salmon-potato cakes

Borrowing from this Jamie Oliver recipe and this random recipe from Food.com (there are a ton to choose from), I made salmon-potato cakes. In the spirit of it all, adapt to your taste.

salmon-potato cakes
makes 8 cakes, serves 4

2 russet potatoes, cooked and mashed (approx. 2 cups mashed potatoes)

1 213g (7.5oz) can of wild Alaskan salmon
small handful of fresh parsley, chopped

2 Tbs onion, minced and sauteed in olive oil
zest of 1/2 lemon
1 egg, lightly beaten
less than 1/4 C flour
3/4 C breadcrumbs
salt and pepper
lemon wedges for serving

After mashed potatoes have cooled, combine all ingredients. Evenly divide and form into cakes, then fry in a little olive oil over medium-high heat. Even though the salmon and potatoes are cooked, there's raw egg in there, so be sure to cook through (4-5 minutes per side). Also, a crispy golden crust is nice. Serve with a spritz of fresh lemon.

quinoa cakes

Technically, this is a baby food recipe. But who cares, when everyone in the family likes them. They're small so they are perfect for the littlest fingers, but a few at a time make a fine snack for the rest of us.

And I'm not sure why I was getting excited about this while I was making them, but they would make good airplane food. A portable, healthy protein that's not string cheese or almonds? What's not to get excited about?!

The basic recipe can be made savoury or sweet with your choice of seasoning. Cinnamon, nutmeg and cardamom are all good.  I want to try cumin or thyme next time.

Ack. Bad lighting. I can't wait for the 'someday' that my kitchen will be flooded with natural light.

I got this recipe from a friend, who got it from a friend, and well, I have no idea where it came from. So, Original Source, please forgive me for not crediting you.

quinoa cakes
makes 25-30 cakes

1 C quinoa
1 ripe banana
seasoning of choice
2 Tbs butter

Rinse quinoa in a fine sieve and put in bowl. Add cool water until quinoa is covered by about 1/2" of water. Cover and leave to soak overnight in fridge.

In the morning, put soaked quinoa into a blender with banana and puree, adding a little more water if necessary, until mixture is the consistency of pancake batter. Add a pinch or two of whatever seasoning you want.

Heat a non-stick pan over medium-high heat and melt butter. Add batter by the spoonful to form mini pancakes. Lightly brown on each side. Cool before serving.

These freeze well.  To freeze, place in single layer on a cookie sheet to freeze individually, then store together.

mushroom fontina pizza

Do you love mushrooms? Yeah, me too. And Jeff is a completely reformed mushroom-disliker. Since the kid digs 'em too, mushroom pizza is a clear winner.

Head over to Annies Eats for a fantastic recipe (and waaay better pictures.) I simplified the recipe a bit, but hers is great inspiration.  I used my go-to cornmeal pizza crust recipe.

I guess she largely borrowed from this recipe over at Pink Parsley. It was that blogger who said that this is a 'wine-worthy dinner'. I agree. Not that beer can't be fancy, but this pizza, with its roasted mushroom pesto and sauteed mushrooms topping, is definitely more involved than the average pizza n' beer night.

But the hassle is relatively minor and was worth it. It makes for a deliciously salty, earthy pizza that, by the way, goes great with a simple arugula salad.

Which reminds me. I love arugula. It's so bitter and peppery and I find that it complements a lot surprisingly well.

But I digress. Mushroom fontina pizza. Yum.

for the love of cardamom

I love cardamom and I like butter so I tried to make these cardamom shortbreads. I must've done something wrong  (not measure out enough butter?) because my dough was a crumbly mess.

I ended up pressing it into ball-like shapes, rolling in powdered sugar and baking that way because the dough just laughed and fell into a million pieces when I took out my rolling pin. Even though the flavour was fantastic, the texture of the final cookie was still disappointingly crumbly and dry. Sad.

Still, I'm excited to try other recipes on that Remedial Eating blog -- lots of beautiful pictures of stuff I want to eat.

My craving for cardamom cookies not yet satisfied, I went for this Martha Stewart recipe. To quote my now-three year old, 'That's what I'm talkin' about!' Now I have a recipe that I can haul out year after year.  Happy. 

cruciferous veg

Have you ever hearrd a two year old ask for more brussel sprouts?

Yeah, neither had I. In fact, I had never asked for more brussel sprouts. But we received some little beauties from our farm share and I was forced to try them again. Dee-licious. (Have you ever seen brussel sprouts growing on their stalk? Funny looking things.)

Okay, boiling or steaming is absolutely not the way to prepare these in my opinion. Not after you've tried them roasted in a little lemon juice, minced garlic and plenty of salt (Elise's recipe here). This is much like the cauliflower recipe on the same recipe blog, which we've made a few times.

Sorry, no pictures. We ate them too fast -- and that's the honest truth.

Head on over to Simply Recipes to see 'em and make 'em.

pomegranates

Pomegranates are in the stores again. Happy day. 

You probably know this trick already, but to seed a pomegranate without getting squirted by juice, immerse the halves in a bowl of water and gently pry the seeds out while they're under water.  No mess, no fuss. 

pita crisps

I thought I had mentioned these pita crisps before, but I guess I haven't. Shame on me, because they are deserving (and so are you!) 

I prefer the British terminology of crisps for chips and chips for fries. I don't necessarily use the terms myself, but they makes more sense to me. Crisps are what they are. And these, my friends, are pita crisps. Extra crunchy.

I can attest that these are great with bean dips, with otherwise boring bowls of soup, and with a hunk of cheddar in the middle of the night.

pita crisps

pita bread

olive oil

sea salt

dried thyme, or other dried seasoning of choice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Halve the pita bread, if it's the kind with pockets, to make thin flat pieces. Cut with scissors into strips or triangles or go wild and make free-form shapes for the kids.  Spread out in single layer on un-greased baking sheets. Brush with olive oil. Sprinkle with sea salt and crushed, dried thyme. (Black pepper would also be good.) Bake until crispy and golden, about 10-15 minutes. Check frequently, as they burn easily. Can serve immediately or after they've cooled to room temperature. Will keep for a day in an airtight container.

brown-bread-muffin bread

I was looking for just a little something to make our faux minestrone soup go down a little easier. A couple of warm, buttered slices of this bread did the trick.

In the cookbook, this is called 'hearty brown bread.'  I was thinking it would be kind of a dark-rye, healthy bread, but it isn't really. I mean, I'm sure it's not unhealthy, but it's more brown-bread-muffin-like. It's nice and moist (apologies too all that can't stand that word) and the recipe is so darn easy -- no rising even -- I'll be making it again.

But enough talk about bread.

hearty brown bread

Albertina's, a restaurant in Portland

1 loaf

3 C whole-wheat flour

1 1/4 teas baking soda

1 teas salt

2 C buttermilk

1/2 C molasses

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.  Stir in wet ingredients. Pour into well-greased loaf pan. Bake until tester comes out clean, approximately 1 hour. (Mine took closer to 1 hour 20 minutes.)

the theme is pumpkin

Happy Thanksgiving, to all you fellow Canucks. We kicked off the holiday weekend with pumpkin pancakes. I can recommend these spiced flapjacks, especially to those that have to wait another month for turkey and trimmings.

This recipe was scrawled on a post-it note so I have absolutely no idea where it recipe came from. My apologies.

pumpkin pancakes
serves 4

2 1/2 C flour
4 Tbs sugar
4 teas baking powder
1 teas cinnamon
1 teas ground ginger
1 teas salt
1/4 teas nutmeg
1/8 teas ground clove
1 egg
1 egg white
3/4 C pure pumpkin puree
4 Tbs butter, melted
2 C milk

Whisk together dry ingredients in large bowl. In medium bowl, whisk together egg, egg white, pumpkin puree, melted butter and milk. Fold wet into dry. Cook on buttered skillet.

***

Also on the menu this weekend, standing in for turkey and stuffing are my go-to roast chicken and a new wild rice pilaf. And for dessert, pumpkin ice cream and ginger cookies.

The food is prepped so all that's left to do is sit back, relax, and wait for our company to arrive. The artist among us may also want to put some finishing touches on her table decorations.

pazzo for pizza

Hey there, peeps. Please excuse erratic my erratic posting of late. A baby happened, summer happened, and well, you understand.

But speaking of cornmeal...

Humdrum it may be, but I have a soft spot for cornmeal. I love cornbread, swoon over cornmeal pancakes, and I can't resist a pizza with a cornmeal crust.

And so, as it happens from time to time, we've been eating quite a lot of pizza lately. My go-to crust recipe is this one from Martha Stewart (but I sub half the flour for whole wheat). I like that it freezes well. (One friend of mine uses tortillas brushed with olive oil for an even easier, crispy pizza crust.)

My simple tomato sauce is usually a few of my jarred tomatoes, a tablespoon or so of tomato paste, and some dried basil and oregano. We tend to keep toppings a simple fare of sauteed veggies, sometimes sausage, and some cheese grated over the whole mess.

Other nights we get more creative, with fresh goat cheese ricotta from our friend 'Farmer Dave', bacon, sauteed leeks and peppers, and fresh tomatoes to make it pretty.

But back to cornmeal. Know any good recipes? I'm all ears.  

tomatillo salsa

I'm loving our CSA this summer. 

Even though it's made me use way more rutabaga and cabbage than I otherwise would have, it's also provided us with the tastiest carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, beets, lettuce, etc.  

And I used tomatillos for the first time. Tried them in this green salsa. Exciting stuff. 

beer and chocolate

Why, hello! Sorry I've stayed away for so long. What's been happening around here? Not much and a lot, all at the same time. A needy baby, a toddler... and homemade ice cream. 

For Jeff's birthday I got him the ultimate self-serving gift: the ice cream maker attachment for our KitchenAid. Wow, making your own ice cream is fun. And then you get to eat ice cream!

The first batch was guiness-chocolate ice cream from the reigning ice cream guru, David Lebovitz. Great stuff. The next batch was blueberry frozen yogurt. A tad sweet, and not unlike frozen blueberry pie filling, but practice will make perfect. 

banana-y muffins

Remember that slogan 'kid-tested, mother-approved'? If muffins needed slogans, that one fits these bran-banana muffins. 'Cause even though I only added about 1/3 cup of chocolate chips, you'd have thought they were covered in chocolate given the resulting smile!

[recipe here, but sub chocolate for nuts and butter for margarine]

And while we're on the subject of banana muffins, here's another recipe I've made a couple of times (but again subbing in butter for whatever oil it calls for.) It's quite nutty, for when you're feeling... well, like a nut. 

proscuitto + egg + baguette

I'm slowly surfacing after my babymoon. So much so that we had some good friends over for brunch last weekend and I made something new! 

It was all very exciting, coming from the land of frozen soup and frozen mac 'n cheese. 

These eggy baguettes from a recent Martha Stewart mag are pretty tasty. My only complaint is that they are a tad awkward to eat, but that's a small price to pay for such a union of delicious ingredients. Proscuitto, lemon, parsley, parmesan, baguette, and egg. What's not to like? Especially since they are darn simple to make. 

Just add fruit salad, yogurt, and a strong cup of tea to help you forget the hours you were awake with the baby the night before.

 

[recipe here]

apple, raisin and oat scones

All agreed these scones are fantastic. They're not too sweet, or heavy either. 

Bonus: rustic, organic-shaped scones means you don't have to clean muffin tins 

apple, raisin and oat scones
adapted from Martha Stewart

1 2/3 C all-purpose flour (I subbed out 2/3 C for whole wheat), plus more for rolling
1 1/3 C rolled oats
1/4 C plus 2 Tbs brown sugar
3/4 teas cinnamon
1/2 teas nutmeg
2 teas baking powder
3/4 teas baking soda
1/2 teas salt
3/4 C (1 1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2 C diced apple (2 apples), cut into generous 1/4" cubes
1/2 C raisins
1 C cold buttermilk, plus more for brushing
1/2 teas pure vanilla extract
sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper; set aside.

Whisk together flour, oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Cut in cold butter (I use my fingers) until a coarse meal forms. Add apples, raisins, buttermilk, and vanilla. Stir until dough just comes together.

Turn out dough onto floured surface and pat into a 6-by-8-inch rectangle. Cut into twelve squares with a floured knife and place a couple of inches apart on prepared baking sheets. At this point, you could brush the tops with buttermilk, then sprinkle with additional oats and sugar. I lazily skipped the buttermilk and oats and went straight for sugar, no harm done. Bake until golden (20-22 mins), rotating sheets halfway through baking time. Let cool on sheets for 10-15 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature. (I'm freezing them for later breakfasts, hoping the apples retain an appetizing consistency.)

classic chocolate cookies

To be honest, I shied away from making these cookies at first because they seemed almost boring. I thought, 'Just plain chocolate cookies? Where's the mint? Where are the chunks of quality dark chocolate?'

But I guess some cookies don't require sprinkles and chips to shine, 'cause these. are. delicious.

Besides rich chocolate flavour, these cookies have got other things going for them: they're thin, yet chewy, and they have a slightly crispy sugared outside with a slightly gooey center.

I've read somewhere that adding a bit of coffee to chocolate cake enhances the flavour of the cocoa so I figured the same would be true of cookies that are flavoured with cocoa. A bit of instant coffee was the only thing extra I added to the dough and I'd like to think it was partly responsible for kicking the chocolate up a notch.

'grammy's chocolate cookies'
Martha Stewart's Holiday Cookies (2001) special mag
makes 2-3 dozen

2 C plus 2 Tbs all-purpose flour
3/4 C dutch-process cocoa powder
1 teas baking soda
1/2 teas salt
1 1/4 C (2 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 C granulated sugar, plus more for dipping (or use coarser sanding sugar instead)
2 large eggs
2 teas pure vanilla extract
1 teas instant coffee granules
1 teas warm water

Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In small bowl, combine instant coffee and warm water. Stir to dissolve, then set aside.

In large bowl, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, vanilla, and coffee. Gradually add dry ingredients and combine well. Form dough into flattened disk, wrap with plastic wrap and chill until firm (1 hour).

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheet(s) with parchment paper. Shape dough into balls, a little larger than 1", and roll in sanding sugar. Place a couple inches apart on baking sheet and bake until set, 10-12 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer cookies to a wire rack.

tabbouleh with chicken

It's been a long time since I posted a recipe, and that's mostly because we've been content to make our standby recipes over and over (and over) again. But last weekend I tried a recipe from my new Christmas cookbook, Barefoot Contessa's Family Style. 

Wow. Is this tabbouleh salad ever good. The chicken makes it a heartier than your average tabbouleh, and since the lemon dressing is just used for soaking the bulgar, the veggies don't get soggy. Delicious, I tell you. 

It's definitely more of a summer salad, but as long as you find a couple bunches of decent looking fresh herbs, a greenhouse cucumber, and those magic grape tomatoes, you're set for a summer preview. I served mine with pita bread and homemade hummus.  

tabbouleh with chicken
Ina Garten
serves 6-8

1 1/2 C boiling water
1 C bulgur wheat
1/4 C freshly squeezed lemon juice (approx. 2 lemons)
olive oil
kosher salt
1 whole (2 split) chicken breast, bone in, skin on
freshly ground black pepper
1 C minced scallions (1 bunch) -- I just used green parts, but if you want it 'onionier', use white parts too
1 C chopped fresh mint leaves
1 C chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 hothouse cucumber, unpeeled, halved lengthwise, seeded, and medium-diced
2 C (1 pint) halved cherry tomatoes

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium heat-proof bowl, pour boiling water over the bulgur wheat. Add lemon juice, 1/4 C olive oil and 1 teas salt. Stir. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow to stand at room temp for about an hour.

Place chicken breast on baking sheet and rub with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast until cooked, 35-40 mins. Set aside until cool enough to handle.

Remove chicken from the bones and dice into bite-size pieces. Add diced chicken to bulgur, along with the scallions, mint, parsley, cucumber and tomatoes. Stir and season with more salt and pepper, if needed. Either serve immediately or cover and refrigerate.

our oatmeal

We eat a fair amount of oatmeal around here. Not boring, plain oatmeal, but the kind with lots of our so-called 'buried treasure' in it. (The kid eats an entire bowl trying to get all the dried fruit and berries.)

We keep a large jar in the cupboard with the base mix, to which we add frozen berries (hence my freezing 40 pounds of blueberries this summer!) and water when we're half-awake. Trouble is, there's an extreme lack of precision when we mix up the base and make up the oatmeal and honestly, I've been sitting on these pictures for a couple of months already because I can't be bothered to measure all the stuff.

I'm hoping that if you're interested, you'll start experimenting with your own batch, using what you like from ours. An adventure in the kitchen!

To make the base, we fill up almost 1/2 the jar with the additions -- a couple of wooden spoons full of brown sugar, a couple pinches of salt, 2-3 handfuls of dried fruit (Raisins and dried cranberries almost always. Golden raisins, currents, or cherries sometimes), several spoonfuls of wheat bran, a few spoonfuls of flax seed or ground flax, and several shakes of the ground cinnamon.

Then we fill the jar up with quick rolled oats, shake it and roll it around until it's all mixed together, and put away in the airtight jar until needed.

In the morning, we put 1/2 cup per big person, 1/4 cup per little person into a frying pan (as opposed to a saucepan -- more surface area works better, I find), add a couple handfuls of frozen berries, and add water from the tap.

How much water you ask? "More water than last time, but less than that time that it was too watery." That's about how it goes -- I kind of shake the pan as I'm adding the water and I only add the water until everything is nicely covered. If there's too much, the oatmeal gets gooey and bland, if not enough, it's kind of gluey and thick. What's the difference between gooey and gluey, you ask? Try it and you'll see!

What a lot of words and explanation for a little pan of oatmeal, eh?! But wait, there's more! I have to tell you what happens next.

Bring it up to a simmer and let it bubble for a few (maybe five?) minutes, until it's the consistency you want and the berries have had a chance to stew and bubble their juices into the pan. To serve, we mix in a couple big spoonfuls of flavoured yogurt and voila -- a delicious, quick and warm breakfast.

And since oatmeal does not 'stick to my ribs' as it's apparently supposed to, I recommend eating it with a piece of toast n' jam or a hard-boiled egg.

italian fries

Well summer finally arrived to the west coast and we're enjoying every minute of it -- beach picnics, a little road trip, frozen yogurt star pops (three cheers for my new star pops!), a ton of fresh fruit... the usual summer drill.

There's been some knitting (more on that soon), but no sewing, because my machine rolled over and died. I'll get around to having it fixed/buying a new one one of these days. But first, there's canning to do, and sand to play in... and I must convince you to make these fries.

I don't think it will take much convincing because these fries are like nachos -- cheesy, herby, crispy carbs -- but with potatoes. 'Nuff said.

You'll find them in LSQ's Mad Hungry cookbook, or on the MSL website.

lemon wine mousse with raspberries

Sweetly tart is a tasty contradiction.

lemon wine mousse with raspberries

Gourmet Magazine

2 eggs

1/2 C sugar

1/2 C dry white wine

3 Tbs fresh lemon juice

2 teas fresh lemon zest, finely grated

1/2 C heavy whipping cream, chilled

1 1/2 C fresh raspberries

To make the custard, beat eggs in a bowl with an electric mixer at high speed to blend. Slowly add sugar, beating at moderately high speed, then beat for a few more minutes. Add wine and lemon juice and beat until just combined.

Transfer mixture to a heavy saucepan and cook over low-medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the custard is thick enough to coat back of spoon (about 5 minutes -- do not let boil.) Stir in zest and transfer to a bowl. Cover and chill until cold, about 30 minutes. (The surface can be covered with wax paper and the custard chilled for up to one day.)

Beat cream in chilled bowl until stiff peaks form. Fold whipped cream into lemony mixture. Layer mousse and berries into 4 serving glasses and chill until cold, about 1 hour.