Toast Topper #3 (Small-Batch Almanac Pear Butter)

Continuing in the theme of nummy fruit-based options for your favourite toasted carb, I broke out one of the staples in our fruit basket for the next spread, also adapted from the Old Farmer's Almanac Garden-Fresh Cookbook. Pears were historically called the "gift of the gods"- and it's easy to see why. Filled with fibre, vitamin C, vitamin K and copper, pears are also considered hypoallergenic and have such minimal levels of oxalates and purines that they're not reliably measured. The riper they are (until they go rotten), the higher in antioxidants they are, and the sweeter they taste!

Since I picked perfectly ripe-for-eating specimens of the already candy-like forelle pear for my small batch of pear butter, I let them sit out on the counter another two days or so to solidify their flavour. The extra ripening time, coupled with the long, slow cooking, meant that the natural sweetness of the pears condensed into a dark gold caramel all on it's own, no sugar required! At the end of the cooking time, the flavour was more of a rich butterscotch than a fresh, crisp pear, but it was perfect to go with pancakes, waffles and of course the family favourite bagels! If dulce de leche had a fruity cousin, this would be it.

I'm passing on this rediculously decadent and nutrient-packed spread to Ricki's Wellness Weekend!

Toast Topper #2 (Blueberry Butter)

I'm probably one of few people on the planet who doesn't particularly like berries. I'm okay with them, don't get me wrong - I'll eat them off a fruit platter or as a jam, but given a choice between a pint of blueberries and a Granny Smith or Honeycrisp apple? I'm the teacher's pet the whole way.

But, like I said, I will eat them as a spread! Especially if they're mixed together in a blend like the "Summer Fruit" or Superfruit. When I was going through my review copy of The Old Farmer's Almanac Garden-Fresh Cookbook last week, I saw this "Blueberry Butter" recipe and thought I'd give it a whirl. Firstly, I liked the fact that it would help me use up the wild blueberries in our freezer before they got burned. The light spicing and apple components won me over completely. I scaled down the batch so that I wouldn't have to go to the store, and set to work.

Partway along the cooking process, I came around to stir it and smelled a heady dose of vanilla. I wasn't sure why my house smelled like an orchid processing plant until I looked at the bag of sugar I used and found out I had used exclusively vanilla infused sugar instead of the standard granulated I thought I grabbed from the pantry! At the end of the cooking, though, the smell dissipated enough that it left a noticeable, but not smack-you-stupid element that I think really made the jam for me. A quick schmear of it on a crust of bread and I knew I had some good stuff going. If anything, I would have bumped up the nutmeg a touch, but I'm a spice addict at the best of times!

 

Small-Batch Blueberry Butter
Makes about 1 1/2 cups, 12 (2-tbsp) servings
1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen (unthawed) wild blueberries
2 medium Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and diced
1 cup vanilla sugar (or regular sugar + 1 vanilla bean)
pinch salt
1/4 tsp allspice
pinch nutmeg
1/4 cup water

1. Combine all the ingredients in a heavy bottomed saucepot.
2. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer 1 hour, stirring frequently to prevent sticking and mashing the fruit against the sides of the pot to smooth it out.
3. The butter is done when it is thick and spreadable.
4. Can in a water bath or spoon into clean jars and keep in the fridge up to 6 weeks.

Amount Per Serving
Calories: 88.0 
Total Fat: 0.2 g
Cholesterol: 0.0 mg
Sodium: 1.1 mg
Total Carbs: 22.9 g
Dietary Fiber: 1.2 g
Protein: 0.1 g

Toast Topper #1 (Vegan Strawberry Curd, Slightly Soused!)

We love our bread around here. In particular, we love our toast - everyone thrives on a good whole wheat or even grainier slice crisped to golden perfection, except the white-bread-only stepdad (who still prefers his toasted!). Whether for breakfast, lunch or a snack, it's the perfect comfort food and the vehicle for all sorts of spreads, sauces and other toppers. In my childhood, I was extremely partial to peanut butter or Nutella (if the toast had cooled) and either honey or cherry preserves on bread or bagels hot from the toaster. Granted, if my dietary restrictions allowed, a thick schmear of Nutella topped with a tart cherry preserve would be my manna (and I'd be back to my 230 pound self!). My sister is still a Nutella-only girl, and Mom always has been a extra-fruit spread fanatic.

I'm more like my mom these days, preferring choices with the most fruit and least "other stuff". Usually, we buy our jam (with the exception of last Summer when we had the Backyard Grape Jam!), since it's cost- and time-prohibitive to make and can our own when we all work and have other obligations during the week. However, over the past few weeks I've found three super-simple spreads that are either lightning-fast to throw together or cook unattended for long enough that other things can get done in the meanwhile. All of them have become favourites with not only me, but my immediate family and the guests we have hosted recently due to the recent loss of my grandfather. Not only is that slice of piping hot bread smeared with a home-made spread wonderfully familiar and comforting to eat, by making them it was a way for me to do something I knew and was confident in, a wonderful culinary hug in this unsettled time.

The first one I decided to make was actually thanks to one of my favourite food bloggers and a person I'm glad to have as a friend - Carla of Chocolate Moosey. At the beginning of June, she had a whole week of strawberry recipes on her blog, including delectable Strawberry Jam I have on my to-do list and the Vegan Strawberry Curd I eventually decided to make! I still had a jar of (very) well-aged Soused Strawberries in my fridge and decided to make the curd with those instead of fresh ones. Since I wasn't sure what I'd be using it for (provided there were leftovers!), I also decided to use the freezing-stable tapioca starch as a thickener. Since it was out for another recipe, I used SucaNat as well, but the total amount of sugar was so small anyway you could easily just use regular sugar.

Stay tuned tomorrow for Toast Topper #2 - Blueberry Butter!

Music and Events at Toronto’s Upcoming Festival of Beer

Even though I cannot drink (and so won't be sampling any of the over 200 labels on parade), the Festival of Beer in Ontario's capital has tons of other stuff to do - I cannot wait to go!

First of all, there's a grilling tent (sponsored by Napoleon) featuring Chef Ted Reader. Not only will he and his "friends" be sharing great grilling tips, but they'll show you how to keep your grill clean and keep it the perfect summer cooker. Other fabulous local chefs scheduled to appear on the grilling stage are Matty Matheson of Parts & Labour and a guest on Top Chef Canada (Season 2, Ep. 4), Rodney Bowers of Hey Meatball and Food Network's The Delinquent Gourmet, Rob Rainford of Food Network's License to Grill, Joe Levesque of the International Centre, Craig Harding of Campagnolo, and Mark Cutrara of Cowbell Restaurant.

Then, of course, they have the Brewmaster's Dinners. Each of these are at a different restaurant in the city and feature a special menu that evening focusing on the beer being served that event. So far, these Dinners are:

July 10 @ Oyster Boy featuring Propeller Brewery
July 16 @ Wvrst
July 17 @ Barque Smokehouse featuring Brasserie McAuslan Brewery
TBA @ The Monk's Table

For the non-drinkers or -foodies out there (horrors!) there is an amazing musical line-up at the Bandshell Park as well. With good food, good beer, lots to learn and tunes to enjoy it all by, it's promising to be quite the event!

More information on the musical line-up, tickets and dates is in the media release below. You can also follow Toronto’s Festival of Beer on Twitter @TOBeerFestival, Like it on Facebook and get tickets (and extra information) at www.beerfestival.ca

Superfood Peanut Butter n' Cookies Fudge

I know, I teased you with fudge yesterday! Well, this may not be "true" fudge in the sense of the intense butter/sugar overload (yes, I know... that's what makes it good), but if you fell in love with my earlier "Saintly Smooth Fudge" you'll probably like this one! I had such successful taste tests of the dark chocolate and black bean combination that I wondered if I could do a white bean, white chocolate creation with peanut butter and cookie chunks. After making the Kamut® Cookies for Creme, I broke them up and added them to the puree. I would have pulsed them in with the food processor, but the old thing is a little worse for wear these days and doesn't want to work very well.  

When I first made it, I was stymied by what I could use to replace the cocoa powder. Obviously the colouring and flavour would be wrong for a "peanut butter" fudge with it, so I started to look through my pantry for possibilities. When I found my small stash of maca powder, I wondered if I could use that - but I also knew that the stuff raw is not great eating (I find it slightly sour/bitter, so I add it in smoothies to cover it up).

After scouting the intarwebs and my nutrition textbooks, I got schooled on the whole world of the superfood, and found out that when raw (i.e. unroasted / ungelatinized) maca can be difficult to digest and is a goitrogen (which can mess with the thyroid). The unpleasant taste of the raw stuff is just nature's way of saying stay away or cook me! The digestion and thyroid inhibitors are reduced  or deactivated by heat. So toasting it would be the way to go. As a bonus, roasted maca reportedly tastes like caramel or butterscotch, with some coffee-like notes thrown in (I found more like a pecan / vanilla caramel flavour in my taste tests FWIW). Nevertheless, it would go nicely with the rest of the mixture.

But just what is maca anyways? Well, long story short, maca powder is an ancient Peruvian energy and libido booster, containing large amounts of amino acids, carbohydrates, and minerals like calcium, phosphorous, zinc, magnesium, and iron. It's also packed with the vitamins B1, B2, B12, C and E and is an adaptogen - basically helping support the body's adrenal and pituitary gland health to help protect against physical and mental weaknesses (including stress and disease!). Overall, it's a huge tonifying agent for all of the body's glands and hormones, which can improve fertility, sexual function, digestion, and brain and nervous system activity. Whew!

So I had part of the "dry" mixture, but I didn't want to use all maca - for one, it's expensive ($1.37 an ounce or more), and for another, I didn't want the taste of it to dominate the peanut butter. I decided to use ground almonds for half the volume in a small batch, which worked but left the texture a little too soft for my liking even when stashed for 2 days in the fridge (frozen chunks, however, are delicious "cookie dough" additions to ice cream / pudding). Then, when at one of the health food stores downtown, I found "partially defatted roasted peanut flour" by Protein Plus and picked it up on a whim. The package said it was a good thickener, so I figured that it would help with texture as well as boost the peanut taste. The half and half maca / peanut flour version was far superior in texture and full of balanced nutty, sweet, caramel and chocolate, and my taste-testers (who had no idea what was in it!) fell in love too.

I'm going to cross my fingers that Ricki will accept this into her Wellness Weekend - after all, she (and Gretchen) started my obsession with beany fudge! Obviously, I used vegan white chocolate here (I found Bonvita white chocolate made with rice milk and raw cane sugar at the same store as the peanut flour), but if you aren't vegan go ahead and use your favourite brand. The nutrition information is almost the same regardless of whether you choose peanut flour or ground almonds too!