Short Shorts and White Wine

I'm still digesting this meal. It was good. It was really really good. Is that bragging? I don't mean it that way. Considering how long it's been since my last post, I'm surprised at my ambition for thinking I can manage to bang this out before heading out to watch the Canucks game (but between us, I really only care about the final quarter so we still have time to hang out here). It's been so lovely and beautiful here these days. Sun, wind, just enough of everything. My life (other than work) has been filled with music. In fact I noticed as I squeezed a lemon on this fish that I have guitar blisters. Stinging but sweet. What can I say about this dish, other than the honest truth, which is that I came up with the idea while drinking an after-work glass of pinot grigio, some of which I spilled on my shorts... It was an experiment and it worked out. What more could I ask for?


Tilapia Turbans with Chorizo and Sweet Pepper Filling

2 fillets of tilapia
3" piece of chorizo sausage
1/2 red bell pepper
2 fresh lemon (juice and zest of)
4 tbsp white wine
salt pepper dill
olive and garlic oil

Clean and pat dry the fillets of tilapia and with a super sharp knife, cut each fillet first in half and then slice lengthwise to make thin sheets of tilapia. These will roll more easily than whole chubby pieces. Drizzle with olive oil and lemon juice. Season with salt, pepper, dill, and lemon zest. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350degrees.

Food-process chorizo and red bell pepper with juice and zest of half of your lemon, until you have a course meal. Quickly saute this in a frying pan with a tablespoon of olive oil for a few minutes, just to marry the flavors.

Drizzle a bit of garlic oil (or olive oil) in a small cast iron pan. Roll each piece of fish into a turban and fill the middle with the chorizo mixture. Tie each roll with a piece of twine or a long toothpick and arrange in the oiled pan. Pour white wine around the rolls and cover with a piece of foil.

Bake for 10-15 minutes, or until the fish is opaque and looks cooked. Finish uncovered for a few minutes, just to get a little bit of colour.

Serve with wild rice or a green salad and whatever white wine you were drinking while you were cooking! I'm off to watch the game!

Look ma, no fork.

Nothing says Spring like eating with your hands. After the eight month freeze, people in Canada start acting a little funny: Oh, it's four degrees above freezing, you say? Hold on, let me get my shorts and sandals. Ten degrees with and overcast on a Tuesday? Let's hit the patio and get a bucket of Coronas at lunch. I'll admit it, I'm guilty of a little of the crazy. We woke up yesterday morning and Mina looked outside at the gray skies, birds chirping on the barren branches draped with torn plastic bags, preening their feathers of the spitting rain, the damp gray sidewalk littered with a crust of dirt and cigarette butts in the wake of melted snow banks, and commuters heading to work in their rain coats, umbrellas in hand, and she said, "It's beautiful outside." And I thought, "Yeah, it is, isn't it."

So, in that spirit. Why not kick off Spring (there are, literally, snow flakes outside the window, today, on April 5th) with fajitas?



Chipotle Ground Beef Fajitas with Guacamole

1lb lean ground beef (chuck works, but you could use ground sirloin if you're feelin classy)
1 red pepper, sliced
1 green pepper, sliced
2 onions, halved and sliced
1 to 5 dried chipotle peppers, ground (pick your poison: the more pepper the higher the flame)
3 tbsp cooking oil
1/2 C sour cream, for topping
1/2 C cheddar, grated for topping
3 diced jalapenos, for topping
1 diced tomato, for topping
6 to 10 corn fajitas, lightly toasted (use an open gas burner and tongs if you have them)

For the guacamole

2 ripe avocados, halved, pitted and crosshatched in their skins
1/2 a bunch of fresh cilantro, roughly chopped, stems and all
3 green onions, finely sliced horizontally
2 limes, juiced
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp chili powder (or mexicali spice mix)

Start by making your guac. Gently turn the cut avocado out of its skin with a tablespoon directly into a bowl and fold in (just as if you were taking care to preserve whipped egg whites, because you don't want your diced avocado to turn into mush) cilantro, lime juice, green onions, and salt to taste. Then top with the chili powder. My favourite is to use a micro grater to dust the top of the guac with a dried nacho chili - and yes, those are a real variety of pepper.

Put half the oil in a small cast iron (or non-stick) pan and turn the heat to high. In a second medium-sized pan, add the remaining oil and half of your onion and cook for three to four minutes, until onions are soft, then add ground beef and stir through.

By now, your small cast iron pan should be smoking hot. Toss in the red and green pepper and remaining onion. Shake the pan hard once or twice, then listen to the sizzle. Toss every half-minute for five minutes, while keeping an eye on the beef mixture. When your peppers have blackened at the edge, remove from heat (if they stick at all, flick or spray some water into the pan and shake loose). Continue to stir your beef until the moisture has cooked off, then salt, pepper and add the chipotle. Cook for another minute, then remove from heat. The rest is simple: spread all your separate ingredients on a platter and start the free-for-all. Also, if you've got some, serve this dish with hot sauce and cold beer.

Cheers!

Variations on a Theme

Once again though not much time has passed, it seems the whole order of the universe has shifted since my last post. It's officially spring now, which the Persian new year has kindly reminded me, though for the most part the whether refuses to acknowledge that. On the table these days are a bunch of hard, honest, and essential questions, pending decisions, possible travel, and of course as it always is with these things, so many possible variations. You can get yourself pretty tangled in thinking sometimes as your comfortable grip on things fades farther and farther away and out of reach. This is where food comes to the rescue. It fills your stomach, your mind, and your kitchen. Something about the smell of cooking in the house, a cutting board covered in scraps and a sink full of dishes forces you to stop asking questions even just for a few hours. So here are recipes for chorizo (two ways) to keep you busy. Take a break, you don't have to do everything at once.

Glazed Chorizo Tappas Style

150 g chorizo sausage
1/2 small clove garlic, crushed
1 tbsp honey
1tbsp balsamic vinegar/red wine
olive oil

Slice the chorizo and fry in olive oil until crisp and slightly darkened in colour (photo above). Drain all but about a tablespoon of the oil, add the garlic and cook for a minute. Turn the heat down and add the honey and vinegar/wine and cook on medium until reduced and glaze-like.

Chorizo Pizza

1/3 recipe pizza dough
sliced chorizo
sliced red pepper
hot peppers
sliced red onions
spinach
buffalo mozzarella

Prehead oven to the highest possible temperature.Oil a baking sheet, sprinkle with cornmeal (very important step), and place your thinly rolled out dough over it, pricking the surface with a fork several times. Brush olive oil over the dough and a bit of tomato paste if you like. Arrange the sliced toppings and slip in the oven. Pour yourself a glass of wine as your pie bakes, but careful, it takes minutes, so don't walk away.

Happy Thoughts

What helps you get through February? I guess this doesn't apply to you if you live in Australia, or somewhere where it's always sunny and beautiful. If you're like us and live elsewhere, though, you're gonnna need all your tricks in February. It's that time. You've already endured the rain and the snow and the wind, but it's not over yet. It's that month when every technical difficulty feels like a personal insult, and you're never more than two bad days away from an existential crisis. Last Friday was a particularly difficult one for me. A few things hadn't worked out and I felt totally defeated and unable to convince myself that things were alright. I happened to be with a friend who used to be a roommate, and instead of convincing me everything was ok, she just shoved me in her little kitchen and made me do what ultimately lifts me out of my blues... I guess what I'm saying is, hang in there. Spring, the end of the school year, outdoor markets, and picnic season are so close you can almost smell them. And for the time being, these cookies will make your place smell warm and happy and home-like. I promise.


Soft Almond Cookies (from Rachel Eats)

150g ground almonds
100g powdered sugar
zest of a small lemon (or 1/4tsp cardamom for a Persian variation)
1/4tsp almond extract
1 large egg (beaten)
handful of whole almonds
Extra powdered sugar for rolling

Preheat the oven to 350/180 degrees.

Mix dry ingredients in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, beat the egg with the almonds extract and lemon zest. Add to the dry mixture and form a sticky (oh it will be sticky) dough. Dip your hands in extra sugar and shape walnut-sized balls and place an inch or so apart on a parchment lined baking sheet. Don't be shy on the powder for your hands, it's the only way to deal with this dough. When all your cookies are formed, make a deep indentation in the centre of each cookie with your little finger pressing almost all the way down. This is to help the cookies bake in the middle.

Bake on the middle rack for about 20 minutes or until the cookies are just slightly coloured. They will be soft out of the oven but harden as they cool so don't try to take them off the tin when they're hot. While they're soft, put an almond in the center, pressing gently to secure the nut in its place.

Enjoy with coffee, tea, or a glass of wine, and store in an air-tight tin.

Parkas and Pasta

How many times have we endured the Canadian winter, and it's still the hottest topic of conversation between November and April. Whether we're surprised that the cold has taken longer to set in, or how long it's lasted this year, or just talking about the bone-chilling, teeth-chattering, skin-cracking cold, we persist. So naturally the first thing I want to tell you about (and the next handful of posts are likely going to start similarly) is that it's freezing here! Now since carbohydrates and fat keep our bodies (and hearts) happy, I propose we eat pasta until April. Think about the variations of pasta and sauce that are available to amuse ourselves with while we wait for the blossoms to grace our snow covered trees...


Casarecco with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

(If you have a really good jar of roasted peppers, feel free to substitute)

250g dry Casarecco (or pasta of your choice)
2 Sweet Red Bell Peppers
1 clove Garlic
1 shallot
small bunch of fresh basil
olive oil
good pinch of salt
cracked black pepper
Parmigiano Regiano

Roast the red peppers, garlic, and Shallots (skin on) in the oven and peal when cool enough to handle. Blend/food process peppers, shallot, garlic, and basil with a pinch of good course salt and a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Taste the sauce and tweak seasoning to taste, then transfer the sauce to a medium pan on medium-low heat.

In the mean time, boil the pasta in plenty of well-salted water (salt the water after it comes to a boil, as salty water takes longer to boil) until al dente and drain, keeping about 1/4c of the starchy pasta liquid.

Toss the pasta and 1/4c liquid in the pepper purée and mix gently until it all comes together and the pasta is well coated with sauce. Grate some Parmigiano right into the pan and move around gently to enrich the sauce.

Serve with additional grated cheese and a glass of hearty red wine and count down the days until picnic season with us!

Small town winter soup

We've been feeling the small town winter chill lately. Trapped inside by negative temperatures in the twenty belows, looking out the windows, draft protected by sheets of plastic, at a slick cover of soupy slush on everything; you know, the kind that gets into the felt liners of your boots and freezes your toes and climbs its cold little fingers up the hem of your pants until you're completely soaked through up to the knee. And it seems like the only way to warm up properly is with a good cup of hearty soup and a long novel (I'm snowplowing through War and Peace for the first time, which is apropos because it's the only book that will last as long as the Canadian winter). But there are still a few good things going on in this small town. The farmer's market is still on twice a week. A nice treat to combat the cold weather blues and a great way to stock up the pantry with enough root vegetables to last you until Spring.

Saffron, Sweet Pea and Squash soup

1 large butternut squash, cubed and roasted until soft
2C vegetable stock/ or 1 bullion cube
3 tbsp olive oil
1 Spanish onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 dried chilli, crushed
1/2 tsp saffron
1C frozen sweet peas

This recipe is so easy and so good. Rub cubed squash with half of olive oil, season and roast at 425 degrees; it should take a half-hour to forty-five minutes. Wait twenty minutes, then take out a large soup pot (that you have a snug fitting lid for) and saute your onions and crushed garlic in the remaining oil for ten minutes or until soft and just starting to caramelize. Add turmeric and chilli and stir into the onion and garlic mixture, cooking for one additional minute. Put stock onto simmer and add saffron once its boiling.

When your squash is cooked (you should be able to stab through the flesh with a fork), peel if you haven't already done so and toss the cubes into your soup pot. Saute everything for an additional two to three minutes. Now pour saffron infused stock over top, cover and simmer for fifteen to twenty minutes until squash is falling apart. Remove from heat and blend; it's easiest if you have a hand-held blender. Return to heat, add frozen peas and bring back to a boil. Simmer for three minutes and serve with crusty bread and butter. Yum!

Bach Biscuits

I have no idea where I got this recipe, but I have it written on the reverse side of page two of Bach's Prelude from Prelude, Fugue, Allegro. It's amazing how certain things just work. I've been making these biscuits, for at least four years, and have never bothered to transcribe the recipe somewhere else. Instead, every time I crave biscuits I pull out my Bach sheet music and turn to page two. It's a really good recipe. Good enough to add to a classical repertoire...


Recipe: Basic Country Biscuits

2C all purpose flour, sifted
4stp baking powder (get Rumford's if you can)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
2 tsp sugar
1/2C butter cut into cubes (very very cold)
2/3C cold milk

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Put butter in the freezer. Sift all of the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl and set aside. Work the cold butter into the dry ingredients using a pastry cutter, a grater, or your fingers. If for some reason the butter is starting to warm up, stick the whole bowl in the freezer for a few minutes and start again. You must not let the butter melt, if you want fluffy biscuits. Once the butter is worked in and the mixture resembles crumbs, add the milk and mix to get a dough. With cold hands, form a round workable dough.

Roll out the dough between two sheets of wax paper to your desired thickness. Keep in mind, they will double in height when you bake them. Cut biscuits out in whatever shape and size you prefer. If you are preparing these ahead of a meal, you should refrigerate them (plastic wrapped) at this point and bake them whenever you are ready to eat them.

Brush with milk or egg and bake 8-12 minutes. Baking time depends on thickness so watch closely.

These biscuits can be sliced open and slathered with homemade jams, or used to make afternoon tea sandwiches or, of course, served with a meal.