Stay with me here – I realize the photo is not going to sell you on this one. It is the result of artificial light, a camera about to die, and lamb sausages braised in red wine until they resembled, well, I don’t want to disgust you further. I had read a traditional recipe for Saucisses aux Lentilles du Puy (Sausages with French Green Lentils) in my winter issue of Saveur, and thought it might translate well to lamb sausage and red wine. Aesthetics aside, it was quite delicious. Next time I might add garlic to the pot, or simmer the lentils in stock in place of the water. Or lacking wine (which, to be honest, I couldn’t much taste), brown the sausages and then tuck them into the simmering lentils to finish cooking.
Wine-Braised Lamb Sausages with Lentils
2-4 slices bacon, chopped
1 Tbsp. butter or oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
12 oz. dry green, green Puy or brown lentils (about 2 1/2 cups)
2 bay leaves
a few sprigs of fresh thyme (or a bit of crumbled dried thyme)
4-8 sausages – I used lamb, but try Italian or any other kind you like
canola or olive oil
1 cup red or white wine
In a large saucepan or skillet, cook the bacon until it renders most of its fat; add the butter, onion, celery and carrot and cook for about 10 minutes, until the vegetables are soft. Add the lentils, bay leaves, thyme and 5 1/2 cups of water; bring to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer, cover and cook for about an hour.
After an hour, heat another skillet and brown the sausages in a drizzle of oil; add the wine and a cup of water, cover and cook for 10 minutes, flipping once or twice. Tuck the sausages down into the lentils and cook for a few more minutes, drizzling any wine left in the pan over the lentils. Season with salt and pepper and serve hot. Serves 4-8.
For Christmas gift-giving purposes within my family this year the grown-ups drew names to buy for the kids (7 of each) and we agreed to only give homemade gifts between families. Not surprisingly, everything that exchanged hands was edible. (Save for my sister’s ingenious idea to have her kids read stories on CD for the littler ones.)
My youngest sister (both their names begin with A, so I’ll forgo that descriptive) makes fantastic chocolate chip cookies, of the thin, chewy, buttery sort. Her gift bag included a Ziploc baggie of frozen dough scoops (she also has one of those wee ice cream scoops that make perfect cookies) that we could just place on a cookie sheet and put in the oven to bake right from frozen. I baked a dozen, since I have friends coming by tomorrow. Deep down I knew there would be none left. I’d like to say Mike ate most of them; he didn’t.
I asked for the recipe and it’s a Martha. The butter-sugar-flour ratio explains it: MORE butter than flour! (Shortbread is generally 1 part butter to 2 parts flour. Toll House cookies and the chocolate chip cookie recipe on the back of the Chipits bag are 1 cup butter to 2 1/4-2 1/2 cups flour. These are 4 cups butter to 3 1/2 cups flour.) They have more sugar than flour too – I kind of wish I hadn’t seen this formula. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.
Lexi’s Favorite Chocolate-Chip Cookies
From Martha Stewart Living
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
3 cups packed light-brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 375F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper, and set aside. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium speed until smooth. Add the sugars, and beat until combined and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla until well blended.
Add flour mixture, and beat on low speed until combined. Add the chocolate chips, and mix until combined.
Drop 2 to 3 tablespoons of batter at a time onto baking sheets, about 2 to 3 inches apart. I usually fit 6 cookies per sheet. Bake until golden brown, about 8 minutes, rotating halfway through. Remove the cookies and the parchment paper from the baking sheets, and let cool on a rack. Makes thirty 4-inch cookies.
From A: *I usually make extra dough and freeze balls of it on a cookie sheet, then transfer them to a zipoc baggie. I cook them from frozen for a few extra minutes, or eat the dough as-is…
December 29 2008 | cookies & squares and lamb | 11 Comments »
You know it’s Christmas when you have leftover dip, hambone pickings and Clodhoppers for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
We had an amazing afternoon with Tagyn and Diego at A Christmas Carol – Diego, whom I drove crazy asking to say “dulce de leche” and “Feliz Navidad” about 50 times (he’s 7 and speaks Spanish) brought me a batch of homemade shoe soles – like small, oval, sweet pancakes native to Mexico, with a ketchup-shaped bottle of – something I’ve forgotten the name of and just realized the bottle is on the back seat of the car, and I’m in my PJs and it’s a hundred below outside – it’s like dulce de leche, only darker and better, with a cooler name. We dipped into the stash when the lights went down and squirted caramel on our shoe soles and tried to eat them without getting busted.
Up to that point, you understand I had eaten exactly this: leftover biscuits toasted with butter and mandarin jam, nut balls, ham pickings, Clodhoppers and coffee. We dragged our feet on the way back to pick W up from Mike’s Mom’s (his first time staying there with both his Mom & sister – he requires a team effort) and so stopped at Beano to get a cafe mocha, just because we could.
Which was delicious, but didn’t make us feel much better. After some chaotic Christmas gift returns (that’s what you get for being on the ball and buying stuff early – it ends up being broken) and a stop at the grocery store for my segments (4!) on BT tomorrow morning, we got home at close to 8 more wanting something that didn’t resemble chocolate than actually being hungry. We had leftover edamame walnut dip and mini lamb burgers with tzatziki while I made stuff for tomorrow.
Mini Lamb Burgers in Mini Pitas with Tzatziki
These would make great full-sized burgers too, but the rich lamb and feta is perfect for nibbling.
1 lb. ground lamb
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup crumbled feta
1/4 cup currants
1 egg
1-2 Tbsp. chopped fresh mint
1 tsp. dried oregano
salt & pepper
mini pitas, cut in half crosswise
spring greens
Tzatziki (below)
Roll them into meatball-sized balls, and flatten them a little into tiny patties. (If you are doing a lot, put them all on a rimmed baking sheet and then squish them down by pressing another sheet on top of them.) If you like, you could freeze them at this point and bake them from frozen. Otherwise they could be frozen after they are baked.
Bake at 425°F for about 10 minutes, until they are cooked through.
To serve, stuff into half a mini pita with a few leaves from a box of spring greens and a glop of tzatziki.
Tzatziki
Regular yogurt, preferably thick Greek yogurt, is far superior to the runny low fat or fat free varieties that are most commonly found at the grocery store. Even ‘full fat’ yogurts generally only contain about 3 grams per half cup, and it’s much more delicious and satisfying. If you like, strain the yogurt through some cheesecloth for several hours to thicken it. (Save the drained-off liquid to use in pancake or muffin batter.)
1 small cucumber, peeled if necessary
1 – 2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 cups good quality plain yogurt, preferably Balkan-style
Salt & pepper to taste
Grate the cucumber with a box grater onto a double thickness of paper towel. Gather up the cucumber in the towel and squeeze out as much excess water as you can.
Combine cucumber, garlic, yogurt, salt and pepper in a bowl and stir until well blended. If you like, add a squeeze or lemon. The garlic flavor will intensify the longer it sits. Makes 2 1/2 – 3 cups.
Per 1/3 cup: 45 calories, 1 g total fat (0.6 g saturated fat, 0.3 g monounsaturated fat, 0.1 g polyunsaturated fat), 3.5 g protein, 5.6 g carbohydrate, 3.7 mg cholesterol, 0.3 g fiber. 20% calories from fat
Instead of cookies today I’m offering up another small sweet (and only because you got two cookies yesterday) – Mike is a huge fan of maple fudge. And fortunately my friend Marty Curtis, who owns Marty’s Cafe in Muskoka, has a maple fudge recipe in his new(ish) book, Marty’s World Famous Cookbook. (In it, his World Famous Butter Tart recipe, which is not allowed to be reprinted. Sorry. But trust me, people come from all over for these – they even won the Toronto Star’s best butter tart competition.) Digging up a link to that mandarin jam recipe, I just stumbled upon a muscovado fudge recipe that looks pretty damn heavenly too. Mike just may find both in his stocking. He has been pretty good this year, don’t you think?
Muskoka Maple Fudge
From Marty’s World Famous Cookbook. This is also good with nuts – add about 1/4 cup chopped walnuts while creaming the fudge.
2 cups (pure!) maple syrup
3/4 cup 10% cream (that’s half & half)
2 Tbsp. butter
Grease an 8″x8″ pan.
In a saucepan over high heat, combine all the ingredients and bring them to a boil. (Do not cover.) Bring the temperature to between 235F and 240F on a candy thermometer, and then drop a little in cold water – it should form a soft ball. Remove the heat and monitor the temperature until it drops to 110F. Beat with a wooden spoon or heat proof spatula until creamy. Pour into the pan and cool, then cut into squares.
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December 21 2008 | appetizers and lamb and sweet stuff | 8 Comments »
A tiring day. Cooked brunch for 25 at an event that combined yoga class with vegetarian appetizers – a sort of class/sit down brunch for which I made a lot of things, one of them veggie samosas. A wonderful Indian cook – Tahera Rawji – taught me the easy, cheater’s way to make samosas – using frozen hash browns. If it’s good enough for a real Indian cook and cooking teacher - a cookbook author even - it’s good enough for me. I’m sorry I don’t have a photo – since it was during the day I didn’t think to bring my camera. (So it wasn’t really dinner, either. Although it was the most substantial thing I ate closest to dinnertime.)
Then at 5 I made dinner for 12 at the home of the guy who was the highest bidder on a private in-home cooking class/dinner I had contributed to a silent auction - you may have read about our fundraiser earlier this year for Nicole Pageau, an Edmonton woman in her 60s who was so moved by the plight of widows and orphans of the Rwandan genocide that she up and moved to Rwanda and built a village. (If you’re ever looking for a charitable cause, her organization is doing a stellar job over there.) He paid big bucks for it, so I was happy to go make mushroom crostini with rosemary and asiago, curried roasted butternut squash soup with apples, braised lamb shanks, lemon-Parmesan risotto, roasted asparagus, creme brulee and espresso truffles.
Am very tired. Not much looking forward to getting up in less than six hours, although I learned there will be some strapping young Stampeders to feed in the studio tomorrow morning. Did I say I didn’t like football?
Braised Lamb Shanks
Lamb shanks are one of the most richly flavored cuts of meat you can buy. Choose the largest shanks you can find – about a pound or so each – because the smaller ones are mostly bone. Lamb shanks have a lot of connective tissue, so braising is the best cooking method.
all-purpose flour
salt and pepper
6 lamb shanks, trimmed of any excess fat
canola or olive oil
2 onions, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped or thinly sliced
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
4-5 cloves garlic, crushed or left whole
1 small can tomato paste
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh rosemary and/or thyme
1 bay leaf
2 cups dry red wine
1/4 cup red or white wine vinegar
1 tsp. sugar
3 cups chicken or beef stock, or half and half
Season the flour with salt and pepper, and toss the lamb shanks in it to coat them well. Heat half the oil in a large skillet set over medium-high heat and brown the lamb on all sides, working in batches so the pan isn’t crowded. As you brown the shanks, place them in a roasting pan. Preheat the oven to 325°F.
Add the remaining oil to the skillet and sauté the onions, celery, and carrots for about 10 minutes, until soft. Add the garlic, tomato paste, rosemary, bay leaf, and pepper and cook for another 2-3 minutes.
Add the wine, vinegar, and sugar and bring to a simmer. Add the stock and bring it to a boil. Pour over the lamb shanks in the roasting pan and cover tightly with a lid or with foil.
Bake for an hour, then remove the lid and cook for another 2-2 1/2 hours, turning the lamb shanks every half hour or so, until the meat is fall-off-the-bone tender.
Remove the lamb from the sauce and strain as much fat from it as you can. If you like, strain out the vegetables and purée them in a blender or food processor, then return the purée to the pot to thicken the sauce. Season with salt and pepper. Serve the lamb shanks topped with the sauce, with mashed potatoes or creamy risotto.
Samosas
Samosas are little packages, and as such can be made with a variety of wrappers – you can buy low fat samosa wrappers fresh or frozen in ethnic grocery stores, make your own empanada dough, or use phyllo pastry. Some people like to add a finely chopped jalapeño pepper to the filling too.
Filling:
1 Tbsp. canola oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 Tbsp. grated fresh ginger
1 tsp. curry powder (optional)
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/4 tsp. ground coriander
1/4 tsp. turmeric
1/4 tsp. chili powder
3 cups frozen hash browns, thawed
1/2 cup frozen peas, thawed
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 tsp. garam masala
1 pkg. phyllo pastry, thawed (you’ll need 12-16 sheets)
2 Tbsp. butter, melted
2 Tbsp. canola or olive oil
In a large pan, heat oil over medium heat and sauté the onion for about 5 minutes, until soft. Add the garlic, ginger, curry powder, cumin, coriander, turmeric and chili powder; cook for a minute, then add the hash browns, peas, salt and lemon juice. Cook, stirring, for a few minutes, then remove from heat. Stir in the cilantro and garam masala. Set aside to cool slightly.
Preheat oven to 375°F.
Take two sheets of phyllo and stack them on a clean work surface; cover the rest with a tea towel so it doesn’t dry out. Combine the butter and oil in a small dish and brush the phyllo very lightly with it.
Cut the sheet in half lengthwise and then again into quarters so you have 4 long strips. Place a spoonful of filling at one end of each strip and fold the corner over it diagonally. Continue folding the strip as if you were folding a flag, maintaining the triangle shape.
Repeat with the remaining phyllo and filling, placing the packets seam side down on a baking sheet. (They can be prepared up to this point and frozen in a single layer and then transferred to a plastic bag. Pop them out of the freezer and bake them frozen.) If there is any butter and oil left, use it to brush the tops of the triangles, or spray them with some nonstick spray. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until golden.
Serve warm with mango chutney. Makes about 2 dozen samosas.
Per samosa: 84 calories, 3.9 g total fat (0.9 g saturated fat, 1.7 g monounsaturated fat, 1.1 g polyunsaturated fat), 1.6 g protein, 11 g carbohydrate, 2.6 mg cholesterol, 0.6 g fiber. 41% calories from fat
Spinach & Potato Samosas: replace the frozen peas with a few handfuls of fresh spinach, chopped. Sauté a minced jalapeño pepper along with the garlic and other spices as well.
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November 24 2008 | appetizers and lamb | 8 Comments »
As promised, I hauled out my Crock-pot today. (Partly to celebrate the shiny new ones that are en route to Maureen and Theresa! I am heeding the request to post winners’ names. Sorry I’m so late.) And last night I pulled out a boneless leg of lamb that had been taking up altogether too much space in the freezer.
When outside it’s the same shade of grey all day long, so that you can’t tell what time it is until it begins to get dark at 4 o’clock, and the gritty snow and slush require you to halt the dog upon entering the house and wipe down his muddy paws every single time he has to go pee or sniff something, it puts me in the mood for a dark, sticky, robust, slow-cooked stew, preferably served over a mound of warm carbohydrates.
I’ve been thinking about braised lamb shanks, but this caught my eye as I flipped through magazines in the car on our drive home. The original is done in a Dutch oven and calls for raisins and figs, but I opted to stick with just figs, which aren’t as sweet as raisins; I imagine dried apricots would work well too. The lamb roast was cut into chunks, half of which are back in the freezer for a future experiment.
I browned and threw the meat/onion/stock component in at noon, and added the beans, carrots and figs at around 4. At 6ish I put a kettle on to boil and made couscous. (1 cup couscous to 1 1/4 cups boiling water; pour over the couscous in a bowl and top with a plate; leave for 10 minutes then fluff with a fork. I don’t even understand why they make instant couscous. Could it really be faster and easier?)
Mike loved this. I liked it more the deeper into the bowl I got; the combination of cinnamon and lamb has always been a little too Medieval for me. I can’t seem to shake the thought that it was once used to mask meat that had gone a little off. It makes lamb taste gamier to me. It was quite tasty though, and I imagine it will be more so tomorrow, and Thursday when I’ll be in Red Deer at dinnertime. This is another Great Thing about slow cookers in the winter: you can just lid the leftovers and set the whole thing outside, or in your garage, and plug it back in to rewarm the next night. (If you suspect any critters in your yard are cunning enough to access your slow cooker, hide it in the barbecue.)
Provided it’s cold enough, of course. Don’t try this in July. Or in Texas.
Middle Eastern Slow-Cooked Stew with Lamb, Chickpeas and Figs
adapted from Cooking Light Magazine
a drizzle of canola or olive oil
1 1/2 pounds boneless leg of lamb, trimmed and cubed
3 large onions, halved and thinly sliced
4-6 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp. grated fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cinnamon stick
1 can less-sodium beef broth
1 19 oz. (540 mL) can chick peas, drained
1-2 cups baby carrots
1 cup dried figs, halved
salt and pepper
fresh mint, if you like
Slow-cooker version: heat a drizzle of oil in a skillet and brown the lamb in batches, without crowding the pan, transferring to the slow cooker as you go. (No need to cook them through, just brown them to add flavour.) Add a little more oil and then brown the onions and garlic; add to the slow cooker. Pour about 1/2 cup of water into the skillet and scrape up any browned bits; add to the slow cooker along with the ginger, spices and stock. Cover and cook on low for 6 hours. At around the 4 hour mark, add the chick peas, carrots and figs. When you’re ready to eat, season with salt and pepper and if you like, stir in some fresh mint (or scatter it on top).
Stovetop version: Heat a drizzle of oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat; sauté the lamb in batches until browned. Remove from pan and set aside; brown the onions. Add the garlic and 1/2 cup water; cook for a few more minutes, scraping up any browned bits on the bottom of the pan.
Return the meat to the pan along with the ginger and spices. Add the stock, cover, reduce heat and simmer for an hour. Stir in the chick peas, carrots, and figs; cover and simmer 20-30 minutes or until carrots are tender. Season with salt and stir in chopped fresh mint just before serving, or sprinkle it on top of each bowl.
Serves 8.
Calories:310 (18% from fat)
Fat:6.2g (sat 1.8g,mono 2.5g,poly 0.6g)
Protein:21.4g
Carbohydrate:44.5g
Fiber:6.6g
Cholesterol:49mg
Sodium:542mg
Calcium:90mg
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November 18 2008 | freezable and lamb and slow cooker and stews & braises | 12 Comments »
The lamb souvlaki were a cheap cheat: I stopped at the Superstore this afternoon and they were 50% off on account of their Sept. 11 expiration date. Works for me.
Greek-style lamb on a stick gave me a good excuse to try roasted lemon & oregano potatoes again, and the roasted chick peas with chard would have been a good pairing, but it appears the slugs have beat me to it. So instead, since I was firing up the grill for the souvlaki, I sliced a zucchini lengthwise and brushed it with some garlicky oil (borrowed from the potatoes) and threw them on the grill beside the kabobs. And that was it, except for the corn.
I needed corn to act as transport for the compound butter that was left over from CBC this morning. Compound butters are really just softened butter spiked with other ingredients and then chilled; in this case a clove of garlic, a squirt of lime juice, shot of chipotle Tabasco sauce and a few snipped chives from the garden. (Maple syrup or honey and chopped toasted pecans is good too.) Turns out it not only doctors up corn; I put some on W’s rice (he’s not a potato guy, especially when saturated with ”spicy” lemon) and I might have slipped a chunk of potato into the ramekin too. Yum.
Garlic, Lime & Chipotle Butter
Measurements are approximate; let them be dictated by your taste.
1/2 cup butter, softened
juice of 1 lime (or about 2 Tbsp. – add a bit of finely grated zest too if you like)
1 tsp. chipotle Tabasco sauce or chipotles in adobo, finely smooshed
1 garlic clove, finely crushed
Mix it all up, scrape into a ramekin and chill.
September 09 2008 | lamb and on the grill | 4 Comments »
