my favourite muffins (currently)

When the going gets tough, I tend to get baking. Unfortunately, that means that two of us often end up eating enough baked goods to kill a small horse. When the baking is things like cookies or these awesome Overnight Cinnamon Rolls this is a problem, because the small horse would have died of heart disease, probably.

So I have been on a quest to find healthier things to bake, and thought I'd share my current favourite muffin recipe. I know it says "bran" in the recipe there, but these are light muffins, not the dense, chewy, cardboardy pucks that can sometimes result from heightened fibre content. It's a modified Canadian Living recipe, from the "Honey Bran Muffins" recipe in their Complete Canadian Living Cookbook (an excellent cookbook that I use regularly for all sorts of things.)

Wet ingredients:

2 eggs

1 cup plain yoghurt

1/3 cup milk

1/3 cup canola oil (although I often use slightly less)

1/4 cup liquid honey

2 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups 100% or all- bran cereal 

Dry ingredients:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups raisins (or chopped prunes work really nicely too)

Preheat the oven to 375F (190C).

In a medium bowl, whisk together all the wet ingredients. Stir in the bran cereal and let stand for at least five minutes.

In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. Pour the bran mixture over the dry ingredients, add raisins, and mix just to combine.

Spoon into muffin cups and cook for 25 minutes or until golden brown and tester comes out of centre clean.

Makes ~12 muffins.

she bakes, she bakes

More baking adventures. It appears that I have... well, not perfected, and not even mastered, but accomplished the art of a reasonable flatbread. First there was pizza dough, which I have made using Alton Brown's recipe (you may detect a theme here) and that has generally turned out. We've eaten a lot of pizza; each time I make the dough it gets better. So practice is clearly a component. Next up with pizza adventures: I'm going to try Alton's grilled flatbread pizza recipe. You know, because winter's such a great time for grilling.

I have also accomplished a reasonable facimile of a sort of mana'eesh, a Middle Eastern flatbread that is essentially a pizza with za'atar on it instead of tomato sauce and pepperoni. I'll make this one again, I think, and up the oven temperature from the 400 F the recipe called for; my mana'eesh didn't really brown, though they were quite tasty all the same. And very, very easy, except for the part where my pizza stone can only support two at a time.

also, za'atar is extremely delicious

Finally, today I accomplished homemade bagels. They're not beautiful, but wow are they tasty. I did them the traditional way, poaching them in boiling water with baking soda and malt syrup before baking. They weren't blatantly flavourful the way, say, a store-bought bagel is; they were better. The texture was flat-out awesome. They had a subtle flavour; something not quite sweet, not quite savoury. They were a fair bit of work; a pre-ferment, then mixing and kneading the dough, then another rise, then shaping them and leaving them in the fridge overnight, then poaching (which I could only do two at a time) and then baking (which I could only do four at a time.) And things are a little time-sensitive when it comes to the poaching-draining-baking thing, so I'm not sure I'll be doing much of them when I'm home alone with smallfry. But as a weekend baking activity I'll definitely pull this recipe out again. I may have been ruined by these bagels; I'm pretty sure I'll never be able to go back to store-bought.

Incidentally, for those looking for a good mana'eesh or bagel recipe, I got both from Daniel Leader's Simply Great Breads book. My current copy is the library's but I'm pretty sure I'll be buying one. The failed bialys were from this book too, so my record with it is not perfect, but there are at least two recipes there that worked out well, and several more that I'd like to try (cider doughnuts being first on the list.)

I just ate another half-bagel, just to confirm that they really are that tasty. So. Good.

teach a girl to bake

I have a problem.

I am a compulsive follower of recipes. I cannot not follow a recipe. And I'm not very good at cooking if I don't have a recipe to follow. This makes me a rather poor cook, but a pretty decent baker. I like baking and baking is a precise art. It's not so precise that a little slip-up here or there can't be recovered from, but it's precise enough that one should have a recipe and one should follow it. Usually a followed recipe when baking means a reasonably delicious outcome.

Unless, I am learning, the baked good is yeast breads. There is magic to yeast breads, and I haven't quite mastered it yet. My suspicion is that the problem has to do with my blind recipe-following and the fact that I'm not entirely sure of the reasons behind the recipe.

Take, for example, these attempted bialys.

we both think they look like onion-topped nipples; the resemblance is disturbing

I followed the recipe exactly, including the careful pricking of the centres so that they wouldn't do exactly what they did. They taste fine, but the experience of eating them is somewhat less than satisfying.

The thing I am realizing is that I need a little more understanding of the science behind baking. Chemistry was not my favourite subject in university, to say the least, but this is chemistry I can eat. And when it's taught to me by people like Alton Brown on Good Eats, well, I can get in to chemistry. Once I learn a bit more about why yeast breads do the magical things they do, I think I can follow -- or adapt, or embellish -- recipes with more confidence.

not dead yet!

*pokes a little at the blog*

Oooh, it is still alive!

Okay, so yes. If you follow this blog and not my other, you can be forgiven for thinking I might be dead. The truth is, I have been hibernating a bit this winter as far as birdwatching and gardening sorts of things go. I have been cooking a little bit, but there hasn't been anything newsworthy (other than my decision, based on one mostly successful experiment, that the slow cooker is probably the way to go ALWAYS). I haven't even really been reading much that would be relevant here, although I should report that I am in love with Lucy Waverman's new cookbook, A Year in Lucy's Kitchen. I have not yet tried a recipe by her that hasn't turned out, even the ones that are a little tricky.

But we are closing in on the end of February, and my little calendar is telling me that this weekend is the time to plant my hot peppers. We had a day last week that even smelled a little bit like spring. Then we had a snowstorm, but I am watching the buckets of snow melting in a steady drip out the window right now. In a couple of weeks no doubt the Dutch iris will be peeking up, and the snowdrops. I will be able to find out if my new redbud and the two-year-old Kentucky coffee tree made it through the winter. Two and a half weeks from now I'll be looking at planting tomatoes and basil. We have a new wheelbarrow, lots of mulch waiting, and I have plans starting to take shape in my head. Bring it on, March!

condiment experiment: Mangoes and Curry Leaves by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid

Last night I attempted a couple of recipes in my new, beautiful cookbook (it's more of a coffee table book, really, so pretty and unweildy) Mangoes and Curry Leaves by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid. I made three condiment sauces to go along with fishy's [superdelicious] chicken curry. There were two hits and one miss. The hits were lovely. The miss was... spectacular.

I did the Hot Sweet Date-Onion Chutney and the Fresh Coriander-Peanut Chutney, both from page 28, and then the Mint Sambol from page 32.

The chutneys were lovely, and I can see the date chutney becoming a favourite. It is indeed sweet, and it has a lovely hot kick that's not painful; very pleasant. The cooked onions give the whole thing a very roasty, tasty flavour, cooked as they were in sesame oil. I was a bit concerned that the sesame oil might be too strongly flavoured, but I think it was perfect. Given the few ingredients and the simplicity of it, I'm really impressed with the complexity of the flavours. Makes a nice dip, and I think would also be really good with samosas or veggie pakora.

The cilantro chutney was really nice paired with the curry because it has a very fresh, tangy zip that cuts through the richness and spice of a curry. We couldn't find cayennes or serranos, so we made it with jalapenos. It worked out fine, but I'd definitely be interested in testing out other types of peppers in that recipe.

And then there was the mint sambol. I did this is with the mortar and pestle, which in itself is a fair bit of work. Which would have been fine if it had turned out.

I don't know what I did. I thought I'd followed the recipe (except for the hot pepper types, again) but the resulting dish was so unbelievably salty it was inedible. I don't know if I didn't have enough mint, or enough lime juice, or if the difference in the pepper types would have solved the problem, but fishy and I each tasted it (him despite my dire warnings that his arteries would immediately solidify into solid columns of salt) and then we threw out the rest. I really liked the idea of the mint sambol, so it was definitely disappointing. And unpleasant.

However, I'm certainly going to keep trying recipes from this book. There's another sambol mentioned, spicy and sweet, that I might attempt next, keeping a close eye on the amount of salt I use, of course.

Hot Sweet Date-Onion Chutney
pg. 28 of Mangoes and Curry Leaves by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid

• 3 dried red chiles, stemmed
• 2 tablespoons raw sesame oil, or vegetable oil, or ghee
• 1 large white onion (about 1/2 pound), coarsely chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
• 1/2 cup chopped pitted dates

"Put the chiles in a small bowl, add 1 cup hot water, and set aside to soak for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a wok or karhai (see Glossary) or a wide heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion and salt and cook until the onion is well touched with brown, about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside.

"Drain the chiles, place them in a food processor, add the chopped dates, and process for 30 seconds to finely chop. Add the onion mixture and process for about 15 seconds to chop and blend the ingredients. Alternatively, place the drained chiles on a flaat stone mortar and grind to a paste with the pestle, add the dates and grind, and finally, add the cooked onion mixture and coarsely grind, leaving some small chunks.

"Taste the chutney for salt, and adjust if necessary. Serve in a condiment dish. (Store leftovers in a well-sealed glass jar in the refridgerator for up to several weeks). Makes 1 cup; serves 6."

For more recipes and commentary on the above recipe (or to see the Glossary) please check out the cookbook! Especially recommended for food culture junkies and food p**n addicts like me.

Curried Potatoes

This recipe is particularly delicious at this time of year through early fall, when there are fresh potatoes and fresh hot peppers to be found, but it's good at any time. I can't remember what book I got the inspiration from, but I've been making this dish since before I moved out of my parents' house. It was a standard at university, and it continues to be my favourite way to eat potatoes. I'm including some standard measurements, but I'm pretty lackadaisical when it comes to adding ingredients. It changes every time. I've been very specific about the slicing of the jalapenos because this way they add the best texture, but the jalapenos are optional if you're not a fan, as is the coriander. The lemon juice, by the way, makes the whole dish. It really brings out all the other flavours. So while many of the other ingredients are fungible, the lemon juice really isn't.

I cook this dish in our wok, which is big enough for vigorous stirring and transfers heat very nicely, but a good big frying pan does the trick too.

Curried Potatoes

4-6 potatoes (I prefer russets, but any boiling potato will do)
1/3 cup oil
1/2 tsp. mustard seed
a few curry leaves (or 1/4 tsp. curry powder and pinch turmeric for Very Yellow Colour)
1-2 jalapeno peppers, sliced lengthwise in eighths and then sliced crossways in 3mm chunks
1 tbsp. ketchup
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. chile powder
1/2 tsp. cumin powder
lemon juice
chopped fresh coriander

Cut potatoes into 1 inch cubes, leaving the skins on (they're delicious in this dish), boil until tender, and drain well.

While potatoes are draining, heat the oil over medium heat. Add mustard seed, curry, jalapenos, ketchup, salt, chile powder, and cumin. Sautee for 1 minute or until spices are fragrant. Be careful not to overcook/burn the spices. 1 minute is really all it takes.

Add the potatoes and cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring. Add lemon juice to taste (I wouldn't go higher than 1 tbsp. to start), stir until well combined. Add coriander to taste, stir and serve.

Makes 3-6 servings, depending on how hungry people are, and stores well in the fridge for next-day reheated leftovers. Some people might suggest this is only a side (ie., we had this with hamburgers last night) but they would be wrong. This was my full lunch today and it was perfection.

smitten kitchen's smashed chickpea salad = win

I was in the mood for something a little different as far as dinner tonight, so I wandered through all my Google Reader stars and found the smitten kitchen recipe for smashed chickpea salad. I wasn't really in the mood for meat, although it occurs to me now that I have managed to eat chickpeas two meals in a row -- chenna masala for lunch and this excellent chickpea salad on toast for dinner.

It's a breeze to make, and I don't think one would have to change a thing. However, if I was doing it again, here are a few things I would do differently: better bread (than freezer-to-toaster Dempsters), slightly more roasted red pepper (done on BBQ, these added much to the sandwich) and finally, significantly less lemon juice in the tahini dressing. The tahini dressing was nice, but I kind of feel like I've been kicked in the face by a lemon and that's not quite what I was going for. fishy suggested adding... something... to the chickpeas; maybe more salt? Maybe garlic? I might try arugula on the sandwich next time, or cress -- I can see the peppery greens being a lovely addition.

I've got enough that I can do lunch tomorrow, too. It would be really lovely on pita with sprouts, I bet, but since I have neither I'll probably go with the freezer Dempsters and mesclun mix instead.

fresh shiitake mushrooms = happy me

Another attempt, last night, at Thai food. I'm still quite convinced I have no idea what I'm doing, and that I'm not very good at it. I used an online recipe this time, for Sweet and Sour Chicken. It was good, but there was too much soy sauce involved. Tamari might have been better, since the flavour is not so heavy. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't quite what I'd hoped. It did look gorgeous in the wok -- bright colours and lots of variety. I think it was likely very healthy, too. And there are leftovers, which are likely to be better the next day.

What did work out well were the shiitake mushrooms. fishy was able to find them fresh at the local grocery, which is awesome. They have a very subtle scent when raw, but the minute they are cooked, their flavour skyrockets. They taste amazing and rich, and were a perfect compliment to the sweet and sour sauce. Their texture was also a nice compliment to the crunchy peppers and bok choi, and the soft chicken. They're kind of halfway in-between a veggie and a meat, texture-wise. A little squishy. Each bite is a little squirt of flavour. I know not everyone finds that awesome, but I do.

Chiang Mai curry noodles

I embarked on the first of a number of experiments with Asian cooking last night. Here is the main thing I learned: 3 cups of coconut milk is a hell of a lot of coconut milk for one dish. Also, I need to plan better for vegetables. Since the garlic and coconut milk were the only things that even resembled vegetables in the whole meal. Oops.

Otherwise, it was delicious, and I was quite pleased with how easy it was to make, and how reasonable the ingredient list was. I could find everything at the regular grocery store -- not that I object to frequenting Asian grocers, it's just that this was much more convenient for my hella busy day yesterday. This is a very rich, sweet curry; I used a mild curry paste, and it wasn't really spicy at all.

I made the Chiang Mai Curry Noodles from Hot Sour Salty Sweet: A Culinary Journey Through Southeast Asia, which I received for Christmas. It's a beautiful cookbook/travel book, and I expect I'll try to get around to reviewing it over at the other blog eventually. Do any librarians in the audience know if I'm horribly infringing copyright by posting an entire recipe, even if I attribute it? I suspect I should know more about copyright law than I do, given what I want to do for a living. At any rate, I'm not going to give you the commentary from the recipe, so if you want to read that you should borrow the book from your local library. Or buy it, I guess.

A couple notes: I used 4 cloves of garlic, because by and large I am immune to it and find that cookbook authors tend to be very conservative with their garlic estimates. The teaspoon of turmeric seems to be a bit much. However, I was using extremely fresh ground turmeric; it was quite powerful. The beef was a bit chewy. Alford and Duguid suggest that chicken can be used instead, and next time I think I will try that. I used chow mein noodles, because they are a kind of Chinese egg noodle... and they worked really well.

There were other options for condiments, like fried noodles and Thai pickled cabbage -- I had neither of these to hand, and deep frying just doesn't go well in this house. I definitely recommend at least the scallions, and both the shallots and scallions if possible. They make the dish -- cut right through the richness of the broth.

Chiang Mai Curry Noodles (aka. khao soi)
pg. 134 of Hot Sour Salty Sweet by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid

• 2 to 3 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1-inch piece fresh turmeric, minced, or 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1 teaspoon salt, plus a pinch
• 1 tablespoon Red Curry Paste (there is a recipe for this in the book, but I used store-bought)
• 1 tablespoon peanut or vegetable oil
• 3 cups canned or fresh coconut milk, with 1/2 cup of the thickest milk set aside
• 1/2 pound boneless flavourful beef (sirloin tip or trimmed stewing beef), cut into 1/2 inch chunks
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 cup water
• 3 tablespoons Thai fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
• 1 pound Chinese egg noodles

Toppings and condiments:

• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped shallots
• 1/2 cup minced scallions
• 1 lime, cut into wedges

"Place the garlic in a mortar with the turmeric and the pinch of salt and pound to a paste. Alternatively, finely mince the garlic and whole turmeric, if using, and place the garlic and turmeric in a small bowl with the pinch of salt. Stir in the red curry paste and set aside.

"Place a large heavy pot or wok over high heat. Add the 1 tablespoon oil and, when it is hot, toss in the curry paste mixture. Stir-fry for 30 seconds, then add the reserved 1/2 cup thick coconut milk and lower the heat to medium-high. Add the meat and sugar and cook, stirring frequently, for 4 to 5 minutes, until the meat has changed colour all over. Add the remaining 2 1/2 cups coconut milk, the water, fish sauce, and the remaining 1 teaspoon salt and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium and cook at a strong simmer for about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the lime juice." (Alford and Duguid, p. 135)

The above soup can be made an hour in advance and reheated before serving, if you want. Then cook your noodles as the package instructs, until they are tender but not mushy, drain them, and serve the soup over the noodles. Each person can add scallions and shallots as desired.

Serves 4.

brownie attempt

As part of a group presentation I'm involved in today, I have baked (or am in the process of baking, to be entirely accurate) a pan of brownies. I have not baked brownies in a very, very long time, and I'm trying to remember if they look the way they should look. I think so. My mother used to make these brownies for every occasion where sweets might be required and they are rich and delicious like no other brownie I have ever eaten.

From Edna Staebler's Food That Really Schmecks:

Brownies

Mix ingredients in the order given.

1/2 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup cocoa
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup flour
pinch salt

Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes in a greased cake pan.

Simple, right? It occurs to me that I forgot the salt, as I'm writing that down. Well. I guess they'll be that pinch more heart healthy. Heh.

shredded brussels sprouts and apples

First of all, I think it actually turned out okay. I am always apprehensive when trying out a new recipe, especially when it says things like "serve immediately" because the taste apparently goes off if left sitting for even ten minutes. No pressure. But it was colourful, and looked fresh, and was a really great combination of fall flavours.

The full recipe is from 101 cookbooks, btw.

Let's see, then. Recipe debrief, as it were.

The recipe calls for juice of one lemon, and I always forget that this particular author likes to do everything from scratch. The lemon juice is basically to keep the apples from going brown before you cook them, so juice of one fresh lemon, with the attendant squeezing, reaming and stinging fingers, is probably not 100% necessary. Two or three tablespoons of lemon juice out of a bottle would have sufficed. I figured this out after I'd reamed the thing, though. Brilliant.

I did do the tofu, as I had a slab of it in the freezer. Only used a third. It cooked up very nicely from frozen, and with the frying, garlic and maple syrup, had a wonderful, delicate flavour. I would definitely do that again. I might make the cubes a little tinier. They were also a little bit chewy, which means I slightly overcooked them.

The pan was too hot when I added the maple syrup, but I managed to pull things off the heat quickly enough that the syrup and garlic didn't burn. Mixed that all up, added the apples (which only cook enough to be hot through, not mushy) and then pulled all that and cooked up the sprouts.

Remembered at that point that I'd forgotten to toast pine nuts. That went really quickly though, so that was good...

And voila! It was pretty tasty. I don't see myself doing it regularly, but I would definitely make it again for lunch. I don't think it would work for a large group for dinner, for example, because of the fast turnaround time for serving. But for lunch again, I would definitely try it, even with the sprouts. fishy also suggested a variation with walnuts and cinnamon, which I imagine would be quite tasty.

adventures in the kitchen

I have two posts I really want to do. Both of them require photos of current projects. Not difficult to do... just haven't gotten around to that. So instead I will point you in this direction, to a recipe that I am going to attempt to make for lunch.

I am waffling on the tofu, but seriously... fried in garlic and oil and maple syrup? Even tofu should be delicious after that.

What I am trying to do here is introduce myself to brussels sprouts in a way that I will enjoy. Fried in oil seems like the way to go.

I've also put on a slow-cooker tortilla soup for supper. I am a little concerned that it is nearly an hour later and the soup is still cool. It is supposed to cook on low for eight hours. I got a little
anxious and turned it up. Likely I will overcook it now...

geek pumpkins

For the librarians out there:


Spooky!

And tasty. I made two sets of toasted pumpkin seeds with the innards of these pumpkins, following recipes from 101 Cookbooks. The curried pumpkin seeds are extremely tasty, but the sweet and spicy pumpkin seeds were undercooked. I expect I could re-toast them, but I haven't yet. The curried pumpkin seeds were in the oven for 15 minutes or more, being checked every minute after 13 minutes.

fiery chilled soup

Was thinking about recipes this morning, when I got a recipe exchange email in my inbox. I love recipe exchanges. I love recipes in general. Because I love food. I like eating food, but I also like thinking about food to eat.

The one I sent on the exchange was this one, from Linda Matthie-Jacobs' superlative cookbook Light the Fire. I should review that one some time, I suppose. Anyway. The following recipe is hers and I made no changes to it. I consider this an advertisement for her cookbooks.

It's a chilled soup, and I decided to try it even though I'm not a big fan of cantaloupe myself. It does indeed make enough for 6 (even when recipes say that, they never seem to mean it) and it's a lovely summer appetizer or even lunch. It does not keep very well, I wouldn't say even more than a day in the fridge. So if you have to, halve the recipe and use the other half of the cantaloupe for something else.

Fiery Chilled Soup

1 large ripe cantaloupe, peeled and cubed
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded and cubed
1/4 cup liquid honey
grated rind of 1 fresh lime
juice of 1 fresh lime (about 1-2 tbsp.)
1 jalapeño pepper, finely chopped
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
2 cups plain fat-free yoghurt

Blend cantaloupe and cucumber in blender until smooth. Pour half of mixture into bowl. To remainder in blender, add honey, lime rind, lime juice, jalapeño, cumin and yoghurt. Blend until smooth. Add to mixture in bowl and mix well.

Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours. Serves 6.

sauce: the conclusion

I survived the tomato canning. Other than the frustration of being up until after midnight to put tomato sauce in jars, the other frustration?

3kg of tomatoes = 1 L of sauce

ONE LITRE.

That is two 500 mL jars, if anyone is counting. 'Cause I am.

We go through tomato sauces at a rate of at least two jars every couple of weeks to a month. So, this tomato sauce isn't going to last long.

The good news? It tasted pretty good, and it smelled delicious, and it sealed just perfectly. So, that is good. But I'm thinking, maybe it is too much work to grow all those tomatoes for TWO JARS of sauce.

As fishy said, it's a good thing we are not pioneers. We'd definitely starve.

progress update: thicken, damn you tomatoes!

So, update on the canning. Because I know everyone is waiting with baited breath.

Let's see, it's 10:45pm and... the freaking tomato mix isn't ready to go in the jars yet. And there is a 35 minute processing period after the tomato mix is in the jars. And the mix has to be strained prior to going into the jars.

The recipe said 1.25 hours for the tomato mixture to come to the proper thickness, and we're going on 2.25 and we're still not there yet. I guess it makes sense that my tomatoes are really watery given all the rain this summer, but it's hell on the thickening.

The good news is that I did, in fact, have enough tomatoes right out of the garden for the complete and full recipe, so I am very pleased with that. There are even enough left over to make bbq sauce! And probably something else, too. Also, the sauce smells really good. It's a very basic tomato sauce, with oregano, bay leaf, garlic, onion and a whack of roma tomatoes. It's going to be made with my very own tomatoes and my very own garlic, so that makes me happy.

However, I must say, we will not be making the bbq sauce tonight. That will be an effort for tomorrow. Or possibly Friday. Or Saturday. Sometime before Monday, anyway. Really.

fall planning and canning

So, nothing big for 50, I decided. Too much pressure.

Speaking of pressure, tonight fishy and I are going to try some canning. We have made jellies successfully, both sweet and hot, and now we're going to attempt a tomato sauce, with any of the good roma tomatoes that are left in the garden. According to the recipe I have I need 6kg of romas. I am thinking I might halve everything. I know you're not supposed to fiddle with the ingredients of preserved foods, but the ratios will all stay the same...

That is our task for tonight. This coming weekend is going to be a major garden cleaning blitz. I am going to order some garlic from Veseys again, because I was thrilled with the way the garlic grew this summer and I'd love to have more next summer -- I ordered 1lb of bulbs last year and I think I'm going to go for 3lbs this year. Yes, that will be a lot of garlic. But the amount we have in storage now is not going to last us the winter, and if I can avoid buying garlic from China I will. Nothing against China, but it seriously chafes me to buy a little bulb of garlic flown all the freaking way from the opposite side of the world (you can't get much further away) when it is something that grows in Canada perfectly well.

So, I will grow my own. And lots of it. The other thing is, the garlic made me feel good about my gardening skills. Such as they are...

"wild" grape jelly

This is my 49th post. Should I do something special for the 50th, or is that right reserved for the 100th?

Anyway. The grapes that shadow our back porch bloomed and then produced like crazy this year. Turns out we have green seedless grapes, not at all table grapes but deliciously flavourful and very productive.

I thought I'd toss out some photos of the grapes and the jelly that fishy and I (though mostly fishy) made. We used a recipe from the Internets: Wild Grape Jelly. fishy did some modifications for the second batch, with more juice and less sugar, and it turned out better. We have no idea how many pounds of grapes we used. More than three for sure. We made two batches of jelly and still had juice left over. It was quite simple, but very time consuming, for the de-stemming of the grapes, the washing, and the crushing. Which we did with our bare hands. After the crushing, we got something that looked like this:


It was delicious, but a little painfully sour. We strained (not overnight) and ended up with this crazy, cloudy, grey-green juice. Something like I imagine the Limpopo River looking like. It tasted fine though. We added food colouring (doing it again, I don't think I would -- I'd like to see if the jelly clarifies a little and looks a little more appealing) and pectin, and away we went. Well, fishy. I was making cornbread and marinating tofu. So, fishy did all the actual canning bits. This is what we ended up with:


It's lovely. The first batch is a little sweet, but the second is just about perfect. Looking forward to testing it with cheese. The first batch will have to be for toast and dessert, I think.

Oliver, Jamie. Jamie at home: cook your way to the good life. Hyperion: 2007.

Not much one for celebrity chefs until we started watching cooking shows, I have turned out to be a food voyeur. I love cooking shows. I am a fan of certain chefs. And yes, the Naked Chef, Jamie Oliver himself, has a fan in me. Specifically the series Jamie at Home, which I am anxiously waiting for on DVD so I can watch it again and again and drool at his garden and his kitchen and his amazing outdoor oven.

While waiting, though, I will satisfy myself with the most excellent (and enormous) Jamie at Home: Cook Your Way to the Good Life. It's full of delicious-looking recipes, and notes about the produce and meat used in the recipes. A food voyeur like me doesn't really need it to be a functional cook book. Just pretty and tasty-looking. Which it is.

It is also functional. The kofta was the "Grilled lamb kofta kebabs with pistachios and spicy salad wrap" on pg. 44. It was just as easy as the recipe made it sound, not to mention straightforward and very tasty. I would reproduce the recipe here, but I'm not sure that I'm allowed. Copyright and all that.

A warning: if you find books that are written extremely informally, this may not be the book for you: "However, my favorite thing to do is boil them for 10 minutes, toss them with some good olive oil, salt, pepper, a little swig of red or white wine vinegar, woody herbs like thyme and rosemary and some smashed garlic, and roast the little monkeys at 350 F until they're lightly golden, with intense flavor. Come on Eileen, now we're talking!" The monkeys in question are carrots and beets. Mm. Monkeys.

kofta away!

I cooked lamb kofta over the barbeque last night, and I happen to be proud enough that I have to brag about it. I meant to take a photo but completely forgot. Suffice to say it not only tasted delicious, but it looked really damn good too.

I don't often cook with lamb (actually, I think this was maybe the first time) and so I was a little nervous. I also had to deal with the fact that the only pistachios available were of the salted, in-shell variety; so I had to shell and rince them before adding them to the lamb mix. Aside from these very minor inconveniences, the recipe really was as fast and easy as it looked.

The idea for serving is to toast up a flatbread then pile salad greens plus lemony red onions on top, then add kofta and top with plain yoghurt. I decided to make a cucumber-yoghurt sauce instead, and this was really my crowning achievement. Because I am not a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants cook. I need to have a recipe and I need to follow it exactly. I have been tentatively stepping out of this shell.

And boy, did it turn out well! I added fresh mint, finely chopped cucumber, cilantro and freshly squeezed lemon juice to the yoghurt, turning it a little more saucy. Then I added a touch of salt and also just a wee bit of sugar, because I found it a bit too bitter -- and it was just perfect to top everything off. If I was doing it again, I would add diced tomato and squeezed garlic. But that's a minor quibble.

The kofta itself were a little bit... bland, maybe. I would add a bit more salt and a bit more pepper next time, and definitely a couple cloves of garlic, I think. And I would grind up the pistachios first as opposed to just adding them whole to the mix. They were a little chunkier than they needed to be. I wouldn't want them creamed, of course, but maybe a little smaller in size. And I'd add a few more, too. If they happened to be hulled for me.

All in all -- kofta = success! Love bbq season.