Apple Quinoa Salad and much much much much more.

Apple Quinoa Goodness.

This week was interesting. My Mom and Grandma came to stay. Mon and Tues was just my Mom and so I was able to cook the first 2 things on my meal plan: Monday night was Sweet potato and Sage Risotto (we all decided this tasted like an old english meal, that reminded you of green pastures and sheep, for some reason); Tuesday: Roast Chicken and Saag.

Then on Wednesday my Grandma came to stay and voila, she turned the place into a delicatessen! We now have about 5 different types of cold cuts, four different cheeses and 2 different breads. I kept telling her I had a meal plan and would like to eat more than open faced buns please (Did I mention I'm breastfeeding??)! But she didn't seem to follow.

Friday night after the third night of buns in a row, I cooked a secret Mexican enchilada dinner for Carm and I (We pretend our kitchen table is whatever type of Cafe we feel like that day. So we spent Friday night in a Mexican Cafe').

We kind of ended up having Marcie and Grandma fusion food: for example, Saturday for lunch we had sweet potato and banana curry soup over noodles with farmer sausage.

Saturday night was our friend Keegan's 25th birthday. I offered to bring something and ended up making up an Apple Quinoa Salad which was the perfect refreshing compliment to the main dish which was a spicy Thai soup. Once again I got the recipe for that Salad from here: http://www.cooksrecipes.com/salad/apple_quinoa_salad_recipe.html

While assembing the salad with a dear friend and salad guru, Brittany Bax, we laid down some hard rules when it comes to salads: #1: add everything. #2: keep it crunchy. That way you will always end up with a salad that is POSH (Pimped out SH**).

So, in the spirit of making this salad POSH, I added a can of chickpeas, sprouts and a pinch of smoked peprika....because it makes everything better.

Today Carmen and I went for our usual Sunday shop, and I found a jewel: a 21 oz package of whole indian spices (Garam Masala). They are so beautiful! For $6.99. Yes. One more reason to love my neighborhood.

(http://www.orlandosidee.de/Fotos/Gewuerzmischungen_Miscela_di_Spezie_Seasoning/Garam%20Masala.jpg)

So, that was my week for food. Quite a mixed bag.                                                        marcie

this is for everyone

hey guys please e-mail us your recipes so we can share. with all. much love.

Deliciousness this week

Dinners this week went something like this:

Mexican Fiesta Potluck, Eggplant curry, Pesto Fettucine Salad, Red Thai Curry with Pork, and (take out) Butter Chicken Pizza.

My two favorites this week: My addition to the Mexican Potluck was a Mexican Chocolate Cake. The other winning meal was the Pesto Fettucine Salad. Both so easy and delicious. So here are the recipes.

Mexican Chocolate Cake with Spicy Chocolate Ganache:

I just used a no-name chocolate cake mix that was for a single layer cake. I pre-heated the oven to whatever the package said. I poured the mix into a bowl and added about 3/4 t cinnamon, and a pinch of cayenne pepper. The cake mix called for 1/2 cup of water. Instead I added 1/4 cup sour cream and 1/4 cup water, and of course an egg. Because the batter looked a tad thick I splashed in a bit more water until it looked right, and a pinch of baking soda, even if just for good luck! I poured that into a oiled and floured bunt pan and stuck it in the oven.

Mexican Chocolate Ganache:
This was the clincher! Just heat one cup of milk on the stove. Stir in 1 T of vanilla or 2 T rum. Pour 1 cup of chocolate chips into a bowl and set aside. When the milk is ready to boil turn off the stove and slowly pour 3/4 of the milk into the bowl with chocolate chips while stirring. It should look thick and syrrupy. Put that in the fridge for 20-30 min. When ready, mix in the rest of the milk to your liking. I like this to be the texture of butter but sometimes it turns out a little more runny. You can stir in 1/8 t of Cayenne pepper for a little warmth.

This combo turned out delicous and I'm sure going to make it again.

 My other favorite this week was the cold salad: Pesto Fettucine. I got the basic recipe from here:
http://www.cooksrecipes.com/salad/spinach_and_pasta_salad_recipe.html

The only difference: I didn't have a red onion and I don't like the other ones raw. I also didn't have pine nuts. So I sauteed one small white onion with some cashewnuts and added that to the mix instead. For some protein I boiled up one can of chickpeas and threw them in too. I added about 1/4 cup of feta and a little more lemon juice. Then I tasted it at the end and decided an apple would just throw this off the hook. So chopped one up and threw it in. I also added a little more fresh ground pepper.

I found a lot of other great ideas from http://www.cooksrecipes.com/ when I googled "entree salad recipes."

Not only are these great for dinners, they are great to take for work the next day because they are meant to be cold.

Yay for delicious food!!                                            marcie

Marcie's introduction to kinfood.

"When we cultivate food in our backyards, we nurture it; in return, it nourishes us. Food is an integral part of our lives--not just at mealtime. Food is natural and unaffected.


In contrast, modern North America reduces food to a commodity that is manipulated, genetically engineered, irradiated, manufactured, or enriched and fortified. Food is fast-fast-food resteraunts, meals in minutes, instant this and instant that. We fill our physical fuel tanks with as much abandon as we fill our car fuel tanks--fast and full--and sometimes at the same stations.


When we make food in integral part of our lives and our homes, it becomes a part of our theology. We are connected to our food--cultivating it, preserving it, and preparing it. We are nurturers instead of consumers."

-Mary Beth Lind, pg viii in More with Less

For me, to eat better and to appreciate food more, I needed to understand some stuff.

More with Less, by Doris Janzen Longacre, and The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan really helped to blossom that understanding, and give me and my husband an idea of how to think like global citizens when it comes to eating.

Also, I travelled the world, tasting different cusine from India, Nepal, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Viet Nam. That also helped with the global citizen thing.

Also, we moved to BC, where plums and figs and pears grow on neighborhood trees, clustering so thick that the branches hang into alleyways, the fruit growing so succulent and juicy, until it splats on the pavement below, unless you valiantly intervene! Where blueberries and apples and peaches and rasberries have fertile soil and lots of rain to help them grow. BC should really be called Eden.

I think before we can answer the big question "what to make for dinner" we need to take a few steps back and fall in love with food. Real food. Not the way advertizing tries to make a burger look good. We need to be in awe of how many things you can do with a tomato. Or the way a carrot tastes fresh out of the garden. Or the way grain fields look in the prairies. Or how hundreds of countries around the world are doing different things with the same things, and this has been happening for thousands of years.

Next we need to start salivating over cookbooks. Go to the library and pick out ones with pictures. Make yourself a cup of tea and leaf through the pages. Make a list of the things that really stand out. Then when you head to the market it does not seem so overwhelming.

I like to organize my cooking like this: monday is crockpot day; tuesday is casserole/curry/stir fry day; wednesday is leftover day; thursday is try-and-use-something-from-the-freezer-day; friday is salad-as-entree day; and weekends I don't cook. And all the weekdays usually get mixed up...but I need something to work with, and this helps.

Lastly, when you cook, love yourself. Do it as a gift to yourself. When you sit down to eat, remember that you are nurturing your body. Chew slowly. Enjoy every bite.

So, those are Marcie's food thoughts in a nutshell.

Valentine's Day cupcakes

Valentine's day - love, flowers, and of course, chocolate. I was going to have a little party with some friends but unfortunately came down with some mysterious illness yesterday, so had to cancel. But I'm still going to make the cupcakes. Just for me and Max. And maybe we'll share with Aaron. :)

This is my adaptation on the all-time favourite wacky cake recipe. It's sooooo easy, moist, and yummy. I have changed it a bit to make it mini-cupcakes, lowering the cooking time and adding a bit of a different flavour twist by using pure almond extract instead of vanilla. (note of warning. My husband, who likes things "the way they should be" didn't like the almond flavour. So use vanilla if you are married to that kind of person.) Usually I like to make cream cheese icing but don't have any cream cheese here today. So plain old buttercream it is. Failproof. I added some raspberry jam to give it that valentine's pink - yummy! (I am not a fan of food colouring.)


Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour (or, use half whole wheat and half all purpose.)
1 cup organic cane sugar (I always use it in place of white. But use white if you must.)
4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
A few shakes of salt
1 tsp pure almond extract
1 tablespoon vinegar
6 1/2 tablespoons oil (vegetable or canola)
1 1/4 cup lukewarm water

Icing:
1/4 cup butter, soft (not melted. leave it out all day till it's SOFT.)
2(ish) cups powdered icing sugar
1 tablespoon whipping cream or milk
1 tsp vanilla or almond extract
1 tablespoon raspberry jam

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix all dry ingredients for cupcakes in a big bowl. Make three little wells in the ingredients, pour the almond extract in one, the vinegar in another and the oil in the third. Pour water over all of it. Mix thoroughly, pour into mini-cupcake trays lines with liners. Bake for 10 - 12 minutes or until you insert a toothpick and it comes out clean.

Whip together icing ingredients. Ice cupcakes once they have been cooled.
Pictures to follow.                                                                                                   julie

What is kinfood?

When my sister Marcie called me from Vancouver the other day, holding her new baby Spencer, she pitched a question my way. "I don't know quite how to word this, but - what do you make for supper? How do you find the time? Can we somehow share recipes and ideas to help each other with this?" I immediately responded with a yes - I've been thinking of trying this for some time, to start collecting and sharing favourite recipes. We asked our friends if they would like to share our idea - and they do. So here we go. Start your ovens. Day one.