Uncategorized

Until recently, I have had my suspicions about spelt. But then I added cherries.

~ wellfedemily ~ 4 Comments

Cherry!And, while I’m not sure I fully accept spelt – I view it the way I view kamut, quinoa, and millet … that is to say, as a hippie grain that’s more for fibre than flavour – I’ve come to understand it. Spelt is not all bad. It’s certainly not bad for you. Maybe don’t eat a whole loaf of spelt bread or anything, but if you’ve got cherries – or raspberries, or blueberries, or whateverberries – make muffins. Use brown sugar. A pinch of nutmeg, and maybe some orange zest. The result? A hearty, fill-me-up breakfast muffin that’s as good for you as bran but not as old-mannish. Today is make-up words day.

I bought a bag of spelt flour about a month and a half ago when the little organic store at UBC was clearing out its stock for the summer. I didn’t know what to do with it, but I got a whole lot of it for three dollars, so I thought I’d try it. And then when I ran out of whole wheat flour and forgot to restock, and wanted to make muffins, I thought – “the hell? I’ll use the spelt.” You can make this recipe with whole wheat flour if you want. You can even use white flour – I am not there to judge. But if you have access to spelt, use it, and make these moist little muffins and enjoy knowing that just eating them probably makes you healthier than the guy sitting next to you on the bus. Unless you drive to work, in which case, you’re probably already the healthiest person in your car. Unless you carpool with marathon-running vegans. Oh, hell, I don’t know. Make muffins. Feel happy.

Spelt Muffins with Cherries and Orange

(makes about 16 muffins)

  • 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
  • 1 cup dark brown sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 3 1/2 cups spelt flour
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 4 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
  • 2 cups milk
  • Zest and juice of one small navel orange
  • 2 cups fresh cherries, pitted and halved
  • 1 cup chopped toasted pecans (optional)

Preheat your oven to 425°F.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, and eggs until the mixture is blended, light in colour, and smooth.

In another large bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking powder, and nutmeg. Zest the orange into this mixture as well. Make sure the dry stuff is thoroughly combined.

While beating the butter mixture, slowly add the flour mixture. Once you’ve emptied all of the flour into the butter bowl, squeeze in the orange juice and add the milk. Beat until combined. Add the cherries, and if you’re using nuts, the nuts, and toss the mixture until the cherries are just coated, not smooshed.

Pour batter into a muffin pan that’s either greased or lined with those awesome baking paper cup things. Bake the muffins for 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of one comes out clean.

MMMuffins.Cool in the pan for a few minutes, then turn them out onto a wire rack to cool. Make sure to eat at least one while it’s still warm, with butter and maybe a little bit of maple syrup or honey. Feel yourself getting regular and slightly smug.

Muffin on a plate.

I leave for Winnipeg on Wednesday, and although I hope to post another tribute to food before I leave, I may not get to. I don’t know what they eat in Winnipeg, but I’m determined to find out. I’ll be a bridesmaid, so that’ll cut into my investigation a bit, but I hope to be back to my beloved Internet before long – hopefully I’ll have something of significance to report. If not, I’ll think of something. Back soon.

This whole post is little more than me bragging about my day off. Which was awesome. I crave your envy.

~ wellfedemily ~ 7 Comments

Long before Nick, there was the city. Having grown up outside of it, and just out of its reach, I was determined to someday get here and renounce my suburban roots. Vancouver to me is like Paris to people who’ve been there and loved it – it occupies my imagination as much as my reality, and it’s wonderful. The water! The buildings! The markets! The wine! I smugly wonder why anyone would ever live anywhere else but here (the cost of housing? The long stretches of grey weather? No! That could not be). I do this mostly on bicycle.

Peppers!

Last night, Paul, Nick, and I went to Granville Island for the opening night of the Altar Boyz, a tremendously raucous bit of blasphemy that had my face cramped with laughter and my mascara running all the way down my cheeks. Before that, we sat on the patio at the Backstage Lounge, which is fantastic not for its food, which costs more than it’s worth and is generally subpar, but for its patio, with water views and generous sunbeams. The cheap beer also helps.

Tard!

Bridge!

Moules!I had mussels, which were not memorable, but they were pretty, and they reminded me that I love shellfish and had not had it in nearly long enough. With the promise of a busy Nick this evening, I knew that this was my chance: Clams! I would alert Grace of my desire to feast, and we would eat bread and clams and drink refreshing summer wines. So I returned to Granville Island today, because The Lobster Man just beyond the public market is my favourite place to buy shellfish. Oh, the adventure!

Strawberries!

And along the way, I became distracted, as always, by Oyama Sausage, which is the most wonderful place in the world. Fact. I decided, having just purchased a short, me-size baguette and sweet little local/overpriced strawberries, that in addition to the clams, I would also buy lunch.

SDC10667

There’s a large Frenchman there who gave me his name but it was jumbled, the way French is, and I could not piece it together in any logical way. He asked for my order in French (I don’t know why), and in order to not seem like a jerk, I responded in High School French, what little I recall of it. (Although, if he’d asked me to sing a song about Les Pompiers, I would have been able to. That stupid song – about firemen – is etched into the recesses of my brain. Thanks, Grade 8. THANKS.) He laughed, apparently tickled by my efforts. What wonderful samples I was handed as a result!

I ordered Delice de Bourgogne, which is possibly the most delicious cheese in the world except for all the other ones, and decadent, oily duck prosciutto. Then I wandered into Liberty, intent on picking out a wine that Grace would surely enjoy, and then discovered cherry wine, which I couldn’t not buy – I had to consider lunch! I wonder how long it takes to get gout. Note to self: look into that.

Sixty dollars later, I finally made it to Lobster Man, the entire purpose of my trip. Mindful that everything I had purchased would have to fit into my backpack, I resisted the urge to buy every kind of oyster, sticking with my original clam plan. Cramming my day’s purchases into my pack, I raced home, in part to get the clams into the fridge as quickly as possible. But mostly to get to the sandwich, which by that point was actually shrieking my name. Here it is:

Lunch!

SDC10672I’ve now discovered that everything tastes better when you order it in French. (Be warned, favourite restaurants, most of which are not French.) And the strawberries were fantastic – little bombs of sweet red glory! How perfect with just a touch of balsamic vinegar and a sprinkling of basil and black pepper. I don’t care how much cheaper it is to buy a townhouse in Surrey: I’m never living any farther than a bikeride away from duck prosciutto and still-breathing shellfish and cheeses with names I can barely pronounce and wonderful, obnoxious French men. Vancouver: Nevermind how often I whine about your weather – I love you!

Tomorrow will be less a love-fest and more an actual, respectable post about clams, a recipe for clams, and strawberries in honeyed whipped cream. Stay tuned?

Emily vs. Kitchen

~ wellfedemily ~ 1 Comment

This morning when I woke up I felt like a fist had punched through my mattress and clutched at my spine in a twisting, crippling sort of arthritis death-grip, so I stayed home to work on a project that I don’t need to be in the office for, and I wore pink pajamas and ate painkillers like they were Pez. Which sounds kind of great except for all the hideous pain. The tops of my feet even hurt. And you’d think that I’d be able to waddle over to the kitchen to make myself a healthful, revitalizing soup (because I know how to), but the thing is, my kitchen looks like this:

my disgusting kitchenWhich is depressing as hell. At this point I think it would be easier to just move and buy new everything. And that’s only the view on one side.

And every time I walk past it I try not to look because it’s causing me a fair amount of stress, and not just stress because of all the mess, but also because I know that I’m too lazy and unmotivated to do anything about it, which is a testament to my weak character and lack of desire to grow or change. For example, now? It’s lunchtime and I’m eating a bowl of Wacky Mac and blogging about not wanting to fix my kitchen because it’s disgusting and I am powerless against my own laziness. And when Nick gets home, one of two things will happen:

  1. Nick will come home and not do the dishes.
  2. Nick will come home and demand that I help him with the dishes.

And he could say “it’s not me, it’s you,” and I would totally understand, because it IS me, and why am I having a melt-down over dishes? I am glad it’s not 1950 and I have a job that I can use an excuse to be a slacker when it comes to helping out at home. I would be the worst housewife ever. We’re all lucky that there is no wine left in my house, or I’d be hobbling around on THAT crutch too.

This is Wacky Mac. It's wacky because the noodles are all different shapes? Get it? Yeah. I should get back to work.
This is Wacky Mac. It's wacky because the noodles are all different shapes? Get it? Yeah. I should get back to work.

So. I am going to work on this work project until it’s complete. Then, I am going to ingest a cocktail of arthritis meds and painkillers, and then put on some NOFX and get really angry about the mess and hopefully make some meaningful progress, because I have been lusting after a bright green spring pea soup, and tonight is the night and there’s nothing I can do about it until some pots are clean and some counters are clear. Or Nick will get home and I’ll burst into tears and cry about how hopeless our lives are and he’ll just take care of it because he’s nice like that. It could go either way. And then I’ll make and write about the pretty green soup.

Okay. Back to work.