Author: wellfedemily

Meatless Monday: Huevos Rancheros in Purgatory.

~ wellfedemily ~ 5 Comments

In the spirit of Meatless Monday, we had a fancy sort-of-breakfast for dinner. It’s the fresh and hearty love-child of huevos rancheros and eggs in purgatory, and it’s something you could serve for any meal, whenever. You can make the sauce ahead of time – if you call it a sauce. It’s more like a quick, loose chili, or a Mexican-inspired marinara with corn.

Either way, it happened once by accident and turned out to be awesome, so I wanted to share it with you.

One of this dish’s best features is that comes together in 30 minutes, which is all the time I have for anything on a Monday night. And the most important thing about it is that you serve it over a tortilla, which, if you’re feeling sassy, you fold over, fill with cheese, and stick in the oven so that it warms up and the cheese melts. Nick isn’t fully sold on Meatless Mondays, but is willing to go along with any of my enthusiasms if cheese is involved. Serve with a slice of lime, a bit of plain yogurt or sour cream, and a sprinkle of cilantro.

Huevos rancheros in purgatory

(Serves two to four)

  • 2 tbsp. canola or olive oil
  • 1/2 medium onion, chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 cup fresh or frozen corn
  • 1 cup diced red pepper
  • 1 minced jalapeño pepper
  • 2 cups pureed tomatoes (three to four tomatoes, whizzed through a food processor or blender until smoothish; if it’s off-season, use canned crushed tomatoes)
  • 1 14 oz. can black or red beans
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 1 tsp. chili powder (bonus points if you use chipotle powder)
  • 1 tsp. ground cumin
  • 1/2 tsp. dried oregano
  • 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro (plus additional, for garnish)
  • 4 to 8 eggs
  • 1/4 cup crumbled queso fresco (or feta, or ricotta, or whatever you’ve got on hand)
  • 2 to 4 flour tortillas
  • 1/2 to 1 cup grated cheddar cheese (optional)

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Sauté onion in oil, in a large pan over medium-high heat, until translucent. Add garlic, corn, red pepper, and jalapeño, and cook until glistening, about three minutes.

Stir in tomato purée, beans, salt, chili powder, cumin, and oregano, and simmer for five minutes, until reduced and thickened slightly.

Remove from heat, and crack eggs over top. Sprinkle with queso fresco (or whathaveyou). If you’re in Vancouver, you can buy queso fresco and a variety of Mexican cheeses at Killarney Market over on 49th and Elliot.

Throw the pan into the oven, middle rack, and bake uncovered for 12 to 15 minutes, until whites are cooked and yolks are done to your liking. Serve over tortillas, sprinkled with cilantro.

If you opt to serve these over quesadillas, sprinkle 1/4 cup of grated cheese over half of each tortilla, fold over, place on a cookie sheet, and bake with your huevos for the last five or six minutes of their cooking time.

Enjoy! These are cheap, fresh, easy, fast, and really, really tasty. The corn and peppers are sweet, and the tomatoes lend a tart whoosh to things, and the beans make you forget there isn’t meat, in case the cheese wasn’t enough for you. The eggs are good because eggs are always good. And the cilantro makes it taste like Mexican Night without all the trouble and effort you always seem to have to go to on Mexican Night. Try it, and let me know how you like it!

Update: This recipe has since been posted over on the Meatless Monday website. Go check it out!

Garden report: A shaky little tour.

~ wellfedemily ~ 3 Comments

A wet and rainy weekend used to mean whining. Now, it means big, bushy green leaves, my favourite galoshes, and mucking about in the mud. An improvement, for sure! And because I wanted to show you all of the things, here’s a tour instead of a write-up. Sorry about the shakiness, blurriness, and the grammatical inconsistency of my spoken words (the plants are doing well, not “good” … ugh).

Also, as a bonus, here’s a falcon. He lives in the garden and is majestic.

Salt-crusted salmon with lime.

~ wellfedemily ~ 6 Comments

Tonight is a quiet night, the end of the last day of a three-day work-week, and I cannot be bothered with even pajama pants – it’s been muggy lately, with over 50% humidity (all showing in my hair), and the forecast is calling for fire and smoke which I suspect means the apocalypse is nigh and I’m not even worried, just impressed, because I thought that sort of thing was supposed to defy prediction.

In other news, run-on sentences are still not something I edit out of my own writing. Apparently.

So tonight we had one of those easy meals that looks cool, because I wanted Nick to clean the apartment and I figured he would have to think I tried to be conned into that ugly a task. Salt-crusted salmon and roasted patty pan squash did the trick – it’s even pretty rad to say out loud, and apocalypse or not, I think I’ve earned the right to assign him floor-washing. Interestingly, it’s never my turn for that. This is why being married (to almost anyone but me) is better than living with a roommate.

The recipe is not so much a recipe as instructions to “coat salmon in salt and bake,” but the idea comes from Martha Stewart, who makes me mad (and feel inadequate) because being Martha Stewart-fabulous is way more effort than I am willing to put into anything and is also very expensive, but she has a good idea with the fish. Except, her recipe calls for an eight-pound salmon and, like, 12 pounds of salt, and I have no idea how the salt is supposed to stick to it. I want a crust, Martha. Not wispy little salt flecks flaking off at the wrong time.

Just make my fish. My lifestyle is one you can emulate for very little money or effort (don’t even bother with pants after 5:00 pm). Though not emulating it may actually make you feel even better about yourself, and self-esteem is a good thing.

Salt-crusted salmon with lime

(Serves four.)

  • 1 2.5 to 3 lb. whole salmon (mine was missing a head, but yours doesn’t have to be)
  • 6 cups coarse or Kosher salt
  • 4 eggs
  • 2 limes
  • Scallions (optional)

Preheat your oven to 450°F.

In a large bowl, combine salt, eggs, and the zest of two limes. Mix very well.

Line a baking sheet with parchment, and lay about a third of the salt mixture in the centre to about the length of the fish, and a little bit wider. Pat fish dry, and lay on top of salt.

Slice limes, and stuff into the cavity of the fish. You can add scallions or other herbs here too, if you like and if there’s room. Pack salt over top of the fish, pressing to ensure salmon is securely covered.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes in the centre of the oven. Let rest five to ten minutes before serving.

Remove salt carefully so as not to damage the fish. The skin should mostly come off with the salt, but if it doesn’t, don’t panic. It will peel off easily enough.

Serve to an adoring special someone or other someones who might also wash your floor, and delight in how awesomely easy this is, and yet how cool and innovative it looks. You will find that despite the SIX CUPS OF SALT, it’s actually not salty at all. It’s pleasantly seasoned, with just a hint of lime, and the result is fish that’s moist without the addition of any extra fat. If you used herbs or something otherwise aromatic in the fish, I think the flavour might be a little bit stronger, but I didn’t think it was necessary. Enjoy (even during the apocalypse)!

This soup we like with zucchini, tomatoes, and tofu.

~ wellfedemily ~ 4 Comments

Sometimes we go to this place on Denman for pork belly, and we always get this soup when we go there. It’s a spicy tomato-based soup, and it’s nicely salty and filled with tomatoes and zucchini and chunks of tofu, and it doesn’t sound like much but it’s delicious. I would almost choose it over a table full of meat and beer, it’s that good.

I don’t have the restaurant’s recipe for the soup, but it’s easy enough to interpret at home, with what we have in our cupboards. It’s also perfect for this time of year, when thunderstorms threaten our clear skies and the heat breaks, however briefly. It’s also very seasonal, and all of the ingredients will still be available well into fall.

Spicy tomato and zucchini soup

(Serves four to six.)

  • 1 tbsp. vegetable, canola, or peanut oil
  • 1 tbsp. sesame oil
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 4 cloves garlic, sliced
  • 2 cups diced zucchini
  • 1 5.5 oz. can tomato paste
  • 6 cups chicken or vegetable stock or water
  • 2 tbsp. soy sauce
  • 2 tbsp. fish sauce
  • 1 to 2 tbsp. Sriracha
  • Juice of one lemon
  • 2 cups diced tomato
  • 1 cup diced tofu
  • 1/2 cup chopped scallion
  • Salt and pepper, to taste
  • Optional: 1/2 cup chopped dried kelp

In a large, heavy-bottomed pot, sauté onions in oil until translucent. Add garlic, cooking until golden, then add zucchini, kelp (if using), tomato paste, and all six cups of stock or water.

If you’re using stock, you may want to lessen the amount of soy and fish sauce you use, especially if your stock is very salty. Definitely start with less and add more to your own taste. I make this with water because of my unshakable cheapness, so I use more of the salty stuff to make it taste not like water.

Add soy sauce, fish sauce, Sriracha, and lemon juice. Bring to a gentle boil over medium-high heat, then reduce to a simmer. Add tomatoes, tofu, and scallions, and simmer for five to ten minutes, until scallions appear to have softened. Adjust seasonings as needed.

Serve hot, with something cold, like beer, sake, or shochu.

Blueberry crisp and a lot of procrastination.

~ wellfedemily ~ 3 Comments

This post is a little overdue – I bought many pounds of blueberries a few weeks ago at the UBC Blueberry Festival, but I put them all in the freezer  in order to procrastinate … because I don’t like blueberries. Or so I often think.

Blueberries, picked at their seasonal peak under the warm July sun are really very nice. They’re sweet-tart, not mealy little perfume balls, which is how they taste to me whenever I have them at any point during the rest of the year. I get cranky when I find them in muffins where they usually turn out to be flavourless little wet spots in what would otherwise be a perfectly edible baked good. And their unusually floral musk turns up in smoothies and juice – there was awhile there, before manufacturers started whoring out pomegranate or açai, when blueberries were deemed the healthiest thing ever and they were in everything. I had a tantrum one morning when I went to put my lunch together and found that Nick had eaten all the other flavours of yogurt, leaving only blueberry behind.

But they’re not all bad, and I forget that, and then July comes and I eat one and it’s a surprise every time. Oh! These aren’t yucky at all! I think, and then I enjoy blueberries for two weeks until there are none left and then disregard them again until the following year. That’s what happened here – I was afraid of them, then I ate some, and then blueberry crisp.

The recipe that follows has lived in my head for as many years as I can remember – for a long time, “crisps” were the only dessert I knew how to make. It’s a crisp like my parents would make, and there are no oats in it. No nuts, because my Dad is allergic, though if you’re not feeding him you can go right ahead and toss a handful into the crumble and he won’t mind. Just butter and sugar, and some flour to keep it all together, and that’s really all you need. You can make this with apples, peaches – any fruit you like. When I was a kid it often contained rhubarb from the plant out back, and that was very good. You can make anything tasty, even a blueberry, by simply topping it with butter and brown sugar.

Blueberry crisp

  • 4 to 5 cups blueberries
  • 1 tbsp. cornstarch
  • 1/2 tsp. salt, divided
  • 2 tbsp. maple syrup (if your blueberries are very sweet, you might like a squish of lemon and a sprinkle of white sugar instead)
  • 1 cup whole-wheat flour (all-purpose is totally fine if that’s all you’ve got, but I like the deeper flavour that whole wheat gives)
  • 1 cup dark brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup room temperature butter
  • 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Lightly grease a 1.5-quart baking dish. Preheat oven to 375°F.

Create a slurry out of the cornstarch, 1/4 teaspoon of salt, and the maple syrup, then pour over blueberries and toss to coat. Put blueberries in baking dish.

Combine flour, sugar, 1/4 teaspoon of salt, butter, and cinnamon, and crumble with your fingers to create a lumpy, streusel-looking mixture. Dump on top of blueberries, pressing down gently do ensure your crumble stays put.

Put the whole lovely mess into the oven and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until the top is crisp and golden and blueberry goo is bubbling up on the sides. Serve warm, with ice cream. Though if, like me, you are bad at planning ahead and don’t have ice cream, it’s just as delicious without.

Chard risotto with a soupçon of whining.

~ wellfedemily ~ 5 Comments

All the cool kids on the Food Internet are writing about cucumbers and zucchini today, but I’m all out of cucurbits and also incredibly uncool. Today we had chard – it’s been sitting in a vase beside a window for the past two days, getting brighter, bushier, more lovely. The trouble with buying produce at markets along my bus route home is that I have to carry the produce home on the bus where it inevitably wilts. A little bit of care and water upon arriving home does wonders, and in the meantime chard makes a very pretty centrepiece.

We had risotto, because today was unpleasant. The cat woke me up with claws, and I zoned out in the shower and forgot to shave my legs. I broke my favourite gold sandals around lunchtime and had to wander around the office shoeless, consummate professional that I always am, and then I noticed my hair had fallen apart after the fan behind my head flung everything into wild disarray and the concealer I’d dabbed on my monster pimple that morning had worn off and my mascara was running, so I looked just awesome – incredibly stable. You know you look special when everyone who comes to your office opens with “are you okay?”

I had to take the bus home wearing near-non-existent footwear, and quit on my “shoes” at my stop and walked home barefoot along a busy city street and I might have caught foot syphilis. These are first-world problems, but incredibly dramatic when one is focused entirely on herself.

So we ate comfort food, with my beautiful red chard, and Nick bought beer and pretended like I was a rational human being, and now everything is almost better. Thanks, risotto. Wine and cheese have never not helped me yet.

Chard risotto

(Serves four as a side-dish, two as a main course. Is easily multiplied.)

  • 3 to 4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
  • 2 tbsp. olive oil
  • 2 tbsp. butter, divided
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 5 cloves garlic, chopped
  • 1 lb. chard (about one bunch), stalks and leaves chopped separately
  • 1 cup arborio rice
  • 3/4 cup dry red wine
  • 1 tsp. white pepper
  • 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
  • 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
  • 2 tbsp. chopped fresh basil, divided
  • Salt to taste, if needed

Heat stock until boiling, then reduce heat and maintain a gentle simmer.

In a heavy-bottomed pan over medium-high heat, heat oil and melt the first tablespoon of butter. Add onions, garlic, and the chopped chard stalks and cook for two to three minutes, until onions are translucent. Add rice to pan, stirring for about a minute, or until rice grains turn opaque.

Add leaves. It will look like your ratio of rice to greens is off. It will look this way for a long time, but it’ll all work itself out. Pour in wine, and scrape the bottom of the pan to ensure nothing has stuck. Add pepper and nutmeg. Cook until wine has been completely absorbed.

Add one cup of the warm chicken stock, stirring frequently until liquid is mostly absorbed. Repeat with an additional cup of stock, and then repeat again with one to two more cups as needed. Test your rice for tenderness – if it is al denté, great. If it isn’t, just pour in a little bit more stock, as needed, and let it absorb into the rice.

When rice is ready, stir in butter, Parmesan cheese, and one tablespoon of the basil. Adjust your seasonings, to taste. Serve hot, with additional Parmesan cheese and a light sprinkling of chopped fresh basil. The whole process takes about 30 minutes, but believe me, the stirring and the smells are therapeutic. Plus, who opens a bottle of wine to cook with and doesn’t dip in? Try 30 minutes of cooking with the bottle all to yourself, and tell me you don’t feel better about everything, even if you were fine to begin with.

Meringue held up my fruit and yogurt this morning, and thus Tuesday was vastly improved.

~ wellfedemily ~ 2 Comments

After a rather indulgent weekend I felt more than a little hard done by, repentantly enduring my hot whole grain cereal with almond milk on Monday morning. Usually that’s a breakfast I enjoy, but after the delights and feasting of Saturday and Sunday, it felt a little bit like punishment, or like the shakiest part of withdrawal. Sure, it was good for me. But there was no zing, no glorious gluttony high.

So last night, with the dry air suggesting the perfect time to whip egg whites into a glossy frenzy (not a drop of precipitation in all of July so far!), I made six brown sugar meringue shells, and this morning filled them with pink, local yogurt and juicy Okanagan cherries, and felt enough zing to last the week, and all of the high with none of the actual gluttony. One meringue shell is significantly fewer calories than a slice of toast, with none of the kneading and hardly any real effort to prepare.

If you care about that sort of thing.

Calories, I mean.

Which I do not.

The recipe is adapted from a recipe I posted in the fall, from Saveur (such a messily dressed pavlova), with the only difference being that I halved the recipe and used brown sugar instead of white. The recipe assumes you have a stand mixer; if you don’t, the time it takes to whip the whites will be a bit longer. I’ll let you know how you’ll know when the mixture’s done.

Brown sugar meringues

(Makes six)

  • 4 egg whites
  • 1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
  • 4 1/2 tsp. cornstarch
  • 1 1/2 tsp. distilled white vinegar
  • 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Preheat your oven to 350°F.

Whip egg whites and sugar until stiff peaks form, about 14 minutes using a stand mixer.

Meanwhile, make a slurry of the cornstarch, vinegar, and vanilla. When egg whites stand up on their own and do not fall when shaken, whisk in the slurry and beat for another five minutes, until peaks are smooth and shiny.

Using the top of a one-cup-size ramekin, trace six circles onto a sheet of parchment paper that is just a bit smaller than a baking sheet, leaving an inch between each circle. Turn the parchment over, and divide the meringue evenly between the six circles. It’s okay if there’s overlap. Gently press a dip into the centre of each one, building up the sides a bit so as to form a shallow bowl.

Place in the oven, and immediately reduce the temperature to 215ºF, and set the timer for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Do not open the door at any time. When the timer goes off, leave the meringues in the oven to cool overnight, or at least three hours. Remove the meringues to a sealed container and store in a warm, dry place. Do not refrigerate.Serve meringues with yogurt and fresh seasonal berries. If you’re using cherries, pit them the night before and stick them in the fridge, covered with plastic wrap. Feel good about breakfast.

I should mention that if you’re used to something heartier, this is not terribly filling – if you’re a bacon/eggs/toast enthusiast, use this one at brunch with lots of other things. But if you’re a fruit and yogurt fan, like I am, this will be plenty sufficient to get you through the morning.

Also, I told you I’d tell you about blueberry crisp. I haven’t forgotten. I just get distracted so easily.

A day of fantastic meats.

~ wellfedemily ~ 1 Comment

If yesterday was all about vegetables, today was its happy opposite. Today we binged hard on meat, and sat in the sun and sampled beers and wines and this Serbian plum brandy that had me reconsidering my Dutchman.

You see that photo up top? That’s smoked tur-duck-in-hen-quail-con, which is a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken stuffed with a Cornish hen stuffed with a quail stuffed with a piece of pork belly. And there was sausage stuffing off to the side, and cold beer to drink with it. Apparently it took a whole week to prepare.

It was moist, and succulent, and smoky, and since there are only 12 weeks until Thanksgiving, I’ve got to get on figuring out how to do this as soon as possible.

We ate a lot. So much so that Nick’s nap has stretched into its third hour. Dinner is likely still three hours away. We sampled ribs, and ceviche.

And we had skirt steak tacos topped with homemade radish kimchi and pickled cauliflower mayonnaise, but I accidentally ate it before I could take its picture. In other news, I will be kimchi-ing radishes as soon as this meat hangover subsides.

My favourite thing, aside from the bar, was the roast pork. It changed everything. I can’t really point to specifics, but I am quite certain that my life improved for the better after my first taste of the pork. After tasting everything, we had the option of buying plates of our favourite dishes – I went ahead and bought so much pork, and decided that in my next life I am coming back as a Serbian food critic, the kind who is paid in spit-roasted piggies.

And also baked goods. The kind that are stuffed with cheese.

It was all incredibly moving. And to finish the feast, there were even cookies baked over a fire pit. Which I also don’t have photos of, because I literally inhaled mine.

Here’s more info on the event, which I can only really describe in satisfied grunts – there are almost no words. I hope they have it again next year – it was a fundraiser for Growing Chefs! Chefs for Children’s Urban Agriculture, a very worthwhile cause. In the meantime, Grace and I are on a mission to become new BFFs with the host, the lady behind Swallow Tail Tours and the Swallow Tail Supper Club.

Happy!

And since it’s now been ages since I’ve offered a recipe, stay tuned. We’re talking blueberry crisp, up next.

Garden report: Of course you want to hear more about radishes!

~ wellfedemily ~ 6 Comments

Ordinarily, I would make a grand fuss out of accidentally deleting my last post, and perhaps I will later when it comes time to re-write it. Nothing can tarnish my sparkly mood right now, however. I HARVESTED MY FIRST RADISHES!

There were seven in total, but we ate the first two fresh out of the ground, cleaned with water from the hose. What peppery, delicious little things! If I wasn’t sold on gardening before, I am now. I like gratification you can eat.

The radishes are the first things to ripen. There will be carrots at some point, and the broccoli, beets, and cucumbers look promising. There is kale, and some chard (I think I weeded some early seedlings by accident).

Do you like my veggies and Nick’s Star Wars big-boy underpants? Which do you like more?

So, there you go. An update, as promised, on my glorious garden that now bears fruit. I’ll re-write the piccalilli post this week (grrr). For now, I have to go dip radishes in good salt and feel smug about my imminent self-sufficiency. Whee!

On the topic of picnics.

~ wellfedemily ~ 8 Comments

I meant to tell you about picnics last night, but somewhere in the hours between the time I dropped Grace off at home and then slumped into bed, I ate something mildly poisonous that left me almost certain I would die there on the bathroom floor, cat licking my face and who-knows-what stuck to it. I seem to have survived, which is kind of nice, so I took the day off because I still don’t feel or look particularly pleasant. I’m a little leery of the way the cat seems so intent on having her mouth (and teeth and tongue) on my face, so I will stay conscious as long as possible, and tell you about picnics today instead.

I had two picnics in four days last week, the first last Thursday at English Bay with take-out fish and chips, and the second yesterday, at a park beside Westham Island, with pink wine and everything you could possibly think of to eat.

I think that picnicking is what people are talking about when they’re trying to convince me that camping is fun. But how wonderful it is when you take it away from tents and the terror of being eaten by bears or mountain lions! A picnic is officially the most civilized thing you can do outdoors.

And never mind that on Thursday I was devastated at the tarragon that afflicted my tartar sauce (it tasted like potpourri), or that we’d opted to drive instead of bike and almost missed the last half-hour of Raincity Grill’s take-out operations. One of the intrinsic lessons of picnicking is that it doesn’t always go according to plan, which is something some of us need to become a lot more comfortable with. Funny how a spot of sunshine and a view of sparkles on the water can make even the worst tartar sauce, mislaid plan, or oversight be taken in stride.

Sunday’s effort was more coordinated, and full of flavour and style in a manner that is distinctly Grace’s. We sat on an elevated pier beside the water, watching birds and boats and feeling a little smug when another group of picnickers arrived, Tim Hortons’ sandwiches and bottled water in hand. While spontaneous take-out picnics can be fun, nothing trumps a fabulous spread paired beautifully with Spanish rosé and served on proper dishes.

I now know that food eaten in fresh air and above the water-level tastes better, and that sunshine does life-changing things to cold wine. These are important lessons, also intrinsic to picnicking, and how sad would it be to never have learned them? Of course, taking my word for it is cheating, and you must go out and discover (or rediscover) these facts for yourself.

There is no reason not to. You’ll need to prepare a bit ahead of time, unless you know of a good take-out window near the beach, and you’ll need an hour and a spot to sit on. Everything else is at your discretion, though I recommend Francis Lam’s ginger-scallion sauce on cold poached chicken, Smitten Kitchen’s mango slaw, some buns to pile both onto, and a selection of other treats – pickles, salads, watermelon (don’t forget the salt), baked goods – and, obviously, wine.

You can do this alone, but it’s better with friends. Four hours and optional napping is better than one hour, and more wine is better than none, but it’s like starting with the world’s easiest recipe and over time making it your own. My personal goal is to perfect the art of picnicking before the end of summer, which means at least seven more picnics (one for each remaining summer weekend), likely more.

If you live in Vancouver (or the valley, or Whistler or the island, or Seattle or Portland or anyplace in between here and there), where do you recommend we go? And what do you recommend we bring? It would be best if perfecting the art of picnicking was a group effort. Perhaps we should all go together?