Yule Blog

This blog will be short. My son and his young family are coming for the holidays and I've been hopping. As their arrival draws closer, excitement builds and it's difficult to focus on anything else.

Most of the remaining preparations involve food and drink so you'll understand why I thought to share a recipe today. As I was sorting through the many traditional and seasonal-favourites recipes, deciding on menu-plans, I came across this hot drink mix. It's tasty, easy to make, and relatively economical.

Cinnamon-Mocha drink mix

1	Cup	Sugar
½	Cup	Instant coffee or espresso powder
½	Cup	Cocoa powder, unsweetened
1	Tsp	Cinnamon

Directions:

Combine sugar, coffee, cocoa and cinnamon in a blender and process, stirring once or twice, until mixture is well blended and a fine powder. Store in air tight container.

To Serve:

Put 2-3 heaping teaspoons of mixture in a mug and fill with hot milk (or boiling water for a lighter drink.) Top with a dollop of whipping cream, if desired, and add a sprinkle of cinnamon.

For those of you looking for do-it-yourself ideas for the holiday season, you might find something to pique your interest on one of my favourite television shows by BBC-UK called Victorian Christmas. Their web-site offers instructions on twenty-five traditional projects.

As for me, it's back to our yuletide preparations – Danish cookies will fragrance our home tonight.

Until next time, I wish you and yours a very happy holiday season!

Summer Cooking

Okay, call me crazy, but summer isn't my favourite season. I don't suffer scorching days and humid nights easily, and get especially frazzled when they stretch, one upon the next, for weeks on end. It's because of this, cooking – which I normally love doing – becomes a dreaded chore. Standing over the stove, adding even more heat to an already over-warm house, ratchets up my level of exhaustion. Hours later, that heat still lingers, too. I'd fast if summer didn't last so long.

For this reason, most of our summer cooking is done outdoors, on the barbeque. It's surprising just how much of the day's meals can be prepared on an outdoor grill. Ours is a propane model, which is not a favourite amongst many grilling aficionados but it works fastest and easiest as stove-top replacement. Even without using the side-burner, the grill top can function well as a cooking surface. Cast iron pans, grills, and griddles, as well as heavy-gauge metal pots and pans (with heat resistant handles) work well on the grill top, which happens to also be one of the best places to cook pizzas, in my opinion.

An added bonus of cooking this way is the economy of it. I stumbled upon this saving when comparing our household energy costs for the same months in other years when the stovetop was still being used. Energy costs had changed, obviously, so I evaluated the savings by kilowatt hours. The difference was significant. Then, I calculated the dollar savings and compared that with the total cost of propane refills over the same season, and found using the barbeque cost us about half of what our energy supplier would have charged us had we cooked indoors on the stove. The difference was so stark I actually did the calculations twice, just to be sure.

Not everything needs cooking, either. One of my favourite summer drinks, homemade iced tea, would normally require making fresh, hot tea, but can also be made using the sun's heat. Here's my version of "Sun Tea":

• In a 2-quart glass jar, use two (or more) teabags, depending on desired strength, immersed in a gallon of tap water (or filtered water, if necessary.)
• Add to this, half a lemon, sliced thinly.
  
• After sealing the jar, place on a doorstep, porch, or sunny window ledge, to "steep" under a hot sun for about five hours, minimum.
  
• When the tea has reached its desired strength, remove the lemon and teabags and add sugar, to taste, while the fluid is still hot.
  
• Stir until sugar is dissolved and then chill the tea thoroughly before serving.
  

Cheers to staying cool!

Yogurt: A Super Food

Perhaps it a lack of good-quality fresh produce in our winter diet, or maybe it’s a sign of aging. Whatever the reason, my stomach frequently rebels at this time of year. That’s when I’m reminded to haul out the yogurt maker.

Whether a result of stomach flu, medications (both prescription and over-the-counter), alcohol or an improper diet, the delicate digestive flora called Helicobacter Pylori (h. pylori) can become compromised. These helpful bacteria live in the protective mucous layers of the stomach’s lining and, when compromised, can cause the stomach and bowel to retaliate in many discomforting ways. One of the simplest – and, for me, the most effective – ways to restore this digestive flora is to regularly eat yogurt, a natural probiotic (Wikipedia: Probiotic). Low in calories but high in calcium, yogurt is truly a wonder food. Although its lactic bacteria (L.Bulgaricus, S.Themophilus, L.Acidophilus) can be found in commercial brands, I experience greatest relief when eating home-made yogurt. It takes time to prepare – about an hour for the initial processing, and then 10-12 hours fermentation time – but the results and flavours are incomparable.

To make your own, you’ll need a dairy thermometer and, likely, a Yogurt maker. A regular oven can be used for making yogurt, but its temperature must be kept low (100-115°F). Most ovens won’t sustain that low a temperature. Yogurt makers can be found in many kitchen-supply stores, and are priced in a range of $20-$50. Mine, one in the mid-priced range, has lasted over twenty years, so its cost-per-use has reduced its “long-term” price to negligible. The little jars it came with have all lost their lids and are now disguised as posy vases, but the base still heats to the correct temperature and is used as an improvised oven: a sealable 1-litre bowl (to ferment the yogurt in,) is placed on the heater-base, under a larger, inverted bowl which is then sealed when placed on top the rolled towel wrapped about the base.

Plain yogurt can be used as a dietary – and yummy – substitute for sour cream in many dishes like stroganoff or dips. It can also be drained of excess whey using a fine-mesh strainer and used as a soft-curd cheese substitute – Tzatziki comes to mind. Most often, we enjoy it as part of a healthy breakfast, adding some compote (see recipe below) to flavour and sweeten it.

Out of curiosity, I decided to figure our cost per serving. To do this, I took into account our preference for organic ingredients and the fact that we buy a bulk-size, frozen berry blend at a wholesale food supplier. So, I’ve calculated cost-per-serving with products we use most frequently. At its most expensive our home-made yogurt, including the compote, costs 55-63¢ per 1/2-cup serving. At its least expensive, it costs 45-50¢ per serving. The average cost (using “usual” ingredients at regular prices) runs between 50-55¢ per serving. Not bad, considering we’re eating “light” yogurt (one serving of dairy, made with 2% organic milk,) and 1/2-serving of fruit from the low-sugar compote. There are possible savings to be made with a change of some ingredients, but the marginal savings produced just don’t make up for the loss of flavour, texture and, ultimately, food value. I had thought to include some store-brand prices for comparison but realized there aren’t any commercial products which use organic milk, nor sweeten with organic sugar, nor flavour with whole fruit and fresh lemon. As the yogurt is quantitatively different, and each person values their time in various ways, price comparison becomes difficult, if not impossible to measure.

Making yogurt may or may not provide cost-saving, but if your stomach’s health has been compromised, and you enjoy heightened flavours along with healthy food choices, then – bottom-line – your tummy will thank you for the effort!

Here’s my “Simple Compote” recipe:
4 cups / 1 litre frozen berry blend
1/3 cup (organic) sugar
1 lemon (organic, when available), zest and juice
1-2 Tablespoons Tapioca flour (depending on consistency preferred and the amount of juice extracted from frozen fruits.)

Combine first three ingredients in saucepan and stir while heating through at medium-high. When it develops, strain off approximately 1/4 cup of berry juice. Mix this juice with the tapioca flour, blend well and add back slowly to the saucepan, stirring constantly until mixture boils and thickens. Pour compote into a clean (sealer) jar (minimum 3-cup capacity) and let cool before refrigerating. Compote will last a couple weeks, refrigerated.

This can be prepared using fresh fruit or a combination of fresh and frozen, but adjustments to sugar and tapioca flour will need to be made according to desired sweetness and thickness. It’s also makes a calorie-wise and fruity substitute for jam.

Nutritional values per 1 Tbsp. serving: 45.1 Calories; 0.3 g Fat (0 mg Cholesterol); 1.9 mg Sodium; 19.6 mg Potassium; 11.2 g Total Carbohydrates (0.1 g Dietary Fibre; 0.1 g Sugars); 0.3 g Protein.