Thai One On

Thai Beef Noodle Salad (Canadian Living Special Issue: Market Fresh)
I love Thai food, but I’m almost never able to reproduce it at home.  This attempt was no exception.

1 lb beef flank marinating steak 1 piece english cucumber 1 large carrot 6 oz wide rice-stick noodles quarter red onion, thinly sliced 3 tbsp chopped fresh coriander and mint 3 tbsp thai basil or other basil leaves 1/4 cup chopped unsalted peanuts 2 tbsp soy sauce 1 tbsp sesame oil and vegetable oil 2 cloves garlic, minced 2 tbsp grated ginger root 1 tbsp granulated sugar 1/2 cup hot water 1/4 cup granulated sugar 2 tbsp lime juice 2 tbsp fish sauce 2 thai or serrano chilies

Marinade: In glass baking dish, combine soy sauce, sesame oil, vegetable oil, garlic, ginger, and sugar; add steak, turning to coat.  Cover and refrigerate for 4 hours, turning occasionally.
Dressing: In jar with tight-fitting lid, shake water with sugar until dissolved.  Add lime juice, fish sauce and chilies.  Shake to mix. 

OR, put it in a pyrex container with a non-tight-fitting lid and shake dressing, splattering it all over your kitchen.  Like I did.
Using vegetable peeler, slice cucumber  lengthwise into thin strips, slicing around centre seeds.  Slice carrots lengthwise into thin strips; set aside.
In large pot of boiling salted water, cook rice noodles for 6 to 7 minutes or until tender.  Drain and hill under cold water; drain and transfer to large bowl.  Toss with dressing.  Set aside.
Discarding marinade, place steak on greased grill over medium-high heat; close lid and grill, turning once, for about 8 minutes for medium-rare or until desired doneness.   Transfer to cutting board and tent with foil; let stand for 5 minutes.  Thinly slice against the grain.

Add cucumber, carrot, onion, coriander, mint and basil to noodle mixture; toss to coat.  Divide among bowls or plates; top with steak and sprinkle with peanuts.

Makes 4 to 6 servings.
This was probably the tastiest Thai-inspired steak ever.  It was probably the grossest noodle salad though, since I definitely overcooked the noodles.  And it made TERRIBLE leftovers, which is tragic because without leftovers I would starve.

The Real Thing

Split Pea Soup (Betty Crocker Cookbook)

Habitant Pea Soup was a staple of my childhood, so I was pretty excited to produce the real thing, from scratch, in a an area rife with French Canadiana.

2 1/4 cups dried split peas (1 lb), sorted and rinsed 8 cups water 1/4 tsp pepper 1 lg onion 2 medium stalks celery, finely chopped 1 ham bone, 2 lbs ham shanks or 2 lbs smoked pork hocks 3 medium carrots, cut into 1/4” slices

1. Heat all ingredients except carrots to boiling in 4-quart Dutch oven, stirring occasionally; reduce heat Cover and simmer 1 hour to 1 hour 30 minutes.

By the way, smoked pork hocks look really gross. Really.

2. Remove ham bone; let stand until cool enough to handle. Remove ham from bone. Remove excess fat from ham; cut ham into 1/2” pieces.

Also, smoked pork hocks have a buttload of fat around them. Smoky, salty (delicious and hard not to stick back in the soup) fat.

3. Stir ham and carrots into soup. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer about 30 minutes or until carrots are tender and soup is desired consistency.

In the end, it looked an awful lot like my post-Sunday School lunch from days gone by, but it was a little thicker and pastier than I recall. Maybe that means I’d done my French Canadian neighbours proud.

Just to be safe, I didn’t let them taste test.

Not as delicious as a Disney Movie

Stir-Fry Ratatouille (The New Lighthearted Cookbook)

My aunt’s sister used to refer to her mother’s ratatouille as rat-shit-patooie. Fitting that some few decades later Disney would come out with a movie glorifying the dish (really, I think they chose it because it’s a funny word) and its’ being made by rats.

2 tbsp canola oil 1 medium onion, sliced 2 cloves garlic, minced 8 medium mushrooms, halved 1 small sweet yellow or red pepper, cubed 2 cups cubed (1/2” pieces) unpeeled eggplant 1 small zucchini, sliced 2 tomatoes, cut in wedges 1/2 tsp each dried thyme and basil salt and pepper

In a large non-stick skillet, heat half of oil over medium-high heat; add onion, garlic, mushroom, and sweet pepper and stir-fry until tender, about 4 minutes, adding up to 2 tbsp water if needed to prevent burning. With slotted spoon, remove to side dish and set aside.

Heat remaining oil in skillet; add eggplant and zucchini; stir-fry for 4 minutes or until tender.

Screw that dirtying another dish shit. My zucchini and eggplant JOINED the mushroom mixture. No waiting until the zucchini’s “ready” for mushroom to come on the scene for my ratatouille.

Return mushroom mixture to pan, add tomatoes, thyme, and basil; cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper.

You may notice a dearth of tomato on my plate. That’s because tomatoes, untouched by the heat, salt, and pulverizing of the canning process, are kinda gross. So I didn’t put them in. Nyeah.

This was ok. I’m pretty adventurous, but I still think that many iterations of eggplant are a little shifty-eyed, this one included. Conclusion: not rat shit. Also not mind-blowing.

Makes 6 servings.

Date Sandwich

Date Cookies (Nora McC)

These are, apparently, my great-great Aunt Nora’s famous (?) date cookies. So far as I understand, this woman lived in a rustic shack in the wilderness for many years of her life, which makes it understandable that this recipe reads the way it does.

3 cups rolled oats 2 1/2 cups flour 3 tsp baking powder 1/4 tsp salt 1 cup brown sugar 1/2 cup lard 1/2 cup butter 1/2 cup milk

Put rolled oats into a bowl; sift flour, baking powder and salt together; add to oats; then sugar. Melt butter and lard, add to dry mixture with milk. Mix all together; roll, cut with round cutter and bake in moderate oven.

For how long? Moderate is what temperature, now? Well, I settled for 350F and checking every 5 minutes until they looked not-raw. I’m guessing moderate probably means 3 maple logs and a pine log, vs. all pine all the time or something.

Fill with the following mixture:

1 lb chopped dates 1 cup brown sugar 1 cup hot water

Cook well. Well, that looks like the bog of eternal stench. Delish.

The result is this:

A gargantuan mound of oats and dates, suitable for a sizeable breakfast were it not for the half pound of baking fat included in the recipe. Oh well…I guess I’ll just have to eat them anyway. You know, in Aunt Nora’s memory.

Post-Christmas Peppermint

Peppermint Swirl Cupcakes

(http://bestfriendsforfrosting.com/2011/10/chocolate-peppermint-cupcakes-recipe/)

There’s a cupcake expert in my town. She makes awesome cupcakes. I don’t want to best her. But I want my cupcakes to look slightly less like crapcakes in comparison. Here’s a photojournal of my first attempt at non-crapcakes.

Check out my one mutant cupcake.

Ah, hell. They’re all mutants.

This was the least mutant-y of my cupcakes.

I think what happened was that a. I overpoured one, thus underpouring slightly on all of them, and b. the batter (by nature of the recipe) was super liquidy. Like. Very. Though it produced a very moist cupcake, it also produced a batch of cakes with divots in them. This was made up for with extra icing.

Sidenote: I’m always left with buckets of leftover icing. This recipe was almost bang on with the quantity of icing to cupcake. Huzzah!

The Low-Fat Weight Gain Solution

Abracadaiquiri Pie (Crazy Plates)

I love sweetened condensed milk. It’s a problem. A big one. Obviously, as a result, this “low-fat” pie actually added to my waistline than aided in its reduction. Hrmph.

1 cup crushed, low-fat graham crackers 2 tbsp sugar 2 tbsp light butter or margarine, melted 1 can (14-oz) low-fat sweetened condensed milk 1/2 cup frozen daiquiri mix concentrate, thawed 1 cup frozen strawberries in light syrup, thawed 2 cups light frozen whipped topping, thawed

1. To make crust, combine graham crumbs, sugar, and butter in a small bowl. Spray an 8” springform pan with non-stick spray. Press crumb mixture evenly over bottom of pan. Place crust in freezer while you prepare filling.

As you can see, I didn’t melt the butter. This was a mistake. Because instead of a crust, I had a fine powder on the bottom of the delicious pie filling. Comme ça:

2. Beat sweetened condensed milk and daiquiri mix on low speed of electric mixer. Add strawberries and beat again until well blended. Fold in whipped topping. Pour into prepared crust. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze overnight.

3. To serve, run a knife around the edge of pan and remove sides. Garnish individual pieces with fresh strawberries, if desired. I didn’t desire.

If you look at the ingredient list, you’ll notice that a can of condensed milk is actually 14 oz. This is the equivalent of one-and-a-bit cans of condensed milk in my grocery store. The result is that I had over half a can leftover. Which I ate. Out of the can. With a spoon. I hate myself.

The Tables Turn!

Project: Roger Socks (Knitspot)

My grandmother taught me how to knit when I was seven. Then I forgot.

Then my ex-boyfriend’s roommate taught me to knit when I was twenty. Then I forgot.

Then my best friend taught me to knit when I was twenty-five. Third time’s a charm?

But I was still a little afraid to do anything that involved more than two needles for a long time. So, last fall, I signed up for a sock knitting class at my sweet local yarn store.

The process was surprisingly painless…with the exception of a yarn emergency in which I dropped a stitch when I took my knitting to choir practice and didn’t notice until a few rows later. I was quite pleased with the fruits of my labours, at any rate.

My socks ended up being a Christmas present for my very first knitting instructor. And I hope I did her proud.