And here we are... at the start of it all.  The first rhubarb recipe of the season.  I wish that I could tell you that it came freshly picked from my garden but I can't.  It didn't come from my garden.  It came from my freezer.  From last year.  How embarrassing.  How un-food-blogger of me.
The truth is that life has lately gone into end of school year mode.  Lots of papers to sign, dates to book, grad dress to shop for, uniform stuff to take care of for september - it's kept all of us hopping.  Coupled with that, every spare second has involved, ripping things out of our house, cleaning up the back yard, cleaning and bagging things for donation, painting, drilling holes and hanging important things... I can't even think clearly anymore.  Our neighbours are pretty happy with us though.  In the course of one week we have put 1 chest of drawers, 1 bookshelf, 2 chairs, 1 table, 1 large basket and 2 8lb weights on the front boulevard.  All of them were gone within a couple of hours.  I think the neighbours are now keeping watch on our front sidewalk to make sure they get first dibs.  Our kids are wondering exactly when we are going to stop and whether there will be any furniture left in the house when we do.

Please note the large power tool in the lower right corner.

To be honest I have no problem getting rid of things.  None.  I could live with very little quite happily.  I form very few attachments to stuff.  Not always a good thing but it does come in handy when you are going through your house with the purpose of getting rid of stuff.  It can be hard to stop once you've started though.  I'm at that point right now and I know that this means I have to be careful.  I can get out of control.  I can justify almost any toss out.  I'd love to say that I would regret it later but I wouldn't.  I might feel bad that someone else feels bad about it but I wouldn't miss the thing I tossed... like I said, not always a good thing.
All of this toss talk ties in nicely to the rhubarb... and I love a good tie in.  The rhubarb is in the freezer.  The freezer and fridge that it's connected to will be donated very soon to make way for the new-to-me appliances that my BFF is handing over.  I don't even want to talk about how excited I am about it... it's awesome and I have an awesome BFF.  So knowing that my freezer/fridge is on it's way out, I'm using this as an opportunity to clear through a lot of that stuff too.  Seeing as there is still another bag of rhubarb in the freezer you can look forward to another rhubarb recipe or two coming soon.


Blubarb Crumb Bars adapted from 'Sticky, Gooey, Creamy, Chewy'

Quick Blubarb Jam makes about 3 cups

4 generous cups chopped rhubarb
4 generous cups blueberries
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup honey


Crumb Stuff

1 cup oat flour (blitz old fashioned oats in a blender until it's a flour like consistency)
1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
pinch of cinnamon
1 cup cold, unsalted butter, cubed
1 egg

Preheat oven to 350°F
Line a 9x13 baking dish or pan with foil and butter it.
In a bowl combine all of the flours, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon together.  Mix well.
Add the cubed butter and using two forks or a pastry cutter begin to cut the butter into the mixture.  Once it becomes fairly crumbly looking add in the egg and continue to cut everything together until the mixture is wet and crumbly.
Pat half of the flour mixture into the bottom of the prepared baking dish.  Pat down firmly
Spoon about 2 1/4 cup of blubarb jam over the bottom layer.
Evenly sprinkle the rest of the flour mixture over the blubarb layer.  Do not press this layer down.
Bake for about 40 min or until the top is light, golden brown.
Cool completely before cutting the bars (this gives the jam stuff time to firm up again)

So Resting Bitch Face is a labelled phenomenon that I've only recently learned about.  It's a thing.  I'm not even joking... it's real and I know that because it's on YouTube.  The Urban Dictionary defines it as a person, usually a woman, who naturally looks mean when her face is expressionless, without meaning to.
Recently my sister and her family made it to town.  This is a big deal because they live in Calgary which is far from Toronto.  Of course, somewhere during the course of our conversations the subject of resting bitch face came up.  What I discovered is that not only do I (and probably both of my siblings) have serious resting bitch face, we inherited it from two of THE BEST resting bitch faces on the planet.  I'm sure that you can put the pieces together.  My sister and I high-five'd (?) each other and the conversation moved on from there.  However, I've spent the last few days mulling over the idea that when I'm not aware of it I quite probably look like a bitch.  It might be anger that comes through.  It might be disdain.  It might be boredom.  Doesn't matter how it's perceived, the real issue is whether I know it's happening and whether therefor I meant for people to perceive me that way.
It's true, there unquestionably are times when I purpose to give that look but the thought that I might not have meant it but conveyed it anyway was unnerving at first.  Then I read this article.  You know, a few days and a few articles later I think I'm ok with it.  The alternative is aggressively working to remember to smile... all the time.  It looks weird.  You've seen that person walking towards you, haven't you?  The one with the weird ass smile and you wonder what the hell they're thinking about.  That is not me.  Or, as the article goes, I have to try to pretend all the time... jeez - don't we pretend enough already?  I really don't want to spend my time pretending to be happy and nice to people I don't know because... well why?  At the end of the day, if I don't know I'm doing it then I have to be super committed to not doing it in order to change (I'm not) and in order to be super committed I have to be convinced that there is a good reason to motivate that change.  Making people feel better or giving them the impression that I'm a 'nice' person just isn't motivation enough for me.  So I'm ok with it, my resting bitch face or bitch resting face or whatever that 'unsmile' is.  We're cool.


I survived Kid #2 birthday party and made a kick ass cake to boot.  Check here for the recipe if you're into it.  She's got much better pictures than I do.


I got this message on my beer bottle cap.  Best end to my day.


Here's the contents of this week's Food Box... this is for you KT.


I made this ice cream.  I'm not going to apologize for giving you another ice cream recipe because I'm just not.  I wanted it to be with strawberries and you'll need to check my last post to understand why it's with mixed fruit instead.  No matter what, this ice cream had to be lemon for me.  It's creamy lemon, kinda like lemon curd ice cream.  I wanted to drink the custard.  I would honestly just make the ice cream and forget the fruit but if the fruit was roasted strawberries then it might be too good to resist.


Lemon Ice Cream with Mixed Fruit Mush  adapted from epicurious.com
serves about 8

6 egg yolks
2 heaping tbsp lemon zest
1 cup milk
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
3/4 cups sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice

2 cup mixed fruit
1/3 cup sugar

Combine the milk, cream, sugar, salt and lemon zest in a heavy bottomed saucepan.  Heat slowly over medium heat until almost coming to a boil.  Turn the heat down to low.
Slowly add a ladle of the heated cream mixture to the egg yolks, stirring constantly.  Add a little more of the cream to the egg yolks.  Then pour the egg yolk mixture back into the cream mixture.  Stir over med/low heat until the custard coats the back of a wooden spoon and stays separated when you run your finger through it (a candy thermometer should read 170°F)
Pour through a seive into a bowl and add in the lemon juice.  Cool custard a little then cover with clingfilm (place the clingfilm right on the custard so that it coats it completely).  Chill until the custard is cold (mine was chilled overnight).
Just before finishing the custard in the ice cream maker:  Combine the mixed fruit (rhubarb, blueberry, cherry for me) and sugar together in a heavy bottomed saucepan.  Bring to a simmer and turn the heat down to med/low.  Simmer for about 15 minutes or until most of the liquid cooks off and the mixture is almost jam like.  Set aside to cool.
Finish the custard according to the instructions on your ice cream maker (Mine took about 20 - 25 minutes)
Remove the ice cream from the machine and loosely mix (I just did a couple of stirs to mine) the fruit through the ice cream.  Transfer everything to an airtight container and place in the freezer to harden.
Thaw for a few minutes to soften before serving.

Long weekends are beautiful things no matter what.  When the weather is gorgeous (relative to the time of year of course) and sunny and you've all survived another dark, snowy winter then the weekend is damn near perfect.  We, in Toronto, are experiencing just such a weekend.
This is when you want to fit everything, absolutely everything into 96 hrs.
We are about to head to the valley for a long walk on the nature trail.
D and I have both done a nice, long run.
We would like to get to the bookstore and cafe later because it's wonderful to sit in a sunny spot and read.
The bike is finally going into the bike shop.
We are heading out to Bowmanville to spend a little Easter time with my parents.
I've already had a leisurely lunch with KT (and wish I could fit another one in for that matter).  BTW, KT gave me a stupid awesome care package to take to Italy with me... THE best BFF ever.  Stupid Awesome.
Kid #1 has baked for the Easter Parade Bake Sale.
We have an Easter Egg hunt...
And you get the idea.



This is a time when you can take time out of the regular routine and celebrate the new life of spring, the longer days, the warmer temperatures, the return of the 'evening' time, the goodbye's of mittens and scarves and the beginning of the push to empty out the freezer for the new harvest of vegetables and fruits.  Hence this bar recipe to begin the freezer drain.  I've still got dregs of everything and I'll be finding ways to sneak frozen whatever's into everything over the next little while.  At the end of the day though, this isn't a half bad way to use them up.  Not half bad at all.


Doesn't matter to me if you celebrate easter or not.  It could be Passover, it could be Phagwa, Holi, Higan, Nowruz (already passed I think) or maybe La Divina Pastora.  Whatever it's called, part of it will be about new life, change or new growth.  It's beautiful here - Finally.  Sun is out, green things are peaking out and poking through the earth hesitantly.  A new season of life after the difficult season of dark.  Make something special, get out and enjoy and be with people you love and who love you back.


Blueberry Lemon Crumble Bars adapted from Sparkling Ink
makes and 8x8 pan of bars

1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour (pastry flour if you have it) or oat flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
8 oz unsalted butter, cold and cubed
1 egg + 2 egg whites (you could just use 2 eggs if you don't want to use just egg whites)

2 1/2 cups blueberries (frozen or fresh)
zest and juice of 1 lemon
1/2 cup sugar
4 tbsp corn starch

Preheat oven to 375°F.  Line a 8x8 inch baking pan with parchment.  Set aside.
Combine both of the flours, salt, baking powder, sugar, brown sugar and the cubed butter.  Cut the butter into the flour mixture until it's a crumbly texture (should look like pebbles).  Add in the egg and mix in well.
Take about half of the mixture and press into the bottom of the pan to about a half inch.
Combine the blueberries, lemon zest and juice together until mixed.  Add the sugar and cornstarch and mix.
Pour the blueberry mixture over the pressed down crust.
Use the rest of the flour mixture and sprinkle over the blueberries but don't press it in.
Bake for about 45 minutes or until the topping is just beginning to turn golden.
Cool for about 15 minutes before cutting.

I'm thinking that the transformation is nearing 'critical mass' for me.  Well... 'nearing'.
 - I'm barely in a grocery store anymore.  When I am there the place feels almost stressful.  Have you ever thought about how much stuff is there?  Damn, it's so overwhelming.
 - I've got my little garden going.  Who knows how much stuff I'm going to get from it over the summer but it's always worth it.  In fact I have little potato plants breaking through the ground.
 - The local farmers market has started up - hello great cheese and sausage too ;-)
 - I'm scheming about this summer's canning already.  Going through my books and figuring myself out.  I'm going to buy an outdoor burner and reusable sealing lids as well.  More tomatoes/Less Pears... that kind of thing.

 I'm also seriously pondering how lucky I am.  I have so many fantastic options.  I can choose to grow food - as much as I want.
 - I have the choice to go to the market and to any number of small, local places that are committed to good, local food choices.
 - I have summer's free to do all this stuff.
 - I have a job that allows me (with some sacrifices albeit) to choose to eat the way I believe in.  I'm lucky.    I'm fortunate.  And I hope that I never forget it.

My approach to recipes has changed completely over the last two years as well.  I look at recipes on blogs or in cookbooks and think about how the combinations of food make no sense.  How can I have zucchini bread in the middle of winter?  How can I make strawberry cake in March?  Why am I serving  fresh tomato whatever in January.  The answer may well be that wherever that book or post is coming from has a longer or completely different growing season.  D's Mom for example has no concept of the growing season here in Canada.  She's from Trinidad and the growing season there is endless.  There is just very few things that are only available at certain times of year.  Here in Canada though I can only get fiddleheads for a couple of weeks or asparagus for maybe 3 - 4 weeks.  Rhubarb... well it's a little longer but then it's done.  It makes me so thankful for the beautiful things like rhubarb that make the spring so special.


I mixed these muffins with blueberries because a) the recipe did as well and b) I have last years wild blueberries still to finish in my freezer.  Otherwise, it would have been all rhubarb all the time.  Some of these muffins are going off to a family member who needs some 'cheering up' but otherwise they are staying right here with me.



Rhubarb and Blueberry Muffins adapted from 'Taste of Home' magazine

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 lg egg
1/2 cup (full) milk
1 scant cup each rhubarb (chopped) and blueberries
Streusel - find the recipe here

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Line about 10 muffin tin cups with paper or silicon liners.

In a bowl combine the flour, baking powder and salt.  Mix and set aside.
In another bowl beat together the butter and sugar until combined and light.  Add the egg and beat until light and fluffy.
Add the Flour and milk alternately to the butter/egg mixture beginning and ending with flour.
Fold the fruit gently into the batter.
Scoop the batter into the muffin cups.  Fill each cup just to the rim.  I got 9 in all.
Sprinkle each muffin with about 1 tbsp of streusel.
Bake for about 20 - 25 minutes.

I had a funny conversation with someone I'm close with recently.  We were talking about how she is dealing with our family member's illness.  How she's doing her best to cope and how little things like me bringing baking by brightens up their day.  That's nice.
Then it got a little weird because she starting telling me about how other people aren't really doing enough - I can hear that.  Really I can.  I also understand the other side of that coin though.  She then went on to explain that she purposely does not ask people for help - family or otherwise - because she wants to sit back and see who comes and helps of their own accord.  Because they care so much and it's so important to them.  Now again, I understand the argument I really do.  I just think it's dumb.
We don't ask for help.  We don't ask for anything if we can and then we get sick or we age or something happens and no matter whether we like it or not, we have to ask for help.  We have to rely on others.  So we're gonna have to get over it and it might as well be sooner rather than later.
I also think that most people are more than happy to help out.  Especially when there is an honest need and when the help is truly appreciated.  The problem is that we all get busy.  We're busy doing all kinds of crazy things.  We're busy living our lives.  Jobs.  Classes.  Homes.  Families.  Friends.  Cooking.  Working out.  Listening to music.  Reading.  You get the idea.  I think that most of us are willing but we don't have time to try and figure out what somebody needs and then go and do it for them.  It's not that we don't care it's just that it's so much extra work when we have to guess.
I, more than anyone, knows how hard it is to ask for help.  I'm terrible at it.  Really terrible.  Sometimes I simply don't know what to ask for even though I know that I need something.  I think that it's bred into us or something.  Like we'll be exposing our weakness or failure or something if we have to ask for help.  In principle though I think that it's important that we don't just wait until help is offered in order to ask for it.  It keeps us separated from each other, this not asking.  It denies people the opportunity to get to know me a little better or maybe in a way that they didn't know me before.  And it just feels good to be able to help someone else.  It's sharing not just giving... 'cause you get so much back.  I've got to give that some thought and learn to take my own damn advice.


On another note, my freezer is really dwindling now.  We are down to corn, peaches, blueberries, a few bananas and 1 portion of pesto.  I'm not feeling bad about it, it's a good thing.  Getting ready for the new season.  So when I saw this recipe originally for blueberries I thought that I should just try mixing it up a bit.  I chopped up some peaches as well and threw them in.  I suspect that raspberries would do nicely here as well.


Blueberry and Peach Buttermilk Cake adapted from Alexandra's Kitchen
makes 1  9 inch square cake

2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
3/4 cup + 1 tbsp sugar
1 lg egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 1/2 cup mix of blueberries and peaches (peaches should be peeled and diced)
2 tbsp sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Grease or line a 9 inch square baking pan and set aside.
Combine the flour, baking powder and salt together in a bowl and set aside.
Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add in the egg and continue to beat until fluffy and well combined.
Add in the vanilla and mix well.
Add in the flour mixture and buttermilk in alternating batches.  Beginning and ending with the flour.  Take about 4 alterations with the flour.
Batter should be quite stiff.
Mix in the fruit and stir just until mixed.  Stir gently.
Pour the cake batter in the baking tin.  Smooth out the batter.  Sprinkle with the remaining 2 tbsp of sugar.
Bake for about 35 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.
Cool for about 7 minutes before removing from the cake tin.

This is what we did on Mother's Day... went for a walk.

What's happening in my life:
I've joined Pinterest.  I don't know what it is really.  I don't know if 'joining' is a word that you use in reference to 'pinning' pictures... whatever.  It looks like a virtual vision board to me which feels ever so slightly lame but my sister joined and invited me and I joined because I love her.  Then I found out that all these other people give a crap about Pinterest too.  Weird.  So here I am.
I'm still biking... in February... in Toronto.  It looks like it's going to be that kind of winter this year.  So, I'm going to take advantage of it and try to push away all the guilt and fear surrounding what this means on a global scale (the guilt and fear are ebbed just a little by the cold snap in Europe - 'See Wanda, it's really really cold somewhere').
Kid #1 has gotten to the final round of a national short story competition.   She is going to be published no matter what and we are incredibly proud of her.  So at the ripe old age of 11 she has already performed on tv, sung with Michael Buble and been published.  What's next for god's sake?
I've been working on my jar pile in the cold room.  It's all been experimental this year.  All this canning and how much of certain things do we actually use and all that.  I already know FO' SHO' that I need double the amount of tomato stuff next year.  Probably a little less on the fruit front.  I've already finished my beet pickles (which were awesome and I'll do some for you soon) and my green tomato and tomatillo salsa is at the halfway point.  It's kinda fun, all this.  Oh yeah, and if anyone has some ideas for canned pears - please let me know.
Remember how a few posts ago I was telling you that I was L O V I N G this song?  (Incidently, they can to this stuff live - I know, right.)  We just found out that they're filming their music video tomorrow here in Toronto and they're looking for kids between 8 and 20.  Yup - kid #1 and I are going.  I know I'm not 20... shut-up.

I'm on a mission now to begin to work through my frozen summer harvest.  I've got bags of corn, green beans, broccoli, pesto, herbs, blueberries, peas, peaches... and other stuff I can't remember right now.  I figure that the end of February (well 2/3's of the way through) is as good a time as any to start clearing out in a serious way.


These cupcakes were 'created' in direct correlation to the freezer thing.  I had a huge, almost shockingly so, container of egg whites.  In fact, I didn't even use them all for this recipe.  So even though I love angel food cake and I'm tot's not scared of it now that I know to hang it upside down, I wanted cupcakes... with lemon.  I wanted to put cherries on top, one's that are also in my freezer, but I didn't un-freeze them in time.   Even though these don't get the upside down treatment they still held up pretty well.  Bite sized angel food... hell's yeah.



Angel Food Cupcakes adapted from "How Sweet It Is'
makes about 20 - 24 cupcakes

12 lg egg whites (about 1 1/2 cups)
1 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cup icing sugar (sifted)
1 1/8 cup sifted cake and pastry flour
1/4 tsp salt
grated zest of 2 lemons
blueberries (I used frozen ones from last summer) or cherry pieces for the tops

Let the egg whites rest for at least one hour at room temperature (you can do up to 24 hrs easily).
Line about 24 cupcake tins and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Sift together the icing sugar, flour and salt and set aside.
In a large bowl begin to beat the egg whites at medium speed using a mixer.  Once the whites are frothy add the cream of tartar and continue to beat until the mixture forms soft peaks (this took me about 10 minutes with my hand mixer).  Add the sugar slowly whilst continuing to beat.  Continue to beat until the mixture forms soft, droopy peaks.  Add in the vanilla and beat a little longer.
Slowly fold the flour mixture into the egg whites a half a cup at a time.  Fold gently and lovingly (!) until everything is mixed.  Fold in the lemon zest.
Pile the batter into each lined cupcake thingy.  I piled mine until they were just reaching the top of the liner.
Place a few blueberries or cherry pieces on top of each cupcake.
Bake for about 18 or so minutes or until the cupcakes look golden and are springy to the touch.
Remove from the oven and slather the tops with the lemon glaze while the cupcakes are still warm.
Cool before eating

Lemon Glaze

Juice from 2 lemons
1 1/2 cups icing sugar

Mix the lemon juice and icing sugar together in a heavy bottomed saucepan.  Heat over medium heat just until the mixture begins to simmer and then turn the heat down to low.  Continue to heat on low until the syrup begins to thicken (about 10 minutes).
Pour over cupcakes while they're still warm from the oven.

I'm at some seriously loose ends.  I'm feeling sad and trying not to feel dejected as well.  We've lost a wonderful Torontonian this week.  Jack Layton has passed on and may he rest in peace.  I'm going to miss  his smiling face and his warmth.  I really don't want to write about it because it makes me feel too sad so I'm going to move on to something else...
like canning.
I'm starting to wonder if I don't have a problem.  I'm canning everything in sight.  As you will see quite soon I canned grape juice.  Grape Juice People!  Who cans grape juice.


So the other day I canned almost a bushel of peaches.  It was traumatic and I think that I've already written about it.  My kids are traumatized (except in January they'll be thanking me just wait and see).  D is totally sick of all the jars and extra pots in the kitchen.  I'm watching the larder shelves fill up and feeling more and more excited about it.  So yeah... a problem.  We canned (me and Kid #1 that is) almost a bushel of peaches until Kid #1 declared independence and ran from the kitchen.  She said no more.  I still had about 20 or so peaches left though.  I honestly couldn't pit and peel another peach though either so I left it... for a day.  Then it started getting to me and I thought they might go bad if I didn't use them up.   What would I do with them.  There had to be something.  I already had peaches in the freezer too so I didn't want to do any more of that.  Next thing you know I've got the canner out again and peeling peaches.  Luckily I had some blueberries to throw in as well.
On a side note, I've been trying to find some witty, quirky, interesting tidbits to pass on to you and I'm finding that I'm flat out of ideas.  The last two weeks have been a whirlwind and I think that it's catching up with me.  My brain is thinking in overload autopilot.  You know, when you're going through all the motions that you always go through but your mind isn't in it.  It's like I have to reconnect with myself for a bit.  I don't like that feeling but it's life.
Side note done.
I don't know if you're the type to do canning but if you are then I would encourage you to try some new combinations.  I've got about 30 jars of preserves.  About 6 or 7 different fruit combinations.  I like that.  I think it will somehow make the monotony of winter a little bit more exciting.  If you do make some preserves then listen to some music while you do it.  It helps.



Peach and Blueberry Preserves 
makes about 6 500 ml jars

20 peaches peeled, pitted and chopped
2 cups blueberries (I used wild)
5 cups sugar
juice of 1 lemon
throw a used vanilla bean in there too if you've got one hangin' around

Combine all the ingredients together in a large pot.  Simmer over medium/low heat stirring as needed so that it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pot.  Simmer for about 25 minutes.  Test the taste to see if you need extra sugar

Sterilize about 6 500 ml jars and their sealing lids.  (Wash in hot, soapy water then dry and place on a baking sheet and into the oven @ 300 degrees F for about 10 minutes - NOT the lids though, they just need to be washed and dried).

Get a big canning pot ready with water and that tray thingy in the bottom so that the jars aren't sitting right on top of the heating element.  Boil the water.

Pour the hot fruit stuff into the prepared jars and place the lids on.  Carefully place into the canner and boil the jars for about 12 minutes.  Carefully remove the jars and then place on top of a towel.  Check the lids to make sure they don't need to be screwed on any tighter.  Cover completely with another towel.  Let it set for about 24 hrs.  Make sure all the lids are slightly concave - when you push on them they shouldn't give at all).  If any don't seal properly you could just use that one right away.  It will keep in the refrigerator quite a while.  The other jars can be stored for up to a year.

This post is about a whole lot of random little 'nothings' so buckle up and let's go.

A lot of you really liked the post on my Sis-in-law.  Even my Sis-in-law liked it.  I'm glad and I meant every word.  Big, open hearted hug to Steena (and a kiss too ;-)

I've been thinking a lot about capitalism lately and what it is exactly that one can believe in about it.  I'm asking people.  I'm thinking.  I'm not convinced that what we are calling a capitalist society truly is one.  I'm still thinking.
A couple of posts ago I was talking about the John Mayer song 'Say'.  It's really sweet and sentimental and I felt that I needed to round it out for you by telling you that I've also been listening a lot to this (please excuse the language) and this.  I helps me feel 'bad-ass' which is strangely very important for me.  Plus I just like the songs.
I know it might seem from my posts that all we've been eating is sweets lately.  It's not quite the truth.  We've been eating lots of corn on the cob.  Simple.  Boiled for 3 minutes and then slathered with butter and salt.
I've been eating lots of fresh tomato sandwiches.  Nothing beats a toasted tomato sandwich unless it has a little bit of feta on it and then... it's sheer bliss.
My mind hasn't really been in 'proper food' mode.  I've been canning like a crazy woman and I don't even know why I'm doing it exactly.  I'm not really looking to stock my pantry for the entire winter but it's a cool idea.  The thought of maybe saving a little money is cool too but I'm not sure that it's a big savings at the end of the day.  I think that my recent trip to what felt like the largest grocery store on the planet or at least Toronto made me realize that they are not places I enjoy being in.  Maybe I'm just motivated by wanting to stay away from those places.  Ultimately though,  the idea of taking the vegetables and fruit at their peak and freezing or canning them so that I can enjoy that bounty in the dead of winter appeals.  I'm finding that there is even something comforting about it.  So I've set to filling my days pealing peaches (yuck) and tomatoes (not so bad), cooking up batches of every kind of fruit combination you can imagine and throwing it all into jars and letting them whistle away in the canner.  Kid #1 doesn't want to see another peach for a while and she's feeling like tomatoes aren't far behind.  All that to say that the stuff I've been making isn't exactly food blogger material.  Exciting it's not.  Creative it's not.  Interesting... well maybe only just a little.



Fortunately, D's cuz and my sis-from-another-mother swept through town last week with her two kids.  That meant the D's Mom served us meals quite a bit (saved my ass, for sure).  It also meant that we were going out for food more - like to the beach, to Niagara Falls, to Wonderland - all my favourite places (Ugh).  Not exciting food places mind you - where I could take pictures of the food and tell you all about how awesome it is and that you should find yourself there asap and all that crap.  Nope, just the junky, can-we-get-chicken-fingers-for-the-kids kind of stuff.  Kids liked it though.
I made this cake to celebrate their arrival this year.  I can tell you that it turned out just the way a cake should that has peaches and blueberries on top.  Nice and spongy but substantial enough to hold the fruit.  The streusel isn't over the top so you might want to mess around with that if you want something a little more present.  You can't beat the colours and the whole mess feels somehow special and homey all at the same time.


Peach Cake adapted from The Silver Palate Cookbook

2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk (I used a combination of milk and sour cream)
3 peaches (or so) peeled and cut into slices
a sprinkling of blueberries
1/2 cup (or so) of streusel topping (find it here)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Grease and flour a 9 inch springform (or just round) pan.

Combine the flour baking powder and salt together in a bowl and set aside.
Cream the butter and sugar together in another bowl until it's light and fluffy.
Add in the eggs one at a time beating well after each one.
Add the flour and milk alternately beginning and ending with the flour.
Pour into the prepared pan.
Place the peaches on top of the batter.  Sprinkle the blueberries on top of that.  Sprinkle the streusel topping on top of that.
Bake for bout 25 min.  Turn the cake in the oven and bake for another 10 - 15 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.
Cool slightly before removing from the pan.

It's staggering when you think about how far we've come in so little time.
Yeah, I know.  I've heard people making the same stupid comment more times than I care to even consider.  And in one sense it is a stupid comment.  What does that even mean?  'Progress', change has been happening steadily since history has been documented (arguably therefor it was going on before we began documenting), this we know.
However, when I think about the difference that 75 years has made in the way we eat, the way we think about food, the way we consume energy and goods... that's when my head starts to spin.  I could argue that the wars changed everything.  I could argue that cars and the switch from coal to oil changed everything.  Thing is though that everything changed... one way or another.


My Dad grew up on a farm outside of Belleville Ontario.  A little place called Thomasburg.  He was in high school before they got running water in the farm house.  In my Dad's day you had a big garden and you had the garden because you had a root cellar to fill and if you didn't fill the root cellar than you had to pray that you had friends that could help you out because at the grocery store there was maybe sugar and spices and then a few other things that were insanely expensive and that was it.... (yeah, I know that's a run on sentance).  You killed your own (you don't kill in the spring when babies have just been born - they'll have no mother to feed them) meat in the fall and stored it at the local butcher shop by renting freezer space.  Remember, no running water... and either no electricity or not enough money to use it for a chest freezer.
My Mom was a Minister's kid.  She moved from place to place in rural Ontario.  She also grew up with a garden, as much as they could establish with all the moving around that they did.  They also relied on parishioners to give them food from their gardens.  A bag of onions, a cabbage, potatoes, maybe even a chicken.  However, there were times when there just was not food.  No food!  Imagine.  Maybe it was a tough growing year.  Or it was either financially not feasible to buy the bulk of your food from a grocery store or the grocery store itself just didn't have the food.  Sometimes all they ate was onion sandwiches and boiled cabbage... because that's all there was.
Just recently, I've been reading phrases that go something like:  'There's nothing like sitting down to a locally sourced, home cooked dinner with friends and family.'  This is something we have to work towards now.  We have a new vocabulary for this kind of eating.  Less than fifty years ago once strawberry season was over you didn't get strawberries until.... next season.  Now, locally sourced is a big deal.  We have to look for it outside of the grocery store for the most part.  We don't really grow any of our own food.  We walk into a grocery store and buy most of our 'food' from a box with a list of ingredients and nutritional information on the side.  Home cooked is a subversive kind of thing when you consider that about 50 percent (yeah, I wrote that correctly) of the average household food budget is spent on fast food.  Fast food, not even 'sit-down-order-something-from-a-waiter-kind-of-place'.  We don't have to cook, some of us don't even know what a tomato looks like growing on the vine.
The disconnect is staggering when I stop and really ponder.  I'm sad that things are the way they are.  I hope that they change.  I hope that I can be a part of it in my own little way.  Somehow knowing makes a difference.


I made this cake with rhubarb from my back yard and frozen blueberries from last years harvest.  One small step.


Rhubarb and Blueberry Streusel Cake
adapted from Canadian Living

1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
2 eggs
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup (make it a generous one) chopped fresh rhubarb
1/2 cup (generous) blueberries (fresh or frozen)

Streusel
3 tbsp all purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup melted butter

Grease and flour a 9 inch springform pan and set aside.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Combine all the ingredients for the streusel and mix until it forms a crumb.  Set aside.
Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in another bowl and set aside.
Beat the butter and brown sugar together in a large bowl until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time and continue to beat together.  Add in the vanilla and mix well.
Add the flour and buttermilk alternately to the egg/butter mixture.   Begin and end with the flour.  Mix thoroughly after each addition.
Add the rhubarb to the batter and mix.  Pour the batter into the prepared pan.  Sprinkle the blueberries on top of the batter.
Sprinkle the streusel on top of that.


Bake for about 1 hr and 10 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.
Cool for about 20 minutes before removing from the pan.

Calling all gardeners.
My garden sucks... please help me.
Ok, I'm being a total drama queen here.  It's mostly doing ok it's just the seeds that I put in that are sucking.  My zucchini seeds haven't taken at all.  Only one plant started to peak through the ground and the next day it was dug up by a stupid squirrel.  I even followed the directions on the stupid seed packet, Geez.  My carrot seeds haven't faired much better.  So far I've only gotten a handful of seedlings and I planted a whole packet.  I'm not sure what I've done wrong.  I seem to have consistently bad luck with zucchini - a few years in a row now - but the carrots, that's a new one.  I'm trying to stay focussed on the positive.  My beans and tomato plants are going gangbusters and my herbs are doing well (parsley, chive, basil, dill and oregano).  It's not a complete failure but the stupid zucchini/carrot crap is really bumming me out.  I've gotta figure something else to plant there so that I'm not constantly looking at this bare patch of ground with nothing happening on it.
This whole garden 'thing/crap/bum/downer' got me to thinking though.


Just a little while ago I was emailing my friend C back and forth.  She is holding down the fort while B works out of province.  Right now she's swamped with a very large garden and a small orchard to tend.  I have volunteered to come up every couple of weeks to help out with things.  I can't wait to get my hands in there and learn some gardening chops from a serious gardener... plus, I'll bet that she has carrots and zucchini coming up.
I've got a strawberry season coming up too so C and I are going to pick together and then do some jammin' ... that sounds funny.  I'm still working at clearing out my freezer.  I'm obviously not working hard at it though because I've been at it for a while and I've got a small freezer... and remember, I'm not a horder.  Anyway, slow and steady wins the race after all.  I pulled out a container of egg whites and a bag of frozen blueberries and I don't want to think about how long the blueberries have been hibernating in there Please.  I know that I have to try making meringues or something with egg whites - maybe a 'pavlova' but at the moment when the egg whites and the blueberries were in my hand something magical happened.  And then I was making this....

I think that my angel food cakes still come out looking weird.

So I'm now feeling better about my garden blank spot (thanks for the blog therapy) and looking forward to helping my friend and wondering what the hell is going to come out of my freezer next.


Blueberry Orange Angel Food Cake
adapted from foodnetwork.com

1 1/2 cups egg whites
1 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 1/8 cup cake flour
zest of one orange
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries (tossed in flour)

Glaze:
juice of one orange
1 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 3    degrees F.
Grease and flour a tube pan.
Combine the cake flour, sugar, salt and cream of tartar.  Sift the mixture four times in total and set aside.
Whisk the egg whites until they form peaks and have at least doubled in volume.
Gently fold the flour mixture into the egg whites using a big whisk.  Add in the orange zest and whisk a little more.  Fold in the floured blueberries.
Gently pour the batter into the tube pan, running a knife through the batter to remove air bubbles.
Bake for about 30 minutes.
Remove from the oven and cool completely before removing from the pan (the sides of the cake should be completely pulling away from the pan).
Glaze:
Combine the juice and the sugar.  Simmer over med/low heat for about 15 minutes or until the mixture thickens to a syrup.  Pour over the cooled cake.

I know that there is a word for how I'm feeling right now... I know it.
I just can't think of what that word might be just now.  It's because my brain is a complete fuzz.  I think it's the time of year, the brainwashing after too many years of bad tv, too much staring at a computer screen trying to think of something cool to say so that everyone will like me and read my stupid blog... or something.  Whatever the reason, I can't think of the word and my brain fuzz isn't going anywhere so I'm just going to babble away here mindlessly.


I really like lemon but my problem with most lemon recipes (I'm almost sure that I've mentioned this before but the fuzz is removing any clarity about it) is that they are just not lemony enough.  I like the tart stuff.  The tart that almost makes you pucker stuff.  I've stopped buying lemon loaf at cafe's (well I've actually stopped purchasing anything edible at cafe's but that's another story) because they just taste like pound cake - not a bad thing at all... if you want pound cake.  If I'm buying lemon loaf then it goes without saying that I don't want pound cake though... right?
So, truth be told, this recipe - that I made up on the fly and put together way too quickly so that I could give my kids something other than the apples that they're totally sick of this week - is not lemony enough for me.  Or for kid #1, so she has informed me.  So if you want to up the lemon stuff then go for it... and let me know what the results are.


I grabbed the recipe from a Canadian Living recipe for Poppy Seed, Sour Cream Lemon cakes and it adapted well.  I suggest mixing the blueberries in the flour before adding it all in just so that the blueberries don't drop to the bottom of the muffins while baking.   I think that the strategy worked.
To add to the fuzzy, mindless babble... I'm looking into co-founding (or at least being a very supportive member of) a community kitchen.  More details to come.  Also, I finally watched 'Food Inc.'.  Very glad that I did, it surprised me and yet didn't totally gross me out the way that I thought it would.  Also, very much affirmed the choices we've been making as a family over the past year.  
Mindless drivel over... make these, they taste good, you might really like them, you might be really glad that you read this silly post.


Lemon Blueberry Muffins (adapted from Canadian Living)... with Streusel (from Ottolenghi)

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 tbsp grated lemon zest (I used two lemons)
4 eggs
1/4 cup lemon juice (from the lemons)
1/2 cup sour cream
2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups blueberries (fresh or frozen)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Prepare muffin tin with liners (about 12)
Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl and set aside.
In another bowl cream together the butter and sugar until it's light and fluffy.  Add in the lemon zest and cream some more.  Add in the eggs and whisk together until frothy.  Add in the lemon juice and the sour cream.  Mix well.
Add the blueberries to the bowl of flour and stir them in just enough to get them all coated with flour.
Add the flour/blueberry mixture to the egg/butter mixture.  Mix gently just until everything is mixed well (otherwise the blueberries mix start to break open and you want to keep them whole as much as possible).

Scoop into twelve prepared muffin tins and sprinkle generously with the streusel (recipe below).
Bake for about 25 - 28 minutes depending.  The muffins should be golden.


Remove from oven and cool in the tins for about 7 min.  Remove from tin and continue cooling until ready to eat.

Streusel 
Combine 3 parts all purpose flour (3/4 cup eg.)
               1 parts sugar (1/4 cup eg.)
       and  2 parts cold butter in cubes (1/2 cup eg.)

Crumb together (I used a pastry cutter or two forks will work too) until it's the consistency of breadcrumbs.  Use immediately or store in the freezer.