Archive for May, 2010
Thanks for letting me slide a bit this weekend – it was a few days of near-frenzied recipe testing, writing, research, note-taking, laptop shopping and deliberating, punctuated with plenty of eating before Sue hopped in the car to drive back home to the Okanagan. When she left, Mike and W and I went for a long walk at the dog park. When we got home, it might have been understandable to pick up the phone and order a pizza, or to spend the evening engaging in some (any) activity that might not take place in the kitchen. Instead I made sour cream ice cream. Then I baked a strawberry-rhubarb pie. I think as much as anything I was itching to make something for the fun of it, something that had absolutely nothing to do with beans. And if at all possible, everything to do with the imminent arrival of summer.
Of course strawberries aren’t here yet, but W and I bought a big hanging strawberry plant from the garden centre today, with two ruby berries ready to pick and eat as we loaded it into the car. And my rhubarb has shot up practically overnight. So when the strawberries do arrive, I want you to be ready. There must be pie.
I wavered for a bit on going all the way with one – I’m a fan of crumble, which allows the cook to do away with the pastry-making end of things. But really, pastry isn’t that big a deal. The more you make it, the easier it gets. My usual routine is to cut the butter (and shortening or lard, if I’m using some) into the flour in the food processor, blitzing it in without blending it completely (leave some lumps the size of a pea) or touching it (and thus keeping the fat cold), then dumping it out into a bowl to stir in the water by hand (to avoid overworking the gluten, which makes pastry tough). This time I poured the water straight into the food processor after the butter and gingerly pulsed a few extra times, until I wound up with a meal that smeared across the counter and then gathered up easily into a ball. It worked just fine.
But-to lid or leave topless? I’m a fan of rhubarb crumble, so thought I’d get the best of both worlds with an open-faced pie scattered with a sweet rubble of butter, sugar and flour. Really, it’s all just a vehicle for the ice cream.
I got to the point of tossing chunked berries and chopped rhubarb with sugar and cornstarch and rolling out the pastry when I remembered bringing the last of a (red lentil) pumpkin pie across the street. So no pie plate. Not wanting to go freeform with so much filling, I fit the dough into a quiche pan instead, mounded the fruit in the middle and didn’t even bother with the crimping – I had two pots on the stove and could hear the boys and neighbours hanging out in the front and didn’t want to miss out – I just haphazardly folded what was little sticking up around the edges over the filling – sort of a half galette, half pie. Whatever. It was rustic. (Whomever first applied that adjective to food should win a Nobel Prize.) Beauty is in the eye of the eater.
And the sour cream ice cream. I ate most of it before it had a chance to firm up in the freezer – really, it’s best nice and soft, served straight from the ice cream machine. You know that brown sugar-sour cream mixture generally reserved for dipping strawberries? It’s like that, only better. Next on my to-do list: sour cream ice cream made with brown sugar, or with brown sugar swirled in at the end. Bikini isn’t a season for me anyway.
You can get the sour cream ice cream recipe here. So totally worth it. (And so easy – all you do is whisk together sour cream, cream, sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice and drop of vanilla and scrape it into your ice cream maker – no need to make and chill custard.)
Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble Pie
Pastry for a single crust pie (or you could do double crust and add a lattice top)
3-4 cups rhubarb, chopped
3-4 cups really good strawberries
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
3 Tbsp. cornstarch
Crumble topping:
1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2-3 Tbsp. butter
Pinch cinnamon (optional)
Preheat your oven to 400°F.
Take your pastry dough out of the fridge and roll it out on a dry surface that has been lightly dusted with a combination of flour and sugar (too much flour could dry out your pastry) until it’s about 12” in diameter. Drape the pastry over your rolling pin and transfer it to a pie plate, and fit it inside, letting the edges hang over.
Put the rhubarb and strawberries in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, stir together the sugars and cornstarch; add to the fruit and toss gently to combine. Mound into the pie crust.
To make the crumble combine the flour, brown sugar and butter in a small bowl and mix with a fork or your fingers until well combined and crumbly. Sprinkle over the fruit, squeezing it as you go to create larger lumps of crumble. Trim and crimp the edge of the pastry, or just loosely fold it over the filling, even if there isn’t much to fold.
Bake the pie (put it on a cookie sheet or pizza pan if you are worried about drips) for 20 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 350°F and bake for another hour, until the pastry is golden and juices are bubbly and run clear. If the crust is browning too quickly, cover the pie loosely with foil.
Eat warm, with vanilla ice cream.
May 24 2010 | dessert | 21 Comments »
Just a quick pop in to say hey, guess what? You can cook French toast on the grill! For real! Start with some nice, thick day-old crusty bread, soak them in egg and milk, beaten with a fork, and slap them on a preheated grill. Close the lid to allow them to cook through. (Pancake batter doesn’t work as well.) I grilled some mango cheeks to go with them – just slice the two fleshly sides off, cutting alongside the stone, and throw them cut-side down directly on the grill, until softened and char-marked. Grilled mango is great scooped out over ice cream, or instead of berries on shortcake.
Sue‘s here! We’re working on the (as-yet-unnamed) book, consolidating all we’ve been working on in our respective kitchens. She brought zucchini loaf, grainy crackers, ginger cookies and candied lentils on the plane. For dinner we ate lentil-mushroom bourguignon, chorizo, corn and black bean chowder, and pumpkin pie made with cooked-till-soft red lentils. I can’t wait to share them all with you, but we haven’t even written them all up yet. It’s a fun project, and we’re all very regular for it.
We have a slightly scraped Spiderman sous-chef on board, too.
May 22 2010 | leftovers | 23 Comments »
I apologize in advance for any typos and/or unintelligent drivel; I was up at 4:45 this morning – my alarm set for 5 to go do an early piece on BT – and didn’t get to bed until midnight on account of all the prep required for 4 minutes of on-air cooking, which I didn’t get to until late, having spent the bulk of the evening making a crown for W’s May Day party next week at preschool. (See? I’m not completely neglecting my family. I spent two hours making flowers out of tissue paper and pipe cleaners, dammit. And I didn’t even finish. I have homework. I have to finish the May Day tissue paper flower crown by next Tuesday. And although I’m sure all the girls will adore theirs, W could care less because Iron Man doesn’t wear tissue-paper-flower crowns. Think anyone would notice if I just wadded up a bunch of toilet paper to fill in the gaps?)
I took W out this morning, determined to spend a bit of time together, and within ten minutes he took flight from a swing and landed on his face, leaving part of it in the dirt. (His face, that is.) The left side is so scraped and puffy and red from forehead to chin that everyone who has seen him as enquired, with a look of horror, what happened. Yes, it was on my watch. He lamented later that he didn’t have a black eye – he wished he did, because that would look cool.
I got called in to cover traffic this afternoon, so Mike made spaghetti. When I got home I ate slabs of bread dipped in their leftover sauce, standing at the counter. And M&Ms.
But this chili powder and cumin-spiked fried rice I made this morning on the show, and a few nights ago, and it was a hit. Ben couldn’t get enough of the stuff. It’s like Mexican Hamburger Helper, only without the hamburger and helper. It was a great way to stretch a sausage or two with (much healthier) black beans and brown rice – cook the rice in advance so that the grains are cold and separate – that way they won’t clump together. It’s not the sort of thing that would normally turn my crank, but it did the trick. Must have been the feta. Or the fatigue.
It’s crunch time to get this book done by June 1, and a flurry (blizzard?) of other stuff too. I have two articles due first thing in the morning, and I have to be at Global at 7:45. So right now I’m making quinoa and pizza dough and wishing I was in bed. My point (I think) is that my brain feels like a rusted-out tin cup with maybe a penny and a piece of lint rattling around in it, and you’re getting the dregs. Because I’m scraping up every last iota of brain power to pull together enough intelligible words to keep my editors from firing me.
Which I have to go do next.
And as I type this I can hear Mike down on the couch, eating chips, watching TV. And he doesn’t have to get up and cook and be presentable/coherent for an audience in 8 hours. I don’t recall the last time I was as jealous. I wonder if they’re Cheezies.
But seriously, you should try this rice. It’s pretty good.
Mexican Fried Rice
canola or olive oil, for cooking
1/2 lb. chorizo sausage, ground bison or turkey
1 onion, chopped
1 fresh jalapeno pepper, seeded and diced (optional – or 1 can diced green chiles)
1 Tbsp. chili powder
1 tsp. cumin
pinch salt
3 cups cooked brown rice
1 14 oz. (398 mL) can black or pinto beans, rinsed and drained
1 tomato, seeded and chopped
1/2 cup crumbled feta or grated old cheddar (optional)
chopped cilantro, for garnish (optional)
In a large, heavy skillet, heat a drizzle of oil and cook the sausage (or other meat) and onion, breaking up the sausage until it’s no longer pink, and the onion is soft. Add the jalapeno, chili powder, cumin and salt and cook for another minute or two.
Remove from the pan and set aside. Add another drizzle of oil and add the rice to the skillet; cook for a few minutes, stirring, until it starts to brown. Add the beans and cook for a few minutes, then add the meat mixture back into the pan along with the tomato and feta and stir until heated through and the feta begins to melt a bit around the edges.
Divide among wide, shallow bowls and top with chopped fresh cilantro. Serves 6.
May 20 2010 | leftovers | 18 Comments »
So the other day I went to Starbucks and, not wanting to add to my already well-established coffee shakes (caffeine overload) but wanting something to sip on, I decided to take the path less traveled (for me, anyway) and get a chai latte.
On this particular day, I didn’t like it. She might have made it too strong, or maybe it was just that it wasn’t coffee. It’s not that I don’t like chai – I do – but for some reason I took a couple sips and just wasn’t that into it. As cheap as I am, I didn’t want to waste a $4 chai latte, either. Since it’s not mid-winter and there wasn’t the option to leave it in the cup holder of the car overnight and scrape it with a fork to make a granita (done that), I took it home and stuck it in the fridge. This morning, I found it. And made panna cotta.
Quick aside: W just got out of the tub and came in to proudly show me his freshly shaven legs.
But the panna cotta: I know I’ve gone on about how simple it is to make. I love being able to stir something together in two minutes and then go hey, I just whipped up a chai latte panna cotta for you. Because panna cotta sounds far more luxurious and complicated than Jell-O. No one’s particularly impressed by that. Even if you put a can of fruit cocktail in.
Panna cotta is just gelled cream – the perfect spring dessert. There are of course a ton of things you can do to fancy it up; you could flavour the cream with citrus, ginger, chocolate, brown sugar or spices. You could use buttermilk, or yogurt, or heavy cream. If there were a Desserts for Dummies book, panna cotta would be on the cover, because it’s almost impossible to screw up. All you have to do is dissolve the gelatin-if you manage that, you’re golden. (So: don’t crank up the heat and go check your email. If you keep it to medium and stay close so that the cream doesn’t boil over, you’ll be just fine.) This chai latte panna cotta is cute served in teacups, or pour it into little glasses or wine glasses and top with fresh berries. If you don’t want to go to Starbucks for a chai latte, start with 3 cups of cream and steep a chai teabag or two in it (bring to a simmer, then turn off the heat and let it steep for 10 minutes or so), take the teabags out and add a couple tablespoons of honey.
If you like, rub a few ramekins with oil, pour in the cream mixture and chill, then unmould them onto little plates; I like to relieve myself of the pressure of a clean unmoulding by serving them in whatever cups they’ve set in. Why invite disaster to your dinner party?
Starbucks Chai Latte Panna Cotta
1 grande chai latte
1 cup half & half or whipping cream
1 pkg. unflavoured gelatin
Dump the latte and cream into a small pot and sprinkle with the gelatin. Turn the heat to medium and heat the mixture, stirring occasionally, until it’s steaming hot and the gelatin has dissolved completely. Pour into tea cups, small glasses or wine glasses. Chill until firm.
One Year Ago: Chocolate-Marshmallow Filled Whoopie Pies
May 18 2010 | dessert | 23 Comments »
It was a good weekend, if busy. It may sound like the picture of domesticity, in fact, when I recap: coffee to go and some good, artsy garage sale-ing Saturday morning, at which W (finally!) became the proud owner of a Slap-Chop – a real one, not the 1950s version my Grandma had that he took one look at and declared “not the real thing”. (He has been asking for one since Christmas. When he got the Graty that came with it, he turned to me and said, “hey Mom! You can put your cheese in it, you can keep it in the fridge and fuggedaboutit!” in full-on New York slang.)
Then, a discovery that I’ve decided after much inner searching to share with you: fruit-filled hand pies at Bliss & Co. bakery in Chinatown: THE BEST EVER. (Also: really nice people there. Which is always an added bonus.) It was all I could do to take a few snaps before devouring one of those cherry pies. OK, both of them. They are every bit as good as they look.
This morning the boys decided they wanted to have a lemonade stand. We pulled out the old mixer with juicer attachment my sister acquired at some antiques/curios shop ages ago, which is pulled out a few times per summer for this purpose and no other. I realize it sounds a bit Martha to set up a four and seven year old with an antique juicer and bowl of lemons for their stand (you’ll be relieved to hear we didn’t serve it in our vintage jadeite glassware), but it beats Kool-Aid or even frozen lemonade concentrate hands-down. The boys love the process of taking an order, then juicing a lemon half directly into a glass over ice, and adding sweetened water. It’s the Real Thing. They know how to turn a lemon, sugar and water into lemonade.
If you don’t have a vintage juicer, here’s how to make it from scratch from fresh lemons. (Tip: if you zap your lemons in the microwave for 20 seconds, they’ll release far more juice.)
Freshly Squeezed Lemonade: To make a lemon simple syrup, simply heat equal amounts of lemon juice and sugar in a small pan until the sugar dissolves. (6 large lemons will give you about a cup of juice.) Cool completely and keep in the fridge. To make lemonade by the glass, pour a couple tablespoons into a glass with ice, then add water (tap or sparkling) to taste. To make a pitcher, mix 1 part syrup to 5-6 parts water.
We mixed up a batch of my Grandma Woodall’s Marmalade Cookies to put out in a bowl, and as they baked the boys painted their signs. When I asked how much they planned to sell their lemonade for – curious what price tag they might put on their wares – they said they wanted it to be free. When I asked why, they said they already had enough money. So they painted “free lemonade” signs.
(They still got $3 in tips. Ben said he wanted to give it to someone who didn’t have any money, so we’ll pass it on to the food bank.)
Dinner was pizza from Roma’s in Bridgeland – a place I hadn’t tried before, but was recommended by someone via Twitter. (Thanks, social media.) We got the Funghi, topped with tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, provolone, mushrooms and prosciutto crudo. Salty and yummy, with a Roman-style crust (thin, with no rim).
And of course we nibbled on cookies all afternoon. I hadn’t made this particular recipe in ages – but it seemed fitting to pull out one of my Grandma’s recipes on a day when it seemed all of the birds in the neighbourhood came out to sing. (She loved birds, and could identify them all.) I love the scraps of paper that have her hand-written recipes on them (often with phone numbers and other notes to herself), but you might find it hard to decipher – you can find the typed-out-for-you version of the recipe here.
May 16 2010 | beverages | 23 Comments »
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