There are so many people on Bowen who not only love to eat, but love to cook. While some of our foodie friends kindly offer us the opportunity to taste their food by opening up restaurants, there are so many others whose food-lives are unknown to us. This column is an attempt to pry open the kitchen windows of our local friends and neighbours who have a passion for cooking. Some of them are trained chefs, some of them make a living from cooking, and others are self-taught, excellent, passionate home-cooks.
If you have a foodie friend who might make a great feature, please contact: [email protected]
Bowen Islanders Carrie Wheeler and her husband Jaman Llyod are the owners of Copper Kettle Fine Foods.
What’s your comfort food?
Soup and a sandwich, specifically Vegan Pho Soup and Jerked Tofu Banh Mi (recipe below). I get huge cravings for it, and could probably eat it every day. Luckily, with our company, Copper Kettle Fine Foods, we have an endless supply of Jamaican Jerk Wet Rub on hand so we can make the Banh Mi anytime!
If you could only have one cookbook…
If I *must* choose, it would be GREAT CHEFS COOK VEGAN by Linda Long. 25 of arguably the greatest chefs were tasked to create a 3-4 course vegan meal. None of them have vegan restaurants, though they knew that their work was to be featured amongst these other incredible chefs, so they all really tried to out-do each other. I get super inspired by their combinations and creativity.
Who’s your biggest culinary influence and what did they teach you?
My husband, Jaman Lloyd, is my biggest culinary influence. He has no fear in the kitchen! He loves to dive deep into researching heirloom vegetables, old timey cooking and preserving techniques as well as exploring a vast array of spices in international cuisines. He then takes that knowledge and experiments with lots of bold flavours. He has a lot more confidence in the kitchen than I do, and he’s taught me to just let go of pre-conceived notions of which flavour profiles and ingredients are ‘supposed’ to work together. The Copper Kettle Sour Citrus Pepper Sauce as well as our Cranberry Chai Hot Sauce were both the beautiful result of not being afraid of making mistakes. And now they are two of our best selling sauces!
When did you realize you loved to cook?
Frankly, I love the eating part more than the cooking part! I really started to enjoy cooking once I realized that dinner doesn’t need to be fancy. You don’t need a lot of ingredients or steps (hello one-pot-pasta) to make delicious food, fast.
Tell me about a culinary challenge, and how you overcame it. For example, when you had to adapt to a particular diet or allergy, or when you had to learn a totally new cooking style.
I spent a great deal of my life eating convenience foods from cans and boxes and take out. Simply put, I did not know how to cook anything, only how to heat it up. My friends still joke about the time I seriously burned frozen pizza bagels - how do you screw up pizza bagels? But when I transitioned to a plant based diet a dozen years ago, I was forced to teach myself how to cook everything from scratch. So much packaged food contains (often hidden) animal ingredients, not to mention incredibly high amounts of sodium and sugar and food colouring and all sorts of junk. I didn’t want to put that in my body, so I spent an incredible amount of time learning everything about nutrition and food preparation in my early 30’s. I would make huge portions of food as if I was feeding an army, and then call Jaman over to my place to be my proverbial guinea pig. That’s how we fell in love, over the dinner table, with him trying out all of my crazy new recipes and eating my leftovers - plus he would do all of the dishes afterward - how do you not fall in love after that?
How has living on Bowen influenced your cooking?
Living on Bowen encouraged us to start a whole new business in the culinary sector. When we moved here we joined the Bowen Vegetarian Potluck Group. We arrived to our first dinner party with our dish and a Hostess Gift of our home-made vegan Worcestershire Sauce. Several group members tried the sauce that night and asked where they could buy it. With each subsequent dinner party, more and more people were asking where they could purchase our various sauces that we used in our dishes. We thought, heck, maybe we have something here? We started Copper Kettle Fine Foods, selling gourmet, all natural, 100% plant based sauces, condiments and marinades at farmer’s markets on Bowen and across the lower mainland to much success. One year later and we’re now going to be in retail stores across Canada. So much gratitude to our earliest Bowen Island supporters for encouraging us to take that leap!
Jerked Tofu Banh Mi
This recipe requires marinating tofu and pickling vegetables at least one hour in advance. The longer, the better, preferably overnight for maximum flavour.
Ingredients:
- 1 package (350g) of Extra Firm Tofu
- 1/2 cup Copper Kettle Jamaican Jerk Wet Rub
- 1 French Baguette (from Artisan Eats!), cut into quarters (sandwich sized)
- 1/2 cup cilantro
- 2 carrots, shredded
- 1 small Spanish onion, sliced thinly on the mandolin
- 1 jalapeño, sliced
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/4 cup vinegar
- 1 tsp sugar
- 2 tsp olive oil
- pinch of salt
- vegan mayo (to taste)
- hot sauce (to taste) *try Copper Kettle Pineapple Rum Habanero Sauce
Instructions:
Drain tofu and cut into 1/2 inch strips. In a bowl, gently coat tofu strips with Copper Kettle Jamaican Jerk Wet Rub. Cover and let marinate at least one hour, or preferably overnight.
In a separate bowl, combine vinegar, water, sugar and salt. Submerge carrots and onion in the mixture. If not completely submerged, add more vinegar and water at a one to one ratio until the vegetables are completely covered. Place in refrigerator at least one hour, or preferably overnight.
Preheat oven to 350°C. Spread jerked tofu strips evenly on a lightly oiled baking tray. Cover the strips with any excess marinade and bake for 30 minutes, turning once half way through baking.
Lightly toast sliced baguettes in the still hot oven for 2-5 minutes.
Assemble sandwiches with mayo, jerked tofu, pickled vegetables (drained), jalapeños, cilantro and hot sauce.
Makes 4 sandwiches.
ENJOY!!
