The second part of our birthday extravaganza was an antipasti platter, in honour of Jeff’s Italian heritage (and so I could have a wee little break between breakfast and the big supper, which will follow in a later entry). It was meant to be a nice, casual sort of thing, so I got out a nice big platter and added some cherry tomatoes, assorted olives, and bocconcini mozzarella. The two big parts of the tray were the meats and the roasted peppers. You can get good sliced deli meats in a lot of places these days, and you can also get nice variety packs at your local supermarket. I got a nice Italian selection that included Genoa salami, prosciutto, and coppa. The peppers I roasted myself.

Ingredients

4 peppers (I used red and orange. The green ones get bitter when roasted)

olive oil to coat

Directions

1.     Preheat your broiler and move the oven racks so it’s fairly close to the element.

2.     Take your peppers and give them a good coating of olive oil, then lay them on a tray and put them in the oven.

3.     There’s no set time for this, so you should just keep an eye on the peppers. Let them go until the side is starting to look charred, then flip.

4.     After the peppers are nice and black, remove them and put them in a plastic bag or container.

5.     Once the peppers have cooled, pull out the core and remove the skins, which should just peel right off.

You can serve them however you like, I just cut them into ribbons so they’d be easier to eat.

So I decided to roll out all the stops this year for my boyfriend’s birthday. We decided to take the day and just laze around the apartment, wear our jammies, and play video games. The whole affair actually started the day before, when I made the birthday cake. I’m going to post the recipes and pictures for the birthday cake, antipasto platter, and the stuffed chicken we had for supper. Here we go!

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Let me preface the birthday cake recipe by saying I have never attempted this before. I did work in a cake shop for a while, but they only let me watch and take care of the register – I never got to so much as stick on a fondant flower! I’m not the biggest fan of cake mixes (I think they taste like the stuffing out of a teddy bear), so I decided to make my own. I consulted Jeff on what sort of cake he wanted, and he said a white cake with some orange flavour, as well as cream cheese icing. After quite a bit of research, I worked out a cake recipe, and with one call to my mother, I got her great icing recipe. Fair warning that this will take quite a bit of time and elbow grease, but it’s gotten rave reviews, so I consider the effort worth it.


Cake Ingredients (Divide them into three parts, one for each layer)

1 cup whole milk
3 tbsps unsalted butter
3 tsps vanilla extract
3 tsps orange extract
3 tbsps orange zest
4 cups cake flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
9 large eggs
4 cups sugar


Cake Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and butter a 12 inch wide, 2 inches high cake pan. Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit the pan and flour it.
2. Bring 1/3 cup milk and 1 tbsp butter to a simmer, then remove from heat. Add vanilla and orange extracts once cooled.
3. Sift together 1/3 of a cup of flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/3 tsp salt and orange zest.
4. Beat 3 eggs in a large bowl until frothy (about one minute). Slowly add 1 1/3 cup sugar while continuing to beat the eggs and sugar until the mixture forms a heavy ribbon when you lift out your beaters (about four minutes).
5. Add the cooled milk mixture to the egg and sugar mixture and slowly fold together with a whisk.
6. Add the dry ingredients in stages, whisking gently.
7. Pour into your prepared pan and bake until a toothpick stuck in the center comes out clean (about 20 minutes for me).
8. Run a butter knife around the outside of the pan and flip out the cake onto a cooling rack. Remember to remove the parchment paper!

Repeat twice more and you have your layers! To make sure everything stayed nice and moist, I brushed the layers with orange juice, a step I recommend.


Cream Cheese Icing Ingredients

4 8-ounce packs of cream cheese
1 cup butter
4 cups confectioners sugar
2 tsps vanilla extract
2 tbsps orange juice
1 large orange, zested


Cream Cheese Icing Directions

1. Make sure the cream cheese and butter are room temperature (I just left them out on the counter for a few hours).
2. Cream the cream cheese and butter together.
3. Add the sugar, vanilla and orange.


Now you’re ready to ice your cake. I used an icing spatula. The thing to remember is to make sure your levels are even, which isn’t hard to do. Don’t press too hard or you can damage the cake. I also decorated the cake with coconut on the sides and mandarin oranges on top. To apply the coconut to the sides of the cake, just spread some on your hand and apply a very slight amount of pressure, turning the cake tray as you work your way around. For the mandarins, just get a few tins from the store (it took me just about three of the small tins from Loblaws, but it may take you less if you can refrain from eating them while you work). I started on the outside and worked my way in. Et voila, you have the tastiest birthday cake you ever did see!

Almond cookies are one of my all-time favorites. I used to crank them out by the dozen for bake sales and such, but got away from making them for a while since I didn’t have any decent baking equipment. Now that I’m all settled in and fully armed, I’ve started baking again. The original recipe that I found for these claimed that they made four dozen cookies. I personally like them large and crispy, so I usually get about half that. You can make them as big as you like, which is why I’m not going to say anything about how many this recipe should make. Go nuts! (See what I did there, it was an almond pun…my comedy is wasted on you people…)

Ingrediants

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup ground almonds

2 teaspoons almond extract

blanched almonds

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Beat in one egg, almond extract, and ground almonds. Gradually mix in the flour until everything is well blended.
3. Garnish each cookie with a blanched almond, then beat the remaining egg with a bit of water. Brush on the cookies.
4. Bake 5 to 8 minutes in the preheated oven, or until cookies are a nice golden brown. 

I. Love. Risotto. This classic Italian dish is comfort food at its the absolute finest. I first made it a few years for a Valentine’s Day dinner and it’s since entered regular rotation as a special meal when the weather starts to get just a bit chillier outside. It’s the favorite dish that I make for several people, and so I thought I’d share the recipe with everybody. It’s not nearly as hard to make as everybody seems to think. Contrary to popular opinion, you can actually step away from the stove and leave it for a few moments. I would recommend using a high-sided sauté pan, which gives good surface area, but keeps everything in the pan. If you don’t have one, you can actually use a wok (I’ve done it, it works) or anything else that’s got a wide base and high sides (like a big pot).

Ingredients

1 cup Arborio rice

4 cups chicken stock

1 cup white wine

1 sausage (anything not too sweet)

1 1/2 cups sliced fresh mushrooms (I like cremini)

1/2 cup peas

1 clove garlic, crushed

2 tsp Italian seasoning

1 tbsp butter

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1.     Fry up your sausage and mushrooms and put them aside for later.

2.     In a frying pan, heat a little bit of olive oil on a medium-low  heat and add the rice, Italian seasoning, and garlic. Sautee until the rice becomes just slightly translucent, about three minutes.

3.     Bring your stock to a simmer in a separate pot.

4.     Add the cup of wine and enough stock to just cover the rice. You can add your meat, mushrooms, and peas here.

5.     Add more stock as the liquid in the pan become mostly absorbed by the rice. Stir regularly.

6.     Check the rice periodically and when it’s just about done, add the cheese and butter and stir into the rice. When the liquid is absorbed, but it’s still creamy, and the rice is al dente, it’s finished!

Variations on a Theme: You can do a lot of things with risotto. Use vegetable stock instead of chicken if you’re cooking for vegetarians. You can use any cheese you like, really, provided its not too salty and it melts well. Red wine can also be used instead of white, and the matter of veggies is really up to you. I’ve used asparagus, squash, shallots, whatever I feel like, really.

Pizza and I have a contentious relationship. Sometimes I really love it and other times I can’t stand it. In general, I’m not a fan of most pizza parlour pizzas, as I find them terribly greasy and pretty much all the same. I love my mother’s pizza though, and my friend Marc and I have cranked out a few good ones over the years, so I guess I can say I like homemade pizza. Mom makes her own dough, but I find the whole process pretty annoying. I can do it, but I usually choose not to. Grocery stores (and even a few pizza places) sell premade dough, which does me just fine. Dough is essentially a blank canvas, so you can slather it with whatever toppings you like, from a traditional pizza margherita to one with smoked salmon, capers, and goat cheese. I got the idea for this pizza from watching Chuck’s Day Off on the Food Network, and in typical MacKenzie fashion, I declined to use his recipe and worked out my own.

Ingredients

2 fennel bulbs

2 red onions

2 sundried tomato sausages

1 tbsp Italian seasoning

½ tbsp. garlic

salt and pepper to taste

goat cheese (I used a quebecois Caprino cheese)

Directions

1.     Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.

2.     Dice your fennel, making sure to remove the cores, and dice the red onions.

3.     Remove the sausage meat from the casing and add to a frying pan with a bit of oil. Fry the meat until it’s cooked through but not too dark, as it will cook further in the oven. When finished, drain the meat and put aside.

4.     To the same pan, add olive oil and a bit of butter, and sautee the vegetables until golden, adding the garlic, salt, and pepper a little while before they’re finished.

5.     Stretch out your dough onto a medium pizza stone (or pan, whatever you’ve got, really) and brush on some olive oil. Spread your vegetables, then sprinkle the meat over top. Leave a half inch or so border around the edge. Finish with goat cheese. I like it quite a bit, but I know it’s too pungent for some people, which is why I didn’t give an amount. I covered it pretty well, but you can add as much as you like.

6.     Bake for 18 minutes or until crust is golden. You can give the crust a nice shine by taking a pad of butter and rubbing it around the edge while still warm. Let it cool, slice, and serve!

Leftover time! If you’re like me, after Thanksgiving you always have lots of leftovers. The turkey seems to go first, with veggies and stuffing left. And of course cranberry sauce. This recipe is something that my mother came up with quite a few years ago and I sort of built upon. You can do it just as well with new stuffing, but I always seem to be left with oodles of stuffing. Mix it with a bit of cranberry sauce (the stuff with actual cranberries works better than the jelly, I find) and you have a wonderful crust for a chicken breast. It’s also a recipe that can be upsized really easily, I just usually happen to be cooking for two.

Ingrediants

2 cups stuffing

1/4 cup cranberry sauce

1 tbsp hoisin sauce

2 chicken breast

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1.     Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Lay your chicken on a baking sheet and season with salt and pepper.

2.     Combine cranberry sauce, hoisin, and stuffing until it forms a moist paste.

3.     Cover the chicken with the stuffing mixture.

4.     Bake for 25-30 mins or until a meat thermometer reads about 170 degrees.

I served it with celeriac, peas, and carrots. It got great reviews from the peanut gallery!

Just a note about the food pictures on here. Our camera is on the fritz, so pictures for the dishes I'm preparing will be few and far between for a little while. Sorry!

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I love tilapia. I’m a fish fan in general, but this particular creature has special memories for me. The first time I had it, I was attending a heritage strategy conference in Saint Peter’s, Nova Scotia. We were staying at the Bras d’Or Lakes Inn and were snowed in, but they had opened the restaurant for the attendees, so I wasn’t too bothered. While I was sitting there munching on tilapia with a delicious Cajun seasoning, I could see the other guests, the ones not attending the conference, braving the elements to get pizza and such. I think it made the fish taste better, haha.

I haven’t been eating much fish lately, since I find it hard to get decent product in Ontario. There is, however, a nice little fish market (and Korean restaurant) at the Covent Garden Market. I picked up some fresh tilapia and whipped up something tasty.

Ingredients

4 tilapia fillets (about 6 ounces each)

4 tbsp room temperature butter

1 small lemon

1 tbsp cilantro (fresh is always preferable)

3/4 tsp salt

1 tsp ground black pepper

1/4 cup chopped green onions

Directions

1.     Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Zest lemon and squeeze yourself out one tablespoon of juice.

2.     Combine the butter, lemon juice and zest, salt, pepper, cilantro, and green onions.

3.     Spread a little olive oil or butter on a baking dish to prevent the fish from sticking, then lay it out, folding in any skinny end bits to prevent overcooking.

4.     Bake the fish for about 15 minutes, or until it flakes with a fork.

It goes very well with asparagus. You can also have a bit of rice with it, or whatever side you like, really.

Brussels sprouts seem to have become a rather neglected vegetable in recent years. Forerunners to modern Brussels sprouts were likely cultivated in ancient Rome. Brussels sprouts as we now know them were grown perhaps as early as the 13th century, in what is now Belgium. During the 16th century, they enjoyed a popularity in the southern Netherlands that eventually spread throughout the cooler parts of Northern Europe. The rest, as they say, is history.

I don’t recall ever seeing brussels sprouts on a restaurant menu, and most people seem to drop them in a pot of boiling water and forget about them, leaving you with a mushy, slightly bitter vegetable that has been robbed of all its redeeming qualities. Given that Thanksgiving is coming up, I thought I’d toss up my recipe for ‘sprouts in the event somebody is looking for a nice new side dish for Thanksgiving Dinner.

Ingredients

1 ½ pounds brussels sprouts

1 tbsp garlic

3 strips thick bacon

salt and pepper to taste

a few dashes of balsamic vinegar

Directions

1.     Clean and prep your sprouts. Cut them in half and discard any gnarly looking outer leaves. Drop them into a pot of boiling water with some lemon juice in it (to preserve the color) and boil until just cooked through.

2.     Chop your bacon into little strips (or lardons, as they say in French) and fry until done. I normally like it crispy, but for this dish I still like it to be a bit tender. Up to you, really.

3.     Remove the bacon and drain on paper towel. Keep a bit of the bacon fat in the pan (a tablespoon or so should be sufficient).

4.     Drain the sprouts and add them to the fat. Add the garlic and fry on a medium heat until the sprouts are slightly browned.

5.     Deglaze with balsamic vinegar (to taste) and add the bacon back to the pan so it’s warm. Toss everything together and serve!

It seems like flu season is on us in full force. Everybody in my apartment has already been or is still sick, and it seems to be going through the UWO History Department like wildfire. One thing can make it all better though: booze. Here’s a recipe for a good Hot Toddy, which will either make you feel better, or make you forget you are sick. I think this is what they call a win-win situation.


Ingrediants

1 cup water
1 shot whiskey (I like Jamieson’s or Famous Grouse)
1 tbsp honey
1/2 a lemon, juiced
pinch of nutmeg (or cloves, or both)


Directions

1. Boil water. Add whiskey, honey, and lemon to a mug.
2. Add boiling water to the mug.
3. Garnish with nutmeg.
4. Feel better!

This recipe started off in a completely different direction. A few days ago, I had a craving for risotto. I trotted off down to Covent Garden Market to get a few things for it, like good Parmesan cheese and a few spices that I was running low on. When I got back, I realized that I did not, in fact, have any arborio rice. Well damn. So risotto was out. As I was staring blankly at my larder, trying to figure out what I would make instead, a big bag of polenta looked back at me. I picked it up at the newly reopened Angelo’s a few weeks ago with no real idea what to do with it, but I’d had it at an Italian restaurant in Halifax and was determined to try it myself. It came together surprisingly easily.

Ingrediants

8 and 1/2 cups of water

2 cups of polenta

½ cup of parmesan cheese

¼ cup of butter

Directions

1.     Bring water to a boil.

2.     Slowly pour in the polenta, while continuing to stir the water. This prevents clumps.

3.     Reduce heat to low and continue stirring occasionally for about a half an hour. When almost finished, add butter and cheese. Stir until combined.

4.     Serve with some sautéed vegetables and tomato sauce on top.

Variations on a Theme

Now, this is where it got interesting. I forget where I saw this, but somewhere on the Food Network, I saw somebody pour polenta onto a sheet tray lined with wax paper. I did this, and then covered the tray with plastic wrap. The next day, I had a lovely wobbly polenta cake to work with. Trim the raggedy edges, then slice the cake into smaller portions. Fry the cakes until brown in a frying pan with a bit of butter and olive oil, and you have tasty, crispy polenta cakes. I sautéed some mushrooms, asparagus, and cherry tomatoes with some garlic and served them on top of the polenta cakes. Jeff says it’s the best thing I’ve ever made. You could really top the cakes with whatever you like, from veggies to meat to fried eggs!

Hi everybody! I’ve finally decided to take the big plunge and go from tormenting people with my food-oriented Facebook status updates to starting my own food blog. Food is one of the great passions of my life, and it’s going to be great fun for me to share my recipes and thoughts on various things with my friends out there on teh interwebs. I’m hoping I can keep a decent pace with updates, perhaps one or two a week at least. Aside from recipes, I’m also going to be blogging my thoughts on other things, like new kitchen gadgets, cookbooks, television shows, and restaurants that I’ve tried. I’m also open to suggestions for topics! Where possible, I’ll also be trying to inject a bit of history into my posts, since history is one of my other passions.

I’d like to thank my friends who have been urging me for a long time now to do something like this. Even if it falls flat, I’ll know at least I tried! Also, a big thanks goes out to my better half, Jeff, who will be taking pictures of the things I cook (and has apparently been doing so for quite some time now, without my knowledge).

On to the first recipe!

Madeleines

I first had these wonderful little seashell shaped cookies several years ago at Starbucks. Even the mass-produced versions are wonderful little buttery bites, perfect with a good strong coffee or espresso. I’m not generally a fan of Starbucks, but they were enough to keep me coming back for a while. But, horror of horrors, after a few months I was informed by a barista that they were going to stop serving them. Despite a temporary reprieve, they were discontinued shortly thereafter, and I was left madeleine-less! Quel domage! I was able to find them while on a trip to Toronto, but they were dipped in chocolate, which I regard as an affront to an already superb treat.

Unwilling to accept the loss of one of my favorite sweets, I was able to find a madeleine pan at Jill’s Table in London, Ontario. I don’t normally go in for things that require special pans, since it really can’t be used for anything else, but they’re worth the effort, and the pan was quite reasonably priced. I usually make madeleines once every week or two now, usually for a weekend breakfast. They come together in a few minutes and don’t take long to bake, which is good because I find they are at their best right out of the oven.

But where do these curious little cookies come from? A madeleine is a traditional cookie from Commercy and Liverdun, two communes of the Lorraine region in northeastern France. Madeleines are usually made with a batter resembling a genoise cake, which gives them a wonderful spongy texture. They get their name from Madeleine Paulmier, a French pastry chef whose life is the subject of some historical discussion.

Ingredients

2 eggs

3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup white sugar

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup butter

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease the mold with butter and flour or your cooking spray of choice, then set aside.
2. Melt butter and let cool to room temperature.
3. In a small mixing bowl, beat eggs, vanilla and salt at high until light. You can do this step with a mixer, but if you don’t have one, a whisk or a fork works too.
4. Beating constantly, gradually add sugar; and continue beating until mixture is thick and pale and ribbons form in bowl.
5. Sift flour into egg mixture a third at a time, gently folding after each addition.
6. Pour melted butter around edge of batter. Quickly but gently fold butter into batter. Spoon batter into molds; it will mound slightly above tops.
7. Bake 13 to 15 minutes, or until cakes are golden and the tops spring back when gently pressed with your fingertip.
8. Use the tip of a butter knife to loosen the madeleines from the mold; invert onto a cooling rack.

Variations on a theme: This is a recipe that is surprisingly open to editing, despite the fact consensus holds baking leaves no room for improvisation. You can make chocolate madeleines by increasing the amount of sugar to 1/2 cup and substituting 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder for 2 tablespoons of the flour, which should then be sifted into the batter with the flour. You can also add a tablespoon of grated citrus zest, which should be added just before the butter. I’ve even reduced the amount of sugar and added a tablespoon or so of blueberry syrup, which gives a wonderful light flavor, but will make them turn out a bit darker.