Category — food

Veggie Patties ready for the plate

I have to admit that I am completely addicted to the BigOven iphone app and can pretty much be constantly found adding new recipes to my “try soon” list. This next recipe I found on my phone and wasn’t really expecting too much from it. Especially due to its limited (and simple) ingredients. I should note here that I am not a vegetarian but do enjoy lots of meatless meals. The original recipe author notes that it was passed down to her by her mother. It was adapted from a WWII recipe for meatless sausage back when you had to stretch a buck as far as it could go (not unlike today’s economy for many). It’s such a simple recipe that you almost can’t believe how good they are until you try them. It takes only minutes to get it ready and in the pan, and then you have 20 minutes to get the rest of your breakfast together. They are best when still hot (isn’t most things?) and its amazing how filling and “meaty” their texture is. They would be a great treat to share with a gluten-free friend.

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Rosie and I take a good look at each other

So I’ve been slammed at work (like everyone else in Vancouver during the Olympics I’m sure) so I’ve had little time to eat, sleep, be merry (and post on this site).  I did take a little break and went to the Bloedel Conservatory, which is amazing if you’ve never been. I LOVE the birds there and made friends with one named Rosie who walked right up to me.

I was also sad to hear that Charlie had passed away. He was a really sweet bird. He could talk and would say “Love birds” when boyfriend and I would walk past or stop to talk to him. So cute. R.I.P. Charlie.

Darwin bday/valentine cake

So later this week its Darwin’s birthday and tomorrow the Beaty Biodiversity Museum is having a little shindig to celebrate complete with cake baking decorating contest (I’m excited to meet some science nerds who are into cake decorating).

Anyway, here’s a sneak peak at the cake I decorated. His mouth and eyes are a bit creepy, but hey – I’m not a professional cake decorator, and Darwin’s dead so he probably won’t notice! Hopefully I’ll be able to go over to the event but It all depends on meetings. If I can’t make it I’m going to send the cake with a coworker who will be there.

The cake is a delicious orange almond flavour, and although I over baked it slightly, the bits I cut off the ends tasted marvelous. I’ll post about it probably on the upcoming weekend when I have some time.

Homemade yoghurt

I love yoghurt. I eat it almost every day in some form (sometimes with fresh berries and bananas but usually in my morning smoothie). I decided that my next culinary challenge would be to learn how to make yoghurt. Ricotta cheese was so easy, so yoghurt couldn’t be that hard. Right?

Turns out the biggest trick is finding a good incubator that will keep the milk at the right temperature as the bacteria cultures go to work and turn your runny milk into yoghurt. There are a lot of commercially available products but because we have WAY too many appliances of the kitchen variety in our home I was challenged by my boyfriend to see if I could rig something up from found objects around the house.

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Pulled pork pizza

You know what’s good on pizza? PULLED PORK!

We’ve been making a ton of pulled pork in our slow cooker since we got it last year. It’s AMAZING and easy – it pretty much makes itself while we’re busy working, and it makes the house smell delicious.

A couple months ago we made a pretty delicious pizza from scratch, and I’m just getting to post about it now. Below are a couple photos.

We got the crust recipe off of Big Oven (love that site, thanks to RKG1 for posting the recipe below)

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Yummy food we can't wait to eat

How much of your time do you spend grocery shopping a week? Probably too much. We used to.

I was recently introduced to this wonderful local Grocer who delivers your orders straight to your door. They are called Spud! and I can’t say enough good stuff about them. They make it easy to buy local and organic… and support the local food economy. There are lots of good reasons to have your groceries delivered including environmental and time saving but I have to admit that I hadn’t really thought of it as a reality for someone with a modest budget. Money doesn’t grow on trees in our backyard… but the prices are super reasonable and for our neighbourhood if we order more than $35 our delivery is free.

It’s so nice to spend more time cooking and less time grocery shopping! It wasn’t all local, but we’re working on that… We’re expecting our 3rd weekly delivery on Wednesday and every week is sort of like Christmas… and we’re trying out all sorts of new things we hadn’t considered. Their “fresh harvest boxes” are really good for prompting me to think outside my comfort zone. I think sometimes when I’m grocery shopping I end up in zombie mode because there is TOO much choice at grocery store and I’m in a hurry to get somewhere else. When shopping online, I can take my time and avoid shopping hungry, which overall has resulted in better food choices. I still make it to the local farmer’s markets whenever I can but this service is a nice compliment.

If you want to try it out for yourself use coupon code CRVAN-TEEKAT and you’ll get a combined $25 off over your first 4 orders ($5 on 1, 2, & 3 and $10 on 4).

Amazing giant cupcake (which somehow is better than just normal big cakes)

This massive cupcake is AMAZING. It’s made with a special cake pan that makes giant cupcakes. Drool… Head on over to Williams Sonoma and buy one.  The image is from their site, hopefully they don’t mind that I’ve used it and sent people their way. Hopefully Santa is watching (yeah I know, he JUST came and gave me lots of nice cooking stuff but its never to early to be prepared for next year).

I admit it. It tops my list of least favourites. I’ve never liked it. God, I’ve tried. But I got invited to Christmas dinner with some extended family and I asked if there was anything I could bring. “A broccoli dish” was the answer so I started looking through all my cook books, and all over the Internet for the perfect broccoli recipe. Did I mention that as a broccoli virgin I was making broccoli for 20? Whoa. In the end everyone loved it. I got quite a few comments about how good it was and even a couple of  “best evers.” Pretty funny. I couldn’t tell you personally how it tasted but my boyfriend (who loves broccoli) assures me that it was delicious. Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to snap any photos of the food last night but we’ve got the ingredients to make some more and will post photos in the next few days.

I slightly revised a recipe from Perfect Entertaining (click the link to see the original recipe). Below is my version, which keeps in mind that I was doing all of the prep work at home and that it needed to be transported to the party. Since broccoli doesn’t travel well we waited to steam it at the destination.

We had a great time at the party and this broccoli was a big hit.

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So… I’ve been slack with the updates.

I could give you lots of excuses about getting my “real” work done before the holidays, home improvement projects around the house, organizing (and self-catering) work staff parties and the like, but I won’t. I’ll just promise to make a bunch of updates over the next 2 weeks until I go back to work that will make up for my posting tardiness.

I’ve got some more adventures in juicing, some recipes gone right, and some recipes gone wrong in the bag already and I’ll even post about my first ever attempt at rack of lamb on Xmas eve. Wish me luck! (Thank god it’s already frenched).

Above is a pic of the cookies that I made for my coworkers at our staff party earlier this week. They are vegan gingerbread cookies with vegan butter cream icing. We had a decorating contest and here is my snowman entry. Due to my unfair advantage of having made the cookies and having time to practice, my entry didn’t count. The winning cookie was the only one that “thought outside of the box” (as its creator put it) or off the cookie as you will see. Points for creative use of the plate. Here it is pictured with the Montreal Canadiens cookie by the same decorator. (sorry for the crap iphone pics)

Finished ricotta

I went to a cheese making course at the UBC Farm a couple of weeks ago. The course was inspiring and I learned so much in the short 3 hour course. Obviously in 3 hours you can’t learn everything about cheese but it provided a nice foundation and has inspired me to try my hand at making cheese at home.

I decided to start with ricotta because it’s easy and didn’t require any special cultures or rennet and I was impatient to give ‘er a go. Ricotta is actually traditionally made from the whey left over from making other types of cheeses but you can make it straight from milk. I found a clear and easy to follow recipe over at about.food.com and got to work. Check out there recipe by following the link.

The recipe called for a gallon of milk and I didn’t really know how many liters are in a gallon. My buddy Google came to the rescue (its about 4) and that was pretty much the hardest part of making the cheese.

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