My fabulous lunch - Tom Yum Goong (a la Lucinda)

I went for a spectacular run today – suddenly I’m running faster than I ever have for more than a block at a time.

Then I had an appointment and realised far too late I’d forgotten to eat breakfast. I was hungry.

On the way home I imagined what I would have for lunch. I need to be careful what I eat on an empty stomach, so I prefer light and easy to digest. Because my food is my health, and what I eat first sets the tone for the rest of the day, I like to keep it healthful and energizing.

Thanks!

Today is International Appreciation Day. Not sure if such a day exists, but it does in my house. Much of my appreciation this morning is centered around food. Maybe it’s because I just came back from a run, but let’s be honest: I’m obsessed with food.

Thing I’m grateful for Number One – Onions

Especially sautéed onions. Life doesn’t get much better than the smell of onions cooking, and the taste of browned sweet onions. Maybe that’s part of the reason fancy restaurants are wasted on me – I’m so delighted with such simple tastes as sautéed onions that some sauces and reductions are over the top for me. I love simple.

Thing I’m grateful for Number Two – Homemade Soup

Some foods are so incredibly different between store-bought iterations and homemade, that it’s almost not worth buying the store-bought. I’ve discovered this holds true with soup and pasta. I’ve never made my own pasta; I got the good stuff the easy way – by being the manga-cake girlfriend of an Italian guy. I hadn’t had real pasta before then, so eating Mama’s homemade ravioli was a religious experience for me. Up to that point in my life the only pasta I’d had was dried spaghetti and Chef Boyardee.

Mushroom Burgers

Darn! I forgot to photograph them. I often do because they smell so good that we're always anxious to eat, then we get distracted with condimentization. (It is so a word)

We get those big mushrooms that are essentially overgrown button mushrooms, dab a bit of olive or grapeseed oil on, and broil them until juicy, about five or ten minutes.

Meanwhile, I sauteed half a large sweet onion. We ate our burgers in portuguese buns fresh from the local bakery. Sides included baby gherkins, calamata olives, raita, and a salad of celery apple carrot and roasted almonds.

What a great meal; easily digestible by our evening taekwondo workout, and pretty healthy.

Giving up cream

The day I never thought would happen has come to pass. My religious beliefs are not many, but definitely include cream in my coffee. Not milk, not whitener – cream. Give me cream or give me death! Or herbal tea.

A friend of mine once told of a promising romance that was brewing. Unfortunately she had to end it when she found out he took skim milk in his coffee. Milk in an emergency, but skim milk… well that’s just not the sort of man you’d consider as a father to your children. Clearly not of sound mind.

You may by now understand how important cream is to my coffee, and coffee is to me. So for me now to eschew cream in favour of soy milk – yes soy milk – may seem improbable.

Years ago a friend, recently arrived from Iran, told me that when he first got here he noticed that many people smelled of rotting milk. I had never considered that, but I started noticing it myself.

I like to experiment with foods to optimize my mind and body, so I read a lot about health and nutrition. Whenever an idea resonates with me, I try it to see if it works for my body.

I’ve read many articles about cow’s milk being less healthy than it was thought to be when I was growing up, so I decided to ingest less milk and milk products.

Cutting down on my milk consumption became rather easy. I drink a lot less cow’s milk than I did as a kid, although once in a while I still crave chocolate milk, straight from the carton. Ahh, a summertime treat.

Cheese is like candy for me, so I buy it only on occasion. I can eat a Costco-sized container of swiss cheese in two days, which, apart from being expensive doesn’t quite fit into my “all things in moderation” diet. And it kind of, ahem, slows the digestive process. A lot. Like, do that before a road trip and you can avoid gas station bathrooms between Connecticut and LA.

The only thing I couldn’t find a substitute for was cream in my coffee. Milk just doesn’t cut it. If milk’s all that’s available, I’d rather not have coffee, but given my commitment to caffeine addiction*, not a serious alternative. Tried those artificial whiteners but I don’t like foodstuffs that are made in a lab. It’s a prejudice, I know.

So finally I tried sweetened soy milk. It’s delicious! Soy milk’s density gives me that thick creaminess I seek, and it takes away the bitterness – mine and the coffee’s. Although I’ve never taken sugar in my coffee, the sweetness adds to the richness I crave.

So Jacquie, I hope we can still be friends. I promise to keep cream on hand when you’re in town. And I promise never to switch to non-fat….

(* I joke about my caffeine addiction but in seriousness, have recognized the effects of caffeine on my brain and body. I buy both caf and decaf beans. When I grind them, I mix the beans 1:2 so that I am drinking one-third caf. I drink two cups a day; three on weekends.)

Curried Shrimp & Couscous

Some of my favorite flavours with one of my favorite words. (The food so good they named it twice.)

I made this last night with my twelve-year-old daughter. We sauteed an onion, then added curry powder, paprika, salt & pepper, diced potatoes, japanese eggplant, cilantro, and a can of coconut milk, with a bit of stock to thin the mixture. Simmered it about half an hour then added about a pound of shrimp and a couple tablespoons of lemon juice. Cooked that another few minutes while we made the couscous (easiest recipe ever - 1 cup couscous and 1 cup boiling water. Stir, fluff, and cover for five minutes or more), and I steamed fresh spinach.

The youngest child, who is still getting used to hotter foods, found it a bit spicy-hot but still quite enjoyable. She liked it enough to have multiple servings. There were no leftovers.

It was another great meal - easy to prepare; easy to clean up. It's a good meal for someone learning to cook because it doesn't require special skills or knowledge, its not time-consuming to prepare or cook, and substitutions are easy if you're out of specific ingredients. And it's pretty healthy.

Baked potato with Chorizo & Tzatziki

Wow, what a success, both in taste and in popularity. I par-boiled large baking potatoes, then baked them for half an hour at 450f. Cranked up the heat to 500f for the last ten minutes to crisp the skin. Meanwhile, I opened the casing on two chorizo sausages and pan-fried the meat. We topped our potatoes with the meat,  tzatziki, and green onions. Added sides of green leaf lettuce salad and broccoli-leak soup. Delicious!  And fairly healthy; lots of saturated greens and protein. Kind of hi-fat, but not too bad since the meat was more of a condiment than the bulk of the meal.

Broccoli leak soup with cream and onions

This recipe takes a potato, broccoli, leaks and stock. Next time I'll use less water - it called for equal amounts water and stock, and I found it a bit thin. I like my soups saturated with flavour! Nonetheless, it was a good soup; heartwarming on a cold winter day.

Update: I simmered it down for a couple of hours, gently so as not to break the cream. It's way better - quite delicious, actually.

Pizza - pesto, basil, capers and white cheddar

We made pizza tonight. My youngest daughter, aged ten, made the dough. After rising it, she worked it and stretched it to shape. Her topping choices were cheese and salami, with a bit of pesto. For the other pizza, we chose white cheddar cheese, pesto, capers and basil.

The dough was really good tonight. It may be due to using much less sauce than usual. Often we use more sauce and the middle of the pizza crust gets soggy. This time with less sauce it was much firmer, although next time I would add more toppings - maybe onion or a meat. The capers & basil pizza was good but a little bland. But still, not bad for a last-minute out-of-the-pantry meal. (By out of the pantry, I mean we did not plan ahead and get ingredients - we used whatever was in the cupboard, fridge & indoor herb garden).

Kabocha squash soup

Made with the leftover squash from christmas day dinner, and stock made from the chicken carcass. The soup was amazing! Sweet, thick and delicious. I added nothing but a bit of sea salt and a couple ounces of ginger tea. There are several sickies in the house right now - a cold/fluey thing and it seems to help them feel better.

The soup doesn't photograph well without fancy plating and a garnish, but it was one of the best soups I've made or eaten, and I've had soup so good it made me cry. (That was on my 30th birthday at a late lamented soup cafe run by two sisters and their mom in Kitsilano - anyone remember the name of it?)

Great leftover idea

I didn't photograph it, because it sort of looks like the dog's dinner (if you're unfamiliar with that phrase, think on this: dogs are notorious for "re-enjoying" their meals) but it was delicious, fast and easy. (I always resent that holiday mode doesn't extend to those who have to cook all the meals.)

We had leftovers from christmas dinner and after boxing day the kids' delight was starting to turn to grimaces as they saw the chicken being hauled out for a third time. So I got a bottle of Sherwood's Masala and dumped it on top of the deboned chicken, mixed it in with all the leftover vegetables in a large frying pan and simmered it for twenty minutes. Ha! The kids didn't know what they were eating - actually they did and still enjoyed it. Even the youngest, who is more sensitive to spice heat, gobbled it up and had seconds.

Because a bunch of us are sick, the spicings (and chicken and garlic) helped with our colds. On the side we had super-fresh whole wheat dinner rolls from a local bakery. (Greek Bakery, in Richmond - good breads & rolls, very fresh.)

Smoked salmon, cream cheese, pesto & caper omelet

The title says it all. What a way to greet the day!

Super-easy christmas dinner

We usually go out for lunch on christmas day, but just in case, I had a chicken brining in the fridge, and bought some winter vegetables. Sure enough, we couldn't muster up the energy to go out of the house, so I made the chicken.


The prep took maybe twenty minutes, including wine breaks. I had bought two bags of pre-washed mini-potatoes that were mixed in color; some yellow, some red and some purple. The potatoes were small enough to use whole without pre-boiling. I chopped some kabocha squash, a couple of beets, enoki & oyster mushrooms, onion, celery, carrot, and sweet potato, put them all in the bottom of a roasting pan and added a cup or so of chicken stock.

The chicken was stuffed only with seven garlic cloves and I patted a bunch of sea salt on the skin.

Cooked it at 450, rotated it after forty minutes and cooked another twenty. Meanwhile, we made red rice in the rice cooker. Easy peasy.

Plating the chicken, I sprinkled it with a touch of 5-spice. Oh man, what a great dinner. We couldn't eat fast enough. I love those meals that are so delicious they taste bad for you!For desert we had a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream (Haagen Dazs), with equal amounts vanilla yogurt, vanilla soy milk and eggnog. What a finish. Then we lay around for the rest of the evening, stuffed and happy.

ready to serve

the raw ingedients

Peanut brittle

Who knew peanut brittle was so easy to make? 2 cups of sugar, melted over low heat and stirred occasionally; 2 cups of peanuts stirred in. Then dump it on a greased cookie sheet, let cool and then smash and serve.

This year we made batches to give to friends along with shortbread, gingerbread men and christmas hippo cookies.

Jello ginger ale

When you're so sick that you had to postpone your 10th birthday party, what's the only thing that'll make you feel better? Jello ginger ale, of course.

Remember making jello when you were a kid? Remember always wanting to drink the liquid before it set? It was so sweet and so delicious.

In an effort to soothe the Sick One's sore throat and perhaps cheer her up a little, I invented jello ginger ale. I added the cup of boiling water to the jello powder, but not the cold water. I put about an ounce of that mix into a glass of ginger ale.

It's too, too sweet and very delicious. It even raised a hint of a smile.

Green onion & mushroom omelet

today's breakfast

Tofu scramble with black beans and sour cream

I made a tofu & egg scramble with black beans for breakfast. Topped it with parmesan and a bit of sour cream. Holy protein batman. Good pre-run meal.

Roasted vegetables in Yorkshire pudding

Two of my favorites: roasted vegetables in yorkshire puddings. A new way to serve old favorites, keeping our meals a little more interesting.

Polenta Chips

This was a hugely successful experiment. I used one of those store-bought tubes of polenta - another great pantry staple - and sliced it thin. I placed the slices on an oiled cookie sheet, brushed them with olive oil, and roasted them on 450f until they looked crispy, about twenty minutes. Flipped the slices and roasted until they were crispy on that side. Took them out, sprinkled sea salt on top and served. Delicious and another great kid-pleaser.

Vegetarian Butter Chicken

Cut up a bunch of different vegetables - whatever we had on hand - and some tofu. Dumped a bottle of Butter Chicken sauce over top and simmered for about twenty minutes. Delicious! Also easily digestible; good for pre-workout dinner.

Tofu, japanese eggplant & baby bok choy on noodles