Me? Stubborn?

There are a few food words which bring hoots and howls at our house. Most houses have them - hoots of approval at the uttering of words like dessert and candy and howls of despair for things like brussel sprouts and liver. Some of ours are expected - marshmallows and chocolate cake for instance. But sometimes I am completely unprepared for the odd howl of distaste. 

Sometimes, I alter the plan to make the offending food item more desirable. Sometimes, I stand very firm and declare that the choice is to eat it or to forfeit the after supper treat. Rarely, if ever, do I remove it from the menu.  Not even when it is Stephen doing the howling. In fact, I just dig my heels in a little further and determine to make him like whatever it is.

And so it was the other day when I returned home with a carton of sauerkraut. He looked at me like I had three heads and he tried to refrain from making gagging noises, his kind and loving version of culinary heckling, while Poppy was in the room. This did nothing but strengthen my resolve.

So, I set about cooking the offending sauerkraut. I tossed it in a pot with some carrots, some turnip and stock. I left the sausages out because there is something about sausages cooking in a pot of liquid that, ironically enough, makes me howl with disgust. As the cook, I get to do that though. I popped the pot of sauerkraut and veg in the oven and left it there for a couple of hours. I made some really good and buttery mashed potatoes and grilled some Lunenburg sausage for my carnivorous husband. 

Then, I sat down at the table and awaited the verdict. Still, he was not loving the sauerkraut and, I suspect, had Poppy not been there, he would not have eaten it and the gagging noises would have been our supper soundtrack. 

Consequently, we had leftovers. I still wasn’t ready to give in but I waited a couple of days to launch my second attack. The container of sauerkraut sat in the fridge and he knew it was going to reappear at some point, he just wasn’t sure when. I was still determined to make him want seconds if not thirds. I also knew that I had a couple of other weapons up my sleeve in the form of half a dozen fresh eggs and some double smoked bacon.

Sauerkraut Bubble and Squeak with Double Smoked Bacon and Fried Egg

2 cups leftover cooked sauerkraut (and any other cooked veg you need to use up)

3 cups leftover buttery mashed potatoes

Olive oil 

12 slices double smoked bacon

4 eggs

Salt and pepper to taste

Mix the sauerkraut and potatoes. Form into eight cakes. Heat a frying pan, add a tablespoon or so of olive oil and fry, on low to medium heat, the cakes until golden on each side.

Cook the bacon using your preferred method. I like to do it on a baking sheet in the oven at about 400ºF.

Fry the eggs the way you like them, sunny side up lets the yolk at as sauce to whole thing.

Serve a couple of bubble and squeak cakes with 2 or 3 slices of crispy bacon and an egg on top.

The verdict?

Sometimes it is better to suffer through something the first time, just for the leftovers.

My 'Go To' Cake

After my last post about a cake, I thought I had better redeem myself and try to prove that I can do good cake even better than I can do not so good cake. I have lots of cake recipes - some I have made once or twice, some sit clipped and waiting in the disaster of clippings, some have been admired in the pages of cookbooks and then there are those that just get made over and over and over. These are ‘go to’ cakes. The cake you can count on not being a mess. The cake you could almost make in your sleep. The cake that feels good.

My ‘go to’ cake is our standard birthday cake. It gets finished differently depending on recipient, where it is being made, where it is being served and to how many. Is it just us or is it for eighty hungry boat yard employees? Is the birthday boy or girl six or sixty? Are we in Canada in the middle of winter or on the beach in the Caribbean or stern to in Portofino? In other words, do I need to worry about it melting or does it need to look unbelievably fabulous? Or, do I need something a little bit decadent but still homey and something an almost four year old can help with(read: spread all over her face while having ‘just a little taste.’) Something to welcome home a recently turned forty daddy after two long and horrid months in the Caribbean.

The ‘go to’ recipe is for a chocolate cake. It originally came from the back of a cocoa container - I can’t remember which one. Over time it has been copied and recopied from notebook to notebook. 

For this occasion, I decided I would split the layers and fill them with thick caramel sauce. I discovered this while working at a restaurant called Five Doors North in Toronto. It was loud and fun and very Italian and everything was simply made and simply deliciously perfect.

After I filled the layers, I frosted it with a whipped dark chocolate ganache. This is like the filling of a truffle and truly decadent and truly not for someone who is not a fan of chocolate. After the ganache, I would top it with a small mountain of dark chocolate shards. I contemplated chocolate curls but, I had an almost four year old helper and figured I wouldn’t be nearly quick or tidy enough with my help for curls. Plus, it isn’t as heartbreaking to see the shards being eaten as quickly as you make them as it is with the curls.

Chocolate Caramel Cake with Dark Chocolate Ganache

Cake (I almost can’t believe I am giving this recipe away)

3/4 cup butter, softened

1 2/3 cups granulated sugar

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups all purpose flour (I have used cake flour, which gives a slightly lighter cake, use it if you have it, don’t worry if you don’t, the cake will be fine)

2/3 cup cocoa (I usually use some really lovely rich fairtrade stuff, use the one you like the flavour of)

1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 1/3 cups water

Preheat the oven to 350º. Butter and flour two 9-inch baking pans or a 13x9x2-inch baking pan or 24 cupcake tins (which you could also line). I like to put a circle of parchment on the bottom of the pans, or a square depending on what you are using.

Beat butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla on high for 3 minutes. This should look light and creamy. Sift flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt and baking powder together. Add this in four additions to the creamed butter mixture, alternating with the water. Begin and end with the dry ingredients. 

Pour into pans and bake 30-35 minutes, less for cupcakes. As usual, a tester inserted in the centre should come out clean.

Allow to cool. After a few minutes, remove the cakes from the pans onto a wire rack and allow to cool completely.

Caramel sauce

2 cups granulated sugar

1/4 cup water

1 cup cream

Put sugar and water in medium sized, heavy bottomed saucepan over medium heat.  DO NOT STIR the sugar.  Gently swirl the pan until the sugar dissolves. Use a pastry brush with some water to ‘wipe’ any sugar crystals off the sides of the pan. After the sugar starts to boil it will take about ten minutes to caramelize, but don’t go anywhere.  Keep an eye on it. And, be really careful, boiling sugar is just about one of the hottest things you can cook with and it takes a long time to cool once it hits the skin. 

Now, if you are as much of a nerd as I am, and you care to listen, you can sort of hear the sugar start to caramelize. Of course, I can’t hear it anymore because I have a seven month old baby and an almost four year old to drown out any audible cooking clues now. Once it starts to caramelize, it will happen quickly and can go from being perfectly toastily amber to burnt and bitter in a few seconds. Be ready with your cream and a whisk. When it reaches that perfect shade of amber, add the cream, pouring away from you. It will roll and boil, so don’t get too close right away, but give it a little whisk once it starts to calm down. 

Allow this to cool.

Assembly (this can be done a day or two in advance and wrapped in cling film and kept in the fridge)

Spilt the two layers of the cake so you have four layers. Level off the tops if they have gotten too hilly in the middle.

Pour about 1/5 of the caramel sauce onto the first layer and quickly spread it around.  It will soak into the cake. Continue this with two more layers, don’t put any caramel sauce on the top layer.

Wrap it in cling film, or, if you are finishing the cake the same day, make the ganache.

Whipped Dark Chocolate Ganache

18 ounces good quality dark chocolate chopped

2 cups whipping cream

Gently heat cream until almost boiling. Remove from heat and whisk in chocolate. Continue to stir until the chocolate is melted. At this point, if you don’t want to whip the ganache, let it cool a bit and then pour it over the cake, spreading it on the sides.

Or to whip, pour into the bowl of the mixer and beat on medium high speed until the ganache is cooled and has a mousse-like stiffness.

Spread over the sides and top of the caramel filled cake.

Dark Chocolate Shards

4 ounces of good quality dark chocolate chopped.

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Take care not to let any steam or water from the pan to get into the chocolate. 

When the chocolate is melted pour it onto a sheet of waxed paper. Spread the melted chocolate with a spatula into a thin layer. Cover with another sheet of waxed paper. Roll and refrigerate for at least four hours.

Remove the roll from the fridge and gently unroll it. Remove the top sheet of waxed paper and gently free the shards with a spatula. Use tongs or the spatula to put the shards on top of the cake. Touching the chocolate with your hands will melt it.  

The cake should be served as soon as possible, depending on how hot it is. If there is any left, you can refrigerate it but the ganache will harden a bit.

Birthday goodness - every time.

Easter Egg Frittata

I can hardly believe it is Easter already. It seems like only a few days ago that we arrived back from the deep frozen UK to the even icier Nova Scotia.  And so it is that time of year when we pull out the food colouring and pastel paints and ribbons and go to work decorating Easter eggs.

A couple of years ago, we lived through a week of near hysterics every time we cracked one of the decorated hard boiled eggs to make a sandwich. Poppy, distraught that the pink and blue and green eggs were being ruined, couldn’t quite come to terms with the destruction of our handiwork. 

Last year, we remembered the emotional havoc of the year previous and we blew the insides out of the eggs before we decorated them. Poppy was happy that we weren’t going to ruin the Easter eggs afterwards and the week after was peaceful - as peaceful as it can be with an almost three year old anyway. So what if we ate scrambled eggs for three days straight.  The kid was happy.

Again this year, I poked holes in the top and bottom of the eggs and blew the insides into a bowl. Poppy was pleased enough with the empty eggs to decorate but wondered, ‘What are we going to do with all the egg guts Mommy?’

‘Supper,’ I replied.  She humphed and walked away, happy to dig around in craft drawers for interesting egg decorating paraphernalia.

We had ‘the guts’ of eight eggs to deal with. It was almost 5pm. I thought about quiche but didn’t want to make pastry and I didn’t have the time either. I thought about omelettes but everyone likes their omelette a little bit different at our house and, not feeling up to the challenge, I shied away from it. With sweet potatoes, portabello mushrooms, kale and a red onion left from our Saturday veg box, I decided on frittata.

Sweet Potato, Portabello, Kale and Red Onion Frittata

3 small sweet potatoes

5 medium portabellos

1 small bunch of kale (or spinach)

1 medium red onion

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon butter

8 eggs beaten (guts only) 

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350º

Peel and slice the sweet potatoes into bit size pieces. Remove the stems from the portabellos and slice. Remove the stalks from the kale and steam until tender.  Pat any extra moisture off the steamed kale and then chop. Peel and slice the red onion.

Heat the olive oil in an oven proof frying pan. Add the sweet potatoes and saute until start to soften. Add the portabello slices and red onion. Saute until the mushrooms are cooked and the onion starts to caramelize. Gently toss in the chopped kale (or spinach).

Melt the butter in the pan with the vegetables and gently stir through. 

Add the beaten eggs and gently shake the pan to make sure it gets all through the vegetables.

Pop it in the oven for about ten minutes, or until it is cooked through.

I had forgotten what a quick supper or weekend brunch a frittata makes. It is even better the next day in a sandwich.

Zootziki

There is really nothing Nova Scotian about Tzatziki, or Zootziki as one of us says ‘round ours. It does have cucumber in it and cucumbers grow pretty well here in our never quite long enough growing season. Here we have cucumber salad, slightly sweet and made with cream and vinegar and sliced cucumbers, and often served as summer side dish to mackerel. Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens calls cucumber salad Cucumbers with Sour Cream (A delicious old Lunenburg dish). Other than that, tzatziki's link to these parts exists in those who eat it.

My first encounter with ‘real tzatziki’ was in Toronto, on The Danforth.  Where, it has been said, the Greek food is better than in Greece. I have never had a really horrible meal on The Danforth or in Greece so I am going to refrain from opining on this. What I will say, is that I have eaten and made gallons of the stuff on both The Danforth and in Greece and it varies a little bit from place to place but something about the combination of strained yogurt, grated cucumbers and onions and/or garlic keeps me from ever tiring of it.

My introduction to cooking Greek and Mediterranean food was at a restaurant called Lolita’s Lust on The Danforth. The name led my family to wonder what exactly I was doing in Toronto. ‘What sort of food do they serve,’ they would ask, seeking reassurance that it wasn’t a strip club. Word around town at one point was that it was an adult bookstore and with a name like that and a window completely painted over save for one two or so inch strip through the middle, it was hardly surprising. It has changed hands since I worked there but still has a few of the original menu items, I am told.

At Lolita’s I discovered that pressed, or strained yogurt is essential to the success of any tzatziki. You can find it in some supermarkets, especially Greek specialty shops but, it is simple to make and just takes a little forward planning.  All you need to do is put some plain yogurt in a strainer lined with cheesecloth over a bowl and leave it overnight, covered and in the fridge, so that the water drains out of it.

Pressed yogurt is a lovely and rich substitute for yogurt in anything, you can use this in a lot of different ways. It is really nice rolled into small balls and then marinated in olive oil and herbs and served with toasted bread and tomatoes. I also make a darn nice Pressed Yogurt Cheesecake with Pomegranate Molasses, if I may say so. I’ll get to posting that one day.

Tzatziki

2 cups pressed yogurt

½ hot house cucumber (no garden cukes in March here, I am afraid)

1 small onion

½ teaspoon kosher salt (if you don’t have kosher salt, use sea salt)

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

Salt and pepper to taste

Grate the cucumber and onion into a sieve. Sprinkle with the kosher salt and toss. Let it drain for twenty minutes or so. Then squeeze as much water as you can out of the cucumber mixture.

Add the cucumber mixture to the pressed yogurt with the vinegar and mix. Season as desired.

Serve with warmed Greek pita or as a sauce. Tzatziki is perfect with almost anything grilled.

We have been into pita ‘chips’ here lately and tzatziki is yummy dip for those.

Pita ‘Chips’

6 whole wheat Lebanese pitas (these pitas toast really nicely)

3 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and pepper (or not)

Preheat the oven to 350°.

Put the pitas on a baking sheet.

Mix the oil with the salt and pepper. Brush the pitas with the oil mixture.

Bake, checking regularly and turning as necessary, for about ten minutes or until the pitas are toasted.

Remove from the oven and let cool. Break into smaller pieces or just leave them whole and let everyone break them apart themselves.

Use them as chips or crackers or croutons in a salad.

Good enough to eat.

And Then There Were Leftovers

I did realize, as we were getting the planked salmon ready, that it was an enormous piece of fish for three adults and an almost four year old. I didn’t have a plan for the leftovers but I was pretty sure I would find some way to put it to use.

On Friday, after a day of appointments and general running around and Stephen’s first long stretch on his own with both girls, I didn’t really feel like getting down to cooking supper at 5:30.  The thought of pizza was stomach turning. The thought of going out was even less enticing. The air in our house was already thick with simmering meltdown and there was no need to ruin everyone at The Kiwi Café’s Friday night.

A scurry through the fridge yielded lots of options and we did have the better part of a side of salmon in there too. I also found some eggs and some leftover basmati. I am incapable of cooking any less rice than enough to feed at least a dozen hungry marathoners and so, I can usually count on leftover rice.

Smoky fish + eggs + rice = kedgeree which = quick + easy + yummy.

Kedgeree would have once been part of grand Victorian breakfast tables. It was made popular in England by British colonials returning from India. Now, it is widely accepted as a supper dish. It can be made really simply or you can go a little crazy and add all sorts of things.  There is a recipe for kedgeree in Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens, which is a plain and simple version.  I made it without a recipe and with a bit of back and forth between the stove and the fridge.

 ‘Leftover’ Kedgeree

4 cups cooked basmati (you could use any leftover long grain rice)

Leftover planked salmon – broken into large flakes (any fish will do, use as much or as little as you want, I used about two cups of large flaked pieces)

2 tablespoons grapeseed oil (any vegetable oil will be fine)

1 onion - diced

3 ribs celery - diced

4 eggs – hardboiled, peeled and quartered

1 teaspoon curry powder

½ teaspoon ground cumin

¼ teaspoon ground turmeric (if I didn’t have an almost four year old eating this, I would have made it quite a lot spicier by adding some chili or diced hot pepper)

Handful chopped parsley (I would have used fresh coriander (cilantro) if I had any)

Salt and pepper to taste

Sauté the onion and celery in the oil until translucent.   Add the spices and the rice and, stirring frequently, heat through.  Add the salmon and the eggs and gently toss to heat.  Gently toss in the parsley and season to taste.

Even quicker than take out.

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.