Off to See the Wizard — But Tidy Up Before You Go.

Bakhita in motion.

Good morning!  Today we’re taking Ali Does It west as we travel home to spend the holiday season with our families.  We’ll be in Ottawa for a WHOLE MONTH.  During this time, Gren will have his second birthday (hopefully he’ll be able to celebrate it with his sister, Bakhita, who also lives in Ottawa).  And Cait and I will be starting on a new category of blog posts for you: Mad Science.  Because who doesn’t love science?  I know I do.  Especially when it involves things that fizz or glow.  So stay tuned for a wide variety of madcap experiments in the coming months.

From left to right: unnamed female puppy, Gren, Paddy (Gren’s dad), and Bakhita (Gren’s sister).

And not to fret!  I will continue to blog while I’m home with the family — in fact, I will probably make them help out, so we should have uninterrupted posts all the way into the new year!

Before we go, though, I have a quick cleaning tip for you.  I hate leaving a dirty house.  I just can’t stand coming home to a mess, dirty laundry and expired food and stale whatever.  I’m not in the mood.  So the Pie and I tend to do a whole-house clean before we go, just making sure the surfaces are clean, things are dusted, the laundry and dishes are done, and the fridge is empty of anything that might expire in our absence.  It just makes for a better homecoming, especially when the first thing we do upon our (usually late night) reentry is open our suitcases in the middle of the living room and make a big mess.

Now, there’s a lot of work to do in the days leading up to our travel — usually the Pie is writing exams and I am packing and getting Gren ready for the airplane.  So anything that saves me time and effort is number one in my books.  So here’s a handy tip for quickly and lazily cleaning your microwave — while you do something else.  And this even works on super gross, super crusty microwaves.  Trust me.  I own one of those kind.  I’m a terrible housekeeper.  And I’m freaking LAZY.

Take a small bowl and fill it with about a cup of water, maybe a cup and a half.  Whatever floats your boat.  Then add in a few tablespoons lemon juice (you don’t have to be all elitist and use fresh lemons for this — bottled lemon will do just fine).

Pop that bad boy into the microwave in the middle and nuke it for 3 minutes.  Then leave it in there, without opening the door, for another 5 minutes.  While cool and awesome science is going on behind that door, you can work on cleaning something else.  Or check Facebook.  Or play with your dog.  That is up to you.  What is happening is the steam from the boiling water is loosening baked on goo, and the acid in the lemon is breaking up all the grease.

Then take your handy dandy scrubby sponge and simply wipe away all that grease and grime.  That’s all it takes, is a little wipe.  I kid you not. It’s that simple.

Even gets the stuff on the ceiling of the microwave. Easy peasy.  And even if you forget about the microwave, all that lovely condensation will have done its job, even if you come back an hour later.

And once the lemon water in the bowl has cooled, you can dip your sponge in it and use it to sanitize your counter tops and cutting boards. BLAMO KABLAM.

Snow Day Dinner: Sweet Pear Fizz

I’ve been thinking about this for some time.

Remember when I made poached pears?  Well, I reduced the pot liquor (not to be confused with alcoholic liquor) and then froze it to use later.  So I had all this pear syrup that I thought would go great in a beverage.

Plus we have this Golden Pear liqueur that we’re nearing the end of and we’d like to finish it up as we’ve had it kicking around for several years now.

So when Fussellette came to dinner, I thought I would try a wee experiment in mixed drinks, and this is what I came up with.

In a jug, mix the following:

1 ounce vodka

3 ounces Golden Pear liqueur

1 cup pear liquor (syrup from poached pears: pear juice, sugar, water, lemon, vanilla), frozen to slush.

2 cans club soda, chilled.

Stir and pour into glasses.  Serves four.

The next time you stew or poach fruit, save the juice or the sauce and see what kinds of liqueurs can make it into the best drink ever!

Lemon Bars

After creating the heaven that was the hazelnut dacquoise the other day I found myself with four egg yolks kicking around and not a clue as to what to do with them. But then I found this awesome post by Food & Whine about what to do with leftover yolks. I plan to frame it and put it in my kitchen. Or at least bookmark it for later.

So I decided to whip up some lemon bars, lemon curd being probably my number one favourite sweet condiment on the planet.  And I got the recipe from Squidoo, of all places.

It takes a bit of time to make lemon bars but none of it is particularly hard.  So let’s begin.

Preheat your oven to 325°F and line an 8″ square pan with aluminum foil.  I only had a round one, but that’s okay.

Separate 4 egg yolks from their whites, if you haven’t already done so.

In a food processor (that most amazing of kitchen machines), chuck 2 tablespoons granulated sugar and 2 tablespoons icing sugar.  Process those for a minute or so.

Add in 10 tablespoons cold butter (that’s 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons, if that helps you to make it out) and pulse until the sugar is all disappeared.

Pour in 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour and pulse that around again until you have a sandy crumb texture.

Pour that out into your prepared pan.

Use your fingers to press the dough into place on the bottom of the pan, and prick it with a fork so it doesn’t explode.  These things do happen.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, until the dough is firm and the edges are golden. Don’t allow it to brown, because you’ll be baking it again and this is supposed to be a pale dessert.  Then the crust is done, reduce the oven heat to 300°F.

While the crust is baking, you can make your curd.

Use a microplane file to zest 2 whole lemons.  Then you want to get the juice from 3 whole lemons (you can use the ones you already zested).

Set a strainer over a small bowl near your stove.

In a medium-sized pot, plop your 4 egg yolks and 3/4 cup granulated sugar.  Beat until well combined.

Add in the lemon juice and 4 tablespoons butter.

Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the temperature of the liquid reads 196°F, the curd is bright yellow and opaque, and the mixture coats the back of a spoon.  Just like that. Don’t allow the mixture to boil or it will curdle and you’ll have to start all over again.

Pour the mixture through you strainer and discard the little solid bits left in the strainer.

Stir in your reserved lemon zest.

Pour the mixture over the crust and bake for another 10 minutes.  Allow to cool completely in the pan, then transfer to the refrigerator for 30 minutes to make sure the curd sets before you cut it.

Before serving, dust liberally with icing sugar and then eat your heart out.

Seriously, eat your heart out. They’re SO good.

Poached Pears

This is another recipe I borrowed from Caroline over at The Wanna be Country Girl, who in turn got it from David Leibovitz, one of my favourite chefs.  I may have borrowed a few of his recipes myself on a few occasions.

Fall is the time for apples and pears, and delicate pears lend themselves well to a gentle poaching. So cut up 4 firm, ripe pears.  These are Bartletts, I think — I got them at Costco.  They could be Anjou. There was a big pile and they were all messed around, and I’m not that good at fruit identification. Quarter, core, and peel the pear pieces and plop them in a large saucepan.

Slide in 1 sliced lemon, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, and 1 1/3 cups granulated sugar. Pour 1 quart (1 litre) water over the fruit.

Cut a square of parchment paper, fold it into quarters, and cut a hole from the centre.

So when it’s unfolded you have a hole in the middle.  This will let the steam out.

Tuck the parchment paper into the saucepan and bring the fruit to a simmer for 25 minutes.

Then I removed the fruit to cool slightly and turned up the heat on the remaining liquid to reduce it to a syrup.

As we had clafoutis for dessert that night, we let the pears cool and had them for breakfast the next day, with their own syrup and a daub of whipped cream.

Amazing on top of pancakes!  Try the pears in sandwiches and salads, too.

The Un-Cola

I saw this recipe on Freshly Pressed this past summer and was inspired by Krista and Jess to make this recipe from the New York Times (thanks ladies!).

My brother Ando has always been a fan of carbonated beverages.  Specifically the cola variety.  The more caffeine the better (he used to be a bit of a night owl).  Sodas aren’t that great for the teeth, of course,  as they contain a lot of sugar.  The colas especially so.  Ando’s tip for strong dentition: drink sodas only in conjunction with food, and use a straw.  When I saw this recipe, I thought he’d like it.  It’s made of all natural ingredients and contains significantly less sugar than your average can of Coke (which has 39g of sugar in it, the same as 10 sugar cubes).

These sorts of natural syrups are a sign that we are trying to return to simpler times, and the creators of this recipe, Brooklyn Farmacy & Soda Fountain, are doing just that (so you can go visit them Ando and tell me how the recipes compare — it’s just over the bridge after all).

So this is his DIY Christmas gift from his little sister (SURPRISE!), which, together with all the other presents for the Manhattan Crew, I am trying to get completed and mailed out before the end of the month — how’s that for organization?

The recipe itself is pretty straightforward, but does require a certain attention to detail.  I also had to do some serious sleuthing around St. John’s to find all the appropriate ingredients, though if that means puttering around Food for Thought and Fat Nanny’s for an hour or two then I really don’t mind.

You’ll need to grate the zest from 2 medium oranges, 1 large lime, and 1 large lemon.  I doubled my batch so that the Pie and I would have some to try, and then made up an extra set of dry ingredients so that Ando can cook himself up a refill.  Each batch makes about 3 cups syrup.

So I grated a lot of citrus.  I’m going to save it and make a fabulous beverage soon.

For the extra dry ingredients, I used a zester, which gets the peel without the bitter pith.

Then I heated my oven to 150°F and spread the peel on a baking sheet to dry.

It probably cooked for about an hour while I was doing all that other stuff.

Take some whole nutmeg and a fine rasp and grate yourself about 1/8 teaspoon of that stuff.  Mmm, smells so good.

Crush one section of one star anise pod with a spoon.

Cut a vanilla pod so you have a 1 1/2″ section (that’s almost 4cm for you metric folk).  Use a knife to split that section in half lengthwise.

You’ll also need 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon dried lavender flowers, 2 teaspoons minced ginger, and 1/4 teaspoon citric acid.  You can get citric acid at stores that sell canning supplies, or try specialty or health food stores.

In a heavy pot over medium heat, bring all those ingredients to a simmer in 2 cups water.  Reduce the heat to low and let it simmer for about 20 minutes.

In a large bowl, mix together 2 cups plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar and 1 tablespoon packed brown sugar.

Plop a colander or strainer on top of that and line it with a double layer of cheesecloth.

Pour the contents of the hot pot over the cheesecloth and gather the ends of the cloth together so that all the solids are in a nice little package.  Use a spoon to squeeze out all the liquid from the package against the side of the pot.

Stir the syrup occasionally until the sugar dissolves, about 10 minutes.  Transfer to a container and keep it in the refrigerator.

In order for this to last the trip over the sea and land and a river to Manhattan (from one island to another) I decided to can it.  You can see my tips on canning with a stove top canner here.

To drink, pour 1 part syrup over ice and mix with 4 parts seltzer or soda water.  It tastes FANTASTIC.  Not like a commercial soda, but one where you can taste all the flavours that went into it.  AMAZING.

And here is the little container with the dried peel and all the other dried ingredients (minus the sugar) that Ando will need to make his own batch.

O Canada: Maple-Glazed Salmon

You won’t see too many fish or seafood dishes on here, because the Pie won’t eat them.  You can’t do a feature on Canadian cuisine without talking about Canada’s vast ocean resources, so I’ve kind of snuck this one in under the radar.  I discovered the recipe a few years ago when the Pie and I had two other roommates who were a little more into sea creatures than he is, and I made it often.  The plus is that the marinade works really well on pork chops as well, so when I make this I can make a piece of salmon for me and a piece of pork for the Pie and we’re both happy.

Maple syrup forms the basis of this marinade, but the lemon juice, ginger, and soy sauce give the sweetness a bit of a snap.  Quick and easy, too.  I pulled it from an issue of Canadian House & Home a million years ago.

In a bowl, mix together 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 1/2 cup genuine maple syrup, 4 tablespoons light soy sauce (I used organic tamari), 1/4 cup Dijon mustard, and 1 teaspoon minced ginger.  This is enough marinade for 4 pieces of fish.

You’ll notice here that I butterflied the porkchop I had, just to make it the same thickness as the salmon. That way I could cook them at the same time.

Place your salmon* (or your pork) in a shallow dish and, saving about 1/4 cup of the marinade for later, pour the sauce over the fish.  Refrigerate that for an hour.

Preheat your oven to 450°F.

While that’s heating up (mine takes forever), peel 2 very large carrots and wash 3 very small zucchini.  Or whatever ratio you prefer.

Use a mandolin to slice the vegetables thinly lengthwise.

Plop them in a pot with a few inches of water.  Add a generous pat of butter and some fragrant herbs, like herbes de provence.

Cover and steam for 8-10 minutes, until the carrots are all bendy.

Thinly slice up about 3 tablespoons scallions or green onions.

Spray a glass dish and set your fish in it with a bit of marinade to coat.

Bake for about 10-12 minutes, basting halfway through with some leftover marinade.

Transfer to a serving dish and drizzle with some of that 1/4 cup of marinade you saved earlier.  Sprinkle with the sliced onions. Drain the vegetables and serve as well.  Mmmmm … This makes up a little bit for the poutine we had last week, but won’t stand up in the face of what I’ve got planned for you on Friday.  Stay tuned!

*** THE END ***

*If you’re reading this asterisk-ed caveat, you got me: that is actually trout, not salmon.  It was in a big jumbled pile at the seafood counter and I picked it up by mistake, okay?  Sheesh.

Cool Blackberry Cheesecake

 

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAITY!

Now that I have a springform pan, I have taken it upon myself to perfect cheesecakes.  This cool no-cook cheese confection is a modified version of one by Gordon Ramsay and it’s dee-lish.

Because it’s a British recipe, I’m afraid that even with my modifications it’s all still in metric.  This is where having a kitchen scale comes in mighty handy.  Of course, because it’s a no-cook recipe, you needn’t fret if your conversions aren’t exactly accurate.

First, crush up about 150g cookies.  I used chocolate wafers, but graham crackers or digestive biscuits also work well.  You can even buy cookie crumbs pre-crushed in a box.

Mix those with about 50g melted butter.

With a glass or your fingers, flatten the crumbs into the bottom of a 20cm springform pan (mine was 25 cm so my cake is a little shorter and wider than yours might be).  Chuck that in the fridge to chill.

Now plop about 340g fresh blackberries (that was what was in the package for me) in a pot with a dash of sugar and a dash of water or juice.  Add the juice and zest from half a lemon to that as well.  Cook on medium-high heat, stirring often, until it’s all bubbly and saucy.  Scoop out a bit of the juice and make a slurry with a small amount of corn starch.  Add that back in and let it come to a boil.  Remove from the heat and let cool completely.  Chuck it in the fridge to make it extra cool and thick.

Whip up 500mL whipping cream in a chilled bowl.

In a separate bowl, cream together 500g soft cream cheese, a splash of vanilla extract, the zest and peel of half a lemon (nice use of a whole lemon there, waste-not), and 200g sour cream or crème fraîche.  The warmer your cream cheese is, the less lumpy it will be, but be careful not to let it melt if you put it in the microwave.

Fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture.  Keep this stuff cool until you need it, but don’t chill it.

Spoon or pipe a layer of the cream cheese mixture over the crumb base.

Spoon on some of your blackberry sauce and use a skewer or flat knife to swirl it around.

Add another layer of cheese, and plop the remaining fruit sauce on top.  Swirly swirly swirly.  If your cake pan is smaller and your cake taller, you could probably try for three layers of cheese with swirlies in-between.

Refrigerate the cake for at least 5 hoursand keep it refrigerated when you’re not eating it.

Spring it from the springform!

We only had it in the fridge for probably 3 hours before we ate it, so you can see it was a little runny in the centre.

But still oh so good!  We all had seconds.

Cleaning Copper Quickly

People have been cleaning things for ages.  This may come as a surprise to you.  In many cases, commercial manufacturers have come up with handy-dandy cleaning products that help you clean stuff without all the elbow grease.

Sometimes, though, the oldest trick in the book is the best one.  Here you will see some proof of that.

My parents adopted these copper trays from a friend of theirs who didn’t want them anymore.  But of course they needed to be cleaned.  That greenish patina does help to prevent corrosion, but isn’t all that pretty in this particular situation.

My mother sat there with the metal polish for forever on one tiny spot and she wasn’t really getting anywhere.  So I decided to try the age-old method of lemon juice and salt to clean it up.

Huh?

You may remember this little “science” experiment from grade school, where you dissolved some salt into lemon juice (or white vinegar works well too) and dropped a bunch of dirty dull pennies into the liquid.  Quick as a flash, you had the pretty pink pennies once again! 

What happens is the acidity of the lemon juice combined with the salt dissolves the oxide patina covering the copper, leaving the clean pinkish copper revealed.

So you can do this, too.

Dissolve some regular table salt into lemon juice and either dip a cloth into it and scrub your copper, or pour it directly on the copper.

You can also spread lemon juice over the copper and sprinkle salt on top of that.  Or salt and THEN lemon juice.  The application method is up to you, really.

Wait a few seconds …

Then you can see the difference!

For corners and tricky bits, try dipping a lemon slice in salt and using it as a scrubber.

Tada, pretty pink copper.

Copper tarnishes quickly, so if you’re not planning on using it for food, spray on a clear lacquer to prevent further oxidization.

Kumquat Marmalade

This recipe was so STUPID.  SO STUPID, in fact, that it took me two tries to get it right, and I only got it right after ignoring all the previous instructions.  So in fact I will not even link you to this stupid recipe that I used for fear of it tainting me with its idiocy.  I take full credit for this, seeing as I had to fix it.  MANY TIMES.  What I present below is the CORRECT way to do it, and should produce about 4 pints of marmalade.

If you’ve never had a kumquat, you should try one.  Sweet and bitter at the same time, it’s definitely an experience.  I like to think of them as tasty breath-fresheners.  Your first bite will be sweet, then as you crunch through the skin, the citrus oils will clear out your palette.  Quite refreshing, actually.Make sure you pick kumquats that are firm and don’t have any squishy spots.  Use them soon after you buy them because they go quickly.

Wash and remove the stems from 24 fresh kumquats. 

Slice them thinly across the middle, and remove the seeds.

Make sure you keep the seeds.

This is where all the pectin-y goodness is. 

There’s pectin in the pith as well, but not as much.

Slice 2 oranges across the middle as well. 

I used Navel oranges.  This seedless fruit is neat because it reproduces by growing a new orange in its belly button (or navel), which is that thing you see at the opposite end to the stem.

This orange reproduced another whole orange inside.  How cool.  I bet it would have been confusing to eat had I peeled it normally.

I found it was easier to can the marmalade if you make cuts in the orange peel so it breaks apart and is therefore smaller.

Toss the orange slices and the kumquat slices together in a measuring cup and see how much you have.

Chuck them in a large bowl and add 3 cups of water for every cup of fruit you measured.  I had 5 cups of fruit so I added 15 cups of water.  Leave that to sit overnight.

The next day, pour your fruit and water into a large saucepan (this is why I love our maslin pan so much).  You may find some jelly-like stuff at the bottom of the bowl.  I’m not sure what it is but I think it’s important, so scrape that stuff off and put it in the pan as well.

Bring the stuff in the pan to a boil and then lower the heat and simmer it until the rinds are very tender and you can squish them with your spoon.

Juice 2 lemons.

Pour that lemon juice, together with 9 cups granulated sugar, into the maslin pan.

Tie up your seeds in a bit of cheesecloth and add that to the pot as well.

Bring the mixture to a boil again, then simmer on low for a couple of hours.

The mixture will cook down, reducing in size, getting thicker and darker.  Keep an eye on it so it doesn’t burn, and keep stirring it.  When it starts to foam, you are nearing your gel point.

You can tell if your mixture is ready to gel by putting a plate in the freezer for a few minutes.  Remove the plate and drip some of the liquid across the plate.  Once it has cooled, give it a push with your finger.  If it wrinkles up, your marmalade is ready to go into the jar.

When you have reached the stage where your foamy marmalade goo is wrinkling on your cold plate, you can can it according to your canner’s instructions.  Check out our tips here.

Sweet and Sour Pineapple Relish

My grandmother came over for coffee yesterday (which for you is about ten days ago) and brought with her about two dozen canning jars she didn’t use anymore.  As well, she brought me an early Christmas present: Catherine Atkinson and Maggie Mayhew’s Complete Book of Preserves & Pickles.  Today the book is already covered in stains, just like every good cookbook should be.  I am in love.

Each recipe is simple with regard to ingredients and the instructions are straightforward.  I’ll prove it to you by showing you a fantastically easy relish I made in less than an hour.  I am relishing my first attempt at this particular preserve.

I tripled the recipe in the book and came out with 7 250mL jars of relish.

Open and drain 6 14oz cans of crushed pineapple.  You can use rings, which drain faster, but then you have to cut them up.  Reserve about 1 1/2 cups of the juice.

Set the pineapple in a sieve over a bowl and leave that for a while to get all the drippings.

Chop up 12-16 green onions (scallions), and mince 6 jalapeno peppers.  The recipe calls for red chillies but I didn’t have any.

Pare the rind from 3 lemons and juice them while you’re at it.

Put the lemon rind and juice in a large saucepan (I prefer a maslin pan for the evaporation) together with 9 tablespoons white wine vinegar and 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar.

Heat on low, stirring, until the sugar has dissolved, then bring to a boil.  Cook like this on medium, stirring, for about ten minutes or until the syrup has thickened slightly.

Add in the chopped onions and peppers, together with your reserved pineapple juice as well as any that has dripped out while you were waiting.  Cook this for about five minutes, until things get quite syrupy.

Increase the heat and add the pineapple.  Cook until most of the liquid has evaporated.

Can according to your canner’s instructions.  We’ve got some tips on canning here, as well.

This relish keeps for about three months, and, once opened, should be kept in the refrigerator.  Great with chicken, pork, and white fish.