Vert-à-Go

I initially described this acorn squash as a leftover, but really it wasn’t, because it had never actually gotten as far as being cooked. It had simply sat in a bowl in the counter for three weeks, staring at me accusingly while I tried to avoid looking at it. That’s what you get for buying something you don’t often buy without having a specific plan for how you’re going to use it!

The other issue with the squash is that I had only bought one of them, which really wasn’t going to go far enough to feed four people in any recipe I already knew, so there it sat. I finally realised that it wasn’t actually going to leap onto the stove itself (although I suppose it might have, if I’d left it another couple weeks). So I turned, as always, to Chef Google. This simple recipe for apple acorn squash soup from BC Tree Fruits* took care of that squash, a few apples that weren’t quite as crisp as they once had been, and part of a huge bunch of parsley that seems to have no end. It also finished off the chicken stock I had in the freezer, which prompted me to make another batch of stock that in turn used up some not-so-crisp celery and more of that never-ending parsley. The crisper drawer is now in much better shape. Only nice fresh vegetables remain and I don’t have to feel a twinge of guilt or apprehension when I open the drawer. A fridge really isn’t any different than the rest of the house–if any part of it gets ridiculously cluttered, then it can become very difficult to concentrate at the task at hand (in this case, cooking).

Food waste really has become a huge issue for me over the past few years, and I’ll soon be starting a series on how to drastically cut down on the amount of food that gets thrown in the (compost, hopefully) bin. In the past it was quite common for me to have to chuck stuff out, but now it’s a pretty rare exception. It’s not that hard to change your habits–some menu planning, inventory-keeping, thoughtful grocery shopping, and liberal use of your good friend Google will all help to get your groceries into your stomach where they belong, rather than the landfill. An estimated 5% of food is thrown out of Canadian fridges–at least–on a regular basis. In Britain, it’s about 1/3rd and in the US, estimates are as high as 40%. I can’t see why Canada’s level of waste would be much different. Cutting back on this unnecessary waste is the easiest way to reduce our consumption and ease the demand for food production, not to mention reduce the significant methane gas emissions caused by decomposing organic matter in landfills while saving you some significant money on your food bills too.

As Alex Renton wrote in the Observer a few weeks ago, there would be no need for GM crops if supermarkets and consumers weren’t so wasteful. The first and easiest place to start is with a warming winter bowl of soup like the one above!

* Those are walnuts floating on the top. They weren’t about to go bad–I just thought they would taste good, and so they did. Next time I will candy them. Yum. It could easily be made into a vegetarian soup by substituting vegetable stock.

First two photos by Danny Pederson-Bradbury

Today is the first day of the Lunar New Year (also known as Chinese New Year, although it is also celebrated in parts or all of Vietnam, Korea, Tibet, and Mongolia). I started marking this holiday about a decade ago because a) the winters are very long here in Saskatchewan, and any extra excuse to do something special in January/February seems like a fine plan and b) I love the excuse to cook a big fun special meal for the family.

Those who celebrate this holiday usually have a big feast on New Year’s Eve. It worked out better for us to get together tonight, though, so I got started first thing this morning with the duck that I’d picked up from Pine View Farms on Saturday (that was the morning that it was -47C with the windchill–can you blame us for wanting a party?). After going over the bird and removing the remaining feathers/stems (ducks are notoriously difficult to pluck), I plunged it into a big pot of boiling water for a few minutes, then pulled it out, dried it, and basted it with a honey water mixture. Then I hung it up in the basement and turned the fan on it. It looked weird, but the only way to get a really crispy skin for Peking Duck is to make sure that it’s completely dry before you roast it. I left it to hang for over 5 hours–it’s best to leave it as long as possible, especially considering that you somehow still need to find time to make a whole whack of pancakes to wrap the duck in. I’ve tried a couple different recipes and methods and think there is just no getting round the fact that unless you can find someone to make them for you (or a store–please tell me if you find one that has them, because I’ve searched everywhere!), you’re just going to have to spend 1.5 hours in front of the stove making miniature pancakes if you really want to eat Peking Duck. Which I do, but this is probably why I don’t make it more than once a year.

Pancakes out of the way and covered with a damp cloth, I got started on the pork dumplings. I hadn’t planned on making these and was going to have a simple soup to start instead. But then I read about how it is considered especially good luck to eat jiaozi in Northern China for the New Year–so I threw caution to the winds and added them to the menu too. I didn’t have any wonton wrappers, so ended up making the wrappers from scratch for the first time (I’d actually never made dumplings before either). This was a mildly insane decision, but I followed these nicely detailed and extremely amusing instructions, making the filling out of ground pork (Pine View Farms), ginger, cabbage, and green onion, and rolling out 48 pastry discs (“GO FORTH! MAKE DISCS! TILL YOUR ARMS FALL OFF!”), then filling them, pinching them shut (which locks the luck in, apparently), and steaming them before serving with soy sauce for dipping. They really weren’t hard to make at all, but they just took A. Very. Long. Time. Pre-made wrappers would save time and energy. I would definitely make them again, and would probably even do my own wrappers, but would also put the rest of the family to work to speed things up, assembly-line style.

Back in the 1970s, my mom and grandma took a Chinese cooking class from a friend’s father who shared his yummy recipe for sweet and sour pork (it’s brown, not that scary bright red colour). It has become a family favourite, so I also whipped up a batch of that to go with some side/back ribs from Pine View. This made a lot of meat dishes for one meal, but it also produced a lot of leftovers, so I was able to give some to my grandma so that she wouldn’t have to cook tomorrow. It also meant that I wouldn’t have to cook tomorow, which was good, because by this point, I was starting to get fairly serious kitchen fatigue. I don’t know where the guy in Eat Drink Man Woman found the energy (note: that link is not for the squeamish)!

To go with the rice and spareribs (we ate the two previous dishes as separate courses), I also stirfried a big batch of vegetables in soy sauce, sherry, and sesame oil. Usually I would have done another vegetable dish, but after going all out on the dumplings, I figured we had more than enough food already and could eat salad tomorrow. It’s considered unlucky to cook white food on New Year’s Day (it’s the colour associated with death), so I used green ones instead, including locally-grown pea shoots (and a bit of garlic, shh, don’t tell). I left the pea shoots long because long leafy greens signify long life and are considered lucky too. They were actually quite fun to eat that way; rather like spaghetti, and they tasted just like spring.

The grown-ups drank Tsingtao beer (oops, I forgot to offer the green tea), and for dessert there were baby mandarin oranges (also lucky) and fortune cookies. I had planned to make ox- and goldfish-shaped cookies in honour of the day but simply ran out of time. Rather hilariously, my fortune read, ‘TAKE PAINS TO PREVENT GETTING COMPLETELY EXHAUSTED’. Ok, I won’t cook like that every day, I promise!

Chinese New Year Feast

• Pork dumplings (jiaozi), made with green local cabbage, green onion, ginger
• Peking Duck pancakes, served with green onion and cucumber strips and duck sauce
• Sweet and sour pork ribs
• Stirfried green vegetables (broccoli, organic celery, green onion, pea shoots, garlic)
• plain rice
• Mandarin oranges and fortune cookies
• Tsingtao beer/green tea

Mr Chan’s sweet and sour pork ribs

• about 2 racks (1.5lbs) of pork spare ribs (it’s also nice with chicken wings/drumsticks)
• 1/2 tsp ginger
• 1/2 tsp dry mustard
• 1/4 tsp garlic salt
• 4 tsp cornstarch
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup vinegar
• 4Tb dark soy sauce
• 2 cups water

Mix together. Brown ribs, drain off fat and pour sauce over ribs. Bring to a boil and immediately reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 2 hours.

Today was Stop Climate Chaos Day–a day of action coinciding with the UN climate talks in Poznan, Poland. Events took place across the country and across the world, spearheaded by an umbrella group of organisations ranging from the Sierra Club, Oxfam, the World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, and Unicef. But it wasn’t all about marches and speeches. Organisers also urged supporters to hold potlucks and write letters to the editor to show solidarity and get the word out about the need for action to decrease the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million. Because the personal is also political, I cooked one of our favourite vegetarian dinners in honour of the day. In September, the UN declared that people living in the west could make a big contribution toward fighting climate change by eating less meat. It has been estimated that halving the average person’s meat consumption would make a bigger difference to CO2 emissions than cutting their car use in half.

I sometimes have difficulty balancing a vegetarian meal so that I don’t feel like I need to eat a bowl of pasta as big as my head to feel full. In my opinion, the true star of the vegetarian world is the humble lentil. Lentils are not only high in protein and fibre–they are also an excellent source of iron (80% of your daily dose in just one cup), magnesium, tryptophan, and folate. When you serve them wiith rice, they become a complete source of protein. They are therefore an excellent meat-free main dish that will leave everyone satisfied.

Monastery lentils have become my go-to dish on busy weeknights and I probably make it once a week. As you might infer from the recipe’s name, it has the added bonus of being incredibly easy to prepare as well as being extremely economical, hearty, and yummy (I think you could easily feed 4 people for about a dollar apiece). You can also easily substitute dried local lentils, homemade stock, or frozen tomatoes for the canned variety, thereby reducing both the sodium content (and its food miles/climate impact) even further.

Monastery Lentils (with thanks to Sam)

• 1 - 14oz can lentils
• 1 - 14oz can diced tomatoes
• 1 can (or 1 cup) vegetable/chicken stock
• splash of cooking sherry
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 celery sticks (if large), sliced into bite-sized pieces
• 2 carrots (if large), sliced into bite-sized pieces
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• Italian seasoning (I used dried oregano, parsley, and thyme)
• 1 Tb olive oil

In a large pot, saute the onion, celery, carrots, garlic, and dried seasonings in a tablespoon (or thereabouts) of olive oil until softened. In the meantime, add the lentils, tomatoes, chicken stock, and sherry to a medium-sized pot and bring to a simmer. Add the lentil mixture to the vegetables, bring to a boil, and simmer for about half an hour. Check whether you need to add salt and pepper, then serve on boiled/steamed rice. A small sprinkling of shredded white cheddar cheese is nice on top. I also like a dill pickle on the side.

Serves 4

For more great lentil (and other pulse) recipes, including some by celebrity chefs, check out the Saskatchewan Pulse Growers web site–you can also sign up there to get onto a monthly email recipe mailing list, or buy a copy of their excellent cookbook The Amazing Legume. Saskatchewan farmers grow a lot of lentils, and it would be terrific if everyone in the province ate them at least once a week!

photo by Sandy Pederson of Urban Land Army

September and early October were a complete washout for me on the blog posting front, so I really missed out on commenting on the Canadian election. I will be focusing much more on the Canadian food politics scene in the weeks ahead. But today (along with almost everyone else), I’m looking south of the border for the results of the US presidential election. It’s one night that I certainly won’t apologise for being glued to the TV!

Election Fever Pizza

• plain round focaccia bread (Bulk Cheese Warehouse) I had planned to try making homemade pizza dough today, but somehow forgot to buy yeast. Oops! Next time.
• homemade tomato sauce (from some of my roasted garden tomatoes)
• mild Italian sausage (Pine View Farms), pre-cooked
• green pepper (Grandora Gardens)
• onion (Saskatoon Farmers’ Market)
• mushrooms (Loveday Mushroom Farms, Manitoba)
• jalapeno peppers (my garden)
• part-skim mozzarella (Bulk Cheese Warehouse)

Assemble in the traditional fashion. Bake. Eat (preferably while exuberantly celebrating a major change of administration!).

Red, White & Blue Fool (I name no names)

• 1/2 cup strawberries (Strawberry Ranch)
• 1/8 cup blueberries (K-5 Market Farms)
• 1/8 cup raspberries (Rhodes’s Raspberry Patch)
• 1/2 cup whipping cream or plain (Balkan) full-fat yoghurt
• 1/2 cup full-fat vanilla yoghurt
• berry (castor) sugar to taste (optional)

(all the measurements and proportions for a fool are really up to you–you should really just chuck it together according to your mood and what you have on hand!)

Whip the cream until it forms soft peaks and fold in the yoghurt (or just mix the two yoghurts together). Sweeten with berry sugar to taste (if you like). Chop the strawberries with a fork (I used frozen fruit, so there was a fair amount of juice after defrosting. If you want the white part to stay mostly white rather than vaguely…(socialist commie) pink(o)…drain off the juice from all the berries first).  Stir in the strawberries and spoon into glass dishes. Top with raspberries and blueberries and refrigerate for at least an hour. Eat while gloating.

I’ll be opening a bottle of Liberty School (a Californian cabernet sauvignon), and have put a bottle of President Canadian champagne in the fridge. I’m crossing my fingers that we’ll have a very good excuse to pop the cork later tonight!

It can be really difficult to find a good dill pickle. Either they’re too soft, or too salty, or the wrong kind of sour, or they’re just plain from too far away. Over the seven years I lived in England–where, inexplicably, grocery stores don’t carry them and most people have never even heard of them–I kept dreaming of those tall glass pickle jars lining my mom’s cold room.

I still haven’t lost any of my enthusiasm for them and have since introduced two small new pickle fiends into the world, so a jar doesn’t exactly last in our fridge for months at a time. I vowed that 2008 was the year that I was finally going to learn how to make them for myself! In August I picked up a couple of bags of small cucumbers (these are available pre-bagged at various farmers’ markets, although I got mine from Sobey’s, who had brought them in from Sovereign Colony near Rosetown). I didn’t have any canning experience, though, so I took them down to the farm to get some long-overdue instruction from my mom. We used her mother’s old recipe–and, I believe, some of Grandma’s old jars too!

Please note that this recipe assumes a familiarity with good canning practices (sterilising jars and following proper sealing procedures).

Olive’s garlic dills

Wash cucumbers. Pack into sterilised jars with garlic and dill. For each quart of cucumbers use:

• 3 cloves garlic
• fresh dill (4 good-sized stems of both leaves and flowers)
• 2 cups water
• 1/2 cup white vinegar
• 1Tbsp pickling salt

Bring the brine to a boil, pour into jars and seal immediately (no boiling water bath required). Takes six weeks to pickle.

These pickles will last for at least a year (if you haven’t already eaten them all by then), but we have eaten from older jars with no problem at all. I was surprised at how easy it was to do. I did the second batch back at home using snap lids. One lid hadn’t snapped down like the others by the following morning (until I pushed on it), so I stuck that jar in the fridge for its 6-week pickling phase and will use it first, just in case.

And if you don’t feel like waiting until November for your pickles, or you just don’t feel like canning right now? Here’s a great recipe for refrigerator pickles that can tide you over.

When you really want sour cream, there isn’t a whole lot that you can satisfactorily substitute for it–somehow I just don’t want to put plain yoghurt on a burrito or a baked potato. But while it does last for ages in the fridge, I rarely seem to be able use it all up in time simply by plunking it on as a condiment. It’s one of those things that can easily get pushed to the back of the fridge and forgotten about.

My neighbour gave me some perishable food items before she went on holiday a few weeks ago, including a partly-filled tub of sour cream. It only reached its best before date yesterday and was still looking fine, but I couldn’t see the point in putting it back into her fridge as a welcome home gift. Magically, the tub contained precisely 1/2 a cup of sour cream, and I also had small amount of rhubarb on hand that wasn’t really enough to make anything else. And as she was the one who gave me this incredible muffin recipe in the first place, it seemed only fair that she should find a few of them waiting for her upon her return.

Jenny’s rhubarb streusel muffins

• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1-1/3 cup flour
• 1 cup diced rhubarb
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/2  tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Topping: Blend 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup chopped nuts, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 2 tsp butter (melted)

In a small bowl, blend cream, oil, and egg. Set aside. In another bowl, mix flour, rhubarb, sugar, baking soda, and salt. Stir wet ingredients into dry until just moistened. Drop into muffin cups and top with topping. Bake at 350F for 25-30 minutes.

On a cool-ish day like today, when three-quarters of our household has been felled by a rotten cold, it seemed like a good time to make something warm and comforting to eat for supper. Somehow a salad just doesn’t seem that appealing when you’re nursing sore throats! (Cold cucumber slices might be the exception.)

My crisper drawers are filled to bursting with vegetables at the moment, some of which have been there for quite some time. Normally I am much better about keeping track of what’s in there and not buying anything unnecessary, but a combination of events have left me with me with double quantities of rather aged vegetables: first, I was away for a couple days last week, and then my neighbour left for 2 weeks, generously gifting me with the perishable contents of her fridge. We’ve been harvesting daily from two garden plots, and yet I was still unable to resist buying not just one, but TWO bags of new baby carrots* the other day, despite already having a nearly full bag of old crop carrots languishing in the fridge. This plethora of carrots had further managed to hide a truly elderly bag of celery from sight, and I also had a bag of beet stems which I had somehow not yet found a use for, despite pulling them out to look at them every day for two weeks.

To make things short, I had a lot of veggies that wouldn`t even win second prize in a beauty contest, and they weren’t about to get any prettier. But as any restaurant chef (or your grandmother) knows, after you clean out the fridge, it’s time to put soup and stew on the menu–slow-cooking brings new life to sad sack vegetables. There’s no need to be scared of them and you don’t have to throw them out just because they’re not at their peak anymore. After all, you wouldn’t chuck away an entire apple just because it has a little bruise–you just cut around the bad spot and eat the rest, right?

I gave my last-ditch stew some extra summery zing with fresh green beans from the garden and lovely earthy new potatoes. And I have to say that it was absolutely delicious. Now, I just need to tackle that 20lb case of ripe peaches and that huge bag of rhubarb…**

11th Hour Stew (aka It`s Now or Never)

• 1.5 pound package of stewing beef (Benlock Farms, via the Saskatoon Farmers’ Market)
• 2 small-ish onions (old crop, so one was going a little dodgy on the outside–just peel off the offending layer/s), chopped
• 4 carrots (which needed a good shave to get rid of those white hairs, frankly), sliced into rounds
• 3 stalks of celery (what I could safely rescue from that limp old bag), chopped
• a big fistful of beet stems (well-picked over to get rid of the dodgy ones), chopped
• one clove of garlic lurking in the butter compartment, chopped
• a half-bag of last year’s frozen fresh tomatoes (about 2 cups) which I had discovered in the freezer and which was starting to form ice crystals since I robbed half of it for something else last month
• half a dozen mushrooms (the last of a bag), chopped
• a nice big handful of green beans, broken into bite-sized pieces
• 6 small/medium new potatoes, quartered
• a bottle of Paddock Wood Vienna Red beer (any beer will do, as light or dark according to your taste)–or use water or vegetable/beef stock

Brown the beef in a bit of oil in your big stewing pot, throwing in the onions and garlic partway through. Then add all the vegetables (apart from the beans and potatoes), the frozen tomatoes, and the beer. Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and slowly simmer for an hour and a half, adding water if need be. Twenty minutes or so before you’re ready to eat, add the potatoes. When the potatoes are tender, throw in the green beans for five minutes or so while you’re setting the table. They should still have some bite; don’t cook them to within an inch of their life.

Serves 4 with bread, butter, and dill pickles–you’ll have leftovers for 2 that you could serve over egg noodles–go grab some at the farmers’ market!

* Sovereign Colony’s new crop of carrots are now available at the 8th St Sobeys! These are the most delicious carrots you can buy at a big chain grocery store, and they`re grown just down the road in Rosetown. Keep an eye out for their potatoes, which should be arriving at Sobeys soon too.

** Tomorrow! I`ll do it all tomorrow! August`s bounty has a habit of turning me into Scarlett O`Hara.

What with the sunshine and bit of rain we’ve had this week, the pots of lettuce that I put in earlier in May are now going completely mad. I’m going to have to start thinning them out (the picture on the right was taken after I deforested one of them for supper). I plan to eat my way through the middle to make space to sow some of my heritage Strela Green lettuce seeds (a ‘very ornamental’ variety dating prior to the 16th century, according to Salt Spring Seeds). This way, I’ll have different lettuces maturing at different times and don’t have to worry about pathetic plant pot syndrome.

Although my gardens are now planted, obviously there isn’t an awful lot coming out of them into the kitchen just yet, apart from the lettuce, chives, and herbs. As fresh and delicious as these things are, they still need to be fleshed out a bit with some other ingredients. But a couple of days ago I discovered a small bag of beets from the farmers’ market that really needed to be used up (they were hiding under another, larger bag of beets). I also still had the rest of the Canadian chevre left over from the tarts I made for the shower a couple weeks ago. A quick google of ‘beets goat cheese’ turned up this amazing salad from Donna at All Recipes, which I adapted slightly (not having any frozen orange juice concentrate to hand). You could proudly serve this as an appetiser at a posh dinner party.

A May-December salad (yes, I know it’s June)

• 4 small beets, quartered
• 3 big tablespoons chopped walnuts
• 1-2Tb maple syrup
• baby salad greens
• goat cheese

Dressing:

• 1Tb balsamic vinegar
• 1/8 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• leftover beet cooking liquid (optional)

Put the beets in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil and cook until tender, about 20-30 minutes. Drain and cool, then cut in to bite-sized chunks, reserving about 1/4 cup of the cooking liquid.

While the beets are cooking, gently toast the walnuts in a dry skillet, then drizzle over with maple syrup. Stir until evenly coated, then remove from the pan and set aside to cool.

Whisk together the balsamic vinegar and olive oil to make the dressing (I added a generous splash of the beet cooking liquid, but it wouldn’t be necessary).

Divide the greens onto two plates and evenly sprinkle over with the candied walnuts. Place the beets on top, top with crumbled goat cheese, and drizzle over with the dressing (you’ll probably have some left over for another salad tomorrow). Prepare to say ‘wow’!

(serves 2)

On Saturday morning there were fiddlehead ferns on sale at the farmers’ market, which was very exciting. The Joy of Cooking reminds us that there can be great rewards to eating fresh, wild, and locally-sourced foods such as fiddleheads. Local eating isn’t all about eating nothing but carrots and cabbage!

“If you are lucky enough to live in a part of the country where these come to market in spring, choose those that are bright green and tightly coiled, and use them the same day.”

–The Joy of Cooking (emphasis mine)

Fiddleheads are one of those rare beasts that simply defy the industrial agricultural system. You can’t buy them out of season–you have to snap them up while they’re hot (and then dream about them for the rest of the year).

So we had them steamed with lemon juice, butter, salt & pepper on Saturday night, along with a barbecued butterflied leg of lamb. Tonight I used up the rest of the bag by making fiddlehead pasta, loosely adapted from Rose Murray’s recipe for Fiddlehead Pasta Primavera in Canadian Living. Epicurean has preparation instructions, as well as tips on freezing them, for that desperate night in February when it feels like spring will truly never come again!

Fiddlehead pasta

• 2 cups of washed and cleaned fiddleheads
• 2 portobello mushrooms, sliced into bite-sized pieces
• 3/4 cup frozen peas (the last of the bag I had open)
• butter
• dried basil
• 2 slices chopped back bacon (optional, obviously–I used beef bacon)
• salt & pepper
• 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese
• whole milk (I would have used cream if I’d had any to hand)
• pasta–we used linguine

Steam the fiddleheads until tender (mine took about 6 minutes in the microwave, but you can also boil them for about 15), then refresh under cold running water and drain well.

In a big skillet, melt a big blob of butter over low heat. Add the mushrooms, bacon, a bit of salt, and a couple big pinches of dried basil, turn the heat up and cook until the mushrooms are tender (I find mushrooms like a high heat to properly release their liquid). I would have added some chopped garlic too, but I was out. Reduce the heat, add the fiddleheads and peas, and warm them through (for about 3 minutes).

Meanwhile, get the pasta boiling, and mix up a few tablespoons of the Parmesan cheese with about a 1/4 cup of milk. When the vegetables and pasta are ready (hopefully at the same time), combine them in a big bowl, then mix in the milk/cheese mixture and sprinkle with the rest of the Parmesan cheese. Grind pepper over the top and serve immediately, handing around extra cheese.

Serves 4

“Only two things in this world are too serious to be jested on–potatoes and matrimony.”
– Irish saying

Around the world, potatoes are growing in popularity as the price of wheat and rice continues to rise. Potatoes are not only rich in carbohydrates, protein, vitamin C, and potassium, but they can produce more food, on a smaller amount of land and in harsher climates, than any other major food crop. Up to 85% of the potato plant can be consumed, compared to only 50% of cereal crop plants!

So it seemed appropriate in this, the UN’s International Year of the Potato, to make the humble spud the star of the show for our simple but warming (and 99.9% local) dinner on Earth Day.

(Earth Day) Irish Colcannon

• 2lbs potatoes, quartered
• 8oz crisp green cabbage (you could also use curly kale, in season)
• 2 green onions, chopped (I used some of the brave little chives poking their heads out of the snow in my garden)
• butter
• fresh nutmeg, grated
• salt and ground black pepper
• 4 large eggs
• 3oz mature cheddar cheese, grated

Boil and mash the potatoes. Gently cook the cabbage until tender but still crisp. Preheat oven to 375F. Drain the cabbage and mix into the potato with the onions/chives, butter and nutmeg. Season to taste. Spoon the mixture into a shallow ovenproof dish and make four hollows in the mixture. Crack an egg into each hollow and season well.

Bake for 12 minutes or until eggs are just set, and serve sprinkled with cheddar cheese, alongside a simple green salad.

(from Roz Denny’s Ultimate Vegetarian Cookbook)

(Serves 4)

Ingredient sources: Simpkins Market Garden, Wally’s Urban Market Garden, Grandora Gardens (Saskatoon Farmers’ Market), my garden, Armstrong/Saputo (local), Sunview Acres (local), Sifto (local), Orchard del Sol (Bulkcheese Warehouse)