two hollow legs

“Everything was amazing.”

Said the Muffin Man, when I asked him what his favorite dish was from the night’s dinner.

Well!

We had a couple of friends over for dinner on a Saturday night, and I had greatly looked forward to an evening filled with good company and of course, good food. As you may or may not know, I happily spend copious hours daydreaming about dinner menus, luxuriating in the permutations and variations possible when planning an assemblage of foods. However, you can never be too sure how it’ll all turn out until the dishes are lined up on the table.

Limitation often begets creativity, and the only confinement to the menu was the vegetarian inclinations of our guests. (However, they did eat seafood. Land animals were off the menu).

After some deliberation and list-making, I settled on this menu of vegetarian tapas to be served all at once in the middle of the table, which guests could pick at to their liking:

1. Cool raw ribbons of zucchini with grated bits of carrot, golden raisins and sesame seeds, in a sesame oil-rice vinegar dressing with the smallest pinch of sugar added.

2. A slightly warm salad of boiled red and golden beets, walnuts and feta, lightly moistened with rice vinegar and sesame oil, garnished with nigella seeds.

3. Homemade baba ghanoush served with whole wheat pita bread cut into wedges.

4. Warm chickpeas with finely diced celery, made even warmer with the addition of cumin, fennel, black mustard seeds, and garam masala.

5. Vegetarian poutine: roasted baby red potatoes and fresh cheese curds smothered in a miso gravy.

and…
6. Seared scallops on a bed of wilted kale tossed in a brown butter sauce.

Just as sunshine is better appreciated when there are gray days before it, food requires juxtaposition to properly illustrate its spectrum of qualities. As such, successful menu planning is based on the dichotomies of gastronomic encounters: hot/cold, heavy/light, chunky/smooth, raw/cooked, sweet/spicy…the list goes on. If the Muffin Man’s opinion is any proof, this meal’s contrasts were balanced enough to bring it all together, and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed cooking and eating it all.

I think my favorite item was the vegetarian poutine, because I have been dreaming about making poutine at home for ages. Most people’s ideas about poutine is that it is a soggy, heavy mess of greasy fries underneath a stodgy gravy that is meant to spackle the insides of your intestines for 6-12 months, usually eaten at a strip mall alongside teenagers playing hooky. Well, about five years ago I had a poutine that changed all the poutines thereafter: at a light-filled restaurant with my high school art teacher in the heart of a major urban center, I had a lunch of poutine made with tiny locally grown new potatoes, lightly covered in a thin beef brisket jus, and crystals of locally made cheese, the exact type of which I can no longer remember. The potatoes were loving and happy, the gravy was gentle and inclusive, and the cheese was a little sharp, making exclamation notes on my tongue.

It was a happy occurrence that the vegetarian poutine I made was an acceptable rendition of the classic. The miso gravy was incredibly easy, and inspired by a recipe from a vegetarian website that I cannot recall:

Miso gravy for poutine (and other things, perhaps)

Whisk together about 2 cups water, 1 giant tablespoon of brown miso paste, 1 heaping tablespoon of all-purpose flour, a small splash of sesame oil, and a few streaks of soy sauce. Heat gently in a small saucepan, whisking occasionally until it boils and thickens.

——

In my books a successful dinner party is not complete until I have overfed my guests, and that includes dessert. To finish, we had a deconstructed cheesecake: I served the traditional graham cracker crust as crumbs underneath a spoonful of soft cheesecake filling. I enjoyed the democracy of the experience: each diner could choose the ratio of granular crumbliness to smooth milky sweetness in each spoonful according to their tastes.

Once in a while, serendipity nods her head my way, reinstating my dedication to looking for joy in all places, in the kitchen and otherwise.

(All photos were courtesy of the Muffin Man when his mouth wasn’t full).

All wrapped up

For the past few months I’ve been having a serious preoccupation with wrapped food, by which I mean food encased in a dough or pastry filling. As comforting as it is to sit wrapped up in a blanket on the couch, it is even more comforting to eat food wrapped up, while wrapped up on the couch.

It all began with a desire to make shrimp and pork wontons at home. The happiness of seeing the transformation of dry raw dumplings into plump darlings swimming in clear broth propelled me to make more more more…from there it was beef pot stickers, then onto potato and cheese perogies, and now…veggie samosas! While the packages have gotten bigger, it has all been delicious. And it is always a delight to have to bite into something to reveal its clandestine contents; somehow green peas retain more appeal when they are nestled in a pastry crust than rolling around on a plate.

If your time is limited, the filing for the samosa is excellent on its own, but definitely far more magical when baked in pastry.

Chickpea and Potato Veggie Samosas

Filling:
2-3 smallish medium white or red potatoes
2-3 spindly carrots
Some vegetable oil
1/2 small onion
About a teaspoon each of cumin seeds, fennel seeds, black mustard seeds, cayenne pepper, garam masala, turmeric
A few neem/curry leaves
A handful of frozen green peas
A can of chickpeas
A bundle of fresh cilantro leaves

Pastry:
1.5 cups unsalted butter, cold
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
Some cold water

First, get some water in a medium saucepan and start heating it to a boil. Meanwhile, peel and cube the potatoes. Peel and finely dice the carrots too. When the water is at a boil, drop the potatoes and carrots in and cook until they are just cooked (even a little firm still is good). Meanwhile, finely dice the onion and fry in a large pan in a good glug of vegetable oil. When the onions start to soften, add all the spices and neem leaves. At this point the potatoes/carrots are probably done. Drain them and throw them in with the onions. Add the peas, the drained chickpeas, and a roughly chopped handful of cilantro leaves. Stir it all together and add salt to taste. Take it off the heat to let it cool down a bit.

Meanwhile, the pastry! Cut the butter into little pieces, and with cool, calm fingers, squidge the butter, flour and salt together to make a crumbly mixture. Slowly add a few splashes of cold water (probably 1/4 cup max) and mix until the dough just comes together. Cover the dough and let it rest in the fridge for about 15 minutes. Nibble on some samosa filling while waiting…

Finally, assembly: roll some of the dough out on a floured surface after its nap in the fridge, until it is not so thin it’ll be fragile, but not so thick that all you’ll be eating is tough pastry. Put a spoonful of samosa filling close to the edge of the dough, and using the edge of a dough scraper or knife cut a square around it. Wet the edges of the square with some water and pull the edges up and pinch together. You can make a square pyramid (square bottom with four triangular sides) or a triangular pyramid (triangle bottom with three triangular sides) or whatever artistic blob you can muster. Depending on the size of your samosas, you can make 20-40…the number doesn’t matter, because it’ll never be enough.

Gently transfer the samosa to a baking tray. Repeat until all your dough is used up (or your first baking tray is full) and bake those suckers at 400 F for 20 minutes, or until the tops are lightly browned.

I like to eat them with incredibly inauthentic Diana’s Original BBQ sauce. Mm hm.

Eat eat eat!

12 eggs

One of the qualities I admire most is elegance. Women who walk like they have a tea cup balanced on their head, the slope of a swan’s neck, the way water pours out of a tall glass pitcher….these things are elegant to me.

One thing I like even more than elegance is when it is applied to efficiency. When something is conducted in such an efficient manner that it is elegant…oh! My heart beats a little faster.

An example, perchance? Consider how you can use a dozen eggs in a myriad of ways to produce edible varieties of an ovoid origin. There is something so elegant and efficient about how an egg can be so versatile and applied to various tasks, always performing with graceful success.

Let us begin with a friend’s request to make angel food cake. I started with 12 eggs from which I separated the yolks and whites. I like to use my hands to pass the yolk back and forth, allowing the white to drip through my fingers. Gently holding the egg in my hand permits me a moment to be grateful for a chicky’s hard work, and the use of an unrealized life. Moreover, passing the yolk between the two halves of the egg shell inspires fear and a sense of poor foresight – that sharp, craggily edge of the shell is not your yolk’s friend.

Part 1: Angel Food Cake

After making a full-sized cake with whipped cream, pecans, and caramel sauce, I made a smaller single-serve version with some of the leftover cake:

After all the whites were used in the cake, I was left with 12 yolks. The first two I used to make scrambled eggs for a quick solitary weekday lunch alongside buttered toast. The next three I used to make mayonnaise, which I have had little success with in the past. Bolstered with the confidence that I had many yolks left in case I needed to start over, I slowly dribbled olive oil over my three yolks while whisking furiously. Miraculously, after all the oil was added the mayonnaise was still happily wobbly in its emulsified state. Joy! With a judicious squeeze of lemon juice, a few good dashes of salt and a sprinkle of dill, it became the sauce accompanying some crab cakes for a dinner party.

Part 2: Dill Mayonnaise

After the party I still had some mayonnaise left, so I used it the next day as the batter for chicken fingers. The chicken strips were dipped in flour, then in some watered down mayo, then in Panko bread crumbs, and then panfried. Heaven.

Finally, with the remaining seven yolks, I made a luscious Meyer lemon curd. After letting it cool under a sheath of plastic wrap to prevent a crusty skin from forming, I folded it into the whipped cream left over from icing the Angel Food cake. The resulting lemon mousse was served after the chicken fingers.

Part 3: Lemon Curd

The journey of these 12 eggs has been a happy link between the meals I have created over the past few days. Perhaps I live a small life…but the ease in which the yolks and whites applied themselves to varying situations, and how none of it went to waste…that for me is a beautiful example of elegance and efficiency, wrapped up in a delicate white shell.

moofins!

MOOFINS!!! Aw yeah.

Hey baba

Continuing our gastronomic trip through the world, this time with a staple of Levantine cuisine: baba ghanoush.

A simple blend of components to produce satisfying and rich comfort: a handful of grilled eggplant, a blob of mayonnaise, a swirl of olive oil, some squirts of lemon juice, and a very liberal application of salt. Perhaps some garlic, when I’m feeling extra adventurous. From such alchemy, I see many possibilities: a creamy spread for the inside of a sandwich, or a dip for raw carrots. Or perhaps, stirred into hot basmati rice with mint and dill for a quick lunch.

This might be my new favourite way to eat eggplant.

Travels via dinner

This time, a meal to transport us to the Mediterranean.

A random weeknight: roasted eggplant, pepper, and zucchini, with a walnut parsley pesto to smear on top. New potatoes tossed with minced parsley and olive oil before being roasted, so the parsley dried to a crispiness that dissolved on the tongue. White wine, to wash it all down.

Mediterranean living seems to have a way of coaxing you to relax, to sip life in slowly, to gently untie the knots in your mind. To follow, my idea of what pesto should be has become rather loose: while its bedrock is still Parmesan and olive oil (though I’d go for a more exotic oil as well), it can contain any sort of nut and herb to round out its existence.

Walnut parsley pesto

Take a small handful of walnuts. Roast slowly and quietly in a heavy frying pan until there’s a bit of colour and the oil starts to seep out. Drop them into a mortar with a pinch of salt and begin whacking away with the pestle to diminish the average size until it is pesto-worthy – gritty, not chunky. Use your fingers to brush this out into a bowl and sprinkle in a handful of minced parsley. Grate Parmesan cheese over (add as much as intuition says, plus more.) Begin stirring, and continue to mix as you pour olive oil over. When things start to stick together, add one more glug of oil. Grate more cheese in. One more oily glug (perhaps this time sesame oil – scandal!) Taste and add a few dashes of salt if necessary.

Enjoy with a great sense of languor.

a spicy souvenir.

The Muffin Man brought back curry paste from his travels to Thailand, over a year ago. We are still reliving the glory of international travel.

Massaman curry, less the traditional potatoes, instead served over a tangled bundle of flat rice noodles. A gravelly sprinkle of cashews on top, and lemon to squeeze over (and probably into your eye) just before slurping it all up.

A meal to transport us to a warmer place.

A cookie, times three

My lovely friend S gave me homemade cookie mix for Christmas. It’s a great gift, because it’s an excuse to bake and then I get a large Mason jar to store dried lentils in afterwards. It was originally a recipe for “classic sugar cookies” but since I have a belligerent streak, and it was going to be a rather large batch of cookies, I decided to create several variations of a similar theme. I started with mixing the base recipe in one bowl, and then I scooped a chunk of it out into another bowl to add particulates.

A classic cookie, in three movements:

Movement 1
Hemp hearts
Sesame seeds
Mandarin rind and juice
Raisins
White chocolate chunks
Ground nutmeg

Movement 2
Turtles (those caramely chocolates, cut up into pieces)
White chocolate chunks
Large flakes of oats

Movement 3
Dark chocolate chips
Milk crumbs (essentially a mixture of white chocolate, milk powder, sugar, butter, and flour – a delicious mystery)
Ground ginger

All three cookies were made of the same base: the contents of the jar, butter, eggs, the last scrapes out of the bottom of the peanut butter jar, chocolate cake crumbs (why should they go to waste?) I didn’t measure a thing, just added what seemed right. All in all, a melodious way to make several things good to eat.

A new year

I collect recipes like some women collect shoes.

There are cookbooks everywhere in our home: standing in rows on the shelves, piled on side tables, wedged wherever there is room. Mostly they are mine, but there are always a few on loan from the library. There are binders and folders of recipes printed from blogs, newspapers, magazines. Clips of them stuck to the fridge. Notebooks where I work out recipes that I’m fiddling with. Notebooks where I write about who we had over for dinner, their allergies and food likes/dislikes, and what we ate. Notebooks where I copy out recipes from books. A history of food obsessions past.

For me, there are only a few things more enjoyable than a heavy cookbook filled with pages of inspiration and the promise of well-cooked meals. Oftentimes I’ll lug one out to read in bed before sleeping – it doesn’t make me hungry to read about food, it gives me great comfort. Dreams of pizza rustica on a terrace, under a soft summer evening…

The thing that a cookbook lover wants more of is, of course, cookbooks. However, like the women with the shoes, you can only wear one pair at a time, and with cookbooks, you can only cook one meal at a time. And so more often than not, the cookbooks stay on the shelf when it comes time to cook. With little reference to the words in my holiest of kitchen tomes, I find myself repeatedly writing the same phrase in my cooking. In the pang of hunger and regrettable poor planning I retreat into autopilot, churning out meals that are variations on a theme. While familiarity is its own sort of comfort, I feel a twinge of loss – another meal past, another opportunity lost to try that new chicken recipe, all because there wasn’t any ground mustard in the pantry.

So next year, instead of letting those cookbooks remain right-angled and grease-free, I intend to plunge into them with gusto, letting their words come alive in the kitchen. Why have shoes if you don’t strut? Why hoard recipes like a mousy weirdo maniac if you don’t use them? Dreams become haunting ghosts when there is no actualization. I could stand to live my life with greater assertion, if that means that finally one day I make cardamom coconut rice pudding, or a ham cooked in Coca Cola. Instead of dreaming of their existence, I will realize them.

The bare necessities

There are some food items that I must, must have in the house to feel safe and prepared for anything – unexpected dinner guests, the end of the world, emotional eating binge, whatever. And here they are:

1. Frozen green peas.

They go with everything! And they look so happy, nestled together in a bowl, round and cheery, making friends with whatever they happen to be next to.

2. Butter.

Everything slides down more easily with butter. Mm hm.

3. Basmati rice.

Supportive, unassuming. Like the peas, it goes with everything. It is the stem to the gastronomic flower.

4. Cheese.

Even a simple supermarket old Cheddar will do the trick. With little bits of it melted into a bowl of rice and peas, it is my idea of a perfect, solitary meal.

5. Chocolate.

Preferably dark, say 70-80% cocoa solids. Though milk chocolate will do in a pinch (white chocolate is NOT chocolate – it doesn’t have any cocoa solids, sheesh!) While the above four items can easily form a frugal dinner, the chocolate can be the sweet finish to a quiet meal of simple comfort.

Excuse me while I go burrow under a pile of blankets.