Archive for December, 2009
Every year I have every intention of making stollen, and every year I don’t get around to it. Among fancy Christmas breads it seems like the simplest – I set my sights below fancy wreaths and braids to a lumpy oval with one side flopped over – but it still seems to come down to timing – wouldn’t it be a great thing to deliver around to friends in the days before Christmas? I always think so too, but when I leave it until the days before Christmas I inevitably wind up with other stuff to do and settle for quicker things like mandarin jam and fleur de sel caramels, if that.
So I jumped the gun and made some already, and it turns out it’s nowhere near the big deal, time-wise, that I’ve created in my head. So this week I’ve been limbering up my gut for the deluge of Christmas parties and turkey dinners to come by eating lightly toasted and (heavily) buttered stollen with my coffee in the morning, my second coffee in the afternoon, and every time I pass the toaster in between. Today I brought the end of the loaf across the street and we nibbled from it as we painted, and then set another batch to rise (you can slow it down in the fridge overnight) to bake and bring to a Christmas party tomorrow night. I’ve loaded up on currants and almonds and I’m set to turn this kitchen into a North Pole sweatshop, cranking out loaves between now and Thursday.
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December 18 2009 | bread | 57 Comments »
Friends, I have eaten extraordinarily well these past few days, and in doing so consumed an enormous quantity of fat calories. In keeping with the festive season, my belly is jiggling like a bowl fulla jelly. As I type this the on-board fuel is burning so furiously I’d be shocked if I didn’t have blue flames shooting out of my eyes and ears.
I have Brava Bistro to thank (which is not to say it was a free lunch) for lobster poutine (pomme frites/lobster/shellfish butter sauce/marscapone cheese) two days in a row (Artemis Christmas party last night, mother-in-law’s birthday lunch today), a deliciously festive Pimms and gin, and this afternoon braised short rib sandwiches on focaccia with some sort of cheesy, mayo-y goodness binding it all together. I so wanted to chase it with warm gingerbread cake floating in Famous Grouse butterscotch sauce & vanilla ice cream, but W was going squirrelly and the parking meter was almost out, so instead we walked down the street and picked up some cupcakes. (Sadly both times I went from someplace else, and so was without a camera. Here, have a peek at my Christmas tree instead.)
If I keep on track with this I should have a sufficient layer of blubber to not need a winter coat for the rest of the season.
I’m hoping to burn all this off with painting and moving over the next week as my sister has officially gained possession of the house across the street! When she got her keys I brought a baking sheet full of World Peace Cookies (made with chopped up almond bark instead of chocolate chips) to put into the oven to make it seem more like home. We spent the evening taping and polyfilla-ing, and busting the boys (W and B; 4 and 6) transporting a BOX OF WATER through the house. A big box. Of water. How do you move water? A folded-bottom cardboard box seems reasonable, doesn’t it?
While I have your attention, I can’t help but leak a sneak peek at the Christmas edition of Free Stuff Friday tomorrow – I’ll give you a hint. It’s a pair of tickets. I’ll give you another hint – it’s sold out. OK, one more – the event rhymes with Banthony Shmourdain.
One Year Ago: Fanny Farmer’s Dark Fruitcake
December 17 2009 | eating out | 20 Comments »
I have this cookbook that I love. It’s well laid out, has brilliant ideas, delicious photos – I just want to make everything in it. It’s one of few I just thumb through over and over. Problem is, NONE OF THE RECIPES HAVE WORKED SO FAR.
Humph.
I’ve seen chocolate salami before here and there, and it popped up again here, this time labeled “Chocolate Sausage”. (I like salami better.) When I tried to make it it became quickly apparent that it was not going to turn out at all as promised if I followed through with the prescribed ingredients. Ah well. I ditched it and did my own thang.
So essentially what a chocolate salami is is a kind of giant truffle studded with crumbled cookies, nuts and dried fruit, so that when you slice it it looks like processed meat. Yum, hey? Traditional Italian versions call for egg yolks and grappa – I didn’t take it quite so seriously. Mine is chocolate, butter and cream, with toasted hazelnuts, golden raisins and Digestive Biscuits crumbled in because that’s what we had. I’d do it again. I’m thinking it would be a fun alternative to cookies – easy to wrap and give, or set out and hack slices off of. A conversation piece, if you will.
Next time I’ll chop and crumble more finely, for the sake of aesthetics. This is one mighty chunky salami.
Chocolate Salami
8 oz. dark or semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup cream
1 cup hazelnuts, toasted and roughly chopped
5 Digestive biscuits, roughly chopped
3/4 cup golden raisins
icing sugar, for rolling
In a medium bowl, melt the chocolate, butter and cream in the microwave or over simmering water. Stir until melted and smooth. Stir in the hazelnuts, Digestive biscuits and raisins. Chill in the fridge for about an hour, or until cool enough to shape but not yet firm.
Scrape the mixture out onto a piece of plastic wrap and shape into a log (or two, if you want to make smaller ones). Wrap in the plastic wrap and return to the fridge for several hours, until firm. Take it out and dust it generously all over with icing sugar (you can do this by dumping some icing sugar on the countertop and rolling the log around in it). When you’re ready to serve it, take it out of the fridge for half an hour or so to make it easier to slice.
Makes 1 large or two small salamis.
One Year Ago: Rosemary-Parmesan Twists and Grandma Woodall’s Marmalade Cookies
December 15 2009 | dessert | 21 Comments »
As you may have already heard (news travels fast), a bunch of food bloggers from around the world have rallied together to offer up some delicious food-related items upon which to bid between today and Christmas Day. For the past six years, Pim (the founder of the feast) and a revolving list of food and wine bloggers have raised funds for worthy causes – nearly a quarter of a million dollars was raised for the United Nations World Food Programme in support of their school lunch program, and this year all money raised goes toward Purchase for Progress, another WFP initiative.
Here’s how it works: For each $10 donated, you get one bid towards the item of your choosing, with all monies raised going to benefit Purchase for Progress. Once bidding has closed, winners will be chosen at random and announced on Chez Pim on January 18, 2010.
Tara, one of my very favourite food bloggers, is the Canadian host of this fantastic event, and has all the Canadian goodies pictured on her site. (Which, by the way, is one worthy of a regular visit. It’s truly one of the most well-written and photographed blogs I follow, and her recipes always work. I’m just saying. She’s someone you should know.)
The master list for all Menu for Hope 6 bid items is available here, and a direct link to the donation site is here. I’m offering up copies of my cookbooks, Grazing and One Smart Cookie, autographed and shipped to your door. The item bid codes are CA5 and CA6, respectively. I’ll ship them anywhere – you don’t have to be in Canada.
To donate and enter the Menu for Hope Raffle here’s what you need to do:
1. Choose a bid item or bid items of your choice from our Menu for Hope main bid item list.
2. Go to the donation site at Firstgiving and make a donation.
3. Please specify which bid item you’d like in the ‘Personal Message’ section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write in how many tickets per bid item, and please use the bid item code. Each $10 donation you make will buy you one virtual raffle ticket toward an item of your choice. (For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for EU01 and 3 tickets for EU02.)
4. If your company matches your charity donation, please check the box and fill in the information so we could claim the corporate match.
5. Please check the box to allow us to see your email address so that we can contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.
What’s better than holiday shopping toward a good cause?
December 14 2009 | leftovers | 4 Comments »
Remember that Polyester and Cheese party I eluded to on Friday? That was last night. I officially pass on the theme to you and strongly encourage you to host your own; hell, I’ll even forward you our invites to use (insert your own address, right?) if you want. Not only did it force otherwise very fashionable people to dig through their closets for their great-aunt’s Goldie Hawn circa Laugh-In dresses and uncle’s groovy Sgt. Pepper button-up shirts to wear (even if they’re two sizes too small, dammit); everyone brought cheese. Boy did they bring cheese. (Hey – meet Nik, Sharon and Pam!)
Besides the aforementioned Discovery Box, which we started with (oh, and a brie that I hastily topped with mango chutney and sliced almonds and forgot about in the oven for AN HOUR, which then turned into delicious soup) we had Saint Agur, Piave, Boursin, Morbier, cheddar marbled with Guinness, Juliette from Salt Spring Island and smoked and caraway Goudas. We got a bag of cheesy goodness packed with Cheezies, Cheese Nips, Cheese Goldfish, Laughing Cow, Swiss Knight triangles and microwaveable fondue. And yes, we got cheese slices and Velveeta. No Whiz, though, and apparently spray cheese is hard to find (whew).
Also: artichoke-asiago dip, a jiggly two-toned red and green Jell-O mould complete with mini marshmallows and whipped cream, topped with crushed candy canes (its own kind of Christmas cheese) and a crock of some kind of cheese spread from the 70s that had gin in it. C brought crunchy cheese cookies made with that brilliant orange Imperial cheese, butter and Rice Krispies. (Amazing how much better some things taste than they sound!), A brought spicy Parmesan crisps and Charlie made a cheese ball. His three-year-old helped distribute the pecans, by hand, one by one, over the outside, so that it looked like a perfect cheese hedgehog. (The flash photography and pickled asparagus foreground does it justice, no?) He shared this tip: if you’re looking for a recipe, Google “World’s Best” before it, as in “World’s Best Cheese Ball”. I did thus, and came up with what I believe to be the one he used. (The first had lemonade mix in it. World’s best? I think not.)
If I forgot something, I blame the cheese-induced brain fog. Guess what I’ve eaten today? Cheese, butter tart squares and crackers. This morning, W brought me breakfast in bed: cheesy goldfish, half-eaten cheese slices and what I think was chunks of Piave (street value: about $1 each bite) served in an Empire Strikes Back bowl. Yum. Coming downstairs to the leftovers was like an early Christmas morning – it took the edge off the clean-up.
I meant to label each cheese neatly as it came in the door; as you can imagine, that didn’t happen. My plan was kyboshed at about five minutes after the time on our invite, when the stereo died (%$#@!^%$#^$@!!) and I realized that my made-in-advance-and-frozen Raincoast Crisp logs were still in the freezer; I was so satisfied that I had made them well ahead of the party that I completely forgot to slice and bake them. Mike ran upstairs to quickly (ha) dump some Christmas tunes onto his MP3 so that we might have a bit of Ella, Bing, Frank, Dean, Sammy, Burl and Reverend Horton Heat at our party, and in my panic to bake off the crisps I think I completely forgot to offer anyone the mulled wine I had simmering on the stove. Ah well, more leftovers for me. When it’s 30 below outside not counting the wind chill factor, swimsuit season is mighty far away. Not that I wear swimsuits anyway. Let’s hear it for parka season!
(Lower-fat) Butter Tart Squares
Base:
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup all-purpose or whole wheat flour
pinch salt
Topping:
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. baking powder
pinch salt
1/3 cup honey, corn syrup or maple syrup
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 cup raisins or currants (if you want to be really authentic)
1/3 cup chopped pecans
Preheat oven to 350°F.
In a medium bowl, stir together the butter and brown sugar until creamy. Add flour and salt and stir until well combined and crumbly.
Press into the bottom of an 8” x 8” pan that has been sprayed with nonstick spray. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until just barely golden around the edges.
Using the same bowl (no need to wash it), combine the brown sugar, flour, baking powder and salt. Add the eggs, maple syrup and vanilla and stir until well blended and smooth. Stir in the raisins and pecans.
Pour over the base and return to the oven for 25–30 minutes, until golden and bubbly around the edges but still slightly jiggly in the middle. The topping will puff up a bit as it bakes and then settle again when you remove it from the oven. Cool completely in the pan on a wire rack.
Makes 16 squares.
Per square: 194 calories, 5.1 g fat (2.1 g saturated fat, 2 g monounsaturated fat, 0.6 g polyunsaturated fat), 36.2 g carbohydrates, 34.7 mg cholesterol, 2.2 g protein, 1 g fiber. 23% calories from fat
One Year Ago: Orange Almond Biscotti
December 13 2009 | cookies & squares | 20 Comments »
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