Hot Chocolate for Breakfast? I think so!

This lovely tradition isn't something that I've devilishly come up with on my own. While I was living in Argentina, I found that having hot chocolate as part of a light meal, it's totally acceptable and even considered a benefit to your health. Sure, I've heard that a small portion of dark chocolate of the purest quality in moderation has benefits for your heart but thick, rich, milky sweet hot chocolate for breakfast? Perhaps it's more preferred by those who want to avoid the caffeinated beverages like tea and coffee. In Argentina, there's this delightful hour that people dedicate to merienda, or a tea time. Argentines from the interior, or the provinces outside of Buenos Aires, generally spend it within their own homes with their family. Typically these treats are usually what people also eat for breakfast. It's all about the sweet breakfast there. Savory breakfasts of eggs and toast is very strange for most people there. They serve tea or coffee and even hot chocolate with a delicious array of sweets:

bizcochitos


medialunas



facturas con crema



pasta frola



dulce de cayote..this is a sugary substance that is made from the fruit of this type of green melon. It's baked in the oven and then the fibrous fruit inside is soaked in water then cooked with sugar.





and of course, the one and only dulce de leche.




Sometimes we'd even have this for breakfast.


Which reminded me of frosting covered animal crackers.

It was even acceptable to go out for churros and chocolate for merienda as a treat.


I loved this tradition. Who wouldn't? When I was living in Tucuman, the smallest province in Argentina, it was typical to have merienda after waking up from the siesta. Imagine this, you go home, you eat a huge lunch during midday and then you take a nap for a couple of hours and wake up to have this delicious dessert like tea. Needless to say, it was like a foodie lovers dream.

In Canada and in the U.S. I remember as a kid that having a glass of milk with every meal was the way that parents would get us to have a healthy dose of calcium. Not in Argentina, milk is rarely drank plain. Typically kids drink it after it's been boiled over the stove or with chocolate. Even at a comedor, a soup kitchen/ center for kids where I spent my free time teaching English, part of the provisional government bundle of minimal food goods given to kids included chocolate. Since I've given up coffee for a while as a New Year's Resolution and am craving something warm, creamy and comforting I think that this Saturday morning I'll get in a healthy dose of calcium with a rich yummy mug of hot chocolate.

Shepard's Pie/Beef Pot Pie/Beef Tart?

You can call this whatever you want and you can make it however you want. That's what makes it easy to make when you've got little to work with and it's hearty enough to keep you full for half the week... at least it was for me anyhow. I made the crust from a Deluxe double crust recipe out of the Joy of Cooking. The original recipe for crust seemed to use a lot more shortening. The deluxe recipe used a lot more butter (2 sticks!) Maybe this is standard for crust making but either way I was kind of frightened by using a lot of shortening or butter. It made the dough very sticky, hard to roll out with a rolling pin. I gave up the traditional effort of rolling out the dough a surface and placing it within the pie plate and basically threw the dough directly into the pie plate and molded from there. It surprisingly worked.



I burnt the crust a bit because I was worried that it was too soft to be cooked through. It wasn't until I burnt the crust that I realized that the crust was supposed to be soft, crumbly and easy to fall apart. After it cooled, however, it tended to stay together a lot better. When I reheated the pie, the whole thing kind of fell apart but it was somewhat tasty anyhow. I could taste a lot of butter in the crust still. Perhaps next time I will try to find an alternative pie crust recipe that won't seem so frightening.

The filling was simple. I suggest using whatever leftover ingredients you have. I had a pound of ground beef, onions, carrots, peas and cabbage. I omitted the cabbage and sauteed the beef, onions, carrots and peas with some garlic and added some cornstarch with luke warm water bit by bit to thicken the juices. I seasoned the beef with paprika, a little garam masala, a bit of coriander, turmeric, a wee bit of cinnamon and nutmeg and some cayenne. The beef pot pie recipe called for curry powder. I found it here: http://almostbourdain.blogspot.com/2009/10/curried-beef-pot-pie.html

I didn't add salt or bouillon because I had used salted butter instead of unsalted butter in the crust recipe and I didn't want the dish to be too salty and rich. Over time, the juices tended to be absorbed by the vegetables. Next time I would cook the beef for less time before introducing it to the oven and I would also develop a thicker gravy. On top of the filling I threw in a little bit of leftover mashed potatoes with a generous sprinkling of parmesean cheese. Sure, this meal wasn't the most healthy of meals, but it's been just the thing to keep me warm on the bitter cold Halifax winter nights while our little apartment doesn't have heat.

Almond Biscotti!

This should have raisins in it, but I decided that that was unnecessary. The recipe's from the Williams-Sonoma Simple Classics Cookbook, with a couple of adaptations of my own, the most important being the afore-mentioned lack of raisins.

You will need:

1 cup almonds
2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp aniseeds, lightly crushed

1/4 cup butter
1/2 granulated sugar
1/4 brown sugar, firmly packed

2 eggs

2 tsp almond extract
zest from one small orange (about 1 tbsp)

1 egg beaten with 1 tbsp water, for a quick glaze.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees, and spread the almonds on a baking sheet. Bake for about ten minutes, until the almonds are well-toasted. Unfortunately, I can't tell any difference between the almonds before and after, so... ten minutes. Yes. Let cool and chop coarsely. I didn't.



Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and aniseeds.

Using an electric mixer, mix the butter and both sugars for about five minutes, until "light." Make sure you don't use butter straight out of the fridge. It's annoying.

Add the eggs one at a time.

Beat in the almond extract and orange zest.

Gradually beat in the flour mixture until combined. When I did this it didn't look like dough at all; it was way too pebbly. But once you get your hands in there it all comes together again. Hands, you say? When does that happen? NOW!

Add the almonds and knead them in with your hands. Transfer the dough to a floured surface, and knead a little bit more. Divide the dough in half and form into two logs, like so (my eye-balled halves were NOT equal, but it didn't really matter). Place on a greased and floured surface, brush with the egg mixture, and pop them in oven until they're lightly browned, 20-25 minutes.
Let cool for five minutes. THEN! The fun part! Using a serrated knife (it's easier with the almonds), cut the logs on a diagonal cross into 1-inch slices. Maybe a little bit more diagonal than I've done here. Place the slices upright on the baking sheet and stick back in the oven for 15 minutes.
Turn off the oven and open the oven door about two inches, and let cool IN THE OVEN for 30 minutes.

Now you're supposed to let them cool until they're dry and crisp, but I've never been able to do that. And they DO dunk perfectly.

The Hot Toddy

Since I'm feeling a little under the weather, along with pretty much everyone I know, I thought I'd do away with cooking and drink hot toddies all day. And show you how to do it! It's very simple, which is good when you're sick, but I still managed to mess it up. You will need things you find around any good household, such as

Tea!
Honey!
Brandy!
Lemon!

And that's about it.
So all one need do is fill his teacup 3/4 full, and add a tablespoon of honey.


Then add two of these guys (that's an ounce of brandy right there), and float a lemon slice on top. Bonus points for using the best possible mug.

My mistakes: turns out I've only got green tea, which if you've seen my Halifax cupboard is pretty shocking. BUT! I found two rogue bags of lemon scented Earl Grey, so I just used those and left out the lemon slice.

My other mistake was to use cognac instead of brandy, only to realize afterwards that I misread the label and had actually used calvados instead. The results aren't bad though, it's just a little apple-y.

And you know, I DO feel a little bit better.

Country Bumpkin Pumpkin

Note to all viewers, if you ever decide to embark on making your own pumpkin puree, be prepared to get really creative and be ready to adapt your palette to pumpkin and only pumpkin. Sophia and I had relatively small pumpkins. I'd say that they were so wee they'd made baby jack-o-lanterns and still we ended up with endless pumpkin puree.. probably about 5 cups worth. Most recipes call for about .5 cup to a cup of pumpkin alone. I thought for sure that with pumpkin bread, pumpkin biscotti and pumpkin scones, I'd be gone with all of my pumpkin puree. I was left with a full heaping cup load extra puree!

It's my last night in Halifax before I head out for the holidays. I decided to bake pumpkin treats for the long trip and to greet the folks back home with. I had my work cut out for me already with these decadent pumpkin scones.

I got this recipe from one of the first food blogs that I ever followed, Baking and Books. http://www.bakingandbooks.com/2009/10/19/pumpkin-scones-with-autumn-spiced-glaze/

Next I swiftly moved on to the biscotti.



I found the recipe from this blogger, who also must have run into excess pumpkin puree, because she had three featured pumpkin recipes on her blog. They included pumpkin whoopie pies and pumpkin oatmeal cookies. http://www.thesweetslife.com/2010/12/pumpkin-biscotti-with-cranberries-and.html I, myself, found the biscotti too sweet. Perhaps it would be better dipped in coffee or hot chocolate.

Since I the previous pumpkin bread was such a huge success at the holiday party I decided to give it another shot with the extra cup of pumpkin puree. This time I even took a picture of it. It looks like banana bread to me.

And that's all the pumpkin, folks! Now I'm kind of at a loss as to what my next cooking adventure should be. I suppose I'll go switch to something savory, maybe try my hand at some new types of breads for the winter season.

Leftovers

I had to break down yesterday and buy eggs and butter in order to make a wonderfully smelling pumpkin bread. It was a huge success at the neighbourly holiday party. It was an easy recipe to follow from the Joy of Cooking and I was able to stick it in the oven, attend the party and run up to take it out of the oven on cue. It didn't burn one bit. Since I was anxious to bring the bread freshly baked right to the party, (which was in the same apartment building, mind you) I forgot to take a picture for the blog. After having had a full turkey dinner, I also forgot all about the bread once I was there. I did shamelessly lick the bowl, spoon and beaters clean of the batter after I stuck it in the oven though. It was finger lickin good!

Tonight I made good work of the leftover potatoes, carrots and onions. I made a Dutch hutspot, a mash of potatoes and carrots seasoned with a dash of curry powder and stock. It turned out to be a perfect hearty meal for a blustery windy day in Halifax like today. Typically it is to be served with bacon bits, some sort of weiner sausage or Dutch meatballs with gravy. I substituted by boiling the carrots with a bit of beef stock. I also kept the skins on the potatoes for extra nutrient. The recipe can be found here from the lovely Kay, the dutch woman of Gouda. http://www.kayotic.nl/blog/hutspot




What can I say? Mash never tends to photograph very well...

Grammie's Tomato and Rice Soup

Seeing as the holiday break is approaching when I'll be leaving our lovely Quinn Street Attic for a whole month or so, I've refrained from buying any more food so that it may not go to waste while I am gone. It's been a bit of a challenge to come up with sustainent meals with an almost empty fridge and cupboard. Fortunately for me, I rather enjoy a good challenge.

Although far from being gourmet, these meals are low budget, easy to make, and relatively fast, which is why I've decided to share them with the blogging community at large.

Current ingredients left in the kitchen:

onions
garlic
a cup of rice
couscous
a carrot and 1/2
small white potatoes
a tomato
1/4 left of a jar of pasta sauce
pumpkin puree
all purpose flour
white bread flour
sugar
yeast
2 eggs
vanilla extract
tahini paste
plus condiments... lots of condiments...
Almost everything from honey dijon mustard and worcestershire sauce to sambal oelek and fish sauce.

Tonight I brought out an old nostalgic recipe that my French Canadian grandmother used to make for me as a child. It's far from being French or Canadian but it's a no nonsense meal that fills your tummy with warmth.

It's Grammie's Tomatoe and Rice Soup!

I toasted the rice with onion and two cloves of garlic in oil on medium heat in the cooking pot. I then added about a cup of water and slowly added some beef broth accordingly, reducing the heat so the soup could simmer. I used bovril, which is a liquid concentration that acts almost like a bouillon cube, that is to be added to boiled water. I accidentally spilled a huge amount everywhere and ended up with a very salty, almost soy sauce like broth. So I reduced the amount of broth from a cup and replaced it with boiling water. I basically used the broth as the seasoning. Unfortunately out of habit, I forgot to omit the table salt. I chopped the tomato and added it with the leftover pasta sauce to the pot. By this point the rice had begun to soften and was starting to absorb the liquid. I added in cayenne for an extra kick, a dash of dried basil, and a bit of generic hot curry powder. I continued to add boiling water to the pot as the rice kept absorbing the liquid.

Overall, a simple sucess!

I had some leftover stale seasoned croutons that I threw in there for texture and flavor. I believe my grandmother used to make hers with instant rice, water, salt and canned tomatoes to make this soup and she would serve it with saltines. Eating mine, however, still conjured up memories of watching Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune doing a giant jigsaw puzzle, or playing yahtzee in her living room. The only thing that was missing to complete the nostalgic meal was oreos and milk or pecan icecream for dessert.

To be honest, I didn't think my photo of the soup I made would do it justice...
But here's a fancier type of tomato soup that I gave me the thought of making my humble Grammie's kind.

Pomidora Soup with Tortellini

And might I add, had I added sausage or tortellini, it would have made the soup exceptionally heart warming.

The pomidora soup with tortellini recipe is availabe here: http://www.kayotic.nl/blog/royal-pomodori-and-tortellini-soup
from a lovely Dutch woman living in Gouda.

Perhaps Sophia will turn to her in the future for nostalgic recipes...

What on earth will I end up making with the leftover ingredients in my kitchen, you say? And will I ever find a way to use up all that pumpkin puree?? Stay tuned and all shall be revealed.