Thursday, August 25, 2011

Favourite Foods, Part One, Lentils & Rice (vegan, gluten-free)


Of all the domestic arts, I think cooking is the most important. After all, it's essentially a daily requirement. It also causes parents the most anxiety. When both parents in a household are working, and then taking one or more children to recreational and competitive sports, tutors and other appointments, it's not easy to provide healthy, well-rounded meals. Now that I am working from home, I feel even more pressure to provide home-cooked (and tasty) meals as often as possible. 

I wish I could say I love to cook. I just don't. I do love to eat though, and I enjoy the sense of companionship that a good shared meal brings. In order to make the task easier, I find it helps to follow a plan. Before I head out on a grocery shopping trip, I choose one of my (many!) cookbooks or visit a favourite cooking website. Once I have picked out a couple of recipes to make that week, I add the necessary ingredients to my shopping list, along with the many items that will contribute to our “usual” meals, like refried bean tacos, baked tofu or pasta and marinara sauce. When I really don't feel like cooking, I stick with old favourites that can be whipped up in a snap.

My Fave Recipe Ever!


This is possibly my favourite recipe EVER. It comes from my friend Tina and her mom Violet. I got this recipe from them many years ago, after one of their wonderful parties with lots of delicious food. Isn't that the best kind of party? Since then, I’ve made lentils and rice for countless events, including birthday parties, baptisms and potlucks at work.

If you know me, there is a good chance I have served you lentils and rice. One of the things I like about this recipe is there is a fair amount of cooking time, but little prep work. You can prepare other dishes while it cooks. It also makes a large quantity, so it's great for a party. It is deceptively simple with few ingredients. And it is vegan and gluten-free. Yes, it calls for a cup of olive oil. But it makes a huge amount so you really won't be eating all that much oil. You could probably cut it back to 3/4 cup if you really want to. But I wouldn't. It's just so good! And it's party food.  Give it a try. I bet you'll love it too!

Lentils & Rice



by Joann MacDonald
Keywords: boil entree gluten-free nut-free vegan vegetarian lentils rice Lebanese
Ingredients (Serves 8 to 10)
  • 2 cups dry lentils
  • 8 cups water
  • 1 Tbsp salt or to taste
  • 2 or more large onions, julienned
  • 1 cup olive oil
  • 2 cups white rice, uncooked
Instructions

Discard any foreign grains or stones from the lentils. Rinse the lentils well and place them in a large pot with the water. Add salt. Bring to a boil and simmer gently until tender, about ½ hour.

While the lentils are cooking, sauté onions in the olive oil in a large fry pan until light brown. Take onions out with a fork and put aside in a small bowl, keeping oil.

Add the oil from the onions, along with the rice, to the lentils and cook on low (with the lid on) until rice is done (usually 20 minutes). Place lentils and rice on a plate and cover with fried onions.

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Sunday, August 21, 2011

Organize-it, Part One

I am fully appreciative of my good fortune as I enjoy a full summer off with my family, however, with the increased amount of time spent in our home comes an increased awareness of just how much junk we have acquired over the years. As summer draws to a close (ouch), I would feel guilty if I didn’t make some progress in my ongoing quest to “organize.” I consider myself a fairly organized person (which is to say that my junk is generally hidden out of sight in areas like closets, the garage and the basement storage room). In an effort to start off the new school year feeling “lighter,” I am going to tackle a few problem areas and report back to you. This holds me accountable if I do nothing. If I am being honest, I would rather watch a movie than organize a closet, but one thing I do love about organizing is that it is free! Sure, you could spend endless amounts of money on bins, storage units and baskets (trust me, I have spent a few bucks myself) but essentially organizing is about uncovering those items that are important to you and that best reflect your character and interests. Says professional organizer Julie Morgenstern, “Being organized has less to do with the way an environment looks than how effectively it functions. If a person can find what he or she needs when he or she needs it, feels unencumbered in achieving his or her goals, and is happy in his or her space, then that person is well organized.” She goes on to define organizing as “a process by which we create environments that enable us to live, work, and relax exactly as we want to. When we are organized, our homes, offices, and schedules reflect and encourage who we are, what we want, and where we are going.”

Part One—The Shed/Playhouse
When we first had our shed constructed, we asked the builders to ensure that it would be safe to use as a playhouse, because I loved the idea of giving our kids somewhere to create a little home for themselves. Problem is, the shed also acts as a storage space over the winter. So, a few weeks ago, my daughter and I cleared out the collection of half-used bags of soil, broken toys and folding chairs and hosed away all of the dirt and mouse poop that had accumulated over the winter. We added a table, a couple of chairs and some bright pots to hold her assorted writing tools. The playhouse is a work in progress—we have plans to add some shelving, some of the kids’ artwork and an indoor/outdoor rug. Given that they have used the playhouse exactly once since we cleaned it, though, maybe the décor can wait until next year. In any case, I was satisfied with a job well done and I stood back to admire the new space more than once. By tackling our disorganized spaces one at a time, I experience a sense of accomplishment that motivates me to continue on to the next space—at some point, anyway.

If you have any great organization ideas, please pass them along. I have also begun accumulating some fun ideas on my Pinterest board.


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Sunday, August 14, 2011

The Big 4-0

That's me, wondering where the years went.
What is it about growing older that bothers some people—namely me? Is it the deteriorating physical appearance or the latest ominous drumbeat on the march toward you-know-what?  Whatever it is, I had to face it recently, as I “celebrated” my 40th birthday. I am fully aware that I am trying to be grateful for the gift of each and every new day, but sometimes that is a struggle. So, as a remedy to the pain of aging, my husband and I gathered loved ones for a party fueled by friendship, food and our favourite drink of the eighties—Black Label beer. We put on a playlist of songs from the past four decades and consumed some of our favourite snacks (hello Ringolos) and candy from the eighties to bring out our inner teenagers. Looking around at the faces of my friends and relatives, I found comfort in the fact that we are all growing old together. I don’t mean this in an “I want you to suffer along with me” kind of way, but rather in the sense that we see each other for the multi-faceted and unique individuals that we are. And, if we can continue to see the beauty in each other, surely we are better able to see it in ourselves.
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Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Simple Pleasures


Simple Abundance is my bible for everyday living. Ever since the book’s author, Sarah Ban Breathnach, appeared on the Oprah show many years ago, I have been reading the book over and over again throughout the years. If you haven’t yet read it, Simple Abundance is described as “A Daybook of Comfort and Joy” and it has one lovely piece of writing for each day of the year. “Some days are shaped by simple pleasures, others are redeemed by them,” says a July entry. How true it is. When I was working at my last job, many days were redeemed by simple pleasures—a cup of tea and a homemade banana muffin, or a chat with a colleague about books, movies or anything other than work. Summer is the time to shape the day with simple pleasures, if you are lucky enough to have the time. One recent day springs to mind—we played on the beach, waded in the lake, ate a simple lunch and made a short trip to scenic Port Dover to explore shops, enjoy the warm weather and have a meal with family at a local restaurant.

Granny and grampy pause in Port Dover
“Today there was no need to glance wistfully at the past or project anxiously into the future because the present was fully lived and simply abundant,” says Ban Breathnach. When circumstances dictate that your day can’t be shaped by simple pleasures, she advises, surely you can redeem the day by spicing it with a few pleasurable activities. Some of my personal favourites are the aforementioned cup of tea, a chat with a good friend or watching a funny movie after the kids go to bed. Oh, and there’s always a good big hunk of chocolate to brighten your day.
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Friday, July 29, 2011

Food and family


With the whole family of four home for the summer, I’m finding it difficult to do any writing, even a small blog entry. We are spending the summer enjoying swimming, sunshine, friends and family. So, after five days of visits away from home, we spent last evening at home, enjoying an impromptu dinner with my sister-in-law and her two children. My SIL brought a great chickpea salad, some tofu baked in a gluten-free teriyaki sauce and a green salad. I was in the mood for pasta primavera and I found just the right recipe here.


The wealth of recipes on the Internet almost makes cookbooks obsolete. (I said almost—I have a genetic predisposition to the love of cookbooks.) The recipe calls for farfalle pasta and parmesan cheese, but my SIL requires wheat and dairy-free, so I made half with farfalle and parmesan and half with kamut noodles and vegan parmesan. The recipe asks you to bake all of the veggies first, and then add them to the pasta, so using two types of pasta was simple. We also had rapini sauteed in olive oil and garlic, because I am addicted to rapini. We followed it all up with some peanut butter chocolate chip cookies from Vegetarian Times magazine. I used spelt flour instead of white and margarine instead of shortening and they turned out to be delicious.


Do you find it hard to focus on work in summer?


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Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Books, books and more books

Every time I drink lemonade, it brings me back to my childhood, and the experience of reading an old children’s book while drinking a tall glass of lemonade (of the frozen variety, of course). I used to love reading books that had belonged to my mother, like a 1939 copy of Tale of the Witch Doll and a 1944 copy of the twenty-first Nancy Drew story, The Secret in the Old Attic. These stories were made all the more mysterious to me by the thick, yellowed pages of these well aged editions. I suppose this is part of the reason that I now have a bit of an obsession with buying books. This summer I have already been to a bookstore sidewalk sale (twice in two days) and a library fundraising sale. With prices ranging from 50 cents to one dollar, I greedily filled boxes with recent bestsellers, classics and non-fiction on topics ranging from decorating to dog training.

There are few pairings more satisfying than summer and a good book. “Summer is the season for reading,” notes the jacket of The Penguin Book of Summer Stories. “Whether lying on the beach or curled up in a chair on the veranda, on a plane to faraway places or taking in the view from a hotel balcony, reading is the most decadent of summer activities.”

The only problem is I have so many books, I don’t know what to read next. Any ideas? I’d like to hear what you all are reading this summer.
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Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Strawberry Fields

My mom says my siblings and I only remember the bad things about our childhoods. It’s true that we have often focused on the negative, but I also have many fond memories, particularly of summer—family camping trips in our tent and later in our pop-up trailer, car trips to Nova Scotia and, of course, strawberry picking expeditions. Hubby and I carry on those traditions with our kids because I know that they too will remember them fondly one day, and maybe think mom and dad did one or two things right. So, last week, we packed the kids kicking and screaming into the car and travelled to Spring View Farms in Uxbridge, Ontario to take advantage of the oh-so-brief strawberry season. Despite my dear son’s reluctance to make the trip, he was transformed as soon as we arrived. He enthusiastically sampled the two varieties of strawberries, proclaimed one a favourite and began filling his basket. We came home with seven litres of hand-picked chemical-free strawberries.

The question then became what to do with all of those strawberries. I was determined not to let a single one go to waste. I was also determined not to put in a huge amount of effort. I began by making simple strawberry jam in my bread maker. It takes much less sugar than regular recipes and lasts three weeks in the fridge. I went on to make strawberry sorbet in my new Hamilton Beach ice cream maker. This I served with Tal Ronnen’s delicious Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake. You might recall that he was Oprah’s chef during her 21-day vegan cleanse. You can find the recipe, which is definitely one of his easier ones, at http://www.tastebook.com/recipes/2254775-Chocolate-Chip-Peanut-Butter-Cake. Ronnen suggests pairing the cake with berry sorbet. At first I thought it was a strange combination, but my family loved the yummy peanut butter cake with the sweet sorbet. I also froze a bunch of strawberries to use for smoothies on those early mornings when we don’t quite feel like eating yet. Of course, I also left some strawberries in the fridge for plain old eatin’. Once, when I was up in my bedroom trying to get in a few moments of reading, I heard the fridge open and close about ten times, as my son grabbed one or two strawberries at a time and ate them (unwashed of course).
Next up, raspberries.



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