Sorry Starbucks (and you too, Tim Hortons) but now that I know I have the secret ingredient to making my own Starbucks Frappachino™ in my cupboard right now, you are not getting my nickels this summer.
The trick, according to SquawkFox (who simply asked the barrista) is xantham gum. Here’s the recipe and full post from SquawkFox. If you’re looking for xantham gum in Victoria, you can get it at most health food grocers (i.e. Lifestyles, Planet Organic) and some other grocers (we found it at Thrifty’s) — just look carefully in the baking aisle. Last time I checked, it was also for sale at For Good Measure in Cadboro Bay. It seems costly, but you won’t need much per drink — just a pinch. And if you don’t want to use an unfamiliar ingredient, try pectin (it’s what makes jam set).
If you’re up for the challenge, you can find a lot of greens in your back yard or on the boulevards that are edible and can add some welcome diversity to your plate and diet. Plus, there’s the zero mile/locavore angle, too!
Two big cautions before we start:
- Know what you are picking. If you cannot conclusively identify the plant, don’t eat it. (See the resource section at the end for some recommended reading!)
- Whatever you pick should be well washed — salad spinners are a great tool to have in your kitchen for this purpose. While Victoria is largely pesticide free, many pets and wild critters make use of boulevards so please: wash it well or don’t pick it at all.
Recommended salad fixings:
Dandelion leaves — best when young and before the plant blooms (older leaves can be very bitter but those can also be sauteed with butter and pepper!)
Common Chickweed — this is an invasive nuisance to gardeners so get revenge by eating it! Leaves, stems and tiny white flowers are all edible; best in spring when it is soft and green (and needs to be torn out before propogating by seed!)
Miner’s Lettuce — one of my favourite wild plants — I was excited to find a large patch of it growing under our plum tree. Again, best when young; similar texture to spinach. Trim excess stalks and flower stems
Calendula — a type of marigold, calendula petals add gourmet colour to your salad along with a slight peppery taste. Once you start calendula in your garden, it tends to spread. More "gourmet colour" can be added from red clover flowers, and nasturtiums.
Resources and Recommended reading:
Weather, fuel costs, and other issues are finally catching up this year and economists are warning of steep increases in food prices. What can you do to insulate yourself from the rising costs?
- Grow your own food. If you have any space at all — even a balcony — you can grow food. Plant items that will grow in your region, that your family will eat, and that offer a good yield for your effort. Best bets include: herbs, lettuce and mixed greens, radishes, bush zucchini, cherry tomatoes, peas, bush beans, carrots and potatoes.
- Learn the art of "gleaning" In Victoria, we are lucky to have the LifeCycles Fruit Tree Project — where volunteers get to keep a portion of the fruit picked — but you can also talk to your neighbours who may not be signed up and either encourage them to sign up or to let you glean from their trees in exchange for some preserves!
- Check the flyers. Go to groceryalerts.ca to check out what is on sale this week and check for coupons on items your family regularly buys. Unless there is a super bargain, it’s better to cost-average your savings at one store than make trips to three or four stores — unless you can do them by bike or foot!
- Buy in Bulk. Bulk often means savings — but not always! Be sure to check the per-unit price (take a calculator if you need to). Whether you decide to buy dry goods from the bulk bins, buy warehouse size servings for your family, or share with another family, just remember: if you buy it, plan to use it.
- Plan your meals. Once you know what is in season, what’s in your garden or pantry, and what is on sale, you can better plan the week ahead. Meal planning saves you time, stress, and money.
- Use what you have. If you’ve got a freezer full of leftover meals, or a crisper drawer full of wilting vegetables, work with them not against them. Check the web for how to combine ingredients, cook from the pantry, or find creative ways to use leftovers.
- Go meatless. There are thousands of fantastic, healthy family-friendly recipes that don’t require meat and can save you plenty if you just cut meat out for one meal or more a week. Try sloppy-lentils, a hearty potato-leek soup, or a tofu stir-fry.
- Consider co-ops. Both for buying and for meal-prep, co-ops are a great way to meet people and share food costs. Buy through a big box discount store or just stock up when there are case-lot sales. Split the cost and the food so you don’t have to try and go through 24 cans of tomato soup on your own. This works very well for single friends!
For meal prep, you’ll need to find someone with a large kitchen or rent a commercial kitchen (check community centres and church halls too!). The group then splits up menu tasks with each person taking responsibility for one meal but making enough for everyone. Kinda like an office Christmas Cookie exchange but with meal-portions!
see also:
If you’re frugal through the rest of the year, Thanksgiving shouldn’t be a reason to deviate, but sometimes the added pressure of extended family can make it tempting. Here’s a few tips to help you make it through without breaking the bank.
- Plan ahead. If guests offer to bring something, take them up on it! If they don’t offer, ask! Side dishes, drinks, bread, dessert — anything that offsets the cost of hosting the meal is fair game.
- Shop around — check the flyers — and try to resist over-shopping. It’s easy enough to use leftovers but if you aren’t likely to make soup or other good use of leftovers, plan not to have any! If a whole turkey is too much for you and yours, get just enough turkey meat — or go with something non-traditional: ham, chicken, or go vegetarian with tofu or a nut-loaf!
- Keep Decorations Simple — A plain tablecloth works just as well as one covered in pumpkins or cornucopia and a potted mum makes a perfect centerpiece but so does the turkey your child made at school! Seriously, there is no need to go overboard — it’s Thanksgiving, not Thanksshowingoff.
- Use your leftovers — if you did plan for leftovers, use them. Pick the meat off the turkey right after dinner — portion it, freeze it, whatever you have to do — then throw the bones and bits into the stock pot with some water and seasonings and onions if you’ve got em. When you’re done, freeze the stock in silicon muffin molds for easy-to-use soup starters. The posibilities for the meat are almost endless: soups, stews, chili, pasta, sandwiches, stir-fries, and almost anywhere else you would normally use leftover chicken.
Thanks to my wonderful and helpful readers for contributing to these tips; you’re all stars! Happy Thanksgiving!
Once again, I find myself overwhelmed with green tomatoes at the end of the season. Not wanting to be wasteful, I went in search of ways to use them. Last year I pickled most of them but we’ve yet to use all of those so I wanted to make something else. Here’s some ideas I found:
Of course there are also plenty of recipes for fried green tomatoes, and you can stuff and bake them, in lieu of red tomatoes. Other suggestions are to substitute them for red tomatoes, at least in part, in sauces or as a puree in lieu of zucchini in zucchini bread.
I also discovered that if you remove the whole plant (with some roots still attached) and hang it in a "dry, sheltered location," the tomatoes will ripen just as they would in the garden. (One of several suggested methods from WikiHow.)
(at GVPL: 
(at GVPL 