Ginger Tablet

Grandma's Recipes: Smack Cake

Over the last four weeks I've been getting tested and diagnosed. It sounds more harrowing than it is, although there are many other ways I would rather spend my time. Basically there's a big thing in me that shouldn't be there, but it looks harmless. Maybe it's even friendly and charming.  And so soon they'll take it out. Unfortunately it's quite a heifer, so it's going to be some pretty invasive surgery and a number of weeks of lying around on my couch. That always sounds like a better way to spend your days than it really is. If you have any book recommendations, I'm profoundly interested.

My coping mechanism has been the old trick of keeping real busy. My boss loves it! When I'm not doing that, I'm having a wobble. Generally at night, mostly around J. The lucky guy. As I have two modes at the moment (efficient and weepy), blogging is difficult. It involves sitting still and thinking in complete sentences and not crying. So while I'm here today with a story and a picture and a recipe, I can't make any promises about the next month or so.  Eventually I'll have tales of hospital food in Glasgow. Focus on that. Grim guaranteed. 

As I've been getting prodded and assessed and scanned my interest in new foods and recipes and ingredients has waned. but there has been proportional waxing in my interest in the familiar and comforting and in cake, so a little while ago I called my mom and got her recipe for Smack Cake. While we were chatting, she pulled out the clear plastic bag that holds her mother's recipe book and cards and folded magazine pages. The recipe is faded and written in my grandmother's delicate handwriting. Since she died months before I was born, we've never met. The recipe cards were some of the most concrete and tangible connections to her. Her words becoming treats made by my mom and making their way to me and my brother, the greedy pair. We loved smack cake, a simple cake bar with a shortbread bottom topped with a gooey, sticky coconut mixture that gets crispy and toasted on top, and almost like caramel in the middle. I probably haven't had it for 10 years, but it was in heavy rotation growing up and just the taste I want now.

Plus, it's called SMACK CAKE. That's reason enough to eat it. It probably has other names in other parts of North America, but this is what grandma used to call it. J now wants to open a cafe just so he can start dealing it. We would probably attract a large clientele - people coming in looking for a little bit of easy comfort and sweetness, an addictive taste of toasted coconut tenderness. It's just the thing to get you through.

Smack Cake

Makes one 9x9 tray

Ingredients

Base

• 1.5 c flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 c butter (I say use salted, but it's your choice)
• 2 large egg yolks*
• vanilla

Topping

• 2 large egg whites*
• pinch of salt
• 1 cup brown sugar (lightly packed)
• 1 cup coconut
• chopped walnuts (optional)

Method

1. Preheat that oven of your to 350/180.

2. Separate the 2 eggs into two bowls.

3. Cream the butter, sugar, egg yolks, and vanilla. Add the flour and baking powder. It will be a pretty stiff and pretty delicious very yellow dough.

4. Press the dough into the tray and leave it for a sec. I never butter the tray and I can't remember my mom taking that extra step either, but if you really want to, do it.

5. Add a pinch of salt to your egg whites.

6. Beat them until they are stiff!

7. Carefully fold in the brown sugar and the coconut trying to preserve as much volume as possible. 

8. Sprinkle the walnuts on the cookie base if you care to use them.

9. Spoon the coconut topping over everything.

10. Bake for 25 minutes.

****EAT*THE*WHOLE*TRAY****

* I don't normally pay much attention to egg size, but I routinely buy medium eggs here, while back in North America, they always seem to be extra big. When I made this batch, the ratio of egg white to sugar/coconut seemed a bit off and I think this is why. If you normally buy medium eggs, use three instead of two. The extra yolk in the base is probably not that crucial, but you really need the extra volume in the top part.

Kola Kubes and Rosy Apples

I had one of my more depressing days on Monday. It's a contender for the list of my top 15 most soul-sucking days, actually.  A long stretch of time in a bleak part of town in a grim atmosphere. After long hours deprived of food and hope and joy, we took ourselves to the grocery store to forage soup and toast (what else would you eat after a day like that?), but first we took a stroll to the new sweetie shop near Partick station. 

I can't remember the name of the shop, but it's called something intuitive and it's just there, when you leave the subway, before Dumbarton Road right near the cobbler. You know the strip. 

Although it's new, it meets J's strict old school candy store requirements. Nothing funny, no errant Hershey's, no twee cupcakes, just jars and jars of sweets, piled high on shelves behind the counter, all for pennies. There is a ceremony: the jar is removed, the scoop dips in and the sweets clatter down into the wide metal bowl of the scales and then folded quickly into a white paper bag and handed over for the change at the bottom of your pocket. 

There are a million traditional British sweeties and I've tried a teeny tiny fraction of them, so it's quite exciting for me to pick a couple of new ones out. And often J hasn't had them in many, many (many) years, so it's a pleasant nostalgia trip for him. Basically, it's the most fun you can have for less than two pounds.

This time kola kubes were top of my list. J had always described them as the least ergonomic candy in creation, a long cube covered in abrasive sugar that are initially impossible to negotiate. I love a challenge in sugar form! In their centre there is also a minute sticky glob that will pull out your dental work. And they're cola flavoured, as you might have deduced. This may leave you cold, but I have a deep and passionate love affair with cola (and one evil brand in particular), so this just gave me another way to indulge. I loved them. They were a hit, even if they did leave my mouth bruised and torn up.

And Rosy Apples. How sweet do they sound?  At some point in my lifetime all apple-flavoured sweets became sour, and the more atomically sour, the better. I guess this was to give the apple a bit of edge and danger, because it's not normally oh-so intimidating. But I liked these sweeter ones. There was still a sour edge, but they didn't taste like their primary aim was to make me cry. I appreciate that in a candy and I definitely appreciated it on Monday.

Norovirus

This week I discovered the emetic properties of rice cakes. 

It was unpleasant.

Back soon.

Kenny Rogers and my Spring Food List

 

(You gotta know when to look at the camera, dumb face. And stand up straight. Man.)

Meeting Kenny Rogers was not on my list of things to do, let alone scoring very good tickets to a very sold out show. But sometimes you are presented with these opportunities, and only a fool would say no. How could you say no to the Gambler? I couldn't. In fact I couldn't say anything at all to him. I think I just giggled and went red. While there now exists a picture where his arm is clasped around my waist, and while this is awesome, I look like such a fool that there probably isn't any need to share it. I'll always have the memory. And the backstage pass is stuck to the inside of my medicine cabinet, creating a sparse shrine near my mascara.

What I learned: Kenny is a lot smaller now than he used to be back in the 80s when he looked like a Santa who liked to drink. I'd frankly be worried about that stream sweeping his wee island self right up and away these days. I guess he could always cling to Dolly and her flotation devices. The cascading mullet is gone, too. He also embraces some slightly dated views on the differences between the sexes, but this is hardly surprising. His act involves a slideshow of pictures of his wife when she was pregnant and throwing cash into the crowd both of which = a bit weird. But the guy can still deliver quite a performance. If you ever get the chance, I would take it without hesitation. An hour of cheese never sounded so good. 

 But it's not all backstage squeezes with country stars round here. Nope, I've been buckling down and addressing some of the things that I've actually planned to do. Because the greatest lesson that Kenny has taught is one of timing, of knowing the right time to hold things, fold things, count them, etc. And I take that message of time-awareness to heart.

I think I make a food list every season. It's not that formal and I never write it down, but as one season finally ends, and I get excited about the new one that's approaching, I start plotting. I feel I have to capitalize on that small window to eat and cook the food of that time of year. Predictably, the Spring List seems to be about growing things. Here are the ones I've checked off so far:

1. Restart my starter. My sourdough starter died an ignoble death last summer because I'm bad at baking bread and I took out my frustration on its poor, yeasty soul. This year I have a new book and a new hope and I'm coaxing another batch of wild yeast. With any luck we'll be experimenting with pizza doughs by the end of the week.

 

 

2. Sprout some seeds. There is nothing cuter and nothing that makes you feel more ok about the world than microscopic, germinating seeds. I want to have shoots and sprouts in the flat all the time. That's some thyme up there. I'm looking into pea shoots. I hate snow peas, but I sure do love their stalks and tendrils. Still not sure how they'll feel about growing inside... 

 

 

 

3. Get some herbs again and take really good care of them. (Because I can't grow everything from seed.) Last year we had an unfortunate aphid infestation. We were stupid and soft-hearted and rescued some struggling plants from B&Q. This is not wise. They came with herds of aphids who quickly sucked the life out of our plants. Those that survived the onslaught, perished during our Christmas holiday since one of J's theft-deterrent moves was to pull the window shade all the way down, thus blocking out any light the plants could get, thus killing everything but the aloe.  I've started a new crop, repotted some of them and fed them pretty consistently. They are growing in great, spindly clumps right now. Just visible behind the mint is some lavender, rosemary and lemon thyme.

 

Other Spring food/drink-related goals include:

 

• Have a Passover Seder in London. Done! And it was fantastic!
• Harvest some nettles and make some soup. This is a leftover from last year's list, but I'm determined now.
• Secretly plant rhubarb in the (overgrown, ignored communal) backyard and some poppies for the bees.
• Re-plant my aloe. I don't eat the aloe, but I did recently hack a bit off to soothe a burn and it was fantastic. Really cooling and comforting and the burn healed better than a similar one I left untreated. Seeing as I've managed to burn myself four times in the last couple of weeks, if I'm going to keep on cooking, I need to make sure this guy will be healthy enough to treat me. Maybe I should try to sing to it, "Aloe - I'm your knight in shining armor and I love you. You have made me what I am.....and....I am yooouuuurrrrs"
• Eat breakfast outside of our new micro tent after a successful night camping out. Preferably on Arran. Preferably not in the rain.
• Find some sloe bushes that I can harvest late in the fall.
• Roast a pork shoulder.
• Complete the Swimathon (in under an hour if there are no slowpokes) and then get profoundly drunk in the hours/days that follow and then go dancing.
• Have a picnic with sneaky glasses of Pimms as soon as possible.  

I'm also raising money for my future vegetable and rare-breed bee farm/art centre. If you want me to do things for you for money, just let me know. I can hem trousers and make spreadsheets.
  
  
  
  

 

Lemon Polenta Cake, For Passover, For the Gluten-Free

This is a cake recipe that you can keep on a spare piece of imaginary paper, folded and memorised and tucked safely in your brain until you need it. Because a flour-free recipe that can be quickly assembled and only has five ingredients is a very handy trick. Especially if you happen to have dear ones who don't eat wheat or you happen to celebrate Passover. But the thing that really endears is that it doesn't taste like a subsitute. Like something you're eating because you've been denied normal food. As someone with a few obligatory and restrictive diets in her past, that is a damn fine trait.

I got the recipe for the Lemon Polenta cake from Nigel Slater's lovely, lovely site (that makes me want to have a garden urgently and immediately. Read that section and tell me your not a) getting on the waiting list for an allotment, or b) plotting the death of your lawn for the sake of dense fruit, flower and vegetable plots). He makes it into a layered cake filled with lemon curd and cream, and who would argue with that approach? I decided to keep it as one layer, brush it with a simple lemon syrup and cover it with whipped cream and some blueberries. I served it for tea, thought there would be leftovers and was totally wrong. I think anything remaining on the plate was, um, tidied up, as we made dinner that night.

And although there is of course no reason why you wouldn't eat flour normally at Easter, this would still be a festive little cake with all of its eggs, bright yellow colour and its ability to mate happily with cream and berries.

This cake will also save you if you want to bake, but find yourself without nice butter. One of the cruellest tales of the kitchen is The Fate of Baked Goods When Made with Crappy Butter. There's no need to relive this nightmare. Don't delude yourself and think it won't happen to you. It will and you'll cry.

Lemon Polenta Cake, for when you can't eat things, but don't really wish to be reminded of that fact (from Nigel Slater)

The cake serves not so many people. If you were making it for a seder, try doubling the quantity, baking it in two tins and making it a real layer cake.

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs, separated
• 110g sugar
• 50g fine corn meal/polenta
• 30g ground almonds
• Lemon

Method:

1. In a mixing bowl/stand mixer combine the eggs yolks and the sugar. Add in the zest of the lemon followed by the polenta and the ground almonds. Squeeze the juice from the lemon and add it in, too.
2. In another bowl, whisk up the egg whites until they're stiff (a pinch of salt helps here). If your bowl is large, you can place a tea towel underneath one side of it, gently tipping it away from yourself. This makes the pool of egg whites a bit easier to whisk and also stabilizes the bowl so you don't have to hold it. I used my eggbeater for this part and it was great.
3. Fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture in the following fashion: Add a dollop of egg white into the yellow mix and fold it to lighten it up. At this stage you can add the rest of the egg whites in two additions. To fold, use a broad spatula to scrape around the perimeter of the bowl and then cut through the middle of the batter. Use it like a blade so that is mixes it thoroughly, but you whites don't deflate.
4. Pour the batter into a butter/flour/parchment papered cake tin (8 inch) that you prepared earlier. Around the same time you also preheated the oven to 180/350.
5. Bake for around 30 minutes until it's golden and your trusty cake-tester comes out all clean.
6. Garnish at will, but think about boiling a tiny bit of sugar and water and lemon juice/zest while the cake is baking and giving it a gentle syrup shower once the cake is cooled. The lack of fat could lead to a dry cake, and this step will prevent that from happening.

Fame and Homemade Granola

So the most exciting bit of recognition I've ever received for this blog has been getting contacted by Kellogg's because, in their words, I'm a "discerning food lover". They asked if they could send me a sample of a new cereal, and I momentarily thought I might be giving my details to an identity thief, decided to say yes anyway just to see what happened, and then I forgot all about it. 

The anticipation didn't kill me mostly because I thought they were going to send me sample-sized samples. Food in small packets is simply dissatisfaction all wrapped up in over-packaging. I knew I would just relegate it to a cupboard while I ate items that were more guaranteed to satiate. Big foods, shoveled in. 

When I retrieved the very large and heavy box from my neighbours a couple of months later, I thought it was some sewing paraphernalia. I only started to clue in when I noted that it was addressed to Ginger Tablet, not a nom de plume I've ever given the sewing machine man. Nope, this was a load of cereal directly from the kitchens of Mr Kellogg. But not only cereal! Inside the box was a straw-filled wood and wicker crate, a rustic (questionably food safe) wooden bowl, a single hefty spoon and four boxes of cereal. One of each flavour of their new granola. I got all of this in exchange for filling out a little questionnaire online. 

Now, I was never asked to blog about these products, but I can only imagine that they thought that by sending me such a winsome array of props, I could stage quite the photo. Unfortunately I won't make that dream come true, but I did have some thoughts on their offering:

- Freeze-dried fruit is weird. These blends have half dried fruit and half freeze-dried. One part chewy and one part foam-y. It's an unappealing contrast. Although the cherry/raspberry turned out to be our favourite once the foam berries reconstituted themselves in milk, the apple/black currant variety with the foam apple chunks was pretty strange. I didn't dip into that box very often.

- I like my granola 100% oat-based. Wheat and barley do nothing for me in this context. 

- The product range is called "Nature's Pleasure". This horrible bit of branding is fertile ground for many a suggestive joke at breakfast time. And perhaps all of our breakfasts should be just a little bit dirtier. I know we sure giggled a few times. 

- The overall design and promotion of this cereal is a little something I like to call "twee as f**k". This aesthetic that earnestly embraces cupcakes as a political lifestyle choice. An attitude that privileges cuteness and the preservation of ignorance. This can be fine in a small business on Etsy and adorable in your first art school girlfriend, but when Kellogg's goes for hand-drawn graphics and the word "yum!" and a breakdown of the ingredients and how wholesome they are, the general effect is both creepy and obscuring. One does not read the label and think things are just that simple, one feels lied to. I also do not like packages addressing me directly: "as it's such a beautifully simple process we thought we'd share it with you". This is awfully forward. They totally don't even know me.

- Realization: I enjoy overproduced free things and for the first time wanted to be very, very famous 

- Realization: I will never be able to understand the enormity of advertising budgets that can promote these products in such a ridiculous fashion. How many rustic crates did they send  out?

Overall verdict: It was fine. A bit boring. Not quite crunchy enough or sweet enough or full enough of fruit/nut bits. None of the flavours were horrible, although our last box is languishing a bit. And the suggested retail price of 2.49 is cheaper than I would have thought. Basically, if you're stuck for a cereal, then this would be fine. I think it's going to hit the shelves in April.

But I love cereal and feel that it can be so much more than whatever. I've been making a batch of granola every Sunday since January and not only is it easy, it is phenomenally good and completely adaptable. You can put in whatever you want. The basic premise is that you mix some vegetable oil and your sweeteners of choice (applesauce/honey/maple syrup/brown sugar/etc) in one bowl and your oats and chopped nuts in another bowl and then smush them together, spread the mixture on a baking sheet and pop it in the oven at 350/180 for half an hour, stirring it around now and then until it browns evenly. If you want to add dried fruit you can just dump it in once the mixture is out of the oven. I've read that you should keep it in the fridge, so that's what I do. It's not a lot of work and the result is (technically) delicious x 1,000,000. 

In conclusion, you can do exactly the same thing as Kellogg's and not spend very much time or money, but instead of ending up with a product that's meh, you get the cereal of your fantasies (if you're into granola). In the concluding section of the on-the-box essay concerning Nature's Pleasure, Kellogg's goes onto say that the process of producing it is "so simple anyone could make it. Anyone with time. And an oven."

Dear reader, I would like to suggest that you are indeed such an anyone. 

Granola Any Way You Like It (if you like it to begin with)

Dry ingredients

Oats (6-7 cups)

Nuts! A couple of handfuls, whatever kinds take your fancy! Chop them up!

About 1/3 c of brown sugar

Wet Stuff

1/3 c vegetable oil

Honey

Applesauce - or if you live in a country where that's an exotic substance, finely grate a peeled apple instead. Very similar texture.

Maple Syrup

Other sweet liquid

Maybe some nice juice (I used apple/rhubarb once with great success)

Extra stuff

Cinnamon

Ginger

Vanilla Extract

Fruit

Anything dried, and chop anything big

Method:

Turn on your oven 180/350

1. Mix all the dry stuff together

2. Make a custom blend of your favourite sweeteners. The exact ratio doesn't matter. I use oil, one grated apple, a good glob of honey and maybe some juice. Try to end up with roughly 1.5 cups of stuff.

3. Mix the wet and the dry and add any some spices if you want.

4. Spread the mixture on two baking sheets. Pop them in the oven and every now and then rotate them and stir the oats around. When everything is lightly browned (25-35 minutes) remove the sheets and let them cool. Don't worry if things appear soggy. It will crisp up as it cools.

5. Break it up into the kind of chunks you like best. Add fruit if you're one of those people. 

To increase the overall smug quotient of making your own granola, have it with plain yogurt and pomegranate seeds after your swim in the morning. Take it into work. Tell people that you not only went for a swim, but you made this granola with your own dear little hands. This is a surefire way to gain admirers and allies.

Sticky Toffee Pudding for the Last Miserable Days

 

Oh, we're all going to get our little hearts broken. Was it nice where you were today? It was pretty nice here and it's supposed to be that way for the rest of the week, and, if we're really really good, maybe even into the weekend. It's time to feel pretty smugly pleased with ourselves for once again witnessing these stretching days as they warm right up. Flowers everywhere. Trilling and chirping birds. And bike rides with jackets open and warm breezes and later sunsets. So lovely. We're just so optimistic and full of love and hope. We are so headed for a fall. 

Because it's March. It won't last. Wherever you are in the Northern Hemisphere, however well the weather is currently behaving, we will be delivered with some really awful days in the next little while. March is a tease and never a safe bet. April is no better. Even worse because our expectations are higher.

So here's what I'm proposing the next time we get walloped with a chilly and mediocre and grey day: make Sticky Toffee Pudding. Because oh my god it's one of the best things that will ever enter your mouth if you like concentrated sweetness, warmth and toffee. And it's easy. And it's really good for any lazy night curled up in front of a film. And because it won't be that appetizing by when it's properly warm outside. 

I had been meaning to make it for months, ever since those first autumn shivers. I knew I had to get my act together and fortunately this past weekend was gross and kindly accommodated. We sometimes buy pre-made versions of this pudding. And I love them. So I was pretty concerned that my at home attempt wouldn't equal the grocery store equivalent. But it was even better. The crisp outer edge of the cake that gives way to the soft, cakey centre all smothered in toffee sauce and served with a pool of warm custard. This is a dream in a bowl. 

Last week a study claimed that some celebrity chef recipes contained dangerous amounts of saturated fat. In particular, Gordon Ramsay's STP recipe was targeted. Why this was front (of the Life and Style section) page news when, duh, obviously recipes that are primarily made with cream and butter are high in saturated fat, and the study was funded by a margarine company, so there might have been a bit of bias and anyway, hasn't saturated fat been given the not-totally-terrible-for-you clear when compared to some of the weirder and more horrible people-made fats, is a mystery to me. But just so you know, this recipe is not great for your saturated fat levels. It is very good for your emotional well-being. Eat vegetables before and during the day that follows and forget about it.

Do you want the recipe? Here it is. It's mostly taken from the BBC's website, but I added raisins to the mix. If you are a raisin person, I feel like it's an essential addition. It breaks things up. If you're not, then whatever. This has a lot of dates in it. If you're weird about dried fruit maybe you should just stop reading all together and have a long hard think about what's wrong with your palate.

I've also adapted some technique from David Lebovitz because the toffee layer on the bottom of the pan is crucial. I cut the recipe in half, poured it into a loaf tin and baked for about 20 minutes. It served the two of us twice. But this is the full strength version in case there are more of you.

Here we go! Sticky Toffee Pudding!

Ingredients for the cake:

225g whole dates

150g raisins

boiling water

175g self-raising flour

1 tsp baking soda

2 eggs

85 g butter

140g brown sugar

2 tbsp black treacle/molasses

100ml milk

custard!

 

for the toffee sauce:

175g brown sugar

50g butter, in pieces

225ml double, heavy cream

1tbsp black treacle

1. Place the dates and the raisins in separate bowls. Cover both with boiling water. Let them sit.

2. Grease your baking dish or mini pudding dishes and preheat the oven to 180/350

3. Make the toffee sauce: Put butter and sugar and half the cream in a heavy pot and bring to a boil. Stir all the time! It's going to bubble and slowly turn brown. After about 5-7 minutes, remove from heat and slowly whisk in the remaining cream and the treacle. Pour half of the sauce in your baking tin and put the tin in the freezer. (At this point I added a bit more cream and butter to the remaining sauce so it wouldn't solidify completely and I would be able to easily  heat it up again).

4. Make the cake: cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time and the vanilla. Now beat in the treacle. Combine the flour and the baking soda in a separate bowl. Add it to the batter in 2-3 additions, alternating with the milk. All the recipes said not to over-mix, so just in case, I'll warn you of that as well. Drain the dates and mash them up with a fork. Add them to the batter. Drain the raisins and put them in there as well. Pour the batter in the pan (on top of chilled toffee layer) and bake for approximately 25 minutes or until your cake tester comes out so fresh and so clean.

5. To serve, heap the cake into a bowl, add warm toffee sauce on top and surround with custard. Die of pleasure.

 

French Leek Soup and Lunch All Week

Let's say that any meal comprising solely of slow cooked onions, such as French Onion Soup, makes you an unpleasant person to be around a few hours later. Let's not say anything more than that. Let's say that you know this and you don't want to be that person, but the idea of lovely onion soup topped with toasted bread and a lot of melted cheese torments you. You get bitchy when other people casually mention eating or making it. Well, if this is you, I have something to share: Put cheesy toast on another kind of soup. It works! It will satisfy you! You won't be embarrassed to share a room/couch/bed for the following 24 hours.

This is what you do: Chop three leeks and soften them in a fair amount of butter. Like a lump and a half. I had 5 big white mushrooms, so I diced them into wee bits and threw them in. I also very thinly sliced two small potatoes and when the leeks were soft added them as well. I added a splash of vermouth (but white wine would have been good), a bay leaf and some dried thyme, and topped everything up with vegetable broth to simmer for an hour or so. Now this is a fair amount of time to simmer a soup like this, but that was a productive period. Because while the flavours were becoming fantastic, lunch for the week was being prepared.

We're into packed lunches around here for pretty much every reason going: better for us, better for the planet, better for our wallets, often more delicious. Of course making them is a pain. But I find that if I have various delicious things I can scoop into a container, I can still get out of the door in the morning. How come making a sandwich takes so long? Sandwich making definitely will make you late. Salads are key.

So I made the spread you see before you while the soup was maturing. There's an eggplant, pomegranate and pine nut salad in a garlic yogurt dressing, a tabbouleh of sorts with diced zucchini and pine nuts, a grated carrot, beet and celery salad with a honey mustard shallot dressing and some cooked sausages purchased from our lovely local butcher. All things that work together and all things that are even better cold. 

And although it looks like a lot of work, it's pretty simple. Here it is in Nine Simple Steps:

1. Prep your eggplant. Turn the oven on to 350/180. Cut two eggplants lengthwise and then score the flesh. Rub with oil and sprinkle with salt. Place them skin side up on a baking tray and roast them for 30-45 minutes. Until they look like this:

2. Dice half a large zucchini (or one whole small one if that's what you've got). Place the pieces in a bowl with about 1.5 cups of bulgur. Turn on the kettle. Cover the bulgur/zucchini with boiling water, put a lid on the bowl and let everything steep for a while. Just forget about it.

3. Toast a bunch of pine nuts.

4. De-seed half a pomegranate.

5. Mince three cloves of garlic. Your co-workers will really like this.

6. Remember those pine nuts! Don't let them burn!

5. In a mixing bowl combine 3/4 cup of plain yogurt, a glug of olive oil and one of those minced garlic cloves. Add the pomegranate seeds and pine nuts, combine and set aside.

6. Quarter some cherry tomatoes and chop a big bunch of parsley.

7. Throw some sausages on. Use the pine nut pan!

8. Check on the bulgur and zucchini. They're probably just lovely. If so, add the parsley, two remaining cloves of garlic and the pine nuts. Squeeze a lemon over them. Add some olive oil. Stir. You're done! One dish out of the way!

9. Make a dressing for the carrot salad. Finely dice a tiny shallot and place in your dressing-making device (like a tall glass). Add a spoonful of Dijon mustard, honey, salt and white wine vinegar. When making vinaigrettes, always put your water-based ingredients in together first before adding oil. This helps you get a better emulsification. Now add a trickle of olive oil. Just a bit. Stir a lot. You should see it thickening. Add some more oil and keep stirring. Eventually it will get quite thick and glossy and you can start adding the oil faster. Taste and adjust sugar/salt/vinegar/oil as needed.

7. Dice one stalk of celery and grate two carrots and one big beet. Toss them with the dressing. Another dish done!

8. How are the sausages? Getting close? Burn them just a bit. They're ready, too!

9. Your eggplants should be mushy and fragrant now. Take them out of the oven, give them a rough chop and add the pieces to the yogurt/pomegranate mix. That's it! Four dishes made while you were waiting for dinner to cook.

Tomorrow you can have a mound of each of these babies with a sliced sausage on top and not only will this be pretty healthy and colourful, but your co-workers will be jealous little suckers.

But back to tonight and back to this soup. 

This will feed four people or two very, very greedy people. Whatever. We were watching Tampopo at the time and how can you watch that movie and not continuously eat soup if there's soup to be eaten? Anyway. Cut four pieces of bread and toast them. I used a seeded rye and it was actually ok. Grate some emmenthal or gruyere.

At this point you could put the soup into individual bowls, top each one with a slice of toast and a bunch of cheese and broil, or if you don't have bowls you know are over safe, just put the pieces of toast right into the soup pot (carefully, so they float), cover the whole thing with cheese and stick the whole thing in the oven under the broiler/grill until it bubbles.  

Ugh. How did you manage to make so many delicious things in such a short period of time? What will you do now except feel full and smug?

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J has just told me that this will definitely not last all week. That could be because he's eaten three sausages today alone. Something tells me he'll see to it that there's still some grated carrot and beet for my lunch by the time Friday is here, though.

Timmy's in Glasgow

It took me a few beats to figure out why my eyeballs were finding this strange. I have seen so many of these cups on the street in my life it took me ages to remember that I wasn't in Canada, that this was weird. 

The Spar on Argyle Street squeezed a little Tim Horton's stall in sometime last fall. I went in once out of curiosity and because I thought space and time dimensions had temporarily shifted. I stammered something to the guy there, trying to ask him why this was here, when it had arrived. I bought a doughnut (Boston Cream). I left. The doughnut was fine, better than the normal Glaswegian offering (they're not really a thing here), but it didn't taste the same. It tasted like it had been frozen, like it had survived a long transatlantic journey. The chocolate topping was solid, it didn't stick to the paper bag, it wasn't quite right.

I've never been back for two reasons: I don't believe in seeking out inferior versions of things I miss. I would rather develop new crushes. And secondly, even in Canada there are only ever two reasons to go to Tim Horton's: 1) You're on a road trip and it's the only option and when the only option involves mandatory doghnut eating, who is going to complain about that? 2) You are somewhere with stupidly expensive/crappy food options and you need exceedingly familiar food at extremely predictably prices. If you are at the airport, a stadium, in Yorkville, then yes, Tim Horton's is your friend. The preservative-ridden soup, warm plastic chicken breast and fake bacon sandwiches and a double double will save you. You will still have money after and in these places, that is a minor miracle.* The Timmy's at the Spar fulfills neither of these criteria and so it is useless to go.

Because let's get one thing straight: Tim Horton's is not good. It's not a mecca of taste and texture. Our rabid loyalty is just nostalgia and Canadians clinging to things that bring them together as a nation. And that's totally fine. It just doesn't seem like a brand that's aching for international domination. It's just not that special outside of its context. Especially if it's reduced to essentially a doughnut stand in a convenience store. They don't put cream in coffee here so you can't even get a double double. No one knows what that means. What's the point?

Anyway, you know what did bring a wee tear to my eye? The french on the cup. I loved seeing that tiny chaud looking up at me. The bilingual nature of the litter made me feel fleetingly patriotic and homesick. I interpreted it as Canadians staying true to their beliefs and identity. Not that the company was too cheap to make cups only in English for the international market. What can you do? Nostalgia and patriotism are not generally known for their ability to impart rational thoughts.

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* Timbits have their own applications that are not included in the above examples. Specifically, they are useful tools in bribery and friend-making and easing boring, tedious tasks. They are quite adaptable and I would maybe buy them here, but I'm not sure they're offered.

Pancake Day and Rhubarb Curd

I can remember the day when my mother suggested we have pancakes for dinner. I thought she was crazy and absolutely wonderful. Shrove/Fat/Gras Tuesday/Mardi was never really invested with greater cultural meaning when I was young. For a few years at least, I saw it solely as an example of my mother's occasional, gentle eccentricities. Because growing up in the United Church there was never much talk of giving anything up for Lent. This was not a fat fest before forty days of misery and penance. Deprivation of any sort didn't really seem to be much of a thing at church. As far as I can remember, it was mostly people being nice to each other and sugar bowls just begging to have their cubes stolen during the after-service tea time. Eventually I realised that other people in our church also ate pancakes once a year for dinner and that they too just returned to their normal food the next day. 

Although there is now even less religious significance to this meal than there was when I was growing up, I still like to mark the day. It makes me think of my mom. I like the idea of a dinner that clears out the pantries and makes use of what's on hand. And I still feel like a naughty and spoiled princess who has somehow managed to get away with not eating her vegetables, at least for one day.

Tonight I made pancakes with two fillings. The first one was made of apple, raisins, cinnamon, pine nuts and very dark chocolate bits. It was based on Samantha Clark's pancake tip in The Guardian, but I improvised the chocolate and we ate it with sour cream. Extremely delicious. The second filling was a rhubarb curd, similar to a lemon curd, but a beguiling pale pink, and served with bright stewed rhubarb and more sour cream (we had some sitting in the fridge, we were just being frugal). This was also amazing. And I've wanted to try and make a rhubarb curd for a long time. It was on my list of things to do. It's a dorky list.

Now you can fulfill that ambition too. Bet you didn't even know it was in you.

Ingredients

300 grams rhubarb 

approximately 1 cup of sugar

6 egg yolks

a pinch of salt

half a lemon

100 grams of butter, cut up into chunks

Method

1. Cut the rhubarb into chunks and stew it gently in a bit of water and some sugar. This is to taste. Perhaps about 1/4  cup. Set aside when it's a bright pink pulp and all of the pieces have dissolved.

2. In a heat-proof bowl, whisk your egg yolks, 3/4 cup of sugar and the pinch of salt. Whisk them well. 

3. Set the bowl over a pot of simmer water. Not too hot, or your eggs will scramble and that will be gross. Just simmering. Just warm. Whisk the mixture.

4. Incorporate about a cup of the stewed rhubarb. Squeeze in the juice of the lemon half. A bit of zest is nice too. Keep whisking! Don't stop! You can add more fruit if you want, just taste it and see. But keep whisking! Do it for about 10 minutes. 

5. Once it seems nice and thick, take the curd off the heat and stir in the butter. Butter. Delicious butter.

6. Now use it or chill it. I don't know how long it will last in your fridge, but probably best not to push it. A few days. Eat it on everything. Eat it with any leftover rhubarb pulp you might have. Eat it straight from the bowl. 

Happy Pancake Day! I hope it was a soft and warm one.