I know, it has been a long while since I added any recipes, but I am back and below is a yummy dish which is great for either breakfast or lunch. Enjoy!!!
Serves 2
Extra Easy: (1 HEb, 1/2 HEa and 1 syn per person)
Ingredients
2 eggs
approx 8 slices of wafer thin ham
42g of mozzarella cheese (1 HEa allowance)
4 slices of wholewheat bread (2 HEb allowances)
Marmite
2 tsp of Low Fat Spread (optional) – 2 syns
sprinkle of parsley on top
Method
Preheat oven to 200c or 400f
Get two ramkin dishes and in each layer 4 slices of ham, overlapping all the side.
Crack an egg into each dish and then top with 21g of mozzarella cheese in each.
Bake in the oven for approx 15-20 mins until egg is cooked through to liking.
Serve with toasted wholewheat bread spread with low fat spread and marmite.
…of Mr. Spoke. But me? Not so much. The one time I attempted to use our wok (to make Singaporean curry noodles), I turned out a gelatinous mess of noodles that were somehow both undercooked and overcooked at the same time – it was quite an achievement, I thought. I found that notwithstanding that centuries of my ancestors presumably had no problem with the wok, I was overly intimidated by the intense heat used for wok cooking, and that I was also too tentative to grab the wok and deftly flip around its contents with the necessary speed. Hence, the gelatinous mess of overcooked (and let’s not forget undercooked) curry noodles (which Mr. Spoke politely insisted, even when pressed, were perfectly cooked). Since then, I have wisely left the wok to Mr. Spoke.
Tonight, Mr. Spoke pulled out the wok and made one of my favorites, Pad Thai. He has a theory that all the best foods in the world are peasant foods – meaning they involve fairly inexpensive / easy-to-obtain ingredients and lots of flavor (which you really need when trying to spruce up otherwise basic staples). Pad Thai, with its perfect combination of intense tamarind sauce, fish sauce, crab paste, and lime juice, must be among the best of the peasant foods. (Meat loaf, Vietnamese bun, cassoulet (i.e. beanie weanie), roti prata, and dosa are a few others that come to mind.)
Mr. Spoke sauteeing the tofu in a rocket-hot wok for the Pad Thai.
Mr. Spoke swears by Chez Pim’s Pad Thai recipe (with detailed instructions). He preps and lines up all the ingredients beforehand in little prep bowls, and makes one portion at a time. He throws everything into a properly fiery wok, in rapid-fire succession. I try to stay well out of the way while this is happening, since we have a smallish galley kitchen and timing is critical.
My dinner, by Mr. Spoke.
Once the Pad Thai is ready, there is no dilly-dallying to be done. You have to eat it right then and there, otherwise the chef may well get cross.
This is a brief post on the art of living. A friend and former co-worker from Calgary recently decided to bid a ‘fare-thee-well’ to his desk job doing receipt processing for a chance at become a professional coffee-man. Timothy has a fine palate for good food, drink, and photographs. He is the kind of person who can act with courage when that is required, will take time to listen, and who understands the value of a long apprenticeship for the things that matter.
He has thrown his lot in with Phil and Sebastian, a Calgary coffee company that specializes in being the best place for great coffee. In addition to their Calgary Farmer’s Market location, they are opening a new cafe in Marda Loop and Timothy gets to be part of this growth.
Working is important, even if we aren’t working at our dream job, but when there’s a chance to align our dreams with our work, some really great things can happen (along with some very long hours and steep learning curves). Timothy has taken a risk and stepped into something he loves. I’m sure he gets his share of people who wonder what kind of career choice “professional barista” might be. For my part, I applaud it and say that it is a very fine move in the art of living.
For a sample of other baristas who take their work very seriously, take a look at this video. It may give you a greater sense of the value of what we have an opportunity to drink.
View barista competition video.
Here in the Cardus office, we continue to work out our coffee skills using the fine beans of Red Hill Coffee Trade, a local roaster here in Hamilton. Their video shows the process of roasting beans. Time to go brew another pot.
Among other things, I am grateful this year for my dolls. It’s hard to put into words what makes these resinsouls so important to me, except that they have opened up a whole new world to me. This was my first thanksgiving as a vegan and since I was kindly invited to a decisively non-vegan dinner with my brother’s girlfriend’s family, I decided to take it upon myself to bring a few things myself. Shiro and Lia wanted to help!
I made German Potato Dumplings (Klöβe or Knödel), which is a traditional part of our family’s holiday dinners. These were by request of my brother. Lucky for me, they’re also vegan.
And even better, they come in easy-to-buy ready-mix format, since it can apparently be quite hard to keep dumplings from falling apart if you don’t use eggs in the recipe.
I used three of these, two of the “bavarian” style and one “shredded.” They’re essentially the same thing except the “shredded” has more texture. I also mixed in a grated organic raw potato for good measure.
After adding 6 cups of water, lots of stirring ensued. Shiro was eager to help with this. Then, we had to wait 10 minutes for the dough to thicken.
While that was happening, I made up some of my never-fail nutty vegan bread. It’s essentially organic whole wheat flour, organic canola oil, organic brown sugar, walnuts, a bit of pumpkin pie spice, and a tiny bit of baking powder.
Lia helped with this one ^^
While the bread was back in the oven, we returned to the dumplings.
The next step is to form the dough into balls. This was my first time going solo on making dumplings so the shape isn’t quite as perfect as what my mother and grandmother make!
Shiro helped me set up the giant pot of salt water, in which the dumplings are cooked. It took quite a long to boil.
The bread is done!
Here comes the hard part: getting it out of the form in one piece! When it didn’t want to budge, Shiro decided to use harsher methods of extraction.
It worked… mostly!
As Lia points out, the bread broke in two. Perhaps it should’ve been baked longer, or maybe I should have let it cool more before trying to get it out. Better luck next time!
The damage is hardly visible from the top.
Shiro wrapped it all up, ready to go to dinner!
The water finally decided to boil, and the dumplings got added. When they rose to the top of the water, I fished them out.
Done!
Time to go to dinner!
Looks almost like a painting, doesn’t it? It was a lovely dinner. I would have liked to take more pictures but I didn’t want to disrupt the familial atmosphere ^^
This year, I am thankful for…
1) the love of my life. Sometimes dreams come true <3
As I do not have room in the fridge to do a pre-run test on roasting the perfect turkey in time for YOUR Thanksgiving (hope to have one for Christmas), I thought I would repost what I consider to be the OTHER most important dish at Thanksgiving–my grandmother’s cornbread dressin’. Note, there is no “g”. This is real southern. No cheating. This uses real, homemade cornbread. There is no sage. And for the love of God, you don’t put chicken or turkey IN the dressin’. This is not a church potluck casserole that is supposed to include everything. It’s a well balanced side that complements the turkey.
Ingredients:
2 medium onions, diced
1 cup of diced celery
1 can cream of chicken soup (I use 98% fat free)
1 can cream of mushroom soup (also 98% fat free)
5-6 slices of white bread, torn into pieces
2 pans good, homemade cornbread [I highly recommend this recipe] (if you go with a mix, do NOT under any circumstances buy sweet cornbread–it DOES NOT WORK for this recipe–STEP AWAY FROM THE JIFFY MIX–find a mix that says buttermilk cornbread–and for heaven’s sake, use a cast iron skillet to cook it. You only do this once a year, so do it right.)
1 pinch (1/8th tsp) poultry seasoning
good chicken stock (either roast your own chicken and boil the skin and bones, or buy a rotisserie one at the grocery, have a couple meals off of it, and boil the skin and bones of that–see my post about batch cooking for how to make your own chicken stock).
3 eggs
3/4ths cup Egg Beaters (or just use 6 whole eggs if you don’t care about fat and calories)
Directions
This works best if you bake the cornbread the day before and allow it to dry out overnight.
Crumble the cornbread into a large bowl. Add the 2 cans of soup and mix well.
Add the onions and celery and the eggs/Egg Beaters. Mix well.
Add the white bread. Mix well.
Add enough chicken stock to make the consistency just on the soupy side of moist.
Add poultry seasoning. Mix well. Please note there is NO SAGE in this recipe. It overpowers the other flavors. Don’t use it.
Pour the mixture into a 9×13 casserole dish.
You may freeze the dressin at this point if you’re making it ahead of time. Just be sure to thaw completely before popping it in the oven at 350 degrees for 35-45 minutes. The edges should be golden brown.
If you like moister dressin’, drizzle more chicken stock over the dressin’ before baking. If you like it dryer, don’t add as much.
Serve with turkey and giblet gravy (if you’re into giblet gravy…I’m not…the rest of my family is).
going gluten-free was always something i’d hoped to avoid, but for jonathan’s sake, seems to be necessary at the moment. i don’t think he has full-blown celiac’s disease, but we’re still experimenting on what his level of tolerance is. so far it hasn’t been as painful a transition as i thought it would be. seems like there are a lot more resources now than in the past (check out one of my new favorite blogs) and i’ve gotten some tried and true recipes from my sister as well. so far i’m having better luck mixing my own flour than buying the premade stuff. i just wish it wasn’t more expensive. one step at a time…
Mix all ingredients well in a small bowl. Toss into your favorite salad, drizzle on a sub sandwich, or marinate some chicken or fish in it before grilling. HINT: Make this at least 20 minutes before use so that the herbs get fully rehydrated.
With Thanksgiving coming in a few days, this post is to give you some ideas get those preparations in order. It’s a bit longer than others as there were too many different things to consider, and believe me I didn’t hit them all or include all the nifty things I found. But here we go.
First, You might as well be sure to dress functional and cute as you cook. So you’ll need an apron. Check these out
The class, the festive, the reversible, the his and hers
reversible chocolate brown and thanksgiving turkey apron by daffofillies on etsy
Or if you want something super chic cute and classy try something by bambinoamore like this
The elegant eloise vintage inspired enchanted apron by bambinoamore on etsy
(I want a bambinoamore apron in my kitchen)
or for those of you who want something more rugged, durable, and multipurpose or if you’ll be cooking your turkey over open flame of in a bucket of oil you best look into getting one of these
Leather Work Apron by CyclonaDesigns on Etsy
Takes me back to welding class…
Then you will need to get cooking. I bake bread so I’d be looking for a bread pan like this
Bread Pan by TheVillageIdiot on etsy
And if you don’t cook you can cheat by bringing some of these
Chocolate Winter Spice Crinkle Cookies 2 Baker's Dozen by FancyThatCookies on etsy
And if you’ve got some of ‘man’s best friends’ try these
MiniPumpkin Muffins by Organic Doggy on Etsy
(for dogs of course…)
Or perhaps some acorns
100 lovely natural acorn bottoms by MonkeysOnTheRoof on etsy
Or if you want to go a simpler route how about some berries and serve them in this elegant berry bowl (didn’t know there was such a thing).
Winding Branch - Berry Bowl by mepottery on etsy
Now I know they exist I see a gap in my serving ware…
And if you’re looking for other fascinating serving ware how about these spoons with a twist, literally
Basic Kitchen Set - wooden utensils salad spoon fork and spatula by SlightlyTwistedWood on etsy
And perhaps some cherry
Hardcarved cherrywood spoon by heroncovewoodcarving on etsy
and keeping on the wood theme perhaps you’d find a spreader useful
Mini Wooden Spreader by firewoodfurniture on etsy
But if you’re like me you appreciate the fascinating as much as the practical and will be interested in these
Puzzle Two Spoons Set by GoodWoodDogs on etsy
And if you just want something a little different at your place settings consider these (not for vegans)
DeNatura Three Small Serving Spoons Cowhorn Flatware by DeNatura on etsy
Now perhaps you’ll be traveling for Thanksgiving. Maybe to a home you haven’t been to or maybe to one you’ve been a thousand times. Whether it’s for decor in your own home or a hostess gift you may want to check these out.
Keep the harvest going throughout the home with this natural organic soap
Calendula Sage Organic 4 oz Soap BarVegan by JenSanCandles on Etsy
For the craft types perhaps pick up this pattern and make a turkey boy to enjoy the festivities with you
Chrochet Pattern- Chester the turkey boy by Owlishly on etsy
And you’ll want these with all the stray glasses around the house
Autumn leaves coaster set by Vijako on etsy
And for some serious Autumn decor or a glowing hostess gift try this
Woodland Splendor- Woodsy Autumn Leaf Candle Holder by LaBellaCandela on etsy
And what will you wear?
It needs to be comfy, versatile layerable and warm so try out these tops and cowls
I adore this first pairing
soft short sleeve top by larimeloon on etsy
[caption id="attachment_260" align="alignnone" width="430" caption="Nerves of Steel Cowl by fringe on etsy"][/caption]
fringe has got to make some of my favorite everything. I always have to be careful not to include multiple items from that shop.
I also adore the wrap? sweater?
The Year Round Wrap in Chocolate by hipknotz on etsy
And perhaps you might consider these other unique neck pieces as well
rusty orange scarflette by knme on etsy
I like the closures on these
oversized chunky urban cowl knitted in a shade of coffee mocha brown by VitalTemptation on etsy
(the title on that one is much longer with more details…)
And of course accesories…
Here are some harvest hearty, warm autumn accessories to go with the above pieces or whatever you might have
leaf cuff by paintedmetal on etsy
Love this cuff, so simple and strong
Fall Harvest Bracelet by BellaBeachJewelry on Etsy
yellow and red spot Boro Pendant Necklace by SerendipityByErin on etsy
And if you’ve been admiring those fancy serving spoons year after year how about a bracelet made from one…
Vintage Patina Serving Spoon Bracelet by erinschock on etsy
And if your bringing acorns, why not wear one…
Sweet Acorn Necklace Copper Leaf on Brass Chain by RhondasTreasures on Etsy
These handmade gemstone earrings are stunning
handmade gemstone earrings large faceted citrine briolette amethyst tanzanite goldfilled sterling by goreous on etsy
and keeping with the amber/citrine…
Thanksgiving Falls Fiest Vintage Key Leaf Vintage Jewel Swarovski Pearl Necklace by SSSJ on etsy
Indian Summer Earrings by TinyMishaps on etsy
And of course you’ll need a way to carry things so try one of these bags
Citrine Tote New by bayanhippo on etsy
or
The Mini Bag Orange with Black and White Bird by Expressive Stitches on Etsy
And because you look so lovely you may want to protect that outfit with a practical, if not supremely stylish, bib like these
Florence Damask Adult Bib by bibbitybibs on etsy
and for him…
Adult tuxedo Bib by sewwoman1 on etsy
And after the feasting is done you’ll need to clean up. So how about keeping some of these on hand
Pumpkin Pie Dishcloths by RebeccaJay on etsy
(love the photography!)
And in the end, isn’t it all about being thankful? Why not tell someone your thankful for them with these
Autumn Leaf Thank You Note Flat Card Pack of 5 by HeatherJaneDesign on Etsy
This is a brief post on the art of living. A friend and former co-worker from Calgary recently decided to bid a ‘fare-thee-well’ to his desk job doing receipt processing for a chance at become a professional coffee-man. Timothy has a fine palate for good food, drink, and photographs. He is the kind of person who can act with courage when that is required, will take time to listen, and who understands the value of a long apprenticeship for the things that matter.
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