Summer in March

The weather lately here in Nova Scotia has been more May than March. The more robust, or nuts, village residents have been seen sunbaking on their decks, getting a jump on their summer tan. It has caused an early sweeping off of the cobwebs and a generally cheerier note to the buzz about town. We are being teased with the tops of daffodils and hyacinths and daylilies. And, we pretend that we aren’t due to get a huge snowstorm to remind us that what we call spring here in Nova Scotia lasts a long time and can, by times, be mistaken for a late, long winter.

All the doom aside, spring fever has got its grip on us as well. So much so that yesterday, while looking over the fish counter at the supermarket, a side of salmon caught my eye.  Unbeknownst to me, it hadn’t escaped Stephen’s attention either. And, almost simultaneously, we looked at each other and said, ‘We should have planked salmon tonight.’

Home we came with our salmon and Stephen got to work digging the barbecue out of its winter corner in the basement.  He, with my dad’s help, carried it up to the verandah and brushed and scrubbed and swept it out and then he knocked on the door.

The door to the verandah is not the most energy efficient feature of our 130 year old house. Back in October, in preparation for a long, cold and windy winter, Stephen sealed it shut.  Not so that it would trap us inside but just so that the winter gales were reduced to a gentle winter breeze. 

So, I looked through the window at Stephen knocking on the door and he looked back at me.  And, I walked away from the door and over to the window. I opened the window and we lifted the screen out of the window because we both knew but didn’t want to spoil such summery thoughts by speaking about winter or storms or snow.

Stephen is, with stereotypical flourish, the barbecuer of our house. He does it all the time, not just when we have to climb through the window, in the summer, in the rain, in the garage in the middle of a wind and ice storm.  And, stereotypically, it is the cooking that has made things so perfect when they are good and when things are not so great it is, of course, my shoddy preparation.  But, I don’t mind, because every now and then, it is nice not to be the cook

There isn’t really a recipe for planked salmon and I change ours all the time. All you need is a side of salmon, a bit of wood plank and some seasoning.  If you aren’t cooking for that many, you can either use a smaller piece of salmon or individual portions.

The wood can be cedar, you can buy cedar planks in most supermarkets, and we have used maple and oak. The plank doesn’t need to be much thicker than about ¼ - ½”.  You need to soak the wood in water for a couple of hours at least.  If your sink isn’t big enough, you can soak it on a baking sheet filled with water and weigh the wood down, just keep topping up the water so the plank is covered.

Last night, I had just received a care package with some of Kozlik’s Lime and Honey Mustard in it – Kirsty, you know the way to my heart.  I mixed three tablespoons of the mustard with two tablespoons of olive oil and two cloves of minced garlic and painted this all over the side of salmon and left it to marinate for about an hour. It could marinate for another hour or two in the fridge if you had time.

Then, it gets popped on the soaked plank and on the grill set halfway between low and medium. Our barbecue is not very powerful and pretty elderly so, if you have an all bells and whistles bazillion BTU model, you might want to keep it at a lower temperature for this. We put a piece of aluminum foil between the plank and the grill because we couldn’t find a squirty bottle, or water pistol, in our late winter haste, to prevent flare ups. And, about twenty minutes later, it should be done. It is tempting to keep opening the lid and checking, but unless you need to douse flames, try to keep it shut so the salmon gets really nice and smoky.

I had an eggplant, also known as ‘overjean’ at our house, and a couple of red peppers.  I washed, sliced and tossed these with some olive oil and a minced clove of garlic for the eggplant. Stephen grilled them to perfection and I drizzled the eggplant with a little bit of white wine vinegar while it was till warm. Then, a sprinkling of Maldon sea salt, cracked pepper and chopped parsley and done. It was almost 7 pm by this point. The sun was setting and we decided we would draw the line at dragging out the deck furniture. So, dinner was passed back in through the window and we ate and tried not to think about the weather forecast because it was summer in our dining room.



Paddy's Pot (of stew, that is)

In our house, we have no real Irish connection other than that of a few friends.  But, like many, we oddly feel it necessary to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in one way or another. In the years BC (before children), that would have meant numerous hours spent in an Irish bar, often owned an operated by someone with less connection to Ireland than us. Here we would try as best as possible to resist the urge to consume anything green – it never feels good on March 18^th.  For the last three or four years, it has meant green cakes and cookies and cupcakes and led us to the, alarming for the first time and mildly amusing since then, discovery that green food colouring comes out in exactly the same shade it went in.

Last night, after remembering that today was St. Patrick’s Day, I hastily decided to cater to Stephen’s carnivorous streak and create something a bit more hearty than what Poppy and I would usually be eating for supper. I also remembered that I promised no more sweet posts for a while. So, Steak and Guiness Stew made its way onto tonight’s supper menu (only because it is far too nice a day to make the pastry required for Steak and Guiness Pie). And, as much as we try to live by what Michael Pollan has named The Eater’s Manifesto – Eat Food. Not too much. Mainly plants - supper smells good.

This morning, I went to the bottle shop to purchase the Guiness for our braise and, feeling surprisingly unpressed for time, I took a few extra minutes to browse the not bad, for a one horse town like this, selection of specialty and imported beers available.  I decided I would go a little crazy, and in the interest of making our St. Patrick’s supper a little more local, I reached straight past the Guiness for the Martello Stout from Garrison.

We needed some potatoes to eat with the stew, it is an Irish dish after all, and colcannon came to mind but, lacking cabbage, I thought that champ might do the trick. Mashed potatoes and green onions with butter and milk and some salt and pepper, if you are really splashing out, and you have champ. Then, to try to entice my almost-four-year-old into eating mashed potato, I would make golden and crispy champ cakes. It was worth a try anyway.

Steak and Guiness Martello Stew

2 pounds stewing beef (shoulder, or chuck, cuts are really good for this, lots of flavour)

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

4 cloves garlic

2 medium onions

4 carrots

3 ribs celery

1/4 cup flour

2 cups stock (Beef or veal would be best but chicken is fine.  If you are using a pre-made stock, try to find one that is low in sodium.  This cooks for a long time and reduces and could become quite salty.)

350 ml (a little over 2/3 pint which means there is some left for the cook's refreshment) Martello Stout (or Guiness or any other stout you fancy)

2 bay leaves

Salt and pepper to taste

Handful of chopped parsley (I prefer flat leaf and will always use it over curly but it is a matter of personal preference)

Heat oven to 350°.

Cut beef into 1-2 inch pieces. Pat any excess moisture off with some paper towel. Mince the garlic and chop all the vegetables into a large dice.

Heat a heavy bottomed pot and add 1 teaspoon of the oil.

Brown the beef off in three batches. Between each batch deglaze the pot with a little bit of the stock and pour the stock into the bowl with the browned beef. Add a teaspoon of oil to the pot before browning each batch of beef. Take care not to burn the bits that stick to the pot. This makes the base of flavour for the stew.

When all the beef is browned, put the vegetables in the pot and cook, stirring when necessary,  until the onions are translucent.  Add the flour and stir to mix.  Return all the beef to the pot with the stout, remaining stock and bay leaves.  Stir and cover.

Put the stew in the oven for about an hour.  After an hour, remove the lid and cook for another hour.  The stew should be thickened.  Season to taste and stir in parsley.

Champ Cakes

3 1/2 pounds (about 6 large-ish) potatoes

6 - 8 spring onions

3 tablespoons butter

Salt and pepper to taste

Olive oil

Peel, cut and boil potatoes.  Instead of mashing, I used the ricer to get them very fine, but mashing would be absolutely fine. 

Chop the spring onions and mix them into the mashed potatoes with the butter and salt and pepper.  Champ, traditionally, has milk in it but I left it out here because I was making cakes and I thought they would hold up better without it.

Form the potato mixture into cakes ( about 8) and gently fry on each side until golden.

Serve some of the stew with a potato cake alongside and an extra sprinkle of parsley.

 

 Happy St. Patrick's Day.  Sláinte! 

Out of New Nova Scotia Kitchens

This isn’t meant to be a baking blog, or all about sweet treats.  So, please excuse me yet another post about a cake so early on as I offer explanation for all of this.

The idea for this whole blog started one day as I noticed a copy of Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens by Marie Nightingale while waiting in line at Chapters. Someone had obviously had second thoughts about it and left it in the bins of all the, ‘Oh, look at this really, really pink and sparkly thing that I really, really need because I don’t have enough plastic junk Mommy,’ stuff that is placed as you line up for the checkout.

This book was a fixture in our kitchen while I was growing up. My mom's bread recipe comes from here and her baked beans .  My grandmother used to bake the Pictou County Oatcakes with me after school.  I remember being completely disgusted by the Fish Chowder which someone, who will remain nameless (no, it wasn't me or my mother or my grandmother), made to the letter which meant that it was full of pork scrunchin floaties.

Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens reminds me of the first cake I baked independent of parental assistance and using a heat source other than that of the Easy Bake Oven’s light bulb. It was also my first attempt at a cake from scratch. The recipe was from this book but I could not, no matter how much I read and re-read the cake section, remember which one.

I vaguely remember concern, on the part of my mother, at the potential waste of ingredients which has led me to think it may have been the French Cream Cake – no costly butter in the recipe. I do remember a dry and crumbly brick of a thing - a sickly sweet and slightly taupe coloured cake with a similarly coloured drizzle of icing which I am not even sure was a recipe from Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens or any book for that matter, maybe just some early culinary improv necessitated by the butter ration.

And so, I determined to give French Cream Cake a more experienced go here, convinced that it couldn’t be as bad as I remember.

French Cream Cake from Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens by Marie Nightingale

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

3 tablespoons water

Beat the eggs until light and foamy. Add the sugar and mix thoroughly. Combine flour and baking powder and sift into batter. Lastly add the water. Pour batter into 2 well-greased 9" layer pans and bake for 25-30 minutes in a 350° oven. Cool.

It is a very simple recipe and,  because I have a tendency to stray from the written recipe, I couldn’t resist switching it up a bit.  Likely, because of my memories of the dismal failure of 23 or so years ago and, I like to think because I know quite a bit more about cooking and baking now, so I feel a little more liberated to do this.

I whipped the eggs and sugar until they were very pale and thick.  This is the basic method for most sponge like cakes and by doing it you are incorporating air into the mix, ideally creating a lighter cake. I also added some vanilla and, in hindsight, I think that lemon or orange zest would have been better. The vanilla emphasized the sweetness and, I think, some citrus would play off it. Instead of mixing in the dry ingredients, I folded them in, trying to keep as much of that air as possible in the batter.

The cake was really so quick and so easy to make.  And, although I wasn’t blown away by it, I can see when it would be a great basic last minute cake -with strawberries and cream or as a low fat alternative.  It is not a beautiful sponge, still a little grey in colour and too plainly sweet for me. It is pretty similar in taste to Angel Food Cake, but not nearly as light and airy and it is a little chewy.That being said, it is a vast improvement on my first attempt which is hardly surprising some may say.

I didn't use the filling recipe that Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens gives to go with it, but it is probably my bias against pastry cream that made me do that.  Instead, Poppy helped me fill it with apricot jam and buttercream and we used buttercream on the top and sides as well. This was, for me, too sweet, but Poppy had no problem with it.

This is not about trying to undermine what, I think, is a great compilation of recipes that is responsible for quite a few of my earlier food memories. It is about, from time to time, looking at how our tastes and the way we cook has and will continue to change based on our experience, in the kitchen and out. We travel, we read cooking magazines and books and we can watch cooking shows 24 hours a day. This affects how we think about food, how we imagine things will and should taste and how we want them to taste. So, that is what this is about – new flavours and stepping outside the recipe box. It is about how the food we eat can influence our memories for better or worse and it is about relaxing and enjoying what we and our families eat.

It won't always be about cooking.  Sometimes, it will be about eating or picnicking or shopping.  And, for a few posts anyway, it won't be about sweet things.  I promise.

The Hunger Gap Dilemma

Here we find ourselves in the middle of ‘the hunger gap,’ that time between when the fresh local food surviving from the fall runs out and when the new season of growing and harvesting begins. So, we make do with slightly old bits of cabbage and things that look okay at the supermarket and which have, with any luck, not traveled the length or breadth of the continent to be found on our plates. 

We have our own micro hunger gap at our house.  We get a box of fresh vegetables – sometimes organic, sometimes local, sometimes both, from our Organic Sue, but only every two weeks since there is, for most of the time, only two eaters in our house.  So, we have this period nearing the end of the veg box, but too close to the new one to go and get anything from the store where the pickings get pretty slim.

I will tell you now that I am extremely lucky and I know I am and I am grateful for it. My daughter, who is not quite four, will eat pretty much any vegetable. She has been known to respond to the to myself mumble, ‘what should we have for supper?’ by saying, ‘I think some salad would be nice.’ 

It was this comment that led us to search through the fridge drawers, thirteen days after our last bi-weekly veg box delivery, in hopes of putting something together to encourage those sorts of comments and behaviour.

What we found: ½ an avocado left over from Tilly’s lunch 2 days ago (and, no, not local by any stretch but good for my baby), 2 inches of cucumber (slightly mushy so decided the compost was really the best place for that), 3 button mushrooms, handful of carrots, ½ red cabbage, 5 chioggia beets, some fennel (purchased because of giant fronds to replace dill in another cooking escapade), 3 ribs of celery (on the limper side of life), a bunch of kale missing a few leaves due to colour addition to one meal or another earlier in the week, one very soft and sprouty red onion and 2 lost parsnips which were obviously missed in the last baby ‘stew’ making effort.  Grim, I thought.  But, that not quite past it red cabbage spoke to me. ‘Coleslaw, Poppy?’ I asked, hoping. 

‘Yabut, not the white kind that comes with fish and chips though, right?’ was the reply. 

‘Okay, we can not do that kind,’ I promised.

Hunger Gap Slaw – this does take a bit of prep time unless your beets are already cooked.

5 medium beets – we used Chioggia, the stripy ones, but anything will work.

1 bunch kale – any sort will do

3 large carrots

½  head red cabbage

½ bulb fennel

½ cup toasted pumpkin seeds (or sunflower seeds or sliced almonds)

Wrap beets in foil and roast at 325° until tender.  Peel as soon as you can handle them.  Slice or cut into wedges depending on the size of your beets. You don’t even have to cook the beets, if you don’t want to.  You can peel and cut them into a fine julienne and they will be lovely although you may not want to use all five in that case.

De-stem the kale.You can usually do this by grabbing the leafy green, or purple, bit at the bottom and pulling up and away from the hard ‘spine’. Steam the leaves just until tender, 5-10 minutes or so. When it is cool enough to handle, gently squeeze any extra water out and chop it into bite size bits.

Peel and slice the carrots. I used the vegetable peeler for little ribbons, but this can be finicky. Pressed for time, I would just grate them. For something more uniform, I would finely julienne.

Slice the cabbage finely.  You can actually use some vegetable peelers to sort of shave it, but your peeler needs to be really sharp and quite strong.

Take the centre out of the fennel and slice it finely.

Mix all the vegetables together and sprinkle the pumpkin seeds over the top.

Vinaigrette

2 tablespoons honey

1/3 cup white wine vinegar

2 tablespoons walnut oil (you could substitute sesame oil)

¼ cup vegetable oil (I like using grapeseed oil because it really lets other flavours do   their job)

Salt and pepper to taste (or for a toastier flavour, you can use tamari)

Put all the ingredients in a jar, I always have an empty Mason jar nearby for just these sorts of things, and shake until it looks like it is well blended.

Pour the vinaigrette over the slaw and toss just before serving.

And the verdict?

'This isn't very white at all Mommy.'

We Love You Tate & Lyle

Anyone who has spent any amount of time with my daughter, Poppy, will attest to the fact that she is obsessed with marshmallows and all things marshmallowy and anything that mildly resembles marshmallow.  She refers to the meringue of lemon meringue pie as the marshmallow bit.  She longingly gazes at the bags of those cylindrical pillows of fluffy sweetness when we have to travel down that aisle in the supermarket and thinks the tiny ‘fruity’ ones should be served at every meal.  She is amazed by the wide array of British marshmallows – pink and white hearts, little watermelon wedges, 3 foot long tri-colour twisty whips.  She rates different venues of her favourite British café chain by the number of marshmallows they give her with her ‘cappuccino without the espresso’. Her birthday cake orders usually consist of the words big, pink, icing and marshmallows.  Last year’s was an ode to those four words in a grotesque, tummy-aching, tooth paining kind of way. 

 

This passion has grown over the last two years or so, but is has been a steady growth.  It has disturbed us because if she knows or remembers they are in the house, all hell breaks loose until one is doled out.  This has come as a shock to us.  We used to be able to bribe her, yes, I am not too proud to admit it,  with promises of yoghurt and raspberries for ‘pudding’ and we still can, provided it is followed by ‘something with sugar’ – Poppy’s words, not mine.  And, because we have to choose our battles, this is one we have given up on.  But, when we can, we make our own marshmallows and that is usually greeted with an expression previously saved for Christmas morning.

Most marshmallow recipes still call for corn syrup which should not be confused with the high fructose stuff, which is corn syrup that has gone through processing to create a sweeter substance that contains more fructose.  Corn syrup is mainly glucose and is also referred to as glucose syrup sometimes.  I still try to avoid it but when your daughter’s favourite thing in the world is full of it, it is tempting to breakdown and use it.  So to keep it out of the house, we experiment. 

In England, for those things we, in Canada, would normally use maple syrup for, there is golden syrup.  I didn’t try this stuff for quite a while after I met Stephen because I just thought it was corn syrup.  Little did I know, that this toasty, slightly caramelly treat is made from sugar.  Golden syrup, also called treacle, is used to make puddings and tarts and on porridge and pancakes in England and, handily for us, can be used as a substitute for corn syrup.   You can find it in some supermarkets here in Canada, usually in a glass jar and every now and then you find it in the famous green and gold tins, the way it comes in England. This is enough to make you want to ban those plastic squeezy bottles of corn syrup from your kitchen in itself.

Now our marshmallows are made with golden syrup and, I was surprised to see, keep their white colour.  But, they have a slightly nutty caramel taste and are a little reminiscent of old fashioned barley sugar candy.  We don’t make them often, and when we do they are quite strictly rationed, usually to supplement our yoghurt and fruit bribes – I like to tell myself that is still the bribe, not the marshmallow. 

Next, we need to try them out over the bonfire and when we need to up the ante, I have decided we’ll go chocolate covered.  Stay tuned...

A Winter Confession

In the midst of wallowing about in February's grim grey chill, I began to think about where I have spent Februarys for the last how ever many years.  Urk's unfriendly glumness comes to mind, as do several Caribbean winters - not in the least bit grey.  Thailand, again not grey at all.  Turkey - grey by times, but with an expat/yachtie comaraderie that made it less so.  France - a little grey but you are in France and distractions are easy to come by, so it doesn't really matter.  England - mostly grey but second home to me and daffodils and crocus are blooming so you are lulled into a sense of spring by default.  Then, last winter's Mallorca - not as warm and sunny as I expected but when sunshine grows outside your kitchen door, it makes the dullest of greys sparkle with spring promise. 

That lemon tree saw us through tonsillitis, several failed attempts at recipeless and stingily sugared lemon marmalade, teatime for many a visitor, exports to the UK, preserved lemons - which do not travel well and too many gin and tonics - for others, not for my pregnant at the time self.  Thinking about it now, I realize that winter would be bleak without the promise of guilt laden citrus fruit with a carbon footprint like a Hummer from places that don't dream of days when the temperature rises above zero.  And, that I would go crazy if I really had to rely solely on ever softening apples and the ever dwindling remnants of the frozen and squirreled away summer berries and rhubarb from an all too short growing season for the extent of my winter fruit fix.

So, here I confess to buying a bag of lemons from way beyond a hundred miles away and all to make one cake.  One cake that sang out to me from the pages of a newly acquired cookbook, one of six that I had been coveting and in a midwinter moment of insanity all too hastily clicked upon and bought.  It made me think of Eastern Mediterranean summer days and iced earl grey tea with a slice of lemon in dripping glasses and that made my winter blahs disappear for a little while, and my cookbook induced post-purchase depression too.

In my desperation to get the cake made, I neglected to check the cupboard for semolina, I normally have it and use it pretty regularly.  In the post move, new baby fug that still hangs over our house some days, it apparently ran out and didn't make its way onto what should be a shopping list but is usually a random scribble of appointments, notes, phone numbers and to dos.  So, at 9:17pm, after zesting and juicing seven lemons and creaming the butter, sugar and eggs, I needed to try and figure something out.  After emptying everything out of the pantry cupboard just to be sure there was no semolina, I had a pretty good idea of what was available and I settled on cornmeal.  I knew the texture would change and I would have to adjust the amounts a bit, but it would still be good.  Wouldn't it?

Sticky Lemon-Yogurt Cake adapted from Greg Malouf and Lucy Malouf's artichoke to za'atar

Cake

8 ounces butter

1 cup sugar

4 teaspoons lemon zest

Beat together until pale and smooth.

4 eggs

Beat in to butter mixture, one by one, ensure each one is completely incorporated before adding the next one.

1/2 cup plain flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 cups fine semolina, or, 1 cup cornmeal

2 1/4 cups ground almonds

Fold into eggs and butter.

6 tablespoons lemon juice

1 cup plain yogurt

Mix in after dry ingredients are incorporated.

Pour the mixture into a greased 8 inch springform pan and bake at 325° F for 50-60 minutes, or until firm to the touch and golden brown. (If you use cornmeal, you will probably find that you need to bake it for longer, I did.)

 

Syrup

1 cup lemon juice

1 cup sugar

1/2 tablespoon brandy

Combine in small saucepan and bring to the boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.

Remove the cake from the oven and pierce it all over with a skewer.  Pour the syrup over the hot cake and allow it to soak in.  The cake will keep weel in an airtight container for 3-4 days.

The smell of this was anything other than winter, citrusy fresh and toasty almond and a faint hint of the brandy as I poured the syrup over the top. 

This morning, as Poppy tried to convince me that it would be a good second breakfast, she also decided it looked plain.  I expect she was really looking for buttercream or pink marshmallows to liven it up but settled for our frozen stash of summer fruit and a dusting of icing sugar. 

And, it was pretty delicious with a steaming hot mug of earl grey tea, with a slice of lemon, of course.