I’m going to let you in on a little secret – I like chocolate, but I don’t DIE for chocolate. I would rather have fruit with cream. Having said that, I did eat a large number of homemade dark chocolate clusters this weekend.
Dark chocolate is much better; milk chocolate is too sweet and tastes like wax. (Them’s fightin’ words 🙂 ) Click to continue reading
As the weather turns to spring and gets warmer, I start making more salads.
One of my favourites is this simple salad with cucumber and radish – it’s light, crispy, and ridiculously easy to put together. After I made this yesterday, my girls were asking me to make it again today. Click to continue reading
My youngest sister and her daughter were visiting from Canada for two weeks. It was so lovely to have someone to chat with while cooking, giggle over family stories, and sing harmony with. She washed many sinkfuls of dishes and watched the kids so my husband and I could have a couple dates. Thank you, Miwa!
Having her here brought to mind something I’ve thought to myself in moments of mom-desperation. “We were meant to live in tribes, to have aunts and cousins and grandmothers help with children, and meals, and life in general.” Living close to family has it’s own perils, but so many of us live in relative isolation. Parents spend more hours at work than with children or spouses, extended family often lives far away. Some communities of friends support each other, others have yet to. Click to continue reading
Wild food foraging is somewhere near the top on the list of activities I enjoy. I enjoy being in nature, anything to do with food, the satisfaction of getting free food that I didn’t have to sow/weed/water in a garden; I suppose it satisfies my liking of things and activities that are both beautiful and practical.
I tend to go a little overboard though – pick all the plants! They’re free, nutritious, and delicious! Then I get home, and realize that I have more than I know what to do with. Anybody with me?
Here is a list, then, of 12 ideas of things to make with ramps, in case you have too many sitting in your fridge. The flavour of ramps is best raw, so most of these recipes don’t involve heat.
Last week I wrote about our outing to harvest ramps (or more properly, European bear garlic). There is another wild vegetable available early in the spring: stinging nettle.
I’ve seen recipes and references to bulletproof coffee, basically coffee blended with butter, but mostly ignored it because I don’t drink coffee. Then a friend recommended Hot Buttered Cinnamon Tea.
I almost facepalmed. If in coffee, why not in tea?
I realize that I have a proportionately high number of recipes with cauliflower, like Garlicky Cauliflower Medallions and Bibimbap. In those recipes cauliflower is a substitute (flour, rice); in this recipe, cauliflower shines as itself. Click to continue reading
My most distinct memory of halva (or halvah) is from my college roommate. She was always excited when her family managed to buy some at the market and bring it to her, particularly the halva with chocolate swirls. And she was generous enough to share it with her roommates – actually, her family was very generous with their fridge stockings and it’s largely due to them that I didn’t waste away to nothing. I can still see her, framed by the cupboards between the kitchen and living room, opening the fridge door in great anticipation for that chocolate swirl halva. Click to continue reading
The recipe is inspired by the Korean dish Bibimbap, which means mixed rice. I’ve adapted it so that you don’t have to go find a special Asian store for the ingredients. Click to continue reading
Strapacky (strapachky) is a Slovak dish, traditionally made with halusky (halushky), potato dough gnocchi, baked with bacon and sauerkraut. Making strapacky with plain potatoes, however, is a lot less work, doesn’t require special equipment or tedious cutting, and is grain/gluten free. It’s not low carb or Paleo, but I’m sure it would taste amazing with sweet potatoes or cauliflower instead of white potatoes. Click to continue reading