Woodsmoke & Starlight!

Summer Vacation - AT LAST!!!
It couldn't have come too soon for me this year! It has been a challenging time of ungrateful clients, too many people out to take advantage/wanting your heart and soul for nothing (both clients and staff) and a painfully sluggish economy -- just to add to the stress! The past months have not typically brought out the best in people. So... bring on the summer holiday! I am getting ready to go camping with my best friend, my son and my son's buddy. The other day I kicked my pumps off in the car at lunch hour and felt the texture of the rubber car mats -- in my mind I was at the lake shore, feeling the cool lick of the water and rolling the smooth pebbles under my toes! Yes, I am SO ready to get away:)

Food-on-a-Stick and Other Delights
I try to keep camping simple and yet not spartan. We typically allow for a couple of restaurant meals - good old A&W burgers and root beer one night, and Pizza Hut another night. But the rest of the time we are "true campers", cooking over a fire pit and singing songs under the night sky while the fire flies sparkle in the dark trees. Because of our northern latitude, we are often treated to northern lights - usually green and white, and occasionally with a burst of soft pink. Oh, and of course, you have to enjoy "S'mores": the fire-pit toasted marshmallow and milk chocolate bar pieces sandwiched between graham wafers -- ooey gooey delicious!

Keeping Things Interesting...
In the weeks before summer vacation, my radar is always alert and scanning for any new activities or recipes I can use to spice up our time together camping at the lake. This year, I came across a great recipe for baked beans. My plan is to make the beans in advance, freeze it in smaller batches and to take a small container along to reheat over our camp fire. I have adapted the recipe somewhat to suit my tastes -- but the secret weapon remains the same: two bottles of beer! Hope you will try this and add it to your roster of summer meal memories. xo

Campfire Baked Beans

Ingredients:
2 cups canned pinto beans, rinsed and drained*
2 cups canned black beans, rinsed and drained
2 cups canned navy beans (in tomato sauce)
1 lb. bacon, cut in large chunks
2 large cooking onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 Tbsp. chipotle paste
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 Tbsp. black strap molasses
2 - 12 ounce bottles of beer
Sea salt and ground black pepper to taste

*You will require one-14 ounce can to obtain one cup of beans -- a little more or less can be used, and add/substitute your favourite bean varieties as desired.

Method:
Cook bacon in fry pan until crisp - drain and set aside. Reserve 2 Tbsp. of the bacon fat for the recipe. Add the onions to the reserved fat and fry until they are soft and translucent, but not browned. Add the garlic, chipotle paste, cumin, salt and pepper, and cook together five minutes to blend the flavours.

Place the drained beans in a large dutch oven or crock pot. Add to this, the onion mixture, sugar, molasses, water and one of the bottles of beer. Bring to a gentle boil over medium heat, then cover and reduce the heat to medium-low. Cook for approximately 45 minutes (4-5 hours on high, if using the crock pot). Add additional beer if needed, along with the bacon. Taste and add more salt and pepper as required. Delicious on their own, or with mild tomato salsa and grated cheddar. Also a great side to hot dogs, burgers or steak. Enjoy!

May 24, 2010

Soggy, Sunny, Windy -- Holiday Survival
Well this was supposed to be the hottest May long weekend in Canadian history -- but we had some pretty changeable weather and although the temps were pretty pleasant, it did not reach the high 20's Celsius that was predicted. It was definitely one of those weekends where you had to be prepared for just about anything, in terms of dressing for the weather! My "girls' camping weekend" was fun, nonetheless, but we had to keep improvising our plans and acting on the fly :) Good thing I am a bit of a daredevil...

Yes, I Might be Losing It...
Tonight I am waiting for the rain to let up a bit so I can get out for a short walk. I am feeling a bit cooped up after a 3+ hour ride home from our campsite today. We did stop for coffee/water/snacks and a stretch, but it still was a bit less active than my typical day. I have been using the Lose It app on my iPhone and finding it is a great way to keep my honesty alive in the ongoing quest to balance work, children, nutrition and activity. If you are unfamiliar with Lose It and have similar goals to mine, you may find this app to be a great help.

Lose It is free (yay!) and allows great personalization/flexibility. It is easy to set up and use the tool to monitor your weight loss goals and to balance food intake with activity. Another great feature is that is doesn't only track calories, it tracks nutritional balance also: fats, protein, carbohydrates, sodium, fibre etc. You set your course and enter your daily food and exercise while ensuring you do it in a healthy way -- it's that simple. You can also set up Lose It to prompt you at specific times of the day; for example I have a personal default set to msg me if I don't enter my food by 8 p.m. each day.

Similar to Weight Watchers, I am enjoying the flexibility of eating from a wide variety of food groups as long as I manage my portion size and/or "earn" additional food intake daily with activity, but no lost time sitting thru meetings or embarrassing public weigh-ins!

Beeting Boredom
Let's be honest -- I love food: preparing food, trying new things and keeping my meals balanced and healthy. Food and dining are an art in my view, and are a daily priority. Lately, I have been looking for ways to include one of my favourite root vegetables: beets.

I have enjoyed crab cakes in a local restaurant chain that come served on a luscious burgundy bed of thinly grated spirals of raw beets. I am not sure how they make this "beet spaghetti", but one of my girlfriends has told me they must use a Madeleine-style grater. Once I get the scoop, I will share...

Until this fairly recent discovery of raw shredded beets, I have always eaten beets in cooked form -- in borscht, in my root vegetable bake, in pickled form or as whole steamed baby beets (including the tender stem and tops/greens).

Last week while reading an issue of Blush in the doctor's office, I found a great cupcake recipe that contains -- you guessed it -- beet puree! The thought was, similar to carrot cake, you can tip the scale toward health by incorporating some hidden veg in a chocolate cupcake. Here is the recipe -- hope you will try and let me know what you think. xo

Beet These Chocolate Cupcakes

Ingredients:
2 ounces - 60 g dark chocolate
1/2 cup - 125 mL unsalted butter
1 cup - 250 mL unbleached, all purpose flour
3/4 tsp. - 4 mL baking soda
1/4 tsp. - 1 mL each of baking powder and sea salt
3/4 cup - 180 mL lightly packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1/2 tsp. - 2 mL vanilla extract
1 cup beet puree

Yield: 12 cupcakes

To make the beet puree, boil or roast unpeeled beets until tender. Peel the beets after cooking -- cooking with the skin keeps the beets from bleeding out all of the lovely purple colour. Buzz in a blender or food processor until finely chopped. A slightly chunky texture is preferred for this recipe over baby-food-smooth!

Line muffin tins with paper cups and preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit/190 Celcius. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or microwave, stirring in 2 Tbsp of the butter as the chocolate begins to soften. Set aside to cool slightly.

Combine flour with soda, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, cream the remaining butter with sugar, egg and vanilla. Add beet puree and then the cooled chocolate. Gradually add in the flour mix.

Divide the batter among the muffin cups and bake for about 30 minutes -- a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin will come out clean. Cool in tin for five minutes, then turn out to cool completely. Ice with your favourite cream cheese or chocolate frosting or try the Tangy Icing recipe, below.

Tangy Icing Recipe:

Beat 4 ounces spreadable cream cheese with 1 Tbsp. of softened butter and 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract. Gradually beat in 1/2 cup of sifted icing sugar, stirring until smooth and creamy. Spread evenly over cooled cupcakes.

Note: 278 calories per cupcake, 2g protein, 14 g fat (0g saturated fat), 26g carbohydrate, 1g fibre and 171g sodium -- data for you Lose It App :)

September 20, 2009

Inside the box
Well, this weekend is on it's last few breaths; the sun is slowly setting in a fuzzy peach kind of glory -- there's just always so much to do and it's hard to balance time with kids and friends with the "need to do" tasks around the home and yard. At the best of times, weekends are an overwhelming roster of laundry, meal prep, general cleaning, errands, shopping etc. etc. etc.

This morning, I looked through the diamond-shaped glass in my front door -- the glass was all foggy for some unknown reason (likely dust from ongoing street work!), but I could see the muted golden hue of sunbeams and knew it was going to be another exceptional, sunny day -- and one that I had little hope of enjoying outdoors. In that brief moment I felt rather hopeless; like a pet store animal that nobody picks or some lifer in prison -- trapped in a cage and wondering how I got there, and if this pattern would ever change.

Cleaning, cooking; fighting craziness
The only way I can stay sane and stop feeling defeated is by keeping busy and focusing on one task at a time -- I do feel good when I can tackle some of the disorder and dust bunnies in our little house. Today I did the white tornado treatment on the main bathroom, did a few more loads of laundry, and completed much-needed wall washing in my kitchen.

I also sorted and pared down clothing in my closet, armoire, dresser and drawers and organized my huge jewelry chest. This was satisfying from an organizational standpoint, but oh so depressing as I have not been eating well the last five days or so and some of my favorite things are tight as sausage casings! BLOAT should be a four-letter word, like FATT! (Tomorrow it is back on Atkins with a vengeance, btw!)

Through all of this madness, I am earnestly trying to balance the drudgery with my artist's soul and my love for others -- today, however, my only creative outlet was in the kitchen. After seeing the mediocre food my kids grabbed for at breakfast (Timbits) and lunch (plain pasta), my love for those dear children and my intense guilt lead me to drop the rubber gloves and cleaners. I spent a good part of the afternoon making chicken/vegetable soup, and then created an apple crisp and some tea biscuits -- just to up the ante.

The soup and biscuits were devoured without a "thank you, Mom", and the crisp is waiting for tummies to deflate a little - then it will be enjoyed with some vanilla ice cream.

The lovely crisp was made with Goodland apples from our own trees -- it has been a grand year for apples! The biscuit recipe, a walk down memory lane to my Princess years (no, I am not going there, as I am feeling fragile, used up, unappreciated and fat!) comes from the famous Empress Hotel in Victoria, BC where my late uncle was the much-loved GM for many years. The EH biscuits did not disappoint, although my spare tire says I should not have eaten ANY -- never mind the two that I slathered with butter and devoured! If only I was with my fav Auntie and had a pot of Empress Blend on standby... Princess memories...ridiculously high carb cotton candy pink blissful memories...

Some shared goodness
Well, enough of my morose musings... here is a cherished recipe for Apple Crisp. I hope you will find some lovely fresh apples and make some as a treat one evening this week. This recipe was adapted from a Quaker Oats version and has been a favourite in my family for many, many years.

Oatmeal Apple Crisp

6 large apples -- peeled, cored and sliced
1-1/2 Tbsp. brown sugar
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
1/4 cup water mixed with 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

Topping:
1 cups oatmeal (quick or slow cooking - either works fine)
1/3 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1/3 cup butter (or margarine)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter a 9" x 12" Pyrex baking dish. Place apples in the dish, sprinkle water mix and lemon over apples and toss lightly. Sprinkle cinnamon and brown sugar over the apples and set dish aside.

Combine all dry ingredients for the topping. Melt the butter and blend in with a large fork until coarse crumbs form. Dump the crumbs over the apples and pat down gently. You can sprinkle a little extra cinnamon on top if you like it :) Bake for 25-35 minutes until apples are tender and topping is browned. Serve warm with cream, whipped cream or ice cream. Serves 4-6.

Glum Mom walking...
I have decided upon reading this rant that I need to go out for a long walk tonight -- then I can taste my delectable crisp almost guilt-free :)