26
February
Wordless wednesday – binge roasting
4
September
Soup Season
Once I admit that the summer has started to wind down, I immediately look forward to the next season. Some call it autumn, others fall, but for me it is truly just soup season. Late summer vegetables are perfect for making soups. I would have soup every day if my family would allow it!
Tomatoes are my gateway drug, luring me in during the last hot days of August. Before I know it my counters are overrun with ripe tomatoes; from my garden, my neighbours, the local markets, I just can’t say no to a tasty tomato. Once I tire of eating toasted tomato sandwiches and using them in any and every salad that I know, I make gazpacho. It’s a cold soup, but it signals the end of summer, and the beginning of soup season in my house.
Gazpacho
4 large tomatoes, cored and partially peeled
2 small cucumbers, peeled and seeded
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1 small onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced
1 cup tomato juice (optional)
~¼ cup red wine vinegar
~¼ cup olive oil
Sour cream, parsley, ground pepper and cucumber slices to garnish
Fresh bread (sour dough is my favourite)
Roughly chop tomatoes and blend with cucumbers, garlic, onion, and green pepper. Blend until smooth, but not pureed.
If the tomatoes are not terribly juicy, you may want to add some tomato juice to the soup
Mix vinegar and oil, and slowly add to soup tasting frequently. The sweetness of the tomatoes will determine how much you need to add.
Pour into bowls and add a dollop of sour cream in the centre. Add parsley and/or sliced cucumber for additional garnish and top with freshly ground pepper. Serve with fresh bread.
10
July
The bakerman
I am fortunate in that my lils have always loved to cook with me. Sure, it makes for messier meal prep, and it might take twice as long to get some recipes made, but it has allowed me to get the recipes made, which is the important part. Food is important to me! I have encouraged their help from an early age. I started with really simple stuff, like moving ingredients around the kitchen and playing with the measuring spoons, but over time both lils have come to be able to do pretty much anything that I ask of them in the kitchen. They listen, because they know the only rule about cooking with mom – if you don’t listen, you have to leave. Being kicked out of the kitchen is the worst thing that a mama could do to her lils, so they listen.
Woo has always been our adventurous foodie. He has eaten everything we put in front of him (which included peanut butter that one time. OOPS), and rarely fusses about the content of his meals. He tries new, exotic foods on a regular basis, and eats with gusto when he finds something he likes. His play has often included a creative cooking session, where he dreams up recipes that he likes us to make. Some of them are just crazy, but some of them sound pretty good. I have taken him up on the suggestions as to what he would like to see added to a dish on occasion, and am often surprised please with the result.
In the last year, he has started to really experiment in the kitchen. Some of his creations are downright awful (hello apple milkshakes!), but some seem to be quite tasty, according to both Woo and Goose. Last weekend he decided to make some cupcakes without a recipe. He determined what ingredients he would need, measured the quantities, and set them in the oven and watched them like a baby, before icing them with nutella.
They looked like cupcakes, smelled like cupcakes and felt like cupcakes… In the end they would have been good had he not added too much salt. Way too much salt. So much salt that the critters who broke into our green bin the following night licked the icing off, but refused to eat the cake (or died trying). We stressed that it was a great first effort, but he was a little embarrassed, and knew that they weren’t good. I was still impressed, as I was well into adulthood before I was brave enough to create a baked good with no recipe to base it on.
This weekend found Woo reading through one of his cookbooks, when he happened upon a vanilla cupcake recipe. He wanted to make it, so we encouraged him and made him responsible for it all. He had a small bit of help, but the end result was a vanilla cupcake, complete with strawberry icing.
They are the best damn cupcakes I have ever eaten. EVER. I think that my lil bakerman is on to something here…
21
December
Making cupcakes
I missed wordless Wednesday this week, so here are Wednesday’s pictures with a few Thursday words.
This year marked our second year participating in Cupcakes4Christmas, and initiative that asks Ottawans who love to bake to donate a few dozen cupcakes to the Mission’s annual Christmas Dinner. We were sad to have missed participating last year while we were living in India, so all were keen to help with the baking.
Goose starts to measure out the flour.
Woo was very careful about ensuring that we had all the right ingredients, and didn’t forget to add anything…
Watching the batter.
This was their favourite step!
The finished product! They had no interest in helping with icing, surprisingly! We were lucky enough to have enough extras to give an extra half dozen to the Mission, and have one each to taste!
28
November
Biriyani
One of the things that I developed a great appreciation over the last year was a good biriyani. It’s not just rice; there is so much goodness there… Living in Bangalore. we were lucky enough to have access to a really good selection of various types of biriyani, and to learn how that truly appreciating a good biriyani involves raita mixed in and no bread at all. It really makes it all that much better. Trust me, mix it in.
Lakshmi, our awesome cook, taught me how to make this veg biriyani in the weeks before we left.
I hadn’t made it until this week, as I was afraid that it would not taste just right. While the rice was not quite perfect (I think I need to fry it at a slightly higher heat..), the flavour was great. My house still smells of India…
Veg Biriyani
1 tbsp ghee
1 tbsp sunflower oil
* ½ cup cashews (optional)
1 cardamom pod
2 cloves
2 pieces of cinnamon, about 1½ “ x ½
1 star anise (optional)
1 tsp fennel seeds
2 bay leaves
5-7 black peppercorns
1 – 1½ tsp garlic-ginger paste
1 onion, chopped
¼ green chili, seeds removed, chopped (optional)
2-3 mint leaves, chopped finely (optional)
1 tomato, chopped
2 carrots, chopped **
6 green beans, chopped **
¼-½ tsp garam masala
¼ tsp turmeric
⅛ – ¼ tsp salt (to taste)
1 cup basmati rice, washed
½ cup frozen peas
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tbsp cilantro, chopped very fine
2 cups water
** Note that you can vary the vegetables, but don’t use mushrooms, they alter the flavour too much **
In a medium saucepan, heat ghee and oil on high. *If you are using cashews, add to hot oil and fry for a minute or two, then remove and set aside to be added at the end.*
Add cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, star anise (opt’l), fennel seeds, peppercorns, and bay leaves. Stir and cook for 1-2 minutes to roast (don’t burn, you should be able to really smell the spices when ready)
Stir in ginger-garlic paste, onions, and chilies and mint (if adding) and cook until golden brown (about 3 minutes)
Add beans and carrots and cook until tender, about 3-4 minutes.
Mix in garam masala and turmeric. Stir well to coat everything.
Add tomatoes and cook for 5 minutes – until soft.
Reduce heat to low, add salt and cook for 5 minutes.
Add rice to pot. Cook for 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add peas to rice and cook for 3-4 more minutes.
Add powdered coriander and cook 2 minutes
Add water and simmer covered until water is gone, about 15 mins (rice is slightly under cooked at this point). Stir in in cilantro and turn off heat. Leave covered on hot stove for at least 15 minutes.
Serve with raita.
2
April
I thought we’d made up our minds
When we first moved here, we hired a few helpers in the hopes that they would, well, help with the transitions. Our driver, gardener, and maid have all proven to be just what we needed – and then some! We were incredibly lucky that all three just fell into our laps as they did and are very thankful. We had tried a cook as well and were really disappointed when she didn’t work out. I had been especially excited to work with her, but the brief experience left us firmly convinced that having me cook for the family was the perfect choice for us.
Fast forward to this past weekend when, over dinner, some friends asked if we wanted to hire their cook on while they were away in Thailand for the week. Two factors made me say yes without hesitating; the fact that they have spoken highly of her on more than one occasion, and that the lils are off school this week. Not preparing meals in the afternoon gives me an hour or three where I can hang out with them. As much as I love to cook, I prefer to hang with them.
Over the weekend, but without actually meeting up with their cook, we worked out a tentative start for Tuesday. We planned meals accordingly, and talked it up to the lils. They were a little gun shy, but progressed from outright resistance to excitement when we explained that they would be able to talk to her and let her know what they liked and didn’t. Woo made a special request for Palak paneer, and I made sure I’d have the fixings for it for our first meal. He, in particular, was over the moon.
The past twenty-four hours have been pretty much a train wreck for me. I was up until about three AM for no apparent reason, then awakened twice by each lil in the next two hours. I woke up cranky and tired, Willy let me sleep until the last possible second, but that was only a little after seven. The lils were cranky and tired, I was cranky and tired, and we needed to go to the grocery store. I’d promised paneer for supper, and that was a time consuming promise, on what was likely to be a tough day. It was a recipe for disaster. As we were running out the door, I made a quick call to our cook to confirm a start time, and she let me know that she wanted to start today, as her plans had been cancelled.
In an instant, our moods all lightened. The trip to the grocery was a breeze, we laughed and fooled around, there were no demands on our time other than lunch. When our cook arrived, the lils were SO excited. They hugged her on first meeting her, and insisted on showing her the house before letting her even see the kitchen. Once they settled down a bit, they were allowed to join and “help” in the kitchen before we took off for a leisurely swim. We arrived home AT dinner time and sat down to an excellent meal, that had just a hint of spice, but was completely tolerable for the lils (they get killed by chillies here). I didn’t think that we wanted a cook, but one day in to this fun diversion, I am reconsidering…
9
March
Palak paneer
One of the best things about my relationship with Willy, especially from the early days, is that he really got me to broaden my culinary horizons. My foodie life was a bland and drab existence back then. He pushed me to try many a thing that I previously held my up nose up to. Some of those things are still not to my taste (hello guacamole, bleh!), but I am grateful for the many things that I LOVE and never would have eaten had it not been for his nudges.
All of Indian cuisine falls into this category, but spinach dishes in particular. I didn’t really think that I was a fan of spinach, but in reality, I am not sure I ever gave them a chance. I certainly was not interested in even trying spinach curries for a number of years, but then a saag paneer roti from Ghandi Roti in Toronto won me over. Now we eat it all the time!
This dish is called palak paneer, but it is more commonly known as saag paneer in Ottawa. As far as I can tell, the distinction is that saag can refer to any green leafy sauce, which includes spinach, mustard leaf, broccoli or other greens. Palak specifically refers to spinach, palak is Hindi for spinach. This is my take on palak paneer, it took me a few tries to really get the taste to be both authentic and please all of us, but when I made this version this week, we got thumbs up all around!
Palak Paneer
3/4 – 1 lb paneer, cubed
2 tbsp oil for frying paneer
1 tsp oil
1/2 tsp cumin seed
2 medium tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1 tsp minced ginger/ginger paste
1 tsp coriander powder
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
~6 cups of fresh coarsly chopped spinach
1 medium red onion, chopped
1/4 – 1/2 tsp red chili powder
2 – 3 tbsp high fat yogurt
Cut paneer into cubes. Heat a frying pan with 2 tbsp of vegetable oil and lightly fry cubes. Pat down and set aside.
Heat oil and add cumin seeds, heat until they pop/crack.
Meanwhile, puree tomatoes, ginger, coriander and turmeric. Add to cumin seeds and cook until liquid has reduced by about half.
Add spinach and, if necessary, about 1/4 cup water. Cook until spinach wilts.
Drain excess liquid into frying pan and saute onions. Add to spinach mixture and puree until desired consistency (we like it mostly smooth, with a few big pieces of spinach left).
Return to heat and add chili powder and yogurt. Stir well and add paneer. heat for a couple of minutes.
Serve with rice or naan bread. Or both!
17
February
Dry Potato Curry
I have started to become more adventurous with my Indian cooking, partially because I am exposed to such fabulous food at every turn, but mostly because of the availability and freshness of the ingredients. The freshness of everything impacts the taste (duh), but the most significant improvement in flavour I have seen is through the spices. I had no idea how much fresher a lot of the spices taste here, and as a result I am buying them all and using them.
Seeds are a fine example of this. Cumin seeds, coriander seeds, fennel seeds, black mustard seeds… In Ottawa, I would frequently omit the seeds recommended in a recipe, or skip recipes all together if they were too seedy. They were hard* to find, not in my cupboard, or if I had purchased them, long forgotten in the back. I moved here with the goal of being able to prepare more authentic Indian food, so I started cooking with seeds, and loved the resulting flavours.
Most of the curries that I make are vegetable curries with gravies (saucy curries), but lately I have been looking to experiment more with dry curries. This week I got brave and decided to try something with potatoes and seeds. Willy and I both LOVE.
Dry Potato Curry
Ingredients
3 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped (1-1.5 cm cubes)
2 tbsp oil (I used sunflower oil)
1/2 tsp black mustard seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1 medium red onion, chopped
1 tsp pureed garlic
1 1/2 tsp cumin powder
dash turmeric
2 medium tomatoes, finely chopped
1/4 cup water
chopped coriander for garnish
Directions
Peel and chop potatoes in 1.5 cm cubes, rinse well and parboil.
Heat oil in a pan, add mustard seeds and when they start to splatter, add cumin seeds, fennel seeds, and onions and fry until onion becomes translucent.
Add garlic, turmeric powder, cumin powder and fry for a minute. Add tomatoes and about 1/4 cup water and cook until they become soft. Add potato, toss and cook until nice golden brown.
Garnish with fresh cilantro
*hard to find in my regular grocery store, of course
