Lazy Sunday

I've only recently started getting 2 day weekends with my husband, and for the most part we try to make the most of them. We'll do brunches with friends, market days, trips out of the city to hit up flea markets and such or big cooking/baking projects. It's probably a good thing that we had actually planned for this weekend to be on the slow side. I have writers block, you see.

This is what writers block looks like, today. Our little kitten, who is little really only in comparisson to our other two boys. For some reason, her favorite place to snooze is on whatever book I happen to be reading or writing in at any given moment. That is true to form for kittens, though. Since we've already made breakfast as well as the cake for dessert and dinner is only for 7 or 8, we took her example, and ran with it!

Happy Sunday to you. May you have the opportunity to truly enjoy it in whatever way you will!

Peeps, the marshmallow ones!

My husband and friends spoil me with chocolate on a very regular basis; one of my closest friends bought me 6 high quality bars as part of my birthday present! In some ways, I think I might actually eat more (and better) chocolate now that I am completely dairy free than I did before. Having said that, I am really not too fussed when Easter rolls around. Sure, there are piles of different shaped chocolates to be had, but now-a-days, it doesn't really matter the holiday; there are piles of chocolates around! Whether it's chocolate hearts for Valentines, chocolate bunnies for Easter, chocolates of all description for Halloween and Christmas, we are completely surrounded by more chocolate than any of us need. Provided you need to Need chocolate, of course, but that is another story. Enter: Peeps! My squishy little friends.

Peeps, in case you haven't ever been confronted by one of these fluorescent little fellows, are chick and/or bunny shaped marshmallows (though they do have special, seasonal peeps for all of the above mentioned holidays) covered in various coloured sugars. Some will have additional flavours to them; we managed to find "Party Cake" Peeps today, and they had different coloured speckles on them. My not-sister in Texas called me a hag because she can't get those ones. Still, I can find only green and yellow chicks and pink bunnies, while she can find an array of colours. I'd say that makes us even = )

I am hardly the only person, let alone adult, to be enamoured of these little treats; the Washington Post does an annual contest, Peeps Show, where the contestants use peeps to create dioramas of various settings and this was year 7! The number of images pertaining to Peeps that come up on a Google search is impressive, too. I didn't realize that you could (or that you'd want to) make a dress out of them and I'm not really sure why you would want to microwave a whole box of them, but apparently they explode (and for anyone tempted to do so, the mess it leaves behind is spectacular, so have fun cleaning it up!).

Needless to say, I have already eaten enough Peeps today to have a pretty good sugar buzz going on, but I think I'm going to go have another one, just because I can!

Food Rules by Michael Pollan

Food and eating is such an integral part of life that you wouldn't really think a book on rules pertaining to said would be neccessary. In truth, it isn't necessary so much as incredibly helpful! When you consider that the vast majority of human beings now live in cities or other urban areas, which makes us so far removed from the source of what we eat, it is not surprising that we can use a hand when deciding what we should be picking up for dinner. But who are we going to listen to?  The marketers? The food scientist? Politicians?? We are constantly bombarded with external stimuli trying to get our attention, "buy this product", "you need this!". This is why it's nice to have the occasional reminder that we really do have choices when it comes to what we want, and that some basic guidelines (for all that the title involves rules!) can help.

Food Rules, also by Micheal Pollan and following in the wake of In Defense of Food, is a very simple and little book that for all of that will likely stay with you a little longer than some of his other works. Not because his other titles are worse, but because it is laid out in a series of Rules, 64 to be exact, that pertain to what, where and why we eat. I think I read this in about an hour, and the best part is that he flat out says in the introduction that if you remember only 3 or 4 rules from each section (there are three of them) you will be ahead in the game. The principle of little changes amounting to big differences really resonates with me, so I truly enjoyed this, and was able to apply several of his Rules without having to even think about it.

 

In the same way that In Defence of Food was divided into three sections, Food Rules is as well. Section 1, "What should I eat? Eat Food" has some very simple yet profound rules for what we have to choose from. Rule 2: Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food is fairly self explanatory. Rule 12: Shop the peripheries of the store and stay out of the middle is something I already do as most of what I have to avoid is found in the middle with the processed stuff. Rule 13: Eat foods that will eventually rot only has me worried in terms of planning for the zombie appocalypse, but I'm sure we'll figure that out if necessary (I have the trailer for World War Z on the brain, sorry.)

 

Section 2, "What kind of food should I eat? Mostly plants" deals with the "Do I pick this or that?" of eating. Rule 22: Eat mostly plants, especially leaves leads into Rule 23: Treat meat as a flavouring or special occasion food. I am a big fan of Rule 25: Eat your colours, because pretty food with lots of colours is so much more fun! I am also a big fan of Rule 43: Have a glass of Wine with dinner, and the reasons for that should be obvious.

 

Section 3, "How should I eat? Not too much" is as much the social aspects as it is the psychological set of Rules pertaining to eating and eating well. There are the physical rules, like Rule 46: Stop eating before you are full and Rule 47: Eat when you are hungry, not when you are bored. There are rules like #44:Pay more, eat less and Rule 51: Spend as much time enjoying the meal as it took to prepare it, which when you think about it, can signify a majour shift from currently held ideals. The socially pertinent rules, however bring us back to how meals used to be: Eat Meals (Rule 55) at a table (Rule 58) in company (Rule 59).

 

So much of Food Rules really can be said to contain more traditional folk wisdom as anything else, which makes this both incredible homey and comfortable while still containing the seeds for radical change if you want it to. I do think that he saved the best rule for last though, as it really does sum everything up: Rule 64: Break the Rules once in a while!

Scalloped Potatoes

In my house growing up, if there was a special occasion or holiday and a dinner was to be cooked, we had turkey. Regardless of which holiday it was, we had a turkey. Skip ahead a few years, and I am now married to a fellow whose holidays were far more traditionally observed in terms of what was had for dinner. So, what with it being the Easter long weekend, we get to have baked ham, asparagus and scalloped potatoes. The problem here, if this can be said to be a problem, is that my husband and I differ on what we think of as being scalloped potatoes. What could I do? I cheated and made my version on a day when I got home first!

There are probably as many variations for scalloped potatoes as there are cooks, and recipes for said are, like the Pirate's Code, more like guidelines anyways. They can be made with a variety of potatoes or even other roots (think sweet potatoes, rutabagas and even celeriac, if you want to get creative), a cream or a stock sauce, with or without onions, spices, herbs and (this is where my husband and I see things differently) cheese. It is my firm belief that there needs to be cheese on scallope potatoes. Lots of it. Strongly flavoured by preference.

I will admit that this recipe can be a bit of a pain in the backside to make if you have to cut all the potatoes by hand; it takes time and concentration to get the slices thin and uniform. I've only had a mandolin for a couple of months, but it has fast become one of my most favourite kitchen toys! You don't need to spend a small fortune on a mandolin as there are some fairly reasonable ones in the $40 to $60 range, but if you spend a lot of time in the kitchen chopping and slicing, this is a very worthwhile investement. Still, the prep without a mandolin will likely be about 25+ minutes easily, so put on a good CD and have fun with it!

This is my most basic recipe, and is supposed to be a side; sometimes if I have left over ham from another meal, I'll make the potatoes and put the ham in it so that it's more of a casserole or a one dish meal. I also use sliced raw onions here, but sauteeing them first brings this to a whole new level.

Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes
serves 4

• 2 large Yukon gold potatoes, washed and sliced about 1/4 inch thick  
• 1 small onion, thinly sliced
• 1/3 cup Earth Balance, or other dairy free butter substitute
• 2 tablespoons gluten free flour
• 1 cup Almond, Soy or Rice milk or Stock of your choice
• 1 cup MimicCream or other dairy free cream substitute
• 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg, ground
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 to 1 cup grated strong dairy free Cheese (I use Daiya Jack)
• chopped chives as garnish (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Butter or grease an 8"X8" baking pan.

Thinly slice the washed potatoes about 1/4 inch thick or so; thinly slice the onion. Place about half of the sliced potatoes in overlapping columns in the bottom of the pan, cover with the sliced onions and then top with the remaining potatoes in the same way.

In a sauce pan over medium heat, melt the Earth Balance or butter substitute and then whisk in the 2 tablespoons of flour. Add the dairy free milk or stock, whisking all the while to make sure you don't end up with lumps. Once the liquid has been absorbed, add the MimicCream or other dairy free cream substitutes, still whisking. Once blended, remove from heat and  add in the nutmeg, salt and pepper. Pour sauce over potatoes, cover with grated cheese and chopped chives (if using), cover in aluminum foil and bake in preheated oven for 1 hour.

Enjoy!!

Management meetings and Mango Margaritas!

I had a plan for today, and while it did include a management meeting, it hadn't taken mango margaritas into account, let alone 3 of them. Or the tequila shot. Um, yeah. Needless to say, I think I'll save the recipe for scalloped potatoes for tomorrow, and leave you with a picture of a mango margarita while I peruse recipes for said!

'Night!

Duck! Our first 100 Mile Dinner

This was an incredibly busy weekend in terms of cooking, because not only did we do a lot of it, but it was very mindful cooking. There are some days when you know that provided whatever you throw together from what you can identify in the fridge can be covered in hot sauce, you'll be fine. This whole weekend was about as far from that as you could get.

I knew that I wanted to hit up the Jean Talon Market for the ingredients for our first foray into conscious local eating, in part because there were a few items on my grocery list that I could only get there but also because we were going to be shopping for our Ethiopian dinner too. Talk about going in opposite directions at the same time! We spent the afternoon asking ourselves if every particular thing we bought had to be local or if it could come from elsewhere, constantly double checking where things were from and, while it made me a little dizzy, it was fascinating. Until I started looking for it, I had never noticed that so many vendors list where their food stuffs come from. Made my job easier, though at the same time it was a bit of an eye opener too.

I had timed the dinner to be after the "official" start to spring in the hopes that some of those plants I automatically associate with spring (dandelion leaves and mushrooms for example) would be available from local sources. Apparently I was more than a little optimistic. Hey, I grew up on Vancouver Island and the folks out there are already in full cherry blossom and picnic mode, so I thought that dandelions...? Maybe? *sigh* I was told that that would be more like mid to late April. Now, I did find dandelions from Texas, but needless to say, we left them at the market. I ditched my idea to use one of the recipes from the 100 Mile Diet book as a sort of homage and figure that I can always just send them a picture.

On to fooding!

From the get go, I knew that our first dinner was going to include duck of some kind. Why? I just really like duck. Fortunately, so does my husband. Sourcing local gave me a few moments of pause, but once I realized that everything at Boucherie Prince Noir falls into our parameters, we are pretty much now set for any meats we are going to need. One meat course - seared duck breast with a little sliver of foie gras and we were good to go. From there we turned to more practical matters. It's March, in Montreal, and we just got a nice dump of snow. As previously mentioned, our options for fresh green veggies were not so good. That made it fairly simple. We went with local potatoes and carrots, though the one real splurge were the forest mushroom mix we got from Jardins Sauvages. Ok, shameless plug here, but these guys are great! They have a kiosk at the market, and if you get a chance, pop in if only to say hi. I had quickly mentioned on a previous visit what we were doing, and the woman working remembered me on sight and greated me by asking what we were having for dinner! She was the one who suggested the mix we got, and it was just a really cool experience. We will so be going back there. Now that dinner was covered, there was no way we could overlook a dessert. With conventional baking out (at least for now) we knew we were going to keep this fairly simply, and while it might seem too easy, we decided to do maple baked apples. We even managed to randomly find organic dried cranberries from Quebec that made it that much better.

Before I get to the specifics and the booze, allow me to divulge the cost for our extravagance. I hear all the time about how expensive eating well is, and yes, food can cost a ridiculous amount. There is also a time factor involved. I know that I spend a ridiculous amount of time in my kitchen, but for me it's play so I don't mind at all. Would you be surprised if I told you that our dinner and dessert cost us $16.68 per person? We paid less for both of us than you would likely pay for one Duck Breast entree at most restaurants. The bonus was that it took us about 45 minutes to put the whole thing together, since dessert cooks while you eat. Score!

Now. The cooking. Since I haven't yet confirmed any local oil/fat sources that do not come directly from what I already happen to be cooking, we decided to just go with that. We scored the fat side of the duck and seared it in a cast iron pan till the skin was crispy and a nice dark brown, then flipped it to sear and stuck it on a plate. We tossed the quarted potatoes and small carrots directly into the pan, tossed everything to coat it in the fat and then stuck it into the oven at 375 for about a half an hour. Once the potatoes were easily pierced with a knife, we put the duck in the oven, directly on the top of the potatoes and allowed it to cook for about 5-10 more minutes (less for more rare as that's the way we prefer it). Once we had pulled the pan out of the oven, we tented the duck to rest for a about 5 minutes, but left the oven on. While the meat was resting, we sauteed the foie gras till browned on both sides, tossed the extra fat onto the potatoes and carrots and quickly sauteed the mushroom mix till hot.


While the potatoes and carrots were in the oven, I corred the apples and now I am going to admit to a cheat. If I were not dairy intolerant, I could very easily get local, farm fresh butter. But I am dairy intolerant, and until I can find something else, for the desserts at least, I will continue to use Earth Balance. My call, and I have some ideas for the future, but I am not going to feel bad about this one. I stuffed each apple (recipe at the end!) and then, once we had pulled the meat and roots out of the oven to rest, we popped the apples into the oven at the same temperature. We got the table set, plated dinner and just before we sat down to eat, we turned the oven off but left the apples inside until we were ready for them.

I like my booze. Anyone who knows me knows this, so not having to give up my glass of wine with dinner is wonderful. Being able to go to a store and know that everything in it is local, at least by the parameters we have set for ourselves, is heaven. At the Jean Talon Market, just as you enter Le Marche des Saveurs du Quebec is my new go to for 100 Mile Booze. The lovely lady behind the counter was very helpful in her suggestions for what I ought to pair with our dinner, making several suggestions and answering questions with honesty and a curiosity of her own. After we had made our choice, L'Orpailleur - a decent little white fut-de-chene that was quite nice with the stronger flavours of our dinner, she offered us some samples of other products they had and made devotees of us by introducing us to a Maple Cider from Coureur des Bois that is outstanding! The first smell has you thinking that you are about to take a sip of straight maple syrup (can a smell be described as thick?) but the first flavour to hit your tongue is apple cider. Divine!! My husband asked for a bottle after his first sip and the both of us simultaneously thought of a friend who will probably drink this straight from the bottle with a straw. Yes; it's that good, and I don't like ice ciders and wines. Get some.




















All things said and done, I think that our first experience with the 100 Mile Dinner was a success. We ate very well, hardly felt deprived, and though I would have liked something green on my plate, every ingredient could stand on it's own while simultaneously fitting into a whole dinner. I think I knew it was a success as we were planning next months meal while we ate. I have a lot more research to do, but if this is our jumping off point, I'm looking forward to it!

Maple Baked Apples with Cranberries
serves 2

• 2 Cortland or other baking apples
• 6 pieces of maple sugar (we bought a little bag of pure sugar candies to use)
• 2 tablespoons of organic dried cranberries
• 2 small dollops of 'butter', we use Earth Balance
• drizzle of maple syrup

Heat oven to 375. Wash and core apples, making sure to leave the bottoms intact. Put a dollop of 'butter' into the well in each apple and top with a small maple sugar piece, the cranberries and another piece of maple sugar. Place the apples into a bread pan that has about a quarter of a cup of water in the bottom (to keep the apples from sticking and burning, and also to keep them moist), drizzle each with about a teaspoons worth of maple syrup and place in the oven. If you are able to pop them into the oven about 10 minutes before you sit down to eat, turn the oven off but leave the apples inside and they will be ready when you are. If you need to have these done before dinner, bake for about 15 to 20 minutes (depending on how mushy you want them) before pulling them out to cool. Serve with the final piece of maple sugar placed decoratively on the top (the textural difference is between the hard sugar and the melted sugar is fun).

Enjoy!

Ethiopian Wats = Really Good Food!

Some time ago, my mum sent me a gift box set of mixed spices that were supposed to be used for African meals. There was an Algerian tagine spice mix, a Morrocan vegetable stew mix, and an Ethiopian berbere spice mix that, for some reason, I decided from the get go I wanted to save to serve with goat. Now, I'd never eaten goat when I got the gift and at that time all I knew of Ethiopia was that my brother used to threaten to mail our sister to Adis Ababa, which is the capital city. Skip ahead a few years, and I have been introduced to a great little hole-in-the-wall Jamaican place that does a curried goat with rice and peas that was worth waiting for, and I have reconnected with a friend from high school. What makes that pertinent is that about 2 years ago, she and her husband adopted a little boy and a little girl from Ethiopia. Not only are these two utterly adorable, the stories she tells about her kids either makes me giggle-snort laughing or shake my head at the never-ending and too often overlooked wisdom of children.

One of the stories she shared was that while in the grocery store line up, her son was staring at all the glossy magazines on display. I think he was maybe 8 or 9 at the time, right about when the front cover of a Cosmo might start to look interesting, when he looks up at her and says "Mum, it is so sad that all those ladies in the magazines are so skinny; they must come from countries without enough food for the people. I will pray for them." Talk about out of the mouthes of babes. It got me to thinking though; here is a little boy who grew up (at least for a time) in an orphanage in a country that so many simply assume is constantly starving and has (by dint of Not Being North American) not much to offer. Wow is that wrong. Ethiopia is widely considered to be from whence Homo sapiens first set out towards the middle east; it is widely believed that the Queen of Sheba of biblical and Solomon fame was in fact Ethiopian, and that the original Ark of the Covenant is to be found there today; they have an incedibly rich cultural history with art and learning playing majour roles, and from what I've read, the people are warm, friendly and take care of each other before worrying about themselves. I hope that I'm not doing the country or its people a disservice by skipping anything of majour import, though I'm sure I am, yet I hope they will forgive me in my enthousiasm to get to the food!

Okay, so 2 things about Ethiopian food right off the bat: 1) if you don't like onions, this is not going to be your thing (I think more than a dozen onions sacrificed their lives so we could feast yesterday), and 2) it is anything but bland! As a matter of fact, if you like bland, this is not going to be your thing either. I believe the word I am looking for is "Spicy" (my friend suggested that I make one particular dish hot enough to make Satan cry, and while I took some pity, I'm sure he whimpered). But did I mention tasty???

As previously mentioned, for some reason I decided that my first foray into Ethiopian food needed to include goat. About 2 weeks ago, I happened to take a closer look at some of the meats available at one of my favourite butchers at the Jean Talon Market (Boucherie Prince Noir) and guess what I found?! Excellent, so now I had to figure out what to do with it. One jubilant and probably ridiculous email to my friend later, and I now have 10 recipes in my possession, and fankly, I actually only used half of them! Good thing too: this was a very labour intensive meal.

This photo was taken after I had already done one set of dishes, and I probably spent a good 6 hours in the kitchen. First thing on the list was to boil up some eggs. The eggs went into the goat stew at the very end, but boiling the eggs first allowed me to feel like I was getting something accomplished while drinking my coffee. After that, I actually made up a dish called Ayib, which is really just a home made soft cheese for everyone else. (Note: if you can eat dairy, do this! You'll need it later to help cut the heat. I simply used a vegan sour cream instead.)  For some reason, this didn't actually work so well for me. Amazingly, I couldn't get it to curdle, go figure. Eventually it worked, but I'm glad we didn't need much.

From there, we went on to make up Nit'ir Kibbeh, which is an Ethiopian spiced butter that is used in most of their dishes and Oh. My. Goodness!!! This stuff is amazing!!! We liked it so much (the flavours are phenomenal) that not only did we decide to make up more just to have on hand, but we were loathe to throw out the spices we had used to infuse the butter (and when I say butter here, I mean Earth Balance) so we kept them with the intentions of baking up a squash to be used in a chickpea and collards soup sometime in the near future. I really wish we had made more the day of; it is really that good.

Next up was putting together the Shiro powder for the Shiro Wat. I should probably back track a little here and explain that a Wat is the name for whatever stew or curry you are cooking up. That might be a bit simplistic, but I mean no offense. Shiro powder, essentially dried and ground chickpeas, lentils and fava beans, when combined with onions, nit'ir kibbeh or oil and spices, is a staple in Ethiopian cooking. My friend suggested that we find some in an import shop, but since we couldn't find any, we made up some of our own. Turned out to be ridiculously simple, and we now have a nice supply set away for future use. (We used this recipe for the Shiro powder.) After that, we realized that I had underestimated how much berbere spice mix I had versus how much we would need, so we put together some of that too. Now I got to start cooking. !

First up was the goat stew. I actually, after a bit of reserach, simply took the recipe for Doro Wat, a chicken stew that is also the national dish, and substituted the goat me. This calls for about 6 cups of red onions and a cup of nit'ir kibbeh, plus about a half a cup of berbere spice mix, and once the spice mix hit the oil I got a hint of what we were in for! Pungent and rich and oh my were some of the first things to cross my mind. Toss in the meat, which has been sitting in acidulated water for maybe half an hour, add enough water to cover and that was about all I had to do there except for stir occastionally. The peeled eggs get tossed in right at the end, about 10 minutes before serving, and while it might seem odd, they actually complement the dish beautifully.

From here on, all the recipes are, since we don't use butter but Earth Balance, vegan. Bonus. The Shiro (chickpea) Wat was a joke to make in terms of simplicity, as was the Red Lentil (Mesir) Wat. The only sort of fussy dish was the sauteed kale (we were supposed to use collards but couldn't find any) and the pancakes I made to go with. Traditionally, all of this ought to be served on a pancake-like bread called injera, which is apparently a pain in the butt to make (they suggest leaving the batter on the counter for up to 3 days!) and my husband and our friends who came for dinner don't like it anyways. It uses teff flour and apparenlty has a bit of a weird, sour after taste to it. But as the different stews are supposed to be served on top of the injera which is then torn to small pieces and used to scoop up the meal, I decided we needed something to compensate. I quickly made up a batch of  thin, chickpea pancakes which worked really well if I do say so myself!

This was by far and away one of our better experiments! The food was soooo good, can be modified very easily to accomodate a dairy free diet and not One of the recipes I used called for anything with gluten in it to begin with. With all the different wats to choose from, feeding vegetarians and vegans is a snap, and if you have any spice lovers in your circle, this will make them smile while they sweat! One of our guests brought over a mango sorbet as well as a coconut, ginger and lime sorbet which were amazing in their own right, and finished the meal off spectacularly.  Next time probably won't be so spicy, but I'm a wimp and the left overs seem to be even spicier.

I totally recommend giving all of these a try, but for now enjoy the nit'ir kibbeh and original doro wat recipes!

Nit’ir Kibbeh (Spiced Butter)

1 lb unsalted butter

½ medium red onion, coarsely chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
One 3-inch piece ginger, peeled and finely chopped
1 tsp fenugreek seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp cardamom seeds
1 tsp dried oregano
½ tsp ground turmeric
8 basil leaves

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over low heat, stirring frequently. As foam rises to the top, skim and discard. Continue cooking, without letting the butter brown, until no more foam appears. Add the onion, garlic, ginger, fenugreek, cumin, cardamom, oregano, turmeric and basil, and continue cooking for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove from heat and let stand until the spices settle. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve before using.

Refrigerate in a tightly covered container up to 3 weeks. (Makes 1 ½ cups)


Doro Wat

10 boneless skinless chicken thighs
1/3 cup lime juice
6 cups red onions, chopped
½ to ¾ c. berbere
½ c. water
1 cup spiced butter
¼ tsp. black pepper 1 T chopped garlic
1 T grated ginger
salt to taste (needs quite a bit)
6 hard boiled eggs

Soak the chicken in a bowl with lime juice and enough water to cover. Brown the onions in a pan without grease. (This is key to both the dark brown colour and the right flavour.) Add spiced butter. Add berbere and mix well. Cook for 5 minutes. Add 1/2 cup water and all spices and blend well. Simmer for 5 minutes.
Drain and rinse chicken. Add chicken and enough water to cover and cook on low heat for at least an hour.
At this point you can transfer the doro wat to a crock pot and let it simmer on low for a few more hours. This is handy if you are making more dishes as it frees up another element on the stove. If you continue to simmer it on the stove instead, you may need to add a little more water. Add the eggs about 10 minutes before serving.
Notes: Traditionally, this should be made with bone-in chicken. But it’s easier to eat with boneless – especially if you are serving to people who are not familiar with Ethiopian food. If you use the boneless thighs and cook it long enough, they do not need to be cut up – the meat will separate nicely in the stew.

Weekend cooking

I got to have today off, which means that I got to have an actual, two day weekend for a change. I think I might have been a little over-ambitious. Since Friday, I have made eclairs, gone to dinner at the pub, spent hours at the Jean Talon Market, cooked a fairly important meal (not trying to be cryptic, but just saving it for later!), and then just since this morning, I have attempted a new recipe for cinnamon buns (!!! we might have a winner!), made Berbere spice, Ayib - a fresh cheese used as a condiment with chives for those coming for dinner who aren't me, Shiro for a Shiro Wat, Nit'r Kibbeh (an Ethiopian spiced butter that is so good I wish I had bread for toast), and have the goat stew simmering. Now, on to the other wats, a red lentil, a chickpea and a stewed greens. Never having eaten let alone cooked an Ethiopian meal (and  will be giving Huge props to my friend Gwen, who provided most of the recipes and advice for this meal; wish she was here!), I'm going to leave off here so that I can 1) finish cooking it and 2) do it proper justice with photos and flavours!

Till tomorrow. Enjoy! =)

Cream Puffs and Chocolate Eclairs

I don't know if anyone else does this, but I will often get a new book and then not do anything with it for what can seem like ages. Well, sometime last year (I actually think around Christmas of 2011, actually) my not-sister got me a cookbook that I actually only used for the first time last week. Having now made the same recipe twice (because it was just that good), I am now looking through it to figure out when I am going to be making the other recipes suggested. Seriously; I am planning my next couple of weeks meals around what I can make out of this book! Looking at the picture on the left, though, can you blame me?

Even before having to go gluten free, I never made pates-aux-choux, believing that it would be either totally loaded with butter/dairy or just way too complicated or difficult. Let me just say that I am very glad that I was wrong on both counts. Yes, you do need to use a "butter", but Earth Balance works beautifully, and the GF flour that I use produces a light and crisp texture that made me very happy that I attempted these. They take practically no time at all to put together, and as they contain no added sugar, they can be made both sweet or savoury, depending on what you'd like to do with them.

This recipe comes from "gluten, wheat & dairy free: Over 70 delicious and nutricious recipes" , (for some reason, though, their web site doesn't have this book listed; interesting) though I actually only use the pastry part of the recipe. So, without further ado....

Puff Pastry
serves 4

• 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons GF flour mix
• 1/2 teaspoon xantham gum
• 1/4 cup dairy free butter substitute, I use Earth Balance
• 1 cup water
• 2 eggs, beaten

Preheat oven to 425F. The original recipe says to grease 2 baking sheets, but I simply covered 2 baking sheets with parchement paper.

Sift together the flour and xantham gum. In a medium sauce pan, boil the water and the "butter"; once it is boiling, remove from heat and quickly beat in the four mixture (my electric beater died a couple weeks ago so I do this with a whisk). Allow to cool for about a minute or so, then beat in the eggs until you have a thick, glossy dough.

Either spoon the dough into a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2-inch tip or into a clean plastic bag that you can then snip the tip off of; pipe about 16 golf ball-size balls of dough (or if making eclairs, 4 - 2"X4" lengths) onto the baking sheets.

Bake in preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, or until risen and golden brown. Cut a slit in each puff (or eclair) to allow the steam to escape and return to the oven for 1 minute. Let cool on a wire rack.

From there, you can do pretty much what you'd like with them! The first time I served them, I filled them with a whipped cream substitute (NutriWhip, if you want to know the truth) and served them on a raspberry and blackberry compote. The second time, I made them up as a chocolate eclair. I am now toying with the idea of savoury fillings though, like something with an avocado based 'cream', or maybe a salmon mousse. Regardless, these were quick and easy enough that I am quite sure to be doing these again very soon. Life is so rough some times, isn't it?!!

Enjoy!

Comfort food: Ramen Noodles!

I had a number of plans involving the dawning of spring and it's attendant foods: fresh asperagus and peas; bitter greens which help to clean out all the salt that, historically, winter foods were preserved with; light and delicate shoots and sweet baby vegetables just begging to be eaten as is. Instead, I have more snow. So, since I can't (as yet) avail myself of the above mentioned, I'm going to stick with comfort food: ramen noodles!!

Growing up my mum was a weird mix of fresh and packaged foods. Cakes and pasta sauces were always made from scratch, and we always got brown bread that was not presliced, but she would keep the pantry stocked with CheeseWhiz, Kraft Dinner and Mr. Noodles. I never liked CheeseWhiz, and I positively hated Kraft Dinner, but Mr. Noodles were pretty handy to have around! Even now, I have a number of recipes that call for prepackaged ramen noodles which, until recently, made them difficult to make. Yes, you can substitute rice noodles, but those are a little more delicate that a typical ramen, so you can imagine my joy when I discovered King Soba made a variety of different kinds!

Unfortunately, my neighbourhood favourite shop didn't have any regular brown rice ramen, but as you have a numbr of options to choose from, it wasn't really a problem. You have several "cakes" of thedried noodles in the larger grey pack (4, if memory serves) while the little red packed (lower, right corner) is a single serving.

I actually had this for breakfast. Super (pardon the pun) simple, actually. Boil 2 cups of water, then add the noodles. Allow them to cook just until they start to break up, then add the seasoning packet (this was a chilli miso flavour, though it wasn't spicy in the least) and I also added a beaten egg and about a cup of spinach. Once the spinach is wilted, the egg will have cooked,so serve and enjoy!

So while a hot bowl of soup really wasn't what I had in mind now that we are officially into spring, it was tasty enough that I don't mind in the least!

Spring planning

I know that scientists have, after what were probably long and complicated calculations, determined that the vernal equinox now happens on the 20th of March, but as I am more like a fine wine (read: old), I still hold that the 21st is the first day of spring. Woot!

In truth, spring is not really my favourite season. In Montreal, you can always tell it has arrived less by a calendar date and more by the smells in the air. Namely, melting fertilizer/dog poop and thawing garbage that has been buried under a snowdrift for about 4 months. *sigh* Nevertheless, every year I look forward to it for two reasons: 1) a change - yes, the weather will probably be displaying symptoms of multiple personality disorder, but at least it won't be negative-Oh-Crap for weeks on end, and 2) I can legitimately start hauling out my seed catalogs and gardening books without having to worry about being considered too keen. Plus, planning a garden allows me to avoid spring cleaning for just a little longer.

I don't know what it is about gardening, as I really came to it quite late in life, but I love it. I'm hardly very good at it (I have never been able to grow a radish, which in it's own way actually takes talent) but I'm that weird person you see playing in the dirt with a smile on her face. I really do play in the dirt, too. I hate wearing gloves; for whatever reason, I am at my most serene with dirt under my finger nails. That is a family trait, though, as appartently my grandmother was exactly the same way. Which is nice to know, as this is the woman who at 90 still travels on her own! I've got some good genes, even if we are a little nuts sometimes.

So, I have a lot of re-reading to do tonight, which suits me just fine. I need to figure out how much space I will actually have to play in, which seeds I would like to buy, what will go into the raised beds and the containers, and if I'm going to try any vertical growing this year. Now here's the irony: I'll be planning all of this while eating take out. Go figure.

Enjoy!

Cinnamon Buns-7; Chelle-0

I don't know what it is, exactly, that I am doing wrong, but for whatever reason I just can't seem to get it right when it comes to cinnamon buns. It appears that I am doing it so wrong that I can't even get cinnamon roll pancakes right! I was trying to make this:

What I ended up with was this:

Those two plates barely look like they hold food stuffs of the same SHAPE for pete's sake! The pancakes in the forgound of the bottom photo really were the end product. The pancakes up in the right, top hand corner were the end result after I threw in the towel and went for looks and a not-burnt taste effect. *sigh*

The recipe, which is really quite simple, started off just fine. The pancake batter itself was very simple, though was geared for a regular gluten based flour recipe. I kept the skillet on a low heat to try to avoid scorching the sugar and butter mix that was supposed to "melt" away to leave the grooves that the cream cheese glaze was supposed to melt into after.

I personally kinda thought they looked like hypnotic pin wheels, or funky boobs (hypnotic boobs?), but it was early and I probably hadn't had enough coffee yet.

The problem came when you had to flip the pancakes. The recipe indicated that you wanted to heat the griddle to exactly 325, but I don't have an electric griddle (yet) so I'm guessing that the cast iron just got too hot. Maybe because the gluten free flour mix/batters absorb more liquid and are a bit heavier, the butter and sugar couldn't melt in as well either. *sigh* What I ended up with, before they got covered with cream cheese glaze, was this:

 





 Yeah, not quite the same as the first photo.

 

Fine. Whatever. I will figure this out, even though some days I do think it will be the end of me. Cinnamon rolls won't get the best of me, and the cream cheese stuff was awesome on toast! So there =)

Poissonnerie Sherbrooke

I had hoped to be able to spend today wandering around the market stalls up at Jean Talon, not really looking for anything in particular but more just to see what I could find. Then I woke up this morning and took a look outside.

What my cell phone doesn't show you is 1) how deep it is, 2) the wind and 3) my boots which resemble my sneakers (because they are my sneakers) since my boots now resemble a pair of flip flops (because the sole has come apart). I called a Snow Day instead, though I did still have to venture out to get something for dinner.

Seeing as I generally get my days off mostly during the week, I have a bit more time on Tuesdays to play around in my kitchen than I do on weekends, which is why today was supposed to be a market day. I am also somewhat claustrophobic, so not being restricted to the weekends for my forays to the markets makes me very happy. I'm not afraid of the snow; I do live in Montreal after all! Since tomorrow is the first day of spring though, seeing all this white stuff made me just want to curl up with a cup of tea and a book to wait it out. So being able to get fresh produce and seafood no more than a 10 minute walk from my house on a snow day is wonderful!

Poissonnere Sherbrooke is (from the front) a tiny little shop on Sherbrooke that houses a very pleasant staff, a large selection of staple products and produce plus really nice, fresh sea food. Nine times out of ten, this is where we get out fish from; high turn over keeps things fresh though they do have a freezer section. I've never had a problem asking them questions either as they have never been anything but friendly and helpful.

Price wise they seem to be what you would expect, though their specials are usually a vey good deal. Being able to pick up everything you need for a quick meal is also something that I love about being so close to them. This is my go-to shop more often than not, particularly if I realise half way through a recipe that I'm out of something, or if I only need a couple of things to complete a meal.

So. Dinner tonight is going to be a spice crusted salmon with gingered beets, roasted asperagus and spinach rice plus home made creme puffs with a fruit compote for dessert. Not bad for a lazy snow day!

Irish Stew!

Happy St. Patrick's to ya! That's about as Irish as I get since I can no longer drink whiskey. However, my rather British husband made us an amazing Irish stew that is so worth sharing. He insists that a proper Irish stew really ought to be made with a minimum of ingredients, though we weren't able to find any mutton (though we did find goat, and more on that later).

 



This recipe speaks for iteself, and I strongly recomend trying it, so don't let the picture fool you. It was amazing!

Irish Stew
Serves 4

• 1 1/2 lb lamb shoulder, bone in and cubed (get your butcher to do this)
• 1 bottle gluten-free beer (we used BSG Atypic Ale 8)
• 2 medium onions
• 2 leeks, white and light green parts chopped
• 8 small spring carrots, chunked
• 8 small spring potatoes, about an inch and a half diameter, hole and skin on
• 2 sprigs rosemary
• 1/2 teaspoon savoury
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 6 cups of beef stock

Marinate the lamb in the beer for at least an hour, longer if possible. Drain lamb and reserve beer. In dutch over, add about 2-3 tablespoons of oil and sear the meat. Add the onions and the leeks, cook till softened, about 3-5 minutes. Add the reserved beer, carrots, potatoes, rosemary, savoury, bay leaves, salt, pepper and stock. Cover and bring to a boil; uncover and reduce heat to medium-low and simmer about 2 hours (making sure that all ingredients are covered to begin). Broth may reduce by abou half, so check periodically to ensure that your potatoes are covered. Enjoy with Irish soda bread and the gluten free beer of your choice!

This is even better the next day, but the trick is not eating it all to begin with!

Late night goodness: Bocadillo! Venzuelan offerings

Montreal is a city alive. It can seem like no mater the time or season, there is always something to do. Winter? Excellent; let's celebrate the snow. Summer? Perfect; let's celebrate that there is no more snow. During the day, there are shops, museums, parks and in a worst case scenario, a cafe somewhere to while away the hours. In some ways, however, it's at night that Montreal can really come alive. The funny thing is that you can so easily do at night most of the same things you can do in the day, plus so much more. The summers here are one festival after another, and the arts and culture available all year round will allow you plays, concerts and shows covering the spectrum of interests and talents not to mention budgets - most of the best music festivals are right in the center of town and you can sit and listen to free music for days on end if you want to. Want to get dressed up to go out, dance and put back a couple? We've got that covered too. Between Crescent St right downtown, Duluth for the restaurant crowd and St. Laurant for the see-and-be-seens, we've got your entertainment; but what night out with friends would be complete without a late night bite??

The club that I used to call home on a Friday night is, sadly, no longer in business, but was located just up the street from a little Venezuelan place that brilliantly stayed open till after all the bars on St. Laurent discorged their patrons at 3 am, looking for something to eat and a cab home. Bocadillo, located right beside a pizza place, is a tiny litte shop front that actually opens right up on to St. Laurent during the summer months, and while it can't really accomodate too many people at a time, the staff are friendly, pretty quick considering that you are getting real food and no matter what the wait is, it will be worth it!

A friend of mine who also has food intollerances introduced me one night as the others in our group were off hunting down poutine and the like, and it has become one of my favourite 'fast food' joints of all time. The menu has a few items that are gluten free just as is, due to the 'bread' being corn based as opposed to wheat based, but they will happily switch the regular bread out for the corn based ones if asked.

I generally get the fried pork arrepas (the round, buger-like sandwich pictured above on the left) though I am also a big fan of the empanadas. The arrepas is the corn bread that holds the filling (and you have lots of options), though I always order the fried pork which is slow cooked with a passion fruit sauce and pulled to shreds. Heaven! The empanadas, a slow roasted beef (above, left) and fish (above, right) are both super tasty, and at $3.10 each after a night of drinking, quite affordable! The chicken is good too, though for obvious reasons I haven't tried the cheese.

Whether you are going after a night out, for a night out or as take out, do yourself a favour and get the yucca fries; you'll never want potato fries again!! Yucca, or manioc, is a starchy root vegetable that lends itself to fries so well I almost feel cheated that I only discovered them in my 30s. They coat them with a cumin salt and serve them with a basil mayo (what you see in the little cups) that is so tasty on it's own that do yourself a favour and ask for extras when you order. The fries are best eaten on site, as you really do want to eat them when thy are almost too hot or the starchiness really comes through.

Lastly, what to drink: if you are not yet familiar with it, allow me to introduce you to Inca Kola.

I am not a fan of soda (I hate the bubbles), but I will make an exception for Inca Kola. Originating in Peru, it is the only cola to ever out sell Coca Cola in it's home country, so the Coke company bought them out and allowed them to carry on as usual. The flavour is almost like a cream soda, but not as cloyingly sweet, and let me warn you that it is neon yellow, so really, just drink it from the can. It is hard to find outside of Latino shops, but if you do get a line on where you can find this for purchase, keep it to yourself as those who enjoy Inca Kola will go far afield to find it!

They will also offer a traditional Venezuelan holiday meal around the Christmas season which, except for the ham sandwich roll, is labelled as gluten free. I haven't had a chance to try it yet, though it looks very interesting, not in small part because it's cooked in banana leaves!

I also haven't tried the fried plantain, mainly because I only noticed it on the menu the last time I went in, but that gives me something to look forward to, and closed down watering hole or not, I can promise there will be a next time! 

Today I am thinking about seeds...

Today I am thinking about seeds. Partly because yesterday my landlady had said that I can transform part of an unused section of land into a garden plot (whoop!!) and I'm actually trying to take things slowly enough to plan properly. The little bit of snow still on the ground has helped slow me down, too! Years ago I had a community garden plot (then I moved too far and had to give it up) that I absolutely loved. It was grandfathered over to me almost haphazardly, and for 3 years I got to play in the dirt. I am putting my name in for a new community garden in my neighbourhood, but there can be waiting lists several years long for those, so I'll take whatever I can get! We're still going to have some containers on our pseudo balcony/fire escape, and I might actually look into a growers light so that I can set something up in my kitchen for a year round herb garden. My cat Buster will love that, since he likes to eat my herb plants. Gonna have to work on that.

Mostly why I am thinking about seeds today, though, is that I've just finished checking out the news. Yahoo, Facebook feeds, AP News Service, and others and to be very honest, it's enough to make me want to sit and cry. There is a new Pope with old ideas who firmly believes that women should be seen and not heard; governments and global organizations who use culture and religion to justify everyday atrocities to people, animals and the planet we live on; people so despondant about the state of things, that they've just given up; and that is why I don't just sit and cry.

I do not like the way things are right now. Do I want to fix them? No, actually, I don't. Fixing them implies taking things back to where they worked, or at the very least the way they used to be. The problem with that, though, is that the way it was didn't work. Not really. Systems were put in place which made assumptions that profited those who made the decisions. Those who profited then worked very hard to retroactively prove themselves right. From there, the system was protected by those with a vested interest. More systems were put into place to prop up the initial systems, all of which were defended by those they served and so on. Sure, every now and again a system would be over thrown, usually pretty horrifically, but as nature abhors a vacuum, a New and Improved system would be put in place. Take a look at that statement: new and improved. If it's new, how and from what was it improved? If it's improved, how is it new? So.

Do I want to fix things? No. I want to change them. So I'm starting with some seeds. New ideas are seeds. You have to nuture them, care for them, weed out the bad from the good (and remember: a dandelion farmer would look at a rose bush in the middle of his field as the weed; everything in it's time and place) and recognize that this is a process, as something new emerges. You'll need to protect your seed from outside forces who will want to freeze them with negativity or trample them underfoot to keep them from growing. Growing something new tends to scare a lot of people, and many will try to convince you to stick to the old ways just so that they don't have to face their own fears. Growing seeds is all about perseverance, and a belief that the crop in the end will be worth it.

Today I am thinking about seeds. The changes I can make to make this a better world for everyone else in it, human, animal and plant alike. Now I don't want to cry. Now I want to smile.

Beer!!!

Any time I think of beer, the first thing that always crosses my mind has got to be Friar Tuck in the film Robin Hood. Specifically, the part where he's got a group of forest men sitting at his feet and listening with rapt attention as he rhapsodizes about grain, and how the Lord had a higher purpose for it than simple consumption. I've met a few people who have also offered up prayers of thanksgiving when contemplating that magical and seeming alchemical transformation of wheat into that golden, frothy beverage, beer. I've alway thought the stuff was kind of disgusting and that we drink it because we've gotten used to it. It doesn't help that this has been reinforced by people (confirmed beer drinkers) who have acknowledged this hypothesis as truth. Go figure.

Still, not being able to have something has a tendancy to make one remember it fondly, nostalgically even. So what with St. Patrick's Day coming up, I decided to see what my options would be should I wish to enjoy a cold, frosty beverage. Turns out, I've got a lot more than I would have thought, and ironically, with a home grown spin I wasn't even looking for.

I love the internet. There's nothing I love more than being offered hope and then having it taken away from me, all in the space of about 2 hours. The first thing I did was type in "gluten free beer" into Google which turned up a really good article written by Johnathan M. Katz, called 5 Gluten Free Beers that are Actually Worth Drinking. It actually listed 7 beers, the other 2 being ones that, according to him, were not worth drinking. Regardless, not one of them is available here in Quebec. Not even the shitty 2! Okay, you can find Bard's Tale in an LCBO in Hawkesbury, but that doesn't qualify as being available in Montreal, and it wasn't on the good list! Of the 5, one is available only in the mid-western US, one is only available on the Pacific West Coast of the US, one I could find in Vermont and two we are planning a road trip to Plattsburg, NY to see if we can find. That doesn't, however, get me gluten free beer here in Montreal. Back to the internet then.

While having my hopes dashed, I realised that those brews that were touted as being drinkable were all from microbreweries and smaller companies, which pulled me up short and had me rethink my approach a little.  Montreal has an amazing array of microbreweries, who every year manage to hold their own at the Mondial de La Biere. Maybe what I needed to do was look a little closer to home, and after just a little bit of searching, I found not one but two different brewers with a total of 10 different beers to try. Wow.

As I was never much of a beer drinker, I decided that I needed a little bit of help. It's amazing just how much help you can get when you promise to feed people if they'll help you drink beer. For the record, I am going to have to have a second tasting as enough of my friends were sad they missed the first one. I didn't decide this out of the goodness of my heart, either; I was informed I'd be having a second tasting!

This was what my dinning room looked like by the end of the evening! So much fun =P

This was, of course, done on the soundest principles of scientific testing, ahem. There was a section for initial comments about each beer, how it was with food, and then a 1 to 10 graded scale for overall impression. We did have to clarify at the outset that a 10 meant you would pour it on your breakfast cereal you liked it that much while you couldn't put a zero unless you actually spat it back into the cup. We had chips (a mix between corn tortillas, blue and yellow, and popcorners) with dips (salsa, guacamole, 'sour cream' and hummous), olives, chicken wings (a savoury and a spicy, with some extra Blair's Death Wing Sauce for those with a reckless streak) and some sliced meats (a bresaola, prosciutino and spicy genoa salami) to snack on as we went, and as none of us got wrecked, I don't think we ended up having more than 2 beers each in total, it was a great evening, questionnaires not withstanding. We also had some control beers for everyone else in the form of Heineken, Rickard's White and Guinness (bottled) for comparison; our friend Oli was also our control person as he was drinking his beer in distilled form, an Ardbeg I believe.

Okay, so. Disclaimers first: only one of us is a regular beer drinker to begin with, and we did this without reading up on terminology or what we should have been looking for. We based our responses entirely on personal preferrence and total honesty, which was the Only thing that I required of my guests. Now, on to the beers.

La Messagere

Microbrasserie Nouvelle France, located about half way between Montreal and Quebec in Saint-Alexis-des-Monts, offers three different versions of glutten free beer.

The signature named La Messagere, a rice and buckwheat beer, was the first that we tried. It was described as light, a good starter drink or something to have for predrinking, sharp and sour. With food, it was rated as ok to good with a strong after taste. Overall: 6

La Messagere Rousse, also a rice and buckwheat blend, was liked by all right out of the gate. Described as tasty, Good, smooth and balanced, with food it was compared to a traditional wheat rousse beer, like a Rickard's Red, with a nutty/meaty flavour and one of the non-beer drinkers flat out said that he would order this. Overall: 7.3

La Messagere Millet Light, obviously named, was not really liked, however. A bitter taste with a lot of hops, didn't really get much better with food, other than to improve the flavour of what was being eaten! Overall: 3.3

Glutenberg

Les Brasseurs Sans Gluten who produce Glutenberg beers are actually located right here in Montreal on the Lachine Canal, which I think is really cool. They actually produce 7 of the beers that we tried, with 2 of those being fortified. I am also not going to list each beers ingredients as they varied significantly, and had some pretty cool stuff (like dates) in some of them.

American Pale Ale is a very traditional APA, from what I understand, and not one of us liked it. At all. It has a sweet smell, kind of smokey with a heavy, woody flavour (one person described it as almost medicinal) and with food the bitterness really came out. However, APAs are supposed to be bitter, so if that is your thing, here's your beer. Overall: 2.7

The Blonde beer went over really well. A nice summer time beer, compared by one person to a Boreal, smooth and simple that was really good with food. Overall: 6

The Rousse beer, surprisingly, wasn't really well recieved. The molasses in the beer came through in the smell, but you could taste the Quinoa in the aftertaste, which was a bit sour; one person described it as having a toffee flavour, and no one felt that it improved with food. Overall: 3.6

The Double Belge had a sweet and clean flavour, with an almost spice like aftertaste that was described as crisp and (by one) citrusy. We all agreed that this was not the beer for sweet food, but paired well with salty; had a meaty flavour with just a slight bitter after taste. Overall: 5

Atypic Ale 8 was good; a rich fruity smell with a bit of a nutty taste that was good with food and actually seemed to make sweet foods sweeter. Overall: 6.25

The Belge de Saison 2013 was the most disliked beer of the bunch. The inital smell of honey and lemon had several people comment that it made them think of disinfectant, and it had a strong flavour that, while better with salty foods, distorted the flavours of what we were eating. Overall: 2.2

Soto Lon, a microgastronomie brew, was a hit! The first thing you smell is maple (on account of the maple water used) and it does pack a kick (it has rum in it!!) but we all decided that this was breakfast beer! Well balanced between sweet and salty, we preferred it with salty foods, which had us all wishing we had bacon. Overall: 7.7

Group favourite: La Messagere Rousse
Runner ups: BSG Blonde and Soto Lon
Least Favourite: BSG Belge de Saison 2013

Anyone paying attention to the numbers will notice that the highest score didn't necesarily win the favourite vote. As I said, this was very much based on personal preferances.

Because I ended up buying more beer than we drank for the tasting, I got to drink most of them again, but at my leisure. I think that I've modified my initial impression in that I enjoy La Messagere Rousse and the BSG Atypic Ale about evenly, followed closely by the Blonde. I even gave the American Pale Ale another go, and while it would work if you enjoy foods that are so spicy you singe your nose hairs, I don't so I'll be leaving that one for those who enjoy bitters.

The bestest part? If we decide to brave the St. Patrick's day crowd and actually hit up the Burgundy Lion on Sunday, I'll be able to order one and pretend to be Irish along with everyone else!

Slainte!

Dark chocolate peanut butter bites

Dark chocolate and peanut butter. As far as I'm concerned, putting the two of them together is a win and should never be passed over! When I was 18 and backpacking, my room mate and I were in such a fix for Reece's peanut butter cups, with none to be found where we were, that we simply went to the store and bought a jar of peanut butter and a very large slab of chocolate. We spent a happy afternoon sitting on the grass in front of the room we shared happily scooping peanut butter out of the jar on chunks of chocolate and scarfing it down to the vast amusement of those poor individuals who were unfamiliar with the concept of combining the two. I believe we both got quite ill that evening, but we both felt that it had been worth it.

I love a good peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie (my husband and I have been known to make up a batch and have them for dinner, after all) but sometimes you don't want the cookie to get in the way. I've been toying with the idea of trying to make my own version of a Reece's for a while now, and as my mother-in-law got me the coolest toy for christmas, a chocolate making kit, I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to try both of them out!

Okay, so now that I have the toys, er, tools to do this, it's time for the recipe. I looked at a few, but really, this is supposed to be about the peanut butter and the chocolate, so in the end simple won. I found this recipe at Gluten Free Nosh and am very happy with it. She suggests using mini muffin/baking cup liners, and if I didn't actually have candy molds, that would be the way I would go, but note! These are very rich! Little is not a bad thing here! Because I use 80 to 85% dark chocolate for all my baking, I find that while it isn't as sweet, a little really does go a long way. You will also want to ensure that the chocolate stays runny, so you will probably want to put the chocolate back into the microwave before covering the peanut butter, or you could also melt the chocolate over a double boiler and simply keep it warm throughout. Whatever you do, be prepared to giggle and get chocolate all over! This is a simple recipe and there is something about making peanut butter cups that had me feeling like a kid. Probably had something to do with having chocolate all over myself, and really, it is all about the simple pleasures!

Dark chocolate and peanut butter bites
Quantity depends on your molds

• 3/4 cups Peanut Butter (regular works best)
• 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons Icing Sugar
• Pinch salt
• 2 cups chocolate, 72% or higher, in small pieces
• Mini baking cups, candy cup liners or candy molds

 Combine the peanut butter, icing sugar and salt and mix till well blended; roll into small balls, working quickly so that it doesn't stick to your fingers. (Hint: rinse your hands in cold water first). Set aside on a little plate.

Melt the chocolate in the microwave, in 30 second incremements on a low power setting, stirring between each until melted; alternatively, melt the chocolate in a double boiler, stirring till completely smooth.

Cover the bottom of your liners/cups/molds with some of the melted chocolate, then put in a peanut butter ball. Top/cover with more melted chocolate and refridgerate for about 30 minutes till set.

We made our peanut butter balls a bit too big for our molds, so after dividing them we ended up with more than we had intended. Oh, dear, such a hardship. We also found that giving the molds a good shake allowed the chocolate to settle a bit more smoothly as well, though we did end up with a few air bubbles. Tasty though!

Allergy-free Cookbook by Alice Sherwood

I am so going to be dating myself with this, but about 8 or so years ago I started working on a degree in the field of naturopathy, specifically nutrition and herbology. I did my first year, and while working on my second year, the long term relationship I was in ended. Rather emphatically, and I didn't end up finishing. My interest in the subject hasn't abated any, just circumstances and my focus has shifted a little. In truth, the woman who was my herbology instructor impressed me so much that I used to say that I wanted to be her when I grew up! Her name was Jennifer, and she was the kind of teacher who firmly believed that the best way to learn something was to go out and do it, and get yourself dirty while you're at it! Have fun might not have been her official motto, but she certainly seemed to enjoy her everyday life, and I think of her fondly, and miss her too (as a grandmother, though a young one, the last I saw her she as about to go back to school herself to become a registered homeopath; I hope she succeeded!)

I don't remember which class it was specifically or even what material we were covering at the time, but the subject of gluten came up (she and her husband were also farmers; I often wondered when she slept) and how everything changed after WWII. All those hungry soldiers came home, and no one wanted a repeat of the Depression era hunger, so hello genetic tinkering. I remember mentally ticking off all the boxes as she described the symptoms that come with not being able to properly digest gluten: bloating, mental fuzziness, cramping, swelling of joints, being hungry.... Fill in the blanks with anything I missed. By the end of class, I decided to do an experiment and cut out all guten for 2 weeks, just to see. My partner at the time was not really happy about this, but consoled himself with it being only 2 weeks. The people I worked with couldn't believe that I would even try to do something so restrictive or required so much work. By the third day, I couldn't believe how amazing I felt! I truly remember pausing when I realized how simply awake I was in the middle of the afternoon, with a tonne of energy, and just happy. Seriously content just being where and who I was. By the end of the 2 weeks, however, the experiment was pretty much abandoned. My former partner was Eastern European and firmly believed that you should serve bread as a side to sandwiches, and the options available for substitutes (at that time) weren't many and were a little prohibitive cost wise. Plus, I overcooked a batch of rice-pasta and that was it; back to a regular diet we went.

Fast forward about 5 years and I was happily single and trying to remember everything I could about the experiment as I was about to start living it 24/7. I was very glad to be able to have such a positive memory to hold on to, as it became obvious quickly that I still needed a reference source of some kind. Any time I feel out of my depths, the first thing I do is find a book, and since for this, the best kind of book would involve recipes, I got right on it!

The very first book I ever got myself was Allergy-Free Cookbook: no eggs, no dairy, no nuts, no gluten byAlice Sherwood. I spent a very happy afternoon at a Chapters one day and went through a whole pile of books before settling on this one. I will admit that I was influenced by the photography as I am a sucker for pretty pictures, but in a cook book, I think that's kind of important actually!

The opening section of the book is very informative, which factored into my decision to choose this one. Without needing to be able to translate medicalese, she goes into the differences between an intollerance and a allergy; she covers what the differences in reactions are for the more common food culprits (nuts, eggs, dairy and gluten); how to read ingredients labels (Note: Ms. Sherwood is British, so some of the words are not often used in daily North American speak, but you don't need to understand Cockney rhyme either) and what to watch out for, and quite a bit of other very useful information, especially for someone who has just been dumped into the world of food restrictions. She also has each recipe marked to indicate which allergen it does not contain, with the recipe modified to excude other allergens in the margens, making it very easy to figure out how to prepare each dish for your personal needs.

I have played with a lot of the recipes in this book, and there are a few that have become my Go To for when I want certain things (Foccacia p. 173, Osso Bucco p.118 and Noodles in hot ginger broth p.142 for example), but for me, this books best recipes really are in the savoury department. They go together quickly without being overly complicated or requiring ingredients that are difficult to find. They also present really nicely, which makes me think that they probably didn't need to do too much to the pictures to make them print ready; they get bonus points for that! I actually have to be careful with the book when I take it off the shelf as it's stuffed with little bits of paper holding the pages of the recipes I still have to try.

This is, however, not my go to book for baking and sweets. It might not be fair of me, but this is where the recipe for the infamous "chocolate brick-and-mortar" cake came from, and it was my first attempt, but the sweets and treats really aren't my favourites. I should probably go back, now that I've found flour mixes and other baking supplies that I know I can count on to try some of her cakes again, but I haven't yet. I will say that I Do very much enjoy the carrot cake recipe, as that was one of my first successes, and it came out exactly right!

Having said that, I would buy this again, or gift it to someone just starting out with food restrictions (with some recomendations based on experience). I would also suggest this to someone who has people in their life with restrictions that they would like to be able to cook for and also just wanted a good cookbook!