Recipe

Feasting on fudge: I don’t know why my party dresses don’t fit anymore either.

~ wellfedemily ~ Leave a comment

I’ve never actually written about chocolate. I like chocolate. Love it, actually. But it’s one of those things that I seek out pre-prepared, in bars or handfuls of chips or by the individual truffle every so often. I don’t cook very much with it, because there are so many other things I like to play with, and buying chocolate is mostly a reliable way to go about getting one’s fix. Here in Vancouver, there are several very good chocolatiers. Although, I won’t lie to you. A Caramilk bar goes a long way with some of us.

But it’s December, and my mom has noted repeatedly that I don’t come over enough, and that she probably won’t make as many treats as she usually does, if at all. My mom makes very good treats – another reason I don’t bother all that much with chocolate, or much in the way of desserts, for that matter. She has me beat. Her fudge is very good, but she won’t give me the recipe. I think she thinks I’d betray those fudgy family secrets. She’s probably right – I have no character.

Fortunately, one of the things about being a grown-up and having your own candy thermometer (that your mother may or may not have given you) is that you can find your own fudge recipe and it can also be good. And you can bring it to your mother and ask her if it’s as good as hers, and then she’ll have to make a batch of hers to compare with yours, and then you win because she wasn’t going to make the fudge but then you duped her and now you have extra fudge and she never saw THAT coming. HaHA! It’s kind of fun to toy with the elderly (I think I’m funny now, but I’ll pay). She’ll read this and then take back all my Christmas presents, but the point is that you are an adult now, and you must have a candy recipe or two in your arsenal, for reasons that are varied and complex, not the least of which is showing off. Also? If you’re poor it makes a better DIY gift than, say, noodle jewelry, which I may have considered at one point.

I adapted this recipe from an old Gourmet I found in one of the last boxes still left unpacked. It’s really very good. My version, I mean. It’s a soft, sticky, caramelly chocolate thing that feels dry on the outside but that’s soft inside and sticks to your teeth and reminds you that you need to floss and also maybe go for a run. I call it toffee chocolate fudge because the brown sugar makes it taste like toffee, but you can call it something else if you prefer. Use salted butter, but don’t add any salt. Use the best cocoa you have. And make it on a clear, cool day. Something about humidity causing unfortunate sugar crystals is why you don’t want to make fudge when there are low-hanging clouds. Science. Fudge.

Chocolate Toffee Fudge

  • 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp. heavy cream
  • 2 cups packed dark brown sugar (14 ounces)
  • 3/4 cup cold butter, cut into tablespoons
  • 4 tablespoons (heaping, if you must) cocoa
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar

Combine milk, brown sugar, butter, and salt in a heavy-bottomed pot and bring just to a boil over moderate heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring almost constantly, until your candy thermometer reads 240°F. If you don’t have a candy thermometer, test after 30 minutes by dropping a teaspoon of mixture into a bit of cold water. If the mixture forms a soft ball when pressed between your fingers, you’re done. Don’t rush these things though.

Remove from heat, and remove candy thermometer. Beat in vanilla and confectioners’ sugar, a little at a time, until fudge is thick and smooth, about five minutes.

Spread evenly in a parchment-lined 9×13 baking pan. If you want thicker pieces, use an 8-inch square pan. Refrigerate, uncovered, until firm enough to cut, about 30 minutes.

Cut fudge into squares. Eat, or pack into cute little cellophane bags, tied with ribbons, and gift it to your friends. I’m going to make a second batch for that – it’s December, and you can eat a pan of fudge if you want to.

Another thing? If you made too much fudge and it dried out because you can’t eat as much fudge as you thought you could and it’s not fit for gifting, chop it up and put it into cookies. Same thing if you made it and the sugar went weird because of all the moisture in the air. Fudge chunk cookies? A very good thing.

Still not having much luck with pictures. A virus ate my computer this week, and so we’re experiencing some technical difficulties. Maybe my resident non-saint Nicholas will gift me with a little laptop this season, and maybe a camera that doesn’t suck? Maybe if I stopped mocking my relatives I’d have better luck?

These are a few of my favourite things.

~ wellfedemily ~ 4 Comments

It’s persimmon season. Did you know that? Have you ever tasted a persimmon? They look like orange tomatoes with floppy hats and they’re almost too sweet to eat. Fortunately, it’s also cranberry season.

I would have offered you a recipe for cranberry sauce with persimmons, but, to be honest, I’ve noticed that everyone’s own recipe for cranberry sauce is the best and I am sure my own mother would chime in here with reasons why I’ve done it wrong. Cranberry sauce is cranberry sauce, so just do what you’ve always done and it will be marvelous, even if all you do is open a can and plonk the stuff onto a plate, can-rings and all. But chutney.

Chutney is something else. It’s far more versatile, and the reason I like it better is that it’s something you can eat with cheese. In these chilly, early-winter months, I like nothing more some nights than to put on a holiday movie and eat a loaf of bread and a bit of very good cheese with warm chutney. A fresh bottle of Beaujolais doesn’t hurt either.

Chutney is sweet and savoury, and goes well with meats and cheeses and fishes, and it’s a lovely colour and a great gift item. People don’t make it like they make jam, so it’s a nice thing to offer as a hostess gift, or to give to someone you quite like. Or, you can make a whole bunch of it and just keep it all for yourself, and that’s fine too. It’s not greedy.

This is my chutney recipe, and it makes somewhere around a ton of the stuff (actual amount: about five cups), but I can it. You don’t have to do that, if you don’t want – just make a little bit and stash it in the fridge if all you want is enough for you. But the ingredients are cheap, especially if you received a bag of glowing orange persimmons from your boss, who received them as a gift from someone’s garden somewhere close by. Even if you didn’t, persimmons are very reasonable. And use rosemary. It’s a December herb – you can even buy it now, tied up like little Christmas trees, each sprig like an exaggerated branch of pine.

Anyway. Chutney.

Cranberry persimmon chutney

(Makes about five cups.)

  • 1 1/2 lbs. diced persimmons
  • 1 lb. fresh cranberries
  • 2 tbsp. olive oil
  • 1 tsp. orange zest
  • 1/4 cup fresh orange juice (from one large navel orange)
  • 3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar (Ooh – or dry red wine!)
  • 1 tsp. black pepper
  • 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
  • 1 tsp. chopped fresh rosemary

If you want to can this stuff, use the procedure for shorter time processing at Epicurious. Okay. Good.

So. Heat up your olive oil on high heat in a large, heavy-bottomed pot. Stir in your cranberries and persimmons, and reduce to medium. Add orange zest, juice, balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper. Simmer for 40 to 45 minutes, until berries have popped, persimmons have turned to mush, and the whole mixture resembles a loose cranberry sauce. It should not be smooth, however. Nobody ever liked a smooth chutney.

Stir in rosemary, and check your seasonings. I added more pepper, because I like it, and a pinch more salt. You can do whatever you like.

Taste. It’s good, right? I know.

Simmer for five to ten minutes, and then spoon into jars. If not canning using high heat, seal them tightly and throw them in the fridge. If canning, process as usual.

Serve with very good, very creamy cheese. This is a tart, sweet, herbacious thing, and you may be unsure about the combinations at first read, but I promise that once you plop this stuff onto a crusty piece of bread with all that very good cheese (I’m thinking something strong, like Roquefort or Gorgonzola, or something creamy, like Camembert), you’ll see what I mean when I say that this is one of my favourite things, made from a few of my favourite things.

Also, I’m sorry. I’m having a hell of a time trying to upload images, so there aren’t as many pictures this time as I’d have liked. It’s still two weeks until someone comes to install the cables that’ll give us proper Internet. I’m doing what I can with stolen signals. Anyway. Time to go buy some cheese. This chutney’s not going to eat itself, you know.

Rainy night, rice pudding.

~ wellfedemily ~ 9 Comments

Oh, the weather. The weather in this city is always worth mentioning, because it’s impossible to overlook. When it’s sunny, it’s glorious, and you can smell the ocean and everything sort of glitters. And when it’s rainy, it’s not just rainy. It’s damp, sinister, dark. We live in a rain forest, here on the west coast. And today, we’re filling our reservoirs.

Also, our apartment is stacked up like a poorly played game of Tetris.

Grace came over tonight to help us pack, which she volunteered to do. She also volunteered to bring a pot of sausage stew, which was spicy and cinnamony and filled with chickpeas and carrots and flecks of green. And salad, with homemade blue cheese dressing and perfectly boiled eggs. And I couldn’t just not make something, and the rain.

Don’t forget the rain. Rice pudding is what you want when it’s like this, outside and in, when you’ve got to pack your life and the contents of your fridge into boxes, and you want to bring with you as little as possible.

Vanilla and coconut rice pudding

  • 3 cups cooked, cold long-grain white rice, such as basmati
  • 1 14 oz./398mL can of coconut milk
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 vanilla bean
  • 1/4 cup flaked, unsweetened coconut, toasted
  • 2 tbsp. melted butter
  • 1/4 tsp. salt

Preheat your oven to 350ºF.

In the same container that your leftover rice is being stored in, add the coconut milk, eggs, and sugar. Stir to combine.

Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into the pot, and add the pods as well. Stir in the toasted coconut and butter. Taste, and if you need to add the salt, then add that in as well and stir. Pour into a small casserole dish, about a quart-and-a-half in size.

Bake for 60 to 70 minutes, until bubbling and golden on top.

Serve warm, with a spoonful of cold jam. If you get a vanilla bean pod, don’t eat it. Nick said that it would be a good thing to have for breakfast, and I think he’s right. We’ve got leftovers, so we’ll eat it again tomorrow. I think it will be even better, warm and slightly sweet, and not goopy. And because there’s no cinnamon in it, it’s not the colour of cardboard. So it’s even kind of nice to look at. Delight.

When we get to the new place, and we get the little things like the Internet set up, I’d like to start thinking about the holidays, and cooking for them, because right about then it will be just about time. Don’t let me forget. I want to hear about what you’re doing as well. I won’t let you forget either! But for now, packing. And pudding. And bedtime. Good night!

Cranberry scones, and good morning to you!

~ wellfedemily ~ 4 Comments

Can you believe we’re a month away from Christmas? I can’t believe how long it’s been since I thought about tomatoes. I’m thinking about cranberries these days, and maple syrup and shortbread cookies and root vegetables and squash and foggy-skinned red local apples. American Thanksgiving is this week. I keep seeing commercials for Black Friday, hearing Christmas music in every little store I duck into, and finding egg nog and candy cane ice cream on grocery shelves where neither was before.

You may wake up early this week with a to-do list to fit the season and a hankering for something warm, and when you do, could I recommend scones? Cranberry scones, with maple syrup and brown sugar. Not too sweet, and very nice with a hot cup of tea.

Cranberry scones

  • 4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
  • 1 tbsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 3/4 cup cold butter, cubed
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 cup chilled whole milk
  • 2 tbsp. maple syrup
  • 1 cup fresh cranberries, chopped

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Combine the flour,  sugar, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Squeeze the butter between your fingers, as if you were making pie crust. I seem to say this a lot. Maybe I talk too much about baked goods? You don’t want to crumble the butter into nothing – think of peas scattered among crumbs.

In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, and add the milk and the maple syrup and the cranberries. Stir the liquid into the butter-flour mix, and press gently to form a dough. When the dough is a single mass that holds together well, turn it out onto a floured surface, and cut into four equal pieces. Form rounds of each quarter, and cut each quarter further into four pieces, making sixteen scones in total.

Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 15 to 18 minutes, until puffed and golden. Cool on a wire rack, but eat warm, slathered in butter and drizzled with a bit of maple syrup. Good morning, and happy holidays!

Turnip? Rutabaga? Whatever, just turn it into dinner.

~ wellfedemily ~ 1 Comment

Sunday was our first wedding anniversary. Time flies – that’s now two years of togetherness, though Nick says he’s sure it must have been longer. Nope. Two years, almost to the day, and one year of marriedness, and we spent our anniversary in much the same way we’ve spent most of our days – almost completely out of money more than a week before payday, in the rain, with some of our favourite people.

We went to The Glen at Maple Falls this weekend, which is somewhere near Mount Baker in Washington, and spent three rainy days with a few good friends. The food was fatty, the beer was cheap, and for some reason we all got a little too caught up in the figure skating championships on TV. I blame the cheap American dairy, which was delicious, for the glassy-eyed stupor that befell us all. I ate a pint of ice cream from the dairy on the way down. There must be something magical about American cattle, because we don’t have ice cream like that up here. Egg nog swirl? GENIUS. Maybe the grass is actually greener down south? Could be.

Anyway, last night was our anniversary, and I had intended to turn the turnip into something magical, but Paul’s car had a little bit of trouble on the way home, and, long story short, we ended up pushing it across the border. Canadians really are very nice, and we were grateful for our good-humoured border guard. And as we waited for the tow truck, and then Paul’s sister, and then the SkyTrain ride home, what was going to be an elaborate meal got shelved for an easy bit of soup instead. Until tonight.

Tonight. Chelsea came over, and then Paul, and then we celebrated appropriately – with butter and beer and wine and cheese and this little turnip thing that’s actually kind of a big deal.

I’m going to give you the recipe, but keep in mind that it makes a lot of pasta and I ended up freezing half. Double the sauce recipe if you’re feeding eight, and boil the full amount of gnocchi. If you make the full batch of pasta and you’re only feeding four, you’ll end up with too much to eat, even for lunches the next day.

You can freeze uncooked gnocchi for up to one month – you’ll certainly use it before that. Halve the recipe if you’ve got a smaller turnip (you’ll need a bit more flour because you can’t halve an egg, so adjust as needed), and keep the sauce the same.

Turnip gnocchi

  • 1 2 lb. turnip, peeled, cooked, and puréed
  • 2 tbsp. crème fraîche (bonus points if you made your own; if you’re without, you can use yogurt or sour cream)
  • 1 egg
  • 1 clove garlic, finely minced
  • 1 tsp. kosher salt
  • 1/2 tsp. white pepper
  • 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
  • 5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus 1/2 cup for rolling and kneading, reserved

Sauce:

  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 2 cloves garlic, finely minced
  • 1 head roasted garlic
  • 1/2 cup hazelnuts, chopped and toasted (there are more hazelnuts in the picture above than are listed here because I find I have to make more than I need because I’ll eat half of the nuts laid out for the recipe no matter what. You do what you have to do, you know?)
  • 2 tbsp. fresh sage, chopped
  • 2 tbsp. grated parmesan
  • Salt and pepper, to taste

I used a food processor, but that’s because it’s Monday night, and at 7:00 pm you just don’t have all day. You don’t have to – if you don’t, though, this might be a recipe better suited to a weekend when you have a bit more time.

Thoroughly combine turnip, crème fraîche, egg, and spices in a large bowl. Gradually stir in flour until dough is formed.

Sprinkle reserved flour on a large surface. Cut dough in half, and form each half into baseball-sized pieces. Roll each piece until it’s about one half-inch in diameter. Slice half-inch chunks, dropping slices onto a cookie sheet until you’re ready to drop the lot into a pot of boiling water. As mentioned, I only used half of this, and froze the rest. But that’s because I only ever have to feed four people.

Boil for eight to ten minutes, in salted water, until gnocchi rise to the top.

In a large pan, melt the butter, and add the uncooked garlic, until you can just smell the buttery garlickness, until the garlic is just slightly golden. Squish in your roasted garlic, and add your gnocchi. Toss to coat.

Let simmer for two to three minutes, then toss with sage and hazelnuts. Let sit for another minute. Grate a bit of cheese over top, and season to taste.

Grate a little bit more cheese over top and sprinkle a bit of nutmeg over before serving. This ends up being quite an inexpensive, very filling feast, one that’s redolent of autumn warmth, especially now that it’s starting to feel a lot like winter. Perfect for an anniversary, or even the day after, with your favourite person or a few of them. Just enough turnip, more than enough but not too much garlic, and butter. You don’t need anything more, except maybe a dollop of that crème fraîche and a little bit of good wine.

There’s no reason why you can’t make gnocchi with any starchy, earthy thing you have on hand, and there’s no reason why you can’t make your own adventure when stranded a couple of hours from home. Both are the kind of thing you’ll surely talk about for a long while afterward.

Bulgur risotto, with lima beans or peas or whatever you’ve got in your pantry, freezer, or fridge.

~ wellfedemily ~ 1 Comment

Oh, did I mention we’re moving? We’re moving. In eleven days.

We’ve found a place, about a five-minute bike-ride away from where we are now, in a nice little neighbourhood where there’s a grocery store so fancy that there are two cheese sections, one that’s open to the general populace and one behind glass, which people like me can’t afford to buy from. They sell interesting things like San Marzano tomatoes, squid ink pasta, jasmine tea soda, and beautifully aged dark red meat. There’s a Williams-Sonoma across the street.

The apartment is also very nice, though there isn’t a balcony so the barbecue won’t be coming along. It’s cheaper than where we are now, and a little bit bigger, and we can have a dog or a cat there if we want. I want. Nick is being difficult. The kitchen there is smaller, but there are more windows, and so maybe my photographs will come out clearer, less blurry, and maybe less yellow and dark. There is a separate space for a dining room. There are closets.

I am very excited. But we have so much stuff, and the kitchen here is full-to-bursting. So we’re not buying anything new, not until the new place is unpacked and set up and we’ve determined how much of my clutter will have to be stored. And that is why today, I want to tell you about risotto.

Kind of.

Bulgur risotto.

Which I guess isn’t really risotto at all.

We’re using up the stuff in the cupboards, and a year or so back, I was on a bulgur kick, because it’s such nutty, chewy stuff and I wanted to make Turkish food and it’s something other than pasta or rice. It’s toasted cracked wheat, which sounds just lovely, and you can use it in place of rice in pretty much anything. You can even make a kind of risotto out of it, and it’s wonderful, especially if you live with someone who loathes risotto.

You make it the same way that you’d make a real risotto, though you use less liquid, it takes twenty minutes instead of thirty, and you don’t have to pay as much attention to it. It’s not as creamy as risotto, but you can make up for that by adding vegetable puree, perhaps, or an extra creamy cheese. If you want. I used lima beans because I had some in the freezer, but Nick thought this would be much better with peas. Who knows? Give it a try. Play with it, and tell me what you think.

Bulgur Risotto with Lima Beans

(Serves four to six as a side dish, or two very hungry people as a main.)

  • 2 tbsp. butter
  • 1 medium onion, finely chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 cup coarse bulgur
  • 2 cups hot chicken stock
  • 1/4 cup dry white wine
  • 1 cup frozen lima beans (or peas)
  • 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
  • 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
  • Salt and pepper, to taste (but taste first!)

Melt butter in a heavy-bottomed pan on the stove. Add onions and garlic, and coat with butter, frying until the onions are translucent. Stir in bulgur, and allow it to sop up any of the remaining butter.

Pour in about half a cup of chicken stock, stir, and let absorb. Keep adding chicken stock in small doses, for about fifteen minutes.

When the last of the chicken stock is absorbed, and the bulgur has puffed up and softened, finish with the wine. Throw in the frozen lima beans, and the parsley. Toss with cheese, and adjust seasonings to your liking. I didn’t add any salt, because the cheese and the stock was salty enough, but Nick said it wouldn’t hurt to add a tiny bit more.

Serve on its own, or as a side dish. It’s very unusual, with a texture reminiscent of wild rice and a nutty, toasty taste. It’s very good, and quite filling – very high in fibre, you know. And it’s a nice change, if you’re eating a lot of rice or pasta. And not scary at all – bulgur is an easy place to start if you’re looking to expand your eating horizons. I even add a handful of it to regular risotto sometimes, for texture’s sake, and it’s quite good.

Anyway. It’s Nick’s birthday, and I promised I’d let him sleep, but I also said I’d treat him to some breakfast. I should go figure out what there is in the fridge and maybe whip up some eggs or something. And then start packing.

Buttermilk apple fritters: Breakfast of big-boned champions.

~ wellfedemily ~ 6 Comments

I kind of felt bad, a little, because it seems as though I am mainlining fat these days, which is not usually a big deal to me because on the one hand, obesity is a serious illness and bad things happen to you and you can’t buy clothes at regular stores and diabetes and blah blah blah.  But on the other hand, if I get super fat, maybe I’ll qualify for disability benefits and then I won’t have to go to work or worry about clothes – I’ll get to sit around eating deep-fried stuff all day while wearing a muu muu and completing that novel I keep pretending I’ll ever finish, and maybe the government will even pay for cable. If I get Nick super fat too then I won’t even have to worry about him leaving me for someone with a neck.

These were my thoughts this morning as I pondered the last of the buttermilk that I inherited from my neighbour and Grace’s friend, Ayesha, who is heading to Kenya suddenly and needed help emptying her fridge.

I started a little batch of crème fraîche on my kitchen counter (one cup heavy cream to two tablespoons of buttermilk, left to sit in a jar at room temperature for 18 to 36 hours until thickened), and then there were leftovers. And I have two apples, which I was going to eat the way one normally eats apples, but then I realized, I’m on vacation and we’re moving in two weeks so any time I am not spending feeding us or checking the mail or procrastinating should be spent packing and that’s when I got out the grater and started heating the oil.

I can justify pretty much anything, by the way, in case you hadn’t noticed. Anything.

Buttermilk Apple Fritters

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
  • 2 tbsp. maple syrup
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
  • 1 tsp. cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
  • 1/3 cup buttermilk
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup grated Granny Smith apple

Topping:

  • 2 tbsp. confectioner’s sugar
  • 1 tbsp. cinnamon

Mix together all ingredients except for the apple until well combined. Fold in the apple, and let rest for ten minutes.

In the meantime, in a heavy-bottomed pot, heat about two quarts of oil to 350°F, or until a little splotch of batter dropped into the oil fizzles immediately and rises to the top.

Now you get to decide how big you want these things to be. I used a spatula to awkwardly ladle these out, but you can make them as big or as little as you want. My way made eight. Keep in mind that the cook time will vary, but I fried my fritters for about two minutes per side, until they were deeply golden and crunchy-looking.

Once the fritters are fried, cool on a few sheets of paper towel. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar mixture over top of hot fritters, and serve immediately. If you are also on holidays, feel free to crack open a chilled bottle of Gewurztraminer as well. Maybe don’t eat them all in one sitting. This kind of thing is good for sharing, which is great, because it’s the kind of thing that people will love you for sharing with them. They’re crispy, spicy, appley, and wonderful – better than store-bought, and they’ll be gone almost as soon as you put out the plate.

When I was a kid, waffles meant it was a very good day.

~ wellfedemily ~ 4 Comments

Making breakfast.And KFC meant we were on vacation, and my mom’s jelly roll with the meringue mushrooms meant it was January 1. Now that I’m a grown-up I can have waffles whenever I want, which means I really should have more very good days, but for whatever reason, same way that I don’t own a pie plate, I don’t have a waffle iron.

Today we babysat my nephew at my parents’ house, and waffles are one of his favourite things too, more so than ice cream, which I told him he could have for breakfast if he wanted and he thought about it. He showed remarkable maturity in declining the offer.

We only ever had one recipe for waffles when I was a kid, and the recipe came from The New Purity Cook Book, which purports to be “the complete guide to Canadian cooking,” though I’m not sure what that actually means.

Cover shot.Apparently Purity was (is?) a company that made flour and assorted other baking products, and they put out a cookbook, though I’ve never seen any of their products for sale anywhere. And for some reason, my parents had the cookbook. I happened upon the same cookbook (in hardcover) a couple of months ago in a thrift store, so I picked it up and now I have the waffle recipe as well.

Flour ad.These are best made on a waffle iron with little squares. Not those big, hulking Belgian waffle squares, which are not sufficient if you want ample maple syrup distribution. I wish I could show you but I guess those must be hard to come by now because even Mom and Dad have the big-squared kind of waffle maker. The little squares sopped up the syrup far more efficiently, like a sponge, which is how you want to eat waffles. They’re plain because they’re vehicles for maple syrup, which I guess is why they are included in the complete guide to Canadian cooking. You can fancify these any way you want – add bananas, berries, pumpkin, spices, adapt however you like – I never do, because some things just don’t need gussying up. So here. Make these waffles, and have yourself a very good day too.

Waffles (adapted from The New Purity Cook Book)

  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tbsp. granulated sugar
  • 3 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 1 1/2 cups whole milk
  • 1/4 cup butter, melted

Sift together the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the liquids.

Heat the waffle iron according to your waffle iron’s instructions. You may need to lightly grease the iron before heating, depending on what kind you have or how old it is. I greased lightly, using a little bit of butter. My parents have that spray grease stuff, but ew.

Pour batter into waffle iron, drop the lid, and cook until waffles have stopped steaming, and are golden and fluffy. Don’t lift the lid during cooking, or else they flatten out and don’t work as well for syrup-sopping.

Waffling.Serve hot and steaming from the iron, doused in real maple syrup. Maple syrup is to real waffles as Mrs. Butterworth is to Eggos. It is glorious and perfect and should be used in abundance whenever possible, and waffles make it possible.

I challenge you to have anything less than a wonderful day if you start your morning with waffles. You won’t be able to do it – you’ll be all smiles until bedtime, I promise.

Mmmmmmm.

Olive oil orange cookies.

~ wellfedemily ~ 6 Comments

Cookie porn.One of the annoying things about being broke is running out of butter, especially when you want cookies. The day before payday is always incredibly bad for that. I ran out of milk too.

Good thing we never run out of the really important stuff, like wine.

So not only did I need a cookie. I needed a cookie that would go with my wine, and my, oh my, I think we’ve got one.

This recipe is a hybrid of sorts, a little of this and a little of that from Mario and Mark, and a bit of me as well. You should definitely give these a try – not too sweet, with a pronounced POP! of orange, and a nutty olive oil undercurrent. Perfect with wine, or even just on their own. Crunchy outside, chewy inside, and certainly not your everyday cookie. These are immodest, show-off cookies. Don’t be put off by the oil. It may not replace butter in your life, but it will be a nice little change.

Olive oil orange cookies

(Makes about three dozen cookies.)

  • 3 cups flour
  • 1 tbsp. orange zest
  • 1/2 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp. salt
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 1/4 cup fresh-squeezed orange juice (1 navel orange should do you for the recipe, zest and juice)
  • 1/2 cup dry white wine
  • 1 tsp. brandy (optional)

Preheat your oven to 375°F.

Whisk together your dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together your wet ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredient mix, and stir to form a sticky, very shiny dough. Again, don’t be put off – it looks greasy. But the cookies, for some reason, won’t be.

Shiny dough.Roll the dough into balls about an inch in diameter, and plonk onto a cookie sheet. Bake about an inch apart, on the middle rack, for 12 to 15 minutes, or until lightly browned, slightly golden. Inhale deeply as these bake, and behold the fragrant wonders. This stuff smells AMAZING.

Cool on racks, but feel free to eat piping hot. Once cool, store in an airtight container. If they last that long. I ate, like ten cookies. I’m not even embarrassed, because olive oil is apparently good for you.

Okay, I’m kind of embarrassed, because it’s nearly midnight and I have to work tomorrow but instead of going to bed even though I’m tired, I’m drinking wine and eating cookies. For the win? I guess we’ll see tomorrow?

Maximum noms.

Dip the fish in batter made with beer and then deep fry it. You know you want to.

~ wellfedemily ~ 4 Comments

Fish chunks!I’ve probably mentioned a number of times now my powerful love for fish and chips, that perfect pairing of foods that allow me to practically mainline tartar sauce and malt vinegar – 80% of the time, fish and chips with tartar sauce is my meal of choice, though I hardly ever get it because there are only a handful of places that do it right and I have to go a long way out of my way to get it. I’ll attempt to sate my craving periodically with a Filet-o-Fish, but that is never enough, and so I get a little sad sometimes.

And then Paul calls offering to pick up fish for dinner, and I misunderstand and think he means salmon so I start thinking of rice, and he corrects me to say that he is considering codfish and will we need potatoes with that? And yes, yes we will, and I don’t have quite enough oil to fry all the pieces in a way that will keep some of them from kind of sticking to the bottom of the pot, but most of the pieces will come out okay, and also seriously? Is anyone looking for a single, well traveled, virile young man with fixing-stuff skills and excellent taste in food and wine? Because I am very close to injecting Paul with heroin and pimping him out for real (I think he reads this, but I refuse to self-edit). He shoots ducks and hooks trout and catches crabs, kids. I’m going to see if Nick will let us have a third.

Mad digression aside, last night we had homemade beer-battered fish and chips with hand-cut fries (baked to save space on the stove top), tartar sauce from scratch, and salad. It. Was. Awesome. The fish was fresh and perfect, the kind you can tell was just caught that day. If you’ve ever had bad fish and chips (I’m looking at you, Guildford Red Robin – your fish tasted like low tide and your patio has a view of the Walmart and your waitresses will only address Nick and pretty much ignore me so you suck), you will appreciate the difference quality and freshness make. And I am still kind of full, almost twelve hours later.

Here’s what you should do. Be sure you have at least three quarts of oil, and use a thermometer to make sure the oil hovers around 350°F. You may need to top it up – you want the fish to fry at the top, where it can’t possibly use its batter to adhere to the bottom of your pot.

Beer-battered fried fish

  • 2.5 lbs. fresh cod or halibut fillets, about an inch thick, cut into pieces that will fit comfortably into your pot (I started with three large fillets cut into six)
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1/2 cup cornstarch
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • Zest of 1/2 lemon
  • 1 regular-size (355mL or 12 oz.) can beer, such as India Pale Ale

Bring about three quarts of oil to 350°F in a large, heavy-bottomed pot on the stove. Use a candy thermometer to monitor the heat – you will need to do a bit of adjusting throughout the cooking process, as the oil will drop dramatically in temperature as soon as you add the first hunks of fish.

Mix together your batter, adding water as needed to bring the mix to a thick, pancake batter-like consistency. You might end up with too much batter, which is okay because that just means you can fry stuff tomorrow too! (Tip: Deep-fried pickles are pretty much the greatest invention ever … find out for yourself?) Optionally, you can add a bit of cumin or curry powder to the mixture for an exotic twist.

Once the oil has reached peak temperature, dredge as many pieces as will fit comfortably into your pot in batter, and gently drop them into the oil – no splashing, please … you will hurt yourself and then the experience will be ruined. I could fit in two pieces at a time.

FRYING!!!Fry for about three minutes per side, but keep in mind that thicker pieces will take longer to cook, and thinner pieces will take less time. But since you’re deep frying at home, you’ll probably not want to let the pot out of your sight, so just monitor the fish as it cooks, and use your best judgment. Cook until the batter is crisp and golden.

Remove from pot onto paper towel, and salt right away. Repeat steps with other pieces of fish. You could also drizzle a bit of lemon over the pieces at this point, but I waited until I sat down with my plate to do that.

Serve with tartar sauce, lemon slices, fries, and all those wonderful sorts of things. Feel that craving finally get satisfied. And then undo your pants because it’s one of those kinds of meals. Delight.

Fish and chips for dinner.