Cake List!

Alright Katherine, you want cake? You'll have cake.
I've got three flavours to choose from, and a recipe for each. And, as an added bonus, I promise that I will make one of them too! I will pick from the two leftovers and the last one... well, we'll forget it ever existed.

So! If you're looking for something classic and, well, chocolate, I found this somewhat-maybe-not-so-simple-looking single pan cake here. Of course, you'd have to leave out the almonds, I think.

Looks a little something like this:
The next possibility would be perfect if summer is proving a tad too warm for a thick chocolate cake! Perhaps you want something fruity, but still heartwarming. Labels to which everything baked with apples can adhere! Something like this!

It looks really good too, but I love anything crumbly:

The last one looks ridiculous. But I'm on strawberry overload over here, and need to find a bunch of ways to use them up instead of just eating them over the sink, which I've been doing nearly every day. I have not found anyone to give me their rhubarb, so I will have to buy a bunch before I make my first pie of the season. Or it could just be a strawberry pie. But there never seem to be enough, no matter how many I buy. We'll see what happens once the pick-your-own starts. Can't wait.

Right! A picture! Don't laugh.



There you go. But just so you know I mean business, let me tell you that my quilting frame is assembled and my sewing machine is oiled. So there.

What? I've been busy! It was my birthday!

This is what leftovers look like in this house. Okay the tomatoes and asparagus were freshly bought (not from the super market! Herrle's is open at last). I didn't make any of this.

Nor did I make anything on this table. Or set it, even. Or take the picture. But it was MY birthday brunch, so I can take credit. Of course, if I really think about it, my mother can take credit for that, too.

In other news, we finally got our herbs and vegetables planted. I'm going to try and break the old record for biggest zucchini! There are no pictures, so the old record doesn't technically exist. I'll just tell you if I beat it or not.

I'm going to defer my excuses and leave a warning for Katherine that if she doesn't come back soon I'm taking over and turning this into a quilting blog. So there.

--Sophia

See That's More Like it!

Please ignore evidence of a prior candle accident.

Something new I learned making it this time around: When buying frozen shrimp, always look through the little window in the package. This was badly freezer burned WHEN I BOUGHT IT. Very frustrating, and not great for final flavour. I still ate it, of course. Mango relish is surprisingly spicy and very tasty!

--Sophia

Dinner for the Fams

This weekend I learned that French colonial cooking can also mean Thai food with wine and lots of butter! Even though my mango wasn't ripe and I couldn't make the colourful relish, there was some mango chutney in the fridge which we used instead. The final product was a little monochrome in appearance but DELICIOUS in flavour. So here we have curried shrimp on a bed of jasmine rice! As (not really) adapted from the Williams-Sonoma Simple Classics book. Oh, and just so you know, said book has THE tastiest and most comprehensive recipes I've encountered so far.

I found the recipe for this happy sunflower cake here and have been meaning to make it for some time. Other resources this kitchen offers are a functional zester and a citrus juicer! I'm rather proud of those lemon husks, to be honest.

Good cake, too.

--Sophia

It's SO Easy.

Greetings from fabulous Waterloo, my summer home! Added resources include an actual camera (I've been using my Blackberry), an herb garden (which sadly doesn't have basil yet), a working oven, and a car with which to bring home heavy objects. That last one in particular was key for this recipe, because of all the canned tomatoes it calls for. But if you live close to the grocery store, it's still worth it.

So what is it? A huge pot of marinara sauce! And why is that fantastic? It's very good for freezing, great for use in other recipes, easy to make, and it makes it easy to whip up a very quick homemade meal.

You need either five large cloves of garlic, or one medium onion. I chose garlic, because I couldn't see any reason not to. First, slice the garlic thinly, like so. I also measured out a half teaspoon of red pepper flakes. These go into the pot shortly after the garlic, so keep them together. If you do decide on onion, chop it finely.


Then, measure out your tomatoes. You want to get whole canned tomatoes, even though they are to be broken up first thing. I found that most canned tomatoes that weren't whole were heavily seasoned. You'll need about 6 1/2 pounds, but the measurement does not have to be exact. I was excited about having a scale, and so I used it, but you can see I didn't use the full amount. In fact, 6 1/2 pounds is about 3 1/2 28 fl.oz cans, so you might want to forget the pound measurement and just buy three cans. I plan on using a half can for something else today, which is why I wasn't too bothered by it.


Next, the fun part! Break the tomatoes up. If you have a food processor, you can chop the tomatoes a bit at a time thusly, but believe it or not, it involves a lot less cleaning to get your hands in there and squish them yourself. It's more fun too. Just don't get too excited, as they squirt quite a bit.

Next, heat some olive oil in a large pot over medium-heat. Throw in the garlic! Saute it until golden brown, about five minutes. If you used onion, this will take quite a bit longer, but the process is the same. Once that's done, throw in your 1/2 tsp pepper flakes, and stir for fifteen seconds or so. Then (carefully) add your tomatoes. Wait for it to come to a boil.

While you're waiting, prepare 1/4 cup of torn basil leaves, and 1/2 tablespoon salt. I used coarse Sicilian sea salt! For no other reason than that it was there. Stir constantly, please.

Once the tomatoes and garlic come to a boil, throw in the basil and salt, stir it up, and lower the heat to maintain a simmer. Set a timer for a half hour, and sit down. Come back, give'r a stir, and check the consistency. If it's saucy and a bit orange on top, it's done! If not, keep it simmering for another 10 to 15 minutes.

I'm the farthest thing from Italian, so this entry is probably a bit blasphemous. It really is good though! If you have a more authentic recipe, I'd love tips!

The main point is that this marinara can be used in many other recipes. I despise recipes that call for marinara sauce when I don't have any in the freezer. I feel so cheated, and as though I didn't really make the end product. NO MORE!

--Sophia

What a Splendid Evening for Thighs!

Ah, so you want to make something with chicken bits, but you don't want to buy and truss a whole chicken? Well neither do I. However, if you don't mind dark meat, this recipe makes great chicken thighs to slice up for leftovers! Not to mention, it's real easy... though it does involve massaging some raw meat.

What you need:
a family pack of bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (they usually come with nine, but I've seen twelve before)
3-4 cloves of garlic (or more for roasting)
a bit of olive oil
2 large lemons
three of your favourite herbs (I used rosemary, sage, and thyme)


First, rinse the chicken thighs and pat them dry with a paper towel. Cut off any unwanted fat as well.

Then, chop up your garlic as finely as you can. It's been recommended to me to use a mortar and pestle for this, in order to make some sort of garlic olive oil paste, but I find hand-minced garlic works just fine.

When it's all chopped, gather the garlic into a little pile and pour olive oil into the middle of it. I never measure, I just stop before the olive oil starts to run outside the pile. Sort of like making pasta dough...


I think this was about four or five cloves for nine chicken thighs. I had a bit left over. Next, mix the garlic and oil a little bit with your fingers, and proceed to rub it all over the thighs. Inside and out.

When they're all coated in garlic-oil, stick them in a bowl, cover it lightly (or with a clean dish towel) and let them sit in the fridge for at least two hours. Perfect amount of time to watch a movie and warm your hands up from all that cold chicken.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees whenever you, knowing your oven best, see fit to do so.

When the chicken's just about ready, you'll want to prepare the baking dish. Slice the lemons thinly but evenly, so that you can coat the bottom of a dish, as seen here! Pick the nine heftiest slices (or twelve, depending on how many thighs you have), and put a sprigs of your herbs on each one. If you want to roast some garlic along with this, simply place a full clove with your sprigs.


Place a thigh over each garnished lemon bone-side down, and season with salt and freshly ground pepper.

Stick them in oven until they're golden brown and the juices run clear, about 45 minutes to an hour. Don't worry if the garlic bits burn a bit on top. That'll happen.

Because of the way the store packages herbs this time of year, you'll have a lot left over. Use the sage and thyme for omelettes (I love the look of fried sage leaves; they look like dinosaur skin), and your rosemary for some savoury baking. You'll see what I mean. Ohhhhh yes, you will.


--Sophia

Night Out!

So my intention had been to travel. To travel and to eat and to share. This would have been especially wonderful as I was to travel with my aunt Magda, who has been a culinary inspiration for my entire life. It could be because she always highlights the importance of aperitifs and digestifs, but it's more likely the fact that she can make the most beautiful gourmet meals from the sparest resources. My parents recently went on a boat tour with her, and she managed to feed four people like kings from a tiny galley, while helping to run the boat around Friesland. So I was excited.

But alas, the world decided to ash all over my plans, and I'm stuck in Halifax with nothing to do for the next two weeks. I won't get discouraged though, and I do plan to make the most of it. The first thing on the "sucks to your ashmar" list was oyster happy hour at the Little Fish! You can get very diverse oyster selections without being gouged from 4-6 every day. HOWEVER, when we walked in the door, the restaurant did not seem to exist anymore. Turns out they're undergoing renovations at the moment. We did get oysters though, as the hostesses from the 5 Fishermen swooped in to claim us. A bit pricey, but with the money back from the plane ticket, it was completely worth it. Also, I hate to be a stickler, but I would have liked to know where the oysters came from. The Little Fish is very adamant about letting you know exactly what farm they're from and how you can tell.

In addition to a dozen oysters I had Digby Scallops, which were pretty tasty, and came with a decent bed of veggies! No artichoke hearts in sight though, sadly. Possibly they were mashed into the mash, but they must have been mashed very well.


And Katherine, to the best of my knowledge, thoroughly enjoyed her leg of lamb on a bed of... something. Looked and tasted like homemade pasta with rosemary. Could have been something fancy I just don't know about. Oh, and we may have neglected to take advantage of the complimentary mussel bar. Next time, maybe.

--Sophia