Archive for January, 2008
Apparently, recipes have always been my thing. When I was little, I enjoyed reading cooking magazines more than Owl or Chickadee. In grade 3, I told my class I wanted to be the food editor of Canadian Living magazine when everyone else wanted to be nurses and firemen and princesses. When I was old enough to babysit, I’d spend those evenings flipping through people’s cookbook collections - it was a jackpot night when I stumbled upon an old recipe box to bring to the couch while I watched Fantasy Island. I’ve always been curious about what people eat.
So I still have 4 recipe boxes full of recipe cards I hand wrote or typed out on my electric typewriter when I was a kid-slash-teenager. Willem has recently discovered them, and thinks they are the funnest toys ever. (It used to be the stacks of business cards in my file cabinet that were the funnest, but these cards are bigger.) He likes to take them out one by one and then bring them to me. Wahoo! Who needs that big wooden train set or Mr. Potato Head?
I think the events that transpired yesterday could be classified as serendipitous. I noticed while rooting through the fridge that the two containers of ricotta I bought for some reason a month ago and never used were on the verge of expiring, and ricotta ain’t cheap. But what was I going to do with 4 cups of ricotta? I didn’t have enough other stuff to make lasagna, and while Nigella’s ricotta donuts would have been fabulous (I can’t find the link on my blog… it’s there somewhere, otherwise look in Feast), making them at home for just the three of us wouldn’t have been a good idea at all.
So yesterday afternoon W brought me a recipe card, and on it was a formula for ricotta gnocchi. This is one of few recipe cards that has stuck in my mind. I remember not knowing what gnocchi was when I typed it, but it sounded like something I needed to learn. This was gnocchi you roasted in the oven, drizzling with melted butter and Parmesan cheese as you rolled them around on the cookie sheet until they turned golden and crispy all over. To this day, every time the subject of gnocchi comes up, or I see it on a restaurant menu, I think of that recipe, which I never did actually make. Until today.
It was supposed to be last night’s dinner. I quickly stirred an egg, some flour and Parmesan into the ricotta, and then noticed the mixture needed to sit for 2 hours. So it sat in the fridge for 24, and this morning I floured my hands and rolled them into little balls while Willem ate his oatmeal. The mixture was very soft despite my addition of extra flour, but that’s OK; although it was impossible to roll the dough into a rope, cut it into pieces and then roll each piece on the tines of a fork to create the traditional gnocchi shape, they made perfect little round ricotta dumplings. I imagine they would be fantastic dropped onto the surface of a simmering chicken stew - perhaps tomato-based - to cook in the broth and flavorful steam trapped under the lid.
And since I had enough chicken drumsticks and thighs to feed an army (or a radio newsroom the Friday morning before Super Bowl Sunday) I threw a few extra into my cast iron skillet, drizzled with oil, salt and pepper, and stuck it on the oven shelf above the gnocchi. Putting away the groceries I discovered a few depressed brussels sprouts, so halved them and scattered them around the chicken as it roasted, which I was happy to discover produced a plethora of crispy bits.
Ricotta Gnocchi
1 lb. (2 cups) ricotta cheese (regular or light)
1-2 eggs (the original recipe called for 2, but I only had 1 left)
1/2 cup grated mozarella or 1/4 cup grated Parmesan
3/4 cup flour
pinch salt
Butter, oil and Parmesan cheese for roasting
Stir together all the ingredients in a bowl, cover and refrigerate for an hour or overnight.
Lightly shake some flour over the countertop and onto your hands, and roll the mixture into 1″ balls; place them on a floured cookie sheet, cover and pop in the fridge for an hour or 8, if you don’t want to cook them right away. (I imagine they would also freeze very well.)
Preheat the oven to 400F and boil a large pot of water. Drop the gnocchi in about 8 at a time (depending on the size of your pot - you just don’t want to crowd it) and boil for 3-4 minutes, or until they float to the surface. Remove from the water with a slotted spoon, and put them on a rimmed cookie sheet.
Drizzle with melted butter and/or canola oil, and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Roast in the oven, turning occasionally and sprinkling with more cheese (or drizzling with more butter or oil) if you like, until crunchy and golden.
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January 31 2008 | cheese and pasta and vegetarian | 2 Comments »
Wor won ton soup is one of Mike’s favorite things. From King’s in particular - there was that one time, when he was working for a helicopter company out by the original King’s in the northeast, when he went for the Friday wor won ton soup run and bailed down the icy slope right outside the front door, dumping 6 large (about 1L) containers of the soup version of pure gold all over himself and producing a chunky, icy soup slide as it instantly froze on the grass. On a happy note, King’s graciously replaced them all for him, but he now frequents the southeast location.
I had pulled a package of won ton wrappers from the freezer awhile ago in order to make chips - to do this, cut the wrappers into triangles or strips, brush them with a little oil or water to help any seasonings adhere, and sprinkle them with any number of flavorings: lemon pepper, sesame seeds and Parmesan cheese, curry powder, or some of that powdered ranch dip mix. Toast them in the oven on a baking sheet until golden, and you’ll have crunchy, low calorie crackers that are able to structurally tolerate loads of chunky dip.
But a package of wonton wrappers will produce more chips than you’ll need for even the biggest bash. Fortunately, there are other uses for them. Wontons, for example.
(Note: When they are round, they are referred to as gyoza wrappers, and the square ones are wonton wrappers. Same thing, different shape.)
Making wontons by hand, to drop into simmering stock or brown on the stovetop and steam to make potstickers, are far simpler than you might think. All you require is a pound of ground pork, turkey, chicken or a combination (chopped shrimp or scallops are divine too), spiked with a little ginger, soy, green onion and sesame oil. Fill the wrappers, moisten the edges and seal them. While you’re at it, make a lot, and freeze them on a cookie sheet; this will prevent them from sticking to each other when you transfer them to a freezer bag.
The frozen wontons can be dropped into simmering stock with some broccoli, carrots, bok choy, and even whole shrimp or leftover slices of roast pork for wor won ton (or just won ton, if you don’t want to accessorize) that almost makes it unnecessary to do soup runs anymore.
(I said almost.)
Wonton Soup
For the wontons:
1/2 lb. ground pork, or half pork and half ground turkey
2 green onions, finely chopped, or some chopped fresh parsley or cilantro
1 Tbsp. soy sauce
1 tsp. rice vinegar
1 tsp. sesame oil
1 tsp. grated fresh ginger
salt & pepper
About 30 wonton wrappers, thawed if frozen
Chicken, beef or shrimp stock
Bok choy, chopped spinach, sliced carrots, broccoli, pea shoots, baby corn, fresh or frozen shrimp, sliced cooked pork tenderloin, or anything else you like in your soup
To make the wontons, stir together all the filling ingredients just until combined – as with any meat mixture, don’t overwork it or it could end up tough.
Put a little water into a small bowl. Put a couple wonton wrappers on your work surface, keeping the rest covered so that they don’t dry out. Place a small spoonful of the pork mixture in the middle of each one, dip your finger in the water, and run it along two edges to moisten. Fold the wonton over to make a triangle, and press to seal. Now you could leave them like that, or moisten the tips and fold them closed, like a tortellini. Or, you could moisten the edges and then just squish them all up in a bundle, pressing them together so it doesn’t pop open. You’ll get the hang of it.
To freeze, lay them in a single layer on a cookie sheet and freeze solid; then transfer to freezer bags and store for up to 4 months. To make soup, drop fresh or frozen wontons into simmering stock; add bok choy or any other veg you like, and simmer for a few minutes, 3 or 4, to cook the wontons through – the veg should cook along with them, but still stay fairly crisp. If you want to add shrimp, add them at the end and cook just until they turn opaque, or if they are already cooked, just until they heat through. If you want to add bits of cooked pork, add it at the end as well.
If you like, soak some Asian noodles and divide them among bowls; pour the hot soup overtop. If you like, sprinkle with some torn cilantro. Put bottles of soy sauce and chili sauce on the table so everyone can season their own bowls.
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January 30 2008 | freezable and pork and soup | 4 Comments »
Once in awhile, particularly on days when it drops below -30 (seriously - it was minus 47 yesterday morning with the wind chill factor. -47! Global warming, where are you?) I get the urge to pull out my slow cooker and experience the gratification of smelling dinner simmering all day long. It could be this urge was subconsciously triggered by the current barrage of ads for McCain’s Slow Cooker Solutions - those $10 frozen meals packaged in an ice cream tub instead of a bag, that you toss into your slow cooker instead of your microwave. (It doesn’t say much that their ultra-styled photo still looks like Puritan beef stew in a can. And look… they even bought the Health Check symbol to go on the front. Have you seen the recent exposé on CBC’s Marketplace?)
People. Slow cookers ARE the solution, they don’t require a solution. People don’t bring them home and think, what on earth am I going to do with this contraption? It takes a full four minutes to dump some meat, vegetables and liquid into it and press the “on” button! Thank goodness someone found a way to shave a precious minute or two off of that daunting process. I love it when companies come up with solutions to problems that didn’t even exist in the first place.
I’ve heard you can roast (and I use the term “roast” loosely… since it’s really an entirely different cooking method) a whole chicken in the slow cooker, but I haven’t tried it before. So I did. All you need to do is loosely crumple up three balls of tin foil a and put them in the bottom of the slow cooker, and set the chicken on top to keep it from sitting against the bottom. If you want to shove a few cloves of garlic or half a lemon inside the chicken, feel free to do so. No need to truss it. Just drizzle with a little oil or rub with soft butter (this ensures a crispy, golden crust - in the oven, anyway) and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Set it on low for 8 hours. I’ve seen recipes that call for 10.
Now in theory, if you want your skin more golden, crank it up to high for either the first hour or the last. Many cooking methods for roast beef and pork blast the meat with high heat at the beginning or end in order to create a crisper, deeper crust, which adds flavor and a more appealing texture. But as long as the chicken is cooked through; the juices run clear and joints wiggle freely in their sockets, there’s really no need if you’re not concerned with aesthetics. Besides, the chicken skin doesn’t really brown much in a slow cooker even if you do crank it up.
The bird was totally done after 6 hours, but I let it go awhile longer - because the lid traps any moisture that might escape from a traditional oven environment, it stayed perfectly moist and juicy. When I tried to lift it out with tongs, it fell apart as if it was delicately made out of cards. No need to carve this thing. For a crisp, crunchy skin I prefer the oven method, but this meat will be fantastic in sandwiches, salads, curries, quesadillas, fried rice… really anything chicken goes into when you’re not eating it off the bone. And because it literally strips itself for you as you try to get it onto the plate, you can slip away the skin and still be left with plump, flavorful meat.
To go with, a rice pilaffy-salad that I learned while food styling for Rose Reisman. It’s dead easy - since brown and wild rice require the same cooking time, you boil about half and half in a big pot of water (or stock, for more flavor), as if you were cooking pasta. Drain, cool, and add chopped dried fruit, a big bunch of parsley (a great way to get your greens - it’s not just for garnish anymore), toasted pecans (I was sad to find I didn’t have any, but always keep a jar of roasted almonds in the cupboard) and a delicious dressing made with orange juice, sesame oil and garlic.
Rose’s Brown & Wild Rice Pilaf with Dried Fruit & Pecans
(a variation of)
3/4 cup wild rice
3/4 cup brown rice
4 cups vegetable or chicken stock or water
1/2 cup chopped toasted pecans
1-2 green onions, chopped
1/3 cup dried cranberries
1/3 cup dried chopped apricots
almost a whole bunch of fresh curly or flat-leaf parsley, chopped
Dressing (I always double this):
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp thawed orange juice concentrate
1 Tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
1-2 tsp sesame oil
1 clove garlic, minced
In a medium pot, combine both types of rice with the stock or water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer, and cook for 40-45 minutes or just until the rice is
tender. Drain excess liquid in a colander, transfer to a large bowl and set aside to cool. Once the rice has cooled, stir in the pecans, green onions, cranberries, apricots and parsley.
To make the dressing, whisk together all of the dressing ingredients, or shake them all up in a jar. Pour over the salad and toss to coat. Serves 8.
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January 29 2008 | chicken & turkey and grains and salads | 3 Comments »
I admit I spent most of the past 24 hours fantasizing about what I would have for dinner tonight. Inglewood pizza? Mu Shu pork from KamHan? Ooooh - butter chicken and fresh garlic-butter naan from the Taj Mahal!
Unfortunately, it being -300 degrees outside, our car froze solid and so all of those options flew out the window. But really, it occurred to me that after 24 hours without food, anything I eat will taste bloody fantastic, so I might as well make it something healthy. And because I was still a little dopey, Mike took over dinner duties and made spaghetti and meatballs.
The meatballs came from a stash we threw into the fridge over the holidays - once in awhile we’ll mix up a big batch, roll cookie sheet loads of meatballs, freeze them and then transfer them to freezer bags for dinner emergencies such as this. As the pasta is cooking, brown the frozen meatballs in a hot skillet, then pour the sauce overtop and simmer to warm the sauce and cook the meatballs though, while infusing the sauce with a beefy/bisony/sausagey flavor (depending on your choice of meat). These were actually bison balls - not in the prairie oyster sense, but made from ground bison, which has less than half the fat of beef. In fact, bison contains less fat than skinless chicken, turkey, or even halibut. Because it’s so lean, make sure you cook it for about a third less time than you would beef - otherwise it tends to be dry, which is the biggest issue people tend to have with it. If you’re a carnivore and think you don’t like bison, try it again.
Bison Meatballs
1 lb. ground bison
1 egg
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup bread or cracker crumbs
a bit of grated onion (optional)
a squirt of tomato paste, ketchup or barbecue sauce (about a tablespoon)
salt & pepper to taste
Mix everything together in a bowl, making sure you don’t work it too hard. Shape into 1” balls. Place on a cookie sheet and freeze, then transfer to freezer bags to store for up to 4 months, or bake at 350F for 10-15 minutes, until cooked through. To make spaghetti sauce, brown the fresh or frozen meatballs in a drizzle of oil in a hot skillet, rolling them around to brown on all sides, then pour tomato sauce over top and simmer until they are cooked through.
Makes about 3 dozen.
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January 28 2008 | bison and pasta | 3 Comments »
Except that I can’t eat any. I’m having a minor test done tomorrow, which means I can only ingest clear fluids for 24 hours. Me! Going without food for 24 hours! Plus however much time I spend at the hospital tomorrow afternoon, which I’m sure will seem far longer on an empty stomach.
So, planning to spend a full Sunday out of the kitchen (very unusual for me), I made a batch of chicken stew with pesto yesterday for Mike and W. If I didn’t work in the food world, and had just a few go-to dinner recipes in my repertoire, this would be one of them. If I was one of those Moms who made meals on rotation - meatloaf Mondays, spaghetti Tuesdays, pork chop Wednesdays, and so on, this would definitely make the cut. Willem loves it (possibly on account of the pesto, which he seems to be in love with), and so do Mike and I. For some reason it turns out creamier tasting than it should, and is far more interesting than the sum of its (veg, legumes and skinless chicken or turkey) parts. Plus, it’s another one of those meals that’s freezable or keeps well in the fridge; ideal for dipping in to all week long. And because it’s all in one pot yet isn’t runny like soup, it makes a perfect portable lunch. If when it cools down you divide it into individual freezable containers, you can pull one out in the morning and by lunch it will be partially thawed - still cold enough to be safe, but with a head start on the reheating process.
I have to stop talking about food and go read a book or something to distract myself. Maybe I’ll open up A Stew or a Story, an assortment of short works by M.F.K. Fisher. If I can’t eat food, I can at least read about it…
Chicken & White Bean Stew with Pesto
Canola or olive oil, for cooking with
1 large onion, chopped
1 lb. skinless, boneless chicken thighs or turkey breast, cut into bite-sized pieces
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
3 big cloves of garlic, crushed
½ tsp. ground cumin
1 19 oz. (540 mL) can white kidney or navy beans, drained
1 can chicken broth
a few drops of Tabasco or a pinch of red pepper flakes (optional)
Salt & pepper to taste
1/4 cup (or a couple of big spoonfuls) basil or sun-dried tomato pesto
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese, for serving (optional)
Heat a drizzle of oil in a large pot set over medium heat. Cook the onion and chicken pieces for about 5 minutes, until the onions are starting to brown and the chicken is opaque. Add the celery, carrots, and red pepper and cook for a few more minutes, until the vegetables begin to soften. Add the garlic and cumin and cook for another minute.
Add the beans, chicken broth, Tabasco and some salt and pepper and bring to a simmer. Turn the heat down to low, cover and let cook for about 45 minutes.
Stir in the pesto and serve topped with Parmesan cheese. Serves 4-6, or 2-3 with leftovers. It doubles easily if you want to make a bigger batch.
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January 27 2008 | beans and chicken & turkey and freezable and one dish and stews & braises | 4 Comments »
By happy coincidence, I flipped on Nigella Express yesterday just in time to see her snipping rolled-up corn tortillas into a hot skillet to brown and crisp them before adding a slurry of egg, tomatoes and chopped fresh chilies. Hey, good idea, and using things I happen to currently have in my kitchen. I don’t usually keep fresh corn tortillas on hand, but when I do I’m always looking for new ways to use them, since they come in a 50-pack. (Tomorrow, the rest are going into the freezer, to resurface later on in the year.)
So, since Mike is playing an afternoon show and heading straight out afterwards, I’m cooking for one. Well, one and a half, but the half just downed a whole wheat tortilla spread with peanut butter and wrapped around a banana, and close to his own weight in dried apricots (thankfully we’ve just passed the diaper stage). I’m in just the mood for a bowl of spicy eggs with lots of crispy bits, so thought I’d give Nigella’s recipe a whirl - the only thing I’m missing is the black satin wrap dress. I’m not convinced this is the best choice of outfits when cooking something that splatters anyway.
It was fast, it was easy. Although I have toasted many a corn tortilla, it never occurred to me to cut them into strips first. The long, thin pieces browned quickly, and I bet they’d be fantastic on a salad. As for the jalapeno, it doesn’t make things as hot as you’d think. (And I’m sorry for the recurring theme - but I had a bag in the fridge since researching that article on chilies, and I hate wasting things, even when it’s a jalapeno pepper that cost all of 6 cents.) To turn the heat down a bit, remove the seeds and membranes, which account for about 80% of the capsaicin - the substance that makes chilies burn. If you do, you can get away with using a whole jalapeno for 2 eggs (if I can do it, so can you - I’m a wuss when it comes to spicy food). Halved grape tomatoes go perfectly into eggs without watering them down with excessive juice. Beyond the tomatoes, this would have been fab with any number of toss-ins: mushrooms, chunks of asparagus, bits of ham…
I did resist the urge to smother it in cheese. Until halfway through, that is, when I remembered the chunk of queso fresco (fresh cheese) I had acquired at La Tiendona market awhile ago (along with the corn tortillas) and forgotten in the depths of the fridge. It would really be a shame to not use it before it goes slimy. And creamy, salty, ultra-meltable and almost feta-esque queso fresco would really go well with the spicy-soft eggs and crispy shards of tortilla. It was like a breakfast burrito bomb exploded deliciously on my plate. Perfect Saturday afternoon couch food.
Spicy Scrambled Eggs with Crispy Corn Tortilla Strips (for one - bump up the ingredients as necessary for the number of people you want to feed)
Canola or olive oil, for cooking with
1-2 small corn tortillas
1 jalapeno or small red chile pepper, seeded and minced
a small handful of grape tomatoes, halved
1 chopped green onion (optional
2 eggs
salt and pepper
Heat a good drizzle of oil in a skillet set over medium-high heat, and cook the tortilla strips, tossing them about occasionally, until golden and crisp. Transfer to a plate. Add the jalapeno and tomatoes (the juice will make them splatter) and cook for a minute, until the tomato begins to soften and darken on the edges.
In a small bowl, beat the eggs with a fork, adding a drizzle of water or milk if you like. Add to the hot pan, along with the green onion, if you’re using it, and some salt and pepper. Gently push the eggs around in the skillet, allowing the uncooked egg to run underneath the cooked egg. Turn the heat off while they are still slightly runny, and allow them to finish cooking with their own heat; you want them to be nice and creamy, not hard and curd-like which is how overcooked scrambled eggs often end up.
Add the crispy tortilla strips to the pan, toss to combine them, then transfer to a wide, shallow bowl and eat on the couch.
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January 27 2008 | eggs and one dish and vegetarian | No Comments »
We ate the last of the pot of black bean soup today, and I’ll miss it - the soup silently helped meet our daily vegetable quota all week. It was pretty fantastic, actually, despite being completely vegetarian - vegan, even (no offense to meatless meals, but I usually prefer a bit of smoky ham or spicy sausage to flavor my black bean soup). Despite this shortcoming, it was absolutely delicious, due in part to the lone fresh jalapeño, and to the fact that it had had so much time for the flavors to really get to know each other. I am never going to feel the need to add meat to a black bean soup again. Since I had already eaten several bowls of it this week, today I felt experimental, and crumbled a bit of feta overtop.)
We ate it before going to my nephew Ben’s birthday party, as insurance against the plethora of fifth-birthday-party-food that was sure to be there. Not that hunger has a lot to do with it in the presence of cheesies, chicken wings and cupcakes, but being starving upon arrival doesn’t help. Plus, a bowlful of veggies and beans acts as a sort of nutritional ballast against all that yummy junk.
Black Bean Soup
This soup improves in flavor and spiciness after a day or two in the fridge. To make a meal of black bean soup a little more substantial, put a scoop of rice into each bowl and ladle the soup over it. A crumbled spicy Italian sausage or bit of diced ham is also delicious - sauté either along with the onion at the beginning - this will of course cook the sausage, but adding either at the beginning will allow it to flavor the entire pot of soup, something that wouldn’t happen if it was thrown in at the end.
A drizzle of olive or canola oil
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped, including the leafy parts
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and minced, or 1 Tbsp. chopped canned chipotle chilies
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 small red or yellow bell pepper, seeded and chopped
2 tsp. ground cumin
1 19 oz. (540 mL) can black beans, drained
1 can sweet corn niblets (optional)
1 14 oz. (398 mL) or 28 oz. (798 mL) can diced or stewed tomatoes
1-2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
Salt and pepper
Sour cream, chopped cilantro, chopped green onions and/or crumbled feta cheese (optional
Heat the oil in a large saucepan set over medium-high heat and sauté the onion, carrot and celery for about 5 minutes, until they begin to soften. Finely chop the jalapeño, removing the seeds first if you don’t want your soup to be too hot – the seeds contain the most heat. Add them to the pot along with the garlic, red pepper, and cumin and cook for another minute. Add the beans and tomatoes, without draining either of them, and the chicken stock. Bring the soup to a boil, reduce the heat to low, cover and cook for 15-20 minutes, until the carrot is tender.
If you like, you could use a blender, food processor, or hand-held immersion blender to process about half of the soup until smooth, then return it to the pot. Process as much or as little of the soup as you want to make the consistency as chunky or smooth as you like, or leave it all chunky, which is what I did. Turn the heat down and simmer the soup uncovered for half an hour or so to allow it to thicken slightly. Season to taste with salt and pepper. You could eat it right away, but I like to cool it down and then stash the whole pot in the fridge for a day or two to allow the flavors to improve. Reheat in individual bowls as you need it, or pull the pot out of the fridge, set it back on the stovetop, and heat it through.
Serve hot, with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkle of cilantro, green onions and/or feta cheese on top to add a cool and creamy relief to the spicy soup.
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January 25 2008 | beans and soup and vegetarian | 4 Comments »
The biggest health risk associated with having children: leftovers. The cheesy crusts and crispy bits you clean off their plates when they don’t. When there isn’t enough to go back into the fridge, it goes into my mouth.
There were 5 of them (children, that is) around the table today, all there due to various unforeseen circumstances - Ben (who will be 5 tomorrow) had a fever last night and so was kept out of school, Emily (9) had a P.D. day, and Cole (3) and Hugo (2) were out with their mum at the giant lulu lemon sale I kept hearing about on the news, and stopped by after to say hello and play with toys.
As anyone who has ever cooked for a child can confirm, feeding children can be complicated. There are many prejudices connected with food. Plenty of fanaticism, and just as much apathy. Senses that detect color, smell, texture and general weirdness are heightened at the dinner table. I would love to see Gordon Ramsay do a reality show forcing him to feed a room full of elementary and preschool children every day - it might bring new meaning to the phrase hell’s kitchen.
Because this dinner party wasn’t planned, I didn’t have much of a variety of typically child-friendly food. Ben must have only orange cheese and eat on blue or green plates, Emily is lactose intolerant, Cole and Hugo are accustomed to familiar ingredients lovingly arranged by their mum into smiley faces and such. They all expected juice, but all I had was pomegranate, which actually went over well (we mix it with soda water to make “pink pop”.)
Fortunately (except for Emily, who can’t eat cheese), I had a package of fresh spinach and cheese ravioli - perfect for small mouths. No tomato sauce of any description (hey, we planned a shopping trip before two of these urchins arrived on our doorstep at 7am), but there were two thawed Spolumbo’s sausages (upon unwrapping them from their paper I was relieved to find they were benign turkey & cranberry - phew) which I cooked up as the pasta boiled. Once drained, I added the ravioli to the sausage pan, which had been drizzled with canola oil that took up the flavor of the meat and made it glisten more than its leanness would otherwise allow it to, and tossed it about to share the flavor and brown its edges. The last of a jar of pesto - Willem’s favorite, but apparently not Cole’s - got dribbled over the mix. (Had there only been grownups eating, I would have added a handful of baby spinach leaves and let them wilt.)
Oh right - the cupcakes. Because it’s Ben’s birthday tomorrow, something he mentioned only several thousand times over the course of the day, we came up with an activity to celebrate the occasion of Birthday Eve. What else to do but make cupcakes? Chocolate, of course, with chocolate icing and tiny colored sprinkles. The great thing about chocolate cake is that it is fantastic made with canola oil - one of the very best oils for baking and eating, providing a healthy balance of mono- and polyunsaturated fats as well as omega 3s. Cocoa delivers maximum chocolate flavor without fat, and you can usually get away with using whole wheat flour, or at least half and half, since the dark chocolate masks its color.
Chocolate Cupcakes
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (or any combination of all-purpose and whole-wheat)
1 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup cocoa
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup milk or soy milk
1/2 cup canola oil
2 large eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup hot coffee or boiling water (I use instant decaf - it intensifies and deepens the chocolate flavor without adding fat or calories
Preheat oven to 350° F. Line 24 cupcake tins with paper liners (or, more realistically, 12 at a time).
In a large bowl, stir together the flour, brown sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Break up any lumps of brown sugar and cocoa.
Add the milk, oil, eggs and vanilla and beat with an electric mixer on medium speed for about 2 minutes. Add the coffee and beat on low speed just until blended. The batter will be thin.
Divide the batter among the tins, filling them about 2/3 full, and bake for 25 minutes, until the tops are springy to the touch. Tip them a bit in their pans to let the steam escape and help them cool. Wait until they are completely cool before frosting them. These are delicious absolutely plain. Makes 2 dozen.
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January 24 2008 | dessert and one dish and pasta and snacks and sweet stuff | 2 Comments »
I’d like to preface this post by saying that I don’t plan dinners ahead with this website in mind. Although you’d think that might be a good idea, I think doing it that way would sort of miss the point. It’s 4:17 pm now, and I’m just starting to think about what’s for dinner. As always, sometimes I do plan ahead, but just as often, I do not.
There are two avocados about to go seriously downhill in our fruit bowl, so Mike turned them into guacamole. Guac has always been Mike’s thing; there is never even a question as to whether I should make it. (He took this task on years ago, when I was out of town and he called my hotel to ask me how to make it. I told him to mash up the avocado and add some lime juice, salt, and a clove of garlic. He took “clove” to mean “head”, and added the whole thing. Said it was fantastic. He was so proud he made it for me again when I got home and I think 3 years later I still have garlic breath. He has since learned the proper meaning of “garlic clove”.) So he mashed it all up and we added the few strawberry tomatoes left sitting on the counter. Small tomatoes are perfect to stir into guacamole; they are more meat, less juice and seeds, so it doesn’t go all runny. I imagine roasted tomatoes would do just fine too. Especially if you roast them with a few cloves of garlic, drizzled with olive oil…
Sometimes, when I have a bizarre assortment of ingredients in the fridge and not much in the way of creative juices, I go to Epicurious.com (one of my favorite sites) and just plunk them into the search bar - asparagus, ricotta and halibut - for example. I did this today, just out of curiosity, and came up with Huevos Divorciados, which sounds like something you might make when you’re fighting with your significant other and need sustenance to fuel your fire. It actually looks pretty good, but requires of the cook the gumption to make two salsas from scratch. So I cooked/baked the corn tortillas I picked up at the market last week (when I was shopping for chilies - 50 of them for $3) into chips, and we used them to scoop up the guacamole while waiting for the pot of black bean soup I made on the weekend and forgot was still sitting in the barbecue to thaw out. (A great backup fridge/freezer in wintertime when you run out of fridge space - putting it inside the barbecue keeps any potentially curious critters out.) Black bean soup keeps incredibly well, so it’s a good thing to have in the fridge to dip into all week. Plus, fortuitously, it goes well with corn tortilla chips and guacamole. You’d almost think I planned it that way.
You can make tortilla chips a couple ways: on the stovetop, simply heat them in a drizzle of oil in a hot skillet, turning them as they brown. (The huevos recipe above has a good method of cooking them two at a time this way.) To oven bake, first stack a bunch and cut them into wedges. Lay them out on a cookie sheet and brush them lightly with oil or just lime juice - this will allow any seasonings to adhere without adding any fat or calories. Plus it adds a nice limey flavor. Sprinkle with coarse salt, chili powder, cumin, or all of the above, and bake at 400F for 10 minutes, until they turn golden. (About 9 calories per chip, and zero fat.)
Guacamole
A simple guacamole is nothing more than ripe avocados mashed with garlic, salt and lime, but it lends itself well to all kinds of additions. Try stirring in 1/2 cup salsa or sour cream, a head of roasted garlic or a handful of chopped cooked shrimp. Because avocados are very high in fat – about 75% of its calories come from fat – guacamole is fairly high in calories as well. But take heart, it’s virtually all healthy monounsaturated fat, the kind you want to include in your diet.
Make sure your avocados are ripe or they won’t mash very well. The best way to tell if an avocado is ripe is by squeezing it - a ripe avocado will yield to gentle pressure. If you need to ripen them fast, put them in a paper bag with an apple to speed up the process.
2 ripe avocados, peeled and pitted
1 glove garlic, crushed
Juice of 1 lime
Salt to taste
1/4 tsp. ground cumin (optional)
2 Tbsp. finely chopped or grated purple onion (optional)
2 Tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro (optional)
a few chopped cherry, strawberry or grape tomatoes (optional)
Mash everything (except the tomatoes, if you’re using them) together with a fork to make it as smooth or as chunky as you like. Stir in the tomato if you’re using it.
Per serving: 111 calories, 10.3 g total fat (1.6 g saturated fat, 6.4 g monounsaturated fat, 1.3 g polyunsaturated fat), 1.4 g protein, 5.8 g carbohydrate, 0 mg cholesterol, 1.8 g fiber. 76% calories from fat.
Since there is still a large pot of black bean soup left to eat, I’m fairly certain it will end up as dinner very soon… I’ll save posting the recipe for that day.
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January 23 2008 | appetizers and snacks and vegetarian | 1 Comment »
It’s becoming evident that trends are going to start appearing on this site - like everyone else in the world, there are the usual standbys we pull into service on a regular basis. Pizza is one of them, usually made with our standard whole wheat crust recipe. Which has always worked out just fine. But tonight, I got home from Edmonton at dinnertime with two batches of the no-knead bread dough bubbling away in their bowls, and thought, why not slap some onto a baking sheet and see how it works for pizza? I’m glad I did - the result was a chewy, bulbous crust like the ones you get at the Italian Supermarket on Saturday afternoons (minus the smoky charred bits they get from the wood-fired oven. When I win the lottery, I’m having one installed in my back yard. Seriously - the Canadian rep for Italian Magnaini wood-fired ovens is in Black Diamond!)
Fridge-cleaning pizzas always seem to end up better than any others, because you use up things you wouldn’t necessarily plan on combining: it appeared at first that we were out of luck in the sauce department, but then located half a jar of pesto (one of W’s favorites, despite the fact that it’s green - the kid will eat falafels and pesto but won’t touch apple juice or potatoes), which we spread over the crust. It took about a minute to cook a Spolumbo’s chicken sausage, adding the second half of a can of diced tomatoes and the last of a bag of baby spinach to the pan to let it wilt after the sausage cooked. On top, part-skim mozzarella.
Now, I’m assuming that anyone reading this has heard of the no-knead bread phenomenon - if not, you must. I’ll tell you right now that this is probably the most worthwhile recipe you’ll collect from this site. (If you go to only one movie this year, bake this bread recipe.) It was written about by Mark Bittman in the New York Times a year ago November, and it turned out to be the most emailed story in the history of the Times. Every food blogger in the known universe has tried it, and documented it. It’s absolutely fantastic. The original recipe says 12-18 hours, but I usually leave mine for 24, or however long it is between stirring it up and when I want to bake it.
If you want to turn this into pizza dough, you don’t need to flour it and let it rest on the countertop; it should be fine just scraped out of the bowl onto the pan. Either way.
No-Knead Bread
Adapted from Jim Lahey at the Sullivan Street Bakery in Manhattan
3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, plus more for dusting (or whole wheat, or half and half)
¼ teaspoon instant yeast (I use about 1/3 teaspoon regular active dry yeast)
1 teaspoon salt
In a large bowl stir together the flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 ½ cups plus 2 tablespoons water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap or a plate and let it rest on the countertop for 18-24 hours at room temperature.
The dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice, then roughly shape into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour. Fold it over the bread or cover with another cotton towel and let it sit for another hour or two.
While the bread is resting, preheat the oven to 450°. Put a 6-8 quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When the dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and flip the dough over into the pot; it may look like a mess, but that’s OK. Cover and bake for 30 minutes, then remove the lid and bake another 10-15 minutes, until it’s nice and golden. Eat up!
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January 22 2008 | bread and one dish | 8 Comments »
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