I’ve been thinking about Persian food, lately. A few weeks ago, we went to Zagros, a small restaurant on Davie street. The quality of the food was exceptional – the dishes that we tried were delicious.
We started with a plate of pickles (torshi), which our server (whom I suspect is the owner) cautioned us were “quite sour.” They were perfectly sour, in my opinion, and sprinkled with a variety of herbs, including dill and sumac. They came with a dish of flat, flexible bread that looked cracker-like in appearance, and a thick, minty yoghurt dip (mastokhiar).
Palle tried the chicken breast kabob with barberries, and found the chicken to be succulent and not at all dry, as chicken breast can sometimes be. Barberries (zereshk) are always a delight, little sweet-and-sour speckles of fruit, glistening like jewels in the rice pilaf. My dish was a subtle combination of boneless lamb chunks with yellow split peas (Ghaimai/Ghaimeh) in a rich, highly scented gravy with a fantastic, lip-smacking unctuousness and a lovely slightly sharp hit of lime juice. I need to learn how to make this, seriously.
The rice pilafs that accompanied our meals were made from basmati rice, but each grain was plump and tender and not at all dry, as sometimes Indian pilafs can be.
We are both eyeing other menu items and are determined to go back soon. There were a number of vegetarian and vegan items that looked intriguing, as well as a range of seafood dishes.
June 17, 2005
June 16, 2005
Chicken & Veggie One Pan Supper
Here’s another “non-recipe” method-driven supper that I make fairly often in the winter, and from time to time – such as on rainy days – during the rest of the year. It involves a few minutes of chopping and arranging, and then a good solid 45 minutes of ignoring. Then, it’s time to eat! Pour yourself a glass of wine while you lounge around and supper cooks itself. If you're feeling ambitious, you could make a salad during this time.
Chicken & Veggie One Pan Supper
Preheat the oven to 400 F.
Two serving-sized pieces of bone-in, skin-on chicken. Breasts are fine, but I like to use the moister leg-with-thigh-attached. You could also use a package of four or six thighs.
Two cups of hardy vegetables, cut into chunks. Or more, if you can fit them in.
Get a large, oven-proof pan or casserole dish. Spritz lightly with canola oil. Place your chicken pieces, spaced evenly, in the dish. Tumble the chopped veggies in around the pieces of chicken, making sure they are in a single layer. Spritz the whole dish, including the tops of the chicken pieces, very lightly with canola oil. Sprinkle with salt, and add whatever other herbs you might like. I currently fancy ground cumin, smoked paprika, and a little oregano. The herbs will stick to the lightly oiled surface of the chicken and veggies.
Put the pan in the oven, uncovered, and allow to cook for 45 minutes. Dish up and enjoy!
The vegetables will shrink a little as they cook, so you want to make sure you start with lots.
What kind of vegetables work for this?
Potatoes
Sweet Potatoes
Carrots
Cherry tomatoes (pierce them, but leave them whole)
Mushrooms (cut in half)
Fennel bulb, sliced or chunked
Garlic cloves, whole and peeled
Brussels Sprouts (really! Cut them in half, though)
Parsnips
Pearl onions
I confess that I love the whole roasted garlic cloves so much that I usually go crazy and put a lot of them in. No complaints, so far.
How big should the chunks be? About the size of a cherry tomato, give or take. Garlic is necessarily smaller, but don’t sweat it. Do try for a certain amount of uniformity of size with the root vegetables, though, so everything cooks at the same rate.
Chicken & Veggie One Pan Supper
Preheat the oven to 400 F.
Two serving-sized pieces of bone-in, skin-on chicken. Breasts are fine, but I like to use the moister leg-with-thigh-attached. You could also use a package of four or six thighs.
Two cups of hardy vegetables, cut into chunks. Or more, if you can fit them in.
Get a large, oven-proof pan or casserole dish. Spritz lightly with canola oil. Place your chicken pieces, spaced evenly, in the dish. Tumble the chopped veggies in around the pieces of chicken, making sure they are in a single layer. Spritz the whole dish, including the tops of the chicken pieces, very lightly with canola oil. Sprinkle with salt, and add whatever other herbs you might like. I currently fancy ground cumin, smoked paprika, and a little oregano. The herbs will stick to the lightly oiled surface of the chicken and veggies.
Put the pan in the oven, uncovered, and allow to cook for 45 minutes. Dish up and enjoy!
The vegetables will shrink a little as they cook, so you want to make sure you start with lots.
What kind of vegetables work for this?
Potatoes
Sweet Potatoes
Carrots
Cherry tomatoes (pierce them, but leave them whole)
Mushrooms (cut in half)
Fennel bulb, sliced or chunked
Garlic cloves, whole and peeled
Brussels Sprouts (really! Cut them in half, though)
Parsnips
Pearl onions
I confess that I love the whole roasted garlic cloves so much that I usually go crazy and put a lot of them in. No complaints, so far.
How big should the chunks be? About the size of a cherry tomato, give or take. Garlic is necessarily smaller, but don’t sweat it. Do try for a certain amount of uniformity of size with the root vegetables, though, so everything cooks at the same rate.
Oatmeal Spice Anythings
The "anything" in these cookies can be chocolate chips, raisins, currants, dried cranberries, chopped walnuts, or anything you think a cookie needs. If you don't want to add anything like these, you can make simple Oatmeal Spice Cookies, which are very tasty, too. They aren't as rich as most oatmeal cookie recipes, although if you choose chocolate chips, that will of course add a little fat.
Makes about 3 dozen, depending on size
Oatmeal Spice Anything Cookies
Total prep and cooking time: 45 minutes
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated white sugar
1/2 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups rolled oats
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon each of cinnamon, nutmeg, & allspice
1/4 teaspoon clove
"Anything" options:
as the total is about 1 cup
miniature chocolate chips
chopped walnuts
chopped almonds
raisins
currants
dried cranberries
dried blueberries
Preheat your oven to 350 F.
Lightly spray two large cookie sheets with canola oil.
In a medium mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugars until thoroughly combined. Add the egg and vanilla extract, and cream again. You can do this by hand or with an electric mixer. Pour the oats over the wet mixture. Without stirring, sift the flour, baking powder and baking soda directly over the oats. Sprinkle the salt and the spices over the flour mixture. With a wooden spoon, or on the lowest setting of your mixer, carefully begin to blend everything together. When it is starting to come together, add the one cup of optional extras. Finish combining the ingredients until the optional extras are all even distributed through the cookie dough.
Drop by spoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheets, leaving room for each cookie to expand a little. Dip your fingers in a little flour, and flatten the cookies slightly. Bake at 350 F for 12-15 minutes, or until light golden. Remove to racks to cool - they will be soft and flexible - downright bendy! - at first, but will firm up as they cool.
June 13, 2005
Procrastination & Egg Whites
I'd never bought a carton of egg whites before. I'd always just separated out a few whole eggs, and put a bowl of leftover yolks in the fridge to make mayonnaise or custard or a pastry-wash. A leftover yolk can be a thickener for soup, an enricher for scrambled eggs, or fulfill many other possible destinies. However, when you're staring down recipe after recipe that calls for egg whites only, it makes sense to try those pristine little carton-packs in the fridge section of the supermarket.
I originally wanted to make a Darjeeling Chocolate Cake from one of Cooking Light's annuals. I still haven't made it. Upon closer inspection, the recipe looks like a pain in the rump, and as I have suffered a few culinary flops lately, I don't feel like going to all that trouble and be disappointed. Now is the time for the tried and true, and the easy and unfussy. Since the egg whites I bought came in a two-pack, each package containing a cup of liquid whites and an expiry date, I was suddenly faced with the need to use up a number of egg whites in a hurry.
Meringue is the easy answer to start with. A batch of chocolate-chip studded meringue cookies now lives in the tupperware by the coffee maker. I'd considered pavlova, too, but that requires something along the lines of timing where both of us would be home to eat it, since it really doesn't keep terribly well. I've been adding egg whites to everything. Subbing out eggs for egg whites in coffee cake, and taking an ill-advised stab at a chocolate banana souffle - ill advised in that I did not have the requisite hardware, and what do you know? Not everything can be rescued with sambal oelek, it turns out. I used egg whites to bind lamb meatloaf, veal patties, and to glaze bread loaves. I've still got about half a cup left.
I probably have enough to make that Darjeeling cake after all, but I think I'm going to wait. There's got to be a reason that I just can't summon the will to get the thing done, and I think I'm going to respect that. I do wish I'd come to this conclusion before buying the egg whites, but at least I've had some fun with them anyway. Who knows what I will end up making with the last of them? Maybe I'll give the famous Hollywood Egg White & Chive omelette a try. Or, then again, maybe not.
I originally wanted to make a Darjeeling Chocolate Cake from one of Cooking Light's annuals. I still haven't made it. Upon closer inspection, the recipe looks like a pain in the rump, and as I have suffered a few culinary flops lately, I don't feel like going to all that trouble and be disappointed. Now is the time for the tried and true, and the easy and unfussy. Since the egg whites I bought came in a two-pack, each package containing a cup of liquid whites and an expiry date, I was suddenly faced with the need to use up a number of egg whites in a hurry.
Meringue is the easy answer to start with. A batch of chocolate-chip studded meringue cookies now lives in the tupperware by the coffee maker. I'd considered pavlova, too, but that requires something along the lines of timing where both of us would be home to eat it, since it really doesn't keep terribly well. I've been adding egg whites to everything. Subbing out eggs for egg whites in coffee cake, and taking an ill-advised stab at a chocolate banana souffle - ill advised in that I did not have the requisite hardware, and what do you know? Not everything can be rescued with sambal oelek, it turns out. I used egg whites to bind lamb meatloaf, veal patties, and to glaze bread loaves. I've still got about half a cup left.
I probably have enough to make that Darjeeling cake after all, but I think I'm going to wait. There's got to be a reason that I just can't summon the will to get the thing done, and I think I'm going to respect that. I do wish I'd come to this conclusion before buying the egg whites, but at least I've had some fun with them anyway. Who knows what I will end up making with the last of them? Maybe I'll give the famous Hollywood Egg White & Chive omelette a try. Or, then again, maybe not.
June 12, 2005
Search & Rescue
I'm coming to the conclusion that you can rescue almost anything with sambal oelek - as long as you like things spicy.
On the day that I wanted to make a noodle salad recipe I've been eyeing, there was nary an Asian eggplant to be seen. My favourite markets... even some less-than-favourite markets... were barren of anything other than big, glossy Italian globe eggplants, which are just the wrong texture for what I wanted. I searched, and searched, and gave up, crankily wondering about the sudden dearth. Yesterday, after a long and barely fruitful quest, I spied some somewhat limp-looking Japanese eggplants and decided that they were firm enough to use. I finally got down to brass-tacks and mixed up the dressing, boiled up the noodles and roasted the eggplant.
The dressing seemed a little rich, to me, so I scaled back the amount of toasted sesame oil by almost half, subbing out the missing liquid with a little rice wine vinegar. Sadly for me, the end result was still a little oily feeling, and not in the good, lip-smacking way. I concluded reluctantly that I had made some other error along the way, since the recipe's source was impeccable, but I really wasn't sure if I was going to be able to rescue the leftovers. The whole dish was a little under-developed flavour-wise, it seemed, although I could taste the strong sesame oil flavour and remain convinced that I did the right thing to reduce the amount.
We struggled through dinner, a little, with me being fairly unhappy with the salad, and depressed at how large the quantity was of something that I didn't particularly enjoy. It wasn't bad, it was just not quite want I wanted it to be.
Today, faced with an enormous bowl of leftovers in the fridge, I decided to see if I could pep it up a little. Sambal Oelek to the rescue! Well, I did add a little extra soy sauce, too - just to loosen the whole thing and let it act as a carrier to transport the thicker sambal throughout the noodles. I cautiously spooned up some spicier noodles, along with their accompanying vegetables, and tried it. Much improved!
It isn't number one on my hit parade - that still belongs to the spicy somen/soba recipe for fast, easy and delicious - but it certainly will be good for lunches for the next few days. I may julienne some more vegetables to go with - the eggplant is nice, but a few more crisp vegetables would add a pleasing crunch. There's already a small amount of raw carrot and blanched snap-peas, so I may just increase them. I'm thinking that some marinated shiitake mushrooms might be just the ticket, though, and add a small amount of protein to the overall dish.
On the day that I wanted to make a noodle salad recipe I've been eyeing, there was nary an Asian eggplant to be seen. My favourite markets... even some less-than-favourite markets... were barren of anything other than big, glossy Italian globe eggplants, which are just the wrong texture for what I wanted. I searched, and searched, and gave up, crankily wondering about the sudden dearth. Yesterday, after a long and barely fruitful quest, I spied some somewhat limp-looking Japanese eggplants and decided that they were firm enough to use. I finally got down to brass-tacks and mixed up the dressing, boiled up the noodles and roasted the eggplant.
The dressing seemed a little rich, to me, so I scaled back the amount of toasted sesame oil by almost half, subbing out the missing liquid with a little rice wine vinegar. Sadly for me, the end result was still a little oily feeling, and not in the good, lip-smacking way. I concluded reluctantly that I had made some other error along the way, since the recipe's source was impeccable, but I really wasn't sure if I was going to be able to rescue the leftovers. The whole dish was a little under-developed flavour-wise, it seemed, although I could taste the strong sesame oil flavour and remain convinced that I did the right thing to reduce the amount.
We struggled through dinner, a little, with me being fairly unhappy with the salad, and depressed at how large the quantity was of something that I didn't particularly enjoy. It wasn't bad, it was just not quite want I wanted it to be.
Today, faced with an enormous bowl of leftovers in the fridge, I decided to see if I could pep it up a little. Sambal Oelek to the rescue! Well, I did add a little extra soy sauce, too - just to loosen the whole thing and let it act as a carrier to transport the thicker sambal throughout the noodles. I cautiously spooned up some spicier noodles, along with their accompanying vegetables, and tried it. Much improved!
It isn't number one on my hit parade - that still belongs to the spicy somen/soba recipe for fast, easy and delicious - but it certainly will be good for lunches for the next few days. I may julienne some more vegetables to go with - the eggplant is nice, but a few more crisp vegetables would add a pleasing crunch. There's already a small amount of raw carrot and blanched snap-peas, so I may just increase them. I'm thinking that some marinated shiitake mushrooms might be just the ticket, though, and add a small amount of protein to the overall dish.
June 06, 2005
Chicken & Dumplings
There may be few dishes so immediately evocative of homey and soothing comfort than chicken & dumplings. The thing of it is, there are just so very many variations that you cannot necessarily be sure exactly what other people mean when they say those magic words. Magic, because no matter how different one dish is compared to another, they still conjure up the same sort of warm-and-fuzzy feeling of being looked after. Even if you make it yourself.
Recipes range from fatty extraveganzas to more modern, lighter cuisine, from dumplings that resemble short, fat noodles to puffy, fluffy steamed buns that rest on the top of a stew, to perfectly round matzohs. Chicken can be on-the-bone or off, cut into serving-sizes or bite-sized chunks. Liquid can be a broth, a sauce, thick or thin, scant or plentiful. With vegetables, or without. There's really just no way to know.
I made chicken & dumplings for dinner last night. My version, for the record, is a creamy chicken stew (made with a milk-enriched veloute and no actual cream) with boneless, skinless chicken thighs cut into bite-sized pieces, lots of vegetables (mushrooms, carrots, whole garlic cloves, celery, corn, and peas, this time) and big, fluffy, herbed dumplings that are dropped by the spoonful onto the bubbling stew and steamed, tightly covered, for 15 minutes. It is a one-pot meal.
My version is a lot leaner than that of my foremothers: I brown the bite-sized chicken pieces in a smidge of canola oil, sautee the "hard" veggies in sherry, and use a slurry of milk and flour without additional fat to thicken the sauce. The dumplings themselves are fairly lean already, although in recent years I've taken to using chicken schmalz (carefully poured from the pans of roasted chickens past, and stored in a mug in the freezer) instead of canola oil, because the flavour is just phenomenal. Add to that a little chopped parsley and some chopped sage leaves culled from the window-box garden, and you've got a tasty, tasty treat. They can go on beef stew, as well, of course (a little rosemary is nice, there, but with chicken we're getting precariously close to Scarborough Fair dumplings - parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme).
I am a firm believer in layers of flavour, so I add bayleaves and mustard seed and ground thyme to the stew mixture, and I've been known to add a shot of Tobasco sauce, too. I tend to under-salt this when I'm using homemade chicken stock in the sauce, so I have to constantly check it at the different stages of cooking to ensure the right amount. The final garnish is a healthy grinding of black pepper.
We eat a fair amount of chicken, actually. We don't eat a lot of chicken and dumplings, though, and I am not sure why. Maybe it's that I like it to be something of a special treat, and that might fade if served too often. Maybe it's that my repertoire is getting quite large, and it's hard to get anything into rotation on even a monthly basis, unless it's monumentally fast and easy, and while chicken and dumplings is relatively easy, it's not particularly fast. Every time we have it, though, I think to myself "Damn, these dumplings are good. Why don't I have these every week?"
Recipes range from fatty extraveganzas to more modern, lighter cuisine, from dumplings that resemble short, fat noodles to puffy, fluffy steamed buns that rest on the top of a stew, to perfectly round matzohs. Chicken can be on-the-bone or off, cut into serving-sizes or bite-sized chunks. Liquid can be a broth, a sauce, thick or thin, scant or plentiful. With vegetables, or without. There's really just no way to know.
I made chicken & dumplings for dinner last night. My version, for the record, is a creamy chicken stew (made with a milk-enriched veloute and no actual cream) with boneless, skinless chicken thighs cut into bite-sized pieces, lots of vegetables (mushrooms, carrots, whole garlic cloves, celery, corn, and peas, this time) and big, fluffy, herbed dumplings that are dropped by the spoonful onto the bubbling stew and steamed, tightly covered, for 15 minutes. It is a one-pot meal.
My version is a lot leaner than that of my foremothers: I brown the bite-sized chicken pieces in a smidge of canola oil, sautee the "hard" veggies in sherry, and use a slurry of milk and flour without additional fat to thicken the sauce. The dumplings themselves are fairly lean already, although in recent years I've taken to using chicken schmalz (carefully poured from the pans of roasted chickens past, and stored in a mug in the freezer) instead of canola oil, because the flavour is just phenomenal. Add to that a little chopped parsley and some chopped sage leaves culled from the window-box garden, and you've got a tasty, tasty treat. They can go on beef stew, as well, of course (a little rosemary is nice, there, but with chicken we're getting precariously close to Scarborough Fair dumplings - parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme).
I am a firm believer in layers of flavour, so I add bayleaves and mustard seed and ground thyme to the stew mixture, and I've been known to add a shot of Tobasco sauce, too. I tend to under-salt this when I'm using homemade chicken stock in the sauce, so I have to constantly check it at the different stages of cooking to ensure the right amount. The final garnish is a healthy grinding of black pepper.
We eat a fair amount of chicken, actually. We don't eat a lot of chicken and dumplings, though, and I am not sure why. Maybe it's that I like it to be something of a special treat, and that might fade if served too often. Maybe it's that my repertoire is getting quite large, and it's hard to get anything into rotation on even a monthly basis, unless it's monumentally fast and easy, and while chicken and dumplings is relatively easy, it's not particularly fast. Every time we have it, though, I think to myself "Damn, these dumplings are good. Why don't I have these every week?"
June 01, 2005
Cake in progress
The Apricot Nectar Cake, first edition, came out of the oven last night, and was an immediate flavour success despite a miscellany of obstacles - not the least of which was a decided lack of Apricot Nectar.
Huh? That stuff used to be everywhere, but on the day I actually need it specifically, I can't even find a place-marker for it on the shelf at Safeway. I used to drink the stuff cut with ginger ale, to lighten the thick, fuzzy texture, but I guess I haven't bought any in a while.
I ended up having to settle for an all-juice blend of apple, orange, and peach. The apple juice thinned out the sensation of drinking velvet, which made it perhaps a better beverage, but also made it a thinner texture than I had hoped for (not to mention, different flavour!) for the cake.
Still, I was determined to go forward. The combination of the weaker flavoured juice with the lemon extract, lemon zest, and lemon juice glaze made for a thoroughly citrussy flavour, but my refusal to add yellow food colouring, per many of the recipes I was cribbing from, made for a sort of blandly coloured cake. Not snowy, like a white cake, nor adequately orange to suggest the flavours within. Yellowish beige was the interior of the cake (the fact that I got any colour at all is likely attributed to the yolks of the two free-range eggs) and perhaps a little bit to the zest. The top and sides of the cake took on a nice golden glow, though.
I am reluctant to add food colouring where it is unnecessary, so I have been contemplating alternatives. I have a lovely little container of saffron that was just recently given to me, a gift brought back from the Middle East, and that seems like it might be the way to go: citrus, apricot and saffron all go together delightfully, and it would add a slightly exotic depth of flavour to the cake that appeals very much - at least on paper. Other colour options include Turmeric, which would be effective might probably detrimental to the delicate flavour, more lemon zest, which would have limited effect, or the dreaded bottled colouring.
The pan-size could use fiddling, too. Since I was starting with 2 cups of flour, a 9x9" pan seemed a little small, so I went with a 9x13". The cake did rise to about double its batter volume, but was still fairly short. I am contemplating using a bundt pan for the next attempt - slice-friendly and somehow well suited to the snack-cake oeuvre. I could, of course, give the 9x9" a try, although I suspect that the cake would volcano a bit in protest.
The texture was fairly pleasing - light, much as the buttermilk coffee cake is, but very moist thanks in part to the lemon glaze that is applied while it is still warm (another argument in favour of the bundt). The fat content was a measily 21% (as best I could calculate with the tools at hand, that is) but it doesn't taste like health-food at all.
Overall report? Favourable, with subsequent attempts scheduled to rectify minor defects. Now I just need to source some genuine apricot nectar...
Huh? That stuff used to be everywhere, but on the day I actually need it specifically, I can't even find a place-marker for it on the shelf at Safeway. I used to drink the stuff cut with ginger ale, to lighten the thick, fuzzy texture, but I guess I haven't bought any in a while.
I ended up having to settle for an all-juice blend of apple, orange, and peach. The apple juice thinned out the sensation of drinking velvet, which made it perhaps a better beverage, but also made it a thinner texture than I had hoped for (not to mention, different flavour!) for the cake.
Still, I was determined to go forward. The combination of the weaker flavoured juice with the lemon extract, lemon zest, and lemon juice glaze made for a thoroughly citrussy flavour, but my refusal to add yellow food colouring, per many of the recipes I was cribbing from, made for a sort of blandly coloured cake. Not snowy, like a white cake, nor adequately orange to suggest the flavours within. Yellowish beige was the interior of the cake (the fact that I got any colour at all is likely attributed to the yolks of the two free-range eggs) and perhaps a little bit to the zest. The top and sides of the cake took on a nice golden glow, though.
I am reluctant to add food colouring where it is unnecessary, so I have been contemplating alternatives. I have a lovely little container of saffron that was just recently given to me, a gift brought back from the Middle East, and that seems like it might be the way to go: citrus, apricot and saffron all go together delightfully, and it would add a slightly exotic depth of flavour to the cake that appeals very much - at least on paper. Other colour options include Turmeric, which would be effective might probably detrimental to the delicate flavour, more lemon zest, which would have limited effect, or the dreaded bottled colouring.
The pan-size could use fiddling, too. Since I was starting with 2 cups of flour, a 9x9" pan seemed a little small, so I went with a 9x13". The cake did rise to about double its batter volume, but was still fairly short. I am contemplating using a bundt pan for the next attempt - slice-friendly and somehow well suited to the snack-cake oeuvre. I could, of course, give the 9x9" a try, although I suspect that the cake would volcano a bit in protest.
The texture was fairly pleasing - light, much as the buttermilk coffee cake is, but very moist thanks in part to the lemon glaze that is applied while it is still warm (another argument in favour of the bundt). The fat content was a measily 21% (as best I could calculate with the tools at hand, that is) but it doesn't taste like health-food at all.
Overall report? Favourable, with subsequent attempts scheduled to rectify minor defects. Now I just need to source some genuine apricot nectar...
May 31, 2005
Restlessness and Cake
I've been a little restless in the baking department, lately. I like to have some sort of baked goods on hand for taking to work, and with only two of us in the house I prefer that the baking items are ones that can be sliced, wrapped and frozen in advance, so I don't end up resentfully staring at a somewhat stale piece of coffee cake at the end of the pan. By having two or three different things in the freezer, I can mix it up and stave off boredom.
The thing of it is, even with the mix-and-match approach to stocking the freezer, I'm finding my frequent flyers are starting to pall a bit. Don't get me wrong, I love that coffee cake (and the fact that it can be varied quite a bit in itself), and I will probably always love the Devil Fooled Cake, but it seems that for months I've been oscillating between the two, with the Spiced Sweet Potato bread thrown in when I just can't face the others anymore.
Of course, there are many more cakes and cookies and squares in my repertoire - so why the repetition? The thing of it is this: I like to eat relatively healthy foods, and if I am taking baked goodies in my lunch EVERY SINGLE DAY, I want to make sure that they're not completely detrimental to my health. Those three are the shining stars of my heart-healthy, lower fat, and all-around guilt-reduced recipes.
Last week I experimented with rumball brownies, based substantially upon a Cooking Light brownie recipe. It was fairly tasty, but needs work, and I can see myself tinkering with it in the near future. Still, brownies are not usually a go-to snack for me (even non-detrimental ones) and while these little darlings are lower in fat (clocking in at about 30%) than most recipes, I'm looking for something more in the 20% range so that I can snack with impunity.
Tonight, I plan to attack a simple snacking cake made with apricot nectar. The recipe is a hybrid of many different recipes that I've found online - most of which call for prefab cake mixes, which I tend to avoid. I will, of course, keep you posted with the result.
The thing of it is, even with the mix-and-match approach to stocking the freezer, I'm finding my frequent flyers are starting to pall a bit. Don't get me wrong, I love that coffee cake (and the fact that it can be varied quite a bit in itself), and I will probably always love the Devil Fooled Cake, but it seems that for months I've been oscillating between the two, with the Spiced Sweet Potato bread thrown in when I just can't face the others anymore.
Of course, there are many more cakes and cookies and squares in my repertoire - so why the repetition? The thing of it is this: I like to eat relatively healthy foods, and if I am taking baked goodies in my lunch EVERY SINGLE DAY, I want to make sure that they're not completely detrimental to my health. Those three are the shining stars of my heart-healthy, lower fat, and all-around guilt-reduced recipes.
Last week I experimented with rumball brownies, based substantially upon a Cooking Light brownie recipe. It was fairly tasty, but needs work, and I can see myself tinkering with it in the near future. Still, brownies are not usually a go-to snack for me (even non-detrimental ones) and while these little darlings are lower in fat (clocking in at about 30%) than most recipes, I'm looking for something more in the 20% range so that I can snack with impunity.
Tonight, I plan to attack a simple snacking cake made with apricot nectar. The recipe is a hybrid of many different recipes that I've found online - most of which call for prefab cake mixes, which I tend to avoid. I will, of course, keep you posted with the result.
May 26, 2005
Kitchen Makeover
Those of you who have been loyal readers of my main site, Always in the Kitchen, know that I've been promising to give the whole place a spiffy new look sometime this year. I'm pleased to announce that the renovations are under way!
This blog will likely stay materially the same (possibly gaining some artwork), but stay tuned for the fully re-vamped kitchen sometime in the not-too-terribly-distant future. Yay!
This blog will likely stay materially the same (possibly gaining some artwork), but stay tuned for the fully re-vamped kitchen sometime in the not-too-terribly-distant future. Yay!
May 25, 2005
The Heartbreak Grape
In honour of the resurgence of popularity for the obstreporous Pinot Noir (due in no small part to the Oscar-nominated movie "Sideways") and because it has been a few years since we did a dedicated side-by-side tasting of it, my wine club chose Pinot Noir for its May tasting.
The nickname "The Heartbreak Grape" comes from the fact that there really isn't a mid-range of Pinot Noir wines. If all the conditions are right and the grapes are grown in just the right way and handled carefully by the winemaker (and the stars are all in alignment, etc.) the resultant wine will be a marvel of complex, elegant character and nuance. One misstep, however, and the wine is dreadful, sometimes to the point of utter undrinkability. The grape responds truculently to mishandling, and grows well only in certain microclimates.
We sampled Pinot Noirs from British Columbia, Oregon, California, New Zealand and France.
Most disappointing, were the expensive bottles from France, weighing in at $28 and $77 respectively. While we were warned that both bottles were from "off years" where the conditions were not ideal, we were still surprised by the thinness of character in the Chateau De Chamilly 1999 Cotes Chalonnaise - the scant fruit flavour seemed to evaporate on your tongue before you could even swallow, and the jammy, flat, overcooked plums in the Domaine Bizot 2000 Vosne-Romanee Les Jachees. The latter was particularly disappointing in that it had by far the best nose of any of the wines, full of leather and smoke and fruit.
California's offering, the Mandolin 2002 was not particularly good, but it was inexpensive ($13) and many people found it inoffensive. I didn't care for it, but I seemed to be the lone wolf of dissent, although it was broadly acknowledged to be an inferior wine.
We had three wines from BC - the Blue Mountain 2003 ($24), the Quail's Gate Family Reserve 1998 ($35) and the dark horse of the evening, brought by one of the tasters, the Okanagan Vineyards (2003? I can't recall) a new product which will be soon made available at a shocking $10. In summary, for the BC offerings, the Blue Mountain was overrated and generally mocked as the inadequate darling of people who buy into the artifically difficult availability, the Quail's Gate had some good flavours and aromas but was definitely past its best-before date, and the Okanagan Vineyards was bright, tasty and juicily drinkable, if not particularly sophisticated - we were shocked to find out how little it goes for.
The Kim Crawford 2003 ($24) from Marlborough, New Zealand won most tasters despite its screw top, with bright, cherry flavours reminscent of soda pop. It had a pleasant, if not entirely characteristic nose of cedar and orange zest.
The clear winner of the evening was the Torii Mor 2003 ($35) from Oregon. It showed a classic nose of slightly mouldy wood, cherries and vanilla that were echoed in the flavours. The wine elicited comments about its silky texture and smooth, balanced flavours, although some felt that it edged a little too far into sweetness. This wine was the one that had tasters wrangling over any leftover amount, and which I hoarded to go with my dinner.
The next tasting will be table wines from Portugal (as opposed to ports, sherries) which I hope will include some vinho verde, a speciality not found anywhere else.
Previous Tastings:
South African Wines
Spanish Wines
The nickname "The Heartbreak Grape" comes from the fact that there really isn't a mid-range of Pinot Noir wines. If all the conditions are right and the grapes are grown in just the right way and handled carefully by the winemaker (and the stars are all in alignment, etc.) the resultant wine will be a marvel of complex, elegant character and nuance. One misstep, however, and the wine is dreadful, sometimes to the point of utter undrinkability. The grape responds truculently to mishandling, and grows well only in certain microclimates.
We sampled Pinot Noirs from British Columbia, Oregon, California, New Zealand and France.
Most disappointing, were the expensive bottles from France, weighing in at $28 and $77 respectively. While we were warned that both bottles were from "off years" where the conditions were not ideal, we were still surprised by the thinness of character in the Chateau De Chamilly 1999 Cotes Chalonnaise - the scant fruit flavour seemed to evaporate on your tongue before you could even swallow, and the jammy, flat, overcooked plums in the Domaine Bizot 2000 Vosne-Romanee Les Jachees. The latter was particularly disappointing in that it had by far the best nose of any of the wines, full of leather and smoke and fruit.
California's offering, the Mandolin 2002 was not particularly good, but it was inexpensive ($13) and many people found it inoffensive. I didn't care for it, but I seemed to be the lone wolf of dissent, although it was broadly acknowledged to be an inferior wine.
We had three wines from BC - the Blue Mountain 2003 ($24), the Quail's Gate Family Reserve 1998 ($35) and the dark horse of the evening, brought by one of the tasters, the Okanagan Vineyards (2003? I can't recall) a new product which will be soon made available at a shocking $10. In summary, for the BC offerings, the Blue Mountain was overrated and generally mocked as the inadequate darling of people who buy into the artifically difficult availability, the Quail's Gate had some good flavours and aromas but was definitely past its best-before date, and the Okanagan Vineyards was bright, tasty and juicily drinkable, if not particularly sophisticated - we were shocked to find out how little it goes for.
The Kim Crawford 2003 ($24) from Marlborough, New Zealand won most tasters despite its screw top, with bright, cherry flavours reminscent of soda pop. It had a pleasant, if not entirely characteristic nose of cedar and orange zest.
The clear winner of the evening was the Torii Mor 2003 ($35) from Oregon. It showed a classic nose of slightly mouldy wood, cherries and vanilla that were echoed in the flavours. The wine elicited comments about its silky texture and smooth, balanced flavours, although some felt that it edged a little too far into sweetness. This wine was the one that had tasters wrangling over any leftover amount, and which I hoarded to go with my dinner.
The next tasting will be table wines from Portugal (as opposed to ports, sherries) which I hope will include some vinho verde, a speciality not found anywhere else.
Previous Tastings:
South African Wines
Spanish Wines
May 23, 2005
Taking Stock
...and, resultantly, making stock.
I have a pretty good freezer attached to my fridge. Unlike its immediate predecessor, it keeps ice cream frozen solid (very solid, in fact) without creating that partially melted and refrozen, crystaline sludge that looks like part of the set from the ice caves of Hoth. The freezer also has a rack, which is eminently sensible and makes searching for things much less precarious than it otherwise would be.
I generally try to put bags of "stash" items in the narrow, below-the-rack space, which fits perfectly a re-sealable tortilla bag crammed with burritos, a couple of ziploc bags of gyoza, and currently some adorable little scoops of baked falafel. The above-the-rack space is larger, and allows me to stack containers of frozen soup, cooked beans in their liquid, leftover curry, and all manner of yummy things that I might need - applesauce, frozen corn, leftover pasta sauce, IQF shrimp.
In and around the towers of freezer cartons, are an assortment of bags containing things that no one in their right mind would consider food in their current state: chicken carcasses that were picked almost clean, and meaty ham bones. These things are something of a secret weapon in good home cooking, because they make delicious stock that has a multitude of uses.
When I get a bonus day off, such as today, without too long a chore list of things that I need to do outside of the house, I like to round up some of the bones from the fridge and put them to use.
Right now, I am simmering a ham bone with bay leaves, brown mustard seed, a few slices of onion, some parsley sprigs, and a clove of garlic that has been sliced almost-through in about six places. There was a certain amount of meat scraps still clinging to the bone from where I wearied of divesting it before chucking it into the freezer, but that's okay because it now can give its all to the stock.
Ham stock is quite gelatinous by nature, and also can be very fatty. You don't want to be making it the same day you are using it, because it benefits immeasurably from standing around for a while so that the fat can rise to the surface, solidify in the fridge, and be scraped off and either a) discarded or b) made into some dish that requires pork fat. I generally choose option a because I don't do a lot of cooking with pork fat, and the amount rendered in the soup process is significant in terms of stock, but not in terms of what would be needed for a lot of southern cooking. I suppose, if I were truly living up to my pioneer stock ancestors, I would simply scrape it into another container and save it to make biscuits, but mostly I can't be bothered. Besides, I already have mugs of goose fat and chicken schmalz in the freezer.
It doesn't take long to make a good ham stock. It mostly minds itself while you take care of other things, simmering gently on the stove for an hour or two, filling the house with its hammy scent. It makes me want to make split-pea soup right now, but I have other things planned for the afternoon and I am looking forward to having a supply of ham stock waiting for me in my freezer the next time I make Jambalaya or a simple risotto.
Today, it's ham stock. If I get the rest of my day sorted out and am still feeling ambitious, I might drag out the two sets of chicken bones, and make chicken stock, too.
I have a pretty good freezer attached to my fridge. Unlike its immediate predecessor, it keeps ice cream frozen solid (very solid, in fact) without creating that partially melted and refrozen, crystaline sludge that looks like part of the set from the ice caves of Hoth. The freezer also has a rack, which is eminently sensible and makes searching for things much less precarious than it otherwise would be.
I generally try to put bags of "stash" items in the narrow, below-the-rack space, which fits perfectly a re-sealable tortilla bag crammed with burritos, a couple of ziploc bags of gyoza, and currently some adorable little scoops of baked falafel. The above-the-rack space is larger, and allows me to stack containers of frozen soup, cooked beans in their liquid, leftover curry, and all manner of yummy things that I might need - applesauce, frozen corn, leftover pasta sauce, IQF shrimp.
In and around the towers of freezer cartons, are an assortment of bags containing things that no one in their right mind would consider food in their current state: chicken carcasses that were picked almost clean, and meaty ham bones. These things are something of a secret weapon in good home cooking, because they make delicious stock that has a multitude of uses.
When I get a bonus day off, such as today, without too long a chore list of things that I need to do outside of the house, I like to round up some of the bones from the fridge and put them to use.
Right now, I am simmering a ham bone with bay leaves, brown mustard seed, a few slices of onion, some parsley sprigs, and a clove of garlic that has been sliced almost-through in about six places. There was a certain amount of meat scraps still clinging to the bone from where I wearied of divesting it before chucking it into the freezer, but that's okay because it now can give its all to the stock.
Ham stock is quite gelatinous by nature, and also can be very fatty. You don't want to be making it the same day you are using it, because it benefits immeasurably from standing around for a while so that the fat can rise to the surface, solidify in the fridge, and be scraped off and either a) discarded or b) made into some dish that requires pork fat. I generally choose option a because I don't do a lot of cooking with pork fat, and the amount rendered in the soup process is significant in terms of stock, but not in terms of what would be needed for a lot of southern cooking. I suppose, if I were truly living up to my pioneer stock ancestors, I would simply scrape it into another container and save it to make biscuits, but mostly I can't be bothered. Besides, I already have mugs of goose fat and chicken schmalz in the freezer.
It doesn't take long to make a good ham stock. It mostly minds itself while you take care of other things, simmering gently on the stove for an hour or two, filling the house with its hammy scent. It makes me want to make split-pea soup right now, but I have other things planned for the afternoon and I am looking forward to having a supply of ham stock waiting for me in my freezer the next time I make Jambalaya or a simple risotto.
Today, it's ham stock. If I get the rest of my day sorted out and am still feeling ambitious, I might drag out the two sets of chicken bones, and make chicken stock, too.
May 20, 2005
Living on the Edge
... of the expiry date.
Sometimes my cooking and/or baking is predicated on what’s most in need of using up. The tag end of an irregularly used pasta shape, the green peppers that I had forgotten to put in the salad four days ago, the milk that is rapidly approaching its due date. Things that are taking up space.
I open the door to the fridge, and survey the contents with an Iron Chef scowl. What can I make that will use up as many of the “secret” ingredients as possible? Then I get right to work. I don’t have a small army of sous-chefs to chop and stir on my behalf, but I also don’t have to work within an hour’s time constraint or stand at the end of the table while mincing tasters make faces and search for adjectives for “meh.”
When the must-use items include buttermilk, the first thing that leaps to mind is coffee cake. Almost infinitely adaptable and very forgiving of slap-dash, make-do efforts, the coffee cake can conceal a multitude of kitchen sins. It’s a good thing, too.
When I was first learning to bake, I would assemble all of my ingredients on the kitchen table before beginning. That way, there would be no surprises, such as last night’s realization that I only had half the amount of buttermilk required, and half the amount of the correct type of sugar (golden/brown sugar). Only slightly daunted, I soldiered on with the recipe, using a quarter-cup of liquid egg white instead of a whole egg, packing the remaining space in the sugar-cup with both demerara and white sugars, and replacing the filling and topping with shaved Callebaut chocolate and cinnamon. The buttermilk was shored-up with regular 1% milk and left to “age” in the hopes that the culture in the buttermilk would quickly convert the interloper.
The finished cake didn’t rise quite as high as the original recipe faithfully does – my punishment for subbing out the egg with only whites and the buttermilk for a mixture - but it was light-textured (“weightless!” says Palle) and flavourful, with a pretty spackle of chocolate across the top. Although less sweet than the regular version, it was in fact ideal with a cup of coffee.
The rest of the regular milk is on a ticking clock, too – I will probably make paneer tonight, to go with tomorrow’s potential Indian dinner. Cooking the milk will give me the day or two’s respite needed to gather my wits and plan a dinner around it.
Sometimes my cooking and/or baking is predicated on what’s most in need of using up. The tag end of an irregularly used pasta shape, the green peppers that I had forgotten to put in the salad four days ago, the milk that is rapidly approaching its due date. Things that are taking up space.
I open the door to the fridge, and survey the contents with an Iron Chef scowl. What can I make that will use up as many of the “secret” ingredients as possible? Then I get right to work. I don’t have a small army of sous-chefs to chop and stir on my behalf, but I also don’t have to work within an hour’s time constraint or stand at the end of the table while mincing tasters make faces and search for adjectives for “meh.”
When the must-use items include buttermilk, the first thing that leaps to mind is coffee cake. Almost infinitely adaptable and very forgiving of slap-dash, make-do efforts, the coffee cake can conceal a multitude of kitchen sins. It’s a good thing, too.
When I was first learning to bake, I would assemble all of my ingredients on the kitchen table before beginning. That way, there would be no surprises, such as last night’s realization that I only had half the amount of buttermilk required, and half the amount of the correct type of sugar (golden/brown sugar). Only slightly daunted, I soldiered on with the recipe, using a quarter-cup of liquid egg white instead of a whole egg, packing the remaining space in the sugar-cup with both demerara and white sugars, and replacing the filling and topping with shaved Callebaut chocolate and cinnamon. The buttermilk was shored-up with regular 1% milk and left to “age” in the hopes that the culture in the buttermilk would quickly convert the interloper.
The finished cake didn’t rise quite as high as the original recipe faithfully does – my punishment for subbing out the egg with only whites and the buttermilk for a mixture - but it was light-textured (“weightless!” says Palle) and flavourful, with a pretty spackle of chocolate across the top. Although less sweet than the regular version, it was in fact ideal with a cup of coffee.
The rest of the regular milk is on a ticking clock, too – I will probably make paneer tonight, to go with tomorrow’s potential Indian dinner. Cooking the milk will give me the day or two’s respite needed to gather my wits and plan a dinner around it.
May 15, 2005
Off to Market
The Farmers' Market at Trout Lake opened for the season, yesterday. The sky was overcast, but it was warm enough that I had to remove a layer coming home. I like this kind of weather for the market - blazing sun makes the shoppers cranky and difficult, and since it's treated as a family outing by many folks, a sunny market day can mean a lot of wailing children. So, I go early, rather than after noon, and I prefer to go on cloudy days.
Not all of the vendors were there. There were only two bread bakeries, for example, and while one of them had the coveted pao de queijo in unbaked form, the lineup was fierce and I didn't make it through. There were two apiaries hawking honey and beeswax products, but I have a fair amount of honey, and little need for beeswax at the moment. I examined the offerings from a discreet distance, and moved on.
The mushroom folks were there, and that is where I made my first purchase. A large tub of mixed mushrooms, containing variously a portabello, some shiitake, some oyster and a few cremini mushrooms was mine for only $5. They will become dinner of some sort, tonight - I'm rather thinking that Wild Mushroom Risotto might be the way to go. I also found a vegetable stand which had French Breakfast radishes, and since I've been adding radishes to everything lately (usually the regular, round, red, globe radishes) I thought I'd give them a try. Organic Long English cucumbers were only a dollar each, so I snagged one of them, too. I forsee another Greek or Turkish salad in my immediate future.
My final purchase was a riotous little French Thyme plant. French Thyme and English Thyme are both thymus vulgaris, but the leaves do look a little different. I'm not entirely sure what the difference is, so perhaps I need to do a little research. French Thyme is widely regarded as the preferred among all thymes for cooking, and since my little kitchen rennaissance of French dishes (not to mention all the Caribbean dishes I've become so fond of) it made sense to replace my long departed garden pot.
Cloth bag stuffed full of goodies, and clutching my fragrant pot of herbs, I stumbed down to Broadway to catch the bus home. Yesterday's menu had been worked out well in advance, without room for any of these treasures, but today... today I get to play.
Not all of the vendors were there. There were only two bread bakeries, for example, and while one of them had the coveted pao de queijo in unbaked form, the lineup was fierce and I didn't make it through. There were two apiaries hawking honey and beeswax products, but I have a fair amount of honey, and little need for beeswax at the moment. I examined the offerings from a discreet distance, and moved on.
The mushroom folks were there, and that is where I made my first purchase. A large tub of mixed mushrooms, containing variously a portabello, some shiitake, some oyster and a few cremini mushrooms was mine for only $5. They will become dinner of some sort, tonight - I'm rather thinking that Wild Mushroom Risotto might be the way to go. I also found a vegetable stand which had French Breakfast radishes, and since I've been adding radishes to everything lately (usually the regular, round, red, globe radishes) I thought I'd give them a try. Organic Long English cucumbers were only a dollar each, so I snagged one of them, too. I forsee another Greek or Turkish salad in my immediate future.
My final purchase was a riotous little French Thyme plant. French Thyme and English Thyme are both thymus vulgaris, but the leaves do look a little different. I'm not entirely sure what the difference is, so perhaps I need to do a little research. French Thyme is widely regarded as the preferred among all thymes for cooking, and since my little kitchen rennaissance of French dishes (not to mention all the Caribbean dishes I've become so fond of) it made sense to replace my long departed garden pot.
Cloth bag stuffed full of goodies, and clutching my fragrant pot of herbs, I stumbed down to Broadway to catch the bus home. Yesterday's menu had been worked out well in advance, without room for any of these treasures, but today... today I get to play.
May 09, 2005
Fennel is the next big thing
In my kitchen, anyway. I enjoy the odd food jag, and I’ve been between frenzies of late. It started with Molly’s recipe on Orangette for Carrot & Fennel Soup. Not only was the soup delicious (and easy to make), it froze well and reheated fabulously for a lazy Sunday lunch when you dare not brave the Mother's Day frenzy of brunch.
When I was shopping for the ingredients for the soup, I noticed how lovely the fennel bulbs in the store looked. Smooth and white, clean and fresh – begging to be shaved raw into a salad, braised and whirred into a puree, or sliced and roasted and tossed with linguini, fennel seed, chile flakes, halved cherry tomatoes, and cubes of fontina.
That last one, the pasta dish, may very well be dinner tonight. I haven’t made it in ages, but it was very popular the few times that I did. If I remember correctly, the original dish called for some sort of bacon or prosciutto, but I’ve got some ham to use up, so tiny cubes of sautéed ham it will be. There’s also a few black olives languishing from the Cinco de Mayo potluck, and they might go in, too. A little crushed garlic, a little good quality olive oil… dinner’s looking pretty easy, and pretty tasty.
I’m also eyeing a purely fennel soup recipe from one of the Australian Women’s Weekly collections (I think it’s the Fruit & Vegetables cookbook). I suspect it will freeze well, and I’m leaning favourably toward Sunday lunches like yesterday’s – a little soup from the freezer, some good bread, various cheeses and pickles. It feels so very much like home.
When I was shopping for the ingredients for the soup, I noticed how lovely the fennel bulbs in the store looked. Smooth and white, clean and fresh – begging to be shaved raw into a salad, braised and whirred into a puree, or sliced and roasted and tossed with linguini, fennel seed, chile flakes, halved cherry tomatoes, and cubes of fontina.
That last one, the pasta dish, may very well be dinner tonight. I haven’t made it in ages, but it was very popular the few times that I did. If I remember correctly, the original dish called for some sort of bacon or prosciutto, but I’ve got some ham to use up, so tiny cubes of sautéed ham it will be. There’s also a few black olives languishing from the Cinco de Mayo potluck, and they might go in, too. A little crushed garlic, a little good quality olive oil… dinner’s looking pretty easy, and pretty tasty.
I’m also eyeing a purely fennel soup recipe from one of the Australian Women’s Weekly collections (I think it’s the Fruit & Vegetables cookbook). I suspect it will freeze well, and I’m leaning favourably toward Sunday lunches like yesterday’s – a little soup from the freezer, some good bread, various cheeses and pickles. It feels so very much like home.
May 06, 2005
Lazy Roast Chicken
There may be no rest for the wicked, but the lazy can still enjoy a darn good roast chicken. I’ve seen (and made) many variations on your basic, garden variety roast chicken over the last twenty years or so. I’ve brined, and stuffed, and butterflied, and cooked upside-down for half the time. I’ve put butter between the skin and the meat, I’ve trussed, I’ve basted, and employed an exciting variety of herbs, sauces, rubs, and quirky temperature adjusting. Lid on. Lid off. Most of these ways work perfectly well, but my standard lazy roast chicken is a mighty fine dish on its own.
It’s not really a recipe, more a set of directions and suggestions. I use a basic broiler/fryer for most of my roast chickens – they’re cheaper than “roaster” chickens (albeit smaller) and fit nicely into my cast iron frying pan.
This is what I do:
Preheat the oven to 400 F. While the oven is heating up, rinse the chicken under cool water, allow to drain (just hold it over the sink and give it a shake, really) and pat the surface dry with paper towels or napkins – something that you can toss away when you’re done.
Put the now-dry chicken breast-side up into a dry cast iron frying pan - mine is a 10 ¾” and fits most broiler/fryers perfectly. No chicken-roasting gizmos needed!
Pull up the skin flaps around the cavity, and pull/cut off and discard any excessivly large globules of fat. Wash your hands thoroughly in hot soapy water.
Spritz the top surface of the chicken with canola oil, or rub lightly with oil (and wash your chickeny hands again). Sprinkle coarse salt liberally over the chicken breasts and legs. If you want to add another herb or spice – paprika gives it a lovely colour – do that now. Place the pan in the hot oven.
Do not cover the chicken (lid or tinfoil or anything).
Do not baste the chicken with anything
Do not change the oven temperature
A 3 lb. chicken cooks in about 1 to 1.25 hours. During this time, you can relax. Do the laundry or other chores if you want, otherwise laze about in your favourite fashion. Test the chicken for done-ness (an instant read thermometer registering 185 F when thrust into the thickest part of the thigh meat is good, or a knife into the area between the leg and the body – if the juices run clear, you’re good to go). Remove the pan from the oven and transfer the chicken to a plate or carving board. Let the chicken rest for at least 5 minutes before cutting, or you will lose most of the juices. Slice/carve/destroy the chicken as suits you best. Devour.
Nifty extras: A large russet potato bakes in about the same amount of time as the chicken. Wash the potato thoroughly, and jab it with a fork a couple of times. Place on the oven rack next to the frying pan full of chicken and ignore until the chicken is ready. The potato will be, too.
Roast garlic is delicious – even more so when it is roasted in chicken fat! Peel a handful of cloves (or heck, do the whole head!) and throw them into the pan with the chicken about ½ hour before you expect the chicken to be done. Give them a little stir so they’re coated with the chicken fat. When the chicken is ready, the garlic cloves will be sweetly caramelized and delicious.
If I am going to have leftover roast chicken, I like to remove the meat from the bones right after dinner, while it is still warm and freshly cooked (use your bare hands!); it is much more hassle if you wait to do this after the chicken has been refrigerated. I plate the boneless meat, cover it with plastic wrap and put in the fridge for the next day. The bones go into a bag and into the freezer, to deal with when I feel like making stock.
There you go. Not glamourous, not fancy, not even really a recipe – more of a method. But it’s a low maintenance dinner (you can always make a salad or steam some broccoli in the last few minutes of cooking) that I’m happy to have, and which gives me great leftovers and stock-fixings.
That’s a reasonable amount of mileage to get out of one little chicken, I think.
May 04, 2005
How much did those renovations cost?
Rob Feenie has recently appeared in television commercials for White Spot, trading on not only his name-brand recognition from his show on the Food Network, but his recent triumph on Iron Chef America.
It's bewildering. One can't help but wonder if our local boy is losing it, especially after seeing the dreadfully constructed ad for his own restaurants, Feenie's and Lumière, on the backs of buses. I have no objection to his advertising his own enterprises, although it looks as though he lost a bet and had to use something his competition picked out, frankly. The ads are ugly, and probably unnecessary. Both of his restaurants appear to be doing very well - filled with people every time I am there, or even walk past them. He owns one of the true destination restaurants in Canada in Lumière, and heaven only knows, the boy doesn't suffer from lack of exposure in this town.
Lumière was closed down for a while in April, for renovations. I haven't been back yet since it re-opened, although the menus look as delicious as ever (and the format has changed slightly for the tasting menus in the formal dining room). I really like the bar there - the staff know their drinks inside and out and you never have to worry that your vintage cocktail is going to show up in a metal "martini glass." The food at the bar is also exquisite - I haven't had a dish there that was less than fabulous, and some of them (the four-cheese macaroni, the wontons in Peking duck broth) I can get almost evangelical about.
In fact, as I have said before, I am willing to eat anything that Mr. Feenie puts down in front of me. This is partially why I'm so flinchy at his recent plugging of White Spot. The general thrust of the new White Spot adverts (some of which apparently feature John Bishop of Bishop's although I haven't seen that one yet) seems to be all about the use of fresh, local ingredients - something for which both Rob Feenie and John Bishop have long been vocal advocates. White Spot isn't adding foie gras to its (optimistically named) triple-o sauce, or forcing you into a prix-fixe format.
It seems like it should be a good deal for White Spot - endorsement of their product by some of the fanciest and shmanciest chefs in town, and since White Spot is a local chain, won't particularly contaminate their reputations abroad. However, is the name-brand endorsement really going to reach out to the target audience of White Spot? Is it going to elevate the clientele, or move the restaurant chain more up-market? Is it going to have anything other than amusing kitsch factor for the current patrons? Didn't it cost them a lot of money?
It would have to cost White Spot a lot of money. I cannot fathom how or why either of these chefs would stoop to shilling for a tedious local (BC & Alberta) burger chain without White Spot driving a dumptruck of money up to his house. With two booming restaurants, an established television show AND an Iron Chef America title under his belt, how much more does he need? Are we going to see him hawking his own line of cookware (although, that would be less irritating than what he's doing now)? Plugging the fish counter at Safeway? Has he lost all sense of perspective? Is it all a joke?
I can't help but be waiting for the other shoe to drop. I don't care if he does eat at White Spot, it looks like selling-out, to me.
It's bewildering. One can't help but wonder if our local boy is losing it, especially after seeing the dreadfully constructed ad for his own restaurants, Feenie's and Lumière, on the backs of buses. I have no objection to his advertising his own enterprises, although it looks as though he lost a bet and had to use something his competition picked out, frankly. The ads are ugly, and probably unnecessary. Both of his restaurants appear to be doing very well - filled with people every time I am there, or even walk past them. He owns one of the true destination restaurants in Canada in Lumière, and heaven only knows, the boy doesn't suffer from lack of exposure in this town.
Lumière was closed down for a while in April, for renovations. I haven't been back yet since it re-opened, although the menus look as delicious as ever (and the format has changed slightly for the tasting menus in the formal dining room). I really like the bar there - the staff know their drinks inside and out and you never have to worry that your vintage cocktail is going to show up in a metal "martini glass." The food at the bar is also exquisite - I haven't had a dish there that was less than fabulous, and some of them (the four-cheese macaroni, the wontons in Peking duck broth) I can get almost evangelical about.
In fact, as I have said before, I am willing to eat anything that Mr. Feenie puts down in front of me. This is partially why I'm so flinchy at his recent plugging of White Spot. The general thrust of the new White Spot adverts (some of which apparently feature John Bishop of Bishop's although I haven't seen that one yet) seems to be all about the use of fresh, local ingredients - something for which both Rob Feenie and John Bishop have long been vocal advocates. White Spot isn't adding foie gras to its (optimistically named) triple-o sauce, or forcing you into a prix-fixe format.
It seems like it should be a good deal for White Spot - endorsement of their product by some of the fanciest and shmanciest chefs in town, and since White Spot is a local chain, won't particularly contaminate their reputations abroad. However, is the name-brand endorsement really going to reach out to the target audience of White Spot? Is it going to elevate the clientele, or move the restaurant chain more up-market? Is it going to have anything other than amusing kitsch factor for the current patrons? Didn't it cost them a lot of money?
It would have to cost White Spot a lot of money. I cannot fathom how or why either of these chefs would stoop to shilling for a tedious local (BC & Alberta) burger chain without White Spot driving a dumptruck of money up to his house. With two booming restaurants, an established television show AND an Iron Chef America title under his belt, how much more does he need? Are we going to see him hawking his own line of cookware (although, that would be less irritating than what he's doing now)? Plugging the fish counter at Safeway? Has he lost all sense of perspective? Is it all a joke?
I can't help but be waiting for the other shoe to drop. I don't care if he does eat at White Spot, it looks like selling-out, to me.
May 02, 2005
Whoops, I did it again...
... I played with the requisite pan-size of the recipe that I was making. Consequently, the banana cake took almost twice as long to cook, and got rather firm on the top. Volumetrics, baby: always do the math.
The thing of it is, when I'm paying attention I know that you can't sub an 8" springform pan for a 9" square pan, for crying out loud! It doesn't matter what the recipe says. But no, I was thinking "Oh, I've got an 8" springform! I'll use that." I would have been better off using an 8" square pan, rather than the round one. The math was backwards. You can sub them the other way 'round. Oh, well.
Then, there was the ham. I was looking for something suitable for a jambalaya version that I've been working on, and when I saw inexpensive, marked down further, smoked picnic shoulder lurking in the supermarket, I thought, "Oh HO! This will work nicely!" Completely forgetting to check to see if it was going to need cooking, or was in fact fully cooked, I tossed it into the fridge (with a heavy thump, might I add, at 7 lbs of piggy goodness) and it didn't occur to me until about 5:30 that it might need some time in the oven.
Of course it did. It needed 2 1/2 hours in the oven, in fact! By the time it was ready, I was starving and the house smelled like an entire roast pig was turning on a spit somewhere. The cat was going ballistic whenever I went into the kitchen to check on things, and I was starving. No way was I going to much around with chopping up celery at that point - dinner was going to be revamped around the pork shoulder.
The thing about pork shoulder is, it's much fatter than pork hind-leg, from which we get ham. This means, that at 8:00pm or so on Sunday night, starving half-to-death in the face of plenty, I was rather sloppy about removing the fatty layer from the roast before slicing. The meat was succulent and very tasty, but the amount of grease I ingested has left me quite queasy even to this moment of writing. I really shouldn't have nibbled on the crackling.
Evenutally, I divested the meat and (most of) the fat from the remains of the roast, and placed the meat in large chunks in the fridge to be made into jambalaya today. The meaty bone, from which even the least greedy person could have found more flesh to carve, got wrapped and frozen with the vague notion of split pea soup in the future (Hi J!). Tonight, I get to carefully remove the remaining fat from the chunks of meat (and oh, how I will be scrupulous to get each bit!) and make it useful once again.
It was one of those weekends, though, where almost nothing went quite right. There was an apple-raspberry crisp that turned out rather nicely, and I didn't manage to cut myself while slicing roasted chicken breast or anything, but that's the extent of the triumphs.
The thing of it is, when I'm paying attention I know that you can't sub an 8" springform pan for a 9" square pan, for crying out loud! It doesn't matter what the recipe says. But no, I was thinking "Oh, I've got an 8" springform! I'll use that." I would have been better off using an 8" square pan, rather than the round one. The math was backwards. You can sub them the other way 'round. Oh, well.
Then, there was the ham. I was looking for something suitable for a jambalaya version that I've been working on, and when I saw inexpensive, marked down further, smoked picnic shoulder lurking in the supermarket, I thought, "Oh HO! This will work nicely!" Completely forgetting to check to see if it was going to need cooking, or was in fact fully cooked, I tossed it into the fridge (with a heavy thump, might I add, at 7 lbs of piggy goodness) and it didn't occur to me until about 5:30 that it might need some time in the oven.
Of course it did. It needed 2 1/2 hours in the oven, in fact! By the time it was ready, I was starving and the house smelled like an entire roast pig was turning on a spit somewhere. The cat was going ballistic whenever I went into the kitchen to check on things, and I was starving. No way was I going to much around with chopping up celery at that point - dinner was going to be revamped around the pork shoulder.
The thing about pork shoulder is, it's much fatter than pork hind-leg, from which we get ham. This means, that at 8:00pm or so on Sunday night, starving half-to-death in the face of plenty, I was rather sloppy about removing the fatty layer from the roast before slicing. The meat was succulent and very tasty, but the amount of grease I ingested has left me quite queasy even to this moment of writing. I really shouldn't have nibbled on the crackling.
Evenutally, I divested the meat and (most of) the fat from the remains of the roast, and placed the meat in large chunks in the fridge to be made into jambalaya today. The meaty bone, from which even the least greedy person could have found more flesh to carve, got wrapped and frozen with the vague notion of split pea soup in the future (Hi J!). Tonight, I get to carefully remove the remaining fat from the chunks of meat (and oh, how I will be scrupulous to get each bit!) and make it useful once again.
It was one of those weekends, though, where almost nothing went quite right. There was an apple-raspberry crisp that turned out rather nicely, and I didn't manage to cut myself while slicing roasted chicken breast or anything, but that's the extent of the triumphs.
April 28, 2005
Gadgets
I have two new kitchen toys: a small "ice cream" scoop with a bar-release, and a pasta fork.
Those of you who have heard me objecting to single-use items cluttering up the kitchen (knives, toaster and coffee-maker excluded on the grounds of sheer volume of usage) might be a little surprised, but I actually love gadgets. The magpie aspect of my personality likes things that are shiny, small, and nifty while the spartanist futilely rails about the lack of overall portability in my life.
It's not like I fall victim to as-seen-on-tv items like the perfect pancake or batter pro or butter dispenser products, and I don't think I own anything sold by Ron Popeil. I do have a hard time justifying single-use gadgets, though. I tend to think long and hard before adding something else to my kitchen hardware. Even the olive pitter, which I had on my Christmas wish list a couple of years ago, I felt silly about acquiring (although it's a sleek, beautifully crafted metallic device) and ended up justifying on the basis that it could pit not only olives, but also cherries. Two uses! To be fair, it's the same usage on different items, but that doesn't really matter, does it?
My rationale for the ice cream scoop was similar. All it does is scoop, really. But it can be used for ice cream, or cookie dough (ah, the memories of my first job in Vancouver, at Teddy Bear Donuts Cookie Factory!) or - as in the case of last Sunday - falafel. Totally justified! I've already used it for two of its potential uses.
The pasta fork was a little harder to grit my teeth and buy. It cost under three dollars, but it just looks ridiculous and I felt a little silly buying it. However, in the past few months I have been developing a master recipe for spicy soba, which are types of Japanese noodle that are susceptible to clagginess if drained in the classic colander method. Portioning the final dish, using forks, was a bit annoying, too. The pasta fork has solved this dilemma entirely. Works like a dream, actually. It may look a little silly, but I no longer find myself struggling with the noodles. As far as I know, this device only performs the one function. Can I give it points for being able to accommodate multiple types of noodle? Being useful to more than one cuisine?
Optimistic with my latest acquisitions, I have pinned a list to the fridge of all the gadgets that I am currently attempting to rationalize. I may need a bigger kitchen, if I succumb to them all.
Those of you who have heard me objecting to single-use items cluttering up the kitchen (knives, toaster and coffee-maker excluded on the grounds of sheer volume of usage) might be a little surprised, but I actually love gadgets. The magpie aspect of my personality likes things that are shiny, small, and nifty while the spartanist futilely rails about the lack of overall portability in my life.
It's not like I fall victim to as-seen-on-tv items like the perfect pancake or batter pro or butter dispenser products, and I don't think I own anything sold by Ron Popeil. I do have a hard time justifying single-use gadgets, though. I tend to think long and hard before adding something else to my kitchen hardware. Even the olive pitter, which I had on my Christmas wish list a couple of years ago, I felt silly about acquiring (although it's a sleek, beautifully crafted metallic device) and ended up justifying on the basis that it could pit not only olives, but also cherries. Two uses! To be fair, it's the same usage on different items, but that doesn't really matter, does it?
My rationale for the ice cream scoop was similar. All it does is scoop, really. But it can be used for ice cream, or cookie dough (ah, the memories of my first job in Vancouver, at Teddy Bear Donuts Cookie Factory!) or - as in the case of last Sunday - falafel. Totally justified! I've already used it for two of its potential uses.
The pasta fork was a little harder to grit my teeth and buy. It cost under three dollars, but it just looks ridiculous and I felt a little silly buying it. However, in the past few months I have been developing a master recipe for spicy soba, which are types of Japanese noodle that are susceptible to clagginess if drained in the classic colander method. Portioning the final dish, using forks, was a bit annoying, too. The pasta fork has solved this dilemma entirely. Works like a dream, actually. It may look a little silly, but I no longer find myself struggling with the noodles. As far as I know, this device only performs the one function. Can I give it points for being able to accommodate multiple types of noodle? Being useful to more than one cuisine?
Optimistic with my latest acquisitions, I have pinned a list to the fridge of all the gadgets that I am currently attempting to rationalize. I may need a bigger kitchen, if I succumb to them all.
April 25, 2005
Salad days, ahead of schedule
You can tell that Spring is finally here (apologies to those suffering under the blizzard in southern Ontario) for a whole host of reasons: half of the town have tucked away their leather coats into closets, brighter shades of green and pink and yellow (it's the new orange!) are showing up, the young, nattily-dressed men on the #22 bus into downtown have shaved their heads, and I'm making salad.
I'm very fond of salads, actually. My mother favoured huge leafy salads that she constructed individually right on each dinner plate (and covering at least half the plate, maybe more) in the summer, and cole slaw in the winter. It wasn't until I left home that I encountered things like tabbouleh, rice salads, lentil salads, pasta salads. I took to them rather fiercely.
After my lamby foray into Turkish and middle eastern cuisine this weekend (yesterday I experimented deliciously with baked falafel) I find myself with an interesting assortment of leftovers, which, individually do not constitute a meal, but together, and augmented a tad, will do just fine. Leftover slices of roast lamb with cacik and olives (!) and a few sliced tomatoes, feta and cucumbers can make very satisfactory sandwiches, stuffed into pita bread, as will the falafel. What I really needed to go with it was a salad.
The Shephard's Salad that went with the original lamb dinner was rather fun. Much like a Greek salad in that it consists primarily of chopped tomatoes, cucumber, and green peppers (and even more so since I added some cubed feta) it also featured lettuce (not to be found on any self-respecting Greek salad, thank you very much Eastern Coast!) sliced radishes, and was dressed with a combination of fresh lemon juice, olive oil, fresh sliced mint leaves and the all-important sumac, a woodsy-lemony flavoured spice. It was quite delicious, but having had it two days in a row, I am sort of looking for something else.
Lentil salad it is. There is, as it turns out, a Turkish version of green lentil salad lurking in the pages of The Sultan's Kitchen: a Turkish Cookbook. It is both similar to and quite different from the Ethiopian recipe "Azifa" that I like to make in the summer, being a combination of cooked, chilled green/brown lentils dressed with finely chopped vegetables and a simple vinaigrette. Whereas the African recipe has hot peppers, mustard, and red wine vinegar as its distinctive ingredients, the Turkish version is mellower, featuring more chopped mint, cilantro, sumac, and fresh lemon juice.
Lentil salads keep very well for a couple of days in the fridge, and lend themselves well to packed lunches - whether or not you have refrigeration available. They are also a fantastic source of both protien and vitamin-rich vegetables, and if you have a conservative hand with the olive oil, they can be healthily lean, too. In the summer, they are a favourite accompaniment (second, perhaps only to couscous salad) to grilled lamb burgers. Really, they make a great, easy side dish at any time, and I'm really looking forward to it tonight.
I'm very fond of salads, actually. My mother favoured huge leafy salads that she constructed individually right on each dinner plate (and covering at least half the plate, maybe more) in the summer, and cole slaw in the winter. It wasn't until I left home that I encountered things like tabbouleh, rice salads, lentil salads, pasta salads. I took to them rather fiercely.
After my lamby foray into Turkish and middle eastern cuisine this weekend (yesterday I experimented deliciously with baked falafel) I find myself with an interesting assortment of leftovers, which, individually do not constitute a meal, but together, and augmented a tad, will do just fine. Leftover slices of roast lamb with cacik and olives (!) and a few sliced tomatoes, feta and cucumbers can make very satisfactory sandwiches, stuffed into pita bread, as will the falafel. What I really needed to go with it was a salad.
The Shephard's Salad that went with the original lamb dinner was rather fun. Much like a Greek salad in that it consists primarily of chopped tomatoes, cucumber, and green peppers (and even more so since I added some cubed feta) it also featured lettuce (not to be found on any self-respecting Greek salad, thank you very much Eastern Coast!) sliced radishes, and was dressed with a combination of fresh lemon juice, olive oil, fresh sliced mint leaves and the all-important sumac, a woodsy-lemony flavoured spice. It was quite delicious, but having had it two days in a row, I am sort of looking for something else.
Lentil salad it is. There is, as it turns out, a Turkish version of green lentil salad lurking in the pages of The Sultan's Kitchen: a Turkish Cookbook. It is both similar to and quite different from the Ethiopian recipe "Azifa" that I like to make in the summer, being a combination of cooked, chilled green/brown lentils dressed with finely chopped vegetables and a simple vinaigrette. Whereas the African recipe has hot peppers, mustard, and red wine vinegar as its distinctive ingredients, the Turkish version is mellower, featuring more chopped mint, cilantro, sumac, and fresh lemon juice.
Lentil salads keep very well for a couple of days in the fridge, and lend themselves well to packed lunches - whether or not you have refrigeration available. They are also a fantastic source of both protien and vitamin-rich vegetables, and if you have a conservative hand with the olive oil, they can be healthily lean, too. In the summer, they are a favourite accompaniment (second, perhaps only to couscous salad) to grilled lamb burgers. Really, they make a great, easy side dish at any time, and I'm really looking forward to it tonight.
April 24, 2005
Impromptu
I didn't really intend to have a dinner party last night, it just worked out that way. Last week I picked up a de-boned half-leg of lamb at the supermarket, and plunked it into the freezer. Large pieces of lamb are always useful, whether one intends to roast them or dice them for stew/kebabs - always a good thing to have around. My plan was to try my hand at a rather attractive looking Turkish dish in one of my cookbooks, so I took it out of the freezer and started defrosting it on Friday.
The dish was quite simple, actually - it did require a shopping trip, as I did not have any pistachio nuts on hand, nor did my dwindling supply of dried apricots look up to the task. There was also the matter of the fresh mint - my garden mint is not yet sufficiently large to harvest, so I picked up a bag at the market.
The actual finished main dish was a boneless lamb half-leg roasted over a pilaf (or pilav, in Turkish) of long-grain rice cooked with garlic, onion, pistachio nuts, diced dried apriot and a good quantity of finely minced parsley and cilantro. The rice was carefully concealed under the meat so that the juices from the meat would soak down into the pilav and enrich the flavour. Once cooked, the meat was rested briefly and then sliced and served platter-style.
It was a simple enough dinner not to require over-thinking on my part. Cacik, the Turkish answer to Greek tzatziki, was simple to prepare, and the Shephard's Salad from The Sultan's Table by Oczan Ozan was the most sensible of side dishes (although I added feta... because I like feta and have been craving it lately). The lemon juice dressing went beautifully with the freshly chopped cucumber, tomatoes, radishes and peppers. A little pita bread from the market, and we were pretty much set.
It was my sneaky thought that, while I was at an afternoon event yesterday, I could casually invite a friend or two over for a casual little lamb dinner. In my usual spirit of testing recipes out on my friends, this seemed a most excellent plan, and mojito consumption in the afternoon made the whole thing sound just that much more fun. By the time the lamb came out of the oven, there were five of us, some of us a little tipsy, wine was being opened, and the cat was banished to "boarding school."
I forgot the olives. I don't know how, exactly, after making several mental notes on the order of how much I was looking forward to the olives, but I forgot them until the plates were cleared and I was putting out a plate of Turkish Delight and some fresh Iranian dates as a sort of dessert. I also forgot the napkins until prodded, but this is an ongoing mental lapse. If I don't set a fancy table with cloth napkins, I will completely and entirely forget that they might be necessary. Happens every time.
The lamb turned out exactly as I wanted it to, and everyone had kind things to say about the food in general. After dinner was done, more friends joined us for a glass of absinthe and to listen to a few cds. As far as unscheduled dinner parties go - I had a ton of fun.
Today, I'm going to eat the olives.
The dish was quite simple, actually - it did require a shopping trip, as I did not have any pistachio nuts on hand, nor did my dwindling supply of dried apricots look up to the task. There was also the matter of the fresh mint - my garden mint is not yet sufficiently large to harvest, so I picked up a bag at the market.
The actual finished main dish was a boneless lamb half-leg roasted over a pilaf (or pilav, in Turkish) of long-grain rice cooked with garlic, onion, pistachio nuts, diced dried apriot and a good quantity of finely minced parsley and cilantro. The rice was carefully concealed under the meat so that the juices from the meat would soak down into the pilav and enrich the flavour. Once cooked, the meat was rested briefly and then sliced and served platter-style.
It was a simple enough dinner not to require over-thinking on my part. Cacik, the Turkish answer to Greek tzatziki, was simple to prepare, and the Shephard's Salad from The Sultan's Table by Oczan Ozan was the most sensible of side dishes (although I added feta... because I like feta and have been craving it lately). The lemon juice dressing went beautifully with the freshly chopped cucumber, tomatoes, radishes and peppers. A little pita bread from the market, and we were pretty much set.
It was my sneaky thought that, while I was at an afternoon event yesterday, I could casually invite a friend or two over for a casual little lamb dinner. In my usual spirit of testing recipes out on my friends, this seemed a most excellent plan, and mojito consumption in the afternoon made the whole thing sound just that much more fun. By the time the lamb came out of the oven, there were five of us, some of us a little tipsy, wine was being opened, and the cat was banished to "boarding school."
I forgot the olives. I don't know how, exactly, after making several mental notes on the order of how much I was looking forward to the olives, but I forgot them until the plates were cleared and I was putting out a plate of Turkish Delight and some fresh Iranian dates as a sort of dessert. I also forgot the napkins until prodded, but this is an ongoing mental lapse. If I don't set a fancy table with cloth napkins, I will completely and entirely forget that they might be necessary. Happens every time.
The lamb turned out exactly as I wanted it to, and everyone had kind things to say about the food in general. After dinner was done, more friends joined us for a glass of absinthe and to listen to a few cds. As far as unscheduled dinner parties go - I had a ton of fun.
Today, I'm going to eat the olives.
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