We had some plans….  And now we have new plans!

Speaking of plans, you might recall that I used to always share my meal plans on this blog.  Well, after falling on to some bad habits with meal planning in the past year(s) I decided to make an accountability partner of sorts by using chalkboard paint to make a meal plan chalkboard on the wall in the kitchen.  It has worked so well that since putting it up we’ve had a meal plan every week since the new year began.  

Not only has the meal chalkboard helped us to remember to plan our meals but it’s also helped to greatly reduce the “what’s for dinner” question that our kids so love to ask.  Now they just wander through the kitchen and look up on the wall and for the most part keep their positive (or more often, negative) reaction to themselves.

To try to make this quarantine week a bit more fun we had each kid choose a meal.  The result is a pretty obviously kid-friendly week of meals.  Luckily the grownups in the house like this food too.

Each kid will help prepare the meal they’ve chosen so that begins tonight with the tomato soup and grilled cheese.

We are picturing the next three weeks to be filled with lots of cooking, reading, playing of games, playing in the backyard, doing a bit of “school,” coloring, Legos, listening to audiobooks, and whatever else we can think of.  What are you doing for this “break?”

I’m going to keep it pretty simple here and just share what the meal plan is for the week (see the picture below). Things can change of course, but starting off with a meal plan for what will likely be a somewhat busy week feels like a good beginning!

And we’re going to take a look at a couple kids cookbooks from the library this week, we’ll see if they are worth getting down the road! The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs comes from America’s Test Kitchen which produces our much loved Cooks Illustrated magazine. And Good Housekeeping’s Kids Cook! has been popular already in our house thanks to their Tomato Soup Mac-n-Cheese recipe.

As the new year approaches I’ve been giving some thought to things I might like to do better.  I’ve never been one for setting any serious goals for the new year, but I do like at least reflecting a bit on how the year has gone and what I could improve on the next time around.

On this blog I’ve been a big proponent of meal-planning but the truth is that in the last year I’ve really not lived up to my own ideals!  I would say for the majority of weeks of eating this past year I had very little plan.  We still ate fairly well, mostly local, and healthy, but I think we weren’t as focused or efficient as we strive to be.  So my goal is to get back to doing this!  In that spirit I planned most of our dinners this past week and they were:

1. Bulgar bowls with veggies and marinated veggies (from the newest issue of Cooks Illustrated)
2. Potato Leek Gratin and Cole Slaw
3. Beef Bulgogi (also from Cooks Illustrated)
4. Thai Millet Cakes and a Sesame Cole Slaw

The other thing that I find is really important for regular cooking is that I work with tools that are in good shape.  In other words, I need sharp knives!  A few years ago I took my chef’s knife down to STOP restaurant supply on Victoria St in Kitchener. That was a good experience although it’s a bit far from my house.  A few weeks ago I got contacted by Sharp My Knife to review their knife sharpening services in exchange for a free sharpening.  They are a local company that comes to your house by appointment to sharpen your knives (and anything else that needs sharpening).  It was hard to pass up this convenience!

Jeff came by on a recent morning and sharpened my chef’s knife, meat knife, paring knife, and my pocket knife (or my EDC).  It took about 20 minutes or so and then my knives were all ready to go. 

 I’ve been using all of them this week and am very happy to once again have super-efficient knives to use. Yes, sharp knives mean that you need to be a bit more careful but ultimately they end up being safer and more comfortable to use.  The difference is especially noticeable when cutting more difficult foods. 

I’m trying to make sure that I maintain them in the best state possible by honing them with my steel before or after every use. This helps to correct small flaws on the cutting edge. But I’m realizing that ultimately all knives will reach a point where they need to be sharpened (this can be checked with the paper test).  Then it’s nice to know that if I don’t want to make the trip down Victoria St. then I can just book an appointment with Sharp My Knife and get them done quickly and easily. 

 So as far as goals go for this new year we’ll see how I do on meal planning.  At least I’m in good shape as far as having good sharp tools to work with!

Now that we’re back in school mode I’ve been meal-planning again.  In the summer I pretty much stop doing this and just see what happens in a day (for better or for worse!).  The meals listed here are what we ate, intended to eat, or hope to eat this coming week.  It turns out that most weeks we end up with various nights having activities that take us out of the house and lucky for me that means less meals to plan.

Cannellini bean casserole or gratin, and a Fresh salad

Bibimbap (we like the version in America’s Test Kitchen’s massive vegetarian cookbook, it’s similar to this). Make sure you have some essential ingredients from your local Korean market like gochujang and kimchi (if you don’t make your own)

Veggie burgers (cook black beans in advance, and for recipe most likely use the one in the first Oh She Glows cookbook which is also on her blog!)

Spaghetti, with Potato Kale Caesar Salad (make Caesar dressing, add lacinato/dinosaur kale and roasted potatoes)

Frozen Eggplant Parmesan, Kale Caesar Salad

Daal (recipes abound), rice, fresh chutney (peaches, tomatoes, onions, etc.)

Sesame noodles with cukes and carrots – kind of similar to this, Frozen potstickers/dumplings (yes, we buy these and they are in no way local)

Chickpea salad sandwiches (also from OSG first cookbook), fresh veggie side from CSA (beets)Roasted peppers, tomatoes, onions, sausage – literally take those things, throw them in a deep pan with salt, pepper, and a bit of olive oil, then roast until amazing (these are extra tasty if you make your own pork sausage meatballs from ground pork), grilled flatbread – yes, this is a wonderful thing but kind of a lot of work, so you can also just buy some flatbread, and hummus and other good toppings for pitas.

Protein Power Goddess Bowl from OSG first cookbook p.175, (soak pearl barley or wheat/spelt berries night before)

Pizza: Peach, candied pecan, goat cheese, Tomato basil – margarita, Pepperoni, peach, red onion

Pasta – cherry tomato & pesto

I made this on a whim with kohlrabi we got in our first installment of this year’s CSA.  A trick of mine for making nice uniform julienned style slices for the carrots and kohlrabi is to cut them into 2 inch pieces and then stack them in the top of the food processor with the grater attachment on.  By stacking them lengthwise they grate the long way and result in a more julienned style.  I hope that makes some sense!

Anyway, this salad was great the first night we had it and actually improved after sitting in the fridge.  It was well received by my family and the people we shared it with.

Last winter I entered a local homebrew competition put on by Short Finger Brewing.  I decided I’d enter by brewing a style I’d never heard of, Wheat Wine, which I chose because I had quite a bit of wheat malt extract I wanted to use up and I figured I’d maybe win a prize since hardly anyone would enter that category (yes, I’m kind of sneaky like that).  I couldn’t attend the awards ceremony but was very delighted later in the evening when I saw on Twitter that I’d not only won the category but also Best in Show!

That winning beer was a dark brown color, and rather cloudy (which is to be expected for a beer that is 50% wheat malt).  The aroma was mostly dried fruits and a bit of caramel.  The flavor was on the sweet side with a lot of fruitiness and there was very minimal bitterness and no hop flavor.  The beer was well carbonated, on the medium to high side, and had a nice head of very fine foam.

Fast forward 11 months and I finally got to go brew my recipe at Block 3 Brewing in St. Jacobs, the brewery that had hosted the competition.  The brew day was a lot of fun and as you can see from the pictures I got to be part of pretty much every step (including a trip to a local farm to drop off the previous day’s spent grains!).

About a month after brewing I went out to the brewery to try out the beer with Kevin, the head brewer, and take home some bottles (with labels designed by my brother-in-law!).  The final product was a beer that is a crisp and somewhat hop-forward American wheat ale.  Interestingly, in spite of using almost the exact same recipe as the one I had brewed the new beer was basically nothing like the original.

The original was much darker which I attribute to the use of local rye malt as well as some more caramelization of the wort which could have happened over my high powered propane burner.  Additionally I fermented my version with two yeasts, An English (S-04) and American (US-05) while the new one only used the American yeast.  I think this gave the original a fruitier flavour and also made it slightly less dry than the new beer.

All in all I was very pleased to get to spend a whole brew day in a real brewery and to learn so much from Kevin.  If you’re interested in trying the beer it’s possible there are still a few bottles left at the brewery.  If it’s all gone maybe we’ll have to encourage Block 3 to try brewing it again, only this time I’d ask to make some changes to the recipe to try to more closely recreate my original beer!

Here’s the link to the recipe on Brewtoad (which is the online software I use for all my recipes).

It has been a long time since I posted, basically a year!  In that year I have been working as a high school science teacher at a local private school here in Kitchener.  It’s been great to be back in a school teaching biology, chemistry, and even math.  In my free time I’ve been eating lots of homegrown kale (mostly in salad form) and brewing with local hops.

One of the projects that I had wanted to work on for a long time but kept dragging my feet about was an idea called “Homestead City.”  My brother-in-law, Graham, and I came up with a few pilot episodes featuring my family and a couple of our good friends from our neighborhood.

The premise of this project was an idea I’ve talked about before on this blog, that you can’t do or make everything from scratch when you live in the city, have a job, a family, a small yard (or no yard), and so on, but you can do something!  And when you connect with your neighbors, friends, and other community members, together you can create a homestead out of your city.

In the past year Graham has taken the project to Toronto where he has worked with a crew to develop a series of episodes for television.  Stay tuned for more news about when you can see the full series, and in the meantime here’s the pilot episode featuring The Local Kitchener and his family:

The next two weeks we will be cooking almost entirely from one cookbook.  We received the cookbook from our  good friend who works in publishing (and yes, it is very nice to have friends like that!).  The cookbook comes from the brilliant cooks behind Cooks Illustrated, a magazine that is known for its recipes being thoroughly tested.

The book is called The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook (available locally as well as from Amazon.com and Amazon.ca), and it’s put out by America’s Test Kitchen.  Basically it’s a compilation of all the vegetarian recipes from Cooks Illustrated.  What I’ve always loved about that magazine is the length they go to in explaining why their recipe works, and that’s included with every single recipe in this book.

You might see a few reoccurring ingredients in the 2 week meal plan that follows.  One is barley, specifically pearl barley.  It turns out I ordered us a 12 kg sack of that wonderful stuff from Bailey’s and now we’ll be working our way through it all winter.  The other common ingredients are kale and squash, because they’re healthy and delicious, but more importantly they’re local and abundant right now.

Keep in mind that you can keep harvesting your kale until it’s completely covered in snow (and it will just taste better and better!).  And winter squash has “winter” in its name because it can be stored through much of the winter.  Yes, it can and should be enjoyed now but it’s good to stock up and fill your pantry with it too so you can eat it until March or sometimes April if you store enough.

Butternut is one of the best keepers in our experience, whereas acorn squash doesn’t hold up quite as long.  The only real way of knowing what keeps best in your climate is by buying a wide variety of squash and keeping an eye on them.  Whenever one gets a soft spot it needs to be eaten quickly.

The links provided are mostly to recipes that are similar to ones in the cookbook, but in many cases they are not nearly as thorough as those in the book.  If your local library carries the book you should definitely check it out, but if not I feel like this is a worthwhile book to own (of course we got our copy for free so it’s easy for me to say!).

Nov. 1-14

• Monday – Red Pepper Polenta Triangles (our own invention, but similar to this), Kale Caesar Salad (we briefly fry the kale to soften it a bit)
• Tuesday – Barley Risotto (we made it vegetarian, but otherwise it’s like Michael Smith’s recipe), Sweet and Sour Cabbage Apple Salad (we omitted the fennel and it was still great), Glazed Beets (along these lines, but with jam for the sweetener)
• Wednesday – Roasted Red Pepper and Winter Squash Soup (recipe coming soon), Fresh Bread

• Thursday – Braised Kale and Butternut, Celeriac Sweet Potato Roesti
• Friday – Smoky Pumpkin Empanadas
• Saturday – Spaghetti Night, Salad
• Sunday – Pulled Pork Tacos
• Monday – Pumpkin and Kale Bread Pudding, Roasted Beet Salad
• Tuesday – Carrot Ginger Soup, Fresh Sourdough Bread
• Wednesday – Barley Kale Tabbouleh, Sweet Potato Fries, Broccoli and Cheese Sauce

• Thursday – Frozen Quiche, Salad
• Friday – Pizza Night

This post is shared at Menu Plan Monday which is a great resource for meal ideas!

Ever since I began thinking more about the food I eat—and this includes reading books, watching films, following blogs, and lots of cooking and eating—I’ve been rather hung up on the idea of tradition.  I find myself lamenting the fact that North America does not seem to have its own traditional cuisine (unless I count fast food).

The more I explore different food cultures and traditions the more I realize that in this modern world most food cultures and traditions are being influenced and changed by one another.  This is helping me see that the food culture of North America has the potential to be the most unique and exciting since this is a land filled from all cultures of the world.

Here in Ontario, TVO has been exploring the role of food in our lives through a new project called The Food Chain.   In TVO’s words, “it is a multiplatform series of documentaries and current affairs as well as discussions and articles looking at what we eat, where it comes from and how it lands on our plates.”

The series has already begun online with a series of articles at tvo.org/thefoodchain, and kicks off on television tonight with a 10-part travelogue, Girl Eat World, hosted by Food Blogger and Master Chef South Africa winner, Kamini Pather.  I’ve watched about half of the episodes so far and the show has definitely made me nostalgic for traveling and eating my way through different cultures.

In my former life I lived in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and my favorite activity was exploring the city and finding new places to eat.   After work I’d go home, change clothes, hop on my mountain bike and ride down to the old historic center of town.

The ride took me through a dirty urban sprawl but once I’d cross the river to the old town things would change.  Street were narrow and turned in unexpected directions as they followed their way around the hill that loomed above.  Every week I would find a new part of town I had missed until that point and with it new restaurants, cafés, and shops.

My favorite restaurant specialized in licuados, or smoothies.  Often I’d just order a licuado and spend the afternoon grading tests, planning, or reading and writing letters.  If I was hungry I’d get some street food, like a baleada, a simple mix of a handmade flour tortilla filled with refried beans and Honduran queso.  Other times I’d try a torta which is basically a mixture of wonderful Central American foods stuffed in a hamburger bun.  But my real love was pupusas.

Pupusas are balls of masa flour stuffed with cheese, or a mixture of cheese, meats, and veggies, then hand flattened and fried with a bit of oil.  They are then topped with curtido, a spicy sauerkraut of sorts.

What I’ve been realizing lately is that it’s not the dishes themselves that define a food tradition but the way those foods are made.  Connection to the land—the source of all food—and the processes through which the food is cooked create the tradition, not the recipes.

As my children grow up I’d like them to be a part of our family’s food culture as we build upon the traditions we inherited while making them our own.  We have the freedom to borrow from all cuisines as we cook but also the chance to root ourselves in our local community.  Trips to the farmers market, to our CSA, or simply exploring local farms outside of town give us a chance to see what foods are available to us as we consider what we’ll be eating for the week to come.

Letting “local” define what we eat can seem limiting, but without limits we could never hope to build our own tradition.  Moving through the seasons with the foods that are available and working with local farmers gives our eating purpose and roots it in our community.

For my family our food chain is one that connects us to the land and local farmers.  It connects us to our neighbors, friends, and family with whom we share our meals.  It is not just about eating, it has become a way of living.

What about you, what experiences have shaped how you look at food and what you eat?  Is travel important to you with regard to food, and if so why?  Do you value new experiences and going outside of your comfort zone?  What about traditions, is it important to maintain them?  I’d love to hear your thoughts, and let me know if you check out any episodes of Girl Eat World.

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by TVO.  However, (and this should be obvious) all opinions are my own.

Lately we’ve been putting chutney on our burgers, sandwiches, crackers, or just putting it on the table where people can decide to do with it whatever pleases them.

I wanted to use up a few of the pears from our tree as well as the leftover peaches from our canning session a few days prior.  The recipe is loosely based on a few others but one unique feature is the use of the peach and pear peels to add color and pectin to the chutney.

The peels are normally just discarded so this gave throwing them in to boil with the vinegar and lemon juice gave them a good use.  The skins of peaches are often saved and used for making peach jelly (or honey as it’s sometimes called), while pear skins contain good amounts of pectin.

I was especially pleased with just how much color the peach peels added, turning the finished product a deep pink as opposed to a more yellow color that would have likely been the result without them.