French Food Revolution Friday with Dorie 2015

May 15, 2015 ~ Teresa ~ 15 Comments

This week, the French Fridays with Dorie crew is participating in Food Revolution Day, led by Mardi of eat. live. travel. write.

Our assignment this time around is to share something we’ve learned from Dorie Greenspan during our more than four years working through Around My French Table. It’s a theme nicely in keeping with Food Revolution Day’s emphasis on food education.

As Mardi explained:

Friday May 15th 2015 is the fourth annual Food Revolution Day – a day of global action created by Jamie Oliver and the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation to engage and inspire people of all ages to learn about food and how to cook it.

This year, Food Revolution Day is a global campaign to put compulsory food education back on the school curriculum. Jamie passionately believes that by educating children about food and cooking in a fun and engaging way, we can equip them with the basic skills they need to lead healthier, happier lives, for themselves and their future families. Dorie agrees – last year when I was chatting with her about food education, she said: “I would love to see a generation that can cook and wants to cook for themselves and others. The world would be a better place.”

It’s difficult to choose a recipe or technique that stands out from our experiences over the course of the group, only because we’ve learned so much.

We’ve tackled elegant French desserts that turned out to be easy, thanks to Dorie’s talent for instructions: Floating Islands.

We’ve learned that all you need for complex flavours and a hearty meal are a sturdy pot and a plump chicken: Roast Chicken for Les Paresseux.

We’ve used the simplest methods to create satisfying suppers: Salmon and Tomatoes en Papillote.

We’ve got foolproof doughs almost by heart, allowing us to elevate everything from breakfast to cocktail fare: Gerard’s Mustard Tart.

We’ve overcome our skepticism of unfamiliar flavour combinations and found new favourites: Orange & Olive Salad.

We’ve filled our pantries with many more spices, herbs, condiments, and other ingredients than we’d imagined possible: Chopped Liver with quatre épices.

But most of all, we’ve expanded our cooking and eating horizons, as though we were a class of students led by Dorie’s steady hand. Many of our participants were already confident in the kitchen, while others were gaining confidence as we progressed, but there has always been something to learn from Dorie and from each other.

This is at the heart of healthy, happy eating – exploring new techniques and flavours, while building a foundation of everyday skills that can be applied to whatever you might find in the pantry or the markets. We’ve eaten richly and well along the way, but also with the kind of variety and substance that healthy bodies require.

The dish I’ve made this week is emblematic of a lot of what’s been wonderful about working through Around My French Table. It’s a classic French dish; full of nutritious ingredients; as elegant as you’d like it to be; and easily made affordable or luxe, as required. Dorie’s instructions ensure you’ll make the most of the ingredients and it’s another of the book’s many reminders that even the simplest of meals can be full of flavour.

Salade Niçoise

The beauty of a composed salad is that you can alter it to suit all diners’ needs. In this case, I made a plateful with tuna, egg, and anchovies for me, then left them off for Kevin. There are many lessons in this recipe for young cooks, too. Hard-boiling eggs, blanching green beans, making vinagrette – but especially taking a look at what you’ve got in the refrigerator and pantry, then making a satisfying meal from it.

This revolution must certainly start there.

You can find links to the rest of the French Fridays crew’s thoughts on Food Revolution Day and all we’ve learned from Dorie, here: Food Revolution Day. And you can find the rest of the Doristas’ posts on Salade Niçoise, here.

FFWD – Cheesecake Tart

May 1, 2015May 4, 2015 ~ Teresa ~ 13 Comments

Update: These are long ago memories I’m sharing in this post, though it’s true I’m still not a fan of birthday parties. Hope I haven’t upset anyone – it just came together as a nice little piece of writing for me.

I don’t have birthday parties, as a rule. Something awful happened to someone I cared about in the middle of the biggest birthday bash I’d ever had and I handled it badly. After that, I kept it small – a few friends for lunch, a date for dinner, sometimes a family get together. I broke that rule once and got some karmic payback as a reward.

The person who hosted the party had just broken up with a mutual friend, who’d also disappointed other people we had in common. The guest list was filled with people her ex liked, only two of whom I really knew. The cake was a horror of dank cream and hidden pellets of jelly. And the only other sweets, a box of cookies her ex brought me from one of my favourite bakeries, disappeared into the host’s cupboard shortly after the ex’s hasty departure. I spent the rest of the evening in uncomfortable silence as the host complained at length about her break up. I took it as a sign that I still had penance to do for failing my friend all those years ago.

Needless to say, I went back to small gatherings. But I’ve made sure that my birthday sweet, whether it’s a pie or a cake or a pile of homemade cookies, is excellent and shared widely.

This year, I made the Simple and Splendid Chocolate Cake from The Sweetapolita Bakebook, filled it with salted caramel ganache from this Bon Appétit recipe, then topped it with Sweetapolita’s Glossy Fudge Frosting. I was left with only two regrets: dropping the third layer onto the kitchen floor and not starting early enough to have enough time to ice the…two-layer…cake fancily. After the first round of slices, I sent some home with family and some to our lovely neighbours downstairs, leaving me with just enough for dessert (and let’s face it, breakfast) the next day.

This week’s French Fridays dish, the last dessert on our agenda, might just be next year’s birthday sweet. It’s light and rich at the same time, while being casually elegant – perfect for small gatherings, no?

I used dried cranberries, since raisins and I only get along one-on-one. Dried cherries or blueberries would be nice here, too. And I used a mixture of cottage cheese and sour cream, since fromage blanc is a bus ride away for me and I didn’t have the gumption to go far for ingredients. The mixture of cottage cheese and sour cream stood in admirably for fromage blanc.

We’ve ended the dessert chapter on a keeper, though that could also be said of almost every recipe in the chapter. Next week, we’ll have our last scheduled fish recipe (aren’t you glad, Mardi?). The week after that, we’ll have special posts for Food Revolution Day. And then, we cook the cover to finish off the last recipe.

Hard to believe.

You can find links to the rest of the French Fridays crew’s posts on this week’s recipe here: Cheesecake Tart.

FFWD – Waffles and Cream & Pork Roast with Mangoes and Lychees

April 17, 2015 ~ Teresa ~ 17 Comments

Last week, I took some time to go visit my parents, with every intention of making a smoked salmon version of last week’s French Fridays assignment, but ending up with all sorts of other dishes, instead. I was defeated by our inability to locate the balance of the salmon my brother had smoked, which my mother was sure was in the left-hand chest freezer in their garage. There are many good things in that freezer, but no smoked salmon, as far as I can tell.

So, I found myself slowly cooking chicken thighs in saffron-scented broth and arranging butter-soaked sheets of phyllo pastry in a cake pan. The first time I made Chicken B’Stilla, I used homemade gluten-free puff pastry and it was wonderful. I’d always wanted to make it with phyllo, though. The proper version is just as delicious, but so much prettier.

Then, I made three kinds of caramel.

Once for the Crispy-Topped Brown Sugar Bars that Tuesdays with Dorie tackled in March. These were fantastic, though the caramelized Rice Krispies that top the bar are so addictive that it was hard to keep everyone from eating them all by themselves.

The second was a warm caramel sauce for the Waffles and Cream that Doristas blogged about two weeks ago. I’d left my waffle iron at my parents’ house at Christmastime, since it’s not going to get any use at my house (too great a risk for gluten cross-contamination). Dorie’s caramel sauce is simple and delicious. I let mine get a little thick, for extra gooeyness when it’s used on ice cream (which it may have been). But warmed, it flowed beautifully when strewn across the waffles. I think Dorie’s waffles, which use beaten egg whites rather than whole eggs, are the tastiest I’ve had. With a little whipped cream, this was a perfect dessert.

The third batch of caramel was to top a rhubarb upside-down cake that hasn’t come up in the Tuesdays with Dorie rotation yet. I’ll be making it over and over again until rhubarb disappears for the year. Brown sugar and butter make a fine topping for an upside down cake, but this caramel is even better – so worth the extra step or two.

Then, finally, I got to this week’s recipe. I had to drive almost twenty kilometers to get canned lychees, which I’d have only had to go a few blocks to get if I’d remembered to pick them up from home. This is my excuse for not realizing that the roast needed red wine vinegar and white wine, rather than the other way around. By the time I read over the recipe again, there was no way I was going back out on another trek to the store. Which might help to explain the alarming colour of my sauce. (It doesn’t excuse the presentation – just know it was prettier in person.)

Though the sauce looked scary, this dish was delicious. My pork loin was a little larger than the one called for in the recipe, so by the time it was fully cooked, the mangoes had disappeared into the sauce. Next time, I’ll cut them in larger chunks. The canned lychees worked very well in this dish, even though I’d prefer fresh ones when they’re in season. I loved the sweet and sour sauce against the perfectly tender pork. It’s a dish with Dominican roots, created by a French-trained chef, which is how it came to be in the book. I served this with the citrus version of my favourite Dorie rice recipe, along with some simply steamed vegetables.

Next week, we’re back to fish. Maybe I’ll even get to that salmon tartare, as a bonus. It sounds too delicious to skip altogether.

You can find links to the rest of the French Fridays crew’s posts on this week’s recipe here: Pork Roast with Mangoes and Lychees. And you can see what everyone thought of the waffles here: Waffles and Cream.

A Promising Month

April 7, 2015April 7, 2015 ~ Teresa ~ 3 Comments

Just a short post tonight, with an update on what you can look forward to in April on the blog, including the Roasted Squash and Shallots with Merguez Chickpeas from River Cottage Veg that you see at the top of the post.

Every Thursday this month, I’ll have a cookbook review for you. And next Tuesday, I’ll let you know how your local supermarket can help you make better decisions about your health and the way you eat.

Along the way, there will be more of the dwindling store of French Fridays recipes, a Cottage Cooking Club update, anticipation of summer farmers’ markets, and an exploration of the Vancouver Biennale.

Who knows what else this month may hold in store?

FFWD – Next-day Beef Salad

March 30, 2015March 30, 2015 ~ Teresa ~ 10 Comments

I’ve never really understood the aversion some people have toward leftovers. I suppose if you’re talking about a week’s worth of dry casserole, you’d have something to complain about. But, it’s so easy to make a great meal when you’ve got leftovers in the fridge. Soups and stews can be eaten as is, while other mains and side dishes can be turned into sandwiches, salads, soups, or frittatas. All the flavour of the original dishes, with only a little more work.

I wonder if it’s that leftover label that kept the French Fridays crew from tackling this week’s recipe until almost the end? It shouldn’t have, because this salad is the opposite of that stereotype – it’s full of great flavours and textures and though it doesn’t photograph very well, it’s colourful and vibrant on the plate.

The salad is more properly made with Bœuf à la Ficelle or roast beef, but I had leftovers from a beef daube in the fridge, so set aside some of the cubed meat and garlic cloves, instead.

Dorie’s dressing is simply mayonnaise with one or two French mustards. I added some of the garlic from the daube to mine, as well. And then I started chopping – cornichons, olives, capers, red pepper, green onions, and more. I especially liked Dorie’s addition of a little bit of finely chopped hot pepper and I suspect you could use a tiny bit of shaved horseradish in its place, for a more English take on heat.

Dorie takes classic accompaniments for beef and transform leftovers into a salad that’s interesting enough to serve to guests for lunch or a light dinner. Add a glass of wine and there will be no discussions of leftovers to be had.

You can find links to the rest of the French Fridays crew’s posts on this week’s recipe here: Next-day Beef Salad.

FFWD – Côte d’Azur Cure-All Soup

March 20, 2015April 5, 2015 ~ Teresa ~ 13 Comments

My mother’s homemade soup could cure anything but the schism between my sister and me when it came to what starch she should put in it. I loved rice in my soup and my sister preferred noodles. So, often the soup would have both. It would also have whatever needed using up in the refrigerator, along with stewed tomatoes to bring everything together. I loved to make it spicy with black pepper, a trick I learned from my grandfather. My mother couldn’t stand this habit, because she’d spent so much time balancing the flavours.

While her soup was simple in the sense that it was made with whatever was on hand, it was also complex. It developed slowly, simmering on the back of the stove, with many small additions being made along the way.

My adult life doesn’t include a chest freezer full of containers of soup ready to soothe me when I’m sick. Freezer space in my refrigerator is at a premium (I mean, who doesn’t need to keep the bowl of the ice cream maker ready at all times, just in case?), so a quick cure is a blessing.

A garlicky soup that’s ready in a little over thirty minutes seems like a promising alternative. So what if it’s also full of cheese and egg yolks, they’re there to fortify you. And you can add chicken stock if you like, which has proven curative clout. Anyway, I think food is best for existential ills and cheesy, eggy, garlicky goodness could jolt me out of even my most pessimistic mood.

I didn’t bother to purée my soup – I thought the thin slices of garlic looked quite pretty and they gave the soup an interesting texture. If I were serving it for company, I probably would purée it for presentation’s sake.

This soup took a long time to make it onto the French Fridays schedule, but I don’t think it will be long before I make it again. It’s simple, but it’s also rich and delicious – well worth using your best ingredients to make it shine. And the half recipe I made left me with three egg whites, so I made a Visitandine. Whatever the soup doesn’t cure, the cake surely will.

Try it for yourself – you can find Dorie’s recipe here.

And you can find links to the rest of the French Fridays crew’s posts on this week’s recipe here: Côte d’Azur Cure-All Soup.

FFWD – Marengo As You Like It

March 13, 2015March 13, 2015 ~ Teresa ~ 47 Comments

I don’t like to buy into the idea that there’s anything especially unlucky about Friday the 13th. Our brains make sense of the circumstances that lead up to events by attributing them to luck (good or bad) or fate. We reverse engineer meaning into the car accident that happens on Friday the 13th, though the victims of yesterday and tomorrow’s car crashes would consider themselves just as badly off.

But I do embrace the feelings that good fortune brings, even if they are the product of chance. And I have to say that I feel very lucky that when I began thinking about blogging, in order to begin a regular writing practice and to celebrate community wherever I found it, I saw an article that mentioned a blogging group that was just about to begin.

That group was French Fridays with Dorie and now, more than four years later, we’re counting down the last ten recipes in Around My French Table. I’m hopelessly behind, of course, with about twenty recipes in my “catch up” file, but I started this journey on October 1, 2010 – the very first French Friday.

And now we’re in the home stretch, I’m going to try to keep up for the final ten recipes. This week, we’ve got a classic, Veal Marengo. I don’t eat veal, so I used some really beautiful beef, instead.

I quartered the recipe, since M. Kevin was having his favourite vegan, gluten-free pizza for dinner and I’d be eating this alone. Since it was such a small amount, I used cognac in place of wine, with a bit of water. I was also lucky enough to find some beautiful baby cipollini onions, which were perfect in this dish.

I made this in my dutch oven and it worked well, but this recipe is making me wish that I had a good, oven-going skillet with a lid. (I’ve got a great cast iron pan, but it is lidless and a little small, even for a quarter recipe.)

This felt like too indulgently elegant a dish to be eating on my own. In future, I’ll make it for a crowd. On second thought, it was easy enough to make that I may treat myself to another quarter batch again, when I feel in need of a treat. Or, if I want to feel lucky.

You can find links to the rest of the French Fridays crew’s posts on this week’s recipe here: Veal Marengo.

FFWD – Chicken Couscous

February 15, 2015February 15, 2015 ~ Teresa ~ 26 Comments

I have an electric wok, which was one of the first presents I got when I moved out of my parents’ home. I have it still and it’s always been a welcome addition to any household I’ve been a part of, save for one.

As I was moving into one of the countless shared apartment situations that make up young adulthood, my roommate seized upon the wok as the funniest object I owned. Apparently, her ex had been given one, and after getting rid of it as quickly as possible, made it into a running joke about déclassé appliances.

Well, maybe there’s no place for an electric wok in the vast suburban kitchens we grew up with, but in the tiny urban apartments of our present, I loved it. I’ve never used it for stir-frying, though it would work perfectly well. For me, it was just the thing for a party.

I loved throwing buffet-style potluck dinners and my stovetop and oven would be full of dishes simmering, stewing, baking, and steaming. The wok would be over on the dining room table, filled with Anne Lindsay’s Moroccan Chicken Stew or a fish stew from the same cookbook, happily simmering unattended.

I used to make the same stew in vast quantities when I was one of the only ones in my university crowd who knew how to cook. It would keep us all going for a week, and when the chicken ran out, I’d sauté cubes of tofu in the same spices and add them to the pot. At the end of the week, if there was any broth left over, I’d use it as the base of a clean-out-the-fridge soup.

This week’s recipe put me in mind of that stew, just as Dorie’s Lamb and Dried Apricot Tagine did a few months ago. Her take on these flavours includes harissa, which wasn’t on my radar way back then, but brings a welcome heat. I also enjoyed the turnips in this dish, instead of the sweet potatoes that I’d usually reach for with these spices.

I often add dried apricots or currants to a dish like this, but am out of both, so instead stirred in a small spoonful of apricot jam just before serving. It balanced the flavours almost as well as the fruit would have done. It also added another lovely note to the stew’s aroma, which included hints of saffron, ginger, and cinnamon, too.

Since it was just me eating this dish, I halved the recipe and made couscous to go with it. I’ll still be eating my way through the leftovers for a day or two, which is okay, since the flavour keeps improving with time. I won’t be stretching it out with tofu, though. I think I’ll save that for a vegan version I can eat with Kevin, and serve it with quinoa.

Though I didn’t need it this week, I’m hanging onto my electric wok, in anticipation of gatherings to come. And for the record, I’m also awfully fond of my stand alone steamer.

You can find links to the rest of the French Fridays crew’s posts on this week’s recipe here: Chicken Couscous.

FFWD – Croquants

January 30, 2015January 31, 2015 ~ Teresa ~ 16 Comments

Hello Doristas – I’ve missed you! I can’t believe this is my first French Fridays post since the beginning of the month, but it’s been hectic around here.

This week’s recipe is one of my favourite sweet treats from this book, one that I’ve made often when I’ve had extra egg whites in the kitchen. (Although its place as my favourite egg-white-using dessert may now have been usurped by Dorie’s Cranberry Crackle Tart.)

I’ve even made these cookies when I didn’t have egg whites to use up, which reminds me – I’d love it if cookbooks had an index section for egg yolk recipes, as well as one for egg white recipes. Pavlova lovers will agree with me, I’m sure.

I love croquants with any kind of nuts, but my favourite version uses a mix of different nuts – our co-op sells a ‘fancy nut mix’ that’s perfect for these cookies. I’ve tried them with unsalted nuts, but found the cookies were then too sweet, so I stick with salted nuts now.

These cookies are perfect with a cup of tea and keep quite well in a cookie tin. I brought a big batch of these to a training a few months back and the Chair took the leftovers home, as we had another meeting scheduled for the next night. He showed up to that meeting empty-handed, explaining that “a couple of friends dropped by last night and, uh, we ate all the cookies.”

I think that’s a ringing endorsement.

You can find David Lebovitz’ version of croquants here (or even better, you can get yourself a copy of Around My French Table). And you can find links to the rest of the French Fridays crew’s posts on this week’s recipe here: Croquants.

Cottage Cooking Club – December 2014

January 6, 2015 ~ Teresa ~ 7 Comments

One last hurrah from the year that has passed, with some deeply warming winter dishes that were a contrast from the frivolity of much of the holiday food we consumed all month. It’s the time of year for drinking endless cups of tea and thinking about healthy winter eating. These two dishes are great examples of vegan choices that will warm and nourish you.

Curried Sweet Potato Soup

This soup was quick and simple, perfect for a month in which I’d bitten off a little more than I could chew, while trying to fit in all the holiday fun I could manage. I usually think about Thai flavours when I use coconut milk, but this soup reminded me that it is equally wonderful with Indian spices. I skipped the yogurt (to keep it vegan) and the cilantro (because the stuff in the store was wan and unappetizing), instead dipping toast into my bowl. Kevin just ate it straight up and loved it, though he’s usually not a fan of sweet potatoes.

The sharpness of the lime and ginger, the smoothness of the coconut milk and pureed sweet potatoes, and the spiciness of the curry and chiles make for a balanced and delicious soup. There’s also a variation listed for curried red lentil soup. I think that one might be on the agenda soon.

Roasted Roots With Apple and Rosemary

Roasted roots are something I always think I should make more often, so I was glad that this dish was one of the choices. I used carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, and parsnip, but any winter root will do. They are roasted until they are softening and starting to brown, then apple wedges and fresh rosemary are added for the final fifteen minutes or so. The results are as good as a holiday stuffing, but more substantial. It’s meant to be a side, but I ended up making my lunch from the leftovers. I won’t be forgetting about roasted roots for the rest of this winter.

I was also planning on making the Leek risotto with chestnuts, but December just got away from me and there was no more time (nor has there been since). January is going to be another hectic month and then I’m hoping there will be a little breathing room thereafter.

How is your 2015 shaping up so far?

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.