Vegetables

Potato Latkes, draining - TheMessyBaker.com I was going to make you guess what's in the photo above, but the post's headline gives it away. Darn you, Google, and your search engine demands. If you hover your cursor over the image, you will know, these golden fritters are potato latkes. I made a big batch after the recent potato-fueled food fight. I'd like to tell you this was culinary revenge, a well-thought out, two-pronged political move to advocate potato farmers while sticking it to the makers of Fake Food in a Canister. But to be honest, it was simply a quick way to satisfy my stomach. Thinking about potatoes all day left me  hungry -- for  potatoes. So, with little more than four medium spuds and an onion on hand, I cooked the only thing I could think of that used these ingredients. Latkes -- and lots of them -- was the result.
Fennel Salad with Maple Candied Pecans - TheMessyBaker.com [box type="info" style="rounded" border="full"] Update: Sorry. The contest is closed. However, the fennel salad recipe remains open to anyone willing to give it a try. [/box] As one of the world's most gullible people, I hate April Fool's Day.  Apparently watching me scramble for the binoculars is a hoot. And my reaction when I discover the rare bird at my feeder is actually stuffed? Priceless. But it's not only family who gets a rise out of me. Last year a respectable Ontario food centre had me believing locally-grown hot-house pineapples were this close to hitting the stores. While the fake bird was private, I outed my pineapple ignorance publicly on Twitter. So, this year, to be safe, I decided not to open my email, read the news or pop over to any of the social networking sites before noon. But April Fools found me anyway. I had written this blog post a month ago. Having arranged a special April Fool's giveaway, I was on top of things and just sitting pretty until March ended. But when I went to my computer, the file was gone. I have never inadvertently lost a post in all my years of blogging. I've had the server crash mid-composition, but never has a saved file gone AWOL. Until today.
You know you're getting old when St. Patrick's Day arrives and instead of wondering where you put your green belt and shamrock earrings, you make a mental note not to drive anywhere after 6 PM and place bets on how many drunks are going to stagger by at 3 AM singing Danny Boy at the top of their lungs. Whether you find this video achingly sentimental or innocently humorous will depend on how many green beers and whiskey shots you've had. Since I'm stone cold sober, I think it's pretty funny. But then again, they had me the moment the Swedish Chef bobbed on stage. In honour of St Patrick's day, I'm not wearing shamrocks, downing Guinness or posting a recipe for artificially green food. Instead, I'm typing with a delightful lilt and sharing a recipe for a food that's naturally emerald green and close to my heart. Beans. Gotta love 'em no matter what the calendar says.
It's not unusual for me to get excited over a cookbook. But every once in a while one resonates with me on so many levels that I just want to curl up on the couch, cradle it in my arms and stroke its pages. And The Kitchen Garden Cookbook is my latest crush. It's as if they made it just for me and my garden-loving, sun-deprived soul. The premise is simple. Develope seasonal recipes around the bounty you grow in your vegetable patch (and I swear, this year I'm planting one since my sister won't be setting up another wedding marquis that usurps the entire side yard). While the photos are enticing, and each recipes has handy quick tips on when to pick and how to eat, store, preserve or freeze, I  just love the way they think -- like a gardener. The recipes are organized by seasonal bounty, not by courses.
Yesterday was Family Day here in Ontario when everyone gets the day off to hang out with their loved ones. With yet another forecast snow storm threatening to turn what should be a laid back provincial holiday into a muscle-abusing Shovel Day, I decided to have family time Sunday night instead. Being the ever-considerate charm that I am, I chose a dish that would please everyone. My father likes Moroccan food, my mother enjoys any meal she doesn't have to cook, Andrew's all about the meat and I wanted something I could shove in the oven while I dashed to the gym. As luck would have it, a copy of Weeknight Fresh + Fast: Simple, Healthy Meals for Every Night of the Week by Kristine Kidd arrived just last week. I've never used a Williams-Sonoma cookbook before and wasn't sure if we'd agree on the definition of "fresh + fast." After all, when I go to one of their stores the kid in me wants three of everything and the adult in me wonders where I would store a bulky castle-shaped bundt cakes and even bulkier  $400 cake decorating machine. But the book delivers a wide range of practical recipes using items from any well-stocked grocery store. Sure, Kid Charmian whines about the tofu, but Adult Charmian points out that only 3 recipes in the entire book use this ingredient and if there are any more complaints there'll be no Castle Cake for dessert.
If you look at my recipes index it's hard to believe I used to do a lot of health writing. While I was supposed to be promoting a healthy lifestyle in others, opposing stats and studies nearly made me sick. One day I'd file an article declaring 7 cups of black coffee a day would ward off Type 2 diabetes, and wouldn't you know it? The next morning a press release landed in my inbox railing against the evils of caffeine. Does cinnamon really help you lose weight or is it just rat poison with a nice smell? The contradictions were endless. Black coffee, green tea, white vegetables. Everyone had a theory and it was making me crazy. Being somewhat gun shy, I hesitated to review Healing Spices: How to Use 50 Everyday and Exotic Spices to Boost Health and Beat Disease, by Bharat B. Aggarwal, PhD with Debora Yost. I wasn't sure I wanted to get back to the kind of thinking that vilified or canonized a particular ingredient. But being a Gemini, and just as contradictory as the studies I dreaded, the first thing I did was look up cocoa so I could write a long persuasive post justifying all the dessert recipes I create (and gobble). I wanted to convince you that, despite the whipped cream and butter, chocolate mousse wasn't just delicious, is was downright healthy. After all, according to studies, flavanol-loaded cocoa will:
It has been brought to my attention that I have been writing a bit too much about chocolate. As if there's such a thing. However, I don't want to give you a false impression of my eating habits, so I will change the topic (briefly) to non-chocolate things. Since woman cannot live by chocolate alone, I (occasionally) make other foods. In fact, I baked potatoes last week. See...
Today I get to spread more joy. I think I could get used to this. It makes me feel a tiny bit like Oprah -- you win an iSpice, and YOU win an iSpice, and YOU win an iSpice!  The only difference? Everyone was expecting a mass giveaway. And the winners don't have to pay the taxes on their prize. Oh, and you can't drive away in your brand new iSpice. But you can drive with one in your pocket, so that's pretty neat (only don't scroll spices while driving!) Although, it took a few clicks of the button at Random.org,  we have our 10 winners. Are you ready? A big congratulations to:

There is something subversively satisfying about finding a fried vegetable recipe in a healthy eating book. I was thumbing through Clean Start: Inspiring You to Eat Clean and Live Well with 100 New Clean Food Recipes by Terry Walters. Hidden somewhere between the longest title...

Carrot Orange Ginger Soup - TheMessyBaker.com I'm not psychic but something tells me that before the winter is over, my copy of Jeanelle Mitchell's For the Love of Soup is going to be dog-eared, grease-splattered and a fought over. Sorry extended family, but you'll have to get your own copy. I can't imagine being without mine for long. I first heard about this book more than a year ago from my beef-searing buddy, Heather Travis. One minute we were dissing salt-laden condensed soup, the next she was raving about a little recipe book I'd never heard of and begging me to find a copy. As luck would have it, Whitecap recently reissued the nearly decade-old title last month -- with a makeover to match its younger sister, For the Love of Salad. Like its older sibling, For the Love of Soup isn't a photo-rich, high-maintenance bombshell you drool over but abandon after a few dishes. Instead, this quietly pretty book is the kind you bring home to the family.