Cookfest continues with amazing bacon yam stew

More than five years ago, I read an article in McLeans (I must’ve been waiting on a doctor and desperate for entertainment) that said the average Canadian family has five meals that it prepares regularly. I took this to mean supper standbys–the things you can whip up quickly, without looking at a recipe. Things everyone in the household will eat. Either you almost always have the ingredients stocked or you can buy them handily in a nearby grocery, on autopilot, forgetting nothing even if you’ve just had brain surgery. You know what I’m saying.

Five.

It seemed like a shockingly low number. I went home and my own pile of standbys exceeded it by a factor of three, I’d say–there were about fifteen things in the three-ring binder of Alyx recipes that were the real deal, as opposed to things I’d printed out, cooked once or twice, and then left to accumulate little food smudges as their pages drifted to the back of the recipe binder.

The magazine article inspired me to make an ongoing effort to expand the standby roster by at least a few recipes each year, and also to periodically back-burner recipes so Kelly and I don’t get too tired of them.

It works pretty well, but even though I’m paying more-than-average attention to this little element of our quality of life (average as determined by McLeans, you understand) little ruts still develop. I gravitate to certain kinds of recipes–soups and stews, a lot of the time, high on the veggie content and nutritional virtue, things that make extra freezable portions for those nights when all I want to do is make a salad and boil something. They’re hearty and warming and especially good in the winter, recipes that aren’t fussy, whose components aren’t too pricey.

I am in one of these expand-my-repertoire phases now, and I’m trying to push my boundaries at least some distance outward from the above stews–hence the pumpkin shrimp curry not long ago. But my second discovery was, even so, a hearty winter stew. But man, what a stew!! Seriously, this is too-good-to-be-true delicious.

Winter wonderland

Here’s a thing to love about Vancouver–yesterday dawned clear and cold and, in my neighborhood, dry as a bone. But a quick bus ride away, to Queen Elizabeth Park, took Barb and I to a snowy photo paradise.

Snowflake closeup:
Snowflake close up

Maples and ice:
Maples and ice

A day of errands and exquisite words both…

It’s cold and blustery and oh so sunny outside, so I delayed all my desk work this morning in favor of a stomp out in the wind. East Vancouver is chilly, beautiful, and the air is full of flying leaves. It’s exhilarating and thoroughly wonderful, and as a bonus I directed my path in a loop past many places I needed to visit, so I’ve picked up many needed items for our house and upcoming trip, which is now four weeks away.

Here’s some Tanith Lee to go with the bluster:

Then he reaches the clearing. It is as they described it. The fallen tree and beyond, the stone sundial, and there the ruined garden, in which still the tall and somber roses grow, and from which they have climbed up into the trees. Up the walls of the towers the roses have risen also, among the black-green ivy. Roses with terrible thorns.

“She Sleeps in a Tower,” Tanith Lee