Polish Dill Pickel Soup

One of my colleagues at work shared this recipe with me because she had heard I liked to cook. Thank goodness she did! This soup is a winner. I had three people over for lunch. Since I did not know what their reaction would be, I served them small portions and then placed the soup bowl in the middle of the table for them to help themselves to more soup if they liked it. And like it they did. Garnish each bowl with a large dollop of plain yogurt and fresh finely snipped dill. One of the guests said it tasted just like dill potato chips.

6 cups  chicken stock  I used Better than Bouillon but home made would be best

4 large dill pickles to equal one cup, shredded

1/2 cup dill pickle juice

4 cups thinly sliced potatoes

2 tablespoons  flour

1 cup milk

1 egg

2 tablespoons soft butter

Garnish: chopped fresh dill, yogurt, salt and pepper


In a large saucepan  combine stock, pickles, pickle liquid  and potatoes. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and cook covered, over low heat until potatoes start to get soft. Combine flour and milk, add to broth, bring to a boil and remove from heat. Combine egg and butter and stir into broth. Return pot to the stove and heat through without boiling. Season with salt and pepper. Garnish with yogurt and fresh snipped dill.

The original recipe said that it serves 10 but for my luncheon, it was more like 6.

Muffins

I have this amazing apple tree in my back yard. It yields large juicy eating apples and of course I also use them for pies, apple sauce and muffins. This year, 2012, the production is over the top. When a recipe calls for apples, I always add more than than the amount recorded. Here is a very healthy muffin recipe that I created.

 1/4 cup oil,
1/2 cup apple sauce,
 1/2 cup liquid honey,
 3 eggs, 1 tsp vanilla,
 2 cups whole wheat flour,
1 teaspoon baking powder,
 1 teaspoon baking soda,
 4 cups diced apples (not peeled).

 Combine the wet ingredients. Whisk. Sift together the dry ingredients. Mix the wet and dry. Stir in the apples. Drop into greased muffin tins. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. The muffins will mound nicely. After they were baked, I glazed them with a bit of honey and a few chopped walnuts.

I love large muffins and these are large, moist and apple y!

Pancotta

Driving from Saskatoon to Edmonton on a hot dry summer day, I stopped at my friend's home for lunch. She served a lime pancotta that was divine - cool, refreshing, a little tart and just right. We were sitting on her dark turquoise painted deck and a mountain ash tree is part of the deck. Aside from giving us shade it is the best deck decoration I have ever seen. The lime pancotta recipe she used came from Whitewater Cooks and of course I scribbled it down and all the tweaks she had made. Eventually I gave up not being able to read my scratches on the tiny sticki note I found at the bottom of my knap sack, knowing that I would be able to google the dessert. For the rest of the summer I experimented with this desert. I added lime and other times orange or lemon, some times orange and lime (I liked the green and orange contrast). I tried substituting half and half for the whipping cream and when people would ask for the recipe, I had a hard time remembering which version I used. So here is a version that is basic, conservative and the ultimate in texture and taste. The night before measure 2 cups of plain yogurt into a cheese cloth lined strainer. In the morning warm 1/4 cup whipping cream, 1/2 cup lemon juice, 2/3 cup white sugar. Sprinkle 2 tsp of gelatin over this mixture and allow to dissolve. Whisk in 2 1/4 cups of whipping cream and the 2 cups of drained yogurt. Pour into a clear glass bowl and allow to set in the fridge for at least 4 hours. When ready to serve, sprinkle with grated lemon peel. Watch the faces of those eating the dessert. They will slow down and will try to extend the pleasure of the experience.

Jim Lahey's No Knead Bread

My girl friend sent me a marvelous picture of a round crust-cracked loaf of bread and said she was experimenting with different ingredients. She told me to google 'bread that a four year old can make'. So I googled and found a web site by Steamy Kitchen and she had pictures of her four year old making the bread. It was true; a four year can make the bread. Harold McGee, quoted on E Curry blog site explained that it works because the bread is allowed to rise over many hours which is the same as kneading it for minutes. He states, "the gluten molecules [go] into side-by-side alignment to maximize their opportunity to bind to each other and produce a strong, elastic network. The wetness of the dough is an important piece of this because the gluten molecules are more mobile in a high proportion of water, and so can move into alignment easier and faster than if the dough were stiff.” Jim Lahey of Sullivan Street Bakery in New York invented the recipe and Mark Bittman published the recipe in 2006. Here is the recipe for my first experiment. Sift 1 and 1/2 cups white flour with 1 and 1/2 cups whole wheat flour. Add 2 tsp kosher salt, 1/4 tsp instant yeast, 1 tbsp honey and 1 and 1/2 cups of warm water. Cover. Let rise in a warm place for 12 to 20 hours. I let my bread rise for 15 hours. Put on floured tea towel and cover and let rise for 2 hours. Heat a covered ungreased pot in a 450 degree oven for 30 minutes. Drop dough into the pot. Cover. Bake at at 450 degrees for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake for 15 to 20 minutes. The result? The loaf looked great. The top was nicely browned and slightly cracked. The insides were chewy but a little too dense for my liking. As I was slicing the bread I thought it would be a killer sandwich because the bread was so firm. The picture shows a side view and you can see a few air bubbles. However, I am going to try to make this bread again because the other posts commented on the wetness of the bread dough and my dough was not wet and according to McGee I should have had wet dough to let the molecules slide around. My dough was not sticky and extremely easy to manage. In fact I questioned if I had put in sufficient water. For my next experiment, I am going to make the loaf entirely with white flour. Can't wait.

Pasta Alfredo

Sometimes it is just good to have comfort food and a main course you can trust and whip up with ease. I got the idea for this recipe from my son who made it when we were camped at Yoho one year. It is calorie dense - so great when you are hiking up mountains but also great when the weather is -25ish, which it has been for the past few days. Start by making a cream sauce. Melt one tablespoon butter and add one table spoon flour. Stir until a paste forms and add 2 cups of milk (I have added 10 per cent cream but it really does not need the cream). Stir in 1/4 cup home made pesto, 4 oz of cream cheese, 8 oz of creamy goat cheese, 1/4 cup dried tomatoes and freshly ground pepper and salt to suit your taste. That is it! Easy peasy. I serve the sauce over penne because I love the way the sauce finds its way into the tubes and when you bite down on the penne, the sauce squishes out all over your mouth. Yum. Serve with a plain green tossed salad because you do not want competition for flavours and No Knead hot bread. Dessert - something laced with chocolate - of course.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

A husband and wife team are at my home laying a new floor. It will take them three to four days. I decided that I would bake them chocolate chip cookies and serve them coffee or tea. When I was growing up, any one who worked for us would have a hearty noon meal including pie and cake for dessert. Now workers bring their own lunch and eat it while sitting in their truck. In fact, one worker told me that some home owners wouldn't even let him use the toilet. I believe that the workers in your home should be made to feel welcome and if not nourished with a meal at least treated well. Every one has a chocolate chip cookie recipe. When I scan the recipes I see the same ingredients: butter, eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder and of course chocolate chips. However the secret of a great cookie that holds together and yet melts in your mouth is under baking the cookie but just by a minute. You have to put together a number of variables: quality of your cookie sheets, the real heat in your oven, the size of the cookies and the baking time. For this recipe bake the cookies from 8 to 10 minutes. On my dark cookie sheet I bake the cookies for 8 minutes and on the light one, nine minutes. Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe 2/3 cup butter 3/4 cup white sugar 1/2 cup brown sugar 2 eggs 1 3/4 cups flour 1 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp. salt 2 cups large chocolate chips or chunks Beat the butter and slowly add the sugars. Add the eggs one at a time. Sift the flour with the baking powder and salt. Stir flour mixture into the butter/sugar/egg mixture with a wooden spoon. Stir in the chocolate chips. Using two teaspoons, drop small amounts of batter onto the cookie sheets. My drops are the size of two halves of a walnut and I get 12 cookies per sheet. Bake at 350 degree from 8 to 10 minutes. You will know the cookies are baked because there will be a light brown ring around the outer edges. They will be slightly puffed but will collapse when you remove them from the oven. Allow to cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes to give the cookies a chance to harden and then place on a rack to cool completely. Now try restraining yourself to just two cookies as you eat melted chocolate mixed with buttery cookie. Not so for the husband and wife team, they could eat as many as they wanted as they burnt through calories laying floor.