Discovering Czechoslovakian food

Nutmeg and Parsley. Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever thought to put together the two. But I am now trying out recipes from the Eastern European part of the world, a part that I have not spent too much time testing out. Friday was one of those busy crazy days. I was working in the morning, then went to hang out with a friend and then had to go grocery shopping since I was on supper duty. I was having a friend over for supper which adds a bit of time pressure as I like to have everything ready for when guests come as it is hard to fully pay attention to people when I have a recipe to follow. To top it off, dinner HAD to be ready by the time my friend showed because we were heading off to pick up tickets for a steve bell concert (I mentioned Steve in my last post, and there are never too many plugs for good music, so I give another - Steve Bell is an awesome singer/songwriter that has a real heart for God).

Anyways, I discovered a soup in my European cookbook that looked fairly simple and one that I could manage with the time pressures. And I was excited that it was from Czechoslovakia - a country I haven't delved into in terms of food. So I cooked a cauliflower soup. A relatively plain looking soup as it just had cauliflower and then heavy cream in it.

Here is the final product with nutmeg and parsley. the nutmeg adds a wonderful flavour that I can't quite describe. Yum!

Discovering Swiss Chard

As a house, we have been receiving what is called the "Good food box" which is really neat. It is all organic, and either locally grown or fairly traded. (To read more about fairly traded stuff, check out my friend's blog Just Consumers?). Anyways, each week we get a bunch of (usually) in season fruits and vegetables and we have to find our way to consume the abundance of amazing foods that we are given. Organic food goes bad a whole lot faster. It has made me think and question what I have been eating all these years. We are what we eat! I'm becoming more aware of the injustices and just wrong practices that society has become so accustomed to.. I keep thinking of the Steve Bell line in one of his songs: With much wisdom, comes much sorrow. (A little plug for Steve Bell - if you don't know who he is, check him out. He is a Christian singer/song writer that has been extremely influential in my life and I tend to quote him a lot on my blog of reflections).

So this is swiss chard. It turned the water a beautiful bright redish-pink colour. It is like spinach, and just with spinach and kale you shouldn't cook it for longer than it needs or else it will turn bitter.

This is the final product - a swiss chard back. It is filled with egg, milk, bread cubes and tons of cheese :) Yummy - my housemates said this one was a keeper.