done well

If I had my little way, I'd eat peaches everyday

>> Monday, March 28, 2011 – CSA box, food

The variety of fresh fruit in our CSA food box is limited. Obviously, because it's a *local* food box, and there's only so much that is grown indoors. We get a handful of fresh apples or pears every so often.

The Culinarium (from whom we receive our local food goodies) will occasionally give us frozen fruit, which is great. Especially when we get peaches. Peaches freeze so well. They keep their shape, colour, and flavour beautifully.

But what else can you bake besides peach cobbler? Or crisp?

Ina's newest cookbook How Easy Is That? has a recipe for Fresh Peach Cake. In the margin, there's a little note that frozen peaches work just as well (just thaw the fruit before using.)

It's a delicious coffee cake with layers of peaches and a cinnamon-sugary top. I didn't quite have enough peaches, so I might half the recipe next time and opt for far too many peaches. Or make sure to have at least a pound of frozen peaches.

I did find that it took far too long for the centre to bake. Next time I might try separating into two smaller baking dishes. Maybe two small loaf pans. But maybe you prefer a very crusty edge? Just keep baking until a toothpick (or a raw spaghetti noodle in my case) comes out clean when inserted into the very centre.

The cake was delicious. Although the edges were crispy, it was still moist. A perfect not-so-sweet dessert (perfect for the Chinese pallet) that works for breakfast, too.

I might actually look into freezing some peaches this summer so I can have enough frozen peaches to get me through next winter!

Welcome, Seedlings

>> Saturday, March 26, 2011 – garden

It's that time of year again. We're thinking ahead to our balcony garden and growing some seedlings indoors.

We still don't really know what we're doing, but we've got some help from Jamie Oliver (Jamie at Home) and Gayla Trail (Grow Great Grub). Jamie's book has some great pictures, descriptions, and recipe ideas, but sometimes you have to wonder whether it's going to work in Canadian climate. Gayla's book is great because she's from right here in Toronto, Ontario.

Last year we joined Gayla with a community greenhouse. Hopefully we've learned a thing or two and can get some stuff growing at home.

So far, we've started some seedlings of apple cucumbers (AC), cucumbers (C), zucchini (Z), beets (B), kohlrabi (K), chilli peppers (mini chilli pepper), cherry tomatoes (CT), and roma tomatoes (T). We've already had to repot some of the mini jiffy pots, so things are looking good!

If only the weather would start behaving itself and stop this snow-madness!

(As usual, the beets have to be the prettiest...)

Barley Refrigerator Salad

>> Thursday, March 17, 2011 – CSA box, food

I haven't been sharing too much about our CSA food box this year. Mostly because it's same ol', same ol'.

Sometimes it's the exact same thing that we still have from last year... Like our pearl barley. I made one recipe last year when we first received a bag of pearl barley as our pantry item. It was a not-so-great barley risotto. I'm not sure why anyone would mess with a classic, delicious risotto made with arborio rice (like my usual tomato and thyme risotto) so I decided not to write a post about the barley risotto. Didn't want to give anyone any ideas. Maybe I should dig up the pictures and write a post to file under "yucky".

Another recipe I had been meaning to try was this Ontario Winter Barley Salad. But I kept putting it off because I never had the right ingredients.

When that second bag of pearl barley came in our food box, I decided right-ingredients or not, I need to get cracking on eating some barley! Time to pull out that recipe and do some substitutions.

Instead of butternut squash, I used beets. Actually just one beet. Because it was HUGE. Instead of green beans, I used shelled edamame; the spinach was replaced with young baby kale. I added a tomato that needed to be eaten.

Basically, I added whatever I had in the refrigerator. Hence, Barley Refrigerator Salad.

Here is the "recipe" that ensued from this week's refrigerator ingredients:

Barley Refrigerator Salad from March 13, 2011

1 cup pearl barley
1 giant beet (about the size of a softball; for those that don't play softball, it was the size of a large florida orange)
1 cup frozen corn
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 yellow bell pepper, diced
handful of young baby kale
1 super ripe tomato (that my housemate left behind before leaving for Korea for March break), diced
1/2 cup frozen edamame, steamed/microwaved and shelled
1 large shallot, finely diced

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp dijon mustard
salt and pepper to taste (about 1/4 tsp each)

The original recipe instructs to boil the barley in vegetable stock and then eventually drain: what a waste. So I just boiled the barley in salted water along with the beet (which I scrubbed and cut in half). When the barley was about done (about 30 mins of boiling, you can test by taking a nibble) I added the frozen corn to blanch it, about 1 minute. Drain everything. If the beet is fork tender before everything else is ready, then you can remove it from the pot beforehand.

While the beets, barley, and corn are cooling, whisk together the apple cider vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, dijon mustard, and salt and pepper to form a vinaigrette.

Peel and dice the beet when it's cool enough to handle. Put the beets in a large bowl and pour half of the vinaigrette over top. Beets always taste better when you season them while warm, especially if there's a tangy vinaigrette involved.

I usually need a little more time to finish dicing my veggies or to add another refrigerator ingredient. Getting those beets dressed means you can now take all the time in the world.

When ready, mix all the rest of the salad ingredients with the beets, adding as much vinaigrette as you like.

Enjoy!!!

Family Ties

>> Sunday, February 27, 2011 – sewing

From sewing

I just googled about the 80s show Family Ties hoping that it would ring some bells and I would start this blog post with a witty line. I have to admit, besides the fact that Michael J Fox was in it, I remember nothing else.

From the pictures and clips I saw, only Michael J Fox's character was sporting the occasional tie.

Let's talk about ties.

About a month ago, I took a class at the workroom with Emily and learned how to sew a tie. A tie that Dustin wore to his conference in San Francisco this past week. (Funny story: while Dustin was humbly boasting about the tie I made him, his colleague Mike was humbly showing off the cufflinks that his wife, Danielle, made him. Both Danielle and I are engineers in jobs that are a means to an end...)

The class was really so much fun. It's one of the easier things to sew, once you have a pattern and some quick instruction from Karyn. And although a cotton tie doesn't sound like it could be formal enough to wear at formal functions, I think it's all in the choice of fabric pattern.

I chose a sunny yellow with fine blue and green lines.

Coocookiekie

>> Saturday, February 26, 2011 – food

Jenn wrote a blog post about a cookie. A super awesome cookie. Because it was stuffed with another cookie. A cookie within a cookie. A coocookiekie. It's like the sequel to Inception where we have to try and do a third layer of cookie to plant the fat and calories so we don't actually think that we consumed it.

I decided to make these coocookiekies for Paula's birthday. They were a huge hit; we wished we had a video camera to capture everyone's reaction upon discovering an oreo cookie inside of the chocolate chip cookie.

Jenn's originally recipe came from this blog post. But I decided to wing it and use my usual whole wheat oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe. Next time, I will cut back on the chocolate chips in the cookie recipe since the Oreo adds so much extra sweetness anyway.

Tuscany on a cloudy day

>> – sewing

I'm so behind on my blog posts. I'm hoping to do some catch-up this week, so remember to check back often!

When I had my fantastic crafty cottage weekend, I worked on a birdie sling for my friend, Helen. She loves to travel; she even blogs about it. So when I asked her about colour or style of fabric for the bag, she told me "Tuscany".

The original thought was maybe some rusty browns and earthy greens. But after staring at the beautiful fabric wall at the workroom, I was drawn to a slightly different colour scheme.

Here's a beautiful picture of Sorano (Tuscany, Italy) taken by Roland Gerth.

The buildings are just so beautifully aged, with a splash of rusty rooftop. I decided to forgo the earthy landscape and stick with the darker feel of the houses. Tuscany on a cloudy day.

(And a cute little surprise wine bottle fabric for the lining!)

From sewing

Simply Mad

>> Monday, February 21, 2011 – good causes, Out and About

I mentioned in a previous post about an event I was attending that supports microfinancing. The money went towards financial services (i.e. microloans) for people in Ecuador to alleviate poverty. Very similar to Kiva.

I think it's such a great concept; Dustin and I have a loan through Kiva to help someone in Nicaragua buy new tires for his taxi. He's already started repaying the loan, so we can now lend that money to someone else.

The other great thing about this event was the theme: Mad Men. Dressing up is always fun. Dressing up in 1960s clothing? Super extra fun! What a great fashion era.

Let's pretend for a little bit that I didn't have a full time job.

I would have ordered this pattern: