Midnight Menu and Addressing the Overages

I LOVE the newness of a new year, and I have always loved New Year's Eve. I've usually starred something seafood on the menu, with some kind of lobster, scallop or steak. Instead we had Lobster Mushroom Thermidor, served in a radichio cup (to mimic a lobster shell). The sauce was so CREAMY from the cashew cream! (see photo)

I just finished tidying up the budget for 2010 as well this morning. That looking ahead to the future thing that I am so incredibly fond of. Although I splurged a bit on some things over the holidays, I really did stick to a budget through December and I am very much looking forward to "birthday January" at our house, with both my guys celebrating...

Even if you've been both "bad and good" ("for goodness sake") through December, I'm listing a January recalibration menu to even out some of the "OVER-ages" December typically brings. You know - overeating, overspending, over-the-limit festive consumption of cocktails, and even some new "overs" like over-fatting, over-cholesteroling, and over stressing.

I feel fabulous going into 2010, and even lost a few more inches and a couple of pounds. Even with a bit of an exhaustion/fluey "bug" yesterday, I have had some delicious meals and really tried to modernize my usual holiday menu with new versions of my favourite holiday dishes.

Didn't remotely miss the cheese in the perogies!
Tourtiere was fabulous too - used "PC World's Best Meatless Meatballs" instead of ground meat.
Hollandaise over silken tofu on a crisp muffin was delicious Christmas morning, by making a roux of flour and earth balance, adding cashew cream, and a bit of almond milk till smooth, a squirt of French's mustard to make it yellow, and lots of lemon juice and zest. I even layered sauteed baby bok choy under the tofu. Can honestly say I have never EVER eaten this healthily on Christmas morning.

Christmas brunch at our house was great too - fresh orange juice, waffles with apple caramel, and tourtiere. I decided about a month ago that I wasn't going to add meat/eggs/dairy to our menus any more, so that our family can see that

1. we are not starving to death
2. we are not just staring at empty plates gnawing on a carrot and
3. that food can be healthy and delicious without these things.

Christmas Dinnerwas great too, although (*Over-Vigilant Mistake Alert*)I spent way too much time making a separate entree. Spent too much time making stuffed mushrooms, mashed potatoes, and mushroom gravy, bringing it to my aunt's, heating it up and drawing too much attention...and the work wasn't worth the effort. Even though there would have been a bit of butter and cream in the potatoes, and probably on the veggies, I should have just let the family carry this one. Even the dog got in on the act - with a broccoli "bone":)

Colourburst Comfort Holiday Dinner Menu

Holiday dinner is tomorrow night. Menu is going to be:

Crudites with a Creamy Ranch-Style Dip and a Dijon Cilantro Lemon Dip

Avocado Crisps topped with a mandarin orange segment and lime salt

Butternut Squash Soup garnished with Sage, Pear and Pecans

Stuffed Portobello Mushroom Cap with "Cheesy" Garlic Mashed Yukon Gold Potatoes and Mushroom Red Wine Reduction, served with Steamed Broccolini and Lemon

Icewine-poached Pears with Orange Honey drizzle, and Sugared Walnuts.

The dip will get its creaminess from cashew cream and vegenaise, with chives, garlic, carrot, celery and shallots for flavour.

I'm going to marinate the portobello in garlic and steak spice, stuffed with my quite traditional sweet-potato bread stuffing, and topped with panko bread crumbs - baked until the top is crisp.

I made the stuffing puree yesterday by sauteeing chopped carrots, onions, celery and garlic in some olive oil. I boiled the sweet potatoes and mashed them, then used the leftover sweet potato water to steep about a cup of red lentils. I love that "chicken-y" smell and rich taste. Mixed everything together and I'll add it to some cubed toasted bread, mound it on top like a snowball and then pack the panko on top of that.

I'm going to make a "creamy" mushroom red wine reduction to go over top. Garnish will be slivers of green onion.

This entire dinner contains more than 15 different types of fruits and vegetables, beans, three kinds of nuts, and relies on plant based fats like avocado, cashew cream and olive oil for richness. It will be vibrant and colourful, will match well with Champagne to start (pairing with the richness of the dips and avocado)a rich Chardonnay for the soup, and then a BIG Red for the main. Dessert will be spectacular with a beautiful Niagara Icewine, which we can afford because of how inexpensive the rest of the menu will be.

Four Corners Meal vs. Holiday Superfood Entertaining

Tonight was a "four corners" night. Once every few weeks, I have just had enough shopping, eating out, and planning. There are times when it seems like there is "nothing in the fridge" and yet, I don't have the energy go shop, or order in.

Four Corners Dinners are those that I can pull together with the ingredients from the four corners of my fridge, my freezer and my pantry - as well as the back corners of my mind.

Tonight was a whirlwind tour of Asia, Thailand, Italy, New Orleans and just Canadian Sunday dinner. A combination of veggies, leftover cans of coconut milk, and a tomato, and half a head of garlic, some peanut butter, some soup stock - everything but the partridge in a pear tree. Speaking of which...

Holiday entertaining is HERE and aren't we all stressing just a little over some of our rituals we all claim to "love" about the holidays? Family dinners? Entertaining friends? Eating at the once-a-year holiday party with the people we work with? And what's often on the menu is really H E A V Y fare.

I am stressing about doing a dinner party next Sunday for friends. I want to make the dinner completely satisfying and delectable, and for it also to be one of the healthiest meals of the month. I also have to (always) resist against my own temptation to push myself to overdoing it, and remember the point of all this visiting is to actually visit.

I love a beautiful sparkling wine to greet guests with when opening a party. Nothing says "celebrate" like it! What is classic with champagne are gougieres, cheesy puff pastry bites that are just so rich, that they cut through the acidity of the champagne. Not so much healthy... but maybe I can find something with a similarly gorgeous richness?

Avocados are a gorgeous, buttery alternative to any rich mouthful, and would probably be great on a miltigrain cracker with a sliver of orange on top, and sprinkled with lime salt on top of that.

Crisp things at a party can not be beaten, but instead of something deep fried, what about a great platter of properly prepared crudites? The trick for things like asparagus, broccoli and cauliflower is to blanch them first. Then they get an explotive green colour, and some of the raw bitterness is edged out.

Bowl of Ice Water standing by. Salted boiling water. Drop veggies in for 30 seconds. Scoop out with a slotted spoon and plunge into ice water. Done.

SKIP the ranch dressing and get creative!

Olive oil, dijon mustard and lemon juice is a gorgeous combo.

What about soy sauce, hot sauce, toasted sesame oil?

Coconut milk, curry, peanut?

Honey, grainy mustard, garlic?

Imagine the last holiday dinner you sat down to where you weren't already feeling guilty before you started dinner?

A heartwarming soup is a spectacular starting course when first sitting down. Soups are great because they can be made well ahead of time and just reheated. If you make two complimentary soups, and pour them into two gravy boats, you can pour them into each bowl simultaneously for a beautiful colour contrast. Don't underestimate garnishes on soups... some chopped green onion, a drizzle of olive oil, some fennel fronds, or a crisp crouton can elevate any soup to a restaurant style presentation.

Bill's been asking for some root veggies lately - sweet potatoes, carrots, yams, turnips. Underneath my main course I want to try for something like a potato gratin, without the cream and cheese. I love a great sauteed spinach with garlic, and will borrow a presentation style from my beloved Teka, and add long thin swirls of carrot for colour.

I can't help but lean on a portobello when looking to replicate that satiating feeling of meat. I did a cauliflower steak that was absolutely gorgeous last week, and can probably just as easily crisp that panko coating onto a portobello. With a rich mushroom gravy, it could really have that wow factor.

What if I sandwich two portobellos with something in the middle? Roasted garlic is great with 'shrooms.. I need to get a grip, because I'm already getting carried away here.

What if I use the smooth mushy roasted garlic to coat the portobello, and for the steak-spiced panko to stick to that? It would be delicious, crisp outside, and tender inside.

The meal would easily stand up to a rich red wine, with a bit reduced into the sauce for flavor.

Dessert is going to be easy. Fresh fruit from everywhere is worth the splurge. Pick a theme. Berries? Tropical Fruits? Poached pears are classic right now. A cascade of colours, with a beautiful icewine?

Test menu can happen as early as tomorrow, photos to follow.

Holiday Time and Budget Accellerator (for Cathy)

It is getting BUSY through the holidays... Everyone is beginning to sc-HURRY through their day, and there never seem to be enough hours to do what we need to do. Cathy asked for some recipes that were easy and healthy so here are a few quick ideas which go a LONG way during a busy week... You can add some time to your meal prep, and some cash back in your wallet for presents:)

My Favourite Pizza Dough
Grab a BIG BOWL and add 1 and 1/3 warm water. Add 2 tablespoons instant yeast (use a measuring spoon, because regular spoons are often not the right measure and you do want your dough to rise with the yeast...). Dissolve the yeast and watch it get cloudy. Add 1 tablespoon of salt.

Add 2 1/2 cups of flour. We use an organic whole wheat flour. Throw the dough onto a large cutting board or a CLEAN countertop. (ie: if you wash the countertop, you should also wipe it with plain water so you're not adding soap to your dough)...

Knead the dough for 5 minutes. This is the best part because you really feel like you are doing something healthy, and traditional for your family. I like to push down with the heel of my hand forward (like a smearing motion) and then pull it back with my fingers, and curl it slightly to smear a different part of the dough the next time. Don't skip the kneading, because it helps for a smooth, developed dough.

Add some olive oil to the bowl and swish it around. Put a clean tea towel over the bowl, and let it rest in your microwave (dark, warm) for 30 minutes while you get toppings ready.

Top your pizza with whatever is in your fridge. Sky's the limit on what a good pizza dough can become - it is like a blank canvas.

It's easier than you think to skip the animal products, even if cheese and pepperoni are the first things that come to your mind.

Try these variations offering a rainbow of colours...

Puttanesca: Sauce, olives, capers, tomatoes, garlic?

Bruschetta: Sauce, Tomatoes, Red Onion, garlic, add salted-cold-chopped tomatoes, garlic and olive oil on top with fresh basil.

Mushroom: Olive oil or sauce or dijon mustard and a chopped mix of mushrooms, and some balsamic vinegar

Sweet or Hot Peppers: Sauce, and Yellow, Red, Orange, Green - there are even chocolate brown peppers!

Thai / Asian Green: Broccoli, Broccolini, Asparagus, Zucchini, even snow peas are awesome if you change the pizza sauce to a peanut sauce! (Mix some peanut butter, soy sauce, hot sauce, and sesame oil in a jar and shake) Spectacular! Garnish with toasted sesame seeds.

Indian / Tandoori Red: Cauliflower and chick peas are surprisingly delicious on pizza. They also feel very substantial. Grab some store-bought indian sauces, and sprinkle some cashews on top.

Purple Pizza Eater: Eggplant (especialy when roasted) is gorgeous. Grab some store-bought baba ganouj, top with eggplant and garlic. Or some roasted radicchio (put in a pan with some olive oil, salt and balsamic vinegar) adds a sweet, bitter flavour that is delicious.

Honey Yellow: Add some roasted butternut squash and fresh sage leaves, drizzle with olive oil. Top with toasted, honeyed pecans.

ROASTING FALL VEGETABLES

At this time of year, roasting squash and root vegetables can be like having an extra friend in the kitchen.

Get familiar with the easy technique, because you can make one vegetable into three different meals. One as a side dish, one as a pizza topper, and blend the leftovers into a soup.

Cut up what you are roasting (Squash, Carrots, Parsnips, Beets, Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes, etc..) into bite size pieces. Put them on a cookie sheet (I like alumninum foil for easier clean-up). Drizzle the bites with olive oil and lightly salt and pepper them. Toss together so they all get coated. Roast at 375, shake every so often, until they slowly start to brown, probably 1 hour.

Bayley's Carrot Soup

Always make more veggies than you need for one meal. Leftovers can top pizza, and become a nice soup. Adding soup stock to any vegetable in a blender and hitting the liquefy button can result in a tasty and easy and delicious soup.

Once at a family dinner I watched in horror as Jill almost tossed the last few carrots and mashed potatoes into the garbage, after a family feast. I grabbed her blender, added a can of stock, the potatoes and the carrots and some salt to taste. Her son, Bayley, thought it was the best soup and ate two bowls of it the next day!

Cauliflower Steak and final lessons learned...

On the last day of our 30 day challenge, I wanted to put together a specacular meal for the guys. Two of the cookbooks I have been loving, Tal Ronnen's "The Conscious Cook" and Alicia Silverstone's "The Kind Diet" both had some truly inspirational ideas, as well as great recipes. Both had a caesar salad that sounded creamy, and satisfying. When made from my own mix of olive oil, garlic, lemon, capers, dijon and Vegenaise (as well as the addition of my new "nutritional yeast" which smells like the bottom of a hamster cage, but tasted great)we were blown away. With some toasted croutons, it was absolutely delicious.

We also tried a delicious Rice parmesan cheese, which I was initially impressed with, but since its main ingredient is CASEIN (the offending dairy protein linked to cancer) it won't be invited back. I can't believe I missed that in the grocery store - usually I read the ingredients pretty well.

Dinner was a feast for the eyes too, with steamed purple asparagus, bright green steamed broccolini, and a rich mushroom gravy over top of a caulifower "steak". Cauliflower, when sliced from the top down, and right through the stem, holds onto the florets, creating a hefty steak. Brushed with some olive oil and steak spice on both sides and dipped in panko, it was a crispy crunchy delicious centrepiece on the plate, reminiscent of a fried chicken!

Harrison artfully put together the dessert plate, with berries, rice ice cream, and pecans, with a raspberry sauce from the summer's jams. Yum.

Do you remember the cute little chihuahua from that disney cartoon about the dogs and cats in the 20's where he exclaims in his Mexican accent after being "captured" and then finding out he's in the lap of luxury, "if this is torture, chain me to the wall!"

Its kind of true in our case. We embarked on this challenge towards a healthy way of eating almost as a joke. Bill liked the health aspects, I loved the cooking challenge and we both liked the idea of cutting out fattier things on our plates and replacing them with vegetables. Neither of us had any idea how GOOD eating like this would make us feel, and retrospectively, how good it was for our health to learn to do so. I love the budget aspect to plant-based eating, I LOVE that the food safety concerns (again, spiders notwithstanding) are so minimal, and I especially love the slimming effect it has had on all of us.

People often heard of our challenge, and with a sympathetic look on their faces asked with great concern "How is Harrison handling it?". Ask him. He didn't miss a beat, loved many of the items on his plate (evidenced by his full consumption of them, and often seconds) and even learned a bit.

His school project came home yesterday, where the students had to write a menu for a restaurant of their own. His was called "Healthy Harrison's" and had a full breakfast menu of pancakes "wisked together", breakfast smoothies "strawbearrys and rasberrys bleanded into a creamy smoothie", and a fruit platter that even contained zucchini(!) "cut up in rows and served on a plater". His restaurant's motto was "its good and nutricios and also delicios".

Kids will eat healthily if we give them the chance to. So will adults. Perhaps most startling throughout the challenge is how toxic our food environment is in North America. How surrounded we are as busy people with horribly bad "food-like" food that does nothing but provide a short-term fat-sugar rush, and make us sick. Yes, meat is delicious, but even the low fat stuff (especially since we are now eating MORE of it) still clogs our arteries, slows our digestion, and the significant body of evidence shows that it can accellerate a trip to heart disease (and its precursors of obesity, high blood pressure and high blood cholesterol), cancers especially of the breast and prostate, auto-immune diseases like diabetes, and general ill health.

When I was a kid, my dad was forced to quit smoking. I had learned that smoking was bad, and would often go on a hunt to find the packs, and flush them down the toilet. Dad often had to hide out, and sneak them. As he tells the story, one day he was quietly smoking in a locked bathroom, realized he was "hiding out from a 5 year old" and decided it was time to quit. He quit, but his dad (my Jaju)didn't - although his smokes offen suffered the same floaty fate if I could find them. When he died of lung cancer in 1989, I was impossibly saddened. Even a 79 year old wants more time, and more QUALITY time at that. We don't want to spend our lives, especially any part of the end our lives, sick, medicated and yucky.

Let me leave off my preachyness with one last analogy... If before every meal, someone routinely sprayed your meals with a spritz of something known to increase disease in people, but assured you that nothing would really happen right now, and the bad effects would just be some undetermined "LATER" would you keep letting them? Wouldn't you say "no, wait a second, I don't want that!"?

Hold in mind that the messages you receive about your health, and often what we THINK we know about nutrition, IS ACTUALLY A COMMERCIAL! A marketing message from the seller!

Hold in mind WHO is marketing the 3 servings of dairy a day message.
Hold in mind WHO is marketing the salmon / chicken / pork / beef messages.
Hold in mind WHO is marketing the get cracking messages.

Don't take my word for it. Do yourself and your kids a favour and do some reading. We loved "The China Study" by T. Colin Campbell. I loved Dean Ornish's book 15 years ago on learning of my father-in-law's problems with heart disease (Ornish's theory of reversing it by eating a plant-based diet was quickly dismissed by that side of the family).

My friend Chris says that he gets the vegan thing, but that it's probably just too hard for most people. I think he's right. My friend Cathy echoed the thought, but was intrigued enough to say that she would be motivated to try if she just had a few recipes to work from. My friend Barb didn't miss a beat when at our most recent lunch our pizza came without the cheese. Angela and Carissa both tried the vegan mozzarella, declaring it "good". Greg and Scott (avid meat lovers) ate the tofu chicken strips without complaint. Mom has agreed to skip the cheese when we all make perogies on Saturday for Christmas.... Even my dad has been persuaded to utter "OK - I'LL EAT MORE VEGETABLES if you'll just leave me alone!" when prompted...

So. Enough lectures from me.

Blog, going forward will go back to its original intended purpose....efficient and healthy ideas about food!

EASY CHANGES

Everyone's been quite complimentary lately on the more obvious effects of eating plant based food, as opposed to animal based food. But when you tell someone it's due to a vegan diet, they tend to clam up, exclaim "I could NEVER do that" and run away. Bill and I are beginning to dislike the "vegan" term, because everyone expects us to be running out, granola in hand, to hug a tree...and yet we don't feel any more hippie than we were when we started - just healthier.

So:

Here's a top 10 list of the changes I would consider effortless, if you wanted to stop consuming as much animal protein as you currently do.

1. Switch to Almond Milk in coffee and cereal. Soy and Rice have a pungency that I dislike. Almond milk is sweet and smooth, and tasteless but is so much like milk that Harrison and I prefer it now.

2. Vegan Mozzarella. I can not believe cheese made the list, because it was what I feared most in giving up. There are a number of brands (and the nacho flavour is brutally bad) but the mozzarella has welcomed pizza back in the house!

3. Earth Balance instead of butter. This palm, canola and olive oil based substitute for butter is a simple switch for dairy butter.

4. PC Breaded "chicken" Strips . I avoided the meat based one like the plague for years. Ditto for chicken strips. These are FABULOUS and a perfect vehicle for hot sauce, BBQ or honey garlic yumminess. Kids and fussy adults alike can't tell the difference.

5. Skip the meat in the chili, and no cheddar on top.

6. Skip the meat in a whole wheat pasta dish. Pasta is comforting, usually tomato coated, can be packed with delicious flavour, and any veggies you like can be pureed into the sauce with NO reprecussions, because no one can tell.

7. Cashew cream. Tal Ronnen is a genius for bringing this creamy substitute to the world in his book "The Conscious Cook". Raw cashews, soaked overnight and then pureed until smooth make creamy soups and risottos a possibility again.

8. Lentils (when they are cooking) literally smell like chicken soup, and add that "home"y smell to the kitchen.

9. I recently subbed in two onion rings instead of chicken breast on my formerly favourite cajun chicken sandwich at Rock Bottom, our lunch hangout. Yes, they were fried, but the bun was whole wheat, and the lettuce, tomato and side salad made it feel decadent, even without the mammaries of a dead bird. I have little trouble asking for special orders at restaurants (right Vesna? :)?

10. Soy Ice Cream!!! There are some absolutely fabulous products in the supermarket depending on the flavours you like, but it is VERY HARD to not love the chocolate and peanut butter combinations when you feel like a splurge.

Aside from the decadent options listed here, it can not be stressed enough how eliminating animal products from the plate literally ensures you are going to get veggies. The colours, textures and flavours we are eating in the last 27 days trump any animal-based food - seriously, really, no kidding. It just broadens your palate, and the colours are so pleasing! You feel efficient in the use of energy, with no crashes of energy, and no spikes in cravings.

Going Forward (after the HEARTbreak...)

Given that this is the 26th day of our challenge, it has been quite natural to consider where we will go from here. I do not plan on adding dairy, eggs and especially meat back into my diet, and that presents me with a number of challenges.

The blog has been helpful, and illustrative since it is really a snapshot of a meat-eater's transition to a plant-based diet. Sunday was impossibly funky, because it was really hitting me that there are things I will not be eating again, and ways of cooking I will not be mastering again. I had to avoid food TV for a while, too.

Sunday felt like a breakup day. I considered all the things that I have to move on, from. I love food, and now some of it is necessarily being left behind. I know it's not good for me, I see a better life without it, and I craved some closure, but the memories were still too fresh. My pantry and fridge look just a bit different now, but it's obvious in the fridge that something is GONE. Anytime we face up to choose what is good for us (and especially to unchoose what is worst for us), it can be hard. The new relationship is so much healthier for me, and it does highlight the devilish stuff quite obviously.

I am glad I went through my Julia Child months, learning to make the best beef bourgignon, and the most incredible egg and hollandaise dishes. I find it completely amusing today that the one "video" clip I was able to master that made its way to the blog is a roast chicken! My top 39 list, created just a month ago before my birthday, has more items that I can continue to enjoy than it did items which will be left in the grocery stores permanently. But re-reading it does illustrate my passion for food, the good stuff, and a commitment to delicious, efficient and healthy food.

So rather than cry about it (would you laugh if I told you I did?) I'm just going to keep going, one hopeful day at a time.

The view from the other side of the plate...

These last few days have been really hard. Lots of "tests"...Turns out is is hard to not eat a North American Diet when one lives in north america:)

Hockey party with the guys at the fave bar was impossible to navigate without meat or cheese. And it was really tempting. All those fried smells, and "tasty" bites kept passing us on platters, and the veggie tray was way at the other end of the table. I just kept repeating the same mantra in my head... "my wine is vegan, my wine is vegan..." Having said that, we did plop a bunch of veggie chicken strips in the oven when we got home, dipped them in my favourite earth balance, hot sauce and dijon, and dove in. YUM, but it was a crisis narrowly averted only because we were being strong. If we were "out" with our challenge, we probably would have ordered a bin of nachos and salsa, or sweet potato fries but in this situation it would have drawn more attention than it would have been worth... so we sipped our drinks, and made up for it later that evening in rewards.

Breakfast nook. We have a great little place for breakfast where we go when Sunday morning breakfast just feels like too many dishes... I was really stressed there too. Not just "oh, I'd like an egg..." but seriously stressed. Bill had oatmeal, and I had hash browns with some spinach, tomato, mushroom and onion mixed in. It was hard to navigate this menu too - so I just asked the waitress to take the vegetable additions to omlettes, and leave the eggs out. Again, I was strong in resisting, but it was not the easy thing to do by a long shot.

Yesterday evening, Morton's (american) steakhouse for a seriously celebratory birthday party. Checked out the online menu beforehand - they have a beautiful tuna tartare which comes in a gorgeous stacked mold presentation. Asked them to sub chopped asparagus for the tuna, and prep it the same way. It was beautiful and delicious. Chopped salad minus bacon minus blue cheese minus egg was pretty good too, with a honey mustard vinagrette, hearts of palm, artichokes and avocados. Dinner was the funniest of all - just a head of broccoli and some grilled asparagus with a balsamic glaze, and a spicy soy sauce for the broccoli, but it was food, and it did feed us.

The worst part was the sense of longing and desperation for what was on everyone else's plate. Those steaks smelled so familiar, that I really wanted a bite or two.

By far, and even more than the steak, was the temptation of the fresh hollandaise sauce in a tureen. Egg yolks, butter and lemon. I wanted to down it like a shooter.

Sad moment when the waiter brought out the dinner specials, and on the plate was a lobster the size of our cat, obviously suffocating in the "air". Barely twitching, it was a reminder that animal based food is really eating an extinguished life. I considered what the other side of the plate must look like from there.

Bill and I are going at this challenge for different reasons, and will very likely continue with it for different reasons.

He loves the heath aspects, on his slighly older arteries, veins and heart. He loves that he hasn't "had to" go to the gym, and lost 10 pounds and 2 inches from his waist.

While I love my slimmer line, and both the money and time I can add by not doing the boot camps for exactly the same result, when tested I find the animal issues more bolstering.

What I missed about the steak was the "juicy"ness. AKA, the blood, and the flesh of a formerly living cow.

What I miss about the hollandaise was the eggy-ness. AKA, a chicken's unfertilized ova, and in the states, most certainly a product of a massive factory farm.

What I miss about the butter is the creamy-ness. AKA the product of a lactating animal which is not the same species as me, most certainly a product of a hormone enhanced milker, spared only from being "veal" by virtue of her sex... just makes you wonder which is worse? Death to the baby boy cows, or a lifetime of longing and drudgery for the baby girls, shoved into parenting as early as possible, separated from her first calf and then milked until she's not worth keeping any more...

EEEW...Yuck... I'm often met with the phrase "don't think of it like that", but why not? The industry seems to thrive on the separation of these products by marketing them in a way that is not as distasteful, but it is the same thing.

While everyone around the table was curious and mildly supportive, there was still an element of "look what we have, and you don't". So I took another sip of wine and really looked...

Between appetizers, "salads", entrees, sides, desserts and cake, I figure everyone took in about 3000 calories that evening, not counting martinis, and wine.

Around the table were about 2400 oz of "overweight", two rounds of breast cancer, one recovering triple by-pass, three orders of high blood pressure and one order of prostate cancer. 5 people around the table had lost a parent to heart attack or stroke.

Yesterday I was really longing for these animal products - like an animal must long to get out of the lockdown, to play, to eat food they choose, and to live a full life, naturally. I am so lucky to be able to exercise that choice, and I find that incredibly empowering. I like withdrawing my financial support of an industry that does not reflect values I hold important.

The reality is that most of us don't really CHOOSE how to eat. We inherit it, from our families - at least initially. Once we are old enough to choose, it is pretty easy to just go with the flow of what we've learned, and even to abdicate our choices mindlessly. If you were born in a North American family, and learned north american eating, a plant-based diet does not seem "natural". Neither does switching to a plant based diet when one still lives in those circumstances.

But we can, at the very least, recognize our choices when we step up to the plate.

Budget Booster Menu?

Aside from "veganism" and all the pressure that the label contains, this week it was driven home to me how incredibly cheap it is to eat like this:)

So, for those of you looking for a quick budget boost? Try this menu for a week...

Red Beans and Rice Monday (see "$108.25 for the Holidays")
Tofu Calamari and Quinoa Sushi Tuesday (see "Grapes and our Black Widow Spider, and "Homemade Sushi and Toasted Sesame Oil"
Chicken Nugget and Asian bean salad Wednesday (below)
Indian Butter Chickpea Thursday (see "Indian Butter Chickpeas"
Pizza Friday (below)
Dinner out date night Saturday (see 52.8% on Meat, Dairy and Eggs??)
Tortilla Lasagna Sunday Dinner (below)

President's choice makes a fabulous "chicken" nugget with no chicken. I make an amazing (patented) wing sauce with Earth Balance, hot sauce and dijon mustard all whisked together. Served it tonight for dinner.

Leftover rice, some steamed broccoli and leftover black beans made a great asian salad. Dressing was toasted sesame oil, orange flax oil, tamari, soy sauce, lemon and hoisin sauce. YUM!!!!!

Pizza dough doesn't have to have eggs in it! Try yeast, flour, salt and olive oil!!! Top with homemade tomato sauce, lots of veggies and even some vegan mozzarella. I have to admit, I tried this cheese like a two year old tries spinach - full pucker face and everything! And, I am shocked to say.... it is yummy, and smells and tastes like a wetter mozzarella! It even melts!

Tortillas layered with tostitos salsa (a bit of evoo and veg stock on the bottom so it doesn't stick) a tortilla, a layer of black beans, a tortilla, a layer of red pepper, a tortilla, a layer of salsa and stock, a tortilla, a layer of vegan mozzarellla, a tortilla, and a final layer of evoo and salsa are Y U M M Y!!!
Served alongside an avocado/garlic/lime/green onion mash (aka, Guacamole) and you have yourself one delicious Sunday fiesta!

52.8% on Meat, Dairy and Eggs??

Premise #1. Our family does not eat a lot of meat when we are at home. At least 3 meals a week at our place were already vegetarian before I began this vegan experiment.

Premise #2. On days when we did include meat, we would only consume a 4 oz portion of meat eggs or dairy per person as a part of our regular routine. It would consume no more than 1/4 of the plate.

Premise #3. The majority of my food purchases were not packaged ingredients, and rather healthy building blocks for home-cooked meals.

Premise #4. 18 months ago, I really eliminated any family reliance on packaged foods (from pre-made lasagna, to premade pizza, to any style of pre-packaged dinner). This reduced my grocery bill from approx $300 per week in half, to about $150.

Premise #5. In spite of the price reduction in premise 4, I was already paying premium prices for meat and dairy and eggs. I would rely on thigh meat (cheaper than breasts), whole chickens (making stock and stretching it for several days) and buying the smallest cuts of meat in the case. Ie: if there were packages costing $15.37, $12.49 and $11.12, I would buy the cheapest one possible knowing that I probably wouldn't even know the difference once I got it home.

Why am I telling you this??

Because, in light of all of this carefullness, I am shocked to learn that a full 52.8% of my food budget was going to things that I no longer eat on a vegan diet.

That means a huge portion of my already meat-limited food budget will go back into my disposable income!!!

Since our family likes to eat at restaurants (almost as entertainment) I grabbed four similar receipts. Foia, Swiss Chalet, Chanosos and The Keg.

In restaurants, it is almost impossible to avoid all the value-added cost that meat based food costs. At our most recent family meal, the average entree cost $24.50. Bill's and my veg option was 9. 64% less!

Our family's budget divides into home meals, lunch meals in restaurants, and entertainment meals for a date or a treat. They all roughly works out to about $350 per week on food, and I have a feeling that is extraordinarily conservative. When I entertain, that figure is much much higher. When we celebrate meals with family (baby nights, Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays, etc) those figures just do not hold up... (there was nothing like that in September or October...so the figures were bare bones).

How shocking would it be to literally add more than half of our food funds back into our lives, and keep them out of our bodies and arteries?

During this challenge, everyone is asking us how long we plan to "do this".

I can not ignore the fact that we feel better, have added time into our day, have dramatically slimmed, and (if we keep it up most of the time) have very likely cut our risks of cancer, heart problems and stroke. Also, we have virtually no food safety concerns (other than deadly spiders in our food, but I digress...)

What if we can add thousands of dollars back too?

Talk about an investment in the future.

McMonkeys and Eating like a Primate

Here's some food for thought that my newly-animal free brain cells are chewing on:

The ONLY animals that experience obesity are domestic humans (and our dogs and cats!).

Did you just chuckle? Sample this thought:

Can you even picture a morbidly obese monkey at the zoo with a remote control in their hand and a bag of cheetos in the other, lounging around on a couch with neon orange "cheese" crumbs resting on the top of their enlarged belly? It's ridiculous, right?

Can you picture a 46 year old human doing this? Of course!

Am I being too silly now? Picture this:

What if we gave that same monkey $20 to walk through the same zoo to look for a meal. "Food" from every single food stall to choose from.

He wouldn't buy anything! He'd go around forraging, looking for real food like vegetables, grains, seeds, nuts, and fruit. And (even though he isn't wearing pants) he probably wouldn't eat until his belt was tight either.

I am quite certain he wouldn't stop at the cow, pig or chicken exhibit, carve one up and grill part of that animal either. He'd just live and let live.

And we consider ourselves evolved?

Final monkey thought? The writer of this blog evolved from primates, and so did you!

Consider eating like one.

Indian Butter Chickpeas

My vegan experiment has led me to the rediscovery of the most delicious, voluminous and satisfying food that even I am surprised.

I've discovered a substance called "cashew cream" - from Tal Ronnen's cookbook "The Conscious Cook". It is incredibly easy and well worth any effort. After soaking raw cashews overnight, you puree the slippery, cold bits with a bit of water into a fatty, delicious CREAM! Seriously - it is divine and STARTLINGLY dairy-free.

I love finding "cream" in the nuttiest places!

So many observations to share...

1. Any inches gained through my crazy beginning to the fall are gone. I have never ever ever been slimmer, except when I was 17, and I lost 6 pounds the first week. I can see my muscles under my skin, more than any results I saw in intense boot camps.

2. I am devouring delicious food in huge quantities, and can not wait for my next meals. They are teeming with flavour, and more colour than even I am used to. The flavours are really full, and intense - not boring at all!

3. My skin has absolutely no need for moisturizer any more. It has never ever felt more supple, and doesn't really feel like my face! Absolutely no trace of blemishes or stress.

4. My grocery bill went up initially, since I purchased a few vegan staples like coconut oil (which smells like a tropical vacation and tastes even better), Vegenaise (which is fabulously reminiscent of my fave, Hellmanns, without the eggs) and Earth Balance (which tastes and melts and spreads just like butter). I know what everyone is getting from me for Christmas in their stockings... Coconut oil is great in cookies.

5. My grocery bills are about to be cut by about 75%. Vegetables, beans and whole grains are incredibly cheap it turns out! Can you imagine adding another 10 GRAND to your life per year, just through your food choices? I'm planning another vacation with the savings.

6. I feel incredible, and my energy level is really balanced! I sleep really well, and wake up rested.

7. I am really feeling less stressed. I have changed absolutely nothing else in my life, and work and life are as busy as ever. I can only attribute the change to the fact that there are no frustrated, stressed or scared animal molecules hanging out in my body any more.

Tonight's dinner was Indian Butter Chickpeas.

One can of organic chickpeas,
One glug of homemade roasted tomato sauce
One clove of chopped garlic
One chopped shallot
Two tablespoons cashew cream
1 tsp Tandoori spice
Hot sauce to taste,

Served over Quinoa (in the rice cooker!!)and chopped green onions on top.

Veganism rocks.

Homemade Sushi and Toasted Sesame Oil

If I have one piece of advice tonight, it is that people need to invest in their children's tastebuds.

Of course, we are 9 days post-Halloween. 9 days of sugar comas. 9 days of crap, that I not only have allowed my son to eat, but actually handed out to other people's kids at the door!

Tomorrow (I have a 10 day rule for consumption of Halloween candy), I will get rid of whatever junk is left, but my son beat me to it.

After picking him up from school, he wanted to make sushi tonight, as our dinner. I had to pull off the regular route home from his after-school care to get Nori (and he found it in the store before I did!). I went upstairs to change, and found the ingredients removed from the fridge, and spread all over the counter. He has such a knack for knowing what would and should go in, the photo is posted, below.



We made Quinoa, I grilled a portobello, sliced an avocado, and rolled away.

It wasn't the best sushi - I had mine in a bowl, because I am not a fan of Nori - but it was deep, rich, and looked really cool.

Toasted sesame oil seems to be the favourite now with Harrison - very macrobiotic with the depth of the upcoming winter - with soy, tamari and mushroom. We added avocado for fat, green and creaminess.

Even he was craving something healthier than crap chocolate, refined sugar, and transfatty sludge. I am quite sure that sushi cravings are the polar opposite of these, and it couldn't have come one day too soon. His tastebuds are maturing - beyond those of a glucose-needing toddler, and into a healthy transitioning young person.

GRAPES and our BLACK WIDOW SPIDER

I'm trying to divert my mind with some discipline tonight, as to where things could have gone, and just focus on the fact that everything has worked out OK, and everyone in the house is fine.

I'm fine - the guys are fine, and the fridge has been reviewed by the super-awesome Don from pest control.

It's hard not to think things like "this vegan experiment could have killed me, or Harrison, or Bill". Or, as my dad said "the evening could have been tragic".

One of the hardest parts of my divorce was having to kill my own spiders? I've often joked about this, but it's true. I'm arachnophobic.

Not the best thing to be when a black widow spider kicks your upper lip after falling off the grape you're about to put into your mouth. Four grapes, to be exact, in my hand, scooped out of the collander after a great restaurant-inspired vegan appetizer.

Harrison wanted to go to Foia tonight for Calamari. I loved the idea, until I remembered that this month, I'm a vegan. But I had tofu in the fridge and the thought of re-creating a calamari-like dish inspired me. I "breaded" the tofu strips with crushed potato chips, after dipping them in a combo of dijon, soy sauce and olive oil. I crisped them in coconut oil on all four sides, and served them with a dipping sauce of fresh garlic, green onions, olive oil, dijon, lemon juice and some toasted sesame oil. Writing this paragraph is the most calm I have felt all night, since it is about making something delicious - through adding flavour.

During the prep, I thought I would blog about depth of flavour. I thought I would blog about the fact that chicken (or tofu) really doesn't have an independent flavour, and what we can DO to it can make it great. I thought I would be blogging about blank canvasses.

Instead, I am really upset that I could have been taken out by my quest for a fresh fruit prompted by the very same vegan experiment.

Bill joked that it was ironic that if I hadn't been buying so much fresh produce, and rather had been relying on processed, McCrap, that this probably wouldn't have happened. I am sure I wouldn't have just tossed into the garbage (quite gladly!) ANY fresh produce which was in my fridge. The expensive green onions. The gorgeous Essex County "chef's mix" fresh mushrooms. The expensive organic celery.

And the crisp green grapes that were her home for a while, and in my home since Sunday. I packed a bag of grapes for Harrison's lunch this morning, and put the collander on the counter, grabbed a bunch, and put it back. Realized Bill needed a snack, grabbed another bunch (recall struggling with the stem) and put it back again. I probably threw out $30 worth of produce because of what was living in my fridge.

Yep - I'm one of those people who have had a black widow spider crawl out of their grapes. She wiggled across my lip, enough for me to drop the other three grapes. As she fell to the floor, my mind raced.

A spider.

On a grape. Wait-a-minute! It couldn't possibly be a black widow spider, one of the very reasons I stopped buying grapes in the first place? (They're from such foreign locales, loaded with spiders!)

No - not in my home, seriously. I grab a plastic mis-en-place bowl, and put it right over her. Then, I go to the web.

SPIDERS IN GRAPES.

Immediately, the black widow spider stories pop up. I'm on the phone with 911 when she says "are you sure it's a black widow?" and I'm not. The website indicates you can tell a female black widow spider by the red hourglass shape on the belly. The belly? It's facing the floor, darn it!! And just as she says it...the new visitor to our house tries to crawl up the bowl, and there it is.

The red hourglass.

I've stopped hyperventilating now. I've called the supermarket, the pest control guy has the spider and is freezing the body. I called the provincial pest control office to "report" it.

Having said that, I will never ever buy grapes again.

My November Vegan Experiment

I should have known better.

I gave Bill a humerous book on healthy eating that I thought he could check out in his very few minutes of down time every so often. It contained, inter alia, scathing accounts of dairy products, egg production, and horiffic accounts of factory meat production - more than anyone would ever care to know. Next thing I know, we're vegans. I should have known!

The source concludes that vegan eating is THE only way to fly. You can imagine, for someone in love with butter and cheese, that this is not my favourite news. I can do without meat quite easily - and did, for years. I love a great steak every so often, although it is increasingly important to me to purchase meat that was raised and fed properly, and humanely exited from the planet.

Vegan eating is going to be literally and completely different. No butter. No cheese??? I won't even be able to re-read my own blog this month. But, in closing one door (even for a while) my goal is to force myself to find alternatives.

I remember reading that fish don't have feelings. They don't have a cerebral cortex, so somehow eating them seems less cruel. If it can't ever feel sadness, or know its own name, it must be OK to eat? I've learned that fish are often teeming with mercury from the water, and fed on mercury-laden fish. (Tuna and Salmon are huge creatures, who feed on lots of small creatures to reach their ultimate weight, so "you are what you eat" is important to them, too) See "Remy's Law", October. The fact that farmed salmon are fed things that would never occur in their natural diet (like corn) as well as given a dose of food dye to make their flesh look "pink" was enough to turn me off of that, too.

I used to think that shellfish and mollusks were a completely feeling-free choice too. Until Sally and Jerry (the trained conchs at the Conch farm in the Turks and Caicos Islands) rolled out of their shells to give Harrison a look, and to do a few tricks!??!! Anything that can do tricks, and has a name shouldn't be delicious.

More than ever before, the sheer act of eating is a landmine of challenges.

E-Coli. Suffering. Factories. Antibiotics. Profit margins. Hormones. Cancer.

It seems that over the past 50 years we have taken the sheer joy out of eating, and replaced it with other stuff that is just not good.

So - the vegan experiment!

We are going to skip all animal products for the month. No eggs, butter, milk, meat or fish. And it is going to be HARD for me.

But, like any challenge, it offers insight and possibility.

This morning, instead of an egg sandwich, I browned some tofu in a bit of coconut oil, added some hot sauce, and nesled it on some bread smeared with dijon mustard. It was "exceed-my-expectations" fantastic. Harrison's nose led him to the kitchen where he promptly took a bite, declared that it had the same texture and consistency of egg, and walked off with it! When he returned, he asked "Could tonight be tofu night?"

Cool kid.

He totally deserves the best possible fuel for that adorable growing mind. The 30 days in November will be dedicated to healthy eating, research regarding my own habits in the kitchen, and striving for the healthiest fats, carbohydrates and proteins combinations that can exist in a busy family kitchen.

Tonight is Monday, so my Red Beans and Rice consisted of the tomato vegetable soup from last night used to steep a cup of red lentils until thick. Lentils smell like chicken soup when they are cooking, and that surprises me! Red beans and green onions are rounding out the pot. It is a gorgeous dish with a lovely, homemade smell. I've been reading a book on the couch as it simmers.

I survived the day with almond milk in my coffee (and there is NO WAY ON THIS GREEN EARTH that I am going to give up coffee). I had a veggie sandwich at work, a peanut butter and banana sandwich for a snack and a V8. I feel impossibly energized.

$108.75 for the Holidays

Red Peppers are screaming Christmas to me right now.

I went on the hunt for the last of Essex County peppers for my annual stash of red peppers which I usually use for my go-to winter meals of red beans and rice and chili. The farmstand near my house has closed (see you next year, and thanks!!) so Harrison and I had to go on a 5 minute drive to hunt for them. They were huge, the size of an evening bag!

In two more months, we will walk haughtily past the scrawny peppers in the grocery store, flown thousands of miles from Chile, picked while hard and green and ripened with artificial gas. People will be paying $3.99 for the privilege. And thanks to Harrison's calculations (we are loving grade 4 math!) I have just saved enough with this trip for a x-mas present worth $108.75.


The XL peppers were 75 cents each - I got 15. They are easily the size of two regular $3.99 peppers without tax. (Probably a good thing we're paying it given the way our food system is taxing the health of our population, not to mention reducing the life expectancies of our kids! We'll need every penny of those McDollars)

15 x .75 was $11.25. I paid for it with the change left in my car. 30 peppers over the winter x $4 is $120.

Time Savings? I'll add some of that too, since washing and chopping, and cutting probably took me a half an hour. They're now air drying for a while before I freeze them in bags, since any water molecules left will form ice crystals - not horrible, but they do reduce the integrity of the peppers as the months go along.

RED BEANS AND RICE MONDAYS

Monday nights are always my favourite. Ever since falling in love HARD with New Orleans in 2005, and subsequently learning that red beans and rice is served unfailingly every Monday, we have adopted this tradition at our house. There are great slow cooked recipies, but here's my super fast one.

Enough rice for the mouths in the house, in a rice cooker, which I ADORE and can't believe I ever lived without one.

In a slow cooker:

1 can of red kidney beans
1 can of crushed tomatoes (or a jar of homemade tomato sauce)
1/2 cup of red lentils
Three cups of what new-Orleanians call "the trinity":
1 cup of frozen chopped onions
1 cup of frozen chopped red peppers
1 cup of frozen chopped celery
Hot sauce to taste
Tony Chachere's Seasoning to taste

For the non-vegans: Add 1 tbsp of butter cascading on top of a scoop of rice, and a scoop of beans. Drizzle some hot sauce over top. My cab driver told me about this trick on the way to the airport home, and it is sinfully good.

For the non-vegetarians: Add some bacon, or pork, or a smoked turkey leg, or some andouille sausage.

Beans and rice combine to form a perfect protein. It is cheap, delicious, shelf-stable and easy.

Wiebe of Truth

I went to a lecture series at the University tonight. Nettie Wiebe, the distinguished visitor for Women's Studies, was giving a talk on women, food production and feminism. What an amazing topic!!!

It was hard not to bob my head in agreement at each sentence and I don't think I was able to stop myself. Women have such a role in how people are fed.

When I see hideously overweight children on the street, I want to smack their moms.

Then I want to smack the people who market to those kids' moms.

Then I want to populate every grocery store with women like Nettie Wiebe - could she police the check out? Could she heist their wallets before they spent money they earned on crap and poison for their kids? Could even she break this cycle of disintegration of food? I think so.

I think (and believe) we all can!

Instead I want to keep blogging and keep nudging people who I think could use an opinionated nudge.

I wish I had the strength to be a vegan - I know it would be better for my health, and the environment, but I'm not sure I can give up eggs, butter and cheese! I know I am strong enough to be a vegetarian (my definition is not eating anything with a face) and I always feel better about those choices.

I wonder if the guys will even notice? I seriously doubt it, as long as the food is good! Most of my food is 75-80% vegetables already, with any protein taking its role as an add-on. Dinners have usually consisted in a 4 oz portion of protein for years now. It shouldn't be impossible to eliminate it entirely for a while?

For some time now, I've been searching for a challenge to the blog. For a reason? I love how something will just motivate me, and make me think about my relationship with food. About the seasons, about time and effort in eating, about thoughtless and powerless eating. But I'm wanting more. Like a year-long challenge.

I wonder if I follow up my lust for beets, my infidelity with pumpkin, and my sadness at carnivorism with a weekly challenge for entering my 40th year? Stay tuned.

October Pumpkin, Stripped

I am cheating.

On beets.

With pumpkin.

I don't want to give up my lust for the depth of beets, and the stain of what it takes to have them. They are still in my heart, and I had them this weekend with a sublime "La Bouche" Goat cheese from Quebec. But tonight I felt fickle. Like I was betraying my newly beloved beets.

With pumpkin.

Tonight Harrison wanted to carve pumpkins. Bill's away and its just the two of us. So we sharpened our knives with a pocket knife sharpener (see "Shop Talk", July)and plunged in.


I caught my breath in my chest when we opened the first one. It was wet, and fleshy. And smelled of pumpkin carvings of my childhood. But this was different because my mom hadn't done it for me AND different since I wasn't in just such an extreme billable hour rush to get through it, OR skipping it entirely because it wasn't my "Halloween" with Harrison, OR skipping it entirely because of a myriad of other reasons. Tonight, with the sun setting, pumpkin flesh was all mine. I thought fleetingly of the beets, but... can not help myself.

I never realized how gorgeous the seeds are inside a pumpkin when you first take the top off. How they cascade down in a crescendo of both attachment to the past and suspension in the now. How
F R E S H the seeds taste when you pop one in your mouth. It is a burst of October. It is the essence of seeds and wetness and possibility. If this post is unlike my others, pumpkin has obviously turned on the orange in me.

I pulled at the heavier flesh once the seeds were out, trying to loosen it so Harrison could make easier cuts through the Jack-o-lantern face he was trying to make. (I steeled myself at watching my sweet innocent child with a sharp chef's knife, but gave him instruction, and reason why he should protect himself, and information on how to do it, AND exacted a watchful eye for every cut.. whew...) It scooped out like spaghetti squash - stringy and almost melon-like. A bead of water formed at the base.. strings of pumpkin bunched up in my fingers. It was almost as if it needed me, too - begging to be eaten.

A sheet of puff pastry remained in my freezer, and was rolled onto the silpat. The pan, warmed only with butter and a pinch of salt beckoned the pumpkin with its heat.


No nutmeg, clove, cinnamon, or other extraneous lingerie.

No extra anything. Just naked pumpkin.

I just took my first bite and it is sublime. Not crowded over with other flavour, or disguised, or changed.

It makes me wonder about all the extra layers we add onto things. Love. Work. Truth. Pleasure. Food. Sex. Passion. Nature. October. Maybe we just need to strip things down every once in a while, and get back to what is simple. It made me wonder how food would taste if we approached everything like this - with no combinations, with no change to the essence of what a food is? Just taking it exactly as it is.

I am dazzled with the simplicity and timing of the pumpkin tonight. Maybe we'll meet only fleetingly, in October, during the last week. I certainly can't picture having it every week. It's not that kind of dish... I can't picture wanting it in summer, or in the dead of winter. Or in the pink of spring.
Pumpkin is meant for October.

I'm lucky to have simple, yet sublime influences. And, fleetingly in October, to pumpkin;)

Cost vs. Worth is Worth analyzing

I am getting older this week. We all are, I suppose, but my number is about to go up by one. 39!

This blog is going to list my favourite 39 things which are absolutely worth every penny of every dollar they cost.

1. Nowhere to start but with real Champagne. Vintage.

2. Pay for organic lemons, especially when you get hooked on using the zest and don't want chemical spray residue in your food.

3. A great 5 ounce filet.

4. Italian Parmeggiano Reggiano

5. Italian Piave Stravecchio - it is truly incredible.

6. The "upgrade" charge for sweet potatoe fries if you absolutely must have fries.

7. Fresh herbs - rosemary, sage, parsley, thyme, mint, chive, lemon balm, basil, pineapple sage, lemon basil, purple basil, thai basil.

19. Organic Butter.

20. Premade puff pastry and phyllo dough.

22. Organic Eggs and Poultry.

24. Italian San Daniele Proscuitto.

25. Ripe raspberries which you picked right off the bush and blueberries from Klassen's. Purple tongue optional.

27. White balsamic vinegar.

28. San Marzano Tomatoes.

29. Saffron.

30. Fresh, bright pink ahi tuna.

31. Dark chocolate.

32. Dark, french roasted coffee.

33. Whole vanilla pods, containing a million tiny fragrant flavour-licious vanilla beans.

34. Fresh pasta, for the time savings alone.

35. Avocado.

36. Concord grapes.

37. A tiny split of real champagne, (when you don't need a whole bottle) even if it costs you $25 for two little glasses to celebrate an occasion worth celebrating, and the 18 year old kid selling it to you shouts out "$25?????" when you're in line and you have to explain QUICKLY why champagne is worth the extra dough before he will let you leave the store.

38. Fleur de sel.

39. Black truffles.

Beets, Under Oath

Beets are my newest crush. In April, I planted a number of seed-based root vegetables. Parsnips (which seem to be impossible to get out of the ground, spectacular "purple haze carrots" which are purple on the outside, orange on the inside and which look spectacular when cut, and beets. They were EFFORTLESS to grow.

When I pulled the beets, and carrots out of the ground a few weeks ago, I was moved by the fact that I was literally holding borscht in my hands. Ukrainian folks revere this gorgeous red soup, with veg stock (or meat stock for special occasions). It smelled like MY roots and I felt connected with history.

Last year I had a similar moment when my eggplant, peppers and tomatoes were all ripe at the same time. I was holding eggplant parmesan, or ratatouille. You can sense the evolution of a classic dish when you grow a garden. Who knew?

I've been roasting beets in the oven, whole, at 400 degrees for about 2 hours. They become beautifully sweet, almost like candy. Sprinkled with goat cheese or feta, they are divine. They are a beautiful lipstick stain red of a colour. In cutting them up, there is something revealing - almost immodest - about this kind of intensity. I felt a bit like Lady Macbeth who can't escape her history..."Out damned spot" or Catherine Zeta Jones in Chicago, after a particularly bad evening. My red hands gave me away - there is no "beeting" this kind of intensity. They are resplendent items and nothing short of bold.

Red. Rich. Intense. Effortless. And they stain everything they touch!

That is my kind of vegetable!

Yesterday I decided to go for it and make a sweet beet cupcake. The batter is gorgeous - I just used a carrot cake recipie and substituted beets. No extra spices, except for some vanilla. Two years ago, I added shredded beet to chocolate cupcakes which totally rocked. It made the cupcakes incredibly moist, loaded with vegetables full of antioxidants. But last night, I put the beets out there for all to see.

They were delicious. Red and sweet. I think they can maybe be made better with some shredded apple, but they were good. What I liked about this version is that you could still taste the beet. I wasn't trying to hide it.

In law practice, you can respect another lawyer for telling it to you like it is. None of the snivelly hiding behind some poseur "position", or masking one's devilishness with a technicality. There were technically beets in the chocolate cupcakes, but not straight up.

Harrison ate the whole thing, but when he asked "what's this?" I said "raspberry". Technically, there was raspberry in the yogurt cream cheese sauce I served with it. But misleading him was very un-beet-like of me. At the time, he had just refused to eat the butternut squash for dinner, I really felt that all was fair in love and food.

Beets would have told the truth, whether or not they were under oath.

I know a lot of parents who lie to their kids about food. I know lawyers sometimes who rely on technicalities to lie to the other side, er... who bluff... um, I mean, who "tirelessly advance their client's position"...

But sometimes you just have to go right out there with the truth, and hope both kids and other lawyers can handle it.

I know! I have the perfect way out of this! I'll ask Harrison if he wants the truth about the dessert he ate. When he answers , I'll shout "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!"

I know the two lawyers in the house will laugh. The kid may never forgive me. Either that, or he'll go in for another bite...

Remy's Law : If you are what you eat, then I only want to eat the good stuff.

I was not really a kid-y kid. I couldn't wait to go to law school, from as young as I can remember. I toyed with the idea of being a veterinarian, but the thought of putting animals to sleep ended that. I also considered being an Egyptologist, but my father thought that was ridiculous, so that ended that too.

It's only recently that I've even considered a career outside of law, but fortunately, I enjoy my job so much that chef school has to just be one of those daydreams.

I mention this because the entire premise of movies like "Ratatouille" and "Julie and Julia" are based on following a dream that involves food, and passion. And can you get any better than those? Not in my opinion.

I got a great present recently from my mom. She found a stuffed animal "Remy" with an apron, a chef's hat and a big felt "wooden" spoon on a recent trip to Florida. She hesitated buying it for me because she thought it was a bit silly to give a 38 year old self-declared minimalist a stuffed animal but, with two young grandchildren, she was satisfied with her default options.

When I saw him sitting in her kitchen, I was overcome with a relaxed enthusiasm and (dare I say it) glee! He is SO cute, and my favourite movie character of all time. He's a RAT.

Who wants to be a CHEF.

IN PARIS! The very premise of the movie is just sheer genius.

I am often reminded of his mantra "If you are what you eat, then I only want to eat the good stuff".

The good stuff really can elevate any dish to being fabulous. The mediocre stuff can make every meal you eat, and every meal you serve, at best marginal. And the good stuff can elevate YOU to fabulous. Guess what the marginal stuff can do?

Walking back from run for the cure with Melanie and Evan, we got to discussing fast "food". It is decided law that what we label "fast food" is NOT REALLY FOOD. It is a food-like substance. Chemical molecular structures which imitate food. Like a bad Las Vegas Drag Queen, who hasn't shaved, and has no makeup on.

Look at a fast food "chicken" sandwich. Or a "hamburger". Surely if you're a meat eater, you have eaten the real version of these dishes. They look absolutely nothing like chicken or ground beef. And yet every day "billions and billions" of people consume these molecules, under the delusional belief that they are "eating". Worse still, children are being given these chemical cocktail ingestions with no thought to what is in them because they are labelled "food".

I read a great book on a trip to Manitoba last summer called "In Defence of Food". The book had three simple premises. Eat food. Mostly Vegetables. Not too much. One of the sub-premises was that if your great great grandmother wouldn't have recognized the substance or ingredients as food, it isn't food. Isn't that a great rule?

It's so simple! And yet, we are members of the first generation in human history who are expected to have longer life expectancies than our children. As a group, we are literally poisoning our human selves with imitation food.

You are what you eat.

Eat the good stuff.

Craving Broccoli??!!??

This morning while packing up, I was sensing that I NEED something. I was having an honest-to-goodness CRAVING. A mental picture prompts my wanna-be chef tastebuds to actually taste the sensation in my mouth. The quest to get in my car, buy it and consume it feverishly. The craving was for?

Broccoli.

Broccoli? The green stuff that prompted a presidential revelation of disgust to enrage an entire segment of the agricultural industry? The cruciferous bouquet of green that causes children everywhere to hone their negotiating skills with their parents "I'll just eat the tops, OK?". The only vegetable sufficient to cause me to scream in horror when I proudly harvested one from my garden, plopped it in a sink of cold water, and henceforth watched as every living critter living in it exited its shelter, swam, then crawled over my entire kitchen counter as Harrison dissolved in laughter?

Yes. I want broccoli. Bad. More than I've ever even craved chocolate.

I have dinner made, but it might be possible to do a quick soup tonight? Chicken stock steeped broccoli florets, garnished with some cheddar cheese?

I really believe the hard 6 am workout with yesterday's 5K run is prompting a finally healthy craving. I think it's my body's revolt against colourless food, spurred on by the blood red beets from yesterday? Maybe a body has a natural impulse towards vitamins, once you slow down and actually listen to it?

A craving for broccoli. Now that's a first.

Testing my own advice

Last night before bed, I wrote out the ingredient list for the "easy" menu week I devised for my ultra-busy friends. (Did the 5K run for the cure this morning, and felt fantastic actually using my muscles again!!!) I've scanned the list (if you double click, it gets much bigger!) plus the $71 result at the grocery store. And that includes $17 grouper fillets. It was actually quite fast to work from this list, and I'm curious as heck to see if I can actually feed us for the week. Stay tuned. Maybe I'll even do a video clip so you can see how easy everything is?? The first thing I noticed while shopping was that my list wasn't in order of how a grocery store was laid out, so I promise to fix that. The second thing I noticed was my own discomfort with such a SHORT grocery list. So - this week will be an ongoing experiment! My artichoke goat cheese dip I made yesterday was DELICIOUS tonight. Artichokes are a lot of work, for a mere nugget or two of something worthwhile. You peel away layer on layer on layer, just hoping to get to it. It seemed the perfect dish to make yesterday! However, in the "a stich in time saves nine" world, the effort was worth it. Harrison's lunch sandwiches are in the fridge, and were produced with assembly-line precison this evening to make sure this week doesn't get away from me. Coffee's made (timer is set for 5:05). We hit the Gym at 6 am tomorrow to burn off my month's worth of bad choices, but the blog reflects lessons learned.

Desperation, Detox and Beets

Today I mapped out the current chaos of my life LITERALLY in half hour segments. I won't list any boring reasons, but I will say that life hasn't been more chaotic since spring 2003.

I have lost muscle by skipping my workouts, gained belly fat because I'm eating too much restaurant food, not cooking in my own kitchen, and reaching for crappy snacks when faced with stress overload satisfiable only with a sugar or fat rush.

I know why this is - and I know why it happens.

1. I've been skipping breakfast and living on coffee.
2. I have been too busy to pack a healthy snack for the office.
3. I've been persuaded that a restaurant meal is faster than cooking at home.
4. I've been more stressed than usual, and chocolate or salty chips look better than they usually do.
5. I've stopped the consistent exercise routine that produced a good buzz.
6. My clothes feel tight, so I've been choosing roomier options.
7. I've been eating late, and sleeping terribly.
8. I have not had time for any Food TV, so often I'm out of ideas when I get home after work, and there is nothing in the fridge, AND I'm exhausted.
9. I'm travelling and in the car a lot, sitting, and drinking coffee. Since I refuse to eat any fast food, I'm usually ravenous when I get home.
10. I have stopped prioritizing myself.

Yuck. There it is in black and white. And it's probably similar to lots of folks who eat badly. It feels like me, years and years ago.

So this morning, I had enough. I have turned off every phone in the house, including my cell phone, and treated myself to a day of errands, cooking, manicures, pedicures, facials and delicious eating.

Tonight, as I await the food network Thanksgiving Special, the lingering taste of a beet and goat cheese salad with mandarin slices is still present on my taste buds. Is there anything more beautiful than the colour of roasted beets? Packed with anti-oxidants, it is a perfect match with the earthy grounding flavour spike of a tangy, creamy goat cheese. Mandarin citrus high notes just round out everything.

The thing I found so uncomfortable about this month wasn't the chaos, or the driving, or the multiple projects, objectives, deadlines, pressure, performance anxiety, or the loss of personal or family time. I hated the disorganization.

My weekly schedule is now on paper, highlighting the windows of time that I actually have available in any given week. And it is much smaller than I thought. So I have to be organized if I'm going to make it until Christmas.

I'm going to print my list from the post to Sarah, and make that my menu plan for the week. I hope it helps get my groove back.

Worse than I thought... and an edible hours solution.

Big cities are reknowned for their great food. Paris. New York. Toronto.

Except if you're a 26 year old articling student working 12-14 hours a day, and have to feed yourself (mostly) from what comes from the lower level of your 60 storey high-rise office tower.

Had a coffee with Sarah on Tuesday morning. After our usual catching up, I couldn't help but ask how she was eating. Not in a "how are you, dear" kind of way but in a "how the hell can you even find food in this jungle of cement and black suits? kind of way". I was in food culture shock after only three days of it.

People from TO must think I am delusional, writing about a farmstand! She tells me that her commute is 18 minutes, and she was really hoping for 12. She tells me that it's worth it to her to walk another 6 blocks (city blocks, probably in fabulous heels to boot) to go to a grocery store, rather than the convenient but uber-limited stall in her building, but that it's really hard and takes much longer than she has time to spend.

And then there's the issue of cost. Living and working in a busy city centre is like being in an airport. You have to pay what they say, because there are no other options. And just when my worry was reeling out of control, I spotted a green pepper in her purse! It probably cost her 12 bucks, but it was at least a vegetable!

Green Pepper notwithstanding, it has to be incredibly excruciatingly difficult to eat properly or well in that context. Law is a time-demanding profession where every minute counts. The commute bugs her because she "loses point one" for those extra six minutes. Both ways! That's an extra hour a week!

So - here's my revised TO menu plan for the busiest and best articling students but especially for my friend Sarah.

Making an extra half hour for yourself once a week can add up to more time for yourself, more money in your wallet and some calm at the end of a long workday.

Proteins are expensive, heavy and perishable.
Proteins (especially fresh fish, meat, eggs) are at a premium, both because of how much time they cost you to get, and how expensive they must be. So. We'll use these first, working from the kind that must be eaten immediately, to those that can wait a day or two. Plus, they're heavy and that is hard for a walking or subway commute.

Time is crucial in a young lawyer's day and time is money.
Walking (out of your way) to the store can easily take 1.0 and probably can't happen more than once a week. SAVING time must be the ultimate goal here. Adding more billable time to a young lawyer's workday can add to their leverage and credibility at their firm.

Organization is also a top priority to reduce the stress of doing this.

Pleasure should at least rate on the list. Giving all you have for clients can lead to one or two bouts of crap food just because it may be all you have at the 8:00 juncture of a long day with no sleep in the near future, so it might be nice to have something really really delicious to help.

Don't cook on the day you shop.
This is always my downfall, but here's my logic. Once I've actually lugged eveything home, unloaded it, put it away, and done the prep for the next week, I am ravenous, irritated and just ready for it all to be over. AND I LOVE COOKING!

I can only imagine what a chore this is for someone who hates it. So BUY one of those fresh dinners at the store. If the sushi looks good,get some! Maybe a fresh broccoli salad and a grilled chicken breast? Maybe even something you wouldn't ever attempt like a sage butter squash ravioli. This day is your one get-out-of-premade-jail-free card. Enjoy the fruits of someone else's labour.

I will keep each recipe to three main ingredients.

Fresh Fish Day: DAY 2 Day you are exhausted and overtaxed
The partners: FISH, LEMON, SWEET POTATO
The goal: Set up breakfast for the week, side dishes for the next few days and make a homemade dessert for fun.

Boil 3 different pots of boiling water: One is for rice, one for your steel-cut oatmeal for the week, and the other small one is for the sweet potatoes.

Make some rice, and more than you need
Cut up the sweet potato, or buy it already cut up.
Boil the sweet potato until tender (10 minutes?)

Put a pat of butter in a medium (7) pan
Rinse the fish under cold water
S + P fish
Put the fish in the pan pretty side down - wait 7 minutes and flip it.
Grate the zest and then squeeze lemon juice over the fish
In 10 seconds, slide it on the plate over the rice. Sprinkle the sweet potato around, and enjoy.
Juice the rest of the lemon into a tbsp of melted butter.

Divide rice into two containers. One is going to be savoury, one is going to be a great healthy dessert for tomorrow night.

Day 3: If you are having a friend over during the week, this is the meal.
The associates: PORK, KIDNEY BEANS, TOMATOES
The goal: Entertain a friend or a date, and remember what life is like outside of the office

Salt and pepper the rinsed pork tenderloin
EVOO in a deep pan, brown the tenderloin on all sides and then take it out to wait.
Add shredded carrots, can of tomatoes, cut up celery, cut up onion and chopped garlic to a pan with some evoo, and sautee till soft.
Rinse the red kidney beans while the veggies are softening
Dump the big can of crushed tomatoes and the beans
Add a tsp of cajun or creole spice
Cut up the pork in slices on a cutting board, then add the pieces back in the pot to simmer until they are not pink in the centre.

Serve over the (warmed) leftover rice. This meal can be made, cooled, and reheated for at least a few days, and makes a great desk lunch.

For Dessert? Add the leftover rice to a skillet, a few good glugs of maple syrup, some cinnamon and even some butter or cream if you have some. Add the sweet potato until it comes together like a yummy sweet risotto. Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. YUM.

Day 4: Chicken Day
The triumverate of cases: CHICKEN, NEW POTATOES, CARROTS
The goal: Comfort food (for everyone except the chicken:)

In a ceramic dish, dump the new potatoes and shredded carrots at the bottom, glug some evoo on top.
Put the chicken breast over the veggies, bake at 350 for 20 minutes, or until it smells like home.

Day 5 : Pasta Day
The practice group: PASTA, TOMATOES, FETA
Today's goal: use up items in your pantry and fridge

Make the whole wheat whole grain pasta.
In a pan, sautee some garlic with some evoo, and a pat of butter
Add in the small can of tomatoes
Zest lemon, then add the juice
Take the pasta out of the water, and add directly to the pan.
Put on the plate and sprinkle with cubed feta cheese.

Day 6: Leftovers?

Day 7: Chili
The department: BEANS, PEPPERS, TOMATO SAUCE
The goal: A cheap, healthy, and convenient meal

3 cans of rinsed red beans, black beans and lentils
1 can of Bravo Spaghetti Sauce
1 diced red pepper
1 tbsp chili powder

Simmer and serve with whole grain brown toast and cheddar cheese

Printable grocery list:

STAPLES:

Greek Yogurt, honey, seeds, dried cranberry, blueberry
Whole Wheat crackers and light babybel cheeses
Steel cut oatmeal or red river cereal
A delicious jam that you made
I wish I could write apples, but I am not a fan during the workday - too sticky. Having said that, they do last a long time, and are quite good for you, lots of fibre, are sweet, and very portable. Ok, so,
Apples.
Garlic

PERISHABLE HEAVY THINGS:
Some fresh fish that looks really good, and is already skinless and filleted.
A free range grain fed, formerly happy chicken. Stressed out animals from a factory really do not belong in your body. Organic or free range antibiotic free are absolutely worth the higher price (especially when you make a lawyers' salary!). Skin on or off is your call, but ON is cheaper and will make up for the cost of the more expensive chicken.
A pork tenderloin
Organic eggs
Cheddar Cheese, Feta Cheese

Non-Perishable Heavy Things:
Can of red kidney beans
Can of chickpeas
Two cans of crushed tomatoes, one big, one small
Organic brown rice

Perishable Lighter Things :
Pre-cut, preshredded carrots.
Celery Stalks
Onion
Lemons and Limes
Sweet potato
New potatoes