The Carver's Knife, Coconut Basmati Rice, and Berry Ice Cream

Ryan surprised me earlier this week by bringing me home some of my favourite flowers - daisies. They look very summery in front of our living room window. Considering our apartment gets no direct sunlight, I'm impressed they're still looking so nice.

After being sick last week, my parents had us over for dinner on Saturday. And what did we have? Fondue! It was a bit perilous, as 7 people trying to dip raw meat into hot oil can be, but we had fun. I'm bugging my mom to do a couple of guest blog posts.

We decided to switch from a bi-weekly produce box to the weekly option this week. So on Wednesday I picked up our second box. Because there was a big snowstorm here on Monday, some of our items didn't get through so we ended up with extra beets and lettuce and no carrots this week. We're trying not to buy any produce from the grocery stores and stick only to the box and so far that's working fairly well. Here's what this weeks box looked like, pre-splitting for Shawna and Dylan.

From Monday-Wednesday I don't usually cook too much because either both or one of us is out for the evening. But on Thursday when I got home from work I knew I wanted some real food so I whipped this up.

Bison smokies that are from the past summers farmers market, and roasted sweet potato, beets, potatoes, and onions. Not very green but very tasty. We've been getting lots of beets in the box and I'm never really sure what to do with them but Shawna mentioned she loves them roasted. They were good but I think I have to experiment a little more. The only other time I really have beets is julienned in a salad.

Yesterday we also ventured out to The Carver's Knife. They had lots of great products and I picked up a frozen chicken to cook later, but we both agreed that we prefered Frigs. I liked that at Frigs they would tell you on most of the packaging where the meet was from, if it was made in store, and that it didn't include any gluten, dairy, hormones or anti-biotics and all deli meat was made in store. They also had a really nice selection of fresh bison, while The Carver's Knife only had frozen. The Carver's Knife seemed to focus a lot more on "local" while Frigs seems to focus a lot more on "local, natural". Since the prices are fairly on par, I think we'll probably do most of our shopping at Frigs when it comes to meat.

But we didn't come away empty handed. We bought pork buttons, pork tenderloin, a chicken, and some deli meat. We had some of the pork buttons last night. Ryan's mom gave him a tasty sweet bbq sauce so I just smothered the pork buttons in that and put them in the oven at 375 for 35 minutes.

I took this opportunity to use up some of our fresh veggies and fruits. I love having fried apples with pretty much any meal so I added pears and red chard stalk and fried them up in butter and coconut oil with cinnamon and nutmeg (and a bit of brown sugar). They were tasty but I'm still figuring out what do with red chard. And lastly, coconut basmati rice.

Coconut Basmati Rice

• 1 cup basmati rice, rinsed serveral times in cold water to remove starch
• 1-2 tbsp butter
  
• 1 1/4-1 3/4 cups coconut milk (depending on how hard or soft you want your rice)
• 1/3 cup craisins
• 1/4 cup honey spiced almonds or raw almonds
• leaves of 2-3 chard stalks or fresh spinach

1) In a large saucepan or pot melt the butter or low-medium heat and add rice, stirring for 2 minutes.
2) Add coconut milk and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce to low and cook, covered, undisturbed for about 20 minutes until liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat, let stand for 5 minutes, and fluff with a fork. Add chard or spinach, almonds, and craisins and mix. Cover and let sit for 2-3 minutes before serving.

And because it's been a whole week since a post, I'll also give you my current favourite ice cream recipe. The inspiration from the post definitely came from The Whole Kitchen's Peach Ginger ice Cream recipe. I like really tart flavours and I'm trying to reduce my white sugar intake so I played around until I came up with this winner.


Mixed Berry Coconut Ice Cream

• 1 can coconut milk
• 2.5 cups frozen berries (I used blackberries, blueberries, and raspberries)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tbsp ginger
• juice of 1/2 a lemon
  

Put all ingredients except the ginger in a blender and mix well. Jenn suggests chilling the mixture thoroughly before putting in your ice cream maker, but because I used frozen berries and the mixture was still quite thick, I just put it straight into my ice cream maker.

Pour the mixture into the ice cream mixer base and add the grated ginger as it mixes. Let run for as long as your mixer should take (usually 30-40 minutes) and put in a container in the freezer. This stuff doesn't last long in our house. It's tart, fresh, and tastes amazingly creamy. A nice reminder of summer.