Archive for August, 2009
It would appear I’m becoming a slacker again, especially on weekends. This time I have an excuse though: I got stung by a bee and swelled. No really. Actually it was a wasp, and it wasn’t so much the swelling as the ensuing sensation that my gut was being stomped upon by angry transvestites in stilettos (stilettos with real-size women in them would be far too small and dainty).
Although I do like the excuse that I’m actually only 120 pounds, I just got stung by a bee. (Or perhaps several – mostly in the muffin-top and thigh area.)
I was so honoured to emcee the first annual Sugar Bowl last night. Immediately upon walking in the door of the lawn bowling club I was chatting at the registration desk, not hassling any wasps at all, and one flew up my capris and stung me above the knee (as one might do if one was trapped in my pants). Ironically, I’ve been killing wasps all over our house and yard for days without being stung – in fact I assassinated 4 in the bathroom immediately before leaving for the event. (Clearly this is payback – either the offending wasp followed me there, or got texted by his second cousin over in Ramsay that half his family was just obliterated and flushed down the toilet.)
So it hurt, yes, and swelled into a second knee. But as I was dabbing some ointment on it my stomach must have got wind of what happened, cramped up and remained that way for the entire evening, so much so that it was hard to stand up straight. I’m sure some attendees wondered about the pained expression on my face; surely I couldn’t be that passionate about lawn bowling?
It was a really really fantastic, fun event, and I’m already looking forward to next year. But when it was over I got myself home, into my PJs and the fetal position and stayed that way until this morning. Stupid wasp.
So last night: no dinner. I have no idea what M fed W, but this morning the latter fessed up to eating a bag of whole wheat hot dog buns, and I estimated there were at least 6 in there when I left (I took note for a fall-back dinner: a whole wheat hot dog bun spread with peanut butter and stuffed with a banana. Guess he didn’t make it that far.)
Tonight we ate grilled Spolumbo’s sausages and leftover ratatouille, but I do have to tell you about those kale chips. Turns out fresh kale, when oiled, salted and roasted, turns into crispy, salty kale, and although it is completely delicious, and finally helped me to understand why people go around eating sheets of nori, I think calling them chips are a bit of a stretch. I will totally make this again, though – my sister and I polished off a bowl of crispy, ruffly “chips” in under 10 minutes. The kids unfortunately didn’t fall for the ruse.
Thanks, you guys, for all the recipe links! It was interesting to compare; oven temperatures ranged from 250°F to 400°F (I did a middle-of-the-road 350°F) and while all were tossed in oil, a couple also had lemon juice or apple cider vinegar, which I opted against. (In order to get veggies nice and crispy you want to avoid any moisture, and I really wanted them crispy.) Wash your kale, dry it in a salad spinner or between tea towels, pull out the tough stems, tear it into chunks (if you like – some recipes roasted whole leaves) and toss with a drizzle of canola or olive oil, then sprinkle with salt. Make sure the leaves are spread out in a single layer on your baking sheet; when they get bunched up they tend to not crisp up. The higher temp recipes took only 5 minutes; the low took half an hour; mine took about 15 minutes. You just want them crisp, but not burned. It’s pretty simple, really.
And I thought it was about time I mentioned the ratatouille; I’ve gone through a couple batches in the past weeks, keeping it in the fridge to dip into for pizza, sandwiches, lasagna, or to balance a grilled sausage. It seems more like an end-of-summer dish, but the markets are loaded with tomatoes, peppers, zucchini and eggplant right now. I love this recipe because you can start with the onion and then just chop and add veggies to the pan as you go, and measurements are approximate – feel free to add more of this or that, and sometimes I add a big spoonful of tomato paste to enrich it a little.
Like chili and soup, ratatouille is even better the next day, and the next. And once you have a stash of it, you can toss it with hot pasta (and crumbled feta or goat cheese), layer it between lasagna noodles, spread some into a panini or grilled cheese, or gob onto a pizza crust or pita and top with cheese.
Ratatouille
canola or olive oil, for cooking
1 large onion, halved and sliced
4-5 big garlic cloves, crushed
1 small eggplant, chopped into bite-sized pieces
1 red, yellow or orange pepper, chopped
1 zucchini, chopped into bite-sized pieces
3 ripe tomatoes, coarsely chopped
a couple tablespoons tomato paste (optional)
1 tsp. oregano or dried Italian seasoning
a handful of fresh spinach or basil, chopped (optional)
In a large skillet, heat a generous glug of oil over medium heat. Saute the onion, stirring occasionally, until soft and starting to turn golden. Add the garlic and cook for another minute, then add the eggplant and cook for another 5 minutes, adding more oil if needed, until the eggplant is soft. Add the pepper and zucchini, season with salt and pepper and cook for about 10 minutes, until everything is nice and soft and you’re starting to get some golden edges. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste and oregano and cook for 5 more minutes.
Taste and adjust the seasoning if you need to; if you’re adding fresh spinach or basil, stir it in and let it wilt. Serve immediately or refrigerate overnight and reheat as you need it. Serves 8 (or so).
One Year Ago: Seafood Chowder
August 09 2009 | snacks and veg and vegetarian | 30 Comments »
It was a three hour lunch today; the kind that ended as the five o’clock news started. It wasn’t a power lunch, or a liquid lunch on the patio, but a lingering lunch in our living room with friends we haven’t seen all summer. The upside of being self-employed is that you can often push stuff to the back of your plate when an opportunity arises to slack off all afternoon. The downside of being self-employed is that you can often push stuff to the back of your plate when an opportunity arises to slack off all afternoon.
I found us another keeper: roasted potato salad with kale and tahini dressing. It doesn’t sound overly exciting, but trust me, it is. I stumbled upon it while searching for a roasted kale recipe I heard of that supposedly makes kale taste just like chips – anyone want to become my new best friend by sending it to me? because if I can make my greens taste like chips, I’m golden. And I may just package them up and make a million bucks on the side.
For approximately half my life I’ve roasted potatoes for potato salad – the very best kind is made with bacon, and after you cook and crumble the bacon (in the oven, on a baking sheet, at around 400F), you roll chunks of potato around in the bacon drippings and roast them too. Guess what salty meat kale goes especially well with? Bacon.
The other brilliant part of this recipe is the Parmesan cheese – you sprinkle it over the roasting potatoes toward the end of their cooking time, so that it melts and turns golden and crunchy. This too I’ve done, with oven fries, but never with a potato salad. You then thinly slice kale (remove the ribs – they can be too tough) and toss it with the hot potatoes, and it’s enough to wilt the kale. Chard, I imagine, would work very well too. The dressing is just tahini, lemon juice, water and garlic, whirled to a paste. If you like tahini, you’re going to love this. For me, this would make a happy lunch or dinner, just all on its own.
Garlicky Roasted Potato Salad with Wilted Kale and Tahini Dressing
Adapted from Gourmet, December 2008. If you like, par-boil the potatoes until about halfway cooked to give them a head start.
4-6 slices bacon (optional)
2 lb. Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into big bite-sized pieces
canola or olive oil
4 garlic cloves (3 thinly sliced)
1/3 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1/4 cup tahini
2 Tbsp. water
3 Tbsp. lemon juice
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2-3/4 lb. kale, stems and center ribs discarded and leaves very thinly sliced crosswise
Preheat oven to 400°F.
If you’re using bacon, lay the strips on a rimmed baking sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes, until crispy; remove the bacon and set aside, leaving all or some of the drippings on the pan.
Spread the potatoes out on a single layer on the pan, and shake it around to coat them, adding a drizzle of oil too if you think it needs it. (If you didn’t use bacon, just drizzle the potatoes liberally with oil and toss them about to coat.) Sprinkle with salt and pepper, bump up the oven temp to 450°F and roast for about 10 minutes, stirring once or twice. Stir in the sliced garlic and cook for 10 minutes more. Sprinkle with cheese and roast until cheese is melted and golden in spots, about 5 more minutes.
Meanwhile, purée tahini, water, lemon juice, remaining garlic clove and salt in a blender until smooth. Add a bit of water if the sauce is too thick.
Toss kale with hot potatoes and any garlic and oil remaining in pan, then toss with tahini sauce and salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately. Serves about 6.
We made lunch mostly of (fairly interesting) leftover salads – this, Ichiban salad (I made a fresh batch with leftover ingredients), and the bean salad still sitting in the fridge from W’s party – fortunately bean salad actually improves with time in the fridge. My favourite bean salad is made with a can of kidney beans, a can of chick peas, a can of mixed beans (you get a prettier variety this way), and some yellow and green wax beans, blanched for just a few minutes. Also some chopped red pepper and purple or green onion. (Hey, this is a salad – you don’t really need measurements, do you?) For the dressing, equal parts sugar and white vinegar, simmered on the stovetop until the sugar dissolves and it turns clear, at which point I stir in a squirt of mustard and shake of celery seed. Pour it over the bowl of beans while still warm, and shove it in the fridge overnight for it to do its thing. This is the way my grandma and great aunts made it, and I love it. Simple, sweet, vinegary marinated beans; very lowbrow compared to the million or so more sophisticated takes on a bean salad, but I’d always choose this one. It inspires me to stand at the fridge late at night and scoop ice-cold sweet beans into my mouth by the soupspoonful.
Now, this was a somewhat impromptu lunch. I figured we’d have those chocolate sandwich cookies from IKEA and fruit for dessert, until I remembered how dead easy it is to bake a browned butter bliss, and how wonderful it makes your house smell. When you go over to your friend’s house for lunch, it’s the best to be slammed in the face with the aroma of fresh baking the minute you walk in the door.
I used two peaches, two apricots, and a few small yellow plums. All unpeeled; just cut into thick wedges over the buttered pie plate and the thick batter spread overtop. Bliss. Simple bliss.
Browned Butter Bliss
(by way of Ligita’s Quick Apple Cake in Classic Home Desserts)
8 or so plums, thickly sliced, or 5 apricots, or 3 peaches, or any combination of these or other fruits
3/4 cup + 3 Tbsp. sugar (or to taste, according to the sweetness of the fruit)
pinch cinnamon (or to taste – optional)
1/2 cup butter
2 large eggs
1 cup all-purpose flour
Preheat the oven to 350°F and butter a pie plate.
Toss your fruit in the pie plate with about 2 Tbsp. sugar and sprinkle with cinnamon, if you like. Melt the butter in a small saucepan and keep cooking it, swirling the pan occasionally, for about 5 minutes or until it turns golden. Pour into a medium mixing bowl.
Stir the 3/4 cup of sugar into the butter, then the eggs, then the flour. Pour over the fruit and sprinkle with the last tablespoon of sugar.
Bake for 40-45 minutes, until golden and crusty, and the juices ooze from around the edges. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream or thick vanilla yogurt.
Serves 8.
One Year Ago: Chili over Mac & Cheese
August 06 2009 | dessert and salads | 38 Comments »
4. How did that happen?
I thought it might be time for some sort of fancy homemade cake, like a Scooby-doo cake or a dinosaur cake or something of that ilk. My sister has a policy: to create any kind of cake her kids request. She has made, by hand, large orange T-rex cakes, bat cakes and volcano cakes that actually erupt. Not the kind baked in an expensive cake mold or smoothly iced and topped with teeny marzipan figurines; hacked apart 9″x13″ chocolate slabs fashioned into whatever my niece and nephews can imagine. They never seem to notice that her forte is math (she’s a teacher, and head of math, still not sure how we can be related), and not cake decorating.
But these are the very best kinds of cakes, don’t you think?
So I asked what kind of cake W wanted – Scooby-doo cake? EEEEEWWWW GROSS! Dinosaur cake? EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWW DISGUSTING!
All he wanted for his 4th birthday was “the biggest chocolate cake you ever saw, with chocolate icing and sprinkles and fire on it.” By fire he means candles, or sparklers, or something hot he can watch and/or blow out. Sure, I can do that.
Rather than fall back on a chocolate cake recipe I already have I decided to try something new – this is an opportunity, after all, to pursue that elusive ultimate chocolate birthday cake that will remain forever on the birthday roster. I think I’ve found it.
Rather than flip through cookbooks, I consulted one of my favourite food blogs. Turns out she has already done sufficient research on all of our behalves – lucky me. She (and approximately 1291 other bakers, according to Epicurious’ rating system) approved of a Double Chocolate Layer Cake created by chef Ed Kasky, and so I gave it a go. (She even conducted a blind taste test, and it won.)
I tried not to tweak it, I really did. But I could only find one deep cake pan, and it sounded like some bakers struggled with the wide, deep pan size anyway. (The cake is baked in 10″ round by 2″ deep cake pans, at a slow 300°F.) It occurred to me that it might be a perfect quantity of batter to produce one layer cake and some cupcakes to spare – I always worry that I won’t have enough – and even after keeping the guest list to family, kids on the block and a couple friends, we had a dozen kids and as many adults to feed. At a birthday party, you do not want to run out of cake.
I was right – it baked two perfect 9″ layers and a dozen cupcakes, with even a little left for a handful of mini cupcakes for the toddlers. (Although the cake layers would have easily accommodated this extra bit of batter.) Everyone was fed, with a slice left over for my dad, who stopped by after work.
I love that this cake is made with oil – canola oil is what I bake with – and it’s easy to use coffee in a recipe if you keep a jar of instant (I like espresso) on hand. Don’t skip the part where they tell you to line your pans with waxed paper or parchment – the cakes are moist and will otherwise leave some of themselves behind when you flip them out. It’s easy to do – put a pan onto a piece of waxed paper and quickly run a pen around it (it won’t leave ink, only a visual ring), then cut it out and stick it in – the cheapest insurance ever.
I only bothered with the cake part – kids don’t appreciate a good ganache, and W in fact prefers frosting, especially on a cupcake, and while the grown-ups certainly do, I didn’t want to bother with more than one batch. So I made a big bowl of chocolate buttercream – butter, Bernard Callebaut cocoa, icing sugar, vanilla, water – adjusting quantities until I had something fluffy and spreadable. I slathered it on the cake and topped it liberally with coloured nonpareils, then W helped me pipe the same onto the cupcakes. (Tip: freeze your cakes first to prevent them crumbing too much – frost them frozen, and they’ll thaw beautifully by the time you’re ready to sing Happy Birthday.) There was some left over, so I piped a bit around the cake edges too. Everyone raved. Even my Mom, who generally is only tempted by golden cakes, declared this one the Best Ever.
That was this afternoon.
Round two came afterward: my nephew turns 19 tomorrow, and so came at the end of the party and we transitioned into a birthday dinner for him – ribs on the barbecue, all the leftover salads from our hot dog bar at lunch, and his favourite – ice cream cake.
I used an Epicure Selections barbecue rub that comes in its own stainless steel shaker – doused the raw ribs, put them on a rimmed baking sheet, covered with foil and baked them at 300°F for 3 hours yesterday. You can do this a day or two in advance, and keep them in the fridge – when you’re ready to eat, slather them with bottled barbecue sauce and throw them on the grill to heat through. (This quick finish on the grill also keeps the barbecue sauce from burning.)
The ice cream cake my sister made was small genius – it’s a shame we were already full of cake and an afternoon-long lunch – she crushed Digestive cookies, mixed them with melted butter as for a graham pie crust, pressed it into the bottom of a roasting pan, chilled it, and spread a tub of softened chocolate chip ice cream and chocolate ice cream on top. Froze that, then layered whole cookies in a sort of scalloped pattern on top. Frozen, it cut quite nicely, if you ignored the odd broken cookie.
And who could care about broken cookies with this little treat around? (Only the cutest boy ever -
my nephew, Charlie. Don’t you just want to eat him up?)
One Year Ago: Chocolate Zucchini Cake and Maple Pumpkin Ice Cream
August 04 2009 | cake | 35 Comments »
Yesterday was Food Day, and the world’s longest barbecue. I caught wind of it last week – too late to really organize anything – I pondered calling a few neighbours over for an impromptu dinner when it occurred to me that cooking a nice meal on the grill for the three of us is just as legit as pulling together a block party. So I thawed a couple of beautiful bison T-bone steaks from a friend’s brother’s farm, cooked up some tiny new potatoes (which were then drizzled with cold-pressed canola oil from Highwood Crossing – Canada’s EVOO), sauteed some chard, and tossed a salad of lettuce leaves plucked from the pots on my back porch (YES! I DIDN”T KILL THEM THIS YEAR!), roasted beets (from another friend’s brother’s farm) and crumbled Fairwinds Farm goat cheese, drizzled with honey-balsamic vinaigrette. The bison steaks were unbelievable – so worth a try – but remember that they are leaner than beef (although these came across not one bit as such – so tender and juicy) so they need less time on the grill. These got 3 minutes per side and then a rest in a foil tent on the counter while I made the salad and finished the chard, and were a perfect medium-rare.
(I should mention breakfast, too: my sister and her kids – plus one friend – came for waffles – this recipe, made with a shake of ground flax and drizzle of flax oil, which they did not notice at all, and in fact the kids declared them the best waffles ever – topped with grilled peaches, blueberries, raspberries from the kids’ backyard, Nanking cherry jelly, Rogers’ Golden Syrup and maple whipped cream. Maple whipped cream is just cream whipped with a drizzle of maple syrup instead of sugar.)
After dinner the plan was to head next door for some sangria and mojitos – a good excuse to bake a blueberry galette. BC blueberries are cheap right now, and when I was shuffling around my freezer for room to fit more in, out fell a roll of puff pastry. I kept it out, and it made a perfect galette with under 5 minutes of actual work. That’s my kind of fast food.
It had just come out of the oven when the windstorm hit. You may have heard of it – and if you’re in Calgary, most likely experienced it. For us it was a little unexpected drama between dinner and dessert; gale-force winds trashing the back yard and forcing us all to rush in for cover. It took the power out for a couple hours, which only meant we’d have to wait for our whipped cream, and W couldn’t watch The Incredibles. We heard sirens in the distance – not uncommon during a storm – and only learned later of the horrific accident downtown, and the stage collapse at Big Valley Jamboree. How do you endure it? I just can’t imagine.
So we ate our pie late, back outside, when the power came back on and we could whip the cream with some maple syrup. When I cut into it the juices ran out (I served it on a cheese board that was $6 at Winners) but not in an uncontrollable way – this is my fear, with berry pies, since that one I made as a kid that wallowed in a half inch of soup. This was runny in a way that kept it from being stodgy – although it was a bit of a trick to catch all the drips, I wouldn’t change a thing. The puff pastry wasn’t too puff, and was lovely pastry. (It was one of two rolled-up logs you get in a package of President’s Choice puff pastry from Superstore – easy because you don’t have to roll it out – and even though it was square, it still worked just fine. In fact, the points made it look even more cool and rustic.)
Blueberry Galette
inspired by this one.
1 pkg. puff pastry, thawed, or pastry for a single-crust pie
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
3 cups fresh blueberries
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. butter, cut into bits
1 egg, lightly beaten
coarse sugar, for sprinkling (optional)
Put oven rack in the middle position and preheat to 425°F. Line a large, rimmed baking sheet with foil, parchment or a silpat mat.
In a small bowl, stir together the sugar and cornstarch to get rid of any lumps. In a large bowl, toss the berries, sugar-cornstarch mixture, lemon juice, cinnamon and salt.
Unwrap the puff pastry onto the sheet, or roll regular pastry into a 10″ (ish) circle. Mound the blueberries into the middle of the dough, leaving an inch or two around the edge. Fold the edges over the filling, just enough to keep the berries from sliding out. It can overlap and look rustic, there is no need for neatness.
Brush the pastry with egg and sprinkle with sugar. Bake until golden, 25-30 minutes. If it’s browning too quickly, cover loosely with some foil. Cool for a few minutes before sliding out onto a cutting board to cut and serve. Serve warm, with whipped cream sweetened with maple syrup or vanilla ice cream. Serves 6.
Tonight’s dinner can be summed up in four words: SHAKEN’BAKE – DRUMSTICKS – AT – SHIRLEY’S.
One Year Ago:
August 02 2009 | bison and dessert and on the grill | 22 Comments »
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