domicile

Strawberry Kiwi "Mousse"

A few years ago, while visiting my dear friend Kate in Montreal, I stayed in a little B&B that specialized in vegetarian/vegan cuisine. The proprietor was a lovely man and an excellent chef. I was one of the only guests at the time and so I'd often have breakfast with the proprietor and talk gourmet vegetarian cooking and eating over my very tasty breakfasts. One morning my breakfast included a small bowl of kiwi "mouse" which, Philippe explained, was simple chopped kiwis blended with a little bit of sweetener (I believe he used maple syrup) and ice. The result is a very delicately textured whipped kiwi well mousse of sorts that is delightfully refreshing and tasty, and makes a great accompaniment to breakfast (or would in fact be a lovely and simple, light dessert).

When we had our nasty virus last week friends dropped off some kiwis on request, and another friend brought over a box of organic strawberries. When we finally reached the point of being able to stomach food, we were still a little hesitant about solids, so I decided to try whipping up a variation on Philippe's mousse. The result was pretty decent and I imagine would be a great way to get kids to eat more fruit, as well as an excellent accompaniment to a bowl of oatmeal (for us), or would as I say make a nice light summer dessert. And really, the "recipe" (if you can call it that) is just so darn simple.

Strawberry/Kiwi Mousse in the style of Chez Philippe
Serves 2

Peel and roughly chop 3 kiwis
Remove the stems from approx 6-8 largish strawberries, chop in half

Add to a blender with 2 ice cubes and a generous squeeze of agave syrup (I'd say maybe a scant tbsp). Blend.

That's it. The ice is really just to cool everything down and add a bit of liquid, you don't want to add so much that there's actually ice in the mousse (you're not making a margarita). You could drink this, though it's just a bit thick for that and it's positively wonderful to eat from little bowls with a little spoon. If you don't have agave, maple syrup will do, or if it's the height of summer and your berries are very sweet you can probably do without sweetener at all.

Peanut-Free Peanut Sauce!

Ok, so not peanut sauce. But close. For those who don't know Martin and I suffer from a bit of an ironic food pairing. I am an avowed vegetarian (though not a vegan) and, in turn, has a deathly allergy when it comes to peanuts and soy protein (though fortunately not things like tamari/soy sauce which have no protein in them). This means my deep fondness for tofu-y goodness is often only fulfilled at dinners out or when he is not around for dinner (on those nights I will often lovingly cradle a bowl of baked tofu and brown rice in my hands and indulge like a kid in a chocolate factory). I ate a lot of tofu before we moved in together, and much less of it now, though I certainly manage to get my fix when necessary. Peanuts I had quite fortunately abandoned a few years prior in favour of almonds and other nuts. Once you've tried almond butter you're not likely to go back to its lower rent cousin peanut butter, though it does inflate the grocery bill a bit. The one place where I would still indulge in the humble peanut was peanut sauce. I love peanut sauce. In particular a version from the Rebar cookbook that includes cilantro, lime and a bit of sambal oelek for heat. But, given the severity of Martin's peanut allergy, which is more severe than his soy protein allergy and peanuts are more insidious when it comes to cross contamination in the kitchen, we have not had hide nor hair of a peanut in this house since we moved in.

But oh how I have missed the peanut sauciness.

Last night I was making dinner for our current house guests -- my darling god-daughter Djuna, her mom (my dear childhood friend), dad and her new baby brother -- as well as a friend who was joining us and I wanted a sauce to tie together some steamed veggies, brown rice and (depending on which side of the veggie vs. protein allergy spectrum you fall on) coconut prawns/baked tofu. Peanut sauce would have done the job very nicely and I've been meaning to spend some time trying out some alternative nuts to make a similar sauce, so last night I gave it a whirl with cashews and, my peanut eschewing friends: we have a winner.

Here's the recipe (again, I don't use much in the way of exact measurements for these things, so pardon the loose directions).

Emira's Recipe for Cashew (NOT Peanut) Sauce:

- 1 cup of toasted unsalted cashews (I toasted these in a 250 oven for 20 min)
- nearly a whole can of coconut milk
- one 1" piece of ginger peeled and grated
- one large clove of garlic chopped
- about 2 or 3 tbps tamari
- generous handful of cilantro chopped
- juice of one lime
- chili peppers/sambal oelek to taste

Start by toasting your cashews if they aren't already. Then place them in a food processor/cuisinart until they start to turn to cashew butter. This took maybe 4 or 5 minutes? I kept commenting to Kate that they weren't turning to butter then PRESTO they did. So have patience.

Open your can of coconut milk and add about half to the food processor. You can keep adding it afterwards depending on the taste and how coconuty you want it in the end. Add the tamari (start with about 2 tbsp and taste for saltiness to suit your preferences), ginger, garlic and the lime juice. Blend it for a few second until mixed. Wash and chop your cilantro (or leave this out if you're one of those cilantro haters) and add it to the food processor with some sambal oelek for heat. To be honest, I left this out last night as Martin's peanut allergy presents itself as a tingling heat on his tongue, so I didn't want him to freak out. Next time, I'll add about 1 tsp now that he knows this sauce doesn't kill him. Turn it on to mix again and then taste. Adjust by adding more coconut and or tamari as you like. Of course you can also add more of the ginger, garlic, spice or cilantro too.

Transfer to a small pot and gently heat. You're not really cooking this, just warming it to go on your food. I suppose you could microwave it, but we don't have one of those.

And ta da. Perfect with baked tofu, coconut prawns (apparently), brown rice and steamed veggie goodness like broccolis, snow peas, etc. etc.

Other People's Food

Some of my favourite food ladies have particularly excellent recipes featured right now. If, like me, you're finding the bounty of farmer's market goodies and the longer light of evenings inspiring activities in the kitchen, do take note of these delights:

• Heidi Swanson's Grilled Veggie Kebabs with Muhammara recipe is up on her site. I've made this a few times recently -- the recipe is in her cookbook and perhaps will convince you to buy a copy if you haven't already -- and it is an elegant, but easy twist on the veggie kebab. The muhmmara is a tangy paste/sauce made with roasted peppers and walnuts. The kebabs include lemon wedges, which when grilled add a wonderful depth of flavour without any extra work (just spear some lemon wedges on with the rest of your veggies). I've been adding yellow peppers to my kebabs, which I've quite enjoyed.
• Clotilde says she has been living on this Red Quinoa, Smoked Tofu and Pinenut Salad as she finishes up her second book (anyone have a review of her first book? I haven't picked it up yet). As summer brings the deadline for my own first book, I think this salad could indeed be a very delicious and simple meal to help get me through. And, I happen to have some red quinoa in my cupboard.
• Molly has a simple, but mouthwatering idea for the morrels that are making their way to the farmer's market. I might add some sauteed garlic scapes to this, if I was getting really fancy, but it sounds fantastic as is.

For my own part, tonight we're having a bread salad, a good simple meal for hot evenings. I tie my bread salad together with a simple but fantastic recipe for a basil vinaigrette that comes from the Rebar Cookbook. It's a sweet full flavoured dressing packed with fresh basil and accented with red wine vinegar and honey. With some dressing made you can put pretty much anything into the bread salad you like. Tonight I started with some chewy olive bread cut into large chunks and slightly stale. Then I added halved local cherry tomatoes, a ripe avocado cut into chunks, some blanched asparagus cut into 1" lengths  and small bocconcini's cut into quarters. I'll toss it all together with some chive flowers from the garden and a healthy crack of fresh pepper. You could also add peppers (roasted or fresh), artichokes, steamed new potatoes, blanched green beans, olives, capers, sliced fennel, red onion and all kinds of numminess to this. You can also leave out the cheese, I actually won't be eating that but will be passing it all to Martin's plate.

Basil Dressing
I roughly half the original recipe to make enough for the two of us for a dinner sized salad

1 clove of garlic, peeled and smashed
1 scant tbsp dijon mustard
1 tbsp honey (I'm using a local chestnut honey right now that has a very deep, rich flavour)
1/8 cup of red wine vinegar
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
20g (just under 1 oz) fresh basil washed and torn
1/4 tsp sea salt
fresh pepper
1/2 cup fruity olive oil

I put all the ingredients, save the oil, in a jar and mix it with a hand blender, then pour in the olive oil until you have a thick creamy dressing. Ok, my mouth is watering now, time to toss and eat.

A pissaladière of sorts

  pissaladière out of the oven 
  Originally uploaded by emira

I rarely cook without some kind of a recipe. Often it will be a recipe I made a few times three or five years ago and I'll just run off memory. Othertimes I'll flip back the recipe many times as I cook for guidance, though I should say that with the exception of baking, I almost never measure and I almost always substitute a good quarter of the ingredients. Still, it is rare that I don't have a recipe book or tattered piece of paper somewhere nearby for inspiration as I cook. Last night's dinner was different.

The inspiration for dinner was the boxes of vine ripened tomatoes on sale $2 for 2 boxes at my local green grocer. I'm a fussy gal when it comes to tomatoes. Really, I'll admit, I only enjoy them during tomato season proper, preferably when they come from my own tomato plants ripened in the sun. That said, I'm a wholehearted fan of the tomato itself. So what is one to do with $2 worth of cheap, decent but not quite fabulous tomatoes? Oven roast them. And so I did. I oven roasted about 2 dozen small nearly overripe tomatoes with a brush of olive oil, some ground sea salt and fresh pepper in a 250 degree oven for roughly four hours. Or so.

Now I needed a plan for those savoury sweet little gems. The thyme in my garden right now has finally established itself as healthy large plants and I have a few to choose from. We haven't quite hit the hot days of summer here in Vancouver (opting instead for the "oh look, it's raining again days) and so using a little fresh thyme seemed like a good flavour to pair with the tomatoes. Not quite the summer freshness of basil but not the winter heartiness of rosemary. From there the flavours of thyme and tomato had me thinking of pissaladière, the sourthern french cousin of pizza. I didn't have time to make a pizza dough or a tart shell with other errands and things yesterday, so instead I took out a sheet of puff pastry (I nearly always keep on in the freezer, as they really are handy as heck) to thaw.

Later that evening I began to assemble my own version of a pissaladière. Now traditionally a pissaladière should have anchovies in it, but as a vegetarian I'm not an anchovie gal, and so I swapped them for capers. I carmelized two small onions in olive oil, salt and pepper, stirring in fresh thyme and a generous drop of red wine vinegar at the end.I assembled things and thought I needed a bit more variety, so sauteed some sliced portobellos and crumbled a bit of goats cheese on top. The result? A relativley low fuss but, if I may say so myself, really darn tasty dinner. Served with some olives and a fresh green salad of arugula and mustard greens it was delightful. Oh, the Dry Reisling helped with the delightful part.

I'm as hopeless at writing recipes as I am at following them, so here's my rough directions. If you're a fussy sort of cook who needs a lot of exactness this may not be for you.

Early Summer Pissaladière
(Vegan Option Included)

* One sheet of puff pastry (the kind I get, is already in a sheet, so no rolling out, and it is vegan made with vegetable shortening, traditionally puff pastry is made with lard, so be careful if that's not your thing)
* 6 tomatoes oven roasted (12 tomato halves)
* 2 small onions
* 2 portobello mushrooms
* some goat's cheese (asiago, bocconcini, provolone or feta would all work well here as well, equally you could do without)
* about 4 stems of cut fresh thyme
* 1 genorous tbsp of capers
* salt & pepper

If you haven't already oven roasted your tomatoes you'll want to start about 5 hours ahead of when you want to eat. I typically oven roast a bunch of these at once and keep them in the fridge to use over the week. Simply cut the tomatoes in half, place on parchmennt lined baking sheets, brush or drizzle with olive oil and grind some sea salt (or sprinkle a bit of salt) and fresh pepper over top. Place in a 250 degree oven for about four hours. They're juicier than sundried tomatoes, sweeter and a great way to get an intense tomato taste when tomatoes aren't at the their best.

Ok, now you've got your tomatoes. Turn your oven to 400 to preheat and it's time to carmelize your onions. Now carmelize might be a bit of an exageration, we're really just heavily sauteeing the onions until they're very soft and have taken on a sweeter taste. You can keep going and get a really sweet and sticky onion, but that's not necessary here. Coat a heavy pan with olive oil and add the two sliced onions. They'll cook down to less than half what you see now, so you'll want a lot of them. Add a pinch of sea salt and cook over medium heat stirring often so they don't burn or brown unevenly. Saute them until they are very soft and have released all their sharp "onion-y-ness." At this point I typically cheat a bit and add about 2 tsps of unrefined sugar to sweeten the onions cooking and stirring the sugar in. Now add a generous drop of red wine vinegar (you could also use balsamic but I wanted the thyme to be the primary flavour, not balsamic) and keep stirring until that cooks off. Now tear your thyme leaves from the stem and stir them into the onions, turn off the heat.

At this point I started assembling the pissaladière. Either roll out or unfold your prerolled pastry onto a baking sheet lined with parchment. Mine was a bit too big for my baking sheet so I turned it up at the edges. Spread the onions on the base and add your tomatoes spacing them evenly across the top.

With my onion pan empty, but not cleaned I now sauteed my sliced portobellos in the seasoned pan. I sauteed them to the point that they had started to release their juices and soften but weren't total mush as they still need to cook for a bit and I wanted them to retain some structure without leaking too much mushroom juice onto the pastry. Add them to the pissaladière, spreading them evenly. Now rinse your capers and add them to the top as well. I probably used more than 1 tbsp, but Martin really loves capers.

Now, if you wish you can crumble some cheese on the top. I used some left over goat's cheese that was in the fridge, but as I say many other cheeses would work, as would omitting this step entirely (a traditional pissaladière does not have cheese). Grind a bit more pepper over the top and put in a 400 degree oven for about 25 minutes until the edges of the pastry are puffed and brown.

Served with a fresh green salad this fed two of us with about a 1/4 left over. It could easily be stretched to feed more folks if you had more side dishes -- some grilled asparagus, an olive tapenade or small bowls of garlic scape soup would all be nice accompaniments.

You could also change the ingredients to suit your taste or current fridge stock. For example, grilled asparagus would be great on there in place of the mushrooms. You could add a base of a fresh herb paste -- a sorrel pesto, arugula pesto or italian parsley pesto would be great. Olives instead of capers would be good. Grilled zucchini slices or roasted eggplant would also be wonderful on this. You could also serve it topped with a generous amount of fresh herbs: italian parsley, chive flowers or later in summer fresh basil would all be fantastic.

Apple Pie Filling

  canned apple pie filling 
  Originally uploaded by emira.

I can safely say that if I had to pick one type of dessert or treat to rise to the top as my all time favourite it would be pie. And, if I were absolutely forced to choose, apple is probably my favourite of the pie options out there. This evening I may have opened a new chapter in pie preparedness 'round the domicile taking things even further beyond the pre-made mini frozen pies of the past. Today, I canned pie filling. The recipe came from a back issue of Mary Jane's Farm magazine, though I had to alter it a fair bit for the amount of apples I had on hand. The recipe called for 18lbs of apples and I happened to have roughly four pounds that came from an earlier winter farmer's market but were starting to go a bit too squooshy to be good for eating. Not wanting to let four pounds of organic tasty apples go to waste I set about peeling and slicing them tonight after dinner and grabbed a few 1/2 litre mason jars from the basement. In theory, I now have two jars of apple pie filling sitting in my pantry, ready to be cracked open and baked the next time I have a pie shell at my disposal. The only bit the recipe wasn't too clear on was how much you needed of canned pie filling to produce a regular pie. Or in my case, likely a six inch pie or two. I'm sure I can guestimate without too much trouble.

If you, like me, have a quantity of apples closer to four pounds than eighteen, here's the recipe I used:

4 lbs of apples peeled, cored and sliced. They suggest leaving some skin on for colour. I left a bit on.
2 1/2 cups of water
1 cup of organic sugar
3 tsps of fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/5 cup of arrowroot powder

2 sterlized 1/2 litre canning jars, lids and screw bands.

Heat 2 cups of the water with the sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon and nutmeg. While that is heating dissolve the arrowroot powder in the remaining 1/2 cup of water (they suggest rice or corn starch here by the way, I always use arrowroot powder where cornstarch is called for in typically equal quanities). Add the apples and bring to a boil, stirring so nothing burns. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring often.

Pour the apple mixture and liquid into the two hot jars. Wipes the mouths of the jars clean, attach the lids and hand tighten the screw bands. Process in a hot water bath for 20 minutes or process in a pressure canner at 5lbs pressure for  10 minutes. I used the water bath method as I don't have a pressure canner, though thinking ahead to my tomato bounty of last year I'm thinking this might be the year I invest.

I'll report back next time we make pie to let you know how it tasted and how quantities work per pie shell. The spoon tasted just right when licked, so that's half the battle.

A Simple Indulgence

The convergence of two events led me to spend a glorious morning in the kitchen baking from my new (acquired at Christmas) Donna Hay Modern Classics 2 Cookbook: this evening we have friends coming by for dinner and in honour of our 7th anniversay in business I get to play hooky from work today. Huzzah!

Of all the many, many cookbooks I own and cherish I have very little in the way of solid dessert recipes. I had put that particular Donna Hay cookbook on my list because most of the cookbooks I have lean toward the healthy/vegetarian/vegan variety and tend to lack in offering up a real depth of choice in the way of treats built primarily around the trinity of indulgent ingredients: butter, flour and sugar. Prior to meeting Martin, I had never actually used a Donna Hay cookbook, though I had often admired their simple layouts and stunning photography, but he brought one into my cookbook library when we moved in together and while I still haven't made full use of it I have always really enjoyed anything I've pulled out of there.

One of the aspects of Donna Hay recipes that I really enjoy is their simplicity. Typically they use very few ingredients, favouring instead an approach that lets fresh simple ingredients take centre stage as the main taste event. The same simple approach seemed to me to be true in the dessert cookbook, which was it ended up on my list instead of a Martha version or something like the Moosewood Desserts book. In fact the recipes are simple enough that last night, as I thumbed through it trying to pick the recipe I would try first, I was very pleased to note that many of the options I was considering I could make with ingredients regularly stocked in my pantry/fridge. Of course there are a few more fussy options in there: profiteroles anyone? But with the first attempt now behind me, I can say that Modern Classics 2 has at least one straightforward recipe that I would certainly make again. Of course, I've yet to taste anything save a lick of the bowl but that was pretty darn tasty.

If it somehow morphs into a total disaster, I will be sure to let y'all know, but it is currently cooling on a rack in the kitchen and looks and smells pretty darn tasty. So, if you've got a nice organic lemon lying around just itching for some zesting, why not try Donna Hay's Lemon Slice:

1/2 cup caster sugar (icing sugar)
1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
120g butter (I'm so glad I bought a kitchen scale finally, I use it all the time now)
1 tbsp milk

Filling:
1 1/2 tbsp cornstarch (I used arrowroot powder which I use instead of cornstarch)
2/3 cup single cream
6 eggs
1 3/4 cups caster sugar
1 1/2 tbsp zested lemon rind
3/4 cup lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 330F (170C). Process the sugar, flour, butter and milk in a food processor until the mixture comes together in a ball. (This took about 3 minutes for me). Press into a 8x12 inch baking tin lined with parchment paper. Bake for 25 minutes until it starts to brown.

To make the topping whisk the cornstarch (arrowroot) with 2 tbsps of the cream until smooth (use a large bowl here, I didn't and then had to transfer to a larger one making extra dishes). Add the remaining ingredients (I swear I had to look back at that list for 6 eggs about 6 times before I convinced myself that you really needed that many) and whisk together. Place in a saucepan over low heat and whisk for 6 minutes until the mixture thickens. I had to do this for about 10 minutes or a bit more even before mine thickened but perhaps that was the arrowroot? It was thick enough in the end.

Pour the lemon mixture over the base and bake for 5 minutes until just set. Cool. Slice. Ta da.

Garden Soup

  Garden Soup Ingredients
  Originally uploaded by emira.

I woke up feeling quite wretched and overworn this morning and on the verge of coming down with some sort of unwelcome summer flu. And while I was feeling far too off kilter to even think about eating breakfast until well afternoon, I woke up with the very comforting memory of a simple cup of soup I had enjoyed last night over dinner with Kate, one of my dearest friends who is in BC visiting from Montreal.

The soup was quite simple. It was the evening's special at a little restaurant in James Bay (Victoria, BC), and happened to be vegetarian making it appealing for me. Kate had been feeling like she was fighting a cold and so inspite of the rather gorgeously sunny day we both began our meal with a cup of the "Gypsy" soup. Kate seems to recall a similar recipe in one of the Moosewood Cookbooks, though it isn't in either of the ones I own. It was a tomato and veggie broth, with large chunks of summer fresh veggies, seasoned with a chipotle puree. Quite simple really, and I didn't necessarily think much of it last night, but today as I battled it out with this feeling of being under the weather it was all I could think of.

And so on a lovely hot summery afternoon I managed to get the kitchen into an absolute swelter while I simmered a large pot of my attempt at recreating the Gypsy Soup, and because nearly every ingredient came from the backyard, I've now dubbed it Garden Soup. I'm afraid I'm hopeless with making note of amounts of anything that I use, so while I will share the ingredients with you, I'll have to leave it up to you to figure out measurements. I accompanied mine with a loaf of a garlic and fresh herb beer bread, using (which was exactly that easy), which made a wonderful companion to the soup though the additional kitchen swelter was quite unlivable and I ended up eating my dinner in the breeze of the front porch as the evening set in.

Recipe for Domicile's Garden Soup (Late Summer Edition)

I began by making a simple veggie stock with some vegetables from the garden and farmer's market that languished in the fridge last week during a particularly busy week. Once that was done I headed out back to see what I could pull in for soup and returned with a bowl full of:

Yellow cherry tomatoes (maybe a dozen);
Six regular/largish tomatoes (mine were Early Girl variety);
A mixing bowl full of very large purple peacock beans that have become a bit too woody for steaming and a handful of green and yellow beans from my bush bean plants;
A bunch of lacinato kale leaves, to which I also later added a handful of green chard;
Four beets; and,
Three small onions.

To this I added about four or five cloves of garlic from the farmer's market and about six carrots and six red new potatoes also from the market.

Then everything got chopped up to soup size. Which today was pretty chunky.

I got out my large soup pot and sauteed the garlic and onions with two bay leaves (which I happen to get from my grandma's garden) and a generous pinch of sea salt in olive oil (enough to cover the bottom of the pot). When those were soft I added the potatoes, five minutes later the beats and carrots, and five minutes after that the beans. Then I put the tomatoes (all roughly chopped) in and added enough stock to cover everything. I ground in some fresh pepper and added about a tablespoon of chipotle puree and let it all simmer for an hour or so. When I came back to taste it I decided it needed some more salt (I don't put any salt in my stock though) and a little something else, which I decided would be about a tablespoon of freshly chopped sage. At that point I also added the chopped kale and chard. About 30 minutes later I had a bit bowl of soup with the still warm beer bread and am now convinced that with a good night's sleep I'll beat whatever this bug is that's trying to steal the end of my summer.

Arugula Pesto with Lemon

  Arugula! 
  Originally uploaded by emira.

I've reached the point where the garden is producing enough food that with a few staples stocked in the house, I can create meals on the fly. Truly a dream come true. The other night this manifested as a spur of the moment arugula pesto.

I adore arugula. It was one of the salad greens I learned about later in life, which is somewhat suprising. I was raised by a vegetarian dad in a house where salad was a dinner staple everynight without exception, so I didn't really think there were that many unplumbed salad depths in my life, but there you go. I really fell for arugula in Italy, not too surprisingly, and once I found it, I just couldn't get enough of its peppery piquant leafy goodness. The mouth waters just thinking about it.

I had made a quick one meal sized portion of arugula pesto a few weeks ago, and it was pretty darned good if I do say so. I don't put cheese in my pestos anymore, which is kind of sacriledge I know, but I've for the most part gone off cheese and I find that I really don't miss it when its gone. Martin adds cheese to his pastas anyway and if you simply add a bit of salt to stand in for the salty cheese then everything seems just fine. But back to my arugula pesto. As I was making this second batch this week I decided that the earlier recipe -- two fistfulls of washed arugula leaves, 1/4 cup of toasted walnuts, large clove of garlic, dash of fresh ground pepper and pinch of sea salt all mixed with enough olive oil to make a decent paste in the food processor -- lacked a bit of spark. I had picked up a bag of organic lemons on sale earlier in the week so decided to add about a teaspoon of lemon zest. And was I ever glad I did. The peppery leaves and pungent olive oil that I use was well complimented by the lemon, which also added a very nice fresh taste for this heat.

I've got enough arugula now that I may need to make up a few batches to freeze this weekend, if I can commit myself to a few hours in the kitchen instead of the community pool that is.

Blackcurrant Season

  Currants 
  Originally uploaded by emira.

The currants are ripening quickly in the back yard and I'm starting to amass recipes for things to do with them. Our one bush is very prolific, and if I cut a few recipes in half I should be able to get a few different preserves as well as some baked goods out of them. After a bit of poking around here at the current (no pun intended) top contenders. If you've got any favorite currant recipes or uses, please share!

• Blackcurrant  Syrup;
• Blackcurrant Cordial, which looks great if I can only figure out what "TO" is;
• Blackcurrant Double Crust Pie;
• Blackcurrant flan;
• Blackcurrant Jelly, which seems to be the same basic recipes wherever I find it;
• Three Minute Blackcurrant Jam, which aside from the idea of piercing each currant with a pin seems extremely easy and rewarding givent he glowing testimonial;

Now I just need to find the time to start picking...

Picnic Salads

  Summer Salads 
  Originally uploaded by emira.

I was asked to include recipes with this photo to submit it to the Recipes to Share Group at Flickr (fun times to be had over there by the way), and in so doing thought I'd share this with y'all as well, just in time for the unofficial first day of summer up here in Canada: the May long weekend. Of course, here in Vancouver it is shaping up to be a rainy one after a truly gorgeous week, but what can you do?

It may be a bit early for these salads yet anyway, as they are really best made with the freshest ingredients, including the first early potatoes of the season. But just writing out the recipes got me excited for summer, picnics and fresh produce. So, if you're feeling the same, take note and as you start to see creamy young potatoes, fresh bunches of arugula and juicy tomatoes at your market, come back and give these a try. Despite my long rambling descriptions, they are very easy to make and also very open to personal interpretation. Both are (or can easily be made) vegan.

** New Potato Salad with Cannelini Beans **

* 2lbs of fresh young new potatoes (approximately... this amount will make enough salad for two people for probably two evenings and maybe still some left overs).
* 1 can of organic cannelini beans, well rinsed.
* 1/2 small red onion diced quite finely (you can also use fresh spring onions, or garlic shoots for this in place of the onion, just adjust your quantity according to the strength of the ingredient).

* 1 large clove of fresh garlic
* 1/2 tablespoon of grainy or dijon mustard
* 1 tbsp of red wine vinegar
* 1/4 cup of nice fruity extra virgin olive oil (if you don't have a particularly flavourful olive oil on hand, then try mixing some cold pressed walnut oil in with your olive oil to add a bit more flavour)
* good pinch of rock salt
* A few good grinds of pepper

1. Chop your potatoes to roughly 1" sized cubes and steam them over fresh water until cooked through but still quite firm (maybe 10 minutes? sorry I typically just keep an eye on them). Once they are done (just test with a fork), give them a quick rinse to stop them from continuing to cook. I typically don't plunge them into a total ice bath as I actually like the effect of the slightly warm potatoes softening the onion a bit.

2. Which lead us to our next point! Transfer your steamed and rinsed potatoes to a bowl (this can be the bowl you will serve the salad in if you don't want to make too many dishes) and add the finely diced onion and rinsed beans. This salad is at its best when the onions are still very young and sweet, if you have older stronger onions you may want to lessen the portion you include or dice them even more finely. Stir that all around so that a bit of the heat radiating from the potatoes gets through the onions and beans.

3. Now in a separate small bowl or mason jar mix the remaining ingredients (excluding the pepper). The one slightly fussy thing I do here is to crush the sea salt into the garlic as I'm chopping it. I seem to remember being told that was a good idea in some cookbook, and ever since I've always done it for vinaigrettes. Otherwise just stir it all together until it is combined (or shake in your jar) and then pour over the potato mixture.

4. Add a few good grind of fresh pepper and you're done!

5. (OPTIONAL) Fresh herbs are also wonderful in this salad. Everything from italian parsley, to fresh dill, basil or even some chopped sorrel. But it also stands up well as described here.

Typically we'll eat it at room temperature the first night and then chilled from the fridge following that. It is one of those dishes that is even better the next day, though I never remember to make it ahead of time.

** Arugula and Tomato Salad with Pesto Vinaigrette **

1 bunch arugula
2 tomatoes or a generous handful (or 2) of cherry tomatoes

1/4 cup of olive oil
1 tablespoon of pesto
1 generous tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
small pinch of salt (optional)
healthy grind of black pepper

1. Wash and tear the arugula and place in bowl.
2. Wash and chop tomatoes into bite sized chuncks (as you'll see here that was simply halving cherry tomatoes).
3. Combine remaining ingredients to make vinaigrette. If you use a store bought pesto you may not want to add any salt to the vinaigrette as I find those are already quite salty, if you use a homemade version (as I do, that doesn't include cheese) then a pinch of sea salt will help bring out the flavours. I've really guessed at the ingredients here, as this is one I typically do by taste. I do try to let the pesto take centre stage and not be overwhelmed by the vinegar, so do be a bit sparing there.