Category — Egg, Milk and Nut Free

On Sunday, we were feeling adverturous.  Letting our cares flap in the breeze.  Booking the Vrtucar to go to the market AND pay for parking.  That’s the wild side for us.  Hey, it was cold.

Alden chose a purple cauliflower.  That’s the wild side for him.  Will he eat it?  Who knows.  He chose it very carefully.  Not the cauliflower in the front, but the second one in.  That’s the one.

Having driven to the market instead of biking, we were feeling particularly wimpy and prone to the cooler October temperatures.  Our usual stop for an apple cider wasn’t going to warm our quickly cooling toes.  Then I saw the Flatbread Pizza Company oven.  Without a lineup.

Let’s get a pizza!

I asked about the dough. There were no eggs or milk.  Can you leave the cheese off the top?  No problem.

Sold!  There we were – ordering our first pizza.

We went with the Italian sausage and onion pizza.  While the kid ended up just picking off the onions and meat to eat, we happily picked up the slack by devouring the crusts.

This was a solid win in the allergy-friendly dining out handbook.  Why didn’t we try this sooner?

The little dude still got his apple cider.

The greens in my garden had grown to Popeye-esque proportions and it was time to use them up.  So, on Saturday afternoon, I pulled up beets and hacked off the leaves to make beet green chips.  So easy.  So kid friendly.

Then on Sunday, it was showtime for the swiss chard.  Now, the little guy loves stuffed grape leaves from Raw Sugar, so I gambled that stuffed swiss chard would also be familiar enough to casually slide onto the dinner table without an upturned nose or a scowl.

And it almost worked.   Once he realized that they contained meat – MEAT! – he warmed up to the idea.  Although, I say that in the most lukewarm of ways.

Look at those little bundles... so cute.

Now, the rolls weren’t overly tedious to put together, but it’s a dish that’s best saved for the weekend when you have a bit of extra time.

Handy tip #1:  You’ll want to find some nice large swiss chard leaves with as few holes as possible.  Luckily, it’s the perfect time of year for finding swiss chard in the market if you’re not growing them yourself.

Handy tip #2: Don’t pick swiss chard wearing pajama pants on a Sunday morning when you live next to a church.  The raised eyebrows from passers-by had me believing that God frowns upon flannel snowflake prints.  Oh well.  Such is the life of the urban gardener.

(For the fashion record: I was wearing a normal fall raincoat over the jammies.  Nonetheless, the addition of slippers to the snowflake ensemble was likely the downfall.)

I followed this recipe for Bulghur and Beef-stuffed swiss chard from the Washington Post almost to a tee.  I made a slight modification to the herbs – tossing in extra parsley, oregano and lemon balm that I had gathered in my PJ outing.

As we tucked into our dinner, it struck me that without any thought or planning, most of our dinner was home/locally grown.

Home: chard, tomatoes, onions, herbs, homemade chicken stock
Ottawa: ground beef (Bearbrook Farm)
Canada: bulgur
Unknown: rice

We’ve come a long way from just being very mindful about shopping for local ingredients and reading the labels.  Now it’s part of how we cook.  Having a garden has trained us into the “use it or lose it” mentality.  If you have a CSA box, you’ll know the feeling.  If there’s anything that irks me more, it’s letting good food go to waste.  I believe some people refer to that as being Scottish.  Stereotypes aside, I don’t like wasting food.

And these swiss chard rolls?  They will be gobbled up before you know it.  No waste.

It’s cranberry season in Ottawa (finally!).  I’ve had the recipe for cranberry maple butter bookmarked all summer and have waited patiently for cranberries to appear at the market.  I picked up these Upper Canada Cranberries a week ago – they’re pretty perfect looking.

I followed the recipe from the Small Batch Preserving cookbook and ended up with almost two full cups of delicious cranberry butter.

The boy and I sampled it on top of our “cheesy mouse biscuits”  (homemade herb crackers that actually have no rodent or cheese components).  If you want to know the story of the ‘salty cheesy mouse biscuits’ you just need to pick up a copy of the book Cherry the Pig.  In the story, Cherry bakes a lovely apple cake, but the mice who nibble at it think it’s awful.  Cherry’s feelings are hurt until she figures out that mice like salty cheesy biscuits.  Suffice to say, we’ve been reading this book a lot.  And I get a lot of requests for “cheesy mouse biscuits!!”.

Using this easy (and vegan!) recipe from the Straight from the Farm blog, I whipped up another batch this week for work.  I happened to be making pasta on the same night, so I thought it might save time to roll the cracker dough out in the pasta maker.  It worked like a charm!  I fed the dough through the rollers to the 3-4 setting and then cut out squares using a rotary ravioli cutter.

Homemade crackers are pretty unusual – despite the fact that they are a snap to make.  The novelty factor will impress everyone from toddlers through senior executives.

Exhibit A.  I’m really proud that he tried the cranberry maple butter (and liked it!) – he’s usually a bit of a jamophobe.

One problem.  Canning seems to require a lot of dishes.  And dishwashing.  Ugh.  What a mess!

Few food-realted things in Ottawa have made me fume as much as the recent “great cupcake challenge” post on Apartment613.  I was upset that Thimblecakes (my choice for the best cupcakes in Ottawa) seemed to be getting judged unfairly against the competition.  And when I shared my outrage with my husband (a small business owner here in Ottawa), it hit a nerve for him about how people treat entrepreneurs in this city.

This type of food writing also left me with a bad feeling about how us food bloggers go about our business of critiquing food – many of us (myself included) having neither small business or culinary training. (A topic best saved for a separate post.)

On that note, I asked Wendy, the owner of Thimblecakes, if she would be interested in doing an interview for Apron Strings because these negative reviews stung me as if the shop was my own.  People who know me, know how special this shop is in my life (offering nut-free and vegan cupcakes and ice creams). It’s one of the few places I know I can easily take my son out to eat.  With no worries.  It is priceless.  And it is a one of a kind shop in Ottawa. And there are great people behind these cupcakes who truly want you to have a great experience and delicious cupcakes.  Whether you have allergies or not.

Welcome to Thimblecakes!

I wanted readers to know why Thimblecakes is so special and what sets it apart from other cupcake shops. Let’s get to know Thimblecakes!

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Many of your cupcakes are vegan. Are you a vegetarian / vegan?

I call myself a vegetarian with vegan tendancies! (I’m not strict. I cheat on dairy and eggs when it’s convenient! I know so bad! But only organic free range)

(I have been known to sneak cheese in the house after Alden is asleep.  Shh!)

How did you get into the baking business?

I started baking around 4 or 5 years ago when I tried a business venture that was going poorly. Broke, alone and bored my obsession with the Food Network took off. I would watch it while I baked, learning new skills with every batch! I found a new love.

With way too many sweets in the house I started giving them away to neighbours and when I found a new job, my new obsession turned into a business from all my give aways. My regular clientele encouraged me to open a store front and one, Dee even came up with the name after a little brain storming session! I’m so lucky

How did you know it was the right time to open a shop? Did you research other neighbourhoods?  Or was Centretown always the aim?

I did much research. I sat on many benches watching the flow of traffic day and night, weekends and weekdays. I thought I knew every space in the city for lease until I sat at the Bridgehead one day, looked out the window and saw a for lease sign in the window across the street. Woohoo!  It was perfect! 

 Is there a right time to open a small business? I don’t think one can know. You just have to give it a shot and see if people want what you’ve got! 

The cupcake display wall

Your shop is one of the few nut-free bakeries in Ottawa. (Thank you!!) What made you decide to go peanut/nut free?

We knew the unfortunate truth that food allergies are becoming common place. Two of my dear friends, one being my business partner is allergic to nuts and I felt just terrible for them that they would have to miss out on part of a celebration because of an allergy.

 I had tried for a year to be completely vegan so I also understood having to miss out. Then I met some friends that shared with me how hard it was living with an egg allergy. Then it hit me how many people were gluten intolerant. Then another friend mentioned how many young ones (and older ones) have type two diabetes. So we offer the whole spectrum of “free” cakes, because people need it and we can help (and I think they taste pretty darn GREAT!)

(Agreed!  Alden has nosedived into more than a few of your cupcakes.  And despite what a certain Ph.D candidate and university lecturer in law at Carleton thinks – it is not just for unvaccinated granola munchers.  Allergies happen and  Alden is fully vaccinated.  Posts like that make me so angry.  So angry.  No link for you law-man! )

Savouring a mini cupcake

Aside from offering allergy-friendly treats, your business also stands out because of your environmental concerns.  What are some eco-friendly things that people may not know about your shop?

I think it’s really important to use local and organic products and luckily we have many customers that also feel that way! It tastes better, it’s better for the environment and it gives money to local people!

We use environmentally friendly everything, so we apologize in advance if you’re used to Cotonelle at home. We have the rough recycled paper toilet paper at our shop! Myself and my partner take the recycling home every week from the shop as the city won’t give us bins, crazy eh? Same with the compost.

 (Yes!  I know how much our small family tosses into our Green Bin.  I hope food businesses will be able to take part in composting too.  It seems a logical extension to the program.)

People who aren’t parents probably don’t know the controversy over food dyes and artificial flavourings.  What’s your policy?

Our flavourings come from fruits and vegetables, we use very little extracts. (Only mint. I tried to use fresh mint and after a good puree it doesn’t even smell like mint anymore, weird!) The only coloring we use is in the vanillas because some of our clientele wanted to see splashes of bright colour.

 I always see your shop name popping up at local community events. 

We love to be involved with community events! If it wasn’t for this wonderful community, I wouldn’t have a shop! People have been so lovely to us, we try and help everyone that asks us, even if it’s simply a handful of free cupcake cards to give away as a prize for their event.

Our big one this month is for the Maycourt hospice. They’re doing a holiday tour to raise money where people visit the most beautiful homes in the city and upon return can indulge in some ThimbleCakes. I just love the Maycourt, perhaps it strikes the heart for me as my Grandmother had stayed there. What a lovely facility and a wonderful concept.

Last month we were involved with the running of the brides, a Humane Society fundraiser and of course Capital Pride! What fun that was!

I should have taken the photo before I bought half the minis. The dish on the left? All vegan.

Experimenting – do you set aside time each week to experiment with new flavours and combinations or is it more of an ongoing process?

We come up with new recipes every two months to keep our cakes seasonal! I usually put two or three days aside for experiments just before the new flavour launch. For example today we created 6 new flavours including Viva Puff (vegan), sea salt caramel and a lovely apple spice! I love baking! It’s such a fun challenge to create new flavours!

(Sea salt caramel!  My weakness!)

Vegan chocolate ice cream.

And last, but not least.  How do you handle food reviews?  I think you need to have a very thick skin to open a food business.  Everyone seems to have an opinion… and a blog.  : )

To be honest it breaks my heart when someone doesn’t love the thing l have poured my heart and soul into. I am so incredibly proud of this shop, its goodies and the staff that I can’t read them.

Luckily for every one bad one there are 20 rave reviews and three times that of verbal praises, but it’s that one poor one that sticks in my head.

I have a staff member, Jessica, who researches the reviews. I feel it’s still very important to know what people are saying and listen to what they want from us. There is always room for improvement and the pats on the back sometimes feel good too.

Parting words?

I would love for people to know that ThimbleCakes was created out of love! Any baker or chef, home or professional will tell you that there’s something about feeding people. It just feels so good to hear the mmms and “ this is so good” from happy people that it keeps me striving to make cupcakes that everyone can enjoy! 

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There you have it! A glimpse behind the scenes of Thimblecakes.  To my foodie readers, always question who is writing these reviews and don’t be afraid to use your own judgment.  In the world of cupcakes, some people like them sweeter, richer, denser, crumblier, taller, wider, smaller, cheaper….  you get the idea.  Taste and preferences are complicated.  And clearly, with the number of cupcake shops in Ottawa, there is something to suit everyone’s tastes.

Now, if you’ll excuse me,  I’m feeling the need to go eat some cupcakes…  signing off as Wendy would say, “Big smiles!”

369 Bank Street
www.thimblecakes.ca
(613) 695-0109

I missed all of the Vendemmia events over the past weekend, but I had a good reason. I was prepping for a certain three-year-old’s birhtday party! Initially, I was thinking of having a theme for the party, but in the end, I knew no one would care but me. Kids just want cake. Any shape. Any size. Cake. Why complicate things? Entertaining adults and wrangling toddlers is enough work isn’t it? Totally.

I was going to create a Lego cake, but at the last minute changed my mind and went for sprinkles.  Lots of sprinkles.

On the birthday menu there was a little something for everyone. We served:

• Baby carrots and cauliflower hummus (from Veganomicon)
• Veggie straws
• Berries from the garden
• Burgers (veg and non-veg) with buns made at the bakery on Preston
• Homemade pickles and relish
• Homegrown broccoli and carrot slaw with raisins (I did a variation on this recipe. Loved it! But didn’t snap a photo. Will definitely be making it again. A no mayo slaw! Yes!)
• Grilled eggplant and chickpea salad
• Cranberry and mango punch, apple juice, water
• One very large chocolate cake with sprinkles

I dug out my piping set and quickly traced a 3 and the edges with extra frosting.  Mmm.  And added lots of sprinkles.

The cake was a hit, but next time I’d only do a single layer.  There was a lot left over.

We ran out of time in the morning to make the sharky watermelon treat, so we did it in the afternoon for snacktime.  There are so many fun carving ideas on the watermelon organization’s website.  I’d do this again for sure.

And there you go.  Three!  Happy birthday big boy!

Alden is a homebody and it’s hard to convince him to leave his growing collection of Thomas trains to catch a bit of fresh air.  The one thing that did get him bopping out the door on Saturday morning was our regular trip to Whalesbone for fish. It was a great fall day to be out – light sweater weather and lots of sun.

At Whalesbone, Alden and I got to sample smoked wild salmon “Indian candy.” It’s salmon that’s been smoked, dehydrated and brined in maple syrup. (I think that’s right.) It ends up being totally sweet, sticky and five kinds of delicious. Alden went apey for the stuff.  We couldn’t leave without a package. Correction, an open package. There was no way Alden was going to wait to get home to eat more. He was nice enough to share a piece. Thanks, kid.

I bought enough baby scallops to cook the eggplant and broccoli stir-fry from the summer issue of Fine Cooking on Sunday night and do some on the BBQ as a treat on Saturday.

To make it a little more swish, I lightly marinated the scallops in some oil, lemon balm, rosemary and a bit of orange juice and then skewered them on rosemary from the garden. We also grilled up the last of our okra and served it with basmati rice. It took no time at all to put dinner together.

Alden suggested we eat outdoors. Good idea, kid.  Good idea.

Are you thinking of taking the City of Ottawa’s $10 Local Food Challenge?  Yes?  Why not spend your $10 this week on some beets.  For $10, you can buy a bunch of beets and some potatoes and make two easy (and filling) dishes.  I bought two big bunches of beets at the Lansdowne farmers market this weekend: one red, one golden.  Price?  $5 per bunch.  Maybe that seems expensive for a bunch of beets.  But it’s a deal if you use the greens that come along with them.  And these beets?  They came with a lot of greens.

One of the nice things about buying beets from the market is that the greens are still in good shape for cooking.  To me, it feels nicer to cook with crisp greens, but even grocery store beets with wilty tops are perfectly fine for using in the soup recipe.  You just won’t get that satisfying “crunch choppy chop” sound from your knife slicing through the greens.

I bought beets to make the two-colour beet salad from Simple Cooking and the soup was a bit of an afterthought once I saw how many greens I came home with.  This beet greens soup seemed easy to throw together.

Simple Cooking seems to be out of print, but the Dean & Deluca website features a similar beet salad recipe.  Although, I can’t recommend hunting down a copy this book enough.  The eggplant coloured book has so many really simple, really fresh recipes with effortlessly rustic photography.  It’s staged, but not annoying rustique.  It is one of my most prized cookbooks. (I found mine at the Chapters on Slater/Bank last week).

To get started, chop the greens off the beets and give everything a good wash.  The beets get cooked in a pot of boiling water until soft.  Don’t worry about the skins, they come off later.   While the beets are boiling, you can get started on the soup.

Wash and chop your greens, dice your onions and garlic, cube your potatoes.  And whatever you do, if you use fresh hot peppers intead of dried chili flakes, use gloves.

I bought these peppers thinking they were just like a red version of a jalapeno.  WRONG.  So wrong.  I took a very tiny bit to test the hotness of the peppers and my mouth went on fire, my lips burned, I cried.  I diced no more than a heaping teaspoon to add to the soup.  And once the burning stopped, I wondered how I would use the remaining five peppers.  Twelve hours later, after having showered, washed dishes and washed my hands serveral times during the day, I stupidly rubbed my eye in the middle of the night.  3am is a really unfortunate hour to be awake with a burning eye.  Lesson learned.  This pepper is potent.

Toss the salad dressing together: olive oil, vinegar, salt pepper and mint.  Easy.   Drain your beets, cool them under cold water, peel and slice.  (Reserve a few slices for your soup.)  Pour dressing over beets, add a bit of extra mint on top.

Now, finish off your soup.  I like to blend my soup a bit with a stick blender and leave a few larger potato chunks.  I will admit, it doesn’t look creamy or velvety or even very pretty.  But it’s tasty and warming and good for you.  If you’ve used the greens and the beets for these recipes, you should also have very little waste.

Serve with some bread and you have an easy $10 local lunch.

$10 Local Food Challenge Contest details:
You can enter the contest to win one of 10 coupons valued at $50 to spend on the restaurants and retailers who are part of Savour Ottawa. Contest ends at the end of October.

I’ve hit an Italiain phase with my cooking.  And I love finding really rustic peasant recipes because they often don’t call for eggs or cheese.   I reserved this book, La Cucina, sight unseen from the public library. I walked over to the library on my lunch hour to pick it up and I realized it wasn’t just a book. I was borrowing an encyclopedia. A very heavy encyclopedia. I even considered leaving it at the library rather than toting this enormous book home. But I’m so glad that I didn’t leave it there. And that I perservered in reading it, despite the annoying book binding. (It doesn’t lay flat, so it’s not a good choice for in-bed reading.)

Pitfalls aside, it is comprehensive. And as long as you don’t mind a cookbook without any photos, it is an amazing reference. And as soon as this copy goes back to the library, I’m buying one for myself.

The first recipe that I tried was the cornmeal and flour pasta. The cornmeal gives it a great yellow colour that you’d normally get with eggs. It was really sturdy and didn’t remind me at all of eating wet dough. (My first attempts at no-egg pasta were … well.. failures.) And it was easy. I had it mixed and rolled in one episode of Diego. (Twenty-three minutes… exactly.)

Look at those noodles!

This is a super easy allergy-friendly ice cream recipe that takes almost no time to prepare.  If you can measure coconut milk and Sunbutter, you can make this.

I was flipping through my Vegan Scoop book again over the weekend and the peanut butter recipe gave me the idea to substitute Sunbutter.   We love our Sunbutter in this house.

(Side note: our giant sunflowers finally opened up and Alden’s eyes nearly popped when I told him that’s where they get seeds to make Sunbutter.   Shazam, kid!)

Ok, so Sunbutter was the first substitution.  Next, I replaced the soy creamer for some of my homemade coconut milk.  (I’m sure canned would totally work too.  But right now, I’m kind of obsessed with making coconut milk.)

Other than that I followed the recipe as the book suggests.  However, since the Sunbutter contains sugar, in my next batch I’ll reduce the amount of sugar I use.  The final ice cream was RICH.  Ritchy Rich.  Although, no one really seemed to mind.

(And yes, Alden’s nails are painted blue.  They did it at school.  He loves it, I … love it less.)

We’ve been making kabobs non-stop this summer – at first it was an attempt to make veggies more fun for a certain smurf to eat, but that failed miserably. So now, it’s just about making a tasty sidedish so we don’t feel like we’re on Alden’s protein power plan.

And it’s been a great way to use up the zucchini and onions from the garden.

This weekend’s kabobs were even more interesting, we chopped some fairytale eggplant from Roots and Shoots and added tiny tim tomatoes and onions from the garden.  I was happy about this combo and so was the eggplant.  Now that’s a happy dish.  Off to the grill it went.

We also picked up a dozen ears of corn on Sunday.  Now, here’s how I pick out corn at the market.  I identify the booth farthest away from the Art-is-in I NEED A ROSMARY BAGUETTE OR MY SOY LATTE IS GOING TO EXPLODE AND MY GOLDEN RETRIEVER NEEDS A VITAMIN WATER line…  and efficiently shove the ears into my shopping bag.  Strategy: get in and get out.

Alden then insisted we visit a smaller stand opposite the corn-palooza vendor.  This farmer’s offerings were more varied: potatoes, tomatoes, hot peppers, carrots, corn… a little of everything.  We bought some hot peppers from him.  Then he asked us if we liked corn.  Um.   Yes, we answered, and pointed to a loaded bag of corn.

Then the conversation got awkward.

“Where did you buy it?” he asked.    He looked serious.  We pointed to the large corn stand directly across from his stand.  He handed us two sample cobbs and told us to try them.  He nodded.  Awkward I tell you.

We paused for a cold drink in the tented area and opened up a couple of ears.  Cobb versus cobb.  Even at a glance, it was clear the competitor’s corn did look better.  Only taste would tell.  To the BBQ for Cobberation 2011!

The two cobbs on top are the peaches and cream variety from the competitor.  Below on the right is the yellow sweet corn from the larger corn vendor.  It’s hiding, it already knows it has lost this cobb-off.

Ok corn man, you win!  We’ll see you next week.  So, if you’re looking for corn at the Ottawa’s farmer’s market, I definitely recommend the man who has a booth next to the wooden spoon stand.