Sick Day

I had a terribly dramatic-sounding cold last week, so I stayed home bundled on the couch, drinking ginger tea and watching Mary Tyler Moore. I made myself an easy to digest, healthy lunch of cheese sandwich, clear tomato soup and cantaloupe chunks. How healthy, how delicious and how fortifying. I'm better now and able to go running again. I'm sure it's due to that soup!

Rainy Day Fish Soup-Stew (Stoup) with baby eggplants

Baby eggplants are so cute! I added them to my fish (tilapia), chicken stock, and leftover roast veggies, along with a couple ounces of ginger tea, some lemon ponzu, salt and pepper, and a sprinkling of herbes de province. I  put it all in the slow cooker for a few hours (maybe four or five).

It's good food for our first wintery day of the fall - it's been dark and rainy all day, chilly for the first time, and most of our family have colds. I'm having some medicinal tequila and ginger tea - if you've gotta be sick, might as well make it fun!

This soup will give us a blast of easily-digestible protein, along with vitamin C from the veggies, and of course the scientifically-proven antibiotic benefits of chicken stock. I used a bag of stock from my freezer, and a frozen filet.

It looks good and tastes great. I'm just cooking some spatzle for those who want to add noodles to their soup.

[update] It's good - the eggplants seem to add umami to the broth. One of my kids had a friend over for supper. They all ate tons and some even came back for seconds - pretty good for a fish & vegetables dish; most people wouldn't be able to make it likeable for kids without resorting to decoration or fatification (adding whipped cream, cheese shapes etc).

Kids like healthy food and don't need to be bribed with cheese-stuffed crusts or cutesy cutouts on top of their food. They like a variety of flavours and are happy and proud to know what they eat and that they eat well.

starting out: frozen stock and fish

Roasted red peppers -- disaster!

starting to roast

I killed those poor red peppers. Roasted them for a while and they were done but the skins were not yet slipping off, so I decided to put them in for another 45 minutes, which was about 30 minutes too long. They were carbonized!

not so yum

Garlic Shrimp, Roasted Veg and corn on the cob

Tonight’s supper was a somewhat odd mix of garlic shrimp, roasted winter vegetables and corn on the cob. It was delicious and extremely nutritious. I added as much garlic and onion as possible, hoping to counteract the effects of the cold we all seem to have.

I hate getting sick – it interrupts my fitness regime! – and so I try to eat myself back to health. Garlic, onion and ginger help cleanse the blood. Root vegetables and corn are high in vitamin C, contain water and provide roughage - useful for a body that’s slightly dehydrated by a cold.

The vegetables were yams, sweet potatoes, carrots, mushrooms and garlic, rough-cut to cubes or slices, in the case of the carrots, and tossed in olive oil. I placed them in a cast-iron skillet, added enough chicken stock to about one inch deep, and sprinkled coarse salt over top. I love the flavours of roasted veg, and since the tastes can be subtle, I used no other flavourings. Roasted them on 450f for about 45 minutes.

And the shrimp, well shrimp in garlic just makes life that much more enjoyable. I sauteed onions and garlic in butter, then added the shrimp and some chopped fresh herbs (basil, lavender, oregano, thyme). Cooked it for a few minutes (I use cooked frozen shrimp in a resealable bag from Costco - good shrimp at a good price, and super practical to have around in the freezer for two-minute meals.)

To drink we had what we call Ginger Water – it’s ginger tea poured over ice cubes to cool the temperature and mitigate the heat of the ginger.

The corn was really tasty - sweet, fresh and succulent. Even with a cold I could taste it. Yum. We don't add butter or salt to corn. I always did until ten years ago, when I tasted fresh peaches and cream corn with no topping. My life changed and I stopped the knee-jerk salting and buttering that goes on in many north american diets.

If you use enough salt when you cook, none needs to be added at the table. Cooking vegetables for less time - until they are cooked but still crunchy (in the case of carrots and broccoli, for example) allows them to retain their texture and more flavour.

You also have to train the diners in your life to bring awareness to eating. I do this by discussing what's in each dish. It's a kind of contest for the kids, and they take great pride in naming every last ingredient, including herbs and seasonings. We also discuss the nutritional value of each dish, so they are learning to combine ingredients for healthy deliciousness.

Teaching those you love to enjoy the flavours of the actual foods, not salt and butter, is a lasting legacy that can help keep them healthy, conscious and empowered. It's that important - if you eat crap, you feel like crap, and usually look that way too. If you take ownership over your physical and mental health by controlling the foods you eat, and the loving aware atmosphere in which you eat them, you will probably slow your life down to focus on what's in front of you and your sensory experience of your time here on earth. It really is that important.

Tomato Soup with ham 'noodles', cheddar cheese & english muffins

Delicious! I heated leftover tomato sauce and chicken stock, poured over ham "noodles". I used rosemary ham deli slices and sliced them into thin ribbons or "noodles".

Added two toasted buttered english muffins as dippers - my favorite way to eat english muffins.

I garnished the soup with chunks of that horrible but wonderfully salty processed cheddar cheese, and fresh cilantro. It was a great, easily digestible lunch with enough freshness and protein to nourish me for a busy afternoon.

Overall, the flavors were similar to mexican food, but in an asian lunch-soup style. Kind of weird but good. Kids might like it, although some of my kids' friends would look at me funny if I served it to them! (Other friends are used to our crazy eating habits ;)

Papaya

Ginger Tea

boiling sliced ginger

Drinking ginger tea. We're all sick - colds - so ginger tea's the drink du soir.

Boil an amount of ginger until it's gingery enough for your taste. Serve.

For the kids I often serve ginger tea over ice - makes it cold enough so they can drink it and watered down enough that they can take the heat. Also makes cool cracking sounds which the kids like.

Another method of serving ginger tea is hot with honey. With lemon vodka is also nice. You can add pretty much anything savoury or sweet. Ginger tea is very good for you and can match any tastebud.

It costs less than pennies to make and keeps the digestive system active. What a great deal.

Pear Butter

...with cinnamon sugar sprinkled over top.

Instant meals

One of my favourite things is to buy a big pack of chicken thighs - boneless, skinless - at Costco and then divide and marinate them all. I put about four or five thighs per sandwich-sized ziplok, then add whatever flavours, acids and liquids grab my eye. (One of the best so far was Blueberry Soda.)

I love to mix fruit and protein. I think the acids of the fruit help break down the proteins so they accept the liquid and flavour of the marinade. I often use lemon.

Today I made Papaya, Papaya and Lemon Juice, Mango Juice & Lemonade, and two bags of Tandoori. The tandoori was store-bought marinade.

I bag the thighs, add my made-up marinades, and smoosh it all around until well mixed. Because I do it in the bags, I don't need to dirty my hands. I zip up and let the chicken sit in the fridge for a day to soak, then chuck the bags in the freezer until needed.

I do this whole job without touching any raw chicken contaminated surfaces, so it's pretty food-safe. I still wash my hands of course, but I think this process adds to the food safety level.

Thawing and cooking is easy. If I have time, I can thaw them in the fridge; if it's a last-minute meal, I can boil them down in stock or a bit of water.

The chicken thighs can be fried with veggies, served over rice, added to noodles in soup, served as the main meat course, or cold in a sandwich. Add some frozen peas and the meal is pretty much complete.

They're almost endlessly variable because they play well with others but can stand alone. And they totally cover your butt when you need dinner in an instant.

Popovers with fruit butter

Made popovers for breakfast. They were perfect. So good I forgot to photograph them! I can't believe it. Literally the best tasting and most attractive I've ever made. So here's the last one left with a blob of the fruit butter I made the other day. Man, they were good.

Pretty healthy too, although admittedly heavy on the flour/carb side. But a nice warm and warming way to start a rainy sunday. It's not cold enough to turn on the heat yet, but the oven's warmth sure is cosy. Coffee, writing and popovers - what more can I ask for?

Oh, forgot to mention, the recipe is Bittman's, from his How to Cook Everything. (An excellent book if you ask me, this gen's Joy - which I still use for their excellent Equivalents Table.)

Grapes!

A couple of years ago, the neighbor to my east planted grapes along the fence. The plant is provides a bit privacy and is nice, healthy and attractive.

I like to plant as many food-producing plants as possible - decorative plants are rather useless to me, unless they feed bees, hummingbirds or provide nesting habitat.

It's mid-September so the grapes are ready, or I should say almost ready - some of them are still pretty tart! Each grape in the bunch is a surprise - some are bursts of sweetness; a few are so tart that you involuntarily make the universal tart-reaction face.

Nectarine, apple, pear and plum butter

Mmm smells delish. It's cooking now - will be cooled for breakfast tomorrow, may be nice on pancakes, waffles, or the new bread. We could also make french toast from the bread - dare I leave it uncovered tonight so it can develop a staleness?

[update] Well I don't think the bread will get a chance - the fruit butter is almost gone. The kids are eating it with 'whippies' (whipped cream). So yeah, the whips has sugar but other than that, how healthy this is! But it eats like a treat. I think eating with enjoyment adds to the nutritional value of food. If you were a kid, what better way to spend a rainy sunday morning than hanging upside down on the sofa, watching kid tv shows, and eating what feels like indulgence.

I'm not into tricking my kids into eating good food. I don't think kids need that and it doesn't benefit them. Teach them instead how to make food taste delicious. Teach them to love food and to love themselves enough to want to put nourishing things in their body. If you love food and treat it like a sacred substance sustaining your physical, emotional and spiritual life, then you will always eat well.

Lettuce Wraps

Why eat leftovers when you can have lettuce wraps? Iceberg lettuce can hold just about anything, and unlike tortillas or other bread, doesn't give me that weighted-down bloaty feeling.

The high water content of iceberg aids digestion and adds a nice crunchiness to the meal. You can put practically anything inside; even have lots of options like with tacos. It's a great way to clean out the fridge and have really quick gourmet eats.

For the price of a head of lettuce - something almost always easy to find - you can have a full meal or an interesting side dish.

Bread! Again! Remembered to bake it!

fresh out of the oven

before baking

It worked out well and looks lovely. Tasted better than it looked. The crust was perfect - a cracker of crispness. The crumb was also perfect - a moist crumb that speaks of perfect done-ness. A minute less in the oven and it would have been underdone but as it was, it was perfect.

It's the best bread I've ever made, with a nice sourdoughy flavour. The bread had substance - it sprang back, but was not chewy. It could have held its own with a thick stew or sloppy joe, but was delicate enough to have with just butter. Double yum.

Bread! Again!

More no-knead bread, this one forgotten for a day, as I was rising it in the oven. (Put the over light on and it becomes a warm place to rise dough) Remembered it this morning, when I saw the initial dough shots in iPhoto. 

Thank heavens I photographed it or it'd probably have rotted in there until I cooked again. Don't know what I would have done to not waste rotting dough!

Anyway, it's now resting for the second and final rise of about two hours, although I usually find I need to raise it for longer. I think my flour's old - I used to buy larger bags but am switching to smaller, more frequent purchases to see if it'll make a difference in flavour and reactivity.

Mercury must be retrograde today as my images are acting up - even in photoshop they were misbehaving. And the captions aren't working, so here's what you're looking at: first picture is the just-assembled flour, yeast and water. 

The other two shots are the dough after 36+ hours rising in the oven, which by the way didn't seem to produce any ill effects. I'm wondering if it'll be more sourdough-y in flavour, although I can't imagine it would have picked up any wild airborne yeasts while sitting covered in a closed oven. 

Hopefully I'll remember to bake it, and will update the shots then.  

Strawberry bars

Strawberry season is over. So sad - end of summer and all that, but also allows for some good deals. Two quart containers sold for $2.50 at the store last week. Those containers can go for as much as $7.99, so two-fiddy's a good price. I inspected the containers - no obvious mold and a great smell of strawberries. (Always smell the food you buy.)

I bought two containers of strawberries; juiced one and put the other in the fridge. Forgot about it for a couple of days so it was a little um juicy when remembered. About two berries were edible; the rest I headed and popped in a saucepan with water, boiled down for a couple of hours until they formed a quick jam. 

garnished with powdered sugar and lavender buds

It wasn't very sweet - enough for a savory garnish but not to stand alone as a dessert. I gave it to the kids with some sugar when I was making the ratatouille. When I ground the almonds, I gave them a taste of the resulting almond butter, suggesting they try it with the strawberries. It was a hit! We discussed myriad ways to serve them - on a graham cracker crumb crust; with whipped cream; as mini bars; one ice cream. So much fun and of course pretty healthy being only almonds and strawberries. Yum.

I also find it fun to allow the eaters to participate in making their dessert, so being able to shape the almond butter, sprinkle sugar over top, and add fresh flower garnishes (in this case lavender buds) and the like added to its eatability. It was all gone - they licked the bowl and the spoon and even the grinder blades (I know) to get every last ounce of deliciousness. Now that's how healthy eating should be!

Beer & lemonade

ale & lemonade

I know it sounds disgusting but one of the most thirstquenching drinks I've had is beer and lemonade. The sugar and umami make it so refreshing I usually drink it in one gulp.

Diluting it half and make lessens the alcohol, and the lemonade's acidity cuts through the bloaty feeling beer usually gives me.

Plums from the tree at grandma's house

Crispy Noodles

Electricity rocks! I can make crispy noodles with the electric stove in my new place. Woohoo. Really good fresh noodles, then I set the burner to max and heated grapeseed oil, added the noodles and cooked until the smoke detector went off ;)

Threw in fresh-cut onions from the garden for the last minute of cooking.

Callas Tuna

Someone I love very much created this super-simple, super-fast tuna recipe. Open a can of tuna, give the juice to the dog, and drop it in a frypan. [The tuna not the dog.] Several splashes of soy sauce and sesame oil to give it flavour and a teaspoon of brown sugar helps brown the tuna. Flash fry it on high at first then turn the heat down and let it cook on low to absorb the brown flavouring. Garnish with something fresh-cut from the garden and voila instant noodle-topper, soup ingredient or fish dish. Yum - excellent satisfaction rating and easily digestible. Good for pre-sports meals.

Today we had it over crispy noodles.

Green beans in the sunshine

Ratatouille, possibly

Yellow zucchini, japanese eggplant marinated in a mixture of ground almonds, crushed garlic, fresh-squeezed lemon juice and grapeseed oil. After letting it marinate for a few hours I'm going to fry it up, maybe with some tilapia.

[update] I marinated it then simmered it down. (Did not add tilapia.) Served it with couscous. It was delicious! Easy to make, crazy healthy with all those oils, nuts and veggies. There were minimal leftovers which someone took for lunch the next day. Very good dish; very easy to make.

Tomato sauce with GIANT garnish

Two old beefsteak tomatoes, half covered in an equal mix of water and stock. I added salt, one slice of ginger, and a couple of small garlic cloves, and possibly a dash of sesame oil - I forget.

I'll boil it down. Tomatoes often want sweetness so I used a pan I'd just cooked strawberries in. I emptied it but didn't wash it reasoning that the little bit of strawberry would add a subtle flavour to the sauce.

I may add this to the asparagus soup.... keep you posted. [update] Nope, used it on top of crispy noodles. Tasters loved it. Tons of umami.

We garnished it with fresh basil, lavender, oregano and rosemary from the garden.

Asparagus soup

Old asparagus, bit of chicken stock, few drops of sesame oil, and a pinch of herbes de provence.

[update] Simmered it in stock, added almost no flavouring and it was spectacular. Here's a rather plain-looking photo; I was rushing (ie starving) and didn't think to garnish it. I barely got a shot of it - if oyu look closely the photo's all blurry - too hungry!

It was really good and very digestible.

Beef Stew - after eight hours

It's ready. The meat is tender enough to be shredded with a soup spoon. The tomatoes have collapsed and the potatoes have disintegrated into background texture. The flavours are totally intertwined. Time for dinner!

[update] OMG it was fabulous. Crazy tender meat - like pulled pork. Also good with ketchup or sweet chilli sauce. Tons of leftovers. Had some for lunch and for dinner again too. Yum.