Spinach Cookies (Renaissance Cookies)

I was somewhat skeptical about a recipe that called for topping cookies with spinach purée. Then again, most people would probably question adding a bunch of sugar and fruit to ground beef and serving it for dessert as well, and mincemeat is delicious! So maybe dessert spinach would be equally tasty.

Spinach Cookies
1 c. (1/2 lb.) butter, softened
3/4 c. sugar
1 large egg
1/4 c. white dessert wine (I used this stuff)
1/4 tsp. salt
2 c. pastry flour
2 c. whole wheat pastry flour
10 oz. baby spinach, cooked and drained
4 oz. almond paste
1 large egg yolk
1 Tbsp. cream
1-3 Tbsp. sugar, to taste
sugar-coated fennel seeds, to garnish

1. Cream butter with sugar until light and fluffy.
2. Add egg, wine, and 1/8 tsp. salt.
3. Gradually add flour and stir until just combined. Set dough aside while spinach topping is prepared.
4. Purée spinach (or mince very fine by hand). Add almond paste, egg yolk, and cream. Purée until almond paste dissolves (or use pastry blender to cut in and mix well). Add sugar to taste.
5. Cook over low heat for 15 minutes, until mixture thickens.
6. Roll out the dough to ~1/8" thickness and cut out your cookies.
7. Spread each cookie with some of the spinach purée and top with a smaller dough cut-out.
8. Top with a few sugar-coated fennel seeds and bake at 350F for 12-14 minutes.

These are surprisingly tasty little morsels. The almond flavour in the spinach is really nice. I do wish that that had been carried through in the cookie dough as well though. Next time I think I'd make a cookie that incorporates ground almond in the dough. That seems like it'd be a little more harmonious. The whole wheat flour was a nice touch though. I'll definitely keep that in if I'm making these again.

I didn't have quite enough spinach to top all my cookies. I thought about just baking a few plain cookies, but then I remembered the jar of bacon marmalade in the fridge... So, the last few cookies got a sweet bacon treatment. And that worked quite well too!

Overall a fun and unique recipe. I just wish it didn't make quite so many cookies. I might only make a half portion of the spinach purée next time and try freezing half the dough to use for something else later. It takes way too long to bake that many cookies, especially when you only have one small cookie sheet and have to cook them 12 at a time!

Liver Fried Rice

This idea actually came from an episode of Iron Chef. TF and I both love liver, but we don't really have that many ways of preparing it. I love liver and onions as much as the next person (probably more actually), but you can only have it so many times in a row before you start to get tired of it. I came across a Burmese liver curry recipe a while back and we made that a few times but, again, as tasty as it is, a little variety is nice too. So, when Chen started making liver fried rice, we decided that had to be a thing.

It came out pretty well, if I do say so myself!

Historically, I haven't had great luck with fried rice. I mean, it doesn't seem like it should be that difficult: you cook some rice and then fry it, right? Yet, any time I've tried it, it's never come out quite right. It usually comes out tasty, but it's not fried rice. I now have an excellent Chinese cookbook though (courtesy of my mom), so I decided to try the basic fried rice recipe out of there and add some chopped liver to it. Which worked a treat!

So, how do you make proper fried rice, you ask? Well, it's actually pretty easy. The key is having everything laid out and ready to go before you actually start cooking; you know, mise en place and all that jazz.

Liver Fried Rice
Sauce
2 Tbsp. oyster sauce
2 Tbsp. light soy sauce
1 Tbsp. Shaoxing wine
1 tsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
pinch of white pepper
Stir-Fry
5 c. cooked rice, at room temperature
1 c. green peas or mixed veg
5 extra-large eggs
7 Tbsp. peanut oil
1/2 tsp. salt
pinch white pepper
3 tsp. minced ginger
3 tsp. minced garlic
1/2 c. 1/4" dice shallot or onion
1 lb. liver, cut into small cubes
2 Tbsp. dark soy sauce
1 Tbsp. hoisin sauce
1 Tbsp. sesame seeds

1. Make sure everything that needs chopping is chopped. If you're using frozen peas/veg, thaw them. If you're using fresh, boil them for a couple minutes and drain and set aside before you get started. Make sure your rice is cooked and ready to go. And mix up the sauce. Just combine all the sauce ingredients in a bowl and set it aside for now. In another bowl, combine the dark soy, hoisin sauce, sesame seeds, and a pinch of white pepper. We'll call the contents of this second bowl "liver sauce".

2. Time to break a few eggs! Beat the eggs with 1 Tbsp. of peanut oil, 1/4 tsp. of salt, and a pinch of white pepper. Set them aside with the rest of your ingredients.

3. Now let's get that wok going! Heat the wok (empty) over high heat for 30 seconds. Add 2 Tbsp. of peanut oil and coat the wok with it. Now add your eggs and scramble them for a minute or two (until medium-firm). Turn off heat. Transfer eggs to a plate and set aside.

4. Wash and dry wok. Heat over high for 30 seconds. Add 2 Tbsp. peanut oil and coat the wok with it. Add liver and stir/toss around a few times. Add garlic and ginger and stir/toss some more. Add "liver sauce" and stir/toss for another minute or two until liver is just barely cooked through. Turn off heat. Transfer liver to a plate and set aside.

5. Wash and dry wok. Heat over high for 30 seconds. Add 2 Tbsp. peanut oil and coat the wok with it. Add shallots/onions and 1/4 tsp. salt (and a bit more ginger and garlic if you're so inclined), reduce heat to medium and stir-fry for 2-3 minutes (until shallots are translucent).

6. Add peas/vegetables and raise heat to high. Stir-fry for 2 minutes.

7. Add rice, reduce heat to medium, and stir-fry for 3-4 minutes.

8. Raise heat to high, stir sauce, and drizzle over rice. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.

9. Add liver and stir to mix. Add eggs, breaking into bite-sized pieces as you stir to mix. Cook/stir-fry for another 2 minutes.

10. Transfer to serving dish and enjoy!

So very tasty! And I finally managed to make fried rice that actually tastes like fried rice! Yum!

Csirkepaprikás Tarhonya (Chicken Paprikash with Tarhonya)

So I tried making chicken paprikash for the first time today:

It was delicious!

Who'd've thought that a pot of paprika and sour cream smothered chicken could taste so wonderful! I'm used to all the really delicious stuff containing lots of different spices and seasonings; this recipe didn't even call for garlic! And yet, it is still so very good.

I will admit that, before tasting another Hungarian dish that used paprika as one of the main ingredients, I really only thought of that lovely red powder as a garnish. Paprika is the stuff you sprinkle over deviled eggs or potato salad, right? It looks pretty but doesn't have much flavour of it's own. Unless maybe you get smoked or hot paprika, then you have some noticeable flavour and aroma, but still... I didn't really consider it a key component, just a mild, supplementary seasoning.

Once I'd tasted a few paprika-heavy dishes, I started to reconsider, but I'd still never really done anything myself that focused mainly on paprika. TF said he liked the idea of trying out a chicken paprikash recipe this weekend though, so I figured we'd give it a whirl.

This recipe is dangerous! It's delicious, fattening, and easy. Sauté some onions, toss in a bunch of paprika -- high quality paprika is crucial here! -- add your chicken and water. Cook, thicken up the sauce with some roux and sour cream while you bone the chicken. Toss the meat back in the pot and voilà! Really, dangerously easy.

The page I got the recipe from also had instructions for cooking tarhonya, which I'd never hear of before, but sounded pretty tasty. I decided to give that a try as well since paprikash really needs a substrate and tarhonya sounded both more delicious and more interesting than just boiling up some plain egg noodles. (Not that I have anything against egg noodles, they're wonderful, but it's always fun to try something different.)

I was expecting to find a package of pasta that was actually labeled "tarhonya" when I went to my local eastern European grocery store. If they had anything with that name, I certainly couldn't find it though. They did have a pasta section filled with neat little parcels of adorably tiny egg noodles. I found some that looked roughly the shape and size of the ones pictured on the recipe page in the hopes that they'd do the trick.

Unfortunately, I didn't think to take a picture of them before cooking, but here's what they looked like after:

They cooked up quite nicely and made for a perfect substrate for the saucy csirkepaprikás. The little, slightly irregular nuggets of pasta cooked up into savoury round beads of deliciousness, roughly the shape and size of Isreli couscous, but much firmer. They have a really nice mouthfeel and a bite somewhere between al dente pasta and brown rice. I thought they worked really well with the chicken and they'll definitely be my go-to side/substrate for it in the future!

The same brand of pasta was available in a bunch of different shapes. As I said, I got the one that seemed closest to what I'd seen in the online photos, but I think it'd be interesting to use the same method with some of the other shapes and see how they come out.

I also braised a little cabbage to go with this. Just so that I could at least pretend it was something like a balanced meal. The cabbage wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't anything to write home about either. Especially not after the sheer wonderfulness that was the rest of the meal. I just wanted to have a vegetable to go along with the rich, creamy sauce and buttery tarhonya.

This made for a wonderfully satisfying and tasty dinner and we had (and still have) plenty of tarhonya to go around, but I think I'd make a double batch of the paprikash next time. We did end up with leftovers, but not as many as I would've liked for such a delicious dish. Then again, there were three of us eating, and we sent some of the leftovers home with A, so we probably actually had ~8 servings of that succulent, saucy chicken all told. It just disappeared really fast!

Black Bean Soup (and a whoops!)

So, the plan was to have black bean soup tonight... but, I dun messed up. I guess it could still sort of be considered black bean soup, but I had a bit of a brain fart and put in twice as many tomatoes as I meant to. It's sort of halfway between a soup and a chunky tomato sauce. It did turn out pretty tasty though. So, here's what I meant to put in the pot:

Black Bean Soup
1 guajillo chile
2 ancho chiles
2 chiles de arbol
2 Tbsp. corn oil
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 can chipotle chiles in adobo sauce (~100mL)
1/2 c. medium salsa
1 (14.5 oz.) can fire-roasted diced tomatoes
2 (14.5 oz.) cans black beans, drained and rinsed
4 c. chicken stock
2-3 c. corn, to taste
1/2 c. cilantro, chopped

1. Slightly blacken the dried chiles (guajillo, ancho, and arbol) in a dry pan over medium-high heat. Set aside.
2. Add corn oil to pot and sauté onion until slightly browned. Add garlic and sauté until fragrant.
3. Return chiles to pot. Add all remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a low simmer until ready to serve.
4. Top with crumbled feta or queso fresco and a generous squeeze of lime juice to serve.

This was still tasty with double the tomato (2 cans), but the black beans didn't have as much of a presence as I would've liked. The flavour was excellent though! The chipotles added a nice smokiness and depth. It was a bit spicy, but had a beautiful full-bodied flavour to it. And I love the tartness added by the lime juice at the end.

I do wish I'd had a little more corn. I only had about a cup or so of corn left (maybe a bit more, I didn't measure) and I put it all in, but it would've been nice with at least twice as much corn I think. I like the bit of sweetness it adds.

So, all-in-all, not perfect, but not a complete failure either. I'll definitely try this again in the future and keep tweaking it until I'm happy with it. In the meantime, I may experiment with using this extra tomato-y version as a chunky sauce...

Barley Risotto with Mushrooms and Spaghetti Squash with Herbs

I'm a big fan of one-pot meals. I like to focus on one thing at a time. I'm bad at multi-tasking and I can never manage to time everything to be done at the same time, so something that's a complete meal in and of itself just makes my life a lot easier. That being my preference, I don't tend to make multi-dish dinners very often. Today was a rare deviation my from my usual pattern.

TF had requested barley risotto. It's tasty and the barley makes for a hearty and comforting winter dish. The problem with risotto though, is that it doesn't really make a complete meal on its own. I mean, I'm sure there are instructions out there for turning it into a one-pot wonder, but I really just wanted a simple mushroom risotto, so I opted for a side-dish to complete the meal.

I spent a while poking around online, looking for ideas of what else to add, and eventually settled on Spaghetti Squash with Herbs.

Honestly, spaghetti squash has never appealed to me all that much, but it didn't seem right to write it off before I'd even tried it. This recipe seemed simple, but also interesting with the inclusion of fresh herbs and hazelnuts so I figured I'd give it a try.

It came out alright, but I can't say that it turned me into a spaghetti squash convert. It was, however, worth making just to see how the squash flesh magically turned into spaghetti as I scooped it out. I mean, I was expecting it, but it was still actually pretty fun to see it first-hand.

The risotto that I made was mostly based on this recipe with a few of my own tweaks. Here's roughly what went into it:
1 Tbsp. butter
1 Tbsp. olive oil
3 shallots, chopped
1/2 lb. cremini mushrooms, sliced
3 dried mushrooms (unknown variety), re-hydrated and chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 c. pot barley
2/3 c. dry white wine
4 c. beef broth + ~2 c. water (next time would just use 6 c. beef broth)
black pepper
1 c. frozen peas
1 tsp. dried thyme
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. celery seed
1 bay leaf
1/2 c. fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 c. grated Parmesan
1/4 c. butter

I'd probably make a few more tweaks next time, but I'm pretty pleased with how it came out overall. Next time, I think I'd put a bit less butter and a bit more Parmesan. I also feel that it needed just a bit more salt. (I didn't add any because I was using a commercial salted beef broth.) I'd also make half as much. I forgot just how much barley expands as it cooks!

It might be interesting to try adding a bit of pancetta as well. Bacon and mushrooms are a classic combo and I think the pancetta would hold up better in the risotto than regular bacon would. And I think just a little bit of meat added to the barley would be a nice touch.

I also think baby spinach would be a nice vegetable inclusion in place of the peas. Probably better than peas, actually.

I really like barley risotto in general. It packs in all the flavour and deliciousness of regular rice risotto, yet seems (and probably is) more wholesome and nutritious. It's no oxtail soup, but it is a nice dinner to sit down to on a cold day.

Jumballs

Best historical cookie recipe yet!

The ladies at Cooking in the Archives can be thanked for this excellent recipe as well. They came out with a slightly different interpretation of the recipe than I did, but only in the amount of spices used, so I don't imagine our two takes will have turned out very different.

Here's my take on Lady Chanworth's jumballs:
227g sugar
341g flour
1 Tbsp. caraway seeds
1/2 tsp. coriander seeds
1 c. butter, melted
1 Tbsp. rosewater
2 large egg yolks, lightly beaten
57g blanched almonds, ground

I combined the sugar, flour, caraway seeds, and coriander seeds first. Then I poured in the melted butter and rosewater and gave it a stir to incorporate the liquids. I added both egg yolks at once and by the time I'd incorporated those, had a nice, somewhat crumbly shortbread dough. I was unsure whether or not I'd be able to work the ground almonds in. They disappeared into the dough just fine though!

I chose to mimic the shaping approach taken in Cooking in the Archives and rolled my dough out into a long log and sliced it into cookies from there. I ended up with four and a half dozen wonderfully buttery and tasty cookies!

These are lovely little shortbreads and I'll definitely be making them again! I really like this recipe, but I think it'd be interesting to try a few of the many other versions of these cookies just to see how they turn out. Maybe I'll be able to find some time to try one next weekend!

Desart Cakes

This recipe was just recently posted on Cooking in the Archives. I was intrigued by the absence of either butter or eggs. The recipe seemed very sparse, but Ms. Connell seemed to quite enjoy the crisp cookies it made, so I figured I'd give it a whirl.

I opted not to add the vanilla extract to my cookies as it wasn't called for in the original recipe and wouldn't have been available in the days when the recipe was initially written.

I will agree that these cookies are surprisingly tasty given the simplicity of the recipe. Upon tasting one, TF noted that the caraway seeds were "surprising, but harmonious". That said, I probably won't be making these again. They're tasty, but they just aren't tasty enough.

I will admit that I probably didn't roll my cookies thin enough. I'm used to making soft cookies, rather than crisp ones and was a bit too timid with both the thinness of my dough and the cooking time.

Rose Cakes

I decided to try a few more historical cookie recipes today. This one comes from Shakespeare's Kitchen. The modernized version makes a few changes from the original. I opted to follow the up-dated recipe today, but I'll include both below for reference.

This recipe was found in Mistress Sarah Longe Her Receipt Booke. A handwritten, personal recipe book that seems to have been written sometime around 1610.

To make sugar Cakes
Take a pound of butter, and wash it in rose-water, and halfe a pound of sugar, and halfe a douzen spoonefulls of thicke Cream, and the yelkes of 4 Eggs, and a little mace finely beaten, and as much fine flower as it will wett, and worke it well together then roll them out very thin, and cut them with a glasse, and pricke them very thicke with a great pin, and lay them on plates, and so bake them gently.

1610 Rose Cakes
1/2 c. butter
1/2 c. sugar
1/8 tsp. ground mace
1/4 c. rose syrup (or 1 tsp. rose water mixed with 3 Tbsp. honey and 1 Tbsp. water)
2 Tbsp. cream
2 large egg yolks
2 c. pastry flour
2 Tbsp. crushed candied rose petals (optional)

At a glance, the modern version seems to have halved the recipe: 2 egg yolks and 1/2 c. sugar (which should weigh about 1/4 lb.). However, a half portion of "sugar cakes" would want half a pound of butter, or 1 c., not the 1/2 c. listed. I'm not sure why the butter is quartered when everything else is halved. I may try making these cookies according to the original recipe at some point, just to see how they compare.




The modern version also suggests a cookie press rather than rolling and cutting the cookies out. Two cups of flour is sufficient to make a dough for dropping from spoons or using in a cookie press, but I don't think it would've rolled very well. As I don't have a cookie press, I just dropped mine from a spoon and pressed them flat(ish) like thumb-print cookies.

These cookies were good, but not great. I wasn't a huge fan of the honey here. Maybe it would've been better if I'd had actual rose syrup on hand. However, I'd also be interested to see how they'd come out if made simply with rosewater as indicated in the original recipe.


I accidentally doubled the mace (1/4 tsp. instead of 1/8), but I didn't find the mace came through that strongly anyway. Using freshly ground mace would probably give it a bit more presence.

I'm not going to write this recipe off completely, but I definitely wasn't bowled over by this version of it. I'll probably make this again sometime, but I'd do it a bit differently to see if it can be made into a more wow-worthy dessert.

Modified Rose Cakes
1 c. butter
1/2 lb. (227g) sugar
1/4 tsp. ground mace
1 Tbsp. rosewater
3 Tbsp. cream
2 large egg yolks
~3 c. pastry flour

Given the increased quantity of butter, I'm not sure how much flour the new dough will actually wet. I'd probably add it half a cup at a time until it got to a roll-able consistency.

Maybe I'll try a rose cake re-do next weekend...

Oxtail Soup

I'm not sure I can accurately express my love of oxtail soup. It is, of course, completely delicious in its own right. I've eaten a lot of delicious food in my life though. I've made a lot of delicious food! Oxtail soup, though, is special. Oxtail soup is a labour of love.

The first time I tasted oxtail soup, it was a special treat made by my father. He spent all day simmering the tails, straining the soup, and then labourously picking the tender, luscious meat from the bones. The broth was thick and rich, the meat tender and succulent. The soup itself was delicious and this was magnified by the sheer time and effort that was needed to prepare it.

Expensive ingredients can be delicious and luxurious, but there's something special about a dish that takes time. And not just time simmering. Not time left stewing in a crockpot or roasting in an oven, but active, involved, preparation time. Oxtail, with all its bits of bone and connective tissue, forces you to slow down. It forces you to dedicate time to your cooking and makes the resulting concoction something truly extraordinary.

I've been meaning to try my hand at oxtail soup for a while now. Sadly, my dad seems to have lost his recipe. There are, of course, loads of recipes available online but, given the time that would go into this, I wanted to make sure I had a really good base recipe from which to work. I looked at a few, but none really sang to me. But, as so often happens, I stumbled upon something that looked really wonderful when I wasn't even looking for it!

I followed the recipe as written pretty closely, but I'll provide the full recipe here anyway, just because I liked it so much.

Oxtail Soup with Onion and Barley
6 Tbsp. bacon grease
4 lbs. oxtails
salt and pepper
3 large shallots, chopped fine
4 small carrots, chopped fine
2 ribs celery, chopped fine
6 small cloves garlic, minced
2 c. dry red wine
2 tsp. dried thyme
2 Tbsp. dried parsley
6 oz. white pearl onions
6 oz. yellow pearl onions
3 yellow onions, sliced
1/3 c. bourbon
2 c. chicken broth
1/4 c. pot barley
garlic croustini, for serving

1. Season tails with salt and pepper and brown in oil/grease.
2. Remove tails and set aside. Add more oil/grease to pan and sauté shallot, carrot, and celery until lightly browned.
3. Add garlic and sauté for another minute or two.
4. Add 2 c. red wine and cook until reduced by half.
5. Add 4 c. water, thyme, parsley, and more pepper and return tails to pot.
6. Simmer, covered, for 3-4 hours.
7. Remove tails and set aside. Strain broth through a fine-mesh sieve. Mash and press solids until they have all (or very nearly so) been worked through into the broth below.
8. Boil pearl onions for 5 minutes. Cool, trim, peel, and halve. Set aside.
9. Add more grease/butter to pan and slowly cook onions until they being to caramelize (60+ minutes).
10. Add the pearl onions to the pan along with the bourbon/Tennessee whiskey. Cook until the liquid evaporates.
11. Combine chicken broth, oxtail broth, onions, and barley. Bring to a boil, then reduce and simmer, covered, for an hour or so.
12. In the meantime, pick the meat from the bones. Add the meat to the soup and allow it to warm through. Serve with garlic bread or garlic croustini.

Honestly, I only used bacon grease here because I had a bunch left over from the bacon from the fry-up and the pesto pizza. Otherwise, I probably would've just gone with olive oil for browning the tails and sautéing the vegetables and butter for the onions.

The biggest change I made to this recipe was probably when it came to straining the broth. I did strain it but, rather than discarding the solids, I forced them through the sieve. It took a while to work it all through (and there was still a small amount of residue left in the sieve at the end), but it makes the broth nice and rich, so I think it was worth the extra time.

I reduced the barley somewhat because I was worried about how much it would expand and whether or not it would end up sort of stealing the show. In retrospect, I think it would've been fine to include the full amount of barley, but it might be worthwhile adding a bit of extra liquid if you do. I think this would be a good use for the cooking water from the pearl onions actually.

This soup came out so, so good! The meat, of course, is tender and succulent; the broth rich and flavourful. The depth of flavour added by the wine and bourbon though really took this version of an old favourite to a new level for me. And the caramelized and pearl onions were a welcome addition as well. Definitely a keeper!

Cheese Tortellini with Beef and Cream Sauce

This particular dinner didn't come so much from a recipe as a quick description of a friend's dinner. It sounded easy and tasty though, so I figured I'd give it a try.

Cheese Tortellini with Beef and Cream Sauce
1 lb. ground beef
1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 can condensed golden mushroom soup
2 cans of milk
2 packets onion soup mix
sliced cremini mushrooms (I think I had about half a pound)
black pepper, to taste
1 1/2 lbs. cheese tortellini
grated Parmesan, to serve

This came out quite tasty, but not perfect. I'd like to try to tweak it a little bit to see if I can really get that flavour I'm looking for. I have a few ideas that I'd like to try out next time to improve it a little bit.

Improved Cheese Tortellini
1 lb. ground beef
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cans condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 can milk
1 can white wine
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
2 packets onion soup mix
1/2 lb. cremini mushrooms, sliced
2 c. frozen peas
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1 Tbsp. dried parsley
1 bay leaf
1 1/2 lbs. tortellini (cheese or cheese & asparagus)
grated Parmesan, to serve

1. Brown the ground beef in a frying pan. Add to crock.
2. Heat the olive oil in the pan and add the onion. Sauté until it just begins to brown. Add the garlic and cook for another minute or two. Add to crock.
3. Reconstitute the soup with one can of milk and one can of white wine and add it to the crock.
4. Add remaining ingredients (except for Parmesan), stir to combine, and turn on high for 1 hour.
5. Top with grated Parmesan and serve.

For my initial run-through I didn't precook the beef. This worked fine, but I think the flavour would've been better if I'd browned it a little first. I think some sautéed onions would've gone a long way as well. And garlic.

I generally find Worcestershire sauce to be a pretty solid choice to go with beef. Hopefully it'll be a nice addition to this sauce. A full tablespoon might be a bit on the heavy side, but the husband and I are both big fans of the stuff, so I'm not too worried about overdoing it.

I don't think the frozen peas are really necessary, but it makes me feel like the dish is slightly more balanced so, if they don't detract from it, I'd like to try including them next time. I think the thyme and parsley will go well with the white wine and the creaminess of the sauce. I debated about the bay leaf, but I think I'll toss one in next time and see how it comes out.

The cheese tortellini worked nicely in this dish, but I feel like an asparagus-stuff pasta would also complement the sauce well, so I may give that a try if they have anything appropriate on sale the next time I feel like making this. Using a pasta that at least nominally contains additional vegetables would also make me feel slightly more virtuous when making this as a one-pot meal as well.

Mushroom-Pesto Pizza with Fresh Mozzarella and Bacon

Yes, two pizza posts in a row! I didn't plan it that way! There were other things eaten in between, but they were either leftovers or things that I didn't really feel like writing about. So, here we are then, at with another pizza post.

This one is my own creation. Nothing really unorthodox or revolutionary, but... oh boy! Did this ever come out good! For me, this was pizza Nirvana. This was the pizza to end all pizzas. The one that makes me feel like I've won at pizza; there's nowhere else to go from here, this is the apex, the peak of pizza-dom.

Okay, so now that I've probably way oversold it, here you go:
Mushroom-Pesto Pizza
pizza dough
pesto sauce
fresh mozzarella
cremini mushrooms, sliced
bacon, fried crisp and crumbled
caramelized onions (optional)

Sorry I don't have any amounts or measures for you. This was one of those dinners that sort of just... happened. TF had found some water-packed fresh mozzarella on sale at the grocery store a few days prior. I had asked him to get some mushrooms so I could make western sandwiches, but then my red pepper went off and I ended up scrapping the idea. I had seen some bacon on sale at the grocery store the day before and got a pack because... discount bacon! Do I really need any more reason than that?

Shortly after making the previous pizza, I was going through the pantry and found a forgotten jar of pesto sauce. We normally stock up when it's on sale and then use it for various pasta dishes, but now that I had pizza on the brain, I started thinking that it'd make a good sauce base there as well. More pizza dough was purchased with the pesto in mind, but I hadn't really figured what else would go on it yet.

Once I started looking at what we had in the fridge, it all started coming together. I figured that the mozzarella was a natural choice for the pizza. And I'd been worried about how to use up the mushrooms ever since my toasted westerns got tossed. I figured some of the leftover caramelized onions wouldn't go amiss either.

So that was my plan: pesto, mozzarella, mushrooms, and onions. There was still something missing though. Fresh mozzarella tends not to be salted like pizza mozzarella or other types are and, while I'm normally all for low-salt, I really feel like I need that hit of saltiness with my cheese. We had just restocked on anchovies, so I figured that'd be a good way to add some extra salt and flavour. I got them out and was all ready to put them on when I suddenly remembered the bacon! I'd already opened it that morning to make a breakfast fry-up for TF and the rest of the package was just sitting there in the fridge, waiting to be eaten.

I quickly cooked up the rest of the 500g package (probably about 10-12 slices). A few slices got wolfed down by TF and myself straight out of the pan, but the rest got crumbled and made it onto the pizza.

This time I rolled and stretched the dough on the counter and then transferred it to the pizza stone. (I know you're supposed to preheat the stone and then transfer the assembled pizza to the stone, but we don't have a pizza peel, so that's not really an option for us at the moment.) From there, I slathered on a generous coating of pesto and sliced up the entire mozzarella ball and topped the sauced crust with it. I figured I sliced up maybe a dozen mushrooms and sprinkled them over, along with the crumbled bacon. I actually forgot the caramelized onions at first and ended up tossing a few on top about halfway through cooking.

The crust cooked up beautifully on the stone! The aroma of the pesto was amazing! And the cheese, bacon, and mushrooms complemented perfectly! While the onions added a nice, gentle sweetness to the whole thing. I will definitely, definitely be making this one again!

Caramelized Onion Pizza

Okay, so I may have spent way too much time browsing Food52 over the last couple of weeks but, in my defense, there's some really good stuff there! Including this caramelized onion pizza!

I was going to be all cool and make my pizza dough from scratch but, alas, my yeast had expired! In the end, I just bought some ready-made dough and took it from there. I also used cured black olives instead of kalamata. Normally I prefer the kalamata as I find them a bit milder, but I really liked the way the black olives combined with this pizza!

This came out quite nicely. Although, rolling the dough out on the pizza stone turns out to be a bad idea. (Just in case you were wondering.) It took... a while to pry each slice of pizza free from the clutches of the pizza stone once it came out of the oven. Once were were able to pry the pizza off the stone though, it did taste quite good!

I like this as a cheeseless, sauceless pizza option. Olives, anchovies, and onions will all keep well in the fridge or pantry respectively. So, as long as you have some yeast and flour and whatnot on hand to make the crust, you can have a pretty tasty pizza without having to do a grocery run to stock up on ingredients!

Baked Oatmeal

I am a big lover of oatmeal. I love oatmeal porridge cooked on the stovetop. I love freshly-baked oatmeal-raisin cookies. I even love instant oatmeal. Especially in the winter. There's nothing quite like a belly full of warm oatmeal to start your day on a cold winter morning!

Instant oatmeal is never as good as stovetop porridge though. Even when I make my own mixes, it still falls short. The problem with stovetop porridge though is that I'm the only one in the house who eats it. And it doesn't exactly reheat well. And I don't really feel like getting up and making it first thing in the morning most days. Enter baked oatmeal!

I'd never even heard of baked oatmeal until a friend linked me to a microwave cooking page a while back. I've tried the "baked oatmeal in a mug" recipe. It's tasty! (Although I generally put a touch more honey in than it calls for and sometimes top it with maple syrup as well.) So this planted the seed. If microwave baked oatmeal is delicious, then maybe I should look into making actual baked oatmeal. Maybe that would be a delicious way to have my oatmeal all waiting and ready for me on cold winter mornings.

Never having made baked oatmeal before, I didn't really have a convenient starting point beyond my microwave recipe so I just went to Google for answers. This was the first recipe that came up. So I went with it... almost.

I generally like to at least skim the reviews on recipe pages like this. The predominant views seemed to be that this recipe was either delicious as written or that it didn't need nearly as much sugar as called for. Now, I do enjoy sweetened oatmeal. I need some sugar in it. That said, I've been trying to scale it back a bit since I know it's probably not good to be dumping huge mounds of brown sugar into my bowl every morning.

In the end, I did make a few changes to the recipe as written, but still found this to be an excellent baked oatmeal "base". You could add all sorts off different inclusions and delicious treats to the same basic recipe for many variations on a delicious theme!

This is what I came out with in the end:
Baked Oatmeal
3 c. quick oats
1/2 c. brown sugar
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 c. milk
2 eggs
1/2 c. sweetened applesauce
2 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 c. dried cranberries
1/2 c. chopped pecans
1 mashed banana

Next time I'd probably also add half a cup of frozen raspberries and a quarter cup of ground flax. And maybe drizzle some maple syrup over the top as well.

I will definitely be making this again! It came out deliciously cinnamon-y and just the right sweetness. It reheats beautifully in the microwave. And, best of all, I can make a batch on the weekend and have breakfasts for the whole week!

Renaissance Meat Pies

I ended up accidentally skipping over this one in my initial writings, but I do think it's worth mentioning. This was the first recipe I tried out of my Shakespeare's Kitchen cookbook.

Individual Meat Pies with Cointreau Marmalade
1 lb. ground beef
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tsp. ground mace
6 pitted prunes/dried plums, minced
1/2 c. dried currants (original recipe called for "1 c. currants", but wasn't clear on fresh or dried)
1/2 c. freshly squeezed orange juice (~1 orange worth)
pie pastry
1/2 c. Cointreau
1 c. thick-cut orange marmalade

1. Combine beef, salt, pepper, nutmeg, mace, prunes, currants, and orange juice in a non-reactive bowl. Chill overnight.
2. Roll out dough (~1/16" thick). Dough for sufficient for one double-crust pie should be enough to make all your tarts.
3. Cut dough into tart-sized rounds. Three-inch rounds are recommended, but smaller or larger could also be used although this will change the ratio of crust to filling.
4. Fill the tart shells with the meat mixture and bake at 450F for 15 minutes. (I made my tarts in my Babycakes cupcake maker, so they only took about 8 minutes.)
5. Bring Cointreau to a boil and add marmalade. Cook, stirring, until well-combined and heated through.
6. Top meat pies with marmalade glaze.

I was surprised by the amount of fruit that was called for in these meat pies. The filling actually reminds me quite a lot of my grandmother's traditional mincemeat recipe. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that this was an early precursor or variant of mincemeat.

The book includes a recipe for "Renaissance Dough", but I simply bought ready-made dough for this since I wasn't sure what I'd have time for. I'm sure they would've been lovely with home-made dough, but they still turned out lovely as it was.

I only ended up using about half the glaze. That said, any leftovers can always be poured back into the jar and saved for spreading on toast or any other applications where you might enjoy marmalade. But, if you don't want to deal with excess marmalade/glaze, I would recommend only making a half portion for the amount of meat.

I wasn't sure whether to use a cup or half a cup of currants since the recipe didn't specify whether fresh or dried were expected. Since it didn't specify, I assumed that amount was for fresh. Since I only had dried available, I put in half the amount figuring they'd plump up a bit from sitting in the orange juice with the beef overnight. Next time, I might try soaking them a bit first to give them a bit more volume and a bit of a softer mouth feel. I'd also like to experiment with making these tarts with fresh currants if I can find some in season next year. I think it'd be interesting to see how the fresh berries affect the flavour and texture of the filling.

Overall, I think these little tarts came out quite well and they seemed to be enjoyed at Thanksgiving. If you're not used to sweet meat dishes, this might seem a bit strange. However, I think anyone who enjoys old-fashioned mincemeat -- the kind with actual beef, rather than modern "mock mincemeat" that seems to be composed predominantly of raisins -- will probably find these tarts quite appealing.

I certainly plan on making another batch or two of these tasty little tarts to go with Christmas dinner! Happy Holidays! :)

Zuni's Pasta with Tuna

So, in my Internet wanderings, I managed to stumble across another fantastic find from Food52: Zuni's Pasta with Preserved Tuna. Now, it calls for preserved lemon, which I can't seem to find around here for love or money. I would like to try my hand at making them sometime, but I wasn't feeling quite that ambitious this past week. Maybe over the holidays I can try to pickle me some lemons. In the meantime, I just used some fresh lemon zest and left out the preserved lemon for now.

Although my pasta was shells, not penne, the dish was still phenomenal. I topped mine with some grated Parmesan and a few extra capers. The next time I went to make this, I was a bit short on both tuna and capers so I tossed in a few anchovy fillets. I was hoping that this would compensate for the missing fish as well as adding back in a bit of the salt that would've come from the capers. It seemed to work pretty well!

I'll definitely be keeping this recipe as something tasty to throw together on a weeknight.

Pasta with Lemon and Tuna
1 lb. dry pasta
1/2 c. olive oil
1 Tbsp. lemon zest, minced
1-2 bay leaves
3/4 tsp. chile flakes
1/2 tsp. black pepper
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 tsp. fennel seeds
1/4 c. pine nuts
2 Tbsp. capers (I left mine whole)
3 tins tuna OR 2 tins tuna + 6-8 anchovy fillets

Date Butter

So, not too long ago, I came across a "healthy junk food" round-up on First We Feast. One of the recipes that caught my eye was the "salted caramel". I was extremely dubious that dates could be made to taste like caramel, but it apparently tested well, so I figured I'd give it a try.

I'll be honest: it doesn't taste like caramel. It is, however, delicious! I am definitely keeping this recipe for future reference! I would probably make a smaller batch in the future though. I feel like it kind of lost something after being in the fridge. But I was eating it by the spoonful fresh! Seriously, this stuff is delicious!

Here's what I'd do next time:

Date Butter
1 c. pitted dates
2 Tbsp. almond butter (or a bit more, it really does add a lovely richness!)
2 tsp. fresh lemon juice
1/4 tsp. coarse sea salt
1 vanilla bean, seeds only (pod can be used to make "vanilla sugar")

I soaked my dates in warm water to speed the process along. After an hour or two they seemed like they'd plumped up nicely, so I drained them and got started.

There don't really seem to be a lot of other ingredients relative to the dates; can 1/4 cup of nut butter really be enough for 2 cups of dates? Well, as I said, I might experiment with going slightly heavier on the almond butter next time, but that amount really did seem to be enough! It lends a nice, buttery richness to the whole thing. Beautiful!

When I made it, seeds from one vanilla bean went into twice the amount of dates. And that was really delicious. However, I found the vanilla flavour to be pretty subtle, so I think I'd like to try doubling down on the vanilla next time to make it really come through.

Seriously though, if you've got a sweet tooth or you're looking for a healthy(ish) snack to pack in someone's lunchbox or you just love dates... give this a try! It is very good!

Green Chickpeas

So, I decided to finally try making a green chickpea curry. The Indian grocery store around the corner from us carries them both dried and frozen and I've been really curious to give them a try.

I went with frozen since they'd be faster to cook and also because I hoped that freezing would preserve more of the fresh flavour than drying.

The curry came out pretty tasty. I didn't like it as well as the dal, but TF liked it better! The sprog seemed to be a big fan of the green chickpeas as well. Perfect finger food!

One thing to be aware of if you're doing some green chickpea experimentation of your own: they stay firm on the outside. Very firm. Every time I went to stir them, they'd click and clunk against the spoon and I'd assume that they needed more cooking. I'm not sure how long I left them boiling away in that pot for all told. Eventually, I decided to fish one out and taste it... And found that it was perfectly tender inside, but that outer skin just seems to stay rather rigid no matter what you do. So, in the end, I'm not entirely sure how long it takes to cook a green chickpea, but it's probably a lot less time than it might seem based on their external texture. Just FYI. ;)

Masoor Dal with Coconut Milk

I hope to come back and update this post with a photo in the near future but, for now, a mere description will have to do.

Hey look! A photo happened!

This recipe comes from Food52 which I stumbled upon while searching for an online source of curry leaves for an acquaintance. I stuck pretty closely to the recipe as presented there, but did make a few tweaks. Here's what I ended up with:

Masoor Dal
3 c. red lentils (split skinned brown lentils)
1 onion, chopped
1 (14.5 oz.) tin of diced tomatoes
1/2 tsp. cayenne
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. ground coriander
1/2 tsp. turmeric
2 tsp. coarse sea salt
2 Tbsp. canola oil ('though I might substitute mustard oil next time)
2 tsp. cumin seeds
1 tsp. brown mustard seeds
1 onion, minced
20 curry leaves
1 (14 oz.) tin of coconut milk

This dal came out quite lovely. It certainly makes a lot! But it's warm and comforting in the cooler weather we've been having lately and has been disappearing at a rapid rate.

I definitely liked having a few more tomatoes in the mix. And I didn't find that I missed the extra teaspoon of salt at all either. My curry leaves had dried out, so I erred toward the higher end of the curry leaf spectrum for this recipe. I think that mustard oil would have been a nice complement to the mustard seeds here. The heating would've taken the "bite" out of the oil, but it still would've been tasty... if only I'd thought of it!

I do think this dal would benefit from a bit of an acidic tang. I addressed this by serving it with hot mixed pickles. This added the tartness I was looking for along with a nice spicy kick to boot! I think a dash of lime juice would also be an excellent way to add the desired tang to this dish. I'm generally a big fan of tamarind, but I think the "bright", citrus sour of lime is a better option in this case.

Mulled Apple Cider

So, I know I'm a little late to the food blogging game. And I'm not usually one to follow trends or fads, but I like food and I like sharing it, so the food blog phenomenon is one trend that I can definitely get behind!

I've been in a bit of a cooking frenzy lately and had a chance to try out a bunch of new recipes. Posts will probably be fast and furious for a few days while I try to catch up with my cooking. I figured I'd start off with a fall favourite:

Mulled Apple Cider
9 cinnamon sticks (3" each)
15 cloves
1 tsp. coriander seeds
2 star anise
12 green cardamom pods
2 blades mace
3L apple cider
1 prune
peel of 2 oranges
1/4 c. jaggery

This recipe is an amalgam of several mulled apple cider recipes that I found online combined with a few of my own inspirations and additions.

Most of the spice suggestions come from a post on Serious Eats.

The orange peel and the idea to sweeten it a bit came from The Pioneer Woman's mulled cider recipe. She suggested a fairly hefty quantity of maple syrup, which I tried the first time I made it. I suspect that she is dealing with much tarter cider than I am, as I found the result (even with half the quantity of syrup she called for) too sweet for my palate. It was my husband's idea to replace the syrup with jaggery. He thought that the slight fruitiness of the jaggery would complement the cider well and, having taste tested the revised version (halving the amount of sugar again), I agree!

The mace was my own addition. I love mace and I thought that it would "play nice" with the other flavours involved, so I tossed a couple blades in the pot. It's not a strong flavour next to the cinnamon and cloves, but I think it complements well.

The prune may seem like a bit of an odd addition. I ran across a recommendation that slivovitz (plum brandy) makes an excellent addition to mulled cider as the plum pairs nicely with the apple and the alcohol adds a bit of depth to it. I didn't have any slivovitz on hand and, even if I had, TF really wasn't keen on the idea of adding anything boozy to the pot. I did have prunes though! So, the hope was that tossing a dried plum in the pot would impart some of that flavour minus the booze. I'm not sure how much it really comes through in the final product, but it's not hurting anything to have it in there, so I figured why not?

I've made this with both toasted and untoasted spices, and it has come out delicious both times. Toasting definitely adds to the richness, but untoasted spices still yield a wonderfully tasty result.

There's something incredibly comforting about a nice hot mug of mulled cider. Especially once the weather's turned cold! There's nothing quite like curling up on the couch in warm slippers and pyjamas, your hands wrapped around a steaming mug of cider, as you sip and look out the window on a cold, blustery fall day. The aroma alone is enough to make me smile and -- although I sometimes have a tendency to guzzle my drinks -- one taste of the warm, sweet spiciness of a good mug of cider is all it takes to convince me to slow down and savour. Every. Last. Drop.