quick

Sticky toffee pancakes.

~ wellfedemily ~ 3 Comments

Today I was going to drive three hours out of my way on a Road Trip of Extreme Gluttony, checking such important tasks as “comparing pies at the Home Cafe in Hope with the pies at the Chilliwack Airport” off my lengthy eating to-do list. But then I bought pants yesterday in case someone at some point wants to job-interview me, which is a big deal since I hate pants, and the resulting feelings were so mature and responsible that I decided to postpone my eating adventure until possibly Friday. Thursday is fort-building day, and Wednesday I am making stew, and tomorrow I was going to see how exercising felt, so you can see why I have to stretch it out a bit.

So today, I am going on grown-up adventures. I am going to shower! Get my hair cut! Take the cat to the vet! Clean the litter box! Pay the cable bill! Buy groceries! It is going to be incredible, or incredibly boring, and I am going to be a better person for it.

So to start the day off, I made myself pancakes. And then I realized that in the year or so that I’ve been writing this thing, I’ve mentioned my powerful love of pancakes an annoying amount of times, but have never given you an actual recipe for actual pancakes. Unfortunately, I decided to make them on a day when I have no camera, because I forgot it at my parents’ house last night. So, just imagine them. They were very pretty topped with too much golden syrup.

Sticky toffee pancakes

(Inspired by Sticky Toffee Pudding)

  • 1 1/4 cups whole-wheat or all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
  • 1 tbsp. baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp. salt
  • 1/2 cup chopped dates
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup milk
  • 2 tbsp. melted butter

You’ll need two bowls, one slightly larger than the other.

In the smaller bowl, soak the dates for ten minutes or until soft in about one cup of warm water.

In the larger bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

Drain the date water into a measuring cup, leaving the dates in the bowl. You should end up with about 3/4 cup. That is good. Pour date juice back into the smaller bowl, discarding anything over the requisite 3/4 cup. Stir in egg, milk, and butter.

Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients, and beat until mostly smooth.

Pour about 1/4 cup batter for each pancake into a preheated non-stick pan (I cook mine with a little butter, of course, but you can do what you like here). Cook until bubbles start to form on the surface of one side, then flip and brown the other side. Serve as you like, but I prefer mine with a bit of golden syrup. Proceed with very important tasks.

Thai basil is the greatest invention since regular basil.

~ wellfedemily ~ 4 Comments

I’m sorry, I’m really bad at life, and anytime I say “tomorrow,” just tack on a few extra days. I’m a terrible flake. But what else is new.

Well, some things are new.

  • My cat is no longer sleeping through the night. It is annoying, and I feel guilty threatening her.
  • I can no longer wear my favourite leggings as pants because I ripped the inner-thigh seam wide open. Too breezy for comfort.
  • I got laid off. It’s not so bad.

I know, the leggings as pants thing is a faux pas, but to be fair, I own more than one pair of onesie pajamas, at least thirty pairs of slipper socks, AND a knock-off Snuggie. I love comfort so much! All I want out of life is to spend all my time swaddled in soft fabrics while Johnny Depp in eyeliner feeds me pancakes and pie.

The job thing? A bummer I guess but I hadn’t been the happiest badger there anyway, and this may be the kick in the tights-as-pants I needed to figure out what I really want to do. I found myself in a good mood this evening, for the first time in a long time on a weeknight, which makes me think I was probably unhappier than even I knew. I had begun to view showering as a sacrifice I was making for other people.

I am confident though. My cat will improve her behaviour, I will continue to dress shoddily, and I will find another job – with luck, one that involves fame, fortune, and international travel. But none of that is the point of this post. The point is Thai basil, though I am beginning to think that getting to the point might not be my thing.

That green pasta the other day was made with a little pesto I made of Thai basil, cilantro, some green onions, and a few other delicious little things. It makes more than you’ll need to coat a meal’s worth of noodles, but that’s okay. Stir it into soups, or toss roasted veggies in a bit of it. It’s really different, extremely fragrant – aromas of anise and mint in addition to regular basil goodness, and a nice change from regular old pesto.

Thai-ish Pesto

  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1 cup packed Thai basil
  • 1/2 cup packed cilantro
  • 1/2 cup packed green onions (white and green parts) – about one bunch, chopped
  • 1 lime, zest and juice
  • 2 tbsp. minced lemongrass
  • 2 tbsp. peanut butter (natural, unsweetened preferred)
  • 2 tbsp. soy sauce
  • 2 tbsp. sesame oil
  • 1 to 2 tsp. chili paste
  • 1 tsp. fish sauce

The mixing of this is best done in a food processor, but if you don’t have one, a blender should also work. You may want to add a bit of neutral-tasting oil, such as peanut or canola, to make the pesto easier to blend if using a blender.

Cram the garlic, basil, cilantro, and lime zest into your food processor’s mixing bowl (or your blender’s blendery thing), and squish the lime juice over top. Add the peanut butter, and pulse until well mixed, and until leaves are minced and the colour and texture is uniform. Remove blade.

Stir in soy sauce, sesame oil, chili paste, and fish sauce. Mix well, so that the liquids are thoroughly integrated into your leafy purée. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed.

This makes about a cup’s worth, and it will keep in a sealed container for about two weeks. Or, put it into ice cube trays in your freezer and use in individual portions as needed.

As I mentioned, it’s great on noodles – like soba noodles or udon – and lovely in soup. You could toss it with some stir-fried chicken, or use it with fish, or just add it to a bit of coconut milk for a riff on green curry.

You can find Thai basil in your local Asian market. Mine cost me sixty-nine cents for more than I needed. The rest of this stuff can be found in your local supermarket’s ethnic foods section. I always have it in the pantry, because these are such flavourful, inexpensive ingredients, and they are really versatile – I use them all the time.

Eesh. These photos are all terrible. I’m sorry. I’ve asked for a camera for my birthday, and for professional help. Maybe I’ll buy a tripod on payday. I have a lot more time now, so maybe I’ll learn to at least hold my camera still.

And don’t worry about me – there’s no reason to, though everyone I know has called/IM’d/Facebooked me just to make sure I’m not teetering on the brink or anything. And I can replace those leggings really easily.

Spicy beans.

~ wellfedemily ~ 5 Comments

Right now, Nick is rustling papers at the big computer, and he’s got his headphones on and he’s working on his novel. He’s a very good writer, and much better than I am at staying on task. I’m supposed to be writing as well, because the deal was that we were both going to write bestselling novels at the same time so that we could be awesome together, and then we’d get rich and quit our jobs and do whatever we wanted.

The reality is that I have no focus and my cat is enticing me with her cuteness and my creativity levels have plunged to a new low.

At this point, I shall be an editor forever, which will not help me get rich OR famous – practically no one else cares about punctuation or using the right homonyms.

At least I’ll eat well. Sometimes, distraction is all kinds of delicious.

Spicy beans

(Serves four as a large side-dish.)

  • 2 tbsp. sesame oil
  • 2 tbsp. finely chopped onion
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 tbsp. fermented black beans, chopped
  • 1 to 2 tsp. chili paste or dried red chili flakes
  • 2 tbsp. light soy sauce
  • 1 tsp. black pepper
  • 1/2 tsp. fish sauce
  • 1 lb. green beans, frozen or fresh if in season (if using fresh, blanch first)

In a large pan over medium-high heat, stir together sesame oil, onions, and garlic. Cook together until garlic has begun to brown. About two minutes.

Stir in chopped black beans, chili paste or flakes, soy sauce, black pepper, and fish sauce, and mix until well combined.

Also, I should mention, all of these ingredients should be available in your local supermarket, in the Asian foods section. You can substitute black bean sauce for the beans in a pinch, but cut down the soy sauce if you do.

Add beans, tossing to coat in liquid. Stir-fry for three to five minutes, or until beans are heated through, with skins that look like they’re beginning to wrinkle. Serve hot.

These are like the Szechuan green beans you get at dim sum, and we eat them all summer long. I had some of last year’s beans still in my freezer, and I’ve missed them. They’re a great part of one of those dinners where you don’t feel like cooking, when you want everything to come together in under twenty minutes. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about the other half of tonight’s meal, which came together in under ten minutes, even though I didn’t end up doing anything productive with the saved time.

Eggs Rabbit.

~ wellfedemily ~ 9 Comments

So, last week was unpleasant. I was a raging cyclone of stress and emotion and death threats, and Nick did his best but holy crap, and by Wednesday, I was on the verge of stabbing someone. That was the day my friend Corinne (her company is linked in my sidebar because it’s awesome) was to come over and I had all these big ideas about making Italian Wedding soup with barley and chard, because I saw these tiny meatballs and fell in love with them but had already eaten stuff baked in cheese that week.

But when I got home on Wednesday night, the thought of doing something detail-oriented like rolling teeny tiny meatballs was enough to hurl me into catatonic despair, so instead we had breakfast for dinner, and I didn’t have to stab anyone and then I drank a bottle of wine because alcohol makes me seem less unstable and also funnier. We watched The Great Muppet Caper. It took until at least 10:00 am on Thursday for the stabby feelings to return.

This version of breakfast for dinner is also a version of Welsh Rabbit/Rarebit, which has a surprising number of variations for something that is really just cheesy beer sauce on toast. We were going to have Eggs Benedict, but Corinne hates Hollandaise sauce (which, I know, right?). So, this is a saucier version of Rabbit, which you can use in place of Hollandaise on any eggy old thing. Corinne took all the photos, by the way.

Eggs Rabbit

(Serves four)

  • 2 tbsp. butter
  • 2 tbsp. flour
  • 2 cloves garlic, finely minced
  • 2 tsp. dijon mustard (grainy is better, but not critical)
  • 1 cup beer (whatever kind you like – I use a pale ale)
  • 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
  • 1/4 tsp. dried thyme
  • 1/2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 cup grated sharp Cheddar
  • 1/2 cup cream
  • Salt and pepper, to taste
  • 4 English muffins, halved and toasted
  • 8 strips bacon, cooked and drained
  • 8 eggs, poached to desired doneness
  • Chopped parsley, for garnish

In a saucepan over medium-high heat, melt butter and stir in flour, garlic, and mustard to form a paste. Whisk in beer, and reduce to medium heat.

As the butter-paste begins to melt into the beer and the sauce begins to thicken, whisk frequently, adding nutmeg, thyme, and Worcestershire sauce as well. Once mixture is smooth, stir in cheese and allow to melt. Once mixture is smooth again after the cheese has melted, stir in the cream. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Stack English muffins with bacon and eggs, and pour sauce over top. Sprinkle with parsley, and then serve hot.

Now, this is very basic, and can be fancied up in any number of ways. I like this with sauteed mushrooms, or with roasted squash slices in fall or wintertime, or with fresh tomatoes, avocado, and spinach in the summer. I bet a little bit of grilled asparagus would make this fantastic. I served the dish this week with roasted curried cauliflower in place of hash brown potatoes, but you can improvise there as well. I thought the meal could have used a salad, but that could just be spring panic over the imminence of swimsuit season setting in. In any event, please try the basic recipe, and adapt it to your taste however you like. I guarantee, if you’ve had a very bad day, breakfast for dinner, especially cheesy-beer covered breakfast for dinner, will make everything all better.

Casseroles: Not totally gross?!

~ wellfedemily ~ 5 Comments

I like the idea of casseroles. A whole meal in a single pan that will produce leftovers I can enjoy for lunch the next day? Yes please I want that. I think somehow, somewhere, the casserole went awry. I am not really sure who to blame for this – Kraft? Campbells? In any event, the casserole seems to have somehow fallen out of favour. But not around here. Here, it’s just coming back into style.

Kielbasa casserole

  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 1/2 cup butter, divided
  • 1 1/2 – 2 lbs. potatoes, boiled, cooled, and cut into bite-size pieces
  • 1 lb. kielbasa sausage, cut into bite-size pieces
  • 1/2 lb. kale, stems removed and blanched
  • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 2 cups milk
  • 2  cups grated cheese (I used Cheddar, but you could use Swiss, or Havarti – anything you like or have in the fridge)
  • 1 tbsp. dijon mustard
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1 tsp. ground black pepper
  • 1/2 tsp. dried thyme
  • 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
  • Salt, to taste
  • 1/4 cup bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 375°F. Thoroughly butter a 9″x13″ casserole dish.

In a large skillet over medium-high heat, melt two tablespoons of the butter, and add onion. Sauté until translucent, then add potatoes, and cook until lightly browned. Add kielbasa, and reduce to medium heat.

In a saucepan over medium-high heat, melt remaining butter, and stir in flour until the mixture forms a paste. Whisk in milk and reduce to medium, stirring frequently until thickened, about two minutes. Stir in 1 1/2 cups of cheese, mustard, garlic, pepper, thyme, nutmeg, and salt. Taste before salting too heavily – keep in mind, your sausage will be plenty salty as well.

Add blanched kale to the potato mixture, then pour sauce over, tossing to coat. Pour mixture into casserole. Sprinkle breadcrumbs and remaining cheese over top, then slide into the oven, and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until bubbling and golden brown.

You could substitute bratwurst for the kielbasa if you wanted, sub in whatever kind of cheese you have or prefer, add mushrooms if you wanted, or use spinach instead of kale depending on the season. This was a nice, hearty, easy meal, and Nick has asked that it be made again. Because it’s so saucy, you might try over egg noodles or braised cabbage, or with a side of crusty bread to wipe your plate clean.

It’s homey, and sort of rustic, and I want to call this a casserole because it reminds me of something you’d serve on a weeknight, to your family or an apartment full of hungry friends, and not just for it’s delightfully cheap and easy attributes. And for all that cream sauce? It’s surprisingly not heavy or unpleasant once it’s in.

So, anyway. I think it’s time we made casseroles cool again. You in?

Here’s that meatball recipe.

~ wellfedemily ~ 6 Comments

These are the meatballs that Tracy‘s vegetarian boyfriend ate, like, four of. They’re that good, they convert the herbivores. She asked me for the recipe – “they’re like my nonna’s!” she exclaimed – but I explained that there wasn’t one, you just use a little of this and a bit of that, you know?

And then Nick’s sister asked for the recipe, and Sooin did too, and they wanted to know if it was on this site, and I said no, it wasn’t, because it’s the kind of thing you just make. You need a recipe for these? I asked, and people nodded yes. I thought they were everyone’s meatballs. Apparently they are my meatballs, and they are delicious.

I’m a little bit biased though. I mentioned a little while ago that if you were bent on seducing me (and you hadn’t already fed me too much wine, which is my favourite), meatballs would get you most of the way there. I don’t know what it is about them; meatballs, in all their forms, make me sublimely happy. There are probably hundreds of ball jokes to be pulled from that statement, but I stand by it.

So anyway, some friends came for dinner tonight, and I decided that we would have spaghetti and meatballs, because it is one of my favourite things and I like to share it, and I wanted to write the recipe down at last. Really, I’m pretty sure that they’re everyone’s meatballs. There’s no secret to them. But in case they are special, or different, or if you’re looking to score, here’s the recipe.

The meatballs

  • 1 lb. lean ground beef (not extra-lean – please, not extra-lean)
  • 1 lb. ground pork
  • 1 medium onion, finely chopped
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tbsp. (rounded) fat (butter or bacon fat, or olive oil if you want)
  • 1 tbsp. (rounded) tomato paste
  • 1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 cup dry bread crumbs
  • 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 1 tsp. dried oregano
  • 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

Preheat your oven to 375°F.

Combine all of your ingredients in a large bowl. Squish it all together with your hands to ensure that crumbs and eggs are thoroughly combined. Don’t worry if the meat looks like it isn’t – it’s better to have the meat sort of separate, so that you can taste pork and beef distinctly. And you must use your hands. There is no other way.

Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. Roll meat mixture into balls roughly an inch and a half in diameter. This recipe makes about two dozen – if you have many more, your balls are too small. (Snicker.) And the reverse is true too. Place balls on baking sheet.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes.

And here’s where it gets interesting.

If you’re just feeding you and another person, or maybe two smaller, miniature persons, then use a dozen, or fewer, and freeze the rest.

If you’re insane and for some reason always end up feeding tons of people even though you’re poor and hardly anyone ever invites you to their homes for dinner even though you’re very nice and don’t always guzzle the wine or step on the cat, cook them all, but double your sauce recipe and use the two-pound bag of spaghetti.

Because these are deceptively large, I would bet that no one will be able to eat more than three. Four is pushing it.

For sauce, there are lots of options. A sauce I am loving right now is tomato sauce with onion and butter from Deb at Smitten Kitchen. In the summer, I use my special slow-cooked tomato sauce, and it’s very nice then too. Tonight, I made a simple sauce of one onion and three cloves of garlic sweated in olive oil, two 28-ounce cans of crushed tomatoes, simmered for forty minutes, then salt, pepper, and basil stirred in right at the end. Keep it simple with the sauce – these are hearty meatballs, and they will be the star of the dish. Stew the meatballs in the sauce for about twenty minutes before serving; they’ll cut the acidity of the tomatoes, and they’ll warm up nicely all on their own.

There it is. See how easy? So easy. Really inexpensive. No reason not to make them for me. I’ll bring dessert. And wine. And soft slippers, because of the cat.

Thank-you cookies.

~ wellfedemily ~ 3 Comments


I wanted to do something nice for Judy, our building manager, who has been all kinds of nice to us and gave us a reference so we could get the kitten. She also came by and told me everything I needed to do to bond with the kitten and make her comfortable, and lent us some equipment and litter to get started, as we were confused about the process and didn’t think to buy things like a litter box before we brought her home. We’re smart.

Cookies are always nice. Everyone likes cookies.

I was going to make her peanut butter cookies because I thought that way there would be tons and then I could keep some, but I’m pretty sure I have no idea as to whether or not Judy has a peanut allergy, and while chances are probably slim, it would still be a shitty thank-you move to poison someone, even accidentally. Judy doesn’t have that coming to her. From me, anyway.

So, these are almond butter cookies, with a little smear of jam on top.

Almond butter cookies

(Makes about two dozen)

  • 1/2 butter
  • 1/2 cup almond butter
  • 1 cup light brown sugar
  • 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
  • 1 egg
  • 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp. salt
  • 1/2 cup jam

Preheat oven to 375°F.

In a large bowl, cream together butter, almond butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and the one egg. Beat these until the mixture is fluffy and the ingredients have lightened in colour.

In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir these into wet ingredients, until dry ingredients are just moistened and a dough is formed.

Roll cookie dough into one-inch balls, and place on a lined or greased cookie sheet. I ran out of parchment paper, so I used tin foil, and it worked just fine. Press your thumb into the centre of each cookie to form a hole big enough to contain a drop of jam.

Spoon jam into cookie holes, about one-quarter teaspoon into each.

Bake for 12 to 14 minutes, until lightly golden but still slightly soft. You want these to be chewy. You really do. Let them cool on the pan for a minute or two when they’re fresh from the oven, then remove to a wire rack to finish cooling. Then eat with tea, or package up with a thank-you card to give to someone who was nice to you.

Burdock pickles.

~ wellfedemily ~ Leave a comment

Right now, at this very moment, I am making the brightest-tasting tart ever to be enjoyed in February, but there’s a lull in the process as my crust and my custard are cooling. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.

I say that a lot. I said it about the burdock. So, lest you think I am being evasive and not sharing the magnificent joys of burdock root, I pickled it. All eight feet, which amounts to three little jars of spicy, garlicky pickles, all cooling on my windowsill.

They’re a lot like carrot pickles, which is exciting. Actually, they’re a lot like David Liebovitz’s carrot pickles, because I adapted the recipe from his site. Except that instead of two cloves of garlic smashed, I used four whole cloves of garlic per jar, and instead of cider vinegar, I used rice vinegar and a tasty drop or ten of mirin. ALSO, they’re spiced with one minced hot red pepper, and not fennel. Pretty good, at least based on the initial round of tasting – once they’ve stewed in their juices for three to six weeks, I am sure they will be awesome.

So there you have it. Follow through, late as usual, but enthusiastic nonetheless.

Another easy pizza crust, perfect for something unpleasant like Wednesday.

~ wellfedemily ~ 2 Comments

So … burdock will have to wait until tomorrow. When you see prosciutto on special, you jump on it, and then you maximize its salty porkiness by cutting it into strips and baking it onto a pizza.

I make this foccacia bread that contains potato, and it’s quite delicious and always very moist. Sometimes I stretch the dough out and turn it into pizza, but it’s not a thing to make on weeknights, when I need to eat now-if-not-sooner the moment I get home. I thought tonight I’d try shredding potato into pizza dough and baking it that way, because it’s quicker than foccacia, and I might be onto something. Something awesome.

I topped the pizza with a sauce of a crushed bulb of roasted garlic and olive oil and some basil, strips of prosciutto, and a half-pound of mushrooms cooked in olive oil and garlic. And cheese, but not that much, actually, because even though it seems counter-intuitive not to load the thing up with an excess of cheese, on a pizza like this it’s better to use only what you need.

I’m only going to give you the recipe for the crust, because you can top it with whatever you want. But if you top it with roasted garlic and basil and prosciutto and mushrooms, I promise, you’ll be ecstatic upon eating it.

Potato pizza crust

(Makes one large-size pizza crust.)

  • 2 tsp. dry yeast
  • 1/2 tsp. sugar
  • 3/4 cup warm water
  • 1 medium potato (such as Yukon Gold), grated
  • 2 cups + 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1 tsp. olive oil
  • 1 tsp. cornmeal

In a large bowl, combine yeast, sugar, and water. Let stand about five minutes, until yeast is fluffy.

Add potato. Stir to combine.

Add two cups of flour, salt, and oil, and mix until a slightly sticky dough has formed. If your potato is bigger and causes an excessively moist dough, add a bit more flour. Turn out onto a floured surface, and knead in the additional quarter cup of flour.

Preheat your oven to 400°F. Cover dough and let stand for 20 minutes, as close to the oven as you can. Let it feel the warmth and grow just a bit.

Roll dough out into a relatively round sheet, a bit less than a half-inch thick, and lay onto a baking sheet sprinkled with the teaspoon of cornmeal. Top with whatever you like, and bake for about 25 minutes.

This is a bit unusual, and probably not what you want if you’re a die-hard thin-crust fan. It’s fluffy, because the potatoes get steamy as they cook, foofing up the flour and making this perfectly moist.

The other thing about it is that it’s filling, which is perfect for weeknight dinner, but it’s unexpected, and so you’re surprised around slice number three that you don’t even want dessert anymore, and you’re tempted to change into pajama pants if you haven’t already. Which I guess is good? Well, maybe the n0-dessert thing. Nick keeps mentioning my pajama pants, and how other wives wear skirts or sexy yoga pants, and he can shut right up because I feed him better than the other wives feed their Nicks, and they’re less fun and can’t hold their liquor. My pajamas are a point of contention around here.

Anyway, make this. It’s delicious. And soon, I promise, something about burdock root, which is not actually a very good hook if I’m hoping to get you to come back.

Things like blue-cheese mousse.

~ wellfedemily ~ 6 Comments

On Saturday, my food had a photo shoot for a magazine it’s going to be in. I wrote the recipes, and am scurrying to finish the last of the article (lame how this is my break?), but I wanted to tell you all about it. It, but mostly the mousse.

I made a few things – bacon-maple popcorn, which was fantastic but it was my big recipe so I can’t tell you about it until later, after the magazine comes out. I’ll post a link then, so you can make it and impress your friends with how very Canadian you can be. I made a little potato tart on puff pastry, and some wonderful little cheesy puff balls. And I made a little bit of mousse, with a little bit of Stilton, a thing I am going to elaborate on a bit later, and dropped it onto endive leaves and topped with slices of apple.

It made me insufferably gloaty. I ate almost all of it after the shoot. I didn’t feel great afterward. I blame the volume of cheese I consumed, but it could have been the bacon popcorn, or one of the two magnums we drank while all the photos happened. It was probably the Filet-o-Fish I had for lunch when on the run between grocery stores, the bank, and the apartment where I was burning things and Nick was trying to help but just getting in the way.

The photographer, Duran, was very nice and knows the boy I had a crush on in high school who is now a dentist and was kind enough to not say, “You’re weird and covered in crusty bits. I think he’s out of your league and please stop stealing sips of my wine.”

But I digress. The mousse.

I tested this out with a bit of Stilton I had on hand, because Stilton tastes like magic and my aunt told me about a dish at the ill-fated Star Anise restaurant that used to be on 12th and Granville that made a mousse of it. It was like eating cheese clouds off of crunchy boats paddled by apple oars, if you can imagine that.

So why don’t I just get to the recipe then?

Yes. Let’s go.

Stilton mousse on endive

  • 1/4 lb. crumbled Stilton
  • 1/4 lb. cream cheese (at room temperature)
  • 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon heavy cream, divided
  • 1 tart-fleshed apple, such as Granny Smith
  • 24 Belgian endive leaves (from approximately three endives)

Beat together the Stilton, cream cheese, and one tablespoon of the cream until creamy and smooth.

In a separate bowl, beat the cream until soft peaks form.

Fold the cream into the cheese, a little bit at a time, until fully combined. Taste, and adjust seasonings with salt and pepper, if desired.

Spoon into endive leaves and top with thin slices of apple. Serve cold, and as soon as you can.

Luscious. Wonderful. And there’s more where that came from. Check out the upcoming issue of LOVE. Magazine for details. I’ll post a link when it’s online.