Sucre à la Crème

December 28, 2011December 12, 2013 ~ Teresa ~ 4 Comments

I just returned from a lovely visit with a couple of friends this afternoon. I gave them each some sucre à la crème, as one is Québécoise and the other is Scottish and misses having tablet (a very similar confection). We talked about having a little get together so that I could teach them how to make it – it’s much easier than telling, especially since in my family’s tradition there are no candy thermometers involved. I spoke to my mother about it and as it happens, she’s been looking up resources on the internet since we made our last batch. The recipes vary widely and the methods are very different, too. In our family, we use heavy-bottomed soup pots when we make this candy, but most of the videos we found show smaller pots being used. The consistency varies a lot, too, especially when maple syrup or corn syrup are used.

Here are two videos that can give you an idea of how sucre à la crème is made, though the method is a little different than the one we use. They’re both in French, though Ricardo has English recipe resources out there, too. Madame Quintin is the perfect French-Canadian Mémère, don’t you think?

I might have to make a video of my mother making her version. Maybe in time for next Christmas.

A French Fridays Catch Up: Matafan and Chard-Stuffed Pork Roast

December 27, 2011May 4, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 6 Comments

The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day is often one full of leftovers and small pleasures. One of my favourite things to do this week is the Globe and Mail’s holiday crossword. Amidst the year-end lists and celebrity tributes, it’s also a good week for reflection on what’s past and what’s to come.

One of the things I’ve enjoyed most this year has been participating in French Fridays and I’m looking forward to reading what the new year brings to all the group’s participants. I also have a bit of catching up to do with this month’s recipes. The two dishes I’m writing about today went together very well and might make a lovely New Year’s Eve supper.

Matafan are traditionally a mid-morning snack (or possibly even part of Second Breakfast, if you happen to be a Hobbit). Dorie describes them as “fluffy mashed potato pancakes” and they are exactly that. I used them as the starch at dinner when I served pork roast as the main. They soaked up the pan juices nicely and stood up well to the roast and its stuffing. The hardest part of making these for me was pushing the baked potato through a sieve, as we couldn’t locate my mother’s ricer. I only used one potato; my father had grown a variety that got quite big and I found one that was easily 1 1/2 pounds. Once I’d finished with the potato, the rest was easy. The batter takes four eggs in total, but two are separated and the whites are beaten stiffly and added after the whole eggs and yolk are incorporated. Riced potatoes and whipped egg whites bring the fluffiness to the batter.

As I cooked the matafan on the stove top, the pork roast was in the oven. The recipe calls for pork loin roast, but I used a shoulder and it seemed to work just as well. My knife skills have improved quite a bit since working through the recipes in Around My French Table, as anyone who participated in our spatchcocking adventure would agree. The meat is sliced almost through along its length and a stuffing of sauteed chard, garlic and onion, raisins (dried blueberries in my case), and red pepper flakes is placed inside, as though between the pages of a book. The whole thing is tied with kitchen twine and the pork is rubbed with olive oil, salt, crushed peppercorns, and crushed coriander seeds. It doesn’t take long to cook in a moderately hot oven – the resting time is nearly as long as the roasting time. It’s a tender roast that picks up the flavours of both the stuffing and the coating. It also looks lovely on the table. Unfortunately, my photo doesn’t do it justice. Sometimes, the hardest part of this group is taking decent photos before taking a dish to table. Sometimes, I just don’t want to keep dinner waiting. C’est la vie.

I hope that your reflections on the year that’s soon to end and the one that’s just around the corner are satisfying and full of hope in turn.

You can find many other blogged descriptions of these recipes here: Chard-Stuffed Pork Roast and Matafan

A Very Merry Christmas

December 25, 2011May 9, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 10 Comments

I hope you’re having a peaceful, happy day today.

I’d like to share the recipe for one of my favourite Christmas treats – sucre à la crème. When I was growing up, my mother and I would make trays and trays of desserts for the big family Christmas meal my parents used to host, along with their Boxing Day open house. Cookies, squares, cakes, and candies, but of them all, we looked forward to sucre à la crème the most, especially if we were lucky enough to have a batch from one of my mother’s aunts back in Manitoba.

My mother is French-Canadian, but her family comes from the francophone communities anchored by St. Boniface. Our Christmas meals have always reflected this and it just wouldn’t be the same if we didn’t have tourtière, boulettes, and sucre à la crème. We’ve even occasionally had a réveillon after Midnight Mass, with goose, then had an anglophone Christmas dinner with my father’s Irish family in the evening.

Sucre à la crème is a sort of fudge, but it’s nothing like what you’d find in a candy store or market stand. It’s a simple affair of sugar and cream (obviously), versions of which pop up around the world. In Scotland, they’ve got tablet, in Mexico there’s dulce de leche, Italy has penuche, and India has burfi. There are probably tonnes of other examples, too.
The Québécois version uses maple sugar, but those trees are a little rarer on the Prairies, so my family’s recipes use mostly brown sugar. My mother’s aunts were famous for their versions, though my Tante Pauline’s was undisputedly the best, with my Tante Leona’s coming a close second. My mother and I went through their recipes for sucre à la crème recently and realized that they were all a little different and that the versions evolved over the years. When I was a teenager, I learned to make it with two cups of brown sugar, one cup of whipping cream, and a teaspoon of vanilla. When we were looking at the other recipes my mother has, this was what we found:

Tante Pauline’s Version

2 cups brown sugar (1/2 c white)
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla
walnuts

Sauce

1 cup brown sugar
1 cup whipping cream

Tante Leona’s Version

3 cups brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 cups whipping cream

Mom’s Version

2 cups brown sugar (1/2 c white)
1 1/4 cups whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla

In all cases, combine the sugar and whipping cream, whisk together until well-blended and cook over medium-low heat, stirring often, until the mixture sugars the spoon (a metal one is best) and forms a ball when dropped into a dish of cold water. Remove from heat and stir vigourously, adding the vanilla when the candy is just beginning to stiffen. When the scrapings are becoming solid, it’s time to pour the candy into a buttered square pan. Chill in the fridge for several hours or overnight, then cut into small squares. It keeps for a week in the fridge or several months in the freezer.

I lost my sucre à la crème making mojo for a few years; for some reason I just couldn’t get it to set. When I went to my mother’s house this year, we made three batches, using my mother’s recipe. All but one was perfect and the imperfect one wasn’t bad. I think what made the difference was the two of us working together, just as we did when I was a child.

What are your favourite holiday traditions?

It’s That Time of Year

November 29, 2011May 4, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 3 Comments

The day after next, I can officially begin listening to Christmas carols. I like to wait until December, so the season doesn’t lose its shine too quickly. I like the standards and traditional songs, especially Medieval carols, and I also have a soft spot for Vince Guaraldi Trio’s A Charlie Brown Christmas. I’m especially looking forward to pulling out Susan McKeown and Lindsey Horner’s Through the Bitter Frost and Snow and Nativité by Vancouver choral group Musica Intima. Sadly, I think I’ve lost my copy of the Chieftains’ Christmas album, but I’ve got enough music to get me through the month.

My favourite part of this season is getting together with some folks, baking holiday cookies and squares. I also love visiting craft fairs and seeing what the independent stores around Vancouver have to offer. I don’t like the way consumer culture goes into hyper drive at this time of year, though. I most admire those who take the time to find or make meaningful gifts, without getting carried away by quantity or expense. The Kitchn is always a good resource for homemade gift ideas, but there are tonnes of others, too.

For Vancouverites, the holiday craft fair season starts with Make It, a huge four-day craft show. I was lucky enough to score tickets, courtesy of the Bee Vancity crew, and the photos you see were taken there. Got Craft? has put together a quite comprehensive list of upcoming craft fairs and sales that should take care of just about anyone’s shopping list. Local, unusual, and often sustainable – this sort of gift-shopping can be an antidote to the corporate Christmas model.

I don’t take it for granted that the yearly love affair with Christmas traditions is universal, though. Something I never fail to do each year is to be mindful of the fact that not everyone celebrates Christmas, or participates in winter celebrations the way that I do. A little mindfulness is one of my traditions, too.

Now tell me, what does December hold for you?

FFWD – My Go-to Beef Daube (and a Happy New Year)

December 31, 2010January 1, 2011 ~ Teresa ~ 14 Comments

As I’m typing this, the beef daube is braising in the oven and I’m preparing peppermint patties and vegan truffles for a potluck we’re going to tonight. We’re ringing in the new year by meditating with my partner’s Buddhist sangha, D.I.Y. Dharma.

For me, it’s been a year of change, commitment and renewed creativity. It’s also been a year of profound losses.

My intentions for 2011 include solidifying my life’s path, while really seeing and valuing the people in my life. I hope 2011 brings you a full share of joy with your life’s challenges.

I’ll leave you with a few photos of the Beef Daube, since this is French Friday, after all. I’ll let you know how we liked it in the comments, tomorrow.

Happy New Year!

We’re doing things a little differently again for the month of December. We’re still posting weekly, but people are free to post this month’s recipes in any order. You can find many other blogged descriptions of this month’s FFWD recipes here: LYL: December 31

Holidaying on Main Street

December 21, 2010May 4, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 3 Comments

After Saturday’s Baking Swap, I took my haul (including some beautiful squash and beets I’d picked up) and headed down Main Street. The stretch of Main between about 8th and 30th is full of eclectic stores, good coffee shops and excellent restaurants. There were holiday craft fairs at Little Mountain Studios and Heritage Hall and the shops along Main were full of present-worthy goods. I had something else in mind, though.

There’s a wonderful tearoom called Shaktea at 21st and Main and the chilly, damp day was making me crave a good cup of tea. (Those who know me will know that there is very little that doesn’t make me crave a good cup of tea, but it would not be kind of them to mention that.) I decided that I would indulge myself there for a break from shopping. I ordered a cup of their holiday tea, a black tea with winter spices, citrus and rose petals. Many winter or holiday spiced teas can be a little overpowering. This tea, though, was flavourful and fragrant, with just the right balance between the spices and the tea itself.

There were two harpists playing while I was there and I got to hear Greensleeves, one of my favourite traditional tunes. The tea, the music and the cosily appointed room all worked to make me feel relaxed and invigorated at the same time. If I hadn’t had to go meet my partner, I’d have had difficulty leaving. I consoled myself by buying a bag of holiday tea to take home and went on my way.

After some record shopping at Red Cat and more craft fair browsing, it was finally time for a meal. My partner and I chose Burgoo, a restaurant specializing in comfort food and a perfect choice for an increasingly cold and rainy day. Burgoo’s interior reminds me of a quaint English pub. Some of its menu would fit into that category, too. The rest is a selection of comfort food from around the world. My partner chose butter chicken, which he said was a healthier version of the traditional dish. The chicken was tender and the sauce was tasty and light, lacking the rich creaminess he’s come to expect elsewhere. I had the split pea soup with the ham and brie sandwich. The soup was fantastic, tasting of thyme and ham and with a chunkier texture than many versions I’ve tried. The sandwich was good, but I wish the brie had been warm and melty, rather than cold. It would have been perfect, then.

I have to admit that we went home that day without finishing our Christmas shopping, but I’ll be back on Main again this week, with a little more focus and a little less indulgence.

In the meantime, here’s a short round up of a few of the places you ought to get to know, if you’ve still got some names left on your list:

The Regional Assembly of Text
Urban Source
Front
Lucky’s Comics
Pulp Fiction
Three Bags Full
Bodacious

FFWD – Speculoos

December 19, 2010May 4, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 10 Comments

At Christmas time, I invariably end up on Main Street. It’s my favourite street for gift-shopping. If truth be told, it’s also my favourite street for breaks and meals pre, mid and post gift-shopping. On Saturday, I had an extra incentive for heading out that way. The Winter Farmers’ Market had their first-ever baking exchange and I had the perfect recipe: Dorie Greenspan’s Speculoos.

I started the recipe Friday night, making the dough and chilling it overnight. The dough was a little crumbly when I was rolling it out, but by morning it was easy to handle. I worked quickly to cut out shapes and get them onto the pan, before the dough softened too much. When the cookies came out of the oven, I sprinkled them with sanding sugar. The best part, though, was testing one. I was so surprised at the crispness of the cookie. I never really expected it to measure up to the crunch of its commercial cousins. Other recipes I’ve tried were never more than crisp-ish. These would be perfect with coffee, especially if you indulged in a little dipping. I can also see the appeal of turning them into sandwich cookies with nutella or dulce de leche filling.

I only needed two dozen cookies for the swap, so I packaged them quickly (using an image I’d found online for the tags) and headed for the Market. I dropped off my cookies and did some shopping while I waited for the swap to begin. Cleverly, the organizer had set up paper bags with participants’ names on them and put our cookies inside. Since we’d all brought two packages of a dozen cookies, we couldn’t have a sample of each kind. Instead, we were invited to pick two bags, making sure they didn’t have our own names on them. I love the grab bag concept. I was pleased to find myself in possession of Roberta LaQuaglia’s Cherry Cornmeal Cookies and Jennifer Zuk’s Chocolate Oatmeal Maraschino Cookies. I’ve tasted them both and can attest that they are delicious. The rest are earmarked for holiday celebrations. Thanks to Robyn Carlson of the Market for organizing the swap – I’m already looking forward to next year’s!

On Tuesday, I’ll let you know what I got up to after the swap as I headed down Main Street.

Cinnamon-Cardamom Rice Pudding with Honeyed Rosewater Sauce

November 19, 2010May 9, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 19 Comments

I’ve mentioned before that eating out can be challenging for people with celiac disease. But it’s not only restaurants where you might run into problems. Eating at the homes of your friends and family can be tricky, too. It’s hard enough to keep a house gluten-free when someone with celiac disease lives there.

Even when you’ve explained what needs to be avoided, there can be gaps in communication. One friend told me that she’d arranged to go to someone else’s home for dinner and had several phone conversations about her food restrictions, including her gluten-intolerance. My friend is a very thorough and clear communicator. She was assured that her host had educated herself on avoiding gluten and that she had nothing to worry about. During the meal, my friend asked again, just to be sure, and was told that there was definitely no gluten in any of the dishes. When they’d finished, the host turned to my friend and told her that she’d been sure to use only whole wheat flour in the gravy, as she understood that my friend couldn’t have processed white flour. Several days of illness followed.

These sorts of misunderstandings can be compounded when family food traditions are added to the mix. I know that my family’s holiday dinners are very gluten-heavy affairs, from my mother’s delicious gravy to the pies, cookies and cakes for dessert. When my partner comes to these family dinners, adjustments must be made. I’m lucky that my family gets how serious celiac disease can be, since my father’s aunt had it, so the adjustment is painless. That’s not true for many people, though.

Often, the easiest solution for me is to prepare interesting and seasonal dishes that naturally don’t contain gluten. My partner’s not fond of baked goods, anyway, so I get to experiment with other things. This also has the advantage of avoiding complaints from conventional eaters that a modified dish doesn’t taste the way they expect it to taste.

Here’s a recipe for rice pudding that would fit in at any fall or winter celebration. It relies on Middle Eastern flavours, but I added some cranberries and increased the cinnamon for a seasonal flair. You can try other dried or fresh fruits, as well as chopped nuts. Dried apricots and pistachios work well, especially if you concentrate on cardamom as the main spice.

Rice Pudding with Honeyed Rosewater Sauce

Makes eight servings

The rice pudding was inspired by this New York Times article.

The honeyed rosewater sauce was adapted from The Healthy Gourmet Cookbook.

For the Pudding:

3 cups cooked brown rice
4 cups whole milk
¼ to ½ cup organic cane sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. ground cardamom
2 to 3 points star anise
1 tsp. rosewater

Combine rice, milk and sugar and bring to boil, then lower the heat to a simmer. Add rosewater and star anise points. Continue to simmer, stirring occasionally, until thick and the milk has been almost completely absorbed. Many people like to add the spices at the end, but I add them in a little into the simmering time, as it seems to infuse the rice with their flavour more. When it’s done, set it aside to cool a little, then spoon into serving dishes and put those into the refrigerator to chill.

Notes:
The ratio of cooked rice to milk is generally 1 cup rice to 1½ cups milk. I use a little less milk than that when I’m making a big batch. Adjust the other ingredients and cooking time accordingly. I used a scant ¼ cup of sugar, as I was also using the honeyed rosewater sauce. Use sugar to taste. Any sweetener and any milk will work in this recipe, so try it with whatever you’d normally use.

For the Sauce:

2 cups water
¼ cup honey
2 tablespoons rosewater
1 teaspoon lemon (or orange juice, for a sweeter taste)
1 cinnamon stick
2 or three strands of saffron

Bring the water and honey to a boil, then reduce the temperature to a simmer. Add the rosewater, lemon, cinnamon stick and saffron. Simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the mixture has a slightly syrupy texture.

Allow to cool and then chill in the refrigerator.
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To put it together, drizzle a little of the sauce on each serving of pudding and garnish with chopped dried fruits and/or nuts.

I’m adding this recipe to Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef’s recipe round up, which can be found here: Gluten-Free Thanksgiving 2010. They’ve gathered recipes from well-known food bloggers, along with a tonne of recipes from more bloggers in the Comments. So, whether you celebrate Thanksgiving, or have misgivings about its colonialist roots, you should check this out. It’s an amazing resource of recipes for gluten-free celebrations. And your gluten-eating friends and family will be too full to notice. If you contribute a recipe, or even a comment, you’ll also be eligible for some great prizes!

Secret Souls, Public Dreams

November 2, 2010November 1, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 8 Comments

The Parade of Lost Souls has been a yearly fixture in my neighbourhood since the mid-90’s. Public Dreams Society created an event that mixed Mexican Day of the Dead traditions with Celtic Samhain rituals, throwing in Hallowe’en costumes and a circus aesthetic for good measure. In the beginning, it was almost a neighbourhood secret, with artists and queers, students and stilt walkers proclaiming our difference from the rest of the city. In those days, the Drive was the also the home of Vancouver’s Fringe Festival and the Illuminares Lantern Festival (another Public Dreams project). Commercial Drive felt like the seat of countercultural expression, even as we realized that we were really just the harbingers of gentrification. Still, it was exciting to wind our way around the neighbourhood, with decked out houses and alleyways, knowing that new ways of making art (and old ways rediscovered) were being worked out in front of us.

The Parade grew each year, becoming so big that it made the major news reports and more and more people from around Greater Vancouver came to participate. Eventually, the costs for permits, clean up and policing grew to over $100,000.00, while government funding was cut by an estimated 90%. This led to the cancellation of last year’s parade. For a good discussion of the issues around funding cuts to the arts in BC, go here. (Funding cuts to social programs were also deep and devastating.)

This year, Public Dreams revived the parade, in a smaller form that reminds me of its roots. Calling the scaled-down celebration the Secret Souls Walk, Public Dreams didn’t release the route until the day the walk happened, though the accompanying Carnival was advertised earlier.

I was lucky enough to win passes to the preparation workshops for the Walk and was able to attend one of the shrine-making workshops. I decided to make a shrine in honour of my grandparents, as my Grandma died only a few months ago and my Grandpa died the year before.

I’m not an artist. Even my stick figures are almost unidentifiable. So, when I thought about what I wanted to do for my shrine, I just printed out lovely photos of each of my grandparents and hoped that I would find some inspiration at Public Dreams’ studio. I needn’t have worried. The Public Dreams space is like a five-year-old’s ideal craft area. There are materials everywhere, in every shade and texture. Even someone as artistically challenged as I am can fake it there. They’ve also got an amazingly talented cadre of staff and volunteers. The workshops this year were sadly under-attended. If you ever get the chance to go to one, for any of their events, jump at it. Really.

My grandparents met during the Second World War, in England, where my grandfather was stationed and my grandmother was working as a nurse. She was Irish, he was Canadian. He married her and brought her back to Canada. It sounds simple, but it wasn’t. Whose story is? Theirs included a vow to marry a girl spotted through a restaurant window; an injured soldier’s plea to Vincent Massey to allow his Irish Catholic wife to have their child on her home soil, even though the Irish Sea was closed to passage; and a train journey across a continent with a baby born Canadian in Ireland. All stories for another time.

I thought about these things while making my shrine, but what concerned me most was trying to represent them correctly. I played with the idea of making fishing rods and rosaries, cups of tea and cribbage boards, but I knew that no one would know what they were but me. In the end, I tried to make it simple. Two of the strongest themes in their lives were their shared Irish heritage and their devout Catholicism. My grandfather had been raised Anglican, but converted wholeheartedly later in life and church was a constant in their lives.

So, I decided to make a shamrock and a cross, on a background of Kelly green. Not even I could go wrong with that. I cobbled together a structure made of milk cartons and construction paper, pasting their photos at the back with more construction paper for frames. I painted the rest green, made a sort of purple star as a base for the candle holders and hot-glued cord on either side to represent a shamrock and a cross. I made candle holders out of plastic roses and leaves and finished the thing with a strip of crimson netting. I think it turned out all right, mostly because Bridie and Fred were so beautiful in their youth.

I brought the shrine, along with a small Mexican-themed one that I’d made, to the starting point of the Secret Souls walk on Saturday. One of the volunteers at the shrine station told me later that everyone who came by wanted to know about my grandparents and their story. I really want to thank Public Dreams for the opportunity; it’s a very meaningful process and it’s wonderfully healing to honour one’s dead.

My partner and I went on the walk together, which wound through the alleyways above McSpadden Park. There was a carnival atmosphere present, as there has been during past walks, but it was more subdued. We had to go looking for smaller spectacles, rather than being hurtled past larger ones. I really liked this aspect of Secret Souls. Some of the highlights for me: Thriller zombies at Templeton & East 3rd, the court of Queen Victoria, the still, pale ghosts in the alley and the music of various performers wafting across the neighbourhood.

My only complaint is that the steep alleyways aren’t very accessible and I hope that the organizers take this into account for next year. Everyone should have the opportunity to celebrate the death and renewal of the year and the self.

I’ll end with a few pictures. It was impossible to capture everything that was going on, but these will give you a taste. If you like what you see, please consider a donation to Public Dreams, so they can continue producing such beautiful events.