Archive for the 'breakfast' Category
I know, I’m jumping on the bandwagon. But every year it’s the same: I forget how much I love Irish soda bread, those big, dense, rustic loaves that are really like enormous biscuits, only a bit tweedier with a light, crunchy crust. And I’m a sucker for all bread served in wedges.
See? It’s like a big biscuit. You cut in the butter, or rub it with your fingers. Warm wedges make perfect vehicles for butter and jam in the morning, and when else can you get away with eating biscuits for dinner? I don’t know what all the hubbub over baguettes is about – soda bread is far easier on the teeth, and a wedge balances perfectly on the edge of a bowl of soup, stew or chili.
And takes very well to a handful of grated cheese, if you’re so inclined. Just sayin’.
Irish Soda Bread
adapted from Gifts from the Kitchen (Douglas & McIntyre)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 Tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup butter, chilled and cut into bits
1 1/2 cups buttermilk or plain yogurt, thinned with milk to the consistency of buttermilk
Preheat oven to 375F.
In a large bowl, stir together the flours, salt, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the butter and blend (or pulse the mixture in the food processor) until well combined and crumbly. If you like, add grated cheese, herbs, nuts or dried fruit at this point. Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture and add the buttermilk, stirring until blended.
Knead the dough until it comes together in one piece, then knead the ball 10 times. Place on a baking sheet or in a buttered 8″ or 9″ round cake pan.
Bake for 1 hour, or until golden and the bread sounds hollow when tapped. Cool on a wire rack.
Makes one loaf.
March 15 2012 | bread and breakfast | 5 Comments »
I’m home! Although it may seem to the rest of the world as if I’ve never left, but between traveling and conferences and colds and flu in between, I feel like I’ve hardly been in my kitchen (except to make soup). I have a real and proper dinner simmering away on the stove right this minute, and if it turns out and I manage to take pictures before devouring it, I’ll share it with you. Meanwhile I promised a friend some muffins.
A good muffin is a wonderful thing. Once you have a good formula you can do anything with it – make it savoury with cheese and garlic and herbs, or add fruit or nuts or berries or chocolate. I do like my muffins to have a little tooth – without grains they’re a little too cupcake-like. These muffins in particular are made with oatmeal, which is soaked for a bit in buttermilk or thin yogurt (or even thinned sour cream) to soften before you start.
A few tricks for the muffin impaired: make sure your baking powder isn’t a hundred years old. If it’s in a tin with the sort of lid you have to pry off with the tip of a knife, it probably is. Once the liquid and dry ingredients are combined, be really gentle with your stirring; use a spatula if you have one, and mix just until the two are combined. Overmixing will make your muffins tough.
Like pancakes, I also see muffins as warm, cakey little opportunities to use up things that might otherwise get tossed. The half & half I left outside that froze and now comes out ever so slightly lumpy into our coffee. The cups of banana flavoured yogurt that came in the box of flavoured yogurts W begged for that he doesn’t like. The wrinkly apples and half eaten bananas and glut of Saskatoon berries still hanging out in our freezer. And yes, the soggy cereal that was left on the kitchen table. Muffins give them the chance for a new life.
The recipe is adapted from one Beth McCasland of Flagstaff, Arizona; it came from her mother’s home economics class in Louisiana in the 1940′s. By way of an old copy of Gourmet, of course. It’s a great example of how technology by and large hasn’t affected cooking from scratch that much.
Oatmeal Muffins
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup buttermilk or plain yogurt, thinned with milk
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup canola oil or butter, melted and cooled
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup dried currants or raisins, or 1 cup fresh or frozen berries, or a handful of anything else you think would taste good
In a large bowl, stir together the oats and buttermilk and let sit about an hour.
Preheat oven to 400°F and line 12 muffin tins with paper liners.
Add the egg, brown sugar and oil or butter to the oat mixture and stir well. Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and stir until almost combined; add any additions you like and stir just until blended.
Divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin tins and bake for 20 minutes, or until golden and springy to the touch. Serve warm. Makes 1 dozen muffins.
March 12 2012 | bread and breakfast | 17 Comments »
This is all Sue‘s genius. She discovered that chickpeas, being as benign in flavour as they are, are more than happy to soak up some bacony goodness and sticky maple sweetness. Never considered beans for breakfast? Think again! Oh the potential of a roasted chickpea.
We’re in Vancouver tonight, having flown in to Abbotsford to teach a class at Lepp Farm Market.
Don’t you love Instagram?
Tomorrow we’ll do more cooking with beans on TV and then do a cooking demo at the Wellness Show on Friday. (Because beans are so good for you and all.) In between, the plan is to walk the sea wall, go to Bao Bei and L’Abbatoir, see some businessy people for overpriced drinks and do lots of poking about Vancouver, which is after all such a poke-aboutable city. And because we’re both sans kids, we may even stroll through the VAG without having to hush anyone or worry about light saber moves knocking down a priceless piece of art.
So those roasted chickpeas up there we made in our class, and it occurred to me that I haven’t shared them with you yet, and that maybe I should.
Roasted Chickpeas and Pecans with Bacon and Maple Syrup
1 cup (250 mL) cooked chickpeas, or 1/2 19 oz (540 mL) can, rinsed and drained
2-3 slices bacon, diced
a handful of broken pecans
1/4 cup maple syrup
light sprinkling of sea salt
Preheat the oven to 325°F. Spread the chickpeas and bacon over a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake, stirring once or twice until bacon is starting to brown, and most of the fat has been rendered, about 30 minutes.
Increase the oven temperature to 400°F, and add the pecans. Roast for 5 minutes, and add the maple syrup. Toss well, and return to the oven for another 3-4 minutes. The maple syrup should be thickened and bubbling. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt, and allow to cool somewhat before eating.
February 15 2012 | beans and breakfast | 8 Comments »
I know I’ve shared plenty of granola here before, but I have a new favourite. This clumpy, crunchy granola is bound together with peanut butter and pure maple syrup. I KNOW!! The peanut butter adds a light crunchiness I’ve never achieved with other granola formulas – like Harvest Crunch, without the over-the-top sweetness. Next time I’ll venture into peanut butter and honey territory.
I’ve had a big baking sheet of this on my kitchen counter all afternoon, and when I had to leave the house I got all panicky for a minute that I had to leave my new bff, and wound up filling a ziplock bag of it to tuck in my pocket and sneak handfuls of. You could of course spice it up with cinnamon or a pinch of ground ginger, but I kind of like it straight-up. Of course feel free to take liberties with nuts, seeds and dried fruit, too.
Extra Clumpy Peanut Butter & Maple Granola
4 c. old-fashioned (large flake) oats
2 c. sliced or slivered almonds
1 c. shredded coconut
1/4 t. fine sea salt
1/2 c. creamy peanut butter
1/3 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. maple syrup (the real stuff!) or liquid honey
1 c. dried fruit, such as raisins, cranberries, cherries, chopped dried figs, dates or apricots
Preheat the oven to 325F. In a large bowl, mix together the oats, almonds, coconut and salt.
In a small saucepan, combine the peanut butter, brown sugar and maple syrup over medium heat and stir until everything is melted and smooth.
Pour over the oat mixture and toss until well combined. Spread the mixture out onto a large rimmed sheet pan and bake for 30-40 minutes, stirring once or twice, until pale golden and crunchy/clumpy. Let cool and stir in the dried fruit. Store in an airtight container or in individual zip-lock baggies. Makes about 6 cups.
January 27 2012 | breakfast and grains | 24 Comments »
I’ve been running a pretty tight ship, refrigerator-wise. I’m digging right through to the back, taking inventory. On one such spelunking mission I came up with a bag containing 6 overripe pears. Pale yellow and dented, they were far too delicate to travel any distance in a lunch bag. There were too many to grate into muffins or pancakes. My freezer, which unloads the same container of pesto and a few disks of pastry dough every time I open the door, had no room. So while W sat at the table and did his home reading out loud, I chopped them into a pot with some water, sugar and ginger and made a compote. Or jam. Or something that looks great in a jar and is delicious on toast.
It’s not as sweet as most jam, which is why I felt the need to call it a compote. I dumped in a handful of cranberries from the freezer as an afterthought, which made it irresistibly sweet-tart and blushed. It might have been raspberries, or rhubarb. Whatever’s falling out of your freezer.
I admit I winged this. If you cook fruit and sugar it’s inevitable that at some point you’ll wind up with something jam-like. But this is roughly how it was done. (And no, you don’t need to peel your pears. Too much work, and those ripe skins are so thin you don’t even notice them. Plus they have fibre, which is a good thing.) By the way, those are Weck jars, from Crate & Barrel Southcentre!
Cranberry-Pear Ginger Preserves
5-6 ripe pears, cored and roughly chopped
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup water or apple juice
1 Tbsp. grated fresh ginger
1-2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries
Put everything into a pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, occasionally mashing with a large spoon or potato masher, until the mixture thickens, looks more uniform and jam-like. (Remember it will thicken as it cools.) Transfer to clean jars and refrigerate.
Makes 3-4 cups.
January 25 2012 | breakfast and preserves | 7 Comments »
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