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I published the People Places Cookbook in 2000, a collection of recipes and Saskatchewan stories that celebrated my somewhat late introduction to the culinary arts. The book's out of print now although I still have a few left. In fact, if you're ordering any other book(s), for an extra $5 I'll throw in a copy of my cookbook.
Anyway, I have learned to love cooking and - from all reports - am pretty good at it. Recently I've had to learn a whole new style of cuisine. In January 2005 I was diagnosed as a celiac, essentially I am allergic to gluten, a major component of wheat, barley and rye. It's astounding how many of the foods we eat contain gluten, even more astounding is the infinitesimal amount of the stuff that can trigger a reaction in a celiac. Still it's not so bad once you develop a routine, except for two things: eating out is a crap shoot (sorry, bad pun) and giving up beer is really, really hard!
But I digress!
The Coopers generally have a
Canada Day bash on their deck. I've
prepared different dishes to take along and they inspired a couple of people to ask for the
recipes. So I thought I’d post them here in
case anyone else is interested.
We in
Saskatchewan can never find enough recipes to get rid of all the rhubarb we
produce, can we? I found this one in a
booklet put out by the milk producers group, but modified it to take all the
dairy products out of it! By the way,
I know there’s no fool like an old fool, especially this one, but fool is
also a word for a traditional English summer pudding.
4-5
cups rhubarb in ½” pieces
½ cup honey
¼ cup orange juice
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup raspberries
1 tsp vanilla
1+
tbsp brandy
½ tub light Dream Whip or other whipped
topping, thawed
In a large saucepan, stir together the rhubarb,
honey, orange juice and cinnamon and bring to a boil. Cook for 15 minutes or so (longer if you
are using frozen rhubarb), stirring frequently, until the mixture is pretty
mushy. Add the raspberries and cook
for at least 5 more minutes. Stir in
the vanilla and brandy and transfer to a large bowl. Refrigerate until cold.
Couple of notes here. If you’re using fresh raspberries, you’ll
probably want to increase the honey by ¼ cup or so. The frozen ones generally come with a fair
bit of sugar. Secondly, rhubarb can
vary pretty wildly in terms of sourness, so taste it! Several times! And add more honey if you
need to to make it palatable.
But remember, there’s no sense eating rhubarb if
you’re not looking for a little tartness, so don’t overdo it. I’ve found that if I’m using frozen
rhubarb I generally need less honey than I do if I’m using garden stuff.
If you want to be really elegant, put the fool
through your food processor either before or after you’ve chilled it and
you’ll get a dessert that feels like a mousse. Frankly, though, I like it better with a
little texture.
After it has chilled, stir in the whipped topping and serve in parfait glasses, or whatever, topped by a fresh raspberry (in season). The recipe card says “Serves 4”, but I’ve found that 12 is more like it. The recipe also works just fine doubled, and that’s the way I usually prepare it because it seems to keep very well in the fridge.
Some ball players were at a bbq on my deck a while back, and wanted the recipe for the salad I served, so here it is:
Grandma B Salad
The kids call my mother Grandma B because they already have two grandmas. Since she sent us the original recipe, that gave this colourful salad its name.
½ cup sugar
½ cup vinegar
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp dijon mustard
3-4 garlic cloves, smashed and minced
pepper, generous grind
¼ cup canola oil
1 large red onion, chopped
3 stalks of celery, chopped
500 g frozen kernel corn
1 large red pepper, chopped
In a small bowl, dissolve the sugar and salt in the vinegar, stir in the mustard, pepper and garlic. Transfer to a shaker jar and add the oil.
Chop the onion into a large salad bowl. Give the dressing a good shake and pour over the onion. Let stand for an hour or two to denature the onion a bit. Add the other ingredients at meal time, stir 3 or 4 times, and serve.
The above are the basic ingredients, but you're not quite finished! Mom's original recipe called for 500g of cut green beans, and they're good. But as leftovers they turn a kind of icky colour and get a little rubbery. So I usually chop two small zucchini (or one small English cucumber) instead. If I have a few radishes, they go in too (sliced, of course). And cauliflower florets are excellent. Peas work, but we prefer them cooked.
Grandma B Salad keeps beautifully, as long as you make sure you haven't picked an overripe red pepper and your celery is fresh. You'll need to drain it every other day or so.
Carrot Cake Icing
Some of you asked for this too.
1 pkg (250g) light cream cheese, softened
¼ cup margarine, softened
1 tsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups icing sugar
Beat the cream cheese, margarine, milk and vanilla on low speed until smooth. Beat in the icing sugar, continuing to use low speed, one cup at a time.
Frosts yummily a 13x9 cake or two smaller ones.
Making a carrot cake without using wheat flour takes some doing - if you want to find out how I do it send me an email.
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