Author: wellfedemily

Peach and raspberry streusel cake

~ wellfedemily ~ 9 Comments

The reality of how little time we have left is starting to hit us now that Month 7 is upon us.

I have not been making much food at home because suddenly there is urgency to experiencing every patio and new restaurant, or to savouring the experience of doing absolutely nothing which mostly involves take-out or huge containers of fresh berries and ice cream and marathon sessions of 30 Rock. The laundry piles up and the bathtub stays grubby. But that seems to be the case regardless of the distraction.

There have been bursts of productivity in spite of us both, and everything seems to be coming up Emily. We were despairing the lack of reasonably priced but not disgusting two-bedroom apartments in the city while the walls in our current apartment began to close in on us when a spacious, many-windowed two-bedroom opened up in our own building, just across the hall. We move in October 1, so for the first time we don’t have to rush to pack, and we even have time to paint the new place to our liking.

At long last, we’re having ourselves a summer, but not a painfully hot one – outside the temperature has seldom exceeded 27 degrees (Celsius). Which has meant long afternoons in the sun, eating cherries and watching the barges in Burrard Inlet or feeding the birds tasty bites of fresh doughnut on the boardwalk at Granville Island, or cool evenings picnicking on Jericho Beach or walking to Cambie Street for the good tacos (and some lecherous staring at the beautiful blue-eyed taco man).

The sun is bright but the breeze is comfortable, and this does not feel like the same city I dream about running away from in the winter after 40 consecutive days of rain.

And, most importantly, still no stretch marks. I am so slick with lotion and cocoa butter that I’d be lethal on a Slip ‘n Slide. You keep your fingers crossed good and tight for me.

All this going and doing and lotion application has kept me out of the kitchen most of the time, and I can’t say that I mind. We eat a lot of 10-minutes-or-less dinners, a lot of berries in cream, and a refreshing number of salads. I like to think that summer’s slacking is an excuse to go out and make the stories we tell all winter, that somewhere in the season’s casual outdoor feasts there is something important, or, at the very least, something to dream on.

Like pink wine and sunshine in Grace’s wine glasses: important.

The aroma of a trout Paul that caught as it cooks with lemon and dill on the barbecue: important.

The chewy texture of oatmeal sourdough made by Grace from a starter with natural yeast: important.

A simple meal shared on a blanket on the beach: important.

People you are fond of in good moods and summer clothes: important.

Eating dessert outside at sunset: important.

Cake and peaches and raspberries and brown sugar topping: important.

You can make this now, and eat it on the beach as the sweet finale to a picnic, or you can use whatever fruit you’ve frozen and make in the winter when you’re cold and missing the smell of the ocean and that flattering summer evening light. I made this with peaches and raspberries, but it’s based on a recipe that calls for blueberries. It would be beautiful with blackberries.

Peach and raspberry streusel cake

(Adapted from the Fannie Farmer Baking Book)

Cake

  • 1/4 cup butter, softened
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 1 lemon, zest and juice (this is wonderful with Meyer lemon if you can get one)
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp. salt
  • 1/3 cup milk
  • 1 cup diced peaches
  • 1 cup raspberries

Topping:

  • 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
  • 1/3 cup whole-wheat flour
  • 1/4 cup butter, cold
  • 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a 1 1/2-quart baking dish.

Beat butter and sugar until thoroughly combined, then add egg, vanilla, lemon zest and juice. Mix.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir.

Add flour mixture to butter mixture with milk, and beat until smooth. Spread evenly in baking dish.

Top batter with fruit.

In another bowl (so many dishes! Fun!), mix sugar and flour. Add butter and vanilla, and squish between your fingers until a dry, crumbly crumb has formed. Sprinkle over fruit.

Bake for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Serve warm.

 

Halibut Ratatouille en Papillote.

~ wellfedemily ~ 6 Comments

Holy crap this pregnancy stuff is exhausting. Yesterday I ran out of breath walking while eating an ice cream cone, and any “glow” one might detect in my face is probably from climbing, like, three stairs. Or possibly it’s the aftermath of an ugly cry, which was probably related to some snack I couldn’t have and probably happened in the middle of a crowded Safeway or 7-11. I have yet to become serene. I have yet to stop perspiring. It’s all very romantic.

But I’m waddling around, because the pursuit of food is constant, and because the doctor said I have to eat protein and the only thing in my fridge right now is fruit (and there is so much fruit). Nick bought me a case of freezies and I am destroying it. With my face. I am getting all the exercise I need, but I can never eat enough. If you can imagine a sweaty Ms. Pac Man annihilating everything edible between Arbutus and Main, you’ve got a pretty accurate mental picture of me right now. No one may photograph this.

Even the cat is judgmental.

To add to my confusion and exhaustion, I am also supposed to rest more. “I can tell just from looking at you that you’re the type to retain water,” my doctor said, so now I have to lay around with my feet up for 10 to 15 minutes, three times a day. It seems that the only time I can find to do this is when Chuck Hughes is on TV, and even though I suspect he’d be reluctant to run away with me now, I do enjoy his pretty face and his lemon meringue pie tattoo. And his cooking show.

I found some time to lay around leering at Chuck this weekend, and it was fortuitous. He was making a lovely, summery dish with black cod; the fishermen down at the wharf at Granville Island have had long fillets of halibut that would suit the dish perfectly, and the makings of ratatouille are now available at my little market. And so, because I need to eat more protein and because I learned the recipe while sitting around getting rested, I adapted Chuck Hughes’ Black Cod Ratatouille en Papillote to suit some lovely local halibut. There’s not much sense in me re-writing the recipe here, as I literally did everything he did just with a different white fish (though I did add lemons, which was very clever), but I’ll show you how it went, and maybe you’ll make it yourself some hot day this week.

It cooks in 20 minutes, and should feed four people. “En papillote” sounds complicated, but it’s really just cooking in a strip of parchment that’s been folded over in the middle to form a seal and then twisted closed at the ends. What results is a perfectly steamed piece of fish, and beautifully cooked veggies, and it’s easy and requires few dishes and you don’t have to have the oven on too long. You could use salmon, or the long fillet of whatever fish that’s in season where you are. Serve with salad and lemonade.

Zucchini parmigiana sandwiches.

~ wellfedemily ~ 4 Comments

Zucchini is back! And early tomatoes, among other things, and my fridge is full of all the edible colours and I am delighted. I’ve started buying large amounts of things to turn into freezer meals for when I no longer have the energy to feed myself or the ability to reach the stove, which should happen right around the end of the harvest season. I am in the process of assembling zucchini parmigiana in foil containers (no dishes!), and had extra bits, and thought they’d be quite excellent in sandwiches.

For the sandwiches, I fried the zucchini instead of roasting it, and used leftover marinara sauce. You can make it fresh, if you like – I quite like this one from Smitten Kitchen with a bit of fresh basil – or you can use whatever you have hanging around in your fridge or pantry. Something simple with onions, garlic, tomatoes, and herbs should do just fine. Any plain sandwich bun will do, and whole wheat would probably be nice.

These smell fabulously summery, and in spite of their crispy fried bits and garlic-toasty top half, they’re pretty light. The tomatoes and basil play well with the breaded zucchini, and there is just the tiniest bit of spice from the Tabasco and red pepper flakes. They would be excellent with cold beer or red wine, and beg to be eaten on a patio in the sunshine. Maybe your Meatless Monday is warm and summery? We had to make do with pretend as it’s been damp and grey around here, but these certainly brightened our moods.

Zucchini parmigiana sandwiches

(Serves six to eight.)

  • 8 buns, such as Kaiser or Calabrese
  • 1 lb. zucchini, sliced into 1/2-inch rounds (about 24 pieces)
  • 3 large eggs, beaten
  • 1 tsp. Tabasco or other hot sauce
  • 1 cup panko
  • Zest of one lemon
  • 3 tbsp. butter, at room temperature
  • 3 tbsp. olive oil
  • 2 cloves garlic, finely minced
  • 1 tsp. red pepper flakes
  • 1 cup marinara sauce
  • 1 cup shredded Provolone
  • 2 tomatoes, thinly sliced
  • 16 basil leaves
  • Salt and pepper, to taste

Slice buns in half horizontally and set aside.

Whisk together eggs and Tabasco. Combine panko with lemon zest, and stir to combine. Dredge zucchini slices first in egg, then in bread crumbs. Fry in a large pan over medium-high heat, in grapeseed or olive oil, until golden, 90 seconds to two minutes per side.

Place on a plate lined with paper towel and sprinkle with salt while still hot.

Preheat oven to broil.

In a small bowl, mush together butter, olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes, and salt and pepper (taste and adjust seasonings as desired). Divide equally between the eight buns, spreading on the top half only. Place on a large baking sheet.

Place zucchini slices, two to three per bun, on the other half of each bun. Top with two tablespoons each marinara sauce and provolone, and place on the same baking sheet as the top halves.

Place under broiler and cook until cheese has melted and the buttered half has turned golden, two to three minutes.

Finish each sandwich with fresh tomato slices and basil leaves. Serve hot, with lightly dressed greens on the side. Enjoy!

 

Strawberries.

~ wellfedemily ~ 5 Comments

In France when Grace and I were there, it was strawberry season. At the market in Lyon, I could barely choose from three or four different kinds, and eventually settled on a container of tiny fraise du bois, which smell like those sparkly red strawberry marshmallows from the penny candy bin and taste like the concentrated musk of spring, like dew and flower petals and the nectar sucked off clover tips, and like deep, dirty red – if a colour can have a taste, those thumbnail-sized ruddy berries were vermillion.

Before we left, Grace plotted out the best places for us to eat, and I nodded happily along as she prattled off the names of places we would go to in the France that belongs to David Lebovitz, Dorie Greenspan, and Clotilde Dusoulier. We followed them all over Paris and Lyon to markets and bistros and crêperies, devouring as much as we could.

In many of those places, there were strawberries, and wherever there were strawberries a meal felt French, like a postcard picture of how France has always been in some memory you may or may not have but know just the same. I wish my story could begin with some treacly revelation about how “I found myself in Paris,” but myself and I have been familiar far longer than is noteworthy; you might not be impressed, but I’ve been this way all along. It’s truer and far more romantic to say that “I found strawberries in Paris.”

The best place for strawberries was a restaurant called Spring. It’s an expensive little restaurant, and Grace made a reservation online before we left and then never heard back from them, and she worried that we would not have a table for lunch. She attempted to confirm the reservation, in French, which proved inconclusive. We decided to meet there at the scheduled hour after wandering separately in the morning as we had disparate destinations (mine involved the purchase of seeds to one day grow fraise du bois of my own), and though my inability to read a map pulled me the opposite direction a long way down Rue de Rivoli, we were both able to make it in time.

At Spring we had a perfect meal – cool tuna belly with chilled asparagus, sorrel, and tonnato sauce; cold white wine; crisp fried anchovies; masterfully seared filet of acorn-fed, bushy-banged black pork with grilled wild fennel; five cheeses, tiny bites but more than enough to know everything important about – or at least to imagine in detail – five different terroirs; chocolate sorbet with cocoa nibs and white pepper; pistachio cream stuffed between two homemade chocolate wafers. And strawberries, orangey red and topped with a dome of sweetened crème fraîche and dusted with ground pistachios and sugar. They could have served it in a bucket and I still wouldn’t have had enough, and I’ve been dreaming of those berries ever since.

When we returned to Vancouver, almost nothing was in season yet. I’d have to wait a month, at least, for the first berries of summer. More than six weeks have passed since we’ve been back, and finally this past weekend I got my fix. Tracy and I made a date and drove to Westham Island, to Bissett Farms, and picked as many strawberries we could in one afternoon.

It’s been chilly for an unseasonably long time on the coast, so the berries are more tart than I was expecting. This year you may want to sweeten your crème fraîche more than you might otherwise. To recreate my dish, select as many small strawberries as you can fit into four handfuls. Wash and hull the berries, and put them into four ramekins or parfait cups. Stack them jauntily. This is important.

Sweeten one cup of crème fraîche with one to two tablespoons of honey and a drop of orange flower water, if you’ve got it. Grind freshly roasted pistachios, about 1/3 cup, with a heaping tablespoon of sugar in a food processor. Spoon crème fraîche over strawberries, then sprinkle each serving with as much pistachio sugar as you feel like. Imagine Paris.

 

 

Corn and asparagus salad

~ wellfedemily ~ 2 Comments

As of about 1:30 p.m. last Friday, it is now summer on the west coast and I am wearing a sundress and remembering my thighs now that they are not prevented by denim or Lycra from rubbing together.

Finally, things I’ve been waiting a year for are in season again, and the sun is warm into the evening so we can garden after work or enjoy a fizzy drink or two and a tomato salad on a patio somewhere and be social. I bought this season’s first zucchini on Sunday. I picked strawberries in the sunshine on Saturday. On Friday I ate corn in a park beside a marina.

My Dad trimmed his garlic plants this weekend and sent me home with a wealth of stinky, curly green stalks with which to make pesto and salads until the garlic oil ekes from our pores and our coworkers beg us to eat anything else. And corn has begun to appear in the markets, just as the last of the frozen stuff has hardened into an iceberg that smells like freezer and deserves to be thrown out.

So for this Meatless Monday, dinner came together in a fifteen-minute frenzy of blanching, chopping, and tossing, and it was cool and bright-tasting, with lemon and tomatoes, and basil, and piquillo peppers from a jar in the fridge and those pungent, fabulous garlic scapes.

There would have been a handful of Parmesan cheese thrown in at the end but I was in such a rush to eat that I forgot. No matter. It’s just fine sprinkled on after, and it’s just fine without if you want to keep things vegan. It would also be wonderful with grilled scallops or spot prawns, or maybe halibut, but you can do that some other night.

Corn and asparagus salad

(Serves four as a main dish, six as a side.)

  • 1 lb. asparagus, trimmed, cut into bite-size pieces
  • 2 large cobs corn (about 1 1/2 cups)
  • 2 cups diced fresh tomatoes
  • 2 diced piquillo peppers (or roasted red bell peppers)
  • 1 large shallot, minced
  • 1/2 cup garlic scapes or scallions, finely chopped
  • 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
  • 1 lemon, zest and juice
  • 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 tbsp. minced fresh basil
  • 1 tsp. red pepper flakes
  • 1 tsp. Kosher salt
  • 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

Blanch asparagus in a large pot of boiling water. Cool in an ice water bath until cold.

Scrape corn from cobs into a large bowl. Add tomatoes, peppers, shallot, garlic scapes, Parmesan cheese, and lemon zest. Add asparagus.

Whisk lemon juice, olive oil, basil, pepper flakes, salt, and pepper together. Taste, adjusting balance as needed. Pour over salad. Toss to coat.

Serve immediately.

Nature hates me, and the feeling might be mutual.

~ wellfedemily ~ 5 Comments

“Oh, shit,” Nick said, pushing his way through the overgrown ferns and thorny outstretched branches of the rose bush. “This is going to suck.”

And suck it did.

Between all our weekends of busyness and the rain and mist and sporadic bursts of sunshine over the past month, the garden went from a meager plot filled with potential to an unwieldy mess of weeds and despair.

The last time we’d been by to weed, the garlic was going strong and radishes had just begun to sprout, and there were early signs of turnips and maybe chard. In not long at all, the radishes went to seed and turned out to be inedible, and the only things that survived are the turnips, the garlic, three purple kholrabi plants, and two struggling carrots. There might be a beet or two sprouting, but it doesn’t look good.

Nick said his best swears as he yanked unidentifiable greenery out from among our withering crops, and I made him promise we’d come back next Friday with seeds and maybe a few pepper or tomato plants and try to recoup some of our losses. He grunted something incoherent and asked for the bottle of water I’d just finished. It’s not too late to try again, is it?

This gardening stuff does not get easier just because you have a year of it behind you. Sure, we planted deep enough and far enough apart, and early enough in the season. There’s more to it, apparently, like regular supervision and a lot of bending over and pulling. I assume that by next year we’ll be experts, as it turns out we’ve still got a whole bunch of that pain-in-the-ass learning to do.

Next year.

Right.

 

And then I fell into the couch and ate watermelon salad until none remained.

~ wellfedemily ~ 13 Comments

Sometimes I have no idea where the time goes. My nightstand is still littered with evidence of Paris and the suitcase which still features the Air Canada tags from my trip in May is still on the floor. Not long after I got back and sort of unpacked we stuffed the suitcase with summer clothes and light formal wear and drove six hours to Osoyoos, a small town in the Okanagan – wine- and rattlesnake-country, for those unfamiliar with the region.

Where Vancouver was rainy and bleak, Osoyoos was hot and sunny, and the dry desert air was a rare treat for my hair, which cannot be worn down most of the time as disco is dead and there is no place for big blonde disco hair in my day-to-day life. I ate ice cream and we got suntans on the beach and beside the pool at the resort where we were staying for Nick’s youngest sister’s wedding. For some reason, theirs was the only grey day while we were up there.

We’ve been back two weeks and the suitcase hasn’t moved from its spot on the bedroom floor, and I’m pretending that it’s still there because the cat loves it. She has claimed it as her own personal chaise, and she stretches her furry little body diagonally across it, chewing the zipper pull on one corner and batting at the pull on the other end with her back paws.

In the time between trips and in the time since we’ve been back, there were the playoffs, and hockey games every two days for weeks and weeks. Nick aged thirty years during the Vancouver-Boston series, and his liver grew three sizes. He raged quietly as Vancouver gave up so many goals, and raged outwardly as we watched our city implode in the aftermath of Game 7. Our reaction to the end of it all has been relief.

There were other things. Nick’s sister and brother-in-law and their little girl were in town, so we attended events in their honour and then fed them a feast, and the youngest sister celebrated her wedding a second time at home, with a larger guest list, and I made the food, anticipating 80 guests. The result is that I am tempted to call our whole apartment a loss and walk away; there is icing on the living room rug and bits of dried blini batter stuck to the cat and weird smells coming from behind the freezer where I dropped and then couldn’t find several dozen blueberries and at least four pieces of pineapple.

In all of this, I have been moving slower and slower as it becomes more and more apparent that this is not a beer belly slung over the top of my jeans. I have been measuring the transition of my belly button from innie to outie, and it looks like it should complete its journey within the week.

My pants don’t fit and I want to violently devour every watermelon I see. I almost cried because a store was out of cantaloupe, and threw a fit in a different store because they had no canned orange segments. Nick said something about hormones, so I punched him. Extremely personal and very unsolicited questions, observations, and advice are now arriving in earnest. And while they have never lacked the appreciation they deserve, my boobs and what I do or do not intend to do with them are suddenly everyone’s business. The correct answer to such probing questions does not seem to be “I’m planning on only feeding the little raptor Diet Coke so it doesn’t get fat.”

It should not have come as a surprise how many people do not have a sense of humour about babies.

It will be a boy baby, by the way. Who, at the moment, compels me toward melon and leaves me ravenous for cans of fruit cocktail, who seems to want an endless supply of Hawkins Cheezies, pulled pork sandwiches, avocados, icy Cherry Coke, and cold pieces of summer fruit.

To keep things interesting, I’ve devised the following salad, which makes it possible to incorporate melon into dinnertime. It’s Meatless Monday friendly, and you can eat it on a bed of greens if you feel like it. I prefer watermelon for this.

Savoury fruit salad

(Serves four as a side dish)

Dressing:

  • 2 tbsp. light soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp. rice vinegar
  • 2 tsp. sesame oil
  • 2 tsp. sriracha
  • 2 tsp. honey
  • Juice of 1/2 lime

Salad:

  • 2 cups diced watermelon
  • 1 long English cucumber, diced
  • 1 avocado, diced
  • 1 mango, diced
  • 2 scallions, finely chopped
  • 2 tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro
  • Toasted sesame seeds, for garnish

In a small bowl, whisk together soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, sriracha, honey, and lime juice. Taste, adjust seasonings as needed, and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine watermelon, cucumber, avocado, mango, scallions, and cilantro. Toss with dressing, and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Serve cold.

Rhubarb-raspberry stew with dumplings.

~ wellfedemily ~ 9 Comments

I have a lot of opinions lately, though Nick is quick to point out that they are not opinions as much as they are hormonal outbursts. I have evaluated the pros and cons of keeping him and at this point it seems like his potential future usefulness trumps his “helpful” suggestions so for now, he lives.

Though many of my opinions have been unsavoury and not appropriate to share under “if you don’t have anything nice to say” guidelines, at least one has been food-related and that opinion has been that rhubarb is fantastic and it ought to be mixed with vanilla bean at my earliest opportunity.

Today, just such an opportunity presented itself.

What follows is a recipe for rhubarb stew with dumplings; I used the last of my frozen raspberries to stretch the rhubarb (I thought I had more than I did), and it turned out to be the correct move. I’ve suggested one half cup of honey because I like my rhubarb tart, but taste as you go; you might like yours sweeter.

It’s not a beautiful dish – it’s the kind of thing you might serve after a weeknight family dinner, or for breakfast when you have more time in the morning. But it’s tasty. Dumplings are always tasty.

Rhubarb-raspberry stew with dumplings

(Serves four to six.)

Fruit:

  • 1 1/2 lbs. rhubarb
  • 1 lb. frozen raspberries
  • 1/2 cup honey
  • 1 vanilla bean, scraped
  • 1/4 tsp. salt

Dumplings:

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 tbsp. sugar
  • 2 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1/4 cup butter, melted

In a heavy-bottomed pan over medium heat, combine rhubarb, raspberries, honey, vanilla bean seeds, and salt. Allow raspberries to melt, then bump heat up a notch or two and bring the mixture to a simmer, stirring frequently for about ten minutes. Rhubarb should soften and begin to break down. Return heat to medium.

Meanwhile, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Stir to combine. Add milk and butter to form a soft dough.

Drop spoonfuls of dough into the hot fruit mixture; you should end up with about eight dumplings. Place a lid firmly over the pot, and cook for 15 minutes.

Serve hot, with ice cream.

Rich, hearty meat sauce.

~ wellfedemily ~ 3 Comments

With the exception of a four-hour period last Friday during which I managed to score an excruciating, now-peeling sunburn from sitting on a patio during lunch, this part of the world has been slow to summer. Which is just as well, because I’ve recovered most of my appetite, and after Paris the taste I’m looking for is unctuous. Unctuous like long-roasted meat, and like the sauce around it, so rich with that slowly melted fat that coats your mouth and the inside of your belly, leaving you full and sleepy.

I went with Grace (and Claude, but that is a story for another time) to a restaurant in Paris called Bistroy Les Papilles where we were brought just such a dish. Three steaks of pork belly were served in a tomato sauce filled with navy beans, thyme, and fresh spring vegetables; the pork had been cooking long enough that most of the fat found itself in the sauce, so that the meal was deceptively rich. I succeeded in eating only a small plateful, though it was a satisfying plateful.

It’s not really possible during the week to cook a slab of pork belly until it melts down into and plumps several pounds of white beans, not when one has to go to a place of business and complete tasks each day – I do have a slow-cooker but it’s the kind that sets things on fire. It is possible to mimic that unctuousness on a weeknight at home; the secret is to use good-quality meat, a combination of pork fat and olive oil, and a cheaterly handful of minced mushrooms. Top with cheese.

This sauce is easy, but it’s not slimming. The point is comfort (as my point so often is), and this is one of those dishes you could serve to company some rainy night, even on the weekend. It’s layered, and tastes as though it cooked for much longer than it did. The cinnamon adds balance to the meatiness, so if you are unsure about it, just add a little bit and see what you think.

Meat sauce for pasta

(Serves eight.)

  • 6 strips bacon, chopped
  • 3 tbsp. olive oil
  • 1 medium onion, finely chopped
  • 1 cup celery, finely chopped
  • 1 cup carrots, finely chopped
  • 1 1/2 lbs. good quality ground meat (I like a combination of beef and venison or pork, but you could use just beef if that’s what you have)
  • 1/2 lb. mushrooms, finely chopped
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/2 cup dry red wine
  • 1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
  • 1 1/2 tsp. dried oregano
  • 1 tsp. ground black pepper
  • 1/2 tsp. dried basil
  • 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
  • 1 cup beef stock
  • Salt to taste
  • 1/4 cup finely chopped fresh parsley

Brown bacon in a large pot over medium-high heat. Remove from pot to a plate lined with paper towel using a slotted spoon.

Add olive oil, followed by the onion, celery, and carrots. If the veggies are cooking too quickly, reduce heat to medium, and cook until soft and lightly golden, about ten minutes. Remove from pot to a plate using a slotted spoon. If you reduce the heat, put it back before the meat goes in.

Add meat, mushrooms, and garlic, breaking the meat up with a wooden spoon as it cooks. When meat has browned, add back vegetables and deglaze the pan with the wine. Add crushed tomatoes, oregano, pepper, basil, and cinnamon, and then beef stock. Stir to combine, and then taste. Depending on your bacon and stock, you may or may not need to add salt. Let simmer over medium-low heat for 30 to 40 minutes, stirring occasionally. Before serving, add parsley. Serve over pasta with additional parsley for garnish, and a sprinkling of cheese.

For us, this is enough for dinner and leftovers, and for a bit to put in the freezer for dinner another night. It is better the next day. And if you live nearby, you will need it tomorrow because it will still be raining. If you are a cat, the birds will tease you relentlessly as they hide in the branches of the tree just outside your window. Right now we all need our share of meat sauce.

Oh! Pretty!

~ wellfedemily ~ 2 Comments

It’s a very good day when I arrive home to find elegant gift bags stuffed with individually wrapped homemade baked goods.

I suppose that’s stating the obvious. But it’s true, because a gift of baked goods is a gift just for me, because Nick can’t sneak bites when I’m not looking or, as I’ve convinced him to believe, he will lapse into a diabetic coma and die before ever finishing his video game or seeing the Canucks win the Stanley Cup. Marriage has given me a chance to really shine.

The cookies are from my friend Amber (pictured in this post here), who lives in Victoria which is inconvenient as she is all kinds of fun (especially as a shopping buddy) and a highly skilled baker – I would like to see her more. Someone needs to give her a donation to start up a bakery, as you can clearly see (preferably a tall, olive-skinned benefactor with his own plane and a villa in Provence). She has endless patience and apparently a fabulous collection of cookie cutters. And she has excellent timing, as I have been wanting homemade cookies but not wanting to make them myself. When I bit into these I discovered that they’re better than I can make anyway.

Thanks, Amber! The lobster is my favourite, but I am going to eat him last.