This little farm is home to a few acres of veggie gardens with very impressive variety, fruit & nut trees, chickens, bees, and pigs. Some gardens were filled with green babies, others ready for harvest, while some plants were allowed to flower for seed harvest (like the gorgeous kale above). A day spent in these gardens is exactly what I needed to rekindle my appreciation for the land we live on and for how much local & amazing stuff there is to eat in southern Ontario.

Organic farming on a small-scale farm means that farmers need to be creative and resourceful when it comes to ensuring a healthy crop and a profitable farming operation, since chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides are prohibited. Although “natural” substances are sometimes permitted (who knows what those can be?), this farm claims to generally stay away, so it’s really important for them to maintain healthy soil in order to have healthy plants that are naturally stronger in resisting diseases and damage from pests. They do a lot of really awesome things to keep this operation rolling. Healthy soil = healthy mineral-rich plants = good food = healthy humans. I like this equation.

I don’t know a lot about large-scale organic farms or conventional farms that have organic lines of produce, but I suspect that they don’t work them same way.  What we saw at this farm was some serious veggie TLC, unlikely in large-scale production. I appreciate that there are health and environmental benefits from the restriction of chemical use in general, but I don’t believe that all organic foods are created equal, even with the regulations and all. That being said, it was so amazing to visit a farm that walks the talk of organic farming, and I feel really fortunate to have access to the food that grows there, even if it means waking up really early on the weekends to make it out to the markets.

And now for some food….since local greens are finally coming around, I’d like to tell you about one of my favourite ways of using them. Sauteed greens on some butter/ghee with a pinch of salt and a squeeze of lemon, and a couple of sunny side eggs is one of the best 5-minute meals ever. I made this one kinda fancy with  Wheelbarrow Farm radishes, but this type of dish is all improv and anything goes.

One thing that I find really important at lunch is to have something really satisfying, otherwise it’s difficult to concentrate on work without thinking about what’s for dinner or buying chocolate from the convenience store. “Satisfying” is different for everyone, but for me it means that the meal should have a good source of either protein or fat (or both) to keep me happy and full. I also find that “happy and full” lasts a lot longer when there’s a bit of an indulgence to the meal. Like Parmesan cheese shavings. Or crispy double-smoked bacon. A little bit goes a long way. If it means that the other 99% of my lunch can be made up of yummy green things and good fat/protein, and it keeps me feeling good till dinner time – bring on the cheese and bacon!

This particular salad doesn’t have bacon, but it does have some salty olives and shaved parm. I used a whole avocado and a tablespoon of pine nuts for a serious fat boost. I just realized that you can barely see the avocado in the picture, but I promise that it’s there, hiding underneath. Why don’t I notice this kind of stuff when I’m taking the pictures? Anyway, there’s lots of fresh dill (did I mention my recent herb obsession ?) and balsamic vinegar for sweet and tang.

Another happy lunch :)

Since my last grocery store visit resulted big bunches of herbs to play around with, I’ve made you two herb-loaded smoothies. The first is a very basil-y smoothie, made with kefir, avocado, and dark buckwheat honey. The basil is pretty intense in the amount I suggest, so you can go easier on the basil if you’re not sure about it. If you’re afraid the strange combination here, don’t worry – I promise it’s delicious. The second drink is a watermelon, strawberry and mint smoothie. We’ve been using it as a cocktail base (virgin for me) and it doesn’t get any more refreshing. When thinking about putting more green in your smoothies, don’t be afraid to swap the kale and spinach for some of these flavour-packed leaves. They all have unique health benefits and nutrient/antioxidant profiles, so it makes sense to vary and rotate them to get a good variety.

I’m also very excited to be featured on Noshon.it this week for Meatless Monday! Noshon.it provides a free daily newsletter with great hand-picked recipes and expert cooking tips. Check them out to get daily goodies, like my Minty Yogurt Parfaits, delivered to your inbox!

One last thing…I recently created a new group Pinterest board which is all herbs, hoping to get some of you to share your ideas on how to grow them, cook them, and heal with them. Please e-mail me for an invite, or you can just follow the board here.

Happy Spring!

Did you know that digestion actually starts in your brain? Smelling, seeing, and touching food brings on hunger and causes digestive juices, enzymes, and saliva production to kick into high gear, preparing the body for some awesome digestion action. Enabling this “pre-digestive” process gives the digestive system a head start and a little extra help to make sure that all of this beautiful food that you eat is broken down, absorbed, and put to good use. It’s more than just what you eat.

This is where cooking or “prepping” food makes total sense! In addition to getting to eat home made goodness, the ability to interact with the food before eating gets the body all fired up and ready to go. I’ve been trying to find ways to do this at lunch, and it actually turns out to be pretty simple. Having access to a decent paring knife, whole fruit and veggies can be sliced and diced fresh into your lunch. A few extra containers will help transport all of the ingredients separately, preventing them from getting all mixed up and soggy. With a few minutes of packing the evening before and 5 minutes of prep before lunch, putting it all together is almost like making your meal fresh at home. Good for digestion and deliciousness.

Finding the time to make lunch can be tough and I will tell you that the salad bar in my office building is my good friend. I just wanted to share this post as a reminder (to myself included) that homemade lunch rocks and a tiny bit of extra effort goes a long way.

I’m an on-the-go, savoury breakfast, kinda girl. But once in a while, especially on weekends, I crave something slow and sweet. In my search for good breakfast options I came across two magical recipes.

Chris Kresser’s Sourdough Buckwheat Pancakes are delicious, but I cheated big time making them. In fact, I’ve pretty much skipped over making them “sourdough”, missing the whole point of the recipe. Chris ferments the buckwheat in yogurt for 12 – 24 hours to promote the breakdown of phytic acid, a nutrient inhibitor found in grains (and pseudo-grains like buckwheat), but I couldn’t bring myself to discard the 2 cups of yogurt used to ferment the buckwheat. The previous version of his recipe uses a double water soak for the fermentation, but I really wanted to make use of my kefir in this recipe, so I went for something in between and came up with some delicious and fluffy pancakes, which are still very nutritious compared to the traditional stuff. They’re packed with spices and studded with pears, which you can’t see in the pictures. The topping is some pink-fleshed (cara cara) oranges and an orange-honey syrup. I love that the recipe uses whole buckwheat groats instead of refined buckwheat flour, and I’m ok with having them soaked overnight, and not necessarily fermented. Trying this recipe with sprouted buckwheat is on the list.

There’s more buckwheat for breakfast. This Raw Walnut-Buckwheat Porridge recipe is amazing. Like I said, I’ve never really been a porridge person, never got into the whole oatmeal thing, but I couldn’t resist trying this gorgeous recipe and it made its way to breakfast several times already – SO good!

I have little “ingredient” phases where I discover some new possibilities with a particular ingredient and go wild with it until I can’t look at it no more. I’m not done having fun with raw buckwheat yet, so I may get a cake or crepe recipe in here if I can manage to work it out before getting sick of buckwheat. Otherwise, stay tuned for what the next ingredient phase will bring :)

About a month ago, I decided to plant some citrus seeds (maybe with enough love?). Bringing in some soil, I noticed a dried up little rosemary sprig sticking out of one of the frosted pots. I moved him to a jar of water indoors, along with the pot of soil. I grew mold instead of a kumquat tree, and the dried up rosemary sprig remained dry. Badly craving spring, my not-so-green thumbs were itching to grow SOMETHING, and remembering about how mint grows like a weed in my parent’s back yard, I decided to give store bought mint in a jar of water another try, hoping for some roots. It wilted as usual.

I didn’t have the heart to throw it out so soon, so I left it there for a couple of days. The top leaves browned, but I noticed some perky green inner leaves coming in, as well as a few green buds down the stem. LIFE! Guess what? My rosemary sprig shot out a few roots as well, and I noticed a little bit of new leaf growth. It was all starting to come together. Now get this…that big pot of dirt that I dragged indoors last month and shoved under a shelf, it surprised me with some green life of its own. It hasn’t been watered since last fall, but the chives were determined to make a comeback. Last weekend, I filled the pot with more dirt and properly planted all the new life that has started to grow in our North-West facing apartment, along with some sprouting mini-onions and garlic cloves. I’ll take this new-found plant luck as a sign of spring. It’s the only one we’ve got.

Change of topic…Mast-o-Khiar (NO idea now to pronounce that) is a Persian yogurt dish that I fell in love with as a kid, eating at a friend’s house. I have long forgotten how it tasted back then, but I remember really liking the yogurt, mint (did I mention that I am now growing mint?), grated cucumber, and walnuts all swirled together. It was probably served on the side of something else, but I liked it by itself. I’ve since adapted those ingredients into various things, one of them being this minty chickpea and yogurt parfait. As a working lady now, I am totally loving the savory breakfast in a jar thing, especially when it can be made in advance. I’m not trying to recommend eating in your car or scaring off your new co-workers with strange breakfasts they’ve never seen before, but what can I say…it happens.

P.S. for another unusual take on Mast-o-Khiar, Heidi’s version looks really interesting.

Even really great recipes often pass through our kitchen only once. I need to change things around and stubbornly try to fix what ain’t broken. It keeps me happy. When my husband and I first moved in together, he had no choice but to accept the fate of my culinary whims and challenge his (at that time) unadventurous palette to embrace the unknown. The occasional time when something turned out well and he wanted to have it again – tough luck, my love. It’s been done, it’s over, moving on.

These days, my parents appreciate it when I introduce them to something new or bring over samples of unusual things that they can enjoy without having to witness the process (or clean up the mess). My husband learned to welcome the variety and is grateful of the fact that we actually do often get home cooked meals, even if nothing is ever the same as it was last time.

I have also come to embrace a small collection of recipes that I will willingly and lovingly make on a regular basis, with only minor tweaking. This hummus is definitely a winner, we almost always have the same lemon/honey/evoo garden salad dressing, and following soup has been made about 15 or so times in the past few years.

The recipe, originally from In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite by Melissa Clark, came to me via Orangette. Molly, the author of the blog, has a very special talent of making me want to cook everything that she writes about. I have cooked more recipes from her blog and book than any other, and they don’t even have the big, bright, and shiny pictures we have all come to expect these days when choosing recipes to try. She does it with words and Polaroids.

You wouldn’t be surprised when I say that as much as I loved Molly’s version, the recipe below has gradually “evolved”. Molly called the soup “a quiet soup”, but I think I inadvertently made it loud.

Speaking of the past year, I initially wanted this post to be about celebrating a wonderful year of a little space, where I come to share my love for food with all of you guys – old friends, new friends, family, and random strangers. In just over a year, almost 50000 of you have landed here. I know that it’s not a lot in a world where site traffic is measured in a different order of magnitude, but almost 50000 people have laid eyes on my pictures and words and some of them actually came back, and that’s crazy awesome to me :) Thank you, everyone!

Over the past year, I haven’t been working, so I had plenty of long, peaceful, and sometimes lazy days to dream up, experiment with, and photograph everything that you see here. There were many mornings spent in bed with cookbooks, magazines, a laptop, and my dog friend, Benji, building this blog, reading, researching, and writing.

My work situation has changed recently, and long lazy mornings no more. Benji’s not happy about this at all.

A full time job means that there will likely be changes around here as well, good ones, I hope :) I’m sure I’m missing a famous person quote here, but I like to believe that limitation fuels creativity, and I’m really looking forward to embracing the limitations of time, ingredients, and available daylight to grow this blog in different and interesting ways. I’m not sure what those ways will be yet, but please stick around.

Since I started off with a little kale salad story, I’d like to introduce on of my favourite winter versions. I’ve kale-ified of of my mom’s recipes – a delicious apple, pineapple, walnut, and celery salad. With some kale thrown in, mayo replaced with a honey walnut dressing, and some tart dried cranberries, it almost makes me not want winter to end. Almost.

The mission of coming up with a blood orange dessert that captured the wonderful acidity and tropical flavour started out with a craving for blood orange curd tarts. There are a lot of recipes for citrus curd, but none of them gave the results I was looking for. I found that reducing the juice totally changed the flavour, as did thickening it with egg yolks or corn starch. I tried raw juice with arrowroot starch, but the consistency was horribly slimy. Dozens of blood oranges and a few more failed recipes later, I finally found myself on the right path. Chia seeds are really interesting – they have the magical power of turning liquid into something in between pudding and jello. Although I couldn’t get a chia pudding to stand in for curd in a tart, I loved it on its own, topped with fruit and a sprinkle of coconut sugar. My recent obsession with anything cashew led to experimenting with a blood orange cashew milk as a base for the pudding. Fresh raw cashews are perfect for getting a creamy pudding without challenging the orange flavour. Hope you like it :)

So what exactly is a “detox”? That was my first question. The idea of a detoxification process is that it helps our bodies eliminate built up toxins. Toxins are found pretty much everywhere – food, water, personal health care products, pharmaceutics, cleaning agents, dust, air, LIFE! Our bodies are ideally capable of eliminating these toxins, but there may be several reasons for needing some help. I’m pretty sure that modern day life (especially in a city) exposes us to more toxins than we have evolved to eliminate. Obviously we’ve adapted to a certain degree, but who really knows if its enough? Then if our immune systems and elimination channels are not functioning optimally, we may be accumulating more toxins that we’re letting go of. So a detox protocol, like the one my ND suggested, focuses on limiting the toxins that are being taken in, and supporting the body in eliminating existing toxins by taking liver-supporting supplements, drinking more water to help the kidneys, and trying to sweat more (exercise, sauna, etc..) to help eliminate toxins through the skin. There are, of course, more aggressive and invasive methods of detoxing, but they have no place on a food blog ;)

How do you know if you need to detox? It seems to make sense that we can all benefit from a detox every once in a while, but I had a couple of symptoms indicating that there may be a more urgent need. If you know me personally, you’re probably used to getting a slap on the wrist for wearing perfume and/or smoking around me. I may also have disappointed you by refusing to wear makeup to your wedding, bailing on plans due to a migraine, or remaining completely sober at the drunkest of events. If you know me and are reading this, you’re probably still my friend, so thank you :) I always thought that chemical/smell/alcohol sensitivity and migraines were genetic since my mom has all of the same issues, but my ND suggested that these problems may indicate my body’s inability to properly eliminate the toxins present in those substances and that a detox may potentially make them a little better. I’ve also had a few random skin reactions to food that I can’t seem to track down, indicating some sort of interesting immune system activity.

The most recent course I completed at IHN was all about nutrition and the environment. I have sort of avoided this topic in the past, choosing to be ignorant to things I felt that we couldn’t really control, but taking the course opened up a giant can of really nasty worms and more importantly made me realize that there are many things that we can control. Going back to toxins and detoxification, we used a barrel analogy in class. The simplified version goes something like this: Our body is a barrel. Toxin intake fills our barrel, elimination (detoxification) empties the barrel. Individual “barrel sizes” vary based on the the individual’s immune system, genetics, and overall health. Once our barrel gets full, we experience illness. The moral of the story was to do everything we can to avoid filling up the barrel, assist our bodies in emptying the barrel (this is where detoxification comes in), and maintaining good overall health.

I’m not going to go through the details of my protocol. If you’re interested in doing something like this, get some professional guidance, as the process likely varies for every individual. I do want to say a few things about the food though – this is a food blog after all! The dietary portion of the protocol was surprisingly not very restrictive, and I found that I was already pretty close to following it. The obvious things to avoid were processed foods, sugar, wheat, dairy (unless cultured), seafood, non-organic meats, alcohol, and caffeine. The most painful thing (by FAR) was letting go of my morning coffee, which set off a 3-day migraineathon. I’m proud to say I’ve survived it with no drugs, for the first time in my life, since that would mess with the whole liver detox thing. Once that passed, it was smooth sailing. The detox was supposed to last a month, but my husband and I had the opportunity to book a last minute trip to Mexico, which will interrupt the detox after 2 weeks. The 2 weeks are almost up. I feel better than I did in the beginning of January, but it’s hard to say whether it’s because of the detox or just going back to eating well. In any case, I hope that the past two weeks helped empty the barrel just a little bit, and I’ll be back to trying the whole 1-month journey some time in the spring/summer.

Eating more cruciferous veggies was part of the detox protocol. Yay! :) So today I’m sharing a creaaamy coleslaw with radicchio, and apples, dressed with a honey-mustard-curry cashew dressing, garnished with raisins (I was supposed to avoid these – oops!), more cashews, and cilantro. Using a nut base for creamy dressings is seriously revolutionized my salads, there’s more to come for sure!

At first glance, the ingredient list on the almond milk containers is not wildly scary. There are a few stabilizing and binding ingredients that are questionable, but overall, store bought almond milk is made from almonds. That was good enough for a while. Learning a little bit more about food processing and packaging, I realized that most, if not all, of the almond milk available at the store is pasteurized. Pasteurization involves heating a product to a specific temperature (actual temperature depends on the type of pasteurization) for a period of time to kill enough pathogenic bacteria to make the product shelf stable. Refrigerated almond milk is pasteurized too. This destroys many heat sensitive vitamins and enzymes in the process and damages any healthy fats that were once present in almonds.  Some vitamins are added back in, confidently appearing on the nutrition label. The fact that almond milk is “processed” isn’t shocking by any means, but I recently learned is that most whole almonds that are labelled “raw” are pasteurized too, at least ones coming from the US. Nuts.com has some unpasteurized almonds for sale, imported from Spain. I’m not sure I’m ready to dish out $13.99/pound for some seriously raw almond milk yet (though they’re probably worth the price for eating whole), but I really hope that at least having the almonds in tact during pasteurization protects some of the vitamins and fats. When soaking the almonds overnight, a little “sprout” appears at the tip. Maybe that indicates that some life is still present in the poor suckers. Fingers crossed. If anyone knows of any other good sources for truly raw almonds or information on this topic, I’d love to learn more.

The most common way to make almond milk is in a blender, there are many recipes and tutorials out there. Here is a great one. If you have a slow juicer instead (not that they’re the same thing at all), the process is similar. Almonds are soaked overnight, then juiced with water. Most sources recommend a 1:4 ratio of almonds to water, but I prefer 1:2. I think the reason that I initially didn’t like the almond milk was that even though the pulp comes out of the other end in the juicer, there are still traces of pulp left in the juice. This didn’t work for me. A nut milk bag was the answer (just like with the blender method) and I discovered that this stuff actually tastes amazing. The 1:2 ratio produces a very creamy milk. I blend 1 cup of it with a ripe banana and I’m a happy girl. What makes me even happier is adding some cinnamon to the mix, and swirling in some carrot-ginger juice.

Since I’ve been generally eating better over the past few years, the shift from my regular diet to my holiday diet has been pretty drastic. I’ve never been into new year’s diets or resolutions, but every year I’m finding myself to be more and more relieved that the celebrations, dinners, and social eating gatherings are over, longing for the day I can take back control of my meals.

This is the first year that I’m debating on doing some form of a juice cleanse, seriously craving a literal break from food. Doing some basic Google research on how to go about this and whether or not it’s actually a good idea leads to the most comprehensive information coming from juice cleanse companies trying to sell super expensive bottled juices. I’m not sure there was actually any real research done on the effects of juice cleanses, yet there are many sources calling bullshit on these so called “schemes”, explaining that several days of starving yourself on juice doesn’t lead to any real detox, long term weight loss, or improved health. Since I’m not looking to achieve any of the above, just wanting to give my digestive system a little break, I spoke to others that have done this kind of stuff in the past, collecting some pretty rave reviews. The verdict? There’s no better way to find out than to experiment. I’ll probably see my naturopath to get his opinion and guidance, and then at some point in mid January, embark on a mission to consume nothing but juice for a couple of days, observing my body’s reaction. Once I get this whole cleanse thing figured out, I’ll do a more detailed post on the research and advice I collect, along with a review of my own experience. If you know of any good sources of information, recipes, or actual research, please send it my way. I would also love to hear any personal experiences with juice cleanses, so please share!

In the meantime, fresh salads and warm veggie soups are where it’s at. In January, our local veggies are pretty limited, so I’m getting back into sprouting some seeds that are laying around the kitchen. Sprouts are a fantastic source of vitamins and enzymes that are usually lacking in our veggie supply throughout the winter, so it’s a perfect time to experiment with those grains, seeds, and legumes (you’ll be surprised at how many of them you can easily sprout). I’m currently loving Chickpea Magazine, and there’s a really great article on sprouting by Tiffany Noe in their Spring 2012 issue and plenty of tutorials on sprouting specific seeds using various methods, available online.

This year is a little bit different. I haven’t really thought about the day that we would decide not to bake cookies but I knew it was coming, as we’ve both been striving to have less baked goods in our lives. Even though most of the batch goes out as gifts, our friends and family don’t need any more cookies during this time of the year either. I’m proud of our decision and it really shows how far we’ve come over the year as far as our eating values go. We thought about making “healthier” cookies, but haven’t mastered the art just yet (I’m working on it) and couldn’t rely on sharing them with people that have come to expect the sugar, flour, and butter that we’ve been delivering year after year. Maybe next year!

But I couldn’t let this year go by without at least trying to offer a better alternative to holiday cookies here on my blog. I’ve been trying to find the right recipe, and it just so happened to come along last week when I experimented with these coconut snowballs from The Kitchn. When baking cookies, I’ve always been inspired by the slice-and-bake cookies palette from Smitten Kitchen and try a few new flavour combinations every year. So I’ve applied similar principles to the snowballs, experimenting with different flavour additions, and renamed them to truffles. These are great for any sort of restrictive diet that you may have to accommodate for at your holiday gatherings. They are vegan, lightly sweetened with maple syrup, and grain free. They can also be made raw and/or nut-free depending on the flavour. Sounds boring? The flavours I experimented with were pretty intense, so no one will even know.

Wishing you all an amazing holiday season! I’ll be back in January, rockin’ the veggies :)

As the holiday gatherings are upon us, I’d like to share the final squash recipe that I contributed to the fall/winter issue of Divya Yadava Magazine last month. This lentil + balsamic onion + squash salad is a great recipe for serving at a dinner table. It’s satisfying enough as a main for vegetarians, and makes a great side dish for a juicy roast – I like chicken.

If you live in a part of the world that’s currently in winter mode, squash is one of the few local ingredients that may still be available. Since the salad can be made with almost any squash variety, or even a mix, it brings the perfect opportunity to experiment with that beautiful squash you’ve been curious about. The squash appears in tasty roasted chunks here, so you can really get to know and appreciate the unique characteristics of the variety you’re using.

As part of my squash contribution to the magazine, I did a little summary of the common squash varieties and shared some tasting notes and ideas for ways to use them. If you haven’t checked it out yet, the notes can be found on page 25 in the magazine. Also, here’s the recipe for roasting the squash. Enjoy!

The fall has gone by at super lightening speed and I can’t believe we’re already into the third course. I’m loving that we talk a lot about conflicting research, discussing some controversies, and trying to be open minded to it all. I’m also loving the vast amount of information that is entering my brain and the challenge of making sense of it in the context of my own life. I was a little bit afraid of a strong bias towards certain ways of eating when I started, but am relieved that the classes seem to be pretty agnostic in that regard and we focus on learning about scientific properties of foods, the biological processes of the human body, and ideas that circulate not only our society, but also other parts of the world. It is emphasized that people have individual nutrition needs and there is absolutely no “one size fits all” model or a food chart, for that matter. I am totally on board with all that but the truth is that it’s impossible to have a fully unbiased education in this field. At the end of the day we are biased by our text books, recommended readings, and of course our teachers’ experiences in the field. This might be a strange thing to note, but I appreciate that our first teacher was experimenting with the paleo diet, while our current one is vegan. This should be totally irrelevant, since their personal choices are not what we discuss in class, but its something I think about anyway, as it demonstrates the diversity of personal experiences that fuel our classroom discussions. I also appreciate that what we are learning is research based and the school seems to make a genuine effort to make sure that we’re using high quality studies to back up the material. We discuss bad research, and that a lot of it is sponsored by industries that have an interest in seeing certain results. We also talk about the fact that new research is done all the time and that it is never done to prove something, but rather to support or disprove older research. So naturally, “facts” change all the time in this field and it makes it a little more challenging to take things seriously.

So far I think I’ve accumulated more questions than I have answered. That’s a good thing, I guess, but the idea of writing about it all is making my head spin. I don’t really intend to preach eating habits here or dig into the nutritional values of specific foods. I do, however, want to share the things I’m learning and thinking about and I’m finding it really hard to strike that balance in my thoughts and words. When talking about nutrition, it is easy to dig up “facts” claiming that a certain food is the key to a healthy life, and at the same time find “facts” about why it’s going to kill you. We have to believe something though, or not care about it at all. If the second option is not really an option, then we’re at the mercy of someone else’s research, and I have a difficult time writing about things that I have accepted as facts at the moment, knowing they may very well change.

I said that I wasn’t going to discuss nutritional values of specific foods, but I thought I’d say a few words on quinoa, as it receives a lot of attention these days. We haven’t really talked about specific foods in detail in our classes, so far, but some do make an appearance in various contexts. We briefly went over some of quinoa’s vitamin and mineral contents and the fact that its a complete protein – something important to consider for those that don’t eat animal protein. Another thing to note about quinoa is that it contains phytates and lectins, which can inhibit mineral absorption and cause digestive issues. Many sources recommend soaking and/or sprouting the seed to help with these issues, but that still doesn’t completely disarm them. So…quinoa, like many other generally nutritious foods, has a little bit of a dark side. Some people may ignore the dark side, some may decide not to eat quinoa at all, and many, like me, may fall somewhere in between. As a meat eater, I certainly don’t look to it as a source of protein, and though I appreciate its rich nutrient content, I’m not counting on it for that either and choose to eat it occasionally because I like how it tastes and what I can do it.

I love veggie based quinoa salads with herbs, nuts, and fruit. I’ve also recently been a little bit obsessed with pomegranate seeds in savoury salads, having recently learned to eat the whole seed without spitting out the seedy part. This salad is loaded with spinach, cilantro and mint. It has chewy eggplant slices, crunchy hazelnuts, thinly sliced onions, and sweet pomegranate seeds. At this point, I can probably convince you that this salad is loaded with “superfoods” and is one of the healthiest things you can eat, or I can find nutritional quirks in all of the other ingredients to convince you to stay away. I won’t do either of those things, not now, and probably not ever. I will, however, try to get better at sharing my thoughts along with my recipes and inspire you to experiment with a variety of real and delicious food.

The concept for today’s recipe was inspired by the honey mustard broccoli salad from Sara and Hugh Forte’s lovely book, The Sprouted Kitchen. I was sold at lightly steamed broccoli + honey mustard + eating it cold. There is no picture, which means that it might get lost in the shuffle of recipes that have beautiful photos to go with them, but I’m hoping to shine some light on it. Since I first had the original, which was delicious by the way, I’ve been playing with variations. It has come pretty far from what Sara had in mind but it has lightly steamed broccoli, honey mustard dressing, and is eaten cold. Enjoy!

To add to the pumpkin pie love going around, I’d like to share some choco-coco squash bars, another recipe that I contributed to Divya Yadava’s Fall/Winter 2012 Magazine. When I started thinking about squash desserts, Divya encouraged me to try something pumpkin pie-like using squash. Not being a big fan of pumpkin pie, I researched some pumpkin-based recipes to figure out what it was that I didn’t like about it and realized that a standard recipe uses a ton of sugar (in addition to the already quite sweet pumpkin puree) and a sweet crust. That was it. I played around for a while and settled on this combination, which has roasted squash, coconut milk, cocoa powder, sweet spices, and a little bit of maple syrup for the filling. It sits on a simple nutty crust. The flavours are complex, thanks to the coconut and chocolate, and the filling is rich and creamy but not too sweet.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American friends and the rest of us who wish we had just a little less Christmas!

I recently contributed an article to Divya Yadava’s Fall/Winter 2012 Magazine and my little experience on the “writing” side of the whole thing really made me think about how often, as readers, we look past the details. There’s a great article from The Kitchn that talks about savouring magazines, and I think the author read my mind as I was thinking through this very process. There’s so much passion and goodness in a magazine beyond what you will find in 5 minutes, if you just allow yourself to take the time to soak in the words, appreciate the photography, and actually try the recipes.

If you’re not familiar with Divya’s work, she’s an amazingly creative and talented food photographer and culinary consultant, based in Toronto. What I love most about her magazine is that in addition to it being gorgeous, the recipes are really really good and she focuses on keeping them healthy without compromising deliciousness. I’m in the process of going through my real bookmarks and will share my favourite recipes in the coming weeks. Divya’s amazing work and her magazine can be found here, and I really hope that you’ll take the time to truly enjoy it.

The leek and squash frittata that you see here was part of my little piece on squash. Both the roasted squash and frittata recipes can be found in the magazine on pages 26 and 27, or below. I also highly recommend you try the maple ginger apple chips on page 69. Best I’ve had. Ever.

For some much-needed excitement this week, I was very lucky to get a sneak preview and a few recipes to test from Divya Yadava’s upcoming magazine. I don’t want to reveal too much, but from what I have seen and tasted, you guys do not want to miss this fall/winter issue! That is all I will say for now, but check back next week for a link and more on the magazine. One of the recipes involved maple glazed pecans. As soon as I tasted the pecans, I knew that it was the end of bulk store nut candy. Forever. They also triggered a memory of this Sahale nut mix that I had and loved a while ago. This mix is not as evil as bulk store nut candy, from an ingredient perspective, but the only place I ever found it was at Whole Foods, and it was kind of expensive. I tried recreating it at home once, but the pecans came out soggy, and that was the end of that. Maple glazed pecans, as I found out this week, are the complete opposite of soggy. Maple syrup is magical like that. So… thanks to Divya’s nut roasting genius and the delicious Sahale nut mix, I present to you today’s recipe.

This blog is still pretty new, so why such a quick re-design, you may ask? When starting the blog, I was in a bit of a deliberation, not knowing whether I should figure out how I wanted it to look and function, or just start writing. I didn’t know exactly what kind of content would be here, so I couldn’t visualize it properly, yet without a place to write, I couldn’t get myself to start writing. My background is in web development, and I’ve spent most of my career bringing other people’s designs to life. When I finally had some time to work on my own project, I jumped at the chance to design it myself. That’s how the first blog was born. Any of you that have gone through a design process (especially when you’re inexperienced like me) will understand how I almost instantly hated it as soon as it went live. As the blog took shape and I started to get some more ideas about where I wanted it to go, a re-design was obviously in the works. So here it is! I will probably hate it really really soon.

Before I get to today’s delicious recipe, I want to highlight some of the major changes that I’ve made and encourage you to poke around. Aside from the shiny new theme, I added/improved a couple of sections. The archives page, my favourite page, now has pictures and a funky little filtering tool to show recipes by categories, tags, and dates.

A new section, which I hope you will take a few minutes to check out it a listing page of my very favourite books about food. Blog lists like this are where I get many book recommendations, so I wanted to share my favourites and help you guys discover some awesome books, if you haven’t read them already. This page is found under “books” on the main menu.

I added a couple of plugins, made some SEO and performance improvements, and hopefully made the blog more visual, accessible, and easier to get around. I’m still working on properly supporting some of the “pickier” browsers (*cough* IE), as well as a mobile version of the site, so there will be continuous improvements over the next little while. In the meantime, please show yourself around, and if you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement, I would love to hear them!

On to the recipe! During a market visit a few weeks ago, I found gorgeous brussel sprouts still on their stem, and couldn’t resist the photo-op, and their freshness, of course.

This is the first recipe that I’m sharing that uses barberries (or barbaris), surprisingly, since I cook with them quite often. I first encountered them in Iranian cuisine, as they commonly garnish chicken and rice. They add a super sour little punch. I quickly adapted them to roasted veggies, salads, stews, and other meat dishes. To find barberries, try middle eastern grocery stores, or you can buy them online. If all that fails, just use the currants (or even raisins if you don’t have currants) in the recipe and add an extra squirt of lemon juice just before serving.

“Powerhouse: avocado, chick peas & grilled tofu steaks with sunflower sprouts,
Toasted Nut & Seed Mix, tomato, red onion & spicy tahini sauce”

Now I didn’t have all of the ingredients, but it didn’t matter since I was going to have to improvise the recipe anyway. Here it goes!
Before you cook:

If you’re looking for a gluten free option, read the label on the soba noodles package. Theoretically, soba noodles are made with buckwheat flour and are gluten-free, but I find that most brands use wheat flour as well. These are gluten-free and are my favourite.

I used Thai curry paste in the dressing. I can’t tolerate any heat in my food, unfortunately, so the curry paste I have is fairly mild, but still has a ton of flavour from herbs and spices. Know your curry paste, and adjust accordingly. I assume most people will want this bowl spicier, so ignore my curry paste quantity and use your own based on your heat tolerance and curry paste.