New Venture with Epicure Selections

Epicure Selections is a family owned, women-led, Canadian made company that I was introduced to years ago. The products promote a healthy living with low sodium spices and herb blends that also contain no MSG or added colors, flavors, oils, silicone dioxide or sulphites. If you have ever looked at a package of your regular old taco seasoning that we are all guilty for throwing mindlessly in the cart you would be astonished at the amount of sodium in that tiny little packet. Not to say that I live a salt free life but using some deliciious sea salt to season is a far cry from all those thousands of milligrams companies stick in there to preserve the products. Not to mention all those other ingredients they throw in that we can barely pronounce.

A little background on the company: Sylvie Rochette founded the company starting out with four hand-crafted spice blends sold from her station wagon at local markets and consumer trade shows, the products' overwhelming popularity soon prompted the creation of Epicure Selections® This wonderful company follows a party-plan direct sales model to distribute therefore is not found on supermarket shelves. If you can track down a local consultant (like myself) you can order their products directly from the catologue or a consultant like myself will be happy to bring a tasting party to your home. There are tons of benefits for hosting an epicure tasting party which I think is really fantastic. The first party I hosted at my house I earned over $100 worth of product and all I had to provide was a cucumber and some crackers...the consultant did the rest.

I can't say enough good things about this company so I wanted to be a part of it. Partly because of the health benefits but also for the products versatility. Take their pizza seasoning for instance (one of my favourites)Don't let the name fool you, this italian blend is great sprinkled on pizza but I have used it for dips, pasta's and breads. Their lemon dilly dip mix makes a great dip for veggies but I have sprinkled it on salmon, in my potato salad, egg salad and just the other day I made a crab salad (neptune salad) and the lemon dilly mixed with some maynonnaise and sour cream. It was delish!!! I could go on forever so I'll leave it at that for today with hopes that if you aren't familiar with their products you will check them out.

Epicure is available to order in Canada and if you’d like to place an order you can email me at tammysepicure@gmail.com or if you live near London, Ontario I would be happy to come and host a tasting party for you and your friends.

Visit Epicure www.epicureselections.com and tell me what you would love try!

The Beauty of Batch Cooking

When I gave birth to Jalen, some of the nicest and most thoughtful gifts I received were foods for my freezer. My cousin Jenny brought over stacks of containers with stews, curries and chilli's and my Aunt Les stocked our freezer with lasagna (she makes the best ever!), pizza and muffins. I have never forgotten that. It seemed like months went by and between the sleepless nights and troubles with breastfeeding it was so wonderful to not even have to shop or cook because our freezer was packed.

On that note, with a new baby on its way in no time I have been inspired lately to save time, save money and live more frugally on a whole. As the chef in our family I also want to serve my family healthier meals each day. With the kids away for the afternoon with Uncle Chris and Aunt Lindsay, I decided today was my day to try out batch cooking. In order to try and save time and money, I found I was too frequently reaching for quick and processed foods to make for dinner at night. Once bbq season is upon us, we usually spend the summer grilling which is usually quick and healthy. I might have made this discovery a season too late but with some chilly, not grilling days still ahead I picked out some of our families favourite inexpensive and easy meals that would be easy to freeze and spent my Saturday afternoon cooking away. Now I don't want to fool you into believing that I was humming show tunes the whole afternoon. There was a point when I was mopping my brow, I had 3 pots bubbling and dishes piled and I exclaimed aloud "I hate batch cooking!" Truth be told, It was exhausting. I decided to start with a hearty chilli, sheppards pie and curry chicken today. So I started my prep with lots of onions for each dish plenty of fresh parsley, potatoes and onions. That's the hardest part, afterthat, assembling each dish was simple. I don't have the recipes to share because these are all my recipes that I make with a little bit of this and a dash of that. I cooked from about 12 noon till about 3:00 p.m. and I am amazed at how much I was able to accomplish in that short time.

And when I saw the fruits of my labour with all of these nice freezable bpa free containers stacked up on my counter I no longer "hate batch cooking." I'm happy that at least for a couple of weeks it's just as easy to reach for one of thes containers...

Instead of this....

(Note: There will always be a box of kd in my cupboard just in case ;)

Next I will tackle some sweet treats for the week, banana muffins, chocolate chip cookies, apple sauce and rice krispie squares. Blog to follow...

Eat, Pray, Love...part 1

I read the book Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert last year and immediately was drawn in to this story of a woman who after a terrible divorce takes off in search of the self that she had lost. I saw the movie last weekend, and it did not disappoint. As a mother of two children, my fantasy of taking off to Rome in search of myself and some really fantastic Italian food gets zapped pretty fast. Although, when life with a 2 and 4 year old gets crazy, I feel like I could run off to Bali, my kids kind of need mom to stick around. Women love this story, even cynical women soften and are able to get lost in Elizabeth's story of surrendering and searching for worldly pleasures, connection to spirit and ultimately love. I believe that it's easy to connect to this story because I think in the end we all want those same things Elizabeth went looking for and found in Eat, Pray, Love. We all want to experience joy and pleasure of our senses, we all want to feel in tune with our inner self/spirit and I believe that if you boil down what each of us want, it links back to love. So, here's the question, how can the average person who can't quit their job or leave their children and husband tackle this journey of self? I will explore this question with "eat" in mind.

Eat

I think that other than the obvious, eat represents to me experiencing all types of sensory pleasures. However, in my humble opinion, there are very few other things as joyful as losing myself to a delicious meal. Fresh roasted beets and creamy goat cheese drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette. Earthy and creamy mushroom soup sprinkled with fresh parsley. Succulent crab dipped in butter....okay now I'm getting hungry. My friends who know me very well, know that I take my food very seriously, enjoying each moment. I tend not to be a scarf down a sandwich on the go person. I enjoy dining alone, with a book. Experiencing new tastes, restaurants I've always wondered about. Why not try out that little restaurant you always drive by? What about our other senses? Listen to some beautiful music that soothes you, cheers you and brings you joy. Take the time to smell the coffee as it's brewing in the morning, get yourself some lavender scented linen spray for your pillow at night. Sarah Ban Breathnach has a follow up book to Simple Abundance called "Romancing the Ordinary." This book is filled with many ideas to delight in sensory joys for each season. Eating is definitely my favourite way to connect to my senses. It's mid August, get yourself some fresh tomatoes and season with cracked pepper and sea salt, some hearty white bread (like french or italian), and make yourself a "Tomato Crunch." My sister in-law used to own a restaurant that served gourmet soups, salads and sandwiches, I worked there for a time. The menu changed weekly and seasonally, this was one of my favourite menu items in the summer time and is extremely simple to prepare at home.

Tomato Crunch

1 summer fresh tomato
2 slices of hearty white bread ( I love whole wheat bread for most things, but in this case, it must be white bread)
1 handful of plain potato chips ( preferably kettle cooked like "Miss Vickie's")
1 tbsp mayo, butter, salt and pepper to taste.

Directions:

Slice Tomatoes nice and thick, then season with sea salt and fresh cracked pepper
Spread bread once done with a bit of butter (optional) but I think it helps the bread to not get soggy from the mayo
spread bread with mayo
Assemble with tomatoes and then a layer of chips

Note: You could toast the bread if you wanted to but the "crunch" is best coming from the chips alone, with the soft bread.

Eat!

Feeling Inspired By...Our Best Bites

So I've mentioned this site before because I just LOVE all of their great food ideas, the photography is great and there are some really wonderful gift ideas. This week I plan on doing a little baking and creating for gifts for my children's daycare teachers, as well as some other collegues, friends and acquaintances. Here are some great things I found on ourbestbites.com and I hope it inspires you as well.

These look delectable! They are called Easy Pretzel Turtles. Essentially you take a small pretzel and top it with a rolo, place them in a preheated 350 degree oven for around 3 mins. When the outside looks a bit melty, take them out and press a pecan half right in the middle!

I thought this was such a great idea for a gift, it's called fruity candied popcorn, which happens to be pretty easy as well. Using Jello powder as the secret ingredient! See http://www.ourbestbites.com/ for the tutorial on this.

Aren't these homemade marshmallows great !?! I thought it would be great, paired up with a nice gourmet hot chocolate mix and a beautiful mug for thoughtful Christmas present for teachers, or co-workers.

Okay, so this recipe is not as cut and dry as sticking a rolo on top of a pretzel but I thought they looked so pretty and delicious. ourbestbites, gives a recipe to make these brownies from scratch. I have to admit I was thinking about cheating and using a mix to make the brownie and then adding the pink peppermint frosting, chocolate and candycanes.

These darling little things are individual pies baked right in the mason jar! I thought this was a great gift idea for a hostess or a dessert idea if you happen to be hosting a holiday dinner of your own. There are a ton of great ideas on this site but these are just a few that I'm thinking about attempting in my holiday kitchen this week.

Love This Site!