Blueberry Oat Flax Muffins

Blueberry Oat Flax Muffins
Originally uploaded by wanderingcoyote.

Today was a great day for baking. It's been cool and rainy and that meant I could have the oven going all morning and not have to worry about heating the whole house up. This is the first of my three projects for the day.

I don't know where exactly I got this recipe from, but I made it growing up. I've added the flax and the lemon juice on my own. The batter is quite stiff - so don't expect lovely big caps - but the texture of the muffin is still tender. The flax add nutrients and crunch.

Blueberry Oat Flax Muffins

1 cup oatmeal
1 cup buttermilk or sour milk
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup melted butter
2 tsp lemon juice
1 cup blueberries
2 tbsp flax seeds

1. In a small bowl, combine the oats and the buttermilk. (To sour milk, add 1 tbsp vinegar or lemon juice and let sit for 5 minutes.)
2. Whisk together the dry ingredients. Add the butter, egg, and lemon juice to the oatmeal mixture and blend well.
3. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Fold in the blueberries.
4. Fill muffin tins. Bake at 400F for 20 or so minutes, or until golden on top and a tester inserted comes out clean. It should yield 12.

Enjoy!

Anadama Bread

Anadama Bread2
Originally uploaded by wanderingcoyote.

I've been making a lot of bread lately. It's a cheap way of contributing to the household, it's theraputic, it's enjoyable, and I always get lots of compliments! This recipe came from my trusty Fleischmann's book, but there are lots of other recipes out there, and lots of stories about how this bread got its name. Here's a brief blurb containing some theories; another I've read has the bread originating in California during the gold rush. Whatever - this is a good, basic loaf.

Anadama Bread

3/4 to 1 cup very warm water
1 package quick yeast (2 1/4 tsp or 8g)
3 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup yellow cornmeal
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp butter or margarine, melted
3 tbsp molasses

Follow the basic instructions contained in my bread-baking tutorial post. Lately, I have been rising my bread in a sunny spot, either in the kitchen window or on the table in the back yard. In direct sunlight, the rising process hasn't taken more than 30-40 minutes. Just grease the top of the loaf and loosely cover it in plastic wrap beforehand.

This dough was dense. I used more than 1 cup of water - probably 2 - 3 tbsp more, and it could have used even more than that. But it turned out nicely and had a great crust.

As usual, let me know how it goes, and enjoy!

Peach Blueberry Crisp

Peach Blueberry Crisp
Originally uploaded by wanderingcoyote.

Oh, it's been a while, I know. Too long. It's been a long, rough summer and it ain't over yet. I've done little baking and even less cooking, though it's been a summer of eating quite possibly the worst food I've ever had to suffer through. Six and a half weeks of hospital grub is not fun at all.

I have moved - again. I am not working, and won't be for a while. I've been trying to keep myself occupied and have been making lots of bread. This crisp is the first sweet thing I've made in such a long time.

Peaches are in season, as are blueberries. My dad made a trip to the Okanagan earlier on in the week to get canning ingredients for us and a stash of farm-fresh fruit and veg for himself. On Wednesday, I canned over 48 pints of salsa and 26 1L jars of dill pickles with carrots with both my brothers' girfriends. The salsa was amazing. Today, the peaches my dad brought us were on the overripe side, and my sister-in-law, Shan, had some locally grown frozen blueberries kicking around. I decided to make this simple dessert, pictured here with some sugar free ice cream.

Peach Blueberry Crisp

8 fresh peaches, peeled and sliced
1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
2 tbsp sugar (the fruit was so ripe it didn't need a lot of sugar at all)
2 tbsp white flour

Topping

1 cup oats
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp cardamom
1/2 cup butter or margarine, cold

1. Preheat oven to 350F. In a bowl, combine the fruit with the sugar and spices, and lastly the flour. Put in the bottom of a 8" square pan that has been greased.

2. For the topping, combine all the dry ingredients with a whisk. Cut in the butter until you get a pea-sized consistency. Pour the crumble over the top and spread it out evenly. Don't press it down.

3. Bake for 35 - 45 minutes, or until golden on top and the filling is bubbling at the sides. Might be a good idea to put the pan onto a baking sheet in case of any boil-overs. Let it cool slightly and serve - with ice cream is nice, but not 100% necessary.

If you make it and like it let me know. Enjoy!

Off Line

I won't be posting or visiting for a while: I am at "the spa". For details, please see my other blog.

Pineapple Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Icing

IMG_0823
Originally uploaded by wanderingcoyote.

Never been a huge fan of carrot cake. It's always seemed a little...weird, I guess. I mean carrots? In a cake? How fun is that? But, despite my judgements, I am, if nothing else a dessert addict, so if it was all on offer I'd indulge. This week, I had a request from my roommate's sister, who wanted to serve this to guests. Because I'm not a fan of carrot cake, I don't have many recipes for it. When this lady asked me to make the cake, I really had to search for a recipe. I have one from school that has blueberries in it, but the recipe was too big and there aren't a lot of inexpensive blueberries kicking around right now. There's a carrot sponge in one of my professional books, but it was too big, too, and had ingredients in it I didn't have on hand. I eventually found this recipe in Anna Olson's Sugar.

A few words about Anna. Anna has a show on the Food Network entitled Sugar. It was upon watching an episode of this show while on holiday in Vancouver nearly three years ago (where the Food Network is on cable; in Ottawa we needed a cable box) that I discovered there was an occupation entitled "pastry chef." I knew there were bakers, but I'd never really heard of pastry chefs. I knew, upon seeing Anna on TV, that I wanted to be a pastry chef. A couple of days later, I went to hang out on Granville Island, and there I saw the culinary school I would graduate top of my class from a year and a half later.

Unfortunately, fame has changed Anna. I think she's sold out. You can now see her pimping Pilsbury products and Starbucks in ads appearing on the Food Network, particulalry around Christmas time. I noticed also she's lost weight, which she totally didn't need to do, and gotten a new hairdo - probably because of the ads. She now looks more like a sex kitten than the pastry chef I came to love.

This is a fabulous recipe. It's rich and moist, and the cream cheese icing is to die for. Don't substitute any other kind of syrup for the maple syrup; the lady I made this for, who was buying the ingredients, wanted to put pancake syrup in it to cut down on costs, but there's so much crap in pancake syrup, and the flavour would be totally different. This is a really easy recipe to put together, too, and if you have a bored someone or other at home, get him/her to grate the carrots for you.

Pineapple Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Icing

Cake:
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3 eggs
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
2 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 2/3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
2 cups grated carrot (approximately 2 medium sized carrots, peeled)
1 cup pineapple diced or crushed, fresh or tinned (drained)

Icing
4 oz/125g cream cheese at room temperature (I used light, but you cannot use the fat free kind so don't bother trying; the amount is equivalent to half a brick)
1/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups icing sugar, sifted
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

For the cake, preheat the oven to 325F and grease & flour an 8" square cake pan. In a large bowl, whisk together the oil, eggs, sugar, maple syrup, and ginger. Sift in the dry ingredients and blend well with whisk or wooden spoon, just be sure not to over mix. Mix in the carrots and pineapple. Pour into pan and bake for 1 - 1 1/2 hours, or until tester inserted in centre comes out clean. Make sure you cool it completely before icing it.

For the icing, beat the cream cheese and butter together until smooth./ Beat in the icing sugar and vanilla until smooth. Spread on top of cake and refrigerate until ready to serve.

How hard is that? Not very, and if you have carrot cake skeptics out there like me, I'm sure you can win them over with this recipe.

Bon appetit!

Pumpkin, Orange & Raisin Muffins

I'm a huge fan of all things pumpkin (well, except soup). I am very grateful for good quality tinned pumpkin that is available year round. This is a great recipe I originally got from Canadian Living Magazine. These are fantastic with cheddar cheese, or all by themselves. The batter is thick, but don't worry; they bake up really nicely.

Pumpkin, Orange & Raisin Muffins

2 cups flour
1 cup raisins
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg
1 egg
1 3/4 cups pumpkin puree (not pie filling!) - this equals 1 can (398mL) pumpkin
2 tbsp orange zest
1/2 cup orange juice (I zested two large naval oranges and juiced them both, and this worked fine)
1/3 cup vegetable oil

1. Sift together the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
2. Combine the wet ingredients in a bowl, and add to the dry. Add raisins. Mix until it just comes together. Don't overmix.
3. Bake at 375F for 20 - 25 minutes, or until done.

This should yeild 12 muffins.

Enjoy!

Sourdough Bread

Sourdough Bread
Originally uploaded by wanderingcoyote.

I am a bread baking fiend.

The first thing we ever did in culinary school was learn how to make a starter, or, as the French say, levain. Starter is a mixture of flour, water and some sort of yeast that has fermented over a period of time. It's what makes sourdough bread sour. Now, there are lots of ways to make starter, from totally easy to quite time consuming and finicky. The starter we made at school was in between. What we did was take a potato and an onion and poke them full of holes with a fork or skewer. Then we put the potato and onion in the window sill for 48 hours. During this 48, the natural yeasts in the air collected on the veggies. After this 48 hours, we put the potato and onion - now looking quite yucky and black - in a bucket with 1kg bread flour, 1kg water, and one bottle of beer. We let this sit for 5 days or so and voila, you got a fermented yet pleasant-smelling, spongey, bubbly, gooey mixture we used to make most of our breads. Once a week or so, you feed it a smaller amount of flour and water, and whenever you used the starter to make bread, you had to replenish it with the amount you took out of it. There was no added yeast in this starter; it's cultivated right from the yeasts that naturally float around in the atmosphere, aided by the beer.

Now, that doesn't sound too hard, does it?

Well, I've never been able to make one on my own post-training. I have tried and tried, used different beers, different containers, all purpose flour, bread flour (always unbleached, of course). I've coaxed it, talked to it, sworn at it - and still no joy.

So, time to try a different method. I went for the super-easy, no fail, brainless starter recipe found in my trusty Fleischmann's cookbook.

2 cups flour
2 cups water
1 package or 2 1/4 tsp quick yeast

Mix the ingredients together until smooth. Cover tightly and let it ferment at room temperature for 2 - 4 days and Bob's your uncle. It will start to bubble and probably grow a bit, and it might darken and separate. This is natural. If it starts to smell moldy and goes an iffy colour, discard and start again. Mine turned kinda golden and did separate quite a bit. Just mix it up and on you go. Now to keep it alive, you have to feed it regularly (starter, I have discovered, is much like an ungrateful pet) with a small amount of flour and water, a few tablespoons of each. To replenish this one, add 1 1/3 cup water and 1 1/3 cups flour to it for each 1 1/2 cups you take out, and let it sit 12 - 24 hours. Store your starter in the refrigerator so it doesn't go wild, and make sure it comes to room temperature before you use it again.

No natural yeasts, no problem.

This is what it should look like:

The bread recipe I used to make the sourdough also came from my Fleischmann's book.

Sourdough Bread

1 1/2 cups starter
3 1/2 - 4 1/2 cups bread flour
1 package quick yeast, or 2 1/4 tsp
1 tsp salt
1 cup very warm water
egg for egg wash (optional)

Today I got my big toy out (i.e. my KitchenAid mixer) because this dough was stickier due to the starter and I didn't feel like getting my hands mucky. However you do it, be sure to use the guidelines from my bread baking tutorial post.

Now my loaves didn't turn out fantastically in terms of appearance. I'm having a difficult time scoring my bread at home for some reason, so these deflated quite a bit when I did score them, and as a result they're kinda flat-looking. But the flavour was great. This starter had a mild flavour. Some sourdoughs are rather vinegary, and maybe as my starter ages it will change in flavour.

If anyone cares to try the potato/onion starter and you succeed, please let me know so I can discover what I keep doing wrong.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? You know the drill.

Happy baking!

Sundried Tomato Parmesan Bread

Sundried Tomato Parmesan Bread
Originally uploaded by wanderingcoyote.

You too can make beautiful artisan breads at home! I made this loaf this afternoon and baked it, as you can see, on my pizza stone (a Pampered Chef product). Most loaves I make at home I do in a pan, but I was in the mood to practice shaping a loaf free-form today, which was all we did in culinary school.

The recipe is a souped-up version of the white bread recipe in my Cordon Bleu Complete Cook book, an excellent resource for basic French cooking and baking using easy to find ingredients, and containing uncomplicated recipes that have well-written instructions. There is a great section at the end called "Chef's Techniques" that shows you step-by-step methods for many of the classical techniques. It's a big book that cost me $45 minus my 30% Crapters employee discount a few years ago, and I highly recommend it if you want to learn the basics. Great pictures, too.

Sundried Tomato Parmesan Bread

1 tbsp quick yeast
1 1/4 - 1 1/2 cups very warm water
1 tbsp sugar
4 cups bread flour
1 tsp salt
6 oil packed sundried tomatoes, chopped finely
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
approx. 1 tbsp olive oil from the jar of oil packed sundried tomatoes
1 egg for egg wash

Basically, follow the directions from my Bread Baking Tutorial post, adding the cheese and sundried tomatoes with the dry ingredients.

Watch your water amount in this recipe; I needed far more than what was called for. Just make sure you have a nice, elastic, smooth,pliable dough. You don't want a dry, stiff dough or you'll get a dry, dense bread. Do make sure you proof and bake the bread with a pot of boiling water in the oven with the loaf; it makes all the difference. You don't have to use an egg wash, but it looks so nice. Don't worry about extra egg wash; it can be refrigerated for a week in an airtight container and used to make scrambled eggs for breakfast.

As far as shaping is concerned, you can do one of a few things. You can put this in a loaf pan and bake it that way. For the loaf pictured here, I rolled this into a tight ball and tapered off the ends. Or you can roll the dough into a rectangle with a rolling pin and make a tight sausage shape with it. You'd need a cookie sheet for baking it in this case. Whatever you do, make sure you bake the loaf seam side down.

The flavour of this loaf was impressive, as was the texture: soft but a bit chewy. Get creative: you can add herbs like basil and oregano, other types of cheeses like asiago or sharp cheddar, and things like olives or chopped artichokes. Sky's the limit, really.

Bon Appetit!

Burger Buns

Burger Buns
Originally uploaded by wanderingcoyote.

Currently between jobs, I'm trying to make as much stuff from scratch as possible, especially if I already have the ingredients on hand. I bought a box of chicken burgers on sale last weekend and didn't want to spend money on buns. So I got out my trusty Fleischmann's recipe book and found a recipe for hamburger buns. The method can be found on my Bread Baking Tutorial post.

As you can see, these turned out gorgeously. And they tasted great. Impress your friends and family at your next BBQ with these guys - you'll get rave reviews, I promise.

Burger Buns

- 1/2 cup water, very warm (120-130F/50-55C)
- 3/4 cup milk, same temperature as above
- 3 tbsp butter or margarine (melted in the above liquids)
- 2 packages (4 1/2tsp) quick yeast
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 4 - 4 3/4 cups bread or all purpose flour
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 3 eggs (two for the dough, one for egg wash)
- poppy seeds, sesame seeds, or dried minced onions for the top, optional

Follow the method on the bread baking tutorial, with the addition of the two eggs, beaten, after you've added the other liquids and incorporated them into the flour.

Divide the developed dough into 8 and form balls. Press the balls in to 4" (approx.) discs and place them on a shallow, rimmed baking sheet, either greased or lined with parchment paper. Proof (rise) in a warm location for 1/2 - 1 hour depending on the temperature of the environment, or until doubled in volume. Beat the remaining egg well and brush the buns gently with the egg mixture. Sprinkle with seeds or onions (optional) and bake at 400F for 10 - 15 minutes, or until done. Depan immediately and let cool on wire racks.

Notes.

- It's important, as I found out the hard way, to use a greased or parchment lined baking sheet even if you have non-stick bakeware. The egg wash can cause the buns to stick to the pan and, as with me this afternoon, can cause problems when depanning the buns. I have come to think that non-stick bakeware is a bit of a scam. The only thing I've ever made successfully with my non-stick bakeware has been cookies - and that's because they're easy to slip a spatula underneath to ease them off the pans.

Enjoy!

Ginger Rhubarb Loaf

Ginger Rhubarb Loaf
Originally uploaded by wanderingcoyote.

In order to feel like I accomplished something yesterday, I decided to bake this. The day before, the neighbour came over with a the season's first rhubarb. I chopped it up and froze most of it, keeping a cup back for this loaf. I'd been craving something like pound cake, but I didn't have enough eggs on hand for that. After a search through all my recipes, I decided to go with the Cardamom Loaf recipe from about a year ago. You can find it here. A few simple substitutions, and voila.

The substitutions are as follows:

- instead of 2 tsp cardamom, I used 2 tsp ginger
- I added 1 cup finely chopped rhubarb. The rhubarb was in a freezer bag, and I added to it 2 additional tbsp of sugar, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, and 1 tbsp flour. You can can combined the rhubarb and these ingredients in a bowl, too. I would try to use fresh rhubarb rather than frozen because as frozen rhubarb thaws, it goes all mushy and loses its shape. Make sure the rhubarb is cut small; the bigger the pieces, the more risk you run of having raw spots in the loaf, because fruit gives off liquid as it bakes and that can impede proper baking.
- I found I needed an additional 1/3 cup of milk for some reason; play it by ear. You don't want too liquidy a batter, nor too stiff a batter.
- I baked this in a metal loaf pan in a convection oven at 325F, and it turned out fine. If you use a glass pan, decrease the temperature by 25 degrees or so. In a regular oven, you can bake this at 325F or 350F.

Enjoy!

Trifle Made Easy

Strawberry Shortcake Trifle
Originally uploaded by wanderingcoyote.

Today my brother and his girlfriend are hosting a post-Easter pot luck dinner, and I got elected to bring dessert. I awoke with energy this morning. Yesterday I was thinking of bailing on the pot luck because I felt magnatized to my bed, but this morning I felt great and was super productive. I decided to give the pot luck a go, and decided that a trifle would be an easy thing to take to dinner.

My maternal grandmother made the most awesome trifle. She bought a jelly roll from the grocery store and sliced it, lined a trifle bowl with the slices, and then added liquid jello. She put this in the fridge overnight to set and then added a layer of custard (Bird's) and lastly a layer of whipped cream. It was quite heavenly. I made it for a Christmas dinner several years ago and it was a big hit.

Since then, I've discovered that the sky's the limit with trifle. Originally, it was designed to use up stale cake/pastry pieces. You added some fruit, custard, whipped cream, and Bob was your uncle. I prefer to use fresh ingredients, and have evolved beyond jello by using fresh berries.

A note about bowls, before we go much further. Obviously, since a trifle involves layers, you want to show those layers off in a glass bowl. I own a beautiful footed trifle bowl that makes a stunning presentation, but alas it is in Ottawa still, pending shipping when a friend of mine moves out west next month. If you can, get creative. There are some vases I've seen that would make stunning trifle bowls - again, the sky's the limit. The bowl in the above picture is a glass salad bowl. Use what you have on hand, and if you don't have a glass bowl don't worry. The trifle will speak for itself as it is consumed!

The Components

You'll need:

- 1 8" layer of sponge cake, cubed, of your choice (the recipe I use follows),or a few cups of cubed pound cake, or a few cups of angel food cake. Again, use your imagination and preferences as a guide. You need enough cubed sponge to line the bottom of your trifle bowl and make a thick layer. You don't want too thin a layer of sponge because this is the base. I'd say, on average, depending on the size of your bowl, the bottom sponge layer should be about a quarter of the bowl.
- 1 box Jello vanilla pudding, yielding approx. 2 cups. Yes, this might seem like cheating to you, but let me tell you, this tastes way, way better than Bird's custard and it's way cheaper and far quicker and easier than making a homemade pastry cream.
- Fresh berries of your choice, or a medly of berries. Two cups minimum, again depending on the size of your trifle bowl, and more if you wish to garnish the top of your trifle with the berries. This trifle I just made used one pound of strawberries.
- 1 cup whipped cream, minimum (again, this is dependent upon your bowl) sweetened, whipped to soft peaks
- chocolate shavings, or other suitable garnish - get creative. I used a chocolate bunny left over from Easter and took my vegetable peeler to it to get the shavings.

Assembly

Once you've put your sponge in the bottom of your bowl, you may wish to sprinkle it with some sort of booze. Sherry is traditional. You don't have to, especially if you have a nice moist cake. If you're using something day old or that's been in the freezer a while, you may want to hydrate the sponge with some type of booze or simple syrup (a 50/50 combination of water and sugar, brought to a boil for a few minutes, then cooled - a staple in the pastry kitchen let me tell you), or even a fruit syrup from tinned fruit.

Make up the pudding and whisk it until thoroughly combined. Pour over the sponge. Put the berries in next.

Again, depending on the size of your bowl, you can either add another, thinner, layer of cubed sponge or just proceed to the whipped cream stage. In the trife I just made, I added a second layer of sponge because I could.

Spread your whipped cream smooth on top of the trifle, and garnish as you want. You can do whatever you want on the top, really. You can pipe whipped cream if you're feeling adventurous and have the equipment, or you can do a fruit arrangement as I did.

Simple, eh?

The Sponge

This recipe came from the Dieticians of Canada cookbook, and is called Lazy Daizy Cake. It's an excellent recipe and is very versatile.

2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
- beat until light and fluffy

1 cup flour
pinch salt
1 tsp baking powder
- combine

1/2 cup milk, scalded
2 tsp butter, melted in the milk

Add the flour and milk in alternate additions, with three of flour and two of milk. Combine until just mixed.

Pour batter into prepared 8" round or square cake pan. Bake at 350F for 35 minutes, or until tester inserted in centre comes out clean. Remove from pan and cool completely.

Voila.

Enjoy the trifle, and enjoy the compliments you'll get when serving it!

Thai Chicken Curry Soup

Chicken Stock
Originally uploaded by wanderingcoyote.

I've been feeling super crappy lately. For more details, see my Wandering Coyote blog. I felt like some comfort food, and I had the energy to be creative. I also had on hand some pantry items I wanted to use up. So, I made this soup.

I usually make my own chicken stock. This one was made using a chicken carcass from a while back that I'd frozen. I usually save a leg or two and the wings so there's enough meat in the soup, but in this case, I added two chicken thighs since the people that helped me eat the roasted chicken also consumed both legs and one wing. Well, I would have been a poor hostess to refuse them, wouldn't I?

I used the method outlined in this post, only with a carcass as opposed to actual cuts of meat, you should simmer the stock much longer to get the maximum amount of flavour. In this case, it was 41/2 hours. I used, as aromatics: 2 small leeks, 2 small carrots (unpeeled but washed), several cloves of whole garlic, two quarter sections of a lemon (I knew this soup would be Thai-inspired, so I used the lemons instead of lemongrass), a bunch of whole peppercorns, and 2 quarter-sized rounds of ginger. Later on in the cooking process, I added 2 chicken thighs and a handful of cilantro - whole, not cut up and with stems. I added salt to taste, and voila.

Thai Chicken Curry Soup

The above made about 4 cups of stock, and that's what you'll need for this recipe. In addition (if this looks like deja vu to some of you, you're not crazy; similar ingredients are found in my Thai curry recipe from nearly a year ago):

- 1 can coconut milk (398mL)
- about 3-4 cups of veggies of your choice; I used cauliflower cut up small, 2 julienned carrots, 10 large mushrooms, sliced, and a can of whole baby corn, quartered
- 2 tbsp Thai fish sauce
1 1/2 tsp Thai red curry paste, or to taste (you can substitute other curry pastes)
- 2 tbsp lime juice
- 2 - 3 tbsp sugar, or to taste (add it in 1 tsp at a time so you can adjust it easily)
- 1/3 cup rice
- 2 large cloves of garlic, crushed
- 2 tsp minced ginger
- 1 cup chopped cilantro

Once I'd taken the meat of the chicken bones and strained my stock, I added the rice and brought it to a boil. I added the chicken and turned the heat down to a low simmer. I added the veg all at once with the ginger. Then I mixed the curry paste, fish sauce, and sugar together and added it to the soup, followed by the garlic. I added the coconut milk last. Then I added about a cup of chopped cilantro. I had to add sugar to it to balance out the flavour.

The smell alone was like an elixir from the heavens! It tasted awesome and looks just lovely, too. I am going to put it in containers to freeze and keep a bit out for lunches this week.

I'm glad I took the time to do this today. Creating a delicious new recipe was just what my weary soul needed.

Thai Chicken Curry Soup
Originally uploaded by wanderingcoyote.

Linguine with White Clam Sauce

I haven't been well lately and haven't been eating well. My roommate has been cooking for me and I've been feeling guilty about it. So last night I felt like I had the energy and desire to cook a proper meal, and I made this great recipe, which originally came from Cook Great Food by the Dieticians of Canada. This is a great cookbook full of healthy recipes and lots of ideas. My wasband got custody of the book, but luckily I remembered this recipe because I made it so often. I used this cookbook lots, so if you have a chance, check it out.

Linguine with White Clam Sauce

1 can clams, drained and nectar reserved
1 small can (154mL I believe) evaporated milk
1 small onion, diced
1 1/2 cups sliced mushrooms
1/3 cup white wine (if you don't do booze, non-alcoholic wine works as does chicken stock - just use a little less because the wine reduces and the other fluids don't)
2 tbsp flour
freshly crushed garlic to taste (I used 4 smaller cloves)
salt & freshly ground pepper to taste
linguine, or other long pasta

1. Get the pasta going. The sauce will cook in the time it takes to cook the pasta.

2. In a large skillet, saute the onions in a bit of olive oil until translucent. Add mushrooms and saute until they've reduced in size. Deglaze the skillet with the wine and let it bubble away until the wine reduces by half. Reduce the heat to medium low. At this point, sprinkle the flour over the mixture and mix it in well. Then add the clam nectar, clams, and the evaporated milk. Add the garlic. Simmer gently for a few minutes and adjust seasonings as necessary. Serve and enjoy!

Apple Rhubarb Crisp

IMG_0791
Originally uploaded by wanderingcoyote.

I know crisps are traditionally fall fare when apples are plentiful, and I know that rhubarb is not quite in season, but I made this today because Granny Smiths (the best baking apple ever) were on sale, my roommate, J, had rhubarb in the freezer, and I wanted to make a dessert to compliment J's roast chicken dinner.

Funny story about the rhubarb. It came from the neighbour's plant last year. J took some to a coworker who claimed it was the best rhubarb she'd ever tasted. When the coworker asked the rhubarb plant's owner if she could have a cutting of the plant to grow in her own garden, the lady said no way. It's a weed, right?

Speaking of which, we had a huge rhubarb plant in our back yard when growing up. I mean huge. My mom made rhubarb everything when we were kids, and it took a while for it to grow on me. My brother, on the other hand, hated the stuff. One spring, my dad and brother were out doing yardwork and my dad entrusted my brother with the weed killer to eliminate some pesky dandilions etc. Well, my brother went to town with the weed killer and sprayed it on the rhubarb plant. We had no rhubarb that year and my mom was pissed off. But it came back the next year! And, I hate to say it, we ate that rhubarb. I shudder to think what chemicals were floating around my body afterwards, and hope I don't get any cancer as a result!

So here's what I did this afternoon.

Apple Rhubarb Crisp

4 Granny Smith apples, peeled & sliced
approximately 3 cups chopped rhubarb
4 tbsp cornstarch
2 tsp ground ginger (or to taste)
2 tsp cinnamon (or to taste)
1/2 cup sugar (or to taste)

Topping:

I cup oats
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
cinnamon & ginger to taste
1/3 - 1/2 cup butter

Combine rhubarb & apples in a bowl. Add the cornstarch sugar and spices. Toss to coat thorougly. Chuck in a large casserole that has been well-oiled.

For the topping, combine the oats, flour and sugar. Add the spices. Cut the butter into in the mixture either with a pastry cutter or by rubbing the butter into the mixture with your hands. It should be crumbly and just hold together when squeezed. Sprinkle on top of the fruit and pat down gently.

Bake at 375F for 45 minutes to an hour, depending on the thickness of your apple slices and the depth of your casserole dish. You know it's done when it's bubbly and when you spear it with a sharp knife, the apples are tender.

Vanilla ice cream is a wonderful accompaniment, as is just straight whipping cream poured over the top. My mom used to serve this with evaporated milk poured over it.

My mom always claimed that by adding ginger to rhubarb it eliminated the feeling that you're teeth were sticking together, a sensation she claimed she had when eating rhubarb without ginger. I don't know about this. I've eaten rhubarb without ginger before and didn't have this experience. But they are a good combination nonetheless.

Rhubarb is quite tart, so don't skimp on the sugar. Taste the mixture after you've added the sugar to make sure it's sweet enough for you. Don't eat the raw rhubarb, but there should be some juices in the mixture at this point, so taste that.

We make strawberry rhubarb pies at work, and you can make a strawberry rhubarb crisp, too. Both fruit will be plentiful this summer.

Enjoy!

Neglect

One of my goals for this year was to pay more attention to this blog and try to get more traffic on it. It hasn't happened. Let me fill you in, if anyone's still reading this.

I left a job in the interior and moved to Victoria near the middle of February. I did an intensive job search here and was hired on as a pastry apprentice at a bakery. I had to also find a place to live in a matter of a couple of days at the end of February and for a while it was really iffy. I did get a place - a great place - at the eleventh hour. I started my new job March 2 and moved in the night before. It's been a very steep learning curve with early mornings and long hours, necessitating early nights and less time online.

If you want to read about my pastry apprenticeship adventures, you can to so at my Wandering Coyote site. I just posted a couple of pictures of my humble creations there. I might start a new blog just to write about my apprenticeship journey, but I'm not sure I can handle a third blog, especially after I've neglected this on so long. We'll see.