Raw Fish and Kettle Corn

Well! This week isn’t even half over, and already I have tried two new things.

On Sunday night I tried something that I have always scowled at, grimaced at, and gotten chills from, even when I see other people eat it.  We were at Ro Sushi (I love that place, AND discovered on Sunday that I can eat their tempura.. good company, good food and good discoveries!). I had my green hornet roll (prawn tempura, mango, avocado and cucumber) and a yam tempura roll in front of me, and T had a smoked salmon roll, and the dreaded salmon sashimi stuff on rice.

I am a bit of a texture-phobe. I LOVE smoked salmon, but I like the dry stuff (aka the stuff that doesn’t shimmer in the light).  I also don’t enjoy slimy foods, soggy foods, saucy foods (unless they’re sweet), or anything too squishy. However, in the name of adventure, I tried a bit of T’s slimy looking smoked salmon.. it wasn’t too bad. It was slimy, but the taste was good. I survived (and didn’t even make too too much of a face). A few minute later, I was being convinced to try the sashimi. It takes quite a bit for me to try a new food, especially one that I have already decided that I do not like. Raw salmon would be a good example of this.

Back to the sushi restaurant. After much coaxing, and a little bit of bribery (I can now make T eat one thing that he doesn’t want to try, and I’m saving that one for something good), I was handed a tiny little corner of raw fish and rice on a fork. I could feel my gag reflex stretching in anticipation. I made a few faces for this one (couldn’t help it), and eventually shoved the stuff into my mouth.

It didn’t have as much taste as I thought it would. It was kind of slimy, but not as slimy as I had previously decided that it would be. It wasn’t too too bad. I won’t be ordering a ton of it anytime soon, but I survived. I tried something new (and that I thought would be rather yucky) and proved myself wrong, and kept it down to boot. I guess this would be a win.

Thanks T for the new experience, and heads up: I will get you back…

I also tried something new that I knew would be wonderful.

There are many many things to be loved at festivals.. Corn Dogs , Cotton Candy , and Kettle Corn to name a few.  As I can’t see any way that either corn dogs or cotton candy contain 100% name-able and non-chemical ingredients, I will have to stick with Kettle Corn.

Last night I was thinking about things that I could make and bring to work to snack on, and couldn’t get my mind off of kettle corn. It’s sweet, it’s salty, it’s a little sticky and a little crunchy. I all recipe’d a recipe, and realized that it’s probably also one of the easiest things on the planet to make…

1/4 cup oil

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup kernels

salt

If you have a stove top popper, this is a cinch. If you have a giant pot with a lid, it’s still do-able!

Heat the oil in the pot or popper. Throw in your kernels and sugar, close the lid and agitate (or turn the popper crank thing) until there is about 2 or three seconds between pops.

Put into a large bowl.

Salt to taste.

Stir occasionally to break apart large chunks.

Shovel it into your face.

Quick! Easy! Ingredient Happy and Wonderful (not to mention another win).

 

How about all of you people, did you try anything new this week? Was it good/gross?

Week Four in Review

Wow People.. 28 days ago I started something a little on the crazy side, and, despite my bad habit of abandoning projects, am still going strong. In fact, this week may just be the best yet…

Since the last week in review I have managed to eat something leafy and green every day. Win! This was mostly bok choy or spinach, either in stir-fry or salad form… kind of boring. I also managed to make a tiny batch of edible lefse. I got new milk and started something else a little crazy..

I used to really enjoy a kale-spinach-fruit smoothies in the mornings, as it was a super easy way to incorporate fresh (and raw) leafy greens into my daily diet. Lately though, there have been no smoothies. My schedule has fallen into a blissful Monday through Friday and either 6am-1pm or 8am-2pm kind of deal. Don’t get me wrong: I love it, and will very, very, greatly miss it when the theatre things rolls around again (in two short weeks: eep!). Problem is: I have roomies. Ones that, I’m sure, would not appreciate the blender running at 4:45am, or even at 7am. Easy solution: use the blender at work! This next week I will be making some smoothie packs to bring to work: all of the ingredients ready to go (chopped, mixed and frozen) so alls I have to do is chuck them in the blender and add a little water.

This week had a few yummy  meals. Chicken parmesan, chicken wings, stir fry, meatballs, and one lazy lazy day where no dinner was cooked (I have a semi-valid excuse for this one though…more later).

I also attempted to bake twice, and failed, saw a garden, got some milk, and did something that right now has me a little twitchy.

LEFSE:

Thursday night I attempted the Lefse, a Norwegian flatbread made with potato (basically it looks like a tortilla, but because the Norwegians are a brilliant people they found a way to add the yummy potato and make it even more yummy) which is spelled “l-e-f-s-e” not “”l-e-f-s-a” although it is pronounced “Lefsaaaaaaaaaa”, unless you have attempted to make it at home, with a recipe that wasn’t quite right, in which case you pronounce it “F%@!&@$@ Lefsa!” while tossing half of the recipe into the garbage.

If you haven’t gathered yet, this didn’t quite go well.

I got the lefse recipe from my Grandma, who makes it wonderfully and usually I get a pack or two a year. It went a little something like this:

-Make a medium sized pot of mashed potatoes

-Add some butter and salt

-Mix in flour until it turns into a dough

-Roll it out into circles on a floured surface

-Fry in an ungreased pan until brown spots appear

Please note the complete absence of measurements (I guess this is where I get it from..).

Also note the lack of cream (which my Mom found on a bunch of lefse recipes while talking me through my angry mixing of dough phase that came later on).

Last, but not least.. ohhhhhhh…. definitely not least, note the complete lack of the direction: cool your potatoes completely until stiff before adding the flour. DO NOT ADD THE FLOUR WHILE THE POTATOES ARE STILL WARM. EVER. UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE.

As this last missed direction was, well, missing, I started adding flour after mashing my potatoes. Then I added more flour, and another cup, and some more flour. I noticed that my mixture was not really turning into a nice workable dough, more like a chunky paste. I was on the phone with my poor Mom at the time, so she got to hear my colourful language at this point, as well as some interesting descriptions, and my complete joy at the fact the my Grandma had forgot to mention this one little step of cooling the potatoes. All in all my potatoes ate 6 cups of flour before my mom suggested I chuck out half my recipe and go from there. At this point it was looking and smelling like a really bad batch of home-made play dough. The halved recipe ate about another two cups during the rolling process.

The bottom is the abandoned half, the top was what I tried to save..

After I rolled out about 18 or so lefse I started the frying process. The little potato tortillas of death started doing something strange. When I put them on the hot pan they stared doing this weird thing where they would grow giant bubbly tumours, then the bubbles would move around and expand until they sprung a leak and a geyser of steam would rush out. I think it was due to the extreme amounts of flour that had been incorporated.. the mix had become almost elastic when raw. Whatever it was, it was weird, kind of creepy, and nothing that food should be doing.When taken off the pan though, they actually looked like lefse.

After cooking a few I decided to try it.. I smothered one in butter and rolled it up (it was like a butter filled potato taquito from Norway): not too too bad. In fact, it even tasted like lefse!! The night was finally looking up!

(By the way: this is what I look like tired, after being really grumpy about things not working, in my PJs and stuffing my face with butter soaked lefse)

I got half way through frying my pre-rolled stack when something happened. I guess my dough could have used some more flour (greedy, greedy dough), because suddenly halfway through the stack I went to pick up my next little round, and they all were stuck together. They were stuck together to the point that no matter how carefully I tried, they were not un-stickable.

Imagine if you were to take a stack of potentially yummy pancakes. Now separate the stack and add super glue to the top and bottom of each pancake and reassemble your stack. Now, take a can of varnish, a large can of varnish (yes the whole thing), and pour it over your pancake stack, making sure to completely cover all of your pancake stack. Put the varnish-covered super-glued delicious looking pancake stack somewhere well ventilated and wait 12-24 hours. Then go back, and try to separate those pancakes. That’s where I was at with my lefse at ohhh… about 10:30 Thursday night. Please note that I had put the potatoes on to boil probably around 6:30pm, spent about 2 and a bit hours trying to make a dough out of the stuff, and spent what felt like forever rolling out this precious little stack.

The last face the lost lefse saw

“Then I did something that I almost never do when baking or cooking. I gave up. I threw the half stack of stuck into the garbage (along with the failed half of my original amount). I did learn a couple of things  however:

1) When making lefse, chill your f^(#ing potatoes until they’re stiff.

2) It never hurts to look at more than one recipe when trying something new.

 

GRANOLA BARS:

Friday I felt like I had to redeem myself a little, so I decided to make granola bars because really, how can that go wrong? I mixed up some oats with some melted butter, trail mix, holy crap cereal, coconut and whatever else granola bar additive yummy stuff I could find as well as some sweetened condensed milk.

I like my granola bars chewy, so baked them for about 20 minutes until the edges just started to brown. I pulled them out and turned the pan upside down onto the cooling rack where the whole tray crumbled and fell apart.

I tried to fix this by squashing it all back into the pan and baking it longer. Please note that this doesn’t work. They will kind of stick together, but will still be super crumbly and will fall apart when touched and not be chewy at all. Basically you will end up with slightly bar shaped logs of something that simply turns into crunchy granola when touched. Maybe this is what you’re looking for, in which case, leave a comment and I will tell you how to screw up granola bars.

THE GARDEN:

On a much happier note, I also took a peek at a garden yesterday!!

A while ago I had emailed a woman about taking on a plot in a community garden near my house. Last week she got back to me and explained that she had a wait list of 100 names, and had stopped adding names after that. She suggested I try again late in the spring. Community gardens are a great idea, they use space in unused lots, parks, boulevards for food, flowers or whatever else those people who are lucky enough to have them wish to grow. Usually though the plots are fairly small, very open, very close to the next persons plot and cost about $15.oo a year (which really isn’t a lot).

I was a little bit down about not getting this little patch of Earth, and was telling T about it. While I was being grumpy, he did something wonderful. He looked up a yaardshare program, found one near my house, and even made contact with the woman. Thank you thank you thank you!

As last week was a bit of a weather nightmare in the lower mainland, I waited until yesterday to walk by and take a peek at the space.

I am excited! The woman had mentioned that she doesn’t allow the use of pesticides or chemical fertilizers (Win!). There are a couple of girls who used the garden last year who might come back, but there is lots of space for everyone, and it also means that we can take turns watering, as well as share whatever we grow (Win!). There is an odd-looking, but neat pyramid structure for peas and climbing beans, and a small raspberry patch (Win!). She even has a kiwi plant growing! (exciting win!).

I didn’t take any photos yesterday, because, well, I had kind of snuck into the backyard (she did say to come by whenever), and it does need a little work. There is a lot of weeding, soil turning and things that have to happen before anything can be planted. Parsley has more or less taken over one large patch, and there is a fair bit of hay covering another patch. You may think this would deter me a little, but pretty much the opposite. I can’t wait to get in there and dig stuff up. If it weren’t so cold and wet out there I might even be doing that right now. In honesty, it will have to wait a few weeks, but it is something that I look forward to!

MILK:

I got new milk this week, and haven’t died. Yay!

A GRUMPY NEW UNDERTAKING:

Something odd happened yesterday. I got back from the garden and doing a little grocery shopping, had just made some granola crumbly stuff and was outside on the fire escape smoking the last smoke out of my pack. I was thinking to myself “probably should have picked up another pack when I got the groceries. Too bad. I really don’t want to go out again”.

That thought morphed into “I don’t have to go out again. I wonder how long I could go without a smoke”.

A couple of miles down the track and the thought train was speeding along from “Well, I’m two hours in, I think I could do this” to “I must have at least one cigarette in this house somewhere” and back to “three hours.. three hours thirty seconds…”

I have looked up some cheesy videos made with the idea that they will help you appreciate the decision to not smoke. They are cheesy little attempted pats on the back that one minute feel like they are helping a little, and the next make me want to punch the guy who made them because there is no way that he can know what this feels like, then I feel guilty for wanting to punch him because he is, after all just trying to help, and probably made the videos because he himself had trouble quitting and really does know the weird half there state my brain is currently in. I have also downloaded this annoying counter thing that tells me how long it has been since my last smoke, how much money I have saved by not smoking, how many cigarettes I would have smoked in the time since I have quit (though this is flawed because it averages them out over the day, not the hours that I am awake), and how much time I have added to my lifespan since stopping. I love and hate this thing alternatively. I like knowing how much money I have saved, how much longer I am apparently going to live, and how many less cigarette buts there are in the world, but the clock is driving me nuts. It even counts seconds (though isn’t quite accurate because I found it two and a bit hours after stopping and guessed the exact time I took my last puff).

As I type this it has been 22hr., 3min, and 28 seconds (29, 30, 31….)

I have saved $5.85

I have not smoked 13 cigarettes (reminder: flawed because of the all day average thing)

I will live 1 hour,  5 minutes longer.

Also, Ihave about half the brain capacity that I had yesterday morning when I was still smoking. I have managed to misplace two of my bowls (probably containing some sort of life saving snack), I can’t stop wiggling my toes, have an attention span of about 7 minutes and I am sooo grateful that I can keep my fingers busy typing this blog entry (which currently sits at 2,411 words).

Thank you for putting up with this massive post, as well as the mood swings, which I am sure are apparent in this monster of a post. Thank you also for continuing to read (or scan, sorry guys, I know this is a long one), and for taking the time to think a little bit about what it is you are putting into your mouth (or not putting in your mouth, as the case may be).

Keep on reading, let me know what you think!

USEFUL LINKS:

Yardshare: http://www.sharingbackyards.com/browse/Vancouver,BC&welcome_box=3

Lefse: http://visualrecipes.com/recipe-details/recipe_id/113/Lefse/

Non Smoking Stuff: http://ffn.yuku.com/topic/12886/Video-guide-for-those-just-starting-their-quits#.TyRc7YEtvaF

(the counter thingies are called “quit meters”)

 

P.S. : something increduble: I have ZERO things to add to the cheat list this week: WIN!

Getting “Fresh”

Hey Folks!

I just watched “Fresh” a film about, what else? Food.  It’s a film done in the States by Ana Sofia Joanes, and it’s worth a watch. It only runs about an hour and ten minutes, so make yourself a cup of tea or some popcorn, curl up for an hour and enjoy.  As an added bonus, you can watch it for free this week (Jan. 26th through Feb.1st) by clicking here!!

Whenever I watch a food documentary I feel two things: One is a little nagging voice that tells me that I have read about or watched something on most of this before, the other is a HUGE feeling of inspiration.

Watching farmers do their thing in a natural and sustainable way makes me want to get a little dirty (in the soil sense, though I will admit to having developed a strictly foodie crush on Michael Pollan).

Watching the packed feedlots and chicken houses makes me never want to support that kind of system or eat those poor animals again (I’m not going veggie – I just want to eat happier, healthier meat).

Watching people like the inner city farmer from Chicago (Will Allen I think his name was) makes me think that yes, in fact, I can make a difference. It may be a teeny tiny difference, but if I make a change, maybe I will inspire some of you out there to do the same, and slowly, ever so slowly things might make a turn for the better.

Please watch this one while you can and let me know your thoughts and ideas!

I’ll even make it easy for you and save you some scrolling time by putting the link here as well!

The Little Things in life

I went into this whole Eat thing knowing that I would have to ask questions, and most likely turn down a lot of the foods that I enjoy. I knew that eating out of my home would be a nightmare, and that lots of foods would be staring me down and screaming “why won’t you just eat me!?!”

Today I had a different experience.

Today I was on Granville Island wandering around before seeing a show (if you get a chance, see “Do You Want What I have Got? – A Craigslist Cantata”.. it was so good I cried tears of laughter). I was wandering aimlessly and the delicious aromas of the market were taunting me. Patricularly the Mexican place. I went outside and the smell of double butter croissants slapped me in the face.

I love double butter croissants. I love them fresh out of the oven, when they are in their prime flaky outside-moist buttery inside prime. I went into La Baguette to get a better whiff and could feel the flaky pastry melt on my toungue.

The girl at the counter asked me if I needed help, and the words “I have a bunch of annoying questions” spewed out before I could even stop them. I really did mean to say “Just smelling, thanks”, but that isn’t what happened. Instead I asked her what was in the croissants. She answered (even looking it up to make sure she was corrent).

“White unbleached flour, butter, salt, sugar and yeast”

The words were almost music to my ears.. just one note was off… the “butter” needed a little more explaining. I asked another annoying question, she asked the baker and returned with the gleefull answer that the butter was, in fact, completely free of colour.

Even before the whole Eat thing these croissants were something to be excited about. I am sure, however, that the poor girl behind the counter never had anyone actually hop up and down a little and clap over them. I ordered one. Then I changed it to two. I thanked her profusely and told her that she had just made my day, and quite possibly my whole year (I had explained a little about the Eat thing when I asked for the ingredients). She smiled like I was a crazy person who might rob her or something if she didn’t smile and nod, and she bagged me two croissants.

I stuffed one into my mouth right away (not the whole thing , they’re too big for that, but I did take rather large bites) and decided that I would eat the second a little more like a human being, and a little less like a starving heyena.

I picked up a coffee at The Blue Parrot, circled like a vulture until a seat opened up and sat with my coffee and my croissant near a window. It was bliss. I even took the time before cramming it into my face to take a photo:

Sometimes it’s the little, simple things that brighten your day, like the light bouncing off the buttery, flaky pastry as you sit with a coffee watching the boats go by.

Week Two In Review

I have to be honest here, and week 2 was a little rough. I stuck to my guns, but went through what I can only refer to as Junk Food Withdrawal.

Everywhere I looked were delicious delectables begging for me to just put them in my mouth.. whispering softly into my ear that nobody was around, nobody but me would know: dessert squares at the coffee shop where I work, cookies at other coffee shops, the mountain of chips and crackers at the front of the grocery store, chocolate bars at tills. Everything with soy lecithin, maltodextrin, and loads of other ingredients I cannot identify (or can identify, but am refusing to eat).

Saturday night I wanted something sweet, so I made brownies. Win for me! I knew all of the ingredients and my taste buds were satisfied.

Sunday also went really well. I got up early for a tubing adventure, had some breakfast at home (where thanks to the great purge all is edible) and had an amazing picnic on the mountain of fruit, Holy Crap cereal, veggies, cracker with avocado and tuna. This was also the first time that I ate tuna from a can. It was the flavoured stuff, with all happy ingredients and it was so yummy that I went out and bought a couple of cans for myself.

Early in the week the cravings set in and I scoured the chip shelves at Whole Foods, reading just about every ingredient out there. I caved. I bought a bag of Ms. Palmer’s Panty Pita Chips, containing: pita bread (flour, water, yeast, salt, sugar), balsamic vinegar, white vinegar, butter, canola oil, sea salt, seasonings, spices. Doesn’t look that bad right? That’s what I thought in my initial “I’m hungry, and I want to eat it” rampage. Here are the problems (yes, more than one..). What kind of flour? What is in the balsamic vinegar? (I will admit that at first I thought this was an innocent ingredient, until Debra mentioned it and I remembered that just a week before I had to get rid of my own balsamic vinegar because of maltodextrin). Same goes for the white vinegar. Does the butter that they used say the words I have come to dread “may contain butter” on the wrapper? I don’t like the fact that canola oil was in there, but that’s another post. Which seasonings and spices did they use? They might as well have put those other dreaded words “natural flavours” on the list.

Tuesday night I made a chicken stir fry over volcano rice, using the stir fry sauce that I picked up at the Farmer’s Market (made with Saskatoon berries, salal berries, blueberries, huckleberries, onion, garlic, carrot, celery, sugar, lemon juice, salt, lime leaves and chili paste – double yum!).

Wednesday I made tacos. Yummy! I still think that I could have rolled my tortillas out a little bit thinner, but I am thrilled with what I got and will be repeating this again.

Thursday and Friday were leftover days and nights, with no fail.

Saturday I attended an event where food was provided. Though others have cooked for me this year (thanks!) this is the first time this year where I ate food that was prepared without first scanning the ingredients. Not to say that the options weren’t very healthy. In fact it all looked amazing and the smell of it made me drool. There were homemade chillies, ciabatta buns, rice, potatoes, salad, and pie for dessert. Unfortunately I had to assume that the beans in the chilli weren’t checked for EDTA and that the tomatoes in it were from cans, not jars, so chilli was out. The salad was predressed, so no go there and though the pie looked fantastic there was no way to tell if it was butter or margarine in the crust, and even if it was butter, if it was colour free. I still had an amazing lunch though of rice, potato, fresh chopped tomato, peas, and green onions. For a light dinner there was soup, buns and fruit salad. I skipped the soup and bun and went for the fruit salad. After wolfing down the first few bites I spotted the tell-tale cherry implying that the salad was the same kind that you get in your lunch when you’re a kid.Thinking that this was probably a cheat, I looked it up on the Dole website. To my happy amazement, the cherry mixed fruit is made with fruit, and packed in 100% juice! Turns out what I thought was a maybe cheat, actually wasn’t. There were also added bananas, grapes and kiwis. Yum!!

After the event we had a delicious veggie stir fry over rice and quinoa too. Considering that it was the first eating out experience of this whole thing, I am quite pleased. It was all healthy, ingredient happy, and now that I look back on it, it was also a vegetarian day (though I will never give up meat entirely, leaning towards more veg and less meat is something that I have been thinking a lot about lately).

That wraps up Week #2!

Two weeks, one cheat: not too bad!

This week I want to make some lefsa. I am sure that I spelled that wrong, but it’s one of my grandmas specialties. It’s actually a lot like a tortilla, but made with mashed potatoes, flour, butter and a pinch of salt, rolled thin and fried on a non-greased pan. What makes it better than a tortilla isn’t just the fact that it’s inspired by Grandma. It’s also incredibly yummy, and very versatile. I like rolling mine and dipping them in butter melted with sugar and cinnamon for something sweet, but they are also good just spread with butter, or when you drizzle lemon juice on them and sprinkle them with sugar.

I also want to try making a fully vegetarian meal, something new and inspired by a recipe off the Vegetarian Times site (which was forwarded to me by a lady at work – Thanks!).

Other highlights of the week include procuring a new top secret thing (I was supposed to procure said top secret thing yesterday, but there was snow and the delivery was cancelled) that will eliminate certain vitamin A palmitate and Vitamin D3 in my everyday life. Don’t worry, I will still be getting vitamin A, though not attached to palm oil derivatives, and my vitamin D will be coming from eggs instead of sheep’s wool. I am also in the works of securing some garden space for the spring, and after a 75$ Whole Foods shopping trip will be looking for a cheaper way to make this food thing work.

Stay tuned folks, and thank for reading!

Taco Night!!!!

Yup. Tonight I had taco’s for dinner.

Usually I pick up the El Del Paso Tako Kit, and that’s that.. just chemically seasoned meat and a hard, salty corn shell, but tonight was a little bit different. Tonight I made EVERYTHING from scratch.

First I made the tortillas (yeah, I made tortillas.. no biggie). I threw together some flour, butter, salt and baking soda (cutting the butter into the dry stuff until it looked like coarse cornmeal), then added about a cup and 4 tablespoons of water. Then it had to sit for 15 minutes before I divided it all up (I made 24), and rolled it into little balls (later to be flattened and rolled out with a rolling pin).

After they were all rolled out (this took some time) I threw them one by one into an ungreased frying pan until they got sort of brown and tortilla-looking. YAY! Next time I think I will try to roll them out a little bit thinner, as the are a tiny bit tough to fold into tacos, but overall I’m considering it a win (and, for the record: they also taste great warm with a little bit of butter).

While the tortillas were being paraded into the pans I started chopping for my salsa. Tomato, red onion and cilantro. Simple, easy and extremely tasty. I have used this one before for easy party dishes, and it’s also really yummy if you add some fresh pineapple. If you are going to whip this one up you should know that while it tastes great right away, it’ even better if you can do it the day before serving it.. it just gives all the juices a chance to mingle a little.

I also squicked some avacado, lime and black pepper for some guacamole. gain, this is a super easy party dish, and even better if you add some finely chopped fresh mango (I know, sounds weird, but trust me on that one).

Then came the meat. I found a recipe online for taco seasoning, but I didn’t have all of the spices, everything else was ready and I didn’t want to have to go out, buy the stuff, then come back.. dinner prep was already approaching the two hour mark and I was getting hungry. So I made do with what I had: chili flakes, cajun spice, paprika, onion powder and garlic powder. In retrospect (actually, as of first bite) I think I put in too much chili flakes, but I am also a bit of a wuss when it comes to spice things.

I assembled it all, paused just long enough to take a photo or two, and wolfed it down. So yummy!!!!!

Week One Review

Well Folks, the first week is through and I am happy to report that I am still kicking!

There were a few temptations along the way. On Monday I was offered the same chocolate three times, by three different people and it was tough, but I said no every time (It was a salted caramel too…). Tuesday I was wrapping cookies at work and they smelled soooo yummy, but again, I didn’t go with it. There were double-butter croissants and Napoleons on Granville Island, Florentines at Whole Foods, and chocolate pretty much everywhere I looked. I have become good at saying no. It also gives me a chance to talk peoples ears off about the whole “Eat” thing when they give me a funny look after I say no. It might not be a completely good-hearted thing to do, but I have to admit that I get a little bit of a sense of revenge when someone offers me something I can’t eat, and I can tell them what kind of weird stuff they just ate.. especially if it looks particularly yummy. Ha People! – you will learn, whether you want to or not, what is in the food you are eating…muah hah hah.

After the big purge I had to restock a few things, and did so at Whole Foods. It was a little on the pricey side. I picked up spinach, two apples, two pomegranates, bananas, dried beans, soy sauce, roasted red pepper pasta sauce, rice pasta, jarred tomatoes, three avocados, sugar, jam, and grape seed oil. It was $57.00. I also had to go back later in the week for some bread, rice, lettuce and green beans. The sugar, soy sauce, pasta, pasta sauce, oil and jam will carry me through more than a week though. It’s just good stuff to have around.

I cooked dried beans for the first time! I didn’t know what to do with them, so stuck them into a pasta sauce. I will need to find something more creative to do with them next time around, and probably cook them a little bit longer (they were a little on the tough side). Suggestions are most definitely welcome!

I realized towards the beginning of the week (I have been keeping a food journal out of curiosity) that I wasn’t eating very much, so have made a habit of snacking. Once upon a time, not all that long ago, I would have picked up some cheap granola bars (complete with chocolate chips), potato chips, crackers and that kind of thing, but this week was a biggie for extra fruit and vegetables.  I feel like I have a lot more energy because of it too.

Now that I look back on  it, I ate a pretty decent variety of animals this week as well.. chicken (and their unfertilized offspring), venison, bison and salmon. Yum! Both the bison and bambi were free range (bought at Oyama), and the salmon was wild sockeye caught in Northern B.C. and bought at the farmers market.

Basically this week I ate a whole lot of vegetables, quite a bit of fruit, switched my grain intake to whole grains (and ate less because of it), ate a bunch of different animals, and cut out probably about 75% of my sugar. The sugar thing didn’t happen on purpose, but it’s tough when you can’t eat the cookies, pastries, processed foods that have most of it. The sugar that I did have this week was only in my coffee, fancy pants hot chocolate (from Debra for Christmas) and the homemade marshmallows that went with it. I guess the honey that the salmon was marinated with counts too…

It was  pretty easy (knock on wood). I had already resigned myself to the fact that the only way I would get through this would be to home-cook the meals that I could, and pack lunches for the ones where I would be at work (or take enough snacky stuff to get me through). If I had gone into this thinking that I would just be able to pick stuff up on the way, I feel like I would be having a much harder time.

I also made a challenge with my Mom. The deal is that once a week she has to cook a healthy and nutritious meal for herself, and I will do the same and we will compare. When I spoke with her today she said that she hadn’t yet, but was trying to think one up. I’m counting Wednesday night’s dinner of salmon (marinated in ingredient-happy soy sauce, honey, the juice from half an orange, ginger and garlic), volcano rice (whole grain organic brown and red rice grown in volcanic soil), carrots, broccoli and corn. Pressure’s on Momma!!

Next week I would like to try making tortillas/wraps from scratch, finding something better to do with my beans, and making sure I drink more water. We’ll see how it goes!!

 

Hey Momma: I Ate Bacon!

Let me first start off by saying that I don’t eat pork.

I stopped eating pig when I was about 12 because, well, I wanted a pet pig. I know it sounds silly, but you can’t eat what you call a pet. If I had a cow, I would call it Stew, and I would eat it, but I wouldn’t train it to do fun things, walk it every day or let it sit on the couch. It’s different. Anyway, since I stopped eating it, I have completely lost the taste for it, and, since Robert Pickton, it just kind of grosses me out.

I dedicated this one to my Mom, because I’m sure it was a huge hasstle for her at times. Once she was trying to impress a boyfriend with a fancy roast beef dinner – yorkshire puddings and the whole bit. She also wrapped the roast in bacon, managing to quickly pull it off and throw it in the trash before I could see, probably thinking that I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. She thought wrong and I was angry. She also really likes bacon.

Last week at the Farmers market a woman was selling beef bacon. I didn’t buy any on my first visit, but was really curious. I have eaten turkey bacon, and anyone else who has knows that it’s not bad, but it has a kind of spongey, dry texture that doesn’t really cut it. So, on Saturday I went back to the market and picked up a small package. When I asked about it, the woman told me that it was done in the same way as pork bacon: cured etc. (I’m sure turkey bacon is too, but only after being ground, seasoned, processed, and squished into bacon looking slices).  I paid about 4 dollars for my tiny little packet, which contained 4 large slices. A little pricey, but in the name of trying something new, and the fact that it was unmedicated, free range, grass fed beef, not too bad.

Tonight I was craving breakfast, so I pulled out the pan and gave it a go.

When I took it out of the bag it just looked like a really thin slice of steak (which makes sense, really, and it’s nice to know that what you’re eating actually looks like what you’re eating). It bubbled and got all warpy like I remember bacon doing, cooked fairly quickly, and smelled yummy. It even kind of tasted a bit like bacon.. which threw me off at first. It wasn’t a super porky taste, just a familiar one. Debra (my room mate) tried a bit and said that she tasted a hint of shrimp. Interesting. The texture was a really nice break from the turkey style. It was chewy, but not beef jerky chewy. It was also nice and fatty (I will happily admit that I am okay with fatty foods.. I loves me some butter on toast). All in all I would call it a success, and would happily buy it again.

 

 

This Little Piggy Went to Market

  I was recently trying to source out a good CSA for the summer months and through my browsing discovered that Vancouver has winter’s Farmers Market. I had been to the market before (a couple of years ago), but thought that it only ran May through September or October. I was happily wrong.

  This morning was cold…freezing cold as I grabbed my shopping bag and made my way out the door. The Market is located at Nat Bailey Stadium over the winter months, and I was excited to see what kinds of things I could find. For some reason, in my head, it was only going to be a few small stalls, with a selection of squash, maybe a few greens, and apples – being that we are almost half way into December. Again, I was happily proven wrong.

 As I was walking there from the King Ed skytrain I started to notice something. One block I was alone with my thoughts, my breath making clouds and birds chirping, and the next block I had joined a procession of people with empty cloth bags. I shrugged and followed the flow and was happy when I came upon not just a few small stalls, but a pretty decent collection of vendors.

  There was an info booth, but it was pretty crowded, so I made my own way around, happy to see a bread baker with a line up of about 20 people, another vendor that creates yummy looking chocolates “from the bean”, coffee (it was only about 10:30 after all), non-medicated/hormone injected meat, honey,  farm fresh eggs, baked goods, squash, apples, potatoes, carrots, fish, greens, and brussel sprouts (I didn’t get a picture, but have you ever seen those things on a stalk? It’s weird.. just weird). There was even beef bacon! I definitely plan to pick some up next week. The people that worked on the farms/in the orchards were right there, bundled up, warming their hands on their coffee cups and happily chatting with everyone. It was great. And, just in case you were confused, there was even a board telling you what was going on, and what was in season.

 I took a test walk aroud to see what all there was before I pulled my own empty cloth bag out. Then I dug in. Everything I bought was B.C. grown/raised/caught. Most of it is organic (you can’t have organic wild salmon). All of it looks delicious. I picked up garlic, onion, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, cucumber, red pepper, honeycrips apples (my favourite!), stewing beef (grass fed, pasture raised, and horomone free!!) and some sockeye salmon. I will admit that it was a bit pricey (I paid about $35-$40), but I will also say that it was worth it. I plan to do up a stew with the beef that will keep me going for a couple of days, and am looking greatly forward to the salmon (done up with some lemon, butter and dill and served beside some potatoes).

 

  It wasn’t just the food that won me over though.. it was a great experience to browse through the stalls, hearing growers/vendors talk about their crops, hearing people plan out their meals based on what was available, seeing little kids help to pick out carrots in tiny mittened hands, and to know that everything I bought was something I could eat guilt free. I will most definitely be making this a common outing (as much as I can – sometimes I have to work).

Want more info?? Check it out:

Vancouver farmers market: http://www.eatlocal.org/markets.html

Warm-Up Challenge: Lunches and Other Things

Happy Monday Folks!

    Usually on a Monday morning I am up at the gloomy, dark, cold hour of 4:45am to get my butt in gear and be at work for 6. Today however, I was switched and get the closing shift. Not starting until 2 gives me half a day to play or spend as I wish. Ahhh luxury.

  It also gives me a chance to get a start on my warm-up challenge for the week: Pack and eat a lunch every day.

  I work Monday through Friday this week (a rarity in my life) so thought it would be a perfect chance to practice the art of brown-baggin’ it. I am terrible at this. I am good at planning it. I am also pretty good at making extra food come dinner time so that I will have a lunch to bring. The problems come when it is time to remember to put that food into my bag when I leave for work, and, if I do remember it as I run out of the house, I seldom remember to actually take the time to eat it.

  Working a job where breaks are taken between serving customers during slow points and where croissants and scones run aplenty, it is hard to remember to actually pull my lunch out of the back fridge, heat it up and eat it before it gets cold again. Pathetic, I know.  

  I also run into problems when I am working a theatre contract. I usually end up working on Granville Island, right next door to the market. On rehearsal days it is just too easy to walk across the little alley way with twenty dollars and blow it on some yummy treat. During the run of the show I work 6:30-about 10:30, with two shows on Wednesdays and Saturdays. I’m not very hungry before I leave for work, so don’t think about bringing food, but by the time 7:00 comes around I am starving. Not to mention that the phrase “So, where are we doing dinner?” is the only thing I can think about on double show days. Traditionally the crews for whatever shows are on with the Arts Club meet up for dinner somewhere on these days. Nice, but pricey (usually I spend $25-$40 on these outings), not to mention that there is no way I could name the ingredients in most of the stuff I end up eating.

   Luckily, I am only at the coffee shop right now, so don’t have to worry about the theatre food dilemma just yet.  

My plan for today was simple.

1) Sleep in

2) Drink coffee

3) Eat breakfast

4) Make a lunch

5) Shower and all that fun stuff

6) Knit

7) Take my lunch/dinner to work and eat it

Sounds easy right? Even wonderful in a simple, relaxed kind of way. Wrong.. I was thwarted from the very start.

I was woken up at 8am to the sounds of pans knocking against each other, water, and footsteps. I threw the covers off, cursed like a trucker and stomped to the bathroom in a performance that would have made the Incredible Hulk proud. Then I saw the reason for the noise.

  I live in an old, old, house and things don’t always work. Sometimes (and not that rarely) they straight up bust. We have a tradition emerging in our house for December: The pipe in the kitchen bursts. Last year it was on Christmas Day as I was washing my dinner dishes. This year it happens today. Hoorah!

  Because our landlord enjoys trying to fix things in his own creative way, this means no kitchen sink for a couple of days, which makes cooking and cleaning really fun. Basically it’s like camping. You go to the bathroom for water when you need it to cook or clean, you eat your meal, and you trudge back to the bathroom tap to wash your dishes. Needless to say, I am excited and impressed (for those that don’t know me, this is sarcasm).

 However, I have a goal. I will make my lunch. Since I had a lazy dinner last night, I have no leftovers.

 The plan was originally to have chicken, potatoes, corn and a salad.. but that’s a lot of pots to wash in my bathroom sink, so I roasted a couple of chicken breasts and threw together a bigger salad. Because I close tonight and open tomorrow I can bring tomorrow’s lunch with me. This means that come 5:15am when I am running out of the house I don’t have to remember to grab it. Ha!

 

Booya!

 

 

Today (closing/dinner shift): Spinach and chicken salad with tomato, cucumber, cranberries and trail mix

Tomorrow (opening/brunch shift): Spinach/Kale smoothie with raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, orange, and banana (don’t knock it ’till you try it.. you can’t really taste all of the green stuff, though it is kind of green/brown looking), almonds, toast with avocado

 How about all of you? Do you bring your lunches? Are you a sandwich person? Do you get creative? Any great tips lurking out there for a not-so-big-on-sandwiches type of girl?