Staying Sneaky

I'm really having fun finding ways of sneaking the veggies my family "hates" into their diets. Unfortunately for me, the stepfamily doesn't trust anything (except cookies) that I make, since it doesn't either come out of a package or is the result of my mom's handiwork. Mind you, even my mom is suspect when it comes to making something "new" for them, regardless of whether the recipe was something she's just stumbled upon online, something I wrote for her, or something right out of Julia Child's French Cooking. At any rate, nobody in the household (except yours truly) willingly eats dark greens like kale, or pretty much any other "lettuce-like" crucifery, with the notable exception being my mother's cabbage rolls (probably because they're mostly rice and meat). While anything sweet and sinful is not on any of the menu plans around here these days, the tastebuds and appetites of many others around me don't mind picking up the slack regardless of the level of decadence (or guilt!) I impart.

Since I haven't been making my usual Summer pies and had some extra time (and goodies) on my hands, I did want to break out something the sweet teeth could enjoy that was also a little less "heavy" than my winter cakes and cookies. Still being in my "greens" groove (speaking of, have you checked out my giveaway and the Cookin' Greens contest yet?) I was casting around ideas for using the kale puree in something else. Then I came upon the Sneaky Chef recipe for "Brawny Brownies" and I was sold. Given that the original recipe used the slightly sweeter baby spinach and blueberries in it's "ninja" puree, I was curious to see if the tarter Concord grapes and bitter kale would be noticed. I modified the rest of the (half) recipe too - making it 100% vegan (with Earth Balance and pureed tofu), spelt-flour based, and with a jacked-up flavour from both almonds folded into the batter and by swapping half the "fat" ingredient (Missy Chase Lapine, the author, uses melted butter) with organic smooth almond butter.

By the time the brownies were ready to go into the oven, the batter looked and smelled identical to any brownie mix or recipe I'd prepared before, and after they were cooled, chilled and cut not even the finickiest child could have figured out the secret. When my sister gets home from college at Thanksgiving I just might have to try this one out on her - if her tastebuds are fooled, pretty much anyone else's will be too. 

Vegan Wine Cake (Really!) and GIVEAWAY!

When I was a kid (and still got bedtime stories!) one of my favourite books was a collection of cutesy tales that (without being all Aesop-y and flat out saying the moral or lesson) still managed to instil some sort of "you should do this" message. One of my favourites was a story about a "Green Galumpetty Monster" who hated to eat his green veggies. After scaring away a family of picnickers, he eats all their goodies (except the green lettuce) and turns into a rainbow-hued creature who gets into "big trouble" with his parents and is forced to eat bowl after bowl of grass to turn green again. 

Luckily, we humans don't change the colour of our food (if we did, most of us would be very beige), but greens are still something we should be eating. The trick is to get the veggies from the store to the table seven days a week - before the freshness fades and they start languishing in the fridge. Buying frozen veggies is nothing new, but when it comes to quality and variety the results are a bit mixed. Obviously, blanching and freezing your own (like we do with each Summer's Romano beans and beet greens here) is the best option where both flavour and texture are concerned, but to do that with all your produce, especially the somewhat finicky, bitter dark leafies, is both time and cost prohibitive. In the case of spinach, to make your own 10-oz frozen block you'd have to buy easily a pound and a half of fresh leaves, then stem, blanch, wring out, pack and freeze them. If saving money is the goal when it comes to using produce, a $1 box of spinach from the freezer case will run you almost $18 homemade! "Specialty" greens like kale and rapini are even more.   

Game Time, I Guess?

I know nothing about sports. I totally admit that.

I mean, it's not like I'm trying to learn anything about the athletic sphere... I honestly couldn't care much less about the rules and plays and scorekeeping that goes on for specific "seasons" (which, I may add, have nothing to do with actual seasons at all), and the whole fuss and bother about what are essentially games (they are, people!) totally weirds me out. Seriously, I can't see huge masses of people getting into riots or blowing their life savings over a hand of Go Fish or Hangman. The hype seems to take away from the true love of the game, the enjoyment the players have for it, and the unity it brings to the audience. I have yet to find a crowd of kids playing ball hockey on the street since I was pounding pavement, and the baseball diamonds and soccer fields lie abandoned when organized groups aren't booked to play. Given the stress and pressure placed on the players, its a wonder that anyone gets into sports at all. I guess that now the allure is now all monetary - and lets face it, money speaks volumes.

As much as I'm not personally a fan of the commercialization of athletics, I can still appreciate that many - if not most - others are. And from what I'm hearing on TV and through the internet it's football season now, which means that hockey is close on it's heels. In my (step)family, though, you may as well say "hockey season ended?" (no secret if you've heard me moaning on Twitter), but one things for sure - Fall and Winter are the seasons of crazy families, parties and pow-wows. What better food than comforting, simple, guilty-pleasure inducing treats to herald the season?

Do Not Attempt Until...

You know those gift tags that you often see around the holidays, that boldly declare "Do Not Open Until..."? Well, it's kind of the same idea when it comes to recipes where fresh produce is paramount. You really get nothing but a bowl-full of disappointment when you tuck into a bowl of sliced peaches in the middle of December, and a tomato salad in February is about as tasty as gnawing on a piece of cardboard. Get the goods fresh and ripe at their peak, though - which is tough when you live in areas with pitiful growing seasons (so pretty much anywhere up here in Canada!) - you get transported to a totally different world. Those same peaches or tomatoes become vibrant, complex, almost magical stars in the raw, and anything but the simplest accompaniment seems like too much of a "frill" for the already gilded lilly.

When those same elements of taste are at their peak is when they are the freshest - and never is anything fresher than when you've plucked it right from your own backyard. I've been spending the past week or so reveling in the glories that are my heirloom tomato vines (especially my Black Seamans, above), the fruit of which tastes so above and beyond anything "tomato" brought from the grocery store that at first I didn't even recognize the flavour as "tomato". Now, I can't believe that in a few weeks (a month and a half at most) I'll be back to those mealy, cookie-cutter fruits in my salad.

For now, though, I will embrace the fruits (literally) of my garden and our tender, careful management of it's dynamics. I've shown you one of my fresh, herb-laced salsas already, but this one's a bit more "traditional" in the sense of being more tomato / pepper based. I still ixnayed the cilantro (ick) in favour of my homegrown herbs, and added pineapple and "white" onion in with the garden's green onions, hot and sweet peppers and (of course) tomatoes. This is a sassy, tangy, intensely-flavoured fresh dip or topping, and since I was going to pass some of it along to my BBQing, pepper-loving friends Beth and Darryl I added in two full hot cherry peppers (ribs and seeds removed of course). You'd definitely need to tailor the chile types and amounts for your own preference, but I kind of liked the almost Caribbean zing of the spice combined with the slight sweetness of the pineapple. Unless you are really a die hard, hit-yourself-over-the-head heat nut, I wouldn't do the habanero (though we are growing those too for some odd reason) - you want to taste your salsa!

Baking with Herbs and Preventing Scurvy

There is no way I'll be coming down with scurvy any time soon. I adore citrus fruits, especially lemons, and the past week or so was an intense lemon-fest around here. It started with me poking my head outside, into the herb garden, and discovering that not only was the pineapple sage I planted almost as tall as my hip, but that the lemon balm and catnip had gone completely nuts as well. Since I'm still (still!) waiting on the next batch of heirlooms to ripen (as far as I can see it's going to be a gigantic Black Seaman next!) I couldn't whip up another batch of my yummy salsa, not to mention the family were off in Stratford and I wouldn't be able to eat it all.

Since I knew I did have a few opportunities to "pawn off" some baking on other deserving and gracious people, I figured that the two would work in that respect. I had previously made Hannah Kaminsky's “Sweet Basil Shortbread” (p.68 in Vegan Desserts) with a mix of pineapple sage and lemon balm, with excellent "fresh-tasting" results, so I wanted to try out something new this time around.