Three Simple Ways to Connect to Healthy Food in the New Year

With the New Year approaching and a list of resolutions written down, I find myself doing what I like to do best at this time of year, binge eat. As I sat contemplating what I would write today, I inhaled a bag of Nibs with the lingering thought in the back of my mind that in the New Year I would give up this ugly habit. Nibs taste good (I can’t believe I just admitted that)! How can’t they? Nibs are loaded with corn syrup, sugar and wheat. Yet these ingredients make me sick. Awfully sick! And then hours later I suffer a sugar crash and regret every tiny Nib that I placed in my mouth.

I am like many millions of people who crave sugar and junk food. For the most part, our family has greatly reduced its presence in our house and our children hardly consume junk food. So what do I resolve to change in 2014?

 1.       Keep it simple

Food doesn’t have to be complicated. It really doesn’t. Good, healthy and nutritious food is simple to create and does not have to cost a fortune or require hours of preparation (although I do advocate for spending more time preparing healthy meals). A diet filled with whole foods such as vegetables, fruits and protein can promote a healthy lifestyle.

Several weeks ago I had the stomach flu. I was sick as a dog. Afterwards, I approached food with much reluctance, less so by choice (I just couldn’t stomach the idea of eating). So I resorted to eating only green smoothies, vegetables and eventually meat. I started to feel better, then great, then absolutely amazing. Getting the stomach flu was a blessing in disguise. I had eliminated sugar, dairy, coffee and tea from my diet and I felt awesome. However, once that I felt better, I slowly reverted back to my normal diet of a daily cup of coffee and tea, chocolate during a Friday night movie, and popcorn drizzled with butter.

The lesson learned is that the simpler I eat, the healthier I feel. But where do I start?

For one, I can cut out refined sugars. Over the past several months I have gradually replaced white sugar with honey and maple syrup. Instead of white sugar in my morning coffee or tea, I’ve used honey. I also started baking with honey and maple syrup instead of white sugar.

I am also committed to cutting out high fructose corn syrup, which is ubiquitous in many processed foods. If I cut out HFCS, I essentially cut out most junk foods. One thing I learned about eating clean the few weeks after contracting the stomach flu is that an absence of sugar gives me more energy, allows me to think clearer and makes me happier (no sugar crashes). It also allows me to connect to my food because I know what I’m eating and I know how it’s made.   

2.       Always, always have questions

The golden rule of food shopping is that I always read the label, and question any text that is placed on a product. What does the label natural, premium, or gourmet really mean? Recently, my husband came home with a carton of eggs from the grocery store with the label “Nestlaid^TM” (we had run out of our local farm eggs). He asked whether the eggs were laid in a nest, suggesting to him, some kind of natural environment in which the hens live. But the label, Burnbrae Farms Nestlaid^TM eggs, is a trade mark. I visited the website. Burnbrae Farms has announced the introduction of its new “Burnbrae Farms Nestlaid^TM eggs”:

When I think of nest laid, I think of a hen making its own nest to lay its eggs, rather than what is depicted in the above images. For me, there is a huge difference between nest laid, and “Nestlaid^TM”.

Reading labels affords you the opportunity to think critically and to become conscious about the contents of a product and the claims being made. Questioning labels empowers you to read the actual message being conveyed, and to decide whether you want to purchase the product that makes these claims.

If consumers pay more attention to labels and the claims being made about a product, we would not be easily fooled by meaningless claims. We would also connect to our food by taking proactive steps to know where our food comes from, how it is made and of what it is made.

If you’re looking for informative reading materials on these issues, I’ve been inspired by the books Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss and Alissa Hamilton’s Squeezed What You Don’t Know About Orange Juice.

 3.       Invest in your health

We all spend money on clothes, nicer cars, expensive cell phone plans, and anti-wrinkle creams. If we can afford these luxury items, why not spend a little more on our health? I have truly come to appreciate that a healthy body comes from a healthy diet. I also believe that a healthy diet doesn’t have to cost a fortune, but sometimes it can cost more. If so, what’s wrong with making the investment?

It’s not also about the financial investment involved in eating well, but equally importantly, the time. Most households have two working professionals which makes preparing fresh, healthy meals a very big challenge. How often have you come home late from work, too exhausted to cook only to order a pizza? Meal plans can help preparing a week of lunches and dinners much easier, and so can a detailed grocery list so that you avoid running to the store five times a week. Cooking large meals that can be frozen is another solution.

Keep it simple. A good meal can be ready in minutes. Instead of ordering pizza, we now make eggs and salad, which between two adults, can be ready in less than 20 minutes.

Eating healthy does require more time in the kitchen. What are you prepared to give up in order to cook your own meals? For us, we decided that instead of enrolling our children in several activities during the week, we would do one to two activities a term, so that we can spend more time doing things that are important to us. One of them is cooking.

Spending time in the kitchen allows you to connect to your food and family. Our children love to cook with us. As young as they are they want to be involved. Consequently, they appreciate good food and are willing to invest in the time to eat healthy. When they are older and on their own, I am confident that they will be more inclined to prepare their own healthy meals. Lead by example!

Each new day brings with it a new beginning. We don’t have to wait for the New Year to make changes in our lives. Take one day at a time! I hope 2014 brings you much laughter and love, and an opportunity to connect to the foods that bring you good health and happiness.

An almost local Christmas dinner

My best friend triple-dog-dared me to prepare a Christmas dinner with local ingredients. And like poor Flick from A Christmas Story, I could not turn down such a challenge, although hopefully, unlike Flick, it would not be to my demise.

It is not impossible to prepare a meal in December with local ingredients, but for someone doing it for the first time I knew I had to pace myself. There were just some ingredients I was not prepared to exclude from my menu like my beloved salt and pepper or other fine ingredients like cumin, coriander, cinnamon or … chocolate. I was prepared to limit myself to what is “in season”, with of course a few exceptions.

This is a cold winter season, and I knew that vegetables, let alone fruit, would be hard to find. I made a list of what I wanted to serve with the turkey, keeping in mind what would be available this time of year: red cabbage, carrots, parsnips, roasted potatoes, and kale. I also decided that I wanted to greatly reduce the amount of refined carbohydrates such as sugar. I completely eliminated it from my recipe, which is perfect because if there are two things that are guaranteed local, they are honey and maple syrup.

Before I set out on my challenge, I had to determine what would constitute “local”. I already had the turkey from Aubin Farm which is located about 80 km from Ottawa (I used Parliament Hill as my point of origin). I also have some vegetables from Rainbow Heritage Garden which is about 132 km from Ottawa. I settled on food originating within a 150 km radius of Ottawa as constituting “local”.  For someone who loves loves loves spice and chocolate, I decided that up to five pounds of food would be excluded from this challenge. That would be plenty to allow me to cook and bake with my favourite ingredients, and also fulfill my challenge (again, baby steps).

I then set out to buy my food, with an understanding of what is in season. A trip to the Ottawa Farmers’ Market and an order of winter vegetables from Rainbow Heritage Garden gave me a lot to work with. I didn’t find red cabbage or kale but I picked up green cabbage from Acorn Creek Garden Farm located in Carp. I also found apples (yay) which meant I could bake an apple crisp for dessert.

I did manage to get most items on my list, and added a few more: daikon, leeks and parsnips from Roots and Shoots Farm located in Manotick. I was also pleasantly surprised to find local cranberries. My best friend was convinced my challenge would be frustrated by the simple unavailability of local cranberries this time of year. Not only did I find them, they were harvested 15 minutes away from the market. Boom!

This is what I came home with:

I also had a stash of vegetables from a delivery from Rainbow Heritage Garden earlier this month, including rainbow beets, onions, garlic, radishes, carrots, and potatoes. Unfortunately, I had already eaten up all my delicious kale from them so would have to do without something green on the table (if anything has satiated my desire for fresh vegetables this winter, it has been the delicious vegetables I ordered from Rainbow Heritage Garden which have lasted me several weeks already).

I was truly happy with my purchase from the local market, and began in earnest my menu for Christmas dinner:

Soup

Curried carrot and pumpkin with roasted pumpkin seeds

Main

Turkey and stuffing

Cranberry sauce

Braised red cabbage with apple and onion

Pumpkin purée

Roasted curried potatoes

Dessert

Apple crisp with vanilla maple ice cream

Chocolate peanut butter balls

This was truly a learning experience. For one, not all vegetables will survive through this cold winter. As my husband began to core the cabbage, he discovered this:

I was short one side dish, as I was not planning on cooking spoiled cabbage, but then I remembered a small red cabbage buried in the back of my fridge from months ago when Bryson Farms delivered fresh organic vegetables to our home. We cut open the cabbage with some trepidation, but were bursting with relief to find a crunchy, deep purple cabbage.

I was able to make my braised red cabbage with apple and onion after all.

The apples were mostly bruised, but who can expect to find fresh apples at the end of December. I was planning on cooking with them so it didn’t quite matter in the end.

Some ingredients were easier to substitute than others. Instead of using celery for the soup and stuffing, I used leeks which were grown in Manotick (Roots and Shoots). Since honey and maple syrup can be found year round, it was easier and healthier to use them instead of granulated or confectioners’ sugar, which I (regrettably) am used to baking with. I turned out a pretty tasty cranberry sauce having used honey instead of granulated sugar.

Other ingredients were trickier. I couldn’t find “local” cream or butter so had to resort to store bought. Although I could have baked my own bread for the stuffing using local ingredients, again store bought brought the added convenience.

I even attempted to serve “local” beverages. Local beer is probably just as accessible as honey or maple syrup and we always buy Beau’s Lug•Tread Lagered Ale  which is located 101 km from Ottawa (although, I would have to check to see if their ingredients are also local).

We ended up with a full course meal, including beer, derived from mostly local ingredients. Not bad for a first try. Not only did the food contain healthier ingredients (honey and maple syrup instead of refined sugars, rolled oats instead of flour), it didn’t end up costing me an arm and a leg. Yes, the turkey, like any pasture-raised bird, was pricey (costing about $85.00 for 16lbs), but I saved A LOT on vegetables. I was able to find two delicious pumpkins for only $4.00.

I ended up making enough pumpkin soup to feed 11 people, as well as take some over to my in-laws, which fed an additional ten people.

Once again, cooking with simple ingredients, can make for a delicious and healthy meal. As well, it never hurts to try new challenges that can teach and expand a deep appreciation and love for food.

D.I.Y. Christmas Gifts

Since we had to buy Christmas gifts for seven teachers (that’s right), along with a list of other people, we had to be creative and also keep to our budget.

I’m not one of those people who makes their own jams over the summer to turn into beautiful gift baskets for the holidays. Nor do I have the time to bake large batches of cookies or treats. I’m already hosting Christmas dinner so need to take it easy.

Instead, I decided to make Christmas gifts for our kids’ teachers. A trip to the Ottawa Farmers’ Market for some Hummingbird Chocolate, a dollar store for glass jars, Bridgehead and health food stores for teas and voila: tea and hot chocolate gift baskets.

The idea of my D.I.Y hot chocolate on a stick doesn’t seem that intimidating, until I tried the rich, spicy Hummingbird hot chocolate. I have never had such decadent and delicious hot chocolate in my entire life. I wouldn’t be able to make anything that would come close to this heavenly goodness, so it was well worth the purchase.

I also had a lot of tea left over, so will be making more gift baskets.

D.I.Y. Christmas baskets don’t have to be an extravagant endeavour or break the bank. Just a little creativity and some time, and the sky’s the limit on what great gift ideas you can come up with.

Chocolate Bonbons Make the Perfect Christmas Gift

‘Tis the season for giving, but it can be a challenge to find an original, inspiring Christmas gift for the perfect someone. Sometimes all you need is a stroll around town to uncover pretty awesome (and delicious) hidden treasures. Today, walking down Dalhousie I was drawn in by a vibrant blue sign “Cylie Artisans Chocolatiers“.

Opening their doors in September of this year, Cylie is a breath of fresh air for any chocolate lover’s palate. Co-owners Cyril Nebout and Leslie Yang (whose combined name makes up Cylie), have created a delectable collection of fine artisan chocolates and bonbons.

I was like a child in a candy store, salivating over the exquisite fine treats. I was especially drawn to their bonbons, which are made of 72% Valrhona chocolate, and filled with a rich chocolate ganache. Can anyone say mango caramel or milk chocolate ganache infused with Organic Apple Crumble tea?

What sets these bonbons apart from others (besides their taste of course), is that each one is individually decorated with cocoa butter-based paints. It takes up to three days to produce a batch of these divine edibles.

Who wouldn’t love a dark chocolate bar drizzled with bacon bits, hand dipped orange peels, or a rich cup of hot chocolate?

 

And if you’re not feeling the chocolate love, Leslie and Cyril complement their decadent chocolate bonbons with fine teas from around the world and stunning Chinese tea sets:

I have to say, it is so nice to see people truly living their dream, and not to mention, finding some great Christmas presents.

My Gratitude to Prisoner Number 46664

I have been overwhelmed by the world’s reaction to Nelson Mandela’s death on Thursday. It has been emotional, to say the least, to see people from all across the globe pay tribute to this ‘giant of history’.

I was a young child when one hot August afternoon, our plane descended onto the tarmac of Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. I looked out the window excitedly to see what my new country looked like. At immigration, under the line “Citizenship of” in the Record of Landing document was typed “stateless”. From birth, I belonged to no country. I was an individual without a citizenship, until Canada became my first home.

Like many South Africans who fought against the apartheid regime, my father was forced to flee South Africa and go into exile. He lived in exile for almost thirty years before coming to Canada. My mother had one hope for herself. She vowed that if she ever had children they would never grow up under apartheid. She left her life and family in Cape Town and began the nomadic life abroad.

My mother’s hope was realized. I never grew up under apartheid, but it clung to our lives and haunted us. My father’s hope was to live on the border of South Africa in order to be close to our families. But the closer to the border we came, the more our lives were endangered. When I was five, living in Botswana, our family came under surveillance by the South African government. Many South African families living in countries bordering South Africa were under constant surveillance, which resulted in killings or homes being bombed. One afternoon, I discovered a parked car outside our home. Two white men in plain clothes were taking photos of our house. The police later confirmed that they were monitoring our family. That night my parents packed up our family, and drove an hour into a remote village where we would hide out at my aunt’s home. We did this every night for months. That’s how South Africans in Botswana died. Their homes were surveilled, and then later bombed. We never knew in what state we would find our house the next morning. My parents decided to leave the country and immigrated to Canada. My mother’s hope was realized. I became a citizen of a country for the first time when I was ten years old. My home was and always will be Canada.

This is the story of millions of South Africa whose lives were affected by apartheid. I was the fortunate one. I never experienced the humiliation of segregated bathrooms and buses, the immorality laws, the onerous obligation of having to carry a pass, or have a pencil put through my curls to see if my hair was ‘kinky” enough to relegate me to the fourth class citizenry of “Bantu”.

Instead, I was given the opportunity to grow up in a country governed by the rule of law and filled with endless possibilities, where if I worked hard I could accomplish anything, irrespective of my gender or race. My parents struggled as new immigrants in a foreign country. My mother returned to school and my father, with a PhD in Chemistry from a West German university, struggled to find work for our first year. Our lives weren’t easy, but my parents instilled in my brother and me the value of hard work and integrity. We lived in a safe country, free of racial violence and systemic bigotry. We could go to school and play outside without fearing for our lives.

Today, I owe my gratitude to the many South Africans who stood up and defied the apartheid regime. And I owe a profound gratitude to a man who has humbled me with his unfathomable sense of grace and forgiveness and unwavering desire to achieve for us the simple fact of life in a democratic society.

My parents would never have realized their hopes of raising a family outside apartheid if it wasn’t for a country that gave us sanctuary. We’ve read this week about the important role that Canada played in calling upon the international community to take action against the apartheid government. However, Canada also played a role in giving a home to many South Africans whose lives were threatened by apartheid. I was able to go to school, go on to earn two law degrees, get married and bring into this world two amazing children whose lives are a testament to Madiba’s legacy.

In 1998, I went to live in South Africa where I spent two years living in the Eastern Cape, one of the poorest provinces in the country and also where Mandela was born and raised. The beautiful landscape and breathtaking scenery is marked by endemic poverty, violence and AIDS . At the time that I lived there, one in four people was HIV positive. Charlize Theron was appearing on television commercials about the fact that every 26 seconds a woman was being raped in the country. I lived in a small town which was emblematic of South Africa’a historical past. The centre, buried in a deep valley, was developed and for the most part, white and privileged. The periphery was lined with shanty towns, poor infrastructure and destitute poverty. I was so disappointed by the socioeconomic situations that so many of black South Africans endured. What did democracy mean when many of these people didn’t even have adequate drinking water? But despite the poverty and unemployment, South Africans have an unequivocal sense of hope. I realized this most when I photographed the second democratic election in 1999. If there is one memory that lasts with me, it is of these individuals waiting patiently in line since the early hours of the morning to cast their ballot. There they stood quietly, resolute in their desire to exercise a simple right that was now entrenched in their constitution.

So when I read about how Mandela’s legacy has come to an end, I am reminded of the millions of men and women who stood in line to vote in 1999 and the millions more who continue, in the face of the growing social and economic divide, to hope for a better tomorrow. We watched Mandela walk out of prison a free man in 1990 and we owe it to him to fulfil his promise that “[n]ever, never, and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another.” It is a deep sense of hope that will allow us to realize this dream.

My parents’ hope for a better life for their children meant that they could live in a society where their grandchildren would never even fathom the ugly face of apartheid, that their children could realize their potential without any social or political obstacles. My own children’s knowledge of apartheid will derive from the history of their grandparents’ lips. They will never appreciate what apartheid meant because the concept of dividing people according to their racial makeup will be as foreign and insidious to them as the holocaust and slavery is to me. This is the hope that Mandela had for all of us, and one we must continue to honour for those who still struggle in the face of social injustice. As Mandela so poignantly wrote, “the purpose of freedom is to create it for others.”

It is hard to imagine that a young boy from a remote village in South Africa would grow up to lead a nation, to become the most revered figure of the twentieth century and to leave an indelible mark on mankind. Would that little boy in Qunu have known that millions of people around the world would tweet about his passing, that countries would declare national days of mourning, that foreign dignitaries would travel to his remote village to bear their final respects to such a great figure? I am only one individual, but I owe a deep gratitude to Madiba for bringing freedom and democracy to my country, and to enable me to achieve the destiny I was intended for.

Soup: the best thing to cook without a recipe

On cold, wet days like today there is nothing more soothing than a warm autumn soup.

For someone who lacks culinary imagination, I find soups one of the easiest things to prepare. And creativity can go a long way because for some reason, when you botch a soup, it’s a lot easier to correct than say a soufflé or macarons.

There are a few things I’ve come to learn about making soups:

1.       You really don’t need a recipe

I repeatedly hear chefs say that the best meals are those cooked without a recipe. Yet, when I do try to think outside of the box, my meals are sometimes received with a tepid response. I see the little fingers push the plate away from them, the husband staring at his dish trying so hard to avoid eye contact. But when it comes to soup, I rarely fail. And when I feel like I’m about to i.e. my recipe tastes a little bland, or I’ve added too much spice, soups are so easy to correct. Adding additional spices, vegetables or stock and you’re good to go.

2.       I always make my own stock

A good soup begins with a good stock. I’ve written here and here about making my own stock, especially with the remains of a turkey. I’ve experimented with all kinds of store-bought stocks and bouillons: the low sodium, the vegan, the organic, the vegetable, the chicken, you name it. They always promise to achieve some authentic flavour, but always fall short of doing so. I only learned this when I made my first stock and I haven’t picked up a box of sodium-rich bouillon cubes or a carton of chicken stock since.

A rich stock brings density and flavour to any soup, is rich in nutrients and is very filling. It’s also not too labour intensive. The hard work is keeping an eye on the stove, because all the good stocks I’ve made have simmered on the stove for at least 20 hours.

3.       Enhance flavours with simple ingredients

The best part about cooking without a recipe is relying on what is in the fridge and pantry. Staple ingredients like onions, garlic and ginger are always at hand and can achieve optimal flavour. Have you had someone walk into the kitchen salivating when you’re just browning onions? Fresh herbs add a layer of flavour and aroma, but dried herbs work well too. I haven’t gone wrong with using oregano, thyme, rosemary or bay leaves.

Vegetables can turn any soup into a hearty meal. If I have sweet potatoes, pumpkin, cabbage, turnips, leeks, carrots, or any other root vegetables, I include them as well. Pumpkins, butternut squash or other squash (acorn, sweet dumpling) are perfect for soups especially at this time of year when they are available in abundance (okay, maybe a month ago in this part of the country). I just cut them in half, scrape out the insides, poke with a fork and place face down in about ¼ inch of water then bake in the oven until they becomes soft. I scrape out the insides and add to my pot of soup.

4.       Taste your soup

I’ve had to learn this the hard way. Making a soup, being satisfied with the colour and appearance and confident that you’ve added the right ingredients can only take you so far. There have been times when I’m about to take the soup off the stove and first taste it only to discover it is rather disappointing. The nice thing about making soup is that it really is easy to correct. Add extra spices to enhance flavour, add extra stock or water to reduce flavour, or even cream or coconut milk.

Once I’ve added the stock to the vegetables and they have begun to soften, I taste test. The vegetables absorb the flavours and develop the taste of the soup.

Anyone can make a soup, really anyone. It just takes a little creativity and experimenting with different spices, herbs and vegetables. Soups can be made in large batches and frozen to enjoy on cold, (almost) winter nights like tonight.

Enjoy!