Onion

Refried beans can be a healthy snack, or a full meal if you want them to be. You can wrap them in a flatbread as I do at the end of these videos and turn them into a burrito, or you can dip corn chips into them for a snack. Or for a full meal of taco salad, lay down a bed of corn chips, then some refried beans, lettuce, tomato, green onion, bell pepper and whatever else you want on top. Then top it off with a bit of sour cream and your favorite hot sauce. Delicious, and nutritious!

In our house growing up there was always a jar of mustard pickles in the fridge, and they were always paired with both baked beans and meat pie, which were both something my mom made regularly. A few years ago I decided to make my own, and I ended up being extremely pleased with the results. The main veggies to put in there are cucumbers, onions and cauliflower, but you can also put in stuff like rutabaga, turnip, radish, and carrots. This time around it is just the latter.

After you cut up your cucumbers and onions you have to salt them and leave them over night, to draw as much moisture as possible out of them. I just put them into a food grade bucket and leave them on the side step since it is cool enough at night this time of year that it is about fridge temperature. Then the next day you squeeze as much moisture as you can out of them - either by hand or with a fruit press like we have - and continue on with your recipe.

There we go, the sauce is finally in the canner! This is definitely not a sauce for someone who does not like a lot of work since it takes a good 2 or 3 days to make. First of all, it contains a lot of roasted red pepper, which itself takes a good day of work. Though I roasted about twice what I needed for this recipe and canned the rest. Hmmm, note to self : I still have not written the article on roasting peppers, so please stay tuned for that. Last year was the first year I used roasted red peppers in my Pasta / Pizza sauce, and I liked it so much that I'm doing largely the same thing with a few tweaks.

The biggest difference between this year and last year is that this time around I wanted to use up some zucchini from our CSA, so I decided to toss a good sized one in there. I also have a 2 or 3 pounds of heirlooms tomatoes in there this year as well - just to use up ones from the CSA. I did not measure either, but I did measure another zucchini that was about the same size, and it was 650g. Heirloom tomatoes about 2 or 3 lbs - together after cooking it down for about an hour they made up exactly 2 litres of puree that went into the main sauce.

This year we were looking for a bit of a change in how to use up Zucchini, and a bit of googling hit upon this recipe for relish. A quick read and it sure sounded yummy - and now that it is in the jars I can verify that indeed it is! It is one of those recipes you have to prepare a day in advance since the veggies soak in brine overnight - somewhat counterintuitively so as to be able to get much of the water out of them. Of course, a fruit press like this one that my wife bought me for Christmas a few years ago helps in that goal too, but you can do it the old fashioned way by squeezing handfuls of the mixture.

For chopping the veggies I used a manual food processor with a crank handle on top. We hadn't used it in years mainly because it had gotten put away somewhere out of view, but when my wife was going to sell it at a yard sale in the spring I set it aside because I knew I'd use it again. It made fairly quick work of the veggies as long as I only about half filled it. The zucchini alone was literally about the size of my leg from the knee down! I did a double batch of this recipe.

I love chow! Or "chow chow" as we always called it! So about 12 years ago now I tried to make it, and ended up putting waaaay too much all spice and cloves into it. Wow that was overpowering! And it shied me away from making them for some 10 years. And unfortunately when I did make them 10 years later I'd already forgotten the lesson of the all spice and cloves, so when I made this they were waaaaay too spicy, but have mellowed now with age. Normally when I make something I don't follow a recipe, I take a look at several recipes to figure out the 'essence' of that thing, and then use that knowledge to decide what I want to do for myself.

This is the same approach I used for my Chow back in 2007 when my Aikido Sensei wanted to make a big batch with me to split, so I'll give all the recipes together along with what we finally made.

This is a yummy “cleaning out the veggie drawer” sort of soup. It’s lentil based, but uses pretty much whatever veggies you happen to have on hand. I’ve made it most often with zucchini because we buy an annual share in a CSA, and what farm doesn’t have too much zucchini in late summer? This is a great one to get going in a slow cooker, too, and reheats really well from leftover.

This is another recipe out of Madhur Jaffrey's, "From Curries To Kebabs". It's a great way to change up the usual "rice with curry" equation and creates a fragrant accompaniment to the beef curry I also made tonight.

The spices required are easily found in a Chinese or Indian grocery -- I found all of mine without any trouble in Ottawa's Chinatown.

One of my favorite childhood memories are the many Saturday nights at the family table with a big plate of sweet baked beans, fresh brown bread and hot dogs. Baked beans are one of my favorite foods and, since moving to Ontario, I haven’t made them as frequently as I would like.

Why not? Apparently the beans we always used for baking beans just aren’t available here in Ottawa — I can find obscure beans from far-flung parts of the world, but I just can’t get ahold of the Jacob’s Cattle, Soldier, Yellow Eye or French Horticultural beans that my mother used for her Saturday night feasts.

Every year during my annual trip back to the coast, I stock up on my beans and horde them like gold — doling out each batch and making them stretch for as long as I can, knowing I won’t be able to replenish my stockpile until the next summer. Our unexpected and unfortunate trip back in January was a boon in one very pleasant respect: I now have beans — lots and lots of beans!

I really love lentil dhal. It’s a good stick-to-the-ribs Indian porridge of soft lentils and spices that always manages to hit the right spot and only gets better the longer it has been “left over”. It can ben eaten on its own, over rice, or as a side dish with a variety of curries.

A friend on the brewers' list was chatting about perogies today, and in particular about Hunky Bill's Perogy Maker. It's been likely 20 years since I've made perogies - (I once made perogies and Bortsch for 120 people!), which as far as I'm concerned is far too long. I was still due a Christmas present from Melissa so I went out and picked up a Hunky Bill's for just shy of 30 bucks, to give it a try. Next time I'll time how long it takes because I'm not entirely convinced that it's quicker to do. Rolling out the 2 sheets of dough takes a fair bit of time. Aside from that, the assembly is far quicker with the device. But all told as mentioned I'm just not sure it is a time saver.

Note they are darker simply because I rarely use anything but whole wheat flour