Month: February 2013

FFWD – Cheating-on-Winter Pea Soup

~ Teresa ~ 20 Comments

Pea Soup. Olive drab in a pretty blue bowl.

A few years ago, the Vancouver Art Gallery exhibited a piece called Ought Apartment, which consisted of a stack of apartments reaching up through the centre of the building. Each apartment was decorated in the style of a particular decade, right down to the knickknacks and the contents of the drawers and cabinets. So many of the objects (and decorating schemes) resonated for me. The fifties apartment had the same sort of ceramic fish that my grandparents hung in their bathroom, there were some questionable young adult design choices in the eighties/nineties range, and so on up through to the millenium. It was the seventies apartment that fascinated me the most – it replicated the landscape (or carpetscape, anyway) of my childhood.

Why am I telling you all this in a post that’s supposed to be about pea soup? It’s all in the colour. The olive drab of the soup was a dead ringer for the avocado green of the kitchen appliances of my youth. The house that I grew up in had orange shag carpet in the living room, and olive green appliances in the kitchen. It may seem horrible now, but in the seventies it was de rigueur. Just as Ought Apartment had, this week’s soup carried me back.

What it didn’t do was carry me back to the taste of my mother’s pea soup, which is a solidly French Canadian split pea and ham bone affair. It’s delicious, but so was this soup, made with frozen green peas and romaine lettuce and relying on nothing more than salt, pepper, and softened onions for additional flavour. I couldn’t help myself – I added thyme and a clove of garlic to the onions, a minute or two before adding the vegetable stock. My vegetable stock was almost the colour of beef broth, I think because it has some tomato paste added to it, which might explain the colour of my soup. Others have reported their soups were a bright emerald green. No matter the colour, this soup does remind me of a summer soup, even though it’s also warming and rich enough for a cold spring evening. I’d like to take another run at this recipe when it’s truly summer, with fresh peas and mint. That might bring on another attack of memories, this time of shelling peas and shucking corn for family barbeques, but I’ll deal with it when it happens.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Cheating-on-Winter Pea Soup

FFWD – Coeur à la Crème

~ Teresa ~ 31 Comments

Coeur à la Crème

You might notice a distinct lack of heart-shaped-ness in this week’s dish. I couldn’t bring myself to buy the traditional moulds for this dessert, so substituted a colander, instead. We’re not big fans of Valentine’s Day around here. We’d rather celebrate Kevin’s birthday, which is within a few days of the holiday. When we first started dating, we had a tentative conversation about it:

“So, I’m not really into the whole Valentine’s Day thing, are you?”
“No, not at all! That’s so great we’re on the same page!”

Obviously, reconstructing conversations is outside of my skills set, but you get the idea. We’d had partners in the past who celebrated it and it was a relief to both of us to be able to let it go. It’s one of those holidays that engenders the sort of high expectations that can lead to disastrous results – like New Year’s Eve, but with more self-esteem involved. Sis Boom Blog’s Trevor has a story that tells it so much better than I could, so I’ll leave it at that.

I’ve not tasted this dessert yet, though I’ve tasted all its components, so perhaps I’ve tasted it after all. My no coeur in this crème version of this week’s recipe is going to taste pretty fabulous. Instead of liqueur, I added a couple of teaspoons of Campbell’s Gold amaretto-spiked honey. Drizzled on top is more of the honey and Dorie’s bittersweet chocolate sauce. (I should have stuck with just the chocolate sauce for drizzling purposes, as the honey made everything a little bit smeary. Oh, well.)

With this dessert and a pot of chocolate sauce in the fridge, I think we’re set for a cosy weekend. Happy Valentine’s Day to those who celebrate it and a very relaxing weekend to all.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Coeur à la Crème

FFWD – Fresh Orange Pork Tenderloin

~ Teresa ~ 16 Comments

DSCF6630

Have I mentioned that I have some envy issues when it comes to citrus? Reading about other Doristas walking into their yards and picking fruit for the week’s recipe emphasizes the drabness of Vancouver winter a little too keenly. I was able to find some lovely Cara Caras today, so that’s some consolation.

Another consolation is that the orange in this dish didn’t wow me. Next time, I’d reach for some apples instead. Cardamom-rubbed porkloin, roasted in an apple cider and balsamic sauce, now that seems more my style. Not that I minded the stove-top method. It gave me more room in the oven to roast some potatoes and garlic, which I smashed with butter and a little milk before serving.

Now, I’m off to enjoy the long weekend. Next week, it’s coeur à la crème and the dreaded V-word.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Fresh Orange Pork Tenderloin

FFWD – Brown-Sugar Squash and Brussels Sprouts en Papillote

~ Teresa ~ 37 Comments

Brown-Sugar Squash and Brussels Sprouts

The usual obstacles to a properly chopped ingredient are dull knives (got that covered – there’s a good sharpener in the drawer), poor knife skills (improving every year, thank you very much), or unripe produce (great selection at the local market this week). I have another, quite individual obstacle, in the person of one small dog:

Roxy

Imagine that face staring intently at you while you prepare your meal. Distracting, right?

Roxy’s five now and when she was two, she got quite ill and had to be put on a diet of home-prepared pork and yam for a year-and-a-half. She’s back on dog food now, but is only allowed small quantities of fruits and vegetables as snacks. All this has led to her belief that everything prepared in the kitchen is for her.

This week’s dish included two of her favourites, squash and apple. There was some whining involved and it may come as no surprise that not quite the entire apple called for in the recipe made it into the oven. I also may have hurried through the chopping process a little, rendering my cubes of squash and apple a little less than uniform.

Distraction aside, this recipe was quick to put together and, en papillote, easily left to its own devices in the oven while the rest of dinner is prepared.

I liked the combination of Brussels sprouts, squash, and apple. Sage and brown sugar brought the flavours together well, though I think I might add some nutmeg next time. I also think I’ll forgo the foil – a little caramelization would really make this dish.

And Roxy? She moved on to demanding a portion of the blueberries I added to this banana bread. Everything in the kitchen. For her.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of this week’s FFWD recipe here: Brown-Sugar Squash and Brussels Sprouts en Papillote