cooking in someone else's kitchen

 

Last week, I took the boy to visit his grandfather. And while I was there, I ended up cooking a few things. Firstly, Dad had been freezing his overripe bananas and requested that I make banana bread with them. I'd done it when I was over for our family reunion last summer and he loved it. I think he may have left some of the bananas on purpose...

My Dad doesn't do much cooking anymore and never baked himself and over the years we have pared down his kitchen stuff, clearing out old and broken bits, consolidating odd sets of things and I've taken a few bits for my own kitchen (big blue casserole dish I'm talking about you), so the prospect of baking in his kitchen is a bit fraught. I made a quick shop run to buy flour, brown sugar, spices (he only has savory spices in his cupboard), vanilla, butter and eggs. He had 9 frozen bananas so I made a triple recipe of Deb's banana bread (omitting all spice but cinnamon and leaving out the bourbon) - I did find 3 loaf pans in Dad's cupboards which I don't have - most I can manage is 2 in my own kitchen. I gave one loaf to my uncle and put one in Dad's freezer and we had a few slices of one to test. Yummy.

I also decided to make supper one night instead of going out so I rummaged around in his freezer and fridge and decided to make sour cream noodle bake. My version was inspired by a Pioneer Woman recipe and is a staple of my home kitchen - filling, delicious and feeds many. I only had to buy some ricotta as the rest I cobbled from Dad's cupboards. It did take some searching to find a casserole dish large enough to accomodate this dish. There was lots left over, so some went to my uncle and both he and Dad will have a couple more meals with this.

Sour Cream Noodle Bake (inspired by Pioneer Woman)
1 tbsp oil
2 diced bison sausages
1 rasher of bacon, sliced
half a small onion, diced
1 medium red bell pepper, diced
10 or so mushrooms, sliced
300 mL marinara sauce
270g egg noodles
454g ricotta cheese
1/4 c sour cream
2 green onions, chopped
1/2 c medium cheddar, grated

Preheat oven to 350 deg F.

Cook the noodles in salted water until al dente. Drain well.

While the noodles are cooking, in a saute pan add the oil and saute the onions until translucent, then add the sausage, bacon, pepper and mushrooms and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the marinara sauce and season with salt and pepper to taste.

To the noodles, add the ricotta, sour cream and green onion and mix until blended.

In a large casserole dish, layer half of the noodles, cover with half of the sausage mixture and half of the cheese. Add the second layer of noodles, sausage and cheese

 and bake for about 30 minutes until bubbly and the cheese is melted and golden.

giving thanks

Today is Canadian Thanksgiving and normally, I would be in my kitchen prepping vegetables and making stuffing but this year, we are off to have dinner at my lovely sister-in-law's house.

 We took the boys (human and dog) to the park, the boy to do some goalie stuff and the dog to walk, it was pouring rain and all of us came home soaked. So as I add up my thanks this year I am grateful for my people - husband, son, family, our dog and cat that make our house a home,

for a roof over our heads to give us shelter and warmth, for food to nourish us and help us build connections with each other, for friends who guide, inspire, teach and cherish us and for our health which keeps us moving and growing. May all of you be blessed too!

hazy days

Today was the boy's last day of Grade 3 and over the course of this week, he's been toting things home so our counters are overflowing with drawings (Jurassic World),

filled and unfilled exercise books and sketch books and seemingly endless glue sticks, crayons, colouring pencils, sharpeners and folders. Going the other way were our thank you gifts which were based on lemon and raspberry curd 

I made recently so I baked up batches of raspberry curd muffins which I boxed up and presented along with some ceramic things I painted a couple of weeks ago.

The boy has had a good year thanks to the many helpers he has, not the least of which have been his amazing EA and his lovely Grade 3 teacher, who also taught him in Grade 1. See, we are blessed. Now it is full on summer and we start next week with kayak camp and yesterday we met with the access team at the rec center and his camp buddies to guide him through his camp experience. Again, so blessed.

So for now we look forward to a bit of sleep, some lazy beach days with some picnics, camp and lots of fun with friends and by the end of summer we hope to have lots of lovely memories to go along with the boy's summer blond hair and his long(er) brown legs.

The last few weeks have been busy, with end of year parties and BBQs, along with the usual birthday parties and activities. Soccer, field hockey, swimming and Cubs all wound up but there will be more soccer games on street cul-de-sacs and deserted tennis courts and park fields as the boys are still as mad about soccer as ever. This week we took in a FIFA Women's World Cup match, Japan v Netherlands.

 Great fun with noisy fans and lots of missed goal opportunities and a chance to see the women play at the highest level. Our boy has been plotting the best path for Canada to do really well in the tournament.

Raspberry Curd muffins (adapted from River Cafe)

225g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
A good pinch of sea salt
100g sugar
1 medium egg
125g plain yogurt
125ml milk
75g butter, melted and slightly cooled
150g raspberry curd (or 6 tsp)

Preheat the oven to 350 deg F. Measure flour, baking powder, salt and sugar into a bowl and whisk to blend. In a glass measuring cup or jar, add the egg, yogurt, milk and butter together and mix. Pour into the dry ingredients and gently mix until you see no flour. Do not overmix.

Scoop batter into greased muffin tins, lined with paper cups, until each cup is about half full. Add 1/2 tsp of curd to each cup and top with enough batter to fill the cups up about 3/4 full.

Bake for about 30 minutes or until the muffins are golden brown. Serve warm, if possible.

Lemon Curd (adapted from Fine Cooking)
3 oz. (6 Tbs.) butter, softened at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
2/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1 tsp. grated lemon zest

In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and yolks until well blended and then add in the lemon juice and mix until combined. Don't worry if it looks curdled (mine didn't, it just looked very foamy.) Pour the mixture into a saucepan over medium heat, and cook until the mixture combines and thickens to coat the back of spoon. Take off the heat and add in the lemon zest. Cover with plastic wrap over the top of the curd and refrigerate or place in small jars for gifts. Will keep refrigerated for a few days or frozen for a few months.

Raspberry Curd (adapted from Tea and Cookies)
9 oz raspberries
3/4 c sugar
3 tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp butter
3 eggs

In a medium saucepan, add the raspberries, sugar and lemon juice. Heat on medium until the raspberries break down. Pour the mixture through a sieve, to remove all the seeds but capturing all the juice.

In a bowl, cream the butter with a mixer and then beat in the eggs until blended and creamy and then add the fruit mixture and blend. Pour into the saucepan, and heat over medium heat until the mixture thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Take off the heat. Cover with plastic wrap over the top of the curd and refrigerate or place in small jars for gifts. Will keep refrigerated for a few days or frozen for a few months.

marshmallow cookies

A couple of weekends ago, I whipped up some meringue nests with the idea of using them to make Eton Mess or mini pavlovas with the strawberries and lemon curd I had. The boy, who was at loose ends having had his i-pad privileges taken away, was hanging around the garden and came in to investigate what was cooking. "What are these?" he asked. "I'm starving" and he took a big bite of one and promptly announced it was the most delicious thing ever. "Like a marshmallow cookie, Mum". He ran outside again and I bagged up the rest of the nests to keep for dessert. Later in the day, after hanging around on our back fence, chatting up the diagonal neighbours kids, he disappeared with the bag in tow, to share with his new friends. "Can you please make some more?"

I defrosted some egg whites left in the freezer from making yellow sauce, aka hollandaise, but while they were defrosting, I left to deposit the boy at a birthday party and came home to find the egg whites missing in action. "They looked gloppy" said my husband by way of explanation as to why he had tossed them. Apparently not everyone is up on how egg whites look.

I tried again, only mixing in some toffee chips into the mixture but the whole thing went horribly wrong and liquidy instead of the stiff peaks I was looking for. Sadly that batch went into the compost using the last of my freezer egg white stash.  Fresh eggs now, saving the egg yolks for custard. I did toffee chip meringues, folding in the toffee chips after the meringue reached stiff peaks and it worked a treat.

I dolloped out little kisses of meringue and before I could take pictures or give them out as treats, they were all gone (this time my  husband was the culprit, although I had a few, for taste testing purposes you understand). The boy was holding out for chocolate chip marshmallow cookies but I'd used up our entire stash making the best chocolate chip cookies ever, so those had to wait until I went grocery shopping.

So this week, with chocolate chips in the drawer, and some egg whites left over from making a custard, I made more meringues. Half a plain batch and half with chocolate chips, making sure to spread out the chocolate chip ones so they weren't like little kisses, as the boy said that shape had too much air in them, not enough marshmallow-y-ness. OK. I made them yesterday and they are gone now, as 2 of the boy's pals came over for a play date. Apparently their mums will be requesting the recipe soon. I still have a couple of the plain ones left, to eat with lemon curd, which is my favourite.

Chocolate Chip Meringues (or chocolate chip marshmallow cookies)
3 egg whites
1/2 c + 2 tbsp granulated sugar
few drops vanilla
1/2 bag bittersweet chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 275 deg F.

Slide your egg whites into a clean mixing bowl and whip on high until white and stiff peaks are forming. Sprinkle in the sugar while beating and continue beating until all the sugar is incorporated. Add in the vanilla. Beat until stiff peaks form (lift the beater out of the mixture, and if the peak stays firm, you are done). Fold in the chocolate chips with a spatula.

Using two teaspoons drop about one teaspoon of batter at a time on a parchment lined baking sheet, spreading out the mixture with a spoon to flatten if desired. Bake for 15 minutes or until the bottoms are very slightly brown and then turn off the oven and let the meringues dry out in the oven for a couple of hours (or overnight if you can). Peel the meringues off the paper and store in an airtight container (if you can keep them that long.)

choices

Hello again. It may seem like I've turned over a new leaf with two posts within days of each other but this is the beginning of a new chapter for me. I've left my full time job after many, many years of commuting and working and have started on a new adventure as a work from home, part time consultant and full time advocate for my boy. Whether he will think this is a good idea remains to be seen. So far my first week has been all about our other boy, the furry one.

 He's been to the vet twice and to the groomer and looks a lot different than he did when the week started

all groomed and trimmed

after surgery he is so quiet the cat is quite worried about him

 and he may or may not be my friend after his vet visit yesterday. I have to remind myself it is the best thing for him as a male dog but my boy is still a bit groggy and finding his feet. I'm sure he'll be back to his terrier ways soon.

someone's been digging in the garden

Early spring still continues here and yesterday it was so warm and lovely after a soft rainfall the day before.

our two tone camelia

The cherry trees are out, the magnolia are blooming, the daffs are out and waving in the park and I can feel the green about to burst forth on the trees.

 It makes the scenes on the weather reports back east seem rather surreal. We've had a couple of stellar Saturdays which made the last day of winter soccer season an excellent day

 and then we had an even better day for the end of season celebration, which turned out to be a pick up soccer game, boys vs dads with snacks and water at the park.

 It was a fabulous day and we hope to do it again tomorrow if the rain holds off. And it makes for lovely days for spring break adventures at home which is where we are this year.