Summer Salad

Summer is indisputably salad-time. Appetites are a little supressed from the heat, and an abundance of fresh fruit, vegetables, and herbs cry out for use. Not only are our appetites a little down - we still get hungry, but seem to fill up faster - but our desire to do much work in the kitchen (or out of it) also fades. Fortunately, the summer salad is a perfect opportunity for some easy, make-head, delicious dinner options.

You could serve this as a side dish, and I often have, or take it as a potluck item that will stand out beside other pasta salads, or indeed, hold its own against many a main course, or you can cram it into pita for a quick bite on the go. Sometimes, if I'm really feeling worn out, I'll just sit down to a bowl of this in front of the television and let my brain turn criticizing advertisements, or snarking at the shows on FoodTV.

It keeps really well in a sealed, tupperware-type container, for about a week. Doubtless, you will have eaten it all up long before then. As an added bonus, this dish has under 30% of its calories from fat, so it's fairly healthy, too. The use of low GI ingredients (chickpeas and lemon juice) mean that it's value on the glycemic index is probably quite low - which means that it will fill you up without wreaking havoc on your glucose levels.

Chickpea & Orzo Salad
(adapted from Cooking Light's Simple Summer Suppers)

1 cup uncooked orzo
3/4 cup sliced green onions
1/2 cup crumbled feta
1/4 cup chopped fresh dill
1 19 oz. can Chickpeas (garbanzo beans) - drained
zest and juice of one lemon
1 1/2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon cold water
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 - 2 cloves minced fresh garlic

Cook orzo until done in lightly salted water - about five minutes. Take care not to overcook, as you don't want the pasta to become mushy. Al dente is the goal. Drain, and rinse with cold water. Drain thoroughly, and place in large bowl. Add drained chickpeas, green onions, dill, lemon zest and feta to the bowl of pasta, and toss gently to distribute evenly. Combine juice, water, garlic, salt, and olive oil, and stir well. Pour dressing over the salad, folding the ingredients gently so to coat everything thoroughly.

Try not to eat it all before it makes it into the fridge. You can serve it right away, but it's terrific very cold from the fridge - especially with a nice glass of crisp white wine.

Summer Lunch

Sometimes, it's too hot to cook. You know you should eat someting, and you're vaguely hungry, but it just seems like too much effort to bother with, when you'd really rather lie around fanning yourself and drinking mint juleps.

Sometimes, you don't want anything with more wattage than a toaster heating up your already humid kitchen. Sometimes, when tomatoes are ripe, all you really need for lunch is a fine old-style open-faced toasted sandwich, or overgrown bruschetta. Aaaannnnd if you also happen to have little bottles of basil oil and red pepper oil (Italian style), and a couple of plump balls of bocconcini lurking in the fridge, you can make yourself a pretty snazzy little lunch, without roasting the entire house.

Tasting Hot Sauce

July 8 was our second-ever Hot Sauce Party. A little earlier in the year than our previous one of three years ago, we were able to use the verandah later into the evening, but unfortunately our timing rather stunk as far as people's schedules. So, it was with smaller fanfare and lower attendance, but equally delicious hot sauces from around the world that we held our second tasting.


Naturally, there were to be no repeats of sauces from the last tasting, three years ago. Even though there were clear favourites in the previous line up, there are so many amazing and different sauces produced in far-flung corners of the world, we went with an entirely new roster. To be fair, we had tried some of the sauces ourselves, previous to the tasting, but some of them were purchased specifically with an eye to origin, pepper type, style, and heat.

The subjects were arranged in (arguably) order of mildest to hottest:

1. Tequila Sunrise Cayenne Hot Sauce (Costa Rica)
2. Bufalo Jalapeno Mexican Hot Sauce (Mexico)
3. Cholula Hot Sauce (Mexico)
4. Waha Wera Kiwifruit & Habanero Sauce (New Zealand)
5. Amazon Hot Green Sauce (Columbia)
6. Cooksville Black Heat (Canada)
7. Marie Sharp's Habanero Pepper Sauce (Belize)
8. Harissa du Cap Bon (Tunisia)
9. El Yucateco Salsa Kutbil-ik de Chile Habanero XXXtra Kot Sauce (Mexico)
10. Ebesse Zozo Hot Sauce (Canada, modelled on Togolese traditional style).

Most of our guests are at least somewhat familiar with spicy food, but the upper end of the tasting proved a little too feisty for real enjoyment for some people. In a curious turn, we actually placed the Ebesse Zozo last, not because it was the hottest (although it was very hot) but because it contained both oil and curry, and I thought it would irreparably alter the palate. It was pronounced delicious by just about everyone, though.

The most contentious hot sauce was #9. I'm very fond of it, in small doses, on an omelette or frittata at breakfast. It is fierce as anything, but for the first time I heard people describing it as flavourless and harsh. Not everyone was disparaging of it, though. Generally speaking, the tasters who were most accustomed to very hot food were able to look past the fiery habanero heat and groove on the fiery habanero flavour.

The most popular sauce, I think - I cannot remember if we did a poll - was #7. Hot, clean, and powerful, full of flavour, and with enough sweetness to cut the fire so that everyone could enjoy it. #5 did very well, also, being made from a little-known pepper (the Green Amazon pepper), and having a very pleasant blend of heat and flavour. It is the one we have used most since the tasting, since it boasts a broad application spectrum.

We finished the tasting with a little jerk chicken and a vegetarian 4-bean chili, and a fair bit of beer.

Next time around we'll have to pick our date a little better so that more people who wanted to attend will be able to make it.

Natural Match

Sometimes, I read a recipe that is very different than anything I've tried before, but while I am reading it, I find myself nodding and thinking to myself that this is such a natural match, these things go together so well, that I am surprised I've never thought of it myself. This happened immediately upon seeing this post by Michele at Oswego Tea, where some of the ideals of a Greek salad (long a favourite) have migrated into zucchiniville.

Fortunately, I do not really expect to come up with every brilliant food combination myself, but I'd be a sad sort of food enthusiast if I didn't recognise a good thing when I stumble across it. Still, it took a couple of weeks before the combined hot weather, hunger, and the presence of artisanal goat feta in my fridge prompted me to drag out the indoor grill for the season.

The salad is exactly what I hoped it to be: cool, tangy with feta and lemon juice, fragrant with mint, and slightly softened (but still crunchy) vegetables with lovely dark marks from the grill. It is a refreshing side dish for dinner, or even possibly a light meal by itself. It is the perfect thing to help beat the heat, especially in an old house that doesn't have great ventilation and needs all the help it can get to stay cool.

I will be making this many more times this summer...and in the summers to come.

Generosity of Family & the Kindness of Strangers

Yesterday, we went to Gibsons to have a family dinner at my sister's house. It was in part a belated Father's Day event, for which I made cookies, in part a very much belated Easter gathering, and all around a fine excuse to sit in the sun, drink beer and chat, and eventually fire up the grill for a little supper.

Well, I was too ill-prepared and, let's face it, downright greedy to take a picture of the fantastic grilled chicken that I had for dinner last night, but I am thrilled that I was given a jar of Pat's homemade spice rub that transported ordinary chicken breasts into a spicy, delicious, brag-worthy meal. Of course, the homemade foccacia, the freshly picked garden salad greens, and the nugget potatoes roasted with onions and garlic all contributed their fair share, but the chicken, with it's little bath of olive oil and quick rub with this fragrant, heady mixture, was undoubtedly the star of the show.

I'm not entirely sure what goes into it. I'm reasonably confident that garlic granules and cayenne pepper play a significant role, but I am told that there are upwards of 14 or 15 different spices required to make the spice rub. It's worth it.
We also managed to score a bag of the garden greens, which went into today's lunch of BLTs on sourdough bread. There's enough left over for a good dinner salad, so tomorrow's menu is well under construction.

Switching topics slightly, on a recent foray out of our usual dinner haunts, we found ourselves wandering down 4th Avenue on our way to get some tandoori chicken. En route, we paused outside a trendy little joint that has recently changed its name. We wondered if it had changed ownership, too, so we sidled over to look over the glassed-in menu posted outside. One of the few customers, an unhappy-looking woman sitting next to the open window, pursed her lips and shook her head slightly. We looked at the menu to see the same sort of ambitious combinations that had been so poorly executed in its last incarnation, and decided that the ownership was probably the same. I glanced back at the customer, sitting with a posture of regret and one hand on an empty wineglass, and she again shook her head. She made direct eye contact, shook her head, then closed her eyes and sighed, lifting her eyebrows slightly... a clear warning off. I gave her a little tight nod, and a thumbs-up, and she smiled, briefly. We continued on to our original destination.

I hope her evening improved - I hope it was a little bit improved by the fact that someone took her silent advice. We probably wouldn't have gone in, but it was nice to have our suspicions confirmed. Whoever you are, thank you.

Odds and Ends

What do you make when you have a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, and it all needs to be used up promptly? For my mother, the answer was variously soup or omelettes. For me, the answer used to always be "pizza." I've made pizza out of some astonishing things (leftover Dijon rabbit comes to mind). In the past year or so, I've become enamoured of quesadillas, and that took centre stage for a while. Pizza was out of the question, with the weather being entirely too hot to have the oven on at such a temperature, and I've been eating a lot of quesadillas, lately. What else is there?

Ultimately, when your ingredients are delicious fresh vegetables and a handful of frozen shrimp, the answer has to be that old college standby: the stir-fry. To complement the shrimp, I added ginger, and to complement everything, a lot of fresh garlic and some chile flakes.

I've had to replace my beloved jasmine rice (off the charts on the glycemic index, so a rare treat instead of my default choice) in my pantry, and have experimented with a number of different rices. Often, I choose basmati, but this time, I used simple parboiled rice (the kind I keep on hand for making Jamaican Rice & Beans, or jambalaya) , but served as seen here, the rice felt a little uninspired. After the camera was put away and I was sitting down to eat, I found myself mixing everything about so that the buttery juices of the shrimp and vegetables would be soaked up by the rice. It was the right thing to do, if a little less photogenic. Still, if hunger hadn't been the driving force at the late hour of my dinner, I would have photographed it, too - little brightly coloured gems of pepper and glistening jagged tops of asparagaus peeking through the white grains of rice - it was entirely tolerable, aesthetically.

Dinner on the table in 18 minutes. Take that, FoodTv! Plus, I managed to use up not one but three ingredients that were riding on the edge of their expiry dates.

Butter Chicken!

I am a sucker for Indian food (downright amazing, given my earlier fear of curry). I particularly like to experiment with hitherto unknown dishes when dining in restaurants, but for the most part my home cooking adventures in Indian cookery focus on known quantities. I like spicy food, and Indian cuisine has it in spades, but there are also more temperate dishes - full of spices and flavours, but not necessarily focused on heat.

Butter Chicken is a funny one, though. Almost every place you have it (and it seems to be available everywhere, it's that popular here), it's quite different. My local neighbourhood joint makes it mild and fragrant with coriander, and sprinkled with methi (dried fenugreek). I've had it richly tomato-y and red, mildly orange and creamy and, on myfirst attempt to make it at home, bright pink. I concluded pretty quickly that I had used too much tandoori paste on the chicken, and subsequent batches were less terrifyingly barbie-toned.

I have quite a few recipes for Butter Chicken, but most of them are eye-rollingly daunting, or involve and actual tandoor oven or other equipment that I am unable to really equal in my western kitchen. Eventually, I stumbled on the website for Mamta's Kitchen and got the bones of a workable version. My version has remained quite true to the nature of hers, but is tweaked for my own convenience. I am quite lazy, so I have no problem substituting natural cashew butter for cashews that have been soaked one hour, and then ground. Although, just for fun, I did do it that way once, my shortcut allows me to carve away a significant chunk of prep-time, which makes me that much more likely to make this on a weeknight.

Mission in progress

I do like lamb. A few years ago, I realized that I seldom ate it, which was attributable in part to the fact that my family never had it when I was growing up, and that most casual restaurants didn't have a lot of lamb dishes on offer. My lack of lamb was, in fact, the topic of one of my earlier essays. I set about a remedial program of lamb cookery for myself, and I have had no cause whatsoever to regret it.

One of the two prongs to my approach was to investigate lamb dishes from different cultures. I quickly found that Indian cuisine offered a broad selection to choose from and, after brief flirtations with biryani, settled on lamb bhuna as a favourite dish. The image above is my first attempt at creating this myself, from an Indian cookbook brought back for me by my Dad and his fiancee from their recent trip to northern India.

It's the second dish that I've made from the book - the first was a cauliflower dish that was adequate but not outstanding. This, however - fantastic. I used the shank end of a leg of lamb, and cut around the fat before slicing it carefully across the grain. It was unbelievably tender and delicious, and the slicing of the lamb took longer than the entire cooking process.

I will make this again, but my next foray into exotic lamb cookery will be Mexican. They do some mighty fine things with lamb, down there, and I have a passel of dried chiles that are languishing until I get on with it.

Al fresco amidst the vines

I've been a little bit AWOL, lately, this I know. Last week, I started a new job, and have been pouring non-food information into my head with a funnel until my brains were so full that I couldn't have answered as simple a question as "Do you want fries with that?" I think I've made the adjustment now, so while I still have a lot to learn on my plate, so to speak, I can once again spare a little attention to the delicious things in life.

Last weekend, in the narrow slot of time between finishing my old job and starting the new one, I went to see friends on Vancouver Island. The plan was to do a little tour of the growing number of wineries there, and have lunch at one of them. Since we were scheduling around the transportation challenges of not only our arrival from the mainland, but also our friends' seven month-old baby, it took a while before we were on the road. We failed in our mission to complete an actual tour, per se, but we succeeded in having an absolutely delicious and revivifying lunch on the deck of Vinoteca Resaurant, overlooking (and a part of) Zanatta Winery's vineyards.

After a quick tour of their wine varietals in the tasting room, we sashayed out to the lovely wrap-around verandah and gazed down the vineyards while waiting for our food. We had a bottle of one of their sparkling wines, the Fatima Brut, which boasted toasty flavours (our favourite, in a champagne-style wine!) and tucked into the elegant but simple Italian fare on offer from the kitchen.
My salad had crispy pancetta, strips of citrus zest, melon balls, feta, on a bed of assorted bitter greens. The dressing was fig and balsamic vinegar. There was a sweet and sharp and salty combination that worked perfectly as an appetizer, revving up my tastebuds for the main dish. I'm not one to order salads, usually, but this just sounded so refreshing that I couldn't say no. It was an excellent match to the sparkling wine, and the sunny-but-cool weather.

Moving along, my pasta was also delightful - with darker, more earthy flavours compared to the brightness of the salad. There was a mushroom broth, little strips of proscuitto, and black olives, with shredded sage. The pasta was almost defiantly al dente, and the last few pieces of pasta had soaked up the rich juices beautifully.

The two men both opted for the polenta cake with chorizo and red pepper sauce, served over mustard greens with a mighty shard of parmesan cheese. It looked good, and the little bite I got of chorizo was very agreeable, but I didn't try much of it, with a rather large lunch of my own to work at.

I was too full for dessert, although my companions had some. The custard and fig cake looked so outstanding that I had to steal a tiny bite, even though I was quite full. I wish that I had remembered to take a picture of it.

We were leisurely enough at our lunch (and I would not have rushed, anyway) that we only had time to make one more place to visit before it was time to head back to the house. We went to the Merridale Cidery, and had a walking tour of the cider mill before taking to the tasting room. After a look at the menu for their restaurant La Pommeraie, we immediately swore (despite our full stomachs) that we would be back to try it soon. We sampled quite a few different ciders, and picked up a Traditional Cider and a Winter Apple - sort of the icewine of ciders, sweet, rich, and heavy, and perfect for after dinner.

We didn't make it to Blue Grouse, or any of the other places on our list, but that can mean only one thing: another attempt at an Island wine tour is definitely required. Preferably, soon.

Some Like It Hot! (Creamed Eggplant)

Some like it hot. Good thing, too, because sometimes, at the end of a long day when one is a little bit tired but relentlessly pushing on with the new recipe anyway, one forgets that, when halving a recipe the spices should also be halved.

Ordinarily, I probably wouldn't have even noticed that the spices were a little feisty, since I like a good bit more seasoning in my food than many folks. This, however, was an Indian recipe by way of Madhur Jaffrey, and didn't really start life as a particularly subtle dish.

As it turned out, I wouldn't make it any other way. Yes, it's a zippy little number, but that's what raita is for, yes? I did add a smidge more cream than the recipe called for, to temper the additional spice, but other than that it worked out perfectly. It was fun to make, too, with the charring of the eggplant, and the tearing away of the blackened skin in leathery chunks. In deference to my occasionally-problematic right hand, I used my mini-prep to chop the onions and garlic, and I have to say that I was impressed at what a good job it did - without producing ragged mush, as some food processors are wont to do. I would probably still hand-chop for something that wasn't going to be cooked down (such as a salsa fresca) but this worked admirably on a day when I couldn't actually hold a proper knife in my hand.

Creamed Eggplant (India)
Adapted from World of the East Vegetarian Cooking by Madhur Jaffrey

1 large eggplant
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 medium onion, chopped moderately finely
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 teaspoon ground fenugreek seed
1/2 teaspoon whole fennel seed
3 tablespoons tomato sauce
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
pinch of salt
1/4 cup half-and-half cream
cilantro to garnish

Line a sided-pan with tin-foil, and poke the eggplant with a fork - several times on each side. Char the entire eggplant under a broiler, until the skin is completely withered and black, and the flesh is soft. Transfer the eggplant to a clean sink and strip the skin away, carefully, under running cool water so that you don't burn yourself. Chop the flesh of the eggplant roughly and set aside.

In a medium skillet, over medium heat, warm the oil. Add the fenugreek and fennel and let it become aromatic before adding the onions and garlic. Stir and fry the onions until lightly golden. Then, add the tomato sauce and the rest of the spices, and stir and fry again until mixture is a little dry. Add the chopped eggplant, ginger, and salt. Stir and fry again until everything is well integrated (about five minutes), and then add the cream. Stir the cream through, keeping on the heat just long enough to warm it all nicely. Garnish with chopped cilantro.

Serves 4 as a side-dish

Makes a surprisingly tasty appetizer when rolled up in a tortilla and sliced into pinwheels!

Oatmeal Coconut Cookies

It doesn't look like it's made with stoneground whole wheat flour. It doesn't look as though it was made with canola oil instead of butter. It certainly doesn't look low in fat. For the unswervingly chocolate-oriented, it may not even look all that delicious but, really, it is all of these things. This is the revised Oatmeal Coconut Cookie of my childhood. It has come a long way since the lumpy, dark-bottomed, dense-but-tasty little nuggets that represented the most commonly baked cookie of my childhood.

Occasionally, it would be studded with raisins or chocolate chips - perhaps even carob chips - but it is completely able to stand on its own, unadorned and golden. The coconut flavour is subtle but distinct, but if you wanted a more vigorous coconut flavour, you could use coconut extract, I suppose. I'm contemplating making them with rum extract, myself. Who could refuse a Malibu flavoured cookie?

Oatmeal Coconut Cookies

Yield: about 24

1/2 cup canola oil
1 cup brown sugar (not packed)
1 egg
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup stone ground whole wheat flour
1/2 cup unsweetened fine coconut
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a medium mixing bowl, pour the oil, brown sugar, vanilla extract, and egg.  Beat well with a wooden spoon until smooth.  Add the rolled oats, coconut, and whole wheat flour in layers without stirring.  Add the baking soda, baking powder and salt, and then stir the whole mixture slowly until evenly mixed.

Using a small cookie scoop or a large tablespoon, drop the cookies onto a lightly oil-spritzed baking sheet, leaving enough room for them to expand.  Use a spatula to slightly flatten the tops.  Bake for about 15 minutes or until just barely golden.  Remove promptly to a cooling rack.

The original recipe did in fact use whole wheat flour and canola oil, but I have tinkered with the proportions and technique to yield a leaner, crisper, flatter cookie. The proportions of rolled oats and flour are equal, making it almost a granola-bar of a cookie - very oaty, and the perfect thing to snack upon mid-morning or mid-afternoon, with a cup of hot tea or coffee, as you wish.

Last Vestiges of Winter

Spring is technically here, and the rains have certainly arrived, but the sudden chill after a week or so of warm, delightful weather has catapulted me back into a bit of a winter-cookery mode. To be fair, the real reason for making this recipe was because I got my grubby mitts on a copy of the much-lauded Zuni Cafe Cookbook. You see, I'd heard that they have a way with lentils, and I had a lovely little pouch of organic duPuy lentils mocking me from the fruit bowl, where I had unceremoniously plunked them in the blithe confidence that I would be using them straightaway.

They languished with the lemons and kiwi for about a week before I got to them, though, hence the mocking. Once I had the Zuni Cafe Cookbook, however, I really had no excuse. I found the perfect recipe, the one that simply demanded to be made with all haste: Lentils braised in red wine.

A trip to Oyama Sausage Company on Granville Island had equipped me with a pair of lean, rotund elk sausages, and another pair made of bison with rosemary. I roasted the sausages in the oven, alongside a pan of chopped fennel and whole garlic cloves. Fennel and sausage go so well together, whether the sausage is flavoured with fennel seeds or not. And garlic, of course, goes with everything.

As you can see from the picture, I didn't cut my carrot finely enough for the dish, but that didn't hinder the flavour at all. I realized at the time that the pieces should be smaller, but my problematic chopping hand was giving out and I did not have a galley-slave...er, prep chef...to assist at the time. He showed up later, in time to slice cucumbers and trim radishes, for a much-needed fresh vegetable componant.

This dish could easily be made vegetarian. The original recipe uses olive oil rather than duck fat (I couldn't resist - it must be my French blood) and the braising liquid could be water (which I used) or veggie stock. The original also seems to think that fresh thyme is optional, but in my opinion, it is mandatory. I might try this again with the beluga lentils, since I usually have those on hand anyway, and I'm curious as to how different they would be. I don't think I'd try large green or brown lentils because, much as I love them in salads, I think they would easily turn to mush here.

Lentils Braised in Red Wine
Adapted from the "Zuni Cafe Cookbook" by Judy Rodgers

2 tablespoons duck fat
1 finely diced medium carrot
2 ribs finely diced celery
1 cup finely diced yellow onion
Salt
1 bay leaf
1 1/4 cups lentils (about 8 ounces) - French lentils or "Beluga" lentils
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 cup medium-bodied red wine, such as Sangiovese or Pinot Noir (I used a Tempranillo)
2 1/2 cups water, chicken stock, or a combination
2 to 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Warm the duck fat in a dutch oven over medium-low heat. Add the carrots, celery, onion, and a good pinch of salt. Stir for about 5 minutes as the vegetables release their moisture and begin to hiss, then add lentils, bay leaf, thyme, wine and about a cup of the water and/or stock. Raise the heat slightly to achieve a gentle (but not too gentle, or it will take longer to cook) simmer, then cook uncovered, stirring as needed, as you would risotto, adding more water or stock as the last of each batch is just about absorbed, until the lentils are nutty-tender and just bathed in their cooking liquid (you may not use all of the liquid, or you may need a little more). Allow about 40 minutes. Taste and season with salt if necessary. Add the extra-virgin olive oil to taste and simmer for a minute longer to bind it with the cooking liquid.

Serves 4 to 6.

Leftovers travel well to work, and reheat splendidly!

Desert Flavours: Chicken Sahara

I like sunny weather as much as the next person, really, but I am also one of those who suffers easily in the heat. None-the-less, I find myself drawn to flavours and staples of hot-weather cuisine. Chicken, that staple that happily accepts all manner of rough-treatment from filleting to pan-frying, braising, poaching, roasting, grilling, or skewering (and surely more that I've left out) becomes a particularly useful canvas for taking your tastebuds on a journey.

My journey this time is to the north of Africa - using the lemon and olive combination from Senegal's Yassa au Poulet, and the cumin, turmeric and red chiles favoured in Morocco. This is Chicken Sahara (expired link removed --please see recipe in the comments below) a recipe that I highjacked, modified and drastically improved from a more expositorily named recipe in a collection from Cooking Light, and which fairly shrieks of sunwarmed sand and sharp and pungent flavours. It is feisty, but not dangerously so.

The cooking method is unusual - room-temperature liquid surrounds the chicken as it goes into the oven, uncovered. There, it sort of poaches, sort of braises, for an hour, at the end of which, the weirdly murky-looking sauce has transformed into a smooth, thickened, sunny yellow, lemony deliciousness.

Make more than you need. Leftovers re-heat beautifully, and the lemony sauce is fabulous on steamed carrots, asparagus, broccoli - you name it. If there's any sauce leftover, I just stir it right into the leftover couscous that inevitably gets served with this dish. Very tasty, very easy.

Creature of Habit

In many ways, I am a creature of habit. In other ways, since those habits do shift with a certain, shall we say, regularity, perhaps I could be better called a creature of jags. Sometimes I manage to have more than one jag going at any particular time, but that's another story for another time - perhaps one where we are discussing time management, for example

One of my most consistant habits is toast for weekday breakfasts. What I choose to put on my toast, however, is completely subject to the jag of the moment - in this case, avocado. As you can see, I am a fan of the avocado. Since avocados can ripen quite quickly when it is most inconvenient to make a big batch of guacamole, this leads to the occasional need to use them up promptly.

I have discovered that a cut avocado lasts quite well in the fridge if I have carefully flattened a piece of plastic wrap in full-contact with the cut flesh. This means that I can get away with using only a quarter-avocado on my toast, as it will happily keep for a few days.

Avocados are full of good things, but they are fairly rich, so I like to keep my intake somewhat discreet. At this time, a quarter-avocado sliced onto rye toast, sprinkled with a little fleur de sel or Brittany grey sea salt, a grinding of fresh pepper, and breakfast is ready. Even with my compressed morning schedule, I can manage that much. So, for the moment, I'm all about the avocados. When tomato season hits, though, tomato-toast will again reign supreme in breakfastland.

Cinco de Mayo (Red Adobo of Pork and also Black Bean Soup)

Last year, I had a Cinco de Mayo party; this year, I am not so organized. Cinco de Mayo commemorates the victory of the drastically outnumbered Mexicans over the Napoleonic army at The Battle Of Puebla in 1862. Although it is primarily a regional holiday in the state of Puebla, it has some recognition throughout Mexico, and in many American cities, too. It is not Mexico's Independence Day (September 16), but it is a celebration in a similar spirit.

While it may not be Mexico's Independence Day, it holds great significance in the establishment of a national identity for many Mexicans, and as such is perfectly in keeping with my interest in the food of cultural celebrations.

While I may not have managed any particular arrangments for this year, I have been cooking a lot of Mexican food lately, including Mayan-style black bean soup and these adorable little tostadas made of Mexican adobo of pork shoulder, some awesome spinach tortillas made by a local factory (you can actually taste the spinach!), a some feisty green salsa using Brandon's recipe (of Orangette-fame). The pork shoulder took an impressive three hours of simmering in first water and then a brick-coloured adobo sauce made with pureed ancho chiles, onions, garlic, and surprisingly minimal dried spices, such as cumin and oregano. This is all about the chiles, but it is not a particularly hot dish. Anchos are, as Bobby Flay likes to say, "like spicy raisins." There's an underlying sweetness that sets off the mild heat of the pepper, and contrasts beautifully in this recipe against the vinegar-edge of the adobo.

I'm already on the record as saying that miniature = cute, and these are no exception. The first night I served them, we left the tortillas soft (but warm) and adorned them with sliced peppers and a smear of refried beans, and the second night, I crisped the tortillas in a cast iron frying pan until blistered with gold and served them with just the salsa and a little cilantro. The tortillas are about a finger's-length in diameter, making these just a few quick bites each. You could make even tinier ones, just one bite each, and I probably would if I were serving them as party snacks. In fact, I might just have to have a party so that I can do so!

Red Adobo of Pork
(Adobo Rojo de Cerdo)
adapted from the excellent New Complete Book of Mexican Cooking by Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz

7 ancho chilies, toasted, de-stemmed and de-seeded, torn into pieces and covered with warm water
3 lbs. boneless pork shoulder, cut into one-inch cubes
1 onion, peeled, halved, and stuck with 2 cloves
1 onion, peeled and diced
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground oregano
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
black pepper
1/2 teaspoon sugar
398 ml./14 0z. canned, diced tomatoes
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1 tablespoon lard, bacon drippings or corn oil
Salt
Black pepper

Start with the pork. In a heavy dutch oven, place the pork and the clove-stuck onion with enough lightly salted water to just cover. Bring to a simmer, reduce the heat to a very gentle heat, and cook (covered) for 2 hours. The meat will be very tender. In the final hour of the meat simmering, start the prep for the sauce.

Let the peppers rest in their warm bath for 20 - 30 minutes, until thoroughly soft. Remove the peppers from their water and place them in a food processor, along with the chopped onion, garlic, cumin, oregano, sugar and tomatoes. Process until you have a fairly smooth, heavy puree. In a heavy skillet, heat the lard, and add the puree. Saute the mixture over a lowheat, stirring constantly, for about five minutes.

When the pork has finished simmering, remove the pork pieces from the liquid, which has become a lovely pork-stock. Strain the stock, and reserve one cup. Freeze the rest for the next time you want to make black bean soup.

Thin the ancho mixture with the reserved pork stock, and transfer the mixture to your now-empty dutch oven. Add the pork back to the pot, add the vinegar, and stir well. Simmer uncovered over low to medium-low heat. The sauce will finish cooking and become quite thick. Taste the sauce, and add salt and black pepper as needed.

Serves 6. Leftovers make awesome burritos with beans, grated cheese, and salsa.

Taking Note

When one of my fellow food bloggers is so taken with a dish that she immediately needs to make it again, I take note. In this case, Linda from kayaksoup did such a great sell-job on Giada's Balsamic Chicken that I had to try it for myself.

How right she was, to be so enthused! I paired this tasty offering with lemon-orzo (still suffering from a little Greekitis, I guess), broccoli, and cumin-roasted yam cubes. I realized after I had taken the picture, that I hadn't yet sprinkled the lemon zest over, which was very pretty but by which point we were all starving - precluding the time for more photography.

This will be going into my repeat-file, too. Thanks, Linda!

A Sudden Surge of Greek

My neighbourhood is quite well known for its Greek community - restaurants, banks, poolhalls, specialty import stores - often these are Greek-owned-and-run. I have my favourites, of course, whether it's a place to hang out or a place I might go for one specific dish.

I keep kalamata olives on hand, most of the time. I'm very fond of feta cheese. I never want to run out of oregano. I really dig lamb. I'm growing surpisingly fond of spinach, even. It shouldn't be a surprise to me, then, that I occasionally suffer from a sudden surge of Greek cooking.

I am not Greek. Not even a little bit, and lord knows, I'm a little bit of a lot of things. I do, however, often get mistaken for Greek or (insert other Mediterranean culture). It's the dark hair and vigorously growing eyebrows, I think; an illusion. However, if you were to walk past my house and smell the unmistakable aroma of lamb simmering with tomatoes, onions, cinnamon and allspice as I layer my way, brow furrowed, through making a Pastitsio, you'd be excused for the mistake.The wonderfully complex-tasting seasoning of Pastitsio is a delicious hallmark of Greek cookery: the bold use of a number of spices that are often thought of as more sweet flavours, for baking, are mixed into a familiar blend of red meat and tomatoes to make a highly aromatic (yet not "spicy") flavour, completely unlike either an Italian pasta dish or an Indian curry.

This marks my first attempt at Avgolemono, a soup I have long enjoyed at restaurants, but never bothered to make. At its heart, it is really a Greek variation on good ol' chicken noodle soup. Chicken broth, a few minimal vegetables, and some orzo pasta. Where it departs from the standard is the generous addition of lemon juice and, in my case, lemon zest, too, and the use of egg. Avgolemono is a dairy-free soup, its subtle and creamy texture coming from beaten egg that is stirred carefully into the soup to create a texture more like crushed velvet than the rags of an Italian Stracciatella. After examining a number of recipes, I decided to go it alone based on the common principles of all the recipes I had seen, plus all the avgolemonos I've eaten.

It was shockingly easy. It was very tasty. And, the next day, for lunch, it was even better (and a teensy bit thicker).


Avgolemono

Serves 4

2 teaspoons rendered chicken fat or canola oil
4 cups strong chicken stock
1/2 small onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 large carrot, peeled and cut into quarter-slices
1/2 teaspoon oregano leaves
1 bayleaf
1/2 cup orzo
juice of one lemon
3 wide strips of lemon zest
salt & pepper to taste
1 egg, beaten
1 cooked chicken breast, diced

Melt the chicken fat in a medium soup-pot. Add the onion, garlic and carrot, and cook and stir until the onion becomes a little translucent. Add the oregano and bayleaf, and stir. Add the chicken stock and orzo and simmer, stirring, for about 6 minutes, or until the orzo begins to get tender. Add the cooked chicken breast and reduce the heat slightly.

Remove about a cup of hot broth (avoiding any chunks) from the soup pot and add it slowly to the beaten egg in a small bowl, beating well (an immersion blender is great for this). Add the lemon juice and zest to the soup, lower the flame under the soup to very low, and add the beaten egg/broth mixture. Cook and stir over the low flame until mixture thickens, but do not let it boil, or you will have a raggedy look to the soup's texture. Taste and adjust for salt.

What's for Breakfast?

I usually try to make breakfast in at least once during the weekend. Not only is it a whole different range of cooking from my evening adventures, but it helps keep the budget under control. Like everyone else, I have my favourites - the frequent fliers that I turn to when adventure is out of the question - when the day is scheduled too tightly, for example. This is yesterday's breakfast - fairly self-explanatory in the main, but still worthy of a little explication.

I make steamed eggs fairly often - it is my go-to "basic breakfast" choice over fried, scrambled, or boiled. I often top the eggs with hot sauce before they go into the steamer - cooking in a layer of flavour. Yesterday, however, I wanted to try out my new Hawaiian Red Sea Salt, so the eggs remained pristine until they hit the plate. The verdict on the salt was - delicious! The crystals are much coarser than kosher salt, but with a flat, shingle-like appearance. Unlike my other fancy salts of the moment, Fleur de Sel and Brittany Organic Grey Sea Salt, the grains do not clump together at all, allowing for easy placement on a plated dish.

For those of you unfamiliar with the delights of a southern breakfast, the creamy mass shown at the bottom of the picture is hominy grits with cheese and sliced chile peppers. Enormously easy to make (I use Alber's Quick Grits, which I have to buy in Bellingham, because most grocers up here don't even seem to know what they are, let along stock them), grits fill in the role of potatoes in other breakfasts - although a true southern breakfast might have both, I suppose.

The first time I ever had grits was in New Orleans - at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville. I wouldn't have naturally stumbled into a place that was clearly a tourist-trap in many ways, but the daily noon downpour had just begun, and we had ducked into the restaurant in time to get a seat rather than ride out the darkened sky and hour of skin-piercing rain huddled in the doorway looking hopeful and trying not to shiver. The menu contained "Shrimp & Grits" and it seemed like as good a time as any to check them out. I've become quite a fan. I can't even listen to Jimmy Buffett without thinking of grits, such is the power of association...

I should confess that I do not usually pile the bacon onto my plate with quite such abandon. I could tell you that it was for photographic purposes, as the two strips I usually have would look paltry in comparison, but the truth is that I was working from frozen, and didn't have the time or patiences to defrost the bacon to just use what I needed. I slung the extra few strips into the pan, and we simply forced ourselves to eat them! Fortification, you know, against a day where food would be something of an unknown quantity.

This leaves only the toast left for analysis: Healthy Way's organic whole wheat bread, made without flour, but instead using ground, sprouted grain and vital wheat gluten to adjust the texture. The breads are good - although I fancy the Alpine Chipmunk Loaf more than the plain whole wheat, which may surprise those of you who are used to me avoiding anything whole or crunchy in my bread. There is no glucose/fructose (better known as High Fructose Corn Syrup) in either of these loaves, and no refined white flour. They are very tasty. The website linked above claims that the organic breads are only available in Atlantic Canada, but this is clearly out of date.

So, no smoothies, yesterday - I was out of fruit - so now I'm pretty much craving one. Perhaps today for lunch...

Easter Dinner - Cooking together

Much as I like ham, which was my family's traditional Easter dinner when I was growing up, I confess that these days I find myself leaning more towards the Australian tradition of lamb to celebrate the Spring. Of course, the Australian tradition usually involves roasting a great big leg of it, which presents much the same problem as a ham does in a household of two-plus-cat: too much leftover.

When one is not tied to unwavering expectations, however, one can feel free to walk on the wild side and do something completely different. So, with remarkably little discussion required, Palle & I settled on a lamb Daube Provençal as our dinner of choice.

Now, a daube is essentially a meat stew, and this one certainly was stewed for quite some time. 90 minutes, to be exact. Fortunately we had lunched well and further fortified ourselves with snacks in the afternoon before we got to cooking. Palle took point, and I took prep, so the dish is really his execution of the Daube Provençal from Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook - his third recipe from that book.

So, Palle handled the batch-browning while I chopped, poured and wrangled the mise en place at kibitzed at him about raising or lowering the flame, when to add certain ingredients, and whatever else I could think of. He is always patient with my sometimes never-ending stream of chatter and general kitchen bossiness, and happy to let someone else do the prep for a change, I think.

More often than not it is he who helps me in the kitchen, deftly retrieving things from the fridge or freezer, opening, peeling, slicing, chopping endless amounts of mushrooms and peppers, which are among our most frequent fliers. I enjoy it when he steps out from behind the cutting board and cooks, which would probably happen more frequently if he had more reasonable work hours.

My contribution to the night's dinner was a pear and ginger cheesecake (from the latest issue of Eating Well) for which - alas! there are no pictures. It was quite nice, but the ginger flavour outshone the pear. Of course, if you choose to drink a little Poire William with it, you probably wouldn't notice...

Miniature = Cute

It's not my fault. I'm programmed to it - we all are. Miniature versions of things are just somehow more adorable. Even bran muffins. Especially bran muffins!



The secret to the amazingly light texture of these muffins is to soak the bran in buttermilk until it is fully hydrated. You can add the extras of your choice - walnuts, raisins, orange zest - but they're quite tasty plain, too. The recipe makes 12 regular sized muffins (not bakery-jumbo monsters) or 3 dozen miniatures - just a tad bigger than your average doughnut-hole, and much more satisfying! These are great for snacking, because I cannot leave a half-muffin to dry out, even if I don't want a whole one at any given time. This way, I'm snacking down on a whole (albeit tiny) muffin several times throughout the day.

Bran Muffins

Makes 12 regular-sized muffins
Total prep and cooking time: 40 minutes

1 1/4 cups wheat bran
1 scant cup buttermilk
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons molasses
1 cup stone-ground whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup raisins (optional)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Lightly spritz a 12 cup muffin pan with canola oil.

In a medium bowl, mix together the wheat bran and buttermilk. Let stand for about 10 minutes or until it has thickened.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, blend together the brown sugar, apple sauce, canola oil, egg and molasses. Add the bran mixture and stir well. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and spices. Stir into the batter until just moistened - don't over-mix. Stir in the raisins (you can also use blueberries). Divide the batter between the muffin cups.

Bake for 15 - 20 minutes, or until the tops spring back when lightly pressed. Let stand for a couple of minutes in the pan, then turn out to finish cooling on a wire rack. When completely cool, you can freeze them individually on a tray, transfer to a zippered plastic bag, and use as needed. A frozen muffin tossed into a briefcase or knapsack thaws beautifully in time for a morning coffee break.



They freeze well, too. Put them in a single layer on a plate and freeze until hard - a couple of hours will do it - then bag them up and defrost as needed. I just toss a couple of them into a Tupperware container and put it in my briefcase - by the time I get to work, they're completely thawed out and fresh. For added deliciousness, about 10 seconds in the microwave and a smear of cream cheese make them almost fancy!

The usual fat-reducing technique of replacing some of the oil with unsweetened applesauce is employed here - I keep my applesauce in the freezer, too, and defrost in the microwave as needed.

I also make these with double-the-sugar, which brings it to a whopping 1/2 cup(!) They still are nowhere near as sweet as cupcakes, but if you're looking for a little hint of sweetness, that's the way to go. They are still frightfully healthy, I assure you.