Tomato Lunch

A rain charm to fend off the storm.

It’s a rainy afternoon from where I’m writing.  It’s only eight degrees outside but I’m determined to think of summer.  What better lunch, then, than a tomato salad?

Here is my tomato.  It’s had a hard life being imported from somewhere into my refrigerator, but I’m not a snob when it comes to aesthetics.  Of course, this would be a different post altogether if I had my mother’s multicoloured heritage tomatoes at hand.  But we make do with what we can.

Let me take this opportunity to introduce to you a tiny piece of steel that makes eating tomatoes so much easier: the tomato huller. 

Rather than simply slicing off the top of the tomato and discarding it, or using a knife to cut into the top and leaving a tomato slice that looks like a victim of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, this little tool quickly and neatly removes the tough bits of tomato attaching the stem to the flesh without wasting all that tomato-y goodness.

So first you remove the stem.  Just pop that sucker right off.

Then take the huller and dig the little spokes into the area around the stem-hole.

Ease the huller around the edge of the stem-hole and work it underneath, like an ice cream scoop.

Then just scoop away the icky parts.  Tada.

Makes it easy to slice up your tomato, lay it, salted and peppered, on a plate with some fresh basil leaves, and drizzle it with a smidgen of vintage balsamic vinegar (because we all know how much I love vinegar).

You can see how that lovely top slice didn’t go to waste.

I grated a wee bit of asiago cheese on top and ate it with a roll (which I baked myself!) to sop up the juices.  Mmm.

Presto Pesto

Pesto is a thoroughly un-intimidating and yet awesomely elegant and enjoyable addition to most cooking.

And it’s ridiculously easy to make, believe it or not.

Now that I have my own little basil farm, I no longer have to worry about spending $7 for a box of wilted basil stems at the grocery store, and I no longer have to hoard them jealously in my freezer against spoilage.

My basil is just about to flower, so there is plenty to harvest.  I only hope my basil plants survive the stripping.

So I’m going to go to excesses here and make some simple pesto for freezing.

When cutting basil leaves, make sure you cut them close to a node so the smaller leaves on either side will branch out and grow.

Dump some fresh or frozen basil leaves in a small food processor (or in our case, the food processor attachment of our Braun immersion blender).

Add extra virgin olive oil until it looks like an oil spill hit.  Not too much oil that you could swim in it, but enough that everything is covered.

Tap in a little bit of grated parmesan cheese as well, for flavour.

Maybe some salt and pepper if that suits you.  Normally I don’t bother.  I dislike pine nuts, so they are omitted, as well.  Jerks.

Blend the crap out of that.

Line a greased baking tray or one lined with waxed paper with dobbles of the pesto goo, or fill up ice cube trays with the same and freeze for a few hours before popping them into a resealable freezer bag.

Add defrosted pesto to bread recipes, or use it to cobble together classy antipasti.  Pop frozen basil cubes into soups and sauces.

Hey, presto!  Pesto.

Savoury Beef with Shiraz Gravy

This recipe is an improvisation from start to finish, and if I hadn’t taken photos of it on the slight off-chance that it was going to work then I would never be able to tell you what I did.

Fortunately for you it got the Pie’s Official Seal of Approval (in that he nodded with his mouth full and muttered, “this is really good”), and I have the photographic evidence to jog my memory.

Beef I get on sale is never the best that red meat has to offer.  More often than not it contains a lot of gristle and tends to fry up awfully tough.  However, I am willing to put up with a lot for three dollars.  These three steaks cost me $3.47 in total, which wasn’t bad at all.

Rather than simply fry them up, as per Pie’s plan, and then drown them in barbecue sauce (also as per Pie’s plan), I decided to cube them up instead and make something a little … saucy.

The original plan was to create some panang-like concoction with red curry and coconut milk.  Upon closer scrutiny it came out that I had no coconut milk so had to go with a more European approach.  I picked four herbs to accompany me on this journey: ground corriander, dried parsley, Hungarian paprika (which, after tasting the completed recipe, I would have left out, as it was overpowered by everything else), and pure Newfoundland savoury, grown at Mt. Scio Savoury Farm, not ten minutes from where we live.

In a small bowl, mix together about 3 tablespoons flour with your paprika, coriander, parsley, and savoury.  Use whatever amount you feel is appropriate.  I probably added 2 teaspoons or so of each.

Before you cook your meat, make sure to pat it dry with a paper towel.  I learned that from Julia Child, and it’s totally true.  If your meat is damp it won’t brown properly.  And yes, that is totally a Spiderman Band-Aid.  I had a run-in with my bread knife and now it has a taste for blood.

In a cast-iron skillet sear the beef at high heat until the cubes are browned on all sides.  A non-stick pan won’t give you half the brownness you’re looking for on this, and if you have the skillet super hot, with just a drop of butter sizzling in there, you don’t have to worry about the meat sticking at all.

Reduce the heat to medium and sprinkle the browned meat with the flour mixture and stir until the cubes are evenly coated with the flour.  You will notice that it sticks to the bottom of the pan at this point, but that’s a good thing.  The reason you add the flour mixture at this point is so it forms a paste with the meat juices, and when you add more liquid to it, it doesn’t get all clumpy and gross.

Pour in about a cup of beef broth.  For this I dissolved a bouillon cube in a cup of boiling water.  Give it a good stir with a wooden spoon and make sure to scrape up all the pasty stuff from the bottom of the pan.

Let that simmer for a bit until it starts to thicken. That’s the flour working away.  Aren’t you glad you mixed it in early so you have no lumps?

Add about a cup of Shiraz or any other red wine (sorry enthusiasts/aficionados/snobs, but I can’t tell the difference with reds – they all taste like cat pee to me) and let it simmer until the sauce is a thick, dark brown and is reduced by about half.

This should take about twenty minutes from start to finish and serves three or four, depending on how hungry you are.

The Pie has suggested also substituting for the red wine with a nice porter or stout beer.  Could work.  Maybe we’ll try that next time.

Serve over rice (we used our favourite Brown Rice Medley my parents smuggle us across the border from Trader Joe’s) and accompany with your favourite vegetables (in this case, imported broccoli and local rainbow carrots).

Fancy Cheese ‘n’ Do

Happy Discovery Day Holiday, Newfoundlanders!

In Newfoundland it’s not called “macaroni and cheese”, nor is it even known by the short form of “mac and cheese.”  No, here it’s called “cheese ‘n’ do”.  The ‘cheese’ is pretty self-explanatory, but the ‘do’ comes from what locals refer to as “scooby-do pasta,” which is not formed in the shape of a cartoon dog’s face, believe it or not.  It’s the long macaroni that curls around itself a few times in a helix, otherwise known as cavatappi (“corkscrew”).  I feel like we also called it scooby-do pasta when I was growing up in Nova Scotia, but I need a sibling or parent to back me up on that one.  Feel free to tell me as well that I’m completely wrong.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find any cavatappi for this particular recipe (which is odd, this being Newfoundland), so I went with gemelli instead, which is like the double-helix version of scooby-do.

'Do for two.

Mac and cheese is one of the Pie’s favourite meals, and this is one that he has perfected over the years.  We like to experiment with our cheese sauce, adding spices or even other sauces, and we have in the past added sausages and peppers to the mix.  As with most traditional recipes where each of us has preconceived notions of ingredient proportions, my cheese sauce has more cheese in it than he does, and it is a constant fight to get him to add tomatoes.  While I used to think tomatoes were a horrid addition to this casserole, my mother always insisted and now I have seen the light.  The Pie has not yet come around to the idea.  It’s a constant struggle.  Anyway, this is mostly his recipe, though I was allowed to contribute in order to post it.  Now I know all his secrets.

Tonight we took advantage of our overabundance of Ontario cheese, as well as the fresh basil now growing in the kitchen.

Grate up between two and three cups of cheese for this recipe, and what kind you use is up to you (though mozzarella doesn’t work very well, gotta say).  We used a combination of emmentaler, gruyère, and regular old cheddar.  Make sure you have all your additions ready (like if you’re adding meat, it’s cooked and ready to go) before you start melting the cheese.  Once the cheese has melted you have a limited amount of time before it starts to burn so you want to work quickly.

Preheat your oven to 350°F.

Melt about two tablespoons butter in a saucepan.  Add in two tablespoons flour, and mix well so there are no lumps.

Pour in two cups milk and make it nice and hot, though don’t let it boil or burn.

While that’s going on, cook up a box (450g) of small noodles (like macaroni) according to package instructions.  Drain and return to the pot you cooked it in. 

Whisk  two to three cups grated cheese into your hot milk.  You can retain some of this for sprinkling on top of the casserole but that’s up to you.  Add lots of salt and pepper to the cheesy mix.  We also added several sliced leaves of fresh basil to the sauce at this point.

When the cheese is fully melted and the sauce is thick (careful not to burn it!), empty your sauce into the pot with the noodles and give it a good stir.  Make sure the cheese coats all the noodles and whatever else you put in there.  We like to add a few things to the noodles, so we put in half a can of diced, drained tomatoes.  We also put in some diced cooked bacon.Be thorough in your stirring.Pour out into a sufficiently large casserole dish (9″ x 13″ works well) and smooth out the top.  The noise made when stirring macaroni in a sauce is truly disgusting.  I love it.

You can sprinkle on any leftover cheese at this stage.  Some people like to top their mac with a butter and bread crumb mixture, but we figure we have enough carbs going on, so we just add more fat.  Mmmm.Bake uncovered for 25 minutes, or until the top is crispy and bubbling throughout.  Remove from the oven and let it cool for ten minutes or so before serving.  If you don’t you will sear the inside of your mouth with molten cheese and everything will get all over the place.  The casserole needs to solidify a bit first.Serve it with some vegetables on the side or whatever you want.  I like to add a few drops of Tabasco to mine for added spiciness.This keeps well for leftovers, if your husband doesn’t eat it all immediately.

Good Ol’ Egg Pie

Ali’s Note: Things are getting uber-busy here at Elizabeth, so after today I’ll be posting on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays only.

It seems to be a fad these days to make crustless quiches.  The health benefits are clear, and on the whole the process is a lot easier if pastry isn’t involved.

In my family, we’ve always had crustless quiches, for as long as I can remember.  My mother has only recently begun to perfect her pie crust so most of the time we just did without and it worked just fine.

In our house we call them egg pies, because that’s really what they are.  You can get totally creative with what you put in them — you’re only limited by what you have in your refrigerator.  The only tricks are really to ensure that the egg is more the matrix that holds all of your stuff together than it is the main ingredient, and also to cover your pie for the first half of cooking or the top will get too brown.

This particular pie is pretty simple.

Preheat your oven to 400°F.

I had some broccoli florets left over from the red curry coconut noodles of the other day, so I decided to make a broccoli-cheddar egg pie.

Butter a 9″ pie plate and set it aside.

Gently steam the broccoli florets (this is from four small heads of broccoli) just until they’re a bright green.  You don’t want to over-cook them as they’ll cook further inside the egg pie.

Drain and chop them up roughly, then set them aside.

In a bowl, whisk together six eggs.  Add in 1/2 cup milk and whisk that sucker around. Sprinkle in a dash of nutmeg, as well as a pinch of salt and season with ground pepper.  The Pie can’t taste the nutmeg, but I can.

Stir in about 1 cup grated cheddar cheese (really anything but mozzarella works well in these things).

Finally, add in the broccoli and stir that up as well until everything is all eggy.

Pour your mixture into the pie plate and level it out.

Cover the pie loosely with aluminum foil and bake for about 30 minutes.  Uncover the pie and bake again until the top is set and starts to brown, probably another 10-15 minutes, depending on your oven and the thickness of your pie plate.

Eat it for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, hot or cold.  It makes a protein-packed and easily-carried brown-bag lunch as well.

Two other variations you might consider for inspiration:

Cheddar, red pepper, green onion, and chorizo.

Broccoli, mushroom, and feta.

Home-Made Chicken Noodle Soup

Every time we have whole roasted poultry in the house I make soup afterwards.  Soup is a great thing to have in your freezer for days when you’re feeling lazy, and making soup from leftover chicken or turkey ensures that you can get every scrap of meat from that bird.

I saved the carcass and the wings from the tarragon chicken we had the other night.  If you’re not prepared to make soup right away you can always wrap up the carcass and freeze it for a later date.  Just don’t forget about it, otherwise you’ll be pulling bird bones out of your freezer for months.

Anyway, take your carcass, including wing bones or leftover thighs or whatever, plus all your skin and whatever you used to season the bird (in this case I stuffed it with lemons) and chuck it in a large pot.  Add enough water to just cover the whole thing, and drop in a spoonful or so of powdered chicken stock.

Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and let that sucker simmer for about an hour or so.

Remove from the heat and strain your broth.  I set a large colander inside a large bowl and pour the whole pot contents into that.

Then I can just lift the colander and all the broth drains out, leaving me with the bits still in the colander.

Return the broth to the pot and let the boiled carcass cool enough to handle.

Here’s where you get to play your favourite carrion bird, and you can go over that carcass and remove every last scrap of meat from every part of it. 

There’s always a lot more meat on the chicken’s back (which is usually the underside if you roast it breast-up) than you think, especially around the ribs.  Get all those little tidbits out and drop them into the broth. 

You can now discard your picked-over carcass, flabby skin, gristle, and whatever else was in the pot that isn’t meat.

Return the pot with the broth and chicken bits to the heat and bring to a boil.  At this point I like to add a bit of oregano.

Then you can pour in the noodle of your choice.  This time I used macaroni.

Boil for 10-15 minutes or until the pasta is cooked, then serve.  As I said, this stuff freezes well and it keeps in the fridge for about a week.

Tarragon Chicken

I have vague memories of my mother making this a long time ago, when we lived in British Columbia.

The combination of fresh tarragon and lemon and salt permeates every inch of the chicken and it’s lovely and moist.

So take your whole chicken.  This little baby is a local Newfoundland chicken, one of the few forms of livestock produced in-province.  You can tell that they haven’t used any growth hormones because of how small it is.  And they taste really good.

Remove all the giblets and cut off the excess skin.

Work your fingers under the skin to make room for the herbs ‘n’ such.

In a small bowl, mix together some tarragon leaves and some sea salt.  Squish up the tarragon a bit.

Work it under the skin of the chicken, and then tuck in a few lemon slices.

Put extra tarragon and lemon inside the chicken.

Put the chicken in a roasting pan, or a baking pan with a small rack underneath.  This keeps the chicken out of the juices it will leak during cooking and prevents it from getting soggy.  I trussed the chicken up a little bit to give it some shape.  Just tie a bit of kitchen string around the legs and tuck it under the wings to hold everything in place.  Just keep in mind that trussed chickens don’t cook as evenly as untrussed chickens.

We’re going to do a one-dish meal here, so I’m also roasting some potatoes, together with some carrots.  Slice them up and toss them in the pan around the chicken, with a drizzling of oil and some salt and pepper.

Roast at 375°F until the chicken reaches an internal temperature of 180°F.  Stir up the vegetables once or twice to make sure they brown evenly.  Stick a thermometer into the thickest part of the thigh (without touching the bone) for this reading.  We have a digital thermometer from Lee Valley that beeps at us when the chicken is done.  Also, if you cut into the chicken at this point, all the juices will run clear and the meat will be white, not pink.  I’m going to turn the carcass and leftovers into chicken noodle soup.  Stay tuned.

Newfie Miso

I have been craving miso soup for forever and a half.

From what I’ve read, miso soup is characterized by a stock of dashi, which is composed of dried fish and/or seaweed and/or mushrooms, into which softened miso, or fermented soybean paste, is suspended.

The rest of the ingredients are up to you, really.  Traditionally the ingredients are limited to two or three items, chosen for their contrast: items that float versus items that sink, contrasting colours, textures, shapes, and flavours.   But you can put in whatever you want.I had a fun time at the Magic Wok Grocery this afternoon and I went a little crazy with possible ingredients. In this case, though, I wanted to limit myself, so I picked out preserved turnip (rather salty and crunchy), which I cut into slivers:Kai-lan, or Chinese broccoli, which is both sweeter and more sour than regular broccoli, if that makes any sense.  It’s called ‘broccoli’ for that little vestigial flower thing at the top.Also it’s nice and crisp.  I chopped it into small pieces and sort of julienned the stalks:Dried mushrooms.  Nuff said about those.  I bought all sorts of weird fungus, but I decided to take it easy on my first try and went with a western medley:A nice dark soba (buckwheat noodles) which I broke in half for easier eating:Dashi is non-existent here, so I decided to McGuyver up my own.  I used a combination of powdered vegetable stock and dulse flakes.  It’s the dulse that makes this recipe into a Newfoundland recipe, as the stuff is harvested right off the coast here.  The dried mushrooms I added to the stock early so that their essences could mingle as well.

Here is what I did.  I’ll try to quantify things for you, though I mostly just went with “some” and “a little”.

Start with about 4 cups water.  Add in 2 heaping tablespoons powdered vegetable stock and bring to a boil.Reduce heat, plop in about 3/4 cup dried mushrooms and 2 tablespoons dulse flakes and allow to simmer for 20-30 minutes.  This is so your mushrooms can absorb all the water they need.Add 1/4 cup slivered preserved turnip.  It gets less salty once it’s in the soup.About ten minutes before serving, chuck in a small bunch of soba.Five minutes before serving, add in about 1 1/2 cups chopped kai-lan.Dissolve about 1 1/2 tablespoons miso (I used the hatchi variation) in the broth (it’s easier to do this if you scoop out some of the broth and mash it into that first) and serve hot.

Miso is meant to be made up fresh each time, but I hear that leftover soup is also good cold.  I  could be wrong but I’m taking it for lunch tomorrow so we shall see.

Hash Wednesday

The title for this recipe comes from the Pie, who is a very punny guy.  Yeah. Ha ha.

The recipe itself started to come out of Martha Stewart, but then we changed  it so I think we’ll call it our own.

Cube up 2 large potatoes (we used PEI Russets) and boil the crap out of them for about 15 minutes.

You have two options here when it comes to the chicken.  You can either take a chicken breast with the bone in and the skin on and bake it for 35 minutes at 450°F, or you can take a boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut it in half horizontally, and fry it up in about 15 minutes. Either way, sprinkle some thyme, salt, and pepper on the chicken as it cooks.

However, you do it, cut the resulting cooked chicken into cubes and set aside.

Heat some olive oil in a skillet (use the one you fried your chicken in, if you did that), and sauté half a large onion, diced, until tender.  Use a wooden spoon.

Add a teaspoon of garlic in a jar and heat for 30 seconds.

Add your potatoes and cook, stirring often, until browned (about 7 minutes).  At this point, add in 2 tablespoons water.  Scrape the bottom of the pan with the spoon to bring up all the good stuff that’s starting to stick and keep cooking those potatoes for another 5 minutes or so. 

Add in your cubed chicken, together with about 1/4lb baby spinach (I’d say about 5 loosely packed cups).  Stir it up until it’s all wilted, about 2 minutes.

Season to taste with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.  Serves two.

Go-to Garlic Basil Vinaigrette

Salads here in Newfoundland is a rare t’ing, b’y.  At least for us.  It’s hard to get vegetables that you want to look at that closely.

What this means is we don’t buy those huge bottles of salad dressing, which are usually too strong, too full of extra stuff we don’t want to put in our bodies, and last for way longer than you like the flavour.

We make our little vinaigrettes instead.

The trick with a good vinaigrette is in the emulsification of the olive oil with the vinegar.  You can do this by shaking it vigourously in a closed container, or by whipping it to a frenzy with a whisk.  The choice is yours.

Here we’ve got about two tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, three tablespoons vintage balsamic vinegar, a teaspoon dried basil and another teaspoon minced garlic.  But you can put whatever you want in there.

Shake it up good and stick it in your fridge for up to two weeks.  The flavours will actually improve the longer you leave it in there.