laura dot cooks

French Onion Soup

2009-02-22T09:10:00.004-05:00

Recipe from Gourmet Magazine.

I substituted dried thyme for fresh, and used Gruyeres on the toast. But I think an everyday white cheese would have been okay too. Also Gruyeres smells very strange when it melts.

Onion Confit

2008-04-21T17:50:00.003-05:00

I want to eat this with everything right now. It is especially awesome with maple breakfast sausage.

The recipe is here - and as a bonus, it's stupid easy.

KALE!

2008-03-06T18:34:00.004-05:00

Something strange is happening. I'm really into eating vegetables - stuff I would refuse to eat as a child. Roasted squash is now a delicious treat. And today, I had kale for dinner and it was tasty tasty - well, maybe it was the bacon - but still....

Here's what I did.

1. Fry some chopped bacon - the good thick cut extra smoky bacon.
2. Then chop some kale - I used 1/2 a bunch, about 4 cups chopped.
3. Put the kale in with the bacon.
4. Push the kale around and toss with the bacon fat until the kale starts to wilt.
5. Add some salt.
6. Add some white wine vinegar.

Soup for Dinner

2008-03-05T20:34:00.001-05:00

I love having soup for dinner. I find it very comforting and low key. Smitten kitchen recently posted a recipe for meatball soup.

I decided that this soup would be the basis of my saturday night dinner. But then I started reading the recipe. There were no onions. I always start my soup making by softening onions in oil or butter. So I figured I would start the way I always start, and add some onions. Then usually I add some white wine and let it reduce before adding the stock. Since I had some wine kicking around in the fridge, I decided I should fit this in too.

My mom has recently been making a similar soup to this, minus the meatballs, with kale and white beans. It's very tasty - and I had a can of cannellini beans. So I decided escarole was out, and kale and white beans were in.

Happily, after all my tinkering, it turned out extremely tasty. It was hearty and warming, but the carrot and kale gave it a nice freshness. The meatballs are perhaps a little ugly, but their delicious garlickiness made up for it. Paul and I had this with some onion rye bread, and finished off the evening with some apple crumbles.

I found I had more meatballs than I really wanted to put in the soup so I have frozen the rest for later.

Kale and Meatball Soup

for the meatballs - enough for about 45 meat balls
1 lb ground chicken
2 cloves finely chopped garlic
1/4 cup breadcumbs (I made mine from a garlic pita I had in the freezer)
1/4 Parmesan cheese (I used the cheap stuff)
1 egg
2 tbsp water
salt and pepper

for the soup
8 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup white wine
1 tbsp olive oil
1 chopped onion
1 cup chopped peeled carrots
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup orzo (rice-shaped pasta)
4 cups coarsely chopped escarole (about 1/2 medium head)
14 oz can of cannelini beans

making the meatballs
1. Mix eggs and water in a medium sized bowl. Add the breadcrumbs, garlic, salt and pepper. Let sit about 5 mins.
2. Add ground chicken, mix well, without squishing or compressing things too much.
3. Form into 1 1/4 inch diameter balls. Let sit in the fridge at least 30 mins. (I made these in the morning.)

making the soup
1. Soften the onion in the olive oil over medium heat until the onion starts to get translucent, around 5-10 mins.
2. Add white wine and let reduce. Then add stock, bay leaf and carrots. Let simmer, covered, until the carrots are the softness you like to eat. For me, this takes about 15-20 mins.
3. Meanwhile, cook the orzo in a separate pot. Set aside.
4. Add the meatballs and beans and let simmer for 10 mins, stirring occasionally.
5. Add the kale, and cook for another 5-7 mins. Serve topped with more Parmesan cheese

Russian Grandmother's Apple Cake

2008-03-02T20:16:00.002-05:00

I love other people's family recipes. No one is more blunt than your family. I still haven't lived down the corn starch ice-cream. So I figure for a recipe to have become a favourite and passed down, it must be something really special.

This is another recipe from Baking: From My Home to Yours. I've received other cookbooks, and other baking books since I've got this one. But I keep finding more things I want to make in this one.

This recipe also appealed to me because it is a non-traditional pie crust. Yes, even though it's called a cake, it's really a more of a pie. The technique for making the crust is a lot more like making a cookie. A delicious, delicious cookie.

I made this at a friend's cottage. You can see I had some awesome equipment to work with.

I also had an adorable tiny helper, complete with adorable tiny rolling pin.

I don't like to post baking recipes, because I almost never change them up. But I've done some googling, and the recipe is here. I made this a second time this weekend and I didn't use the raisins and I think I prefer it that way. I also used Northern Spies instead of Granny Smith. Both my father, who grew up on a farm, and the apple man at the St Lawrence market thought that Northern Spies would be best. As always, my Dad was right, the spies made a very nice pie.

Dinner Party Rice

2008-02-25T20:20:00.003-05:00

I like having people over for dinner. But I am not particularly experienced at it and tend to find it ever so slightly stressful, which is why whenever I get overly worried I think to myself "What would Ina do?". Ina's entertaining advice is pretty straightforward. Make what you can ahead of time and make what you know. Her optional third rule for entertaining is use a lot of butter.

I find Zuni Chicken is a good choice because you can prepare it the day or the morning before. Then an hour, or perhaps a half hour, before your guests arrive you put it in the oven.

My dinner party rice is a riff on the Zuni bread salad. I put in all the things from the bread salad so you get a similar taste - but making rice is less work than washing lettuce.

Dinner Party Rice
(for four)

3-4 tbsp raisins
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 shallot, chopped fine
2 cloves garlic, also chopped fine
1 tbsp oil, sometimes I used canola, or sometimes olive
2 tbsp toasted pine nuts
salt and pepper

Rice for four servings, I make about 1 cup of dry rice

1. The night or the morning before your friends are coming over, soak the raisins with the balsamic vinegar and about a tbsp of hot water. Cover and leave sitting at room temperature.
2. Maybe about 1/2 an hour before you expect your guests, fry up the shallot and garlic in the oil and start cooking the rice.
3. When your rice is cooked and your chicken is ready, add the shallots, the raisins and pine nuts. I also add some salt and pepper and this point, and then vinegar. Now, this is the sneaky bit, start adding some of the rendered chicken fat, about a tablespoon at a time, until you find the rice tastes deliciously chickeny.

And that's it.

Free buns

2008-02-21T21:01:00.000-05:00

I stopped in at Cobs Bread on my way home from my parents yeterday. It's relatively new the neighbourhood and it had a big sign advertising hot cross buns.

I like hot cross buns - and I was pretty cold - so I thought I would get one. Now, here's where things get weird and well, quite frankly, fantastic. I ordered one, and they gave it to me. And then they wouldn't let me pay for it. They gave me a free bun. Best Wednesday ever.

And how was it? Totally delicious.

Mango Pudding

2008-02-09T13:11:00.002-05:00

My favourite dim sum dessert is mango pudding. Now, it's not much of a contest since it's the only dessert with out red bean or tofu. (Not that I don't like red beans and tofu, but there is a time and a place for them.)

When the New York times had a recipe for mango pudding last week I knew I wanted to try it.

This pudding isn't quite the same as the dim sum one and I found the pudding on it's own insufficiently creamy. But with some plain yogurt on top it is quite delicious.

Osso Buco

2008-02-09T11:11:00.001-05:00

I'm back. Due to some technical difficulties, I've had a bit of an internet vacation. But not a cooking vacation.

The first thing I want to tell you about is the osso buco I made. When I go to the St Lawrence Market each week, I am also interested in what is inexpensive. A couple weeks ago the beef shanks caught my eye. My mom suggested I could use it in osso buco. Now, my understanding is that veal shank is traditional in osso buco, but it's also about three times the price. I figured using the beef would be okay, and I would just cook it a little longer.
This meat cost about 8 dollars Canadian. Paul and I each ate two meals from it.

The internet seems to have two different kinds of osso buco recipes: those with canned tomotoes, and those without. I decided to make the kind with less tomatoes. I also noticed that most recipes have celery - but due to my long standing dislike of celery, I decided I could do without it too.

Now, sometimes when I decide to make something I have never had, I am disappointed. But this was much better than I was expecting. It was very easy and very hearty tasting. Perfect for a snowy day. I think this will be a winter staple for me now.

Osso Buco
(serves two, adapted from Everyday Italian)

1 beef shank (it will weight around one pound)
2 cloves garlic, slightly crushed with the side of the knife
1 sprig rosemarry
3-4 sprigs of thyme
1 bay leaf
3/4 cup chopped carrots (I like to cut these pretty small)
1 small chopped onion
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp olive oil
1 cup white wine
1-2 cups chicken stock
salt and pepper

1. Season the beef with salt and pepper. Brown both sides in a hot dutch over with the oil, about 3-4 mins per side. Set aside on a plate.
2. Add carrots and onions to the dutch oven and cook until softened. Add tomato paste and cook an additional minent.
3. Add white wine, bring to a boil for 1-2 mins. (I like to do this to cook off some of the alcohol.)
4. Return beef to pot, add herbs and garlic(you could put them in some cheese cloth, but I don't bother). Add enough chicken stock to come up about 3/4 of the way up the beef.
5. Simer covered for about 3 hours.

This also reheats really well. I would store the beef and sauce separately, so that you can remove any fat from the sauce.

Goodbye 2007

2007-12-31T09:42:00.001-05:00

Well, 2007 was a big year for me. I graduated, got a job and got a new camera. I also did a lot of cooking and baking in my small kitchen. Here are a few things that really stood out.

Paul gave me Dorrie Greenspan's "Baking: From My Home to Yours." This has been my most used cookbook this year.

My Summer of Ice-Cream, inspired by my ice-cream mentor Yannick.

I rediscovered rice, after I friend came by to teach me how to cook it. (While I technically learned to cook rice in the last days of last year, my rice cooking really took of in 2007).

And just this week I discoved both David Lebovitz's delicious brownies from "The Perfect Scoop" and the fun of the reverse lens macro.
All the best for 2008.

Mascarpone Ice-Cream

2007-12-03T18:06:00.000-05:00

This ice-cream arose from a happy accident: I had some mascarpone that needed to be used up and I also was planning to bake a cake for Paul's birthday. The cake I baked was Grandmother's Very Creamy Chocolate Cake. (It was very good, very dense, very rich and most importantly, very easy.) However, the recipe suggested that it needed a creamy accompaniment....and I had this mascarpone to use up. I think you can see the obvious solution.

There is a mascarpone ice-cream recipe in The Perfect Scoop. But it's a custard based recipe, which can be a lot of work. Fresh from the success of last week's cinnamon molasses ice-cream I was ready to try the no custard technique again (i.e. the lazy way).

What really makes this recipe is the excellent vanilla paste that my brother gave me for my birthday. The flavour of this ice-cream is very similar to the filling in tiramisu, and I think it is one of my new favourites.

Mascarpone Ice-Cream

1 cup milk
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup mascarpone cheese
1 cup whipping cream
2 tsp vanilla

1. Dissolve sugar in milk.
2. Whisk in mascarpone, whipping cream and vanilla.
3. Freeze in your ice-cream maker according to directions.

Fishies for Paul

2007-11-30T18:52:00.000-05:00

This year Paul's birthday falls on a Saturday. We went out with all his friends on his actual birthday, so I made him a birthday dinner the night before.

I wanted to keep things simple, because I wouldn't have a lot of time when I came home to cook. So I decided on a menu of rice, green beans and poached fish. I modified a poached fish recipe I tried earlier in the year to make this one. This was fast and kind of fancy tasting - sadly, it may have been a little lacking in the presentation category.

Poached Haddock

4 pieces haddock
1 stalk lemongrass, chopped into one 1 inch pieces, and squashed a bit
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 glass white wine
unsalted butter about a tablespoon

1. Add 1/2 tsp butter to a frying pan with a lid and soften the onions. Add the white wine and lemongrass and bring to a boil. (I reduced the liquid and this point quite a lot and added some water back in, but you could skip this.)
2. Add the fish and cover the pan with the lid. The fish probably won't be fully covered, I flipped mine over after about 3 mins.
3. Cook about 3 mins longer, until opaque all the way through.
4. Remove the fish from the pan to your serving dish and cover them with tin foil. Meanwhile, increase the heat under the pan and reduce the wine mixture by about 1/2. Add about a 1 tsp of butter, and heat until it starts bubbling again.
5. Remove bits of lemongrass from the sauce and serve.

Cinnamon Molesses Ice-Cream

2007-11-29T21:18:00.000-05:00

Paul loves cinnamon ice-cream. So when our friend Yannick made some last weekend when I was over cooking with him and I saw how simple his recipe was I decided to try it myself.

The original recipe that Yannick made called for brown sugar - but my brown sugar was a little hard and sometimes I find it is a little tricky to get all the lumps out.

I took this recipe over to my parents house and we had it with pumpkin and apple pies. It worked well with both kinds of pie and is also nice on its own.

Cinnamon Molasses Ice-Cream
1 cup milk
3/4 cup white sugar
2 tbsp molasses
2 cups whipping cream
1.5 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla

1. Dissolve sugar and molasses in the milk.
2. Add cinnamon, vanilla and whipping cream and whisk - but don't whisk too much or you will incorporate a lot of air.
3. Freeze in your ice-cream maker.

St. Lawerence Market

2007-11-03T10:18:00.000-05:00

The best part about going to the St. Lawerence Market is coming home and eating a huge sticky bun, and reading the newspaper.

A soup for Halloween

2007-10-31T17:54:00.000-05:00

I planned on making this soup yesterday. I got started: I cooked the squash and fried the onions. But I got a headache and I lost my cooking mojo.

However, it worked out really well. Since everything was ready in the fridge I just mixed them in the soup pot together and let them simmer for 30 mins. Easy-peasy. And the colour is perfect for Halloween.

Creamy Butternut Squash Soup
(modified from this recipe)

1 butternut squash
2 cups chicken stock
1 onion, coarsely chopped
3 tbsp butter
1/2 cup heavy cream (you can replace with milk if you are being more healthy)
1/2 cup milk
vegetable oil

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds. Oil a baking sheet and put the squash cut side down. Cook for 30-40 mins until tender and let cool. (This can be done the night before.)
2. Melt butter in a large pot and add onions. Cook to translucent.
3. Add stock to onions. Scoop squash out of the skin and add to onions and stock. Simmer for 30-40 mins.
4. Puree and add salt and pepper to taste.
5. Add milk and cream, return to pot and bring to a simmer.

Hedgehog Potatoes

2007-10-03T19:53:00.000-05:00

This is from "Super Natural Cooking", but you can read the recipe here.

These were really fun.

Seafood Stew

2007-09-15T19:47:00.000-05:00

Environment Canada said it was going to be cool today - and it was. I wanted to make something for dinner that would be toasty, but not full on fall food. I'm not ready to start eating squash yet.

Then I remembered I froze the leftover broth from the mussels I made earlier in the summer. So I decided to use in a fish stew.

I wanted to incorporate the idea from the minimalist using the shrimp shells to make a stock, not just for the flavour, but because Paul always complains when I leave the shells on. And I had just seen Ina make a fish stew on tv, and I wanted to use some of her ideas. But it turns out the shrimp shell stock was in her recipe too.

Ina used fennel in her recipe, but I am a liquorice hater, so I decided to leave that out. Since it's the end of summer, so I knew the market would be full of fresh tomatoes, so I decided to use fresh tomatoes instead of canned, and add a little tomato paste. Paul's mother found a really cute Polish tomato paste that came in a jar. I wish all tomato paste was packaged like this.

I served this with a nifty little baguette I got called a ficelle. It had a nice sour taste. I really liked this recipe. It seemed kind of fancy, but came together very fast. However, I had a bit of sticker shock on the price of fresh seafood. Next time, I might be temped to try using frozen. In any event, this was probably the most expensive meal I cooked all year, but it was worth it.

Fast Seafood Stew
(serves two)
1/2 lb shrimp, the kind with shells
1/2 lb Halibut, in 1 inch chunks
1 bay leaf
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tomatoes, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp tomato paste

1. Peel shrimp and place shells in a large pot. Cover with water and add bay leaf, bring to a simmer. (Simmer until all the other vegetables have been cut up.) Strain stock from shells and reserve.
2. Fry onion in olive oil over medium heat. When they appear soften, maybe 5 mins, add garlic and cook on medium heat for another 2-3 mins. Add 1 cup stock, tomato paste and a big pinch of salt. Bring to a simmer.
3. Add tomato, shrimp and halibut. Cook covered for about 7 mins, or until the shrimp are almost opaque. Removed from heat and let sit for 5 mins.

Some new things

2007-09-12T17:32:00.000-05:00

A few new additions to my kitchen
I can't wait to try these things out.

And a cookie that Paul baked. Totally delicious.

Family Golf

2007-08-27T20:40:00.000-05:00

Every year my mother's family has a family golf tournament. It's just one of those wacky things my family does. While I am not that into golfing, the tournament does have two components I really enjoy: prizes and potluck.
And you can win a prize even if you don't golf. It's awesome. This year I got a "Coors Light Cold Case", and while it claims that it can hold 18 so called "silver bullets", I was more interested in the fact that it also big enough to hold a 9x13 pan.

My Uncle made this peach pie and it was totally awesome. I am hoping he will pass on the recipe.

This year the corn salad has been my go to potluck recipe, so I wanted to repost it in pot luck size. I've also changed it up a little, switching red onion for green onion (I like chopping red onion more), and adding pine nuts.

Super Jumbo Corn Salad
(for taking to potlucks)
1 kg bag peaches and cream frozen corn
2 red peppers
1 green pepper
1/2 red onion
handful of basil or parsley
1/4 toasted pine nuts

24 hours before:
Take corn out of freezer and put it in fridge.

The afternoon or night before:
1. Chop red onion, and peppers. I usually try and make corn kernel sized pieces.
2. Make the salad dressing.

Before you serve:
Chop basil. Drain corn. Combine everything and toss with dressing.

Corn Starch Ice-Cream

2007-08-25T12:27:00.000-05:00

I hope you don't think I forgot about the summer of ice-cream. A few weeks ago the Times published an article about making corn starch ice-cream. As soon as it was post my ice-cream correspondent, Mr. Yummy-Baguette himself, Yannick, and I began a feverish correspondence on the subject.

Unfortunately, Yannick, is currently on the other side of the world, and thus, far from his ice-cream maker. So the burden of trying out this recipe has fallen to me.

I made this batch for my parents. You may recall that my parents are the owners of the ice-cream maker currently in my possession. I feel it is in my best interest to periodically provide them with home made ice-cream in the hopes that they let me keep the ice-cream maker. Sadly, my father tactfully said that he had enjoyed other ice-creams I had made more. I think it might be in my best interest to make up another batch for them pronto.

We ate this ice-cream with peaches, and the flavour was good. But texture of the ice-cream on it's on was off: a bit chewy and gritty.

Buttermilk Ice-Cream
adapted from the Minimalist, Mark Bittman

2 cups buttermilk
1.5 cups whipping cream
4 tbsp corn starch
3/4 cup sugar
pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla

1. Heat buttermilk, 1 cup cream, sugar and salt until steaming, stirring occasionally.
2. Meanwhile, mix remaining 1/2 cup cream and corn starch until smooth and lump free.
3. Bring to a slight boil, and cook about another 5 mins until thick. (You don't have to be too precise here, because, well, it's going to be frozen.)
4. Freeze according to your ice-cream maker's directions.

Mussels

2007-08-20T21:49:00.000-05:00

I am very wary about food poisoning. So naturally, I am wary about eating mussels. However, I ate them at my best friend Evangeline's early in the summer and they were quite frankly delicious and food poisoning free. (And according to her very healthy and chock full of everything I am deficient in. For those keeping tabs at home, I am deficient in seafood and deliciousness and maybe iron.)

Plus, it seemed pretty easy. So, I decided to make them for myself. After much consultation of the internet (thanks again Serious Eaters!), the fish man, and Evangeline herself, I felt ready to cook mussels for myself.

Here is a summary of the things I learned.
1. ~2 lbs (or 1kg) of mussels makes a main course for two people.
2. If they are open before you cook them, even after you tap their shell, that's bad. These ones should be tossed.
3. If they don't open after you cook them, than that's' also bad. These ones should be tossed too.

The tomato I used was extra juicy and I ended up with too much cooking liquid - and not enough cooking liquid chunks, much to Paul's chagrin. But it was still delicious. Seriously delicious.

Overall it was happy times.
(Notice I have some awesome pots. The one on the left was my mom's.)

So here's what you do
1. Fry up some onion and garlic.
2. Add some chopped tomato (maybe, seed the tomato if it is juicy)
3. Add a bay leaf and some white wine, but not too much wine, or the broth will not be chunky the way Paul likes it. Wait until everything is boiling.
4. Add the mussels, cover them and wait until they open.

Honey Peach Ice-Cream

2007-08-15T20:20:00.000-05:00

So what did I do with all my peaches? As only fitting for my summer of ice-cream, I churned them up. (For those of you keeping score at home, last summer was the summer of jam.)

I wanted to make the honey peach ice-cream from Baking: From My Home to Yours, but it required a custard and I was feeling a little lazy. I don't know if I mentioned this yet but I bought David Lebowtiz's The Perfect Scoop - looks like it might be the autumn of ice-cream too. Happily The Perfect Scoop has a recipe for peach ice-cream. So all I had to do was put the recipes together.

The interesting thing about eating this ice-cream is that the honey taste is initially very strong, but as your tongue gets cold it becomes almost imperceptible.

Honey-Peach Ice-Cream
mash up of David Lebowtiz's Peach Ice-Cream and Dorrie Greenspan's Honey Peach Ice-Cream

4 large peaches
1/4 honey
2 tbsp water (I used more, but for juicy peaches I think this is a better amount.)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup whipping cream

1. Peel peaches and cut into large chunks. (I blanche them to make is easier to peel.)
2. Add peaches, honey and water into a sauce pan and bring to a simmer. Cook about 10 mins until the peaches are squishy when poked with a fork.
3. Add sugar to peach mixture and stir until dissolved. Let mixture cool a bit.
4. Blend peach mixture with sour cream and whipping cream briefly so some chunks remain.
5. Freeze in your ice-cream maker according to manufacturer's directions.

Maple Walnut Cake

2007-08-13T20:18:00.000-05:00

Hola internet amigos!

I have a lot of things to tell you about.

First, something I wait for all year.
I love love love peaches. And I have some big plans for these ones...but I will tell you about that another day.

Next, it's Dorrie time. I made these chocolate macaroons to use up the egg whites from my coffee ice-cream. I used a Nigella tip, and froze the eggs whites until I was ready to use them. It seemed to work okay.
I don't think macaroons will ever be my favourite, but these were pretty nice.
(They are very fragile, so you have to arrange them carefully.)

And finally, the main event, my Dooda's birthday cake.
My Dooda's favourite ice-cream is maple walnut, so I used that as the inspiration for this cake. The cake is nutmeg walnut; the icing maple butter cream; and it is all topped off with candied maple walnuts. If you want to make a super jumbo 9x13 cake, the recipe needs to be tripled. I'm not going to lie, it's really weird to make a cake using 9 eggs.

The cake was very popular. The texture of the icing was not perfect, but the taste was so good that I will probably play around with it in the future to see if I can get the texture the way I like it.

Walnut Nutmeg Yogurt Cake
adapted from Dorrie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours

1 cup flour
1/2 cup finely ground walnuts
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
2 tsp baking power
pinch of salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 plain yogurt
3 large eggs
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 canola oil

1. Preheat the oven to 350F, and oil a 8 1/2 by 4 1/2 inch loaf pan. Place the pan on a baking sheet.
2. Mix flour, walnuts, nutmeg, baking powder and salt.
3. In a seperate bowl mix sugar, yogurt, eggs and vanilla.
4. Add dry ingredients to wet, then fold in the oil.
5. Pour into prepared pan and bake 50-55 mins until a skewer comes out dry.

If you triple the recipe to make a big cake like I did, it will take about 60mins to bake.

Trying out the summer express

2007-08-01T21:10:00.000-05:00

Mark Bitman posted a list of 101 simple summer meals last week. Tonight, I tried out number 4.

Honestly, I wasn't expecting a lot from "Open a can of white beans and combine with olive oil, salt, small or chopped shrimp, minced garlic and thyme leaves in a pan. Cook, stirring, until the shrimp are done; garnish with more olive oil." I didn't have fresh thyme, I only had frozen cooked shrimp - but I did have a nice can of cannellini beans.

I played with the instructions a little. I started by softening 1/2 a red onion is about 2 tbsps butter, then added 3 cloves chopped garlic and about a tsp dried thyme. Once everything started smelling delicious I added the beans, shrimps (thawed) and a little olive oil. When it was almost warmed through I added a little more thyme. Seriously delicious. I ended up with leftovers and it was good even the next day. I think the beans soaked up some of the thyme flavour. This might become a summer staple.

And to finish, coffee ice-cream. I love Hagen Dazs coffee ice-cream, but this is better - and happily decaf. It's almost too rich.

2007-07-24T17:31:00.000-05:00

I had some spinach, whipping cream and pine nuts. This is what I threw together. It turned out tasty, and the sauce came together in the time it took to cook the noodles.

Spinach Pine Nut Pasta Sauce
2 tbsp butter
1 shallot, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 package (300g) chopped frozen spinach, thawed
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup whipping cream
2 tbsp Parmesan cheese
1/4 toasted pine nuts

1. Heat the butter over medium high heat. When melted, add shallots and cook until softened. Add garlic and cook 1 min more.
2. Add spinach and Worcestershire sauce. Cook until warmed through, stiring occasionally.
3. Add cream and Parmesan. Cook another 2-5 mins until everything is combined - or your noodles are ready.
4. Serve over pasta, sprinkle the pine nuts on top.

2007-07-23T21:10:00.000-05:00

I know I've only been posting about ice-cream and cake.....but my regular meals have been pretty dull recently. And I really really like eating cake and ice-cream.

This weekend's project (aside from reading Harry Potter) was this cake from Baking: From My Home to Yours.
It was a make-up for my brother's birthday because I didn't have time to bake him a cake earlier in the month. He is a big fan of chocolate and peanuts.

As a bonus here is a picture of the lasagna that my Mom made for Sunday dinner. It was delicious, but ever so slightly spicy.

Strawberry Sour Cream Ice-Cream

2007-07-15T11:35:00.000-05:00

As I child I, was absolutely disgusted that my parents would put sour cream on top of strawberries. Disgusted. And yet, tastes change and now I think it is an awesome combination.

When I was looking through what I have started referring to as "the big baking book", Baking, From My Home to Yours, I saw a recipe for blueberry sour cream ice-cream. Now, I am not a huge blueberry fan. Fresh, I love them. Cooked or puree, not my cup of tea. But....I am sure you can see where I am going here....I thought to myself this would be awesome with strawberries.

My Dad wasn't sure if there would be any good Ontario strawberries at the market this week - but happily there still were and even more happily he sprung for a flat and gave me two pints.

The flavour of this ice-cream is very fresh, and I think the tang from the sour cream and a lemon juice is a nice contrast to the sweetness. However, I found this ice-cream a little more icy and less creamy than some of the others I made. I think if I made it again I will use 35% cream.

Strawberry Sour Cream Ice-Cream

500g hulled strawberries, about 4 cups
juice from 1/2 a lemon
1 cup sour cream
1/2 heavy cream (I used 18%)
2/3 - 1 cup sugar

1. Add all ingredients, except sugar, to the blender and puree. Add about 1/3 a cup cup of the sugar and blend. Taste the mixture. Depending on the sweetness of the strawberries, you may need to add another 1/3-2/3 cups of sugar.
2. Freeze in your ice-cream maker according to directions.

If you have left over strawberries, you can always have french toast with strawberries.

On one last note, this weekend it was the birthday of my friend Molly who likes lemons and has the same shoe size as me. I made the lemon yogurt cake for her, doubling the recipe and baking it in a bundt pan. The baking time was pretty much the same.
Photo taken by Paul.

But there was no pie....

2007-07-01T19:51:00.000-05:00

Last week, my Dooda - my grandfather - went to a strawberry social. When my mom asked him how it was afterwards she found out that, "It was good....but there was no pie." He says this every year after the strawberry social. And every year, the next time my Dooda comes over for diner, my mother bakes him pies. Happily, as I am a child in good standing with my parents, I was invited over for this pie extravaganza.

My mother made lemon meringue.

As well as a strawberry pie.
This pie was very delicious. My mother made a glaze with cooked strawberries, so the pie had the taste of both cooked and fresh strawberries. Surprisingly, the lemon-strawberry combination was also really delicious.

Biscuits

2007-06-30T09:35:00.000-05:00

I love baking powder biscuits. At home, it was always a big treat to have them. Every time, we would ask my mom to tell us about the time that my Baba - her mother - made the biscuits with baking soda and served them with rhubarb sauce. If you have ever mixed baking soda with an acid you know how it foams rather vigorously....but hearing about the acid rhubarb reacting with the biscuits is a story that we never got tired of.

I've tired making biscuits a few times since I moved out, using a recipe from The Joy. But it just wasn't the same. However, after seeing some southern lady make biscuits on the food channel I decided to give biscuits another try. The television recipe did not get such a great review on the internet, so I went hunting in my book shelf for a promising recipe. As soon as I found that the Dorrie book, Baking: From my home to yours, had a biscuit recipe I decided to try it.

Paul's verdict: They are, like, awesome. The biscuits are a meal on their own.
I think this picture, taken with Paul's camera, natch, illustrates the point nicely. They look like a biscuit commercial. I fully expected the Pillsbury dough boy to appear in my kitchen to praise the perfection of these biscuits after I made them.

I baked off half the biscuits to eat with dinner. They were excellent both plain and as a jam vector.
Here, one last bite is pictured with some very excellent jam that my doting parents brought me from France.

The recipe was quite easy and did not require any special equipment. Unlike the biscuits my mom makes, there is a little sugar in the dough. Not enough to make them sweet, but I think it helped create a truly delicious brown biscuit bottom.

I put the other half on a baking tray in the fridge. I baked these off for breakfast, and they were still delicious. Obviously, I ate them with more jam.

Baking: From my home to yours

2007-06-27T14:29:00.000-05:00

I had heard a lot about Baking: From my home to yours, so my expectations for this book we very high.

Overall I am delighted with it. I want to make everything. And there 12! 12! recipes for brownies. So far, I have made three things, and it has gone pretty well.

For Sunday dessert at my parents I made the berry tart. It was also just recently written up on Smitten Kitchen. Honestly, making the tart was a bit of a disaster. I made the pastry cream two days ahead of time and it curdled. Talking to my dessert guru Yannick, he declared such it "impossible" for pastry cream to curdle. He just may have been right - I later discover in the very helpful glossary section that if you leave the sugar sitting on top of the egg yolks, instead of mixing immediately, it will make small curds. I know that I did this, so I think this is the cause of the error. Fortunately, pushing the pastry cream though a sieve fixed everything.

The crust was also very troublesome. I think I have learned my lesson: doughs with instructions on how to make them in the food processor only probably won't work if you make them by hand. I added some water to the recipe and finished making the crust the way I usually do and it seemed okay - maybe a touch too tough.

Happily, there were no incidents slicing the strawberries. Once everything was put together it was delicious and fancy looking, so all was forgiven.

Next I attempted the marble loaf cake. Everything went fine with this one, the taste was good, the crumb nice, but maybe a little dry. My marbling technique might need a little practice too.

Finally, I made the Swedish Visiting Cake. (I know this seems like an insane amount of baking - but I have been invited out a lot. So I am not eating all these desserts by myself. Otherwise I would be super jumbo by now.) The Swedish visiting cake was super fast to make and had an awesome technique. The lemon zest was grated over the sugar and then the sugar and zest is rubbed together by hand until the sugar is damp. I really liked this technique and think it really released the lemon flavour well.
Of the three desserts, this was my favourite. It was the easiest and tastiest. I made it for a barbecue with my friends Evangeline and Mike and Mike ate three pieces - a clear indication of it's tastiness.

Overall, I really have liked cooking from this book. There is a good mix of recipes, from the fairly simple ones I have tried, to fancy fancy birthday cakes and even some ice-cream recipes. I have a few other things I will be making for sure - like the honey peach ice-cream. The dessert maker's glossary at the end of the book makes it accessible for beginning bakers, but still had helpful information for a more experienced baker.

Lentil Pasta

2007-06-19T17:10:00.000-05:00

Today was a big day for me. Sometimes, before big days, I get ever so slightly over worried. So I usually make myself something vegetarian and low in fat to make easier on my stomach.

But this pasta sauce I made yesterday was so delightful I will probably make it even on days I am not worried. I wasn't going to blog about it, but then I decided I didn't want to forget how I did it.

Vegetarian Pasta Sauce
(this is about 3 servings)

For the lentils:
1/4 cup green lentils
1 bay leaf
1 clove garlic

For the sauce:
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 zucchini, quartered and sliced
1/2 red pepper, chopped
1 tsp oregano
1 1/2 cups tomato sauce
salt and pepper

1. To cook the lentils, cover the lentils in water, adding bay leave and garlic clove. I usually crush the garlic with the side of my knife a bit. Simmer for 30-45 min until lentils are tender, adding more water if necessary. Drain.
2. Meanwhile, fry onion in olive oil. When onion is softened, add garlic and fry one more minute, then add remaining vegetables. I tossed some salt on them at this point. Cook about 10 mins, stirring occasionally until they are soft.
3. Add vegetables, tomato sauce and oregano to drained lentils and bring to a simmer, adding a little salt and pepper to taste.

Strawberries

2007-06-17T19:38:00.000-05:00

My breakfast today:
Strawberries, yogurt and granola.

Berry Vanilla Ice-Cream

2007-06-15T23:11:00.000-05:00

So now I am on an ice-cream roll. Again I used Yannick's fruit smoothie technique. I made things really easy for myself by blending a bag of partial thawed mixed berries (I am sure Yannick will never speak to me now since he advocates using fresh ingredients. But I think the taste of these frozen berries is quite good.)

When Yannick and I were talking ice-cream flavours, I advocated many fruit and vanilla combinations. His advice was that vanilla is very strong and could overpower the taste of many fruits so I added only a little bit. I think its floral taste goes very nicely with the mix of fruits here.

Berry Vanilla Ice-Cream

500g mixed berries (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries)
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice (really, just a good squeeze)
1/4 - 1/2 tsp vanilla, to taste

1. Blend all ingredients together. Taste to check sweetness and acidity. You might prefer to add a little more lemon juice, vanilla or sugar.
2. Push mixture through a fine mesh sieve. Obviously, this is a pain. But I think if you use raspberries or blackberries it is essential to remove the seeds.
3. Freeze in your ice-cream maker according to directions.

Mango Coconut Ice-Cream

2007-06-13T22:53:00.000-05:00

You may recall that happy day when my friend Yannick invited Paul and I over for five kinds of ice-cream. Recently, he had us over again for an ice-cream tutorial. We made two kinds: raspberry-apricot and mango-star fruit. I was especially taken by how easy it was compared to making a custard.

Yannick has a really nice page of ice-cream recipes with some neat flavours on his website. But when we made ice-cream with him he had a special formula he starts with. For fruit ice-creams the base formula is to use:
500g of fruit
1 cup cream
1 cup sugar
1 lemon
and then mix it up with maybe adding some extra flavourings. So instead of making a custard, Yannick essentially makes a smoothie. In fact, now that I think of it, probably any thick smoothie can be made into a successful ice-cream.

I used his technique to make this ice-cream. I think I preferred slightly the version we had at his place using cream instead of coconut milk. Both Paul and my friend Karl found the coconut taste very subtle. However, they gave the ice-cream a good review.

Mango Coconut Ice-cream

500g mango (about two mangoes peeled and cut up)
1 cup sugar
1 cup coconut milk
juice from 1/2 a lemon

1. Blend all ingredients together. Taste to check sweetness and acidity. You might prefer to add a little more lemon juice or sugar.
2. Push mixture through a fine mesh sieve. Honestly, this is a pain in the ass, and I don't blame you if you decide to skip this step. But I think it is worth it for the texture - especially since the coconut milk I used had a few wayward flakes of coconut and because mango can have a stringy texture.
3. Freeze in your ice-cream maker according to directions.

Happy Birthday Dad

2007-05-27T21:22:00.000-05:00

It's my Dad's birthday this week - and thus cake time.

Ever since I saw Martha's Birthday Cake in her Baking Handbook I have wanted to make a domed cake. But hers is almond with meringue, and my family is just not keen on almond and meringue.

So here's what I did instead:

1. Prepare a batter for a regular 9 inch layer cake. (I used a recipe from Cook's Illustrated, but honestly you could use a mix or whatever you like. Although the Cook's Illustrated "Old Fashoned Layer Cake" was seriously excellent.)

2. Bake the cake in a stainless steel bowl (greased and floured) that is 9 inches in diameter and about 4-5 inches deep. The recipe I followed had a baking time of 35-40 mins. In the bowl it took 1 hour and 30 mins - not quite 3 times the original cooking length. I started checking it after an hour though. Let it cool for about 10 mins in the bowl, then let cool on a rack.

3. Slice the cake into 3 or 4 layers - it really depends on how tall your cake is and how good you are at slicing. I used my bread knife to do this and I knew I couldn't make the slices quite level, so I drew a line with icing on the side of the cake. Then when I reassembled I used the line to reposition the layers correctly.

I filled the cake with kahlua butter cream icing. I reduced the kahlua first to intensify the coffee taste and cook out a little of the alcohol. I then covered the cake with chocolate ganache. Overall, while the entire process was time consuming, it was not very difficult. I think this domed shape would also work well for children's parties - you could decorate the dome to look like turtle or a hedgehog.

(Paul took this picture with his new camera.)

The cake was a huge hit - everyone liked it better than the one I made a couple weeks ago. The one thing I would do different next time is not used a poured icing. Once the cake was assembled it wasn't quite smooth so it wasn't quite as fantastic looking as one might like.

Roasted Mushooms

2007-05-26T18:13:00.000-05:00

Below, you see a photo of my Saturday night dinner.

On my plate I have an assortment of roasted foods: sausage, onion, mini-potatoes and mushrooms. (On the side are some steamed asparagus). However, of all these roasted foods I wish to talk briefly on the roasted mushrooms. Seriously, they are the greatest thing ever. EVER! A couple weeks ago my mother threw some mushrooms in with whatever else she was roasted for Sunday night dinner and they were a huge hit. My family had never eaten mushrooms like this before - and we loved them. They were the most mushroomy mushrooms ever. I fully recommend doing this. The fact that it is dead easy doesn't hurt.

Roasted Mushrooms

some mushrooms, preferably the "brown" ones
a little olive oil
salt and pepper

1. Toss the mushrooms with a little olive oil and salt and pepper. Roast on a parchment lined baking sheet at 425 F for 15mins.

Ice-Cream

2007-05-24T17:00:00.000-05:00

Ice-cream is my favourite dessert. Invariably, come summer, I make assorted friends trek about the city to whatever ice-cream place is my current favourite. But my new favourite place is my own tiny kitchen. I followed this David Libowitz recipe from Orangette's blog. But I left out the mint - and the mint infusing step - and mixed in about a tbsp of this fabulous vanilla extract that Paul's mom lent me as the custard cools. This vanilla is anything but plain.

For reference here is the mix I used for the creme anglaise base.

5 egg yolks
1 1/3 cups 2% milk
1 2/3 cups whipping cream
2/3 cup sugar
pinch of salt

Something simple

2007-05-20T07:42:00.000-05:00

Last night's dinner:
Pesto chicken
Asparagus risotto
Sliced Tomatoes

The pesto chicken was just baked chicken thighs with pesto spread under the skin. I used about a tsp of pesto per thigh - and I think I could have even doubled it.

This was my second attempt at making risotto. I tried last year and produced something gray and inedible. But I watched Mario Batali make it three times in the Times Minimalist video and felt ready to try myself. I skipped the asparagus puree step - I thought it would make too many dirty dishes. The risotto was quite tasty - but I still think some more practice might be in order.

it's all about the baking

2007-05-06T19:51:00.000-05:00

It was my brother's birthday this weekend. I made one of Ina's cakes, with a chocolate cream cheese icing. I made one substitution in the cake - using a mix of plain yogurt and a little milk instead of buttermilk.

As you can see I'm not the tidiest baker.

Additionally, the cake was a little hard to work with: the top was a bit sticky. You can see it got stuck to my hand when I took it out of the pan. I found the texture and airy crumb of the cake very much like a Duncan Hines mix.

The icing turned out fairly well, but needs a little fine tuning.
I got some ghirardelli cocoa powder and I found it to be nicer than the cheap no name cocoa I usually use - but as always I found the cake not chocolaty enough. I prefer the chocolaty flavour and dense texture of this bundt cake. But for my little brother only a layer cake would do. I would use this recipe again for a chocolate layer cake.

Sloppy Joe's

2007-05-03T19:09:00.000-05:00

I don't remember eating Sloppy Joes much as a kid. I have an impression of it being something uniquely American. I recall spending a large amount of time trying to identify the "Manwich" from "A sandwich is a sandwich, but a Manwich is a meal" and finally realizing that the terrifying gooey sandwich the boy was eating was full of sloppy joes.

Happily, this recipe is a little more high brow that opening a can of sloppy joe sauce - only a little though. Note the liberal use of ketchup. This recipe is from Nigel Slater's "real fast food". As soon as I read it I knew I had to make it. I knew combination of beef and mushroom and Worcester was going to have a delicious umami-ness. This was the most delicious and satisfying thing I have made in a long time.

Sloppy Joes
(adapted from Nigel Slater's "real fast food")

1 lb ground beef
1 onion, diced
4-5 white mushrooms, sliced
4-5 chrimini mushrooms, sliced
1-2 small tomatoes, chopped
1 tbsp Worcester sauce
3 tbsp ketchup (and honestly, you could use a little more)

1. Brown beef if a large pan or dutch oven. Drain excess fat and add the onions. Cook about 5 mins until onions are slightly softened.
2. Add everything else. Cover and cook 15-20mins stirring occasionally.

Serve on grilled baguette. I put some olive oil on on the baguettes, then rubbed it with some garlic and found it to be especially delicious.

I'm losing the war

2007-04-30T20:18:00.000-05:00

I'm losing the war against jam. Somehow I seem to have acquired 13 jars of jam. And most of it is delicious. Except the one with figs, bland Polish figs.

Obviously, I can eat more jam on toast and jam on pancakes, but I need your help. What else can I do with all this delicious jam?

Friday Night's Dinner

2007-04-29T09:07:00.000-05:00

Asian Chicken Soup

It was pretty tasty but could have used a little more zip. Next time I will use more garlic. I would suggest breaking up the noodles before you cook them to make it easier to eat.

Tomato Soup with Dill

2007-04-27T17:14:00.000-05:00

People. People. This is seriously delicious. You should make it.

And I know the pictures is well...decidedly not excellent, but I was in a hurry, because the soup was delicious.

So, here's what you do.

Fry a finely chopped shallot and a clove of garlic in about 1/2 tbsp of butter until soft. Add about 1/2 can of tomato paste (the ridiculously small can, you know the one). Add enough chicken stock to make up one bowl of soup. Then add a big pinch of dried time and a couple good shakes of Worcester sauce. When it starts to steam, eat it, topped with fresh dill.

I use my scissors to chop the dill.

Granola

2007-04-26T16:05:00.000-05:00

Last year I started something I jokingly called the "oatmeal challenge." The premise was simple. I was going start eating healthier, and part of this was going to be an oatmeal based breakfast every morning - except Sundays, then I have a pancake and jam based breakfast.

I primarily eat three things for breakfast: regular oatmeal, oatmeal bars (homemade natch), and granola. This recipe is a mix of a few things I read on the internet, and is perhaps overly sugary. But I eat it with plain yogurt, so I figure it balances out.

I usually use a mix of sliced almonds and pecans in my granola. I know that walnuts are good for you so sometimes I throw those in too - but I don't like the taste as much. I experimented with hazelnuts once. I found them too overpowering for granola and they are a pain to chop.

Additionally, this recipe is not clumpy because I mix it so much when I bake it. If you like granola clumps, try cooking it on a slightly lower heat and not stirring.

Granola

3 cups old fashioned oats (the ones that take 10-15 mins to cook)
1 cup chopped nuts
4 tbsp vegetable oil (or melted butter)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup water (or apple juice, but I wouldn't buy some just for this)

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Mix all ingredients in a large bowl. Pour onto a large sheet pan lined with parchment paper.
3. Cook in oven, stirring granola every 10 mins, until granola is toasty brown and crunch, about 30-40mins.
4. Let cool on the sheet pan and store in air tight jars.

For me, this is about 3 weeks worth of granola - so I know it keeps at least that long.

Lemon Orzo

2007-04-23T17:52:00.000-05:00

You may recall I went though a phase in the winter where all I wanted to eat was Lemon Cream Sauce on pasta.

I mixed the ideas from that pasta, with the recipe for lemony orzo from this months Everyday Food magazine. I think this made a nice weekday side. I made enough orzo to make a little pasta salad for lunch tomorrow.

Creamy Lemon Orzo
(for one)

1/4-1/3 cup uncooked orzo
1 tsp whipping cream
1 tsp Parmesan cheese
1/2 a lemon

1. Cook orzo. Drain well.
2. Toss orzo with whipping cream, Parmesan, lemon zest and a good squeeze of lemon juice. You can see from the picture I just did this at the table.

I topped mine with some parsley, but you could leave it out.

Amandine's Cake

2007-04-22T09:13:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago my friend from flickr, Olivier, posted a picture of a stupendous looking chocolate cake. I knew I would have to try it. This weekend I did - and it is excellent. It is very like a brownie, but making it in a round pan really makes it seem more special.

The top is flaky, like a brownie, and gave me a little trouble when getting it out of the pan. If I had a spring form pan, I would be temped to use this next time I make this cake - and for sure I will be making this cake again.

The recipe for the cake is here in English, and on Olivier's blog in French. My understanding of things is that this cake is often called Fondant in France. Dorie Greenspan talks about it on her blog, and there was a recipe for the French Chocolate Brownie in the New York Times recently.

Muffins

2007-04-11T17:30:00.000-05:00

Last night, I had a profound desire for muffins. And not just any muffins. The raisin bran muffins my mom made when I was a kid. After some pestering, I found out that it is the recipe on the side of the Quaker Oat bran box. I picked up some bran and molasses and I was go go go to make muffins.

The only problem with making muffins when you live by yourself is.... you have a lot of muffins. Happily the Joy provided a solution: make the batter, place into muffin cups and then freeze uncooked. When you want a muffin just put it back in the pan and bake as usually. It took the two muffins I baked this morning about 10mins longer than the suggested time.

Spagetti and Meatballs

2007-03-30T11:41:00.000-05:00

I like Everyday Food magazine. It has a simple premise: cooking simple, tasty, healthy food. Often, it accomplishes this goal on a budget too; something else I like. And it doesn't hurt that the pictures are beautiful. But unlike the pictures in some of Martha Stewart's other publications, the pictures in Everyday Food make it look like you can do it.

Everyday Food just recently published a cookbook. Paul got it for me as a present - because he is the best, natch. Tonight, Paul and I tired making turkey meatballs and I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. The meatballs are very tender. The recipe has a very good tip to form the meatballs with wet hands.

Of course, I modified the recipe a little. I added some Worcester Sauce to the pasta sauce, because I always do with tomato sauce. I also found the sauce a little bitter, even after cooking it for the recommended time, so I added a little brown sugar to round out the flavour. Finally, the recipe recommends just cooking the meatballs in the sauce, but I browned them a little first. They were still very tender, so if you have time to brown the meatballs I recommend it.

So far, I am pretty happy with this cookbook.

Garlic Bread

2007-03-28T18:30:00.000-05:00

I've had a few garlic bread disasters. But Heidi's Dad's double bake technique is seriously awesome. I didn't have any lemon, so I did not add the zest. But it is something I will try in the future. I recommend this for all your garlic bread needs.

Additionally, 101cookbooks is a pretty nifty site.

Thai Beef on Glass Noodles

2007-03-24T09:07:00.000-05:00

No one ever said grad school was easy. I've been a little busy recently and so have been making some simple favourites: the spinach that I make about once a week now, one last butter nut squash soup before it really becomes spring, and those beef short ribs for one night when my brother came over for dinner. Another new favourite is red pepper fried with garlic. But the name says it all so it really doesn't merit a post.

So, I've been cooking, but there haven't been any experiments - at least any that turned out - to write about.

Tonight Paul and I mixed things up by cooking something from "Food & Drink" magazine. This is a glossy publication produced by the government owned liquor store in Ontario. The photos in this magazine are lovely, but often the recipes are out of reach of the grad school budget and require a lot of ingredients. Well, this one required a lot of ingredients too. But after a recent foray into making pad thai, I already had quite a few of them. Plus I had been wanting to try cooking glass noodles at home.

In case you haven't cooked with fish sauce before, it smells seriously dreadful. But it tastes better than it smells. And reassuringly, it's an ingredient in some Worcester Sauces.

I modified the original recipe from Spring 2007 "Food & Drink" magazine - I will post a link when it is up on the LCBO website. I used less chili paste, because I can't take the heat, and upped the vegetable content.

Thai Style Beef
1/2 thai red curry paste
2 small steaks (225 g), I used tenderloin as it was on sale
2 tbsp vegitable oil, separated

Preheat oven to 450F.

1. Sprinkle salt and pepper on steaks
2. Mix red curry paste with about 1 tbsp oil and spread on steaks.
3. Heat 1 tbsp oil in an oven safe frying pan on med-high heat. Sear steaks one min on each side. Then place in preheated oven for 5-8 mins. (8 mins will be medium well).

Glass Noodles

4 oz glass noodles

Sauce
1/4 chicken stock
1/2 red curry paste
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp lime juice

1 clove garlic finely chopped
1 tbsp grated ginger
1 stalk lemon grass, coarsely chopped and bruised (I would recommend not actually eating the lemon grass)
3 grated carrots, about 1 cup
1/4 of a green pepper, in fine slices
1/2 onion, finely sliced
snow peas, about 1 cup
bean sprouts, about 1 cup

1. Soak noodles in boiling water for 10 mins. Mix ingredients for the sauce together.
2. Meanwhile, heat oil in a large pan (or wok), and add garlic, ginger and lemon grass. Cook for about 30 secs.
3. Add carrot, green pepper and onion to the pan and cook until the vegetables have softened, about 3-4 mins.
4. Add noodles, snow peas, and bean sprouts. Cook another 2 mins.
5. Add sauce and cook until sauce boils and is absorbed by the noodles.
6. Serve with slices of Thai Beef on top.

Poppy Seed Loaf

2007-03-05T17:16:00.000-05:00

To make a no-knead onion poppy seed loaf, following the regular directions for no-knead bread (just google for it) and make additions listed below.

To the dry ingredients add:
3 tbsp poppy seeds
2 tsps sugar

Then after you have added the first cup of water add
1/4 fried onion

pizza pie

2007-03-03T18:31:00.000-05:00

No, I didn't dial "p" for pizza. Paul and I made this tonight.

Oh, and one last thing, if you microwave your pepperoni for about a minute you can render out a lot of the fat and make your pizza less greasy. I am not sure where I read this tip, but I love it.

Nutty Noodles

2007-03-02T18:17:00.000-05:00

Once again I cooked from the March 2007 Everyday Food magazine. I liked the ideal of a boil and toss meal - it would be easy and delicious right? How could Martha lead me astray. It looked so delicious in the picture. And then....I thought very hard about the idea of boiled tofu. The recipe suggested BOILING tofu. Right. Obviously I was going to have to change this recipe up a little. The boiled tofu had to go. I begrudgingly tolerate tofu, but I like it better fried like in pad thai; it gets a nutty flavour.

One of my flickr contacts, tiny banquet committee had a nice picture of some peanut-sesame noodles. Perfect. I would have a boil, fry and toss meal. Sure there were a few more dishes, but no boiled tofu.

I was pretty happy with how this turned out. Although the sauce is very flavourful, the blandness of the noodles counters it. I think maybe the sauce needs something else - I will definitely be experimenting with again: I think chicken might be nice instead of tofu and I would like trying to make the sauce a little more sour. I will keep you posted if I can improve it.

Nutty Noodles
(1 serving)

for the sauce:
2 tbsp peanut butter
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp sesame oil

everything else:
2 tsp vegetable oil
3 oz tofu, in bite sized pieces
2 oz snow peas
1 carrot, in ribbons (see note below)
4 mushrooms, quatered
1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds

4 oz pasta (linguine or spaghetti)

1. Whisk sauce ingredients together. (I did this in a 1 cup measuring cup with a fork).
2. When you start cooking the pasta, start frying the tofu in the vegetable oil. Once the tofu starts looking golden (2-3 mins) add the mushrooms. Cook the mushrooms and tofu for about another 3 mins, until the mushrooms get that dark cooked look. Finally add the snow peas and carrot. If your noodles are almost done, you can put a lid on the tofu mixture to speed the cooking of the carrot and snow peas. They will only need a minute.
3. Drain noodles and add to vegetable mixture. Toss with sauce. If sauce is too thick, thin it with some pasta water.
4. Plate, and top with some toasted sesame seeds

Carrot Ribbons

This is a great technique. I use my regular vegetable peeler to cut make long ribbons from the carrot. This is easy at first, but as the carrot gets thiner I found it helpful to rotate it by 90 degrees, and then make more ribbons.

Corn Salad

2007-02-27T18:19:00.000-05:00

I am always on the look out for easy vegetable dishes to take for lunch. When I saw this corn salad in this month's "Everyday Food" I had to try it. I changed up the recipe a little to suit my tastes and what I had on hand. But I think this could be a lunch box staple. I got everything ready the night before and just tossed it together before I left for the lab.

The salad originally had jalapeño pepper - but I don't like the heat so I used some green onion. I also used a different dried spice. The dressing was originally lemon - but I had a couple limes so I decided to use lime instead.

Corn Salad
(adapted from Everyday Food, March 2007)

1 cup frozen corn, thawed
1/4 cup red pepper, chopped
1 green onion, sliced
1/2 tsp dried basil
2 tbsp lime dressing

1. Mix all the ingredients.

Lime Dressing
(adapted from Everyday Food, March 2007)

juice from 1 lime, around 1/8 a cup
1/8 a cup rice wine vinegar
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp dijon mustard
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 cup olive oil

1. Put all ingredients in a jar with a tight fitting lid and shake shake shake.
(makes about 3/4 of a cup)

Molten Chocolate Cake

2007-02-14T20:22:00.000-05:00

Happy Valentine's Day. (recipe)

Tasty Spinach and Mushrooms

2007-02-07T18:57:00.000-05:00

Last night I had my little brother over for spaghetti - not with cream sauce again; we had a meaty tomato sauce. But I overestimated the number of mushrooms I would need so I had three left over.

I came up with this tasty vegetable side. If you didn't have a shallot (I had some left over when I cooked a fancy meal for one of my friends and now they are my new favourite ingredient) you could use some chopped onion and garlic. I was tempted to add some garlic too, but I was too lazy and too hungry to chop it up.

The spinach I used was only mostly defrosted. I find I have to take it out 24 hours before to have it fully defrost in the fridge and I wasn't that organized today. But it would probably be better if you could manage to fully defrost the spinach.

This made 2 servings, but obviously could be easily doubled.

Tasty Spinach and Mushroom
1/2 package of frozen chopped spinach, mostly defrosted
3 large button mushrooms, sliced
1 shallot, chopped
1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp toasted pine nuts
salt
pepper

1. Heat butter and add shallot when the butter is hot. When the shallot begins to soften add the mushrooms. Once the mushrooms start looking cook, but before the moisture totally evaporated add the spinach. If you spinach it a still a bit frozen, push the mushrooms to one side of the pan and cook the spinach in the other side until it breaks up.
2. Once the spinach starts to steam add a large pinch of salt and some pepper to taste. Finish by tossing with the pine nuts.

Linguine with cream sauce

2007-02-04T19:13:00.000-05:00

Last week the New York times had a recipe for a lemon cream sauce for pasta. It was kind of unusual - but delicious with the salmon I made to go with it. Later on I mixed it up a bit and used the same technique to make a shrimp cream sauce. Today I made a mushroom cream sauce. Below is my basic technique.

1. Fry something savoury, like mushrooms and garlic, in butter.
2. Add 1/2 white wine and reduce it by 2/3s.
3. Add about 1/4 cup cream. (It will curdle. But it doesn't matter). Cooks for another 2-3 mins. Take off the heat.
4. When the pasta is cooked, drain and return to the hot pot. Toss with the sauce and add 1 tbsp grated parmesan cheese.

(This makes enough for 1 person - ME!)

But, after three times in one week I think I am going to have to give the creamy linguine a break and go back to my lentils.

Orange Loaf

2007-01-27T14:54:00.000-05:00

I like to bake things and take them to parties. I figure anyone can pick up a bottle of wine - so it's a little more special to bake something.

However, I don't have infinity free time. So I am always on the look out for recipes with a good tasty/effort ratio. This citrus loaf fits recipes. Everything is really good - but there are no the bill perfectly. I like the simplicity of Ina Garten'sfrou frou trendy ingredients to add. No cocoa nibs or Meyer lemons or any thing they might not have at the down-market grocery store I shop at. Another thing I love about this recipe is the use of plain yogurt and oil instead of butter and buttermilk. I never have buttermilk in the house, but I almost always have plain yogurt. Addionally, using oil instead of butter makes the batter really quick to mix.

I used orange in the loaf, and I first heard about this recipe from Smitten Kitchen, where she uses grapefruit. I think any citrus would rock in this cake.

National Pie Day

2007-01-23T18:56:00.000-05:00

Today I found out about a wonderful American holiday: National Pie Day. The National Pie Council created the holiday for "love and enjoyment of pie eating". Sadly I found out about the holiday too late to make a pie - and really, making a pie is a lot of work for a school night. But Paul picked up a raspberry rhubarb mini-pie so we could join in the celebrations.

A soup, a stew and chocolate pie.

2007-01-20T19:34:00.000-05:00

I had a few things on the go Saturday. I made cream of corn soup to give to my grandfather. The recipe is from the Complete Canadian Living cook book. It is fantastic: sweet, spicy and easy.

While the soup was cooking, Paul helped me whip up some "lentil cassoulet" - although I left out the duck confit and halved the recipe. This lentil stew is definitely a recipe I will be making again. Sadly, like all my lentil dishes, this stew is madly unphotogenic. But this is the perfect thing to make if you have just been out for a cold winter walk.

The main attraction for this Saturday night has to be the chocolate custard pie I made to take to my parents for Sunday dinner. This little pie is a hybrid of the chocolate custard pie from "the Joy" and the chocolate pots de creme recipe from the Nov 2006 Cooks Illustrated. The main difference from the Cook's Illustrated recipe is I added corn starch to make the custard a little thicker - and thus more suitable for pie. A bonus feature of adding corn starch is the likelihood of overcooking, which produces a grainy custard, is lessened. This is because the starch prevents the protein in the eggs from producing little yucky clumps. But, it is essential that the custard is brought to the boil, otherwise there is an enzyme in the egg yolk that will digest the corn starch. So you pie that was perfectly set on Saturday night will end up a little watery and soupy. Quick aside, I learnt all this from On Food and Cooking. It's a little dry, but I like to know why things work in the kitchen so when I start frankensteining recipes together they are more likely to work.

When I tasted the custard after it was cooked I was a little worried because it did not seem sweet enough. But when it cooled down the sweetness came through. The custard was still a little soft for a pie filling. If you know how many custards you need it is maybe easier to fill some little dishes. But I am never sure how many will be at my parents for dinner, so it is better to make a dessert than can be cut - thus the pie.

The corn starch really helped the texture. I didn't need to use a candy thermometer to cook the custard and I didn't have to stress about over cooking it.

Chocolate Custard

8 oz 70% cocoa chocolate, finely chopped (I used Lindt brand, if you have 60% use 10oz)
5 eggs yolks
5 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp corn starch
2 cups 18 % cream
1/4 cup milk
1/2 tsp instant coffee
1 tbsp vanilla
9in baked pie crust (I use an oreo cookie crumb crust).

1. Place chocolate in a large heat proof bowl. Find your mesh strainer and have it handy.
2. Mix sugar, yolks, corn starch, cream and milk. Cook over medium heat until mixture starts to simmer. Adjust heat to keep mixture just simmering. Simmer for 1 minuet.
3. Pour milk mixture through the mesh strainer over the chocolate. Let sit for 5mins. Add instant coffee and vanilla and mix until chocolate is dissolved.
4. Pour into custard dishes or prepared pie crust.

Onigiri, Or how I learned to love the rice ball

2007-01-06T19:44:00.000-05:00

Last summer, after I got back from Japan, I said I would never eat another rice ball. But then I saw a super cute rice ball mold at the Asian grocery store and I started to reconsider my rice ball decree.

Over the holidays, my friend Simon came over and taught Paul and I the way of the onigiri. Simon will have to vouch for the authenticity of the technique. (I don't care if it isn't authentic, Simon taught me how to cook rice - something I was never able to do before.) I think the onigiri would be awesome to take for a picnic.

Some notes on the ingredients. The seaweed I got in China town. You can probably find it at any Asian grocery store. The filling for the rice ball could be any little bit of leftover you might have. Simon suggested using spicy tuna. During my onigiri lesson we used some rehydrated dried mushrooms. Today I used a red pepper filling. I am not sure what the traditional rice to use is, but I used Jasmine rice and it seemed sufficiently sticky.

Red Pepper Onigiri Filling
(filling for about 6 rice balls)

1 tbsp finely chopped onion
1/4 red bell pepper, finely chopped
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp oyster sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp vegetable oil
pinch of red pepper flakes
1 tsp toasted sesame seeds

1. Fry onions in vegetable oil until they start to brown. Add red pepper and cook until softened.
2. Toss with remaining ingredients.

Onigiri

warm cooked rice (I started with 1 cup dry rice)
large pinch of salt
filling
seaweed sheet

1. Toast the seaweed sheet by holding it about 2 inches above the element in your stove. (This works even if you have an electric stove like I do.) You will know the sheet is toasted because it will crinkle and become a brighter green.
2. Wet your hands. Make a little ball with the rice. If you have ever made a snow ball, you will find this strangely familiar.

3. Next make a little dimple in the rice ball. This will flatten the ball a little.

4. Put the filling in the dimple. Don't put in too much filling.

5. Add some more rice to cover the filling to make a larger ball.

6. If you don't have a rice mold, skip this step. Otherwise, wet the rice mold and place your ball in it. Then squish the mold top on.

Look how cute it comes out!

7. Wrap the rice formed rice ball in seaweed. You can cover the ball completely, or you can just cover a strip. This strip makes a little non-sticky handle.

Actually Delicious Lentil Soup

2007-01-04T21:24:00.000-05:00

I eat a lot of lentil soup. It's cheap - if not exactly cheerful - and a good source of fibre and vegetarian protein. Lentil soup was basically invented for health conscious grad students. However, even though I make it all they time, I have never made a truly delicious one until now. The problem with lentils is they can taste "earthy". My strategy to keep things from tasting like dirt is to put as much tasty stuff in the broth I cook the lentils in as I can and hope for the best.

I used a mix of lentils, about 1/3 a cup of brown lentils and 2/3 a cup green lentils. In general I prefer the taste of the green lentils, but I have the brown ones to use up.

I roughly followed a recipe from the Zuni Cafe Cookbook, but I had the small piece of left over beef to use up. This recipe was the result.

Sadly, even though the soup was tasty, it is impossible for me to take a good looking picture of lentil soup.
This recipe makes 4 servings.

Delicious Lentil Soup

6 oz beef cut into 1 cm cubes
1/2 carrot cut into lentil sized pieces
1/2 onion finely chopped
1 red pepper also cut into lentil sized pieces
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
4 cups chicken stock, vegetable stock or water
1 tbsp oil
1 cup lentils, picked over

1. Brown beef in a dutch oven, in batches if the pot seems like it will otherwise be crowded. Remove beef and reserve, fry onion until it starts to turn golden. Add 1/2 cup of water to the pan to deglaze it.
2. Return beef to dutch oven and add bay leaf, garlic, carrots and red pepper. I also added a big pinch of kosher salt. Add 2 more cups of liquid and the lentils.
3. Cook covered for about 35mins until lentils are soft, stirring occasionally. If you notice the lentils have absorbed most the liquid, add a little more water or broth .

I reserved a little broth because I find the leftover soup will continuing to absorb liquid. Then when I am going to eat it the next day I add a little broth to thin it out.

Christmas Kalach

2006-12-23T11:36:00.000-05:00

My Mom, being a good sport, taught me how to make kalach, or kolach, the traditional Ukrainian Christmas bread this weekend. The recipe is my Baba's. Traditionally, this bread is braided into a ring. This ring has some special symbolism. But we just make boules - there are enough things to do at Christmas already.
Kalach is part of the traditional Ukrainian Christmas Eve meal of 12 meatless dishes. My family celebrates Christmas on Christmas day and usually eat this bread for breakfast.

The dried cranberries are not traditional, but my Mom thought they would be a good idea to try out. The recipe makes four loaves. My mother has an exceptionally large bowl to make this in - it is about twice the size of a regular mixing bowl.

Christmas Kalach
To proof the yeast:
4 packages or 10 tsps of yeast,
1/2 cup lukewarm water
2 tsp sugar
1/2 cup

For the sponge:
1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup flour

Everything else:
1 cup sugar
1 cup melted butter
2 tsp vanilla
zest of one lemon
zest of one orange
juice of one orange
7-8 cups flour

1 1/2 cups raisins
1/2 cup dried cranberries

1. Proof the yeast by dissolving the sugar in the water and adding the yeast. Let the yeast dissolve for about 10mins.
2. Warm the milk. Add to dissolved yeast with 1 cup of flour. Let rest for 45mins in a warm place. My parents keep there house very cool, so my mother turned the oven on for a few minutes to warm it up and then turned off the oven and let the sponge rise in there. The sponge is done when it is full of holes. According to my mom it should look like a sponge; thus, the name. See the picture below.
3. Once the sponge is spongy, in a separate bowl beat the eggs and yolk together, along with the salt. Add the remaining sugar gradually. Then add the melted butter, vanilla, zest and orange juice.
Add the egg mixture to the sponge, then mix in the remaining flour one cup at a time. My mom says the dough will be very soft. I found it very sticky. Knead the dough for 10mins. My mom's tip for kneading the dough is to keep flouring your hands. Once the dough has been kneaded I mixed in the raisins and cranberries.
4. Let the dough rise for about an hour and punch it down. Let rise again and form into four balls. Let the balls rise until double in size.
5. Preheat the oven to 350F. Cook for 15mins. If the bread appears to be browning too quickly, cover with foil. Then bake at 300F for 45mins. The bread is done when it sounds hollow if you tap the bottom.

Saturday Night Chicken

2006-12-17T13:23:00.000-05:00

I've been wanting to make a roast chicken for a while. I pre-salted Zuni style, you can read the Zuni Roast chicken recipe here. My Mom has made this roast chicken many times and is the most requested birthday meal by my brothers and me. I salted it the day before I made it, as well as stuffing thyme and sage under the skin. The salting makes the chicken very moist. I think it works the same way as brining a turkey. The herbs under the skin make the breast meat very flavourful.

After consultation with my Mom, I decided to cook it at 375, instead of 450. She says the chicken smokes a lot if you cook it at 450 and the oven is a mess afterwards. She also thought my whole apt would smell like chicken.
I didn't have a roasting pan. But I was very clever and make a rack out the carrots - okay, I saw it on tv. It took about 1.5 hours to cook. Off to the side are some simple roast potatoes with thyme.

Delicious - and Easy - Mushroon Sauce

2006-12-12T21:53:00.000-05:00

This is almost too easy to post. But it was so delicious. I served it as sauce to go with some simple roasted chicken breasts and some egg noodles.

Mushroom Sauce

1 tbsp vegetable oil (I used a canola-olive oil blend)
1.5 cups of sliced mushrooms
2 tbsp flour
1/2 chicken stock
1 tsp thyme
salt and pepper

1. Fry mushrooms in oil until they get start releasing moisture.
2. Add flour and cook for another 2 mins.
3. Add chicken stock and thyme and reduce. (Basically, boil it a bit until it doesn't seem to soupy.) Taste sauce and add salt and pepper as you like.

I found that since the chicken stock is pretty salty already and I reduced it I had to add hardly any salt.

More bread

2006-12-10T20:10:00.000-05:00

I mixed things up with the no-knead bread this weekend. I used 2 cups all purpose flour and 1 cup whole wheat. I found I had to use less water - about 1 1/4 cups - and that my boule was also smaller.

My technique has been to mix the dough with my hands and add the first cup of water all at once. I then add the remaining 1/2 cup of water gradually, until I get the consistency from the video. This is how I figured out how much water to use for the whole wheat loaf.

And, just because I think this one turned out super pretty:

The Cuboards are Bare!

2006-12-07T20:45:00.000-05:00

I was thinking so much about Paul's birthday dinner that kind of forgot I had to eat for the rest of the week too. On Tuesday I discovered I had zero fresh vegetables. I had two options: peanut butter sandwiches for the rest of the week, or I could get creative. I poked around the cupboard and found I had a can of white kidney beans and a can of tuna. I little googling came up with a recipe for White Bean Tuna Salad. I decided to use the recipe as a rough template.

But I cheated a bit and got a few more supplies. On my way home from school, I stopped at Whole foods on my way home and pick up some veggies, and a bagel: total cost $4.24. If you are careful, Whole Foods can fit on the grad school budget. And it has the nicest produce walking distance from my house.

Tuna White Bean Salad

2 tbsp finely chopped onion
19oz can white kidney beans
170g can of tuna
3 tbsp red wine vinegar
juice from 1/2 a lemon
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp dried basil
salt and pepper

handful of baby spinach

1. Place onion, and beans in a small bowl. Break up tuna coarsely with your hands and add to beans.
2. Mix lemon juice, vinegar, mustard, sugar, olive oil, and basil (I like to do this in a measuring cup) . Pour dressing over beans and tuna. I let this sit overnight to let the beans absorb some of the flavour of the dressing. Otherwise beans are a little dreadful.
3. To serve I mixed half of the salad with a handful of spinach.

Holiday Bake Off

2006-12-04T19:58:00.000-05:00

The word on the internet is that holiday cookies are not the thing. The thing is home made pickles. Well, that's not how I roll. I love making holiday cookies. But I like it to be easy, because it's a busy time of year. Last year I was burned: I made type of cookie for gifts I had never tried before and they turned out dry, crumbly and tasteless.

This year I am baking what worked last year and was easy. I have a chocolate cookie and a butter pecan cookie from an ice-box cookie recipe. But two types of cookies is just not enough. I wanted something citrus. On Martha's website, I found Lemon-Currant Cookies. To make it a little more seasonal I used orange zest and dried cranberries. This was easy and delicious. I am freezing 1/2 the dough to see how well it freezes.

Orange-Cranberry Cookies

Follow the above recipe swapping:

1 tbsp orange zest for the lemon zest
3/4 cup dried cranberries for the currants
And add 1 tbsp vanilla with the sour cream and egg.

Happy Birthday Paul

2006-12-03T21:12:00.000-05:00

Last Friday was a special day. To celebrate Paul's birthday I made him a special meal.

The cooking festivies started Thursday. I made a chocolate bundt cake, from the recipe in the current Cook's Illustrated Holiday Baking magazine.
The cake was fairly easy - but took a while to make - probably because I making it during the commercials in Ugly Betty. I had only two small problems when making the cake. They suggested painting on a mixture of cocoa powder and butter to grease the pan. I had no pastry brush and tried to do this with wax paper. Let's just say there's a reason they say to use a pastry brush. Also, I had to cook the cake another 15 mins. But the instructions on how to test the cake were very clear. Overall I have been really impressed with the recipes I have tried from Cook's Illustrated. The recipe is a keeper and would be good for a large party. I took the leftovers to my family.

To go with the cake I made mocha whipped cream. I modified this recipe.

Mocha Whipped Cream

1 cup whipping cream
3 oz bittersweet (or semi-sweet) chocolate, chopped finely
1 tbsp instant coffee

1. Place chocolate and instant coffee in a small heat proof bowl. (If you don't like doing dishes, use a bowl large enough to whip the cream in later.)
2. Warm cream in a sauce pan until it is close to a boil.
3. Pour cream over chocolate. Let sit 5 mins then stir until mixture is homogeneous.

I let the chocolate cream mixture cool over night and then prepared it the way I would prepare regular whipped cream by beating it and adding about two tsp of sugar.

For the non-dessert potion of the meal I made something I saw on the cooking channel - and lamely, I made the whole menu. Well, not exactly, I made boilled potatos instead of mashed because Paul like boiled potatos better. I don't get it. Additionally, the snow peas and the green beans looked yucky at the supermarket so I got brocolli instead. I steamed the brocolli and tossed it with sesame oil - it was okay, but not something I will do again.

Now, the ribs. You may notice the recipe uses "good ale". I have never purchased beer, so aquiring this "good ale" was somewhat of an adventure. However, the LCBO near my house stocks the brand recommended and besides a sligh mishap when I enquired about getting a leaver to open the bottle the ale was purchased without incident.

Next step, buy the ribs. I had a hazy idea on what beef ribs were - but I wasn't expecting this.
However, they turned out very tender. The recipe was time consuming but easy. I might reduce the sauce a little next time.

Overall, it was a fun night.

Jackpot

2006-11-20T19:13:00.000-05:00

Look what I found last week in the supermarket!

I quickly did the math. About one litre (0.9L) of chicken stock is about $2.30 at my supermarket. This chicken was practically the same price! All I needed to do was get at least 0.9L of stock and I would be saving money. This chicken ended up yielding 6 cups of stock. (For those of you who aren't algebra TA's, I come out ahead.) Plus I saved some leeks tops from my leek and potato soup and used those too. I feel so thrifty.

Popovers

2006-11-19T10:43:00.000-05:00

The two readers of this blog who do not know me in real life may be unaware of the fact that, well, I love jam. I started writing about my kitchen experiments after the great jam making of summer 2006 and thus you missed out of the heady days of jam experimentation and jar boiling.

So, when my parents went to Europe this fall, they of course brought me jam as a present. (It is delicious, natch.) Since then, I have been looking for inventive jam vectors - things that can be used to convey jam to ones mouth. When I came across this post for popovers by Orangette, I knew I would have to try it.

Overall, the popovers were shorter than expected and not full of large holes. But they were delicious with my pear, black currant and violet jam. I find the violet taste is overwhelmed by most breads, but I think I could still taste it with the popovers. I think I will be having some more experiments with popovers.

Everybody's doing it

2006-11-15T17:20:00.000-05:00

As soon as I saw the "no-knead bread" recipe I knew I was going to try it. It was easy, it seemed like a science experiment and required a dutch oven - all my favourite things. Plus there was a video showing how to do it.

So far two food blogs I read had tried it. The Wednesday Chef has a very good article on it. My mother, who is living the high life and gets a paper version of the New York Times, also mentioned it to me. I won't repeat the recipe here: you can download it from one of the above links. Instead I am going to list the ingredients and tell you about my experiences.

1 5/8 cups water
3 cups all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal

Nothing too fancy

I made the dough last night. The recipe calls for 1 5/8 cups (5/8 is a little more than 1/2 a cup). The Wednesday Chef said her dough was too sticky, so I started by using 1 1/2 cups water and my dough was too dry and wouldn't come together. So I added some more water, not quite 1/4 cup. I think if you are making this, you should start with 1 1/2 cups and then add more water as needed.

Below is a photo of my dough, you can see it's ugly mess. But I didn't worry, it looked like that in the video too.

I let the dough rise overnight and all day while I was at school. When I came home it was dotted with bubbles, just as the recipe said it would be. It was very difficult to get it out of the bowl, it was sticky and I had to pour and pry it out - but again, I did not worry, it looked like that in the video too.

Next I folded it up like a dough envelope and let it sit. In the photo below you can see the fold at the bottom, and the dough dusted with cornmeal.

The bread is baked in a preheated pot, with the cover on for the first 30mins. I was worried that it would be stuck to the bottom of my dutch oven. But it popped right out. And it looked awesome.
And the taste was also excellent. Paul threatened to eat nothing but bread for dinner.

Chicken Pot Pie, Reworked

2006-11-11T09:23:00.000-05:00

I really like chicken pie. When I was watching the Barefoot Contessa the other day she made hers with only the top crust. She suggested if you don't like making pastry you should use store bought puff pastry. I find homemade pastry is too much work for every day meals, and store bought puff pastry is not in the grad school budget. Instead, in a flash of either insight or laziness I made my chicken pot pie with zero crusts and served it over noodles. (I got the idea from turkey tetrazzini my mother made once.) It was good like this, but I missed the crunch. I ate the leftovers on top of toast. Also, the recipe is a little bland. Next time I will add garlic and thyme.

My first step was to scoot over to foodnetwork.com, hoping that the Barefoot Contessa recipe was still up. The Barefood Contessa's recipes are only posted for a limited time on the web after the show has been broadcast in America - I presume this is so you buy the books. If you happen to live in Canada, it is not a very convenient situation.

My next step was to scale down the recipe. Six chicken breasts is too much food for two people, and, well, six chicken breasts are out of the grad school budget.

The original recipe recommends home made chicken stock. In fact, I recommend cooking the chicken the day before and then making chicken stock with the bones and whatever other odds and ends you have in your freezer. This way the 3 cups of stock required for my scaled back recipe have no additional cost: total savings $1; deliciousness increase, very high.

After all my modifications, here is the process I followed.

Friday Night: Roast Chicken Breasts

2 chicken breasts
1 tbsp olive oil
salt
pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Cover chicken breaks with oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast in oven for 45mins.

Saturday Morning: Make Chicken Stock

2 roasted chicken breasts
1/2 large carrot coarsely chopped
1/2 onion coarsely chopped
bay leaf

1. Remove skin and bones from chicken breast. Reserve meat.
2. Cover skin bone, carrot, onion and bay leaf with water (I had to use about four cups) and follow your favourite stock making procedure.

Saturday Night: Chicken Pot Pie Rework

meat from two chicken breasts
3 tbsp butter
1/3 cup flour
3 cups chicken stock
1.5 onions
1 cup diced carrots
1 cup frozen peas
6 sliced mushrooms
1/4 cup whipping cream
salt
pepper

1. Melt butter in a dutch oven and add onions. Cook until translucent. While you are doing this steam the carrots until they are almost as soft as you like.
2. Add flour. Cook one minute.
3. Add stock. If you do this a bit at time it is easier to keep the sauce smooth. Add carrots, mushrooms, and peas and bring to a simmer for about 10 mins.
4. Add cream and salt and pepper to taste.

Ice-Cream: Five Kinds

2006-11-06T21:12:00.000-05:00

One of Paul's coworkers, Yannick, is a dessert fiend. He runs a spiffy little site about where to get desserts in Toronto: Yummy Baguette. All summer, Paul has been raving about the delicious ice-creams Yannick brought into the office for the coffee club at his office to try.

Today Yannick had a few select coffee club members, and their girlfriends, over for ice-cream. We had (along with some crackers and cheese)
- white wine - yellow kiwi sorbet
- raspberry-rose ice cream
- chocolate gelato with a hint of rosemary
- chestnut-rum gelato
- poached apple ice cream topped with poaching red wine sorbet

I liked the raspberry-rose and the chocolate best. Some of the recipes are up on his site. All and all, a delicious and nutritious dinner.

Update: Yannick has a page on his Yummy Baguette site for gourmet ice-cream recipes and a separate site for recettes de glaces (ice-cream recipes in French). I am going to assume that the recipes in French are much better - as that tends to be the way of French things.

Back for more

2006-11-04T15:46:00.000-05:00

After the squash challenge, I went back to some old favourites: creamy tomato shrimp pasta, quiche with a hash brown crust, and one night Paul ran the show and made breaded chicken and potatoes, all easy-peasy quick things, safe stand-by meals.

But I was ready to get back to experimenting. And I was ready to take on my nemesis squash again. This time things would be different. This time I would make soup. For several reasons, first it's pretty hard to screw up, and second, I like to make soup for my Dooda, my grandfather, and I will be seeing him later this weekend.

I started my squash rematch with the pregame chicken stock production. If you are playing "laura dot cooks, the home game", you may wish to skip this step. But I had a couple of frozen barbecue chicken carcasses in my freezer. Sometimes, Paul and I have one of the supermarket barbecue chickens with homemade garlic bread for dinner if we are feeling lazy. By the second day I am usually sick of chicken sandwiches, but there is usually some meat left on the bones, so I just freeze them. Thus, I have essentially free bones to use to make stock. And free food is always in the grad school budget. In fact, according to some authorities, free food may be the corner stone of grad school nutrition, (see [1] and [2]).

Some caveats on using frozen barbecue chicken carcasses: the stock will take forever to come to a simmer, because you have essentially put in two chicken shaped ice-cubes in the pot, and (this is the scary one) the fat that rises will be orangish. Think fluorescent. The stock I made this time turned out really well, with a strong chicken flavour and very thick consistancy after it cooled.

One last note, celery is often an ingredient in chicken stock, but I don't like celery or celery leftovers and since making stock doesn't use the whole bunch, I leave it out. If you have celery, by all means add it. But I still think it is gross.

Chicken Stock

2 chicken carcasses with meat left on the bones (frozen or unfrozen)
1 bay leaf
1 carrot coarsely chopped
1 onion coarsely chopped

1. Place chickens in large pot and cover with water. (I used 8 cups.)
2. Add carrot, onion and bay leaf and bring to a simmer. Skim off any foamy weird stuff that rises to the top.
3. Simmer about 3 hours. If you taste a small piece of meat and it tastes like nothing (kind of gross and newspapery) then you are done. Strain stock and chill overnight.
4. Once the stock is chilled skim off any fat.

Butternut Squash Soup

1 butternut squash
4 cups chicken stock
2 tsp chopped fresh ginger
1 onion, coarsely chopped
3 tbsp butter
vegetable oil

1. Preheat the oven to 400F. Cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds. Oil a baking sheet and put the squash cut side down. Cook for 30-40 mins until tender and let cool.
2. Melt butter in a large pot and add onions. Cook to translucent and add the ginger.
3. Add stock to onions. Scoop squash out of the skin and add to onions and stock. Simmer for 30-40 mins.
4. Puree and add salt and pepper to taste.

All about the Joy

2006-11-03T17:17:00.000-05:00

The Joy of Cooking has been in the New York times a lot recently. First in the magazine and then this week in the food section, supposedly the cookbook issue.

In both articles, the 1997 edition, the one I have copy of, got a slagged a lot. In fact, my Joy was referred to as the new Coke of cookbooks. And, well, that really hurt. I think people are being unfair to my Joy. I have found it to be a great reference.

There are a few things I miss from my mom's copy. First, there is no squirrel recipe. As a child my mother would often read us the passage on squirrel much to our delight and amusement. Second, there is no jam chapter. The first jam I made was an apple butter from the Joy when I was in high school, so I was a little disappointed that they left out the jam. But otherwise the 1997 version is the tops. It doesn't use a lot of short cuts and is very informative. I check it everytime I am going to cook something new. Although, if I ever have to cook a squirrel I am going to be in trouble.

Buttercup Squash Challenge

2006-10-22T20:01:00.000-05:00

My cousin made some fantastic creamy buttercup squash for thanksgiving. I saw some at the market and tried to recreate it. If my mother was not on vacation I would have asked her for tactical advice before beginning the buttercup challenge. The next best thing would have been to ask my aunt. As I have made a tremendous number - at least for the grad school budget - of long distance phone calls so far this month (checking in with my grandfather) I decided to wing it without asking my Aunt for advice. I think the phone call might have been worth it.

The Adversary

The Tools. (For your personal enjoyment please note my bare foot at the bottom left, still stripey from my summer shoes.)

Round 1: Winner Paul (I couldn't get the thing cut in half, despite the Joy's advice to "cut slowly and deliberately".)
Round 2: Winner Laura. The nasty bits inside must be removed before roasting. If you've carved a pumkin, there is a good chance you have more than a passing acquaintance with this activity. (Warning, if you, like me, are alergic to raw squash you want to be careful doing this.)
Round 3: Winner Squash. What in all things holy happened while the squash was in the oven (at 400, for 40 mins, in 1cm of water in a pan covered with aluminium foil)? I have no idea. I think perhaps I over cooked it.

Round 4: Winner Squash (for obvious reasons, see photo below). The squash was very hard to remove from the peel and flaky and crumbly. I was surprised, because my cousin's squash was so creamy.

I finished off the squash by mashing it with a large quanity of butter, and some salt and pepper. Not bad, but nowhere near as good as my cousin's. But defeat in the final two rounds did not break my spirit, and I reflected on the challenge with a well earned bowl of yogurt and peacans.

Creamy Broccoli Soup

2006-10-16T20:02:00.000-05:00

I have been thinking a lot about something Amanda Hesser wrote about in "Cooking for Mr. Latte". The book is a collection of food columns from New York Times magazine. They were published around 2001-2002 and my mother and I were devoted to the column. It was maybe the first time I got interested in food.

In "Cooking for Mr. Latte", Ms Hesser writes about wanting to have a cooking repertoire, instead of always having cooking experiments. This got me thinking about what my repertoire. Since I make this soup about once a month, I think it would have to be included.

Although this soup takes a while, there is little actual prep - you just need to keep an eye on it while it cooks. I often make this on a Friday night if I am hanging out at home. The technique is a modification of the Joy of Cooking recipe. I like to add the beans to make the soup taste creamier.

Creamy Broccoli Soup
large bunch of Broccoli, about two stalks
1/2 cup dry white kidney beans (I think this is about 1/2 a 16oz can, but there are no small cans at the my supermarket, and I don't want the bean taste to be over powering.)
2-3 cups chicken stock
1-2 cups water
1 cup milk
3 tbsp skim milk powder (optional)
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp butter
1/2 spanish onion
2 cloves garlic

1. Soak the beans. I do this either the night before, or the morning I make the soup. I use the joy of cooking method to soak the beans: I pour a couple inches of boilling water over them and let them sit until it is time to make the soup.

2. Put the oil and butter in a large pot over medium heat. While the oil and butter are warming up, finely chop the onion, then add to the pot. Chop the garlic, and when the onion is translucent and soft add the garlic and fry for about a minute.

3. Drain the beans (they should be about double in size now) and add to the onion mixture. Cover the beans with the stock and water so they are submerged about an inch or so. Simmer the beans about an hour and a half, stirring occasionally until they are over-cooked and squishy.

4. Cut the woody ends off the broccoli stalks. Thinly slice the remaining stocks and broccoli tops and add to the beans. Cook until the broccoli is softened, 10-15mins. Then puree the soup using your kitchen tool of choice. (I use a blender).

5. Return the blended soup to the pot, add the milk and if you are using it, the skim milk powder. I like to use the skim milk power because it adds extra calcium.

This soup goes very nicely with whole grain toast.

Pink Pasta Salad

2006-09-24T18:06:00.000-05:00

I had a rather terrible kitchen experiment today; so to recover I made myself an egg salad sandwitch and watched Nigella, on the food network. It was one of her forever summer shows, and she made a rice salad with prawns on top. I was only half paying attention, but she metioned that often the best things recipes come out of using up what you have on hand. This pasta salad is very much along such lines, as I tried to create something in the spirt of prawns on rice for my lunch to take to school tomorrow.

Pink Pasta Salad
150 g orzo pasta
1 can tuna (the little can), but I think salmon would be good too
1/2 recipe for red sauce (below)
1/2 tsp olive oil

1. Cook pasta.
2. Coat pasta with olive oil (so it doesn't stick). Let pasta cool. (I went I had a shower).
3. Drain tuna, toss with pasta and sauce.

Red Sauce
This is a recipe from Jaques Pepin's Fast Food My Way, which was a birthday gift from my brother. He makes the sauce with wasabi paste - but most commercial wasabi paste is actually derived from horseradish, so I don't feel bad about the subsitution. I had to admit, the sauce is not red, but a sad pink colour. But its deliciousness makes up for it. I know the ingredients sound sketchy, but remember Jaques Pepin would not lead us astray.

1/3 cup mayonnaise
2 tbsp ketchup
1-2 tsp horseradish
juice of one lime

1. mix. that's it.

I made this sauce earlier in the week, to go with some broilled salmon. Since I still had some in the refigerator I figured it would be the perfect dressing for my pasta salad. Preliminary taste tests suggest it is a winner.

grown up tomato soup

2006-08-31T20:54:00.000-05:00

I love soup. It is the ultimate lunch. It is a good way add some extra vegetables to your day. It is dead easy to make.

I know it's not exactly summer food. But we had a few cooler days last week and it really felt like soup weather. However, this soup is also good cold. Plus, I felt really grown up not eating soup from a can.

Grown Up Tomato Soup

1/2 Spanish Onion, chopped fine
3 Cloves Garlic, chopped fine
28 oz can diced tomatos
19 oz can Cannellini beans
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 tsp brown sugar
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp butter

Step 1: Cook onions and garlic in the oil and butter until the onions become soft and translucent. (I do this in the bottom of my soup pot. It means there are less dishes to wash).

Step 2: Add the chopped tomatoes, chicken stock and brown sugar. Rinse the beans well, because canned beans always have scary goop on them, and add the beans to the pot. Bring to the boil.

Step 3: Puree. I am sure you know, but be carefully with the hot soup in the blender. If you find the soup too thick, you might thin it out with some more chicken stock or water.

That's it. As you can see dead easy.

77 cent chicken

2006-08-24T08:16:00.000-05:00

I know what you are thinking: "77 cent chicken. That must have come from the remainder meat bin". And, well, you would be thinking correctly. Because sometimes - okay, actually all the time - when you are in grad school, you buy meat from the remainder meat bin. Because it is damm cheap. I just keep in the freezer until I feel like eating it.

What did I do with my penny pinching prize? Well once it thawed out, I cooked it with some of the basil I have growing on my windowsill.

Basil Mozzarella Chicken
(two servings)

4 chicken thighs (on the bone, with the skin still on)
8 fresh basil leaves
4 slices mozzarella
salt (not much)
pepper (even less)
olive oil

Some notes:
For gods sake, don't use low fat mozzarella like I did. It's disgusting, and every time I buy it I vow never to buy it again.

Preheat oven to 375.

Step one: Poke your finger under the chicken skin and make a little pocket. I am not going to kid you, this step is pretty gross. Whenever I have to do something like this I have a moment where I consider becoming a vegan. But if you steel yourself and think of bacon this will pass.

Step two: Put a slice of mozzarella between two of the basil leaves and stuff it under the little pocket. This requires some dexterity, but if I managed it, you can do it too.

Step three: Rub chicken with a splash of olive oil (sorry, I really can't be more precise) and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.

Step four: Cook in the oven for about 45mins. I left mine in for an hour and that was too long.

feisty cucumber salad

2006-08-17T17:54:00.000-05:00

I buy a lot of cucumbers. They are quick to cut up to take for lunch. So when I decided to make a salad tonight I had half of one kicking around in the fridge. I also had half a zucchini. I wanted something different than the usual yogurt cumcumber salad, or the vinegary eastern European salad.

This is what I came up with.

Feisty Cucumber Salad
(about two servings)

1/2 cucumber
1/2 zucchini
2 tbsp pine nuts
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp vegetable oil
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 tsp cider vinegar

Step 1: Toast the pine nuts. While the pine nuts are toasting, cut up cucumber and zucchini into bite sized pieces (the picture shows how I like to cut up mine).

Step 2: Mix the oils, mustard and vingar together and toss all the ingredients together.

Not the fanciest thing ever, but something nice and quick for weeknights.

In which I move out and get my own kitchen

2006-08-16T17:47:00.000-05:00

The story so far: I get kicked out of my parents house (my mother invoked the little used "once you start grad school you must get the hell out of my house" rule). After I recovered from being turfed out, I set out on the dreadful business of looking for an apartment. A quest which soon leads me to ask questions like "is there anything odd about the kitchen?" and learning that the lack of a kitchen sink qualifies as normal in some people's kitchens. After a whirlwind tour of apartments without kitchens (do these people not eat?), apartments with bar fridges and hot plates and several mold filled basement apartments suitable for people the size of elves, I finally find an acceptable place. Sure the kitchen is the size of a walk in closet and I have to keep my microwave in a cupboard because I have so little shelf space.

But at least it has a stove.

And so my cooking experiments began. Now that I've been cooking on my own for a year and have bored everyone I know with my natter about cooking and my food photos, I figure I may as well write about it.