Edible Tulip

Eating On The Cheap! - Lentil, Parsley and Lemon Salad.

So, if you are anything like me, you are broke. Down to your last few dollars. Scraping the coins to buy your dog some lean ground beef for dinner, tossed with a raw egg, some maple syrup, and a clove of garlic. Buying things and chopping and cutting them at night for the next day at work so when you find yourself "peckish" mid-morning, mid-afternoon, or again, if you're like me, and get hungry when bored, then, sadly an all day emptiness, you can just grab another ziplock of whatever: grapes, cherries, almonds and dried apricots, baby carrots & hummous. I prepare both breakfast (cut up melon and berries, my new favourite melon in season being an orange flesh coloured honeydew: sweet and flavourful) and lunch (a large tupper of salad greens, a protein, or 2 (legumes and a sprinkling of nuts or seeds), a dairy (cubes of crumbled feta or diced hard cheese), and an array of pretty things: radishes, sugar snap peas, currants, pepitas, rose hued sea salt. I can't afford to buy breakfast and coffee and snacks and lunch these days. Nope, I'm still in penance for thinking it was a good idea last July to quit my job and move up north with my boyfriend whom I fought with. A lot. I had all sorts of visions in my hand, a century home, a beach, turquoise fresh water, small town charm, ice skating, getting pregnant, getting married, and, well, moving to Italy. By month three, it was pretty clear things were diverting south, downward, and fast. I spent a hefty winter alone in 12 feet of snow. Toronto has been refreshing in many ways but career wise I skidded myself short. I never thought I'd missed paid vacation days but oh, yes, dear god, I do. I keep interviewing with places where they work long hours and on Christmas Eve and until 5 pm on Fridays and again, Oh God, I didn't know how good I had it.

Anyway, back to food, and being broke, if you are as penny pinching as I am these days, well, I have the recipe for you. Provided you like beans and fresh herbs. Buy a large bag of dried split green lentils, the smaller the better. I rinsed and drained about 3 cups worth and added to a large pot with 5x that amount of water. I brought ot a boil and reduced to medium-low and cooked for about 20 minutes. I rinsed and drained and tossed into a large bowl. I chopped up into medium-smallish sized pieces a whole bunch of Italian flat leaf parsley. I tossed with the warm lentils, and added a few tablespoons of toasted sesame seeds, some sea salt, a squeeze of lemon, a few rounds of olive oil drizzles, and a last dash of red wine vinegar. The salad will last me all week. I will add several heaping spoonfuls to shredded red leaf lettuce and call it lunch. Split into five, it costs about 75 cents a day and is marvelously delicious and filling and healthy. Try adding a curry vinaigrette instead to add more punch. Also try adding cooked bulgur or whole wheat couscous. Or, heck, cherry tomatoes.

Lentils have a fair bit of calcium in them, and good amounts of vitamins A and B, as well as being excellent sources of iron and phosphorous.

How To Eat More Fruit

 

I'm back working downtown in an office which means I am back struggling to find ways to eat fresh and healthy homemade food throughout the long days. A couple tips that might help you if you face the same challenges.

1. Find a supermarket near where you work. I'm at Yonge and College and there is a Metro grocery store under the office tower. Not only can I pick up things for dinner on my break, I can also buy things to keep at the office: half melons that are ready to eat for breakfast, baby carrots, hummous, fruit that bruises during travel, i.e. nectarines, plums, peaches and bananas to keep on the desk. 

2. Take 15 minutes on a Sunday and cut up whatever fruit concoction you like and put it in a large container in the fridge. Above I have canteloup melon, an atulfo mango, and organic blueberries. I took one serving of the fruit and put it in a smaller tupperware. I have my breakfast ready to take with me to work each morning with no preparation required. 

3. Forget the attitude that the day is so packed with meetings that you won't have time for lunch and therefore nibble on crackers and the end of a baguette. Because the nibbling will turn into broken off pieces until you've eaten an entire loaf of bread. You won't feel satisfied because you won't have ingested any nutrients of value! Prepare lunches that are mostly devoid of carbs (an afternoon buzz killer, you'll be dozing off by 3 pm) and instead stick to vegetables, protein, and little fat. In the summer, large salads full of romaine lettuce, nuts, legumes and cubes of cheese provide tons of energy. A tin of tuna, mixed with cut up radishes, chopped cucumber and seasoned with sea salt, lemon and olive oil is easy to prepare and more nutritious than almost anything you could find at a salad bar. To make preparing lunches easier, I wash my lettuce and put it into large sealed freezer bags. When the huge plastic tubs of spring lettuces are on sale at the supermarket I buy those and use that lettuce throughout my work week. I make my lunches the night before as I'm preparing dinner then it doesn't become a separate chore to find motivation to tackle. 

  

Sorrel Cream Sauce for Grilled/Pan-Fried Fish

Most people know arugula as the smallish, longish, bittery, lemony salad leaf which is too bad because sorrel is so much better. It's a bit hardier, a bit earthier, has more bite, more pucker, more to chew on, so to speak. I find arugula sort of obnoxious. It's been exploited to the point of being used for its affiliations. You walk into a fancy coffee shop that sells hot pressed sandwiches and you know one is going to include arugula greens with chicken breast. Sigh. Yawn. Anyway, my point is that if you like the taste of arugula, and it's not for everyone, then I'm pretty certain you'll enjoy the experience of sorrel. I eat green peppers raw as I would a nectarine, circling the core, tossing only the stem. And I like my apples as hard and as sour as they come, fresh from the branch, eye peeling assertiveness. So, this is my kind of heavenly herb. One year, a long while back, I was delighted to find a patch of something edible growing in the shade in the perennial garden at my parents country house in the hills outside of Creemore. It had a tight root and stem base but blew out from there in an array of oblong fluttering green. It has a short period of grace before it turns hostile. I think most everything I love shares that characteristic. Early to late Spring is its glory period. Pick it while you can or ask a vendor at a local farmer's market if they have any. They should, it grows in any unfertilized field and grassy expanse. When it starts to flower whorled spikes of red, and the leaves become purple, it will be too bitter to eat, so just leave it be until next spring.

I love it shredded and tossed into salads, the surprising element in an otherwise traditionally simple salad of mixed tender lettuces. It's brazen and bold just so you know I told you so. Sorrel is derived from the Teutonic word for "sour" so take that as a hint. It's not easy for many to love it raw but I can attest that almost everyone thinks its perfect when it's mildly steamed and tossed with butter and cream to make a fish sauce. As you know, I like food that takes about 5 - 10 minutes to prepare. Finicky things are not my forte. This fish dish is the work of minutes. 

Sorrel is tart and acidic. Choose an oily fish to pair with the sauce: rainbow trout, sea bass, mackerel, salmon. 

Sorrel Sauce

1 1/2 cups sorrel

4 filets of fish

Sea salt

Freshly ground pepper

1 tsp olive oil

1/4 cup unsalted butter

1 egg yolk

1 tbsp whipping cream 

Recipe Instructions

Wash the sorrel thoroughly and spin dry. Chop the leaves into coarse pieces.

Season the fish fillets with the salt and pepper. Add the olive oil to a heavy bottomed frying pan over medium heat. When the oil gets heated through, add the fillets skin side down. When the flesh is becoming opaque and white, flip the fish over for another minute. Transfer to a warm platter.

Place the butter in the bottom of the frying pan and heat until just melted over a medium flame. When the butter begins to froth, toss in the sorrel, which will wilt and turn a gray green. Remove the pan from the heat and let cool for one minute. Beat in the egg yolk, season to taste with salt and fresh pepper, and then stir in the cream. Spoon over the fish fillets and serve with baby potatoes tossed in olive oil and coarse sea salt.

Note: sorrel can be used in recipes that call for wilted spinach, i.e. omelets and soups. It has healing properties that aid in digestion and stave off scurvy. It's also packed with vitamins C and A. So get foraging and let me know where you find any growing wild. I bet there's some on the hillsides around the community gardens at High Park.

Repost: Rummaging for Ramps

The following was first published in April 2004. It's a repost on Ramps, or Wild Leeks. I wonder if they are still edible. It's getting late in the season. I didn't get around to foraging wild leeks this year, despite the ubiquity of their presence all over the brown mulch covered hillsides on the Mingay Tract in Creemore. I wonder about them, from my 3rd floor desk overlooking Fran's Diner, staring face first into varying tiers of beige brick, as they shoot, prosper, flail, wither in 6 short weeks. I did try to dig one out of the ground one afternoon to see the size of its bulb but if you don't have a good digging tool on you, and I didn't, then you have to scratch through enough dirt for a hen to be happy, and you'll still result in breaking the stem from the bulb and a week's worth of dirty fingernails. The roots are stubborn.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

As soon as I get up north I'm heading out to the dense woods and getting down on all fours with a trowel and a plastic bag. The leeks are generally in full thrush by mid-May in Ontario. By mid-June they're usually getting tough and woody and rather dried out.

A sure sign of spring’s arrival in Ontario is the large clumps of malodorous green leaves in our wooded areas. These are the edible herbaceous spring ephemeral known as wild leeks or ramps (Allium triococcum, Ait.). Allium is the ancient name for garlic from Latin and the bulb of the wild leek, although flavoured like an onion, has a distinctly garlicky zing when cooked.

In late April look for leaves that coil to form colonies that push through the latent ground cover of mulch. The leaves eventually expand and resemble lily-of-the-valley clusters. They appear in patches and thrive in damp soil. You will need a small spade to loosen the earth around the base of the plant so you do not destroy the tender bulb. The bulb is encased in a thin netting which can easily be removed by rubbing your fingers together with the bulb between them or by pulling off the sheathe while running the bulb under cool water. Use both the leaves and the bulb in any recipe that calls for leeks, cooking onions, green onions or garlic.

Long before farmers and harvesters referred to the practice of responsible food production as sustainable agriculture, early settlers already understood the simplicity of re-growth. They used to replant the roots that extend from the base of the bulb so the ramps would continue to grow and flower. The wild leek plant flowers in late summer when the edible bulb has grown too mature and bitter to use. Cherokees and other tribes pickled the wild leeks to extend the life of the bulb and considered them a delicacy. Wild leeks have also been a large part of the regional cuisine of Southern Appalachia. Entire towns get together to celebrate spring by hosting Ramp Festivals known as “Dancin’ and Stinkin’ ” (due to the pungent aroma the wild leeks give off when eaten raw). And finally, on a medicinal note, an ancient folklore remedy suggests rubbing the juice of a crushed bulb on an insect sting to reduce redness and swelling. A timely remedy matched to the arrival of our Ontario honeybees.

Risotto with Ramps

6 leek bulbs, white part only, cleaned and sliced thin
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 cup Arborio rice (Italian rice)
3 cups vegetable broth
½ cup dry white wine
½ cup radicchio, sliced thin (if available)
½ cup fresh Parmesan, grated
3 Tbsp. Italian parsley, chopped
1 Tbsp. fresh squeezed lemon juice
Salt & pepper

Cook the leeks in the oil in a large saucepan until tender. Add the uncooked rice. Stir over medium heat for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, bring the broth to a boil in a medium saucepan, reduce and simmer.

Add 1-cup broth to the rice, stirring constantly until it is absorbed. Add the wine and let absorb. Continue adding ½ cups of broth until the rice is slightly creamy and just tender. Just before serving, add the radicchio, the lemon juice, the Parmesan and top with the chopped parsley. Season with salt and pepper.

Serves 4 – 6.

What's For Lunch on Yonge Street?

Toronto, how I've missed you.

In the short block north from my office, I can get a tattoo, enjoy a jerk chicken dinner for $2.99 (if I was male, I'm sure I could also get a jerk to go if you know what I mean), and browse adult porn at Kinky Times. Yonge Street is an odd stretch of commerce, prostitution, and panhandling, a street the blends government offices with homeless shelters, a street flooded with public servants and those they serve. I stand in line to get a coffee and I chat with the young boy who is all bitching and complaining about having to go up to the second floor. I know what he's talking about, it's where the provincial courts are. It's like trailing a migration pattern watching the young men flock to the entrance to the correctional services. The street outside is sketchy and melancholic. It will exploit you the moment you look away. It's a neon strip, a sleazy tack of fly paper, a short story in a Raymond Carver novel. The narratives are dark and they are dirty. I am not a street urchin comfortable with oily embraces. I often turn away. I do not groove to the urban hum of bass from open windows. I steel my glance to the pavement, away from the crazies, the pimps, the teenage trannsexuals.

But they are here, and they are living large, on Yonge Street, and combined with the student population just south at Ryerson, the staff at Women's College Hospital on Grenville Street, and the various government offices along College and Bay street, it's a transient hive that expands exponentially during the day, specifically at lunch hour. I figured there must be good eats out there. Good, cheap, hole-in-the-wall food. Food that might reflect the complexity of the people and the location in itself. I took a walk north to Maitland and spotted Caribbean jerk, Nepalese, Napolitan pizza parlours, Korean Barbecue, Persian/Iranian, Middle Eastern, Halal, Thai, Mexican, and too many Japanese sushi and fusion Asian joints to list. Next week I begin my Yonge Street culinary exploration.

** In the realm of sharing good finds: Grace at 503 College Street (new spot in the former digs of Xacutti) is having an incredible Thursday night barbecue deal. For $10 you can savour a plateful of chef Dustin Gallagher's slow-braised pork shoulder, char-grilled chicken, and house-made sausage, sided with roasted Indo-spiced corn on the cob, coleslaw, and potato salad. A complimentary domestic brew is included. Only after 8 pm. And first come, first served.

Garlic Buds and Five Salad Dressing Recipes

I'm nearing D-Day, otherwise known as Moving Day, which also, because, nothing in life is free, just happens to be the one day of heavy rains they are forecasting in, oh, the next 21 days. So I thought I'd write a quick piece between pulling my hair out, screaming at the mewling cats, shaking my fists at the wet shaking dog flinging mud on the walls, packing another book, or wrapping another piece of packing paper around some useless glass ware (for those of us who live alone and typically use 1 wine glass and 1 drinking glass and 1 coffee mug why oh why do we insist on having cupboards full of unused drinking vessels), to write about garlic because historically it has long been credited with not only providing but PROLONGING physical strength and it was often fed to Egyptian slaves as they laboured endlessly building the giant pyramids. So if garlic gave courage and might and a touch of sanity to the Egyptians in the face of the impossible, then maybe it will prolong my short bursts of patience just until I can throw all my shoes in a box. (It also appears that in planning a special romantic dinner, aphrodisiacs like oysters and strawberries and fondue and what not are fine for setting a mood, but maybe it's lots of garlic that will end up turning the night into something to remember).

Last year at the Collingwood Farmer's Market, early in the season, there was a man who only sold garlic buds. I use garlic cloves extensively and I have cooked with garlic scapes before as well but these little purple nubs were new to me. The gentleman told me to just break them off with your hand, and use them raw, or cooked, exactly like you would garlic. The papery small wispy things in the picture are not of much use, but the pomegranate coloured buds you see below are where it's at. In cooking, I simply took a bulb and rubbed it between my fingers over the heating olive oil in a pan and they popped off really easily. Their flavour is intense but in a young garlic aromatic way, not in a heady, old, too bitter and tongue marinating sort of way. Ask around next time you visit a market. They have a very short season before they grow up and get all overpowering in their true bulb form. Isn't that always the way.

Here are a few salad dressings that you could crumble a few garlic buds into for bite. I don't think I need to give directions. Just mix the ingredients together, adding the fresh herbs to the salad when tossing with the dressing, and season with sea salt or coarse salt and fresh cracked pepper. Also, feel free to substitute light versions of sour cream and mayo in any of the recipes.

Buttermilk Dressing with Horseradish - good on coleslaw

1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tbsp horseradish
1/2 tsp wasabi
2 garlic cloves, minced, or mashed with seasalt OR 4-5 garlic buds
1/4 cup finely chopped parsley
Lemon juice to taste

Green Goddess Dressing

1/2 cup mayo
1/2 cup sour cream
1 Tbsp tarragon
1/2 cup parsley
3 tbsp chopped chives
1 clove garlic, minced, or mashed in seasalt, OR 4-5 garlic buds

Peanut Chile Dressing

1/4 cup roasted peanut oil
2 1/2 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp low sodium soy sauce/tamari
3 garlic cloves, chopped, or 6 garlic buds
1/2 serrano chile, chopped
2 tbsp scallions, chopped

Fresh mint
Fresh cilantro or basil

This dressing is best served warm. Heat the peanut oil, add the garlic, and cook over medium-low until the garlic starts to sizzle, turn down the heat to low, add the rice vinegar, the soy sauce, the chile and the scallions, and simmer until the sauce begins to slightly thicken. Pour over chopped napa cabbage with spears of cooked asparagus, add the chopped fresh herbs, and finish with chopped peanuts or cashews or toasted sesame seeds.

Parmesan-Balsamic Dressing - good on hardy romaine

1 garlic clove, mashed with coarse sea salt, or 3-4 garlic buds
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp lemon juice
1/4 cup finely grated parmesan cheese
1/2 cup olive oil
Fresh basil, chopped/torn into small pieces

Curry Vinaigrette - good on warm lentils or a grain salad

1 garlic clove, mashed with salt, or 3-4 garlic buds
2 tbsp whole fat yogurt or low fat mayo
2 tsp curry powder (best with fresh curry powder from a spice store or indian bazaar)
1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
5 tbsp sunflower oil
2 tbsp fresh cilantro/mint/parsley, chopped

I make this in a mason jar or a small jam jar and shake until all the ingredient are absorbed and the dairy has been fully broken down. I then toss on the legumes or grains and add the fresh herbs.

Spring Backyard Harvest: Asparagus, Rhubarb, Mint and What To Do With Each of Them

One of the awesome things about sifting through all the mulch in a garden that you don't know is the treasures that lie in wait for you. We moved to this big old century former-baptist-manse house last August. The lawn couldn't really be called a lawn. It was dried up dying patches of flailing grass sort of fighting for survival amidst a desert of dirt. The gardens had been so unkempt for so many years and the grass was knee high in the back yard and it was the thick of August when the crickets never shut up and the weeds twist and shout in a last rhapsody and everything is tall and wild and overgrown and tangled. The air was sweet with pollen and overgrowth. I let everything go and be just as it was thinking next spring I'll tackle this insanity. August is the only month in Ontario that I ever feel like I'm living in the jungle.

So I was out with my bare hands the past few days digging away straws of old growth from last season, trying to decipher the weeds from the goods before madness takes over and they become one. There were your usual suspects out front: tulips (but PINK? why pink?), a few varieties of daffodils (baby ones, yellow ones, mixed yellow and white ones...), hyacinthes (well, I love these cut and in a glass jar fresh from the flower market, but in a garden I think they just look phony), and tall irises are blooming alongside the driveway. So as I bent and I dug and I pulled away the sheathe of winter armour, I found a few surprises: mint (it really has to be the most hardy herb ever - growing out of the asphalt in the driveway?), rhubarb, and asparagus.

So, well I love rhubarb, and I ate it raw as a kid, I don't know what to do with it. It seems so fussy. Although, that said, I do know that to prepare a simple stew of rhubarb takes only the following tasks: wash the stalks and chop them into short lengths, add to a heavy based pan with sugar (linked recipe has details), and cook, over low heat, stirring constantly. Let me know how it goes. My mother came by today to walk the dogs together so we pulled out stalks and she'll stew it with apples and serve it over vanilla icecream. The tanginess of rhubarb, I admit, is absolutely impossible to match. Here is a recipe for stewed rhubarb from the very early days of my blog, my golly, back in 2004. Funnily enough, or not, back then, I was ALSO living in a cabin in the country and I was also marveling at the wonders of an unknown garden coming into being before my own eyes. If only I knew then what I know now about how that fateful summer would play out. I am however pleased beyond reason that for all the dips and turns and after four long years of office work in Toronto I somehow found my way back up north, right back in the same transcendental valley, alongside a waterway that connects me back to that very place 365 days times 4.75. So this plot may be a new rhubarb altogether but it's brought me full circle.

I was a bit shocked to see TWO (yes, only two, but I see more coming through the earth) thick and ready stalks of asparagus pulling through the earth and reaching high. They, like anything really, taste best when eaten the day they are snapped off their root. If you happen to have a bunch of thick fresh asparagus spears then by all means cook them quickly, in a large frying pan of water brought to the boil. They will change colour, to a deep green, fairly quickly. Test repeatedly until you like their doneness. Serve with a brown butter, a scattering of roasted chopped hazelnuts or a strong mustardy hollandaise. If you are serving grilled fish, then cook your asparagus last and simply toss with a very garlicky vinaigrette. Side with some buttered/chived baby potatoes. Here I wrote about the history of asparagus and included a recipe for Salsa Verde which is I had forgotten delicious served over top steaming asparagus spears.

Clearly mint really romps. It's climbed the side of the house and it's growing in the driveway in any crevice the pavement cracks open to allow air and sunlight. I have loved being able to pluck a few sprigs for lunch but it's also delicious added to yogurt, garlic and a seeded chopped cucumber to side with grilled chicken. If you're not that into cooking then mint goes with a trillion spring cocktails. If you're crafty, I'm not particularly, but this is easy enough, then freeze mint leaves in ice cube trays with water and add to cool summer drinks. And in this recipe from many years back I wrote about tossing mint with fresh strawberries and a bit of lemon juice and sugar. Strawberries are, of course, not yet in season in Ontario. Heck, we're not even in the heart of spring yet, but mint would also be excellent with a just ripe mango and some feta cheese and a drizzle of lime juice.

The Health Benefits of Apple Cider Vinegar and a Vinaigrette for Potato Salad

I'm not a huge fan of apple cider, warm or cold, so I stayed away from the cider vinegars that I used to see at the bulk store and the health food store. I think the reasoning behind my buying some for the first time many years ago was the retro glass jug it came in (not the one pictured above), sort of like a magician's apothecary vessel holding misting potion, AND the cheap price (I believe $2.99 for 3L) for something natural, aged in wood, unpasteurized and naturally fermented. Who could resist the temptation?

Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) soon became a regular in my ever growing assortment of vinegars and oils. I liked the tangy almost harsh taste; it has none of the sweetness of a balsamic vinegar. I think it's more like a wine vinegar, slightly fruity with musk tones. I actually bought this particular batch for my dog, Simon. I feed him a raw food dinner and the apple cider vinegar is supposed to have numerous pet benefits: adding it to raw ground beef reduces any bacteria the meat may contain; it is also a natural flea preventative and it makes coats shiny and healthy.

ACV is an age-old folk remedy for a staggering away of common ailments: pet and environmental allergies; high cholesterol; sinus infections; the flu; chronic fatigue; candida; sore throats; itchy dry skin conditions like dermatitis; and even arthritis (helps the last one in animals too). I wondered how ACV could be a positive medicine for candida when typically you are encouraged to avoid alcohol and acid during a high yeast growth period because it kills off the good bacteria. Over on the website Earth Clinic Folk Remedies I found an explanation: "Apple Cider Vinegar in itself is alkaline because of its "ash" content, which means if the apple cider vinegar was burned, what is left over becomes ash. When you check for the pH of that ash and dissolve it with water, the content is alkaline. Whenever our body digests anything, it undergoes oxidation, which is similar to burning and the end result is that you can determine whether the end product was alkaline or acid. Apple Cider Vinegar has anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, and anti-viral properties, primarily coming from the malic acid and acetic acid portion of the vinegar. Apple cider vinegar acts as a buffer in the body because the acetic acid reacts with base or acid compounds to form an acetate, therefore rendering them chemically bioavailable for the body's utilization. Additionally, Apple Cider Vinegar can reduce the toxicity of certain compounds by converting the toxin into an acetate compound, which is less toxic. This is why they are ideal for insect bites and certain skin allergies. While Apple Cider vinegar in itself is considered alkaline, a chemically pure vinegar (acetic acid) is neither acid nor basic forming as it leaves no ash as the entire portion, when burned evaporates completely".

Potato Salad with Apple Cider Vinegar Dressing

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons dijon mustard
3 large garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons capers, rinsed, drained and chopped
1 tablespoon each fresh marjoram and fresh thyme, chopped

As far as the potato salad goes, you can prepare it however you like. For this very basic picnic table potato salad dish, I simply boil 3 pounds of small red skinned potatoes until they break apart when pierced with a fork. I drain them, place them in a large ceramic platter, and coat with the dressing while they are still warm/hot. The ACV seems like a high ration with the olive oil (i.e. half to half) but because it gets soaked into the potatoes, it seems less vinegary and instead adds a welcome punch. I chop up some red onion and toss that in to. The fresh herbs carry the rest of it. 

Quinoa Salad with Corn and Lentils and Fresh Mint

And so the chapter of my life spent in Collingwood and environs is nearing a close. Although this moment couldn't seem to arrive fast enough during the cold days and dark nights of a winter spent alone in a town in the snow belt, I am happy that the days to come will seem swollen with appreciation in comparison. If you scroll back to all the merry cheer and fesitive feelings leading up to Christmas, you'll see that all of that exploded in what can only be understood as years of pent up resentment between two people in a passionately combative relationship. Moving in together for the first time is stressful. Moving in together for the first time in a remote town is even more stressful. Throw in a few years of feisty arguing and constant break up and you get the picture. Two smart sweet but proud individuals can use words like weapons dipped in sarcasm. Dagger me with a childhood fear? I'll bayonet you with your darkest secret. Yes. There was a lot of frozen front-porch silence. The orange glow of a lit cigarette trailing through the blackness like a seasonally lost firefly. The boy left with the car. I stayed with the dog and the two cats.

It's 5 months later and things are as different as you couldn't have drummed up back when it was all so terrible. Time, distance, accountability, memory, and spring in particular all do that to a person. The crushing claustrophobia of winter is gone. I am so imbued with the magic of this season, the core of its essence, the smells, the grace, and the dirt that binds it all together, that I momentarily feel certain that I have never been so happy. I am taking the dog and the cats and moving back to Toronto. We'll be living near a ravine so we won't leave nature too far behind. It is what keeps us honest, after all. Walking to pick up conveniences will be a marvelous treat. I have always been good about keeping my cupboards simply stocked -- dried grains and pastas, canned beans and tomatoes, tins of tuna, jars of capers and pickles, and extensive herbs and spices -- but the past several months have brought my sense of creativity to new heights.I have been spent a few months rationed with basic supplies picked up on weekly excursions with a borrowed vehicle. By the end of the week, I'm down to a few simple resources. And that, my friends, is where this recipe comes in. Today it is raining and Simon the dog and I took a long wet walk looking for the turtles we found yesterday and surprising a cotton-tailed bunny. We got back and I was hungry. I looked in the cupboards, the fridge and the freezer. I had a can of lentils. A bag of frozen corn. A glass jar of toasted sesame seeds. The fleur de sel from my sister in Belgium. A lidded glass container of dried quinoa. And, by golly, mint growing like weeds alongside the driveway has climbed the hot bricks of yesterday's sunshine in an almost obnoxious vigour. Here's lunch. Turned out delicious. Hope you enjoy. I served my heaping spoonfuls of the salad on chopped romaine, for flavour, for crunch, for photosynthetic vitamins.

Quinoa Salad with Lentils and Corn, serves 4 - 6 as a side dish or a salad

1/2 cup quinoa (rinsed under warm water for 3 minutes)
1/3 English cucumber, diced
2 green onions, including the green ends, chopped
1 1/2 cup frozen corn, boiled then drained, or 1 can of kernal corn, rinsed and drained
1 can lentils, rinsed, drained*
Grated zest of 2 lemons
6 to 8 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
Dash of paprika
red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
Fleur de sel
Black pepper
1/4 cup chopped fresh mint

Bring 1 cup of water to a boil and add 1/2 teaspoon of salt and the quinoa. Lower the heat, cover, and simmer until the grains are tender and have absorbed mostly all the water, about 10 minutes. Drain.

Chop the cucumber and the green onions and place in a large bowl. Add the cooked corn, the rinsed lentils, and the quinoa (once it's been cooled to room temperature).

Whisk together the lemon zest, the olive oil, and the lemon juice. Add a dash of paprika. Pour over the salad mixture, and toss to coat. Add the sesame seeds, and season to taste with the fleur de sel and coarse black pepper. Garnish with the mint.

Note: A curry vinaigrette would also be good! 

*For some reason, I find the No Name brand of lentils has smaller, firmer lentils than the name brands.

Fleur de Sel de Guerande & a Recipe for Stuffed Artichokes

I have an older sister who, bless her heart, forgets the house-warming presents, or hello I haven't seen you in many months presents, or sorry I missed your birthday presents, that she has given me just prior to the current receiving of her present. There was a period of time, a few years, where my presents were hand knit linen dish towels that were very Belgique, where she lives, with pictures of local fruit painted on. Luckily for me, as I favour more dish rag sorts of towels because I use them as napkins or paper towels or bibs too often to have to worry about whether the expensive ones are out, she decided to start giving me the locally available fleur de sel, and now that is her theme.

I don't fault her as she has four children plus she lives in Belgium, close enough to the salt marshes of  Brittany, France, so why not give away what's worth gold in some circles. I am currently the proud owner of one smallish, pinkish container of the traditional Fleur de Sel de Guerande which I love to dip raw radishes into and sprinkle over grilled meat, a large container of Sel Marin de Guerande Gros Gris Seche (coarse dried salt) which I like to blend with unsalted butter and spread over nut bread or toast with a drizzling of honey. The final gift of this particular kind/brand of fleur de sel is mixed with ground pepper, coriander, rose hip, shezuan pepper, green pepper and black pepper and it is so magically pungent and spicy yet subtly aromatic and enticing that it knocks your socks off if you simply sprinkle a bit on a plain salad of bitter lettuce (endive, escarole, boston, dandelion) with some good olive oil and a touch of lemon juice. Best Salad Ever!

David Lebovitz who is based in Paris believes that Fleur de sel de Guerande is the finest salt available. As he writes, most brands of fleur de sel are mechanically harvested, but the salt marshes of Guerande are gently hand harvested without disturbing the underly coarse gray salt beneath the delicate surface. It's rather a moving experience to sprinkle the distillation of an ocean across the world onto your lunch but that is what occurs and it originated in the year 868. As David writes, this sort of specialty salt isn't really a cooking salt, it's more of a finishing one, something that you add to your meal before eating and savour its raw, unrefined flavour. I would suggest that you splurge a few dollars and buy a fleur de sel at your local organic market and then buy a standard iodized salt and compare and contrast the two. It will SHOCK you!

This is a recipe I found on the New York Times website that I slightly amended and that I think fleur de sel Guerande Poivres et Baies would be absolutely ravishing.

Stuffed Artichokes with Lemon Zest, Rosemary and Garlic
Yields: 4 servings
(adapted from a recipe published in the New York Times on April 17)

1 1/2 lemons, zested, and halved

4 large globe artichokes

2 1/4 cups plain bread crumbs

1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary

8 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled

2 carrots, peeled

1 1/2 tablespoons chopped capers

1 1/2 teaspoons fleur de sel Guerande Poivre et Baies

1 small onion, thinly sliced

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling

1/2 cup dry white wine.

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Fill a large bowl with water and squeeze juice from two lemon halves into water. Cut off artichoke stems, peel them with a vegetable peeler, rub them all over with remaining lemon half (this prevents browning) and drop them into water.

2. Use a heavy, sharp knife to cut top 1 1/2 inches off an artichoke. Pull out pale inner leaves from center. At the bottom, where leaves were, is a furry bed, the choke. Use a spoon (a grapefruit spoon works wonderfully) to scoop out choke. Next, using kitchen shears or a pair of scissors, trim pointy ends from outer leaves of artichoke. As you work, rub lemon half over cut parts of artichoke. When you are finished trimming, drop artichoke into bowl of lemon water. Repeat with remaining artichokes.

3. To prepare stuffing, in a large bowl combine lemon zest, bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, chopped parsley and rosemary. Mince 6 garlic cloves and add to bowl. Finely chop one carrot and add to bowl along with capers, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Toss to combine.

4. In a small roasting pan or baking pan large enough to hold artichokes, scatter onion slices. Add reserved artichoke stems, 4 sprigs parsley and remaining garlic cloves. Slice remaining carrot into rounds and add to pan.

5. Holding artichokes over stuffing bowl, stuff choke cavity and in between the leaves with bread crumb mixture. Stand stuffed artichokes upright in pan and generously drizzle olive oil over center of each artichoke.

6. Fill pan with water until it reaches 1/4 way up the artichokes. Add wine and remaining salt and pepper to water. Cover pan with foil and poke several holes in foil. Bake artichokes for about 1 1/2 hours, or until tender; when done, a knife should be easily inserted into artichoke and a leaf should be easily pulled out.