Drinking homemade Christmas cheer

To celebrate our fourth tropical Christmas, we tried something brand new. Homemade eggnog. For both of us, eggnog – on its own, in coffee, with rum, you name it – has been part and parcel of the Christmas season.

No shops in Cambodia sell the stuff, so we had to go back to the basics. I followed this recipe, “Amazingly Good Eggnog” (minus the rum – we added that later!) and it lived up to its name. It was delicious. The perfect drink to share a little Christmas cheer in Cambodia.

Here are a few photos of the process (including the massive spill when I poured the steaming liquid into a hard plastic container and it all melted in the kitchen counter and floor…note: use a glass container!)

And here is the finished product. A real taste of Christmas!

food chain

So a bit of background…

We’ve been thinking about the real cost of food for a few years now. Ever since we lived in Humboldt, Saskatchewan in fact. Humboldt is a bustling town smack in the middle of the Canadian prairies. The summer of 2005, weeks after we got married, we moved into a one bedroom flat in Humboldt for the summer. I worked for the local paper. Steve worked for a local environmental/agriculture organization.

As we got to know Steve’s boss, a man motivated by his Christian faith to put less pressure on the earth and educate others about it, we dipped our toes in this beautiful philosophy (perhaps theology might be a better word?)

Steve’s boss grass fed his cows. He ate organic. He taught us about farming and organic agriculture and ways to do things that are different. He showed us that caring for creation is a thread throughout scripture. It’s good stewardship. We began to think about how the modern industrial food chain – farm to market to middle men to major international grocery chains to shipping containers to supermarkets to consumer – has provided massive quantities of food in the West, but still hasn’t solved the problem of global hunger.

So, when this blog post by singer-songwriter, Steve Bell, landed in my blog reader, I was pleased. Not only is Bell one of my favourite musicians of all time, his intentional fast from caffeine is a good reminder of how big change starts with small, daily steps. The words from the Canadian Foodgrains Bank staff member are a good reminder of why set this blog up in the first place: training ourselves to eat with more intention, reflection and care. We want to be part of the solution to easing the burden on the planet and active in enabling others to have what they need to eat too.

Spicing it up

My basil plant is sprouting. Won’t be too long before our curries will be seasoned with basil from our balcony.

Yogurt!

In Cambodia individual mini-packs of yogurt are prolific. They are convenient, sweet + yummy. But, it gets a bit old to buy dozens of little packs of yogurt that have traveled thousands of miles (from Thailand and Vietnam and France), and then throw all of them into the garbage when they’re finished. We kept on hearing from friends that yogurt was easy to make – but we totally didn’t believe them.

After doing a bit of research, we were floored to find out that, in fact, it IS that easy. In just a few steps, you can have your own delicious, home-made yogurt. (Perfect for granola + fruit, perfect for Indian curry dishes, perfect as a substitute for sour cream – there are so many uses for this miracle milk product!).

1. Heat milk to 99 degrees Celsius.
2. Allow to cool until 45 degrees Celsius. {In Cambodia that’s about 1/2 an hour or so}
3. Add yogurt starter {We just buy one of those mini yogurt packs!} to the heated/cooled milk, making sure it’s all stirred in well.
4. Poor the new concoction into airtight glass jars, wrap in a towel, and keep in a warm place for 4-5 hours.
5. Remove from it’s little spot and put in the fridge.

Voila! Fresh, home made yogurt!

Bagels

It was a whole lot easier than we thought. {In fact the hardest part was actually making the decision to do it}.

Home made bagel deliciousness.

1. Mix together flour + salt + sugar + yeast + egg yolk

2. Knead

3. Let rise in a warm place for an hour

4. Roll dough balls and punch your thumb through the middle.

5. Boil the rings until they rise to the top of the water.

6. Bake for 1/2 an hour.

See the full recipe here.

For the cream cheese {pictured on the side}, we added our own spices to store bought cream cheese.

Such a simple, delicious, {mostly} out of empire snack. Bagels are a scarce commodity here in Cambodia, so this was a treat. And every time we make something on our own, we sense that it is good for the planet!

Mango Jam

In March, just before we left for Bangkok for the birth of our sweet, baby Aya, we moved house. And guess what? Our new house has a MANGO TREE!!!  It offers a whole new creative energy when it comes to eating outside of empire.

Mango Jam was our first experiment in our new house. And man was it a success!

We followed Mahanandi’s low-sugar and low-stress recipe and have been stunned and awed by the outcome.

Here’s how you do it:

• cut up mangoes into small, diced bits.
• add 1/4 cup of sugar for every 1.5 cups of mango.
• add a squirt of lime.
• throw the whole kit’n kaboodle into a bit pot and boil for 20 minutes until you have a big, gooey, mangoey mass.
• let it cool.
• dish into jars/containers and refrigerate.

It’s not a true preserving technique – but we suspect no preservation will be needed. We’re going to eat it too fast because it’s that good. And the best part? It cost us nothing (except for the sugar and limes)!

making vanilla

thanks steamykitchen.com

I have always loved homemade vanilla extract. The deep, heady smell of real vanilla wafting from cookies and cakes and muffins and other treats is one of life’s most incredible simple pleasures. I bought my first round of real vanilla in Haiti when I was in my first year of college. The huge bottle lasted for years.

Vanilla has always been a mystery to me. Until we went to Bali that is. At a local market, I stumbled upon packages upon packages of vanilla beans. The stringy, aromatic beans are so fascinating. First of all, they are so expensive. And they smell so good. And they grow out of orchids. So I procured a bag. And since then, I’ve been wondering what to do with them. I never even considered making our own vanilla until I read a friend’s blog post and became inspired.

Making homemade vanilla is actually really simple. Vanilla beans+a bottle of rum [or vodka or brandy]+time to settle and soak = voila! Vanilla extract.

So…we followed a recipe from this website [We chose number 2 - with rum]. And then we found a youtube instructional video on how to prepare vanilla beans. Because let’s face it, the wrinkly, skinny long beans can be a bit daunting when you look at them. But we opened them up, pulled out the beans and then dropped the whole kit and kaboodle [beans and casing] into three small glass bottles and shook and shook and shook them. And now we wait! We’ll see in three weeks whether we’ve been successful!

coconut shock

I didn’t know what an electrolyte was until we moved to Cambodia. But now, no matter how much water we drink, we sometimes feel dizzy and foggy headed after playing ultimate frisbee or doing anything active in the country.  That, my friends, is an electrolyte deficiency.

How Stuff Works provides a nice overview of  electrolytes. But in short, they are ions that our cells use to maintain voltages across our cell membranes. And we need these bitty electrical impulses for our nerves, hearts and muscles to function properly.

Our response over the past year in Cambodia has been to consume copious amounts of Royal D (Thailand’s answer to Gatorade) after exercise. Or to eat tons of bananas (potassium), salty foods (for the sodium chloride) and water to get some sort of combination of electrolytes.

But then we discovered a natural electrolyte treat that has been sitting under our noses for 18 months!  Coconut juice. (Check out this article for more info) These little electrolyte factories dangle off trees everywhere in the country and are sold on every street corner. And the best part?  They are 100% natural, inexpensive, and sold by local people (which is a nice change from the electrolyte industry which brings in an estimated $1.2 billion dollars a year). Oh, and they are scrumptious and refreshing served chilled! 

Bye bye sports drinks, hello coconuts!

2nd to rice?

I’m talking about our favorite square of instant noodles aka ramen, ichiban, mr. noodles, or in Southeast Asia, mi.  This packaged food is popular all over the world but in poor countries, it is especially interesting because it has become more of a staple rather than a snack or convenience.  In rough times, Cambodians will eat 90% rice with a few snippets of vegetable or meat here and there.  But block noodles isn’t far off – many eat one square for breakfast daily.  This is no doubt attributed to the insanely cheap price tag.  Although there have been some health concerns associated with various instances of the product, I think what bugs me is the lack of nutritional content and the globalized packaged convenience product itself.

So, I did a test.  How can I make my own cheap bowl of Asian noodles that doesn’t come in a perfect square from China.  It isn’t easy or time efficient but it is satisfying.  Ingredients: fresh (dried) rice noodles (only 15 cents per serving, surprisingly), boiled egg, random veggies, salt + random spices, occasionally some tofu or sliced meat. voila!  pushes up the price closer to $0.75 rather than $0.20 but hey, some things are worth shelling out for.

‘milk’

Milk seems like a pretty standard whole food free from the grasp of greedy Capitalistic fingers.  Welcome to Asia where ‘I’ll have some milk with my coffee’ nets you a heaping teaspoon of sweetened condensed creamer.  Asking for ‘fresh’ milk can possibly get you UHT (ultra-high temperature) milk if available and you can find sterilized milk too sometimes if you dig.  Ok, tropical country with no history of dairy cows, I can’t be that picky… but why does the standard need to be such a manufactured package of garbage!

What the heck is sweetened condensed milk anyway… when was the milk part taken out and can you even get the good old condensed milk which is just milk condensed?  Upon further research, condensed milk made with milk does exist just not in Asia.

So I’m at the supermarket looking for unsweetened condensed milk.  None.  Ok, how about sweetened condensed milk?  None.  My only choices are between 6 different brands of sweetened condensed creamer.  Well I guess it’s good they removed the milk part from the description.  What’s in this stuff anyway? (see picture).  Thankfully 73% of the contents are revealed.  Maybe it’s good they didn’t tell us what the other 27% is.  Oh well, we can cling to the 13% part of the product (milk powder) that saves it from being completely useless for human consumption.

Oh, and of course, never substitute for breast milk – it’s way too thick so you need to stir in some water first.