Dinah's Kitchen

Sweet Bread!

2011-10-28T08:02:00.000-06:00

The Daring Baker’s October 2011 challenge was Povitica, hosted by Jenni of The Gingered Whisk Povitica is a traditional Eastern European Dessert Bread that is as lovely to look at as it is to eat!
Usually a povitica is filled with a sweet walnut filling but nuts are a no, no in our house so I made a maple - marscapone filling. I combined marscapone with icing sugar, maple syrup, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. Very nice and seasonal. I will make this again for sure it was very easy to make and would be perfect as a coffee cake.

Croissants!

2011-09-27T19:27:00.000-06:00

The Daring Bakers go retro this month! Thanks to one of our very talented non-blogging members, Sarah, the Daring Bakers were challenged to make Croissants using a recipe from the Queen of French Cooking, none other than Julia Child!
I don't know why they turned out like this? I saw other people who did the challenge had success. Oh well, c'est la vie, they still taste okay.

Fruit-Castrophe

2011-07-27T22:17:00.000-06:00

Jana of Cherry Tea Cakes was our July Daring Bakers’ host and she challenges us to make Fresh Frasiers inspired by recipes written by Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson in the beautiful cookbook Tartine . But I messed it up!!!! I forgot to put the gelatine in the pastry cream!!! So I couldn't complete the task successfully. So now I will serve it as berry shortcake when I have company tomorrow. I will post a picture then.

Egg's in a Sweet Nest

2011-04-28T16:35:00.000-06:00

The April 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Evelyne of the blog Cheap Ethnic Eatz Evelyne chose to challenge everyone to make a maple mousse in an edible container. Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 27th to May 27th at http://thedaringkitchen.com !

My edible container is a homemade marshmallow bowl covered in cornflakes. It perfectly contained the maple mousse.

Meringue Coffee Cake

2011-03-27T10:52:00.000-06:00

The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of http://riascollection.blogspot.com and Jamie of Life's a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.
I made my filling with chocolate chips and homemade dulce de leche. This recipe is more bread than cake so it is not too sweet. A very nice forgiving dough and I would make it again without bothering with the meringue. Unfortunately most of the filling came out during cooking, the meringue just bubbled out of the slits. I'm not really sure what the point of the meringue is since it doesn't seem to stay from what I can see from other people's pictures. Oh well it was still tasty. If I ever see it at a bakery I will try it to see if the meringue makes a bigger impact when made by a more skilled baker.

Panna Cotta

2011-02-28T21:59:00.001-07:00

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.
I made a lovely vanilla panna cotta with a lemon gele`, inspired by the surprisingly beautiful bag of organic lemons I found at Superstore. I experimented with different shapes and this picture is from a champange glass. The Florentine cookies were filled with white chocolate.

Christmas Stollen

2010-12-29T11:59:00.000-07:00

The 2010 December Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie's Baking . She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make Stollen. She adapted a friend’s family recipe and combined it with information from friends, techniques from Peter Reinhart’s book.........and Martha Stewart’s demonstration. I loved the wreath presentation and I made my own candied citrus which is so much better in flavour then the store bought type. I keep it in the freezer (I can never seem to get it to dry out enough) and use it for my easter bread and I've used it in Christmas cake too.

Candied Citrus Peel (adapted from Home Baking by Jeffery Alford and Naomi Duguid)

6 - 12 citrus fruits, unwaxed and untreated

Sugar Syrup
2 cups sugar
1 cup water
If you have a large amount of fruit you may need to make more syrup the ratio of sugar to water is 2:1.

Extra sugar for coating

Wash fruit and peel into segments. Reserve fruit for other uses. Remove any remaining membrane off of peel but leave the white pith intact. Using scissors or a knife cut peel into thin strips. Place peels in a large pot and fill with 8 cups of water. Bring to a boil and stir and push peels down into water boiling for about an hour until peels are soft. Drain and refill pot and boil again for 20 minutes. During the second boil place sugar and water in a separate pot, dissolve sugar and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer until peels are ready. Peels will be soft. Drain peels and add the sugar syrup to peels. Simmer on low heat for 1 to 11/2 hours stirring occasionally.
Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. When peels are done use a slotted spoon and transfer to baking sheets. Spread peels out so they are not touching. Leave on baking sheets for 1- 3 days turning occasionally. I usually cut my peel again using sccisors after it is dry into small pieces. You can coat with extra sugar if desired by placing peel and sugar in a paper bag and shaking until coated.

Saskatoon Crostata

2010-11-27T21:19:00.000-07:00

The 2010 November Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Simona of briciole. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make pasta frolla for a crostata. She used her own experience as a source, as well as information from Pellegrino Artusi’s Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well.
I chose to do a Saskatoon berry crostata and I made some Saskatoon berry preserves from the Saskatoons we picked this summer. I mixed about 2 1/2 - 3 cups of berries and 1 cup of sugar and cooked that together until it started to thicken. I did the pasta frolla with whole wheat flour in the dough.
To bake your crostata. Reserve in the fridge 1/4 of your dough. Roll out the remaining and place in a tart tin with a removable bottom. Fill with preserves and cut out shapes from remaining dough in fridge to decorate top. Bake in a preheated 375 F oven for 25 mins or until nicely browned. Here's the recipe I used for the pasta frolla.

Version 1 of pasta frolla (from the Daring Kitchen)

Ingredients:

1/2 c. minus 1 tablespoon [105 ml, 100 g, 3 ½ oz] superfine sugar (see Note 1) or a scant 3/4 cup [180ml, 90g, 3 oz] of powdered sugar
1 and 3/4 cup [420 ml, 235 g, 8 1/4 oz.] unbleached all-purpose flour
a pinch of salt
1 stick [8 tablespoons / 4 oz. / 115 g] cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
grated zest of half a lemon (you could also use vanilla sugar as an option, see Note 2)
1 large egg and 1 large egg yolk, lightly beaten in a small bowl

Note 1: Superfine sugar is often also referred to as ultrafine, baker’s sugar or caster sugar. It’s available in most supermarkets. If you cannot find “superfine” sugar, you can make your own by putting some regular granulated sugar in a food processor or blender and letting it run until the sugar is finely ground.

Note 2: There are different ways of making vanilla sugar. I keep vanilla beans in a jar half-filled with sugar until I need to use them, for example, to make vanilla ice cream. After I remove the split bean from the custard that will go into the ice cream maker, I rinse it, dry it and put it back in the jar with sugar.

Making pasta frolla by hand:

Whisk together sugar, flour and salt in a bowl.
Rub or cut the butter into the flour until the mixture has the consistency of coarse crumbs. You can do this in the bowl or on your work surface, using your fingertips or an implement of choice.

Make a well in the center of the mounded flour and butter mixture and pour the beaten eggs into it (reserve about a teaspoon of the egg mixture for glazing purposes later on – place in the refrigerator, covered, until ready to use).
Add the lemon zest to your flour/butter/egg mixture.
Use a fork to incorporate the liquid into the solid ingredients, and then use your fingertips.
Knead lightly just until the dough comes together into a ball.
Shape the dough into a flat disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Place the dough in the refrigerator and chill for at least two hours. You can refrigerate the dough overnight.

Making pasta frolla with a food processor:

Put sugar, flour, salt, and lemon zest in the food processor and pulse a few times to mix.
Add butter and pulse a few times, until the mixture has the consistency of coarse meal.
Empty food processor's bowl onto your work surface
See step 3 above and continue as explained in the following steps (minus the lemon zest, which you have already added).

Variation for Version 1 of pasta frolla:

If you want, you can make the pasta frolla using a combination of all-purpose flour and whole-wheat pastry flour.

If you choose to try this variation, use 1 cup [240 ml, 135 g, 4 3/4 oz.] unbleached all-purpose flour and 3/4 cup [180 ml, 100 g, 3.5 oz.] whole-wheat pastry flour.

Baking Blitz

2010-11-18T12:07:00.000-07:00

Here's what I've been baking this month!

Apple Chelsea Buns

I made these for J and his classmates for our helper day at pre-school. I made mini ones for the kids. This is an easy recipe that incorporates the cinnamon into the dough. And I substituted apple for the usual currants as the pre-school set can be a little fussy when it comes to 'raisins'. I'll post this recipe later.

Gluten -Free Cupcakes

These cupcakes were the highlight of the month. D chose a circus theme for her birthday and we saw this idea in our search for circus related birthday stuff. One of her friends can't have wheat so luckily I had heard of this recipe for chocolate cake made with cooked quinoa. Fantastic recipe I will make this again regardless of a need for gluten-free. The cake is very dense almost like a brownie, it made 12 small cupcakes and 1 small heart shaped cake. To decorate I made a simple white butter icing and iced cupcakes. For the popcorn I snipped mini-marshmallows and stuck them in the icing. The butter is spray icing and the salt is sanding sugar. Definitely one of the easier birthday cakes I've had to produce.

Quinoa Chocolate Cake

(Julie van Rosendaal , The Calgary Eyeopener)

From Quinoa 365 by Patricia Green and Carolyn Hemming (Whitecap)

2/3 c. white or golden quinoa

1 1/3 c. water

1/3 c. milk

4 large eggs

1 t. pure vanilla extract

3/4 c. butter, melted and cooled

1 1/2 c. sugar

1 c. cocoa powder

1 1/2 t. baking powder

1/2 t. baking soda

1/2 t. salt

Bring the quinoa and water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Cover, reduce to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and leave the covered saucepan on the burner for another 10 minutes. Fluff with a fork and allow the quinoa to cool.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease two 8-inch round or square cake pans. Line the bottoms of the pans with parchment paper.

Combine the milk, eggs and vanilla in a blender or food processor. Add 2 cups cooked quinoa and the butter and continue to blend until smooth.

Whisk together the sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Add the contents of the blender and mix well. Divide the batter evenly between the 2 pans and bake on the center oven rack for 40 to 45 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove the cake from the oven and cool completely in the pan before serving. Frost if desired. Store in a sealed container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week or freeze for up to 1 month. Serves 8-16.

Apple Spice Bundt Cake with Maple Glaze

November 15 was Bundt cake day! So I made this nice apple cake. As you can see I've been using lots of apples in my baking. I've decided I like shredding the apples for baking cakes and muffins. I froze this cake and the texture changed so that it looked like bread but it still tasted yummy at my meeting last night with mulled wine!

Apple Spice Bundt Cake with Maple Glaze

via the naptime chef

adapted from Once Upon a Tart

2	sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
3 ½	cups all-purpose flour
1 ½	teaspoons baking soda
1	Tablespoon cinnamon
1	teaspoon nutmeg
1	teaspoon ground cloves
1 ½	teaspoons salt
1 ½	cups granulated sugar
1 ½	cups light brown sugar, packed
4	large eggs
2	teaspoons vanilla extract
1 ½	cups cold buttermilk
4	large tart apples, peeled and shredded

For the Glaze:

2	Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
½	cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted
2	Tablespoons maple syrup

Kitchen Tools Used: A standard 9 inch bundt pan is a must in each kitchen. If you don’t have one click here to buy it at my Amazon store!

1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Butter a 9 inch bundt pan and lightly dust the inside with flour.

2. In a mixing bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt.

3. In a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. With the mixer on low, beat in the eggs one at a time. Then add the vanilla and mix again.

4. With the mixer on low add half of the buttermilk followed by half of the flour mixture. Repeat and mix until no more flour is visible. Add the shredded apples and mix them in with a spoon. The batter will be very thick.

5. Scrape the batter into the prepared Bundt pan and smooth the top. Baked it for 50 minutes to 1 hour. Check doneness with a cake tester. Let the cake cool on a wire rack in the Bundt pan for 10 minutes. Then turn it out onto a wire rack and let it cool completely.

6. To make the Glaze: Whisk together the butter and sugar until smooth and creamy. Beat in the maple syrup until it is completely incorporated. Allow it to sit at room temperature until ready to use.

7. Once the cake has cooled completely drizzle the glaze over it and serve.

Goblin Fingers

2010-11-01T16:23:00.000-06:00

Here's my contribution to Halloween food grossness. These are vanilla, cinnamon goblin fingers with roasted pumpkin seed finger nails and strawberry jam blood. I found this recipe from Canadian Living. In the original recipe they used blanched almonds for finger nails and decorating gel for the blood. Despite the gross factor these cookies are quite nice. This would make a nice refrigerator cookie. Some changes I would make for next time would be putting the cookies back in the fridge for 30min after shaping. The hot little hands that helped make these warmed up the dough so the cookies spread more than I wanted when cooking.

Goblin Fingers

(adapted from Canadian Living, Witch's Fingers)

Ingredients

cup

(250 mL)

butter

, softened

cup

(250 mL)

icing sugar

egg

tsp

(5 mL)

vanilla

2-3/4

cups

(675 mL)

all-purpose flour

tsp

(5 mL)

baking powder

tsp

(5 mL)

salt

1 tsp cinnamon

Roasted pumpkin seeds

strawberry/raspberry jam

Method

In bowl, beat together butter, sugar, egg and vanilla; beat in flour, baking powder and salt. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Working with one quarter of the dough at a time and keeping remaining dough refrigerated, roll heaping teaspoonful (5 mL) or tablespoonful of dough into finger shape for each cookie.

Press pumpkin seed firmly into end for nail. Squeeze in centre to create knuckle shape; using paring knife, make slashes in several places to form knuckle.

Place on lightly greased baking sheets; bake in 325°F (160°C) oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until pale golden. Let cool for 3 minutes. Decorate with jam to the appropriate level of bloodiness. Remove from baking sheets; let cool on racks. Repeat with remaining dough.

Mmmmmm Doughnuts

2010-10-28T08:32:00.000-06:00

The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious. The timing couldn't be better as last year I decided to make Halloween my official doughnut making time of year. I made the Old- Fashioned Buttermilk Cake doughnuts and J glazed some of them with maple glaze (Awesome) and dusted the others with icing sugar. I made some mini doughnuts last year and conquered my fear of deep frying. I find that if I use my cast iron enamel the temperature stays constant resulting in perfectly cooked doughnuts. I love doughnuts and next time I visit a local spot, home of the "Zillionaire Doughnut" I think I will finally eat one.
Now I like doughnuts but not the commercial ones particularly from that certain chain or from the grocery store. They are always too sweet and are have heartburn inducing greasiness. Blah. When I imagine a doughnut I think of a character from one of our favourite books, Arnie the Doughnut. He and his friends look delicious, sorry Arnie. One of the best doughnuts I've ever had was during a trip to Michigan and we visited an apple orchard and they served apple cider doughnuts, dreamy. I understand doughnuts are the new cupcake and I'm all for this new trend.

Bear Cookie

2010-09-27T14:23:00.001-06:00

The September 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mandy of What the fruitcake? Mandy challenged everyone to make Decorated Sugar Cookies based on recipes from Peggy Porschen and The Joy of Baking. We had to have a September or fall theme so I chose a bear shape because we usually go to Jasper in the fall.

English Eats

2010-09-19T16:23:00.000-06:00

Well, I think I'm finally back on track with the food blog after a brief hiatus from summer fun and obligations. The weather in Calgary is wet and cold and we all have a cold so something warm and comforting was in order for last night's supper. I created a Shepard's pie with ground pork and vegetables from our CSA. Even though it "was all mixed together" most parties ate it, eventually. If you ate it you got to eat the "olde" English standby of Bird's custard and fresh peaches for dessert.

Shepard's Pie

Meat Layer
1 pound ground pork
1 diced leek or 1/2 an onion
1 TBsp tamari soy sauce
1 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp thyme
salt and pepper to taste
splash of olive oil

Vegetable Layer
1 cup beans or peas
1 cup diced carrots

Potato Layer
4 Large potatoes
1/2 cup milk
2 TBsp butter
Reserve 2 1/2 cups of potato water

Gravy
1 diced onion
splash of olive oil
Reserved potato water
2 TBsp corn starch
1/2 cup cold water
pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375F
Boil potatoes, reserve water and then mash with milk and butter. In a frying pan brown pork and leek in a splash of olive oil. Add spices, salt pepper and soy sauce. Place meat in deep baking dish. Layer vegetables on top of meat.
Using same frying pan saute onion with a splash of olive oil, deglaze pan with a bit of the potato water and cook onions until they are soft and translucent. Add the remaining potato water and cook until boiling. Dissolve corn starch in cold water and add to the pan stirring until gravy is thickened. Pour gravy over meat and vegetables. Cover with mashed potatoes. Place a few dollops of butter on potatoes. Place baking dish on cookie sheet in case of overflow. Cook for 30 minutes until hot and bubbling.

Chocolate Bombe

2010-07-28T21:53:00.000-06:00

The July 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Sunita of Sunita's World - Life and Food. Sunita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that’s then used to make a bombe with hot fudge. Her recipe is based on an ice cream cake recipe from Taste of Home.- We haven't eaten it yet but luckily a little girl I know is turning 6 this week so tah-dah birthday cake! Sorry for the presentation I will gussy it up when it is birthday time.

Scottsdale Gourmet

2010-07-07T22:09:00.000-06:00

Well, we had a sample of the Arizona cuisine over the past two days. Nothing to fancy but nothing awful. No BBQ yet, I've had to fast and I have to drink radio active water tomorrow but we are hoping to do a little more scouting around on the weekend. Either Tuscon or Yuma. The local gas station claims to be a gourmet store but it is just convinience store. We went to Whole Foods today so I could grab some fruit and yogurt without scary things in it and water because you need to drink a crazy amount of water here. It was 106 at 5:00pm. Sorry no pictures I'm not that fancy.

Chocolate Pavlova, it's Parfait!

2010-06-27T18:28:00.000-06:00

The June 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. Dawn challenged the Daring Bakers’ to make Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse. The challenge recipe is based on a recipe from the book Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard. I decided to make it more ''summery'' by plating the pavlova in my new parfait glasses. As you can see I haven't posted for awhile the end of year June activities have got the better of me and my stomach is not so good right now so food and I are not friends. In fact I don't think I will be able to enjoy this treat but I did taste each element. The mascarpone mousse it very rich, I used the leftover creme anglais and made ice cream and I'll do something with the leftover mousse too. The chocolate pavlovas, I think the munchkins and I can take care of those tomorrow.

My Nemesis

2010-05-27T14:24:00.000-06:00

The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake . Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

Now some of you (those who had to eat it and pretend it was good) may know that the croquembouche is my nemesis. I hosted a bridal shower once and thought how cute if I was to make a french wedding cake for dessert. It turned out terrible it was mushy and I was as mad as a certain incredible hulk like preschooler. So needless to say I was a little nervous about having to face this recipe again. But I was brave and invited company to share this challenge and to enjoy our first bbq outside on the deck of the season. I think my problem before was filling the pastries the night before, do not do this otherwise they get mushy, so this time I filled them shortly before I built the tower. I am pleased to say the croquembouhce was much more successful this time. Although my sugar skills still need practice but as you can see in the following picture I had a short window to take my picture before Mr. Carbs got his hands on the cream puffs.

It's All About the Cake

2010-05-10T10:00:00.000-06:00

With all the running around for soccer, brownies etc. I've realized I haven't even posted about J's birthday cake. The rule at our house is you have to pick a birthday theme that can make a good cake and you are no longer allowed to combine themes, the horse on a motorcycle was a one time deal, although it was really funny.

Here's the cakes I made for the kid party. It was pretty hilarious because some of the kids didn't realize that these were cupcakes, so when I asked them if they wanted ice cream they kept giving me funny looks. Here are some of our other favorite birthday cakes.

Horse on a Motorcycle

Sushi Cupcakes

Mermaid Cake, this was my first cake for an official kid party.

Dad's Best Pizza

2010-05-04T13:16:00.000-06:00

One of the best pizza's we ever made was a hawaiian pizza made with fresh pineapple and leftover ham. So we were inspired this weekend on our usual pizza night by the fresh pineapple we picked up at the market on Friday. Yes, I know we added olives but that's what we like. Fresh pineapple is WOW on a pizza and we used a nice Italian ham from Linas. The pineapple also came in handy in our morning smoothies and then in a batch of toasted coconut and pineapple muffins. I love it when you can use one ingredient and stretch it's uses it makes it feel like you got your money's worth out of an organic pineaple that cost. . . nevermind. A taste of the tropical as it looks like Christmas Eve here in Alberta. We are going to have tourtiere(with ketchup the Quebecois way) and I might make a rice pudding too. Julie van Rossendal had it on her blog today and it would suit the weather. I'm also trying to fatten(maybe this isn't the right word) up D since soccer has started two times a week she is Hungry with a capital H. J on the other hand now requires four breakfasts he eats as much as two hobbits.

Mmmmmm Suet

2010-04-27T20:37:00.000-06:00

The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen . She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet. I whipped this up today and I must admit I am a little caked out right now since it was birthday week this week at our house and I had already made 3 batches of cupcakes, two cakes and one batch of rice krispie squares. Of course nobody wanted a traditional British Pudding for their birthday although maybe if I had pushed the beef fat aspect he might have been convinced. I did plan ahead and I had picked up some suet earlier in the month at the farmer's market from the beef place so at least the fat is grass fed, organic etc. It is sold by the pound for $1.00. I searched around for a recipe in some of my old fashioned cook books but the one I liked the best was from Jamie Oliver's first recipe book, The Naked Chef. I'm not a huge fan of this style of pudding when it is made like a Christmas pudding, it's just not my thing. Jamie Oliver describes his childhood memory of pudding served with custard, so that sold me.This recipe is almost like a steamed white cake or a cottage pudding. I tried the syrup style with a few tablespoons of maple syrup added and I used brown sugar just because. I made some custard and this recipe used corn starch so it is a little firmer then I like but still pretty yummy. i noticed some people did a savoury style pudding which I did not know about so maybe I'll try one of those with the rest of my suet, there is some to spare.

Basic Steamed Pudding Recipe

Syrup Pudding, from Jamie Oliver The Naked Chef, 2000

1 1/2 cups of self rising flour

pinch of salt

1/3 cup sugar (I used brown sugar)

1/2 cup shredded suet or butter, softened

1 large egg

1/2 cup milk

3 tablespoons of maple syrup

Grease a 2-pint pudding basin. Spoon in your chosen flavour(maple syrup). Mix together(in a mixer or by hand)the flour, salt, sugar and suet or softened butter. then add the egg and milk and mix well. put into a pudding basin, covered with wax paper or a cloth tied with string or aluminum foil, stand the basin in a pan with water halfway up the sides of the basin. Cover with a tight fitting lid. Bring to the boil, then simmer for about 2 hours, topping up with boiling water if necessary. Don't let it boil dry and make sure it does not go off the boil.

Lemon Curd Strawberry Shortcake

2010-04-12T14:31:00.000-06:00

Did you ever notice I hardly ever post a savoury recipe? I do make good non-dessert foods so next time I will post a less sweet recipe. Although I did make gnocchi the other day and it didn't work. I'm not sure what I did wrong but I was at little frustrated, I hate it when food doesn't work out. I may have banged some pots around. But for now here's a little cake we had for dessert at Easter. I used the doughnut tin and made everyone their own lemon curd filled doughnut. Lemon curd may seem intimidating but as far as fussy things go it is pretty easy and the results are impressive. This is a great recipe because it doesn't make too much. Recently I heard a suggestion of putting leftover lemon curd on your toast in the morning. I didn't try it because all I had was Easter bread and I thought that was going too far. This cake can also be used for 12 cupcakes or for two 9 inch cakes and then use the curd between the layers. To step up the lemon element add some lemon zest to the whip cream.

Lemon Curd Strawberry Shortcake

(adapted from Moosewood Restaurant Celebrates, 2003 - Lemon Curd Layer Cake)

Lemon Curd
4 egg yolks
1 Tbsp lemon zest
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice (you can use bottled lemon juice)
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature cut into 1inch pieces

Cake
2 1/4 cups of unbleached white flour
1 1/3 cups sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
4 egg whites
1 cup heavy cream or whipping cream
1/2 cup of buttermilk
1 Tbsp lemon zest
1 tsp of pure vanilla extract

Top
1 cup heavy or whipping cream
fruit - strawberries, raspberries, blue berries etc.

Whisk together the egg yolks(remember to save the whites for the cake), lemon zest, lemon zest and sugar in a saucepan. Cook the mixture on medium heat, whisking constantly, until the lemon curd thickens and becomes foamy, 5 to 6 minutes. Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter one piece at a time, until the curd is smooth and uniform. Cover and refrigerate the curd until you are ready to fill the cake.
Preheat the oven to 350F.
Prepare whatever pans you have chosen to use.
In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Beat the reserved egg whites ina separate bowl until they begin to form stiff peaks; set aside. In a large bowl, whip the heavy cream with an electric mixer or whisk until soft peaks form. Gently stir the buttermilk, lemon peel, and vanilla into the whipped cream; then fold in the egg whites. Add the flour mixture in thirds and stir just until the batter is uniform. Pour half the batter into each of the prepared pans.
Bake until the cakes begin to pull away from the edges of the pan and a cake tester comes out clean, about 25 - 30 minutes. Cool on a rack 10 minutes and then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.
Whip your cream and plate your shortcakes to your liking.

Easter Babka

2010-04-02T15:54:00.000-06:00

This week was Ukrainian week. I started off Monday making babka which is an Ukrainian Easter bread. We also had perogies on Wednesday night I'm getting so good I made them in an hour, which for me is fast. I've got this perogie maker now so it helps in the speed department. The kids and M also made psankya, Ukrainian Easter eggs. Anyways back to the bread. I used a recipe from Baba's Cookbook by Emily Linkiewich first published in 1979 and there are still copies around I found mine at Heritage Days in Edmonton a couple of years ago. It has all the basic Ukrainian recipes for Christmas and Easter. This is the recipe my mother-in-law uses and I've always had good results. Babka is usually made in a round loaf and I used some old coffee tins. It's hard to find tins without the label painted on it or a coating on the inside, some people don't care but I would rather use a plain tin. So if you plan on trying this keep an eye out for tins at least 2L or more in size. You can still make it in a regular loaf shape. For my fruit I still have some candied orange peel I made last year which I keep in the freezer and I picked up some dried cherries and I used regular raisins and soaked them in lemon juice to boast their flavour and texture. This recipe uses an insane amount of eggs, M's Grandma used to always make an angel food cake with the leftover egg whites.

Ukrainian Easter Babka , Adapted from Baba's Kitchen Volume 1

1/2 cup lukewarm water

2 pkgs of yeast

1 tsp sugar

2 cups scalded milk

1/2 lb butter melted

1 tbsp salt

Flour to make soft dough 7- 10 cups or more

11/4 cup sugar

5 whole eggs

10 yolks

juice and zest of 1 orange

3 - 4 cups of dried fruit and raisins

Dissolve the sugar in the lukewarm water, sprinkle the yeast over it and stir to dissolve. let stand 10 minutes. In a large bowl beat the eggs and the egg yolks adding the sugar, a little at a time. Add the salt, orange juice, orange zest, milk and the yeast mixture. Blend well and gradually mix in the flour a cup at a time alternating with the melted butter a little bit at a time until you have a soft dough. On a clean floured surface knead the dough until it no longer clings to your hands. Place the dough in a large bowl and cover and let rise until double in bulk. Knead the dough again for several minutes and then let it rise again as before.

Grease tall tins. When you are ready to form loaves. Form a piece of dough into a ball enough to fill 1/3 of the tin. Let rise in a warm place until the dough barely reaches the top. Brush tops of loaves with 1 egg beaten with a little bit of water. Bake in a preheated oven at 350F fro 25 minutes and then lower the oven temperature to 300F and bake for another 20 - 25 minutes.

Babka should be handled very carefully when taken out of the tins. It should be laid on a soft, covered cushion or pillow. Change position of babka as it cools.

Honey Tangelo Tian with Blood Orange Caramel

2010-03-27T12:27:00.000-06:00

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris. For this recipe there is a sable cookie layer, then marmalade, whipped cream with marmalade, segmented honey tangelos and then I made the caramel with the juice from some blood oranges. we had to make it all from scratch including the marmalade. I only had enough honey tangelos which I believe are a type of tangerine to make two tians so too bad for everyone only M and I got to have them. Even the munchkins missed out since I made them after they had gone to bed although they did get to sample the cream and cookies. As luck would have it I found marmalade oranges at the farmers' market this month but I am still not crazy about it. I now have some leftover in the fridge that I would be happy to donate to some marmalade lover. I had leftover caramel and cream too so I made that into a lovely blood orange ripple ice cream to be eaten during next month's birthday extravaganza.

Ukrainian Hullabaloo

2010-03-26T14:47:00.001-06:00

D just asked J if he wants to play Ukrainian Hullabaloo, I have no idea what that is. They were just playing music class with guess who as the teacher and J as the student, she sounds exactly like a teacher. This week D was on the planning committe for her classe's spring party. She came home with all seriousness and told me that she would make sure we got to bring something dessert like. That's my girl! Here they are working away on the cookie chain gang, they used so many sprinkles, we have actually run out.

Coolest Pan Ever

2010-03-17T14:22:00.000-06:00

I whipped these babies up the other day and there was no deep frying involved. I found the best pan, a doughnut pan! You can do cake or yeast doughnuts and basically it is a doughnut shaped muffin tin. They even make a mini doughnut pan too, I'm totally getting one. I have made doughnuts before and they were awesome and the deep-frying was not as bad as I expected but it was time consuming. Baking cuts done considerably on the fat content of doughnuts and we thought they were scrumptious. I'm not going to give a recipe today because I would like to do some more experimenting. I think you could do any muffin or cupcake recipe. Stay tuned. I should be doing an Irish meal today and normally I would but we have leftover chili to eat tonight so I'll save the Irish inspiration for later this week. Can someone please write a comment so I know if it is working yet?

Give Pure Sugar to Kids

2010-03-14T17:43:00.001-06:00

Yesterday was the Family Social party at our pre-school so of course I put my name down for something sweet, not like the boring vegetable tray I got stuck with for the grade two class. I was not too excited about cookies and I was a little tentative about doing something too crazy for the fussy pre-school set so I decided to make marshmallows. Homemade marshmallows are sooooo good! They are sweet and sticky and use three types of sugar so how can you go wrong? I've made them a couple of times before. For D's fairy birthday I made strawberry flavoured marshmallows and cut it out in the shape of tree tops for the fairy cake(I couldn't find a picture) and I made them this past Christmas when I made those chocolate covered marshmallow cookies (aka Viva Puffs) with dulce de leche in the middle. This time I used a recipe from another food blog Under the High Chair. Aimee the writer of this blog made marshmallows shaped like her son's first initial and the number two for his 2nd birthday. The theme of our party was Safari but I couldn't think of a simple shape to make and I thought if I made letters it might be too controversial so I piped out some circles (just to practice my piping) and then I made the standard square shapes too. This recipe was great and easy and involved no eggs, nuts or dairy. You could even make them vegan if you used vegan gelatin. Almost all of them were eaten so definitely a good choice for a family friendly event, except for the sugar part.

Basic Vanilla Marshmallows

(adapted from the French Laundry Cookbook by Thomas Keller via Under the High Chair)

3 envelopes of Knox gelatin
1/2 cup cold water
2 cups granulated sugar
2/3 cups light corn syrup
1/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tsp vanilla paste or 1 Tbsp of pure vanilla extract
In the bowl of an electric mixer, sprinkle gelatin over 1/2 cup cold water. Soak for 10 minutes. Combine sugar, corn syrup, and 1/4 cup water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and boil hard for 1 minute.
Pour boiling syrup into gelatin and mix at high speed. Add the salt and beat for 12 minutes. Add vanilla and incorporate into mixture. Scrape into a 9 x 9-inch pan lined with oiled plastic wrap and spread evenly. (Note: Lightly oil hands and spatula or bowl scraper).
Cover marshmallow mixture with another piece of plastic wrap and press mixture into the pan.  Let mixture sit for a few hours or overnight.
Remove from pan, dredge the marshmallow slab with confectioners' sugar and cut into 12-20 equal pieces with scissors or a chef's knife.
Dredge each piece of marshmallow in confectioners' sugar. Enjoy!
*Note Confectioner's sugar is powdered or icing sugar

Smokin Trout

2010-03-08T09:38:00.001-07:00

The fishermen returned last week and brought with them probably the best haul ever for their ice fishing trip. These tasty treats were caught at Fish Lake near Nordegg Alberta and I guess our little hint of 'smoked trout' worked because this is what came home. Just to clarify too M did not catch these but luckily having two little cuties at home, well three if you count me, means you get to take all best fish home. J had a good look at them while I prepared the fish and wasn't so worried about fish faces this year but did inquire how did they get dead? Now most kids probably wouldn't eat fish like this for example the kids that were at a party this weekend and D made a yogurt and mango dip and they didn't eat it, seriously it had mango, vanilla yogurt and honey what could be more kid friendly? I'm just glad my picky eater has turned the corner and is excited for fresh caught smoked trout. J even ate the cheeks out of the larger fish.
To prepare the fish I brined the large one(1 1/2 lbs - 2lbs) in a salt, brown sugar and water brine.I put a rub of salt, pepper and lemon zest on the smaller ones and then marinated them in lemon, salt and fresh parsley. I then put them on the BBQ to smoke for a couple of hours. This technique is called hot smoking as compared to cold smoking which is how smoked salmon is prepared. Because of the size of the fish I left them whole but for larger fish you should fillet them. Brining the fish had better results so that's what I will do next time. Feel free to catch me fish and bring them to my BBQ.

Easy Lemon Pie from Scratch

2010-03-01T13:52:00.000-07:00

I know it's a miracle I'm posting again already. J just fell asleep on the living room floor in the sunbeam. I would love to have nap too but after I'm done this I have to prepare some rainbow trout for a trip to the land of smoke. Hopefully the results will be blog worthy. I made this lemon pie on the weekend and it was really good. I love lemon pie but I don't like the fake filling and I never seem to get around to making one from scratch. I came across this recipe in one of my old Canadian Living magazines when I was organizing my recipes. It has a great solution to making a lemon curd from scratch which can be tricky but using condensed milk made it so easy. This pie definitely had "mile high" meringue and I wish I would have taken a picture of it when I took it out of the oven. Sister M even ate the meringue as she recounted to the kids how we used to split her lemon pie as kids. I would take her meringue, L would eat the filling and she would eat the crust. You should have seen how she used to eat doughnuts, she's the only person I've ever known who thought there was "crust" around a doughnut hole.

Creamy Lemon Meringue Pie

(Canadian Living Magazine, April 2008)

Ingredients

4 egg yolks

1 tbsp (15 mL) finely grated lemon rind

1 (300 mL) can (sweetened condensed milk

1/2 cup(125 mL) fresh lemon juice

Meringue:

1 tbsp(15 mL) cornstarch

4 egg whites, (at room temperature)

1/4 tsp (1 mL) cream of tartar

1/3 cup instant dissolving (fruit/berry) sugar

Sour Cream Pastry:

1-1/4 cups(300 mL) all-purpose flour

1/4 tsp (1 mL) salt

1/4 cup (50 mL) cold butter, cubed

1/4 cup (50 mL) cold lard (*I used butter since lard is well, lardy)

2 tbsp (25 mL) ice water

4 tsp (18 mL) sour cream

Preparation:

Sour Cream Pastry: In bowl, whisk flour with salt. Using pastry blender, cut in butter and lard until in fine crumbs with a few larger pieces.
Whisk water with sour cream; drizzle over dry ingredients, stirring briskly with fork to form ragged dough. Press into disc; wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes or until chilled. (Make-ahead: Refrigerate for up to 24 hours.)
On lightly floured surface, roll out pastry to 1/8-inch (3 mm) thickness. Fit into 9-inch (23 cm) pie plate. Trim edge to 1-inch (2.5 cm) overhang; fold under and flute edge.
Line pie shell with foil; fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake in bottom third of 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 minutes. Remove weights and foil. Prick shell all over. Bake for 10 minutes or until golden. Let cool on rack. (Make-ahead: Set aside for up to 24 hours.)
In bowl, beat egg yolks with lemon rind for 2 minutes or until light. Beat in condensed milk and lemon juice; pour into cooled crust, smoothing top. Bake in centre of 325°F (160°C) oven for 7 minutes.
Meringue: Meanwhile, in small microwaveable bowl, whisk cornstarch with 1/3 cup (75 mL) cold water. Micro-wave at high for about 40 seconds or until thickened, stirring twice. Cover with plastic wrap and keep warm.
In bowl, beat egg whites with cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Beat in instant dissolving sugar, 1 tbsp (15 mL) at a time, until stiff peaks form. Beat in cornstarch mixture, 1 tbsp (15 mL) at a time, until incorporated.
Starting at edge and using spatula, spread meringue around outside of hot filling, sealing to crust. Spread over remaining filling, making peaks with back of spoon. Bake in centre of 325°F (160°C) oven for 20 minutes until peaks are golden. Let cool on rack for about 3 hours or until set.
Source

Canadian Living Magazine: April 2008

Oh Canada Tiramisu

2010-02-27T15:14:00.000-07:00

Here's my second Daring Baker's challenge. The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession. This dessert was a great success and I think that by making everything from scratch the flavours of every component were not put off by any artificial flavours. When I have made this dessert before I have used store-bought lady fingers and they have a kind of stale, artificial, bland flavour but the ones I made were perfect for eating on their own or soaked in coffee.

I served this at my parents house on Family Day and my Dad said it was the best he had ever had. My tiramisu was booze free but the kids were not put off by the coffee flavours. In fact I think J wanted a second helping, yeah no, 3 year bolds only get one helping of coffee per day thank you. I've given you the recipe for the mascarpone cheese because it was easy and it allows you to control what goes into it. Many store brands have preservatives or additives in them but this was just cream and lemon juice and if you are picky, picky like me you can use organic cream and organic lemons. In the end this is probably cheaper too, I think. I often use mascarpone cheese when cream cheese is called for because I like the smooth texture better. I was making this when the kids had some friends over and I think they thought it was a little strange that I was making cheese. It's too bad the cheese had to set overnight or I could have given them some delicious coffee dessert before I sent them home. My local Italian market carries a brand without anything added to it but I think I will make my own next time I need it.

MASCARPONE CHEESE

(Source: Vera’s Recipe for Homemade Mascarpone Cheese)

This recipe makes 12oz/ 340gm of mascarpone cheese
Ingredients:
474ml (approx. 500ml)/ 2 cups whipping (36 %) pasteurized (not ultra-pasteurized), preferably organic cream (between 25% to 36% cream will do)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Method:
Bring 1 inch of water to a boil in a wide skillet. Reduce the heat to medium-low so the water is barely simmering. Pour the cream into a medium heat-resistant bowl, then place the bowl into the skillet. Heat the cream, stirring often, to 190 F. If you do not have a thermometer, wait until small bubbles keep trying to push up to the surface.

It will take about 15 minutes of delicate heating. Add the lemon juice and continue heating the mixture, stirring gently, until the cream curdles. Do not expect the same action as you see during ricotta cheese making. All that the whipping cream will do is become thicker, like a well-done crème anglaise. It will cover a back of your wooden spoon thickly. You will see just a few clear whey streaks when you stir. Remove the bowl from the water and let cool for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, line a sieve with four layers of dampened cheesecloth and set it over a bowl. Transfer the mixture into the lined sieve. Do not squeeze the cheese in the cheesecloth or press on its surface (be patient, it will firm up after refrigeration time). Once cooled completely, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate (in the sieve) overnight or up to 24 hours.

Vera’s notes: The first time I made mascarpone I had all doubts if it’d been cooked enough, because of its custard-like texture. Have no fear, it will firm up beautifully in the fridge, and will yet remain lusciously creamy.

Keep refrigerated and use within 3 to 4 days.

Crab Cakes

2010-02-22T10:20:00.000-07:00

Holy busy bees batman. I started off so good with this blog . . . the last few weeks I have struggled to find the time to post even once. Oh well. Of course I have still been in the kitchen. I made the weekly obligatory batch of muffins, some no-knead bread, crab cakes and M cooked up a ham on Saturday which he then turned into a wonderful Hawaiian pizza on Sunday. You know it's bad when M cooks two days in a row. D and I snuck out on Friday night and had sushi for supper before going to cousin S's bridal shower,where there was bacon cinnamon buns, yummy. My best success of the week was crab cakes and salmon cakes. For those of you who visit COSTCO you know there is usually one item in your cart that is something you did not plan to purchase. Ie. books, yoga pants, candy etc. Last month my random purchase was a pound of fresh crab meat. It has no additives or preservatives and in this land locked province where it is pretty much impossible to find fresh seafood (ask me sometime about our wormy fish experiences) it's not bad, so this month I couldn't resisist again. This recipe is another Moosewood one and I made two sauces to accompany the cakes. I used the same recipe for both and substituted salmon for crab. This was purely for J's benefit who hasn't had crab or other shellfish yet, I'm hoping they will test him for that tomorrow. I roasted up some potatoes in olive oil and salt and pepper and we did have carrot sticks, peppers and cucumber too.

Crab Cakes

(from Moosewood Restaurant Celebrates, 2003)

Serves 4, Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking Time: 10 - 25 minutes

1 egg

14 teaspoon dijon mustard

1 1/2 teaspoons soy sauce

2 Tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

1 cup bread crumbs (pulverize stale or lightly toasted bread in a blender or food processor. Use a white flour bread such as an Italian or French loaf) I get mine from Lina's and keep them in the freezer for just this type of recipe.

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 pound of crab meat

2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley

1 teaspoon chopped scallions(green onions)

1/2 teaspoon Old Bay Seasoning (I've found it at Safeway)

In a small bowl, whisk together the egg, mustard, soy sauce, olive oil, and lemon juice. In a separate bowl, first combine the bread crumbs and baking powder and then add the crab meat, parsley, scallions, and Old Bay Seasoning. Stir in the egg mixture and blend thoroughly . Shape the mixture into eight cakes about 3/4 inch thick and 3 inches across. (or, if you prefer, make four jumbo cakes.)

To pan fry, heat one or two lightly oiled cast iron or other heavy pans or griddles. Cook the crab cakes for about 7 minutes on each side, until golden and crisp.

to broil, preheat the broiler. Place crab cakes on an oiled broiler pan. Broil for 6 minutes on the first side. Turn the crab cakes over and broil for 4 minutes more.

Note: Total cooking time depends on the size of your broiler pan or griddle and how many you use. if you can cook all of the cakes at once, pan frying will take about 15 minutes and broiling 10 minutes.

For the sauces I adapted two Moosewood sauces: Versatile Sour Cream Sauce and Chipotle Aioli (Make these ahead of time so the flavours have time to develop)

Sauce 1: I mixed 1 cup of sour cream with minced green onion, 1 garlic clove, 2 teaspoons of lemon juice, 1 teaspoon of sugar, fresh dill and parsley and salt and pepper to taste. Mix these in a bowl and refrigerate until ready to use

Sauce 2: 2/3 cup of mayonnaise, 2 Tbsp of chipotles in Adobo sauce,(I get these from Community Foods, maybe at Linas or a Latin American grocery store) juice from one lime 1 large garlic clove minced and 1/2 tsp of salt. Combine in a blender and blitz until smooth.

"Bring What you Love" Valentines Dinner

2010-02-16T20:11:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday in honour of Valentines day/Olympics we had a little party where all the guest had to bring something to eat that they love. It was an interesting and delicious mix of food. Starting from 12:00 in the picture we have pulled pork and BBQ Chicken, macaroni and cheese, Fat Tuesday's Skinny Red Beans, Gnocchi with C's special sauce and Leekie Pie (because everything tastes good if it's in a pie). The only thing not pictured were the appetizers of chips and snails. The three year old devoured the snails, go figure? Oddly there was no dessert. I think everyone expected me to make something because well that's my thing but I was in the middle of my Daring Baker's Challenge and it wasn't completed yet(which it was yesterday and it is yummy, yummy) but we were so full nobody cared. In honour of Fat Tuesday here's the recipe for the beans L made.

Fat Tuesday's Skinny Red Beans

(Moosewood Restaurant Low -Fat Favorites, 1996)The Moosewood Collective

2 cups chopped onions
1 tablespoon minced garlic
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped bell peppers(red, green,yellow, or orange, or a combination)
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried basil
1teaspoon dried marjoram
pinch of cayenne, or more to taste
3 cups chopped fresh or canned tomatoes (28-ounce can)
1 1/2 cups cooked or canned kidney beans (15-ounce can, drained)
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 cup fresh or frozen sliced okra (optional)
salt and pepper to taste
chopped fresh parsley or minced scallions

Combine the onions, garlic, and olive oil in a soup pot. Cover and saute on medium heat fro about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onions are softened. Add the carrots, celery, bell peppers, oregano, thyme, basil,marjoram, and cayenne. Cover and cook for another 5 to 10 minutes, stirring to prevent sticking. When the vegetables are just tender, stir in the tomatoes, kidney beans, mustard, brown sugar, and okra, if desired. Simmer gently for 5 to 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve topped with parsley or scallions.
Serves 4 to 6
Total time: 35 minutes

Apple Caramel Up-Down-Side Cake

2010-02-10T16:42:00.000-07:00

I'm having trouble keeping up the last few days. Meetings, meetings, meetings. Yesterday we took the Brownies to the food-bank for a tour. We are working on a service project and this was the first part. Next they will go shopping at the grocery store and buy groceries to donate to the food-bank, using the money they have raised selling cookies. It was a eureka moment for them when one of the girls exclaimed,Ï know why this is called the food bank, because they have food instead of money!" "Ah, ha," the rest of the girls said. This has nothing to do with my recipe it's just my excuse for not posting in a few days.
I made this cake on the weekend and I pulled a Granny when it spilled over a bit into the bottom of my already hideously dirty stove and smokiness resulted. this happened right before we were about to make pizza. It was time to give up so we went out for fish and chips. The cake was served the next day and some had it with vanilla whip cream as pictured above or homemade vanilla ice cream.

Caramel Apple Up-Down-Side Cake

(Adapted from America's Test Kitchen, 2010 Easy Caramel Cake and Caramel Apple Upside- Down Cake, February 2010)

Serves 8 -10

Caramel

8 Tbsp unsalted butter

2 cups brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 tsp vanilla

In a large saucepan over medium heat, melt butter, brown sugar and salt until small bubbles appear around edge of pan. 4 - 8 minutes. Whisk in cream and cook for one more minute. Take off heat, add vanilla. This make lots of caramel so pour out 1 cup to use for something else.

Set caramel aside.

Apples

Core, peel and slice 3 - 4 apples. In a skillet melt 2 Tbsp of butter and 1 tsp of cinnamon. Cook apples until tendercrisp, 10 minutes.

Cake

9 inch round, metal cake pan.

1/2 cup soft, unsalted butter

2/3 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 3/4 cup all- purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350F.

In a large bowl beat butter with sugar until light. Beat in eggs one at a time. Beat in vanilla.

Ina separate bowl whisk flour, baking powder and baking soda. Stir into the butter mixture alternating with buttermilk making 3 additions of dry ingredients and 2 of buttermilk.

Constructing cake:

Pour remaining caramel into cake pan and arrange apples in the caramel. Spread batter over apples and caramel. Place cake on baking sheet if you don't want the fire alarm to go off. Bake 40 -45 minutes. Let stand on rack for 5 minutes. Invert onto serving plate and let stand 5 minutes, before gently lifting off pan. Scrape any apples off pan onto cake. Serve with vanilla whip cream or ice cream.

Biscuits in the Oven

2010-02-06T14:28:00.000-07:00

Some people don't like them but I like biscuits. Biscuits were one of the first things I learned to make in my infamous home ec. experience. (Why anyone thought it would be a good idea to stick a bunch of grade 8 kids on a school bus without supervision and take them to the neighbouring town for home ec and shop is a mystery.) Despite the disasterous home ec. experience I did learn how to make a good biscuit. At home we always had sourdough biscuits made with Granny's special sourdough, always with homemade chicken or turkey soup. I continue this tradition and it is now required that if we have soup there must be biscuits involved. Then there was the discovery of devonshire cream and jam on biscuits, there was a little place in Lethbridge that used to serve them. If you keep your eye out at the grocery store devonshire cream will often go on sale, totally worth it. Last night we dug the leftover borscht and some potatoe soup out of the freezer so biscuits were on the menu too.

I am always on the search for any way to improve on my biscuits. I usually use buttermilk and sometimes I use eggs. I don't like a sweet biscuit so I don't use sugar. For the most part in my experience you should not handle the biscuit dough too much. If you spend too much time kneading the dough you run the risk of developing the gluten in the flour too much resulting in a tough, hockey puck biscuit. Normally I don't even knead the dough. Once the dough comes together I place it on a floured surface and flatten with my hands before cutting out the rounds. I recently came across a recipe where you do briefly knead the dough and fold it over and I had a good result last night with this recipe. I think you can play around with different flour types, mine are are strictly all-purpose since my stomach does not like whole wheat. I think if you added 1/2 - 3/4 of a cup of whole wheat flour you would still get a good result.

Here's the recipe I used from Brownies for Dinner :

Buttermilk Biscuits

(from Homesick Texan)
The best biscuit I’ve made. Perhaps the best biscuit I’ve eaten. And just so you know, I’ve eaten a lot of biscuits. Tall, flaky, layered. These biscuits are tender but substantial enough to stand up to a thick cream gravy. Perfection.
Makes 10-12 biscuits.

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 stick (1/2 cup or 8 tablespoons) butter, cold

3/4 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Mix together all of the dry ingredients.
Using a pastry blender or your fingers, cut the butter into the dry ingredients until it resembles pea-sized crumbs.
Make a well in the center of the butter-flour mixture and pour in the buttermilk. Stir until the flour is just incorporated but the dough is sticky and loose.
Pour dough onto a floured surface and knead for about 1 minute. The dough should be smooth and no longer wet. (Sprinkle the surface with more flour if the dough is sticking).
Shape the dough into a ball, and hit it with a rolling pin, turning it and folding it in half every few whacks. Do this for a couple of minutes. [Better than a therapy session]
Roll dough until it is 1/4 inch thick and then fold it in half. Cut out your biscuits from the folded dough using a round biscuit cutter or a glass (pick whatever size you like best. I’ve used anything from a shot glass to a tumbler depending on my mood).
Place on a baking sheet lined with a silicon mat or parchment paper (or grease the baking sheet if not using either of those). Make sure the biscuits are slightly touching so that they will help each other rise up instead of out.
Bake for 12-15 minutes, until the tops are golden brown.
Eat them with butter, jam, preserves, gravy or friends. Just eat them.

Bake Sale Snickerdoodles

2010-02-01T19:06:00.002-07:00

After exiting the bus today D exclaimed we have to take cookies tomorrow, we wrote it in our agendas! What for? Well the other class is going to sell them and so and so brought some in. Is this a fundraiser for Haiti? I think so. Do you want to make some cookies. Yes. Than later . . . I don't know when the sale is. Probably tomorrow since you have to take the cookies. Well, maybe but the teacher didn't say and I don't know how much they will be. Oh dear . . . the details of life are lost on certain people. I'm assuming this vague information is because she was away last week. Anyways we whipped up some Snickerdoodles while our other little friend snoozed in the stroller after falling asleep immediately after leaving the house to go to the bus. They are a darn good cookie and D shaped and finished them herself. Here's where we got the recipe from:
http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/09/snickerdoodles/

Happy Croissant Day!

2010-01-31T13:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was croissant day so here are my results. I put chocolate in a couple of them and would have done more chocolate but my supplies are low since the no-peanut rules are being enforced. The munchkins approved but J wanted me to make a 'Swiss' pastry which is his staple at the farmer's market, oh bother. For my dough I used a danish pastry dough and basically made a simple puff pastry. This recipe is not as buttery and therefore not as greasy as some. I made it friday and then it was ready to go saturday morning. My crescent shapes were not the best and I found I liked the look of ones that were just rolled up rectangles rather than rolled up triangles. This recipe made 2 pounds of dough so I used half and then the rest is going in the freezer. To use again you just need to defrost overnight in the fridge.

Croissants

(adapted from Danish Log - Home Baking Jeffery Alford and Naomi Duguid)

1 cup cold milk
1 Tbsp active dry yeast
1/4 cup sugar
2 3/4 cups all -purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 large egg
1/2 pound (2 sticks)cold unsalted butter
one large egg for egg wash
maple sugar for dusting
Half recipe makes about 6-8 croissants(this is really a guess it depends on your rolling skills)
If you are making this the same day you need about 5 hours before you want to serve.
Measure the milk into a small bowl, sprinkle in the yeast and 1 Tbsp of sugar, whisk to blend and dissolve the yeast, set aside.
In a large bowl combine the remaining sugar, the flour and the salt. Add the egg and mix into the flour with a fork. Take half a stick of cold butter and blend it into the flour with a pastry blender until it reseambles coarse meal. (like when making pie crust) Give the yeast mixture one more stir and then mix into the flour/butter. When the dough comes together turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for four minutes until smooth add more flour as neccessary. Flatten the dough and wrap in plastic and put in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour.
When you are ready to start the next step take out the remaining butter from the fridge and and thinly slice it onto a plate.
Lightly flour your work surface and turn out the dough. Flatten the dough into a rectangle 18'' by 12". Lay slices of butter on half the dough, they can overlap. Fold the unbuttered side over the buttered side and pinch the edges to seal. Flatten the dough by tapping it gently with your rolling pin and then roll until you have a rectangle 16" by 10. Fold the dough into thirds, like a business letter and then fold crosswise in half. wrap in palstic again and put into the fridge for another 20 minutes.
Turn out the dough again onto a lightly floured surface and flatten into a rectangle about 16" by 8". Fold into into a business letter, flatten and fold crosswise. Wrap in plastic and put in the fridge for another hour and it's ready to go.
Cut dough in half and put remaining dough in freezer if not using. Roll out until you have a rectangle about 1/4'' thick. Cut into smaller squares and then divide into triangles if you are going to make crescent shapes if not leave as rectangle/squares. Roll up and place on a parchment lined baking sheet cover and let rest for 30 min to an hour.
Preheat oven to 400F.
Beat egg in small bowl and brush pastries with egg wash. Sprinkle with maple sugar. Bake for 20 mintues. Keep an eye on them as cooking times will vary depending what size you have shaped your pastries.

Oh Deer!

2010-01-29T19:53:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what's happening to me but I've eaten strange (for me) meat twice in one week. Last Friday I had duck at Murietta's and this week I cooked some deer courtesy of my brother-in-law. Even stranger I liked both. Actually the strangeset thing was the kids choosing to eat the stew, what city kids choose deer meat? Since both kids were sick this week I decided to cook up the deer since they were not really very hungry so I thought it would be a good opportunity to try the deer. I used the slow cooker and looked over a few recipes and this is what I came up with. Don't be picky about cooking onions in the bacon fat. Deer is pretty lean and everything I read said to add some extra fat to the dish.

Venison and Dark -Ale Slow Cooker Stew

2 - 3lbs Deer meat
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
salt and pepper
4 slices bacon or side pork diced
2 large onions sliced
1 1/2 cups diced celery
1 1/2 cups of carrots sliced
4 cloves of garlic smashed
2 potatoes cubed
1 bottle dark ale
1 cup water or stock
On a plate combine flour, salt and pepper. Dredge meat in flour mixture and brown in skillet. Put meat in slow cooker. In same skillet add bacon and cook until starting to brown. Add onions and cook until soft. Put bacon, onion mixture into slow cooker deglaze skillet with beer and cook sauce for several minutes. Add vegtables and water to slow cooker. Pour beer sauce into slow cooker. Cook on low for 7-8 hours.

Extra - Canadian Maple Nanaimo Bars

2010-01-27T12:27:00.000-07:00

Today is the reveal of my first Daring Baker's challenge! Daring Baker's is a group of mostly food bloggers who challenge each other to bake a new thing each month. The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and http://www.nanaimo.ca/.
The first part of the challenge was to make the graham crackers for the Nanaimo Bars gluten-free. I found recipes including the one from celiac teen and some others on-line and went to Community Foods to source out ingredients. At the store I couldn't find everything required of some of the recipes so I chose a prepared non-gluten flour mix made by Kinnikinnick Foods in Edmonton, Alberta. I used the All Purpose Mix and then added some Xanthan gum which is supposed to act like gluten. I consulted a friend who doesn't eat wheat and she wished me luck as she has found cookies to be a challenging item to make gluten-free. When I was doing a food elimination diet I had to take out wheat so I have played around with these types of recpies before. It really is like doing a science experiment to find the right combination of ingredients that will result in a good product. Unfortunately my non-gluten results were not so good when compared to the regular wheat graham crackers.

Non - Gluten Graham Crackers

For my wheat graham crackers I used the recipe from 101 Cookbooks. This makes a very nice cookie and I will make them again for s'mores.

Graham Crackers made with Wheat Flour

The second part of the challenge was to make Nanaimo Bars in honour of the 2010 Winter Olympics being held in Vancouver. Nanaimo Bars along with Butter Tarts are a pure Canadian treat. Although, I was disappointed several years ago when visiting Nanaimo, BC, there is no giant statue of a Nanaimo Bar in the city and I could not find one to eat either. Someone is missing out on a gold-mine of an opportunity. Anyways I decided to pump up the "canadianess" of my bars by adding maple to the recipe. Although I have a weird fondness for Bird's custard I left this out and added 1 Tbsp of cornstarch to help the middle layer set. Since we are now a no-nut household I left them out but feel free to add them. The results were as sweet as ever and luckily I had my little brownie troop to feed them too. The girls loved them and I'm sure their parents appreciated them having them right before bed time.

Extra-Canadian Maple Nanaimo Bars (Adapted from the Laura Secord Canadian Cookbook,1966 and Chatelaine Magazine Nov.2005)

Grease a 9'' pan.

Bottom layer

In a saucepan combine and cook on medium until smooth and thick.

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1/3 cup cocoa

1/4 cup sugar

1 egg

Add

1 tsp of vanilla paste or real vanilla extract

1 1/2 cup of graham cracker crumbs

1 cup of coconut

Press into prepared pan. Put in fridge while making middle layer.

Cream

1/2 cup unsalted butter

3 Tbsp heavy cream

Beat in

4 cups icing sugar

1 Tbsp cornstarch

Stir in2 Tbsp pure maple syrup

1/4 tsp of real maple extract

Spread on bottom layer and put back into fridge for about 15 minutes. Over double boiler or in microwave melt 4oz of chocolate and 1 Tbsp of butter. Spread on top and chill.

Potatoe Day

2010-01-25T20:14:00.000-07:00

Today was potatoe day. I made some potatoe bread and this baked potatoe soup. We've got a sicky here at our house the last few days. Of course I didn't take her to the doctor today so by tonight she is still not better and her ear hurts. You would think I would know better by now if she has a fever she needs to go to the doctor and it's the ear the tube just fell out of a month ago. Aye,aye,aye.
Anyways it seemed like a good day to make some soup. I had leftover bacon from last night's ukranian feast, I didn't post it but I will one day, I've finally got perogies down. This soup is pretty simple and you could use stock if you have it on hand and replace the cream with milk.

Baked Potatoe Soup with Bacon and Edam Cheese
4-5 medium potatoes
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp butter
1 leek or onion chopped
3 stalks of celery chopped
2 cloves of garlic minced
1 tsp of thyme and fennel seed
salt and pepper to taste
Cooked bacon chopped (however much you want) Reserve some for garnish.
3 cups of stock or water
2 cups of milk ( if using cream use 1 cup or cream and one cup of milk )
Cheese - I used Edam
fresh parsley
Bake potatoes 375F for an hour or so. In a medium saucepan on medium, heat olive oil and butter, add the leeks or onion saute unil soft and golden about 10 mins. Add the celery and garlic and continue cooking until celery softens. Add the fennel, thyme, salt, pepper and bacon. Scoop the potatoes out of their jackets and put into the saucepan. Pour in the liquids and stir. Gently heat the soup to almost boiling. Serve with grated cheese, bacon and parsley.

Improved Food Styling

2010-01-22T14:26:00.000-07:00

Look at my beautiful picture! I made these babies on Wednesday night. J's special "orange potatoe" that he picked out at the farmer's market last week. He even ate it too.This supper was a huge hit roasted potatoes and I cooked some Sunworks sausages too and a little bit of ketchup and you've got a meal fit for a 3 and 7 year old.

Perfectly, Beautiful Roasted Potatoes
1 large sweet potatoe
5 Russett Potatoes
Extra-virgin olive oil
Fresh rosemary
Seasoning salt (Redmond Realsalt has not MSG or other freaky things)
Pepper

I usually line my tray with parchment so my clean up is easier. All I did was peel, slice and added about 2Tbsp of oil, the rosemary, salt and pepper. I cooked these at 375F for about 50min.

I have made a whole bunch of other things this week. I started my first Daring Baker's Challenge that will be reveled next week, I'm working on the perfect biscuit and the slow cooker made some nice pork for tacos and I made some chocolate chip cookies just for fun.

Chocolate Pudding

2010-01-18T19:10:00.000-07:00

Probably the most popular dessert at our house. Pudding from scratch is super easy and tastes way better too. I think this will be one of my submissions to the family cookbook.

Chocolate Pudding

3 cups milk (any type)

1/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup cornstarch

1/4 cup cocoa

2 Tbsp butter

REAL vanilla extract or vanilla paste(my personal favorite)

In a medium sauce pan stir together sugar, cornstarch and cocoa. Whisk in milk. Turn heat to medium and stir until pudding starts to bubble, simmer for a couple of minutes while stirring. Take off heat and add vanilla and stir in butter.

Makes 4-6 servings.

Muffin Boy

2010-01-16T15:14:00.000-07:00

I am always on the search for a good muffin recipe. There is a muffin boy in my house who has never met a muffin or baked good for that matter that he didin't like.( As you can see I've made two batches of muffins this week already) For lunch time if I have muffins I can relax and serve the little rascal without any lunchtime skullduggery where I try to convince(trick) him into eating a sandwich or other such horror. Muffins at our house mean a peaceful, happy meal except for the muffin shrapnel I find under the table, who knew one little kid and one muffin could result in such a mine field of crumb bombs. Don't even get me started on muffins at playschool snack time, there's a rookie helper-mum mistake. Muffins are also my saving grace when making the dreaded school lunch too, I hardly ever get muffins returned unlike the other detritus that is returned to me hours after being partially gnawed upon. Suffice it to say we are a muffin household.

So I was excited to come across this recipe from Pierre Lamielle at Kitchen Scraps his All or Nothin Muffin is a building block recipe that gives you a formula to make the most perfect customized muffins. I'm not going to type out the recipe formula but follow the link and you too can create your own special concoction. We added some frozen peaches I still had in my freezer from the summer and some toasted coconut.

She Lived a Good Life . . .

2010-01-12T17:38:00.000-07:00

Do you ever wonder where stewing hens come from? They always look so scrawny like they have had this hard, pathetic life scratching at meager crumbs in the chicken yard, living the hard-scrabble life of chickens at the bottom of the coop hierarchy. However, I think they are just poor lady chickens who are no longer interested in providing poached eggs(mmmmm) to the world. Anyhow, I made some beautiful stock with one of these ladies and with the help of some leftover BBQ made a great little Smoked Chicken Soup.

Chicken Stock

1 stewing hen

1 onion

2 carrots

3 celery stalks with leaves

several cloves of garlic unpeeled

2 teaspoons peppercorns

2 teaspoons fennel

2 bay leaves

Salt to taste

In a large pot or dutch oven brown the hen. Add the rest of the ingredients and water to cover the hen. Cook for at least one hour. Strain stock before using or freezing.

Smoked Chicken Soup

1 onion diced

2 cloves of garlic finely chopped

2 carrots diced

3 celery diced

2 potatoes cubed
Chopped smoked chicken (I used 3 large thighs)

Any other vegtables you want, squash, mushrooms, kale, cabbage

Chooped Fresh herbs, Parsley, rosemary, thyme

1 Tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Saute onions and garlic in olive oil until soft. Add the rest of the vegtables, chicken and stock. Simmer until vegtables are cooked. Add the herbs if using and salt and pepper to taste.

Snow Eater BBQ

2010-01-10T20:38:00.000-07:00

Since this beautiful chinook has rolled in this weekend it was warm enough to fire up the bbq. I picked up some ribs and and chicken thighs at the farmer's market on Friday. I got a new cookbook for christmas called Low and Slow by . . . (I'll add later I'm too lazy to go find the book), so I follwed some of his advice about cooking ribs. He advises spraying the ribs every so often with a mixture of cranberry juice, olive oil and a little of your rub. Actually he is really specific about when to spray. (BBQ people are kind of grumpy about how to cook things.) We cooked these for 5hrs but they could have used about another hour. We had slow start due to humidifier installation. It's also tricky when the ambient temperature is cool, still they were smoky and delicious.

Here's our very brown meal. I took a picture of a traditional bbq meal, meat and starch. I made cornbread muffins and roasted some potatoes for our sides. The little muffin man heartily approved of the muffins although the other one did say she likes Granny's cornmeal muffins.

Cornbread Muffins

Oven temperature 400F. Line or grease 12 muffin tin. You could also lighty grease an 8x8 cake pan if you didn't want to do muffins.

1 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup canola oil
2 large eggs
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons maple sugar or brownsugar
4 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour

Mix all the ingredients except for the cornmeal and flour. Stir until smooth, the baking powder-buttermilk will cause the batter to foam. Then add the cornmeal and flour, stir until combined. Bake for 20 -25 minutes.

Mom Can We Keep Him?

2010-01-05T21:10:00.000-07:00

Well we welcomed a new member into our family today, he goes by the name Glump. Glump had lots of fun at our house the last two days and we have enjoyed watching him grow into a crusty and delicious snack. It all started on Sunday when I mixed 1/4 tsp of yeast with 3 cups of water and 3 cups of flour. Yesterday he looked like this:

This morning it looked like this:

After I added the rest of the ingredients

I put the bowl in the pantry and when we came home for lunch Glump was born. Oops.

Once we had sorted out our new friend we made some brothers and sisters for Glump.

We put them to bed in cozy nests to sleep for 2hrs.

Voila, the final product! We decided to eat our Glump for lunch tomorrow with homemade peach jam. Moral of the story don't bring your pets to our house. (and I need a really, really, really big bowl)

Dom's Large Batch Italian Boules and Foccacia

(Home Baking - Jeffery Alford and Naomi Duguid, 2003)

Poolish

3 cups springwater

1/4 teaspoons of active dry yeast

3 cups all-purpose flour

Bread

6 cups lukewarm water

2 cups whole wheat or whole spelt flour

13 -15 cups all purpose flour

3 tablespoons sea salt

For Focaccia

2 to 4 tablespoons olive oil

About 2 teaspoons coarse sea salt

About 1 teaspoon rosemary leaves (optional)

I'm not going to write out all the procedure because it is really long but I had enough Glump for 3 large boule loaves and 2 foccacia. Let me know if you want more info.

New Year's Treats

2010-01-03T15:03:00.000-07:00

Well here's the last of the of the holiday treats. I had one more thing to make, homemade poppycock. My Grandma Lois used to make it at Christmastime and it definitely was not something we ever had at our house. Growing up my mom's favorite cookbook was Getting out of the Sugar Rut. The instructions are a little vague but it has always worked out.

Homemade Poppycock
1 batch of popcorn
11/3 cup pecans
2/3 cup    almonds
1/3 cup    corn syrup
11/3 cup  sugar
1 cup       butter
1 tsp        vanilla
pinch of salt

Toast nuts on cookie sheet at 350F for 15 min. Mix nuts with popcorn in a large bowl. Combine other ingredients except for vanilla in small saucepan stir constantly until caramel colour. Add vanilla. Spread onto cookie sheet(s) lined with parchment until cool.

We went to a New's Years Day dinner on Friday we had a nice visit with family we hadn't seen on Christmas. The evening finale was my 3 year old munchkin having an allergic reaction to possibly pecans in some lintzer cookies. We hightailed it to a pharmacy and filled him up with some benadryl and he seemed none the worse for wear by the next day. Although the rest of the night involved checking on him to see if he was still breathing. I guess he will now be the winner of some awesome allergy testing.(this was his second reaction) My contribution to the meal besides drama was a Roasted Potatoe and Pepper Salad, my inspiration was the remaining items I had in my fridge. Bonnie Stern has a similar recipe in Friday Night Dinners. This salad is supposed to eaten warm and was perfect for a wintertime meal.

Roasted Potatoe and Pepper Salad

2-3 lbs potatoes small or large chunks with the skins on

2Tbsp extra virgin-olive oil

salt and pepper

A couple of sprigs of rosemary

Combine the above ingredients and spread on a baking sheet lined with parchment. Bake at 425F for 20 min. I also wrapped a head of garlic in aluminum foil with a couple drops of water to roast at the same time. At the twenty minute mark add large pieces of 3 sweet peppers and continue roasting for about 25 more minutes until everything is brown and crispy. While the vegetables are roasting make a dressing I usually mix mine in a jar.

1 Tbsp vinegar (I used cider)

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 Tbsp grainy mustard

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 Tbsp fresh rosemary and italian parsley

Add the roasted garlic to the dressing.

As soon as the vegetables are ready place in a large bowl and toss with dressing. I also thinly sliced some red onions and placed them in some cold water to reduce their heat to add some crunchy texture to the salad.

Welcome!

2009-12-31T16:19:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Someone's in the Kitchen with Dinah! Those of you that know me will definitely know that someone at my house was very impressed with the name for this blog. I thought I would put my money where my mouth is so to speak and create my own blog instead of trolling foodgawker and vicariously viewing other food bloggers. I'm hoping to make a record of my recipes and meals since I am the worst for either not using a recipe or tweaking recipes and having no memory of how I got to the final product. I come from a large extended family where many of us have an interest in cooking so I hope to include some of their stuff too. In fact we've just started the process of putting together our second family cookbook. So enjoy and what better place to start then Christmas dinner.

This was my first turkey and it turned out great. Although I removed the neck bone from the cavity but didn't see the giblets that were stuffed way up inside the neck , I looked in the cavity but I guess I should have stuck my hand in. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Our bird was about 15lbs from Sunworks Farms at the Calgary Farmer's Market. We smoked it out on the Traeger BBQ for two hours with hickory wood. I made a rub of dried sage, fennel, garlic powder, ground mustard, salt, pepper and smoked paprika. After two hours I brought it in and stuffed it with onion, garlic, fresh sage, fresh rosemary and clementines. I added a carrot, celery and more onion to the roaster and put her/him in the oven at 350 to finish off. I did make a turkey stock with the neck and some carrot, celery, onion and garlic to add to the gravy which I also added some wine to. My food styling could use some work but you can just make out a nice pink smoke ring