I am a little obsessed.
Go look.
<3
Monday, 19 May 2014
In love with "Local Milk"
This, "Local Milk" is a magnificently worded and photographed blog, and the recipes look spectacular.
Pancakes with Quinoa, Bergamot, and Lemon
It's a holiday Monday here, and a lovely, rainy day to boot. I decided to stay home with my windows open and enjoy the smell of my windowsill herbs with tea, tunes, and thesis writing.
juice of half a lemon
1 tsp bergamot extract
It's a gratifying change to have green and growing things in my flat again. I am not all that experienced with container gardening, but I have to admit, the vibrancy of these plants is incentive to try and get better at it. And I enjoy that they aren't just pretty - they are also edible. Functional and beautiful... it's a good combination. I also have enough basil that there will be no risk of me spending ridiculous amounts of money on pesto again this summer... ^_^
I decided to make brunch for myself this morning, as the rain had me craving pancakes. I wanted to try something new, so I went through my "Things to Eat" board on Pinterest and came up with a recipe for Quinoa Pancakes with Blueberry Maple Syrup and decided to use that as my jumping off point. I was intrigued by the presence of quinoa, as I've recently realized I haven't been getting enough protein, and have therefore been looking for ways to bolster my intake.
If you have leftover cooked quinoa, these pancakes come together as quickly as any other pancake recipe I've tried. If you don't have leftover cooked quinoa, they don't take that much longer - just put the quinoa on and start prepping the rest of your ingredients, have a brief dance party in your kitchen, enjoy a cuppa, whatever makes you happy for a few moments.
Pancakes with Quinoa, Bergamot, and Lemon
Makes ~24, 4" pancakes
2 large eggs
2 1/2 cups almond milk, or milk of your choice (water, cold tea, or orange juice also work)
4 tbsp olive oil or melted, cooled butter (an infused olive oil is tasty here)
zest of one lemonjuice of half a lemon
1 tsp bergamot extract
2 1/2 cups flour (12.5 oz if you are weighing with a scale)
1-2 tbsp coconut palm sugar (or other sweetener of your choice)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 cup cooked quinoa (I used white)
If you need to cook the quinoa, place 1/2 cup dry quinoa in a saucepan with 1 cup water. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and simmer until quinoa is tender and the little, spiral like tail (the germ) has popped off the seed, ~15 minutes. Let quinoa cool a bit. It can be warm, but shouldn't be really hot.
In a medium bowl, beat the eggs until frothy. Add the milk, oil, lemon juice, lemon zest, and bergamot extract. Whisk to combine and set aside.
In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, and whisk to combine well. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and whisk to combine. A few lumps are okay, but you want to take care to not to overdo it, or you'll whisk the air out of your batter and end up with flat, tough pancakes. Once the wet and dry ingredients are mixed, add the quinoa and stir through until evenly distributed.
Heat your frying pan to medium or medium high. I use a cast iron pan, so it takes a bit to warm up fully, but I don't usually need to be over medium heat for pancakes. You may need to use a higher heat for thinner pans. Add any oil to the pan if required (my cast iron tends to need just a skitch) and let it warm up. Using a 1/3 cup measuring scoop, pour a scant 1/3 cup into the pan for each pancake.
Cook until the edges of your pancakes start to look dry and many medium to large bubbles have come to the surface of your cake and burst, 2-4-ish minutes, depending on how hot your pan is. Then carefully flip your cakes over. They should be a golden brown. If they are quite dark, your pan is too hot. If they are very pale, you might want to turn the heat up a bit. Cook the remaining side until golden, 2-3 minutes more. Remove them to a platter and pour in the next batch. Continue in this pattern until all of the batter has been cooked off. The holding platter can be maintained in the oven at 200F if you'd like, although I found that these made so many so quickly that they kept themselves warm on a big plate on the counter.
Serve with your preferred pancake toppings - butter, syrups, toasted nuts, coconut, fresh fruit, whatever you like. I found three cakes to be a good serving, and I enjoyed them plain today. The texture of the quinoa in the pancake wasn't that noticeable, and I found I liked it. It was almost like having coarsely ground almond meal in the cakes. Once any leftovers are cool, they can be packed up and put into the fridge or the freezer to be reheated in the future as desired.
Enjoy!
Long Weekend Reboot: Barley Salad Redux
It's been a while since I've written here. I've been immersed in wrangling my thesis, a process that's had a fair amount of panic and paralysis woven in with the inspiration and moments of clarity. I hope to have finished drafting it by the end of the month - a big project. I am a little over a third of the way through at this point. Thankfully, writing goes quickly when I can settle myself down and actually do it.
Yesterday was a rough day; I'd intended to spend it writing, but had a terrible (and thankfully rare) case of homesickness and general sadness. I've been managing my depression fairly successfully for the last year or so, but every now and then it makes itself known in ways that aren't all that enjoyable. My school-related productivity was shot for the day, and in an effort to feel like I wasn't completely incapable, I threw myself into cleaning my flat and then into cooking something more nourishing than tea and toast. As I was cleaning and cooking, I realized that I was building up my thesis in my head as kind of a be-all-to-end-all project, and that I couldn't really see what life could look like past it. My divorce still is not resolved and I don't know if I need to move back to Alberta to have that happen once school is done, there's a lot of talk in my field about lack of job prospects, my scholarship has ended so finances again become unpredictable... there's a lot to be anxious about. Unfortunately, it was all starting to overwhelm me and prevent me from taking good enough care of myself to actually finish this thesis, which is my first priority, and really, the only thing out of the big stressors that I have much control over. So what to do?
I realized I needed to slow down again, to kind of narrow my focus back to school and self-care until the thesis was defended, and then expand the scope to tackle the bigger, trickier things. As I was cooking, I realized I hadn't written here for quite some time, and that I hadn't been attending to my cooking and eating the way I should in order to feel my best. Additionally, it occurred to me that this blog is a project I can continue past my defence, which gives me one thing that I can use to theoretically transition myself out of school and into whatever comes next. That was reassuring. It's a little thing, but it's still *something*, rather than this feeling of everything dropping into a big, black "Here be Dragons" hole after the end of August. I'll take it.
As a first step in recommitting to this blog and a more disciplined period of self-care, I decided to re-read some of my earlier blog posts. As I was doing that, I ran across this entry for the barley and pomegranate salad I'd made from Plenty. I had everything except for pomegranates on hand, important because I am out of budget for the rest of the month, and decided to play with it a bit. So I did, and it was delicious.
Barley Salad with Orange, Apple, and Herbs
Serves 4
1 cup pearl barley
5-6 medium celery stalks, including leaves, cut into small dice
1/4 cup olive oil (herb or citrus infused oils are awesome here)
3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2-3 cloves of garlic, grated on a rasp grater
sea salt and fresh ground black pepper, to taste
~1/4 cup heaping fresh herbs in whatever combination you like (I used lemon mint, cilantro, and parsley), torn or chopped as desired
2 medium oranges, skin and pith removed, sectioned to remove the inner membrane (reserve the juice)
1 medium sweet apple, like Gala, cored and cut into medium dice
To begin, put the barley in a small saucepan and cover with fresh water. Simmer for 30-35 minutes, or until it is tender, but still a bit firm. You don't want it mushy.
While the barley is cooking, do your other prep work: chop the celery and apple, section the oranges (reserve the juice in a measuring cup) and prep your herbs. I am sure you could do it with fewer bowls than this, but I was in the mood do dishes, too...
To the measuring cup containing the reserved orange juice add the olive oil and cider vinegar, and whisk to combine.
Once the barley is tender, drain well in a colander, and then add to the bowl containing the celery and fruit. Pour over the contents of the measuring cup and stir everything together well before adding the herbs, salt, and pepper. Stir to combine, and then taste for seasoning. Add more salt or pepper if required, or even a bit of cinnamon, if you'd like.
Serve warm, at room temperature, or cold - it's pretty versatile. Be sure to stir again before serving so the dressing isn't all at the bottom of the bowl. If you wanted to, you could add some toasted nuts or seeds to the salad as well.
Then enjoy!
Yesterday was a rough day; I'd intended to spend it writing, but had a terrible (and thankfully rare) case of homesickness and general sadness. I've been managing my depression fairly successfully for the last year or so, but every now and then it makes itself known in ways that aren't all that enjoyable. My school-related productivity was shot for the day, and in an effort to feel like I wasn't completely incapable, I threw myself into cleaning my flat and then into cooking something more nourishing than tea and toast. As I was cleaning and cooking, I realized that I was building up my thesis in my head as kind of a be-all-to-end-all project, and that I couldn't really see what life could look like past it. My divorce still is not resolved and I don't know if I need to move back to Alberta to have that happen once school is done, there's a lot of talk in my field about lack of job prospects, my scholarship has ended so finances again become unpredictable... there's a lot to be anxious about. Unfortunately, it was all starting to overwhelm me and prevent me from taking good enough care of myself to actually finish this thesis, which is my first priority, and really, the only thing out of the big stressors that I have much control over. So what to do?
I realized I needed to slow down again, to kind of narrow my focus back to school and self-care until the thesis was defended, and then expand the scope to tackle the bigger, trickier things. As I was cooking, I realized I hadn't written here for quite some time, and that I hadn't been attending to my cooking and eating the way I should in order to feel my best. Additionally, it occurred to me that this blog is a project I can continue past my defence, which gives me one thing that I can use to theoretically transition myself out of school and into whatever comes next. That was reassuring. It's a little thing, but it's still *something*, rather than this feeling of everything dropping into a big, black "Here be Dragons" hole after the end of August. I'll take it.
As a first step in recommitting to this blog and a more disciplined period of self-care, I decided to re-read some of my earlier blog posts. As I was doing that, I ran across this entry for the barley and pomegranate salad I'd made from Plenty. I had everything except for pomegranates on hand, important because I am out of budget for the rest of the month, and decided to play with it a bit. So I did, and it was delicious.
Barley Salad with Orange, Apple, and Herbs
Serves 4
1 cup pearl barley
5-6 medium celery stalks, including leaves, cut into small dice
1/4 cup olive oil (herb or citrus infused oils are awesome here)
3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2-3 cloves of garlic, grated on a rasp grater
sea salt and fresh ground black pepper, to taste
~1/4 cup heaping fresh herbs in whatever combination you like (I used lemon mint, cilantro, and parsley), torn or chopped as desired
2 medium oranges, skin and pith removed, sectioned to remove the inner membrane (reserve the juice)
1 medium sweet apple, like Gala, cored and cut into medium dice
To begin, put the barley in a small saucepan and cover with fresh water. Simmer for 30-35 minutes, or until it is tender, but still a bit firm. You don't want it mushy.
While the barley is cooking, do your other prep work: chop the celery and apple, section the oranges (reserve the juice in a measuring cup) and prep your herbs. I am sure you could do it with fewer bowls than this, but I was in the mood do dishes, too...
To the measuring cup containing the reserved orange juice add the olive oil and cider vinegar, and whisk to combine.
Once the barley is tender, drain well in a colander, and then add to the bowl containing the celery and fruit. Pour over the contents of the measuring cup and stir everything together well before adding the herbs, salt, and pepper. Stir to combine, and then taste for seasoning. Add more salt or pepper if required, or even a bit of cinnamon, if you'd like.
Serve warm, at room temperature, or cold - it's pretty versatile. Be sure to stir again before serving so the dressing isn't all at the bottom of the bowl. If you wanted to, you could add some toasted nuts or seeds to the salad as well.
Then enjoy!
Wednesday, 26 February 2014
Gougères
I've been happily occupied lately - school, messing around with the sourdough starter, working on some art and building up to a 40-day art project that will happen over Lent. It's been nice, and I've been content living my life in the real world as opposed to the digital one.
But then gougères happened. And Chandra wanted the recipe. So here we meet again. ^_^
These are delicious little cheese puffs - light, airy, non-greasy, with a fantastic flavour that reminds me of a well made Yorkshire pudding. They are hard to resist, trust me. The method was unlike anything else I have tried to date, but it was easy, especially if you have a stand mixer or an electric hand held mixer, although it could be made by hand without too much labour. I'll reference the mixer in the description, as that is what I will be using. Possibly the best thing about these little morsels is that you can whip up the batter, spoon it out onto pans, and then freeze the puffs unbaked - which allows you to pull them from the freezer and bake up a few at a time whenever you like. Which might be safer than having two pans of them fresh from the oven tempting me...
This recipe is from Dorie Greenspan's "Around My French Table"; I amended it a tiny bit by substituting almond milk for the whole milk. I used cheddar cheese because I had it on hand, but this would be lovely with almost any cheese I can think of... although a smoked mozzarella seems like the next one I'd like to try. With browned butter, perhaps... Oh, the possibilities!
Makes 36 small gougères or 30 medium sized ones.
1/2 cup almond milk (if you use the Vanilla stuff, it will smell very vanilla while it's cooking but the flavour will be okay. I'd still go unsweetened plain, if you can. Or use regular milk if possible)
1/2 cup water
8 tablespoons (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (5 oz) all-purpose flour
5 large eggs, at room temperature - this is important!
~6 oz coarsely grated cheese, such as Gruyère or cheddar
Position the racks in your oven to divide it into thirds, and preheat to 425F. Line two sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper. A quick note for those with apartment sized ovens - you will want to make sure you have enough pans to bake 2 sheets worth and be able to portion out the rest of the batter immediately (on to additional parchment paper, perhaps?). This recipe will make more than what you can fit on apartment-sized baking sheets, I promise. Also, this recipe goes pretty quickly once it gets started, so have your mixer set up with the paddle attachment in place, your ingredients portioned out, and your cheese-grating prep done beforehand - you will not have the time once you get into the recipe.
In a heavy bottomed, medium sized saucepan, bring the milk, water, butter and salt to a rapid boil over high heat. You want that pot really hopping, but be careful not to burn the butter. Once the mixture is at a rapid boil, dump the flour in all at once, reduce the heat to medium-low and begin to stir everything vigorously with a wooden spoon - the dough will come together in a wet paste very quickly. Continue to stir on heat for another moment or two to dry the dough out a little. The dough should be very smooth.
Scrape the dough into your waiting mixer and let it sit for a moment to cool down. Then blend the eggs into the dough one by one, making sure each egg is fully incorporated before adding the next one. Don't worry if the dough starts to look curdled part way through (mine did) - it will come together by time you blend in the final egg. The dough will be thick and glossy and will still be fairly warm by the end of this. Mix in the cheese until well distributed.
Portion the gougères out using ~a tablespoon of batter for each if you want small ones, and up to 2-3 tablespoons worth if you are looking for medium-to-large ones. You'll need ~2 inches worth of space between them on the pans to allow them to puff and crisp properly. Once the gougères are portioned, put them into the oven on the top and bottom racks and reduce the temperature to 375F. Set a timer for 12 minutes. At the 12-minute mark, rotate your pans top to bottom and front to back and then set the timer for an additional 12-15 minutes or so. They bake quickly, so start with the minimum time and watch them carefully. You don't want to over-bake them or they will be dry.
If you plan on freezing the dough, portion it onto sheets as described above and then put your sheets in the freezer until the gougères are solid. Lift them off the baking sheets and pack them airtight to be put in the freezer. To bake them from frozen, do not defrost, just add a moment or two to the baking time. You can also freeze baked puffs by packing them airtight as well and then reheating them in a 350F oven to crisp them up again.
Serve them warm with something lovely to drink (Dorie says white wines or champagnes are her preferred matches), or let them cool to room temperature before serving.
Enjoy!
But then gougères happened. And Chandra wanted the recipe. So here we meet again. ^_^
These are delicious little cheese puffs - light, airy, non-greasy, with a fantastic flavour that reminds me of a well made Yorkshire pudding. They are hard to resist, trust me. The method was unlike anything else I have tried to date, but it was easy, especially if you have a stand mixer or an electric hand held mixer, although it could be made by hand without too much labour. I'll reference the mixer in the description, as that is what I will be using. Possibly the best thing about these little morsels is that you can whip up the batter, spoon it out onto pans, and then freeze the puffs unbaked - which allows you to pull them from the freezer and bake up a few at a time whenever you like. Which might be safer than having two pans of them fresh from the oven tempting me...
This recipe is from Dorie Greenspan's "Around My French Table"; I amended it a tiny bit by substituting almond milk for the whole milk. I used cheddar cheese because I had it on hand, but this would be lovely with almost any cheese I can think of... although a smoked mozzarella seems like the next one I'd like to try. With browned butter, perhaps... Oh, the possibilities!
Makes 36 small gougères or 30 medium sized ones.
1/2 cup almond milk (if you use the Vanilla stuff, it will smell very vanilla while it's cooking but the flavour will be okay. I'd still go unsweetened plain, if you can. Or use regular milk if possible)
1/2 cup water
8 tablespoons (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (5 oz) all-purpose flour
5 large eggs, at room temperature - this is important!
~6 oz coarsely grated cheese, such as Gruyère or cheddar
Position the racks in your oven to divide it into thirds, and preheat to 425F. Line two sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper. A quick note for those with apartment sized ovens - you will want to make sure you have enough pans to bake 2 sheets worth and be able to portion out the rest of the batter immediately (on to additional parchment paper, perhaps?). This recipe will make more than what you can fit on apartment-sized baking sheets, I promise. Also, this recipe goes pretty quickly once it gets started, so have your mixer set up with the paddle attachment in place, your ingredients portioned out, and your cheese-grating prep done beforehand - you will not have the time once you get into the recipe.
In a heavy bottomed, medium sized saucepan, bring the milk, water, butter and salt to a rapid boil over high heat. You want that pot really hopping, but be careful not to burn the butter. Once the mixture is at a rapid boil, dump the flour in all at once, reduce the heat to medium-low and begin to stir everything vigorously with a wooden spoon - the dough will come together in a wet paste very quickly. Continue to stir on heat for another moment or two to dry the dough out a little. The dough should be very smooth.
Scrape the dough into your waiting mixer and let it sit for a moment to cool down. Then blend the eggs into the dough one by one, making sure each egg is fully incorporated before adding the next one. Don't worry if the dough starts to look curdled part way through (mine did) - it will come together by time you blend in the final egg. The dough will be thick and glossy and will still be fairly warm by the end of this. Mix in the cheese until well distributed.
Portion the gougères out using ~a tablespoon of batter for each if you want small ones, and up to 2-3 tablespoons worth if you are looking for medium-to-large ones. You'll need ~2 inches worth of space between them on the pans to allow them to puff and crisp properly. Once the gougères are portioned, put them into the oven on the top and bottom racks and reduce the temperature to 375F. Set a timer for 12 minutes. At the 12-minute mark, rotate your pans top to bottom and front to back and then set the timer for an additional 12-15 minutes or so. They bake quickly, so start with the minimum time and watch them carefully. You don't want to over-bake them or they will be dry.
If you plan on freezing the dough, portion it onto sheets as described above and then put your sheets in the freezer until the gougères are solid. Lift them off the baking sheets and pack them airtight to be put in the freezer. To bake them from frozen, do not defrost, just add a moment or two to the baking time. You can also freeze baked puffs by packing them airtight as well and then reheating them in a 350F oven to crisp them up again.
Serve them warm with something lovely to drink (Dorie says white wines or champagnes are her preferred matches), or let them cool to room temperature before serving.
Enjoy!
Wednesday, 29 January 2014
Bare Cupboard Beef Goulash
I finally forced myself to settle down and start putting an outline for my thesis together last week. I found trying to do that fairly stressful and needed to stop and think about what I was doing and how I was going to do it. One of the thoughts that surfaced was that I should be using what I already have instead of waiting for some nebulous future time when I'd feel completely caught up and prepared, because in all likelihood, that day will never arrive. It turns out to be good advice for the three major areas of my life - school, art, and the kitchen.
For school, I sat down and started making lists and mind maps in an empty notebook I've hauled around for at least three years. These notes will require further refinement into a format someone other than myself can understand, but I am now the proud notetaker of ten pages and things are starting to sort themselves out into sub-headings. Hooray! I also started transcribing into digital format the copious quantities of handwritten notes I've taken while reading over the last two years... As of today I've transcribed 26,000+ words. This eases my mind a little - I can at least say I know something. Perhaps not all that I want to, but I've carved out a good place to start.
For art, I decided to use a sketchbook that has been sitting on my shelf for an unknown amount of time, its intended project forgotten. It's small and coil bound, in stark opposition to the books I've been using the last few years, but it's here and available now and that is important. I reminded myself that I taught myself to draw with nothing more than scrap paper and random pencils or ballpoint pens - no fancy supplies, no expensive books. Yes, those things are nice, but no, they are not required. I am interested to see how that little book turns out.
And for my kitchen, this has manifested in an assessment of my fridge and pantry. I didn't get a chance to clean out my fridge before I left on a two week trip at the beginning of January, which has resulted in some semi-sentient lifeforms needing to be evicted upon my return. Travelling was also more expensive than I'd planned, so I've needed to be good about cooking and eating things I already have on hand until the end of the month. This isn't a terrible hardship. It just means more soups and pastas and rice dishes - a chance to use up some of the staples so I can refresh them later.
The first substantial dish I made this year was a slow cooker beef goulash. My Aunt gifted me with a lovely beef roast upon my return and I brought it back to the flat and wondered what to do with it. I thought about stew, but I didn't have potatoes or carrots or celery. All I had was a bag of onions. After thinking on it for a while, I decided to put together a goulash. It went something like this:
~6 large onions, halved and cut into ~1/4" thick slices (or more if you want more)
2-3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped roughly
salt and pepper
olive oil as needed
1 cup beef broth (or water), divided into two half cup portions
~3 tablespoons flour
~1 teaspoon caraway seed
~3 tablespoons smoked paprika, divided into three, 1 tablespoon, portions
A good pinch of salt (~ 1tsp?)
2 1/2 pounds beef chuck, cut into chunks for stew
1 1/2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1-2 tablespoons tomato paste (you can use ketchup for this if you'd rather; reduce the brown sugar by 1/2 tbsp if you do)
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
fresh herbs as a garnish if you'd like
You'll need a 6 to 9 quart slow cooker to make this recipe. Haul it out and set it up as part of your prep.
Preheat the oven to 375F. Select a large roasting pan (I used a 9"x13" Pyrex pan). Pour ~1 tablespoon of oil into the chosen container and spread it around until the bottom is completely coated in a thin layer. Add the sliced onions and garlic to the pan and add any seasonings you think you'd like and stir to distribute. I added some of a roasted garlic and herbs mix I had on hand.
Put the pan into the oven and roast the onions until they are lightly browned and soft, ~45 minutes, stirring once or twice.
While the onions roast, mix the flour, caraway seed, 1 tablespoon of the paprika, and salt in a medium mixing bowl. Add the beef cubes and use your hands to toss everything together until the beef is evenly coated in the spice mixture. It probably won't all stick to the meat and that's okay, you'll add the leftover spice mixture to the pan later.
In a large frying pan, heat 1 tablespoon of oil over medium-high heat. Once oil is hot, brown the beef cubes in batches, cooking them on all sides. Add a tablespoon of oil to the pan with each batch of meat until all of the meat has been browned. As you cook the meat, dark patches will appear on the frying pan - that's good! It's called fond and it will be turned into a delicious sauce in a bit. You don't want the dark bits to burn though, so make sure you have enough oil in the pan to prevent that from happening as you work through the batches.
Transfer the cooked meat to your slow cooker.
If there is a lot of oil still in your frying pan once the meat has finished cooking, consider wiping it out with a paper towel before proceeding. Add any leftover seasoned flour mixture to the frying pan and cook it, stirring briskly, until it's lightly browned as well, 2-4 minutes. Stir in half a cup of the beef broth, the brown sugar, the tomato paste, vinegar, and another tablespoon of the paprika and stir constantly, working to scrape up all the browned bits of fond from the bottom of the pan.
Bring this liquid to a boil and then pour it into the slow cooker over the meat.
By now the onions should be finished roasting. You'll want to add them to the slow cooker as well and then give everything a good stir.
Cover the cooker and cook for 3-4 hours on the high setting or 6-8 hours on the low setting. The onions will get very soft and the beef will be fork tender when done. To finish it off, stir in the remaining tablespoon of paprika and any fresh herbs you want to use as a garnish and then serve over wide egg noodles or rice as desired. You can also serve it with a dollop of plain Greek yogurt or sour cream if you'd like.
I enjoy the addition of the caraway seeds to this recipe - they are very well suited to slow cooking and impart a great flavour to the finished dish. I think next time I'd like to add some thin strips of red pepper to the onions to see what that is like. As is, the flavour is bold and complex - certainly seems out of proportion to how few ingredients there are in there! I used a sweet paprika, although you could use a more heavily smoked one if you enjoy that kind of flavour. This ended up freezing and reheating really well - I didn't put any dairy in mine; if you are going to freeze it, I'd leave any dairy out and add it once you've reheated the meal.
Enjoy!
For school, I sat down and started making lists and mind maps in an empty notebook I've hauled around for at least three years. These notes will require further refinement into a format someone other than myself can understand, but I am now the proud notetaker of ten pages and things are starting to sort themselves out into sub-headings. Hooray! I also started transcribing into digital format the copious quantities of handwritten notes I've taken while reading over the last two years... As of today I've transcribed 26,000+ words. This eases my mind a little - I can at least say I know something. Perhaps not all that I want to, but I've carved out a good place to start.
For art, I decided to use a sketchbook that has been sitting on my shelf for an unknown amount of time, its intended project forgotten. It's small and coil bound, in stark opposition to the books I've been using the last few years, but it's here and available now and that is important. I reminded myself that I taught myself to draw with nothing more than scrap paper and random pencils or ballpoint pens - no fancy supplies, no expensive books. Yes, those things are nice, but no, they are not required. I am interested to see how that little book turns out.
And for my kitchen, this has manifested in an assessment of my fridge and pantry. I didn't get a chance to clean out my fridge before I left on a two week trip at the beginning of January, which has resulted in some semi-sentient lifeforms needing to be evicted upon my return. Travelling was also more expensive than I'd planned, so I've needed to be good about cooking and eating things I already have on hand until the end of the month. This isn't a terrible hardship. It just means more soups and pastas and rice dishes - a chance to use up some of the staples so I can refresh them later.
The first substantial dish I made this year was a slow cooker beef goulash. My Aunt gifted me with a lovely beef roast upon my return and I brought it back to the flat and wondered what to do with it. I thought about stew, but I didn't have potatoes or carrots or celery. All I had was a bag of onions. After thinking on it for a while, I decided to put together a goulash. It went something like this:
~6 large onions, halved and cut into ~1/4" thick slices (or more if you want more)
2-3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped roughly
salt and pepper
olive oil as needed
1 cup beef broth (or water), divided into two half cup portions
~3 tablespoons flour
~1 teaspoon caraway seed
~3 tablespoons smoked paprika, divided into three, 1 tablespoon, portions
A good pinch of salt (~ 1tsp?)
2 1/2 pounds beef chuck, cut into chunks for stew
1 1/2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1-2 tablespoons tomato paste (you can use ketchup for this if you'd rather; reduce the brown sugar by 1/2 tbsp if you do)
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
fresh herbs as a garnish if you'd like
You'll need a 6 to 9 quart slow cooker to make this recipe. Haul it out and set it up as part of your prep.
Preheat the oven to 375F. Select a large roasting pan (I used a 9"x13" Pyrex pan). Pour ~1 tablespoon of oil into the chosen container and spread it around until the bottom is completely coated in a thin layer. Add the sliced onions and garlic to the pan and add any seasonings you think you'd like and stir to distribute. I added some of a roasted garlic and herbs mix I had on hand.
Put the pan into the oven and roast the onions until they are lightly browned and soft, ~45 minutes, stirring once or twice.
While the onions roast, mix the flour, caraway seed, 1 tablespoon of the paprika, and salt in a medium mixing bowl. Add the beef cubes and use your hands to toss everything together until the beef is evenly coated in the spice mixture. It probably won't all stick to the meat and that's okay, you'll add the leftover spice mixture to the pan later.
In a large frying pan, heat 1 tablespoon of oil over medium-high heat. Once oil is hot, brown the beef cubes in batches, cooking them on all sides. Add a tablespoon of oil to the pan with each batch of meat until all of the meat has been browned. As you cook the meat, dark patches will appear on the frying pan - that's good! It's called fond and it will be turned into a delicious sauce in a bit. You don't want the dark bits to burn though, so make sure you have enough oil in the pan to prevent that from happening as you work through the batches.
Transfer the cooked meat to your slow cooker.
If there is a lot of oil still in your frying pan once the meat has finished cooking, consider wiping it out with a paper towel before proceeding. Add any leftover seasoned flour mixture to the frying pan and cook it, stirring briskly, until it's lightly browned as well, 2-4 minutes. Stir in half a cup of the beef broth, the brown sugar, the tomato paste, vinegar, and another tablespoon of the paprika and stir constantly, working to scrape up all the browned bits of fond from the bottom of the pan.
Bring this liquid to a boil and then pour it into the slow cooker over the meat.
By now the onions should be finished roasting. You'll want to add them to the slow cooker as well and then give everything a good stir.
Cover the cooker and cook for 3-4 hours on the high setting or 6-8 hours on the low setting. The onions will get very soft and the beef will be fork tender when done. To finish it off, stir in the remaining tablespoon of paprika and any fresh herbs you want to use as a garnish and then serve over wide egg noodles or rice as desired. You can also serve it with a dollop of plain Greek yogurt or sour cream if you'd like.
I enjoy the addition of the caraway seeds to this recipe - they are very well suited to slow cooking and impart a great flavour to the finished dish. I think next time I'd like to add some thin strips of red pepper to the onions to see what that is like. As is, the flavour is bold and complex - certainly seems out of proportion to how few ingredients there are in there! I used a sweet paprika, although you could use a more heavily smoked one if you enjoy that kind of flavour. This ended up freezing and reheating really well - I didn't put any dairy in mine; if you are going to freeze it, I'd leave any dairy out and add it once you've reheated the meal.
Enjoy!
Friday, 3 January 2014
A New Year
It's been a while...
I've been wonderfully, productively, busy, immersed in school and life in ways that I hadn't been able to until a much needed shift happening in September. I am spending time thinking about whether or not I want to continue this blog, and if so, how. The original project is finished; I didn't get all the way through Plenty, but I got deep into it and through that endeavour, deeply immersed back into my own life and the compiling, experimenting, creating processes that occur in my kitchen and heart. So in the end, goal achieved.
What now, 2014?
I don't want to commit to a lot, because my primary goal for this year is to finish the Master's thesis I've been working on for the last few years. Tentatively, I'd like to have this finished by the summer, as lovely and terrifying as that sounds. But I also don't want to exist only for the academic work I choose to do, so time spent on art and in the kitchen are also required. I think I'd like to write more about food and the process of cooking - something more in the vein of Dana's Weekend Meditation series, in addition to recipes and such. I would also like to focus more on recipes of my own devising, I think. I've been having fun with those lately, and it would be nice to keep a record of them, rather than making them, enjoying them, and never having them again because I can't recall how I ended up with the result (this happens entirely too often).
I know I promised Patti the recipe for the ciambelle I made over the holidays. So that's one place to start.
I am travelling right now, and will return to my version of normal around mid-January. I'll do my best to have a plan by then. In the meantime, enjoy The Kitchn's selected posts from Dana's Weekend Meditations, and let me know if you find them as delightful as I do.
Here's to a happy and delicious year!
I've been wonderfully, productively, busy, immersed in school and life in ways that I hadn't been able to until a much needed shift happening in September. I am spending time thinking about whether or not I want to continue this blog, and if so, how. The original project is finished; I didn't get all the way through Plenty, but I got deep into it and through that endeavour, deeply immersed back into my own life and the compiling, experimenting, creating processes that occur in my kitchen and heart. So in the end, goal achieved.
What now, 2014?
I don't want to commit to a lot, because my primary goal for this year is to finish the Master's thesis I've been working on for the last few years. Tentatively, I'd like to have this finished by the summer, as lovely and terrifying as that sounds. But I also don't want to exist only for the academic work I choose to do, so time spent on art and in the kitchen are also required. I think I'd like to write more about food and the process of cooking - something more in the vein of Dana's Weekend Meditation series, in addition to recipes and such. I would also like to focus more on recipes of my own devising, I think. I've been having fun with those lately, and it would be nice to keep a record of them, rather than making them, enjoying them, and never having them again because I can't recall how I ended up with the result (this happens entirely too often).
I know I promised Patti the recipe for the ciambelle I made over the holidays. So that's one place to start.
I am travelling right now, and will return to my version of normal around mid-January. I'll do my best to have a plan by then. In the meantime, enjoy The Kitchn's selected posts from Dana's Weekend Meditations, and let me know if you find them as delightful as I do.
Here's to a happy and delicious year!
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