Tag Archives: Paintbox Kitchen

The Best Skiing Trail Mix

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Today’s post isn’t really a recipe so much as just kind of a thing I do.  I love to go up skiing and near Vancouver we’re absolutely spoiled with wonderful places to go. I had my first day out at Cypress Bowl a week or so. It was what they call a bluebird day: lots of snow and some sunshine and blue skies.

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There was a break in the clouds at one point while I was on the lift and with winter wonderland all around me I saw clear through to a furry-looking green island in the ocean. I badly wanted to snap a photo for you but would certainly have dropped a glove.  And, well, about the snow it was… truth be told… sort of so-so, much like myself in my 20′s: a bit too thin and a little icy. Isn’t it wonderful how open we are to having a good time just because we happen to be doing something different? Talk to me about snow conditions like this in late February. Quite a different story. Quelle powder snob. Anyway, my favourite foodie thing about a ski day, next to my lunchtime glass of wine in the lodge of course, is this very simple trail mix. It goes something like this:

Take a nice, fat caramel-y Medjool date. Remove and discard pit. Insert small square of fine-quality dark chocolate.  Place four or five in a ziplock along with a handful of raw nuts. I prefer almonds. Insert ziplock in pocket of parka. Share at the top between schussing slopes and munching moguls.  What I love about this is it can only really be a winter trail mix as the chocolate melts out of the date in the summer. Really, that’s what I love about skiing too, it’s a way to embrace and enjoy the season rather than just waiting for spring to start. After all, you can only have a bluebird day in the winter. I’m wishing you one today. Happy Wednesday!! xo Jasmine
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The Easiest Possible Raw Plum Crumble

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#torrentialdownpour It rained all weekend. Hard. As much as I’ve been dreading that rain, I’m kind of digging it now that it’s finally arrived rather than just skulking around creating non-commital overcast days. If you’re going to rain, rain! And rain it did. A walk to the drugstore at the corner necessitated towelling off my bangs and a change of pants. Now I’m all nice and cozy with a cup of Everyday Detox tea and a little bowl of raw plum crumble and I’m starting to think this whole winter thing ain’t so bad.
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 Now back to the reason you’re really here: Raw Plum Crumble. This is such a useful recipe to learn. It takes literally moments to prepare, contains no refined sugar and it’s surprisingly delicious and satisfying.
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All you do is put some nuts, raisins and spices in a food processor and pulse. Store it in a jar and when you’re ready to use it, toss any kind of chopped fruit like apples, pears, peaches or blueberries in a little apple or orange juice, top with the cobbler mix, stir and serve.  I like to have a jar on hand when I go camping for easy desserts and sprucing up our oatmeal.
I adapted this recipe from a leaflet I picked up at Whole Foods. The original recipe used hazelnuts and pecans which was of course delicious. I used almonds and walnuts which were equally delicious.

Raw Crumble Topping
Makes about 10 servings but keeps for a few months in a jar

Ingredients
3/4 cup raw, unsalted walnuts or other nuts
3/4 cup raw, unsalted almonds or other nuts
3/4 cup raisins
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon vanilla powder(optional)

Directions
Place all ingredients in a food processor and pulse oh, say 25 times or until nuts are rough chopped. 
Toss fruit in orange or apple juice, about a tablespoon for one chopped apple or 3-4 chopped plums.
Top with 2-3 tablespoons of Raw Crumble Topping, toss and serve. 

Supereasy Smoked Salmon Ceviche

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Even though I no longer eat wheat, The Bon Ton Bakery in Edmonton is still one of my favourite places in the whole world. I’ve been going since I was three and even if I just go in and have a good sniff I feel just a little bit sweeter. On my last visit I found a smoked salmon ceviche that I plan to rip off at my earliest convenience with some of that wonderful but joyfully affordable smoked salmon that Trader Joe’s sells. To make the ceviche all you do is mix bits of smoked salmon, olive oil, lemon, capers, lemon juice, onions and sliced black olives. It’s so easy and utterly delicious on toast, with eggs or just with a spoon or even with one’s bare hands while still in the parking lot.

As an aside, my mom has this really cute habit of mispronouncing the names of unfamiliar food, I suspect at least partly on purpose for comic effect.  For example, quinoa is ‘keno’ and tuna steaks are a-ha tuna. Needless to say we will be making ‘crev-eesh’.
Have a great week. xo Jasmine

Grilled Greek Salad

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Just a quick post today. After soaking up the sun at the beach I opted to grill all the components of a Greek salad except the feta. Feta’s not a cheese that browns or gets nice and gooey with heat so I didn’t  think there was an upside to grilling it.
The grilled black olives were off the charts delicious, as were the cherry tomatoes.

Hot tomatoes

The peppers were pretty good too. The grilled onions were lovely but I wound up adding some raw ones as well since I love them so much.

As for the grilled cucumbers, they reminded me of what I think when I see someone in a thong bikini. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

Grilled Greek Salad
Serves 4 as a side

Ingredients

3 small peppers, cut in large chunks I used purple and white but red and/or green is always nice too
15 black olives, pits removed
6 small tomatoes
3 baby cucumbers, raw and sliced
1 medium red onion, half cut in thick slices, half cut in very thin slices3 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for drizzling
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 bunch fresh thyme, leaves removed from stems and set aside
1/4 cup-1/2 cup goat’s feta
salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
3 bamboo skewers, soaked in water at least two hours

Directions
Preheat your barbecue.
Whisk together the olive oil and the vinegar. Pull the leaves from half the bunch of thyme, add to the oil and vinegar mixture. Set aside.  Drizzle a little olive oil on the olives. Wrap them in parchment paper and then wrap again in foil. Thread the tomatoes and peppers on skewers, making sure to leave space in between each one. Place the olive packet, the  pepper skewers and the thick slices of onion on the grill. Once the onions and peppers begin to brown, turn and add the tomato skewers.  Have a bowl with a cover handy. Once a vegetable reaches desired tenderness, likely olives, peppers and tomatoes first, pull off skewers, place in the bowl, drizzle oil and vinegar mixture over top and cover tightly.

Grilled vegetables are extra delicious when they get a chance to steam with herbs in a covered bowl.

Once all of the vegetables are in the bowl, add the rest of the dressing and allow to steam in the covered bowl about five minutes more. Top with raw onions, raw cucumber, feta and remaining thyme leaves and serve.

Buddha chilling in the oregano and thyme patch

Maple Thyme Salmon

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Every summer for, oh, about the last fifteen years or so I’ve made a trek into the centre of Vancouver’s splendid Stanley Park to visit the water lilies. The surface of tiny Beaver Lake is entirely covered with lilly pads and in August they bloom: big fat waterlilies in purple, yellow, white and pink. There’s so many I barely know where to look. There’s almost enough to get bored of them, as though such a thing were possible.  Beaver Lake in August is the most luxurious thing I’ve ever seen.

There are literally hundreds of them.

On holiday Monday Bill and I rode bikes out to see this year’s batch. There was an embarrassment of lilies, maybe more than I’ve ever seen and for some reason most of them were pink with a few rare white beauties.

This I don’t mind at all. For one reason I like the pink ones best and for another reason checking on the purples, yellows and the rest of the whites will give me a great excuse to take another trip over there.

We hung out with the waterlilies for awhile, taking photos and sharing a root beer while lazily watching the dragonflies that also love to hang out around the waterlilies.

Dragonflies don’t mind messy braids.

There are plenty of frogs in Beaver Lake but none of them came out to sit on the lily pads that day. Perhaps they are tired of indulging visitors in such a hackneyed cliche.

Later, for dinner we grilled out on the tiny apartment patio. I have lots to tell you about that meal but the only thing you need to know about today is Maple Thyme salmon. So simple. So delicious. We’d bought a nice big chunk of pink salmon at the farmer’s market. Pink salmon is really great, as delicious as sockeye but half the price. One of the reasons for this is because the quality of pink does not hold up in the freezer as well as sockeye. If we’re planning to eat it right away, we buy pink.

 

All I did was line a piece of foil with a piece of parchment. I drizzled some olive oil on the salmon to keep it from drying out, then I drizzled it with a little maple syrup, oh about a tablespoon for a big filet. Then I tossed some fresh thyme sprigs and leaves on top, wrapped the whole thing up and Bill put it on the hot grill for about ten minutes.  The maple set off the sweetness of the salmon perfectly and the thyme  added just a slight haunting herbiness. Maybe the best part is that it was so effortless. A perfect dish for a season in which the most luxurious place I can imagine is just a bike ride away.

 

 

Young Collard and Crimini Mushroom Tacos

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This is the kind of summer brunch that fills me up but still leaves me feeling light and frisky enough to want to put on my bikini.

Typically, I’m not a huge fan of using collards for wraps at most times of the year. They’re just too darn tough. I want a sandwich, not a personal challenge. However, at this time of the year I can usually find young, local, just pulled from the dirt collards in the tenderest pale green. Those I can work with, as demonstrated by this summery vegan brunch. Some pretty Swiss Chard might make nice taco shells too.

I’ve made an avocado-walnut sauce to add brain-loving Omega 3s and a sweet corn salsa for texture but you can feel free to just make one of those, or make none of those.

Raw Corn Salsa and Avocado-Walnut Sauce posing prettily on my favourite beach towel.

A little dollop of regular salsa, hummus or sliced avocado would work just fine. Whatever. Just make it. Eat it. Get your trunks on.

Will you get your cute behind to the beach already! The sun’s almost setting!

If you like this post, I would be most appreciative if you shared it on Twitter or Facebook.

Young Collard and Crimini Mushroom Tacos
A light lunch for two
Ingredients
4 large collard leaves
3 cups sliced crimini mushrooms, stems removed Crimini mushrooms are baby portobellos
2 teaspoons crushed chipotle pepper
1/4 cup plus one tablespoon boiling filtered water
1 clove garlic, grated fine
1/4 cup cilantro leaves, optional

Directions
Soak chipotle pepper in boiling water for at least half an hour, water will turn the color of soy sauce. Strain pepper out of water reserving both soaked pepper and water. Prepare two plates with two large collard greens per plate.

 Heat medium sauce pan on medium-high flame. Add 1/4 cup of chipotle soak liquid and the garlic. When mixture bubbles, reduce heat to medium and add mushrooms. Cook about five minutes or until mushroom have absorbed the liquid and are quite soft. Remove from heat. Spoon mushroom mixture onto collard greens, top with corn salsa, avocado-walnut sauce and cilantro. Serve with lime wedges and salt to taste.
Avocado-Walnut Sauce
Ingredients
1 ripe avocado
1/4 cup walnuts  Feel free to soak and rinse the walnuts to increase their nutritional value but then reduce the water to 1/2 cup plus two tablespoons
Juice of 1/2 lime
2 garlic cloves
3/4 cup filtered water
1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Directions
Place all ingredients in a food processor or blender and blend until smooth.

Raw Corn Salsa
Makes about twice as much as you need for the tacos but is wonderful to have around as a side for other dishes.

Ingredients
Kernels sliced from two cobs of corn
3/4 cup finely chopped red onion
Zest from 2 limes
Juice from 1/2 lime
1 tablespoon chipotle pepper that has been soaked in hot water for at least 1/2 hour and then drained
salt to taste

Directions
Mix all ingredients together and stir well.

Garlic Scapes with Warm Spiced Chick Peas and Fresh Basil

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If you’ve ever planted garlic you know that in the early summer bright green twisty tubes grow out of the middle of your tall green garlic plant. Meet your garlic scapes. It’s best to remove them so that your plant can focus all of it’s energy into pumping taste and nutrition into your garlic bulb.  That’s good news because the scapes are utterly delicious, like a crisp green bean with a garlic flavour gently infused throughout.

I heart garlic scapes!

If you’re not entirely sure what part of the plant I’m talking about, check out this video.

I haven’t been able to find nutritional information that is specific to scapes but if I had to guess I would say that scapes have similar but less potent qualities of garlic but adding some powerful detoxification properties because, as a green vegetable, they contain chlorophyll. I’m not sure why spellcheck keeps telling me ‘scapes’ is not a word. Spellcheck needs to eat better.

Here’s a refresher on just a very few of the many ways in which garlic is amazing for us.*

  • Garlic is a powerful detoxifier; it has the ability to bind to poisonous heavy metals and usher them safely out of your body.
  • Garlic can nip a nasty cold in the bud. Hold a clove in your mouth next to your cheek for 15-20 minutes and then swallow.
  • Garlic contains antioxidants like vitamins A, C and selenium
  • Garlic can inhibit micro-organisms associated with cancer
  • Rashes from poison ivy, poison oak and nettle can be soothed using a garlic tea. Just simmer four chopped cloves in one cup water for 20 minutes. Cool and drink a little and apply the rest to the affected area as a poultice.

Anyway, you’ll probably only see scapes in your garden and in the farmers markets for, oh, another week so stop noodling around on the computer and go and get you some… but not before sharing this post with your nearest and dearest, natch!

Have a fantastic day.

Jasmine

Garlic Scapes With Warm Spiced Chick Peas and Fresh Basil
Serves two as a side or one for dinner

1 bunch garlic scapes, chopped in 11/2 inch pieces My bunch had about 15 scapes
1 cup chick peas  I used canned this time. Hooray for Eden Organics! They’re now selling chickpeas in BPA free cans.
1/4 cup of your most treasured olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon coriander powder
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil leaves
Ground black pepper to taste
Wedge of lemon, optional

Directions
Place a sauce pan over medium heat. Once it’s warm add olive oil and garlic scapes. Reduce heat to medium low. Cook stirring frequently for 5-7 minutes or until a gentle garlic scent rises from the pan and the scapes reach desired tenderness(I prefer mine quite crispy). Add cumin, coriander and salt. Stir well. Add chick peas and heat until warmed through. Remove from heat. Toss in basil and stir well. Grind copiously with black pepper and finish with a squeeze of lemon if desired. Enjoy.

* Today’s nutritional information was sources from two books, Healing With Whole Foods By Paul Pitchford and Prescription for Nutritional Healing by Phyllis A Balch. Both are excellent reference books that are well worth owning.
 

Skin-Loving Watercress with Lemongrass Dressing

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Whenever I think of sulphur, which hasn’t been all that often frankly, I think of well…hell.

Relentless flames of the damned aside, it turns out that sulphur has incredible health and beauty benefits such as being a super-scavanger of free radicals and a powerful promoter of skin elasticity and firmness. What could be more heavenly than that?

You’ll be relived to know that getting sulphur into your diet won’t require a pact with the Dark Lord.  Sharp-flavored veggies such as radishes, arugula, onions and horseradish are all rich in sulphur. My favourite Lucifer-free source of all though, is watercress. It’s quite fragile and doesn’t really store all that well so it’s a rare to find a really nice bunch. Whenever I do I buy two. That rhymes.

Gardeners saddled with shady plots rejoice in watercress.  Watercress can’t tolerate a lot of direct sun or heat. If your garden is south facing, plant watercress next to taller plants that will shade it and then keep it as moist as possible; in the wild watercress typically grows very near running streams and likes lots of mists and dribbles.

Scatter watercress seeds right on the surface of the soil and  then keep them very moist.

If you fall in love with watercress as much as I have, look for a seed variety called ‘cress presto’.

Cress Presto sprouts happily on an indoor windowsill, providing live food energy all winter and is lovely in salads or sprinkled on an open-face goats’ cream cheese sandwich.

Cress presto sprouts

You’ll gather from today’s recipe that I found myself some lovely fresh, peppery bunches of  watercress at the market today. Another market score was a bunch of fresh lemongrass. I used one stalk in the dressing for the watercress and the rest I’ll puree in the blender with a little water, coconut milk or oil and freeze in ice cube trays to use later in soups and curries. We’ll talk about those on another day.  Sending you a big smile on this Monday. Love, Jasmine
PS If you have friends who might like this post I would be delighted if you passed it along.


Watercress Salad With Lively Lemongrass Dressing

Lively Lemongrass Dressing
Makes about 11/2 cups of dressing, great on all kinds of salads
3/4 cup sunflower oil
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1 teaspoon Bragg’s liquid aminos or nama shoyu, or wheat-free tamari
1/2 teaspoon toasted sesame oil, optional  Don’t go out and buy it, but use if you have it.
1 heaping tablespoon ginger, peeled and chopped
1 stalk lemongrass, chopped  Use only the tender part near the bottom, discard the dry grassy part at the top
Directions
Place all ingredients in a high-powered blender and puree until smooth. Store in a jar and give a quick shake before serving to re-emulsify.

Watercress Salad
Serves Two
Ingredients
1 bunch watercress, washed and dried
8 radishes, sliced very thinly, use a mandolin if you have one
1 minature cucumber, sliced very thinly, use a mandolin if you have one

Directions
Divide bunch of watercress between two plates. The stalks are delicious but it can be prettier if you snip most of the stalks off and use mostly leaves. Nestle the thinly sliced radishes and cucumbers among the watercress in a pleasing arrangement. Drizzle with dressing and serve immediately.

Rooibos Almond Milk Chai

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There’s only one thing you really, really, really need to know about chai: don’t call it ‘chai tea’. Please. Don’t. You see, chai means ‘tea’ in Punjabi and Hindi so when you-I’m talking to you and shaking my fist Starbucks-say ‘chai tea’ you’re really saying ‘May  I please have a tea tea latte’. Isn’t that so annoying? I’m not alone in this pique. I’ve spoken to several Indian people who feel exactly the same way. Ok, Ok, I’ve spoken to one Indian person about it, Saudamini my friend from New Delhi. But ‘chai tea’ bugs the two of us enough to count for several people.

Say ‘chai tea’ while Saudamini is holding a heavy object. I dare you.

Now we’ve got that out of the way, I’m happy to tell you that chai one of those great recipes you can make without measuring in no time at all.  Make it once and suddenly you’re in Mysore grandma mode. The minute a guest crosses your threshold you’ll be tossing tea, spices and milk in a pot and demanding to know why they aren’t married.  And your chai will be so delicious they’ll actually stick around and take the abuse. Plus, chai spice are nutritional superstars:

  • Cloves ease the digestion, keep parasites at bay and contain beta-carotine, calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc and vitamins A, B1, B2 and C
  • Ginger is anti-inflammatory, antioxident, protective of the liver and stomach and helpful for easing headaches, nausea and muscle pain.
  • Cardamom is antioxident, great for the digestion, detoxifying and may even help relieve depression.
  • Black Pepper is warming to the body and helps to prevent colds and the flu.
  • Fennel is supportive of the kidneys liver, spleen and lungs as well as acting as an appetite suppressant.
  • Cinnamon is decongestant, anti-nauseant, good for the circulation, helpful in the digestion of fats and in weight loss.
  • Rooibos is antioxident, packed with minerals, caffeine-free and may help ease depression

    Surabachis are great for bashing open cardamom pods.

You’re free to make this with any type of milk. I’m going to use the homemade almond milk I showed you how to make in the post directly following this one.

Here we go! I would love it if you passed this post along to a friend and would also be most delighted if you followed me on Twitter @paintboxkitchen
Nutritional info is from ‘Healing With Whole Foods’ By Paul Pitchford and ‘Prescription for Nutritional Healing’ by Phyllis A Balch. Both are amazing resources.

Rooibos Almond Milk Chai

Ingredients
Almond Milk
For each cup of chai :
1 heaping teaspoon cloves
1 heaping teaspoon green cardamom pods bashed in a surabachi or with the back of the spoon to release the black seeds within You can throw the pods right into the chai along with the seeds
1 chunk of ginger about half the size of your thumb Bash it up a little to release the juice
1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon fennel
1 cinnamon stick, optional
2 teaspoons honey, unrefined sugar such as jaggery or palm sugar or maple syrup According to Ayurvedic principles, heating honey in tea is to be avoided because it is thought to release toxins. Since other perspectives such as Chinese medicine recommend it, sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. :)
1 heaping teaspoon loose rooibos tea Substitute green tea if you need a kick.

Directions
Using a coffee cup, measure out milk. Use one cup for each cup of chai.  Add spices and tea of choice. Cook over a medium low flame until the chai starts to shimmer and turn light tan. Add sweetener, stir well and pour into cups through a sieve. Namaste. :)

Smoky Black Bean Breakfast Fried Rice

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You may recognize a number of ingredients in today’s recipe from Wednesday’s post about my lentil loaf. That’s right! Leftoverpalooza! My blogging friend Tahmina and I were chatting about leftovers the other day and how much we enjoy creatively using up odds and ends of things to make a brand new delicious something else. We both agreed that food waste really bums us out, her mostly because she’s from a third world nation and has learned first hand not to take the blessing of a good, healthy meal for granted.  For my part I just feel ashamed when I have to throw something rotten away because I didn’t take the time to manage the resources I had in my fridge. It makes me feel like I’m disrespecting the Earth, the people who helped produce the food and at the end of the day myself because I don’t spend vast swaths of my most treasured commodity, my time, earning money to buy food only to throw it away.

Throw this beautiful food away? Never!

Anyway, I’ll step off my soapbox now because quite frankly these gold strappy sandals are far too high for soapbox standing and I’m worried I’ll topple off and break an ankle. Plus, I can’t wait to share today’s recipe with you. It’s one of those breakfasts that makes me lay in bed at night hoping I’ll fall asleep faster because I’m so excited to get up and eat it. I threw it all together while I was cleaning the kitchen after dinner. I popped it in the fridge right in the skillet and then just took the chill off it on the stovetop the next morning.  It’s a smoky, savoury treat that will keep your blood sugar humming along, nice and stable till the afternoon. Sorry if the photos look rushed, I took them at 6am with a hungry boyfriend standing four inches away from me, staring at his breakfast and wishing aloud that I’d move away from it. Like this post? I would be absolutely tickled if you shared it with your social media besties.  Happy Monday. xo Jasmine

If you look to the left of the photo you can see Bill’s legs standing there waiting for me and my camera to step aside. See what I have to put up with??

Smoky Black Bean Breakfast Fried Rice
Serves 2
1 1/2 cups cooked brown rice
1/4 cup diced onion
1/4 cup diced celery
1/2 cup cooked black beans
3 tablespoon chopped oil-packed sun dried tomatoes I buy giant jars of these at Costco, in case you were wondering.
1 teaspoon Bragg’s liquid aminos
1 teaspoon hot smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon hot sauce I prefer Valentina brand
4 free range eggs, optional
2 heaping teaspoons of coconut oil Omit one teaspoon if you’re not using eggs.

Note: In the photos you’ll notice that I threw in a few grape tomatoes. They really didn’t add anything so we’ll just leave them out.

Directions
Place a medium skillet over a medium flame, add one heaping teaspoon of coconut oil. Add onions, carrots and celery.  Cook until softened, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes.  Add paprika and stir well. Add sundried tomatoes, black beans, Bragg’s and hot sauce. Heat through and then reduce heat. At this point you can stop, pop it in the fridge and re-heat it in the morning while you’re cooking your eggs.

OR
In a large skillet, heat remaining coconut oil and cook eggs to your preference. We prefer over easy with very runny yolks. Divide rice between two plates. Serve with eggs over top and lots more hot sauce. Goooood morning!