Lemon Tart

Daring Bakers: Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna

 

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

This is my second month belonging to an adventurous and enthusiastic group of bakers  called The Daring Bakers. After a rather simple first challenge I was thoroughly excited about this month's recipe. It is a very different baking project, in fact it was one many of us wouldn't think of as in the category of "baking".

This group of bakers has a varied repertoire and that is one of the reasons I decided to join. I love to have an excuse to make new things, perhaps recipes I've always wanted to try but never got around to, or just a way to learn about a certain style of baking. While I've never been shy about daunting baking projects, the moral support of fellow Daring Bakers and plenty of people to offer tips and experiences makes it a fun affair. This month's challenge was a lasagne. Not just any lasagne though. A meat based lasagne with homemade spinach pasta. Well this was all new to me. Glad I'd signed up when I did!

 

I'd been feeling the desire to try my hand at handmade pasta for a while now. Until recently I've been  satisfied with my sources of fresh made pasta, but I've been starting to see the advantages of making your own. The chance to be creative with flavourings and fillings is a great way to stay inspired in the kitchen.

Making your own pasta also saves money (pasta is relatively cheap to make) and allows you to enjoy a truly artisanal product. After all the homemade product is a world away from anything you  can buy. And its so easy! A few weeks ago my friend Ruth must have read my mind because she suggested we both tackle some handmade ravioli. Perfect! A great way to get some practice in before the big challenge. After an extremely successful, not to mention delicious, butternut squash sage ravioli I was smitten with making pasta and ready to tackle more.

Edible Seattle: Part 1

Well, now that I've made you wait a whole week to hear about our weekend... Sorry about that delay. I was busy on the treadmill.

I love Seattle. On a good day you can be in a different country and another major city in less than 3 hours from Vancouver. We always seem to have bad luck with favourable currency exchange, so with the Canadian Dollar at a recent low, we wasted no time crossing the border. In recent years, we've spent a couple weekends a year in Seattle , which has made each visit better than the last as we become more familiar with  the city, its restaurants, shopping and people. I certainly have enough restaurants to keep me occupied here at home, but of course its always nice to get away and experience a different cities food culture!

Seattle feels a bit like a place I could live- it feels a little like Vancouver. I suppose city planning wise its doesn't actually have a lot in common-waterfront views, high real estate (well, not so much now) and lots of new condos. But for some reason the whole "Pacific Northwest" thing, being on the Ocean, living in lush beautiful surroundings, living in rain for so much of the year, feeling a bit separate from the rest of our respective counties.... well, all those things have something to do with the citizens of Vancouver and Seattle having similar constitutions.  That being said, the sign in the trendy Belltown wine bar we were in on Friday night, "No Minors, No Firearms",  let us know loud and clear that we weren't in Canada anymore.

My favourite place to visit when traveling is the grocery store or farmers market. You learn a sense of the place and its culture by visiting the places where locals buy their food like no other public arena. These days its harder to find uniquely American food stuffs in major supermarkets with the whole global marketplace thing. Canadian grocery stores now have all the same familiar brands and logos. But there are still some treasures, and I'm pretty good at sourcing them. This photo shows the variety of souvenirs I came home with. Highlights include a turquoise Fiestaware pitcher, chocolate bars from a new American chocolate maker, Askinoskie and a limited edition Theo ghost chile bar,  cultured butter from Vermont Butter and Cheese company and the infamous Mo's Bacon Bar.

Gettin' outta here!

DG and I are skipping town, looking forward to being mentally abused by puffed up border guards, and cruising down the I5 to Seattle, for a weekend of...you guessed it...FOOD. We've been getting intimate with Seattle little by little over the years and now feel sorta mooshy about it. All that beautiful water, rainy Vancouver-like weather, friendly people and so many unique and interesting eateries.  Let's see how many meals, snacks and drinks we can pack into 48+ hours . Bon appetit! Report next week!

Sunchoke Soup and the Return of Winter

 
Outside my window I'm looking at an unusually strange view of the city I call home. Snow covered rooftops, white capped trees and chilly looking crocuses. Here in Vancouver, snow is something people tend to recoil from. It instills panic in a city full of cars with perpetual summer tires and bombards us with the idea of winter that we simply don't buy into. People drink their morning coffee on outdoor patios, I wear my summer jacket in February and DG insists on his tiny little nylon running shorts. This winter, however, has shown itself in a traditional Canadian manner with unseasonably cold weather and a month of snow banks and salted streets. Just as the reminder of the white stuff had vanished, as crocuses burst out in colourful song and the tulips and daffodils started to perk up and show themselves, and just 1 day after we had brunch on an outdoor patio, the skies opened up and it snowed! I'm sure I could hear the cries from all over the city. No....!  Me, actually, I like snow. In fact I can't get enough of it. Shhh...don't tell or I'll get voted off!

I take this as a sign that I can still get in another winter vegetable soup. Today's soup recipe is one I developed a couple years ago as a way to use up a rather enthusiastic purchase of sunchokes, or jerusalem artichokes. This is one of my favourite ways of introducing this unique vegetable that unless you shop at farmers markets, you probably will never see. A friend gave me her bounty recently and I went about making a big batch of soup to preserve this vegetable before the spring peas and asparagus arrive.


The Sunchoke, also called Jerusalem Artichoke,  is the tuber or root of a variety of sunflower. When I tell people that they instantly warm to it. It has no relation to artichokes, doesn't taste like them or look like them and isn't a native to Jerusalem.  It is in fact native to North America. Sunchoke seems a more fitting name although then there's the choke part which puzzles. Seems like this is one misunderstood vegetable!

Creamy Celeriac Soup

This ugly, gnarly root vegetable you see above is called celeriac, also known as celery root. And I have a confession to make: it is probably my favourite winter vegetable. As far as starchy roots this one stacks up right at the top of the heap, above the humble potato and attention grabbing pumpkin, toppling over beautiful parsnips, homey beets and everyday carrots. Frankly it could hold its own as my all time favourite vegetable list any day, but I didn't think you'd buy my confession when going head to head with Black Krim Tomatoes, Dragon Tongue Beans,  or White asparagus.

 So what is it about celeriac? Well, this full flavoured, North American under achiever is the root of a variety of celery grown for its large root. A storage vegetable with a relatively low starch level it is appropriate for eating in both raw and cooked forms and is great on its own or combined with other lightly flavoured vegetables such as potatoes. Indeed it is this flexibility which makes it such a useful vegetable to have around. The flavour is, as you would expect, decidedly celery like, but with a smoother finish than raw celery. And because it is low in starch, it can be blended into a puree without risk of becoming gluey like some varieties of potato.

Celeriac is revered in Europe, especially France, where it shows up in the classic Remoulade, a shredded version in a mustard mayonnaise dressing. It makes a beautiful addition to any colesaw and try adding a bit to classic mashed potatoes for a lovely flavour boost. Added to a tray of mixed roasted root vegetables or or layed in a gratin, it adds a unique complement to sweet creamy starches. But one of my  favourite ways to enjoy this highly flavoured vegetable is in a creamy soup.  Combined with potatoes which temper its strong flavour, it makes a beautiful puree that shines when topped with a glistening fruity olive oil or herb oil. This soup cooks up in no time at all and will freeze well.