7 Dozen Cupcakes: Part 1

A tradition at the school that I teach in is having different staff members bring snack for everyone on Friday mornings. When I found out that my birthday (shared by another staff member too) was on a Friday, I decided that I was crazy enough to sign up to provide snack for that day. After trying to figure out something that was festive and approachable for a staff our size, I decided to make seven dozen cupcakes. Yes, in retrospect, that IS crazy. But I did three different types in enough multiples to cover everyone. I'm going to post each recipe separately to make this a little more reasonable for typing. All of the recipes were taken from the Spring 2010 issues of Food & Drink magazine, published by the LCBO.

Cheesecake Cupcakes

2 eggs

2.5 oz (1/4 package) lemon social tea biscuits

3 tbsp butter, melted

2 pkgs (250 g each) cream cheese, softened (I use light)

1/2 jam (this will be the flavour of your cheesecake)

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract (yay for homemade!)

1 cup lemon curd (store bought if homemade is unavailable)

fruit/berries for garnish

1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Line muffin cups with paper or silicone cups - this will make an even dozen cupcakes. Place eggs in a small bowl and cover them with warm/hot water and set aside. Tempering them like this will make them much easier to manage later on.

2. Crush and whirl biscuits in a food processor until they've reduced to fine crumbs. Whirl in melted butter (might needs slightly more, but don't go overboard - muffin cups WILL leak easily) until crumbs are clumpy.

3. Using a spoon, divide the crumb mixture into the muffin cups evenly and pack down. This becomes your bottom crust. Wipe out the food processor.

4. Add cream cheese (cut up coarsely), eggs, jam, sugar, and vanilla to the food processor and combine. I've been using raspberry red currant jam so far, but you could use any jam or other fruit preserve you'd like. The original recipe suggests a "double fruit" jam to increase the flavour. I'm seriously considering using my homemade blueberry maple pecan compote in a future batch...

5. Spoon evenly into the muffin cups, making sure to keep the filling separate from the crumb base. When all of the filling has been distributed and muffin cups have been balanced, tap the entire tin on the counter top 2-3 times to level them.

6. Bake 20 minutes, or until set - some will start to have small cracks visible. I've made four batches now and they've always been done in exactly 20 minutes.

7. Remove from oven and cool on a rack. Cover and refrigerate until chilled.

8. When ready to serve, top each with a dollop of lemon curd and your fruit garnish of choice!

Today's Dinner: Homemade Tacos

The earliest dish that I can remember making entirely on my own, after a childhood of baking and general curiosity in the kitchen, was Old El Paso tacos when I was twelve. I mastered that recipe to the point that I'd bring friends home for lunch from high school (which was about 90 seconds out my front door) and make it for them too. Being a "real" cook now, I was happy when Cook's Illustrated magazine provided me with a recipe to do my own tacos from scratch. What follows is my current scratch taco recipe:

2 tsp vegetable oil (your choice but don't waste olive oil here)

1 small-medium onion, chopped finely

3+ garlic cloves, chopped finely or minced

2 tbs chili powder (regular or ancho)

1 tsp cumin

1-2 tsp coriander

1/2 tsp oregano

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp salt (I use sea salt or kosher salt when cooking)

1 lb lean ground beef

1/2 cup tomato sauce (not pasta sauce, actual tomato sauce from the canned tomato aisle)

1/2 chicken broth (see previous blog entry?)

1 tsp brown sugar

2 tsp cider (or other dark) vinegar

Fresh ground black pepper

Small tortilla shells

1. Prep onion and garlic, keeping them separate. If time, combine all the spices in one bowl, and all the liquids in a measuring glass. HINT: Do NOT add the brown sugar to the liquids.

2. Using a large skilled or frying pan, heat the oil until it begins to shimmer.

3. Add the onion and cook until clear and softened, about 4-5 min. If chopped finely, the onion will "disappear" into the final mixture, so this is your chance to hide them in case anyone isn't overly fond of onions. Caramelizing them does not help anything with this recipe.

4. If not already done, combine the chili powder, cumin, coriander, oregano, cayenne, and salt.

5. Add the garlic to the skillet and stir until you can smell it's aroma, about 30 seconds.

6. Add the spice mixture to the skillet and combine until everything is evenly coated and you can smell the spices, about 60 seconds.

7. Add the ground beef, breaking it up with a wooden spoon and working it into the onion/spice mixture. Stir occasionally until beef is no longer pink, about 5-7 minutes.

8. Combine wet ingredients if you haven't already done so. Do NOT add the brown sugar.

9. When the beef has browned, add the brown sugar directly to the skillet and then follow it immediately with the liquids. Stir to combine everything and simmer on medium high heat. The tacos are done when all of the liquid has disappeared and the meat mixture has reduced and thickened. On average, this takes me at least 15-20 minutes, although cooking time can vary widely based on several factors, including your actual quantity of meat.

10. This is a good time to prepare your garnishes, remembering to stir the taco mixture regularly. Garnishes can be rather personal, but I suggest: cheddar cheese, avocado, tomato, salsa, pico de gallo, mushrooms, radish, green onions, lettuce and/or sour cream.

11. If desired, warm tortilla shells as per package directions or simply stack on a microwaveable plate, cover with saran wrap, and nuke for 30-60 seconds.

This should feed 4-6 people.

Leftovers: Warm up your meat mixture and tortillas for more tacos, or use it in my personal favourite, taco salad!

Tonight's Variation: Just to be different, I chopped a Serrano pepper and added it to the onions while they were frying. (Out of deference to the rug rat and his palate, I disposed of the pith and about half of the seeds.) Not sure if I added it too early or if the Serrano just wasn't robust enough to combat the spices, but it added only a minor heat to the mixture and it's flavour wasn't distinguishable except for the odd bite.

Stocking the Freezer

One of the best things that you can make yourself to make your cooking both tastier AND healthier is to prepare your own chicken stock. It's easier to make than any soup, you can control the sodium content (which is a MAJOR concern with anything store bought), and homemade ALWAYS tastes better. We tend to make stock with just about every bird that comes through the kitchen, and dedicate a specific section of the freezer for storage. Even if you forget to take it out of the freezer, about 10 minutes in the microwave will thaw things nicely.

1 Chicken Carcass (with as much skin as survived)

3-4 carrots

3-4 stalks celery

2 onions

3-4 bay leaves

Salt and Pepper

Fresh Thyme (Optional)

1. Combine chicken carcass, vegetables (chopped as finely as possible - see note!), and herbs in a large stock pot and fill with water until the carcass is covered by about an inch of liquid.

2. Bring to a boil.

3. Simmer for 2-3 hours, stirring occasionally. With larger carcasses, 4 hours isn't out of the question.

4. Use a slotted spoon is remove and dispose of all solid contents. (Veggie stock detrius can be composted, but with the carcass involved, chicken stock detrius needs to be thrown out.) Pass the remaining liquid into as many bowls as needed.

5. Cover and refrigerate bowls 1-2 days.

6. Remove bowls and skim fat from surface. Transfer remaining stock into freezer-safe containers and freeze.

THE KEY TO MAKING A TASTY STOCK IS SURFACE AREA! The smaller you can chop your veggies, the more liquid makes contact with them, leeching out the maximum amount of flavour. So the tinier the veggies, the more flavourful the stock!

***If you don't happen to have a leftover chicken carcass handy, just bake 2 lbs of chicken wings (the part of the bird with the most chickeny goodness!) and add them to your pot along with any of the baking juices and "fond" that you can scrape off your pan!

State of the Garden Address 2010

Hi All!

Well, after another long school year summer has begun, and hopefully I can start posting here regularly again. I thought I should start with an overview of how things have been going in my vegetable garden so far this year, since that's what really got this blog started!

Thinks started out well, especially since I got to plant the entire Garden by the end of the May 21st weekend, which, while always the "plan", hasn't actually happened in years and years. The May/June weather hasn't done me any favours, but most of the crops seem to be doing well. As always, I'm having bunny issues, but we'll see what theories and plots we can hatch to drive them off again this year.

Up at the top of the page you'll see a red sunflower shoot, which is one of my experiments this year. There's a few of them along the back edge of the garden against the fence; if they do well this year then I'll probably break down and plant corn next year in the same place. The jungle at the front of the garden is the three tomato plants (lemon plum, bloody butcher, and sun gold), mixed with the apocalypse chives, reseeded red mustard, basil, and dill. I've got green onions along the front of the garden - fresh shoots towards the house and reseeded back towards the apple trees. Otherwise, there's peas, holy moley peppers, green beans, soy beans, bull's blood beets, spinich, more chives, pattypan squash, and mini pumpkins. I've got red and white onions in one planter and regular pickling cukes in another, as well as my tomatillo and a reclaimed lemon drop pepper.

Another experiment is Boston pickling cukes in the garden - they're a heirloom variety I found at an Organic market. One of the three shoots is already gone, and a second is in the process of dying, but the third has bloomed already! :)

Canning: Pickled Beets

Well, canning season seems to have continued into the fall, despite school starting! I still have a second batch of blueberry maple pecan compote to mix up, but after a bonanza at the last day of Crampton's Market, I've got lemons to preserve and I ended up with a large batch of baby beets to pickle! Now, like most of the things I pickle other than the traditional dills, I know that pickled beets are an acquired taste. So acquired, in fact, that I'm not sure that I even like them. But, being that I have a wife who's been salivating over the possibility of pickled beets since we started canning lo those four years ago, it was time to try.

Ultimately, they were really easy - you have to pay attention to a lot of things, including spending twice as much effort trying not to make a mess as normal since beets stain so badly, but it was an easy solo canning adventure. The beets took forever to boil, but once they were tender their skins came off easily after I drained them and refilled the pot with cold water. The brine was easy enough to mix up - the similarities to my dill pickle brine were too obvious to miss. I will say that the one thing I had to do this time for ALL four jars, that I rarely have to do otherwise is clear air bubbles. Most liquid canning solutions call for your "non-metallic" tool to swish around the jar, and I usually do, but I've never seen so many air bubbles as today. Luckily that's easy to clear up though, and then it was just a matter of boiling the jars!

Now we'll just have to wait and see what they taste like... And what my wife considers appropriate repayment!

Road Grill: Crab Salad Stuffed Avacados

We were watching Road Grill with Matt Dunnigan of all things over the summer and came across this fairly easy recipe for a light, cool meal.

1. Drain and rinse a can of crab meat, making sure to check for shells.
2. Add a decent sized dollop or two of Miracle Whip or Mayonnaise.
3. Zest a lime directly into the crab. Reserve some juice to brush the avocados then juice the rest into the crab mixture as well.
4. Add a generous amount of your favourite hot sauce.
5. Season with salt and pepper.
6. Mix and adjust to taste as necessary.
7. Slice, skin, and de-stone two avocados so you end up with 4 half avocados. Brush with reserved lime juice. Any remaining lime juice can go into the crab mixture.
8. Spoon crab mixture onto avocados.
9. Top each avocado with green onion or chives.

And voila!

Sun Dried Tomatoes

The Italians have lied to us for years! For that matter, most of the Mediterranean nations have been stretching the truth to us "westerners!" There is no such thing as sun dried tomatoes! There are dried tomatoes, and they have a sweet, concentrated tomato flavour, but there's no "sun" involved, that's just a flowery name for them.

Nope, sun dried tomatoes are dried in the oven. Any tomatoes will work, although I find cherry and grape style tomatoes work the best. Simply wash and dry tomatoes, then slice them all in half and combine them carefully in a medium/large mixing bowl. Drizzle them generously with olive oil and add salt and pepper. Use your hands to mix them gently. Take a cookie sheet/baking tray and arrange the tomatoes skin side down so none are touching. (If you're wondering if you need to grease the tray, you need to go back and add more oil to the tomatoes!) Then put the tray in the oven or toaster oven at the lowest possible setting for several hours, preferably overnight!

When they come out of the oven, the tomatoes will have shrunk, concentrated, and become tiny morsels of goodness! Just make sure they go straight in the fridge for maximum shelf life!