Sweet potato eviction complete

I did it! I won! The sweet potato is no more. What did I do with it, you ask? I steamed it in the microwave and threw it in a salad! Gimme a break - it had to be a salad. We overindulged during the Holidays.

You have to understand that the microwave has very limited use in our house. In my opinion, it's good for warming up your lunch, melting chocolate (thanks, Nigella, for that one), heating up milk or water (to lukewarm, not boiling, please), and for softening tortillas. So talk about a discovery when my laziness, triggered by my complete disgust at having to clean a pot AND a steamer in order to cook 1/3 of a sweet potato, caused me to experiment.  I simply cut the sweet potato into small bite sized pieces, set it in a dinner plate with barely 1/4 inch of water on the bottom and cooked it for 3ish minutes, turning the pieces over halfway. And whaddaya know! It worked!

Talk about a quick meal. I chucked some baby greens in a bowl, topped them with some brown rice left over from a previous dinner, a handful of sunflower seeds (a fridge-larder staple!) and the potato, and tossed everything with a simple balsamic vinaigrette (balsamic, dijon, olive oil). Poof. Done. 

Well THAT felt good. Nice knowin' ya, sweet potato. Boy... I'm going to have to get to know my microwave better... The possibilities! Stay tuned!

The sweet potato that wouldn't die...

The holidays have come and gone, and I think most of us are just fed up with trying to find ways to reinvent the leftovers. Sadly, that work is never done - for me, anyway... Every single day of the year, some food item is guaranteed to be staring back at me from the inside of my fridge, taunting me with the ever present threat of spoilage. Is today its last day before mouldy grossness takes it over the edge into the realm of the inedible? Aiiiiiiigh! The never ending danger of decay is enough to drive a person insane. I hate throwing out food.

I've been having this sort of crisis lately with a sweet potato that's been in my crisper for the past month and a half. Every day, I see it. And every day, something comes up and I can't use it (or don't feel inspired to). It's started to shrivel a bit, just to remind me that time is ticking, and that the money spent on a nice organic sweet potato is about to be wasted. When I picked it up on Monday, a shrivelled part of it had actually gone soft and my thumb kind of sunk into it a bit. Ew. That's when I knew it was now or never. 

Thankfully, I had five or six boiled potatoes left over from our New Years' eve party à deux. And what does one instantly think of when one has a load of cold boiled potatoes? Potato salad! Of course, none of my resolutions included being less lazy, so I didn't bother to boil the sweet potato (it would have had a weird shape anyway, once the soft gross bits had been cut out); I just grated that bad boy down to shreds. Well, part of him, anyway. Here's what happened.

Potato salad with grainy mustard vinaigrette, sweet potato shreds and chives (feeds two)

This is a recipe that's easy on the dishes. All you need is a salad bowl, a knife, a cutting board and, if you must, a garlic press.

In the salad bowl, whisk together :

• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 1 generous tbsp grainy mustard
• 2 tbsp white wine vinegar
• one minced clove of garlic 
• 1/4 to 1/3 cup of olive oil (or more, if you like)
• salt and pepper.

To that dressing, add :

• 5 or 6 cooked potatoes, cut into bite-sized pieces 
• 1 good bunch of asparagus (like the ones they sell tied together with a rubber band), cooked al-dente in a steamer and cut into bite-sized pieces
• a few tbsp of finely chopped herbs such as chives, mint, parsley or dill (I had chives lying around from making mashed potatoes at Christmas, so I used chives)
• 1 cup of grated sweet potato

Stir around delicately and voilà. Serve with a few pieces of cheese or a boiled egg on the side.

Of course, that recipe only used up a third of the dammed, rotting, cursed sweet potato. So tonight, I went ahead and made another salad with more stuff that was lying around the fridge. And this time, I dealt with another food straggler: old pita... Have you ever had this problem, where you buy pita for a hummus fix, but then the leftover bread just sits around your fridge for days on end, because it's become too old and tough to enjoy? Solution? Pita chips! They're super easy to make, and no matter who's around at mealtime, they'll be excited to eat them. If Marc could orbit the stove when I make these, I think he would; sadly, the wall behind the stove prevents full orbiting, so all he can do is stick his face in the oven window and keep repeating over and over "I think they're ready now. I think they're ready now. I think they're ready now." Gaaaah!

So here's the how-to for pita chips:

1. Cut the edge off your pitas by going around them with a knife or clean scissors. Eat the edges or give them to the dogs. Separate the two sides of the pita and lay them on a baking sheet with the inside surface facing up.

2. If you have a pastry brush, use it to give each pita circle a light brushing of olive oil. If you don't have a pastry brush, just pour a bit of olive oil (using a thin stream) all over the pitas and then smear it around with your hands.

3. Add whatever flavour you want. Dried herbs (oregano's nice), spices (smoked paprika anyone? curry?), salts (garlic salt, celery salt). Pepper's also highly recommended, and salt, if you're not using any of the garlic or onion variety. For this specific time, I used salt, pepper and sumac.

4. Pop the baking sheet on the middle rack of your the oven, which has been set to Broil. WATCH THEM CLOSELY. They burn in a heartbeat. Seriously. Heart... (still okay)... beat (crap! burnt!)

5. When they're nice and brown and crispy, take them out of the oven. Break them up if you wish. Enjoy.

--------------

Aaaah! Now that the pita chips are out of the way, back to the sweet potato from hell. Here's tonight's salad, with thanks to the larder, as usual, for the beans.

Curried creamy navy bean and shredded sweet potato salad with hard-boiled egg and pita chips (feeds two, with leftovers)

Boil up a few hard-boiled eggs (I made three for two people). While they cool, combine the following in a bowl :

• 1 can of white navy beans or white kidney beans, rinsed
• a few tbsp chopped fresh herbs like mint, dill or chives (I still had some damned chives, so I used chives)
• 1 cup of grated sweet potato

In another bowl, combine : (I did it this way, but you can definitely make this part first in the big salad bowl and save yourself some dishes)

• approx. 3/4 cup of plain yogourt (not low-fat)
• 1 scant tsp of curry powder
• 1 scant tsp of honey
• juice of 1/4 lime (approx. 1 tbsp); add more if not tangy enough
• salt

Serve the bean salad on a bed of baby greens with the sliced egg on top. Enjoy with your freshly baked pita chips.

Pfff. Only 1/3 of the sweet potato to go! It lives to die another day...

Until we meet again, Crisper squatter.

Ever have a cheese hangover?

Happy New Year everybody!! I wish you a happy and healthy 2012, filled with lots of flavour, fun, and fibre. Fibre before wealth, man. Always. As for me, the one resolution I intend to stick with this year is to blog more than once or twice a month. Don't be shy to call me on it if you get more than a fifteen-day waiting period between posts. I have no kids. Ergo, I have no excuses.

So with that in mind, let's get things started off right by me telling you about the best cancelled-at-the-last-minute-New-Year's-Eve-dinner-for-six I've ever had! The reason for the cancellation doesn't matter (double-bookings, less-than-firm rsvp's, too much farniente and not enough follow-ups... You know - the usual). All that matters is that Marc and I found ourselves face to face at our dinner table last night, with two bottles of bubbly, insane amounts of cheese and MY NEW RACLETTE SET!

All that's missing now is the cheeeeeese!

I don't know why I'm so tickled by food trends of days gone by. The BIB, cheese balls, raclette... Maybe it's the historian in me (did I mention I ultimately became an archivist after cooking school?), or maybe it's my way of flirting with disaster, by attempting hipster cool in the ever menacing shadow of not-cool-enough-to-pull-this-off lameness. But, as usual, I digress...

I know very little about raclette, besides the obvious basics that it originates in Switzerland, it was probably invented by hungry herders, and it involves meats, potatoes, pickled things and, most importantly, cheese (seriously - the Swiss must climb a lot of mountains, with the amount of cheese they eat). Normally, I would have done a bit of research in order to get the necessary ingredients and traditions right, but I thought, meh - it's melted cheese on stuff. How can I go wrong? I'm not Swiss. Marc's not Swiss. The dogs aren't Swiss. No one will know.

So off I went to Costco to pick up some nicely priced Emmenthal, to accompany a few more cheeses that were still hanging around my fridge from the Christmastime food-a-palooza. Oddly, it's also at Costco that I found my inspiration for what would go under the cheese; a less than poetic, plastic-wrapped two-pack of dried California figs. I figured the Swiss probably didn't put figs in their raclette, but that didn't matter. I started thinking about antipasti platters; what do figs go well with? Nuts! Mmmm. Then I turned another corner and saw prosciutto cotto (a.k.a. cooked ham with a fancy name). Angels sang. This was going to be good. So with a few more stops on the way home - butcher, baker, candlestick maker - we were all set for dinner!

And what a dinner it was. I don't know if it was anywhere close to traditional, but it's traditional in our house as of now. The lesson of that evening? Have raclette! It's way more fun than fondue and it's a great way to let your imagination fly! When you're planning your meal, just think: would cheese taste good on that? If the answer is yes, THEN GO FOR IT!!

Oopsie. Please forgive that pen in the upper-right corner.
Don't drink and photograph. The risk of pen-in-photo is too great.

In case you're curious, here's the ingredients list from last night:

• prosciutto cotto (or other good quality cooked ham);
• local bison steak, cut thinly into wide strips (put your knife on a diagonal instead of cutting straight down);
• house-made pork and beef breakfast sausages from Boucherie Gréber;
• asparagus, cooked al-dente and shocked in an ice bath;
• boiled potatoes (salt the water appropriately, because they'll be a let-down under the cheese!);
• caramelized onions (I cooked three big ones for two people);
• jardinière (a mix of cauliflower, carrots and peppers. Thanks Shannon!);
• pecans;
• dried figs, sliced into four or five pieces each;
• baguette, just because.

Asparagus, pecan and sausage.

Peekaboo! Asparagus, pecan and sausage, pre-melt.
There is no post-melt photo, sadly. *slurp*

Bedtime for bison and fig!

Sweet dreams...

BTW, my fig, nut and ham hunch was right. Man, was it good. Try it. Now.

Bonne année 2012!

GMZ - Philouze Boulanger Pâtissier

If you can find good baguette within your usual shopping perimeter, you're golden. That said, over the years, I've come to discover that "good" baguette is a very personal thing: some like it dense, some like it light; some like a crispy crust, some like a soft one; some like it darker, some like it slightly underdone; some like a neutral flavour, some like it with a more distinct one... I could go on, but you get the idea.

So I can't really tell you about "good" baguette somewhere in the GMZ. All I can do is tell you about what's good baguette for me. Enter Philouze Boulanger Pâtissier, situated at 811 St. René Blvd in Gatineau, between de l'Hôpital Blvd and montée Paiement. The shop is on a weird bit of street; its neighbours are a pool and spa centre on one side, a print shop on the other, and the local RONA is a spitting distance away. BUT DON'T LET THIS FOOL YOU! Philouze, in my humble, bread-gobbling opinion, feels like it could have been plucked from the most idillic little European artisan village you can imagine. 

The baguette is the first element to help create the illusion. For me, it's the best in town, bar none. It's dense, crispy, sweet, baked to a perfect doneness, and, most importantly, it doesn't have the circumference of the baseball bat-sized behemoths you usually find at the grocery store. It's simply delicious. And it goes beautifully with all of the lovely products the store carries such as Québécois and French cheeses, beautiful patés and rillettes from Première Moisson in Montreal, fresh sausages that allow you to venture into the exotic with chorizo and chipolata and, most lipsmacking of all, cured meats including Corsican-style figatelli and cured chorizo from Les Cochons tout ronds, an amazing producer from Iles-de-la-Madeleine (you've GOT to try these - just be patient, they run out fast and it's sometimes a bit of a wait before the next order comes in). 

Philouze made dinner! Figatelli, Petit ménage and St-Morgon cheese.

Philouze also offers ready to eat extravagances such as pop-it-in-the-oven-and-you-have-dinner pot pies, ham and swiss flaky pastries with béchamel, pizza-foccaccia hybrids and more. Of course, they also have a beautiful pastries counter with truly delicious éclairs, religieuses, mousses, and ready-to-go cakes. Try their galette des rois around the feast of the Epiphany in January, or their Saint-Honoré cake anytime; with its rum-infused pastry cream, flaky pastry disks and cream puffs, it's fantastic (just make sure you order ahead for that one). And last but not least, run, don't walk, to get the best croissants I've been able to find on this side of the river or the other. Oh, wait, there's more: Philouze also carries specialities, local and imported, such as teas, madeleines, candies, jams, flavoured syrups and canned goods. Basically, if you've recently been to France or Belgium and you're suffering from Euro-food withdrawal, Philouze has the cure.

Finally, I can't tell you about Philouze without telling you about the staff and the owners. Service is always friendly, courteous, and highly efficient. And if you have a chance to chat with Anne-Marie Philouze - you can't miss her, she's the lovely woman who cheerfully cries "Bonjour" from behind the counter as you walk in - she will very kindly share all kinds of knowledge on how to better enjoy her shop's products (did you know, for instance, that you can stick fresh-baked croissants in the freezer, take them out 30 minutes before breakfast, and they'll still taste fresh-baked? Shocking, I know!) Every time I go to Philouze, I always leave with a big grin on my face, no matter how my day has gone. You can't buy happiness, but this place comes pretty damn close to selling it. I hope you enjoy it!

About GMZ

Soup. A hot-water bottle for your insides.

Soup is making a comeback in my kitchen. I used to be annoyed by it. I didn't like how I couldn't control my intake of food; how I was a prisoner of the tiny portion doled out by every spoonful, never able to take in more at a time without putting the bowl to my mouth and making a complete and disgraceful pig of myself. Eating soup, restrictive spoonful by restrictive spoonful, made me irritable. I wanted FREEDOM!

Sadly, short of filling a turkey baster and squirting my way to satiation, I had to find another way to live with the cutlery conventions of our day. That's when I discovered texture. I'm not talking chunky-vegetable-soup kind of texture here. I'm talking smooth, dense, mouthfeel all the way into tomorrow kind of texture. The kind I only experienced once I started looking for a vegetarian meal-in-a-pot soup solution. The spoon would still deliver the same, annoying portion with every pass... But this time, the texture of its payload would insure that the flavour and experience would endure; keeping my taste buds distracted long enough for the spoon to make its next delivery...

There are two main heroes in the category of texture for me, when it comes to whole-meal-in-a-pot soups: beans and tofu. Of course, 35% cream also fits in this category (for glooorious mushroom soup), but that's just cheating. 35% cream makes EVERYTHING taste good. So next time you set out to make a cream soup, try throwing in a can of white kidney beans or a block of silken tofu before you plunge in your immersion blender. I assure you, you'll be glad you did. 

I made the following soup the other night when it was dark and blustery outside. I was cold, and not really in the mood for making anything fancy. I found the last butternut squash from my garden as well as a few leeks at the back of the fridge, and a can of beans in the larder. Soup it is, I thought. And I was glad. That stuff stuck to my insides like Fiberglass Pink. Mmmm. Insulating.

Butternut squash soup with leeks and white kidney beans

Prep your ingredients:

1 medium-sized butternut squash, roughly chopped into chunks (see picture);

2 leeks, green parts discarded, white parts split lengthwise, thoroughly rinsed (dirt always manages to get in there) and chopped into half moons;

1 medium onion, chopped;

1 can of white kidney beans, drained and rinsed;

4 thyme sprigs, leaves plucked, or 1 tsp of dried thyme (or more, if you like).

Heat a stockpot or a big saucepan over medium heat. Once it's hot, throw in around 2 tbsp of olive oil or, if you're not focused on making this vegan, a matchbox sized piece of butter and just a dab of olive oil (1 tsp) to prevent burning.Throw in the onion and the leeks, and cook, stirring, until translucent.

Throw in the squash, and cook, stirring for 2 or 3 minutes. Add the thyme leaves and bare sprigs. Pour in enough cold water to cover everything, with a half-inch extra over the top of the veggies. I used some cooking water from my freezer that was left over from boiling potatoes and celery root.  Bring to a simmer and cook until the squash is soft.

Remove the thyme sprigs and add the kidney beans.

Whizz the soup into oblivion with an immersion blender or a regular blender. If you use a regular blender, do this part in batches to avoid overspilling and burns.Season with salt and pepper and serve with crusty bread, and some sharp and tangy cheese.

I hope you enjoy this soup. I'm getting hungry just looking at the pictures.

See you next post!

Eye candy interlude - last veggies

Last weekend I cleaned up my frost-wilted garden in preparation for winter. I pulled everything out, marked the spot where the rhubarb would be coming out again in the spring, and had a bit too much fun throwing half-frozen cucumbers at Marc while he raked leaves (talk about pre-season snowball fight training - those cukes are smooshy!)

The sun was hitting the garden just right, so I took a few pictures before I took it all down. No recipes here kids. You just have to indulge my amateur attempts at capturing Summer's last wink. 

 

Thanks for visiting! See you next post.

Dairy and onions. Yeah.

Well, Marc's in the bathroom, shaving off his beard for the inaugural day of Movember. At my request, he'll be going for the Magnum P.I. look. I can't wait. Too bad it's getting too cold outside for the cutoff jean short shorts. Sigh.

Anyhoo, while I wait to see my bare-faced mate, I've decided to bring you la tarte à l'oignon - the onion tart : one of the simplest things you can make, if you have the patience to see the caramelization of the onions through to the end. It's one of my favourite things to make when I have a laid back get-together; people are often underwhelmed by its plain brown appearance, but they always raise their eyebrows when they taste their first bite. Hah! I love that. Plain brown food one; dinner guests with little faith, zero.

This recipe is based on a tarte à l'oignon I ate for lunch in Marseilles, at a friend of a friend's house nearly ten year ago. I was too shy to ask for the recipe at the time, so I'd just recreated it from gustatory memory when I got home... It was good, but something always seemed to be missing. Then, I discovered the missing link : cream. How could I not have seen it before?!? I have Laura Calder to thank for that tidbit, bless her shameless, butter loving heart (see the recipe for Caramelized Onion Tarts in her book French Food at Home). The tart went from good to goooooood. And then, I got more raised eyebrows.

Of course, this recipe is still quite delightful sans cream, if you prefer to omit it. That way, you only have to deal with the guilt coming from the evil, evil (read: delicious) pie crust.

Let's get on with this recipe, shall we?

Tarte à l'oignon

What you need to have:

- 1 pie crust, purchased or made yourself. If you're making your own, I recommend a flaky one over a denser, buttery one. Don't pre-bake it.

- 5 to 6 large-ish onions, sliced into thin half moons (slice the onion in half from head to toe, then slice each half crosswise). You need about seven to eight cups of sliced onion in total. If you have a bit more or a bit less, it's not the end of the world.

- some thyme, preferably fresh, but dried will do. 2 tbsp fresh leaves, or 1 tbsp dried.

- a splash of brandy or white wine

- a good splash of balsamic vinegar

- 1/2 cup of heavy cream (35%). Again, omit this if you want.

- salt and pepper

What you need to do:

- throw a good 2 tbsp of butter into a heated pan (sorry - you need lots of butter for this), and add a bit of olive oil to prevent the butter from burning (a tsp should do);

- once the butter's bubbling, throw in the onions, lower the heat to medium-low and wait for them to caramelize, stirring regularly so they don't burn. This may take time. Up to 30 minutes. It's not that bad! Read a book while you stir! Or empty the dishwasher! Or sort your laundry! Whatever! Sheesh!

- when the onions are soft and brownish, throw in a splash (1/8 cup) of Brandy or white wine; let it simmer and reduce until it's gone;

- throw in a splash of balsamic vinegar. Start with about 1/8 cup, stir it all around and taste the onions. You need to taste the balsamic tanginess - it helps counteract the sweetness of the onions. Add a bit more if you don't feel the tang;

- add about 1/2 cup of heavy cream and stir it around, letting it simmer softly for a minute or two, just to thicken a bit;

- take everything off the heat, throw in the thyme, and season with salt and pepper;

- slide everything into the pie crust and bake for the time recommended on the package / in your crust recipe;

- let the tart cool a bit and serve warm or at room temperature.

Voilà! And here's an optional step. I usually throw a handful of pitted black olives (like Kalamata) on top of the tart, just before baking. I find their brininess the perfect companion to the onions' sweetness. Although I didn't try it in the recipe above, the olives would have been just as stellar with the richness of the cream, too. Give it a try, you won't regret it, I'm sure. And if you do, bah. Just pick off the olives. No biggie.

Oh gawd! Marc just walked in! Cue the Magnum theme song!

Aaaand I'm out. Enjoy the tart!