Rice Salad

Martha Stewart is a genius. I absolutely love her. And by her I mean her "team" of designers and cooks and writers and DIYers who work under her masthead on LIVING and EVERYDAY FOOD. I've religiously bought LIVING for the past two years but found that with the time a kid takes, and the inclusion of pretty much full on roller derby in my life (on top of full time work), that I've had to let some things go. One being watching TV on the internet (my favourites Gossip Girl, Mad Men, True Blood, and House) and the other is reading magazines (which I used to read a lot of: A LOT). Randomly I'll grab LIVING now and even less randomly I'll grab EVERYDAY FOOD. The recipes are just usually so normal to me. Or b o r i n g. But for some reason there is a recipe for rice salad in the newest EVERYDAY FOOD. And this rocked my world.

I mean, I'd never ever made eaten or even heard of rice salad! This isn't like how I hadn't had an avocado my entire life until I was 16 or that I didn't have a fresh mushroom until I was an adult (let alone things like coconut milk or teriyaki). When I was a kid we just didn't eat fresh foods (unless we grew them ourselves or got them at the market) and rice salad? Too busy eating traditional Croatian foods or living on a single mom's income food (mm, tuna melts!).

Obviously the idea of a rice salad knocked my socks off. And I had to make it with a beet (because I love pink vegetables!). This salad was super delicious with vegetable skewers that were grilled on the BBQ. A great way to get veggies into a baby without just giving him a bowl of edamame which he probably would've loved more!


PINK LADY RICE SALAD
adapted from Everyday Food's Rice Salad Recipe

Ingredients:
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp cane sugar
1/2 c chopped almonds
salt and pepper to taste
1 small beet, grated
1/2 cucumber, diced
1/2 yellow pepper, diced
4 cups of cooked long grain rice

Directions:
In the bottom of a medium bowl combine vinegar, oil, sugar, almonds, and salt and pepper. Add beet, cucumber, and yellow pepper and stir to combine. Fold in the rice until it is fully incorporated and eat with vegetable skewers!

Farm Visit: Arrowvale/Collin's Farm

This weekend my bestie, Kalin, is here visiting and it's g-l-o-r-i-o-u-s! The best part is that we're such good friends and comfortable enough with each other that I can go about my day as I normally would and she helps out with the babe without being asked. So appreciated.

We spent the morning and part of the afternoon food shopping. We went to the Farmer's Market, Naesgaard's Farm, and then out to Collin's Farm to look at the goats, and to try and find eggs (which they had none of but we bought a cabbage instead).

Collin's Farm is probably one of the most diversified farms in the Valley, just about 5 minutes out of town. Every Friday afternoon I get an email from Bob Collins telling me about their week, what's coming up on Saturday morning (they usually have some kind of market going, and sell breakfast or lunch, and sometimes cupcakes!), and how their season is going, or with comments on stuff going on in the world or our community. It's really a great digest and a good reminder to head out there after the Farmer's Market on Saturday mornings. Collin's Farm also doubles as a campground in the summer season (they host weddings and stuff) so the place was overrun with tourists and cars. But just the right place to be when you want to see baby goats and a few donkeys.





Did you see any farms this weekend?

Friday Favorites: Cook Books + a Giveaway

My favorite cookbooks are a combination of old editions, pamphlets, and newer traditional books. They range from really polished (read: expensive) to hand drawn booklet/zine style (read: cheap cheap -like the budgie) books. I've bought them online, at thrift stores, and received them as gifts. No matter how we find these books, they become special to us because of the importance we put on food, for both social and practical reasons. It feels good to provide a healthy meal for family, friends, and ourselves. It's easy to get nostalgic over titles that we grew up with or those we used when learning to cook. With all the recipes online nowadays, here on HSH and elsewhere, it can be easy to forget about our favorite and loyal cookbooks. I feel sorry for all those unused books out there so I wanted to pull my all-time print-based favorites to share with you.

Our mother's standard cookbooks are our standard cookbook. I learnt to cook using "Joy of Cooking' and probably the Robin Hood Flour cookbook (during my waffles after school everyday phase). Diandra's is 'Whole Foods for the Whole Family' cookbook from La Leche League. What's yours? But does your basic book instruct you how to skin and cook a squirrel? How about pigeons? Didn't think so.

My Grandma Joyce gave me this one. It's from the 70's and the art is so great. Tons of whole foods kind of stuff and really fantastic simple recipes. Kind of fills in the modern gaps 'Joy of Cooking', like tofu recipes, sprouting beans, and vegetarian anything. It also has the best bean cooking time chart I've ever seen.

The rebar modern food cookbook. No brainer. For all your fancy fusion food needs. This one is homegrown, from Victoria, B.C. you should go to the source in downtown Vic for a towering master-piece of cake. Some of the ingredients are a little weird and the fusion idea isn't for everyday, but it's a great book full of fantastic recipes. For my 29th birthday, my friends stole my book and made me a rebar feast. Whoa-man! It was great.

I love Martha. This is another of her successful books, and ranks a step up from Joy of Cooking for fancy-ness. There are so many fantastic baking recipes and practical advice for bakers inside this tome. This book saved me from my life one summer.

'Baby Cakes' is the best. Ever. I have found it kind of hard to find some of the vegan ingredients around here, but everything I make from this book is fantastic. This isn't your standard (egg replacer, butter replacer, milk replacer) vegan cookbook, this one features new recipes made by Erin. She's started her own vegan bakery empire based on these recipes. The banana bread recipe is the B.E.S.T. best.

I don't know what 'Prevention' is, some publication? Anyways, this is their Cookbook booklet. Great pictures of life in the 70's and great whole grain recipes. I have yet to attempt any but love the art.

Locally made booklet. Great recipes, including some surprising and easy tofu, healthly snacks and meals. It's pretty great.

Let's get nostalgic here! What is your favorite Cookbook? Comment below and enter to win the prize: a cookbook-ey package including the 'Healthy Cookbook for Young Chef's' booklet and some random (but awesome!) vintage cooking stuff. This contest is open to everyone, I'll ship it anywhere. The giveaway is closed August 5th at 2400hrs (er, that's midnight). Good luck!

WIP Wednesday!

Our friend, Robo, from Prince George taught me one of my all time favourite mottos (on top of DIY or DIE!): everything all the time. Which means you are literally doing everything all the time.

I take this to mean that everything that I do in my life--feminism, DIY, food, roller derby, my job, being a parent, being a partner, social justice activism, decolonization, community development, etc--I do all the time and in everything that I do. I'm sure that Robo could and would explain it better, but the gist is that I am always and consistently working for change. Everything I do will lead to change and the destr/reduction of patriarchy. all. the. time. Which means that by the time WIP Wednesday rolls around I'm tired, I don't feel like I've taken any pictures worthy of this here HOME SWEET HOME and I feel so scattered I don't know what to say I've been working on this week. Which is a lot. I'm working on a lot.

Right now as I type this, there's dough a rising for a late night pizza, veggies being roasted, sex and the city season 4 sitting in my bag waiting to be watched, and a sweater just begging to be knit.

Kitchen: Coming off a vegan cleanse, my kitchen is a disaster and I've been begging myself to cook more and be more inventive. My favourite meal this week was making all that temaki (above). I "discovered" a new spicy carrot filling whereby I just make a spicy mayonaise and mix it in grated carrot and lay down the center of the temaki like you would a spicy fish. Did you know that salmon and tuna are under this immense pressure to be caught and killed to make our sushi that we're desperately getting our hands on at sushi restaurants? Now, I love myself a good spicy tuna roll, but the one thing we can do to curb the over fishing of fish is to stop buying and eating commercially produced/hunted or farmed fish! Eat local! Do you live somewhere where you can get tuna? No? Don't eat it. Simple as that! (Luckily for us we can get salmon down the road from whomever, but I'm pretty sure the salmon at the sushi place isn't local). see! everything all the time!

Community: So many good things happening right now both at work and at derby! I'm working with a few local agencies/people to help develop a local food charter for the Regional District and the City to adopt. I'm hoping, too, we can involve the local First Nations and have their Councils adopt the charter too. It looks like the charter is going to also specifically address food security and poverty (yes!) and I'm going to be looking at mainly providing policy recommendations to all levels that consider all of the jurisdictions federally and provincially! Big job, lots of work, but there's some fire around food security in our community, so when the building's burning, jump in! Also, did you know that BC Hydro is switching to smart meters and there's been some research to link them to possibly causing cancer because of some radioactive waves? Wow! If you are a home owner (or an advocating tenant! you can advocate for your friends, too!) you can download this poster AND call BC Hydro to slow or stop the implementation of your smart meter! Go here and find out more.

Craft: Aside from knitting my sweater, nothing's going on. Sorry folks ;)

Show us your tips (x2): Get rid of Weaving & Cast-on Gaps

Diandra and I often complain about weaving in the ends. I have gone to extremes to avoid having to sew anything together or weaving in ends, this includes: never finishing projects or just leaving UFOs forever, vetoing stripes larger than 2 rows, and many more ugly things. Then I resorted to weaving ends as soon as possible because I knew I won't do it later, this seemed to be the best answer. Until now.

This method works to weave in ends as you knit so you don't have to do it later. It also works with any kind of cast on method, the one shown here is the long-tail cast on. There is no real difference, except that your tail would be coming from the first cast of stitch (or slip knot-if using) instead of the last cast on stitch. No biggie.

I've also included instructions to get rid of a cast-on gap (did you see the last tip: getting rid of bind-off gap?).

Cast on total number of stitches plus 1, leaving a longish tail, 6" should do the trick.

Arrange your stitches equally (or however you like them, or as pattern indicates) but put 1 extra stitch (this is really your slip knot-not an actual stitch) on your first needle. I've arranged my 24 +1 as follows...Needle 1: 9 sts (bottom needle), Needle 2: 8 sts, Needle 3: 8 sts.

Join in the round, slipping your first stitch (slip knot) without working it to your right needle.

Holding both your working yarn and tail behind this slipped stitch, work the first 4 stitches of your first round as indicated in your pattern (Stockinette Stitch, Garter Stitch, Rib...) by holding both strands and working as a double strand. Now you can trim this tail off, or use it as a round marker, remembering that it is 4 sts into the first round.

Drop tail and work the rest of the first round as indicated by pattern to the last two stitches.

Work the last two stitches together by knitting or purling them together depending on what stitch your pattern indicates for the last stitch (i.e. if pattern says to knit last stitch, you should K2tog; if pattern says to purl last stitch, you should P2tog). Now you have gotten rid of the cast-on gap!

Another way to do this is to cast on 2 extra stitches and decrease those two extras over the last 4 stitches of your first round. So basically, if you were working in Stockinette Stitch, you would work your first round to the last 4 stitches and K2tog twice.

Sunday Night: Bring back shared meals! (+Recipe)

Mark at Irish Heather Long Table Series in Gastown, Vancouver B.C. Canada

Usually in western middle/upper class WASP-ey (blah blah blah) families Sunday was traditionally reserved for sit down family dinners. Sunday was the day that Grandma would come for dinner and birthdays were celebrated. There was almost always desert on Sundays if not on any other day. These things made Sundays special. Sure, Sunday dinner as a special day was probably a throwback to the whole Christian "day of rest" thing, but even if you weren't at all religious you still would have a Sunday family feast. We can be nostalgic thinking back to the occasional family dinner in front of the T.V. when Disney had their 6pm Sunday Night Special and the family would get to watch while we ate.

Mary Poppins all gave us something to say about family dinners! They were Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! But as we grew up and moved away from home and family, Sundays became less about the usual family gathering than they once were. You could watch Disney features anytime you wanted and eat only dessert if you wanted, skipping dinner all together. Families are now spread thinly, and many no longer uphold the old Christian traditions ideas anymore (except all those glorious Statutory Holidays), and everyone is too busy (busy busy) to make time for sharing meals.

As usual, when we've gone far away from something that used to be incredibly routine, there is a movement back towards it eventually. We can see that in the surge of Long Tables, Eating Clubs, and in/formal dinner groups that this tradition is coming back. Restaurants are bringing strangers together in the "social experiment" of eating together.

The long table at Salt in Blood Alley-Gastown, Vancouver B.C. Canada

In the spirit of eating together, it has been rumored that a particular restaurant in P.G. will be trying out the shared Sunday dinner concept a la Irish Heather. I'll let you know as soon as it's announced!

If you live in a place where this kind of thing isn't happening, start your own Sustain-a-table!

Summer Garden Salad

This one is easy, take a bowl out to the garden (or platers, or what have you) and start picking.

Anything goes here. Herbs, chives, pea shoots, greens...you get the idea. Share this salad with friends or make yourself a huge bowl to enjoy solo. After derby or a workout, it's a great way to have a light healthy meal and use up some garden greens.

The best way to make an awesome-sauce salad is to balance the flavours and put lots of stuff in there.

The three main flavours are 1)sweet, 2) salty, and 3) bitter. Choose at least one thing from each flavour and you'll have a great salad.

1)sweet things: berries, raisins, fruits, figs, salad dressing sweetened with syrup, honey

2) salty things: salted nuts/seeds, be careful! A little salt goes a long way, you could put a tiny bit of salt in the dressing.

3) bitter things: most greens are a little bitter, vinegar based dressing

Ingredients:

Bowl full of garden pickings

Fruit of some kind (in-season berries are a great addition)

Nuts and/or Seeds

Grains &/or beans (use your homemade sprouts)

Cheese (if you dig on cheese)

Salad Dressing (see below for Maple Vinaigrette)

Nutritional Yeast (optional, but an easy way to get that tricky B vitamin)

Ground pepper

Maple Vinaigrette

3 part maple syrup

1 part Balsamic Vinegar

Tofu Storage Option

In all my years of consuming tofu I've never once thought to store it in water in a mason jar. I kind of feel stupid that I haven't, but it's the best way to store it totally immersed in water so it's super fresh for next time. It's important to replace the water daily (which I'm not really good at) and also to use filtered water (which I'm also not good at). One of the reasons living on the West Coast is the Best Coast is because in Vancouver there's a number of Tofu Manufacturers (such as Superior Tofu, my favourite). We don't eat much tofu (soy soy soy is bad) but in my vegan switch we've been eating it more and more.

TGIF Summer Sangria

Working full time means I look forward to Friday afternoons with such glee. Last weekend we celebrated the weekend with a bucket party (!!) and I pretty much drank myself this entire recipe of Sangria, which wasn't as much of a disaster as I thought it would be! It's super yummy and super summery so if you're somewhere warm, enjoy!

Ingredients:
4 mangos, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup of ginger, skin on, thinly sliced
2 lemons, thinly sliced
1 cup Triple Sec
2 bottles Pino Grigio
1 litre club soda
Mint sprigs

Combine Mango, ginger, lemons, and triple sec in a jug and refrigerate for 1 hour to overnight. Add 2 bottle Pino Grigio and stir to combine. Serve in mason jars over ice with 2/3 full sangria, top up with club soda and garnish with mint. Drink and relax. yes!

ps. here's some pictures of our bucket party in 2009!

Roasted Tomatoes

Pretty much my entire life we've lived at least a thousand kilometres away from my family who now live in Errington. I remember every summer going out to their house in Vancouver, traveling by car all the way from Terrace. Two days in the car. Fun! (Sarcasm). Some times I even took the Greyhound. Eeps! About 10 years ago, my aunt and uncle sold their house (for cash) and moved to Errington, where they bought a blueberry farm.

Since moving to Port Alberni we've had the opportunity to see them way more often, but have found over the past two years that we're not seeing each other enough. We decided we would have brunch together, bi-weekly, and we'd take turns hosting. There's always eggs and some kind of pork product, fruit, vegetables, and something baked. And family! Everywhere! Yay!

Recently I've had the opportunity to host and I made quite a spread: zucchini and vegetable latkes, scrambled eggs, scones, sausages, and roasted tomatoes. We had two presses going full with coffee and made a pitcher of iced tea from scratch. Everything was hangover approved by yours truly, but biting into the roasted tomatoes really took the cake. I'm so happy summer's here and the vine tomatoes are actually from BC and not Mexico. And even sooner than I can bet, Rages Farm will have tomatoes at the Market (and all the local grocery stores). I see lots of these roasted tomatoes in my future (on pasta, on pizza, in a sandwich, mixed with beans on rice, and on and on).

Roasted Tomatoes

Preheat oven to 425F

You'll need vine ripened tomatoes (1 per person minimum) and 1 tbsp of olive oil per every 2 tomatoes and pepper.

Wash and quarter tomatoes. Toss with olive oil in a bowl and season to taste with pepper. Line a cookie sheet that has a lip with tin foil. Spread tomatoes on the sheet and bake for 45 minutes, dumping the juices out 1/2 way through ( you can reserve this and freeze it for a future batch of soup!). Serve alongside everything.

Note: As they cool more juices will leak out. Use a slotted spoon to serve and reserve the juice to add to your stash of stock.

Friday Favourites: SCREEN QUEEN

I am so in love with these images. SCREEN QUEEN is so inspiring. To put on walls, desktop backgrounds, or to inspire tattoos. Enjoy!

Notes on Community

a great video of Pidherny

I've been keeping my eye on the PG Cycling Club lately and from what I gather, they totally rock as far as a community group doing it right.

Recently, the PG Cycling Club has been fundraising in order to bring a group into town to advise them and lead workshops in trail building and maintenance. The Club's focus is on Pidherny Mountain Bike Park. Check out the video above for a close look at some of the sections of the park, it's beautiful. As a community coordinator-type person, what I see in the recent work done by this group is that...

1) the club is working together

2) they have established a need (to rework/improve the park) and are working towards a goal

3) they are looking outside their immediate group to the larger community for support

(this is good because the community SHOULD support local groups, it is draining to be constantly asking for $ support from members of a club)

4) they are using lots of social media to get their message out to their club members and community members

5) they have empowered their members to post info, pictures, and videos of the park, club, and other projects

6) they have taken a transparent approach to keeping all community members informed

I think that more clubs, associations, societies, groups, etc. should following the example of the PG Cycling Club. Look outside your club to your community and get them involved in your group. Try a mash-up event, bring different groups together and see what happens. Make your fundraising events accessible and make it easy to help out, make sure that they don't have to be a member to support, and don't forget to thank people!

I guarantee that if you employ even one of the points above right now in your community group, it will work. Community is something you build slowly, so do it with purpose and you will see it grow better and healthier.

WIP Wednesday

This week the weather has been swinging from extremes, so basically I've had to juggle activities in order to get everything in. The game is to get outside and play/garden as soon as the sun is out because it's going to get HOT, then sneak back inside as soon as it clouds over because the sky is about to open up on your head. Yeesh!

I've been working on a lot of projects and trying really hard to tap into this energy that I've got inside me. It's like there is something big in there that needs to get out. I keep trying different crafts but haven't been able to release it.

Craft: I'm trying to figure out which embroidery pattern I want to start next. I've got a bunch of aida and Diandra told me how to transfer stitches onto fabric using aida. I picked up a new magazine from Books & Co. yesterday and can't wait to get started. Tons of great ideas, like this vintage looking one. I think the text should say..."I have a Degree, but I'd rather bake" (What would yours say?).

Kitchen: I'm trying out the Weekly Menu Plan that Diandra posted a while ago.

I really like the 'to make in advance' section. Mine says: soak and cook chickpeas, make yoghurt, take out steaks...done done and done. Actually, it says 'def. roast' but I changed my mind when it was sunny, (yes, BBQ!) now I wish I hadn't ('cause it looks like November, perfect roast weather, shit!). This is also the first time we've gotten through all the cow's milk before the end of the week. Wow.

Community/Craft: This is the Knit A Long (KAL) project for my group right now. I missed the last KAL night so I haven't seen everyone else's work. And that is half the fun! We meet every second week and the group is pretty diverse (age-wise anyways). This shawl is 'Little Shells' by Holly and Ella Knits. A sweet little pattern for silk yarn, I'm working it up in Silk, Milk (yes, milk!), and Cashmere blended yarn. It's so nice, it's gross.

Craft: This is the start of Leethal's Betiko. I'm doing the Garter Edged one to start. I bought the Mystery KAL around Christmas time and didn't do until now. If you haven't been following Lee, she's figured out this REVOLUTIONARY way to add stitches along two edges of your fabric. What this means is that usually, you would knit an piece or edging, then pick up along the long edge of your work to work down (think a brimmed hat, sweater with button band, etc.) or out. This way, when you have the length worked, you bind off your edging piece, and start working down on your side stitches. WOW! Well, I just started, I'll let you know how it goes. Leethal is awesome. Find her here, here and here. I'm working the edge in Manos Maxima (looks like pickles) and the body in Malabrigo Worsted.

[I am also job searching even though my practicum starts in september, I need something to tide me over till then. Also, the practicum will cost $600 and is full-time unpaid. So, I'm trying to figure out how THAT will work. How long can I put my bills on hold? Can I pay all my rent until November up front and still survive? Oh, and don't forget that I'm the last person who should be traveling and I'm going to RollerCon at the end of the month. I'm fundraising, let me assure you].

What are you working on this week?

Tutorial: FAIL

Lots of crafts don't work out. For everyone. As we are learning our craft (or Craft) and improving our crafts(wo)manship, we make mistakes, bungle projects, and fail epically. This just makes us better, right? As long as we learn from those mistakes and move on, we'll be better crafters for it. Have you noticed, that you rarely see bloggers admitting that they have failed projects? We are led to believe that the bloggers we love (love love love) live in some alternate universe of perfection and awesomeness. Ya right! They've had flops too, and this usually means they won't post that day or will add some filler post about something boring.

My most recent fail was for today's tutorial post, oops! I had followed Casey's 50's dress tutorial link to making a bodice block for myself (my dream to make summer dresses out of the forever accumulating fabric almost realized), started the project and failed. Then I tried again, and failed again. Into the recycler went my attempted patterns, after I puzzled over it for an hour and decided...

that I learnt two things:

1) choose one system of measurement (Metric OR Imperial) and,

2) get someone else to help with measurements.

Bah! Ah well. I'll try again, and it'll be wonderful. Then I'll post my success!

Do you have a recent 'Fail' project? It's ok, don't be shy!

During my quest to find out what went wrong I also found a bunch more bodice block styles on burda style, next: the sweetheart bodice.

Show us your tips! (Knitting ideas for you to love)

Follow me for gap-free knitting! No matter how you roll; either on a circular, double points, or straight needles, if you are knitting in the round you should have this little trick in your tool belt. This is a super simple way to get rid of the dreaded gap left when casting off in the round. This gap is between the first and last stitches to be bound off and it's just plain ugly. Employ this little number and you'll never have to see that gap again!

1. Cast off all your stitches as you normally would but keep the last stitch on your needle (do not draw the tail through).

2. Put your needle under the first stitch that you bound off, like if you were going to pick up a stitch there.

3. Pick up a stitch there. You should have two stitches on your needle.

4. Bind off 1 stitch, cut yarn, and pull the yarn tail through. Weave in the end. Voila!

Saving money (eating in).

The family and I have embarked on a new money and food challenge: we're not going to pay to eat out at restaurants for a year (we're 3 weeks in). People are more than welcome to buy us food at restaurants and we're allowed to get coffee and drinks (alcohol) and I've cheated and bought a few muffins to date (I'm really trying not to!), but considering we ate at a restaurant at least once a week (which is very little for a lot of people), it's been a challenge. I am going hardcore on the menu planning, but have an incredible craving for MSG.

One food we went out to eat a lot was sushi. I've made my own sushi at home since the mid 1990s so have no fear about rolling it up, but yesterday when I went to make the rolls, I couldn't find our mat. I made temaki (cones) instead. Here's a great tutorial on how to hand roll your cones!

There's a tonne of websites out there on the internet with information on how to make rolls and the recipe concoctions and stuff, too (like this one).

Sushi is also probably one of the cheapest foods you can make. Two years ago I bought a commercial sized bag of nori (with like 500 sheets in it) for $13 (considering that at the store 10 sheets is $4). And I'm not even 1/2 way through it. An avocado, some green onions, and a little bit of fish also cost nothing. To make the sweet mayo I just add 1 tsp rice vinegar and 1 tsp sugar to the mayo and the coat the shrimp in that (instead of buying the $8 bottle of japanese mayo).


Do you make your own sushi? What's your favourite kind of roll?