I write this in haste.  Not because I have a particularly hectic day; in fact D’s car is in getting a set of winter tires and he has my van, so I cannot go anywhere, anyway.  I scramble to get text onto this page and press “publish” so that I will not change my mind.  I intend to start this new year differently and I require your help.  I need to be accountable to you, my loyal readers.  I believe that you come to this space because even if we have never met in person, you care about me and perhaps even love me.  With love, there is responsibility and I hope that you will encourage me in my journey ahead.

I am almost 59 years old (I know by the photos I post here and my youthful lifestyle, you thought I was much younger, correct? correct?).  I am just on the cusp of menopause which at my late age is something that has me and my doctor, quite mystified.  Her ongoing reassurance has always been that women who are pre-menopausal are healthier than those who have gone through the change.  I have never asked the chemical or biological reasons for this, just took this as a blessing and a reason for my continued good health.  But sure enough, just as one phase of my life is making way for another, health concerns that I have never had before, are now an issue.

I am now medicated for high blood pressure and my doctor is keeping close eye on my cholesterol.  I know what I need to do to get these things into check-it is pretty simple, really.  I need to be more active and make good decisions with my diet.  (So why just now, did I almost consume that thick piece of banana bread left over from the holidays instead of pouring out a small bowl of whole grain cereal?)  The only answers I can think of, is that I am careless and lazy; that I eat as a response but not based on rational thought.  I have wholesome food in my house.  I have the luxury of time to prepare it.  So, why can’t I make good choices?

I have decided to focus on all that I love: my husband, our children and our gorgeous grandbaby.  I will soon be on Isla Mujeres where I wear a bathing suit and pareo from morning until sundown, I will spend the summer at our little cottage where I love to walk the beach from end to end, I need to chose a Mother-of-the-Bride dress for later this year, D and I want to take long hikes and stroll through Europe again in the next year or so.  These are my incentives, my motivation.

I have already made some positive steps: the salt shaker has come off our table, I have reduced the salt added to my recipes, I have eliminated coffee and drink only decafe. I have reduced my alcohol consumption in quantity and frequency.  I walk twice a day but I turn back when our old dog has done his business, instead of walking as far as I had intended.  The frigid temperatures are my excuse but this too is hogwash as I have the warmest clothes that money can by.  I love Zumba and have a set of cds that I should be working out to but I have been lazy with this too, and need to set aside time each day to really get my heart pumping.

I have pulled out my two favourite Bonnie Stern Cookbooks: “Heart Smart Cooking“,”Heart Smart Cooking for Family and Friends” and one new one: “The Heart-Smart Diabetes Kitchen“.  I intend to cook my way through the pages of these three (Julie & Julia style).  Tonight: Salmon Fillets in Rice Paper Wrappers with Peanut Dipping Sauce and a Carrot Salad with Moroccan Dressing.  High in vitamins A, B6 and B12, low in carbs, calories and fat.  I will report back on the taste.

I wanted to share all of this with you, just in case you happen to be in the same place as me.  Send me an email if you are: kathryne@mediachef.ca and we can hold hands and do this together.

Kath’s quote: “When you smiled you had my undivided attention.  When you laughed you had my urge to laugh with you.  When you cried you had my urge to hold you.  When you said you loved me, you had my heart forever.” Brandi Snyder

Love-that is all.

The Three Sistas and our Mom

Our family is all about tradition.  My almost 87 year old Mom is the matriarch of our family and the instigator of most of our traditions.  This year she will not be counting the heads of her enormous brood and sending her eldest to the bank to withdraw a sizable amount that she tucks into envelopes so that we can treat ourselves in which ever way we wish, she will not be setting up her little Christmas tree that simply gets brought upstairs from the basement and plugged in and she will not be ordering perogies, kielbasa and prime rib roasts and making lists of all the other dishes that will be assigned out.  The good news is that Mom survived a devastating illness this past fall and will be here to celebrate with us, arriving by taxi cab to her own home.  The bitter sweetness is that Mom will no longer live in our family home as she will soon be paneled for a nursing home and our family house of almost 60 years will be sold.  So this will be our last Christmas together on Linden Avenue.

Our tradition begins with a Christmas Eve dinner of Prime Rib roast.  The time spent together is not long as we have many family members who work in health care,  not for profit organizations and in retail, so Christmas eve is often a full working day.  As soon as dinner and dessert is served, the left overs packaged up and everything is tidied up, families start to depart for their various churches for Christmas eve services.

The church which we attend is right in our neighbourhood and so many years ago, we commenced another tradition, where the clergy of the church come over to our home to spend the time between this second service of the evening and the last, which is a midnight candle light one.  We share an egg nog, craft beer or glass of wine and have a nibble of something before they head back to church and my husband and I start filling Christmas stockings and placing the “Santa” gifts under the tree.

Is it present time yet?

On Christmas morning we are typically up by 7 am and my husband makes coffee with Bailey’s and Kahlua that we use to warm up, before we tackle our gift giving.  Before we start, we always say an individual prayer of thanksgiving for our health and love and the gifts that we are about to receive.   Gift giving goes in order from youngest to eldest and we draw out the process by hugging and kissing the giver before the next gift is given out.

Someone always gets the gift of music, so we put on our new cds while we tidy up the wrapping and try on a Christmas sweater and then we are off to be with my siblings and their families again.  We gather for Christmas brunch at my Mom’s house and have enjoyed the exact same menu for many, many years: six quiche- sausage, seafood and Lorraine, cinnamon loaf, banana muffins, sausage rolls, fruit salad, hash brown potato casserole, chocolate milk, juices, and left overs from the night before.

Once lunch is consumed and the coffee pot is poured out, we find a spot for our gift exchange.  We start with the youngest again and go around in our enormous circle until each family member has a gift chosen especially for them.  We always draw these names after Thanksgiving dinner and sometimes there is a gap in clarity because the names were drawn so long ago.  So when it is someones turn to receive a gift, there is sometimes a hesitation before the giver recalls that it is their responsibility.  The heightened tension increases the air of anticipation and hilarious results often occur.  In fact on more than one occasion I have remarked on my way home that my face and tummy hurt from laughing.  Imagine, being a part of a family of 35+ who get along fabulously, rarely quarrel and love to assemble together to bless each other with gifts and laugh until it hurts.

Some years we gather again later that day at someone elses home.  Last year my son and his wife hosted and this is only a portion of the gang that were seated in their dining room.

Here are my famous sausage rolls that I contribute each year.  They are such a hit with certain family members that my niece requested that they be served for her wedding breakfast.  I have modified the recipe over the years but it originally came from a seasonal cookbook entitled  “Company is Coming for Christmas”, a Canadian cookbook, published in 1996 and written by Jean Pare.  I get such a chuckle over remembering some of her recipes like the one for Caesar Salad: rip up a head of romaine lettuce and toss with Caesar salad dressing and croutons, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese!  I kid you not….

Kath’s quote: “No language can express the power, and beauty, and heroism, and majesty of a mother’s love. It shrinks not where man cowers, and grows stronger where man faints, and over wastes of worldly fortunes sends the radiance of its quenchless fidelity like a star. “— Edwin Hubbell Chapin

Love never fails.

 

Happy Sunday morning readers.  We were in the city this summer weekend which as you know is very unusual for us.  Yesterday was a perfect summer day-a time for baking and writing and visiting into the wee hours with family and good friends that I don’t see often enough over the summer.  The weekend in town, afforded me the opportunity to write most of this special blog post.  I am honoured to be a part of the Canadian Food Experience Project  which began June 7 2013.  As we (participants) share our collective stories through our regional food experiences, we hope to bring global clarity to our Canadian culinary identity. There were 58 participants in the first round up!  This month’s challenge was to write about a regional Canadian food and I choose wild blueberries for a number of reasons: their exemplary nutritional value, their low cost and their distinct connection to the places they grow here in Manitoba and on the Canadian prairies. 

The beach areas on the east and west side of Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba were populated by various ethnic groups that are like the patchwork swatches that make up the provincial quilt.  The French holidayed at Paige Albert, Jewish persons at Winnipeg Beach, the Anglo-Saxons at Victoria Beach, Icelanders at Gimli and the Germans at Lester Beach.  Our family are not German but we have been welcomed into and have been part of the lake crowd at Lester Beach since the mid-seventies when my brother Tom and his wife bought a little two bedroom cottage.  Fast forward almost forty years and there are now approximately 38 of us who take turns staying at various wooden beach houses within a one block radius.  There are some streets where you can hear German spoken amongst the seniors who still enjoy the forest and the sandy beach.  As you walk along the lanes the cottage families are identified by signs such as the one at the end of our road “The Regiers and the birds live here”.

Friends of ours who have a cabin close by but who we also know from the city, renewed their wedding vows one summer on the beach and then hosted a huge party in the yard.  At supper time an old metal drum that had been split and made into a barbeque was fired up and there were hamburger patties and various sausages grilled up.  A number of salad and accompaniments were contributed by various guests, as well as a bevy of desserts.  There was one dessert that came in various fruit variations: peach, apple, rhubarb and blueberry.  It was called “platz” and it was the most divine dessert that I had ever tasted.

I am not a sweet lover but prefer desserts like this one that are doughy, and buttery with natural sweetness from the fruit and just a hint of sugar to crunch up the crumb topping.  “Platz” is German for coffee cake and many Mennonite homes have one available in case family, friends or neighbours drop in for coffee and a visit.  From my first taste, I was hooked and now make platz on a regular basis.  I love to bake one up in the summer when fresh fruit is at its peak.  The simple ingredients are always at hand and frozen fruit produces an equally fine result.  I originally found the recipe in a book entitled “Mennonite Girls Can Cook” but have modified it over the years to use half brown sugar and even sugar substitutes.

Wild blueberries are plentiful throughout Manitoba and especially in the lake district.  I love to blueberry picking.  Actually, I have to be honest…I love the results of blueberry picking but not the act of picking itself.  Wood ticks are an issue as well as bears, not to mention poison ivy, the risk of getting lost in the bush and coping with the backache, heat, thirst and mosquitoes.  What I am trying to say is, picking is no fun at all but the results make the difficult task more than worth it.

The time for wild blueberry picking is not yet upon us, as it was a very late spring on the prairies.  But I have noticed an abundance of plants and flowers as I have meandered in the forest, so this summer’s crop is sure to be abundant.  In the mean time, because we so love the nutritious fruit, I always have a pint on hand.  But because I live in a busy house, my plans sometimes are foiled by a hungry family member looking for something to have with their morning granola.  In that case, I go to plan B because I always have frozen berries as well.  When all is said and done, the taste is very close.

Kath’s hint:  I made a double batch this morning and then split it between three smaller sized pans.  With one I varied the fruit to mango and banana and then added coconut to the crumb mix.  This will go with us to a tropical pool party this evening.  One of the berry cakes will accompany us to a back yard graduate lunch this afternoon.  The third is to just have on hand.  It stays fresh on the counter for a day, can go into the fridge for a couple of days or go immediately into the freezer for future entertaining.

Kath’s quote: “I remember his burlesque pretense that morning of an inextinguishable grief when I wonder that I had never eaten blueberry cake before, and how he kept returning to the pathos of the fact that there should be a region of the earth where blueberry cake was unknown.”-William Dean Howells (1894)

Love-that is all.

I recently had the opportunity to work with CJ Katz who was on a media tour promoting her award winning cookbook Taste -Seasonal Dishes from a Prairie Table.  CJ is a food writer, photographer and culinary judge but best of all she is a prairie-girl, residing in Regina.  If you still need items to put on your Christmas list or to purchase for other foodie loved-ones, this cookbook is exquisite.  As the back cover states: “a feast for the eyes and food for the soul”.  Throughout the recipes themselves, CJ weaves the story of the seasons of the priaires, the land itself and the local growers and producers.  All the mouth-watering photography is her own!

D loves Christmas and turkey is one of the primary reasons why.  He enjoys Christmas dinner (duh) but LOVES turkey left overs. 

While he was still roasting turkeys for a recent dinner, I came home to this gorgeous pot of turkey soup and basil dumplings, bubbly on the stove.

I, on the other hand, would just as soon get the left overs all used up and move towards some lighter fare.  Here is a recipe that will satisfy us both.  It would be perfect for a Boxing Day Brunch but is so festive, it could be featured on any holiday table.

I apologise that I do not have any photos of this one.  Food styling is a hectic business and I was so focused on making the food look good, that I plum forgot!  Trust me, with the contrast and vibrant colours in this dish-it is gorgeous.

Kath’s quote: “Rational habits permit of discarding nothing left over, and the use to which leftovers (and their economic allies, the wild things of nature) are put is often at the heart of a cooking’s character.”-Richard Olney

Love-that is all.

 

There are so many reasons why I decided to make this Pot Roast recipe last evening.

1) My slow cooker was sitting right there on the counter.  I go through cooking spurts with certain appliances.  Right now I am in immersion blender mode: turnips and mashed potatoes last evening.  And anything that I can think of cooking in my brand new slow-cooker.

2) As we move closer to Christmas when we get a bit “turkeyed” out, beef provides a welcome change of tastes.

3) Speaking of turkey though, we already had one roasting in the oven for Sister #3 who puts on a dinner every year for the volunteers of  Winnipeg Havest.  Because the oven was occupied for the day, a slow-cooker recipe was the perfect choice.

4 ) Last night was Mandatory Sunday Supper at our house and I always try to prepare something particularly economical so that I can afford to package up the left overs and send a couple of meals home with our kids to help out with their busy lives (and their grocery bills).

5) D and I had tried a coffee rubbed steak at a tappas restaurant in the states this summer and I have been searching for a coffee/beef recipe that would equally satisfy.

6) There were roast tweets all afternoon on my twitter feed Friday and I could not stop thinking about the aroma of roasting beef filling my house.

7) I wanted to give my new talking digital meat thermometer a test drive.  Wow-this device takes all of the guess work out of roasting meat.  The gadget was absolutely precise when the beef was at our desired doneness and even spoke to me in a polite voice!

8) I seared the roast early in the morning, threw it into the slow-cooker and then was free to focus on my family and other tasks for the rest of the day (like trimming the Christmas tree).  I didn’t even have to make gravy, as this recipe makes its own!

9) I had the pleasure of working with Sally Vaughan Johnston this week when she was in Winnipeg and wanted to try another recipe from her “Best of Bridge Slowcooker Cookbook”.  So far she is 5 for 5, everything has worked out delicious and effortless.

10) We are going to need the energy that beef provides to get us through the week ahead: another major food-styling job for me and an annual Christmas dinner for a charity that we support that D caters each year.

 

Kath’s Tips: 1) The oven was already pre-heating for our turkey so I browned the roast in the oven instead of as the recipe suggests. Why waste electricity? 2) A meat thermometer means that your meat will cook to exactly the desired temperature. Mine is a Brookstone brand Grill Alert. A little pricier than the grocery store variety but so worth it! It even has a remote feature so that we could take the receiver downstairs with us and hear the signal over top of the sound of the Viking’s game on the big screen.  3) There are so many good recipes and cooking suggestions on the Beef Info site.

Kath’s quote: “In the childhood memories of every good cook, there’s a large kitchen, a warm stove, a simmering pot and a mom.” -Barbara Costikyan

Love-that is all.