Archive for May, 2011
I forgot to mention the chocolate chip cookie dough truffles. (Yes, I did contribute to the potluck!)
On Friday night my 13 year old niece, Emily, came over to hang. To sit on the kitchen counter and talk about soccer tryouts (the provincial team! so proud) and boys, mostly. She wanted to bake. Often we make buns, but it was getting late, so chocolate chip cookies were decided on. For the dough, mostly. As we mixed and gabbed she decided to melt some chocolate chips and dip small pretzels into it, like those chocolate dipped pretzels you buy at the store. We sprinkled coarse salt on some, which wasn’t really necessary since the pretzels were covered with crunchy salt to begin with.
We were eating the dough, commenting on its vast superiority to baked cookies themselves, and then decided to chill rolled balls and DIP THEM IN CHOCOLATE. The result, of course, is a crisp chocolate shell with soft cookie dough inside. Hello, my love.
Also? You don’t have to heat up the kitchen. Which I’m happy to report is starting to be an issue.
We managed to save some for the potluck. They went quickly.
You could of course use any cookie dough for these. We used chocolate chip cookie dough – more or less the one on the back of the Chipits bag.
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles
You don’t need to add baking soda, since these won’t be going into the oven – if you’re going to bake them, add 1 tsp. baking soda to the flour.
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
pinch salt
3 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided
In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugars for a minute or two, until fluffy; add the eggs and vanilla and beat again. Add the flour and salt and beat until almost combined; add half the chocolate chips and beat on low speed or stir just until blended.
Shape the dough into large marble-sized balls and place them on an ungreased baking sheet, then refrigerate or freeze until firm.
Melt the rest of the chocolate chips in a bowl in the microwave, or a small pot over low heat on the stovetop (careful it doesn’t burn!) – dip the balls of dough, using a fork if you want to coat them completely. Set them on a sheet of parchment or foil and let sit (or refrigerate) until firm.
Makes lots.
May 31 2011 | cookies & squares and dessert | 25 Comments »
We did it! We had ourselves a potluck! People came! Even the sun showed up. It was a potluck miracle. I’m still a little breathless about it. I don’t know where to start.
How about at the beginning, when I hopped in the shower just as the doorbell rang? Turns out I told some people 2, and others 3. My mind, of course, was set for 3. I was so unusually completely on the ball. But then again not. So I got to meet everyone with sopping wet – and then varying degrees of dry-ish hair. Somehow it seemed appropriate.
It was so great to meet so many of you in person, and to have you all meet each other! I’m so glad you all were up to coming to a house full of people you had never met – at the house of someone you had never met. We were all kind of in the same boat. The Prosecco helped. My only regret is that I didn’t talk to everyone nearly as much as I wanted to.
The food was amazing. Unreal. It just kept coming in the door, each dish completely different from the last. The Other Al was first, with blueberry loaf. (I made more eccles cakes!)
AJ brought butter tarts. (Which were, it must be said – SUBLIME. I am particular when it comes to butter tarts. My grandma made them about as perfectly as they come. AJ – you nailed it! I tried to hoard them for myself without success.)
This strawberry-rhubarb punch, served with ginger ale, was a total hit. Look at that colour!
Colleen brought beet hummus with cumin, which she spooned onto rounds of cucumber, and then had a Barney purple index finger all afternoon. I loved that so many of you came in with baking sheets and tools and were cooking in my kitchen. LOVED IT.
Cathy brought a big rice salad, with dried cherries, oranges, grapes and pecans, in a royal blue bowl for me to keep. (Eee!)
And there was another big salad.. with avocado! I started to fall behind on my photos quickly.
These beans! Were fantastic.
I’m not sure at what point Mike figured out I had invited the internet over to our house. He got right into it, acting as Name Tag Police, insisting everyone identify themselves. I kept track of who brought what for awhile, but then fell behind on my photo taking and list making, and then I think the list got recycled. And I know I missed a few shots – Ulla, your veggie quiche! I may have to go back through my photo files. One night soon when I don’t have to get up at 4 to cover traffic in the morning.
And the asparagus, decorated with edible flowers! These came from Corrine and Darrel Winter – I thought it was funny that they didn’t bring turkey. This asparagus came straight from their garden.
So did the daffodils.
There were babies in my garden.
And pizzas.
There was fresh bread, baked then wrapped in tea towels and whisked over so that it may as well have just come out of the oven. When Lisa walked in I wondered if I had put bread in to bake at some point and forgotten? It smelled as if it was still baking, right there in her bag.
(And more babies.)
The mini watermelon you see above went uncut. W named it Chickadee and kept it on the couch, under a blanket, and wouldn’t allow a knife near it.
There was only one quinoa salad, after all! Avery made it, a copycat Earl’s west coast prawn salad with citrus honey vinaigrette made by this recipe. Totally divine. (Note: I didn’t get to it fast enough, and wound up snapping the very dregs of the bowl. It did look far better than this before everyone swan-dived into it.)
Jane and Erica brought – oh yes they did – an enormous Mac & Cheese TOPPED WITH BACON. How have I not thought of this??
Fareen brought shrimp puffs!
And dhokra, made with wheatlets.
At one point Ulla asked me what I had made, and I remembered that there was a roast beef slow-roasting in the oven. I forgot. There was so much food we just left it there.
There was cranberry date squares.
There was cake! Colleen’s rum cake.
And Donna’s son made apple cake.
And amazing cookies – with oatmeal and chocolate and other good things.
And I know I missed some – I missed the tzatziki, and the hummus. And the grilled veg, and macaroni salad, and two kinds of marinated asparagus. Sorry. It was all so great, but I was so focused on meeting everyone – I didn’t want to spend all afternoon looking through my camera when I had so many of you there in person! – I’m thinking we should have more of these.
May 29 2011 | leftovers | 72 Comments »
I’ve been on a bit of a corn bread kick lately. Meaning I’ve made two in the past week. The first was to go with black bean soup, and I forgot a key ingredient. It was OK, but not stellar. I figured I could resurrect it as croutons – which worked just fine. Just cube, toss in a bit of oil and bake, and you have croutons with far more character than those made out of plain old white bread.
Check me out, not panicking over the fact that I have maybe a thousand (probably not) friends I haven’t met yet coming over tomorrow. Those of you who are among the potluck attendees, be warned: there are bikes and boots and jackets and reusable shopping bags and a shelf of surplus cookbooks in the front foyer. I have not washed the walls (properly) in eons because at this point it’s easier to just paint the house. The hundred year old house is self-dusting – that is, it produces bunnies and rhinos in all corners (Lou helps) at all times, even right behind me when (if) I do dust. The back yard has turned into a mud bog from all this rain, on patches of lawn that now have no grass – a permanent result of Lou and W potty training at the same time. We cleared out our garage a few weeks ago, and the community clean-up is next week, and meanwhile we have an old fridge and enough other (now soggy) assorted junk waiting in the back yard to possibly qualify us as hoarders. (Are you really a hoarder if you’re trying to get rid of stuff, though?) And yes, there is only one bathroom.
I was on traffic on the early show this morning, and dragged myself through the afternoon. My 13 year old niece wanted to come sit on the counter and talk about boys tonight, and so she did, and she wanted to make cilantro dip – something she had tried at the farmers’ market on a school trip today – but we couldn’t figure out the recipe. So we made chocolate chip cookies, and did something with some of the dough that I’ll tell you about tomorrow, after our creations have set.
For dinner we nibbled and ate salad. I’m not bothering with measurements here, except perhaps in the dressing. Because really, it’s just a salad. I think it would do very well with a ripe avocado, and perhaps topped with a skewer of grilled shrimp.
Green Salad with Corn Bread Croutons
influenced by The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook, by way of Smitten Kitchen
corn bread, cut into big cubes
canola or olive oil
ripe tomatoes
roughly torn fresh lettuce, such as Bibb, butter or Boston
bitter greens, such as arugula
a bit of purple onion or sweet onion, finely chopped or sliced
buttermilk-lime dressing (below)
Preheat oven to 350°F. Scatter the corn bread in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet, drizzle with oil and bake for about 10 minutes, until the pieces are pale golden.
Assemble the salad, and drizzle with dressing just before serving.
Buttermilk-Lime Dressing
3/4 cup buttermilk, or half milk, half plain yogurt
juice of a lime (2-3 Tbsp)
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp honey
1/4 cup torn fresh basil
1/4 cup torn fresh flat-leaf parsley
2 green onions or a small chunk of purple onion, chopped
salt to taste
Blitz everything in the food processor or blender until well combined.
May 27 2011 | salads | 15 Comments »
I went to W’s school this morning and built a potato condo with his kindergarten class. I highly recommend doing this if your kids’ teacher lets you – I brought a copy of Two Old Potatoes and Me to read beforehand, then the kids got to scoop dirt and plant potatoes, and all thought it was very cool. I love that the knowledge of how to grow their own potatoes is now somewhere in their wee brainpans. Maybe some of them will go home and ask their parents to grow their own potatoes in their own backyards or on their balconies. Maybe they’ll teach their kids how to grow potatoes. And so on.
We made our own last week, which once you drill holes in the bottom of your garbage bin takes all of about five minutes. I keep eluding to it on twitter, and people keep asking what the hell I’m talking about. So let me explain the concept of a potato condo, and how to make one, even if you’re not a gardener nor have space for a full-on garden. If you have room for a garbage bin, you have enough to grow a good-sized crop of potatoes your very own self.
I know, potatoes are cheap – but the satisfaction of going out to your back yard, thrusting your hand into a container of dirt and pulling out clusters of wee new potatoes to rub clean and cook up for dinner is (nearly) free. As you probably know, potatoes grow underground, but grow up toward the surface, rather than down, like most root vegetables (picture a carrot, leaves growing up, root growing down), which is why they are generally planted in little hills, with provide extra dirt for them to grow up through. Make sense? A potato condo allows you to grow lots of potatoes vertically by adding more dirt as the potato plants grow to the surface. It’s also a great way to contain them, taking up little space in relation to the yield. The first (and probably most) potato condos were made out of wood, with new sides added on as the plants grew, but I’ve seen and heard of potato condos built out of old tires, milk crates and garbage bins. Last year we built one out of a galvanized steel bin I had initially tried to turn into a smoker. (Which, not surprisingly, didn’t work.) This year there are plenty of spare plastic garbage bins around as the city has supplied us all with their own black bins. I’d love to see those unused garbage pails growing food rather than filling landfills.
To grow potatoes you don’t start with seeds – you start with seed potatoes. Seed potatoes are potatoes which have been allowed to sprout eyes. I’m sure you’ve inadvertently produced your own seed potatoes in your own kitchens. The potatoes we used were from last year – mostly from our CSA farm – stored in a cool, dark place they practically turned into potato plants right there in the depths of my kitchen.
To make your potato condo, first drill a few holes in the bottom of your garbage bin to allow extra moisture out – this will prevent your potatoes from drowning and/or rotting. I put a few near the bottom but on the sides, so they can’t get blocked underneath.
Then put some dirt into the bottom of your condo. Cut your seed potatoes into chunks, making sure each piece has a sprouting eye. Place them in the dirt, with the eyes upward, and cover with about 6 inches more soil. That’s it. Water and sun. They’re pretty low maintenance, actually.
Once the leaves poke through the surface, add more dirt and compost. This encourages the plants to keep growing more potatoes, growing upward. Once it starts to flower, you can dip your hand into the dirt and feel around for new potatoes to pull out – just be careful you don’t disturb the root system.
Your full harvest won’t happen until the fall, when it grows chilly and the above-ground part of the plant withers and dies. Then you can tip over the bin and sift through the dirt to harvest your potatoes. You won’t believe how many you’ll get. If you build a potato condo, keep me posted!
Wait, I have a potluck update!
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May 25 2011 | leftovers | 40 Comments »
Food is all those substances which, submitted to the action of the stomach, can be assimilated or changed into life by digestion, and can thus repair the losses which the human body suffers through the act of living.
-The Phsysiology of Taste, Brillat-Savarin
So yeah, let’s have that potluck.
It turns out I’m quite the procrastinator, even when it comes to things I’m really excited about. Probably more so about things I’m totally nervous about. Shocking, I know.
My plan for months – especially since that potluck in Tofino – was to have one here and invite all of you. As my mom used to say – immediately, if not sooner. (Generally this phrase was used in reference to our getting some chore done that should have been done eons ago.)
I didn’t want to interrupt anyone’s long weekend, plus I had this silent auction dinner. Next Saturday night, it turns out, I’ve committed to judging a salsa contest. I’m not sure I could duck out of the potluck for a couple hours without anyone noticing. Also: Mike might kill me.
The weekend after – which according to my calendar is the first week of JUNE – I’ll be in Texas. Yes. I’m going on a business trip, for a conference. How grown-up am I?
The weekend after that we’re all going to be in California. (Guess what? We’re taking the boys to Disneyland. Still doesn’t seem quite real, but the tickets are booked!) The weekend after that I’m cooking for Will Shatner. (Yes, that Will Shatner.) And then it’s the last weekend of June. The end of school, beginning of summer. EEK. And I don’t want to wait that long.
Also, the apple tree in our backyard is beginning to bloom. I love it when it’s in bloom – the branches loaded with pink flowers distracts from the thawing dog poo. And so it looks like next Saturday must be the day, but perhaps maybe in the afternoon, so I can go judge salsas at 8? I know it won’t work for all of you, but I’m hoping some of you will come, even though it’ll be too light out for patio lights.
Wait, before I get into logistics, I want to tell you about these eccles cakes.
They’re not really cakes per se – they’re crisp, sugary squares or rounds puff pastry filled with currants and brown sugar – better, I think, than any Danish. I made them recently because I needed comfort food, I really did, and they remind me of my mom. I’m not sure why these stand out above other things she’d bring home from the grocery store when I was a kid – they weren’t even all that, arriving in hard plastic clamshells from the bakery with the texture of refrigerated store-bought puff pastry that coated the inside of your mouth. Maybe it’s just because she loved them too. I’ve since decided that if I’m going to eat things like pastries, they’re going to be the very best I can find – and these are near mind-blowing when made at home and eaten warm from the baking sheet.
I’m not suggesting you set about making puff pastry from scratch, although I don’t discourage it – but these particular eccles cakes were made with half a package of store-bought puff pastry, and took about five minutes to put together. And look at them! Like crispy-chewy butter tart sandwiches, these are. I’ll make some next weekend, just to prove it to you.
The great thing about puff pastry is its foolproofness – no matter what you do to it, it will bake up golden and crispy and if it’s imperfectly cut, rustic-looking. Some eccles cakes are round, and others are square, some are made with candied citron and cinnamon along with the currants – feel free to add either or both, but I’m a bit of an eccles cake purist, myself.
Eccles Cakes
1/2 package frozen puff pastry, thawed
1/2 cup currants
1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 Tbsp. butter, softened
pinch cinnamon (optional)
1 egg, lightly beaten
coarse sugar, for sprinkling (optional)
On a lightly floured surface, roll the puff pastry out to a large rectangle or square big enough that the pastry is about 1/4-inch thick.
Preheat the oven to 375F. Mix together the currants, brown sugar and butter and spread over one half of the pastry. Or mix the butter and sugar, spread it over the pastry and sprinkle with currants. It doesn’t much matter.
Fold the pastry over to cover the filling and roll gently with the rolling pin almost until the currants poke through the surface. Cut into squares or rectangles (any size you like) with a sharp knife and transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Brush with egg, cut a few slits in the top of each with a sharp knife (be careful not to go all the way through) and sprinkle with coarse sugar.
Bake for about 20 minutes, until golden. Try to share.
So – the potluck. If you seriously want to come, I’ll get into details after the jump…
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May 23 2011 | cookies & squares and dessert | 44 Comments »
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