Mahogany Beef Stew with Red Wine and Hoisin Sauce

Stew is one of those dishes that I struggle with, because it never tastes quite as good as I think it should.  But David loves a good stew, particularly in the heart of Canadian Winter, so it is always on the menu a few times in the early months of the year. I've decided the secret is cutting up an actual roast for stew meat rather than buying the pre-cut cubes that are labelled as 'stewing beef' in the meat section. Or at least, that's what we tried with this particular recipe and it was one of the best stews I've had in a long time. As with other stews I've known and loved, this one is even better the next day if you can manage leftovers.

We're moving in to Spring soon; I actually made this dish weeks ago at the height of the worst of our Winter, which in truth hasn't been all that bad this year. We had a few weekends in a row of conditions that were pretty perfect for tubing / tobogganing and we made the most of it. Then we came inside and had stew.

Curried Parsnip Soup

Well, you can hardly be surprised that another dish featuring curry should appear after my entry on Curried Cauliflower and Apple soup. I've got a whole bottle of curry powder to use up. And this time, parsnips in the crisper. I love parsnips. I know they don't look like much, but cooked properly they are delicious. I really enjoyed them in this soup, which I adapted into 'cream of' curried parsnip soup.

Oven Baked Ribs

I actually thought I had already written this post. Could have sworn I had written it. But I haven't. I've been meaning to, since we ate these ribs for Sunday dinner at least a week ago. They were so good. I served them with scalloped potatoes (that were only average) and corn bread (which was fantastic, as usual). I dry rubbed them and sauced them. They made the house smell like a warm Southern Sunday afternoon. While they were cooking I listened to Dan Mangan over and over again. It was a good day.

What we ate for Christmas - Christmas morning

Christmas morning is one of my favourite mornings of the year. After the presents have been opened and everybody is basking in the glow of new toys, books and other diversions, I make pancakes for the kids and David puts on a pot of coffee. As much as I like making pancakes for the kiddos each December 25th they aren't my idea of the perfect Christmas morning breakfast. Last year I bought a stollen for the grown-ups but this year I really wanted something home-made. (Christmas morning seems to demand home-made.) While flipping through recipe books and scouring the Internet in the weeks leading up to Christmas I toyed with the idea of making stollen myself but something nagged at me that this wasn't the satisfying Christmas breakfast I was seeking. Then I found it. Or rather, we found it, as I had roped David into my quest: yeasted coffee cake with sweet cream cheese filling. Yes please!

Beef Tenderloin Mini Sandwiches Appetizer

I am very behind in documenting all of my kitchen capers. We are now all fully back to reality, i.e. back to school and work which has taken some adjustment after an extended hiatus from 'normal'. Plus I keep coming up with ways to keep myself busy. For example last week I decided I *must* re-paint all of the wood work on our main floor. This stems from having laid a new cork floor in our library/dining room just before Christmas. One home improvement project seems to lead to another which leads to another... So this weekend I have caulked and cleaned and painted along with cooked.

I still have a few blog-worthy food items from 2011 to share before moving on to 2012. One of the last new dishes I tried in 2011 were these awesome beef tenderloin mini sandwiches:

What we ate for Christmas - cookies

The boys love decorating a gingerbread house at Christmas but I, for all of my culinary aspirations and experiments, do not. I find it a fussy, unpleasant task that fills me with rage. Last year when I found myself getting out the glue gun in an effort to make our darn gingerbread house stay together (after four kinds of icing failed) I vowed never again. I felt bad banning the gingerbread house from our Christmas repertoire but not for long since my proposal to make gingerbread cookies instead - shaped ones that we can decorate and actually eat - went over very well. We never ate our gingerbread house creations (particularly those that I stuck together with toxic glue, obviously) so I wanted a recipe that would make some good looking and good tasting cookies. I turned to my trusty Joy of Cooking for this particular task knowing that on page 828 is a simple recipe for Gingerbread People that delivers both great looking and great tasting treats.

Saturday Sandwich

I took another look at my New Year's (Food) Resolutions and see that I am progressing quite nicely through my original list. To date I can cross 3 out of 10 dishes off of my list:

1. I made Yukon Potato Stack, a Walt Disney World recipe, with my new mandoline.
2. I made Chinese Orange Beef as part of a Chinese New Year menu.
5. I made Pudding Chomeur for our recent Quebecois potluck.

And now, thanks to today's sandwich effort, I can also cross off 'make something with a fresh avocado' (3).

Vive La France (Cuisine)!

One of my favourite Family Ties episodes features an exhausted Elise falling asleep at the breakfast table after being up all night trying to 'do it all' - juggling both work and motherhood. "French toast, Elise?" her husband Steven asks. She sleeps. "French toast, Elise?" a bit louder this time. She jerks awake and says "Vive la France!". Gets me every time.

Pulled Pork with Ginger-Bourbon Sauce

Sounds good doesn't it? I've made various versions of pulled pork, usually in the Summer. In a bid to transition from Winter to Spring meals I thought Pulled Pork with Ginger-Bourbon Sauce, from the March 2011 issue of Chatelaine, would make for a nice Sunday dinner. It's made in a slow cooker and is relatively fuss-free, which is nice when you are juggling a bajillion other things on the weekend. The pork smelled wonderful through the day, simmering on low with only some sliced onions and a can of ginger-ale to keep it company. I really liked this method of cooking pork for pulled pork sandwiches. The meat was falling apart by the time we took it out and combined it with the promised Ginger-Bourbon Sauce.

Chicken Normande

While the cold weather is allowing me to enjoy some of my favourite Winter dishes like Chicken Normande with Mashed Apples and Potatoes, I must say I am very tired of this:

Potluck

Sometime in late January I suggested we have a potluck lunch at work and boy, am I glad I did. Although the day before the potluck I wasn't so glad; I was wondering why exactly I would suggest a potluck the day before I was hosting 20 JK/SK children at my home for my son's sixth birthday party. But I had offered to bring chili. And since I had made a large batch a few weeks ago and frozen most of it all I really had to do was thaw, heat and serve.

Signs of Spring

For one brief shining moment last week, it was Spring. The sky was blue. The breezes were balmy. On the walk to school my youngest son kept asking 'Mummy, what's that smell?'. (Spring, my friend, Spring!) We could see grass peeking through the snow on front yards. It felt so good to leave a few layers at home and walk through the concrete beach at work without being assaulted by gale force winds. Or freezing pellets of snow. Sigh. We all knew it wouldn't last. And it didn't. Today we woke up to fresh snow. But Friday, Friday was beautiful. I hope the memory will hold us until the next Spring thaw.

The small taste of Spring we had has put me in a very green frame of mind. I ordered a new bedspread and stuck with my traditional neutral colours but ended up picking a design with a touch of green. I started adding some Spring touches to my mantel and found a great floral bunting on Etsy that features orange, pink and green. (I seem to have developed an obsession with bunting. More on that later). Then I made some zucchini and carrot bread that I found on a blog called Coconut & Lime. This recipe caught my eye because it included cardamom (along with cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon) in the batter. I bought some cardamom for a cookie I made recently and have a fresh bottle in the pantry. So it felt like fate - appropriately Spring-ish and using ingredients I had on hand. The result was lovely. A cross between spice cake and zucchini bread with the added kick of carrot. Yum.

Slice, slice, baby...

Wow. That's possibly the worst title I've come up with so far. And now you have Vanilla Ice stuck in your head. Sorry about that.

I finally got around to cracking open the mandoline I got for Christmas to make a Sunday dinner dish. I actually bought this for myself a couple of weeks before Christmas at the William Ashley Warehouse sale, an event I have never attended before but was introduced to in 2010 thanks to my SIL. Wow. Let's just say the mandoline was one of many purchases I made that day. Kitchen stuff. On sale! See you in 2011 Will!

My mandoline is a Zyliss. I had never used a mandoline before this weekend but I had heard many horror stories of people cutting off fingertips when using these devices, so the first time I used it I sliced some beets as practice. I figured if I cut myself I wouldn't freak out because the blood would just mingle with the beet juice and I'd be none the wiser. Except for the missing digit. Thankfully, the beet experiment went just fine, meaning I didn't cut myself. So I moved on to potatoes.

Happy (Chinese) New Year!

My kids both attended a wonderful pre-school program called the University Lab School. My husband and I both loved this school but more importantly, both of the boys loved it too. We all learned a lot of things at 'the Lab School' and made many great memories. One of my favourites was watching the kids celebrate Chinese New Year. They did it up right, every year, with a 'snack' feast of Chinese favourites and a parade of noisy revellers wreaking havoc through the halls, warding off evil and helping to usher in a prosperous New Year. I don't do a ton of theme menus for our Sunday dinners but this week, with Chinese New Year approaching, I couldn't resist.

Cinnamon Buns, Toute de Suite

I remember very little French vocabulary from my school days. I suspect that like most anglo-Canadians my French is strongest when it comes to relaying information about food (thanks to bilingual food labels) or talking about hockey. Actually the hockey thing might not be typical. My husband is a Habs fan so we watch the French CBC on Saturday nights from time to time. You watch long enough, you pick up some terms....C'est le but! (It's a goal!)

Sadly, the only phrase that really sticks in my head from years of French instruction is 'toute de suite', which, if I recall correctly means 'at once'. When Mademoiselle Baker flung a 'toute suite' in my direction its meaning was more likely along the lines of 'Move it into the classroom and enough with the giggling'. Ah, high school.

This morning I felt like a Cinnamon Bun, toute suite. I should qualify that. I wanted a homemade cinnamon bun. Sorry Cinnabon lovers - they smell like the real deal but if I'm going to spend that many calories, you've got to taste the part as well.

Cook's Illustrated has a great recipe for cinnamon buns that is quick and easy. I've made it a half dozen times now and each time I get a bit faster putting it together and my buns get a bit better looking. (Okay, just read that back...you know what I mean). This site provides the recipe. I'll provide some visuals. Discuss.


My one modification to the CI recipe is for the glaze. I wanted something super simple, so combined 1 cup icing sugar, 1/2 cup heavy cream and 1 tbsp of vanilla. Stir together, drizzle over warm bun. Tell yourself not to have a second one. Lace up your sneakers and head to the treadmill. Repeat.

Three Bean Chili

Chili is one of those foods that I know better than to make as a Sunday dinner dish. As much as I want my family to try new foods there are limits; even my husband, who never declines anything I put in front of him at dinner, draws the line at chili. Particularly vegetarian chili. So I rarely make it. Apparently none of them appreciate beans like I do. This week I had a real craving for chili so decided I'd make a batch knowing that I'll have to freeze half of it and spend the next couple of months eating it for lunch every day. Not the worst lunch fate I can imagine.

Oatmeal Date Muffins

Operation 'use up ingredients purchased for holiday cooking and baking' is going pretty well. On the weekend I made Oatmeal Date muffins thanks to a recipe I found on the blog Sugarcrafter. The combination of oatmeal and dates appealed to me and I'm happy to report these muffins have been much appreciated in school lunches all this week. Here is how they looked while cooling:


I'm not sure what funky setting I had my camera on when I took this shot. I've been trying to learn how to use the more advanced settings on my camera but fear I am not destined to become one of the great photographers of our time. These are good muffins (I've had my fair share at breakfast this week) and whenever I eat or make them I will be reminded of the NorthWest Passage. "Of course!" you're thinking. "The NorthWest Passage and oatmeal date muffins are like peanut butter and jelly." Allow me to explain.

Sugar Pie

As much as I know I should be easing into the New Year with lighter fare after eating my way through the holidays that doesn't seem to be happening. As I've mentioned, it's very, very cold in our neck of the woods right now. As a natural defence mechanism my body seems to be craving foods designed to help me keep warm with good old fashioned body fat. Last week it demanded macaroni and cheese. This week, Sugar Pie.

Sugar Pie isn't very complicated. It's basically what happens when you take some brown sugar, mix it with a bit of flour, egg and milk and bake it in a pie shell. In other words, it's a great idea. There are many recipes out there for sugar pie. Wikipedia even has an entry for sugar pie, although no specific recipe.

I took my recipe for Sugar Pie from Rose Murray's hungry for comfort, which is a great title for a cookbook. I refer to hfc often through the Winter months which seems to be when I most need comfort from my food. (Did I mention it's very cold?) Sugar pie is kind of like eating a really big butter tart without being slowed down by those pesky raisins or currants or nuts people often like to add to butter tarts. Serve yourself a slice with some whipped cream.

Sugar Pie

pastry for 1-9 inch single crust pie (I used a pre-made Pillsbury, from the dairy case)
2 cups packed brown sugar
2 tbsp flour
pinch salt
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla

Fit pastry to pie plate. In a bowl, blend sugar, flour and salt. In separate bowl, beat eggs and yolk until frothy; beat in milk and vanilla. Stir into sugar mixture until smooth. Pour into pie shell and bake in a 400 degree oven for 10 minutes; reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 35 minutes longer or until crust is golden brown and filling is set.

So what does good sugar pie look like? Here's what it looks like at our house:

Sweet Potato Soup with Apple

It's been a cold weekend (-15) so a pot of soup seemed an appropriate addition to Sunday lunch today. After throwing together Sweet Potato soup based on ingredients I had at hand, I thought it would be nice to make a more thoughtful soup. Thoughtful as in: "I thought ahead of time so have everything I need to make this soup rather than just picking stuff out of my crisper and hoping for the best.". Although that kind of soup can be good too.

Not a Recipe

Just a quick post because I want to document that I did keep one of my (silent) New Year's Resolutions regarding food. 'Silent' because I didn't post it as part of my official list. I have really been trying not to waste food this year. I'm not generally a wasteful person, but because I try so many different recipes I often end up with ingredients that I don't know what to do with once I've used them for my original purpose. These ingredients tend to get chucked after weeks of me dodging them in the fridge, freezer or pantry. Well, tonight I pulled together dinner using (mostly) 'leftover' ingredients. And it wasn't too bad. My goal was to use up some frozen meatballs, a half jar of spaghetti sauce and a nearly full jar of chili sauce. I cooked the meatballs, boiled up some pasta (because we always have pasta in the house), heated the sauce(s), threw in the (cooked) meatballs, poured it all in a casserole dish, covered the whole shebang in the dregs of shredded mozzarella cheese kicking around my freezer and baked it for about a half hour. It wasn't the best baked pasta I've ever had, but for a Wednesday it was a perfectly respectable family dinner. And I made One-Bite Brownies while I was baking the pasta. At the same time, my friends. Because I have a double oven, oh yes I do.