Roots: a book review

I am a very easy person to buy for. Any one who has known me for more that 20 minutes has it figured out that getting me books is almost guaranteed to make me happy. If it's a cook book, even better, especially if it has lots of pretty pictures!

One of the things about being Canadian is that you are probably quite familiar with root vegetables. The thing is, you could say that about just about anyones nationality; it would seem that almost every culture has some sort of root vegetable, be it a taproot or a tuberous root, a rhizome, corm or stem tuber, at the base of its indigenous cuisine. Now, don't get me wrong, potatoes are great, but sometimes it would be nice to shake things up a little. This would where "Roots: The Definitive Compendium with more than 225 Recipes" by Diane Morgan ( DianeMorganCooks.com ) can come in handy.

Firstly, it is a beautiful book to have. A wonderful reference guide that gives you a bit of history, scientific classifications, varieties, preparation and how to use, yield references, basic nutritional info as well as availability and storage tips. The contents are located at the front of the book in alphabetical order of which ever 'root' is being featured, and while some roots have more recipes available, you get a range of options for each. Plus, so far, all of the recipes turn out looking like the picture provided!

Some of the 'roots' I am well familiar with, carrots, beets, radishes, etc; some of them I have heard of though not used personally like lotus root and yuca, and some of them I've never heard of (crosne, also called Japanese artichoke and a member of the mint family, looks disturbingly like larvae of some kind and I have set All my friends to looking for it for me!), giving you a lot of options. You can stick with things you are familiar with, or totally introduce something new!

I'm also really enjoying some of the modifications she's suggested; recipes I am familiar with, but using a different 'root' for it. Instead of carrot cake, why not a parsnip cake? Leave off the potato fries and give yuca fries a try - NOTE: these have become my favourite!!! Potato fries are boring in comparison, and I suggest seasoning them with a little ground cumin and sea salt... Heaven!

Okay, so the three recipes that we picked to test out used Rutabaga, Celery Root and Jerusalem Artichoke, and all three of them have made it to our "do that again" list. We made the Rutabaga Hash with Onions and Crisp Bacon (pg. 273) for a quick dinner one night, and while we only used one jalapeno and added a red pepper, we followed her suggestion of adding a poached egg to the top of it. I think it took us about 30 minutes to get it on the table, and the rutabaga gave a nice sweet contrast to the jalapeno (though next time we will use 2). The celery root got turned into Celery Root Remoulade (pg. 95) and considering that my husband hates celery, this was good stuff and I think he ate most of it. You will need to use a sour cream alternative to keep it dairy free, and I probably would have cried if I didn't have a mandolin to slice the celery root with (you want match stick sized slices for the remoulade since the root isn't cooked), but the work was worth it in terms of taste.

The third recipe, Jerusalem Artichoke and Artichoke Heart Linguini (pg. 166), is of course the only one I have pictures of. Sorry... Crunchy jerusalem artichoke with tender pasta and artichoke hearts; a little bit of spice in red peper flakes and garlic balanced out with fresh mint; some lemon juice and a little olive oil and it made for a dinner that was familar but new at the same time. Bonus points if you need to feed a vegan friend and wanted something that could be done up a little fancy (though I think the next time we do this if we don't toss some bacon in it, there will be some spicy Italian GF sausage). This goes together really qickly, so I was very glad that I had sliced and chopped everything before starting, but being able to put a nice meal on the table quickly is not something I am going to complain about!

It also only requires a pot to cook the pasta in and a large fry pan where you will toss everything together before serving.

This is definitely a book that I am very glad to have, and am looking forward to trying out some of the other 'roots' and recipes in it. Now if I could only find some crosnes....

Rating: 4 out of 5 simply because it is not a book I would give to beginner cooks who still think Kraft Dinner is food, but there are a number of people on my gift lists that I can cross off for the rest of this year!

Comfort Food!! Broccoli Cheese Soup!

I don't know if the new moon we just had has anything to do with it, but today was nuts! We had barely left the house to go to work when we ran into traffic snarls, several of them, and my coworkers and I couldn't even get the doors open before we had people in the shop. It didn't let up all day, either! It seemed like I had just gotten done with the things that I Had to do today when it was time to get ready to close up and go home! If there was ever a night for fast, easy and tasty, it was tonight.

Don't get me wrong: I love food that shows that there was some preparation involved. I knew I was in trouble when on our first date, my now husband cooked this amazing and really structural dinner of oven roasted sweet potato wedges which he stacked with seared garlic asparagus which was then topped with pan seared salmon fillets in a lemon dill reduction. Can you blame me for marrying him?? But you know what? About once a week (more if it's cold out) I'll ask him what he'd like for dinner and he asks for soup and sandwiches. Am I a lucky girl or what?!

Soup is such a great way of using up bits of stuff you've got in the fridge where you might not have enough to do a side with, or it's starting to approach a dodgy status. It can also be super (ha!) quick and simple. Not sure I'd plan a bouillabaise for a Wednesday night after all day at work, but broccoli cheese soup with toasted bacon and tomato sandwiches were on the table in less than 40 minutes, and that in part because we have a crappy toaster.

 

 

Quick Broccoli "Cheese" Soup

• 4 tablespoons fat of your choice (oil, marg, Earth Balance or whatever you prefer)
• 1 onion, chopped
• 4 cups chicken or veggie stock
• 1 lg head of broccoli, chopped
• 1 lb of "cheese", cubbed
• 1 cup of "milk" (I use almond milk)
• 1 tablespoon of thickener (corn starch or arrowroot powder) + 1 tablespoon water
• Fresh ground pepper

Very simply, chop up the onion and sautee it in the fat until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the 4 cups of stock (this is soooo easy to make vegan!) and the chopped up broccoli, and allow to heat through on a medium to mdium high heat setting, 5-10 minutes depending on how soft you like your broccoli.

 

 

Cut your "cheese" into cubes, and add them to your pot along with 1 cup of "milk", and allow to melt on medium heat (without letting it come to a boil) until it is combined.

 

 

 Warm, creamy, quick and relatively healthy. Throw in  couple of sammies, and dinner is served!

 

 

 

 



Good Stuffs! (Product reviews)

I absolutely love finding new things that I can cook with; my husband knows that my idea of a great date night is for him to take me to a new market or grocer I've never been to. I'm like a kid in a candy store! Every year I tear up a little when the Jean Talon and Atwater markets both open up the outside for the summer and fold in for the winter. Basically, the only thing that makes me happier than cooking and playing in the kitchen is hunting for the stuff I'm going to be using once I get there. Hence, good stuffs.

I had originally planned to start writing about some of the places that I like to shop at tonight, but the dinner my huney cooked for us was not only amazing and simple, but also incorporated two new products that I had purchased to try out at some point. This seemed like a perfect opportunity. So, here goes.

We picked up some scallops at the fish monger down the street this afternoon, and while snooping, I realized that in and amongst all their pastas (we have a very cool fish monger! All kinds of products to go with the sea food, and frankly when I'm feeling lazy because it is so close, I'll often pop in to pick up any produce I might be short on) they carry Le Veneziane, a corn pasta. Never having tried it, I grabbed some thinking that it would be nice to have on hand for a dinner on the fly. Plus, the ones I grabbed were a larger size than I can usually find, closer to a linguini sized noodle. Once home, it was decided that something cajun would be nice, and while checking out some of the suggestions on our spices, there is a recipe for a cream based spicy seafood sauce that would be good over pasta! Great, says my guy, except that we don't have what we usually use as a cream substitute. Tah dah! Again, because I had never tried it, the last time I ran over to my favourite little shop, I had picked up some MimicCream, which I was able to hand over as though I had planned the whole thing. The best part? I then pretty much got out of the kitchen and let him do his thing as it was his night to cook!

Okay, so... The MimicCream is an almond and cashew nut cream, so this is not going to be your thing if you have any nut allergies!  Having said that, it was great to work with. Visually, it resembles a heavy cream in texture and appearance, that acts in much the same way a dairy based cream would when cooking with it. It didn't separate or go grainy with the heat (which I often find with some of the rice based substitutes), took on the flavours of the spices that were used but also didn't get lost in the dish; basically, you knew you were eating a "cream" sauce. The container holds 16oz, or 2 cups, and once opened, should be refridgerated and used within 14 days.

 

So next, the pasta. The package instructions said to cook in boiling water for 5 minutes, and that was exactly right. They held their structure really well, and had a really nice, lightly chewy texture to them that had us decide to use these in place of egg noodles. They held the sauce well, absorbing it without becoming mushy (which has me planning a tomato and seafood based pasta dish for the not so distant future) and unlike some noodles we've tried, they twirl on your fork perfectly!

 

 

Essentially, dinner was a great success, and we will Definitely be picking up both of these products again. I'm looking forward to trying different shapes of pasta for different recipes, and the cream will likely find a permanent place in our pantry.

 

 

Photo: Cajun spiced scallops with leeks and red peppers in "cream" sauce, zucchini and pasta.

 

Bon Appetit!

 

Caramel sauce, yes please!

Today was supposed to be the day that I got a bunch of shopping done, some housework out of the way, cook a nice dinner with my guy and bake up a batch of vegan caramel brownies for dessert. Got the shopping done, as well as some of the housework. Dinner was a great success (tried out a new recipe for a celeriac remoulade that was fabulous!) but notice the words "supposed to" in that first sentence? Yeah, the vegan caramel brownies were where things kinda fell apart.

The vegan caramel sauce turned out amazingly! THAT recipe will follow shortly, promise. But attempting to modify 3 separate recipes and amalgamate them all into one should not bring expectations of success on the first go around. Which is where I find myself at this moment. See, what I had been hoping to pull off (and because I'm a stubborn wretch, one day I will) was a vegan brownie based on the Moosewood recipe that I have been using for more than a decade, combined with a vegan coconut caramel sauce that I was going to modify to use the assembly instructions for a gluten and dairy full recipe for said. Should have been easy, right?? *bang head on table* To make a long and very humbling story short, what I got resembled asphalt in both texture and rigidity. This would be one of those occasions where "In to the garbage you go!" was heard in regards to an experiment. So, back to the drawing table. We did, however, make up a second batch of unaltered brownies on top of which we spread the lions share of the sauce, because after all that, we wanted our caramel brownies!

Now for the good part: vegan caramel sauce.... *drool* This stuff is not only Very simple to make, but doesn't have much in it and for all that you need 2 tins of coconut milk, you wouldn't know it to taste it! The one down side to this is that unless you routinely keep tins of coconut milk in your fridge, you won't be able to do this on a whim. All you use is the coconut fat, so by keeping it in the fridge, the fat solidifies at the top and the "milk" collects at he bottom, allowing you to separate it very easily.

I got this recipe from LauraFriendly.com and it truly is as simple and divine as she says.

Vegan Caramel Sauce

• 1 1/2 cups Coconut milk Fat (from 2 tins of full fat coconut milk, refridgerated overnight)
• 1 cup Brown Sugar
• 1 tablespoon Vanilla extract (not artificial if you can swing it)
• 1 teaspoon Sea Salt

Turn the tins of coconut milk upside down and once opened, pour off the coconut milk/water for later use (hello, coconut rice pudding!). Add the cococut fat, brown sugar,vanilla and salt to a medium sized pot over fairly high heat, whisking to combine and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, and allow to slow boil for anywhere from 40-50 minutes (she says 35-45, but I left it a bit longer), whisking every few minutes. After about 30 minutes, the caramel will change to a darker colour, and from there, the longer you let it cook, the thicker it will become. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly for immediate use or store covered in an airtight containter. Can be refridgerated for up to 2 weeks (but lets be honest, it won't last that long).

Enjoy!



 

 

 

 

 

Don't touch my coffee!

I am desperately trying to be a morning person. Getting up in the morning to yoga, a nice breakfast, some quality time with my huney and kitties, actually having accomplished "stuff" before 11 is a Huge goal of mine. The reality is that I hit snooze about 5 times, stumble off to feed the kitties and get coffee going before climbing back into my nice, warm bed for a little more snoozing because there ain't No Way my back is touching a freezing cold yoga mat at -17 Celsius. (Yes, I know that is the temperature outside right now, but I swear my mat is channelling it in!) It would probably also be easier if I didn't stay up quite so late reading, but that's another issue all together. Needless to say, it takes me a little while to get going in the morning, and I like to take my time about it. Coffee helps.

My husband is even more ennamoured of coffee than I am. There are days when I think he would take it intravenously if he could, though having turned him on to Kicking Horse coffee (Kick Ass being our favourite) he has cut back a little, quality over quantity and all. I also truly enjoy my coffee, and giving up cream sucked. No bones about it, I will drink it black if I have to, but that doesn't mean I want to. Silk coffee creamer to the rescue!

I don't actually use much in the way of soy products. Hubby does not like tofu, and the more I learn about soy, the less inclined I am to use it extensively (personal choice there). But having something that I can use in place of cream, and I do use Silk for a lot of things besides my coffee (hello, chocolate ganache in half the time!), makes my life sooo nice.  They have flavoured ones too! Not a fan of nut flavoured things, so haven't tried the hazelnut, but the vanilla is sublime. You can't always find those though, and just went through about 10 days of withdrawl as it was on back order and everywhere I usually shop was out (gasp!) but Huzzah! Was able to pick some up yesterday. That makes for a vey happy me.

I'm still tempted to go back to bed though!

Re: Education Part 2

Today I spent a large chunk of my day running around and doing errands and other fun stuff I've been able to put off  under the guise of class and work. Ahem. I really needed to go grocery shopping. So, lists in hand, off I go (several times, in several different directions) to get what we are going to need for the next couple of days. Provided I have my lists, shopping is wonderfully relaxing and allows me to get in some thinking. This is usually prefaced by a lot of mind wandering, but some interesting things on occasion come from it, and where my mind went this morning was the Pillage and Plunder Salvage Company.

First question: where the hell did I get that name?! I have been thinking about what on earth to title this for a very long time. I had been toying with Chelle Friendly as that is what most of what I can eat gets dubbed, but not only have I found another woman who uses that format, and her stuff is cool (I'll come back to that later!), but it never really resonated. Then, one night while talking to my not-sister down south of the border, she tossed that at me in a completely different context, and something just clicked.

When you get down to it, changing over to a gluten and dairy free diet is scary. Suddenly, or not as the case may be, you are told that food is going to hurt you. Terms and vocabulary you've never heard, and in some cases can't pronounce, are suddenly the Enemy, speaking a language you have to decipher and somehow out-smart. I remember when I learned that if it has "caramel colour" on the ingredients list, that means there is gluten in there somewhere, I was stunned! Seriously? Caramel Colour??? Alright... Things you didn't even really like are now out of reach and suddenly appealing, simply because you want what you can't have. Gah...

It's also not exactly cheap to switch everything over to alternative, gluten free and dairy free products either. The flour mix that I choose to use requires 4 different flours and xantham gum; the flours (if not bought in bulk) are about $4-$5 each and the xantham gum ranges from $12-$15 depending on which brand you use! (The upside of xantham gum is that it's more like a one time expense that lasts a Very long time as you don't use much. I usually have to buy some once a year, and I do a lot of baking!!!) There are 2 people in this house; I am not trying to feed a family of 4 or 5 or 6! I think that we all know that specialty items are expensive, but occasionally buying a high ticket item because you are making a fancy dinner isn't the same as forking over $7 for a loaf of premade bread.

This is about where you want to give up, if that's even an option (and I know a few people who have gone that route), or, like me, you get kinda pissed off. I don't like being told that I can't do something (and I can hear my mother trying not to choke from here) and it's actually a good way to get me motivated to try. Mostly so I can prove you wrong, which my piano teacher figured out and used quite successfully for many years so that I would pass my exams. But pissed off because I couldn't bake a cake just made me want to do it more, so I got a couple of cookbooks and started over. Literally, started allllllll over. I had to learn everything again! Nothing worked the way I remembered it. The icing on the first cake I made was pretty darn good, but that was about it. The rest of the cake, well.... the jerk from work wasn't actually wrong. It did resemble a brick in both texture and structural integrity. The first batch of pancakes that I made based on my old recipe were where I noticed that the gluten free flour absorbs more liquid than regular flour does, and fortunately I was the only one subjected to those. I think it was after maybe 2 or 3 months of playing around (different flours, different milk substitutes, even different fat sources) that I brought a batch of blueberry lemon muffins in to work and they were snatched up and gone before I got one. If you think about it, that actually speaks very highly of my coworkers, that they would be willing to taste test for me still. Mind you, they all do seem to enjoy horror movies and roller coasters, so maybe it had more to do with living on the edge, but that is neither here nor there.

So, in a way, relearning how to cook without gluten or dairy really requires you to pirate from everywhere, everything and constantly. I will Always be looking for better ways to do things, new recipes to try, new cookbooks (much to my husbands chagrin!) to test and new products that I can introduce into my repertoire. I get to discard things that don't work, or that I don't like, because if I keep looking, there are so many more things out there to replace them!  I probably would not have chosen this for myself, but since I'm on this boat, I might as well get it to go where I want, and have fun while I'm at it!

Re: Education Part 1

I am fortunate enough to work for people who consider continuing education for their staff to be extemely important, and acually go to great lengths (and expense) to see to it that we get a very good education. So, on that note, I will warn you that my brain is currently swiss cheese from attending classes for the past few days, though I have to admit, I loved it. I was That Kid, the one that couldn't wait to go back-to-school shopping every August, who couldn't wait to get new textbooks and find out what we'd be learning next. I still am.

If you were to go through my bookshelf, firstly my husband would probably look the other way if you stole something because it would delay his having to try to figure out where yet Another bookshelf was supposed to go. Secondly,  you would also note quite the disparity of subject matter. I went through a phase where I was fascinated by physics, another where I read as much as I could on global politics as pertaining to the oil and war industries (and thank all the gods that That was short lived), not to mention my uber-snot phase where I couldn't get enough of the Greek masters. However, the lions share of my collection is and has always been my cookbooks. I read them! I'm like a little kid with the pictures, I point at them and say "Look!!"! If it is a book about food, and it will teach me something, hand it over and you'd better say if you want it back!

Now, imagine my abject horror when first, I had to cut out all dairy (I am severely intollerant to caseine) but then also all gluten. Argh!! What was I supposed to do with my lovelies??  Tried and tested recipes, favourites, the baking....(insert overly dramatic hand gesturing here) I am pretty sure at some point I cried. Basically, life sucked.

At first, I readily accepted all the sympathy I was given (who wouldn't? My life had been totally turned upside down, me, who loved food that much. What the hell was I supposed to do?  I indulged my inner diva and preened a little bit, that's what). However, it didn't take very long before I actually started thinking about what  I was being asked most often: so what are you going to eat now? It took even less time for me to accept the statement "Oh, I'd kill myself!" as a challenge. Why should I kill myself? I already knew how bad fast food is, and unfortunately found myself relying on it far too often. When you consider how much I have always loved to cook, I had certainly allowed myself to slack off. Now throw in the fact that Montreal has two fantastic markets, both the Jean Talon and the Atwater which are open all year round, plus a million little fruitterie and shops, and I really had zero excuse. Okay. Pitty party over, aaaaaaaaaaand Go!

It took me a couple months to get bored of what I could cook that I was 100% sure had no gluten or dairy; a lot of soy products, fresh fruits and veggies and meats. I ate really well, but the minute you accept that kind of challenge, what are you going to eat now, you keep it in the back of your head. If you've already eaten it, you remember, and store it away for future reference, but you go looking for the next thing. You remember the dishes you used to love, and the things you'd always wanted to try, and All Those Cookbooks.

It has taken me over 2 years to get to where I feel confident enough to try to convert over just about any recipe so that I get to eat it too, though that doesn't mean it's going to work! I have had my share of flops (one of the guys I worked with suggested we use the first chocolate cake I ever attempted to replace some of the bricks in the building we worked at, and I have as yet to successfully make cinnamon buns, but those are stories for other times) and my husband and I have a pact that any experiment that is Not a success goes in the garbage, even if it means going out for dinner. However, I am having more fun playing with this than I would have every imagined! Quite possibly, the biggest compliment I now get is when people ask me what my lunch is, I tell them and they ask "You can eat that?". Most excellent.