Dessert By Candy

Eating Local In Fort Lauderdale

Eating food locally grown and raised by small farms practicing sustainable farming is a value that I did not expect to embrace with such dedication. I do not like to be lectured when I shop for groceries so the moral high ground approach is not the reason I care so much. I appreciate the earnestness and passion of our farmers. I certainly applaud them for going against the trend of industrial farming despite the hard labour and low profit. As a consumer, what truly convinced me is that dollar for dollar, I get much higher quality, better variety, and healthier option. Once I’ve seen the value in this choice, there’s no going back to my old ways.

Even in the familiarity of home, it takes planning and effort to get my weekly supply of farm fresh produce from my CSA Kawartha Ecological Growers and my favourite farmers’ markets. The challenge to eat locally is magnified when I’m away from home. As soon as I arrived in South Florida, my first order of business was to seek out locations of Whole Foods Market and farmers’ markets. Being one of the main growing region of United States, one would expect abundant availability of high quality produce in Florida. Strangely enough, that does not appear to be the case from many people I talked to. Since I arrived in Fort Lauderdale a week ago, I shopped at various grocery stores catering to different consumer markets. I visited Wal-Mart Supercenter, Publix, Whole Foods Market, and Marando Farms. Now I understand my friends’ lament on the lack of quality produce.

This Cookie Comes With Me

Traveling and baking are both important parts of my life. For a long time, they are mutually exclusive activities but that’s slowly changing in the last couple of years. My baking reputation is well-known among friends. When I visit from out of town, jokingly or not, there would be requests for me to bake something. My girl scout background demands that I come prepared so of course I make notes of easy recipes that I can tackle without the comfort of my own kitchen.

Cook’s Illustrated Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies is the recipe that traveled with me to many places. I baked these delectably chewy cookies at home, in a dormitory common kitchen in Denmark, at friends’ European home, at Boyfriend’s kitchen that I lovingly stocked with things I can’t live without, and most recently at a friend’s bachelor kitchen in South Florida. In all cases, the cookies turned out soft and chewy with a nice butterscotch flavour and loaded with chocolate chips. They really embody what North American home baking is all about.

Homesick Vegan

Since I arrived in Florida on Tuesday, I’ve been busy settling in. It’s been hectic and not at the same time. Things could get overwhelming when simple trips to the gym or the grocery store were preceded by long walk in the bright Florida sun. But once my daily chores and training were done, there were plenty of down time that I spent in solitude. I did not realize going into the office daily meant I was surrounded by human connection. Now that I work remotely, I miss that interaction.

I’m just a little homesick. Though I’m a seasoned traveler and I’ve gone on extended work trips or vacations before, this time things just feel a bit different. I’m not exactly relaxed in the vacation frame of mind because the responsibility of work and training continues to be the central focus of my life. Yet, I’m removed from the familiarity of daily life. This calls for comfort food that reminds me of home. This means vegan food that makes me feel good inside and out.

Humble Pie

The last time I wrote about pie, I was ridiculously proud of myself for achieving the perfect crust of my dream. I really thought I nailed it at last. Alas, my latest pie excursion was so humbling that I can only say I have a long way to go before calling myself an accomplished pie baker.

In my frenzy to use up perishable ingredients around the house, I called upon those beautiful Northern Spy apples I had in cold storage. Melissa Clark’s Apple Cranberry Crumble Pie is my latest favourite so I industriously whipped up four portions of single crust pie dough. Two handsome apple pies, one decadent Nutella Banoffee Cream Pie, and an Oatmeal Chocolate Pie later, I put a good dent in the perishable ingredients of my kitchen. Despite the delicious filling, I was not happy about my pie crusts. Not a single one earned a passing grade in my books and I was rather disappointed with myself.

My tendency to under-work pie dough was in full display for all four pies. Instead of a beautiful marbling of butter, the fat distributed like little islands in the dough. As soon as the dough went into the oven, the fat simply leaked out and bathed my pie in buttery grease. I did not achieve the sought-after flaky layers.

From Words To Table

I like to keep track of how quickly a recipe transforms from words I read to food I can taste. There are some recipes that remain in my to-cook pile for years. I would re-read them over and over but the motivation to cook from them is never quite strong enough. On the other hand, there are recipes that jump from words to table in the blink of an eye. Last Thursday I experienced it with a recipe that BAKED posted on their newsfeed. It was a recipe for banana chocolate chip cookies made with olive oil which the author cutely named The Booodseees. It inspired me to make cookies with banana, oil, oats, and whole wheat pastry flour but that was pretty much where the similarity ended between my version and The Booodseees. Within 5 minutes of scanning the directions, I was already in my kitchen scaling out ingredients. I was ready to create my own twist of Caramel Banana Peanut Cookies.

These soft chewy cookies tastes of caramelized banana and loads of peanut flavour from using peanut oil, roasted peanuts, and mini Reese’s peanut butter cups. Coincidentally, these cookies are made with 100% whole grain thanks to oat flour, rolled oats, and whole wheat pastry flour. A touch of crunchy toffee pieces studded the cookies to echo the caramel taste. I could not stop at just one. Thank you BAKED for a link to the original recipes! Had I not seen the recipe, I wouldn’t be inspired to create my own version.

Anything For A Good Deal

I was skeptical about cooking Mussels & Chorizo for this week’s French Fridays with Dorie. This is a dish with every ingredient and flavour I love yet my impending training sojourn means I really ought to clear my kitchen of perishables instead of buying more fresh items. That sensibility was torn at the same time by the urge to cook along with the group for just another week before I have no access to my beloved home kitchen. Neither of those two arguments was louder than the other. In the end, it was my inability to refuse a good deal that gave me such a beautiful meal.

Succulent mussels and smoky chunks of chorizo sausages were steamed in a tomato broth fortified with roasted red pepper, fennel, onion, garlic, Pernod, and Aleppo pepper. It was a dish that kept on giving. On day one, I enjoyed a finger-licking feast of plates piled high with mussels in their shells. Every sip of the flavourful broth warmed my body from the inside. On the second day, leftovers turned into a light sauce to toss with tangles of spaghetti. Plump mussels were extracted from the shell and generously studded the pasta dish. It was the most luxurious post-run recovery meal I enjoyed in a long time.

Lovey Dovey In A Hurry

It’s not too late to bake up a batch of Valentine’s Day treat! That was what I said to myself at 2am this morning after I procrastinated through all the late night talk shows. A few days ago, I saw some limited edition heart shape York Mint Patties complete with pale pink filling. They jumped into my shopping basket before I even had a chance to talk myself out of it. I know it’s a cop-out to make Valentine’s Day treat by simply slapping a piece of candy on top of a cookie but these patties were just too cute. They practically begged to top a tender cocoa peppermint shortbread cookie. I granted their wish.

Adorable, no? As if that was not enough cuteness for a day, I took advantage of my right to be kitschy and tacky on Valentine’s Day. A batch of pink royal icing tested my rusty piping skills but I persevered to inscribe messages of love onto each and every one of the cookie. Who needs conversation hearts when you can have chocolate mint cookie!

Source For Inspiration

Aside from regular reading of recipes posted in magazines, cookbooks, and blogs, my favourite reason to play recipe sleuth comes from friendly requests. I’m known within my circle of friends as the girl who loves to cook and bake. It comes as no coincidence that friends would approach me from time to time with questions like “I’m looking for a great recipe for [insert an occasion] but I don’t want [insert constraints]. What do you recommend?”. Sounds familiar?

Strangely enough, I don’t have a recommendation off the top of my head in most cases. Part of the reason comes from depth of experience. As much as I love the subject, I only have at most ten years of home cooking experience under my belt. The other more important factor is that the constraints from the challenge rarely apply in my own kitchen or personal preference. I don’t have food allergies, intolerance, nor religious/lifestyle preference. Over the years, I stock my kitchen with all the equipment I need to accomplish what I like to do most. The search for a no-bake cheesecake was a good example in recent memory. When a friend asked me last week for a great recipe for bake sale that does not use mixers and is nut-free, I was scratching my head. Oh, and she needs to make 150 pieces!

Allure Of Homemade

The resurgence of homesteading has many of us puttering around the kitchen canning, preserving, baking, and cooking many things from scratch. My parent’s generation rejoiced in the convenience of processed food and all the free time it afforded them to do so much more. It’s funny how things have come full circle and we’re now clamouring for all things homemade.

How far would you go to reach that elusive homemade label for what you put on the dining table? This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe is Nutella Tartine. At its heart, we have a slice of butter toasted brioche topped with marmalade, Nutella, toasted hazelnut, and fleur de sel. It is so easy to put together that a kid can do it in less than five minutes for a quick afternoon snack. But we’re on the topic of making things from scratch, aren’t we? Do you bake your own loaf of bread? Grab a jar of marmalade from the larder that you lovingly canned at the height of citrus season? And that Nutella! Does it come from hazelnuts that you toasted and skinned and grinded with the best quality chocolate you can get your hands on? It’s amazing how a five-minute recipe can stretch into a multi-day cooking extravaganza.

Protein & Iron Supplement

Talk to any athletes about nutrition and the topic inevitably turns to protein. Are you getting enough? I don’t see you eating meat. Which brand of protein supplement you use? You don’t? Hurry! Someone get this girl a protein shake! As luck would have it, I have a strong aversion to powdery food. I am suspicious of what’s lurking inside the tub of powder besides what the label claims. As someone who regularly works with vanilla bean, dark chocolate slabs, and fresh juicy strawberries, the artificial flavours often added to protein supplement are very unappetizing to me.

For over two years, I meticulously logged every bite I took to my food journal on FitDay. It was a tedious exercise but it kept me honest about my food intake. As an added bonus, I was able to analyze the macro and micro nutrient breakdown of my diet. I knew with certainty exactly how much protein I was getting through my diet of whole foods. My mostly plant-based way of eating is far from lacking in protein so I can safely dismiss the concerns of my well-intentioned athletic friends. What concerns me though is my iron intake. In layman’s term, iron is essential to oxygen delivery to muscles which powers my endurance workouts. That is the reason why I choose to take my supplement as my photos eloquently illustrate.