A Dream Fulfilled

For years, I have wanted an ice cream maker. I just wasn't willing to spend $100 or so on buying one, so I kept hoping one would fall into my lap, needing a good home. You know, like a lost puppy or something. It didn't happen. I asked for an ice cream maker on freecycle. That didn't happen. Two weeks ago, things changed. I was working at a charity event called Put Up Your Dukes. Part of my job was to help out on the silent auction table, and wouldn't you know it... there was an ice cream maker up for bid.

I knew it was destined to be mine. Now I just had to let the other bidders know it. And let them know, I did. I had to outbid a few people, but I felt in my bones that it was meant to come home with me.

And it did.

Now what the hell do I do with it?

As it happened, I had just watched Chef Michael's Kitchen and he made brown sugar vanilla ice cream. I decided to make that. Now it would have helped if:
A) I had read his recipe fully before running to the store, instead of just skimming it, and
B) I had read the instructions provided by the machine.

Had I read those things, I would have realized I needed whipping cream instead of 10% coffee cream, and that part of the machine needs to be frozen for 6 hours before you use it.

Oh well. Ice cream making had to wait for another day. Since I had already bought the cream, I wasn't about to get more. I decided to bastardize Michael Smith's recipe and sort of make up my own, based on the ingredients at hand.

In my stand mixer, I whipped 7 egg yolks and two cups of brown sugar.

I froze the 7 egg whites. For what you ask? I have no idea. Until I need them. This time at least, I remembered to write "7 egg whites" on the tupperware I froze them in, so 32094899765847 months from now when I find them again, I will know what they are.

7 Egg whites:

Back to the yolks. I whipped them until they were pale yellow in color.

In a good sized pot, I gently heated 4 cups of homo milk with 2 cups of the coffee cream. I added a good splodge of vanilla extract and added a vanilla bean to simmer. Once the yolks were nice and light, and the milk/cream mixture was hot and bubbly, I tempered the egg mixture slowly with the hot milk, until half was in the eggs. I then added the egg/milk/cream mixture to the rest of the milk/cream and started heating it again, whipping all the while.

I whipped and heated the mixture for what felt like forever. In reality, it was about 30 minutes; but I still didn't feel that it was thickening enough. Finally I said "screw it!" I strained it through a mesh strainer, and discovered at the bottom that it had thickened along the sides where the whisk didn't actually reach into the pot, and I had sweet and tasty scrambled eggs. Straining it took care of that little issue, but the kids thought the bits that remained were delicious creme brulee and wanted more. I had to beat them off from the rest of the egg mixture with sticks.

Once I cooled the mixture down, I was able to get the piece of the machine that I had frozen for 6 hours and set the machine up. Its quite loud, but what it does is continuously stir the mixture while freezing it.

As you can see, I had a very interested party watching the happening. It is not as interesting as watching popcorn pop though. After about half an hour, I came back and it was "thick and zesty", as my dad would say. I scooped the whole thing into a tupperware (unlabelled this time!) and tossed it into the freezer for the night.

Tonights dessert was predictibly ice cream. It was either that or have my children maul me to death in search of some *other* confectionary.

I think they liked it. Now, I'm setting my sights on a pasta maker. Anybody got one mouldering away in their cupboards? Let me know! I'll be GLAD to take it off your hands!

Goaty Goodness. Maybe.

Last week I had some friends over for dinner, and for that dinner, I put out a cheese spread. One of those cheeses was a fig goat chevre. I love it. One of my guests tasted it, and said it reminded him of cheesecake. WELL!

Now if you recall from earlier posts, I talked about how my husband can't eat cow dairy, but goat cheese is ok. So I set about making a goat cheese cheesecake that could be eaten by a dairy free, low-to-no wheat dude, and hopefully enjoyed by those of us who CAN eat all the cheesy, creamy goodness.

For starters, you need lots of fig goat cheese. I used three.

At this point in a regular cheesecake, you add eggs and sugar. So I did. I added a handful of sugar and 1 egg, and realized that was the last egg.

What to do, what to do. I could tell immediately that one egg just wouldn't cut it. It definitely needed more. So I ran out the door to get more eggs. Once I had them, I added 2 more, a wodge of vanilla and whipped it up until it seemed light and fluffy and creamy.

Pre 2nd and 3rd egg addition:

I forgot to take a picture after the egg addition. Oh well. I tasted it at this point, and found it a bit too sweet, so I added a blob of plain chevre to balance it out. Next time, I would simply not add the sugar.

Last week I made a sour cream coffee cake that came out wonderfully. The topping really made that cake. It was basically a buttery pecan sugary crubmle, and I thought it could be adapted to a crust. I ground up in my vita-mix a bunch of pecans, added a bit of brown sugar (for more flavor) and added some spelt flour.

In a pot, I melted a stick of vegan butter.

Unfortunately, I melted too much, and wound up with a bit of a soggy mess once I mixed it all together. This is what happens when you don't measure.

Drastic action was called for. That meant adding spelt flour until it was no longer a soggy mess.

So once the crust mixture was dry enough, I pressed it into a pie tin, and put it in the fridge for 20 minutes to chill. I then poured in the cheese mixter, fixed it into a bain marie in a 350 oven and set it to bake for about 50 minutes.

Results were mixed. My hubby, who the cheesecake was intended for, loved it. He ate 2 slices. My sister found it tasted "goaty" and wasn't terribly impressed.

She loved the crust though. At least, she said she did. It is possible she lied, to spare my feeling. I don't know. She just couldn't get past the goat cheese. She is not a goat cheese lover, as I am.

In the end, we all decided it could be improved by adding a whizzed mango into the raw egg/cheese/vanilla mixture, to help temper the goaty flavour. So all in all, mixed results, however I maintain it was a good idea.

Stew-on-the-run

My day was absolutely crazy, starting at 7:45 and there was no clear end in site. So much to do, so little time. I had less than 10 minutes to get my dinner stew going, and I managed to whip it together.

A friend of mine asked me if I had a slow cooker, and my response was "NO". There are two issues with slow cookers, as far as I am concerned.

1. I don't have one
2. I don't want to smell garlic and onions (one of my favorite smells) at 8 in the morning.

I improvise a slow cooker by using a big ass dutch oven. Throw it all in, fill with liquid, pop it in the oven at a moderate low temperature, and walk away for a few hours.

So today in my 9 minutes, I managed to brown the beef, chop a bunch of veggies, add some seasoning, a bottle of leftover wine (I know! Leftover wine! What a concept!), some balsamic vinegar and toss the whole mess into the oven.

Pre liquid addition:

The important trick to browning the beef is that you DRY it first. Since I had zero time, I only got this one (above) picture of the stew. You'll have to use your imagination.

So you dry the beef, throw it in the dutch oven to brown, and while that is happening, you chop onions, carrots, celery (which I forgot), potatoes, yams and whatever else you want to add. I threw all those in, added a bay leaf and poured in the remains of a balsamic vinegar bottle. I then searched for leftover wine. I had about a cup of red, which was wonderful but wasn't enough to cover the meat. I had to search for more. The only thing I found was some white Reisling in the fridge. We aren't really white drinkers, which is why we had so much leftover. Into the pot it went. Which probably was a bit of a mistake, as it was pretty sweet, which I discovered 3 hours later when I tasted the stew. But more about that in a moment.

I covered the pot up, popped it in the oven at 300 degrees, and off I went to take my kid to get his braces off.
Before:

After:

Gorgeous.

So when we got back from the orthodontist, I tasted the stew. It was kind of sweet from the Reisling. To combat that, I added some liquid smoke and a bit of smoked salish salt. Worked perfectly.

Sorry, no pictures. Too busy.

Another Salmon Post

Ok, this is going to be a quick one, mostly because I am stressed and have no time, and not a lot of pictures of the salmon I made last week and forgot to post about. In the time it takes me to write this post, I could actually prepare this salmon. Its THAT easy.

It also only contains 4 ingredients. And most people have these ingredients in their homes.

Normally, I use only wild fish, but the other day T&T had farmed salmon filets on sale for something ridiculous like $3 point something a pound. I can't resist a bargain, and when something is *THAT* cheap, I figure it has to be fresh since they must go through an absolute TON of it.

I picked up a lovely and huge side of salmon and it only cost nine bucks. You read that right. NINE DOLLARS. It was enough to feed 6 people. Now THAT is a bargain.

Back to the recipe. In a ziplock bag, pour about 3/4 cup of orange juice, squeeze in about 1/4 cup ketchup (yes, I know that seems gross, but its not), about 1/4 cup soya sauce (I only use Bragg's because it is gluten free and really amino acids so is much healthier) and a few cloves of garlic crushed. Mix together, and toss your salmon in to marinate for a few hours. Please note that all measurements are guesses since I don't actually measure. As long as you don't add too much soy, you should be fine.

Set your barbeque to screaming hot, and put the fish on. I use a basket because it is so much easier to flip the fish and not have it fall into a bazillion pieces. It really pisses me off when that happens, because you lose half your fish!

As you can see, the fish is a bit too big for the basket. Who cares, it still works. So turn the heat down when you put the fish on, unless you like burned salmon. Personally, I like it seared but still a bit rare in the centre. With wild salmon you have to watch it like a hawk, or you will dry it out completely. There is less fat in wild fish, so it cooks quicker and dries out quicker.

Turn the fish after a few minutes, and I pour a bit more of the marinade on top to steam it and keep it moist. Cook for a few more minutes until it is BBQ'ed to the desired level of doneness. Serve with a garnish of lemon slices.

I was lucky enough to get this picture of the fish before it was completely gone. They descended on it like hungry buzzards and demolished it pretty fast.

It Was The Salmon Mousse (Well, really it was a cutlet)

My fridge is pretty empty at the moment, at least for me. Ok, there are still a whackload of unidentified jars full of something or other in there, but they don't count. And I have been quite diligent in not buying new crap for my pantry. I really have been using it all up. My grocery bills have gone done by about 30%. I'm not complaining, but it does get a bit... difficult... to constantly figure out new things to make that use up stuff, are healthy, and tasty.

Last night was no exception. After staring blankly into the fridge for about 20 minutes thinking "what the hell am I going to make for dinner" and getting no notions, I looked again in the pantry. Finally, inspiration struck. I would make salmon cutlets.

For this, you need a few cans of salmon, a few potatoes, an egg, onion, seasonings, bread crumbs and some herbs.

Salmon, if you recall, I had lots of. Eggs are always in house. We usually have potatoes too, but it had been a while since I had bought any. Anyway... I had potatoes.

As you can see, it has been a while since I used some of my potatoes. Never mind. The eyes can be scooped out and the potato used. So what if it was a little... old. Once it was steamed and mashed nobody would know the difference. I hoped.

So I steamed the potatoes (once I had blinded that big bugger) and mashed them, and added the 3 cans of salmon. I added an egg, half an onion finely minced, cilantro, garlic, sriracha sauce for kick, green onion and a bunch of spices for seasoning. Then I shaped them into patties.

Dip the patties into bread crumbs, (in this case, spelt breadcrumbs) and put them in the fridge until you are ready to fry. Unless of course, you want your cat to eat them.

The minute he heard the can being opened, he was there. Waiting for his opportunity. Giving me the evil "feed me, I'm STARVING" cat eye. Since I put them away and thwarted his nefarious plan, I'm sure he was pissed. Which is probably why, at 4:35a.m he started yowling in my bedroom really. REALLY. Loudly. Payback, I suppose. Little bastard.

Anyway. So fry the patties in a little bit of EVOO at a medium high heat, until they are crispy and browned.

Alan and the kids LOVED them, and were fighting over the last one. To me, they reminded me of childhood. My grandmother used to make something similar, as did my mother, who made them with cans of tuna. HOWEVER. My friend Guy dropped by right as we were sitting down to eat, so we pulled out an extra plate for him to join us. I guess he was expecting fresh salmon, not canned. The word "cutlet" had him thinking fresh meat, butterlied, breaded and fried. So he bit into a cutlet, and was not amused. Of course, I whipped out my camera.

Notice also, the hand of someone (I won't say who) stealing what was left of the cutlet from Guy's plate. Oh well. You can't please them all. But this does remind me of when I bit into a party sandwich at my darling MIL's house one day, thinking it was tuna. It wasn't. It was chopped herring. I nearly puked. I mean, really: who expects chopped herring in a platter of finger sandwiches???? The thought still makes me shudder to this day. Blech.

For Guy's birthday this year I gave him 10 coupons, each good for 1 food preparation of his choice. I am guessing "salmon cutlets" will NOT be one of his choices.

Mystery Salad Dressing No More

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Dinner is not complete without a salad. My kids would disagree with me on that one though. Which is why I make the salad shake for them often. This way, we all win.

But I digress.

In my fridge I have probably 20 small jars that contain some form of homemade salad dressing. You'll never see a bottle of Kraft Thousand Island in my house. A bottle of Renee's Gourmet, possibly (my kids love the Mighty Caeser)... but NEVER krappy kraft and the like. Its just too easy to make a dressing.

Note to self: clean out small jars of mystery dressing from fridge.

Okay, so it turns out there are only 6 within easy reach. Not 20. (Aside from the small ones that are behind too many other small jars that make it next to impossible to easily grab for a fast photo op.) But on the plus side, I now have several bernardin jars available for use again! Again, I digress.

So to make life easy, and keep my fridge available for things OTHER than small bottles of mystery dressing, I decided to make the dressing RIGHT IN THE BOWL. You just make a one time amount, and toss the salad just before serving.

This salad is a blue cheese (roquefort) salad with pears and pecans. (As an aside, my children are extremely glad that I made the salad drink for them. They both LOATHE blue cheese. I love it - it is most definitely an acquired taste.)

So into a big bowl, I put a glug of EVOO, a bit of apple cider vinegar, some smoked salt (oh so yum and available at longo's), a little bit of sumach (which gives it a really nice sour oomph) and some mustard.

Today's mustard selection was a wasabi one, since it was the first one I found in my horribly jam packed, full of small bottles, fridge. Whisk it all together. Dressing done.

Toast some pecans. I throw them on a bit of aluminum and bake them at 350 for 8 minutes or so in my toaster oven. Give them a zhuzh about halfway through so they don't burn.

Use however many you need, then whatever is left wrap up in the foil and throw in the fridge for next time. Toasted pecans are seriously yummy. Break them up and toss them on top of the salad. Normally I like to use baby arugala, but I didn't have any of that, so I used a mix of mesclun and spinach. Its what I had. I crumbled the blue cheese, added the pecans, and sliced up a pear as well.

The sweetness of the pear, the crunchiness of the pecans, the bitterness of the arugala (or in this case the lettuces on hand) are a perfect balance with the slightly sour dressing and the salty cheese. Its totally umami. Unless you are a 13 year old boy; then its totally disgusting. When you are ready to sit down and eat, toss and serve.

Spaghetti and the Marriage Meatball

I bought some ground beef from one of my farmer friends this weekend at the Waldorf Market and debated what to make with it. I was considering burgers or a tomato meat sauce, when my husband threatened to leave me if I didn't make tomato sauce with meatballs. So, no pressure or anything.

Considering the fact I have never made meatballs in my life, I thought that was a pretty bold request.

I did a bit of research, and it seems the best way to make the meatballs moist (horrible word, moist, I know) is to mix the bread crumbs FIRST with a liquid, and allow the liquid to absorb into the crumbs. In fact, I mixed all the ingredients in a bowl before adding the meat at all.

So to this mixture I added:
- spelt bread crumbs,
- milk (but it could be any sort of liquid, I guess, since milk is so nice and kosher with ground beef)
- parsley
- garlic
- a bit of shredded hard cheese
- onions finely minced along with a few tears
- a bit of red wine
- some tomato paste
- spices of a whack
- an egg
- a minced jalepeno
- oregano
- pepper

Once it was all mixed and disgusting looking, I added the meat and just mixed it until it came together. It pays to be gentle with your meat (shut up Jude, you dirty minded bastard) so that it doesn't get too tough.

I fried them in a bit of EVOO just to get a bit of that lovely brown flavor.

In the meantime, I made the tomato sauce. Fry some onions in EVOO, add a whackload of garlic, dump a bottle of tomatoes in, add a bay leaf or two and a bunch of seasonings and get it simmering.

It was a this point that my husband walked into the kitchen, and saw the sauce with meatballs gently simmering. He was surprised and told me he was "only joking", and didn't *actually* expect meatballs. Once he stopped choking on the one I crammed down his throat, he proclaimed our marriage safe. Oh joy!

As each batch of meatballs got fried, I dropped them into the sauce to simmer and finish cooking until everything was ready.

I made spelt spaghetti, in a huge pot of boiling salted water. As soon as it is al dente, you drain the water, toss it in a big bowl, and add a ladelful of sauce to it and give it a jujh. Everybody can add their own amount of sauce afterwards, once it is on their plates.

With this meal, there was salad (of course) and some bruschetta on ace bakery bread, for those that can eat wheat. The rest of you (I'm talking to YOU my darling husband) can SUCK IT.
That is all.

Ginger Snap-O-Rama

My son recently had a playdate at his friend Simon's house, and came back raving about the cookies his grandmother had made, and asked if we could make them. I said sure, and emailed them asking for the recipe, which they promptly sent me.

I love a good ginger snap, but haven't had too many good ones. Surprisingly, one of the best ones comes from Ikea. Go figure. My other favorites were from Trader Joes which sadly, we don't have here in Canada.

My hopes were high for these cookies, if my kid said they were awesome.

He was right. The cookies are awesome. I had to make a few changes to the recipe though - for one, we don't use margarine (bleh, its like eating yellow plastic) so I substituted butter, and I hate cloves so I only used a single clove, half of which got thrown out.

Cream the crap out of a cup of sugar and 3/4 cup butter.

Add 1/4 cup of molasses. I find its a good idea to oil the measuring cup otherwise the molasses sticks like nobodies business.
Add an egg and continue to beat the crap out of it.

In a separate container, mix 1 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1 1/2 tsp of ground ginger, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 of a whole nutmeg, freshly ground, 1 single clove, ground (yes, only one measly clove) and 2 cups of flour. I mixed whole wheat and white flour, because I ran out of whole wheat. Once all this is mixed, add it to the butter mixture and mix until combined.

Pop it in the fridge for about half an hour to chill.

Roll out the dough, but use the flour liberally to stop it from sticking. It will stick anyway.

And make a huge mess.

I then used a bunch of cookie cut outs I found (including one shaped like a dog biscuit). I kept reusing the dough until it was all gone. However, by the third batch, I gave up on the cookie cutters and just smashed blobs down on the silpat sheet.

Sprinkle a bit of sugar on top for a little extra sweetness.

Bake in a 350 oven for anywhere from 13-17 minutes, depending on how thick and how well done you like them. I like them thin and well done. My kids like them fat and chewy.

Overall verdict? Absolutely delicious!

Chicken Chicken: 5 Ideas

There are so many ways to use a grilled or baked chicken breast. I have a standard recipe that I use in several different ways.

First, rasp some garlic into about 1/4 cup of EVOO and let it sit while you prep everything else. It is a fast way to infuse the oil and make it extra yummy.

I lay the boneless, skinless breasts on a sheet of silver foil (makes for easy clean up) that I put on a baking tray. Use a pastry brush and cover both sides with olive oil.

Sprinkle liberally with Za'atar. If you don't know what Za'atar is, I suggest you run to your nearest middle eastern groceteria and pick some up. It is beyond yum. I use it in SO many things! More recipes with zataar will follow in subsequent blogs. Basically, it is hyssop, sesame, wild oregano and sumach. I get mine from this restaurant/groceteria called Sababa.

Squeeze half a lemon on top of the breasts and bake in a 350 degree oven for about 25 minutes, turning once. Always check your chicken is cooked through, but you all know that. You may need to adjust your time depending on your oven. I find 4 decent sized breasts are done in 25 minutes. You could BBQ them if it isn't raining and miserable out. Last night was just too freaking cold for me to be outside, since I am still recovering from Vulcan Flu, so into the oven they went. Sliced them up, and served it as a cominbation between Meal Idea 1, Meal Idea 2, and Meal Idea 3. (see below)
Normally, here I would put a picture of the cooked chicken, but I forgot to take a picture, so use your imagination. Instead, have a look at my super cute puppy who hogged the whole bed last night.

Anyway, getting back to the chicken...

Remember to wash everything really well that the raw chicken touched. Nobody wants salmonella, coz that would just suck.

So, once you have your cooked breasts, WHAT TO DO?

MEAL IDEA 1:
Add it to Greek Salad. Between the feta and the chicken, you have a hearty meal with tons of veg, protein and tastiness.

MEAL IDEA 2.
Make it Middle Eastern. Add hummus, pitas, hot sauce, taheena and a salad with tomato, onion, cucumber and garlic, with a dressing made from EVOO, lemon and more za'atar.
Throw all the ingredients into the pitas and you have a yummy sandwich.

MEAL IDEA 3.
Make it into Fajitas. Add cheese (I like cheddar), sour cream, avocado, lettuce, tomatos and fajita wraps and you are off and running.

MEAL IDEA 4.
Make a pot of rice, some broccolli with garlic and Bob's Your Uncle. Dinner is ready.

MEAL IDEA 5.
Roast some potatoes with EVOO, a whatload of za'atar and some salt. Serve with the chicken and salad. Easy Peasy.

This chicken also makes excellent leftovers for lunch the next day.

Happy eating!

Cramming Spinach Into Your Kid

Easiest way I know how to cram spinach into my kids is to throw it into the blender. My kids eat salad, but since the oldest has braces, he claims it gets "stuck in his teeth". Real or not, he still needs his greens.

I have a vita mix blender which I positively adore (shameless plug). It simply is the best blender I have ever used.

Throw in tons of spinach, so the blender is at least half way full. Add in a frozen banana (more about frozen fruit shortly), some apples, pears, berries, whatever. Just about any kind of fruit (minus the seeds) will do.

To today's blend, I added: 2 pears, 1 apples, grapes, blueberries, a frozen banana, about a cup of water and a partridge in a pear tree.
(note: tree not pictured)

Whizz it all together and voila. Salad shake that tastes like fruit, yet has more salad in it than you probably eat in a sitting. If your kid objects to the green color, just add a whack load of frozen blueberries and rewhizz. That will turn it fairly purple.

My kids don't care if its purple. They know its a salad drink, and are used to it.

Another added benefit of this is you never have to let fruit spoil. Just chop it up, seed it, and throw it in the freezer for the next whizzing.

Still, the best part is the taste. It is totally yummers, so the kids have NO EXCUSES.

With the salad drink, I made a normal salad for Alan and myself. Dinner isn't complete without lots and lots of salad. Yum. It included my favorite radishes, watermelon radishes.

Aren't they GORGEOUS? My farmer friend Mike Lanigan grows them and they are absolutely delicious.

I also seared a stunning hunk of tuna, much like I did a few weeks ago.

The trick with tuna is to get a big ass slab, nice and thick. You do NOT want to overcook it. You may as well just open a can if you do that. I marinate in a ziplock bag, and in it i put:

- miso paste
- rice vinegar
- garlic
- ginger
- a little bit of toasted sesame oil
- a teaspoon of sugar for balance
- a good wodge of hot sauce

Thats about it. Marinate it for about an hour and sear it on the hottest grill you can fire, and only for 2 minutes a side, when it is big ass thick. Let it sit for a moment off the grill, and then slice it thinly.
YaHUM.