Lemon Tart

Avocado. Meet carrots.

I like to make an effort to eat as seasonally as possible. Simply put that will mean eating what's grown as closest to me as possible and in the season it was grown. That can be limiting in the winter, but I also find it a valuable challenge.  An appreciation of root vegetables is something that takes some commitment, but can be done. That being said there are times when I simply cannot resist some things  I'll never be able to find a local source of. Citrus fruits, for example, I cannot and will not live without. Avocados are in that list as well. And while they are certainly not local to me, they are not grown too far from me down in California. I gorge on citrus in December to February when they are the seasonal fruit, and treat myself to a couple avocados a month. So, let me tell you a secret, nothing livens up a salad in the winter like an avocado. Its clean creamy texture and gentle unique flavour makes any plate of crisp greens or shaved vegetables all of a sudden something special. The fact that they are the perfect companion to so many other vegetables and fruits  makes them an extremely versatile fruit to have in the house.

I make a lot of grated carrot salads in the winter  as one always has carrots, lemon juice and olive oil. Here is a salad I whipped up the other night with a very few vegetables I had left in my fridge, including a lonely looking avocado. It was delightfully fresh and rich at the same time and I felt good about using the local carrots. 

Grated Carrot and Avocado Salad

6 medium carrots, peeled and grated
1/2 small onion or 1 shallot, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
3 Tbsp minced fresh dill
1/2 lemon, juiced
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
3 Tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 tsp zahtar
1 avocado, diced

Stir together the juice, olive oil, mustard and spices. Toss in carrots, dill, garlic and onions. Taste and adjust salt and pepper and acidity. Add more lemon juice or olive oil if necessary. This is a salad to trust your taste buds with. Toss in avocado. Serve. Will keep very well for up to 3 days, although avocado might start to brown.

Some notes on this recipe:

Parsley works equally well as dill.

Zahtar is a middle eastern spice blend that is perfect with carrots. Other spices you could use would be cumin and coriander or chile powder. It can also be left out, but the zahtar really shines here.

Puffed Apple Pancake

In our house, we try to do sit down breakfasts on Sundays. This is also the day we are likely to sleep in and then, if DG has anything to do with it, we head out biking or running. When we get home we look forward to a  special breakfast together, although usually by that time its lunch. These puffy apple pancakes have been in my Sunday morning brunch repertoire for years and are always a hit. Similar to a French Clafouti, they are basically a thin pancake batter baked in the oven with sliced of fruit on top. They puff up to 4 times their height when they are done, so you can understand how impressive they are.  This makes a great dessert as well, but somehow Sunday mornings are when we crave them the most. Drizzled with maple syrup, or caramel sauce if you have some on hand, they are as satisfying as they are beautiful. Other fruits I would like to try are pears and mangoes.

Puffed Apple Pancakes
adapted from Bon Appetit Magazine
2 generous servings

4 tsp butter, melted
3 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup all purpose flour
pinch salt
1 medium mutsu, golden delicious or other sweet baking apple
2 Tbsp demerara or brown sugar

Turn oven to 425 degrees.
Pour 2 tsp butter in each gratin or shallow 1 cup baking dish.
Beat eggs and milk together until combined, add flours and salt and mix until just blended, some lumps are okay.
Pour batter evenly among dishes. Peel and thinly slice cored apples, toss with lemon juice, lay them in a on top of the batter. Sprinkle with sugar. Baked for about 25 minutes until well browned, apples are tender and the pancakes very puffed around the outer edge. Serve immediately, as they will start to deflate with maple syrup.

Notes: This recipe is easily doubled and baked in a 9x9 baking pan.

Roasted Delicata Squash

Squash squash and more squash. That's what wonders the winter brings in the vegetable department. So many colours, shapes, sizes and recipes.  One of my favourite squash to cook with is delicata.  Their shape is alongated with creamy pale yellow or orange skin and green markings. Their small size makes them easy to handle and their flavour is sweet, yet delicate. Due to their relatively thin skin, compared to other winter squash,  you don't need to peel them. Once cooked the skin will soften and is completely pleasant to eat. This makes them perhaps the easiest type of squash to deal with. And if you have ever come  close to slicing a finger off trying to peel squash, this will appeal to you.

Perhaps you've done the squash soup, but maybe a little bored with it? Wondering what other ways to enjoy these golden beauties before the green starts pouring in? Here's a simple recipe that roasts pretty half moons of delicata squash with a simple dousing of oil, vinegar and spices. The sugars in the squash and vinegar caramelize nicely and the high heat roasts them quickly to create a nice exterior texture.

Roasted Delicata Squash

1 medium delicata or sugar loaf squash
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp paprika

Heat oven to 450 degrees.
Slice squash lengthwise down the middle, remove seeds. Reserve and roast if you like. Slice halves crosswise into 3/4 inch thick slices. Lay on a large baking sheet.

Pour over olive oil and using your hands toss them to evening coat them with oil. Lay them separate and flat on sheet. Sprinkle over balsamic vinegar evenly. Then sprinkle on cinnamon and paprika.

Roast for 15-20 minutes or until knife inserted goes through easily and they start to brown.

Recipe notes:

• You can use any squash you like, just slice them into similar thick chunks.
• This makes for a great side dish with pretty much everything, but try it on a bed of dressed spinach leaves with some chunks of pear and toasted walnuts for a delightful winter salad.

How to Seed a Pomegranate

 


There are few more interesting fruits, aesthetically speaking, than the pomegranate. Call it sexual if you like with its bright crimson globe bursting with what seems like thousands of succulent seeds. There's a reason its been in paintings for hundreds of years and has been viewed as a fertility symbol since ancient Greece. Who wouldn't think of sex when they see its cross section?   In fact, I'm thinking that the "apple" in Eden really was more likely a pomegranate.

While more appreciated in other parts of the world, the pomegranate has seen a resurgence over the last few years. As soon as a you see something in a Starbucks Frappucino, you know its the flavour of the moment.  Their taste is sweet, tart, and bright all at once and a glorious centerpiece can be made simply by placing a few in a white or glass bowl.

Used mostly fresh, some cultures will concentrate it to make a product like Pomegranate Molasses- a deep, dark, sweet and smoky condiment used in sauces.  In Morocco they are used in stews and meat dishes and the seeds are dried and ground to be used as a common spice known as Anardana in Indian cooking.  Most of us probably had our first pomegranate in a Shirley Temple as an adventurous youth (wink) in the form of grenadine.  In fact, the fresh juice makes a great addition to almost any drink, especially ones with citrus components. Add a few tablespoons to your usual lemonade for a beautiful drink.

Pomegranates are in season in the winter, usually from December to February when their glossy, red appearance brightens up the winter produce line up. So I'm at the end of the season for this post. I've been too busy gorging myself on them! Get out there and buy yours today!  Look for ones that are shiny and vital looking, heavy for their size, with no caving or visible dryness. One large fruit will usually yield a minimum of 1/2 cup of juice, which is more than you might expect. When shopping, look for stickers that say POM.  This is a farm in California that consistently grows the best pomegranates. Store them on the counter or in the fridge. They will keep for about a week, although best to use to them shortly after purchase.

Now, there's the question of the most effective way to get at that glorious juice. Sure, you can buy it made from concentrate in a bottle, but if you've ever had a fresh squezed orange and compared it to juice from a carton, you know the difference. While a little more difficult to juice than an orange, the pomegranate  is really a fruit that is worth the effort to juice yourself. And I often think that in food, a little extra effort is always worth it.  So to help you take advantage of this unique and very seasonal fruit I'll show you what I think is the best way to take charge of one. You'll need a pomegrante, small paring knife and a large bowl of cold water.

1. Score the skin of the fruit in four sections, just cutting through the skin but not going into the fruit.


2. Fill a large bowl with water and set it in the sink. Grab hold with your hands and break it apart with verve. You can also do this part completely under water.  Don't be afraid to get powerful. Use the score lines as guides and let the membranes separate naturally.


3. Place the fruit and your hands in the water, keeping the fruit submerged at all times. This technique will keep splatters in the water instead of on you, kitchen grout or anywhere else you don't want the very stain-able juice. It also makes it easy to really get your hands in there and pull it apart. Don't be shy just start pulling the seeds and membranes away from each other, discarding the large chunks, don't worry about the small white pith at this point. Use the outside skin and sort of turn it inside out which will help pop the seeds out. Try your best not to puncture the seeds as this will lose the seeds in the water.


4. After successfully breaking the seeds free, leave the entire container filled with water for about 30 minutes to give the membranes time to float to the top. Scoop most of it away with your hands. Now strain the entire thing. You can keep these as is in the fridge for a few days. Toss them on a spinach salad, a bowl of ice cream, or a chocolate dessert. Or just throw some in a bowl and snack on them, my favourite way (thanks Mom!).


5. If the juice is what you are after, put them in a blender and pulse them several times until they are well broken down but the hard seeds are not completely ground up. The mixture should look juicy.


6. Pour through a strainer and push the pulp and juice through. Once you've squeezed every last bit, leave the juice to sit for about 1 hour. This gives any of the blended pith a chance to settle in the bottom. If you see a cloudy lay on the bottom of any amount, pour the juice slowly off leaving that potentially bitter stuff behind.

The uses are endless, but I will leave you with a lovely refreshing drink.





Pomegranate Spritzer

1 cup pomegranate juice
1/4 cup simple syrup (dissolve equal parts sugar and hot water and cool)
1 lime, juiced
several bruised mint leaves
2 cups sparkling water
Mix all together, taste for sweetness and pour into ice filled glasses. Enjoy immediately. For an adult version, replace the water with vodka or sparkling wine.

Baked Beans

Well, so far its been a good year.  I've managed to honour one of my Resolutions just days after making them- to eat more beans.  I think beans are something you have to have grown up eating (I did not) or  be patient with your taste buds.  Eventually, you'll come to appreciate their humble appeal.  During this time of proclaimed "economic uncertainty" people everywhere are talking about cooking with a budget.  There are lists and articles aplenty with tips on how to stretch your dollar and eat well for less.  This is proof that some of the worlds best foods are created out of poverty, peasantry, and difficult times.  It is an incredibly satisfying thing to create a tasty, hearty, healthy meal for pennies a serving.  Beans are a food that offer all the nutritional elements that we should be eating more of: complex carbs, vegetable protein, fiber, multitudes of vitamins.  Beyond that, they are good for the earth, can be stored for years, used in countless cuisines and dishes, are easy to ship and are an affordable stable.  But whatever...they are also the ultimate comfort food, can be mopped up with bread (yum!) and tasty too, which is mostly what I care about.

If you can, buy your beans somewhere that you know has a high turnover.  Unfortunately, there are no labeling laws that require sellers to tell you when your beans were harvested and most often than not the beans in that bag are a mixture of harvests.  This is not essential, but once you've had "last crop" beans (those that are sold within a year of harvesting them), you appreciate their tender beauty.  Buy them from a farmer, ask a farmer to grow them, grow them yourself, or get them from a busy ethnic  or dry goods store.  Look for packages with few broken beans or cracked skins, which can also be a sign of age or poor storage.

The beans you see in the photo are my "bean babes" brought to me by a very kind Canadian living in LA.  They are from the Napa valley you see.  Yes normally I'm a hardcore "eat local" kind of girl, but there are some things that don't fall into that category.  I am not alone in my enthusiasm for this bean producer.  Rancho Gordo seems to have some enjoyed some of the "farmers are the new celebrity chefs" fame and are seen on restaurant menus throughout the US, written about all over the internet and beyond.  Unfortunately, we can't get them to us in Canada, by conventional means anyway, so I came up with other ways.  I still have a pretty good supply, so I use them carefully.  But don't worry, you can get perfectly good beans where you shop too.

Baked beans are something I crave during the winter.  There are so many variations but lately I was wanting the classic maple/Boston baked bean variety.  This is my own recipe, full of sweet molasses, rich tomato paste and bright spices.  Serve these in a bowl with cornbread or Irish soda bread, some coleslaw and perhaps baked squash wedges.  This makes a lot which makes sense since it takes some time to make it.  They will freeze with no problem and will keep in the fridge for a few days.  Add some stock to leftovers for a nice soup.

Spicy Sweet Baked Beans

1 pound navy beans
1 shallot, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, rough chopped
8 oz pancetta, or lean bacon, thickly sliced and cubed
1 tbsp dry mustard
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

5 Tbsp tomato paste
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup dark rum
1 tsp ancho chile powder

2 tsp other dried ground chile, I used urfa biber

1/2 tsp cumin

1. Cook beans: place in large dutch oven. If you have cast iron, use it. Cover with cold water by 2 inches. Bring to a boil, boil hard for 3 minutes. Remove from heat. Let sit for 1 hours. Drain and rinse beans. Cover with water by 2 inches. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to simmer gently but actively. Cook until just tender, about 1 hour, depending on size and age of beans. Add 2 tsp salt when they are almost "there". You want them done, but still be resistance when you bite into one. Keep watch and taste beans often. If you notice a lot falling apart, turn the heat down a bit.

2. Heat oven to 300 degrees. Drain beans and put in a bowl, reserve bean water. Heat 1 Tbsp olive oil in pot over medium heat. Once hot, add onion and saute until translucent. Add garlic and saute 1 minute more. Remove from pan to food processor or blender.

3. Add rest of ingredients and blend together well. Add to bowl with beans, stir gently.

4. Add chunks of bacon to bottom of pot. Pour beans over top. Top off with bean water to cover by 1 inch.

5. Place in 300 degree oven in the middle. Baked for 2-3 hours uncovered. If the beans start to show themselves too much, add more bean water a little at a time. After about 1 1/2 hours taste to adjust salty, sweet or spicy flavours to your liking. When the beans are done, crank the oven to 400. Scoop the pieces of bacon to the top of the pot and place in oven. Cook for about 5 minutes until the bacon starts to brown and crisp a bit.

6. Remove from oven, place lid on top and keep warm if needed.

New Years Resolutions

 

I'm a bit late on the resolutions part, which I suppose doesn't fare well with keeping them. But since I've only had about 3 New Years Resolutions my whole life, I feel like I can slack off a little.

The resolutions I will be sharing with you are not the eat more vegetables type (well maybe
a little bit only  because I can never get enough vegetables). This is a food blog, and I'm a self professed foodie (even though I abhor that word), it seems fitting that my Resolutions would be centered around food.

1. Appreciate the art of simple cooking.
I don't do "simple" naturally. I'm prone to long complicated recipes with things most people have never heard of. Part of it is the challenge, to learn, and part of it is because I genuinely appreciate things that take a long time and skill to create. This year I would like to think in more simple terms and appreciate the basics.

2. Drink Italian wine.
I know  Okanagan wine like no other region due to plenty of experience (read bottles of wine consumed), after that I can hold my own in French wine, which given how complicated that is seems sorta impressive. But one country that I have not spent a lot of time learning about or drinking is Italian wine. Since I feel Italy calling, it feels like the right time to start learning what makes Italian wine special.

3. Cook with raw and cured fish.
Over the last year I have come to fully appreciate the beauty of raw fish. I prefer a beautiful piece of cured salmon or rare tuna over their pan seared cousins. I hope to do more raw fish preparation at home to satisfy those cravings for clean flavours.

4. Eat more British cheese.
In May we spent a few days in Northwest England with a couple old friends. We went to Kirby Lonsdale and visited a fantastic cheese shop, Churchmouse Cheeses. These cheeses were amazing. They were unique and big cheeses that represented an entire nation of small scale English cheeses. After that we visited a farmers market in London where we tried some very small scale cheeses made nearby as well. Since then have realized this is a country who's cheese making traditions are worth searching out and I plan on trying whatever I can get my hands on.

5. Bake  bread.
I go into phases with some cooking styles and bread baking is one that tends to be cyclical. Earlier this year after 2 failed attempts I managed to successfully build a Barm (a wild yeast starter). But something went wrong in the fridge and it died. Since then I've had 3 failed attempts and I fell off the bread wagon. Since the quality of artisan bread in my city is simply not high enough for my tastes anymore, and the cost of making your own just makes good economic sense, I would like to set a routine to make most of my own bread.

6. Oysters
Over this past year I've eaten more oysters than ever in my life I believe. And I now "get it"! I'm feeling an obsession coming on, which is why when I needed a photo for this post I chose our New Years Eve Oyster feast. I love these salty, minerally, succulent creatures. Their shells are breathtaking with their almost prehistoric ridges and layers. I love the smell of the sea as you tip it towards your mouth and the, well lets face it, sexual texture, makes them one of my current favourite foods.

7. Read Brillat Savarin
"Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are."
Considered to be the father of gastronomy, this food enthusiast wrote a book on the subject "The Physiology of Taste" in 1825. I've eaten cheese named after him, a dessert named in his honour, and even visited his grave in Pere Lechaise in Paris. It's time to read one of the classics.

8.  Asian Greens
I live in a city rich in Asian culture and food. I love walking through Chinatown and see the heaps of exotic looking greens with similar sounding names. Since we all know how healthy greens are, I'd like to experiment more with these cousins of Bok Choy and Broccoli.

9. Use a Kitchen Journal More
I have a kitchen journal that I scribble ideas, original recipes or recipe results in when I think of it. However, I don't record nearly enough of my work which makes is a hassle to remember from year to how I made my raspberry jam from the year before or which shortbread recipe I like the most. Having this blog will certainly require a diligent sense of record keeping, so I plan buying some beautiful note books and keeping them close at hand.

10. Eat More Beans
Some of you may have heard of my Bean smuggling ring. My quest for the best led me to extraordinary lengths to get my hands on Rancho Gordo Beans from the Napa Valley. The Canadian government is pretty cautious about the number of heirloom beans coming in the country so I can't get them mailordered to me. And yes they really were worth the trouble. And now I'm feeling desperate as each bag gets eaten. But its left me with another resolution- eat more beans. They are cheap, so healthy, and have endless possibilities as main dishes, with fish, soup, pasta etc.