, ,

Standardby Julie6 Comments

We all seem to want more protein in the morning, don’t we? Without necessarily committing to bacon and eggs… or even to Greek yogurt or anything more substantial than something that can be grabbed and nibbled with coffee. I tend to like carby, sweet-ish things with my coffee, and I feel like biscotti has more potential then it’s often given credit for. It feels so 90s to me – those big glass jars of awkwardly long cookies, often dunked lengthwise in waxy chocolate, on the counters of coffee shops that were just starting to multiply. I think some people decided that biscotti should be hard, and as such let them sit out forever, hardening. But in my mind they should be crisp and not an effort to bite into without softening them first in your coffee.

7
Share
,

Standardby Julie8 Comments

With the launch of the new Best of Bridge Sunday Suppers book a couple weeks ago, I’ve been talking a lot on TV, radio and various interviews about the idea (and significance) of Sunday supper – of getting as many people as I can around the table for dinner to regroup and reconnect and get ready for the week. It’s an idea I always intend to get behind – to put out a standing invite for everyone, every Sunday forever – but haven’t quite managed to. This Sunday we cobbled together a quick sit-down around the table and although we could collectively only manage an hour between this and that, it did the trick. I feel like not enough people know beef short ribs, or recognize them in the grocery store – they’re short and square, unlike typical ribs, and are best braised (cooked low and slow) to break down the tough connective tissues. I often throw on a pot of beef short ribs whenContinue reading

10
Share

Standardby Julie4 Comments

I’ve been wanting to make these for years, since seeing them on Tara’s page. They come from The Art of Living According to Joe Beef by Frédéric Morin and David McMillian with Meredith Erickson – besides Joe Beef, they also own Liverpool House, where a certain pair of cool politicians went for dinner last week. I’ve never managed to go to either, but aspire to someday.

3
Share
,

Standardby Julie8 Comments

Apologies for the plain photo, but this is what real life looks like – W was hungry (OK, we all were), and to be honest I didn’t plan to share this until I got several requests on Instagram. People like sloppy lentils! It was a last minute, just-drove-home-from-Edmonton-and-rummaged-through-the-freezer dinner, with a small handful of red lentils thrown in to boost fibre and other good things. Dry split red lentils cook quickly and mask themselves perfectly, soaking up the sweet-vinegary flavours of sloppy Joe sauce – no one has a clue they’re there. (If you like, you could use canned brown lentils instead – they work just as well.)

5
Share
, ,

Standardby Julie14 Comments

You probably won’t be shocked to hear that I tend to use this space as my own personal recipe file, and it always surprises me when I look up something I make with some frequency and find it’s not here. Case in point: these nubbly, crunchy-edged scones, which are made with oats and – red lentils! Which turn a pale yellow as they’re cooked and mimic oats, blending right in as if they were meant to be there. If you don’t tell anyone they won’t even know – I promise. I brought some in to CBC this morning, and even though the topic was pulses, no one guessed they had lentils in them. Of course lentils are nutritional superheroes, bumping up protein and fibre like crazy – far more than whole grains do. And isn’t that what everyone wants for breakfast? A good dose of protein and fibre, but also something delicious you can nibble with your coffee?

4
Share
,

Standardby Julie40 Comments

It seems everyone is making baked oatmeal these days – or maybe just Molly and Jeanette (hi!) – but each time I see it I think – I should give that a try with red lentils. And so this morning when I woke up to grey, and (yet more) snow on the ground, watched the neighbour scrape ice off the car windshield, and had to return from the bathroom to retrieve wooly socks to protect my feet from an ice-cold floor, I grumpily decided that this might be the day to give it a go. When I wrote Spilling the Beans with my junior high school BFF Sue, baking possibilities opened up when she mentioned her habit of stirring a spoonful of lentils into her morning porridge to boost fibre and protein. Genius, I say. Those dry red lentils (they’re orange, really) are split through their middles, and when cooked, perfectly mimic oats. Only they’re far higher in fibre, and of course the bean-grain comboContinue reading

1
Share
,

Standardby Julie11 Comments

As I am still lacking time management skills, my plan to be home for dinner tonight failed miserably. Mike and W cooked a frozen Dr Oetker spinach pizza (amazing how much spinach is on these – and how much W will eat despite its obvious presence) and at about 6:30 pm I pulled over to get a coffee (up at 5:30am two mornings in a row and in bed well after midnight both nights) to keep me awake and a bagel to go with the chunk of cheese I had leftover from our last TV segment (I was on a foodstyling gig). I had pondered getting a cinnamon-raisin bagel – cheese sandwiches on raisin bread were a classic comfort food of my youth, and I still eat raisins and cheese together – but alas they had none. I survived.

0
Share
, ,

Standardby Julie10 Comments

Last weekend, I came across a recipe in the Guardian for a banana cake made with just the banana peels – an intriguing way to address food waste. I’ve made a *lot* of banana bread in my lifetime, and generally my strategy is to toss overripe bananas into the freezer whole, and then pull them out to thaw in a bowl when it’s time to bake. (If I’m in a hurry, I cover them with warm water to help them thaw more quickly.)

9
Share
, ,

Standardby Julie1 Comment

Oat milk has been gaining popularity in a big way, in part because so many formulations are made especially for baristas, with extra additions that help them foam and froth, and the slightly nutty, grainy flavour pairs well with coffee. We talked about the increasing number of options out there and tasted a few non-dairy milks on last week’s Eyeopener. But if you want to make your own oat milk, it’s easy: simply blend a 1:3 ratio of rolled (old-fashioned or quick) oats to cold water in a blender, add a pitted date (for a bit of sweetness that mimics the lactose in milk) and a pinch of salt if you like, blend for 20-30 seconds, and strain. Don’t let them soak, or your milk could get gummy — and the same thing can happen if you over-blend. Just put the oats and water in the blender and go. (Don’t try steel cut—they’re too hard to blend.) I like to double strain — pour itContinue reading

15
Share