Archive for January, 2010
What I made for dinner was chicken tagine with chick peas and preserved lemon, with chopped cilantro stems tossed into the rice when I opened the lid to fluff it, then cover again to let it steam a bit before it was called into service. I didn’t eat with the boys, though; I’m heading out to the “Bum Ball” – the Bill Brooks 12th Annual Prostate Cancer Benefit at the Hotel Arts tonight – a date with K.
The theme: gloves – meaning we are asked to don our fanciest (or most latex) gloves – which of course I have none of, unless you count the rubber gloves under the sink I never use – so it was off to Winners this afternoon for a pair. (And they’re on sale! They had some funky long ones to choose from. I got black cable knit cotton ones with the fingers cut off – not exactly glitz but very me, and functional when hors d’oeuvres are involved – then painted my nails brilliant pink. I’m trying not to wreck them as I type.)
Funny story: the dollar store is next to Winners, and so I popped in to buy chew toys for Lou. By the till there was a bin of socks, and so since we go through approximately three times as many little boy socks now, who conversely grow out of them three times as quickly, I bought a couple 3-packs. (You do the math- it’s a good deal, right? Except that I don’t want to think about exactly why they can sell socks for 33 cents a pair.) On the way home, stopped at a light with the open Dollar Giant bag on the seat beside me, I started popping off the packaging. And then, as one might do, mindlessly started tucking together the socks in twos, having just liberated them from their cardboard band. I wish I could have captured the expression of the lady in the SUV beside me, looking down into the window of my Subaru Outback, where I was folding laundry at a red light. Now that’s multitasking.
But right – the cupcakes. It was my Mom and sister’s birthdays last night, and we made them using a spice cake recipe that at some point became traditional for their day. My mom loves penuche icing, which I learned upon growing up no one has a clue about – it’s a brown sugar frosting, made with both brown sugar and icing sugar. I added cream cheese as well this time – a big blob of it, and half as much butter, with a handful of brown sugar, a squirt of Roger’s Golden syrup and as much icing sugar as I needed to make a spreadable frosting.
Or, one that could be easily scooped into a ziploc baggie and squeezed out through a snipped-off corner to make squiggly swirls instead of the traditional star-tipped twirl. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Mom & Anne’s Birthday Spice Cupcakes
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. nutmeg and/or allspice
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup butter or non-hydrogenated margarine, softened
1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups milk
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray two 8” or 9” round cake pans or one 9? x 13? pan with nonstick spray.
In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, spices, and salt. In a larger bowl, beat the butter with an electric mixer for about half a minute, until it’s pale and creamy. Pour in the sugar and continue to beat for 3-4 minutes, until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Scrape down the sides of the bowl whenever it needs it.
Stir the vanilla into the milk. Add about one-third of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir it in by hand or with the electric mixer on low speed, just until it’s combined. Add about half the milk in the same manner, then another third of the flour, the rest of the milk, and the rest of the flour, mixing just until the batter is blended.
Divide the batter between the prepared tins, filling them about 3/4 full, and bake for 20-25 minutes until the cupcakes are golden and tops are springy to the touch. Makes 1 1/2 dozen cupcakes.
Yes, I have something for you this Free Stuff Friday – not much, but in keeping with the cupcakes theme. It’s a 2010 cupcake calendar. (And who, truly, doesn’t love them?) If I don’t give this away soon we’ll blow through 1/12th of the year and it won’t be of as much use. It’s very cute – consider it the Do-It-Yourself-Cupcake-of-the-Month-Club.
Leave a comment to enter; if you want to tell us what was for dinner, that’s great. If there’s something else on your mind, let’s have it.
January 23 2010 | cake | 55 Comments »
As I may have mentioned, since Christmas we have become the before and after school caregivers of an almost 7 year old bottomless pit. Not that I’m complaining.
But I have been short of extra minutes this week, and so baked a batch of insurance against hearing “I’M STILL HUNGRY” every five minutes between 7:30 and 8:30 and from 3:30 till 6.
Today I spent the afternoon in meetings regarding Blog Aid, and although I wish I could share the exciting details, I think I need to hammer them all out first. But it’s been a week, and besides the design, copy and photos, it looks like we have almost all the logistics worked out too. And yet somehow my to-do list for tomorrow is even longer than it was today. (Aren’t they meant to get shorter?)
And now I’m sitting here blankly staring at my computer with no idea what to type. So since I have a story on preserved lemons due tomorrow, I’ll leave you with a recipe for decent oatmeal muffins you can add any number of things to (Sue uses partially dehydrated cherries from the Okanagan, which I cannot recommend strongly enough if you come across some) – I’ve gone the fruit route, and raisins are good in a pinch, but chocolate chips turn out a muffin that tastes like a cakey oatmeal-chocolate chip cookie. Warm from the oven, they’ll pick you up and carry you through that late afternoon lull. I’m rediscovering the after-school snack.
Sue’s Oatmeal Muffins
Try using flax oil in place of grapeseed or canola to boost omega 3s.
1 1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup milk
1 large egg
1 large egg white
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup butter, melted and cooled
2 tablespoons grapeseed or canola oil
fine zest of 1 lemon
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup fresh or dried berries or chopped fruit
In a large bowl, combine oats, buttermilk and milk and let stand 1 hour. Preheat oven to 400 F and line twelve 1/2-cup muffin tins.
Add the egg, egg white, sugar, butter and zest to oat mixture, stirring until just combined.
Into another large bowl, sift together flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda and add to oat mixture, stirring until just combined. Fold in fruit.
Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin tins. Bake in middle of oven until golden and a tester comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Makes 12 muffins.
One Year Ago: Sesame Noodles with Stir-Fried Beef
January 21 2010 | bread and breakfast | 22 Comments »
I’ve not been in the kitchen for the past two days – to cook, anyway (save for the four batches of Baklava Biscotti I made late last night to feed the Olympic torch-watching hordes early this morning) – and to spread hazelnut honey (ingredients: honey, hazelnuts) on toast to balance like a lid on my cups of coffee and tea while hammering away on the computer.
Speaking of baklava – you know when something a bit obscure comes along and then it shows up again and again in quick succession? That was baklava today. I made the biscotti, and after the show this morning had enough time to eat the stumpy ends in the photo before running off to a meeting that ran late, into another meeting that ran until 3:30. Halfway through that meeting, someone pulled out a box of baklava. And then sent the leftovers home with me, which meant I was trapped inside a car at rush hour with nothing but a half box of baklava and a coffee, and I don’t know about you but I ADORE baklava when it’s done right, and this was. It reminded me of a piece one of my very favourite writers wrote about baklava in a recent issue of Bon Appetit, and although it’s something it’s unlikely I would decide to make from scratch, I just might reconsider. On a day when there are people around to share.
So to sum: by dinnertime all I had eaten since 6 am was baklava in its various forms. Before that, toast thickly spread with ground nuts and honey. I think I’m good for the year.
Dinner was a ten-pound (I swear – although neither of us wanted to step on the scale with it) lasagna my sister brought over yesterday. The seven of us ate large servings of it for two days.
When she makes them, they are the largest, deepest lasagnas I’ve ever seen. She assembles them in a pan that looks more like a roaster, with handles, and calls it “masagna”. I’ll spare you the reason why. (Shall we just say it’s the Mama of all lasangas? Masagna?)
So – Blog Aid! It’s very exciting, the way it’s all coming together. It’s amazing how much has come together in under a week – recipes and photos are trickling in from almost 30 of my favourite bloggers and writers. Two designers are working on the layout and design – the cover is being crafted by a lovely artist I discovered on Etsy, and who has generously volunteered her time and talents to the cause. Doesn’t she have the cutest stuff ever?? She’s coming up with the book cover and click-to-buy PayPal button, which with any luck we’ll have coded and ready to go TOMORROW.
I’m talking to a very large printing company, who is eager to help – they in turn are speaking to their suppliers to see what can be worked out in terms of donating the printing. Which obviously would be a huge deal – ideally everything will be donated so that all of the proceeds can go where it’s most needed. I’m so proud and grateful to everyone for their generosity and enthusiasm and energy.
And oh, the recipes. They are wonderful. Favourites of the contributors, and some completely new, that haven’t even been posted on their blogs yet. It’s going to be a beautiful book.
And the meeting this afternoon, with the baklava? It was at the Calgary Co-op head office, and they agreed to sell the books at the checkout as well, for those who don’t want to order online (or who don’t frequent food blogs).
I’ll keep you posted as we get bits of artwork and news to share. Thanks again for cheering this project on, and fuelling the fire!
January 19 2010 | leftovers | 20 Comments »
I got a great email from my mom, who is currently blissfully kayaking and walking on the beach in Costa Rica and thus behind on her internet consumption, including my blog updates. It read:
When dogs get hurt, they have to be kept from licking their wounds and making it worse. People too sometimes. Stop licking or we’ll have to put a cone on your head.
Too bad that wouldn’t fit inside a fortune cookie. It may be my new mantra, posted on my fridge or bathroom mirror: STOP LICKING OR WE’LL PUT A CONE ON YOUR HEAD.
(Which isn’t to say I’m still licking – as you know I’m on to bigger things. But, you know, my Mom knows me pretty well. And I thought it was a great analogy, if a little behind the times.)
There wasn’t much cooking done this weekend as I was more or less attached to my computer, working on Blog Aid. We ate roasted pepper and tomato soup, pizza and chili from the freezer, and C took me for an I-don’t-think-you-suck lunch at Alloy, where we had veggie pakoras with mint chutney (above), wine and burgers with yam fries saddled up beside. We both asked for sides of mayo, because what the hell.
Tonight we went to Mike’s cousin’s for a belated turkey dinner, at which his two stunning teenage daughters sat on either side of W and got him to eat boiled carrots straight up. By merely asking.
They picked me up off the floor in time to witness him eating HALF A BRUSSELS SPROUT. Not even disguised. For real. (You should know that we’ve endured many the hour-long standoff over something that could just possibly be a vegetable.) He was all like, sure ladies - I eat vegetables all the time.
I can see now how his teenage years are going to go.
Speaking of eating your vegetables, C’s new year’s resolution is to come up with more ways to eat beets and lentils. I adore that. It’s important to have achievable goals. I do a lot with lentils but had no beets to experiment with this weekend, and didn’t make it to the market. I’m sure you lot have a wealth of experience when it comes to both. Care to comment?
(Blog Aid update tomorrow – I promise. Exciting things are happening! But I have an article deadline first thing tomorrow morning that I should probably get moving on.)
One Year Ago: Potato Skins and Spinach Pizza
January 17 2010 | eating out | 36 Comments »
Last night called out for chocolate chip cookies. Yelled, actually. (And whimpered for wine.)
A meeting with my designer friend over the look and layout of the Blog Aid cookbook ran into dinnertime, and when my sister got home she whipped up nachos for us all, made a little more square by the addition of beans and halved kiwis to scoop out with small spoons. We hammered away on the project for a bit, put the boys in the bath (here’s an idea: fill the tub with water and plenty of bubble bath, toss in your old junk jewelry and let them search for treasure at the bottom of the ocean. If you can come up with a small “treasure chest”, all the better) and set to the task of reclaiming the basement, which you may (or may not) recall was turned upside down when we replaced the furnace and subsequently had to replace a corner of the floor that turned out to contain asbestos. Since then it has been off limits, the ankle-deep pile of stuff that was once neatly moved out of the way rising slowly to knee-deep.
So Mike installed shelving and we started shuffling things around, designating some for the Sally Ann and others for recycling. And then someone suggested cookies. (OK, it was me.) The memory of browned butter shortbread made me think that perhaps chocolate chip cookies could be improved upon by the browning of the butter first too, and so I tried it; melted the butter and then kept on cooking until it was a nutty brown, proceeded with the cookie dough and then chilled it to restore its shape, lest we wind up with chocolate chip pancakes. The dough was fantastic – nutty and caramelly with the browned butter, but much like the maple in those Maple Walnut White Chocolate Chip Cookies, the flavour wasn’t nearly as intense once the dough was baked. Still, they were wonderfully chewy and dense, with crisp edges; all the things I want my chocolate chip cookies to be. And still half the fat of the ones made from the recipe on the back of the Chipits bag.
I brought them downstairs and balanced them on the only relatively clear horizontal surface we had – the top of the water heater. But even then it was at a harsh angle; like a game of cookie Jenga, we took them off either side alternately to keep the rack from tipping over into the pile of dust on the floor. My sister suggested I get a shot that included the background.
(I swear I’m not a candidate for Hoarders – it’s just that the contents of the basement have been collectively shoved to one side, and the order of the resulting pile has disintegrated over the course of December and January…)
Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
1/2-3/4 cup butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour (or half all-purpose, half whole wheat)
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1-2 cups chocolate chips
In a small saucepan, heat the butter over medium-high heat until melted. Keep cooking, swirling the pot occasionally, until it starts to turn brown and smell nutty. Remove it from the heat, pour it into a bowl (scrape out all the nice browned bits at the bottom) and stir in the sugars. This should cool it down somewhat, but wait a few minutes anyway before stirring in the eggs and vanilla. Then add the flour, baking soda and salt and stir with a spatula until almost blended; add the chocolate chips and stir until the dough comes together. Refrigerate for at least an hour or two, or overnight.
When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350F. Scoop out walnut-sized balls of dough and space them an inch or two apart on a cookie sheet that has been sprayed with nonstick spray or lined with parchment or a silpat mat. Bake for 12-14 minutes, until golden around the edges but still soft in the middle. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
Makes 2 dozen cookies.
One Year Ago: Chickpeas with Roasted Peppers, Parsley & Garlic
January 16 2010 | cookies & squares | 27 Comments »
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