Jamaican Chicken Stew

Still not able to post new photos (soon, I hope!) but I did manage to find an unposted photo that I had stored elsewhere than my computer. This is a dish that I make quite often - it's quick, it depends on staple ingredients from my pantry, and it is delicious. It's also extraordinarily healthy, being both very low-fat and chock-full of antioxidant black beans.

There are a lot of recipes kicking around the web for Jamaican Chicken Stew and I suppose that mine isn't radically different from the others out there, but I do prefer it with my own little adjustments. I originally took the recipe from the first Cooking Light Soups & Stews collection, and added/changed/tweaked as necessary to come up with this - a household favourite that gets made at least once per month (and has been made with turkey thighs, chicken thighs, or chicken breast to good effect).

(Note: expired link removed - instead, please see recipe in the comments, below)

I make this often enough that I should probably just mix up a big batch of the spice mixture that gets tossed with the cut-up chicken. I almost always have some black beans and a can of diced tomatoes lurking around, and capers certainly keep well in the fridge. I keep a giant bottle of vermouth on the kitchen counter to use in risottos and to deglaze anything that seems to need it, which is much more pantry-friendly than the red wine listed in the original recipe. As written, the recipe takes a paltry 1/2 hour to make, from strolling into the kitchen to dishing up the finished dish. Use of a non-stick pan makes clean-up decidedly easy, and if there are any leftovers (I always plan for leftovers) they reheat splendidly for dinner or lunches the next day.

Really, this is a dish that gets five stars: one for being delicious, two for being quick, three for being healthy, four for easy clean-up, and five for terrific leftovers.

Now I know what to do with that package of chicken breasts I found on sale at the supermarket this week: I'm adding this in to my menu plan!

Common Cold

I know what it looks like. No, I'm not actually trying to wedge as many Hawksley Workman song references into my writing as possible. It just looks like it. Really. Ahem. Onward:

Sailu tagged me for a different sort of meme: Natural Home Remedies for the Common Cold. Since colds are viral in nature, it will always take time for the body to fight off and kill the virus. Most remedies are about easing symptoms and shoring up your body's strength so that your immune system can do its job with maximum efficiency.

Preventive, natural, and cabinet-medicine has long been a pet interest of mine, so I'm pleased to contribute my family's time-honoured curative: Switchel.

Switchel is a vinegar-based drink that is served hot or cold, depending on the usage. I've most recently heard its origin ascribed to the West Indies, but most often I hear of it as a replenishing beverage served by Mennonite farmers to their field workers during the long harvest days. An early Gatorade, if you will, designed to quench thirst and restore electrolytes to folks labouring in the hot sun. It's entirely probable, I think, that if it does originate in the Islands it must have originally contained rum - a sort of hot-toddy sort of deal. Many of the original recipes contain molasses, although that fell by the wayside in our family.

The onset of a winter cold is often heralded by an itchy or tender throat, and at the first signs of one my mother would whip out the apple cider vinegar. Her recipe was fairly plain, consisting of water, apple cider vinegar, honey, and a pinch of ground gingerroot. I ditched the dried ginger for a few slices of fresh ginger, making it a sort of augmented ginger tea, I suppose, more than anything else. A couple of years ago I tried adding molasses back in, but found the results quite unpalatable. There are other variations, including cayenne pepper and a host of other herbal tweaks. I like to keep it simple enough that I don't have to measure much or fuss when I'm already feeling under-the-weather - in fact, I often measure this more in freehand "dollops" than anything else.

Switchel

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
1 - 3 slices of fresh ginger root, to taste (peel may be left on)
1 cup boiling water

Mix together and allow to stand (and cool!) for about five minutes. Sip until throat is soothed. Also pretty good chilled, particularly after physical exertion. This is fairly strong, as it is intended as medicine, but if you want to go cautiously, reduce the amounts of honey and vinegar to a teaspoon each. Because vinegar is fairly pungent, the vapours may affect othes adversely. I try not to inflict this on Palle, because he doesn't enjoy being in the same room with the smell of hot vinegar. He doesn't like hot lemon, either. I, however, find it comforting, so it's a good thing that we have a big house...

The honey is soothing, of course, and the vinegar helps clear the sinuses and cuts through the sensation of phlegminess that goes along with a head cold.

Now that I think about it, I'm a little surprised that she didn't feed us garlic tea, as garlic was her very favourite cure-all. She was quite pleased about the time that she had lost her sense of taste due to a head cold, and fixed a peanut butter (for protein) and crushed garlic (for medicine) sandwich for lunch. I don't think she ever had the chance to repeat it, but she is convinced that it spurred her back to health.

Me, in Fours:

Here's my contribution to the "Me, in Fours" meme that's running around. I was tagged my Michele and am soldiering on bravely! So, if you want some revealing and silly trivia about me, read on:

4 Jobs I've Had
1. Make up Artist
2. Network Administrator
3. Veterinary Assistant
4. Executive Assistant

4 Movies I Watch Over and Over
n.b. – this only applies if it is on when I sit down and start flipping channels. I will get sucked into these ones. They’re not necessarily my favourite movies ever. Tomorrow, I would come up with a different list entirely.

1. The Princess Bride
2. Raiders of the Lost Ark
3. The Maltese Falcon
4. Star Wars (the original. You know, where Han shoots first. Yes, I’m a geek.)

4 Places I've Lived
1. Porpoise Bay
2. Roberts Creek
3. Vancouver
4. Backpacking with no fixed address (belongings in storage), Europe

4 Websites I Check Daily
1. Google News
2. This Is Not Over
3. Office Pools (during Hockey season)
4. Damn Hell Ass Kings

4 TV Shows I Love
1. Futurama
2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
3. House
4. X-Files

How sad is it, that three of the four are finished?

4 of My Favorite Foods
Randomly,
1. Blanquette de veau
2. Braised lamb shanks
3. Pie (almost any type)
4. Baked beans

4 Albums I Can't Live Without
1. Lover/Fighter by Hawksley Workman (Tough pick, I love all of HW’s albums, and he’s got a new one coming out next month…)
2. Secrets of the Beehive by David Sylvian
3. Dear Catastrophe Waitress by Belle & Sebastian
4. Jordan, the Comeback by Prefab Sprout

4 Places I'd rather be
1. Paris, France
2. Verona, Italy
3. Mexico (because I’ve never been, but I love the food)
4. In a gigantic, claw-footed bathtub full of lavender bubbles and hot water

Too much information?

A Little Spice is Always Nice

My home computer is still on the injured list, so no photos at the moment. Thank goodness for lunch hours!

As I mentioned in my Grinding In the New Year post, I have grown to appreciate the premixing of spices - particularly when they are blended by hand to the taste of the cook. When I mentioned my Cajun spice blend, reader PatL wondered if it was anything like Tony Chachere's. I still can't answer that, although a little internet research suggests that Chachere's has low-salt versions of their regular product. I saw some "look-alike" recipes which contained appalling things like Accent (MSG) and a boat-load of salt, but there are a limited number of recipes out there for Cajun and Creole seasonings, and most online versions that I can find all sport similar ingredients. Certainly the major-players (ground red pepper, black pepper, garlic, onion & thyme) seem to be present in almost every version.

Below is my basic blend, but I confess that I tweak it depending on what I have on-hand, and occasionally, whim. Sometimes I add dried basil, just a teeny bit, but usually I prefer to add basil fresh to the dish that I'm making, if it requires it. There's no salt here - I season my food quite lightly as far as sodium is concerned, so if I'm adding salt to a recipe I will do it separately from the spices.

Dawna's Cajun Spice

4-5 tablespoons ground cayenne pepper
3 tablespoons black peppercorns
2 tablespoons ground smoked paprika (or "hot" paprika)
1 teaspoon ground white pepper
1 teaspoon thyme leaves (1/2 teaspoon if using ground thyme)
2 tablespoon dehydrated garlic granules
2 tablespoon dehydrated onion granules
1 large bayleaf

Place ingredients in the belly of your spice grinder, and grind until a fine, uniform powder is achieved. Be careful not to inhale. This makes about 2/3 cup, or two regular-sized spice bottles full.

A note on the onion and garlic. I use dehydrated granules, which is superior to powder in part because of the way in which they are processed. Powders always smell flat and a little metallic to me, and they are hard to reconstitute into a nice-smelling paste. The coarser dehydrated granules, on the other hand, have all kinds of uses, and work very well in this sort of spice blend.

I have the sudden urge to make Jambalaya, now...

Does Not Compute

If any of you out there are wondering why there hasn't been an update on the non-blog Always in the Kitchen site, we are currently experiencing technical difficulties. A new essay and recipe will be posted once they are resolved.

In the meantime, I am inventing exciting new ways to curse Microsoft, which is probably redundant; I'm pretty sure someone beat me to it...

Grinding in the New Year

I'm a big fan of the spice rack. My particular model was built for me by my father, after listening to me complain about how I could never find one that was big enough to accommodate my frequent flyers. He built it from reclaimed marine hardwood and presented it to me a few years ago as a Christmas present. I installed it immediately, filled it up promptly, and have been using it ever since. Most of the bottles are old, but the spices, I promise (with the notable exception of the fenugreek seed, which isn't entirely... ah, okay. Except that one. And the Herbs de Provence.) are less than a year old and many of them are considerably less than that.

I use a much greater quantity of herbs and spices than my mother did, although some of that is simply because I cook from my fierier cuisines than she did, by and large. I generally prefer flavours to be full and prominent, although I do still enjoy that whispery sense of "Can you identify that?" of more subtly flavoured dishes. Using a goodly quantity of herbs makes for going through them more quickly, which makes for fresher stock all the way around. If you are lucky enough to source a shop that does high turnover in good quality spices, that's a good start. If that same store packages their own into little, convenient zip-top baggies and charges only pennies for them, you've got it made. If the mustard seeds are looking kind of faded, or the dill has lost its scent, it usually costs me a pittance to replace them.

One thing that I never really got into, despite a fascination with the spice drawer in my mother's kitchen and a predilection for mixing things together, was spice mixtures. At least, not the commercial ones. The spice mixtures available when I was a kid were usually "Italian Seasoning" (much of which would be salt) and similar convenience packaged things for people who didn't want to measure from more than one bottle, or don't know what sort of herbs were complimentary with each other. I disliked them for the perceived laziness, but also for the lack of control over the quantity of each herb or spice in the blend. Chili powder evaded my distain solely because I was too ignorant to know that it was actually a blend, and not just straight powdered chile.

I still use chili powder, because I found one that I like. I also use a Herbs de Provence mixture, pretty much because we bought it in Provence, which means that it's the oldest thing on my rack. Clearly, I need a trip to France again, and soon! I've unbent on the pre-made mixtures enough to appreciate ones that are well made, but I tend to make my own spice blends. I have a blend for Cajun, one for South West flavours, and perhaps the best one of all, garam masala.

I was disenchanted with commercially purchased garam masala, and intrigued by the recipe that I found in Seductions of Rice by Alford & Duguid. I promptly scaled the recipe down and gave it a cautious try - to my absolute delight. The house was so thoroughly perfumed with Indian spices that eating anything else for dinner was unthinkable. When I recently made a fresh batch - same thing. Even just thinking about it makes me hungry.

There are a lot of variations out there on garam masala - some include chiles, or fennel seeds, or other ingredients. The great thing is, you can play with the mixture until you get one you like. I think this one is terrific as is - it's certainly a great starting point.

Garam Masala
Adapted from Seductions of Rice

1/4 cup black peppercorns
1/4 cup whole coriander seed
1/4 cup whole cumin seeds
1 tablespoon whole cloves
1 teaspoon cardamom seeds from the inside of green cardamom pods
1 inch of cinnamon stick, broken

Place a medium skillet over a medium flame and add all of the spices. Dry roast them until fragrant, stirring constantly, and continue to roast for another minute or two after the scent becomes strong. Remove from heat and pour into a bowl to cool for a couple of minutes before grinding.

Place the slightly cooled spices into a spice grinder and grind until a fine, uniform powder is achieved. Allow powder to finish cooling, and then store as you would any ground spice - in a jar or sealed bag, preferably away from light.

This makes just exactly the amount of garam masala for me to fit the whole spices into my grinder all at once. The ground yield is about 3/4 cup.

Have a snack on hand - this will make you hungry.

The Remains of the Bird

Part of the ritual of Christmas dinner is dealing gracefully with the leftovers. While I am no stranger to turkey soup (and quite a fan, I assure you), I seldom find myself in possession of a turkey carcass these days - even at Christmas and Thanksgiving. This is the benefit/detriment of being the one doing the travelling on the holidays.

My extended family gets together on Boxing Day, and that's the day of Turkey. For just the two of us, Christmas day has become the day of Any Other Bird (and once, a ham), although I did do a classic roast turkey the year that we hosted the Boxing Day dinner, and one year I made a braised, stuffed turkey breast roulade with cider gravy from Eating Well magazine. We've had duck, goose (twice), Cornish Game Hen, Pheasant, chicken (that first year, before we actually started dating), and the aforementioned ham (done Alton Brown city ham style, and boy! Delicious!).

This year, we returned to the duck. I employed last year's new knowledge regarding fatty game birds, and plunged the little darling into boiling water for a minute to kick-start the rendering process, and a heckuva lot of fat was rendered into the roasting pan, at the end of it. Enough that I'm seriously attempting my own duck confit - purely for the education process, you understand.

Your average duckling is supposedly food for two to four people, so we had rather a lot of meat leftover. At first, the possibilities seemed kind of endless, but we finally settled on a two-with-one-stone. The duck meat was divested from the bones, which were then simmered into a thick broth, which was put on standby for Duck with Wild Mushroom Risotto. I looked to my classic Wild Mushroom Risotto recipe for guidance, and added the chopped duck meat just before returning the mushrooms to the pan. We were very, very happy with the results.

There's still rather a lot of duck stock in my freezer - I've since used all of the meat, but I'm sure that I will find a use for it. There's always, after all, duck soup. Easy, right?

For the Love of Brussels Sprouts

Brussels sprouts don't get nearly enough love in this world. Still, someone must be eating them, because they show up faithfully all winter long in the markets. I find that often when a meal includes them, the wee cabbages are drearily overcooked and often stone cold by the time the plates are served. This is a tragedy, for a good Brussels sprout is a tasty treat that shouldn't be relagated to the "last bowl to be emptied" status that it seems to have in so many households.

In fact, if it were not for the firm tradition that insists on serving them for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, I wonder if they'd be available in anything but the specialty markets. A few years ago, I discovered the secret to foolproof sprouts: slice them in half and roast them with a little drizzle of chicken fat. That's it! I was making a baked chicken-one-pot supper, and was shy on the usual vegetables that I generally include. I had some sprouts though, so I wedged them in around the other veggies, shrugged, and figured they'd at least be fine for one night's dinner. How surprised I was, at how well they turned out! Everywhere the sprouts touched the glass of the baking dish, was a caramelized golden brown, and the small amount of fat rendered from the chicken legs I was baking gave them a tender succulence that could not be believed without sampling. A discreet scattering of kosher salt grains across the top of the dish meant that the Brussels sprouts were delicately seasoned, and the long oven-time meant that they stayed nice and hot on our dinner plates.

About halfway through dinner, we were lamenting at how few sprouts I had actually included in the pan. By the end of dinner, we were vowing to never again subject the noble sprout to boiling or steaming, if roasting was at all feasible.

It took a few tries to hit on the exact formula, but here it is in its glory:

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

1 large glass/pyrex type baking dish, spritzed lightly with canola oil
Enough sprouts so that, when cut in half pole-to-pole, they cover the bottom of the dish in a single layer.
A final spritz with the canola oil over the rounded tops of the sprouts
A tablespoon or two of chicken fat, drizzled over the sprouts
A small pinch of kosher salt sprinkled over all

Bake uncovered in an oven set at 350 - 400 F, for 25 - 35 minutes (depending on your oven setting. Obviously, in hotter ovens cook for a shorter period of time). Finished sprouts should be fork-tender and showing a little brown on their cut-sides.

The beauty of the variable timing is that you can cook it along side another dish at whatever temperature is required.

You'll be fighting over the last sprout in no time.

There Must be Shortbread!

I do not cook for a large family and therefore it is only to be expected that my Christmas baking has decreased proportionately - excepting those years when we host a holiday open house, in which case I find myself making even more things than if I were baking for a family of twelve. Every year, I weigh the pros and cons of different recipes versus the available time, strength and energy that are available to me. Fruitcakes - dark, rum-soaked, full of naturally dried fruit without a neon-coloured cherry to be found - I only make every couple of years, in tiny loaf pans for passing out to relatives and friends of the fruitcake-appreciating persuasion.

When I was a kid, there were no baking-traps to navigate around. Pretty much the only holiday sweets we had were those that we made ourselves (excluding Santa's modest delivery), or polite amounts of those made by our neighbours and relatives. There were no cookie-studded workplace platters to navigate around, no client-appreciation chocolates lurking on every surface in the kitchen, no office parties with alcohol and rich food. Thus, I stumbled into the business world completely unprepared for the onslaught of goodies that were on offer throughout December, where polite meant actually taking a piece of grainy fudge or a misshapen sugar cookie instead of restricting oneself to one. I was also completely unprepared for the shocking variety of cookies all called shortbread. As we all know well, the only true shortbread is the one that your mother used to make, right?

My mother's shortbread is incredibly simple to make, and is the one thing that is an absolute requirement on my holiday table. Because it is easy to make (even easier to eat!) even at my tiredest I can manage to knock out a tray of these. It has become my one must-have bit of holiday baking.

Prize Shortbread

1 cup salted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup icing sugar
large pinch ground ginger
2 cups unbleached, all-purpose white flour

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Lightly grease (or spritz with canola oil) a large baking sheet.

Cream together the butter and the icing sugar until the mixture is light, fluffy, and its colour has changed to white. This will take several minutes with a hand-mixer, and is essential, as there is no levening agent in the cookies. Add the ground ginger and one cup of flour, and mix until the flour is thoroughly incorporated. Add the other cup of flour, but use a spatula to blend it smoothly into the dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured board, sprinkle with a little flour, and roll out to the desired thickness - I like mine only a little thicker than thin sugar cookies, but not too thick. Traditionally, these are cut into squares or rectangles, and special shapes were reserved for the sugar cookies. I've thrown caution to the wind here, however, and used a little tree cutter for my shortbread this year.

Cut the cookies however you like - if using a cutter, you can re-roll the scraps and cut again, but do handle carefully because if you add too much flour during the rolling, they can get a little tough. Place the cookies on the baking sheet - they won't need much room between them because they don't really rise, but a bit of space makes it easier to pull them off the sheet. I like to poke some airholes with a fork to prevent the dough from bubbling up, but it's not strictly necessary.

Bake for 10 - 15 minutes, depending on how thick your cookies are. Check frequently - a slight tinge of gold on the edge is okay, but you don't want them to brown. Cool on racks and store out of sight, if you hope to keep them around for a few days.

From My Rasoi - Bengali Dal

For my 101st post, I am posting my entry to Meena's "From My Rasoi - Winter" blogging event. I've chosen an original recipe that I call Bengali Dal (even though it is not made with Bengal gram), which is the perfect kind of warming, comforting food to have during the long, comforting food to have during the long, chilly months of winter.

The red lentils don't take long to cook, and the warmth of the mustard seed oil combined with the creaminess of a small amount of coconut milk makes this a wonderful counterpoint to the flavours of cumin, chiles, garlic and curry. The little dark specks are brown mustard seed and nigella seed, the red is finely diced tomato, and the green is sliced chiles. You can vary the amount of chiles to make it as spicy or mild as you like, but naturally I like it spicy. There is a little dried fenugreek stirred into the dish at the last minute, which makes a sudden, compelling fragrance that will pull people into the kitchen.

Bengali Dal

Serves 6 - 8
Total prep and cooking time: 40 minutes unless you're super-efficient and/or have kitchen helpers. Then, maybe 25 - 30.

1 1/2 cups of red lentils (masur dal)
4 1/2 cups of water
3/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon curry powder (optional)
1 1/2 teaspoons sambal oelek
1 clove garlic, minced
2–3 jalapeños, seeded and chopped
1 small can coconut milk - 2/3 cup, approx.
1 teaspoon salt

Tempering:
1 teaspoon mustard oil
1 teaspoon nigella seed (kalonji)
1 teaspoon brown/black mustard seeds
1 medium onion, diced medium
1 clove garlic, sliced
1 large tomato, seeded and diced

Finishing:
salt to taste
big pinch of fenugreek leaves

Pick over lentils to remove misshapen, discoloured or otherwise irregular lentils and any foreign matter (little rocks, plant stems, etc). Rinse thoroughly, with several changes of water to remove any grit or dust (very important).

Place lentils in a heavy pot with the water and the turmeric and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a medium-low simmer, and skim the yellow foam from the top. Allow to simmer until lentils are tender and starting to fall apart – 15 minutes or a bit more, if you have older lentils. Add the jalapeños, crushed garlic, spices and the coconut milk and continue to simmer (with the lid off, stirring occasionally) and get thick while you prepare the tempering.

In a small, nonstick skillet, heat oil gently over medium heat. Add nigella seed and mustard seed, giving the pan a shake to distribute. As soon as the mustard seeds start to pop, add the onions and sliced garlic and fry gently until they have softened. Next, add the diced tomatoes, and stir until they give up their liquid - often they turn the onions a pretty golden colour - and scrape the mixture into the lentil pottage. Use a spatula to get out all the spicy goodness! Taste and adjust for salt to your preference and stir in the fenugreek leaves just before serving.



I am happy to serve this over rice as a meal unto itself, or as part of a larger menu. It freezes and reheats extraordinarily well, which makes it the perfect thing to make lots of, and tuck away the leftovers in the fridge for one of those harrowing days when you need a little home made comfort, but haven't the energy or nerves to do more than heat something up. It also travels well to work or school and is vegan, although I am not.

Five out of Ten (and Chicken Yassa)

My last post, the You Are What You Eat list, was both easier and more difficult to come up with than I thought it would be. Sure, the items just tumbled out of my head and onto the page, but I agonized about whether they were truly representative.

As I was eating lunch today, I noticed with some bemusement that my little container of leftovers contained five of those top ten items: Rice, lemon, chicken, onions, and chiles. Chicken Yassa, to be precise (please see recipe in the comments below).

On the weekend, I made a stop at the South China Seas Trading Co. on Granville Island, which is my go-to destination for a number of hard-to-find ingredients including hominy, epazote, dried chiles, and all manner of interesting Asian and Central/South American ingredients. As always, just standing in the store caused me to revise my weekly menu substantially as I stared at piles of fresh poblano peppers, long garlic chives, jarred mole sauces, and fresh young ginger and turmeric roots. A brightly coloured pile of habaneros by the cashier mocked me until I slid a couple into a brown bag and added them to my basket - and my menu. Fresh habaneros don't have a long shelf-life, so I immediately shouldered Yassa into my menu plan. One must take advantage when one can, and Yassa is a little lighter on preparation than Jerk, which is another favourite use for the habanero.

Traditional Yassa recipes start with marinating the chicken and proceed through an on-the-bone grilling stage before the dish is completed. My adaptation is really more of a quick stew, starting off-the-bone and simmering the marinated meat in the lemony, mustardy matrix that makes up the sauce.

Whoa. I can't believe I left mustard off my list. That would have made it six out of ten!

I must be spicy!

Lera of Myriad Tastes tagged me for the "You Are What You Eat" meme, and I have to tell you, it's not an easy task to define myself within only ten things, so I'm sure I've overlooked something significant. Due to the restriction of "eating" I have left out beverages, or you can bet that wine would have been on the list, somewhere. Here goes:

10) Bread. I love to bake bread, and while I don't bake every week, or even every month (pizza dough notwithstanding) I enjoy both the process and the result. Bread baking gives a satisfaction that is unparalleled.

From my essay: "I enjoy making bread by hand for a number of reasons. The scent of yeast, the smooth, warm silky feeling of the dough as it comes together under your hands in the roll and flex of your wrist and fingers. The process of kneading, which drains tension from the maker even as it gives a light workout to the arms. The more a bread is kneaded, the finer the texture of the crumb, so the more anxiety you have to release, the more delicate the bread you produce. That's pure alchemy. I even find simple pleasure in seeing how the bread has risen from the small lump of dough into a magnificent loaf, and the wonderful smell of the bread as it bakes is a panacea for any tired spirit."

9) Homemade pizza. We make pizza at least twice per month. You can hide leftovers on it, or you can made an entire meal with only a few simple ingredients without feeling like you're skimping. It combines the magnificence of homemade bread, with the satisfaction of making a meal. You can load them with things you like, and you can take them into the living room to eat in front of the television, when hockey's on. You can invite some friends over, and have a little feast.

8) Citrus. Lemons and limes get top billing, followed by grapefruit, then oranges, and finally whatever miscellaneous other citrus you might have going. My forays into Jamaican and Mexican food has me more interested in limes these days, but lemons are a great standby. You can make any course of a dinner with citrus, from drinks through desserts and all stops along the way. Citrus juice or rind can pep up almost any side dish, balance the flavours of a stew or soup, or blend with sugar to create marmelades and fabulous sweet baking treats.

7) Chocolate. The darker, the better. Preferably, so dark that light cannot escape its surface. Need more be said?

6) Cheezies. You didn't think this was all going to be healthy food, did you? This is my defining junk snack food. I like the Hawkins ones best (only available in Canada), but I'll take most varieties of cheesy corn curls in a pinch. This may count as a second vote for cheese (see #2 below), but I don't care.

5) Rice. I have at least three types of rice on hand at all times. My default, go-to rice for side dishes or as a foundation for miscellaneous other dishes, is Jasmine rice. If I say "I'm going to put some rice on," this is what I probably mean. I also have Basmati, which is partially due to my love for Indian food, and Arborio, because I also adore risotto. Sometimes I'll have other varieties on hand - sushi rice, wild rice, etc. I'm very curious about the Chinese Forbidden Rice - who wouldn't be? I must try some, soon. I eat a lot of pasta, too, and had potatoes nearly every day, growing up, but rice is the dominant dinner-starch in my life these days.

4) Poultry. I'm roasting a duck for Christmas, this year. Roast duck with cherry sauce. Over the nine Christmases we've been together, Palle and I have explored everything from Chicken through pheasant, cornish game hen, goose (twice!), duck, traditional turkey, rouladen of turkey breast, and ham, once, just to be difficult. On non-holiday meals, we eat rather a lot of chicken on a regular basis, and as you can tell from a glance at my recipe cauldron, it is featured rather prominently.

3) Garlic & Onions. I have a friend who is allergic to the entire lily family, and must eschew fresh onions, garlic, and leeks (fortunately, he can have them in dessicated powder form). Myself, I get a little nervous if I'm down to only one onion, and I buy fresh garlic about once per week - more often on the weeks that I roast chicken. A few years ago, I was out for dinner at a lovely, upscale (and sadly, now closed) Hungarian restaurant called "Bandi's" with author Steven Brust, among others. He professed his love for onions and garlic to be such that "if it doesn't have onions it had better be dessert, and if it doesn't have garlic, it had better be chocolate!" We gloried in the langos - a fried flatbread that is topped with crushed, uncooked garlic that swims in a little pot of butter while it waits for you to scoop it on top of your langos. Heavenly. Garlic doesn't even register on the Richter scale equivalent of bad breath. If I smell garlic, and I'm not eating garlic, I just feel jealous.

2) Cheese. Cheese is the reason I would never want to go vegan. Seldom does a day pass without a little cheese in it, and that's just the way I like it to be. I'm seldom without at least two different cheeses in the fridge, and often have as many as four or five.

From my essay: "What other food than cheese has such astonishing variety of texture, character and application? You can slice it for sandwiches or crackers, crumble it over salads or pasta, melt it for fondue, smear it on toast or eat it straight from the knife. It can be an assertive primary flavour, or a subtle matrix that holds a casserole together. It makes a good party even better."

1) Chiles. Much of the food that I eat on a daily basis is fairly spicy. I cook with habaneros without a second thought (as I did last night). Much of what I bring to work as leftovers/lunch elicits oohs and aahs when I take it out of the microwave, but which I know would half-kill most of the people in my office. I didn't set out to be a chilehead; eating some of this stuff would have been nigh impossible for me fifteen years ago. I just love the flavours and the heat comes along as a package deal. My discovery of Mexican food (as opposed to Tex-Mex and Cali-Mex, which I also like, but are very different) and Indian food has only increased the amount of spicy dishes that I order, cook, crave, and eat. I have four different kinds of whole, dried chiles in my storage box right now, and then there are the powdered: Cayenne, Chipotle, Ancho, Japones, Paprika... I'm probably leaving one or two out, actually. And the blends! Cajun mix, Ethiopian berbere, good old-fashioned chili powder, Southwest seasoning, Garam masala, not to mention whole berries: Tellicherry black peppercorns, Szechwan peppercorns... and of course I usually have a fresh chile or two lurking in the fridge. Don't even get me started on hot sauces!

So, above all, if I am what I eat, I guess I'm spicy. And maybe a little cheesy.

And So It Begins

The holiday baking has begun.

I confess, I started off easy with a version of my Buttermilk Coffee Cake. Instead of doing the usual ribbon-layer in the centre, I stirred some allspice and nutmeg into the batter, along with a handful of dried cranberries (there's few enough cranberries in this that the cranberry-impaired can removed them easily). A little extra nutmeg and some cinnamon across the top, and ba-da-bing, one baking item "down." Mind you, this barely counts as Christmas baking, since it's actually relatively healthy. However, it will be a festive addition to work-lunches over the next couple of weeks, and it never hurts to balance out the damage done by shortbread and butter tarts with goodies of a lighter nature.

I'm still dithering a bit on what other items to make, but time is marching along, so I need to get down to business this weekend. I desperately need to go shopping for a few critical ingredients, but I also need to crack open the holiday recipes and remind myself of the amounts to buy. One year, I ended up with so many leftover ground almonds that I was putting them in everything in sight for a few weeks.

Don't Let Anyone Tell You...

Don't let anyone tell you that you can't make quesadillas out of leftover aloo gobi. Because you totally can.

I used to make pizza out of anything leftover. My mother used to conceal leftovers in scrambled eggs. Now, I make quesadillas. A little cheese to act as culinary glue, a little Sriracha sauce, and dinner was good to go!

Creamy goodness #2 (Cardamom Rose Rice Pudding)

Last night we had a few friends over for vegetarian Indian food. I did most of the cooking ahead on Saturday, which meant that I only had a few tasks on Sunday and could enjoy my guests' company. The main menu consisted of old favourites: Bengali Dal, Saag Paneer, Aloo Gobi, and Channa Masala, accompanied by a carrot and chile salad dressed with lime juice, and a banana raita that is based on a pachadi recipe from the outstanding Seductions of Rice. The banana raita is fast becoming a must-have dish when we make Indian food at home.



Dessert was also from Seductions of Rice - a rice pudding flavoured with cardamom and rose water. It is creamy and light-tasting, despite being made with whole milk. I topped it with pistachios, as suggested, not knowing that one of my guests was in the process of developing a nut intolerance. Not an allergy, thank heavens, so he was able to simply remove them from his portion. The original recipe called for twice as much sugar as I used, but I loved the balance of sugar to rosewater and spice, so I don't think I'd increase it.

Cardamom Rose Rice Pudding
Adapted from Seductions of Rice

1 cup short grain rice, rinsed and drained (I used arborio)
4 cups whole milk
2 cups water
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons rose water
1 teaspoon cardamom powder
pistachios and extra cardamom to garnish

Place the rice, milk, and water in a large, heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Bring to boil, stirring, and back the heat off to a bare simmer. Cook and stir frequently for about one and a quarter hours. The rice may develop a bit of a skin, but just stir it back into the pot and it will be fine. When the rice is tender and the liquid is mostly absorbed but still a bit soupy, add the sugar, rose water and cardamom powder. Stir in thoroughly until sugar dissolves, and remove from the heat. Transfer rice to a serving bowl or individual serving dishes, and allow to cool. Chill, covered with plastic wrap, until needed. To garnish, give each portion a "hit" of cardamom powder and top with a few lightly toasted pistachio nuts.

Serves 6

Rice and Beans, Jamaican style

I eat rather a lot of beans, for someone who grew up with beans primarily in chili or occasionally in the Boston Baked family of dishes. I embraced garbanzos for hummus, the Southwestern American tradition of adding black beans to just about anything, black or pinto beans for refried beans at breakfast, lunch, or dinner, and flageolets for cassoulet. Got exciting variants, like Romano beans, Cranberry beans, Pink-eyed peas? Anasazi beans? Bring 'em on. I do like beans.

I also eat a lot of rice, partly because I came late to some of the great rice-based cuisines, and am now making up for lost time. The New Orleans classic, Red Beans and Rice, was a happy combination of these two ingredients and led to other discoveries such as Moros & Cristianos, and, at long last, Jamaican Rice and Peas. At first, I was a little concerned about the title "Rice and Peas" because I'm notoriously unfriendly toward the green garden variety of pea (unless a) raw, b) whole, such as snow-peas, or c) as split pea soup). From there, I confess to being a little confused, when the pea-component of the dish turned out to be considerably more bean-like in character, often being made with kidney beans. I'll happily eat kidney beans, so there was no worry about it, but it didn't entirely make sense to me.

Eventually, I discovered that the traditional pea used in Jamaica is the Pigeon Pea, which is a brown, oval bean originating in Africa. At last, I was able to align the Pigeon Pea with the Black-Eyed Pea in my mind, and came to a sort of understanding.


The thing that makes Jamaican Rice and Peas so very appealing is that it is quite spicy, and contains coconut milk, another ingredient I have come to love. Additionally, Rice and Peas is a one-pot dinner, which makes clean-up a quick affair.

There are as many Rice and Pea recipes as there are cooks who make it, like national dishes the world over. This one is adapted from Full of Beans by the delightfully named Violet Currie and Kay Spicer. It's a lower-fat version than many you'll find, but the flavour is fantastic. I use Kidney beans, as the recipe suggests. Pigeon peas are difficult to come by, in this neck of the woods. Usually, I make this as a side dish and omit the ham, which makes it vegetarian/vegan.

Jamaican Rice and Beans
adapted from Full of Beans by Violet Currie and Kay Spicer

1 teaspoon canola oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups cooked kidney beans (drained and rinsed, if canned)
160 ml coconut milk
1 cup diced ham (optional)
1/2 teaspoon hot sauce of your choice (habanero would be very appropriate)
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon cayenne powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground sage
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cup uncooked rice (I use parboiled for this dish)
1 medium red bell pepper, diced (optional)
sliced green onions to garnish

In a medium pot with a tight-fitting lid, cook the diced onion, garlic in the canola oil until it starts to turn translucent. Add the beans, coconut milk, ham (if using), and spices, and bring to a boil. Let cook, stirring, for about a minute, and then add the rice and 1 & 1/4 cups boiling water. Bring the mixture back up to a boil, stirring, then immediately cover. Turn down the heat to a bare simmer and leave undisturbed (no peeking!) for 25 minutes. When it is done, stir gently and fold in the bell pepper garnish. Sprinkle with green onions and serve.

Send in the Clowns

It's not often that I make new cookies. I have my favourites, and since I don't really bake all that many cookies during the year, I usually revisit my trusted, tried, and true recipes more often than not. As it happens, it is often the fact that I am specifically craving ginger snaps, for example, that make me decide to get out the baking sheets.

My kitchen life, however, could probably be subtitled "Iron Chef - Leftovers!" as I find ways to make good food out of whatever is lying around from previous efforts or events. To this end, I found myself with about a cup of leftover miniature m&m candies after Hallowe'en. Since they were about the size of chocolate chips, I decided to make a more colourful version of my default chocolate chip cookies. As they came out of the oven, I couldn't help but think that they looked as though I had stirred a clown into the batter, and the brightly coloured buttons had risen to the surface. Just a little macabre, post-Hallowe'en imagery. (Aren't clowns a little bit creepy on any day of the year?)
Clown Button Cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground coriander seed
3/4 cup butter or margarine
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons lemon or orange extract
1 cup miniature m&ms for baking
pinch salt

Preheat oven to 300 F. Combine flour, soda, coriander and salt in a small bowl, and blend together with a mix. In a larger bowl, use an electric mixer to beat together the butter and sugar until it forms a grainy mixture. Add eggs andd extract, and beat again until well blended, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula. Add the flour mixture and the m&ms, and mix on the lowest setting until the dough just combines without floury streaks. Be careful not to overbeat them.

Use a teaspoon or a miniature ice cream scoop to shape your cookies on lightly greased (or spritzed) baking sheets and bake for about 15 minutes in the centre of the oven. They should not brown. Transfer hot cookies immediately to a wire cooking rack. As they cool, they will firm up slightly.

Cooking for the weather

The rains are upon us, and show no sign of leaving. Unlike the grumblers that I hear around me, I don't really mind the rain, although it can make getting about a bit less comfortable and restricts certain passtimes. I'm sure even a lazy scientist could swiftly disabuse me of the notion that rain in the city is anything resembling clean, but there's a certain refreshing feeling of renewal that comes with the damp, as though nature is doing some of the housework for you. You can retain this pretense as long as you don't look down at the brownish sludge that has become of the crimson and yellow leaves that fell in the dry, cool days at the beginning of autumn.

After enough grey days in a row, however, even I start getting a little techy. This is when I turn to the large pyrex baking dish, and start sifting through recipes from Italy, Mexico, West Africa... places whose warmth is imbeded in the cuisine. I can borrow a little of that sunshine, culinarily, and cosy up on the sofa with a steaming plate or bowl of something hot - usually in more ways than one.

So, of course, I had been waiting for a suitable run of crummy weather to try out Giada De Laurentiis's Manicotti. Surprisingly, I felt the recipe needed some adjusting right from the get-go, and set about lacing the beef and ricotta filling with my triumvarate of Italian pick-me-up flavours: fennel seed, pepper flakes, and oregano. I upped the garlic considerably, too, under the theory that it would ward off any inconvenient cold or flu germs going around, but I use a LOT of garlic, so that should surprise no one.

I had the requisite amount of tomato sauce lurking in the freezer from a previous dinner, so it was a relative snap to put together. I do find that the very best tools for stuffing manicotti are one's fingers. My mother used dainty parfait spoons, whose bowls were small enough not to rupture the tender pasta, and I had a brief fling with the notion of using a pastry bag, which I eventually threw over in favour of the tools I was born with. This sped things up considerably, although it did require a bit more in the way of clean-up than more refined methods.

This is certainly a dish that I would repeat - I might find some twists and turns along the way, but it was a very tasty dinner and we enjoyed the leftovers at work for a couple of days, too. Any good dinner that also yields lunches for the coming week is worth noting. Having recently had good success with a simple pasta dish of farfalle with asparagus in a roasted red pepper sauce, I'm now eyeing the manicotti with the thought of changing up standard tomato for something a little more exotic. Mind you, I'm also contemplating finding a way to work roasted fennel slices into the filling, but that's just me: always thinking about my next meal, sometimes while I'm still eating the one I've got in front of me.

What Could Be Better

... than homemade oven-baked chicken fingers? Maybe knowing that it's a fraction of the price of restaurant chicken fingers, maybe it's knowing that it's considerably healthier than fried versions, or maybe it's just that it takes less than half an hour to make 'em. You decide.

The recipe notes that Panko is good for the breadcrumbs, but when I was making this batch I ran out. I substituted freshly processed breadcrumbs instead - it was actually even easier to get them to cling to the chicken. The first half of the batch was done with Panko, though, which is utterly bone white. Because it doesn't brown much in the oven, I decided to add a bit of paprika to the bowl of Panko crumbs This worked very well, although it wasn't really obvious in the raw stage. They baked up beautifully golden, as you can see.

Rather than the egg-dip method, I used the Dijon variation listed at the bottom of the recipe, but in a fit of cleverness, I added a pinch of cayenne pepper and a tablespoon of light sour cream to the mustard to make a pleasingly smooth bite. The Dijon variation is awesome - it has become my preferred method, because I can just dump all of the chicken pieces into the mustard bowl and mix them around. It's very quick.

Cornmeal Cheddar Onion Bread - that's almost a meal

I have a lot to live up to, in the bread-making department.

When I first started making bread, it was my mother's brown bread that I made. Dense with whole wheat and added wheat germ and bran, dark with molasses, enriched with eggs and baked in six-loaf batches, her bread was a hearty, filling loaf that rounded out a bowl of soup or stew into a dinner quite handily. The recipe, for which - alas! - I do not have a written copy, was tricksy. She gave it over and over to friends and community members who admired her bread, but they almost universally reported failure of their attempts to replicate her bread.

For some reason, her recipe just didn't work well for others, but I was one of the few who could even come close - although mine never rose quite as high as hers and therefore was a little denser and a little crumblier. That was the bread that I grew up with as sandwich bread; a sandwich made from two of these slices would sit with you for a while.

We did occasionally have other, lighter breads in the house, when I was growing up, usually in the form of soft French loaves - batards - that were our favourite base for garlic bread on spaghetti dinner nights. I was enamoured of their airy texture, which was foreign and exotic seeming to me, but didn't have the sugary squidge of the white sandwich bread my schoolmates had in their lunches. In my late teens I discovered sourdough rye breads, and cheese breads. Despite my affection for "regular" bread, what a delightful discovery these new breads were! My eyes were opened to the possibilities.


When I began experimenting with bread baking in my twenties, I quickly came up with a heartier type of white bread of my own: The Cornmeal Cheddar Onion loaf. I played with the proportion of cornmeal to wheat flour, and experimented with using raw minced onion or sauteed. I adjusted the level of cheese, and since I was at the time shifting towards sharp or aged cheeses, that simple change afforded a whole new level of cheese flavours.

It's a tasty bread, but it does have limited applications. It makes excellent toast, for example, and a shockingly good toasted cheese sandwich, but sweet applications and peanut butter are pretty much out of the question. It was originally designed as a breakfast bread - something heartier than your average loaf, to stay with you in the morning, but it translates to other meals pretty well. The cornmeal does reduce the amount of glutinous spring in the bread, so untoasted sandwiches can be a touch crumbly, but with a little capicolla and fresh mozzarella...maybe a little basil...it can be a delicious lunch. At mid-day or in the evening, next to a steaming bowl of soup, it holds its own.

Cornmeal Cheddar Onion Bread

Makes 1 loaf

1 cup warm water
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
1 egg, beaten
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 small onion, very finely minced
2 1/2 to 2 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup grated sharp cheddar
pinch salt

In a large mixing bowl, sprinkle the yeast and sugar over the warm water. Let stand until it gets foamy-looking. While the yeast is getting foamy, sauté the onion in the olive oil. It will seem like a lot of olive oil, but go with it - that's how much the bread needs. When the onion is soft and translucent, remove from the heat and allow it to cool. Mix the flour, cornmeal, cheese, and salt together in a separate bowl.

Add the beaten egg to the foamy yeast mixture, and then stir in the somewhat-cooled onion and olive oil. Add a cup of the flour mixture to the wet mixture, and beat with a wooden spoon for about 100 strokes. This will help the overall texture of the bread. Add the rest of the flour mixture and stir slowly until it is all incorporated into a nice doughy ball. If your dough is still quite sticky and wet, dust it with flour.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead until it starts to feel like a cohesive bread dough. This can take up to ten minutes of kneading, and you may need to add a little flour here and there to keep it from sticking to your fingers. That's okay, but don't get carried away and add so much flour that the bread dough becomes stiff and unyielding.

Place the ball of dough in a lightly oil mixing bowl. Allow the bread to rise, covered, in a draft-free area for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until nicely doubled. Press the air out of it ("punch it down") and shape it carefully into a loaf. Place in a greased loaf pan, and allow to rise in a draft-free area for about ½ hour. Place in a pre-heated oven at 375°F and let bake for 35-40 minutes, or until it sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom. Turn out of the pan to cool on a wire rack.

Note: If you like a nice, shiny brown top crust, you may wish to brush it with a little egg wash before putting it in the oven. Just beat up an egg with a little water, and use a pastry brush to apply a thin layer of the wash to the loaf just before it goes in the oven.