sunday one day pancakes yay!

if you know me personally, you will not be at all surprised to see a recipe for pancakes in the middle of what is supposed to be healthy, cleanse-friendly asian-food-week. see, I have this problem with committing to ideas that are just ideas… I also have a reallllly hard time not making sunday breakfasts on sundays.

so here we are, PANCAKES !!!    I’ve tried a lot of recipes over the years and none come anywhere close to these. like my brownies recipe, this one came from somewhere, but I’ve done so much modifying and tweaking over the last five or so years, that I think it’s mine now. there’s nothing redeeming in these healthwise… no fruit, no whole wheat flour…. my god, they’ve even got white sugar in them and I like them better that way! alas… they’re a really nice end of the week treat and I’m very happy to share them with you. just don’t eat them every day…

out from the cupboards flies:

1 1/2 C milk or butter milk
1 1/2 tbsp rice wine vinegar (or white vinegar) * optional! if you’re using butter milk, no need to put more zip in it with vinegar.
2 eggs
1 1/2 C flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 tbsp sugar

. before you get anything going, if you don’t have buttermilk (which I never do) just get your milk in a measuring cup and add the vinegar. I originally used rice wine vinegar because it was all I had, but then I found it had a nicer flavour, so I keep using it. this will need to sit for ten minutes.

. while the milk is setting up, get your pan heating up. it’s important to have the pan quite hot for the first round of pancakes because the cold batter will really knock the temp down and the first cakes won’t be as nice and brown as the others. I use a cast iron pan and have it on medium heat for almost ten minutes before adding anything to it. if you’re using non-stick, you’ll only need to heat it for a few minutes because they’re much thinner. wait until your pan is good and hot before putting oil in it… unless you’re into smoking out your kitchen.
. ok, pan on, milk setting up, time to get out a big bowl and wisk. put all the dry ingredients in the bowl and wisk. crack the eggs in the milk mix and wisk those up too. dump the wet into the dry and gently combine. the mix should be fairly bubbly and have some lumps.

. add a small glurg of veg or canola oil to the pan along with a spoon of butter. ladle some batter into the spitting pan of goodness. turn the heat down one notch.
. don’t flip your cakes until they’re rather bubbly on top and the edges are noticeably dry/golden. don’t splash yourself with oil when you flip them – it doesn’t make for a nice time.
. once they’ve been flipped, they will probably only take half the time the first side did.

. I like to get my oven on to 250 or so and put the finished pancakes on a plate and into the oven while the other ones fry. other wise, just serve them up with butter and your favourite syrup, sugar, fruit, whatever.

miso soup, my new forever

dinner went well. there was no recipe, just a hodgepodge of good tasting things in a pot set to boil, and some fresh stuff chucked in as it was served.

a late lunch, started with coffee (kicking horse 454… not as flexible as grizzly claw, but nice if not allowed to steep for too long… oh I could write a whole post on that…). lunch. right. then lunch moved into some well needed insightful conversation with pony. then it was onto ‘by-the-letter miso soup.’

I’m using hondashi, a brand name of instant dashi, so I thought I would use a recipe from their parent website, here. I followed this exactly because I have very little experience working this kind of food, and I feel it’s best to learn the basics before intuitively building dishes. but understand that when I say ‘to the letter’ I mean… mostly. so, I heated the water at medium high because I have an ancient stove and was hungry. I also didn’t include wakame because I didn’t have any, and I generally am not big on seaweed flavours either.

the smell of just the dashi heating and dissolving in the water was so reassuring. it’s got that savoury, smoky smell of having a fire on the beach, or the feeling of being on the coast in the damp dross of winter with a fire going and an afternoon to just wile away.

I can’t tell you how pleasing it is to be able to recreate something like food in a particular style that’s literally and figuratively foreign to me. I’ve lived in canada my whole life and grew up eating well cooked, but plain and standard fare. I didn’t eat and enjoy chinese food until I was 19.

NINETEEN! this was for more reasons than just being food-shy or sheltered – that I won’t get into now – but this plays a big role in my being so excited to dip into unfamiliar yet thoroughly appreciated edible territory.

anyway, this miso soup was everything I was hoping for. it was so, so satisfying. it wasn’t too salty or too weak, it was baby bear perfect.

I am now going to down some green tea and read up on mythology.

adventure eats week !

I’m feeling the inspirational kick I’ve been rooting around for! several lovely people in my life are the gooduns responsible for this latest food thought. a while ago my mom embarked on trying a new recipe every week to jazz up her usual dinner patterns. she was so pleased with the results, and thusly, herself, and that was a good sign. then, my good friend, stephanie took on a similar approach but super condensed: 20 new recipes in 20 days, and has been posting her photos and comments on fb. all her photos and feedback looked really rewarding and worth her efforts. and then the other night róny and I went to a very nice family dinner and had fantastic pho! róny’s mom has really gotten into the flavour and freshness of vietnamese dishes and was talking to me about wanting to hit the ol’ library and do some research and recipe gathering.

all of these desires for diy home-based food adventures has got me wanting one of my own!
and wouldn’t you know it, my dear one, róny has just started a 7 day cleanse to get his sweet, sweet body back in good order. I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to get experimental. he can’t have red meat, bread type things, refined sugars and probably a bunch of other stuff, but we’re trying to focus on the things he can and should be eating. grains, lots of fruit and veg and nuts are high on the to-eat-list. not bad… but kinda boring.

as I sip my newly acquired and thoroughly delicious toasty rice green tea, I’m plotting a sort-of-copy-cat food plan! for rónan’s 7 day guts-busting bonanza, I’ll be doing 7 asian-themed dinners.if there’s any ethnic group of food that embraces fresh, flavourful and healthy while still being satisfying and filling it’s the approach of the japanese, korean and vietnamese, among many others (but I’ve only got 7 days, so trying to stay focused!).

I want to pursue eastern flavours for a variety of reasons which I’m sure will become evident as the week tumbles on. get ready!

for right now, I’ll be diving face first into recipe blogs and wikipedia and a few books I already have on tasty asian awesomeness. and then out to the local asian grocery store, mori mori (which, if you’re in kamloops and you haven’t been, you should go because it’s very charming and independently owned and managed). by this evening (after 10pm), there will be post 1 of the new adventure-eats.

specialtea – a hot mouth hug

this is a super comforting brew for everyone’s favourite season, flu-season. it’s like a mouth hug without the excitement of kissing… in a nice way. it’s got good-for-you-green tea and stomach-taming-ginger and throat-be-happy-honey.

just trust me on this one.

after you put your kettle on, grab:

your favourite green tea, loose, bagged, whatever
honey to taste
1/2 tsp lemon zest (about a quarter of a lemon run over a microplane)
1 1/2 tsp lemon juice or a quarter of the grated lemon squeezed out. don’t worry about the seeds
1/2 to 1 tsp grated ginger depending on how snappy you like your tea (again, use a microplane)

. get two mugs, one slightly bigger than the other
. in the bigger mug, put the tea, zest, juice and grated ginger
. dump the just boiled water over everything and allow to steep for 7 or 8 minutes
. pour the brew into a strainer over the smaler mug so the tea is clear and debris-free
. add honey to taste… and because it’s good for your wretched throat

I always make this when róny’s under the weather and he likes it so much I sometimes get requests for it when he’s feeling finey fine too.  Give it a whirl!

BANANAS muffins – with serious nana flavour

it’s strange for me to be sharing a muffin recipe because it seems that making muffins is all I do these days. why would that be strange for me then? well, most posts on the firdge are from food things I build here at home because I really like them. I of course love muffins, but they’ve become a work-associated food item as I make between 250 and 400 a week.
work or not, banana muffins are an essential in any baker/food preparer’s repertoire. these are dense, moist, and super-duper flavourful. I like them a lot.

before embarking on this, make sure you have 4 really ugly, super brown bananas, otherwise get out:
4 super ugly brown bananas, peeled
1/2 C oil
1/2 C milk
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp banana extract (this is essential!)
1/2 C white sugar
1/4 C brown sugar
2  1/2 C flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon

. crank yer oven to 375
. in a bowl, chuck in the bananas. mash them with a fork until they’re mostly just mush… or mash if you prefer
. add the eggs and give them a little whip with the end of a spatula

. add the oil, milk, and extracts and stir
. dump in the sugars and stir
. in another bowl, combine all the dry ingredients and wisk
. dump the dry into the wet and stir until just incorporated. remember it’s important not to overmix muffin batter because it will get very hard, very quickly. if there are some smaller bits of flour it’s ok, they will get absorbed during the baking process

. spoon the mixture into a greased muffin tin. I like big bulgey muffins, so I fill the cups to the top
. bake at 375 for 20-ish minutes or until they’re a light goldeny colour

. a couple minutes after they’ve come out of the oven, pop them out of the tins with your hands, or with a knife if they’re too hot, and get them into a big tupperware and slam the lid on them. this way they will steam a little and become sticky and moist, just like a banana! if you like your muffins to be less awesome, you could just let them cool in the pan and eat them dry-ish… maybe with butter though.
. also, these are craaaazy good with a cup of blueberries added in with the wet mix

enjoy your newfound bad-banana-user-uppers and how awesome your house smells after baking them!

 

chicken corn chowda – combat dreary with dairy!

it’s cloudy, it’s cold, it’s windy, it’s off-n-on rainy and it’s november. it’s also a night where I have some hours with just the catties, and I always feel that time is best spent making food. it’s doubly rewarding to have a nice hot meal ready for when pony comes home from work.
we had a couple ears of corn in the fridge on the verge of not being so great anymore, so soup was the obvious choice. and while corn chowder is nice, I think it’s even nicer with chicken or turkey. tonight I used turkey because they had big ol’ leg/thigh combos on at the store for super cheap. inexpensive dark meat? sign me up!

also, before I get to the good part, I feel I need to honestly say that I absolutely used two recipes on foodnetwork to figure out how I wanted to attempt this meal. one was paula’s which I used as a guide for ingredients, and the other was tyler’s, which I used more for the method… though mine is different from both in the end. often when I’ve never made something before, or haven’t made it in a long time, I’ll seek out some recipes as a refresher or rough guide, then adjust to my own taste.
okok, on with the good show:

a good wooden spoon of butter (maybe 1/3 C? maybe 1/2 C?)
1 tbsp oil
1 small onion, diced
3 sticks of celery, diced
1 leek, cut in half and sliced into thin semi-circles (I could do a whole post on how to clean/cut leeks, so look it up if you’re not sure)
3-5 cloves of garlic, minced
a good glurg of white wine (say, 1/3-1/2 C)
1 tsp dijon mustard
several cracks of black pepper
thyme – 4 sprigs chopped, or 1 1/2 tsp of the dry stuff
3 C chicken stock (or veg if you wanna do this meat-free)
chicken or turkey, cooked and shredded – for turkey, a leg and thigh was lots. for chicken, 8 or 10 thighs… or 4 thighs and 2 breasts maybe
5-6 medium-sized new potatoes, cut into bite-size chunks
3 ears of corn or 3ish C frozen corn
1 zucchini, sliced into semi circles
2 C whipping cream
1/3 C flour or cornstarch

. a couple hours before you want to make soup, crank yer oven to 375 and get your chicken/turkey in there (in an uncovered dish with pepper and poultry seasoning on it) and bake for an hour. let it cool and then begin your soup!

. chuck the butter and oil in a big pot on medium-low heat
. add the onion, celery, leek and garlic. let these get all glossy, but not brown. stir every couple of minutes
. when the veg is translucent and lovely, add the thyme, pepper, mustard and wine. allow to simmer for a few minutes
. add the chicken/turkey, potatoes and chicken stock. slap a lid on it and let it simmer for a good half hour

. meanwhile, if you’ve got corn still on the cob, get it off. the easiest way I know is the guy fieri way (what a FN heavy post this is): get two bowls, one really big, the other small and with a flat bottom. tip the small bowl upside down into the big bowl. rest one end of corn on the smaller bowl and use a big knife to carve off the niblets in one motion. as you do this, the corn falls into the big bowl, and not all over your counter. happy days!
. add the corn  and zucchini to the soup mix and let simmer for ten minutes
. in a big cup or bowl or something, whisk the flour/starch into the cream until it’s all smooth. pour this into the soup and stir constantly as you do to avoid lumps (especially if you’re using corn starch)

. if it’s too thick, add a little milk to thin it out, or some more chicken stock
. let everything come up to a gentle boil and then shut ‘er down. it’s all done, and in the most fabulous of ways!
. serve it nice and hot with some really nice buttered bread and a green salad or all by it’s thick, creamy, hearty self

also, if you wanted to get really decadent, you could add 2 C grated cheddar and 1/4 C chopped green chilis or pickled jalapeños just before serving. so much savour, so much flavour!

Mint Cocoa Cookies – think chewy girl guide… oh my!

a while back I stumbled upon a very simple idea: mint chocolate cookies.

I was perusing the local downtown bakery, erwin’s, on a lunch break. I felt terribly lucky after sampling a few of these baddies: dark chocolate and a minty chewy/soft loveliness… the most basic, unflowery way I could describe these. anyway, since starting my new job at a coffee shop that shall remain nameless (though I’m sure lots of you know where and what it is) and overhauling the baked-goods menu, I knew I wanted something similar to this awesome cool-weather treat.
enough banter and on with the goods!

spread before you is:

1 1/4 C unsalted butter at room temp
2 C sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp peppermint extract (for the love of god, not spearmint… unless you want toothpaste cookies…)
2 C flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt plus a little more… so more like 3/4 tsp
3/4 C to 1 C good cocoa, dutch processed works

. cream the soft butter with the sugar
. add the vanilla, peppermint extract and eggs and mix

. in another bowl, add all the dry ingredients together. you may want to sift in the cocoa or sift the whole mix before adding it to the wet ingredients. cocoa has a lovely way of being all clumpy and difficult to incorporate…
. dump the dry into the wet and stir to combine
. wrap the bowl with cling film and let it hang out in the fridge for an hour or so

. crank yer oven to 325.
. take the dough out of the fridge and use a spoon to scoop bits of it onto a cookie sheet. you could make them into balls and squish them down with your hand if you like round cookies, but I like mine rustic and fat so I bake ’em as they fall to the pan: wonky
. bake for 10-15 minutes or until the edges are done but the middle still looks a bit undercooked… though it’s really not

these should end up being soft and chewy on the inside and just slightly crunchy around the edges. if that’s not happening for you, try baking them at 300 or at 350 for different amounts of time to get the right texture

enjoy your weirdly refreshing, house and heartwarming mint cocoa cookies!

baked macaroni – not as heavy, but just as cheese-pleasing

orange food almost always does well. mind you, macaroni can be white-ish too and just as tasty, but for now, let’s all envision golden melty macaroni with a gooey-crunchy top and warm soft middle. this recipe stems from one my dad made up; the main difference being I’ve added a few more things to flavour up the pasta and some panko for extra crunch. so, if you please, crank your oven and get yourself hungry!

pulled out of your fridge and cabinets:

half a bag of macaroni, 450g or so
1/2 a small onion, finely diced
1/2 tsp salt
lots of cracked black pepper
3-5 shakes of worcestershire, depending on how bitey you like it
1 big egg or 2 little ones
1/2 C milk
1/2 a medium tub of cottage cheese, 250 ml-ish
1/2 tsp white sugar
3-4 C sharp cheddar grated
1/2 C panko or bread crumbs

. preheat thine oven to 350
. boil the macaroni, but drain it 2 minutes before it’s properly cooked. it will finish tendering-up in the oven
. in a bowl, add the egg, diced onion, pepper, salt, sugar, worcestershire and beat with a fork
. add the cottage cheese and milk and stir
. drain the pasta and pour the milk/cheese mix over the pasta and stir

. dump half the pasta into a nice casserole dish
. sprinkle just less than half of the cheese on the pasta so it’s evenly distributed
. dump on the rest of the pasta, and the rest of the cheese on that
. sprinkle the panko on top and give it a few cracks of pepper

. either put a lid on your dish, or lightly wrap it in tinfoil and bake for half an hour
. remove lid/foil and bake for another half hour or so. you may want to turn on the broiler for the last 2 or 3 minutes if you’re partial to a crispy top

I like this with cheddar, but a cheddar/mozzarella blend is nice, or gruyere and fontina… or maybe add a little blue cheese if you like it zippy. so many cheeses, so many dinners…

 

uke-lady thanks giving pyrohy

my absolute favourite thing to contribute is food; that should be fairly obvious. what you may not know is that my favourite food to contribute to any big holiday meal, is perogies, pyrohy in ukrainian… of which I am descended from on both sides of my family. I didn’t grow up with any particular ethnic culture, but had a few little things around the house that symbolized the heritage my parents had to show they were proud: painted easter eggs, pysanky, a tiny traditionally painted vase, and a very special book: Traditional Ukrainian Cookery by Savella Stechishin.

This book was given to my mom by my dad, with an inscription referring to it as a ‘cookski bookski.’ within these hallowed pages was/is a recipe so good, so fantastically awesome that I can’t keep it to myself. PYROHY – the most heartwarming, stomach pleasing, happy-fun-time-dumpling EVER. My absolute favourite food, yep, I love them even more than macaroni.

unlike so many others, I follow this recipe exactly, so I felt it unnecessary to retype it for you here. Rather, a photo of the real thing!
BUT, before you make the dough, you need to allot yourself a good three hours or so to making these overwhemlingly lovely little bastards. simply put, it’s worth it… so make lots. I make triple the amount of dough the recipe calls for.

so, either the morning of or the night before you want to make pyrohy, you need some nice russet potatoes. I like russet because when you mash them, they stay super fluffy and don’t need any butter or cream. you could use other potatoes, which I also did this afternoon because I was short on russets, but cook them separately. in the below picture, you can kinda see the difference in texture. I used the more gluey ones for the dough and it worked like a charm!

For the filling… for my filling you will need:
10 LARGE russet potatoes
3-4 C grated sharp cheddar, the older the better… but not, you know, moldy
2 tsp table salt

. boil potatoes as you normally would for mashing
. drain and then dump back into pot
. put salt cheese on top and then lid on top to steam the cheese all melty
. mash
. set aside to cool, or if you’re doing this the night before, cool and then refrigerate

when the potatoes have cooled, start on the dough recipe pictured above. Keep in mind, the filling guide above is for triple the dough, so if you only want to make a few, make much less filling.

. when your dough is nicely put together and has had a nice rest, divide it into three balls (or don’t if you’re doing the single batch)
. lightly flour your rolling/cutting surface
. put a big pot of water on high, so when you’ve got a few pyrohy ready, you can just put them in to boil while you fill more. it’s efficient
. take one of the balls and squish it down a bit with your hand on the rolling surface, let’s say, the counter
. keep in mind this is a fairly elastic dough, like a very rich pasta, so no matter how you roll it, it will spring back a little, which is good
. roll the dough to the thinness shown below… I don’t know how thin that is in numbers. basically, thick enough to have some stretch for the filling process, but thin enough so that the pyrohy isn’t all dough with a little potato

. with a sharp knife, cut the dough into squares… or rectangular triangle shapes. I like it rustic, so there are no glasses or cookie cutters used here for perfect little semicircle nonsense

. take one of the dough-shapes and grab a bit of filling as such:

. not too much, but maybe a little more than you think would fit in one. pull all the edge together in whatever way you find easiest. just folding them over, or with the trickier looking pieces (long triangles) fold them more like a samosa. whatever you choose, make sure to cut off the excess bits of dough that gather where you’ve pinched it all together. I also like to kind of reshape them a bit with my hands so they’re somewhat compact

. when you’ve got 4 or 5 done, gently place them in the pot of boiling water. after a minute or so, give them a stir to make sure they’re not stuck to the bottom. also, never crowd them: max 5 per pot, and if they’re biggins, only 2. trust me

. grab a cookie sheet that has edges and a wire cooling rack
. when they have floated to the top of the water and are circling about, they’re ready to come out. gently place them on the cooling rack so the water can drip/steam off them and they can cool for 10 minutes

. when they’re cool enough to handle, very lightly coat them with oil so you can put them in a big casserole dish or roasting pan without them all sticking together

. when it comes time to cooking them, I like to COAT them in onion butter, which goes like this:

1 big ol’ yellow onion, grated
1 lb. unsalted butter, cut into meltable pieces

. in a pot over low heat, chuck in the butter and grated onion
. let this simmer away until the solids of the butter come to the top and it absolutely reeks on onion
. pour this all over the pyrohy, and maybe set a little aside for pouring on at dinner iffin you like
cover the pyrohy with tin foil or a lid, and bake at 350 until heated all the way through. keep in mind they’re already cooked, and shouldn’t stay in the oven so long that they get tough or leathery

it’s a lot of work, but I think to make these twice a year for thanks giving and xmas is a pretty fabulous treat for you and whoever you’re feeding. funny, these are normally an easter thing for ukrainians, but being a ukrainian canadian without much schooling in traditional ways, I do them this way for the people I love.

iced tea – deep caramel colour and gorgeous citrus bursts

once it starts to warm up outside, iced tea becomes a standard in my fridge. being someone who doesn’t like my drinks very sweet, I prefer this to any canned/bottled/store-made brew I’ve tasted. it’s super simple and refreshing… you know, as you lay on the cold kitchen floor after walking home in the blistering heat with bags of groceries and cats tripping you up upon arrival… right?

for about 3L you need:
1 lemon and 1 lime (or two lemons)
3/4 C brown sugar (HAS to be brown, brown or nothing)
2-3 orange pekoe tea bags (2 of the bold stuff, 3 of the regular strength)
3-ish L water

. get your kettle on
. in a big metal or glass bowl, zest the citrus with a microplane so it’s fine, not long and stringy
. then cut the fruit in half and squeeze all the juice into the bowl. don’t worry about the pulp or seeds because you’re going to strain it later
. add the tea bags and sugar
.pour the boiled water  over the mix and stir
. let this steep and hang out until it’s a bit warmer than room temperature
.get a pitcher and a fine strainer or if you’re feeling anal, a coffee filter, and strain the tea into your vessel. refrigerate until cold

feel free to experiment with different citrus blends, like grapefruit or mandarin, or adding peach or pear juice. also, if you like your tea sweet, you may want to use a full cup of sugar. annnnd, if your favourite jug doesn’t fit 3L, you can always fill it and put the remainder in an ice cube tray so you can keep your iced tea extra cold without watering it down.