Author: Lisa Severn

People, Perogies and a Potato Podcast

I recently spoke, appropriately distanced and outdoors, with Anna Helmer.

Anna mentioned (with a teasing tone), that @Therocketnarcissist and I should share a recipe on The Farm Story Podcast. I don’t think she expected a “Yes!” with such enthusiasm.

Anyway, you’ll have to give it a listen. Right HERE.

Rustic Recipe Ahead

Here are the deets for the dough:

2 c. full fat plain yogurt

1 egg

1 tsp. salt

2 1/4 c. all-purpose flour

Extra flour for rolling out dough.

Beat wet ingredients together (with whisk, stand mixer or hand mixer).

Slowly add flour and salt to the wet ingredients, if using a stand mixer. Or if combining by hand, pile the flour, make a well and pour the liquid into the well and bring the flour to the middle until combined. Some needing is required to combine. It should be tacky, not sticky.

Wrap the dough and let rest in the fridge for 2 hours.

You can make your favourite filling now (listen to the podcast for suggestions or consult Chef Google).

Remove dough from fridge. Cut in half (or quarters if you have a small work surface). Roll out the dough to 1/8 of an inch.

Cut circles. Dumpling cutters are often 3″ circles. I used a wide mouth mason jar which is almost 2 3/8. I roll the dough even more after cutting as it tends to retract from the original roll out. I spin the piece around and work from the middle outward getting an even stretch. The finished piece should be 3″.

Add 1 tsp. of filling to each circle.

Fold the dough over the filling and pinch closed. If the dough has dried, try dipping your finger in water and running it around the edge of the circle before closing.

Place complete perogies on a floured surfaced until ready to cook (I use a cookie sheet as it can be moved to your pot of water).

Next, cook as desired. I like the boil then fry method. I often test one in boiling water to see how long it takes for the dough to cook. I occasionally do this before filling a bunch of perogies, so I can ensure my filling is appropriately seasoned.

If you still have questions after listening and reading this rustic recipe, let me know in the comments below.

April 8, 2021
An end to the fits and starts

I recently, well 33 days ago, signed up for a creative workshop that asks that you ship something every day for 100 days.

It’s hard. I am a “do it when the muse shows up” creative. And, this course teaches you to accept creativity as a career — a position where people expect you to show up and do the work.

Prompts remind you that people who have creative careers submit below average work as often as they submit just good enough work — and rarely submit creative genius. And the prompts posit that hope, that plane-is-delayed-painstaking-waiting-hope, for the creative genius to show up is what keeps us comfortably sitting in that mythical land of writer’s block.

I don’t write a story every day, but I am sure to make an observation. Sometimes that observation includes photography (like the cherry toms and burrata). My genre is creative non-fiction. Here is a compilation of a few of those observations (your thoughts in the comments will be welcomed).

I pull open the door, without recalling that it’s weighted with jams, chutneys and quickles. The energy of my pull slams the door against the wall with a big thud and subsequent clinking of jars.

It’s Friday. Farmers’ Market day.

And fridge cleaning day.

For the millionth time, I check the temperature, and it’s still set to as low as it will go. I shake my fist, as if my landlord above our suite can see me. This fridge, from brand new, has always been too cold for fragile veggies. I sigh.

I yell over the jammy beat of the Grateful Dead, “Honey. I think a refrigerator risotto will clean this out! Can you do the prep while I go to market?”

“Fennel. Carrots. Zucchini. Fava beans. Garlic. Patty Pans. Beets. Roasted…on risotto. How’s that sound?”

“Honey…?”

I rip open the bag. The dirt-laden pickling cucumbers present a distinct earthy smell that reminds me that it’s August. I carefully weigh six and a half pounds. A wave forms as I dump the cucumbers into an enormous bowl full of crystal-clear water.

I’m drenched. I go to the drying rack and grab a fresh shirt.

I return to the kitchen to find emerald green oblongs floating in murky brown water. I’m mindful, as I drain the swamp – so as not to need another shirt. I guide the spray hose and jiggle the bowl full of soon-to-be pickles. The force of the tap dislodges most of the brown wilted blossoms from which these little delights grew.

As the stainless basin once again fills to the brim, the brown feathery blobs float to the top – and with an odd sense of wonder I think about how long it’s been since the flowers perished.

The room fills with light, and a small rumble follows.

My husband snores next to me. I consider waking him to watch the light show, and help calm my nerves. Instead I watch alone, and wonder how many forest fires we can expect from this rainless lightning storm.

I can’t sleep, so I open social media and people are posting images and videos of massive lightning rods that reach to the horizon. Exactly the kind of lightning that starts forest fires, I muse. It takes time, but I fall asleep.

I hadn’t checked the wildfire map even once this summer. It’s been cool and rainier than the last 5 years. The moment I hear the espresso machine, I grab my phone. More than 100 new fires dot the map with the likelihood of more remote fires still to be identified.

Ten new fires in the farming town just 30 kms north are noted. Each fire, according to the elevation lines, is well into the mountains, and still, it is nerve wracking.

Rain is expected in the days to come, but I hope farming can continue with the suppressive smoke that is reportedly filling the valley floor. I think about how they will maintain their livelihoods should another state of emergency befall the farmers’ work of feeding their communities. The prospects look grim.

Thanks for reading. Is there something you’ve been doing in fits and starts that could use a 100 day push? Share in the comments below – I’d love to know.

~Lisa Severn

September 19, 2020
Take Only What We Need

It was 1989, I was in Grade 12.

It was right around the time when David Suzuki started showing up outside the Nature of Things to talk of global warming (or climate change as it is now more accurately reported). Leaders around the world were taking steps toward protecting our environment – even H.W. Bush went on to ban CFCs to protect the ozone layer.

I was lucky – or admittedly privileged – because I had access to a car. This privilege meant that I could choose a co-op work term outside of town limits. I got my first choice: an outdoor education centre for local elementary schools.

I learned a lot about our world that year. My mentor was a devout naturalist, conservationist and environmentalist, but also, incredibly kind, engaging and completely immersed in the challenge of changing people’s minds.

He propelled people to think zero waste. Especially when it came to food. Every day-long lesson included a pre-planned low-waste lunch for 30 people – and a lesson about compost.

He had built the most interesting compost box that reminded me of an old tickle trunk replete with finished edges, a latch, and a key. He told stories of his months spent finding the perfect reclaimed materials.

For maximum insulation (to keep the compost hot) during big snow months, each wall of the compost trunk was built from two pieces of metal that sandwiched several inches of yellow spray foam inside – I remember because he kept a small slice of the material pasted to one of his many super cool tri-fold science displays.

When he lifted the lid of the compost trunk in the middle of winter, the steam from the compost billowed toward the little faces of wonder. The fanfare was inescapable. In truth, he even made shoveling compost fascinating.

The interactive lesson ultimately left the kids yearning to contribute some of their lunch to the steaming heap. But once he realized their interest in throwing food away for the sake of contributing to a process, he quickly changed the game.

He would first show the new kids the previous group’s food waste, and then turn the compost to bury yesterday’s remnants. Next, he challenged them to leave a pure rich black mostly untarnished soil canvas for the next group to admire and match. It was a certain lesson in take only what we need. Of course, a child’s food was exempt if they accidentally dropped it, so as not to ruin a perfectly good streak out of simple misfortune.

This lunch hour entertainment was just a small segment of his bigger plan to change the world. I often think about that mentor and wonder if he feels nearly as cynical about the limited change as I do. That was 31 years ago.

He made zero waste feel immensely important then, but now I’m just not sure where we’re at in this world.

I’m conflicted about standing up – and acting as he acted. It’s hard to lead in the face of what seems like a stagnant world. But, to be fair…

There are a million cool tools out there now to measure your impact and to guide you in prioritizing your changes. The most interesting tool I’ve found so far, is the CNN Green House Gas (GHG) emissions quiz.

Take it right now, if you’re looking for a challenge: www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/04/specials/climate-change-solutions-quiz/

*SPOILER ALERT*

I reveal a section of the quiz in my words below.

In the food portion of the quiz, you’re asked to drag the solutions to rank the ones you think would have the biggest effect on curbing climate change. As spoil-alerted, I’ve cheated and given you the solution here.

1st – throw away less food – this would be similar to taking 511 million cars off the road.

2nd – eat a plant-heavy diet – this would be similar to taking 479 million cars off the road

3rd – cook over clean stoves – this would be similar to taking 115 million cars off the road

4th – compost your waste – this would be similar to taking 16.5 million cars off the road

Now, when you saw “cook over clean stoves”, it might have led you to think, “I can make a difference if I wipe my stove down every day… really?” Well, that’s not what they mean.

They are talking about half the world population cooking over gas, wood-fired stoves, or even the deemed-deadly open fire pit.

So, clean stoves might seem like a place for improvement, but throw less food away creates nearly 4.5 times an impact over reducing “dirty” stoves, and it amounts to no small numbers. Plus, reducing waste is a shocking 30 times better than simply composting.

The unfortunate thing is that a lot of avoidable waste in North America comes down to excess. Sure, in some cases, this is food left in fields, retail stores and processors but according to Love Food Hate Waste Canada, 47% of avoidable food waste in Canada is from consumers tossing goods that they don’t eat.

I’m not saying that I’m not guilty. I am. Some weeks, our compost bin is 90% unavoidable food waste (e.g. corn husks, eggshells) and the very next it’s 90% avoidable food waste (e.g. moldy bread, risky rice). And sometimes it takes us 3 weeks to fill a bin and the next bin is full in 3 days.

Sure, life goes sideways sometimes and you’d do better to throw out those suspicious leftovers. But, for the most part, avoidable food waste stems from over purchasing — or not processing and storing the food when it’s on the edge of no return (e.g. freezing bread or making clean-out-the-fridge soups for the freezer).

And, did you know the number of GHG emissions for avoidable food waste is completely dependent on the type of food that we waste. For example, processed foods, meats and cheeses have higher inputs, and therefore we are wasting more GHGs in the entire process of growing, processing, packaging and even cooking them. Not just the GHGs in getting them to our home, chilling them, driving the compost to centralized composting and the processing of that avoidable compost.

So, if you’re cutting the questionable edges off of your cheese every week, it’s time to cut back on cheese purchases.

I hope this is a certain lesson, if not simply a lesson to myself, to take only what we need. After all we might just remove the equivalent of 511 million cars from the road. Wouldn’t that be cool!

–

Writer and cook Lisa Severn is making a refrigerator soup this week.

February 25, 2020
Calgary Eats: A Cookbook Review

A few weeks back, I ordered Calgary Eats because a number of signs told me to.

My favourite food photographer & YouTuber Joanie Simon was working on Phoenix Cooks – another Figure 1 Publishing book.

I’d seen the stunning cover and layout of Vancouver Eats. Given my aversion to shellfish, Calgary Eats, a farmland-locked town, made more sense to me.

I’d been following Figure 1 publishing online for quiet some time, and I was dying to get my hands on any of their cookbooks.

For this review, I wanted to give you, my cooking cohort, a good sense of what’s inside Calgary Eats. So I set up coloured sticky notes, blue for “must make” and yellow for “would love to make, but…” And the number of sticky notes were plenty.

I was delighted when I opened the book. The layout is gorgeous. Each chef is honoured with a portrait of themselves, with some donning the traditional buttoned-down whites and others in street wear. And below that image, there is a paragraph or two on each chef’s philosophies or history. A born and bred in Calgary status gives reason to some recipes, while others are informed by a much different life, like work in a chemistry lab or life on a South Korean farm.

In this documentation of Calgary’s current food scene, you will find, long-time chefs, famous chefs and popular-with-their-customers chefs. There are self taught chefs, highly trained chefs and highly trained train-the-trainer type chefs. I suppose if you’re heading east to Calgary you might take this as a restaurant guide to help you pick local must-tries – but a warning to weary, it ain’t light. It’s a hard cover.

On my list of “would love to make, but…” dishes, you’ll find things like:

“Eat to the Beet” Salad

Without a doubt, I know this salad would taste divine with its beets prepared 3 ways. But, I’m left to wonder, who has time for an elaborate salad?

Whiskey-Glazed Elk Ribs with Pickled Cucumber Salad

This is something that our household would devour with its beautiful barbecue sauce made of molasses, ginger, apple cider vinegar and whiskey. But these will have to be beef or pork ribs. Elk just isn’t something we have access to.

On my “must make” list of dishes, you’ll find things like:

Tomato-Gin Jam

When I saw this recipe my mouth began to water. It looks easy to make and features the brightness of sherry vinegar and the punchy evergreen-ness of gin. The recipe calls for pairing it with a Grilled Goat Cheese Sandwich, and I was excited to notice the image presents a brie style goat cheese. This is on my list for next year when cherry tomatoes are in their prime. I’ll try to remember to keep you updated.

Ricotta-Stuffed Pasta with a Preserved Lemon-Thyme Butter Sauce

While this recipe would take much longer than beets 3-ways, I’d be willing to go the distance with this one. The recipe comes in pieces: preserved lemon compound butter, homemade ricotta and a good-for-stuffing pasta dough. And it seems you could divvy up each piece of this recipe to create new recipes. In fact, I might even put the compound butter on toast.

So far, I’ve made a few recipes.

Falafel with Yogurt Dip

I make falafel all the time. But I wing it from various internet recipes with tons of substitutions. Since making this recipe, I’ve sworn that I’m done with winging falafel. This recipe is exactly as promised: fluffy and flavourful falafel [that] will change your life. In fact, I dare you to make it.

BTW: I’ll be doubling this recipe next time. UPDATE: I doubled the recipe and it was enough for leftovers after serving with the recipe below. I added a couple of images, so that you can see the falafel.

Dukkah-Fried Cauliflower with Green Olive and Harissa Aioli

I made this as a side dish to the falafel. I am also done with the internet on a recipe like this. This page is already filled with fingerprints, I can’t even image what it will look like 6 months from now – it’ll probably be the messiest page in the book, a true sign of a great recipe.

BTW: This recipe contains a lot of steps, but if you have a spice grinder and food processor, you are all set. It’s quick and easy.

Although, Calgary is farmland-locked, there are a number of shellfish recipes in here. So, for seafood lovers, don’t despair, you have a may options with this cookbook (even a few that aren’t listed in the table of contents).

My neighbour shared some frozen self-caught halibut with us, so I might try Roasted Halibut with Chilies, Dungeness Crab, Bean Ragout and Grapefruit sans crab, next.

Happy cooking, friends.

December 18, 2019
Processing Vacation on Order for 2020

I think we ran out of frozen peaches in April 2019. Corn even sooner.

May was tough. That transition between enjoying the previous seasons’ harvest and the new harvest felt like eons. Even though, I do tend to allow myself asparagus from California and Mexico in the spring, it’s not the same as eating local fruits and vegetables grown by people you know and care about.

By June, I had promised that I would work even harder to preserve 2019’s delectables and make it past May 2020 in good shape.

I started by canning pickled garlic scapes. It was fast and easy, but I’m a canning chicken, so it was stressful to try a new recipe. A resulting complication of my chicken-ness was that I decided to eat all the scapes before they would have a chance to go off – it was likely a completely unnecessary panic and the reason we have none in storage.

When late July arrived, I was certain I was ready for the pending influx of goods. But food started coming at me faster than ever — it was a very good growing season after all.

Peaches, blueberries, green beans, corn and tomatoes.

As we carried case after case through the door, I started to feel overwhelmed. Do work that pays the bills or process food became a dilemma that I just didn’t have an answer to.

And, while I figure therocketnarcissist and I processed more than 300 pounds of food, all of it grown by people we know, I’m feeling like our freezer stockpile is dwindling. We’ve had a busy and mentally draining fall, so the freezer has been raided close to every day.

Spaghetti sauce gone, tomato curries gone, corn stash cut by half.

This year, I spent extra time looking for a good freezer salsa. I made about 60 cups mild or hot salsa – but the supply is shrinking – and fast. It’s just so damn good. And is incredibly useful as a base for a Mexican themed fried rice.

All this makes me think that rather than take a biking vacation, an August 2020 processing vacation might be in order. I’m curious, have you ever taken a processing vacation?

Of note, I can’t even begin to imagine what it would have been like to farm with such abundance coming our way this past summer. Kudos to all the farmers that worked hard to keep up and feed us the best fruits and vegetables that the Squamish-Lillooet region has to offer.

In case tomatoes are a plenty next year too, here’s a link to the salsa recipe.

November 28, 2019

I Traded Christmas and NYE for One Self-Indulgent Day

Early on December 28^th, I set up my “out of office” email. I had a plan.

Close my computer.
Pull out my new camera.
Cook.
Shoot.

You see, it was my birthday. Three days after Christmas. Three days before NYE.

It’s a day that gets completely lost in a ridiculously indulgent week (month?!). It wasn’t always lost for me. In fact, throughout my childhood, people would ask, “Doesn’t it bother you to have your birthday at Christmas?”

I was always excited to reply. I’d even shout. “NO WAY! It doesn’t bother me one bit.”

Life was good around our house at Christmas. School was out. I always had a birthday party full of kids. Especially if it fell on a weekday (free babysitting – I presume). My cousins could make it too.

Great Aunts and Uncles — only around for the holidays — would give me a fiver on Christmas Day, just because my birthday was in the same week as Jesus’. My Pa (Dad’s Dad) had 12 siblings, so I was making the big bucks back in the 70s.

My sister never got that kind of treatment in May. School was in. No one was hanging around our house near Mother’s Day. It was a holiday for the nuclear family.

My birthday parties were always at Grandma & Pa’s farm and included tobogganing, hot chocolate, a campfire, roasted hotdogs and toasted marshmallows (or if you were like Mom, you loved your marshmallows burnt).

We also had a snowmobile with a tow rope and special red fat skis with straps for your Sorels. It was like water skiing – but it hurt more when you crashed. Way more.

When I moved to Whistler, birthdays changed. We used to try to plan something.

But, we’ve learned. Going out for dinner is insane. Our family rarely ventures west. Friends are away or busy with family. @therocketnarcissist is always exhausted from battling the crowds at work.

So, that’s my reason for blocking off an entire day of work to wallow in self-indulgence.

I abandoned my complicated healthy & ethical algorithm when deciding what to make. I went shopping without an ounce of consideration to the planet or my waste line. And I promised myself I wouldn’t feel guilty about it. That’s what the rest of the year is for.

I queued recipes for pâte brisée and tourtière filling. And diligently organized my photography “studio”.

Tourtière is a dish that I learned about in primary school. Life at home was a bit turbulent then, but I had an amazing French teacher who kept me busy helping in her office. I organized her classroom props (like cartoon cats and dogs labeled chat and chien, respectively), but mostly we chatted. As a treat one Christmas, she invited me, plus a few kids and our moms, for lunch.

She served us in French on fancy dishes! We ate tourtière. I remember it well. I was an extremely picky eater then. But this dish, well, it seemed like she had scooped out apples from the pie crust and put my favourite savoury food back inside – ground meat.

Plus, it was served with ketchup. The best condiment.

It was heavenly.

It might have been 20+ years before I had my next slice of tourtière. And maybe 30 years before I made one myself.

One March, during @therocketnarcissist ‘s athletic career, we landed in Quebec City. I spent hours researching the best tourtière. I think internet was still pretty slow back then. We battled the freezing cold and snowy streets to then burrow into a tiny ancient cottage for a slice of authenticity.

It wasn’t quite as I had remembered. But this old recipe was made with just pork. Still good. But less earthy than the original.

Although I don’t believe I’ve ever tasted it, @therocketnarcissist always reminds me that his mother’s tourtière is the best. As any good French-Canadian boy would say. He claims it’s full of venison, buffalo, moose, veal and the kitchen sink – I think.

I should ask her one day.

Anyway, if you’ve read any of my stories before, you’ll know that I don’t follow recipes well. Hence a queue of recipes. I often read a bunch to find the techniques and ingredients that I want to use and make it up from there.

I’m not sure how I found this recipe for the perfect pâte brisée. It was likely that I googled “perfect pate brisee”.

It calls for chilled vodka to ensure the flakiest pie crust – ever! Or at least, the flakiest according to Kelsey’s Apple a Day blogspot and America’s Test Kitchen.

For a second, I wondered if gin from the Pemberton Distillery was too decadent for such a use – and then I remembered it was my birthday.

I went to the grocery store with a plan to buy small portions of as many varieties of ground meat (except bird) as I could. Lo and behold, Christmas struck again. There were plenty of turkeys left. No pork. No buffalo. I managed to get the last package of beef – and found frozen lamb.

I made the crust first. And let it rest for quite some time.

The filling took shape without any one recipe taking the lead. I used onion, all spice, dried thyme, sage (which appears to be still growing in a pot on my snowy porch – weird), cloves, cinnamon, black pepper and salt.

Garlic made it in. And the requisite shredded potato (or 2 depending on size) also made it in.

Hand pies look nice and are fun to eat. So, I cut out as many circles as I could without working the dough too much – nobody likes a tough crust. And put some of the scraps that were getting warm back in the fridge (for a tiny peach pie the next day).

I don’t like to use fake food when taking photos, so I googled best egg wash for pies. Here’s what I learned from this chart on finecooking.com, in the article “How to put colour and shine on pastry crust with egg wash”:

Content of egg wash	Effect on cooked pastry
whole egg with water	nicely browned, slightly glossy
whole egg with milk	nicely browned, more glossy
egg white only	evenly browned, slightly less brown than whole egg, very little shine
egg yolk only or egg yolk with water	browned and shiny, but less so than with cream or milk
egg yolk with cream	very browned and glossy, but a relatively thick egg wash that’s somewhat difficult to spread neatly
egg yolk with milk	the darkest brown crust and a touch less shiny than yolk with cream

I chose whole egg with milk.

Cooking and shooting this recipe was fun. My new camera’s quality is similar to the old one, but has more features. It was a pleasure to use. In fact, it was fun to have two cameras. One on the tripod and one in hand.

I certainly ate too many hand pies. I might have been too self-indulgent. Good thing we traded celebrating the ridiculously indulgent Christmas & NYE for my birthday.

Lisa Severn is a communication specialist who lives in Whistler and is now OH, SHIT! one year closer to 50.

P.s. My favourite Instagram post of 2018 is from @unicyclecreative

January 1, 2019

A Recipe to Keep Vampires At Bay

A little garlic, judiciously used, won’t seriously affect your social life and will tone up more dull dishes than any commodity discovered to date. ~ Alexander Wright, ‘How to Live Without a Woman’ (1937)

It’s that time of year where garlic goes into every single meal. It’s nearly unbearable to stand near or around me, not to mention @therocketnarcissist. In fact, there are days that we don’t even want to stand near each other.

But when you love garlic — and it’s garlic season — it’s so freakin’ hard to resist.

A few days ago, we added a whole bulb of Russian Red (the real potent shit) to a black pepper & garlic stir fry (an homage to the dish that I so dearly miss from the good ol’days of Thai One On).

It was fine. We were fine – sitting alone, in our living room post-dinner, not harming any noses but our own. That’s how it works. Couples who eat garlic together, stay together.

You can never have enough garlic. With enough garlic, you can eat The New York Times. ~ Morley Safer

Because garlic goes with almost any cuisine, we’ve had a chance to use up a horde of in-season vegetables that we pick up either at the Pemberton Farmers Market on Fridays or one of the two Whistler Farmers Markets.

Recent hauls netted us several varietals of tomatoes and spicy peppers, plus basil, eggplant, broccoli, spaghetti squash, onions, leeks and zucchini.

Now, legend has it that Pemberton villagers almost never resort to buying a zucchini due to the simple fact that even those with a documented plant-killing history can grow award winning zucchinis in Pemberton’s personal produce patches. But, for those of us living in Pemberton south south (aka. Emerald Estates), we’re well outside of the prime growing zone.

Due to your zucchini glut, a recent call was made for ideas. And, I happily supplied a list of google-able dishes.

But after reading “Zucchini Two Ways” I felt inspired to contribute an actual recipe. Although this pancake could be found almost anywhere (and your recipe might even be better than the one found here), the heavy-on-the-garlic toppings, inspired by “What’s All The Fuss About Garlic?“, really are what made this recipe special.

I see recipes calling for one clove of garlic. One clove of garlic is not enough for any recipe unless it’s a recipe for, ‘how to cook one clove of garlic’ – even in this case use two. ~ Unknown

Note to cooks: As mentioned in “Stop glorifying the summit and enjoy the climb: an astrological forecast for pasta makers”, I rarely follow a recipe or remember to write down specifics. So again, rustic, untested instructions follow:

Pancakes

1 cup all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

¾ cup of milk

2 tbsp butter, melted

1 egg

1 cup of grated zucchini

Mix the dry together. Mix the wet together, including the melted butter. Squeeze the zucchini lightly to remove some of the juice.

Mix the zucchini shreds into the flour. Pour in the wet ingredients and mix until combined. I give a little flour if it’s too wet or add a little zucchini juice or milk if it’s too dry.

Add fat (lard, butter or high-heat oil) to a cast-iron skillet on medium-high (our burner is a little weak, so you might go lower if you’re cooking on gas or a powerful cooktop). Place about ¼ cup of batter into the skillet, use a spatula to flatten & spread it out a bit. Add more batter, leaving enough space between pancakes to get your flipper in there.

Flip once puffier on top and golden on the bottom.

Sorry, from here you’ll have to use your judgment to determine when it’s time to serve. My pan tends to get hotter as time goes on, so I turn it down and leave them a little longer – until the inside is cooked. I might even crack one open to see if it’s done.

Tomato “Salsa”

1 cup of chopped tomatoes

1 handful of roughly chopped basil

2 – 4 cloves of garlic, minced (no. of cloves dependent on variety and personal preference, but we rolled the dice and went with 4)

½ lemon squeezed

We used a variety of tomatoes that offered different flavours and textures. Simply chop them about the same size – we used a ½ of cherry tomato as the measure.

Toss the ingredients in a bowl. It’s best when given a little time to marinate.

Garlic is divine. Few food items can taste so many distinct ways, handled correctly. Misuse of garlic is a crime…Please, treat your garlic with respect…Avoid at all costs that vile spew you see rotting in oil in screwtop jars. Too lazy to peel fresh? You don’t deserve to eat garlic. ~ Anthony Bourdain (Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly)

Blue Cheese Dressing

2 tbsp plain yogurt

2 tbsp crumbled blue cheese

1 tbsp honey

Mix together.

Top your pancakes and enjoy.

~

Lisa Severn is going to the Whistler Writer’s Festival’s Cooks with Books: Passionate Locovore Edition — and she thinks you should too.

~

Start a conversation about food with Lisa over @rhubarbstreet or look for more on Lisa and her co-conspirators… err… co-contributors.

~

“Garlic Quotes.” found here https://www.torontogarlicfestival.ca/garlic-quotes/

Images and recipes are by Lisa.

September 11, 2018
Stop glorifying the summit and enjoy the climb: an astrological forecast for pasta makers
Years ago, I read a horoscope that said, “Dear Capricorn, you’d be better off enjoying the climb than glorifying the summit.”

Or at least that’s how I remember it. The precise words are trivial. In effect, the astrological forecast reminded me of the value of process.

We need such memorandums, because we often forget about the value in getting our hands dirty. We seldom recognize the profits in puzzling out the crux move.

And, we barely admit our battles.

I’m sure you’re wondering what this has to do with fettuccini.

Well, I might argue that you should take the time to frolic in the process of making a plate of pasta – from scratch. From sourcing the flour, eggs and olive oil to wrapping the toothy noodles around your fork, it’s all part of a process that can soothe the mind and the soul.

This dish started with a trip the Pemberton Farmers’ Market and a chat with local farmers.

Eggs & bacon sourced from the kind folks at Spray Creek Ranch.

Arugula sourced from the ever-witty Naomi at Four Beat Farms.

Flour sourced from Anita’s Organic Mill (purchased at M1).

Killer noodle recipe ripped from “The Pasta Bible” circa 1994. (I went old school version – bonus points right?!).

“Pasta Dough No. 4”

2 1/2 c. all-purpose flour + extra for flouring surfaces and strips of fresh pasta

1 egg

7 egg yolks

1 tbsp. olive oil

1/2 tsp. salt

I added a wee bit of water when the dough was too dry to pull together in a solid mass. I’d say add no more than a teaspoon of water at a time.

The recipe calls for sifting and fussy stuff like that, but I took a rustic approach. Perhaps, be careful when pulling the flour into the egg lake, if your crater breaks you can lose all your egg over that cliff that I call countertop edge.

Rustic instructions (feel free to ask questions in the comments)
1. Mound the flour on the countertop and make a deep crater for the eggs.
2. Crack the eggs into a pinch-bowl one at a time (it makes it easier should you have to fish out a shell or manage a breach of the crater wall) and gently slide them into the crater until you have all of them neatly inside. Add the olive oil too.
3. Gently beat the eggs, until well combined.
4. Pull the flour into the egg lake until the liquid is absorbed.
5. Pull the crumbles together and start to form a dough.
6. Knead.
7. Refrigerate, wrapped tightly (in a bees’ wax cloth, or cling wrap if you must) for at least an hour.
8. Roll out the dough.
9. Cut the dough into strips.
10. Dust the strips in flour.
To save my wrists, next time, I’ll use my stand mixer for the kneading as well as the rolling. You must knead it until it’s glossy and stretchy. Maybe 10 minutes, maybe more (add music and dancing, if you’re bored). I made the dough before work and rolled it out before dinner.

You can roll out the dough with a pin, but ensure that it’s very thin before cutting it into strips. I rolled my dough to the thinnest possible setting and it was still plump compared to store brands.

Be sure to drop the fettucini strips into rumbling water, because the temperature drops quickly with a big batch. If you’re really unsure about your dough, try cooking a few strands for about 4 minutes. Then taste test.

I used Jamie Oliver’s carbonara recipe (which is actually Gennaro’s recipe) for the sauce and added arugula for colour.

Enjoy. And, be sure to let me know how it went.

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Lisa Severn is going to Pemberton again — this weekend. She’s praying for a complete annihilation of the mosquito population with the 30 deg. heat.

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Start a conversation with Lisa over @rhubarbstreet or look for more on Lisa and her co-conspirators… err… co-contributors.
July 12, 2018
Is oregano worthy of your love?

I never buy herbs.

With the exception of cilantro – of course. And basil. But only during basil season.

I used to spend big bucks for that recipe that needed two, yep two, sprigs of thyme. And I’d think to myself, what the hell am I going to make now.

I couldn’t eat roasted cherry tomatoes with goat’s cheese, thyme and lemon on fresh pasta all week (a recipe ripped from a friend, which may have been ripped from the internet, which could probably be re-ripped from the internet through the Googling of the list of ingredients, if by chance one’s taste buds are tingling at the thought).

Lemon Thyme

Invariably, thyme, rosemary and oregano went to waste in my fridge.

It wasn’t long before I got wise to how easy it is to grow a pot of herbs. And not long after that did I realize herbs make for an amazing rock garden display – even in my frigid and often sun-challenged sideyard.

The shapes, colours and smells in my rock garden have changed immensely over the years.

Lemon Balm

I have fewer traditional flower garden flowers and an abundance of lemon balm, lavender, rosemary, oregano, chives, mint, tarragon and thyme. Most return each year. Each dependant on the winter weather.

Although my favourite trailbuilder often suggests oregano isn’t worthy of the dirt it rests in, the bees love it — especially when it flowers.

Oregano Flowers

And I think the oregano flowers look stunning once dried. And so does @therocketnarcissist, but he never makes the oregano connection. Nor do I remind him.

Today, was a bit damp, but it didn’t stop me from getting eye level with a few of the lovely herbs that make up my rock garden “passion” project.

I like mornings best. The light is gorgeous. The bugs are sleeping in.

Chive Flower Buds

The only downfall is the need to watch out for the banana slugs on your way through the garden. That slime is certainly the most unpleasant thing about gardening. It’s disgusting.

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Lisa Severn lives in Pemberton South South (aka. Emerald Estates) with her trail-obsessed “husband”. Pembertonians can be seen around town asking Dan and Lisa, “So, what are you doing in Pemberton, again. Did you move here?”

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Follow Lisa @rhubarbstreet for more of her food photography. Click for more on Lisa and her co-conspirators… err… co-contributors.

June 8, 2018