Monthly Archives: February 2012

I will not be defeated by root vegetables!

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I’m a good citizen. I recycle. I wear deodorant on the subway. And I subscribe to a CSA, which means I get a weekly box of produce that guarantees a local farmer income for the entire season. And this year, I decided to take that up a notch by buying a winter share too.

Now, I love me some root vegetables, so I figured a regular box full of ‘em for which I didn’t have to stand in line at the grocery store was a no-brainer. Only, unlike my summer share, there aren’t three sizes to choose from based on the size of your household. Even if your household is a household of one. What I’m getting at here is I’m overrun. Overrun with gorgeous, local vegetables of startling variety. Jerusalem artichokes, beets and yams, oh my!

So, I’ve been dealing with this crisis situation for a little over a month, preserving and soup-making like there’s no tomorrow! (Actually, I’m pretty sure if there was no tomorrow, I’d happily take a night off from making soup.) This little ditty came together in less than an hour on a school night (when I come home from work grumpy and ravenous), after I peeled and chopped the veggies the night before. It gets bonus points for using not one, but FOUR of the little burdens, I mean tubers (and such), screaming to be eaten in the bottom of my fridge.

Carrot Ginger Soup with Montreal Style Bagels

Carrot Ginger Soup
2 tbsp butter
1 small onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, smashed
1 piece (yeah, a whole one) fresh ginger, minced
2 lbs of carrots, peeled and chopped
3 large potatoes, peeled and chopped
Salt & pepper to taste
6 cups veggie or chicken stock
2 tsp fresh thyme or something

In your soup pot (you only have one, right?), melt the butter and make that onion sweat! After a coupla minutes, add the garlic and ginger and continue to cook. In a couple more, add the carrots and potatoes, then pour in the stock. Season with salt and pepper and let simmer for 30-45 minutes.

Poke the carrots and potatoes to make sure they’re mushy. Throw in the fresh thyme and turn the heat off.

Using an immersion blender (how did people live before immersion blenders?), puree the soup and re-season if necessary.

Spoon it into bowls and season with a dollop of yogurt (Monday), a sprinkle of hot sauce and some goat’s cheese (Tuesday), or a squirt of lime juice (Wednesday). If you’re a household of one, you’ll even have leftovers for days!

Oh, and sign up for your own box! Despite all my whinging, it’s such a nice treat to see all that our local farms have to offer. And, the variety has forced me to eat lots of delightful things that I’d never think to get on my own. And, I can’t get enough of the pickles.

it’s still friday in Canada

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It’s Friday. Friday, February 24th, to be precise. This could’ve been one of those lovely TGIF Fridays. But instead, it was one of those crappy I Forgot My Friend’s Birthday Fridays.

Yes, okay, I’m a jerk, but I feel that all is not lost. This blessed time zone we live in is a fine 5 hours behind that of my celebratory friend. While London is Saturday morning’s sticky dance floor, it’s still Friday in Canada.

vintage alarm clock

It’s no triple-decker cake with ornate frosting (which, I find don’t hold up so well in the mail anyway), but I made a little something for my old friend, and it is this: a playlist. Over the years, we’ve probably exchanged music more than phone calls, so I could almost pretend I intended this all along.

Happiest of birthdays, dear Stuart. (Or, over in your time zone, happiest of morning afters.)

Potato goat’s cheese tarte tatin, and what it has to do with my adulthood

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When I was a kid (and to this day, come to think of it), my dad used to always say “I used to think I knew everything, until I got older. Then I wondered how my dad got so smart” (which I’ve come to realize is a Charterization of something Mark Twain said). This might come as a surprise to you, but I was once a snarky teenager. A snarky teenager who didn’t appreciate what seemed like her dad’s way of patting himself on the back for being so darn smart. What a wise guy!

If she could see me now, the snarky teenaged me would probably be in a snit over the way thing’ve turned out. Sure, my dad helps me assemble the odd piece of furniture. But what’s really interesting is what’s going on with Mrs. Dad, aka Mom. Last week, I called her with a sewing question. And the other day, she gave me some advice on which vegetables should go into my soup stock. Even better, this weekend, she called me to ask how to prepare a recipe I had made for her recently! It turns out that the advice telephone runs both ways.

Which brings me to my tarte, and the subject of my mom’s phone call. I’ve been anxiously awaiting my Ottolenghi cookbook, which I’m told is on back order from the publisher. In the meantime, I’m left to scour the internet for his recipes, which luckily are plenty (wow, I think I punned!). I’ve been waiting for an occasion to make his tarte tatin since I stumbled upon this recipe, and Sunday night dinner turned out to be the one. The recipe itself wasn’t overly challenging, but I do think I earned bonus points for not completely failing at adapting a metric system recipe! What did prove to be challenging was finding shallots in smalltown Ontario. The fanfare over the finished product would suggest that my substitution worked just fine.

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Potato Garlic Tarte Tatin

a couple potatoes
a bulb of garlic
4 tbsp brown sugar
4 tbsp butter
small handful of fresh thyme leaves
goat’s cheese
1 sheet puff pastry, thawed
salt and pepper
olive oil

Rub two 10″ pie tins with olive oil and set aside. Preheat oven to 400°F.

Cut the top off the garlic and drizzle with oil. Place on a piece of tin foil and make a bundle with the garlic inside. Roast in warmed oven for about 30 minutes. Clean and peel the potatoes, and cut them into golf ball sized pieces. Boil them in salted water until soft.

In a small frying pan, combine butter and brown sugar and cook on medium until bubbles appear. Allow to bubble for one minute, then remove from heat and pour equal amounts onto bottoms of pie tin. Distribute in the pie tin with a spoon if necessary. Sprinkle thyme leaves on the sauce.

Stand the potatoes close together on the bottom of the pie tin. Scoop softened garlic out of the skins, and place pieces between the potatoes. Scatter chunks of goats cheese and salt and pepper on top. Cut rolled out pastry to just larger than the pie tins. Place on top of the cheese and tuck the excess in around the edges.

Place tins on a large baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes. Lower the temperature to 350°F and bake for 5 more minutes, or until pastry is cooked.

Remove from oven, and carefully flip tartes upside down onto a plate, removing the pie tin.

Serve with salad, or other non-starchy food. Bask in praise.

Wiksten tank

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It was a cold, snowy Friday. My long-awaited Wiksten pattern had just arrived in the mail. I had a handful of gorgeous new fabric from the workroom and a few hours to spare. Here’s what I got for my few hours of labour: a lovely new tank top. A lovely new tank top, a nasty burn from my iron, and several poked fingers. No one ever said I wasn’t clumsy.

I happen to be wearing this beauty right now, so it’s clear I’m happy with the finished product. It fits just right, and it works either tucked or untucked. Check out this pattern matching with the pocket!

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Big thanks go to Karyn for the inspiration (and the patience for my many sewing machine woes), who it turns out has also been working on a Wiksten project of her own. And to my fingers for being so resilient!

 

Saturday afternoon brioche

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You know those days when it’s winter rainy, and you end up going wandering with a friend anyway? You end up in a cheese shop while your friend stocks up on Montreal style bagels; you admire their savoury brioche and think those would be a good idea. You get home, chilled and hungry, and wonder why you didn’t pick up one of those pillowy beauts.

If this was your morning, I invite you to head into the kitchen. Strap on an apron, turn on a podcast. In less than an hour, you’ll be burning your tongue on a pillowy beaut of your own (patience was never my finest trait).*

Sundried Tomato Spinach Brioche

Sundried Tomato Spinach Brioche
5 cups flour
1 tbsp active dry yeast
1/4 cup sugar
2-1/2 tsp salt
handful of sundried tomatoes, finely chopped
two handfuls of fresh spinach, roughly chopped
6 eggs
1 cup butter, cubed
2 egg yolks
sesame seeds

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Sift the flour. Add the other dry ingredients and the veggies. Beat in the butter and eggs and mix well. If your dough is too dry, try sprinkling in some milk until it’s nice and soft.

Give your hands a nice workout and knead the dough for a few minutes. Once kneaded, grab the dough by small handfuls and roll into a ball. Place them in a greased muffin tin. Brush the tops with some egg yolk and some milk, and then sprinkle on some sesame seeds.

Put the brioche pans in a warm place to rise for about 30 minutes. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until golden.

 

*Speaking of patience, you’re welcome to opt for a more classic brioche, if you have 9 hours to spare for all the rising and deflating of the dough. I opted for semi-instant brioche gratification.