Vegetable Pot Pie

This recipe has been somewhat modified from The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook. The mushrooms were doubled, swiss chard was replaced with kale (which I find less bitter, and which we have in abundance), and the turnip -- difficult to find here -- was replaced with a rutabaga. The latter required some adjustment to the cooking time, since it turns out that rutabagas cook much more slowly than turnips do; we ended up having to disassemble the first pie, remove the rutabaga chunks for more cooking, and then return them and reassemble it.

The original recipe calls for a deep-dish pie plate, and is not kidding about it. If you don't have one (as we don't), buy or make two top-crusts and bake two shallow pies. If you only have one pie plate, you can keep half the pie filling in the fridge for a day or two while you eat the first pie.

Ingredients

• 1 pie top crust
• 60mL unsalted butter
• 1 onion, chopped fine
• 500g cremini mushrooms, quartered (or halved if small)
• salt and pepper
• 350g sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1cm cubes
• 250g rutabaga, peeled and cut into 1cm cubes
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 3mL grated lemon zest
• 15mL lemon juice
• 250g black kale, stemmed and sliced into 2cm pieces
• 30mL all-purpose flour
• 500mL vegetable broth
• 125mL freshly grated parmesan
• 30mL fresh parsley, grated
• 1 large egg (or two small ones)
• water

Procedure

1. Melt 30mL butter in a dutch oven over medium heat.
2. Add onions, mushrooms, and a pinch of salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms release their liquid, ~5 minutes.
3. Add sweet potato and rutabaga. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until fork tender, 1-2 hours. (The original recipe calls for cooking "until potato and turnips begin to soften around the edges", but if you do this with rutabaga it will still be "soft around the edges" and rock hard in the middle when it comes out of the oven. Doing it this way runs the risk of slightly overcooking the rutabaga and sweet potato, but both are highly tolerant of overcooking and completely unforgiving of undercooking.)
4. Meanwhile, roll out the crust and cut four vent slits in it. As the filling approaches tenderness, preheat the oven to 400°F.
5. Once the sweet potato and rutabaga are fork tender, stir in the garlic and lemon zest and cook until fragrant, ~30 seconds.
6. Stir in kale and cook until wilted, ~2 minutes; remove and buffer in a bowl.
7. Melt remaining 30mL butter in the now-empty pot over medium-high heat.
8. Stir in flour and cook for one minute to  make a roux.
9. Gradually whisk in broth, deglaze, and simmer until it thickens slightly, 1-2 minutes.
10. Remove from heat and whisk in parmesan, parsley, and lemon juice.
11. Stir in cooked vegetables and any accumulated juices, and season with salt and pepper to taste.
12. Pour filling into a deep dish 9" pie plate, top with crust, and bake for 30 minutes, until crust is golden brown and filling is bubbling.

We keep getting plums in our produce baskets and not eating them. (A perfectly ripe black plum is a thing of beauty, but if it's even slightly under- or over-ripe it's nothing but sadness and disappointment. I find plums tend to disappoint me more often than not, so I don't eat them that often.) This has resulted in nearly half a kilo of prune plums languishing in our fruit bowl. Given that we weren't eating them, I decided that this would be a good time to make a plum betty. But this, of course, requires stewed fruit.

I figured stewing plums would just be a simple matter of cooking them with some sugar and maybe a bit of water or lemon juice, but I decided to consult a couple recipes anyway. I found a basic recipe on the BBC Good Food website and followed their general procedure, but scaled the sugar and water way back; 200g of sugar for 500g of fruit sounded like way too much to me. And I figured that if I was putting less sugar, I should probably reduce the amount of water as well since the recipe appears to start by making a simple syrup. I probably should've cut the water back a bit more, but the half cup I used seems to have worked out alright. If you want less saucy fruit though, it's probably not a bad idea to dial the water back to 90-100mL.

Stewed Plums

Adapted from BBC Good Food

Ingredients

• 1/2 c. (~100g) vanilla sugar + an empty pod from the sugar jar
• 1/2 c. water
• 1 (3") cinnamon stick
• 500g plums, pitted and quartered

Directions

1. Combine sugar, water, vanilla pod, and cinnamon stick in a small pot and heat, stirring, until sugar is completely dissolved.
2. Add plums and bring to a boil.
3. Reduce heat and simmer for 5-8 minutes until fruit has reached desired tenderness.
4. Allow to cool slightly and served topped with vanilla ice cream or use as the base for a fruit crumble or betty.

These came out quite tasty (despite skipping a couple steps). I do feel like they could've done with a bit of extra protein though. For a non-vegetarian version, I'd probably just add a bit of bacon or ham. For vegetarian protein... I'm not sure what my top choice would be. I don't feel like tempeh or tofu would work particularly well for this. Maybe vegetarian bologna?

Twice-Baked Potatoes with Broccoli

The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook by America's Test Kitchen

Ingredients

• 4 large russet (or other floury) potatoes
• 1 head of broccoli, cut into smallish florets
• 4 Tbsp. unsalted butter, divided
• 3/4 tsp. coarse sea salt, divided
• 2 Tbsp. water
• 1 tsp. lemon juice
• 1 1/2 c. grated Cheddar, divided
• 1/2 c. sour cream
• 1/4 c. half-and-half (10% cream)
• 1/4 tsp. dry mustard powder
• 3 scallions, sliced
• pepper, to taste

Directions

1. Optionally rub potatoes with oil¹. Bake potatoes at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour. Allow to cool for 10 minutes.
2. Combine broccoli, 1/4 tsp. salt, and 2 Tbsp. butter over medium-high heat for 2-3 minutes.
3. Add 2 Tbsp. water, cover, and cook for 1 minute.
4. Remove lid and cook for an additional minute until water is gone and broccoli is bright and tender-crisp.
5. Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice.
6. Cut potatoes in half lengthwise and scoop out the flesh, leaving a half cm border along the edge.
7. Return the skins to the oven for 10 minutes.
8. Meanwhile, add the remaining 2 Tbsp. butter and 1/2 tsp. salt to the potato flesh and mash with a fork until butter is melted and mixed in well.
9. Stir in 1 c. Cheddar, sour cream, half-and-half, mustard, and scallions.
10. Add pepper to taste and fold in broccoli.
11. Spoon filling back into skins and top with remaining Cheddar.
12. Put under broiler for 5-10 minutes until cheese is melted and beginning to brown on top.
13. Let cool for 5 minutes before serving.

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1 The oil will get your skins to bake up a bit crispier. I didn't bother because we ended up getting some baking potatoes that had been wrapped in foil, so I just baked them in the foil without any oil. ^Back

My go-to recipe for using up old, spotty bananas is generally banana bread. I've made that quite a few times over the last few months though and, while delicious, I wanted to try something a little different. I've also been on a bit of an Edmonds kick lately. This meant that it was definitely time to give the Edmonds "banana cake" recipe a try!

The cake came out lovely overall. And I even split and filled it. (A first for me!) The flavour is alright, but a little sweet for my taste. It's a fairly sweet cake to begin with and then it gets a sugary chocolate glacé icing on top of it. In addition, since I didn't want to deal with trying to make stabilized whipped cream, I ended up filling it with dulce de leche. The end result was not a bad combination of flavours, but a bit cloying. The chocolate also didn't come through as much as I would've liked.

I think next time I'd reduce the sugar slightly and swap out the white sugar for brown. And, to cut the sweetness a bit and make sure the chocolate really comes through, I think I'd top it with a dark chocolate ganache rather than the saccharine glacé icing. I might also consider adding a splash of vanilla to the cake batter. I don't want to go too crazy with the spices and just end up making banana bread in a round tin, but I think a bit of vanilla would complement things nicely without overshadowing any of the other components.

Banana Cake

Adapted from Edmonds Cookery Book

Ingredients

• 125g (salted) butter, softened
• 1/2 c. firmly packed brown sugar¹
• 2 large (or 3 medium) eggs
• 4 ripe bananas, mashed
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract (optional)
• 2 Tbsp. hot milk
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 2 c. soft (cake) flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• ~200mL dulce de leche
• 1-2 bananas, sliced
• ~400mL dark chocolate ganache (or chocolate glacé icing)
• 1/4 c. chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions

1. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
2. Mix in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
3. Stir in the mashed bananas and vanilla.
4. Combine the hot milk and baking soda and stir into the egg mixture.
5. Sift together the flour and baking powder and fold into egg mixture.
6. Pour into greased and floured 9" (23cm) round cake tin (or springform pan)² and bake at 350°F (180°C) for 40 minutes³.
7. Allow cake to cool in tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto wire rack to cool.
8. Split the cake horizontally by whatever method you prefer. (I always thought my mother's trick of using a piece of thread tied 'round the cake worked particularly well.)
9. Separate the layers and spread both cut sides with dulce de leche.
10. Place sliced bananas over bottom layer⁴ and then replace the top layer so the bananas are sandwiched between cake and dulce de leche.
11. Pour chocolate ganache over the top of the cake. It's fine if it drips down the sides a little, but they don't need to be completely covered.
12. If desired, sprinkle chopped walnuts around the top edge of the cake.

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¹ I followed the original recipe for this bake and made it with 3/4 c. granulated sugar, but found it too sweet. Next time I'll try 1/2 c. brown sugar instead. If you use brown sugar, the cake will come out darker than pictured here. ^Back
2 Edmonds calls for using an 8" (20cm) round pan and baking for 50 minutes, but I don't have one, so I opted for a 9" round pan and baked the resulting wider, thinner cake for 35 minutes instead. ^Back
3 I know I just said I baked my cake for 35 minutes in the last footnote, but I also accidentally set the oven temperature a bit too high (370°F rather than 350°F). It seems to have turned out fine despite the higher temperature. That said, if you're cooking it at the proper temperature, you might need the extra five minutes to make sure it's cooked all the way through. ^Back
4 If you used an 8" (20cm) pan then 1 banana will likely be enough. If you've used a 9" pan, then 2 would be better. I found 1 banana to be a bit skimpy for a 9" cake. I would've liked to have been able to slice it a bit thicker and not leave gaps between the slices when adding them to the cake. ^Back

A simple icing of butter, icing sugar, and water. It can be flavoured and coloured as desired, is easy to make, and sets up fairly firm. I made this chocolate version to go with the banana cake I made earlier today.

A simple icing of butter, icing sugar, and water. It can be flavoured and coloured as desired, is easy to make, and sets up fairly firm. I made this chocolate version to go with the banana cake I made this morning.

Chocolate Glacé Icing

From Edmonds Cookery Book

Ingredients

• 2 c. icing sugar
• 2 Tbsp. cocoa powder
• 25g (scant 2 Tbsp.) butter, softened
• 2-4 Tbsp. hot water¹
• 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions

1. Sift together icing sugar and cocoa powder.
2. Stir in butter an hot water until icing becomes smooth and spreadable.
3. Mix in vanilla.

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¹ I found I needed ~1/4 c. of water to get a smooth spreadable consistency. However, there's also a slight possibility that I accidentally added an extra 1/4 c. of icing sugar when I lost count of my scoops. ^Back

The Mother of All Fruitcakes!

I've never been terribly partial to fruitcakes. That said, I haven't even tried a fruitcake in something like fifteen years, so I have no idea whether my fruitcake tastes and opinions have changed since then. And catalyst is a huge fan of fruitcake. On top of that I have a fondness for old traditional recipes and a fascination with baked good that need to age before eating.

Edmonds has an entire section dedicated solely to fruitcakes. Admittedly, it's a small section, but still! It has a fruitcake chapter! This includes a whole range of cakes. Everything from a light, blonde lemony cake with sultanas and candied lemon peel as the only fruit... all the way up to the "rich Christmas cake" which includes seven kinds of fruit + almonds, orange juice, rum (or brandy or sherry), and two types of citrus zest. This cake takes two days to make, four hours in the oven, and is meant to sit for a full two months before serving. It also weighs just shy of five kilos! This cake does NOT mess around.

Rich Christmas Cake

Very slightly adapted from Edmonds Cookery Book

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 c. orange juice
• 3/4 c. dark rum¹ or brandy + an extra 2 Tbsp. for soaking
• 2 Tbsp. grated orange zest
• 500g dried currants
• 500g raisins
• 2 c. sultanas
• 2 c. chopped dates
• 150g crystallized ginger, chopped
• 150g mixed peel
• 150g glacé cherries, halved
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp. almond extract
• 2 tsp. grated lemon zest
• 1 c. slivered almonds²
• 2 1/2 c. strong flour ("high grade", bread, or all-purpose)
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. mixed spice
• 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
• 250g (salted) butter, softened
• 1 1/2 c. brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp. treacle³
• 5 large eggs (or 6 medium eggs)

Directions

1. Combine orange juice, 3/4 c. rum, and orange zest in a pot and bring to a boil.
2. Combine dried fruit in a large bowl and pour juice mixture over it. Cover and leave to soak overnight.
3. The next day, add the vanilla, almond extract, lemon zest, and almonds to the fruit mix.
4. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, and spices.
5. Prepare your baking tin and tie a double layer of brown paper around the outside. Edmonds suggests lining a deep 23cm (9") square pan with baking paper. I greased and lined the bottom of a 10" springform pan.
6. In a third (very large) bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and treacle/molasses.
7. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
8. Fold in the dry ingredients alternately with the fruit mixture.
9. Scoop the batter (which should be more like a bowl of dried fruit with a thin coat of cake batter on it) into the prepared tin.
10. Smooth the top with wet hands and bake at 300°F (150°C) for 4 hours.
11. Remove from oven and let cake cool overnight.
12. Poke a few holes in the top of the cake with a skewer or toothpick.
13. Pour 2 Tbsp. of rum (or brandy or sherry) over the top of the cake and let it soak in.
14. At this point, Edmonds says to wrap the cake in tinfoil and a cloth and store in a cool place. I didn't like the idea of the tinfoil being right up against the cake, so I wrapped it in baking paper first (I just reused the paper from the outside of the tin) and then wrapped it in tinfoil followed by a tea towel.
15. Cake should be baked by late October in order for flavours to have fully developed by Christmas.

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¹ I used spiced rum because that's what I had on hand. ^Back
2 Edmonds calls for blanched (presumably whole) almonds. I used slivered both because I felt like that might allow for a more even distribution and because, as with the rum, I already had some on hand. ^Back
3 Treacle isn't really a Thing in Canada, so I tend to just substitute molasses whenever I come across a recipe that calls for treacle. They're pretty close. And I've had good results doing this so far. ^Back

Turns out that "mixed spice" is fairly ubiquitous in New Zealand and the UK. It seems to be somewhat similar to North American "pumpkin pie spice" in that it contains cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, etc. The one notable difference is that most mixed spice blends seem to contain a bit of coriander, while I've never heard of this being included in pumpkin pie spice. I think that, in a pinch, you could substitute the one for the other without much issue. That said, I don't tend to keep pumpkin pie spice on hand as I just use the spices individually, rather than pre-mixed. And I didn't really want to go out and buy a spice blend that a) wasn't going to be quite right anyway and b) I already had all the individual components for on hand already.

There is, of course, some variance in the exact ingredients and proportions of spices used from one brand/household to the next. I just grabbed a plausible-looking recipe off of the "BBC Good Food" website and went with that. The BBC recipe only gave measurements for ground spices. I've included whole spice equivalents as that's what I generally have on hand.

Mixed Spice

From BBC Good Food

Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp. allspice, ground or whole berries
• 1 Tbsp. ground cinnamon or 2 (3") cinnamon sticks
• 1 Tbsp. ground nutmeg or 1 1/2 whole nutmegs
• 2 tsp. ground mace or 2 tsp. lightly crushed blades of mace
• 1 tsp. cloves, ground or whole
• 1 tsp. coriander, ground or whole
• 1 tsp. ground ginger

Directions

1. Grind any whole spices to a fine powder.
2. Combine all ingredients, mix well, and store in an airtight container until needed.