Rick and Mary are normally a family of 2, however, while their friends are exploring New Zealand for the month of March, their daughter has moved in and is educating them on the finer points of living with a very active sports-oriented teenager. It's really great actually - most teenagers don't help out much at home, right, but when they are visiting with friends, it's amazing how helpful and involved they can be. And Kayla loves to cook!! Are we lucky or what?! During March break Kayla chose to spend some time getting reacquainted some family members who live in the Toronto area and will be arriving back on Sunday. What a sport she is to accept this culinary adventure with her friends.
Mary is the Food Educator, and Good Food Box Coordinator at Kingston Community Health Centres. Food is her passion along with teaching time-honoured traditions around food preparation, and preservation techniques. Gardening, growing fresh foods, eating seasonally and supporting local farmers, food producers and community is very important to her and her family. She purchases whole grains, nuts and seeds (spelt, buckwheat, oats, quinoa, rice, almonds, pecans, walnuts, etc) in bulk from local farms, where possible and the local feed and farm store. From these she presses or mills these grains, nuts and seeds for use as cereal flakes, meals or flour. Soaking, sprouting and dehydrating are common practice in her household. It doesn't take that much extra time to do these things, but it is important to plan ahead and be organized where food prep is concerned.
Rick is an avid hunter and fisherman and their freezer commonly has a variety of wild meats (venison, duck, pike, trout, etc) stocked for their enjoyment. That's really helpful with food prices on the rise.
ood items for this week are from the Food Bank (hamper for 2 or more people), the March Good Food Box, and 5 items from our pantry. See lists of items below.
As a side note, on Saturday we're having another couple over for dinner (which was planned a while ago) so we will likely run out of food a little earlier as a result. But it will be interesting to see how far we get.
In our Food Bank Hamper (for 2 or more people)
1 sleeve of chocolate chip cookies
1 pkg of 4 Honey Buns
5 small candy bars
6 bagels - Cinnamon Raisin (whole wheat)
2 bags milk
1 dozen eggs
2 1/4-lbs Peameal bacon (frozen)
7 cans Campbell's tomato soup (reduced sodium)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can Roasted Chicken with Grilled Vegetable Soup
2 sleeves whole wheat crackers
1 box whole wheat Triscuits
750 g Natural Peanut butter
2 x 500g Linguine pasta
2 x 206g boxes Mac and Cheese
1 28oz can diced tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce (used day 1)
1 pkg Beef & Broccoli Stir Fry Mix
1 can corn
2 cans chunk tuna
2 cans mandarin orange segments
8 pkgs Sweet n'Low (at this point - NO idea of what to do with this item)
1 kit Caesar Salad dressing, with croutons, & parmesan
1 cup sugar
2 1/2 cups oatmeal
3 cups instant white rice
2 x 200ml Apple Juice
3 x 200ml Strawberry & Banana Juice
1 x 200ml Peach & Clementine Juice
1 can beef chilli
1 can beans in tomato sauce
1 white cake mix
2 boxes vanilla pudding
1 box butterscotch pudding
Large Good Food Box
10 lb bag potatoes
1.5 lb rainbow carrots
2-lb bag onions
1 head leaf lettuce
1 bunch broccoli
1/2-lb mushrooms
1 head garlic
2-lb bananas
2 oranges
2 royal gala apples
2 pears
2 red grapefruit
5 Pantry Items
1) local maple syrup
2) wild meat (provided by hunter-gatherer-husband - none of this comes from a store, but from nature)
3) spelt berries (these come from a local farmer, and are a staple in our pantry).
4) plain Balkan style yogurt
5) oil
Day 1 - Friday March 18th
Mary has the day off and Rick is working
8:00 am Slept in - not much time to spend on breakfast preparation
Put kettle on for tea. While water heats up, popped 1 1/2 cinnamon raisin bagels in the toaster. R normally has 2 bagel slices, M 1.
While bagels toast make fresh orange marmalade. To make fresh marmalade, wash and dry one orange - zest 1/2 of the orange- put zest into a baggie press out air and place into the freezer for later use.
Roughly chop all of the remaining orange (seedless) and add to food processor. Pulse adding 1 tsp maple syrup at a time (up to 3) to get desired sweetness and texture (you can also use honey - depending on the kind of honey used, this can provide a thicker end-product). Not as thick as regular marmalade, but very tasty. Spread a little peanut butter on bagel for Mary and spoon fresh orange marmalade over the top. Yum! Rick doesn't like peanut butter so has his bagel with fresh orange marmalade. A big hit!
When kettle boiled, realized that coffee and tea are not included in list of foods above. So hot water it is... I like hot water and warm drinks. R on the other hand will not give up his coffee, so he'll be picking up one of those on his way to work.
11:30 am and I remember that I promised to meet a friend for lunch at the New Garden Restaurant. Haven't seen her in a very long time and I really don't want to cancel. So lunch out it is... wanting to stay as close to the foods available to me in the good food box and the food hamper this week, I opt to have the mushroom and egg-drop soup. When I get home I'll remove 3 mushrooms and 1 egg from my groceries to stay within the spirit of the exercise.
Had a banana (from the Good Food Box) this afternoon for a snack before making dinner.
For dinner cooked up one package of linguine and make pasta sauce using the can of tomato sauce, garlic, onion, grated carrot and ground venison (panty item). Excellent. Enough left-over pasta and sauce for another meal for two. Pressed cold pasta into a glass pie plate for the next reincarnation of this meal and refrigerate. Likely spaghetti pie cooked a bit like a frittata with eggs, sautéed mushrooms, and onions, poured throughout the noodles and topped with the left-over sauce. Baked in the oven to cook the eggs and come out of the oven nice and hot.
As much as I like drinking hot water, it's after dinner and I am really missing my tea. So I venture into the back yard to find some white cedar leaf tips (they are actually green - see picture above) - not in my pantry, true but very abundant in the great outdoors, so it's something I never have to go out and purchase. Makes a very nice tea and is chock-full of Vitamin C. Learned about this natural resource from a couple of First Nations friends. It's one of the more common "bush" teas. You don't need much, just a little bit around the size of a toonie for a cup of tea that you can refresh with hot water as needed. If you are not used to it though, a little goes a long way. If you think it tastes too bitter, just add a little more hot water to dilute it.
So at this point Team Inverary is down 1 1/2 bagels, one orange, one egg, 3 mushrooms, one banana, 2 cloves garlic, 2 onions, 1 carrot, 1 can tomato sauce.
However we do have just a little more than 1/2 cup of fresh orange marmalade in the fridge that can be used again on bagels or as a topper for the oatmeal pancakes I plan on having for breakfast tomorrow morning. Also remaining from the first orange is about 1 1/2 tsp of orange zest in the freezer. Plan to use this later for extra flavour in "something" and will figure that out as I go. And from tonight's dinner I have the basis for making a spaghetti pie for lunch tomorrow.
Oat Pancake Recipe - this needs to be started the night before - very easy.
One full recipe makes 12 - 16 pancakes, so for Rick and I we'll make half of the recipe.
Here is the full recipe:
2 cup rolled oats
1 1/2 cups plain yogurt
Mix oats and yogurt, scrape down sides of the bowl, cover with a plate and leave on the counter or other warm place over night
2 - 3 eggs
2 Tbsp oil (or melted butter)
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 - 4 Tbsp flour (pulsing a couple of tablespoons of oats in food processor makes oat flour)
Preheat griddle, heavy stainless steel or cast iron pan to 350 F.
Break eggs over soaked oats, adding oil and salt (If using) and mix well with spatula.
Sprinkle with flour and baking soda and mix well.
Place a small amount of oil on griddle or in pan and cook pancakes a few minutes per side. Use 1/4 cup measure to portion out pancake mix.
Enjoy with fruit salad, yogurt, maple syrup, or left-over fresh marmalade if you have it handy in the fridge. These are really great pancakes! Any not eaten right away can be frozen and reheated in the toaster oven. Just as good as the day you first made them.
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