Nigella Express - Macaroni & Cheese

One of my Christmas gifts was the brand-new Nigella Express, which I had been eyeballing in the bookstores. While there are a number of items that jump out as must-make, no-time-to-waste, I happened to notice that the amount of cheese called for in her streamlined macaroni and cheese was exactly the amount that I wanted to clear out of the fridge, having rather a lot of post-holiday cheese accumulation taking up space. Since I couldn't legitimately claim not to have the time to make it, I actually managed to get on this recipe fairly promptly.

While I have long been making my favourite version (adapted-from Cooks Illustrated) of Macaroni and Cheese, which is done entirely on the stove top and really does not take long at all, I know that Palle's very favourite kind is the baked variety. Upon further review, I noticed that this recipe not only calls for slightly less cheese overall than my usual recipe, it does not contain any butter at all! This makes it a somewhat healthier dinner (or side dish, if you must), and increased my enthusiasm for trying it out.

Her method is almost ridiculously simple: boil up some macaroni, and while it comes to a boil, throw some cheese, evaporated milk, egg and seasonings into the food processor. Blitz it up, as she says, and combine it with the now-cooked and drained macaroni. Pour the mass into a shallow pan, and bake for about 15 minutes. Dead simple.

Mine did not turn out as lovely-looking in the pan, because I had the oven rack set rather too low to get the seared and blistered appearance of hers before the custardy mass had set. Next time, I will try it on a higher rack, and then it may be as pretty to look at in the pan, as it was on the plate. Instead of the perfectly smooth, impenetrably orange character of the stove-top method, this had little cheesy pockets amidst the generally cheesy matrix, and a perhaps more rustic texture. I don't mean that as a discreet criticism, it should be noted, but rather a careful observation of discrepancy. Both versions are delicious, and the one to make is the one that best fits the rest of the meal (if there is, in fact, another component to the meal).

I couldn't leave the recipe entirely alone, I admit. Those of you who know me, or have been reading my blog for a while, know that I am almost constitutionally incapable of letting a recipe alone, and when I do I view it as some marvelous achievement of self-restraint. That said, my modification to this recipe was fairly minor - I added a dash of Tabasco sauce and a pinch of mustard powder to the milk mixture. I'd do it again, too.

Other Things For Breakfast (Walnut Coffee Cake)

I am generally a fan of the savory side of breakfast. While I adore pancakes, I require a side of something meat-y to really enjoy them first thing in the morning. Crepes, of course, allow for the happy concatenation of the two, but are not always an option.

Still, there is certainly something to be said for a quick burst of food as one is about to fly out the door in the morning, or something that requires zero preparation or refrigeration to be enjoyed once one has arrived at their destination. To this end, there are few things that fit the bill better than a good coffee cake, especially one that is not cloyingly sweet.

While many coffee cakes are tasty, but heavy things, this one is shockingly light and airy and allows for almost infinite variety. Here I have used my basic Buttermilk Coffee Cake recipe (available in the comments section below), but skipped the sugared layering process, and instead scattered well-toasted walnut pieces on top and throughout, and stirred a little nutmeg into the batter.

I enjoy nuts, but I usually tend toward almonds, which are more shelf-stable, rather than walnuts. A walnut that has gone rancid is second only to rotten milk for a heebie-jeebie taste in the mouth that will not be vanquished. Still, a fresh, toasted walnut is so incredibly delicious that it is worth the risk. It also helps to purchase your walnuts from a specialty store that has a high turnover, so you can feel confident that you are getting a product that hasn't been sitting around forever. Also, it is good to purchase only as much as you need, and if you find yourself with a few leftover, you will want to toss them into some sort of endive salad or trail-mix snack in fairly short order.

This cake can also be frozen very successfully, if wrapped in a nice tight layer of plastic wrap, either whole or in serving-sized pieces (which generally will have defrosted completely by the time coffee-break rolls around, if taken from the freezer that same morning). This is one of the endearing features of this cake, because it means that I am not sentenced to repetition (which can be tedious, no matter how good the item repeated may be) in order to use it up while it is still fresh-tasting.

Breakfast & the New Year

I don't really make New Year's resolutions, except for the amusing, off-the-cuff kind uttered for entertainment value only. I have long believed that one should implement any improvements that are needed as soon as possible, and not wait for essentially arbitrary milestones.

That said, in the spirit of fresh starts (now that I am once again able to post photographs!) I do hope that my posts here will be a little more frequent in the coming year than they have been and the end of the last.

Also in the spirit of fresh starts, I cannot recommend the meal of breakfast highly enough. Despite my enthusiasm for breakfast, I will confess to having rather recently choked down a few fast-food breakfast sandwiches of the biscuit-y variety, and I probably don't need to tell you that these occasions were met with a flinchy "I can do better than this." So, in fact, I have.

The biscuit here is a cheddar biscuit based on the lovely cream biscuits recipe from Cook's Illustrated's Fall Entertaining issue, made in my kitchen by my friend Lisa, who is somewhat new to the biscuit-making ranks, although a solid cook in her own right. It was she who came up with the idea of prepping a bunch of acceptable biscuits for breakfasts-on-the-go, and we took some time recently to play with the dough a little.

The rest of the ingredients are pretty much self-evident: a little back bacon (easily fried up and stored in a container in the fridge or freezer, depending on how frequently one wants to slap together a breakfast); an egg quickly-fried in a ring - in this case, a tuna can with the top and bottom cut out and pressed smooth; a slice of good, sharp cheddar - coincidentally, the same cheese as the one grated into the biscuit. Alternate versions saw instead a scrambled egg that had been pepped up with a little granulated onion and garlic, which was also a hit (and possibly even faster on the stove top).

Need I tell you how scrumptious it was, and how desperately I am in need of making these again?

Comfort Food: Chili Mac

If there's one thing that the chilly autumn weather and the battling of health issues have in common, it's that comfort food makes them recede a little into the background, leaving instead (if only temporarily) a swathe of warm, well-fed well being.

It's a little funny to me that this dish, Chili Mac, is a comfort food for me, because it is something that I never had growing up. However, we did have a lot of chili, and if this had occurred to my mother as an option, I'm certain she would have made it, and often, at that.

The type of chili necessary for this dish is the uber-basic ground meat and bean style chili, which can be made very quickly and without much fuss. My standard, go to recipe is called "20 Minute Chili" because it is really that quick to knock together, and while chili is always better the next day, it's pretty good as is, shored up with lots of spices. This kind of thick chili can be made from simple pantry/freezer staples, and it freezes most excellently itself, ready to be hauled out and used for anything from Chili Mac to chili dogs, or even as a filling for a fluffy omelette!

Assuming that one has the chili already in the freezer, Chili Mac is dead easy to make (even for someone whose hands don't always work very well). The meat, onions and peppers, and other things that require knife-wielding have, for the most part, already been done, and it becomes a simple skillet dinner of patience and stirring (topped with a little cheese, and maybe some green onion and/or cilantro).

You can use your own favourite ground-meat chili here. Heck, you could even use your own favourite vegetarian chili. It's very adaptable. It uses the absorption method, so you only mess up one pot, which is also good. It's sort of like making a risotto out of pasta, only much less fussy.

Chili Mac

3 cups prepared chili (defrosted)
1 cup uncooked elbow macaroni
2 1/2 cups low-sodium beef broth (or water)
1 cup tomato sauce

Optional garnishes:
Grated cheese
Sliced green onion
Chopped cilantro
Extra hot sauce

In a 12" non-stick skillet with high sides, heat up the chili until bubbly. Add the uncooked macaroni, the broth (or water) and the tomato sauce, and bring up to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, and cook and stir intermittently for about 10 minutes, or until the macaroni is cooked to your liking. The liquid should be mostly absorbed, but the dish should still be a little saucy. If your heat was too high, and your liquid evaporated to quickly, you may need to add a little more water (or, for example, if you like your macaroni well-cooked instead of al dente).

Dish up and garnish as you see fit. If there are any leftovers, they warm up nicely for lunch the following day.

Dzik

I'm always intrigued when I am exploring another cuisine, and I find that there is a common use of an ingredient that I do not associate with that culture. In Mexican cookery, I would never have guessed (based on the restaurants in my neck of the woods) that radishes play a frequent supporting role.

Likewise, I was not expecting to find such a thing as a cold beef salad, although when I did, it didn't surprise me at all that it was full of spicy habanero chiles. Palle, who has been to the Yucatan, fell in love with this dish, but didn't know what it was called until we saw it being made on a television show. Recipe now accessible, he wanted to make it right away. So he did.

The dish is called Dzik, and is also known more generically as Yucatecan salpicón de res. The recipe is from Rick Bayless's Mexico, One Plate at a Time (season 5). Because it is served cold, it is perfect summer food, and while summer is definitely on the way out, here in the Pacific Northwest, we squeezed in one last summery dinner.

The avocado should be sprinkled over the Dzik, but Palle doesn't like avocado as much as I do, so we left it on the side. Also, the Dzik should be resting on top of a bed of lettuce, but we didn't quite get around to doing that, although the presentation would be nicer. Thick, spicy black beans, hand-chopped fresh salsa cruda, and corn tortillas rounded it all out, and we enjoyed every little bit of it.

Next time, I think we will simmer the meat a little longer, to make it even more tender, and chop the red onion a little finer. Other than that - I wouldn't change a thing. Full of tangy lime juice, zippy habanero peppers, fresh crunchy radishes, and (for me) creamy avocado, it was tasty and satisfying, and definitely on the "let's make again" list.

I may not be able to wait until next summer.

Pirate Granola

Should I explain the name? Well, I'll try: Maybe it's because I'm soon going to be attending a pirate-themed party, and maybe it's because I've still got the image of Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow burned into my retinas, and maybe it's because I sort of highjacked the original recipe from the inimitable Alton Brown. Maybe it's just that the changes I made all sort of smacked of the Caribbean, and while I know there is more to that culture than pirates (cue Johnny Depp, again), it just sounded kind of fun.

But, really? It's very, very good. Lightly sweet, satisfyingly crunchy, and easy to make.

I did, in fact, start with Alton's ratios, but because I don't like my granola to be too sweet, I cut down on the amount of sugars going into this by quite a bit. Once I decided to use rum syrup instead of maple syrup, well, that along with the coconut was really the start of the theme. I added pumpkin seeds in place of one of the types of nuts that Alton used, and this was a good thing, because a well-toasted pumpkin seed is a delicious addition to many a snackfood.

This recipe is rather goody-heavy. It's not like those sad bags you can see in some markets which are ninety-five percent oats and sugar, with a few stray-looking nuts or raisins. This granola is laden with, ahem, booty. While it's not in the picture, I later added some banana chips, although I've since become horrified at the fat content of those, and won't be repeating that adjustment.

Pirate Granola
Severely adapted from a recipe looted from Alton Brown

3 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 cup very roughly chopped almonds
1 cup raw pumpkin seeds
3/4 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
2 tablespoons golden brown sugar
1/4 cup rum syrup (recipe follows)
2 tablespoons blackstrap molasses
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup raisins (chopped dates would also be good)

Preheat oven to 275 degrees F.

In a large bowl, combine the oats, nuts, pumpkin seeds, coconut and brown sugar.

In a separate bowl, combine the molasses, rum syrup, oil and salt, and stir well. Combine both mixtures and stir until thoroughly integrated. Pour onto one or two large, foil-lined (and oil-spritzed) sheet pans. Cook for about 1 hour and 30 minutes, stirring gently every 30 minutes to achieve an even colour.

Remove from oven and transfer to a large bowl. Add raisins and mix until evenly distributed. Once cool, seal in an air-tight container and keep unrefrigerated.

Yield: approximately 7 cups

Exellent as a topping for yoghurt, as a breakfast cereal, or - my favourite - as a coffee-break snack! I just pour a bit into a mug, sit at my desk, and much while I'm working, surfing, or typing.

Rum Syrup

1 cup brown sugar, not packed
1/2 cup water
2 teaspoons rum extract

Combine sugar and water in small saucepan on stovetop, over a medium heat. Allow it to come to a gentle boil, and allow to cook until all sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat, and add extract. Allow to cool, bottle, and refrigerate. Excellent on pancakes, or over ice cream.

Easiest Pasta Ever (Fettuccine Tapenade)

This is, really, the easiest pasta dish I've ever made. Barely more effort than packet pasta, really, and easy enough to accomplish when tipsy!

It's not even a recipe, really. It just sort of went like this:

• Boil up water for pasta.
• Throw in a good pinch of salt and about 200 g of fettuccine (aka "a good handful").
• While the pasta comes back up to the boil, roughly chop up some capicola found languishing in fridge. Haphazard chopping is okay.
• Toss capicola into nonstick skillet over medium heat, and let it frizzle a bit. Dump about half a cup or so of good quality black olive tapenade over capicola.
• Scoop al dente pasta out of boiling water and dump it on top of the tapanade. Give it a good stir. Add a clove of crushed garlic, if you're feeling fancy, and if the mixture is tight you can loosen it with a glug of olive oil.
• Top with a fair bit of freshly chopped parsley, to give it a bit of a lift.
• Dish up and devour.

This is going in the "Oh yeah!" pile of easy recipes. The cucumber on the side (barely visible) is a bare nod to the notion that olive tapanade doesn't really qualify as a vegetable, nor does parsley (except when used in tabouleh quantities).

I confess that I did a second version of this without the capicolla, but instead with some sauteed yellow and green zucchini and red peppers, and tossed it with tortellini. Slightly more effort, true, but a more well-rounded meal. You could easily make it a vegetarian or vegan dish, as it doesn't need (or want) any cheese atop.

French Skillet Dinner, or "Not Cassoulet"

I love French food. I like the flavours, the unabashed use of butter and garlic, the reliance on duck and rabbit as part of the cuisine ordinaire. I like the traditions of wildcrafting, and of seasonal eating - abundance of whatever happens to be in season. I like the rustic stuff, and I like the highly refined, elegant stuff.

There are plenty of simple French dishes, many of which (for example, a classic omelette) I make without stopping to think of them as French, per se. Then, of course, there are the dishes that simply use French accents - combining carrots and tarragon, or thyme with mushrooms.

I am also very, very lazy in my weekday cooking, and as such, I often look for ways to shortcut methods and still feel like I'm dining reasonably well. I'm also pretty big on variety, and cannot face pan-fried hamburgers in mushroom gravy three nights of the week on an ongoing basis (although, back in school, I suspected that I could).

Of late, we've been all about the skillet dinners. Assorted combinations of rice or pasta and some sort of meat (often chicken) and vegetables, and one-pan programming. You know, the sort of dinner that you can bang out quickly when you get home from work and you're kind of bagged, or you don't feel much like spending all night in the kitchen. There are, however, only so many variations of pasta and rice that can be made in a one-pot dinner, and I thought that I had run their course. Until, as it turned out, I was standing in the butcher shop staring at some lovely looking lean duck sausages, and a glimmering of an idea came about.

I've seen plenty of "easy cassoulet" recipes over the years, recipes which promise the rich, soul-satisfying taste of cassoulet in less time than the requisite two-day operation. I've seen one-day "cassoulet" and four-hour "cassoulet" but it seems a little disingenuous to claim them as the real deal. I suppose, what it comes down to, is that there are a lot of bean and sausage dishes, but not all of them are cassoulet.

I didn't have time to muck about with confit, and I didn't have any pork or fatty lamb handy, but I figured that, since the French themselves have such varied and vehement opinions as to what really qualifies as cassoulet, as long as I'm not claiming to make a particularly authentic dish, I can do what I want with the idea of it. Out of this perhaps somewhat arrogant reasoning, came dinner, in exactly 45 minutes from wandering into the kitchen and curling up on the sofa with a big old bowl in my lap.

I was somewhat shocked to realize that it is actually a fairly healthy dish, since the sausages that I used were not terribly fatty, and there was no added fat or oil in the dish. Quel surprise! I'll definitely be making this again.

French Skillet Dinner
aka "Not Cassoulet"

4 large duck sausages
1 large onion, diced
3 bay leaves
2 cloves of garlic, sliced
2 whole cloves (the spice)
pinch ground cloves
good pinch ground sage
pinch ground thyme, or sprig of fresh thyme
white pepper, to taste
2 - 3 cups cooked white beans, such as cannelini, white kidney, great northern, flageolet
2 medium carrots, diced
dry white vermouth
water
parsley

In a large, heavy, cast iron (or any not-non-stick) skillet, brown the sausages on all sides over high heat (no oil needed). Push the sausages to the side, and add the onions. Saute, stirring occasionally, until well caramelized, and add one of the cloves of garlic, and a good pinch of salt. Add the carrots, and saute and stir, adding a little vermouth from time to time if necessary to keep from burning.

The sausage should have developed a nice sticky brown fond on the bottom of the pan. Add about a half-cup of vermouth and scrape it up into the onion and carrot mixture. Add the bayleaves, whole cloves, ground cloves, white pepper, sage and thyme, all at once. Stir to distribute evenly. Add beans, and enough water to make a fairly loose stew. Simmer, uncovered, over a medium-low flame for about fifteen minutes, or until the gravy thickens and reduces.

Remove sausages and cut into chunks. Return sausage chunks to pan along with the second sliced clove of garlic. Stir well (but gently, so you don't mash all the beans). Taste the gravy and adjust for salt as needed. Drizzle an extra tablespoon of vermouth over the top, sprinkle generously with parsley, and serve with a nice glass of wine and a piece of crusty baguette.

Morels: A Tale of Two Dishes

I adore mushrooms. I even like the little white button ones, although I'll admit that they aren't the most flavourful thing going on their own. That, after all, is what butter and garlic are for, right? Wild mushrooms are always a treat, and I manage to enjoy cultivated specialties such as the oyster mushroom, the portobello, the shiitake on a fairly regular basis. Once in a while, I spring for chantarelles, when I can, or black trumpets. Special occasions, those, decidedly.

Two weeks ago, Saturday's Trout Lake Farmers' Market was, for once, not being rained out during the slow start to summer and, unlike my previous visit, this time I loaded up on enough cash to make sure I could buy all of the things on my list - not the least of which were the big, beautiful baskets of morels that were on offer. It must be the end of the morel season, because I know that they are something of a spring mushroom (and that they require a fire-seared ground to grow upon), and the mushrooms were getting a teensy bit bigger, and a teensy bit more costly than two weeks ago. None the less, I plunged ahead, and lugged home my bounty.

My first dish, since I had more than enough for two meals, was a simple pasta - fettuccine tossed with a little garlic and cream, a little sauteed pancetta, and some butter-sauteed morels. Simplicity itself, really, even with a bit of parsley over top. It so happened that I had the pancetta on hand already, which largely decided the course of the dish. I also had some asparagus, but to my dismay discovered that it had hung about too long in the bottom of the crisper (I have not yet adapted to my new fridge, and its vagaries), and was no longer fit to eat. So, the originally planned dish would have been even more luxurious, if the asparagus had held up, but it was not to be.

I have had morels before, of course - always as an accent to a dish where some other flavour held the supreme place of honour, and usually paired with other mushrooms, wild or domestic, to round things out a little. It is certainly an unaccustomed luxury that allows for making a dish that is devoted entirely to the morel itself. Arguably, the pancetta in my fettuccine was something of a distraction, flavour-wise, but the morel pieces themselves were plentiful enough that one certainly still got the sense that it was, essentially a mushroom dish.

Still, the purist in me, the girl that perked up upon reading Colette's assertion that morels should be eaten like the vegetable they are, simmered in champagne (!) for best effect, wanted to have a dish that not only highlighted the morel, but featured it in such wanton abundance that I could revel in morel flavour; in short, it would have to be a risotto.

I cut the pieces larger than I did for the pasta dish. Some of them were only slit open lengthwise, to ensure that the interior was insect-free. Some were coarsely chopped - there were a few monsters in there, truly, almost suitable for stuffing! All of them were sauteed until just tender in good butter, and then I simply proceeded per my usual Wild Mushroom Risotto recipe, omitting the porcini, or indeed any other mushroom than the morel.

Finally able to wallow unobstructed in morel flavour, I found it to be a curious sort of taste. It was earthy, certainly, but also...almost spicy? It is difficult to describe, but there was a sort of rich intensity to the flavour, while it still managed to remain subtle - almost familiar, but not in the way of other mushrooms. It evoked forest floor (in a good way), and trees, and at the same time was utterly unlike anything I have ever tasted before. The texture was mushroom-spongy, but in a good way. That is, if you like mushrooms, it was lovely, and if you find them an organoleptic nightmare, perhaps you should steer clear. The rough edges to the honeycomb caps made for an almost tripe-like look to the paler of the individual pieces, and sat strangely on the tongue before collapsing in buttery submission.

I'm looking forward to morels again next year - I suspect the season is truly over now, in the throes of July's suddenly summery heat - and perhaps next year, I will feel profligate enough to simmer my mushrooms in champagne, watching the bubbles dance through the honeycombed caps, as Colette assures us we must.

Quinoa!

I know that I am only the most recent in an awfully long line of people to discover quinoa, but I'm really quite excited about it! It is a grain that I have heard about for years, but never really gotten around to trying. Occasionally I would see it on a menu, but it somehow never managed to be paired with whatever I was in the mood for, or there was an ingredient listed that I didn't care for. In my quest for new side dishes and new salads - always a favourite hunt for the summer picnic table - and with my current trend away from most forms of refined flours and sugars, I decided that I needed to explore some of the alternative grains and seeds whose names were floating around in the back of my head.

I went hunting online for recipes, and there were certainly plenty to choose from! Quinoa as breakfast (in hot-cereal mode), quinoa as pilaf, quinoa as salad, and quinoa as curry, just to name a few. While the curry idea definitely piqued my interest, I thought that perhaps I should start off a little on the safe side, and simply substitute the main component in an already-popular salad (in our house, anyway), with quinoa.

This recipe for Couscous Salad is an outgrowth of Middle-Eastern tabbouleh, a parsley-rich dish usually made with bulgar wheat, and seasoned generously with lemon juice to give it some zing. While I am a big fan of tabblouleh, as well, I developed this recipe initially with couscous to speed up the prep time, provide a softer texture, and incorporate more vegetables. Changing back to a grain (quinoa - technically a seed, in fact) from a pasta (couscous) improves the nutritonal profile pretty tremendously, but mostly because, as it turns out, quinoa is a nutritional powerhouse! Not only is it protein-rich (although I include a little feta in my salad, which adds to the protein, also), but quinoa is also a good source of amino acids, dietary fibre, magnesium, iron, and is gluten-free.

My biggest hesitation, standing in front of the bulk-foods cannister, staring at the organic quinoa in front of me, was that I didn't have a clue how to cook it. A little online research solved that problem, too. It turns out, quinoa cooks a lot like white rice. So, with a shrug and a smile, I popped my well-rinsed purchase into the rice-cooker (a Tiger, if it makes a difference) with the same ratio of water as for basmati rice (my standard, go-to rice), set the program for "quick" white rice - laughably, about 40 minutes instead of the "usual" 48 minutes - to skip the initial soaking period that I wasn't sure was necessary for quinoa, and waited.

The quinoa cooked up just as I had hoped. Fluffy, tender, with its little spiral of bran arching delicately away from each grain. The flavour, since I couldn't resist trying it straight up, was nutty and complex, and unlike anything else I have ever had. It had a familiar-tasting quality that I am still trying to identify, but was wholly new-tasting at the same time. Still, it was very much a base-flavour, and it took in the seasoning that I usually put in the Couscous Salad beautifully.

I'm looking forward to trying other grains and seeds - perhaps amaranth will be next - but I'm also quite excited to try a curried quinoa dish - either as a hot side or a cold salad. And, of course, hot, plain quinoa would be a fabulous base for a wonderful vegetarian curry, all chock full of farmers' market-fresh goodness.