BBM3 from Kristina

Early this week I received a wonderful package from Kristina of Clivia's Cuisine. What a shock! I thought that this BBM was confined to our neck of the woods. My package came all the way from Sweden and due to Kristina's careful packaging the contents arrived all in one piece. At this writing I already finished the Nut Tops she sent. They have very little flour and are almost an hazelnut macarron. Can't wait to try the recipe myself. Lussekatter are leavened saffron cakes and are delicious. I had them for breakfast, warmed in the oven and dripping with butter. Heavenly! Blåbärstryffel are wonderful white chocolate covered blueberry truffles and I'm enjoying them as I write this. Very rich, to be sampled slowly and enjoy the goodness. Rounding up the package she sent a Christmas tree ornament, a potholder decorated with a gingerbreadman, Pepparkakor (ginger cookies), Salt Lakrits and Polkagris, a salt licorice candycane (to die for) and mint candycane. I also got a package of Glöggkryddor, the special spices to make glögg (a Swedish mulled wine) and, last but not least, a jar a loganberry jam which Kristina says is essential in Swedish cuisine, being served with both savoury and sweet dishes.

Kristina also sent a beautiful letter telling me all about the Christmas traditions of her family, some postcards of her hometown and of of Stockholm and pictures of herself and her family and, of course, the recipes. Thank you Kristina for a lovely package.

Working on another house

One of these days people will ask me how come I have a cooking blog, since it looks like any construction job can get me away from the pots and pans in no time at all. My last post is dated almost a month ago. During this time I've tried to keep in touch and read and comment on my favourite blogs, as a way to let people know that I'm still breathing.

My son bought his first house, a nice house in a great location with "good bones" but in need of quite a bit of TLC. In the photo you do not see the jungle of vines that was hiding the front door. I wish we had taken a picture before we started the work. By this time I had cleared all the vines and was about to start painting the windows white. Although the windows themselves were white, the surrounding metal was black, as were all the doors. As it is, and since we can only work on the weekends, it was a bit of a race against time - once the temperature gets below 10ºC you cannot paint. We had some frustrating weekends full of rain but we lucked out in the last weekend of October. Mild weather allowed us to finish all the exterior repairs. There was much work my son did but I will not bore you with the details. Suffice to say we are now ready to start working inside. Here is viewew of the backyard before we cleared the weeds and mowed the lawn.

During this time I spent my weekends going up and down ladders either painting or sanding. By the end of the day me knees were killing me and I was so tired that either cooking or blogging was just too much work. Fortunately Loblaws, my favourite supermarket has an excellent selection of delicious prepared foods. I love their Vegetable Lasagna with 7 Cheeses, which is enough for six to eight servings, the Shepherd's Pie (they say it is enough for 4 people, but I liked it so much I had seconds), and the Moussaka.


Last week I made another pot of soup, this one losely based on Clotilde's Une Simple Soupe. I had it several times with a fat slice of organic bread and some unsalted butter. This recipe of hers was the first recipe I ever tried when I first discovered the blogosphere back in December of last year. I tried her soup recipe and was hooked on Clotilde's blog and her recipes. The rest, as they say, is history.

Chickpea Spinach Soup

Sopa de grão com espinafres (chickpea and spinach soup) is one of my favourite Portuguese soups. Full-bodied and satisfying I make it often once the weather turns colder.

When I make this soup I always make a large quantity because it freezes so well. When the weather is cold and you come home after a long day at work, it is nice to just take a portion out of the freezer, nuke it in the microwave for 5 to 6 minutes depending on the quantity, and presto! A wonderfully satisfying bowl of hot soup that will warm your body and soul. Many times, this soup a melted cheese sandwich and some fruit is all I will need for supper.

In this recipe I used potatoes. When I was following Atkins I made this soup without them and actually I prefer it that way. The chickpea flavour is much more pronounced. So, in the recipe below, feel free to leave the potatoes out.



Chickpea and Spinach Soup

1 lb dried chickpeas (about 420 gr.)
2 medium potatoes, quartered (optional)
2 large cloves garlic
2 medium onions, quartered
10 oz. spinach, fresh or frozen
2 cubes chicken buillon (optional)
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Soak the dried chickpeas in three times their volume of water for about 8 to 10 hours.

Drain the chickpeas, rinse with fresh water and put them in the soup pot. Add the quartered potatoes, quartered onion, and whole garlic cloves. Add water to cover or, if you prefer, chicken broth. If you use broth, leave out the buillon. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and let simmer for about 2 hours or until the chickpeas are tender. Remove from the heat.

Remove about 1 1/2 cups of chickpeas and set aside. Now using a hand blender, blend your soup until you have a creamy puré. Add more liquid if necessary. Bring the soup into a boil again and add the spinach and the olive oil. Let cook for about 10 to 15 minutes until the spinach cooks through.

Correct the seasoning, add the reserved chickpeas and serve.

The Index

I finally spent some time creating an index for my blog. You can see on the right, a button that will take you to the Index and also another button HOME, to get you to the main page, a feature that has not been available since I created my banner.

Once on the index page, on the right, you will find the different categories. Click on each one to go directly to that page.

Marlborough Pie

I had two cups of homemade applesauce languashing in the fridge. I took it out of the freezer about a week ago but can't remember what exactly was I planning to do with it. So a search into my "Cooking Light" electronic recipe book brought me this.

Since this is "Cooking Light," the recipe has low-fat/low-cal ingredients for the sake of saving calories. Mostly I ignored; I used wheeping cream instead of the evaporated skim milk which I detest, and I used unsalted butter instead of calorie-reduced margarine. The pastry recipe however was interesting and I followed it to the letter. I had never heard of making a paste with water and flour in order to add it to the flour and butter mixture, but I actually had less trouble mixing it in.

I rolled the pastry between two sheets of parchment paper. The recipe recommends plastic wrap but my plastic wrap was not wide enough. The pastry was not easy to roll as the parchment paper kept creasing underneath. Eventually I got a weel of pastry large enough for my pan. The remaining of the recipe went smoothly as per instructions and the pie behaved as the recipe said it would.

The pie also passed the taste test with flying colours. The pastry was tough, especially at the border, but the filling was heavenly. The next time I will use regular pastry.


From Coking Light Magazine, September 1997

Marlborough Pie

1 cup all-purpose flour, divided
3 1/2 tablespoons ice-water
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons vegetable shortening
2 cups sweetened applesauce
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup evaporated skim milk (I used whipping cream)
2 tablespoons reduced-calorie margarine (I used unsalted butter)
2 tablespoons lemon juice (I used lime juice--did not have lemons)
2 tablespoons cream sherry (I used vintage Port)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I made a mistake and used 1 teaspoon)
1/4 teasppon ground nutmeg
2 large eggs

Preheat oven to 400º.

Combine 1/4 cup flour and ice water; stir with a whisk until well-blended. Set aside. Combine 3/4 cup flour, 1 teaspoon sugar, and salt in a bowl; cut in shortening with a pastry blender or 2 knives until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add ice water mixture; mix with a fork until flour mixture is moist. Gently press mixture into a 4-inch circle on heavy-duty plastic wrap; cover with additional plastic wrap. Roll dough, still covered, into an 11-inch circle; chill for 10 minutes or until plastic can be easily removed.

Remove top sheet of plastic; fit dough, uncovered side down, into a 9- inch pie plate coated with cooking spray. Remove bottom sheet of plastic. Fold edges under; flute. Pierce bottom and sides of dough with a fork. Bake at 400º for 8 minutes; cool on a wire rack.

Combine applesauce and remaining ingredients in a bowl, and stir well with a whisk. Pour into prepared crust; bake at 400º for 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 325º; bake an additional 55 minutes or until filling is set. Cool completely on a wire rack.

This recipe makes 8 servings.

Per serving (original version): 247 calories, 1 gr. fibre and 8 gr. fat, Weight Watchers: 5 points

Per serving (my version): 286 calories, 1 gram fibre and 13 gr. fat, Weight Watchers: 7 points

The Kitchen Meme

This meme was created by Cenzina, from Rome Italy. In her blog il cavoletto di Bruxelles, you can read about what gave her the idea of creating this meme.

She says: "So, as I was saying in the Italian version , it's raining, it's cold, so why not have a little fun: five questions about your kitchen, a place where you're presumed to spend quite a bit of time..."

For this meme, I have been tagged by Elvira, from Tasca da Elvira, a wonderful blog chockfull of delicious Portuguese recipes.

1) Show us your kitchen (a picture) and tell us what is it about this place that reflects your own personality.

This is a picture of my kitchen, the only place in my house that is more or less renovated. There are final touches missing, and the floor will be redone(I'm thinking in linoleum), but basically this is it. Probably this Winter I'm also planning to enroll in those ceramic making places that let you purchase prepared objects, you paint with ceramic paints and then they fire them. I'm planning to make copies of 17th century Portuguese tiles to put in the backsplash. Colours are blue and yellow. You can see here and here some tile arrangements that I am considering. This picture of the kitchen was taken yesterday night and I was making Marlborough Pie, which will show up in this blog sometime later. Here is another view, seen from the dining room. Notice that I have not yet started plastering the sheetrock joints in the dining room. How does this kitchen reflect me? Well, I like things close at hand so my counters will always have stuff in there, even if I know that everything in its proper place would look much better.

2) Open a cupboard (the one you feel to open), take a picture and tell us what we see.

I do not have a cupboard yet, so I can only show the pantry. What's inside, are everyday staples: flour, sugar, cereal, baking chocolate, canned tuna and salmon, sardines, tissue paper, you name it. I also have an old-fashioned oak kitchen cupboard with marble top. It is presently in the dining room and I keep some of my serving dishes there. On top of the marble top there is another marble stone, which I use when making and kneading bread. In my old house this marble stone was always available since my kitchen was bigger. Here, I know that one day it will be stored in the kitchen but right now is has plants on top. Sigh!

3) Present us your favorite kitchen-based electric tool.
The electric kitchen gadget that I use the most is probably the hand blender. I also have a countertop blender, but the idea that I have to wash it after use makes me choose the hand blender 80% of the time. Same with other tools. I have a Sunbeam mixer but I end up using my handmixer most of the times. Another gadget I really like is my kitchen scale. It measures both pounds and kilos and I would be lost without it.

4) Take out the ingredients you like the most, the ones you always keep stored.
These would be Portuguese sardines in olive oil, organic whole wheat bread flour, dried chickpeas, canned tuna and salmon in water, and Nestlé Rich Blend Instant coffee. There might be others, but these I always have.

5) My little steel friend: present us to your favorite cooking/baking recipient.

My pans are my favourite baking recipients. You have all seen the foods I bake in them. The loaf pan is steel but unfortunately the ring pan is aluminum. If I ever find one like that in steel I will purchase it.

And I tag Lyn, from LexCulinaria and I hope she has the time to do it and has not been tagged by anyone else.

Shrimp Avocado Salad

Dieting or mostly thinking that I should really go on a diet, has been a constant since I was a teenager. I cannot say that I've tried all the diets I know of (I do not count those I tried and could not go past the second or third day), but I've tried Weight Watchers and Atkins with some success. I managed to follow Somersize for a couple of months, the Schwarzbein Principle and the South Beach sound like too much work. On the positive side, all diets have some dishes that are so good that you keep making them even after you ditched the diet.

For Weight Watchers it was the applesauce and fat-free cottage cheese sprinkled with cinnamon. I still love it and make it often. Basically you add 1/4 cup of unsweetened applesauce (if you make your own using sweet apples, you can still call it unsweetened even if it tastes sweet), 1/3 cup fat-free cottage cheese, mix the whole think, sprinkle with cinnamon et voilá! A tasty low-cal desert.

Today's salad is one that I concotted when I did my stint into Atkins. True you loose weight fast on that diet, but I'm a carb girl and living without bread, and muffins, and bagels, was not fun. I tried the low-carb flours which are basically a mixture of soy flour and some gluten but it was not the same thing. So another diet went by the wayside and, as expected, when I went back to my old stapples I put back all the weight I had lost, plus some. Well, that's life I guess!

But this salad is delicious, great to take to work and I make it time and again. It is very satisfying. With a piece of fruit you have a good and healthy lunch.


For this salad I usually purchase one of those packaged 250 gr. rings of shrimp. They are very flavourful, you only need to shell the tails, and they are usually cheap. I get several boxes when they are on sale, for about $2.99 or $3.99 per package. Considering that our cafeteria charges $5.75 for a platter with about the same portion of food, this is a good price indeed.

Shrimp Avocado Salad

1 shrimp ring (about 250 gr. / 10 oz.)
1 avocado
6 brazil nuts, cut up
1 tablespoon vinaigrette (recipe follows)

Peel and dice the avocado, put the shrimp on top and the cut up brazil nuts. The nuts give this salad a crunch that I do very much love. Add the vinaigrette, mix lightly and cover. I add the vinaigrette right in the morning when I make the salad. There is no green to wilt and the flavours have time to meld.

Vinaigrette

1/3 cup roasted garlic olive oil
1/2 cup cold-pressed extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
2 teaspoons mixed dried herbs or 2 tablespoons finelly chopped fresh herbs

Mix all the ingredients in a jar. Give it a shake before using.

I usually use dry oregano and thyme or fresh lemon thyme and basil. These are my favourite herb combinations.

23/5 Meme

I was tagged by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen for the 23/5 Meme. The way it works is you go to your 23rd post, find the 5th sentence, and then ponder a little and write about it on your blog.

My 23rd post was the recipe Gnocchi with Red Pepper Sauce, one of my favourites, and the 5th sentence read:

It is an easy recipe to make, very filling and the intense flavour of the red pepper in the sauce is just scrumptious.

I absolutely stand by what I wrote in that post. It is even better if you make the gnocchi from scratch, which I did not do at that time. Actually, I'm getting somewhat lazy when it comes to gnocchi. I can find wonderful fresh gnocchi in a small Italian shop close to where I work and it is very easy for me to just go and buy them instead of going through the trouble of making them.

Maybe one of these days I'll make gnocchi from scratch again.

Rhubarb Cornmeal Cake

I've had this post semi-prepared for such a long while and I think it is about time I finish it and publish it. Yesterday I finally ate the last slice of this cake, which I've kept in the freezer, wrapped individually in parchment paper and then aluminum foil. Still full of flavour and moist like it was when I baked it, maybe by the end of July.

From a recipe by Nigella Lawson in How to be a Domestic Goddess, this wonderful cake was published by Angela, of A Spoonful of Sugar, in her entry of May 1st, 2004. The picture looked so scrumptious and I happen to love just about everything with cornmeal in it so I knew I had to try the cake. I was not disappointed. I warn you that it is very easy to overeat, so be prepared to either share it with friends or freeze it. Fortunately, it freezes very well, as I was able to prove yesterday. The recipe makes a fairly large cake and even if I gave half to a friend, I still managed to freeze seven good-sized portions.

In the picture above I ate it while warm, "a la mode", meaning with vanilla ice-cream. It was good but I actually prefer it on its own.

Toaster Oat Bread

Today I tried one of Kelli's bread recipes. This is a quick bread, full of fiber and it tastes delicious. I followed Kelli's recipe almost to the letter. The only difference is the buttermilk I used, because I had it, instead of milk and lemon juice.

This bread is dense and very flavourful. I calculated 16 slices and it does give me 104 cals., 5gr. of protein, 1 gr, of fat, and 3 gr. fibre per slice. Kelli says that its flavour is enhanced by toasting. I've already ate almost half of it and I did not toast it. It is delicious with butter and jam. Now I have to try the toasting.

WCB # 13 - Ms. Beije does not like the camera

Ms. Beije having trouble with the flash from the camera. I tried to take another photo, but she decided to beat a hasty retreat. She really has little patience for my photography efforts.

Hurricane Katrina Fundraiser: Pistachio Fruit Delight

I'm not very familiar with Southern food, except maybe having heard of Southern Fried Chicken and Blackened Fried Fish. The cuisine of Louisianna seems to include a lot of hot food, which I shy away from. However, I wanted very much to contribute to Amy's event in any way I could.

Browsing my recipe box, I found this recipe that I had copied from one of those church fundraiser cookbooks. The little blurb said that this was a Southern recipe although it did not specify where from. This is a typical 70's recipe all made out of canned ingredients but it is one of my favourites. This is one instance in which I don't care if the ingredients are not "natural." It has to be "good for you," because it is just plain good.

Please join Amy's Hurricane Katrina Fundraiser and/or click the Red Cross banner above to donate. Thank you.



Pistachio Fruit Delight

1 package Jello instant pudding, pistachio flavour
1 cup milk
1 19 oz can crushed pineapple in juice, drained
2 cups miniature marshmallows
1 large container of Cool Whip

Mix the pudding and milk and let thicken. Add the drained crushed pineapple, marshmallows, and Cool Whip. Mix until well blended.

Transfer into a large glass bowl to serve, or divide into individual containers. Makes 13 1/2 cup portions.

Blog Day 2005

I just found out today that August 31st is Blog Day. The brainchild of Nir Ofir of Sparkarmada the idea that August 31st should be Blog Day was born out of the fact that "3108" looks similar to "blog". Today we are asked to link to five blogs that are distinctly different from our own, in the interest of promoting traffic.

Foto Ben
Foto Ben is the blog of Benjamim Fonseca e Silva, a young professional photographer in Lisbon, Portugal. He started his blog in April 2005 and publishes a photo a day. His photos are very artistic and a pleasure to look at. He shows us aspects of Lisbon and its inhabitants that I had not seen before.

Vitriolica Webb's ite
Vit'n'Madge is a graphics artist. A Brit married to a Portuguese she lives in a small town south of Lisbon. Fluent in both the spoken and written language of her adopted country, Vit draws and rambles about the idiosyncrasies of life in Portugal and of the Portuguese people. Winner of "Big Blogger 2005" this blog is one of my daily musts.

One Whole Clove
Let me introduce to you Lou Plant, fellow Ottawan. Lou started her food blog this month but she writes like a pro and her pictures are excellent. Definitely worth a visit.

Enon Hall:
In 1999 William Hathaway Chapman bought sight-unseen the ancestral home of the Virginia Hathaways, which had been in his family from 1762 until 1939. The restoration of the house and grounds has been a labour of love for Bill and his family. Although not a real blog, the journal feature which Bill updates regularly, makes it look like one. I highly recommend that you peruse the weekly account of this historically faithful restoration. It has plenty of photos and is a pleasure to read.

We are also asked to include this code in our post so everyone can be updated by visiting this link in technorati, BlogDay2005. So here it is.

WCB # 12 - Ms. Beije

Good morning everybody. My name is Ms. Beije and my human pet finally got around taking one decent picture of me. Now I don't necessarily have the patience to pose for her and to do it on her own time, but you know how finicky humans can be so I humoured her. Besides she is been sick the poor dear (big feline sigh here).

Hopefully you will be seeing some more of me from now on. I've been in this family for 10 years now and this is our second house. The renovation is somewhat of a bother but Ana seems to enjoy it so I play along. What the heck, let's keep the peace in the family.

I love to go outside and Ana has some mature trees and wild corners in her property. This is heaven. There are squirrels around that I love to chase, to my utter enjoyment. I think that they like it too, since I'm careful and made a point of never catching one. Wouldn't know what to do with it if I did, they are not that tasty anyway. When we moved in I was able to find some mice but haven't seen one in ages. Ana likes to plant flowers and clear up spaces so the mice population must have moved somewhere else. It's a bother since they were fat and good, but then I'm not getting any younger so I guess what's in the food bowl is it.

Tata and see you next time!

Roasted Zucchini with Feta Cheese

When I was flat on my back, many times I though of all the vegetables I had languishing in my fridge. That Saturday, I had purchased quite a good quantity of beautiful fresh vegetables at the Parkdale Farmer's Market. Little did I know I would not have much time to dedicate to them. Some, sadly, got lost. But since the vegetables had been picked that very morning the day I bought them, some lasted what I consider an unusual long time. Like the zucchini and green onions above.

As soon as I was able to stay on my feet for more than fifteen minutes I decided to try Lex Culinaria's recipe of Feta and Dill Baked Mushrooms. I even had in the fridge 2 punnets (16 oz) of regular button mushrooms, and figured that half her recipe would be enough for one or two complete meals for me. Who was I kidding? I ate the whole hog for supper. But man, are they good mushrooms!

I am not going to reproduce the recipe here since I followed hers not to a capital "T" but at least to a small "t". I did not add dill because I had forgotten to purchase it and I did forget to add the lemon juice, even though I had lemons at home. Only when the mushrooms were half-baked did I come to the desk to check the recipe on the computer and noticed the lemon juice. Honestly, I did not miss it.

Four days later, feeling a little better, I decided to do something with the yellow and green zucchini's I had purchased. They were still firm but I was afraid would not be like that for too long. In the fridge I also had 2 bunches of green onions. The green leaves were going but the white portion was firm and good. Those mushrooms were still fresh in my mind so I decided to use the same recipe for the zucchini and green onions. Again, I did not use either lemon juice or dill. Why mess with perfection? Unfortunately I did have about 1 cup of feta cheese left. For the quantity of vegetables it would have been better to use about one-and-a-half cups of feta. I have added the right amount in the recipe below.

Roasted Zucchini with Green Onions and Feta Cheese

4 medium green zucchini
2 yellow green zucchini
2 bunches green onions
6 cloves garlic
2 teaspoons sea-salt, or more to taste
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/2 cups feta cheese, crumbled

Wash and cut zucchinis in the middle and then each piece into four lenghtwise. Clean the green onions and slice into about 1/2-inch slices. Put into a square pan.

In a mortar mash peeled garlic and salt until all the cloves are roughly mashed. Add the olive oil and mix well. Drop the oil mixture over the vegetables and mix well with a wooden spoon until it covers all the vegetables. Por over the crumbled feta cheese.

Put the pan into a 350F oven and bake, uncovered, for about 30 minutes or until the vegetables are tender. Mix the vegetable-cheese mixture once or twice while it is baking.

Enjoy.

Backyard bounty

It is fitting that I should start my blogging activities showing off two beautiful cucumbers I picked from my backyard, some two weeks ago. You cannot get any more local than this.

I had the pleasure to eat my first backyard cucumber just sliced very fine, skin on, and seasoned with nothing but salt. They tasted divine.

The so-called "grape tomatoes" plants grew huge and the wire loops I bought at the store were simply not strong enough. The tomato plants are a mess of long limbs all over each other. I am going to put some stronger stakes in the ground and hope I can tie some of the branches to it. Certainly a learning lesson for next year.

Having said that, the "grape" tomatoes are growing to look more like cherry tomatoes and although both plants have lots they are still green. Hopefully, in a week I will have some grape/cherry tomatoes for my very local organic salad.

Blogging hiatus due to pinched nerve

Two weekends ago I had some "destruction" around my house, in preparation for some more upgrades. It so happens that this beautiful bungalow of mine, having started its life as a summer cottage in 1937, does not have a vapour barrier. The mold problem this house had, when it had aluminun siding, was caused by this lack of a vapour barrier, which allowed the hot humid air to go through the walls, find the aluminum, condense and be trapped there. Over the years, a bad case of mold was the result. When I bought this little gem in 2000, I knew I was in for serious renovation. Getting rid of the aluminum siding was the first step and it got rid of the mold, since the house was able to breath again.

What I'm doing now is strip the outer walls one at a time and putting in new insulation, vapour barrier, sheetrock, etc. Replacing the windows is done at this time too. So the living room was what I worked on this time. My kids helped with the destruction part however, somehow, during the clean-up part (ever noticed that kids disappear for clean-up?) I must have overdone something which resulted in a pinched sciatic nerve. So I've spent about 4 days flat on my back and it took the remaining of the time to very slowly and painfully get back on my feet.

To stand or sit for long periods of time is still both painful and unadvisable and so I have been unable both to cook a lot or to blog about it. I have been trying to keep up with what everybody else posts and to write some comments too, but that's the extent of what I am able to do right now.

Unfortunately I will have to miss many of the events going on. As I get better, hopefully I'll get into the swing of things again. And yes, I'm living in the house as its being renovated. Not always fun!

5 Childhood Food Memories - yet another Meme!

This meme, sent to me by both Tarzile, from Quebec and Elvira of Tasca da Elvira (Elvira's Pub). Tarzile has a beautiful blog that features many French-Canadian recipes. It is definitely worth a visit. Elvira was born in Portugal, raised in France and returned to Portugal to live permanently not long ago. She is a journalist and her beautiful blog, written in French, has wonderful Portuguese recipes and photos of Portugal. Many times I browse Elvira's blog just to look at the pictures and remember.

And memories is what this meme is all about. It asks for five food-related things you miss from your childhood. It did not take me long to compile this list and thinking about each one of them brings back memories of the flavours and smells of my childhood.

^1.

Sweetsop/annona: When I was a little girl in Mozambique, no matter where we moved to there was always one or two of these trees in our backyard. The trees do not grow very tall and some of its branches are low, making it easy for us kids to reach up and pluck this most delicious fruit. They become mushy when ripe and do not travel easy. One day, some seven or eight years ago I found one small basket of sweetsops for sale in one of the Asian markets in our Chinatown. I paid $2.50 for a lonely smallish fruit which was flavourless, a clear sign that it had been picked green and ripened under duress.

^2.

Young coconuts: Are another tropical delicacy I miss very much. Its flesh sweet and soft is eaten with a spoon. I do love coconut and many times, when my supermarket gets a fresh batch I purchase one, open its "eyes" to remove the water and then peel it and keep it in the fridge to much on as a snack. Alas, what I get here is not young, but fully mature fresh coconuts. While researching for photos for this post I found out that Melissa from California does sell a package of 3 young coconuts for $US26.90, not including postage. Mmmm! Pretty steep, and I wonder if it is worth it.

^3.

Whole cashew nuts roasted on an open fire: As I've had opportunity to mention here before, my maternal grandparents had a farm in the north of Mozambique, where I spent many wonderful times. In the farm there were all kinds of tropical fruit trees native to the place (papaya, banana, mango, sweetsop), and some others planted by my grandfather (mostly lemon, orange, and grapefruit). The place also had plenty of huge cashew trees, that must have been almost a hundred years old, or seemed so to me. The cashew-nut, a bean-shaped nut at the end of the fruit, is covered by a thick meaty cover. It was not advisable to try and cut open this cover because the oils would "burn" your skin. These nuts were roasted over coals until blackened at which time they could be opened to retrieve the meat inside. The cashews were unevenly roasted. Some areas were a little burnt some quite pale, but the flavour was incomparable. The commercially available cashews do not even come close.

^4.

Beach Clam Stew: Beaches in Angola and Mozambique, if you lived far away from the main ports, were big expanses of white sand and clear water uncluttered by civilization. On Sundays, we would go to the beach and for lunch we carried a big pot where the cook had put olive oil, lots of chopped onion and garlic and some chopped tomatoes. We also carried some fresh bread and, of course, drinks. Pick the clams was easy. Every wave that splashed on the beach seem to bring tons and we easily picked them up as they tried to bury themselves in the sand. As we picked them, we dropped them in a big pail of salt water. Close to lunch hour a fire was lit using wood foraged from the vicinity and some rocks to support the big pot. After the onions were translucent the clams were taken from the water pail and dropped into the pot just to open. In about 5 to 8 minutes lunch was ready and we all dove in eating the clams with our hands and sopping the bread on the flavourful broth. Divine!

^5.

Chicken Piri-piri at grandma Adelina's: Chicken piri-piri is a typical dish of Africa. It is nothing but a whole cleaned chicken opened in the middle and flattened, seasoned with hot chillies and cooked over the coals. It probably was being cooked this way by the native people's of Africa when the Portuguese navigators dropped in around the 1500's; and it could be that our best contribution was the copious amounts of garlic we added to the basting sauce. At my grandmother's farm, chicken piri-piri was always cooked over the coals outside in the backyard. Grandma's marinade/basting sauce was simple: garlic, salt, lots of piri-piri (African hot peppers) the whole thing mashed in the mortar, then add olive oil and rub the whole bird with it. Put the "butterflied" (split the down the center enough to allow it to lie flat, but without cutting it into two pieces) chiken on a rack over the coals, high enough that it will cook slowly. Keep basting with the marinade, as you turn the chicken. It was to cry over, literally... sometimes the basting sauce had one hot-pepper too many for my taste.

Now, how this meme works:Choose four bloggers to tag (none of whom are obligated to take part):
1. Elizabeth of Blog from our Kitchen
2. Michelle of Oswego Tea
3. Ruth of Once upon a Feast
4. Dawna of Always in the Kitchen

Now, remove the blog at #1 from the following list and bump every one up one place; add your blog's name in the #5 spot; link to each of the other blogs for the desired effect.
1 - Becks & Posh
2 - Clea Cuisine
3 - Station Gourmande
4 - Tasca da Elvira / Tarzile.com
5 - Pumpkin Pie Bungalow

Grape vines, cucumbers and tomatoes

Here is a glimpse of my very small vegetable garden. In the photo above you can see one of my grape vines. I've planted two, on opposite sides of the deck and last weekend I spent sometime pinning horizontal wires to the deck side. It seems that the vines prefer to expand horizontally. I had assumed the vines would climb the vertical wood banisters but they were instead moving into the deck itself. Hopefully the horizontal wires will keep them in the right path.

This year I did not have the time to propare the plots as necessary so my vegetable garden, besides herbs has two grape tomato plants and one cucumber. I just had to take a picture at the little tomatoes growing. I expect them to redden soon, as they are not supposed to grow big.

Here is the cucumber plant and the little cucumbers growing. Soon I will be able to make myself a salad with produce from my garden.

Granola, finally!

I've been wanting to make my own granola since I saw Michelle's Taste Canada entry featuring maple granola. I do love granola and I find that the purchased variety sometimes leaves a lot to be desired. Too much sugar, too little fruit and even less nuts always leaft me somewhat disenchanted.

I always thought that making granola was difficult. Don't ask me why because just by reading the recipe one can see that it is not, however something always made me uneasy about it...until I read Michelle's recipe and did feel a crave to make my own that I could resist no more. Other of my favourite bloggers have made granola and I've checked Heidi's Honey-toasted fruit muesli, Niki's Granola?, and Tarzile's Granola maison à la noix de coco. In the end, I opted for following Michelle's recipe. All the other recipes looked very good but Michelle's used less ingredients, all of which I happened to have on hand or had a good substitute for.

In my rendition of the recipe I've increased the amount of oats in an effort to reduce the sugar and fat, and then I've doubled the portion of almonds and raisins (to cancel out???), but I love almonds and raisins so much, I have to have lots. I've also used honey since I did not have any maple sugar.

The granola was very easy and fast to do. Actually, to my delight, it took longer in the oven that it took to prepare. I guess I can say safely that I'll never have store-bought granola again!

Granola
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup honey
2 cups non-instant large flake oats
1/2 cup almonds, cut up
1/2 cup raisins

In the roasting pan melt the butter and honey. Add the oats and almonds. Mix well and put in a 350F oven for about 10 minutes. Then add raisins and cook another 10 minutes on until the granola showns the shade of blond you are looking for.

Remove the pan from the oven and let the granola cool in the pan. Once cooled, break up the lumps with your hands (they fall apart easily) and store.