That Can Goes Where?

As you may or may not know, I spent about twelve years spending very little time in North America. So, I don’t know if I missed the Beer Can Chicken fad or whether it is something saved for tailgate parties or frat parties or other stereotypically ‘male-bonding’ type events. I know that ever since the first time I heard of it, I have been curious and it was, sooner or later, going to make its way to our barbecue (or the barbecue of the vacation apartment complex).

Stephen was not nearly as excited as I expected he would be. He was curious about impaling a chicken on a beer can and wondered whether the beer would be wasted or whether he could drink it afterwards. He tried and doesn’t recommend it but has decided the beer wasn’t entirely wasted and that the chicken was very delicious, crispy skinned and moist.

He, of course, deserves all the credit as he put the chickens on the barbecue and he stood nearby during the cooking process. And, to be fair, he and Matt, his trusty deckhand, did rescue one of the birds from sure incineration with their bare hands. This was before we, Janine, Stephen’s trusty chef, and I, decided it was probably going to be necessary to line the grill with some foil lest we waste more beer in dousing the flames.

This all felt very Friday Night Lights, football party-esque. The local varsity team was playing at home and the town was a flutter of excitement and spirit. In the midst of all that energy, a big barbecue just seemed like a good thing.

There are about a gazillion recipes online for this and I read about half of them. I think this grew from what seemed like the best/most commonly used/most practical of them all. 

The rub was really simple and I didn’t measure any of it exactly. I used a mixture of grainy mustard, black pepper, salt, dried coriander, fresh thyme and oregano and a little bit of olive oil. I smeared it all over the two chickens, inside and out and left them to marinade for about six hours in the fridge.

The next hardest part was emptying the two beer cans to half full. Luckily, Stephen and Matt got back from cycling home from work and set about the onerous task. I didn’t get fancy for this first attempt and used Heineken. I think that this is where Beer Can Chicken could get a bit more exciting but more about that later.

That accomplished, everyone crowded around while I made Stephen stick the half empty beer cans in the chickens' rear ends. He was actually very surprised by how easily the cans fit. 

I had preheated the barbecue and decided that keeping it cooking at chicken roasting temperature, 325ºF, seemed like a pretty sensible thing to do. That is easier said than done but, aside from a couple, ‘Is that chicken on fire again?,’ moments, it stayed spot on.

I thought it would be trickier to remove a chicken sitting atop a bubbling and steaming can of beer from the barbecue but with something as simple as a metal spatula and a carving fork it was a breeze. I would recommend having a place to go and a clear route there before getting on your way.

I carved these around the can, removing the can when it was easily accessible instead or trying to wrestle it and its boiling contents out of the chicken’s sizzling hot bottom. This worked better than I expected and the can can (it was going to happen sooner or later) easily be removed with a dry towel.

I used very simple flavours with this but I can’t help but thinking how fun it could be. You could do a Japanese inspired marinade and use Sapporo or a citrusy marinade and use Hoegarden or any of your favourite microbrews and something that would go really nicely. Just empty out any beer can and half fill it with whatever beer you fancy.

I will warn you that the chicken did not taste of beer but it was definitely a whole heck of a lot more moist than any barbecued chicken I have ever had and you could smell it and that, I think, definitely has its influence.

Beer Can Chicken

1 - 4 1/2 pound chicken

Grainy mustard

Black pepper

Salt

Dried coriander

Fresh thyme

Fresh oregano 

Olive oil

(Or the marinade or rub of your choice)

1 can of beer half full

Mix some mustard, pepper, salt, coriander, thyme and oregano with a couple tablespoons of olive oil and rub all over, inside and out, your chicken. Let the chicken marinade in the fridge for 4-6 hours.

Preheat the barbecue to about 325ºF, if you have a thermometer, or about medium heat.

Slide the can of beer into your chicken’s behind.

Line the grill with some foil and turn the edges of the foil up to trap the juices and prevent flare ups.

Carefully your chicken on the beer can onto the barbecue.

Close the lid and cook, checking occasionally but not too often, for about one and a half hours, or until the juices from the thickest part of the leg are running clear.

Remove from the grill with metal spatula under the can and a carving fork to steady the bird onto a carving plate or, in our case, roasting tin.

Carefully carve the chicken, upright, and remove the can with a dry towel when you can.  The beer is HOT!

Enjoy.

Pasta della California

Yep, I am a total geek. Call me corny, but I couldn’t resist.  And, to be fair, the recipe title flashed in my head while ogling some local organic avocados at the market. It had to be done.

This comes, originally, from the book Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. I know, my cookbook collection is nothing if not eclectic. It is a great book and I have discovered some tasty things in there.

So, I don’t remember the original recipe, I remember the name and I remember a quick scan. I started reconstructing and we have basically wound up with a cross between a chunky guacamole pasta and the Kiwi Café’s BLAT but chopped up with pasta instead of in a panini. In fact, we turned Poppy's stroppy suppertime refusal into acceptance by selling it as Guacamole Pasta.

Being back in the carnivore’s company, I decided some crispy bacon would be very tasty topping this all off, and easy to remove for the less meat inclined. This would have a great kick if you added some hot chili, which I think the original called for but the four year old no longer tolerates. I used a healthy handful of chopped cilantro/fresh coriander because it just seemed right. I like a lot of lime and quite a bit of salt with avocado, so I wouldn’t be disinclined to serve this with a lime wedge on top.

If you were cooking this in a normal kitchen, ie. one equipped with a pot large enough to cook a pound of linguine, I would recommend a full pound. If, like me, you are living in a holiday flat where the pots are disturbingly small, you may have to use a little less. You may also have to cook everything that would require a frying pan in the wok because it is in the least terrifying state.

Pasta della California adapted from Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero

8 slices bacon cooked until crisp (optional)

1 avocado

5 oz (142 grams) grape or cherry tomatoes, quartered

Juice of 1 lime

2 cloves garlic minced

1/2 red pepper finely diced

Healthy handful cilantro/fresh coriander

2/3 pound linguine

2 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Remove the stone and the skin from the avocado and chop it into 1/2-inch pieces.

Boil the water for the pasta. Add the pasta. Cook to al dente and drain. Do not cool.

As the pasta cooks, heat the olive oil in a large pan, or wok, and add the garlic. Cook for a minute, don’t let the garlic burn. Add the tomatoes. Cook for a few seconds and add the red pepper and the lime juice. Toss the cooked, still hot, pasta into the pan with the tomatoes. Add the avocado, fresh coriander and salt and pepper. Toss, gently, until combined.

Put it in a big bowl and top it with some crispy crumbles of bacon, if you fancy.

It's Getting a Whole Lot Meatier Around Here

We are back in the company of our husband/dad/carnivore figure, that would be for me/the girls/our borderline vegetarian tendencies in that order. That means there will be a couple of changes. The first is that I can reasonably expect someone else to share in the nappy changing duties. The second is that I will cook and eat more meat than I do in the absence of the aforementioned figure. I even start to think about meat I can cook and actively shop for it.

When I say actively shop for it, I should clarify. Now that I am in America, and away from home, I need to find new, safe and happy sources. I can’t rely on the usual market purveyors and our semi-annual trip to Windsor to stock the freezer. I need to ask questions and read labels and generally be less trustworthy than I am at home, in the familiar.

While that will, likely only temporarily, be a shopping hiccup, there are other things I don’t need to think of. I am in California. This is where lots of the unlocal produce that I am not supposed to buy at home comes from. I can buy avocados and tomatoes and broccoli and fresh fruit all year round. It grows here. Woot woot!

The little holiday complex we are staying in has a little courtyard full of barbecues, for those who want to use them. The idea of dragging the family down there and trying to quietly and civilly have supper is unthinkable, but the idea of getting it all ready and sending the husband/dad/carnivore down to cook his meat is entirely workable.

I found the meat, after a brief read of the butcher’s signs and only one question, at the very nice supermarket which is not nearly close to our little holiday flat, but it is around the corner from the more permanent neighbourhood we will be relocating to. The gorgeous heirloom tomato was, the sign told me, grown a mere five miles away. The onion just said local and I would expect nothing else, at this time of year, pretty much anywhere below the tree line.

The marinade was a little thrown together, with only one brief shopping trip worth of ingredients in the cupboard, but it worked really well. It provided a tiny bit of sweetness from the tomato sauce caramelizing which was nicely offset with a slight tang from the chipotle.

I kept the salsa mild, because of the children and all, but I would happily spice it up with some grilled hot pepper peeled and diced with the onions and tomatoes.

We cooked it to rare/medium rare and personally, I wouldn’t cook it much more. Once sliced, I could, and did, cut it with a spoon. And, I am not the one to rave about a bit of steak but this made me wonder why I don’t eat more.

Grilled Flank Steak with Grilled Onion and Heirloom Tomato Salsa

2lbs 4oz.(1.09kg) flank steak (let’s call it 2lbs or 1 kg)

Marinade

1/2 teaspoon ground chipotle 

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon ground oregano

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

3 tablespoons tomato sauce 

1/2 tablespoon red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon olive oil

Salsa

1 medium onion thickly sliced into rings

1 heirloom tomato thickly sliced

1 teaspoon (or so) of olive oil

Juice of 1 lime 

Salt and pepper to taste

1/2 tablespoon olive oil

Handful of cilantro/fresh coriander

Maldon sea salt to serve

Mix all the marinade ingredients together and rub it into the flank steak. Leave, covered, in a non-reactive dish in the fridge for at least four hours. Remove from fridge 30 minutes before cooking.

Toss the onion rings and the tomato slices with the olive oil and some ground black pepper.

Preheat your barbecue to a high heat. Place the meat and the vegetables on the grill. The barbecue will likely need to be turned down. After a minute or so, check the vegetables and turn them. The tomatoes will get soft very quickly. Don’t worry if they are about to fall apart but try to get them off the grill before they completely melt in. The onions will take a little longer. The flank steak will need about five minutes on each side for rare/medium rare.

Remove the steak from the barbecue when it is cooked to desired doneness. Cover and let rest for ten minutes. Meanwhile, chop the onions and tomatoes and mix with the remaining salsa ingredients and season.

After resting, slice the flank steak very thinly and across the grain. Pile it on a serving plate, sprinkle with a little finger-ground Maldon sea salt and top with the salsa, or serve it beside. 

What? Cauliflower Cake?

I discovered this while I was catching up on some posts from the Guardian food section one night. I should have been sleeping but it seemed such a shame to let all that peace and quiet and perfectly good reading time go to waste. I wound up reading it and thought I would file it away, by file I mean forget about in my ‘spirited’ daughter addled brain, for supper some day.

Turns out, some day came sooner than I thought. It came in the form of our say-goodbye-to-my-beautiful-bamboo-counterscape dinner rolled into a last-big-gong-show-before-we-leave-all-of-our-friends-for-six-months dinner. It also came because I needed something to sop up the beef and chestnut and the spicy butternut and lentil stew juices.

Because I am trying to empty the cupboards before we go seasonless in CA, and I will be countertopless for the rest of the week, I didn’t want to wind up with any leftovers. I wanted something a little different though and I remembered, miraculously enough, that I had seen this cauliflower cake thingy somewhere. After a mildly frenzied interweb look around, I found it or remembered where it was. 

I was alarmed that it asked for 10 eggs. I needed to make two and I had exactly four eggs in the house. I had decided that this was what we were having for supper though and continued some by-now-not-so-mildly frenzied (Little Daughter was underfoot and Big Daughter’s return from a friend’s house was imminent) interweb search until I found something the contents of my cupboards and fridge could cope with.

I was not skeptical, Big Daughter was when she got wind of what was going on. The recipe struck me as a little bland but I had remedied that, I hoped, with the addition of more cheese than it called for, a lot of grainy mustard and some finely sliced onion.

Turns out, Big Daughter changed her tune. It is pretty delicious. It has a really great texture like a cross between cake and fritatta but the ground almonds keep it from getting gummy.

I used some 2 year old cheddar because let’s face it, cauliflower and cheddar cheese were pretty much made for each other. I used Kozlik’s Double C mustard but any good grainy mustard would be fine.

I doubled the original recipe, which was lucky, because breakfast was ready for the next day. I even cooked bacon to go with it - big brownie points with Big Daughter. She was putty in my hands for all of about forty-two seconds.

Which leads me to what I may do next time, not that this isn’t really delicious as it is. I keep thinking about roasting the cauliflower with caraway seeds and adding sauteed onion to the batter. I also think that some lardons, that’s bacon bits in English, as Croque-Camille forgets in the recipe I started from, would also make it kind of perfectly meal-like.

Cauliflower Cake adapted from Chou-Fleur de Bretagne by Croque-Camille

1 head cauliflower

2 cups grated old cheddar cheese

4 eggs

1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon olive oil (plus some for roasting the cauliflower)

2 tablespoons grainy mustard 

1 cup flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 1/4 cup almond meal

1/2 teaspoon salt (plus a little for roasting the cauliflower)

Freshly ground black pepper

1/2 cup milk

Thinly sliced onion rings

Preheat oven to 350º.

Break the cauliflower into florets and put it on a baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper and toss. Put it in the oven and roast, tossing once or twice, for about twenty minutes or until cauliflower is tender and starting to brown.

Oil two 8-inch round cake tins.

Whisk the eggs, olive oil and mustard together in a large bowl.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, almond meal, salt and some pepper.

Add half the milk to the eggs, then half the flour mixture, half the milk and the remaining flour, thoroughly mixing between each addition.

Fold in the cauliflower and cheese. 

Pour into the baking pans and top with the onion slices.

Bake for 35 minutes.

Remove from oven and cool on a rack for a few minutes. Loosen edges from pan and carefully remove the cake from the pan and serve in wedges.

Apple Pie, but Better

It’s apple time. Yep, I know it has been apple time for a month or so but that last month has been a little nuts.

Still, I feel that I should be making apple pie at this time of year. Only thing is, I am not an apple pie lover. Or, a cooked apple of any kind lover. Cooked apples to me are just, well, just okay, nothing to jump up and down about and, until now, I didn’t think anything to really blog about.

My, oh my, how my opinion of cooked apples has changed after this discovery. It is not a revolutionary idea but it is perfectly sweet in all the right places. They are chewy where they should be. They are crisp and biscuity on the bottom. They are nutty and crunchy on the top. And, they are moist and spicy and sweet right in the middle.

They are half tart, half crumble. The leftovers don’t make a crostata or a free-form tart, but a pizza, as I was matter-of-factly informed by Big Daughter. In fact, it would be worth making a whole batch of these in the form of pizza for a more substantial dessert.

There is a little finickiness, but once you get going it is all just fine and fun and the finished product, especially warm with a little vanilla ice cream or crème fraiche, is pretty frickin’ good.

I used Gordon Ramsay’s pâte sucrée recipe. Not because I love it but because I had made too much a while ago, had it in my freezer and needed to use it up before we go seasonless in California. Turns out, it is perfect for this. It is strong enough to hold up to the filling and the crumble top and some minor manhandling getting the little tarts out of the tin and, conveniently enough, perfectly crisp enough to balance the soft of the apples and the tender crunch of the crumble.

The apples I used, while I bought them as Macintosh, didn’t taste like Macintosh. We think, maybe, that they had been growing with some Gravenstein and got a little mixed up. Regardless of all that, they cooked beautifully in this. You could use any cooking apple. 

Apple Crumble Tarts (makes 24 or 6-8 pizzas for a little less finickiness)

1/2 recipe Gordon’s Pâte Sucrée (see below)

Crumble

1 cup rolled oats

1 cup spelt flour (I like using spelt because it makes the crumble a little crunchier I find)

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup slivered almonds

1/2 cup softened butter

Filling

6 apples 

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 tablespoon lemon juice

11/2 tablespoon cornstarch

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Grated nutmeg

Butter 24 muffin tins. Preheat oven to 350º.

Make crumble by rubbing all the crumble ingredients together until it makes pea-sized crumbs.

Roll out pastry and using a biscuit cutter or a lightly floured glass, cut out 24 circles. I used a 78mm biscuit cutter for this. I recommend rolling the pastry out in batches to avoid re-rolling and the toughness this can cause. Line the muffin tins with the pastry circles. They won’t come up the entire side, they should come up about 1 1/2 centimetres.

Make the filling by peeling, and grating the apples into a large bowl. Quickly mix with the lemon juice to avoid discolouration. Mix the sugar spices and cornstarch together and mix in to the apples.

Use the filling to fill the tarts being careful to avoid dripping on the sides and filling them just level with the top of the pastry.

Crumble the crumble over the tops.

Put in the oven and bake for around 20 minutes or until the crumble is cooked and the bottoms are golden brown.

Remove from oven. Cool a few minutes in tin. Using a small knife, gently remove them from the tin and continue to cool on a wire rack. 

These will keep for a couple of days in an airtight container. 

To make the pizzas, roll out the pastry, place on a parchment lined baking sheet, top with filling, roll edges up slightly, crumble the crumble on top and bake until golden brown.

Gordon Ramsay’s Pâte Sucrée

250 grams softened butter

180 grams caster sugar (you can substitute granulated, just don’t tell Gordon I told you so)

3-4 vanilla pods (which is a lot, so I understand if you cut it back)

2 large eggs, beaten

500 grams plain flour (use all purpose and you should be fine)

1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

Using an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar together in a bowl until smooth and creamy, but not fluffy. Slit open the vanilla pods and scrape out the seeds with the tip of a knife, adding them to the creamed mixture.

With the mixer on low speed, gradually incorporate the beaten eggs. Stop the machine once or twice and scrape down the sides.

Sift the flour and salt together. With the mixer on its lowest speed, add the flour in 3 or 4 stages. As soon as the mixture comes together as a crumbly dough, stop the machine.

Gather the dough together and turn onto a lightly floured surface. Briefly knead it with your hands until smooth - this should only take a minute or two. Avoid over-working the pastry.

Divide into 3 or 4 batches and wrap in cling film. Leave to rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes before rolling out. Or freeze it for later.

Before you roll it out, give it a light kneading to prevent it from cracking as you roll. Dust your work surface very lightly with flour and, using light, even strokes, roll out the pastry.

Put You in Your Place Pilaf

In cooking school, one of the first things you learn about is mise en place. You learn all about a brunoise and a mirepoix and mincing and dicing and julienning. You learn about peeling and boning and filetting and all sorts of helpful techniques that will allow you to do your job in a more efficient, organized and, hopefully, flawless manner.

It is all very important, in a culinary sense, not so much in the getting along in the world sense. It is also widely thought to be mind numbing stupid work -not so creative, very monotonous and very time consuming. Secretly, I have always felt that there is no shame in wanting to julienne tomatoes or mince shallots for hours. I found myself, every now and then, envious of the dishwasher's fifty pound bag of potatoes and paring knife. It puts you in your place. You can think and chop and daydream and peel and pay attention to whatever is on the radio and slice and after, all is right in the world, or at least in your part of it.

The best, and in the weeds, the worst, thing about being alone in your kitchen, or galley, is that you have to do it all. There is no choice, unless you can corral an unsuspecting deckhand or small child into doing it for you when you don't have the time.

There is not a whole lot of mise en place that goes on in our kitchen. Meals are made on the fly with at least one chair getting drug across the kitchen floor on its way to 'help out' and at least two hands tugging at whatever cloth they can grab at knee height and the ever-loudening, 'up, up, up,' coming from the same area. Sometimes I like to pretend that I am more organized and that supper is a cooking-show-fabulous display of ramekins and tiny bowls with perfectly prepared ingredients being effortlessly thrown together to make something superb. I am sadly out of practice and easily distracted so what used to take five minutes now takes almost three full episodes of Pinky Dinky Doo, three, 'take that out of your mouth,' interventions (shoe, china tea pot lid and rubber band), a complete tidy up of all the chalk and the multicoloured drool on the floor from discovering that not one of the colours is delicious to eat, a rescue of the pile of 'precious artworks' being torn into tiny pieces and two trips over the contents of everything thigh level and below in our kitchen.

So, while I like to think that cooking like this is therapy, I am closer to needing therapy if I haven't saved the prep for nap time. It does make the witching hour easier though and supper has uniformly cooked pieces and looks a little prettier when you can manage it and, despite all the distraction, it still feels good to slice and dice and peel and chop everything into little bowls, even if it is in forty-five second intervals.

You can do all the prep work for this ahead of time, or as you go. You can then throw it all together, pop it in the oven and walk away for the better part of an hour.

The barley makes a great change from the usual rice and it is delicious. Little Daughter ate this for about three days. Big Daughter had seconds and asked for more a few days after it was all gone.

This makes enough for two adults and two children with a big salad as a main course. It might serve six people as a side dish and would be just fine with a roast chicken.

Barley Pilaf

1 finely chopped onion (3/4 cup)

1 large carrot finely chopped (1 cup)

2 ribs celery finely chopped (3/4 cup)

1 cup mushrooms finely chopped (1 cup)

1 large clove garlic minced 

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup pearl barley

3 cups stock (I used chicken stock because I had it, use whatever you have)

1 bay leaf

1 large sprig fresh thyme

Handful of chopped chives

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350º. Sauté onion, carrot, celery, mushrooms and garlic with olive oil over medium high heat in an oven proof pot with an oven proof lid, stirring occasionally, until onion is translucent. Add barley and reduce heat to medium. Stirring occasionally, let the barley get ever so lightly toasted. Don't let it burn. Add stock, bay leaves and thyme and bring to a boil. Cover the pot and place it in the oven for forty-five minutes. Remove the lid and leave in the oven for fifteen minutes more. Remove from the oven and check the seasoning, stir the chives through and serve.

Will the Real Edible Kind Please Stand Up?

When I was child, I once ate a horse chestnut. I remember thinking that people sang about, 'chestnuts roasting over an open fire.' I figured that they should probably taste fine freshly fallen off the tree as well. Little did I know that Aesculus hippocastanum is not to be confused with Castanea, also known as The Edible Kind. The bitter, drying taste I faced left me wondering what all the Christmas carol fuss was about. It wasn't until I was about twenty years old that I finally braved up to taste the 'real' thing. But, this isn't about The Edible Kind.

A week or so ago, I replied to a tweet describing the cupcake menu for the day at Nomélie Cupcakes. I asked what the heck a 'buckeye' was. Her reply was: @nsbonnielass a choc cupcake w/pb cream cheese filling dipped in ganache topped w/swirl of pb frosting http://tinyurl.com/2g4xqom. I followed the link and realized, 'they're conkers.' But, candy conkers.

So, I read a little about it, and thought of my husband and his love of peanut butter. I thought of his even greater love for chocolate coated peanut butter. I thought of his love for conkers. Really, still, in his fifth decade, the search for the perfect conker can easily double the length of an autumn hike. And, I made some peanut butter conkers because, as patiently as I wait, the real ones still haven't started to fall off the trees here and I fancied a bowl of conkers or horse chestnuts or buckeyes, whatever you choose to call them, for the centre of our table. 

I read some of the recipes following the link above and most seemed a little bit too full of stuff I don't consider to be food like wax. And, some things that I had never heard of like honey margarine. And, things that seemed redundant like peanut butter cups. One of the recipes seemed fairly reasonable save for the fact that, made in the quantities prescribed, I would have wound up with way too many of the little tasties. 

I went out got some of the bad, but oh-so-good, sort of creamy peanut butter for these. I figured with a recipe like this, there is no point trying to be virtuous. The original recipe called for margarine and I used butter. I did keep the shortening in the chocolate coating only because we had some shortening left over from a bird seed project we have been working on and, as I said above, with a recipe like this, there is no point trying to be virtuous.

Conkers adapted from a recipe tested by Carla Hall who is possibly a member of the Mid-Ohio Boogie Club (makes 30)

400 grams confectioner's sugar

1 1/2 cups creamy peanut butter

1/2 cup softened butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

6 ounces chocolate chips

2 tablespoons shortening

Mix sugar, peanut butter, butter and vanilla together. Chill for an hour.

Form into 30 conker/horse chestnut/buckeye shaped balls and place on a tray or plate. Chill for an hour.

Melt chocolate and shortening in a heavy bottomed saucepan over low heat or in a double boiler. Stir until all chocolate is melted. Cool until it is about body temperature.

Using a toothpick, dip each conker in the chocolate and place on lined tray or plate. When all are dipped smooth the toothpick holes closed with a wet fingertip. Chill until firm.

Keep in refrigerator or freezer until you are ready to eat them.

Warm Toasted Garlic and Lemon Vinaigrette and Some of Its Many Uses

Every now and then you realize that you have stumbled upon a culinary workhorse. It may, like in this case, be something that you have been using since the dawn of time. Or, at least since the dawn of your culinary exploration. It may be something that someone shows you and you suddenly realize that it has a multitude of uses.

It will most likely be simple. And, it should be made of things you would normally have on hand. Otherwise, what’s the use if you can’t just whip it up whenever you need it.

I have been using this warm, and impossibly simple, vinaigrette since I discovered the bounty of Provençal markets. It is perfect drizzled over a plate of sliced market fresh vegetables in any season. 

Poppy and I made a warm zucchini (courgette, for all you English folk) and summer squash slaw with some toasted almonds and tomatoes for lunch the other day and it was ‘exactly delicious’, as Poppy told me when asked how she thought it turned out.

Today, I was lucky enough to have five pounds of fresh scallops delivered to my door. I happened to mention it on Facebook and ceviche was suggested by Jason in reply. As today seemed to redefine grey, I thought that was a great idea to liven up the dreary moods moping around ours.

I was about to get into making it when I realized that I didn’t have any lime or any red onion or any fresh coriander/cilantro so I was going to have to wing it. 

I started to cut the scallops and decided to slice them very thinly instead. Then, as I was juicing the lemon, I remembered doing it the other day for the vinaigrette. All of a sudden I was digging a plate out and laying the scallops on it and getting everything ready to make the vinaigrette which was going to be drizzled over these scallops for a pretty decadent little rainy day lunch. Cue blue skies and sunshine.

Over the last few hours, I have decided that the possibilities for this little gem of a vinaigrette are almost endless - warm potato salad, drizzled over figs and goat cheese, a quick topping for a pasta. I think I could go on for a while here. I'd love to know if you find a use for it.

Warm Toasted Garlic and Lemon Vinaigrette

1 large clove of garlic julienned

Juice of 1/2 lemon

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

In a pan, heat olive oil. Add garlic and cook until it just starts to brown. This will happen quickly. Be careful not to burn it. Pour in lemon juice and stand back. When mixture starts to boil, this will happen quickly, remove from heat. Immediately drizzle over whatever you are drizzling it over.

Zucchini and Summer Squash Slaw (makes enough for 4 as an ample side dish)

1 medium zucchini

1 medium summer squash

3 small tomatoes quartered, seeded and julienned

1/2 small red onion thinly sliced

Handful of parsley leaves

1/2 cup slivered almonds toasted

Warm Toasted Garlic and Lemon Vinaigrette

Maldon sea salt and fresh ground black pepper to serve

Julienne the zucchini and summer squash or, if you have one, you can use a julienne peeler.

Put the zucchini and squash, tomato, onion and parsley leaves on a large plate or in a salad bowl. Drizzle the warm vinaigrette over. Toss to mix. Sprinkle the almonds almonds and some Maldon sea salt and black pepper on top. Eat.

Fresh Scallop Carpaccio (enough for 4 as a light appetizer)

1/2 pound fresh scallops with the tough ‘catch muscle’ removed

Finely chopped parsley

Fresh ground black pepper

Maldon sea salt

1/2 recipe Warm Toasted Garlic and Lemon Vinaigrette

Slice the scallops in 2-3 mm slices. Arrange on a serving plate, or on individual plates. Drizzle the hot vinaigrette over the top of the scallops. Top with parsley, salt and black pepper. Eat.

Yes, I do realize that there are now three scallop recipes here, here and here now but, hey, this is supposed to be about cooking in Nova Scotia. So, enjoy the bounty before I have to go somewhere else.