My Week in Photos

September 1, 2015September 2, 2015 ~ Teresa ~ 3 Comments

Hello, Raincouver, it’s been so nice to have you back, even if it’s only for a week.

The current issue of Ricardo Magazine has a fistful of banana bread recipes and I have a cupboard full of the Piña Colada jam I made a few months ago from Preservation Society Home Preserves. Add two very ripe bananas and my jammy hack of Ricardo’s Tropical Banana Bread was born. There’s only half a loaf left. (Yes, I had some help.) Bonus: I freed up some jars to fill with Preservation Society Bluebarb Jam and I still have lots of Piña Colada jam left for other experiments (and toast).

Quiche + Potlucks is my formula for building community. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as bringing home an empty tray, after an evening of conversation and sampling terrific dishes.

My parents’ backyard is full of flowers and vegetables – a pollinator’s paradise. Luckily for me, our extended family, and a number of their friends, they grow far more than they can eat. Cucumbers, beets (both root and greens), carrots, potatoes, and beans are only some of vegetables they’ve been sharing this week.

Cottage Cooking Club – August 2015

August 28, 2015August 28, 2015 ~ Teresa ~ 11 Comments

May I say that I’m glad this summer’s coming to an end? We’re expected to get more rain over the weekend than we’ve gotten all summer long. It’s a relief. Drought doesn’t look good on Vancouver. At any rate, autumn is harvest time, so there’s a lot to celebrate. I’m looking forward to cooking with squash and root vegetables again.

In between bouts of languishing in the heat this month, I managed a couple of warm-weather dishes for August’s Cottage Cooking Club.

Tomatoes with Thai Dressing

I made these at the same time I made Tomatoes with Herbs. It’s hard to know which of these was my favourite. I just know that both are lovely ways to celebrate summer tomatoes. This version, with its Thai flavour profile, would make a nice addition to a rice or noodle bowl, or a side for a coconut curry.

Summer Garden Lentils Niçoise

I learned to love French green lentils while participating in French Fridays with Dorie. There wasn’t much learning to do, to be honest, as I fell in love with them immediately. I use proper lentilles du Puy on occasion, but the Canada-grown French green lentils that I can buy at my local food co-op are organic and delicious. They’re what I use regularly. Is it wrong to say that I don’t notice the difference? Please don’t tell France.

Okay, so I’m not totally over summer. I’m happy to eat my way through the abundance of tomatoes, cucumbers, beet greens, peppers, and everything else that’s on offer right now. Really, I’m just glad it’s finally raining.

Here are the links to the rest of the group’s posts for this month. I encourage you to check them out – you’ll meet some wonderful bloggers and get some great inspiration for vegetarian eating.

Tea Sparrow – A Review

August 25, 2015August 26, 2015 ~ Teresa ~ 5 Comments

Tea Sparrow sent me their July subscription box of tea, so that I might review their service, but no other consideration was received. All opinions are my own.

As you might recall, last month I visited the Tea Sparrow Iced Tea Festival. Afterward, they were kind enough to send me their July selection of teas for my review.

Each month, Tea Sparrow sends their subscribers four teas, chosen from producers around the world. They choose their loose leaf teas based on quality and flavour, in order to give their customers a survey of the best teas worldwide. The teas are first selected by their tea sommelier, then presented at tea tastings for subscribers and tea experts in Vancouver. The highest rated teas at each tasting are the ones that make it into Tea Sparrow’s monthly boxes. Each tea package includes a description of the tea, steeping instructions, and the URL of the producer – so, when you find a tea you especially like, you can order more, directly from the source.

In the summer months, Tea Sparrow sends out teas that are especially good iced. It’s a nice practice and July’s mix included some teas that are good hot or cold. I was very happy to have the opportunity to try a summer box, because Vancouver’s been enduring hot, dry weather for months now. I usually drink tea hot, year-round, but this summer has been my own personal iced tea festival.

In July, their picks were Vanilla Honeybush from Aromatica Fine Teas; Iced Ginger Peach Tea from The Tea Spot; Quince Green from Silver Service; and Strawberry Mint from Herbal Republic.

I tried each of the teas hot and cold, taking advantage of the very few grey days we’ve had recently to have some hot tea. Three of the four teas are on my list for re-stocking my tea cupboard (when I finally drink it down to a manageable level). The other wasn’t bad, but I wouldn’t get it again.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who read my post about the Iced Tea Festival that my favourite of the four was Herbal Republic’s Strawberry Mint. This tea is superb either hot or cold and is incredibly fragrant. My second favourite was Aromatica’s Vanilla Honeybush. It’s delicious cold, but I’m saving it for cooler weather, because I enjoyed it best when it was hot. A close third was Silver Service’s Quince Green. I know it’s meant to be served cold, but I thought it was quite good hot, too. Unfortunately, I didn’t care as much for the Ginger Peach Tea from the Tea Spot. Perhaps if I sweetened my tea a little, I would have enjoyed it more. (I’m not a fan of American-style iced tea and the Ginger Peach is perfect for sweet tea. If that style of iced tea is your thing, I suspect you’d love it.)

Still, three out of four is quite a good score for a sampler selection. Based on this sampler and the teas I tasted at the festival, I think it’s quite likely that I’d enjoy four out of four teas most months, a dangerous proposition for a tea lover who has a year’s subscription. I’d run the risk of having a tea kitchen, rather than a tea cupboard.

Tea Sparrow’s boxes are $20.00 USD/$25.00 CAD per month, including shipping and taxes, for US and Canadian orders. International orders are $30.00 CAD, plus shipping. The quantity of tea averages to about 35 cups per month. You can get loose tea more cheaply from a tea shop, but for a sampler of teas from various producers around the world, Tea Sparrow provides good value.

If you’re a tea beginner, I’d recommend finding a good tea shop or two in your area (hint: not a national chain) and exploring what they have to offer. Once you’ve developed your palate, then you can move on to Tea Sparrow’s service. Your local merchant will have developed offerings that fit into the taste profile of their brand. The advantage of a sampler service is that you can try teas that represent a wide variety of taste profiles, finding new favourites (and developing a tea mail order habit).

I also think a six or twelve month subscription would make a wonderful present for a tea lover. (I may or may not be hoping that friends and family are paying particular attention to this paragraph.) If you’re a subscriber who happens to live in the Metro Vancouver area, you can also vie for tickets to their tea tastings, which happen every other month.

As habits go, a monthly tea subscription is both healthy and pleasurable. And honestly, the idea of a tea kitchen isn’t such a bad one, really. You can just keep everything else in the pantry, right?

You can order a Tea Sparrow subscription for yourself or a gift for a friend at their website: Tea Sparrow

Cherry Crumb Tart – A Baking Chez Moi Catch Up

August 21, 2015August 22, 2015 ~ Teresa ~ 18 Comments

What don’t you have time for? It might seem like it’s quite a long list.

But, a better question might be, what do you have time for?

For me, that includes making things by hand, whether that’s a pair of booties for a friend’s baby or a meal made with the freshest ingredients of the season. I’d much rather spend my down time on those things than in front of the television.

I certainly had time for this tart, even though it takes a little planning and patience. Dorie has streamlined her sweet tart dough so that it does all its resting in the pan, getting it baked and cooled a lot sooner than her earlier versions. Still, you have to factor that time into the equation before you commit to this tart.

The filling needs an hour in the fridge, so start with that and you will be ready to go as soon as the tart crust has cooled. In the meantime, mix the streusel and pit the cherries. (While you pit the cherries, you can even watch television. I’m not a puritan, you know.)

The tart bakes for about forty-five minutes, and then another half-hour or so after you top it with the streusel, which gives you plenty of time to get a summer supper together.

By the time you’ve finished dinner, it will be cool enough to serve. With a flourish of icing sugar, if you’re so inclined.

Now, who wouldn’t have time for that?

You can find the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie crew’s entries on this recipe here: Cherry Crumb Tart.

Hot Weather Eating – A Cottage Cooking Club Catchup

August 14, 2015August 18, 2015 ~ Teresa ~ 4 Comments

I’ve been eating simple meals all summer – we’ve had dry, hot weather and it’s been hard to contemplate using the oven or the stove much. Next year, I think I’m going to add a small grill to our outdoor equipment, because cooking outside is all I’ve been wanting to do.

Luckily, summer is full of fruit and vegetables freshly harvested and perfect for simple preparations. The salad at the top of this post is typical of what I’ve been eating lately, along with some very lightly prepared accompaniments.

New Potato Salad “Tartare”

One of my favourites this summer has been this salad, which gets away from the mayonnaise-soaked version you so often get in Canada and the U.S. Instead, it relies on herbs, cornichons, and a mustardy vinaigrette for flavour. It’s refreshing to have a bracing sourness underlying the dressing on a hot day.

Tomatoes with Herbs

I had so many cherry tomatoes that I made this two ways, one of which I’ll tell you about at the end of the month. This is the simplest way to enjoy tomatoes, with fresh herbs from the garden, a little balsamic, and a good olive oil. I had enough to satisfy us, share with our neighbours, and still had some to spare. I slow-roasted those and froze them. They’ll be brightening up my winter meals.

Tomorrow is going to be cloudy and mild (fingers crossed for some much-needed rain). I’m going to take the opportunity to put my oven and stovetop to work. So, you’ll be seeing a few more catch up recipes on the 28th of this month, along with August’s Cottage Cooking Club selections.

I’ve missed cooking along with all my CCC colleagues and I’m looking forward to catching up on your blogs.

Headed for a Heatwave

June 23, 2015June 23, 2015 ~ Teresa ~ 3 Comments

It’s going to get hot here, in the next few days. At the same time, there’s a bounty of summer produce to experiment with. Here are a few early summer heatwave suggestions:

It’s still strawberry season, so make the most of them while you can.

Dorie Greenspan’s Double-Strawberry and Rose Shortcakes

Mozzarella, Tomato and Strawberry Salad

Ginger-Honey and Strawberry Chèvre Ice Cream

And now, cherries have started appearing in the market.

Roasted Cherries

Whole-Cherry Clafoutis

Gâteau Basque

If hot-weather cooking doesn’t appeal, there’s lots to do around town.

The Vancouver International Jazz Festival runs until July 1st this year. There are concerts at venues all over town, but don’t overlook the free shows this weekend at David Lam Park. It’s a beautiful place to relax, picnic, and listen to some stellar music.

If you’d prefer to start your weekend indoors, Rain City Chronicles‘ latest show is at the Museum of Vancouver this Friday. It’s called GUTs and promises “stories of relying on your instincts, acts of bravery, and the organs inside you.”

There are two days left to catch the Festival d’ete francophone de Vancouver.

If you have kids, or if you still have the constitution of one, head over to Playland and test your stomach’s mettle with fair food and amusement park rides.

I prefer my thrills pedal-powered, so Velopalooza is right up my alley. I’m only sorry I missed today’s Tour de Book Exchanges.

Or you could hang out in your backyard (or patio, for you microunit dwellers) and work on developing Summer 2015’s signature drink.

I’ll be here hoping for a nice summer rain.

FFWD – Celebration Week #3: The Play-It-Again-Dorie Recipe

June 12, 2015June 19, 2015 ~ Teresa ~ 14 Comments

Now that our group has, collectively, cooked through the whole of Around My French Table, we’ve moved on to four weeks of celebratory posts, reflecting on our more than four-and-a-half years of cooking together.

This week, we were asked to:

Choose the recipe from the book that you have made the most often. Or, that you have made a variation of the most. It may not be your favorite or your AHA recipe but it’s the Repeater.

I’m going to choose a seasonally-appropriate answer to this week’s assignment. Dorie’s Goat Cheese and Strawberry Tartine has become an early summer ritual for me. The ingredients enhance the flavour of strawberries at their seasonal peak. And the freshness and portability of this tartine makes it the perfect summer food – whether it’s breakfast on the balcony or a picnic on the beach. So, this is my “repeater” in mid-June.

If you’d put this question to me in November, I might have answered with Roast Chicken for Les Paresseux or Leek and Potato Soup. Ask me in August and I might choose Salmon and Tomatoes en Papillote. On a day when I’m craving a treat, my choice might be Croquants or Marie-Hélène’s Apple Cake, instead.

All of which is to say that there isn’t just one page that’s stained, worn, and in danger of falling right out of the book. There are many.

Which recipes had the Doristas coming back for more? Find out here: Celebration Week #3: The Play-It-Again-Dorie Recipe

Win one of two copies of Jill Colonna’s beautiful Teatime in Paris!

In the Early Summer

June 2, 2015June 2, 2015 ~ Teresa ~ 3 Comments

One of the nicest things about Vancouver Mini Maker Faire is that it runs the gamut from handcrafts to high tech, with all makers being accorded respect. There’s lots to see and do there this weekend.

Once you’ve made the most of Maker Faire, you can reward yourself with a cold brew at Vancouver Craft Beer Week’s Festival on Sunday.

Or you can just get in the mood for Italian Day on the Drive at The Rio. They’ve got a mini Italian film fest lined up in the week leading up to the big day.

Bard on the Beach is back, meaning that it’s well and truly summer. Their offerings this year include a steampunk-inflected version of The Comedy of Errors and a Jazz Age Love’s Labour’s Lost.

If it’s not sold out already, Vancouver’s Femme City Choir promises to put on a terrific show.

Or you can celebrate the oeuvre John Hughes with Hot Wet Art City.

If none of this seems exciting to you so far, maybe a Terminal City Rollergirls Double Header is more your speed.

There’s lots more going on, of course, but that gives you a starting point. There’s also a chance that I might kick back with a cool drink and admire the early summer flowers. They’re so fleeting, after all.

Got Craft? Spring Edition 2015

May 2, 2015March 12, 2016 ~ Teresa ~ 3 Comments

I was given free admission to Got Craft?, but received no other consideration. All opinions in this post are my own.

Craft fairs have come a long way since I was a little girl. Back then, there were tables full of simple knitted toques, sugar-stiffened lace figurines, beadwork, and Phentex slippers. Everything felt homespun and full of a grandmother’s love, but it wasn’t exactly the right place to find stylish gifts or exciting home decor.

These days, craft fairs are where you look for the newest trends in the making, across a number of disciplines. You’re much more likely to find a unique, on trend item at a craft fair than you are in a department or chain store.

In Vancouver, Got Craft? was a pioneer of this new style of craft fair. I’ve got them to thank for a number of my favourite pieces of jewellery, home decor items, and well-received gifts. And they’ve helped to establish a healthy network of craft fairs and shows throughout the year here, supporting a diverse array of makers and crafters.

Today I visited the first day of the spring edition of Got Craft? and was happy to find lots of new things to get excited about, along with some that have been favourites for a while. And once you finish shopping, you can take in one of workshops led by local favourites like A Spool of Thread.

They’re back at it tomorrow and here are some of my personal highlights:

Anonum Design, one of a number of vendors that repurpose materials that would otherwise be headed for the landfill. They turn rubber printing blankets into an array of colourful, useful goods.
Craft’ed‘s whimsical cards, magnets, and bookmarks.
Cabin + Cub‘s wooden accessories. (I came home with a bicycle crest pin for my partner, who was delighted.)
The Green Flamingo Design‘s dapper ties and pocket squares, for any gender.
Graveley and Sons‘ syrups and infusions

I could go on, but you can check out full list of vendors instead.

You needn’t worry about getting hungry, either. The area around the Maritime Labour Centre may be light industrial, but there are treasures around every corner. You’re only a block away from Parallel 49 Brewing, and there are plenty of tasting rooms, restaurants, and coffee shops within blocks. You can find a list of many of them at the East Village BIA website.

But, you don’t have to wander far to find something tasty – there are food trucks parked right outside and treats from the likes of Livia Sweets and The Lemon Square in the foyer.

And if you can’t make it this weekend, the folks at Got Craft? are also behind Strathcona’s London Fields Shoppe, or you can head over to Tiny Finery in Hastings-Sunrise for a similar commitment to the best of local makers.

There won’t be another edition of Got Craft? until the the end of the year, but thanks to them and the other entrepreneurs that support Vancouver’s vibrant craft scene, the city is full of markets and shops that will keep you busy until then.

Cottage Cooking Club – March 2015

March 29, 2015 ~ Teresa ~ 7 Comments

We’ve reached the halfway point of the Cottage Cooking Club’s exploration of River Cottage Veg and the group is taking this month to catch up on recipes they may have missed in previous months. As for me, I’m just glad my new copy of the book has arrived. Inexplicably, my first copy of the book disappeared during the great re-piping project in January and no amount of looking has turned it up. I suspect that I will find it, now that I’ve got another copy. At least I hope so, because I have a lot of notes in the margins of the original.

As a result, I missed last month and this month I’ve only got one recipe on deck – Winter Stir-fry with Chinese Five-spice. This is the sort of recipe I’d like to say that I make regularly, but really need a reminder to undertake. I used to make stir-fries all the time in my youth. Now I spend so much time exploring new recipes, that I forget about the kitchen skills I’ve carried for years. To be fair, in those days I also spent a lot of time on political marches, taking university courses, and dancing in clubs.

Things change, though perhaps we shouldn’t leave so much behind. There are political matters that are just as urgent today, life-long learners get more satisfaction from their lives, and those who dance into their twilight years seem happier than the rest of us. Stir-fries, too, shouldn’t become just the stuff of dinners out – they are the epitome of the healthy, well-seasoned home cooking that’s being encouraged by food advocates everywhere.

Seasoning is the key, along with paying attention to how much cooking each vegetable requires. Some of my youthful attempts at stir-fry were a little ham-fisted and needed a little more care than the lashings of soy sauce and lemon they suffered. It took time and practice to get the hang of it and I think that helped me to become a better cook overall.

This stir-fry is simple, relying on five-spice powder, soy sauce, and rice wine for flavour, with a finish of fresh lime juice. It’s also a good choice for that in-between season when spring gardens are only just being planted. Carrot, parsnip, and mushroom give substance to the dish, while shredded Brussels sprouts are nice alternative to the usual wilted greens.

I’d also like to say thank you to Andrea, our fearless and talented leader, who blogs at The Kitchen Lioness. She was kind enough to send participants an Easter gift and you can see some of the lovely ornaments she included, above. This group has been a wonderful way to connect with more talented and interesting bloggers. It’s also been a great way to explore my partner’s newly-vegan diet with him. We choose from each month’s offerings together and the group’s recipes have become staples in our everyday eating.

I’m looking forward to cooking through the rest of the book, barring any more disappearing cookbooks.

Here are the links to the rest of the group’s posts for this month. I encourage you to check them out – you’ll meet some wonderful bloggers and get some great inspiration for vegetarian eating.