Merry Merry

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Warmest Wishes
from our family to you and yours.

2009 for us has been an amazing incredible year that at the same time flew by in an instant and dragged on and on.

The most wonderful moments in my life happened this year and every day is even better than the day before.

Not everything was merry and bright, and some aspects of my life fell to the side, including my little blog. 2010 will not only be an awesome year for my family, it will also be the year I recapture my focus and get organized once again, and work on posting here and visiting your sites to learn and be inspired.

Thank you for everything, and see you next week for our Christmas dinner post!

babes, christmas and boy

The Bread Baking Babes have unveiled the December bread – a Viennese Striesel chosen by the Kitchen Babe of the Month, the lovely Katie from Thyme For Cooking.
I did not make the bread this month – I can’t even find the time to get dressed or shower daily anymore – but it’s gorgeous and sounds like a fun project and I hope to make it another time. Please head over to the list of Babes in the sidebar and check out their breads.
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Last December I did a week of food related gift ideas. Again, I have little time for anything that is not baby related, but I do have 5 gift ideas for you this year -

Regular readers here may remember that at the end of last year/beginning of this year I was part of the recipe testing crew for the Urban Vegan cookbook. I recently received a copy of the book, and it is fabulous. This book is NOT only for Vegans, the recipes are awesome, easy and accessible for everyone. The recipes for Blueberry Grunt and Winter Pesto are alone worth the price of the book.

I hadn’t heard of the Lee Brothers before I was offered this cookbook, and what a shame that is. This is as the title says, a book full of simple and fresh recipes. I may not have access to collard greens, but cooking with okra and making pimento cheese potatos is pretty darn fun. We enjoyed all the recipes we tried and when we had to sub ingredients in a couple of them, the end result was still tasty. My favorite was the buttermilk pudding cakes (made during the sweet tooth phase of my pregnancy) and I can’t WAIT to make the buttermilk cheese!

Every year I like to make at least one homemade present. Because my due date was the beginning of December, I looked for something that I could make in advance, and would be able to sit a while. The first is this spiced salt from Nigella Lawson -
250 grams good quality sea salt
2 tsp red peppercorns
2 tsp crushed dried red chiles
4 star anise

Put the salt in a bowl with with the peppercorns, dried chiles and star anise.
Toss everything together, then pour into jars and seal tightly.

I’ve had my eye on this recipe for a couple of years now, I’ve wanted to try to make mustard at home for ages, but have been intimidated by it for some reason. This recipe from Simple Italian Sandwiches is…..simple. And wonderfully delicious. You need a week to get this ready, so you have just enough time to make a batch for this holiday season.
4 oz Colmans dry mustard
1 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups white vinegar
2 tb vegetable oil
Combine the dry ingredients in a blender. Pulse to combine, and then add the vinegar and oil. When thoroughly blended transfer to a clean jar with a tight fitting lid. Stir daily for 7 days before serving. This keeps indefinitely in the fridge.

And you can’t have Christmas or a holiday celebration without cookies. These shortbread cookies are easy and delicious and only have 4 ingredients.
Makes about 24 cookies
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 cup flour
3/4 cup soft butter

Sift together the cornstarch, icing sugar and flour. Blend in butter until a soft smooth dough forms. Shape into 1″ balls and chill 30 -60 minutes. Place 1 1/2″ apart on a cookie sheet and flatten slightly with a floured fork. Bake 300′ for 15-20 minutes. Transfer to a rack and cool.

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When Paxton was born a couple of weeks ago he spent his first 2 days in the NICU (he is fine) and so every 3 hours we headed off to visit and feed him. The first night
I was trying to figure out how to use the alarm on my ipod so I could get up at 1am for feeding time. I couldn’t figure it out. I thought that maybe you had to have the ipod running, so I clicked on shuffle songs and no shit, I am not lying I swear, John Lennon’s Beautiful Boy started to play. And I started to cry.

Introducing........

our amazing, gorgeous baby boy, Paxton.

Paxton was born on Saturday, and we came home from the hospital yesterday. I am crazy, head over heels in love and also exhausted.

See you soon.

Cookin' with Coolio

Life is a beautiful wonderful thing, and you know, it’s just too short to be taken seriously all the time. Some days, most days having fun and laughing is the best thing you can do. In the kitchen too.

So last month when asked if I would like to receive a copy of Coolio’s new cookbook Cookin’ with Coolio, my answer was absolutely HELL YES! If the idea of Coolio writing a cookbook seems rather bizarre to you, it’s actually really not. Coolio’s got his own cooking series on the internets – it’s very funny and inventive. He knows food and his recipes are very fun.

The timing of receiving this cookbook wasn’t great for me as I am only possibly days away from giving birth and am on limited movement by the doctor. But I have read this cookbook cover to cover, laughing and drooling all the way.

The recipes are all straightforward with clear, sometimes hysterical directions. This is the food that Coolio cooks for his friends and family and the writing reflects the fun he has in the kitchen. There is no dry or boring reading here. An example from his recipe for Strawberry Fields Banana Muffins Forever (from the chapter Sweet Treats For That Sweet Ass):
“You might think that muffins are for women, but listen to me, motherfucker, muffins are for everybody!”
or from the recipe for Crybaby Chicken (from the Pimpin’ The Poultry chapter):
“…it’s so flavorful, it’ll make you grow extra tongues. If you can’t take the heat, you shouldn’t be in the kitchen in the first damn place.”
I’ve marked up most of the recipes in the book to try, and last night we made the Steak Fatricia.
A delicious stir fry/fajita, your steak and veggies are cooked with lime juice, cilantro and a ton of garlic. Fold in a tortilla with some sour cream and hot sauce for a crazy delicious and fast meal.

I absolutely love this cookbook and recommend that anyone who likes to laugh in the kitchen should take a look. This book is pure fun and great food.

The meatballs cook in the sauce!

The first week of my maternity leave is over and it wasn’t quite as productive as I’d hoped. I’d made plans to get some stuff done before the baby arrives but due to issues with my blood pressure, I’ve been ordered to severely restrict my activities, and have pretty much been doing jack squat since Wednesday. There’s been a lot of fidgeting, staring out the window, and watching a hell of a lot of food shows.

Yesterday morning I saw an old episode of Nigella Bites where on a rainy day she made pasta, meatballs and sauce from scratch. After my doctor appointment we stopped at the store and picked up what we needed for the meatballs and sauce.

I used the 2 recipes as guidelines instead of following them to the letter. The thing I most wanted from her recipe was that the meatballs are cooked in the sauce, rather than being fried or baked first. I love meatballs but hate making them at home. Cooking them right in the sauce makes so much sense. And by making the meatballs small, they cook fast.

I used a large can of roma tomatos and a small can of fire roasted tomatos in place of the passata in the recipe. I whizzed the sauce smooth before adding the milk and meatballs for the final cooking.

Both the sauce and meatballs were delicious and dinner was ready in just over 30 minutes. Also great about this recipe – I figure I spent under $8 to make the sauce and meatballs, and got enough for 3 meals for the 2 of us.

Mighty Life List

One of my daily stops on the internet is Maggie Mason’s Mighty Girl. Maggie wrote her Mighty Life List – a list of 100 things she hopes to do before her life is over. Back in June she announced that a sponsor had offered to help her cross off 10 things from her list, and she spent the summer doing amazing things – visiting Greece, organized a food fight, and taking tap lessons, among others. Her list, her experiences and her joy of learning and trying new things inspired me to write down my own list. This year I crossed two major things off my life list I kept in my head. In May we went to Alaska and right now I’m sitting here with my feet up on doctors orders as we wait for our baby to arrive.

Here’s my Mighty Life List, in no order:

1 Buy a camper and go camping

2 Place flowers at the memorial statue of Stevie Ray Vaughn in Austin, Texas

3 See a Cirque du Soliel show

4 Visit every Province and Territory in Canada

5 Learn to play the drums

6 Have a chocolate tasting

7 Participate (as in run) in a Terry Fox Run

8 Meet in person some food bloggers I “know”

9 Make a Mythic Pasta Dome, from scratch, a la Big Night

10 Go to Churchill and see the polar bears

11 Make a pie with fruit from our garden

12 Learn to make aspic salad for Scott

13 Make at least one new recipe a week

14 Give blood

15 Go to Memphis for barbecue

16 Make a sock monkey

17 Go away somewhere warm for Christmas and New Years

18 Make really good sushi at home

19 Visit Julia Child’s kitchen at the Smithsonian

20 See the Great Wall of China

21 Eat at the French Laundry

22 Learn to speak another language

23 Make homemade ice cream and eat it in the backyard on a hot summer day

24 Learn to take better photos

25 Sew a shirt or skirt or pair of pants with my sewing machine

26 Become once again the organized person I used to be

27 Go houseboating

28 Pay off our mortgage early

29 Cook at least 10 recipes out of every cookbook I own

30 Travel on a train

31 Do the very best job I can as a parent

32 Make cheese

33 Replace the art prints we have up in the house with all original art – paintings and photos

34 Visit Spain

35 Fly a kite successfully

36 See the Northern Lights

37 See Niagara Falls

38 Learn how to tell the doneness of a steak with the “touch” method, rather than my “guess” method

39 Make a pavlova

40 Deep fry a turkey

41 Try Absinthe

42 Watch the sunrise from a beach

43 Fly First Class on a long (or longish) flight

44 Take a photo of the baby everyday and post online for family and friends to see (don’t worry, not here on my blog!)

45 Be able to recognize more constellations that the Big and Little Dipper

46 Go on a weekend (or longer) trip where Scott could fish all day/to his hearts content

47 Enter some baking into a fall fair

48 Make Turkish Delight

49 Buy and learn how to use a photo editing program to make our photos look better

50 Take a cooking class and learn something really great

51 Take a trip down the Pacific Highway with Scott and our family, like I did with my parents when I was young

52 Visit New Orleans

53 Go to Las Vegas, get dressed up, have a fancy dinner, then play a few hands of blackjack while sipping cocktails

54 Be able to donate regularly to worthy causes

55 Live more “Green”

56 Set off fireworks on a beach

57 Forgive and forget

58 Take part in a parade

59 Stick my toe in the Atlantic Ocean

60 Visit Italy

61 Take a cruise to a tropical destination

62 Learn to make towel animals

63 Complete at least 5 craft tutorials

64 Have a day at a spa

65 Go to the Columbia Icefield

66 Have a family portrait taken

67 Try snowshoeing

68 Drive a boat

69 Go on a trip with no predetermined destination

70 Hire a cleaning company to come to the house once a month

71 Have a little black dress or outfit (that I look good in) for dinners or parties

72 Be able to do 20 regular push ups without stopping

73 Decorate a cake with fondant

74 Visit Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks

75 Have a header designed for my blog

76 Spend a weekend in a cabin with no tv, phone or internet

77 Add the baby to the family tattoo on my arm

78 Volunteer at a mission or church kitchen to serve a Thanksgiving or Christmas meal

79 Try glass blowing

80 Have a margarita tasting

81 Make a piece of jewelery (that I would wear in public)

82 Catch (and release!) a fish

83 Go to the Richmond Night Market

84 Read these 10 classic novels

85 Have a movie marathon night and cook food inspired by the movies

86 Take photos in the park with a big bunch (20 or more) of helium balloons as a prop

87 Eat at one of Bobby Flay’s restaurant

88 Visit all 5 Great Lakes

89 Go to Oktoberfest in Kitchener

90 Learn to juggle

91 Rent a convertible somewhere warm and drive with the top down

92 Learn an old fashioned card game and have a card night

93 See some of the original paintings of the Group of Seven

94 Stay in a fancy hotel suite for one night

95 See the Bay of Fundy

96 Open a coffee shop/bakery

97 Pay for the groceries of the person behind me in line

98 Take a Tai Chi class

99 Make Spam Musabi

100 Shave my head to raise money for charity

What’s on yours?

Bread Baking Babes - Brioche Mousseline

November’s Bread Baking Babe bread is brought to us by Monique, of Living on bread and water. She’s chosen a Brioche Mousseline from the The Breads of France, by Bernard Clayton Jr. The twist to this bread is that it is baked in a tin can (soup, tomato, coffee), instead of a bread tin. Crazy!

This dough, and please go visit Monique for the recipe, requires some time, like a day. I split the recipe over 2 days, leaving the dough in the fridge overnight and then giving it some extra rise and recovery time the next night before baking. I’ve never made a dough before with so much butter and eggs. The dough was the most lovely yellow color, and was so silky and smooth. It was a gorgeous dough to work with.

A week or so before I made the bread a discussion popped up on the Babes private blog. Some of the bakers were wondering if tins lined with that white material would be safe to bake in. Some Babe Google work showed that it would be safer to stay away from those lined tins. Well guess what? Apparently ALL the tinned food we have in our pantry contains the white lining. We opened 5 cans of food on bread baking night – soup, tomatos, olives, fruit – and were blocked. We had to go with a regular bread tin for baking. On the plus side I made a terrific tomato-olive pasta sauce that’s now sitting in the freezer.

If you’ve already visited some of the other Babes, you’ll see that this dough rises incredibly high. I hoped that ours would as well, even though it was being baked in a regular tin, so we surrounded the tin with a parchment/foil cover.

The bread went in the oven….

And came out a regular sized loaf!

Oh well. I have to tell you that looks don’t matter very much. The brioche was still a very nice loaf of bread.

Scott had some toasted every morning until the loaf was gone. We also used some for grilled cheese sandwiches one night, and oh baby, were they good.

Please turn to the right and visit the other Babes to see their sky high breads.

Cheers!

I do enjoy the silliness.

Apples

Last Saturday (the 31st) was the last Farmers Market until the spring. What a bummer. We went down to pick up apples and potatos. There was a lovely couple selling apples there this year – many varieties and good prices. I will miss them this winter.

Last week Mary wrote about memories and the smells of certain foods. For me, the smell of cinnamon always reminds me of the applesauce my Mom would make in the crockpot when I was little. It was sweet and spicy and chunky, and I’ve never been able to make an applesauce that has come close to it.

This one is close though, from the Cookin’ Canuck who shared her secret family recipe for crockpot applesauce. Scott, who I’ve never seen eat applesauce before, ate this every day for a week. If you like applesauce, try her recipe.

When I’d sorted out the apples – a pile to be turned into applesauce, some to be juiced, another pile for eating straight up – I set aside some to try out a recipe that I’ve had my eye on for a couple of years, Scandinavian Apple Soup.

This was interesting, not what I was expecting, but quite nice. The aroma of apples and onions took me by surprise but it’s a warm comforting soup. Recipe here.

Happy Monday!

Fall is coming

Ferocious spiny sea monster?
Nope, just a chestnut from the park.

U Pick Pumpkin Patch and Roasted Squash and Garlic Spread

It was raining pretty hard last Saturday when we went to the pumpkin patch after the farmers market. The field was so muddy they weren’t letting cars in past the gate as 2 were already stuck and waiting to be towed out. We walked in. I didn’t care, I’d never been to a pumpkin patch before.

After we got home and changed out of our muddy clothes I made us a snack. It was supposed to be a bruschetta of squash – I envisioned cubes of roasted squash tossed with a dressing, piled on bread. But it’s been a while – since last winter – since I’ve attempted to cut into whole squashes. I had 2 small ones from the farmers market the week before and by the time we got them hacked into manageable pieces I knew there was no way this was going to be as pretty as I’d hoped. But looks don’t matter as much as taste and this was pretty darn good.

I baked my squash pieces with chunks of red onion and unpeeled garlic cloves, all tossed with some oil and salt and pepper. When the squash was tender and the onions nice and soft, I let them cool briefly, then chopped up the onions and mashed the squash (rind removed). I squished the roasted garlic out of their papers and mixed them with some oil, balsamic vinegar and honey. Then I stirred the dressing into the squash, and slathered it on the bread.

So good.

Freezer Pickles Part Two

Back a few posts I shared with you that we’d made some freezer pickles that would be ready after chilling out for 3 weeks.

Time’s up and I’ve pulled a bag out of the freezer.

These are really nice, turned out better than I expected. The texture is good, and the taste is a combo of sweet and salty. Interesting and delicious. This recipe is a keeper!

Freezer Pickles

8 cups thinly sliced cucumbers
2 onions, thinly sliced
2 tb salt
1 cup white vinegar
3/4 cup sugar

Toss the cucumbers onions and salt together in a large bowl. Cover and let sit for 2 to 3 hours.
Rinse the cucumbers very well. Squeeze handfuls of cucumber to remove excess water.
Put the cucumber/onions into freezer bags or freezer containers. Stir the vinegar and sugar together until the sugar is dissolved, and pour over the cucumber/onions.
Freeze at least 3 weeks before eating. The longer the pickles sit, the sweeter they will be. Thaw in the refrigerator before eating.

Another mighty fine burger

I haven’t had much in the way of cravings while pregnant. Haven’t sent Scott out late at night for ice cream or chocolate. Haven’t been eating weird combinations of potato chips and jam or bananas and cheese. I do lust after certain foods from time to time, but unless they are readily available I just shrug it off and deal with it.

Except for hamburgers. Gah, I think about them so often the last month or so. Hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chicken burgers, veggie burgers. With bacon and lettuce and tomato. With ketchup only. With bbq sauce. Hang on, I’ve got to wipe up all this drool. I will admit that a couple of times in the last month I’ve given in and treated myself to a burger. But only a couple. Cause really, this could get out of control VERY easily.

So around these parts, I may have been talking about hamburgers; may have mentioned them a few (dozen) times in the past couple of days. And Scott was nice enough to suggest we have burgers for dinner last night.

I’d recently found a recipe I was dying to try from Rachael Ray for Asian pork burgers that she then cut into appetizer sized pieces. We made some changes.

Asian Turkey Burgers

makes 4

1 lb ground turkey
1 green onion, minced
1 Tb soy sauce
1/4 tsp ground ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 pinch red pepper flakes
juice from 1/2 of a small orange

1 Tb honey
1/4 cup white vinegar
1/4 of an english cucumber, sliced into thin half moons
1 carrot, shredded

1 handful lettuce, shredded

4 large tortillas
hoisin sauce

Whisk together the honey and vinegar. Stir in the cucumber and carrot. Set aside.

Mix the ground turkey, onions, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, hot pepper and orange juice. Form into 4 patties.

Heat a large pan over medium heat and add a little vegetable oil. Add the patties and cook, turning once, until golden and cooked through.

While the burgers are cooking, spread approximately 1 Tb (or to your taste) with hoisin sauce on each tortilla. Top with lettuce and cucumber carrot salad.

When your turkey burgers are cooked through, place one on each tortilla.

Fold up the 4 sides of the tortilla, and turn the package over so the seam is at the bottom. Cut in half.

Eat and enjoy with plenty of napkins to mop up the juicy goodness. Plan to make again soon.

Bread Baking Babes - Chinese Flower Steam Buns

This month the lovely Karen of Baking Soda chose our bread for the Bread Baking Babes. She threw at us a really interesting pick – Xiang Cong Hya Juan Bao (Chinese Flower Steam Buns) from the book Global Baker by Dean Brettschneider.

This recipe differs in a couple of ways from “traditional” dough. First, the dough is not kneaded, but is rolled out thin, folded, rolled again, repeat repeat until your arms want to fall off. I was surprised that quite soon the dough lost its roughness and turned soft and silky. The other major way it is different from any other recipe the Babes have tried so far is that in the end the buns are steamed, not baked. How cool.

Here’s the dough being rolled (and rolled and roooooooolled):

And justlikethat here’s the finished buns ready to be cooked! So easy! Actually we took some video of filling and cutting and rolling the buns but as I write this I haven’t looked at it yet. But you sprinkle the dough with chopped green onions and red chile, fold and cut into slices, then twist the slices, and knot.

The buns are steamed for 20 minutes.

And then ready to eat. I was going to make some sort of fancy dipping sauce, but no. We just used a wee bit of soy.

These buns were easier than I thought they would be, and pretty fun. These would be great to make as part of a larger dim sum meal. My original plan was to also make some sushi and dumplings to go along side, which then turned into buying some sushi and dumplings, but in the end I did neither. We just ate the buns on their own.

Many thanks Karen, for a great choice this month! Please visit the other Babe’s sites (listed over on the right) for more steamy goodness.

Xiang Cong Hya Juan Bao

(Chinese flower steam buns)
makes 10 buns
“Everywhere you go in China you see people eating steam buns, also known as mantong. Typically Chinese, a sweet bread is combined with a savoury filling, such as red bean paste and barbecued pork, but take care and avoid using too much filling or the bun will fall apart during the rising and steaming stage. The baking powder helps to open up the texture and gives a little tenderness to the eating quality of the buns. If you can, use imported Chinese flour from a specialist Asian food market or store”.

Dough
300 g Chinese flour (plain flour will do)
15 g sugar
15 g butter
good pinch of salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp active dry yeast
150 ml chilled water, placed in the refrigerator overnight

Filling
rice bran oil, for brushing on dough
40 g finely chopped spring onions or chives
25 g finely chopped red chillies
salt to taste

To make the dough, place all the ingredients into a large mixing bowl and, using your hands, combine to form a very, very firm dough mass. Don’t be tempted to add any water or the steam buns will be flat after steaming.
Place the dough on a work surface and, using your rolling pin, roll out to a thin strip, fold this in half and roll again. Repeat this 10-15 times with a 30 second rest in between each time. This is a way of mixing a very firm dough, the dough will start to become smooth and elastic as a result of the rolling process.
Put the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Leave in a warmish place (23-25C) for 15 minutes. Tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Using a rolling pin, roll out each piece to a 25cm square. Brush the dough surface lightly with oil and sprinkle the chopped chives and chillies evenly over the dough. Season with salt.
Fold the dough in half and then cut into 2.5cm strips so that you end up with 10 folded strips. Stretch each strip and, starting at the folding edge, twist the two pieces of each strip over each other to form a rope.
Take the twisted rope and tie into a double knot, tucking the loose ends underneath. Place each bun with ends facing down on a 5cm square of non-stick baking paper** and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Prove for approximately 30-45 minutes in a warm place.

Bring a wok or saucepan of water to the boil with a bamboo steamer sitting on top. Remove the bamboo steamer lid and place the buns on the paper in the steamer 3-4 cm apart to allow for expansion during steaming. Replace the steamer lid and steam for 20 minutes. Repeat until all the buns have been steamed and are firm to the touch.