Pom Pom's!

It's that time of year when pomegranates are in season! This middle eastern fruit that has made its way (into my heart) on the scene in North America is extraordinary. All you hear about is how this powerfully nutritious fruit has exploded onto the food scene; it's in our grocery stores, juice bars, restaurants and even in our beauty products! (I honestly own pomegranate lip balm and wanna snack on it sometimes.)

The problem with pomegranates is that they are, well, a ton of work. It is thus an intimidating and messy fruit that sprays everywhere. Not everyone is familiar on how to crack the skin of a pomegranate without getting sprayed by the ruby red juice and even if you decide to take this fleshy beast on, it is time consuming and not everyone has the patience to deal with it. (Plus, the juice f*cking stains.) Well, before I talk about an easy method I found to conquer the POM here are some (nutrition) facts that you may not know about this complex fruit:

• A powerful antioxidant (three times more than in red wine and green tea)
• Helps assist in plaque regression (fat deposits) in carotid arteries and the heart which helps prevent heart attack, strokes, premature aging, Alzheimer's disease and cancer
• High in Potassium and Vitamin C
• Originally from Israel but can now be found in California (ie trade name POM Wonderful)
• The seeds themselves are high in iron (some people don't eat the seeds, just extract the juice)

So how do you get to the fruit? There are two successful ways; the quick way or the long way. Let's start with the long way:

1) Find a large, deep bowl (biggest mixing bowl you have) and fill it up to the 3/4 mark with water. 

2) Cut the pomegranate in half (make sure to wear an apron because you will be sprayed) and         submerge the newly cut halves of the pomegranate in water.

3) See you in 20 minutes because it will take you that long to get all the seeds out of the webbing.

Ready for the easy way? Click here and see a demonstration video on You Tube. 

I bought the pomegranate tool featured in the video (be warned, it took 6 weeks for it to be delivered) and I have not regretted it. Click here to find out where you can purchase it. I can go through 4 pomegranates in 30 mins... and get rid of some built up aggression- bonus! Here are some pictures of my battles.

Oops. I guess I hit it a little too hard.

Now that you are more familiarized with the POM (hopefully a little less anxious on tackling it too), here some dishes that I like to add pomegranates to mix things up:

• In my (greek) yogurt in the morning
• A fruit salad 
• Use it as a garnish on a fruit tartlet for dessert
• Throw it on some vanilla bean ice cream for dessert
• I enjoy pomegranates in my smoothies but it's better to use pomegranate juice found in stores then the actual fruit. You'll end up chewing your smoothie instead of drinking it.

Just remember folks, if you are looking for a big, fat, juicy case of pomegranates (6 for $13.99) there's only one place to go; your neighbourhood Costco.

Thom Bargen Coffee & Tea

Do you work/live near Sherbrook? If so, you are in luck! There's a coffee house worth visiting at 64 Sherbrook street called Thom Bargen. Interesting name for the joint. I am not sure about its significance but, hey, it feels like you are going to your buddy Thom B's place for great coffee (which they have) replete with an industrially decorated, yet relaxed and friendly atmosphere in a revitalized neighbourhood. 

I ordered an Americano which was delicious on this cold, snowy day (this past Saturday). Their excellent coffee is roasted in Calgary by Phil and Sebastian roasting co. Next time I think I will try their latte and maybe the london fog! They have a variety of beverage choices, not much for food, but they do deliver on atmosphere. With the exposed brick, room length wood bench and local bands playing every other day, this coffee house delivers a welcoming vibe for all hipsters, artists, students and even corporate types (like myself).

Take a break from your Timmies or Starbucks regular order and support local! Find out more about this unique and new business (established in 2012) here.

Weekend Eats and a Stew

Yup. Winter is here.

It wasn't fun waking up on Sunday and rushing to get ready so that you can pick up your 90 year old grandmother for lunch only to find that your car is covered in a mountain of snow.

Ah well. After putting the ol' parka on and oversized winter boots, my grand-mere and I went to Cora's for lunch and I ordered the eggs benedict with asparagus and swiss cheese. It was exactly what I needed.

There were a lot of good eats this weekend! On Friday, M. and I went to his parents place for dinner and these amazing dishes were waiting for us!

Linguini with Parmesan Sauce and Roasted Butternut Squash

Greek Salad

The food is certainly never disappointing when we go over there to eat. I would never have thought to make a pasta dish like that! Simple yet so tasty! I was lucky to snag some left overs for the next day.

M. was away actually away this weekend and the night he was coming home, I made one of our favourite go to stews. Nothing like coming home to a home cooked meal! M. found a cannellini bean, spinach and carrot stew years ago (off of the realsimple.com website) which is a weekly made dish around here when winter rolls around.

I drizzled some smoked balsamic vinegar and parmesan cheese over top. This hearty (and healthy!) stew is incredibly easy to make with very little prep work. See recipe below.

M. was kind enough to buy me some treats from his travels... 

Nut grinder, Newman-O's mint cookies, Coke Zero Cherry, peanut butter cups and fusili quinoa pasta!

Gotta love Martha Stewart.

Cannellini Bean and Spinach Stew

Altered by Stephanie Barke 

Ingredients:

• 2-15oz cans of cannellini beans (found at Vita Health for $2.50 a can)
• 1 15oz can of vegetable broth
• 1 1/2 tsp of minced garlic
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 large carrots, halved lengthwise and cut into 3-inch pieces
• 2 cups of fresh spinach leaves
• pinch of salt and black pepper

Directions:

• In a large soup pot, over medium heat, add both cans of beans (once drained and rinsed), broth, garlic, bay leaf and carrots to a boil.
• Once it reaches a boil, cover and reduce the heat so that the stew simmers until the carrots are tender. Approximately 15 minutes.
• Discard the bay leaf.
• Add the spinach, salt and pepper and stir. Let the spinach wilt which should take a minute or two. Do not stir frequently as you want to avoid breaking the beans.
• Spoon the stew into bowls and add a tablespoon of balsamic oil and some parmesan cheese if desired.  

How about some 'steak'?

My love for Seitan is growing more and more with every new dish I incorporate it in. It's versatility makes it a fantastic tofu substitute, its a sponge when it comes to marinades (needs less marinating time than tofu, bonus!) and the 18 grams of protein per 100 grams is perfect for vegans and vegetarians trying to bulk up at the gym!

This week, I perused through my Southern Vegetarian cookbook trying to decide which new recipe to try this week and there was a recipe for fried 'chicken' with seitan. I thought I would try it out but with my own twist. Instead of making fried 'chicken' I would make a form of salisbury 'steak'.

I used two cans of seitan drained and rinsed.

I started mixing flour in the seitan.

Heated up the seitan in butter in a pan.

Once it started heating up I added some garlic powder and a steak spice that you can find in the spice aisle from your local grocery store. 

I also steamed some cauliflower then mashed it while mixing some cream and dill into it. I also roasted some asparagus and red peppers. 

The 'steak' had a great 'meaty' and crispy texture and it reminded me of having a steak on Sunday nights with my family with a glass of red wine. Seitan for the win again!

Fried 'steak' bites

Ingredients: 

• 2 cans of seitan at 284g each (found at Superstore)
• 4 tablespoons of flour
• 3 tablespoons of butter
• 1 tablespoon of garlic powder
• 2 tablespoon of steak spice or to taste 

Directions:

• Drain both cans of seitan and rinse. You can cut them up in smaller bite size pieces but I leave it as it is. 
• Add 1 tablespoon of flour at a time mixing it into the seitan until all the flour is used.
• Heat up your pan to medium high heat and add the 3 tbsp of butter. 
• One the butter is melted, add the seitan that has been mixed in flour into the pan.  
• At the 8 minute mark that your seitan has been cooking, add 1 tablespoon of garlic and 1 tablespoon of the steak spice to the pan and mix it throughout. Then taste. Keep adding steak spice until desired taste. 
• It will take about 15-20mins for the seitan to be cooked on all sides. You want it to be crispy brown on all sides. That's when it's ready. 

Click here and here  for past seitan posts. 

Food is Art

Remember this lovely birthday present I received?

Not only is it a print designed by a local artist (more on that later) but it's a print of a recipe! How clever! The ingredients seemed like a good pairing for a tasty vinaigrette and since I had all the ingredients on hand, I wanted to make it for my lunch the next day. 

Ingredients for vinaigrette: 1 tsp of black pepper, 2 tbsps of red wine vinegar, 1 tsp of salt, 1 tbsp of maple syrup and 2 tbsps of extra virgin olive oil. 

Thank goodness I bought my new Martha Stewart vinaigrette portable bottle to mix it all in! Huh... what does that say on the bottle there...

Voila!

It's not the *exact* recipe shown on the print but, let's say a variation. I had a spinach salad with cucumber, parmesan cheese, sliced almonds, quinoa, hemp hearts and strawberries. The maple in the vinaigrette really brought out the flavour of the strawberries. It's a very light vinaigrette that I am happy to add to my salad again.

One Plus One are the local designers of that beautiful print and you can find their site and their many other variety of designs (including Christmas cards!) here. I perused myself and they have a 2014 calendar showing off the green salad print and many more delicious recipes including this pumpkin pie print!

Maybe this should be on someone's radar to get a certain blogger for Christmas... *cough*  M. *cough*

Some Southern Cookin'

Remember this Anniversary present I received?

Well, a few weeks ago I was finally able to dive into this cookbook and I was ready to make a Southern style dinner. I quickly learned that the common theme for most of these dishes are saucy and spicy. There is also a lot of chatter on how important the flavouring for each dish is by using many specific spices. There are no substitutes.

I finally decided to try making my own BBQ sauce, a type of 'rub' for tofu, buttermilk biscuits and bacun. 

Here is a quick shot of all the spices and other ingredients I needed for the rub and BBQ sauce only.

I started with the BBQ sauce since it would take the longest. One ingredient that is not a favourite amongst our household (actually, M. hates the texture) is that we needed a medium sized onion. I know how important the flavouring that onions bring to a traditional BBQ recipe so instead of dicing them as the recipe called for I grated the onion with my cheese grater. Worked wonderfully!

Here is the grated onion, butter and minced garlic.

Here is the first set of spices I needed to add to the mixture: thyme, garlic powder and black pepper.

After all the spices were added, I then added whiskey, light brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, water, 24oz bottle of ketchup, tamari, mustard, liquid smoke, chipotle powder and worcestershire sauce. Now, we need to let it simmer for an hour!

Time to make the Memphis Style dry rub for the tofu.

Here are the spices I used: chipotle powder, sweet and smoked paprika, garlic powder, sea salt, cumin, cinnamon, ground ginger, black pepper, brown sugar and dried oregano. Phew!

I had to cut two blocks of organic tofu in thicker pieces.

Here are shots of the  dry rub on the tofu. What is great about this recipe is that you can make it last minute because the rub is rich in flavour not like when you need to marinate tofu for hours to absorb the flavouring. 

Now that the tofu is prepared and the BBQ sauce is simmering, I now need to make the bacun.

This cookbook had a recipe for smoked coconut bacun. I needed unsweetened coconut flakes, maple syrup, tamari, worcestershire sauce, canola oil and liquid smoke mixed in and ready for the oven.  They also offered a way to smoke the coconut (instead of using liquid smoke) if you had a smoker. I wish I had a smoker!!! My friend in Calgary who is also a vegetarian owns a smoker and she uses it frequently. This cookbook provides alternate ways to use a grill vs smoker vs oven which is quite handy and gives me a bit of envy for all those who have a smoker. Ha!

While the bacun is baking in the oven, it's time to fry up the tofu! With no grill or smoker, this was my only option. 

After the tofu has been 'grilling' for 5-8 minutes, I added some of the BBQ sauce. 

While the tofu is marinating in the BBQ sauce, I started on the 3-2-1 buttermilk drop biscuits. It was probably the simplest of all the recipes. I only needed flour, vegetable shortening, salt, baking powder and buttermilk.

VOILA! The results!

The tofu was spicy and saucy, I also made some roasted potatoes and topped it with the bacun and I also roasted some asparagus. 

Everything tasted phenomenal. The BBQ sauce is amazing. I had some left over and sanitized a jam jar to keep the rest of the BBQ sauce. The only downer from this dinner was the biscuit. It was tasteless and I am not sure why. It had a very good texture and I love the rustic look of them but next time, I will add some marble cheese.

The BBQ sauce made another appearance the next night on some naked tofu and it was just as good without the rub just less spicy.

It's really too bad that I can't share the recipes specifically with you but, I highly recommend this cookbook. It's clear, concise, achievable and houses a very good variety of recipes including famous southern drinks like Horchata.  As long as you love spice, this is the cookbook for you!

Note: I actually made a couple more recipes from this book over the past week: a curried cauliflower soup and some fried 'chicken' that were both winner recipes in this household. I am already planning to try a dessert, the no-bake chipotle chocolate tart next week! This cookbook is definitely one of my favourites.