domicile

Orangette's A Homemade Life

I treated myself to a copy of Molly's new book A Homemade Life recently and devoured it with simple joy and delight within days of it arriving. It is, I have to say, the cookbook/food book I've often dreamed of writing (or one of them anyway). For me recipes are stories. And, I hope I don't come off as crazy by saying that there are many recipes that I cook while repeating a story in my head, almost as though I'm trying to ensure I don't forget its origin, retelling a tale in my head in the oral tradition. My handwritten recipe journal of scraps of paper printed out from the web, handwritten notes, recipes copies from and by friends and newspaper clippings often has notes along these lines as well. Everything from a recipe for black bean soup that came to me via a beloved friend I've now lost touch with (she got it from another friend of hers, who she knew in grad school and the recipe has side notes tracing its origin), to "Mom's souffle" recipe, to the recipe for carrot/cauliflower veloute that my parents had on their kind-of-a-honeymoon in Switzerland. The recipes I've created or acquired as an adult all have similar stories attached to them. Stories that for the most part I keep in my own head, repeating subconsciously each time I cook them to myself.

But this isn't about my neurosis, it's about Molly's lovely book, worthy of much praise. Her stories and life journey, held together with recipes and food meditations  offers the reader a little mental journey into someone's life. A life filled with the ups and downs of life, family, joy and tragedy, adventures in Paris, romance and the quotidienne of everyday life. Somewhat ridiculously, I can't speak to any of the recipes as I lent the book out to friend shortly after finishing it, but I regularly use many of Molly's recipes from Orangette (they feature heavily in my scraps of printed out and annotated recipes) and have always enjoyed reading her stories as I add her recipes to my own repetoire. (If you have never made any of Molly's recipes I suggest you start with her Chocolate Apricot Cookie recipe. I can almost guarantee it will win you over and you'll be back for more.)

Summer Kitchen Inspiration

I'm not sure how it is that it has taken me so long to finally pick up a copy of Clotilde's cookbook Chocolate and Zucchini, but now that I have it is providing much in the way of inspiration for our summer cuisine. I think that part of my hesitation when it first came out was the inclusion of meat dishes -- I very rarely buy non-veggie cookbooks -- but while meat certainly is well represented, there is also an abundance of veggie recipes in here (and a really delightful dessert section). Overall, it is a cookbook that focuses on using a few carefully chosen, fresh ingredients and Clotilde's love for food and the joy of cooking comes through in her notes and instructions in such a way that it makes cooking along feel like the best kind of simple indulgence. I'll admit that I first picked it up at the library, as I wasn't sure there would be enough in it for the non-meat eater to make a purchase worthwhile, I have however since bought 3 copies (two as gifts). So what tipped me over?

• While I've spent years here and there eating a vegan diet, overall I'm a bit of a sucker for cheeses and egg dishes. Being raised by one vegetarian parent, and in a household influenced strongly by European cooking, I'm a big fan of quiches, savoury tarts and souffles. Clotilde has some great recipes along this line, including the Tomato Tart Tatin, which makes for a wonderful summer patio dinner with a big green salad (especially now that the local tomatoes are making an appearance). 
• Most of the recipes are simple - few ingredients - and actually achievable in short bursts of kitchen activity, making them great for weeknights or busy weekends (of which most of mine seem to be).
• As already mentioned, the dessert section is drool worthy. This should of course come as no surprise coming from a French gal. I'm currently cooking up (no pun intended) an occasion to make the chocolate raspberry cake.
• Wine pairings. I hadn't expected this at all. And while here in Canada we can't access many of the labels named in the book, the general ideas/varietals are most welcome as I find I can easily get stuck in a wine rut now that I'm not working in restaurants and being regularly exposed to new bottles.

Most of all what I really love about the book is Clotilde's attitude toward food and the stories she includes. "Write a cookbook" is fairly high on my list of life dreams, and I know that my own cookbook would include the same style of storytelling alongside the recipes. I love hearing what inspired someone to try a flavour combination, what a particular ingredient makes them think of and how a dish plays into their lives. Of course, it is this style that has made the Chocolate and Zucchini site so popular and it is very well reflected in the cookbook. The only drawback I can see to this cookbook is that it makes me wish that I could transport my kitchen to Paris, but alas a little taste of Paris at our Domicile will have to suffice for now.

Tastes Like Flowers

Several summers ago, my beloved yoga teacher and friend introduced me to the delights of a hint of rosewater in a pitcher of cool water as a hot summer thirst quencher. The recipe is quite simple: take one large pitcher of pure water, add a bit of rosewater (say 1-2 tsps per pitcher) and drink. You can also add a bit of fresh lemon, which balances the floral taste and makes for a particularly refreshing drink. This is not a drink for everyone, and I would caution that many folks I have served it to respond by saying, in a non-too-impressed tone: "it tastes like flowers." And they're right. It does. Rather a lot. Like roses in fact. So if that isn't your thing, I'd recommend skipping this one. If it is, however, this is a wonderful and easy way to make a fabulous treat for yourself.

These days, the blossoms are threatening to bloom in our neck of the world and I even saw a patch of daffodils in full bloom on a run the other morning (granted they were next to a south facing wall, but still). Having had a particularly crummy summer last year in these parts, I'm finding myself aching for Spring and already fast fowarding mentally to summer's arrival. I've jump started things and started drinking this rosewater drink while out in the garden planting seeds and digging out weeds. I like to think it helps the flowers along.

While searching for places online to buy culinary rosewater, (I didn't really find any useful ones, so try any Arabic, Greek or Indian market, it comes in bottles for about $5), I came across this awesome  website for the Human Flower Project. The Human Flower Project describes itself as "The Human Flower Project is an international newsgroup, photo album and discussion of how people live through flowers. We report on art, medicine, society, politics, religion, and commerce." Lovely! Read their article on making rosewater in Iran here. Their entire Food category is in fact worth a browse if you're the flower lovin' culinary type.
 

In Praise of Agave Syrup

Heidi Swanson is regularly recommends Agave syrup in her recipes at 101 Cookbooks and in  Super Natural Cooking, and it is a natural sweetener that often comes up in vegan cookbooks (being safe for those vegans who eschew honey). I've never tried using it before, always thinking "well I've got plenty of honey, surely I don't need yet another thing to crowd my baking drawer." However, I'm on a mission to try to recreate the Puffed Wheat Squares of my childhood in a more health friendly format (meaning no corn syrup) and so decided to pick up a bottle of agave syrup at the store this weekend while perusing the baking isle. I've yet to try it in my Puffed Wheat Square adventures, but I can report that it is indeed an awesome pantry addition.

With a milder flavour and much less sweet than the local honeys I buy (or corn syrup for that matter) agave syrup is an excellent and easy way to add a bit of sweetness to a dish. Agave syrup has a much lower sweetness factor, but a really nice flavour to it, and it's very easy to pour/measure and dissolve into things (not nearly as sticky as some sweeteners). And, apparently it has a much lower glycemic index than other sugars. I've used it several times since I bought it now, in tea, in a spicy asian ginger sauce, in a salad dressing and in a tofu marinade. I can see where it would be particularly well suited to sweetening drinks like homemade summer iced teas as it dissolves really easily and isn't an overpowering flavour. There's a great little article about it over at Mighty Foods, along with some links to recipes that use it.  I still need to try it out for my Puffed Wheat Squares and I'm not sure if you can bring it to a rolling boil like you can corn syrup, but when I find out, I'll let you know.

Food for New Braces

  Lemon Souffles 
  Originally uploaded by emira

Miss P is now the proud owner of a new set of braces. Last weekend was my first chance to see them -- Martin and her mom accompanied her to get them earlier in the week -- though I had heard reports of the all-to-familiar mouth pain she was experiencing all week. I personally had a fair bit of orthodontic work in my day. Everything from multiple tooth extractions to headgear (only worn at night) and many years of braces. Knowing first hand just how nasty those first days feel, I decided to make a meal that would be easy for her to enjoy. We had Martin's mom over as well, so I decided that was enough people to try out the Lemon Souffle recipe I'd been eying in my  Modern Classics Book 2 (Donna Hay) cookbook.

Like savoury souffles, this recipe was deceptively easy to make, but very impressive to serve. The trickiest part was a step that I would actually not bother with next time. The recipe suggests you create little parchment paper collars to tie around your small dishes/ramekins which was a bit tricky to do, and took Martin's mom, Miss P and I a fair bit of fussing. In the end, I ended up filling two extra ramekins with less of the souffle mixture and no collars and they didn't overflow, spill, fall or anything. In fact, they came out much more nicely than the ones that had the collars removed (which you can see in the foreground of the shot there). The recipe claimed to make 4 souffles, I ended up with 6 (4 of which were kind of gigantic) and had to throw some of the mix away. So I'd say you could easily reduce this recipe (though it's hard to divide 5 eggs in half) and end up with a suitable amount for 4 people. Also, it was just a bit too sugary for my and Martin's mom (aka MorMor) taste. Though you use fresh lemon juice (and added zest) which makes it very tart, it could still be a bit less sweet. The recipe suggests lowering the sugar and using raspberry pulp or passionfruit pulp instead of lemon juice. I think this recipe could have had 2/3 the sugar or used a combo of lemon juice and raspberry pulp and less sugar as suggested and you'd still have a very tasty dessert.

Beyond the critique what did I (and perhaps most importantly Miss P) think? It was pretty darn tasty. Kind of like a cup full of the meringue off a lemon pie. It would have also been really great with some shaved or curled dark chocolate pieces. It is also gluten free (assuming your cornstarch is gluten free) though really not vegan. It was an awesome excuse to use my KitchenAid (again) and I can't stress how high the easy/impressive quotient is, if you're looking to impress your dinner guests. You do need to do the egg whipping part just before you pop them in the oven, but the rest can be prepared and chilled ahead of time, making it really easy to put together and bake after dinner. The recipe is after the jump.

Gingersnaps, Round Two

  Gingersnaps 
  Originally uploaded by emira

Last Sunday, with great excitement, I made several things with my stunning new KitchenAid. All tasty treats were successful -- including foccacia made with the dough hook -- with one exception: ginger cookies. I love ginger cookies. Be they gingerbread, gingersnaps or molasses ginger cookies. I love'em all. A few years back a very thoughtful and much adored client Fedexed us a box of homemade molasses ginger cookies when we finished her website (how awesome is that?) and included the recipe. They were awesome cookies and I've meant to make them many times. This weekend, with my trusty new mixer I finally got around to it to unfortunately discover that she must have included some wrong measurement as my cookies turned into cookie puddle. Sad.

Tonight I gave it another shot, using a different recipe from the Tassajara Cookbook, which was also a birthday gift. And I have two things to report:

Thing one: Yum.

Thing two: Damn, I love this KitchenAid. It's not like making cookies was a big chore pre-mixer, but now: it's just so darn easy. The whole, "you put the ingredients in, then walk away" is so totally on the money. The easy and elegant power of this little gadget tickle my multi-tasking heart to its core. I can't wait to make xmas treats this year.

The Artful Vegan

One of the other birthday delights I was treated with was a copy of the second Millennium Cookbook, The Artful Vegan. For those who don't know the Millennium Restaurant, it is a vegan gourmet restaurant in San Fran and when it comes to gourmet veggie cuisine they can not be beat. Not in my books anyway. I've had my share of very beautiful, lip-licking tasty vegan/veggie meals made by pros and with the love of darling friends and family, but Millennium is food on a whole new level. Flavours reduced, layered and carefully selected to tantalize your tastebuds and cause those of us veggie foodies to swoon from the toes up with delight. These are meals so flavourful, artful and damn delicious that I defy anyone to feel they are in anyway limited by their lack of animal bits. Seriously.

Their cookbooks do an amazing job of translating the intensity, creativity and art of gourmet veggie cooking. That said, they're not cookbooks for hurried evening, after work cooking or things you want to try out on a day when your self-esteem is feeling a little touch and go. They are recipes for a day when you have all the time in the world to spend in the kitchen preparing, simmering, sneaking tastes and planning for a truly beautiful meal. Conveniently, they're the kind of meals you might feel inspired to make when you have recently acquired some seriously rockin' new kitchen accoutrements like, oh-say a KitchenAid and a Le Creuset pot... For example. (Yes the birthday fairy was very good to me this year).

So now the only task that remains is choosing a recipe... I'm eying up the Gnocchi with roasted beets and walnuts and wondering if throwing some homemade foccacia and german chocolate cake (all requiring the use of the KitchenAid you see) is overdoing it entirely. My dinner guests may need a little help getting out of their chairs after that kind of a carb fest. Still, I'm sure it would be yummy.

Making Dishes

  just some of the afternoon's dishes 
  Originally uploaded by emira

When I'm riding a wave of stress (and have I mentioned lately just how very stressed/busy things are? yes? oh good) things tend to go in two phases. Phase 1: abandon all sense of domesticity, eat out for lunch at work and forage from the fridge/eat out for dinner, cease all laundry habits and let piles of cat hair take up residence in increasingly conspicuous locales. Phase 2: freak out about total lack of domestic comforts, begin to make lists on bus rides/in my head while cycling of foodstuffs that will ground me, gently prod the lovely Martin to vacuum the house and say a silent prayer of thanks when he also tackles the laundry. This weekend Phase 2 began in earnest, and Sunday many, many loads of dishes were washed in our sink as the following items piled up in the fridge/freezer:

• Heidi's life changing lentil burgers. I do not jest. As a vegetarian I have made my share of veggie patties over the years and typically they take a long time to make, require too many ingredients and then fall apart when you cook them. Not these. No sir. They were seriously done before I knew it. Required ingredients which were already in my kitchen and now comprise my lunches for the week, while also leaving me enough to put in the freezer for a few weeks from now when I find myself in a similar time crunch. Oh, and yummy. For the record, these are similar to the garbanzo version in her cookbook, which I can definitely see in my future.


• Also from Heidi's cookbook I had made a batch of the roasted tomato/paprika soup earlier in the week, and at my friend Sarah's suggestion didn't add water to use it as a sauce. I took the remains of that (which for the record I didn't add paprika too), added some fresh sage and popped that into a pyrex freezer dish with some made-by-the-local-Italian-ladies spinach canelloni from my favourite deli to make a canelloni meal to pull out of the freezer and pop in the oven later this week. I whipped up a simple wholewheat breadcrumb/garlic/fresh herb topping thing to go on that too, with some somewhat sacreligious (to Italian cooking purists) hempseed nuts thrown in for extra protein.


• At this point in the day I started roasting some veggies for veggie quesadillas for our dinner that night. The recipe comes from the Rebar Cookbook and includes lemon zest, fresh basil and chipotle pepper with the roasted veggies (actually stirred into the veggies after roasting) which I think is lovely.


• Once the veggies came out of the oven I quickly attempted recreating the tofu sesame snacks they make at Capers (a local organic market) here in town. I've always loved them and consider them a kind of perverse hippy/veggie/healthy person treat to get each time I go. We recently brought some on a beach picnic with Miss P and she adored them and requested them for her lunches. Not wanting to pass up a chance to add something that simple and healthy to her lunches I decided to give it  a whirl, by simply using all the ingredients listed on the deli packaging. Turns out that works. The not-so-secret ingredient? Cumin. In about 15 minutes I had a whole tray of them. Next time I'll make two bricks worth as I couldn't stop Miss P from eating them over the day.


• What next? Ah yes, lemon squares. This was another Miss P request, though since she had mentioned it I had been overwhelmed with a craving myself. I realized I didn't have enough cornstarch as I was finishing up the recipe so used arrowroot powder instead. It didn't seem to set quite right and required extra baking, so the bottom crust ended up a bit tough. Oh well. Still lemony/tasty.


• Somewhere in there I made a pot of lentil soup as well, but looking back I'm honestly not sure how.

And with all that stocked and stored in the fridge, plus some red pepper pesto I taught Martin to make on Saturday night we've now got a fridge/freezer bursting with easy/tasty food so that even my actual time at home is precious, I can feel more grounded (and well fed) while I'm there.

Bitter Sweet

Things are particularly busy around here these days. And frankly, I'm barely holding it together. As I balance what feels like endless demands on my time and brain space I am trying to be particularly conscious of getting some self-care where I can. Whether that means taking a Friday morning off work (to balance out all the late nights and weekends) to do a yoga class (something which has so far been more of a concept than a reality), going to bed at 9 o'clock on the rare days when I have the option, or taking a moment at the end of the day to really enjoy a piece of dark chocolate. That last one has so far been the most regularly practiced indulgence.

I came back to dark chocolate as a semi-regular sweet-tooth indulgence after our trip to Europe last Fall, and continued in earnest with the discovery of Green & Black's Hazelnut and Currant dark chocolate (thanks Annemarie) and then, when Lauren and I visited Texas in the Spring, Alex's introduction of Chocolove's 55% Raspberry Dark Chocolate. I'm what Martin calls a hoarder when it comes to sweets. In particular ones that I adore. And so I have in fact only just finished off my three bars of Chocolove (I stretched them out with a few Green & Black's bars in between), and am now sorely regretting a canceled trip to Seattle where I had planned to restock. To tide me over I finally made a trip to the much lauded Mink Chocolates here in town. I was hoping for a raspberry dark chocolate pairing as it really is my favourite, but it seems hard to find (Green & Black's doesn't make one either) but was out of luck. Instead I got one that sounds so decadent it may in fact send me rushing back to a simple plain chocolate, or perhaps will spoil me forever. Named Mermaid's Choice, it's a 70% cacao, organic dark chocolate bar with burnt caramel, fleur de sel and "a hint of rosemary". Doesn't that sound perfect for savouring?

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Not Half Bad

  bread a risin' 
  Originally uploaded by emira

Despite record breaking heat this weekend, I followed through with my plan to try making bread. And, while I received many well intentioned warnings from folks here on this site, I stubbornly went ahead with the multigrain recipe that I had. And, you know what? It didn't turn out half bad. In fact, I'd so so far as to say that it turned out totally edible. A bit dense with a thick crust, but totally edible and not a total brick. In fact, I'd say it was pretty decent.

I woke up Sunday morning to make it and ended up preparing my yeast twice, as the first time Martin knocked the bowl disturbing the yeast and I wasn't sure if that would make a difference. Given that I had only invested 15 minutes and a tablespoon of molasses, 2 tsps of yeast and a cup of water I decided to give it another whirl. The heat was likely good for bread rising, though when it came to baking it I had to open all the windows and the front door so the house didn't totally overheat (I'm sure our old gas stove lacks in the thermo-efficiency department, but I tell ya in the winter all you have to do is bake dinner and you don't need the furnace, this is why ovens were always located in the centre of houses). I then set myself up in the front flower bed to try to deal with some serious blackspot on my roses with my kitchen timer beside me, and was still able to enjoy the smell of fresh bread wafting out the front door. Yum.

My oven runs a bit hot, so the bread was done about 15 minutes before the suggested time. I may have even been able to take it out a few minutes earlier to prevent such a hard crust (it's hard but not tough so that's good), though I was worried about uncooked bread. And it isn't too dry, so I don't think I did badly.

I'll definitely try this recipe again next weekend to see if I can improve/change it, but I need the advice of some bread experts out there. I know that when bread dough is ready you're supposed to be able to punch it and bring out a dry fist. I could do that, though this multigrain was a pretty stiff dough (and I'm a weakling) so I wasn't really making a bit dent in it. I kneaded it for about 7 minutes the first time (the instructions said 10) at which point the texture of the dough didn't seem to be changing much except that it was actually getting a bit stickier and less smooth, ie/ sticking to the board where it hadn't before. My final product was a bit "flatter" than I would have liked, I think it could have risen about 20% more than it did. Does that mean I kneaded for too long? Or not enough? All advice is most welcome.

The one thing I've realized is that I don't really know what this bread should be like, which would have been helpful. It is totally possible that I've made the recipe exactly as it is intended and at this point I'm just adapting for my own preferences. There isn't even a photo in the cookbook I used, so I'm really kind of poking around in the dark here. I may try Molly's Honey Gold Oatmeal bread in a few weeks as there's a bit more a description and a photo of the final product there, so I'll know more what I'm aiming for.