These are the things that I wake up to sometimes.  Ummmmmm.

D has been away working.  For a week now I've been off work/single Mom/cook and canner/friend meeter/Sangria and champagne drinker.  D broke our camera.  It might not be a big break but it's a break.  So, this post is going to be about words way more than pictures.  I found some random crap, some old and some new, rolling around in my iphoto library.  So, I'm sharin'.

My brain has been buzzin' lately.  It's been taking me a while to get to sleep which is an unusual problem for me.  Maybe it's the longer days.  Maybe it's the end of the school year.  Maybe it's just a miraculous flood of energy and thought that I need to stop wondering about and do something with it instead.  I did spend the entire day house cleaning yesterday thanks to said energy.
Here are some things that have been distracting my brain lately:

This blogger kinda just makes me crazy.  She is just so raw and honest about her journey.  I wonder how it feels to just let that go out into the virtual world.  I find her writing not just inspiring but deeply thought provoking in an almost spiritual way.  I also share her feelings of frustration, depression and despair about our planet.  Happy times.

I don't have a picture of my beans or tomatoes.  I have a picture of these beets though because I thought that they were pretty.

I know that tomatoes and beans are not going to stop world hunger, ok?  But they are what's growing in  my backyard when everything else is just kinda limping along.  So I'm finding that multiple times (I kid you not) each day I'm going out there and checking out their progress.  I touch them, I talk to them and give them little bits of water.  I have these fantasies about being able to provide for my family's tomato and bean needs for the entire season through our own backyard.  Looking at those little green globes and the tiny little purple beans somehow helps me cope.

Kid #2 brought all this crap home on the second last day of school.  This picture is now in my office along with Kid #1's Mother's Day card.  This stuff is priceless.


I'm signing up for this half-marathon in October.  It will be my third one.  I'm making it a goal to come in between 1:49 and 1:59.  I've got some work to do but that's fun work.

Kid #1 took these random shots of our Xmas tree by running past it.  We must have about 50 of these kinds of shots but I  think that they're actually kinda rad.

I went here on the weekend.  I sat for quite a while in the park where people were playing, reading, talking, smoking up, laughing, sleeping, getting a tan and eating... maybe not all at the same time.  I was completely by myself... for a while at least.  It's strangely empowering, to be with people and not be with them all at the same time.  Somehow, in the warm Toronto sun at Kensington Market during pedestrian Sunday it felt like 'ME'.  It can take a long time to get to 'ME'.  You've got so many 'suppposed-to's' and 'shoulds' to do.  I guess some of us never get to 'ME'.  On Sunday though, I had fun with 'ME' there in the park, with my sandals off and getting grass stuck to my ass.  Feeling life all around me, feeling comfortable in my place there on the grass, not wishing I was somewhere else or with someone else.  Just 'ME'.

Kid #1 took this one too.  Totally untouched.  She's got an eye that one.

I just watched 'The Yes Men Fix the World' which was a great ending to my day.  I don't mean to blow the ending for you or anything but they don't actually fix the world and to be honest even though I think that they're awesome I still felt a little bit depressed afterwards.
I felt a little bit depressed after reading this book too.  In fact, sometimes the whole state of the western world makes me feel suicidally depressed.  I think about these things a lot.  I'm wondering where all the hippies have gone.  The seventies was an amazing time for new ideas and freedom (of speech not necessarily capitalism although it got in there too) and then the eighties happened.  Are we still protesting?  Are we still involved politically?  Did we just get jobs and move to the burbs?  Shouldn't we be more pissed off?
I had a conversation with a friend recently in which he told me that he knew I was high because we were talking about world government, free trade and the environment.  Here's the clincher though.  I wasn't high.  Damn.  Is that the only time people talk about this stuff?  I actually talk about it... a lot.  I think about it... a lot.  I wonder if things are just going to come crashing down around us... and then I wonder if it might not be a bad thing after all.  I wonder how long the gravy train in the west can continue and how long we can keep our heads in the sand.  I feel sad for my kids and for their kids and I'm not even sure what kind of world they are going to have.
Doomsday crap aside.  I went to my friends C and B a couple of days ago.  They've got this rad place in the middle of nowhere.  They've got dogs and cats.  They've got space for a small orchard and a huge garden.  They've got mondo solar panels set up outside the house.  Wild strawberries, elderberries, blackberries, gooseberries.  Damn.  That's only the beginning.  They work not only in their community to effect change but on a larger scale too.  They believe that thinking  and living environmentally can be financially viable if not as lucrative as we have been accustomed to the bottom line being up to now (well at least up to 2008).  It was good to talk to them about feeling depressed because they were able to pull me up and remind me that even if we can't change the world today we can do something.  Lots and lots of people are doing 'somethings'.


We went to pick strawberries.  We took kid #1 and #2.  Kid #1 filled a basket on her own.  We went back to their place and made jam.  We canned.  It felt good.  Then I came home and canned some more.  I made strawberry rhubarb jam with rhubarb from my backyard.
I wish that I could fix the world.  I wish more than anything that I could clean up the Gulf, that I could put water back in the Yellow and Yangtze river, that I could refreeze the poles and keep Polar Bears on this planet.  Hell, I wish that I could keep all the bike lanes that we presently have in Toronto here for good.  I wish that public transit was viable... for everyone and that our roads weren't clogged with frustrated, angry drivers.  I wish that I could keep the people who need it in public housing and see their lives be better because of it.  I can't do any of those things though.  So... I picked some strawberries while they were still in season.  I mashed and froze some.  I made a boat load of jam and put it on my shelf for the winter.  I made ice cream.



Strawberry Ice Cream - generously adapted from Dave Lebovitz
makes about 1 litre

1 cup milk (I use 4%)
2 cups heavy cream
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise and the beans scraped out
dash of salt
3/4 cups sugar
5 egg yolks, beaten together

2 cups mashed strawberries (make sure they've been mashed first and then measured)
1/2 cup sugar (make it a generous one)

Combine the mashed strawberries and 1/2 cup of sugar together in a bowl and refrigerate.
Combine the milk, cream ,vanilla bean, salt and sugar in a heavy bottomed saucepan.  Heat until the mixture is just beginning to simmer and then turn the heat down quite low.  Temper the egg yolks by adding a little of the warm milk mixture to the yolks and mixing.  Add a little more and then pour the whole thing into the milk/cream mixture.  Heat until it reaches 170 degrees F or use the trusty back of the spoon method (using a wooden spoon, dip it into the milk/cream mixture.  When it comes out if you can run your finger through the back of the spoon and the liquid doesn't run back together then it's ready).
Remove from the heat.
Sieve into a bowl.  Cover with plastic wrap (or clingfilm... whatever).  Put the plastic right onto the liquid so that it doesn't form a thick skin on top.  Refrigerate until it's well cooled (at least 3 hrs but overnight is best)
Add the mixture to the ice cream maker (or whatever you choose to make the ice cream) and DO IT.
Once the ice cream is ready, pour it into a large bowl.  Combine with the mashed strawberries.
Put all of it into freezer containers.  Freeze until you want it.
Thaw for about 15 minutes before serving.

Dudes... this is growing in my yard... in a couple of weeks I'll have a nice little harvest... can't wait.

I don't like sharing.  Just generally.  It's a horrible thing to admit but the honest truth is... I don't like it.
I do feel that I need to explain this just a bit though because this recipe kinda got birthed because I shared.
I never watched 'Friends'.  Remember that show from the 90's.  I don't think that I made it through one full episode.  It had moments but just wasn't my thing - and I'm always just a little too concerned with being 'counter-culture'.  It was simply too popular for me to go in for.  However, I've been told that there is an episode where Joey Tribianni (not sure how to spell that) tells someone in a restaurant 'Joey Tribianni doesn't share food' or something like it.  Well... that's me.  I don't share... at restaurants.
It bugs the hell out of me if I order something and then people want to taste my food.  It's my food, get your paws off.  I ordered it because I want to eat it... not share it.  Dang.  Plus, I'm totally not interested in eating your food.  If I were interested then I would have ordered that.  So... NO I'm not into having a bite of yours so that you can have a bite of mine.  Then this weird thing happened  over the last year or so where I found myself wanting appetizers and not entrees.  Appetizers kinda bite though if you just get one.  So now sometimes KT and I go out together and just order a truck load of entrees (more like 4) and then share the lot.  Thanks to KT I've discovered that when it's a few things that we can nibble and share that, well, sharing can be fun.

BTW, KT just got back from Spain and Germany and brought me an entire shipment of tea... BFF!

Firm in the knowledge that old dogs can learn new tricks, I went out to this restaurant recently with another colleague of mine.  We were checking out the menu and a few things looked good to me.   She opened up the whole 'sharing' possibility by suggesting a charcuterie plate... meh... wasn't into it.  What we ended up doing though was each getting a soup and then sharing app's of calamari and cauliflower fritters (amazing p.s.).  I agreed.


This soup I made at home happened because I ordered something very close to it and it was good.  The white beans... yeah, perfect for summer... what.  The kale... delish.  The tomato broth... perfect.  And I learned a valuable lesson... sharing isn't always bad.


Kale and White Bean Soup
copied from Mercatto but made up from my head which sounds dumb
serves 8

1 lg onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic (or garlic scapes if it's the season), minced
2 ribs celery, chopped
1 med/sm zucchini, chopped
1 lg bunch (about 3 1/2 cups) Kale, sliced
1 lg tin diced Tomato (although I found the chunks a little too much - maybe reserve half the chunks)
4 cups vegetable broth
4 tbsp basil, coarsely chopped
2 tsp salt (or to taste)
1 large can (about 400 g or so) white beans (cannellini, navy... just white), drained and rinsed
2 - 3 med/lg Parmesan rinds (my friends idea - a great one - I didn't do it though)

Heat a large soup pot.
Add in about 2 - 3 tbsp of oil (your choice).  Add the onion, garlic, celery and zucchini.  Cook for about 8 minutes over med heat.  Stir frequently so that nothing sticks.
Add in the kale and heat until the Kale wilts.
Add in the broth, chopped basil and salt.   Throw in the parmesan rinds.  Heat for about 20 - 30 minutes over med/low heat.
Serve.

I think that I need to learn how to 'tie in'.  Lately I've been sucking at it.
My last post, for example, had nothing to do with the recipe.  I didn't even explain the recipe.  Was there even food?  I talked about tv, about maybe not watching tv for a while and complimenting a kid in a way that sounded like it was an insult but it wasn't.  A proper blog should tie everything together.  Start by writing something interesting that pulls all you readers in and then expertly steers the writing to the recipe of the day.
I seem to want to use this blog as my journal or something similar.  In theory I like the idea of that.  In practice however it's kinda weird.  I have had a lot of journal years in my life.  It's awesome having a journal and it's especially awesome going back to your journals year later. Is journal writing a girlie thing - that concerns me.  I used to write a lot of crap in my journal that absolutely nobody should ever read.  Remember when you wrote in your journal (maybe you still do) the stuff that you needed to get out... about life, your friends, your parents, your boyfriend.  How you really felt about all that crap you were supposed to do but were fighting with still because you were 16 yrs old and just not ready to take it all on?  Or how about the stream of conscious ramblings.  The stuff that, when you go back to it years later, not even you can get your head around what you were trying to articulate.  Yeah... that's what I still do sometimes.  Only I do it out here, in public (well kinda public).  I wonder if I were you would I read me.  So I'm going to try to be better.  A proper food blogger and not a self-absorbed-journal-writing-wanna-be.

Fingers crossed.  Here is my 'tie in' attempt:

A while ago I promised you all yet another asparagus recipe AND my last for the season (wiping away a tear).  I know that you've all been waiting with baited breath for this and I've been holding out on you.  Asparagus is amazing.  Asparagus is green.  It tastes good when you cook it and you can cook it many different ways.  I like asparagus.  The asparagus season is short but you can make pasta in any season (ok, that was random - I'll give you that one).  If you like asparagus, garlic, mushrooms, spinach, pasta and cheese then maybe this is just the recipe for you.  It was easy.  It was FUN and it was tasty.  Try it and it will change your life forever.  If you have kids they will write for your and paint you awesome pictures.  If you make this for your partner he/she will never leave and your life with him/her will be 10/10 all the time.  Asparagus is the best.

I got so jazzed about this stuff that I put some in Kid #2's bowl and ate it straight up.

What do you think?  I'm not sure that this translated well.


Quick Asparagus, Spinach Pasta
serves 4

1 lg bunch asparagus, chopped into long chunks
3 cloves garlic (or garlic scapes if we're goin' the seasonal route), crushed or minced
3 cups mushrooms, halved
4 cups spinach roughly chopped
paprika
4 tbsp herbs (I used basil, parsley, chives and oregano) - using fresh herbs, about 1/2 cup, chopped
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne or pepper sauce
1 cup cream
1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated

Heat a large pot over medium heat.
Add about 2 tbsp of oil.  Throw in the asparagus, garlic and mushrooms.  Keep it moving in the pan and cook for about 6 minutes.
Add in the spinach.  Stirring regularly, let the spinach wilt.  Add in the paprika, herbs and salt.
Add the cayenne or pepper (if you want to go there)
Turn the heat down to low.
Add in the cream and the grated parmesan.
Check the taste and adjust if necessary.
Serve over pasta (I like the penne kind but go with your heart on this one).

I've started to wonder, I mean seriously wonder, recently just how much crap I could accomplish in a day if I didn't watch tv.  Allow me to explain...
We had our awards ceremony recently at school.  This one kid cleaned up.  Seriously, mopped it, waxed it and buffed it afterwards.  So much so that I told him that he'd better keep his head together because with his mind he could easily turn into the anti-christ or something and take over the world.  You know, as I'm writing this I'm thinking that it probably wasn't the most eloquent or straightforward way I could have chosen to congratulate a 15 year old kid... I'll fix that in September.
Anyway, I did get talking to him about his life at home because I figure that there might be something that I could learn for my own Kid #1 and #2 so that they could also become the anti-christ and the 3 of them could like co-rule or something.  So, one thing that really stuck out in my conversation with him was the fact that his family has no tv.   They've never had a tv.  No cable.  No PS3.  No Wii.  No PSP.  They do have a computer.
Did it mess you up?  I ask.
He says: At first, when I was a little kid, I felt like the poor kid (they're so not) because it was like a status symbol - to have a tv.  Then I got into High School and kinda stopped caring.  Now I'm glad.  I feel like I'm better because of it.  (I'm paraphrasing)
Whoa... hold up.  What?!  The conversation kinda stopped there (probably because that's when I blurted out the whole anti-christ thing so that's as far as I got with it).  So I've spent that last few days wondering just what the hell I could accomplish without tv.
Let me be honest with you and tell you that I'm not an addict.  I watch between 4 and 5 hours a week (sometimes less).  Still, generally it's crap.  And... it's 4 or 5 hours right.  My roomie in university didn't have a tv.  So, when I lived with her 'we' didn't have a tv.  I stopped caring after a while too.
So, what would I do with that 4 - 5 extra hours?  Here are some thoughts:
Read 1 1/2 hrs
Talk 1 hr (but not on the phone - dang), maybe to myself definitely to my family and even to friends
Clean 1/2 hr
Write 1 hr (or cook and write - whatever)
and any additional time... lie on the couch and listen to trippy music like a hippie.
I know that world domination isn't on the list but I still think that I should try it.  It could be kinda like my summer experiment.  Since nothing is on tv in the summer anyway it's like I've lost nothing.
So, I'm not saying that you should do this too.  I'm not even trying to suggest that it's a good thing.  I don't know yet.  I'm saying that I'm fascinated by the idea and I think I might be willing to give it a whirl... do Blue ray movies or Netflix count???????


Potato, Yam and Pea Curry
serves 4 - 6

3 1/2 cups Potato in large chunks
1 1/2 cups Yam in large chunks
2 medium carrots in large chunks
2 ribs of celery diced
1 smallish onion diced
2 cups peas
3 cloves garlic crushed or 1/2 cup garlic scapes, diced
3 tbsp curry powder (I used West Indian)
1 tsp salt
1 heaping tbsp brown sugar

parboil the potato, yam and carrot for about 3 minutes.
Add in the shelled peas (omit this step if the peas are frozen and just throw the peas in later)
and parboil for another 3 - 4 minutes.
Drain the potato stuff and set aside.
Heat a large (I used caste iron) skillet over medium heat.
Add in some oil (use your discretion) and throw in the onion, celery and garlic.  Swish that stuff around for about 5 minutes, letting get limp and transparent (the onion that is).


Add in the parboiled veggies.  Continue cooking over medium heat.  Stirring every few minutes so that the bottoms don't burn (it's nice when they do just a little though) and keeping them coated with oil.
Combine the curry powder, salt and sugar together in a bowl.
Once the veggies have started to brown up a bit (after about 7 -8 minutes) sprinkle on half of the curry powder mixture.  Stir it in.
Check the tastes and sprinkle more curry powder until you like what you taste.
Serve.

I hardly ever do this - post sweet things back to back - but today was a 'hardly ever' day I guess.
It seemed fitting to post this recipe .  Two things recently brought BC (British Columbia, just in case) to the front of my thoughts.
The first thing was what I did yesterday.  I'm not going to talk about it.  I told myself that I wouldn't.  I'm not one to gloat.  I won't tell you that it's something that I've wanted to do for a long time.  I definitely won't tell you how proud I am of myself for finally doing it.  It would be insensitive for me to write that I enjoyed it thoroughly, that I would do it again (I am doing it again - pointe finale).  I won't even tell you why it reminds one of BC.  Aren't you glad that I didn't go on about it?
The second thing was who I did the first thing with (damn - this is sounding way complicated).  In the course of our most interesting conversation I discovered that my friend lived in BC for a time.  Vancouver to be exact.  We discussed how my friend misses BC and, were it not for the rain, might consider making it home at some point (although, let's talk about rain here in ON people).  All these things I did not know about my friend before this.
Fast forward to today when Kid #1 asks 'Mommy, will you makes these' pointing to a page in a recipe book.   Me: 'They look like green Nanaimo bars'  Me thinking - 'YES!  I'll make Nanaimo bars'.  Me saying out loud: 'Sure, I can make those'.


It had never occured to me that someone could make Nanaimo bars.  It just didn't.  You bought them.  At a grocery store.  Already made.  Then I moved to Montreal.  My roomie was telling me a story about the roomie who was there before me.  She made a pan of Nanaimo bars to take to a party and then ate the whole pan herself.  My roomie was so grossed out that someone would eat that much.  All I kept thinking was 'Wait... You can MAKE Nanaimo bars'.  I think that I missed the point.
Anyway, everyone is happy because I got to thinking and talking about BC yesterday and then my kid asked for weird looking green nanaimo bars (the green thing people - I'm not down with the green thing).  Since Kid #1 doesn't know what they are anyway, she didn't know the difference and the bars came out very nicely.  I highly recommend.


Nanaimo Bars
adapted from here

Base:

1/2 cup unsalted butter
2 cups graham wafer crumbs
1/2 cup chopped almonds or walnuts
1/4 cup sugar
5 tbsp cocoa
1 lg egg beaten

Filling:

3 tbsp custard powder
3 - 4 tbsp cream
3 cups icing sugar
3/4 cup unsalted butter at room temperature

Topping:

200g dark or semisweet chocolate
4 tbsp unsalted butter

Get a square baking pan out, line with parchment if you are so inclined (I wasn't)


Base:
Combine the graham wafers and almonds in a bowl and set aside.
Melt the butter, sugar and cocoa together over a double boiler.  Once the butter is melted add in the beaten egg and stir into the mixture until it all thickens.
Take the chocolate mixture and combine it with the graham cracker crap until it's all mixed and will hold together.
Press it all into the bottom of the baking pan.  It should be about a 1/2 inch thick.
Refrigerate.


Filling:
Combine all ingredients and beat together until it becomes fluffy and smoothly incorporated.
Scoop onto the base layer in the baking pan and smooth out evenly.
Refrigerate for about a 1/2 hour.


Topping:
Melt the butter and chocolate together in a double boiler until it's smoooooooth and shiny.
Pour over top of the filling layer in the baking pan and smooth it out.
Refrigerate until the chocolate has set.


Cut the bars and eat them.  Store them in the fridge if you must.

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.