FFWD – Sablefish with Double Carrots

October 11, 2014November 11, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 31 Comments

One of the things you learn when taking part in a virtual cooking club is that there’s no such thing as universal. I don’t just mean time zones or even seasons, though our southern hemisphere friends have had to put up a valiant effort in the face of a schedule based on North American food cycles. Whether or not you’re able to complete the week’s assignment as written can depend on whether you’re urban or rural, on the coast or in the interior, near the equator or near the permafrost line.

We’ve had lively discussions about whether or not certain vegetables would be available when we wanted them and the substitutions we’ve seen give us insight into the personalities of our fellow cooks as often as they teach us about the regions where they live.

I’ve been pretty lucky in finding the ingredients I need, but it seems in the fish category there are a lot of Atlantic choices that don’t appear regularly in West Coast markets. This week’s dish called for monkfish, a fish that needs to clock a lot of food miles to find its way to Vancouver. I decided to look for a sustainable alternative and asked for some advice.

There was some nice BC sablefish at the fishmonger, so I went with that. It was a good choice for this dish – the flesh is rich and stands up well against the intensity of the carrots. Carrots cooked in carrot juice sounds a little strange, but the result is tender medallions in a sauce boosted with butter and fresh rosemary. This would have been nice with mashed potatoes or celery root purée, and that’s what I’d serve it with for a dinner party. Tonight, though, I was more than satisfied with the fish and carrots. I suspect the bits of bacon added at the end were what made me feel I had a well-rounded meal.

Back-of-the-Card Cheese and Olive Bread

This quick bread is the reason this week’s post became a French Saturday entry. After dinner, I really wanted to bake something. Baking is an excellent antidote to a busy week for me. So, I took a look at my catch up list and got to work on this one. I had some Asiago cheese in the fridge to use up and I made a vegan tapenade (for what it’s worth in a loaf full of milk and cheese), but those were my only deviations from the recipe.

There’s so much Asiago packed into this bread that I’d nearly classify it as a bread-studded olive cheese, rather than a cheese and olive loaf. It’s full of Mediterranean flavours, with the tapenade and lemon zest providing bright notes against the sharpness of the Asiago.

My only regret is that I don’t have any bubbly wine to accompany this loaf. I urge you to pick some up before you attempt this recipe, which you can find on Dorie’s website.

Here are the links to the rest of the French Fridays crew’s posts on this week’s recipe: Monkfish and Double Carrots. And go way back to June of last year for a look at everyone’s Back-of-the-Card Cheese and Olive Bread.

Cottage Cooking Club – September 2014

October 8, 2014October 9, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 7 Comments

When I was in elementary school, we went to Salt Spring Island for a week called Outdoor School, where we stayed in cabins, ate in a mess hall, and did experiments in streams, on beaches, and in the woods. By then, I was the shortest and shyest of all the kids in my class and with a little bad luck, I was assigned to the cabin farthest away from the big hall where we ate our meals. Inevitably, I was late for almost everything. It didn’t help that I’d brought a precariously high stack of books along with me for the week. At the end of camp, the teachers held a just-for-fun awards night and I came away with a key chain that said, “The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.”

As you can see, this still suits me to a T – here I am, a week late with my Cottage Cooking Club post. And it’s not for lack of interest. This month’s selections were a huge success for us.

Pinto bean chili

One of the best indicators for me that I’m going to be going back to a recipe over and over again is how many notes I’ve written in the margins and white space on the page. It means that it’s versatile and customizable and that the base recipe is solid. This chili is exactly that. We’re given two variations, one for winter and one for summer, but you can get creative with what’s in season and what’s on hand. I chose the summer recipe, as the last of my zucchini was just ready and the markets were full of peppers of all varieties. I swapped out the bell pepper for pimento pepper (as you can see in the photo at the top of this post) and used one fresh cayenne pepper in place of the green chiles and cayenne powder. I served it vegan for Kevin, but grated a bit of Parmesan on mine. I needn’t have – it was flavourful enough on its own.

Puy lentil and spinach soup

Vancouver is famous for its cold, wet weather, as Seattle is, too. We Cascadians keep recipes for warm, comforting soups close to hand and this soup fits the bill. French green lentils are a staple for us and this soup, thick and almost stew-like, showcases them perfectly. I suspect we’ll be eating this regularly all winter.

Oven-roasted roots frittata

I was on my own for this one, but that was fine with me. I love frittata and this root vegetable variation, baked in the oven, was easy and delicious. It’s just the sort of thing I want to have waiting for me when I’m working flat out on a project and need lunch to be easy. Easy, delicious, and nutritious, that is.

Runner beans with tarragon and lemon

I skipped the butter in this dish and used Earth Balance instead. I’m still not convinced that it’s anything more than a pricey margarine, but using it meant that this dish was vegan. Margarine or no, the beans were delicious, and included some of the last of this year’s bean crop from my garden, along with some of the tarragon I’m digging up and trying to overwinter indoors this year. The combination of flavours was lovely.

Now, save for a summery French Fridays catch up or two I’ve got to find time to post, we’re well into the flavours of autumn. I suspect I’m going to love our October Cottage Cooking selections as much as I did September’s – I promise you’ll see the results a little sooner next month.

Here are the links to the rest of the group’s posts for this month. I encourage you to check them out – you’ll meet some wonderful bloggers and get some great inspiration for vegetarian eating.

The Bounty of the Valley

October 7, 2014October 8, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 3 Comments

I attended the Fraser Valley Food Show as a guest on a media tour, but had no obligation to review or write about any aspect of the show. All opinions are my own.

I grew up in the Fraser Valley, in a typically suburban neighbourhood, with 1/4 acre lots, corner stores, and tiny drive-in shopping centres that housed things like the local library and bank branches, along with bakeries, hardware stores and a Greek-Italian steakhouse or two. If we hopped on our bikes, we could ride out to where the farmland began, but it was mostly hobby farms and horse barns. The working farms were farther away.

We weren’t completely divorced from those farms, though. We were lucky enough that there were what we called ‘farm markets’ at intervals along Fraser Highway, stocked with local fruit and vegetables. My parents preferred to shop there over the supermarket, while also keeping an eye out for seasonal goodies like Chilliwack corn, fruit stands, and ‘U Pick’ berries. So, long before farm-to-table became de rigueur, we knew how lucky we were to live in such a fertile place.

But the Fraser Valley has more to offer than just the building blocks of good meals. From charcuterie to chocolate, from bread to beer, there are more and more businesses offering the kind of food and drink that’s been celebrated in hotbeds like Brooklyn or Portland. And the Fraser Valley Food Show does a good job of showcasing the range of what this region has to offer.

I went on Saturday, just in time to beat the line for the Oktoberfest Sausage Tasting. I found it hard to choose amongst the nine or ten sausages I tried – they were all wonderful, some with a slow heat and others with a meaty savour. I certainly would have hated to be one of the three judges for the competition round. They had to sample 112 different sausages before coming to a decision about handing out multiple ribbons and trophies. You can see a list of the winners here. I suspect it might make a good basis for a self-guided tour of Metro Vancouver sausage makers.

The rest of my day was spent exploring the stalls, listening to speakers, and sampling, sampling, sampling. The Gluten Free Living show was particularly interesting to me, as my partner has celiac disease and we’re always looking for good gluten-free staples. There were lots of great prepared foods there, of course, but there were two things that really impressed me. First, all the exhibitors at the Food Show were knowledgeable about whether or not there was gluten (or allergens) in their products, whether they were in the gluten-free area or not. Secondly, there were some interesting ingredients on offer, like Nextjen gluten-free flour mix. It’s great to be able to buy a box of gluten-free cookies or pasta, but for someone who likes scratch cooking and baking, base ingredients that are safe and easy to use are an exciting development. And buying local makes it even better.

As for all that sampling I did, well, I’m going to give you a short list of some of the things that stood out for me this year. It won’t be comprehensive, because there was a lot of good stuff to eat, drink, and buy.

Eat

ChocolaTas’ Chocolate Ganaches

JD Farms’ turkey sausages

Fire Belly’s pepper sauces

Drink

Shuswap Infusions’ teas

Parallel 49’s Schadenfreude Pumpkin Oktoberfest beer

Glutenberg’s Chestnut Brown Ale

Campbell’s Gold mead and melomel

Learn

I don’t know about you, but whenever I go to an event like this, I find myself a little intimidated by the line in front of the All You Need is Cheese demonstration area. I don’t know if it’s because we got to the Food Show a little early, but there was only a short line on Saturday. So, I ducked in with Mary from Vancouver Bits and Bites and Cathy Browne. (It was so nice to meet you, ladies.) In a short time, we had a tasting of seven different cheeses across several categories. Many of them were BC cheeses, too. I learned a thing or two and my taste buds were primed for heading over to the Wine, Beer, and Spirits Tasting.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Ned Bell’s presentation. He spoke about his cross-Canada cycle trip in support of sustainable seafood and then he showed us how to break down a salmon, while giving us tips and information on how to work sustainable seafood into our diets. I wasn’t aware that land-based fish farming is one source of sustainable seafood and I certainly hadn’t thought about the cost savings involved in buying a whole salmon, breaking it down, and freezing it in portions. You can find out more about Bell’s ride at Chefs for Oceans and here’s a link to my go to resource for information about sustainable seafood, Ocean Wise.

My only quibble with the show is that I’d like to see them showcase more local restaurants in their Bite of the Valley category. I’d love the opportunity to sample small plates from any of the great restaurants that put the food produced in the Fraser Valley to such good use. It would make the show a complete journey from farm to plate.

FFWD – Celery-Celery Soup

October 3, 2014October 3, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 17 Comments

Four years ago this week, our first French Friday posts went up. It’s hard to believe that halfway through our fifth year of cooking together, we’ll have completed Around My French Table. Personally, I think we should all meet in Paris for gougères and champagne.

And I wouldn’t mind a bowl of this soup, either. Celery and celery root, with a hint of apple and a base of onions. I flavoured mine with thyme and rosemary, and added some shallots to the mix, but it’s Dorie’s bonne idée that makes this dish for me. The cubes of curried apple she suggests added a touch of complexity that I really enjoyed. I made a vegan version of this soup, but Kevin wasn’t that fond of it, so I think I might pick up some crème fraîche tomorrow. Then again, I might not – it stood up well without the addition of dairy.

The recipe for this week’s recipe is on Dorie’s website.

Fresh Tuna, Mozzarella, and Basil Pizza

I’ve been meaning to catch up on this one for a while, but I didn’t really want to make a gluten-free version of it. It sounded too good with puff pastry. I finally found an excuse to make it last weekend, when my mother and sister-in-law came into town for a hockey game. I used puff pastry vol-au-vents rather than using a sheet of the stuff to make little pizzas – no squashing of flaky layers involved. (For a look at the virtues of flattening puff pastry, see Tomato-Cheese Tartlets.) I did follow the rest of the recipe, arranging thin slices of the ingredients in the vol-au-vents (and their lids) before sliding them back into the oven for a very short time.

It’s a surprising dish – there are so many flavours bursting through, including ginger, tomato, onion and radish, but they all complement each other. These were elegant, delicious little treats. And totally appropriate for a pre-game snack, right?

And now, on to the last six months or so of this cookbook. I can’t tell you how much I’ve come to appreciate my fellow cooks in this adventure. I hope you read through their posts; they’re a lovely bunch of folks.

Find links to the rest of the French Fridays crew’s posts on this week’s recipe here: Celery-Celery Soup. Then check out what Fresh Tuna, Mozzarella, and Basil Pizza looks like when you follow the recipe.

Happy Swoktoberfest

October 2, 2014October 3, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ Leave a comment

Steam Whistle Brewing provided me with an entry ticket to their Oktoberfest party on September 20th, along with a keepsake stein. However, I received no compensation and all opinions in the following post are my own.

Vancouver has become a craft brewing hotspot over the last few years and it seems natural that our cultural scene would find ways to celebrate the diversity and quality of the beers we have available to us now.

Take Oktoberfest – unlike Ontario celebrations, Oktoberfest was limited to small German cultural centres for a long time in Vancouver. But in the last few years, Oktoberfest celebrations have sprung up in restaurants, bars, and even downtown. I was given the opportunity to check out one of the first of this year’s events by Steam Whistle Brewing, who held their 2nd annual Oktoberfest party at The Imperial on September 20th. They debuted this year’s reusable steins, got folks into Bavarian alpine hats, and threw a party.

Bestie was there, with sausage, saurkraut, and pretzels (and amazing mustard sauce, I might add). Polka music was provided by the Rheinlander Oom-pah Band, while the Austria Vancouver Club Edelweiss Dancers showed off German folk dances. Many of the guests got into the act, too, and there were some impressive traditional German costumes all around the room.

The best part of this Oktoberfest, for me, was how well the event catered to patrons young and old. It wasn’t just a university crowd – there were people ranging from their early twenties to well over sixty and you could tell it was a family evening out for many of them. And Steam Whistle’s pilsner is delicious – which is something coming from a stout and ale lover. (Steam Whistle is one of the early entries into better Canadian beer, having been around since 2000 and concentrating on their pilsner exclusively.)

You can get a stein and try their beer for yourself throughout October at Donnelly Group locations.

Now tell me, have you been celebrating Oktoberfest this year? There are plenty of options – what’s been your favourite?

FFWD – Vanilla Vegetable Salad

September 26, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 15 Comments

After a summer of salads comprised of whatever the garden’s got on offer, it seems like time to examine the shelves and stalls at the market a little more closely. There are still some remnants of the summer’s harvest on the shelves, but now there are also apples upon apples, winter squashes, root and cruciferous vegetables – things that speak of roasting or stewing, not the quick-dressed freshness of hot-weather meals.

Still, there’s one last summer salad for French Fridays and luckily the markets easily yielded the ingredients. Well, more or less. I haven’t seen a yellow zucchini for a few weeks now, so I opted for a small green one. And since the colour scheme was already in flux, I picked up some heirloom purple carrots in place of orange. For the greens, I chose an herby mix that I thought would counterbalance any dissonance I might experience from the vanilla in the dressing.

Yes, vanilla. There’s a lot of olive oil and lemon in this dressing, with only a touch of vanilla extract, but the flavour is transformed by it. I made the dressing by eye, since I was halving the recipe, so I may have been a bit conservative with the amount of vanilla I used, but the flavour was definitely there. My first taste was surprising – I didn’t even register whether I liked it or not. It was just something new to me. Then, I simply enjoyed it. Kevin told me that he liked it, but didn’t love it. (He’d eat it again, so I consider it a win for him.)

I’d love to try this dressing in a salad that’s already a mix of sweet and savoury, one with strawberries or figs, perhaps. There’s still a little time before cold-weather eating fully sets in.

Find links to the rest of the French Fridays crew’s posts here: Vanilla Vegetable Salad

Tuna and Mango Ceviche – A French Fridays Catch Up

September 23, 2014September 23, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 12 Comments

There are certain advantages to being an omnivore who lives with a vegan. I will happily eat the meals I cook for Kevin, but there is now an undercurrent of “more for me” when I’m making French Fridays dishes. Though there are lots of dishes – more than you might guess – that work for vegans in Around My French Table, there are many glorious meals that are decidedly not vegan-friendly.

This ceviche is one of them. I’m getting lots of practice in minification à la Mardi, because even a dedicated omnivore can’t be expected to finish meals meant for four, especially when they’re as perishable as ceviche. For this recipe, I decided to make enough for a generous appetizer for one. I headed down to the local sustainable seafood store for 100 grams of Ahi tuna and made about one-quarter of the recipe.

Dorie’s ceviche is sweet with mango, creamy with avocado, tart with lime, and rich with tuna. There is crunch from the onions and heat from the hot sauce. There’s just as much going on visually, too. Though I didn’t really want to share, I wished I did have someone there to admire it. (Not Kevin, because giving up sushi was quite a sacrifice for him and I didn’t want to torture him.) No matter, I’m filing this away for a dinner party idea someday. This dish would look gorgeous in a pretty bowl, set inside another pretty bowl filled with ice. Whatever followed would have to be absolutely smashing, though, to compete.

If you’re worried about making ceviche at home, Hunter Angler Gardener Cook will set your mind at ease, give you some tips and a recipe you can try, too. You can find Dorie’s version in Around My French Table. It’s yet another recipe that’s worth the price of the cookbook.

Find links to the rest of the French Fridays crew’s posts here: Tuna and Mango Ceviche

A Curmudgeon’s Guide to Internet Irritants

September 16, 2014September 17, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 6 Comments

Growing up, I had a very rigid attitude toward the English language. Those rules were set in stone for me, nonsensical or not. It wasn’t until I went to university and encountered the full edition of the Oxford English Dictionary that I began to soften my stance. That is to say, I concede that the battle for all right has been lost to alright.

Now, I try to follow Stephen Fry in the matter:

I try. However, the curmudgeon in me comes out quite often when I’m surfing the blogosphere. And it seems I’m not the only one. I’ve discovered that there are a number of clever graphics that try to correct some of the most common errors:

Peek, peak, and pique – it’s sneak peek. Yes, it is.

Loose and lose – if I were to loose my patience, I’d be a better person.

Affect and effect – okay, I admit that this can be a difficult one.

Renowned and renown – not reknown, unless you’re trying to coin a word for reacquainting yourself with something or someone. Which you can totally do, I’m not trying to stop you.

Whether and weather – you will be required to recite this poem upon our next meeting. And yes, I am fun at parties.

If I could draw, I’d make one for wary and weary, too. In the meantime, look it up. Just look it up. Please.

And I’ll keep trying to look away.

My latest internet irritant is those images that float around the internet, with quotations dubiously attributed to famous authors. I ran across this article today, which skewers the problem nicely. It irks me to no end to see a self-help affirmation attributed to an author who didn’t write in that cadence or whose work contradicts the sentiment.

So the next time you see one of those pretty pictures, adorned with a delicate font, make me a promise that you’ll run it by Quote Investigator before you allow yourself to be entirely seduced.

What drives you batty when it shows up on your screen?

FFWD – French Lentils

September 12, 2014September 12, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 16 Comments

I’m in a peripatetic state of mind, it seems. Right now I’m in the middle of several books, including Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters, Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth, and Rebecca Solnit’s latest book of essays, Men Explain Things to Me (if you’re not familiar with her, this might be a good place to start). I’m also re-reading Tamar Adler’s Everlasting Meal, as the easiness of summer garden eating is about to wane and I feel in need of a refresher on the simple, thrifty, respectful way she approaches food and eating.

One of the things I need to remember is that making more food than you’re going to eat for your next meal, in both quantity and variety, is one of the best ways to make sure you’re eating well at every meal.

This basic recipe for French lentils is exactly the sort of thing I want to have in the refrigerator when I’m wondering whether I really want to get into the kitchen and cook. The lentils are gently cooked in broth or water, infusing themselves with the flavours of the vegetables that are along for the ride. You can add cognac and shallots at the end, or not. You can chop up the vegetables and stir them back into the finished lentils, or not. You can serve them with another protein, sprinkle them with cheese, chill them and use them for a lentil salad later. Or, you can tuck into them just as they are.

I used vegetable broth in this batch, which makes them a nice vegan treat, though I sprinkled some with cheese, for me. Unfortunately, I didn’t notice that I only had about a half cup of French green lentils left, so I substituted brown lentils. The brown worked well, but I prefer the green – they are both gorgeous and delicious. Time to go back to the food co-op and stock up, since this is one of the recipes from Around My French Table that I make often, especially in the colder months.

You can find this week’s recipe at Serious Eats.

Find links to the rest of the French Fridays crew’s posts here: French Lentils

FFWD – Curried Chicken, Peppers and Peas en Papillote

September 6, 2014September 6, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 20 Comments

For some reason, a lot of my friends were kicked out of Brownies for rebellious behaviour. Not me, though. I went through the whole Girl Guide system and then jumped over to Scouts when I’d exhausted the camping possibilities that the oldest level, Rangers, had to offer. I knew a good thing when I saw it. Weekends away in the woods, longer in the summer, were a haven worth wearing a uniform for during the rest of the year. Besides, there were the badges – even one for reading. Yes, I know, I’ve never been the James Dean type.

One of the highlights of the year was often a trip to Camp Olave, a beautiful oceanside retreat on BC’s Sunshine Coast.

What does any of this have to do with this week’s recipe? Well, the en papilotte method of cooking evokes a very particular memory of a multi-district camp I attended at Camp Olave when I was almost ready to leave Guides for the next level up. We were amongst the oldest girls there, so we were seconded by the leaders for all sorts of minor supervisory jobs – which mostly translated into babysitting the Brownies. It also meant that we were considered ready for more adult behaviour.

So, we were told we’d be the last to be fed when a plan to cook foil dinners in solar ovens failed – the leaders hadn’t factored cloud cover into their planning, even though the “Sunshine Coast” is as rainy as MetroVancouver. The packets were dumped around hastily constructed fires and I didn’t eat until around midnight. I don’t remember what else was in the packet, but I do remember that the chunks of potato were only about half-cooked.

That turned me off cooking in foil completely until I was in my twenties. Cooking fish in foil – in an electric oven only – was one of the tricks I learned to make it look like I actually knew what I was doing in the kitchen.

The three en papillote recipes we’ve done so far in French Fridays have been fabulous, not to mention customizable. This fourth foray into foil (or more elegantly, parchment paper) was no exception. I cooked half the vegetables on their own, so that I could serve them with slices of tofu sautéed with Indian spices for Kevin. The rest I cooked with a half portion of chicken, for me.

I was worried that the ingredients were too simple – just curry powder, salt, and pepper against chicken, onions, peas, and red pepper. It comes out just right, though, steamed in its own juices. I served it with a recipe we tackled way back in 2011, Cardamom Rice Pilaf. It’s the side dish Dorie recommends for the curried chicken and it’s one I’m always looking for an excuse to make. The two make a great combination. One that chases out any memories I might have of half-cooked potatoes in the woods.

You can find this week’s recipe here.

Find links to the rest of the French Fridays crew’s posts here: Curried Chicken, Peppers, and Peas en Papillote