The road to wellness

I had been feeling the effects of the winter flu for days and, uncharacteristically, had lost my appetite for anything but fresh squeezed grapefruit juice.
Typically, I nurse myself back to health with homemade chicken or turkey soup (I always have frozen homemade stock at the ready for such occasions).
Today, my tummy cried out for a wholly vegetarian solution to the nutrition problem.
And so it is that I turned to the New York Times' Mark Bittman's quick and easy solutions.
Bittman ate a very simple rice and carrot stew at a Turkish lunch counter and it inspired him to write down the recipe. For all its simplicity, it's got wonderful depth of flavour. And it's dead easy -- so easy I had to embellish it. Here's my version of a recipe that's easy on the tummy and got me feeling better in a hurry.

Turkish Rice and Carrot Stew

4 carrots, sliced
1/2 onion, chopped
3-4 cups water
3 cloves garlic, diced
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 handfuls of arugula, spinach or swiss chard (chopped)
3/4 cups rice (I used basmati)
1/4 cup red lentils
Sea salt and ground pepper to taste
Feta cheese and green olives for garnish

Drizzle olive oil in a heavy pot, heat medium high, add onions and carrots. Saute till soft. Add 3 cups of water and bring to a boil. Add the rice/lentil mixture (Bittman doesn't use lentils but I find red lentils are an ingenious way to turn a broth into a thicker stew so I use them liberally). Bring to a boil. Add your greens (Bittman calls for spinach but I had arugula and used it to satisfaction). Lower temperature to ensure a slow simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally and adding water as needed (I ended up using 4 cups of water).

When the dish looks like a stew and the rice is cooked to near death, add the minced garlic and butter. Stir to incorporate and heat for 5 minutes max.

Ladle into dishes and garnish with feta and green olives. You could add dried chopped prunes to the stew as it's cooking -- I didn't but might do so next time.

Wild about tartines

I've been working too hard, which means I haven't been creating in the kitchen. One of my favourite food bloggers, Chaos in the Kitchen, is hosting a contest for recipes supporting Fresh Express Wild Rocket mix. It's essentially arugula with greens. Arugula happens to be among my favourite greens and the contest inspired me to turn Meatless Monday into a merging of comfort food (French tartines, which are open faced sandwiches radiating goodness) and fresh fast food (Fresh Express Wild Rocket mix, plus). I like this recipe so much I don't even care if I win!



Wild Rocket Tartines

Serves 4

4 thin slices of day-old bread (sourdough or boule)
10 washed and sliced mushrooms of your choosing
1 diced onion (I prefer red)
1 cup slivered sundried tomatoes, packed in oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
Olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
2 cups washed Fresh Express Wild Rocket Zest Blend
1 cup parmesan shavings
Fleur de sel and fresh ground pepper, to taste

Brush a thin layer of olive oil onto both sides of the sliced bread and broil in an oven until golden brown (moments). Set aside to cool.

On the stovetop, heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a fry pan and saute the red onions and mushrooms on medium heat until caramelized. Add sundried tomatoes and balsamic vinegar. Allow the balsamic to reduce to a thick syrup then remove from heat.

In a bowl, toss Fresh Express Wild Rocket Zest Blend with the juice of one lemon and 1/4 cup olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.

Place toasted bread slices on plates. Top with onion/mushroom/tomato mixture. Crown with dressed greens and parmesan shavings.

Ode to International Bacon Day

I don’t go much for meat, but I admit bacon has long been a guilty pleasure.
And so it is that I found myself preparing for a potluck party hosted by my friend John, in honour of International Bacon Day. (Yup, it exists).
I mused about supplying the party with a bacontini (vodka infused with bacon grease) for novelty effect, but who wants to serve a bacon offering that has the potential to turn a celebration into an upset stomach?
A similar thought came to mind as I fleetingly considered the oddity of a bacon bourbon brownie.
Bacon, for those of us who indulge, is a form of comfort food and should be held in that regard. Since I wanted to make the most of the beautiful Ontario produce available at my neighbourhood store, I decided to make three dishes:
1)Twice baked mini potatoes stuffed with Ontario aged white cheddar, green onions and bacon
2)My own version of the BLT
3)A fresh salad of diced local nectarines, plums, red onion, basil, cherry tomatoes, and red pepper dressed in a lemony basil vinaigrette and dotted with crumbled bacon (unfortunately, I ran out of bacon before I could crown it with this finishing touch).
Having narrowed in on the BLT, I began to think about how to make it unique.
I whipped together one part cream cheese with two parts creamy goat cheese and added a tablespoon of my homemade pesto sauce that I’d just created from a motherlode of fresh basil that came from my lovely local organic produce provider, Courage Foods on Kingston Road in Toronto.
Instead of making BLT sandwiches, I decided I’d make them as open-faced hors d’hoeuvres but needed to settle on a base.
I thought of making a cheesy herbed scone but wanted a lighter offering, since every guest planned to bring a dish and everyone would be inclined to sample rather than eat large portions of one or two bacon temptations.
I found an easy recipe for parmesan crackers which looked golden, crispy, and would make a nice savoury base for my BLT. (One stick butter, 1.5 cups flour, thyme, salt and pepper, 1 cup parmesan ... mixed, rolled into a log, refrigerated for at least a half hour, sliced, then baked at 350 for 20 minutes or until golden).
The next task involved cooking the bacon, which to me is one of the more unpleasant kitchen jobs. I hate the splatter and, by the way, I’ve never been a good short order cook. I’m better with fresh ingredients that don't require cooking (pairing of flavours), or a slow cooker, or a slow bake in the oven. It's what happens when you grow up cooking for crowds.
I decided to try cooking my bacon in a 300 degree oven, lining the strips in a high rimmed cookie sheet.
Twenty minutes later I had cooked bacon but half of it had melted into the pan and was impossible to remove.
Reason prevailed and I tore a strip of parchment paper to line my cookie sheet, then I laid down a fresh layer of bacon strips to roast. It was perfection, though you do have to turn the bacon over mid-way through.
The ingredients prepared, all that was required was a quick assembly job at the party.
I smeared the room temperature goat cheese mixture onto the cracker, then I laid down a crisp one inch piece of bacon, and crowned it all with freshly halved local cherry tomatoes. (I initially tested this recipe with slow roasted balsamic cherry tomatoes but discovered the fresh tomato made the appetizer sing.
My home-styled BLT proved to be a popular appetizer but I sense my twice-baked mini potatoes were even more popular, and I wished I’d doubled the batch.
I took six mini Ontario potatoes, bathed them in olive oil and fleur de sel, then let them roast in a 350 oven for about an hour ( I could hear them seething, which reminded me that I should have poked a hole or two in them before baking).
I let the potatoes cool for 20 minutes then halved them to make a dozen offerings. I scooped out the fleshy potatoes with a spoon and mashed the insides with a teaspoon of butter and two tablespoons of cream (this is, of course, revisionist history -- there is little precision in my kitchen).
Once the potatoes were mashed into a smooth consistency I added a half cup of grated Ontario aged white cheddar, a diced green onion, and crumbled bacon. I also seasoned the mix with salt and pepper but, please learn from my mistakes and add salt cautiously – I think I stepped over the line on this front.
I stuffed the hollowed out mini potatoes with the mashed potato mixture and baked in the oven at 350 for 20 minutes. To be perfect I’d have broiled the tops for a golden colour, but I wasn’t perfect. I had a party to attend.
My third offering, the fresh salad, was a symphony of freshness but I ran out of bacon and didn’t toss it in with all of those beautiful fruits and vegetables. Given the wealth of bacon dishes on offer, the celebrants of International Bacon Day didn’t seem to mind – it was a good foil to all the bacon on our plates and the one redeeming quality of an otherwise deliciously indulgent food celebration.

The salad days of summer

I was starting to feel badly about not cooking these past few weeks, but then it occurred to me as I was enjoying a ripe Ontario nectarine dripping with sunny goodness: why cook when everything is this deliciously fresh?
In fact, I appear never to tire of a thick slice of steak tomato slabbed onto a fresh ciabatta bun lathered in Hellman's mayo (Canadian), avocado, red onion and whole leaves of fresh basil.
I'm equally a fan of using diced cherry tomatoes and red onion as a base to pair with: (a) cucumber, black olives, capers and feta cheese for a quesadilla topping or a side salad (b) add to fresh buffalo mozzarella, homemade croutons (baked bread cubes tossed in olive oil & sea salt) and loads of fresh basil, drizzled with olive oil and a good quality balsamic vinegar.
These are the salad days of summer, and I've taken to turning any produce sitting in my fridge into a layered salad:
Peaches, onions, tomatoes black beans, fresh corn kernels, celery, radishes and basil in a balsamic vinaigrette. It's a symphony of flavour.
Add a fresh baguette, a platter of cheeses and charcuterie and call it dinner.
And what of those fruits and vegetables that start turning? OK, that is when I'll turn on the gas burner and get cooking:
Slice fruit (peaches, nectarines, pears) into a sauce pan, add about a cup of water, a few tablespoons of brown sugar, cinnamon and freshly grated nutmeg and simmer for 10 minutes. Goes great with granola and yogurt in the morning.
Saute some diced onion and garlic in olive oil, add diced carrots and celery and season with sea salt and pepper. Add 2-3 cups of stock (I made three jars of homemade vegetable stock with leftover aging vegetables, including celery stalk roots, corn cobs etc., but any stock will do) and throw in diced potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes -- whatever you've got that can be cooked through. Simmer till the veggies are soft, add fresh herbs (parsley, chives, basil, oregano) then puree. Season with a fresh squeeze of lemon, salt and pepper and enjoy.
I actually made a base of soup but added pureed peaches and a can of coconut milk toward the end -- and used freshly grated ginger mint instead of other fresh herbs -- it was heavenly.
Summer's winding up -- I can feel fall is in the air -- but I'm going to resist the urge to bake and stew for a little while longer and enjoy the freshness of our local produce while it lasts.

Prosperity nachos

Last Saturday we were in the mood for a pile of nachos and beers, so naturally, we went to a local pub to enjoy.
But the nachos were limp, the toppings bland, and the chef had been so skimpy with the cheese, Craig dubbed the dish 'recession nachos'.
$40 later, we agreed the next time we want to go out for nachos and beers, let's stay home.
Tonight, I tried my own hand at making nachos -- something I've never done before, oddly enough.
I wanted my first effort to be memorable, so I knew I didn't want to make the usual chili and cheese variety you get at the pub.
A good nacho dish, in my view, requires at least one really special ingredient. My local butcher sells a spectacular rosemary lamb sausage that actually got me hooked on lamb, and I decided that it should be the star of this show.
I crumbled the sausage into a fry pan and cooked it till it was golden brown. Then I took what was left of a really good bottle of sauvignon blanc and reduced the wine so that the sausage would soak up that extra flavour.
Once the sausage was cooked, I sauteed red onions and red pepper until both were caramelized.
In a separate dish, I made a 'salsa' of local fresh produce: fresh corn kernels, diced red onion, diced radishes, diced cherry tomatoes that are so good I've been dipping them in fleur de sel and snacking on them all week. I doused them in the juice of one lemon and seasoned with salt and pepper.
I also made a fresh guacamole of avocado, red onion, chopped cherry tomatoes, salt, pepper, and the juice of one lime.
Finally, I shred about 1.5 cups of really good aged cheddar.
Then I got to layering. The issue I have with most restaurant nacho dishes is that they plop the toppings on the surface of a big pile of nachos and everything underneath is as boring to eat as cardboard. I determined to layer generously, so that every bite would offer a wealth of flavour.
I layered good quality nacho chips with the sausage, onion and red pepper mixture and plenty of cheese to avoid the 'recession nachos' label, then topped it with a bit of the corn salsa.
I baked it in the oven at 375 degrees for no longer than 10 minutes and produced a heaping pile of decadence, surrounded by guacamole, salsa, and sour cream.
It was cheaper than eating out and far more rewarding. Saturday just may turn into nacho night around here for a while.

A peach of a cake

On the first day of the last week of my summer holidays, it began to rain a silky, sultry slanted rain -- intoxicating background music for novel reading, a game of Scrabble, or ... baking!
I'd just finished an excellent novel and I can't find the Scrabble game, so I turned to the kitchen for baking inspiration.
And there it was, in a clay bowl filled with quickly over-ripening peaches begging to be rescued. Alas, the perfect accent for an afternoon peach coffee cake.
I pulled out The Loaves and Fishes Cookbook, which my former mother-in-law gifted me with 20 years ago. It's still my favourite cookbook.
I got to work on a basic, simple recipe, with -- sigh -- the addition of a couple of improvisations.
One of the things that makes me a good cook is that I improvise a lot. Unfortunately, it's also one of the things that makes me an iffy baker.
Thankfully, my peach cake improvisations worked this time.
I stuck to the core instructions for wet and dry ingredients.
In my electric mixer I creamed a half cup of unsalted butter, 1.5 cups of light brown sugar, 1 egg, and a teaspoon of Mexican vanilla.
In a separate bowl, I combined 1 cup of milk with a tablespoon of lemon juice then slowly poured the curdled mixture into the creamed butter as the electric mixer whirled on.
In another bowl I'd mixed 2 cups of unbleached white flour with a teaspoon of baking soda and (improvisation #1) about half a teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg. If you've never tasted nutmeg that's been freshly grated, I would argue you haven't tasted true nutmeg. That stale powdered variety in the grocery store is a pale imitation (tantamount to substituting Dream Whip for real whipping cream). Freshly grated nutmeg is peppery, and very grown up. I use it instead of cinnamon for most cooking and it was the replacement for a cinnamon/sugar topping in this recipe (I'm in no mood for sugary toppings).
My second improvisation may seem odd but I swear it works: I added a teaspoon of freshly crumbled dried thyme into the flour mixture, along with the grated nutmeg. Peaches and thyme are a smashing combination, and the herb addition made my peach cake more of a savoury delectable than sweet confection.
Slowly I added the flour mixture to the whirling cream base until everything was mixed.
I removed the mixer bowl then delicately folded in 1.5 cups of peeled and diced fresh peaches.
The recipe advises you to butter the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking pan but I'm a new convert to the Pampered Chef stoneware series, having recently been gifted with two round baking pans. The stoneware works magic on baked goods, acts like a pizza stone for homemade round pizzas, but also is good for roasting veggies or making oven-baked frittatas. They look good too.
So I buttered my 9x13 stoneware round, folded the batter into the pan, and let it bake to golden goodness for 35 minutes (the recipe book says 40-45 minutes).
By the time I sliced a healthy wedge onto my plate for a tea time snack, the rain had worn itself out and I still had four more days of holiday time to savour.

Damn the ants that carry this away

Back in my university days, when money was scarce, I discovered the simple joy of the picnic.
On a sunny summer's afternoon, I would rush home from the library, set my books aside, and begin gathering the freshest bounty of the summer for an evening picnic along the shores of Lake Ontario.
In those days, the setting was Kingston. We would drive to the old Fort Henry, hike along a weedy abandoned path to the rocky shoreline and watch the sun set on City Hall with the sounds of the military academy in the background.
We had a small gas BBQ, so frequently I would make skewers of shrimp marinated in lemon juice, olive oil, garlic and fresh herbs that grilled up in just about the time it took to begin enjoying a chilled glass of Sauvignon Blanc.
The addition of local artisan breads, aged cheddar, and fresh local cherry tomatoes and cucumbers made us feel like royalty, though in reality we lived as paupers.
Today I live a 7 minute walk from the beach in Toronto, on the other side of Lake Ontario, where I still practice the fine art of picnicking. I can afford more high-end ingredients, but it's still cheaper than dining out and with the waves crashing against the shore as I sip wine and enjoy my picnic delights, it still leaves me feeling like a million bucks.
Where I used to put more thought and elbow grease into preparing special foods to grill, or whipping up a beautiful gazpacho, I find myself leaning on the 'less is more' approach to the picnic.
I still adhere to the formula of (a) good bread (b) quality cheese (c) local produce and then I'll add one easy to make scene stealer to make it memorable.
Sometimes I'll do a quick pickle of the cucumbers, carrots, onions and radishes, pickling them in a boiled solution of vinegar, water, sugar and bay leaf.
Often I'll make my own house marinated olives, squeezing fresh orange and lemon juice onto the olives, adding some herbs de provence, slivered garlic, and a healthy dose of olive oil. If you keep this in the fridge, it's easy to pour them into a small oven-proof dish and warm them up at 350 for a few minutes to offer guests before a dinner party. It turns a basic olive into ambrosia.
Or I'll poach some peeled shrimp in water, salt, and bay leaf for a couple of minutes. Once drained, I'll drizzle a vinaigrette of lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, and fresh herbs and pop the dish into the fridge to chill while I arrange the rest of our portable food.

Other lovely picnic food that requires very little work to prepare: 
Chicken: Ever since I watched Grace Kelly lure Cary Grant with a picnic of beer and fried chicken in the movie To Catch a Thief, I've found this to be my favourite picnic food. Instead of fried chicken, I marinade chicken breasts and legs in 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice, grated ginger, minced garlic, chopped green onion, and 1/4 cup olive oil. (You could add a dash of sesame oil for panache). Marinate for 1-4 hours, then grill (about 20-30 minutes) until cooked through. Eat hot or grill the night before your picnic and chill everything in the fridge for a cold chicken picnic with mustard, homemade pickles, coleslaw and beer ... or with cold rice noodles drenched in a savoury peanut vinaigrette such as this one http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Peanut-Sesame-Noodles-106572. 
Pressed sandwiches: Take a nice thin ciabatta loaf and slice it along the middle. Take the bottom half of the loaf and brush it with mustard. Take the top loaf and brush it with pesto mayo or a vinaigrette of balsamic vinegar, garlic, dried oregano and olive oil. Along the bottom loaf, add in layers salami, thin sliced cheese such as provolone or mozzarella, thinly sliced red onion, thinly sliced pork loin or ham, a layer of fresh basil and roasted red peppers, and another layer of thin cheese. Cap it with the top of the loaf, wrap tightly in plastic or wax paper, and put it in the fridge to chill under something heavy. It's like a hero sandwich but better. Follow it up with fresh sliced peaches or nectarines or plums (or a combination of all three) tossed in whipped cream to make a 'fool'. 
Grilled sardines: Chop the head and tail off the freshest sardines your local fishmonger sells. Gut them, rinse, and dredge the outside of the sardines in flour. On medium-high heat, saute the sardines in an oiled pan for a few minutes per side. Drench the cooked sardines with fresh lemon juice. Eat immediately, or if you're preparing for a picnic, allow the sardines to come to room temp then transport. Serve with marinated artichokes and a cold fingerling potato salad that's been doused with a vinaigrette of mustard, sherry vinegar, olive oil, garlic and shallots.