The Daring Baker Challenge That Almost Wasn't

The end of the month means another Daring Baker challenge and this time our host is Morven of Food Art and Random Thoughts. Morven hails all the way from New Zealand, a place I’ve had on the brain lately to visit. Morven chose a recipe from my favourite book that needs no introduction: Dorie Greenspan’s Baking From My Home to Yours.

You might be surprised then to know that for a while I considered not making this recipe and bowing out of a Daring Baker Challenge for the first time. Shocking, I know. It’s not that I didn’t want to make this cake but that I couldn’t foresee any occasion that would warrant making it. And as much as I love cake, I didn’t think I could reasonably make it if I was the only one eating it.

As the due date for this month’s DB challenge drew closer I started to think that I could cheat and throw up a picture that I had taken last year on my blog’s birthday when I made a version of this cake that incorporated three different Dorie recipes. For that particular cake, (pictured at the bottom of this post) I used the white cake, raspberry and white buttercream from The Perfect Party Cake, incorporated a chocolate layer made of Dorie’s Nutty Chocolaty Swirly Sour Cream Bundt Cake and spread both of them with Dorie’s Bittersweet Chocolate Ganache. It was an epic cake and certainly one worthy of being shown again. With that in mind I had resigned myself to the fact that I would not be baking The Perfect Party cake when Kmac, (you should all know her by now, she’s been around here a few times) said that she needed a birthday cake made. I told her I would do it, but only if I got to choose the cake.

Instead of making The Perfect Party cake as written, I decided to tackle another Dorie recipe that I hadn’t made yet to go with it: Lemon Curd. I’ve been thinking of making lemon curd for a while now, which was fueled by seeing a St Patrick’s Day post by Tanna of My Kitchen in Half Cups where she made Lime Curd as a variation of Dorie’s Lemon Curd, (which she had also made previously). So my Perfect Party Cake was made with the lemon white cake, (as per the recipe) but it was layered with Lemon Curd and Whipped Cream and topped with Coconut Scented Whipped Cream and Toasted Coconut.

The birthday boy in question loves Lemon Meringue Pie, (and was actually the recipient of a couple of the mini Lemon Meringue Pies I made for the January DB challenge) and I figured he would also enjoy this lemon cake with coconut. So with a few hours to spare before the deadline, I made The Perfect Party cake, with a few variations and an extra Dorie recipe. The birthday boy was happy with his cake, (and was willing to share, as noted in photos…) and I didn’t have to miss a DB challenge.

As always, if you want to see a million other versions of The Perfect Party Cake, check out the Daring Bakers Blogroll.

Technorati Tags:

Daring Bakers + Dorie Greenspan + Blogging Event + Baking + Lemon + Cake

The Show Must Go On

Ooooh Ma ooooh Pa
Must the show go on?
Ooooh Pa take me home
Ooooh Ma let me go

There must be some mistake
I didn't mean to let them
Take away my soul
Am I too old is it too late?

Ooooh Ma Ooooh Pa
Where has the feeling gone?
Ooooh Ma Ooooh Pa
Will I remember the songs?
The show must go on.

~Pink Floyd

Sweet Gifts

Danielle of Habeas Brulee is hosting Sugar High Friday #41 and has chosen Sweet Gifts as the theme. This is perhaps the easiest theme for SHF ever. I love to bake for other people. Be it for special occasions, birthdays or holidays, it’s all good. But most of all I like baking for others for no reason at all. I’m not going to lie though, sometimes I have ulterior motives… It’s much harder to dislike someone if they’ve baked you a sweet treat.

While perusing the blogs one day I saw a recipe for Coconut Toffee Almond Crunch Cookies that looked too good to resist. That combination of flavours sounded just about perfect to me and I knew I had to make them. After tasting a couple fresh from the oven I determined that these were the type of cookie that made people like you, great for bringing to work. Everything seems so much better when you’re handing someone an amazing cookie. Arrive late to work? One cookie. Need to take the weekend off? Two cookies. Want your co-workers to be nice to your? Three cookies. Handing in a resignation letter when three other people have just quit and the store is uber-busy? Tin of cookies. See, if everyone worked on the cookie system, life would be so much easier.

Next up on the sweet gifts list is Cinnamon Raisin Bread. It was a request that I got quite a while ago. It was at a time when I was experimenting with baking 100% whole wheat bread and didn’t feel like making a white loaf to fulfill this request. The person who made the request didn’t care much for whole wheat bread so I didn’t bother trying to make a whole wheat version out of the dough I was using. Fast forward a few months and I received another request for Cinnamon Raison Bread. As luck would have it, lately I’ve been baking bread from the absolutely wonderful book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois and had a batch of Soft American Style White dough in the fridge that was easily turned into a loaf of Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread. Unfortunately the person who made the initial request will not be getting any, but there’s nothing I can do about that. This bread will still be a sweet gift for the second requester.

I have been the lucky recipient of some sweet treats lately as well. Warda of 64 Sq Ft Kitchen decided that for her blog’s first birthday she was going to give away some fabulous Pierre Herme Chocolate Sparklers. Her daughter picked me to be the receiver of these delicious cookies and I was thrilled when they showed up on my doorstep, still intact, with only one broken cookie. Thanks Warda, they were great!

That wasn’t the only thing that showed up on my doorstep, I recently received a copy of Quick & Easy Indian Cooking by Madhur Jaffrey. There’s a catch to this one though, I don’t know who it’s from! It arrived via amazon.com so there’s no return address and the note that accompanied the book simply said “Enjoy!” I am most certainly enjoying the book and have already made Banana Halva, (which admittedly doesn’t look all that appealing, brown banana goo doesn’t photograph well, but it’s delicious) and have plans to try out all sorts of things from this book. But I can’t figure out for the life of me, if I won this book somehow and forgot or who might have sent it. So to the person who sent the book, a million thank yous!

I’d like to believe that I’m maintaining a sweet gift equilibrium. If I keep putting out good karma, eventually it will find its way back.

Technorati Tags:

Cookies + Bread + SHF

Mini Bundts, Mighty Taste

It looks like I’m only putting out a post per week lately, this is not good. I can do better. It’s not like I don’t have stuff to post, I made this cake a couple weeks ago and am only writing about it now. Argh. Anyways, this month’s Foodtv.ca Cooking Club recipe is Christine Cushing’s Light Swirl Coffee Cake with Maple Glaze and it was a great opportunity for me to use my mini bundt pan. See, I love molded pans but they’re not nearly as useful as regular pans. The mini bundts are adorable, but not overly practical. They’re larger than one serving, but it looks silly to cut them in two. Clearly I just eat one all to myself, but if you’re trying to serve them at a dinner party it’s awkward. Who am I fooling though? I don’t host dinner parties. I’d like to, but I don’t. It’s a tough thing to do when you don’t have a dining room table, or a dining room.

I brought a few of these mini cakes over to a friend’s house and when I said it was a coffee cake one of the girls was sad as she replied “oh, I don’t like coffee”. I reassured her that coffee cake does not necessarily contain coffee but is typically served with coffee or tea, hence the name. She happily had a piece after that. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t get to try the coffee cake with a big smear of Blake Makes Peanut Butter Dulche de Leche, (PBDDL) that was just for me. If PPDDL sounds intriguing, it should! It’s a wonderful example of the line of thought that if two things are good on their own, they should be great together. This doesn’t always work out, (kittens are good and roasted marshmallows are good, the two together are a mess) but in this case it’s awesome. The only downside to my experience with PBDDL was that Blake sent me some in minuscule jars that weren’t even big enough for me to stick my spoon in to eat it by the scoop. I eventually discovered that if I simply turned my spoon upside down I could quite easily eat PBDDL from the jar, and I did and that was the reason that I was the only person that got any. You might be wondering how it is that I got Blake (of Blake Makes) to send me some of this gooey goodness and the answer is simple: I joined Soopz and became a Sooper Hero. Buhwah?? Allow me to quote directly from Blake to explain:

“Soopz is basically another name for the Blake Makes family. It’s a network of bloggers (mostly food bloggers) that read this blog and like to blog themselves (again, mostly about food).

The idea is that Blake Makes (eventually Soopz.com) will feature food products (both made in Blakeville and from outside food companies), and Soopz members (we’re calling them Sooper Heroes) will receive free food to blog about.”

Free food? I’m so in. If you want in on this amazing deal too, head over to Blake Makes and sign yourself up. It’s easy to do and the community is quickly growing with more companies signing on all the time. I wasn’t the only lucky person to receive some PBDDL, to see what others have done with theirs, check out one of Blake’s PPDDL roundups.

Light Swirl Coffee Cake with Maple Glaze

2 cups sifted, cake flour (500 ml)

1 tsp baking powder (5 ml)

1 tsp baking soda (5 ml)

1/4 tsp salt (1ml)

1/2 tsp cinnamon (2 ml)

3/4 cup white sugar (175 ml)

2/3 cup unsalted butter at room temperature (150 ml)

1 cup full fat yogurt (250 ml), divided

3 x large eggs

1 tsp vanilla (5 ml)

1 tbsp lemon juice (15 ml)

3 Tbsps apple butter (45 ml) ***I used applesauce, I was lazy and didn’t want to make the accompanying apple butter recipe. I suggest you do though, cause it’s from Michael Smith and he’s awesome.

2 Tbsps cocoa powder, sifted (25 ml)

Maple Glaze

1/4 cup maple syrup( 50 ml)

1 tbsp corn syrup (15 ml)

1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a bundt or tube pan. Tap away excess flour. Set aside.

In the bowl of a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment , sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon . Stir in sugar. Add the soft butter and ½ the yogurt and mix on low speed for about 2 minutes, just until mixture starts to come together.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla, lemon juice, apple butter and rest of yogurt. Add this mixture to the flour mixture in three batches, beating in between additions. Scrape down the sides and beat for 1 minute on medium speed, until batter is smooth.

Transfer half the batter to another small bowl. Add the cocoa powder to one batch and stir with rubber spatula to combine thoroughly. Pour chocolate batter carefully into other half and fold just twice to create swirl. Pour batter into prepared pan, gently.

Bake on the middle rack of oven for 45 to 55 minutes. Cake is done when a knife inserted in the center comes out clean and top is golden. Leave cake in pan and cool on a wire rack for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, make glaze by combining all ingredients in small saucepan , until it comes to a boil.

Remove cake from pan, flip upside down and drizzle with glaze. Cool completely.

Happy 3.14159265358979323846… (Pi) Day

It’s pi day, so here’s my pie. What? It’s a pizza pie. I had good intentions of making a sweet pie, but well, it didn’t happen. Then I realized I had a pizza post to put up and it seemed like an obvious second choice. Pi, π, apple pie, pizza pie, it’s all good.

I feel like pi and I have a lot in common, like the fact that we’re both irrational numbers. Ok so I’m not a number, but I think I’ve got the irrational part down. Wikipedia will also tell you that “Throughout the history of mathematics, much effort has been made to determine π more accurately and understand its nature; fascination with the number has even carried over into culture at large.” Throughout my history, much effort has also been made to determine me more accurately and understand my nature; fascination with me has even carried over into culture at large as well, (and by culture at large, I mean people who read my blog…). Is that too much of a stretch? Well then would you like to know who else I have something in common with? Stephanie of Dispensing Happiness. We both like pizza and she’s chosen it as the theme for this month’s Blog Party. I knew I had to participate as it’s something I try to make at least once a month, always with a variety of toppings. This month I made it with sausage and bacon, both homemade and with homemade dough. Go big or go home.

To accompany your pie, I suggest sipping on a Boozy Kumquat on Quat-rocks. It’ll help make things like me, pi and Quat-rocks seem more rational, or maybe not, but it’ll taste good. It’s potent though, so don’t say I didn’t warn you. The Boozy Kumquat is 1 part chilled rum, (I happen to enjoy Havana Club) to 1 part Kumquat Simple Syrup. Quat-rocks are frozen kumquats and are a million times better than ice cubes because instead of watering down your drink, they add to the flavour. Enjoy.

Sausage and Bacon Pizza π

1 quantity of your favourite pizza dough, (once again, I recommend Joe’s of Culinary in the Desert)
2 sausages, (we made some in butchery class so I used that)
2 slices thick bacon, (Dad gave me some that he had made, it’s so much better than the watery thin stuff you buy in packages at the grocery store)
½ red pepper, thinly sliced
½ onion, thinly sliced
Tomato Sauce
Smoked Gouda, grated

I started by rendering the bacon and sausage, draining off some of the fat and then sautéing the onion and red pepper in the remaining fat. Then I made my pizza as usual, but topped it with grated smoke gouda, one of my favourite cheeses. I baked it at 425F until the crust was golden brown on the bottom.

Kumquat Simple Syrup

2 parts sugar
1 part water
A big handful of mashed kumquats.

Bring the water to a boil.
Dissolve the sugar into the boiling water.
Once the sugar is dissolved completely, add the kumquats and remove the pan from the heat.
Allow to cool completely and bottle.

To make a Boozy Kumquat, pour a shot of chilled rum and a shot of simple syrup into a glass half full of frozen kumquats, (or ice cubes) stir and enjoy.

Technorati Tags:

Pizza + Kumquat

Vanilla Bean Hot Chocolate

What seems like an eternity ago, someone told me they really liked the Vanilla Bean Hot Chocolate from Second Cup. I said I could make it for them at home despite the fact that I had never tasted it. I proceeded to neither make it nor try it. Then, last week I was killing time before a class and felt like I needed some air so I put on my ipod and started walking without any particular destination in mind. As I passed by a Second Cup I thought of the Vanilla Bean Hot Chocolate. I decided to give it a try. It was kinda good, but as I had previously stated, I thought I could make it at home, cheaper and just as good if not better. It turns out this is one of the rare times I was right. This recipe makes enough to share. I’ll be drinking the rest of mine tomorrow as there is only me.

Vanilla Bean Hot Chocolate

2 ½ cups milk, (the %MF is up to you)
2 ½ T sugar
3 oz bittersweet chocolate, melted, (on this occasion there was some Guittard chocolate in my cupboard so I figured if I was using real vanilla beans I might as well use the fancy chocolate too)
1 vanilla bean, cut in half and seeds scraped
Splash of cream

Heat milk and sugar until it just begins to boil. Remove from the heat, add vanilla bean and seeds, cover and let steep for half an hour. Remove the bean from the pot and reserve for another use, (like making vanilla sugar). Add the chocolate and stir to combine. You might want to heat it up it up a little more if you plan on drinking it immediately. I added a little shaken cream to the top of mine. You can store leftovers in the fridge and drink it later, hot or cold.

Technorati Tags:

Vanilla + Hot+Chocolate + Chocolate

Some Days You’re the Pigeon and Some Days You’re the Statue

And if you’re the statue there’s not a whole lot you can do. In my case, being in the kitchen is not even helping, so I’m pulling out all the Dorie recipes I’ve made in the past little while and giving you those. To accompany these amazing goodies from my favourite book ever is a sampling of my current playlist. Be warned that although the baking is sweet, the songs are decidedly less happy.

Blueberry Kumquat Muffins, (Orange Berry Muffins, pg. 3). When I was on my kumquat kick I made Kumquat Compote, (mainly because that’s super fun to say) and then needed something to put the compote on so I made Dorie’s Orange Berry Muffins but replaced the orange with kumquat. When they came out of the oven the kumquat flavour was fairly subtle and registered more as just a hint of citrus. That changed when I added a big spoonful of kumquat compote on top of a split muffin.

Nine Inch Nails, Right Where It Belongs. I never thought I’d listen to Nine Inch Nails. It turns out I was wrong. I’m wrong about a lot of things.

Blueberry Brown Sugar Plain Cake, (pg. 36). It’s called a plain cake, but that certainly doesn’t refer to the flavour. This cake was perfect as an afternoon snack with a cup of tea.

John Frusciante, The Past Recedes. Frusciante is the guitarist and back up singer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He’s released quite a few solo albums. Some of them are a little odd, but I like his 2003 album Shadows Collide with People, I’ve been listening to a lot of it lately.

Split Level Puddings, (pg. 384). I made half of the vanilla layers green tea by adding matcha powder. If I had of been thinking ahead and wanted to get fancy I would have done Tri-Layer Puddings and had a layer of chocolate, vanilla and matcha. There’s always next time.

Coldplay, Fix You. Coldplay is another group I didn’t think I liked. It grew on me and now it’s stuck. Lead singer Chris Martin has been collaborating with all sorts of other artists lately including Jay Z and Kanye West but has also been working on a new Coldplay album which is due out in March of this year.

Cherry Fudge Brownie Torte, (pg. 284). I made this for my cousin Hazel’s birthday. I didn’t have any dried cherries so mine actually had a strawberry-fig brownie base. It was tasty nonetheless. I couldn’t stop picking at it when it came out of the oven and was glad that the vanilla mousse covered up all the holes I made.

Nirvana, Where Did You Sleep Last Night. This song has been done by numerous artists and was first made popular by Lead Belly in 1944. You can’t escape the past.

Pecan Sour Cream Biscuits, (pg. 25). These take no time at all to whip up and are nice as is or with a little jam. If you’ve seen a lot of these around lately that’s because they were recently chosen as a Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, (so were the Orange Berry Muffins for that matter).

Red Hot Chili Peppers, Desecration Smile. This song is off their double disc album Stadium Arcadium, which I like almost all of. I started off only listening to only a couple of the songs but was thankfully introduced to the entire playlist. It was a toss up deciding which song to pick, I think the runner up was Wetsand.

Apple Cheddar Scones, (pg. 32). I really enjoyed these. I love savoury and sweet combos so the sweet apple with salty cheddar was a big hit for me.

There you have it. A plethora of Dorie recipes, I'm slowly making my way through the entire book and slowly making my way through everything even if every mile I walk feels like five.

Technorati Tags:

Cake + Scones + Blueberries + Baking + Dorie Greenspan

Daring Bakers: Double Time

I’m so hardcore, I’ve been a part of the Daring Bakers since before we were called the Daring Bakers. Yet despite this apparent hardcoreness, I had never made the original Daring Baker challenge of pretzels. All that has now changed. You’ll notice that today the blogs are overrun with Julia Child’s French Bread, and mine is too, but I also have DB pretzels. I somehow feel more complete as a person now… or at least as a Daring Baker.

First up, the actual challenge of the month, Julia Child’s million page recipe for French Bread: This bread is time consuming, (just reading the recipe will take up a good chunk of your time) but not hard to make. I’ve been making a lot of bread lately, especially since I received the wonderful Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day and although the Julia Child recipe produced nice bread, I wouldn’t say it was necessarily any better than the uber popular No Knead Bread or any of the rustic loaves I’ve been making from Artisan Bread. That being said, both of the later loaves also take a fraction of the effort and are a lot more convenient to make for the average home baker. They also don’t require kneading, which is a good or bad thing depending on which side of the fence you’re on. Some people find kneading very therapeutic, for others it’s torture. I had no problem kneading to make the Julia Child recipe, but I don’t think I’ll do it again as I’ve fallen in love with speedier ways of making similar bread. That doesn’t mean I’m against kneading, I kinda think it’s fun, but not always necessary.

Up second: Hot Buttered Pretzels from the King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion. This recipe took considerably less time, which was good for my impatient self. I was surprised to see that the pretzels were only dipped in water before being baked as opposed to boiled, but maybe I’m thinking of bagels and thought they would be done the same. I liked these best hot out of the oven and dripping with butter, just how everything should be enjoyed. The only thing missing was a strip of bacon…

To check out hundreds of other attempts at Julia Child’s French Bread, check out the Daring Bakers blogroll. You’ll get more info from these blogs that you ever knew could possibly exist for one recipe. Thanks to Mary and Sara for hosting this month and choosing another challenging recipe!

Technorati Tags:

Daring Bakers + Bread> + Baguette> + Pretzels

Roasted Lemon Chicken for Pete

Last week my friend Pete called Kmac, (of previous pie fame) to ask her about chicken. When she answered the phone he didn’t even say hello, the first words out of his mouth were, “Do I bake or broil chicken?” You see, Pete wanted to put his chicken in the oven and go to the gym but decided he should ask Kmac about the proper way to go about doing this. K recommended that he not broil the chicken and strongly advised against him leaving it in the oven while going to the gym as she feared for the safety of his apartment. Pete, however, is stubborn and was insisting that he could leave the chicken in the oven while going to the gym because his girlfriend’s mom leaves chicken in the oven when she goes to church. Basically, Pete had it in his head that no matter what, he was putting the chicken in the oven and going to the gym. He only called Kmac to get someone else to support his decision to do so but when K didn’t go along with his plan he decided to forgo the second opinion and went ahead and left for the gym. A couple days later when K hadn’t heard back from Pete she feared that his apartment had burned down and sent him a message asking about the chicken. In typical Pete fashion, he responded with the following smart alec remark:

“The chicken was as sweet and succulent as my pristine ass. And my apartment wasn't even on fire when I came home, which is nice.”

Classic Pete. If you want to read more of Pete’s smart alec remarks I encourage you to visit his website where you’ll find his Word on the Street column which he writes for The Homer Index, (of which he is the news editor).

The following is my letter to said editor, regarding his phone call to Kmac.

Dear Pete.

When Kmac told me you called her to ask about how to cook chicken I was hurt. You said she was the first person you thought to call when you were standing in your kitchen in need of poulet help. Granted Kmac is talented in all areas, (that’s why I’ve put her in charge of my life) so I could see how you might think to call her, but come on! K has only made a few appearances on my food blog, she hasn’t written it! In the future I expect to be first on your speed dial for all food inquiries. To show you there’s no hard feelings, here’s my advice on how to roast a simple chicken:

Preheat your oven to 350F.

Take your chicken, pat it dry and make sure there are no innards tucked inside, (if there are, remove them). Then, get a lemon and cut it into slices, you might need two, depending on how big your chicken is. Now you’re going to have to get your hands dirty: start at the back and slide your hand between the skin and the body of the chicken, it should separate fairly easily. Then, slip the lemon slices into the space you’ve made, laying them flat against the chicken. Rub some salt and pepper over the entire chicken.

Next, you need a pan to roast your chicken in. Pretty much anything will do, so long as it has some sides so the chicken juices don’t escape. If you have a roasting rack, put your chicken on the roasting rack, in the pan. But don’t panic if you don’t have one, so long as you’ve got carrots, you can make your own. Wash and peel your carrots and slice them in two lengthwise so that you can lay them flat on the bottom of your pan as a makeshift rack and put your chicken on top of the carrots, (make sure to tuck in the chicken wings so they’re not flapping everywhere). That’s all there is to it.

Put your chicken in the preheated oven and let the oven go to work. A 5 lbs chicken will take approximately 1 ½-2 hours. To determine if the chicken is done you can use a thermometer, which should register 180F, (180F is the FDA safe temperature, but other sources will tell you the chicken is done by the time it hits 170F) or you can pierce the chicken and check to see that the juices run clear. When you take the chicken out of the oven, remove it from the pan and let it ‘rest’ for 10 minutes with a piece of aluminum foil over it to seal in the juices before carving.

There you have it, a simple lemon roasted chicken. If you happen to have any leftovers, I suggest making chicken salad sandwiches, (sprouts optional).

Good luck Pete.

Technorati Tags:

Chicken

Porkquat Stir Fry

Porkquat. Awesome word. I just made it up. Feel free to credit me, (read: you must credit me or else you’ll suffer the curse of the porkquat) whenever you use the word in the future. Right. Anyways, sorry to have left you hanging at the end of my last post by saying “oooh I’m going to be making an awesome leftover dish” and “it uses a brand new-to-me ingredient, whatever could it be?” With an ending like that I’m sure you’ve all been wearing out your refresh buttons, just dying for me to put up this post. Or something like that. I’m sure you’ve deduced by now that my mystery ingredient is none other than the mighty kumquat. Fun to say, fun to eat, what’s not to like? Except possibly those blasted little seeds. Seeds are the bane of my existence. But I digress, prior to this week I had never had a kumquat. Then I started seeing them pop up on blogs everywhere and I’m nothing if not a bandwagon jumper so off I went to Chinatown, determined to get on the kumquat bandwagon.

I walk through Chinatown a few times a week so I’m generally up with whatever’s in season, (or in season somewhere on this earth, I guarantee there are no kumquat farms in downtown Toronto and yet we have kumquats). When I got to my favourite grocery store/fruit stand I saw what I had presumed were kumquats but they were labeled ‘sweet tangerine’. Hmmm. Well this certainly threw a wrench into my machine. I wondered around my store, eyeing the goods and trying to decipher foreign symbols and wonky English translations and after some time I decided that ‘sweet tangerine’ was simply a wonky translation that really meant kumquat. When I got back to my apartment I decided to turn to the ever useful thing the kids call the internet to figure out if my sweet tangerines were in fact kumquats. Since when does google fail me? Results for sweet tangerine netted a whole bunch of sites about some band called The Hush Sound who have a song called Sweet Tangerine and little else. Then I turned to MSN and noticed a fellow Daring Baker was online. I messaged Marce and asked if she had ever had a kumquat before and if she knew if it was the same thing as a sweet tangerine. I think she thought I was a little nutty. Fair enough. Eventually I decided, based on Marce’s suggestion, to compare pictures of kumquats to the sweet tangerines that I held in my clammy hands. Google Images redeemed itself here and I was able to figure out that they were in fact that same thing. Great, I have kumquats, now what do I do with them and how do I eat the little suckers? I’ve seen them used in both sweet and savoury dishes and decided to try my hand at both, beginning with an off the cuff savoury stir fry that utilized none other than the leftover pork roast. Since it was off the cuff, the proportions are all approximate. I was happy with how it turned out so I tried to write it down. After making this dish I put the rest of the pork in the freezer so that you won’t have to see it night after night for weeks on end.

Porkquat Stir Fry

Canola oil, a splash

1 clove garlic, pureed

2 T ginger, grated

A pinch of 5 spice powder

5 kumquats, zested and then thinly sliced

Half a red pepper, thinly sliced

A quarter of a red onion, thinly sliced

6 button mushrooms, thinly sliced

Leftover roast pork, thinly sliced

Wide vermicelli noodles, cooked

Heat oil in a pan and add the ginger, garlic, 5 spice powder and kumquat zest. Fry until fragrant, about 30 seconds and then add the red pepper, mushrooms and onions. When it is just about cooked to your desired doneness, (do you like your peppers crunchy or soft?) add the pork and continue cooking until it is heated through. Toss with noodles and serve.

Technorati Tags:

Pork + Stir Fry + Kumquats

Sunday Night Dinners

When I think of Sunday night dinners, I think of roasts. Roast beef, roast pork, roast chicken, the animal doesn’t really matter so long as there is an animal and it’s roasted. The typical accompaniments to said roast are potatoes and a veggie. Both of those can take a number of forms. The potatoes can be baked, boiled, mashed or smashed. The veggies can be steamed, fried, cooked or raw. Put it all on the table with a salad and a dessert afterwards and you’ve got Sunday dinner. There’s usually lots of food so it’s perfect for company. Unfortunately, when you don’t live with any family, Sunday night dinners are few and far between. But sometimes you just want homey, comfort food, whether or not you’ve got family there to share it with. And that’s how I ended up cooking an entire pork roast, for one. Can you say leftovers?

My solo Sunday night dinner consisted of a roast of pork, mashed potatoes and glazed carrots. When I was little and we had mashed potatoes I insisted that mine take the form of a potato volcano so that I could fill them with gravy and proceed to dunk anything and everything into it, including my fingers. I suppose not much has changed because I still make potato volcanoes. For the pork I used a Rob Rainford recipe for Pulled Pork Picnic Roast. I have made this recipe before, complete with accompanying Peach Chutney and it’s fantastic. Ideally I would have done the pork roast in the smoker like I have in the past, but wait, the smoker is at the family house. That’s another reason why Sunday night dinners mean family. I no longer have a large enough porch, (or any porch) to accommodate the smoker and it remains at my parent’s home. The picture of the smoker in the snow is from last time I was home which was for Dad’s birthday. When winter takes up a good portion of the year you just have to deal with it. BBQ season is all year round, snow or no snow. I miss the porch dwelling smoker, BBQ and infrared fryer…

Enough bellyaching, I’m really not that hard done by, I had a whole roast to myself, didn’t I? I also made glazed carrots from a recipe we used at school. I liked cutting the carrots into bâton shapes so I decided I’d do it at home too, it makes me feel fancy. Oooh la la, les carottes sont coupés en bâtons! Apparently it also makes me feel French. I was feeling particularly full of myself while cooking this meal so I even made a wine gravy and I thought it was damn good gravy too. I treated myself to a few glasses of wine with my meal, (well it was already open…) and capped the night off with some homemade split level chocolate and vanilla puddings. My craving for Sunday night dinner was satisfied, although next time I need to invite some company over so that I don’t have to immediately start planning what to do with the leftover pork. I’ll tell you about what I did with some of it tomorrow, I was surprisingly happy with the results. For extra fun, I used an ingredient I never have before in tomorrow’s dish. What could it be?

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Pork + Potatoes + Carrots

Breakfasts with Bacon

I’m usually hungry when I wake up. I blame this on the fact that I go to bed reading cookbooks and that I spend the night dreaming of food. Or that I’m crazy. The problem with waking up hungry is that I want something immediately and that usually means last night’s leftovers. This morning for example, I had chocolate and vanilla pudding for breakfast, followed by a piece of roast pork and some mashed potatoes, all cold. Don’t even try to understand how those things go together, just accept that they do. So by the time I’ve rummaged through the fridge and taken care of the leftovers I don’t feel like making an actual breakfast. The problem though is that I like normal breakfast foods and I’d like to make them but generally don’t because of my previously stated problem. When I do cook breakfast it often becomes lunch or dinner, but in the grand scheme of things, that doesn’t really matter.

Every now and then I manage to make breakfast for breakfast, but this only happens if I plan on it the night before. I’d been thinking about these chocolate chip pancakes with bacon for quite a while before they actually happened. What finally spurred me into action was a Dorie Greenspan post, (quelle surprise!) about how bacon in sweets is the trend of the moment. It’s not a concept that’s new to me as I’ve been a lover of bacon brittle and bacon with waffles and maple syrup for some time now but seeing the combo again made me crave it. I’ve also had a craving for these Bacon Chocolate Chip cookies but they will have to wait for another morning.

As for the breakfast burrito, I’ve seen numerous links to a Gordon Ramsey video, (click below to see it yourself) where he shows how to make perfect scrambled eggs and I wanted to try his technique. Breakfast burritos are a regular for me, but usually the contents of the burrito are last night’s supper. This time around I wanted to actually fill the burrito with breakfast contents, like Gordon Ramsey’s eggs, bacon, (of course) red onions and green and orange peppers. I cooked the eggs just like Ramsey shows how to do and then I added them to my other filling which I had made up by rendering the bacon and then frying the onion and peppers in the bacon grease. Before I wrapped it all up in a warm flour tortilla I added some shredded smoked gouda, one of my favourite cheeses as of late. It turns out breakfast burritos are just as good as leftover dinner burritos!

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Eggs + Pancakes + Bacon

Music & Veggies

What do music and veggies have in common? Not a whole lot except that I like to listen to music while making veggies, (or anything for that matter). I’m also hoping that music makes veggies more exciting. Kind of like how I had a Prof that would add random sound effects into his Powerpoint presentations to wake everyone up. I liked that class so I never had trouble staying awake through it, but there were definitely some people who were jolted back to life after hearing church bells go off half way through the lecture. With that in mind I’d like to share some veggie recipes and some music and am asking that after reading this post you leave me a comment and let me know about your favourite cooking music. I have pretty eclectic tastes in music, so whatever you post, I’ll have a listen to. I’ve just pulled random songs from my ipod to suggest for you today and I’m going to start with Akon & Michael Jackson’s Wanna Be Starting Something.

Say what you will about Michael Jackson’s personal issues, (and there are many) he’s still a musical genius who has influenced countless other artists. For MJ’s 25^th anniversary of the release of Thriller he’s re-released the disc, complete with remixes featuring artists such as Kanye West, Fergie, Will.i.am and Akon. I’m particularly digging Akon’s remix of Wanna Be Starting Something.

Back to the veggies, February’s issue of Bon Appetit is dubbed The Green Issue and contains tips on how to eat organic, sustainable food that is good for the earth and good for you too. One of those green things that are good for you are Brussels sprouts. Before you turn your nose up at the thought of Brussels sprouts you should know that they’ve come a long way from being hated by children everywhere to a dish worthy of being served at your next dinner party. Brussels sprouts are downright tasty so long as they’re prepared properly and you can count on Bon Appetit to show you how to do it right. Simply click to see how to make Sauteed Brussels Sprouts with Lemon and Pistachios. At some point I think I’ll also have to post about my favourite Brussels sprouts recipe which involves nuts and a maple syrup vinaigrette.

Song selection number two is Franz Ferdinand’s Take Me Out. When I was in Australia on exchange during University I spent my first month there traveling the East coast. One of the most memorable places that I went was Fraser Island, the world's largest sand island. I signed up to be part of a tour group and was placed in a group with enough other random people from all over the world to fill two 4x4’s. Our 4x4 was equipped with a cd player but we only had one cd so for an entire weekend we listened to Franz Ferdinand’s self titled cd, courtesy of an entertaing Scot himself.

Another veggie dish from February’s BA is Creamy Rice with Parsnip Puree and Root Vegetables. You’d never guess that there’s no actual cream or butter in the recipe. The creaminess comes from the parsnip puree and makes for a nice and healthy side dish. I’d also like to take this opportunity to say I really like parsnips and don’t eat them nearly enough. They’ve got a certain sweetness to them that comes out particularly if they’re roasted.

Wondering what to listen to while eating parsnips? How about Shelter by Bedouin Soundclash? A friend of mine gave me a copy of this album, (Sounding a Mosaic, released 2004) and it took me a while to get around to listening to it. Finally I put it on one day while cooking and since I had sticky hands I was forced to listen to the whole thing as I didn’t want to goo-up my stereo, (goo-up is a technical term…). It turned out I really enjoyed it as background music for cooking, it’s upbeat and puts me in a good chopping mood. As an added bonus, they’re Canadian.

Our next veggie is asparagus. Asparagus used to be one of my most hated vegetables. When I was little I didn’t want to touch the stuff. This was especially bad as we grew asparagus in our garden so when it was in season, it was on the dinner table every night. I’m not sure what it was that made me decide to like asparagus, age and wisdom perhaps? I don’t know, but I like it and one of my favourite ways to prepare it is simply to roast it in a hot oven with salt, pepper and olive oil and then to drizzle it with reduced balsamic vinegar and some parmesan shavings.

Maybe if you listen to Take Me to the Riot by Stars you’ll like asparagus too. I’ve been listening to the radio a lot lately and this means that I hear the same set of songs over and over again. You would think this would encourage me to put together my own playlist but instead I’ve come to really like certain songs from the radio set and loathe others. Here’s one that I’ve been enjoying, (it takes a little while for the video to get to the music, give it time).

And if you’re sick of veggies and want some meat, how about Lamb Sausage Patties? Bon Appetit has been sporting a new look lately and this issue also introduces some new columns, one of which is written by blogger extraordinaire Molly Wizenberg of Orangette and is called Cooking Life. In this month’s issue, Molly explains why she’s not a vegetarian and provides a recipe for delicious looking Lamb Sausage Patties. If you’re a fan of Molly’s blog, you’ll love her column and if you’re not acquainted with Orangette, you’ll want to be.

I’m all for switching things up which is why my final song selection is a Jay Z and Beatles mash up by Danger Mouse. Some people may think it’s sacrilegious to combine Jay Z with the Beatles, I happen to disagree. For those of you who don’t know, DJ Danger Mouse took The Beatles White Album and combined it with Jay Z’s Black Album to create the Grey Album. A video was subsequently made, which I’ve linked to, but unfortunately the sound quality in the video isn’t as good as if you just downloaded the song. Enjoy nonetheless. And don't forget to tell me about some of the music you like to cook to!

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Asparagus + Brussels Sprouts + Rice + Veggies