Deep Dish Blueberry Pie

I've been busy with my top-secret superhero missions and life has also tossed me a few squirrely balls to boot. And when I'm not dealing with all that, I'm running away from to feed my soul with a bit of this:









Or else I'm over here feeding my soul:

The 'Snout' at Arrowsmith.







Doing silly things like this:

That's me!.







Despite the summer mayhem and general chaos, along with my mini-escapes to feed my soul, I've still managed to keep on my 100 Mile Diet journey. I'm pretty much relying on cooking up a big batch of meat and veggies and mixing and matching those with salad greens to see me through several days. Having a big tupperware of boiled Vancouver Island new potatoes, a couple of loafs of bread from Flour, Water, Salt bakery and a menagerie of pickled vegetables that I canned from last year helps round off any meal.
Our latest BBQ dinner party involved a couple of gorgeous locally raised steaks from Piper's. The meat was marinated and then thrown onto the BBQ with some of the Asian BBQ sauce (nope, still not tired of that one yet) and I added a bunch of veggies from my weekly organic produce box and the farmer's market.

The steak that fed us for 3 days ;)







I sliced the steak thinly and let everyone do what they wanted with it. Some folks made themselves a big salad with the fresh greens, some roasted veggies and a few slices of meat.






I stacked meat and veggies onto a slice of baguette from Flour, Water, Salt, for jaw stretching open-faced sandwich.






The leftover meat was carried over onto other dishes including a Fast and Dirty Beef and Broccoli:
Talk about easy peasy. Since the meat was already cooked, all I had to do was stirfry up some garlic and broccoli from my produce box and throw in some leftover roasted peppers and the meat. A few glugs of soy sauce and dollop of Asian BBQ sauce and dinner was ready in less than 10 minutes.




For one of my lunches, I took some leftover potatoes, roasted veggies, some pickled beets, beet greens, fava beans and made a nice little meal. A splash of balsamic vinegar was all I used to dress it.





Of course, this is also blueberry season and one of my favorite ways to enjoy blueberries is in a fresh blueberry pie. Dudinks Gardens, Blue Harvest farms and other farms have yummy local berries for U-pick or farm gate sales. Please support your local farms! They're having a rough year with the crazy weather and the even crazier government bureaucracy. Here's a list of local farms and farmers markets.

I make a 'deep dish' berry pie because it's all about the berry filling as far as I'm concerned. I use a 9-inch springform pan (the sort you use for cheesecakes) and a filling base that uses nothing more than berries, sugar, a bit of cornstarch and lemon juice. It's worlds better than that powdered crap in the pouch. It's an super no-fuss pie to make and it showcases the fresh goodness of blueberries. If you're not in the mood to make a pie, swing by Grandma's Country Pies on 3018 Ross Road (beside Nanaimo Sausage House).

I don't add any extra sugar to my graham cracker crust since I find that the graham crackers are sweet enough on their own. The cinnamon and ginger help bring out some sweetness too. I also keep the sugar amount pretty low for the filling base since I'd rather enjoy the natural sweetness of the blueberry.

Here's my Fast & Dirty Deep Dish Blueberry Pie:

Crust:
3 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger (optional)

Combine ingredients and press firmly and evenly into the base and sides of a 9 or 10 inch springform pan. I press the crumb mixture a good couple inches up the wall of the pan so you have nice deep crust.

Bake in a preheated 350F oven for 15-20 minutes or until the edges are starting the brown.

Let cool on rack while you prepare the filling.

Filling
8 cups fresh blueberries
1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoon cornstarch mixed with 3 tablespoons of water = slurry
juice of one lemon

Take 1 1/2 cups blueberries, water, sugar and bring to a boil in a large pot, lower the heat and let simmer for a few minutes until the berries are cooked down. You want to use a pot big enough so you can later dump in the rest of the blueberries and have room to mix it. It will save you from dirtying another bowl. I mean, what would you rather do? Eat blueberry pie or do dishes??

Take filling base off the heat and add in the cornstarch slurry. Mix well.

Return the pot to the medium high heat and bring back up to a boil. Stir continuously until the mixture thickens. You want something as thick as ectoplasmic goo but not so thick that your spoon will stand up in it.

Turn off the heat and stir in the lemon juice.

Add in the rest of the blueberries and fold the base and berries together until the berries are well coated.

Dump filling into the cooked pie shell. Let it cool on rack for 15 minutes and then into the fridge for at least an hour for the filling to finish setting.
Pace around the house, sneak a few blueberries off the top of the pie. Re-arrange the berries to hide the berries that you stole off the pie. Impatiently pace around the house some more.

One good way to make the time go faster is to wander over to the store and get some vanilla ice cream to go with your pie ;)

I'm off to the Saltspring Island Natural Fibre Fest this weekend with my tribe of weaver, spinner and knitters. Have a great weekend. Go visit and farmer's market or a farm. For those that are thinking about putting together a winter veggie garden, the Community Gardens is holding a winter plant sale at 271 Pine Street on Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 2pm.

Happy Eating!

Jen

Rhubarb Rhapsody

Rhubarb is popping up all over the island. Check out your local farm market and farmer’s market for this tart and yummy vegetable. Nanaimo’s Foodshare and Community Gardens is also hosting it’s Rhubarb Festival this Saturday. It’s being held at the Foodshare Centre on 271 Pine Street from 10am to 2pm on May 5. There will be fresh local rhubarb and other goodies for sale. Gardening experts will be available to answer your green thumb questions and tours of the community gardens will be given.

I adore rhubarb. I love it in pies, chutneys, jams, cakes, stewed, baked or simply dipped into a bit of sugar. I find that most recipes overwhelm this tangy veggie with way too much sugar in an effort to pummel its tart nature into submission. For shame! It’s charm is its tartness and it’s ability to add some zip into a dessert. Like cranberries, it also goes surprisingly well with some dark chocolate. I definitely have to experiment with a rhubarb chocolate chip sweet roll or muffin soon...

Usually I just chop up a couple pounds of rhubarb, along with a couple green apples and whatever else I have (plums, peaches, cranberries, blueberries), a pinch of cinnamon and couple tablespoons of local wildflower honey. I simply stew it up over low heat with a scant ½ cup of water. The fruit will also release quite a bit of water as well. Cook until the rhubarb is just softened. I usually wait until the end before adding softer fruit like plums and berries.

With my new bounty of rhubarb, I made a Rhubarb Cornmeal Cake. It’s a great fruity cake, perfect for tea time or a nice end to a meal. The recipe is a result of some kitchen experimentation and a craving for rhubarb baked treat.

Looks like the house elf got to the cake before I did ;P

Here’s the recipe:

2 lbs of rhubarb – fresh or frozen – washed and chopped into ½ inch pieces (you could also use other fruits like cranberries, apples, pears, plums, peaches, figs, grapes etc)

½ cup honey (or brown or cane sugar)

Group A - dry ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour ( I used a mix of True Grains bakery’s sifted flour and organic kamut flour)
½ cup polenta or corn meal
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger

Group B

½ cup butter
¾ cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Group C

1 cup whole milk yogurt

1-Mix fruit and honey together and let sit for about 1 hour to macerate. That’s fancy schmancy talk for suck the juices out of the fruit.
2- Preheat over 350F
3-In a medium sized bowl, combine together Group A (dry) ingredients
4-In a mixing bowl, cream together butter, sugar. Once creamed well, add eggs and vanilla = Group B
5-With a spatula or wooden spoon, mix in Group A & C into Group B(butter mixture) alternating between A & C. Combine until it almost just combined. Do NOT overmix
6-Add in macerated fruit and fold in. The batter will look like the dog’s breakfast. Don’t worry, it’ll bake up fine.
7-Pour into a prepared 9-10 inch round pan (I used a 10 inch springform pan) and bake for 40-50 minutes.
8- Check with toothpick for doneness.Let cool on rack and enjoy!

Last night, I had my Spinners’ and Weavers’ Guild meeting and DH had a Guys’ Night In with a friend so we were going to be eating dinner at different times. I whipped up a batch of bison chili in the slow cooker for when the guys surfaced from their video games for a bite and it was piping hot and waiting for me when I got home from my meeting.

At the meeting, I took the opportunity to beg for advice on plying my handspun yarn. I had a roomful of experts that were more than happy to offer their words of wooly wisdom and give me a quick plying tutorial.

With the support and tutelage of my spinning mentors, I managed to finished my first 2-ply 100 mile yarn:

Ain't it sweet? :)

I'm so proud. I have it drying right now. My silly little brain is dizzy with ideas of what I could knit up. For more spinning babble check out my 100 mile fiber blog.

Have a great day!

Jen

100 Mile Diet Nanaimo Challenge

I hate lawns

Monday was spent doing all the stuff that I didn't get to over the weekend. The usual patchwork of housework, offering of sacrifices to the garden gods, sending out rays of my sardonic sunshine to this mad, mad world and dogpaddling my way through my email box. I didn't get to all of this over the weekend because I was in a epic battle against my nemesis, or at least one of them, The Lawn.

I hate lawns. Lawns are stupid. Lawns are evidence that we are stupid.

We're renting our abode at the moment but when we do buy our bit of paradise, there won't be a speck of lawn. There may be grass, but no lawn.

The Lawn is North America's arrogant pronouncement that he has conquered and enslaved nature. It's his way of showing that he has tamed the wild and made it bend at his will. It is his totem of civilization.

Of course, NA, has it's head so far up its arse that it has caused an gastrointestinal traffic jam. In other words, North America is the source of its constipation but is too blind to see because no matter how much sunshine you blow up there, it's still pretty dark.

Yep, we da man. We da man so therefore we feed, medicate, groom and water something simply to chop off it's head once a week! I don't get it. You can't eat it. It doesn't look all that remarkable and thanks to all the herbicides that it needs, it's more enviromentally harmful than it is beneficial. All it seems to do is tell the whole world, 'I'm so wealthy that I can afford to blow all my time, money and energy on this absolutely useless symbol of affluence.'

I don't get it but I had to mow the lawn because it was getting at the length that it would start harboring snakes, wasp nests and pygmy tribes. If it got any longer, I would have to hire a crew of migrant workers with machetes to take it down. So Saturday morning I popped a couple of antihistamines (of course I'm highly allergic to grass pollen) and went out to tackle The Lawn.

The grass had gotten so long that the gas mower blade kept jamming up. It was a inane dance that went something like this:
...5,6,7,8... take 14 pulls to start up the mower, the mower farts out puff of black smoke and growls awake, take two steps forward and have it jam up, shake and rattle the jammed grass out the blades, sashay the mower to already cut area (because it wouldn't start in the tall grass), and back to the top...6,7,8

I soon figured out that it wouldn't jam as much if I pulled the lawnmower backwards over the grass but this also left swirls of uncut grass. So I pulled the dang lawnmower twice over each pass of lawn.

GRRRRRRRR

3 hours later, my right arm aching and sore from constantly trying the start the gas guzzling lawn beast and shoulders and back like pulverized jello from pulling the mower over the lawn twice, I crawled in the shower and washed away the grass pollen, sweat, grime and frustration.

I spent the rest of Saturday recovering from my lawn epic with a pot of tea and an healing afternoon of knitting and an restorative evening of spinning, which is why I was still doing weekend chores yesterday :P

Monday was a total weekend leftovers day. I even finished up some spinning that I had started on Saturday:
It's a Targhee wool that I picked up last summer at the Duncan fibre sale. It's colourway is called 'Active Pass' which is what totally sold me. The kayaker in me couldn't resist such a name. I'm thinking of plying it with a solid cream or chocolate brown.

Dinner was also an affair of leftovers. DH and I went to the gym around 7pm. He went to workout and maintain his jedi powers so he can heal up from his shoulder overhaul. I went to burn off all the extra Energizer Bunny energy I had pent up from a day of puttering.

We got home at half past 8, hungry and tired. From this weekend's leftovers I pulled together a gnocchi with chorizo, spaghetti squash, kale and spinach. The greens were from the garden, the rest was bits and pieces residing in the tupperware condo in the back of my fridge. All of it island grown, of course.

In less than ten minutes we had this:














Dessert was the last pieces of a rhubarb, apple and cranberry pie I made over the weekend.
The fruit is all island grown. Spring rhubarb is finally coming up! Yippee! It was a lovely ruby toned ending to our day.










It's a pie version of my Fast & Dirty Baked Fruit from a family of recipes known as the 'Coppolas' . Here's the pithy recipe for that:

Couple of pounds of rhubarb washed and chopped
Couple of green or other pie apples washed and chopped
Couple of cups of cranberry or other berries
Couple of tablespoons of organic cane sugar or local honey
Couple of teaspoons of cornstarch
Couple of pinches of cinnamon and ground ginger

Toss and mix in large corningware container. Throw into a 350F oven for 40-50 minutes. Let cool and enjoy.

I know you're thinking that there's not enough sugar for that much fruit. If it's not sweet enough, I just drizzle a bit of honey or some grated dark chocolate when it's still warm. I personally find most processed foods and store bought desserts way too sweet. I prefer to let the sunshine sweetness of fruit colour the dish.

This baked fruit is awesome for breakfast with a bit of yogurt and and granola. Or as a topping with some fruit sorbet or vanilla icecream or cake. In a pinch, it can be turned into a chutney with a drizzle of cider vinegar and some spices. I've also used it as a surprise filling in muffins.

Happy Eating!
Jen

Nanaimo's 100 Mile Diet Challenge

Peachy day in on the Rusty Coast

Yesterday was an intensive day of baking and an impromptu knitting lesson and even a wine lesson for me. At the end of the day, I was tired and blissed out on the joys of the day. This was dinner I managed to cobble together:

Island grown free ranged chicken, local onions and BC mushrooms sautéed and deglazed with a glassful of Cherry Point’s Coastal white wine. I finished it the sauce off with a pat or 2 of butter. The veggies are collard greens from Nanoose Edibles and were simple steamed with drizzled with some Marley Farms kiwi vinegar. Talk about 100 Mile Diet heaven!

Usually I would leave the chicken breast in one piece but DH’s left arm is in a sling due to his surgical overhaul. He looks like one part hunky husband and one part gimped T-Rex. LOL! Obviously he can’t use a knife and fork so everything has to be cooked bite-size so he shovel it all into his mouth with one utensil.

I’ve been scheming and dreaming a local wine and cheese tasting evening with my tribe of 100 Milers to celebrate spring and all the wonderful island grown vinos and artisan cheeses. As mentioned before, most island grown wines can be found at independent liquor stores and the gov’t stores do carry 1 or 2 of them. I was poking about a local wine store and struck up a conversation with the clerk, who was an local wine fan. I was informed that many of the vineyards on the mainland are bringing in red wine from as far as Chile to blend into their red wines. YIKES! It’s one of those dark secrets of the wine trade. Not all that Okanogan wine is actually from the Okanogan. Together, the wine clerk and I a bit of research and found that most of the local island wineries are truly locally grown wine. Yippee! Bring on the Bete Noire!

After my mini-wine lesson, I popped by a local yarn store for a mid-afternoon pick me up ;) and ran into my latest knitting apprentice. My apprentice has only been knitting for a month but what a month it has been! From the moment the needles were passed into her hands, it’s been full speed ahead.

Like most knitters, I have the honor of being a doorway to the wide world of knitting for non-knitters. Some just poke their heads in. Others take in a few steps, admire the view and find a nice comfortable spot to chill out or wander along the nicely patterned pathways. Every once in a while, I find someone that wants to explore the backcountry of this whole wide world.

I don’t refer to myself as a knitting teacher but more as a knitting guide. Where would you like to go today? The lovely province of Fair Isle? Perhaps a visit to lacework? How about a little bit of intarsia? It’s a nice day for some cabling.

Everyone learns and travel through this world of knits their own particular way. Some are comfortable and happy following patterns and I’m happy to show them any new techniques that come that way. Some just want to knit scarves and their lucky family and friends will have nice and toasty necks. For some, the quiet, meditative unbroken line of stockinette in the round is a perfect way to relax at the end of the day. I have a couple of knitting apprentices that are happy to experiment on their own terms.

The odd thing I’ve noticed is that despite how good they become, they seem to build a mental block about certain techniques. Some are fine playing around with stitch patterns, experimenting with knit and purl variations but are overwhelmed by the idea of cabling. Others are Aran phenoms but think lace is way beyond their capabilities. Many don’t dare venture beyond the printed page and some can’t fathom the idea of altering a pattern to fit their own bodies. Some (the smart ones) stay far away from doing intarsia.

Take it one stitch at a time, I say. It’s the only way to knit an elephant…or afghan…or…you get the picture.

Once in an indigo moon, I find someone who is eager to learn it all and experiment and be led by imagination and intuition. Such a person is my new apprentice. Who's piping in the ‘Emperor’s Theme’ from Star Wars???

Over a cup of tea taught her how to do short rows, mitering and other shaping techniques. You could almost hear the gears in her head turning as she took this new info and imagined all the spiffy ways to apply it. I can’t wait to see the wonderful knitting that will bloom from this new seed!
Samples of shaping experiments




























For the baking part of the day, I made up a small peach galette. It was pretty easy peasy with a homemade pastry dough I found in the freezer and island grown peaches that I had canned from last summer. A sprinkle of island grown hazelnuts and a 30 minute spin in a 350F oven. A really long 30 minutes. Plus another super long 10 minutes to let the darn thing cool down enough so it would only scorch the roof of our mouths but wouldn’t burn it so bad that strips of skin would peel off.

Yes, it was absolutely divine. It’s during these younger months of the year that have me grateful that I spent the time last summer canning and preserving summer and fall’s bounty. Talk about a lesson in delayed gratification :p

The pastry dough is I used is Fast and Dirty pie dough recipe. I used sifted organic flour from True Grains, island butter and a touch of fair trade cane sugar. A bit of cold water and viola, you have a quick pastry dough. It’s a great pastry dough and it keeps for a few days in the fridge or a few months in the freezer. It’s a brilliant thing to have around for those times that you want a little something special or just because it’s so good to eat!

Have a great day!

Jen

Nanaimo's 100 Mile Diet Challenge

Keep your hands off my buns!

Everyone once in a while I get the yearning for sticky buns. Sticky, gooey, so ilicit that the Marquis de Sade would blush, insulin rollercoaster, hose me down afterwards, yummy buns. Buns made from scratch with real brioche dough and stuffed with cinnamon and brown sugar and whatever goodies float your kayak.

Making sticky buns is a simple task that only needs high quality basic ingredients, patience and a good standing mixer. That and a bit of planning, which I’m always in short supply of, which is why I rarely make them.

Since the dough needs to rise in the fridge for several hours, I usually make my dough the night before and let it chill overnight. The dough I used was a basic brioche which is fancy schmancy talk for eggy rich bread dough stuffed with butter ;) I used Shady Mile’s free range eggs which has gorgeous saffron yellow yolks that gave the dough a rich sunshiny colour. My Kitchen Aid mixer did most of the work of incorporating soft butter in the dough as I sipped my tea and planned for what I could make the next day with my brioche dough.

I decided I would use half the dough to make good old fashion sticky cinnamon buns. The other half would be used for bitter chocolate and cranberry rolls. In the morning I filled and rolled out the buns and let them rise before popping them into the oven.

Here’s what came out:

The sticky cinnamon buns and one of the batch of chocolate cranberry rolls were baked in a pool of brown sugar ‘sticky’ mixture. The extra sticky mixture hardens nicely into toffee-like confection so I usually just pour it all out onto the baking sheet and save it for sprinkling onto ice cream or into cookies.

It’s a good thing that it takes a bit of planning to make these or else I’d be making them all the time and before long, I wouldn’t be able to fit in my climbing harness ;)

I also make them smaller than what the recipe calls for and much smaller than commercial cinnamon buns which rival commercial bagels for oversize absurdity. These are so rich and flavorful that you don't need a huge one to satisfy your sticky bun craving.

I also made a batch of 'non-sticky' bittersweet chocolate & cranberry rolls, one of my favorite breakfast buns! Simple brioche wrapped around chunks of bittersweet organic chocolate and frozen local cranberries, oh, this is what the devil uses as bait. The rolls aren’t very sweet but buttery rich accented with the bitter chocolate and tart cranberries. A more grown-up variation of a sticky roll that goes ever so well with a cup of coffee on a damp, cold early spring day.

I had a minor heart attack during the baking process. As the buns were halfway through their baking, smoke started coming out of the oven! EEK! My precious sticky buns were ruined! Had I turned the oven on too high? Did the timer go off & I didn’t hear it?

Luckily, it was only some of the brown sugar mix that had fallen onto the oven floor and started scorching. Whew! I opened up all the kitchen windows and doors to get rid of the smoke, made myself a cup of tea and sat in front of the oven, & kept watch that the buns made it through the baking process unscorched. I'm not taking any chances people. I don't have it in me to make another batch and who knows when the sticky bun spirit will move me again.

Now I only have to find a safe and secret place to hide them before DH wakes up. What do you mean share? Sharing is for kindergarteners.

Update - To answer Stephanie's comment: Drats! I guess I'll have to wait until your other car is fixed before I bait the trap again ;)

I do freeze them. I just wrap them in foil and toss them in a freezer bag. I do them in 2-3 bun portions so I can pull them out the night before and have just the right amount ready for the next day. The buns do keep for a couple days and a quick zap in the nuke box or a quick oven reheat and they come right back to their yummy, soft selves.

Happy Eating!

Jen

Nanaimo's 100 Mile Diet Challenge

Drunken lamb stew and canned summer

Just a quick update on my pre-St. Patrick Day’s dinner party last night. For the main course, I made up a lamb version of the bison carbonnade.

I used lamb stewing meat from Horizon Heritage Farm in Qualicum Beach, a bunch of roasted local veggies, a bottle of Phillip’s Double Chocolate Porter and some beef stock. The recipe pretty much follows the bison carbonnade recipe. This time, I didn’t bother thicken it as much because I wanted a ‘slurpable’ soup. It’s just seems more satisfying to slurp your way through a intense, meaty broth on a cold and rainy night, IMHO. I also planned to use the leftovers for a lamb and noodle soup.

The stew was delicious. I even impressed myself :)

The meat was tender and flavorful and worked wonderfully with the porter. I let it braise for 1 ½ hours at 300F. You could cut the lamb with a spoon and it had just enough at that unique lamb flavor to give the stew character without being overpowering. Definitely much better than any New Zealand lamb I’ve had to work with in the past. Even DH who isn’t much of a lamb fan loved it and if we didn’t have dinner guests, I think he would have licked his bowl clean. Instead, he had to resign to simply wiping away the last drop of stew with a homemade cheesy biscuit. The biscuits were a basic biscuit recipe with the addition of grated Rathtrevor cheese from Little Qualicum Cheeseworks. The nutty flavor of the cheese complimented the intense and savory stew.














I forgot to take a picture of the biscuits. They went pretty fast ;)

BTW, I got the lamb from Horizon Heritage farm as part of their lamb sampler package. Check out the Nanaimo 100 Mile Diet for info about getting some yourself yummy meats and for other farm gate sales. There’s a resource guide at the bottom of the page.

For dessert, I made a fast and dirty peach and apple crisp with fresh local apples and local peaches that I canned last summer. The peaches were so sweet that I didn’t bother adding any sugar to the fruit. Only a couple teaspoons of cornstarch, the juice of half a lemon and some cinnamon.

I topped it with a crumble topping made with 1/3 cup True Grain’s kamut flour, a couple tablespoons of butter, spoonful of organic cane sugar and pinch of cinnamon. Combine the mixture until it resembles coarse sand and sprinkle over the fruit. Pop it into a 350F oven for 30-45 minutes or until the topping is browned and the fruit is soft. If the topping is starting to brown too much before the fruit is cooked, simply cover your dish with some foil.

It’s certainly nice to have homemade local canned peaches on hand. It's a delicious and much bit of delayed summer gratification in a jar for these caliginous (oh, how I love that word) days.

Have a great weekend!

Jen

Nanaimo’s 100 Mile Diet Challenge

Gone to Seed

Seedy Saturdays and Sundays have been blooming all over Canada. In fact, it seems that every town and city here on the Island has it’s own. Nanaimo’s Seedy Sunday is coming up on March 4^th , pretty much one of the last Seedy events for the island. Just in case you can’t make it to any of these, here are some local seed companies that offer online sales. Some of these are local seed growers and they all offer organic, heirloom/heritage seeds and varieties that you won’t be able to find in your retail outlets.

Saltspring Seeds : They have an amazing variety of heirloom tomatoes and other heirloom or heritage vegetables. They also carry a huge range of beans, soy beans, medicinal herbs and grains.

West Coast Seeds: They offer an extensive list of vegetables and flowers. This company is based in Delta, BC.

Garden Path Nursery: This Victoria organic nursery is dedicated to teaching self-reliance and sustain able living. They carry the ‘Seeds of Victoria’ line of organic seeds. Their 2007 catalogue includes a huge variety of vegetables, flowers and herbs. They also put out a great book on organic gardening called “A Year on the Garden Path”

Happy Valley Lavender and Herb farm is just outside of Victoria. This farm carries a wide array of lavender products made with lavender grown right there on the wonderful smelling farm. They offer a range of lavender seeds and are a great resource for the lavender lover.

For more information about organic seeds and supporting seed diversity, check out the Organic Seed Alliance website.

This weekend is the Maple Sugar Festival here in Nanaimo. Between mouthfuls of poutine and sweet treats like maple toffee, go visit the Jam Lady at Golden Maples Farm, Flavors of the West Coast and the Shady Brook Farm table at the Commercial Tent. There you’ll find locally grown products.

Last night, I had some friends over a knitting session and to watch CSI. It was also another chapter in my month long Chinese New Year feast. Instead of the typical 10-course chinese feast, I opted to do several smaller, more intimate chinese meals.

For dinner, I whipped up a local halibut and Chinese greens in a lime black bean sauce with pan-fried noodles. I love Chinese black bean sauce and it’s deep, savory flavor plays well with the acidic tang of citrus, especially in chicken and seafood dishes. It was nothing more than a basic stir fry. I offered wedges of lime on the side so folks could add as much lime juice as they wanted. This way also keeps the lime flavor sharp and fresh.

Of course, we ended off the meal with my homemade egg tarts.

OMG, they were so good. I definitely am going to make these more often. I'm already scheming up different variations like pumpkin, chai infused and maybe even a caramel and creme brule version.

Have a great weekend everybody!

Jen

Nanaimo’s 100 Mile Diet challenge

Rice Hockey

To celebrate my Chinglishness, I have brought together a Canadian sports institution, hockey, with a Chinese culinary institution, rice, to create a homage to my Chinese-Canadian heritage. I made rice pucks for dinner. That’s risotto cakes for you fancy-schmancy culinary types :p

I used the risotto leftover from Tuesday night's butternut squash risotto. Leftover risotto is alright but the creaminess that defines it has degrades into ho-hum starchiness overnight . Simply nuking the stuff would leave you with splodgy rice pablum. The flavor would still be there but your teeth would get bored of having nothing to do.

Luckily, leftover risotto holds together great and adheres to stuff like panko flakes and cornmeal really well, making it a great candidate for pan-fried pucks of goodness. In fact, I try to make enough risotto for leftovers so I can make these delectable treats. You need leftover risotto, freshly made risotto is still too runny and anyways, the point of this recipe is to use up leftovers.

Here’s my Fast & Dirty Rice Puck recipe:

Cold leftover risotto

Dredging stuff – eg. Flour, cornmeal, breadcrumbs, panko flakes

Seasoning – dried herbs, spices, salt and pepper

Oil for pan frying

1- Scoop out about 1/3 cup (eyeball it) of risotto and shape into a 3/4 inch thick pucks. Wet hands makes this much easier to do. Set aside in a single layer on a plate. Repeat until all the risotto is shaped. You could make them smaller bite size pucks. Don't make them much bigger than 1/2 cup portions . It'll break apart when you try to flip them over.

2- For the dredging, mix together your dredging choice with your seasoning choice. For 8 risotto cakes, I used about ¼ cup of cornmeal with a 1/4 teaspoon of spice mix. Dredge the cakes right before cooking or else the dredging mix will get too soggy.

3- With dry hands, coat both sides of the rice pucks with the dredging mix.

4- Heat up a couple teaspoons of veggie oil over medium heat in a large frying pan. Once hot, arrange rice pucks in a single layer into the pan. Do not crowd the pan. Allow for room between the pucks. If needed, do this in 2 batches.

5- Pan fry for 3-4 minutes on each side or until you get nice golden crust.

6- Transfer done rice pucks with a slotted spatula onto a paper towel lined plate. Keep warm in a 200F oven until ready to serve.

I used a seafood spice mix that my SIL gave us for Christmas. It’s a great mix of Cajun spice with a touch of curry. We also used the spice mix on some local prawns that accompanied our meal. Nothing more than just tossing a spoonful of spice mix with some prawns and sautéing over medium high heat for a few minutes. In fact, I cooked it up in the same pan right after I cooked up the rice pucks, making this a one pan meal done in less than 15 minutes. Some fresh local mixed salad finished off our meal.

The golden crusty exterior was a perfect casing for the soft guts of this rice puck. DH couldn’t stop raving about them. He thinks I’m a culinary genius. I think that maybe we should keep the fact that it took me rubbing 2 brain cells together and 10 minutes to make our little secret. OK?

For dessert, I made dan taht, or egg tarts. Instead of using a flaky pastry dough, I used up the pie dough I had leftover from the sausage rolls I made earlier in the week. I rolled it out ¼ inch thin, cut out 4 inch rounds to line a medium sized muffin pan. I made a basic custard with local free range egg, local milk, sugar, flour and a few drops of vanilla extract. I poured the custard into the the pie crust shells and baked in a preheated 475F oven for 8 minutes. After that I turned the oven to broil for 2 minutes so the tops get all brown and caramelized. If you want, you can sprinkle a little sugar on top of the custard before broiling and get a crème brulee sort of effect. Or you could skip the broiling step altogether.

Custards are easy to make after a few initial burnt and/or curdled attempts. The key is to have everything on hand right beside the stove and be patient. Keep the heat low as you stir and wait for it to thicken. It will thicken eventually. Deny the urge to crank up the heat, you will be punished with a scorched pot and curdled custard.

I managed to squirrel a few egg tarts away for dinner tonight. We’re having some friends over for another small Chinese New Year dinner and a felting workshop. Not sure what I’m going to make for dinner but at least I have dessert covered.

Happy Eating!

Jen

Nanaimo’s 100 Mile Diet Challenge

Bison Carbonnade and crusted -up sausages

My interview about the 100 Mile Diet with Kait Light from Shaw TV is being aired and will be on rotation. Check it out on Shaw TV Channel 4.

After an assiduous week, I was ready for some coccooning yesterday. However, the universe wasn't on the same page. Forgotten errands ricocheted back, phone calls from frantic friends, unexpected visitors, and an uncooperative leaning, rotten backyard fence all conspired to keep me from my coccoon. By the evening, a mild pressure over my right eye blossomed into a full-blown tension headache. By 8pm, with dinner finally going, I settled in with my knitting and a cup of peppermint tea. Not two rows in and our usual unexpected visitor showed up at our door. ACK!!!! I just shut the gate to my personal space and knitted away and let DH deal with them.

Thankfully making dinner was a easy and quick affair. With the last of the Tuscan bean soup being sopped up last night, I was now yearning for a stick-to-your-ribs stew. With a quick look through the freezer, our pantry and fridge, I decided on a Bison Carbonnade.















No, not carbonated bison. Could you imagine the mess that would make?
Bison carbonnade is a fancy schmancy way of saying bison and beer stew. I used a couple pounds of bison stew meat from Island Bison, a bottle of Phillips Double Chocolate Porter.

It's a basic stew recipe. Here's the standard steps for any sort of stew.
1-Brown the meat in oil over medium high. Remove from pot.
2- Brown veggies (onions, garlic, carrots, peppers, celery, mushrooms are the usual suspects)
3- If using, dump in tomato paste. Let it caramelize a bit.
4- Dump in liquid. Bring up to a boil. Scrape all the bits of caramelized yumminess off the bottom.
5- Dump in meat. Dump in aromatics (herbs, spices). Bring heat down to a low.
6- Cover and let simmer until tender. For fresh meat it usually takes from 1-2 hours.

If I'm roasting or baking stuff in a low oven (300F) I'll usually just pop the stew pot into the oven with everything else.
You need enough liquid to just barely cover your meats and veggies. I used beef broth along with the beer as my liquid component. Stuff like potatoes can be added 20 minutes from the end of cooking. You can also wait until the end to add other veggies like peas, corn, greens to prevent them from losing too much colour. This time had leftover roasted veggies which I popped into the oven for 15 minutes to reheat them. To serve, I plopped a scoop of veggies in the bowl ladle the stew around it.

Once the meat is added back into the pot, make sure that the stew does rise back to boiling stage. It should simmer which means that anything livelier than small slowly rising bubbles coming up to surface calls for immediate intervention! Turn down the heat or else you'll end of with Shoe Leather Carbonnade.

We enjoyed our boozed-up bison stew with a glass of Scrumpy cider from Merridale Ciders. A tasty, dry cider that went well with the rich, deep and savory stew.

Remember all that sausage I cooked up in the beginning of the week? I still had a bunch left. I made a batch of sausage rolls for DH. They're nothing more than leftover cooked moose sausages and local bavarian sausages rolled up in some frozen basic pie crust pastry. I baked them at 350F for 30 minutes. My DH thinks I'm a genius. It took all of 2 brain cells to make them but I'm not tell him that ;)

Pie crust is one of those things that I used to be skittish about making. In the past, they'd end up either gooey or tough. The secret to the perfect pastry is to use both really cold ingredients and tools and to not handle the dough more than needed. Overhandling will lead to a tough dough. I usually pop my butter, water and mixing bowl into the freezer to get them good and cold.














Here's my Fast & Dirty Pie Pastry:

3 cups flour - I used sifted organic Red Fife flour from True Grains bakery
2 sticks of unsalted butter
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar (if you're making a sweet goodie. For savories, don't need add)
ice cold water

1- Sift the flour. Add salt and sugar
2- With a cheese grater, grate the frozen butter into the flour. This is easier than working with cubes of butter
3- Mix. Use a pastry cutter or a fork to incorporate the ingredients into a crumbly mixture.
4- Add water one tablespoon at a time. Incorporate the water in well before adding more water. You will use less water than you think you need. Once it starts coming together it'll still look at bit crumbly and ragged. If you pinch the dough and it comes together and sticks. It's done.
5- Dump the dough into a ziploc baggie. Pat the dough down flat and even. Put into the fridge for at least and hour before rolling it out.

As mentioned, it freezes fine. The above recipe is enough for 2 pie crusts. I usually keep them in 1-2 crust portions.

This is a note to Marianne/Mary Anne who I met at the Ban Terminator events this past week. I might have given you wrong contact info. Please email me.

Enjoy!

Jen

Midweek Roundup

I know, I know. It’s been a week since I’ve blogged. I’m such a bad blogmistress but I have reasons for my absence. Many, in fact.

Last Saturday, my band of merry climbers returned to Mt. Arrowsmith for more ice climbing. Our previous climbing crag was weeping and thin and so we hiked up a bit farther and found a bounty of newly formed ice a bit higher up. After an hour long slog up a snow gully, we got down to business.

(climbs at the start of the snow gully)
















(our friend, Dave, humping up the gully)















(The start of the climb)















That's me on some sweet, sweet ice. Yippee!!! I led all the climbs that day ! (Applause)

The ice was beautiful and solid. The climbs were rompy and fun. It was a fantastic day that left all of us good and tired. Us lucky buggers got to return to Dave’s place where his wonderful wife had dinner and a tribe of cats ready and waiting for us.

Here’s my most favorite cat in the world, Lakshmi (aka. Meep), keeping me company during a pre-dinner knitting session.

So cute! One of these days she's going to 'accidently' fall into my knitting bag and I'm going to have to bring her home with me.

On Sunday morning, I rolled my aching body out of bed, down the hill and onto the ferry to get to the Vancouver for dinner and the Serena Ryder concert with my dear friend, Abby. I had a few hours to kill before meeting her and ended up wandering about downtown in shellshock at how busy and frantic the city was despite the pissy weather and rumors that whole world was going to be hunkered down in front of a big screen TV watching commercials sandwiched between slices of a football game while stuffing it’s face with buffalo wings and 7-layer dip.

Lo and behold, I ran into my friend Ky, a vegan warrior and knitting fiend, and Aaron, another vegan warrior and knitting novice. We sequestered ourselves in a corner of coffee house and had a mini-knitfest amongst all the hustle and bustle of rainy Vancouver Sunday. I was working on my 3^rd incarnation of the sleeve for my Honeymoon sweater. Ky was working on a lace shawl for his grandma for her 85^th birthday present. Awwww.

Aaron, who’s totally new to knitting game, was working on a scarf for his mom. Double Awwwww. Well, he was knitting when he wasn't talking up the cute girls who kept coming over to ask him what he was knitting ;)

Men who knit are sexy but they do swear a lot. They’re not able to go 2 stitches without cursing. Their patterns must read ‘Knit 2, Curse 1, Purl 2, Curse 1’. LOL!

The Serena Ryder concert was incredible and intimate. I can’t believe that they booked such a small venue like the Media Room for her. Supposedly, it was sold out pretty fast. That said, I’m glad that I got to see her at such an intimate setting. She’s got talent up to her eyeballs and then some. With a voice that channeled the greats of past decades, mixed with exuberance and an eclectic, unique style all her own, she was absolutely captivating. My girl crush for her multiplied a hundred fold that night. It goes to show that you don’t need a zillion dollars of lighting, lasers, fireworks, an opera of costume changes, an army of stylists and a bunker of gimmicks to put on an incredible and memorable show.

I decided to stay in Vancouver for a few days and work out of my folks place. I even got to give my sister her birthday present in person. Happy Birthday T!

I also got to meet up with the whole gang of vegan warriors for a knitting and 100 Mile diet vegan baking lesson. The guys have been going to the monthly Winter Farmer’s Market at the WISE Hall and had a bounty of locally grown ingredients to use, along with stuff they’ve preserved from the summer. Have I mentioned how that boys swear a lot when they knit? They also swear a lot when they bake. I forgot to bring my camera so I don’t have any photos to share. But when I left, pretty much every flat surface in their house was covered with a cooling rack loaded with cookies, cakes and dessert bars and the living room was filled with flour dusted boys knitting up a blue streak.

After a never-ending streak of errands, I hopped onto a ferry back home Tuesday night. I got home just in time to watch ‘House’ and fall asleep in my knitting chair.

Yesterday I celebrated the soggy weather by staying indoors and baking up a storm. I made muffins with locally grown kiwis and hazelnuts. I also made a mountain of bagels. The house was toasty and yummy smelling all day long! Aromatherapy really does work ;)

The muffins were made with the recipe from Muffin Mayhem.
I used 1 cup of local kiwi fruit- peeled and cut, a 1/2 cup of local hazelnuts (from Footes Hazelnut farm). I used 1/3 cup of local wildflower honey and whole milk for my liquids.

I had a Mid-Island Weavers and Spinners Guild meeting last night. We’re getting ready to host our own fiber show next month. It’s so exciting. I’ll post more info as soon as I get it. Aside from setting up the space for the event, each of us are also in charge of bringing a baked goodie to sell. I'm batting about a couple of 100 mile diet goodies ideas to bring.

Once I’m done wrestling with work, I’m dedicating the rest of the today to knitting and spinning. BTW, here’s the 5th and (thankfully) final incarnation of the sleeve for the Honeymoon Sweater:

I tried many different stitch combinations from Old Shale to ripples to a meandering ridge stitch to try to capture the big rolling waves that dominated our crossings in Kyoquot Sound on our honeymoon kayak trip. I had this pattern idea whispering to me from very beginning. For whatever reason, I tried every other idea before I went with this. I really have to sharpen my knitting intuition nerves and just go with my gut from the get go. It’s basically a braided cable on stockinette.

It’s actually the sleeve, shoulder and upper chest piece. It’s one piece extending from wrist to upper collar. My friend, Karin, says that if it doesn’t work for a sleeve, it could work as a boa constrictor cozy :P

A bonus feature of this pattern is that because the cabling constricts about ¼ to 1/3 of the width, once I return back to just stockinette stitch, the sleeve widens enough to fit around my upper arm and shoulder. That means no need to increase stitches at this junction point.

Once I get the other sleeve done, I’ll have a better idea of what the rest of the torso will look like. I have a few ideas fluttering about in my head. Hopefully, I won’t have to go through 5 incarnations to figure it out how to capture the spirit of that breathtaking coastal adventure for the rest of the sweater.

So that’s what I’ve been doing instead of blogging. Of course, if didn’t do all that stuff, I wouldn’t have anything to blog about so I have to do all that stuff. You see how that works? It’s a vicious cycle. Oh woe is me…

Have a great day!

Jen