The Earthbound Cook

I bought myself a Christmas present - "The Earthbound Cook". Yes, a cookbook. But honestly, I've been in a bit of a rut, haven't felt like cooking and my appetite is not great. I'm just pretty uninspired by food lately! So I decided that a little inspiration wouldn't hurt. Plus today is the Staff/Resident Christmas Reception and I will get a nice little gift that will more than cover the cost of the book. And I also have a whole shelf to fill on my cookbook shelf now that I moved all the books to a new one! (obsessed? perhaps).


Anyways, I was reading about the benefits of organic farming and a dream in me was renewed. I've always wanted to live on an animal and vegetable farm. When I was 16 or 17, I began volunteering at a horse breeding farm to gain some large animal experience. I spent a year mucking out stalls, delivering bails of hail, and learning about an amazing animal. I quickly found out that i was a city gal - I got shocked a few too many times by the wire on the fence. My supervisor smiled near the end of my time there and said that I had come a long way - that they weren't sure if it would work out with me!

That was when I first got the idea that I want to have a home on a big property and animals and be able to open it up to others in need. Now the idea has and is continuing to change with maturity. But I remember being struck by how therapeutic working with animals was - even though I did not have the language of "therapy" to stick with my experience. Cooking is also a means of "therapy" for me.

Today on my way to work, I couldn't help to be inspired by the gorgeous pictures of fruits and vegetables growing in the backyard of the author's home! Wouldn't it be wonderful to fill the table with foods that don't contain pesticides and that haven't sat in the back of truck for days or weeks? I even had a brief moment today when I thought that having organic meat was a good idea - I was shocked by my somewhat ok-ness with sacrificing Buffy the cow to feed the family (hmmm..... let me rephrase. My husband can do the deed while I am out somewhere! I shall add that to my description of husband requirements: willing to bring me coffee in the morning, a strong Christian, able to proofread, able to read in between the lines, and be willing to do the much dreaded deed should we one day live on a farm).

One of the draws to organic eating is a change of lifestyle habits. I was reading about ways in which energy, resources and time are wasted and began reflecting on the number of times I have thrown out good food simply because I didn't know tips that would help preserve food longer (did you know that you should wash lettuce when you get it, put it through a salad spinner, then in a bag with a paper towel, store in the coldest part of the fridge [preferably a crisper] and away from apples? Supposedly lettuce will stay firm for a week!)


So expect updates on what it is like to become an earthbound cook and to allow this lifestyle to permeate every aspect of my life!

Kale Salad - Original Recipe

Kale Salad

I introduced Kale Salad to a group of youth and their families this past Friday. For many it was the first time they have ever seen, let alone tasted, this glorious vegetable. For others, it was the first time they had had Kale raw. I had forgotten that this was a potluck dinner, and so I had forgotten to bring anything from my kitchen. So this is an original recipe.

In keeping with the Christmas theme, I used: Red apples, Red onions, Red peppers and Kale.

The dressing was as follows:
1/2 cup of fresh lemon juice
1/2 of vegetable oil (I think olive oil would have been much better)
1-2 tbsp of Mustard
1tsp cayenne pepper

Toss with salad..... mmmmmm.
This salad seemed to win over even those who are not salad people!

A Pokeman Christmas

As an outreach event, I held a Christmas cookie decorating event with seniors, students and members of the local church. It was a wonderful evening of hearing stories of Christmas traditions, and learning of one person who used to decorate wedding and birthday cakes. I love having baking and cooking nights as it allows each other to learn things that one might not learn over a cup of coffee. I also really enjoy holding intergenerational events as I think the stories and experiences shared are beneficial to both!

Apparently Christmas can't be Christmas without a pokeball ornament! K. came up with this design.

Pokeball

Others made various creative Christmas ornaments with the sprinkles I had provided. I was amazed at the creativity!

Santa Claus

 

Youth Group Night - Japanese Food!

On your mark. Get set. Go! 15 youth divided into pairs of 2 or 3 with a recipe or two in a kitchen that has few supplies. I told the youth group that I was two too tired to cook, so they were going to cook for me. Improvisation is the key word of the night - a cup for a bowl, a glass for a rolling pin. Several of the youth had not cooked before and many of these foods were considered "exotic". My name was called throughout the evening and food preparation techniques were given. Everyone had a choice - they could cook or be on sole cleanup duty. Everyone made the wise choice to cook.

It took a long time to prepare - much longer than I had anticipated. So between the long wait and the eagerness to try the dishes that we prepared, we were more than ready to sit down together. In the spirit of the Japanese who thank the earth for the food, we thanked God for the food, the friendship and the time that we had together to learn new things.

Then - for the first time in a few hours - there was complete silence followed by a chorus of "mmmmm"s.

Here are pictures from the evening's menu:

Spicy Edamames

Beef and Pepper DIsh

This salad was prepared by one young man who adamently proclaimed that he could not cook. So I gave him the salad that only required slicing tofu, tomatoes and avocadoes. I learned afterwards that I had successfully given him a dish to prepare with every ingredient he did not like! Poor guy didn't get to enjoy the fruits of his labour!




Tofu Salad



Daikon Salad



Bean Dish



Avocado Dip



Teryaki Chicken

Well done youth for a delicious meal.

The Joy of Bread Baking

Orange Cinnamon Swirl Bread

There is something really special and therapeutic and almost prayerful about baking bread. There is a process of creating, of waiting, of anticipating, and rejoicing when a loaf is made. Yesterday, my friend J. and I set out to bake bread. She worked on an orange cinnamon swirl recipe that comes from The Bread Bible: 300 Favorite Recipes. This sweet bread had the hint and smell of orange that was faint, yet made this bread distinct.

Orange Cinnamon Swirl Bread (Side View)

I worked on a yeast pizza crust from the Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition - 2006, and added my own flair to it with a few herbs.

Basic Pizza Dough (Improvised version with herbs)

Together we chatted and shared about our life stories, our journeys and what we are struggling with as we kneaded and prepared bread that we would share. As we waited for it to rise, the stories continued.

There is something special about creating food with a friend. The giving, the receiving, the making, the sharing, the enjoying. The finished bread and finished pizza was a prize for our hard labour as well as a joy added to our friendship, making yesterday a special day.

Best tasting pizza ever!

I love the simplicity of baking bread. I used to think that bread was complicated and yeast was finicky. But there is something to making one of the basic foods in life from scratch and something wholesome about not eating one of the main staples from a store.

Bread making, as I referred to in a different post, has a special meaning to me now. As I knead the bread, I remember my grandma. I remember her influence. I remember the joy that she brought into my life. I remember her praying with my grandpa each morning for all the people in their life. I remember the stories she told me of growing up and here adventures in the war. The kneading is healing to the pain and sorrow of losing someone I love dearly, but also extends beyond to the future of knowing that her legacy lives on. Her life was a blessing while she was here on earth. But will also continue to be a blessing. Today I was reminded of this as I enjoyed a piece of the orange cinnamon bread and the fruits of yesterday.

Forming the Dough

Cruising in the Caribbean

First and foremost, I have to congratulate blogger for making changes to their post editor - from now on pictures will be added and sized to hopefully be aligned properly. Kudos for them figuring out that it was quite the challenge before, especially with me being rather rusty in HTML codes.

Second, I would like to share my deep excitement that my blog is getting some worldwide attention! How fun is that? I think should start posting some of the original recipes and from now on I will create a link to the actual cookbook that I use. I will warn you that I have a growing collection - currently it is at about 30 books. I ran out of space for them - but - problem was recently solved when I designated a whole bookshelf to the cookbooks. Not only are they neatly displayed, but there is also an empty shelf (that needs to be filled).

A few friends and I gathered for one of my known cooking parties. A time when each person brings a few ingredients and we sit, chat, chop and cook together. Dinner is always served at least an hour after the planned time. But it is always a good night of sharing, laughter and friendship. There is something very intimate about a kitchen. As I am interested in phenomenology, I am interested in looking at what makes the experience of the kitchen different from, say, the living room. The kitchen is a special place to me and I daresay others, though, maybe their interest in cooking is not nearly close to mine or perhaps because I love cooking so much I am too biased to look at it neutrally. In any event, this was the first dinner party I've had in a long time.

Each dinner party has a theme. This night was the Caribbean. Trying to stick to fall vegetables in keeping with the season was probably the biggest challenge I faced in picking recipes. Every recipe looked amazing. But with my recent conviction to eat in season, I just could not justify picking out recipes that required the main ingredient to be imported from who knows where just because I have the luxury of being able to buy whatever I want. I made a mistake with okra (though while it is not "in season" according to my book, it has been on sale a lot lately, so I do not feel so guilty).

Peanut Chicken

Main course was peanut chicken - a very rich sauce with thyme, garlic, curry powder, lemon juice and various other ingredients to make it spicy to taste  (I think I toned down the spice since the last Caribbean meal that I made challenged my tolerance of spicy foods). And of course, it had peanut butter. 

The meal was complimented by a red and green pepper corn bread (using up the peppers that were required for the rest of the recipes!). It was so good and made the perfect bread addition to the meal.

Bean Salad

As a side dish we had a very good peppery bean salad with quite the dressing - cumin, ketchup, white wine vinegar. It had 3 different types of beans (kidney, chickpeas and black beans). The black beans gave it a different texture and then the vegetables were crunchy. This is definitely a keep recipe and I will try to post it as it would be good to make for lunch or anything.

Okra Fried Rice

The Okra Fried Rice was something that I had never tasted anything like it before. I have had okra once but never cooked it myself. I really enjoyed the different flavours and the colourfulness of this dish.

Creamed Sweet Potato/Yam

Then we had creamed sweet potato with a bit of yam in it. Or perhaps a bit of sweet potato in the yam. or perhaps all yam. or perhaps all sweet potato. We discovered the impossibility of us being able to determine which is which without knowing what plant they actually grew from. The stores use yam and sweet potatoes differently. They both come in oodles of varieties so they are easily confused. Sweet potatoes can be cream or orange fleshed. Yams can also be cream or orange fleshed. Mind you, the white fleshed (what i considered sweet potato) definitely had a very distinct flavour. But who knew you had to be an expert in botany to be able to pick out the right ingredient for recipes?

Barbadian Sweet Coconut Bread

The dessert was actually made for the next day. We were too stuffed to try to eat dessert. This is a Barbadian Sweet Coconut Bread. In Barbados, it is often served at Christmas time. It had a whole pile of flour, lots of coconut, hardly any sugar and very little liquid. It barely rose and was quite dense to hold. But the bread, while heavy, was moist inside and incredibly sweet. Definitely another keeper.

Recipes can be found in this great book! I love the pictures, the recipes so far are easy and delicious. The book also explains the beliefs, culture and types of food for the various countries.

Hallowe'en and Harvest Cupcakes

I hosted a cupcake decorating introduction workshop with a few of my friends. The theme of the day was Hallowe'en Cupcakes. Together we made owls, aliens, monsters, mummies, centipedes and other creepy crawlies, frankensteins. Fun times.

Then made cupcakes for my fellow students for coffee hour - in celebration of the fall harvest, I made a field of corn, pumpkins, squash, tomatoes, egg plants, zucchini.

This is my first video that I'm posting here on Chef de Cuisine so I hope that it works. I need to figure out a better way to display my pictures as sometimes they get scattered.

Cupcake Designs

C'Mon, Let's Roll!

Squash Cloverleaf Buns

I am enjoying my new project of bread baking in honour and memory of my grandmother. There is something satisfying, relaxing and wholesome about kneading some dough, letting it rise and having it baked in the oven. Fresh bread smells and tastes better as the steam rises above a freshly cut piece. With my book of 300 recipes, I am quite pleased with a project that will carry me all my days. I'm trying not to buy bread at all. I made an amazing wild rice and molasses bread. The rice added a nutty flavour to the bread as well as a heartiness that plain old white and whole wheat breads lack. I have been enjoying breadbaking so much that I have started to pun at every opportunity (much to A's dismay who has gotten quite the rise out of my jokes). Alas, in a world gone a-rye, is a pun every now and then so bad? Sometimes life is just down and out crumb-y and a little pun now and then makes one laugh (or groan). Come now - it's all about the flour power!

Wild Rice Molasses Bread

Then this week for Bible study snack, I made a special snack :) Last week L. brought a homebaked and decorated cake with a Hallowe'en theme (L. has been dubbed the Queen of Desserts in our Bible study group) and the week before J. brought amazing cheesecake. To say the least, if I continued the trend of sweet snacks, I had a tough act to follow. So alas, I decided to do something completely different and I baked Squash Cloverleaf Buns (recipe from The Bread Bible: 300 Favorite Recipes)

These are actually made with squash. Yes, a yeast bread made with squash! The design is called "cloverleaf" which is made of 3 round balls of dough, stuck into a muffin tin. the three pieces remain distinct, yet one (I feel a theological reflection coming on....)

Right now I kneed in my need to grieve and remember. But perhaps out of this kneading, a bread baker will arise in me.

Keeping with the seasons

So cooking within the various seasons is proving to be a greater challenge and restriction than I had imagined. The other day some of my favourite fruits went on sale. But they are summer fruits!!!! I tried to justify buying the imported foods, but alas, my decision to buy within the seasons array of fruits and vegetables kept me from indulging. It is teaching me about the priviledge I have of living in a city that is able to important just about anything I could ever want or imagine. It is teaching me that just because I can doesn't mean that I should.

I cooked Latin American food last weekend (pictures soon to be posted) and that was pretty difficult to figure out what I wanted to cook without violating my decision (there were so many recipes that look good!). But perhaps I tried recipes that I would not have had I not had a list of fruits and vegetables from which I could chose.

I purchased an acorn squash the other night - $0.69!!!! How crazy is that??!!! I couldn't believe that I have never discovered squash before at the grocery store when I think of the nutritional and monetary value ratio! And then last night, I craved pizza like you wouldn't believe. I'm going to be trying a new recipe soon (Butternut Squash and Sage Pizza) but last night I refrained from purchasing vegetables outside of fall list simply to satisfy a want. So I made a pizza with olives and onions. and wow - SOOOOOOOOO good!!!

Last night I enjoyed a bowl of red grapes. They were delicious. I've been eating pears and apples and cranberries. While I want other fruits (the grass is greener always on the other side??!!), I am beginning to savour what I do have.

I am beginning to see the joy of the fall seasonal fruit and vegetables.

Crazy Cravings!

Tofu Bites and Sauce

Normal people crave chocolate. Or cheese. or ice cream.

But what do I crave lately? Tofu. You have my permission to now declare me crazy.

After a week of craving tofu, I finally gave in to my own insanity. I cooked tofu "breaded" with nutritional yeast (an excellent source of Vitamin B12) in oil. The sauce is soy sauce, sesame oil, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, ginger and garlic. So good!

Maybe now I'll be more like normal people now that i have fulfilled my craving of late. Be on the lookout for scrumptious chocolate recipes on here! *grin*

(Recipe from Simply in Season Expanded Edition (World Community Cookbook))

Apple Crisp with a Twist

In line with my "autumn foods" I found a recipe for an apple cranberry crisp. However, I adapted the recipe to make it healthier than the original - for the topping I used soy flour, rye flakes, rolled oats and oat bran. So very good! Good as a dessert or healthy enough for breakfast tomorrow!

Simply in Season

Lately I have been doing a lot of thinking about eating in season, eating locally and sustainable living. I've been reading various books and talking with owners of farmers markets and other interesting people. We live in a society that is able to get whatever we want, whenever we want. Don't get me wrong, I love eating exotic fruits and vegetables and crave summer produce all year round. But I have been thinking that living in this freedom robs me of being able to enjoy and anticipate the various seasons.

So much of life is spent yearning for the future or dwelling in the past. Society is built around lamenting what we don't have and ignoring what we do. And we forget to live in the present moment. To be content with what we have. So in some small way, I think living in season will help me with this. My goal is to spend the next year living simply in season. To savour the foods that each season brings. I think that this will make me appreciate what I have more. To enjoy foods that i may not have tried otherwise. To master a repertoire of foods for a particular season. And to enjoy the first fruits of the next season.

Fall is here and with it comes hearty stews, pumpkin pie and other wonderful comforting treats as the cooler weather comes rushing in. I'm going to discover pumpkins and squash (I've dabbled in both once or twice, but now I will really discover them). My fruit will mainly be pears, grapes and cranberries (and probably apples here and there as an apple a day keeps the doctor away!). Sweet potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts and kale! Let the cooking begin!

Russian Beet Stew

All my international cooking has successfully managed to avoid Europe... until yesterday. Alas, I broke open the the spine of the Eastern European cooking book that I recently purchased and cooked an amazing and hearty Beet Stew. My fingers turned bright pink, but it was well worth it! Beets, Carrots, Onions and mushrooms (the best tasting mushrooms ever I must add! They were left whole and somehow were full of flavour!). it was topped with a little sour cream and paprika. Perfect for a fall day!

Flour and Seeds

There are times in life when you face hard, maybe unexpected or maybe long coming, things. And there are times when nothing can be said, or done to make it better. There are times when things are lost and cannot be replaced. And there are times, within those moments, where silence seems not enough, inaction is inadequate, and the need to do something is strong. I know people who have planted seeds in symbolism of hope of the days to come or in memory of something or someone that was lost. I know others who write, and others still who paint or draw.

My thing is cooking. So I was thinking about my need to do something - anything - and the limits that the details of my life put on such action. I feel helpless. So I have decided to turn my pain and sadness into something beautiful and wonderful and new. Just like I did with the Moroccan food 4 years ago. I am going to master the art of baking bread - in memory, in grief, in anticipation, in hoping for the days to come. Bread will become my symbol of how God works through this particular chapter of my life. It will be my reminder.

Yesterday I cooked my very first loaf of bread from scratch! My new recipe book says that one should start with a white loaf as it is pretty simple for a first loaf. I don't like to do things the easy way though and plain white bread is not the most nutritious. So I decided to attempt a whole grain loaf - with bran, molasses and sunflowers. I enjoyed the process of kneading, and then punching down the risen dough and shaping the bread. The reward of the smell of baking bread was quite wonderful. But the prize - a perfectly shaped bread that tasted amazing. I don't think I've ever tasted bread that good before!

So my new adventure is off to a great start!

A Chef is Born

I've had a few people ask me lately how I got into cooking. I'm not when it happened, but I discovered cooking at home. For school, I put on a full traditional Icelandic meal for my family and I used every dish and utensil we owned! My poor parents kindly offered to do the dishes but asked me to learn to clean up as I go! Then I put on a Seder meal with a full Jewish passover ceremony. Once I started university, my ability to do daily chores was drastically compromised by the amount of homework and the fact that I had classes preventing me from being home around the dinner hour. So Sundays became my day in the kitchen.

Every Sunday prior to going to church I would prepare a roast, stick it in the oven and prepare the side dishes. We were conservative in our food - we stuck to our favourites, experimented very little and there was little room for adventure of the sorts you have seen on this blog. But my desire to try something different started in the kitchen in my home town with the Sunday roast. I would experiment with the spices and would never give away my secret ingredients for fear that no one would actually eat the lunch I have prepared. The roasts became my one thing that I could prepare without a recipe far better than anyone else in the home.

Once I started living on my own I enjoyed being able to experiment. I bought a slow cooker which became my favourite appliance for cooking. I had my successes and failures - I could cook a mean chili! But I learned the hard way that 2 cans of jalepeno peppers is a lot of peppers to slow cook for 10 hours! and as much as it saves time, putting 5 cups of dry rice in a slow cooker with the appropriate amount of water and butter means that I have to eat rice for the rest of the month.

And then one day I had my heart broken. One of my mentors gave me a brilliant idea - she spoke of how much I love cooking and suggested that I choose a nationality and cook and master that food. She said that way I can turn my pain and sadness into something good, as well as prepare for the day when the right one would come along. I think that was one of the best pieces of advice that I have ever heard in my life. My colleagues and I had recently gone to a Moroccan restuarant and I had instantly fallen in love with the spices used. So I decided to master Moroccan food.

I started with a chicken tajine, a dish with lots of tomatoes and onions! I began serving this to relatives and friends. For Christmas, my cousins gave me a Moroccan cookbook and I was in heaven! I made kefta, a spicy flavourful meatball in a yummy spicy sauce!

After 10 or so months of practicing, I was ready to put on my first full Moroccan evening. For my third anniversary of my Exodus, I decided to celebrate with a few friends. Since Moroccan food had special significance I decided to cook for about 6-7 of my closest friends. I made kefta, zucchini salad, moroccan spiced chicken, carrot salad, couscous and a rosewater milk pudding. It was a successful dinner!

Some people ask why I chose Moroccan food? I chose it because I didn't know anyone else who did it. It became my thing. I do things outside of the box, if everyone does it, I have no interest in it!

My summer supervisor quickly learned of my love for cooking and I agreed to cook a fancy Moroccan meal for the last night of our Leaders in Training Experience for the youth. The meal had many of the same recipes as well as a few others and a pastry dessert that proved most challenging without a fully stocked kitchen!

It did not take long for cooking Moroccan food to move from being a way to heal to being a way to have fun. I discovered how much I love the process of cooking, the turning ordinary ingredients into something extraordinary. I love trying new recipes, especially ones with ingredients that I don't think will work together! I can spend hours cooking. Cooking is not only a way I relax, but a way that I connect with God. I turn on the music and truly enjoy God's company for the hours of food preparation.

I have since moved on to different nationalities. Moroccan food is no longer a favourite, but it does hold a special place in my life. I am so thankful for the advice that i was given. I don't think I would have discovered how much I love cooking, or how amazing saffron and turmeric are. I would never have known what a tagine is or how to prepare a jalepeno pepper. Here are a few pictures from before the start of this blog that show a little of what I have done.

Salad with Blackberries Carrot and Coconut Loaf Chocolate Stew

with Dijon & Parsley dressing

Coconut Dhal Best Kraft Dinner ever! Cajun Quinoa

Indian Fruit Salad with Syrian Lentil Meal Peanut Butter, Broccoli and Tofu

Peppercorns and Fennel

It has been through cooking in many ways that I have discovered my calling in life.... one of the many aspects of the life I anticipate having is one in which I am involved with hospitality ministries. I've started now. Sometimes I cook a fancy meal for myself. Other times I plan to have a few people over to cook with me. Others still, I start a meal and spontaneously invite others to come and join me. Often it is last minute. I dream of teaching cooking and nutrition. I dream of creating a study curriculum that combines seeking God and food at the same time.

I collect cookbooks, sauces, vinegars and spices. I am eager to try new foods. So far I have dabbled quite a bit in Moroccan, Indian, Ethiopian, Japanese and now I've started the Caribbean. Next stop: Poland, Germany and Eastern Europe.