Artichoke lemonade

Posted on March 23, 2013 by Ann Allchin

Okay, so I didn’t actually make artichoke lemonade. I was just trying to work on my search rankings. Because that title is going to be a home run.

I haven’t blogged for a while, and I’m telling you this even though I read something once that said never start by apologizing that you haven’t blogged for a while. But you know what this post is going to be about? Honesty. Open kimonos. Bet that term will get more search results than my title.

So I haven’t blogged for a while because I’ve had a few food flops lately. I wanted to tell you this because I think it’s important to be open about the fact that not everything you cook will be delicious. If you’re going to cook dangerously. there will be days when food won’t work out. You’ll never learn anything if you keep making chicken fajitas once a week. If I’m ever at your house, and we have to order in, know that as long as you have a very full wine cellar I will never judge. And since I am far from being a top chef, I have had to compensate for my own cooking with the odd extra nip of vino lately (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it).

First I tried Meyer lemons.

They were shining at me from within their highfalutin specialty packaging, so I knew I had to have them. Their PR people say they’re sweeter than regular lemons, so you should use them in lemony baked goods for extra delectabillity. Maybe mine were genetically modified beyond recognition, but they tasted sour on their own, yet didn’t taste lemony in anything I made with them. And I made lots, thanks to this blog post, shared by @HipFoodieMom1 on Twitter.

I made lemon fettuccine. And it was good, but not so lemony.

I made blueberry-meyer lemon fizz. Seems to be missing from White on Rice couple’s blog now, but let’s not mourn it. Although my daughter did ask for it again recently. Blueberry puree, lemon juice, soda water, simple syrup (boiled sugar water 1:1).

And Meyer lemon bars. Again, nice, but not so lemony. I wanted cheek pooching lemony goodness.

Thanks bobbleheadbaby.com

I got something tasty, but not poochy.

And then there were the artichokes (that my daughter proudly chose at the grocery store and insisted I prepare for this blog). I had tasted them “from scratch” once in my life before, where my friend cooked them and told me to scrape the meat from the leaves with my lower teeth, but I thought I’d do them myself. I steamed, but undercooked them. I tried them again, but my guests thought they were too much like work.

I bought some artichoke asiago dip to go with the artichoke the first time, and dipped it in butter the second.

But the heart was delicious (don’t eat the fuzzies, which are the “choke”).

The bottom line is, don’t give up. You can deal with the failures/blahs in your cooking as long as you hold out for the heart at the end of it all (gag, gag, please no one quote me as a cheesy retweetable quote, because it will ruin my reputation).

Next blog post: beef heart. Kidding. So far.

Following Midwesternbite.com’s method, I’ll close with a question for you. What has your biggest flop in the kitchen been?

Toothless Sunshine loves dragon fruit

Posted on February 9, 2013 by Ann Allchin

Our house is all about dragons right now.

The dragon connection started in an odd way. My jeans fell apart, because I’m cheap, and I don’t enjoy buying expensive jeans, but I enjoy wearing them (see frugal article here). So while my jeans had become unwearable due to air conditioning in the nether regions, I wasn’t able to let them go. So I made a pocket purse for my daughter.

In the name of fairness, I offered my son a homemade gift of his choice. His confident request – “A dragon.” I did myself some googling, and found this pattern for a dragon. I was disappointed that the creators of the pattern hadn’t managed to find the perfect dragon fabric that I did – green velour with green sequins – so I smugly walked away from Fabricland and made the very first object of my son’s affection, Toothless Sunshine.

Let me just take a time out to say that I’m a giant feminist, and that I proudly own my love for cooking, sewing, and parenting as a personal choice afforded to a liberated woman. Let’s move on.

Anyway, as we were in the spirit of dragons, I picked up this fruit

at our beloved No Frills grocery store and told my son it was a dragon fruit (pitaya). He begged to try it.

I searched for dragon fruit recipes in an attempt to make something interesting, but didn’t find much beyond sexy fruit plates. I was glad I hadn’t chosen those, because it turns out dragon fruit is quite bland. It looks very cool – fuschia with seedy pulp – but it’s less sweet and tart than a kiwi, which it’s often compared to due to its consistency, even though the dragon fruit is actually the fruit of a cactus.

I finally found a recipe for dragon fruit salsa over scallops, which I won’t even credit because their creation had so few ingredients it was basically dragon fruit and lemon juice (and we’ve already established that dragon fruit has a super boring flavour). I used their scallop/salsa idea, though, and created this:

Seared Scallops and Dragon Fruit Salsa (serves 2)

6 large scallops
A few Tbsp olive oil
1 ripe dragon fruit (gives slightly to touch, like a ripe mango or avocado), diced
1 small handful of fresh cilantro, chopped
2 green onions, chopped
1 small handful dried cranberries
Juice of 1 lime
One chopped chili if desired

Directions: Heat oil over med high heat, approx. 2 mins. Add scallops and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Cook 2-3mins per side, until white and firm on the exterior (scored and slightly darkened if barbequing, but it’s winter and I was cold, so I chose the pan). Meanwhile, combine salsa ingredients. Serve scallops topped with salsa.

Results: Nice! My husband said, “Let’s keep this in mind for when we’re entertaining.” (Or something like that, I wasn’t totally listening). I included the dried cranberries to add a touch of sweetness where the dragon fruit was lacking, and the onions and cilantro answered that salsa freshness expectation. The dragon fruit made the whole thing pretty, and added a cool, crisp texture. Exotic, fresh, and tasty. Rating: 3 Yums

Toothless Sunshine will serve this recipe to his fire breathing friends for sure.

Wine Pairing: Winealign.com suggests that scallops pair well with pinot gris, so I’ll suggest Bestheim Réserve Pinot Gris 2011, Alsace, selling for $15.95 in Ontario.

Slow cooker double feature – Lamb shoulder and quince, and Pork hock and cabbage

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Ann Allchin

I’ve been loving my crockpot lately – it’s getting cold, and I’m getting lazy. I just love that you can peel and chop a thing or two, douse it with liquid, throw in a hunk of meat, flick a switch, and come home hours later to a house that smells like your personal chef has been toiling all day long. Jackie is swearing as she reads this because she’s waiting patiently until Christmas to get one, but don’t worry friend, I’m sure Santa will be good to you. And if somehow you made the naughty list (I’m thinking you’re tracking at about 50/50?), go treat yourself to one on Boxing Day.

So I have a slight problem with describing my first recipe to you, and that is that I kind-of forget what I did. I picked up quince as my dangerous experimental food early last week and created this recipe soon after, but I flipped through so many recipes and finally improvised so that I’m not sure where things ended up. Lessons learned – don’t blog late, and don’t cook and drink wine if blogging. I’ll describe my memory’s best recollection below, but the good news is that I’m convinced if you follow the steps I jokingly described in my first paragraph, almost anything will taste good cooked in a slow cooker. Observe:

Lamb Shoulder and Quince

Lamb shoulder that will fit in your slow cooker
3 quince, cored and quartered (no need to peel) (substitute potatoes if you like)
1 onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1Tbsp fresh thyme, leaves picked
500mL beef stock
1C day-or-two-old red wine (great use for leftovers)
1 177mL (6oz) can tomato paste
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Peel and chop a thing or two: Quince, onion, carrots, garlic

2. Douse with liquid: Add stock, wine and tomato paste. Sprinkle with thyme

3. Throw in a hunk of meat: Rinse lamb, season with salt and pepper, throw it in 4. Flick a switch: If you have 5 hours, turn it on high. If you have 8 hours, turn it on low

5. Delicious house: Remove meat, separate from fat, serve over gently mashed veg Results: Shockingly, I think the recipe I’ve described above is exactly what I did. I think sometimes I cook subconsciously. The quince tasted a little like unsweet pear – an interesting alternative to root vegetables, yet slightly grainy like a pear, so decide whether or not you can accept that. This was a hearty, comforting, simple meal to prepare. If you don’t have quince, pear might work, but if you would prefer to be conventional you can always revert to potatoes.

Rating: 3 Yums. I would rate this recipe higher, but the quince wasn’t fabulous

Pork Hock and Cabbage

I daringly picked up a pork hock (kind of like the shin/calf section, where the piggy foot meets the piggy leg) from the mystery meat section of our discount grocery store. I used to love when my mom would boil a “picnic pork shoulder,” with cabbage in a pot all day, so to answer this craving, I came up with the following way to slow cook my experimental hock:

2 pork hocks (I only bought one, but we were nearly short of meat to serve two adults and two wee kids)
1 onion, peeled and chopped
½ savoy cabbage, chopped into large hunks
700mL chicken stock

1. Peel and chop a thing or two: Cabbage, onion

2. Douse with liquid: Chicken stock

3. Throw in a hunk of meat: Rinse hocks and add. Chop to make fit if necessary

4. Flick a switch: If you have 5 hours, turn it on high. If you have 8 hours, turn it on low

5. Delicious house: Remove meat, separate from fat, serve over veg

Results: Like many “odd” animal parts I’ve cooked for this site, although these cuts are cheaper, they take more work to find the meat. The hock was more fatty than other cuts, but if you’re a dark meat person, this may be for you. And slow cooked cabbage is the only way to go, although I might have to make up a new tag called “gassy,” based on my recent posts. Rating: 2 Yums

Wine Pairing: Winealign.com suggests that a classic red pairing for pork sausage is from Rhone South, so I’ve chosen to suggest this top-rated one (and no, my recipes above aren’t sausage, but I figure their salt and fat probably make them friendly with similar wines): Pierre Amadieu Romane Machotte Gigondas 2010 at $23.95 in Ontario.

I can’t seem to get rid of these four number bullets at the bottom of the page, so as a special bonus, here is what I’d like for Christmas:

A foot massage
New weird foods
A method to type beside #2, above

Persimmon, Pom and Prosciutto

Posted on November 6, 2012 by Ann Allchin

This is going to be a very short blog entry for two reasons:

I just downloaded Gimp photo editing software and spent an hour trying to get some glare off of a pomegranate seed. I feel strangely fulfilled, yet very tired
Tomorrow is the US election, and I don’t want to be that idiot in your Twitter feed where everything is all deep and meaningful about the future of the World as we know it, and I tweet something that says, “Hey, check out persimmon and prosciutto!” So my deadline for this post is about ten minutes from now.

Here is a persimmon:

There are two kinds, the Jiro and Hachiya. Both should be ripe before eating, but the latter should be almost mushy. Mine was the former.

Our wino friends were having us over for a steak dinner where they were sharing their considerable wine collection the other night. Bryan (their home chef) called me and said, “You bringing wine here is like bringing sand to a beach, so just bring some cool appetizers and we’re good.” I had some guilt about this, so had to make sure I brought something especially creative. These are good problems to have.

One of my favourite appetizers involves fig, arugula, mascarpone cheese, and prosciutto. Truth be told, it doesn’t involve those things, it actually is those things. So I thought of that and made this:

Persimmon Prosciutto Bites (Appys for 12)

1 persimmon, hull sliced off, remainder sliced into mini fry-sized slices
Soft light cream cheese
Greens (whatever is on hand – I’d suggest arugula if avail, but I used spinach)
Pomegranate – 3 seeds per app
Prosciutto, cut into long strips

Directions: Slice persimmon. Slather each “fry” with creamed cheese, topping with pom seeds.

Wrap in large green leaf, then prosciutto.

Results: Tasty, but kind of tame. Persimmon is very nice, almost similar to a firm mango. This appetizer would work well with any sweet, distinctive flavoured fruit as the centrepiece (fig, mango, peach…). Don’t use too many pomegranate seeds – they contribute a nice juicy pop, but too many pithy seeds can be annoying. Rating: 1 Yum

Seriously though, thanks to Gimp and my new white plate from the dollar store, I don’t think the people who ate the appy would recognize it based on my hot picture.

Wine Pairing: A friend at the party, Sandy, who has a highly respectable palate (dead on in blind tastings and likes the finer things in life but not in a snobby way) looked at me meaningfully to give me his opinion, saying only, “It pairs perfectly with this wine.” Unfortunately for you this stellar wine is no longer available, but you can probably substitute a nice buttery Chardonnay of your choice. This one was so good that I had to wonder if it had gone bad because it was unlike most other wines I’ve ever tasted. Find a highly rated Chardonnay substitute at www.winealign.com, which is Bryan’s website.

Guava coconut ice, hold the guava

Posted on October 26, 2012 by Ann Allchin

Guavas suck.

There. I said it. I’m sure I’ve just pissed off thousands of people in the guava industry in the middle of droughts and global warming and all the rest of it, when they need every little guava they can hawk just to be able to afford the basics of their Hawaiian existence – grass skirts, flower necklaces, and red Magnum PI Ferraris.

Thanks backtotheeighties.net

But as much as I feel bad for all those guava growers, I cannot tell a lie. They’re terrible. The ones I got were hard like little dehydrated limes, so I you wouldn’t even be able to use their juice. You couldn’t eat a slice of one, because they’re all completely saturated with hard little seeds that are uncrunchable – I guess you’re supposed to swallow them whole like they’re teensy pills, but there are so many of them that you’d end up having to swallow the entire slice. The skins are edible, so maybe you could peel and eat those, but they’re sour, and not in a good way. I thought maybe their redeeming quality was some insanely great flavour that you could somehow extract through highly complex top secret guava processing methods, but when I licked the inside of one it didn’t taste like anything at all, so unless there’s great flavour that’s unleashed after you answer a skill-testing question, I must be missing something.

My impressions were confirmed when I mentioned to a friend that I had tried them, and she said, “Oh. Is it just me, or do they taste like puke?”

Earlier, I had gone to my Twitter foodie gurus to ask what paired well with guava, hoping that their answers would inspire me to throw a few complementary flavours together into an amazingly original culinary creation and they gave great suggestions, like chilies, goat cheese, lychee, strawberry, citrus, vanilla, custard, and coconut. I prepared to go with coconut, picked up a few ingredients, and dragged out my ice cream maker, ready to wow my family with an exotic ice cream I knew they would beg me for for the rest of their lives. Then I licked the guava, and you can guess the rest.

Blechsville.

I still made the coconut ice, inspired by methods in the cookbook, “Ice cream and iced desserts,” by Joanna Farrow and Sara Lewis:

Coconut Ice (serves 4)

1 can light coconut milk, chilled in the fridge
Simple syrup (1.5C water and 3/4C fast-dissolving sugar, boiled until dissolved then cooled and chilled)
4Tbsp sweetened shredded coconut

Directions: If you have an ice cream maker, add coconut milk to syrup in the machine and churn until firm. If you don’t have an ice cream maker, combine liquids and freeze for 4 hours, beating once with fork, electric mixer, or food processor and fluff with fork before serving.

Sprinkle ice with shredded coconut.

Results: This was a simple, tasty dessert that my kids loved, and it was much lighter than a traditional ice cream. It could easily be dressed up with additional pureed fruits, although guava should be avoided at all costs. Rating: 4 gags for the guava, but 2 Yums for the coconut ice

Wine Pairing: Let’s choose a dessert wine for dessert – I’ll go with Lakeview’s 2010 Vidal Icewine, recommended by Winealign.com, sold for 19.95 in Ontario.

PS – Maybe I got some old, dehydrated guavas, just like when you open a giant orange and it’s very unjuicy and tasteless? You tell me, if you’re not a guava-phobe!

The Great (Green) Pumpkin (Squash)

Posted on October 20, 2012 by Ann Allchin

A few days ago I wrote about cute little grape kiwis, and said that everyone likes to eat something if it’s extra mini. Now, only two days later, I’m going to entice you with something big. I’ve been seeing super huge squash around, and I knew immediately that I needed to add them to my weird food addiction…I mean, food freak show…or whatever. My blog.

Thanks Brain4rent’s blog

Well, they weren’t that super huge. Damn, do you think when they grow those things the pumpkin patch sucks the whole county dry? The squash I’ve been seeing are big enough, though. But go big or go home, I always say, unless I’m talking grape kiwis or kumquats, in which case I change my tune faster than Mitt Romney.

Anyway, these are the green giants I wanted…

…but what was I going to do with so much squash, throw a squash party? Sounds weird, but you know you’d still come if I promised an open bar. I didn’t have to entice guests with booze this time, though, because I was happy to find that my local fruit market sold hunks of the great green pumpkins, which actually turned out to be “Zapallo Macre,” (I’m pretty sure, anyway) for the bargain basement price of only $1.99 per chunk. Even this amount was so big that my son agreed to struggle with it in exchange for the fame and fortune my blog brings, but doing so nearly took him down.

I say I’m pretty sure my squash was Zapallo Macre, a squash popular in Peru that looks like a green pumpkin, but my usual identification expert – Monsieur Google – came up short this time, other than providing a few Peruvian photos of the Zap Mac that looked similar to my squash. I think the big greeners must be local because they suddenly showed up alongside pumpkins at many fruit stands and not solely at specialty importer-type markets, but there weren’t any promising results for “green pumpkins Ontario,” or “green squash,” that proved this true. If anyone has further info, let me know.

No matter what they were, I was feeling chilled yesterday so I decided to make my pumpkin slash squash into soup. Here comes the ONLY recipe for giant green Ontario Zapallos currently available on the World Wide Web (hush the crowds, please), which I invented:

Giant Green Pumpkin Soup with Savoury Sweet Sprinkles (serves 8)

Giant green pumpkin/squash (probably Zapallo Macre), peeled and cut into 1.5” chunks. Approximately 14 cups, or filling 2 cookie sheets. Substitute butternut squash or pumpkin if you can’t find the big greens
Knives exhausted from prepping squash
1 very large onion, peeled and chopped
3 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
1/4C sherry
1.5” fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
2Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
900mL veggie stock
Sprinkles: walnuts, green pumpkin seeds, and Craisins
Olive oil
Kosher salt and pepper to taste

Directions: Preheat oven to 400. Toss squash with olive oil and kosher salt, and spread across two cookie sheets prepared with foil. Roast squash 45 minutes, stirring once. Meanwhile, sautee onions and garlic in a large pot until translucent, about three minutes. Add sherry and continue to cook until it nearly disappears.

Add squash, ginger, parsley, and stock, bringing to a boil. Add to food processor in batches, pureeing the soup. Now. If you prefer a very smooth, comforting soup, you’re finished. If not, pour into bowls and sprinkle with walnuts, pumpkin seeds, and Craisins. If you’re not vegan, you may wish to experiment with bacon, sour cream, or parmesan cheese.

Results: Very good! I didn’t taste anything special about the green squash – would love to taste it alongside a butternut to see if I could tell the difference, but I don’t think I would be able to. If you want a very healthy, vegan soup that will feed umpteen people for a very low price, this is your recipe. Love a dish that I know I could eat a whole pot of and it would still be improving my health rather than adding to my waistline. Rating: 4 Yums

Beverage pairing: Would you believe that this is actually what I drank with the soup by coincidence? It’s true. Apparently my shopping habits were pumpkin themed this week. Happy Halloween!

Wee Kiwis

Posted on October 18, 2012 by Ann Allchin

Little is cute. This isn’t news. The smaller they are, the more we like them. It all started with Arnold. Next it was Webster. Mr. Papadopoulos… Recently, TLC started “Little people, big world.” Now it’s Honey Boo Boo… And yes, I added that last one to help with search engine hits. But Webster could out-traffic Honey Boo Boo, right?

Anyway. Maybe TLC should do a show about mini kiwis, because they’re pretty cute too.

Grape kiwis are exactly like the big ones as far as I can tell, except that they’re hairless and small — the Chihuahuas of the fruit world. They’re also called “hardy kiwis,” because they survive for a while in cold temperatures, although they don’t last long once they’ve been picked, so if you find some they should be treasured.

Grape Kiwis and Grapes

It’s always challenging to prepare a strange fruit in something other than a fruit salad or a smoothie, but I don’t like going for the obvious, so this time I went to my trusty epicurious app and pretended the grape kiwis were grapes. Here’s the coolest recipe I came up with based on that search, cooked with my modifications below:

Chicken Curry Salad with Grapes (and now grape kiwis) – serves 4 appetizer portions

2tsp curry powder, Madras-style preferred
1/4C light mayo
1/4C plain low fat Greek yogurt
1tsp minced peeled fresh ginger
1/2tsp grated orange peel
2C cooked chicken, diced (I used leftovers which was awesome)
1/2C grape kiwis, halved (use all red grapes if you’re not lucky enough to find grape kiwis)
1/2C red grapes, halved
2 green onions, thinly sliced
1 handful walnuts, chopped
4 large curly lettuce leaves

Directions: Stir curry powder in pan over med-high heat until fragrant (about 1 min).

Transfer to med bowl. Add everything except lettuce leaves (did I really have to tell you that?). Place one lettuce leaf on each plate and top with salad.

Results: This was actually one of my top experimental recipes. I shouldn’t be surprised, because Epicurious rarely disappoints, but it was even better with the seedy acidity of the baby kiwis. My friend dropped in and I made her try a plate despite her liver cleanse (yes, I strong-armed her) and she texted me hours later to say she was still thinking about the salad. Deliciously rich texture. When I can’t find the baby kiwis I’ll make this with grapes, and will throw it into a pita. Awesomesauce. Rating: 5 Yums

Wine Pairing: Winealign.com tells me the classic wine pairing for a chicken curry is Riesling and I’m sick of recommending my favourite, Cave Spring’s. Its alternative suggestion is a sparkling white, so let’s go with the Bernard Massard Brut Cuvée De L’écusson, Luxembourg, which Winealign suggests is the best sparkling white for under $25 to be found at my local liquor store at only $16.95 in Ontario. I wish I were drinking some with Emmanuel Lewis right now.

Go Green (Smoothie) or Go Home

Posted on September 25, 2012 by Ann Allchin

A while back, Jerry Seinfeld’s wife wrote a cookbook where she hid healthy food inside kid-type food to pull a fast one on her kids. I think she stuffed organic broccoli inside of donuts or something but I wouldn’t really know because I never bought her book. I admired it, yes, but I didn’t spend my husband’s hard-earned money on it because I have always known that my kids would see through that sneaky little bit of genius.

You see, my kids are the “prince and princess and the peas” of food. If you were to hide a green pea at the bottom of a stack of pancakes my kids would throw the pancakes in my face without tasting them and tell me that something about them was stinky.

Most foods I serve them are entirely naked, and I always have to be sure that no one food invades the personal space of any other on their plates. Once I guiltily made them boiled penne with nothing on it because I had run out of spaghetti sauce and they said something along the lines of, “my compliments to the chef, mom, you’ve really outdone yourself this time,” without a hint of sarcasm. The only green things they’ve eaten in their lives are popsicles. That all changed last week though, when my daughter unexpectedly fell in love a grisly vitamin-packed sludge drink, the green smoothie.

No one was more shocked than I was. I had been browsing the food blogs of my twitter foodie buds when I found a simple smoothie recipe by @damn_delicious that coincidentally incorporated a mess of items that were nearing their due dates in my fridge. Since I often try to cook with the goal of emptying my fridge into bellies rather than compost bins I had to give it a go, but when I saw that it included great gobs of spinach, I envisioned myself as the only one who would be slurping it.

Long story short, my daughter dipped the tip of her tongue into it as cautiously as she could, but immediately loved it (how many times have I told you that now?) so I’ve been making it for her every day and trying to act nonchalant about my excitement while I watch great green gobs of iron and vitamins gloop down her throat and into her nutrient hungry little blood vessels. Her hair is already so shiny that I can style my own in the reflection of it.

And that brings me to my next long story short. I found “ground cherries” at the market this week. They look like this:

I decided to use them in place of the strawberries in my Twitter friend’s recipe. They taste orange tart-sweet (weird description, but I think you’re imagining the taste) with seeds almost like cherry tomatoes.

Apparently they’re a hallucinogen to some (?) and so they’re outlawed in Louisiana. I would like to state for the record that my daughter enjoyed the smoothie before it included this ingredient. I also happened to have picked up some tomatillos earlier which are similar but larger (cherry vs. grape tomatoes),

so I used those too, in the following, modified green smoothie recipe:

Ground Cherry & Tomatillo Green Smoothie

1 banana
1 pint ground cherries, separated from husks
1 pint tomatillos, separated from husks (a pint of strawberries rather than my tomatillos and ground cherries will also get lovely results)
2 handfuls fresh spinach
1 orange
1/3C low fat Greek yogurt
5 medium ice cubes
Dash of honey to taste

Directions: Peel and prep all fruits and veggies and put them in a bowl.

Use a hand blender to mash everything together so that blending is simpler. If you have a kick-ass blender that I don’t have, ignore that last step. Add this slop to your blender and include the ice cubes. Blend for quite a while (5 mins?) until all ingredients are well incorporated and the colour changes to green. Taste the smoothie, and add a dash of honey if it’s too tart for your taste.

Results: I couldn’t be happier. There was very little difference in taste when strawberries or ground cherries were used except that I had to use a little honey with the switch, which means that in future I could sneak all kinds of fruits into this drink for my kids. On the other hand, this also means that the recipe didn’t showcase the full attributes of what the ground cherries and tomatillos had to offer, so I might use them again in something else. Rating: 3 Yums

Wine Pairing: Let’s skip it for this recipe. Pairing a wine with a smoothie might highlight that I need some sort of counselling.

Bonus Contest: I took some photos in this post with my brand spanking new iPhone5 and some with my Canon Rebel. If you are the first to correctly identify which are which, I’ll send you a prize. The prize will be a mystery prize from the dollar store, but it will be a prize nonetheless.

Caramel Kumquat Cake

Posted on September 6, 2012 by Ann Allchin

Try saying that title three times fast.

I had to prep this dangerous food mostly because of the name. My friend said it sounded like an insult a little kid would use. ie. “Whatever, kumquat.” I used to prefer, “Nice head,” but whatever it takes.

I won’t use the word kumquat to insult a kumquat, though. First of all, they’re cute.

And if you eat a whole one, it will give sour keys a run for their money in puckering up your face.

When eating a kumquat, you’re supposed to chomp the whole thing, skin and all. I was reluctant to try it (as I could say about almost every single food on this blog) because eating orange peel whole doesn’t seem very attractive, and I was right to be cautious because, although none of the websites I looked at described it this way, it tasted quite a bit like orange peel. One website I looked at even said to separate the skin from the sour innards and eat the “sweet skin” alone, but if you’re into trying that I’d suggest taking a peeler to an orange and you might get the same effect. Ugh.

But don’t worry, kumquats weren’t about to scare me off.

I decided that something as sour as a kumquat needed to find balance in sweetness, so at first I went for caramel, thinking I would make soft square candies with kumquat chunks in them. I had never actually tasted caramel with oranges, but I think I had been secretly craving caramel ever since I had recently passed up a few of those caramel squares where you have to spend ages peeling off the cellophane that is folded neatly around its bottom, so much so that you end up swearing because you get too tired to unwrap more than three even though you want twelve. Maybe I’ll start a diet based on tight fiddly packaging.

I used this recipe for caramel, but it gave me a few challenges. Please imagine me as a cross between Mr. Miagi and Lucille Ball while preparing it, because that was how it all worked out. Oh, and imagine a fat Lucille Miagi, because this recipe taught me that there is probably nothing worse for you to eat than caramel.

Kumquat Caramel

2C heavy cream
1/2C sweetened condensed milk
2C light corn syrup
2C granulated sugar
1/2C (1 stick) softened butter, cut into squares

Directions: Prep a 9×9 pan by lining it with foil and spraying it with cooking spray (I didn’t have cooking spray so I gave it a rub down with oil). Combine the cream and condensed milk in a small saucepan on low, and heat until warm but not hot. In a medium-large saucepan, combine the corn syrup, water, and granulated sugar over med-high heat. Insert a candy thermometer and reduce the heat to medium. Let the mix come to a boil and cook until the thermometer reads 250 degrees. This took a LONG time.

Add the milk mix. At this point I was Lucille Ball – my pot wasn’t big enough and the whole thing immediately boiled over huge and I flapped my arms in a jumping blind squealy panic. It was so sticky that it glued anything it touched, so when it doused my gas burner out I couldn’t even remove it to clean it because it was crazy-glue stuck, so I had to chip away at it with an array of small implements, trying to get it all done quickly before my husband walked in and caught me hacking away at the stovetop for the sake of unhealthy slop he wouldn’t like anyway.

Add the butter. Cook while stirring constantly until thermometer reads 244 and the caramel becomes dark golden brown. Here I was Mr. Miyagi, trying to learn patience with ‘whisk on, whisk on,’ while I stirred for a gabillion years. I still gave up too early because my caramel ended up with rolo consistency instead of firm like I wanted.

Slice kumquats and spread them across bottom of prepared pan. Pour caramel into pan, and let it sit overnight to firm.

When ready, lift foil from pan and flip onto plate. More Lucille – my caramel wouldn’t let go of the foil, so I started trying to pull it with my fingers and became a gluey mess. Eventually I freed it from its Alcan prison, and it morphed into one blob, but there still wasn’t an easy way to eat it.

Because it was still pourable, I decided to convert it to a filling for…

Kumquat Caramel Cake

(based on citrus vanilla cake recipe here)

3C whole wheat flour (the wheat flour might have made my cake slightly dry, but it compensated for the health guilt about the caramel)
2tsp baking powder
1/2tsp salt
2C sugar
1C butter, softened
4 eggs
1Tbsp kumquat peel, diced finely
2tsp vanilla
1/2C milk
1/2C orange juice
Icing, pre-prepared if you’re not Miyagi enough to make your own

Directions: Preheat to 350 and grease two 8” round pans. Mix flour, baking powder and salt in medium bowl. In large bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time. Combine kumquat zest, vanilla, milk and OJ in another small bowl. Add flour alternately with OJ mix to butter mixture, beating well after each addition. Pour batter into pans and bake 45-55 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely and level tops with sharp knife. Spread caramel across cut top of one cake, placing other cake on top, crumb side down (upside down). Spread a thin “crumb layer” of icing on cake and allow to harden in fridge. Ice with a final thicker layer of icing. I used store-bought icing because I’m no Ralph Macchio.

Results: I thought this cake was pretty good, and it also had the added benefit of chants from my nieces and kids that went something like, “We want kumquat cake!” Any time I can make kids chant weird food words, I consider a recipe a success.

My brother-in-law and sister-in-law didn’t make any comments about the cake, though, so maybe I’m alone in my favourable opinion. Maybe they just didn’t like hearing the kid-swear, “kumquat,” being yelled from their kids’ lips. And my bro-in-law even picked out the kumquat bits, so maybe they should have been smaller in the caramel. Despite this, my Rating is 2 Yums. If you’re too tired to do a karate crane kick but still want to get your inner Miyagi on, give this recipe a try.

Red currantly gorgeous

Posted on July 17, 2012 by Ann Allchin

There are times in my life when I have to take a step back and say, “Wow, what did it take to make something that pretty happen through a random DNA combo?” Whether you’re the type of person who respects the coincidence that evolved those attractive little molecules together or whether you believe that a higher power had to be behind it (or a little of both) doesn’t matter that much to me – the bottom line is that it’s cool when it happens.

I was left with no choice but to respect nature this week when I came across these little beauties at a fruit stand at the end of my street:

You may be thinking that my photography is getting better, and yes, I did just buy myself a great book about food photography, but having hot subject matter sure does help.

Work it, currants, work it.

We had just gorged on meat at the cottage for a week which left me with a hankering for fish. When I googled “currants,” and “fish,” I found this website, which is what I based my recipe on, although I thought that a balsamic reduction would make things more interesting, so I combined the two and came up with this. I’ll describe what I did, but if you’re going to make it please keep reading for my recommendations at the end.

Red currant balsamic reduction over tilapia (makes enough sauce to serve 4)

1C+1 small handful red currants, picked from their little grape-like stems
1/2C water
1/2C honey
1/2C balsamic vinegar
2 filets tilapia
2Tbsp olive oil
Salt & pepper
2 green onions, chopped

Directions: Preheat oven to 400. Prepare a baking sheet with foil. Brush both sides of the tilapia with olive oil and add salt & pepper. Roast for about 20 minutes, until fish is just opaque. Meanwhile combine 1C currants (reserving small handful), water and honey in medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, 10 minutes. Add vinegar and simmer a further 10 minutes over low heat. Strain through a cheesecloth. Add green onions and cook briefly. Pour over fish, sprinkle with reserved currants, and serve.

Results:

This recipe tasted delicious. The currant flavour was tart, almost like pomegranate, and it worked perfectly with the fish (I also poured it over a crab cake accompaniment that I bought from our new fish market). It was important to strain the seeds out because each little currant nugget contained a bunch and I think it might have soured the sauce if too many were added. The problem with this recipe was that my sauce was too runny. If making it again I would switch the honey for a few heaping tablespoons of brown sugar and reduce the water. I also might add fresh chopped rosemary when I added the green onions.

Rating: 3 Yums, with potential for 4 if you can thicken the sauce. Let me know if you succeed!

By the way, after I made this recipe I noticed that there were currants in my favourite art piece which hangs near our family room. Told you they were pretty! And now for a relationship tip: always buy art when your partner isn’t with you because then they’ll have no opportunity to disagree with your taste.

Cooking Dangerously

For home chefs who live on the edge

Tag Archives: Exotic fruits