Spring on the horizon

I’m feeling nearly, kinda, almost close to my old self, just in time to meet my old nemesis: Hay Fever. My daily post-work wandering about yesterday got squeezed down into a brisk 40 minute walk up and down the neighbourhood hills and by the time I got back I sounded like a trampled accordion. Yikes!

The arrival of allergies also means spring and all the yummy goodies that comes with it. I think I might have to send DH off to gather us up some young stinging nettle. The garlic in my backyard is shooting up nicely and I’m planning out what else I’m going to stick into the ground now that the Spring is starting to creep in.

But it’s not here yet. As lovely as yesterday was, the evening was chilly and there’s rumors of another cold system coming in. There may be a chance for a good climbing weekend! DH and I are probably the only ones on this island hoping for colder temperatures. We don’t voice our weather hopes too loudly for fear of being run out of town :0

Though my walk left my lungs a bit soggy, it revived the rest of me, especially my brain. I spent the rest of the day bopping from appointment to errands and putting up posters for the Nanaimo 100 Mile Diet challenge wherever I saw a bulletin board. I ended off the day with a fly-by knitting lesson. My knitting apprentice and I rendezvoused at a mall parking lot during her coffee break for a quick tutorial on the seaming and I-cords. It was the most clandestine knitting lesson I’d ever given. I was half-expecting mall security to come knocking on the window and bust us for indecent public knitting. LOL!

By the time I got home it was way past 8pm and I was starving. A look through the fridge and pantry revealed few possibilities. I had a couple cups of leftover roasted squash, roasted garlic, a few strips of smoked bacon and bunch of collard greens that were needing to get used up pronto!

I could have made a pasta but I was jonesing for stick-to-your-ribs winter comfort food. I decided on risotto. I ended up roasted garlic and butternut squash risotto topped with smoked bacon, toasted hazelnuts with spicy, garlic greens. A healthy grating of Natural Pasture’s Boerenkaas cheese topped off this satisfying dish. The only ingredient that wasn’t grown on this island was the rice. I even used smoked bacon fat to sauté some shallots and the risotto rice in. Stop clutching your heart! It was only about 2 teaspoons for bacon fat stretched over the whole dish. In fact, despite DH’s second and third helpings, I still have leftovers for tonight.

The smoked bacon fat gave the rice a deep, savoury richness. So much so that I chose not to add any cheese or butter to finish off the risotto, as you normally would for a traditional risotto. Instead I added only a grating of cheese as garnish. In a way, by using the smoked bacon fat I decreased the amount of fat normally used in this dish ;)

What a gorgeous harmony of flavors! The sweet roasted squash and garlic played nicely against the crispy, savory bacon. The garlicy, spicy greens provided a balanced counterpoint with it's pleasant green bitterness and shift in textures. The hazelnuts and cheese helped tie up all the flavors nicely. The rice, itself was creamy and comforting without being gooey and gummy. For those that think that risotto is a high-maintanence dish to make, it's not. Despite what all those cookbooks and the Food Network tells you, it doesn't need to be stirred constantly for 20 minutes. It needs regular stirring for the first 5-8 minutes. Then after that, you just need to stir it up a bit when you add in more stock. Between stirrings, I managed to wash, chop and cook up the greens, wash up the few dishes I had dirtied, shell and chop the hazelnuts, grate the cheese and clean up the kitchen. I had dinner done in under 25 minutes.

For a Fast & Dirty risotto instructions, check out my previous entry, Comfort Food and Knits.

With a happy belly, I settled into my knitting corner for some major frogging. I had managed to knit up the rest of the back of the Honeymoon sweater the night before but had made some wonky calculations on the shaping of the waist and had to redo it again. Oh well. I convinced myself I didn't really like the way the branches and leaves were shaping up in the silhouette. With new calculations and new game plan, I finished up the rest of the back panel for my sweater (for the second time). I think in total, I’ve knitted up this back panel three times. I used a mix of intarsia and cabling techniques to create the silhouette. I didn't like the chunky, pixelated look of intarsia for the limbs of the tree. I wanted nice, smooth limbs since I was trying to create an Arbutus tree effect. Instead, I used a mix of increase and decrease techniques to shape the limbs. Intarsia worked fine for the leaves. For the background, I used a mix of Noro Kureyon and Silk Garden. Mostly it was yarns leftover from past projects. Since I wanted a particular colour pattern to echo the shift from land to ocean to sunset, I seperated the yarn into colour groups and felted them in the order that I wanted. It didn't take very long and I'm thrilled how it all turned out.

I’m still not sure what I’m going to do for the front panels. I’m thinking some of a wrap sweater design. I’ve been flipping through a Japanese clothing design book from the library. I might incorporate an obi into it or maybe a haori tie to close up the front. Who knows what my wheezy little brain will think up :p

Happy Eating!

Jen

Nanaimo’s 100 Mile Diet Challenge.

100 Mile Diet Pizza

Last weekend I made a passing comment to DH that I was thinking about make pizza this week. Since then, Mr. Selective Hearing & Memory has been bugging me for some homemade 'za.

Yesterday, I decided that I wasn't going to get my pizza lovin' monkey off my back until I made some 'za. I whipped up a basic pizza dough with some True Grains Red Fife whole wheat. From the freezer I pulled out some pesto and local tomatoes for sauce. My veggie toppings included local mushrooms and onions. Meat toppings ran the gambit from local striped shrimp to Hertel's smoked bacon to bison pepperoni from Island Bison. Instead of plain ole mozzarella, I went for Little Qualicum's Raclette cheese & some of their feta. I also had a chunk of goat feta from Hilary's Cheese and and some of their camembert. It pretty much was a cleaning out of bits and pieces of fridge offerings. Pizza is a great use for leftovers, drips and chunks of this 'n that.
















While one of the batches of pizza was baking up, I also tossed in some squash and other veggies to roast up for side dishes. Might as well maximize the use of the oven while it's chugging out all that heat.

Along with a half a dozen thin crust pizzas, I also made a batch of calzones. Pretty much just small stuffed pizzas. They're great for lunches. Both the pizza and calzones freeze well and just need a quick heat up in the oven.

















We enjoyed a fun 'za night and that pizza lovin' monkey is too full to bug me for a few more weeks. Luckily, I have a couple batches of frozen pizza and calzones to throw at him when he starts jonesing again.

Today, I did an interview with Allison Cross, a reporter from the Nanaimo Daily News, about the 100 Mile Diet. I invited her over for lunch since I figured it only makes sense to enjoy a 100 mile diet meal while chatting about local food issues. I blended up some of the butternut squash into a smooth soup and threw in some curry powder and a touch of chipolte pepper. Along with that, I warmed up some slices of 100 mile diet pizza and we had ourselves a lovely lunch. Of course, I rambled and ranted endlessly. I don't even remember half the things I said. It's so hard for me to stay on track. There's so much to talk about in relation to the 100 Mile Diet. Well, Allison was a smart and able interviewer and I'm sure be able to unravel my rambling and find something coherent admists my verbal rat's nest.

Tuesday night's talk with MP Jean Crowder in Cedar went spendidly well. At least, once I figured out which church I was supposed to go to, the evening went well. I really have to learn to actually write down my destinations and not just trust my gut. I got to meet a load of really cool people and had the oppurtunity to chat with folks about the diet and their concerns and questions. I even talked to a local restauranteur who was interested in bringing in local produce into his restaurant. Kudos and I hope it happens. Then I'll have somewhere to eat other than Chez Jen's.

One of the big issues that looms in the minds of local farmers around the world is the commercialization of the Terminator seed by Monsanto. Basically, it's a seed that has been genetically engineered to be sterile after the first use. This means that the practice of seed-saving that has been done since the beginning of agriculture, is not possible with the use of this technology. It means another step towards industrial monopolization of our food supply and the end of food soveriegnty. Canada, once a supporter of a ban on Terminator seeds has recently switched sides and is now leading the campaign to lift the moratorium on the commercialization of this product. This even when the chief of Strategic Policy Development for Agriculture Canada admitted that the government has no way of assessing the impact of this technology on the public's health, the economy and Canadian farmers. The government will let the marketplace make the assessment. This is completely ass backwards. Talk about letting the fox guard the henhouse. So while local farmers are trying to survive under an avalanche of ridiculous and unneccesary regulations, Monsanto gets to unleash it's untest, unassessed products onto the Canadian public with the federal government's blessing. GRRRRR.

For more information, check out the Ban Terminator site.
If you're interested in hearing more about this issue, Kate Green from USC Canada will be speaking about the Terminator seed at Knox United Church in Parksville on Valentine's Day from 7 to 9pm.

Last, but not least, the Nanaimo 100 Mile Diet is back up! YIPPEE!!!! There are still a few quirks that I've gotta work out but for the most part it's back up. Check out the 100 Mile Diet Nanaimo site regularly as I'm going to be updating it with local food news and events for Vancouver Island.

I'm off to finish the 2nd sleeve of the MIL sweater. Tomorrow I shall steek (EEEK!!). Wish me luck. I'm a bit naseous just thinking about it.

Happy Eating!
Jen

Weekend whirlwind

Another wild and burly weekend. I bopped about from craft fair to beachcombing (you never know what these storms will wash up onto the shore) to my back garden to some knitting to Gabriola Island with some friends for more craft fairs, beachcombing and a couple of awesome nurseries where I saw the most gorgeous eucalyptus tree (koala not included) and then back home for more knitting.

It was also the arrival of the Beaujolais Nouveau . Since BN is not a local wine, I decided that for every bottle of BN consumed, we would have to consume a bottle of local wine. I chose Blue Grouse’s Gamay Noir since it uses the gamay grape that the BN are made from. As much fun as the BN is, I blissed out on the summery tones of the Blue Grouse wine. Build on the fertile slopes of the Cowichan Valley, Blue Grouse vineyards puts out some of my favorite wines. Their Black Muscat is the perfect intense red wine to go with your favorite dark organic chocolate. Thanks to its great location and soil, the vineyard doesn’t use fertilization or irrigation.

We celebrated wine, local and not so local, with a couple of intimate dinners and a couple of not-so-intimate dinners. Here’s what we had for one of our dinners:

Local buffalo sausage, caramelized onions, roasted veggies and a butternut squash gratin. Pretty much everything was grown locally from the sausages to the veggies to the cheese in the squash. The caramelized onions are your basic recipe of sliced onions brown in butter and braised slowly. I used a glass of Blue Grouse wine to deglaze and braise the onions. Yep, it was divine.

The veggies included local purple & golden carrots and Saanich potatoes tossed in EVOO and dumped into roasting pan. The sausages were simply browned and then tossed on top of the veggies to finish cooking. The butternut squash gratin was leftover roasted squash dumped into a pan with some EVOO, Little Qualicum’s raclette cheese and a couple of cloves of roasted garlic. I drizzled some balsamic vinegar over it once it was done.

Everything roasted away in the oven at 350F for about a 40 mins while Kevin and I watched Harry Potter’s Goblet of Fire and drank too much BN and Blue Grouse’s Gamay Noir.

Here’s what we had the following morning to quietly move us into the day:

Blueberry pancakes with blueberry/blackberry syrup and scrambled eggs. I finally have started dipping into my hoard of frozen blueberries picked from a local u-pick this past summer. A sweet, summery visitor to our breakfast table, along with very egg-elicious scrambled eggs courtesy of Cedar Valley Poultry. This picture is Kevin before he stuffs that huge chunk of egg into his gullet.

I also roasted up a batch of local hazelnuts. These are from Foote’s Hazelnut farm in Chemainus.

They have a stand open on their hazelnut farm. Just go along the Island Highway to the big yellow and green Antique barn building on Henry Rd and turn in. Follow Henry along it’s mellow, winding limb for a couple of kilometers until you get to the green metal gate. Push the button for an ‘Open Sesame’ (or Open Hazelnut in this case), drive on through the orchard. You’re aiming for the big, brown house in the back. The hazelnuts are by the front door and it pretty much runs on the honor system.

I’ve found Foote’s hazelnuts also at the Quist meat market in Duncan. Nanoose Edibles also carries local hazelnuts.

To roast, simply dump the nuts onto a baking sheet in a single layer and toss into a 350F oven. After 10 mins, give the pan a shake and return it to the oven for another 5 or so minutes. Let the hazelnuts cool and then crack away!

They can be kept unroasted and in their shell for a few months in paper or mesh bags on the shelf or a couple years in a sealed plastic baggie in the freezer. Considering that hazelnuts in the stores are going for $1.50 to $2 for a 100 grams, buying them this way is a great deal. Especially since nuts go rancid once shelled, these are also tastier.

Warning: Ramblings about knitting ahead!!!

I’ve started on another sweater. I know I just finished one but I’m waiting for my lovely mum-in-law to drop off yarn for her sweater so until then, I’m working on this:

It’s the sleeve for what I’ve named the Midsummer’s Nights Dream sweater. I’ve been wanting to do a MsND sweater for ages. Here's the yarn I'm using:

The colouring is going to make it more of a Tri-seasonal Night’s Dream sweater but I can live with that.

My design ideas have taken several turns from a lace weight cardigan with bell sleeves (what the heck was I thinking? I can barely knit a lace weight dishcloth) to a cape and vest combo to an updated version of EZ’s Moebius sweater. Over the summer, I picked up a batch of Phildar Auteil yarn that struck me as very MsND sweaterish and decided to let the yarn tell me what it wanted to be. The yarn was uncooperative all summer long and wouldn’t confess it’s innermost desires. So I threw it into the darkest corner of my yarn stash and hoped imprisonment would loosen up its tongue.

While finishing up my kimono shrug, I heard whispers and sly riddles coming from that corner of the yarn stash. Or maybe it was the end-of-the-project itch. When you’re near the end of something and part of you is delighted that it’s finally going to be finished but the rest of you is wondering ‘What will I knit next?’

Finally the yarn betrayed its intent and I began doodling out scratchings and scribbles. So far I have a lot of scratches and scribbles in my knitting journal. I still have no idea what the body of this is going to look like. I’m hoping a couple glasses of Cherry Point’s Bete Noire will give me the inspiration I need when I get to that point.

I’ve usurped this construction idea from Knitty.com. Simple design of tubes and there’s no seams! Yippee!

Of course, leave it to me to completely morph a simple and brilliant design into a monster of mayhem. As you can tell from the above picture, I’m not working the sleeves in a tube. I’ve decided I want the sleeves to decrease down into a leaf point at the wrists. Yes, a leaf point. Right over the top of my wrists. I don’t know how I’m going to do it. I don’t even know where the idea came from. I blame it on that 2nd glass of Beaujolais Nouveau. That will teach me to drink non-local wine.

I know that I could be working the sleeves on dp needles and be able to maintain the tube structure of the sleeves. However I hate working with dp needles. Also, there’s a high chance of my forgetting to count my rows, or mess up the decreases (or both) and turning this lovely pattern into a briars patch.

I am 2/3^rds through the 1^st sleeve. I haven’t done a swatch. I have no idea if I have enough yarn for this. On the good side, the yarn is machine washable and I’m loving that Aran pattern. It looks like dragon scales from certain angles.

I’m also playing with the idea of doing most of the torso with ribbing. Maybe a twisted rib. Not sure how I’m going to play the remaining two colours together. Maybe something intarsia, maybe I’ll just do panels. Not sure.

One of these days, I’ll actually design a whole sweater BEFORE I start knitting it.

Yeah, right.

Anyways, we’ve having our friends Karin and Dave and his parents over for a curry dinner tonight. Karin is coming over early for a refresher course on how to make naan. I have to make sure the house is in some sort of civilized order. I also have this annoying thing called a job I should get to...

Later,

Jen

Comfort food & knits

(Updated - Thanks Laurie for picking up that missing squash. I've revised the recipe below)

The winds are howling like wolves in heat, sneering at the sight of any umbrella that dared to bare its teeth. The rain, oh, this is the rain that epic poems are made of. This is the rain that drills holes into the ground and turns streets into rivers and reminds us Walmart plebians that waterfront property is used as rice paddies in other times and places.

It’s a shame that some of this glorious tempest didn’t come in the growing months when the farmers could have used it.

The storm is coming through strong. They’re calling for 120km winds on the west coast and up to 90 km for the rest of the island. I don’t know if it’s getting that burly here on the inside edge of the island here but it’s making short work of the backyard fence and is certainly providing a whole lot of drama. Even the ferries have been cancelled to the mainland. This brings to mind just how tenuous our reach to the mainland really is.

I’m cozied up inside, wrapped in the brilliant hug of MY NEW SWEATER!!!!

The first thing I did this morning was put on my new sweater and take it for a test run now that it’s finally dried from blocking. And not a moment too late, it’s the knitted equivalent of comfort food.

Speaking of comfort food, I made one of my favorite comfort foods last night for dinner: Risotto. Not just any risotto, I made a chorizo-butternut squash- manchego risotto. OK, the rice and the cheese weren’t from a local farms but most of the rest of the meal was. I had a ½ a chorizo sausage from Quist Farms just down the highway, some of the roasted butternut squash, onion and garlic from local farms, swiss chard and parsley from my own veggie garden and chicken stock made from local chickens. The swiss chard was sautéed in oil and crushed garlic and dressed with a few drops of pear balsamic vinegar from Auld Alliance farms on Gabriola Island.

It was so good that Kevin and I barely spoke while eating dinner except to remark about how good it was. The savory spicy sausage played against the sweet squash and the manchego cheese provided just the right amount of unami richness. It just all came together so well in the creamy risotto that I was surprised by how well it turned out. The swiss chard provided a nice break with its mild bitterness and simple greenness.

Here’s a picture of Kevin enjoy the last of his risotto. 10 seconds later he was literally licking the bowl clean. I don’t have any pictures of that because I was too busy laughing while protecting my bowl of risotto from his predatory fork.

Here’s the Fast & Dirty recipe for Chorizo-Squash-Manchego Risotto (serves 2)

1 cup Arborio rice

½ link dried chorizo - chopped

1 cup roasted butternut squash- cubed

½ small onion or 2 shallots- chopped fine

1 garlic chopped fine

1 litre chicken stock –simmering

½ cup manchego cheese –grated

1 pat of butter

handful of parsley- chopped fine

olive oil

salt & pepper

You want to have a pot of the stock simmering as you make this.

In a wide bottom pan, heat up a couple glugs of olive oil and the chorizo sausage over medium heat. Let the oils and flavour render out of the sausage a bit. Anytime you see the word 'render' you know it's going to be good eats.

Add onions and garlic. Cook for a few minutes until the onions have softened.

Add rice and stir so that the oil coats each grain. The rice will turn translucent on the outside with a white core.

Add in a ladle of hot stock into the pan.

Stir. Stir. Stir.

Keep stirring slowly until the rice absorbs most of the stock.

Repeat with another ladle of stock

And keep repeating until the rice is cooked through. This recipe will take most of the litre of stock and about 20 mins of cooking. You don’t want to overcook the rice into a gummy, pablum mess but you also don’t want crunchy risotto. I tend to cook it until there's only a residue of uncooked rice in the grain and then add a touch more stock and let it simply absorb the excess liquid.

Once it’s cooked through, drop in the butter, roasted squash, cheese and parsley.

Stir. Taste. Season.

You don’t have to stir the rice constantly for the whole 20 mins. I find that after the first couple ladlefuls of stock, I only have to stir it up once or twice and just let the rice absorb the liquid and make sure it doesn’t burn. By then the starch dust around the rice has done much its work to make a nice creamy base.

Some folks tell me that they find making risotto too time-consuming and tedious. Obviously they’ve been making sucky risotto because once you’ve had good risotto, you’ll realize that 20 minutes of your time is small price to pay for this bowl of Italian heaven. Quite frankly, during these cold, damp evenings, hanging out over a pot of steaming, savory goodness is not the worse place to be. Consider it a kitchen spa treatment as you inhale the wonderful aromas rising from your pan and you stir meditative patterns like a rake through a zen sand garden through the creamy rice.

Enjoy!

Jen