Paring down
The past two months have been crazy. I’m selling my house, and this meant gutting it, fixing it up, making it look pretty, and then keeping it that way. I’m ten different kinds of tired.
It’s been an interesting excercise on many levels, though, and one I’m ultimately grateful to have gone through. As I’ve packed things away, I’ve had to spend a lot of time considering what’s ‘essential’, what’s merely nice to have, and what’s just plain junk that needs to leave…permanently. The kitchen did not escape this process unscathed, and an interesting post today on Unclutterer made me decide to write something similar — my own list of kitchen essentials.
Once more with feeling [ow]
Just stopping by! I’ve been quiet lately because of a combination of overly busy life and Yet Another Injury. In this case a ‘hyperextended’ thumb, after a likely dislocation. The very nice doctor I saw claims it’ll be five to six weeks healing, which means another four or so of typing owiness.
So keeping things short, all I really wanted to say was ‘boo, Fall!’ We said goodbye to our most wonderful CSA last week, picking up a wonderful last haul of leeks, parnips (big enough to club someone with! or possibly juggle!), and squash. I’ll miss seeing the same group of friendly faces each week, as well as the lottery-like suprise of finding out what veggies were in.
One lasting goodness in particular stands out from a summer of CSA-supplied veggies; it’s broken me of my lifelong habit of fitting food to my whims. In the past I decided what I wanted to eat, then went out and bought it. Now though, my cooking follows a different pattern: What’s fresh this week? What can I make with it? There are a lot more experiments, and there’ve been a lot of tasty surprises. Tonight’s involves gnocchi with a cashew-squash sauce. Mmmmmm. (I hope.)
That’s all for now. Hopefully I’ll be back in less than four weeks. 
Ohmygoodnesswowyum
For the record, dill pesto may be the yummiest thing ever. Ever!
Just back from picking up this week’s pile of produce from our CSA. We have kale and Chinese cabbage (yay!) and spinach and peas and zucchini and turnips and baby green onions and the biggest head of lettuce you’ve ever seen. I’m pretty sure there’s more, but I’ve forgotten. It took an effort of will not to grab radishes or more dill (we get to choose some of our produce), but I’m trying to vary what we grab each week.
It’s going to be a very green week. Who knew we could eat turnip greens too?
A handful of yum
We’ve picked the first few strawberries from the balcony plants, and they are the Best Strawberries Ever. The first one I ate dribbled sweet red juice all down my arm. *bliss* There are only a few, but quality counts. And then tonight we discovered the nearby cherry trees are starting their run of almost as yummy fruit. Cherry trees remain a novelty to me — they didn’t grow where I grew up (too cold), so I can’t get enough of them.
In other news, today I picked up a paper bag full of red wiggler worms from a friend, and this evening my housemate and I spent a good hour setting up our first vermicomposter. Now our veggie scraps will get composted and turned into fresh soil for the balcony garden. One small step towards a closed system. 
Brownie doom
It needs to be said: Not everything I cook works out. In fact, sometimes things fail rather spectacularly.
Last night, for instance, I suddenly found myself craving brownies. Brownies seem particularly fraught for me. I used to have a no-fail recipe that I loved, but then suddenly it started failing for no obvious reason. Failure in that case just meant “super crumbly”, but still tasty and edible. Nevertheless, I decided not to use it last night, because I wanted not-crumbly. A bit of googling offered up a new recipe to try, and off I went. It was a simple recipe, and over two thousand commenters raved about it. How could I go wrong?
I’m not sure, but I found a way. I made the substitutions for the non-vegan ingredients, found the batter yummy and tasty, put it in a pan, and started counting down to yummy brownies.
Fifteen minutes later I noticed a distinct snapping, bubbling sound from the oven. A peek showed that the top of my ‘brownies’ was now in fact a layer of bubbling oil. The Earth Balance somehow separated, and was in the process of deep-frying my brownies. Eek!
This is roughly when I remembered that I try to avoid subbing equal parts Earth Balance for butter. For some reason recipes seem to require less EB. Fie. I tried pouring off the layer of bubbly oil (a full 1/4 cup of it, ew!) and baking a little longer to see if the brownies would set. But when I eventually pulled them out…neutronium brownies. Seriously, they’re so dense and stuck to the pan that I’m not sure the pan is salvageable. 
Even so, failures are tasty. I scraped a bit of doomed neutronium brownie from the pan, put it on the last of my frozen [soy] yogurt, and topped it with the last of my market strawberries. Voila, one Doomed Sunday. Mmmmm, tasty doom.
Growing green
A quick update on my little balcony garden. So far everything’s alive, and some plants are starting to bear fruit…literally!
The first beans are dangling beneath a canopy of green in one of my apple baskets. Today I discovered a wee pepper on my cayenne plant…and the number of flowers promise many more. My lettuce is downright forest-like — high time to thin the planter and make myself a salad of baby greens. And yep, those are strawberries almost ripe and ready to pick.
The other plants are doing well too. Almost too well, since I’d assumed there’d be some attrition and overplanted! But I’m not complaining. The only ones that aren’t thriving are the plants I started indoors in the coco coir. Those are all still alive, but not really taking off. (Well, except for the beans.) I may try direct-seeding another cherry tomato plant just to see if that makes a difference, but overall I’m not worried as I have two tomato plants that are definitely thriving. (Those are the ones I bought from Little City Farm a few weeks ago.)
And because he amuses me, here’s a pic of my garden guardian — my little axe-wielding gnome.
The soreness continues…
Busy, busy night. My screen door now works again (mostly). The bamboo table of wasp-y doom found a new location, so hopefully I’ll be able to use the balcony again during daylight hours. All of the pots I filled with ‘dirt’* yesterday now have plants in them, as does my second apple basket (which make great planters by the way — wish I had more!) and the new pots. Yes, there are more pots, since it was obvious I was running out. I dashed to the grocery store before it got too dark, found another three big terracotta pots, and somehow dragged them home (owwwww, my arms may never work again). Filled these, and did my second round of planting. Then I wandered the neighbourhood scavenging water bottles from peoples’ recycling bins, to use with my ‘Plant Nanny‘ watering stakes. Those are neat things, and I really hope they work. I have a set of four for starters, and I also have a set of PlantMinders to test (but already suspect the Nannies will prove more useful for an outdoor garden with full-sized plants, because the reservoirs are bigger).
Now I am sore. Or, to be honest, more sore, since I was sore after yesterday’s gardening too. Despite two entire evenings of gardening effort I still don’t have all my seedlings planted. Egad.
There won’t be time to finish over the weekend either. My dad’s incoming for a visit, along with the majority of my camping gear (which has been stowed in Montreal since our east coast trip last fall). When we arranged the trip it seemed only natural that we should jump in the car and go camping together while we had the chance, so I booked us a site at a conservation area we keep trying to visit. For the first time ever we managed to actually get a spot — usually it’s booked solid. Yay! Um…but I cheered too soon. As I was collecting granola and pudding cups and tins of dolmas and looking for other camping-friendly foods, the weather formed a vortex of nastiness on the time horizon: Sunny…sunny…sunny…RAIN…THUNDERSTORMS…RAIN…sunny. All that rain? Yeah, those’d be the three days we planned to be camping. *sigh* So much for veggie dogs roasted on a campfire, fire baked potatoes, or toasted apricots stuffed with vegan marshmallows.
Oh well, at least I’ll get to show off my garden while he’s here.
* The dirt is actually a combination of 1/3 compost, 1/3 coco coir, and 1/3 vermiculite, the virtues of which are extolled by Mel Bartholomew of Square Foot Gardening. I’m hopeful that this combination will work better for container gardening than the regular potting soil I’ve used in the past, which [a] tended to compact too densely, and [b] dried out super fast.
R.I.P., Postum
I’ve been off coffee, and specifically caffeine since the beginning of this year (with a one week exception for when we went to Cuba, because Cuban coffee is fabulous and not to be missed). Amazingly I don’t really miss the stuff all that much. Sure there have been a few rough mornings and a couple evenings when some coffee would have helped perk me up…but I like being in a place where I can enjoy coffee for its flavour without needing it for its kick.
Coffee was my favourite hot drink though, and I found I needed a replacement. Tea didn’t really do it for me, sadly, and hot chocolate was too sweet for a regular beverage. So after a week or two I found my way back to an old childhood staple — Postum. Never had it? It’s a drink made from ground, roasted grains. I used to drink this stuff long before I ever tasted my first java, and loved the nuttiness of it.
Alas, the stuff went quietly out of production late last year. I grabbed a couple extra bottles while I could, but this week the terrible day came when I ran out. I scouted the local grocery stores with no luck. Even eBay failed me, because apparently I’m not the only one who misses the stuff — there are some truly insane auctions going on for it, with a mere six bottles going for as much as $175US!
So now, ironically, I’m looking for a Postum substitute. There are lots of coffee substitutes, but I don’t actually want something that tastes like coffee — I want my nutty grains back! Yesterday I tried Bambu, and today I’m trying ‘Sinka’ (or something like that). Both are coffee substitutes made mostly from rye, chicory and barley. Sadly they’re just not the same. Chicory tastes a bit metallic to me, which is both disconcerting and a little unpleasant.
*pine* Dear Post, please bring back Postum!
Home again
Well I’m back from Boston and Toronto, and still a little brain dead from the travelling. Boston was gorgeous though, and I already miss everyone in Toronto. Plus there was some spectacularly nummy food! (Reviews to come sometime soon-ish.) No matter, it’s nice to sleep in my own bed again, and cook in my own kitchen. Nothing fancy has come of that so far — just enough granola to supply several Boston trips, a stab at a seitan version of tasty tempeh ribs, and some cabbage-potato slow cooker comfort food. Oh, and the best pancakes ever. Hmmm, maybe I haven’t been as slothful in the kitchen as I thought since getting back two days ago.
On a completely unrelated note, today I read that Oprah is doing a 21-day cleanse that involves going vegan, and giving up caffeine, alcohol, sugar, and gluten. Hardcore! More on her goals here. I’m interested to see what kind of response she gets, and how well she does at making the change seem easy, appetizing, and worthwhile. So far I’m a little hesitant, because the few recipes already posted to her site may prove daunting to someone new to the veggie lifestyle. Will readers know where to find kombu and tempeh? I take tamari and nutritional yeast for granted, but maybe they could use some introduction for newbies? Anyway, I hope her challenge works out well for her and any others who decide to try it.
Wandering Stratford
I have a fridge full of veggies, and no time to cook*. The weekend saw me skivving off to Stratford (the Canadian spin-off, not the UK original) with one of m’darlings for a couple days of pre-birthday fun. It was nicely uncrowded and even fairly un-touristy at this time of year, particularly considering that it was Mother’s Day weekend. We stayed at the lovely Glenwood B&B, saw The Music Man at the Stratford Festival, and had a wonderful time browsing some of the interesting shops around town. If you ever make it there, check out Quark Soup and the amazing toy store, Family & Company! They’re well worth a romp or two, and it doesn’t matter how old you are.
The chocolate shops proved a tasty diversion too. The first (Rheo Thompson) was not terribly vegan-friendly, but the second (Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory) offered one of those happy vegan experiences that make time away special. We showed up, made our usual “do you have anything without eggs or dairy” request, and promptly got a personal, friendly tour of the half dozen options available to us. The Power Hounds (dark chocolate coconut clusters) were soooooo good. I’m not sure it’s a good thing that I just discovered they have a shop in nearby Kitchener, and another in downtown Toronto, and yet another in the very airport I’ll be passing through on Wednesday…
But really, the culinary highlight of Stratford? VegOut. It’s a little vegan cafe just off the main strip. Great location, even better food. If we’d been Good And Responsible Food CriticsTM, we’d have ordered a few different dishes to share, so that we could report back on the full range of offerings. We didn’t. In place of long excuses, I’ll give you three words:
Fish. And. Chips.
Okay, let’s make that four: Vegan. Fish. And. Chips.
Yes, you read that right. They offered battered fake fish, complete with vegan tartar sauce. It mimicked real fish and chips well enough to suit my rusty memory. In fact I liked these far better than I ever liked the real thing — most F&C always seemed to be made with either low-quality fish, or come over-battered or over-greasy. These were crispy, well-filled, fried but not greasy, and very tasty. The fries were equally good. We both ordered the same thing without even hesitating. Then we went back later for dessert. The apple-raspberry pie was wonderful — nice tart apples, a good crust, and I even got to enjoy that crust since it was heated in an oven rather than a microwave, and thus wasn’t soggy and gross. The soy hot chocolate was the most chocolatey I’ve had outside my own kitchen. M’darling found his chocolate-peanut butter ‘cheesecake’ less rich than the versions we’ve had at Vegetarian Haven in Toronto, but enjoyed the couple bites he managed to steal of my pie.
I took no camera and thus took no photos. Just take my word for it — the food was fabulous and you too should go there if you ever have the chance. We found the place through HappyCow. Travelling? Need to find a vegan or vegetarian restaurant? You should check out HappyCow, and add reviews of any new places you find too!
So those were the highlights of the weekend. Tomorrow I’m off to Toronto, and Wednesday I’m off to Boston. At this point I’m not even sure when I’m back, but certainly by this time next week. Cookery, photos, and assorted blathering to resume then, or sometime near then. =)
* Which is killing me, because our eagerly-awaited grill just arrived. Literally. It’s still in a big box in front of me, and all I want to do now is grill and eat everything in the house. *g*
