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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.

The word of the day is “lazy.”

~ wellfedemily ~ 1 Comment

I had all these big plans this week, but I got lazy. Already. My biggest big plan was to make cabbage rolls because they are so super awesome and they make lunches and leftovers all week long and no one ever went wrong with a big dish of meat. But then, I failed. I didn’t feel like it.

Then I remembered this handy tip I got awhile back from a reader named Jenn, a very funny high-school teacher from Saskatchewan, who suggested lazy cabbage rolls, and also this lazy pierogie thing I’m going to try another lazy time. I liked her idea, but I had all the stuff for non-lazy cabbage rolls, so I adapted. This is what happened. We are going to have leftovers forever.

Oh, one more thing. I used bratwurst here because I always seem to have it in my freezer, and because it’s flavourful and the point here is laziness. If you don’t have bratwurst, or if it isn’t dirt cheap at your local Polish deli, then you can use ground pork, or beef, or whatever you like, but you may want to add additional seasonings.

Lazy cabbage rolls

(Serves six to eight.)

  • 1/4 lb. bacon, chopped
  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 2 cups diced carrot
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 lb. bratwurst, casing removed
  • 1 cup long-grain white rice
  • 1/2 cup chicken stock
  • 1 tsp. black pepper
  • 1 tsp. dried marjoram
  • 1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
  • Salt, to taste
  • 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
  • 1 1/2-2 lbs. green cabbage, cut into thin strips
  • 1 cup shredded mozzarella (or other mild cheese)
  • 1 cup bread crumbs

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Butter a 9″x13″ baking dish.

In a large pan over medium-high heat, fry bacon until brown and crisp. Add onions and crumble bratwurst into the pan, stirring until meat has browned. Add garlic, carrots, and rice, and then add stock to deglaze, scraping the bottom of the pan to ensure all those delicious meaty bits make their way into the sauce. Season with pepper and marjoram, then pour in the crushed tomatoes. Remove from heat and stir in parsley. Taste, and salt as desired.

Layer half of the cabbage along the bottom of the pan. Pour half of meat mixture over top, then add another layer of cabbage. Press down lightly to pack. Add the remaining meat mixture, then sprinkle with breadcrumbs and cheese.

Bake covered for 80 minutes, then remove the cover and cook for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, until top is browned and bubbly. I’ll admit, the cooking time is a little longer than I like on a weeknight, so this might be something best served on Sunday night, so you can pack the leftovers for lunches.

Eat while wearing pajama pants. Know that this is going to make your entire office smell like eastern Europe tomorrow. And be okay with that. Believe me, there are worse things you could do.

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?

Things to not be messed with: Sticky toffee pudding, and also me. But mostly the pudding, because I probably won’t fight back but we have to defend the food.

~ wellfedemily ~ 7 Comments

Despite its reputation to the contrary, England is actually home to a tradition of really delicious food. In theory, anyway. In practice? I’m not so sure, but it’s possible that when I was there, the good stuff was priced a tad out of my range. They do good fish and chips, and I can’t get enough mushy peas or potted Stilton.

It was much too long ago that I was there. I think it was 2005, which means I am long overdue for a return. I went with my aunt and uncle, Lynn and George, who continue to spoil me rotten despite my advancing years, and though the delicacies were mostly cheese– or chocolate-based (those fresh little croissants and their warm chocolate dip at the coffee shop beside Harrod’s – I dream about them!) and each very special in their own right, there was one extra special treat that tastes and reminds me of England in all its splendour, and it’s impossible to screw up.

Sticky.

Toffee.

Pudding.

Well, actually, I’m wrong. It’s super easy to screw up, and even the English are doing it. The thing about sticky toffee pudding is that it’s a pudding, not a cake with sauce. Semantics are important, and the difference must be appreciated. I noticed a few years after returning home that sticky toffee pudding had made itself known on this side of the world – there’s even a Haagen-Dazs flavour named for it. I got excited, and tried it everywhere. There are a couple of good spots for it locally, but on the whole, it’s gone the way of most other trendy food items: it got all tarted up, and in the process lost the magic that made it what it was.

Sticky toffee pudding is a gooey, sticky pudding that tastes like toffee. Which sounds obvious, but I’ve seen it complicated, dried out, and not even toffee-flavoured. It’s the kind of thing you’d eat after a big roast dinner with all your relatives or Two Fat Ladies. It’s homey, wholesome, and packed full of sugar. Even Nick liked it, and he’s usually not big on dessert. He suggested that he might want the leftovers for breakfast.

So anyway, I have been thinking about this for ages, and tonight, Auntie Lynn and Uncle George came over to see our new place and meet our new cat and have tea and a baked good. I decided that we would have sticky toffee pudding, with ice cream, and I searched the Interwebs for a suitable recipe.

But there wasn’t one.

Because the Interwebs also seem to think that it should be a cake with sauce. Even Jamie Oliver thinks so.

So I had to do it all myself. Here’s the result: sticky toffee pudding, mixed in its baking dish and baked in its own sauce. It’s rustic, and needs no further fussing to bring it any nearer perfection. Your grandmother would have approved, and I think she’d be more right than Mr. Oliver about this.

Sticky toffee pudding

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar (1/2 cup reserved; please don’t use light brown sugar – it would be all wrong)
  • 1 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp. salt
  • 2 cups chopped dates
  • 4 tbsp. butter, melted
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 cup boiling water
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 tbsp. butter

Preheat your oven to 375°F. In a 1 1/2 quart casserole or baking dish (which you don’t have to bother buttering), mix flour, one cup of dark brown sugar, baking powder, salt, and dates. Mix well, so that all ingredients appear to be thoroughly incorporated.

In a measuring cup, whisk together melted butter, milk, and egg. Pour over dry ingredients, and stir until just moistened.

In a separate bowl or measuring cup, mix boiling water, remaining brown sugar, granulated sugar, and additional tablespoon of butter. Pour over the cake-batter-like mixture in the baking dish, but do not stir. Place in the oven as-is, and bake, uncovered, for 45 to 50 minutes, until the sauce bubbles up on the sides and the top resembles a moist cake.

Serve warm, with ice cream.

My aunt confirmed that this is what sticky toffee pudding is supposed to taste like, and my uncle said little but nodded emphatically. I liked it very much – it had the right cakey-pudding to sauce ratio, and tasted exactly how I’d hoped it would. There will definitely need to be another trip to London in my future, but for now, this little recipe will make the meantime more tolerable.

**Also, as far as photo credits, the blurry food ones are mine. The others I swiped from my aunt’s album online.

Things that are delicious: Pork belly.

~ wellfedemily ~ 1 Comment

Right up until the Olympics, every talking head on television and quote in the paper was saying that Vancouver would be nightmarish during the Olympics, and that residents should expect delays and difficulties getting around, and that they should leave their cars at home. The whole city (me included!) bought the hype, and now it’s quite easy to get around everywhere but downtown, where there isn’t much fun to be had on a Wednesday night anyway. So last night, I dragged poor, sick-day Nick out with some friends to the Westender Korean Café on Denman Street, where there is a place that only sells pork belly, and for which we had coupons that bought us 50% more pork belly.

Do you know what a pork hangover feels like? It’s as glamorous as it sounds.

The Westender Korean Café is a place that only sells pork belly, and they bring it to you with those hot-pot grill things that you use to cook it at your table. They bring you daikon pickles, kimchi, this shredded-lettuce salad thing, rice, and lettuce leaves, and you cook your pork belly and either pile it up with the Korean condiments on your rice, or load it into the lettuce leaves to eat like Korean fajitas.


From the outside, it doesn’t really look like anything but a dodgy old diner, which is perhaps why I’d never noticed it before Sooin brought us there about six months ago. On the inside, it’s usually packed full of young Asian ESL students from the various English schools in the city. They play nonstop Korean pop music videos – Sooin informed us that there are no fewer than twenty major girl groups in Korea, and as many boy bands, and that pop-culture is a huge deal there. She helped everyone out by pointing out which girl groups were comprised of girls too young for Nick to be ogling, and which boy-band stars we should pay attention to for dance skills and hotness. She says we can go to Korea and get thousand-dollar nose jobs and form our own group. If they’ll throw in free liposuction, I’m in.

When I say that it’s a pork-belly-only kind of place, I really do mean just that. When you sit down, the waitress will pretty much just bring your table a certain amount of food, which is determined by how many people make up your party. Be sure to also ask her for beer or shoju, which is also pretty cheap, and which you simply must have as an accompaniment to a pork binge.

All that food, and it costs practically nothing. Dinner for five, including four pitchers of beer, and more food than we could eat, was $125, including tax and tip. The only problem was that we were in such high spirits after dinner that we thought the fun ought to continue, so we stumbled down Denman past Robson to an izakaya Paul knew would be open, and then there was sake, and Nick held his head in his hands and waxed poetic about bedtime, and then Steve ordered us mackerel sashimi and a big bowl of edamame, and I was all, “We just ate and I’m too full!” “But we didn’t eat JAPANESE,” Sooin replied, and so we ate even more and drank the best cheap sake ever and now this morning I am not sure if I should bother eating or just go back to bed because I am still so full. I am not even sure I want bacon.

I’m sorry. I should never talk like that. Of course I want bacon. But maybe this morning, I’ll wrap it around a vegetable.

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.

A little bit of lemon on a weeknight.

~ wellfedemily ~ 2 Comments

I’ll be honest, this one doesn’t come from me. However, it has lived in my head for so long that I’m not sure where it comes from, though more than likely it comes from Fannie Farmer. You probably make something very similar, and if you don’t, your mom or grandmother probably did. Because it’s delicious, I think it bears repeating.

I made Alana’s ricotta again today – I’ve been making it a lot, and have found multiple uses for both the curds and the whey. I’ve been making it with those two-litre containers of homogenized milk, which has meant I’ve had at least a pound of ricotta and quite a lot of whey leftover for somewhere around $2.38, which is easily more than a pound of ricotta costs. And you know, the thing about whey? It subs in very nicely for buttermilk.

I’ve used it today, in my lemon buttermilk pudding cake, and it’s very nice. If you don’t have whey or buttermilk, you can use regular milk, and it will just be lemon pudding cake, which is plenty delicious and probably where the whole thing started.

This pudding cake is part of a long family tradition of pudding cakes, which includes stewed fruit and dumplings and my grandpa’s Radio Pudding. It’s magic, because it starts off as a very runny batter, which transforms into a pudding with a delicate sponge cake top once baked. Sound familiar? It’s the perfect dessert for company on a weeknight, its purpose this evening, because it’s easy, and uses just a handful of ingredients that you probably already have in your pantry and fridge. You can substitute limes, or oranges, if that’s what you have, and it will be different but also lovely. I bet it would look very pretty if you made it with blood oranges.

Lemon buttermilk pudding cake

  • 1 cup granulated sugar (1/4 cup reserved)
  • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • Zest of one lemon
  • 1/4 cup butter, melted
  • 1/3 cup lemon juice (fresh-squeezed is best)
  • 1/2 tsp. vanilla
  • 3 eggs, separated
  • 1 1/2 cups buttermilk (or whey, or regular old milk)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter or grease a 1 1/2 quart casserole or baking dish, such as a soufflé dish or that Corningware dish that looks like a giant ramekin, or a 8-inch square baking pan. (Keep in mind that the deeper your baking pan, the runnier your result. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, but deeper means more to have to set up, you know?)

Combine three-quarters of the sugar, flour, and lemon zest in a mixing bowl, and whisk well. Add the melted butter, lemon juice, and egg yolks, and whisk to form a batter. Slowly add in buttermilk (or whatehaveyou), whisking as you go.

In a separate bowl, whisk remaining sugar with the egg whites until the egg whites form soft peaks. You want them to be sturdy but malleable – if you overdo it, they get to a point where you can almost “chunk” pieces off. It won’t be the end of the world if that happens, but try not to get to there.

Fold egg whites into sugar-flour-buttermilk mixture. Pour into your prepared dish.

Place the dish into a larger baking pan, and fill the outside pan with water until the water comes to halfway up the side of the dish.

Place carefully into the oven, and bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until the top is cake-like and lightly browned. Cool for at least 30 minutes before diving in.

Serve warm, with whipped cream. Possibly be transported back to your grandmother’s messy kitchen table, as many years ago as that was. This tastes like lemon slice, lemon meringue pie (sans meringue), and all those treats most of us rarely make anymore.

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.