Food Like That: Recipes your mouth will like

I bought some lupini beans a couple of weeks ago on a trip to Bosa (an Italian grocery store on Victoria just off of Kingsway -- and a second giant one on Boundary). I like beans in general and hadn't seen these before, especially in the well known Unico brand. Lots of the Unico beans have recipes on the inside, so I figured I could make that even if I didn't find other recipes.

Turns out, the main "recipe" for Lupini beans (also known as lupin beans (wikipedia)) is to salt them and eat them out of a bowl as a snack: you squeeze the outer shell and the bean pops out into your mouth. Well, that was rather unexciting, and the beans weren't really that great, either. From the wikipedia link, turns out that lupin beans are being cultured potentially as a replacement for soy beans, since they also grow in colder climates.

Strawberries! Before heading over to Bowen Island for the July 1st holiday, I convinced James to drive us out to Westham Island to go to Emma Lea Farms. Well, actually, it's James that knows the place -- I thought we should U Pick the berries, but Monique made a funny joke about the time and chiropractor bill vs. just picking them up. I ended up buying a flat for $27.50 along with some new potatoes to take over to Bowen.

By the way, James has an excellent series on his blog where he's making up menus for his imaginary restaurant, Purloined. Check out Purloined's July menu.

Bowen! A great time as always -- super hot, so we did some beach picnicking and lots of swimming. The strawberries were prepped, and ended up in strawberry rhubarb jam as well as a strawberry torte (not sure what this is called -- my mom takes a sponge cake like base and then puts cut strawberries on top and covers them with gelatin). The new potatoes ended up as potato salad, which I'll post the recipe for.

Another fun piece of cooking on Bowen was some simple chicken legs done in my grandmother's old cast iron pot. Slow cooked over low heat on the stove top after browning in left over bacon fat, with some onions, garlic, mushrooms, and zucchini added.

Oh yes -- I did do some pork back ribs boiled in wine and then marinated in a from scratch BBQ sauce that I made. Needs more tinkering before I can post the recipe.