Archive for September, 2011
Another delicious use for those coronation/concord grapes. An accessory to them, really.
We’re heading up to Jasper for the weekend, and there’s so much to catch you up on from this week, and last weekend still, but there are too many photos to go through and pack at the same time. So I leave you with these buttery, blue cheesey shortbreads that you can make ahead and keep in the fridge or freezer for such time when you need to slice and bake up a little somthething fancy-ish and delicious. There will be plenty of opportunities in the next few months.
It never hurts to get a little something stashed away now. Unless you’re planning on freezing balls of chocolate chip cookie dough to get ahead of the game – which may be a bad idea for those who, like me, adore frozen balls of chocolate chip cookie dough.
These are perfect – and super easy to stir together – if you have to bring something somewhere, or if you’re planning a little wine & cheese this weekend. (Even if it’s alone, on the couch, in your slippers. Ahh.)
Pecan & Blue Cheese Shortbread
1/2 cup butter, at room temp
1 cup crumbled blue cheese
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans or walnuts
Beat the butter and blue cheese until blended (don’t worry about lumps of cheese); add the flour and pecans or walnuts. Shape into a log, wrap in parchment or plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm or freeze for up to 6 months.
To bake, slice 1/4-inch thick and bake on an ungreased baking sheet at 350°F for 10 minutes, or until pale golden around the edges. Makes about 2 dozen.
September 30 2011 | appetizers | 14 Comments »
I love when you have a friend who goes grape picking in the Okanagan and brings you back a box of tight bunches of Coronation grapes, some with twisty vines still attached. If this hasn’t recently happened to you, sorry.
Or… perhaps we should arrange a field trip to the Okanagan?
So I have this box of Coronation grapes – the seedless version of Concords, those dusty indigo blue grapes that pop out of their skins and have far more flavour than the lacklustre green and pale purple ones you see year-round at the grocery store. They’re great for eating, but they also make delicious other things, like cakes and focaccia and chutney and jelly, which is actually a snap to make.
And it tastes surprisingly like the grape jelly of my childhood – not a whole lot more sophisticated.
To make Grape Jelly: simmer 1 1/2 lb Concord or Coronation grapes with 3 Tbsp. lemon juice for about 10 minutes, until the grapes pop; strain through a sieve and return the grape juice to the pan with 1 cup sugar. Bring the mixture to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes, until the jam reaches 220?F on a candy thermometer. Cool and refrigerate for up to a month.
That’s it. It’s thicker than jelly, but I’m not sure I’d call it jam, as all the solids have been strained out. Preserves, perhaps? I love the purpleness of it, especially when spreading on toast or filling little tartlet cups lined with white cheddar pastry. Seemed like a good idea.
Concord Grape Jelly Tarts or Hand Pies
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup butter, chilled and cut into pieces
1/4 cup shortening, chilled and cut into pieces
1/2-1 cup grated old white cheddar or 1/4 cup ground hazelnuts or pecans
2-4 Tbsp. ice-cold water
Grape jelly/preserves, for filling
Make the pastry: in a large bowl or the bowl of a food processor, stir together the flour, sugar and salt. Add the butter, shortening and cheese or hazelnuts and use a fork, pastry blender, wire whisk or the “pulse” motion of the food processor to blend the mixture until it resembles coarse meal, with lumps of fat no bigger than a pea.
Drizzle the minimum amount of water over the mixture and stir until the dough comes together, adding a little more a bit at a time if you need it. Gather the dough into a ball, flatten it into a disc, wrap it in plastic and chill for at least half an hour, or freeze for up to 6 months if you want a head start on things.
To fill, roll the pastry out on a lightly floured surface about 1/4-inch thick; cut into rounds with a cookie cutter or glass rim. Fit into mini muffin tins, pressing up the sides, and fill with a spoonful of jam, filling it only about halfway. If you like, cut the scraps into little shapes to place on top of the jam.
Alternatively, make little hand pies (aka turnovers) by putting a spoonful of jam in the middle of each round, brushing the edge with a little beaten egg or milk, and folding it over, turnover-style. Press the edge closed with a fork to seal, and poke the top with a fork. Transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet.
Either way, bake in a preheated 400F oven for 20-25 minutes, until golden. Remove from the pan while still warm. Makes lots.
September 27 2011 | dessert and preserves | 19 Comments »
Sorry for the radio silence – it has been a bit of a whacko weekend. It’s been a bit of a crazy weekend. There was the reopening of Catch on Thursday night – the space has been completely redesigned and made more fun, casual and approachable. Wine lists are – get this – on iPads! – they had an app made especially for the restaurant, so you can click on region, grape, terroir – see the bottle and learn about the wine, even, before you make your selection. Brilliant, no?
(Speaking of wine and Catch, I have some Free Stuff for you! If you’re in Calgary, or planning a visit, they donated two glasses of bubbly and a half dozen fresh oysters!)
Saturday morning I taught a workshop on what to do with the bounty of your community garden, and then there was a birthday party, and then that evening I cooked for 80 at an Art for the Senses event at the Glenbow. The food had to tie in to the movies whose costumes were on display for Cut! Costume and the Cinema (a great exhibit!) which meant a great deal of eighteenth century British-inspired finger food. Eels in gelée, anyone?
On the menu: Cornish pasties w homemade ketchup (any of the eighteenth century British films!), chorizo and potato Spanish tortilla bites (Goya’s Ghost), crostini with goat cheese and apple-rum chutney (Pirates of the Caribbean, in which the only food scenes involve rum or Johnny Depp eating apples), crostini w ham, manchego, and fig jam (Goya’s Ghost), crostini w hunter’s pate (Sense & Sensibility), mini scones with poached plums and Devonshire cream (Gosford Park, Mrs Dalloway), mini pavlova with lemon curd, berries and cream (Defiance, the White Countess), Earl Grey truffles (again, any number of British films) and dark chocolate chunk cookies sprinkled with fleur de sel and baked on a stick, for which there was no movie connection, but I figured no one would complain.
So because there hasn’t been much in the way of proper (homemade) dinners, I thought I’d catch you up on a few things you may have missed, like bananas Foster, wrapped in crepes (see photo, way up at the tippy-top). Breakfast of champions. Or at least of Very Happy People.
There was a warm loaf of Sour Cream Cheese Bread – one of those quick stir-together recipes that make a perfect accompaniment to a warm bowl of soup, stew or chili. Also? Best potpourri ever.
It went well with that batch of Ham and Black Bean Soup we made in the slow cooker. Best reason to roast a ham, possibly. Also delicious with lentils, and great use of dry beans.
I found a formula for gluten-free soy sauce to use in a recipe. Super easy, and helpful.
And for dessert, cupcakes. Coconut Cream Cupcakes, because why should such an awesome flavour be limited to pie? And Vanilla Sprinkle-Dip Cupcakes, because sometimes they’re just a vehicle for sprinkles anyway. Why not dive right in?
September 27 2011 | Family Kitchen | 9 Comments »
Oh eff. This is what I said, out loud even, having just come home from the gym where I tend to work up an appetite voracious enough to make steamed cabbage taste divine, and clicked on Gwendolyn’s blog and these babies popped up and practically licked me in the face. Or it may have been me licking the computer – I can’t remember. I mean – look at them. Love at first sight? I believe.
The baker in me was intrigued by the use of cornstarch in this particular dough. Not much – only 2 tsp. to 2 cups of flour. Would it really make a difference? Or is it gimmicky? Designed to lure in people like me who are hungry and haven’t eaten a freshly baked chocolate chunk cookie in far too long?
So I made them – for research purposes only. Besides, I’ll be seeing Anna Olson – Gwendolyn’s cookie muse – at Christmas in November at the Jasper Park Lodge in a month – I could use this as a conversation piece. You know, something to chit chat about.
There’s a half pound of chopped chocolate in these. (That sounds way better than 8 oz or 2 cups, don’t you think?) Go semisweet or as dark as you like. I do like chopped chocolate in a cookie rather than chips – you get that spread of teeny bits to enormous chunks, which works in these. They really are All That, and interestingly enough the cornstarch – perhaps paired with the low sugar-flour ratio – produces a cookie very different from those I generally fall back on. They have that thick denseness reminiscent of the ones I used to get at Cookies by George when we took the bus downtown after school. They aren’t cakey, but they aren’t as chewy as most. But yet they are chewy. At any rate, they’re totally fab. Even Ben looked up from the table and said, all contemplative and serious (particularly for an 8 year old), “wow, these are really good chocolate chip cookies.”
I sprinkled a few with a bit of crunchy salt for salted dark chocolate cookies. I know, the whole salted caramel/chocolate combo is so last year. Who cares? It’s also so delicious.
These are totally ridiculously easy to make. You don’t need to age the dough, or chill it, or do anything but nibble at it as you stir, then scoop (I really do love my levered scoop – ask Santa for one) and bake. Never before has superherosim been so easy.
Half a Pound of Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookies
With thanks to Gwendolyn and Anna.
3/4 cup butter, at room temp
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. cornstarch
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
8 oz. dark or semi-sweet chocolate, chopped into chunks
Preheat oven to 350F.
In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugars until pale and almost fluffy. Beat in the egg and vanilla.
Add the flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt and stir or beat on low until almost combined; add the chocolate chunks and stir just until blended.
Drop dough by the spoonful onto a parchment-lined (or buttered) sheet and bake for 10-14 minutes (depending on their size) until golden around the edges but still soft in the middle. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Makes about 1 1/2 dozen large cookies.
September 23 2011 | cookies & squares | 36 Comments »
Yes, I know. It looks a little swampish. But the thing is there’s SO MUCH lettuce coming out of my garden (a few plants bolted so badly they were almost as tall as me) and more coming each week from our CSA, and I’m just not that hip on salads at this time of year. I really can’t keep up with it all. First world problems, I know.
And so I thought – other greens make great soup, why not lettuce?
It totally works. It’s not as dense as spinach soup, it’s sort of bulkier. Which any gastroenterologist will tell you is a Good Thing. See? You can totally enjoy a warm bowl of green salad with a spoon.
Lettuce Soup
canola or olive oil, for cooking
butter, for cooking,
1 small onion, chopped
2-3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 head leafy green lettuce, or a combo of lettuce, spinach, chard, kale – anything green
1 L chicken or vegetable stock
splash of cream (optional but good)
salt and pepper
In a small pot, heat a drizzle of oil and a dab of butter and saute the onion for a few minutes, until it’s soft. Add the garlic and cook for another minute or two. Roughly chop the lettuce and add it (bonus! no need to get it dry after you wash it!) and add the stock and bring to a simmer. Cook for about 20 minutes, until the lettuce is nice and soft. Puree in a blender or using a hand-held immersion blender, stir in a good splash of cream and season with salt and pepper. Serve hot.
September 21 2011 | soup | 17 Comments »
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