Christmas, Canadian-style

December 25, 2012December 25, 2012 ~ Teresa ~ 3 Comments

Merry Christmas, to those of you that celebrate it. I love the music of the season; I can’t help it. Here are a few Canadian songs for the holidays, starting with Joni Mitchell’s River:

An instrumental version of In the Bleak Midwinter, from Loreena McKennitt:

My mother’s favourite Christmas carol, from the McGarrigles, et al.:

A wistful one from The Mountains and The Trees:

Said the Whale’s Christmas Under the Clouds gives us a typical Vancouver Christmas (no idea why the accompanying image shows snow, though):

Finally, a new tune from Dan Mangan, with lyrics crowdsourced from listeners of CBC’s On The Coast:

What are your favourite seasonal songs? Let me know in the comments, if you’d like.

I hope you’re having a happy, warm, and peaceful day. See you Friday.

FFWD – Cheez-it-ish Crackers

December 21, 2012December 21, 2012 ~ Teresa ~ 10 Comments

I’ll admit from the outset that I’ve never seen a Cheez-it, but if they’re anything like this week’s cracker recipe, I’m in. These Cheez-it-ish crackers have the texture of a very dry sablé, without its sweetness. Instead, they’ve got the richness of Gruyère, with the bite of pepper and cayenne.

This cracker is just begging to be served with a nice wine, so much so that I wish I’d had some on hand yesterday when I visited Campbell’s Gold Honey Farm and Meadery. We arrived just in time for a wine tasting, starting with some dry mead and working our way through apple, currant, and cherry honey wines. I’m tempted to go back for a bottle of the apple honey wine to go with the rest of my crackers.

Campbell’s Gold is on the Circle Farm Tour and it’s almost as nice to visit these farms at Christmastime as it is in the height of summer. It’s easy to forget, living in Vancouver, how much the rest of our region has to offer.

But let’s get back to the offerings of my kitchen. I opted to shape the cracker dough into logs and slice the crackers, rather than roll and cut them out. I only baked a few crackers and am saving the other logs to bake for some of the holiday gatherings we’ve got coming up. It’s not quite as elegant as the rolled-out cracker, but it’s awfully convenient. I’ve been favouring slice and bake cookies, too, this holiday season. I guess I’m embracing my last-minute nature…

Speaking of last-minute, I’d better get this post up while it’s still Friday. Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it and a very happy New Year to all. I’m looking forward to cooking and baking with the rest of the Doristas through 2013.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Cheez-it-ish Crackers

FFWD – Creamy Cauliflower Soup Sans Cream

December 11, 2012January 7, 2013 ~ Teresa ~ 5 Comments

It took me a while to post this week’s recipe, but not because it was a difficult one. This soup is ready from chop to purée in less than an hour and requires only a few vegetables, herbs, and some stock. Cauliflower is a wonderful vegetable for puréed soups, because it gives the consistency and velvet feel of a cream soup without reliance on cream. I usually roast cauliflower before adding it to soup, since I prefer the richer flavour that brings. It is nice to know that you can get good results without roasting it, though, on nights when you need to get supper on the table a little faster.

Dorie’s soup is seasoned with salt, pepper, and thyme, but I added some nutmeg after tasting it, for more complexity. Others in the group added bacon, truffle oil, or gremolata to theirs.

My current favourite cauliflower soup recipe is found at the end of this article on olive oil. It’s similar to Dorie’s, but relies on curry for flavour, which is perfect for cauliflower. I don’t think Dorie’s soup will supplant it in my heart, but I’ll try it this way again and I’ll roast the cauliflower first next time.

I’ll also be trying the mussel version of this recipe some time – it sounds wonderfully flavourful.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Creamy Cauliflower Soup Sans Cream

Late Fall

November 27, 2012 ~ Teresa ~ 9 Comments

I’m a Sucker for a Good Craft Fair

November 20, 2012May 4, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 3 Comments

It’s that time again, full of craft fairs, holiday events, and lots and lots of food.

Since I’m still not quite back into the swing of writing regularly again, I thought I’d do a little round up of some things that have caught my eye.

Crafts

Strathcona Winter Craft Fair
Crafts for a Cause
Toque
Got Craft?
Women’s Winter Faire
Shiny Fuzzy Muddy

Food

Baker’s Market
Vancouver Farmers’ Market Holiday Market
Dinner with the Wild Things

Music

Choral Concert Calendar
Universal Gospel Choir
Early Music

Fun

Candytown
Giant Used Book Sale

Light

Winter Solstice Lantern Festival

Now, I’m going back to perusing cookie recipes for some upcoming swaps. What seasonal sorts of things are you looking forward to?

FFWD – Crispy-Crackly Apple-Almond Tart

October 12, 2012January 7, 2013 ~ Teresa ~ 14 Comments

My mother’s rule has always been, make the recipe as written the first time, then improvise from there. You get a sense of what the recipe’s author meant the dish to be and can adjust it to your own taste, if necessary, another time. It’s a good practice and one which helps me avoid recreating the flavours I already know I like.

Sometimes, though, the ingredients that are on hand take precedence over the recipe. When I made the Apple-Almond tart for this week’s post, I wanted to use up some ground almond that I’d had for a little too long. There was also some Greek yogurt in the fridge, so I didn’t go to the store for heavy cream. The resulting tart filling wasn’t exactly an almond cream, but it was awfully good.

It was thicker and a little less puffy than almond cream would have been, but it complemented the butter-soaked phyllo and tart apples very well. I sliced this up into small pieces, froze some and then sent most of the rest off with my parents on their yearly weekend away with several other couples. It was a hit, I hear. It certainly was at home, too.

Next time, I’ll follow the recipe more closely and use almond flour and heavy cream, but I’m happy to know that this tart is amenable to a little improvisation.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Crispy-Crackly Apple-Almond Tart

Nearly Fall in the Garden

September 18, 2012September 17, 2012 ~ Teresa ~ 9 Comments

Canada is generally thought of as the land of ice and snow, but that’s not true all year ’round, even in the North. Vancouver is especially an exception to this rule. We generally get about a week of snow each year, which sends our road systems into a tailspin. (We’re infamous here for not being able to drive in the snow.) All this is to say that my garden is still going strong, though I’m looking up recipes for green tomatoes, as I know a lot of them aren’t ever going to fully ripen this year.

We’re in the last few weeks of the summer growing season. If we’re lucky, the good weather will last into the first few weeks of October. I’ve planted some winter garden vegetables, but I’m mostly reflecting on what worked and what didn’t this season. I won’t be growing tomatoes in the backyard next year and am going to invest in some big tubs so that I can grow them on my south-facing balcony, instead. I think they’ll ripen much faster there. I’m also going to build some new vegetable and herb beds this fall, for next year. The flowers mostly take care of themselves, but I want to add plants that will extend colour through the seasons. These are my reflections so far.

So tell me, what did you love about your outdoor space this summer? What would you change? I’ll leave you with some more of the photos I took yesterday afternoon, out in the garden.

FFWD – Eggplant “Tartine” with Tomatoes, Olives, and Cucumbers

September 7, 2012August 31, 2012 ~ Teresa ~ 21 Comments

It’s been a good couple of weeks for eggplant dishes. I went to a friend’s birthday dinner recently and the appetizer was a thick, roasted slice of eggplant topped with goat cheese and ribbons of bell pepper. Today’s French Fridays recipe is another delicious take on roasted eggplant. This time, the eggplant is topped with a tomato salad and ribbons of cucumber.

It’s a “tartine” because the roasted eggplant stands in for bread, making it both a great way to enjoy summer produce and a good option for gluten-free eating. The salad is tossed in a red wine vinegar-oregano vinaigrette and balances the sweetness of the tomatoes with the sharpness of onions and celery and the saltiness of olives and capers. The flavours are well-balanced and the textures are varied and interesting.

We had these “tartines” as a side dish alongside steamed bush beans and spaghetti with homemade pesto. It made for a lovely summer meal. I think I’ll also keep this in mind for the next time Kevin and I have a party – I think it will please our gluten-loving and gluten-free guests alike.

In the meantime, I’m going to use this dish as inspiration to use the remaining weeks of garden season to experiment with summer produce – it’s often too easy to just pop veggies into the steamer and be done with it. I love steamed vegetables, but there really is so much more.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Eggplant “Tartine” with Tomatoes, Olives, and Cucumbers

Food Trucks and Summer’s End

September 4, 2012May 4, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 5 Comments

The Labour Day weekend has just passed and for many of us, that signals summer’s end. Though summery weather around these parts (barring early torrential rains) seems to last into October some years, September usually marks the end of community celebrations and summer programs.

With that in mind, I decided to stop by the last day of one of my neighbourhood’s most popular events this summer – The Waldorf Hotel‘s Food Cart Festival, which has been taking over their parking lot every Sunday since the end of July. I took a few photos there and indulged in a double-decker cone from Earnest Ice Cream – their salted caramel was perfect and the strawberry-basil made me want to run home and roast some strawberries right away to recapture the flavour. But I digress…

The Food Truck Festival is a great example of the zeitgeist in Vancouver these day – a nice selection of local food (in those trendy trucks); pedestrian and bike friendly; a neighbourhood event that attracts folks from all over the city. Along with VIVA Vancouver and the community celebrations funded by Neighbourhood Small Grants, Vancouver’s summer street scene is becoming a lot more vibrant.

Speaking of Neighbourhood Small Grants, a group of neighbours planted this herb garden I passed today. I thought it was a lovely concept.

So tell me, does your community promote street-level interaction? What are the community events that define summer for you?

FFWD – Warm Scallop Salad with Corn, Nectarines, and Basil

August 10, 2012May 4, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 27 Comments

It’s about time we had another scallops recipe in the group – they’re probably my favourite seafood (though mussels run a close second). I also appreciate a recipe that makes use of height-of-summer produce. Chilliwack corn, farm-fresh tomatoes, and basil from my own garden are part of this salad and the taste is phenomenal.

This recipe is really about small parts coming together well. Lime dressing, basil coulis, chopped tomatoes, kernels of corn, all served with grilled or pan-fried scallops and nectarines. They worked together even better than I’d imagined. My presentation, however, was not as pretty as I’d imagined. No matter, we had a delicious dinner.

Every summer I try to make as much use as I can of the succession of fresh, local fruit and vegetables. Every year I feel like I’ve fallen a little short. A recipe like this certainly helps me feel like I’ve succeeded. A gourmet treat full of summer goodness – we’ll be having this again.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Warm Scallop Salad with Corn, Nectarines, and Basil