Today's Dinner: Failure Alert!

Lucy Waverman is a bit of a contradictory enigma to me. She's an Ontario chef who's both the food editor for the LCBO's Food and Drink magazine, from which we get a lot of good recipes, as well as several cook books at this point. Unfortunately at this point, none of her cook books have been "good enough" to own or even remotely related to our culinary point of view. On the other hand, her homemade macaroni and cheese recipe is one of our favourites. Her newest cookbook, A Year in Lucy's kitchen, is based on a great idea and has solid formatting, but doesn't present recipes that are truly accessible for all chefs. We still managed to find a few recipes that we liked though, and kept in mind how successful her mac and cheese recipe turned out to be.

Unfortunately, things didn't go nearly as well with the first attempt tonight. Mushrooms in Spicy Sauce was touted to be a tasty starter or vegetarian main course, so that's how we tried it.

Mushrooms in Spicy Sauce

4 anchovy fillets (not sure how its vegetarian with anchovy in it...)

2 tsp garlic

1 tsp smoked paprika

1 cup parsley, packed

1/3 cup olive oil

2 tbsp water

1 lb king oyster or mixed mushrooms

Salt and Ground Pepper

4 slices Portuguese cornbread or Sourdough loaf, toasted

Salad

6 cups packed baby arugula or mesclun mix

1 tsp balsamic vinegar

1 tbsp olive oil

Maldon Salt

1. Place anchovies, garlic, paprika, parsley and 1/4 cup oil in a food process and pulse to combine. Add water if needed and process until mixture resembles pesto. Set aside.

2. Heat a large skillet over high heat, adding remaining oil. Add mushrooms and saute for 3-5 minutes or until mushrooms are golden and limp.

3. Reduce heat to medium-low and stir in pesto mixture. Cook together until hot. Remove from heat and season with salt and pepper.

4. Place toast slices on individual serving plates. Brush with a little sauce from skillet. Heap mushroom mixture on top.

5. Toss arugula with vinegar and oil in a bowl. Surround toasts with salad. Sprinkle with Maldon salt.

Reflections: Well, our first issue was that I've never heard of KING oyster mushrooms before, never mind seen them anywhere for purchase. I picked this recipe out when we found another nice batch of wild chanterelles, and used them with a mix of crimini and oyster mushrooms. I threw some enoki mushrooms in the salad for balance as well. Not sure what happened with my pesto mixture, but something was DEFINITELY wrong. I could have added too much parsley since I just free handed it, or it could have been something else. There definitely wasn't any "red sauce" to brush the toast with, that's for sure. Things were seriously overpowered by the anchovies, which aren't exactly my favourite ingredient to start with. My wife had some "gourmet anchovies" in the fridge so I used those; maybe I should have cut down on the amount. Otherwise I'm really not sure what went wrong. When I try this recipe again, it'll be withOUT the anchovies...

Experimentation: Magical Breakfast Cream

It's probably an open secret, but sadly the Apothecary's Gardner enjoys his food just a little too much sometimes. For that reason, among others, he's usually looking for tasty ways to eat healthier and even lose some weight. One of the more interesting ways that I've come across to do this lately has been a recipe for "Magical Breakfast Cream" from the French Women Don't Get Fat Cookbook. Apparently it's supposed to be a filling and healthy breakfast that will lead to anywhere from 3-10 lost pounds over time. As someone who's also looking for a decent and easy breakfast to make, especially during the school year, I figure I'd try it out!

Magical Breakfast Cream

4-6 tbs yogurt (about 1/2 cup)

1 tsp flax oil

1-2 tbs lemon juice (preferably Meyer)

1 tsp honey (preferably local)

2 tbs finely ground cereal (with no sugar added, like Shredded Wheat)

2 tsp finely ground walnuts (err...pecans in my case)

1. Put yogurt in a bowl and add the flax oil (major omega 3 source and flavourless). Mix well. Add the lemon juice and mix well. Add the honey and mix well. (It's important to add each ingredient separately and mix well to keep the mixture smooth and homogeneous.)

2. Finely grind the cereal and walnuts, if you haven't done the the night before. (Easy to grind enough of each on the weekend and store in the fridge for easy preparation.)

3. Add the cereal and nuts to the yogurt mixture and mix well.

One of the best things about this recipe is that it's immanently customizable. You can play with the nuts, the cereal (as long as there's no sugar added - good luck with that, by the way!) or even the citrus juice. It's easy enough to add fruit or berries to it as well and maintain how healthy it is.

First Day Thoughts: Tried it today with pecans instead of walnuts (my wife is allergic) and Shredded Wheat with Bran cereal. It was tangy and smooth and mostly tasted of the cereal. I only had regular lemon juice to use, but found (for the first time ever) some Meyer lemons today at the market, so I'll probably zest and juice one for tomorrow's version. I'm curious to see what Scottish oatmeal would be like in this recipe too...

BBQ Season!!! Part 1

Well, my BBQ season got started later than most due to a (still) malfunctioning barbecue, but unfortunately these things can't be helped. Hopefully mine is back to full strength quickly, and I can go back to experimenting with open fire and all that smokey goodness like chefs were meant to way way WAY back when! :p The one meal that I DID manage to prepare so far this year was probably my quintessential BBQ meal - cheeseburgers and corn on the cob. I'll explore the concept of the hamburger in the second part of this post, but I wanted to go over my "unique" corn on the cob on the BBQ recipe first.

I tend to get my recipes from a myriad of different places, as I imagine most chefs do. While some of them do come from family recipes, it's actually rare that I take anything from my mother or father's cooking, with this being a notable exception. You can say that the flavour of the grill adds to anything that you can barbecue, but I don't think that's more true with anything than corn on the cob. This is how my father made it as I grew up, and how I've continued to make it since I took over BBQ-ing duties in my teenager years. Just remember NOT TO HUSK THE CORN!!! :p

BBQ Corn on the Cob

Corn on the cob, STILL IN HUSK

Butter

Salt

1. Place all of the corn in the sink, STILL IN HUSK, and cover with cold water. Cobs will probably need to be weighted down. Leave submerged for 20 minutes, allowing the BBQ to warm up while they are soaking.

2. Place corn in BBQ (in the coals or on the grill as per the BBQ) STILL IN HUSK. Leave for 5 minutes with lid closed.

3. After 5 minutes, rotate corn by 1/4 turn. Close lid for another 5 min. Repeat until the entire corn has been face down, 20 minutes total.

4. Remove from the BBQ and wrap in newspaper. Tuck away in a warm place (I often use the oven or the microwave depending on what else is being used) until the rest of the meal is ready.

5. Just before serving open the newspaper (usually best done back outside) and husk corn. Some kernels may occasionally darken depending on the thickness of the husk, but most of the corn should be bright and delicious! Serve with butter and salt.

A Successful Failure

A Tale of Two Mushrooms

Say what you want about funghi, but most of my friends either love or hate mushrooms. I'm definitely in the former category, if you couldn't tell from earlier blog posts. In the spring I'd been using this Morel Cream sauce quite a bit from the Crampton's Market blog, but unfortunately Morel's have a very short season. They're a very mushroomy mushroom that grows wild just north of here, but can only be harvested in the early spring. Having just gotten a rather nice supply of early season chanterelles though, I wanted to adapt the recipe. Unfortunately, when I started to cook, I realized I had to substitute a rather key ingredient. I'll go into detail below, but what I ended up with was a rather tasty meal, just not at all what I'd planned on!

Original Recipe

15-20 fresh morels, sliced/chopped appropriately

1 large shallot, chopped fine

1 clove garlic, chopped fine or minced

1 tbs butter

2 tbs olive oil

3/4 cup chicken stock

1 cup heavy cream

salt and pepper

1. Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat.

2. Add shallots and then garlic, stirring until softened but not brown.

3. Add butter and stir until melted, then add morels. Stir until mushrooms start to brown, about 4 min.

4. Add chicken stock and cook simmering for 2-3 minutes.

5. Add cream and cook on low until reduced and thickened. (This may take time... I've added butter to speed things up as needed, and considered flour and cornstarch too...)

Serve on chicken breasts, toast, steak, etc etc etc...

Screwing it all Up

The original plan was to prepare the same sauce and just substitute the chanterelles for the morels, cook the chicken in the pan before and after the sauce and keep everything else straightforward. Then I started cooking and realized that I didn't have any cream and decided to substitute 1 % milk and extra butter instead. Long story short, I ended up with a very tasty mushroom mixture for my chicken breasts, but it wasn't really a sauce, and it definitely WASN'T creamy! :p Lesson to self - cream is important!

7 Dozen Cupcakes: Part 3

The third of the three types of cupcakes were Orange Cupcakes, that were originally called for a Vanilla Cream icing. (I'll include the original icing recipe but after trying it on the test batch, we decided it was just too sweet/unbalanced and replaced it with a standard butter cream icing instead.) I've always been a sucker for orange cakes and cupcakes, but in the face of the deep chocolate brownie and cheesecake cupcakes, these were the last of the three kinds to go at school!

Cupcakes

2 eggs

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups cake and pastry flour, sifted BEFORE measured

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp sea salt

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup orange juice

1 tbsp orange zest

Icing

1/2 cup light cream cheese (about half a package)

2 tbsp butter, softened

2 tsp honey

3/4 tsp vanilla extract

Pinch of sea salt

2 cups icing sugar, sifted BEFORE measured

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.

2. Line 12 muffin cups with paper or silicon liners. Place eggs in a small bowl and cover with hot tap water, setting aside.

3. Using a stand mixer (or your closest equivalent), beat butter with sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time, then add vanilla.

4. In a large bowl mix sifted flour (MUST be cake/pastry) with baking power and salt, then mix thoroughly - I used a whisk. Then sift or run through a sieve again.

5. Combine milk with orange juice - preferably in the same measuring cup.

6. Stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture, then the milk mixture as well. Stir in zest. Divide evenly between the cups.

7. Bake in oven for 18-20 min or until a cake tester (that's a tooth pick to me) comes out clean. For larger cupcakes I sometimes needed to add 2-3 min, but it's usually about right. Cool on a rack.

***Remember, I switched to a simple butter cream frosting, but here are the instructions for the recipe icing:

8. Beat cream cheese with butter, honey, vanilla, and salt.

9. Gradually add icing sugar until thick enough for spreading.

10. Spread on cooled cupcakes, garnish as desired!

Experimentation: Crimini Salad

We were invited over to visit friends last night, with the instructions to bring both our copy of Settlers of Cataan (always a favourite) and a salad. I wasn't sure what I was going to concoct for the salad - was thinking of anything from edamame, rice, and mustard greens out of the garden to a simple chef salad with homemade dressing - until my wife came home from the library with new cookbooks this week. On the top of the pile was Mireille Guiliano's French Women Don't Get Fat Cookbook, which easily dovetails with the cooking philosophy of this chef. In browsing through it, she found a Crimini Salad recipe that I decided to try. While I did have to make a few changes based on allergies (I'll put the original components in parentheses) the final product was definitely well received and certainly shall be made again!

1 lb crimini mushrooms, wiped clean and sliced a.k.a baby bella mushrooms

2 tbs sherry vinegar

1 tbs lemon juice

4 tbs avocado oil (originally walnut oil - just about any oil should work other than olive)

Sea Salt

Fresh Ground Pepper

2 tbs chopped pecans (originally walnuts)

2 tbs finely chopped parsley

2 tbs chives (yay for herb scissors!)

1/4 cup Parmesan

1. Place the sliced mushrooms in a large bowl.

2. In a small bowl, combine the sherry vinegar, lemon juice and oil, using a whisk to emulsify. An idea would be to add lemon zest here as well. Season to taste with the salt and pepper and then add to the mushrooms, tossing to fully coat everything.

3. Add in the nuts, parsley, chives, and Parmesan and mix or toss to combine.

7 Dozen Cupcakes: Part 2

The most popular and fastest devoured of all the cupcakes that I made were the Deep Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes. Unfortunately they were also the ones that were the "hardest" to cook. I'll make a note when I get to that part of the recipe, but keep in mind that you're basically cooking mini brownies, with all the tempestuousness that goes into cooking brownies to the perfect moistness at the best of times! As always, these recipes are taken from the Spring 2010 issue of Food & Drink magazine, compliments of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario.

Cupcakes:

4 oz/120 g unsweetened chocolate, broken up (I like Lindt Ecuadorian chocolate bars here)

2/3 cup butter

1 1/2 cups white sugar

4 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract (yay homemade!)

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, chopped

1 cup pecans

Icing:

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, chopped

1/2 cup whipping cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Line 18 muffin cups with paper or silicone cups. Yes, 18! ;)

2. Set a pot filled with 1-2 inches of water on the stove and bring to a boil. Place a "tight fitting" glass or ceramic bowl over top and melt the chocolate and butter together. (Do NOT NOT NOT getting any water in the chocolate or it will scorch!). Still until smooth and remove from heat. One off the heat, stir in the sugar, eggs one at a time, and then the vanilla. Set aside.

3. Using a whisk, mix flour with the baking powder and salt. Stir this dry mix into the chocolate mixture and make sure they are completely incorporated together. Stir in the chocolate chips and the pecans.

4. Divide evenly into cups. According to the recipe, cook 16-18 minutes or just until cupcake center is raised and feels firm to the touch. I don't have an 18 muffin pan, so I've always had to use two 12s together, which drastically changes the cooking time. I've added anywhere from 5-17 extra minutes with different batches, checking them every 3-5 minutes and adjusting from there. Mine has always been at least a little dry still, so I'm still perfecting the cooking time!

5. Let cool on wire racks.

6. Using the bowl in the boiling pot technique again, melt the chocolate chips with the whipping cream while stirring to combine. When almost smooth, remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla. let cool to room temperature.

7. Ice the cupcakes someplace where there can be drips and general gooeyness. Place garnish (I've used both sprinkles and halved pecans) on top. Icing sets in about an hour at room temperature.

Enjoy...while they last!