Archive for August, 2009
There are Saskatoons at the dog park. (Sandy Beach, and the hill up to and down from Brittania.)
I noticed this when I was about two-thirds of the way through my latte. Stopping by a particularly fruitful bush, I chugged it so that I could fill my cup with Alberta’s Own blueberries. As in Blueberries for Sal, I walked along the path, dropping berries into my little bucket: kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk. (Only it was more like tut, tut, tut – far more unceremonious in my Starbucks cup.) I went home with the better part of a grande – enough to make muffins. Sundays, after all, are meant for making muffins.
(But then W ate most of them – just like in Blueberries for Sal – and I had to pad the muffins a bit with some Saskatoons my neighbour brought over.)
I recalled a recipe for Browned Butter Blueberry Muffins from Joy the Baker (and wow, have you checked out her newly-made-over website?) – I am enamoured of browned butter anything – it’s even fantastic over popcorn – and this was no exception. I knocked the butter down to 1/3 cup (from 7 tablespoons, just shy of half a cup) – but if you’re trying to better your fat intake, these work smashingly with canola oil instead. The batter is thick; just enough to hold 2 cups of berries together. A few months ago I made a similar crumble for the tops of other muffins, and because I for some reason always view this as a bit of a (albeit delicious) hassle, I made a big batch (while I was at it) and froze it. Now I have a baggie of brown sugar rubble to toss over fruit, or muffins, or whatever needs to be made a little homier/fancier by a little smattering of something. Simple.
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August 23 2009 | bread and breakfast | 14 Comments »
I’m going to take a stab at posting nightly again for awhile, even when it’s late and I’m tired. Lack of time and energy isn’t always a good excuse not to do stuff.
Had a barbecue late this afternoon, with neighbours and friends that brought 4 boys between them.
W was in big-boy heaven. Our chef neighbour smoked some chicken wings – after an afternoon in the smoker, he doused them with a cup of Jack Daniels and a half cup of maple syrup, with a few drops of Tabasco. We ate a few just like that, but then I threw them on a hot grill, just to crisp them up a bit. I probably don’t have to tell you how fantastic they were.
I used a yard full of boys as an excuse to make burgers. Since I rarely do this, I consulted my friend Ron, Canada’s Barbecue Champion and self-proclaimed barbecue evangelist. This is his recipe, the one he makes for his teenagers. It fit the bill quite well, and likely would have been cooked perfectly had W not peeled the tip off his toe riding his new go-cart barefoot down the front sidewalk.
The biggest thing to remember, I think, when making a burger from scratch is to not overhandle the meat, which can make it tough. (I think the very best burgers I ever made were thrown together in a hurry, and were no more than barely thawed ground beef, hardly formed into patties.) Make them a little concave in the middle if you like, to prevent them from ending up baseball-shaped.
(Whitecap let me use their photo – thanks! Our ketchup and mustard weren’t so eloquently placed…)
Classic Dadburger Deluxe
from Barbecue Secrets by Rockin’ Ronnie Shewchuk (Whitecap)
Burger patties:
6 lb (2.7 kg) ground beef (or combine equal amounts ground beef and ground pork)
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 head roasted garlic, cloves squeezed out and mashed with a fork
1 Tbsp. sesame oil (preferably the kind that says “toasted” on the label)
2 Tbsp. dark soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce or a combination
1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp. cayenne (optional – or more, if you like more heat)
lots of freshly ground black pepper
2 eggs
1/2 cup cold water
Fixin’s:
barbecue sauce
12–16 cheese slices (optional)
12–16 hamburger buns
Line a baking sheet with waxed paper.
Gently combine the burger ingredients in a large bowl with your hands, taking care not to overwork the meat. Wet your hands in cold water before you form the mixture into chunks the size of tennis balls. Flatten them into patties, placing them on the baking sheet. Each patty will be about 1/2 lb before cooking. Place them in the freezer for 1 hour to firm them up.
Preheat your grill for medium direct heat. Take the burgers out of the freezer and grill them for 6 minutes per side, or until they are springy to the touch, glazing them on both sides with barbecue sauce. Top each patty with a slice of cheese for the last couple of minutes of cooking. Serve the burgers on buns with your favorite condiments.
Makes 12–16 patties, depending on how big you like them.
One Year Ago: Bacon, Tomato and Avocado Salad with Pesto Dressing
August 22 2009 | on the grill | 9 Comments »
We’re lucky to have a friend who smokes. They are fortunately the very same friends who throw great parties, in a killer outdoor veranda – if you can call a mini-house in the back yard with a roof but no walls and lots of antique furniture and gauzy curtains and reclaimed stained glass and teeny white lightbulbs and a built-in stereo a mere veranda – if I lived there I’d have to have a party every single night of the summer, just to get maximum use out of it. And in the winter, I’d make people wear their parkas and argue that at least their mojitos are going to stay nice and icy cold.
There were 8 large dogs (among them Lou plus a Rhodesian ridgeback in our charge – Comox the ultra-buff supermodel dog, who it turns out tries to charm people into giving up their meat – a bit of a pulled-pork whore, but I can’t say I blame her) and at least twice as many kids, who comandeered the face paints to apply themselves.
W followed Tasha around, hoping she might break into song. And we came across a posted sign, imploring the safe return of a lost Webkin.
We ate pulled pork – the real stuff, from the smoker. And Taber corn, and salads. And fruit with whipped cream and two-bite brownies. And – are you ready for this? – I didn’t bring anything. (Save for a cold bottle of Prosecco.) As we were getting ready to leave, Mike presented himself at the fridge, arms extended, ready to be loaded up. Nothing.
“Nothing? For real?”
“Nothing.”
“Why not?”
“She told me not to!”
Silence.
“Wow, this is weird. Is everything OK? You didn’t make anything?”
“I didn’t make anything.”
But I ate. A lot.
One Year Ago: Food at Globalfest, and Roasted Blueberries over Lavender Ice Cream
August 21 2009 | eating out | 14 Comments »
Having done a watermelon show in Edmonton last week, I find myself in the possession of more watermelons than I might otherwise have at one time to feed a family of 3. And, having not dropped them to save my pants from falling down last week, I feel particular pressure to do something with them, lest my humiliation be for nothing.
It turns out cubed watermelon makes a great addition to salads. Think about it – they are slightly sweet, crunchy, watery – a far better crouton for a hot summer day, don’t you think? This particular salad was built (as usual) on a mesclun mix, this time plucked cautiously (there aren’t many leaves there) from the pots on my patio; to it I added cubes of watermelon, a small handful of halved grapes, crumbled blue cheese (although feta or goat cheese would have been delicious too), and candied walnuts. For these particular candied walnuts, I toasted about a cup in a skillet (I like to make more than I need, to take me through several salads), then added 1/4 cup of sugar and a teaspoon of soy sauce (which adds flavour and salt), tossed it about until the sugar melted and coated the walnuts, then took them off the heat and allowed them to cool. That’s it. To dress: balsamic vinaigrette: canola oil, a drizzle of flax oil (1 tsp. has the same omega 3s as a filet of salmon), balsamic vinegar, a squirt of grainy mustard and a drizzle of maple syrup or honey – my standard. I shake it all up in one of those IKEA dressing bottles, and if I want it garlicky, squish a clove and stick it in without pressing it – it’s too big to come through the nozzle, so it infuses the dressing with garlic without contributing raw garlic chunks. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
(And speaking of watermelon salads – I think I told you last year about one that completely blew me away – just chunked watermelon and feta, drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette. If you had some fresh mint in your garden, that would be a nice addition too.)
And while I have your ear, I just have to share a few quotes from W in the past 24 hours:
Grabbing onto me at the park: “oooh Mom, you’re nice and squishy!” Super.
In the car: “Mom, what does meat say?” (Me: “Moo.”) W: “No… it says ‘hi, I’m delicious!’.”
Tonight, pre-bath: “Hey, how about you be the Terminator, and I’ll be the cupcakes rolling down the hill. Ready? Go!”
Honestly, I don’t remember improv day in drama class being this complex. What does one do when one is the Terminator upon encountering cupcakes rolling down a hill? (Apparently W has a very clear view of this scenario, and I was doing it entirely wrong.)
One Year Ago: Lamb Rogan Josh and Roasted Chick Peas with Garlic and Chard
August 20 2009 | salads | 14 Comments »
I think if one is going to discuss tomatoes, the issue of classification (fruit or vegetable) should be cleared out of the way at the outset.
Botanically, tomatoes are indeed fruit. This is a fact of common knowledge, yet although people are quick to point it out, they hardly consider treating them as such. One would no more make a sweet and cinnamon-scented crisp out of tomatoes than they would stuff an apple with crumbs and top it with cheese. (Although come to think of it, either one might be quite tasty. I have, after all, discovered this year that tomato paste makes a more than suitable addition to a spicy Jewish apple cake, and I’ve for a long time added a spoonful to carrot cakes.)
And that’s because tomatoes are – ready for this? – vegetables. The term is purely culinary, referring to any plant whose fruit, seeds, roots, tubers, bulbs, stems, leaves, or flower parts are used as food. So from a culinary standpoint, from the arena in which it matters (the kitchen), a tomato is a vegetable. But whatever you call it – I’m just happy that my plants are producing some.
(And in case you do get pulled into the fruit vs. vegetable debate, you can play the Supreme Court card: legally, tomatoes have been considered vegetables since the late 1800s when the US imposed tariff laws that included a duty on vegetables but not fruit, forcing the court to decide; furthermore, tomatoes are the state vegetable of New Jersey – 8,682,661 New Jerseyers can’t be wrong.)
So yes, it’s Tomato Week, the final installment of Summer Fest 2009, and I’m late to the party again – last week seemed to completely blow by without much more than roasted beans, let alone greens.
This week though, my tomato plants are bursting. Bursting! I no longer have tomato envy. I am the proud mama of two flourishing plants, picked up around May/June from Home Depot with high hopes and replanted (at about a foot tall) in the old double sink propped up against the fence and filled with dirt. They are now over-the-fence-high; over the summer as they grew I propped them up with bamboo sticks and chunks of hockey sticks, secured with twist ties, and maybe it’s all that Canadian karma, but it worked. One is heavy with cherry tomatoes, not all ripe at once but promising a tomato-heavy month; the other produced small “patio” tomatoes, sort of like a cross between a Roma and a regular beefsteak. They are still green, but they’re there. And there are lots of them. And I grew them. Or at least, didn’t kill them.
One of my favourite things to do to a cherry tomato is roast it; drizzle with oil, scatter with garlic and sprinkle with salt, then roast at 400F or so until they release their juices and shrivel, then start to get sticky, dark bits. There are so many things you can do with roasted tomatoes: scrape out of the pan onto hot pasta with crumbled feta or goat cheese and tear some fresh herbs over top; add chicken or veg stock and puree for roasted tomato soup (add a splash of cream at the end); scatter over pizza; or make a savoury clafoutis.
Roasted Cherry Tomato and Goat Cheese Clafoutis
A clafoutis is a baked French custard usually studded with cherries and sweetened with sugar; this one is savoury, but resembles the original with cherry tomatoes. Serve it warm or cold, in wedges. It’s probably great as a sandwich, tucked between buttered toast.
1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes
2-3 garlic cloves, left whole
canola or olive oil, for cooking
salt and pepper
4 oz. soft goat cheese
2 Tbsp. snipped fresh chives, parsley or basil
3 large eggs
1 cup half & half
3 Tbsp. flour
Preheat the oven to 400F. Spread the tomatoes and garlic in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet; drizzle with oil, salt and pepper, roll around to coat and roast for 20-30 minutes, or until the tomatoes start to shrivel and turn golden.
Scrape into a pie plate or other shallow baking dish that has been sprayed with nonstick spray. Turn the oven down to 350F. Crumble over the goat cheese and sprinkle with chives.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, cream and flour; pour over the tomatoes and cheese. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until puffed and pale golden. Serve immediately, wait until it cools to room temperature, or chill and serve cold.
A lot of tomatoes are finding their way into kitchens this week:
Margaret of A Way to Garden made some quick tomato sauce, ever so slowly; Matt of Matt Bites shows off his Tomato Top Ten. Shauna of Gluten Free Girl slices them up and makes a smoked salsa. Marilyn of Simmer Till Done made us an upside-down tomato-basil bread. Paige of The Sister Project simmered tomato soup. Jaden of Steamy Kitchen (thankfully!) made a Caprese salad with basil vinaigrette. And Diane and Todd of White on Rice Couple simmered some tomato jam – yum.
Check them out – Summer Fest 2009 – like summer itself – is coming to an end.
One Year Ago: Grilled Cheese with Elk Pepper Salami, Pickled Beet and Apple Salad
August 18 2009 | appetizers and eggs and vegetarian | 22 Comments »
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