Here are some highlights from what turned out to be a stellar September.
We held a bunch of cooking classes for both kids and adults. We celebrated four birthdays and an anniversary.
After being away so much this summer it was great to get to the Trout Lake Farmer’s Market almost every weekend. We enjoyed the last of the ripe summer peaches, tomatoes, plums and grapes and the first of the fall apples, pears, chanterelles, garlic, squash, kale, Brussels sprouts, hazelnuts…
As much as I love summer it is fall that is my favourite time of the year for cooking. With these newly crisp days I am dreaming of braises and soups and homemade pasta and baking bread. Plenty of fall inspired recipes are on their way!
Earlier this week, on a rainy Monday morning, I shuffled around the kitchen after everyone had left for work and school. It was a melancholy sort of morning and I wasn’t sure if this was because of the weather, or that my son was off to a school camp for the entire week and I wouldn’t see him until Friday or that I had done something to my sciatic nerve and was hardly able to walk. Sad face.
The idea of coffee was a comfort but a morning like this called for something more. More than a bowl of granola or a piece of toast.
A quick scan of the messy kitchen counter and my eye was drawn to the small bouquet of squash blossoms in a small water glass. I had bought the blossoms on a whim at the Farmer’s Market on Saturday and had planned on stuffing them with ricotta and herbs and then frying them and serving them with a spiced tomato jam. But Saturday had been busy, and then Sunday was too. I felt guilty looking at these quickly withering flowers. I hate wasting food but it happens more than I would like to admit. What could I do to save these beauties?
I had some homemade ricotta in the fridge, and there are always eggs. There was some stale bread I could toast and top with some of my secret stash of French butter that I save for emergencies.
I set to work heating a pan, swirling in some olive oil and then a pat of butter. I whisked the eggs and seasoned them with a pinch of salt, pepper and some chilli flakes. Into the skillet and a quick stir to get the eggs cooking. The ricotta was rescued from the back of the fridge and crumbled over the custardy eggs and then on went the squash blossoms. Bread was toasted and slathered in butter and eggs were cooked.
I sat and ate and watched the rain and worried if Max had taken enough warm clothes with him but by the end of my breakfast I felt better. Much better.
I would never have thought to post such a non-recipe here. Plus I didn’t really have a proper picture to go with it. This morning, however, I got an email from a lovely woman named Roxanne from Seattle who had seen my photo of this frittata on instagram and wrote to ask me for the recipe. After I wrote it out and sent it to her it got me thinking that maybe every recipe I post here doesn’t need to be a multi-step, multi-ingredient recipe.
Maybe, sometimes, a simple frittata will do.
Squash Blossom and Ricotta Frittata
2 eggs
Pinch of Salt
Pinch of chilli flakes
Freshly ground pepper
1/2 tablespoon of olive oil
1/2 tablespoon of butter
3 or 4 tablespoons of ricotta
3 medium squash blossoms, sliced in half and the stamen removed
1 tablespoon chopped flat leaf parsley (optional)
Coarse sea salt (optional)
Place the eggs in a small bowl and beat together using a small whisk or a fork. Season with the salt, pepper and chilli flakes.
Preheat the broiler in your oven.
Heat a very small cast iron skillet over medium heat and add in the olive oil and the butter. Swirl to coat the pan and then add in the whisked and seasoned eggs. Using a heat-proof spatula gently move the eggs around the so that they begin to cook. When they look cooked on the bottom but still custardy on the top crumble on the goat cheese and arrange the sliced squash blossoms on the top.
Place under the preheated broiler for 1 minute or so until the eggs on top are cooked, the ricotta has started to melt and the squash blossoms are just the slightest bit brown.
Garnish with chopped fresh parsley, a sprinkle of coarse salt and maybe a grinding or two of black pepper.
Well, this is it. The last day of August, the last weekend of summer, the last of the carefree days of the season.
We are spending the long weekend at our little blue cabin on Keats Island. The weather forecast is for warm and sunny skies and so there are plans for swimming, walks through the forest and dinners at the beach. The kids will run free, (as long as they are home for lunch) and when it turns to dusk they will play board games inside the cabin while the adults sip wine and talk and laugh out on the deck, lit up with candles, until bedtime.
After cooking for company over the last few weekends I am keeping things simple on this trip. Yogurt with ripe peaches and granola for breakfast, salads for lunch and grilled meats and vegetables for dinner. And for dessert? Something simple and seasonal. Blackberry frozen yogurt. Scented with a touch of cardamom and garnished with fresh blackberries.
Just outside the door to our cabin are blackberry bushes. Just down the lane too. In fact much of the island is covered with wild blackberries bushes. Not that these bushes produce those giant blackberries that you find at the market that look so pretty but taste a bit watery and bland. These wild blackberries are smaller in size but bursting with flavour. After a day of rain (which happened a couple of days ago) they plump up and gleam like little jewels. On these last days it seems everyone is out on the dusty roads, plastic yogurt containers in hand, picking the blackberries for their morning cereal, or for a pie or to even take home and freeze, to be enjoyed in the dark days of winter.
I will miss these days of swimming and late bedtimes and reading all afternoon and little brown bodies with dirty, dirty feet but it will be the intoxicating and heady smell of the ripening berries on these final hot and sunny carefree days that I will miss the very most until next summer.
4 cups wild blackberries (fresh or frozen)
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 cup sugar
2 cardamom pods, crushed
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups whole milk yogurt
1/4 cup whipping cream
Place the blackberries, lemon zest, sugar, cardamom and cinnamon in a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Stir occasionally to break up the berries and release their juice. Simmer for 10 minutes and then remove from the heat. Allow to cool for 15 minutes.
Place a sieve over a medium bowl and pour the berries into the sieve. Using a rubber spatula push the berries through the sieve to capture the concentrated juice in the bowl below. Discard the berries and cardamom pods in the sieve and set aside the syrup.
Stir the yogurt and the cream into the blackberry syrup, cover and refrigerate for at least a couple of hours or even overnight.
Process in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturers instructions. These also make great popsicles too!
You can enjoy this frozen yogurt straight from the ice cream maker while it is still rather soft or place in a container and freeze for several hours for a firmer consistency.
It was a day that started with spending some time with my sister who came all the way from Los Angeles.
Then I went to my first yoga class in three months with one of my very dearest friends.
My family came to the house for a simple lunch of quiche and salad.
My Mum brought dessert. The birthday cake that she has been making for me since I was a little girl. The same cake I ask for every year. Angel-food cake with raspberry filling, iced with raspberry whipping cream and dotted with fresh, whole raspberries on the top. I love this cake. I love that my Mum makes it for me. Every year.
After lunch we found out that my 99 year old Baba (grandma) was being released from the hospital today after suffering a heart attack last Thursday night. She is now back in her little apartment right next door to our house. What a gift.
This evening my husband and I our rode bikes to a family dinner out at one of our favourite restaurants. Riding home the sky was pink and filled with wispy clouds.
Now it is time for clean pj’s and a bit of reading and turning out the light before 10 pm.
It was a perfect day. Hope your day was perfect too.
Just a quick post today. I am busy getting ready for my son’s 12th birthday party on Saturday but wanted to put up a recipe that is a great way to use up the egg whites from my last post (fig leaf ice cream) and showcase some summer raspberries at the same time.
Whenever I make ice cream or carbonara that requires only the yolks of eggs I always save the whites to use in some other dish. The whites, saved in an airtight container in the fridge, will happily keep for a few days but it is always great to have a few recipes up one’s sleeve to use the egg whites other than making an egg white omelette which I am not a huge fan of.
Mini pavlovas are one great way to use up leftover egg whites but require a whole lot of beating and can be a bit intimidating to make. Here is a one-bowl-wonder of a recipe that only requires a quick whisking of the egg whites that are then combined with ground almonds, sugar, a bit of flour and some salt. The batter is quite thin and can be easily poured into greased friand or financier molds and topped with a raspberry (or peach slice or cherry slice or even blueberries) and baked to produce a small yet special treat to enjoy with a cup of tea.
Once they emerge hot from the oven, dust them with a bit of icing sugar and enjoy.
Wish me luck with the big birthday party, I think I am going to need it!
Raspberry Friands
I make this using mini friand molds that I ordered online. You can also use financier molds or even mini muffin tin. These can also be made using full size moulds just ensure you bake until a skewer inserted into the centre of each cake comes out clean. This recipe (especially if you are making full size friands) can be easily doubled.
5 large, free-range or organic egg whites
1 1/4 sticks (141 g) of unsalted butter, melted
3/4 cup (71 g) finely ground almonds
1 cup plus 3 tablespoons (142 g) of icing sugar, sifted, plus more for dusting
1/3 cup (43 g) of all-purpose flour, sifted
pinch of fine grain sea salt
1/4 lb (113 g) fresh raspberries, plus extra to serve
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (205 C). Lightly grease 24 mini cup or friand molds (silicon or not stick).
Whisk the egg whites just until lightly combined and then add in the melted butter, sifted icing sugar and flour and salt and beat lightly to combine well. Pour into the prepared friand moles or pans filling each cup 3/4 of the way full.
Place two raspberries on the top of each friand and bake in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
Remove from the oven, allow to cool for a few minutes in the pan and then remove from the pan and place on a cooling rack.
Dust with the extra icing sugar and serve warm with the additional raspberries.
The figs are ripening! It was just last Thursday when I discovered that the first three figs on our backyard Green Italian fig tree were ready for picking. Even though I have had fig trees in the garden for over a decade it is only been in the last few years that I have readily enjoyed fresh, RIPE figs.
When my husband and I bought our house 13 years ago I was excited about having a backyard fig tree of my very own. Not that there was an existing fig tree in the non-existent back garden of the sweet little house on Grant Street when we bought it. At that time the backyard consisted of a patch of sad grass, Laurel hedges on three sides and a massive, dying cedar tree.
We got the keys to the house on the first of June and by early July we had already removed two of the massive Laurel hedges. On the east side of the yard I planted raspberry canes and a few vegetables. At the back I began a small woodland garden with hostas and ferns and Solomon’s Seal that are indigenous to our region. On the west side of the yard it was all about flowers. Rudibeckia, hydrangeas, dahlias, even a rose bush or two. Near the house I started a formal herb garden after I convinced my husband and a good friend to dig out the area and lay it with bricks in a diamond shaped pattern that was perfect for the mint, thyme, rosemary, lavender, tarragon, and parsley I planted there.
It wasn’t until year two that I got around to planting a fig tree. Our Italian neighbourhood in Vancouver was known for its coffee bars, delis and front yard fig trees. The old men, strolling home from playing bocce in the park, would sidle up to the trees in neighbouring yards to pilfer a fig (or five) during late August and September. I love figs and was excited at the prospect of growing my own in my slowly evolving back garden.
Off I marched to the Figaro’s Garden, our local garden store, in search of the perfect specimen. I found a tree, checked the price, paid my money and dragged it home.
I took my time deciding where to plant my new treasured garden addition. It needed full sun, of course, but should be sheltered from the wind. Near the house at the corner of the herb garden would be perfect. I planted it, I watered it and put compost around the base. And it grew! I knew not to expect any figs until it had been in the ground for a couple of years or so. I watered and fertilized and waited. On year three there were figs on the tree in the spring! I was so excited! However, by the end of the summer they were still very green, very hard and inedible.
After some quick research (that I really should have done before buying, planting and watering the tree) I soon realized that my Brown Turkey fig tree was not suited to our cool, wet northwest climate. It would happily thrive in California and produce an abundance of deep purple skinned, sweet, juicy figs, but not in Vancouver.
I went back to the drawing board. This time I convinced a neighbour with a prolific Green Italian fig tree to give me a cutting from his lovely tree. This was just four years ago and so the tree is still small but it does manage to produce 40 figs each year.
I still have the Brown Turkey in a corner of the garden and it has grown into an incredibly handsome tree. During an especially warm summer I may get 35 ripe figs which I eat out of hand, standing beside the tree, scarfing them down, before the birds can get them. Even though it produces very few figs the tree has established it’s place in the garden. It belongs there. I often look at that now 12 year old tree and think of all that I have learned in this garden over the last many years.
During the fig-less years, before my second fruitful tree was planted, all I had was an abundance of beautiful deep green fig leaves. I used them to line platters for cheese or charcuterie. Then I thought that there must be more inventive, culinary-inspired way to use the leaves. A bit more research was in order.
Turns out that fig leaves can be used to infuse flavour into meat and fish when wrapped around the protein and grilled. Some people use the leaves to make tea, while others boil the leaves and stuff them with minced meat and herbs and/or cheese.
But the best thing I stumbled across was a recipe for fig leaf ice cream. I was intrigued when I read about it. Fig leaf ice cream? One person commented that it tasted a bit like coconut mixed with fig. I was doubly intrigued. So I made some.
For me, the flavour has a bit of a coconut component and there is definitely some fig flavour too. But I also taste some almond and honey as well. It is hard to pin down. I would almost describe the flavour as ethereal. Ethereal and delicious and unusual and made from the often forgotten and very much underrated fig leaf.
You will not be able to head off to the grocery store to pick up some fig leaves but perhaps a friend or acquaintance might have a front or backyard fig tree. It doesn’t matter if it is a Black Mission, Brown Turkey or an Italian Green tree. Any fresh fig leaf will do. And anyone who has a tree knows there are plenty of leaves to share.
Maybe head off and ask your neighbour. Just promise some ice cream in return.
1 cup (250 ml) whole milk
3 large fig leaves, stems removed, coarsely chopped
Pinch of salt
3/4 cup (150 g) sugar
2 cups (500 ml ) heavy cream
5 large egg yolks
Scald the milk and the chopped fig leaves in a medium sauce pan. Remove from heat, cover and allow to steep for 20 minutes.
Pour the cream into a medium bowl and place a strainer over top of the bowl. Set aside.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks with the sugar and the pinch of salt. Strain the fig leaves from the milk and then rewarm the milk and then gradually pour some of the milk into the bowl with the yolks, whisking constantly as you pour the milk.
Return this mixture to the medium sauce pan and cook over low heat, stirring constantly with a heat resistant spatula, until the custard is thick enough that it coats the spatula.
Once the custard is thickened remove from the heat and strain into the heavy cream. Place this mixture over an ice bath and stir until chilled. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or for up to two days.
Churn the custard in an ice cream maker following the manufacturer’s instruction.
I am sure there are a few of you out there that had given up on seeing another recipe here on this “food” blog ever, ever again.
Finally, at long last here it is! A recipe for a really easy (and delicious) duck confit. A recipe worth waiting for, I promise!
We made this duck confit during our culinary tour in Paris in the spring and it was one of the most popular cooking class recipes we demonstrated. Everyone in our group loved that it demystified the whole confit process, that it didn’t require large tubs of expensive duck fat and that it still managed to taste fantastic. The joy of this recipe is that all you need to make a very good duck confit at home is some good quality duck legs, some common herbs, salt and pepper and a bit of patience.
I wish I could claim ownership of such a great confit technique but credit must be given to New York Times columnist Melissa Clark and Chef Eric Bromberg who developed it while working on the Blue Ribbon Cookbook that was to feature a traditionally made French duck confit. Home cooks have always been reluctant to make duck confit primarily due to the amount of expensive, and not readily available, duck fat. So Melissa and Eric set out to develop a more user friendly method that works like a dream at home.
A traditional duck confit is made by curing duck legs with herbs and spices and then slowly poaching the legs in duck fat until the meat is super tender and falling off the bone. Once cooked the legs can be cooled and placed in a container and then completely covered by a layer duck fat. This is a centuries old method to preserve meat, allowing it to be stored for up to six months. When ready to eat the legs are removed from the fat and placed in a hot pan to crisp up the skin and warm the meat.
The traditional approach to making confit makes perfect sense in a restaurant kitchen as duck fat, and lots of it, is readily available from the butchering of ducks for other dishes. Not so at home. This non-traditional approach will not allow you to preserve the duck legs for long periods of time but duck confit never lasts more than a day or two around my house anyway.
By simply slowly rendering the fat from the duck legs themselves in a pan before cooking them in a low oven for a couple of hours yields surprisingly unctuous results. The amazing added bonus is that there is just enough duck fat left over to fry up a batch of crispy potatoes!
You will need to cure the duck legs for at least 24 hours before you slowly cook them so do plan ahead.
When I make duck confit I always add in a few additional legs to use in other dishes. Duck confit Shepherd’s Pie with truffled mashed potatoes and caramelized corn is a personal favourite. Leftover duck confit is also very at home paired with risotto, in salads, soups or in sandwiches. A little taste of Paris!
2 teaspoons fine grain sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
4 sprigs of fresh thyme
3 fresh bay leaves torn
4 duck legs (about 2 lbs/1 kg total), rinsed and patted dry but not trimmed
Place the duck legs in a shallow dish or pan and season with the sea salt and some black pepper. Strip the leaves of thyme from the sprigs and scatter on top of the seasoned legs and add in the torn pieces of bay leaf.
Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 24 hours.
The next day, heat the oven to 325 degrees F (169 C). Allow duck legs to come up to room temperature.
Place the duck legs, fat side down, in a large ovenproof skillet, with the legs fitting snugly in a single layer.
Heat the duck legs over medium heat until the fat starts to render. When there is about 1/4 inch of rendered fat in the pan, about 20 minutes, flip the duck legs over and cover the pan with foil or a lid. Place in the preheated oven.
Roast the legs for about 1 1/2 hours, or until the meat is very tender, falling away from the bone and the duck is golden brown. Remove the duck from the fat and use the fat for another use (like frying potatoes)!
I am home. Happily home. After six weeks away everything looks very shiny and new here. I am enjoying the feeling of seeing my life in Vancouver through fresh eyes.
The garden has beautifully bloomed since I left and I have been up early each mornings (a perk of my mild case of jet lag) walking in the dewy grass, coffee cup in hand exploring the wonders of the backyard.
The blueberries are ripening, the fraises des bois are ripe and the red currents have already been picked over by the birds.
I promise a recipe (duck confit) soon. Just catching my breath and enjoying the moment for now.
