Christmas Cookies!

This weekend was spent inside with a sore knee (yoga injury, if you can believe it), and lots of baking. Both Shane and I had work parties and events coming up, and I somehow felt like making Christmas cookies, which is something I never, ever do.

These are wonderful 'Triple Ginger Cookies' from one of my favorite cookery writers, Heidi Swanson from her blog 101 Cookbooks. The recipe is wonderfully healthy for a cookie (of course, I just used a mixture of all-purpose and whole wheat). These are the perfect size for a discreet gingery hit; they are crisp on the outside and slightly chewy.

These are 'Crisp Chocolate Bites' from the book Cookies by Williams-Sonoma which I borrowed from the library. I added a teaspoon of cayenne to give it a kick. It turned out pretty well, though it could have done with a minute or so less baking. These suckers are surprisingly spicy, but in a nice way.

And now, the classic Mexican Wedding cookie, from the same book (though the recipe is everywhere). These are definitely my favorite - nutty, buttery, and oh so very rich. I don't like a lot of icing sugar, so they look a little plain.

Finally, I made two batches of a sugar cookie recipe from the same book. However, since this recipe calls for a cup and a quarter cup of butter per batch, it is more like a shortbread. Indeed, the cookie cutter shapes I cut out ended up being pretty fragile. So I gave up on that and made really ugly balls / lumps instead.

The batch pictured above have rosemary as a flavouring. This really worked - it didn't taste too herby at all, but the rosemary added a mysterious depth that made you wonder.

The second batch below had the addition of citrus (lemon, orange, lime, kaffir lime leaf). This turned out pretty well, with quite a pronounced aroma.

So...the decorating. This was harder than I anticipated, and I really didn't like working with icing, which really ruins the cookie with sickly sweetness, in my opinion. So I ended up mostly 'painting' on a really transparent, colourful sugar glaze.

All in all, a pretty productive weekend. At least I got the baking urge out of my system!

A Canadian Thanksgiving

Yesterday was Thanksgiving here in Canada, and despite not celebrating it while growing up, it has become one of my favourite holidays. This is, of course, because of the food, and the fact that it is the only time of year that I ever feel like making a big holiday dinner.

As usual, our Thanksgiving was small and celebrated on the Sunday, not the holiday Monday; we invited only a couple of friends (I find making things small greatly alleviates any stress). Strangely, this year was one of  the most relaxing cooking experiences I've ever had for a holiday dinner, partly because I did a lot of cooking before hand.

Sigh. There is something so wonderful about feasting.

We tried the Cheesecloth method of roasting turkey this time, after being inspired by a show on the Food Network.  It's pretty simple:  you soak cheesecloth in a mixture of melted butter and wine, cover it over the turkey, and bake away.  I didn't have any white wine, so we used Apricot ale instead.  The turkey turned out pretty well, with really nice, crispy skin.

Here's the plate: turkey, mash, turkey & ale gravy, ginger & carrot glazed carrot, roasted sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts with bacon & Italian parsley, stuffing with walnut & apple, and homemade cranberry sauce (SO much better than the canned, I promise).

Top that with pumpkin pie, and we were golden.

Hope you Canadians had a great day yesterday!

Some People Like to Fuel Obsession...

So last week was my last week at work. It was sad to say goodbye to everyone, but the goodbyes were pretty sweet, warm and fuzzy.

Mary, Allison and Brenda (who drove all the way to the States!) got me a couple of Fiestaware dishes as a going away present. The bowl is in 'Cobalt', and is a very deep blue. We used it this weekend to hold some glass noodle salad.

The long platter is in the delightful 'Buttercup'. It is perfectly in character with the Easter haul I got from work.

Thanks, dear lovelies! I miss you guys!

Sun Soak

Today it's been very rainy and grey, but we have been lucky enough to get some sun in the past few days.

We all enjoy the light and warmth.

Especially this cat.

Dough So Dear

This weekend we had some friends over for dinner, and I made bread, using Jim Lahey's No Knead Bread Recipe that was adapted by Mark Bittman in the NY Times here, or his book How to Cook Everything. The recipe is fool proof, with just four basic ingredients: flour, water, salt and yeast. What makes this recipe so unique and easy is that after you initially mix the ingredients, you just have to let it rest for 18 hours or longer. This helps the bread develop lots of flavor and texture. After the waiting period, all you have to do is shape it and bake it.

Of course, being loosey -goosey with the recipe (something you should never do with baking, they say), I made a few changes....

This is the dough after mixing up flour, salt, water and yeast, and after I've formed it into a ball to rest. The recipe calls for instant yeast, but I only had traditional so I used that instead. Of course, with traditional yeast, you have to proof it in water and a bit of sugar before adding to the flour.

The dough becomes bubbly and very wet after the 24 hour period. As you can see it has more or less doubled in size. What a wonder! It smells really good too, a little like beer.

The yeasty mixture is then dumped onto a floured board, where you shape it. I added some rosemary, sage and thyme to the dough and this point, and gave it a couple of minutes of good kneading. Even though the recipe is a 'no knead' one, I actually like slapping the dough and feeling it under my palms. [note: see the Claire Denis film Nenette et Boni for some dough action]

The dough is sent to rest for a couple of more hours. I followed a few other bakers' advice and set it on parchment paper for easier handling. Heat the oven to 450 degrees with your baking vessel. Then transfer the dough on to the freakin' hot baking dish. This is when the parchment becomes very useful.

Here's where I deviated the most. The recipe calls for baking in a covered dish (preferably a Dutch oven, which is on my most wanted list), but alas, I don't own any appropriate baking dishes with covers. Instead, I baked it, uncovered, in a cast iron frying pan. To achieve a crunchy, chewy crust, I spritzed some water in the oven every 10 minutes or so.

I must say, the results were wonderful! I'd made this bread many times before, but the bread had never ever risen this much. Was it the traditional yeast? I have no idea. But the bread was a voluminous golden brown creation, with a chewy crust and a fluffy and flavourful interior.

This was quite heavenly all warm and spread with butter.....

Two Recipes from the Wonderful Orangette

# 1 - Chocolate Featherweight Cookies with Walnuts and Cocoa Nibs

Last week I stumbled upon these chocolate cookies from Orangette, and from her gorgeous photos and description of the chewy, dark and chocolatey cookies, I knew I wanted to make them. The cookies are basically flourless, and use only egg whites, icing sugar, and cocoa as the base. I used pecans instead of walnuts, and regretfully omitted the chocolate nibs, which I couldn't get a hold of. The batter is quite runny and the cookie that I ended up making turned out to be flat, pancake-like things, but the taste was out of this world. Fresh from the oven, the cookies had this miraculous crunch to them, and when they cooled, a chewy chocolateness developed. These puppies were basically gone in a day or two.

#2 - The 'Plumble'

I adore baked fruit desserts. They still are dessert, but without that richness or that sickening feeling you get when you've eaten something that's bad for you. I mean, it's fruit, right? There must be something good to it, even though it may contain a barrelful of butter and sugar. And here was the perfect recipe for plum crumble (or as Shane says, "Plumble") from Orangette (you order this from her new restaurant Delancey in Seattle, by the way).

When my mother-in-law visited I wanted to make this simple recipe, since it basically consisted of cutting up plum and making the topping. I didn't have the Italian plums that were demanded of in the recipe, so I used black plums instead. It turned out to be a great sucess. There was a crunchy, almost cookie-like crust, and the wonderfully not too sweet plums. This went great with ice cream!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our family is scattered all around Canada and overseas, so Thanksgiving dinner ended up just being Shane, my mom and me.

The turkey was missing a wing, so the turkey was a little out of balance during cooking. It was a small bird (this is post removal of one leg). But it was juicy and succulent!

Turkey Platter

For the sides, there was mashed potato, stuffing (from a box!), gravy, brussel sprouts with bacon and pecan, baked yam and sweet potato with butter and honey. Shane made the cranberry sauce, which is so easy and tastes so much better than the canned.

The plate

For dessert, I made "Super Apple Cake" It was really easy and filled with apples. Crunchy crust and soft apple layers. We had this with ice cream.

Hope everyone else has had a delicous weekend!

Chocolate Goodness

Recently I was in the mood for baking, and so I made a regular standby, Vegan Chocolate Cake. If you've never made this cake before, it is a revelation. It's light, moist, and chocolately, all without the aid of eggs or dairy.

Try it!

Cake for Cherry Times

A few weeks ago I ran across this buttermilk cake on this blog, and I thought the cake looked spectacular and easy to make. Yesterday we bought 3 bags of cherries and thought, why not today? I bought buttermilk for the first time too--it is a weird substance. Since my husband was sick, I thought I'd do something nice for him (I made him chicken soup from scratch too!). The cake recipe is here.

I reduced the sugar a bit, since I'm not too fond of overly sweet cakes. And I added a whole loadful of cherries. Here it is before it went into the oven.

And out of the oven it comes. I like how brown it got and how much it seemed to have risen. The sugar on top gave it a nice, crackly crunch.

The cake turned out to be very light, fluffy, and intensely good-looking. The cherries were a great touch in it. I imagine it would be equally delicious with blueberries, also in season!

First Bento

One of my favorite recent discoveries are Bento Boxes for lunches. They are compact, cute, and a great way to save lunch money. It also provides a great method for portion control. Probably the best website out there is Just Bento, which has great tips about getting started, pictures of delicious bento boxes, and recipes. There is also a flickr group for bento boxed lunches.

This is my first bento lunch. It's brown rice with spinach cooked with sorrel on the bottom tier, and on the top tier there's baked tofu with sesame and blanched broccoli. I cooked the night before. Ther's something about eating and cooking healthy food--it makes you feel so good.

Oh yeh, I showed my co-worker's my bento box and I think I've converted them as well. They're planning to visit Daiso this weekend!

First of the Morning

I usually get up pretty early for work, but I rarely have time for a nice breakfast. But today I had blueberries with vanilla yoghurt, a couple of mini banana blueberry whole wheat muffins I baked last night, and orange juice.

It was lovely.

The Keep Yourself Warm Scarf

A few days ago we had a couple of friends over for lunch. They had just returned from a year in South Africa and were preparing to do a post-doc in Nova Scotia, so this was their going away meal. On the menu was:

- Mushroom and vermicelli soup (featuring Cloud Ear, Shitake, Enoki, King Oyster and Oyster type mushrooms in a clear chicken broth)

- Turkey meatballs (flavored with Bai Krapow, or Thai Holy Basil, Ginger, Garlic, Shallots, and Nam Pla, or Fish Sauce)

- Thai red curry (with Kabocha squash, button mushrooms, zucchini, and snap peas)

- Cucumber, Tomato and Mint salad

- Steamed Thai Jasmine rice

- Marlborough Apple Pie

- Lemon Pound cake (they had brought this from Solly’s Bagelry in Kits)

I hadn’t cooked this much food in a long time, so it was pretty good to exercise those culinary muscles. Everything turned out well. I especially like the addition of the squash to the curry, because it lent the spicy sauce a mellow sweetness. And while the Bai Krapow is usually used stir-fried with a meat (like Pad Krapow, a really popular Thai dish), it worked well in the meatballs. I just wish the Bai Krapow is more readily available in the Van area!

For our friends' going away presents I gave them two wool scarves, as they were heading east to harsher winters. T. got the Noro scarf, M. got a blue-green scarf that I had just finished knitting that very day (so no blocking for this one).

Details:

Yarn: Berroco Ultra Alpaca (50% Super Fine Alpaca, 50% Peruvian Highland Wool) This one is soft and thick and easy on the hands. Very durable too—I must have done this scarf 2-3 times over. The scarf look 1 ¼ balls, so I have enough left over for a hat or something….

Pattern: This is a really good stitch with beautiful drape. Slip first stitch, yo & k2tog, repeat, knit last stitch. It creates a uniform mesh-like pattern with lots of movement and drape.

Result: A soft scarf to wrap yourself in on cold blustery days. I would recommend garter stitch ends as the bottom part ended up curling a bit. I made a huge mistake in this one (a BIG hole in the stitch), but I used extra wool to patch it up when I was done.