonds are high in monounsaturated fat and contain some polyunsaturated fats. They’re high in Vitamin E, magnesium, copper and phosphorus, have a huge amount of manganese and contain a fair bit of of calcium and iron

I know that the nutrition of almonds and the nutrition of almond milk aren’t the same because most of the almond is left behind in the processing. I don’t know if any nutrients – and how much – is present in the resulted liquid. I’d be interested to find out, though. Does anyone know? I tried finding the information but a misleading headline gave me nutritional information for almonds, not almond milk.

Finally, of course one cup of liquid is not equivalent to one cup of nuts. This isn’t really an accurate comparison (I guess you could say it’s a “diluted comparison” if you like plays on words) but it’s an interesting one. I did the research because I’m a nerd like that.

Additional reading:

• NutritionData
• WHFoods: Does packaged almond milk provide the same health benefits as whole almonds?

Eat well, be well,
Canadianfoodiegirl.

Uncategorized cooking, health, nutrition

Been intending to post about this for quite awhile, but a tweet that I made alluded to it and since my tweets appear in my blog, I thought it was time.

Introduction

Ever since I moved out of my parents’ house at 19 I’ve been accumulating recipes in a binder. What began with recipes photocopied from cookbooks and newspapers, and photocopies of newspapers, expanded. Since around 2000 I’ve been accumulating recipes from websites.  I prune every so often, but for every few that get thrown into the recycle bin there are many more that get added. I’ve increased binder size at least twice and at some point in late 2008 added a second, smaller binder, using it for desserts, beverages and holiday recipes.

My process for recipe collection

While scrolling through blogs and other websites I’d see a recipe I like and either print it straight from the website or copy and paste it into a Word document. Most often it was the latter. I often had a file in progress of recipes that were copied, pasted and formatted (Arial, 10 or 11 pt font with 12-14 pt title, sometimes ingredient lists made into two columns to save lateral space) and eventually printed. I find most recipes in blogs – either the main post or in the comments – and blog pages don’t print well.

At the bottom of most of the recipes I’d note the source URL – the exact page – so that I could go back in case I needed to reprint, wanted to see photos and/or context or wanted to see the blog comments.

Enter the laptop

In February my desktop computer died leaving my laptop, which I’ve had for a year and a half (20 months) as my only computer. At that point I realized that I could have been using my laptop in my kitchen for the past year and a half. Then it occurred to me: Most of the recipes from that binder are available online. This was the genesis of an ongoing project. Going through the recipe binders, finding the recipes online and bookmarking them in Google Bookmarks.

The benefits of this:

1. Losing the heavy binder.
2. Recycling all the current pages.
3. Saving paper by not printing out new recipes. This equals less clutter in my apartment and less environmental impact, though I realize that the paper is being made whether or not I buy it.
4. Saving money on paper and toner (though negligible).
5. Everything is organized by category. I currently have 32 categories in Google Bookmarks, whereas my binder has fewer.
6. I can place recipes in more than one category.
7. Way easier to find what I’m looking for. Hypothetical scenario: I return home from picking up my weekly CSA selection with some kohlrabi and want recipe ideas because really, I have no idea what to do with kohlrabi and hadn’t even heard of it until I participated in the CSA two yeas ago.
   I go to Google Bookmarks, type “kohlrabi” into the search box, click “search bookmarks” and find every recipe I’ve got that mentions kohlrabi. Of course, I could just do a regular Google search, and I’m sure I will. [This reminds me that I need to find and bookmark recipes for kohlrabi because I don't have any.]
8. Google Bookmarks has a “notes” field. I’ve used it for recipes that I’ve previously made. For example, the recipe for “Swiss Chard with Tomatoes and Chickpeas” had a note on it written in pen. Now that note is in the bookmark: “Don’t add too much water. Add small amount at first. Finish with chili flakes and Gomasio. Try fleur de sel”.

The only disadvantage that I foresee: Getting food on the keyboard,  possibly a reason that my backslash key currently isn’t working. Also, I might want to back up my bookmarks even though they’re online.

Having the URLs at the bottom of printed recipes has been helpful because I can go back to the website. For example: The printed recipe for “Pasta with Roasted Eggplant and Tomato” from Serious Eats, posted last September, has a direct link at the bottom of the page so I can either type out the entire URL, which I seldomly do, or go to the SE (etc.) website and search for the recipe for bookmarking. Where I don’t have the URL at the bottom I Google the recipe name.

I tweeted the following today:

“Amusing typo while googling: Instead of typing “sauteed rainbow chard with raw beets” I typed “sauteed rainbow chart with raw beers”.

It was a recipe from The Kitchn and I hadn’t noted the source. Mmm, rainbow charts with raw beers.

I started in project in March, I think, and am well into the binder despite it not being a daily task. I’m onto the “vegetable” section after clearing out “favourites”, breakfast,  muffins, breads, appetizers/dips, soup, salad, grains, and pasta. The main binder has around 15 categories (a main index of 10 tabs was further subdivided at one point) whereas, as mentioned above, my bookmarks so far have 32 categories,  including “favourites” and “must try”.

It’s satisfying to throw out a huge stack of completed pages. This has also given me an opportunity to throw out recipes that I didn’ t want to keep. The final phase will be scanning recipes that I couldn’t find online (magazine photocopies, some of the original newspaper photocopies) and saving them as PDF on my server at canadianfoodiegirl.com. I’ll then bookmark those.

I still have cookbooks that I buy, and I enjoy those. I enjoy reading through cookbooks as regular books and I’d like to grow my collection. I’m happy to be freeing myself from the big-ass recipe binder – and it does feel freeing.

Eat well, be well.

Uncategorized books, cooking

Last week I decided that on Friday I’d make dinner for two. Of course being a food enthusiast, reader of food media and food blog writer, I had some ideas. However, I decided to consult my friend who writes the blog In The Weeds. After all, he’d helped out another friend with a similar dilemma and I know that he enjoys menu planning. (Dear Friend, how should I refer to you in posts since you don’t publish your real name online?)

He thought about it and sent me two recipes, a fish and a lamb. After deciding on the fish, with modification indicated below, I googled for similar recipes and found the one that he’d sent me. The recipe: Red Snapper en Papillote. Now, I know that Mark Bittman recently got in trouble at grist.org for using red snapper. Apparently it’s one of the most endangered species in U.S. waters. Bittman replied to that page with an apology and explanation. I’d never made red snapper before, and darn it, I wanted to make red snapper. Hence my now often cited trip to St. Lawrence Market on Friday. (Seriously, I’ve never mentioned the market more often than I have in the last five days).

The original recipe from Gastronomie.

Red Snapper en Papillote

• 2 snapper (or other firm-fleshed white fish) fillets
• 2 medium yukon gold potatoes, sliced paper thin
• 1 red onion, sliced thin
• 2 stalks green garlic, sliced thin
• 1 lemon, preferably Meyer
• 10-12 cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1 tbsp dried Fines Herbes (tarragon, thyme, chervil, parsley)
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Read on for directions, photos, etc.

I almost passed on the recipe when I got to the second ingredient. I neither have a food processor nor a mandoline slicer and my knife skills are not that accurate. Then I remembered that I rarely cook exactly to recipe.

Green garlic, also known as garlic scapes or garlic shoots, is similar to green onion (or scallion). It’s the shoots from the bulb of garlic. There’s a good description of green garlic here, and I actually remember the headline “My Friend the Garlic Scape” published in the Washington Post almost a year ago.¹ Green garlic/scapes/shoots is found in farmer’s markets but I have yet to find it out of season. Garlic scape season is July to August in Ontario.

I already had a container of mixed heirloom tomatoes at home (grown in an Ontario greenhouse) so I chose to use those rather than buy cherry tomatoes. I decided to use asparagus because I’d bought some earlier in the week at Fresh and Wild in Bloor West Village, along with the tomatoes and a bunch of kale.

My adaptation:
Red Snapper en Papillote

• 2 snapper fillets
• 1 red onion, sliced thin
• 1 Meyer lemon
• A bunch of asparagus, blanched & cut into smallish chunks (depending on the size of the bunch you might not need the entire thing  – see sides below)
• Mixed heirloom tomatoes, cut up (I think I started with 5 and added more)
• 1 tbsp Tarragon, thyme, parsley
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 450º.
2. Season the snapper on both sides with kosher salt & fresh-cracked black pepper. Set aside.
3. Lay out a piece of aluminum foil large enough to enclose both pieces of fish*. On top of that, lay a piece of parchment.
4. Next, layer on two-thirds of the onions, and half the tomatoes. Sprinkle this mixture with the zest and juice from half a lemon.
5. Lay the fish on top of the vegetables, and squeeze the juice from the remaining lemon half over the top (okay, I forgot to squeeze the lemon the second time). Season with salt & pepper, and drizzle with half the olive oil.
6. Top the fish with the remaining vegetables (remaining onions and tomatoes, asparagus), and the herbs. Drizzle with remaining olive oil.
7. Bring up the sides of the foil/parchment, and pinch closed; roll the ends tight to make a sealed pouch.
8. Bake at 450º for 22 minutes (or 18 minutes for flakier fish).

*This was suggested as a footnote in the original recipe and I decided to take the suggestion because foil is sturdier and I felt that it was less likely to fall apart than flimsy parchment paper. I also didn’t know the quality of my supermarket-purchased parchment.

Neither of us ate the onion because it was too strong but it provided aromatics.

Side dishes:

Inspired by the potatoes in the original recipe I roasted a combination of white and red baby potatoes in olive oil and a bit of kosher salt, and finished them with truffle salt.

After washing a bunch of kale and removing the stems I combined the kale and a splash of water in a large pan. I covered the pan (with another pan), and cooked the kale over medium-high heat, tossing occasionally with tongs, until the kale was bright green and tender. When it was almost finished I threw in some of the asparagus that didn’t make it into the fish. After removing from heat I tossed the kale with some balsamic vinegar.

I took some photos, but they are at home whereas I am not. I will update this post.

---

¹ Perhaps the headline reminds me of the title of a Freaks and Geeks episode called “Kim Kelly is my Friend”.

Uncategorized cooking

Today I attended Meghan’s Cooking Cosmetics: Natural Body Care workshop. I had my camera and intended to take photos for the blog but forgot to use it. I was having too much fun. Meghan’s mom came in and took a couple of photos so maybe they’ll be on Meghan’s blog. Most of what was demonstrated we took home.

What we made:

• Chocolate Face Mask – the only product we made to taste and didn’t take home.
• Almond Oat Cleansing Meal
• Apple Lip Balm
• Cocoa Butter Dry Skin Lotion (one of my favourites)
• Epsom Salt Bath Soak
• Everyday Toothpaste (see her recent blog post with video), in which she replaced her usual peppermint oil with the Thieves Blend as per my suggestion.  A blend of clove, lemon, cinnamon bark, eucalyptus, and rosemary,  I’m in love with the Thieves line. I use the foaming hand soap. It’s antiseptic, non-drying and smells amazing. Other products in the Thieves line include dental floss, mouthwash, toothpaste (and an “oral care kit” with all three), lozenges, household cleaner, waterless hand purifier, wipes and hand soap. Buy it through Meghan or my mother.

I could post recipes here but I’d rather you sign up for one of Meghan’s workshops for only $40. The date of the next one is TBD but check the workshop listings on her website or her blog.

I left inspired and looking forward to brushing my teeth with my new toothpaste. I bought vegetable glycerine on my way home and look forward to experimenting with her recipe book and inventing some of my own recipes.

My Sunday baking project was the almond bread [link updated] that I’d first discovered through Meghan. The bread turned out more moist and fluffy than last time because last time I only had two eggs and the recipe calls for three. I managed to get arrowroot starch all over myself (black outfit) and the stove, the counter, the sink, and some of the floor. It’s clean now, but first I had to clean the starch off the spray bottle of cleaner.

To those who are wondering if she’s just as adorable in person as she is in the videos she posts on her blog, the answer is yes.

I’ll stop now, lest I start to creep her out.

Coming up: Two posts regarding food activities on Friday.

Uncategorized Add new tag, Beauty, cooking, cosmetics, health

[I began this post at 5pm, had to abandon it unfinished at 6:47 to get my butt to seder that was to begin at 7 but didn't begin until 8, and finished after.]

[April 9, 3:10pm: Edited to make it a bit shorter.]

I apologize in advance for the length, because I generally don’t have the patience to read anything that’s this long.

Occasionally I read something that makes me smack my head with disbelief, as in, “I can’t believe he/she wrote that.” I wasn’t going to post about this. I wasn’t going to comment on Corey Mintz’s  article in last Saturday’s Toronto Star about an unconventional passover seder. I first noticed it in Taste T.O.’s weekly Saturday feature In the Papers (April 4). I starred the Taste T.O. post in Google Reader, unsure if I wanted to read about it again, post about it, or go there in general. It seemed like an article I had to bookmark. So, I thought “Mintz, you ass.” and moved on. I wasn’t going to address it here.

Sometimes I begin comments in response to blog posts and find that that they’ve become opinion pieces or diatribes.  Well, that sort of lead me to this post, except that I wasn’t commenting to a blog post.

Another fact about me (one was revealed on Monday): I briefly worked in radio a couple of years ago. While between careers around 2003 (?),  and then on a casual part time basis through 2008, I worked for Rogers Broadcasting, which owns Jack FM, CHFI, 680 News and The Fan 590 in Toronto. One of the first people I met there was  Maurie, who had been a producer on Jack FM’s morning show until the station went to a DJ-free format.

Maurie is my Facebook network. and today he posted audio of an interview that he did with Dave Trafford at CFRB 1010 earlier today, an interview which he was recruited to do in response to Corey’s article.  A lot of Jews listen to Newstalk. I grew up listening to CFRB in the car when Andy Barrie was still on air there (now I listen to him every morning on CBC). The interview is not on CFRB’s website nor do I know if it will be.  Maurie posted it as a video link. It may or may not be accessible to you. It may or may not be copyright infringement.

The interview with Maurie and CFRB’s Jessica Baker was good. Their messaging was basically, “The seder is mostly about family, we enjoy the family time and the festival meal, we don’t have the patience to read through the whole book beginning to end, we count the pages until the part that says we eat and then we’re done.” Pretty consistent with my experience and that of most people I know. One friend’s family reenacts the plagues with masks and toys, which I think is awesome, and tomorrow I’ll be at a seder hosted by two friends, one of whom is a rabbi, and I’ve been informed that there will be lots of discussion going late into the night. Lots of wine too.

So, Corey’s article…

Read more…

Uncategorized cooking, holidays, Jew food, jewish, passover, Toronto Star

• Certain PRESIDENT’S CHOICE brand products containing pistachios may contain Salmonella bacteria [Health Canada]

• Teaching kids to be restaurant critics. [Toronto Star]

• Showing that people voice their opinion with their wallet: Tropicana Line’s Sales Plunge 20% Post-Rebranding [Advertising age] Coke, New Coke, Coke Classic.

• Why What You Drink May Put On More Pounds Than What You Eat [City News]

• The Kitchn answers, What’s the Difference Between Soy, Rice and Almond Milk? I’d add the following facts:

Soy milk curdles in hot beverages, thus not ideal for coffee.
-Most brands of rice milk are made with sunflower oil, so read ingredients if that concerns you. As I mentioned recently, my preferred brand of rice milk is Ryza. It’s made from brown rice and doesn’t contain oil.
-Not all brands of hemp milk are the same so if you try one and don’t like it try another.

[Generally when chosing between almond, soy, rice or hemp I go for what's on sale within my preferences and always the "plain" or "original" flavour. I won't drink Silk brand. IMO, when Starbucks switched to Silk their beverages started to taste bad. Too bad, since I used to like their chai lattes with soy. I tried unsweetened soy milk once and hated it.  I'd like to make my own almond milk some time. Nut milks are easy to make.]

• Cooking with wine vs. drinking it: Best bottle not always best for the pot [Toronto Star]

• Changes in America’s Soft Drink Consumption Habits [Fooducate]

• TRENDS: American Drinking Habits [The Nibble]

• Caul Fat [The Kitchn]  I don’t know why this fascinated me. I think it’s the look of it and its use. One thing I took away from that item: If you don’t eat pig product you might be eating it anyway if the caul fat from pig is used to make the meat of another animal.

• A guide to which sauces go best with which noodles [Chow]

• A quick way to slice cherry tomatoes. Brilliant. [Saveur]

• On a fun note: What kind of foodie are you? (And before you share this on Facebook ask yourself: Do I really need to post another quiz?) [Time Out New York]

Your Score: 66. Sorry to break it to you, but you’re a Bona Fide Foodie Elitist. Looks like your love of fancy foods has given you a bit of a tude, hasn’t it? Go sit in the corner with your shad roe.

WTF is “shad roe”? Yes, I’ll look it up.

• On Passover: Considering Child Slavery on Cocoa Farms [The Jew and the Carrot]

• Meghan, this one’s for you: Spring Cleansing? [The Jew and the Carrot]

• Matza 101: Eggrolls, Tacos, Anyone? [kosher.com] My mom makes matzah lasagna.

• Final passover note: Every year the UJA of Greater Toronto takes financial donations for their Passover Food Drive for the Jews of Cuba. Check it out.

Have a great weekend!

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• Tropicana’s poor redesign kills sales (kottke.org)

Uncategorized cooking, health, Health Canada, holidays, Jew food, Kitchn, links, local