This week I traveled to Sudbury, the almost far north, to visit my aunt and uncle. Northern Ontario is renowned for its wild blueberries and summertime is blueberry picking time. Locals head out with their basket and a whistle to scare off bears. Wild blueberry bushes are very small and hardy and seem to grown right out of the rocks. The berries are tiny, bursting with taste and loaded with anti oxidants. My uncle, above, is a veteran blueberry picker. He even goes into the bush without a whistle! Blueberry picking is very hard work. The summer sun is hot, the bushes are very low and the basket keeps falling over. I tried to go for blueberries growing in the shade. My delicate yoga back couldn't take the strain of it all. While I was huffing and puffing, my uncle filled three baskets!
Wild Blueberry Pie Recipe
4 cups wild hand picked blueberries (or store bought)
1/8 cup maple syrup (or to taste)
4 Tablespoons kuzu dissolved in cold water or apple juice
pinch sea salt
zest of one lemon
Combine the above ingredients and set aside while preparing the pie crust.
For the Pie Crust:
I used the basic pie crust recipe:
3 cups flour (unbleached white, soft whole wheat or a combo)
1/2 cup sesame oil (or olive oil)
pinch sea salt dissolved in about 1/2 cup very cold water
Place the flour in a large bowl. Drizzle the oil into the flour and use two forks to mix or cut the oil into the flour mixture. Cut the oil into the flour until it has a sand like texture. Add the cold, salted water and form into a dough. Do not overmix. Form into two balls and refrigerate if desired. Cover with plastic wrap or a wet towel so that the dough remains moist.
The tricky part to the dough is achieving the right consistency so that it is not too dry or too wet. This comes with practice. Humidity or dryness in the atmosphere, the batch of flour and overhandling all affect the quality of the dough.
Roll out one of the balls between two sheets of parchment paper. \Peel off the top layer of parchment paper and place that side of the dough on the pie plate. Peel off the top layer of parchment paper. Fill with blueberry filling. Repeat for top crust or you might want to make a lattice top as above.
Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes. The pie is ready when the filling bubbles and the crust is golden brown. So start to check your pie at the 40 minute mark!
Taralli are an Italian snack food common all over the southern half of Italy and all of Toronto. Taralli can be sweet or savory. They are like tiny bagels, first boiled and then baked. Italians like to dunk taralli in wine but taralli made without extra salt or seasonings are great for teething babies. Taralli keep well for a long time when stored in a tin or mason jar.
shaping into small circles
I made my taralli quite by accident today. I had some leftover sourdough crust from making tourtiere (see tourtiere recipe) and I was going to make sourdough bread sticks. I sprinkled some salt, pepper and oregano on my work surface and rolled the dough into thin logs over the seasonings. I cut them into 3" pieces and shaped them in small circles instead. I left the circles to rest for about 1 hour on a floured surface under a damp kitchen towel.
floating to the surface
I then dropped the circles into a pot of lightly salted boiling water. When the taralli rose to the top (2 minutes, not even), I placed them on a parchment covered baking sheet and baked them at 350F for 20 minutes.
The only ingredients in these taralli are flour, water, sea salt, pepper and oregano. Only the flour, water and salt are essential. You may want to flavour your taralli with fennel, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, rosemary, sage, hot pepper, onion or garlic. Or try wasabi, ginger or coriander. And you may want to add a tablespoon of olive oil to the dough for extra flavour.
a great after school snack!
My mother in law always set a mason jar full of taralli in a low cabinet in her kitchen. My children loved to munch on their nana's taralli and would "sneak" into her stash. A couple of taralli and an apple is a great after school snack!
A photograph of my shepherd's pie would have been totally fine but I took videos instead (by accident) when I was still trying to learn how to use my new digital camera. Today I finally figured out how to upload videos.
Shepherd's Pie is another one of those delicious, comforting foods that I discovered in university cafeterias. Because of it's British and Irish origins it was not in my mother's repertoire. It used to be known as "cottage pie" until the 1800s. It is a savoury pie and, conventionally, made with a mashed potato crust. Potatoes were only introduced in Europe as an edible crop in 1791 so this is not what I would consider an ancient recipe.
Potatoes, like tomatoes, are nightshade vegetables. Potatoes are very yin. Like tomatoes and eggplants, they contain glycoalkoloids (which include solanine and chaconine). These substances can cause headaches, cramps, diarrhea and in extreme cases coma and death. Poisoning from potatoes, however, occurs very rarely.
The potatoe survives underground in the winter. Young shoots develop from the eyes of the potato and feed off the mother until the mother withers and dies, a truly narcissistic, lazy little tuber (not in any way, shape or form to be confused with a cereal grain) which then proceeds to have the life sucked out of itself by its offspring! In his book, The Energetics of Food, Steve Gagne describes the potato as gutless.
The potato was domesticated by the Incas about 10,000 years ago. The potato was brought back to Europe in the 1600s and took a while before it was used as a food source. In 1530 the Spanish conquistadors found the Incas eating peanut sized potatoes which they first soaked in water and then froze in the cold mountain air. The tiny potatoes were then dried in the sun and stepped upon to rub off their skins. The potato became black and very hard. Before cooking, they were soaked in water for three of four days. The potato, like the tomato, was processed in this fashion in order detoxify and yangize it before eating.
The potato was brought back to Europe in the 1600s and took a while before it was used as a food source. In the 17th century some European countries made the planting of potatoes mandatory in order to ward off famine. Peasants and farmers were concerned about the dangers of potatoes. Peasants in Germany pulled potatoes out of the ground because they were convinced that potatoes caused leprosy and other skin diseases. When the King proclaimed that anyone not growing potatoes would have his ears and nose cut off, farmers started to grow potatoes! The potatoe eventually became so watery and bloated that it no longer resembles its Peruvian cousins.
Energetically, potatoes contribute to mental and physical weakness. Excess consumption can lead to pallor, withering and wrinkling of the skin, skin moles and rashes. They are difficult to digest and can cause flatulence and swollen intestines. The potato's lazy energy causes mental fog, inertia, cluttered and unfocused thinking, dullness and dependency--the attributes of a true couch potato. Potatoes are also demineralizing and are usually eaten with meat and lots of salt (which are energetic opposites to the potato).
Like all good things, once in while potatoes are okay especially if you are feeling over yang and tight. Sometimes it's okay to be stunned.
millet and cauliflower mashed "potato" crust with nishime-seitan filling
I use millet "mashed potatoes" pie crust. You can use your favourite vegetabes: onion, leek, squash, burdock root, lotus root, carrot, parsnip, rutabaga, broccoli, mushrooms, fresh or frozen peas, corn niblets and so on. In the spring and summer, use greener, lighter vegetables and in the winter and fall use more root and round veggies. The topping is simply mashed sweet potato because it is very sweet. You can include tempeh, seitan or fried tofu for protein and texture. This is an excellent, rich and satisfying meal suitalble for everyone including someone recovering from a serious illness.
MILLET MASHED "POTATOES"
plain millet pie crust
1cup millet, washed and soaked for several hours or overnight
4 cups water
pinch of sea salt
1/2-1 whole cauliflower, in flowerettes
Place millet and water in a pot with pinch of sea salt. Bring to a boil. Add the cauliflower flowerettes and simmer for about 30 minutes, until all the water is absorbed and the millet and cauliflower is light and fluffy. Mash with a fork or potato masher. While the millet and cauliflower is still hot, line a pie plate as per the photo. By the way, the crust in the photo above is made with just millet while the crust in the video way above is made with millet and cauliflower. The millet and cauliflower crust truly tastes like mashed potatoes!
SHEPHERD'S PIE FILLING
TEMPEH
Purchase organic tempeh in the refrigerator or freezer section at the health food store. Maybe the bigger grocery stores also sell it in the health food section of the store. Tempeh is quite yin. So before using it, it's a good idea to place the tempeh in a pot with about 1 cup of water and enough soy sauce to make the water look like weak coffee or dark tea. Add a few slices of ginger and a couple of bay leaves. Bring to a boil and then simmer, covered, for about 20 minutes. Remove the tempeh from the pan saving the seasoned soy water.
When the tempeh is cool enough to handle, slice it in half (so that it becomes half its thickness) and then in squares. Spread a thin layer of prepared mustard over the tempeh. Heat up some light sesame oil in a cast iron pan, and fry the sliced tempeh in the pan. Cook on both sides until golden brown. Season with some of the tempeh cooking water at the end.
Cut the fried tempeh into small pieces.
NISHIME VEGETABLES
(Nishime is waterless stewing)
1" piece of kombu, rinsed and soaked for 10 minutes, sliced
3 dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked and sliced
1 onion, cut into big pieces
2 carrots, cut in thick slices
1 turnip, cut in chunks
1/2 rutabaga, cubed
2 cups squash in chunks
broccoli flowerettes
1 Tablespoon kuzu
2 Tablespoons ginger juice
2 teaspoons soy sauce or to taste
In a heavy pot layer the ingredients as follows: kombu and shiitake, onion, carrot, rutabaga, turnip and squash. Pour in about 1/2 cup water and put lid on pot. Bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer until the vegetables are almost done. Add the broccoli and cook 5 more minutes. Ideally, the vegetables should be juicey with very little or no water remaining at the bottom of the pot. Dissolve the kuzu in a small amount of cold water. Add the ginger juice and soy to the dissolved kuzu. Pour over the vegetables. Cook 2 minutes only. Add the tempeh (or cut up store bought or homemade seitan) to the nishime. Pour into the pie crust.
nishime and tempeh in the millet mashed potato crust
SWEET POTATO TOPPING
3 or 4 organic sweet potatoes
1 cup water
Boil the sweet potatoes whole. When they are soft remove from heat. When cool enough to handle, peel and then mash. The texture and sweetness of the sweet potato is at its max when cooked in this fashion. Spread over top the Shepherd's Pie.
When I was in undergrad at U of T, I sometimes ate dinner in the St. Michael's College cafeteria. That's where I discovered chicken pot pie. With mashed potatoes and gravy! It was the most delicious, comforting food I had ever tasted. I wonder if it's still on the menu. I wonder if there's still a cafeteria at SMC?
Chelsea, Quebec
Tourtiere is a traditional French Canadian speciality served by generations of French Canadian families through out Canada. These slow cooked deep dish pies were stuffed with pork and/or game and/or salmon and local vegetables. The recipe varies from family to family and from region to region. On my recent trip to Chelsea, Quebec, we made our own macrobiotic, vegan version of this classic dish which dates back to the coureur du bois.
I made my tourtiere with a sourdough crust filled with store bought seitan (to make your own see Boeuf Bourgignone recipe) and vegetables in a kuzu sauce. The seitan is well seasoned so the filling does not need any extra salt.
FRENCH CANADIAN TOURTIERE
WITH SEITAN AND VEGETABLES
SOURDOUGH PIE CRUST
2 cups sourdough starter
2-3 cups org. flour
1 teaspoon sea salt
water as needed
Place sourdough in a bowl with 1 cup of flour and just enough water to make a sponge. Allow to sit for several hours or overnight. Replace your starter. Add the sea salt and remaining flour to the bowl and knead for about 10 minutes to form a smooth dough. Allow dough to rest while you prepare the filling.
Allow filling to cool before adding to pastry
While the filling is cooling roll out half the dough between waxed paper or parchment to about 1/4' thickness large enough to amply cover your pie plate. Fill with now cool filling. Roll out the other half of the dough and place over the filling. Seal and flute the edges of the dough. Make slits in the dough to allow steam to escape during baking.
Bake in preheated 350F oven for about 50 minutes or until the top sounds hollow when tapped.
VEGEGTABLE-SEITAN FILLING
1 onion or 1/2 leek sliced
2 cups sliced mushrooms
1 carrot, sliced
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 Tablespoon kuzu
dash of freshly ground black pepper
1 sliced carrots, steamed
1 cup of broccoli flowerettes, steamed
2 8 oz packages of seitan (or make your own), sliced
Saute the onion or leek. Add the mushrooms, try not to crowd them and stir over high heat until the mushrooms are lightly roasted. Add the steamed carrots, broccoli flowerettes and sliced seitan. Dissolve kuzu in 1/2 cup of cold water. Pour into pan and cook until liquids lightly thicken. You may need to add some more water to achieve a light gravy consistency. Turn off the heat and allow the vegetables to cool before adding filling pastry lined pie plate or tourtiere.
I like knowing that the foods I enjoy have been around for a very long time and tested on many many generations of our ancestors (unlike gmo foods that are currently being tested on the unwitting). Split peas have been eaten since ancient times. Pea soup was mentioned by Aristophanes, the Greek playwright, in the early 400s B.C., in one of his famous plays. "Soup de Pois Jeaunnes," yellow split pea soup, is a traditional Canadian soup. In Quebec it was made with salt pork and very few vegetables while in Newfoundland it was made with more vegetables and "dough boys." The kombu, salt and oil replace the salt pork. If you wish you may season with miso instead of salt. Dissolve the miso in some of the soup after you have cooked the dough boys and then return the dissolved miso to the soup and simmer for 2 minutes only without boiling.
Green and Yellow Split Peas and Red Lentils
Split peas grown in Canada. They are inexpensive and split pea soup can be made year round. You can add seasonal vegetables such as zucchini, spring onions and fresh green pea to lighten it up in the spring and summer or make the heartier recipe suitable for fall and winter below. The dough boys add richness and warmth to the soup: excellent for a cold Canadian winter day.
-20C in Toronto!
SPLIT PEA SOUP
1 cup yellow or green dried split peas, soaked overnight
1" piece of kombu
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, grated
1 stalk of celery, thinly sliced
5 cups water
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 Tablespoons olive oil
freshly ground black pepper to taste
Yellow Split Peas and Kombu
Bring the split peas and kombu to a boil and then simmer for about 1 hour until almost soft. Add the vegetables and simmer for another 5-10 minutes or so. Add the dough boys (see recipe below). Season with the sea salt and the olive oil and simmer for another 20 minutes.
DOUGH BOYS
2 cups sourdough starter
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon sea salt
water as needed
Pour sourdough starter into a bowl (if there is less than 2 cups not a problem just use proportionately less of the ingredients). Add 1 cup of flour and enough water to make a soft dough. Replace the starter with two cups of the sponge. Allow to sit while the split peas and soup is cooking. Then add the sea salt and remaining flour and as much more as needed to make a smooth dough. Knead to develop the gluten. Form into small balls and drop into the soup at the end of cooking. Simmer for about 20 minutes.
Yellow Split Pea Soup and you can just make out the Dough Boy
I recently travelled by train to Ottawa, our nation's capital. I love Ottawa: so clean, so fresh (at -33C an understatement) and bilingual. On my voyage I pondered food (what else is new?), specifically traditionally Canadian foods. This country is so vast and our cultures so varied that it is difficult to pinpoint a specific cuisine. The meals at our family gatherings are a fusion of traditional northern and souther Italian and traditional Japanese dishes with a smattering of Canadian foods: brown rice and wild rice, polenta and pasta, maple syrup, forks, chopsticks, soy sauce, kim chi, sauerkraut and olives. As our family continues to grow the ingredients may change but macrobiotic principles will continue to keep our meals balanced, satisfying and nourishing. Secondary dishes such as vegetables, beans, sea vegetables, nuts, fruits and seeds cooked in a variety of ways will continue to complement grain, the primary food.
Maple syrup, salmon, game, Montreal smoked meats and bagels, smoked fish, Canadian Whisky, beer, nanaimo bars, cod cheeks, blubber and Tim Horton's coffee might spring to mind when we think of traditional Canadian food. But there are a plethora of dishes that will satisfy even the most finicky of vegan palates: French Canadian split pea soup and Dough Boys, tourtiere, apple pie, wild blueberry pie, butter tarts, ploges (buckwheat pancakes), wild rice, corn on the cob, fiddleheads and even Beaver Tails!
So on a frigid morning after Ashtanga yoga, Devora and I set out for the Byward market to purchase Beaver Tails. We purchased two Beaver Tails at a kiosk (yes, a kiosk in the middle of winter!) and went home to veganize the deep fried Canadian icon.
We hid the Beaver Tails but Devora's kids managed to find and devour them before we got to taste them. The Beaver Tails are deep fried (in what smelled like pretty bad oil), smothered with sugar and cinnamon and quite inedible unlike vegan Beaver Tails.
VEGAN BEAVER TAILS
2 cups sourdough starter (see earlier recipe)
2-3 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup maple syrup
1 teaspoon sea salt
water to form dough
soy or rice milk
cinnamon
Place sourdough starter in a bowl with 1 cup of flour and enough water to make a thick dough. Allow to sit for several hours or overnight. Then put about 1 cup of the sponge back into your sourdough jar. Add sea salt, 1/2 cup maple syrup and the rest of the flour to the bowl and knead to form a smooth dough. (If you need to add more liquid, you may use rice or soymilk which will make the dough sweeter. Allow the dough to rest for a couple of hours.
Then form the dough into small, golf ball sized balls and roll out into oblong shapes. Cover the rectangles and allow to rise in a warm spot until they start to soften and puff up somewhat.
Combine the remaining maple syrup with cinnamon. Heat up sesame oil in a cast iron frying pan. When the oil is hot, add the rectangles and fry. When they puff up as in the photo, turn over and brush the maple syrup-cinnamon on the cooked side.
Brush with maple-cinnamon
YUM
The platter on the right disappeared in short shrift. It makes for a much tastier treat than the store bought variety. Very warming with a cup of tea. Very Canadian with a cup of Tim Horton's.
Davidsan, my yoga guru, Miss Stan and baby are going off to India tomorrow. To wish them a safe and happy trip the I decided to bake a Carrot Cake with Tofu Cream Cheese Icing. The cake is also celebratory in that today, for the very first time ever, I dropped back and came back up all on my own just like Miss Stan. Thank you David for not giving up on me!
miss stan and baby doing dropbacks
CARROT CAKE
Dry Ingredients:
2 cups org. flour
1 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
Wet Ingredients:
2 cups grated carrot
1/2 cup oil
2/3 cup maple syrup
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup coffee or coffee substitute
3/4 cup tofu
Preheat oven to 350F.
Sift together the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Blend the liquid ingredients except for the carrots. Mix the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients. Fold in the grated carrots.
Prepare cake pan by oiling and sprinkling flour or corn meal so that the cake doesn't stick.
Pour into cake pan and place in preheated 350F oven for 3/4 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove cake from pan and place on a rack to cool.
ICING
1 block of tofu
pinch of sea salt
1 teaspoon lemonjuice zest of 1/2 lemon
1Tablespoon tahini
4 Tablespoons maple syrup or to taste
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut
Bring a pot of water to the boil. Add the block of tofu and blanch for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Combine the tofu and all the remaining ingredients except for the coconut in food processor and blend. Fold in the coconut and spread on the cooled cake.
Pho is Vietnamese noodle soup. It is usually made with beef or chicken. It includes rice noodles, basil, mint, lime and bean sprouts. The secret to a good pho is the broth which, in my view, should be fragrant and fresh.
This soup is soothing and relaxing. Remember to make it when you are feeling tight and irritable.
THE BROTH
8 cups water or vegetable broth
1 star anise
1 1" cinnamon stick
4 fennel seeds
1 cardamon pod
1/8 teaspoon coriander seeds
2 cloves
1/2 onion, fried in sesame oil (or olive oil)
2 Tablespoons shoyu
2 teaspoons ginger juice
Bring the water, fried onions and spices to a slow boil over medium heat. Simmer for about 20 minutes. Add the shoyu and ginger juice.
GrRATED GINGER
THE SOUP
2 cups rice noodles, cooked
1 cup pan fried tempeh or tofu
Plenty of blanched greens such as bok choy, chinese broccoli, kale, collards, nappa or combinations
1 lime, cut into eighths
1 cup bean sprouts
green onion for garnish
fresh mint and basil leaves for garnish
While the broth is simmering:
pan fry slices of tempeh or tofu or both in sesame or olive oil. Season with shoyu. Remove from heat and place in a bowl;
pour boiling water over 2 cups or rice noodles (white or brown) and soak until tender; place in serving bowl;
blanch green or greens and place in a serving bowl
thinly slice the green onion
rinse and set out the bean sprouts
rinse and dry mint and basil leaves and place in a small serving bowl.
FRIED TEMPEH, LIME, BLANCHED GREENS AND GREEN ONION
Place broth and the soup filling on the table with bowls and chopsticks.
You won't need to ring the dinner bell. Everyone will just appear to help themselves.
