Triumphant Return

As you can probably guess I decided to take an informal break from blogging for a few months. The main reason was personal stress and really needing to take some time for myself, and only for myself. Things have been pretty much normalized in my life for the last month or two but it's really only in the last few weeks that I've felt worthy of returning to the blogsphere. Between personal reasons, balancing two positions at work with no regular hours, and a very busy December of visiting, snacking, and preparing for the holidays, I just couldn't get into the kitchen more than one night a week.

But now I'm officially working one position, I have a regular weekly work schedule, and I'm feeling oh-so-inspired in the kitchen and at home. Lately I've started re-prioritizing food and overall healthy living. I think when Ryan and I moved in together and I started talking about the ways I wanted to eat and how I wanted to keep moving away from pre-packaged foods, toxins, and chemicals and closer to an organic/local/sustainable life he didn't exactly know what to think. Now he's definitely feeling a lot more comfortable with the way we live and to be honest, I think he gets a bit excited about it all too, even if he wouldn't admit it.

Here's some of my recent initiatives:

1) Sticking to our food budget no matter what. In May we're taking a trip overseas so finances are a little tight. We stick to a strict $100 a week food budget but when we need to do a big stock up (TP, cat litter, cat food, vinegar, milk, eggs, cheese, meat, etc) it's pretty easy to go over budget. In the past we've been pretty loose with this budget but now we're sticking to it as closely as we can and really watching our pennies. Of course, this has turned into a fun personal challenge for me. We only have $30 to last us until Feb 4th so I've been having fun going through our cupboards being as imaginative as possible. Which brings me to my next initiative.

2) As little food waste as possible. This sounds pretty basic, I know, but it takes practice to figure out how to use all the little leftovers that end up in the fridge. I know composting is all fine and dandy but I'd rather see my food get eaten instead of thrown into the bin. Maintaining as little food waste as possible also means being extremely conscious of what ingredients we have in the kitchen. Growing up, our cupboards were always stocked and while it made it easy to think of something to make, it also meant a lot of stuff sat in the cupboard for months or years without being touched. Partially due to our small cupboard space and partially due to my insistence on using what we have (hopefully we won't be experiencing an Apocalypse soon) we're moving through a lot of dried foods that I purchased last winter and then just let sit there.

Cooking to my ingredients is a lot of fun for me - I love to improvise in the kitchen, which is one of the reasons it's difficult for me to post recipes some times. Often I have leftover dips, sauces, or dressings that need to be used up fairly quickly. I feel like planning strategically is a skill that has really developed in the year+ that I moved out of my folks place. The way I'm able to throw ingredients together now is such a difference and I have to say I feel pretty proud about the whole thing.

3) Composting. As I mentioned before, composting is great - if you have a place to drop it off. For the past year+ I've been collecting or compost in the window during the winter and in our freezer during the summer. I've been dropping it off at my parents place because they have 3 or 4 large composters in their backyard - but they're starting to get pretty full at this point.

I'm happy to report that my workplace has started composting through a company in my city. Because they're an industrial composting site, they're able to accept things that a normal backyard composter wouldn't be able to handle - things like meat, bones, dairy products. I work in a very small workplace so the giant bin we were given is barely half full when they pick it up every week so I consulted with other staff and now I'll be dropping our compost in their once a week. I'm still trying to get used to keeping virtually all our food scraps.

4) Reducing toxins, plastics, and chemicals in our food and life. I admit, the various plastic-free blogs have caught my interest in a big way. A few off the top of my head:

• http://myplasticfreelife.com/
• http://plasticmanners.wordpress.com/
• http://www.lifewithoutplasticblog.com/

But it's not just reducing my plastic that I'm concerned with, it's also reducing the toxins in my everyday routine. I've also been spending a lot of time exploring The David Suzuki Foundation site.

I've already been trying to do this for quite a while. In my own routine, I usually use a mixture of honey and yogurt to wash my face and when it's not -35 and super dry, I like to use coconut oil as a moisturizer. I also use Kiss My Face Pure Olive Oil Soap as my face wash too.

For cleaning we really only using baking soda, vinegar, water, and occasionally bleach. For clothes we've been using a "environmentally friendly" detergent (whatever that means) and for dishes we use regular old dish soap. For ages I've been wanting to try Soap Nuts but never remembered while I was out. Ryan's sister gave me a small sample bag for Christmas and we tested them out a few weeks ago. So far, we love 'em. I like them because there's no scent, they get our clothes clean, and they come out nice and soft without that starchy feeling. Ryan was extremely skeptical but he's behind them now - we picked up a large bag of soap nuts to last us a while.

The best part about soap nuts (besides the fact that they're actually berries)? Once they're used they can be boiled to make an multi-purpose cleaning solution, and after that they can be composted! The nuts can be used multiple times so we feel that they were a good deal. Right now we're collecting the used ones to make the cleaner.

5) Re-commitment to organic and/or local food. This was easier last year because we could split our FOOD Box with our friends. Since they're not in the city anymore, we decided it wasn't practical to get the box by ourselves. Up until a few weeks ago, I was being pretty lazy with where we were getting our food. After doing some research, we've settled into doing most of our fresh shopping from Organic Planet Worker Co-Op. They're very small, and while there is a much larger organic food store closer to us, I've found that Organic Planet tends to have fresher and better quality produce.

So that's what's been happening around here. Other little projects are constantly in the back of my mind but I'm trying to take things one step at a time right now and work within my limits. I love doing research about topics of all kinds so I'm basically doing a lot of reading, blogging, and networking right now. But I'm looking forward to sharing what's happening in the kitchen in 2011.

Out and About: Hermanos in Winnipeg

August has been a busy month for dinner's and lunches out. My summers are usually packed with friend or family meet-ups at a nice patio or restaurant. Ryan and I have also decided to try and go to new restaurants almost every time we go out (we made an exception for Stella's though, because it's cheap, close, and we both LOVE it). So far we've only been to a few new places but we're really enjoying it. I've discovered a lot of places I didn't know existed and a few hidden gems. Next on my list is Saaadal Kherys Somali Restaurant on 164 Isabel Street. But that's for later.

This August has been particularly restaurant packed because of Ciao Magazine's Taste the World. In hindsight, I really should have posted this at the beginning of August, rather than on the last day so no one else can take part in it. I managed to take part in 3 menu's and all were excellent. I'm going to spend a couple of posts talking about this promotion (as well as others from Ciao), and the recent new restaurants we've visited - although not all Ciao inspired.

Last week I invited my mom and Nana out for lunch. We browsed the menu selection on the website and narrowed it down to a couple before deciding on Hermanos Restaurant and Wine Bar. Hermanos is located in Winnipeg's Theatre District. Had it been a nicer day we were planning on going to The Forks but it turned out to be rather chilly. However, Hermanos' close proximity to The Forks and the walkway on Waterfront Drive make it a nice date spot, in my opinion.

As it turned out, I had actually been to 179 Bannatyne when it was an East Indian restaurant. The atmosphere is really lovely, with a classic look of exposed brick walls, dark red walls, and black chairs and booths. They boast "South American cuisine at the most reasonable prices" and suggest communal meals, sharing tapas and main dishes together. Looking at the menu, that sounded like a fabulous suggestion for dinner out with friends, but my Nana, mom, and I decided to do our own individual lunches.

Despite choosing this restaurant for their Ciao $10 lunch menu, only my mom ended up getting the Ciao special of Salpicoa , a traditional Brazilian chicken salad with chicken breast, fire roasted corn, hearts of palm, peas, shredded carrots, garlic, onions, mayo and bacon served with fresh house baked bread, tomato and greens. I'm not really a fan of "chicken salads" most of the time but my mom loved it. I can't speak much to it because shamefully, I didn't even taste it.

My Nana decided on the Bianco Mejillones (mussels). Served with cachaca, cilantro oil, lime, garlic butter, cream, and bread, it was a simple but delicious dish. I have to admit, I didn't taste her mussels either. They looked and smelled fantastic, but mussels are something I haven't conquered yet. The idea of them is a little too weird but my Nana loved them. She practically licked her plate clean, first eating every single mussel and then sopping up leftover sauce with her bread. For $12 a pound we thought they were priced very reasonably.

Finally, I decided on a nice Tapas dish of Grilled Ribeye Skewers served with 4 skewers, 3 small dishes of bacon and port buttered mushrooms, a roasted veggie and oil salsa (not listed on the menu), and carmelized onion and black pepper aioli with homemade potato chips. I go in and out of stages where I like red meat. Lately I've been into it but a few weeks ago we picked up some steaks that I was really looking forward to. They ended up being the toughest most tasteless steaks I've ever eaten. So when I saw the grilled ribeye skewers at Hermanos a few days later I wanted something that would fill my red meat void. Oh...my...god...they were exactly what I was looking for and cooked medium rare, just the way I like it. The mushrooms, roasted veggie mix, and aioli were all fantastic and the chips came out crispy and crunchy and fresh.

The only leftovers we came away with was a bit of my mom's dish she couldn't manage to finish. We all want to go back at some point, but I think both my mom and I want to experience the dinner menu with a larger group. I like that Hermanos also offers options for 2-3 people and has a fairly diverse menu. All in all, I'll definitely be making a stop here again. For the 3 of us, lunch ended up being just over $50, after drinks, tax, and tips.

Coming up soon: Fusion Grill, La Bomba, Lovey's, Sydney's

Sick Day Soups: Chickpea, Kidney Bean, Parsley Soup

Here in Winnipeg there's a small local chain of restaurants called Stella's. Stella's could very well be my favourite place to grab a bite. They have a big menu but they do a Quiche of the Day and two soups and I almost always end up getting the soup and salad because they always sound delicious. I don't think I've ever been disappointed.

A couple of months ago they were featuring a chickpea parsley soup that was delicious but also seemed pretty re-creatable. Today I was having some bloodsugar issues which generally makes me feel pretty under-the-weather for the whole day. My appetite hasn't been great and I was really craving a quick, easy soup. I looked up a couple of recipes but none of them sounded right so I just winged it.

Chickpea Kidney Bean Parsley Soup

• 1 can chickpeas, drained
• 1 can kidney beans, drained
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 1/2 bunch fresh parsley, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 4 cups veggie broth
• juice of half a lemon
  
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp olive oil

In a medium pot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Saute onions and garlic until soft. Add chickpeas, kidney beans, parsley, veggie broth, salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Bring to a boil and then let simmer for 20-30 minutes. Use a potato masher, food processor, or blender to mix depending on how thick you want the soup. I used a potato masher and it turned out nicely.

This was the perfect meal for a sick day. I know it's only August 10th and extremely hot and humid in Winnipeg, but this already feels kind of like a fall meal. Eeep! August is flying!

Back to Routine with a Classic: Potato Salad

I'm back! June and most of July were very stressful and very busy for me. Luckily from July 20th to August 3rd I was on vacation doing a road trip with Ryan and some friends from Winnipeg - Minneapolis - Chicago - Windsor -Toronto - various provincial campgrounds throughout HWY 17 in Northern Ontario. It was a well deserved break and we got to enjoy some great meals along the way too.

At Chino Latino's in Uptown in Minneapolis. Ryan making silly faces with the remnants of his enchilada.

Chicago Deep Dish Pizza at Giordano's.

Turkey smokies, asparagus, and new potatoes over the campfire on the shores of Lake Superior.

Before our vacation, I had little time or desire to be in the kitchen but now that things have settled down and I'm back to work and my regular routine I've been feeling excited to get into the kitchen again. We got back into the city on July 31st and had a picnic to go to on August 2nd. Now, up until recently I have never liked potato salad. Last year I experimented with a vinaigrette potato salad and found it was alright. A few weeks ago Ryan's aunt made a really nice potato salad that was more along the lines of my taste though. And I recalled Jenn at The Whole Kitchen posting a few different potato salad recipes (which I stole some helpful hints from), so I took all of them into consideration and put together a pretty damn good potato salad. We picked up groceries at The Forks and they had local red potatoes too and fresh local dill and I got to work for the BBQ food. I've come to keeping a jar of the dressing in the fridge most of the time now and just boiling up a bunch of potatoes (whole) in advance to snack on this throughout the week.

A mid-afternoon snack of potato salad with pumkin seeds, honey almonds, gluten free crackers and Tall Grass Prairie Jam, local wild blueberries, green grapes, and cheese from Fenton's.

Mustard Dill Potato Salad

• 3lbs small red potatoes
• 1 cup celery, chopped
• 1/3-1/2 cup toasted sunflower seeds (or pumpkin seeds, or toasted hemp, etc)

Dressing

• 1/4 cup mayo
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 1/4 cup fresh dill, chopped (or less if you aren't so dill inclined)
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1/4 cup fresh chives, chopped
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• juice of half a lemon
• 2 1/2 tbsp grainy mustard (experimenting with others is tasty too but this is my favourite so far)
• pepper to taste, I didn't find this needed salt

Put washed, whole potatoes in a large pot of cold water. Bring to a boil, and boil for 10 minutes. Then turn off heat and let potatoes sit fowhr 30 minutes for smaller potatoes, and 35-40 for larger sized ones. Drain, cool, and cut into bite sized pieces - I know some people remove the skins but I think they belong in the salad. Or alternatively, put whole potatoes in fridge and save for use later in the week. Cut up when you're ready to eat it.

Combine dressing ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Either use immediately or put in a container in the fridge for use later in the week. When ready to serve, toss chopped potatoes and celery together. Add dressing and toss - I find I sometimes have a little left over but I like a very light dressing. Before serving, sprinkle the sunflower (flax, hemp, pumpkin, etc) seeds over top. The crunchy seeds are really nice mixed in.

Hiatus

If you haven't already guessed, I'll be taking (and have already) a few weeks off from blogging. June was insane in my personal life both mentally and physically and I'm away most of July and won't be in the kitchen much except while I'm preparing picnic and road trip snacks. I'll return in early August. I have a lot to post about. :)

F.O.O.D. Wednesday: Picnic and BBQ Season!

I have to apologize for my frequent absences lately. I having been feeling great for the past few weeks and more than anything my exhaustion has been keeping me from cooking and blogging. I started seeing a Naturopathic doctor a few weeks ago and had some diagnostic testing done to try and get to the bottom of some of my health issues, including:

• general fatigue and exhaustion
• headaches 3-5 times a week (tension, migraine, or sinus)
• getting physically sick if I get less than 7 hours of sleep 2 nights in a row
• ongoing GI issues
• needing about 9-11 hours of sleep a night to feel well rested
• colds once every 2-3 weeks that last 24-48 hours
• feeling so tired and/or sick that I need to take a day off every 2-3 weeks.
  

The diagnostic test told me I'm allergic to eggs (no surprise there, I get violently ill when I eat them alone but seem to be okay if they're in something else) and soy (this was a surprise). The test is actually pointing to a possible parasite which was really not what I was expecting. I'm seeing my GP on Monday for further testing and to hopefully get a real answer after almost 2 years of this.

But on to happier things. Today I picked up the last food box that we'll share with Shawna and her husband. Shawna will be away next week and then we'll all be away for most of July so there was no point in them continuing with the box. We'll actually only be getting 3 more small sized boxes ourselves. Come July 7th we'll be away for the Winnipeg Folk Festival and then on the 13th we'll be hitting the road for the West Coast. When we return we likely won't start getting the box again until November when the Farmer's Market closes.

Speaking of the Farmer's Market, Ryan and I went out to the opening day in St. Norbert. There wasn't much in the way of produce except for rhubarb, herbs, and lettuce but plenty of folks were selling their wares. Ryan's mom was kind enough to buy us a piece of creamed butter fudge, peanut butter and vanilla, from what I'm pretty sure was Graham's Groves. Oh...my...god...it was the best fudge I've ever had by miles. I'm hoping to make a quick stop in on Saturday and pick up some more and see what else looks good. Last year I'd wanted to get a piece of framed coloured glass but for some reason we didn't end up buying one - so we stopped by Three Wise Crafts: Rustic Charm and picked up some blue stained glass. We hung it in the middle of our living room windows. The owner of the kiosk, Nester Gylywoychuk, saw that I really liked a particular colour of glass but the frame was too large - he said he would look around to see what he could do about getting a smaller piece.

And of course, even though I haven't been cooking a lot, I have been cooking. Unfortunately it looks like it's going to be a wet summer - but the days where the rain has left us alone have been beautiful, sunny, and not too full of mosquito's yet. Today especially is beautiful, clear, and hot - but of course I'm working until 7pm. Tonight we'll be cooking up a top sirloin with some 'taters, salad, and maybe asparagus and green beans that came in today's Fresh Option Box.

But this tasty meal was from a week or two ago already. For Christmas my older brother and niece gave us a countertop grill and I love it. I cooked the home fries in the oven, left the husk on the corn, and cooked the bison burger from Frigs and the corn on the grill at the same time. The whole thing took less than 20 minutes and was a very tasty meal.

Here's hoping that I'll feel up to more regular posting in the next few weeks!

Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen...I'll Leave

Now that I'm working three evenings a week, dinner between Wed-Fri is usually something I've thrown together far in advance. It's so nice when I get to come home and have someone else do all the food-stuff for me. On Thursday I woke up early, got out of the house at 9AM and had some time to kill before I headed to the office.

More and more we're getting into the habit of really letting our food supply run down before we re-stock. I'm finding that we're throwing less away and using what's in our fridge and freezer faster. Things don't end up sitting there for months and for the most part, everything is still reasonably fresh. We ran out of meat products last week, except for some frozen salami, so I used my extra morning time to drive out to Frigs. $70 later our freezer and fridge are re-stocked with sirloin steak, bison burgers, elk smokies, sausages, bison jerky, a chicken, and pork tenderloin.

A lot of people I speak with aren't very familiar with pork tenderloin. I would say aside from pork buttons, it's the most common meat choice at our house. It has virtally no fat, is extremely tender, cooks relatively quickly, is really versatile, and tastes fantastic. After I picked up our meat and quickly stopped at home to put it away, I whipped up our favourite pork marinade and put it in a freezer bag with the tenderloin to marinade all day. When I got to work I emailed Ryan instructions on when and how to cook the meat, asparagus, and fried apples.

Ryan was busy in the kitchen when I arrived home at 7:30PM. I have a bad habit of trying to take over the kitchen when someone else is cooking in it. After I accidentally burned the fried apples and pears I excused myself, set the table, and let Ryan finish up. The burned apples were rescued and turned out fine, the meat was perfect, the asparagus was nicely roasted and a bit crispy (my favourite!) and he even looked up how make mashed potatoes, so we had some very satisfying mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes.