Archive for February, 2008
I suppose I should have made something special to commemorate Day 50, but I was too cold and tired after walking home from a downtown meeting, at which I bombed an important presentation. This was not planned (the bombing nor the walking); Mike was going to come pick me up, but he had the cel and there are no pay phones left in this city since everyone and their dog has a cel phone! So I was without a hat or mitts or even a proper coat, and it quickly turned from nice to freezing.
To make things worse, since I was not at my best at said presentation, which was a big deal, I talked to myself as I hunched down the sidewalk in the cold. Or rather, tried to shut my brain off. Stop. Stop it!! My mind is so relentless with its barrage of dispiriting accusations I have to use my own voice to drown it out. I started to notice people leaving a wider boundary as they passed, lest my obvious insanity leap out and grab them.
So when I got home I was in no mood to make dinner, but needed something hot immediately. Luckily I had made a pot of soup earlier in the day for an article I was working on for What’s Up Kids Magazine in Toronto; a thick chowder made with canned sweet corn, diced potatoes with their skins, cheddar cheese and a spicy Italian sausage instead of the chicken I’ve used in previous batches.
It worked, but the giant glass of Shiraz that accompanied it helped.
Sausage, Corn, Potato and Cheddar Chowder
1 spicy Italian sausage
canola or olive oil, for cooking
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
2 Tbsp. flour
1 tsp. cumin
3 cups chicken broth or water
1-2 potatoes, unpeeled and diced
1 can sweet kernel corn
1 cup milk or 1/2 cup half & half (or to taste)
1 cup grated old cheddar cheese
Salt and pepper
Squeeze the sausage out of its casing into a medium saucepan that has been drizzled with oil and set over medium-high heat. Add the onion and celery and cook, breaking the meat up, until onion is translucent and the sausage is cooked.
Add the flour and cumin and cook, stirring, for another minute. Stir in the broth, add the potatoes and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat, cover, and cook for 8-10 minutes, until the potatoes are tender.
Stir in the corn, and the milk or cream if you’re using it, and allow the chowder to return to a gentle simmer. Don’t let it boil, or the milk may curdle. Add the cheese and stir just until it melts. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serves 4.
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February 19 2008 | soup | 2 Comments »
I’ll never understand why battered frozen fish pieces are considered a convenience food. How convenient are they, when they take 25 minutes in the oven vs. 10 for a fresh fillet of salmon? This is real fast food.
I adore asparagus, and my favorite way to cook it is to roast it until the tips turn dark and crunchy. It occurred to me that both could be done at once; the asparagus started (on a rimmed cookie sheet, drizzled with oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper) and then pushed aside to make room for the salmon during the last 10 minutes of cooking time. But we had lots of both, so after 20 minutes in the oven, we slid the salmon on its own sheet onto the rack above. Easy peasy. I threw some brown and wild rice in a pot to boil for 45 minutes (I always cook both together since they have the same cooking time, and in lots of water, like pasta, to make things easy) to be sure W would actually eat something on the table, but he scarfed down his third of the salmon filet before starting in on ours. The asparagus, however, was a no go. More for us.
Roasted Balsamic Glazed Salmon and Asparagus:
Preheat the oven to 450F.
Snap the tips off your asparagus wherever they naturally break. I used two small bunches. Drizzle a cookie sheet with canola or olive oil and spread the asparagus out on it, tossing it around to coat with oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and pop in the oven.
Place your salmon fillet skin side down on a foil-lined sheet (or if it’s small, wait to put it on the sheet with the asparagus). In a small dish, stir together 2 Tbsp. brown sugar or honey, 2 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar, 1 Tbsp. grainy mustard and 1 tsp. sesame oil. Spread over the salmon.
After about 20 minutes (depending on how thick your asparagus is and how well done you want them) push them aside and add the salmon to the pan, or slide the sheet with the salmon on it onto the oven rack above (or below) it. Cook for 10 minutes per inch, until it flakes around the edges.
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February 18 2008 | fish and veg | 2 Comments »
Confession: this was lunch, not dinner. Does it count that it was the most memorable meal of the day, and in fact one of my favorite meals of all time? Because we went to Mike’s mom’s for dinner, and my thinking is if you don’t have anything nice to say, maybe stick to the lunch story.
Sue went back to Vernon at about noon, so before she left we poached some eggs from the market – todays’ eggs came from one of the colonies, but when the lamb farmers are around we get our eggs from them – so big they have to be staggered in their carton and it’s impossible to close the lid, most of them with a double yolk, each the size and color of a plump dried apricot. I had just baked a crusty loaf of no-knead bread, which we toasted and buttered thick slices of and slid the softly poached eggs on top. (Note: I do not add vinegar to the cooking water when I poach eggs. I don’t like my eggs tasting vinegary, and the ragged whites don’t bother me one bit. Did you know you can pre-poach your eggs, and keep them in a dish of their cooking water in the fridge? Reheat them by slipping into a pan of simmering water for a few seconds. Which isn’t to say poached eggs are so high-maintenance they require advance preparation, but it’s good to know if you’re ever cooking for large numbers, or want to do a few at a time to stash in the fridge for a small child.)
There is really no better combination than a good quality egg, good bread and butter, sprinkled with crisp, flaky salt. We shopped at The Cookbook Company yesterday, and because when I teach classes part of my payment comes in the form of store credit, we decided to go and be frivolous, picking up things like $12 smoked Maldon salt and fig-caramel sauce. You wouldn’t think that your choice of salt would make one iota of difference here, but the crunchy flakes were wonderful.
I am a fan of crunchy pan-fries, but when I eat a large pile of them for breakfast, inevitably as an accompaniment to some bread product, I feel like I swallowed a sack of potatoes afterward. The very best company to a poached egg on toast, in my humble opinion, is a fresh bunch of spinach, lightly sautéed in a little butter and olive oil, with a clove of garlic. Heaven.
Add a small knob of butter and a drizzle of olive or canola oil to your skillet, get it hot and as everything is melting, slice a clove of garlic in. Swirl the pan around until the foam subsides and everything starts to turn a pale golden color. At this point, if you want just the flavor of garlic to delicately adorn your spinach (or kale, or chard), you can pull out the slices of garlic; because it hasn’t been crushed, they will be easy to fish out and won’t burn. Otherwise, just rinse your spinach and tear it roughly into the pan; the water left clinging to the leaves is enough to help it wilt, which will take all of about a minute. No vegetable side dish could be faster or easier. Sautéed spinach would also make a fantastic omelet or panini filling, along with some grated cheese.
All told, this meal came out to around $2 for all three of us. Not bad.
I’d like to mention here that all of these photos are authentic, of our actual plates of food as we are eating them, or before beginning; Mike is getting used to not being allowed to start eating until after I’ve had sufficient time with his dinner and my camera. (The exception: last week’s party, for which I forgot my camera in the chaos, and so instead used photos I already had of the same food.) The photo up top I stopped to take mid-bite, and then when Sue got up to answer her phone, I pulled out my camera and took a picture of her plate, without rearranging anything:
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February 17 2008 | eggs and veg and vegetarian | 2 Comments »
When Sue visits, we spend the vast majority of our time talking about food, reminiscing about food, flipping through cookbooks, cooking, and of course eating. This weekend we did no cooking for once, but instead spent the day at cookware stores and I finally took her for a Vietnamese sub at Thi Thi, the place that started it all, who still has hands-down the best Vietnamese sub in Calgary. (Satay chicken wins slightly over satay beef.)
Later tonight we ditched W and went to Brava Bistro, where we learned that the lobster gnocchi is (miraculously) better than the lobster poutine (we had to try them side by side, for comparative/research purposes) and creme brulee is definitely the Best Dessert Ever.
February 16 2008 | eating out | 1 Comment »
This morning my small group of friends who meet for a post-workout coffee every Monday, Wednesday and Friday gathered at my place instead, it being teacher’s convention and the kids out of school. Since there were 5 children of varying ages, the 4 of us and Mike, I made a whole sheetful of tuna melts, using a loaf of good crusty no-knead bread. Lay slices on a cookie sheet and toast at about 400F while you mix tuna, chopped celery and light mayo; divide among the toast and scatter with grated white cheddar (if you have it, or really any cheese you think would go well with tuna) and return to the oven until the cheese melts. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how to make a tuna melt.
But then only one of the kids wanted one, and all of my friends were full of the cinnamon sticky biscuits I had made to go with the coffee.
So Mike and I munched on tuna melts throughout the afternoon, and then kind of cruised through dinnertime without really being hungry. Which works out well, actually – my friend Sue is arriving from Vernon at any minute, so I roasted some peppers, tomatoes, garlic and chilies for a goat cheese gratin, which is waiting to be popped into the oven to heat through and get all bubbly around the edges when she walks in the door – a perfect late-night snack-slash-dinner, curled up on the couch with a bottle of wine. My only regret is that all the good bread was used up for the tuna melts.
The cinnamon sticky biscuits is a good recipe to have though, so here it is:
Cinnamon Sticky Biscuits
Try laying thin slices of these biscuits on top of a dish of peaches or apples tossed with sugar, then bake at 350° F for 20-30 minutes for a phenomenal fruit cobbler.
Stickiness:
2 Tbsp. butter
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 Tbsp. honey or corn syrup
Biscuits:
2 cups flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 Tbsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup canola oil
Filling:
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 cup raisins and/or chopped pecans (optional)
Preheat oven to 400° F.
Combine butter, brown sugar and honey in a small saucepan or microwave-safe bowl and heat until melted and smooth. Pour over the bottom of an 8”x8” baking pan that has been sprayed with non-stick spray.
In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Add the milk and canola oil and stir by hand just until you have a soft dough. Do not overmix!
On a lightly floured surface, pat or roll the dough into a 9” x 14” rectangle. Sprinkle with brown sugar, cinnamon and raisins or nuts. Starting from a long side, roll tightly jelly-roll style into a log. Cut into 9 biscuits using dental floss or a serrated knife, and place cut side down in the pan.
Bake for 20 minutes, until golden and bubbly. Invert onto a platter while still warm.
Makes 9 sticky biscuits.
Per biscuit: 270 calories, 9 g total fat (2.2 g saturated fat, 4.4 g monounsaturated fat, 2 g polyunsaturated fat), 3.6 g protein, 44 g carbohydrate, 7.7 mg cholesterol, 0.9 g fiber. 30% calories from fat.
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February 15 2008 | bread and snacks and vegetarian | 2 Comments »
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I suppose I should have made something special to commemorate Day 50, but I was too cold and tired after walking home from a downtown meeting, at which I bombed an important presentation. This was not planned (the bombing nor the walking); Mike was going to come pick me up, but he had the cel and there are no pay phones left in this city since everyone and their dog has a cel phone! So I was without a hat or mitts or even a proper coat, and it quickly turned from nice to freezing.
