Do Cooking!

In addition to his love for "art," Colin has developed a love for cooking lately that warms his mama's heart. So now, once or twice a week, Colin proclaims it time to "Do Cooking!" and we break out my mixer and get to work.

I was a little reluctant at first to let a two-year-old participate in what can be a messy, and sometimes dangerous, endeavour, but so far he has been very good at following the rules: no touching the spinning paddle and only one cup of flour at a time. (In fact, I've developed this nifty little trick of restricting Colin to the quarter cup, even if the recipe calls for a whole cup or a tablespoon. The quarter cup is just the right size for his little hands, and, if it takes four times as long to add the flour, he's happy with that. Besides, he calls it the "baby cup," which I think is charming.)


The only drawback is that we've been eating a lot of home-baked goods, although I suppose that isn't really much of a drawback, is it? Lately, the frequency of our little cooking sessions means that we haven't eaten store-bought bread in months--and I'm not sure I can go back. The other downside is that Colin often wants to "do cooking" when I have real cooking to do--cooking he can't participate in that involves chopping vegetables and heating oil. And with a new baby soon to arrive, I've got a tall order of meals I want to cook and freeze for those first few weeks. Fortunately, Colin received his own play kitchen for his birthday, which now sits in the dining room just outside our kitchen. So when I need Colin out of the room so I can sauté vegetables or boil a chicken, I just send him to his own kitchen and ask him to do the same.



Of course, Colin is no short-order cook,so this doesn't always work. Half the time he uses his kitchen as loading zone for his cars and trucks, but who cares? As long as it buys me a little time...

Eating Out ... of the pantry (for a week)

Lest you think we always eat like kings around here, for the past two weeks we've actually been on a diet--of sorts. You see, on February 1st, I went to the grocery store to buy a few staples, and for the first time in my life the bill broke $300.

Now, after three years in northern Canada, I have become accustomed to higher grocery prices--generally 20-percent higher than what I paid in the States. But this was ridiculous. I mean, there was hardly any meat in there, and I had bought most of my produce at the farmers' market that very morning! Furthermore, it was the first of the month, and I had already spent almost half the month's grocery budget, and we still had to pay for five pounds of fresh seafood to feed a dinner party for 15. So, it was time to get creative. From February 2nd to February 14th, we were going to eat almost exclusively out of our pantry.

The rules were pretty simple: the bulk of each meal--including lunches for work--needed to be made from ingredients we already had at home, either in the fridge, the freezer, or the pantry. Allowances could be made for obligations we had for eating out with friends and for picking up a few perishables that go fast in this house, such a whole milk and cereal for Colin and fresh grapefruit for mama. (I can eat 2-3 per day; it must be some weird mid-winter pregnancy thing.)

And I am pleased to say we met our goal--for the most part. I think there were one or two days when I was forced to buy a lunch at work, and there was one Friday night when I had to work late and said "Screw it, let's go out for pizza." But other than that, we ate about 20 meals just out of our pantry, and we ate well.

Here were some of the highlights:

Home-made chicken noodle soup with home-made wheat bread

Vegetarian chili with cornbread (from a mix)

Spaghetti with meatballs (made with a little left-over breakfast sausage)

Chicken curry with rice

Minestrone with wilted veggies, home-made focaccia bread and the last of the farmers' market chevre

Quiche with home-made scones

Bread pudding (from week-old home-made white bread), with golden raisins and sun-dried cherries

Left-overs from our Mardi Gras dinner: fried cat-fish with butter-pecan sauce and shrimp etouffée over rice

And last, but not least, my favourite meal of the fortnight, in part because it was created with a whole bunch of little bits of things: A smorgasbord of left-overs, including wilted-spinach-and-wrinkled-tomato quiche; Valentine's Day pancakes made from the last of the eggs, some puréed sweet potato, and a bit of sour buttermilk; and a grapefruit salad made with the last of the pecans, feta, sesame oil, and mustard. I know, it probably sounds kinda gross, but, trust me, there is nothing wrong with these ingredients once they are cooked, and it really did taste great.

So how did we do it? The trick was having a well-stocked pantry to begin with. I generally make bread and soup from scratch on Sundays, so I already had the ingredients to make several meals like that. (And almost all the meals we ate for this week-and-a-half were some variation on a soup or stew and homemade bread.) Also, I clearly don't have an aversion to making use of wilted vegetables: soups and quiches are great for that, and no one can tell the difference. That didn't take a lot of creativity. What I am really please about was how I managed to avoid buying meat, which is about twice as expensive (per pound) as back home. Everything on the week's menu came out of two little chicken breasts or a bit of breakfast sausage or chicken stock I had stored up in the freezer.

My downfall? Dairy. Cheese, milk, whipping cream, butter, buttermilk--if it's made in the breasts of a cow, I can't get enough of it. Nor can Colin or Kevin. We probably spend about twice as much a week on dairy products as we do on meat (in part because of the huge price-hikes instituted by the Canadian Dairy Farmers' Association). So, going forward, I'd like to try to figure out how to eat less dairy in this house. Although if I'm not substituting it with meat, then I'm substituting it with fresh produce, which--in northern Canada--is in no way cheaper and certainly less fresh this time of year. Still, it's a "diet" I might try once the farmers' markets reopen ... in June. Until then, I'm looking forward to going back to the supermarket this week and restocking my pantry.

The Mardi Gras dinner to end all Mardi Gras dinners

It was three years in coming and three full days in the making, but last night's Mardi Gras dinner went off without much of a hitch. Kevin and I are members of a gourmet potluck group that gets together once a month at a different member's home for a themed dinner. Up until now, we've always bowed out of hosting because I was either too pregnant or had a new baby at home. But even though I am seven pregnant right now and have a rambunctious toddler, I figured it was now or never if we were ever going to host. And once a Mardi Gras-themed evening came up in rotation, I leapt at the chance to host it--Creole food being one of the few cuisines I don't find at all intimidating. So here's a brief recap of all the things that went into making a Mardi Gras dinner in northern Canada--and yes, I realize Mardis Gras isn't actually for another three weeks, but as hard as this was for me at seven-months pregnant, I knew it would be impossible at eight.

The Decorations: Rather than go with all the green-purple-and-gold kitsch that was available at the party supply store, I made use of what I had lying around the house: peacock feathers from our wedding reception, stained-glass masks from the Christmas decorations box, some Venetian masks from--where else--Venice, and a voodoo doll from ... well, everyone has one of those lying around, don't they? I did have to buy some Mardi Gras beads because my collection got recycled into one of my mother's costumes recently. But other than that, the only purchases were some purple orchids for the mantle and about $40 worth of votive candles from Ikea. The candles were essential, since we ate in what is actually our living room--it being the only room in the house large enough to accommodate 15 people at one table. They also helped distract form the fact that were were eating in the living room and that our living room could really use a fresh coat of paint.

The Place Settings: In keeping with the Southern Gothic flair of the evening, I pulled out the good china and the sterling flatware. In truth, I had no choice, seeing as how I don't have enough of the everyday stuff to seat 15. And if you're going to all the trouble to pull out the china and polish the silver, you might as well use all the good linens, too. Although, I may regret that decision once I have to wash and iron 20 yards of linen. In the end, though, I think it was worth it. It is certainly the Southern way of doing things. I have never once been to a dinner or cocktail party in the South where the contents of a lady's hope chest were not put to use. Besides, what's the point of moving all this stuff from home to home if it's going to sit in boxes, unused? Furthermore, it distracted from the fact that my house is incredibly tiny, and, again, could really use a fresh coat of paint.

The Playlist: No Mardi Gras evening would be complete without a well-crafted playlist. Mine wasn't as well-crafted as I would have like, but it got the job done. On rotation were Kermit Ruffins and Louis Armstrong, Buckwheat Zydeco and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, as well as the awesome soundtrack from Season One of the HBO show Treme. I haven't actually seen Treme yet, but if the soundtrack is any indication, this show is awesome.

And last but not least, The Menu: Had the menu been left up to me, I probably would have just made Jambalaya and flown in a King's Cake from Randazzo's, but my friend Peggi is actually in charge of the group and, as a major foodie, she helped step thing up a notch. Now, these are not the New Orlean's dishes that I grew up on, but they are more or less authentically Creole, and they were all delicious. As hosts, Kevin and I were on the hook for the entrees--fried catfish with pecan butter and shrimp etouffée, and we will certainly be making these again. I even created my own recipe for shrimp etouffée this time, and I thought it rather better than either of the recipes I normally follow.

Cocktails
Mardi Gras Mojitos and Mint Juleps (served in my silver julep cups, thank you very much!)

Appetizers
Bacon Wrapped Cajun Jalapenos
Black-Eyed Pea Salsa with Chips
Sauteed Fresh Mushroom Bruschetta
Merle's Spinach Balls

1st Course
Crab Cakes with Roumalade Sauce

Soup Course
Gumbo with Southern Biscuits

Main Course
Fried Catfish with Toasted Pecan Butter Sauce
Shrimp Etouffée
Jalapeno Cheese Grits
Red Beans & Rice
Mama's Candied Yams & Apples

Salad
Galatoire's Grapefruit Salad with Mustard Vinaigrette

Desserts
Chocolate Doberge Cake
King Cake (Peggi even made the King Cake from scratch, God bless her!)

And believe it or not, no one had a heart attack before the meal was over. In fact, a few people even asked for seconds, although it was approaching midnight and we'd been dining for five hours. So, I guess you could call the night a success. I'm not sure that Kevin and I will be hosting one of these dinners again any time soon. The only way we were able to pull it off this time was because I stayed up late every night this week prepping and because we sent Remy to the kennel and Colin to the babysitter's for the night. Now, I love a fancy dinner party as much as the next Southern girl, but these days I'm loving my incorrigible little boy even more. Check out Colin "helping" me earlier this week with my Mardi Gras beads. Is there anything cuter than that?

And the morel of the story is...

So after all of this flirting with fancy recipes, I thought I'd try going back to basics. I found this handy website devoted to morels and decided to follow the very simplest recipe on the site, titled appropriately, "Less is More." Basically, just sauté in butter and serve with red meat. Well, Kevin and I aren't exactly fans of red meat. I know most people think that there is no finer treat than a thick, juicy, sautéed-to-perfection steak, but we are not among them, a sad irony since we live in Alberta--the beef capital of North America, where cow is cheaper than just about anything else you might cook for dinner.

Nonetheless, I bought myself a reasonable (though not exceptional) pair of steaks, and pan-fried them with nothing but a bit of butter and some port wine. Then I followed the recipe's instructions quartering my morels and sautéeing them in a cast-iron skillet with gobs of butter. (Again, to quote Julie/Julia from the movie: "The secret to sautéeing mushrooms is to absolutely drown the bastards in butter.") For a vegetable side, I borrowed from another recipe on the site, titled "Morels and Steak," which calls for sautéeing wild leeks in even more butter and a dash of sugar. "It's phenomenal," the author implores. "Trust me." I was skeptical. After all, leeks are just fancy onions. But ohmygod, was he right! I didn't even have wild leeks (or ramps), like he recommended, and they were still phenomenal. (Although a note to my fellow casual chefs: you need to cook store-bought leeks twice as long as the wild ones, and your breath will be killer for about two days afterward no matter how many times you brush your teeth.)

And the morels and steak? The most incredible explosion of flavor. So this is why people by $22/lb for those dirty little mushrooms! The morels and the steak went together like peanut butter and jelly, peaches and cream, white on rice, etc. And the sweet, crunchy carmelized leeks were the perfect complement to the richness of the morels and steak. And a cold, hoppy beer was the thing for washing down all of that heavy food.


So for our final night--and our final store of mushrooms--we decided to go with what we knew worked and fried up a pork rib-eye steak in a butter-and-white-wine sauce and topped it off with chanterelles sautéed in even more butter. I know they say "lightening never strikes twice" and all, but it did for me: a lot like in that movie Ratatouille when the rat/chef gets struck by lightening and discovers that cheese+mushrooms+rosemary+electricity=a flavor explosion. My pork and chanterelles were just about as good as the morels and steak, although I can hardly take credit for the recipe. They were another of the culinary combinations I brought back with me from Germany, where they go by the delightful name of "Pfefferlinge."


Turns out the secret to cooking wild mushrooms to perfection is just gobs and gobs of real butter. Of course, that might be the secret to cooking just about anything. Although I think Julia Child might have already spilled the beans on that little secret. And in case you're curious, we went through a whole pound of butter during our four-day culinary excursion. Now I'm going to go sit on my well-padded derierre and take a break--at least until I can buy more mushrooms at next week's farmers' market.

So how should I cook next week's mushrooms? I promise not to write about it ;)

Cooking Mushrooms with Martha

With all of these fancy fungi in the house, it felt necessary to come up with some suitably fancy ways to eat them, so I turned to my go-to girl for fancy foods: Martha Stewart, or just "Martha" around these parts.

The first recipe I tried was her Morel and Asparagus Sandwiches with Poached Egg, which calls for a few of my favorite things: cheese, eggs, and another tasty in-season delicacy--asparagus. I can still remember my first spring in Germany when the asparagus came into season and all the locals went crazy-in-the head for their fresh, local "spargel." As far as I can tell no self-respecting German would ever eat spargel that had been imported. So for the one month in April that it's in season, they gorge themselves on roasted spargel, grilled spargel, spargel soup, spargel omelettes. I vaguely remember them finding a way to work spargel into their deserts. So what could be better than putting the morels and spargel together, right?


Unfortunately, the meal was a bit of a disappointment. Even though I followed the recipe to the letter--complete with homemade chicken stock and homemade wheat bread, thank you very much--the sauce wasn't as creamy as it needed to be, and the flavor of the cheese totally masked the flavor of the morels. Still, a very satisfying Sunday brunch.

Next up was Martha's "Tortellinis with Morels and Chanterelles." This recipe looked so good on the screen that I just had to give it a try even though it was twice as complicated as the first. Now, I had never attempted homemade pasta of any sort before, nor do I have that special pasta attachment for my Kitchen Aid mixer that the recipe calls for, but having recently seen Julie and Julia (and being an early fan of "The Julie/Julia Project", I thought I would give it a try, doing the whole recipe by hand--and all after putting in a long day at the office, just like Julie Powell.


Turns out, making pasta is a cinch, so long as you have the hour-and-a-half to devote to it. And kneading and rolling the dough and folding all those tiny tortellinis was surprisingly relaxing after a stressful work day. The finished product even looked exactly as good as the one in the magazine, but, again, the meal was a bit of a letdown. Everything needed more salt, and all that lemon and tarragon totally overpowered the subtle flavors of the mushrooms. And even though the meal took only an hour-and-a-half to prepare, cleaning up my kitchen afterward took two days. Totally not worth it.

Tune in tomorrow for the final instalment of this story that was so long I had to cut it in two. In the meantime, what are your favorite fungal recipes?

Hunting Mushrooms

Mushroom season is upon us, and even though Alberta is not exactly known for its edible 'shrooms, I've been bitten by the mushroom hunting bug. I've been hunting mushrooms under the old spruce and fir trees in our front yard, checking every day to see their little white caps poking up from beneath the needles. I've dragged my family out to the local farmers' market very early on a Saturday morning so that we can get first pick of the wild morels and chanterelles trucked in from the woods of British Columbia. I've even ventured into the dusty recesses of our basement to dig out a pair of mushroom prints I bought back in Germany, which I'm finally going to have framed.


And while I hope that one day I can go on a real mushroom hunt, in the meantime I'm content to hunt them a little closer to home. Luckily, I found this nifty little mushroom puzzle on Etsy that will allow me to satisfy my mushroom hunting urges from the safety and comfort of my own living room. It's made by the talented team at Xylocopa Designs, and each mushroom is based on a real species of fungus and cut from one of four different types of wood. I am just blown away by the artistry and craftsmanship that went into its design. My only complaint (which is not really a complaint at all) is that the mushrooms aren't identified. I guess this means I'll just have to buy a mushroom field guide and start hunting them down, one by one.

Tomorrow: Recipes for eating all of those tasty mushrooms I foraged at my local farmer's market.

Solid

The boy's been on solid foods for a while now, but the transition was pretty intimidating for this first-time mama: home-made versus store-bought, organic versus manufactured, pureed to soup or just mashed to bits? And how much of what are you supposed to feed a baby, anyway? I must admit it was so much easier when he was exclusively breastfed. I knew he was getting the very best, and just as much as he needed -- and the best part was, there was nothing to clean up afterwards!

But once I navigated the maze of choices and overcame my initial fear of preparing my own organic babyfood, I was excited by the whole process. Selecting the best fresh ingredients and turning them into something yummy (and often colorful!) to eat was incredibly satisfying: just another way to nuture my baby.

I found this book a great source for learning what ingredients are appropriate for babies at their different developmental stages, but by far the best resource was my cousin, a mother of two, who could tell me what foods babies actually like to eat and demystify for me the whole process of making my own baby food.

I remember when she first told me seven years ago that she was feeding her kids homemade babyfood, I thought she must be nuts -- or at least some sort of crazy-crunchy Earth Mother extraoridnaire, which I am definitely not. I also figured it must be a lot of work (as if motherhood weren't work enough!). But in fact, nothing could be simpler. Just take a bunch of raw ingredients, steam them if need be, and puree them all in a blender. I discovered these single-serving containers so that I can prepare large batches all at once and then freeze them for later.

So far, our favourites include combinations of the following: peas, sweet potatoes, apples, pears, green beans, butternut squash, bananas, plums, avocados, lentils and pasta. One surprising hit was the lemon-basil linguini with clams and sardines, which we put through a simple food strainer like this one. Definite flops have been the apricots (gave him bad indigestion), the broccoli and the leeks (too pungent-tasting).

It's been a real food education for us, though. We've always tried to eat lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, but often fallen short of the mark. Trying to provide healthy meals for our son has meant that we're eating better ourselves--at least for now. I'm sure we'll fall off the wagon and give him pizza before too long, but hopefully it will be a homemade veggie pizza.

Farmer's Market

A few photos from our visit to the Little Rock Farmers' Market, when we were home in June. Despite the heat and humidity, there was no finer place to be on a Saturday morning, with strawberries and raspberries and blackberries in jumbled profusion. The Bradley County "pink" tomatoes were at their peak. And the air was suffused with the perfume of ripe peaches. Heaven!