An Unrecipe

I made something the other day. I have been debating whether to post it or not. It isn't nice. It was pretty but not nice. It was delicious but not nice. Even as I write these words, I wonder whether I should do it or not. I have been lucky enough to be spending the last few months in a seasonless oasis. But, I have decided, if things like this make their way into my market basket, there is little i can do but share it. Throwing caution to the wind, I am going to post this. Not in a nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah way. In a please enjoy and share and remember there is only five more weeks of winter.

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You don't need a recipe to make hash. It is a pretty simple thing. It can be made plain or fancy. It can be eaten any time of day. It fits every meal.

You take some potatoes and onions and sauté them. You add some meat or fish or, in this case, beautiful green goodness and you sauté it a little more. Add some green onions near the end of the cooking time, almost no matter what kind of hash you are making.If you are want to get carried away, you can top it off with something. It would be the rare combination that a soft poached egg wouldn't suit. Poppy and Stephen think bacon is pretty nice too. Tilly even eats the green bits, but only because they are covered in egg yolk.

Anyway you put it together, it is simple and good and wholesome. It makes you feel good and cozy and that is important.

Rainbow Bread Pudding (almost)

The other day, over at sweet salty, Kate said I was all rainbowy. Well, not me exactly, but my house. And, I am pretty sure she was referring to what we eat and not how we decorate. At least I hope that is what she was saying. 

Well, just as she was saying that, I went and posted this. Then I read what she said and felt all embarrassed and immediately wanted to post something cleaner and brighter, more orange and green, good for the body as well as the stuck in the depths of February soul.

Problem was, we were in no fit state for contact with the general public. We were at the stage of the cold when trying to wipe away the green nasal discharge (am I really talking about this in a post about food? Yes, but I am going to blame it on the fever.) creates shrieking one could easily associate with murder by chainsaw. That and the fact that I could not bring myself to put pants, and by pants I mean trousers, on let alone shoes, jacket, find the car keys (yes, I know the supermarket in less than a block away), load two children into their car seats, etc, etc. This meant that we were cooking with what we had.

We get squash in our CSA, and while I don’t dislike the lovely little orbs, I don’t love them either. It takes a bit of motivation for me to get excited about cooking them up into something good. Luckily, Kate had asked for orange, and since I had a few of these little pumpkin cousins sitting around here, I could do orange.

I could do green, well I guess it is greeny white but greenish anyway. I had some leeks and green onions. I had a slightly stale loaf of bread that hadn’t become the sandwiches it was meant to because preschool and picnics had been called off. While the bread is not very rainbowy, it would have to do for all of the reasons mentioned above.

A one dish, casserole kind of supper was pretty appealing. I couldn’t think to manage getting more than one thing on the table at the same time. Throwing all of my found, and by found I mean rescued from the depths of the refrigerator, ingredients together seemed like the best thing to do. Adding eggs and cheese, I had a Kabocha and Leek Bread Pudding, fodder for the Februariest of souls.

The kabocha can be replaced by any squash you like or have to hand. I chose this one from our ever-amassing collection because it is so niftily neat and easy to peel. I used some myzithra cheese here but, on a higher energy day, when I felt like leaving the house to get some, I may just have chucked it full of little blobs of goat cheese. You could easily substitute some feta as well.

All of this to say that despite feeling like a small person is sanding away at the inside of my throat, I am now challenged to be as colourful as I can be, in the kitchen anyway. So, thank you Kate for the kick in the pants. Unless, of course, you really were speaking of our decorating aesthetic. In which case, please disregard the above.

Kabocha and Leek Bread Pudding (this should handily feed 8)

4 cups peeled, seeded and cubed squash

2 teaspoons olive oil

3 large leeks washed and sliced (about 2 cups)

1 large onion chopped

3 cloves garlic

2 teaspoons olive oil

5 cups cubed french bread (a round boule, a couple of days old is perfect)

4 green onions chopped

1 cup cream

1 1/2 cup milk

6 eggs

1/2 cup myzithra cheese grated

1/2 teaspoon salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

Butter a large baking dish.

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

Sauté the squash in the first two teaspoons of olive oil over low heat until it is tender. It is packed full of natural sugars, so make sure it doesn’t burn. Browned is okay, burnt is not. Remove from heat.

Sauté the leeks, onions and garlic in the second two teaspoons of olive oil until soft. Remove from heat.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the cream, milk, eggs and salt and pepper.

In the baking dish, mix together the bread, squash, leek mixture, green onions, cheese and egg mixture. Press the bread down a bit to make sure everything is soaked with the egg mixture.

Bake for 40 minutes.

Enjoy with some sautéed greens or salad or, if you must, some bacon.

Saturday's Bounty on Sunday

For most of the winter, our weekends are missing something. We are left wondering what to do with our Saturday mornings. Sure, we could make the hour long drive to town and enjoy what is over-wintering at the Halifax Farmer’s Market but, Poppy can’t fish for sharks in a small stream there. She can’t run around, hand in hand with her best bud, charming vendors and, we assume, safely disappearing down trails through the woods. She tells me that the cupcakes aren’t as good as at our market. And, there is no burly German baker man to give her cinnamon buns just because she happened to pass by and say hi.

So, now that our Saturday mornings are peaceful and we are no longer at a loss for things to do, we get to spend the rest of the day thinking of how we will use our market bounty. It is early days for most produce here in Nova Scotia but we managed a decent haul in spite of our not-quite-warm-enough-yet days.

I found cremini and portobello mushrooms, radishes and some crunchy sprouts, which I was compelled to buy even though I have about five kilos of unsprouted crunchy sprout mix here in my kitchen. I got spinach and mixed greens and beet greens with gorgeous almost baby beets on the bottom . I got whole wheat bread with poppy seeds, of course, from Chris, the above mentioned burly German baker man and, to Poppy’s great delight and despite arriving late-ish in the morning, a package of his always-sold-out-it-seems juniper ham.

The ham is always gone by the time we arrive, even if we get there shortly after eight, Chris is inevitably selling the last package to the person in front of us. To his credit, he has tried to steal the last package back out of the unsuspecting person’s basket just to try and please Poppy, but in the end he had to fall back on the cinnamon bun to cheer her up.

We like brunch at our house and Saturday’s haul, rounded out by a few local eggs, left us well set up to breakfastize something we saw Anna Olson cooking up on TV.  She made her mushrooms with brandy and cream and her bread was a sourdough rye from Ravine in St. David’s, around the corner from my grandmother’s which is where we were staying when we saw the TV show. And, Anna used a mixture of wild mushrooms but we had nothing in the house except for what we got at the market on Saturday and sometimes, simpler is just better.

Poppy Seed French Toast with Sautéed Cremini Mushrooms and Juniper Ham

400 grams (4 heaping cups) quartered or halved, depending on size, cremini mushrooms

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon butter

Salt and pepper to taste

4 slices of good bread (use what you like)

2 large eggs

2 tablespoons milk

Salt and pepper

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon butter

4 slices of really good ham (optional)

Fresh chives, chopped

Heat heavy bottomed pan and add 1 tablespoon of olive oil and 1 of butter. Add mushrooms. I like to add the salt at this point when I sauté mushrooms, it is one of the few things I season before I am finished cooking. Cook the mushrooms over medium high heat until they start to brown. They will go a bit grey and get a little watery first and then the water will evaporate and the flavour will concentrate and they will start to brown. Remove the mushrooms from the pan.

While the mushrooms are cooking, whisk eggs with milk and a little salt and pepper in a shallow dish. 

In the same pan, without washing, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil and 1 of butter. soak each side of each slice of bread in the egg mixture and transfer them to the hot pan. Cook until golden brown, about a minute on each side.

Transfer each slice to a plate, top with ham and share mushrooms between the four slices. Sprinkle with chives.

Poppy had her’s with ham, I had mine without and next time, I will be putting a little wilted spinach on mine.

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. 

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.