Before the days when terms like locavores and zero carbon footprint were part of our everyday lexicon, I belonged to a CSA (Community Shared Agriculture) farm. Basically, what this involved was a cheque from me to the local farm, prepaying an entire season’s worth of produce. Each week from mid-May to mid-October, I would get a large box of local farm grown produce. Now, before you go ahead and congratulate me on being ahead of my time and a wonderfully environmentally conscious human being, I will admit my motives were less than pure. I had 3 kids under the age of 4 and having produce dropped off at my doorstep, rather than dragging the kids to the grocery store sounded like a great timesaver. When I signed up for this, it seemed like a brilliant idea.
However, once I was knee-deep in swiss chard, rutabaga and turnips, I realized I was in way over my head. My kids would only eat carrots and frozen peas. I still had to go to the grocery store and I ended up throwing away half the produce. I know, I am ashamed to even admit this. But this was back in the day when we didn’t have a clue how to cook kale, kohlrabi or collard greens. We thought that beet greens were meant to be tossed out, not cooked down and eaten. This experiment lasted only one season and I never signed up again.
However, I do recall the June and July boxes, filled with fresh strawberries, then raspberries and finally blueberries. These we ate with abandon! When we had our fill of fresh berries, I baked with them and then froze the rest to use in the winter.
Now we have farmer’s markets to supply us with seasonal local produce. At my cottage, near the town of Smiths Falls, tucked in behind the numerous chip wagons, there are about 4 roadside produce stands that pop up every summer. When I was in town last week, the stands were overflowing with strawberries. I bought way too many of course, and ended up making this frozen strawberry yogurt. It was so good, I decided to blog about it. When I went back today to take pictures of the stands, they told me it has been so hot that the strawberries are all done and now they are onto raspberries, beans and corn!
I came across this recipe for Strawberry Frozen Yogurt on Serious Eats (seriouseats.com). It is the creation of Max Falkowwitz. It is made with fat-free Greek Yogurt. While it is low in sugar and fat, you do not feel one bit deprived when eating this. It is pure frozen strawberry sunshine.
Sliced berries, sugar, lemon zest and lemon juice are cooked down until thick. Puree and strain, whisk in the yogurt, chill and then freeze in an ice cream machine.
It will be like soft serve after about 20 minutes in the ice cream machine. You can eat it like this or put in an airtight container and freeze until later. Because of the low fat and sugar content and the high content of water in strawberries, it will freeze quite solid. Let it defrost on the counter for about 10 minutes before scooping.
I learned about the concept of “Aperitivo” when I was in Italy last fall. Aperitivo are pre-dinner drinks accompanied by appetizers. Derived from the Latin aperitivus, to open, aperitivo is meant to stimulate the appetite and tease the taste buds, previewing the delights of dinner. In my mind, I picture stylish Italian men in their Armani or DSquared2 clothing, and Italian women in their classic navy or black sheath dresses with a scarf knotted effortlessly around their necks, stopping whatever they are doing at precisely 5:00 pm, donning their helmets, hopping onto their Vespas and heading out to the nearest bar for Aperitivo.
In Italy there is an “Aperitivo Culture”. It is a very social custom where people meet in bars to catch up on the happenings of the day, to drink and to eat. Typical aperitivo snacks can be as simple as olives and chips, or more elaborate fare, like frito misto, arancini, potato croquettes and assorted crostini.
This is such a civilized custom. Sadly, during, most of the year I am just too busy to stop whatever I am doing at 5 pm for Aperitivo, but come the summer, when I am up at my cottage, I indulge. Almost every day at 5:30 pm I pour myself a glass of Prosecco or white wine and have a little snack. Some days it’s just carrot sticks and humus but some days, I will treat myself to something more elaborate. Now, full disclosure here, most weekdays it is Aperitivo for one. Which sort of goes against the whole social aspect of the custom, but don’t feel too sorry for me. I thoroughly enjoy my own company and find myself quite amusing! I have been voted the 5th funniest of our family (we are a family of 5, but they just don’t appreciate my sense of humour!)
My new favourite white wine this summer is Dog Point Sauvignon Blanc. From the Marlborough region of new Zealand, it is a fantastic white wine for summer quaffing. It is refreshingly acidic with an intense concentration of citrus flavours, notably grapefruit. It has a crisp lingering finish and is the perfect choice for summer aperitivo.
This week I found that I had a surplus of tomatoes on the counter. My local supermarket has been carrying some beautiful heirloom tomatoes as well as Kumato tomatoes, which are sweeter than regular tomatoes and are a godsend in the winter months. I also discovered the first early corn of the season, being sold roadside near my cottage, so I picked up a few ears and decided to make a corn-tomato salsa.
The July-August issue of Cook’s Illustrated featured a corn salsa recipe that I decided to try. Most corn salsa recipes call for grilling the corn, but sometimes you just can’t be bothered to fire up the grill if all you are making is some corn for salsa. Using the corn raw was considered, but raw corn kernels always seem too starchy. Boiling the kernels destroyed the “freshness” you want from a corn salsa. Keith Dresser of Cook’s Illustrated solved this problem by coming up with quite a genius solution. He explains,
“Softening the hull without overcooking the center seemed impossible until I considered salsa’s natural partner: the tortilla chip. Corn tortillas are formed out of masa, a dough made with ground hominy, which is dried corn that has been soaked in alkaline limewater. This ancient process, called nixtamalization, was first used by Mesoamerican cultures thousands of years ago to soften corn and loosen the hulls.
Could I get a similar effect by introducing alkali to the cooking water for my corn? A quarter teaspoon of baking soda added to the boiling water worked like magic: As the corn steeped, its hulls softened just enough that they weren’t leathery, but the kernels still burst with crisp sweetness.”
I have much love and admiration for the food science geeks at Cook’s Illustrated.
Here’s my tip for getting the corn off the cob without having the kernels flying all over the kitchen: invert a small bowl into a bigger bowl. Stand the corn cob on the smaller bowl and use a sharp knife to cut off the corn. The kernels will land in the bigger bowl, not the floor. You will thank me later!
Tomatoes, jalapeno, cilantro, shallots, lime juice, salt and a drop of honey finish off the salsa.
If you have corn or flour tortillas in the freezer, take the time to make your own tortilla chips. I used whole wheat flour tortillas, brushed them with vegetable oil and sprinkled them with a little kosher salt. Then I cut them into strips, instead of triangles. Bake them at 350 °F for about 10 minutes, until crispy. They look so pretty when you stand them in a mug or vase. Sometimes I buy the flax or spinach tortillas and delude myself into thinking that these are really healthy!
Serendipity can be defined as a happy accident or pleasant surprise; specifically, the accident of finding something good or useful without looking for it. Some of the greatest foods we know today were discovered serendipitously.
Chocolate Chip Cookies are but one example of serendipity in the kitchen. Nannette Richford at Yahoo! Contributor Network explains how that happy accident came to be.
It all began when Kenneth and Ruth Wakefield purchased a Cape Cod-style TOLL HOUSE, located between Boston and New Bedford, in 1930. This house was originally a “toll house” where travelers stopped to pay a toll for using the highway. While their horses were being changed, they enjoyed a home cooked meal in the toll house. The Wakefields later turned the toll house into a lodge and called it The Toll House Inn.
Ruth, and her guests, had a passion for Butter Drop Do cookies which called for baker’s chocolate. One day, while Ruth was making these cookies, she ran out of bakers chocolate. As any resourceful woman would do, Ruth looked around for a substitution. She grabbed a semisweet chocolate bar that had reportedly been given to her as a gift from Andrew Nestle of the Nestle Chocolate Company. She chopped this chocolate bar it in small morsels and added them in place of the baker’s chocolate. Ruth expected the morsels to melt like bakers chocolate, but instead she discovered smooth gooey bits of chocolate throughout her cookies.
Serendipity recently struck food blogger Mandy Mortimer. I came across Mandy’s blog when I was checking out new entries on Food Gawker. Her Pecan Caramel Cookies stopped me dead in my tracks. I immediately clicked on them and went to her blog. Using Jacques Torres chocolate chip cookie recipe as a base, she took out the chocolate and added pecans and chunks of vanilla fudge instead. She expected the fudge bits to stay all chewy in the middle of the cookies, but they melted out and oozed all over the edge of the cookies, making a yummy crispy caramel accident.
I have to say that finding the fudge was the hardest part of making this recipe. Mandy is originally from South Africa but now lives in Ireland. She found fudge chunks made by Dr. Oetker, right in her local supermarket. No such luck here. No prepackaged fudge bits in my neck of the woods. I decided to just buy some fudge and chop it up. Fudge is one of those candies that everyone has heard of but no one sells anymore. Fudge making is at risk for becoming a lost culinary art.
After much searching, I found some at Kilbourne’s in Newboro Ontario, near my cottage. Mandy used vanilla fudge, Being the proud Canadian I am, I chose maple fudge! I think that the combination of pecan and maple is incredible. Something magical happens when you combine those two and somehow the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Be sure to toast the pecans before chopping them and adding them to the dough.
Chill the dough for a few hours before forming and baking cookies.I like to use an ice cream scoop so that all my cookies are exactly the same size. I used a 1 1/3 ounce sized scoop (about 1 3/4 inches across). A little sprinkle of fleur de sel on top of each takes these cookies to the next level and helps to tame the sweetness.
They will still look a bit underbaked when you remove them from the oven, but they will firm up upon cooling. Some of the fudge will ooze out, but don’t worry about it. Once it cools, that’s the baker’s treat!
I got Mickey Mouse ears in this batch.
I let them cool a bit and then had a warm one. Crispy around th edges and chewy in the center, nutty and almost butterscotchy. Completely addictive. Mandy warned me, and now I’m warning you. As soon as they cooled, I packaged them up and put them in the freezer so I would not snack on them any more. Well, 4 frozen cookies later, I can attest to the fact that they are even excellent straight from the freezer. I took the rest of them to my hairdresser today because I can not be left alone in the house with them!
Just the words “Hand Pie” make me smile. Could there be anything more adorable and appealing than a little pie you eat with your hands? To be honest, I’m not a huge fruit pie fan. Perhaps it’s because of my peach pie blunder. Or maybe it’s just that if I’m going to ingest copious amounts of butter and sugar, I’d rather partner it with chocolate or caramel rather than fruit. Plus, there’s something about a fruit hand pie makes me think of McDonald’s deep-fried apple pies. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
But stuff something savory in pastry and I’m all over it!
I was watching The Chew last week and Carla and Clinton teamed up to make Chili Hand Pies. They had way too much fun making them, and I wanted in on it. I think it would be so much fun to have the cast of The Chew over for drinks! Cooking dinner for them would be too much pressure, but I know that certainly after a few cocktails, they’d all be in my kitchen with me cooking away. Michael would be laughing while he prepared some porky goodness, Mario would be grating Parmesan Cheese over everything and Clinton would surely keep the cocktails flowing.
My sisters just read the last paragraph and I know they are thinking that I am turning into my mother, having imaginary parties with my TV friends.
Carla and Clinton did a Beef Chili. I decided to do a vegetarian version, substituting Veggie Ground Round for the beef. I also added some onions to the chili and ramped up the heat, using 3 kinds of peppers: fresh jalapeno, diced pickled jalapeno and ancho chili powder. You want the filling to be quite spicy because the pastry crust is quite mild.
The dough is made with cornmeal. They recommended cutting the butter into small slices, but I took it right from the freezer and grated it into the dry ingredients. This is a wonderfully supple dough and rolls out without any problems. I used a 5 inch tin to cut out my circles. Use whatever you have on hand. Smaller ones would also be a wonderful hors d’oeuvre. You can make the chili and the pastry a day ahead and refrigerate them separately. I rolled out all my pastry circles and stacked them between sheets of waxed paper, before chilling. That way, the next day it was all ready to assemble and bake.
Onions, garlic, red pepper, jalapeno pepper, cumin, chili powder and salt form the flavour base.
Make sure you let the chili cool before mixing in some grated cheddar.
Don’t overfill them or you will have trouble sealing them. You can simply press the edges with the tines of a fork, or get fancy and roll the edges like a rope.
Cut a few slits so the steam can escape. 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven, and they are ready to serve.
I must admit, I only became intimate with chip wagons in my early 30’s. I moved from Toronto, where there are very few chip wagons, to Ottawa, where they abound in glory. To those of you who don’t know what a chip wagon is, I will explain. A chip wagon is what got me through my second and third pregnancies. It is a french fry truck or trailer, usually parked at the side of a busy road, or in the parking lot of a shopping center.
I spent my first pregnancy in Toronto, gorging on Dairy Queen Blizzards. I only had to glance at my husband and he was off and running to the DQ for a medium Skor Bar Blizzard. I gained 40 pounds with my first.
I was dragged, kicking and screaming, halfway through my second pregnancy, from the home I had known all my life, in Toronto, to the lovely town of Ottawa. It was a difficult transition for me. However, the discovery of chip wagons helped to smooth out the rough edges of my new life. Or more specifically, the S&G chipwagon, parked just a block away from my doctor’s office, on Carling Ave. I would go to my doctor’s appointment to be weighed and measured and then right after that I would make a beeline to S&G for a cheeseburger and a medium fries. I gained 45 pounds during this pregnancy. Given that she was force-fed burgers during her incarceration in my womb, it came as no surprise to me when this child became a vegetarian.
During my third pregnancy, my love affair with S&G continued. By this point, Steve (the S from S&G), and I were on a first name basis. I only gained 30 pounds this time round. However, before you go applauding my restraint and willpower, you should be aware of the fact that child # 3 was born 10 weeks early! Don’t tell my older two children this, but I secretly believe that their little brother is the clear genius of my progeny. He had the good sense to get out early, before his arteries became irreparably damaged.
After the birth of my third I refrained from visiting Chip Wagons on a regular basis. I would indulge only every once in a while.
But over the past few weeks, driving up to my cottage, I noticed that within less than a mile there are 3 chip stands stationed on Highway 15, at the South edge of Smiths Falls. Being the keen researcher that I am, I thought it would be a great idea to study them and report back to you what I discovered. Here are the findings of my highly scientific Chip Stand Crawl Waddle.
Hank’s Fries is easy to find. By the side of the road there’s a life-size sign, featuring 6 foot long wooden fries dripping with ketchup. Locals and tourists love to stop in for lunch and a keepsake photo.
New this year at Hank’s are the pulled pork sandwich and the popcorn chicken. While I was mightily tempted, I had to stay focused, and I just ordered a small fries. My fry gal told me that they only use fresh, never frozen potatoes. She wasn’t sure what kind of potatoes they used, but she did know they were fried twice in vegetable oil. This, by the way, is the correct method to make perfect french fries. If you just fry them once at a high temperature, you will get the outside nice and brown, but you will never achieve that fluffy interior which is the hallmark of a perfect fry.
The first frying takes 8 minutes and is done in a lower temperature oil, just to blanch the fries and cook them thoroughly on the inside. The blanched fries will keep for many hours at room temperature, so they prepare lots ahead of time each morning. The second frying is done to order and takes just 4 minutes. This one is done at a higher temperature to crisp up the outside.
As she was bagging the fries, she offered a shake of salt and vinegar after filling the bag half full, so that I would get an even distribution of condiments. I said no to the vinegar but I never say no to salt!
Hank’s fries were partially peeled, which I really liked. They were slightly pale in colour and I was worried that the outside wouldn’t be crisp, but they were. I found the insides to be a little bit chewy, so I suspect that this batch was not cooked for long enough on the first frying.
About 800 metres down the road, right across from Mike Fair’s Chevrolet dealership is “Chip Off the Ole Spud.” Owners Mark and Adriana have spruced up the place with some pretty baskets of annuals. They also get bonus points for being wheelchair accessible!
Mark told me that they fry in Canola oil and use whatever potatoes are on special that week. They also use the twice cooked method, first blanching in a lower temperature oil and then crisping them up at a higher temperature. My order came very quickly, within a minute of ordering.
These fries were cut much thinner that the ones at Hank’s. They were a gorgeous burnished brown colour and I had high hopes for them. Unfortunately they were not very crispy. I suspect they had already been given their second fry a while ago and were sitting around. When I ordered them they were just briefly dipped in the oil to reheat. There was no offer to salt halfway through bagging so the seasoning was very uneven.
My final stop was Britt’s Chips, across from Town and Country Chrysler. Britt just opened at this location in May. She has a second stand, further South on Highway 15, in Lombardy, at Rideau Ferry Road.
Britt’s had the most extensive menu selection. I was dying to try the sweet potato fries and the Brittbitts (fried sugar-cinnamon and sugar-lemon dough twists), but I had to stay focused in my research, so I ordered regular fries. Interesting to note that the small fries here were only $3.00. This is 50 cents less than at the other 2 chip stands.
They fry in canola oil and use both P.E.I. and Quebec potatoes. They also use the twice fried method. They offered to salt halfway through, and offered me a little container for my ketchup so I could dip the fries, rather than squeezing the ketchup on top. I loved this touch. I always get too much ketchup on top and then there is none left by the time you get to the bottom of the bag. These fries were a light golden brown and they were very crispy on the outside with soft fluffy interiors.
When I looked at the fries closely, it seemed that many of them had roughed up edges, which explained their supreme crispness. I recall learning about this method from British cook Delia Smith for making the crunchiest roast potatoes. After par-boiling the potatoes, she recommended roughing the potatoes up a bit by shaking them in the pot so that they developed more cracks and crevices on the surface, thereby increasing the surface area for maximum outer crunch.
It would seem that Britt likes to play a bit rough with her potatoes after the first fry, and that’s a good thing! Top marks go to Britt’s chips! I’ll be back soon for the sweet potato fries.
I seem to have a plethora of mangoes. I found my favourite variety of mangoes the other day, being sold in Wal-Mart, of all places. They were selling a case for $12.00! How could I resist? My favourite variety, is the Altafulo Mango. I was patiently explaining this to my husband last Saturday morning at 6:30 a.m., after he curiously asked me why we had a case of mangoes sitting on our kitchen counter.
This is one of the many reasons I love my husband. He patiently listened to me explain the difference between Altafulo mangoes and the more common Tommy Douglas mangoes. Then he gently pointed out that perhaps the variety was not actually called Tommy Douglas, as Tommy Douglas was a Canadian politician, now deceased. He was actually the founder and first leader of the NDP Party . Um yeah, I said, I think they are called Tommy Atkin mangoes. I sliced up an altafulo mango for him to try. Altafulos have a much silkier flesh than Tommy Atkins. Tommy Atkins tend to be a bit fibrous and stringy.
He polished off his smoother than silk mango, made his hazelnut vanilla coffee (don’t get me started on flavoured coffees!) and left me alone to make mango lime sherbet and worry that perhaps I was turning into my mother. She also mixes up names of common household items. She used to call Mr. Clean “Jim Dandy.”
I discovered this recipe for Mango Lime Sherbet on food52.com. I was more than a little curious when I read the title because I grew up calling it sherbert (note the second r). That’s what my mom called it. Was this just another case of my mom butchering the English language yet again? In doing a little research I discovered that my mom was not alone, and many people erroneously add that second “R”. The proper spelling is indeed sherbet. But wait, what about sorbet?
Now that I have you totally confused, I think a little primer on the nomenclature of frozen desserts is in order here. Both sorbets and sherbets are frozen puréed fruit and sugar based desserts. However, sherbet goes one step further with the addition of some type of dairy added. Traditionally most sherbets contain 1% or 2% milk. The sherbet I am presenting here kicks it up a notch with the addition of 35% cream (whipping cream). We go one step further here by whipping the cream and folding it into the purred mango-lime base. This is a technique I discovered in the May 2004 issue of Cook’s Illustrated. Whipping the cream really lightens the whole dessert. “Lighten” here is taken to refer to texture not calories. 35% cream has the same number of calories whether it is whipped or not, but we can delude ourselves into thinking otherwise if we wish!
This sherbet is sweet, but not cloying, thanks to the addition of lime zest and lime juice. I reduced the amount of sugar slightly from the original recipe as I found the original a bit too sweet.
The success of this recipe depend, of course, on having some really ripe mangoes. If none are available, thaw a bag of frozen mangoes). If peeling mangoes is something you have never done, check out this video. Or if you have peeled lots of mangoes but are a fan of the musical group Phish (or “Phish Phan”, as they like to be known), you can also check out this video. It features their hit, “The Mango Song.”
The lime flavour in this sherbet relies on both the zest and the juice of the lime. Process the sugar with the zest. Puree the mangoes. Emily at Food 52 recommends straining the mango puree. I pureed mine, but did not find anything left behind in the strainer, so if you are using the smoother, silkier Altafulo mangoes, feel free to skip this step. This mixture needs to be chilled for several hours before folding in the whipped cream.
Twenty minutes in the Ice cream machine and the sherbet is churned. It is still quite soft at this point and really benefits from an additional several hours of freezing time. Scoop sherbet out of the ice cream machine canister, into a Tupperware container. Cover the surface of the sherbet with some plastic wrap to prevent ice crystals from forming. Then put on the Tupperware lid and freeze.
This salad is all about the ingredients. Let me say, right up front, if you can’t find any good pumpernickel bread where you live, substitute a sourdough or other hearty type bread. Do not buy supermarket pumpernickel bread. It is too light and fluffy, and when grilled, it will just burn and then become sponge like in the salad. It is not what you are looking for here. You need a dense heavy bread that can stand up to the rigors of the grill. I once actually made pumpernickel bread. It was good, but not great. Luckily, in Ottawa, where I live, we have the Rideau Bakery. They make a fantastic pumpernickel. Dense and chewy, it is the perfect vehicle for soaking up all the flavours of this salad.
This salad is the creation of grillmeisters Chris Schlesinger and John (Doc) Willoughby, from their book “Let the Flames Begin.” Now you wouldn’t expect to find a great salad in a book about BBQ, but these guys take grilling everything seriously. They give very detailed instructions for grilling the bread properly.
“Making a good piece of toast on the grill is actually not that easy. You want to get it really toasted – not just grill marked – but to stay tender on the inside. So cut the pumpernickel thick (1 inch) and make sure the fire is medium, not hot.”
I overdosed on this salad several years ago, when I made it for lunch every Saturday for 8 weeks in a row. We finally got sick of it and I retired the recipe. But I was having a manicure a few weeks ago and my esthetician was telling me about a Macedonian feta cheese that she always buys. When she is not telling me filthy jokes, we talk food. She is originally from Bulgaria and I have learned so much from her. So when she talks about feta from Macedonia, I listen! Macedonia, if you don’t know (and, I didn’t!), is bordered by Serbia to the North, Bulgaria to the East, Greece to the South and Albania to the West.
Macedonian Feta is very creamy, much like goat cheese. If you can’t find it, a Greek feta would also do very well in this salad. Just make sure you find a feta that is not too dry and chalky.
Fresh oregano is called for in this salad. It really adds an earthy quality. If you can’t find any, substitute fresh basil instead. I like to use a variety of coloured tomatoes in the salad. If you can find Lebanese (sometimes called Israeli) cucumbers for this salad, use them. If not, an english cucumber will also work. I don’t bother peeling them, but I do take the time to scrape out the seeds, with a little teaspoon. Just slice the cuke in half lengthwise to remove the seeds. I find that sometimes the seeds can be bitter and they can also make the salad a bit watery.
Before we go any further, let me just state, for the record, I’m really not a muffin person. If I’m going to eat copious amounts of sugar, fat and flour, I would prefer to ingest it in the form of a cookie. The fact that some people delude themselves into thinking that muffins are actually a healthy way to start the day irritates me. Your Raisin Bran Muffin is 360 calories and contains 10 grams of fat! You would be better off starting your day with a Chocolate Dipped Donut. with only 210 calories and 8 grams of fat! My husband is a muffin person. Enough said!
However, I digress. This is not a post about delusional breakfast idiots. Rather, it is a story about a wonderful Raw Apple Muffin, created by the incomparable Marion Cunningham, from her lovely little gem of a cookbook, “The Breakfast Book.” I meant to blog about this muffin last summer. I even got so far as baking them and taking the pictures, but then I must have gotten distracted with this. But I was gently dragged back to these muffins by my daughter. She is dating a muffin person and he was coming for a visit. She wanted to bake something for him. I agreed that these were outstanding muffins, high praise indeed, coming from me, the notorious muffin hater. I took the pictures and she baked.
I hesitate to even call these muffins. They are more like apples and raisins held together with a bit of batter. When you are mixing the batter you will probably look at the ingredient list and think you missed some liquid. You didn’t. This a supremely dense batter. It is best to use an ice cream scoop to transfer the batter to the muffin tin.
I have adapted Marion’s recipe slightly by gilding the lily. When these muffins come out of the oven, I dip the top of them in melted butter and then roll them in a mixture of sugar and cinnamon. I am under no delusion that these are healthy, but they are delicious. The huge quantity of apples and raisins makes them super moist. The sugar cinnamon topping adds a bit of crunch. Muffin nirvana!
For those of you who have been following my blog for the past little while, you know that I have been suffering from some disc problems that landed me flat on my back in bed for about 8 days. I’m pleased to report that I am continuing to feel much better. But while I lay in bed, in agonizing pain, I became quite anxious about the fact that I was unable to do any of my regular forms of fitness (treadmill, elliptical, weight training and yoga).
I have come to rely on exercise as a stress reliever, as well as a way to allow me to control my weight. A mentally balanced sane person would be more concerned about the errant disc fragment lodged in her spine, pressing on the nerve that connects to her left hip flexor and quadriceps. Yet, I seemed to be more concerned about weight gain.
Surprising discovery # 1: Shockingly in the past 3 weeks I have actually lost 5 pounds! I am not quite sure how that happened. It may have something to do with muscle loss (muscle weighs more than fat) or it could have something to do with the fact that I was unable to get down the stairs to my kitchen, where we keep the food, for 9 days. Now don’t misunderstand me here. I didn’t starve for 9 days. The lovely family members in my house did bring me food and water at regular intervals. It’s just that perhaps my regular intervals are a bit more frequent than theirs!
Again, a mentally balanced and sane person would look at this weight loss and begin planning healthy meals of quinoa, kale and lentils, so that the pounds do not creep back on. However, I saw a loss of 5 pounds and immediately started planning what I would bake and blog about next.
I knew I wanted to be seasonal and bake something with rhubarb. Of course the obligatory strawberry rhubarb pie was a possibility, but I am not really a pie lover, unless it involves coconut cream. Searching for inspiration I turned to Melissa Clark’s “Cook This Now.” And sure enough, in the May chapter, she had a recipe for a Rhubarb Curd Tart. As I read through the recipe, I made surprising discovery #2: Curds are not just for lemons anymore! You can make a curd from any fruit juice you fancy.
While I love the tangy flavour of rhubarb, I find the stringy texture a bit off-putting. Melissa had come up with a genius way to get all the tang of rhubarb, without the texture. Puree the raw rhubarb in the food processor and then strain the pulp and squeeze out the juice. Use this juice instead of lemon, in the curd. Brilliant!
For the tart crust, I wanted to try a recipe from Anna Olsen. She has a new show called Bake, on the Food Network (Canada). This week’s episode featured desserts made with Pate Sable (tender tart dough). As I watched Anna prepare the dough, I made surprising discovery #3: A hardboiled egg yolk contributes greatly to the texture and richness of Pate Sable. This European way of making tart dough was created by French pastry chef Pierre Herme.
The final tart was perfect. The crust was reminiscent of shortbread; crumbly and just a little bit sweet with the richness of butter (and egg!). The curd plays tricks on your mind. You see the yellow curd and you think lemon, but once you take a bite your mouth immediately recognizes the tart and tangy taste of rhubarb. Balanced by the sweetness of strawberries, this is one perfect bite. I think that should Anna and Melissa ever meet, they would be quite proud of their collaboration!
The secret ingredient to the rich crust is the yolk of a hardboiled egg! Butter and icing sugar are creamed together. The hard-boiled egg gets sieved and added. Additions of vanilla extract, salt, raw egg yolk and cake and pastry flour complete the dough. I like to roll out the dough between 2 sheets of parchment paper. Transfer to tart pan with removable bottom. If the dough cracks while transferring, don’t sweat it. It’s a forgiving dough and is easy to patch. Trim off excess dough by running the rolling-pin across the tart pan. Line with parchment paper and fill with pie weights or dried beans to bake.
While the tart is baking, prepare the curd. The idea that any juice can be turned into a curd has just blown my mind. I’m not sure why I only thought curd could be made with lemon. I guess I’m just not an out of the box kind of thinker, but now that I know, the possibilities are endless. I am planning a pomegranate curd tart for the fall! I always associate pomegranates with my mom. She used to make us strip down to our underwear and go outside in the backyard to eat pomegranates, because the fruit stained so badly. Luckily, these days you can already buy the fruit juiced.
When making the curd, Melissa says to stand at the stove and whisk constantly for 18-20 minutes. I did not. I walked away for several minutes at a time and everything came out just fine. Although, I must admit, when I strained the curd, I did see a few bits of scrambled egg in the bottom of my strainer.
This tart would also be wonderful with fresh raspberries, but strawberries seemed like the right choice today.
Today I am grateful for several small and large blessings! I am grateful to be relatively pain free. If you read my last post, you, may recall that I was in bed for over 8 days with terrible back and leg pain. The MRI revealed a bulging disc which was pressing on a nerve and causing me back pain. It seems to have eased greatly and I am back on my feet again. I feel grateful for a wonderful husband who brought me an extra hot skim milk latte in bed this morning.
Although I couldn’t be in Toronto today to celebrate Mother’s Day with my mom, I am grateful to have 5 siblings all living there to celebrate with her. They gathered at my baby sister’s house and had a “friendly” game of softball. Some family members tend to get a bit competitive about these things so hopefully no one sprained a hamstring sliding into first base or got bonked on the head from being tagged out at home plate. I’m sure to get a play by play analysis very soon.
Finally, I am grateful for my sweet children. My oldest was unable to spend today with me, but he drove for over 5 hours to come home for a short visit yesterday. My middle child bought me a beautiful blue hydrangea plant and gave me a very fitting (and funny) card .
And my youngest, with the help of his sister, made me a video on YouTube, serenading me with Elvis’ “Love me Tender.” So sweet!
I made these tarts a few days ago and thought we would have them today for dessert. Unfortunately they were all gone the day I made them. Luckily I have other sweet things to satisfy me!
These tarts are the creation of Lucy Waverman, food columnist for the Globe and Mail. I have adapted the recipe somewhat. The original recipe produced tarts that had a thin layer of caramel and then a thick layer of ganache. I doubled the caramel recipe so that the finished tarts would have a thick layer of both caramel and chocolate.I also added some salt to the caramel filling as well as a few decorative flakes on top of the ganache filling.
I made them in mini muffin tins. Not only do they look adorable, but there is no guilt at all involved in popping one (or three) of these into your mouth. The contrast in textures of this mini bite are what make it so special. Biting into the crisp flaky pastry you discover a silky smooth layer of bittersweet slightly salty caramel covered in a thick layer of chilled chocolate ganache. The ping on your tongue from a melting crystal of fleur de sel helps these tarts from being too cloyingly sweet.
Begin with making the caramel, as it needs time to cool and firm up. Sugar, water and corn syrup are boiled until a rich amber colour is reached. Finish with whipping cream and a pinch of kosher salt.
I like to roll out the pastry dough between 2 sheets of parchment paper, right after making the dough. Then I chill the rolled out dough. Be sure to roll the dough very thin (1/8 of an inch thick) for these mini tarts.
Let the tart shells cool completely before filling. I find it easiest to put the caramel filling into a disposable piping bag.
Finish off with chocolate ganache and a few flakes of fleur de sel.
