Making it Pretty

One of my goals in starting this blog was to share my exploration of a totally unknown (to me at least) world of food styling. I've been cooking for more years than I care to admit, but until now have never really been concerned about the finer points of presentation. Oh, of course I knew that it should be attractive to the eye, i.e. never serve white mashed potatoes with white chicken breasts, or go an extra step and plop a sprig of parsley & a dab of butter on your mashed potatoes for special occasions, but on a busy evening after a hectic day at the office I'm not sure we even noticed what color our food was! However, I'm suddenly very interested in colors and textures - I've discovered that food presentation is definitely an art form and one that can be very satisfying! It's amazing how a little flower or a sprig of mint tucked in just the right spot can make the dish much more appealing. And, lucky us to live on "the Drive", a wonderful neighborhood of Vancouver with a vast array of vegetable and fruit stands where one can always buy everything from dragon fruit to cactus leaves! Every time I walk down the street now, my eye is searching for a new color combination or an exotic fruit that I haven't tried before - persimmons, cactus pears, or baby tangerines with their leaves still attached. And drizzles, now that's a whole other world! A little squiggle of blackberry coulis, or caramel, or white chocolate is a wonderful thing. Attached are some photos of some of our more recent offerings to our guests, souffled asparagus quiche, cantaloupe ribbons with raspberries, home made jam (it was pear, pecan & coffee jam this morning), crispy waffles with bananas & whipped cream, dusted with icing sugar, drizzled with blackberry coulis (of course!) and topped off with a purple & yellow pansy, purple grapes frosted with sugar crystals, spring flowers tucked into whipping cream, eggs benny on potato latkes, blueberries zabaliogne in caramel lace cups, sparkling grapefruit and watermelon cooler, the list goes on.....

Gluten Free & Delicious

Does that sound like an oxymoron? There does come a time, even for a novice guest house host, when you find yourself preparing for guests with special food intolerances. Ideally, we should see these as new "opportunities", new adventures in the wonderful world of food exploration! I wrote about my first experience some weeks ago when we had a guest who was allergic to eggs, and it led to a wonderful discovery of our Mushroom & Brie Tart, which has become a favorite with our guests, even those whose only intolerance is to boring food! My new "opportunity" is to create wonderful, tasty food for two upcoming guests who are on gluten free diets. This is something I have had a little experience with because, on the advice of a naturopath, I did attempt to survive on a gluten free diet for 3 months last summer. I was truly horrified at the very unappealing offerings available in the supermarkets or, to give them the benefit of my considerable doubt, perhaps something tasty was hiding on their shelves and I just didn't know where or how to find it (?). However, my motivation is perhaps stronger now because I really do care about creating food that brings pleasure to our guests, that encourages them to leap out of bed in response to the aromas of wonderful home baking wafting up the stairs! How much more so for those who have been suffering through weeks or years without the taste of wonderful, home baked bread or delectable scones dripping with berries and crusted with golden sugar crystals! So, I rolled up my sleeves and dove in. I pored over my cook books, I read countless blogs and websites and I spent around $100 buying every kind of non-gluten flour I could find. I may not have a full repertoire of menus yet, but I do have hope! I discovered that there's a whole world of gluten free recipes out there and, fortunately, I have a husband willing to be the food tester for whatever comes out of our oven! Never one to leave a perfectly good recipe alone, I blended 3 of them to come up with one, and it turned out pretty well. My nephew ate 3 of them right out of the oven - perhaps a good sign! Here it is:

Gluten Free Chocolate Cherry Scones

• 1/2 c. Amaranth Flour
• 1/2 c. Potato Starch
• 1/4 c. Brown Rice Flour
• 1/4 c. Glutinous Rice Flour
• 1/4 c. Quinoa Flour
• 1/4 c. Arrowroot Powder

(I think the flours could be any combination of the above, or some others - these are just what I tried. Also, there's a gluten free flour blend you can buy)

• 1/3 c. Sugar
• 1 Tbsp Baking Powder
• 1/2 tsp. Baking Soda
• 1/2 tsp. Salt
• 1/4 tsp Xantham Gum
• 3/4 c. Cold Unsalted Butter. Cut into pieces, then cut into dry mixture until pea sized, then add:

• 1/2 c. Dried Cherries
• 1/2 c. Chocolate Chips

In separate bowl, whisk together:

• 3/4 c. Buttermilk
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. lemon zest

Add to dry ingredients and blend just until mixed - do not over mix. The dough is very soft. You can pat it out into a circle and cut it into 8 pie shaped wedges, but handle very carefully to get it onto the pan. Don't worry, if the wedges are a bit wonky, they still will taste good!

Brush the tops with a little buttermilk or cream. Sprinkle with coarse sugar (optional).

Bake @ 425 for 12 - 14 minutes.

Vancouver Paralympics - Opening Ceremonies on Friday!

It was wonderful to see how excitement for the Olympics swelled and grew as the games went on, starting to build as people came out to see the torch arrive in their neighborhood then reaching a crescendo by the time the Gold Medal Hockey Game happened! Throngs of people in the streets, cheers, laughter, shouting and even spontaneous outbursts of "O Canada" - amazing! I have to admit I've never watched more than a few sports in the Olympic games in the past but this time we had at least three t.v.s on in our guest house at all times. We watched and cheered for our Canadian team in almost every sport (who knew I would watch a curling match!), but also shared the enthusiasm and disappointment of our guests as their national teams won and lost. We hope to experience that same effect with the Paralympics that are to open this Friday in Vancouver. So far, we certainly don't feel the excitement in our city that was evident last month, but we hope that the 24 hour relay starting on March 11, 2010 near Robson Square and ending on March 12th around noon, will get all of us back into the spirit! I think we were all a little sad when the Olympic games ended, so the Paralympics are our opportunity to extend the Olympic fever for a little while longer. Here's a link to more information on the relay: http://www.vancouver2010.com/paralympic-games/more-2010-information/paralympic-torch-relay/daily-highlights/march-12/ These are amazing athletes who can teach us so much about overcoming difficulties in life and reaching for our dreams! Jean Labonte, who was selected as flag bearer for Canada in the opening ceremonies, already has a gold and a silver medal to his credit, after losing his leg to cancer at a very early age. Read his story - it's an inspiration! Let's get out there and cheer for Jean, our whole Canadian team and for the courage of all the athletes who will compete in these games!

In Search of the Perfect Cinnamon Bun

It seems that every guest house or B&B serves fresh, hot, home made cinnamon buns at some point. I love to bake bread and haven't had time to do it much in recent years, but thought this would be my opportunity to get back into it. I come from the era where bread was made slowly, allowed to rise, punched down, allowed to rise some more, and so on. But many of the recipes I've been finding in my favourite breakfast cookbooks seem to either skip the "rising" step entirely or have just one brief period of resting. Sure looked like an error to me but I thought I should at least give them a try using the recipe as written. It only took me a few days of running a guest house to realize how important it is to do as much of the work as possible the night before. So, before I even attempted the recipes, I decided to try keeping the dough in the refrigerator and baking them off in the morning. Nothing like waking up to the smell of fresh baked cinnamon buns, even if you're the sort of person who would never allow such decadent food to cross your lips! I whipped up the dough, which took only a few minutes, and placed it in a bowl in the fridge to rest over night. In the morning, it didn't appear to have risen very much at all, but I made up the rolls and placed them in my pan. The recipe didn't call for any further rising, so I immediately popped them in the oven. To my surprise, they came out beautifully risen and golden brown. A little cream cheese frosting, and my husband was licking the frosting off of his face for the rest of the day (he gets the benefit of my experimentation!). So, here's the recipe I tried, including my alterations:

Dough

1 pkg active dry yeast

1 c. warm milk (105 degrees F)

1/2 c. granulated sugar

1/3 c. melted butter

1 tsp salt

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

4 c. all-purpose flour

Filling

1 c. packed brown sugar

2 T. ground cinnamon

1/2 c. coarsely chopped walnuts

1/4 c. butter at room temperature

Pan (9" x 13")

1/4 c. melted butter

1/4 c. brown sugar

Icing

1/2 of an 8 oz. pkg cream cheese (softened)

1/4 c. butter (softened)

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 1/2 c. icing sugar

(may need up to 2 tsp. milk if icing is too stiff)

Method

Stir yeast into milk until dissolved (in large bowl). Add sugar, melted butter, salt, eggs, and flour, and mix well. Turn out onto a lightly floured board and knead 10 to 15 times, then shape in a ball. Place in a bowl, cover with clean tea towel, and keep in the refrigerator over night. (Or if you're making them right away, allow the dough to rise for 1 hr. prior to shaping into rolls)

In the morning, preheat oven to 375 degrees. Roll dough to about 16" x 20" rectangle. Mix together dry filling ingredients. Spread butter over dough to within 1/2" of edges, sprinkle with cinnamon mixture. Starting from long side, roll up and pinch edges tightly. Slice with sharp knife into 12 pieces. In 9" x 13" baking pan, stir together the brown sugar and melted butter. Place cut pieces of the roll on top. Pop in the oven for 30 minutes. Allow to cool slightly, turn over onto a piece of parchment paper. Leave the pan in place to allow the sticky toffee bottom to soak down over the rolls. Remove pan and when partially cool, turn rolls upright. Spread with a generous amount of icing. Enjoy!

Next time I'm going to try forming the rolls right away, then leave them in the fridge over night and bake them off in the morning. I'm hoping that will work just as well and much less to do when I'm casually sauntering (make that "rushing") around making breakfast!

My Other Love - Gardening in Beautiful Vancouver!

I can't resist an occasional trip to the garden center, especially when Spring starts to bring out all the amazing cherry blossoms and other bountiful displays of colour in Vancouver - spring fever just overtakes my common sense! I tell my husband that these plants just seem to follow me home - it's really not my fault! But even he couldn't argue with my "find" yesterday! I bought the most amazing, gorgeous, fantastic Magnolia. I'm not really sure where I'm going to plant it in my postage stamp sized garden - already bursting with almost every imaginable local fruit - apple, pear, peach, Japanese plum, cherry, nectarine, apricot, fig (2) and kiwi (2) trees, plus raspberry, strawberry, blueberry, gooseberry, red & black currant plants, not to mention all my favourite flowers and shrubs (and almost every flower and shrub is a favourite at one time or another!). However, I declared bravely that I would chop down an apple or other tree if I had to in order to squeeze in this one more fantastic tree. It's called a "Black Tulip Magnolia" from Monrovia. I'm afraid the colours are not rendering accurately on the computer so use your imagination to see a gorgeous dark shade of purple (definitely not black but very deep and rich)!

Spotlight on Vancouver

Recently I've mostly been posting about food and the Vancover Olympic Games. However, the city was glowing with wonderful light this evening so instead I want to share a couple of photos of the view from the balcony of our Lions' Loft suite. What a beautiful city we live in!

Family Accommodation in Vancouver

As new hosts, we haven't really had time to think about whether or not we could host children in our guest house but it is one of the questions on B&B websites, so it appears it can be a concern. The question came up for us when we were contacted recently by a young family who had tickets to see an Olympic hockey game (lucky them!). We didn't even give it a thought - sure, why not ?! We bought a couple of great fold out beds that could squeeze in beside mom & dad's bed. And what a blessing it was to us! They were only able to stay for one night (very important to rush home to see the Gold Medal game!), but in those few short hours they already felt like part of our family. It was fun to think about kid friendly foods, baking cookies in the shape of Noah's Ark critters, and having sleepy little people sitting around our dining table in the morning. We tried our best to find foods that would be fun, healthy and yummy for both generations. Here's a glimpse of what we came up with:

In their room: Skor Cookies (yum!), milk, soft drinks, chocolate bars & chips (the only ate the cookies, but I'm sure it was the children who made the very mature decision to not eat the complimentary junk food!). The breakfast menu included some repeats from other menus, but seemed right for the occasion.

Breakfast Menu

Mango Lassi (healthy yogurt, mango & banana, but looks like a milkshake!)

Mini Chocolate Avocado Raspberry Muffins (for recipe see:

http://freerangeliving.blogspot.com/2010/02/chocolate-avocado-muffins-with.html

(these sound decadent but the cocoa powder is disguising partial organic whole wheat flour, organic avocado, and raspberries grown in our own garden last summer!)

Fresh Organic Strawberries & Blueberries in Lace Cups (for children)

Watermelon & Grapefruit Rooibus (mom & dad)

German Apple Pancake, with

Maple Syrup & Whipped Cream, drizzled with a little home made Blackberry coulis

Crispy Bacon