Weeknight Suppers

I've been pretty absent around here since being back at school, but on Sam's last trip she exhorted me to try to post more. I'd like to only post long, helpful things with recipes and gorgeous photography, but that's not my life, and not really what this blog is, so I am going to try to turn over a new leaf and share bits and pieces, even if the pictures are badly lit and a bit grainy. So here I am, checking in, and today am sharing two meals we've had this week.

For make no mistake - the meal plan chart in the kitchen is no longer functional. Sunday we almost always have roast chicken. Leftovers on Mondays. Tony cooks every Tuesday (his day off). The other days, we either defrost meat in the morning, or we throw something meat-free together in the evening. Maybe once a week we use the crock pot. Thursdays I get Ambrose fairly late, because my yoga class ends at 5, so we try to crock it that day, but sometimes that doesn't happen. So here are a few things we do on non-meat days. If I'm really tired, it might be eggs, or crackers & cheese, with veg, but if I have a little more energy, this would be typical...

We use these salad boxes for 2.99$ a lot. Easy. Don't love the plastic, but it's a compromise we can do.

Cheesy mint pasta with salad and a rosé wine vinegar dressing. I've also been making sprouts consistently this winter, so we have sprouts in salad regularly as well. We really don't eat pasta very often, despite what non-celiac folks tends to assume; maybe every two or three weeks. We rely a lot more on rice.

Tonight - cheesy veg quinoa. I soaked it a few hours before cooking; the brand we buy tends to run pretty bitter, so either it needs a lot of rinsing, or a quick rinse, a soak, and a final quick rinse. It also gets nice and soft and fluffy after soaking.

Family birthdays

Both my mom and step-father have their birthdays in September, a few days apart form each other. So for the sake of simplicity, we have one supper to celebrate all three events, hosted by me. The weather and leaves being so beautiful, I decided to carry the autumn theme inside as well, and my sister and I worked together to create an autumnal feast for our parents.

 

My sister worked hard on the decorations while I took care of the food. I printed out a menu and she basically did the rest, down to making little individual place cards. It was quite charming and I just loved working in tandem with her, usually were so busy in our respective lives our interactions seem to be like a gust in the wind, strong but unexpected and quickly over. It was really nice to be able to work with her towards a common goal as simple as making supper for our folks.

 

For the menu, this is what I made: Roasted butternut squash/apple/sweet potato soup, roast beef with garlic/peppercorn crust, mashed potatoes/carrots, and steamed vegetables. For desert I made a carrot/apple/raisin cake with a caramel rhum sauce topped with slivered almonds and thin apple slices. Im going to share the soup recipe, it is the easiest thing to do ever, gluten/dairy free, and paleo approved.

 

I roasted a medium butternut squash, three medium sweet potato and two onions at 350 for 1.5 hours. To do so simply cut the squash and taters in half and lay face down on a pan that has a couple of teaspoons of e.v.o.o. criss crossed on it. I added the onions 45 mns before done time. The squash and potatoes are done when you can stick a fork easily in them without any force. Let cool, then scrape into a blender with a cup of vegetable broth. Blend until smooth.

 

I added the puree into veggie stock, maybe 1.5-2ltrs of it, as well as 1 cup of applesauce I made. It was too liquidy so I cooked it down until it was the desired thickness. Added some cinnamon and powdered ginger (Im sorry I didn't measure).

 

Then right before serving, I grated some nutmeg on the top. It was very fragrant and delicious, and perfectly autumnal.

A bunch of random pictures

So I took a real silly video of me making brunch last week but I cant seem to make it into a nice smooth running little movie, so that's on hold till I can figure it out. In the meantime, here is a bunch of random pictures I collected and meant to post individually, but you now get them in a nice big bunch!

Summer is for salads, I feel, because slow cooking roasts in the oven for hours doesn't make me a happy girl.

Broc, cauliflower, bacon, hardboiled egg with a cheesy dressing

Simple cucumber and tomatoes with some herbs and a bit of vinegar and oil. I live on this stuff.

Black cracked pepper Triscuits are a bit of an obsession lately, with a tuna salad that's got a bit of whatever's in the fridge. Pictured here with green onion, corn, carrots, red pepper, and tomato.

 

FARMER'S MARKET! I am so friggin thankful to live where I do. The stuff I pick up is grown 10 minutes away from my home, and since my mother grew up on such farm in the same area, everyone knows each other. The stand I go to most often is Mr. Poirier's, right on the main road in Mercier. The experience of buying from them is incredible. Apart from actually knowing these people, they treat everyone like family, and Ive heard them try to explain to an American the layout of their fields with extreme broken English and broken French from both sides, it was beautiful. And Mr. Poirier sometimes sneaks an ear or two extra of corn in my bag, with a wink. It feels more like a social occasion than shopping.

Them tomatoes had no chance.



Some corn I roasted from them. I thought the yellow looked like jewels or something.

 

Went to the Echoes of a Proud Nation Powwow at Kahnawake, and let me tell you, the first thing I did when I walked in, as I do every year, is make a straight bee-line to the food stands. In particular, the smoked sausage stand where this guy makes his own sausages of meat he's hunted (a mix of rabbit, deer, and moose). They are beyond delicious.

Grills them right in front of you and you can get it with sautéed onions and hot sauce. I dream about these all year long.

Buffalo burgers. EVERYONE MUST EAT THESE.

Indian tacos are frybread topped with chili and regular taco toppings, and corn soup is, well, just that. Both staples of Mohawk cuisine. I'm lucky enough to have a couple of friends that make these year round and are willing to feed me so I focus on those once-a-year treats. Thing to note: strawberry juice is a huge thing culturally wise, they even have a whole festival dedicated to strawberries! Now how's that for celebrating Nature's juiciest and sweetest candy?

 Here's a few shots of the dancers and drummers for your viewing pleasure:

Families were braiding each other's hair, helping each other with their regalia. It was awesome to see.

Little bear clan warrior.

 

 

Notice the children hanging around the drums. They have an open policy where children are always invited and encouraged to sit around their drumming circle, they're very superstitious about that drum. Special treatment, the way they talk about it, people cannot under any circumstance touch that drum or the beating sticks. But children are the exception. Its actually considered good energy for an innocent child to touch a drum in wonderment.


Tried out these muffin egg things. Onion red pepper for Jeff, zucchini, carrot, red pepper, and some other stuff I cant quite recall in mine. Result, we hated them. Theyre good on the spot, but cold and/or reheated egg? Yuck.

 

 

 Plus they left an awful mess to clean, even though I very carefully greased every individual cup. Unpleasant.

 

 

This also happened. -_-


 

 

So that about sums up the last couple of months. Soon, oh so very soon (September soon), it will be canning time! I'm actually excited about this, which makes me... I don't know what it makes me. I specifically scheduled my vacation at work during harvest so I would have time to can and freeze all this delicious produce. So excited!

Goat Cheese and Roasted Tomato Bruschetta

Mmmm bruschetta. Im a little confused as to the correct pronounciation of that word (broo-sketta, bru-shetta?) but its still tasty as anything! Its something that Jeff and I discovered toguether, I knew and sort of liked it before, but once Jeff got into it, we were adding some crazy variations that were sometimes so far from the original stuff that Im not sure it still qualified as bruschetta... but I called it that anyways and let anyone give me a better word for what it was and I will stand forever corrected LOL!

I made this particular recipe for Mother's Day, and although the picture probably doesnt look all that tasty, it was friggin delicious. I fell in love with these beautiful locally grown early tomatoes that were varied in sizes and colors (which I found at the Atwater market btw, but which I know that IGA has some in smaller packets) and decided to make a colored version of bruschetta with.

Goat Cheese and Roasted Tomato Bruschetta

• 1lbs of multi-colored cherry tomatoes
• 1 yellow pepper
• 1 large onion
• E.V.O.O. (extra virgin olive oil)
• 2-3 tsp of dried italian herbs
• 3 oz (more or less depending on your own taste) of crumbled goat cheese
• freshly ground pepper

1. Cut the tomatoes, onions, and pepper in bite size pieces. Alternatively, you can roast the tomatoes whole, just remember to make a slit in the tomato skin or your going to have a joyous mess of exploding tomatoes in your oven.
2. Put the pieces on a cooking sheet and mix maybe 2 tsp of E.V.O.O. on it. Using your hands or a fork, mix it toguether to make sure that the oil is evenly spread.
3. Roast in preheated oven (375C) for 10 minutes, keeping an eye on it to gauge the time to pull it out depending on your oven's strength. The smell and sight of the readyness of the tomatoes will be quite apparent.
4. Pull the pan out, sprinkle half the herbs, mix and flip, and sprinkle the other half. If your tomatoes are sticking, add another tsp of EVOO. Put back in the oven for another 10 mns or so.
5. After its done, just put in a pretty dish and crumble the goat cheese right on top. Grind some pepper right on the top of everything and voila! As an alternative to the oven, you could try pan frying the veggies as well, its a nice texture change.

And thats it! Spoon onto your vessel of choice, a nice grilled piece of flatbread, or even directly onto meat as well. Play around with it and discover all the different tomato varieties that are out there, they all have different tastes and textures and will completely alter the bruschetta. Try a different color pepper, or different onion as well. Ive added freshly shucked sweet corn for a delightful sweeter taste too!

leek geekdom for breakfast a la Jacques Pepin

oh my!

I found this stunning leek at the local market. I took it home with me.

And, of course, I had to share it with the world.

I've recently been obsessed with honing my omelet technique, thanks to monsieur Jacques Pepin. Last week, one of my students chose this video of Jacques Pepin demonstrating techniques on how to make a country omelet and a classic French omelet as part of his weekly Youtube transcription to practice sentence stress:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57afEWn-QDg

Probably not the example of choice to demonstrate Standard North American English sentence stress (lol), but Jacques Pepin is AWESOME, because for years I'd wondered how omelets were made, and could never make one properly myself. They would come out dry, crispy, in tatters, like overly-cooked failed scrambled eggs. How do restaurants make them come out so juicy and lovely? What is the secret? I would wonder wistfully as I poured condiments on my cardboardy eggs to make them edible.

If you've ever felt the same way, WATCH the video. Even if you think you know everything about omelets, watch it anyway, just because Jacques Pepin is super adorable.

Merci monsieur Pepin!!!

"thrive pie"

The crust of this "pizza" is made from whole buckwheat, carrot, and sunflower seeds all mixed up in a food processor. Surprisingly yummy. and the rest is vegan.
A delicious meal that we ate at our friends Nicole and Lena's house. Recipe for the crust can be found in Whole Foods To Thrive, by Brendan Brazier.

Pancakes, England-style!

Today is Shrove Tuesday, the last day before Lent starts. In England, it is called "Pancake Day" even though most people don't recognise Lent. The funny thing is, because people don't follow a religious calendar, everyone forgets about this day until the Sunday or Monday or even the Tuesday itself. Then Facebook erupts with posts about pancakes and at 9:00 this morning I even got invited to a last minutes pancake dinner. Now, Simon and I are not the type of people to forget about pancakes or Lent, and we had invited our friend Rachel and our neighbours to pancake dinner tonight. It's becoming a family tradition. We had Rachel over last year, too.

I went shopping yesterday for ingredients. Note that the supermarket had erected a helpful floating frying pan to remind us all about the day. I waited for these people to move but they spent forever looking at the display! From left to right, the display shows pancake mix, cooking spray (not a common product in the UK), vanilla sugar, pouring syrup (just corn syrup. Maple syrup is available but expensive), pancakes (English pancakes are what I would call crepes), and lemon juice. The most traditional way to eat pancakes in the UK is with lemon juice and a dusting of icing sugar. As you can see, you can also use vanilla sugar or syrup.

Simon and I tend to have some form of savoury crepe/pancake because it just makes more sense to have it for dinner in a weeknight.

I use the recipe from the Be-Ro cookbook, which is published by a flour company. You obtain one by sending a cheque for £1.50 to the company. Simon's grandmother gave this one to me shortly after I got married.

The proportions in their batter recipe are exactly the same as the ones in other cookbooks I have: 100 g plain flour, pinch of salt, 1 medium egg, and 300 ml milk or milk/water mixture. I doubled the recipe today and had about 18 smallish, thin crepes. I remember when i moved here I was amazed that you could get cartons of medium eggs or mixed size eggs (usually cheaper) and that the standard UK egg is brown but they sell special cartons of white eggs.

I'm really proud of how well the pancakes turned out this year. I fried them early which was really helpful. I hate spending the whole time in the kitchen when we have people over! I also hate how the smell of frying pancakes clings to everything, and getting the frying done early means time to shower and air out the apartment before guests arrived.

For the savoury filling, I roughly chopped portobello, chestnut, and button mushrooms, and sautéed them with red onion and thyme. Then I added walnut pieces and "Greek-style salad cheese," which tasted better than it sounds, but not as good as feta. I will not buy it again.

I put a few tablespoons of the filling in each pancake and rolled it, and arranged them in a baking pan, and put them under the broiler to heat up. Then I went in the other room to talk to my guests, allowing the top of all the pancakes to burn. So no pictures. They still tasted good, and the filling was delicious. We had enough pancakes left over for everyone to have a pancake with Nutella for dessert.

Do you ladies have Shrove Tuesday traditions?

Nut-Free Pesto

Just got my tonsils removed, and I cant eat yet. So what do I do? Make tons of food! Hey at least I get the pleasure of watching people enjoy the food, and pretend Im eating it too (my diet is composed of yogurt, applesauce, and ice cubes) I just canned what has to be my best salsa to date (which I plan to post later on), and tonight I made nut free basil coriander pesto, and made a quick tomato pasta with it. IT SMELLED SO GOOD.

I like  to torture myself. It took maybe 10 minutes for the pesto, and ten minutes for the whole dish to come to finition, so there is no reason for anyone not to be able to make these. And the best? Most of the ingredients came from a farm 10 minutes away from me. DOUBLE AWESOME!

Basil Coriander Pesto

 

A bunch of fresh basil

A bunch of fresh coriander

1/3 cup unsalted sunflower seeds

a pinch of sea salt

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 lemon juiced (about 2 tbsp, throw in the zest if you want more zing)

1/4 cup olive oil

If you dont have a food processor that has a pour hole, give everything but the oil a whirl until you have the desired consistancy, then add the oil. Whirl away until you have something that looks like this:

I like mine still a little leafy (not that I could eat it!!), but mix more for a uniformly creamy texture



So there's your super quick pesto. Now to make it into a meal. Ready for the most complicated dish you'll ever make? First, get some pasta boiling, then cut up a few mushrooms and a couple fresh Roma tomatoes and saute them. Then, when the pasta is al dente, stir in a little or alot of the pesto, and top with the tomatoes and mushrooms. Then delicious end.

 

 

Super Supper Scrambled Tofu

- 1 onion, thinly sliced

--> Fry in bacon fat (or vegetable oil, or a mix, but bacon fat is best - just keep it in the fridge when you make bacon)  over low-medium until soft and transparent, then add:

- 2 potatoes, thinly sliced & boiled (or if in a hurry, add them raw with 1/3-1/2 c water and add about 10 minutes cooking time, until water is absorbed/evaporated)
- 1 package firm or extra-firm tofu

--> Fry together with the onions, turning up the heat to medium-high, adding more oil as necessary. Cook, stirring often, for about 10 minutes. Add:

- 1 1/2 tbsp thyme (or whatever you want)
- 1-2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- about 1/4 grated cheese
- 2 tomatoes, sliced roughly

--> Cook 3-4 minutes until tomatoes are soft but not disintegrating. Enjoy!

TVP LOVE

TVP (textured vegetable protein, in soy or non-soy varieties) is an easy, delicious meat replacement - best to make in advance, as the longer it has to absorb the spices and flavours, the better - but can be made in a real hurry as well!

1 c medium coarseness dry TVP (available at A Votre Sante, Frigo Verte, others)
1 1/2 c tomato juice (or water, or natural meat stock)
1/4 c butter or oil

--> combine and let simmer until tender throughout.

add:
3 c mixed veggies
1/2 c shredded cheese
salt, pepper, crushed red chili pepper, cumin, oregano, whatever else tickles your fancy

--> let simmer.

Yummy with pasta, couscous, quinoa, rice, whatever! You can also use half TVP and half ground meat to stretch your budget and get some of that meaty flavour in there.

flour tortillas

This is my normal tortilla recipe - from the Joy of Cooking. But I wanted to poke around online a bit for something else... while it's worked fine in the past, it calls for lard, and I never have lard, so I always go through this confused "butter or oil?? butter or oil??" conundrum when I want to make them (yes, my life is hard).

So I found this recipe - I love this blogger: "I am so in love with these tortillas that I found myself just staring at them with a silly grin plastered on my face, amazed at what I had made. My friends think I’m a little nuts for my obsession, and maybe I am, but who cares? It may have taken me many years, but at last I have cooked homemade flour tortillas I am pleased and proud to not only eat myself but to share with the world." LOL hahahhha. Don't you love her? She sounds like a Leek Geek at heart.

Will be making them shortly to go with these lentil tacos - I'm pleased at the prospect because as long as I've been buying lentils (about 10 years now!) I've stuck to red, because they cook so fast, but I decided to branch out and get green. They are slower, but hold their shape better when cooked, and have a bit of a different flavour. I'm also eager to see how they compare to TVP tacos and tofu tacos. The goodness is simmering on the stove right at this moment (I'll be out most of the afternoon so I want to have supper ready to slap together when we get home!).

What is your tortilla recipe?