bagel melts May 28, 2008

mmmMMMmmm…bagel melts.  Pretty sure no better breakfast exists in the world.  Someone once asked me what my favourite sandwich is and I couldn’t answer but come to think of it the bagel melt must be it.  So it’s not really a really real sandwich.  All good by me.  It’s close enough in my books and consists of three loves of mine; breads, fresh vegies and, of course, cheese.  This one’s made with an everything bagel, roma tomatoes, dill, black pepper and mild but wonderfully melty marble cheese but they can be made with just about every flavour combination.  Try cinnamon raisin bagels with apple slices and mozzarella or provolone.  Or sesame bagels with roasted eggplant, red pepper slices and goat cheese.  One would have to try very hard to do any wrong with these…you can even nuke ‘em!  That said, I strongly suggest the oven method – just slip them onto a broiling pan (I slipped mine onto the pizza stone currently occupying the oven) then into a 450 degree oven.  Once in turn on the broiler and leave the oven door open a smidge, not to keep the broiler for turning off (the bagels aren’t likely to be in there for that long) but because the cheese will go golden brown (which is when you want to take it out) very quickly and having the door open tends to make one acutely aware of the fact that there’s stuff going on in there they need to not forget.

black bean & tomato soup May 13, 2008

This is probably the easiest meal we put together in our kitchen on a fairly regular basis.  Its roots are found in the CPHA’s publication, The Basic Shelf Cookbook, which is something I feel every household should have a copy of.  I don’t actually own the book right now (and before you call me a hypocrite you should know that I’ve owned the book and given it away at least 7 times.)  The contents are brilliant on a fundamental level: simple meals comprised largely of ingredients with long shelf lives which focus on maintaining nutritional integrity.  It can be ordered here for CDN $7.50.

My recipe differs from the original by a couple of steps and ingredients but still maintains the inherent simplicity while stepping up the flavour quotient a couple of notches.  Oh, and it’s entirely vegan if you omit the cheese or replace it with a soy based cheese.

What you need:

1tbsp olive oil

1 tsp. coriander, ground

1 tsp. cumin, ground

1 medium sized cooking onion, finely chopped (vidalias and reds are my favourites for this soup)

4 cloves of garlic, crushed

2 cans of diced tomatoes (or jars if you do your own)

1 can of black beans (or soak the dried kind if you want to)

1 can of sweet or baby corn (or use leftovers if you’ve got ‘em)

2 cups of vegetable broth (or dissolve 2 cubes/packets of bouillon-esque stuff in your 2 cups of boiling water)

1 tbsp dried or 1/4 cup fresh oregano

1 tbsp dried or 1/4 cup fresh basil

A pretty, fresh herb and some cheese for garnish (I’ve got cilantro and cheddar in the pic above but parsley &/or basil are great alternatives to the cilantro if you don’t have any on hand.

Toast the spices in a large pot over medium-high heat until fragrant.  Turn the heat down to medium-low and add the tablespoon of olive oil.  Once the oil is hot, sweat the onions and garlic in it for 3-4 minutes or until translucent.  Add the tomatoes, corn, beans & stock.  Up the heat again to medium-high and keep it there, stirring constantly, until the mixture reaches a low boil.  Stir in the herbs.  Move to large bowls and garnish.

samosas for Todd April 29, 2008

No picture of this as I haven’t had the opportunity to do the frozen versus fresh trial I wanted to as ‘plain yoghurt’ means ‘vanilla-flavoured yoghurt’ in the minds and hearts of my yoghurt buyers. I shall post my recipe for the wonderful nibblies things anyway.

The dough recipe I use comes out of a cookbook called Peterborough Peoples’ Potluck Picks. This amazingly alliterative oeuvre was purchased through a local fundraiser for Canadian Crossroads International back in 1993 and contains simply the tastiest & most forgiving, recipe for samosa dough ever.

What you need for the dough:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp. salt

2 tbsp. butter, margarine or ghee

3/4 cup plain (not vanilla) yoghurt (I prefer balkan style for this but anything from fat-free to homemade will work)

Lightly mix the flour and salt in a large bowl then cut in the butter/margarine with a fork or a pastry cutter until the mixture looks all coarse like breadcrumbs. Stir in the yoghurt then mix it all together with your hands. Dough hooks and other gadgets really don’t work well with this dough as part of the pliability of it leans on body heat – avoiding getting your hands dirty will not result in a good dough. You don’t need to knead it, just mix with the hands forming it into a ball as you go. Once that’s done you can set it in the fridge while preparing the samosa guts.

What you need for the innards:

1/2 cup of chopped onion – I like sweet & nutty flavour of vidalias for samosas

3 cloves chopped garlic

3 large potatoes diced – I prefer reds as they wash up quickly and the skins can be left on but usually use 4-5 of these as they don’t really come in large size russets (which is an effective alternative) or other white-skinned varieties do around here

1 cup of fresh or frozen peas – alternatively, that frozen vegie mix comprised of carrots, peas, corn & beans works really well too and allows me to get samosas past people who say they don’t like peas

2 tbsp. margarine, butter or ghee

juice of 2 limes

salt to taste

spices (I’ll get into that in a bit)

Heat a skillet over medium-high heat then melt the butter/margarine/ghee in it. Add the onions, garlic, potatoes and salt and allow everything to brown just a bit. Once slightly browned, reduce the heat to low-medium and continue to cook until the potatoes are fork tender (about ten minutes.) Up the heat to high, add the salt and peas and cook over high heat for another 2-3 minutes. Then it’s time to remove the filling from the heat source and talk about spices.

As you’ve probably been able to deduce, samomas are pretty versatile creatures. As such, there are infinite possibilities for dealing with their spiciness. One could create their own amalgam of spices, toss in a pre-made garam masala or curry paste or keep them minimal and somewhat pirogie-like. If I’m feeling lazy I’ll toss in 1 tbsp of Sybil’s Jerk Seasoning or her Kick Ass Curry Paste (I’m sorry for those of you who don’t live in the area and don’t have access to her wonderfully spicey bounty of deliciousness) but I almost never use a pre-fab curry powder. So when I’m feeling less lazy I mix up a concoction of equal parts cumin, coriander, allspice, nutmeg, tumeric & ground chilies…which I often have on hand as I also almost always make up too much of this concoction. This can all be ground together in a coffee grinder, small food processor or with a mortar & pestle.  The important part is to season your filling to taste and mix it well.  After that’s done the lime juice can be added and mixed in as well.

The filling should be allowed to chill at least an hour or two before using it with the dough otherwise it could make the samosas fall apart.  When you’re ready to fill them, get out the ball of dough and divide it in half, then divide those in half again and so on until you’ve got 32 little balls.  Then just roll those little balls out into circles as thinly as you can, add about 2 tbsp of filling, fold the dough over the filling and press the dough edges together with a fork.  I always need to experiment with the first couple I make.  The beauty of this dough is that it’s very stretchy, the downside to that is that I end up overestimating it’s stretchiness.  I’m an overstuffer.  Some people are understuffers, and the downside to that is you end up with really doughy samosas.

I like to get at least one other person in on the rolling and stuffing part of the samosa-making process.  This allows me to get them cooking as we go which prevents them from sitting and sweating on a surface which doesn’t allow them to breathe and making them more breakable.  That generally plays out as me being in charge of the hot oil for deep frying, 1 kid rolling and 1 kid stuffing.  If I don’t have an extra set of hands around to help me out I can get around the sweat issue by preheating the oven to 425 degrees, moving the stuffed samosas directly to a lightly greased baking sheet then moving the full-of-stuffed-samosas baking sheets directly to the oven to cook for about 5 minutes (just long enough to dry the dough, but not to brown it) then moving the samosas onto cooling racks.  The advantage of going that route rather than directly to deep fry is that they’re easier to store as they can be tossed into freezer bags and then into the freezer then brought out and deep fried at a later date.  One could also finish them in the oven and bypass deep frying altogether, but let’s face it, part of the appeal is the crispy, goldenness of these tasty treats.

So there you go.  It’s not a complicated process but it definitely can be a long one.  I like to justify it by making a double or triple batch so there are some to enjoy immediately and others to be put away for entertaining later.

crepes April 13, 2008

Someone suggested having a crepe-themed wine (or ‘let’s eat ’til we burst’) night with our regular motley crew and Friday that plan finally came together. They’re really not the mystery one might have you believe them to be and they make for a nice, decadent, incredibly versatile treat once every 5 years or so. You may as well try to make them.

What you need for savoury crepes:

2 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1 cup flour
1/4 cup melted butter
1/2teaspoon salt
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

What you need for dessert crepes:

2 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup water 1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup melted butter
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons of amaretto

Butter or cooking spray (which I don’t normally endorse the use of but I’ve score a lifetime supply of it and need to use it for something) for greasing the pan(s).

In the bowl of a large (10-12 cup) food processor mix together all of the ingredients (except the butter or cooking spray for the pan) and pulse together 10 times for 2 seconds each. If you feel the need for more batter just double the batches but mix them separately for a smoother batter. That’s it, that’s all. Well, until you’re ready to cook them and you won’t be for a good hour or so as it’s best to refrigerate the batter for at least an hour to quell the bubbles which cause crepe breakage during and after cooking. I also like to allow the batter to sit at room temperature for a good 15 minutes before cooking as it helps the butter get back in with the rest of the batter family after it’s resolidification time in the frigo.

As far as cooking crepes goes I tend to prefer a heavy bottomed skillet over the thin, low lipped crepe pans. the reason for this is that I can get a good flip out of a larger pan and can control the heat in them better. The good flip means less handling which means less breakage which makes for happy crepes. The temperature control means less burning which means I can have two pans on the go at once without compromising the integrity of the crepes. So 2 heavy skillets over medium high heat with a wee bit of butter rubbed on them or cooking spray sprayed in them for lube will get you going – just remember to start them one at a time and if you don’t feel like doing two at a time, don’t.

It always takes me at least three crepes to gage how much batter to use when experimenting with new equipment (and I was as I wasn’t at home.) I eyeball how much goes in; I start with about a quarter of a cup of batter in the pan and swirl it around until the bottom is lightly coated in batter. If my crepe is not translucent enough to see the bottom of the pan I know I’ve got too much batter. If there are holes through the crepe I know I’ve got too little. I adjust accordingly either way with subsequent crepes until I get it right.

Crepes can be filled with just about anything. Friday night we had each guest bring a selection of fillings for both sweet and savoury crepes so our selection consisted of roasted chicken breasts, asparagus, sauteed mushrooms and spinach, cheese curds, old cheddar cheese, butter chicken sauce, mushroom wine sauce, bechamel, prosciutto, tomato butter, shrimp & potatoes. For the dessert crepes (sorry;no pictures of those – I blame the wine) we saw amaretto cream cheese whipped cream, amaretto stewed fruits (do you sense a theme here?) raspberry compote, fresh strawberries and blackberries, and probably a bunch of other stuff I can’t remember. It was all wonderfully yummy and incredibly filling but kept up with the wine nicely.

sweet potato drop biscuits February 10, 2008

So these are what I had intended to make before burning the sweet potatoes. They’re a wonderful accompaniment to roasted or fried chicken or just on their own with a little butter or red pepper jelly.

What you need:

3.5 cups of all-purpose flour

1 tbsp. baking powder

1/2 cup shortening

1 tsp. salt

1 large peeled cooked, mashed/pureed yam/sweet potato (this should yield about 2 cups of mash – if it’s less than just top it up to two cups with more buttermilk)

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

Preheat oven to 425. In a large bowl mix the dry ingredients together then cut the shortening in with a fork or pastry blender until the mixture achieves a coarse, crumbly texture. In another bowl mix the sweet potatoes and buttermilk together until well blended. Slowly add this to the dry mixture, stirring all the while until you have a loose, wet dough. Grease 2 10×13 casserole dishes or a baking sheet if you prefer a crisper finish to biscuits and drop heaping 1/2 cup dollops of the mixture into them, leaving about half an inch between each one. Bake in the oven for 15- 20 minutes until golden brown. This should give you a dozen biscuits.

To this batch I also added 2 tablespoons of dried chives & 1 teaspoon each of ginger, onion powder & nutmeg to the dry ingredients just to spice them up a bit.

Of course this recipe can be adapted to make traditional cut biscuits by adding another half cup of flour, or enough to make it a kneadable dough. I’m lazy so I just go with drops – plus I feel they add an interesting textural element to a plate.

Spicey, citrusey vegetable stir-fry February 6, 2008

We’ve had a bout of poorliness for the last few days chez nous so I thought I would put together a cold-busting, sniffle inducing dish.

What you need for the sauce:

Juice of 2 large navel oranges

1/4 cup soya sauce

1/2 cup chili & garlic sauce

1 tsp. sesame oil

What you need for the rest:

1 pkg. extra firm tofu or 1/5 cups of pre-fried firm tofu

16 thinly sliced shitake mushrooms

2 cups broccoli florets

2 large red bell peppers, thinly sliced

1 can sliced water chestnuts

2 cups snow peas

1/2 cup grated coconut

Thoroughly mix all of the sauce ingredients except the oil together in a medium sized bowl and set aside.

If the tofu is not yet fried then that will be the next step. I like to cut it into small slices by cutting the loaf into thirds lengthwise then 1/4 inch slices widthwise. This can be done quickly so oil for shallow frying can be heated before cutting. Shallow fry all of the tofu in small batches – about a third of the loaf at a time. It won’t take long as it really only needs a lightly crisp outer coating. Move each batch to a towel-lined plate as you go and set that plate aside until later.

Heat the wok and 2 tbsp peanut oil over high heat until very hot. Add the mushrooms to the oil, lifting them up along the sides of the wok and letting them rest there for about 30 seconds. Stir the mushrooms then lift up around the sides for another 30 seconds. Add the broccoli and keep stirring the mushroom/broccoli mixture around for about 2 minutes until the broccoli has a little give to it and isn’t quite so crisp. Add the water chestnuts, peppers & snow peas and stir for a minute before adding the sauce. Stir the sauce in with a pinch of salt to coat all of the vegetables. Top with a lid and allow it all to simmer for 3 minutes. Toss in the coconut and sesame oil and stir again to coat. Serve over brown rice vermicelli and you’re done!

Tabouleh January 16, 2008

I was feeling particularly in need of something summery and given that making a dress would leave me unable to wear it for a few more months I decided to make Tabouleh. Of course it normally looks more parsley-laden that the one above but I was working on a whim and didn’t have everything available in the quantities require – it was still quite good.

What you need:

2 cups dried bulgur

4 cups boiling water

1 large, finely chopped, red onion

3 cloves crushed garlic

3 cups chopped fresh parsley leaves

1 cup chiffonaded fresh mint (dried can be used when it’s not in season)

5 or 6 diced medium-sized tomatoes (I find firmer, less ripened tomatoes hold up better in this dish)

1/4 to 1/2 cup lemon juice (depending on how lemony one likes their tabouleh)

2 tbsp. olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Several hours in advance (4 is probably the least one could get away with,) reconstitute the bulgar in the four cups of boiling water. Cover, refrigerate, do your laundry and come back and check to see if your bulgur has soaked up all of the water. If it has then add everything else to it. Stir (with a wooden spoon or some other gentle device which will not bruise your herbs.) Chill. Leaving it overnight is ideal as it gives everything a chance to marry.

This can be served in romaine lettuce leaves which make fancy little finger food boats, in or on pitas or just on its own.

Pie for breakfast December 22, 2007

Had an early morning out of town visitor roll in today and so needed something quick and tasty and with some semblance of nutritional value to serve for breakfast. Of course pie was the first thing to come to mind. That’s just the way I roll.

What you need:

2 deep dish pie shells

2 eggs

1 400g tub of ricotta cheese

1 600g bag of frozen mixed (or not…I like mixed) berries

1/4 cup of sugar

Angostura bitters

2 pinches of salt

2 pinches of nutmeg

2 tbsp margarine or butter

freshly ground black pepper

Get the pastries out of the freezer and set them on a baking dish or an actual pie plate so they come to room temperature. In a bowl whisk the eggs until frothy. To those add one pinch of salt, one pinch of nutmeg, 6 dashes of bitters and give the lot a good whisking again. Stir in the cheese until combined.

Toss the berries, the sugar, the other pinches, about 6 more dashes of bitters and a few good grinds of black pepper (I really like to taste the pepper in it so I gave mine 30 good grinds) in a bowl together. Move this mixture to the bottom pie shell. Dot the top of the berry mixture with butter or margarine then spread the egg/cheese blend over the top. Top with the second pie shell (don’t forget to pierce the top to let steam out) and bake in a 425 degree oven for 30 minutes.

I don’t want to share December 21, 2007

Mushrooms, cheese, seafood and anything which comes even vaguely hors d’oeuvre-shaped (not necessarily in that order) are my favourite foodstuffs ever, so when asked to bring the pre-meal nibblies for our family Christmas do I gladly accepted and (rather masochistically) began to devise recipes comprised of all my favourites for savoury stuffs to give me a break from all of the sweets baking I’ve been doing…because, you know, I don’t have nearly enough things going on to occupy my time.

Thanks to the miracles which are Tenderflake and Presidents Choice frozen pastries and a little help from the fella, I was able to get these crabesque quiches & multi-mushroom turnovers pretty quickly.

The quiches – what you need:

24 frozen tart shells (frozen ones usually come in twelves)

1 large minced red onion (you can use a regular cooking onion but I really enjoy the sweetness a red onion imparts to complement the crab)

1.5 cups of imitation crab meat or 2 cans of the real stuff

1 cup grated provolone cheese

7 eggs

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 tsp salt

2 tsp ground pepper

a pinch of nutmeg

a bunch of cilantro

Before doing anything else, get the pastries out of the freezer and set them out on baking sheets so they’ll come to room temperature as you work. Preheat the oven to 425. To each shell add a teaspoon of onion then divide the crab then the cheese up evenly between them. Top each one with 2-3 cilantro leaves. In a large bowl whisk the remaining ingredients together and divide the mixture evenly between the 24 quiches. Toss the lot of them into the cooker.

If you’re planning to freeze these (as I was) then they only need to cook for about 10 minutes or until the egg has set. To reheat simply pull them out of the freezer about an hour before they need to be served and toss them back into the oven preheated to 425 for about 7 minutes. If you intend to eat them right away they’ll need about 17-20 minutes of cook time off the hop.

Turnovers – what you need:

2 pkgs puff pastry

1 large minced red onion (or possibly the rest of the one from the quiches)

2 cups chopped mushrooms (I get these handy packages of mixed mushrooms which include portabello, shiitake and oyster at the grocer’s)

1 cup grated stinky cheese (I used emmenthaler I had leftover from a fondue at the weekend but other good choices would be old cheddar, edam, guyere & romano)

Preheat oven to 425. Puff pastry generally comes in packages of 2 pastries each – we’ll want to roll each of those out into 10″ x 10″ish squares then cut each square into 9 smaller squares. To each smaller square add 1 tsp onion then divide the cheese and mushrooms up among the 36 squares, fold them into triangles and press down the egdes. Toss’em on a baking sheet or stone and then into the oven for about 10 minutes or until they start to brown (if freezing) or 15-20 minutes if cooking through and eating immediately. Again, these will require about 1 hour of standing time out of the freezer and another 7 minutes in the oven at 425 to reheat.

Over and under an orange-cranberry pound cake December 16, 2007

This is my second favourite thing to bake for the holidays. Where traditional pound cakes use a pound each of flour, butter, sugar and eggs, this one is a slightly (just slightly) lighter and easier on the stirring arm version. My recipe makes 8 mini loaves for sharing but is easily reduced by two thirds for a single, normal-sized loaf.

What you need:

1.5 cups butter

3 cups granulated sugar

6 eggs

4.5 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1.4 cups of milk

3 tsp. vanilla

1.5 cups dried cranberries

grated peels and squeezed juice of 4 oranges

Start by creaming the butter, sugar & eggs together until fluffy with a hand mixer. Combine the flour, salt, baking powder and add to the creamed mixture slowly, alternating between it and the milk. Once all of that is combined add the vanilla (for this batch I ran out of vanilla so I substituted 3 teaspoons of Angostura bitters and I think I’ll keep using them as a replacement because the results are sooooo good) and mix again. Now it’s time to get out ye olde wooden spoon and stir in the cranberries and orange peels.

Preheat the oven to 350. Grease whatever it is you’re choosing to bake them in – I used two 10×12″ casserole dishes then I divide the cakes into 8 after they’re cooked. Bake in the preheated oven for 20-30 minutes or until a test with a toothpick comes out clean.

Use the orange juice with 3/4 of a cup of granulated sugar to make the glaze by mixing them together then pouring over the cakes as they come out of the oven. Allow to cool then refrigerate immediately or the cakes will be eaten.