Creamy garlic and white bean soup.

Nick and I have been talking lately about whether we might the “too much garlic” people. Is that a thing? When people leave here after a dinner party, do they talk in the elevator on the way down about my heavy hand and effluvious kitchen? Do they sniff their breath from behind cupped palms and cringe? Anytime I make a recipe from a cookbook, I double the amount of garlic the recipe calls for, at least. Sometimes I smell it on my skin and in my hair, and always on my breath.

There are people for whom there is such a thing as too much garlic, and those are the people I will never understand. I once absentmindedly cut a slice of bread using a knife I had used earlier in the evening to smash some cloves of garlic, and I put peanut butter on the bread, and when I noticed it tasted like garlicky peanut butter toast, I still ate it. Also I should wash things right after I use them, but whatever.

My parents get garlic from a friend of theirs who grows fat cloves of organic garlic in his backyard, and though I’m pretty sure they aren’t supposed to give it to me (this garlic is not meant for just anyone, I’ve heard), sometimes they do. The garlic is pungent and aggressive, and it is so fresh that even dried, the cloves do not pull easily from the bulb. The skins are thick and ruddy, more like parchment than the whisper-thin white skins on imported supermarket garlic. This is good shit, and I get it all year round. For free.

You can buy local garlic at your Farmer’s Market, and sometimes places like Whole Foods have some good options as well. The white, delicate bulbs you get from the supermarket are usually imported all the way from China, so there’s no way to know how fresh they are. They are subdued, but they will do in a pinch. Less-garlicky garlic is far, far better than no garlic at all.

If on occasion you want to feature garlic beyond being heavy handed with your marinara sauce or whathaveyou, consider putting it in soup. An easy weeknight garlic soup will fill your kitchen with slow-simmered aromas and your mouth with a healthful, soothing richness. White beans add body to this dish, and herbs bundled together and removed at the end lend complexity without leaving visual evidence of having been there. This is peasant food, simple and straightforward and wholesome. To save time you can roast the garlic the night before, and your apartment will smell like a bistro some late night in Paris and there is nothing wrong with that.

Serve with grilled cheese sandwiches. In case that wasn’t obvious.

Creamy garlic soup

(Serves four.)

• 4 tbsp. olive oil
• 1/4 lb. garlic, cloves separated and peeled
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 540mL/19 oz. can white beans, such as navy, white kidney, or great northern beans
• 4 cups vegetable or chicken stock
• 1 sprig fresh sage
• 1 sprig fresh parsley
• 1 bay leaf
• Salt and pepper
• 1/3 cup heavy cream (optional)

Preheat your oven to 350°F.

In a small baking dish with two tablespoons of olive oil, roast whole garlic cloves for 30 to 40 minutes, or until brown and sweet-smelling.

Meanwhile, in a heavy-bottomed pan over medium-high heat, sauté onion with remaining oil until golden and lightly caramelized. Add beans, roasted garlic, and chicken or vegetable stock, and stir to combine. Bundle sage, parsley and bay leaf using kitchen twine, and pop into the pot. Simmer together for 15 to 20 minutes.

Remove bundled herbs and discard. Puree soup using a blender or immersion blender. Taste, adding salt and pepper and adjusting seasonings as needed. Serve immediately, or simmer for an additional five to 1o minutes, or until desired consistency is achieved. Remove from heat and finish with cream, if desired.

Roasted tomato and garlic soup

Tomato soup is one of those things on the list of “Oh, I thought I didn’t like that,” which has gotten shorter and shorter as I’ve gotten older.

For years I despised tomato soup, because I thought it all tasted like Campbell’s Cream of Tomato, which always tasted tinny on my tongue and then itched in my throat going down.

My Dad liked it though, and our little cat at the time, Truffles, would lap it furiously out of her bowl the instant the bowl was put on the floor (she would coat the wall in orange splatter, unable to wait until it cooled even slightly to dive in), so we always had cans of it in the pantry. I preferred Cream of Mushroom, but I was in the minority.

You don’t need beautiful tomatoes for this; the ruddy, ugly, sort of soft or bruised ones are fine. The secret to good tomato soup is to roast the tomatoes first. Though around here that isn’t such a secret – a friend at work pointed out that roasting is my go-to technique for just about every ingredient. It sounds like I might be a bit predictable. But anyway. Roast the tomatoes. And the garlic. Use too much garlic. This is the future, and we’re okay with that now.

Roasted tomato and garlic soup

(Serves six)

• 5 medium field tomatoes (2 1/2 to 3 pounds)
• 3 heads of garlic plus three cloves, peeled
• Olive oil
• Salt
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 2 tsp. ground black pepper
• 1 tsp. red pepper flakes (or to taste)
• 1/2 tsp. dried oregano
• 4 cups vegetable or chicken stock
• 1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, packed
• 1/2 cup fresh parsley leaves, packed

Lightly grease a 9×13 pan. Preheat your oven to 300°F.

Quarter tomatoes, and line up in the pan. Scatter the peeled cloves from three heads of garlic over top. Drizzle olive oil over the contents of the pan, and sprinkle about a teaspoon of coarse salt over as well. Roast for 90 minutes to two hours, until tomatoes have withered and garlic is deeply golden. (This step you can do in advance; I like to roast a lot of tomatoes and garlic and stick them in freezer bags for easy weeknight dinners during the winter.)

In a large, heavy-bottomed pot, heat two tablespoons of olive oil over medium-high heat. Add three remaining cloves of garlic. Sauté onion until translucent, then add pepper, pepper flakes, and oregano, stirring to coat. Add tomatoes and garlic to the pot, scraping any solids that remain in the pan into the pot. Stir.

Add stock, and reduce heat to medium. Simmer 10 to 15 minutes, until later garlic cloves have softened. Purée using an immersion blender. Taste, adjusting seasonings as needed, then add basil and parsley and purée again. Add water to thin to desired consistency, if needed.

Serve drizzled with olive oil.

Corn and asparagus salad

As of about 1:30 p.m. last Friday, it is now summer on the west coast and I am wearing a sundress and remembering my thighs now that they are not prevented by denim or Lycra from rubbing together.

Finally, things I’ve been waiting a year for are in season again, and the sun is warm into the evening so we can garden after work or enjoy a fizzy drink or two and a tomato salad on a patio somewhere and be social. I bought this season’s first zucchini on Sunday. I picked strawberries in the sunshine on Saturday. On Friday I ate corn in a park beside a marina.

My Dad trimmed his garlic plants this weekend and sent me home with a wealth of stinky, curly green stalks with which to make pesto and salads until the garlic oil ekes from our pores and our coworkers beg us to eat anything else. And corn has begun to appear in the markets, just as the last of the frozen stuff has hardened into an iceberg that smells like freezer and deserves to be thrown out.

So for this Meatless Monday, dinner came together in a fifteen-minute frenzy of blanching, chopping, and tossing, and it was cool and bright-tasting, with lemon and tomatoes, and basil, and piquillo peppers from a jar in the fridge and those pungent, fabulous garlic scapes.

There would have been a handful of Parmesan cheese thrown in at the end but I was in such a rush to eat that I forgot. No matter. It’s just fine sprinkled on after, and it’s just fine without if you want to keep things vegan. It would also be wonderful with grilled scallops or spot prawns, or maybe halibut, but you can do that some other night.

(Serves four as a main dish, six as a side.)

• 1 lb. asparagus, trimmed, cut into bite-size pieces
• 2 large cobs corn (about 1 1/2 cups)
• 2 cups diced fresh tomatoes
• 2 diced piquillo peppers (or roasted red bell peppers)
• 1 large shallot, minced
• 1/2 cup garlic scapes or scallions, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 lemon, zest and juice
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tbsp. minced fresh basil
• 1 tsp. red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp. Kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

Blanch asparagus in a large pot of boiling water. Cool in an ice water bath until cold.

Scrape corn from cobs into a large bowl. Add tomatoes, peppers, shallot, garlic scapes, Parmesan cheese, and lemon zest. Add asparagus.

Whisk lemon juice, olive oil, basil, pepper flakes, salt, and pepper together. Taste, adjusting balance as needed. Pour over salad. Toss to coat.

Serve immediately.

And then I fell into the couch and ate watermelon salad until none remained.

Sometimes I have no idea where the time goes. My nightstand is still littered with evidence of Paris and the suitcase which still features the Air Canada tags from my trip in May is still on the floor. Not long after I got back and sort of unpacked we stuffed the suitcase with summer clothes and light formal wear and drove six hours to Osoyoos, a small town in the Okanagan – wine- and rattlesnake-country, for those unfamiliar with the region.

Where Vancouver was rainy and bleak, Osoyoos was hot and sunny, and the dry desert air was a rare treat for my hair, which cannot be worn down most of the time as disco is dead and there is no place for big blonde Diana Ross hair in my day-to-day life. I ate ice cream and we got suntans on the beach and beside the pool at the resort where we were staying for Nick’s youngest sister’s wedding. For some reason, theirs was the only grey day while we were up there.

We’ve been back two weeks and the suitcase hasn’t moved from its spot on the bedroom floor, and I’m pretending that it’s still there because the cat loves it. She has claimed it as her own personal chaise, and she stretches her furry little body diagonally across it, chewing the zipper pull on one corner and batting at the pull on the other end with her back paws.

In the time between trips and in the time since we’ve been back, there were the playoffs, and hockey games every two days for weeks and weeks. Nick aged thirty years during the Vancouver-Boston series, and his liver grew three sizes. He raged quietly as Vancouver gave up so many goals, and raged outwardly as we watched our city implode in the aftermath of Game 7. Our reaction to the end of it all has been relief.

There were other things. Nick’s sister and brother-in-law and their little girl were in town, so we attended events in their honour and then fed them a feast, and the youngest sister celebrated her wedding a second time at home, with a larger guest list, and I made the food, anticipating 80 guests. The result is that I am tempted to call our whole apartment a loss and walk away; there is icing on the living room rug and bits of dried blini batter stuck to the cat and weird smells coming from behind the freezer where I dropped and then couldn’t find several dozen blueberries and at least four pieces of pineapple.

In all of this, I have been moving slower and slower as it becomes more and more apparent that this is not a beer belly slung over the top of my jeans. I have been measuring the transition of my belly button from innie to outie, and it looks like it should complete its journey within the week.

My pants don’t fit and I want to violently devour every watermelon I see. I almost cried because a store was out of cantaloupe, and threw a fit in a different store because they had no canned orange segments. Nick said something about hormones, so I punched him. Extremely personal and very unsolicited questions, observations, and advice are now arriving in earnest. And while they have never lacked the appreciation they deserve, my boobs and what I do or do not intend to do with them are suddenly everyone’s business. The correct answer to such probing questions does not seem to be “I’m planning on only feeding the little raptor Diet Coke so it doesn’t get fat.”

It should not have come as a surprise how many people do not have a sense of humour about babies.

It will be a boy baby, by the way. Who, at the moment, compels me toward melon and leaves me ravenous for cans of fruit cocktail, who seems to want an endless supply of Hawkins Cheezies, pulled pork sandwiches, avocados, icy Cherry Coke, and cold pieces of summer fruit.

To keep things interesting, I’ve devised the following salad, which makes it possible to incorporate melon into dinnertime. It’s Meatless Monday friendly, and you can eat it on a bed of greens if you feel like it. I prefer watermelon for this.

Savoury fruit salad

(Serves four as a side dish)

Dressing:

• 2 tbsp. light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp. rice vinegar
• 2 tsp. sesame oil
• 2 tsp. sriracha
• 2 tsp. honey
• Juice of 1/2 lime

Salad:

• 2 cups diced watermelon
• 1 long English cucumber, diced
• 1 avocado, diced
• 1 mango, diced
• 2 scallions, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro
• Toasted sesame seeds, for garnish

In a small bowl, whisk together soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, sriracha, honey, and lime juice. Taste, adjust seasonings as needed, and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine watermelon, cucumber, avocado, mango, scallions, and cilantro. Toss with dressing, and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Serve cold.

Mexican minestrone.

If there seem to be a lot of soup recipes on this site, it’s because we seem to have more bouts than we ought to of not taking good care of ourselves. Nick’s belly aches and his glucose levels are all over the place and I am eating grapes and Cheerios as if either is sufficient nourishment all on its own. So we have soup to feel good when we have been bad, and generally, it works.

Of course, as I write this I am snarfing down a bowl of bunny-shaped pasta and cheese that came from a box and that is organic, and I believe I am meant to pretend that it being organic somehow makes it less bad for me than conventional boxed macaroni and cheese. I don’t call this eating because I am ingesting it in a manner that more closely resembles inhalation.

There is shame in this, and I am grateful that few can see me. I am tucked into a corner of the couch while I write, ignoring the incessant groaning and play-by-play analysis of the hockey game by a team of grown-up boys in my living room as they in turn ignore me. If this game is anything like the last one, it will last four hours and emotionally devastate them. But I digress, as that is not important, at least to me. What matters here is that yesterday I had a nourishing bowl of soup, and it contained vegetables and I was better for it. I hope the effects are lasting.

The soup is something like minestrone, or maybe pozole, and it tastes sort of like salsa and Mexico. It’s best if you chop all your veggies to about the same size. It’s an easy vegan recipe, though I’ve made it with chicken and chicken stock and it was not harmed by the addition of meat. It is very hearty. Serve with avocado or a dollop of sour cream.

(Serves four to six.)

• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1 cup diced carrot
• 1 cup diced celery
• 1 cup diced sweet potato
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 jalapeño pepper, minced
• 2 tsp. ground cumin
• 1 1/2 tsp. chipotle powder
• 1/2 tsp. dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
• 4 cups vegetable stock
• 1 5.5 oz. can tomato paste
• 1 28 oz. can hominy, rinsed
• 1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes, including juice
• 1 14 oz. can black beans, rinsed
• 1 cup diced red bell pepper
• 1 lime, zest and juice
• Salt to taste
• Cilantro

In a large pot over medium-high heat, sweat onion, carrot, celery, sweet potato, and garlic until the colours have brightened, two to three minutes. Add jalapeño, cumin, chipotle powder, oregano, and pepper, and stir to coat.

Add vegetable stock and tomato paste, and bring to a gentle boil; reduce heat to medium. Simmer for ten to fifteen minutes, until sweet potatoes have softened.

Add hominy, diced tomatoes, black beans, and red bell pepper. Stir in lime zest and juice, and then taste. Adjust seasonings and add salt as needed. At the last moment, stir in a handful or two of cilantro; chop additional cilantro for serving.

And, because it makes me so happy, here’s my favourite photo of the week.

Peanutty soba noodles with kale.

This past week, I have been inexplicably drawn to purple vegetables. I’ve bought turnips rimmed with a violet blush, potatoes dark as over-dyed denim, two kinds of purple yams, and that jewel-hued bunch of kale. Maybe it’s that purple suggests nutrients I’ve been lacking – it’s been a long winter of dark leafy greens and sweet potatoes and chickpeas – or maybe it’s that I am so very tired of winter and am ready to just get on with spring already. Maybe it’s that everything seems so grey and cold and apocalyptic right now, and purple suggests whimsy, a decadence we couldn’t afford if it came in any other form. Whatever the reason, if it’s purple it’s getting stuffed into my shopping bag.

You don’t have to use purple kale here; green would be perfectly lovely and probably more aesthetically pleasing – the purple with the soba and the peanut butter got a little lost. Purple desire aside, I was willing to overlook a sub-par presentation because this came together in under 15 minutes; the longest part was waiting for the water to boil. Perfect for this Meatless Monday, or anytime it feels like March or the end of the world.

(Serves four)

• 2 tbsp. peanut or vegetable oil
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tbsp. minced fresh ginger
• 1 block medium-firm tofu
• 1/2 lb. soba noodles
• 1/2 lb. chopped fresh kale
• 1/2 cup peanut butter (natural peanut butter is best because it’s runnier)
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup sriracha
• 2 tbsp. rice vinegar
• 1 tbsp. sesame oil
• 2 tsp. honey
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 1/2 cup chopped roasted peanuts

In a large pan, over medium-high heat, heat oil and add onion, garlic, and ginger. Cook until fragrant, about two minutes.

Pat tofu dry with a kitchen towel and cut into cubes. Add to the pan, tossing occasionally.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add soba noodles, and cook for three minutes.

Meanwhile, combine peanut butter, soy sauce, sriracha, rice vinegar, sesame oil, and honey in a bowl. Mix well, taste, and adjust seasonings as needed.

After three minutes, add kale to the pot. Cook an additional three minutes, then drain. Rinse with cold water and drain again.

Add noodles and kale to onion mixture, and pour sauce over top. Toss with 1/2 cup of the fresh cilantro. Divide between four plates, and garnish with remaining cilantro and chopped peanuts.

This would also be good with chopped scallions and fresh bean sprouts. We might have had those things if I wasn’t only buying purple stuff.

Something like mujadara, only French, kind of.

Oh, Meatless Monday. If you fell on any other day, I would have a much easier time. Around 2:00 this afternoon, I was pretty sure we were pretty much going to have grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner. But the thing about having a food blog is that at least a couple of times each week one must make an effort to eat something interesting, or, at the very least, to pretend that she hasn’t been eating an inordinate number of sandwiches, because eating only sandwiches won’t help anyone out of any rut.

And I am in a rut.

This happens every so often, usually during the longest-feeling part of a season when I really just don’t feel like eating whatever’s in season any longer. At the start of winter I cannot get enough root vegetables; by the end of February, the rose in my cheeks isn’t the brisk arctic air but too goddamn many beets. There will be radishes soon, and asparagus, and pea shoots, and peppery little leaves of watercress. I have never been particularly patient.Also I don’t like the cold, and I am bored with my puffy jacket, and all my boots need to be resoled. Whine, whine, whine. It’s possible that I am laying blame for my rut on the weather and the root vegetables when the problem is me. Nick has indicated that’s likely the case, and that I am a malcontent at my worst, and contrary much of the time. I maintain that I’m charming and delightful, but he did not nod in agreement.

So because we cannot live off of grilled cheese alone, winter vegetables will have to do for now. And why not coax the best out of them?

I first heard about mujadara from Orangette. For the uninitiated, mujadara is a simple dish of rice and lentils bound by the rich sweetness of deeply caramelized onions. Made from pantry staples, it’s comfort food for a dark grey day, and the constant sizzle of onions for close to an hour is soothing, and you can eat it with a side of greens dressed in a squish of lemon and it’s really very nice.

But why stop there? Why not pull out that celery and those carrots that have been languishing in the crisper? Why not add a touch of smoke, a pinch of vigour? Yes. Pinçage. Let’s do that. Here’s a variation on the mujadara theme, a twist that will placate those dull feelings until the first tips of asparagus finally grace your plate.

Rice and lentils with pinçage

(Serves four, or six as a side dish.)

• 1 1/2 cup basmati rice
• 1/2 cup French green lentils
• 1 bay leaf
• 4 tbsp. olive oil, divided
• 1 1/2 tsp. salt, divided
• 2 cups diced onion
• 1 cup diced carrot
• 1 cup diced celery
• 1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored, and diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tbsp. tomato paste
• Salt and pepper, to taste

In a medium pot, combine rice, lentils, bay leaf, one tablespoon of olive oil, and one teaspoon of salt with four cups cold water. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce heat to low, cover, and cook for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and keep covered.

Meanwhile, heat three tablespoons of olive oil in a large pan over medium high heat. Add onion, carrot, celery, and apple, and cook until onions turn translucent. Turn heat down to medium, and cook slowly, stirring occasionally for 30 minutes to an hour, however long it takes your ingredients to turn golden and soft. Add salt once veggies begin to brown. I let mine go until they’re barely recognizable as their former selves, until they are dark and black in bits and they smell sweet and faintly smokey.

Add the garlic and the tomato paste, allowing it to dry to the bottom of the pan but not to burn. Keep it moving, tossing the veggies to coat in the sauce. When you’ve reached this point, you’ve got a pinçage (although technically a real pinçage wouldn’t have apples in it … technically, shmechnically).

When the bottom of the pan looks pretty dry, add rice and lentil mixture (removing bay leaf). Pour about a cup of water into the pan to deglaze. Doing this will release the flavour of your pinçage into the rice, coating it saucily.

Serve sprinkled with fresh parsley.

Butternut squash and chickpea curry.

At 8:15 every morning when I walk down Granville Street to Broadway to take the bus to work, the ladies in the kitchen at Vij’s have already been at work for awhile, and the neighbourhood smells like onions frying in butter, and garlic and ginger, and slow-simmering curries warmed with cumin and cinnamon and pepper that make me want to quit my job and my apartment to spend my days hovering over their shoulders, taking deep breaths and sneaking tastes right from the pan. The aroma hangs in the air over three blocks, and is only stopped by the grease stink from the McDonalds on Broadway; if no one there was frying fries (or, at that hour, Egg McMuffins), I think the smell from Vij’s would go on forever.

But this is not a love letter to Vij’s, because Vij does not need that sort of thing, especially not from me. And besides, I can’t afford to eat there all that often, and I have reached the age where don’t care how good something is, I’d mostly prefer to not have to wait in lines. And for Indian food the way (and price) I think it should be, there are very few places in the city that meet my expectations; I know to go to the suburbs for the good stuff.

More often than not, though, it’s not a special dish I’m after. The thing about those spices and that smell in the air is that they are suggestive of a whole range of flavours. The smell of garam masala is not specific to a dish, at least to me, but is suggestive more of a feeling, which is perhaps why I crave it so strongly during these long dark months. I like the warmth a warm bowl of curry brings; I like the smell of it in my apartment, the way the aroma assembles itself in layers, beginning with garlic and ginger and finishing with coconut, cilantro, or a squeeze of fresh lime. I like the way that turmeric turns a pot of onions golden, the way that tomato colours it orange, and the way herbs at the very end brighten as they touch the heat of the dish.

Curry makes me happy. And so, after crossing 11th Avenue this morning and smelling Vij’s ginger and onions and garlic and feeling so very tired for a Thursday, I resolved to come home and throw together something equal parts nourishing and delicious. That I spent the day teetering and clomping around in too-high heels and encased in control-top pantyhose and a dress with no stretch fibres made the satisfaction of sitting down to a hot, saucy dinner all the greater.

What follows is a recipe for a curry that makes the most of your pantry staples and any butternut squash you might have been hording for however long. It’s spicy but also sweet, and a glorious colour that’s sure to liven up a dull grey day.

(Serves four.)

• 3 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 onion, minced
• 1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and minced
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 heaping tbsp. minced fresh ginger
• 1 tbsp. garam masala
• 1 tsp. red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp. fenugreek
• 1 tsp. turmeric
• 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
• 2 lb. butternut squash, diced
• 1 19 oz. can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1 14 oz. can coconut milk
• 1 14 oz. can crushed tomatoes
• 1 lime, zested plus 1 tbsp. juice
• 3 scallions, chopped
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro, plus additional for garnish
• Salt and pepper, to taste

In a large pan over medium-high heat, warm oil and add onion, jalapeño pepper, garlic, and ginger. Sauté until onions are translucent and jalapeño pepper has brightened in colour. Add garam masala, red pepper flakes, fenugreek, turmeric, and pepper. Stir to coat onion mixture thoroughly, and cook for two minutes.

Add diced squash and chickpeas, stir, then add coconut milk, tomatoes, and lime zest and juice. Stir to coat squash in curry mixture, then reduce to medium heat, cover, and let cook for 15 to 20 minutes, until squash has softenened. Stir occasionally.

Once squash has softened, taste and adjust seasonings as needed. Add scallions and cilantro, and serve over rice with an additional sprinkling of cilantro for colour.

I apologize again for the unusually poor photos; Mom and Dad have come to the rescue with a belated Christmas present in camera form, but it doesn’t arrive until tomorrow. After then, prepare to be amazed. Also, don’t forget to vote for Well fed, flat broke in the Canadian Food Blog Awards!

Vegetarian borscht with beets and red cabbage.

This is our eleventh day off in a row since we both got time off for the holidays, and right about now I am feeling as though I need a vacation from my vacation, perhaps to sit on a beach and eat lentils and dark leafy greens and drink, I don’t know, like, water or something and do yoga or whatever it is people do to relax without alcohol for another eleven days.

I know “I have just had eleven days off in a row” sounds less like a complaint and more like bragging, especially to those who haven’t had eleven days off in a row, but with all the to-dos we checked off our lists over the past week-and-a-half, I am mentally and socially exhausted – I can’t wait to go back to work tomorrow. On a related note, I am so very grateful for this Meatless Monday, which we are celebrating with dark-coloured vegetables and tea and a marathon of Arrested Development.

For dinner this evening, we ate borscht. It’s vegetarian-friendly, vegan-friendly if you don’t serve it with sour cream, and makes the most of the ingredients because the stock comes from the beets. Simmering whole beets for 90 minutes with garlic, bay leaves, caraway seeds, peppercorns, and fresh parsley not only cooks the beets, but creates a beautiful garnet-coloured stock which you will use as the base for your soup – no beef or chicken bones needed, and no nutrients wasted. This soup is a delicious restorative – tart and earthy – and will certainly do you some good.

My camera died, so the photos here were taken with a borrowed point-and-shoot that does not intend to cooperate with me. I apologize – everything will be all better soon, if bluish and grainy in the meantime.

(Serves six.)

Stock:

• 2 tsp. whole black peppercorns
• 1 tsp. caraway seeds
• 4 quarts water
• 1 lb. beets, scrubbed clean but not trimmed or peeled (three to four, about the size of baseballs)
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 bunch fresh parsley
• 1 head garlic, halved crosswise
• 1 tbsp. Kosher salt

Soup:

• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 2 carrots, quartered lengthwise and chopped
• 2 stalks celery, quartered lengthwise and chopped
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 cups shredded red cabbage
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (start with 1/4 cup and adjust to taste)
• 2 tbsp. brown sugar
• Salt and pepper, to taste

In a stock pot or other large pot, heat peppercorns and caraway seeds over medium-high heat for two to three minutes, or until spices are fragrant and caraway seeds start to pop. Add water, beets, bay leaves, parsley, garlic, and salt, and cook for 90 minutes.

Remove beets to an ice bath, and strain liquid through a mesh strainer into a container you can pour easily from. Discard solids. Peel, trim, and then dice beets. Set aside.

In a large pot over medium-high heat, heat oil and add carrots, celery, onion, and garlic. Sauté until glistening, then add beets, cabbage, and reserved stock. Reduce heat to medium, add 1/4 cup lemon juice, and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes, until cabbage is soft. Taste, adding sugar and additional lemon juice as desired. Adjust seasonings, and serve with a dollop of yogurt or sour cream and a sprinkling of caraway seeds.

Oh! One more thing. This blog has been nominated for a few awards, which is exciting! There’s a “People’s Choice” category (Best Canadian Food Blog) that you can vote for Well fed, flat broke in – here’s the voting form. And while you’re there, check out the other nominees in a wide range of categories – I’ve discovered a few great Canadian blogs I had never heard of, some that I think you’ll really like too.

And don’t forget to pay a visit to Midnight Maniac for another Meatless Monday blog carnival!

Moon Chai.

Ugh December. I have a bijillion things to do and am way too easily distracted. On the one hand, my holiday shopping is just about done; on the other, my apartment looks like a crime scene.

Last night I had macaroni and cheese for dinner. From a box. Which I ate on the floor while watching the cartoon channel and wrapping presents while simultaneously attempting to defeat the cat. It’s her first Christmas and she doesn’t mean to be annoying, I’m sure, but to a tiny wild-eyed beast nothing is more thrilling than scissors cutting Iron Man-themed wrapping paper.

It’s easy for me to think that my life is real life, but I can’t imagine how overwhelming this would all be for someone with more people than I have to buy for (I’m shopping for 14) and a family who cares about folded laundry to impress. I had a temper tantrum the morning after laundry day and there’s still a pile of socks beside my front door and that’s embarrassing and it’s been that way since Tuesday. And then there are all the events, and I noticed as I was getting dressed for this evening’s party that these tights aren’t controlling a goddamn thing up top anymore.

But the party was fun, and filled with the kind of geeky people I love so much, book people, and we talked about reading and writing while sitting on my friend Tracy’s kitchen floor while her pug Penelope snorted all over us, bounding from lap to lap like the excited little monster she is. Evenings like these are why I am so excited about December.

When we came home, I made Nick and I mugs of moon Chai. Moon Chai is a tea we used to get at this place on Broadway. It’s a Middle Eastern restaurant that’s filled with chaises and awkward tables with tiny little stools, and for awhile I really liked it but now it annoys me to have my knees bump the table I’m eating from, and I don’t particularly enjoy their prices these days. These must be signs of aging. It’s just that I feel a buffet should be reasonable, and that the price should reflect the quality of the food, you know? But anyway. The thing I took from there was their Moon Chai, which is really just hot hot hot Chai tea spiked with brandy.

I don’t know Chai’s recipe, but I’ve adapted and interpreted and made up my own, and this stuff is a sedative if you use decaffeinated tea. I’ve never had it before 8:00 p.m. So you can see how it would be perfect for the holiday season.

(Serves two.)

• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 1 tsp. black peppercorns
• 1  tsp. fennel seeds
• 10 green cardamom pods
• 10 whole cloves
• 2 cups unsweetened almond milk (or real milk, if that’s what you have/prefer)
• 1/2 vanilla bean pod
• 1 tbsp. honey
• 1 bag black tea, such as orange pekoe (bonus points for decaf)
• 1/4 cup French brandy (not the stuff that tastes like paint thinner)

In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, toast cinnamon, peppercorns, fennel seeds, and cloves until fragrant, stirring frequently, about five minutes.

Pour almond milk into the pot. Add vanilla bean (seeds scraped plus pod), and honey, and tea bag, and reduce to medium heat. Bring to a boil, then turn off heat. Add brandy, cover, and allow to steep for five minutes.

Strain into mugs and serve hot. I guarantee instant relaxation. And possibly a slight buzz.