Wednesday 31 October 2012

All Hallow's Pie

the first of many homemade costumes

 Growing up in England, I had no idea how big Halloween was until our first year in North America. I think Halloween is becoming more of a thing in England now, but with it being so close to Guy Fawkes on November the 5th, I wonder how big of an event it will become. Our first year found me scrambling to make costumes for my children. There was no budget to buy costumes, so one sheet, some found grey felt and a pot of black paint transformed into a zebra, my daughter Holly was an avid collector of all things zebra, and an elephant, because...well I found some grey felt and his sister was a zebra. Be kind it was my first attempt!

This year we are having a quiet Halloween, any decorations I may have kept are buried deep in the bowels of our RV and it's still raining so digging it all out is not going to happen. We decided to celebrate the day of the pumpkin with pie instead. Elliot made the filling, I made the crust. Not having a pie plate, we used our one tin, a 9 inch spring form so it's a bit rustic looking. However, we'll dim the lights, and with the glow of some candles and plenty of whipped cream, it will be a perfect Halloween. Much healthier than candy anyway (if you can ignore all the butter, cream and sweetened condensed milk!).

Recipe

Basic Vanilla Pastry adapted from Donna Hay
 

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp superfine sugar
1/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup cold unsalted butter, chopped
1/3 cup ice water
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg white, lightly beaten
 

Place flour, sugar and baking powder in a food processor and pulse to combine. Add butter and process until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs. With the motor running, gradually add the water and vanilla, pulsing until the mixture comes together to form a smooth dough. Wrap dough in plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes before using. Roll out the cold pastry to fit your chosen dish or tin. Prick the pastry all over with a fork to prevent puffing. Cover the pastry with parchment paper, then add baking weights (or dried rice or beans) on top. Bake at 325F (160C) for 15 minutes. Remove weights and parchment. Brush the pastry with egg white to seal and bake for another 10 minutes. The crust is ready to be filled.

Pumpkin Pie Filling by Farmer's Market Organic Pumpkin
 

1 15oz can Farmer's Market Organic Pumpkin
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp all spice
1/2 tsp salt
1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
2 eggs lightly beaten
 

Mix pumpkin and spices together. Add remaining ingredients. Mix slowly until thoroughly blended. Pour into pie shell. Bake at 425F (215C) for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350F (180C) for an additional 35-40 minutes. Cool completely before serving.
 


This pastry recipe from Donna Hay is really good, I've never not had it turn out anything less than perfect. If you don't have a food processor, which I don't anymore, you can make it by hand. My advice would be to make sure your butter and water are really cold, if you feel it's getting a bit sticky put it in the freezer for a minute or two. Be quick and don't overwork it, it's fine to leave bigger bits of butter. Simply rub the butter, with your fingertips into the flour mix until fine bread crumbs, as above and stir in the water and vanilla with a knife adding it slowly until the dough just starts to come together. Then continue as above. Of course you could roast a pie pumpkin but a good quality canned pumpkin is just as good. Remember you want pumpkin puree not pumpkin pie filling.

Happy Halloween Everybody

Tuesday 30 October 2012

Bee Cheesy!



Last week, while at a local Bird Sanctuary, we found ourselves mesmerized by the busy honey bees on display at the visitor center. I've never really been a fan of honey. As a child my mother would make us hot lemon with honey when we were sick with a sore throat, I always wished she would leave the honey out. She knew what she was doing of course. Honey is a great remedy for both sore throat and cough, in fact, a spoon of Buckwheat Honey is especially good if your cough is that persistent kind that just wont let you get to sleep. There is one way I like honey though and that's when it's drizzled over ricotta on a thick piece of fresh wholegrain bread, but it has to be raw honey, grocery store cheap honey definitely not for me. It has been processed and all the health benefits destroyed in that process. Visit your local whole food store for great local raw honey, or get it straight from the hive, it's best.

Ricotta is very easy to make and since learning how, I always make my own. It only has three simple ingredients, milk, salt and lemon, and it's fun to watch your milk turn from creamy goodness into lumpy curds right before your eyes. A quick note on the milk. Ricotta needs to be made with full fat milk, you can do it with two percent but it's really not worth it. It's thin and flavourless. If you want to make your ricotta really creamy, you can substitute up to one cup of the milk with heavy cream, worth doing if you're entertaining and  really want to  impress your guests or if you want to serve the ricotta simply as a dip or spread.

Recipe

Homemade Ricotta

4 cups whole milk (or substitute up to one cup of the milk with some heavy cream)
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Using a candy thermometer, heat the milk in a non reactive pan until it reaches 190F. If you don't have a thermometer, heat until you have a foam with medium bubbles around the edge of the pan, the milk is steaming gently and small bubbles are starting to come to the surface. Occasionally stir the milk to prevent it from burning on the bottom of the pan. Take your time bringing it up to temperature over a low heat, you do not want the milk to boil or scold.
Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the lemon juice. Only stir once or twice to distribute the juice then leave the milk to stand for about 5 minutes.
Line a fine mesh sieve with a couple of layers of muslin (I didn't have any so I used a clean cloth napkin) and set over a large bowl. Pour the milk mixture into the sieve and leave to strain for 1-2 hours. The longer you leave it the firmer it will get. 
You will be left with the curds, ricotta, in your sieve and the whey in the bowl. Discard the whey (unless you know what to do with it, I don't. It's protein rich so you could add it to your morning smoothie I suppose?).
Scrap the cheese from the cloth and store in an airtight container until ready to use.

So two things, this cheese is very subtle in flavour it's worth adding the salt, although I don't always. You can also make this with goats milk. I haven't tried with animal milk alternatives, but would love to hear from anyone who has. I'm guessing you would have to use tofu?

Happy cheese making!

Monday 29 October 2012

Spaghetti Rosti


I am an adventurous eater, not shying away from new and unusual foods. I tire easily of the same old vegetables that sit on the grocery shelves year round. So it is with great surprise that I found myself looking at the squash section realizing that I have never cooked with Spaghetti Squash. Squash are in general a new food to me having grown up in England where Butternut and Pumpkin are only just making an appearance.
 Forty five minutes of roasting left me with a squash tender and fragrant. Following instructions from the many articles online about how to cook Spaghetti squash I carefully scraped out the flesh with my fork marveling at the long strands piling in the dish besides me. Natures noodles, how cool is that! The trouble was I wasn't sure what to do with it next, the obvious would have been a tomato sauce of some kind, maybe some meatballs, until my son walked by and said 'Oooo, are you making Rosti?' So Spaghetti Rosti it was.

Rosti, in case you didn't know is a national dish for the Swiss. How you make it depends on who you ask. Some say to use raw shredded potato others say to parboil first. Some advocate a floury variety of spud and there are those who claim the best Rosti come from a good waxy tuber. But when all's said and done, the basic method is the same. Shred your potato and fry in butter (remembering to wear your elasticated trousers of course!) until golden brown. Seems easy doesn't it. Well with the potato it's not so much. Raw shredded potato is difficult as there is a danger of it browning faster than it cooks and even if you time it right you can often be left with a starchiness in flavour which is not altogether pleasant. Parboil your spuds and you run the risk of having mash rather than shred. With my squash already cooked and shredded for me, I thought that I might be onto a winner and Rosti heaven. Usually I would make a large Rosti, filling an omelet pan but today I made individual ones using a circular cookie cutter to mold the squash into little patties. The Rosti were crisp on the outside, the middle having kept it's soft rich texture. All in all the easiest rosti I have ever made.

Recipe

Spaghetti Rosti (makes 12 individual or four large)


1 large spaghetti squash
2 tbsp butter or oil (or a combination)
salt and pepper

First roast the squash. Preheat your oven to 375F (190C). Cut the squash in half lengthwise. Scoop out the seeds and pulp. Rub the flesh with oil and season with salt and pepper. Place the squash flesh side down on a lined baking sheet. Place in the hot oven and roast for 45 minutes or until the squash is tender. Remove the squash from the oven and let cool slightly. Using a fork gently remove the flesh from the skin by dragging your fork through the flesh. It will transform into long spaghetti shaped strands. 

Heat 1tsp of the butter in a small (8" diameter) frying pan over medium low heat. Form the squash into individual sized patties and place in the pan. I cooked three at a time to avoid overcrowding, or cover the base of the pan with a layer of your squash to make a larger rosti. You want to compress the flesh a bit so that it holds together without squashing it into a paste. Remember a rosti has distinct shreds. Let the rosti cook until the underside is golden brown, approximately 5 minutes. Turn them over and cook the other side for another five minutes. For the individual rosti use a spatula to do this, for a large one, place a plate over the pan and flip the pan over so the rosti is now on the plate (careful not to get hot fat on you). Slide the rosti back off the plate into the pan so the golden side is now facing up. You may need to add a little more oil or butter at this point. Once the second side is golden remove and serve.

The Swiss typically serve their rosti with ham and cheese, we had ours on a bed of mixed greens with shaved parmasan cheese and cracked black pepper. A tart mustard based vinegarette to accompany. I actually only used one half of the squash so ended up with 6 individual patties, the second half we'll have with that tomato sauce and yes, probably meatballs!  My first taste of Spaghetti squash and I'm hooked.

Here's to a great week.

Thursday 25 October 2012

Farm Fresh



 A couple of days ago we drove down to the local farm for a bit of fresh air. The farm shop was crowded with people buying winter greens and the fields beyond were dotted with families choosing just the right pumpkin for Halloween. The smallest children wrestling the largest pumpkins in a field of orange. After a quick hello to the cows, a friendly bunch as you can see, we took the path south passing several smaller farms before encountering the strongest smell you can imagine. At first we thought it was burning rubber, but a large pink object lying still amongst the dirt and a loud snuffling and grunting revealed, to our delight, a family of pigs.
For most when we think pig we think bacon, chops and sausages, and, as cute as the pigs were, they reminded me of a staple winter recipe that we hadn't had in a while. A favourite of my son and husband, this recipe is great as it can so easily be vegetarian and the kick from the Tabasco elevates it from plain to exciting.

Recipe
 










Sausage and Bean Casserole                                                                          

1 large onion
2 or 3 large carrots
2 tbsp oil
1 lb pork sausages
1 can ( 1/2cup) chickpeas, rinsed
1 can (1/2cup) red kidney beans, rinsed
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp cornflour
350ml light stock
1 tsp (or to taste) Tabasco
2 tbsp tomato puree
salt and pepper

Heat your grill and cook the sausages until browned and firm. Set aside.

Preheat your oven to 325F (170C).
 

Peel and roughly chop the onions. Wash and slice the carrots into medallions. Heat the oil in a large oven proof casserole over medium heat, then add the onion and carrots and cook for 5 minutes until softened.
 

Slice the sausage into rounds and add to the casserole with the onions and carrots. Add the drained and rinsed chickpeas and kidney beans. Pour over the tomatoes. Blend the cornflour with a little of the stock then add to the casserole with the remaining stock, tomato puree, Tabasco and seasoning.
 

Bring to a boil, then cover and place in your heated oven for 1 hour or longer if possible to increase the depth of flavour. Serve with rice, mashed potato or crusty bread to soak up the juices.

We tend to like things spicy and will have Tabasco at the table to add more heat once the casserole is cooked as we find the Tabasco tends to mellow in the oven. Also, always get the best quality sausages you can. Visit your butcher and make sure you know what's in them. For a crowd this can easily be doubled and you can add more or less veggies to suit your fancy. I hazard a guess that this would be good cooked in a slow cooker, although I don't have one so that really is a guess. Do try and let it cook for a good long time though, I usually aim for 2-3 hours. Finally to make this vegetarian, just leave out the sausage, it's just as good without.

Oaty Goodness


There are so many recipes out there in the blogasphere for Granola at the moment and I have my own which I think is pretty good, or rather my son thinks is pretty good as it's his main breakfast staple along with wholewheat toast and soft boiled eggs. But for me, a bowl of museli is the way I like to start my day. This is a really simple recipe and is so much cheaper than buying it premade at the store. Of course the best part is you get to control what's in it.

Basically, I toast oats (old fashioned rolled, not the instant kind) in the oven until just starting to get a darker golden colour, they smell toasty too at that point! It takes anywhere from 10-15 minutes, but watch carefully as the outer edges will darken quicker. When they do, choreograph a little waltz with the outer oats moving to the middle of your baking pan and the middle oats moving outwards. Once the oats are toasted, leave them to cool and add your nuts and seeds to the pan for their own time in the oven. they will toast faster so watch them well. It all depends on which nut's and seeds you choose of course, I usually toast pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds, walnuts, almonds or (rarely) peanuts, all unsalted, but the seeds take roughly 5 minutes, the nuts a little longer. Mix all of the above together with dried fruit of your choice. Mine, you ask, well they would be apricots, cranberries and raisins.

A note on Apricots. They may well be orange coloured when fresh, but dried apricots are muddy brown with a slight orange undertone when dried. Those bright orange ones you see are sulfured and NOT good. If you are going to go to the trouble of making your own museli, please do yourself a favour and use un-sulfured apricots. The flavour is so much more intense and well, apricoty!

Recipe
 

Fruit and Nut Museli
 

6 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup each sunflower seeds,pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup each walnut pieces, sliced or roughly chopped almonds
1/2 cup each dried apricot, cranberries and raisins

Toast oats, in a thin layer, one to two cups at a time depending on the size of your baking tray, in a 375F (190C) oven for 10-15 minutes until golden.Watching to make sure the outer oats are not browning too quickly, pull the outer oats to the center of your baking pan if need be, pushing the inner oats outwards. Set aside to cool.
Toast the nuts and seeds at the same temperature for 5-10 minutes until golden. Set aside to cool.
Roughly chop the apricots and add all the ingredients to an airtight container. Place the lid on the container and shake well to distribute the nuts, seeds and fruits amongst the oats. Keeps well for 2-3 weeks.
Serve with milk or natural yoghurt.


Oats are best eaten once they have had a little soaking time. In fact all nuts, seeds, pulses and grains are best after their bath! If you can, try and remember to portion out your museli the night before, pour on your milk and leave it in the fridge overnight. You may need to loosen it a bit in the morning with some extra milk. If you don't remember it's not so bad, but give it as long as you can in the milk before eating. The measurements above are just a guide, you can add more nuts, seeds and fruit or more oats.Whatever works for you is just fine.

Wednesday 24 October 2012

Creamy Beanie

photo from Green Kitchen Stories

I came across this recipe while browsing through the back catalog of one of my favourite food blogs, Green Kitchen Stories. Having very little space I love a one pot meal, I also love beans so I knew from the start this was going to be a winner. As is my way I deviated a bit from the recipe posted but it pretty much remained the same. I had kale in the fridge waiting to be eaten so used that instead of chard. Lacking mascarpone and the budget or fridge space to buy a tub just for 4 tablespoons worth, I thought of using thick Greek yoghurt but at the last minute stirred in a small amount of feta instead. I also forgot to add the thyme but the flavours were so good as it was I think the thyme may have overpowered it anyway. I'll try it with next time though because you never know. I encourage you to use what you have and leave things out rather than not cook at all, but what I will say about this recipe is that the lemon is essential. It gave a freshness that complimented the creaminess of the beans so well and really elevated this to something special. Leave it out at your peril! Oh and of course always try and use the best broth you can, it really does make a difference. But you know that, you read food blogs!

Recipe

Cannellini and Chard Risotto

1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
2 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion (finely chopped)
2 cloves garlic (finely chopped)
1 chard (slice the leaves into thin strips, cut the smaller stems into 1/4-inch dice, discard the larger stems)
2 cans (2 cups) cannellini beans (rinsed well)
4 tbsp mascarpone cheese
1/2 lemon, juice and zest
fresh thyme
salt and pepper

Bring vegetable broth to a bare simmer in a saucepan over medium heat and set aside

Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat, add onion, garlic and the stems of the chard. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until softened. Add one cup of the broth, cook and stir, until almost absorbed. Now add the chard leaves, cannellini beans and the rest of the broth. Cook and stir for a couple of minutes, then add the mascarpone cheese, lemon juice and thyme. Season with salt,pepper and more thyme if needed. Top it with some grated lemon zest before serving.

If you use kale as I did, don't use the stems, unlike chard they are tough and not good to eat. Be sure to check out Green Kitchen Stories. It's a great site beautifully done.

 

Tuesday 23 October 2012

Blueberry Leftover Pudding



 My first recipe is an exercise is using up excess. I had made this cake earlier in the week because ,well, it was called a 'Doughnut Cake' and who can resist that. Turns out the cake was kind of plain and neither tasted nor smelt much like doughnuts.  Although tasty, a week of plain cake is more than enough and it is starting to get a bit dry. We are huge fans of bread and butter pudding, so I wondered if I could use the leftover cake and the principles of bread and butter pudding to make some sort of desert.

I started by infusing milk with the rind of a lemon as I want to use some blueberries in this recipe and lemon and blueberries go so nicely together. The milk will be for the custard. While the lemon and milk sat together warming on the stove I sliced my leftover cake into approximately 1/4 inch pieces and lined my dish, a nice base layer for the blueberries to sit on. This time of year fresh blueberries are of the imported kind and I try when ever possible to only buy fresh when it's in season, so frozen will have to do. Actually, when it comes to fruit and baking there is nothing wrong with frozen. At this point I was humming and 'haing', about whether I should add some other fruit too, but in the end decided to keep it simple  and see how things work out. I dusted the blueberries in a little flour to stop things from getting too liquid and potentially preventing the custard from setting. It just seemed like a good idea, I have no science to back that theory up! (the flour just made a goopy mess!)
To make the custard I followed an old recipe that has been with me for at least 20 years from the 'Good Housekeeping New Step by Step Cookbook'. This was the first cook book I ever owned and was a gift from my parents. I have taped the binding together many times, had to un-stick pages and decipher recipes obscured by spills and splashes. It was the only cook book to survive the cull when we edited for our move and will be with me till my dying day! But back to the custard. Simply mix all the ingredients together and once combined, pour evenly over the cake and berries. Let it sit for a bit so the cake can absorb the liquid then pop it in the oven for an hour or so.

Once out of the oven and cooled I toasted some roughly sliced almonds to scatter on top because frankly it was one ugly looking pudding! Almonds didn't do much to help.  Although important, looks aren't really what matter when it really comes down to it so time to get a spoon, dig deep and taste:)

Yum! Creamy custard, tart berries and a crunch from those last minute almonds. Next time I think I would cut the cake into smaller squares and scatter the berries in amongst the cake rather than layering it or better yet, put the cake on top of the berries, to make it more aesthetically pleasing. Perhaps adding a topping of brown sugar and cinnamon would make a nice crust and hide the ugly better than the almonds!




Blueberry Leftover Cake

Plain cake (at least day old is better), enough to cover the base of your dish. Mine was 8"x11"
2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen
750 ml milk
finely grated rind of 1 lemon
3 eggs
2oz sugar ( I used 1oz agave syrup as that's all I had)


Preheat your oven to 350F (180C)
Gently heat the milk and lemon rind over low heat to a boil. Turn off the heat and leave to infuse for 20 minutes.
Meanwhile slice your leftover cake and cover the base of your dish. Scatter the blueberries on top of the cake.
Whisk together the eggs and sugar and slowly mix in the cooled milk.
Pour the milk mixture over the cake and berries and leave to soak for about 5 minutes.
Place your dish in a roasting tin containing enough hot water to come halfway up the side of the dish.
Bake for 50-55 minutes until the custard is set and the top is golden brown.

This pudding is best eaten when warm but can easily be reheated the next day, either in a warm oven or in the microwave. If you wanted to add the sugar and cinnamon topping do so before baking using 1tbsp of a dark sugar such as demerara mixed with 1tsp of cinnamon.

A quick intro!


In March of this year with our daughter graduating from high school and things not looking good for our son attending high school with out some major changes being made (he's high functioning autistic), my husband and I decided to pack it all in. By the end of June our house and all our belongings had been sold, our daughter was on a plane to Europe where she is spending a year out, discovering herself and her goals for her future education and life. We traded the car for the biggest truck you can imagine, attached a fith wheel RV and set off across Canada. We are home schooling our son and living life the non traditional way!
One of the hardest things for me has been trading my beautiful kitchen, granite counters, kitchen aid and a myriad other cooking gadgets and electronics, a large fridge and freezer for my tiny one on wheels. My entire home is now the same square footage as my previous kitchen! This blog is my journal of finding my cooking groove when faced with a limited budget and even limited space.
We call our little home the Tin Can. Welcome to the Tin Can Kitchen.