Coconut Convert

I hosted a "nutrition night" last night that included a fair bit of wine, but also heaps of accessible yet detailed information from Lauren at Ginger Roots. I was happy to hear that I was on the right track with my recent coconut conversion! Up until a few months ago, I thought coconut oil was a no-no because it's a saturated fat. Apparently, it's actually a pretty good bet for cooking because it's naturally saturated, (not "hydrogenated" artificially, leading to trans fats) so it remains stable when heated, and it's easily digested. I appreciated Lauren's hint that I can even use it as a moisturizer in a pinch.

My new addition to the weekly rotation uses coconut oil and coconut milk. A close cousin of this recipe arrived in our weekly organics box from Mama Earth Organics and after a few experiments, I ended up settling on something like what you'll find below. It's a got a hint of curry, and a tropical feeling much needed in this slushy month of March. Even though the curry powder has tumeric, I like to add a fair bit extra. The book Anti-Cancer makes an excellent case for tumeric as a powerful anti-inflammatory agent. Keep in mind that it is necessary to combine it with black pepper to get the full benefits.

Coconut Curried Rice and Veg
1 & 2/3 cups long-grain rice, rinsed and drained (brown rice is obviously healthier and not revolting in this recipe, but I'd be lying to not admit that it tastes the best with white jasmine)
1 sweet potato, peeled and cubed
½ cup shredded coconut
1 ¼ cups water
1 can chick peas (or use chicken if you're in the mood)
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp coconut oil
several bunches of bok choy, chopped (any non-lettuce leafy green will work here)
1 can coconut milk
½ tsp salt
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp curry powder
1 diced onion
1 tbsp tumeric
1 tsp ground black pepper

Mix rice, sweet potato, water, coconut milk, shredded coconut and salt. Boil, simmer until rice is fully cooked.

Meanwhile, mix chick peas (or cubed chicken pieces) with garlic, onion, soy sauce and curry powder, tumeric and pepper. Stir fry until cooked. Add in the bok choy for a few minutes. Toss with the rice (if you have picky eaters around, you can serve the coconut/sweet potato rice to the picky eaters first and then combine the curry mixture with the rice for everyone else).

Gratitude

I read an article in the Toronto Star this week about something called Gratitude Journals . Oprah concept, but still, it gave me pause. Like most of us, I usually forget to catalogue the small and big things for which I'm thankful. This weekend, I broke character. I was very grateful for snow.

I've always hated winter. Those people who get excited about snow usually strike me as a bit suspect. It's a season of hibernation for me - sugar cravings and heavy duvets. I will even admit the embarrassing nugget that I take a hot water bottle to bed with me from pretty much September until May. This year though, I was determined to find the upside of winter.

We were invited to go winter camping this weekend at the Pinery. Not quite as hardcore as it sounds, it involved a heated hut (yurt) with bunkbeds. After some dithering, we finally agreed. Then we talked it up to the kids, and got excited about skiing, snowshoeing, skating, and tobogganing. Within days the trip however, the temperature soared and the snow all melted. So, not wanting to camp outside in slush with nothing to do, I found myself wishing for snow.

And as it turns out, I got lucky. The evening before our departure, it snowed. The morning of our departure, the ski trails reopened. And the whole time we were there we had sparkly fresh snow. The kids were giddy as they skied along the trails and shrieked down the toboggan hills. I had the chance to snowshoe along deserted trails, listen to the forest, spot a wild turkey, and go for a long solo ski (which justified the big bag of jalapeno kettle chips I polished off). And I caught myself many times this weekend being very thankful for the simplest parts of winter. It was lovely.

Now get me a box of chocolates, a duvet and a hot water bottle and wake me up when spring is here.

Sweet Potato Chews

I bought dog food. I don't have a dog. I bought it for me, 'cause I thought it was yummy locally grown whole food. For humans.

My initial thought was "Sweet Potato Chews? What a good idea!". The label on the front attracted me with the promise that it was "made from the finest Ontario grown sweet potatoes" with "no additives, preservatives or colors". The ingredients were simple. Just sweet potatoes. Yeah, I could make it myself, but I thought I'd give it a try and see if it was even worth bothering. Last night, feeling snacky (as usual), I prepared to crack into my new treat. Luckily I happened to notice in the small print that there was "less than 4.67% ash". Ash? Why would there be ash in my food? As I read more carefully, I noticed "Feeding Instructions: Feed to your dog as a healthy treat". Then I got suspicious.

Let me just say, I didn't think dogs ate sweet potatoes. Aren't dogs carnivores? Are there vegetarian dogs now? Hmmm. Weird. I don't really know what to take away from this curious development, except that my consumer literacy might need a bit of work...and that soon I might be wrestling dogs in the park for their treats.

Inspiration

I began this blog last year around this time. I managed 9 months of regular (OK, sporadic) blogging. Eventually I ran out of words. And out of interest I guess. But a few things have happened in the last few weeks that have got me typing again:
1) My seed catalogues arrived. As I browsed the "Thai Pink Egg" tomatoes, the "Bull's Blood" beets, and the "Tennis Ball" lettuce, I couldn't help but get excited at the prospect of starting the garden experiment all over again.
2) The world issues class I teach has begun it's exploration of the global food system. It's always a shocking unit for my students, particularly for the bright ones who have learned alot about digestion, enzymes and the Canada Food Guide, but not much about the political and social side of food. The best part of teaching is always to "see the lightbulb turn on" and we're just about at that point where I'm going to see alot of shining light! It's put me in wordy state of mind.
3) Our family started working with Lauren from GingerRoots Nutrition. Her blog has heaps of great recipe ideas and she is so full of energy and enthusiasm about food (and pretty much everything else) that it was contagious. We've had the good luck of sampling her lentil muffins, spicy salsa soup, coconut squash soup and a few other items. YUM.

Today I decided to try actually cooking Lauren's Spicy Salsa Soup recipe (it's a black bean soup with carrots, red pepper and onion) to see if it really was as easy-peasy as she claimed. Indeed it is - and only has to cook for 5-ish minutes! Now, it's not a pretty soup, it's brown...but with shake of salt on top, it was a major hit with my five year old. Who knew?

Giving thanks for the humble pumpkin

It's Thanksgiving Day, and of course I'm thankful for the usual things. To shake things up at bit, we all had to say one frivolous thing that we were thankful for. Today, after an amazing discovery, I've got to say pumpkin! The happy orange of a field of pumpkins always makes me smile, and what other food can be carved into a Halloween decoration? Best of all, you can eat it!

Today we took the kids to Cooper's CSA (CSA being Community Supported Agriculture where you buy shares in the farmers crop and get a weekly box of seasonal veggies, thus offering the farmer stability and the non-farmer seasonal, healthy food). It was a great day, and much less tacky and jam-packed than some of the "agri-tainment" closer to the city. Besides, it's Local Food Plus certified, and that gives me confidence in it's sustainability. Long story short, we ended up carting home a van-load of pumpkins because I discovered earlier in the weekend the amazing versatility of the pumpkin!

Why didn't anyone tell me before that it can taste so good? I know, pumpkin pie's okay...but that didn't seem very connected to an actual pumpkin. In my mind it was like the connection between dill pickles and dill pickle potato chips -a loose association at best. I now realize, thanks to a wine soaked Friday night tutorial from a pie-master friend, that you can make pumpkin pie from an actual pumpkin. Will wonders never cease? It got me thinking that if you can make pie from a real pumpkin, maybe you can make other things...which led me to this recipe for pumpkin bread. It is, to quote my mother-in-law, "to DIE for". It's similar to banana bread, only based on a local crop. You can substitute any type of squash, I tried a batch with butternut squash too- delish! Next step, pumpkin soup!

If interested, I played around with the recipe a bit, but this is more or less what I used:

1 1/2 cups flour (I used half white and half whole wheat)
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup agave nectar (or just use 3/4 c of sugar and ignore the agave nectar)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup mashed up cooked pumpkin (apparently the little "pie pumpkins" are tastier...just cut it in half, bake it for about an hour at 350, discard seeds and mash up pulp)
1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup plain yogurt
2 eggs
1/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Mix wet ingredients, mix dry ingredients, mix it all together. Bake in a buttered loaf pan at 350 for 50-60 mins. Enjoy fresh or freeze for later!

Garlic's in the ground!

Garlic is planted! I got my 20 pretty heads of Russian, Salt Spring, Tibetan and Persian garlic in the mail two weeks ago from The Cutting Veg. I spent a day last weekend adding bags of sand to the clay soil at my "allotment garden" at my dad's. Then coating it all with sheep shit.
This weekend it was ready to plant and then cover with leaves and wait a long 10 months til it's ready.
My experiment with patience is about to begin.

Pioneer Retro

Our Tomato Stock 2010 canning party was hard work, but left us all with a sense of accomplishment and community. I rarely spend time doing "work" with friends, and now I see that it can be an effective way to socialize and accomplish things. If only my friends would want to come over for a cleaning party... Anyway, 5 of us women (and my husband) managed to can 81L of tomatoes. That was 5 bushels, or 265 lbs! We learned some lessons about how we could be more efficient next year (ie. get an outdoor burner, invest in a tomato mill rather than blanch, seed and peel), it did take us a collective 43 hours. My husband (nerd), did a humiliating analysis of the cost of this exercise and let's just say it didn't save us much money, but we're already booking a weekend for next year!