The Story Behind the Cakes

I've shared on here the story behind my cooking adventures, but neglected to tell the story behind the cake decorating adventures.

My Bible study group meets on a weekly basis and we take turns doing snacks. There is often a tad of competition....


... Fancy Flavoured Cupcakes


... Coconut Carrot Raisin Bread



... Fruit Shoe "Cake"

And then one day, Chef de Cuisine decided that she would prepare a special cake for a dear friend. This is a chocolate zucchini cake (probably the best cake one could ever taste in my not so humble opinion!). Having never decorated a cake before, this one was quite the challenge. Yet the candy markings gave way to inspiration to start decorating cakes - an inspiration that has only grown with time!

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.