mmm-minji

Behind the Times

2011-09-18T16:12:00.000-04:00

I like to believe that I'm not so easily susceptible to fads; I'm definitely not the first one to jump on every trend bandwagon that comes along, preferring to stick to classics (and this is true for many things - fashion, books, food!). Of course, this also means that when a "fad" is clearly not going away anytime soon and I eventually succumb, I'm left wondering why on earth I held back for so long on something that is so awesome. This happened with Harry Potter, leggings (don't laugh) to name a few....and no-knead bread.

The first no-knead recipe was published by the New York times in 2006. Yea, It's been FIVE years. When it came out, I was totally of the "why wouldn't I just knead my bread? I LIKE kneading bread" argument so didn't bother trying out the recipe. Also I find stirring a stiff batter way more difficult than kneading dough so I didn't really see how this would be easier. I was also turned off by the VERY long rising time since I'm not really a "plan my recipes ahead" kind of girl. But parts of the recipe did appeal to me - the long rising time would develop more flavour and complexity in the bread and also require less yeast, and the very moist dough baked in a dutch oven produces a "steaming" effect which leads to light, holey bread with a crackly crust. So I've used recipes in the past the borrows from these techniques but have never actually tried the REAL no-knead recipe.

Then last weekend I knew I wanted to bake some bread on Sunday and had some time to plan in advance. And to be honest, now that I make bread and pizza that much more often sometimes all that kneading does get a bit tiring. So I decided to finally try it out....and? I really seriously cannot believe I have waited THIS long to make no-knead bread. It actually makes me sad. SO easy and SO good! The dough is actually so wet that you have none of the problems with stirring it, and the flavour and texture really IS amazing. So light and fluffy on the inside with a super crackly crust. Yum. Adam tried a slice and immediately started chanting "MORE BREAD, MORE BREAD" which shows just how good this is since he is not the carb-obsessed bread lover that I am. So anyway. Please, if you haven't made it yet try it. It is definitely worth the time and planning ahead!

No-Knead Bread
Adapted from the New York Times
Total time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours for rising

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
½ tsp instant yeast
1½ tsp salt
1¾ cups water (I'm going to note here that the original recipe calls for 1 5/8 of a cup which is a very specific amount. I ended up using a little more so I'm just rounding to 3/4 here...just use as much water as you need to get the consistency as described below)
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed (I used cornmeal)

1. In a large bowl, combine flour, yeast and salt. Add water and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. It shouldn't be batter-like but you definitely shouldn't be able to knead it at all with your hands. Cover the bowl with saran wrap and let dough rest at least 12-18 hours at warm room temperature. When dough is ready, the surface should be dotted with bubbles. If you don't want to bake the bread for a few more days, keep it in the fridge and let it get back to room temperature for a couple hours before you continue to Step 2.

2. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover the ball loosely with plastic wrap and let rest for about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep the dough from sticking to your work surface or fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball (I used more flour than I thought I would in this step; this dough is REALLY sticky). Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) or a silicone baking sheet with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on the towel and dust it with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let it rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 450 degrees Farenheit, 232 degrees Celsius. Put a 6 to 8 quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic - I used my dutch oven) in the oven as it heats. When the dough is ready, carefully remove the pot from oven. Slide your hand under the towel or silicone baking sheet and turn the dough over into the pot, seam side up. I probably won't look very nice or much like a loaf of anything but don't worry too much about that. Shake the pot a couple times if the dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake for 30 minutes, then for another 15 to 30 minutes with the lid off until your loaf is browned and delicious looking! Cool on a rack and try to let it rest for about 20 minutes before you cut it.

Cinnamon Rolls!

2011-05-15T15:39:00.009-04:00

Anyone that follows the Pioneer Woman knows her cinnamon rolls are kind of a big deal. She talks about them alot. People seem to like them. And most importantly, they look delicious. Tons of butter and sugar and cinnamon...all good things. Now I have to admit, I didn't use quite as much butter or sugar. I am not by any means the type of person that counts calories or uses non-fat ANYTHING but there is a LOT of both in the recipe and it scared me a little. And more importantly, I didn't really believe I needed it to make delicious rolls. And I was right! These still contain plenty of fat and sugar and are defintely not good for you. I also halved the recipe but it still makes a lot of cinnamon rolls. I made these for Mother's day and still have a bunch saved in the freezer. Yay!

Cinnamon Rolls
adapted from The Pioneer Woman

2 cups milk (I used 2%)
½ cup canola oil
½ cup sugar
2 ¼ tsp active dry yeast
4 cups (1 cup separated) all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tbsp salt

½ softened butter
¼ cup sugar
genereous sprinkling of cinnamon

Frosting:
½ bag icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla or maple syrup (I used vanilla but will try maple next time)
¼ cup milk
⅛ cup melted butter
⅛ cup brewed coffee (I used instant)
dash of salt

1. Mix the milk, vegetable oil and sugar in a pan. Heat until the mixture is just about to boil, turn off heat and leave to cool 45 minutes to 1 hour. I'm not going to lie, I cheated a bit here...I think I let it cool for about 20 minutes and stuck it in the fridge for about another 5....basically let it cool until it's warm to the touch but NOT hot anymore or it will kill the yeast! Sprinkle in the yeast and let sit for a few minutes, until it starts to bubble. Add 3 cups of all-purpose flour and 1 cup of whole wheat flour. Stir mixture together. Cover and let rise for at least an hour in a warm place.

2. Once the dough is doubled, add 1 more cup of flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir together. Refrigerate if you're not using immediately for up to a day.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Farenheit, or 205 degrees Celsius

3. When ready to prepare rolls, take the dough and form a rough rectangle on a lightly floured surface. Roll the dough thin, trying to stay in a general rectangular shape. I tried to roll the dough to about 1 cm thick but you're just going to have to go with your gut here. I think I rolled the dough too thick in the middle so my rolls had a pretty big range in sizes but they still turned out yummy :)

4. Spread the softened butter over the dough. Now sprinkle sugar over the butter (you can use more than I did...the original recipe calls for half a cup) followed by a generous sprinkling of cinnamon.

5. Begin rolling the dough along the long side in a neat line toward you. Keep the roll relatively tight as you go. Next, pinch the seam of the roll to seal it (umm...I JUST read this. I did not do this step. My rolls did not collapse but it's probably a good idea in retrospect)

6. Grease a few pans with butter. I used one 9x13 pan and two round cake pans. Cut the rolls about 1 inch thick and place them in the buttered pans. Let the rolls rise again for another 20 to 30 minutes.

7. Bake for about 15 to 18 minutes, or until lightly golden.

8. While the rolls are baking, make the frosting: mix together all the ingredients listed and stir until smooth. It should be thick but pourable. Taste and adjust as needed. Generously drizzle over the warm rolls. Use more than you think you need, because the rolls will soak up the icing and the icing is GOOD. I don't even really like icing. Just trust me on this.

Eat Your Heart Out, Galen

2011-05-07T12:11:00.004-04:00

This is actually the first lasagna that I've ever made. I'm not a huge fan of traditional lasagna - I generally prefer a simple bolognese with noodles, and to be honest lasagna has always seemed like too much work to bother. But veggie lasagna...yes, it could be worth it! Especially if it was modeled after the PC Vegetable Lasagna with 7 Chees es. SO good. This stuff is like crack. I was introduced to it by a couple of roommates in university. We'd buy the Club Pack size and go through it within a day. You could delude yourself into thinking this stuff is healthy (there's VEGETABLES in it!) but it's also 25% cheese according to the product page. That's a LOT of cheese.

I think I went in originally with the mentality that I was somehow going to make this healthier than the PC version. But as I starting putting the ingredients together I moved to a different mantra: Even if I use the exact same ingredients, it should be a LITTLE better just because it's from scratch, right? And doesn't include the preservatives at the very least? Anyway, I have no idea how the calorie count on this thing compares to PC's but I can guarantee it still doesn't fall into the "low-fat" category. It's not a weeknight dish, but perfect for a rainy Sunday at home!

(proof that there were, in fact, a LOT of veggies used in the making of this recipe!)

I was actually surprised that I couldn't find a copycat recipe online. Everyone I know loves this lasagna. But I guess most people don't spend their time trying to replicate their favourite frozen foods from scratch, and really it's probably cheaper to just buy it at the grocery store. So this did mean that I had to make up my own recipe.

While I cook a lot, I'm a baker at heart which means I like to follow recipes. It was a bit tricky to write my own so I used a few similar lasagna recipes to form a "base" and then used the ingredient listing from the PC page to help me out!

According to the PC product page, the ingredients are:

Lasagna noodles (durum wheat semolina, water, dried whole egg), water, seven cheeses [white and yellow cheddar, part skim mozzarella, ricotta, asiago, swiss, romano and parmesan (whole and partially skimmed milk, bacterial culture, salt, microbial enzymes, rennet and/or pepsin, whey, white vinegar, colour)], seven vegetables (broccoli, carrots, zucchini, cauliflower, corn, onions, spinach), cream, palm oil margarine, bread crumbs (contain soybean oil), modified corn starch, skim milk powder, cheddar cheese base [cheddar and blue cheese (whole milk, bacterial culture, salt, microbial enzymes), water, sodium phosphate, white vinegar, salt], lactic acid, flour, sugar, salt, spice, garlic powder, onion powder.

I tried to stay pretty true to these ingredients, obviously without the preservatives and a few very small additions. I added some roasted red pepper because I love red pepper and I had some in the fridge. And I used *gasp* SIX cheeses instead of seven! Blasphemy!

Anyway, this recipe is a bit of work but well worth the effort. And it makes a pretty big lasagna so you can always freeze some for leftovers another day! Enjoy.

Cheese and Veggie Lasagna

1 lb cauliflower (about half a large head), washed and cut into bite sized pieces
10 oz broccolli (2 small heads), washed and cut into bite sized pieces
2 red peppers, washed and seeded, halved
1 large carrot, peeled and grated
1 cup corn
2 medium zucchini, washed and sliced into 1 cm half discs
1 medium onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
Olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

1 1/2 cups sharp white cheddar
1 cup asiago
1 1/2 cups mozzarella

1 bunch spinach, washed and trimmed/2 cup flour
15 oz ricotta cheese
1 egg

1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup butter
4 cups milk
1 1/2 cups sharp white cheddar
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
50 g blue cheese
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp red pepper flakes

1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 cup parmesan cheese

10 lasagna sheets

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Farenheit or 190 degrees Celsius

1. Place cauliflower, broccolli, corn and zucchini on a large cookie sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast in preheated oven about 20 minutes or until veggies are soft but not mushy. While they are roasting also throw in the red peppers (you can do this directly onto the rack) until they are somewhat charred and soft. When you remove the peppers, place them onto a plate and cover with saran wrap for about 15 minutes. When they're cool, remove skins and dice. Add these to the other cooked veggies and set aside.

2. In a large sauce pan or wok, saute onions in olive oil until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add grated carrot and cook for about 5 more minutes. Add garlic and cook for one more minute. Remove from heat and add to the other veggies.

3. Saute spinach in the pan until wilted. Lightly beat the egg and combine with spinach and ricotta. Set aside.

4. In the same pan, melt butter over medium heat. Add flour and cook together until it's a golden brown colour. Slowly whisk in the milk a little at a time until it's fully incorporated and smooth. Add in 1 1/2 cups cheddar, 1/2 cup parm and blue cheese bit by bit, mixing as you go to make sure it blends in. Stir in herbs and season with salt and pepper to taste. Add veggies to the sauce and stir to cover.

5. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Cook lasagna sheets 2 or 3 at a time until al dente. I used fresh pasta so this only took about 3 minutes per batch. I also did these as I layered because I was scared of sticking, but this didn't really seem to be a problem so you could probably do this all at once before you start assembling your lasagna.

At this point, if you've turned your oven on put it back to 375 degrees Farenheit, 190 degrees Celsius

first layer: veggies in cheese sauce

6. Assemble the lasagna! Start by spreading some of the cheese sauce/veggie mixture in the bottom of your pan. Lay down 2 1/2 sheets on top to cover, then spread with 1/3 of the ricotta mixture, 1/3 of the remaining cheese/veggie mixture, then 1/3 of the remaining cheese. Repeat twice. Lay down the last noodles then sprinkle with the breadcrumb/parm topping.

Note: I think that if you had a "real" lasagna pan you could get four noodle layers in. I maxed out at 3 so I actually made a second smaller lasagna in a small pan and froze it, but I'm leaving this recipe as it is.

7. Bake lasagna for about 35-40 minutes until it's bubbling and the top is browned. Try to let it cool for about 10 minutes before cutting because it will really help it stay together when you slice.

Get 'em While They're Hot!

2011-04-23T01:20:00.000-04:00

I'm such a sucker for traditional holiday foods. And I don't mean meals and dishes that are tradition for my own family or culture. I love scouring the internet and my cookbooks for recipes that are traditionally made and consumed on any holiday or season, even if it isn't one that I happen to celebrate (which might help explain to my coworkers why I have a Jewish cookbook at my desk...). So I spent a few hours this morning looking up recipes to different breads that are traditionally baked for Easter and Passover such as Challah, Tsoureki and Italian Easter Bread. I still may try one of these over the weekend (seriously that Italian Easter Bread is gorgeous) but I really wanted something to do today while I was at home and nothing was open. So Hot Cross Buns seemed like the perfect thing! They commonly pop up in bakeries and grocery stores around Easter and are traditionally eaten on Good Friday, with the white cross on top being a symbol of the Crucifixion of Jesus.

Since it WAS Good Friday I was basically stuck with what I already had in the kitchen so I had to make a few substitutions and changes. I was light on yeast so I had to let the bread rise a little longer than usual (but I left the recipe as the "normal" amount). I also didn't have an orange but saw quite a few recipes using fruit peels or orange zest so I left it out but I also included in the recipe because I think it the citrus would add a really nice flavour. I definitely will include it next time! And I randomly added apple cider because my dough turned out a bit drier than I expected and I thought the apple flavour would go nicely with the spices.

Now I've never actually had a Hot Cross Bun. It's one of those things that always sound really good but when I see them in person I find I don't really want it. And I guess it's because they sound like they should be a sweet, sticky bun but really they are closer to a cinnamon-raisin bread in bun form with a glaze on top. I think the name is a bit deceiving. But you know what? They're really delicious! I can't believe I've held out so long. Slightly sweet and full of yummy spices, these are totally the kind of thing that sneak up on you. You might think they're "just ok" at first but pretty soon you're sneaking bits off the plate and can't stop. A little bit of work since there are a few glazing/icing steps but totally worth it, and the end result is so pretty! Good Friday might be over but there's still time to make these for Easter or really any other day of the week :)

So you may be wondering what I was doing baking Hot Cross Buns today when Lent isn't technically over until Sunday and as previously noted, I gave up baked treats for Lent. Yes, I cheated. But it was PLANNED! Adam and I spent the last week in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and I never intended to try and keep it up while we were on vacation. And since I'm not actually doing it for religious reasons anyway, what does it matter right?? Anyway there's my excuse. I know it's pretty sketchy but at least I have something to write about!

Hot Cross Buns
adapted from the Guardian
200ml milk, plus a little more for the egg glaze
50 ml apple cider (optional)
1 cinnamon stick
½ tsp cloves
½ tsp nutmeg
½ tsp ground ginger
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
1/4 cup sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ cups bread flour
½ cup butter
½ tsp salt
½ tsp ground ginger
2 eggs
125 g mixed dried fruit (I bought a mix that had california raisins, sultana raisins and dried cherries)
Zest of one orange

Icing
3 tbsp flour
water
1 tsp icing sugar
1/4 tsp salt

Sugar Glaze
1 tbsp icing sugar
1 tbsp boiling water

1. Bring 200ml milk to a gentle boil with the cinnamon stick, then turn off the heat and leave to infuse for up to 1 hour. I didn't actually have the patience to wait so I only let it sit for about 20 minutes, which is also why I added some more cinnamon to the recipe. I'm not really sure you *need* to infuse the milk but it's probably a nice touch if you have time. Heat back up until it's warm to the touch and mix the strained milk with yeast and 1 tsp sugar. Set aside.

2. Measure out AP and bread flours into a large mixing bowl and grate butter into the bowl. Rub the butter in with your fingers until it's well combined and then add the rest of the sugar, spices, salt and orange zest if you're using it. Stir until well mixed.

3. Separate one egg and set aside the yolk for the egg glaze. Beat the white and other whole egg slightly.

4. Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture, and add the beaten eggs and the yeast mixture. Stir in, adding the milk mixture and enough extra liquid (I used apple cider, you can use either water or more milk) to make a soft dough - it shouldn't look or feel dry. Knead for about 10 minutes on a lightly floured surface until the dough feels smooth and elastic, then lightly grease the bowl and put the dough into it. Cover and leave in a warm place until it has doubled in size – 1.5-2 hours.

4. On a lightly greased counter top, punch down dough and and knead for a minute or so and then flatten it out and scatter the fruit mix on top. Roll up like a cinnamon roll and knead again to spread the fruit around evenly. This might be a bit tricky so don't worry too much if the fruit keeps falling out of the dough...just push it back in!

5. Divide dough into 16 equal pieces and roll into bun shapes. Place on a greased cookie sheet and score a cross into the top of each with a sharp knife. Cover and let rise again in a warm place until doubled in size - about 40 minutes.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit or 220 degrees Celsius

6. Make the egg wash: Beat together the reserved egg yolk with a little milk. Make the icing: Mix the reserved flour with sugar and salt and enough cold water to make a stiff paste. Spoon icing mix into a piping bag or sandwich bag and cut a very small bit off the corner to make your own piping bag.

7. Paint buns with egg wash, and pipe a cross on top. Bake for about 25 minutes or until tops are golden.

8. While the buns are baking, mix 1 tbsp icing sugar with 1 tbsp boiling water. When the buns come out of the oven, brush them with the sugar glaze before transferring to a rack to cool.

Foil Packets, Improved

2011-04-20T22:49:00.002-04:00

Growing up, I was a Brownie, Girl Guide and Pathfinder which meant a lot of camping and more importantly, campfire food. There were s'mores, hotdogs and even cupcakes baked in an oven made with bricks and foil. And many foil packets. Now these always seemed like a fun and convenient meal but almost never turned out well. Most of the time the packets broke in the coals, or the veggies were raw by the time the meat was cooked. And even in a rare perfectly-cooked packet, they just didn't have a whole lot of flavour. I hope the Girl Guides have moved on to better meals by now!

Anyway, foil packets may not have worked out well at a campsite, but they're an easy and delicious way to cook some fish in the oven. I added some tomato sauce here and served over some fresh pasta from the market (YUM) but you don't need to...just cook with the veggies. You can use whatever vegetables you want but make sure they either cook quickly or have been pre-cooked to ensure they will cook through while in the oven.

Fish in Foil Packets

2 white fish filets or one large piece of fish (which is what I usually do)
1 handful of fresh spinach leaves
1/2 zucchini, sliced
1/2 lemon, cut into 2 wedges
olive oil
salt and pepper

Sauce
1 can San Marzano tomatoes
1 small onion, diced
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp red pepper flakes

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees or 204 degrees Celsius

1. Make the sauce: cook diced onions over medium heat in the olive oil until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for one more minute. Add tomatoes, red pepper flakes and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer over low heat while you prepare the foil packets. Don't worry so much about the tomatoes completely breaking down it will be a bit easier if they still have some shape later.

2. Lay out one or two sheets of aluminum foil depending on how many fillets you're using. Make sure they're large enough to wrap the fish with some extra room. Place fish on the foil and top with spinach and zucchini, and any other veggies you are using.

3. Carefully spoon tomato sauce over the fish. I added mostly tomato chunks to the packet and reserved the rest to add later.

4. Season well with salt and pepper, and drizzle with olive oil.

5. Fold up the short edge of the foil first and then roll up the long edge to create a sealed packet. Bake on a cookie sheet for about 20 minutes or until the fish is opaque. Serve over pasta or rice with the remaining tomato sauce, as needed.

Exercising some Self-Control...

2011-03-27T22:07:00.000-04:00

So, it's Lent. I was raised Catholic but am not particularly religious these days; however I usually give up something for Lent using it as a good opportunity to test my willpower. It's also convenient as I tend to have a trip of some sort planned in April so I like to give up some sort of food in an attempt to get myself ready for bathing suit weather.

In past years I've given up all sorts of things from ice cream to eating out, fried foods and beer. This year I decided to give up baked treats so all pastries, cookies, cakes and sweet breads are off-limits. I couldn't quite fathom giving up baked goods altogether so this was my compromise (though I may try next year...). Anyway, it hasn't been too bad so far but there have definitely been more than a few temptations especially at work (there was a bake sale on Friday! Torture). Since this also means I am not baking much these days, I thought I would share a recipe I've been meaning to post from a few weeks back.

I'd been wanting to try making whoopie pies for awhile now. I admit, I wasn't really on the whole whoopie pie bandwagon for a long time but then I tried this amazing pumpkin whoopie pie with cream cheese filling and it completely changed my mind! I decided to try these out for an Oscar party I went to (I had to bring a Toy Story 3 themed food...so I went with "Jessie's Yeehaw! pies". Get it??).

Since one of my friends happens to have a severe milk allergy I decided to make these dairy-free. I was a little nervous about it as I have never cooked with lactose-free milk and anyone who's close to me know that I am a hard core butter advocate and NEVER use margarine. But to my surprise they turned out delicious and you couldn't even tell they were dairy free! I used a marshmallow frosting which was really tasty and made the pies much lighter than they appeared. So try them out and enjoy (since I can't!)

Whoopie Pies
adapted from Epicurious

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup soy milk
1 tbsp vinegar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup margarine or butter (I used Earth Balance margarine)
1 cup sugar
1 large egg

Preheat oven to 350°F.

1. Mix together vinegar and soy milk in a cup and leave to the side for a few minutes. You can also use buttermilk, or regular milk and vinegar. Stir in the vanilla.

2. Whisk together flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt in a bowl until everything is combined and the cocoa is well distributed.

3. Cream the margarine and sugar in a large bowl until pale and fluffy. The recipe says to use an electric mixer but I used my immersion blender for a couple of minutes and then a wooden spoon. Add the egg, beating until combined well.

4. Stir in the flour mixture and milk in batches, beginning and ending with flour and mixing until smooth.

5. Spoon 1/8-cup mounds of batter about 2 inches apart onto parchment-lined baking sheets. (Note: I never ever actually use measuring cups with batter, but since I needed these to actually be similar sizes I used a dry measure and scraped out in mounds using a teaspoon). Bake in upper and lower thirds of the oven, switching the sheets halfway through baking, until tops are puffed and cakes spring back when touched, 10 to 12 minutes. I actually only had one baking sheet available at time so I baked these in three batches on the middle rack and they were done in 10 minutes.

6. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

7. Once cool, match up the cakes in twos of similar sizes and fill with marshmallow topping. I think I used about a heaping tablespoon per cake but you can obviously use more or less. The recipe I used for filling made a bit more than I needed but not a ridiculous amount. Let the cakes sit for awhile before storing or packing away so the filling kind of sets (I did not do this and I made a bit of a mess in the tupperware containers!)

Marshmallow Topping

1 1/2 cups sugar (I was running out of sugar so ended up using a combination of white, brown and icing sugar. It didn't seem to affect the final product)
1 tbsp white corn syrup
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup water
2 egg whites
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Place sugar, corn syrup, salt, water, and egg whites in the top of a double boiler or a heatproof bowl on top of a pot of boiling water. Beat with a handheld electric mixer (I used my immersion blender with the whisk attachment) for 1 minute.

2. Place the pan or bowl over the boiling water, making sure that the boiling water does not touch the bottom of the top pan. (If this happens, it could cause your frosting to become grainy). Beat constantly on high speed with electric mixer for 7 minutes or until stiff peaks form (I think mine took closer to 10 minutes).

3. Fold in vanilla. Let cool to room temperature before filling cakes.

How to Make your own Tater Tots!

2011-03-01T21:13:00.007-05:00

When I see Tater tots, the first thing that comes to mind is Gilmore Girls. Lorelei and Rory would have these ridiculous junk food gorge sessions which would always feature Tater Tots and Pop Tarts. Watching these episodes would always give me a craving for super processed frozen food and junk but always with the knowledge in the back of my mind that I would probably take two bites and then realize how bad the stuff tastes. Regardless, ever since I saw this Tater Tot recipe from Pennies on a Platter (via the Kitchn) I've been wanting to try them. And then I had some leftover potato from some potato skins I made for the Oscar party I went to on lst weekend so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to try them out!

Now, I saw that the original poster tried a few variations using bread crumbs and corn flake crumbs before finding success with crushed potato chips. BUT I still wanted to try my own topping experiment so I made two different kinds. I made half following the original recipe which is very straightforward so I am not going to re-post the recipe. Also since I was using already mashed potatoes I just kind of eyeballed the measurements to the amount of potatoes I had (guessing it was about half the recipe). The other half I coated with a mixture of the remaining potato chips, panko crumbs, corn flake crumbs and freshly grated parmesan. They did look fancier and quite pretty, but in the end I do have the say the pure potato-coating definitely had more of that potato flavour which made it truly a tater tot. The "fancy" tots were nice and crunchy, but ended up tasting a bit stale (which is, incidentally, exactly what the original poster claimed).

So I can confirm for a fact that the recipe over at Pennies is pretty damn good and probably doesn't need any adjustments. I might try using a baked chip in the future (I used Original Lays) but other than that I see no reason to mess with a good thing. Next up...homemade Pop tarts?

Favourite Things

2011-02-07T20:57:00.002-05:00

For someone who spent the first six years of her life with basically zero dairy consumption, I sure love cheese. It's pretty funny that the first time I tried pizza ("real" pizza, not roma pizza) I thought it was absolutely disgusting. Oh, how times have changed!

Anyway, high on my "favourite foods" list is macaroni and cheese. I'm pretty obsessed and probably eat some form of it at least once a week. And I'm no snob - Kraft dinner is included in this category. At any given time we always have at least one "emergency" box in the cupboard, but usually (like now) it's more like three. Of course, I do usually end up doctoring up the KD at the very least with some extra sharp cheddar but I appreciate the convenience of the box.

Some days though, only the real thing will do. Gooey, rich and cheesy with the crunchy baked topping? You can't beat it. I came across this skillet mac and cheese recipe about a year ago and have been using it in variations ever since. I love the fact that it's basically a one-pot (or skillet) dish and goes straight from the stove to the oven (seriously this is 99% of the reason I love both my cast iron skillet and dutch ovens. It's genius, really). I have had to toy with the measures a bit, as I found the original recipe a bit drier than my liking and I rarely have cream in the apartment. But I think I've finally got the recipe just the way I like it - creamy and saucy but not soupy and full of cheesy goodness. Yum.

I added spinach and cherry tomatoes this time in an attempt to "lighten" the dish up aaand maybe because I ate next to no fruits or veggies this weekend (who wants scurvy? Not me!) Anyway, turns out it was a good call as it was DELICIOUS. I may go as far as saying this was my favourite mac and cheese. The pasta to cheese sauce ratio was just right, and the added ingredients helped to keep the dish from feeling too heavy and rich. Not to mention the fact that it just looked nicer with the added colour in the dish.

The best part about this recipe is that it's so versatile - you can add herbs, meat or whatever vegetables and any other additions that you like or just go for the straight-up macaroni and cheese. It's delicious either way and great for leftovers or freezing afterwards.

Note: So I just realized this picture doesn't really look anything like a macaroni and cheese. But I swear it is! And it's delicious! Try it!

Skillet Mac and Cheese
adapted from Serious Eats

1/2 - 3/4 lb dry short pasta* (I used penne but usually go with the traditional elbow macaroni or sometimes bow ties)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp mustard (whole grain or something good if you have it, but plain old yellow works too!)
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour (I actually used whole wheat because I'm out of AP, sometimes I used bread flour. Meh, it's just thickener. You can't tell the difference)
2 cups milk (the recipe says whole, but who actually keeps that around the house? I just use 1 or 2% depending on what I have)
2 cups grated sharp Cheddar cheese
1/2 cup grated Parmesan, plus 1/4 cup for topping
1/2 cup coarse fresh breadcrumbs
1 bunch spinach
1 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
A hunk of Boursin (optional!)
Fresh ground pepper

*The amount of pasta you should use depends on whether or not you're adding extra ingredients. If you're a purist and making straight up mac and cheese, you can use more pasta. I tend to almost always add something or the other so half a pound is usually sufficient.

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Farenheit, or 190 degrees Celsius

2. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and cook the pasta until somewhat al dente (i.e. should be soft on the outside but have a tiny bit of bite still to it) but not fully cooked. Basically you want it slightly less cooked than you would like to eat your pasta, as it will continue to cook in the oven. Drain it and rinse with cool water.

3. While the pasta is cooking, melt 1/4 cup of the butter in a 10-inch cast iron skillet (OR a dutch oven OR any sort of oven-safe skillet/pot that seems the right size) over medium heat until the foam subsides and add the flour, whisking to remove clumps and prevent burning. Slowly add the milk in small amounts, whisking as you go to get all the clumps. Whisk in the mustard and 1/2 tsp salt.

4. Set aside about a 1/2 cup between the Parmesan and Cheddar cheeses. Add the remaining cheeses a little at a time while stirring the whole time until they are melted into the sauce. Taste for salt and season with pepper as needed.

5. Turn off the heat, add the pasta and stir to coat. Add in the spinach and tomatoes and whatever else you're adding to the dish, and stir until it's all nicely coated in the sauce. Combine the breadcrumbs, the rest of the cheese and some salt and pepper, and sprinkle over the top.

6. Bake until the top is nicely browned and the sauce is bubbling, about 20 to 25 minutes. Let sit 5 minutes before serving.

Help!

2011-01-23T16:50:00.005-05:00

Okay so I've got it narrowed down to two cooking classes at Dish and I need some input as to which class I should take. The choices (with the class descriptions) are:

Good for What Ales You Cooking with Beer
According to an ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription, the mouth of a perfectly contented man is filled with beer.

Menu:
Curried cauliflower fritters
Spicy brown ale brined chicken wings
Pear and Walnut Salad with Wheat Beer Vinaigrette
Dill And Beer Quick Bread
Beef Carbonade
Guinness brownies with raspberry -lambic ice cream

Boot Camp Super Natural Baking
Indulge without the guilt. Ditch the artificial sweeteners, processed flours and fat replacers and discover how you can create wholesome, (and more importantly, delicious) baked treats made with whole, fresh, and healthy ingredients.

Menu:
Biscotti al Pistacchio Marathon cookies
Chocolate cherry brownies
Fig and buckwheat scones
Supernatural carrot cake
Maple and wild blueberry coffee cake

Thoughts? Opinions? Please leave your suggestions in the comments below!

What I Did Last Month

2011-01-16T21:55:00.003-05:00

Ever since I moved to Toronto, I've wanted to take a cooking class. There are so many great schools and classes available in the city it was actually kind of overwhelming trying to decide on one! Finally, in December Adam and I took an Indian cooking class at the Calphalon Culinary Centre. It was actually my birthday present from a few months ago but it took us awhile to actually get around to looking at the class options and signing up for something.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by the class. This was my first cooking class ever so I really didn't know what to expect. I had read more than a few positive reviews about Calphalon and even heard some good things from friends and acquaintences, but still in the back of my mind I wondered if it might be more of a demonstration or not as hands-on as I would like. Fortunately this wasn't a problem! The classroom setup was incredibly professional and well set-up with an individual countertop and stove for each student. We did most of our own prep work though the spices were blended for us; this being an Indian class, I would have loved to learn more about the different spices used to make Garam Masala. I felt rather spoiled after experiencing all the Calphalon pots and pans in the kitchen as well as the gas-range stovetop.

Indian cuisine has always fallen into the category of "seems way too complicated to try at home" so it seemed like a good class to try in a controlled environment where all the right ingredients would be available. And the dishes were actually pretty straightforward; the key is really just having the right spices and from there it's easy going!

This Rice Pulao was my favourite recipe that we made in the class. I made it again the other night and although it was a bit difficult finding some of the spices in Sobey's (I'll be making a trip to the market this weekend where I know they have a larger assortment) it turned out pretty well. The recipe is actually pretty heavily modified as the emailed instructions didn't necessarily match the steps we followed in class. We made it in class along with some Aloo Gobi (a chickpea and potato curry dish), Chicken Tikka and homemade Naan. At home we just added some chicken (with some Tandoori paste I got in my stocking) and it made a great dinner/lunch leftovers.

Next up...going to do a class at Dish Cooking Studio. Haven't chosen one yet so please feel free to comment on any recommendations/suggestions!

Basmati Rice Pulao
Recipe adapted from Calphalon Culinary Centre - Indian Cuisine

2 cups basmati rice
2 tsp salt
4 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp cumin seeds (or ground cumin which is all I could find at home)
4 tbsp chopped almonds
4 tbsp raisins
1 large onion, finely sliced
1 cinnamon stick
4 cardamom pods (or ground cardamom...the conversion suggestions out there seem to vary widely, I used about 1/2 tsp at home)
2 Indian bay leaves (I used regular bay leaves...clearly I need to make a trip to an Indian grocery store)
1 cup coconut milk
1 tbsp. grated ginger
1 cup peas
1 tsp. saffron (optional)
2 tbsp. chopped cilantro (optional - I am on the "tastes like soap" side of the Great Cilantro Debate so I left this out both times)
4 cups chicken stock

1. Rinse rice well under cold running water. Place the rice into a bowl with 1 tsp salt and let soak. Set aside.

2. Heat a sauce pan over medium high heat with 1 tbsp of the oil. Add cumin seeds and toast if using seeds....otherwise skip this for now. Add the almonds and raisins and brown lightly. Remove from heat and keep to the side.

3. Add remaing oil and onions to the pan and cook until medium brown, about 4 minutes.

4. Add saffron, ginger, bay leaves, cardamom pods, and remaining spices (including cumin if using the ground version) to the pot and coat. Add coconut milk and stir until all ingredients are coated well.

5. Add rice to pan and stir. Add enough stock to cover the rice by about 2 inches (I realized that this is pretty arbitrary depending on what type of pot you're using...if you're unsure, add less not more and you can add more stock as the rice cooks)

6. Bring rice to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cover. Cook until all the liquid has been absorbed - about 7 to 10 minutes. If you're finding that this is happening before the rice is finished cooking add some more stock or water.

7. Once the rice is cooked through, add peas, almonds and raisins. Heat through and serve.

2011

2011-01-01T03:13:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year! Our resolution is to blog more!

lOVE, Laura & Jess

I Suck

2010-11-10T21:20:00.007-05:00

So...lesson of the day: Baking Soda is NOT the same thing as Baking Powder.

Over the weekend we went to the market and picked up a chicken which I figured I'd roast sometime during the week. But I always forget that it's hard to roast a chicken mid-week after work since more recipes take about two hours to cook. So I decided to go with the Zuni-chicken since this recipe consists of cooking a chicken at a high heat for about an hour. You do need to salt the chicken in advance (the recipe calls for 2-3 days) but that's easy as long as you plan ahead.

ANYWAY. I wanted to try out some tips that I'd seen on a recent episode of America's Test Kitchen that were supposed to help achieve a crispy skin. It involved separating most of the skin from the chicken before hand (this is kind of gross. At one point pretty much my entire hand was in the chicken-skin) and also incorporating baking powder into the dry rub....ugh. Now I'm an experienced enough baker that I know the difference between baking powder and baking soda. I didn't just run out of baking powder and assume that they could be substituted for one another. Somehow I just got it into my head that I was supposed to use soda and led to completely disastrous results.

Luckily the actual chicken was relatively unmarred and tasted fine (deliciously flavourful and juicy, even). But my favourite part, the skin? Completely inedible. I actually spit the first piece out it was so bad. It also ruined the drippings which is a crucial ingredient to the Zuni bread salad. So sad :(

Anyway, the funny part is that I spent the majority of the evening convinced that the baking soda was a bad idea and that maybe we just used too much. I don't really take cooking failures well so was kind of depressed about it when I realized that I was actually supposed to use baking POWDER! Idiot!!

So anyway, Zuni chicken is delicious but don't use baking soda in your rub. Actually maybe skip the baking whatever altogether as it's not even an ingredient. But please....don't repeat my mistake. It was gross.

Gobble Gobble

2010-10-25T21:14:00.000-04:00

So, I meant to write about Thanksgiving...turkey dinner is basically my favourite meal. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, homemade dinner rolls...Kraft dinner (yea, you read that right. Family tradition!) pumpkin and apple pie. Yum! So good. But the problem with Thanksgiving is that I'm generally so busy running around the kitchen that I'm not taking pictures. And once I come out of the two-day food coma, I've lost the energy to remember exactly how much sugar and molasses went into the pumpkin pie this year and which dinner roll recipe I ended up using after days of perusing the net. I know..excuses, excuses.

Anyway, turkey dinner has now come and gone but in case anyone still has some leftovers (possibly in the freezer?) here's an easy recipe for a leftover turkey pie. We had it over the weekend in Collingwood and it was really nice to have the pie pre-made and just ready to pop in the oven. Especially as we were all a bit tired on Saturday from being woken up at 5am by the PUMPKIN that someone threw through the window of the chalet! Luckily the resort staff were able to get it boarded up fairly quickly so the crisis was averted.

Leftover Turkey Pie

1/2 a batch of Pie Dough
2 cups leftover turkey, shredded
2 tbsp butter
1 small yellow onion, diced
3 carrots, peeled and diced
2 stalks celery, diced (I didn't actually use any this time, but it's a pretty standard pot pie veg)
About 2 cups leftover cooked vegetables or frozen corn and peas (I used the corn and peas plus roasted sweet potatoes and some mashed squash made it in as well)
2 cups gravy
1 cup milk
1 tsp dried parsley
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp chicken bouillon seasoning (optional)
salt and pepper to taste

1. Melt butter over medium heat in a large saucepan or wok. Add diced onions and saute until onions are translucent. Add carrots and celery; cook until vegetables are starting to soften but still fairly firm (you should be able to poke a fork through the carrot pieces but they shouldn't fall apart).

2. Option a: if you don't have gravy, add some more butter and about 1/4 cup of flour and cook for about 5 minutes until the floury smell is gone. Slowly add about 2 cups of chicken stock until the mixture is smooth and thick.

Option b: if you do have gravy, add the gravy!

3. Add the spices and salt and pepper. If you're using the chicken bouillon, mix into the milk before adding. Add milk slowly and adjust depending on how thick you want your mixture to be. Play it by ear.

4. Add the turkey and cooked vegetables. Continue cooking until everything is thick and bubbling and looks like pot pie filling!

5. On a floured surface, roll out pie crust to fit your pan. I used a 1.5 qt casserole dish, but you can use a pie pan, or even a dutch oven or any sort of pan that is about the same size. Pour filling into the pan and roll crust on top. Tuck the edges over the casserole/pie pan and crimp or smush (whatever you need to do to make it stay up). Cut two slits into the top of the pie and bake at 350 degrees Farenheit, 190 degrees Celsius for 40 minutes to an hour until filling is bubbling and crust is golden.

6. If you're freezing, let the filling cool before you put the top on and then cover with foil and freeze. Bake as above but you may need to leave it in the oven longer (I think mine was in for about an hour and then I got impatient and turned the broiler on. Probably should have left it in for about another twenty minutes...the middle wasn't exactly piping hot)

7. Let cool for at least 5 minutes before serving. Enjoy!

Omg the kitchen smells AMAZING

2010-10-19T21:19:00.006-04:00

Ok so maybe I'm like, three weeks late but Laura you can make these into muffins! Make pumpkin muffins! You did just make a turkey so maybe it fits into the whole post-Thanksgiving meal mood.

Anyway, we've finally run out of turkey leftovers (seriously we ate it for lunch AND dinner for an entire week) but lo and behold, I look in the cupboard yesterday and see a can of pumpkin from last year when I stocked up panicked about the pumpkin shortage! Luckily I had been wanting to try a pumpkin loaf recipe for awhile (I'm so addicted to the Starbucks one...mmm). I used one from Epicurious and added a few things...some orange zest and juice, and pumpkin seeds since they taste good and look pretty too.

Seriously, I forgot just HOW good baked pumpkin smells. I was literally drooling as it baked in the oven. So good that I was concerned that it couldn't possibly taste as good as it smelled. I hate it when an recipe underwhelms. Fortunately, that didn't happen this time. It was SO good, and eating it just made me want more. And I think it's one of those things that's going to taste better with time, so I can't wait to try it tomorrow.

Pumpkin Spice Loaf
adapted from Epicurious

1 cup white sugar
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1 orange, zested and juiced
1/2 cup vegetable oil (or enough to make 1 cup liquid with the juiced orange)
3 large eggs
16 oz pure pumpkin (this is a small can, or half-ish a large can)
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
4 tsp pumpkin pie spice, or 1 tsp each cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup lightly toasted pepitas (raw pumpkin seeds)

Preheat oven to 350°F, 190 degrees Celsius

1. Butter two loaf pans. Beat sugar, orange zest, orange juice and oil in a large bowl to blend.

2. Mix in eggs and pumpkin. Add salt, spices, baking soda and baking powder. Stir flour into pumpkin mixture slowly (try not to get flour all over yourself - I always do). Add in most of the toasted pumpkin seeds, leave about 2 tbsp worth for garnish.

3. Divide batter equally between the two pans. Sprinkle remaining pumpkin seeds over the loaves. Bake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 1 hour 10 minutes. Transfer to racks and cool 10 minutes. Using a sharp knife, cut around edge of loaves. Turn loaves out onto racks and cool completely.

Challenge!

2010-10-04T11:32:00.004-04:00

People. For the last few weeks I've been making blueberry muffins (these blueberry muffins) and then eating them EVERY DAY. I love these blueberry muffins. I brought a whole batch TO FRANCE so as not to miss a day of these blueberry muffins.* They have opened the world of breakfast baking. I need more muffin recipes!

* full disclosure: I have been sick this month (like actually ill with a chronic condition) and these muffins were the only thing I could eat in the mornings without losing my ladylike charm and grace. I credit these muffins to my recovery so I may be a bit psychologically addicted to muffins now.

There's Potential Here

2010-09-12T12:59:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure whether I've mentioned this before, but I'm not a huge fan of chicken. I'll eat it IN other dishes, cut up in soups or salads and I do love a good chicken parm, but grilled/roasted/pan fried chicken breasts with some seasoning or sauce...meh. I just find it so bland most of the time. I'm more of a red meat girl. Same thing with roast chickens. I've always had this underlying feeling that a really good roast chicken recipe will transform the dish and make me have a "where have you been all my life" revelation*. The problem is that no matter how good the recipe seems to be, it's still well...chicken. Bo-ring. Unfortunately Adam doesn't feel the same way. He could eat happily eat it every night of the week and tends to get cranky when I go on my carb, beef or pork-induced cooking binges. So occasionally I'll try out a new recipe searching for that "aha!" moment.

I'm not saying that this recipe is "the one", but it's the first time in a pretty long time that I've actually finished a whole chicken thigh. I know, not a huge accomplishment but for me that's a big deal so this recipe is getting a thumbs up.

I'll admit that it wasn't exactly perfect...I may have slightly burned the chicken. I had my suspicions about it, as in my experience ten minutes on medium-high heat equal charred chicken. But so many recipes said to leave the chicken on the stove for up to 25 minutes that I figured there must be something I didn't know. So I tried it...and my chicken did not look like the photos. But even so it was really really good! The seasonings were perfect and added just the right amount of flavour to make it interesting, and the meat was perfectly cooked (yeah yeah, aside from the char). I did read in the reviews that some used the remaining marinade to make a sauce which I might try next time, but we were perfectly happy without it.

*Similar to the one that Adam had with Pocky this week...I believe the exact quote was: "We have to get more of these. Why have you been keeping them from me for the last nine years??"

Note: It was really really hard to find pictures here that didn't look completely unedible. I SWEAR this chicken is good, just try to ignore the burnt bits...Adam's comment on the photo above was "it kind of looks like a picture of an oil spill where the birds are struggling to get out"

Crispy Chicken Under a Brick
1 whole (3 pound) chicken
3/4 cup olive oil
1 lemon, juiced and zested
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp curry powder
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp minced garlic
2 springs fresh rosemary
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Remove the backbone and split the chicken in half.

2. Mix together 1/2-cup olive oil, lemon juice and zest, cumin, curry, brown sugar, and garlic. Pour mixture into a freezer bag with chicken inside. Throw in the rosemary springs and marinate the chicken in the mixture for at least 1 hour (I actually left it for a day because we ended up making this the next night instead)

3. Place an ovenproof skillet, preferably cast iron, over medium-high heat for about 3 minutes. Put the remaining 1/4-cup olive oil into the hot skillet (or just enough to cover the skillet) and wait 1 minute for it to heat up. Reduce heat to medium (I did not do this, but I would next time to avoid the blackened chicken)

4. Remove the chicken from the marinade and season all over with salt and pepper. Place the chicken halves in the skillet, skin side down. Wrap 2 bricks in aluminum foil and set them on top of the chicken, or if you don't have bricks cover the bottom of a dutch oven, add a few cans and cover with the lid for added weight.

5. Cook on the stovetop for 10 minutes. Now you might want to check your chicken before this, but if you're cooking on medium heat than you might be okay. Either way I'll probably check my chicken sooner next time. Once the chicken is nicely browned and crispy, remove the bricks/dutch oven, carefully flip over and transfer the skillet to a preheated 450 degree F oven. Roast for about 20-25 minutes, until cooked through. Remove from pan and enjoy!

Simple Sweet Rosemary Rubbed Pork

2010-08-26T18:03:00.004-04:00

(so simple, it only needs one photograph)

Laura: an epic introduction Part 2.

Taste (like everything in a post-modern world) is really (really) subjective. When you consume a lot of food media, like Jessica and I, you need a filter to unconsciously sort all those lovely, tasty descriptors. Some words make me immediately salivate: creamy, crisp, browning, garlic-y, smokey, pulled, spice, butter, salty-sweet, braised butter and buttery will sell me before my eyes hit the actual ingredient list. Other 'headline' grabbers, well, aren't too exciting. Herbs for instance. Before I tried this Porkchop recipe I never completely bought into the 'few fresh ingredients = life-altering taste'. Usually such recipes demand a specific ingredient, market-fresh, in season, organic, and well expensive or else IT WILL NOT WORK, DON'T EVEN TRY, GO AWAY.

Now, I love the market as much as any other Western-middle-creative-class gal but fuck folks, I need to eat seven days a week. In my 'local area' Sainsbury's is posh (and even then it will run out of such things as lettuce on a regular basis). I rent an ill-equipped shared kitchen in a foreign country with a poor culinary heritage. I do not have proper anything. I need my recipes to work hard and deliver when conditions are not perfect.

(Ok so London may not be Ethiopia, but it took me four hours to find pretzels last weekend - I am only exaggerating a little bit).

Right, where were we? Oh yes. Rosemary Pork. Now you get your rosemary, pork, brown sugar, salt. Mush those things together. Grill. That is the recipe. There. I mean I will write it out with steps and things later on but that's it. Let it marinate overnight for a treat, but if you just got home from work and need something nownownow go for it. This dish is hard to make disappointing.

And the flavours? Simple, delicate and ridiculously ridiculously delicious. The sugar and salt form an addictive briney-sweet crust while the rosemary gives the whole bite a garden-fresh hit of herbs. While this fresh dish is perfect for a summer grill, its lack of truly seasonal ingredients means it brings a little backyard sunshine to the darkest winter days (unlike say, a tomato dish that just reminds you how good life is in July).

Sweet Rosemary Rub Pork
(adapted from thekitchn... I like more of a 'crust' on my chops so I doubled their rub. Feel free to adjust to your taste).

- 4 pork steaks 
- 2 teaspoons olive oil for the pan
- 2 tablespoon rosemary
-  2 tablespoon brown sugar 
- 3 teaspoons salt 
- 1.5 teaspoon pepper
-  0.5 teaspoon cumin

Mix herbs/spices in a small separate bowl before rubbing into the pork. Let the pork sit in the rub for as long as you can stand it (overnight if you are organized). If you've left it in the fridge, take the pork out and let it warm up a piece. Cold meat + hot grill will make your dinner curl up and cook unevenly (servicey!).

Grill or cook on a grill-pan for 5 minutes a side, until cooked. Let the pork rest under foil for a few minutes then serve with pan juices or anything else that will give your pork a bit of loving.

A reminder

2010-08-26T17:19:00.000-04:00

Alright so I should of posted this in June but, seriously folks, these are what we call Ontario strawberries.

Another day, Another Burnt Pizza

2010-08-23T22:46:00.002-04:00

Let's quickly refresh the scoreboard here...Pizza - 5, Jess - 0

Today's lesson is: don't do ANYTHING but stand anxiously outside the oven and check your pizzas every thirty seconds while it's under the broiler on the very top rack. It takes a surprisingly short amount of time for them to burn.

Luckily it wasn't the DINNER pizza, but just the "oh let's be clever and make extra pizzas for lunch tomorrow" pizzas. And they were just on pitas as we only had enough dough for the dinner pizza. So it could have been worse. But I'm still not over it.

By the way, the dinner pizza had SPAM on it. And it was delicious! I'm calling it my "true" Hawaiian pizza. Hawaiians love their SPAM. So do Koreans. Yum.

Oh, Hello!

2010-08-22T16:35:00.005-04:00

My name is Laura and I like to consume food! Jess is totally my BFF. I will be blogging. I live in England. Here I am making offal pies for the Queen's tea! Pip Pip!

Beeb's Brambly Apple Blackberry Crumble

2010-08-22T15:47:00.011-04:00

Laura: an epic introduction Part 1.

Hello! I am a messy cook. Jessica (over there, delicately forming sugar cages and perfectly laced peach pies) is worthy of Martha Stewart magazine but alas, I must fully embrace the rustic family-style cooking trend. And yes, during the day I am paid to make things pretty while Jessica is paid for math so I don't know how this happened.

It's not that I don't love a good complex recipe (oh I do! the most!) it's just that after simmering that sauce for four hours I want it in my mouth – damn the presentaion, plate, knives, forks, etc.

Needless to say, the science of baking and I have a complex relationship (leveled cups of flour? ha!). I save 'baking' for a weekend of Julia or Deb role play.

So now then: "Brambley Apple & Blackberry Crumble: when you can't be arsed to make pie."

Pie has its place. I love pie. But there is something about just chucking a bunch of apples, blackberries & topping into a dish then, popping it into the oven for 30 minutes and come out with something so perfect and delicious. Amounts? Times? Ballparks! Simple! Perfect! Delicious! How the fuck did it do that?

Okay so you have to caramelize the apples so the gooey apple-caramel coasts the blackberries. And topping the buttery crumb with clotted cream (whipped, extra thick or creme fraiche will work as well) is required by law. But how else are you going to make the 'best crumble in England'*

To summarize: Pie is great but crumbles are your dirty secret.

*independently validated by a bunch of English people who have eaten more crumble in their lives than you can imagine.

Brambly Apple Blackberry Crumble
(heavily adapted from a BBC recipe, now offline – philistines!)
Filling
3 large Bramley apples (use what you can find, tart cooking apples are traditional)
30g/1¼oz butter
150g/5oz caster sugar (or 150g of granulated sugar)
pinch of cinnamon
A squeeze or two of lemon juice (to taste)
80g/3oz fresh blackberries (looks tiny but trust, there is enough)

Topping
100g/4oz unsalted butter, diced
220g/8oz plain flour
100g/4oz caster sugar
clotted cream

Method
1. Preheat oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.
2. Peel, core and cut apples into ¼in thick slices (or so they are relatively thin and even)
3. Heat butter in large saucepan. Add apples and gently sauté.
4. Add sugar and cinnamon. Continue stirring until apples are just cooked and the goo is thick and ready to coat the blackberries.
5. Add blackberries & lemon juice and stir very gently until coated with delicious.
6. To make the topping, lightly rub butter into flour and sugar until crumbly.
7. Spoon apples and blackberries into shallow, oval 23cm/9in ovenproof
dish. Sprinkle crumble mixture over top until fruit is covered. I enjoy crumble. I am liberal on this step.
8. Place in oven until light golden brown (usually between 15-40 minutes depending on your oven)
9. Serve with clotted, whipped or heavy cream. Creme fraiche works as well if you like a sour tang... I just wouldn't recommend vanilla ice cream, the flavours clash.

Busy Bee

2010-08-16T22:51:00.005-04:00

So it's been a pretty busy summer. Birthdays, weddings and a trip to Chicago has booked up practically every weekend in July and August. Not to say that it hasn't been enjoyable, but I haven't been cooking as much as I'd like. And I'm sorry to say that I haven't baked a single cobbler, pie or cake with my favourite summer fruit: peaches!

I went to the market this past weekend and had a little panic attack that I was missing peach AND corn season (though I believe both are actually in season for another month...I get a little anxious!). That led to me buying a dozen ears of corn (which aren't as light as you'd think), shelling the ears and freezing both the kernels and cobs (for soups). I bought some peaches too. Yum! I still don't have much time for the next few weeks to bake so we'll probably just be enjoying them fresh, but they did remind me of some delicious hand pies that I made last summer when I was baking up a storm while spending a few weeks in Ancaster with my mom.

These may seem a bit intimidating, and are admittedly a bit more work than a traditional pie. But they're so cute, how could you resist? Plus it's pretty much impossible to take pie in to work or social settings without easy access to plates and serving utensils. But hand pies? Hand pies are perfect for the office! Or parties! Or stuffing a plateful into your mouth while telling yourself "they're so small, one more can't possibly make a difference...". Whatever. Make them. Love them.

Peach Hand Pies
adapted from SmittenKitchen
Makes 14 to 24 (depending on cutter size)

1 batch of Pie Dough
1 1/2 lbs peaches, preferably freestone
1/2 lb blueberries
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
Juice of half a lemon
1 tsp vanilla extract

One egg yolk beaten with 2 tablespoons water (for egg wash)
Sugar for sprinkling on top (optional)

1. Make pie dough; you don't need to divide into discs here but I would divide into two balls for easier handling later. Make sure it's been refrigerated for at least an hour

2. On a lightly floured counter, roll out one half of the dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Using a 4 1/2-inch-round biscuit cutter (or a knife if you don't have a biscuit cutter...seriously, I make biscuits enough that I should probably get some of those), cut circles out of the rolled dough until you can't anymore. Transfer the circles to a parchment-lined baking sheet, and chill in the refrigerator for about a half hour. Repeat with the other half of the dough.

3. Blanch the peaches: bring a large pot of water to a boil, drop the peaches in and let them boil for about 2 minutes. Remove from water and dunk in ice water to stop the cooking. Once cool, peel and chop the peaches into small pieces, (remember they need to be small enough to fit into small pies!)

4. Make the filling: mix peach bits with bluberries, flour, sugar, lemon juice and vanilla, plus a pinch of salt. Set aside.

5. Remove the chilled dough from the fridge and let stand at room temperature for just a few minutes until they're pliable. Spoon about 1 to 2 tablespoonfuls of filling onto one half of each circle of dough. Brush a little cold water around the edge and fold it in half so the other side comes down over the filling. Seal the pie, and press down on the edge with a fork. Repeat with the rest of the dough. Place the hand pies back onto the parchment-lined baking sheet, and return to the fridge to chill for another 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees Farenheit, 190 degrees Celsius

6. Remove the chilled hand pies from the fridge, cut a small slit in each and lightly brush with the egg yolk wash. Sprinkle some sugar over the pies, and bake for about 20 minutes, until they are golden brown and just starting to crack. Remove from oven, and try to let them cool slightly before you taste them.

Less is More

2010-07-25T11:40:00.001-04:00

Here is a recipe for those days when all you have the energy for is to boil some pasta and have it with some canned sauce. This is almost as easy as opening a can of sauce, and tastes much better.

I've been meaning to try this sauce for a few months now. I guess the delay was largely attached to my wariness of just how unbelievably good this sauce with only four ingredients (and that's including salt!) was. I just didn't get it. Plus there's nothing else in it. Just sauce. I tend to like my pasta sauces with lots of onion, veggies and ground beef. So I had to be in a particular type of mood to make this one.

I don't know if I'd say this was the best tomato sauce I've ever had. But I will say that this is probably the only tomato sauce I'd be tempted to eat straight up with a spoon. It's so simple, but feels quite luxurious and (to quote Laura) is weirdly addictive. If I didn't make it myself I'd say there was crack in it. The added butter and simmered onion makes the sauce really rich and smooth and for two ingredients, adds a great deal of flavour.

The one problem here is that I'm not sure exactly what the right pasta for this sauce is. We had it with some homemade tri-coloured pasta from the market, which was good but I felt a bit like the pasta and sauce were fighting for my attention. "Eat me, taste me! I'm delicious!" Well, yes it's true that both were delicious, but I think next time I might go for a simple white shell or fusilli noodle that is going to more or less act as a vehicle to get more sauce into my mouth. Yum.

Buttery Tomato Sauce
adapted from from Marcela Hazan's Essentials of Italian Cooking, via SmittenKitchen

28 oz can of whole peeled tomatoes (San Marzano if you have them)
5 tbsp (70 grams) unsalted butter
1 medium-sized yellow onion, peeled and halved
Salt to taste

1. Put the tomatoes, onion and butter in a heavy saucepan (I used my dutch oven as I don't have a saucepan) over medium heat.

2. Bring the sauce to a simmer then lower the heat to keep the sauce at a slow, steady simmer for about 45 minutes, or until droplets of fat float free of the tomatoes*. Stir occasionally, crushing the tomatoes against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon.

3. Remove from heat, discard the onion, add salt to taste and keep warm while you prepare your pasta.

Serve with pasta, with or without grated parmesan for topping.

*Some of the comments I read on this recipe said that you needed to cook a little longer (maybe an additional 20 minutes) at a higher heat to really get some more flavour in the sauce. I thought it still tasted a little bland after 45 minutes, but I was going to play squash so I turned off the heat and let the sauce sit with the onions for about an hour. Then when I got back I reheated to a simmer and then removed the onions. It made a huge difference in the flavour. So...you might want to simmer for closer to an hour.

Keeping Cool

2010-07-13T21:35:00.000-04:00

So...this past weekend was a pleasant break from the extreme heat wave that Toronto has been experiencing for the last couple of weeks. It's still fairly comfortable today but apparently the temperature is going back to 40's with the humidex later this week. Yikes.

On days like this, just seeing people walking into work with their regular cups of hot coffee makes me start to sweat. How can they bear it?? I get that people still need their daily fix of caffeine but why subject yourself to the extra heat when delicious iced coffee is such a delicious alternative?

I started off the summer drinking Starbucks iced coffees which, I admit, are fairly addicting and convenient. But this starts to get expensive, and really making iced coffee at home is fairly easy and delicious!

You could just make your regular brew of coffee and throw some ice cubes in, but my personal opinion is that the cold-brew method is vastly superior; less acidity and so much smoother. In fact, this can be somewhat dangerous in that this stuff goes down like water. The best part is you can make a few days worth of coffees at a time! For someone like me who is the only coffee drinker in the household, this is so much more convenient than brewing a hot pot of coffee every day. I just make a batch in my french press and keep it in the fridge for about 3 days worth of iced coffee. Yum.

Now about the caffeine level: various articles state that cold-brew coffee has more or less caffeine than regular coffee. So which is it? Honestly it seems to really depend on the grinds to water ratio that you use, and also how much additional milk/water you add to the concentrate. From my personal experience though, a cold-brew coffee generally makes me more jittery than a regular coffee so I'm putting myself in the "more caffeine" camp.

You can add water, milk, any type of simple syrup or sugar (it just might take awhile to dissolve the crystals) with this. Lately though, I've been using condensed milk. I woke up one day a couple of weeks ago just craving condensed milk. Not a particular recipe with condensed milk as an ingredient...just a spoonful of it. So I bought a can and ate a few spoonfuls...so until it's gone I'll be using this to sweeten my iced coffees. It's actually pretty amazing because it adds some milk and sweetness to the concentrate, plus it dissolves more easily than sugar. Oh, and it's REALLY good. Try it.

Vietnamese Cold-brew Iced Coffee
Adapted from Serious Eats

3/4 cup ground coffee
4 cups water
condensed milk (to taste)

1. Fill a pitcher or french press coffee maker with coffee grinds and half the water. Stir to combine, and add the remaining water (this will help you to not get coffee grinds everywhere). Let steep overnight (at least 8 hours, ideally more like 12).

2. Strain coffee - if you're using a french press, strain the coffee into another bowl or pitcher, rinse out the carafe and pour the coffee back in. If you're using a regular pitcher do the same thing but with regular coffee filters to strain out the grinds.

3. Mix with condensed milk, or cream and sugar syrup and serve over ice. You can keep the rest of the mixture in the fridge for a few days which is convenient since you don't need to make a new batch every day!

A Perfect Pair

2010-07-05T22:18:00.000-04:00

This summer seems to be flying by. One minute I'm eagerly anticipating the warm weather, and before I know it strawberry season is almost over! Rue and I went strawberry picking on the last weekend in June. And of course, with strawberries come rhubarb for some delicious baked goods. Yum.

We made the requisite strawberry rhubarb pie (with a crumble topping) which was oddly received with enthusiastic praise from everyone at the pool party that I brought the first pie to, and a thumbs down from my family who thought it was too tart. I guess rhubarb isn't for everyone?

The majority of the remaining berries went into some refreshing agua frescas the following weekend. But I still had about a pint and some rhubarb left over so my plan was to make muffins. Unfortunately you need a muffin tin for that (I seem to have lost mine) so I decided to make coffee cake instead.

Sometimes you make something that just know is going to be delicious before you even start getting the ingredients together. You can just kind of feel it. That's what this cake was like. A not-too-sweet cake batter infused with vanilla flavour and some sour cream to keep it moist, a fairly heavy crumb topping and some delicious seasonal fruit...what's not to love?

Anyway, I was right and then some. The cake was moist, perfectly sweet and just the right combination of cake and fruit. And the smell. Oh god. I took some in to work and could hardly restrain myself from eating the entire batch. It's really too bad that strawberry season is over...but the best part is that you could make this cake with any seasonal fruit. Next up...peach crumb cake?

Strawberry Rhubarb Crumb Cake
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Fruit filling:
1/4 lb rhubarb, trimmed and sliced into 1/2 inch pieces
1/4 lb strawberries, washed and sliced
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp cornstarch or flour

Crumb topping:
1/6 cup brown sugar
1/6 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup (2 oz) butter, melted
3/4 cup flour

Cake:
1/4 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup softened butter, cut into pieces

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Farenheit, 163 degrees Celsius

1. Grease an 8-inch round baking pan. For filling, toss strawberries and rhubarb with sugar and cornstarch or flour. Set aside.

2. To make crumbs: in a large bowl, whisk sugars, spices and salt into melted butter until smooth. Then add flour with a spatula or wooden spoon until the mixture is more doughy than crumb-ly. Leave it pressed together in the bottom of the bowl and set aside.

3. To prepare cake: in a small bowl, stir together the sour cream, eggs and vanilla. Using an electric mixer of some sort or a wooden spoon (I used my immersion blender with the whisk attachment) mix together flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add butter and about half the sour cream mixture and mix on medium speed until flour is moistened. Increase speed and beat for 30 seconds. Add remaining sour cream mixture and beat for about another 20 seconds.

4. Scrape all but about a 1/2 cup of batter into the prepared pan. Spoon fruit filling over batter. Drop the remaining batter over the fruit filling; it does not have to be even.

5. Using your fingers, grab bits of the crumb topping and squeeze into a big clump, breaking it into large crumbs about 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch in size over the cake. Keep doing this until the topping is all used up. Bake cake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean (it may be moist from rhubarb), about 35 to 45 minutes. Cool before serving.

Pizza - 4: Jess - 0

2010-06-27T12:01:00.000-04:00

I love pizza. I really do. But lately I feel like pizza doesn't love me back. You see, the last few times I made homemade pizza have been pretty...difficult to say the least. Some minor roadbumps but others were just full-fledged disasters.

A couple of months ago I discovered the skillet method. It was genius, really. A perfect way to get that charred, crispy bottom without a) having to preheat the oven for an hour and b) a pizza stone. It worked pretty well for me the first few times. Then, one night I removed the skillet from the oven and unfortunately slammed the pizza down on the stove (hey, cast iron is heavy!). This resulted in an oil dripper falling off the ledge of the oven (why did I have an oil dripper up there to begin with? I'm an idiot, that's why) and shattering ALL OVER my pizza. I was so upset I tried to eat a slice anyway and almost ate a shard of glass. I actually did have enough ingredients to make another pizza, but by this point I was so distraught that my second pizza ended up coming off the cutting board and into the hot skillet as a big glob (this is generally the trickiest part of the skillet method), which led to an uneven and doughy mess of a pizza that I ended up taking about three bites of before throwing out. I haven't gone back to the skillet method since.

Then there was that time in Collingwood where we didn't have any cornmeal or flour (I was trying Reinhart's dough recipe as shown below and brought up the extremely wet pre-made dough) and pretty much had to chisel a few pizzas off the pan until we discovered a box of pancake mix in the cupboard (for the record, it works perfectly fine as a flour substitute to dust a pan with!)

And then a couple of weekends ago, I was at my mom's making pizza and while transferring a hot, fresh-out-of-the-oven pizza to the cutting board dropped the entire thing facedown on the floor. Three second rule you say? I wish. When I attempted to pick it up, everything but the crust remained on the floor. Sob. We made some again the next night with the remaining dough which went fairly smoothly, but not completely disaster-free either. I proceeded to knock the bowl of grated mozzerella out of Adam's hands as he walked into our tiny kitchen. Luckily we salvaged enough of it to make our pizzas later.

Reading this post over to myself is making me wonder why I still bother making pizza at home. Is it even worth the mess, stress and wasted food? And the answer? YES. Because it's that good. Because, even with all the accidents I managed to scrape out some pretty delicious pizzas on the majority of these occasions (the skillet night being a huge exception - that was just a big fat FAIL). Because I love pizza. A lot. A lot a lot.

Peter Reinhart's Pizza Dough and Sauce
Adapted from The Fresh Loaf

Makes 4 10-inch pizzas

5 cups all purpose flour
1 tbsp sugar or honey
2 tsp salt (or 3 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt)
1 tsp instant yeast
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cups room-temperature water

1. Combine all of the ingredients in a large mixing bowl and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon or mix in an electric mixer. After you've combined all of the ingredients, set the dough aside to rest for 5 minutes. Stir again for 3 to 5 minutes, adding more water or flour if necessary. You want the dough to be pretty wet here. I usually end up add a bit more water...it should be dry enough that it holds together and pulls away from the side of the bowl when you mix it, but not dry enough to knead by hand.

2. Divide the dough into 4 pieces. Place each one into an oiled freezer bag. I just drizzle some olive oil into the bag and rub around. You can also apparently brush the outside of the dough with olive oil and then place it into the bag...weirdly enough, I just read this part of the instruction and had a bit of an "aha!" moment.

3. If you aren't going to bake your pizzas that day, you can throw the bags into the freezer. They'll stay good in there for at least a month. The evening before you intend to bake them, move the frozen dough balls to the refrigerator to thaw.

If you are baking later the same day, put the bagged dough balls in the fridge until about an hour or two before you want to make your pizza. At that point, remove and let the dough warm up to room temperature.

If you need to have your pizza as soon as humanly possible (which is usually the case with me), leave the bags out at room temperature and let rise for about an hour. This will result in a less flavourful, but still tasty dough.

Also, turn your oven on to the highest setting about an hour before baking. This isn't exactly an efficient use of heat but will make your pizza better. If you have a pizza stone, throw it in while the oven is heating up. If you don't, place a cookie sheet in there instead. Make sure it's on the lowest (or second lowest) rack in your oven.

4. You won't be able to roll this dough out. Take a ball out of the bag, and using your hands shape into a small circle. Take the edge and rotate so that the weight of the ball stretches your circle. Keep doing this until your dough is large/thin enough to your liking. This may take a few tries to get. If you're using parchment paper (which I strongly advise) you can also stretch it out a bit once its laid out since the dough will stick to the paper.

5. Top with sauce, cheese and whatever toppings you want. The pizza above had roast pork tossed with barbeque sauce, red onion, red pepper and pineapple. Place the pizza (still on parchment) on your pan/stone and let bake for probably about 10-15 minutes, depending on how hot your oven is, until the cheese is bubbly and the crust is browned. Enjoy!

Pizza Sauce

1 28oz can crushed tomatoes
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano
1 bay leaf
4 or 5 cloves of crushed garlic
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar (or any other kind of vinegar/lemond juice)
Salt and pepper, to taste

Heat olive oil in a small pot and add garlic. Cook for a few minutes until garlic is soft but not browned. Add remaining ingredients and let simmer for awhile (maybe 20 minutes) until the flavours have mellowed a bit. Cool and use on pizza, and freeze the rest for later.

Falafel!

2010-06-13T21:41:00.002-04:00

Falafels in Toronto are sort of a holy grail for me. Nearly every one I've had has been a disappointment. Either the falafels are too dry, mushy or just not very good (which isn't exactly a surprise when almost all of them seem to start off as frozen patties). And then there's the filling - most have too much lettuce and not nearly enough vegetables, hummus or tzatziki which can result in an extremely dry sandwich. I know there must be good falafel places in the city but most of the better ones are further away than I'm generally willing to venture, especially if there's a chance it will disappoint.

My problem runs a little deeper here in that I have a "perfect" falafel in my memory...and it isn't from Toronto, or even Canada. Two summers ago I had the most mind-blowingly delicious falafel at L'As Du Falafel in Paris. Their falafels, freshly deep fried from due to the high volume of customers, were crispy but still amazingly moist and tender on the inside. The liberal amounts of tahini and tzatziki and the thinly sliced cucumber matchsticks kept the sandwich from being dry (in fact it was dripping). The saddest part of all this was the fact that I didn't even get my own falafel on this occasion. We had gone late at night after the bar and I wasn't very hungry so shared one with Rue. Big mistake. This falafel literally haunts my dreams.

Anyway, all this means that I'm going to be pretty hard-pressed to find a truly satisfactory falafel even with lowered expectations. I had been avoiding falafel recipes for months for this reason exactly, but recently I realized that I was more often disappointed in the filling options and hummus/tzatziki-to-pita ratio than the patties themselves. Which is actually quite easily remedied by an at-home falafel!

This recipe is a bit different from most homemade falafel recipes in that it a) uses canned vs. dried chickpeas and b) the falafels are baked. I'm planning to try using dried chickpeas next time but I actually thought that the texture from the canned version was more than satisfactory considering it doesn't require 24 hours of soaking. I also pan fried these for our meal but ended up baking the leftovers as I noticed that they weren't quite as crispy as I had hoped. I'm not sure if this means I wasn't pan frying at a high enough heat (I haven't figured out the science of pan-frying temperatures yet) or that the patties themselves had too much moisture but I thought that baking might help. The baked version were definitely more crispy but also drier on the inside. I think that ultimately I preferred the pan fried version but I might just need to experiment with the heat/oil levels next time. I can totally see why deep frying is the "preferred" method for falafel making - seems to be the only way to truly get the crispy, crunchy exterior with a moist and soft interior. Both the other methods were still delicious and an improvement over the lacklustre falafels I've had lately. They also freeze extremely well, though it wasn't necessary in my case - I ate them as leftovers for two days of lunches and for dinner again later in the week. These are going to be a regular addition to my dinner options for sure!

Homemade Falafel
Adapted from theKitchn and Chow Vegan
Makes about 22 balls

1 15 oz can garbanzo beans
About half a white onion, finely chopped (about 1 cup)
1 medium carrot, peeled and finely grated
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
Juice of half a lemon
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp dried red pepper flakes
Dash of chilli powder
1/2 cup of panko bread crumbs
1 tsp baking powder
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Drain and rinse the garbanzo beans. Put in a medium sized bowl and smash with a fork or potato masher. I actually slightly "pulsed" using my immersion blender as I wanted a bit of a finer mixture but don't have a food processor. Add the rest of the ingredients (but only 1/4 cup of the panko crumbs) and mix well.

2. Form into small balls, about 1 1/2″ in diameter and slightly flatten. Lightly bread patties in remaining panko crumbs, if desired. Press slightly into the crumbs so that they stick to the falafels.

To pan-fry:

3. Heat a large cast-iron skillet (or regular frying pan) on medium heat. Fry patties in canola or olive oil (I used a combination of the two) for about 5 minutes per side, until they are nicely browned. Drain on a paper towel lined plate.

To bake:

3. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Farenheit, 185 degrees Celsius. Place patties onto an oiled baking pan and bake for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes flip patties, add some more oil to the baking pan and give the pan a shake to re-coat. This will help the falafels brown nicely on the other side as well.

4. Eat in a pita pocket with hummus, tzatziki, tomatoes and cucumber. You can freeze your leftovers to have on another day if you're so fortunate as to have that many left over.

I Love English Muffins

2010-05-30T19:41:00.012-04:00

My adventures in baking English muffins haven't been entirely successful. The first batch had great texture but not enough of that sourdough flavour. The next tasted much better but almost no nooks and crannies (not to mention they were a lot more work than the first batch). So this time, I decided to do some research to figure out what exactly leads to that hole-y texture in a perfect english muffin.

In my reading around various food blogs and english muffin recipes, I found that it seems a wetter dough will lead to holier bread. For example, the infamous No-Knead Bread that made its rounds a few years ago is characterized by an extremely wet dough which you couldn't knead if you wanted to, which results in lots and lots of big holes! (I know, the level of detail in my "research" is astounding) In fact, a few recipes recommended using more of a batter than a dough along with some egg rings to shape the english muffins while cooking. This seemed a little too complicated for me, especially since I don't have egg rings and I wasn't exactly keen on the idea of making my own using cans of tuna as some people recommended.

Also, while I enjoyed the flavour that came from the sponge, or biga in Rose Levy Berenbaum's recipe I realized that for the most part I'm just not willing to wait four hours waiting for a sponge to develop. I needed a faster way. The recipe that I used seemed to be a good compromise. It results in a stickier dough with buttermilk rather than a starter to get some tangy flavour into the english muffins. Compromise!

And the results? Pretty freaking good. The sourdough was a great way to add flavour without waiting hours or using a sourdough starter. The texture wasn't quiiiite perfect, but definitely enough nooks and crannies for my satisfaction. I'll probably experiment a bit with the moisture level in the dough next time, but this is a great base recipe that will definitely be used again.

Buttermilk English Muffins
Adapted from The Merlin Menu

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour*
1/2 tsp sugar
2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
3/4 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp butter (room temperature)
1 cup buttermilk** (slightly heated)
cornmeal for sprinkling

*I used about a cup of whole wheat flour because I was running out of white and it turned out pretty well, but for comparison purposes I'd probably make them using all white flour next time

**If you don't have buttermilk, you can combine 1 tablespoon of white vinegar and enough milk to make a cup, Leave at room temperature for at least 10 minutes before using.

1. In a bowl, add heated buttermilk, butter, sugar and yeast. Stir and let sit for 20 minutes or until the mixture puffs up.

2. Add flour and mix a wooden spoon until well incorporated and a sticky ball of dough is formed. Add more flour in 1/4 cup increments if necessary, but you want a pretty sticky dough.

3. Scrape dough out onto a floured board or surface. Sprinkle with flour and knead BRIEFLY. Apparently the more you knead, the finer the "crumb" will be which means less nooks and crannies!

4. Drop dough into a greased bowl, turn over, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm area for at least one hour (you can use a slightly warmed oven if you can't find a warm spot in your house - just turn it to maybe 250-300 degrees Farenheit for about 30 seconds and turn off)

5. After it's risen, scrape out onto the same floured surface, do NOT punch down. Knead once or twice and shape or roll into rectangle about one inch thick.

6. Using a biscuit cutter or cup, shape into rounds.

7. Spread cornmeal over parchment paper or a silpat. Place the cut and shaped circles of dough onto the cornmeal. Dust the tops liberally with cornmeal also. Top with plastic wrap, and let rise for another hour.

8. Heat a dry griddle or skillet to medium heat, carefully place a few dough rounds onto the skillet and brown on each side, about 5 - 9 minutes per side.

9. Remove from the skillet and let cool for about 20 minutes before devouring.

O Canada

2010-05-26T10:17:00.004-04:00

I just wanted to announce that mmm-minji has been added to Beer and Butter Tarts - A Canadian Food & Drink Blog Aggregator. The site compiles RSS feeds from various Canadian food and drink blogs so that they can be viewed in one, readily available location - how convenient!

Beer and Butter Tarts is a great resource for someone like me who loves reading about food but doesn't necessarily take the time to seek out all the great undiscovered and specifically Canadian food blogs out there. Especially since "seasonal" recipes from California aren't always practical (though often tempting) for a Canada cook.

Anyway, check it out at www.beerandbuttertarts.com!

Giddy With Anticipation

2010-05-22T14:24:00.001-04:00

So, I went on a Caribbean cruise a few weeks ago and it was gloriously hot and sunny and wonderful. I love Love LOVE hot weather; so maybe living in Canada isn't exactly the best choice climate-wise. It's now the middle of May and I've spent the last two weeks cursing our building for shutting the heat off the weekend we came back as it during a warm spell, but then the temperature plummeted immediately afterward. I've been sleeping in fleece pajamas ever since. FLEECE.

Anyway, the weather seems to (finally) be creeping back into the twenties and I'm getting so excited for summer. Not only for the warm weather but also for the produce that will soon be available at the farmer's market. CORN. PEACHES. And TOMATOES!

You can obviously buy tomatoes year round, but they're so depressingly flavourless in the winter that sometimes I wonder why we even bother. They're nothing like the summer tomatoes that are so plump, juicy and delicious you can just eat them plain with a little sprinkling of salt and be in heaven. Or with some buffalo mozzarella for a nice Caprese salad. Drool.

Laura and I helped her mom make some delicious oven-roasted tomatoes at the end of last summer with the multiple bushels they had gotten from a local farm. They were sooo good and froze very well. The combination of garlic, basil and the oven created a delicious concentrated and caramelized flavour that was amazing in sauces, pizzas and whatever else you might use tomatoes for. I think that this summer we'll have to make some more so that I can have delicious tomatoes for recipes all winter long. Brilliant!

Note: If you are wondering why the photos in this post are not the usual level of pathetic photography that I tend to put out, it's because these were taken by Laura with her much, much better camera and photography skills in general. Thanks Laura!

Another Note: This is a sketchy recipe. We DID use a recipe from a book, but lost it so I'm really just guessing here. But oven roasting tomatoes isn't exactly rocket science. See conversation below re: the lost recipe...

Laura: my mom says she doesnt remember the tomato recipe

but its just like cut up tomatoes, deseed, cover in olive oil, basil and garlic

20 minutes

3:02 PM me: damn

yea, i know the basics but i like to have a recipe

3:03 PM does she know what temp/time?

36 minutes

3:39 PM Laura: roasted... i imagine hot

for twenty minutes

till they are roasty

So yea. I'm pretty sure we actually baked them for longer than 20 minutes. There are also many recipes for slow roasting tomatoes in the oven. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what the main differences are. I imagine slow roasting would build up more caramelized flavour and intensity but I had absolutely no complaints on these ones either.

Oven Roasted Tomatoes

Tomatoes (we used Plum tomatoes)
Garlic
Fresh Basil
Salt and Pepper
Olive Oil

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Farenheit

1. Cut off tops of tomatoes and cut in half lengthwise. Use a paring knife to remove seeds.

2. Mince garlic and chop up basil.

3. Lay tomato halves on a baking sheet, cut side up. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle on garlic, basil and salt and pepper. I'm sorry I can't tell you how much, just don't use too much salt and pepper as the other ingredients will release plenty of flavour during baking.

4. Bake for 40 (or possibly 20) minutes until tomatoes start to look wrinkled, or "roasty".

I've Been Misled

2010-05-19T22:14:00.003-04:00

Last summer, Laura and I made a really delicious peach and crème fraiche pie. It was sooo good, but also the crème fraiche that we bought was really expensive, and we didn't even end up USING all of it. I'm pretty sure the rest went bad in my fridge which was really unfortunate. This memory has clearly stayed with me because when Laura suggested that I try out this pasta recipe my immediate response was "no way - do you REMEMBER how much crème fraiche costs in Canada?" I did recall reading somewhere that you can make your own, but this requires planning your meals out in advance which I rarely do during the week, being a cook entirely driven by cravings. (honestly, I have no idea how Adam is going to deal with me one day when I'm pregnant and having actual LEGITIMATE and ridiculous cravings)

Fortunately, there came a night when I was feeling too lazy to cook a long complicated meal and this seemed easy enough. I decided to go to the grocery store on my way home and consider it depending on how much the crème fraiche cost. Low and behold, I came to the realization that apparently Fortinos is unique in their selection of insanely expensive variety because the crème fraiche at Sobeys wasn't any more than a tub of sour cream. Damn you, Galen Weston!

Anyway, I'm glad I tried it because this meal is pretty quick and easy considering how good it is. The crème fraiche provides just the right amount of richness and makes the dish creamy but still somehow light. I would say it resembles a carbonara but won't sit as heavy in your stomach later that evening and it re-heats well too. I added some lemon juice as well since I had a lemon lying around and I have a tendency to put it in everything. It was a nice contrast to the creaminess so I would do it again, but if you don't like lemon so much feel free to leave it out. I assume it will be just as delicious!

Quick Pasta with Peas, Pork and Crème Fraîche
Adapted from Serious Eats

1 1/2 tsp kosher salt, plus more for salting the pasta water
8 oz pasta*
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup crème fraîche
6 slices bacon, cut into 2-inch pieces
Juice of 1/2 a lemon (optional)
Some basil leaves, roughly torn

*The recipe used oriecchiette which appear to be a fancy way to say large shells...I used some other pasta that I've never heard of called Malfada Corta....looks kind of like the noodles they use for Lasagna Hamburger Helper

1. Bring a large pot of salty water to boil. Add the pasta and cook until al dente, stirring occassionally to prevent sticking.

2. While the pasta is cooking, cook bacon in a large skillet over medium-high heat until almost (but not quite) crispy - you want it slightly undercooked to how you actually like it as you will continue cooking for a few minutes. Add garlic. Cook for a couple minutes until fragrant but not browned, then reduce the heat to medium and add the peas, cooking for a few seconds, then add the crème fraîche, lemon juice and kosher salt. Bring to a simmer, stirring constantly, until warmed through.

3. Reserving 1/3 cup of the pasta water, drain the pasta and add it while still wet to the skillet. Toss well with the sauce and add the pasta water to create a loose sauce. Turn the heat to high and cook for 2 minutes as the sauce melds with the pasta.

4.Transfer to bowls and top with any sauce left in the skillet. Lay the basil leaves on top. Serve immediately.

Yes, I'm Lazy

2010-05-10T23:24:00.002-04:00

Okay...so it's been awhile. Amazingly enough, a couple people seem to have been checking and have made requests for a new post so here goes.

It's not that I've stopped cooking entirely and turned into someone that eats Kraft Dinner every night (though some nights...). Or that I haven't made anything post-worthy in the last few months. There was the mind-blowingly amazing Momofuku Compost cookies that were so good I made two double batches in the span of two weeks. And the experimental S'mores pizza that turned out to be the perfect emergency dessert. And a few other yummy meals that I'll attempt to post about in the next couple of weeks. Mostly things got pretty busy at work and I got lazy. Not lazy enough to stop cooking good food, but enough that I stopped taking pictures of my meals or documenting the recipes. A pretty sorry excuse, I know, but that's all I have.

Anyway, my mom had requested no presents for Mother's day this year but simply some good food. It seemed like a nice opportunity to try out some new recipes and ah! post about them.

I've been craving some sort of a brunch "roll" since the Mother's day recipes starting creeping in to the blogosphere a couple of weeks ago. I've never actually attempted my own cinnamon rolls mostly out of (again) laziness - who really has time to get up three hours early to make a real yeasted dough that needs to rise twice*? But since my mom actuallys works until 2 on Sundays I figured I had the time to whip up some rolls in time for an afternoon snack before dinner. My original intention was to make some traditional cinnamon rolls, but then these lemon rolls floated back into my memory. Lemons just seem to scream "Spring" and "Mom", don't they?? Nevermind the fact that winter just doesn't want to go AWAY and it was maybe 10 degrees at the warmest part of this weekend.

These rolls were verrrry good - soft, sticky and not too sweet. They would be a fantastic addition to any brunch spread, or as a treat to go with some afternoon tea. I actually used less lemon than the original recipe called for (they had used zest in the dough as well) and still found it quite lemon-y so I think it was a good call. And the texture of the dough was also perfect. I will definitely be using it again and experimenting with different filling options. YUM.

*Sure, I've done it for english muffins but those occasions also tend to stem from a different kind of laziness: I choose to stay at home and make my own versus the option of going (god forbid) outside to buy them on Sunday mornings.

Sticky Lemon Rolls with Lemon Cream Cheese Glaze
Adapted from theKitchn
Makes 12 large breakfast rolls...or 15 large-ish rolls

Lemon Roll Dough
2 1/2 teaspoons of active dry yeast
3/4 cup milk, warm but not hot on your wrist
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, very soft
1/4 cup white sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 eggs

Sticky Lemon Filling
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon freshly-ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger
2 lemons, zested and juiced
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, very soft

Lemon Cream Cheese Glaze
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
Juice of 1 lemon
1 cup powdered sugar
1 lemon, zested

1. In a small measuring cup, sprinkle the yeast over the warmed milk and let it sit for a couple minutes.

2. Stir in the softened butter, sugar, vanilla, and one cup of the flour. Stir in the salt and nutmeg. Stir in the eggs and enough of the remaining flour to make a soft yet sticky dough. (I only ended up using about 3 1/2 cups of flour in total, with additional for dusting while kneading)

3. Turn the soft dough onto a lightly floured countertop and knead for about 5-7 minutes, or until the dough is elastic and pliable. Drizzle the top of the dough with vegetable oil, and turn the dough over so it is coated in oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and a towel and let the dough rise until nearly doubled - about an hour.

4. In a small bowl, mix the sugar with the nutmeg and ginger, then work in the lemon zest with the tips of your fingers until the sugar resembles wet, soft sand. Stir in the juice of 1 lemon. The mixture should now be more of a sludge. Lightly grease a 13x9 inch baking dish.

5. On a floured surface pat the dough out into a large yet still thick rectangle — about 10x15 inches. Spread evenly with the softened butter, then pour and spread the lemon-sugar mixture over top. Roll the dough up tightly, starting from the top long end. Be warned...you'll have plenty of the lemon-sugar sludge leak out. At least I did (see picture). Cut the long dough roll into 12-15 even rolls, and place them, cut side up, in the prepared baking dish. I do think that 12 rolls would have fit in the pan better, but I clearly was not measuring out my rolls properly while I was cutting and it's pretty hard to go back on this one. Cover the rolls with a towel and let them rise for an hour or until puffy and nearly doubled. (You can also refrigerate the rolls at this point. Cover the pan tightly with plastic wrap, and place it in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours. When you are ready to bake the rolls, remove the pan from the fridge, and let them rise for an hour.)

6. Heat the oven to 350 degrees Farenheit, 180 degrees Celsius. Place the risen rolls in the oven and bake for 35 minutes, until rolls are a golden brown.

7. While the rolls are baking, prepare the glaze. In a small food processor (or with a mixer, or a sturdy whisk), whip the cream cheese until light and fluffy. Add the lemon juice and zest and blend until well combined. Add the powdered sugar and blend until smooth and creamy. When the rolls are done, drizzle them with the cream cheese glaze. Serve while warm.

Chili

2010-02-07T13:20:00.000-05:00

I think I need to start buying some real spices.

For the last couple of years I've been mostly living off the spice rack my mom got for me from Homesense when I first moved to Toronto. I know, I know the spices in those things are probably filled with sawdust or something but the frugal side of me could never justify just throwing out perfectly "good" spices. Not to mention the fact that I generally tend to mainly season with just salt and pepper anyway, buying fresh herbs when it really matters. So I've been getting by with the rack spices, buying a few odds and ends here and there not really noticing whether or not the spices actually add some beneficial flavour to my cooking.

The problem started when I started to experiment in adding some heat to my cooking. Growing up in South Korea I was the ultimate freak of nature; I didn't eat spicy foods. They kept saying I would grow out of it but that didn't happen throughout my entire childhood. No Kimchi for me. Recently as I grow older, my tastes have started to change. I can bear (and sometimes enjoy) some of the spices stews and dishes I shied away from as a kid. I still don't eat Kimchi and can't handle very spicy cooking, but I'm trying here and am beginning to realize that the chili powder I've been using probably IS [red] sawdust and adding no real flavour to my meals. Like this Chili recipe below...don't get me wrong. It was delicious and full of rich, meaty goodness and perfect with some homemade biscuits but I can't help feeling that it would have been even better with a Better Chili Powder. I added some red pepper flakes which seemed to help, but after discovering this I will definitely be looking to see what quality dried spices can do for my cooking.

Anyway...ramble over. About the Chili...it was delicious and adapted from a combination of different chili recipes, like this one, and this one too. I've made it before with just a pound of beef but more veggies and it's also a great option if you're looking for a slightly lighter meal.

Chili

2 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, chopped (about 1 1/2 cups)
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 orange bell pepper, diced (you can use red or yellow as well, I was just going for some colour variety!)
10 ounces (about 1 cup) frozen corn
8 ounces (1 cup) beer (I used Moosehead)
2 pounds lean ground beef
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 bay leaf
1 15-ounce can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 15-ounce can romano beans, drained and rinsed
1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes
2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp red pepper flakes

Garnishes (optional)
Sour cream
Green onion
Grated cheddar cheese

1. Heat the olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook for a few minutes until they begin to soften. Add bell pepper and continue to cook until onions are translucent. Add the beef and cook, stirring to break up the lumps until browned, about 7-10 minutes. Add garlic and cook for another minute.

2. Add the chili powder, cumin, red pepper flakes. Stir until blended. Add the beer and bay leaf and cook until the beer has reduced by half, about 5 minutes. Add the corn, beans, tomatoes and salt and pepper to taste. Reduce heat to a simmer. Cover and simmer for 1 hour. Serve with garnishes as desired, and some nice fresh buns, biscuits or cornbread.

Buttermilk Cheddar Biscuits
adapted from smitten kitchen

3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup (1 1/2sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
1/2 cup grated sharp white cheddar
1 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Farenheit, 220 degrees Celsius.

1. Whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda in large bowl to blend. Using fingertips, rub 3/4 cup chilled butter into dry ingredients until mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in grated cheddar. Add buttermilk and stir until evenly moistened.

2. Roll out dough onto a floured counter and cut into rounds with a biscuit cutter or drinking glass (about 3 inches). Bake until biscuits are golden brown on top, about 15 minutes. Cool slightly. Serve warm.

Lazy Sunday

2010-01-21T00:09:00.002-05:00

One thing that I really look forward to on weekends (aside from the obvious: sleeping in, not having to go to work) is breakfast. After a week of surviving on fast standbys like oatmeal, cereal and toast, I can't wait for a good old weekend breakfast - bacon and eggs, french toast, pancakes...pretty much anything that takes longer than 3 minutes to prepare.

The problem is that often these delicious meals take some time and effort. And some days, I'm not really looking to slave away in the kitchen for my first meal of the day when my stomach has already been growling for half an hour (generally the reason I'm even out of bed). But that doesn't mean cereal is on the menu again. Some days you try out a little gem of a recipe that is easy, painless and fast! The pancake was ready in about 30 minutes which is a huge improvement compared to spending an hour flipping batches of individual pancakes. And did I mention really tasty? Not too sweet, (I might actually add a bit more sugar next time, but I don't like a lot of syrup on my pancakes) nice and crispy-browned on top without being dry and some deliciously caramelized flavour from the apples.

The best part was that I had all the ingredients in the kitchen AND I got to use up that stray apple in the fridge that had been getting dangerously close to mealy. Sweet deal.

Oven Pancake with Apples
adapted from deliciousdays; the book

Serves two

125 ml milk (1/2 cup)
150 g flour (just over 1/2 cup)
Pinch of salt
1 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
2 large eggs
1 small apple
Large pat of butter
Splash of vanilla

1. Preheat the oven to 390 degrees Farenheit, 200 degrees Celsius. For the pancake batter, mix milk, flour, salt, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and eggs with a whisk until smooth. The batter shouldn't have any lumps in it, but also be sure not to beat it any longer than absolutely necessary.

2. Peel and core apple; cut into wedges and little slices.

3. Melt butter over low-medium heat in a 10-inch cast iron or oven-proof skillet and add apples. Saute for a minute and stir so that the apples are all covered in butter. Remove from heat and pour batter into the pan. Bake in oven until golden brown and puffy, about 20 minutes. Try really hard not to peek during this time or the pancake will deflate! Though either way, it will collapse quickly like a souffle. Serve immediately with some butter, powdered sugar or syrup.

Yum. Just Yum.

2010-01-17T13:03:00.001-05:00

I've been meaning to write about these since I made them for a Christmas party back in December. But then there was that slew of Christmas baking and I felt it was more seasonally appropriate to post the toffee and cookie recipes first. And then I just got really lazy, and was somewhat unmotivated by the lack of pictures (this picture above is the ONLY semi-decent one I have, and was taken AT the party before anyone was allowed to try one). But anyway, late is better than never and these were wayy to good to leave undocumented.

It's funny - the first thought I had when I tried one was "Hey, they taste like pretzels!". Well, duh. I don't know why I was so surprised, but either way, these pretzel bites have that wonderful chewy, salty goodness of a delicious soft pretzel and are SO good when paired with a melty cheese dip. The recipe does take a bit of work but it's so worth it. They were a huge hit at the party and disappeared in record time. I'm itching to make some more in mini pretzel form...just need an excuse so that I don't eat the entire batch myself in one sitting! Maybe for Superbowl Sunday?

Soft Pretzel Bites
Adapted from SmittenKitchen and theKitchn

2 cups warm water (100-110 degrees Farenheit)
1 tbsp + 2 tbsp sugar
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
5 to 6 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp salt
2 tsp canola oil
1/4 cup baking soda
1 large egg
Coarse or pretzel salt

1. Pour warm water and 1 tbsp sugar into a bowl, and stir to combine. Sprinkle with yeast and let sit for 10 minutes until foamy.

2. Add 1 cup flour to yeast, and stir with a wooden spoon or using an electric mixer until combined. Add salt and 4 cups more flour, and mix until combined. You're supposed to continue mixing until the dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl, but at this point I just started using my hands. Start kneading and add the last cup as necessary until the dough is smooth. I actually found that I didn't need the last cup of flour at all.

3. Pour oil into a large bowl; swirl to coat sides. Transfer dough to bowl, turning dough to completely cover all sides. Cover with a kitchen towel, and leave in a warm spot for 1 hour, or until dough has doubled in size.

4. Heat oven to 450 degrees Farenheit, 230 degrees Celsius. Set a large pan with about 2 inches of water (I used a large wok) on the pan to boil. Hopefully by the time you're finished shaping the pretzel bites it will be boiling.

5. Lightly spray a few baking sheets with cooking spray (or use parchment paper, new love of my life! I had some issues with the bites sticking to the pan so I would probably go with the parchment next time). Heavily flour a work surface and dump dough out of bowl. Flour hands and shape into a large rectangle roughly 3/4 of an inch in thickness. Using a bench scraper, knife or pizza cutter, cut off 1 long strip, 1 inch wide and set aside. Cover remaining dough with a damp towel. Cut dough strip into 1 inch pieces and set aside, covering them with a damp towel.

6. Repeat the process until all dough has been cut into pieces and has been placed under a towel.

7. Once water is boiling, add baking soda and 2 tbsp sugar to it (careful, it will foam up!). Once the foam goes down, reduce heat to a simmer (there should be a few bubbles rising to the surface but not a rolling boil). Add enough bagel bites to fill about half the pan; they will swell up and you don't want them to crowd as it will be difficult to flip them if this happens. Simmer for 60-90 seconds on each side. I had some issues trying to figure out how long exactly to simmer these for as theKitchn makes a comment about making sure not to undercook these, just make sure the bites look like they have plumped up a bit before removing.

8. Once each side has cooked, remove from pan and place on cookie sheet and make sure the pieces do not touch, but fit as many as you can onto the pan at once (I think I ended up with three pans full of pretzel bites)

9. Beat egg with 1 tbsp water. Brush pretzels with the egg glaze. Sprinkle with salt. Bake until golden brown, about 12-15 minutes, rotating the tray once halfway through. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack for cooling. They are best eaten fresh, or the day of but they'll keep at room temperature for another day or so uncovered (I just kept a paper bowl over the bowl of leftovers). You can also freeze some as soon as they're cool and reheat until warm in an oven later.

Beer-Cheddar dip
This is more of a guideline than a real recipe - really I just kept throwing in more beer and cheese until I thought it tasted right.

1 part beer (any light pale ale or lager will do)
1 part cream cheese
1 part grated sharp cheddar

1. Heat cream cheese in a small saucepan until it is melty. Add beer and mix until combined. Slowly add grated cheddar while whisking the sauce to ensure there are no lumps. Add more beer/cream cheese/cheddar to taste.

Christmas Cookie Overload

2009-12-24T22:40:00.003-05:00

It's been a baking-intensive week. I had a few friends over to make some Christmas treats early in the week, which is a nice way to make an entire day of baking more of an activity than a task. We also got to try some new recipes and I have to admit made a much smaller less than I usually do when I bake alone. The only problem with this is that you need to make a lot of cookies when you're splitting everything three ways, and you each have various friends and family to distribute the treats too. And so I ended up making subsequent batches over the rest of the week. Which actually turned out to be not such a bad thing as we had discovered a few things here and there that made the later batches turn out better than the first.

It's hard to pick a favourite here...we used three recipes from Martha Stewarts Cookies and made very few alterations to each. I think that the Chocolate Crackles are definitely worth making as a giveaway as they just look so good. Not to mention the fact that they are just so decadent and yummy. I have a weakness for shortbread-y, crumbly cookies so I've been snacking on the meltaways the most. It's a nice, light cookie and actually quite refreshing from all the citrus flavour. And I just can't resist cranberry pistachio biscotti around Christmastime - it looks so festive and impressive!

*General notes:
- These recipes says to use an electric mixer. We did, due to all the cookies we were making and since my mom actually has one. I was actually amazed at how each it made all the recipes since I have a tiny kitchen and rarely use any electronic devices when cooking or baking. Either way, you don't need a mixer, you can do all this with a wooden spoon and a willing arm!
- All cookies should be stored in airtight containers between layers of parchment, in a cool place. The Crackles keep for up to 3 days, the Meltaways and Biscotti up to 2 weeks

all recipes adapted from Martha Stewarts Cookies

Chocolate Crackles
Makes about 5 dozen cookies

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa owder
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 tsp instant coffee power
1/3 cup whole milk
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup confectioner's sugar

1. Melt chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water, stirrings. Set aside and let cool. Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.

2. Mix instant coffee powder with just enough boiling water to dissolve grains. Let cool and add enough milk to make 1/3 cup.

3. With an electric mixer, beat butter and brown sugar on medium speed until pale and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Mix in eggs and vanilla, and then the melted chocolate. Reduce speed to low; mix in flour mixture in two batches, alternating with the milk. Divide dough into four equal pieces. Wrap each in plastic,; refrigerate until firm, about 2 hours (don't skimp on this - we waited just under 2 hours the first time and the dough was quite sticky. I actually chilled the dough overnight the second time and it was much easier to handle)

4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit (175 degrees Celsius). Divide each piece into sixteen (or whatever - my four pieces were all but equal so the number varied) 1 inch balls. Roll in granulated sugar to coat, then in confectioners' sugar to coat. Space 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.

5. Bake about 14 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. (It says to bake UNTIL the surfaces crack but mine started cracking after probably 5 so this didn't help me much. I just baked for 14 minutes and assumed the cookies were done by then!) Let cool on sheets on wire racks.

Lemon Meltaways
(Martha uses lime but you can use any citrus you like)
Makes about 5 dozen, or 3 dozen if you made your logs larger like I did...

3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup confectioner's sugar
Finely grated zest of 2 lemons
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp cornstarch
1/4 tsp salt

1. Put butter and 1/3 cup confectioners' sugar in a bowl and mix on medium speed with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Add the lime zest and juice and the vanilla, and mix until fluffy.

2. Whisk together flour, cornstarch and salt in a bowl. Add to butter mixture, and mix on low speed until just combined. (At this point I kneaded the dough a bit with my hands as it was super crumbly and we had some difficulty in the first batch with the slicing step that comes later. The kneading definitely helped it become more "dough-y" and formable)

3. Divide dough in half. Place each log on an 8x12 inch sheet of parchment. Roll in parchment to form a log 1 1/4 inches in diameter, pressing a ruler along edge of parchment at each turn to narrow log. (Umm...I just read this. Might have helped.) Refrigerate logs until cold and firm, at least 1 hour.

4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit (175 degrees Celsius). Remove parchment from logs; cut into 1/4 inch thick rounds. Space rounds 1 inch apart on baking sheets lined with parchment apper. Bake cookies until barely golden, about 13 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Transfer cookies to wire racks to cool slightly, 8 to 10 minutes. White still warm, toss cookies with remaining 2/3 cup sugar in a resealable plastic bag.

Cranberry-Pistachio Cornmeal Biscotti
makes about 2 dozen cookies

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup baking powder
1/2 tsp coarse salt
6 tbsp unsalted butter, room temp
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tbsp finely grated lemon zest
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup chopped pistachios

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit (175 degrees Celsius). Whisk together flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt.

2. Put butter in the bowl and mix with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Add sugar and mix until pale and fluffy. Mix in eggs one at a time, until well combined. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture all at once; mix until just combined. Add lemon zest, cranberries, and pistachios and mix until combined (I did this last step by hand).

3. Transfer dough to a baking sheet lined iwth parchment paper. Pat into a log that is roughly 14 by 3 1/2 inches. Bake until firm, lightly browned, and slightly cracked on top, 30 to 35 minutes. Let cool on sheet on a wire rack, about 15 minutes.

4. Transfer log to a cutting board. Using a serrated knife, cut on the diagonal into 1/2 inch thick slices. Arrange slices on a baking sheet lined with parchment. Bake cookies, rotating sheet halfway through, until they begin to brown at edges, 15 to 18 minutes. Let cool on sheet on a wire rack.

Crowd Pleaser

2009-12-22T23:22:00.012-05:00

So, I did a lot of baking today. Three different types of cookies, all new recipes (from Martha's Cookie book). All three turned out amazing and I'm planning to make more of each in the next couple of days. But I also made something else which has pretty much become my go-to Christmas standby year after year so we're going to talk about that first.

Like the Taco Dip, this Saltine Cracker Toffee is something that I just can't seem to avoid every Christmas. It's also not exactly an original recipe (you can find hundreds of versions online) but I suppose I can be credited with having discovered it before the rest of my friends and family years ago so it's become sort of "mine"; and as much as I love trying out new recipes each Christmas, I know that even if every other batch is a flop the Toffee will be there as my backup, and regardless will be the clear favourite in everyone's Christmas baskets. It's easy, insanely addicting and has a whole lot of butter. Plus, it's an interesting point of conversation as no one will believe there are CRACKERS in this stuff. There really are - and they are the key to what makes the Toffee soooo good. Salty and sweet never tasted so good.

Saltine Cracker Toffee
1 cup butter
1 cup light brown sugar
1 sleeve saltine crackers*
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips**
3/4 cups chopped almonds, pecans or whatever other nut/topping you desire

* (SALTED. Do not, under any circumstances use unsalted crackers. It will seriously ruin the Toffee)

** Now, I know there is a lot of fancy chocolate out there these days. But I really find with standbys like this they really just taste best with good old Chipits or Hershey chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit, or 175 degrees Celsius

1. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat. You can also be a risk-taker and try using aluminum foil or heavily greasing the pan, but don't call me when you're trying to chip toffee out of the pan or eating foil. The first time I tried this on a Silpat I almost cried I was so happy about how the toffee practically came off the pan in one piece. I actually tried parchment paper for the first time this year and it was even better. Line cookie sheet with crackers in one layer, making sure none overlap and edges are as close together as possible. This may involve cutting some crackers in half to make it fit.

2. Bring butter and brown sugar to a boil in a small pot or saucepan over medium-high heat. Boil for about three minutes (it should have turned a light caramel colour and will be bubbling up quite a bit)

3. Pour butter/sugar mixture over crackers and spread evenly with a spoon. Don't worry about getting it perfectly smooth or over every cracker bit, the mixture will continue to spread and even out in the oven. Bake for 10-15 minutes, until bubbly.

4. Place cookie sheet on a cooling rack and add chocolate chips. Wait about 5 minutes, and then spread the now-melted chocolate chips over the toffee layer. Sprinkle evenly with chopped almonds or nuts.

5. Cool until solid in the fridge, freezer or garage (assuming it is winter and you live somewhere with four seasons). Probably about a half hour. Break into pieces and enjoy!

Worth the Effort

2009-11-29T23:26:00.007-05:00

Back when I was still in school and subletting in Toronto for co-op terms, my roomate and I enjoyed Pancake Sundays. I think it actually came from watching an episode of How I Met your Mother where they indulged in this ritual and we just thought it seemed like a good idea. They were never exactly fancy (for some reason the concept of making pancakes from scratch never occured to me in those days and we generally used Bisquick) but it was something to look forward to and a nice change from the usual toast or cereal for breakfast during the week.

I don't eat a whole lot of pancakes nowadays...most of the time I find the savoury camp wins out and we usually dine on some variation of eggs and bacon on weekends, but once in awhile pancake Sundays come back!

To be perfectly honest, the main reason for my motivation was that I had some leftover ricotta in the fridge from the Lasagna-style Rotini earlier in the week and I recalled flagging this recipe a few weeks ago. Either they, they seemed a little different, looked good and I had all the necessary ingredients. Why not try it out?

The recipe did seen like a little more work than your typical pancake recipe. The ricotta was simply added to the wet mix, but the eggs needed to be separated and the white whisked until stiff, then folded into the batter. This also resulted in the fluffiest pancake batter I've ever seen, and frankly I was a little concerned these were going to be weirdly puffy and uncooked in the middle.

But anyway...despite the egg white situation and the fact that my arm will probably be aching tomorrow* these were SO WORTH IT. I can't even explain in words why these are so good. Light, fluffy and just a bit of tang from the ricotta give these pancakes such a good flavour you would be happy to just eat them with a bit of butter. The ricotta also keeps the pancakes extremely moist and delicious. Please, please try this recipe. I promise you won't regret it.

*Side story: I've never actually whipped egg whites before until stiff. I knew this wasn't exactly easy and had a tendency to be a bit tricky, but figured with some patience I should at least TRY it by hand before resorting to the whisk attachment on the immersion blender.

I think I went at it for probably a good 10-15 minutes before finally giving up. It also probably wasn't the smartest idea to use a regular small bowl to do this in, and by the time the egg whites started to expand I had started to make a bit of a mess. Thankfully, once I got the hand blender in there it took probably another two minutes until they were stiff and fluffy. So for next time...don't bother attempting to do this by hand. Just go with whatever electronic mixer you have and be thankful for technology!

Ricotta Pancakes

Adapted from Serious Eats

(This recipe made about 16 small pancakes. I'd say enough for three or four people)

200 g (about a cup) ricotta cheese
3/4 cup milk
4 eggs, separated
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar Butter

1. Beat ricotta with milk, egg yolks and vanilla until smooth. In another bowl, sift or whisk together the dry ingredients. Add the ricotta mixture to the dry ingredients and stir very lightly.

2. Beat the egg whites until they are stiff and carefully fold them into the batter.

3. Cook over low to medium heat in a bit of butter, until the pancakes are lightly golden underneath. The recipe stated (correctly) that these are somewhat harder to tell when they are ready to flip as the typical bubbles don't come up quite so readily. So check on the colour of the pancakes after a couple minutes. When the time is right, turn and cook for about another minute, until the cakes are cooked through.

Quick tip: I discovered this summer that the MICROWAVE is a great place to keep pancakes warm while the rest of the batch is being cooked. The insulation keeps the heat in without having to use any energy so the heat from each round maintains a nice warm temperature. Also beats keeping them warm in the oven as you don't have the risk of drying out your pancakes this way!

4. Serve hot with a butter and maple syrup, or some sort of fruit topping. Devour.

Quick and Dirty

2009-11-26T22:42:00.001-05:00

When I first started to really get into cooking and becoming a "foodie", I tended to stay away from recipes with the words "quick" or "easy". I've always been the type to enjoy a challenge, and these meals just didn't seem to be worth taking the time to try. Call me a snob, but that's just the way I felt.

However, this resulted in certain "extremes" when cooking weeknight dinners. I'd go through a phase where it was no problem to get home from work and whip up some homemade pasta with bolognese sauce or pot pies with crust made from scratch. And then there will be a few busy weeks where dinner consisted almost entirely on variations of Kraft Dinner or soup and garlic bread. It's not exactly a balanced diet.

Unfortunately things have been pretty hectic lately and I've been in the latter group for far too long. So when I saw this "Easy Weeknight Dinner" recipe for Lasagna-style Baked Ziti it seemed like a good idea. And you know what? It's not exactly pretty but it was SO good and what do you know...tasted like lasagna! But for much less time and effort. And all the spinach in the recipe made it seem much lighter and healthier than all the cheese might suggest (don't worry I am under no illusions of this actually being all that healthy). Definitely worth trying out and making again!

Lasagna-style Baked Rotini (I know, it doesn't quite have the same ring as Ziti but it's all I had)
Adapted from Real Simple, via TheKitchn

12 oz. rotini (about 4 cups)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 pound lean ground beef
salt and pepper
1 jar tomato or pasta sauce
1 bunch spinach, thick stems removed (about 4 cups)
1/2 cup ricotta
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup grated mozzarella

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Cook the pasta according to the package directions. Drain the pasta and return it to the pot.

2. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until they begin to soften, 4 to 5 minutes. Add the beef, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper and cook, breaking up the meat with a spoon until it’s no longer pink, 5 to 6 minutes.

3. Toss the pasta with the meat mixture, tomato sauce, spinach, ricotta, and 1/4 cup of the Parmesan. Don't worry if it seems like there's way too spinach, it will start to wilt quickly and shrink up. You can add it in batches if you're not convinced.

4. Transfer to a 9-by-13-inch baking dish or 4 large ramekins. Sprinkle with the mozzarella and the remaining 1/4 cup of Parmesan and bake until the cheese melts, 12 to 15 minutes.

I'm Freezing

2009-10-13T20:49:00.002-04:00

So...it's officially fall. And not that period following summer of semi chilly but pleasantly cool weather. It is COLD. Like break out the fall coats and scarves cold. And the heat in our apartment does not seem to be working. Fan-tastic.

I am just not a cold weather person. I really don't enjoy anything to do with the cold or being outside in cold weather. Aside from the one week (ish) of snow that is nice (but often does not appear anyway) around Christmas, I have almost no use for the cooler seasons. Almost. The one and pretty much sole saving grace is all-important: the food. Mmmm. Comfort food is really my specialty and absolute favourite to cook. Baked pastas, casseroles, stocks and soups...you name it. I love spending a cold Sunday with a roast-something in the oven and a pot of stock on the stove. And with the somewhat abrupt arrival of cool weather this fall, I've already made some dishes that could be new favourites in the comfort food rotation: chili, chicken corn chowder (there's the corn again), skillet mac and cheese...YUM.

But the best was actually the first of the season, and was somewhat premature. On what was probably the last really warm weekend in September, my friend Laura and I decided to try out some pulled pork shoulder up at an adorable stuffed moose-laden cottage (Like the dolls, not the beheaded kind) in Haliburton, Ontario. And man was it GOOD. So good that we ate the entire four pound shoulder between five people in less than 24 hours. We ate some on buns for dinner, in crepes for breakfast and stuffed in pitas for lunch. And you know what? It just made us crave MORE pulled pork. I made it again the following weekend.

And ate all of that too.

I think I'm in love.

(I realize this isn't exactly the best picture ever. But it's the only one I have, and from a Facebook page so it's the best I could do)

Pulled Pork Shoulder
adapted from theKitchn

4 to 5 pound pork shoulder, bone-in
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 teaspoons cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
1/2 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 medium yellow onions (or one VERY large one, as I did) peeled and cut into wedges
6 cloves of garlic, peeled
8 medium-sized tomatoes
1 bottle of beer (any kind...I used Keith's the first time, Guiness the second. Both were amazing)

1. Trim the pork shoulder of any thick layers of fat. Combine the brown sugar, cumin, paprika, salt, and pepper. Rub pork with the spice mixture, making sure to rub into all the nooks and crannies. Allow the pork to sit for at least 30 minutes, or up to 24 hours in the fridge (we did the rub the day before going up north and cooked the next day)

2. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

3. Heat the olive oil in a large dutch oven over medium-high heat. Brown the pork on all sides, about 3 minutes per side. Remove from the pot. Add the onions, garlic, tomatoes, and beer. Bring to a simmer, scraping the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon to bring up any browned bits.

*Note: We didn't want to bring a dutch oven to the cottage, so we used a pan for the sear and then cooked about half the veggies and a bit of beer in the same pan just to pick up some of the crust, then moved the entire thing to a small roasting pan. The second time I made this at home, I used the dutch oven and both methods worked perfectly fine.

4. Return the pork to the pot. Cover and cook for 3 1/2 to 4 hours, flipping over the pork every hour or so to make sure the whole thing stays moist. When it's ready the meat will be extremely tender and pull away from the bone easily. Shred the pork in separate bowls, using tongs to pull large chunks of meat off the bone and then two forks to pull apart the meat. You can separate the meat from the fatty bits while you're doing this (or leave the fat in - it's tasty!). You can also do this in one large bowl, but I found that once there was too much meat in a bowl it got harder to pull apart. Also using smaller bowls will allow you to have different levels of sauciness. Discard the bone or set aside for another use.

5. Now...you can decide what to do with your pork. We made three bowls:

Plain pork (which was a terrible idea, unless you want to use this for some other use later. We ended up mising this in with the other bowls later)
Pork with the beer braise sauce and vegetables
Pork with a beer braise/BBQ sauce mix, heavier on the BBQ sauce. We cooked this one in a separate, small pot for a few minutes so that the BBQ flavour wasn't so stark

Eat on buns, crepes, pitas or just out of the bowl. It's all delicious.

Pasta: check!

2009-08-22T20:32:00.005-04:00

Now...that pasta. It had been something I'd been toying with for months and months now. It's not that it seemed all that difficult, or that I was worried it wouldn't turn out. I just always felt it would take so long. All that rolling and cutting...especially without a pasta maker. Which I think is still a valid point after my first attempt.

But anyway, it was delicious. I had a friend comment that homemade pasta didn't really seem to be worth the effort (without a pasta maker anyway) compared to storebought fresh pasta. I would disagree, but this could be mainly because I rarely buy the stuff. Most of the time I feel fresh pasta is ridiculously expensive when in THEORY I could make it myself for a mere fraction of the cost. I really only buy fresh ravioli or tortellini - basically only stuffed pastas that I reason would take a lot MORE work to make at home. So I'm not sure how this compares to say, storebought linguine. But still...it was good. Soft, chewy, and delicious even just eaten plain, coated with some butter, salt and pepper (I did this before adding the sauce and couldn't stop picking out strands after dinner) I would admit that it wasn't exactly an immediate revelation, but it tasted better with each bite. YUM.

To be fair, it was quite a bit of work without a pasta machine. It took awhile to roll the dough out thin enough (especially considering my limited counter space) and cutting it into thin strips felt like AGES. But really, it was probably only twenty minutes. And I remembered after the first batch that you can roll the dough into a flattened log (floured) and cut that into strips instead. The strands from the first batch did look nicer but the second process took considerably less time, so I'll do this in the future.

Also...the recipe below makes enough pasta for two, with some leftovers. Being relentlessly gluttonous, I doubled it even though there WERE only two of us because I wanted to be sure there would be enough leftovers. So it was a LOT of pasta. We were eating it for a few days...not that I was exactly complaining! Just saying...you probably don't need to unless you really want a LOT of leftovers.

Homemade Pasta
adapted from Pastor Ryan's Homemade Pasta, which is basically the 3:2 Pasta ratio

1 cup flour
2 eggs
dash of salt

1. Measure out flour into a medium-sized bowl and mix in salt. Make a well in the centre and add eggs (as you can see from the pictures above, the eggs didn't exactly stay in the well but it didn't seem to make a huge difference)

2. Slow swirl eggs with your fingers and incorporate the flour. Make sure you don't do this too quickly or else you'll get clumps. Continue until all the flour has been blended in and you have a shaggy looking dough.

3. Dump out onto a slightly floured countertop and knead for about 10 minutes, until the dough is smooth and pliable. Let it rest now for a few minutes; this will make it easier to roll out.

4. Roll out the dough on a floured surface as thinly as you can get it. The pasta will plump up as it cooks, so get it as thin as you can. Then using a sharp knife or pizza cutter, cut pasta into thin strips (again as thin as you can get it). Alternatively, you can also flour the pasta and fold into a flat "log" and cut the roll into thin strips, then unroll.

5. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, and cook for about two or three minutes. I actually probably cooked it about four to five minutes, but I tend to like my pasta somewhat overcooked and not a lot of people seem to share my opinion. Serve with Ryan's Bolognese sauce, or just some butter and parmesan. De-lish!

Just Peachy

2009-08-19T17:58:00.003-04:00

Note: this post is from a few weeks ago and is photo-less...I wouldn't normally point this out but some circumstantial events have prevented me from posting for a few weeks and I just wanted you all to know that I realize the arrival of peach season isn't exactly "new" news.

So. It's peach season. Finally. Last summer was my first living in Toronto with easy access to the St. Lawrence Market. For some reason, I didn't realize it was peach season (or that I liked peaches? I'm not really sure what happened here) until it was practically over. So I spent the last couple weeks of August buying baskets of those gorgeous, juicy peaches and baking a couple of cobblers here and there, but mostly just using them obsessively for smoothies. I really didn't get the chance to use the glorious little suckers in the way that they deserved. And I've been waiting patiently for peaches to arrive in Ontario since the beginning of summer.

Well, last weekend I finally went to the market and saw baskets of peaches for sale. YES! They were still a few days from being fully ripe so I left them in the paper bag and planned out my first baking experiment.

The obvious choice was pie, and I'd seen a few fantastic looking recipes on the net in the last couple of weeks. But I was alone at the apartment for a few days, so I thought I would bake something that would be a little easier to take into work the next day for my co-workers to enjoy. I'd been re-reading some of the Anne of Green Gables series lately (I know, I'm a huge dork) and those PEI folk sure talk a lot about plum cake. I've never HAD plum cake before, but it seemed tasty enough and something that couuld be easily substituted with peaches, so that seemed like a good way to go.

The recipe I used is a plum cake recipe from Patent and the Pantry, which got the recipe from Dinner with Julie. I love butter, and browned butter always seems SO good but I've never actually tried or used it in a recipe before. Perfect! Plus, the pictures were so pretty and basically made me start drooling.

I tried really hard not to adapt this recipe too much - pretty much all I changed was the fruit (obviously) and added vanilla, because vanilla is SO good with everything. And I left out the nutmeg because I didn't have any.

Anyway...the only real problem I had here was that it was more of a cobbler-cake, as I used probably too many peaches. But that wasn't really a problem unless you're concerned about making a bit of a mess while you eat it. And it shouldn't be, because this was GOOD. Not too sweet, but delicious from all the fresh fruit and a bit nutty from the browned butter. I'm sad that I don't have photo documentation but if you go to the source blogs their photos are much prettier than mine anyway. But if you have some extra peaches lying around, try this recipe. Please!

Brown Butter Peach Cake
adapted from various sources, noted above

6 peaches
1/2 lemon
3/4 cups + 3 tbsp sugar, divided
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup butter
2 large eggs
1 cup all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit - butter a pie plate or cake pan

1. Peel peaches - bring a medium sized pot of water to a boil. Remove from heat and add peaches. Let sit for 45 seconds, then remove with a slotted spoon and immediately immerse in a water bath. The skins should just slip right off - it's like magic! I know this is probably a pretty basic concept but I've never peel peaches like this before so I was pretty amazed.

2. Cut peaches into large slices and toss with a squeeze of lemon juice, 2 tbsp sugar and cinnamon. You can do this directly in the cake pan/pie plate. Set aside.

3. Brown butter - in a small saucepan (make sure it's doesn't have a black bottom so that you can tell when the butter is brown!) melt butter and cook for about 5 minutes until it's a golden brown colour. Immedidately take the pan off hte stove and if you can, dip the bottom in a bowl of water (I just used the same bowl I had the peaches in, to save a bowl). I don't think you NEED to do this step but apparently the butter keeps cooking a bit after you take it off the heat, so be careful if you don't. I actually have a feeling that I didn't let my butter brown enough, but again this was a first try at this so I was super paranoid about burning it.

4. Pour butter into a medium sized bowl. Add 3/4 cup of sugar, eggs, vanilla and flour and stir to combine. Pour over fruit and sprinkle with remaining sugar (I didn't use a whole tablespoon here...probably more like a teaspoon).

5. Bake for 40-45 minutes, until top is golden brown and juices are bubbling up the sides.

Second Try

2009-08-10T21:28:00.006-04:00

As previously discussed, I haven't been doing some well with the cooking or blogging lately. So my whole "to cook" list for July didn't work out so well - I only made ONE item on the list (pie). I know it's technically August now, but I'm feeling slightly rejuvenated and I think I'm already off to a better start. I made some fresh pasta tonight (we'll talk more about that later) AND I have plans to make burgers this weekend. I'm going to take the other two off though - summer FINALLY seems to have arrived in Toronto and baked beans aren't exactly sounding appealing in 30-degree weather. Neither is the idea of standing over a hot vat of oil. So anyway, here is the August list:

Hamburgers - I'm going to make some nice homemade buns to go with these on the weekend. Yum!

Pasta - I know this is technically cheating since I already made it, but as it's August I'm going to leave it on, more so I can cross something off :)

Ice Cream - I don't have an ice cream maker but apparently you can do it without. I'm not expecting spectacular results but as I've never made homemade ice cream before (unless you count using my three-minute ice cream maker as a kid - man that thing was amazing) I'd like to try it

Chipwich - I'm not sure if these are still around anymore but I haven't seen any in recent years. If you don't know what a chipwich is, it's just an ice cream sandwich made with chocolate chip cookies, and rolled in chocolate chips. It's delicious, and I'm going to make some!

Brioche (with chocolate) - I don't really think I need to explain myself here. Bread - good. Bread with chocolate - better.

Ratios

2009-08-08T10:34:00.000-04:00

Okay...I've been talking about this Ratio book a LOT lately so I thought I'd take some time to actually write about it. I wasn't originally intending on writing book reviews, but it seems relevant so I'm going to try it out.

I have this weird guilt when people compliment my cooking, or say I should open a bakery, or restaurant etc. I really don't believe that I'm an exceptional cook by any means, and definitely not a creative one at that. I'm a recipe follower, and I can say with very little hesitation that the main reason why I'm good at cooking and baking is because I am really good at following instructions. Seriously. I never understood why people COULD NOT cook, because what could you possibly do wrong? Just follow the instructions. Use well reviewed and received recipes and cookbooks so that you at least know the writer knows what they're talking about. But follow the instructions, and you can't be that far off from your desired end state.

The problem with this way of cooking is that it becomes difficult to develop your own style, and the dishes you make are limited to the recipes you use. I've been increasingly trying to get away from this obsessive recipe-following lately in order to become a better cook, and not to have that "I'm a fraud" feeling about my cooking.

Ratio was a really fantastic book for someone like me. Ruhlman outlines several simple but useful weight-based ratios for making all sorts of things. By knowing the ratio of main ingredients that is involved in, say a loaf of bread, you're then freed from following specific recipes, and trying to figure out how to scale them properly. You start with the basics, then add to create different variations on very fundamental dishes.

In five main parts, Ruhlman covers the simple ratios behind such basic concepts as bread dough,chicken stock, mayo and custard. And by removing the fancy techniques and ingredients that clutter up many recipes out there, he makes it sound SO EASY. I've never even thought of making my own mayonnaise before, as it seemed difficult and intimidating. But can I whisk oil, egg yolk and water together? Sure! Why not? In every section the constant thought running through my head was "But I could do that! I should make that!"

I should point out that the ratios in this book are almost entirely based on weight, not volume. I don't actually have a kitchen scale yet, so I've never really cooked by weight before. However, Ruhlman really emphasizes the usefulness of this concept. By using a scale, you don't necessarily need to measure ingredients separately before adding to the bowl - you can simply add items directly to your mixture until you have the appropriate weight. And that makes sense to me - less dishes to wash! A scale is definitely the next item on my "to buy" list. And either way, Ruhlman does include the "recipes" for all his ratios with a volume conversion so that you can make everything in the book without a scale.

So overall...I think you can tell that I enjoyed the book. It was simple, concise and really gets you thinking about how many things you can really make at home in the kitchen. If you're a compulsive recipe follower like me, I would really recommend reading this book. And once you've mastered the basics, there are so many variations that allow you to be creative with these concepts and make your own recipes!

Safe Bet

2009-07-30T20:51:00.002-04:00

It hasn't been a great couple of weeks in terms of home cooking. Some very busy days at work and a few weddings here and there on the weekends has not led to a lot of meals being made in the kitchen.

For times like this it's always good to have some standbys that you know are easy and reliable. For me, these dishes typically involve pasta, anything with garlic bread, eggs and chicken parm.

Mmm...I can't put into words how much I love chicken parm. I don't even really like chicken but when they're thinly pounded, breaded and covered with cheese, de-lish! Not to mention that it goes well with pasta AND garlic bread. Heaven.

This recipe is pretty basic. The only things I would really emphasize are to use fresh breadcrumbs if you can (it really makes the texture a whole lot better than store-breaded chicken) and to properly season at every step. I should probably point out that I am a salt fiend and may have a tendency to overseason, but even if you use less salt and pepper than I do I would still recommend that you make sure your chicken, egg and breadcrumb mixture is all seasoned. That way you won't get any bland bites. Also, the sauce isn't really anything special - just your standard tomato sauce using whole canned tomatoes, but it's nice and fairly tomato-y which works for me!

Oh, and I used a cup of cornflake crumbs because for some reason we have some kicking around the kitchen and have been adding them to everything. They were actually really good and added a nice extra crunch to the chicken, so I'm keeping it in the recipe.

Chicken Parmesan

Sauce
1 small onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 16 oz. can whole tomatoes
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat some olive oil in a medium-sized pot and add onions. Cook for about 5 minutes, or until translucent. Add garlic and cook for another minute or so. You don't want the onions or garlic to burn so make sure the heat isn't up too high.

2. Add tomatoes and give it a stir. Add herbs and let simmer for awhile. If you have a couple of hours, great but most of the time I do this for about 20 minutes to a half hour (I am clearly not claiming that this is an "authentic" tomato sauce by any means, but it's simple and tastes pretty good!). Add tomato paste to desired texture, depending on how thick you like your sauce (this will also vary based on how long you cook the sauce for)

Chicken Parm
4 chicken breasts
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 cup milk

1 cup breadcrumbs (preferably fresh)
1 cup crushed cornflakes (or just more breadcrumbs)
1 cup grated parmesan
4 tsp black pepper
3 tsp salt
2 tsp paprika
cheese (I used havarti, you can really use any cheese you want)

1. Flatten chicken - Using a meat tenderizer or mallet (I use a rolling pin and cover the chicken with plastic wrap), flatten chicken breasts to 1/4 inch thickness. Depending on how large the breasts are, I also sometimes cut the breasts in half first.

2. Combine egg and milk in a shallow dish, beating lightly with a fork. Add salt and pepper to season. Combine breadcrumb mixture in another shallow dish.

3. Dip chicken breasts in egg mixure and coat with breadcrumbs.

4. Heat a large frying pan to medium heat and add some canola oil. Once heated through, fry chicken breasts for about 5 minutes on each side, or until cooked through. If you're worried about the chicken cooking through, cover with a lid while it's cooking. I don't generally find this a problem since the chicken has been pounded down.

5. Cover with cheese and cook under the broiler for a couple of minutes, until cheese is bubbly. Serve with tomato sauce and pasta, if that's what you're doing.

I Think I Have a Problem

2009-07-26T12:44:00.001-04:00

I know, I know...corn again? What is this girl thinking? Well, I can't help it. I have an obsessive-food personality. My favourite foods are REALLY my favourites for a reason. That's not to say I'm going to eat the same meal every day for a week, but certain variations of ingredients or dishes will happily be eaten week in and week out. Which might explain why I get cranky if I don't have pizza at least once a week. Or tacos once every couple of weeks. (I know it doesn't actually SOUND like a lot, but its hard when a certain someone has a *gasp* carb AVERSION. That's right. Maybe I need to re-think our relationship. But it's also probably the only reason I'm not morbidly obsese) And why I'm writing about corn for the third time in two weeks.

Now in all fairness, this is probably the most common corn dish in our dinner rotation, except that its usually made with canned and frozen corn so I just HAD to try it with the fresh! Can you blame me?

I can't exactly claim that this recipe is my own, as like the Taco Dip you'll find endless variations on the Internet. For years, I thought it was actually unique to a certain restaurant that we used to order "fancy" chinese food from. But that was stupid, because its on the menu of most Chinese restaurants. And it's insanely easy to make so I have no idea why the lightbulb only went off sometime last year that I could make the soup at home.

Anyway, this soup can be VERY easily made with a can of creamed corn, but for the purposes of the recent fresh corn obsession, I made my own. And it was tasty! The corn flavour was a lot more pronounced and although the corn itself was very sweet, the overall soup had a nice savoury element to it. But I won't lie. I'll probably keep making this with canned corn in the future because a part of the appeal for me is its convenience. So go ahead, grab that can and get cooking!

Chicken Corn Soup

Cream-Style Corn
3 cobs fresh corn, hulled (cobs reserved)
1 cup water
1 tbsp corn starch
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
(you can substitute canned creamed corn here as a shortcut. I'm going to guess this is about one large 19 ounce can of creamed corn)

Soup
2 cooked chicken breasts, cubed

1 cup imitation crab meat (optional)

4 cups chicken broth (preferably homemade)
1 tbsp corn starch
2 tbsp water
1 egg, lightly beaten
sesame oil (optional)
salt and pepper, to taste

1. Make the creamed corn - combine corn, water, corn starch, sugar and salt in a large pot and bring to a boil. Cook for about 5 minutes, until corn kernels are soft and plump. At this point you want to break up the corn kernels a bit. I used a hand blender lightly, you could use a stand blender or even just mash with a potato masher or ricer.

2. Add chicken stock, and bring to a boil. Let cook for about 10-15 minutes. If you used fresh corn, add the corn cobs to add some more flavour.

3. Remove corn cobs and add cooked chicken and crab meat, if using. Bring back to a boil and reduce heat to medium. Combine corn starch with water until a paste forms, and add to soup. Season with salt and pepper to taste and add some sesame oil (maybe 1 tsp) if using.

4. Reduce soup to a simmer, and add egg mixture. Wait a minute for the egg to cook slightly and give it a stir. And done.

Cranberry What?

2009-07-21T17:06:00.009-04:00

I've been meaning for some time now to get into baking some "fancier" breads mimicking the artisan-style loaves available at bakeries and grocery stores. I had my first attempt with the hearth bread awhile back but I had another ultimate goal in mind. In particular, I had visited a Loblaws a couple of months ago and was treated to an AMAZING sample of cranberry-pumpkin seed bread that I've been thinking about on and off ever since. So I thought I would finally try out a variation of this.

Except that apparently I have my seeds mixed up and I accidentally bought sunflower seeds, not pumpkin seeds. Which may have worked out because it may have actually been sunflower seeds all along that was in this aforementioned loaf. It's hard to say. I have the short-term memory of a goldfish. All I really remember is that is that it had cranberries, and was delicious.

Anyway...I decided to adapt (fairly heavily) a recipe from The Bread Bible. The actual recipe is for a raisin pecan bread but the underlying base seemed to be what I was looking for - hearth bread made from mostly white bread flour with a hint of whole wheat and studded with dried fruit and nuts/seeds. Plus I decided to bake the loaf in a Dutch oven, a la no-knead bread (I've contemplating trying no-knead bread more times than I can count, but the amount of rising time involved always ends up leading me to another recipe). I read in Ratio (I know, I've been talking about this book way too much lately...I am going to write an actual review of it soon so that I can get the rest of my raving out in one post) that you can actually bake any bread in a dutch oven to get that crispy, cracked crust without having to use complicating steaming methods like trays of ice cubes or spritzing, so it seemed like a good thing to try.

There are still a few things that I think I need to master with hearth breads, like how to form the loaves nicely and cut the slashes in the top of the loaf without completely flattening the dough, but overall this bread was really really good. Just a bit sweet and filled with the nutty toasted sunflower seeds, perfect with a smear of butter for breafast. Or with a hunk of cheese as a snack. And the dutch oven worked like a charm - Crunchy and nicely browned on the outside with NO steam necessary! I'll be baking the rest of my loaves this way for sure.

Cranberry Sunflower Loaf

adapted from the Bread Bible, by Rose Levy Berenbaum

Sponge
1 cup bread flour
1/2 tsp instant yeast

1 cup water at room temperature

1 tbsp honey

Flour Mixture

1 1/4 cups bread flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 tsp instant yeast

1 1/4 tsp salt

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1/4 cup lightly toasted sunflower seeds

1 cup dried cranberries

1. Soak the cranberries - place the cranberries in a small bowl and add enough hot water to cover. Let sit for about 20 minutes until softened and plump. Drain the cranberries, reserving the liquid in a 1 cup measure. Add enough warm water to equal 1 cup (this will be your 1 cup of room temperature water)

2. Make the sponge - In a large bowl, place the bread flour, yeast, water and honey. Whisk until very smooth and you can see some air bubbles, about 2 minutes. The sponge will be the consistency of a thick batter. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Set aside, covered with plastic wrap, while you make the flour mixture.

3. In a medium bowl, combine 1 cup of the bread flour, the whole wheat flour and yeast. Spoon this mixture lightly on top of the sponge. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let ferment for 1 to 4 hours at room temperature.

4. Mix the dough - add the salt and using a wooden spoon, stir the flour mixture into the sponge. Stir in the oil, sunflour seeds and cranberries, and mix to distribute throughout the dough. Knead the dough in the bowl until it all comes together, then scrap onto a lightly floured surface. Knead the dough for about 5 minutes, adding as little of the remaining 1/4 cup of flour as possible. It will be fairly tacky but just work through it. Cover with the bowl and let rest for about 20 minutes. Knead the dough for another 5 minutes, until it is smooth and elastic. It will still be a bit tacky but less than before. If you need to, add the remaining flour during this step.

5. Let the dough rise in a dough-rising container or bowl, lightly greased with oil. Lightly oil the top of the dough, cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

6. Scrape the dough out onto a lightly floured countertop and knead lightly. Shape the dough into an oval and place in a greased dutch oven, or a greased baking sheet. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

7. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Farenheit about 1 hour prior to baking.

8. Remove the plastic and let dough sit for about 5 minutes to dry out slightly. Using a sharp knife, slash the top of the dough a few times. If you're using a dutch oven, cover with the lid and bake for 30 minutes; remove lid after this point and continue baking for 10-15 more minutes, until the bread and golden and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

9. Remove bread from the oven and cool for as long as you can possibly wait - I think I made it about 20 minutes (Levy recommends 2 hours....right)

I Heart Corn

2009-07-17T14:01:00.003-04:00

So...after the whole potato salad revelation, I was still on a corn kick that I couldn't shake. So I just went with it, and made some corn muffins!

I know I already ranted about how much I love corn, so I won't repeat myself here. But I do LOVE corn bread yet haven't baked much of my own, mostly because I seem to have a hard time deciding between the savoury and sweet recipes out there and I always feel like I need to have something to eat the cornbread with. But...corn muffins are easier. Corn muffins can be eaten on their own! And they should always be sweet! (or at least I think so).

For this recipe, I adjusted Michael Ruhlman's basic quickbread ratio for muffins, adding in cornmeal and corn. And it was really good! Slightly but not too sweet, plenty of corn flavour from the kernels and not too crumbly. A couple of notes...I actually used a lightly grilled corn cob for this because it was all I had left of the fresh corn. I wouldn't do this again though, because the corn chunks came out a bit dry since they had already been cooked once (I assumed this would happen, but again it was all I had). I also reduced the egg from 2 to 1, because I was also looking at other random cornbread recipes and decided for some reason that this was a good idea. I don't think it was - the muffins, while delicious were a bit on the dense side. I think the extra egg would help with that so I'm going to leave that as the amount of eggs in the recipe.

Corn Muffins
1 1/4 cups cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk*
1 corn cob, hulled (you can also use frozen or canned corn here - it should be about a cup)

*I never actually keep buttermilk in the house, so to substitute, combine 1 tbsp of white vinegar and enough milk to make one cup and let sit at room temperature for about 10 minutes

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit

1. Combine cornmeal, flour, sugars, salt and baking powder in a medium-sized bowl.

2. Whisk together butter, egg and buttermilk. Pour into the dry mixture and stir until just combined.

3. Add in corn kernels

4. Drop by spoonful into a greased muffin tin, about 3/4 full. This will make enough for a dozen.

5. Bake in preheated oven for 12-15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean.

Eating Light....ish?

2009-07-15T22:24:00.003-04:00

Cooking in warm weather can be so difficult for a comfort food addict like me. It just doesn't seem right to make the baked pastas, casseroles and savoury pies that I love to make in colder weather. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of summer foods that I love but it just isn't what I crave after a long day that leaves me wanting nothing but fatty carbs (there is no logical reasoning for this - it's just what I do).

Fortunately, living in Canada there isn't a very long time span that this is actually a real problem. Especially this summer, there have been plenty of cold, windy, rainy days where I don't have the least bit of a problem with whipping up some soup or mac and cheese for dinner. But...still. I find I have a greater tendency to fall into cooking "ruts". Especially without access to a barbeque.

Luckily I've recently discovered quinoa. A friend of a friend made a delicious quinoa salad awhile back, and since then we've made a few variations of it for dinner. This recipe has an asian feel to it with the shrimp, ginger and sesame, plus a bit of sweetness from the pineapple. It's nice in that I can still feel like I'm getting my carbs (since it's a GRAIN salad) without feeling like I've just gained 5 pounds nad is great as leftovers for lunch (it actually tastes better after its been sitting in the fridge for awhile and the flavours have had a chance to soak in). And apparently it's good for you too. Score!

Summer Shrimp Quinoa Salad

1/2 cup quinoa (about 2 cups cooked)
2 cups frozen edamame beans
1/2 cup canned or fresh pineapple tidbits
2 stalks green onions

Shrimp (I think I used about 12 but I'm really not sure)
salt and pepper to taste
sesame seeds, for garnish

Dressing
1 tbsp minced ginger
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp brown sugar, packed

1/4 cup water

1 tbsp pineapple juice

1. Whisk dressing ingredients together until combined, and set aside

2. Bring 2 cups of water to a boil, and add quinoa. Cover and let cook over medium heat for about 20 minutes. Remove from heat, fluff with a fork, re-cover and let sit for about 10 minutes.

3. If the shrimp that you're using is frozen (as mine was), run it under cold water, and leave for about 10 minutes to drain. The shrimp should start thawing out pretty quickly. Or if you actually think ahead (as I rarely do) you can take it out and defrost it in the fridge for a few hours.

4. Stir fry the shrimp over medium heat in a skillet until cooked through. I poured some of the dressing over it while cooking so that it absorbed some of the flavour.

5. Cook the edamame beans until they're not frozen anymore. The ones I use are pre-cooked so they don't actually need to be cooked, per se. I just microwave for less time than I normally do (like...1 minute instead of 4). Remove the beans from the pod if you're using ones in the shell.

6. Slice up the green onions up to the dark green parts

7. Throw the quinoa, shrimp, green onions, pineapple tidbits and edamame beans in a large bowl

8. Add dressing, a bit at a time, until it looks wet enough for you. This would be completely to your preference so just keep going until it looks and tastes right. Season to taste and garnish with sesame seeds

Cooking for One

2009-07-11T21:47:00.002-04:00

Okay...this post includes a recipe, but that isn't really what I want to talk about. It's more of a side note.

Adam and I went to a barbeque at a friend's yesterday and I decided, in trying to break away from that Taco Dip rut, I would try something new - Potato Salad. I had seen a pretty tasty looking one on Pioneer Woman last week so I thought I would adapt that one. The particular recipe involved ricing the potatoes rather than using chunks. This seemed odd to me so I just chopped up the potatoes*. I also decided to add some apples and corn, and lemon to lighten up the flavour a tad, but not too much so as to take away from the base recipe and that fact that this WAS supposed to be potato salad, after all.

So I made this salad. And it was good - but not great. It definitely wasn't the best thing I've ever made. But, and this is the lesson here - there were so many things about it that were great, and it turned out that those things were the additions that I was hesitant to add too much of in the first place.

First off, the apples. This may sound disgusting, but when I was younger my mom would serve apple chunks slathered in mayo as a "salad". My dad loved it, and to be honest I did too. And though I may no longer eat this "salad" I thought it was perfectly acceptable to add apples to this one, and it was delicious!

And...the corn. Oh God the CORN. Just as a bit of background information, corn in general is one of my favourite foods. I love it in pretty much any form - out of the can, frozen, fresh corn on the cob. I'll add it to pretty much anything - salads, quesadillas, turkey sandwiches, or eat it mixed with mashed potatoes. It's even good on pizza, or omelettes. Anyway, I digress. Even with my lifelong love of corn, I've never, for some reason, cut corn off the. cob for other uses before. Maybe the frozen and canned versions were just too convenient, or cutting corn off the cob seemed too difficult. Either way, I had a couple of fresh corn cobs lying around so I figured I would try it (I won't lie - this was motivating. The directions in here are very helpful as well, so if you're going to try this at home follow these instructions!). And it's actually sad how happy it made me. The corn tasted SO MUCH BETTER than the other stuff. And cutting corn off the cob was so much easier than I expected, even possibly FUN (okay, I realized I sound like the world's biggest dork now, but whatever).

So anyway...I think that what I'm trying to say, is that sometimes it's okay to adapt a recipe to the point that it's a brand new dish. In this case, the next time I make this, it won't really be a "potato salad" as it will have quite a bit more of the apples and corn. I'm not really sure what it will be, per se. But that's okay. It will be delicious because there are delicious things in it, and it will be something totally new. And maybe no one else will want to eat it because I've overloaded on my favourite things and no one else's, but that's okay too - all the more for me.

*Although I've never made potato salad using riced/mashed potatoes before, I can see the appeal of it. This salad in particular seemed a bit bland, and I think largely because the potato chunks themselves had no flavour. I'm not sure if this could be improved by adding more salt to the water while the potatoes are boiling, but I do think that this is partly the reason for the ricing. The small pieces of potato you have, the more room there is to impart seasonings and flavour, and for the dressing to seep into every crevice. Regardless, I do like some chunks so I'll probably try ricing half the potatoes and using chunks for the other half next time.

Potato Salad
3 medium russet potatoes, washed, peeled and cubed
2 small macintosh apples, washed, peeled and cubed
3 stalks green onion
3 eggs
1 cob corn
1 lemon
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 tsbp yellow mustard
fresh dill
salt and pepper to taste

1. Hard boil eggs - put eggs in a small pot of water and bring to a boil. Remove from heat, cover and let sit for 12 minutes. Remove eggs and chill in ice water bath until cool.

2. Bring a large pot of water to a boil - add potatoes and corn.

3. After 3 minutes, remove corn and chill in ice water bath to stop the cooking. Once corn is cool, hull corn off the cob using a sharp knife. Use the dull edge of the knife to rub off the rest of the corn nubs as well. You can use Ree's step-by-step instructions from this recipe here.

4. While potatoes are cooking, cut up green onion and apples and chop up dill.

5. Peel and roughly chop hard boiled eggs

6. Mix mayo and mustard together

7. Once potatoes are fork-tender, drain and add to a large mixing bowl. Add eggs, green onion, apples, corn and dill. Add in mayo-mustard mixture and squeeze in juice of half a lemon. Add salt and pepper and mix to combine. Season to taste as needed.

Home Cooking

2009-07-11T14:28:00.001-04:00

When I first moved away from home, I didn't make or eat a lot of Korean food. I'd been eating it all my life, I still went back to my parents' place every couple of weeks so I didn't really feel the need to make it myself. However, the older I get the more I feel that changing. I still visit my parents quite often, but I find myself craving more and more of those home cooked meals from when I was a kid. I guess I've come to appreciate Korean cuisine a lot more (I was quite a picky eater as a child, so there were a lot of foods that I wouldn't eat) and now these dishes don't all fit into one weekend of meals. Either way, I've been trying to cook more of this myself at home and the best teacher for this is obviously my mom.

The problem with Korean food is that, unlike North American (or any other) cuisine, I can't just search for recipes online that seem to fit what I'm looking for. I need it to taste like what MOM made, so for that I need to go to the source. And since my mom (and I think this is the case with a lot of moms, or grandmothers that have been cooking for a long time) doesn't exactly write her recipes down, it's all about learning the techniques involved, or just how to eyeball the right amount of ingredients. For this reason I've started with the simplest recipes that a fairly small number of ingredients, to lessen the chance of messing up.

Hobak Jeon, or Korean Zucchini Pancakes, is one of the many popular street foods in Korea. There are only 5 ingredients involved and it's all about judging how much water to use - you want it to be fairly runny, not like a regular pancake batter at all (I'll admit - I DID try making these myself once previously using an online recipe. The pancakes were way too thick and puffy from not enough water in the batter) They don't taste anything like a North American pancake either - savoury and crispy, these are a tasty snack that is usually enjoyed with soy sauce.

Hobak Jeon (Korean Zucchini Pancakes)
1 zucchini
1 egg
1 cup flour
2 cups water
1 tsp salt
oil

1. Slice up zucchini into thin discs (the thinner the better!) and then slice the discs into thin strips. I admit, this takes awhile. You could probably use some sort of machine for this that I don't own.

2. Make the batter - Dump flour, salt and the egg into a medium sized bowl. Add 1 cup of water and stir. Continue adding water until you get a runny batter - how runny, it's hard to say. I can't think of a good comparison - like syrup? Or something like that. Add the zucchini and mix in.

3. Heat up your skillet or frying pan to medium heat with a good glug of canola oil. (My mom really emphasized that you should make sure you have enough oil to cover the pancake once you flip it as well) You don't want the heat to be too high or the pancakes will burn before cooking through the zucchini.

4. Using a ladle, pour in some batter. Make sure it's not too thick (the runniness will help with this). Cook for a couple of minutes, then flip over and continue cooking until both sides are browned and crispy. Cut into wedges and eat with soy sauce.

Pie!

2009-07-07T21:09:00.003-04:00

So remember that pie I've been thinking about for weeks? I actually did make one this weekend. I went to the local strawberry farm on Saturday afternoon and bought a couple of quarts of Ontario strawberries and a few stalks of bright and vibrant rhubarb for my first ever strawberry rhubarb pie. I really enjoy rhubarb because it's so tart and I don't like super sweet fruit desserts, but had never actually cooked with it before so I was very excited to try this out!

I also decided to try a (sort of) new pie crust recipe. I've been reading Ratio by Michael Ruhlman which is all about cooking with ratios rather than measurements, and focuses on the basic ingredients that you need to make something. In the case of pie, they are flour, fat and water. The recipe I normally use involves egg and vinegar, but I've been thinking lately that my pie crusts have been a bit too "puffy" and the egg probably has something to do with it. So I figured I would try it with just the basics and just a dash of sugar to sweeten it a tad.

And the result? Man was this good. Tart and sweet, with a wonderfully flaky crust. I forgot just HOW good strawberries and rhubarb are together. There was just the right amount of fruit chunks and slightly thickened syrup. I barely even noticed the Splenda, which when executed badly can totally kill a dessert for me (I have an unnatural aversion to artificial sweeteners).

So in short...I will be making this pie again before strawberry season is over. You should too.

Pie Dough
3-2-1 pie crust ratio
15 ounces flour
5 ounces butter
5 ounces vegetable shortening (I use Tenderflake)
5 ounces ice-cold water
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp sugar (optional)

Filling
from Bon Appetit via smittenkitchen
3 1/2 cups chopped rhubarb
3 1/2 cups chopped strawberries
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar (I used Splenda so that my dad could have a slice)
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt

1. Cut out butter and shortening amounts, and freeze for about 1/2 hour Making sure the ingredients are cold is incredibly important when making pie crust. I try to store the tools I'm going to be using in the freezer while my butter and shortening are in there as well to keep everything cool.

2. Measure out flour, salt and sugar into a large bowl

3. Cut in (or grate in) butter and shortening into the flour

4. Add water a couple tablespoons at a time, until flour mixture starts to clump together. Form a ball with your hands (be careful not to overwork the dough or it will end up tough)

5. Divide into two discs, wrap with saran wrap and refrigerate for about 20 minutes or until ready to use (you can do this a day or so in advance as well)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Farenheit

6. Combine filling ingredients together in a bowl.

7. Roll out bottom of pie crust until it's about 1 inch wider than your pie plate and transfer to pie plate

8. Spoon in filing

9. Roll out second crust. Slice into 1/2 inch strips and weave into a lattice pattern on top of pie. Trim edges with a bit of overhang and fold up so that your strips stay in place. Crimp edges if desired (I usually do, mostly because I find that my crust doesn't really "stay" in place if i don't).

10. Bake for about 20 minutes, then reduce temperature to 350 degrees and continue baking until edges are golden and filling is bubbling (This particular recipe said to bake for almost 2 hours. I only baked for about an hour)

Random Pie Crust Tips:
1. Use plenty of flour

2. Turn the dough at a 90 degree angle once or twice to make sure your dough isn't sticking to your surface

3. Don't freak out - it will get easier every time you make a pie

4. When you're ready to transfer the bottom crust to your pie plate, fold into quarters and place in your pie plate so that the bottom point is in the middle, and unfold

Signature Dish

2009-07-05T11:00:00.004-04:00

A few months back I read this article which got me thinking about what my "signature" dish might be. Something that, time and time again is requested for potlucks or parties, that may originally be from another source but has been made my own over time. I was discussing it with a friend and realized what it was. It's not a special casserole, or roast chicken, or even a great dessert. It's...taco dip.

Yes. TACO. DIP. That fattening but disturbingly addictive layered dip that was probably at the last barbeque you attended. You can likely name at least five people that make on a semi-regular basis. It's not particularly original, and definitely isn't classy. But I've been asked to make it so many times I can't even count, and have been told more than once that it's better than the other taco dips. So as much as I'm almost ashamed to admit, this is my signature dish. At least during barbeque season anyway.

This might sound really obvious, but the "secret" to my taco dip is the guacamole. For some reason most taco dip recipes out there don't include guac, but it really makes all the difference. I make a homemade, chunky guac for this layer and I swear that the amount of compliments I get on my taco dip has a direct relationship to the amount of guac in it. Just trust me on this.

Taco Dip

1 8oz block of light cream cheese, softened (I don't normally use light or low-fat products, but since the dip itself is so heavy and people have a tendency to eat a LOT of it I figure it's probably for the best)
1 250ml container of light sour cream (see above)
1 packet taco seasoning (I use the reduced salt kind)
1 small jar of mild or medium salsa
1-2 tomatoes, diced
Guacamole (see recipe below)
Cheese (not really sure how much...1 or two cups. Enough to cover your casserole dish)

Casserole dish...a 3 quart container in any shape should do it. Preferably glass so that you can see the layers. Or you can halve the recipe and use a smaller container. This makes a lot of taco dip.

1. Put the cream cheese in a bowl and kind of "cut" it with a fork. Start mixing small amounts of sour cream, using the fork to blend the two. This makes it easier to blend the two smoothly vs. just having sour cream with clumps of cream cheese floating around. Keep doing this until you've added all the sour cream and then mix in the taco seasoning until smooth and spread over the bottom of your dish.

2. Layer salsa. If you're using a glass dish and want the layers to show, start at the edges and work your way in with each layer.

3. Layer diced tomatoes, then guac as above.

4. Sprinkle the entire thing with cheese, enough to cover.

5. Cover with saran wrap (or a lid) and refrigerate until ready to eat. Either way, its best after it's been in the fridge for about an hour or so after the bottom layer has had a chance to firm up again.

Guacamole
2-3 avocados
1 shallot, finely diced (I only use about half of it)
1 lemon
Salt and pepper

1. Pit and scoop out the insides of avocados into a small bowl. Add shallots and the juice of 1/2 or whole lemon (depends on how lemony you like it) and season with salt and pepper

2. Run a knife through the bowl a few times until you get the chunkiness that you like. I make my guac pretty chunky, as you probably know so you can use a fork or something if you like it smoother

Something New

2009-07-02T08:32:00.004-04:00

Happy Canada Day! I realize this is delayed, but as I spent the day out and about (and definitely not cooking a thing) there wasn't much time to write something down.

So I've been thinking for awhile that I should try and set some cooking-related "goals" for myself with a deadline, as I have a tendency to get lazy and be all "Oh I'll cook that sometime..." and then never get around to it. Case in point: I've been talking about pies for probably three weeks now. I keep saying that I'm going to make pie "this" weekend and then something comes up. Though seriously...I swear I AM going to make pie this weekend! Anyway, with the beginning of a new month, it seems like the perfect time to make a to-cook list.

Note: Although I was originally planning on keeping this list limited to things that I've never made before, there are dishes that I don't make often enough (like pie) or have only made a few times but are SO good (like baked beans) that I'm also going to include.

To-Cook List for July
Pie!
Baked Beans
Hamburgers
Homemade Pasta (not really sure what kind yet...I wanted to try gnocchi but as I've never tried making pasta before it might not be the best place to start)
Doughnuts

That's all I have for now. I am realizing as I read this back that this is a really carb-heavy list. Unfortunately, this will probably be a pattern as I don't tend to think "now I REALLY want to try that amazing looking salad recipe I saw awhile back". Also as it's summer and have been re-reading a lot of the Little House series lately, I seem to be gravitating towards comfort-style picnic food. I'll cross these off as I go and we'll see how far I get by the end of the month. I'm going to try and do this on a monthly basis. Also if you have any suggestions on things to try please let me know in the comments :)

Bagels!

2009-06-29T18:56:00.001-04:00

Bagels have been on my "To Bake" list for some time now. Ever since I realized this was something you COULD do at home, it's been hanging out in the back of my mind as something to try. But I kept putting it off. There are a lot of steps involved in bagel-making, which made it somewhat intimidating. Not to mention the fact that you really need two days from start to finish. Time is always an issue with me an bread-baking, so I was always thinking "maybe next weekend..."

Enter Father's day weekend. My dad is a diabetic with a pretty terrible sweet tooth. He's constantly trying to sneak sugar and other things he can’t eat when no one's paying attention. White bread products are an issue. He refuses to eat whole wheat bread and loves cinnamon raisin bagels even though the store-bought variety is chock-full of sugar.

Anyway, I figured that I'd be in Ancaster for two days with no real plans. Why not make my own bagels with (some) whole wheat flour and less sugar so that my dad could enjoy them without guilt?

I started these on Saturday evening and finished them Sunday morning. I followed mostly the Smitten Kitchen version of Peter Reinhart's bagel recipe.

Let me just say, I was SO excited about finally making my own bagel during the entire process. So excited in fact, that I may have deliriously made some adjustments to the recipe that probably weren’t a great idea. Like substittuing the malt syrup with molasses. The recipe specified malt power OR syrup OR brown sugar. I didn’t have the first two, but I had just bought some molasses and I figured...brown sugar is sugar WITH molasses...why not? This didn’t turn out terribly but the molasses definitely added their own flavour that wasn’t exactly bagel-y. And deciding that lining my pans with flour instead of cornmeal was okay (I only did this for the proofing and refrigeration, on Sunday morning I realized that my parents DID have cornmeal and used that for the baking step). The flour stuck to the dough and made white clumps form on some of the bagels during the boiling step. But anyway, overall the bagels did turn out quite well. They were a bit flatter than I would have liked, and I probably won’t use molasses next time. But the flavour was still quite nice and the bagels were so nicely chewy and soft. Plus, the cinnamon raisin ones tasted great. And I finally made BAGELS!

Bagels!

Sponge
1 ½ tsp active dry yeast
4 cups bread flour
2 ½ cups room temperature water

Dough
½ tsp active dry yeast
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 ¾ cups bread flour
2 ¾ tsp salt
2 tsp malt powder OR 1 tbsp dark or light malt syrup, honey, or brown sugar (I used molasses...)

I split the dough in half and added also:
1 cup california raisins
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp brown sugar
a bit more molasses for that "swirl" look
Cornmeal or semolina for dusting

1. Make the sponge: combine yeast and water, stir until the yeast is dissolved. Add the flour and whisk until you have a thick pancake-batter like consistency. Cover with plastic wrap and leave in a warm place for about 2 hours, or until it has at least doubled in size and is bubbly.

2. Stir in the remaining yeast, then 3 cups of the remaining flour. Stir until the ingredients form a ball. I will say that if you’re doing this by hand (as I was) this is pretty hard. You’re going to have to put some muscle into it to really get a ball going. I gave up pretty quickly and just started mixing witih my hands until I pretty much had a ball.

3. Dump the dough out onto a lightly floured countertop and knead for at least 10 minutes (I ended up kneading for about 15). Knead in the remaining ¾ cup of flour to stiffen as you go. The dough should be smooth and not too tacky by the time you’re done, and feel fairly stiff. A few minutes into the kneading I also split my dough and added the ingredients for cinnamon raison bagels to half of the dough.

4. Divide the dough into 4 ½ ounce pieces, or smaller if desired (I did 3 ounces)

5. Cover the dough balls with a damp cloth and let rest about 20 minutes

6. Lightly grease a few cookie sheets with oil, and sprinkle with cornmeal (this is where i made that flour error: do not repeat my mistake)

7. Shape bagels: Just take the balls, poke a hole through with your thumb and widen gently untli they look like bagels. I didn’t measure mine so I’m not exactly sure how large they were.

8. Place bagels on the cookie sheets, cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 20-30 minutes at room temperature

9. At this point, you’re supposed to do the “float test” to make sure that they float. Take a bagel and drop into warm/room temperature water and see if it floats within 10 seconds. Though I’ve read at a few places that they didn’t do this (or let the dough rest at all before refrigerating) and the bagels floated fine, so I’m not sure just HOW necessary this step is.

10. Refrigerate bagels for 12-24 hours

11. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. You’re going to want to use your widest pot for this so that you can fit in as many bagels as possible at a time. I ended up using a deep wok because it was wider than any pot that my mom had, and it seemed easier than using a deep pot. I had no issues.

12. Add 1 tsbp of baking powder to boiling water

13. Boil bagels for 1-2 minutes per side, in batches. I think I ended up boiling for about a minute and a half per side. Remove with a slotted spoon and place back on baking sheets lined with cornmeal. If you’re adding any more toppings at this point, do it immediately after removing from the water so that the toppings stick.

14. Bake in a preheated oven at 400 degrees farenheit for 5 minutes, rotate 180 degrees and continue baking for another 5 minutes. I think I baked for about another 5 minutes because they weren’t so dark by the end of this.

15. Let cool for about 15 minutes before serving.

Mmm Barbeque

2009-06-27T10:09:00.008-04:00

My dad hates going out to restaurants. He just doesn't understand why someone would WANT to spend two hours in a restaurant and hates that the food doesn't come out faster. He also just prefers home-cooked (ideally Korean) meals and doesn't see why we would ever eat out when the food is better, and cheaper at home. Of course my mom is the complete opposite and really enjoys going out to eat so we do usually end up at restaurants for special occasions, but on Father's day of course dad gets what he wants.

This year we had his favourite shish kebabs as part of a barbeque feast. (I'm not exaggerating here. We had WAY too much food for four people) These kebabs are sweet, tangy and the roasted vegetables are a perfect compliment to the beef. I also tried out a new recipe for grilled shrimp from Bon Appetit that was really yummy as well. Easy and delicious, and very little waiting involved!

Beef Shish Kebabs

1-2lbs beef tenderloin or striploin
2 white onions, cut into eighths (cut in half and quarter each half)
a few stalks of green onions, cut into 1-inch pieces
a couple of red, yellow or orange peppers cut into 1-inch pieces
1 zucchini, cut into small chunks
cherry tomatoes
kebab skewers (you might want to soak these beforehand - I never have but this always seems to be the instruction in kebab recipes so I'm not sure...)

Marinade
*please keep in mind that these measurements are estimates - I always just adjust this to taste as I go, and my dad prefers these on the sweet side so you may want to cut down the honey or brown sugar
1/2 cup olive oil
1/8 cup soy sauce
1/8 cup white wine vinegar
1/8 cup honey
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper

1. Place beef in a shallow-ish tupperware container. Ideally you want the beef in one layer so that it can soak up the marinade, but you can use a smaller, deeper one and just rotate the meat once in awhile.
2. Whisk together marinade ingredients and adjust to taste. Pour over beef and refrigerate for a few hours (you can do this overnight if you want as well).
3. Cut up beef into 1-inch cubes (you could also do this pre-marinade if you'd like)
4. Skewer beef and vegetables onto kebab skewers, alternating between onions, beef, peppers, zucchini. Leave about an inch open at the top for the cherry tomatoes (you'll add these later)
5. Grill for about 5-10 minutes, then flip and add a cherry tomato to the end of each skewer
6. Grill for an additional 5-10 minutes, to preferred doneness (I would generally cook these for about 5 minutes a side but my dad likes his meat well done)

Grilled Shrimp with Molasses-Guava Glaze (adapted from Bon Appetit)
*I actually did adjust the glaze quite a bit. I only had dark molasses on hand, so I had to adjust the jam:molasses ratio to make it work

4 tbsp cooking molasses
5 tbsp guava or apricot jam (I used guava-peach-mango jam because we already had some)
1 1/2 tbsp butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
finely grated peel of 2 limes
juice of 1 lime
32 uncooked shrimp, peeled, deveined
salt and pepper
Kebab skewers (same note about soaking as above)

1. Combine molasses, jam and butter in microwave-safe container. Microwave in 30 second increments until butter is melted and ingredients are well combined. Add lime peel and lime juice. (you can do this in advance in refrigerate until ready to use)
2. Season shrimp with salt and pepper and thread 4 shrimp on each skewer.
3. Brush shrimp skewers with glaze on both sides.
4. Barbeque on medium-high heat for about 2 minutes per side. (The recipe says to continue glazing and drizzle with some reserved glaze at the end but I found this unecessary so skipped these steps)

Worst. Idea. Ever.

2009-06-23T22:22:00.009-04:00

So...remember when I said that this was my breakfast 60% of the time? Well, conveniently JUST as I wrote about it, in the last week it's really started to feel like summer around here and well, oatmeal isn't really the type of thing you want to eat on a hot day. Well, yesterday I read this article and thought to myself "what a brilliant idea! I can still have my daily oatmeal, in granola form!" So last night when I got home from work I whipped up a batch of granola with my basic oatmeal ingredients - rolled oats, almonds and walnuts (I had some kicking around as well) and dried cranberries. And man, was I patting myself on the back once it was finished. It looked, smelled and tasted SO good. Genius, right?

Well, this moring I decided to have a bowl of this awesome granola with some milk and what happened? I CHIPPED A TOOTH.

Okay, so I should really mention that I had a moment of slight panic during the granola-making where I realized my granola wasn't really "clumping" and whipped up a quick crumble-esque mix to add to the mixture. (I did read a few comments about this around the web that this doesn't happen so much with homemade granola anyway but would I have that? noooo) These ended up being quite crunchy and probably what led to the aforementioned tooth incident.

Anyway, needless to say I was quite disgusted with myself and am no longer so impressed with said granola. Though really, that shouldn't stop you from making it. It really IS delicious. And easy! Just don't freak out about the lack of clumps. Your teeth will thank you later.

Cranberry-Almond (and Walnut) Granola

Granola, like oatmeal, is incredibly versatile in that you can really add whatever you want to it. Overall you're looking for about 1/2 cup of wet mix to 4 cups of dry mix.

Dry Mix
1 1/2 cup rolled oats
1 1/2 cups quick-cooking scottish oats (you can use any variation of oats here, I just ran out of rolled oats)
1 cup sliced almonds
1/4 cup walnuts

Wet Mix
1/8 cup canola oil (you can use any type of oil here)
1/3 cup honey
1 tbsp molasses
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt

1 cup dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 250 degrees Farenheit

1. Combine dry mix together and spread out on a parchment-lined baking sheet (I used the Silpat)
2. Mix wet mix together until combined, and drizzle over dry mix; stir gently to combine
3. Bake in preheated oven for about 2 hours, stirring every 15 minutes
4. Remove from oven and stir in dried cranberries while mix is still warm.
5. Once cool, store in an airtight container.

Don't Mess with a Good Thing

2009-06-21T01:17:00.010-04:00

I've had a lingering scone craving for a couple of weeks now. First, I saw this recipe for Strawberry Sour Cream scones with brown sugar crumble. I'm not going to lie...it looked good, but not necessarily like something I was going to run out and make right away. I have a pretty amazing standby scone recipe which has been giving the thumbs up by BRITISH foodies. The new recipe was also SO different from the old one - slightly more liquid with HALF the flour. How does that even make sense? Let's just say it made me nervous. But then a friend tried out these strawberry scones and raved, which made me wonder if maybe there was room for improvement.

Anyway, I also I saw this a few days later, which then led to a craving for clotted cream. And obviously a scone is the best vehicle for that.

And THEN...(oh god I know you're thinking "where the hell is this story going?? I swear there's a light a the end of the tunnel) I went to a Wine and Spirit festival in the Distillery where I had a DELICIOUS strawberry daquiri and it was brought to my attention that strawberry season in Ontario has officially started, as of this week. And all of a sudden, this recipe that I wasn't so enthusiastic about at first turned into something I HAD to have NOW.

So. I went running around to acquire the ingredients for this recipe. The clotted cream was surprisingly easy to find. Loblaws sells "Devon Cream" in most of its stores, and according to that article above Devon cream is just clotted cream from Devon. Now, I've heard some other whispers about Devon cream not being the same thing outside of London, but this stuff was apparently imported from London so I was willing to give it a shot. But on an equally surprising note, the strawberries were NOT so easy to find. I'm almost embarassed to say, but after visiting two grocery stores and a strawberry farm which had sadly sold out of strawberries for the day, I was reduced to buying imported strawberries from California. Ugh. But by this point I NEEDED to try these scones, so this would have to do.

And....well, I'm sad to say my instinct was right. The author does point out that this makes an "extremely light and flaky scone" with an extremely wet batter. It was light...but too light. And way too moist. Not like a real scone at all. And not enough butter to really make them flaky versus just fluffy. They were definitely good in their own right, but overall I was disappointed.

What I WASN'T disappointed with, though were the Devon cream (I haven't had real clotted cream in about a year, but this seemed like the stuff I remembered...mmm) and the brown sugar crumble. Though I might not appreciate this topping on a "real" scone, it definitely added to the moist and fluffy pastry that this recipe produced.

Anyway...the moral of this story for me is...sometimes it's just not worth trying to completely reinvent the wheel. Just tweak the already great one that you're already using.

Strawberry Sour-cream Scones with Brown Sugar Crumble (adapted from theKitchn)

Scones
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
4 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
4 tbsp butter (generally recipes say to use unsalted butter. I do keep separate butter for baking but as I was at my parents' place for the weekend I used salted)
1 cup strawberries, chopped
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 cup sour cream
1/4 milk (I was supposed to use whole milk or cream. I do understand this adds to the richness of a recipe but I NEVER have either of these around. I used 2%. Maybe this was the problem, but I really doubt it would have completely changed my opinion)
1 tsp vanilla extract

Brown sugar crumble
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
3 tbsp butter

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Farenheit (about 200 degrees Celsius)

1. Combine dry ingredients (the first four items) in a large bowl. Cut in butter*. Toss in strawberries and coat in flour mixture.
2. Whisk liquid ingredients (everything else) together. Add to the dry mixture and stir until a wet dough forms (it's going to be REALLY wet).
3. Pat the dough into two circles if you can, and cut into six wedges each. Or you can just drop spoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet if it's too wet to handle.
4. To make crumble, combine brown sugar, flour and butter in a small bowl and mush with your fingers until a crumble forms. Sprinkle onto the scones**
5. Bake for 20-25 minutes until scones are golden in spots. Let cool for five minutes on the pan.

*Cutting in butter: I've always had issues with this step because I don't own a pastry blender or stand mixer, which are the standard tools you would use here. You can either use two knives (run them in opposite directions to "cut" the butter into the flour mixture) or freeze the fat for about 20 minutes and grate into the flour mixture, and toss to coat. I saw Anna Olsen do this once on Sugar and I thought it was absolutely brilliant. I always do this now.

**The original recipe says to only do this if you're planning on eating the scones on the same day, as the crumble topping will otherwise get soggy. So if you're planning on having leftovers, don't use the topping and just swipe on some butter and sprinkle with brown sugar when eating.

Breakfast of Champions

2009-06-17T09:15:00.009-04:00

Oatmeal is kind of an anomaly for me. There are few dishes out there that sit in my "comfort foods" category that does not require an obscene amount of butter, cream, cheese or sugar. But oatmeal...oatmeal! It's good for you*, AND delicious. So delicious, in fact that almost every time I take my first bite I think "oh god, I forgot how good this is!".

I know. You think I'm crazy, because oatmeal is that gross, gruel-like slop that you ate as a kid with too much sugar and no texture at all. But that's not oatmeal. It doesn't even come close. Real oatmeal is creamy and full of texture and yummy. Plus it's oh-so versatile because you can add whatever you like to it. And you can still make it in the microwave (I usually make it at work).

*I do realize that the whole "good for you" thing can depend on what you put IN your oatmeal. I could probably not use the half-and-half, and maybe do with less sugar. But you know what? It's probably still better for me than a bagel loaded with cream cheese so I'm not gonna worry about it.

Jess' Breakfast like, 60% of the time

1/3 cup rolled oats

2/3 cup water

1 heaping tsp brown sugar

splash of vanilla

pinch of salt

dried cranberries

almond slices

cinnamon

1. Combine all ingredients together (unless you're taking it to work..then put everything except the water in a container or ziploc bag and continue when you get to the office) in a large-ish, microwave-save bowl. You want to make sure it's big enough so that you don't have to keep stopping it so that the oatmeal doesn't spill over (I use the IKEA 365 bowls)

2. Microwave on high for 3 or 4 minutes, depending on how strong your microwave is and how you like your oatmeal. You can stop and check at some point along the way and check.

3. Let sit for a couple of minutes (it's going to be way too hot for you to eat right away anyway)

4. Add a splash of milk, cream or half-and-half (my preference) if you'd like and enjoy!

Cookie Monster

2009-06-13T11:30:00.012-04:00

My boyfriend has a pretty insatiable sweet tooth. Throughout our relationship every birthday, anniversary, Valentine's day and Christmas present has generally included some sweets and desserts, with cookies topping the list. Hershey's kiss cookies, homemade fortune cookies, shortbread, sandwich cookies...the list goes on and on. But as I continue to look for new and improved cookie recipes that are better than the last, Adam's favourite continues to be the boring-but-dependable chocolate chip oatmeal cookie.

This is a really simple, basic chocolate chip cookie recipe. Gooey and chocolatey, with just a bit of cakeiness so that they stay soft for days (though I don't necessarily remember the last time they lasted so long). I can't make these fast enough. It's a feat if a batch manages to last for two days. I usually make a double batch and freeze half the dough so that we have some homemade dough readily on hand for a cookie emergengy, be it a last minute get-together, birthday or just a cookie craving.

I'll continue to try new recipes for future birthdays and anniversaries. But I doubt that the requests for these cookies will ever stop coming.

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Farenheit

1. Cream sugars and butter together in a large bowl (to "cream" basically just means to beat together until the mixture gets light and fluffy, and the butter looks lighter than it was before. You can beat the butter first for a bit and then add the sugar. I usually use a wooden spoon for this)
2. Add eggs, one at a time, until well incorporated
3. Add vanilla
4. In another bowl, combine flour, oats, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Add to liquid mixture and stir to combine.
5. Add in chocolate chips

At this point, you can chill for 15-10 minutes to firm up the dough a bit but if you're in a rush (as I usually am) just skip to the next step. Also you can take some dough and freeze it in a log at this point for future "emergencies"

6. Drop by spoonful onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes until the edges are golden brown. Cool for about 5 minutes on the cookie sheet and serve.

Note: You can also substitute half or all of the butter with peanut butter for an equally yummy peanut butter chocolate chip cookie.

Korean Comfort Food

2009-06-12T16:26:00.008-04:00

Last night I was home alone, cooking for one and didn't really feel like putting a lot of time into cooking a huge dinner. I wanted something quick and easy, but I'd also been craving some Korean food since I haven't been to my parents' place in a few weeks. Then I realized that I STILL hadn't gotten around to actually trying Sujaebi by myself at home. Perfect!

Growing up, comfort food didn't mean chicken pot pie, mac 'n' cheese or any of the other things that might immediately come to mind. It meant sujaebi, a ridiculously easy potato broth soup with hand-pulled dumplings. The broth makes it seem like a light dish but really it's full of starchy, salty dumplings and yummy potato chunks.

There are a number of variations of this dish, with different combinations of vegetables, kimchi, spicy sauce and seafood. But I didn't like any of those things as a kid, so my mom made my sujaebi with the most basic ingredients. And it's still the way I eat it. So simple but delicious.

Note: Though I tend to follow very specific recipes and instructions when I cook, the Korean dishes in my mental recipe file are the exception. My mom has never used a recipe as far as I know so I've also never tried to write them down. But even if I had, this dish is so easy that it really doesn't matter. The only thing is that the scale of the recipe can really vary. The measurements below make about two bowls of sujaebi.

Mom's Sujaebi

Dumpling dough
1 cup flour
salt
1 egg
oil
water

1. Measure out the flour into a small mixing bowl. Add some salt and a bit of oil (really you can use as little or as much as you want - I'm not really even sure what it's for).
2. Make a well and add the egg and some water. This is where the measurement is really sketchy. I usually just add a small amount and add as I stir...
3. Stir with a wooden spoon or your fingers until a sticky dough forms. Knead in the bowl for a couple of minutes, adding more water or flour as necessary until you have a fairly tacky but firm dough. Wrap with saran wrap and put in the fridge while you make the broth.

Sujaebi
Water
Salt
Anchovy Powder*
1/2 a Potato (I used Yukon Gold)

*I think you can find Anchovy powder at Asian supermarkets. To me, this is an essential ingredient that defines the flavour of the dish, but I'm sure you could use your own flavourings and spices to your preference

1. Put some water in a pot. I think I used about 3 cups. Salt and turn on the heat to high.
2. Cut up the potatoes into 1/4 inch-ish slices, cutting up the larger chunks into halves or quarters. It doesn't really matter as long as the slices are somewhat even. Add to the water in the pot.
3. Boil until potatoes are still just a bit firm, but starting to soften.
4. Add Sujaebi dumplings. This is probably the hardest part. I always had issues with pulling the dough, and it's only over time I've gotten better at creating the flat, thin dumplings that are ideal for Sujaebi.

Take the dough ball out of the fridge - divide in half (it's usually easier to work with a smaller ball)
Holding the ball in one hand, pull out a bit and flatten so it's pretty thin
Pull the flattened bit off the ball, and use your other hand to stretch it out some more so that it's kind of like a thick potato chip in shape - drop into the boiling broth
Repeat until both dough balls are in the broth

5. Give the Sujaebi a stir so that all the dumplings are wet. Add more salt and anchovy powder to taste. Continue lightly boiling for about 2 minutes, until the dumplings are cooked through.

Egg Yolk Makes Everything Better

2009-06-11T19:54:00.001-04:00

Last night I made breakfast pizza. It's something I've been meaning to try since seeing this awhile back. Pizza...eggs...cheese...what's not to love?

I can't believe I waited so long to try it. Eggy yolk oozing over everything, perfect for dipping pizza crust* into. It was so good with the asparagus, tomato and spinach on the pizza, topped with mozzarella and a sprinkling of fresh parmesan. De-lish.

My only issue was that the egg made my pizza a lot more filling, which meant I could eat less. And this clearly isn't a problem at all. Yum.

*I do seem to have an issue with my pizza crusts. I think I need to either try NOT using whole wheat flour, get a pizza stone or knead a lot more. They're just too bready. I'll work on it.

Breakfast pizza with Asparagus, Tomato and Spinach

Pizza dough
3/4 cup warm water
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 tsp active dry yeast
1 tsp salt

1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees Farenheit, or the hottest setting your oven has. Apparently you're supposed to do this about an hour before you bake the pizza. I don't generally have this much patience - maybe that's the problem with my crust.

2. Combine warm water and yeast; mix until yeast is dissolved. Set aside for a few minutes until foamy.

3. Mix dry ingredients. Make a well, and add water/yeast mixture. Stir with a wooden spoon until it's too hard to stir. Knead in the bowl until a dough forms, then turn onto a lightly floured countertop and knead for about 5 minutes. The dough should be smooth and kind of tacky by the time you're done. Leave on the counter and cover with the bowl while you prepare the pizza toppings and sauce.

Pizza
Pizza sauce (I already had some from a previous batch in the freezer)
Asparagus stalks, ends snapped off (I heard you can thinly slice the tough bottoms and saute for frittatas, omelettes and whatnot. I did this and threw them in the freezer for future use)
Baby Spinach leaves
Tomato (diced)
Mozzarella
Parmesan
Egg(s)

1. Roll out pizza dough as thin as you want. If you're making thin crust pizza, roll it out as thin as you can without ripping when you pick it up. Move to a parchment-lined cookie sheet

2. Spread pizza sauce on dough, leaving about a half inch for the crust (unless you don't like a lot of crust)

3. Sprinkle lightly with mozzarella; top with asparagus stalks, baby spinach, tomatoes and more mozzarella.

4. Place in pre-heated oven for about 5 minutes. Remove from oven, crack an egg or two on top, sprinkle with salt, pepper and parmesan and put back into the oven for 5-10 more minutes, until the egg is set and the crust is browned.

A Better (not perfect) English Muffin

2009-06-10T21:21:00.012-04:00

My first attempt at making english muffins wasn't the result of a sudden burst of creative energy, or the need to challenge my somewhat monotonous bread-baking repetoire. To tell you the truth, making my own english
muffins was never something that even crossed my mind until I read this. Even then, after I'd starred the article in my Google Reader feed for future reference it still seemed like one of those things that weren't reaaaally worth doing at home.

That was until Victoria day weekend. We were planning on making Eggs Benedict at home on the Monday morning and as sad as this sounds, it was probably the thing I was most looking forward to all weekend. We had plans to visit a friend's new condo on Sunday, so the plan was to stop at our 24-hour Sobeys on the way home to pick up the necessary english muffins. But of course, I hadn't factored in the fact that after midnight it was technically MONDAY and therefore a holiday, and Sobeys was closed. Damn.

So....I was faced with the choice of either making my own english muffins, or postponing the much-anticipated eggs benedict. And of course the latter wasn't really an option. So I decided to go for it. And they were good! The texture was all there - fluffy, holey and they easily split open with a fork. Amazing. But, the flavour was somewhat lacking. They definitely didn't have that sour tang I'm used to from store-bought muffins. I decided that next time (and there would be a next time) I would look for a recipe that addressed my issue.

Enter The Bread Bible. One of the things that Berenbaum specifies in her book is the use of a sponge, starter, or biga in her breads. This helps to add a natural flavour, or tang to the bread. After a short-lived attempt at making my own sourdough starter (which was a complete failure) this seemed to be a better and easier way.

And...these english muffins were delicious. The flavour was perfect - buttery with that slight sourness I missed in the first bath. But the texture was all wrong. I'm not sure if I did something wrong in the instructions or overworked the dough but these muffins were flat and had almost no nooks and crannies. So I guess I'm halfway there...next time I'm going to have to try and combine the two recipes and see what happens. The search continues.

Hearth Bread

2009-06-10T19:59:00.002-04:00

I don't buy a lot of cookbooks. For the most part, I find the majority of the recipes I use from various foodie blogs and communities. Even when using cookbook recipes, I often combine advice from online sites and recipes as convenient.

However, recently I've been trying to expand my bread-baking experiences outside of just sandwich loaves and dinner rolls. I wanted to try something more challenging, or maybe just more impressive to my friends when I tell them what I've been doing in the evenings. But anyway, I decided to buy a bread-related cookbook. I had a few possibilites in mind, but when I saw The Bread Bible was selling at only $35 CAD, I knew it was a sign. It was the SAME as the US PRICE. So anyway, I bought it. And I decided to try following the recipes as printed, no substitutions or adjustments from other sources.

I chose the Basic Hearth Bread, which I think is the same as Artisan-style bread. Berenbaum's recipes are very detailed with specific instructions, and I missed a few steps. I didn't have instant yeast so I used the active dry form that I normally use (you need to combine this kind with water before using). I also didn't have dry milk so I used scalded milk as she suggested. Aaand I might have used slightly more whole wheat flour than suggested (not on purpose, I read the measurement wrong). But even with my screwups, it was pretty good. It had the chewy, crisp crust that my other loaves don't have and some of the large-ish holes that characterize artisan breads. And as long as it took, I felt pretty proud of myself in the end. There's something about a "rustic" freeform loaf that is so much more pleasing than sandwich bread. I'll definitely be making this again!