For the love of ice cream!

Been a little distant from my blog lately. It's not because I've increased my consumption of foreign foods or because I've revolted against #sugarpurge or #dairypurge, it's simply because life is hectic. I've also been experimenting in the kitchen with a few recipes but none have been blog worthy... Until today!

This idea has been churning in my head since Xmas (no pun intended). See, it all started with a box of Toffifee. I know what you're thinking, "what happened to #sugarpurge"? Well, we all have out weaknesses and a box of Toffifee is mine. I could eat a whole box in one sitting, I have no self control when it comes to those little nougat lovelies!

My hubs knows they're my favourite. Last weekend he picked up some snacks at the grocery store, including a box of Toffifee. I told him no treats for me, I was back on #sugarpurge but he was so happy to have bought me a box of my favourite treats, how could I say no ;)

I could have eaten that whole box of 48. But instead, I chopped them all up (well, all 36 remaining) and made some ice cream. I used coconut milk as the base because even though I may have my ups and downs with #sugarpurge, #dairypurge is holding pretty strong. It would certainly be delicious with half cream, half whole milk.

Coconut milk Toffifee ice cream.

36 Toffifee (cause let's face it, you'll want to eat some)
2 cans of coconut milk (organic, 400 ml)
3 egg yolks (just found a local supplier, very excited!)
1/2 cup brown sugar (organic, fair trade)

Slice each Toffifee in half and separate.

Chop nougat into small pieces. Chop caramel cups into small pieces and add half of the caramel bits to the nougat pile. Place into a large heat-proof glass bowl. Place a fine strainer over the bowl. Chop hazelnuts and place in a small bowl with other half of caramel bits.

Shake the coconut milk cans and add to sauce pan. Heat on med-low for a couple minutes so that the coconut milk becomes a consistent liquid. You can skip this step if you successfully managed to shake your coconut milk into a uniform texture. Take out 1/2 a cup.

Separate your eggs, keep eggs whites for tomorrow's healthy omelet :). Make sure your 1/2 cup of coconut milk is cool then whisk your egg yolks with the cool coconut milk.

Add brown sugar to the warm coconut milk in the pot and increase heat to medium. Whisk until sugar is dissolved and heat until it starts to bubble but not boil. Temper the egg yolks then whisk the warm egg mixture back into the pot. Heat on medium stirring constantly for 5 or 6 minutes. It will thicken slightly but will not thicken like a dairy custard. If you're using milk and cream, you might need to head for a bit less time.

Pour the warm liquid through the strainer over the nougat and caramel bits and whisk until fully melted. Prepare a large bowl of ice water and place custard mixture bowl inside, let cool completely, maybe 45 minutes. Place a plastic wrap directly over top of the mixture and chill completely, at least 3 hours.

When ready, place in ice cream maker, churn according to directions. In the last 5 minutes, pour in chopped nuts and caramel. You can eat it right away, may be a little soft, or chill in freezer for a few hours to harden.

Share the Toffifee, share the love :)

When in doubt, make soup.

I have been receiving winter squash in my CSA baskets lately. They look like alien acorn squash with their cream, orange and green splotches. They're actually called Carnival (Delicata) Winter Squash and apparently they're so delicious you can roast them and eat them peel & all! My Nana used to slice the squash and bake it in the oven with brown sugar. I still cringe when I walk by the acorn squash section of the grocery store, but I smile inside cause I remember her.

There is no way that my boys will eat slivers of roasted squash, even if they were covered in a full bag of brown sugar. They will however slurp up pretty much any soup I put in front of them, provided I call it a colour. In our house we have white soup (cauliflower/cheddar or potato leek), brown soup (mushroom), green soup (spinach) and orange soup (carrot). Their favourite is the green soup. The oldest won't bring it to school for lunch anymore though cause the kids teased him about eating grass. Lovely. Oh well... At least he still asks for it at home :)


Carnival Winter Soup aka Yellow Soup

2 carnival or acorn squash
1 large potato
1 medium onion
2 small parsnips
Olive oil
Chicken stock (confession: I am using a 284 ml can. But it's organic, so that's ok, right?)
2 cups apple cider (no sugar added) *if you'd like your soup less sweet, maybe try 1 1/2 cups.

Halve the squash, remove seeds. My boys call them guts. Slice into slivers, and microwave for 8-10 minutes. If the microwave creeps you out you could probably roast them in the oven until them start to soften. Let them cool enough to handle then peel.

Peel potato, cut into chunks. Do the same with the onion. Peel parsnips, slice.

In a large pot on medium, add 1 Tbsp of olive oil. Add onion and sautée until they become soft and start to caramelize. I salt the onions but I suppose if salt is not your thing you don't have to. Add the vegetables and stir them up until they're coated. I add a bit of salt here too. Let them sautée a bit and when you start to smell them all stir once more and add the can of chicken stock. I filled the can with apple cider twice and added it in. That's actually a bit more than 2 cups. Then I added about half a can of water, just enough so that the vegetables were all covered. Bring to a boil then turn the heat down, cover and simmer until the vegetables are cooked through. Purée with an immersion blender until smooth. Adjust the seasonings to taste.

Enjoy!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Wow! The weather this weekend is perfect. What a beautifully warm Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. Usually the house is warmed by the oven being on all day roasting that turkey and the stovetop burners with their mashed potatoes and soup... Oooh! I can't wait!! but this year it's so hot outside, I think a little non-traditional something might be in order.

Given this weekend's warmth, what could be better than pumpkin pie ice cream? Well, vegan pumpkin pie ice cream of course!

Vegan pumpkin-pie ice cream (adapted recipe from Williams-Sonoma Pumpkin Ice Cream)

1 can coconut milk (not light)
1/3 cup agave syrup (maple syrup would be great too!)
2 Tbsp molasses (convinced that this is the secret ingredient)
2 tsp cinnamon (you can use less, I just love cinnamon)
Pinch of nutmeg, pinch of ginger, pinch of cardamom, pinch of allspice
1 cup pumpkin puree (check your freezer in case you followed my last blog post)
1 tsp vanilla

Shake the can of coconut milk, a lot. Then shake it again just to be sure. Add all ingredients to a medium pot and heat over gentle heat. Use a whisk to blend everything until smooth. Strain through a fine sieve into a clean bowl and refrigerate until cool (overnight is ok). Before pouring chilled mixture into ice cream maker, give it a good stir. It may have settled a bit. Churn according to manufacturer instructions (25-30 mins). Chill in freezer for a few hours and when ready to eat, let soften at room temperature about 10 mins.

Hope you enjoy it as much as my boys & I do! Happy Thanksgiving and bon appétit!

Pumpkin Pleasures!

Wow! It's been a while! I have been so busy, my blog has taken the back burner lately. I know, everybody is busy, all the time. Ever notice that when you ask someone how they're doing they respond with "so busy" instead of "fine thanks"? Sometimes you get an "ugh, so tired" and I know, because this is the answer that tends to come to the tip of my tongue before I realize that I don't have the energy to answer "so tired" because that would involve a big long qualifying explanation. "So busy" on the other hand is perfectly acceptable. Chances are, if you're busy, you're also tired. This was me last spring, always going, never stopping... Until I got pneumonia and it knocked me off my feet. Took weeks to recover and now with Winter approaching I know I am at risk of getting it again.

I started seeing a Naturopath at the beginning of Summer and he recommended I decrease my dairy and refined sugar intake. Ack! No way did I think it would be possible for me to cut out my beloved cheese (with crackers, often a meal in itself) & ice cream (oh how I love thee, ultimate comfort food). Refined sugar I thought would be difficult in baking, but I am allowed honey, maple syrup, brown rice syrup and probably agave too (but I have questions about it so more on that another time). I swapped out my cow milk for rice milk lattes, sweetened with maple syrup instead of sugar. Discovered honey does work well in coffee not just tea. I found delicious coconut ice cream in the Natural Food store - because I don't always have time to make it. I ate natural black licorice to fight off mid-afternoon sugar cravings and wouldn't you know it, those cravings are gone! I did notice an increase in my salt cravings but that was temporary. Then, somewhere around the 10 week mark, something happened ...

I felt zen.

You know that feeling of being balanced? I was there. I had never felt like that. The crazy energy in my head that keeps telling my body to go go go, don't sit, get up, get it done... That crazy energy? Calm. Not gone, just tamed. And my body, the one that keeps telling my brain to slow down cause it needs a rest, it just goes now, all day but at a more even pace.

So what does one do with more energy? Why, one plans ahead for those busy times and gets cooking!! Now that I'm back in the office and the boys are back in school, I've turned to my trusted mom calendar for scheduling activities and preparing our meal plans. I've decided to try out 2-week period meal plans and see if that makes a difference and so far, so good! On the second week, my grocery shopping is done in one stop and I need to buy much less. I also save a lot of time by only going place. Here's what I made this weekend with that extra time: Pumpkin Spice Latte mix. Yup! That's right. Pumpkin Spice Latte mix. Now I know what you're thinking, can't you just get a PSL soy latte at your local coffee shop? Why yes, you could. Buy it's loaded with sugar and can you even really taste the pumpkin? Oh well I say! I will make my own!!

Here's how I ended up with this creation :)

Pumpkin Purée:

Choose 4 local/seasonal sugar (pie) pumpkins. Set oven to 400F. Slice pumpkins in half, scoop out seeds & goop, save seeds and compost goop. Place pumpkins face down on baking sheets and roast until soft. Probably 30 minutes but I actually wasn't paying attention, I was busy prepping for Monday night's dinner. Remove from oven, let cool. You'll probably notice the skin blistering. Scoop out flesh into a food processor and pulse until smooth. You should have a bit more than 7 cups of pumpkin purée. Divide into one cup servings, store in freezer for later use (pumpkin pie, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin ice cream - with coconut milk - I'm feeling inspired!).

Pumpkin Spice Latte mix:

You should have about 1/4 cup of pumpkin leftover from the purée you just made. Place it in a small saucepan along with 2 cups rice milk (or whatever milk you drink) 2 Tbsp of maple syrup, 1 Tbsp cinnamon and a pinch of your other favourite spices: nutmeg, cardamom, ginger, allspice... Whisk over med-lo heat until dissolved, store in fridge. The next morning, you'll have to stir your mixture and place some in a pot to reheat for your latte. You might want to strain it into your mug, the spices tend to drop to the bottom of the mug but that's the only downside I guess with using real ingredients.

Oh! And those saved pumpkin seeds? Wash them, dry them, coat them in olive oil and salt and toast them in the oven at 250F for about an hour.

So there you have it: 7 cups of pumpkin purée, 3 Pumpkin Spice Lattes an a mid-afternoon crunch snack for $4 and about an hour in the kitchen. That, my friends, is planning and that my friends, is zen. Enjoy!!

Stock up for winter!

I know, I know, we've barely turned the calendar page on August and I'm posting about winter. Makes me cringe a little at the thought, but you have to start loading your freezer now if you want to enjoy local summer goodness all year round.

I picked up 5 of those 3L Ontario peach containers, they were $2 each! Family and friends came over and they all asked what I would possibly be doing with all the peaches! Well, as it turns out, Mac & Flip are peach-eating munchkins. They must have eaten an entire basket between the two of them. For the rest, I tried making fruit leather. They were tasty but I definitely need to tweak that recipe a bit. The rest, I poached, peeled, pitted and froze. I don't think I've ever had so many peaches in the freezer before. Can't wait to come up with something peachy on a snowy day!

Tonight for dinner we had chicken. We love chicken here and we eat a lot of it. I buy whole chickens when I can, they're very affordable and you get so much out of them. I love to rotisserie them on the BBQ, chop them in half and grill them butterflied or even break it into pieces. I'm starting to get the hang of that but I'm no master carver just yet. I tried poultry shears and giant kitchen knives but what works best is a very sharp poultry knife. If you're going to be breaking up chicken into pieces, invest in one of those.

You know what's also great about whole chickens? The carcass. I love making my own chicken stock and it's so easy! Here's my recipe:

Chicken carcass and other chicken bones (local)
One large handful of carrots, chopped in chunks (you don't have to peel them but I take off the tops)(local)
Celery stalks 2 or 3, chopped in chunks (local) *tip: don't be shy with the celery. I've tried making stocks without it, it's so much better with it!
Two yellow onions, chopped in chunks (cut off the tops but leave on the outer peel) (local)
Salt, peppercorns (5 or 6) and bay leaves (2 or 3)

Place chicken carcass and bones in a large stock pot with carrots, celery and onions. Fill with cold water. Season with salt, add peppercorns and bay leaves. Bring pot to a boil, cover and simmer for a couple of hours. Remove the lid and let it reduce a bit. Let cool, strain and store in the freezer. I use plastic containers for the freezer. I have managed to crack my 1L Mason jars more times than I can count. I've tried refrigerating them first, freezing with cap off, tightening the cap after stock is frozen, they almost all cracked! So disappointed. If you have a tip please let me know.

This recipe will make anywhere from 24-30 cups of stock, depending on the size of your pot.

You can also make your stock in a crockpot overnight. It will make less but it's so convenient. A little word of caution though, the smell of warm chicken stock might wake you at 3 am :)

Yes you can!

Let me say this: the most difficult thing about taking dairy out of my diet is giving up ice cream. And it's summer so it's doubly difficult! What have I gotten myself into? Well, fortunately, I have discovered that you can make a lovely custard-based ice cream with coconut milk. The result is incredible!

I was on dessert duty for a family birthday party and I thought I would surprise everyone with some dairy-free-sugar-free-chocolate-peanut-butter-cup cupcakes. I mean, why should I make a lovely dessert and not be able to eat it right? Plus, the birthday girl loves crazy wild food ideas. I searched the web for hours to find a great recipe and came across this recipe for {vegan} dark chocolate peanut butter filled cupcakes. 


I doubled the recipe (as per the blogger's advice!) and in the first batch I substituted the cup of cane juice for 3/4 cup of honey and in the second batch I used 3/4 cup of brown rice syrup. The whole batch looked a bit wet so I added an extra 1/2 cup of flour and 3 tbsp of cocoa. They baked perfectly! 


For the icing, I already knew what I was going to use. I came across this most delicious chocolate frosting and I put it in a piping bag to make rosettes on top. I doubled the recipe because I didn't know how much I would need by using it in the piping bag. When it chills, it hardens a bit. It's delicious! Don't be afraid of the combination. Most people think of guacamole when they think of avocado but this is far from a garlic and lime taste :) At the party, all the guests were shocked when I revealed the mystery ingredient! I had them all fooled, he he he...


Cupcakes made, I had a large quantity of chocolate avocado icing left over. I decided to try a custard based ice cream with coconut milk. I was divine! Here is my recipe:


Topical Chocolate Ice Cream 


1 can of regular coconut milk (organic preferably, look for a can with the fewest ingredients)
1 can of light coconut milk (as above)
3/4 cup honey (local, yay!)
3 egg yolks (also local, yay!)
1 recipe of the chocolate frosting (I replaced the agave syrup with maple syrup which is local and I already had some in the fridge).


Shake both cans of coconut milk very well. Very very well. Place the can of regular coconut milk in a pot on the stove along with 1/2 the can of light coconut milk. Add the honey. Whisk together and heat on medium until the honey is dissolved and the liquid starts to bubble a bit. Do not let it come to a full boil and stir often to prevent from burning. 


Meanwhile, place the egg yolks in a large bowl and whisk with remaining light coconut milk. When the milk is warm, you will have to temper the egg yolks. Basically whisk your egg mixture while pouring in 1/4 of the warm milk then pour the egg mixture back in the pot whisking as you pour. Heat the mixture and stir almost constantly on medium heat for 5 or 6 minutes. Normally a regular milk custard would thicken enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon but this does not really happen with coconut milk. It does thicken a bit but you will have to trust your gut on this one. 


Once thickened, remove from heat and stir in the chocolate frosting until it is melted. Prepare an ice water bath by filing a large wide bowl with ice and cold water half way. Pour the mixture through a fine sieve into a clean glass bowl then place the glass bowl in the ice bath to chill for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, remove the bowl from the water, dry off the bottom and place a sheet of plastic wrap directly on the custard. Chill the custard overnight in the fridge and churn it in an ice cream machine the next day. It was pretty soft when it came out of the ice cream machine so I placed it in the freezer for about 4 hours and it scooped out very nicely. 


Unfortunately I don't have any pictures! Rest assured it was fantastic!

The Summer of Smurfs

I love the Smurfs. Les Schtroumphs. I puffi. Whichever language you choose to watch those cute little blue creatures in, you have to admit, they are adorable. Growing up in the '80s, I spend my fair share of Saturday morning hours watching them on tv. That was before the PVR, the on-demand and possibly even before the betamax recorder. Well, probably not before the beta but I still remember it. I'm looking forward to seeing the movie with my boys this summer.


What, you might ask, do Smurfs have to do with an eating local blog? Well, as it so happens, we ate Smurf potatoes for dinner last night. Blue potatoes, right from the garden to the table.

First, I had to find them. Not unlike the Smurfs, who hide very well in their magic forest! I've never had potatoes in the garden before so I didn't know where to look, or even if they would be ready. I set out with my little shovel in my overgrown-forest-of-a-garden and it didn't take very long... there they were, just below the surface! 

Here's what they looked liked when I washed them off and sliced them open, too gorgeous to peel. 

I roasted them with the usual olive oil, salt, pepper and rosemary. But they tasted far from usual, they were very creamy and were truly smurf-tastic!