Tag: cooking

The Cooking Chronicles: Cassoulet with Lots of Vegetables

I adore fall – I revel in the brilliant golden hue cast by trees, find the crisp (not cold) air refreshing, and recognize that it is the one season that acts as a yearly reminder to live in the moment – because before we know it, winter will be upon us. On the food side of things (which it always comes back to), I think autumn speaks to me because what I love to eat corresponds most with a turndown in temperature. Light, warm-weather appropriate meals of salads and the like are far from being my favourite. Instead, curries, stews, and lovingly braised meats appeal more to my palate. While I know I need not justify my preferences to anyone, I feel the harvest season is when it all comes together.

So, utilizing some of my farmers’ market bounty, I set to create Mark Bittman’s cassoulet with lots of vegetables, another gem from Food Matters. Unlike some of the other dishes that I mistakenly label “one pot wonders” (somehow, I never consider the rice cooker to be a “pot”), this recipe truly is contained to one vessel. The large saucepan I chose, however, turned out to be not quite large enough, and as a result, I wasn’t able to include all of the recommended stock. The variation turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because the sweet tomato juice (I used canned tomatoes) thickened wonderfully as the beans naturally cooked down. I was also afraid that one pound of sausages wasn’t enough considering the large quantity of vegetables, but actually, there was more than enough meat, and more than that, the fact that they were immersed and finished cooking by simmering away in liquid meant that they ended up moist and full of flavour.

Cassoulet with Lots of Vegetables

The cassoulet was a hearty, satisfying dish, and like stews or chilis, was even better for lunch the next day. We ended up with six good-sized servings, which helped save me an evening of cooking – always a bonus! This recipe is definitely a keeper.

Culinary Q & A with Liane Faulder

Occupation:  Journalist

What did you eat today?

I had granola with strawberries and raspberries for breakfast and a cheese sandwich with a side of organic carrots from Sparrow’s Nest for lunch, plus an apple and a glass of milk.

What do you never eat?

Liver, unless it’s in pate.

What is your personal specialty?

I make a buttermilk chocolate cake with a gooey fudge icing for all family birthdays and it is, if I do say so myself, quite a hit.

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you will always find: 

organic eggs, because they taste better.

What is your weekday meal standby?

Because I eat out a lot for work, I often like a simple bowl of home-made soup for supper. I always have a couple of different kinds in the freezer. Right now there is a Portuguese Green Soup. Chef Lino from Sabor Davino gave me the recipe and I just love it. I’ve also got a Fennel and Potato Soup in the freezer, made with a recipe from The Moosewood Cookbook.

What is your favourite kitchen item?

This changes regularly. I just bought a beautiful larchwood cheese board from Janice Beaton‘s cheese shop in Calgary, so that’s sitting proudly on my counter top and I’m planning a nice charcuterie for the next time I have people over. I also love my Braun food processor and my waffle iron.

World ends tomorrow. Describe your last meal.

One of my mother’s Sundays suppers with a standing rib roast of beef and Yorkshire pudding,  draped in  hot gravy, and her fresh apple pie for dessert.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

One of my regular spots is Culina in Mill Creek, partly because it’s in my neighbourhood and partly because I love the combination of good food, a cozy atmosphere, reasonable prices and friendly service. And I love the wine bar down the street, Passa Tempo, which is also owned by Culina chef Brad Lazarenko and his partner Ed Donszelmann. The bartender at Passa Tempo, Diana, sets the tone. She manages to be both sophisticated, and down-to-earth, in her approach.

What’s the best place to eat in Edmonton?

This changes from time to time, depending on my most recent experiences. I’ve eaten a couple of pretty so-so meals at very expensive restaurants in Edmonton, so I don’t think that eating at one of the better restaurants in the city necessarily guarantees a top meal every time. Right now my favourite restaurant, however, is The Blue Pear. I think Chef Darcy Radies does a dynamite job of coming up with creative combinations and flat-out surprising flavours, and I really like the prix-fixe concept. I think Viphalay is the best place in town for Thai food.

If you weren’t limited by geography, where and what would you eat?

I’d eat some fresh bread, along with some cheese and pate from one of the small shops along the Rue Montorgueil in Paris.

Liane’s weekly food column can be found in the Bistro section of the Edmonton Journal every Wednesday. She also blogs at Eat My Words.

The Cooking Chronicles: Curried Lentils with Potatoes

My Mum introduced Mack and I to Spice Centre (9280 34 Avenue, 780-440-3334) in Little India the other day. The impetus for this visit was a desire to pick up some lentils for an earmarked recipe of Curried Lentils with Potatoes in Mark Bittman’s Food Matters (here is a very similar recipe from another one of his cookbooks), another one of our “meat alternative” ventures.

What we found, beyond a great assortment of dried lentils and beans, was a fabulous selection of spices. With each small packet priced from $1.49-$2.99, we couldn’t resist stocking up. I mention this because their red chili powder was more potent than any other we’ve ever tried – we made the mistake of adding the usual amount to a tried-and-true chili recipe…and ended up with a dish so spicy I teared up at first bite. Needless to say, we won’t be making that blind measurement mistake again.

Anyway, Bittman’s recipe is a keeper – super easy, and served with rice, makes a comforting meal. The potatoes become fall-apart tender, and the lentils add an earthiness to the dish. And like most curry recipes, it involves the addition of coconut milk – when simmering on the stove, there is no aroma more welcome in my kitchen. Bittman does provide a variation involving chicken, which Mack would have preferred, and myself, having been brought up on curries containing green beans, would add that for an additional vegetable boost.

Curried Lentils with Potatoes

As the nights cool down, I’d suggest you stock your pantry and have this recipe handy as a go-to cold weather meal.

The Cooking Chronicles: Cold-Brewed Coffee

I made a mental note to try the cold-brewing method to make iced coffee as mentioned on Julie van Rosendaal’s blog this summer. Leave it to me to put it off until mid-September.

I loved Julie’s suggestion of using a French press to do the grunt work, eliminating the need to strain and filter the coffee separately. So after grinding some Transcend coffee we had in the house, I combined 2/3 of a cup of ground beans with 3 cups of water, and let the mixture sit in the press on the counter overnight. In the morning, I refrigerated the mixture after pressing the silt down – nothing to it.

Julie recommends a 1:1 diluting of the concentrated mixture with water or milk, or to simply pour it over ice. We went with the latter suggestion. However, having enjoyed more than our share of heavily-sweetened Starbucks iced coffees, both Mack and I have ended up with a need for sugar to override the bitterness. So I quickly made up a batch of simple syrup, and used a spoonful or two to help balance the iced joe.

Iced coffees in our drinking jars

The result was a great patio drink – not too strong, but not watered down. And best of all – so easy to make!

The Cooking Chronicles: Spicy Tofu and Pork

Instead of The Cooking Chronicles I feel like I should create a sub-category containing all of my tofu-related experiments titled “The Tofu Trials”. At any rate, a Company’s Coming Cooking at Home spicy pork and tofu recipe was my third attempt to gradually introduce tofu into our diet, a slow road to my eventual hope of edging Mack’s tolerance for tofu into a fondness.

Armed with Ying Fat tofu and Four Whistle Farms ground pork, I set to make the quick stir-fry dish. I thought the half pound of pork would be overwhelmed by all of the tofu, but the proportion was just right, really highlighting how economical the dish is to make, so long as the cook’s pantry is stocked.

The result? A textured dish full of subtle heat with just the right amount of sweetness for balance.  I would double the sauce mixture next time, however, as there was only enough to coat the ingredients in the pan, and not enough to drizzle on our accompanying rice. And while Mack would have preferred more meat, this was his favourite of the three tofu dishes we’ve tried thus far.

Spicy Tofu and Pork

The Cooking Chronicles: End-of-Summer Chili

Never take ingredients in your fridge for granted, particularly if expiration dates or other people are involved. I learned this lesson recently while making Rachael Ray’s end-of-summer chili.

I was near the end of the recipe – a chili packed with more vegetables than meat – and asked Mack to retrieve a bottle of beer from the fridge in our office to add to the simmering dish. He came back, regretfully empty handed, and said that he had drank the last bottle the night previous. I had sworn we had multiple bottles of beer just a few days back – and we did – but Mack’s hot weather thirst had to be quenched somehow. We resorted to using one of my beer coolers: Alley Kat’s Aprikat, which actually didn’t end up sweetening the dish as much as we thought it might.

I loved the chili, mostly because it was packed with vegetables (our default chili recipe involves the slow cooker, which would have pulverized the zucchini), and had decent flavour considering the quick cooking time. Mack would have preferred something with more meat (as always), but liked it. We did end up straining out some of the liquid, as it didn’t reduce much at all, and next time, would drain the canned tomatoes first.

End-of-Summer Chili

An easy meal to help bridge summer to fall – what could be more seasonal?

The Cooking Chronicles: White Beans with Kale and Savoy Cabbage

I remember two things from junior high home economics class – one – always level dry ingredients in baking, and two – read over recipes from start to finish before beginning prep. Why only the first one stuck with me I’m not sure.

My recipe scanning worked against me with a recent trial of white beans with kale and savoy cabbage, from a wonderful cookbook called Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America’s Farmers’ Markets by Deborah Madison (thanks, May!). I skipped the first step of reconstituting and cooking beans, as I had a can of them ready to be added to the softened vegetables. However, by the time I reached step three, I realized the dish needed to be simmered for half an hour, time we didn’t have given the accompanying pan-fried chicken was drying out as we waited. It also became clear that cooking the beans would have provided some of the flavour base (I resorted to using water).

The resulting dish – our first experiment with kale – was edible, though I can’t say we enjoyed the half-limp texture. We did take leftovers for lunch the next day, and both of us thought the flavour had much improved overnight – the additional simmering was specified in the recipe for a reason, of course.

White Beans with Kale and Savoy Cabbage

I relayed this story to my coworker who had supplied me with the kale from her garden. She said a much simpler sautéed preparation would have been more ideal – one has to cook to learn, right?

The Cooking Chronicles: Zucchini Muffins

With baby zucchini languishing in the fridge, I decided to make some muffins using a Company’s Coming recipe I have never attempted myself, but have enjoyed many times. My Mum is always whipping up baked goods in between meals, ensuring our caloric intake isn’t bound by breakfast, lunch or dinner. As a result, my family usually has access to fresh muffins, loaves, or whatever else my Mum has decided to tempt us with, requiring no effort on our part.

Over at Mack’s, unless my daydream does come true one day and he has a rack of freshly-baked goods waiting for me on the counter after work, the task for supplying us with treats falls to me. Having recently procured my own copy of Muffins & More, I set to work.

The zucchini muffins recipe isn’t a difficult one – my only point of uncertainty was whether or not I had overmixed the batter. It turns out that I did, and my hope of obtaining a muffin consistency as light and fluffy as my Mum so easily creates was lost. It also dawned on me that there was actually a point of the whole wet-into-dry-well thing – to try and incorporate the two masses into one with the least number of turns. What you learn by actually trying something, eh?

Zucchini Muffins

Mack thought they were good (turns out, they freeze like a charm too), but I know of a higher standard that can be reached. Next time.

The Cooking Chronicles: Braised Tilapia with Leeks and Tomatoes

One of my favourite cooking blogs of late is The Wednesday Chef. Beyond the recipes, it’s Luisa’s stories behind the food that sets her posts apart. Take, for example, her recipe for braised tilapia with leeks and tomatoes. What led her to create such a dish? Why, love of course.

Even though they are no longer together, I couldn’t help but be drawn to the recipe. Mack and I picked up all of the necessary ingredients at the City Centre Market (cherry tomatoes from Gull Valley Greenhouses, leeks from Sundog Organics, and Honduran tilapia from Ocean Odyssey Inland), and used some white wine we had kicking around.

The dish was fantastic – this was our first time cooking with leeks, and it won’t be our last. We were a bit afraid our “glug” (Luisa’s measurement) would overwhelm everything, but between the sweetness of the leeks and burst tomatoes, we welcomed the additional sauce. Be careful not to overcook the fish as we did – we left the pot with the lid on as we waited for the rice to finish cooking. As a whole, this dish was leaps and bounds above the other one-pot meal we had tried a few days earlier – Mack enthusiastically put this recipe in the “keep” pile.

Braised Tilapia with Leeks and Tomatoes, served with rice

Thanks Luisa for the recipe, and keep up the great work!

The Cooking Chronicles: Basa with Greens and Lemon Pepper Oil

You’d think I would know by now to research potential substitutions online before employing them, but the mealtime scramble always seems to win out over logic.

Though I wanted to recreate a Food Network recipe for tilapia with escarole and lemon pepper oil, I ended up substituting both of the main ingredients. Basa stepped in for tilapia, and romaine lettuce for escarole. I found out later that escarole is in the chicory family, greens that are heartier and stand up to cooking better than others. As a result, the romaine came out limp and way overcooked. Thankfully, the brown and crispy potatoes and perfectly steamed fish redeemed the dish as a whole. We found the lemon pepper oil a tad too strong for our taste (even after cutting down the quantity of lemon), and borderline unnecessary.

Basa with Greens and Lemon Pepper Oil

We loved the one-pot nature of this recipe, and now that I’ve learned what not to substitute, perhaps we will make this again in the future with the proper ingredients.