Tortellini w/shoots and peppers

I needed to use up the last of hot peppers and shoots, so I fried some garlic in oil (should have done butter, what was I thinking!), then stir-fried the chopped up peppers, then the shoots until wilted, then added the cooked tortellini, and tossed everything around to get things coated. Served on a plate with grated cheddar.



Shoots should have been cut in half, they were too long to get a good mix on the go, but it was nice and fresh tasting and no doubt healthy, right?


BONUS SHOOT-ROOT-SHOT:
Yeah those guys just went to town there. Not sure how I'm going to reclaim my soil, probably just shake it all out. If we had a compost here, I'd just toss the works in there, but we don't and I'm not going to waste good soil by just throwing it into the city compost every time I do shoots, so I'll probably shake it out later.

Apple Curries

Hey James so what did you get up to this weekend?
Oh, you know, made a two-curry meal to impress the lady-friend.
Nice! What did she think?
well uh she liked the pictures?

OK so if you're cooking two curries, the first step is cook some chicken fingers. I always get in over my head and start cooking when hungry and then like an hour later I'm just starving and angry and grumpy and then I don't enjoy supper and I hate life.
As a bonus, Janes chicken fingers were on sale again! At both grocery store chains? I do not know why but if you are giving me $7 off a box of breaded not-mechanically-separated chicken cutlets I guess I am just going to have to go for it.



Chicken fingers fix my ills.

OK, two curries: First, based on this recipe that I like for chicken vindaloo, is mostly that recipe with apples and roasted hot red peppers instead of chicken. You caramelize some onions, de-glaze the pan with some vinegar, then process the onions with some oil for an onion sauce (vinegar builds up the heat). Then there's a curry-paste made of garlic, ginger, hot peppers (jalapeno this time), and spices, which is cooked in pan after some coriander and mustard seeds have been toasted, then the apples get cooked in it, then the onion sauce goes on and it goes on low heat with a cover for a little while.



chop chop chop



cook cook cook

Second curry is just what you'd imagine from apple curry. Garlic and ginger fried in a pan, chopped onion added, apples added, raisins and curry spices added, fried a bunch until it's the desired doneness (this time, on the firm side to contrast the soft apples in caramelized onion sauce.

Then there is some rice and some flat bread and some yogurt and some chutney.




First curry was real good. Wish I'd added two hot peppers, though, could have used some more potency. Also, maybe an apple less so there'd be a better apple:sauce ratio? Maybe explore this onion sauce idea with roasted apples in it for a sweet sauce to use with pork or chicken later.
Second curry was OK. Could have used more curry powder. Raisins really added an excellent meaty texture that filled out the dish.
Two curries contrasted well in texture and flavour, which was nice because I was afraid of not having enough distinction between the two.
Chutney and yogurt worked really well. Did not make either of those, though.

Maybe making two curries is a little ridiculous. At least I have prepared meals for the next day or two now.

Don't be intimidated that I made two, I am silly. Still looking forwards to seeing what you make!

Also I am cheating with the flat bread I did not make that tonight; in the interests of full disclosure it is actually from a batch of hamburger buns that I made on friday but rolled too thin so they came out as pita by mistake.

Baked Apple

OK you already kind of know what's going on here. Apple, rye flakes, sugar, papaya (dried), sugar, cinnamon.



Pretty OK. Papaya, not again will I do that. Didn't really have a great texture or anything, didn't really blend with the flavours, not like raisins do.
Still, tasty! Rye flakes were OK but I think I like the oat flavour better.

sprout sprouts!

Hey look, sunflower sprouts!

Will work on my photography.
They are tasty. Not really that distinct from other sprouts? Kind of nicely full, though, rather than as light as alfalfa sprouts (my main sprouts).

yes I would like to date we can have loads of sprouts it'll be great.

Camera Malfunction

Tonight I made the most delicious pasta. With dried tomatoes and dried red peppers. While listening to Blonde On Blonde. Wanna date?

Spaghetti And Meatballs

Spaghetti and meatballs is one of my favorite dishes. I love pasta, I love tomato sauce, I love meatballs. It was my dad's favorite dish and he was the best at it; he would make a giant batch of sauce with meatballs and then mom would jar it all and we'd have a cupboard full of sauce that would last us not as long as you would think
I like it the best with loads of grated cheddar cheese on top.

OK so meatballs, I put some beef in here, some ground up dried peppers, some chopped up dried tomatoes, some black pepper, and some dried pepper seeds (hot!). I usually fry them up, and while I have it, flambéing them in a bunch of spicy vodka is fun.
When they're almost done, I fry up some minced garlic, onion, carrot et al. in a pot, then add canned sauce plus the meatballs to that. The meatballs don't need to be fully cooked inside, because they're about to simmer in that pot for an hour while the flavours mingle around there and meet each other.

whoops nearly forgot to take a picture

oh no ground beef                                                     look how happy they are in there!

OK once that's all simmered nice-like, boil up pasta, grate cheddar cheese (always grate too much cheese, you will snack, yes you will), then combine!
Some people like to pour sauce on the plate with the pasta. I think that sucks, I like to mix things together first then serve so you don't have to mix it up on your plate (which always results in me making a mess). It is best to have spaghetti bowls because then you can mix your sauce on your plate without making a mess but I do not have spaghetti bowls.



man I love spaghetti

Apple & Beef, right back at you

So let me just preface this with saying that I think my apple and beef combo is not quite as successful as yours. Sometimes, sometimes things just aren't quite what you wanted.



Yeah OK so I'm not quite sure what's going on there. I had a cool looking thing in my head, it just didn't quite pan out as I'd hoped. I think plating it on a plate would have been better.

Anyways, what's there is some lentils, cooked in beef stock (that is the extent of the beef) plus garlic ginger and dried peppers, with 'peeled' carrot and apple on top, plus some lime juice over the works afterwards.
I really like the multi-layered effect. You can start your forkful as low as you want and end as high as you want. You can have lentils and carrots, carrots and apple, apple and lime, or any combination satisfying the linearity requirement (unless you hate linear relations and want to get creative with your fork). I like that it varies on demand as you choose, and I'm pleased that the flavours worked together. Interactive dishes are great. I'm also really pleased with the slightly-steamed apple thing going on from the lentils.
I didn't like the texture of the carrots. They were too crunchy next to the lentils and apple. Perhaps letting them soak in the lime ahead of time might have softened them a bit, but I am just trying to incorporate more raw veg into my life. I'm thinking raw carrots will just be carrot sticks on the side, though.
Also, the plating was a flop. I was hoping to have a spindly tower of carrot shavings, but they wouldn't hold up. I think if I cut the carrot shavings shorter and took more care building it, it could have worked out. Alternatively, the apples had like no problem staying mounded, so maybe putting apples down first would have worked. Maybe the carrots don't even belong there.
Could also have used some raisins but I just don't have any of those. I feel like to really come together this dish needs some nuts or something else in there.
Anyways, it is filling my tummy and I am happy.

Apple Cheddar Burger with Avacado Spread (and sadness to boot)

Why is sizing photos on this thing a nightmare? I even upload them to photobucket and resize them, but the link given (even after the page is refreshed) is still the same old huge size. And then when you try to shrink them in the New Post window (same with when you upload photos directly on to blogger), they'll only let you shrink to whatever is visible on the post screen, it warps your image, and then it's unselectable, so you don't get a re-do.

I used to print screen the photobucket page and then upload the smaller version after saving it in ms paint. Now I can't do that, and my heart is maybe broken?

Sad news bears.

Suitable for both dinner and dessert

Remember that time I said I wasn't a stress eater? As it turns out, I lied. I guess I just forgot what being stressed looked like. This week brought it all back. For those who live in PEI, here is the visual:

one-two vegan punch!

What's In Your Fridge/Cupboard Muffins and Leftover Fruit Crumble

Muffins
Dry:
2 cups of whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking power
1 tsp baking soda
Grate half a cinnamon stick
Grate some nutmeg
Pinch of salt

Wet:
A cup of grated carrot
A cup of grated zucchini
Some grated apple (only "some" cause you ate the rest)
Some olive oil
3/4 cup of maple syrup
Flax as egg replacer
A little vanilla and a little almond extract

Mix, then Add In:
Chopped toasted walnuts
Tons of dried cranberries
Sprinkle a magical brown sugar/oats mixture over the batter once it's in the margarined tin.

20min at 375 should do you fine.

Crumble
Cut up five or six plums and mix em in a casserole dish with the rest of your frozen raspberries (I'm generally unimpressed that my summer crop didn't last me past Sept 10th). Pour in the rest of your maple syrup. Grate some cinnamon and nutmeg over it.
Melt some marge in the micro while you mix together a cup of flour with a cup of brown sugar with a cup of quick oats. Add grated cinnamon and nutmeg. Pour in the melted butter and stir until that business gets clumpy. Spread over the berries and plums.

Shove it in next to the muffins, and when the muffins come out, crank the oven up to 400. Leave in for another 25. Take it out when you notice that the extra liquid from the frozen berries is causing the crumble topping to capsize. Love it for its deviant nature. Put it in a bowl and top it off with a muffin or two. Enjoy. Again and again. Alone or with friends.

Cheesed Gnocchi Plus Hot Pepper Salad

So I went to this produce stall today, see, and it's a little out of town but it is worth the ride because they stock local produce and are open six days a week (as opposed to the market, being open one and a half days). Anyways, while there, I bought four pounds of hot peppers (two and a half of which are drying in the oven right now), and I wanted to do something with the remaining ones and I thought "Hey, roasted red-pepper salad" (because these are rather large and not super-hot or anything) and then I thought "Oh now my oven is going to be in use for the next six hours" (peppers dry much quicker than tomatoes, which is nice) so hey, raw salad. With a side of homemade gnocchi in buttermilk cheese sauce!
Or maybe the salad is the side and the gnocchi is the main, whatever.

So, I steamed 1 1/2 pounds of potatoes (I know, I've never steamed potatoes before!) and while that was going, I chopped really thin-like two hot peppers, two portabellos, and a zucchini (I know, raw zucchini salad!). For dressing, I whipped up two cloves garlic, minced, in two tablespoons of olive oil, two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, and half a teaspoon of nice mustard, and covered the salad and dressing separately, then got back to gnocchi.



I lacked a potato masher or ricer or anything that resembles either of those two things, so I just squeezed and punched a bowl of cooked potatoes a bunch. It was satisfying and a little messy.
OK, then add: 2 teaspoons salt, 1 1/2 cups flour, 2 beaten eggs. Combine! Knead a little but not too much, divide into maybe eight balls and roll 'em out into long ropes maybe an inch thick, then cut off bits half an inch long. Press them with a fork for effect, then put them on a plate or a tray or something. If you want to freeze em, what I've heard is that you put them on parchement on a cookie tray, freeze them for an hour, then baggy them and let them sit in the freezer until you're ready to consume.

See, like that! These is the first half of the dough, I was still working out some sizing issues.

Anyways, last to go was this buttermilk cheese sauce. The internet seemed to think it would curdle, which it did, but after adding the cheese it thickened up nicely and wasn't bad, and there's nothing intrinsicly wrong with curdling so far as I can tell besides it becoming less fun to drink and often indicating spoilage. I made a roux with butter-garlic-flour, I added the buttermilk, I added the cheese, and it made cheese sauce. OK, all together now:



So the buttermilk cheese sauce wasn't that different from regular cheese sauce. My first impression was that it tasted like cheese sauce with vinegar in it, then that it tasted like cheese sauce with balsamic vinegar in it, then I realized that I was using the fork I'd whisked the dressing with, then it kind of tasted like cheese sauce with a hint of that cultured sour taste. It was good, it was slightly more full than a regular cheese sauce, but I don't know if it's really worth doing again.
The gnocchi were great, I was a little worried but they were pretty darn good. A few had little lumps of potato but those weren't so bad as I feared. I am looking forwards to trying this frozen gnocchi later!
Also the salad was absolutely boss! Those red peppers are not very hot, but they'll be decent for flavouring things once dried and I saved the seeds and dried them separate and they can be used to selectively kick things up as many notches as required. The peppers made a lovely salad, just a little hot, and quite fresh and tasty.

Overall, quite pleased with the meal.



Also I made a mess.

Taco Loaf!

I made taco loaf thanks to an idea from a link, and man am I ever glad I did.

The dough was maybe 2 cups of flour plus 1 or more cups of cornmeal, maybe a cup and a half of water, and some blended dried tomatoes and hot peppers, peppercorns, salt, and olive oil. Plus yeast, of course. It really kind of haphazardly grew as my opinions as to what was happening changed over time, but it worked out quite nicely. It rose and was punched down several times over twenty-four hours before I actually used it, but that was fine.
Filling was (in archeological order):
-cream cheese
-a bunch of beef (fried and drained), plus fried onions, garlic, barbecue rub, and chili powder
-salsa (from last night)
-black beans
-grated cheddar

Made a simple bread braid, baked for thirty minutes at 350ºF. Tossed cheese and green onion on top when it was done, broiled till everything looked good and melty, and then served with a salsa on top and a generous dollop of plain balkan yogurt on the side (it was hot!).
Great success!

Salsa (inadvertently green!)

I made some salsa. Sometimes I like to get very involved in cooking, this time I just threw everything in a cuisinart and pressed GO.

We've got a couple of handfuls of tomatoes, a jalapeno pepper, some basil and parsley from our plants, juice of half a lemon, olive oil, pinch of salt, load of pepper. Zap zap!

It looks like a party! Also it is very green because there's a lot of green stuff in there and half the tomatoes were greenish-orange anyways. It is pretty good but since the tomato:pepper ratio is like 3:1 it is pretty hot and I am out of sour cream, so this stuff will have to wait until tomorrow when I can resupply.

So, here we are

Ok. It's weird, I know, but it seemed like an excellent idea at the time. Very impressive, I swear.

It all starts when a friend suggests that raw zucchini is a good time. You're skeptical, but they're adamant, and the "hurricane" has introduced enough rain to your old zucchini plant that you still have more growing. So it goes.

So! Grab a smallish zucchini and slice it with a carrot peeler so that it produces thin wide ribbons, which you can put in a small bowl with a homemade vinaigrette. That business goes in the fridge. Side dish complete!

Up next: fresh corn pesto and baby potatoes.

Gather up all the small potatoes from the third row of your garden and boil them with two ears of corn in your grandmothers old soup pot. By this time, you should also be frying up some bacon. Take the corn out and let it cool down a bit. Put the potatoes in the toaster oven.

Eat the first ear of corn (cause you're hungry) and use the same pot to boil different water for the fanciest pasta you've got. Add it. Drain the majority of the bacon fat from the pan you fried it in. Add a couple cloves of minced garlic and the white part of an onion from the garden to the leftover fat and keep on fryin. Add in some pepper and also the kernels from the second ear of corn. Break up the bacon into smallish pieces and throw em back in too. Stir! Dump it all in a food processor and add grated parmesan, walnuts and olive oil (only a little). Process! Turn on the toaster oven with the potatoes in it.

Here comes the magic:
Drain the pasta, but reserve about a cup of the water. Put the pasta back in the pot and then add the pesto. Rock it on medium. Slowly stir in some of the leftover water until you've reach desired consistency. I'd like to suggest that this was the element that our pesto was missing, not extra oil or salt. I think I might be anti-salt. Is that a deal breaker?

Put all of these things on a nice blue plate. Grate some extra cheese over everything and take it outside for a picnic with your cat. It may not have been the prettiest meal, but it was certainly delicious. Well, everything except the zucchini salad. That was weird.

There are no details about the cocktail, as I hear that my audience has no interest in such things.

Grilled Cheese

Friends Andrew and Tania have gotten me hooked on grilled cheese with gravy. I whipped up some rye bread and made sandwiches with gravy from last night.

Made a floury roux with some butter, and added the drippings, runaway juices, and some reduced stock that was in my freezer. The roast beef was roasted with carrots and onions in the pan, so it is wonderfully sweet gravy. Also I cracked a lot of pepper in there so that is pretty dominant too. In retrospect, some lemon juice or zest would probably actually be the last element to complete this otherwise wonderful gravy.
The bread is buttermilk rye, the cheese is just some old orange cheddar.
Man I love grilled cheese and gravy.

Take two: So I am trying to work on my plating so I put some veg and some sausage and some tomatoes on a plate with the grilled cheese but this gravy is so thick it just kind of glomps on to everything and totally ruins any plating I had going on there.
However, as always, I regret none of my gravy-related decisions.

Muffining

Hey what's up? Not much, you know, just MUFFIN MUFFIN MUFFIN MUFFIN


Hey why does it look like a baby threw up on some chocolate muffins there? Because that is an accurate description of the events that transpired! Fortunately baby throw-up is fairly high in niacinnamon and ultralosealamine, so it is good for us!

Anyways, here are some muffins. There was some chocolate batter and some blueberry batter and the two got uncomfortably close and uncomfortably delicious.



Basically there is a chocolate muffin hanging out inside of a blueberry muffin. I have eaten too much muffin for this time of night.

L' Accordeoniste

Zucchini bread with curried yellow zucchini soup:

From whence it came

The delightful month of August allowed for no less than 14 loaves of zucchini bread in my life (and the lives of my dear friends and neighbours). There are just so many different ways to approach it. Sweet. Savory. Bland (for the elderly). Spicy. Etc.

Necessities

Constants:

• 2 cups of whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Freshly ground/grated cinnamon and nutmeg
• 1 cup (probably more) of grated zucchini
• Some salt
  

Necessities with options:

• Olive oil, yogurt, buttermilk, coconut milk
• Eggs or ground flax
• Maple syrup, honey, brown sugar, agave nectar
• All manner of nuts (preferably toasted)

Things I've Added In (mix and match)

Chocolate chips/chunks (white, dark, milk), score bits, a caramel swirl, a carob or cocoa powder swirl, melted chocolate swirl, sweet potatoes, different cheeses, vanilla, blackberries, blueberries, gooseberries, pumpkin, crasins, chopped up chives, garlic, ginger, orange zest, apple juice, oats, coconut, basil, red currants, rum, baileys, shredded apple, shredded carrot, curry, etc.

The possibilities are endless.

Choose your destiny and then scrape it into a buttered up bread pan. 40min in the oven at 350 degrees should do it.

As for the soup, I'm sure the options are similarly endless, but I've been keeping it pretty basic:

Melt some butter in a medium sized pot and saute a chopped up onion and a couple minced cloves of garlic. Add 2 or so cups of grated yellow zucchini and two cups of your famous vegetable broth. Stir. Put a cover on it and go water your garden.

Take it off the burner, let it cool, shove it in your blender. Blend. Put it back in the pot, stir in a tablespoon of curry (probably more) and reheat it slowly. Add a foolish amount of freshly ground pepper. Take a photo of the bread and soup duo in front of the plant it came from.

And you're done!

Summer Stew

I had tomatoes, zucchini, and split peas that needed eating, so I made some stew.
Bring 2 cups salted water to boil, add 1/2 cup yellow split peas, reduce to low and simmer for about 20 minutes (until just almost done) and drain.
Chop up a bunch of tomato, half a zucchini, a bunch of kielbasa, two cloves of garlic, and a hot pepper.
Fry the garlic and hot pepper in some olive oil and butter for a minute or so, then add the rest of the mess (veg and sausage). Cook uncovered for five minutes, then cover, throw in a splash (1/4 cup?) of water and the lentils and reduce to medium low.
Cook for five minutes more, then toss in a heaped teaspoon of pickled capers (well drained, none of that pickle juice!) and cook for another five minutes or so. Serve with cracked black pepper.





I mean, you could have cooked the peas in the vegetable juices but then everything would taste like split peas. This way, zucchini still tastes like zucchini and tomatoes like tomatoes.