Garden Woes

The deer have been very busy destroying our garden this year (and sending Steve into spasms), but we've still managed to harvest some produce.

This is what we've done with it so far.

Zucchini
bottled zucchini pineapple
Cook's Illustrated pasta with zucchini, sun-dried tomatoes, and pine nuts
Amy's aunt's oven sandwich with meat, cheese, and sauteed vegetable filling
chakchouka
garden harvest cake

Broccoli
froze florets
broccoli canneloni
steamed broccoli
pasta with broccoli and pesto

Kale
froze strips
kale pie (several times)
kale salad
kale pesto

Cucumbers
bottled mustard pickles (had to supplement with additional cucumbers from the store)

I'm about to harvest cauliflower, which will probably be made into cauliflower cheese (lots of pepper is the key) and cauliflower pasta (we use penne instead of linguine).

The Best Use of Cucumbers You've Never Heard Of

Our cucumber plants are producing like crazy and we don't really need to preserve many pickles this year, because we made so many last year.  This is why I'm so pleased to have discovered Cucumber Paletas.  They're like a spicy, sweet popsicle.  We gobbled them down in the sticky heat today and Steve, The Bairn, and I all love them equally. I had to wrestle The Bairn out of the freezer after they were all eaten, because he was desperately looking for more and licking out the empty popsicle molds.

We're going to be happy when we're not using the cell phone for pictures anymore.

Cucumber Paletas

• 3 C chopped, peeled, seeded cucumbers
• 1/2 C sugar
• 1/4 C lemon juice (lime could also be used)
• 1/2 a jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced (we used the pickled ones we preserve)

Combine everything in the blender and puree.  Pour the mixture into a popsicle mold and freeze.  Will make about 8 small popsicles or 4-5 large.  

Pancake Day

I never ever celebrated Shrove Tuesday until I married Steve, but in the Commonwealth it's known as Pancake Day and our family does love pancakes.

Tonight we'll be eating Steve's friend Jenika's grandma's wheat berry blender pancakes.  They are my favorite pancake these days.  Steve makes all the pancakes in our house, because I can't resist the urge to give them a little pat/whack with the spatula when I flip them and apparently that practice ruins them.

Jenika's Grandma's Blender Pancakes

3/4 cups whole kernel wheat (wheat berries; nothing else works)
1 cup milk
1 t salt
1 t baking soda
2 t baking powder
1-2 t sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil

• Place wheat in blender and add milk.  Start on low and work quickly up to high.  Process for exactly 4 minutes.
• Add remaining ingredients to the blender and process for 30 seconds longer.
• The original recipe says "if batter is thin, you may add up to 1/4 cup flour," but Jenika says she's never had to do that and I don't think Steve has either.
• We're told that they taste best if made on an electric griddle set at 350, but we don't have one, so we always just cook them in a skillet.

Notes from Jenika: The only problem I've ever had with these was over-blending the batter. If you over-blend, it loses its texture. These are hearty pancakes. All of the wheat should have been blended up, but you don't want the batter overly runny.

The blended wheat does "settle," so before I pour each batch of pancakes I give it a stir with a rubber spatula (don't re-blend with the blender) so that the ingredients stay evenly distributed.

Peanut Butter Nanaimo Bars

Saturday at the farmers' market, I spied Nanaimo bars and almost gave in to the temptation to buy one even for the outrageous price of $2 each.  Just moments later, Steve purchased a canning book at a yard sale and a single handwritten sheet came fluttering out with a recipe for peanut butter Nanaimo bars.  He made them for Mother's Day and they were everything we hoped they might be.

(Steve said to note that the recipe states that this is the University of British Columbia's peanut butter Nanaimo bar recipe, which means that it's been studied by the Institute for the Study of Nanaimo Bars, seeing as Nanaimo is IN BC.)

Peanut Butter Nanaimo Bars

Base

• 1/2 C | 120 g butter
• 1/4 C | 55 g sugar
• 5 T unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 large egg, beaten
• 1 3/4 C graham cracker crumbs
• 1 C fine coconut
• 1/2 C finely chopped peanuts

Filling

• 6 T | 100 g peanut butter
• 2 T | 30 g butter
• 3 T | 45 g milk
• 2 T vanilla custard powder
• 2 C | 260 g icing sugar

Topping

• 4 1-oz squares semisweet chocolate
• 2 T | 30 g butter

For Base: Mix together butter, sugar and cocoa powder in top of double boiler (or pan that you watch very carefully).  Add egg and cook, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens.  Remove from heat.  Stir in graham cracker crumbs, coconut and nuts.  Press firmly into 9" square pan.

For Filling: Cream peanut butter, butter, milk, custard powder and icing sugar.  Spread over base.

For Topping: Melt chocolate and butter over low heat (or in microwave).  Cool.  When cool, but still runny, spread over filling layer.  

Chill and store in refrigerator.

Pear, Hazelnut and Chocolate Cake

photo from BBC GoodFood

I made myself The Bairn this cake for his birthday. It is SO lovely.  I had to buy pears at the grocery store, because they're out of season and unavailable at the farm shops, which I do not do.  I brought them home and thought, "What am I doing making this cake all out of season?  Why didn't I stick with the Boston creme pie I had planned?" but as soon as I stuck my finger in the batter, I recalled what a delicious and pleasantly surprising treat this cake is.  I tried to convert the recipe into US measurements, but I was coming up with things like 4/5 C butter, so it's really more accurate in grams.  Cooking with scales is easier anyway. Buying one to make this cake alone will be well worth the purchase.


Pear, Hazelnut and Chocolate Cake
original recipe here

• 100 g blanched hazelnuts*
• 140 g self-rising flour
• 175 g butter
• 140 g white or caster sugar
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 5 small, ripe pears
• 50 g dark chocolate, chopped into small chunks/slivers

Preheat the oven to 310 F.  Grease the bottom of a 7 inch round cake pan (a springform pan works really well).  Grind the hazelnuts in a food processor until quite fine.  Add the flour and pulse briefly.  Add the butter and pulse until it forms fine crumbs.  Transfer the mixture to a mixing bowl and add the sugar and eggs (don't overmix).  Peel, core and chop two of the pears.  Lightly stir the pears and chocolate into the batter.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Slice the remaining pears and arrange across the top of the batter, pressing down slightly.  Bake approximately 80 minutes (start checking around 60 minutes), until firm to the touch.  Cool in the pan for 10 minutes and then remove from pan and cool on wire rack.  Best served slightly warm with cream or ice cream.

*To easily blanch hazelnuts, bring a pot of water and 2 T baking soda to a boil.  Add the hazelnuts and cook 3-5 minutes.  Rinse in cold water 1-2 minutes and slip the skins off with a clean dish towel.

If You're Tired of Pumpkin

Pinterest tells me that everything I'm currently eating should include pumpkin.  At first I didn't argue.  I made my pumpkin breads and soups and curries, but Steve is not really a pumpkin-lover, so I stopped with the pumpkin and turned to another delicious fall food favorite--CRANBERRIES.

Steve bought a giant bag of local cranberries with which we made the following:

• cranberry sauce (canned by Steve)
• cranberry bread (made by my parents while babysitting my screaming boy child)
• cranberry and apple crisp (inspired by a crisp Steve made in Scotland; it uses honey and lime zest and it's so delicious that as soon as our friends with the beehives give us our honey supply for the year, we're making another couple of batches)
• Nantucket cranberry pie (recipe from the Pioneer Woman as adapted from Laurie Colwin, author of my favorite food memoirs)

The cranberry pie was a huge hit.  I think it will be my new Thanksgiving pie.  

I actually undercooked this pie.  I ate the piece on that plate and then threw it back in the oven to set it up better and get more of a crunch on the top.  Delicious both ways.  So delicious that we ate it all before I could get a picture of it fully cooked.

Nantucket Cranberry Pie
from Pioneer Woman

Ingredients

• 2 C cranberries, heaping
• 3/4 C pecans, chopped
• 2/3 C sugar
• 1 C flour
• 1 C sugar
• 1 stick (113 g) unsalted butter, melted
• 2 whole eggs, slightly beaten
• 1 t almond extract
• 1/4 t salt
• 1 T sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Generously grease a pie or cake plate.  

Place cranberries in plate, cover with chopped pecans, and pour 2/3 C sugar over cranberries and nuts. 

In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, butter, eggs, almond extract, and salt.  Stir together gently.  Pour batter in ribbons over cranberry mixture. 

Bake 45-50 minutes.  Sprinkle 1 T sugar over the top 5 minutes before end of baking.

My Favorite Dish

This is our new favorite dish.  I make this pad thai all. the. time. And by make, I mean request that Steve make, because the wok makes me nervous.  The dish comes together so quickly and it is by far the best homemade recipe I've ever found for pad thai.  I really shouldn't have made it (read: have had Steve make it) tonight, because we never have leftovers and now there's nothing to send for Steve's lunch tomorrow (which he may not know yet, because I just ate the remnants while he was talking on the phone*). 

We adapted it slightly from this recipe.  Our version would look more like the traditional dish, but we generally use more and larger noodles than called for.

Favo(u)rite Pad Thai  

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons oil
• 1 chicken breast, sliced against the grain
• 5 cloves of crushed garlic
• 1 carrot, diced
• pinch of cayenne
• 2/3 cup tamarind juice (substitute 1/3 C lime juice and 1/3 C water if necessary)
• 160 grams rice noodles (we usually use more like 250)
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp fish sauce
• 2 tsp soy sauce
• 3 tsp brown sugar
• pinch of salt
• 3 tablespoons crushed roasted peanuts
• 2 tsp chopped spring onion
• 1 cup soy bean sprouts

Instructions: Heat oil in a wok and add the chicken. Cook briefly until the meat whitens. Add garlic, carrot pieces, chili powder and stir until fragrant. Add tamarind juice and noodles. Turn the heat to medium and stir fry for a few minutes. Turn the heat down to low and move the noodles to one side of the wok so you have place to fry the eggs. Add the eggs and scramble. Add fish sauce, soy sauce, sugar, salt, peanuts, the sprouts and spring onion and turn the heat up to high. Stir fry until thoroughly mixed. Serve with a piece of lemon or add a teaspoon of sweet chili sauce.

*Steve says we can still be friends even though I ate his pad thai, but he doesn't feel bad about that doughnut he ate without me now.

You and Your Squash, Part 2

Let's pretend these are better pictures, okay? It's hard to photograph anything in our dark, dank tenement.

We are slowly working through our 14 spaghetti squash.  We usually just pop them in the microwave and serve them with our favorite spaghetti sauce, but last week we made mock coconut cream pie with one.  It's a crustless, not particularly sweet pie, but it has a really nice, creamy texture that Steve, rightly, says reminds him of flan (which he pronounces all Canadian).  It makes a particularly nice treat at around 2:00 in the morning when one is up being pregnant and insomniatic and healthier than the pecan tassies which are also great in the wee hours.

Mock Coconut Cream Pie or Scottish Spaghetti Squash Flan

• 2 cups cooked spaghetti squash 
• 1 cup skim milk 
• 4 eggs 
• 1/2 cup evaporated skim milk (or use all evap milk) 
• 1/4 cup all purpose flour 
• 1/4 cup sugar 
• 3 Tablespoons butter  
• 1 /2 teaspoon vanilla 
• 1/2 teaspoon coconut extract 
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder. 

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Spray a 9-inch pie plate with cooking spray. Spread squash over bottom and up sides of plate (it rises to the top while baking).  In a blender, process remaining ingredients until smooth. Pour over squash and bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour, until a knife comes out clean.

Holy Cannelloni!

We had the best dinner last night.  I finally feel well enough to cook again (and to refrain from carrying marshmallows in my pockets and pulling them out and sniffing them in a rather conspicuous, but necessary, manner to block out offending smells on the bus and in the grocery store).  We brought home five heads of broccoli from the allotment on Saturday, so I went trawling through our Leith's vegetarian cookbook and came up with a recipe for broccoli cannelloni.  It's so good.  We're going to have it again next week, and I'm going to share the recipe with you, because I'm so nice and also because I have no money, so you're not getting a Christmas present this year.

Leith's Broccoli Cannelloni (with slight modifications)

8 oz broccoli florets
8 oz mozzarella cheese
salt and pepper
nutmeg (fresh if possible)
1-2 T olive oil
8 lasagne sheets
parmesan cheese

Sauce:
1 14 oz can of chopped tomatoes
1 small carrot, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 garlic clove, chopped
1 bay leaf
juice from 1/2 a lemon
salt and pepper
dash of worcestershire sauce
1 t sugar (caster if possible)
1 t fresh basil (or a bit of dried)

For the sauce:
Combine all ingredients in a saucepan, cover and simmer for 30 minutes.  Blend to a smooth consistency.  Adjust seasoning.

For the canneloni:
Cook broccoli florets in salted water until al dente, about 5 minutes.  Drain and rinse.  Chop into small pieces and toss with mozzarella (we used shredded; if using whole, chop into 1/2 inch cubes).  Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.  Dampen with olive oil.

Cook lasagne noodles 2-3 minutes until al dente.  Divide the broccoli mixture into 8 servings and roll up in the lasagne noodles.  Set seam-side down in a shallow pan and cover with sauce.  Grate parmesan cheese over the sauce.  Cook at 400 degrees for 20-30 minutes until heated through and browned on top.

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