The Beauty of Full

I like to take a little time each Monday morning to complain about nothing in particular except the fact that it’s Monday. You see, Monday makes everything worse.

What happens on Tuesday is Tolerable.
Wednesday? Whatever!
Thursday? Throwaway!
Friday? FuggedAboutIt!

But, being how I am, I need to find the blessings in with the messings. So here goes.

Messing: I had to get up early.
Blessing: I get to go to bed early.

Messing: It was nasty, cold out this afternoon.
Blessing: I have two winter coats to wear at the same time.

Messing: I had to shovel the driveway and there was no more room to pile the snow.
Blessing: I got a great workout!

P.S. Then the snow stopped and the sun came out to melt what I had just shovelled. I blame Monday!

Tags: complain, don't like Mondays, monday moanings, shovel snow

If you’ve had enough White Christmas, or perhaps Red Christmas from blowing your budget, your luck is about to change. Now you can look forward to a Green New Year.

While across the globe, an economic crisis has put a damper on spirits and bank accounts, there is a glimmer of hope this New Year, and it’s called collard greens.

A traditional New Year’s dish in the Southern United States, collard greens are believed to bring a year’s worth of good fortune when eaten on the first day of the year. And while the borders are still open to free trade, this is one more custom I am going to borrow from my American cousins.

These large leafy vegetables, resembling green-back dollars, are one of the oldest members of the cabbage family, dating back to ancient Greece. And trying to get my hands on a bundle was more difficult than scoring a sold-out Star Wars Light Sabre.

I called every grocery store and specialty produce market in the book, inquiring about these lucky leaves. Most people I spoke with had no idea what I was even talking about, with comments ranging from the ridiculous, “Coloured greens? What colour are you looking for?” to the sublime, “Cull our greens? Yes, we only put out the freshest ones.”

Nothing creates desire quite like scarcity. The more unavailable they were, the more valuable they became.
I decided to brave the icy roads and bitter cold, to find me some collard greens. While on the way to a popular big box grocer, I took a detour to Choices Markets, a place I’d heard of, but never been. Well, not only did they know what collard greens were, they were getting a shipment in the next morning. So there I was, the next day, picking organic collards from the shelf when the produce manager commented, “I had a feeling someone would be looking for collard greens this year.” She must have the gift of prophecy to know of my desperate search for the elusive collard.

At $2.98 a bunch, they were a tad more expensive than other greens, but as they say, “you gotta spend money to make money.”

Although it’s not recommended to eat collards raw, due to their strong flavour and bitter aftertaste, I admit I enjoyed a crunchy nibble here and there. Simmering for about an hour will take the bite out of the bitterness. While Southerners boil their collards with ham hocks, I decided to forgo the ham for onions and a pinch of salt.

While my husband complained about the smell of cooking collards, I found they were not nearly as pungent as broccoli or cabbage, which makes everything, including the kitchen, stink.

Once they were done, I added a splash of Balsamic vinegar and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. This can be presented as a side dish to accompany a hot meal or chilled and served as a salad. Either warm or cold, this combination is delicious. Milder than cabbage or kale, collards can also be added to soups, stews and pasta dishes.

Not only are they rich in flavour, collards are packed with nutrients and antioxidants, containing vitamins A, C and E, iron, ascorbic acid, calcium, fibre and beta-carotene. They keep for about a week in the refrigerator. Or you can blanche them and freeze for several months.

The greens are reportedly easy to grow, and are most widely cultivated in California, the southern U.S., and this coming summer, my garden. I’ve already adjusted my plot diagram to accommodate a whole row.

Collard greens in the garden could well be the next best thing to having a money tree in the backyard. And to finally find them feels like winning the lottery.

Have a safe, happy and prosperous New Year!

Tags: collard greens, collards, garden, good luck, greens, health, lottery, lucky, money, New Year, vitamins

I never liked Fig Newtons. They were nothing more than sad excuses for cookies that looked like tar folded into cardboard strips. They weren’t just unappealing they were downright annoying, taking up valuable space in the cookie cupboard. How I longed to run them down with a box of Wagon Wheels.

Although my Mother always told me you can’t judge a book by it’s cover, I knew how to judge a cookie by its filling. And figs weren’t going to be filling me anytime soon. You see, the chewy, grainy fig has the unfortunate curse of premature aging. Fresh figs are things of fleeting beauty, quickly fading within a couple of days of being plucked from their perch. Like we humans, once they age and are dried out, figs appear withered and old with their thin, colourful skin turning weathered and leathery. Inside and out, dried figs are not a pretty sight to behold by anyone of any age, particularly a six-year-old picky eater.

While I’ve long since reconciled my unfounded distaste for figs, I hadn’t really celebrated them in the way they rightly deserved. But that was about to change…

Along with countless thousands of children, I commemorated each Christmas with a reading of Clement Clarke Moore’s famed poem, “A Visit From St. Nicholas.” My childhood book of this verse with its inspired line
of ‘visions of sugarplums’ dancing in children’s heads featured an illustration of two inedible smiling stars with flailing limbs hovering above the children’s bed. I often wondered, but never knew, just what a sugarplum really was.

While researching traditional Christmas recipes, I recently discovered that sugarplums aren’t just plums, but many dried fruits, chopped and mixed with nuts and spices. I remembered that my brother used to make a similar treat with dates. Only he called them… date balls. Here I had been enjoying chewy, sweet sugarplums all along, but without that magical moniker, they were never dancing in my dreams.

So what better way than to pass a tradition along to my children, while honouring the sweetest and oldest of fruits? I decided figs would be the featured fruit in my sugarplums, blending them with raisins, cinnamon,
allspice, coriander and a couple drops of liquid Chai Tea mix. I rolled the fig mixture into little balls and then into three types of sugar – white granulated, yellow and powdered. My sugarplums are just one version of many visions. Other recipes include nuts, mixed peel, cocoa, and orange and lemon zest.

Later in the day, when my daughter came inside from test-driving her new crazy carpet, grumbling that her frostbitten hands made it impossible for her to take off her snowsuit, I silenced her discontent with one
simple, enchanting question. “Would you like to try a sugarplum?”

As she sat in front of the fireplace, warming her little fingers and toes, her “frostbite” was long forgotten as she gobbled up every last sugarplum, leaving none for her little brother. Did she care that they are a good source of plant calcium, fibre and potassium? Does she even know what that means? No, she didn’t give a fig. But I do, and hope others will take on the tradition to inspire visions of this whimsical delight.

Happy Christmas to all!

Tags: Christmas, dates, figs, holidays, plums, sugar, sugarplums, treats, Wagon Wheels

Why, when I have 364 days of the year to prepare for this, am I always drowning in a last-minute wave of Yuletide?  
 
I thought for once that this year would be different, as we have dramatically scaled down our festivities.  With half of the family out of town, it should be quite a quiet holiday. 
 
But for me, Christmas excesses don’t include spending too much on gifts, but rather, too much on calories.  This timeless season is endless with its goodie binges starting in November and continuing until New Year’s Day.  Twelve days of Christmas?  I’m counting at least 45. 
 
Yes, I will trifle with truffles, have the hots for chocolate, get jiggy for fig bars, double my date cookies and go long on the shortbread. 
 
But my big splurge this Christmas will be sealed with a knish.  A knish is what inspired someone to say, “Good things come in small packages.”  These little cheese-filled pockets are packed with flavourful, creamy-textured dairy delights encased in soft, yet substantial pastry. 
 
While I love to cook and consider myself quite good at it, there are some dishes that I have always depended on others to make.  This year I will be without any sisters to help spice up the kitchen, although I do have my Mother coming for the week to lead the way in making cabbage rolls, dressing and gravy. 
 
I’ve never made knishes before, always leaving that task to the skilful, loving hands of Mom.  But this year, I decided to turn the tables.  Instead of waiting for my fairy godmother to grant me three knishes, I decided to tackle them on my own, along with some assistance from Mom’s little black book of delicious recipes. 
 
The knish recipe came all the way from Russia with love, although I’m not sure if it’s the Ackermans or Gilsingers I need to thank.  The three fillings listed include potato, cottage cheese and chicken livers.  I skipped the latter and combined the other two to make cheesy, potato-stuffed knish. 

Since I love my food to have “depth of taste” (which unfortunately at times has resulted in “width of butt”), instead of just boiling the potatoes in salted water, I cooked them in chicken stock, along with a chopped garlic clove, then let them sit awhile to absorb that garlicky goodness. 
 
And with that accomplished, I plan to bask in the beauty of the holidays, enjoying all the hugs, knishes and warmth that the season brings.
 
Glory to God in the Highest!  Peace on Earth! Goodwill toward Men!

Tags: calories, cheese, chocolate, Christmas, cooking, dates, figs, holidays, hugs, knishes, potatoes, shortbread, Yuletide