I love it when things you have little hope for come together like a perfect wee origami swan you didn’t even intend to make but all your fiddling somehow produced it and it looks to all the world as if you meant to do it all along.
I made a pot of rice this morning to bring to CBC and didn’t, and so thought I might as well just go ahead and turn it into fried rice, which always makes Mike happy and is after all best made with cold rice anyway (the grains are more separate). I rooted through the fridge and found yet more bludgeoned zucchini, two limp green onions and a small leftover bison smokie, and was already apologizing to you all in my head as I sauteed up the zucchini and rice in a hot skillet, thinking this is going to be the weirdest fried-rice combo ever, but who cares, it’s edible and I’m sick of making dinner. I was about to add my usual drizzle of sesame oil and soy sauce and crack in an egg when the sausage-rice combo triggered a memory of jambalaya. So I grabbed a small handful of diced peppers from my ziploc freezer stash and threw them in with a pinch of thyme, and had half a can of diced tomatoes in the fridge that went in too, which brought the rice to a perfect jambalaya-esque consistency. I ran another handful of frozen shrimp under the tap to thaw them out, then tossed them in at the very end with a shot of hot sauce and the chopped green onions. Mike thought I was a superhero, possibly due to my impossible speed or ingenious creation of something out of practically nothing. (It can’t have been the tights – I haven’t worn them since the 80s. Although I haven’t yet managed to throw them out.)
And I thought there was nothing in the house for dinner. (I think the jambalaya is going to my head.)
September 30 2008 | leftovers and one dish | 4 Comments »
Tonight was another scramble to find something that might possibly pass as dinner at five to six.
There were some garlicky bison smokies in the fridge from Valta, and an aluminum take-out container I had forgotten about that contained half a slice of PB & banana French toast and the mountain of hash browns we got at Palomino on the weekend. A little disgusting, yes, but I felt this sudden rush of guilt that I had a) asked the waitress to package the leftovers, and b) we had used up a perfectly good take-out container. So when the smokies were getting crispy (they are very lean, so I skimmed the surface of my cast iron skillet with a bit of canola oil) I pushed them aside and rejuvenated the hash browns. It was done in under 10 minutes, all while talking on the phone (probably not as stealthily as I thought I was being at the time – sorry Sue).
For colour, we ate the last of the peas from our garden (the shoots seem to have summoned a final growth spurt) and wee fresh-from-the-dirt carrots Sue sent in her produce care package from the Okanagan. With every bite we were forced to enquire, ““eeeeh… what’s up Doc?” (Here’s a Cliff Claven fact for ya: Bugs Bunny’s blasé, carrot-munching demeanor was inspired by a scene from the movie It Happened One Night, in which Clark Gable leans nonchalantly against a fence, eating carrots while talking to Claudette Colbert. In my world, Bugs is the preschool version of the Fonz.)
September 29 2008 | bison | 4 Comments »
In that order.
We went to C’s for dinner tonight, and I didn’t want to stress her out by showing up with my camera, so I didn’t. She made her usual company dinner (I in no way mean to diminish it by mentioning that it’s her favourite thing to make when friends come over – I am always interested in peoples’ go-to recipes, and think it’s smart to have a few good things that always work and everyone loves); vegetarian lasagna from Looneyspoons and squash soup. The soup recipe comes from her next door neighbour and although I don’t have it to share, I can tell you it involves ladling hot soup over cubed brie so that the bits of cheese melt into little paisley patterns in the bottom of the bowl as you dip your spoon through.
But yesterday a package arrived on my doorstep from my friend S, whose mother had gone out to visit her in Vernon and brought it back with her. The box was full of plums, nectarines, peppers and apples, a jar of plum jam and a foil-wrapped chunk of dark fruitcake.
I adore dark fruitcake. This is nothing like the pale, sugary cakes full of candied citron and red and green maraschino cherries (how do they get them so green anyway?), but a dense, moist cake with just enough spiced batter to bind the plump dried fruit and chunky, nubbly nuts together. Since its arrival Mike and I have been opening up the double foil wrap, slicing off small wedges for ourselves and carefully rewrapping it, and we finished it this afternoon before heading out for dinner.
Sue and I have always used the dark fruitcake from The Joy of Cooking, but discovered last year when we didn’t manage to coordinate ourselves in the same city for our usual fruitcake-baking date and Sue referred to her old copy of Joy, which has a completely different, egg-laden recipe for dark fruitcake. So this comes from the dark fruitcake of the newish Joy (circa 1997); it’s The One, the be-all end-all of fruitcakes (in my mind) that I will never stray far from.
If you’re the type to bake fruitcake months in advance (I’m not, but it’s never too early to share), it’s getting to be that time. Sue says: “I figure as soon as it’s too cool in the mornings to wear bare feet and flip-flops without freezing your toes, fruitcake is back in vogue. Kind of like the opposite of white shoes after Labour Day: no fruitcake before Labour Day.”
Dark Fruitcake
adapted from The Joy of Cooking, 1997 edition
3 cups all-purpose flour (you can get away with using part whole wheat flour)
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. allspice
½ tsp. nutmeg
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
2 cups packed brown sugar
½ cup dark molasses
Grated zest and juice of 1 orange
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
¾ cup brandy, rum, or grape or orange juice (or even red wine!)
2 ½ cups mixed dried or candied fruit of your choice (I use dried cranberries, dried cherries if I can afford them, figs, dark raisins, real candied orange peel if I have it, and finely chopped apricots if I’m in the mood)
2 cups coarsely chopped walnuts and/or pecans
1 ½ cup dates
1 ½ cup currants
1 ½ cup golden raisins
Preheat the oven to 300° F, and grease a bundt or tube pan really well; coat with flour and tap out the excess.
In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar for a few minutes, until light and creamy. Beat in the molasses and orange and lemon zest and juice.
Add the flour mixture in 3 parts, alternating with the brandy, rum or juice in 2 parts. Stir in the fruits and nuts and scrape into the pan.
Bake for 3 ½ hours. Joy instructs: “The cake may appear done at 2 ½ hours; simply ignore this.” If the cake is darkening too quickly on top, cover it loosely with foil for the last 30-60 minutes. Cool in the pan on a wire rack, then invert onto a plate. Store well wrapped at room temperature.
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September 28 2008 | cake | 14 Comments »
This morning after being poked awake at 7:30 by W, instead of going to the gym (this makes it sound like the gym would be my normal routine, when really I just keep meaning to make it my normal routine) I made my way downstairs and lugged in the Saturday paper, then curled up on the couch with a lovely espresso and wedge of banana bread. All three of us shared a down comforter and we all had our own plates banana bread, and W had Goodnight Gorilla to read, and even though it was far too early for a weekend, all was very cozy and dreamy. Mike flipped open the paper to the Living section and there, filling the front page, was a photo of our disastrous kitchen, with W and I at the counter, backs to the camera, blocking the zucchini and avocado W was concentrating on chopping, oblivious to the photographer shooting a) my back rolls, and b) the whole kitchen, not just the counter area that I had cleaned and cleared for his arrival. He was going to shoot W helping me make dinner, and I offered to clear away the clutter on the other side of the stove and overflowing (but not with bread) breadbox if it was visible. I told Mike not to bother mopping the floor. I suppose it is an accurate depiction of dinnertime at our house, except that W had clothes on and wasn’t running around in circles with the dog barking, screaming AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! And my drawerful of kitchen gadgets wasn’t emptied out all over the floor.
The insert was a photo of a lovely kitchen from a showhome or IKEA catalog or something with the caption: The Dream. Beside it, my kitchen, with the caption: The Reality.
Went down to 17th Avenue to apply a bowl of cafe mocha to my face (at Beano they use grated Bernard Callebaut chocolate), but the lineup was too long, and the outside benches were scattered with newspaper sections, some exposing my very un-Martha kitchen to everyone who had the patience (or didn’t have the toddler) to wait. Ended up at The Palomino for lunch, or rather a late breakfast, but far more than anyone would ever really eat at breakfast: mine was eggs Benny over pulled pork (I decline to comment; suffice to say I’m often disappointed with eggs Benny and should have known better, plus they looked like a set of bad implants), W had French toast stuffed with peanut butter and grilled bananas (a great concept, and something I might try at home, minus the grilling, but all he actually ate was the side of bacon), and Mike will always order a burger topped with a fried egg if there is one to be had on a menu (unfortunately the fried egg was hard-cooked, which sort of defeats the purpose of the yolk oozing out and mingling with the burger fixins’). Everything was accompanied by a shocking quantity of hash browns; the spicy, spongy cubed kind. Lunch planted itself in our guts and held a sit-in all afternoon, straight through dinner.
But in the evening we needed something to nibble on, and fortunately it was the day I was to make snappy flatbread crackers for my Daring Bakers challenge. Thankfully it wasn’t much of a challenge, but I’m so glad to have tried them, especially considering crackers/flatbread of this kind go for about $8 a package at most gourmet shops. They are just flour, oil and water. They were easy and fantastic, and such a basic recipe could take on any flavouring well. (I actually had chopped a bunch of garlic and then kneaded the dough with my garlicky hands, and it infused the crackers with the subtlest hint of garlic.)
I try to leave well enough alone with these recipes, but couldn’t help a few tweaks: you can use honey or sugar instead of agave nectar, which most people don’t keep on their shelves, and when I make crackers I like to sprinkle the surface with salt or spices and then roll again lightly with the rolling pin to press them into the surface, so that they don’t roll off once baked. And although the recipe said ‘makes one sheet of crackers’, if you do roll the dough out paper thin you fill two rimmed cookie sheets, the large ones, so really you get two sheets, and need to cut the dough in half, otherwise it would drape over all four sides and probably bake up into a giant inverted rectangular bowl.
To go with, I made a batch of roasted carrot hummus. Generally I make this only when I have leftover roasted carrots, but I was in the mood so roasted 3 in my toaster oven especially for the occasion. Add a roasted (or steamed, or boiled) carrot or three and a hefty shake of cumin to any hummus recipe to make it.
Armenian Crackers (Pideh)
adapted from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering The Art of Extraordinary Bread, by Peter Reinhart
Here’s a simple formula for making snappy Armenian-style crackers, perfect for breadbaskets, company and kids. It is similar to the many other Middle Eastern and Northern African flatbreads known by different names; mankoush or mannaeesh (Lebanese), barbari (Iranian), khoubiz or khobz (Arabian), aiysh (Egyptian), kesret and mella (Tunisian), pide or pita (Turkish), and pideh (Armenian). The main differences between them are the thickness of the rolled dough and the type of oven in which they are baked (or on which they are baked, as many of these breads are cooked on stones or red-hot pans with a convex surface).
The key to crisp crackers is to roll out the dough paper-thin. The sheet can be cut into crackers in advance or snapped into shards after baking. The shards make a nice presentation when arranged in baskets.
1 1/2 cups unbleached bread flour or gluten free flour blend (if you use a blend without xanthan gum, add 1 tsp xanthan or guar gum to the recipe)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. instant yeast
1 Tbsp. canola or olive oil
1 Tbsp. honey, agave syrup or sugar
1/2 cup + maybe 2 Tbsp. water, at room temperature
Poppy seeds, sesame seeds, paprika, cumin seeds, caraway seeds, or kosher salt to sprinkle on top
In a mixing bowl, stir together the flour, yeast, salt, oil, honey and just enough water to bring everything together into a ball. (You may not need the full 1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp. water, but be prepared to use it all if needed.)
Sprinkle some flour on the counter and transfer the dough to the counter. Knead for about 10 minutes, or until smooth and elastic. Lightly oil a bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling it around to coat it with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.
Let it sit at room temperature for 90 minutes, or until the dough doubles in size. (You can also retard the dough overnight in the refrigerator immediately after kneading or mixing).
Mist the counter lightly with nonstick spray and transfer the dough to the counter. Press the dough into a square with your hand and dust the top of the dough lightly with flour. Roll it out with a rolling pin into a paper thin sheet. You may have to stop from time to time so that the gluten can relax. At these times, lift the dough from the counter and wave it a little, and then lay it back down. When it is the desired thinness, let the dough relax for 5 minutes. Line a sheet pan (or two) with baking parchment or spray it with nonstick spray. Carefully lift the sheet of dough and lay it on the sheet, cutting it in half and dividing it between two sheets if you need to.
Preheat the oven to 350F with the oven rack on the middle shelf. Mist the top of the dough with water and sprinkle with seeds, salt or spices. Be careful with spices and salt – a little goes a long way. If you want to precut the crackers, use a pizza cutter and cut diamonds or rectangles in the dough. You do not need to separate the pieces, as they will snap apart after baking. If you want to make shards, bake the sheet of dough without cutting it first.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the crackers begin to brown evenly across the top (the time will depend on how thinly and evenly you rolled the dough).
When the crackers are baked, remove the pan from the oven and let them cool on the pan for about 10 minutes. Snap them apart or snap off shards and serve.
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September 27 2008 | appetizers and bread and snacks | 15 Comments »
The bouquet of leafy celery struggling to stay alive in a tall glass of water on my countertop was the inspiration behind this soup. I chopped it leaves and all, sauteed it in a bit of canola oil with 4 fat cloves of garlic (crushed) and a spicy Spolumbo’s Italian sausage, squeezed out of its skin (from the freezer; freed up at least 4 square inches of space); when brown bits started to accumulate on the bottom I poured in a tetra pack of chicken stock and a baggie of lentils and barley I had cooked extra of and frozen last time I made that lentil-barley salad. I usually just add a can of lentils to this particular soup, but the barley was a very good idea. And easy to thaw; open the bag, tap in some hot water, seal it again and sit it in the sink, then pour out the water and pour the lentils and barley into the pot. Mike was quite smitten with this soup, even though he has met many of its first cousins before; he even asked how I made the broth. (Even water would have sufficed with the spicy sausage, garlic and celery; that’s how you make stock, after all.)
Although he refuses to eat soup anymore, after dinner W attempted to consume the contents of his bathtub with a spoon. It kept him busy for awhile, anyway.
September 26 2008 | soup | 5 Comments »
