Spruce Trail

We tried a beer from the LCBO a while back that used spruce instead of hops! And it was meant to be drunk at room temperature. We really liked the taste and were very interested in the idea of brewing our own beer with spruce. We liked the idea of doing something a bit different and as an added bonus, hops are quite expensive and spruce is free since we have a HUGE spruce tree in front of our house.
We took some tips from the internet, especially this guy. You should only use the new tips in spring (luckily we decided to do this back in May, just in time to pick those tips) and you should use about half an ounce per gallon. And other than that, Kevin just made up his own recipe - very adventurous for such a newbie beer brewer. And we called our beer Spruce Trail.
So we made the beer and it seemed to work and we got to taste it last week. It is delicious. We tried it 3 ways: room temperature, cold, and in between. We both liked it best at room temperature just like the original. Kind of nice to have a beer you like to drink at room temperature, frees up some fridge space at least. But not such a great summer beer.
And with the spent grains this time I made chocolate chip cookies using this recipe. They turned out great, tasted like a healthier granola-y version of chocolate chip cookies.

Pie

I made a pie that I am so proud of that I just had to take pictures. And then what else would I do with the pictures but put them on my blog. I made a blueberry pie because Freshco had blueberries for $1 a pint and I went crazy and bought 4 pints. I used the pastry recipe from the book Vegan Bake Sale. It is by far the best pastry I have ever made but it was quite a bit of work so I think for my next pastry I will try following the recipe but skip a few steps and see how it turns out. And yes I really ought to buy a proper pie dish except I kind of like the idea of being known for my extra deep dish pies.I am most proud of my lattice crust, I almost didn't bother thinking it was too much work but it really wasn't and looks so good.

And with the extra pastry I made some little turnovers.
Some with raspberries from the garden:
And some with an old apple I found in the fridge:

4 year anniversary

Kevin and I celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary yesterday. We had a special evening at home with Henry.
First we made dinner together, enjoyed some spanakopita loaf (from the book Vegan Bake Sale) as an appetizer while we cooked.
We made our favourite cheeseless pizza which we haven't had in years since it is quite a bit of work. We like eggplant, mushrooms, and caramelized mushrooms on top of a sauce of diced tomatoes. We also added some fresh basil from the garden.
We had fun with Henry while we waited for it to cook.
Kevin made us some mojitos using mint from the garden.We had perfect weather for hanging out in the garden enjoying our special meal.Henry liked the pizza, well mostly the crust.We went for an evening stroll.
And when we came back we had my homemade ice cream with homemade caramel. The recipe was from the book The Vegan Scoop which I just got out from the library. This book is full of great vegan ice cream recipes, I want to try more for sure. The caramel was supposed to be mixed into the ice cream but both the ice cream and the caramel ended up too hard for that, it was actually quite difficult to eat them together at all. It is also great to be using our ice cream maker again, a wedding present that has sat unused for too long.

Vegan Hot Cross Buns

I made some hot cross buns the other day. They had previously been one of the few things I bought eggs for but this year I had to practice making an egg-free version as my strictly vegan sister will be visiting at Easter time. I just wasn't sure about subbing egg in yeast baking but from this experience it is just as easy as baking powder baking.

I used this recipe from Delia Smith, a very easy recipe that has turned out delicious every time I've made it. And it doesn't have too much kneading either. This time I subbed oil for the butter (those silly weight measurements that the British use tend to work out even better than volume measurements for subbing oil for butter) and subbed 2 TBSP soy yogurt for the egg. They turned out delicious, tasted just like last year's egg version.

And Henry is still walking all over the place, enjoying his new freedom. And I am still taking a million pictures every time because there's nothing cuter than a little baby walking all around town.

Dinner Rolls

I have a recommendation for a dinner roll. I made it as dinner rolls to go with an asian soup last week. (Because asian soup definitely doesn't go with my usual crusty loaf.) But I will definitely be trying it out as sandwich buns in the future - one of the few things that I still buy bread for. It is much softer than my usual bread and substantial but not too dense.

As you can see from the picture I just blindly followed the recipe and made 24 for some reason. So I have been popping the leftovers for snacks and also spreading some tinned salmon on them for lunches.

It is a really easy quick recipe with just a few minutes of kneading - just enough to make you think 'yes I really am making bread'. You can find the recipe on the Mother Huddle here.

A New Bread Recipe

I tried out a new bread recipe today, the main recipe from Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads. I had read that this book was the opposite of my usual book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day so I was just curious and got it from the library. It wasn't as much work as I thought it would be, it's all about a 'delayed fermentation process' so I started making the bread the day before I baked it but there wasn't too much kneading which is more important to me in terms of being easy/doable.

But the taste of my first loaf of bread from the book was just ok, less good in fact than the whole wheat loaf from the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day in my opinion. So now I know it's not the book for me and I appreciate even more my usual easy recipes.

Here are some cute things Henry was doing today.

Playing with my apple core.

Playing with his belly button. He's been very interested in mine for about a week, always poking his finger in there when I'm trying to nurse him. So the other day I showed him his. I put his finger there and he pokes around and laughs and smiles sometimes too! He doesn't look down to see it, guess he doesn't realize he can yet. Still no progress on learning to walk or talk but he is becoming a belly button expert at least.

Granola

We are big granola fans around here. I always make the same type, a recipe I adapted from one my mother in law gave me years ago. So when Soulemama gave hers on her blog in December I thought it might be time for a change. So we tried it. And it was pretty good. But mostly it made us realize how good our usual granola is and how we didn't want a change after all. So I thought I ought to post my recipe. I've posted it as a double recipe because it keeps so well, why wouldn't you make double.


GRANOLA

7 cups oats (old fashioned or quick oats, both work fine)

1 ½ cups walnuts, preferably chopped

1 cup unsweetened dried coconut

2/3 cup raw sunflower seeds

½ tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp nutmeg

½ cup oil, I use sunflower

¾ cup maple syrup

2 cups raisins or other dried fruit, my favourite is a mix of sultanas and dried apples

Preheat oven to 325 F

Mix all the ingredients together except for the fruit (I find mixing wet and dry separately unnecessary in this recipe)

Spread out onto jelly roll pans

Put one pan on middle shelf and one on shelf below

Bake for 8 minutes, switch the pans so that the other pan is on the lower shelf and then bake for another 8 minutes (until dry and a bit golden).

Add the fruit. Will store for weeks.

Healthy Toddler Seed Cookies

At 11 months Henry seems to think nursing is much too boring for him, at least during the day. As a result, he eats quite a bit of solid food and I am at the point where I have to think about his nutrition - oh no! At least he is not as picky as he was a month ago, he likes a lot of things but it is still sometimes hard to get him eating a significant quantity of something that is not fruit or grains. And he really likes to feed himself so even though he always likes my soy yogurt, sometimes he just refuses to be fed from a spoon. And he loves hummus but that involves either feeding from a spoon or letting him get super disgustingly messy feeding it to himself which is the route I usually go.

So I came up with this recipe for some cookies full of seeds for all their healthy protein-y calcium-y goodness.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup sesame seeds (find unhulled for maximum calcium)
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup flax seeds
1/2 cup oats
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp each cinnamon and ground ginger
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup oil
2 TBSP blackstrap molasses
3/4 cup apple sauce

Grind the seeds and oats in a dry blender or food processor. Mix with remaining dry ingredients. Then add in the wet ones and mix. Spoon out onto oiled cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes or until set and just a little brown on the bottom.


They turned out well. They taste ok to me, not something I would make for myself but Henry definitely liked them. They are a bit crumbly but I don't think I can avoid that without sacrificing the high seed to flour ratio.


I think the only changes I would make are to use ground up oats in place of all the flour, just because he eats plenty of wheat already, probably good to get a different grain. And I might use even more seeds even though that will probably make it even crumblier, maybe just more flax since flax seeds actually hold stuff together (make a great egg substitute) but I've wrecked muffins in the past with too much flax taste. And I think I will spring for coconut oil since it seems I am always reading that is the only healthy oil for cooking (sorry I couldn't find a more credible looking source but I know I have read it in credible sources too). Even though I try not to be cheap about food since it is such a huge part of life (between eating and cooking and how it affects your health) I usually think coconut oil is too expensive. But since these are for my little angel baby, I think I ought to buy some. I might be posting a version 2 sometime soon.


Here are some more photos of Henry enjoying his cookies ( I gave him 3 and he gobbled them up).

Thanksgiving and Oktoberfest

We had a very nice Thanksgiving weekend. Henry got to wear the lederhosen I made for him at our Oktoberfest Party on Saturday. We also enjoyed our homemade pretzels, beer nuts, saurkraut, and beer.



And we spent Sunday and Monday in Mississauga. Had a delicious turkey dinner on Sunday and went on lots of nice walks enjoying the fall colours. We went to 16 mile Creek in Oakville on Sunday and on Monday went to Forks of the Credit with a stop at the Cheltenham Badlands first to show Eliza ans Steve how cool they are.

16 mile Creek:
Cheltenham Badlands:

Forks of the Credit: