Sometimes I am a b*&%h.
I was recently having a conversation with D in which I got little heated.  Not at him, at someone else.  A situation that I was describing to him was really getting to me.  He was telling me that I was being a real b#%*h.  His accusation was dead on.  I was being a b@&*h.  I told him that I was totally ok with it.  I was completely and totally accepting of my own bitchiness.  I think that it makes me a more balanced individual.  In fact, I will go out on a seriously politically incorrect limb here and say that I think there are situations which demand some serious and heartfelt bitchiness.
At the time I was describing a situation in which an acquaintance was discussing his wife's shopping habits to a large group of people.  This person publically implied that he let his wife off the leash to go crazy shopping.  The sub-text being that these are the things that men must put up with to keep (and to reward) a happy marriage.  Now while I whole-heartedly applaud this individual's desire for a happy marriage, I can't even begin to express how offended and revolted, disgusted and angry I was with the comment.  I was so 'moved' that in discussing this whole thing with D I used some pretty choice words... and the kids were around.
I apologized to them afterwards because I wasn't exactly proud of my vocabulary but it did give me a chance to talk to Kid #1 about why my reaction was so strong.  Being the Mom to this wonderful daughter of mine means that I have a responsibility to tell her about the root of my anger and bitchiness.  We ended up having a serious discussion about how important I feel it is that no matter how wonderful her partner is that she remain confident and empowered in the relationship.  Equitability to me means that I don't need to ask for permission to spend money either because I make my own or it's not something that either one of us do frivolously and we both trust each other in that.  I know that if D spends money he's doing it for a damn good reason.  I also know that he feels the same way about me.  I have never been questioned about a purchase.
However, I also made it clear to Kid #1 that if she had money available to her and wished to 'live large' with that money that she had every right to do so.  We have a cousin who is a highly respected and recognized lawyer in the UK.  She has worked hard.   Damn hard.  She gives her time not just at her job but with numerous organizations that help educate and empower women.  She makes a lot of money and she spends it.  Done.  She gets a lot of flack for her spending habits.  Many in the family will talk about it, pass judgement even.  I made it clear to Kid #1 that I have no problem with how our cousin spends her money.  If our cousin were a man no one would say a word.  In fact, they might very well pat him on the back for being so successful ... and most certainly they would never question it. Because our cousin is a woman her spending is treated differently.  The wonderful thing about our cousin is that she doesn't care.  She does what she does and she's proud.  She is generous to a fault and enjoys herself freely and openly.
I guess what really got my goat about this whole thing was that rather than people jumping on this guy for being so down right patriarchal and condescending towards women, he was applauded.  Applauded.  That was the shocker.  I'm still speechless about it.


I cook.  I clean.  I work both in the home and out of it.  Because I have to and because I want to.  I'm not the craziest feminist out there for sure but I want my daughter to live in a world where she can be herself.  Where she can get paid the same salary as a man for the job she does.  Where she has access to jobs that even now are limited for women.  Where she can wear a head scarf if she wishes or knee high boots without fear.  I also want her to be able to stay home to parent, cook and clean if she wishes.  It's important.
This bread is an homage to my past.  To Women's collective past.   To kneading and baking bread whilst fully appreciating all the choices that I now enjoy as a woman.  So yeah, this is definitely one those situations in which I am proud to be bitchy.


Pumpkin Cloverleaf Buns adapted from Gourmet Magazine 'Comfort Food'
makes about a dozen

5 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (1 packet)
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp warm milk
1 tbsp brown sugar
2 3/4 cups all purpose flour (a little more for kneading)
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp each nutmeg, cardamom
1/3 cup pumpkin/squash puree (canned is fine)
1 lg egg + 1 egg yolk

1 tbsp water
1 egg

Combine the yeast, warm milk and brown sugar together  and set aside in a draft free spot to proof for about 10 minutes.
Combine the flour, salt, nutmeg and cardamom together in a bowl and set aside.
Once the yeast has proofed and is all bubbly and doubled in size then add in the pumpkin, 1 egg + 1 yolk and the butter.  Mix until incorporated.
Add the yeast mixture to the flour mixture and mix with a wooden spoon until it forms a soft dough ball.
Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about 8 minutes or until the dough is silky smooth and almost feels light when working through it.
Oil or grease a large bowl.  Place the dough in the greased bowl and turn the dough so that all side are greased.  Cover with a clean cloth and place in draft free spot to rise for 1 1/2 - 2 hrs or until doubled in size.
Punch down the dough (do not knead). Divide the dough in half.  On a lightly flour surface roll half of the dough out into a long log.  Cut the log into 6 pieces.
Cut each piece into 3 small pieces.  Form each piece into a ball shape.
Repeat with the other half of the dough.


Grease a 12 cup muffin tin.  Place 3 balls into each muffin cup.  Cover with a clean cloth and place in a draft free spot to rise for 1 - 1 1/2 hrs (until the dough is about an inch above the rim of each muffin cup.


Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Combine the remaining egg and water.  Brush the egg wash over the top of each bun.
Bake about 20 minutes or until golden brown.
Best consumed the same day.  Otherwise cool and freeze.  Just warm them up as you want to each them.

I'm stuck.  Staring at the computer screen.  I'm desperately trying to come up with something that is absolutely deep and thoroughly enlightening.  Trying to sit here and type away with abandon.  Focussing hard on the words flowing out of my fingers. But the reality is that this is my first day off all week.  I've got a naked 5 year old reading the words out loud as I type and singing at random intervals.  Occasionally that same five year old squeezes and kisses my arm and then bounces off with a balloon.  The laundry buzzer goes off and then Skype rings and there I am completely distracted.  I know that there is stuff in me that's waiting to come out.  I feel it in there.  Something deep like a tree root.
I would love to come up with something profound to say about community and civil involvement.  I wish that I could adequately express how disturbed I am that there was a Canada wide recall on beef patties this past week and how revolted I am that the cheap food we've all been brain washed into buying is killing us and our world.  I'd love to go on about how I feel about gated communities and fear and how our possessions have ended up defining and possessing us instead.  How ownership in it's extreme capitalist consumer based form (as we now live it) - I don't even know if that makes sense - has rendered 'my stuff' more important than your life or our planet.   I wish that I could be more eloquent in expressing my disgust that a hoodie is somehow justification for a pedestrian to become a walking target.
But there it is.  I'm stuck.  And sad.  A little blurry on the inside.  Working to muscle my focus through a zany five year old, skype and laundry.  I'll stop trying now and get to the cake.


As promised:  Banana Cake.  I'm gotten over my shame about having so many sweet recipes in a row.  Whatever.  There are some food bloggers who only post sweets and baking.  So this ain't so bad.  I also need to add by way of further justification that this recipe is delightfully 'uncakey' when it comes to dessert cakes.  This cake got me through the week.  Occasionally it became my lunch which predictably launched me into a minor sugar coma for the rest of the afternoon.  To be honest it's not a half bad way to work through the afternoon.


Oh... before I forget, this recipes makes a lot of batter so I just kind of eye-balled it and made 4 cupcakes as well as the round cake.  If you find yourself in this predicament I can tell you that what worked for me was putting those cupcakes in a box and sending them off with some friends.

Crazy Cute box courtesy the most best KT.  BFF.

Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Icing adapted from The Wednesday Chef
makes 1 10 inch round cake and about 4 med/lg cupcakes

2 2/3 cup pastry flour
2 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt (I use sea salt)
3 - 4 med/lg bananas, very ripe and peeled of their skins (if there is a lot of liquid then you could easily drain them for a little bit)
3 lg eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup canola oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Your favourite cream cheese icing (Look - I don't get fancy here.  It's cream cheese it's just a little dab of butter and enough icing sugar to bring it all together so that it's nice and icingy... throw in some lemon zest if you want but why mess with perfection)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Grease and flour either a 9x13 baking pan or a 10 inch springform pan. (this is what I used)
Mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in a large bowl and set aside.

Whisk or mix(er) the very ripe bananas until all goopy.  Add in the eggs one at a time and continue to mix away happily.  Add in the buttermilk, oil and vanilla next and mix until well incorporated.

Add the flour mixture to the banana mixture and stir by hand until everything is wet and mixed together.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake - for the springform pan it took about 50 - 55 minutes before a tester came out clean - for the 9x13 pan 45 - 50 minutes should do but make sure you test the middle with a cake tester.  If you make some muffins with the extra then the muffins should stay in for about 25 - 30 minutes.
Cool completely.
Ice with your favourite cream cheese icing once the cake and/or muffins is/are completely cooled.

Full Disclosure:  I have a banana cake recipe that is sitting in my queue but I was too embarrassed to post yet another sweet recipe.  I just had to put this one in between.  So Reader, I give you Turnip and Beef Stew... bet you're wishing that I'd just gone ahead with the banana cake.
Now turnip is not the first thing I run to when I'm preparing awesome winter recipes.  To be honest, I'm not a fan.  Not a fan at all.  You know it's a bad sign when even the cookbooks will tell you to make sure that your turnips are young and small.  They're better apparently when they're young.  Yeah... whatever... it's now March.  I've learned that the ideal time to eat turnips is during the months of January and February.  Sigh.


This stew is a great way to use up some not so sweet turnips.  It's heavily spiced and the beef balances things out nicely.
On a completely unrelated note, last weekend the Toronto classical music world lost one of it's own.  My friends at work are really struggling with the loss.  Although I was not acquainted with the person, it's once again given me pause to think about the brevity of this life.  In the scheme of this planet's timeline a human life span is barely a speck.  However, that life span is the only one we've got.
I've often thought that doing what I do - biking, running, yoga, cooking, gardening, singing... all that kind of crap - was to help me live longer.  Over the last few years though I've started to realize that those things are not at all any guarantee of a longer life.  Sure they might buy me a little something here and there but let's face it, when you're number is up... well, it's up.  All those things that I do, they're part of what makes me a richer, deeper more spiritually connected person.  Now, I've spend the last few years of my life re-evalutating my religion from top to bottom and I'm not about to tell you that I have any clue what's happening after my days on this planet.  It could be nothing... it could be the whole enchilada.  I can tell you though that I'm not going to hedge my bets on a possibility of something  that no one can tell me about because they're all gone, ie. not with us anymore.  I'm going to lean heavily on what's here and now.  I'm figuring that any god worth his salt will understand and appreciate the fact that I've done the absolute best and most that I could with what I've been given.  I'm going to let myself be passionate and scared and exhilarated and conflicted and sometimes crazy.  I'm going to make sure that I hug my kids and say to them what I really mean underneath all the other crap that comes out of my mouth.  I'm going to appreciate that I have a D to share my life with and know that even though my life isn't perfect that's it's just effing amazing that I have a life to live.


So, although turnip is not my favourite thing to put in my mouth pretty much anything gets about 100% better when mixed with bacon and some stewing beef.  And look, life is way too short not to eat bacon.


Turnip and Beef Stew adapted from Williams Sonoma website
serves 6

1 1/2 lbs (although I did not weigh my meat) stewing beef, cut into approximately the same sized pieces
1/3 cup all purpose flour
pinch of basil, oregano, thyme, paprika, chipotle powder or chili powder, salt and pepper
3 tbsp oil or butter
4 cups turnip, diced (about 2/3 of a large turnip)
2 strips of bacon, diced
2 small onions, sliced thin
4 cloves of garlic, minced
2 cups greens (collard or chard), finely chopped
2 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
2 tbsp Soy Sauce
2 heaping tbsp brown sugar
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp each oregano, thyme, basil
2 tsp salt
2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp chipotle powder
2 cups beef or vegetable broth
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup tomato paste

Combine the flour and pinches of seasonings together in a bowl.  Dredge the beef pieces so that each piece is completely coated with the flour mixture.  Save the unused flour just in case you need it to thicken the sauce later.
Heat a heavy bottomed dutch oven or pot over medium heat.
Add the oil or butter to the pot.  Brown the beef together with the bacon.  Once the meat is browned remove it to a plate and add the onion and turnip to the pot.  Turn the heat down a bit and brown the onion and turnip together for about 7 minutes.  Add in the garlic and cook together for another 5 minutes.
Add the meat back in with the vegetables.  Add in the Worcestershire, Soy Sauce, brown sugar, bay leaves, herbs, salt, paprika and chipotle powder.  Mix well together.  Add in the broth, ketchup and tomato paste.  Mix well.  Cover and turn the heat down to low.  Cook together for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours.  Check the tastes and adjust if necessary.  Add a little flour to thicken the mixture if necessary.
Serve with rice or mashed potato.

Oh my.
We decided to end our March Break with a bang.  We had planned a trip up north of the city last weekend but kid #1 was sick so we postponed it to the very last day of the break.  Honestly, it was the best thing we could have done.  The weather was perfect (if it were June) and it was inspiring to see my friends again.


I've talked about these friends before.  I feel lucky to have people like this in my life.  People that just 'get it' and 'get me'.  When I'm with my friend C I feel like I can let all my crazy cook/gardener/conspiracy theorist/ apocalypse prophet out - right out there.  In public.  In conversation and all.  We talked about her garden  - which makes me nuts coming from the city and realising the ridiculous amount of work that goes into her garden.  It's hard to take in.  We talked about the fruit trees and the nut trees that they're planting.  We talked about the chickens and turkeys that they're going to start keeping.  We talked about how their solar panels are actually putting energy back into the grid and making them money.  We talked about the dogs and about how I can get a side of beef from their closest neighbours any time.  C gave me a bunch of seeds.

Moss in Bloom

We also talked about maple syrup mostly because we took the kids to a sugar bush which felt totally weird because it was no less than 23 degrees outside.  We couldn't quite take a walk through the bush because it was pretty wet and muddy.  We did, however,  take a horse wagon ride (in which the horses had to trudge through a lot of mud - awesome for kid #2) and ate some pancakes and beans after that.

The story wouldn't be complete without a picture of the horses from our perspective.

After heading back to our friends place we took a long walk in the gorgeous sun and let the dogs (read: kids) get tired out.  Of course I couldn't show up empty handed so I made some bread.  Bread is a funny thing because I find that sweet bread can quite quickly become too sweet.  I was skeptical about the need for glop because of my previous experience with sweet breads.  I had also sprinkled the top of the bread with some candied nuts just before baking.  So with that in mind I kept the glop on the side.  After taste testing I can tell you honestly that the glop made this bread sing.  Absolutely sing.  In lovely dulcet tones.  We all agreed.

The Bread before the Glop.

The Bread after the Glop.  I must add that this picture was taken by Kid #2... he's 5.

Apple Loaf with Glop adapted from Pass the Sushi

1 1/2 cups shredded apple (peeled first)
1/2 cup brown sugar (lightly packed)
1/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 lg eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 cup candied walnuts or pecans coarsely chopped

Glaze:

3/4 cup icing sugar
2 tbsp heavy cream
3 - 4 tbsp maple syrup (not table syrup)

Grease and flour a regular loaf pan.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg, ginger and cardamom together in a bowl and set aside.
In a large bowl mix together the apples, brown sugar, buttermilk, oil and eggs together.  Mix thoroughly.  Add in the flour mixture.  Mix until thoroughly combined.  Pour into the loaf pan and bake for about 45 - 50 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.
Cool in the pan for about 10 minutes and then remove to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Glaze:
Sift the icing sugar (I skipped this though) into a bowl.  Add the cream and 3 tbsp of the maple syrup.  Mix and add a little more maple syrup if needed to get the consistency you like.  Gloop onto the top of the loaf only once the loaf is completely cooled.

The kids weren't the only ones tired out.

It used to be that if I added butter to a too hot pan and subsequently it turned brown that as far as I was concerned I had burnt the butter and it was no good to be baked with.  Now we call it 'browned butter'.
Granted, in this case I didn't put the butter into a pan that was too hot.  It cooked in there for a good 10 minutes.  But still, it's now something that I want to do.  It's a thing.  Browned Butter.
It's quite an amazing thing.  All dark brown and flecked with stuff (I don't know what the flecks are - fat maybe).  The taste intensifies as well.  All in all it's pretty amazing stuff... that I used to think was a dumb mistake.


I'm now at the tail end of the March Break and I'll be honest with you, I can't wait to get back to work.  I love me kids, don't get me wrong.  But we're all about ready to put each other through a wall.  It's that whole 'You-need-to-entertain-and-feed-me-all-day-every-day' kinda thing.  I'm done.  Plus, kid #1 is quickly approaching the age when things can become weird and volatile fast.  Ugh.  It's exhausting.  I get 'mommied-out' pretty fast admittedly and I've never been the go-to-the-park type.  Adult space is pretty important for me.  And it's been a good while since I've had any serious amount of it.  Now, here I am bawling about my lack of 'adult space' when I know full well that some of you never get it.  I don't know how you manage.  My heart goes out to you.  You deserve an award.  And now I will stop.


The highlight of our week was definitely D getting his Canadian citizenship.  We all hauled ourselves out to east Toronto (Scarborough) early (for a March Break) Friday morning and sat through the ceremony that will finally give D voting rights in this country and a passport which requires significantly fewer visa applications than his Trinidadian one.  Best part:  he can hold dual citizenship.  We celebrated with some of this, hung out with a friend for a while and then generally had a quiet (aka boring, if you're 11 yrs old) day.  We still have a couple of things planned - a library trip (provided it's open on a Saturday - thank you budget cuts) and a trip to see friends in Orillia.  Outside Orillia really... on 40 acres of trees and animals and insects and blackberries (oh the blackberries).  My friend C is always so inspiring.  She inspired me to get into canning last year.  She encouraged me to start getting an organic food box delivery and educated me about CSA's.  She's pretty cool.  I'm looking forward to tomorrow.  I'm going to be making something to take with us when we go because I think it's pretty lame to show up empty handed but in the meantime we've been munching on these guys throughout the week.


I'm just about done with the canned cherries from last year and the combination here was perfect.  The chewy browned butter cookie dough went well with the cherries too.  I thought of using white chocolate here but then I thought it might be just too sweet and went for the dark.  I'm glad I did.  I'm going to get a little picky here and tell you that using maraschino cherries will get you a completely different result.  Not necessarily a bad one but definitely a different one.  If you try it please let me know how it turns out.  Generally though, this managed to stay in the not-too-sweet-and-therefor-Wanda-pleasing category.  I would totally use this dough for plain old chocolate chip cookies too.  Dang, I would use this dough in ice cream.  I would use this dough in...


Browned Butter Cookies with dark chocolate and cherries adapted from 'Completely Delicious'
makes

1 cup unsalted butter
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup cherries dried or preserved (I used my home canned cherries)
1 1/4 cup dark chocolate chunks or chips

Over low heat, melt the butter in a heavy bottomed sauce pan.  Continue cooking the butter over low heat until it turns brown and gets little dark brown flecks in it.  Remove from heat and cool.  Continue cooling until the butter begins to solidify again.  It shouldn't be hard though.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment or a silicon liner.  Set aside.
Combine the flour, baking soda and salt together in a bowl and set aside.
Cream together the butter and both sugars until light and fluffy.  Add in the eggs and vanilla and continue to whisk until completely incorporated and smooth and fluffy.  Mix in the flour into the butter mixture and until completely combined.
Add the chocolate chips and cherries and stir just until they're evenly distributed.
Spoon by large tablespoons onto the cookie sheet, leaving some space between the mounds.  Bake 10 - 12 minutes.  Remove the cookies from the cookie sheet onto a cooling rack.  Cool and eat.

This is my life... and I'm here, in it, living it.
I read a post recently in which the writer put something like that out there into cyber space.  Do we ever think about it?  Seriously?  Of course it's sobering to think that I've got stuff to do and each day that goes by will never come back again.  But the scariest (and therefor most motivating) thought is that even when I'm not consciously making a decision about how I'm going to live my life, I'm still deciding how I'm going to live it.  Yeah.  Yikes.  In other words it doesn't matter if I put off deciding anything, it doesn't matter if I label it procrastinating.  I'm still deciding.  Creepy.


I'm thinking a lot about this lately because I have an 11 yr old.  Now it's not that I feel old having a pre-teen or anything like that.  It's the child herself.  We've had a lot of 'talks' lately with her.  We are essentially telling her the same thing that I just wrote one paragraph ago.  It's a huge thing, this life we are given, and it's short.  Incredibly short.  And before you know it 10 years have slipped by and you want to be able to see what you've accomplished in that time.  I want for my kids to be able to look back and feel proud and have a deep sense of accomplishment in whatever they choose to do.  I guess I'm saying that I want them to do their thing (everything that they decide is 'their thing') with everything they've got.
What I see a lot is that kids get rewarded when they do a good job.  With school, sports, music... whatever.  Nothing wrong with getting a prize.  Prizes are cool.  But sometimes I think we overdo it with the prize and rewarding thing.  When that happens it can get pretty easy to forget how damn great it feels to do something well.  You know you worked hard.  You know that you did it really well and other people have recognized that too.  It feels effing amazing... whether or not I get a present afterwards.  That feeling, that amazing feeling can motivate somebody to move on to bigger, better and hopefully deeper, more meaningful things.  Those are the accomplishments that I value at this point in my life and I'm pretty sure that those are the accomplishments that my kids will value later as well.  The only problem is how to communicate that to an 11 yr old kid.  And I would guess that's how we all fall into the 'present trap'.
However, I figure that my kids are going to blame me on way or another so I would rather that they blame me for pushing them too hard rather than not hard enough.  If that makes me a tiger mom (although I hardly think so) then I'm big enough to handle it.  I'll take the chance.


This bread turned out much better than I had hoped because I really did take some liberties with the recipe.  If I make it again (and I might just) I would go free form and make a dome shape instead of a loaf.


White and Whole Wheat Bread adapted from 'Kitchen Simplicity'
makes 1 large loaf (that I really should have done free form but didn't)

Combine:
2 1/4 tsp yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
3 tbsp honey
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

Mix and set aside in a draft free spot for about 30 minutes.  It will get all bubbly and spongy.
After 30 minutes add in:

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
3 tbsp brown sugar (not packed)
1 tsp salt

Mix well and turn out onto a lightly floured surface.  Knead until just smooth and no longer totally sticky.  I needed to add about a 1/4 or so more flour while kneading.  Place the dough in a lightly floured bowl, cover with a clean cloth and set aside to rise in a draft free spot for about 1 hr or until doubled in size.
Punch down and shape into a loaf.  Place in a very large, lightly greased loaf pan (VERY) or instead you could reform the dough into a blob shape and place on a lightly greased cookie sheet.  Cover with the cloth again and set aside to rise in a draft free spot for another hour or until doubled in size.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Bake the bread for about 35 minutes or until the bottom is nicely browned and sounds hollow when you knock on the bottom.
Cool slightly and enjoy.