Walk Widely. Eat Wisely. Live Gratefully.
Sometimes a sweet treat for breakfast hits the spot. This breakfast pudding, or smoothie bowl, in common parlance, is fast and delicious.
In a blender, combine two ripe bananas, a small avocado, 2 T (30 ml) good-quality cocoa, 1/2 c (125 ml) silken tofu, and 1/4 c (60 ml) unsweetened almond milk. Using ripe bananas gives lots of natural sweetness.
Blend until smooth, and top with chopped walnuts and grated coconut. Pumpkin seeds would look and taste fabulous as well!
Serves two.
Veggies with a light, fluffy hummus…
People always ask why our hummus tastes so good. It’s mainly from using home-cooked chickpeas, which have no salt. This lets the real flavour shine through, and also making it in the food processor gives a light and fluffy result.
We make a big batch of chickpeas and freeze, then pull out a container a few hours before we want to make this, or make some straight away.
To cook the chickpeas:
Place dried chickpeas in a Dutch oven or casserole that is also stovetop safe. Why do extra dishes? They should fill no more than 1/3. Cover with 1-2″ water and soak overnight or all day while you are at work. How much water depends on how long the chickpeas have been hanging around, feeling parched.
Preheat oven to 250F
To cook, add more water to cover about an inch or the depth of the top segment of your thumb. Throw in a few peeled cloves of garlic, and a good shake of cumin. Bring to boil on top of the stove, cover, and put in the oven for 2-1/2 hours.
Cool and use or freeze with their cooking liquid, or aquafaba.
To make the lunch:
Buzz the zest of a lemon with 2 cloves garlic in a food processor. Add a couple of cups of chickpeas and liquid, the juice of the lemon, another good shake of cumin, and a tablespoon or so of tahini. Process until smooth and fluffy, adding a little water if necessary.
Enjoy!
This weekend we were treated to above-normal temperatures, and found an abundance of locally-grown greenhouse greens at the market. It put us in a salad sort of mood.
While some ingredients aren’t local, we have tried to strike a balance.
For two:
In a large salad bowl, combine:
Zest and juice of one lemon
15ml/1T oil
10ml/2t Dijon mustard
(Did you know Canada was a world-leading producer of mustard seeds?)
Add:
1l/4c washed mini greens and herbs (parsley in our case)
1 diced avocado
1 diced zucchini
2 cherry tomatoes
90g/3oz diced goat cheese
Toss lightly and enjoy!
The fridge is starting to look a little bare as we get ready for a cleanup and refresh. Whether it’s because you’re going away, there’s a change of season, or your cupboards and fridge just need a good sorting, it helps cut down on waste if you take one day a week to cook just with what’s on hand.
Here’s what I saw that needed to be used:
3 homemade sourdough buckwheat buns – I keep these in the freezer because with whole grains and no preservatives they spoil easily.
Sundried tomatoes in oil – bought for a recipe; I prefer the dry-packed, as they keep longer without electricity.
Green olives – good for martinis but alas, we are out of gin.
A can of tuna in water.
Kozlik’s Tripke Crunch mustard, which I love but which has, of late, been ignored in favour of Old Smokey.
Some cheese bought “off list” on last week’s market excursion and needing to be finished off.
I chopped the tomatoes and olives, mixed with the tuna and mustard, and spread this on the buns (sliced in half). Next I grated the cheese and put it on top, popping under the broiler just until melt-y.
That’s it! Another weekend use-it-up assignment complete:
Call them what you will, one of the best ways to stretch your grocery bill is to incorporate leftovers or things that need using up into your lunch.
We’re off to run a couple of errands before the Super Bowl and we were smart enough not to eat the two extra lamb chops in the grocery store package (on sale last week and held in the freezer). We broiled the lot last night and sliced the leftovers for lunch. They’re served on a bed of local baby greens and cukes, both hothouse-grown.
For the dressing:
1/4 c / 60ml homemade wine vinegar
2T / 30ml olive oil
1oz / 30g crumbled feta
1T / 15ml Dijon
1T / 15ml dried oregano or basil
6 dry-cured olives, chopped
Sprinkle on top:
1T / 15ml chopped sundried tomatoes
As the supply dwindles toward shopping day, it can be tempting to run out to the store for just an item or two. But let’s face it, most of us in the developed world have enough food in the house. I’m not talking about low-income households, who face true hardship in feeding their families. But for the rest of us, “there’s nothing to eat” often means “I’m not sure how to make a meal out of what’s in the house.”
This year we moved back to a location where I am in walking distance of a plethora of food sources. So when I started to throw together a quick chowder for lunch, I realized I didn’t have any potatoes. I have sweet potatoes, but I have plans for those. Those of you who know me, know that not having a meal plan is an unusual situation. But did this predicament really call for desperate measures? I think not.
Hence, this classic simple chowder now features turnip (more appropriately, rutabaga, but that’s not what we called the big purple and yellow root vegetable where I’m from). We are still working hard to choose local first, and the veg in this dish came from across the street – and before that, from farms here in our own province. We’re happy that our neighbourhood FreshCo makes an effort to clearly identify local items, and usually has a good selection of those. If you want to know what’s in season in Ontario, check out this handy guide. Many provinces and states have something similar.
Here’s the result – it was pretty tasty. What do you have on hand that you can use up to keep your grocery bill in check this week?
For two:
2 c / 500ml water
1 carrot, peeled and diced
1 c diced turnip
1 onion, peeled and diced
1 6 oz / 180 g frozen fish fillet, slightly thawed and cut in 1″ / 2.5cm pieces
1 c / 250ml 1% milk
Fresh ground pepper
Bring the vegetables to the boil in the water. Turn down and cook for 11-12 minutes on medium low heat.
Add the fish pieces and simmer for another 7 minutes.
Stir in the milk until heated through.
Serve with a grind of fresh pepper.
One of the most important ways to contain your food costs is to never waste. This week, we bought local produce. Yes, the cheese is imported, but we could just have easily used a local variety, if we hadn’t had to use this kind up.
Here’s a link to the original recipe – although practically every ingredient is changed. For the turnip, we used its larger purple and yellow cousin, the rutabaga. We also swapped out the beans for kidney beans we had on hand – in our case cooked without salt and a little chili powder. Red cabbage was swapped for green, and pecorino for Manchego. Even the vinegar was subbed with our homemade wine vinegar.
The result? Every bit as delicious. Vegans can easily use soy cheese, and although the recipe suggested this as a side, it’s so good, full of fibre and colour that the two of us split it as a main.
Stay tuned as we find more ways to make our limited supply of local produce look fresh and exciting!
It’s Sunday morning and we are rushing around to get out the door (again). No excuse not to have a delicious breakfast in our bellies!
For two:
In a blender, whirr
2T / 30ml flaxseed to grind (always keeps better if you grind as needed)
Add
3/4 c 180ml buckwheat flour
2 t / 10ml baking powder
1T / 15 ml brown sugar
Pulse to mix
Then add
1 c / 250 ml almond milk
1 large egg or egg substitute
1 T / 15 ml butter or oil or coconut oil
Mix just to combine (you might need a spatula to help).
If needed just enough milk to make a thick but pourable batter.
Pour pancakes into a nonstick pan buttered or sprayed with cooking oil on medium high heat, about the size of your palm. They will spread and puff a little.
When bubbles appear and the edges start to look dry, time to flip. My frypan does four at a time.
They can be kept warm in a 150F oven as additional batches are made. Recipe can be doubled. Finished pancakes can be frozen with parchment in between for reheating in the toaster.
Serve with fruit and maple syrup.
It’s easy to get on a soup kick in the wintertime, but there are still lots of seasonal salad options, even as the cold weather has taken hold. We are fortunate to be able to get local, greenhouse-grown lettuce until spring returns, but cabbage or kale or other winter-hardy greens would work just as well.
Fill your plate with…
2c / 500ml lettuce, washed and torn
Top with
1 pear, sliced
Drizzle with a mixture of 1/2 T or 7ml each
Dijon mustard
Crunchy mustard
Olive oil
Cider vinegar
Then grate or crumble 1 oz aged cheddar or other cheese you need to use up since the holidays
And sprinkle with 1T / 15ml chopped walnuts or spiced nuts – (thanks for these @dickiedanger @icfplanetweird) and 1T / 15ml raisins.
Switch out the greens, the pears for apples or citrus, different nuts (or even cooked pulses) and cheese – and your winter salad repertoire will be infinite.
Enjoy!
Back in the city, (did I mention we’ve moved?) we have returned to many healthy, happy habits. The first is walking – everywhere. Although we are still eating freshly-prepared homemade food, there’s been a decided absence of baked goods. Generally I only have homemade bread, and we have been busy moving across the country. Somehow, bread making just hasn’t happened at this point, a month in.
This morning my husband commented that he hadn’t been missing the bread at all. So here’s another bread-free, use-it-up recipe, for two.
Bring to a boil:
2 c homemade salt free vwgetable stock
1/2 c sliced onion
1 sliced celery stalk
1 grated carrot
2 t cider vinegar
1 t sesame oil
1 T grated ginger
Divide
1-1/2 c cooked brown rice (leftover) into two bowls
Top each with
1/2 can water packed tuna or 1/2 c leftover cooked fish
Pour hot broth and veg mic over
Sprinkle with chopped cilantro.
So good!