Baingan Dal (Charred Eggplant with Lentils)

I will not talk about isolation. I will not talk about isolation. I will not talk about isolation. I will not talk about isolation. I will not talk about isolation.

Dang it, I did. 

And it's all because of them lentils. Other people hoard toilet paper. Apparently, I hoard lentils. It's the Indian in me. If everything else fails, there is always rice and dal. So it is a good thing that the family likes dal, because lately it's been dal with everything. 

I never really had dal when I was growing up, per se. We tended to have the much lighter version of lentils, a soupy concoction called 'saar', which was a much tangier, watery version of the thick lentil dal that was usual in the North of India. It was either saar or rasam, which was a much spicier and brothier version that was traditional to Tamil Nadu and the South Eastern coast of India. 

My taste for thick, creamy masala dal developed from my university days in Delhi, where a version was served with every meal in the hostel mess, as well as from my dad, who preferred this version from his army days. He described those days with a hint of nostalgia - the terribly cold nights when they staggered into camps at the very end (dad was an electrician in the army), carrying their heavy packs, huddled under thin blankets that barely kept out the biting mountain cold, the hard, snowy ground  under which they made camp, the tents that did nothing to shield them from the cutting wind, the army days were not a good memory for my father - but he did describe the dal, straight from steaming cauldrons, eaten with rotis, a taste my dad has kept to this day.

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Indian Classics - Aloo Gobi

This week actually marks the tenth anniversary of this blog. However, somewhere along the way, in the past year and a half, I seem to have lost my way a little. My pregnancy with Baby Sky wasn't the greatest, and all I wanted to do was sleep, as opposed to cook or eat, or feed anyone else, for that matter. I think I might have survived on ginger biscuits and mangoes.

Ennui comes in many forms. As someone who has struggled with being motivated, it can be a death knell for the creative side. It doesn't help that I work a job in real life that fulfills me professionally and financially. It has just made it easier to not nurture the creative side of me. I was also so disappointed with internet algorithms. All these beautiful niche recipes that I had carefully worked on were now disappearing from search results, in favour of generic recipes from sites like Genius Kitchen or Allrecipes. I mean, what's the point in continuing to compete in such a lopsided market with zero motivation for smaller bloggers? All that work, developing recipes, cooking, styling the food, taking photographs, writing, coming up with a cool SEO friendly title, marketing non-stop, social media, submitting to food porn sites... and it all disappears down a deep, dark black hole because large sites with unlimited marketing budgets know how to fuck you over with their fancy SEO shite and manipulation of search algorithms.

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Indian-Spiced Turkey Stuffing for Thanksgiving

In the past few months, we have heard so much about refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants. It's election season here in Canada, and the rhetoric is out in full swing. We hear about immigrants not assimilating into 'our' culture, issues with niqabs, about #PeopleLikeNenshi and #BarbaricCulturalPractices. Racism, islamophobia, homophobia, immigrant hate, divisive politics - all par for the course.

Then we have a picture of a little boy washed up on a beach. Things change for a few days, as we rediscover our compassion, but then they're back to the usual. Fear, loathing and hate.

Stop the world. I want to get off.

I am an immigrant to Canada. It is probably a little more obvious in my case, as I am brown. I know a lot of people here in Edmonton, and I daresay, I am well liked. But in the world out there I am an immigrant, a face among millions that move from the country of their birth for reasons ranging from love (in my case) to fear, to escape, to seek a better life.

I am an immigrant. So –

Do you hate me? Is it because I am brown?

Do you hate that I took a job that should have belonged to a 'Canadian'?

Would you deport me if I failed to pay my library fine, especially if I become a second-class Canadian citizen? (see Bill C-24) Would you deport my daughter, because she was born in England, despite the fact that she was a Canadian citizen first?

Why are you surprised when I speak fluent English, while also being able to converse with my mother in my native language?

Are you scared of me? Am I scary? Am I the 'other'? Do I look like a 'terrorist' if I protest, say, for the environment, or gay rights or equal pay for women?

Do you hate that I write about Indian food?

Should I go back to where I came from?

Are you scared that I won't assimilate into 'Canadian' culture? What is 'Canadian' culture?

Does your family have a 'secret' recipe that came from your immigrant grandmother?

Do you absolutely dislike that I am going to take on a hallowed, traditional dish like stuffing and add my own little twist to it? Am I thumbing my nose at 'old stock' Canadians?

The absolute worst is when people look at me and say, but you're not the kind of immigrant we're talking about. I look at them with pity as I think, no, I am exactly the kind of immigrant you're thinking about. I should be the person you think of when you think of immigrants.

Perhaps all this is a bit too political for just a thanksgiving stuffing recipe. But I am angry. I am angry, and hurt and sad and upset. I am angry that this is the world I am handing over to my daughter.

I am like you, but I am not really, am I? What would it take for me to be seen as 'me' and not the 'other'?

Click for the recipe - Lightly Spiced Indian-Style Turkey Stuffing 

Happy Thanksgiving from my immigrant kitchen!

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Is Local The New 'Sacred'?

Is local the new 'sacred'? This is the provocative question asked by sociologist Mervyn Horgan in his thoughtful analysis of the movement against development and to protect agricultural land in Nova Scotia. Horgan’s article focuses on the story of four farmers in rural Nova Scotia who submitted an application to rezone their land for commercial development. This led to an outcry – with the intention of keeping the farmland rural – led by the group, No Farms, No Food who worked collectively and overturned the rezoning of the land. Horgan argues that by invoking the ‘sacred’ aspect of local, No Farms, No Food successfully mounted a campaign that not just reverses political decisions, but also “turns the world around.”

A similar protest occurred in northeast Edmonton, when agricultural land was rezoned for low-density housing. In this case, however, the project went ahead. While sympathetic to the agricultural cause, the mayor of Edmonton did not, however, see the economics working out in favour of keeping the farmland intact. These articles spurred me to write this piece on local farmer John Schneider of Gold Forest Grains. John’s story is familiar – local, organic farmer tries to make a living by standing by his principles and hoping that we do the same.

There is no doubting that the words ‘local’ and ‘organic’ are trendy. But what does this mean for the people who farm organically? I wanted to talk to a person who has made being local and organic part of his life in an unassuming way – not because it is cool or popular or ‘what we should be doing’ – but because of his longstanding belief that we need to look after the land for future generations.

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Cookbook Giveaway #3 - Thug Kitchen by Michelle Davis and Matt Holloway (Closed)

Winner! Congratulations Katja Teske. You've won this amazing book, and I hope you enjoy it. I'll be in touch.

You effing need this book, yes?

I met Michelle and Matt at this year's Food Bloggers of Canada conference, and was impressed by their down to earth attitude, considering that they had just released one of the most anticipated cookbooks of the year. The Thug Kitchen cookbook implores you to 'Eat like you give a f***' and is a collection of gorgeous vegan recipes.

The book certainly has attitude. Written in their characteristic 'Thug Kitchen' style, it is peppered with salty language, but my (partly) vegetarian family definitely can vouch for the recipes.

The recipes are simple and delicious and complement those on their blog. Vegan food is seems as being challenging, but Michelle and Matt make it exciting, with a collection of fresh, well tested recipes that will certainly get your taste buds tingling. Now that is worth a swear word or two.

Enter the Giveaway

The giveaway is for one copy of Thug Kitchen by Michelle Davis and Matt Holloway and is open worldwide.

To enter the giveaway please leave a comment on the post telling me what your favourite vegan dish is.

For an additional entry, follow me on Twitter and tweet this or something similar - Check out @michpetersjones' holiday cookbook(s) giveaway. Win a copy of Thug Kitchen: The Official Cookbook. Enter here: http://goo.gl/r7HTxl

I'll add the tweets to my spreadsheet when picking a winner. Please make sure that I have a contact email, which I will use to notify the winner. If I can't find an email, I will pick another winner.

The giveaway ends on Sunday, December 7th at 5 PM MST, and the winner will be notified.

Come back on Thursday, December 4th, for my next fabulous cookbook giveaway.

Don't forget, Cookbook Giveaway #2, a signed copy of Noodle! by MiMi Aye is still open until Wednesday. Enter here. 

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Moroccan Spiced Carrot and Coriander (Cilantro) Soup

 I hereby decree October as month-of-the-soup. Or at least, tear-my-hair-out-at-all-the -produce-landing-on-my-doorstep-and-winter-is-coming month. Okay, soup month it is. With the leaves turning and falling off, and the first frost already here, I've been airing out my sweaters and winter coat, and trying hard to find a hat to fit my large head. It's sad to see Kay's garden being bedded down for the winter, and to know that soon, the vibrant green lawn is going to covered under a blanket of that fluffy stuff. So in many ways, I've been frantically trying to hold on to the last few days of autumn and the waning daylight hours.

I've found that one of the best ways to preserve our harvest bounty is to soup it up. I've made jars and jars of salsa, tomato sauce, pickles, jams and preserves. So much so, that I've run out of jars and cupboard space, so my eyes fell on the freezer. I freeze a fair bit, mainly beets for soups later on, and butternut squashes, but this time round I decided that soup was where it was at.  

So I am all souped up. A delicious leek, fennel and potato soup,  sunchoke soup, lots of beet soup, my favourite curried butternut squash soup, and this yummy Moroccan spiced carrot soup - which means that my freezer is pretty full of these warming comfort foods to keep us going through winter. Let's just hope it's not a long one like last year!

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Indian Classics - Recipe for Appams (Authentic Kerala Style Crisp Edge Rice Pancakes)

Appams divide people. No, really, they do. I mean, I know food is all about uniting people and bringing them together with shared memories, but not when it comes to these crisp edged sweet/ savoury pancakes. These guys are divisive, I tell you. Crisp edges or squidgy middle? I love the crisp edges, and my husband loves the squidgy middle. And never the twain shall meet (really... the crispy edges are where it's at man... there is no competition with that squidgy, scrummy middle... oh wait...)

Growing up, we waited for those days mother made appams, which was usually on Sunday mornings. As we lived in a coconut orchard, we always had a good supply of dried coconuts in our storage shed. Mom picked a coconut, smacked the living daylights out of it and grated all the sweet meat out. The grated coconut was then ground down to a thick paste, after which she squeezed out the thick milk, and then, watered it down and extracted the thin milk.

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Spiced Green Beans With Coconut (Beans Fugath/ Fugad)

What do you do when your best friend shows up with a giant bag of fresh, crisp green beans from her garden? Well, first off, you give her a giant hug, cause everyone loves those beans. You then hand over the bag of beans to your mom and bat your eyelashes at her and ask her to make you the most delicious, super simple, vegetable comfort food of your childhood. I am lucky to have my mom visiting, and am aiming to make the best of having here here with me, even if it's for a short time.

Us Mangaloreans are not known for our love of vegetables. Every meal, however, does include a vegetable or two, usually as the sidekick to a main of meat or fish. More often than not, vegetables are an afterthought, designed strictly as filler food. Even though half of India is vegetarian, simple steamed veggies - like you find here at almost every meal - are a rarity. Veggies are jazzed up with spices and sauces, and cooked to within an inch of their lives. The results are usually tasty, but, hey, where is the distinctive flavour of the greens? 

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Camping Recipes - Paella + A Falcon Enamelware Giveaway (Closed)

I always look forward to our camping trips in the summer, and this year was no exception. My mum has been visiting from India, and we were definitely looking forward to heading back into Jasper, and I wanted to make sure that mum's first ever camping trip was going to be a success.

There is always friendly competition between Jasper and Banff National Parks - I must admit, I am firmly in the Jasper camp (no pun, honest.) I love the weird shapes of the Jasper mountains, and we are almost always guaranteed to see some beautiful wildlife. This year we were lucky enough to see elk, marmots, bighorn sheep and the best of all, a beautiful mama bear with two cubs. Adz, mom and I were thrilled to bits.

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Rajmah Chawal, Spiced Cucumber Sticks with Chaat Masala and Avocado Lassi

As you know, I also write and develop recipes over at The Kitchn. I thought I'd share what I've been up to in the last few months. These spiced cucumber sticks are an all time favourite street food in India. They are easy to put together, and are a healthy snack, with their hints of salty, tangy, spicy chaat masala. Make your own chaat masala or use store bought. Either way, you'll love them. 

 

Recipe: Spiced Cucumber Sticks with Chaat Masala

Recipe: Chaat Masala 

Avocado lassi - another all time favourite in our house. I grew up with avocado trees in my front garden, and I still blanch every time I pay a buck a fruit. Read all about my tropical childhood and check out this recipe that my mom used to make for us after school. 

 

Recipe: Avocado Lassi

My first recipe for The Kitchn was this classic Rajmah Chawal, or Red Kidney Bean Curry with Saffron Rice. This rustic dish is found everywhere in India, and its a filling, hearty dish, that is beloved everywhere. Its a staple in our household, as its easy to put together and also goes well with cous cous, bulgur wheat or plain rice.

 

Recipe: Rajmah Chawal  

 

Enjoy!

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Indian Street Food (and Drinks) - Saffron, Cardamom and Rosewater Lassi

There are a few things I miss about India. Having been back for close to four weeks now, Adz and I are slowly adjusting back to normal life... well, if normal life means dealing with early morning school runs, -42 C, layers and layers of clothes and frozen nose hair (yes, really!) February and March aren't usually this bad in Edmonton, but this year seems unusually harsh. Or maybe its just that we haven't managed to get used to the cold after the balmy tropical breezes of India.

So yes, missing the warmth is probably top of the list. And this...

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(Warm or Chilled) Roasted Red Pepper Soup

 I should have really titled this post 'Ottolenghi Battles the Blue Demons' :) It will become clear soon.

If you've been hanging out with me in recent times, both online and offline, you'll know that I have been struggling a little bit. I realised a few things in the last week or so. First, I completely forgot that it was my blog's sixth birthday last month. Things were so hectic, that it really just slipped my mind. So I decided to go back and look at some of my older posts, and to be honest, I was quite surprised at how far I've come along and how much I've grown as a blogger. For a small, personal blog, I am not doing badly at all. A lot of people visit this website every day, and they come from all over the world. A lot of people like The Tiffin Box on Facebook, and I love getting messages from them, everything from how to make a particular dish, to troubleshooting, to asking for new recipes or offering suggestions, to complimenting me on my work.

Ah, yes. The compliments. To be honest, I do not know how to deal with praise. I have my faults, and one of them is that I just can't take compliments gracefully. I'll always be self effacing and go... 'Oh, thanks, but its not me, its my camera, lens, blogger, cookbook, recipe source, mom, aunty', and so on. I feel like I don't deserve any praise because what I do here is ordinary, and there always better bloggers, photographers, writers, cooks, chefs and I am just a poor imitation of them. This inability to take any kind of credit for my own work has meant that I am almost always really hard on myself, and I have felt that I am not really accomplishing anything. My complete lack on confidence in myself is probably what led to my breakdown in the last few weeks, and I am not ashamed to say that I was not in a good place mentally or physically. And that reflected in my inability to focus, or write or photograph, or just be creative in the many ways I know I can.

Even as The Tiffin Box turns six years old, I have never stepped back, taken a good look at it and actually said, 'Hey, hang on, this is actually me doing all this work, this is me cooking good food, taking great pictures, writing, proofing, testing, learning, teaching... look at that, almost three hundred good recipes, that's not bad at all' 

I've just never done that. And maybe its time I did. Maybe its time I learned how to take those well meaning compliments with a smile and a 'thank you, I am happy you enjoyed that' instead of adding my usual 'it's not me' qualifier to the end. 

Today I read this over on Food Bloggers of Canada.

Then I (metaphorically, of course) kicked myself in the butt. I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself, and just take a moment to feel proud of everything I've accomplished here. I am going to feel proud of the fact that I am a good cook with good training and discipline, that I am a good photographer with an eye for styling and details, and I am also a good writer, with decent grammar and spelling. 

I am also a good wife, mother, sister, daughter and friend. I have great relationships with my family and friends, and they know and love me, and are proud of all that I have accomplished in my life. Instead of being my usual reticent self, I am going to be proud and say, I have come a long way. And I am going to take my passion for cooking, photographing and writing and develop it in different ways and I am going to have fun doing that.

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Indian Street Food - Vada Pav (Spicy Potato Patties in a Soft Roll) With Dry Garlic/ Chilli/ Coconut and Cilantro/ Mint Chutneys

Winter's here in earnest. Halloween was (thankfully) warm(ish), but come the first of November, the snow's started, and yesterday we had almost a foot of snow. Now I'll be the first to admit that winter is not my season... but then I am grateful that it didn't start early this year like last year, where it was so bitterly cold in October. Winter this year is also mitigated for me, as I count down the days when I am heading to India for Christmas with Adz. + 28 C has never sounded so good!

That said, I know I haven't posted for a few weeks here. For the first time in almost four years, I was really really sick. The flu's been around for a while, but I've never felt this sick in a long time. Its taken me almost two weeks to get back to normal, and I still have the odd twinge here and there along with a lingering tiredness which is incredibly frustrating. Add that, and a whole slew of other things, and its not been a great month one way or another. But thankfully, I am now feeling much better and normal service is resumed.

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Mushroom Pulao With Roasted Garlic (Handi Dhingri Ka Pulao)

So you probably all know about my friend, one Addie Raghavan, cheesemaking maestro, judgey... ahem, discerning food critic and all around amazing friend and moral support. Addie is currently judging, ahem... eating his way through Mumbai, though ostensibly he's there for work :) Every so often he posts some amazing looking picture on Instagram of his mom's (and his) cooking, at which point I drool, then curse his arse :)

The two pictures below that got me messaging him frantically for the recipe... he duly obliged and once I made this recipe, I totally knew why he was raving about it. This is an Addie's own recipe, just tweaked very little by yours truly. I actually have a traditional clay pot that my grandma used to cook curries in, and its got a rounded bottom, so I have a wok ring that worked as my diffuser. The clay pot worked perfectly as the perfect heat conductor and I covered it with foil which allowed the pulao to steam, like traditional pulaos should.

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Indian Classics - Paneer Muttar/ Matar (Indian Spiced Green Peas and Paneer Curry)

I have always wondered why some people like gardening more than others. What is it that makes people perfectly happy to grub around in the dirt, get excited when talking about the differences between sheep and cow manure, look anxiously at the black clouds, hoping against hope that hail won't wreck this season's vegetables, spend hours researching tomato plant rot, guard their trowels and tools jealously, and rarely want to go on vacation because the garden might suffer... 

Sounds familiar? These guys are the gardeners. I wrote a couple weeks ago about them in my post for the Canadian Food Experience Project. 

One of the reasons that Kay gardens is because his memories of his mother's garden. Every time he sees Adz picking and eating a pea pod, straight from the plant, he remembers his own days of eating sweet, fresh peas, straight from his mum's garden. And I have similar memories of eating produce from my mother's garden too, though, not peas. Okra and eggplants, perhaps.

But we did have a good harvest of peas this year, and I even managed to save some from Adz's grabby hands :)

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A Cherished Canadian Recipe - Thomas Crosby Muffins (Cheese (and Bacon) Breakfast Muffins)

So, a cherished Canadian recipe, eh?

It took me a while to think of one, to be honest. If there is one really cherished family recipe that I have, its my father-in-law's great aunt's good chocolate cake recipe. I don't know if I will ever post that one, to be perfectly honest. I am of the firm belief that there should always be a couple of 'secret' family recipes that need to be passed down through the generations, and this one, along with Grandma Horan's butter tarts are the ones that I will be passing down. I do email the recipes on occasion, if people ask nicely :)

My in-laws were here, visiting us, and as is our wont, MIL and I were sat down with a nice cup of tea (or coffee, depending on the time of the day and MIL's mood :)) and we were chatting away about anything and everything. The conversation steered towards recipes, in particular, family recipes, and I remembered the Canadian Food Experience Challenge for this month (a little late, but that seems to be my life at the moment) I asked her what her cherished recipe would be. And this led to a quite an interesting discussion, not just on recipes, but everything that makes Canada what it is, and the uniqueness of our blended heritage. I found it a really interesting and stimulating discussion, especially as a non-Canadian (albeit a  permanent resident) and an immigrant. My cherished family recipes usually come from my mother, as tends to be the case with young women, and they are all Indian. Does the fact that I cook fusion-style in Canada make them Canadian? The debate was an interesting one, and we both came to the conclusion that when it comes to recipes, food and cooking, we all bring some part of our heritage with us whenever we move and settle down somewhere else.

Canada, in particular, has been built on immigrant traditions, be it Ukrainian/ Eastern European, French, English, Caribbean, Chinese, Japanese or East Indian... and many more. If I had to look for a true 'Canadian' recipe, I would have to go back to Native traditions. So again, what should have been a simple theme, turned into another round of soul searching, and conflict, of worrying about my place in the world, and of being true to one's heritage, as opposed to blending in into a homogenous mass.

It also linked in with a post I saw about a Calgarian who saw his neighbours ritually slaughtering and roasting a goat in their backyard and got really upset about it. But he also posted about why immigrants should follow the 'culture' of the country they live in and leave any 'unsavoury' bits behind. This is how one poster put it - as he/ she says, bluntly 'When you come to Canada, there's only so much of your "culture" that we can tolerate. The rest needs to be checked at the border. Behave like a Canadian, and you'll be treated like one. Slaughter animals in your backyard ritual? Well don't be surprised when your friendly Canadian neighbor isn't too fond of having you in his neighborhood.' I wondered if this person has gone hunting that seems so important in the great Canadian tradition.

This obviously upset me, as Canada really is built on immigration and its these cultures that bring so much to the community. Suddenly its now all about emphasizing what the differences are, rather than getting along with each other. Its also ignoring some essential aspects of being Canadian and Canadian culture. How can one 'culture' be superior to another? Where is the famed Canadian tolerance? Are we really going to go the American way (generalising a bit here, I know) and live in fear of difference?

The whole story led to more soul searching for me about what really is Canadian culture... or even if there is any such thing. Obviously culture also includes food, and when it comes down to it, what really can be defined as Canadian food? I could just as easily claim that the food I cook is Canadian, just as on the flip side, my neighbour's food is not Canadian, but Ukrainian, and the ones on the other side cook English food, and the ones a few roads down cook Caribbean and Filipino. Food is just as political in this sense, as all those debates on multiculturalism and cultural homogeneity. And its a debate I keep having with myself, as I struggle to come to terms with my 'otherness' as people here see me, just as much as I see myself and my child as Canadian.

What is it like to be a Canadian after all? Are we not all Canadian, despite our heritage?  Should I forever be doomed to be seen as the 'other' just because of my skin colour? Is that British family next to ours more Canadian than me?

At this point I wondered if I should even be taking part in the Canadian Food Experience Project. After all, as an immigrant, for a lot of people it seems like the 'otherness' will always be there. Whether it is manifested in cooking Indian food, and writing a website that concentrates on my heritage, a niche, if you will, or the rest of my life, which is as solidly Canadian as you can get. I don't celebrate Indian festivals, I don't dress Indian, I rarely speak my native languages, I have all but lost touch with my roots. I am not even considering bringing my child up to be in touch with her mother's side of the world (this is a whole other debate in itself) The only thing about me that is even remotely Indian in any way is my skin colour and this website. Its my way of keeping my memories alive. But then I am told/ bombarded with messaged about how I should be more integrated into Canadian culture... a culture that has evolved by assimilating other cultures in itself. The assumption that I am different is killing me. My place in this country is hardly assured. It is easy to get caught up in my own difference, and these conflicting pieces of news/ media/ opinions were not helping.

But then I realised something else. That for every person that assumes a difference, there is another one who accepts. My wonderful family, for one. They have been Canadian for many generations,  going as far back as the second voyage of the Mayflower and the subsequent exodus to Canada. And to them, I am just me. Not an immigrant, not an Indian/ British person, not brown (or blue or green or yellow) just... me. And my friends here. And the people I work with, who come to me to learn about Indian cooking. My blogging community. Its no surprise that some of my popular posts are on Indian dishes. For every person who sees me as an interloper, there are hundreds, thousands others who accept me for who I am, who respect my diverse life experiences, and more importantly, love me. This is what keeps me going, and this is why I will continue to blog about my Canadian Food Experience Project.

After all that angst, though, the more practical, unsentimental food blogger/ sous chef side of me realised that all this drama wasn't going to get my post done on time. And in the end it was kinda easy to find my cherished Canadian recipe, seeing as I had already posted it anyway. I just had to rewrite it a little.

This recipe is my favourite for many reasons. Not just because these muffins are just out of this world good (hello... bacon??) but also because I love their quirky back story. My MIL gave me this recipe for cheese and bacon breakfast muffins quite a number of years ago. And she called them Thomas Crosby muffins. Both MIL and I figured that this has to be our Canadian recipe, not least because of its unique heritage, but also the copious amount of good old Canadian cheddar that goes into it.

Thomas Crosby was a missionary who worked primarily among the native Americans in the BC area of Canada. Legend has it he used to go by boat to the various hamlets, converting people and preaching to them. His big success was the conversion of the Tsimshian chief. The United Church, to which my in-laws belong, had a missionary boat that used to traverse up and down the coast. There were several of these boats, and the last one was the Thomas Crosby V. A lot of these small communities didn't have a resident minister and one of the tasks of the minister on board the missionary ships was to go into these villages and perform all the rituals associated with the religion. Officiate at a bunch of marriages, for example, christen a whole lot of babies, preach, help out with disputes, and then head on to the next place. One of our friends was a preacher, who still does similar work, except that he's bowed down to modern life and now flies in to the villages.

For a lot of people on the coast, including lighthouse communities, this boat was a lifeline and it was not just a religious boat, but also a source of information about what was going on in the mainland. It brought in supplies and provided communities with sustenance and also little luxuries. Simply put, it was their connection with the world.

So what does all this have to do with muffins, you ask! Nothing, really, its a quaint story :-) The reason my MIL calls these Thomas Crosby muffins is that when she went on the Thomas Crosby V Missionary Boat as a tourist, the lady that cooks for the boat had made these muffins as a welcome to their guests. MIL loved these and wanted to make them herself, so she persuaded the cook to hand over the recipe. And so a family favourite was born (er, baked!) and is handed down to this generation... story, angst and differences, all buried under tender, buttery, cheesy, bacony, muffiny goodness.

Recipe:
(Printable Recipe)

1 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 + ½ teaspoons baking soda (bicarb of soda)
1 cup buttermilk
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons margarine or soft butter
¾ cup rolled oats (normal oats)
1 cup grated (Canadian, if available) cheddar cheese
4 slices crispy bacon, crumbled (optional)
1 beaten egg

Method:

Preheat oven to 400 F (205 C)

Whisk in the 1 teaspoon baking soda into the buttermilk and set aside.

In a bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, salt and sugar. Rub in the soft butter/ margarine, until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.
 
Stir in the oats, cheese and bacon and mix well.

Stir the beaten egg into the buttermilk mixture, then gently fold the liquid into the flour mixture.

Drop heaped tablespoons of the mixture into a lined muffin tray. Place in the preheated oven and bake for about 15 - 20, until well risen and lightly golden.

Serve warm with butter. Makes about 12 – 15 based the size of your muffin tray.

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(Super Easy) Raspberry Ripple Ice Cream

I fell in love with making ice creams way back on one of my first trips to Canada. My father-in-law who is usually the inspiration for most of the ice creams on this blog, has a really old Donvier that he pulled out one year, and made an absolute smashing lime sorbet. Can you say hooked? Well, yeah. Hooked. 

Ever since then, one of my dreams on moving back to Canada has been to get my very own ice cream machine... and no sooner did I land in Edmonton, than I got myself my very own ice cream machine. And once I had it, I don't think I've ever bought ice cream again. Because, and you have to trust me on this one, there is nothing quite like homemade ice cream. Especially as a summer's hurrah!

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Grilled Padrón Peppers and Home Grown Heroes

'It all started with an eighty nine year old professor leaning on his shovel' - Maryanne. 

Heroes are very personal, when it comes to me. I have heroes, people I would go 'squeeeee' and faint if I met them, but they're not necessarily people I like to talk or write about... I am a little bit funny like that. I think even my husband would struggle to name a person who he considered my 'hero', both in the food world or otherwise, simply because I find it hard to articulate what it is about a person that I like and admire. Its easy enough to spout out names with the hopes that one or two 'click' but this was not what the challenge was all about for me. So, to be honest, I did think about maybe not taking part this time around. What changed my mind was that I had already missed one posting, as things were a bit manic in my world, and I didn't want to miss another one. Plus, as it is, I was already going to be late with this post too.

Once I took away the personal aspect of this topic, though, something did strike me. Who were the people, Canadian and otherwise, that I admired most when it comes to food, both the eating of and growing of it? Well, other than my mom and grandfather, who are kind of, not Canadian?

Well, those people who grow food. Not specifically farmers, though they are pretty admirable, but all those ordinary people who grow food in their back gardens. Not to blog, tweet or talk about it, but just for the sheer joy of watching things grow and sharing the bounties of harvest.

Well, I know people like that. And one of my favourite persons is the lovely Maryanne, who plants her own 'guerilla garden' as she likes to call it. This is community gardening, but not like we know it. This is just gardening, planting food for the fun of it, and for the pleasure that it brings.

I asked Maryanne how she got started with her 'guerilla garden', and she talked about how she had always wanted a garden while living in a condo. Amidst all this, she said she used to get together with a group, who worked in an set of offices, behind which was a patch of grass and hedges. The professor, in particular, kept mentioning how well tomatoes would do just up there, against the brickwork of the building. But, despite thinking about starting a garden there, she didn't particularly relish beginning the process. And then, fate took a turn, whereby part of the lawn was dug up for replacing pipes. Once that happened, the aforementioned eighty nine year old professor took it upon himself to hurry the process along, digging a giant trench for the tomatoes, and the rest, she says, is history. She recounts a funny story about the first garden year, where they decided to plant potatoes in straw bales... 'mouse heaven' says Maryanne. 'What were we thinking?' she recalls ruefully... thankfully, the lesson was learned, and there were no more mouse condos.

I found out about the garden from my husband, Kay, when we first moved to Edmonton and were living in a condo in Garneau. Kay lent a hand in getting the garden in shape one year, and we spent many days and evenings, just hanging about, sitting around a firepit and eating fresh, local produce that was all grown in the garden. It inspired a sense of camaraderie, that did a lot to ease my way into a new city and make new friends. 

The garden has been going along for a few years now. Maryanne points to a pair of scissors on a small table by the water hose. That pair of scissors is left there, so if anyone stumbles on the garden they are more than welcome to take a piece of it home... fancy some fresh, organic lettuce? Or some beans? Broccoli? Well, its all there to share. Its part of the magic of guerrilla gardening. Its what makes my food heroes special.

I am certainly not a gardener. That would be my husband, Kay, and my little girl Adz. As Adz poetically put it, 'dad is the grower, mum is the cooker'... gotcha in one. So I admire people that garden for the fun of it. They are my heroes. 

To celebrate home grown produce, I decided to share a simple recipe, but one that completely and utterly depends on the freshest produce. One of Kay's colleagues recently brought back Padrón pepper seeds, and Kay grew them in pots on the deck. We were lucky enough to get a whole bunch of peppers, and as we were told, all we did was douse them in some fresh olive oil, and grill them until the skins blistered. We then ate them, dunked in a titch of crystal, flaked sea salt, and all I can say is, this is what summer is all about. Sweet, salty heat, utterly moreish... so much so that Kay has now been told that there better be a lot more of these delicious little guys grown next summer. 

Apparently eating Padrón peppers has been likened to playing roulette. While the majority of the peppers are mild, with a light heat to them, 20% tend to be super hot. The only way to tell? Eat them. Now that sounds like my kind of roulette :) 

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Rooh Afza and Saffron Cardamom Macarons

I will hold my hand up here. I am terrible at piping, icing or decorating. My biggest achievements when it comes to doing any sort of measly decoration have been Aditi's (very easy) birthday cakes (its not like one can go wrong with Hello Kitty or Binoo) and the odd Christmas or Valentine's Day cookies. 

Its not like I am not a creative person. Its just that the majority of my creativity seems to be taken up with savoury food, ice creams, popsicles and easy cakes. Cuisine and desserts, of course, but that's a given. So when my very talented friend Lillian from Beyond Umami asked me if I'd like to learn how to make macarons, I was understandably apprehensive. But then she mentioned that she'd like to play with Indian flavours, at which I relaxed considerably. I can do Indian, and I can do flavour. We brainstormed a bit, and I asked her if she'd be interested in trying out a very classic South Asian flavoured syrup called Rooh Afza. Lil was intrigued, and so we settled on this first flavour.

Rooh Afza is a flavoured rose and herbal syrup from India and is well known all over the subcontinent as a cooler and flavoring for several classic Indian desserts and drinks like kulfi and falooda.

As a kid, we always had a botle of Rooh Afza in the fridge. It came into its own during the hot summers, where we would be out playing in the blazing hot sun all day, and whenever we were thirsty, we came in and drizzled some of this fragrant syrup into cold water and quenched our thirst. Rooh Afza is incredibly sweet, and a little goes a long way, so we would get constantly yelled at for pouring in lots of the syrup into our iced waters, and mum would threaten to take it away if we kept at it. And when I was a little more grown up, during my short stay in Bombay, I loved to hang out at small roadside halwai (sweetshops) that did some of the best Rooh Afza faloodas *more on those in another post.

Rooh Afza is very easy to source in Edmonton. Any desi grocer on 34 Ave will have boatloads of these bottles, and they are reasonably priced too. And like I said earlier, a little goes a long way, and the syrup never goes off, so if you like the flavour (and to be honest, it can be an acquired taste due to its flavour and super sweet taste) its worth getting a bottle. 

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Indian Classics - Traditional Potato and Peas Samosas

My favourite samosa memory is from my hometown, even though I've had über delicious ones when I've been away at university as well. My cousin Brad introduced me to this little chaat place just under a block of apartments close to home, called Vrindavan. They made some really good chaats and samosas. One of my favourite chaats from there was a 'ragda samosa' where there made and fried fresh samosas, which were then broken up and smothered in a curried pigeon pea or chickpea sauce called a ragda and sprinkled over with chopped onion, a sweet/ sour tamarind chutney, cilantro and spicy, fried chickpea noodles called sev. The whole experience is, and has always been, mindblowing to me, with all the textures and tasted melding together into an explosion of flavours. Every time I visit back home, this is one of my first foodie stops.

Of course, I would be doing the dhabas of Delhi a disservice if I didn't mention them when it comes to samosas, of course. JNU, where I was at residential university is widely considered to have some of the best dhabas or street eateries in Delhi (though I am sure other university students would disagree vehemently with me) and samosas used to be the fail safe option as we staggered out bleary eyed after pulling all-nighters at the library or in friends' rooms. Or even after a hard night's partying, haha. Samosas were my personal hangover cure at university, all that deep fried goodness and a hot, steaming cup of  masala chai... what's not to love about that cure? (OK, until I discovered the traditional British fry-up, but that's a story for another time) 

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