Archive for the 'dessert' Category
As you may have guessed, dinner wasn’t at home tonight.
I was cooking for a private event at Willow Park, a wine tasting with food paired at each station. The satay, meatballs and salmon were nothing new, but I hadn’t made gougères before. Gougères are choux pastry - cream puffs - with cheese stirred into the batter and baked into these unbelievable little cheesy puffs. That was paired with the bubbly to begin, and they were fantastic warm from the oven.
Choux pastry is actually incredibly easy to make, and there’s no need to pipe it out onto your baking sheet. Dropped from a spoon, they turn out beautifully rustic.
Mike shopped, and picked up some Swiss gruyère, which I requested and is traditional for gougères, but the theme last night was Canadian food. Oops. So I made a trial batch in the morning at home using the gruyère, and as they baked and filled the house with that cheesy gruyere smell, my 5 year old nephew, Ben, ran upstairs saying “Julie! Something doesn’t smell very good!” and then proceeded to gag and dry heave - seriously, and not even for dramatic effect - until the gougères came out of the oven and cooled down and the smell dissipated. When W tried one it quickly came back up and he tried desperately to wipe the taste off his tongue. So my point is, choose your cheese carefully. At the event, I made a couple batches using grated old Sylvan Star gouda (made in Alberta!) and they were wonderful.
Gouda or Gruyère Gougères
1 1/2 cups coarsely grated Gruyère or old Gouda cheese
For pâte à choux:
1 cup water
1/2 cup unsalted or salted butter, cut into pieces
1/2 tsp. salt (if using unsalted)
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups grated Gouda or gruyère
In a saucepan bring water and butter to a boil over medium-high heat. Turn the heat down to low and add flour all at once, then stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture pulls away from side of pan.
Transfer the mixture to a bowl and beat in the eggs one at a time with an electric mixer on high speed, beating well after each addition. The batter should have the consistency and colour of thick pudding; thicker than cake batter but thinner than cookie dough.
Preheat oven to 375°F and spray two baking sheets with nonstick spray or line them with parchment paper. Stir the cheese into the pâte à choux and spoon about a tablespoon at a time an inch apart on baking sheets. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until puffed, golden and crisp. Gougères keep, chilled in sealable plastic bags, 2 days or frozen 1 week. Reheat gougères uncovered in a preheated 350°F oven for 10 minutes if chilled or 15 minutes if unthawed frozen. You must serve gougères warm.
Makes about 2 dozen.
Chicken Satay
1 1/2 lb. skinless, boneless chicken or turkey breast
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 small onion, grated (optional)
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 Tbsp. grated fresh ginger
1 Tbsp. soy sauce
1 Tbsp. brown sugar or honey
1 Tbsp. curry powder
1/2 tsp. cumin
bamboo skewers
Cut chicken lengthwise into strips and place in a bowl or zip lock bag. Combine all the marinade ingredients and pour over the chicken; toss well to coat and refrigerate for an hour or overnight.
Thread the chicken onto bamboo skewers that have been soaked in water for at least 10 minutes. Grill or broil for a few minutes on each side, until just cooked through. Serve warm, at room temperature or cold with peanut sauce for dipping.
Makes about 20 satay.
Per satay: 46 calories, 0.7 g total fat (0.2 g saturated fat, 0.2 g monounsaturated fat, 0.1 g polyunsaturated fat), 8 g protein, 1.5 g carbohydrate, 20 mg cholesterol, 0.1 g fiber. 14% calories from fat.
The panna cotta spoons are one of my favourite things to make at functions like these; Willow Park has a drawerful of Chinese soup spoons, and so I stir up a batch of panna cotta (the easiest dessert on the planet - honestly, it’s just cream Jell-O) and pour it into the soup spoons - 1L of cream turns out about 60 of the things - and chill. When they are about halfway set, I sit a fresh raspberry in the middle of each one - just so that they don’t roll around on the surface. I learned this from experience. You end up with one perfect, slurpy bite of panna cotta.
Classic Vanilla Panna Cotta
Do these in individual martini glasses, ramekins or Chinese soup spoons. A good variation is maple-blueberry panna cotta: replace the honey with pure maple syrup and put blueberries on top.
1 package plain gelatin (or 1 Tbsp. if you buy it in bulk)
1 L half & half or 18% coffee cream
1/4 cup honey
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract or a vanilla bean
Fresh raspberries or blueberries, for on top
Pour about a cup of the cream into a medium pot and sprinkle the gelatin over the surface. Let it sit for about 5 minutes to let the gelatin soften.
Set the pot over medium heat and stir, without letting the cream boil, until the gelatin is completely dissolved. This should take 2-3 minutes. (If you are using a whole vanilla bean, cut it in half lengthwise using the tip of a sharp knife and scrape the seeds out and add it to the cream, along with the scraped pod.)
Add the rest of the cream, the honey and sugar and cook for another 5 minutes, until the sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla.
If you used a vanilla bean, remove the pod. Pour the mixture into individual wine glasses, small dishes, ramekins or soup spoons. Put them in the fridge for at least 2 hours, until set. Top with berries.
Serves about 8, or makes about 60 soup spoons.
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June 25 2008 | appetizers and dessert and sweet stuff | 2 Comments »
No wonder I don’t feel well.
I was emceeing the Gallery Calorie event for the Artemis Charitable Foundation this afternoon/evening - a fantastic and fun event that included restaurant and gallery hopping followed by live music, mini pies from Simple Simon, bacon wrapped scallops from Ceili’s, mini cupcakes from Buttercream Bakeshoppe, martinis and a silent auction (a bad combination for me - although I’m sure that’s the idea).
Mike picked me up from the fundraiser and we headed straight over to C & J’s to celebrate C’s 40th birthday. Since we weren’t supposed to bring gifts, I made a batch of butter tarts - one of his favorites - which Mike forgot to bring when he came to pick me up. Or rather, I forgot to tell him to grab off the countertop. So when we got home at the end of the night they were still there. Perhaps I’ll drop off the slightly smaller batch tomorrow.
I offer below two recipes - one for classic butter tarts made with my Grandma’s “Quick-mix, Never-Fail” pastry, and another lightened version made using phyllo pastry. There is a misconception that phyllo pastry is high in fat, when it’s the melted butter people slather on so liberally that makes it so. It’s easy to get away with using far less than you may be used to, and you don’t notice the difference, I promise. The lower fat phyllo version is my Mom’s favorite, and essential at our Christmas parties, with their crispy bottoms and pointy tops. I always add raisins or currants and chopped pecans, but C & J like them naked - just the goo, if you please. This is the only reason they have any hope of getting the remainder of the batch tomorrow. (To explain the photo - I made some regular-sized and some in mini muffin tins.)
Butter Tarts
Pastry for a single crust pie
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup corn syrup
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla
a handful of raisins, currants, and/or chopped pecans (optional)
Preheat oven to 400°F. On a lightly floured surface, roll the pastry out 1/4″ thick. Cut out circles using a 4″ cookie cutter or empty can, and press into ungreased muffin cups.
In a medium bowl, stir together the brown sugar, corn syrup, eggs and vanilla. Stir in the raisins and pecans, if you’re using them. Fill the tart shells about 2/3 full and bake for 20 minutes, until bubbly and golden. Take them out of the pan using a thin knife to coax them out while they are still warm, otherwise any goo that has bubbled over will stick to the pan as it cools. If it does, pop them back in the oven for a minute to soften it again. Cool on a wire rack.
Makes about 18 butter tarts.
Grandma Woodall’s “Never-fail” Pastry
This will give you enough pastry to line a 9” pie plate; double it to make enough for two pies or a double crust. Some pie bakers swear by a teaspoon of vinegar added to their water to discourage the formation of gluten and make a tender crust, but it’s not necessary. Using all shortening instead of a combination of shortening and butter is OK too.
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup butter, chilled and cut into pieces
1/4 cup shortening, chilled and cut into pieces
2-4 Tbsp. ice-cold water
1 tsp. vinegar (optional, stir it into the water)
In a large bowl or the bowl of a food processor, stir together the flour, sugar and salt. Add the butter and shortening 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 it for at least half an hour. If you are making a double crust pie, divide the dough in half, making one half slightly larger than the other. (Your pastry can be prepared up to this point and frozen for up to 4 months; let it thaw on the countertop when you need it.
Better Butter Tarts
Butter tarts made with phyllo pastry are undeniably festive, without the low-fat stigma. By brushing sparingly with butter, these contain only 4 grams of fat each, and rival my Grandma’s.
Filling:
3 large egg whites or 2 large eggs
1/3 cup corn syrup, honey or maple syrup
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 Tbsp. butter
3/4 cup raisins or currants
1/4 cup finely chopped pecans
Pastry:
8 sheets frozen phyllo pastry, thawed
2-4 Tbsp. melted butter, or half butter and half canola oil
Preheat oven to 450°F.
In a medium bowl, stir together the egg whites, corn syrup, brown sugar, butter, raisins and pecans.
On a clean, dry work surface, place two sheets of phyllo pastry, keeping the rest covered with a tea towel. Brush the pastry sparingly with melted butter and top with two more sheets. If you like, brush the top sheet again very lightly with butter.
Cut the stack of phyllo into quarters, lengthwise, and then across into 5 squares, making 20 total. Press one stacked square of phyllo into each of 10 muffin tins, pressing the pastry to the sides of the tins wherever they naturally fold. Press the remaining squares on top, putting them at a 45 degree angle so that each cup has 8 points of phyllo. Don’t worry about making them perfectly neat.
Fill the shells about half full (using about a tablespoon of filling for each) and bake for 5 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 350° F and bake for another 15 minutes, until pastry is golden and filling is just barely set. If the tips of phyllo are browning too quickly, cover the pan loosely with a sheet of foil.
Remove from the pan while still warm and transfer to a wire rack to cool. Repeat with the remaining phyllo and filling.
Makes about 20 butter tarts.
Per tart: 125 calories, 3.1 g fat (1.2 g saturated fat, 1.2 g monounsaturated fat, 0.6 g polyunsaturated fat), 24 g carbohydrates, 4.7 mg cholesterol, 0.5 g fiber. 21% calories from fat.
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June 15 2008 | dessert and sweet stuff | No Comments »
I did have a salad in between, honest.
I had a lunch meeting today at Paul’s Pizza & Steak House, one of the last true old-school restaurants with VLTs in the corner and a plastic-covered menu featuring Beef Dip, a Western (sandwich), Hamburger Deluxe, and the like. The pizza was quite fantastic, actually, one of the best I’ve had, and I was impressed to see that they have a Valta bison burger on the menu for $8.95.
I still wasn’t feeling great though. I won the leftovers and brought them home for M and W, who were at the zoo. They got home at 4, scarfed down their cold pizza, and fell asleep.
So we kind of slid past dinnertime. But with the sun out I wanted to go sit outside before the rain started up again, and was craving some ice cream. I don’t buy ice cream, because I eat ice cream. It speaks to me wherever I am in the house until I have to finish it off just to shut it up. But I did discover this almost fat-free chocolate sorbet a few years ago, and it’s just the thing for my chocolate and ice cream cravings. I’m not a kitchen gadget kind of person, but I highly recommend an ice cream machine. If you think $40-$90 is too much to pay for one, take a look at ice cream prices these days: $7 for a pint of Häagen-Dazs? Don’t get me wrong, I adore the stuff, and I suppose it’s worth it. (If you want to save some money, ice cream machines are usually on sale during the off season - last year at Williams-Sonoma the Krups ice cream machine was only $42. As if people don’t eat ice cream in the winter?)
Making your own is fun and saves not only money, but fat and calories: all you need for this sorbet is some sugar, cocoa and a small handful of chocolate, which will give it a creamier mouthfeel; more than a pint will probably run you about 50 cents. You could make it with milk, which would make it creamier, but then technically not a sorbet. Soon I’ll let you know how to make fro-yo that might change your mind about ever eating ice cream again.
(Low fat, but you’ll never know it) Chocolate Sorbet
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup cocoa
2-4 oz. chopped dark or semi-sweet chocolate, or chocolate chips
Combine the sugar and cocoa in a medium saucepan. (I always mix cocoa with the sugar in a recipe to get rid of all the lumps.) Put it over med-high heat and stir in 2 cups water. (Make some of that water coffee if you want, or stir in a teaspoon of instant coffee or espresso – it will intensify the chocolate flavor without adding fat.) Bring to a simmer and cook for about 2 minutes. Take it off the heat and stir in the chocolate. Stir until it melts, or better yet, until it kinda melts but leaves some chunks.
Let the mixture cool, then refrigerate until it’s cold. Pour into the ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer’s directions. If you want to firm it up, put it in the freezer for a few hours.
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June 12 2008 | dessert and eating out and sweet stuff | 5 Comments »
No meat today, please. We’re still digesting.
A conversation with Barbara Kingsolver last week has me thinking more than usual about eating locally. She made a good point - that rather than ponder what we feel like eating for dinner, we should consider what’s local and in season, and plan our meals around those ingredients.
With that in mind, I picked up a few bunches of asparagus over the weekend at the farmers’ market, and read a bit of Jamie Oliver’s advice on growing your own - I don’t often hear about people growing asparagus in their back yards, but I know it’s possible in our climate. Serendipitously, my friend A called on Saturday afternoon and asked if I wanted the small gathering of asparagus that was popping up through her lawn and being trampled by her three boys. Did I! From what I know, it takes 3 years for planting to picking asparagus, and I haven’t yet found a garden centre that sells asparagus plants (although, admittedly, I don’t frequent garden centres… my tomatoes, zucchini and pea seeds came from the Superstore).
I went over and dug it up; it was a monster. A mess of roots and an unseen giant tuber of sorts that supported my weight on the shovel (we gave up before digging that deep) with about 6 stalks emerging from it. I replanted what we could salvage beside the fence in my back yard, about five minutes before W and L conspired to snap off the shoots and throw them over the fence.
So today I still have the asparagus from the market. It’s cold and wet, and so dark I could hardly take photos. I didn’t much feel like cooking, so I threw a pot of pasta on - long squiggly pasta I picked up somewhere - I have vowed not to buy any more pasta until I use up all the half bags of assorted shapes on my shelf. While at the market I also picked up a package of peppered Boursin cheese (decidedly not local, I realize, but on sale), a soft, incredibly decadent cheese that my sister and I sometimes set on the table and spread on crackers while we work on our laptops at the dining room table. I thought I’d crumble it into the hot pasta and toss about until it melts, lubricating it a bit with some reserved pasta water. I imagine any sort of soft cheese would work; goat, ricotta (with lemon!) or even flavoured cream cheese.
While the pasta cooked I snapped the tough ends off the asparagus and cut them into pieces. When the pasta was a couple minutes from being done, I threw the asparagus in with it so that it would be tender but still crisp, and all done at the same time.
For dessert, leftovers from BT this morning. I made gluten free brownies for Jill, who has celiac disease, and they turned out pretty well if I do say so myself! I made them with brown rice flour and millet flour, but I imagine you could use any number of gluten free flours. Because brownies are so dense and fudgy (or should be) and call for very little flour, they are fairly easy to make gluten-free. Next time, I’m trying quinoa flour.
Gluten Free Brownies
Try quinoa or other gluten-free flours such as buckwheat or tapioca in these dense brownies.
½ cup butter, softened
4 oz. semi sweet or dark chocolate, chopped
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. instant coffee or espresso, dissolved in 1 tsp. water
¼ cup cocoa
¼ cup brown rice flour
¼ cup millet flour
pinch salt
a handful of chopped nuts and/or chocolate chips or more chopped chocolate (optional)
Preheat the oven to 350°F and spray an 8”x8” baking pan with nonstick spray.
Set the butter and chocolate in a stainless steel or glass bowl set over simmering water and let it melt, stirring occasionally, or melt it in the microwave. Set aside to cool slightly. Stir in the sugar, and if it’s not too hot, the eggs, vanilla and coffee.
Add the cocoa, flours and salt, and stir until blended. Stir in some nuts or chocolate chips, if you like. Pour into the pan and bake for 25 minutes, until the edges pull slightly from the pan but the middle is still soft. Set on a wire rack to cool.
Makes 16 brownies.
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June 02 2008 | cookies & squares and dessert and one dish and pasta and vegetarian | 6 Comments »
Tonight we ate dinner standing up around the stove, picking at the leftover roast chicken, some sliced apples, and some fish sticks K & N brought over for the kids. We weren’t all that hungry; late in the afternoon we had tea and I baked a bread pudding to send home with K, who came over to help me navigate the control panels of my websites. Why bread pudding? Awhile ago, N picked up one of those giant Italian loaves, the kind that come in a fabric bag tied with Christmassy looking fake twigs, and since then had the best intentions to do something with it. (Last time it was a panettone, which they sliced and turned into Italian toast for brunch. French toast, really, but you can’t call egg-dipped Italian bread French.) It sat in her living room for weeks, and finally over the weekend I came home to discover it hanging from our doorknob.
This one was coffee-scented with chocolate chips and this oddly sweet coffee goo in the middle. I cringed at the thought that it had a) come all the way from Italy, and b) sat in her living room for an extended period of time, and yet c) was still soft as a baby’s bum. Regardless, it needed to be used up, lest it turn into a doorstop or sit on the counter to be picked at for days on end. The obvious solution, since Sunday brunch is too far away, was bread pudding. When it came out of the oven it was too warm and heavenly smelling to resist dipping a spoon into.
I cringe again at the thought of posting a recipe that is essentially bread, sugar and cream, but if you’re a fan of bread pudding (I don’t understand how it’s possible to not be? Everyone loves French toast, and bread pudding is one better) this is a great basic recipe that you can do plenty of things with. I made giant pansful for an event with 200+ people in attendance and cut it cold into squares that everyone ate with their fingers, and it was a huge hit. Since it was a Spanish wine festival, I added raisins that had been soaked in Spanish brandy.
I’m sure not many of you will encounter the problem of having to dispose of a giant Italian bread, so I’ll offer up a good basic bread pudding recipe that is fantastic as is or can take on any number of aliases.
The Best Bread Pudding
1 – 1 ½ large loaves good-quality bread, or an assortment of bread ends
7 large eggs
3/4 cup honey or maple syrup
2 cups 1% milk
2 cups half & half
1 tsp. vanilla
Cut or tear the bread into 1” chunks in a large bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, honey, milk, cream and vanilla. Pour over the bread and let sit for a couple hours, stirring gently once in awhile.
Preheat oven to 400°F. Pour the bread mixture into a 9”x13” pan that has been sprayed with nonstick spray, or any baking dish that will accommodate the quantity you made.
Bake for an hour or so, until puffed, golden and set. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Other things you can do to it:
Apple Raisin Bread Pudding: Use raisin bread, and add a grated apple and shake of cinnamon to the egg-milk mixture.
Coffee-Chocolate Bread Pudding: If you don’t have a giant coffee-chocolate loaf, try spiking the milk with a tablespoon of instant coffee, and scatter some chocolate chips into the bread mixture (spread half into the pan, sprinkle with chips and top with the rest of the bread mixture, so that they don’t sink to the bottom),
Chocolate-Orange Bread Pudding: Same as above, but add the grated zest of an orange instead of the coffee.
Caramel Bread Pudding (with or without bourbon): Add a cup of caramel sauce to the egg-milk mixture instead of the sugar. If you like, add a couple tablespoons of bourbon or rum, too.
Pumpkin Bread Pudding: Add a 14 oz. can of pumpkin to the egg-milk mixture, along with a good shake of cinnamon. Use brown sugar or maple syrup.
Banana Bread Pudding: Use leftover banana bread - you’ll probably need 2 loaves. Add a handful of raisins and/or chopped walnuts or pecans and/or chocolate chips.
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May 26 2008 | breakfast and dessert and sweet stuff | 2 Comments »
Let me clarify: chocolate-dipped cheesecake pops are not something I would typically make for dessert on a plain old Monday night. I made them for the Eyeopener because tomorrow I’m going to chat about food blogs. Thinking I’d choose a recipe from one of my favorite sites, I hopped around a few and found that Cream Puffs in Venice, Tartelette, and another blog I stumbled through were all posting cheesecake pops. As I was perusing them my friend S emailed from Whistler, where she is apparently hooked on something from the local chocolate shop called cheesecake bombs. I took this as an unmistakable sign that I should make some. What a hero I’m going to be in the studio tomorrow morning!
The pie was to make use of leftover spaghetti; I did a few segments debunking common cooking myths on BT this morning, and as a result had plenty of leftover cooked pasta that was used to demonstrate the myth that adding oil to the cooking water prevents it from sticking together. (It’s a large volume of water, kept at a rolling boil with space for the spaghetti to move around, that keeps it from sticking. In fact, adding oil to your water will result in an oil slick on your pasta once you drain it, and your sauce won’t stick very well.)
Spaghetti Pie.
I’ve seen many versions of spaghetti pie, some in which the pasta is tossed with the sauce and cheese, then baked, others that have the crust par-baked first to crisp it up, and others with layers of cottage cheese between the noodles and sauce.
So I improvised: tossed the leftover spaghetti with some egg white (I had some whose yolks had been used to make lemon curd), a bit of grated Parmesan, a grinding of pepper and a big spoonful of pesto, just because there was some open in the fridge and W is such a fan, then spread the spaghetti into an oiled pie plate, pushing it up the sides a bit.
I had requests for spinach sauce, but had hastily crumbled and cooked a couple lean Italian sausages, a red pepper, a few fresh tomatoes that had gone too wrinkly for anything but cooking with and a can of tomatoes before remembering this, and pureed sausage, I imagine, is not a Good Thing. So I decided to proceed as if it were a lasagna - I crumbled some ricotta and thawed, squeezed-out spinach over the crust,
topped it with the sauce…
and some grated part-skim mozzarella, and baked it at 350F for about half an hour, until all was golden, crsipy-edged and bubbly. Yum.
The cheesecake pops were simple, really, mostly because I didn’t make the cheesecake from scratch like the others did. Some advised making a cheesecake and then scooping up balls of it with your hands, freezing them and then dipping the frozen wads in chocolate. Because I couldn’t envision blaspheming a cheesecake that way, nor attempting to cut one into teeny fancy shapes using a cookie cutter (too thick for any in my collection) I decided to buy one of those small plain frozen Safeway cheeesecakes and cut it into wedges. It worked perfectly.
After inserting the sticks (bamboo skewers, although popsicle sticks or the 4″ lollipop sticks you can buy at Michael’s would work brilliantly), I put them back in the freezer to solidify while I melted some chocolate chips in the microwave, then half dipped, half spread the melted chocolate onto the frozen wedges. Some sprinkles or other decoration would have worked out well, but I didn’t really have anything. That’s the beauty of radio; you don’t really need to accessorize.
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April 28 2008 | cake and dessert and freezable and one dish and pasta and sweet stuff | 6 Comments »
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It occurred to me as I reached the late 90s that I should do something to commemorate my 100th post. 100! It’s astounding how much one can accomplish when one forces oneself to do a little bit every night.
I quickly emailed my family, inviting them all to dinner to celebrate. This is how I “entertain”: invite now, think and clean up later. It’s the old “throw your hat over the fence” analogy: if you throw your hat over the fence, you have to climb over and get it. People always ask how we have time to have parties or people over for brunch or dinner - if you wait until there’s a gap in your schedule, you’ll never have time. Just invite people over, and you’ll find it. Plus if we never had people coming over we’d never be forced to clean the house properly.
But. There were 8 adults coming to dinner, and 5 kids aged 2, 3, 5 and 9. All were arriving at times their schedule would permit. Mike thought I was going to make something ultra-fancy, but when I invite family or friends over for dinner I do it for the company, not to be all gourmet about it. (Although, admittedly, people are often used as guinea pigs around here.)
Solution: ham. (Question: why do they call it baked ham, but roast beef or turkey, when it’s the same process?) Ham is already cooked, so all you’re doing is glazing and reheating it. It’s impossible to screw up. It isn’t going to be ruined if people are late. Everyone can carve off as much as they like, and it’s just as fine at room temperature than fresh from the oven. Kids love it. Plus it makes the best leftovers. I’ve had my eye on this spinach-potato-ham hash with poached egg on top on the cover of last month’s Canadian Living.
Unfortunately, my plan was not as obstacle-free as I intended, but I did learn something from the experience. I sent Mike to the grocery store and he came back with a smoked pork shoulder (also known as a picnic ham, I imagine because its smaller size makes it more portable for those types who would lug an entire ham along on a picnic), something I hadn’t cooked before. It had a thick layer of fat and skin on top, and was tightly wrapped in mesh. Although it was cured, so presumably the same as any other smoked ham and not a raw pork shoulder that would require lengthy cooking, it had these vague instructions on the package: cook and eat.
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So was it cooked? Uncooked? It was smoked, so that should have answered my question, but this is the sort of thing you want to be sure of when you have 14 people over for dinner. I Googled it, and every site I found seemed to think the thing needed to be braised, but it wasn’t raw. Apparently there are partially cooked smoked shoulders and fully cooked smoked shoulders, but there was no indication which this was. Ultimately I decided to take the advice of one site and cover it with cold water in a large pot, bring it to a boil and dump the water out to draw some of the sodium out, then fill it halfway full again and braise it for an hour (braising is a long slow cooking method with some moisture involved), then pulled it out, scored the skin and popped it in the oven like I would any other ham. The biggest problem seemed to lie with this slab of fat and skin on top - presumably what would turn into those cracklings everyone makes such a fuss about - but with it in the way, where does the glaze go? So I scored it and threw it in the oven, then when it started to turn crackly I cut it off, put it in its own pan to finish cooking, and painted on a glaze made with equal parts brown sugar, grainy mustard and balsamic vinegar. (No one ate the cracklings. They were a little too Hannibal Lecter for me.)
While it roasted (or baked?) I poked 3 big sweet potatoes/yams (depending on how your grocer has decided to label them) with a fork and slid them onto the oven rack around it. I adore sweet potatoes, and often wonder why they aren’t often used for more than oven fries. To mash them, you don’t need to peel and boil them like you might with regular potatoes. Just bake them, which contains any nutrients and gives them even more flavor - like cooking meat on the bone makes it more flavorful, so does cooking potatoes in their skins - they will darken and caramelize a bit just below the surface. When they are soft, pull them out, pull off their skins (this is easy, as the flesh tends to withdraw a bit from its skin, creating an air pocket that makes it simple to pull off wit your fingers) and mash with a bit of butter and a spoonful of orange juice concentrate - I scoop it straight from the freezer; it will melt into the hot potatoes. A bit of salt and pepper, and a drizzle of milk if they are too dry, and they are done. If you like, a drizzle of maple syrup is delicious too. Sweet potatoes tend to not be as starchy as white potatoes, so they are actually moister and easier to mash.
The mac & cheese was actually whole wheat rotini & cheese, since I knew that’s primarily what the kids would end up eating. (Brown rice pasta has an even better mouthfeel, but I didn’t have any.) Don’t hate me for saying so, but I don’t use a recipe when I make mac & cheese. I boil as much pasta as I want to make (just as you would if you were making spagetti for the family) and while it cooks, make a roux out of roughly equal parts butter and flour. A roux is just butter and flour, whacked into a hot pan and melted, smoothing out all the lumps. Pour some milk in (2 cups or so per 3 Tbsp. of butter-flour - you’ll get a feel for it) and bring it to a gentle boil. You won’t be able to tell how thick it’s going to get until it starts to bubble - once it bubbles for a full minute it will have reached its full thickening potential, and you’l get rid of any starchy, floury taste. Stir in a few handfuls of grated cheese, and it will melt into the sauce. I discovered a block of Swiss in my fridge that wasn’t going anywhere, and it melted beautifully. Drain the pasta and stir it into the cheese sauce, or vice versa. You could serve it at this point, or scatter it with crumbs (or more cheese) and bake it until it’s bubbly.
Macaroni & Cheese
Mac and cheese that doesn’t come out of a box is something everyone should be able to make. It doesn’t require much more time or effort than KD, and is the ultimate in comfort food. Experiment by adding different cheeses – intensely flavored ones such as Gruyère or blue cheese are best. It’s a great way to get rid of leftover cheese bits you might have lurking in the fridge.
1/2 lb. (250 g) dry macaroni, whole wheat rotini, small shells or other pasta
Salt
3 Tbsp. butter
3 Tbsp. flour
2 1/2 cups milk
2-3 cups grated old cheddar cheese, or any combination of cheeses you have in the fridge
Bread Crumb Topping (optional):
2 slices sandwich bread (preferrably whole wheat), torn into pieces
2 Tbsp. canola or olive oil or melted butter
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook the pasta until it’s tender but not mushy. Drain well in a colander and set aside.
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In the empty pot (no need to wash it out), melt the butter over medium heat. Add the flour and mustard and stir well with a whisk, cooking for a minute or so until the mixture starts to turn golden. Stir in the milk and bring the sauce to a boil, whisking constantly. The sauce must reach a full boil in order for the flour to reach its full thickening potential. Reduce the heat and simmer for a few minutes, until the mixture is nice and thick.
Remove the sauce from the heat and stir in the cheese until it melts. Add salt to taste, then stir in the drained pasta. If you want a bread crumb topping, pulse the bread, butter and Parmesan in a food processor until the bread turns to crumbs and the mixture is well blended. Pour the macaroni and cheese into an appropriately sized baking dish and top with the bread crumbs or additional cheese. (It can be made up to 24 hours ahead and refrigerated in the baking dish; sprinkle with the crumb mixture or cheese right before you bake it.) Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the topping is golden and it’s bubbly around the edges.
Serves 4-6.
The free 4 pound box of strawberries that came with $150 worth of groceries at Superstore earlier in the week made up my mind about dessert: strawberry shortcakes. Easy, not fancy, kids love it. And what else am I going to do with 4 pounds of strawberries before my rhubarb has begun to sprout?
Strawberry shortcakes are generally made with biscuits sweetened with a little more sugar; since I’ve already posted my whole wheat and olive oil biscuit recipe, I thought I’d use one that I made when I did food styling for Trish Magwood a few months ago; these are apparently her hottest sellers back at Dish in Toronto. (As usual, I changed the recipe a bit.) If you want a more nutritious shortcake, use the whole wheat biscuit recipe and add a couple tablespoons of sugar to the dry ingredients.
Strawberry Shortcakes
3 cups all-purpose flour (or half all-purpose, half whole wheat)
1/3 cup sugar
2 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
¾ cup butter, cut into pieces
1 cup buttermilk
coarse sugar for sprinkling (optional)
2 lb strawberries, hulled, sliced and tossed with a little extra sugar if you like (this will coax some of the juice out of the strawberries, which makes everything nicer)
1 cup whipping cream, whipped with a drop of vanilla and a spoonful of sugar
Preheat oven to 425°F.
In a bowl, stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add butter pieces, using fingertips or pastry blender, work butter into dry ingredients until mixture resembles course cornmeal. Leave a few larger pieces to create flakiness. (I do all this in the food processor, then dump it into a bowl to stir in the buttermilk.)
Add buttermilk and mix with a spatula until ingredients are moistened (do not over mix).
Gather dough into a disk on a cookie sheet that has been sprayed with nonstick spray. Pat into a circle that is about 1″ thick; brush with a little extra buttermilk or milk (you can even use your fingers with this) and if you have some, sprinkle with coarse sugar. Cut into 8 triangles. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden.
Split the biscuits and load up with strawberries and whipped cream.
Serves 8.
As it turned out we were celebrating more than Day 100; my brother in law Rory just finished writing his medical exams, Emily made the 1st tier soccer team, my Mom survived their AGM yesterday, my parents bought a house just blocks from us, Willem got up in the middle of the night to pee in the toilet. (And a couple other things I’m not allowed to post for thousands to see, sorry.) And it was Wednesday, and we were all together for dinner.
So much to celebrate.
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April 09 2008 | dessert and pasta and pork and sweet stuff | 5 Comments »
Dinner at C’s house tonight, to celebrate her birthday.
C is a picky eater. She doesn’t like anything weird (like marmalade), or anything containing raisins, or sausage, or any food hiding in another food that shouldn’t be there. (Example: I gave her a zucchini brownie once, and she loved it until I told her halfway through there was grated zucchini in it. She thought it was such a mean thing to do.) She just, in her late 30s, started eating eggs and banana bread, and discovered she adores them.
But the things she loves, she loves passionately - like this orzo salad my Mom and I created on the fly one day with what we could scrounge up out of the pantry and fridge. Sometimes we make it with rice, sometimes with orzo, and it’s a toss-up as to which is better. This is how you make it: cook as much orzo or basmati rice as you want to make - the rice or pasta will take up about half the volume of the finished salad. Rinse it under cool water and drain well. Add a chunk of purple onion, finely chopped; some crumbled feta; about half a bag of baby spinach, torn or sliced; the grated zest and juice of a lemon or two, then drizzle with some rice vinegar, olive or canola oil, salt and pepper. We’ve never measured any of it, just adjusted each to suit our taste. This stuff is great to keep in the fridge to dip into for a few days, and bring to work for lunch.
But I had no idea what kind of cake to make, except that it could not be zucchini with raisins.
I settled on a deconstructed Black Forest cake, so that if there were any offending ingredients, she didn’t have to eat them. When I first pondered a sunken chocolate cake, my motivation was primarily ease of decoration: the great thing about sunken cakes is that you don’t need to frost them, only dollop a big billowy mound of whipped cream in the middle, and it always looks beautiful. It occurred to me that I could sneak some cherries in between the cake and cream, creating a sort of newfangled Black Forest cake without all the layering and decorating muss. Too overwhelmed by the sheer number of cookbooks on my shelves, I poked around Epicurious for a recipe and instantly came across these sunken chocolate-orange cupcakes. It was a birthday miracle: I had forgotten I was out of flour and, by sheer coincidence, down to only 4 eggs.
Still, they were revamped a bit: I took out the orange (potential for weirdness, plus I don’t much like raspberry or orange interrupting my chocolate) and added a bit of espresso, and used my toasted whole unblanched almonds - why use blanched when you can grind them up with their skins?
I have to say: these turned out to be one of my tastiest experiments ever. The edges are light and crispy, the insides soft, dense and fudgy. They are nubbly with nuts, and will make anyone who can’t eat gluten very, very happy. And I can’t think of a more easily transportable cake; brought still in their tins, they aren’t going to slide or sink on you. I stopped at the grocery store on the way over and picked up a can of cherry pie filling (I confess to loving the gelatinous canned stuff; a hangover from my childhood obsession with the Hostess Fruit Pies advertised in the back of Archie comics and unavailable in Canada, no doubt) and, because there was no cream in a carton, a can of whipping cream too.
(Gluten Free) Sunken Black Forest Cakes
1 cup almonds (whole, sliced, slivered or blanched)
8 oz. dark or semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup butter (next time I’ll try using less, but this was no time to experiment)
1 cup sugar, divided
4 large eggs
1 tsp. instant espresso or coffee powder, dissolved in 1 tsp. water (optional)
1 can cherry pie filling, or canned, drained Bing cherries, or pitted fresh cherries
whipped cream or vanilla ice cream
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Place almonds in a food processor and pulse until they are coarsely ground. Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners. In a small bowl, microwave the chocolate and butter on high for 30 seconds; stir, then put it back in for about 30 seconds longer. Stir until it’s melted and smooth. Set aside to cool for a few minutes.
Separate the eggs, putting the whites in a clean glass or stainless steel bowl, and the yolks in another large bowl. Add the sugar and espresso to the yolks and whisk to combine them. Stir in the ground almonds and chocolate.
With an electric mixer, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form; add the remaining 1/4 cup sugar and beat until they are stiff and glossy, and stiff peaks form. Fold the egg whites into chocolate mixture in 3 additions. Divide the batter among the muffin cups (about 1/3 cup batter in each) and bake until edges are firm and tops are cracked all over, about 20-25 minutes. Set on a wire rack to cool (they will sink quite a bit as they cool).
Serve each topped with a spoonful of cherries and whipped cream or ice cream. If you like, shave a few chocolate curls over each using a vegetable peeler. Serves 12.
C made spaghetti, curried squash soup from Best of Bridge (which was supposed to be served over bits of brie, set into the bowl with the hot soup ladled overtop - how great an idea is that?) and apple pies, which were fantastic. She promised me the recipe, but as a full-time doc and mom of 2 toddlers, we’ll see…
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April 06 2008 | dessert and pasta and salads | 2 Comments »
Having discovered that Willem has eaten his way through about a third of two apples and three pears, and I don’t really want to finish them all (again) I needed to find a way to use them before they compost themselves right there in the fruit bowl, on the dresser and on the edge of the bathtub.
Often I chop or grate them into oatmeal or muesli (muesli: oats, dried fruit, nuts, flax and some grated apple stirred into vanilla or plain yogurt with honey, left overnight to soak itself up) but this time we were outnumbered, so since we (miraculously) have a bit of Breyer’s Light vanilla ice cream in the freezer, I made a crisp.
There is no need to measure ingredients for a crisp. Chop, without peeling, as many apples and pears as you’d like to use, and put them in a baking dish. (There is no need to peel them - why would you, when so much of the fiber and nutrients live in their skins? I mean, you don’t peel them before eating them out of hand. Besides, cooking softens them anyway.) Toss with as much white or brown sugar as you like (not too much - according to your taste and the sweetness of the fruit), a sprinkle of cinnamon and if you like, a squeeze of lemon juice.
For the crumble: 1 cup whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup oats, a handful of whole toasted almonds in their skins (I usually have these around to nibble on), 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup butter, or thereabouts. There are thousands of formulas for crumble mixtures, with oats and/or nuts and without, so really you can use whatever ratio you like, blending until the mixture holds together when you squeeze it in your hand. Pulse it in a food processor or mix with a fork until well combined and crumbly. (Obviously if you use a fork, you’ll then need to use sliced almonds, or none at all.)
The other great thing about crumble mixtures is that it takes exactly as much effort to make a large batch as it does to make a small batch, so use what you like and keep the rest in a freezer bag in the freezer to scatter over muffins and other impromptu fruit crisps.
Sprinkle over the fruit and bake at 350F for 30-40 minutes, or until golden on top and the fruit is soft.
Between the pears, which are particularly high in fiber for a fruit, the whole wheat flour (you can’t tell the difference with a crumble topping - it works perfectly in place of all-purpose flour), oats and nuts, this is a reasonably high-fiber dessert. A handful of raspberries or cranberries would have been nice thrown in with the pears, or a grating of orange or lemon zest. I can’t wait to have the remains cold for breakfast with a glop of vanilla yogurt.
So dinner was backwards; the crisp was so enticing coming warm from the oven that we ate some right away, and then some antipasto that ended up prematurely thawed because I thought it was Chicken Pesto Stew, and then it seemed silly to put much effort into a full dinner, so I quickly waffled some ham & Swiss cheese sandwiches on grainy bread. What are waffled sandwiches? The same as grilled cheese, but you do them in your waffle maker, which acts sort of like a panini grill, cooking them on both sides while creating cool waffle grooves. If you like, you can put a teeny dab of ketchup into each divot. Kids think this is very cool.
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April 05 2008 | dessert and sandwiches | 6 Comments »
Remember the squash & ricotta ravioli we made out of wonton wrappers and stashed in the freezer? They were called into service tonight. The best thing about them is that you can dump them straight from the freezer bag into boiling water and they’re done faster than dry spaghetti would be.
Emily is still off school this week and so was over again today, and (as per our new routine) wanted to cook something. Having been up since 3:30 (this is why traffic reporters don’t have toddlers) I was too tired to think and so lay like a sandbag on the couch while she looked through my cookbooks. She rightly identified my dog-eared copy of Classic Home Desserts by Richard Sax as a good source for desserty/baking things that 9 year olds tend to like to make, and flipped through, pondering out loud the fruit cobblers and coffee pots de creme. When I realized we were almost out of flour and completely out of all but the brown sugar, E settled on Brown Sugar Shortbread. Lucky me; they were easier than a snap to make.
Brown Sugar Shortbread from Richard Sax
Chop 1/2 cup butter into bits and put it in the food processor with 1/4 cup packed golden brown sugar, a pinch of salt and 1 tsp. vanilla; pulse until creamy.
Add 3/4 cup flour and 2 Tbsp. cornstarch; pulse 6-8 times, until it starts to clump together.
Smear the dough into a 9″ round cake pan; this part was interesting, as the butter-flour ratio was higher than usual (I would have used 1 cup flour, perhaps slightly more), giving it the texture of thick icing. It even looked like icing as we spread it, unable to pat, along the bottom of the pan. I had my doubts. We were supposed to sprinkle it with sugar, but forgot.
Bake at 350F for 20 minutes, until pale golden around the edges. Cut them into wedges while the dough is still warm, and then let them cool somewhat in the pan before taking them out, so that they don’t crumble to bits.
I’ve never seen such a flaky texture in melt-in-your-mouth shortbread; you can see the way it delicately flaked off in the middle as I sliced them. I liked them much better than even the whipped variety, and they took all of 5 minutes of actual effort.
And right, the rice pudding.
Rice pudding is even easier than shortbread. Whenever I make rice, I make extra so I can make fried rice and/or have an excuse to make rice pudding. This time, I had leftover rice even after making chicken fried rice yesterday. It doesn’t need to be short grain, or even white rice; puddings can be made from brown or even wild rice, which goes well with maple syrup and dried cranberries.
There are creamy stovetop rice puddings and baked rice puddings made sturdier with eggs, and then there’s the rice and milk with sugar that Winnie-the-Pooh makes in the small paperback cookbook my Grandma bought for my 7th birthday. The simplest rice pudding is made by pouring milk over the extra rice in the pot (or the rice that turned out too sticky to eat) along with some sugar, honey or maple syrup to taste, and cooking on medium-low heat until the rice absorbs all the milk. Add enough to cover the rice, and then some. Taste it, then add more milk if you like, cooking each time until it soaks it all up. It’s almost impossible to add too much. Stir in a dribble of vanilla and a handful of raisins. As Pooh will attest, rice pudding is perfect eaten cold for breakfast or elevenses.
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April 03 2008 | cookies & squares and dessert and grains and snacks and sweet stuff | 4 Comments »
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