Archive for August, 2008
Too hot to cook. Too hot, almost, to type. I am sitting with my laptop on a pillow on my lap (it’s hotter than anything) in a lawn chair with my feet in W’s pool. Don’t do this at home. I am a professional.
So I had a brilliant, if I do say so myself, idea. I didn’t want to turn on the oven, even the stovetop, and didn’t feel much like assembling a salad or sandwich. So we picked up the phone and ordered a Paul’s Pizza (#11: pepperoni, back bacon & mushroom), got the boys packed up, picked up the pizza and headed to Stanley park (not the Vancouver one, unfortunately), where the plan was to sit in the cool of the trees and eat pizza while W played on the playground and threw rocks in the river. In reality, we pulled into the (jammed like a mall parking lot the weekend before Christmas) parking lot, me with a hot pizza on my lap and W asleep in the back seat, assessed the few hundred picnickers and half-corked rafters splayed out on every square inch of real estate, and we turned around and came home, and ate pizza in our back yard. Which was a happy ending, actually. W actually stayed asleep all evening (he typically does not shut down until 10pm, so we never really have evenings to ourselves) and so as it got dark we set up a movie on the laptop in the back yard and watched it on lawn chairs.
At that point I felt the need for something sweet and cool to sip on, and also wanted to leave you with something other than ordered pizza. I still had some black currant puree in my fridge, so decided to make a quick sorbet. (If you don’t have an ice cream machine, put it on your birthday/Christmas list. Seriously. You’ll use it! It has far more worth than a rice cooker or salad spinner or something that takes up just as much space.) Honestly – sorbet is the easiest thing ever – it’s just frozen sweetened pureed fruit. You could make it out of any type or combination of berries, juicy stone fruit (plum is good), cherries, or ripe melon. Some recipes push the fruit puree through a seive; I’d prefer to keep the fiber in there, but it’s up to you. Aim for about 2 cups for most ice cream machines. Some instruct to sweeten it with sugar; others make a simple syrup out of equal parts sugar and water, simmered on the stove to melt the sugar, then cooled completely. When your mixture is as sweet as you like it (I could give amounts, but it will totally depend on the fruit you choose, how sour it is, and how sweet you like it) make sure it’s cool, and dump it into the ice cream machine. To make a granita, which has coarse chunks of ice, you don’t even need a machine – freeze it in a cake pan and then coarsely scrape it with a fork to make chunky ice. OR – freeze it in ice cube trays or a baking pan or whatever you have, break it up into a food processor and whiz it up, put it back in the freezer, and then whiz it up again before you serve it to make it smooth. Really all an ice cream machine does is break up the large ice crystals as it freezes, which you could do in the food processor if you don’t mind going back to the freezer a few times.
So a sorbet is just pure fruit, or chocolate, or sugar and lemon juice, or whatever – no dairy; if you want to turn it into a sherbet, add about 1/2 cup of whole milk or half & half per 2 cups of puree; or more, it’s really up to you. Sherbet has milk, and then ice cream is more heavy cream – if you go further with the cream content and use less puree, you’ll end up with ice milk or ice cream instead, and there’s nothing wrong with that either. Or, freeze a tub of yogurt, with or without fruit, to make fro-yo. I’ll save more on that for another night.
So this was black currant, and I poured some ginger ale overtop of a scoop to make a float, which instantly turned a brilliant purple. I’m dying now to try some boozy floats – berry, cherry or plum sorbet with bubbly Prosecco or Muscato – lime sorbet with gin and tonic…
August 16 2008 | dessert and eating out and freezable | 4 Comments »
Today was not a good day for Spanx. It wasn’t the best day for a boiled dinner either, and I know, it could not sound less appetizing. Technically it wasn’t boiled, but slow-cooked. Either way an unusual choice - I’ve never eaten corned beef brisket before, let alone cooked one.
But. Every time I haul out my slow cooker (it’s not that big a deal, really) I get all giddy over it and go on a slow cooker kick for awhile before putting it away again. After the pulled pork fiasco I wanted to give it another go, so stopped at the grocery store on the way home and perused the meat section.
I’m not sure if you’ve seen those sealed plastic packages containing corned beef brisket in brine – they have them at Safeway, and every single time I see them I pause and ponder it, partly because they are foreign to me, and partly because Mike always said that corned beef brisket was the only thing his dad made for dinner growing up that was edible. His dad was famous for getting deals on cheap cuts of meat (shoes, really) and ancient chickens and boiling them in beer until they turned into some sort of unidentifiable jerky. Served with boiled-to-death potatoes and unpeeled carrots. And maybe some broccoli so mushy you could spread it on toast.
I figured a brisket, corned or not, was an ideal candidate for the slow cooker and so finally grabbed one, if only to shut up the little voice in my head that went hmm every time I saw them. For the past 20 years. (Mike and I started dating when I was 16. Or 17? Yes 17 – soon after the 1988 Winter Olympics. After having a crush on each other for a year and having teenage angst about it to everybody, our friends locked us in the basement at a party until we made out. Even then it took a good 4 hours to get the nerve up. So there you go – you know how old I am.) That adds up to a lot of time spent going hmm.
It turned out to be brilliant for the slow cooker – all I did was upend the package into the pot, cover it with water, and set it for 6 hours. (I wonder if Stephanie has tried this?) I was taking over traffic duties on CBC this afternoon and broadcasting live from Globalfest, so knew I wouldn’t arrive home until close to 7. After 6, Mike pulled the brisket out of its broth and set it aside, added some baby potatoes, chunked carrots and turnips (it seemed like a good fit) and wedges of cabbage to the broth – this is called New England Boiled Dinner - and it’s one of the recipes I pulled out of Cooking Light years ago and stuck in my to-make recipe binder. (Their photo looks far better than mine though.) So crank the slow cooker up to high and cook the veg until they are tender – or pour the broth into a pot and do the same thing – and you have these fantastically salty, seasoned veg to go with the meat.
The brisket did shred very satisfactorily with a fork – I love that. But overall I was less thrilled with it than Mike was. It was OK, but I wouldn’t likely make it again. Except the corned beef brisket part, which was damn tasty. It would make a fantastic Rueben, with saurkraut and Swiss cheese.
And I just realized that last night’s and tonight’s dinners rhyme – back bacon biscuit and corned beef brisket. Maybe Mike will write a song about it.
August 16 2008 | beef and one dish and slow cooker | 6 Comments »
As much as I love writing this blog, it sometimes feels as if I have homework every night for a year. Tonight, the dog actually ate my homework.
Back bacon on a peach biscuit seems as unlikely a dinner as any I can think of, but it was actually quite a tasty handful.
It all came about as a result of my being a bad sister/friend. Yesterday I made plans for a swim/playdate with my sister and K, and got caught up at work for 6 hours instead of the 1 1/2 I had planned on. (I keep asking for time management skills for Christmas, but so far Santa hasn’t delivered.) Before leaving the house I made a batch of biscuits with brown sugar and peaches to bring for our lunch, which instead sat on the kitchen counter all day. Biscuits just don’t keep well, even in the freezer, so I threw them in the freezer and swore it would only be for a day or two – as you know, I hate wasting food, so I tried to think of some use for them besides warming them and slathering them with butter or turning them into peach shortcakes. (I had just finished the Plum Browned Butter Bliss. Speaking of – I made a Peach Browned Butter Bliss to bring to the studio this afternoon, and as you can imagine it was quite well received. If you really want to make an impact, bake it at work. Make sure you toss the peaches with a little cinnamon, and you will distract the entire newsroom with the absolute best kind of baking smell. And get this: a full-sized, deep-dish pie plate fit in the toaster oven. D came over from her desk and stared at it as it baked its Bliss on a filing cabinet, and said to it, “why do I even own an oven?” Which is true, really – if you can bake things like pie in the toaster oven, why heat up an oven-sized one?)
So what could I make for dinner that would incorporate a peach biscuit? Pulled pork! Peaches go with pork. Biscuits go with pork. It made sense considering I was taking over traffic duties on the Homestretch today, which would keep me at work right until 6, and you can do pulled pork in a slow-cooker. I dug miscellaneous bits of pork shoulder and pork tenderloin out of the depths of the freezer, thawed them in a bowl of hot water, browned them in a skillet, then a sliced onion, and deglazed (read: got all the yummy bits off the bottom of the pan) with half a can of root beer. (If you ever have a half a can of flat root beer or Coke, this is a good use for it. Not exactly healthy, but hey, you were drinking pop anyway, weren’t you? Apple juice works too, but isn’t really that much better – it has the same amount of sugar even if they do add vitamin C back into it.) Then I dumped it all back together and set it to cook all afternoon before I left. Browning everything first creates flavour, which makes a difference even when you’re cooking something in the slow cooker.
When I came home I pulled the pork with two forks and popped the frozen biscuits in the toaster oven (the plan was to add some barbecue sauce to the pork – pulled pork is essentially shredded pig candy), and went upstairs to read/reenact Mortimer, Be Quiet! with W; we were halfway through when a large and familiar crash came from downstairs. This is one downfall of having a 6 month old puppy who can stand up and almost rest his paws on your shoulders (I’m 6ft tall if I stand up straight, which isn’t very often) – besides costing a fortune to feed and being starving all the time he can also easily access bowls and skillets that are precariously close to the edge of the counter; he has downed two half pounds of butter in the past week as well. And I suspect the butter presently in the dish has a licked crevasse out of it, not spread-marks from a knife…
You can imagine how this story ends. Plenty of expletives and instead of pulled pork I unceremoniously pulled out a small package of back bacon, frizzled it up in a skillet and we ate it stacked onto plain biscuits, wrapped in a paper towel, on the back porch. W thumbed peas from their pods and intermittently threw them into/at our mouths. Back bacon is another ingredient I rarely have in the house but recently bought because it’s so much leaner than regular bacon (the puddle on the paper towel in the photo up top is juice, not grease): 100 grams of back bacon contains 100 calories, a little less than ham. (As a point of reference, when I had a job at a sandwich shop – no, not a sandwich artist job - each sandwich contained 60 g of meat.)
Hey, if it’s good enough for the midway, it’s good enough for my family.
August 14 2008 | sandwiches | 7 Comments »
(Frozen Lean Italian from the Superstore.)
If a picture is worth a thousand words, can this speak for itself?
August 13 2008 | leftovers | 2 Comments »
It’s occurring to me now that what may have planted the seed to make chicken salad sandwiches was A and I joking on the weekend that one of her chickens should be named Salad Sandwich.
There was leftover grilled chicken in the fridge, and so I hacked it up with a green onion and the last of the blueberries and added the final scraping from the jar of Hellman’s Light, and I think that was it. I toyed with the idea of adding some mango and curry powder, but was just craving a plain old chicken salad sandwich. (I’m not sure I would have wanted one as badly had I made the aforementioned connection earlier.)
I’m glad I didn’t mask the raspberry chicken flavour – this is the great thing about leftover chicken that has been marinated or cooked in some sort of sauce – the flavour translates over to the chicken salad. I love chicken salad sandwiches but rarely make them and am always disappointed when I get one out – they are never as chunky as they ought to be. These sandwiches were suitably chunky.
With it, some soup I made with a small acorn squash and the last third of a can of pumpkin puree from my fridge. This is a good basic curried squash soup to which you could add apples or pears, or even apple juice. If I plan for it I use butternut squash, but any kind will do – acorn, hubbard, pumpkin – don’t bother with spaghetti squash, I don’t think.
Curried Roast Squash Soup with Pears
Cooked winter squash of any kind is much easier to peel than raw squash. If you don’t have time to roast, cut it in half, place both halves on a plate or baking dish, and cover them with plastic wrap. Pop them in the microwave for about 10 minutes, which will make it easier to peel once they are cool enough to handle. This soup freezes really well, so double the batch if you want a stash tucked away for the next few months.
1 butternut, acorn or hubbard squash, or small pumpkin
a drizzle of canola or olive oil
1 Tbsp. butter
1 onion, finely chopped
1 tsp. – 1 Tbsp. curry powder or paste, or more or less to taste
1 ripe pear, peeled and chopped
1 Tbsp. grated fresh ginger
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 L chicken or vegetable stock
1 cup milk, evaporated milk or half and half (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Cut your squash in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Place it cut side down in a roasting pan that has been sprayed with nonstick spray and bake for 40-45 minutes or until very tender. Set aside until it’s cool enough to handle. (You can cook the squash up to 2 days in advance; keep it covered in the fridge until you need it.)
Heat the oil in a large saucepan set over medium heat and sauté the onion until soft. Add the curry powder, pear, ginger and garlic and cook for a few more minutes, until the pear starts to soften. Peel the skin off the cooked squash using a vegetable peeler, paring knife or your fingers, and cut it into rough chunks. Add it to the soup with the chicken stock and bring it to a simmer. Reduce the heat and cook for about 10 minutes.
Purée the soup in a blender, or use a hand-held immersion blender to purée it right in the pot until it’s as chunky or as smooth as you like. Return the soup to the stovetop, add the milk or cream (if using), season with salt and pepper, and stir just until it’s heated through.
Serves 4-6.
W ate oatmeal. He is the only toddler I know who won’t eat anything that resembles baby food – yogurt, applesauce, even juice. Weirdo. The lady who owns the corner store tried to give him a freezie the other day and he swatted it away and ran from it as if it were poison.
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August 12 2008 | sandwiches and soup | 3 Comments »
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