surprises

I guess it says something, even if I’m not sure what, that my husband can still surprise me after 11 years together. I recently learned that he does, on occasion, eat white fish. This was a revelation to me as in all our years together I have never seen this behaviour and despite frequent lamentations on my part, as to the lack of fish in our diet, he has never, up to last week, revealed that he has, on occasion, consumed things like Dover sole.

So , dear reader, you would not be amiss in thinking that white fish was definitely on my shopping list this week. I bought fillets of sole from the fish monger. After a troll through my cookery books, I settled on a classic recipe for dinner, Sole Meunière, as laid out by America’s Test KitchenCookbook. I served Deb’s Baked Wild Rice Gratin with baby kale alongside. It made a very nice dinner and my husband finished his fish practically before I even sat down. It was delicious. And it lead to a discussion about fish fingers, which will be added to the rotation this week.

carrot oatmeal muffins

A bit ago I was reading a website about how to make food for children who are selective about what they eat. One suggestion for lunch boxes was to make vegetable muffins. So I thought I would experiment with my tried and true muffin recipe and see if I could make a vegetable muffin my child will eat. The first result was this muffin, a carrot apple oatmeal muffin with butterscotch and white chocolate chips. It was a great muffin but sadly, not a success in that my boy wouldn’t even touch it. Not a bit. Despite sharing with his friend and his friend’s family (who loved it), he wouldn’t touch it.

But as everyone else liked it, here is the recipe.

Carrot Apple Oatmeal Muffins (with surprises) – adapted from Nigella’s Banana Butterscotch Muffins

125 mL vegetable oil

2 eggs

1 c grated carrot

½ c unsweetened apple sauce (or 1 mashed banana)

1 c oatmeal flakes (not the instant kind)

¾ c all purpose flour (the flour and oats together should weigh 250 g)

80 g brown sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking powder

One handful each of butterscotch and white chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat the oven to 400 deg F.

In a small jug, add the oil and eggs together and mix well. In a mixing bowl, combine the oats, flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda and whisk until mixed. Add the oil and eggs to the flour mixture and the carrot and applesauce and mix until combined. Mix the chips in until they are somewhat evenly distributed through the batter. Scoop the batter into greased (or papered) muffin tins and bake for 20 minutes, or until golden brown and the tops of the muffins bounce back when pressed. Makes 12 muffins.

brown food

After an afternoon of chores, and waiting in the rain to tour a US warship (the USS Lake Champlain),

I decided on a somewhat hearty supper. Sausages, cabbage and potatoes. And lately I’ve been serving our sausages with gravy. And I have to admit to a dirty little secret, I usually start with gravy from a can. Horrors. I know. But there I was on Saturday evening, looking in my cupboard and I couldn’t find a packet of gravy mix or a can of gravy and I was going to have to make it from scratch if I wanted some. And the more I thought about not having gravy, the more I wanted it. I really wished I had bought home a can of these from England, as suggested, but alas, I had not. So I was going to have to wing it.

First I sliced an onion, and browned it in a knob of butter. Once the onion was browned a bit, I threw a couple of big spoonfuls of flour into the pot and let it cook for a few minutes, until it was looking a bit toasty and there was a nice dark brown fond on the bottom of the pan. Then I added some beef stock, salt and pepper and crossed my fingers while whisking madly. I admit I added a splodge of soy sauce in for the salt and the colour and then I let the whole thing bubble away on the stove until it was thick and dark and there it was. Gravy. A lovely dark brown. Served over brown sausages, alongside beige-brown potatoes and brown-green sautéed cabbage, it was delicious but not at all photogenic. And best of all, I conquered another of my kitchen fears.

warships

One of the boy's new passions is warships. He recently impressed several of his uncles with his knowledge of things associated with the sinking of the Bismarck (he watches the movie on youtube). So in addition to visiting or otherwise viewing warships whenever possible

warships viewed from a tour of Portsmouth Harbour, England

for his birthday he wanted a warship cake for his birthday party.

Being that I am not so enamoured of warships, this did present a bit of a challenge for me. Youtube did not have any videos of warship cakes to help me out but I did find a template for a pirate ship in my Kids Birthday Cake book which gave me a starting point. I baked a chocolate cake using a recipe from another Children's Baking Book in a 9x13 pan. From there I cut a 4" piece from the bottom of the cake and then cut the remaining piece in half lengthwise.

I stacked the two lengthwise pieces and cut triangles off the front to form the bow. Using a biscuit cutter I cut two circles for the big front and rear turrets and a long rectangle and a smaller one to form the bridge and tower section for the midship. I was all set to go with that configuration and had "glued" the pieces in place using some leftover frosting (from these). The boy came in to see the progress on "his" ship and wanted 4 smaller gun turrets added around the bridge so I added small squares around the bridge structure and secured those to the cake with toothpicks.

 I placed the cake in the fridge to firm up and made some frosting and then added some black gel food colouring to try and get the grey warship colour. I consulted the experts (husband and boy) several times before starting the crumb coat. I had trouble getting the frosting to stick to the cake (it was too thick) and realized after I'd done the first coat, it would have been easier to frost the turrets and tower separately from the cake and add them on afterwards. Oh well.

the boy used leftover cake to make his own ship!

 I thinned out the frosting and added two more coats to get it somewhat smooth

then added some windows using black icing gel, water around the base of the ship and sparklers in the tower and main turrets (7 for the boy's birthday) and the boy and his Dad added toothpicks in the small turrets so it looked as though the ship had all it's guns.

The cake was a big hit with the birthday boy and went well with the Star Wars cake of his best pal at the party (it was a joint birthday party).

 With the sparklers lit, it looked as though the guns were firing, which the boys thought was cool.

spring brunch for supper

The weather goes from almost summer-like to cold and grey in the blink of an eye. It is only the lengthening of the light during the days and the spring flowers blooming that indicates the season. The lilac is almost blooming in our front garden. Inside, we have a surfeit of dinosaurs. The boy has been engrossed in dinosaurs, doing complicated dot-to-dot dinosaurs, colouring dinosaurs and this weekend, we have been reading this series of books which have our boy enthralled. He is trying so hard to sound out the words but he's learning to read in french at school so is much more familiar with french sounds just now, although reading in english is almost there.

We had a clean out of the boy's toys and room today - starting with his books and toys and ending with piles of too small clothes and too young books which will need to find new homes with new boys. But now his favorite dinos are displayed on his shelves along with his dino books.

For supper, I turned to a recipe I found in our latest Edible Vancouver - a brunch recipe that I've been meaning to make. It came together extremely quickly and was delicious.

Baked Eggs with Asparagus and Leeks (from Edible Vancouver)
1/2 lb bacon, sliced thinly
6 medium leeks, thinly sliced
1 bunch asparagus
salt and pepper
1 c vegetable stock
1 tsp dried thyme
6 eggs

Preheat the oven to 400 deg F. In a large saute pan, cook the bacon until it has rendered it's fat. Add the leeks and let them cook until tender. Season with salt and pepper. Meanwhile, cut the asparagus into 1" pieces, leaving off the woody ends of the stalks. When the leeks are cooked, add the stock and stir to mix. Add in the asparagus and then create 6 wells. Break the eggs into the wells and then put the pan into the oven and bake for 10 minutes or until the eggs are set. Serve immediately with hot buttered toast.

dinner in a hurry

The past couple of weeks have been a bit busy with something after school for the boy most days. Wednesday is the hardest, as gymnastics doesn't finish until 6:45 and then we have to get home, have dinner, and all the other things that come at the end of the day. This week I changed it up a bit and took the boy to the rec center a good bit before his class, and we hung out together, he worked a bit on his mathematique homework and had a snack before he ran up the hall to the gym for his class. And I had prepared for dinner before we got home.

Tuesday morning, instead of dashing off to work at my usual early hour, I had an appointment so I tried to get a jump on Wednesday. I put a pot of rice on. (That I forgot it a half hour later when I ran out to door to my appointment and had to have my husband go and rescue it is one of those oops moments - thank goodness everything was ok. From now on, doing my dinner prep in the evenings). Anyway, when I got home on Wednesday night, I had some cold rice, some leftover pulled pork from the freezer and made up pulled pork fried rice using a recipe from Jenny of Dinner, A Love Story, that was in the March Bon Appetit.

So make the rice ahead of time (but not in a way that threatens to burn your house down) and this is a good and quick dinner for those crazy no time to make dinner nights.

Pulled Pork Fried Rice (adapted from Bon Appetit)
1 tbsp olive oil
3 shallots, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp grated ginger
3 c cold, cooked rice
1 egg, beaten
1 c pulled pork, thawed
1/2 c frozen peas, thawed
1/2 c frozen corn, thawed
3 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp unseasoned rice vinegar
1 tsp toasted sesame oil

Heat the oil in a large saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the shallots, garlic and ginger and cook for about a minute. Add the rice and stir to coat with oil, breaking up the lumps with a spoon. Cook for about 2 minutes. Push the rice to one side of the pan, and add the beaten egg on the other side. Push the egg around the pan to cook and then mix into the rice. Add the pork and peas and cook for a couple of minutes to heat through. Then add the soy sauce, rice vinegar and sesame oil and cook, moving and stirring for another minute. Serve.

butternut squash and cashew curry

I made this a while ago and recently found the pictures which reminded me to write a post about it. I found the original recipe over at Dana Treat but modified it a lot when I made it based on ingredients I had and that we like and we loved it.

Butternut Squash and Cashew Curry (adapted from Dana Treat)
vegetable oil
2 lbs butternut squash, roasted and cubed
kosher salt
1/2 tsp black mustard seeds
1 large onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp grated ginger
2 small dried chilis
3/4 c roasted unsalted cashews
1 tsp tumeric
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 14oz can light coconut milk
1/2 c water
1 can white beans, drained
1 c frozen peas
juice of 1 lime

Roast the squash in a 350 deg F oven for about 30 minutes. Cool and cut in half and scoop out the seeds. Cut the flesh into cubes and set aside.

Add a bit of oil to a skillet and add the mustard seeds. They will pop in about a minute, then add the onion, garlic, ginger and chilies. Cook until the onions are golden, about 5 minutes. Add the cashews, tumeric and cumin, stirring for about 1 minutes. Add the coconut milk, beans, water and increase the heat to medium high. Boil until thickened, about 2 minutes. Add the squash and peas in and reduce the heat to medium and simmer for about 5 minutes. Stir in the lime juice. Taste for seasoning, adding salt and pepper if necessary.
Serve over rice.