When in Canada, eh?

Kensington Market, Toronto, ON
I just finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - a great book about one family's year of eating local foods - so naturally, when I arrived at Kensington Market in Toronto, I was excited to buy produce grown in Canada. Not only did I find local produce, I found something cool and new that I have never seen before at home - yellow plums! They are more tart than our red plums, which makes them great for baking! (See the Plum Primer.) This recipe comes from none other than Canadianliving.com. When I get home, I wonder if I could adjust down the sugar and use this recipe with sweeter plums. 
Ingredients:
3 cups (750 mL) quartered pitted red or yellow plums or pluots, (about 2 lb/1 kg)
1/2 cup (125 mL) granulated sugar
1 lemon
1/4 tsp (1 mL) ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp (1 mL) ground cloves

Preparation:
Place plums and sugar in saucepan. Using vegetable peeler, peel off strips of lemon rind; add to saucepan.
Squeeze lemon to make 1 tbsp (15 mL) juice; add to saucepan along with cinnamon and cloves. Bring to boil; reduce heat and simmer until plums are tender, about 10 minutes. Serve warm or cool. (Make-ahead: Cover and refrigerate for up to 3 days.)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
In my search for easy recipes, I ended up on quite a few emailing lists - Better Homes & Gardens, Food Network, Tastebook all have the privilege of spamming me. At work today, I was browsing through recipes for "Crisp Summer Salads" and I was shocked at what passed for a salad. The first "salad" - The Layered Spinach and Pot Sticker Salad - on the list included potstickers, strawberries and strawberry jam as ingredients. Then to add insult to injury, they tell you to whip up a recipe of " Spiced Chips ". As is frozen chicken pot stickers weren't unhealthy enough. It isn't a salad just because it has spinach! Next is the Southern Cobb Salad , and to it's credit, it looks like a salad. However, I don't even want to think about what constitutes the " cheese dressing ". I'm terribly confused by the Smoked Salmon and Melon Salad . I guess it counts as fruit salad, but why I would mix salmon with cantaloupe, honeydew and blueber...
Read more

Eat This Not That Part I

Image
I recently saw a copy of the book, Eat This Not That , and I thought it was a cool idea, so I am starting my own version with products I use at home rather than at restaurants. First on my list is Eat ReddiWhip not Cool Whip. Cool whip is delicious, especially when frozen, but it was not until I bought some for myself to go with strawberries that I realized how horribly fake it is. According to Dietfacts.com, they include: INGREDIENTS:WATER, CORN SYRUP, HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE OIL (COCONUT AND PALM KERNEL OILS), HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, LESS THAN 2% OF SODIUM CASEINATE (FROM MILK), NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, MODIFIED FOOD STARCH, XANTHAN AND GUAR GUMS, POLYSORBATE 60, POLYSORBATE 65, SORBITAN MONOSTEARATE, SODIUM HYDROXIDE, BETA CAROTENE (COLOR). So, they don't actually have any milk in them, they have less than 2% of one milk derivative and a bunch of additives to maintain freshness and composition. We all know hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup are bad for us, an...
Read more
Image
As promised, here is a picture of the squash risotto recipe. I have started to get into uncharted territory with this recipe, but I invited over my good friend who makes butternut squash all the time. What really threw me off about this recipe was that even though we halved the recipe, we still needed a lot of broth to cook the risotto. We used all 2 cups of the broth plus some cooking wine, and still the risotto was burning and sticking to the bottom of the pan. I think this is one recipe that cannot be cut in half, or else you can't skimp on the broth. Instead of mixing in the parmesan cheese, we sprinkled it on top at the table, and it really had a big impact on the flavor. For dessert, we had more butternut squash with cinnamon, sugar and nutmeg - yum!
Read more