My Favourite Summer Baking with Longing for Marché St. Georges

There are few things I enjoy or remember more about my summer holidays then long afternoons alone or with friends at a cafe. Even if I'm enjoying only one mug of coffee, the act of sitting and drawing out the experience, makes it seem as if I'm drinking coffee "all day." And what could be more relaxing?

We're spoiled here in Toronto -- there is so much good coffee .. here ... here ... here...oh and this one and this one.. this is one of our old stand-bys, where I drank I gigantic up of cinnamon laced coffee served to me in a beer glass and enjoyed and peanut butter and jelly sandwich, all alone. This one is a frequent stop on our bike rides, and this one, just around the corner from me, holds such sentimental value. I've enjoyed solo breakfasts over bottomless coffee here and here, because breakfast treats make the coffee experience that much better, don't you think?

Despite all the wonderful cafes here in Toronto, yesterday, my heart tugged towards to a neighbourhood coffee shop that we went to in Vancouver: Marché St. Georges.  It's tucked away in quiet residential neighbourhood, away from the more stylish, sleek-looking cafes on busier, streets. It's also a market that sells unique products and gifts such as specialty teas, coffees, cookies and an intriguing honey, flavoured with thai chillies. Although the gifts were tempting, we settled on iced coffees and a few treats -- a cherry crumble tart and a butter tart -- and let the late afternoon melt into evening.

But yesterday when I was thinking about Marché St. Georges, it occurred to me that I wanted to have breakfast there, sitting in the patio, slowly enjoying a coffee and something sweet, warm and fruity, in front of some reading material or maybe even some *gasp* planning for September. If anything were to make the prospect of going back to work in a few weeks bearable, it would be breakfast and coffee at Marché St. Georges. But since I'm in Toronto and no longer rambling about the streets and trails of Vancouver, I'll just savour the memories along with my fruity and caffeinated breakfast.

And my breakfast of choice? It would have to be a simple summer fruit crumble. When I got back from Vancouver, there were baskets of sour cherries just begging to be taken home from the farmer's market. Some of them were cooked down and jarred, but most of them went into making this crumble many, many times. In with the cherries, I threw some raspberries, and some chopped rhubarb. A squeeze of lemon would have made sense, but I didn't want to taint that beautiful, almost almond-like flavour of the sour cherries, so I skipped that part. I also skipped the spices I would generally add to a crisp or crumble topping like cinnamon or nutmeg, just to keep things nice and fruity and pure.

I ate this warm, right out of the oven with my coffee, but it was equally as good eaten cold then next day with some yogurt. It was beautiful and the perfect way to wake up on a perfect summer day.

Simple Summer Fruit Crumble
inspired by Joy the Baker
serves 4-6

6 cups of fresh summer fruit, chopped if necessary (berries, cherries, peaches.. go wild)
2 tablespoons of natural cane sugar
1 cup + 1 tablespoon of spelt flour
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons of rolled oats
1/3 cup of brown sugar
2 tablespoons of maple syrup
3 tablespoons of Earth Balance (or butter)

1. Place your fruit in a large baking dish. Sprinke over the cane sugar, 1 tablespoon of flour and 2 tablespoons of rolled oats. Mix well.

2. In a bowl, stir together the rest of the flour, oats and brown sugar until everything is evenly combined. Add the maple syrup of stir gently.

3. Add the Earth Balance or butter and with your fingers, rub it against the flour mixture until you get a nice coarse meal.

4. Spoon the crumble mixture over the fruit mixture and bake in a 350 degree oven for about 25 minutes or so, or until the crumble is golden brown and the fruit is bubbling up.

Taming the Sugar Craving

Well, it's back to work. I've had a glorious two weeks off: lots of coffee, lots of chocolate, lots of sleep, lots of runs and hikes and workouts, lots of brunches and giggles and coffee talks and catching up and even an awesome waffle party (!!), lots of Christmas cookies and baking, lots of time to clear my mind. It's back to the routine tomorrow, back to waking up at 4:50am, back to the blur of the classroom and exhaustion that follows. Except I won't have that stack of Christmas cookies to give me a sugar rush around 3pm, right when I need it. But it's January, the month of detoxes and juice diets and so forth.

Do you go for that? I've tried cleansing a couple times, and while I honestly felt detoxed after, I was generally lacking energy, something that can't happen in January, not with report cards due in just three short weeks. I don't know about you, but I still need that sugar fix. Is that wrong? Yeah, well, maybe a little, but I made a solution today: a beautiful, healthy, cleansing solution that doesn't involve juice diets or anything like that. I made this beautiful, fruity salad. I couldn't resist the insanely good deal on pineapple and strawberries at the supermarket, but I think this salad would work just as well with more seasonal fruit -- like blood oranges, crisp apples, grapefruit, and pomegranate. The base of this salad is red quinoa, a nice gluten-free super food to amp you up, grated carrots and parsley. Don't skip the parsley! Aside from it's detoxing qualities, just a little adds a beautiful green, almost citrusy freshness.

Because of all the beautiful fresh fruit in this salad, there's no need for a dressing, besides a nice big squeeze of lemon. If you're not feeling the quinoa love just yet, you might want to try brown rice or millet in your base. If you want some crunch and extra protein, a sprinkling of nuts or pumpkin seeds would be lovely as well. And, if you serve this over some baby spinach or massaged kale, you've got a salad that's definitely a detox and a sugar kick.

Don't sweat it if you're not psyched for a January juice cleanse. Eat your cleanse instead. Happy salad!

Sugar Kick Cleanse Salad
inspired by the Tropical Fruit Salad in Quinoa: the everyday superfood, by Patricia Green and Carolyn Hemming

For the Salad Base:
1/2 cup of red quinoa, rinsed well
1 cup of water
2 medium carrots, peeled and grated
1/4 cup of chopped parsley
juice of half a lemon

In my salad, I added:
half a small pineapple, chopped into small chunks
2 tangerine oranges, peeled and segmented
1 cup of chopped strawberries
1 small mango, chopped into small chunks

1. Put the quinoa and water in a small pot and bring it up to a boil. Cover and reduce to a simmer. Cook for about 15 minutes, or until the quinoa is tender and has absorbed all the water. Cool and set aside.

2. Place the cooled quinoa, grated carrots, fruit add-ins and parsley in a large bowl. Add the lemon juice and mix well.

3. Enjoy! I plan on eating my salad for lunch over baby spinach. It would also be lovely in the morning with an added dollop of yogurt.

Refreshing Summer Dessert

I've done a terrible job of posting this summer -- I know. It's not the produce -- the berries are beautiful, the greens are abundant, and the sweet corn is sweet as can be, despite the warnings of bad crops because of our warm March and frosty April. Peaches are sweet and juicy, we've already preserved many pints of strawberries (which are still around in some markets!) and blueberries (from Ontario and all the way from B.C.), and I think I've eaten my weight in green beans (although some yellow and purple ones may have slipped in!) and cherry tomatoes. Recently, I'm seeing beautiful local sugar plums and fresh, pretty speckled roma beans and in certain markets, baskets of beautiful red currents.The basil (purple, and regular) on my balcony is flourishing, as is the thyme. The dill had it's run, but the Italian parsley is hanging in there, and the lavender is still very happy.

But alas, despite the market bounty, I've still sucked at posting this summer. I apologize. This is what happens when I take a course: July wizzes by in a blur of papers, reading and typing, and then when it's over, I feel like doing nothing, and then all of a sudden I'm panicking about planning for September. I now remember why it's been 7 years since my last course. However, procrastinating was definitely a part of this process, and for me, procrastinating always means time in the kitchen.

This time, it involved internet re-runs of the cooking show French Food at Home.  Have you seen that show with Laura Calder? She's incredible, and the other day, I watched her make a wine jelly: a beautiful molded jelly with red and green grapes trapped inside. Beautiful. I wanted to make a non-alcoholic version and take it one step further by trapping bubbles (i.e. carbonation!) in the jelly with the fruit. I also used a vegan substitute for gelatin: agar. It's a jelling agent derived from seaweed and very popular in vegan baking. You could probably get pure, fancy agar flakes at the health food store, but I got mine at an Asian grocery store, and it also contained sugar, so it pretty much worked just like gelatin -- check out this website for details.  Laura used white wine sweetened with sugar in her recipe -- I used white grape juice (totally delicious!) and mixed it with lemon flavoured sparkling water to make up for the extra sugar.  The result was awesome: beautiful summer fruits in a tingly, sweet jelly -- the carbonated water totally worked, and made this dessert extra special. I'm sure if you're in the mood for alcohol, a nice sparkling wine (Prosecco perhaps?) would work nicely. Whatever you choose, go the sparkling route. the jelly leaves a nice tingly sensation on your tongue and makes you savour and enjoy every bite.

Summer can't be over yet, right? Right?!

Sparkling Jelly with Summer Fruit
inspired by Laura Calder
serves 4

1 large peach
1/2 pint of fresh raspberries
1 cup of white grape juice
1 cup of lemon flavoured sparkling water
1 tablespoon of sugar-agar powdered mixture or gelatin
2 tablespoons of water

1. Cut your peach into quarters. Cut each quarter into six little cubes and place them in 4 half-cup ramekins. Divide the raspberries evenly between the ramekins. Set aside.

2. Dissolve the agar in the water and let it sit for a bit. Meanwhile, heat up the grape juice in a small pot. As it just comes to a simmer, add in the agar-water mixture and bring it to a boil. Turn off the heat immediately and add the sparkling water.Stir well.

3. Pour the liquid mixture into the ramekins. Let them sit at room temperature until they cool down. They will probably set as they cool. Place them in the fridge to chill.

4. Enjoy!

Blueberry Crisp for Grandma

I love making treats for my Grandma.  She's usually not a sweet dessert kind of person, but she enjoys treats and today was the perfect day to make something in her honour.  Every year on mother's day, my Mom is usually away on vacation, so we celebrate mother's day and father's day together when she gets back.  But on mother's day, we also take the time to chill out with our Grandma -- a very special person indeed.  She raised us when we were little and our Dad was working the night shift and our Mom had to go back to work. She picked us up from school, made us breakfast and lunch, and played silly games with us during our summer vacation.

My Grandma has been feeling sick lately, so she didn't feel like going to a restaurant for mother's day brunch.  We brought brunch to her this year, and this fresh blueberry crisp was the perfect way to end it. Truth be told, I really wanted to bake something with rhubarb, but our local markets didn't have any, so I settled for nice pints of sweet, floral blueberries.  I wanted to maintain the freshness of the fruit -- I've tried too many crisps and crumbles where the fruit is jammy and super sweet, not something my Grandma would appreciate.  So I kept everything simple -- no cornstarch or thickeners, just fresh fruit, lemon juice and zest and a sprinkling of sweetness.  The crisp topping baked up in nice lovely crumble chunks with an added nuttiness from the use of spelt flour.  It was a lemony, fresh, just sweet enough crisp, perfect to end mother's day brunch.  It we had a bit of fresh thyme, I'd throw some in for sure, and it were Ontario peach season, I'd definitely consider a peach and blueberry crisp.  But it's perfect as it is, and Grandma loved it, which was the most important part.

Happy Mother's Day!

Lemony Blueberry Crisp
serves 4-6

1 pint of fresh blueberries, washed
juice and zest of 1 lemon, divided
1 tablespoon of natural cane sugar
1/2 cup of spelt flour
3/4 cup of rolled oats
3 tablespoons of honey
2 tablespoons of canola oil

1.  In a baking dish, combine the blueberries, sugar and half the lemon juice and zest.  Toss lightly.  Set aside.

2.  In a bowl, stir together the flour, oats and the other half of the lemon zest.  Add the lemon juice, oil and honey and mix well.

3.  Crumble the oat mixture over the fruit and bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, or until the fruit just starts to bubble and the topping gets nice and golden.

4.  The dessert begs for ice cream or whipped cream, but if you eat it on it's own, you could definitely call it breakfast!