Organic Granny

  Yellow Doll Melon in its Hammock When I was a child in the 1950s in the Canadian Prairies, I dreamed of growing exotic things in our mundane garden: maybe giant pumpkins or watermelons! We did manage to grow a pretty decent crop of sugar pumpkins one year (we kids hawked them on the highway for 10 cents a pumpkin-- a bargain even in that day).  But the watermelons never flourished. Perhaps for others, but not on our little grain farm.  Fast forward to the 1970s when our kids were of that magical Jack-in-the-Beanstock gardening stage. We grew magnificent zucchinis-- they were so thrilled to have a monster zucchini almost as big and as heavy as they were (not knowing that those monsters are close to inedible, that you have to hack through the rock-hard skin with a pneumatic drill and the seeds would be the size of tums). But no watermelons grew. Fast forward to the current age-- old retired folks living on Vancouver Island with cedar planters high enough that we don't have to be

Gluten-free stove top stuffing-- a delish nosh bowl along with sauerkraut salad, hummus, broccoli, and kimchee.  The recipe for a plant-based gluten-free stovetop stuffing came about when I was using a little poultry seasoning in what I hoped would be a yummy savory quinoa flour waffle. For some reason, the waffle stuck to the iron (grrr) but I tasted the mess and it was quite lovely.  I filed the idea away for some sort of dish containing quinoa flour and poultry seasoning. After making a series of recipes for whole wheat crockpot bread and quinoa GF crockpot bread , I ended up with a heel of quinoa bread about five days old, needing some rescue recipe (too good to throw out or to allow to mold). Tonight was the night. INGREDIENTS FOR THE GLUTEN-FREE STUFFING RECIPE (Serves 4) The heel of a small heavy, soft  loaf of quinoa bread: about 4 slices + end/crust piece 1 cup of veggie broth (or like-chicken vegan broth) 1/2 cup toasted quinoa flour 3 tablespoons of coconut oil or margerine

Wonderful, yummy, messy, spicy, tasty, creamy, crunchy, crisp, chewy, savory, plant-based, gluten-free Gyro   Our son, Philip, went on a high school trip in 1988 to Greece. He came back exuberant and so happy to share all the details of his trip with us, even the experience of eating in a country that did not impose alcohol restrictions on minor-age boys in the various eateries they visited.  What he did enjoy was the Greek food, particularly the simple, delicious pita sandwich of beef or lamb on a bed of fresh sliced onions, and tomato, and laced with creamy tzatziki sauce. He was so enthused he actually took a Greek cooking class.  I think he ate quite a few gyros (pronounced either Jee-rrroh or Yee-rrroh depending on the speaker's background) during his University days and until his marriage.   We also loved the gyro he introduced us to. It is so wonderful to know that it is possible to eat the meaty food we enjoyed in a kinder form. This post contains three recipes, two th

Father's Day has become a more highlighted day of celebration than when I was a child. My father was born in 1927 and lived a pretty long life: he died in 2013, a few months into his 86th year. He was not a bad father. He did struggle with alcohol addiction and was imperfect in other ways, but he was basically loving and kind. He was a workaholic, so we did not have access to him for emotional affirmation, but he told me in his old age that he always loved everything about us kids and felt sad that he had not been a better parent, and he was sorry he was most of all that he had not spent more time with us.  Other men in my family– my grandfathers, my husband, son, uncles, brother– have all shown themselves to be good guys and have adult children whom they love(d) and who love them back.  But I think to myself, having been a social worker to women and children who fled lives with men who put them and their children through Hell, that there are probably a fair number of children, te

  Quite a few years ago a friend told me about making a loaf of bread in her crockpot. It was all the rage where she lived. I didn't really engage. It didn't seem particularly interesting, to say the least. But over this time since the Pandemic and all the baking ventures that went with that, I have become more interested in making quick, tasty, healthy bread-- just a small loaf for my husband and I, made in one of our small appliances to save energy (and because my elderly oven is currently out of commission). YOUTUBE IS THE PLACE TO GO FOR TUTORIALS ON BREAD-MAKING After I had made some delicious bread in my small oven, I thought about my friend's description of making crockpot bread. I found that there are quite a few recipes and demos on YT. The one I chose to most closely emulate made the process look very easy, even using a blender (I think) to make the dough, and just feeding in 1/4 cup of flour (3 times) when the recipe didn't seem to work out as planned and

When I published a recipe for a Soft Wholewheat Bread made in a Crockpot, a few people asked me if there was a crockpot recipe for vegan, gluten-free bread?  Well, the short answer is, there ARE a few such recipes on the Interweb... so hurrah!     (If you wish, bypass next paragraphs and scroll down to recipe 💁 ) But, of course, I want to have a recipe that I can make right away and made some adaptations to various of the recipes I came across to fit my particular old crockpot that doesn't accommodate a bread pan like some of the long, oval slow-cookers do (I'm using the word "crockpot" to also refer to slow-cookers and electronic pots like Instant Pot that have a slow-cook program on their menu).  (If you wish, bypass next paragraphs and scroll down to recipe 💁 ) This is my old slow-cooker or crockpot. It's pretty basic-- on/off, high, low-- no way to set a timer, no pre-programmed recipes, etc. I bought it for our older son who was off to University far away