Whatcha cookin'?

Now that I am a full-fledged housefrau, I have a little more time to concoct edible delights. You know, move past the jell-o-with-whipped-cream phase into more of a home-made-brownies-with-bailey's phase of cooking.

Lately, I've been pretending that I own a little bistro. Please note that I do not aspire to actually owning a bistro. I could think of nothing more horrifying than making people pay me to eat my sometimes dubious cooking. But when I'm in the kitchen, I day dream a lot, and one of my fantasies is that I'm the owner of a funky restaurant in Kinkytown and I'm being interviewed by some idiot on the Food network about my fascinating menu.

It often goes something like this:

Idiot from Food Network: So tell us about today's exciting features!
Funky Bistro Owner (aka Me): Well, in the summer we make both a hot soup and a cold soup -
Idiot: Uh Huh! Wow! Cold soup!
FBO: - and a choice of two daily salads that change every day -
Idiot: Wow! Cuz people really love salads!
FBO: (shoots Idiot a look of annoyance) - Yes. Right. So, we have favourites that stay on the menu permanently, like our chili, and we always offer a few gluten-free options -
Idiot: Oh yeah, my sister's totally into the gluten free movement, that's becoming very popular!
FBO: (fingering a sharp skewer) It's not a movement. People have gluten intolerances that make them sick.
Idiot: True, true, but it's a great way to lose weight, isn't it! I love these foodie trends!
FBO (skewers Idiot through heart, hides him in compost pile)

Ahem.

For some reason, having these imaginary interviews and restaurant fantasies inspires me to make different stuff for dinner. I picture myself in the bistro, deciding that today's special will be Thai-inspired, so I'll take the leftover BBQ'd meat from last night, slice it up and roll the meaty goodness inside delicate rice-paper wraps, along with whatever wilty vegetables I can find in the crisper. I'll whip up some peanut sauce (which is different almost every time I make it because I can't remember the real recipe, which came from my vegetarian pal who never writes his recipes down anyway), fry up some tofu, and there we go. Or I'll do a running commentary as I blend two recipes together for a batch of soup, throwing in spices that seem to fit, running out to the garden for a handful of dill or chives and pretending it's part of the organic meadow that magically grows behind the bistro. It's weird, but it works.

Yesterday, I made the "daily salad" specials: wild rice with apple, old cheddar, celery, onion and pumpkin seeds in a honey-dijon dressing, and an improvised raw broccoli/cauliflower salad with shredded carrot, marble cheese, green onion and bacon. Tonight I'm going to make curried summer squash soup, sourced from local farmers, which will be served cold or warm and comes with a side of toasted pita bread for $2.99 a cup or $4.99 a bow- um, oops.

Jade has caught me muttering to myself on more than one occasion in the kitchen; she doesn't say anything, just looks around to see who I'm talking to, and flounces out again when there's nobody interesting in sight. I've heard her having dozens of conversations with imaginary characters

- including the infamous "Mr. Ant" - so perhaps the apple doesn't fall far from the quirky tree.

And so far, I have not skewered anyone in real life.

The Rumbly Tummy: Soup, beautiful soup!

I love making soup. Have I told you that before?

Oh...I guess I have.

Well, anyway, my latest creation turned out so well I felt compelled to share it with you, so that you, in turn, would be compelled to make it yourself. Cuz it's damned good, friends. And healthy. And addictive.

D, like many men, is programmed to only shop in bulk. This means he buys entire trays of chicken and dumps them in the freezer, without separating them first. Which means I end up thawing 6-8 giant bone-in breasts at once. I am not a big chicken fan to begin with, and so I season and roast half of Chickie Chick for supper and lunches, and have to be creative with the other half. And this, my friends, usually means SOUP, glorious soup!

As I surveyed the frozen Chickie triplets on the counter, wishing yet again that someone would invent a way to prepare raw meat without actually having to touch it, my inner chef nudged me.

"Hey," she whispered, "it's all rotten and rainy out. Don't you feel like some nice, hot chicken soup? You know, like Nana used to make? With noodles and stuff?"

I made a frowny "Hmmmm" face and looked outside. It was a gross, damp day. The sky was the colour of old socks and the last brave clumps of snow were losing a valiant battle against the mud. Soup, eh?

"Plus," continued Inner Chef, "you can just slide that nasty raw chicken into the pot. You won't even have to touch it."

Inner Chef always knows how to convince me. So that, dear reader, is what I did, along with carrots, onion, garlic, celery and a bay leaf or two. Plus salt and pepper. Plus ginger and lemon. And I simmered the heck out of it for about an hour, until the chicken started to pop off the bone nicely.

Once the broth was done and Chickie was cooked, I strained everything and began to rummage, slice and dice. This is what I came up with:
- 1 onion, roughly chopped
- 2 carrots, thickly sliced
- 3 ribs celery, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 hunk of fresh ginger, thickly sliced

I threw all that chopped up goodness in my soup pot and sauted it in about two tablespoons of coconut oil, my new favourite cooking tool. It smells and tastes divine, is supposed to be antibacterial and you can rub it on your chapped winter hands afterward.

The smells that filled my kitchen were indescribably lovely. Inner Chef agreed. And pointed to my spice cabinet. "Forget the noodles. That coconut makes me want turmeric. And curry. And cumin. And lots of it!"

The measurements went something like this:
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp turmeric
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp salt
1 dash cayenne powder

I stirred that into the veggies for about a minute, until the fragrances became so heady that I almost fainted into my soup pot from sheer bliss. I topped everything up with the broth and a bit of water, giving myself an accidental curried facial. Then I checked the cupboards.

Red lentils?
"Ooh, yeah," purred Inner Chef.
Wild rice?
"Why the hell not?" said Inner Chef.
Coconut milk?
"I thought you'd never ask," sighed Inner Chef.

And so my coconut curry chicken soup was born. Topped with lime, chopped green onion and cilantro, it's dreamy. I served it over basmati rice for supper and even D, an avowed anti-curry-ite, ate it and approved.

It's incredible that something as disgusting as raw Chickie can turn into something so profoundly yummy. Thanks, Inner Chef. And thanks, Chickie.

PS: I ate it all before I thought to take a photo, but this image is pretty close, if you don't count the noodles.

February 14th 2012: Pink smarties, Heart cookies and Elbow soup

It's a curious thing, spending Valentine's Day alone. I know a lot of folks do it, and not always by choice, so I'm not complaining - just sayin'. D is away overnight, so it's just me and the kidlets here on Happy Heart Day.

D left me a giant bouquet of iris and delphinium before he left, telling me he got me blue flowers because that's the way he'd be feeling when he went to bed alone tonight. He's not usually that sentimental, so I smiled rather than rolled my eyes. And they are beautiful - sapphire and cobalt and lapis, with snow-white asters in the middle of the bouquet. I hate red roses, so these are perfect.

Last night, I baked six dozen teeny tiny cream-cheese heart cookies in between sips of a delightful coffee porter. The cookies are my mom's tradition - I have never found her exact receipe, but I make do with one I scrounged off the internet. This morning I iced the little morsels with pink icing flavoured with fresh lemon juice, although my mom always preferred mint. Jade iced a few of her own at breakfast to take to Grandma's, but mostly she occupied herself with wolfing down pink smarties and those nasty little sprinkles I abhore but she adores. Dylan smashed his cookie into a billion pieces, licked all the coating off his smarties and dribbled chocolate onto his shirt before making a valiant attempt to plunge face-first into the bowl of icing. Nothing says Happy V Day like kids covered in sticky yuck.

I wrestled the little monsters into their winter coats (boy, I missed D's strong arms!), found the hats and mitts and snowpants, got the cookies and valentine's gathered up. As I was forcing Jade's reluctant feet into her boots, I heard a clang and a smash that could only mean one thing: I ran to the cold room to find dear Dylan up to his elbows in the soup I'd made the night before. He had tomato and cabbage smeared across his arms, hands and lips and a blissful look on his face. Well, at least he likes it.

So that's my V-day so far. I'm blessed with healthy, active children, yummy food to eat, and a much-needed coffee with Bailey's waiting for me at my desk. That's all I really need, even though a warm bed with D in it would be preferable.

Happy V day to you, my bloggy friends!

Welcome Autumn! No - wait - don't go yet - wait! WAIT UP!

I don’t know if it’s a farmer thing, a country thing, or just one of his lovely little quirks, but around the first week of July, my husband looks out the window with a mournful sigh and says, “Well, Kimmy, summer’s almost over.”
We were zooming down a concession road the first time I heard my husband say this. It was a glorious sunny day; the wheat was yellow, the sky was blue, the trees were green. I looked at him suspiciously. “Are you nuts? Summer’s barely begun!”
Another big sigh from my man. “Look at that field over there.” I looked. The wheat rippled under the unseen hand of the wind. “When the wheat begins to turn gold, that’s how you know summer’s almost over.”

At the time, I thought my husband was pulling my city girl leg, so I rolled my eyes and ignored him. But after hearing this doleful mantra every July for the past five years, I’ve come to accept the fact that the seasons really do change a little differently up here in the country.

I looked out the window the other day and realized with some surprise that not only was it autumn, but that autumn was already making way for the bluster of winter. When the heck did that happen?

Our newest addition, six-week-old Dylan, has a penchant for 3am partying. This has taken a toll on my ability to notice the world around me, let alone what's going on in the next room. I haven't taken in my solar lamps, dug up my garden or planted my bulbs; in fact, there aren't any leaves left on most of the trees and I don't even recall seeing them fall off. I feel a bit disappointed, because watching the seasons change is one of my favourite parts of living in the country.
During the ten years that I lived there, autumn announced its arrival in Waterloo by turning the giant sugar maple in my backyard a ravishing shade of scarlet. City gardens, once resplendent with their displays of frilly annuals, started to wither, and elaborate leafy wreaths began appearing on doorsteps. Even if I’d missed all these signs, getting stuck behind big yellow school buses on my way home from work was a dead giveaway that the season was changing.

Of course, trees turn colour and school buses zip by in the country, too. But somehow, up here there seem to be even more poignant signals that autumn has arrived. The lake loses its serene turquoise hue and becomes a fitful sapphire blue. Robins gobble every last orange berry off my ash tree, leaving it stark naked. Poplar trees shiver and show the bright white backsides of their leaves when chilly breezes tickle them. Squirrels from over the hill risk suicide to scamper across the road and steal corn, black walnuts and chestnuts from our place. And ads for fall fairs and country bazaars start popping up in the newspapers and on grocery store bulletin boards.

The arrival of cooler weather is always a relief to me, no matter where I'm living. This year I’m even more thankful to finally notice autumn has descended upon the Bruce after the unbearably hot summer I suffered through, heavily pregnant and busy chasing an exuberant sixteen month old. And with the return of cooler weather, I've experienced a renewed urge to cook slow, hot meals: borscht, chicken chili, tuscan bean and bacon stew, carrot and potato soup. There's something so cosy about chopping vegetables and concocting something steamy while looking out the kitchen window on a stark fall landscape. And it's immensely satisfying to hear my husband, that lover of summer and barbecues and hot weather, say "Kimmy, you make the best soup I've ever tasted." (That's right people: even better than his mother's! There is no higher cooking compliment, in my book.)

My bulbs may not get planted this year, and my garden gnomes and lanterns will likely taste a hint of frost before I find the time to safely stow them away in the garage, but Jade and I managed to get our pumpkins and 'mums in place just in time for Hallowe'en. And we've got a few more weeks to breathe in the crisp, leaf-scented air on our walks before winter knocks on our door with a frosty hand.
Summer might be over more quickly in the country, but the advantage is that I feel as though autumn envelops me completely. At Someday, I’m surrounded by the season instead of simply observing it through my windows. Well, I’m sure I’ll feel that way again next year when life isn’t a happy blur of nursing and diapers.

The Sunday Drive - Port Albert

On Valentine's weekend, D put me in the car after church and just started driving. I had no clue where he was taking me; he asked if I wanted to get a bite to eat (he may as well have asked if I enjoyed breathing), then promptly rejected all my suggestions. We headed South on hwy 21; I figured we were Goderich bound.

To my delight, we ended up in Port Albert, a tiny little burg near the water with a quaint general store and an even quainter Inn.

We'd been there once before, a few summers back on the motorbike, to see if they had any live music. I guess the Inn has a reputation for attracting wandering minstrals who come and jam at random. But our motorbike night was not one of those nights, so we didn't go in. This time, we did.

The cheerful owner informed us that we'd just missed brunch, but invited us to choose "anything you like" from the menu, which was a blackboard strung up over the polished bar. There were exactly 5 things to eat listed, which made us smile. Two older ladies beside us were cooing with delight over their soups, so D ordered two BLTs with a side of soup for our us.

The Inn's decor featured an eclectic mix of fishing and boating memorabilia, including a huge upside-down dory that was somehow embedded in the ceiling, and a map of all the Great Lake shipwrecks that had ever taken place, which D studied with great interest. A big, pot-bellied wood stove threw off delicious heat at our backs. The owner was very interested in who we were, where we hailed from, whose farm we'd bought, where we worked, etc. I liked him. Especially since he served 10W30 on draft (I'm going back in 3 months to indulge!).

His soup turned out to be homeade and delicious and the coffee was excellent (even though I had to get up and get it myself). I loved the whole atmosphere - the creaky wooden floors, the owner's wild shock of grey hair, the big red leather couch that curved around the fireplace. The place practically shouted "QUIRKY GOODNESS" at me, which is one of my favourite things. I said as much to D. He regarded me with a fond look and said, "I know. Why do you think I brought you here?" Lovely man, that D of mine. He's promised to take me back there in the spring to see the forsythia in bloom and the fish ladder, whatever the heck that is.

Sunday drives. Valentine's weekend. Homemade soup. A good man. You just can't beat 'em.