I haven’t written anything for so long because my baby has learned to read.  Well, not really read.  What he has learned to do is to bring me a book and then sit on my lap while I read it again and again and again.  This has cut into my writing time, but, luckily, not my eating time.  In fact, I’ve discovered my favourite dish ever.  And it’s easy to make.  And it’s almost healthy.  I’ll write more about it later, but for now, here it is:

I learned to make a white sauce and have regretted it ever since.  White sauces are easy and I will pair one with almost any type of food that I’m preparing.  And, more often than not, I will add cheese to that white sauce.  This recipe is a great alternative because it includes almost every element of the white sauce, except that it omits the flour and includes more vegetables.

I will still make white sauce, but I will add this into the rotation as a shout out to my arteries.  Hey, arteries, thanks for keeping me conscious!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup cottage or ricotta cheese (I didn’t do this and ended up with a runnier dish)
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 tbsp fresh basil
• 2 tbsp fresh parsley
• 1/2 tsp salt
• Big handful of pasta – I used Ryan’s homemade wholewheat fettuccine
• About 6 cups of chopped vegetables, your choice – go crazy
• 1/4 cup green onions
• 2 tbsp butter

Method:

• Combine the first 7 ingredients in a food processor or blender.  Set aside.
• Cook the pasta in water until almost done.
• Add the vegetables to the water.  Use your discretion here if one type of veg will cook faster than another.  Add the former first and wait a minute or two before adding the next.
• Drain pasta and vegetables and put back into the pot.
• Add the butter and stir to coat.
• Pour the sauces over the vegetables and mix well.  Warm on a low heat setting if desired.

We eat these muffins in the morning because they’re pretty healthy.  I only use whole wheat flour and try to sub in apple sauce and maple syrup instead of using sugar.  I wouldn’t say they’re the most amazing baked good in the world, but if you are hesitant to eat cake muffins for breakfast, these are a wonderful compromise.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tsp maple syrup
• 1 cup apple sauce
• 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds

Method:

• Mix dry ingredients in one bowl.
• Mix wet in another.  It’s much easier when all wet ingredients are at room temperature.  This requires some planning, though, and wouldn’t judge you if they’re not.
• Combine wet and dry.
• Pour into a well greased muffin pan.
• Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for approximately 20 minutes.  I usually use mini muffin tins and usually only bake for 12-14 minutes.  Use the toothpick test to check doneness.
• Eat muffins while your baby attempts to walk with diaper in his foot.

I should begin by warning that I’m going to sound like a crazy hippy here.  I promise I’m not a crazy hippy.  I really like showering and won’t camp unless I have access to warm, running water.   Nor, do I enjoy most stores that sell Tibetan flags.  I have no problem with rustic camping or Tibet(ian flags), I just really like flush toilets and pastels.

Wasting food is an awful thing to do.  Does that seem harsh?  I know I should be all, “my life, my choices; your life, your choices – let’s hug,” but I can’t because food waste is simply an eff you to most of the world.  Even worse, it’s the part of the world that doesn’t deserve it.

Like most of my kitchen practices, I began slowly and worked my way over to crazy evangelist street yeller.  It originated with composting.  There is no reason to throw away perfectly decomposable food, so we composted.  Sadly, our compost became fuller than we had space for in our meager garden containers; and so, I started making stock out of the larger pieces of vegetable and bones.

The discovery that I could make my own stock at first made me feel warm and fuzzy, but soon led to feelings of rage and paranoia (I would guess, similar to crystal meth use?).  Why is stock sold in the grocery store in massive amounts of packaging when it’s crazy easy to make at home for free?  Why?

I feel like I could be high on crystal meth and still  be able to make kickass stock.  It really is just that easy.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of vegetables – if it isn’t rotten, it works.
• 6-8 cups of water (depending on cooking time and heat – add more if needed)
• 1 tbsp of salt

Method:

• Put vegetables, water, and salt into a slow cooker
• Cook on low anywhere from 6 to 12 hours
• Strain liquid (this is your stock); compost vegetables (now you can throw them away guilt free), and freeze stock in whatever size batches you prefer.
• You’re done.  Seriously.

A couple of tips:

• I keep a 6 cup plastic container with a lid in my freezer.  Then, when I’m cooking, I’ll throw appropriate vegetable “waste” in my container as I go.  Then, when the container is full I’m simply put the contents into my stock pot, add water and salt and go.
• If you want to be really fancy, you can cook your stock longer and create a hyper concentrated stock.  This stock can then be frozen in ice cube trays and used almost like a bullion cube.  And when guests go to help themselves to an ice cube they’ll have invented a new crazy (possibly disgusting) cocktail.

Recently, I’ve been trying to make more entree salad because I’m back in BC and it can be crazy hot.  And when it’s crazy hot, you don’t cook in your poorly ventilated kitchen.  That will just lead to tears and then  ice cream for dinner.  Neither is good on a daily basis.

I have decided that an entree salad must include a substantial grain.  In this case it’s magic quinoa.  Sadly, I’m becoming that person who makes conversation about quinoa.  And cloth diapers.  And the family bed.  I remedy all this with a healthy viewing of the Real Housewives of New York, although I’ve been known to go to a dark place known as the Real Housewives of New Jersey.  But I don’t want to talk about that.  I don’t even want to acknowledge that I just wrote that.

In the salad above I layered mixed salad greens, shredded carrot, chopped snap peas, cooked quinoa, and finally topped with this fantastic dressing:

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 lemon juice
• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 1/2 cup Parmesan, grated
• salt and pepper

Method:

• Using a whisk, blend olive oil and lemon juice until smooth – I didn’t do this properly and if you look closely at the picture you will see a lumpy dressing
• Add remaining ingredients
• Serve over salad – use alot because this salad is an entree, dammit.

For the second year now, I’ve made Ryan a cake that contains beets and bananas.  Doesn’t that just sound like a really awful children’s album.  Charlotte Diamond, call me if you want to collaborate.

When Ryan first requested this cake, I thought it was to spite me.  At the time, I was in the anti-beet camp.  However, I’ve recently been won over – this cake as the primary reason.

This cake does not taste like beets.  I will repeat:  IT DOES NOT TASTE LIKE BEETS.  Rather, the beets give it a density and moistness that makes it seem much more decadent than it really is.  And they give it a red colour that can easily be mistaken for red velvet cake.

And, because beets aren’t quite in season yet, I use leftover grated beets from last season.  This cuts down on the prep of the cake.  The only downside is that it looks like my kitchen has bled out.  How’s that for imagery for a recipe that I’m promoting?

Ingredients:

• 2 cups beets, cooked, peeled, shredded
• 1 1/2 cups +2 tbsp of sugar
• 1/2 cup oil
• 1/2 yogurt
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder – please use the fair trade kind, it’s just good manners
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 2 1/2 cup flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 3/4 cups chocolate chips

Method:

• Cook, peel, and grate beets.  Take a picture of your kitchen like it’s a crime scene.
• Puree beets with 2 tbsp of sugar.
• Combine other wet ingredients (including sugar) in a bowl.  Add beet puree.
• Combine dry ingredients in a separate bowl.  Add slowly to wet ingredients.
• Mix gently.  Try not to imagine blood.  Add chocolate chips.
• Pour batter into a greased pan.  I used a spring-form pan, because I have one and I know I’m guaranteed to get my cake out.
• Bake in a 350 degree Fahrenheit preheated oven for 40-60 minutes.
• Once the cake has cooled, top with any seasonal or non-seasonal(!) topping of your choice.

The tricky part is knowing when the cake’s done.  Because of the density of the beets and the meltiness of the chocolate chips, it’s pretty hard to use the toothpick method.  I’m always freaked out about under cooking, thus poisoning, my family and have been known to overcook things.  Last year, the cake was relatively dried out.  This year, it wasn’t.  I just waited until the cake cracked on the top.  This worked for me this time, but I, sadly, can make no guarantees.  If you have a better method, please please tell me.

This dish is make up of a saute of eggs, quinoa, fresh tomatoes, and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.  What makes me crazy is that while Walt enjoyed the entire portion (while taking his fat little hand and pushing the spoon I was holding to his fat little mouth with zeal), Walt refuses to repeat this meal.  He even refuses to repeat any elements of this meal.

When we first started giving him solids I was so excited that he was keen to try (and seemed to like) everything.  But now that Walt has tried everything, he’s realized that, while food can be fun and exciting to smear, toss, and feed to the dog, breast-feeding is where it’s at.  And I must admit, I’m a sometime member of this club too.

Feeding Walt solids involves:  the prepping and cooking of the food; the placing of Walt (often unwillingly) into his chair, the slow process of a combination of feeding Walt and helping him feed himself; keeping the dog at bay with my foot; the removal of food from all surfaces (both organic and non-organic); clean up of baby from the chair; dismay at the collection of food in Walt’s crevices; washing of all clothing involved in the feeding; finally, doing dishes.

Feeding Walt breast milk involves: sitting on the couch.  Yep, that’s it.  And it takes about one tenth of the time.

This is the other problem.  As mentioned above, Walt’s a fat little baby and I’m not currently worried about his wasting away – this baby has fat deposits like a Botticelli muse.  So, I’m finding it hard to get all worked up about skipping a solid meal or two (or all).

Maybe I’ll just do the holistic, earth mother thing and let Walt decide when he’s ready.  I’ll be really in tune with my baby and read his subtle cues.  The journey from breast milk to solid food will be on that we take together, symbiotically not parasitically.  We’ll emerge from this experience stronger, wiser, whole-er.  Or maybe I’ll just wait until Walt finally fits into his skinny jeans.  Because, guys, my baby is totally a Carrie.

1. Ryan’s favourite food is my homemade pizza and sauce.  Awww.
2. Ryan has the metabolism I want.  I can’t resent him for it because I’m pretty sure he’s passed it on to our offspring.
3. Ryan has never said anything negative about anything I’ve every cooked.  The worst he’s ever said is that it’s decent.
4. Ryan will try any type of food.  At least twice.
5. Ryan prides himself of not being a picky eater.  He once gagged at the dinner table because he didn’t want to admit that he hated spanakopita.
6. Ryan will compose a song for almost any item of food he’s feeding to Walt.  Often the song involves a pun, a painful, painful pun.
7. Ryan supports me taking pictures of my food – both the food I make at home and the food I eat at restaurants.
8. Ryan will share his food even when he doesn’t want to.  As an only child, this is foreign to me.
9. Ryan buys potato chips and hides them around the house because I’m hard core addicted.  He brings the chips out when I’ve forgotten about them which makes me super excited.
10. The most vivid memory Ryan has of the day I went into labour with Walt is the pulled pork sandwiches we made for dinner that night.

Happy Birthday, Ry!

Well, the bright and shining examples of my culinary skill have been few and far between in the last three weeks.  Instead I hope for edible but often end up with mediocrity at best, explosions(!) at worst.  Here is a list that correlates with my ever decreasing self esteem:

• Not one, but two burnt batches of granola.  We keep eating it, however, because it’s too effing hot to make bread.  Every morning I have to pick the hard-as-rocks cranberries out of my cereal.

• Charred barbecued pizzas.  I made the crust by hand, simmered the sauce for hours, and then managed to burn the pizzas in 4 minutes on the barbecue.  We peeled off the doughy tops and ate those.

• Wild rice and broccoli casserole in the slow cooker (pre-explosion!).  This dish was the perfect manifestation of “meh”.  The best that Ryan could come up with is, “It’s filling.”

• Soggy Chinese cabbage salad because I couldn’t find organic ramen noodles so I subbed in sesame snack mix.  These do not hold up well with dressing.  The dish because even more of a fail when you accidentally buy the honey mustard flavoured sesame snack mix.

The only good that has come from this is that every time I complete a dish that is sub-par I feel like a failure.  And every time I feel like a failure I think of  Charlie Brown.  And thinking of Charlie Brown makes me think of Arrested Development‘s parody of the Charlie Brown walk.  And, obviously, Arrested Development makes me happy.

But back to the imploding.

Now this might have been somewhat my own fault.  I was making baked beans, but didn’t soak the beans long enough.  I though that the magic of the slow cooker would take care of that.  But it didn’t.  So instead of serving the dish for dinner that night, I decided to cook it on long throughout the evening and send it for lunch with Ryan the next day.  Then around 10:15pm we heard glass shattering.  I can honestly say in that moment I wished that it was the sound of a burglary, but instinctively I knew, however, it had to be the slow cooker.  At least with a break in, we’d have lunch for the next day.  And more sympathy.  And probably all of our stuff, because our stuff isn’t really good enough to steal.  Well, except for our baby.  Crazy internet people, please don’t steal my baby.

Ryan and I then spent the next hour cleaning up glass shards from our kitchen counter, floor, sink, and various organizational baskets that seemed like a good idea at the time, but not so much when there’s an explosion in my kitchen.  I’m not proud to admit that the whole thing was so depressing that I ended up going to bed, making Ryan take care of the disposal of the slow cooker.

So now we have a functioning slow cooker with no lid, which is how the magic of slow cooking happens (some believe that every time you open the lid on your slow cooker, you increase cooking time by 20 minutes).  In my attempts to be both frugal and environmental, I’m making an effort to not buy anything new unless I absolutely have to.  But I’m scared of a used slow cooker.  Especially since my list of slow cooker catastrophes as increased from two (fire, tackiness) to three (explosions!).  We’re hoping to buy a replacement lid, but, if that doesn’t work out, I’m not sure what to do with the remaining pieces.  All I can think of is small pet coffin.  Is that macabre or am I just thrifty?  For our dog, Newton’s sake, I hope I’m just thrifty.