I bought myself a present.  It's always a big deal when I buy myself a present.  Well, when could it possibly not be a big deal.  A present implies something special.  It's something that you may not necessarily need but get given to you anyway... or, as in this case, you give to yourself.  In addition, I'm not someone who spends money on herself... except for books... and champagne (I am blushing right now).  This week I bought myself two books.  That's right.  Two books.  Not one book... two books.  They've been on my 'wish list' for quite a while so it was fitting to finally bite the bullet and go for it.  Admittedly, I went to a bookstore downtown to see if I could pick them up 'supercheap' before I bought them online but it was not to be.  The whole thing happened because I got really frustrated last week with baking.  Baking is not something that I normally get frustrated about but there it is, I got frustrated.  I've been trying to incorporate more whole grains into my baking and bread making since discovering the fantastic red fife/Ontario thing (you know - locally grown and milled, whole grain, good for you... blah blah blah).  For the most part my attempts have been successful but limited.  I'm getting more adventurous but I'm looking to really dive in a go deep.  Let's just see how far this goes.  I'm searching for more recipes using whole grains in part or in whole and let me tell you, it takes a lot of time.  A lot of time.  I spent a long time searching through my own (limited - hence the 'present') cookbook collection and then a longer time online scrolling through reems of google search results.  After a while I forget what I was looking for in the first place.  Next thing I know I'm throwing up my hands (and mouse) in frustration, grabbing chocolate and a beer and giving up.
I've heard a lot about this book - all good things... all great things actually.  Now that I've got it in my grubbies I see that it's a little different than I had hoped in that it makes use of quite a few different kinds of whole grain flours (kamut, quinoa, spelt - you get the idea) but I'm going to use this as a base for inspiration more than anything else.  I wanted recipes for whole grain chocolate cookies (it's here), whole grain quick breads (it's here - almost but I can work with it), lots of whole grain and fruit combos (Yup - it's here) and recipes using honey as well as or in place of the sugar - although I'm hearing some rumblings about honey being no better than sugar as a sweetener but I'm going to do some more investigating on that one cause honey at least has some healing and nutritive qualities even if it still is just fructose at the end of the day, right?


Right now (and I do mean this very moment) I'm more excited than I have been in months about getting chocolate cookies and pumpkin bread in and out of my oven.  Unfortunately, this recipe is neither one of those things.  It is the bread recipe that I fell on while searching for my pumpkin/whole grain/honey/google/mania a few days ago.  It's nothing like pumpkin bread.  It's very very far from whole grain chocolate cookies too you might have noticed.  It is though one of the best breads that I've churned out in a while and I liked that it was called 'Canadian' although I have no idea why it might have been given the title.  I like it when a post starts out weird and then totally makes sense when you get to the last 4 sentances.  It makes me feel like I've accomplished something and given you, my reader, a little bit of pay-off.


Canadian Brown Bread adapted from 'King Arthur Flour'
makes 1 Big loaf

2 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1 2/3 cups Red Fife or Whole Wheat flour
2 tsp salt
1 tsp cocoa
1 tsp instant coffee powder
1 1/2 cups warm water
2 1/4 tsp yeast
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp butter, melted
1/2 cup honey

Combine the warm water, yeast and sugar together.  Stir just to mix and set aside in a draft free spot to proof for 10 minutes.  After 10 minutes there should be quite a bit of foam on top of the water and it should smell very 'yeasty'.
Meanwhile, combine both flours - reserve a 1/4 cup or so of the all purpose flour for kneading.  Add in the salt, cocoa powder and coffee powder.  Stir to mix.
Once the yeast has proofed pour in the melted butter and honey to the mixture.  Stir to mix.  Add the honey/yeast mixture to the flour.  Mix until it forms a dough ball.
Remove to a lightly floured surface and knead the dough using the reserved all purpose flour as well.
After about 6 - 8 minutes the dough should be smooth and soft to the touch.  Place the dough in a lightly buttered bowl, turning so that the entire ball is greased.  Cover and place in a warm, draft free spot to rise for about 1 hr. or until doubled in size.
Punch the dough ball down and form into a loaf shape.
Butter a loaf pan and place the dough into the pan.  Cover again and place in a draft free spot to rise for another hour.
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Place the risen loaf into the oven and bake for 20 - 25 minutes or until the crust is just turning brown and sounds hollow when you knock on it.
Let it cool slightly before attempting to slice it.

I'm hoping that you will all bear with me while I air out some things that I'm finding myself confused about.  For example, the other day I read a statement that went something like this: (I'm embellishing)
If you are used to seeing an armed guard at your local fast food restaurant, bank, church(!) then wouldn't the 'logic' follow that the schools which house our children for a large portion of the day should also be protected as diligently.  
This was put out the in the alternate universe known as Facebook by one of my 'friends.  'Oh Yes' you say immediately.  That's right.  We absolutely need to protect... wait, what?  Did you just mention your church had an armed guard?  Fast food joints have armed guards?  Ok.  No.  I think that we're a little mixed up here because shouldn't the real question here be why we feel the need to be armed like a military state in a country which purports such unequivocal freedom for the individual?  Sometimes 'logic' just doesn't make sense for me.  I was immediately confused.
I remember when I was a teenager a friends cousin got pregnant.  She was 17.  Most of those who weighed in on the situation (both parent and peer) thought that the logical thing to do was for her to marry the dude.  I was not one of those people.  I really thought that just because you messed up and got pregnant didn't mean that you had to sign up to continue down the same path.  Chances are that in any other circumstances the two wouldn't have stayed together past the summer.  Back then I thought that insisting the two get married would only make mistake number two.  Mistake number one already has some pretty far reaching consequences if you know what I mean.  Fortunately for her and for him they decided not to get married.  For me the same logic follows in the paragraph above.  I was always confused by the 'answers'.
If I'm truthful, both the questions and the answers feel wrong.  They seem upside down and backwards and it feels we're all too confused to really understand what we're nodding our heads to anymore because the language doesn't make sense.  Or maybe we want to find an answer that completely negates the problem.  I get that too.  Let's just find a paint colour strong enough to completely cover the crap underneath.  It can be a lot of work to get the crap off the walls first.  Sometimes I wonder if we've forgotten how to work together to find an answer because we've only been taught the 'black and whites' based on religion, colour and/or income bracket.
Do we only debate anymore?  Does debate matter in the light of 'right' and 'left' positioning.  I'm really struggling with the confusion I feel around governance and what appears to be our progressive and collective lack of understanding regarding the problems (I'm purposely using the word 'problem' as opposed to 'issue').  I'm not trying to stir the pot around gun controls.  It's just the current problem, that's all.  My concern is for the bigger picture.  I'd love to hear from you on your thoughts, not on the smaller, current problems but the larger, over-riding ones.  In other words, I'm not looking for a dissection and/or debate around things like gun control or abortion but a discussion around how we consider and move through these problems.


Now for something completely different: I promised you galette (or Pie) dough.  I promised you a recipe using lard.  I've recently started using lard more.  I've always heard that lard produces the flakiest crust but I've also heard that it's so bad for you that it's worth forfeiting for something healthier.  No longer.  I found out that I can get rendered lard from 'Fresh From the Farm'.  They just put it in yogurt containers.  I went, I saw, I bought.


Truth is that honestly I've never experienced a crust with a crumb so exquisite.  Fantastic.  Delicious.  Amazing.  I've got a crust or two in the freezer now so that I can make this on a whim but the reality is making the crust from scratch is pretty easy too.  If you can find lard from a trusted source then give this a whirl.  If you can't then butter will also do just fine.

This is the broccoli and roasted squash galette that I made with the crust.

Red Fife Galette (or Pie) Dough adapted from 'A Couple Cooks'
makes 2 med sized galettes or 1 double crusted pie

1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1/2 cup Red Fife or Whole Wheat flour
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup cold butter, cubed
1/4 cup cold lard, cubed or in small bits
1 egg yolk
1/4 tsp apple cider vinegar
6 tbsp (approx) cold water

Combine the egg yolk, apple cider vinegar and cold water together.  Whisk until combined.  Set aside.
Combine both flours and the salt together in a medium sized bowl (not plastic).  Add in the cubed butter and lard.  Cut together the fats with the flour using a pastry cutter or two knives until the texture is crumbly.
Add the egg yolk mixture to the flour mixture.  Mix until it forms a dough ball (I added a little bit more water to mine).  Divide the dough into two balls, cover each with clear film and rest in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
Roll out on a lightly floured surface to about 1/4 or 1/8th of an inch approx.
Use the dough according to whatever recipe directions you are using from there.  If only using one dough ball then freeze the other.

It's really sad when you have a week where you made this awesome galette crust using a mixture of lard and butter which turns out even better than you were hoping and you are so busy that you don't have time to photograph any of it.  The silver lining is that I will be making it again this weekend because... damn.  You will all get a photo and a recipe.  I promise.
Additionally, due to the week mentioned above, we really didn't cook a whole lot else.  We most certainly did not bake... in fact, we didn't even think about baking.  What we did do though is survive the week and that's important because otherwise this blog would be difficult to continue.  Some of the things that helped 'us' survive the week are:

1.  The sun - The sun actually came out this past week.  It was one of the sunniest week's we've had in months.  It was also above 0° C for the better part of the week as well.  This means that I could continue biking to work each day resulting in a happier 'Work Wanda'.  On the flip side, I'm a little bitter that the sun decided coming out during the holiday break was a sucky idea.


2.  My Mom gave me an Amaryllis for Christmas and it's pretty much exploded.  It's impossible remain upset or seriously discontented when you look at the colour explosion.  It reminds you that there are some things that still grow into seriously beauty in the dead of winter.  There is no flip side to this point.

3.  This song has been on the tip of our collective 'family tongue' this week.  We've been humming it or singing it under our breath each one in turn.  Kid #1 burst through the door after school today.  She later started singing out loud when we were at our local bulk food store.  It's a great/creepy song - my tattoo artist agrees.  It's the only song on his playlist that I recognized.  The flip side here is that it's a bit creepy but really gets in your head and nothing else seems to stick.


4.  I've finally recommitted to coffee (there are a lot of double letters in those last 3 words).  It's a long story and I'm not sure I've ever delved into it here.  I'll give you the abridged version of my coffee saga and tell you that we had a torrid affair during my early twenties which left me shaky, feeling slightly nauseous and gave me a racing pulse (sounds just like true love, right).  I slowed us down quite a bit after that.  During my 'child-having' years (not saying 'thirties' - ok) we broke up.  I was done with coffee... until about 7 1/2 years later my BFF KT suggests that although our friendship isn't in jeopardy (because there is always red wine) it would definitely benefit from the addition of coffee as a third party.  Then I smell somebody's coffee at work (which I later, strangely, discovered was actually tea) and decid then and there that coffee and I are starting up again.  Love is like that sometimes, right?  It's not torrid anymore... it's just comfortable and nice.  I'm happy with that.  Flip side: now I'm all 'OMG Fair Trade Coffee...'

And just like that the holidays are over and it's back to normal and I for one am so happy to be going back.  In the winter we all get a little stir crazy being inside.   Oh I wish that I were more adventurous as a parent, sure.  I watch with awe and wonder at the parents schlepping their kids here, there and everywhere in pursuit of happiness and fun.  I'm not that parent.  I'm the parent letting their kid have a cookie at 10:30 a.m. because it's the holidays.  I'm the parent letting their kid stay in pyjamas all day and doing movie marathons.  I'm the parent who might not even say a word to her kids for 2 or 3 hours because your all off in a different room... maybe napping.  I'm not out snowshoeing.  I'm not out at the mall.  We are not skating.

Note: Them - Outside/Me - Inside... maybe napping

With that in mind, we've all had a ton of relaxation and down time and are ready to brave the rest of the winter and get back to a routine.  My Christmas ham is getting it's final send-off by going  bone and all into split-pea soup.  The wine is drunk.  The champagne bottles are empty.  Birthdays have been celebrated.  Mother-in-laws have been moved.  Gingerbread houses have been decimated.  We are having our last holiday visitors over today... the tree is gone (thank god - goodbye) and the alarm clock is set for tomorrow.
Things go back to normal.  Back to waking up before the sun gets up.  Back to listening to CBC 'Metro Morning' which ends at 8:30 a.m. so I don't think I need to explain why I didn't listen over the holidays.  Back to being the lessons and classes taxi service.  Back to really listening to news and reading the papers.  A return to my normal cynicism around the politics of change as opposed to the politics for theatre.  And hence, back to my regular frustration.  It's back to piano practice and homework after school and cleaning out lunch kits.
And finally, it's back to the comfort of the everyday and food that can be transported for lunches or work well as leftovers.  Enter: Squash.


Squash - that stuff I hated when I was a kid.  Squash - the stuff I only knew as a thing that you cut in half, de-seeded (never done by me mind you) and roasted with sugar and butter.  Sometimes it was bearable and other times it was the WORST.  Squash - the food that you tolerated for dinner and hoped that something better (like taco's or spaghetti from a can) was coming tomorrow.  Squash - the dinner guest that I discovered would come out of my brother's nose if I got him to laugh hard enough.  Squash - the stuff that I thought only came in dark green acorn and bright orange pumpkin.  Squash - the food that I would never in a million years have guessed could make a rather nice sweet loaf... seriously, who knew that one.
Now, squash has become synonymous with comfort food for me.  Roast that squash and it further transforms into amazing.  Put it with some sausage, greens and cream and you've got winter heaven in a bowl.  Honestly I don't need to eat this with anything else but it does go nicely with some pasta and would do well with rice or something like it as well.


Squash and Sausage Pasta Sauce
serves 6

3 cups butternut squash (or other winter squash), peeled, deseeded and cubed
1 cup onion
3 cloves garlic
1 1/2 cup mushrooms
3 cups curly Kale, diced
1 lb sausage, (I used Honey, Garlic) uncooked and thinly sliced
1 cup vegetable or chicken broth
1 1/2 - 2 cups cream
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp paprika
1 1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp salt
2 tsp italian seasoning
2 tbsp honey
4 - 5 cups rotini or penne pasta cooked to al dente, drained and set aside

Preheat oven to 375°F.
Line a baking sheet.  Toss the butternut squash in melted lard or olive oil.  Place on the baking sheet and roast for about 40 minutes (if it looks ready after 30 minutes in your oven take it out then).  Set aside.
Heat a large wok or dutch oven over medium heat.   Add 2 - 3 tbsp of lard or oil.  Add in the onion and cook for about 4 minutes.  Add in the sausage and garlic and cook together another 5 minutes.  Turn the heat down to med/low and add the mushrooms and kale.  Cook together for another 5 - 7 minutes (the kale should be fully wilted at that point).  Add in the roasted squash and mix.  Add in the paprika, nutmeg, salt, italian seasoning and honey.  Mix well.  Add in the broth, lemon juice and cream. Check the taste and adjust if necessary (I might add in a little heat for example).
At this point you can remove the sauce from the heat and add it to the pasta, mix well and serve OR plate the pasta and add the sauce over top on each plate.

Things I'm super jazzed about right now:

I'm loving all of the 2012 recipe round-ups/top recipes of/etc that seem to be occurring all over the web. In fact, all of the top ten lists that seems only to be applied to movies and celebrities are simply abundant right now.   It's the best.  Not.

I'm super jazzed that it's already January.  This means we are whittling our way through winter at a reasonable speed.

I'm very jazzed that my friend T will be in town once a month for the next 3 months.

I'm hyper-jazzed that December is now behind us and we can focus on the future.  I'm hoping that it's a brighter, wiser future.

I'm not so jazzed about all the snow that fell over the holiday time (a 'White Christmas' is not necessary for me to have a memorable time) not because I don't like snow but because I have stuff to do and snow makes it 10x harder to do if not impossible (cycling, hello).  It's winter though so I'm not bitter.

I'm super jazzed that my friend and artist has agreed to participate in my next body art (aka tattoo) experience.

I'm hesitantly jazzed about signing up for my first half-marathon since my awful bout of plantar fasciitis last year.  The reason I'm only 'hesitantly jazzed' is that I'm still really nervous about pushing things with my foot.  I have until May to work up to being super jazzed.

I wish I were more jazzed about going to Rome in April.  If I weren't going for work I would be super jazzed.  As it stands (a lot of work is involved) I'm only moderately jazzed.


I'm definitely super jazzed about this salad I've been eating.  Ontario grown spinach, clementines - our seasonal import, and pecans.  Drizzled with a lemon juice/olive oil, parmesan cheese mixture.  Divine.


I've been jazzed about these nuts since I first tried them last week.  I made a big jar of them for my Dad for Christmas (he got some other stuff too - don't worry).  I had never tried them before and they are... well, AMAZING.  Not too sweet, not too spicy and it allows the nuts to still be the star.  When you are someone who makes a lot of your own ice cream you've got a lot of egg whites knocking around.  Great way to use up... 1.  Yeah - just one.  Unless you want to do an industrial size batch then I guess you would use two.  The recipe that I used as my inspiration called only for walnuts.  I used mixed nuts and it works very well.  I'm a mixed nuts kind of girl anyway.


Sweet Roasted Mixed Nuts adapted from 'Family Bites'
makes 4 cups

4 cups mixed nuts (pecans, cashews, brazil nuts, walnuts, peanuts - I'm not kidding, I literally threw in handfuls)
1 egg white
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cayenne
2  heaping tbsp sugar

Preheat oven to 300° F.
Line a baking sheet with parchment (ok) or silicon liner (better).
Combine all the ingredients in a big bowl and toss until everything is well coated.  Pour onto the baking  sheet and spread out evenly and hopefully in a single layer over the entire sheet.
Bake for about 30 minutes or until everything looks golden brown but not dark brown.
Cool completely and then break up and place in jars for gifting or in bowls for eating.

I realize, with a little embarrassment, that this is my fourth or fifth recipe in a row laden with sugar.  I realize that I've announced quite freely that I'm doing my best to cut down on sugar.  I'm not sure exactly how to apologize.  I thought that a lemon loaf might do the trick.  In my defence, I  have added a nice bit of whole wheat flour to this recipe.  It produced a slightly more dense cake but was well worth it.  I found that my cake didn't rise quite as high as it might have without the whole wheat flour but the combination of the baking powder/soda and the lemon juice can produce unpredictable results.  Either way, lemon loaf it is.
I went a little crazy with the lemons before christmas.  I ordered about 10 in my food box.  Once I got them I then realized that my lemon curd recipe only used about 3 lemons... oops.  So I've been adding lemon to everything... worse things could happen.  I've made salad dressing with lemons.  I've added lemons to my pesto pasta dish. (You see, we have been eating more than cookies)  I just couldn't think of a better or more satisfying thing to finish off the lemons with.  They are lemons after all and that sweet and sour combination is just amazing.


Our sweet Kid#1 is celebrating a birthday tomorrow so there may just be more sweets to come.  I do promise that I will get better with this whole sugar thing.  I love what Peabody said about it here.  I too think that this whole January-get-fit-thing is blown wildly out of proportion and fuelled by retailers who want to sell off over-priced exercise equipment, magazine and cookbooks touting low-fat, clean diets - Suzie the Foodie has some cool things to say about 'clean' eating.  I'm not worried about things myself. Christmas doesn't find me going completely overboard.  I don't radically change my eating habits over the holidays.  Admittedly, I've been finding it difficult to get out for a run with the snow we've been getting lately and biking is out of the question at the moment.  I still do stuff at home - I don't own a treadmill - but I do my thing.  It's possible to lead a normal life over the holidays so that in January I'm not allowing my guilt to pull my into the marketing mayhem.  I will eat something sweet if it's what I like and what I want.  I won't waste my time on something I don't want.  I do eat something sweet everyday... usually dark salted chocolate.


Aside from usual Christmas stuff and the imminent birthday prep, we've been laying low and enjoying some much needed quiet time.  Here are a few snaps from our life:





Lemon Loaf with Red Fife Flour adapted from 'Jenn's Random Scraps'
makes 1 loaf

1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1/2 cup red Fife or whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
3 eggs room temperature
4 tbsp unsalted butter at room temperature
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
2 tbsp lemon zest
1/3 cup oil

Topping:
Lemon Sugar (optional)
1 cup icing sugar, sifted
1 - 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350° F.
Grease and flour a loaf pan (9x5) and set aside.
Combine both flours, baking powder, baking soda and salt together and set aside.
Beat together the sugar, eggs, butter, lemon juice and lemon zest until all the ingredients are incorporated and nothing stands out.
Add the dry ingredients and mix just until the flour is incorporated.  Add the oil and continue to mix just until the mixture is no longer lumpy.
Sprinkle with Lemon sugar (optional).
Bake for about 45 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.
Cool the loaf in the pan for about 15 minutes then remove to a cooling rack to finish cooling.
Topping:
Combine the sifted icing sugar and lemon juice until the mixture is a pouring consistency.  Pour over the completely cooled loaf.

It's been quite a week:
1. We all seem to have survived the end of the world with little or no bruises.
2.  Christmas Eve brought Santa to most of my friends houses.
3.  Christmas Day saw me still in my bed at 8 in the morning.
4.  I've had a few good sleeps under my belt now.
5.  We've survived a little stomach bug that took me out for a little while.
6.  The Christmas Ham is FANNNNNTASTIC this year.  Cooked slowly in coke then placed in a roasting pan, smothered in maple, mustard glaze and roasted until done.  Perfection.
Now that the big stuff is all done and behind me I really feel like I can be on vacation.  I've got a birthday coming up in a few days (not mine - kid #1) but that's kinda fun.  For now it's all 'sleep in/work-out/figure out what to eat/go see a movie/stay in a watch a movie/see best friends... and all that kind of thing.  Thank goodness because this semester was quickly approaching the tipping point into crazy.


What did I do on my first full day off?  I baked.  Who wouldn't.  I made the lemon curd dream cookies in the previous post.  I also made these nutmeg logs.  I've been wanting to make them for quite a while and since they really seemed like a Christmas kind of thing I decided to wait.  Kinda wish I hadn't.  These bad boys needed a little tweaking to get the flavours to work well in balance.  Everything needed to be turned up.  These cookies get a little dwarfed by all the other beautiful, sweet, colourful things around it.  They need a little more 'Stand Out' in my humble opinion.  I was going to put them in the 'disasters' file but they weren't complete disasters.  Not at all.  They just got a little lost is all.  I've adjusted the spices now and the rum too.  I think that maple would work well in this recipe too.  Again though, to juice up the flavour a bit you might want to use a little maple extract and not just the real thing.  This made me a lot of cookies for sharing and I might actually make mine a little thicker next time as well.  I did not sprinkle mine with additional nutmeg but that might up the flavour factor a bit too.  So in the end I liked these cookies now that I've adjusted my expectations.  I think if you keep your expectations realistic you'll find some enjoyment from these guys.  They're great for sharing too 'cause they make quite a bit.


I've been reading quite a bit on my 'off' time.  I've been thinking about our world of illusion - especially at Christmas when I think the illusion is so much at the forefront of what we do.  The illusion of presents making us feel better about ourselves (that big sigh of relief that we can keep up with the Jones's - the feeling that as long as we can keep up with the gifts that we are doing the right thing), the illusion that we are happy (if we fake it long enough we'll forget to ask ourselves if this is all working)... you know lighthearted things like that.
In other news we've just gotten our first real snowfall in Toronto.  Now this was no snowmageddon which you might have thought if you'd listened to any tv news networks.  It's just a normal winter snowfall.  It means though that I'm saying bye bye to my bike for a while.  I'm the weird person hoping that the snow melts so that she can continue biking through the winter.  The snow is my cut-off point for the bike.
For now I'm staying pretty close to home (more like close to my bed) and doing my best to enjoy the quiet simplicity of winter down time.  I wish that for you - a true break from the mundane of our everyday, a reason to find true joy and peace, moments of quiet beauty and reflection...


Frosted Nutmeg Log Cookies adapted from Taste of Home Magazine