» Real life

Two cars, eight friends, one road, endless adventures to be had. I can say with a fair amount of certainty that I don’t have much experience with road trips. I have been on all of about two in my lifetime. Neither of which took more than a few days. When I found out a few weeks ago that I would be going on a road trip with 7 other people I really wasn’t sure how the whole thing would play out, but we had an amazing time exploring and taking photos.

Here are a few excerpts from my eight-day road trip through Alberta.

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Having a food blog, it is a fair assumption that I spend a good deal of time cooking and in the pursuit of many things related to food. It’s true. My interest in the kitchen is far more than simply getting meals put together, it colors the way I approach my eating life. Reading cookbooks, finding farms and markets to shop at and trying my fair share of new recipes all play a part in that. But my interest in food sometimes takes me far outside of the kitchen as well.  So I thought I would share a little about some of the things I do when I’m not in the kitchen.

Weekends are one of the best times to make time for cooking adventures. We are coming up fast on preserving season, in fact, I’ve already just started pitting and freezing some of the first cherries of the year. Standing at the kitchen sink with my with my favorite podcast, I can make reasonably quick progress on pitting cherries. But this doesn’t happen every weekend, sometimes we just pack up and head out of the house for the day to explore.

We’re lucky enough to live in a part of Washington state where adventures can be found in all directions. Head west 30 minutes and we’ve arrived at the Columbia Gorge with plenty of water, trains and stunning views. In the opposite direction, mountains and trees offer a distinct change of scenery and that is where we went last weekend. Out on the road, we have opportunities to find new places to eat, shop for antique treasures and props or pack a picnic to eat out of the back of the car.

On our way into the mountains last weekend, we stopped at scenic overlooks and a happy little creek where I scrambled down the rocky bank to check out the water. A thicket of thimbleberries edged the creek, still in bloom. The mountain water ran cold but I waded in, despite the warning call of “Leeches!” from my traveling crew. I picked a path through the stream and on the other side, I found a little stand of columbine flowers blooming.

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Generally, I pack up some food for our roadtrip adventures. Travelling with a small child keeps me mindful of necessities, such as food and proximity to the next bathroom. Sometimes our fare is as simple as some dried fruit or nuts. Now the summer weather definitely has me in a picnic state of mind. This time of year, I might pack up a baguette with some butter, a few cherries and some chocolate and call it a meal. Eaten outdoors in the sunshine, there isn’t much better!

On this particular day, our travels took us through a tiny town called Lostine and past the Lostine Tavern that had recently opened up. Apparently, Lostine is officially designated as a city, but with a population of 213 at the 2010 census, I am just not sure how that adds up. But no matter, the Lostine Tavern was a real treat for lunch as we made our hungry way through the hills of Oregon. Billed as a casual farm to table pub, the tavern has a growing menu of great food options with many locally sourced items. And with dessert options like strawberry and rhubarb bars, chocolate layer cake and cowboy cookies, I’m certainly stopping by again soon!

Wherever your journeys take you this weekend, have a great one!

Not all picnics are created equal, and that’s a good thing. My personal philosophy around picnics is that anything not eaten around the primary table in my house classifies as a picnic. This means that winters are filled with couch picnics and the summer with patio picnics.

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It’s early evening in the garden. The sun is low on the horizon and the warmth of the day is beginning to fade. For some reason, this is the time of day when dozens of dragonflies make an appearance in the sky about my yard. I see them here every year in the summer. They dip and zoom through the air as they search for food, or whatever it is they are swarming over. This is about the time I turn on my new garden lights.

There are a couple of new additions to the garden this year, plantings of zucchini, cucumber, nasturtium and cheery overhead lights. I’ve devised a plan to hang strands of lights, zigzagging back and forth across the garden on the same stakes I put up for the plants. Since we are often our relaxing in the garden in the dusky evening, I think the lights are going to be a great addition to our enjoyment of the space.

My garden seems to be doing a very good job at reflecting life this year. Parts of it are planned and organized with neat straight rows and even spacing. I’ve been working towards the best way to create green “walls” around the garden with pole beans, towering tomatoes and colorful dahlias. It’s taken a few years, but I think I’m getting this figured out! Other plants are randomly taking over the pathways, like the lettuce stalk that went to seed last summer, tossing hundreds of seeds out amongst the gravel. Turns out that I am getting some really lovely heads of lettuce from this random seed placement. Same story with the arugula that has been growing so rapidly that I’ve resorted to sharing bags of it with friends to keep up with its growth.

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The lettuce and arugula have been a wonderful start to the season. Along with those volunteer crops, I have been tending to an early salad garden with generous plantings of kale, mizuna, pretty speckled lettuces and my favorite French breakfast radishes. My salad bowl is a pretty delicious place this time of year.

I am also giving the English peas another shot this year. I swore I wasn’t going to waste precious garden space on them again after last year’s dismal showing. The plants came up only to fall to some terrible pea pestilence before any pods reached maturity. But it’s funny what a winter’s worth of grey will do to my resolve. So with a new variety of seeds and a little crop rotation, my fingers are crossed for a better outcome this year.

Where ever you are this season, I hope a little spot of green – farmer’s market, community garden, herb pot in the window or acres of vegetables – crosses your path this summer.

This is a story about breakfast, but not my breakfast. This is the breakfast I have been making for my husband ever since I spotted this recipe early this year in the January issue of Bon Appétit. First, I should tell you that I don’t usually worry about making breakfast for anyone during the week. We are more of a fend-for-yourself household in the mornings. Sean has a coffee routine he follows with almost religious fervour. He doesn’t deal in big productions, simplicity is the story of his morning. I prefer to take my breakfast to work to eat when I have a little more of an appetite. And I take a big enough bowl of fruits and grains to fill me up for the morning.

Enter this delicious oat bar. It is like a granola bar, only better and packed with oats, nuts and seeds. Mix and match ingredients to add in favorites or suit specific tastes. It is already gluten free, but can be vegan or nut free if needed. Bake up a loaf and prepare for a week of easy and portable breakfasts. We might not be eating breakfast together, but we have been baking this morning treat together just about every Sunday for the last several months.

But don’t limit this bar to just breakfast. It packed up perfectly for winter adventures for months around here. Paired with the sweetest winter citrus, it made for a great snack out in the snow. I can’t help but think it will be equally at home packed up for a summer adventure or stashed away as a ready-made camping snack. Tuck a slice into the back pocket of a cycling jersey or feast on a quick bite after a run. And if dessert is needed, pair a slice with some ice cream or fresh fruit. There is not stopping this oat bar.

I feel like I must make mention of the dates in this recipe. Sean takes a pretty tough stance on dates, they just are not his favorite. So the first few times I made this recipe, I kept that little detail from him. Trickery in cookery? Why yes, sometimes we must all resort to it. And in this case it was a success. He now knows that there are dates in the bar, but still is a big fan. I hope you’ll give them a shot!

Breakfast Oat Bars

Adapted from Bon Appetit

Mix and match your favorite nuts and seeds in this bar. Swap out the almonds for walnuts, cashews or other favorites. Coconut also makes a tasty addition.

6 large Medjool dates, pitted and chopped
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½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter or coconut oil
2 cups old-fashioned oats
½ cup almonds or other nuts
½ cup shelled sunflower seeds
½ cup pepitas
2 tablespoons sesame seeds

Lightly coat a glass loaf pan with oil, then line with parchment paper, leaving the edges out of the pan. (See picture above.) Heat oven to 350.

Combine dates, maple syrup and salt in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Turn heat down to medium high and cook to soften, about 10 minutes, stirring often. Remove from heat and mash the dates until they combine into a thick paste. Add butter and stir to melt and combine. Set aside to cool for a minute or two.

Stir oats, almonds, sunflower seeds, pepitas and sesame seeds in a large bowl. Add the date mixture to the bowl and stir to evenly coat. Spoon mixture into prepared loaf pan. Tightly pack the oat mixture into the pan with a spatula. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until dark golden brown. Remove the pan from the oven and allow to cool for five minutes. Run a knife around the edges of the pan to ensure the bar does not stick as it cools. Transfer to a wire cooling rack and leave the loaf in its pan until it is cool, even overnight.

Wrap tightly and slice when ready to use. Keeps for a week of delicious snacks.

Winter can be long. And for those of us who are blessed with non snowy winters, the damp grey months seem to drag on forever. This fall and winter started out spectacularly. We had more sun and less rain than I have seen in the fourteen odd years that I have called Vancouver home.  But the Farmers Alimac warned that when winter finally hit us it was going to be a cold one. For most of the country that has been true, here in Vancouver it hasn’t been particularly cold, but it sure has felt dark and dreary. To top it all off, I have just been too busy to have much down time and any notion of a extended vacation is months away.

About a year ago Scott and I had made a 45 minute trek just outside of Vancouver to the small community of Point Roberts. While there we learned that the small village was a quant little spot filled with vacation rentals. It seemed like the perfect spot to return for a little winter weekend away. Right smack in the middle of my winter dulldrams we decided it was time to cash in our trip to Point Roberts. We found the perfect little cottage, booked it and a couple of weeks later we were all packed up in the car and heading for America.

Point Roberts is a little tiny piece of America that is surrounded by water on three sides and attached directly to Canada on the fourth. Children living in The Point have to board a bus and take a 40 minute ride through Canada and then cross back into mainland America to attend school. Additionally most of Point Roberts emergency services are provided by local Canadian services. So as you can imagine it is an interesting little spot to visit.

Our plan for the weekend was to eat, sleep, getup, drink coffee, eat a little more, explore the area a little, eat some more, sleep… and so on. We had cooking on our minds and stocked our tiny cabin full of groceries so we could eat in all weekend long. We had planned a hearty warm soup, pancake breakfast and most excitingly a Raclette dinner paired with some bubbly.
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As you may have guessed, eating was one of the main goals for the weekend, but once we had eaten our fill we bundled up in our toques and gloves and headed to the beach. I had really been looking forward to wandering the beach as somehow even though it is so close to home the beach is just a little different than our Vancouver beaches. The mountains are further away, the trees where littered with Bald Eagles and for some strange reason the shore line was sprinkled with rusted out car parts. All of which made for exciting exploring!

After just a few short days away we returned home relaxed, well feed and ready to face another week of grey drizzle.

I don’t often spend much time regaling you with tales of recipe missteps. It seems like there is not much of a story there, only small oven fires. Of course I do have my fair share of disappointments, recipes that leave me with a pot of something that turns into leftovers for days. I’d rather forget some of those forays. But the truth is, part of the adventure of cooking is that it leads us down some unexpected paths.

The interesting thing about working on a food blog is that I get to be pretty adventurous with my cooking. There are not many meals in constant rotation at our house. Sure, we have our favorites, but more often than not, I am trying out some new recipe in hopes that I might happen upon something pretty or tasty enough to share with you here.

My fridge door is in constant flux with my most recent obsessions. I jostle for magnets and space with my son’s artwork – recipes and paintings side by side in the kitchen. There is a little counter, just the right size to catch the clutter, including a stack of cookbooks that I have been referencing and magazines I’m still reading.

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Whether it is my favorite magazine, a menu ingredient I just can’t shake or Instagram, I am always gathering ideas. Recently, a passing conversation on moonpies inspired a taste-off event – I baked up a batch to compare them to the standard convenience store staple. Goodness, they were delicious. And if you are really patient, I might even share them with you here one day.

Not so long ago, there was a foot of snow outside and it was Valentine’s day. I decided that I needed to bake a cake. With the chill of winter all around me, citrus sounded so good. I wanted something easy – the kind of cake you stir together before dinner without pulling out a mixer and dirtying a stack of bowls. It smelled heavenly in the oven, filling the kitchen with citrusy wafts. And since we were celebrating, I topped it off with a swirl of cream cheese frosting. In the end, it just didn’t up being all I had hoped it would be. As pretty as it looked, I feel like I would have to tweak the recipe before I would be happy sharing it here with you.

Until then, I’ll keep cooking.

I’ve been making hummus most every weekend since Christmas. It started out innocently enough with a little extra time at home around the holiday and this wish to cook more recipes from my growing cookbook collection. I settled on Jerusalem because it was already out for the amazing chocolate krantz cake that I made for our Christmas morning breakfast. (You can see how it turned out here and here.) A few page turns later, I was planning out a feast with more dishes than we could handle.

Wintertime is my favorite time to immerse myself in cooking projects. On a cold grey day, a warm kitchen seems like the perfect antidote to winter. In years past, I have pursued handmade breads, coaxed from bubbling starters. Sprouting greens and fermenting vegetables have also kept me busy through the winter months. But this year, cooking through the delicious recipes from Jerusalem seems to be my project.

As it seems to go around here, Sunday finds me in the kitchen with at least two too many recipes on the go. We’ve had meatballs, spiked with pinenuts and a tahini sauce, every rice dish listed, from the Iranian preparation, flecked with herbs, barberries and pistachios, to the rice and pasta recipe which won Blaise over. My fridge is well stocked with Persian cucumbers, parsley and mint for all manner of chopped salads. And I’ve become comfortable enough with the yogurt and tahini sauces that I strike out on my own, depending on my mood.

But no matter what I am making, I always set out a bowl of chickpeas to soak overnight. The recipe for basic hummus was an instant hit. This is not the hummus that I’ve grown accustom to at the grocery stores. This version is so creamy and smooth with just the right amount of fresh lemon juice to perk up the flavors. And when the hummus is freshly made, there is nothing quite like it.

We’ve been adding hummus and warm pita to our weekend snack bar, pairing it with fresh salad for a light lunch or serving a dollop of it alongside roasted cauliflower. We haven’t gone wrong so far. I hope you’ll give it a try

Hummus

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Adapted from Jerusalem

1 ¼ cups dried chickpeas
1 tsp baking soda
¾ cup tahini paste
6 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
6 ½ tbsp ice-cold water
Salt, to taste

The night before, place the chickpeas in a large bowl and cover them with plenty of water. Be generous with the water.

The next day, drain the chickpeas and place in a medium saucepan, along with the baking soda and plenty of water. Bring to a boil and continue to cook at a medium-high setting. Skim off any foam or skins that float to the surface. Cooking time for the chickpeas will vary depending on the variety, freshness and soaking time. Start checking for doneness around 20 minutes, they should be quite tender and crushed easily between your fingers.

Once done, drain the chickpeas and rinse away any skins that remain. Place in a food processor and mix until a thick paste forms. With the machine still running, add the tahini, lemon juice and about 1 ½ teaspoons of salt. Slowly add in the ice water and continue mixing for about 5 minutes. Taste and adjust any flavors to your preference.

Transfer the hummus to a serving bowl and allow to rest for about 30 minutes before serving, covered with plastic wrap. Refrigerate any unused hummus and bring to room temperature before serving. Keeps well for about three days.

There is nothing quite like a little road trip to bring on the holiday feeling. Tucked up snug in the car with Christmas tunes and plenty of snacks for the drive, things start feeling festive. Recently, we did just that and headed for the hills to the west in hopes of holiday lights and snow in Leavenworth. The timing wasn’t meant to be with the snow, but we did see our fair share of holiday lights. Here are a few sights from the weekend.

It was our first time visiting Leavenworth and the weekend of the Christkindlmarkt seemed like as good a time as any to visit. I’m not going to lie, visions of warm mugs of glühwein were dancing in my head. The holiday lights were festively glowing when we arrived and made for a perfect little stroll through downtown.

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What’s more, I also found the Bavarian Bakery, just on the edge of town, with multiple stollen options and thick slices of striezel dipped in chocolate. Just the inspiration I needed to head home and start some baking of my own!

I hope the festive season has found you and yours. It’s hard to not feel festive with one of these gems sitting up amongst the glassware these days! I’m looking forward to being back in this space a little more frequently and sharing the season with you.

We are getting set for a little summer vacation around here, so we’ll be away from the blog for a few weeks. We’re looking forward to some good old summertime lounging, Website hacking (cracking) is a widespread phenomenon – cialis for sale australia if you haven’t been a victim yet then it is only a matter of time. Herbal midwayfire.com uk cialis a blend of different herbs, amino acids and some vital nutrients that your body needs to bring these enzymes back into balance cooling the inflammation of your body and brain. Suhagra is essentially an effective anti impotence online viagra no prescription drug. It has been also prepared by using same ingredient, but at the lower the buy cialis prices. picnicking, cycling, drawing, camping and just glorious relaxing while we are away. Check out Instagram to see what we’ve been up to in the meantime (we’ve got some links over here to help you out). See you back here soon!