tea
shrimp and eggplant
sticky rice
shrimp dumplings
pork dumpling
coconut buns
new tan tan
cornbread muffin
Last night, immediately after dinner, I started the next day’s dinner. I do not know what is wrong with me.
I marinated beef chunks in bay leaf, smashed garlic and a bottle of wine overnight in anticipation of making Ina Garten’s Parker’s Stew today. But then I got all lazy today and didn’t brown the meat or vegetables and just threw everything in the slow cooker. This was a mistake because the potatoes took FOREVER to cook. Serves me right for not following Ina’s directions exactly. Always listen to the Ina.
I had some Bob’s Red Mill cornmeal in the cupboard and decided to make cornmeal muffins to accompany the lazy stew. Bob’s Red Mill is in Oregon and I love Oregon, so it all just makes sense, doesn’t it?
me on cannon beach, oregon
Cornbread Muffins
-adapted from Epicurious
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup white flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg, beaten
5 Tablespoons melted butter
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Butter spots in a muffin tin. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. Split between muffin spots (mine ended up being five big muffins). Bake x 15 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes and then take out. I forgot to put the egg in it, but it didn’t seem to matter. These were light and fluffy and just the thing to sop up the stew sauce.
roasted potatoes and sweet potatoes
First, cube the potatoes and sweet potatoes. Then put in salted water in a pot. Turn burner on high. Immediately when they start to boil, take them off the stove and drain in colander. Toss with olive oil, chopped rosemary, salt and pepper. Roast in a 400 oven on a baking sheet for about 45 minutes until softly charred.
parmesan roasted butternut squash
Oh my goodness, I really loved this, but I was the only one. So I ate it myself just to show the non-squash-believers how it is done. It was soft and creamy and sagey.
Peel the squash (this is a bitch to do, pardon my language) and cut into 1 inch cubes. Put in a greased casserole dish (this was adapted from Epicurious, which forgot to put in the part about greasing the dish and now I’m going to be scrubbing all night) with 3/4 cup heavy cream, 4 sage leaves and salt and pepper. Cook in a 400 degree oven with lid on for 20 minutes. Then stir in 2/3 cup grated parmesan and throw back in the oven, lid off, for another 20 minutes.
We also had Bratwurst sausage, but I took a food writing course from Jennifer Cockrall-King and she told us that sausage is impossible to photograph well, and boy, she’s right about that.
chocolate pecan toffee
There’s a mouse living in my kitchen and I just kicked H1N1 in the butt. Well, to tell you the truth, I have been sick for 12 long days. So I guess H1N1 actually kicked my butt, but my main point is that I’m back! And I’m baking! Even with fear of a mouse jumping out at me when I open a kitchen drawer. I am very brave.
After spending seven days propped up on the couch wrapped in a blanket with just enough energy to click through pages on my laptop, I’ve had lots of time to discover new food blogs. One lovely blog is called Dana Treats. She’s from Seattle, and she has a beautiful post about her son Graham. Since I’ve been to Holland too (check out her post to see what I mean), I took special notice of her blog. When she tweeted: Just made this toffee. Sooooo good, I thought: BY GUM! That’s what I feel like – TOFFEE! And so toffee it was.
Chocolate Pecan Toffee
-adapted from Chocolate Peanut Toffee from Dana Treats by way of Gourmet
2 sticks butter, cut into pieces
1 cup white sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup pecans, chopped and toasted
handful of chocolate chips
In a heavy pot, melt the butter, sugar and salt. Put a candy thermometer in and boil gently until it is at 300 degrees. Take off stove and stir in pecans. Spread on a greased cookie sheet. Sprinkle chocolate chips on top. Leave for two minutes and then spread melted chocolate over candy. Put in the freezer until it sets.
supernatural brownies
pumpkin chocolate chip cookies
The Supernatural Brownies came from the King of All Things Chocolate, David Lebovitz. And from the alluring blog name of bitchincamero, comes Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies – slightly orange-tinged and mildly pumpkin tasting.
My darling beloved Ella is sick. She made a special request for dinner, and of course I had to comply.
I want chicken fried rice, she says. Um, ok. I have never made chicken fried rice before, and who knows where this craving comes from. I blame the illness.
I really have to stop making such unattractive looking food. But this mash-up of a recipe, frugally using left over rice and chicken was unanimously enjoyed by all members of the family, including the dog, who ate scraps of chicken skin.
Chicken Fried Rice
-adapted from Epicurious.com
3 Tablespoons vegetable oil
2 eggs, beaten
1 bunch green onions, diced
1 cup leftover chicken, diced
8 baby carrots, diced small
1/2 red pepper, diced small
4 cups cold basamati rice
1/4 cup soya sauce
salt and pepper
In a large fry pan, heat 1 Tablespoon oil. Add green onions and eggs and mix until the egg is all broken up and cooked.
Add rest of ingredients. Stir over medium heat for about 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
lemon buttermilk pudding cake
Now, ever since I had kids, my grandma has gotten me a Canadian Living subscription. I never had the heart to tell her that I wasn’t nearly crafty or homey enough to fully appreciate the magazine, but I do like to look at any and all of the recipes.
I ripped out the page that had a Lemon Buttermilk Pudding Cake because even separately, all these words appeal to me. Lemon. Buttermilk. Pudding. Cake. And although puddings in general do not photograph well, they do taste good. This one is all soft and warm and tart – a generous layer of cake gives way to a soft filling on the bottom. Just the thing to make to entice any sick people in your house to eat – I had a bowlful last night myself for supper.
Lemon Buttermilk Pudding Cake
-from Canadian Living
3 eggs, separated
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup white flour
pinch salt
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
2 Tablespoons melted butter
1 Tablespoon lemon rind
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
Preheat oven to 350.
Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar until smooth. Whisk in flour and salt. Whisk in buttermlk, butter, lemon rind and lemon juice.
In a mixer, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Fold them into the yolk mixture. Pour into a greased 8 x 8 pan. Put pan in larger dish and fill it 1/2 up with hot water.
Bake for 35 minutes, until starting to brown on top. Let cool for 30 minutes before digging in.
pumpkins at byward market
As what happens with life, my trip to Ottawa wasn’t chock full of culinary adventures as I had hoped for.
It started off with a cough on the plane that blossomed into a full fledged, bad-ass cold (NOT H1N1, so you jerks on the airplane can stop glaring at me), and resulted in me being propped up in a meeting room and then missing out on a dinner at Luxe because I was staring at the stuccoed ceiling of my hotel and ordering soup and tea for room service.
Things slowly improved and I found the energy to go to Wellington Gastropub with local friends. There I had scallops on risotto and a cheese tray with the tiniest chunks of cheese (so tiny I should call them ’slivers’ of cheese, not chunks). The place is in Westboro, west of the Parliament Buildings, and as the name Gastropub implies, it was an upscale pub, complete with tin ceilings and servers serious about their food and wine.
chateau laurier
Then there was a pitstop at the magnificent Chateau Laurier’s lounge for a nightcap, where everything was plush and overstuffed, complete with piano bar and chandeliers.
benny's bistro
My last morning I dragged myself out of bed, determined to spend my last few hours in Ottawa having a leisurely brunch. I picked up a latte from the mellow, modern Planet Coffee, tucked in a little alley off the Byward Market, and meandered up to Murray Street, which is the hip restaurant street in Ottawa. Murray Street Cafe is there, as is Domus, Sweetgrass and Navarra. None of those were open for breakfast, but Benny’s Bistro was.
Now Benny’s Bistro is in a funny little spot – you have to walk through Le Boulanger Francais to get to it. It is a big bright room where everybody but me speaks French, and they serve wonderfully creative food. I had a big steaming bowl of latte and their version of eggs benny, which was a carefully crafted little house of Yukon gold potatoes and pumpkin, layered with thinly sliced pork loin and greens and a perfectly poached egg perched on top. The whole little cuisine d’art was covered in a smoky deep yellow hollandaise sauce.
I picked up a handful of croissants and pain du chocolate on my way out, and now am trying to figure out how to pack them in my suitcase. I believe they will be carry on. There’s nothing sadder than a squished croissant. My kids can eat them tomorrow to temper their inevitable chocolate hangovers.
Benny’s Bistro
119 Murray Street
Ottawa, ON
613.789.6797
OK, I sort of forgot that I’m going to Ottawa tomorrow for a research meeting. Because I was all caught up with going to Halifax, I’ve BARELY researched Ottawa at all.
I know I am staying near the Byward Market, which is good. I will have two mornings free for breakfast. The rest of the time I’m in team meetings, team dinners, etc. But breakfast is very important.
AS IS COFFEE (That’s why I put it in capital letters).
Can anybody help me with breakfast and coffee in Ottawa recommendations? Here’s what I’ve dug up from Chowhound, etc:
The French Baker
Planet Coffee
Xpresso Cafe
Um, that’s it. Help. Please. Or I will be brewing the in-room coffee in the hotel and eating stale muffins and that would be very very bad.
ps: after this, I will likely not travel anywhere for a year. This is a blip in my regular itinerary.
cloudy meatballs
My youngest son is hooked on movies. At age 6, he’s already a movie buff. Two days ago he saw Where the Wild Things Are. Earlier in the month, he saw the double feature of Toy Story and Toy Story 2 in 3D (his sister won passes from the Edmonton Journal!). Then last month he saw Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. It amused him a lot. He liked the raining food. And he informs me we had cloudy meatballs for dinner tonight.
I always make the exact same Spaghetti Bolognaise recipe. Tonight we mixed it up, inspired by a Jamie Oliver recipe in one of my favourite cookbooks, Cook with Jamie. Jamie sometimes goes on and on with ridiculous recipes (egg-filled ravioli? What am I – Top Chef??), but I find Cook with Jamie is spot on. Easy but good – that’s what I’m all about. This recipe was belly-filling, the meatballs were nutty and the sauce was chock full of veggies.
Cloudy with Meatballs Spaghetti
-adapted from a Jamie Oliver pappardelle with a ragu of tiny meatballs recipe
Pappardelle noodles
Sauce:
1 onion, chopped
6 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped small
2 carrots, diced small
1/2 celery stalk, diced small
a big bunch of basil leaves, chopped, or 1/4 cup dried basil
1 28 oz can of diced tomatoes
2 Tablespoons tomato paste
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
salt and pepper
shaved parmesan for top
chopped Italian parsley for top
Meatballs:
1 pound ground sirloin
2 teaspoons red pepper flakes
1 medium egg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
3 garlic cloves, peeled and diced small
handful of grated Parmesan
zest of 1 lemon
For the sauce – Heat some olive oil in a fry pan and cook the carrots, celery, onion and garlic for about five minutes until softened. Add the tomatoes, paste, red wine vinegar and spices. Cook on low heat for an hour on the stove.
For the meatballs: combine all the meatball ingredients in a bowl. Swish with hands and create tiny meatballs. Fry in another pan in olive oil until brown. Add to sauce and simmer together for 15 minutes.
In the meantime, cook the noodles. Serve in a big pasta bowl with shaved parmesan and chopped Italian parsley on top.
