Salsa & Beans! Tortillas & Rice!

This week I got promoted from “We’re assessing your abilities as a copy editor” to “You’re a copy editor!” I’m stoked that I’m an official employee, but there is a bit of uncertainty because my shifts revolve more around gaps in the schedule than they did before. At first I let that bother me, but then I remembered my horoscope, having read it in Metro on the way to work. It said something about how there would be some unexpected changes in my life on that day, but that it would only be a problem if I let it be. (Really, it’s not a horoscope at all, but it is solid advice to live by.)

And in talking to some of my coworkers, I’ve been assured that there are plenty of people going on vacation who I will be able to cover for.

But in food news: I made some fantastic Mexican-like food (I’m hesitant to call it straight Mexican because who am I to declare such authenticity?).

First: the Tortillas.

I love this recipe for tortillas from Homesick Texan. She has tonnes of great Tex-Mex recipes on her website, and plenty of them are easily turned vegetarian. While I’ve made a couple different tortilla recipes, this one is great because it uses a miniscule 2 teaspoons of oil, as opposed to 5 tbsp of shortening like the recipe in the Rebar cookbook. (Side note: does anyone else have the Rebar cookbook? I haven’t used it in a while because they have so many fancy ingredients, but it really does have good stuff in it. Next on the to-buy list: The Coup cookbook!)

Calgary Food Blogger Bake Sale!

Hoo! After a feverish morning of baking delicious desserts, I am finally ready to tell you about the Food Blogger Bake Sale!

Saturday and Sunday at Market Collective in Kensington there is going to be a table chock full of fabulous and varied desserts. You ain't seen a bake sale until you've seen the Calgary Food Blogger Bake sale!

There is more information available from Vincci at ceci n'est pas un food blog. Vincci organized this entire thing from scratch and I have no doubt that it will bring smiles and sugar highs to hundreds this weekend.

My contribution is lemon-shortbread squares. It's like a cookie slathered in lemon curd. Hell yeah!

I'll be blogging it properly when I return from a lovely little excursion to the delightful mountain town of Canmore, Alberta!

Recipe right here!

Putting the Veg in "Vegedible"

All this cloud and rain makes it tough to feel like it's summertime. It's tough on my little business-casual wardrobe too; I could get a  lot more use out of it if I could pull on a skirt a couple times a week.


But despite that, it is only a few days away from that actual, literal first day of summer. I'm going to use these cloudy, cloudy days as time to stock up on vitamins. I'm going to start sticking to our friendly government's recommendations for eating veggies, because I've gotten into a pretty unfortunate habit of eating food that's pale and greasy. Also pizza (ah, pizza). And as good as pale and greasy is (ugh, that even sounds gross), I'm pretty sure this bod would prefer dark green and orange and steamed.

Fresh Pasta and Goat Cheese-Tomato Sauce

Despite the three-hour preparation time, I am positive that I will be making pasta from scratch again and a again.

Most of my experience with homemade pasta has been in restaurants where a plateful is priced exorbitantly but is so silky and flavourful that you really can’t blame them for charging $20 for some tomatoes, a few eggs and a cup of flour.

Farmerless Market (Updated)

Aw dang.

I got to the Hillhurst Sunnyside Farmers' Market around 6:45 this evening. I knew it was running 3:30 to 7:30 and that my late arrival might decrease my chances of finding my coveted local asparagus, but I actually had a pretty busy early evening.

My plan was to find a bunch of lovely – if expensive – local veggies, steam or roast them and pour vegan gravy on top. But there were no vegetables to be found.

OK, I think I saw some hydroponic bio-dynamic scallions sticking out of a basket, but I certainly didn't see any of the B.C. fruit or local veg that was touted by the HSFM website.

We went and bought the fixin's for tacos instead at Safeway. Walking back through the farmer's market with a plastic Safeway bag (I somehow dropped my reusable on the floor of my closet instead of putting it in my purse. Can't tell ya how I managed that) almost felt like it should be shameful. But, irked as we were that there were no vegetables to be seen, the shame was gone almost immediately (also the thought of tacos helped).

I couldn't help but tweet my disappointment when I got home.

Though nobody from the Market has been available to give me the scoop yet, at least I wasn't alone:

Oh well. My assumption is that the vendors sold out and headed out once their wares were gone. I only bought things a few times there last year – I think it was either because they didn't have the vegetables I was interested in, or because we were taking regular trips to Crossroads. However, I would really like to be able to pick up some fresher, more local items there this year, seeing as it's so very close to my apartment.

Stuff I did see? Mead, some frozen pizzas, bison meat, a bouncy castle, kids playing soccer, Thai food, and some surprisingly entertaining music (although I don't think that will be a regular feature).

I will do my best to hit up earlier next time and find something delightful to report back!

(P.S.: My buddy Kelsey wrote up an article for Beatroute about Farmers' Markets in Calgary!)

An update!

Lunch time!

I don't want to jump the gun here, but it's starting to actually look like spring again! For those of you not in Calgary: we've seen a lot of snow and snow-rain in the past couple of weeks and we're quite tired of it all. Plus, it makes the #yyc feed on Twitter pretty redundant, "I'm so mad, I woke up to snow," "I'm also mad, due to the snow."

Today is the first day of the Hillhurst Sunnyside Farmers' Market! It's a few hours yet until it opens, but I will be there to scope out the goodies, and perhaps even take a few snaps to share with you folks later! (Here I go, overselling the probably post-less reality again...a girl can dream!)

Thanks to a friendly and encouraging reminder from Monica, I'm finally posting about one of my work lunches!

This was yesterday's rather large meal. It was the second day in a row that I felt super full without finishing it all. From top: avocado and hummus on pumpernickel; half an Everything bagel with cream cheese I mixed with dried thyme, onion powder and pepper; guacamole; soba noodles in tom yum soup with broccoli and spinach; cuke slices to dip in the guac. Not pictured: banana!

Since I work slightly odd hours form 3-10 most days, this serves as a late lunch and late supper. Unfortunately, my soup was real short on flavour, so I mostly just picked out the veggies and ate some of the noodles (Soba = amazing, btw. Will post on that eventually.)

Last week's meals featured peanut butter and jam sandwiches (with homemade blueberry jam from last summer!), lots of steamed asparagus and Tricuits.