A Pasta Kinda Feeling

Project: Marinara Sauce with Sausage and Ricotta (Real Simple Magazine, September 2006)

Sometimes you just need some hearty carbs on a plate. I’ve been having some busy weeks lately and though I want something simple to cook, I’ve also been doing my best to eat actual foods that I made myself. It’s a constant challenge, but I’m trying to be a real live adult who lives responsibly. It’s an hourly challenge.

This sauce is a variation on a basic marinara sauce. It’s stupid simple, but I’m posting it anyway.

2 tbsp olive oil 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced 1 28-ounce can whole or diced tomatoes, undrained 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes 1 1/2 tsp dried oregano 1 tsp salt 1 tsp sugar 16 ounces orecchiette 1 lb hot Italian sausage 1 cup crumbled ricotta

Heat 1 tbsp of the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat.

Add the garlic and cook until golden but not browned, about 1 minute.

Add the tomatoes and their juices, red pepper, oregano, salt and sugar. bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer (crushing tomatoes with the back of a wooden spoon if using whole otmatoes) until the sauce thickens slightly, about 20 minutes. Steam looks kinda gross when it’s photographed, right?

While the sauce simmers, heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Cook 1 lb hot Italian sausage, casings removed, until no trace of pink remains. Foiled again by the steam!

Add the sausage to the sauce.

PAY NO ATTENTION TO MY DIRTY STOVETOP!

Cook the orecchiette according to the package directions.

Divide the orecchiette among plates. Top each with sauce and 1/4 cup crumbled ricotta. Serves 4.

Result? Super delish and satisfying. But made WAY more than 4 servings. This serving was massive and I still ended up with like…5-6 servings instead of 4. Who is this magazine feeding?

Strange Fruit

Project: Fresh Figs with Raspberries and Rose Cream (Readers Digest Low-Calorie Cookbook)

There are many ingredients that are just not reliably available in Northern Ontario. It’s a fact of life. So, when I was visiting Toronto in September, my number one destination was Kensington Market. My primary goal was a tube of harissa, but I ended up buying a couple of totally superfluous spices (black cardamom, anyone?), some turbinado sugar (probably available here…oh well), and some really nice, ripe, fresh figs.

8 small ripe juicy figs 4 large fresh fig leaves (optional) 1 3/4 cups fresh raspberries fresh mint leaves, to decorate 7 tablespoons cultured crème fraîche 2 tsp raspberry jam finely grated zest of 1 lime 1 to 2 tbsp rose water, or to taste

Now, problem #1 is that I totally forgot to buy crème fraîche when I was at Kensington. So I tried to make it. This involves cooking cream and adding cultured buttermilk, then letting the culture do its job to thicken things up. This tactic didn’t work and I have henceforth resolved to either buy crème fraîche whenever I can get my hands on it, or just replace it with whipped cream. Nyeah.

To make the rose cream, place the crème fraîche in a bowl and beat in he raspberry jam and lime zest until the jam is well distributed. Add the rose water and stir to mix in. Transfer to a pretty serving bowl.

Cut each of the figs vertically into quarters without cutting all the way through, so they each remain whole. Arrange the fig leaves , if using, on 4 plates and place 2 figs on each plate.

So, obviously I didn’t pay much heed to the cutting directions. I’m not sure figs taste better when left partially intact…plus I’d already ruined the crème fraîche…

Spoon a dollop of the rose cream into the middle of each fig; serve the remaining cream separately. Scatter the raspberries over the plates and decorate with the mint leaves.

Et voilà! Yeah…I kind of forewent all the garnishes. Because I didn’t read the recipe properly. I thought these were pretty tasty. My other taste tester was, I think, a little trepidatious (yeah, I think I made that word up) about a big plate of strange fruit. Mixed reviews, anyway.

An exercise in excess

Ever wanted to just do the worst thing you possibly could? Let me help:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Bacon-Maple-Candy-Bars/

My boyfriend “loves the pig,” so I promised him I’d make these monstrosities for our first anniversary together. You can follow the very helpful instructable, or you can enjoy this photo journal of what happened when I made an attempt.

So, you might notice that I’m missing a few steps in my photo journal.

That’s because I got distracted being romantic with my boyfriend (INNOCENTLY romantic, people! Get your minds out of the gutter) and burned the bacon/maple/deliciousness to the bottom of my pot. Resulting in a charred-tasting candy bar, and a charred-to-the-bottom pot. I abandoned the candy bar making process at this point, forgetting about the dipping in chocolate bit. It all got eaten anyway.

Is it still too late for BRAINS?

It’s not often that I attempt food sculpture. My boyfriend’s mother’s birthday-cake-decorating-hottest-day-of-summer fiasco turned me off of that for a while. Then I saw these awesome creations.

I had to try them.

I was, at first, hesitant to make cupcakes with (gasp!) a mix, but I thought about how much time I was going to have to spend on the rest of the whole arrangement and caved. Dr. Oetker to the rescue. As a result, the cupcake batter part went pretty predictably.

As things were baking, I had to get my craft on, though.

Problem #1: Those cool zombie hands? They weren’t at my local…anywhere. Time to improvise! Found these at my local gigantic multi-national neighbourhood corporation.

Please ignore the copious amounts of cat hair on my futon. It’s as though it’s taken on a life of its own. So…these are finger puppets. On which I performed some careful surgery.

And then I painted them. With food colour gel. Mistake #1.

There are still red splotches on my office table.

Next: My printer’s not hooked up and I don’t have an awesome colour printer. More time to improvise. And justify spending on craft supplies I’ll use perhaps once per year.

Yup. Expensive glitter paper. Cut into headstones. Glued together. Written on with expensive craft pen.

Voilà!

And finally, my favourite part! Frosting!

I don’t know of a reliable source for food colour gel in town (which is a shame ‘cuz I just wasted a bunch painting detached finger-puppet arms), so I’ve been mixing primary colours…with unpredictable success.

This is kind of baby poop green. Therefore, it is perfect. See?

And then, all I had to do was assemble!

1. Add dirt.

2. Add zombie arms and headstones. Choose three nicest ones. Eat all the crappy-looking ones. Photograph nice ones for blog. Eat the nice ones.

Done and done. Yeah, I’m a little late for Halloween, but I swear I’ve FELT like a zombie all week, so at least it fits SOME KIND of theme.

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.