Grilled Corn Panzanella

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Corn for me is the quintessential high summer vegetable.

As a kid my oldest and dearest friends had a cottage in Muskoka that my family used to go to many times a summer. The kind of cottage that’s hard to find these days in Muskoka, amidst all the monster homes that people summer in, this is a real cottage (or as we say on the west coast, a cabin). It was built by my friends great-great-aunt and uncle, from scratch all the way. They even built some of the furniture and sewed the quilts. It was the home to our most elaborate games and biggest adventures as kids, and I loved it.

Since moving to BC I haven’t been back, which is alarming and hard as it’s been nearly 6 years now, one of my friends was recently up there and Instagraming pictures and it broke my heart a bit. Food was never a big priority up there; besides hot dogs, one great bakery, and traditional Thanksgiving dinner, my food memories from the cottage are few and far between. But I do remember stopping along the way at farmers stands and getting corn. Corn before “peaches and cream” corn, that was savoury instead of sweet and had a much stronger flavour that the kind you can pick up at the grocery store these days, at least where I live.

But I found some at the farmers market the other day, bright yellow and deeply flavoured. I grilled it and put it in this salad and it tasted like summer, the idyllic kind you can only have when your on school break and have nothing to do the next day but swim.

Grilled Corn Panzanella

2 cobs Corn

1 cup Cherry Tomatoes, halved

2 cups Bread, cubed

1 handful Basil

1/4 cup Olive Oil.

half Lemon

Salt and Pepper

Grill the corn- for me this means on a grill pan on my stove top. You could do this on a BBQ or under a broiler. You want to get it nice and charred.

Once cooked take a serated knife and cut the kernels off the cob.

In a frying pan over medium heat, warm the olive oil. Toss in the bread cubes and toast until it starts to darken on the edges. Salt.

Add the corn and the tomatoes, toss a couple times. Add in the basil and the lemon, adjust the seasoning and serve!

Cardamon Spiced Apricot Cake

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At the very first restaurant I worked at I was incredibly lucky to have been taken under the wing of the chef, who was unbareably talented. I’m fairly certain it had nothing to do with any talent I might have had and more to do with my bubbly 17 year old personality and my eagerness, my excitement, my glee to work 15 hours a day for well below minimum wage, but whatever the reasoning I will always be grateful.

I worked at the “garde manger” section, the cold side, the appetizers station, chopping vegetables, making aoilis and, joyfully once a week, I worked with the only other women in the kitchen in pastries.

But most days I was generally doing bitch work, except when this kind chef would come over and ask me questions and make me think deep and hard about what I was doing, how it all tasted, and why things worked that did. It was during one of these conversations I learnt about the amazing combination of apricots with cardamon.

In fact, I had actually brought up the two together on a whim, and then he drilled me on my choice and made me very insecure, but when we made the cooked down the apricots, pushed them through a seive, sweetened them with honey and added some crushed cardamon pods I knew I was onto something. At that restaurant we smeared some of this jam on a plate and toped it with foie gras, but these days, simpler days, I just bake it all in a cake.

Cardamon Spiced Apricot Cake

1/2 cup Butter

2/3 cup Sugar

1/3 cup Honey

2 Eggs

1 1/2 cup AP Flour

1 tsp Cardamon

1/4 tsp Cinnamon

1/2 tsp Baking Powder

1/4 tsp Baking Soda

2/3 cup Milk

10 Apricots, cut in half lengthwise and then each half cut into 3rds lengthwise

Preheat the oven to 325F

Butter and flour an 8 inch round baking pan.

In a medium bowl sift together the dry ingredients

In a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment cream the butter, sugar and honey together until light and fluffy.

Add in the eggs one at a time beating well between each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat for another minute.

Turn the mixer to the lowest setting and mix in one third of the dry ingredients. Stir until just combined then add half the milk. Continue like this until all ingredients are incorporated.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth out with a spatula. Put the apricots on the top of the cake in a flower pattern- starting from the outside and working in.

Bake the cake until an inserted skewer comes out with only a few moist crumbs, about 35 minutes.

Allow to cool in the pan, carefully remove it, sprinkle with icing sugar and enjoy!

Chocolate Raspberry Buckwheat Cakes

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My love of flour is very well documented here, I am not, nor will I ever be, the sort of person who sneaks in a bunch of whole wheat flours and pretends that the dense slighly soggy texture that nearly always happens when you substitute whole wheat for all purpose, doesn’t exsist. I’m just not that girl. I hope you all know that by now.

The glorious exception to this rule, is almond flour. Chalk full of nutrients, and proteins, even some iron! And while it can definitely not be substituted for good old AP, it can produce the sort of rich, thick tasting baking that I covet. But this sneaky little recipe does both- it uses almond flour to help out with the meltingly tender crumb, but it also throws buckwheat flour into the mix. Buckwheat flour, if you’ve never used it is a gluten free flour with a soft nutty flavour, that is common in both France (galettes!) and Japan (soba noodles!) and isn’t the sort of flour you could ever accuse of trying to be something it’s not (I’m looking at you quinoa).

All of which is a very long way of saying that these chocolatey morsels are basically health food compared to what I normally post up here. They are also creamy and slighly gooey, and all that is cut by the raspberries that have baked just enough to start to soften inside the batter. And the hint of nuttiness from the buckwheat turns out to be just what you never knew you needed.

Chocolate Raspberry Buckwheat Cakes

(Adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

7 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus extra for buttering pan


3 1/2 ounce Bittersweet dark chocolate

4 large eggs


1/2 cup Granulated or blond cane sugar


A good pinch Salt


1 tbsp pure vanilla extract


1/4 cup Buckwheat Flour

1/4 cup Almond meal


1/2 pint Raspberries

Preheat the oven to 300F

Grease your pans, I used these little 2 inch square pans but you can easily bake this in an 8 inch round pan.

In a medium sized bowl set over a pot with an inch or two of simmering water, melt the chocolate and the butter.

In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the whisk attachment beat the eggs until frothy. With the mixer still on high slowly add in the sugar tablespoon by tablespoon and let the motor run until the eggs are pale and thick and take a moment to smooth out into the bowl if you pick some up. 

Fold in the chocolate and butter. 

Add in the vanilla, then the almond meal and the  buckwheat flour. Pour batter into your pan and smooth with a spatula. Place berries on top and bake for 20-30 minutes, or until the top has barely set but is still a little soft to the touch. Allow to cool, sprinkle with icing sugar and enjoy!

Semolina Crusted Tillapia with Dukkah

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I was introduced to dukkah by a woman I worked for at Little Nest, and instantly fell in love with it. It’s a beautiful thing dukkah, rich with fennel seeds and cumin drenched in olive oil, and in this version with loads of parsley and cilantro chopped in too. People will tell you that it isn’t dukkah, and they’re sort of right, this is a totally bastardised version, but also the version that I was introduced to, and so now the one I prefer. Traditionally it doesn’t have fresh herbs in it, but it turns what is essentially a spice blend into something to dip bread in, pour over poached eggs, and in this case spoon on top of fish.

Semolina Crusted Tilapia with Dukkah

2 fillets Tilapia

1/4 cup Semolina Flour

Salt and Pepper

Dukkah

1/2 cup Hazelnuts

1/4 cup Toasted Sesame seeds

1 tsp Fennel Seeds

1 tsp Cumin Seeds

1 tsp Corriander Seeds

1 cup Flat Leaf Parsley Leaves

1 cup Cilantro Leaves

1/2 cup Olive Oil

Salt Pepper

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Put the hazelnuts in the oven and cook for about 15 minutes, tossing them every few minutes until they are toasted all the way through.

In a small pan over low heat toast the fennel, cumin and coriander seeds until they are fragrant but not smoking.

Put them into a food processor, a spice grinder, or a mortar and pestle and grind until fine.

Add in the hazelnuts and the sesame seeds and crack them but you want them still coarse.

If your using a food processor add in the leaves and the olive oil and blitz until the leaves are broken up but not pureed. Or you can cut them by hand.

Add in the salt and pepper and check your seasoning.

Turn your broiler on high and let it warm up a bit.

Mix the salt, pepper and semolina together on a plate and dip the fillets in making sure they’re well coated. Put them on a lightly oiled pan and then on the top shelf of the oven.

Keep them in until the tops are slightly browned and they are cooked all the way through.  

Double Chocolate Strawberry Pavlova

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I have this sensational Australian friend named Liz who is significantly cooler than I am. When she moved back to Oz in January she gave me tons of her old clothes that she had had for too long and didn’t want to haul across the world with her. They are practically the only clothes I own that I get compliments on, and even though she bought them several years ago, they are also the trendiest things I have. Basically Liz tends to have her finger on the pulse.

She has introduced me to a many amazing blogs over the years, mostly Australian ones, some style blogs, but lots of recipe blogs as well, and the one I go back to over and over again is What Katie Ate. Of all the photography/recipe blogs out there What Katie Ate would have to be in the top 5 ever. Her recipes are amazing, every one of them, but her photography is my favourite part. I can spend hours looking over her photos. Unlike a lot of French and American photographers hers is a little darker, her backdrops are often slate and she uses slightly un polished silverware. Theres something slightly antique-y about them, and it’s something I love.

So I wasn’t surprised when I saw the most delicious looking chocolate pavlova on Pintrest and it turned out to be one of Katie’s recipes. Now, I’ve written here before about pavlovas, and I’ve talked about the impossibility of making one in my terrible no good oven, but I thought perhaps if I made mini ones than maybe my oven would cooperate. And miracles do happen friends because here it is, the best pavlova I have ever had or made. I followed the recipe nearly to a T, the spot of balsamic in the meringue that cuts the sweetness beautifully, and the texture cannot be improved upon. But I did change the whip cream to a chocolate whip cream, and guys, even if you don’t have time to make the whole dish, I can not recommend to you enough making chocolate whip cream and putting it on anything and everything, all the time. It just makes everything better, and this is no exception.

Double Chocolate Strawberry Pavlova

Pavlova

6 Egg Whites

1 1/2 cups Sugar

3 tbsp Cocoa Powder

1 tbsp Balsamic Vinegar

3 oz Dark Chocolate

Chocolate Whip Cream

1 cup Whip Cream

2 tbsp Cocoa Powder

1 tbsp Icing Sugar

1 pint Strawberries, hulled and quartered

Preheat the oven to 325F

Line a baking pan with parchment paper

In an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment whip egg whites until soft peaks form.

Tablespoon by tablespoon add in the sugar while still whipping on high speed.

Let it continue to whisk until the eggs are soft and shiny and hold very still peaks, but not until the eggs separate.

Fold in the cocoa powder, chocolate and the balsamic with a spatula, then spoon out the mix onto a baking sheet. I made 6 large ones but you could do 9 smaller ones if you were so inclined.

Put into the oven and immediately turn the heat down to 185F and bake for 45 minutes.

The tops should be hard and crack slighly with light pressure.

Allow to cool.

Meanwhile to make the chocolate whip cream just whisk everything together. You don’t need to do this in a mixer, because of the fat in the cocoa it will come together in a minute or so.

To assemble, carefully move the meringues with a metal spatula onto plates, spoon whip cream on top and then cover with fresh strawberries. C’est finis!

Pancetta and Leek Quiche

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It was Jazz Festival in Vancouver last week, a weekend where every venue puts on shows ranging from Mexican folk music to old proper quartets and everyone in between shows up, and while admittedly most of the more senior people in this play at expensive sold out shows, slews of people play at the outdoor stages. Every year a couple friends of ours who live near one of these outdoor venues throw a big party and we eat too much breakfast and then spend the day in the beer garden and listen to great music. It is one of my favourite days of the year.

And this year was no exception, the only difference was that after several drinks I decided that everyone should come over to brunch the next day which was, shall we say, a questionable decision.

I love having people over for brunch, as one friend put it “it’s breakfast you don’t have to wake up early for” and I would like to add it’s breakfast you can drink champagne with and not feel guilty. So I hauled my butt out of bed and made quiche.

I think people get scared of quiche, the pastry the baking, but really, you eat it at room temperature, so while you have to get up a little earlier to put it together, it means you don’t have to cook at all when people arrive, which is a trade off I’m more than happy to give. This is also a very special quiche recipe, one that is smoother than smooth and not overwhelmingly eggy.

I served this with heaps of roasted potatoes and a big salad, and I think everyone was very happy, even me, once I had a glass of bubbly in my hands!

Leek and Pancetta Quiche.

This recipe is adapted from the Tartine Bakery cookbook, and is special for 2 reasons- it has a tiny amount of flour in it which helps it from cracking, and it uses creme fraiche, which gives it a bit of a tang. Because I made several of these this weekend and my grocery store only had one small container of it, I substituted half yoghurt in, and this worked beautifully)

Pastry

This pastry works very simply. You keep big pieces of butter in the dough and chill it. When the cold butter goes into the hot oven it produces steam, and thats what gives you the flakey layers. So, it’s very important not to cut the butter too small or to overwork the dough.

2 cups AP Flour

1 cup Butter, very cold, cubed

1 tsp Salt

A small cup of ice water

Filling

5 Eggs

3 tbsp Flour

1 cup Creme Fraiche

1 cup Whole Milk

1 tbsp finely chopped thyme

1 tsp Salt

3 Large Leeks, sliced

200g Pancetta

Put the butter into a bowl with the flour and the salt, and with your hands break apart the butter into lima bean sized pieces.

Add the a couple tablespoons of butter and stir, then add a couple more until it just follows a fork around the bowl as you stir.

Now push it flat and fold it in half, and repeat until the dough starts to come together but it is still soft. If it starts to feel firm stop right away. Wrap it up and put in the freezer for 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375F

Roll out the dough and fit it into a 12 inch tart pan, a 10 inch pie pan, or even a 10 inch cake pan.

Take a piece of parchment paper and cut it into a circle an inch wider than your tart. Press it into the top of your pastry and pour some beans or rice into it. This will prevent your beautiful pastry from rising too much.

Bake it for about 20 minutes, and then take out the beans and parchment paper and bake it for another 10, until the whole thing is a nice light brown color.

Turn the oven down to 325F

Filling.

While all this is going on slice up your leeks and pancetta and start cooking them over medium low heat. They will get soft, loose their liquid and then start to caramelize. This will take about 20 minutes.

In a large bowl mix together one of the eggs with the flour. Stir until there are no bumps, a couple of minutes. Add in the other eggs one by one, scraping the sides to make sure no flour is sticking.

Mix the milk and the creme fraiche together with a whisk until smooth and add that to the egg mix. Season with the salt, pepper and thyme.

Once the tart shell is out, fill it with the leeks and pancetta mixture. Pour the egg mix on top until the tart is very full.

Bake until the center has just firmed up, about 30 minutes.

Allow to cool before eating.

Carrot Pancakes with Cream Cheese Icing

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A few years back when I was running the kitchen of a small brunch restaurant my sister sent me a recipe for carrot pancakes. Basically you add grated carrots, cinnamon and walnuts to your basic buttermilk pancake recipe and dollop cream cheese icing on top. I am a big fan of nearly anything with cream cheese icing on top, and I am wild about most things that teeter the line between dessert and breakfast. But the restaurant had 6 burners and a flat-top griddle that could barely support making french toast, much less adding pancakes to the mix, so I put the idea into the massive index of things I plan on making one day but mostly I forgot about it.

But this weekend I made a carrot cake and much to much cream cheese icing. I did however, have plans for a girlfriend to come by for brunch, and carrots in hand we made carrot cake pancakes.

Now I feel the need to explain this to you; it isn’t actually just fried carrot cake. I promise. It walks the line sure, but with 2 tablespoons of added sugar and spelt flour it’s hardly worse than the average pancake. It has 3/4 pound of carrots in it! And yes, the icing might not be the best but it’s no worse than maple syrup. Honest.

So without further ado, here are carrot pancakes, I reccomend eating them often.

Carrot Cake Pancakes

(Adapted from Joy the Baker)

1 cup AP Flour or Spelt Flour

1 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Cinnamon

1/4 tsp Ginger

1/2 tsp Nutmeg

1 Egg

2 tbsp Brown Sugar

1 Cup Buttermilk

2 cups finely grated Carrots

Canola oil for frying.

Icing

1/2 cup Cream Cheese, room temperature

3 tbsp Soft butter

1/4 cup Icing Sugar

1-3 tbsp Milk

Mix together the cream cheese and the butter, add in the icing sugar and stir to combine. Add the milk to thin it out.

Pancakes

Put the oven on the lowest temperature it goes on.

Mix together the dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl and make a well in the center.

Stir the egg into the buttermilk and pour into the dry ingredients. Mix a couple of times and than add in the carrots- Stir just until combined.

In a large pan over medium-low heat warm a tablespoon of oil. Pour 1/4 of the batter and cook until bubbles appear all over the top of the pancake. Flip and cook until it’s firm to the touch. Keep warm in an oven.

Put on a plate and eat lots!

Rhubarb Strudel

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If you don’t live in Vancouver you probably can’t get rhubarb any more. That first stalk that sprouts in the Spring and paves the way for the strawberries and raspberries that you’re probably eating now. The sign of Summer that hasn’t had time to ripen in the sun so it’s so tart you can’t even imagine eating without heaps of sugar?

But us Vancouverites can. Heck, the way this weather is going we’re going to be eating rhubarb in August. 

It’s the coldest June on record here. I can’t keep the windows open in my apartment and I start to shiver without my slippers on. I have yet to go outside without a sweater on this year. 

So I’ve retired to the kitchen, where the oven is nearly always on and that keeps the water in the kettle warm for when I need a cuppa. And I bake. I bake with rhubarb. 

Rhubarb Strudel

Adapted from this recipe

Dough

1 1/3 cups unbleached flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons water, plus more if needed
2 tablespoons vegetable oil, plus additional for coating the dough
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar

Filling

5-6 Stalks of Rhubarb, cut into 2 inch pieces.

3 cups of Sugar

1 cup Breadcrumbs

2 tbsp Butter, melted

In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a dough hook- or in a regular bowl if you want to knead by hand) mix all the ingredients together and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic. When in doubt keep kneading. You can’t really over knead this dough, 

Wrap with cling film and let it sit for about 30- 60 minutes. 

Preheat your oven to 400F and line a cookie tray with parchment or a silpat. 

Once the dough has rested take a linen dish cloth and sprinkle it with flour. Get some flour on your rolling pin as well. Cut the dough in half, put one half on the cloth and start rolling. You want the dough to be as thin as you can possible get it. It should be see through, if it tears a bit don’t worry.  I didn’t roll my dough out enough so don’t look at mine as an example. It was delicious but it wasn’t quite as light as it should have been. 

Carefully move the dough onto the pan (folding it over your rolling pin helps for this) and in a thin line spread half of the rhubarb, sugar, and breadcrumbs out.

Carefull bring the dough up on 1 side and then roll it gently so that the rhubarb mixture has been wrapped several times with the dough. 

Repeat with the other half of the dough. Brush with the melted butter.

Bake until the rhubarb is cooked, about 45 minutes. 

Let it cook for at least 10 minutes before slicing into it, dust with icing sugar and serve!

Survivor Cake

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I have alway thought, and some people are going to hate me for this, but that the best thing about Vancouver is getting out of it. Thats not to say that I don’t love my neighbourhood, or that I haven’t had many a great night at great restaurants and bars downtown, but it is to say that when you look around Vancouver the most amazing things aren’t the buildings or the culture, but the mountains and ocean that surround it. And the best part of the mountains and the ocean is just how easy it is to get there.

And while lots of people make the most of the mountains in the winter time, skiing and snowboarding, I hate the cold and tend to shine in the summer. Which is how I found myself on Savary Island last weekend.

I have never seen so many eagles, or starfish, and I’ve never seen such long strips of white sand beaches in Canada. It was exactly what I needed. A quick refresh before all the excitement of my new website took over. Life is feeling pretty good right now friends.

On this getaway I took a brought a cake. Something I found in a Maida Heatter book called the Survivor Cake, it’s not too sweet, very dense and moise and this weekend help up to 2 ferry rides and a water taxi each way, and paired beautifully with both coffee in the morning and a glass of red mid afternoon.

Survivor Cake

(Very loosely adapted from Maida Heatter)

1/2 cup Butter

1/3 cup Brown Sugar

1/2 cup Fancy Molasses

1/2 cup Coffee or water

2 Bananas, mashed

3 Eggs

1 cup Raisins

1/2 cup dried Cranberries

1/2 cup Walnuts

1/2 cup Shredded Coconut

1/2 cup Dark Chocolate Chips

2 cups AP Flour

1 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Salt

2 tsp Cinnamon

1/2 tsp Nutmeg

In a small pot over medium heat bring the sugar, molasses, bananas, coffee (or water) raisins, cranberries and butter to a boil. Making sure the bottom doesn’t melt keep it on the heat until the butter is completely melted.

Take it off the heat, pour it into a bowl and let it cool to room temperature.

Preheat the oven to 350F

Line a 9 inch square pan with parchment paper.

Into the bowl with the butter mixture add in the eggs mixing with a wooden spoon. Slowly sift in the dry ingredients and stir until almost combined.

Add in the coconut, chocolate and the walnuts. Mix until their are no more streaks of flour but not any more and pour into the prepared pan.

Bake until an inserted skewer comes out with only a few moist crumbs, about 45 minutes.

Allow to cool and then wrap tightly, it will keep moist for nearly a week!

Panzanella Salad with Broccolini, Almonds, and Poached Eggs

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I was reading a piece a while back in the New York Times opinion section about a former restaurant critic. He had a line about trendy restaurants that went something like “Yes, now everyone does hanger steaks with poached eggs, who cares? 10 years ago it was salmon and lentils” And to that article I say, I will totally be putting poached eggs on everything in 10 years. I love poached eggs. 

I think most people associate eggs with breakfast. Maybe it’s because my Mom’s back up dinner was always frittata, or maybe it’s because I used to run a small breakfast restaurant, so I was always thinking about what my specials would be the night before, but either way I eat eggs for dinner all the time.

Mostly I make a big salad and plop a poached egg on top. It’s a simple, protein filled, very cheap way to make a salad feel like dinner, and it’s a wonderful thing. This one is full of day old bread that is ripped apart and fried in olive oil. I’ve also added broccolini but what makes this really special are the slow cooked onions that are fried up with almonds and rosemary. It just makes it feel less like a throw together meal, like your not just making because all of those things happen to be in your fridge, and you had stale bread from last nights dinner and your too lazy to go out and buy some fish. Oh no. This is intentional. And it’s very very good. 

Panzanella Salad with Broccolini, Almonds and Poached Eggs

2 Free Range Organic Eggs

2 cups of Day old (or fresh!) baguette, cut into cubes or torn into pieces.

1 bunch Broccolini

1 Large yellow Onion, thinly sliced.

1/2 cup Whole Almonds, coarsely chopped.

1 sprig of Rosemary, finely chopped

Juice of half a lemon

Olive oil, Salt and Pepper

In a large saucepan over medium-low heat warm up a big glug of olive oil. Add in the onions and a pinch of salt. Cook until the onions are very soft, stirring often and not letting them brown.

Meanwhile get a deep pot of water on the stove on high heat and bring it up to a boil. 

Once the onions are starting to want to brown add in the rosemary and the almonds and let the almonds get nicely toasted and the rosemary make your whole house smell amazing. Now scoop all that goodness into a bowl and get the pan up to a medium heat.

Warm up another big glug of oil and put in broccolini. It will spit a bit when you put it in  don’t be alarmed! Just cook them until they turn bright great and the tips get a little bit browned and they are just a little tender to the bite if you eat one. Salt generously and squeeze a little lemon juice on top. Then put them on the bowl with the onions. 

Once again heat up some olive oil in the pan and add bread this time. Let the bread get nicely brown and salt it too. Once it’s crispy and delicious add it into the bowl and mix it all together and adjust the seasoning.

Now poach the eggs. Drop them in one by one and cook them until the whites are hard but the yolks are soft, about 3 minutes.

Fill up salad bowls with the panzanella and add one egg on each. And there is a simple cheap delicious meal in under 20 minutes!

Lemon Glazed Baked Mini Donuts

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One of the best parts about being a baker is that at Christmas time instead of getting socks, or bottles of wine that only last an evening, people buy you kitchen stuff. Stuff that most people would never use, and stuff that you might not be able to justify buying yourself. Things like vintage bundt pans and ice cream scoops, or teflon scoops that are only to be used for scooping out dry ingredients. And the pans. The one use kind of pans that are hard to spend money on because you know you’ll only use them a couple times a year. I have lots of those.

I have a mini baked donut pan that I got last year. I mean the name says it all doesn’t it? You can only make it if you want baked donuts and you want them mini. I don’t think I have that urge all that often, but yesterday morning I was very happy to have such a pan because it made these little numbers.

Here’s the thing about baked donuts. People always say at the top of recipes that it’s just like the fried ones and you can’t tell the difference. And I am going to tell you these are not just like the fried ones. The fried ones are yeasted and take ages and then you have to heat up a gallon of oil on your stove top. And you can produce incredible donuts like that, but you also have to be very aware and awake at a very early time if you want donuts on Saturday morning.

I do not like frying things on my stove top that early. I just don’t.

One of these days I will do this for you, but in the meantime you can have these. These aren’t crispy and light the way a fried donut is, because it’s not fried. But it is bright and citrus-y and the hint of cinnamon makes them taste a tiny bit like the cinnamon sugar donuts you get at a fair. They are not fried but that does not stop them being delicious. Which is why you’ll notice that because their so tiny you haven’t noticed how just how many you’ve shoved in your mouth!

Lemon Glazed Baked Mini Donuts

Donuts

1 cup AP Flour

1/2 cup Sugar

1 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 tsp Cinnamon

3 tbsp Yoghurt or Buttermilk

3 tbsp Melted Butter, plus more for pans

2 Eggs

Glaze


1 cup Icing sugar

1-2 tbsp Lemon Juice

Zest of 1 lemon

Preheat the oven to 400F

Grease pans very well- there isn’t much fat in this recipe and they will stick.  Even if it’s a non stick pan. 

Mix the wet ingredients in a bowl and whisk until they get a bit frothy and are pretty well emulsified. Mix the dry ingredients in a larger bowl.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until barely combined. 

Put the batter in a piping bag or a ziploc bag with the end cut off and pipe the batter about half way up the pans.

Bake for 7-10 minutes until the outsides are starting to get brown and when you push the top it springs right back at you.

Let them sit in the pan for another couple minutes before carefully easing them out of the pans. Hopefully you greased yours more than me, because mine took some serious work to get them out. 

Let them cool. 

Meanwhile make the glaze:

Mix all the ingredients together. Yup, that’s it.

Once the donuts are cooled drizzle the glaze on top and dig in!

  

Hand Printed Tea Towel DIY

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When I was in high school I became obsessed with a store called Peach Berserk on Queen West in Toronto. It was an outrageous store with very loud bright cloths that were all hand silkscreened. It was always out of my budget, but I had Peach Bekerk undies and scarves. At one point I inherited a skirt from my sister that made me unordinately happy.

So one year for my birthday my Mom had me go to a silkscreening workshop that the owner put on, and while my Mom even bought me the photoemulsion needed to silkscreen like a professional without a light table it was a hobby that fell by the wayside pretty quickly. Which is too bad because I love printed fabrics- I in fact have 3 beautiful handprinted tea towels framed on my walls.

I have accepted that my dreams of silkscreening are probably not going to happen in my 1 bedroom apartment but with all my free time in my new found unemployment I figured I could at least do some kind of fabric printing. And so I did.

If silkscreening as at the end of the spectrum that involves machinery and fancy chemicals than this is way on the other side. You make stamps out of cardboard and you could use nearly any fabric you have kicking around to make these. I used a soft canvas and though I’m thrilled with how it looks, but I think next time I’ll use something softer and more absorbent, like linen.

Materials

Soft and absorbent fabric cut to the size of a tea towel or an unprinted tea towel.

Fabric Paint

Cardboard

Tape

Hot Glue gun

Iron

Iron your fabric

First decide on your design. I made a chevron pattern first and then made the waves with the boat, the shapes were all very simple.

Draw them on the cardboard and then cut them out. 

Take a thin piece of cardboard, roll it up, and tape it shut.

Use the glue gun to attach it to the backs of your stamps to use as a handle.

On a palate put down lots of paint and make sure it is really spread into every corner of the shapes.

Start stamping!

Let the paint dry for at least an hour and then iron it once again to seal the paint. And there you have it, hand stamped tea towels.

Arugula Omelette with Bread Crumbs

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Heres the thing of it; I only buy really good bread. Out of principle. Heres the other thing of it; good bread is only good for a day. Heres the other thing of it; there are only 2 people in my household so it’s hard to go through a whole baguette, or a full of sourdough loaf. (note, if Nutella is involved it is not hard to go through a whole baguette.)

So I’m always looking for excuses to use stale bread. Someone told me recently that in Italy breadcrumbs are poor mans cheese, which got me thinking. The friend who told me this had just made braised leeks and sprinkled breadcrumbs that she had sauteed in olive oil with garlic and rosemary and it was a killer dish. The sort of elegant dish Italian peasants have made for the last 300 years. So when I got home that night I busted out my food processor and made great use of the day old bread that always seems to be sitting in my bread box. And then I went to bed because it was late and I had already eaten dinner.

The next morning though I woke Jordan up with omelettes, just simple ham and arugula omelettes but I sprinkled breadcrumbs on the top and they were suddenly these elevated into something much more interesting. The crispness, the toasted flavour, the spike of rosemary, it was a glorious combination that, because I had already made the breadcrumbs, it was a no brainer painfully easy addition. Which is exactly what I want in my breakfasts.

Breadcrumbs

At least 2 cups of stale bread diced into cubes

1 tsp chopped Rosemary

1 tbsp chopped Parsley

2 clove Garlic

Zest of 1 lemon

A glug of Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper

Omelettes

4 Eggs

1 tbsp chopped Parsley

a Handful of Arugula

50g Ham or Porketta, thinly sliced.

2 tbsp Grated Parm, Romano, or Fruitlano.

2 tsp Butter

Salt and Pepper

In a food processor pulse breadcrumbs until they are crushed but not powdery. You want to be able to bite into them still.

In a frying pan over medium-low heat warm up the olive oil.

Add in the breadcrumbs and stir until they start to get toasty.

Add in the garlic and rosemary and keep stirring until the garlic gets fragrant and the breadcrumbs have become a nice toasty brown.

Add in the salt the zest and the parsley and set aside.

Mix 2 eggs in a bowl until thoroughly combined. Add the salt, pepper and parsley and mix again.

In a small frying pan over medium heat (your life will be easier if this is a non stick pan. If you don’t use non stick- I don’t- just make sure the pan is sparkling clean) warm up a teaspoon of the butter.

Pour the eggs in and using a wooden spoon or a spatula mix the eggs as the cook until there are some scrambled pieces but they are all connected by the uncooked eggs.

Using your spatula spread the eggs out into a thin layer and let them firm up.

Once the top is beginning to set flip the omelette- use a rubber spatula to lift the edges and then with a quick flick of the wrist flip it.*

Let it cook for another 30 seconds. Sprinkle with the grated cheese, and then layer on the ham and arugula. Fold the omelette onto itself and slide it onto a plate.

Dust the top generously with the bread crumbs.

*If your not comfortable flipping the omelette you can just let it cook all the way on the one side and then fold the whole thing in half at the end. ALTHOUGH Julia Child recommends practising the flipping motion with a pan with a handful of dried beans, and who am I to argue with Julia Child.

Grilled Spot Prawns with a Thai Mango Salad

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In Italy they celebrate the first asparagus with festivals all over the country (though I’m told especially in Veneto), ringing in the first of the local produce after a long winter of root vegetables and grains. I remember being told that in cooking school and feeling a little left out, a little cast to the side that we didn’t have these traditions, that my deep and very self important 19 year old self had missed something important. That some deep rooted cultural practise that I believed in had just passed me by because I lived in Canada.

And while that was many things, self indulgent definitely among them, it’s also not true. We may not have the long standing history of it, but Vancouver has spot prawns. And with them the Spot Prawn Festival.

I didn’t really realize before I moved to Vancouver that seafood is just as seasonal as produce, but it makes sense once you think about it. If you want the best salmon in BC you wait until mid-late summer, you’ll catch the fattiest trout in the fall, but of all seafood nothing is as seasonal as the spot prawn.

They are the first things out of the water in the Spring, big prawns that are bright coral and marked with two namesake white dots on their tails. They are tender beyond any shrimp or prawn I’ve ever had and they have an unmistakably sweet flavour. You have probably seen them in Asian supermarkets swimming around, or on Japanese menus as “ama-ebi” or sweet shrimp, but the taste of them fresh from the water is a completely different experience.

They are also one of the only sustainable shrimp/prawn fisheries in the world, and we are incredibly lucky not only to have these glorious little guys swimming around our local waters but also to have a sustainable fish shop 2 blocks away from our apartment.

Now, spot prawns are not cheap, they cost a pretty penny, so these are not for everyday, at least not on my budget (they average around $15 a pound!) but they are worth buying a few every Spring to celebrate.

I made a light dinner of them the other day, with a simple Thai inspired mango salad and grilled the prawns until just they are just barely cooked. With a cold beer, you’d be hard pressed to find a better summer meal!

Grilled Spot Prawns with Thai Mango Salad

*If you can’t get spot prawns you can make this with any shrimp, but fresh and local will make a difference in the taste if you can get them. 

Thai Mango Salad

1 philipine Mango (you can use Chinese mangos too, but the Phillipine ones are less fibrous, and often cheaper!)

1/2 a Cucumber

1/4 Red Onion

1/2 inch piece of fresh ginger

1 clove garlic

Juice of 1 lime

1 tbsp Fish Sauce

1 tsp Sambal Olek or other Asian chili garlic oil

2 tbsp Peanut or Canola Oil

Handful of cilantro and mint.

Spot Prawns

10 Prawns, head off

Zest of 1 Lime

1 tbsp Sambal Olek or other Asian chili garlic oil

1 tbsp Peanut or Canola Oil

Throw all the ingredients into a bowl and marinade for at least half an hour.

Meanwhile make the salad.

Mix the lime juice, fish sauce, sambal and oil in a bowl. On a rasp grate the ginger and garlic and mix it in. Check for seasoning, it should be quite strong- the lime, sambal and fish sauce should jump out at you!

Thinly slice the onion and add to the dressing.

Peel the mango with a peeler. Throw out the peel, then continue to use the peeler to get nice thin strips of the fruit. Add to the bowl.

Cut the cucumber in half and use the peeler to make thin strips of it. You could use a mandoline here if you wanted to, but then you’d have to wash it after, so I just use the peeler.

Mix this all together- this can sit for about an hour like this, but don’t add the herbs until your just about to serve it.

For the prawns- Heat your BBQ, grill pan, or saute pan until it’s blazing hot. Your only going to cook the prawns for about a minute each side, and your going to be taking the shells off, so you want to impart as much flavour into the meat as possible. If the edges get a little black it’s a good thing.

Once your surface is scorching hot put the prawns out in a single layer and let them cook for 1 minute each side and then flip. Once they’re starting to curl up, the edges are getting colored and they have turned bright coral your in business, take them off right away.

Mix your herbs into the salad, place half of it on each plate and put 5 prawns per plate. Poor yourself a beer and dig in!

Rhubarb Breakfast Cake with White Chocolate Yoghurt Ganache

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I am about to write the most pretentious thing I can think of. Are you ready? Are you sure? I just happened to have some white chocolate yoghurt ganache in my fridge. I know. Who am I?

In my defence it was there because I had failed miserably at making some macarons that I had been planning on filling with said ganache, but none the less. I happened to have some white chocolate yoghurt ganache in my fridge. Oy.
I have never been a huge white chocolate fan, unless your buying the really pricey stuff that is way out of my league, it’s just very sweet. Too sweet I think, but the yoghurt really mellows it out and brings in enough acid that makes you want to lick the spoon. It’s sort of like grown-up cream cheese icing.

So with this glorious stuff in my fridge, I made a very simple rhubarb cake, a buttermilk breakfast cake not to sweet with a wonderful crumb and slathered this ganache on top. Just enough to make you want to eat the top first and be a little spiteful of the bites that didn’t get any.

Rhubarb Breakfast Cake with White Chocolate Yoghurt Ganache

1/2 cup Butter

11/2 cup Sugar

1 egg

1 tbsp Vanilla Extract

Zest of 1 lemon

2 cup AP Flour

2 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Salt

1/2 cup Buttermilk

3 cup Rhubarb cut into 1 inch pieces

1/2 cup Yoghurt

4 oz White Chocolate

Preheat oven to 350F

Butter and flour a bundt pan or a 9 inch square pan.

Put the rhubarb half a cup of sugar and 1 cup of water into a small pot and simmer it until it is soft, about 10 minutes. Strain out rhubarb. The syrup will make fabulous drinks if you wish.

Meanwhile in a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Add in the egg slowly and mix until totally combined. Scrape down the edges of the bowl.

Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl.

Alternate adding the dry and wet ingredients starting and finishing with the dry. When the last batch of dry ingredients has almost been combined add in the rhubarb and gently mix by hand. Do not overmix it or it will get tough.

Pour the batter into prepared pan and bake until an inserted skewer comes out clean, about 30 minutes.

While the cake is in the oven you can make the ganache:

Place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Place the bowl over a pot filled with about an inch of simmering water. Melt the chocolate, stir it regularly because white chocolate has a tendancy of burning.

Once the chocolate is fully incorporated add in the yoghurt and stir to combine.

Once the cake is cooled you can pour the ganache on top or spread it on with a spatula. And c’est finis.

Oat Soda Bread with Herbed Ricotta and Scrambled Eggs

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We might be moving to the country. It’s not for sure yet, but there is a real chance we might pick ourselves out of the most expensive city to live in in North America and curl up on Vancouver Island. This appeals of me on many levels, mostly because when I think of living in the country and I don’t think of isolation or hard winters. Instead I day dream about long summer days in the garden. I fantasize about growing my own veggies and taking long walks in the fields at sunset. I get a glazed over look when I think about hanging my sheets out to dry or having a fire place or having enough room to build the bed I’ve always wanted to make. And when the logical man I would be moving with tells me I’m absolutely ridiculous and there are other things to consider when making a move like this I simply make this wonderful rustic bread, and strain some ricotta cheese and imagine that my eggs came from my yard, and I slip back into my imaginary world. Because fresh eggs and oat stuffed soda bread arecompletely at home there.

Oat Soda Bread with Herbed Ricotta and Soft Scrambled Eggs

(The bread recipe is adapted from 101cookbooks)

For the Bread

2 1/4 cups AP Flour

2 cups Rolled Oats

1 3/4 tsp Baking Soda

1 1/4 tsp Salt

1 3/4 cup Butter milk, more if needed

Herbed Ricotta

2/3 cup Ricotta cheese

1/4 cup chopped herbs, I used parsley, thyme, and rosemary, although tarragon or mint would be right at home there too)

Zest of 1 lemon

Salt and Pepper

1 tbsp Olive Oil

Soft Scrambled Eggs

4 Good Quality free range eggs, splurge and get the good ones if you can. It really does make a difference.

1 tbsp Butter

1 tbsp Heavy cream (Optional)

To start preheat the oven to 425F

In a food processor blitz 1 cup of the oats to a fine powder. If you don’t have a food processor don’t worry. Your bread will be delicious anyways, I promise.

Mix it in a bowl with everything else except 2 tbsp of the whole oats. Mix it all together until just combined.

Gently knead it a few times and then form it into a ball.

Put it on a baking tray lined with parchment and sprinkle the remaining oats on top. ( I ran out of oats so I missed this step!)

Cut a deep X on the top with a sharp knife and put it in the oven! Bake until it is cooked all the way through, about 45 minutes. It will have a thick crust and sound hollow when you knock on it.

Meanwhile mix together your herbed ricotta. Just mix it all up in a bowl and check the seasoning.

When the bread is out of the oven, let it cool for a few minutes. Slice it up and slather it with the ricotta.

Now, seconds before your ready to eat your ready to cook your eggs. Here is how I cook mine, and how I like my eggs best.

Crack your eggs into a bowl and whisk them very well. How fluffy they are is a direct correlation to much you beat them. Whisk in the cream if using.

Get a small frying pan hot.

Add in the butter and swirl it around for a second then, before it has fully melted add in the eggs. Now stir them slowly. I like my eggs with big pieces of scramble, and to do that you need to work the eggs slowly but throughally. When they are still a little shiny take them off the heat give them one last stir and quickly scrape them onto the ricotta slathered slices of bread.

And then eat it quickly and happily, and imagine your sitting on a farm in the country!