A Workshop, A Hike, And A Big Jam

Saturday I attended a wonderful (and free!) canning workshop that was part of the the City of Oshawa Food for Though series and sponsored by BerNardin. Although I had already experimented with my first canning project (had to use those tomatoes while they were ripe!), I have a lot to learn (and did I mention it was free?).

We watched the entire process from ingredients selection to making and canning the finished product. Encouraged that I hadn't made too many mistakes with the salsa, I immediately went out to buy pears from a fruit stand and a stock pot large enough to not boil over and scald me this time. The result was 1.5 l of delicious pear vanilla jam and the decision to preserve Christmas this year so I'm sorry if you were looking forward to a really fancy gift, you are getting jars filled with mushy goodness.

Lovely ladies volunteering their time to teach us

But before I could get to the cooking there were woods to hike, mushrooms to marvel at and kids to shake my head at. Sunday was a rare and wonderful day, indeed, as my guy had a day off, it is late September and the day was sunny and warm. To the woods! This time, to a ravine not far from our house that I have shamefully never explored before. On our hike I found the most vibrant and wonderful looking mushroom growing all by it's self.

It's red, so it must be delicious, right?

Despite my assertions that the tastiest foods on the planet are red and so this must be edible and delicious, my guy coaxed me away from the little fungus with nothing but a photo to remember it by.

We encountered the usual trappings in a wooded area surrounded by suburbia, mountain bike jumps and trails, trenches for pant ball games, red cups - lots of red cups and fire pits. Then just evidence of fires having been set, directly under trees...and then fires set in trees!!!!!

Burnt out tree - What were they thinking?

Children, please allow me to explain, it is evident that you like to drink and generally party in the woods. That's fine, I'm not very eager to come tripping through here at night anyway, but please realize that if you burn it down, you won't have it to play in anymore. This lovely protected greenspace will be replaced by a subdivision in a heartbeat and there will be even more of you sitting around on a Saturday night complaining that there is nothing to do. I hope they don't burn it down, I'm really looking forward to snowshoeing here in the winter.

(You can find the recipe for Pear Vanilla Jam here: http://foodinjars.com/2011/02/pear-vanilla-jam/)

Guess Who's Vegan To Dinner?

I became a Vegetarian at the age of thirteen. Recently I have decided to make the transition to full Vegan thanks to my new status as a Vega Community Ambassador, and to the inspiring recipes found on thriveforward.com and ohsheglows.com. I have yet to break the news to my family. I say "break" because, despite my not having eaten meat in over ahargahem years, I still hear "what are we going to feed you?" every time I attend a family meal. True, my father was raised on a cattle farm, but I have seen all of my family members consume at least some foods that did not consist of flesh.

All my adult life I have been asked, "well, what do you eat?" and "but, where do you get your protein?" Imagine their horror when I have to explain that eggs, cheese, and honey have joined the pantheon of "Protein Lisa Doesn't Eat". With Canadian Thanksgiving fast approaching, bringing meals with my family, my partner's family (both our parents are divorced so that makes 4 meals instead of two) where I will have to break the "bad" news to everyone I thought I'd do so in one missive with plenty of advanced warning.

The average Thanksgiving table in my family consists of a roasted bird or swine of some kind, boiled (generally mashed) autumn harvest root vegetables such as carrots, squash, potatoes, turnip, and a dessert (usually pumpkin pie) served with whipped cream or ice cream. All those root vegetables are my domain. They fall under the "not meat" umbrella of "Food Lisa Does Eat". I don't have nut allergies or gluten intolerance. I don't have a carbohydrate phobia (you need carbs, people). In fact, my diet has more variety than the restrictive fad diets of most of my family.

Let's start with the great protein myth; there are plant proteins, many plant proteins. It is very rare to eat anything that is all protein or all carbohydrate. Food is complex. Most things you put in your mouth contain protein and carbohydrate, and sometimes fat at the same time. Foods get labeled as a "carb" or a "protein" depending on the ratio or carbs to proteins to fats. If it has more protein than carbohydrates or fats, it is considered a protein. The only foods that are "pure" anything are manmade, heavily processed and should be limited if not avoided altogether. If it grows by itself, without humans doing too much to intervene, it is a mix. So, chances are something on the menu that isn't an animal will have protein, and that's where I get it.

The "well, what do you eat?" question is easier to answer; everything that doesn't have meat, eggs, dairy or honey. That includes, all vegetables, fruits, grains, nuts and legumes, edible flowers, herbs and spices, I love herbs and spices. Essentially I eat everything edible that grows but doesn't bleed. That leaves the door pretty wide open for feeding me or heck, why don't I just make a few dishes to add to the table and I'll eat that! Everybody wins!

It's Getting All Steamy Up In Here

We consume a lot of salsa in my home, and I've never had a salsa I liked better than the kind I make. I think it's my heavy handed cilantro use. Many a wintry Sunday I've made my kitchen look like a pre-Industrialization battlefield with bits of red tomato carcass everywhere, the juice dripping down my arms, counter, cupboard door...all the while lamenting that I cannot wait until tomatoes have flavour again. Well, that time is now and I am loathe to let it slip past me, so I am embarking on a brand new adventure - canning.

Quaint, a little archaic, really, really messy and, as my Guy reminds me hourly, probably more expensive than just buying jars at the store (after all, my recent foray in making apple butter resulted in a destroyed blender. How a top name brand - it starts with a K like in kitchen *ahem* blender can crumble under the load of mushy apples that have been cooked for 4 hours, cooled in the refrigerator and  suitable for a baby sans teeth  is beyond me, but I digress).

This rekindled desire to cook, bake, preserve and generally work with all things edible has been brought on by the drastic turn in temperature from 40 C with humidex to 7 C in about a week. This summer was just too hot to contemplate anything requiring the use of more heat and I lived on smoothies for most of August. Also rekindled is my Guy's snickering about how he's "tamed" me and that he has "turned" me into a "house wife". The fact that I am neither a wife, nor a house being a fact that seems to have escaped him. (The use of house wife as a derisive term is a rant that I just don't have the space to go into, suffice to say, a woman's choice to stay home or work is her own, though I am sure most of the population just doesn't have the choice in this two income economy.) Lucky for him my desire to remain a vegetarian and stay upright, mobile and healthy prevents me from ceasing all kitchen activities immediately because nothing kills my desire to make dishes that will also feed him like being called "tamed". 

I have no idea where this smugness even comes from because the only version of me he knows is the good cook/bread baker. That former self, the one who still makes me marvel when anything turns our right, had already pretty much disappeared by the time he met me. He only knows about it from the stories, so I am not sure how it is he thinks he gets the credit for my healthier lifestyle or why eating properly, with fresh whole foods, somehow makes me tame.

Tame isn't being adventurous in the kitchen, taking on new and increasingly difficult recipes and even making up a few. Tame is eating a lot of processed barely food because it's easy, and that's what everyone else does.

I have to go burn myself over steaming pots now, and I plan to make the salsa inferno, that'll teach him.

Antithesis' Guide to Long Distance Riding

With September (also known as mini-New Years) here I am reading a lot of articles about staying motivated and on track with fitness goals. They mean well, and are true in theory but very difficult in practice. As someone who rides alone a lot, I have a pretty good handle on getting in the kilometers even when your brain is desperately trying to talk you out of it. Here are my training secrets, may they serve you well.

1. Visit friends or relatives who live in a rural area you are not overly familiar with, preferably an area known for its corn.
2. Set out on a ride by yourself, when the road you are on ends in an inevitable dirt or gravel section, you must back track and turn at the first street you come to.
3. Do a loop (out-and-backs are not permitted)
4. Do not ask locals for directions
5. Don't even think about using the GPS/Map apps on your phone - chances are you'll be out of service range anyway.

I was fortunate enough to be in an area where corn fields are as ubiquitous as street signs are scarce. In such an area, if these guidelines do not add at least 30 - 40 km to your journey you are either an expert navigator or you really know your corn fields. 

Not knowing where you are and needing to get home sometime is the most powerful motivation I have found so far. You ride the extra kms because there is no other option. If you do end up so hopelessly lost that you cannot return home without help from your phone, use Google Maps bike route, it will add 15 km to your journey just to avoid even the slightest bump in the road.

*Note: I just returned home from a wonderful cycling mini-break, visiting family, riding wine country - which also happens to be peach country, cherry country, corn country, pear country and most fun of all, escarpment country. Eight days of cycling bliss on both back roads and main streets with huge bike lanes, without a single motorist cutting me off, turning into me, honking, shouting or passing too close. If you are an Ontario cyclist looking for a great place to ride, eat, drink and play you have to check out the Niagara Escarpment and all the little towns that make up the Regional Municipality of Niagara and be sure not to miss The Short Hills, Decew Road and Effingham Street for those all important Strava KOM points.