How often have I said, today’s assignment is in the oven as I write? Probably a little too often. But, here I am again. I’ve been meaning to make this tart all day, but have fallen down several rabbit holes along the way. First, there was shopping to find the perfect Rosé to go with the pickerel my parents generously shared with me (it’s a Prairie fish – properly called walleye – and one my father particularly loves, so it’s especially lovely that they passed some along to me). After that, there was weeding the garden, and a coffee on the Drive with Kevin.
Then, there was the main distraction of the day. A week or so ago, Melissa of Food Bloggers of Canada asked if any of us used bullet journals. I’d missed the phenomenon entirely and have been spending spare moments trolling Pinterest and Instagram, Boho Berry and Tiny Ray of Sunshine, in a quest to figure it all out. As it turns out, it’s not all that different from the ‘Everything’ books I used to carry around, with less angst and more concision.
I’ve fallen for the trend, more or less, and have started carrying around a Leuchtturm1917. It’s not a bad thing. I’ve never been a good fit for a traditional dayplanner – my work and creative outlets don’t fit nicely into those evenly divided spaces. I’d moved to keeping everything in my phone or in my head, which is convenient, but doesn’t have the satisfaction or brainstorming potential of analogue notebooks. So, this diversion has turned out to be a welcome one.
One of the first things I did was set up a section for blog planning. It’s been a little quiet around here, with many analogue-life upheavals and changes in the works. Things have settled down now and my capacity for writing, cooking, creating, and exploring has returned. So, my new planner is justifying its purchase quite quickly – thank goodness for positive reinforcement.
Even more positive is the return of my desire to get into the kitchen. My parents sent along some beets with the pickerel, I gathered some radishes from my garden, and picked up some mushrooms and new potatoes from the fresh markets along Commercial Drive. The vegan entrée was sage-roasted mushrooms and we shared roasted potatoes, beets, and radishes. Tomorrow, there will be corn on the cob and salad with lettuce, radishes, and cucumbers from my garden. My cooking mojo returned just in time for high summer’s bounty.
And for the next few days, there will be this delicious tart for dessert. Our markets are full of enormous, juicy BC apricots right now and the timing was perfect for this tart. David’s tart dough baked perfectly and the simple crumble topping is all that’s needed to complement the goodness of the apricots.
My mother is coming back on Monday for a visit. I’ll be hard-pressed to save some long enough to share with her.
You can read through everyone’s posts here. And consider joining this community of wonderful cooks and lovely people, as we work our way through David Lebovitz‘ My Paris Kitchen.
I’ve had Dorie’s rice pudding before, with lemony caramel apples. It’s different from the rice pudding I grew up with, which was all about making leftover rice delicious. (Though even that kind of rice pudding can put on some party clothes.)
Dorie’s rice pudding uses arborio rice, which is simmered in whole milk and flavoured with a little sugar and half a vanilla bean. It’s simple, rich and delicious, the perfect backdrop for flavours in every season.
In summer, she recommends spiced hibiscus syrup and fresh strawberries. We’re well into blueberry season here, so I used those instead. They’re just as nice a pairing for hibiscus as strawberries and they’re what was freshest at the market today.
As a bonus, there is plenty of leftover hibiscus syrup. I mixed a tablespoonful into some cold Pelligrino earlier today, but there are endless cocktail and mocktail possibilities for this jar of simple syrup. Or, I could just spend the rest of the week drizzling it over ice cream.
You can find the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie crew’s entries on this recipe here or here, along with posts about this month’s other selected recipe, Rose Frasier.
It’s ironic that the phrase ‘piece of cake’ signifies something that’s dead easy, as our cultural image of a piece of cake is based on the layer cake, which requires multiple steps, a light touch, and at least a little bit of decorative talent. Chocolate mousse on the other hand, associated with restaurant meals and special occasions, is a piece of cake to make.
This mousse is complicated by the addition of caramel, but even that is easy, once you’ve learned the trick of it. In fact, making caramel is a lot like making brown butter. When you know how to make it, you want to add it to everything. And once you’ve added caramel to chocolate mousse, I suspect you’ll want it that way every time.
The only thing that’s not easy about this recipe is having to wait eight hours for the mousse to set. I solved that issue by making it before bed last night. If I’d made it during the day, I wouldn’t have waited nearly that long. As it was, it took a lot of will-power not to eat it for breakfast. Which wouldn’t have been a bad idea, save for the fact that I wanted to wait for some brighter afternoon light for photographs.
I’m so glad we’ve posted about this recipe – I’ll never have to wait for good light again. Now that I know how delicious it is, I don’t think I could have the forbearance. This mousse is wonderfully balanced in its elements – salt, sweet, bitter, and rich. It’s the sort of thing you could bring out in cocktail glasses at a dinner party, but I don’t recommend waiting for an occasion. Spoon it into little pots and enjoy it as a mid-week treat. It will look just as charming and it will be even more satisfying.
Surprisingly, I’ve still got some in the refrigerator to enjoy tomorrow. This recipe could be halved, easily, but I recklessly made an entire batch. At least it gave me the opportunity to use the cute little lids for my Riviera Petit Pot jars. More importantly, I’ll have a decadent treat to distract me from another long day of elevating my sprained foot – an enforced rest is not as relaxing as you might think.
Luckily for you, this is one of the recipes from My Paris Kitchen that’s posted online. Head over to Epicurious and then run to the store for any of the ingredients you don’t have on hand. It takes eight hours to set, so the sooner you get started, the sooner you’ll be enjoying it.
You can read through everyone’s posts here. And consider joining this community of wonderful cooks and lovely people, as we work our way through David Lebovitz‘ My Paris Kitchen.
If I were a perfumer, I’d take my inspiration from the kitchen. One of the rewards of cooking is carrying away a trace of the scent of the ingredients you’ve been working with, unless it’s something like garlic or onion. But consider lemon, ginger, or tarragon and that’s a different story. Perhaps the best kitchen aroma of all comes from buttery sweet dough, especially if it’s been flavoured with a dash of vanilla.
That’s the perfume filling my house this evening, mixed with traces of pineapple, coconut, lime, and rum. I baked a jammer galette filled with piña colada jam this evening and it tasted just as wonderful as it smelled.
The reward was out of proportion to the work involved – the cookie base and buttery streusel came together quickly and the jam was already on my pantry shelf. The hardest part was waiting an hour while the rolled out dough rested in the freezer. This jam tart is essentially an enormous cookie – much less work than conventional cookies, with an extra reward in its pretty presentation. This is the second giant cookie that Dorie Greenspan has introduced me to and I’m looking forward to more when her new cookbook comes out this fall.
In the meantime, I’m going to work my way through the galette over the rest of the week. It’s my reward for evenings of weeding and digging in new soil into my garden beds. Its butter vanilla scent makes an especially lovely contrast to the heady earthiness of the garden.
You can find the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie crew’s entries on this recipe here or here, along with posts about this month’s other selected recipe, Cocoa Crunch Meringue Cookies.
We haven’t been enjoying sweet treats nearly enough around here, but I did manage to catch up on two of the selections from Baking Chez Moi over the past few months.
Hot Chocolate Panna Cotta
I drink a cup of hot chocolate or two each winter, especially when it’s time for Vancouver’s Hot Chocolate Festival, but I think I like this method of enjoying it even better than the traditional one. All the flavour of hot chocolate in a creamy dessert and none of the dilemma involved in choosing between it and a cup of tea.
I used an extra-dark chocolate that I like, Denman Island Chocolate‘s Cocoa Loco, and infused the cream with Lady Grey tea. The tea’s clear citrus notes played well against the flavour of the chocolate. The chocolate’s flavour is bolstered by cocoa powder in this panna cotta and I think it’s this addition that makes the flavour so reminiscent of hot chocolate.
This is one I’ll be having again, especially now that I’ve found a nearby source for granulated gelatin and can avoid the awkward conversions involved in using leaf gelatin.
Fluted Carrot-Tangerine Cake
My fluted quiche pan was otherwise occupied, so this cake had to be content with a plain edge. I still think it’s very pretty.
I love my mother’s version of carrot cake, a classic rich rectangle liberally slathered in cream cheese icing, but this cake is one that I can see myself making more often. It’s a much lighter cake, full of ginger and tangerine with an undertone of carrot’s sweetness. I added a tangerine glaze, which made it look festive and boosted the citrus flavour even more. This cake will get you through the worst part of winter, whether you glaze it or not.
I’ll be joining in with the rest of Tuesdays with Dorie’s bloggers at least once in April, so dessert is on the horizon. That’s always a cheering prospect.
Find out what the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie crew caught up on here: Rewind.
Happy International Women’s Day, everyone! Here’s to continuing the march toward equality for all women, across the world and at home.
Baking may not seem like a good fit on a day that’s dedicated to women’s equality, but all the activist and community groups I’ve been part of have fuelled change with agile minds and satisfied stomachs. Even cookbooks have been wielded as tools for change by feminists – suffragists used them to spread their message, filling them with recipes and resistance.
So in this spirit, I think it’s fitting that I’m writing about a cake that begs to be shared. Any group of people who were lucky enough to find this orange cake on their meeting room table might find the fortitude to change the world.
I have a special fondness for orange cake – my grandmother used to make it and it was a favourite for everyone in the family. Unfortunately her recipe is lost to us, so I’ve tried any that I’ve encountered in an attempt to find one that measures up to my memory of hers.
That’s the problem, of course – what can measure up to a treasured memory? So, I just enjoy the orange cakes as they come along, noting down the ones that come close, along with those I appreciate just for themselves.
Odile’s Orange Cake falls into the second category. Though I think my grandmother would have appreciated the orange-y, buttery flavour very much, it’s a cake that’s different in kind than the one she used to make. Hers was moist, with a fine crumb, but also sturdier than this cake. That’s no surprise, since this one is soaked in the syrup used to poach the oranges that decorate it. It’s not just moist, it’s suffused with moisture in the best possible way.
There’s something else that’s different about this cake. I used goat butter to make it. It’s a delicious butter that has a different character than that made from cow’s milk. If you’re interested, Chowhound made a short video on the subject.
This recipe was well worth using my tiny stash of goat butter. And I think that if I bring it to my committee meeting tomorrow night, it might be the perfect way to celebrate solidarity amongst a group of women working to benefit our community.
You can find the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie crew’s entries on this recipe here: Odile’s Fresh Orange Cake.
Every year during the holidays, there’s always one treat that outshines the others. Some years it’s sucre à la crème, other years it’s Nanaimo bars or butter tarts. This year, it’s ginger cookies that everyone wanted. Early in the season, I resurrected a recipe from the copy of Company’s Coming: Cookies that I received as a gift when I moved out of my parents’ house oh-so-many years ago. I’ve been making batches nearly weekly, ever since.
It’s one of those old-fashioned cookbooks that are worth hanging onto, like the Five Roses or Betty Crocker ones. Though I won’t touch the cake-mix based recipes with a ten-foot pole, there are many reliable, delicious cookie recipes to be found there.
These cookies are sugar and butter bombs, with a deep molasses and ginger flavour and a crisp-but-tender texture that makes them perfect for dunking.
I’m going to keep making them as they are, but I’m curious to see if I can come up with a healthier version, too. Some of my favourite cookie-eaters can’t partake in something quite so indulgent. So, I’m adding it to my investigation pile, along with the perfect gluten-free, vegan peanut butter cookie. Watch this space for developments.
You can find the recipe online if you Google, but it doesn’t look like anyone’s gotten permission, so I won’t link to it here. I’d head down to your local library to check out the Company’s Coming books, instead. A librarian friend of mine says they’re some of the most perennially popular cookbooks they circulate. You might even surprise yourself and buy a copy – sometimes it’s the old-fashioned recipes that satisfy the most.
I know it’s cliché (as I’ve said before), but I enjoy looking back over the year through the lens of the posts you liked best. When I think about my favourite posts of the year, it’s the process that stands out for me – a new skill mastered, a story shaped and re-shaped until it achieved the effect I was looking for, a photograph (for once) well-made.
The list of top posts, on the other hand, show me which ones intrigued people enough to click through to them. It’s not a perfect measure of quality, to be sure – comments may be a better guide there. Nevertheless, it’s interesting to see what brought people here this year.
It’s also interesting to see that the top posts this year are completely different from last year’s list. I think it’s encouraging to see that the blog is at least a little dynamic, though I think the end of French Fridays with Dorie was part of the shift.
We start with a post that would count as one of my own favourites from 2015, in which I share the recipe for my mother’s spicy vegetable chili. It’s a winter dish, really, full of pantry staples and vegetables that are available year-round. But, it’s so popular, that we get requests for it through all the seasons. My mother makes enormous batches of it for the church and community gatherings she organizes. I make it for co-op meetings. We both make it for Kevin, who loves it so much that he’d happily eat it weekly.
But, it’s not really the recipe that makes the post, at least for me. It’s the story of how the recipe came to be and the love it represents.
I was surprised that this one made the list, as it’s a short post that shares two French language videos of people making a classic, homey French Canadian sweet. I’m a little fond of it, though, both for the winkingly nostalgic photo and the video of the Québécoise grand-mère.
This year’s French Fridays with Dorie edition of Food Revolution Day was a lot of fun. I made a dish I’d missed when it came up in the rotation originally, reviewed some past favorites, and connected it all to the day’s goal of promoting cooking skills and food literacy.
This post is about something that’s become a yearly tradition amongst French Fridays with Dorie alumni. We exchange cards, and often recipes, at year’s end. It’s nice to have something to look forward to when checking the mailbox, isn’t it?
I suspect people came to this post looking for a recipe, but it’s really just a recounting of my experience with Dorie’s recipe. Though many of my French Fridays posts were designed to have wider appeal, others – like this one – were really addressed to our group. Posts like these are travel diary entries for a journey through a cookbook.
This post was a lot of fun to research. It’s a celebration of the coffee shops in my neighbourhood and it’s meant to be the first in a series of themed explorations. More will come along, slowly, as I gather enough intelligence on each subject.
I very much enjoy writing my cookbook review series, so I was happy that one of these posts made the list. This book intrigued a number of people and the person who won it in the giveaway was thrilled. I’m very happy, myself, that it’s now on my cookbook shelf.
Another book review, for a cookbook I turn to on special occasions. Thinking about Jill’s pâte sucrée makes me want to start my holiday baking all over again.
The number one spot this year goes to one of my (very occasional) restaurant reviews, for one of our favourite neighbourhood spots. I’m quite pleased that reviews took three of the top five spots. I’ve been enjoying writing them this year more than almost anything else.
So, there you have a list of some of the buzziest (in the very calm, sort of backwater way that my blog can be said to generate buzz) posts on my blog. And I have food for thought about the directions I may take the blog in 2016. I hope you enjoy clicking around the list as much as I did.
You’ll hear from once more before the close of the year. I hope the dwindling days of 2015 are treating you well!
I received a review copy of Pierogi Love from Raincoast Books. Nevertheless, all opinions in the following post are my own.
The ladies of my mother’s CWL chapter are famous for their food. They get together and cook, for weddings and funerals, community dinners and seniors’ luncheons. They’re mostly over seventy and have decades of experience in the kitchen. They often share the specialties of their backgrounds with each other – they’ve cooked German, Irish, Filipino, Ukrainian, Italian and more together.
Not surprisingly, the most popular dishes they serve are old fashioned comfort favourites. At their annual Christmas craft fair last weekend, they served pierogies with fried onion, thick slices of sausage, and generous helpings of sour cream. They got together a few weeks before the fair and handmade every one. They were delicious, with a perfectly traditional potato and onion filling.
I’ve always wanted to be there when they have one of their pierogi-making bees, but it hasn’t happened. So, when I was given the opportunity to review Casey Barber‘s new book, Pierogi Love, I jumped on it.
Inside, I found some traditional recipes, like potato and cheddar, sauerkraut, and sour cherry. But the rest of the recipes are a world away from those – spinach, ham, and Gruyère; saag paneer; fig, goat cheese, and black pepper. Barber’s recipes take inspiration from flavours around the world, while making sure there’s something appropriate for occasions from tailgate parties (try her Elvis pierogies) to dinner parties (start with mushroom, goat cheese, and chive). Not all books live up to their subtitles, but this one does. It’s full of “new takes on an old-world comfort food.”
It’s also one of the best-designed cookbooks I’ve had my hands on this year. It’s a compact hardcover, with lovely photos, and patterns and colours that repeat charmingly throughout the book. Most of the recipes don’t require you to turn pages and the book stays open to the page you’ve chosen. Cookbook designers take note.
I was given permission to share one recipe with you and it’s a delightful one. However, if you want the recipe for the dough, you’ll have to buy the book. You really should.
LEMON CURD PIEROGIES
Making lemon curd is an impossible exercise in patience for me. Though I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it tastes best when chilled, I absolutely cannot stop myself from sneaking warm spoonfuls fresh from the bowl. (I have the same problem with homemade tapioca pudding.) But the overnight chill process is crucial here to get the curd to the right consistency. Make the curd 1 day before assembling your pierogies, and work quickly when filling them so the curd stays cool and thick. If you see it start to warm and soften, put the curd back in the fridge for 15 minutes or so, then carry on.
Makes approximately 24 pierogies
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon water
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice (from about 2 small to medium lemons)
½ cup (3 ½ ounces, 100 grams) sugar
2 large eggs
Zest of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, cut into 4 small cubes
1 batch Basic Sweet Dough
Whisk cornstarch and water in a bowl. Fill a small saucepan halfway with water and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Whisk lemon juice, sugar, eggs, and zest in a heatproof (stainless steel or Pyrex) bowl. Set bowl atop pan of simmering water; do not let bowl touch water. Whisk until liquid turns from sloshy and translucent to opaque, 3 to 4 minutes. Whisk in cornstarch slurry and continue to cook until liquid thickens into a silken curd consistency, whisking constantly, 1 to 2 minutes—do not let the curd come to a simmer or the eggs will scramble. Remove bowl from heat. Add butter and whisk until completely incorporated. Strain curd through a fine-mesh strainer into a bowl and refrigerate overnight.
Roll out dough and stamp into rounds. Place 1 teaspoon filling on each dough round; brush with egg wash, fold, pinch, and seal as directed. Deep-fry, boil, and/or pan-fry pierogies.
Do Ahead: Filling can be made up to 3 days ahead. Cover and refrigerate.
What’s not to love about a supple dough that comes together quickly and seals its contents just as easily? I’m not a dumpling pro, but almost all of my pierogies turned out beautifully. Barber’s instructions are thorough and her dough recipes are gold – you should be buying the book for that reason alone.
Only one of my not-quite-expertly constructed pierogies leaked when boiled, and that one only leaked a very little. I cooked about a third of them and the rest are in the freezer. (I’m planning to take them over to my parents’ place to surprise my lemon curd-loving Dad.)
The best pierogies are as enjoyable for their covering as they are for their filling and that’s certainly true here. The lemon curd pierogies use the sweet version of Barber’s basic dough. It’s not overly sweet and caramelizes beautifully when pan-fried.
Lemon curd and I are old friends, but Barber’s instructions are clear enough for a beginner to follow, so there’s no reason for intimidation at all. And the results are wonderful – thick, pillowy, sweet and tart. I have leftovers in the fridge. I’m not sure if they’ll go into a tart or not. Given how many spoons there are just lying around in the kitchen, I might not be able to resist the temptation of eating it straight from the bowl. But that’s a question for later.
I served the pierogies dusted with icing sugar and lemon zest, but they don’t really need any extra adornment. There is a nice balance between sweet and tart, the crunch of the caramelized dough and the softness underneath.
Image courtesy of Casey BarberRaincoast Books has been generous enough to offer a copy of Pierogi Love to one Canadian reader. You can find the giveaway here and enter until December 17th: Win a copy of Pierogi Love*
Now that I’ve (mostly) gotten the hang of making pierogies, I’m tempted to start filling the freezer with them. In fact, I had to take my tape flags out of the book, once I realized I’d marked almost every page. Once my freezer is full, I’d love to have a pierogi party, with plates coming out of the kitchen one after another, savoury to sweet, with flavours from around the world.
Gift Giver’s Guide: For the comfort food lover, the tradition-twister, and the party-pleaser.
Come back next week for a review of a book that celebrates the fruits of the land on which we stand.
*Terms & Conditions: This giveaway is open to residents of Canada. You must have a Canadian mailing address. The winner will be required to answer the following skill testing question: 7 X 5 =_____ This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. We hereby release Facebook of any liability. Winner(s) will be contacted by email within 48 hours after the giveaway ends. Entrants must provide a valid email address where they can be reached. Each of the winners must respond to the email announcing their win within 48 hours, or another winner will be chosen. No purchase of any product is required. If you have any additional questions – feel free to send us an email!
On Sunday, I had a near-perfect day. I started by baking apple pielettes, this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie selection. Then, I went to Heritage Hall for Tea Sparrow‘s Tea-Off. After tasting (and tasting again) eighteen teas, we walked a block and had dinner at Burgoo, one of my favourite places for comfort food in the city.
The apple pielettes (or pielets, depending on your spelling preference) are going to become a seasonal feature in my kitchen. They’re made with the galette dough from Dorie’s Baking Chez Moi, which she describes as “both sturdy and supple.” Sturdy enough to hold the saucy apple filling, supple enough to fit into muffin cups easily. But when you bite into it, it’s not tough at all. Instead it’s flaky, tender, and delicious.
For the filling, I decided to keep things simple, opting for apples with apricot jam and a little cardamom and cinnamon. I don’t think I need to tell you the filling was as delicious as the crust. Nearer the holidays, I think a version with dried cranberries might be in the works.
I sent some downstairs to my neighbour for her birthday, then sent some more home with my mother. They were my companions for the tea-tasting and for dinner and I believe they had a great day, too.
This time, we sampled teas that ran from cocoa and chocolate notes to herbaceous tisanes. I enjoyed most of the teas presented, but I had some favourites:
The last one surprised me, because it doesn’t fit my usual tea preferences, but the flavours were beautifully balanced.
There’s an endless amount of learning in the world of tea. Even though I’ve been drinking it since adolescence, I feel I’m still a novice in many ways. Visiting the Tea and Coffee Show helped and I’m looking forward to learning more at the Vancouver Tea Festival in November.
But, in some ways, I’ve learned most from those for whom tea has become a passion. At the tea-tasting at Tea Sparrow last week, I picked up a lot of interesting information, including these tidbits:
Some big tea companies pre-stale their tea before it hits the shelves to ensure a uniform flavour.
There are no real standards for tea, so companies like Tea Sparrow have to do a lot of their own research and testing to determine which teas are free from additives and artificial ingredients.
The growing popularity of premium teas is prompting larger tea vendors and corporations to cater to this market, making more clean, quality teas available to everyone.
The next step will be nurturing a tea-serving culture that has the standards of coffee barista service – no more lukewarm brewing or 1/2 cup portions of tea leaves in a cup, please!
I came home with a package of Vanilla Honeybush tea, which I happily enjoyed with my remaining apple pielettes. Since I gave so many away, I think I’m justified in making another batch this weekend, don’t you?
You can find the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie crew’s entries on this recipe here: Apple Pielets.
One Wet Foot 