Let's Just List Off Some Good Things, Eh?

It's been a while since I've posted here. I've actually cooked and eaten a lot. . . but I've been a bit too busy to post. So I'm just going to list off some highlights.

1. The "Gourmet" Dinner for my sister:

I saw some really nice green beans in the store, so I decided to make Clotilde's Salade de Haricorts Verts, Noix De Pecan & Jambon Cru from the Chocolate and Zucchini book. I made about a third of her recipe for the two of us. It was pretty fabulous what with the rich, toasty walnuts and the salty, porky prosciutto I used. I didn't have any cider vinegar, so I subbed red wine vinegar. I think there were no ill effects from this, but sometimes I wonder about my palate. The combination of crisp-tender beans and rich accouterments made for one delicious salad. It's a great way to enjoy green beans.

For the main course, I served Marcella Hazan's Baked Sockeye Salmon with Bell Peppers and Capers, which I talked about previously here. The recipe is on Epicurious here. It's a delicious salmon recipe and worked well with the sockeye fillets I bought. The sides were some fresh, grainy bread and a roasted potimarron squash. The squash was a beauty:

It was actually grown in Edmonton in the Campus Community Garden. The flesh was really creamy and sweet. It was quite fabulous.

2. I'm a muffin making machine:

Well, not really. But, I did make these apple-cinnamon-pecan-oatmeal muffins. I used only whole wheat flour, which might have made them a little drier than usual. It was a variation on my blueberry muffin recipe with a chopped apple and a few tablespoons of toasted pecan in place of blueberries and some cinnamon rather than lemon zest. They were pretty decent.
I also made pumpkin muffins, which came out very moist and delicious, but I didn't take a picture. Imagine muffins that are orange through and through with the sweet taste of pumpkin. I used this recipe from Better Homes and Gardens. I was pretty keen to bake with pumpkin. Actually, I think I've been wanting to since last fall and winter. It seemed the perfect time at Canadian thanksgiving. I followed the recipe aside from substituting wheat flour for the buckwheat and using approximately 50-50 white and whole wheat flours. They were successful and relatively healthful recipe. I recommend trying the recipe for a tasty seasonal breakfast. My can of pumpkin was huge, so I also made a simple pumpkin soup one night and still have some leftover in the freezer, probably for a future batch of those tasty muffins.

3. Random bar cookie making:

Last Thursday, I baked some oatmeal-raisin bars during Grey's Anatomy. They are a tasty, buttery, not too sweet cookie. The recipe was in my Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook and I can't find it on-line. I used whole-wheat flour for the cookies and made a half-batch in an 8-inch round pan. It's say they're good. I think they look good:
Basically, they have a butter, sugar, flour, and oatmeal base a bit like shortbread with raisin filling and more of the oat mixture crumbled on top.

Cookie Monster's Cookie Variations

I suppose there isn't much of a new story to this, since I've talked about this basic recipe before. Then again I did make some changes and take some pretty pictures, so I suppose it warrants a new post. For the food porn alone:There's nothing quite like looking at a tin of freshly baked cookies. These are oatmeal cookies, clearly and are based on Nick Malgieri's recipe that David Lebovitz blogged about. I've also blogged about them here. Anyways, like I said I made a couple of changes when I baked up the cookies for Robyn's barbecue.

I found my initial batch too sweet so this time I used 1/4 cup of granulated sugar instead of 1/2 cup. They still seemed sweet enough to me. I also used 1/2 cup whole wheat flour and 1/2 cup white all-purpose flour in place of 1 cup of white flour. I really don't think I could tell the difference with this, but I guess it made them even healthier. I also added a bunch of zest from an organic orange to the batter in the wet ingredients. This added a intriguing dimension to the cookies with orange flavour and fragrance that I really think goes well with raisins and oatmeal. It had my friends wondering just what that intriguing flavour element was. I baked the cookies for 9 minutes on an ungreased, non-stick cookie sheet and got a yield of 30 cookies.

The cookies were pretty popular and all the ones I brought to the barbecue got eaten. But, I saved a few for myself and for my sister, the zest-aholic to try. They're frozen now. I actually really enjoyed eating the previous batch straight out of the freezer. Is that weird? Nothing like a frozen cookie on a hot day, not that there are any of those left. (Hot days, not cookies.)

Here's a bonus close-up of one of these scrumptious soft, slightly chewy cookies:

"Best Muffins Ever"

I made blueberry muffins last Thursday because:
a) It's blueberry season, a magical yearly event. and
b) my sister and her boyfriend were coming to visit and I knew they would appreciate muffins/ I would not be forced to eat a dozen myself.

I can't remember ever having made muffins with fresh blueberries, perhaps because peak season for them is usually the hottest part of the summer. Actually, it was hot last Thursday but I pressed on with making muffins anyways. Little did I know how good they would be. My sister declared them the best muffin she's ever had. I find that hard to believe but make no mistake, they were very, very good. The texture was quite soft and there was a hint of acidity from lemon zest and yogurt that's hard to describe. Of course the fresh blueberries were awesome. I think the oatmeal adds a little extra complexity to the flavour as well. I can't really describe it that well. But, they were delicious.

Here they are right out of the oven:
And here's a field of perfect, delicious muffins:
Now that the food porn is out of the way, I'll get to the recipe. I followed the BHG recipe for Oatmeal-Blueberry Muffins but made some key changes, so I'll write it out my way.

Blueberry-Oatmeal Muffins

Ingredients
1.5 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup rolled oats
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/4-1/3 cup milk
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons cooking oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
zest of 1 lemon
1 cup fresh blueberries (or frozen if you must)

Instructions
1. Grease twelve regular 2.5 inch muffin cups.

2. Stir flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Form a well in the centre of it.

3. In another bowl mix egg, yogurt, milk, brown sugar, oil, vanilla, and lemon zest. Add all the wet ingredients (ie: egg) to the dry (ie: flour) and stir until moistened, just. Do not over mix!!!! Fold in the blueberries. Fill the muffin cups 3/4 full.

4. Bake at 400 degrees F for 16-18 minutes. (I think mine took 15.) They're done when a tester comes out dry/ they're golden brown. Cool them a bit then remove from the cups. Eat.

If you study the recipe you'll notice the yogurt and lemon zest are my additions. Plus, I cut the oil slightly and added some extra blueberries. Seriously try making these this blueberry season. I heart blueberries.

The Rest of the Ratatouille Party

I figure I should finish up talking about my little dinner party since it was nearly a week ago. So, here goes. To start with I offered my guests whole-wheat mini pitas with home-made tzatziki.

I loosely followed this Epicurious recipe for tzatziki, the yogurt based dip and sauce. The major differences between mine and the recipe were that I used 2 cups of 3% Balkan-style yogurt, no olive oil, and probably less than a pound of cucumber. I think it was decent with the pitas and for dunking the main course in. Then again, I really like yogurt.

I also served a green salad from the garden dressed simply in red wine vinegar, olive oil and black pepper. Possibly I liked that better than anyone else. Greens that good may be an acquired taste, because well they taste. Travis was talking about that at the garden the other day. Some are bitter or spicy or they just have a lettuce flavour that supermarket greens don't have.

Finally, for the main course (along with ratataouille of course) I served "grilled" souvlaki-style chicken and pork skewers and "grilled" mushroom and onion skewers. They are "grilled" because I only have a George Foreman Grill. It's so not the same, but it had to do.

I marinated pieces of chicken thigh and pork loin in a mixture of lemon juice and zest, olive oil, black pepper, red pepper flakes, garlic, rosemary, thyme, oregano, and salt. I used a similar marinade for mushrooms and onions. The marinating lasted about 4 hours. After that, I put the meat and veggies on separate skewers and "grilled" them until cooked.

The chicken was especially good, but you were probably expecting me to say it was the pork. But, chicken thigh has a delicious juiciness from a bit of fat. It was superb. The meat comes out a little tart, a bit spicy, and fragrant from the herbs. Marinated kababs are a very good idea for imparting flavour to meat and you could vary it to your own taste. I also liked the grilled mushrooms and onions. The onions get quite sweet. I guess I'm an onion-lover, maybe now I'll have trouble finding a human-lover, hehe. Anyways, I made one big mistake by letting meat juices get on the mushrooms and onions and making them unappetizing for the vegetarian who eats fish I intended them for. Big oops, I felt pretty bad.

Here's a pick of the food I just described as leftovers the next day:
Finally, there was dessert. I made something quite similar to Clotilde Dusoulier's recipe for Creme De Ricotta A La Mangue, Croustillant De Macadamia (aka: Creamy Mango Ricotta with Macadamia Crunch)from the Chocolate and Zucchini book. The one key difference between my dessert and the recipe is that I left our the nuts due to one guest's nut allergy, but she didn't stay to try dessert. So, mine was more "Creamy Mango Ricotta with Maple-Oatmeal Crunch". It was good anyways. Besides, nuts get caught in my throat all the time. Here's a picture of it:
And a close up of the "crunch":
There are essentially three components: the crunch, the cream, and the fruit. I made all in somewhat increased quantity for six dessert portions. The crunch was oatmeal tossed with melted butter, real maple syrup, and lime zest then toasted in the oven. The cream was a half-kilo of ricotta cheese mixed with some half and half, icing sugar, and a touch of vanilla. The vanilla was my idea. Finally, the fruit in the bottom layer was simply chopped mango tossed with a little lime juice.

I really enjoyed the dessert. The oatmeal topping was crisp and sweet. I had leftovers of it and they were delicious, essentially homemade granola. It was a pleasing contrast to the rich, creamy ricotta layer, which was not overly sweet and slightly grainy with the ricotta texture. The mango was sweet and fragrant. It's still one of my favourite fruits.

Anyways, at the party two people left before dessert. I'm not sure what they were thinking. That left me with two superfluous desserts. I ate one at the party in a fit of piggishness that left me slightly over-stuffed. Then, I ate the other one the next day. All three that I ate were excellent, although they are probably best eaten one at a time.

All in all, the dinner party was pretty successful. The Chocolate and Zucchini recipes for dessert and ratatouille were highlights, although I think I mix up a damn fine chicken marinade.

Oatmeal Two Ways

I realize that the title of this post might not inspire much excitement. Oatmeal. . . ooh porridge, yawn. But really, there are variations in the preparation of oatmeal that are quite delicious and unique to oatmeal. I actually got the recipes and ideas for both these "dishes" if you will from other bloggers much better than myself.

First off, a yummy breakfast with a recipe from Chocolate and Zucchini. This is the post with the recipe that Clotilde calls Oatmeal Breakfast Clafoutis. Anyways, I of course do not follow it absolutely exactly. I always halve the recipe and make it in an 8 inch round cake pan. I also don't think of it as Clafoutis, which really has no meaning to me, but as Breakfast Cake. It's a cake I can eat copious amounts of for breakfast without feeling that I'm eating unhealthily.

This time I didn't use any dried fruit and put in a chopped banana and a chopped nectarine. I also didn't use nuts and only had about a cup of oatmeal left, so I put in some crushed bran flakes . . . a bit odd i know. The texture seemed right on the first few pieces with a nice crust on the edge that I quite like. However, either because there wasn't enough oatmeal or because of the fresh fruit mixed in, it was a bit mushy in places. This hasn't been a problem on previous occasions making this recipe. I also reduced the sugar a little bit as I don't like my food too sweet. Probably the main thing that kept my creation from being really good was that the nectarine was a dud, as was the other one I bought. It tasted like. . . nothing. It was a disappointment but not surprising. Anyways, I still like to have cake for breakfast, here's what it looked like fresh from the oven:
Next up, oatmeal cookies. I really like oatmeal cookies. There's just something about the oatmeal flavour in a cookie that's really comforting and delicious. In the past, I've made them with raisins or chocolate chips. Shockingly, raisins make better oatmeal cookies than chocolate chips, they just work perfectly with their sweet chewiness.

Anyways, I found the recipe for these on David Lebovitz's site. I'd never tried any of the recipes he posts, but he is all about dessert, so the cookie recipes he posts must be good. The recipe, from a cookbook by Nick Malgieri, is low fat with some apple sauce in the base, which intrigued me. I've had success with applesauce to moisten muffins, so why not cookies. I did not alter the recipe aside from using dark brown sugar in place of light brown sugar and cooking some of the cookies on an unlined, ungreased, new, nonstick cookie sheet (which caused no problems).

I don't have any electric beaters, so creaming the butter and sugar with a fork and a wooden spoon was a bit of work. But it was so worth it to create this luscious batter:
Even the cooking time for that batter given in the recipe was very accurate. (I often find recommended baking times for cookies are too long). This is what the finished product looked like:

If those don't look good to you, why?

Anyways, I sample a couple last night and they were quite good. I brought them to the Campus Community Garden this morning and people said they were quite good. (People were impressed that I made them. Hey, they're just cookies. But if you can impress people that way. . .) Nobody guessed that they were low fat either with their desirable chewy, moist texture. I also brought some to the Edmonton Gay Pride Parade this afternoon, which was a good time except when it poured rain. My friends quite liked them and almost fought over the last one I brought.

This recipe is a definite keeper. For the record, I got 31 cookies out of it, although the last 3 were rather large.