My friend Jenni of The Gingered Whisk – fellow Daring Baker, Sourdough Surpriser, and all around awesome lady – just recently had a baby girl, and back in the summer she asked me to write a guest post for her while she takes some time off from blogging to settle into life as a momma of two. I was honoured to be asked, and sent her a summery recipe for a salad made with blackberries, basil, and corn (if you think that’s a weird combination, just trust me on this one!). If I’d been thinking ahead, I would have written about something a little more fall-oriented (given that the baby wasn’t born until September) rather than something celebrating the wonders of late summer produce, because now that the recipe is live on Jenni’s blog, corn and basil and blackberries are – sadly – just a sweet summer memory. But this is a salad that you MUST make, so please, bookmark the recipe for next summer – it’s a killer flavour combination! Head over to The Gingered Whisk for my guest post and the full recipe and to congratulate Jenni on the bun that was nine months in the baking! 🙂
Chanterelles and Power Outages
On Saturday I went to the Duncan Farmers Market with $20 and came home with this:
That’s $10 worth of fresh, locally-grown veggies and $10 worth of wild chanterelle mushrooms. Yes, a bit of a splurge at a dollar per ounce for the mushrooms, but when you get an entire tree of brussels sprouts for $2.50, you can be spendy in other categories! (The brussels sprouts have already gone into this pasta with bacon and feta and will undoubtedly be skillet roasted as well.)
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Spaghetti (Squash) and Meatballs
We didn’t eat spaghetti and meatballs in my house when I was growing up – we ate lots of spaghetti with meat sauce, but not with meatballs. I didn’t make my first batch of meatballs until I was well into my twenties, and since then it seems I’ve been making up for lost time, because I could quite happily eat spaghetti and meatballs almost every day. In my recent quest to cut down on the amount of processed white flour in our diet, I looked for an alternative to the pasta part so that I could still get my fill of meatballs, and spaghetti squash seemed like the most obvious choice.
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Painted Desert Salad with Maple Glazed Smoked Salmon
I’m sharing one of my very favorite salads over on the SeaChange blog today. It has roasted red pepper, avocado, smoked cheese, walnuts, sage, and of course smoked salmon (of the delicious maple glazed variety!) along with an extremely wonderful chipotle-maple-balsamic vinaigrette. Check it out!
Beans, Greens & Sausage Soup
One side benefit of cooking a turkey is that you can get some great stock out of the deal. Our Thanksgiving turkey was big enough that I divided the bones for stock between my slow cooker and Dutch oven, and I managed to get 3 liters of beautiful, thick stock out of it. And where there’s stock, there’s soup.
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Smoked Salmon and Corn Chowder
Sweet corn has got to be one of the best things about late summer. I could eat it every day straight off the cob, but sometimes it’s fun to do other things with it – like putting it in a creamy chowder with smoked salmon. Recipe on the SeaChange blog!
Black Bean Burritos
Remember my resolution to use my cookbooks more? Yeah, it hasn’t been going so well (maybe that’s why I usually avoid making resolutions), unless you count the fact that I’ve been making these black bean burritos pretty much on a weekly basis since I got the Dinner: A Love Story cookbook. (And yes, I needed another cookbook like I need a hole in the head. It’s a problem hobby!)…
Oven Roasted Tomatoes
I know we’re still a few months away from tomato season, but I couldn’t resist. Which is odd because I don’t actually like raw tomatoes very much: I really want to, but there’s something about the texture and sometimes watery taste (I think?) that puts me off. However, roasting magically changes both of those things and turns them into super flavourful little tomato bombs….
Roasted Mushroom Pesto for Pizza
One of the truly great taste combinations is mushrooms and cheese, so it is a no-brainer to put them together on a pizza. What is not a no-brainer is making mushroom pesto to put on the pizza instead of tomato sauce. That is brilliant. Another brilliant thing is to roast the mushrooms in the oven before making them into pesto. How have I never roasted mushrooms before? The smells coming out of the oven while they were roasting were just incredible….
A recipe that will make you love lentils
When I was growing up, “lentil” was practically a bad word in our house. I think my Mum over-did it with lentils when my parents were young hippies living on a shoestring (lentils are cheap and filling!), and as a result, my Dad basically refused to eat them. So, my experience thus far with lentils has been pretty limited and tinged with a prejudice of “yecch”.
But I guess my hippie mother rubbed off on me, because I still wanted to like lentils. When I was writing my resolution post, I came across this lentil curry recipe (aka dal), and now I can honestly say it is one of the best things I have made – and eaten – in a while! Incredibly flavourful, a little bit spicy, and really simple to make: boil lentils, make a masala (a flavour base of sautĂ©ed spices, onion, and tomatoes in ghee), stir in some spinach, and voila. Delicious! This will make you see lentils in a very positive light ;).
Lentil Curry
From Vij’s Elegant & Inspired Indian Cuisine. Serves 4-6.
Lentils
Orange lentils (masur dal) hold their shape when cooked, while moong dal (yellow lentils) dissolve more during cooking. You can use either or both – the consistency of the final dish will just a be a little different. I couldn’t find yellow lentils, so I used brown, which were a good substitute.
In a bowl, combine:
1/2 cup split orange lentils (aka masur dal)
1/2 cup split yellow lentils (aka moong dal) (or substitute brown lentils)
Rift through the lentils to remove any debris or tiny stones, then rinse several times in cold water. Pour them into a large pot with a tight fitting lid. Add:
5 1/2 – 7 1/2 cups water (7 1/2 cups will give you soup)
2 tsp salt
1 tsp turmeric
Stir, then bring the lentils to a boil, uncovered, over medium-high heat. The lentils will be foamy-looking. Stir, then reduce the heat to medium-low and partially cover the pot with the lid, leaving a 1 inch space (this will stop the lentils from foaming over as they boil). When the foaming has subsided (5 – 8 minutes later), cover the pot fully and let simmer for about 30 minutes, until the lentils are tender.
Meanwhile, make the ghee and masala.
Ghee
Ghee, aka clarified butter, is butter with all the milk solids removed so that it can be heated to a higher temperature. You can use vegetable oil instead of ghee (and skip this step altogether), but ghee adds delicious flavour.
In a small pot over medium heat, melt:
6 tbsp of unsalted butter
When it has melted, reduce the heat slightly and let it boil gently for a few minutes. A white foam of milk solids will form on top. With a spoon, carefully scoop out the foamy milk solids (be careful to leave the yellow butterfat behind). Continue boiling gently, scooping out the foam every few minutes. After about 10 minutes, the ghee will start to form bubbles on top rather than white foam. Scoop out the bubbles. At this point, the ghee should smell slightly nutty and be turning from yellow to light golden brown. You will know it is ready when there is no more foam or bubbles and it stops boiling – this means that all the milk solids (which were causing the boiling and foaming) are gone and all that remains is pure, delicious butterfat. Pour the ghee into a bowl and set aside. You should have about 1/4 cup of ghee.
Masala
In a shallow frying pan over medium-high, heat 1/4 cup ghee for about 45 seconds. Add:
1 tbsp whole cumin seeds
Sizzle for 15 seconds, then reduce the heat to medium and add:
3/4 cup finely chopped onion (about 1/2 a medium onion)
SautĂ© until brown, 8 – 10 minutes. Add:
3/4 cup finely chopped tomato (about 1 1/2 roma tomatoes)
1 tbsp grated ginger
1/4 – 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
Sauté, stirring, for about 5 minutes or until the ghee glistens on top of the masala.
Add the masala to the cooked lentils and stir well. While the lentils are still very hot, stir in:
3-4 handfuls of chopped spinach leaves (I also threw in a handful of kale leaves)
Just before serving, stir in:
1/2 cup chopped cilantro