Coconut Friands

These were the sleeper hit of the season!

I generally tend to have dried coconut around the house - it's wonderful in a lot of baked goods, perks up a bowl of oatmeal, and makes a nifty sambal or chutney. A spoonful in a choco-banana smoothie almost turns a breakfast beverage into a party single handedly.

For all of that, I don't often feature coconut in all of its glory all that often. Sure, I've made the odd macaroon in my day, who hasn't? People like coconut macaroons. But! I suspect that people would probably like coconut friands even better.

I found this recipe on the delightful Girl Cooks World blog, where she subtitles them "little coconut tea cakes", which is a very good description to highlight the differences between friands and macaroons. She also differentiates them from the potentially related financiers, for which she also has a few recipes (and boy, they look good!).

These are gluten free (Girl Cooks World is quietly, entirely gluten free), which makes them an excellent treat to take to festive occasions where such bounty might be thin on the ground. Your gluten-free friends will be delighted, and so will anyone else who tries them. I halved the recipe, with excellent results (as listed below), but you can certainly "double" it again to get 24 lovely little cakes. Don't worry, they won't have a chance to get stale.

Coconut Friands

Makes 12 mini tea cakes

2 large egg whites
3/4 cup finely shredded unsweetened dried coconut
1/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons superfine rice flour
1 1/2 tablespoons potato starch
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
4 tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat your oven to 350 F. Spritz a 12-whole mini muffin tin with cooking spray, generously. Set aside.

Whip the egg whites until smooth and frothy, but not stiff. Add each of the remaining ingredients, in order, stirring well with a spatula between each addition.

Divide the batter between the muffin-cups. Bake for 17 - 20 minutes, or until the edges are tinged with gold. Remove from the oven, and carefully invert over a rack. A quick tap on the bottom of the pan should remove any stragglers, or you can use a little fork to help lift them out. Re-arrange so they are all right-side-up, and allow to cool at room temperature. Dust with confectioner's sugar, if you like.

Excellent, hot or cold.

Next time I make these, I plan to add a little lime zest in with the sugar. Doesn't that sound delightful?

Smoked Tuna Skillet Dinner

I didn't grow up with tuna noodle casserole. My mother didn't buy canned fish, and the only pasta casserole that she made was a (delicious) baked spaghetti. I was highly sensitive to fish when I was young, we considered an allergy even though it wasn't a true anaphylactic risk. It was fairly unpleasant, and when the rest of the family was having fish, I usually had a fried egg instead. Also, I hated peas with the fiery intensity of a thousand suns. I'm over both of those things now, but you can only imagine how shocked my poor mom would be, if she could see me making this dish.

The beauty of not having a childhood tradition to draw on for tuna + noodles is that I don't have any sense of nostalgia forcing my hand in terms of specific ingredients, methodology or presentation in order to get it "right." I just get to mess around with some tasty food, and share the results with you.

This is a grown-up sort of skillet dinner - the smoked tuna is quite strong, so you don't need as much of it as some other recipes might suggest. If you can't get smoked tuna, you may wish to use a little extra of the regular kind, and perhaps add a drop or two of liquid smoke to get a similar effect. This recipe was adapted from Eating Well.

Smoked Tuna Skillet Dinner

Serves 4

200 g broad German egg noodles
1 tablespoon butter
1 medium yellow onion, diced small
100 grams cremini mushrooms
2 teaspoons Mushroom Base (I use Better than Bouillon)
2 tablespoons dry Sherry
1 1/2 tablespoons all purpose flour
3 cups 1% Milk
pinch salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
160 grams Smoked Albacore Tuna
1 cup frozen green peas
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons Panko-style bread crumbs

Position rack in upper third of oven and preheat broiler.

Meanwhile, heat butter in a large ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion, mushrooms and a pinch of salt and cook, stirring often, until the onion is softened. Add sherry and cook and stir until evaporated. Shake together the milk and flour until smooth. Add milk and pepper and bring to a simmer, stirring constantly. Then, stir in the dry noodles, along with an extra cup of hot water (the pan will be very full). Cook and stir until the noodles have absorbed the extra water, and are tender, and the sauce has thickened. If it starts looking too dry, add a little more water, a couple of tablespoons at a time. Stir in tuna (broken into small chunks), peas and 1/2 the Parmesan until evenly incorporated.

Sprinkle the casserole with panko and the remaining Parmesan. Broil until bubbly and lightly browned on top, 3 to 4 minutes. The broiler does dry the dish out a bit more (the one pictured is actually a little drier than I wanted it to be), so if you think it's just right going in...keep a close eye on it, or add an "insurance" tablespoon of water to loosen thing up.

There's not a lot of vegetables in this, obviously, so a nice broccoli on the side is a good idea (or tossed green salad, or other tasty plant of your choice).

Pork Breakfast Sausage

We wanted to have breakfast in, today. However, it was already quite late, and while we had eggs, we had no bread-stuffs (not even tortillas!), no potatoes, no bacon or sausage, and no mushrooms or tomatoes to grill. We had eggs and cheese, but nothing else to round out into omelettes, for example. Last week's "clean the fridge" efforts had been a little too effective.

However, all was not lost! On my way home last night I impulse-purchased a package of fresh ground pork. Because that's the kind of impulse-buying I do - not candy, not chips, oh no. I buy raw meat. And sometimes broccoli, but that's a different story.

We live close to a lovely Italian bakery, so I sent Palle out for bread (to serve as a toast raft for scrambled eggs, as you can see from the picture). While he was gone, I put the coffee on and started mixing up some homemade sausage. It didn't take long at all, and I had a nice ball of sausage meat ready for shaping and cooking when he arrived with a fresh loaf of Tuscan bread.

These have a fairly pronounced fennel flavour - if you do not want fennel to be quite so prominent, reduce the fennel seeds to 1/4 teaspoon. If you are aiming for a spicy sausage, add a 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne (depending on the level of heat that you want), and a big pinch of chile flakes to your spice mixture.

If you are watching your sodium, you might want to cut the kosher salt back to 3/4 teaspoon, but these are already lower in sodium than many sausages on the market.

Pork Breakfast Sausage

Makes six patties, or 9 sausages (about 3 servings)

500 g medium ground pork
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon sweet paprika
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 teaspoon granulated onion
1 teaspoon black peppercorns

Combine the salt, paprika, fennel, granulated onion, and peppercorns in a spice grinder (or molcajete) and grind until fairly smooth (if you like a bit of bite from your fennel and black pepper, stop grinding sooner, so that there are chunky bits). Combine spice mixture with the ground pork, mixing well with your fingers to get it all worked through. The paprika will slightly darken the overall colour of the meat.

You can use this right away (as I did this morning), but it would be even better to make it up the night before, and let the flavours combine in the fridge overnight.

Divide into six pieces, flatten into patties (or roll into sausage shapes) and fry in a medium-hot skillet until cooked through, turning as needed to get a nice golden-brown colour over the whole surface.

So there you have it! Rather simple, and easily made even before the coffee has brewed: delicious sausage without preservatives or bread fillers, just pork and flavour.

We were pretty excited by how well the sausage turned out, and are already plotting and scheming future sausage endeavours. I am planning to make some up for the freezer - after all, sausage is good to have on hand: pizza, pasta, sausage & potato dinners, and skillet dinners of all kinds, as well as the breakfast applications. I think I might make some up as meatballs, too - can you visualize a sausage meatball breakfast platter? I'm getting hungry again just thinking about it!

Couscous with Lemon & Mint

This works as either a cold salad or as a hot side dish (add some chickpeas either way, to make it a main-course in itself). It is both very easy to make, and very quick. As you can imagine, the lemon and mint flavours conjure the mediterranean climate, so let that be your guide for choosing something to serve with it - a nice Greek salad, perhaps, or some falafel patties, or perhaps a braised lamb shank or a merguez tagine. Its low effort requirement make it perfect for either summer nights when you don't feel much like cooking (or turning on the stove), or as a last-minute way to round out a bit of leftover stew that seemed smaller than you remembered when you pulled it out of the freezer.

I recommend using any bell pepper except green, here. The red, orange, and yellow peppers are much sweeter, and complement the flavours of the mint and lemon. The green bell pepper would impart a more bitter, vegetal flavour - not necessarily a disaster, of course, but less harmonious for the dish overall.

Couscous with Lemon & Mint
Serves 4

1 cup coarse dry couscous (not Israeli style)
1 yellow bell pepper (or other sweet pepper), finely diced
1 green onion, finely sliced (white and green)
1 lemon, zest and juice
1 - 2 tablespoons good olive oil
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup fresh mint chiffonade
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 1/4 cups boiling water

You need to make this dish in a container with a tight fitting lid - you can either use a metal saucepan (heat the water, remove from heat, add the salt, sprinkle the couscous evenly over the surface, cover, wait), or a ceramic or tempered glass bowl with a lid (heat the water separately, pour into bowl, etc.) but if your lid is not tight-fitting, you may want to drape a heavy kitchen towel over the top. Make sure you allow room for the couscous to expand - allow at least four times as much room as couscous.

Whichever method you choose, prepare the couscous and let it stand, covered well, for about ten minutes, while you prepare your lemon, mint, green onion, and bell pepper.

Combine the lemon juice, zest, olive oil, and cumin, and whisk together as if you were making a vinaigrette. Place the chopped bell pepper into a serving bowl with the sliced green onion, and pour half of the vinaigrette over top. Prepare the mint chiffonade and set aside. When the couscous is ready, remove the lid and fluff carefully with a fork - be patient, and scrape the tines of the fork over the surface, going increasingly deeper, until you have loosened all of it. Add the fluffed up couscous to the serving bowl, and pour in the rest of the vinaigrette. Stir with a fork to combine thoroughly, letting the couscous soak up the liquid from the lemony dressing. Stir in the mint, and serve (hot), or chill for an hour or so to serve as a cold salad.

This dish is tasty whether you are eating it hot, warm, room temperature, or cold. If you are going to add chickpeas, add one cup of cooked (drained) chickpeas to the bell peppers and vinaigrette, tossing well to coat. If you are intending to serve the dish hot, you may want to heat the chickpeas up first.

I love having leftovers of this for my lunch - it packs really well, because the couscous absorbs all of the liquid, making for easy, mess-free transportation.

Smothered Perogy Skillet Dinner

Aaaaand this is barely a recipe, I know, but the rain has finally started here, and this easy, tasty dish feels oh-so-autumnal. Essentially, this is just a tweaked version of my all-purpose smothering sauce (mostly used for pork chops) re-purposed for perogies. For the hardcore and badass, or (badcore and hardass), make your own perogies (and wieners!) from scratch. Feel better? And then send me a picture, please! You can substitute kielbasa/kobasa for the european wieners if you like.

Smothered Perogy Skillet Dinner
Serves two greedy people

3 European wieners, sliced into chunky coins
18 bite-sized perogies, any filling you like (I used potato/cheddar/onion)
1 cup diced onion
1 tablespoon butter
3/4 cup Mediterranee yoghurt (plain)
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
2 tablespoons unbleached flour
3/4 to 1 cup chicken or mushroom stock/broth (at room temperature)

Saute the onions in the butter in a large skillet. Add the wieners and stir and saute until they pick up some colour. Lay the perogies (still frozen is fine) in a single layer throughout the pan.

Combine the yoghurt, mustard, flour, and stock (whisking really well) in a measuring cup, blending until smooth. Pour the sauce over the perogies and wieners, turn the heat to low (or move to an oven at 325F) and cook (covered) for 25 minutes. Stirring occasionally if you are going the stovetop route helps you keep an eye on the liquid level - if it's thickening too much, and not looking "saucy", just add a little water, a couple of tablespoons at a time, and stir it through. Fork-test a perogy (they should be tender), and dish up with plenty of black pepper.

We served this with a big tossed salad chock full of vegetables, to compensate for the lack thereof in the recipe.

Not a fan of wieners OR kielbasa? Fat slices of mushroom would be a great vegetarian switch-out.