Nerves and Down Under Cookies - Mucked Up

I love being in the kitchen. I love cooking. I find it so hard to let go and not be in the kitchen when there is cooking to be done. So hard that I made dinner, of sorts, for Poppy and Stephen twelve hours after Tilly was born. Sure, it was just a bowl of pasta with some tomato sauce I had made in a hormonally charged fit of nesting a couple of days before but I still couldn't just sit back and let Stephen do it.

I love it when someone else cooks. It doesn't happen very often. And, even then, I feel awkward and anxious when there is nothing to help with in the kitchen. I have certainly never sat on our window seat and watched someone else cook.

So, I worry what will happen over the next month as I try to stay clear of the galley and let the very capable chef, who cooks for my husband all the time, cook for me and the girls. Will I be beside myself with nervousness or will I relax and enjoy it for the break it is?

I have lots of things planned for here while I am away. I have a few food posts squirrelled away and a favourite stuff page and other things I read page in the works. I am also going to try to read Heston Blumenthal's In Search of Perfection more than two pages at a time.

And, maybe I'll have some amazing food experiences to share, who knows.

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In the meantime, I have done it. I have mucked about with the much revered ANZAC cookie recipe. I will no longer refer to it as an ANZAC cookie in its mucked up form, because it quite clearly isn't. There may even be a law in Australia and New Zealand about mucking about with it. So, from now on, it will just be a recipe for Darn Good Oatmeal Coconut Cookies With Anything I Choose to Throw in.

The first, and so far only go, I had involves walnuts and raisins. They are just as good but a little nuttier and I love the taste of just starting to caramelize raisins. Very, very nice on a rainy afternoon with a hot cup of tea.

I used a little less coconut than I did in the original and I found that they needed a couple minutes longer in the oven than the plain ones but that may just be due to my thermometerless gas oven.

Darn Good Oatmeal Cookies With Walnuts and Raisins

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup rolled oats (I used old fashioned)

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup unsweetened coconut 

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

125 grams (1/2 cup) butter

3 tablespoons golden syrup

2 tablespoons water 

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat oven to 350º.

Mix flour, oats, sugar, coconut, raisins and walnuts in a large bowl.

In a saucepan, bring butter, golden syrup and water to the boil. Add the baking soda and   then mix into the dry ingredients.

Roll into walnut sized balls and place on parchment lined baking sheets. Flatten the balls with the back of a spatula.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.

New York Yogurt Cheesecake

I have been sitting on this post for ages. Just as I was about to write it, I noticed a cheesecake post on here, one of the best food blogs ever. So, I waited, wondering whether I should post it now, or wait, or just not worry about it. Then, I decided that it isn’t really the same. In fact, it is just as much a New York Yogurt Cake as it is a New York cheesecake. 

I have never made a cheesecake that I have been 100% totally and completely happy with. I don’t know whether it is because I don’t love cheesecake or whether the ones I make just aren’t that good.  I have made them in restaurants and the feedback has been nothing but positive so I like to assume that it is the former.  I have the Cook’s Illustrated All-Time Best Recipes magazine and it has a New York cheesecake recipe with, apparently, the best way to bake one so that it comes out uncracked. I couldn’t remember ever making a crackless cheesecake so I thought I would give it a go again. Er, a go in the sense that I would follow the baking instructions but to hell with the actual recipe which, in case you haven’t noticed yet, I am fairly hopeless at sticking to.  Not that I, or my hips, needed an entire cheesecake in the fridge. I was hoping for an occasion when, luckily, we were invited to supper at some friends’ and I offered to bring dessert. 

When I worked at Lolita’s Lust, we started playing around with using pressed yogurt instead of cream cheese in the cheesecake. If memory serves, we never got it really right and it was always just okay.  I wanted to try it out again, because I can convince myself that yogurt, no matter what the fat content, is better for me than cheese.

This turned out really well, save for the cracks, which despite following the New York method, were San Andreas-like in size. To be fair, it was probably either my not following the recipe or my gas oven, which I don’t have a thermometer in. The shame, the shame...

I’ve also used rhubarb here, another recipe to get you ready for the glut and, selflessly, used some from-far-away strawberries to test the recipe because when they are in season, this will be even better. The rhubarb sauce makes a tart layer and the macerated berries a sweet freshness to compliment it.

The New York method says you should put the cheesecake into a 500º oven for ten minutes and then turn the heat down to 200º for around another 1 1/2 hours. Cook’s Illustrated says that the cake should be 150º and that if it gets to 160º, it will crack. I think that is if it hasn’t already cracked due to recipe mucking about with or dodgy oven temperatures. I am certainly not going to argue with them because they have made hundreds of cheesecakes testing this out. 

I would also put a baking sheet underneath the pan in case some of the butter leaks out of the crust. I never remember. Then you won’t have to rescue your cake from an oven full of acrid burnt butter smoke like I did.

The texture was really light, for a cheesecake anyway, and, I think, the yogurt gives the cake a lighter and fresher taste. It is a little more work to make the pressed yogurt but you have the added benefit of being able to convince yourself it is almost good for you.

The recipe here is a combination of my mom’s, some hit and misses from Lolita’s and some playing around in the kitchen.

New York Yogurt Cheesecake with Rhubarb Sauce and Strawberries

Crust (I always seem to make too much)

10 ounces graham cracker crumbs (you can make them easily just by chucking the crackers in the food processor)  

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons melted butter

1/2 cup granulated sugar

Mix all three ingredients together. Press into the bottom and up the sides of a 10 inch springform pan. I used a smaller one and had extra crust and filling.

Cheesecake Filling

1 1/4 pounds pressed yogurt (you can find out how to make that here)

1 1/4 pounds cream cheese

5 large whole eggs

3 large egg yolks

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 teaspoons lemon zest

2 tablespoons all purpose flour

Preheat oven to 500º. 

Beat cream cheese, yogurt, flour and sugar together until smooth. Add zest and vanilla. Then add eggs and yolks gradually, scraping the bowl down often to avoid any unmixed bits of cheese.

Pour the mixture into the crust and bake for ten minutes.

Turn heat down to 200º for about an hour and a half, or use a thermometer and bake until cake reaches 150º. Or until it is just a little jiggly in the center.

Remove from the oven and loosen from the edges of the pan with a knife but leave it to cool in the pan. When cooled, refrigerate overnight.

Rhubarb Sauce

5 cups chopped rhubarb (I used some from the freezer and cooked from frozen, cooking time for fresh shouldn’t vary too much)

3/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon cornstarch

2 tablespoons water

In a large saucepan, put rhubarb and sugar and one tablespoon of water. Cook over low heat, stirring frequently, until rhubarb is softened, about fifteen minutes. Mix cornstarch with remaining tablespoon of water and stir into rhubarb. The mixture will go a little bit cloudy. Simmer and stir until the cloudiness is gone. Remove from heat and cool.

Macerated Strawberries

2 pounds strawberries give or take a few

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Wash, hull and slice strawberries. Mix with sugar and lemon juice and leave for a few minutes.

Pour the cooled rhubarb sauce onto the chilled cheesecake and return it to the fridge until you are ready to serve.

To serve, remove the cake from the springform pan and out it onto a cake plate. Top it with the macerated strawberries and slice. 

Who Ever Said There is no Such Thing as a Free Lunch?

There are many great things about this time of year - daffodils, tulips, hyacinths, people cheerier and smiling in shirt sleeves, longer days and promises of fresh, local produce. Until that produce kicks in, we starve it out, willing ourselves not to buy the clamshell strawberries that taste of nothing more than the plastic they come packed in, salivating at the thought of the market and bags of Wanda’s salad mixes, looking at the rhubarb to see if it is tall enough to cut yet. We overlook one of the most plentiful and delicious, especially at this time of year, greens that comes free to any lazy gardener - the evil dandelion.

This early, dandelion greens are tender and still fairly mild. Later in the year, they get tougher and stronger tasting, sometimes furrier and need more heavy handed cooking. And, let’s face it, if your lawn is anything like mine, there is no shortage of them.

Poppy and I spent a beautiful morning, pulling dandelions out of the path in front of our house. Poppy, after listening to me whine about them all morning, asked, ‘What are we going to do with all these horrible weeds?’ 

I made a mental note to once again be careful of what comes out of my mouth in front of her, ‘We can eat them all up.’

‘You can’t eat plants that you find because they might be poison,’ she replies, hand on hip.

‘Dandelions are safe darlin’. We can eat them and they are really good for us.’

‘Can we eat some for lunch Mommy?’

‘You betcha!’

I also had some fresh eggs, from my grandfather’s chickens and I thought, how perfect, a free lunch.

If your eggs are this dirty, please wash them before cracking. Also, don't forget that the omelette is cooking while you are busily playing restaurant. As you will see, mine got a little darker than it should have. 

Dandelion Omelette

4 nice fresh eggs beaten

1 or 2 nice big handfuls of dandelion greens

1/4 onion finely diced

1/2 cup feta cheese

1/2 teaspoon butter

1/2 teaspoon olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Rinse or soak dandelions in cold water. Dry them off but no entirely, the extra few drops of water will help them to cook.

Heat pan over medium heat. Add oil and butter. When butter is melted, add onion and saute until translucent. Add dandelions and saute until soft. Pour in egg and quickly stir to mix. Turn heat to low and gently cook omelette. Add feta and roll omelette. Or, if you prefer just fold it over. Flip it onto a plate and feel very virtuous while eating.

Okay, so it wasn't entirely free. I paid for the feta. And for the onion. And for the olive oil and butter. But, most of it was and that felt good. 

Down Under Cookies - unmucked

In a slight flap the other morning, I realized two things. The first was that the internet is a pain in the ass when you are in a rush to find a recipe and that I have no family cookbooks. The latter necessitated the search of the former. We were busy, it was the morning, I had no idea how many moms and babes were due to arrive shortly and I said I was going to have some snacks.

I wanted to make muffins but could I find the notebook where I have all of those recipes? Not likely with baby in one arm and stirring porridge with the other hand. Turns out it was buried somewhere between some water paints and the crayon tin, stuck to a Rosie Flo colouring book with some Hello Kitty stickers. 

I went to the bookshelf looking for inspiration there. Turns out that Thomas, Charlie and Gordon don’t have recipes for Everything but the Kitchen Sink Muffins. I turned to the computer in the hopes that someone else out there employed my method of packing as much veg into a muffin as its little paper case will hold. Nope, not so, it seems. In less of a flap, I may have been able to think of googling something other than Everything but the Kitchen Sink in a tasty cake but I had two hungry girls and hadn’t had a cup of tea.

Somehow in the mayhem, I stumbled upon an ANZAC cookie recipe and bliss, just what was needed.

I have only made ANZAC cookies once or twice but, as one of the moms pointed out, we were only a few days from ANZAC Day. How timely. It is also pretty hard to pack them full of grated zucchini and carrots but they taste so darn yummy, who cares? I resisted the urge to muck about with the recipe on such short notice despite the walnuts and apricots that were crying out to be chopped up and chucked in, the raisins that were sulking in the cupboard, left behind and the leftover Easter eggs that were screaming out to lend some chocolatey richness. Cover your ears all you Aussies and Kiwis right now because I am going to muck about with the recipe, just as soon as I have twenty  minutes to think about it. 

I had to chase my daughter who, out of the corner of my eye, I saw snitch the butter off the counter and hightail it into a corner of the living room. Her panicked fingers desperately trying to get it unwrapped before I found her. She, like her father, is all about the butter and left to it would happily eat it with a spoon. I caught her, and tied her up with a skipping rope calmy suggested she should find something more constructive to do so I could get the bloody cookies made.

I made the cookies again a day later, still without mucking about, after some further online looking around. It turns out that the ratio of flour to oats to sugar to golden syrup to butter doesn’t really vary. The only thing that seems to change is whether you use white sugar or brown and how much coconut you use.There are thousands of recipes out there and my search was by no means exhaustive and I wanted to be sure. I turned to Lynda, who makes some darn tasty ANZAC cookies at our local cookie, coffee, general yumminess cafe, to see whether she does anything crazy different because her ANZACs are perfect and as big as Poppy’s head. It turns out that she uses pretty much spot on what I used, but a little more water and a little less coconut. Her cookies are neater and I expect that comes from the extra tablespoon of water. Or, maybe it is from not having to fight a spoon-wielding Poppy off the baking sheet of raw cookies. Until I make these some more, I won’t be able to tell for sure.

The recipe I used came from here. I added an extra tablespoon of golden syrup and an extra half cup of coconut both times I made them. I also flattened the cookies out a bit before baking. I will add an extra tablespoon of water next time. And, sorry purists, I will probably add some other stuff, just to try it out. But first, I need to get some more golden syrup.

ANZAC Cookies (2 dozen)

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup rolled oats (I used old fashioned)

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup unsweetened coconut 

125 grams (1/2 cup) butter

3 tablespoons golden syrup

1 tablespoon water (I am going to make this 2 tablespoons next time)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat oven to 350º.

Mix flour, oats, sugar and coconut in a large bowl.

In a saucepan, bring butter, golden syrup and water to the boil. Add the baking soda and   then mix into the dry ingredients.

Roll into walnut sized balls and place on parchment lined baking sheets. Flatten the balls with the back of a spatula.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Try to have some left the next day.

White Sand or Rhubarb?

My husband is gone. Not gone, gone. Just back to work gone. For the time being, work has taken him to right around here. For how long? No one really knows. Maybe a month, maybe three. It is hard to say. Which is fine with me. Really, it is just fine. I don't mind one bit. Not at all, really. It is okay. I'm fine and I just need to keep telling myself that over and over and over and...

In an effort to console myself, and to keep myself from singing this to Poppy and Tilly, I remember that Stephen's job allows me to keep the dream of my kitchen sporting this in green and this and a new one of these alive. 

So, for now, my culinary whims have shifted. Shifted from grown-up cooking to trying not to have a battle at the supper table cooking. Tilly, toothless at almost eight months, has started to revolt against spoons. So, she eats chopped up supper, or should I say smears, throws and drops chopped up supper. I notice I have a much more laissez-faire attitude to feeding this one than I did with Poppy, but I still need to prepare a couple of versions of each meal. This all means that simplicity is key right now, which can be darn delicious and makes you feel better too.

The best way to get Poppy to eat something she isn't really enjoying is to bribe her, no I am not above bribing my children - needs must and all that, with dessert. Even better, a favourite dessert. And, believe it or not, most of those come containing rhubarb.

And no, we don't have our own little microclimate here. Rhubarb is not in season, almost but not quite. I am using up all of what is left in the freezer from last year's harvest to make room for new. So, there are a few rhubarb recipes coming in the next little while to prepare you for the glut. And doesn't that feel springish?

I have never used a recipe to make fruit crisp, but this one turned out really well, and I remembered to measure and make note of the quantities, so I thought I would share. Even the not so keen on rhubarb, Caribbean cruising husband (not that I mind) liked it. Although, that could have been the lashings of vanilla whipped cream he was really enjoying.

I chop the rhubarb when it is fresh and then freeze it in a single layer on a baking tray and transfer it to a zipper bag ready to draw us out of winter depths when needed. For this recipe, I used it straight from the freezer. You could easily use fresh. I also use Lara's pure oat flour. It isn't available everywhere but you can substitute all purpose, or half AP and half whole wheat. But, if you can get your hands on the oat flour, I think it makes a great crisp top. I like to use old fashioned rolled oats when I can. Tapioca isn't something everyone has on hand but it is a great thickener for fruit based stuff like this. I used a vanilla bean because I had some but it can be skipped.

I am calling this a crisp here but we call it a crumble 'round ours in one of our mid-Atlantic verbal mishmashes.

Rhubarb Crisp 

4 cups chopped rhubarb

2 tablespoons fine tapioca

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 vanilla bean, split and seeds removed

2 cups rolled oats 

1 cup oat flour

1/2 cup butter cut into small pieces

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup whipping cream

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla.

Preheat oven to 325º.

In a mixing bowl, toss rhubarb, tapioca and granulated sugar and vanilla bean seeds together, coating the rhubarb. Transfer to oven proof dish.

Rub oats, flour, butter and sugar together until butter is distributed and the it sticks together if you squeeze some in your hand. Gently cover the rhubarb with the 'crisp.'

Bake for around an hour. You should be able to see the fruit bubbling up around the topping.

No, I didn't feed this to Tilly but I did think about it.

Seaweed Sprinkles

I had a call from our ‘fish guy’ the other evening announcing the arrival of some fresh scallops and asking if I wanted any. I managed to not shout down the phone in glee, and calmly replied that yes, we would indeed like some scallops the following day.

My brother swears that scallops shouldn’t be eaten if they have been cooked - plain and raw is the way forward for him. My mother is all for Scallops on the Half Shell - cooked on a scallop shell with butter, milk and cracker crumbs. In England, it is pretty trendy to serve scallops with the love it or hate it black pudding and served with everything from apple chutney or minted pea puree to risotto or mashed potatoes. This treatment, as far as I am concerned, is sacrilege. Who wants a stinking disc of fried bloody porridge served along something so sublime as a fresh scallop. Some believe simple is best and feel that all this sea candy, as my nephew calls them, requires is a hot pan and a lot of butter.

I tend to fall somewhere between my brother and simplicity, not leaving much room for playing around. Given this, you would think I would not have been kept awake by thoughts of scallop preparation and supper plans for tomorrow’s supper. I was thinking of ceviche but I was also thinking of scallops inspired by something I had recently read about.

In Apples to Oysters, Margaret Webb visits Dark Harbour on Grand Manan Island in New Brunswick to learn about what is considered to be the best dulse in the world. Now, I am no raving fan of dulse. I find that its almost fishy sea taste reminds me of a milder version of some concentrated organic fertilizer I had that was made from fermented fish and seaweed. I don’t enjoy the texture of big pieces of the dried stuff as it rehydrates in my mouth. So, it was a surprise that during our blue potato bonanza, I put a bag of dulse in the basket with the spuds and apples.

This stuff is good for you, chock full of vitamins and nutrients. Dulse kept the inhabitants of Port Royal scurvy free after they were introduced to it by First Nations peoples. It is impossible to overpick because of its regeneration cycle. There is no impact from chemical fertilizers, there is no unwanted byproduct of its production and, other than its picking, there is no labour involved in its growing. Could it be the perfect food? Maybe, if we can solve that sticky problem of taste and texture.

Webb gives brief details of drying the dulse out further and crumbling it to flakes for sprinkling in chowder, frying it to use as bacon in a BLT and microwaving it to make chips.

I was thinking about pan seared scallops with dulse sprinkles. Sprinkles make everything taste better. And, dulse sprinkles make everything taste oceanier.

Pan Seared Sea Scallops with Dulse Sprinkles

1 ounce dulse 

1 pound fresh scallops

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 tablespoons butter

Preheat oven to 325º. 

Spread dulse on a baking sheet and bake in oven until colour starts to change, 3-5 minutes. Remove from oven, as it cools it will crisp up. Put dulse in a food processor, if you are a bit lazy like me, and pulse until it is in small flakes. You get some dulse dust this way but I think that works well here. If you aren’t so lazy, and don’t mind the prickliness, rub dulse between hands until it is flaked. Set aside.

Remove the tough ‘catch muscle’ on the side of the scallops. It will pull off quite easily.

In a heavy bottomed pan, heat olive oil and butter over high heat. Depending on the size of the pan you are using, this could be too much and you will need to have less in the pan to get the scallops to sear properly. I just poured about 2/3 of the olive oil and butter into a dish and saved it for finishing the scallops.

Put the scallops in the pan, make sure there are not too many, or they will not sear properly. If your pan is small, sear them in two batches. Turn as soon as the first side is a bit browned. This should take less than a minute of your pan is hot enough. Sear the second side and transfer to a serving plate. Quickly heat any extra oil and butter in the scallop pan and pour over scallops.

Sprinkle with dulse flakes, and a little dust, and serve.

Purple Chips and Dip

On any given day, I can ask Poppy what she would like for supper and be quite certain of the response - fish and chips. Luckily, she is flexible in its preparation and doesn’t flinch when it doesn’t arrive battered and dripping excess fryer oil. Don’t get me wrong, she certainly doesn’t mind that variety but she will happily eat a piece of oven baked or steamed fish with a sliced potato baked in the oven and a side of veggies. And by veggies, I don’t mean white coleslaw.

I decided to get a little crazy with the oven chips the other day. We drove through the Annapolis Valley and stopped at our favourite farm market where they happened to still have some blue potatoes hanging around. I was excited by this, and by our horde of Honeycrisp apples which had come through the long winter very nicely, but that is another post. My husband and two half asleep girls were not nearly as jubilant and moped back to the car, the market was all out of the favourite cookies, as I skipped to load our bounty into the trunk.

On Saturday, a couple of days later, I was marinating some flank steak for the barbecue, with the assistance of my almost four year old kitchen helper, when she conspiratorially whispered to me, ‘I know Mommy, let’s have fish and chips for supper and Daddy and Uncle Tosh can eat the meat.’ 

‘Barbecued fish and chips?,’ I asked.

‘Yep, that would be so good,’ she replied.

I had forgotten about the blue potato bonanza and, when I went in search of something to make ‘chips’ from, was excited about their chipping potential. I thought the blue spuds may have been a bit too waxy and was worried they might not crisp up very nicely. But, after a bit longer than I expected in the oven, the chips were pretty tasty, crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. And, as Poppy will tell you, anything that is purple must be good.

I was inspired by some chipotle aioli that I had received in a yummy little care package from Toronto but it has a little too much kick for Poppy so I started making an aioli to eat with the purple chips, flank steak and salmon. I found some fresh coriander/cilantro in our veg box and thought that purple goes nicely with green, so coriander aioli it would be.

As supper was being put on the table, my starving child scrambled up onto her chair to be heard exclaiming, ‘Purple chips and dip for supper!’ and giggling like a, well, like a four year old.

‘Purple’ Chips

6 medium blue potatoes 

1/4 cup olive oil

Maldon sea salt

Preheat oven to 475º.

Peel and slice the potatoes into ‘chips’.

Toss with olive oil and spread out on two baking sheets covered with parchment.

Bake, turning a few times, until the spuds are crispy and golden purple, about 30 minutes. 

I don’t know if it was the blue potatoes, but it did seem to take ages for these to crisp up.

Sprinkle with sea salt and serve with aioli.

Coriander/Cilantro Aioli 

1 egg yolk

2 cloves garlic minced (I used the rasp for this)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Fresh ground black pepper

Salt to taste

1 cup oil (I used 1/2 extra virgin olive and 1/2 grapeseed. You need to use some olive oil but I wouldn’t use all olive oil because it can get almost bitter) 

1 tablespoon chopped fresh coriander/cilantro

Whisk egg yolk, minced garlic, lemon juice, pepper and salt together,

Gradually and very slowly whisk in the oil. Make sure you have it in something you can easily pour from.

Check seasoning and add a little extra lemon juice or a few drops of white wine vinegar if you don’t find it tangy enough. Do this slowly and gradually because you don’t want the aioli to split.

Serve with purple chips (or anything else that you fancy).

Beans, Beans...

Baked beans, like sauerkraut, can cause mixed emotions. There are the dark, molassesy rich ones sometimes with a hint of bacon and delicious with brown bread slathered with salty butter. There are tomatoey ones with vegetables and delicious with rice. There are the nasty ones that come in a tin, a staple of the ‘full english.’ Then, there are Gigandaes Plaki.

Pronounced yigantas, gigandaes literally means giant beans in Greek. Cooked with stock and diced vegetables and tomato. Finished with olive oil and dill. Served with fresh bread or pita, feta cheese, maybe a couple other meze - tzatziki and calamari or greek sausage. And, if you are feeling brave, cold retsina, or at least a pint of cold Mythos.

When I was pregnant with Poppy in England, I wanted to eat Gigandaes all the time. Luckily, or not, they are available in jars in nicer supermarkets there. With Tilly, the same craving returned but there were no Gigandaes available in this little town. So, I had to make them, because there is no point denying a pregnant woman something she really wants. Making the Gigandaes makes me, and Poppy, happy. We usually make fresh bread when we make them and supper is stress free on those days.

Post pregnancy, the Gigandaes have maintained their place at the supper, or lunch, table. I don’t always use the big beans and the recipe works well with most beans. These are giant limas. Here in Nova Scotia, we have Soldier beans and Jacob’s Cattle beans and it works well with those.

The recipe I start from is in The Livebait Cookbook, by Theodore Kiriakou and Charles Campion. I change the quantities often and have never followed it to the word. Here is how I do it.

Gigandaes Plaki

1 pound gigandaes (or butter beans or giant limas or soldier or white kidney or cannelini or Jacob’s Cattle beans or ..., you get the idea)

3 ribs celery

2 medium onions

2 leeks

3 carrots

4 cloves garlic

2 cups diced tomatoes (fresh are super, but you can use frozen, or tinned)

750 ml (3 cups) stock (if you have homemade, great. If not, use the lowest sodium version you can find.  The original recipe says chicken stock but you can substitute vegetable stock, I do.)

Black pepper (a little or a lot, depending on how you like it)

2 bay leaves

Large handful chopped parsley

1/2 large handful roughly chopped fresh dill

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Salt to taste (I don’t put salt in anything these days, because I whizz a little bit of most things up for Tilly, be careful if you add salt if you are going to use feta. I would suggest a little sprinkle of sea salt when you serve or eat the beans.

Feta cheese (as much or as little as you like)

Soak the beans overnight. Or, if you are using big beans (gigandaes, butter, giant limas) for 24 hours.

Dice the celery, onions, leeks and carrots. Mince the garlic.

Drain the beans, cover with cold water and bring to the boil. Cook for about 30 minutes to an hour, until the beans are not quite soft. The cooking time will depend on the size of the beans you are using. Drain the beans.

Preheat the oven to 350º.

In a heavy pot, with a lid add the tomatoes, stock, diced vegetables, bay leaves and pepper to the beans and bring to the boil.

Put it in the oven with the lid on and cook until beans are tender, 2-3 hours.

Remove from oven, add parsley, dill and olive oil.

Serve with feat cheese and pita, on their own or with other meze.

Pregnant or not, it is totally heartwarming stuff.