My Dinner Table

Raspberry Sorbet

In what seems to be the never ending battle to avoid becoming 300 pounds, I've been making sorbet instead of ice cream. Yes, I know, still lots of sugar, but at least I'm not buying litre containers of full-fat cream. I figure it is a small step toward healthier eating. Anyway, the favourite recipe so far probably has been the raspberry, with the pink grapefruit a close second. The raspberry though freezes very well and keeps better than the citrus ones that I've made. I'm postulating that it has something to do with the pectin in the berry, but I don't really know. The recipe I follow comes from Thomas Keller's Bouchon cookbook and is dead simple. I used frozen berries that Daphne bought last year as part of some fundraiser to buy band uniforms or something like that. I'm not sure fresh berries would make it any better, though I intend on trying this summer.I start with two pounds of the raspberries, toss them with the juice from half a lemon and some good organic cane sugar and let the berries defrost.
Once defrosted I strain the mixture through a fine mesh sieve. Actually, it isn't so much strain as force the mixture through. This is really the only part of the recipe that takes any effort, but it is time consuming. at the end I'm left with a pulpy mess, filled with seeds. But I also get a thick rich liquid, the consistency of heavy cream that has an intense raspberry flavour.
This is chilled in the fridge for a while. I don't really know how long I'm supposed to do it for, most of the time the length of time is determined by my impatience. If I have other things to do, it will chill for a good long time, if I don't and am just waiting around for it, not so much. But it is important that you chill it as from the reading I've done the faster the sorbet freezes in the machine, the smoother the texture.
Pouring it into the machine carefully as not to stain oneself red with raspberry juice is not as easy as one would imagine. Well, at least not for me. it takes about 25 minutes once it is in the machine for it to become sort of like soft serve, before I take it out and freeze it.
Once frozen solid in the freezer it is delicious. It is essentially raspberry coulis, only frozen. A delicate balance of tartness and sweet. It is a bit of summer on a spoon. Pour a touch of red wine over it in a bowl and it gets even better.

Chicken Cacciatore

I made chicken cacciatore for dinner last night. I had sort of been craving something like that for a couple of days now, so I checked out the recipe in the Silver Spoon and worked from there. It's a pretty basic version with a braise of tomatoes, carrots and celery. I made a couple of variations. First, I floured the chicken before I browned in in a big pot. The second is that I also added some garlic, tomato paste, white wine, portebello mushrooms, a pinch of red pepper flakes and roasted red peppers. Oh, and a little but of chicken stock to up the liquid content in the braise. I did it stove-top instead of in the oven. It was pretty good. The floured surface of the chicken sort of dissolved into the sauce to thicken it a little. We ate with some terrific bread. Not bad.

Frittata and Farm Boy

I made a frittata today for brunch. I'd been meaning to make one yesterday, but I just was a little bit lazy and didn't bother. But I decided that I would today. It has tomato-basil sausage, potato and roasted red peppers. I had it with a whole mess of fresh salsa I picked up from Farm Boy, a new grocery store for me. Just a little bit out of my, I'd driven by it a couple of times, but never stopped it until this week. It's smaller than a Safeway or Loeb, but has some pretty nice things. The produce looked really good and it had a real butcher's counter. And while it won't replace Sasloves, my go-to butcher since moving to Ottawa, the selection looked pretty good. Most importantly though, they had the fresh salsa that I served with my frittata. I love fresh salsa. Once you have it, going back to a jarred salsa just isn't really something you like doing. Sort of like real parmesan cheese compared with that stuff that comes in the green Kraft container you find in the same aisle as the tomato sauce. So, I'll go back to Farm Boy, if only to buy salsa.

Wedding Countdown

Oatmeal raisin cookies

What do I do with my mornings is a question I've been asked frequently since moving to Ottawa. You see, I work afternoons and evenings now. So I don't go to work until after lunch. Well, this is what I do with my mornings. I putter around the kitchen and sometimes it results in oatmeal walnut-raisin cookies. The recipe is from Indulge, the same book that I made the scones from. The recipe is for oatmeal, pecan, raisin and dried cherry cookies, but I had no dried cherries or pecans. It makes a pretty crumbly dough that just barely holds together. And well, some of them didn't quite hold together, so not the most presentation friendly cookie. I think I'll have to be more careful when shaping them for baking next time. But while they were not the most perfect looking cookie, they were mighty tasty and I think they would be only better with dried cherries and pecans, so I'll have to look to get some and try the recipe again. The book also suggests that you could replace the dried cherries with semi-dried apricots, so maybe that might be an option too.

Spartacat special

I went for lunch with Dave today at the Works, a burger place here in Ottawa. I went about a year ago with Daphne and quite enjoyed myself, so when Dave suggested it, I jumped at the chance. I had the Spartacat Special, named after the mascot of the Ottawa Senators. Gouda, avocado and bacon. I was thinking about the Roughriders Comeback, but Dave ordered it and I didn't feel like getting the same burger as him. I assume it is a typo in the menu and they meant a Rough Riders Comeback, but only a CFL geek would notice, nevermind care about the difference. Though maybe they might mean the Roughriders and not the Rough Riders. You never know, there are folks from Saskatchewan all over the place. Anyway, the burger was great. I love avocado or guacamole on a burger. There is something about the creaminess of the avocado that I think complements a burger very well. I'd get this one again the next time I go to the works if it didn't mean not getting a chance the try another one of the dozens they offer.

 

PostSecret

PostSecret is one of my favourite blogs out there. I laughed out loud when I saw this card that was sent in.

Pizza Night

I've been wanting to make pizza at home for a couple of weeks ago. Pretty much ever since my sister sent me a Todd English recipe to a thin crust that she used and really enjoyed. She can be pretty fussy with her thin crust pizza, so since she liked it I figured it definitely would be worthwhile trying. I started off by making a simple tomato sauce to be used. A small onion finely diced, a couple cloves a garlic, salt and pepper. All cooked up until the onions were soft and then added a good squeeze of tomato paste and a jar of strained tomatoes. That was simmered for a hour, maybe an hour and a half. For the dough, I opted to make it using the dough hook on a stand mixer because my sister had warned me that it was going to be a very wet and sticky dough. Way easier and faster than trying to knead it out myself. Dumping all the ingredients into the stand mixer and letting it do its work, we had a smooth dough in about eight or nine minutes.
After the two hours it took to let the dough to rise we started with the pizzas. With the pizza stone in the oven which was set at 500 F, the kitchen was starting to heat up. The first pizza was olives and onions. Daphne's favourite from a place called Fellini's in Atlanta. I was a little skeptical of the olive and onion mix, but wanted to give it a try. The onions were cut very thinly, so they would cook in the 8 minutes it would take for the crust to bake. Baking the pizza was a two-step process. First we took the pizza, added the sauce and a little cheese  and then baked it for about five minutes. Took the pizza out. Added the toppings, in this case the olives and onions, a little more cheese and then finished in the oven for a few more minutes. This allowed the toppings not to be overcooked, but to have a beautifully crisp crust. This was love at first bite.
The next pizza was a meat pizza. A mix of salami and other cured Italian meat, roasted red peppers and mushrooms. We added a little more sauce on this one and a mix of cheese. Both mozzarella and a little bit of cheddar. We used the same technique as the first one. Baking it a little and then adding the toppings. This pizza, with the added sauce and toppings, took a little longer to bake than the first, but was just as successful.
The third pizza was red peppers, zucchini and goat cheese. To be honest, the zucchini was just something in the fridge we wanted to use up and were a little skeptical about its use on the pizza, but figured, it was worth the try. It was pretty good though. Cut very thinly it just barely cooked in the less than 10 minutes it took for the crust to bake. Delicious.
The last pizza was cheese. One of my favourite pizzas in Vancouver is the cheese pizza from the Firewood Cafe. It is a mix of cheeses with hot chilies. The heat of the chili I think makes a terrific cheese pizza. So once the sauce was spread on the base I spread ground up red chili flakes across the base and then used a mix of mozzarella and cheddar. It wasn't quite the mix of cheeses you get from the Firewood, but it had that same chili and cheese balance that I loved.
Pizza night was a lot of fun. The crust recipe was deadly easy and made a perfect thin crispy crust. Next time I might trying to up the amount of whole wheat flour in the crust to try making a whole wheat version. The recipe only calls for a quarter cup compared with three and a half of all-purpose, so make use a cup of whole wheat and reduce the amount of all-purpose. Anyway, I think it might be fun to play with it a bit. We made four different pizzas. Way too much for the two of us to eat. We will both be eating pizza leftovers, but isn't that part of fun of having pizza for dinner, the leftovers the next day.

Lemon-ginger sorbet

I've been playing with sorbet recipes the last couple of weeks. I made raspberry a couple of different ways. One from the Ben and Jerry's cookbook that had a half cup of red wine in it, but that I found a little sweet. One from the Bouchon cookbook that I found quite stunning. It was essentially frozen raspberry coulis. Damn it was good. My favourite has been the pink grapefruit, that was a little sweet, but  really good. The latest is a lemon-ginger. I started with nearly three cups of lemon juice and a tablespoon or two of grated ginger. Mixed and frozen with a just over a cup of simple syrup and frozen, it was way too sour and the ginger had a real bite to it. So I melted it down, added another cup of simple syrup and refroze it. Now it is still very sour, but it is also quite sweet at the same time. It is almost like those Japanese lemon candies. The ginger flavour has also moved into the background, masked by all that sugar. Not really the balance I was trying for. I'm open to other suggestions if anyone has any for lemon sorbet recipes. I think it might be an interesting with a shot of vodka though. Maybe take a small scoop, place it in the bottom of a cocktail glass and then pour over an ounce or two of chilled vodka, it might make a really interesting martini-style drink.

Leftover soup

I defrosted some leftover soup I made a couple of weeks ago from the necks and backs of chicken breasts that I had bought and kept. For some reason at Saslove's when you buy bone-in chicken breasts you get the whole chest cavity, so I was saving the bits for stock. In Vancouver, you can buy them seperately. I guess it what partly accounts for the lower price of chicken breasts here compared with Vancouver. You are in part paying for a bit that in Vancouver I could buy for a much lower price. I wonder if it works out to be about the same cost to me? Anyway, I roasted the chicken parts along with some aromatic vegetables in a hot oven to get them some colour before making the stock which I think made it a much darker and richer stock. After chilling it, skimming off the fat and straining it three or four times, I made a basic chicken-vegetable soup, using up much of what was in the bottom of the fridge. Soup is such a great way to use up little odds and ends. But today when I heated it up I added in some mini-ravioli that  I found in the freezer. These were really good in the soup. They added a terrific body to the soup and really made it a meal.