Archive for August, 2009
For as long as I’ve had the faculty of memory, and for as long as he was alive, my Grandad ate butterscotch or caramel sundaes for dessert. Sometimes it was a variation on the theme; bananas sautéed with butter and brown sugar (add some rum, stick a match to them and you could call it bananas Foster) were the biggest request when my Grandma was gone and my mom went to stay with him. It’s difficult to imagine anything simpler or more of a comfort than bananas sautéed in butter and sugar and spooned over ice cream or warm pancakes or wrapped in a crepe.
On regular weeknights he had vanilla ice cream with butterscotch marble, or a dish of plain vanilla with butterscotch or caramel syrup drizzled over top. During one visit my Dad attempted to impose his own healthy eating habits on him; since Grandad never dished out his own ice cream – my Grandma would go serve it up while he stayed in his usual seat at the end of the table, so that behind him you could see the Detroit river and behind that, a sparkling, towering downtown – I was sent out of the kitchen to the dining room with a dish of a sugarless vanilla frozen soy product doused with extra caramel to disguise its inauthenticity. I’m not sure why he thought we’d get away with it. We didn’t.
I heart caramel. I really do, and yet I’m never inclined to order a caramel sundae. I just don’t think of it in the face of chocolate or hot fudge. But when I do get a taste, I adore it. Remembering this, and my Grandad (who lived to be 94), I made a batch of caramel sauce – tweaking a recipe for chewy fleur de sel caramels – and bought a tub of vanilla ice cream. (I couldn’t make the ice cream from scratch too – I just couldn’t. I knew in my gut that it would cause me to eat the entire batch of both if I did.)
I drizzled the caramel sauce over the ice cream and sprinkled it with salt – flaky pink salt from the Himalayas that N brought me a jar of, and then I tried a bite with a pinch of crackly Maldon salt, and then grey salt. You know, for research purposes. Hey, I can’t help it – it’s my job.
That pants falling down business? I nipped it right in the bud.
Caramel Sauce with Grey (or other nice) Salt
This keeps very well in the fridge, but it’s a large batch – enough for an extra jar to share with someone you really, really like.
1 cup golden syrup (Roger’s or Lyle’s – I used Roger’s)
2 cups sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
a few drops lemon juice
2 cups cream – whipping cream (35%), coffee cream (18%) or half & half (10%), or a combination
2 Tbsp. butter
1 tsp. pure vanilla
good, flaky salt – fleur de sel, Maldon, pink – for serving with
In a heavy saucepan, combine the syrup, sugar, salt and lemon juice and cook over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves completely and the mixture begins to simmer around the edges. Wash any sugar and syrup from the sides of the pan with a pastry brush dipped in water. Cover and cook for about 3 minutes.
Uncover the pan, attach a candy thermometer to the edge and and cook uncovered, without stirring, swirling the pan once in awhile until the mixture reaches 305°F. Meanwhile, bring the cream to a simmer in a small saucepan; turn off the heat and set aside.
When the sugar mixture reaches 305°F, turn off the heat and stir in the butter, then whisk in the hot cream; it will bubble up and steam. Turn the burner back on and bring the mixture to a boil, stirring. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool completely.
Store in the fridge; when ready to serve, reheat (if you like) and drizzle over ice cream, cake or your finger; sprinkle lightly with flaky salt immediately before serving.
Makes about 3 cups.
One Year Ago: Peach Pie and Roasted Peach & Brown Sugar Ice Cream
August 16 2009 | dessert and sweet stuff | 27 Comments »
Check this out. Sometimes this all-encompassing obsession with food has its benefits. (Excuse me, please, while I pat myself on the back for this one. Although I’m quite certain someone somewhere has already thought of it – they can get equal kudos for their obvious culinary brilliance.)
So I was driving recently, or rather I was daydreaming in the passenger seat, imagining myself eating a meatloaf sandwich. Some fantasize about George Clooney; my mind wanders to meatloaf. Can you blame me, really? Meatloaf sandwiches are the best, aren’t they? I mean, they are more often than not my motivation for making meatloaf in the first place. That, and ketchup.
So it occurred to me that one could morph meatloaf and burgers on the barbecue. Although I am a longtime fan of the grilled burger, I don’t make them often at home. (This could be partly due to my underlying prejudice against homemade burgers, instilled at an early age when my Dad would broil patties made with extra-lean ground beef and oat bran in approximately a 50-50 ratio. He’s a gastroenterologist; I suppose this excuses him for being a particularly vocal advocate of fiber. Needless to say, my first fast-food burger was a mind-blowing revelation.)
But – meatloaf. You could bake a meatloaf, and then chill it, and then grill thick slabs to heat it through, brushing with barbecue sauce or the sticky glaze normally reserved for the top of a meatloaf. Couldn’t you? Oh yes. You sure could. Especially if you had leftovers.
Bonus: this relieves any pressure of whomever is in charge of the barbecue to ensure they cook the burgers through without overcooking them, as well as the need to break one or two open to see just how pink they are inside. Because hey, the meatloaf is cooked already.
If you need a meatloaf recipe, there are plenty to be found online. Cook it, chill it, slice it thick. If there is a glaze, save it to brush on while you grill. Then all you need to do is add a slab of aged white cheddar (or, you know, whatever) after the first flip, and close the lid so that it melts.
And so it has come to be that W will not carry a homemade burger prejudice on his shoulders into adulthood.
One Year Ago: Black Currant Sorbet & Ginger Ale Floats
August 15 2009 | beef and on the grill | 22 Comments »
A long day. Up at 4, out the door by 5am, back home just in time for the 9 o’clock news. But a few new experiences in between:
At around 6:30 am, as I was hurtling down the highway toward Edmonton listening to Panic in Detroit, I saw a moose standing by the edge of the highway; a big guy with a massive felted rack, tapping a hoof onto the pavement like he was testing the water before getting in. I honked. He got spooked and backed off, then ran alongside the traffic for a bit. (How Canadian, eh?)
Later in the morning I was carrying 3 watermelons down Jasper Avenue in Edmonton and my pants fell down. Yes, I was, and they did. (A hidden camera moment if I’ve ever heard of one.) This is the problem with Spanx – their smooth shininess coupled with their ability to smooth out those rolls your pants normally hang on to, just enough for them to work their way down without you feeling them go. You really learn something about yourself and what interesting new muscles you’re capable of pulling when you’re responsible for the safekeeping of multiple melons. I might have been more mortified if I wasn’t so ecstatic that my pants actually fell down. I must be wasting away to nothing, right?
I had lunch (beef short ribs and phyllo-wrapped cheese with saskatoon compote) with someone I had never met, someone also guilty of photographing her food. Then I drove to Legal (pronounce it as if you were French) and met some fantastic people with a brilliant food product that I’ll tell you about tomorrow – tonight I’m just too bagged to even know where to begin.
Dinner was leftovers from this morning’s cooking segments on BT – grapes from the bag, chunks of melon, strawberries and watermelon salsa nestled in the cup holder scooped out with corn chips. Turns out finely chopped watermelon is a great addition to salsa – juicy, crunchy, slightly sweet; a refreshing contrast to the chilies, black beans, corn and spice. I ate in the car, driving in and out of rainstorms from Legal through Edmonton and back to Calgary. My favourite part – besides the fields full of hay bales we always refer to as whole-wheat marshmallows – is the sky.
For those of you who have not experienced an Alberta sky; well. How do I describe it and do it justice? A friend of mine moved here from Halifax to become a doctor, and she said that for 2 whole years she felt like she was being crushed by the sky. It’s just that big. This afternoon it was straight out of the Simpsons opening sequence – on my way home it looked like puddles of blue-gray watercolour paint dabbed with a wadded-up Kleenex. I couldn’t stop looking at it.
Watermelon Salsa
adapted from www.watermelon.org
1 19 oz. (540 mL) can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can kernel corn, drained
1/2 small purple onion, finely diced
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and finely minced
1-2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. mild chili powder
juice of 1 lime
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
Salt to taste
2 cups finely chopped seedless watermelon
In a large bowl, stir together everything except the watermelon. Add watermelon and gently fold to combine. Chill for a few hours to allow the flavours to meld before serving.
Serves about 10.
August 13 2009 | appetizers and beans | 29 Comments »
Yes, that’s all I had for dinner – eaten with my fingers at my desk. All because earlier this afternoon I was lured away from my healthy bowl of black bean and sweet potato soup lying in wait in the fridge, into the comforting arms of Boogie’s Burgers.
(Boogie’s Burgers: I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I had heard your burgers were really great, but I was too busy judging a book by its cover. The signage never lured me in. And then Gwen did – the power of suggestion is strong with me. I’m like a Skywalker or something.)
Upon sliding into the booth after touring the room with W, playing twenty-five cent games of pinball, Donkey Kong and Ms. Pac Man, Mike just looked at me and said, “well I feel like a schmuck for never coming here before.” I was thinking the same. We got our Coke in a GLASS. And our fries in an actual ceramic BOWL. The burgers were the size of W’s head, but not in an over-the-top way.
I had the Fay Burger, which I can only deduce was named after someone who really loved mushrooms. Sauteed mushrooms, sauteed onions, mushroom sauce and bacon. Somehow I missed out on the cheese, which, lets face it, I probably didn’t need.
Mike opted for the Sam burger – if there is a burger with a fried egg on it on the menu, he really can’t choose anything else. The patties are the polar opposite to those at Rocky’s Burger Bus – where theirs are baseball-shaped, Boogie’s are more reminiscent of a Frisbee. But in a good way; Mike described it as the meat layer of an interesting sandwich (as in, between the bun was a thin patty of lovely beef, lettuce, tomato, sauteed onions, cheese, and a fried egg) rather than the main event (as in, the bun barely contains the ball of meat inside). Interestingly enough neither of us had a preference; they each hold their own.
(Ha – I just noticed that back on the day I went to Rocky’s, I had edamame for dinner. It’s like burgers are a sin and beans are my penance. And if I’m going to have one, it better be good.)
Next time I’m going back for a shake – but maybe not the Fat Elvis.
Oh right – the roasted beans. Are you still listening? Do you still even care about beans? I found green and yellow ones in my crisper, forgotten, and remembering the success with the kale (and even the roasted broccoli – remember? Roasted with some oil and a toss of Parmesan toward the end? I forgot about that!) I decided to give beans a whirl. Roasting can truly make any vegetable infinitely tastier. Tossed with oil, sprinkled with salt and roasted at 400F for about 15 minutes, shaking once or twice. They weren’t pretty, but I’d like to offer up a suggestion of these roasted beans instead of a side of fries beside your next burger.
One Year Ago: Big Salad with Grilled Raspberry Chicken and Plum Browned Butter Bliss
August 11 2009 | eating out | 20 Comments »
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