Tweed Ride 2012

We had the best day yesterday! Gorgeous weather, a day with nothing to do but join some 300 other people all dressed in tweed to ride about the environs and end up drinking tea and eating cucumber and salmon sandwiches on the lawns of the castle. (We ended there as taking my kid to the pub where others ended is not likely). Finally the thousands of hours spent watching period dramas has paid off and I get to make a very civilised spectacle of myself! 

I had only vaguely looked at the route and so kept thinking "surely we turn here for the quickest way to the next stop". Took me ages to realise it was not about the destination, but about the journey. As in life. I have plans for next year involving refurbishing my 1963 CCM, buying a wool tie and tortoiseshell sunglasses. Am listening to Glenn Miller to sustain being In the Mood!

Lemon Yogurt Cake and Lemon Sorbet

It's still so chilly out: late, late spring. On the upside it means that when the lilacs do finally bloom there will be proper warming sun to bring out the scent. On the downside I'm bloody freezing and tired of wearing coats in the house to stay warm. Pretending it's summer by bringing out the lemons helps a little. We made fantastic lemon ice cream on the weekend and then Lemon Yogurt Cake. I've seen loads of recipes for Yogurt Cake but wasn't too intrigued till I saw Darina Allen's Yogurt Cake with Lemon. I've played around with it a little, taken out the lemon curd, substituted my own icing, but it's very, very nice. Really the nicest Lemon Cake I've had, and trumps the one with ground almonds as kids can take this one to a nut-free school.

The Lemon Sorbet which follows is considerably more lemony that the original recipe it's based on. If you are not as much of a lemon-freak as we are then just scale back a lemon or so.

Lemon Yogurt Cake

4 eggs
1 cup yogurt, no added pectin
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
grated peel of 3 lemons
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Beat the eggs, then add yogurt, sugar, lemon zest and vanilla. Beat well then add blended dry ingredients. Once thoroughly incorporated add the oil. Pour into a buttered and lightly sugared loaf pan and bake for just over an hour. Keep an eye on it: as always my mad oven likes to under-bake centres while burning edges. If you're baking with a 1947 General Motors stove (yes, you read that right, GM not GE), then you may need to tent it.

Once the cake is done take out and cool. While cooling make the icing. Squeeze your original 3 lemons and probably another 2 or so into a saucepan. Add 1/2 cup icing sugar and boil for half a minute. Now make holes all over your lemony cake with a fork and pour the icing in. The yogurt's made it moist the icing poured into the cake just heightens the meltiness of it. Serve just as it is. Very nice warm but really very nice the next day too. I doubt it's going to last long, but that may be my terrible greed talking.

Lemon Sorbet (or just about the most refreshing thing you've ever tasted: utterly thirst-quenching on a hot day. Which was not this weekend, but somehow we coped!)

zest of 4 -5 lemons
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 3/4 cups water
1 cup lemon juice (takes about 6 or 7 lemons)

Melt the sugar in half the water then put in the fridge for at least 4 hours. If it's not cool enough then the damn ice cream maker will refuse to cooperate and you have to start refreezing the storage unit all over again. Get the sugar water Coooooold. Add the lemon juice to the sugar water before putting it in the fridge ensures a good product as then the juice is also cool. Once it's seriously cold you take out your ice cream maker, add your lemon-sugar-syrup and the rest of the water, which - needless to say - is as cold as it can be. Put into the ice cream maker, turn on and voila (after a suitable intermission). Best darn lemon sorbet ever!

Lovely Scones

These scones are so lovely: for breakfast, afternoon tea, without sugar but a bit of cheese added in at lunch. If you don't do well with dairy you can substitute keffir as it is for some people more digestible than milk and cream. Heating it does kill all the good bacteria but still worth while as keffir seems to give a lovely rise. Remember with scones (and muffins) you don't want to overmix as it makes the product a little tough. Just blend to achieve a melty crumb.

Here's the basic scone recipe: to this you can add keffir or yogurt and milk in place of milk or cream; and/or 2 teaspoons grated orange plus 1/3 cup marmalade; 2 teaspoons ground ginger and 1/2 cup blueberries (frozen is fine); 1/2 cup raspberries; 1 mashed banana and a handful of chocolate chips (if doing banana chocolate scones reduce the milk by about a quarter cup then add back in by drops if necessary); 1/2 cup raisins and one grated lemon. We eat them a few times a month for breakfast: the chocolate banana ones are the favourites with the kids, I lean to the marmalade ones myself. Of course you want to serve them with lots of butter!

Scones

2 1/2 cups flour

4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup butter or margarine

1 1/4 cups milk or combination milk and cream or keffir or keffir and yogurt.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Blend dry ingredients and rub the butter in. If you're adding berries or chocolate chips or raisins add them to the dry. Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture. Then add the milk. Mix with a spoon till blended. If making the banana scones add the banana goop to the milk and don't forget to reduce the milk till you see the consistency of the batter.

Chocolate Bark

Chocolate Toffee Matzah might be the best Passover thing but Chocolate Bark is the best thing full stop! It is crazy easy and portable and keeps well (eat within a week: not that there's a chance of it lasting that long) and can be taken to school. Plus it is flour free.

4 ounces dark chocolate, best quality

handful of pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, dried cherries or dried apricots

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler. When it's fully melted stir in most of your dried fruit and nuts. Then pour slowly onto a piece of parchment paper laid on a cookie sheet. Scatter the remaining fruit and nuts on top. If your kids are fussy content yourself with hiding the fruit and nuts inside the chocolate (looks prettier on top but I found all the visible dried cherries picked out). Put in the fridge to harden for half an hour. Boy will this make you popular!

Chocolate Toffee Matzah

Oh, this is the best Passover thing. Makes kids adore you, crowds follow you, matzah disappear like water in the Red Sea. Plus it's terribly easy to put together, which is a bonus!

Chocolate Toffee Matzah

4 sheets matzah

1 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup chocolate chips

Slowly melt the butter and when melted introduce the brown sugar. Cook, stirring, for 2-3 minutes. When it's done put your matzahs on a cookie sheet (this must be lined with parchment or a silpat mat). Carefully pour the toffee over and pop it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes, till it bubbles. Take the matzahs out and immediately scatter the chocolate chips over the top. Leave a few minutes to melt then spread them carefully over the matzahs. Let cool and pass around.

Passover goodies!

Every year something different about Pesach strikes me as challenging (in the food arena: vanquishing my inner Pharaoh is always a climb up the Pyramids on a hot day). This year I think I've conquered sweeties, largely through the judicious use of chocolate, ice cream and quinoa - though not all at the same time! Today the kids went to school with chocolate toffee matza and came home to blueberry-raspberry quinoa muffins. For our Thai homestay's birthday tonight I think I'm feeling lazy and will mix up our Lieber's sponge cake and put some jam in the middle. In the meantime here's some quinoa muffins (they do use baking soda which, while it might contravene the spirit does not contravene the law of Pesach).

Berry Muffins for Passover

2 cups quinoa flour

2 eggs

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

3 tablespoons butter

1 medium banana, smushed up

3/4 cup yogurt

1/2 cup milk

1 cup berries

1/2 cup maple syrup

Preheat the oven to 350. Butter muffins tins and sprinkle in a pinch of sugar to each muffiny section (this keeps them from sticking). Blend the dry ingredients and add the berries to the dry. Melt the butter and then stir in the yogurt and milk (or use just over 1 cup of keffir). Add the eggs to the moist mix, then the maple syrup and the bananas and then add the moist to the dry. Stir till just blended. Bake for about 25 minutes. Let cool in the pan a little (I use silicon then invert and push gently from the bottom to encourage them to slip out). Serve with butter or margarine.

Chocolate Cinnamon Squidgers

I asked Max what his favourite baked treat of mine was. "Ooooh. Chocolate cinnamon birthday cake! No, maybe your lemon-honey cookies! Um, wait, that chocolate banana cake. Or maybe the Chocolate Cinnamon Cookies? Nope, too hard, I can't pick one". Well, he can't pick one, but here's one of his picks!

Chocolate Cinnamon Squidgers

1/2 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar (not packed)

1 large egg (free range please)

4 ounces melted semi-sweet chocolate

1/4 cup golden syrup (or light corn syrup)

1 3/4 cups white flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoons cinnamon

handful of dark chocolate chips or chunks

sprinkling of white sugar*

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler. While this is going on blend the brown sugar with the butter. Once thorougly blended, add the egg and stir in. Now add your melted chocolate (some of which will adher to the side of the saucepan: this is to enable you to wipe it off with your finger and taste for quality assurance purposes) and golden syrup. Blend dry ingredients and add to the moist. Stir thoroughly to combine and then toss in chocolate chips or chunks. Shape the cookies to the size you like and dust with sugar. Bake for 12 minutes at 350 degrees. Remove from the oven and let cool a minute or two before transferring to your wire rack. If you're rushing around, trying to get kids ready for school the cookies will take advantage of this and fall apart if you try to move them too soon. If you're trying to get ready for work on top of this they will chuckle evilly while falling through the racks. So go away, do something else productive and reappear in a couple of minutes to slide them over.

* note on sugar: I have recently discovered that on the coast our white sugar is cane sugar. Cane sugar, unlike beet sugar, is for some mad reason processed using animal bones to bleach it. Or something. At any rate, former beings are used in the processing of sugar in Vancouver. Ewwwww! So now I'm using organic sugar (not processed this way) and brown sugar (and hoping that's not processed this way) and hoping this weirdness abates at some point. Being a vegetarian (not vegan) baker is tougher than it looks! Not mountain-climbing tough, for sure, but a little salt with the sweet. Having said that I'm appreciating Max moving me over to deeper thinking about my almost 3 decades of veggie habits. We're also rennet-free now and gelatin free with vitamins (never thought about that one: again, ewwww!).

Vietnamese dinner for 3

I'm going off topic, branching out to savouries, carried away by the extreme moreishness of tonight's dinner. We had Japanese food the other night for dinner and I had tempura batter left over: googled it and some internet people claim the Vietnamese eat tempura. Well, if it's on the internet it must be true, right? What to eat when you take out the meat? Eat this, baby, eat this!

Jasmine rice: you can figure this out by yourselves. Just make sure you wash, wash, wash the rice first. If you don't have jasmine rice, make plain old white, I won't tell anyone. I threw in a few snowpeas once I figured the rice was done and left the lid on for them to steam.

Peanut Sauce:

this is crazy-good. It's great that you might have lots left over, put it on steamed veg, eat it with crudites, mmmm.

2 cloves garlic

2 tbsp cilantro

2 tbsp peanut butter

2 tbsp lime juice

1 tbsp soya sauce

1 tbsp rice vinegar

1 tbsp chopped ginger

1 1/2 tsp sugar

1 tsp sesame oil

1/2 vegetable oil

Whiz all this up in your whizzer of choice. (I use a tiny counter-top whizzing thing and it does the job brilliantly).

Tempura dipping sauce:

1/3 cup mirin

1/3 cup soya

Boil very briefly in a saucepan and pour in a little bowl for dipping.

Vietnamese Tofu:

1 package of firm tofu (or medium firm, throw caution to the wind!)

2 cloves of garlic

5 tablespoons soya sauce

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1 bulb of lemongrass, fresh as you can find (should feel somewhat pliable)

Take the tofu out of the container and wrap gently in a piece of paper towel. When it's dry, cut into long, thinnish strips.

While the tofu's drying a little, chop up the bottom of the lemongrass, the bulb part and a bit of the green. You'll have to take off at least one of the outer layers of the lemongrass unless it's super, big-city fresh. Chop it up pretty finely and put it in a mortar. Add the chopped garlic and grind, grind, grind. Or throw it in a machine if you like making noise and washing up stuff. Put it in a bowl or pan and add the other ingredients. Add the tofu and let marinate for about an hour. When it's good and soaked, fry it up. There's plenty of oil in the marinade so no need to add more. Turn that heat up high, slap a lid on and turn the slice over when they are browned. Serve with all the nice goo from the pan (which will mostly have cooked away).

Tempura:

1 egg

2 cups of water

2 cups of flour

Mix egg with water, then watery egg with flour. Heat vegetable oil really high (then I usually turn it down just a smidge, but keep an eye on your tempura and judge accordingly). When the oil's nice and hot, dip your vegetables (we always have sweet potatoes or yams, carrots, broccoli, peppers, and onions are also nice) in the batter. Carefully (this stuff is Hoooot) drop into the oil. Stand there watching it a while. Think your thoughts, don't take any phone calls. When it's browning a tad, turn it over, cook a wee bit more. Take it out, put some more in. Let the stuff that's waiting on a paper towel cool down a bit then give it a test bite. Mmmmm.

Yummy, gooey, crunchy, soft contraband

As part of my saving money and decluttering drive I've realised I need to keep better track of the groceries we've already got on hand (so back you go, redundant package of black sesame seeds). We were needing something yummy, gooey, crunchy and soft and I unearthed a package of sliced pecans I'd semi-forgotten about. Mmmmm, these could become pecan squares I thought to myself (I was feeling a bit flaked out, if you'll pardon the pun, from the recent pie-making so didn't go to chocolate pie-crust pecan pie, which, of course, was my first mental stop on the pecan goody train). These turned out Gorgeous, just Gorgeous!! As I slipped them into the oven I realised Max could not take them to school as the school is nut-free. Ah well, better make him some Chocolate Spice Cookies then. Fortunately we were sent one heck of a wind storm which knocked out power to the school, giving us a chance to eat Every Last Pecan Square and me a chance to make the Chocolate Spice Cookies.

Pecan Squares

For the Shortbread base:

3/4 cup of butter, softened*

1/2 cup brown sugar (not packed)

2 cups white flour

scattering of chocolate chips (optional!)

For the gooey pecan top:

1/2 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar (not packed)

1/3 cup honey

2 1/2 cups (roughly) pecans

2 tbs cream (ran out of cream, used milk, seemed fine to me)

Making the shortbread: blend the butter and sugar thoroughly, then add the flour till combined. Put the dough in a lightly greased 8 by 8 square pan (or thereabouts) and press. Bake the base until firm, about 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees, until firm and lightly browned. When it comes out, if you like, scatter the chocolate chips about straightaway.

Making the pecan topping: While the shortbread base is cooking, chop the pecans if not already chopped (though why you'd buy whole pecans for a recipe indicating chopped is beyond me: ergonomics, bakers, ergonomics!). Melt the butter slowly (burned butter seldom being a good idea) and stir in the brown sugar, honey and cream. Remember how hot this is and do not touch it, even if it does look really good. Simmer for a minute, stirring a little. Stir in the pecans, Bob's your uncle. Pour the pecan ooze over the base and pop it back in the oven. Given that the base is already cooked it's a good idea to put it on a cookie sheet so that the base does not overcook. Maybe tent the top with tin foil so that it doesn't over-brown. cook till most of the filling is bubbling and then whip it out. Let it cook, significantly, and then ... ooooooh :)

* recipes almost always specify unsalted butter, but it costs more and in my possible ignorance I figure that if recipes asking for unsalted then always ask you to put salt in the recipe, well, I'm skipping the middle man here and just using regular old salted butter. If you really like unsalted, or understand the mysterious behind buying unsalted and then putting salt in the recipe, well, it would be about 1/2 tsp of salt back in. But I don't see the point really.

Pie day!

This is very unseasonal of me. The grocer's had a sale of two bags for one (doesn't that sound more enticing than 50% off? Implies somehow that we are getting one over on the man!), so I bought two bags of granny smith apples. Then I had to do something with them as the kids are perversely not eating apples this week. Normally I love making pies: today not so much, but forced myself to get up and bake and despite my seething I got into it after a bit and it all turned out quite nicely. The key to making pie dough is Don't Overwork It! It makes it all tough and nasty. Making a ring of pastry around the edge of the piepan helps keep it from burning (burning's a bit of a theme with my oven). If you use butter it's more likely to burn a bit. This was made on a big cookie tray as it goes further and is easier somehow to cut up for lunches. Still have too many apples!

Pie dough: makes enough for one huge sheet pie or a regular pie and little jam pies after.Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2 1/2 cups flour
4 tablespoons sugar
1 cup butter
4 tablespoons very cold water


Mix flour and sugar. Cut butter into chunks and pinch in with your fingers. Stop as soon as the butter is fully incorporated. Add in a touch of water and blend. Add a touch more if needed. You want it to just stick, if it's too wet it's a nightmare to roll out, ditto if it's too dry. I roll it out on a sheet of clingfilm and then dust with flour, then put cling film on top. For this pie roll out a huge rectangle, for a regular pie roll out rounds, and place on cookie sheet.

Apple filling

Combine about 7 thinly sliced (sliced, not chunks) Granny Smith apples with about 1/2 cup white sugar or a combination of white, brown and honey in a bowl. Add 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and a pinch of nutmeg and stir to combine. Put the apple mixture on the dough and roll out the top sheet of dough. Place that on top and trim. Poke a few holes with a fork (not sure if this is strictly necessary as apples might like a bit of steam, but puts you in the pie-making tradition). After about 30 minutes watch it carefully as some ovens (ahem) like to burn people's pies. Cool a few minutes before letting kids attack pie. We like ours with a thin piece of cheddar. If you make a regular sized pie use the leftover dough to make little round jam pies (they bake much more quickly and need longer to cool: boiling jam is not your tongue's friend!).

Best weekday breakfast for cold days

It's been a heck of a year and my appetite has returned in leaps and bounds. I tell myself that this breakfast might keep me going till lunch and keep me away from (in the winter) chocolate cookies at 10:00 am or (in the summer) Starbucks chocolate banana smoothies. Mixed results on that front as willpower has as least as much to do with it as a full tummy, but this is a gorgeous breakfast, and once I've made a batch it lasts at least a couple of weeks (eating it 6 mornings a week). This is a flexible recipe: feel free to change up the nuts and dried fruit, but the oatmeal + oil + sweetener ratio should stay the same

West Coast Granola with compote

3 cups uncooked oatmeal
1/2 cup oat bran (OR 1/2 cup flax meal OR 1/2 cup hemp seed OR both)
1 cup pecans (or walnuts or whatever nut you like)
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup water
2/3 cup maple syrup or agave syrup or brown rice syrup or honey or a combination
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
1 cup dried apples (or blueberries, cherries, cranberries etc)
1/2 cup dried barberries (available in Middle Eastern stores)

Mix together everything but the fruit and bake for 20 to 30 minutes (till it's pretty dry) at 250 degrees. Stir every 10 minutes or so to ensure even cooking and avoid burning. Remove and stir in fruit, store in an airtight container.

Fruit Compote
1 bag frozen berries (about 3 cups?): generally I use rhubarb, a little raspberry added in is nice too
a bit of of water
honey to taste (in the case of rhubarb you will need maybe 3 tablespoons).
Boil till the fruit is softened.

I tend to add about a couple of tablespoons of fruit compote as well as some nice plain yogurt (goat yogurt is very luxurious). The compote lasts a couple of weeks in a jar in the fridge, if I can it properly then of course it lasts longer. Mine does not tend to last at all as I eat it up!

Keeping us warm on a snowy day food

Oh my, look what it's doing out there. Snow! Real, Canadian-like snow. I was going to drive somewhere, but I guess I'm not so it must instead be time to do some cold-weather cooking. A nice sun-shiney cake and a bin full of homemade granola should do the trick.

This is adapted from Ottolenghi's Orange Polenta Cake but as I don't much like polenta in cakes I've reworked it and it is now Orange Blossom Cake. It is gorgeously damp and looks like the sun and tastes like Portugal (if Portugal were a cake).

for the batter:
just shy of 1 cup butter
just shy of 1 cup sugar
3 eggs, just beaten
zest of two oranges
2 teaspoons orange blossom water
2 1/2 cups ground almonds
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder

for the caramel topping
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp water
2 level tablespoons butter
2 oranges, very thinly sliced

Glaze
bit of marmalade

Lightly butter a cake tin and line with parchment paper (really you want to do this otherwise you will create a very sad mess due to the caramelising). Heat the oven to 325 degrees.

Grate the two oranges and set the zest aside. Slice a smidge off the bottom and top of the oranges so that there is no white showing. With a small and delicate knife carefully cut away the remaining white bits of the oranges. Now slice them very thinly indeed (not so thin they'll fall apart but not so thick they will feel chunky when you bite into them: thinnISH). Make sure there are no pits because when the cake is upended you will the oranges.

Now make the caramel. Put the sugar in a nice, heavy saucepan and add the water. Stir gently to incorporate the water and slowly bring to the boil. Be very careful with it as a) it rather likes to burn and b) it rather likes to burn you. When it gets to a lovely golden caramel colour remove it from the heat. Standing well back carefully add the butter. Stir and then pour all over the bottom of the pan and tilt to coat. Lay the oranges in the caramel.

The cake is very quick and easy. Cream the butter and sugar then add in our eggs. Now introduce the orange zest and orange blossom water. Finally add in the flour, ground almonds and baking powder. Mix till combined but don't overmix. Pour over the oranges taking care not to dislodge them. Bake for about 40 minutes, tenting if necessary.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 5 minutes. While the cake is still warm (otherwise the caramel sticks like glue) turn the cake out and let cool. Remove the paper, natch.

Glaze the cake with a mixture of 4 tablespoons warmed up marmalade and hot water (boil up in a saucepan).