Beautiful vegetables and beautiful BC

At last, Vancouver has embraced the concept of things actually still growing in the winter and now has embarked upon its first winter market. I was always concerned to read Nigel Slater give a vivid description of how he visited his local farmers' markets in January and February because I live in a city like Nigel, surely we should have this available too. Well, now we do. Neil and I braved the cold and snow, (yes, snow), to buy some produce on Saturday. I was happily surprised on the size of the market and the things available to buy. Lots of winter vegetables like squash, broccoli, kale, onions etc. but also some frozen Heirloom tomatoes and lots of soft herbs. This market runs until April which means that from now on, there will be a farmer's market happening somewhere in Vancouver all year round. Progress.

I was very interested in this broccoli as it reminds me of purple sprouting broccoli, a variety that is revered as much as asparagus in the UK, due to it's relatively short season and delicious taste. Questioning the stall holder revealed that this variety really isn't that popular over here as he had no idea of what I was referring to. I tried growing it once and had to wait patiently for 2 years to reap any rewards. Maybe I will try again and sell it myself.

Purple sprouting broccoli

 

 These dried Heirloom tomatoes caught my eye for both their beauty and possibilities. They can be re-hydrated by soaking in warm water and used like fresh tomatoes or possibly ground to create an intense tomato powder or added straight to soups, stews etc.

 

I love beet(roots) as much for their leaves as the small nugget of juicy sweetness at the end of the stems. I will either steam the leaves and dress with butter and salt or finely slice them and fry with onion and peppers.

The last time a bought a large amount of garlic I was advised to keep it all in the fridge where, so I was told, it would happily live without decaying for at least a year. Unfortunately, after just 2 months, some bulbs had developed a mold and I threw the lot away for fear of contamination. This small bundle I will keep on the counter-top and hopefully use very quickly to avoid spoiling. I have a Delia Smith recipe for chicken roasted with 40 cloves of garlic which renders them soft, sweet and mellow. I have also seen a recipe for garlic soup and although I, like most people, worry about the effect on my nearest and dearest once too much garlic has been consumed, I will certainly try both recipes.

 I decided I needed to use some of the produce immediately to capture the freshness and so I prepared a pizza. I used 1/4 red onion, thinly sliced, 1/2 orange pepper, thinly sliced, 1 chili, sliced, 5 mushrooms, sliced, some purple beet leaves, sliced, handful baby spinach, some black olives, sliced, some thyme and 3 plum tomatoes from a tin, sliced.

 I re-visited the low carb shop and found this intriguing looking flat bread, perfect as a pizza base. I have to say, though, it was a little cardboardy.

 The whole pizza was assembled using 1 tbsp tomato puree as the base and quite unconventionally, Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top. In truth, it was all I had to hand but I was glad I used it sparingly as it allowed the other flavours to permeate through, especially the plum tomatoes whose complex flavour worked well to minimize the overly oaty crust.

 Beautiful BC

Quite unusually for me, I am going to move away from food for a little while and highlight some photographs Neil and I took yesterday as we drove about 100 miles from Vancouver to see some eagles roosting. It was an incredibly cold day, (like the whole of this week), with the temperature around -7oC with wind chills as low as -15oC, so most of these photographs are taken from the car. We drove to Kilby near Harrison Hot Springs in BC. The combination of the fresh snow on the mountains and the glorious sunny day made for some nice photographs