Almond Macaroons

I am always looking for recipes that are gluten free and of course macaroons are a very safe cookie given they have no flour of any kind. I made them yesterday but had another sweeter than cookie dough experience, because I made them with my two year old grand daughter. She stood on the large dining room chair and insisted that she also wear her apron since I was wearing mine. Her apron is brightly coloured,looks like the front of a Ukrainian doll and was hand sewn by a baba in the Ukraine. "Dolly apron, please", she insisted. We then washed our hands. We were ready. First 2 large egg whites were whipped till frothy in the mix master. She slowly poured in one cup of sugar. Most of it landed in the mixing bowl. When this was blended, she stirred the batter while we took turns mixing in 1 and 1/2 cups of ground almonds. She kept moving the mixing spoon to her left and then to her right hand because she is not sure yet which is her dominant hand. Meanwhile I lightly oiled the cookie sheet. When the batter was mixed (she allowed me to do some final stirs), I dropped the batter on to the cookie sheet with a tsp spoon and she found the right whole almond for each cookie and pressed it firmly into the center. Ten minutes in a 400 degree oven produced a wonderful cookie, crisp around the edges and soft in the center. We each ate two cookies and put the rest in a cookie tin. There is a saying that food flavoured with a mother's love is like no other food and I would have to add that food flavoured by an eager two year old is a memory maker of outstanding flavour.

Pepper Pound Cake

Sarah, whose mother is East Indian, made this cake for a lunch we were having this past summer. Why mention the nationality? The cake is Maya Kaimal's recipe who wrote Curried Flavors. She published this recipe in Food & Wine in 1999. So I think Sarah has an in on Indian food. At the lunch we were discussing Sticky Ideas by Heath and it may have been this topic, or the people, not sure, but what stuck with me was the flavour of this cake. I loved it. So I made it. However, my cake was dry compared to Sarah's. Sarah's cake had a fine crumb, was moist and had a buttery texture. It coated your mouth like good chocolate can. Sarah said she had inverted the hot cake and half fell out so essentially it was a disaster. Heads up for me, instead of calling Sarah, I called the Blue Flame Kitchen and a delightful but young helper tried to help me. Every question I asked her, she would run to some one (something?) else to find the answer. We concluded that my eggs may not have been large enough, that perhaps I put in too much flour and/or over baked it. I know you are suppose to scoop up the flour with a measuring cup and then level it with a knife but some times I am a bit hasty. We had another lunch this week, this time we discussed A Whole New Mind by Pink. Sarah again brought the Pepper Pound Cake and the recipe. Again I was struck by the flavour and the texture of this cake. The recipe is worth trying.

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3 cups of flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 pound unsalted butter at room temperature
21/2 cups sugar (I used 2 cups of sugar)
5 large eggs, separated
2 tbsp honey
1/1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp salt
finely grated zest of one lemon
1 cup buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Butter and flour a 10 inch bundt pan. Sift the flour with the baking powder into a medium sized bowl. In a large bowl, beat the butter with the sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks one at a time, then honey, pepper, ginger, salt and lemon zest. Mix the dry ingredients alternating with the buttermilk. Beat the egg whites in a glass or stainless steel bowl until firm. Fold into the cake mixture one third at a time. Scrape batter into the bundt pan. Bake for one hour and 10 minutes (note do not over bake). Cool the cake for 20 minutes and then unmold onto a rack. This cake is best if it is eaten the day it is baked.

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I hope that your cake will be as good as Sarah's. It is well worth the effort. For presentational effect, serve in a puddle of strawberries or raspberries or unadorned on nice plates. I would post a picture, but it is all gone.

Cashew Hummus

This past summer I discovered a great cook book, A Year in Lucy's Kitchen by Lucy Waverman. Since my library is over flowing with cook books, I signed it out from the library. It was not a random choice, I had read a review of it under the banner of cookbooks you will want for Christmas. I marked each appealing recipe with a sticky note. Usually I will not find more than five recipes per book that look interesting, novel or repeatable. However, with this book when I was finished reading it, looked like a yellow sticky forest. I showed the book to one of my friends who said I should return the book to the library with the stickies in tact to see if others would recognize superior recipes. We had a great laugh. I returned the book sans the sticky notes and went and bought my own copy. What I realized was, it is worth buying cook books by great cooks. So many cookbooks are written because they can be, to raise a profile of a restaurant, bring attention to an issue like healthy eating or ethnic flavours, or to raise funds for an organization. The question is, how many cookbooks are actually written by exceptional cooks. I think Lucy Waverman is one of those cooks. This particular cookbook also has a value added feature. There are wine pairings and menu suggestions. After having attended Jennifer Cockrall-King's Food and Wine Writing class in Penticton, I have a new respect for wine pairings. It truly makes a difference. For this dish the wine pairing is fino sherry.

Please note, this is not the original recipe. I decreased the oil from 3/4 to 1/2 cup and balanced the consistency with the chickpea water and made a few other tweaks. Play with the flavours. You can increase the cumin, decrease the garlic or add less salt but when you do make these changes and the result is very good, record the change.

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>1 cup dried chick peas soaked over night and drained. This was the first time I did this and the flavour was superior to using canned chick peas, I wondered why it had taken me so long to adopt this method. In fact I made 8 cups of chick peas in my slow cooker and froze the ones I did not need.
2 cups of water
1/2 tsp dried red chillies
1 bay leaf
2 spring of thyme. I grew thyme in my garden and have a use sip lock bag in my freezer
1 cup unsalted cashews
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tsp chopped garlic
2 tsp ground cumin
salt for flavour

Bring to boil the chick peas, bay leaf, red pepper chillies and thyme in the water and then simmer for 40 minutes. Drain chick peas saving the cooking water, combine with the rest of thee ingredients and puree in the food processor. Add the chick pea cooking water to thin the hummus to the desired consistency. Serve with a variety of crackers. This is a gluten free dip and so I tend to use gluten free crackers. I love the flavour of the cumin with the cashews. Usually when I think of hummus, I taste oil, lemon and garlic in my mouth. A great combination but this one is a definite rival!

Romaine with Oranges and Pecans

This is one of those salads that you just want to have second and third helpings. In fact I will just have half of this salad for a meal. The recipe comes from one of the Best of Bridge cook books. For the salad part shred two heads of romaine lettuce toss with 1 cup toasted pecans add 2 peeled and sliced oranges Dressing. Combine the following in a blender 1/4 cup red wine vinegar 1/4 cup sugar 1/2 cup oil 1 tsp salt 1/2 sliced red onion 1 tsp dry mustard 2 tbsp water Although the recipe does not call for it, I also slice thin rings of red onion into the salad.

Magic Pesto

I love pesto. I make it with parsley, coriander, or basil or some times a mixture of herbs. Which ever herb you choose, ensure it is fresh. I pour one third cup lemon juice and two thirds cups olive oil into the blender, add 3 to 4 cloves of garlic and stuff the blender full of fresh, washed herbs. When it is the colour of a green goddess and there are no strands of green in the mixture, just tiny bits of green, it is blended enough. Then grate at least one cup of Parmesan cheese into the mixture. I have also added ground almonds for people who are allergic to cheese. I ladle the pesto into small containers. Label them and place them in the freezer. I use the pesto for every thing - it is great layered with sun dried tomatoes and goat cheese in a clear glass bowl as an appetizer, I toss it on all vegetables, potatoes or pasta. For salmon, mix 1/2 cup of pesto and 1/2 cup mayo and spread it on the salmon before barbecuing. Delicious.

As my friend Jan said, it is just magic!

Tomatoe Fennel Soup

I was at a writing retreat at Strawberry Creek Lodge. Imagine the decadence of just writing, walking and having a fabulous cook prepare all the meals. Apparently writers will write through the night and show up at odd hours to eat but that was not the case on this retreat. Every one showed up for all three meals at the assigned times. I wrote in the evenings and apparently missed out on freshly baked cookies. Oh dear! I did have dessert every evening so can not really justify even one cookie. Below is a recipe the cook made for one of the meals. When I made it, I used sodium reduced chicken broth and this did not affect the flavour. One evening, a former contractor who does not have an ounce of fat on him came over for dinner. When I asked him about any allergies and food preferences he said he only ate fat free food. So I omitted the oil in the soup, cooked all the vegetables in the broth and again, the soup was delicious. When you do serve the soup, put a heaping tablespoon of plain yogurt on the soup and in the centre, place a table spoon of home made pesto. It looks so much more appealing. The original recipe came from the Oprah magazine 2008 Cookbook.

Brown the following in 2 tbsp oil: 1 chopped onion, 1 chopped fennel bulb and 3 chopped and seeded red peppers. When almost browned, add one chopped jalapeno pepper with most of the seeds removed. If you like more heat, leave in more seeds. Sit fry for 2 minutes. Add 4 cups of chicken broth and simmer for 20 minutes. Cool. Puree in batches in the blender. After all the soup has been blended, add 1 cup yogurt and taste for salt. Stir, ladle and garnish with the yogurt and pesto. You could also garnish the soup with fresh basil leaves. The soup looks like it would be tomatoe based. If is not. Great for gluten free diets and those allergic to tomatoes.

Real Granola

During the late 1960s and early 1970s I made my own granola. It was the hippy influence. I never was a hippy but appreciated what some of them were trying to do - get real. Members of society at that time were getting enamoured with food packaging, canned soups and frozen TV dinners. The back-to-the-landers hippies were reacting to many things and food preparation and storage was one of their platforms. When I was growing up in Rosthern, Saskatchewan in the 1950s, I would never have guessed that the dismal small freezer in the Friesen and Company grocery section containing freezer burned unrecognizable food stuff would be replaced by rows and rows of up right freezers in mega grocery stories.

This summer, I got the urge to make granola again because I was cleaning my baking cupboard and found a bag of coconut that was begging for a reinvention. Essentially you have to mix dry to wet products in the right ratio, determine how sweet you like it, bake the mixture until it is crunchy and add the snipped dry fruit after you bake it. I have tried the following recipe with olive oil and then canola oil, added more and less cinnamon - it all works. So make it with what you have in your cupboards and enjoy real flavour.

Recipe Dried part
2 and 1/2 cups of lonely coconut shreds
4 cups of large oatmeal flakes
1 cup of flaked almonds (if you like other nuts better use them)
1/2 cup sesame seed
1/2 cup flax seed

Mix together in a large bowl.

Note in this recipe the ratio is 8 and 1/2 cups of dried seeds, grains and nuts to 1 cup of liquid. You could increase it to 10 to 1 but do not go any higher with the dried food. You will lose the clumping and moisture.

Wet part
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup honey
1 tsp cinnamon

Heat liquids till warm. Pour over the dry ingredients. Mix well. Scatter on to 3 greased cookie sheets. Bake 10 minutes at 350 degrees. Toss. Bake another 10 minutes. Do not overbake because it will burn. Remove. Cool.

Dried Fruit

Add 1 cup of dried cranberries and 1 cup of snipped dried apricots. Of course you can add as much or little dried fruit as you want and what ever else you want to use up. What you toss in will not affect the ratio.

Place in a clear glass jar so you can admire the colours of the granola. Do not expect the jar to remain full. The granola is perfect as it, sprinkled on yogurt, ice cream, stewed apples or served with warm milk. Those hippies got this one right.

Baked Ratatouille

My friend of 36 years is an amazing cook. She was the one who taught me to have a printed timing schedule in the kitchen when you entertain. To have perfection when when you are hosting, cooking and serving you need to know to the minute cooking and serving times. I also watched her flip a freshly baked chapiti into the garbage because it did not meet her standards. Only my well developed social graces - an estrogen laden frontal lobe - kept me from diving after it. I did shed a tear; bread in any form does that to me.

When she invited me for lunch, she said she felt like ratatouille. She was experiencing vegetable< hunger. It was September and there were all those fresh vegetables to be used and of course savoured. However, she confessed that the recipe called for one can of plum tomatoes and it was better to use the canned tomatoes than the fresh ones.v
If you are the kind of person to change recipes like I am or if you only work with what is in your pantry, do not omit the olives because they add a great deal of flavour.

The original recipe was published by Carroll Allen in Recipes Only Cookbook (1989). The recipe below has less salt and oil than the original one. Many cook books have recipes for ratatouille because it is a common vegetable stew created originally in the south of France.

Ingredients

1 egg plant
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
3 cloves of chopped garlic
2 diced large onions
2 sliced zucchinis
2 sliced sweet red peppers
1 28 oz can of plum tomatoes
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/2 cup kalamata olives


For the topping
1 cup grated swiss cheese
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

For the Bottom
3 tbsp dry bread crumbs

Trim the egg plant, cut into slices, sprinkle with salt and place in a colander. Drain after 15 minutes. Brush with oil and broil each side for 5 minutes. When cool, slice into strips.

Add oil to pan, fry garlic and onions till soft. Add zucchinis and red peppers. Cook till soft. Add tomatoes, thyme, bay leaf, egg plant and cook 15 minutes on medium heat. Taste and adjust the seasonings. Stir in parsley and olives.

Sprinkle the bread crumbs on the bottom of a greased 12 by 18 inch casserole. Gently pour in the vegetables. Top with the two cheeses. Bake 30 to 40 minutes at 350 degrees. Serve with rice and a crusty brown bread.

I asked for seconds because it tasted like the beginning of autumn but it was the colours on my plate that were irresistible - all the reds with the slash of purple eggplant, beige spots of cheese and a hint of green. It is a food palette.

Sauted Oriental But Still Healthy Spinach

This is one of the recipes that came because of a pot luck at my house. How I love those pot lucks! I no longer have the recipe but the idea is simple. This recipe is especially good for a pot luck because it can be made in advance and a great deal of spinach is reduced to at least one quarter the volume.

At the potluck, take a small serving, savour the flavour and enjoy the rest of the food crowding your plate.

Recipe

at least 2 fresh bunches of spinach

1 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp rice vinegar

1 tbsp tamarind soy sauce

3 drops of sesame oil

2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds (the original had black seeds)

Place a small bit of water in a large pot and stuff it with spinach. Cook on medium high heat. You can steam it if the pot is not tightly stuffed. As the spinach wilts, feed more leaves into the pot. After all the spinach is stuffed in and wilted. Remove. Cool. Squeeze out all the excess moisture. Please do not skip this step. It really makes a difference. Add all the other ingredients except the 1 tbsp sesame seeds. Toss until all the leaves are coated. Serve in a nice dish and sprinkle the remaining 1 tbsp sesame seeds on top. For this picture I added another tbsp of sesame seeds.

You could serve the dish with a pair of chop sticks as the serving utensils.

Cheddar Ale Soup

Sometimes you just want a very special soup. Something unusual, light but still creamy, an introduction to the symphony about to be played. Four of us travelled to Iona and decided to have a reunion, to look at our pictures and to talk about our impressions. After we had reviewed our experiences of going on the pilgrimage, attending the church services, some of us freezing in our sea facing dorm rooms and commenting on the story of our fellow guests, we decided that the week had been worth while and in fact we were impressed with how much we did.

I started the meal with this soup but did not serve the guests because in my pretasting I found the soup to be sharp, bitter, and bold. It starts softly on your palette and then bang, it hits you. The next day my son and daughter-in-law came over to try the left over soup. They loved it and asked when it would be posted on the blog. It is definitely a repeat. When I asked them to describe the flavour, it was a challenge. It is like a a gentle ripple and then there is a huge rogue wave.

I will try making the soup again but will try a different ale to see what the effect will be. If the soup is too thin, just simmer longer or decrease the liquids.

Recipe

1 tbsp butter
1 large white onion chopped finely
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 1/2 cup 10 per cent cream
1 1/2 cups very good quality chicken broth
1 bottle of Kilkenny Irish cream ale (440 mls)
8 oz of three year old Balderson white cheddar cheese

salt and pepper to taste

decorate with cilantro but beware, the cilantro does change the flavour

Melt butter and saute onions till almost transparent. Add minced garlic and saute lightly. Add the rest of the ingredient. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat. Simmer for at least 30 minutes. Cool slightly. Blend.

Scrambled Eggs with a Secret Ingredient

Scrambled eggs are easy, safe and just plain comforting. We decided to do a Mother's Day brunch and one of the dishes on the menu were these eggs. I had watched a DVD and the authour was describing how to make a gourmet egg salad sandwich. He used the recipe below as his filling. His bread was a croissant so perhaps it was the croissant that made the difference and not the scrambled eggs. Regardless, these are worth making for a special brunch.

1 tbsp butter

1/4 cup 10% cream

2 doz eggs

8 oz of cream cheese cut into cubes

1/4 cup snipped chives fresh from the garden

salt and better to taste

Melt the butter, add the cream and eggs. Stir and just as the mixture is starting to form into lumps, stir in the cubes of cream cheese. When the eggs are congealed and the cream cheese melted, stir in the chives and serve. This dish does not like sitting around waiting to be served.

The secret ingredient is the cream cheese and you will taste it immediately. Nice.

Jamaican Jerked Chicken Salad

I have gotten into the habit of asking people what they would call their signature dish and of course 'why?'. It is a great way of seeing another dimension to a person's personality in terms of what they value. I had decided to make Mark's signature dish. He was our guide when we hiked the Blue Mountains south of Sydney for a day in April, 2010. So I emailed my friends whom I was having over for an Iona reunion dinner and asked them if they would like to have curried fish which was Mark's dish. All of them thought this was fine. The day before the dinner, some one stuffed a metro news paper into my bicycle carrier. I quickly had to read it and there was a recipe with a fantastic picture of Jamaican Jerked Chicken Salad. Right there the menu changed. It is all in the power of a picture. The one thing I really liked about this salad is that I could eat it the next day. I really dislike day old dressed salad - wimpy, soggy and messy but this salad was about a 7 out of 10. Only the kiwi went a bit mushy. Had I sliced it into wedges like the authour of the recipe stated, it might have kept its shape.

Ingredients:

4 green onions

3 cloves minced garlic

1/4 tsp thyme

1 tsp allspice

1 tsp salt

4 tbsp red wine vinegar

2 tbsp Dijon mustard

2 tbsp brown sugar

1 tbsp olive oil

1 pound grilled chicken breasts

1 small pineapple, ringed and then cubed

4 kiwis, peeled and chopped into wedges

1 large red pepper

1 cup jicama cut into match sticks

2 cups of spinach leaves

small bunch of cilantro

In a large non metal bowl stir together garlic, thyme, black pepper, allspice and 1/2 tsp salt. Stir in 2 tbsp vinegar, 1 tbsp mustard and 1 tbsp brown sugar. When mixed, add chicken and ensure all surfaces are covered. Marinate at least 2 hours. As always, I plumped the chicken up by marinating the breasts in milk and lemon for eight hours, draining and then adding the breasts to the jerk marinade. Grill the chicken breasts for 4 minutes per side on the barbecue or about 15 cm from the oven grill. Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, whisk together remaining spices, oil, mustard and sugar. Add cut fruit, red pepper, jicama and chopped green onions. Toss. Lay the spinach leaves on a interesting serving plate. Pile the salad on top. Remove the chicken and slice in vertical thin strips. Arrange on top of the salad. Sprinkle with cilantro. Present. We did talk about Iona and the guest who was from Jamaica. He would keep his children home to harvest allspice berries but he called them Jamaican peppers. They would put blankets underneath the trees and shake them. The berries would fall onto the blankets. So aside from that aside, this recipe has little to do with Iona and a great deal to do with friends eating a meal together expecting to be eating fish curry but adapting well to the hostess's impulsive recipe whims.

Gypsy Fried Chicken

It has been years and more years since I have made fried chicken. All the food health literature has made me scared of everything deep fried or fried. On Saturday I happened to read two articles about fried chicken, the common denominator being chef Thomas Keller who is renown for his fried chicken. He is a keen advocate of brining and I was tempted to try this but I could not abide the idea of all that salt in the brine. I settled for a compromise and it worked out very well. It is milk marinated chicken, coated and then deep fried. I had recently been told by a chef to marinate chicken over night in milk and this too was influencing my decision to use the following recipe.

Here it is:

2 pounds chicken thighs or breasts. Marinate these for 12 to 24 hours in 2 cups of milk and the juice and peel of one lemon. Ensure all the chicken is covered. Before cooking, drain and bring to room temperature. If you fry chilled chicken it takes longer to cook and you want to get the chicken quickly into the pan and out again.

1 tbsp paprika 2 tsp kosher salt 1 tsp cayenne 1/2 tsp ground pepper 1/2 tsp thyme 1 cup all purpose flour in a plastic bag that you can close tightly Canola oil After you have drained the milk and thrown the lemon away, lay the chicken on a flat cookie sheet. Mix all the spices except the flour. Sprinkle and pat on both sides of the chicken. Do this at least an hour before frying to let the chicken warm to room temperature. Heat the oil in a large cast iron pan to 350 degrees. Pour in at least 1/2 inch of oil. Place each piece of chicken in the plastic bag - do one at a time - and shake. Fry chicken ensuring each piece is an island and the oil bubbles around it. How long? If you are frying thighs that have been flattened, it is about 3 minutes a side. Breasts are thicker and take longer. After the first batch is fried, keep warm on a heat proof plate lined with paper towels in a low heat oven. This chicken is very crisp on the outside and moist in the inside and the spices really work well together. We had the chicken for the main course. Our friend then played a violin built in 1768. He played Bach and then turned to gypsy music. He explained the gypsies originated from India and speak a language close to Hindi. The first piece was called CSingeralas and the water glasses bounced on the table cloth. He then turned to morning music. This piece was placed after every one had danced all night and were too tired to dance. This time the cutlery bounced. Gypsies have amazing energy. You might not be able to invite a master violinist to your home, but you can get the energy and yums from the fired chicken.

Third Helping Chocolate Cake

When I read the recipe for this cake, it ended with "bake and sit down and eat half of it". Right then I knew I wanted to try the recipe. The cake is made with a chocolate cake mix recipe. Normally I never use cake mixes but they fascinate me so I read recipes that have a cake mix in them. Raised on a farm, we would make cake every day and at that time mixes were something you bought if you had no skills. My sister who was studying Home Economics and was learning about 'thinking about food' asked me if it was cheaper to make an angel food cake from a mix or from scratch. We had many chickens and so the obvious answer was from scratch. However, after the cost of chicken feed, time caring for the chickens, what do you do with all those yolks? was factored in, it was actually cheaper to use a cake mix. However the penultimate question is, "is the quality of the cake better?"

1 510 gram chocolate pudding in the mix - cake mix. I could not find this mix so I used Moist Deluxe Duncan Hines because I liked the picture on the box
16 oz. sour cream
1/4 cup oil
2 eggs
1/2 cup Kahlua
12 oz chocolate chips.

Glaze
1 cup of chocolate chips
1/8 cup cream

Calories - do not count

Mix the cake according to instructions on the box using the oil and the eggs when you beat the batter and then stir in the other ingredients. Bake in a greased bundt pan for 50 to 55 minutes. Cool completely. Invert on a plate and hope that the entire cake will break free from the bundt pan.

To glaze, melt 1 cup of good good quality chocolate with 1/8 cup of cream. Pour over the cake. Decorate with any fresh flowers.

Sit down and eat half the cake. Share the other half with your family and friends and be sure to save some for your daugher in law who has a sweet tooth.

Note: any one who has sampled this cake, asks for seconds.

Carry me away mustard

If you have never made your own mustard, it is time to start. Jerry of the Horse Radish Dip to Live For fame, also gave me this recipe. It is the perfect compliment to that dip. You could just serve the mustard on sour dough bread as the base to a cured meat or the horse radish or combine both of them. I tried all three versions and liked the combination of mustard and horseradish dip the best. For me the best ratio was two parts horse radish dip to one part mustard. You will have to experiment with your pallette to find what you think is truly pleasing.

In a double boiler, mix
3 egg yolks
6 tbsp apple cidar vinegar
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp Keen's dry mustard (my mother-in-law says they make their money on the mustard that is thrown away after the joint is eaten)
3 tbsp dark beer (Jerry used light beer because he had no dark beer but said it would be better with dark)
1/2 tsp salt (right now I like Kosher salt)
1/2 tsp sugar

Over a simmer, whisk mixture and bring to a gentle boil just till the mustard thickens. Add caraway seeds if you like that flavour, however be careful not to over season the mustard with them. It is all about the mustard.

This mustard would be fantastic on a smokie, roasted over an open fire and enscounced in a white crusty Italain bun. I might even forgo the carmelized onion topping. Drink the beer that you opened to make the mustard. Lick your lips.

Horseradish Dip to Live For

For years and years and years a group of us gather at our nearby national park and enjoy Easter dinner. We have changed to a nearby provincial park because it has a better shelter which is something you need to consider as the grandparents age and the babies come along. Another change is that the children are preparing more interesting and better dishes than some of their parents. Gerry is one such child and now is a young very talented adult. He did spend the entire day cooking and this is only one of the first recipes I will posting from his repertoire.

1/2 cup mayonnaise (always use Hellmans - he did not tell me this but another chef did)
1/2 sour cream
1/2 cup grated horse radish (you can get it from the Italian Center)
fresh lemon juice to taste

Mix. That's it.


Jerry served this dip with freshly baked sour dough bread, caraway mustard sauce and thinly sliced beef. He had cured the beef with a salt rub and hung it in a closet kept at 15 degrees Celsius for two weeks. As far as I was concerned, I could just have eaten this appetizer for my entire Easter meal. The horseradish was sharp and tingling on the tongue but not overwhelming.

I would also use this spread in a vegetarian sandwich perhaps with a mild white cheddar cheese, fresh avocado and spinach. The bread of course has to be freshly baked because Jerry has raised the bar.

Pearl Barley Risotto

My sister-in-law is a wicked cook. She is daring and resourceful which means she even goes mushroom picking and has given given me a dried bag of mushrooms. A gift like that is worth more than a one hundred dollar bill. I always look forward to having a meal at her home because I will come away with a new recipe, tip or insight. I wished she lived in my province. She is a person that likes to use recipe books so it is easy to replicate her efforts. This recipe however was written on a torn piece of lavender foolscape. I didn't know it came in that colour.

8 slices of bacon cut in small pieces
3 onions, finely chopped
5 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1 cup pear barley
1/2 cup white wine
1 cup shredded Parmesan
thyme to taste
8 cups of chicken broth

Fry bacon until crisp. Remove it with a slotted spoon. If the bacon had a great deal of fat, remove some from the pot. On medium low heat, fry the onions, garlic and then after 10 minutes add the mushroom. Fry for 5 minutes. Add the pear barley and fry for another 5 minutes. Start to add the broth in 1/2 cup amounts, stir the mixture. When the broth is absorbed, add more. Keep doing this until all the broth has been absorbed and your armis tired from stirring. It is best to have guests in the kitchen nibbling on appetizers as you attend to the thirsty pot. When all the broth has been absorbed. Taste the risotto to ensure the barley is cooked. If it isn't find some more broth and if you do not have any, use water. Again, add in small amounts. At the end add the wine, and thyme. I add about 1 tsp dried leaves. Stir in the cheese in small amounts. When it is melted, serve. Listen to the yums.

Portuguese Canadian Bakery

Right now I have a mother and daughter staying with me from Brazil. In an attempt to find food for them that would remind them of home, I googled Portuguese food in Edmonton. Two postings came up: Portuguese Canadian Bakery on 5304 -118 Ave and Nata Portuguese Bakery on 15115 Stony Plain Road. So off we went to the Portuguese Canadian Bakery. It is a bakery, coffee shop, small deli and a dry goods grocery store. We arrived at 1600 hours and they had sold most of their baking. No one was sitting in the cafe area. Suzanne one of the two workers behind the counter spoke Portuguese. She conversed easily and freely with my guests. She recommended that we go to Fatima's to buy fruits and vegetables and noted that the store was owned by a Brazilian woman.

I asked Suzanne what the bakery was famous for and she quickly said the Portuguese buns. I bought six white flour dusted buns for $1.25. They were light, fine grained and the kind of bun that plays a supporting role in the drama and not the main character. It is inviting and I had the urge to pile cheese, cold cuts and pickles into the bun. The bun is large and would be perfect as a dinner roll if the main course was a stew. Then again it would also make the perfect sandwich.

Thirty Three Minute Lasagna

I saw the demonstration of this dish on a Cooks' Illustrated cooking DVD and just had to make it. It looked so cheerful and welcoming. Most cooking shows do not give you the exact recipe or will only give correct amounts for part of the recipe. This way they are not responsible for your failures when you muck up the ingredients and since most celebrities want to publish a cook book, they do not give away the recipes in the potential book. Tonight I had a Brazilian mother and daughter over for dinner and made lasagna. They gladly accepted the leftovers. Hint: I buy plastic containers just to give left overs away or meals away. They are not expensive and are like gift wrap. Everyday lasagna takes a great deal of time but not this dish.

2 onions
3 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp oil
1 pound of extra lean ground beef
28 oz. can of diced or crushed tomatoes
8 oz tomato sauce
8 lengths of broad lasagna noodles
1 tsp dry basil
1 tsp dry oregano
salt and pepper to taste
8 oz ricotta cheese
fresh basil leaves (or flat parsley leaves if basil is not available).

Chop and fry the onions and garlic till transparent in the oil. Add a little salt to this mixture to release the moisture. Add the beef and break up. Just cook till the pink disappears, no need to brown. Add the tomatoes, tomato sauce,herbs,more salt if needed and pepper. I did not have any red pepper flakes but if I had them, I would add a shake or two. Break up the lasagna noodles into 2 inch squares or what ever shape they take. Lay them on top of the tomato/meat mixture. Cover the pan with a lid and cook for 20 minutes on low heat. When I checked the noodles after 20 minutes they were still to firm so I cooked them for 3 more minutes. Dab the ricotta using two tablespoons over the top of the dish. Place the lid back on the pot and cook for 5 more minutes to soften and warm the cheese. Roll the basil into tubes and slice. Sprinkle on top. That it is. A simple dish that has all the flavour of the classic lasagna with one quarter of the work and time.

Humus with or without oil

Coming Soon!

Donna's Kitchen in Viking

Jim and I were in Viking for a meeting. I googled Viking to see where we could have a cup of tea or coffee after the meeting. The Koffee Kafe came up, hours of operation from 9 am to 5 PM. We could not find the cafe and ended up at Donna's Kitchen on Main Street. Thinking this might be the Koffee Kafe in another reincarnation, I asked Donna if she closed at 5PM. She gave me this long look and stated, "every day I am here at 5 Am. If I am lucky I am out of here by 7 PM but if I get a call from a crew, I don't leave until they are fed, 9, 10, 11 PM. Nevertheless I am back up at 5 Am". When I told her about my google results she replied, "they have been closed for 11 or 12 years". So much for google.

Donna was sensibly dressed in black pants with a bit of flour smugged on the side of one pant leg and black rubber boots. She was a middle aged no nonsense kind of woman. We ordered cinnamon buns and coffee. She brought us four made-that-day cinnamon buns, sticky enough to eat with a fork and knife. Free refills on the coffee. The bill was $4.00 for Jim and I. I thought something was wrong when she said $4.00. She caters and that day had done a lunch in Bruce, I did not ask how much she had charged but I was curious.

Her business card reads, Food With Flair, Catering Service and Concession, Donna Brooke, Main Street, Viking, AB T0B 4N0 (780) 336-2476 "No occasion too big or too small" A nice find.

Baked Salmon

Why just have one kind of baked salmon? Tonight my son Tom made three kinds of baked salmon for our dinner: salmon baked in a lemon dill white sauce; another piece basted with teriyaki salmon sauce and the third fillet was cut into pieces, dipped in beaten egg and then rolled in panko crumbs seasoned with thyme, parsley, basil and a dash of garlic powder. With small roasted potatoes tossed in oil, butter, parsley, thyme and of a bit of sea salt and coarsely ground pepper and asparagus sauted in a bit of oil, we had one of those hello-weekend-unforgettable-Friday night dinners.

Tony's Pizza Palace

The restaurant with two names: Tony's Pizza Palace on the business card and website: www.tonyspizzapalace.com and Tony's Pizzeria e Ristorante Itlaliano EST. 1986 on the take out menu. My friend chose the restaurant at 9605 -111 Ave. It was his birthday. Three of us had never been there before. We asked our server, what are the three top dishes that most people order. He rattled the names off so quickly we had to ask another server if we had heard correctly. We did have the recommended and popular bruschetta. Delicious! Every thing was fresh - basil, tomatoes, garlic and all infused with olive oil on a crust that was light, crispy and of course freshly made. For the pasta dish I had the highly recommended fettucini carbonara tossed with eggs, back bacon and Parmesan cheese. Pure comfort on a minus 15 celsius night.

Our server with the perfect spiked and cut black hair told us that Tony senior had started the business in New York. His son brought the business to Edmonton and he and the other servers were friends with Tony's grandson. They all played soccer together. His short history lesson was like salt to the forth coming food, it put the restaurant offerings in context and changed our relationship to one of "just any pizza joint to there are friends making this food and they care".

I will be going back. There are 9 more pasta plates to try. Given the bruschetta crust, I think the pizzas must be sublime.

Papaya Chutney

We so enjoyed the rice and chutney dish that I posted last week, I decided to try a recipe inspired by Lucinda Quinn but changed her recipe to suit my interests and available ingredients. There must be thousands of chutney recipes but the idea of one made with papaya was intriguing.

4 cups of finely chopped papaya
1 and 1/2 cups of chopped cucumbers
1/2 green pepper finely chopped
1/4 cup lime juice
2 inch root of ginger peeled and finely chopped
1 tbsp salt
1 cup vinegar
1 and 3/4 cups sugar
3/4 cups water

Place all ingredients in a pan and slowly cook for 2 hours. In Quinn's recipe she had half the amount of papaya and 3 tbsp salt. I could not abide that much salt. I increased the sugar by 1/4 cup because it tasted too tart. The contrast of colour between the green cucumber and peach orange of the papya was inviting. The smells of vinegar, salt and cucumbers made me think of pickling - a nice thought in the middle of winter.

The mixture took a great deal of time to reduce, so next time I would add less water. My daughter liked the outcome and will be using this chutney in her next rice, bean casserole.

Chewy Moist Lemon Muffins

My friend turned 65 this past year. To celebrate he decided to take his friends out for dinner. What do you give a man who has everything - why a birthday cake of course. What do you give a group that is no longer eating hefty slices of cake - why muffins of course. Since they were birthday muffins, I iced them with icing sugar moistened with lemon juice, just enough to make it spreadable. These are not normal muffins; they are dense, moist and explode with lemon flavour. By adding the pulp of the lemon, the muffin is heavier.

1/2 cup butter
2 cups of flour, sifted with
1 tbsp baking powder
3/4 cup plain yogurt
zest and pulp of one lemon - remove seeds
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs

Beat the butter and add the sugar. In a blender, mix all the wet ingredients until the pulp is broken into fine threads. Sift the flour with the baking powder. Mix the wet and dry ingredients in shifts. Spoon the batter into greased muffin tins. I made 9 medium sized muffins. If you wanted smaller ones, you would spoon the batter into the 12 muffin holes. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Test with a toothpick before removing from the oven. Cool, then ice.

I took them to the restaurant in a square tin and provided a candle for each of us. The waiter took our picture. A little joy!

Chutney Rice and Black Beans

My co worker was heating a dish in the microwave and the smell was delicate, spicy and more-ish. You can smell a food and know that it is going to taste very good. She sent me the recipe and posted is a version of it but the version is equivalent to a third cousin. She had not used cardamon because she did not have any pods and her recipe had used cilantro which I did not have. I love cilantro and would have added it. The next day I brought her a 100 g bag of pods from the Atlas Trading Co. When I was in South Africa I went to this famous old store just to inhale myself into spice heaven. A girl friend had brought me saffron threads from Bali. So I was on the look out for more saffron. They did not have saffron but they had a lot of cardamon (spelt Karamon) and cinnamon bark. I have been using the cardamon as part of my spice bag to make chai tea. So fragrant and such good memories of Capetown.

Chutney Rice and Black Beans

1 tbsp oil
1 tbsp butter
1 large onion finely chopped
2 fat fresh cloves of garlic finely chopped
12 cardamon pods
4 long sticks of cinnamon
1 tsp ground cumin (would have used cumin seeds if I had had them)
1.5 cups of long grain white rice
3 cups of water
2 tbsp Pataks Major Grey chutney (gluten free)
1/2 jalapeno pepper finely chopped
3 green onions finely chopped
19 ounce can of black beans(Unico brand is gluten free)
salt and pepper to taste

Melt butter and oil. Add onion, garlic and spices. Cook till onions soften. Add rice. Stir for 1 to 2 minutes. Add water. Cover and steam until rice is cooked. For this brand of rice the time was 17 minutes. Check the cooking time on the rice bag. While the rice is cooking, open can of beans and rinse. When the rice is almost finished cooking, place beans in a clear glass serving dish and heat in the microwave for 2 minutes. I like to use clear glass when the food is speckled and dotted with contrasting colours. Finely chop green onion and jalapeno pepper. When the rice is cooked, pick out the cinnamon sticks and cardamon pods (or leave in and have every one pick out their own pods), mix with the hot black beans, chutney, jalapeno pepper, salt and pepper and sprinkle with onions. Serve the chutney on the side. Expect half the jar of the chutney to disappear.

If you add a cup of cooked kernel corn to this dish, you would have a complete protein. Brown rice would be better than white rice but I wanted to make this dish in under 25 minutes. Also a finely chopped red pepper would make the dish look festive.