In the spirit of the World Cup, I am inspired to write this blog post headline…..

I am fascinated by ancient foods especially those referred to in the Bible.  Add barley to that list as it is mentioned over 30 times-in fact there is archeological evidence that wild forms of barley were being harvested as early as 17,000 BCE!

In my recent efforts to increase my soluble fibre, I have been seeking out recipes for whole grains like barley.  In addition to reducing the risk of heart disease, barley helps improves glycemic control and the soluble fibre helps with digestive health.  Barley is also a super food when it comes to vitamins and minerals, containing thiamine, niacin, folate, riboflavin, iron, calcium, potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, manganese, zinc, selenium, B vitamins and amino acids!  I feel better, just having typed this long list….

Barley is a local food and I love to see fields of graceful, long blonde haired stems, blowing in the farmer’s fields throughout Manitoba and the rest of the Canadian prairies.

But the truth is, no nutritional food is worth knowing about if it doesn’t taste good.  I love barley’s unique nutty flavour.  In my enjoyable work as a food-stylist, I sometimes am recruited when a new recipe book is being launched.  Such is the case, with a gorgeous new book entitled “go barley-MODERN RECIPES FOR AN ANCIENT GRAIN” by Pat Inglis and Linda Whitworth.

Linda and I have worked together before and she is a delight to work alongside and is the “Barley Queen” as far as her knowledge of the grain is concerned.

The book itself is a perfect size and is packed with gorgeous photography that make you want to pick up a spoon or fork and break through the pages.  This is what ingenious recipe writing (and a good food stylist) can achieve. My favourite of the three recipes: Wild Rice, Barley, and Fruit Salad; Raspberry Rhubarb Cobbler and Barley Tabbouleh, is the latter.

I left it for D’s dinner last evening with a grilled chicken breast and just now I crumbled some feta on top for a refreshing (from fresh mint) and yet satisfying lunch.

D with his sweet tooth, loved the Cobbler and I am planning on making the Ole Fashioned Ginger Snaps for him and the Sunflower Barley Crackers for me.

With Linda’s permission, here is the Barley Tabbouleh recipe, just to whet your appetite until you get a chance to buy the book or check out their website: Go Barley.

Kath’s quote: “For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey.” Deut 8:7-8

Love-that is all.

I recently came upon a statistic about 18-34 year olds depending primarily upon processed and pre-made food and the reason for this being that "from scratch" cooking was not modelled by their parents.  I commented in a recent post, that this was not the case in my family and a couple of weeks ago we had dinner with three other couples where this was not the case either.  In fact, one offspring is a gold-plate chef and two others have sons who are not chefs, but professional cooks.  I recounted our evening together and pondered what we had all done "right" to ensure that our children were comfortable in the kitchen. One couple was in from Toronto for the weekend and staying with another couple.  One half of the hosting couple was about to celebrate a monumental birthday which was our reason to get together.  None of us wanted the hosting couple to go to a whole lot of trouble because, the dinner was in their honour after all.  In addition, the visiting couple did not want to spend their short time grocery shopping and in an unfamiliar kitchen so I suggested that we order in.  Consensus was that even considering the concerns noted above, it would still be better if we all cooked and contributed ourselves and so..... The menu was decidedly simple: D and I provided little plates of sausage, cheese bread, olives and other brined items. At the appointed time, R fired up the grill showing me how he first brushes the grills with oil and hot sauce to neutralize any flavours from previous use. First he marinated the salmon in soya, balsamic vinegar and sarachi sauce.  He called the fish "Iphone Salmon" because the trick was to flip the fillets, precisely when his Iphone signalled, to ensure even cooking without over-cooking.  The lid of the grill was lowered for intervals and the cuts were placed crosswise on the grill each time they were flipped to decorate them with the precise cross-hatch marks. The result?  Perfection! The salmon was accompanied by boiled baby potatoes tossed in butter and fresh dill, grilled asparagus and the lightest, freshest tasting bean salad, I have ever tried.  I am not typically a bean lover but this one was sensational.  So much so, that I had to get M's recipe:

 Influencers of the next generation of “real” food eaters.

So did we have some fun?  Absolutely!  We were entertained by the antics of the bearded fellow with the parasols stuck into his whiskers.  He kept disappearing into their home and coming back out attired as famous bearded men-think: ZZ Top, Moses, Duck Dynasty, etc.  (Perhaps some wine was enjoyed as well).

Kath’s quote: “The basic thing a man should know is how to change a tyre and how to drive a tractor. Whatever that bearded dude is doing on the Dos Equis beer commercials sets the bar. That’s your guy. Every man should be aiming to be like him. The beard is just the tip of the iceberg.”-Timothy Olyphant

Love-that is all.

 

 

Two sleeps and we will be off on our winter vacation and so I am trying to use up groceries in the house AND bake up some healthy snacks for the car ride to Minneapolis where we will catch our flights.  I had a bag of frozen peach slices in the freezer and this whipped together in no time.  I poured the half thawed peach slices right into the batter without chopping them first and I was pleased with the hearty look of the finished product as well as the delicious taste of a meaty peach.

 

Kath’s quote: “An apple is an excellent thing — until you have tried a peach.”-George du Maurier

Love-that is all.

Things have not exactly been going swimmingly for me this past week.  For one, I have had to eat out twice.  The first time was by invitation to a new location of Smoke’s Poutinerie where I took D with me to ensure that I would only have to sample a single bite.  But of course, I ended up eating the whole order of my Country poutine.  For one, he had his own serving to eat and for two I absolutely abhor food that goes to waste.  Even this is BS that I feed to myself because I could have packed it up to bring home for our boarder and I also was taught long ago:  “It isn’t a waste if you leave it on your plate.  It is a waste if you ate it when you were already full and didn’t even want it.”  Why can’t I listen to my own good advice?  To make matters worse, the very next day we were celebrating my Mom’s birthday by ordering Chinese food from her traditional spot.  All of her favourites were ordered and there were a number of deep fried and sweetly-sauced items.  I approached the table, determined to take the egg foo young and a couple of the veggie and noodle dishes but returned to my spot at the dining table with a taste of every dish on my plate.

I have been in the kitchen as often as usual, but this week I have been batch cooking for our boarder to fill the freezer for the time while we are on vacation. After making a zillion pizzas and casseroles, I am not inspired to flip through cookbooks and spend the time to make anything healthy for myself.

But because I always try to look on the sunny side, so here goes: I got out my summer clothes to launder and pack for our winter vacation and everything fits better than it did when I put it away last fall.  I have made a significant paradigm shift-instead of “cheating” by eating a whole bag of chips or cookies, I feel as if I have “cheated” if I eat a white noodle, white rice or white pizza crust.  So even though I was not completely on track this week, at least I haven’t totally derailed either.  In addition, the miserably cold weather seems to have broken and the days are getting noticeably longer.

In addition, I have finally perfected a Nuts and Bolts recipe that is low salt, low fat and high in non-soluble fibre, soluble fibre and taste!  I use whole grain waffle pretzels (Presidents Choice Blue Label), Shreddies, Cheerios, Corn Chex and popcorn.  The secret is glugs and glugs of Worcestershire sauce.  After I slow roast it all, I put into small zip locs and put it in the freezer.  Then when I get hungry, bored or too busy to make something, I grab a bag.  Yum!

Lastly, I found and baked one fabulous new (and healthy) recipe.  I often buy no fat Greek yoghurt when it has been marked at 50% off, but this week I was not able to eat it fast enough.  When I was concerned about using it up, I went recipe searching and found this delectable one.  See the end of this post for the recipe.  Something is amiss with my recipe template….

Kath’s quote: “Well, I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would parobably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them.”-Oscar Wilde

Love, that is all.

 

As you may know, I am three weeks into my new year’s “kick yourself in the pants” eating plan and everything is going well.  I am wearing my size 6 Petite dresspants today which only seldom fit.  I do like the feel and shape of them (in addition to the fact that I almost always wear black pants) so I sometimes pin them when the button doesn’t close and then wear something loose and flowy over top to create an illusion.  Have you acquired some of these dressing tricks too?

I have lots of energy and enthusiasm for life and I love spending time in the kitchen using ingredients that have been on my pantry shelves for eons.  As reported last post, some of my dishes have been tremendous hits and others, well not so much.  But in my commitment to be totally transparent in this walk, I will share them all.

My first success and fav snack is baked broccoli (believe it or not).  Your peel the stocks like this.

Chop it all up.

Throw it in a zip loc with lots of chopped garlic, 2 T of canola oil, lots of cracked pepper and a pinch of sea salt.  Shake it all about and place on a heavy baking sheet.  Roast at 375 degrees for 30 minutes-oh yea!

I also made a version of Bonnie Stern’s Chicken Jambalaya.

I added a wee bit of spicy Italian sausage that I had pierced, parboiled, washed and drained and cooked the brown rice separately to decrease the carbs.  Instead I added some corn because I am crazy for the combination of savoury and sweet.  Shrimp is actually high in cholesterol (who knew?) so I did not include any.

I even got myself all psyched up to make a bean burger which I served on freshly baked whole wheat buns.

The result was declared a hit by other members of our gang, but I could only have a couple of bites before my tummy started protesting.  I know how good beans are and I want to conquer my prejudice, so I just keep trying.

I made these two pizzas utilizing whole wheat crusts.  The one on the left is Potato and Bacon.  The baby potatoes are multi coloured and have been parboiled (they were left overs from this weekend).  The bacon was pre-cooked, rinsed with piping hot water and then blotted dry.  The same went with the sausage of the Spicy Italian Sausage and Red Pepper one on the right.  The secret ingredient is that I pulversized a half can of dark red kidney beans and their juice and threw them into my tomato sauce made from 1 chopped onion, chopped garlic and lots of basil.  I sautéed the veggies with the beans and did not have to add any fat.  I find that when you put the toppings on top of the cheese, you can get away with using far less cheese.  The results were delicious, if I do say so myself and a single piece was perfectly satisfying (I am typically a 3 piece gal).

But the piece de resistance are these cookies that I am still fine tuning.  Made with honey & molasses they contain oatmeal which is known to lower cholesterol and flax which is claimed to lower high blood pressure.  They also contain dark chocolate chips, coconut and roasted walnuts.  But best of all-they are absolutely delicious.  I tried increasing the flax but the second batch was slightly less sensational.

Kath’s quote: “Health food may be good for the conscience but Oreos taste a hell of a lot better.”-Robert Redford

Love-that is all.