Shortbread & QuickJams

We made shortbread the other day. My gran was famous for her shortbread, and instilled in me a love of the stuff. 

Gran never shared her recipe though; she was of a generation whose women guarded their recipes jealously as the trade secrets of their personal and social success. So when I'm in the mood for shortbread, I look at the recipes in Joy of Cooking, Bittman's How to Cook Everything, the Bon Appetit Cookbook, and Regan Daley's In the Sweet Kitchen, which has several good ones.

I love experimenting, so I usually make a hybrid of several recipes plus whatever substitutions or additions take my fancy. Shortbread is a recipe with latitude—it bears additions and substitutions well—which is a bonus for those of us who like to get creative, and a blessing if you're missing an ingredient. Although shortbread relies on ingredients that are common in my house—flour, butter, sugar and salt—on the odd occasion we're out of something, so it's convenient that each ingredient has a couple of substitution options. Because of its flexibility, shortbread is a good option for spontaneous baking.

Shortbread also has latitude in difficulty and fussiness. You can get perfectionist with it, but you don't have to. It's pretty kid-friendly too—you can let the kids measure and mix, hoping they don't eat all the dough, but not worried if they eat some. 

Each person can take a portion of the dough once it's mixed and create their own work of art. They might like to:

• Add a flavouring such as a salt, herb, spice, essence or nuts.
• Etch the top of the dough. Use a pointy object to create art or to make "cut here" lines.
• Decorate the dough using food coloring or cake decorations.

I had made apple butter and a plum quickjam earlier that day, so I jazzed up the shortbread with little dollops. The combination was amazing. And maybe healthy, or am I just kidding myself?

Watch your plate; this dessert disappears quickly.

 

Recipes
You can make both recipes quickly* and with almost any amount of fruit. It's a good way to:

• Use up older fruit that's still good but no longer pretty
• Deal with "little kid leftovers"; residuals of smaller children, who typically can't eat an entire fruit at once
• Quickly add home-cooked deliciousness to any meal, snack or dessert. I've added these butters and quickjams to salads, vegetables, yogurt, ice cream, toast, stews and meat dishes. 

* (2-3 minutes for cutting; 10-20 minutes on the stove. You can instead push it to the back of the stove and cook it on low for a longer time, if that suits you better. Just be careful not to forget it because once the water's cooked off, everything burns very quickly. Set a timer!)

Apple Butter
Cut apples into chunks, remove seeds.
Place in saucepan, cover with water.
Simmer until liquid is absorbed, occasionally stirring and mashing the fruit.
(You can add sugar, salt, honey, other fruits, herbs, or essences as it cooks. Flavours added earlier in the cooking process will intensify and blend with the fruit.)

Plum QuickJam
Remove pits from plums.
Place plums in saucepan, cover with water.
Add 2 T sugar.
Simmer gently until liquid is absorbed, occasionally stirring and mashing fruit. If you want thicker jam, add more sugar (to taste) gradually during cooking time.
(You can add sugar, honey, other fruits, herbs, essences, etc to taste).

:::

10 Rules of Food and Eating

I haven't written a food and eating manifesto in a while, so here are my theories, politics and gut feelings about food and eating:

1. Love yourself enough to eat well. 
2. Food is not chemistry: eat a moderate, balanced diet of real foods.
3. Drink more water. Eat more fruit.
4. Buy ingredients, not packaged food. 
5. You don't have to be a great cook to make good meals.
6. Making good meals doesn't have to take tons of time.
7. How you eat influences your health and emotional wellbeing.
8. Eat from hunger, not boredom, anger, joy, loneliness, sadness or tiredness.
9. Love yourself to get enough sleep (most of us need 8 hours). 
10. If you eat junk, fast, or snack "foods," or drink pop or energy drinks, don't be surprised to look and be unhealthy.

You're probably thinking Wait a minute, #9 isn't food-related, but it really is: not getting enough sleep can affect your nutrition in 5 ways:

1. You drink energy drinks (which are terrible for you), or too much coffee, in a bid to get and stay awake. 
2. Lack of sleep makes you more likely to get sick with colds and flu. Many people take over-the-counter meds so they can go to work. Those meds are not natural or good for your body.
3. When you're tired, you're likely to eat sugary carbs for a 2pm pick-me-up, and overeat in the evening.
4. Lack of sleep can cause depression, which is often a trigger for emotional eating.
5. Chronic tiredness makes you less likely to have the energy to shop for, and cook, real food.

Things that Boning Knives Cut Really Well

1. Tofu
2. Polenta (cooked)
3. Mangos, especially Filipino style, with the long shallow pit.
4. Banana Bread and any delicate cake or bread
5. Packages. (sshhh.. don't tell chef. I know it's hard on the knives but it's just so darned convenient.)
6. Butter, soft or frozen
7. Eggs (hb, of course)
8. Over-ripe tomatoes
9. Softer cheese

Tofu: slicing time was < 30 seconds

Kale and Bacon with Carmelized Onions & Tofu

This dish is quick and super-easy. The onions and bacon add an earthy undertone to the fresh crunch of kale and silky richness of soft tofu. I was surprised how much the kids ate. It's a light single-dish meal or good paired with soup and rice, and is fairly digestible while high in protein and deliciousness.

Peanut oil (or oil that can handle higher heat)
1 medium or large onion
1/2-1 pound of bacon
1-4 cloves of garlic, to taste
1 container soft tofu
1-2 bunches of kale
Soy sauce (optional, to taste: fish sauce, sesame paste, ponzu, korean barbecue sauce, sweet chili sauce)
Tapioca starch (optional)
Sesame seeds (garnish)

Put a larger skillet on medium-high heat.
Heat about a tablespoon of peanut oil
Rough-chop the onion and bacon, and finely slice the garlic.

When the oil is hot enough to sizzle at a drop of water, add the onion and bacon.
As they cook, roughly slice the tofu; if it's soft enough you can pull it with a fork. The idea is to have irregular pieces, not square slices.

When the onions are softened and the bacon is cooking but not yet crispy, add the garlic and tofu.

At this point it's also time to add seasonings. I used soy sauce, a couple drops of fish sauce and some sesame paste. I recommend tasting and seasoning as it cooks; sometimes I add a ponzu-type citrus sauce, or korean barbecue sauce, or even sweet chili sauce.

As the tofu absorbs the flavours and sauces, chop a bunch or two of kale, stems and all. I usually cut the stems in small pieces like we do spring onions. Continue cooking as the juices dry up and the onions, garlic and bacon begin to crisp. When the onions, garlic and tofu are as brown as possible but not yet burning, place the kale on top and let it cook down.

Cover the pan if possible, but be sure to vent the steam so your kale doesn't get soggy. Ideally you want it to retain some structure and a bit of crunch in the stems.

For that shiny glazed chinese vegetable look, add a teaspoon or two of tapioca starch. Mix it in well for a couple of minutes, then remove pan from heat.

Remove from heat and transfer to serving platter. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and enjoy.

Polenta Mania!

We haven't had polenta for a while. It's such a quick and easy dish, and goes with practically anything. The kids can help, or do the whole thing.

I buy polenta in tubes, just slice it as thin as possible (use a cheese or boning knife if you have one), cover it with olive oil, sprinkle herbs from our garden and bake at about 400-450F. I cut it thin and cook it on a higher temperature because I love crispy slices. Some people prefer theirs sliced thicker, like a steak, but not me.

You can sprinkle it with cheese for a vegetarian delight, or serve it alongside meat for an omnivorous meal.  

Too-Much-Zucchini Bread

Man this was good! I made it Sunday, thinking the kids could take some for school lunch. Sadly, it didn't last until Monday. Even sadder is that they're not the ones who ate most of it...

I used a simple spice-zucchini bread recipe (I think it was Bittman's; I use tons of his recipes and customize them as necessary). When I realised I had too much zucchini I said what the heck and tossed it in anyway. That was the moistest zucchini bread I've ever had. Everyone in the family liked it; even the zucchini-hater.

The crust kept it from being just a damp mess. The crust is, well, crusty, which makes it hard to cut without crushing the extremely moist insides, but adds a lovely textural contrast.

Stew in a Flash

What do you get when you add leftover roast beef and potatoes to squash, mushrooms, and green onions? Fabulous Friday Night Stew!

I'd spent the day gardening and was tired and hungry. Not much to eat except for a bit of leftover roast beef and potatoes. I revived it with some of my homemade stock and a cup or two of ginger tea, half a fresh butternut squash, organic mushrooms, and green onions and rosemary from the garden. I left it to simmer while I took a hot bath. The sweet savoury smell greeted me as I returned, clean and relaxed. So good and excellent after a day of physical labour. The kids loved it and even DH came back for a second serving.

Stupidly Easy Chicken Recipe

Like pretty much every family, ours is busy and full of competing schedules. I like to cook prophylactically, and not only because it's a fun word. It means preventively; in other words, I cook so that there's always something in the fridge that's good, nutritious and easy to grab 'n go. Chicken fits the bill nicely. I have a great recipe:

1. Buy chicken legs, thighs, wings or whatever.
2. Arrange skin-side-up in baking pan.
3. Cover with Hy's Seasoning Salt.
4. Bake on 350F til internal temperature is 165F. (Always use a thermometer when cooking meat.)
5. (Optional) Broil for a couple of minutes until skin is as crispy as you like it. (Keep an eye on it—broiling goes wrong quickly!)
6. Feast.

I make mine in the toaster oven, which warms up more quickly, uses less electricity and toasts the skin better. If you cook it on a higher temperature (400-450F) the skin is usually crispy enough that you don't have to broil it.

Kids can help with this recipe. You probably don't want them handling raw chicken, but even little kids can sprinkle the seasoning salt. Older ones can use the thermometer to check for doneness. I mention this because it's important that we teach our children how to cook and eat, so they don't fall for misleading marketing or labelling claims, or buy into the cultural norm of eating crap.

Stone Soup and Irish Soda Bread

Have you heard of Stone Soup? It's an old expression, based on an older fable, and refers to what was made when there was little food about. I'm lucky that when I have little food about, it's because I haven't grocery shopped.
I was feeling soupy at lunchtime but we had few ingredients, so I made a stone soup with ingredients from our herb garden.

First, I made stock from last night's chicken carcass, with half an old nectarine thrown in for flavouring. Most popular soups contain a fair amount of sweetening, so adding fruit to the stock isn't as odd as you may think. If you buy commercially-made soup, look at the sugars: Campbell's contains 12g, their Healthy Request Tomato Soup has 10g, and Heinz Cream of Tomato Soup has 10g—all more than a can of my perennial favourite nutritional whipping boy, Coke.

Adding sugar to your stock adds flavour and can help you choose less salt, if salt use concerns you. I'd rather add a naturally-occurring sweetener like fruit, so in the pot my half-nectarine went. (Why half? Simply because the other half was rotty-looking so I composted it.) I love the challenge of a low-waste kitchen, and for the price of old chicken bones, half a nectarine, some ginger tea, and a pot full of water, I had delicious stock after a couple of hours, maybe three.

I added rosemary, lavender, oregano, green onions and basil from my garden, plus curry leaves, celery and bits of the leftover chicken meat. Not counting the time it took to simmer the stock to golden perfection, making the soup itself took about 20 minutes. I would have let the herbs cook in longer, but I was hungry!

I enjoyed my healthy-tasting soup with a side of Irish Soda Bread (from Bittman's recipe) which fits the stone-soup style of cheap ingredients: flour, buttermilk (or yogurt or soured milk), baking powder and baking soda, salt and water. It makes a funny-looking loaf, but is quick and easy to make and for some reason, the kids love it. I made this loaf with half rye flour and half all-purpose flour so it was denser than usual, making it perfect for dipping in my stone soup. What a heartwarming and health-inducing lunch.

Feast on This!

It’s getting close to Thanksgiving (2^nd Monday in October) which means it's time to talk about gratitude. Even in a year that held mixed blessings, there's lots to be thankful for. Along with great health and a loving family, I give thanks for things in my life that are simple yet profound.

Something that's easy to take for granted in my part of the world is an abundance of clean drinking water. In Vancouver we have some of the best-tasting water in the world. It’s my favourite drink; in fact our family rarely buys juice, soda or other beverages. Water is a healthier approach to hydration, saves a ton of money and I don’t have to schlepp heavy things home from the store. As access to fresh drinking water becomes politicized and people spend more and more on water they want to drink, I appreciate how lucky I am to have the luxury of inexpensive access to clean drinking water.

I give thanks for fresh fruit. It’s amazing stuff; healthy, gorgeous and flavourful. I’m always amazed by how ready for the day I feel after a breakfast of fruit, yogurt and eggs.

As you know, I love love love soup. Rainy days here can be bone-chilling. Whether it’s congee, stew, or clear broth soup, hot savoury liquids warm from the inside out. Soup warms my body and soul. (Plus it's fast and really easy to make!)

And baking, of course. It's a favourite activity on rainy winter days. I enjoy baking with my family; whether we pore over recipes or grab the first one off the internet (cookies, and hurry!). It may sound corny, but when my kids take something I've baked in their lunch, it feels like I’m able to give them an extra hug while they're at school. It satisfies my mommy-ing needs without embarrassing them in public.

I invite you consider what makes you wealthy—love, friendship, fresh fruit, a healthy appetite—and give thanks, today and every day.

Sunflowers!

One of my favourite plants—big, bright and in your face (or towering over you). Sunflowers celebrate life and encourage me to do the same. I love harvesting their over-heavy heads full of seeds. We roast them in the toaster oven and feast. Here's a pro tip: if you wait until the seeds are hot to salt them, the salt will stick to the seeds' oils, which are released by the heat. Super pro tip: try Hy's seasoning salt. (I put that #$*% on everything.)

Baking on a rainy sunday: Food for the Gods and Banana Bread

Food for the Gods

Food for the Gods is a Filipino treat. If you're not familiar with Filipino cooking, let me tell you they are sweet baking experts. If there's a Goldilocks near you, check it out. Really. Go now. (Brazo de Mercedes and Sans Rival will change your life.)

One of my favourite indulgences is Food for the Gods, a date square that leaves all others in the dust. It's a popular, time-tested dish—every lola has her family's recipe—and easy to make. The recipes I've seen all include dates and walnuts (I make mine without walnuts to appease Youngest Daughter) and a variety of sweeteners, including sugar, molasses, honey and corn syrup.

Recipes abound online—just be sure to search "food for the gods" (not of the gods). It's easy to make, uses very little flour (a plus for me, the gluten-free-ish gal) and popular. In the Phillipines you see it around christmastime, but at our house anytime is FFTG time. Only problem is that it disappears so quickly...

Banana Bread with Coconut

My favourite banana bread recipe is still Bittman's, from his How to Cook Everything. I usually add more sugar than he calls for, and a touch more fat. (Everything's better with butter.) We eat a lot of bananas in my house, but often lose a few to over-ripeness. The ones with black spots are usually fine but the kids won't eat them because they're ugly, so I just toss them in the freezer without peeling them (the bananas, not the kids). When I want to make banana bread, I thaw three frozen bananas. The quickest and easiest way is in a steamer basket over a pot of boiling water; takes less than 10 minutes. Don't let the kids see the bananas at this point—they look gross, practically liquid—but they're super easy to work with. I add shredded coconut but not walnuts, due to certain people's nut prejudices. DH and the kids love this bread, and it packs well for school lunches. It's also amazing toasted with peanut butter.

Easy Fish Stew

Remember that curried cauliflower I made the other day? I turned the leftovers into a fish stew. It took exactly two minutes to dump the leftovers in a pot with some leftover potatoes, and add half a cup of broth and three frozen halibut fillets. I heated it gently (medium-low) for about 20 minutes. Easy peasy.

We ate it topped with tamarind-date chutney. The kids loved it! For an extra kick of heat, we paired it with ginger tea. I'm no physician but I swear all that spicy goodness makes sick people healthy and maintains good health.

Vegomania and crispy noodles

One of my favourite things is crispy noodles. It's hard to make them at home, if you don't have one of those crazy-hot wok rings they use in restaurants. But having the wrong equipment never stopped me before...

This was pretty easy to make and the family loved it. I fried cooked noodles on the highest temperature on my stove, which is electric but gets hotter than the gas stove we had a few years back. (Shh, don't tell the cooking snobs that I prefer electric over gas.) I used peanut oil, as it has a fairly high smoke point, although I think we passed it. Added soy sauce, so the sugars burnt a bit and added even more flavour.

The cauliflower and eggplant dish was super easy. I make this one a lot. It was inspired by the delicious Najib’s Special cauliflower dish at Nuba, which was the dish that made me appreciate cauliflower. My recipe is different than Najib's; in fact the only thing in common is probably the cauliflower, but hey, it's good. I just heat some masala in ghee and toss in the cauliflower (and in this case, eggplant). Cook down and stir to coat. Voila.

The peppers, onions and mushrooms were just quickly pan-fried in very hot peanut oil.

Another quick and satisfying evening meal with leftovers for lunch.

From Aparatus to Art

Darn! I broke my favourite frying pan lid. That classic mistake of putting the lid on a cool back burner while preheating my pan on the front burner... or so I thought. I turned on the wrong burner--to max heat, of course, because I was frying noodles. The bang startled me but I instantly realised what happened.

I was disappointed—it's my favourite Ikea lid, and fits the big pans. But oh, such pretty art.

DH was awfully nice about my mistake. He's going to try replacing the glass with wire mesh for a frying cover that fits the pan. (We have one now but it's giant and blocks us from using the element next to the one we're frying on.)

Dinner of Threes

For a family birthday celebration this weekend, I made three salads, each with three varieties of an ingredient. Each dish contained at least one ingredient from our garden. Lots of positive comments on the freshness and flavours!
Three-Tomato Salad
Cherry, grape and beefsteak tomatoes with homegrown basil, parsley, truffle oil, white balsamic, and green onions from our garden.


Green Beans and Nuts
I blanched long green beans, cooled them then tossed in a bit of olive oil and sea salt. Topped with toasted walnuts, almond slivers and sunflower seeds, which provided protein and a blast of crunchy goodness.
Three-Pepper Leafy Greens
Red and yellow bell peppers and long reds were diced and mixed in with three varieties of lettuce (Romaine, green leaf and red leaf). Garnished with homegrown green onions, and topped with a dressing of olive oil, pineapple vinegar with crushed homegrown rosemary, lavender and oregano.

Fabulous (almost-vegan) Dinner!

I feel so full of fresh vitamin goodness! Coming home from a run I stopped in the yard to harvest strawberries and tomatoes. We had a huge storm last night and I'm concerned that the tomatoes may split, so am picking even slightly underripe ones. We have a super-sunny windowsill behind the kitchen sink that's great for storing and ripening fruits and veggies.


Rosemary Croutons
Meanwhile I took the heal of an olive loaf I got at the market last weekend. It was old and dry so yesterday I put it in a plastic bag with a few drops of water to soften it. Today it was soft enough to work with, so I diced it. Meanwhile I sweated rosemary, herbes de provence, and finely-diced onion in butter. Heated some olive oil in a different pan (enough to cover the bread), added it to the onions, and then threw in the bread. Sprinkled salt over top. After cooking off the liquid, I put the mixture in the toaster oven for a toasty finish. Man those were good croutons. Unfortunately they were gone by the time I remembered to photograph them. This shot is the making of.

Tomato Vegetable Soup
For tonight's soup I used vegetable stock with ground herbes de provence, and threw in half an onion, some celery and the last of our bbq'd corn. After letting it combine over medium-low heat for a while, I added eighth'ed beefsteak tomatoes. We garnished with cilantro.

Tomato Basil Salad
Some people ate the croutons in their soup, and some with the tomato salad. I used grape tomatoes, sliced diagonally in thirds. Tossed them with salt, truffle oil, white balsamic, and fresh-picked basil (one of my favourite summer flavours). Those tomatoes are so sweet that you'd swear someone added sugar. They went perfectly with the rosemary croutons.

Baby Carrots and Herbs
I cooked our baby carrots in fresh-picked rosemary, which has loved this summer's dry heat. I sweated the rosemary along with some oregano and lavender (also just-picked) in butter, which was the only non-vegan part of the meal, then threw in the carrots for a slow steam.

Dessert was strawberries, just plain.

My daughter and I reflected as we ate. We're so grateful for the fresh goodness of our dinner, and so lucky to be living in a relatively stable and safe part of the world. Gratitude makes everything taste sweeter.

 

Backyard Harvest

One of my favorite flavours is just-picked tomatoes, still warm from the sun. It's a childhood memory that's been reawakened now that we're growing our own once again. (Previous attempts at my old house were less than fruitful due to insufficient sun, but my present back yard is sunny and well drained.)


Homegrown food has become a luxury but I'm remembering how easy it is to add a few plants. The hard part is remembering to water them! Being able to wander outside, snacking on fresh warm miracles is one of life's treats that beats anything a restaurant has to offer. If you plant from seed, a whole backyard's worth of plants would probably cost less than one fancy restaurant meal. And you can eat in your pyjamas!

This year we had almost no rain for two months. The lavender, tomatoes, rosemary and sunflowers love it. They're abundantly productive, and the tomatoes are deliciously sweet. The alpine strawberries are even sweeter—little flavour bombs so strong you'd swear they were artificially flavour-boosted.

My carrots also came up in bunches, probably because I planted them too close (: Let's call it an experiment in plant sculpturing... yea, that's it. I'll invoke my creative license.

So here's to local food and my one-yard diet. I'll be outside snacking if anyone needs me.

I'm back baby!

Like the man says, I'm back. It's been about 21/2 years since my last post, but I want to talk about food again. Thing is, my attitude has changed.

Ironically, or perhaps predictably given my husband’s predilection for food, I am looking at food only as a fuel source these days. I had an excellent chance to experiment with this recently, when I stayed in a dorm while attending a residency program.

The kitchen there was basic; fridge, sink, microwave, kettle and toaster. They supplied cutlery and plates etc but no food. We were quite busy during the residency and I wanted to make sure to eat right, so I shopped for quick, nutritious, no-stove meals. For two weeks I ate simply, and only for hunger. I didn’t have time, or the inclination, to eat junk food. I often studied while eating, which made me eat very slowly because I was distracted. Looks the same but is the polar opposite to mindlessly shoveling mountains of garbage in your mouth while reading.

Carrot, celery and spinach soup

Super-quick to make; I just threw a container of frozen stock in the pot, added three carrots, five stalks of celery and some leftover spinach, then let it simmer on low for about ninety minutes. I added only salt – the strong flavours of the ingredients (especially celery) carried the soup.

It was good to make while I was working; ie didn’t need much attention – just a taste every half hour to see if it was done. And it was hearty and delicious.

My soup wasn’t vegetarian because I use chicken stock, but you could easily use vegetable or mushroom stock.