Second-Day Salad Slime

Project: Greens with Blueberries, Feta and Almonds (Canadian Living Special Issue: Market Fresh)

It’s pretty much impossible to get truly fresh greens in Northern Ontario. This isn’t meant to be surprising. It’s just a fact. It’s pretty much impossible to get truly fresh greens anywhere in Canada after a certain time of year. What is possible, is those boxes of greens. You know the ones. With their dead sadly plastered to the side of the box, fast becoming that slime you scrape off the side of the aquarium after your filter kicks it.

2 tbsp vegetable oil 1 tbsp white balsamic vinegar 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard pinch each salt and pepper 8 cups mixed baby salad greens 1/2 cup fresh blueberries 1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese 1/4 cup toasted sliced almonds

So I only had to pick a few slimy bits out of the box of baby greens. And what the heck is white balsamic vinegar?!? I’ll never know how this salad was supposed to taste NOW!

1. In large bowl, whisk together oil, vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper. Add greens; toss to coat.

2. Divide salad among plates. Sprinkle with blueberries, feta cheese and almonds.

Makes 4 servings.

Uh, YUM! The truth is that I believe this salad would be perfect WITHOUT the green stuff. It’s not that I don’t like greens. They’re delicious. But I found myself picking the greens out to eat first, then following it up with mouthful after mouthful of delicious feta, blueberry and almond drizzled in a mild vinaigrette.

Also, leftover salad was predictably gross. As in aquarium slime gross. Bollocks.

This is Soup?

Technorati Tags: Food,Soup,Noodles,Peanut Butter,Tofu

Dish: Vegetable Lo Mein (Reader’s Digest Ultimate Soup Cookbook)

I decided it was finally time to crack open the Betty Crocker Stainless Steel Skillet (say that 3 times fast) that my boyfriend gave me LAST CHRISTMAS (I am a failure), and figured an Asian dish was the best thing to try in it (since it is the only thing I own even approximating a wok). And the dish was vegetarian. How can I go wrong?

4 oz Asian egg noodles or thin egg noodles 1 tbsp peanut butter or vegetable oil 3 scallions, finely chopped, with tops sliced and reserved 2 garlic cloves, minced 1 tsp minced fresh ginger or 1/4 tsp ground ginger 2 celery stalks, sliced thin 2 medium carrots, peeled and sliced thin 1/4 lb mushrooms, sliced thin 1 cup low-sodium chicken broth or water 2 cups broccoli florets 1 tbsp cornstarch 1 tbsp low-sodium soy sauce 1 tbsp dry sherry 1 tsp Asian sesame or peanut oil 1/2 tsp sugar 1/2 lb firm tofu, cut into 3/4” cubes

Yeah, yeah. Some of you are scared of the tofu. Don’t be. It tastes like ginger and soy sauce. In this case.

1. Cook noodles according to package directions, omitting salt, and then drain and set aside.

2. In a heavy 12” skillet over medium-high heat, heat peanut oil. Add scallions, garlic and ginger and stir-fry 30 seconds. Add celery, carrots, and mushrooms and stir-fry 2 minutes. Stir in 1/2 cup chicken broth, cover, and simmer 3 minutes. Add broccoli, cover and simmer 2 minutes.

So, yeah, scallions, garlic and ginger:

Then celery, carrots and mushrooms:

Then add the broccoli and cover, which is great, if you’ve got a cover. If you don’t, do your best to make a layered, shingled tinfoil roof to protect your broccoli from drying out. It should be nice and bright green. That way you know it’s still got the healthy goodness of broccoli, which is the true reason to eat broccoli (and not my secret true reason: awesome cheese sauce vehicle).

3. In a small bowl, combine remaining chicken broth with cornstarch, soy sauce, sherry, sesame oil and sugar. Add to skillet and cook, stirring constantly, over medium heat until thick, about 4 minutes. Add noodles and tofu, cover, and simmer 2 minutes or until tofu is heated through. Transfer to a bowl, toss gently and sprinkle with sliced scallion tops.

The unfortunate thing about the sauce is that it turns just about everything in the pan an unfortunate blech colour. Also, I found that in this case, despite the blech colour, I was wanting a little bit more sauce. Because this is what I got:

And damn it, I wanted soup.

:(

Fail Cake I

Project: Raspberry Lemon Cream Cake (Canadian Living Special Issue: Market Fresh)

I love to bake. I think that's clear. And I love it when people tell me how great my baking is. So you can bet that when I was invited to a party for the end of the softball season, I was doubly excited (1. for the end of softball season...because I was SOOO bad at it, and 2. for the opportunity to bake for people).

So, I decided to make this cake.

The blurb in the magazine suggests that this:

"...tender sponge cake holds layers of fresh raspberries in a creamy lemon filling..."

What could be better than that?

3 cups raspberries
1 tbsp icing sugar
6 eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tbsp grated lemon rind
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 pkg unflavoured gelatin
3 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 tbsp grated lemon rind
2/3 cup lemon juice
1 1/3 cups whipping cream

Line the bottom of a 9" springform pan with parchment paper; grease side. Set aside.


Set eggs in bowl of warm water for 5 minutes.

I'm not entirely sure why I took a picture of that part...except to show you some local eggs perhaps? Iono.

In electric stand mixer on medium-high speed, beat eggs until foamy. Gradually beat in sugar for a bot 10 minutes or until pale yellow and batter falls in ribbons when beaters are lifted. Transfer to large wide bowl; fold in lemon rind and vanilla.
I think putting some vanilla in a shot glass was my lame attempt at being Bakerella or something. As though my phone's camera is as good as hers, and as though my freezer top is as clean as her...fancy food-picture-taking studio. ANYWAY, after all that's done, you have something that looks like this:
Sift together flour, baking powder and salt; sift one-third over egg mixture and fold in. Repeat twice. Transfer one-quarter to another bowl; fold in butter. Fold back into remaining batter. Pour into prepared pan.You know, since I showed you the local eggs, I thought the local flour deserved some spotlight.

Bake in centre of 325F oven for 50 to 60 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched in centre and side pulls away from pan. Let cool in pan on rack for 10 minutes. Remove side of pan; let cool on rack.

This is not what happened. What happened was that about 10 minutes into baking, my smoke alarm started screaming at me because the top of my cake was beginning to char. Opening the oven caused my not-at-all baked cake to fall, resulting in a flat and not-at-all picture worthy sponge cake. Probably because of my stupid apartment-sized stove in my stupid apartment-sized apartment. Frown.

In small bowl, sprinkle gelatin over 3 tbsp water; set aside.

In heatproof bowl, whisk together eggs, egg yolks, sugar, lemon rind and lemon juice. Place over simmering water; cook, stirring frequently, for about 20 minutes or until translucent andthick enough to softly mound on spoon.You know, just incase you weren't sure what they looked like...these are lemons. If life gives these to you, you should make lemonade. Ba dum bum.Despite my bad jokes, the lemon sauce turned out just delicious.

Strain into large bowl. Stir in gelatin mixture until melted. Place plastic wrap directly on surface; refrigerate, stirring every 10 minutes, for about 1 hour or until cook and mixture can mound on spoon.

In bowl, beat cream; fold one-third into lemon mixture. Fold in remaining cream. Fold in 2 1/3 cups of the raspberries; set aside.
Line bottom and side of same pan with waxed or parchment paper. Cut cake horizontally into thirds. Place to layer, cut side up, in pan. Spread with half of the lemon cream. Top with middle layer, remaining lemon cream and remaining cake layer, cut side down. Cover and refrigerate until set, about 4 hours.

Remove side of pan. Sprinkle top with icing sugar. Arrange remaining raspberries around top edge.

Easy peasy, right? Well...if your cake doesn't rise in the oven properly, getting it into 3 layers is sometimes difficult. And sometimes the end result of the cake is as follows:

Shit.

Can't take that to the party. Tears ensued. Bad words were heard down the street. Light bulb moment followed.

I whipped up the leftover whipping cream (I always buy to much; I like to think it's because I'm prepared for times like these, but deep down I know it's because I'm a poor economic planner and giant food-waster), spread it over the offending bald spot on top of my cake, and voilà!Behold my masterpiece! Pay no attention to the non-masterpiece-y side of the cake.

Fin.