Little Acorn

Yay for Autumn!

My favourite time of year is almost here! Our brief summer is on it's way out and my favourite season has almost arrived! Sweaters! Cuddling by the fire! Scoofling through crunchy leaves! The crock pot! Back-to-school time (even if I'm not going, I love it!) Autumn is the BEST and I can smell it in the air already. But just to send off summer in style we made one last strawberry pie. Adeline, her Nana and I all worked on it together as a surprise for David and it turned out just right.

I love this fresh strawberry pie and it's the one and only time that I eat jello.

I'll miss you, strawberry pie.

Insane (in a good way) Halloween Bark

 

So once again we weren't the house that gave out toothbrushes, stickers or nickels on Halloween - we were the house that gave out two foot long pixie sticks. So from that you can gather that we don't really get freaked out by once in a while indulgence. But the thing is that I don't LIKE pixie sticks or gummies or jelly beans or any of the other terrible white trash candy treats that David likes. I like CHOCOLATE. So for me (and to share of course) David made this insane and delicious Halloween Bark. Adeline has never had chocolate or candy, but she saw it on the table and said "Yummmmmmm" and signed "please" while giving us the most pleading, puppy-dog eyes EVER (no, she didn't get any). The recipe (if you can call it that - you just glue together left over - or bought on purpose - halloween candy with chocolate) is from the October issue of Bon Appetit. Bon Appetit is on David's "list" since they stole a recipe from me (he keeps promising to do a guest rant post about "the incident" but he's yet to do it), but we're still subscribers and we make something from every issue. The recipe is available on their website here . David followed it pretty closely but had to make some substitutions for your pale and waxy American so-called candy bars chocolate bars we can't get here. Ours had M&M's, Reese Peanut Butter Cups, Crispy Crunch, Skor and honey roasted peanuts (if you make it use more peanuts than the measly quantity called for). All stuck together with semi-sweet chocolate. Oh the stomachaches! But it was all worth it.

 

Thankful

This weekend was Thanksgiving here in Canada. I have so much to be thankful for, including amazing leftovers! This was our first year with a freedom loving, organic and ethically raised turkey and that was one TASTY bird. We had a big family dinner on Saturday with relatives coming from far and wide to celebrate with us, and have been enjoying the leftovers ever since. Stock is simmering right this second to make some turkey and barley soup for tomorrow. That's David's sandwich up there - you can tell because it has MUSTARD on it. Mustard on a turkey sandwich along with cranberry sauce? Ptooey, I say! But I make it for him because that's the way he likes it, and I love him and would let him have anything he wanted on his sandwich.

David's contribution to Thanksgiving dinner was pie, and not just any pie but the quite famous and widely hyped "Crack Pie" which originally hails from the also quite famous and widely hyped Momofuko Milk Bar in New York. We had heard about this pie before, and when we saw the recipe in the latest issue of Bon Appetit I had to encourage David to make it. Well...David's not willing to say that it's the Emperor's New Clothes all over again, as he's never eaten the one from Milk Bar, but he did absolutely everything exactly as the recipe called for and it was...okay. It was good pie. It wasn't great pie. If that is really what Crack Pie is all about and nothing got lost in translating the recipe to the magazine, then I kind of feel sorry for New Yorkers if this is the best dessert in the city. I can think of lots of pies I'd rather eat. I found it barely sweet, lacking in any real defining flavour and more the texture of a bar cookie or square than a pie. I certainly didn't find it decadent or swoon-worthy, but it was a fine dessert. David's other pie -  a classic lemon meringue - was way yummier. We had to try it though.

Of course we all know what I'm most thankful for this year...

Pho Ga

For our Tet Trung Thu party I made Pho Ga (Chicken Noodle Soup) as I thought it would be something all the little (and big) people would like and I was right - it was really tasty! I used this recipe which is available on the Viet World Kitchen blog, but which I got from the book "Into the Vietnamese Kitchen" by Andrea Nguyen. David got me this cookbook last year while we waited to bring Adeline home and I've made many recipes from it and they all turned out just right. I do think Vietnamese restaurant food here in Canada is generally sweeter, so if you want it to taste more like it does at your favourite dinner spot, then add more sugar to taste. The directions for all the recipes are really clear and the end products always delicious, but I do wish there were more pictures! I had made Pho Bo (Beef Noodle Soup) before, but not Pho Ga, so I followed the directions exactly. When I tasted just the broth I thought that it was way way way too salty,but once the noodles, herbs, onions, bean sprouts and sliced chicken were added to the bowl it was just perfect and following the directions (which included such labour intensive steps as parboiling, draining and rinsing the chicken parts before making the stock) made for a lovely clear stock with a golden colour and heavenly aroma. Not as good as any of the chicken dishes we ate in Hanoi though. There is just something extra good about Vietnamese chicken! It was also a great recipe for a party, as I made the broth and the chicken the week before and froze them and then only had to boil rice noodles and lay out all the fixings so that each person could make their bowl to their own personal taste on the night of the event. A lot less stress than the sort of thing I used to cook before we had Adeline! David and Adeline helped by spending the afternoon while I was cooking out on an adventure, but I look forward to a few years in the future when Adeline can pull up a stool beside me at the kitchen counter and we can start cooking together! This is how I learned to cook and I have so many wonderful memories of being in the kitchen with my family. There are so many recipes I want to share with Adeline, from Viet classics to my Nana's schnitzel and perogies!

When you 've got something to celebrate (or someone to woo)

My David is a romantic guy and a great cook. Yes, I'm a lucky, lucky woman. He's not a frequent cook, but whenever he makes us a meal you know it's going to be DELICIOUS and the kitchen is going to be clean when he's done and it's going to be way past your bedtime. David is a slow and careful cook who can follow any recipe and he has impressed many people with his signature dishes. This amazing White Chocolate Satin Tart has a shortbread crust, fresh berries and a white chocolate ganache. It's the dessert that he wooed me with on our very first Valentine's Day and it certainly worked on me! He made it recently for a potluck and since we had raspberries left over he decided to make another one just for us! Turns out that the day he made it we did have something to celebrate, as it was the day we got THE EMAIL. Of course we were both too excited to eat, but it was nice to have it waiting for us the next day once our stomachs had stopped flopping. This beautiful and decadent recipe is EASY, but you don't have to tell anyone.

White Chocolate Satin Tart

Ingredients:

Crust:

1 cup all purpose flour

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter, slightly softened

1/4 tsp vanilla

Filling:

12 squares white chocolate, chopped (use the boxed baking chocolate - good quality Callebaut is yummier but the texture wasn't quite right the one time it was tried)

1/2 cup whipping cream

1/4 cup butter

2 cups fresh raspberries

For the crust, combine flour and sugar. Cut in butter and vanilla until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. You can do this in the food processor if you want, but it's easy to do by hand. Form the pastry into a ball. Press on to bottom and about 1 inch up the sides of a 9 inch tart pan or springform pan. That's right - NO ROLLING OUT PASTRY! Chill the pastry for 30 minutes then bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes and then cool. The pastry might get a slight golden hue, but don't let it brown. 

For the filling, melt white chocolate, cream and butter in the microwave on medium for 3 to 4 minutes, remove and stir until well blended or just put it all in a pot on the stove at medium until everything is melted and blended. Spread the raspberries evenly over the baked and cooled tart shell and then pour the chocolate mixture over evenly, making sure each raspberry has a silky white coating. Refrigerate until firm (about 2 hours) and then let stand at room temperature a little before slicing it into 10 to 12 servings. No garnish is necessary, but whipped cream, white chocolate curls and some reserved raspberries never hurt anyone.

Slow Roasted Tomatoes

This summer there was heat a'plenty and almost no rain (both highly unusual for us here on the west coast) so I had a bumper crop of tomatoes. Red ones. Yellow ones. Paste tomatoes. Huge beefsteaks. Little green stripy ones. There are still a LOT of tomatoes finishing up their ripening down in the laundry room. We've been eating a lot of fresh salsa, bacon and tomato sandwiches and caprese salad, but we just couldn't keep up and I needed a way to store some of this deliciousness for the cold and drizzly days of winter. When I found this recipe for slow roasted tomatoes, I just knew that I'd found the way, so yesterday I was up early to get a pan in the oven by 8 because they take a full 12 hours to roast. Of course at a bleary 7 a.m. I didn't actually look at the recipe and just went by memory so I did remove the stem socket even though it told me not to. Didn't seem to matter, as after 12 hours at 200 degrees the skins just slipped off.I decided to give this batch a whiz in the food processor before bagging it for the freezer. Next time I think I'll roast just red or just yellow, as the orangey colour it ended up is not as appetizing as it could be. It doesn't really matter what it looks like, because it tastes amazing. It's so very rich and savoury, with a concentrated but mellow tomato flavour and I know it's going to bring a sparkle to lots of dinners this winter. Did I tell you we're getting a freezer? It's the kind that is almost as tall as me and looks like a refrigerator. It's very odd, but it's the freezer entering this house that seems to be the biggest symbol for me of a shift in our lives. Sure, we've got a crib box and mattress hanging around in our dining room and there are some meltingly tiny clothes on suitably tiny hangers in the closet, but it's the acquisition of this freezer that is really making me feel like a grown up.

Tomatoes Before Their 12 Hour Roast:
Tomatoes After Their 12 Hour Roast (please imagine amazing smell):

Slow Roasted Tomato Puree:

David calls them grown-up Pop-Tarts

Are you sure I've never posted these before? I've never eaten a Pop-Tart, so I call them Pain au Chocolat or Chocolate Pastries. We often have these puff pastry and chocolate goodies in our freezer. They make a super decadent breakfast for a special occasion or a dessert good enough for company. Putting them together takes just minutes and they go straight from the freezer to the oven.

Ingredients:
1 box frozen, pre-rolled all-butter puff pastry
Good quality dark chocolate, the thinnest bars you can find - 1 1/2 of the big bars usually does it
1 egg mixed with a tablespoon of water

How to:

Lay one sheet of thawed but very cold puff pastry out on the counter.

Arrange pieces of chocolate on the pastry like this (please excuse 3 minute diagram)

Use a pastry brush to paint egg wash around the chocolate

Flop on the top sheet of pastry

Push down between the chocolate and on the edges

Use a pizza wheel or knife to cut between the chocolate to make individual pastries. I usually do 8 because that's Pop-Tart size, but you can make them bigger or smaller.

Crimp the edges using a fork and dock the top

Brush egg wash onto the tops of your pastries

Put on a parchment lined sheet pan and freeze until hard. Then wrap tightly and keep in the freezer until ready to bake.

To Bake:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Place completely frozen pastries on a parchment lined sheet pan

Bake for 20 minutes, until puffed and darkly golden

Dust with icing sugar and enjoy warm or at room temperature

Oh, Canada!

Tomorrow is Canada Day and we'll be celebrating our great nation by painting the small upstairs bedroom. Not how many people choose get festive on their day off, but I'm looking forward to it. After that room then there is just ONE ROOM LEFT in our renovations. ONE! It started out with nine and soon it will be ONE! I'm pretty psyched about it as we've been at it for years (with lots of breaks, of course). Our fuel for the day will be a candy that truly makes me proud to be a Canadian, the Lowney's Cherry Blossom.
These are a very nostalgic sweet treat for me. Neither the product nor the yellow box with the cherries has changed since I was little. They're not a very adult taste and if you didn't grow up with them you might not like them as they're on the edge of being painfully sweet, but I love them. As far as I know they are just a Canadian thing, although they may be a Canadian and British thing, I'm not sure. I do know that they're delicious and their drippy sugaryness makes me feel like I'm 5 again every time I eat one.

Milk chocolate with both peanuts and coconut, cherry syrup, cherry cream and a maraschino cherry. Yum. I don't suggest you cut them in half before you eat them though - it guarantees a huge mess. Cherry Blossoms are not meant for sharing! I guess that's why David bought 5!

Potatoes

Yes - that's a growing potato plant. I bet you didn't think much about the "plant" part of potatoes, did you? Maybe it's my eastern European ancestry, but I LOVE potatoes. When I started to think about growing food the first thing that came to mind was potatoes. Organic, tasty and interesting potatoes like you can't find in the grocery store. Back in April my seed potatoes went in and I waited, and waited and waited, but FINALLY my potatoes are taking off! Mmmmmm. Baked potatoes. Scalloped potatoes. Mashed potatoes. Roasted potatoes. Boiled potatoes. Hash Browns. Steamed potatoes with butter and dill. Au gratin potatoes. Potato salad. Potato pancakes. And of course - fries. I deep fry exactly twice a year - Valentine's Day and David's birthday - and on both those occasions the dish is french style frites with parmesan, parsley and garlic with an aioli dipping sauce. I hope some of my homegrown potatoes make good frites...

Vegetarians, avert your eyes!

For an early birthday present from my Mom I got some attachments for my stand mixer. Is it creepy that it was the grinder I was most excited about and that I've been thinking about sausage ever since I got it? On the weekend, David and I used a nice pork shoulder roast, onions, garlic, pasilla and ancho chile peppers, seasonings and red wine vinegar to make some super delicious chorizo. We love mexican food, so chorizo was the first thing I wanted to try and I'm so glad it turned out well.  Now I've got big plans for grinding up all sorts of meats and making them into sausage. My chorizo I just threw together by thinking about what chorizo tastes like and remembering a conversation I had with a man from Mexico, but I think I'll actually look up some real recipes soon.  Good turkey sausage from the fancy grocery store is so expensive, so I'm really looking forward to buying a turkey and making my own. It felt great knowing exactly what was in my sausage and knowing that all my ingredients were high quality. There were no fillers, no msg and just a touch of salt and best of all, it's super tasty. The texture was really good too - not as paste-like as commercial sausage is sometimes. And the actual act of grinding? Big big Sunday fun. Yes, other people had picnics in the park, but we happily re-enacted scenes from Sweeney Todd. Okay, creepy, I know.

Yum.

I had heard about the Vietnamese sandwich called banh mi for a couple of years now. Food bloggers wrote rapturously about it, but to be honest I couldn't understand how they could be THAT great. It's just a sandwich, right? On the day I spent by myself in Vancouver while David was at his conference I found myself wandering around Chinatown at lunch time and I saw the sign for "Kim Saigon Sandwiches" on Main and decided that eating a banh mi in the feels-like-spring sunshine on a bench at the Sun Yat Sen Garden would be the perfect break. I ordered the ham and pate sandwich and it was still warm and crusty after I'd made my short walk to the garden.
At the first bite I finally understood and I felt an obsession growing. Why was it that good? I don't know, but it was amazing. The bread had a lot to do with it. The sandwich is on a french style baguette made with rice flour as well as wheat which makes it light and crunchy on the outside and so soft on the inside. Then there were the sweet/sour lightly pickled carrots and daikon, the cilantro, the onions and the condiments which included mayonnaise, something clear sprinkled on and what may have been Maggi seasoning sauce. It all just came together perfectly and I started making plans to move back to Vancouver immediately. I lived there for a few years, but I didn't know about banh mi then...what a fool I was. When David and I met up at the hotel in the late afternoon while he got ready to go to the the wining and dining portion of his event I went on and on about my sandwich, and he didn't really understand how it could be that good, so the next day we ended up there again and decided to sit and have lunch at the attached restaurant, the Golden Garden. David took one bite of his chicken banh mi and he understood what I'd been saying.
We also shared a banh xeo, which is sort of a very crispy crepe filled with prawns, chicken, mung beans and sprouts that you break into pieces, wrap in lettuce leaves with some basil, cucumber and pickled carrot and daikon and dip in nuoc mam, that tasty Vietnamese dipping sauce that comes with many of the dishes. Oh so good. It was another dish I'd read about and wanted to try and it was exactly as delicious as I'd hoped it would be.
Since moving to Vancouver is pretty unlikely to happen, we did the next best thing and went to a couple of Vietnamese grocery stores and stocked up on some ingredients that we just can't find here, including coffee making supplies. We had our first Vietnamese coffee in January and immediately went on a quest through our fairly large Chinatown and the big asian grocer for the supplies so we could make them at home, but couldn't find what we needed. In Vancouver we also got some other ingredients that I'd seen mentioned on my favourite Vietnamese food/cooking blog, Viet World Kitchen. I've always loved to eat Vietnamese food in restaurants, but I've just started cooking it at home, so this blog has really taught me a lot about both food and Viet culture.
Tonight with my new ingredients I'm making a green papaya salad with  prawns and I think on the weekend I'm going to tackle homemade pho using Andrea's recipe. I'm sure it won't replace the pho we enjoy out on a regular basis, but I know it will be good.
And aren't the colours and images on the packaging so very beautiful? This little packet of five spice powder with the deer on it may never get used as I just like to look at it so much.
 

White Chocolate Mocha Shortbread Hearts

 

They may not be the prettiest of cookies, but these White Chocolate Mocha Shortbread Hearts may just win you the undying affection of your coffee-loving Valentine. The recipe is just a basic shortbread which I tarted up with  a few special things mixed in to give these cookies the not-too-sweet but rich and delicious taste of a classic coffee house drink. The idea came to me when I noticed I had an open bag of white chocolate chips leftover from Christmas. My choices were to 1) eat them or 2) invent a cookie, so I went with 2.

White Chocolate Mocha Shortbread Hearts

Makes 12 generously sized hearts, can easily be doubled

Ingredients:

1/2 cup softened butter

1/3 cup icing sugar

1 and a half teaspoons instant espresso powder or instant coffee, pushed through a strainer to make a fine powder

1 teaspoon cocoa powder

1/3 cup cornstarch

2/3 cup flour

1/2 cup white chocolate chips

How to:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Cream butter and sugar together. Mix in coffee powder and cocoa.  Add cornstarch and flour and mix to combine. Stir in white chocolate chips and pull together to form into a ball. Squish flat, wrap in plastic and refrigerate 15-30 minutes. Unwrap, roll out to about 1/4 inch thick and cut your shapes, re-rolling scraps until you've used up all the dough. Bake on a parchment lined sheet pan for 18-20 minutes. There will be no browning, but the cookies will look matte and dry when they are done. Cool on a rack, sprinkle with icing sugar and enjoy.  

Summer Rolls

My summer rolls were so pretty I just had to stop and take their picture before we ate them. Rice paper wrappers, big juicy prawns, flavourful thai basil and cilantro, carrot ribbons, cucumber spears, spring onion slivers and rice vermicelli. So fresh and tasty. We eat these A LOT when it's hot, sometimes with prawns, sometimes with chicken or tofu or often just with vegetables. There's always a sweet/salty/sour dipping sauce to go with them and I get pretty obsessed with them sometimes.  I can't wait until this summer when most of the vegetables will be coming out of my very own kitchen garden. I'm getting pretty excited about this whole growing food experiment. I hope I'm not disappointed.

Comfort Food

I know in the dead of winter when the winds are howling and the rain is falling that most people crave comfort foods like soups and stews and casseroles. Things that are hearty and starchy and warm. Oh I certainly love all those things, but they're not what I really crave when the world turns grey.When the weather is the worst what I want is bright foods with a ton of flavour. Ginger and garlic. Lemongrass and basil. Cilantro and chiles. Lemon and lime. Maybe it's because I miss traveling to warm climates the most when the days are shortest or maybe it just tastes like the promise of summer, but usually in my fridge in the winter you can find all those ingredients. This was my cutting board today as I got ready to marinate some lemongrass and garlic chicken and put together some Vietnamese summer rolls. The lemon should have been a lime, but I'm improvising with what I've got.

By Popular Demand, A Macaroni and Cheese Recipe

But not really a recipe, since it's always pretty well made out of my head with the cheese I've got on hand. I cooked dinner for my family from the time I was 12, so I've got a lot of experience looking in the fridge and then whipping something up and I often don't use a recipe. But the people want a Mac 'n Cheese recipe, so they shall have one. This is how I made it on the weekend and it made...I don't know... a huge huge pot full. Portions can be cut down as needed. If you half everything you will still have a lot of Macaroni and Cheese, but that's a good thing, right?

While you make the sauce, boil an entire box of macaroni (900 grams)according to ddirections on the box (including the direction that says to salt the water, it really doesn't make a difference). Make sure you use lots of water and stir occasionally as this much pasta really wants to stick to the pot and to itself. Drain when ready and put it back dry into the pot you cooked it in (but not on the heat or it will burn).

Now to make the cheese sauce. In a saucepan over medium heat melt 1/2 cup of butter (is that a stick to you Americans? I never know). Once it is melted stir in 1/2 cup of all purpose flour and whisk on the heat for a minute or so. Don't let it brown. While whisking all the time, slowly stir in 6 cups of warmed milk (whatever kind you have). You might need a spoon to get in the "corners" of the pot as that's where the flour/butter (the roux) can clump up. Stirring, let the sauce come to a gentle simmer for just a short time, until it is thickened. Off the heat add in as much grated cheese as it needs to make it taste "cheesy". Let's see...I think I probably added 3 cups of Cheddar, 1/2 a package of MacLaren's Cold Pack Cheddar Cheese (a Canadian thing), a cup of Asiago, 1/2 cup of parmesan and 1/2 cup of swiss because that's what was in the fridge. So about 5 - 6 cups of cheese in all? More won't hurt. All cheddar is fine, and any other cheese you like can go in there. For classic taste though, the majority of the cheese should be aged cheddar. Stir until all the cheese melts, either off the heat or on a low heat. At this point season with salt and pepper to taste. I also like a bit of nutmeg and small bloop of dijon mustard, but they're not necessary. Taste the sauce to make sure it's yummy. Does it need more seasoning? More cheese?

Pour the cheese sauce over the drained pasta and stir well to combine. If your pasta has sat awhile and you want to eat right away you might need to warm the whole thing up a little, but keep the heat to medium low and stir constantly, as it will want to burn.

I've always liked my Mac 'n Cheese saucy and oozy, but if you like it baked, just pop this into a greased casserole dish (or individual dishes) and top with bread crumbs mixed with parmesan and moistened with butter and bake at 350 until golden.