Salicornia Virginica is a small, salt tolerant plant that thrives across the shorelines, wetlands and salt marshes of North America. Known by a number of names –including samphire, pickleweed and sea asparagus — this nutrient-rich green vegetable adds a not-too-salty crunch when served cold in sushi, or hot alongside a grilled steak.
Plus, if you know where to find it, it’s free. Shazzaam! Take that global marketplace.
photo by grevillea.
Have a look at a small selection of the names of organic spinach seed varieties currently available in Canada:
Dolphin, Whale, Butterfly and Strawberry.
Compare those with the names Seminis, Monsanto’s global seeds brand for open field crops, gives to their spinach seeds:
Avenger, Hellcat, Interceptor, MIG and Tigercat.
Cetaceans, an insect & fruit VS war bombers & missiles.
I feel like some of us are about to be caught with our pants down. Seriously.
I spent the day at Fort Rodd Hill in Victoria yesterday, attending Defending Our Backyard: the 3rd Annual Island Chefs’ Collaborative Local Food Festival and Farm Fund Raiser.
Big mouthful, eh?
Not as big as the one I had all afternoon – enjoying a feast of local, seasonal and sustainable food. And drink. Did I mention the drink? There was a lot of drink. Read the rest of this entry »
Sunday Lunch has been hijacked today, for the sake of shameless alliteration. Truth be told, I’m partial to assonance — who doesn’t prefer a little assonance? — but you can’t have everything.
“Alliteration is pleasant and precious, but some fancy assonance can make you dance in your pants,” that’s what my mama used to say.
Acutally, she never said that. And I (still) call her Mom. But I really do like assonance, if that counts for anything.
If you`re hungry on Pender, stop by Medicine Beach Market, where you`ll find a stocked deli — full of fresh sandwiches, salads, dips, soups, snacks and take-home dinners.
I really like my job at MBM: I take fresh produce, meats and dairy — most of them local and seasonal, many of them organic – and turn them into whatever I`m inspired to do that week. A chef`s dream come true! Read the rest of this entry »
Trap caught BC Spot Prawns have gained a lot of fame here at home in the past few years — they’re some of the biggest, juiciest sweetest shrimps in the world, AND they’re sustainable, local and (relatively) affordable.
I fear, however, that things may be about to change. Read the rest of this entry »
We had a little BC Breweries taste test last night.
I found these side by side in the cooler at the Medicine Beach Liquor Store — and while vague memories of reading the Nut Brown Maid in English Lit 12 occupied my thoughts, my hands took the opportunity to grab a bottle of each.
I don’t remember a battle in the Nut Brown Maid, but these 2 Nut Brown Ales went head to head, and the results weren’t even close. Read the rest of this entry »
When I first googled maple blossom recipes a couple of weeks ago, I found slim pickings — a couple of uninspired salads — until page 3 — where I found Danish Schnapps Recipes.
Can someone please explain to me why, in 2010, it is still only the Italians who offer tomato paste in a tube?
Hunt’s, are you listening?
We opened a can of this luscious smoked tuna as part of the largest lunch know to man — we’ve tried it in tuna salad, we’ve tried it in a niçoise-salad-inspired pasta and on a seafood pizza — but really, the best way to eat Thetis Queen Smoked BC Albacore Tuna is straight from the can…
Try this once, or their non-smoked variety, and you won’t want to go back to the mushy mass-produced stuff. I’ve started a tuna cache in our basement… Read the rest of this entry »
I’m back on the resolution bandwagon after falling off for a couple of days. It must have been the butter-induced stupor caused by the Laminated Doughs Workshop I took in Vancouver over the weekend. Think hand-rolled croissants, poppy-seed bear claws and apricot & pastry cream danishes. Think 144 layers of butter stacked with 145 layers of dough – no hydrogenated fats, no glucose-fructose, no stabilizers – just 200 years of viennoiserie tradition.
Be they vegetable or veal, brown or white, all stocks share four common indicators of quality. They are:
Body
Body is created when the collagen in the connective tissue of the bones dissolves and converts to gelatin during the cooking process. Vegetable stocks have less body than protein-based stocks. To increase the body of a vegetable stock, add umami-rich vegetables like shiitake mushrooms, seaweed and tomatoes. (Be aware that tomatoes will also darken the stock.)
We never made beef stock in culinary school. Not once. Instead, we made veal stock. A lot of it, almost everyday.
Prior to that, veal wasn’t on my culinary radar. As a born and bred west coaster, I simply saw too many animal cruelty videos in my pasty-faced-I’m-a-vegetarian-anti-Gordon-Gecko teenage years. (In the 80′s — very short lived.)
When I asked Chef P, my culinary skills instructor, if one could use beef stock in place of veal, I got a very French Chef answer: “Non.” No elaboration, no nothing. Not for a couple of minutes, anyway. Chef P never said anything before its time.
“Why can’t you use veal? Are you scared for the little baby cows?”
That’s Chef P. Let’s just say animal cruelty concerns are not on his culinary radar. Read the rest of this entry »
So…we’ve arrived at New Year’s resolution #3: make your diet a healthier one. That can mean a lot of things of course: less fat, less salt, less meat, less sugar, less food…period.
What do bay leaves have to do with eating healthy? I have no idea, but they're green, local and home-dried. So there.
Experience has taught me that extreme changes don’t last. Small changes are more likely to — it’s easy to tweak most of your favourite recipes to reduce fat, salt, etc. Slightly smaller portions are a totally legitimate way to make a positive change. Try a healthy, protein-rich snack.
One easy thing you can do it start reading. Scrutinize the ingredient list and nutritional data found on packaged foods — especially at processed foods — junk food is $%&! — something that resembles, but does not quite meet, my criteria to be labeled real food. Read the rest of this entry »
Q: Can you roast a chicken in a toaster oven?
a bird in the pan is worth two in the fridge
A: Well, I don’t know about you, but I sure can – as tested on Saturday night. It took 45 minutes at 350˚ F on convection bake in our new Krups countertop oven. Some of the crispiest most golden skin I’ve managed in a long time.
Q: I noticed that the whipping cream I bought contains carrageenan as well as cream. What is carrageenan?
A: Carrageenan is a seaweed extract that has been used to thicken and improve the texture of processed foods since the 1930s. (I wouldn’t consider whipping cream to be a processed food, but that’s just me.) Organic whipping cream does not contain carrageenan, a possible carcinogen that has been shown to cause intestinal problems in many animals, including as rabbits, rats, mice and guinea pigs.
Q: Will you PLEASE tell us more interesting facts about the most exalted of all vegetables – the parsnip?
late fall harvest
A: Romans considered parsnips to be an aphrodisiac. (I don’t know about plain old parsnips, but I tell you — my version of parsnip soup sure changed my mood for the better…)
Almost 60% of the world’s soybean crop is genetically modified. In the US, it’s over 91%. The world’s most widely planted GM crop, transgenic soybeans carry genetic material from petunias, viruses and bacteria that enable them to survive repeated dousings of Monsanto’s controversial herbicide, Roundup.
A 2009 study in the journal Toxicology has shown that glyphosate-based herbicides such as Roundup are toxic to human reproductive cells, even at levels that are currently legal on our food. Some studies on the effects of GM food on the human system are just as bleak — finding problems such as organ damage, precancerous conditions and enhanced food allergies.
Proponents of genetic engineering claim it results in increased yields, and provides a solution to help feed the world’s growing population. However, genetically modified soybeans have consistently lower yields than conventional soy, and increasing weed resistance has seen the re-emergence of old school defoliants such as 2,4-D (a component of Agent Orange). In the US, the use of 2,4-D on soybeans more than doubled from 2002 to 2006.
In North America, approximately 70% of the processed food on supermarket shelves contains at least some genetically modified ingredients. Soybeans are used to produce numerous food ingredients and additives, many of which do not contain soy in their name. For example, Lecithin is a soy-based emulsifier used widely in chocolate, ice cream, margarine, and baked goods.
Other possible hidden sources of soy include hydrolyzed vegetable or plant protein, textured vegetable protein, vegetable gum, vegetable broth, isolates, methylcellulose, mono- and diglycerides, vegetable broth, vegetable oil, vegetable protein, vegetable starch, vegetable fat and natural flavouring.
I try to avoid GM foods wherever I can. I buy only organic non-GMO tofu, edamame, miso, etc. — like this beautiful smoked tofu from neighbouring Saltspring Island, and I limit the number of processed foods in my cart. I don’t claim to be anywhere near perfect though – one of my bads is soy sauce – Yamasa is my hands-down favourite, you see – and they don’t have an organic option. That said, all this talk about DNA damage has me thinking that I should give Kikkoman’s non-GMO offering a try… I’ll let you know what I think.
organic tofu is only an island away
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