What To Do With... Anchovies

Okay, so maybe you were hoping for another ingredient... maybe, pine nuts or something a little more fashionable, but it's anchovies this week. Don't stop reading okay? Just hear me out.

Anchovies do have a bad rap. They are too often maligned with noses upturned at the mere mention of this salty, humble ingredient. But why? Sure, they are not the most attractive things, and sure, they are incredibly salty and also a bit fishy, but who says you have to eat them out of the can? Maybe anchovies were never meant to be in a starring role, but I think they make a great supporting cast member. Think of anchovies as Rob Schneider to a main ingredient's Adam Sandler. So maybe you weren't supposed to have an anchovy sandwich, but just maybe anchovies are supposed to be a great sidekick.

Indeed, there are many delicious uses for this flavour enhancer; just give it a try.

Some classic preparations of anchovies include:

1. Ceasar salad: mashed into the dressing, its form is indiscernible but its presence is unmistakeable.
2. Spaghetti puttanesca : add 3 or 4 anchovy fillets into your next tomato sauce, add sliced black olives, 1 can of flaked tuna and warm thoroughly. The anchovies melt away leaving a rich taste of the ocean.
3. Jannssen’s Temptation : this is ridiculously delicious and simple to make. It’s basically scalloped potatoes with a layer of onions and anchovies. Bake until golden and bubbly.
4. Bagna Cauda: Warmed dip of olive oil, butter, anchovies, garlic, parsley, chilli flakes for dipping raw (carrots, celery or radishes) or cooked vegetables (such as baby potatoes, baby corn or artichokes)

With the holiday season upon us, don't waste your money on insipid preservative-laden commercial tapenades. Make this sweet and salty tapenade instead:

5. Fig and olive tapenade : In a food processor, whiz up 1/4c capers, 1 c of pitted black olives, 1/4 c olive oil, 1/4c balsamic vinegar, 10 dried black mission figs roughly chopped, 4 anchovy fillets, 1/4c red onion – until chopped finely. Serve with cheese and crackers.


(Fig olive tapenade a top of triple creme pictured above. Sinful but delicious.)

6. Sauteed rapini and chilli flakes : sauté 2 cloves of garlic (minced), 1 pinch of chilli flakes, and 3 anchovy fillets. Add half bunch of chopped rapini and sauté until rapini is bright green and wilted slightly.
7. Steamed asparagus with lemon caper and anchovy butter – toss steamed asparagus with a mixture made of the zest and juice of one lemon, 1 tbsp capers drained, 2 anchovies finely minced, and 1 tbsp butter.

If you’re feeling particularly brave:

8. Smear it on hot toast instead of butter.
9. Add to pizza
10. Add to pesto

There see? That wasn't so bad. You can do it! Anchovies are a great second fiddle.

Just Add Heat...

Brimming full of holiday spirit this weekend, we decided to buy our Christmas tree this morning. We lugged it home leaving in our wake, a trail of discarded needles. We re-arranged our living room and set our majestic and perfectly symmetrical fraser fir in a nice corner of the living room. Then we hung a wreath outside our door, put up our Christmas lights at the front of the house, decorated the tree and hung our stockings. We are ready for the holidays.

I fought it for a little while, in fact, all through the fall... but now our heater is humming along keeping us warm in the evenings, the Christmas decorations are up, and our CSA is bringing us winter vegetables to keep our bellies full. All the signs are here - and slowly, but surely, winter vegetables have now become regular guests at dinner.

Admittedly, I do miss tomatoes warmed by the summer sun, and the delicate crispness of tender leafy shoots. Summer vegetables are lush and light, they are meant to stave off little pangs of mid-day hunger but they don’t provide sustenance the way their winter counterparts do. Winter vegetables are hearty, and transform into dishes that fortifies, and strengthens the body and the soul through the cold weather.

Whereas I enjoy most of summer’s jewels eaten out of hand, winter vegetables often require a little more attention. These earthy, hearty vegetables release their flavours with a little warm coaxing. Imagine beets roasted until sweet and yielding, steamy rutabagas (swedes) mashed with buttery carrots, brussels sprouts braised in white wine, and crispy potatoes quarters. Among these is the versatile and highly accessible cabbage. I love the range of flavours that the cabbage possesses: savoury and sweet when cooked; crispy and crunchy when raw; tart and tangy when pickled and tucked in a Rueben sandwich; and soft and sweet with a savoury beef filling inside as a cabbage roll.



So when I laid my eyes on the frilly, crinkled curls of the savoy cabbage, I said, "Come to mama!" I knew I had to have this brassica. Round and substantial, its leaves tightly layered, verdant and bright with pale veins stretching out from its core. Oh the possibilities – I thought a braising, or a sautéing would be in order for tonight’s supper.

Savoy Cabbage with Sausage and Pasta




½ head of savoy cabbage cored
1 lb merguez sausage, removed from casings into thumb-sized pieces*
3 garlic cloves minced
15 small white mushrooms sliced
1/4c white wine (or vegetable broth)
1/2c light cream
1/2c parsley chopped
pinch of salt

1 lb spaghetti

parmesan
black pepper

1. Cook pasta according to directions to al dente.
2. Slice cabbage into thin strips.
3. While pasta cooks, cook sausage meat over medium heat until it browns. Drain fat and set aside. In the same pan, add garlic and sauté for a minute. Then add mushrooms, and cook until mushrooms soften. Add the cabbage, and white wine and cover pan to allow cabbage to cook down slightly. (Should take about 5-10 minutes)
4. When most of the liquid has evaporated, add cream, sausage and parsley and turn on high to reduce. Stir to fully incorporate.
5. Drain and plate spaghetti. Top with the cabbage and sausage mixture.
6. Grate parmesan on top and add a few grindings of pepper on top.
7. Serve.

*If you don’t have merguez, any savoury sausage will do. We eat a lot of turkey sausage at home. If not, substitute 1 lb of ground meat (lamb for merguez), add a generous pinch of red pepper, salt, pepper and toasted fennel seeds.

What To Do With... Evaporated Milk

For my American friends, it’s Thanksgiving this weekend which means it’s turkey time. It has been several years since I have celebrated American Thanksgiving, but I think it’s a great four day holiday. Mostly because I love the rituals of Thanksgiving: rushing around the grocery store, baking pie, preparing this glorious meal and of course, coming together with friends and family. And don’t forget the post-Thanksgiving ritual of groaning with some regret, but mostly with pleasure after eating way too much turkey and stuffing, then loosening your belt to finish off the meal with a nice slice of pumpkin pie.

Evaporated milk is the ingredient of the week because it is used in one of my favourite Thanksgiving foods, pumpkin pie. I usually have several cans in my pantry because it is such a versatile product. They wait patiently to be called upon for a last minute panna cotta or when I have run out of regular stuff.

Evaporated milk is exactly what you think it is - fresh milk that has been reduced, in this case, by at least half. The result is a shelf stable product that has a rich, creamy taste. It serves a great substitute for fresh milk as well as cream. However, you cannot use evaporated milk interchangeably with cream due to difference in nutritional composition. (Think of evaporated milk as a concentrated dairy product.) I use it primarily to enrich foods where you would normally use milk or cream, when I don’t want all the calories. Additionally, the colour of evaporated milk is the palest caramel so it won’t do if you are making something that is supposed to be white.



Be sure you check the can – condensed milk, which usually makes an appearance in a smaller sized can with a pull-off tab, is not the same thing. While it is absolutely delicious, condensed milk is something else altogether.

Here’s what to do with evaporated milk.

It works as a fine substitute for milk in the following types of recipes:

1. Creamy type soups:Broccoli Potato Soup or Corn Chowder
2. Cheese sauce for broccoli or cauliflower
3. Mashed potatoes and scalloped potatoes
4. Rice pudding (It’s such an old-fashioned dessert, but I love the creaminess velvety smoothness of rice pudding that just seems to melt in your mouth. A pinch of cinnamon and oh yum.)
5. Bread pudding

Or you try something a little different:

6. Panna cotta
7. Mexican style flan – super easy, for clumsy dessert hands like me

But don’t forget the Classic Dessert Preparations:

8. Custard
9. Fudge

and of course,

10. Pumpkin pie

Enjoy giving thanks everyone!

A New Take on Risotto

This weekend started off with unseasonably cold weather. Even with a down-filled winter coat, winter boots and merino wool undershirt, the cold still managed to seep in somehow. And now, my husband tells me the weather forecast calls for snow all this week. I guess there is no escaping the weather except for a move to Costa Rica perhaps. (Awfully tempting, isn’t it?)

This week also marked the start of our “winter share” box from our organic CSA, Plan B. Inside our box were the tiniest Macintosh apples, a green cabbage, a small brown paper bag of fresh shitake mushrooms, a parsnip, a head of broccoli and a generous handful of potatoes and yams. This means rich, warming flavours for dinner this week. In search of something a little different for dinner, I decided to cook the ancient grains I had in the pantry along with some of the ingredients from our weekly box.



I know that the mere mention of grains conjures up thoughts of cardboard-tasting health food. But it doesn’t have to be that way. I bought these grains one afternoon after leisurely perusing the basement level of the St. Lawrence Market. I didn’t really have a plan for them and to be frank, I wasn’t quite sure what I would do with them. But like many ingredients I am not really familiar with, I derive a certain satisfaction in thinking about how an ingredient might become a meal and then going out and bringing it to life. Sometimes, it results in disaster, though rarely inedible. However, other times, I win the new ingredient jackpot, and my kitchen experiment turns into something that I would make again, and share with others.

I had eaten a rice blend recently that included kasha and quinoa and it was not bad but a little on the bland side. I thought it could be easily improved. Additionally, I had made a farro salad this past summer for a party and thought there would be an opportunity to do something hearty and warm for winter with these grains.

Farro is a whole grain particularly popular in Italy. It looks like a grain of rice with its husk intact. It has a nice chewy texture, delicious and hearty. Quinoa is a high-protein grain which makes it a vegetarian favourite. I love how its tiny pin-heads cook into the pudgy micro orbs that almost seem to pop in your mouth when you take a bite. Kasha is a whole grain made from buckwheat. It is often served as porridge is Eastern Europe as it often becomes a little mushy when cooked.

The approach I took to cooking was to think about the seasonal foods and flavours I enjoy and how to bring them into harmony with these grains. Risotto is a big winter time meal that I have come to enjoy over the last several years. I never used to like it, but I have recently been converted. Apples are a fruit that cellars well and hence are a winter time staple. Shitake mushrooms have a great woodsy flavour and may be cultivated indoors over the winter, making it possible to enjoy them all year around.

The recipe that I have provided here is probably enough for at least 6 people. I decided to make a little extra for our lunches for a day or two.



Ancient Grains “Risotto” with Mushrooms and Sautéed Apples

1 c farro
1 c quinoa
1 c kasha

2 small Macintosh apples, peeled and diced
1 small onion, peeled and diced finely
1 garlic clove, minced
5 shitake mushrooms finely diced

4 c of vegetable broth
1 tbsp of butter
1 tbsp of ground sage
1 tbsp of salt

1. Toast farro in a dry pan, shaking on occasion, until the farro smells nutty.
2. Rinse farro, quinoa and kasha under cold water and drain well.
3. Melt butter in a medium size pan, and add onion and garlic.
4. Once softened, add mushrooms, grains, 3 cups of vegetable stock (reserving one cup of broth), sage and salt. Cover and cook on low-medium for approximately 15 minutes. Stir grains and check water level. Add the additional cup of broth if most of the liquid has been absorbed. Add apples, re-cover and cook for another 5-10 minutes. Check often to ensure it doesn’t burn.
5. Once the liquid has been absorbed and the farro has softened but still has texture. Turn off heat and keep covered for another five minutes.
6. Serve with buttery sautéed apples.

Sautéed Apples

1 tbsp of butter
2 large Macintosh apples, peeled and sliced

1. Melt butter in a large pan. Once melted, add apples and sauté until apples soften and are glistening.

What To Do With… Cilantro

No other herb evokes a more emotional response than the citrusy, fruity cilantro. Some people loathe it so much that even the smallest bits can ruin a night. Others, however, would give it a hero's welcome by throwing a ticker tape parade. And most definitely, I belong to the latter camp.

Cilantro is also one of those vegetables with many names: coriander, Chinese parsley, or Mexican parsley. In fact, at the grocery store today, when the cashier inspected the bagged leaves, it prompted me to say, “It’s cilantro.” I caught tiniest huff under her breath when she replied, “Actually, it’s coriander.”

Either way, it's delicious.

Most recipes call for only the smallest snippets of cilantro, but it’s sold in these glorious bouquets. After it has served its original purpose and is only but a delicious memory, the remaining leaves wilt away in my crisper forgotten. Perhaps its human nature to forget about herbs after they have served their initial purpose. But is that any way to treat such a loyal, easy going friend? It seems like a downright shame especially when it is so easily paired with seafood, Mexican cuisine and citrus.



1. Cilantro pesto: This is truly a summertime delight when cilantro is bushy and brimming out its spot in the garden. I always have pine nuts and extra virgin olive oil on hand, so this is easy to whiz up in the food processor and put into tiny freezer bags for a later date. When I want to use it, I just defrost, shave parmesan on top and toss with hot pasta.

2. Cilantro vinaigrette: Another quick use for bits of cilantro (stems and all) is to throw it into a dressing. Whiz a handful of cilantro, with 1 part lemon juice, 2 parts olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. Pour over a fresh salad or over boiled new pototatoes.

3. Lime Cilantro Compound Butter: Mix 1 stick of room temperature butter with a handful of cilantro finely minced (no stems), a squeeze of lime juice and the zest of one lime. Mix until fully incorporated. Pack into a ramekin or turn mixture out onto parchment paper and roll into a thick log (about 1 1/2” log.) Return to the fridge until solid. Add a pat to a grilled steak or hot steamy brown rice. Store the rest in the freezer until needed.

4. Fresh salsa: Slice and seed 4 roma tomatoes, dice into smallish squares. Add a 1/4c of finely diced red onion, 1 tsp of cumin, 1 half jalapeno, seeded and diced finely and about 1/2c chopped cilantro, and juice from 1 lime. Grind salt and pepper to taste.

5. Tabouleh Salad: Substitute part or all of the parsley of a tabouleh salad with cilantro for a different and fresh note.

6. Cilantro rice: Cook 1 cup of rice as per instructions. Toss hot rice with 1 cup of chopped cilantro (leaves and stems) and juice of one lime. (I have done the same with vermicelli rice noodles as well, and it’s so good.)

7. Cold Avocado Soup: This recipe was a great use for leftover buttermilk and a ripe avocado and it goes the same for cilantro.

8. Tuna fish sandwich: Mix 1 can of drained tuna (I like to plurge at times and buy the Italian tuna), with 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise (or drained yoghurt), add ¼ c of chopped cilantro leaves, 1/8 tsp of cumin, and salt and pepper to taste.

9. Add to salad: Consider tossing in a handful of roughly chopped cilantro to your next salad. It adds another dimension in flavour to salads and you can use less dressing with this flavour boost.

10. As a garnish extraordinaire: when there is fresh cilantro in the fridge, a great way to get use out of it is to add it as a garnish: guacamole, Vietnamese pho, vermicelli rice bowls, stir frys, and curries.

Drunken Green Beans and My Weeknight Dinner Prep

Every weeknight on my way home from work, all I want to do is eat dinner and relax. I don't flick off my Louboutins, shake myself a vodka martini and politely nibble on pate and crackers while my husband regales me with tales from his day. No, that is not my life. I don't own Louboutins, except in my dreams, and I can't pour myself a vodka martini on a weeknight if I want to stay awake past 9pm. No, when I walk through the door, I am usually tired and very hungry. I just want to eat. Admittedly, a lot has to happen from that moment and when I sit down with my husband for dinner. I want something that's not fussy but at the same time, I also want us to eat something healthy. So how do I get dinner on the table quickly without popping something pre-made and processed into the microwave? With a little effort, a tad bit of planning, and a little team work.

Guiding Principle for Weeknight Dinner:
Keep it simple, there is no need to impress. But be organized, and have a well stocked pantry. A stop to the grocery store on the way home is not a detour I like to make after a long day at work.

The Plan:
My husband and I have a quick conversation in the morning about what we are going to have for dinner. If we're having meat, we take it out of the freezer and set it in the refrigerator to defrost before we head out the door in the morning.

Implementation:
In the evening, the first person who returns home first gets dinner started.
The first thing we get on the go is our starch which is usually rice. (This is partially because I grew up eating rice everyday and for practical reasons as it requires very little prep before cooking and it's low maintenance.) We have finally transitioned to brown rice and that takes a little while to cook. So we get that going before we start anything else.

We also try to plan out a couple veggie side dishes while we do our weekly shopping so that we don’t have to struggle on weekend nights with what to eat. This recipe is a great example of something we were able to throw together quickly based on what we had in the fridge. Although it's fast, it boasts great flavour.

The Pre-Work:
If you want to do a little weekend prep to facilitate weeknight meals, toast the almonds and wash and prep your vegetables when you're cooking on the weekend. Store in a sealable container. This is an unbelievable time saver.

Green Beans in White Wine with Toasted Almonds

Serves four

1 lb green beans, trimmed and washed
2 garlic cloves minced
1 tbsp butter
1/2 c white wine*
pinch of red pepper flakes
salt to taste

toasted almond flakes

1. Heat large saucepan over medium high. Add butter, garlic, and red pepper flakes.
2. Add green beans and coat in the melted butter.
3. Saute until the green beans turn bright green. When the butter seems absorbed and the pan looks dry, add the white wine to de-glaze. Simmer and allow white wine to reduce.
4. Remove off of heat and place and garnish with almond flakes.

*not recommending you open a bottle of wine for this. This is strictly a way to get rid of leftovers. If you don’t have an open bottle of wine, you can use vermouth, chicken broth, or water. (If you’re using water, add a squeeze of lemon j for a bit of tang, and throw in some lemon zest if you're so inclined.) And don’t worry about the alcohol, if you’re simmering it down, the alcohol burns off and flavour is all that remains.