Picture Tuesday!

Yayyy! It’s picture day again. Christie and I were talking about our blog, and she pointed out that it is our blog, and that I didn’t necessarily need to post food/recipe(s) every time I posted. She even suggested that we make Tuesdays “Photo day”, where I can post any sort of picture I’d like accompanied by a little blurb or random Ian babbling as I have a tendency to do. As a result, I lay in bed last night staring at my ceiling, thinking hard about what I’d take a picture of, was I to take a walk at my lunch time this afternoon and hope to “find something”, or pick up some nice flowers on my way home from work and prepare an elaborate-ish (yes I made that word up) setup? I had too many ideas, and needed to focus down to one. So this morning I woke up extra early and packed a camera bag with just the essential equipment that I figured I would need, and set off for work at 6:15 am as usual… sigh.

My first reaction at that time in the morning, especially with the recent daylight savings change which makes it feel like5:15am, is usually a “This bus better be here soon”, and a “I want to be back in bed” feeling, except this morning something in my head shouted out…. Ian…. This is picture day… don’t forget… and somehow I mustered up the wakefulness and clarity, although still very much fuzzy, to notice that the lighting was great, and actually pulled out my camera and snapped a shot before my bus came. Trust me, the random high school student waiting next to me did not expect it either, and I caught him trying to catch a glimpse at my cameras viewing screen.

Turns out I was lucky I did. I had a really rather busy day at work and had to skip on my lunch break, and besides, it was dark and muddy out, not exactly the conditions to be trudging around for an hour outside in ankle high slipper type shoes if you ask me. After work, I ate some left over Spaghetti sauce with some elbow macaroni and fresh parmesan topping that my roommate and I made last night, and fiddled with my early morning picture a wee bit, and the picture above was the result. I hope you like it, as I am looking forward now to Picture Tuesdays every week.

*EDIT* Wednesday morning here now, and I kept thinking last night about how I should maybe include some pictures of the setup(s) I am using to take the photos for our blog. What do you guys think? Any interest? Any and all feedback is always warmly welcomed!

Mocha Orange Wafers

Yes... I am still on my chocolate binge
Yes... I have added coffee to this binge
Yes... I made these the second the last of the other chocolate cookies were eatten (by me)
Yes... they are a deep dark chocolate shortbread.
Yes... I practically doubled the cocoa that the recipe called for.
Yes... I ate these as a meal today.
Yes... they will satisfy your chocolate craving, for the moment.


Mocha Orange Wafers
adapted from Martha Stewart's Cookies book

1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp. finely ground espresso
1 tsp. salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon finely grated orange zest
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Coarse sanding sugar, for sprinkling

Beat together butter, confectioners' sugar, orange zest, and vanilla in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually add flour, cocoa, salt, and espresso until just combined. Transfer dough to a 12-by-16-inch piece of plastic wrap; shape into a log. Roll the wrap around the log, and twist the ends. Chill at least ½ an hour to overnight. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Cut log into 1/4-inch-thick slices; transfer to baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Brush tops with water; sprinkle with sanding sugar. Bake until set, 9-11 minutes.

White Chocolate and Pomegranate 'Pot de Creme' with Passion Fruit - In The Bag

So, this is the second installment for the challenge In the Bag, where you are given three ingredients and have to come up with some sort of meal. This month it was white chocolate, passion fruit and pomegranate. I would like to start off by saying that this is one of the best tasting desserts I have ever had. Remember that while you are reading through this recount of my Saturday afternoon, night, and Sunday morning.

My problem was the passion fruit. Do you know where to find a fresh and ripe one (or even what a ripe one looks like) in Montreal? I certainly didn’t, but I wasn’t going to let that detour me. First I went on a three hour search through the streets of downtown Montreal to find a passion fruit. Then I realized that the only time I had ever seen a passion fruit was in the Galapagos where I fell into some bushes trying to pick the fruit off a vine and had to head back, sans passion fruit, sporting some cool new scrapes. Needless to say I didn’t even know how to open the little fruit. Of course, once I showed the boys what the inside looked like, I had a very hard time convincing everyone that it was not going to taste like snotty brains.

On that note, I would like to point out that passion fruits taste so amazing, basically like all those tropical fruit juices that Tropicana is making now, but much more intense. It's sad that no one caries them because I think they would be a hit!

Now, for the pot de crème. I saw Ricardo make a version of this on TV about 5 months ago and thought to myself, "nuts to that, who would be that crazy to spend all their time making a single dessert" Well, now I am the crazy one, and I had to make it twice because the gelatine didn't set the first time. (soupy mess + me upset = bad)

Things I have learned about gelatine:
1. It needs to sit longer in a liquid that the 5 minutes everyone says.
2. Sometimes you need to use twice as much gelatine than what everyone says.
3. Just stick with jello for all your jiggly fruit juice needs. They have been doing this much longer that you have.

That is not to say that this wasn't an extremely easy dessert to make, and well worth the work, look at how stunning it looks! And the taste, I feel like I am having dessert at a four star restaurant! The problem is the waiting time, and the praying to the food gods that your gelatine sets.

White Chocolate and Pomegranate Pot de Crème with Passion Fruit
adapted from Ricardo and Friends on the Food Network Canada
makes 4 pots

3/4 tsp gelatine
3 tbsp. water
4 oz premium white chocolate, like Lindt
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
1-1/2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 cup 35% cream, warm
2 tbsp. milk, warm
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

For the Jelly
3/4 tsp. gelatine
3/4 cup pomegranate juice
1/2 tbsp sugar
Topping
4 passion fruits

For the Pots de Crème
In a bowl and sprinkle the gelatine onto the water. Let soften for 15 minutes. In a double boiler, melt the chocolate and butter. Off the heat, whisk in the eggs. Add the cream and milk. Return to the double boiler and, whisking constantly, continue cooking until slightly thickened, about 5-10 minutes. Add the gelatine and stir until completely dissolved. Pour the mixture into 4 martini glasses. Refrigerate for about 3 hours.
For the Jelly
In a small saucepan, sprinkle the gelatine onto (1/4 cup) of the juice. Let soften for about 15 minutes. Add sugar and heat gently while stirring until the gelatine and sugar have dissolved and a light boil starts. Add the remaining juice and stir well to combine. Pour gently onto the pots de crème. Refrigerate for about 3 hours. Add passion fruit to top just before serving.

Cocoa Charms

So pretend you are on a chocolate binge. Just pretend. And, for names sake we will call you... umm… Christie. Now pretend you go on a mad search for the deepest darkest and most intense chocolate shortbread cookie. Say you found it. Imagine sprinkling 100% cocoa powder on top of those deep dark charms. Now imagine how many cookies you, as hypothetical Christie would eat.

Now do me one favour. Do not imagine the scale the next day.

Cocoa Charms
adapted from Martha Stewart's Cookie's Book

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup dark cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Whisk butter until very light and fluffy, about 5-7 minutes. Add sugar and beat into butter until the mixture is a very light colour. Add vanilla and mix in. Sift in flour, salt, 1/4 cup cocoa powder and mix together until uniform. Form into 1 inch balls and place on a lined baking sheet. Place baking sheet in the fridge for 10 minutes. Transfer baking sheet to oven and bake for 12-17 minutes (depending on your oven). Once cooled dust with reserved 1/4 cup dark cocoa powder.

Egg, Ham, and Cheese Cups

I am so hooked on the 'á la di Stasio' cookbook by Josée di Stasio (see yesterdays post). That is why today we had breakfast for dinner. But this wasn't any normal dinfast, or breakner, we turned it into a little craft, and a tasty one at that.

Get out your cupcake pan, because that is how you make these little cups of goodness. Just start layering bread, black forest ham, and spinach, then spoon in some goat cheese and crack an egg in the middle. You can add anything you want to the cup, I just love goat cheese and spinach with my eggs. These are so much fun to make, and even more exciting to eat.



Egg, Ham, and Cheese Cups
adapted from Josée di Stasio's book 'á la di Stasio'
serves 4

8 slices whole wheat bread, crusts removed
1 tbsp. butter
8 slices black forest ham
8 large eggs
1 cup baby spinach
4 tbsp. young goat cheese
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. With a rolling pin or wine bottle flatten the bread slices, and then butter one side. Place bread slices one by one in each cupcake cup, butter side down. Layer a ham slice over each bread slice, pushing into the cup. Add spinach to bread and ham cup. Place 1/2 tbsp. of goat cheese in the cup, on top of the spinach. Top the cup off by cracking one egg into the centre. Season with salt and pepper. Bake in oven for 20-25 minutes or until eggs are done.

Sausage and Spinach Shells

Guess where the cheapest and latest cookbooks are found? The library. I say cheap, not free because I always take the books back late and have to pay a couple cents each time.

That is where I found the book 'à la di Stasio' by Josee di Stasio. I have probably passed the book a hundred times in the Quebec book stores, but until recently it was only in French. Not that I can’t read French, it's just that at the time I didn't know who Josée di Stasio was. I still don’t really know who she is, although I bet all the Quebecois chefs out there would smack me for saying so.

Anyways, the photography in the book is beautiful and I am always a fan of cooking tips from chefs of this Province so I took a chance. Delicious. Just simply delicious. This pasta was so simple, and if you use good quality sausage from a butcher, you can’t lose.

If you are in Montreal, check out the Maitre Boucher on Monkland, we bought one medium Italian and one Toulouse échalote sausage for this dish. Any butcher will do, just don’t buy random sausages from the supermarket (barf).


Sausage and Spinach Shells
adapted from Josee di Stasio's book "a la di Stasio"

1 large sweet onion cut in thin slices
1lb sausage, different types
1-1/2 cups low sodium chicken stock
450 g small shell pasta
5 cups baby spinach
Salt and pepper
1/3 cup grated parmesan

In a very large frypan add olive oil and slightly brown onions. Take sausage out of casing and break it up, then add to pan and cook until no longer pink. Pour in 1 cup of the stock and reduce for a couple minutes. Start a pot of boiling salted water and add pasta, cooking until al dente. Strain the pasta, reserving ¼ cup of the pasta water. Add pasta and baby spinach to frypan along with the ½ cup of stock and reserved pasta water. Season with salt and pepper then stir in cheese.

New Camera Day

My hands are up, I’m guilty, I did it, I purchased another camera. The new addition brings my current total up to 9, though realistically only 3 are digital, the remaining 6 being various 35mm as well as pro medium format film cameras (120 format). Now don’t get me wrong, I love my Nikon D40, really, it’s a great camera that takes really wonderful pictures, I’ve just been missing some of the features that are found on more “professional” calibre camera bodies that really don’t make a huge difference to the everyday user, but I am finding more and more that I am wanting these features in a digital slr. Add to this that Christie really wants to learn to use the D40 in order to start taking and exploring photography, and its hard to separate me from my equipment, and it easily adds up to this equation (Ian + new camera = win). It’s a really rare occurrence that a couple can find a common ground through passion for things that go so well together, such as Food and Photography, and Christies passion for cooking has inspired me to really think about food differently. Well its my turn, I’ve got to step it up and help Christie with photography by sharing my passion for it with her, and hopefully become a wee bit better with my communication about the choosing and finishing of the photos as a team with Christie.

So what better camera for her to use as a learning tool than a Nikon D40? Seriously, the Nikon D40 has been my most used camera since I purchased it about 2 years ago, its nice and small, so its easily portable, and its really jam packed with features for a little guy. If you are looking for a wonderful camera that will allow you to jump into the digital slr world, at a price of about 500$ Canadian dollars brand new you cant go wrong (its not much more than most point and shoot digitals), and the difference that a large image sensor makes is just stunning. Point and shoot cameras are great to have, don’t get me wrong, I have one to put in my pocket and carry around for snapshots (a Samsung NV10), but even a 10 megapixel point and shoot cannot give you the quality of a 6 megapixel D40. Why you wonder? Point and shoot cameras use a tiny image sensor, about the size of a stamp, so even at 10 megapixel, it does not record as much detail as a much larger sensor on a digital slr, and the ability to change your lenses doesn’t hurt.

Armed with an empty bank account and a credit card, I set off Monday morning to pick out and buy a new digital slr and surprise Christie when I picked her up at the train station that afternoon with a brand spanking new camera. It wasn’t meant to be, first, the subway went down, so when I got to the store I did not actually have time to comfortably make up my mind. Another day right? I couldn’t do it. Once we dropped Christies luggage back off at her appt, we headed right back out to the store to look as she was excited too. The store was all out of what I wanted (a Nikon D80) and had replaced it with the newer D90, which they were also out of. I almost went for the D300 (1600$ body only geez) but the stores internet was down, leaving them with cash only sales, so I sat on it. Tuesday morning, I decided to check out Montreal’s largest Photo Equipment distributor, L L Lozeau. Wow, I love the place. I spoke with a sales rep for almost an hour, going over what I wanted to do, and what I needed vs. what I did not need. He let me know Id be crazy to buy a D300, and a D90 was just not necessary. The nice salesman actually advised me to save 600$ on a D90 by going for a D80, ½ the price, and it is what I wanted in the first place! Plus the extra money saved allowed me to buy a really nice Micro Nikkor lens, which will do food so stunningly I will want to eat the pictures. I will certainly go back there for any of my photo needs.

Christie has exams all day today, and is busy studying and generally stressing out about school, so she asked me to just write something up about my new, beautiful camera for the blog today, rather than make and photograph a recipe. So, rather than food, I decided to see what I could do with the camera on its first picture. Looking all over for something to shoot, I figured to mull it over in a hot shower… wait…. Found it. So hope you like the first shot with my new spanky, shiny Nikon D80

Pancakes!

Oh pancakes, how I love you. When I was back visiting my parents in Toronto, Mardi Gras was happening. So, on Fat Tuesday my mom made pancakes. They were so good, and no one can beat my mom’s pancakes. I guess it just reminded me of being a kid again, fighting with my brother over who could eat the most pancakes in one sitting.

The next day I begged for pancakes again, but the power went out for a couple hours and we had to go out for dinner. But I was hooked, and on Thursday we made a double batch, but still, it wasn't enough. I whined on Friday for pancakes again, but everyone was sick of them by then.

So, what was the first thing that I made for Ian and me when I got back to Montreal? You guessed it. This picture is actually the plate that I ate. I still think that I could eat them again today.

Mom's Pancakes
adapted from a super old dairy goodness milk calendar
makes 12 pancakes

3/4 cup all purpose flour
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1 cup milk
2 tbsp butter, melted

Stir together flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in a medium bowl. Beat together egg, milk and butter; add to dry ingredients all at once; stir just until moistened. Spread 1 level tbsp batter in hot, lightly buttered frypan. Cook until bubbles appear on the surface; turn and brown underside. Serve with (real) maple syrup.

Retro Saucy Chicken

When my mom first made this meal that could feed an army, the recipe only called for four ingredients. Four. And three of those come out of a can or package! Seriously, how can something that tastes so good and homemade come from a can of tomatoes, a can of cranberries, a packet of onion soup, and a ton of chicken? It’s an enigma, but I guess it has been passed around for a very long time because I just heard that the old school original recipe used salad dressing instead of tomatoes. Eww. Who ever thought to switch that ingredient up is a genius.

In keeping with the tradition of altering the recipe as it is passed on, I often brown some mushrooms and green pepper before tossing everything together. But feel free to switch this up any way that you would like, it’s such a fast and easy dinner. Just promise me no salad dressing.


Retro Saucy Chicken

2 tbsp vegetable oil
4 lbs skinless boneless chicken thighs or drumsticks
1 lb button cremini mushrooms
1 green pepper sliced
1 can whole berry cranberries
1 can (28 oz.) diced tomatoes
1 envelope Lipton’s onion soup
1 handful of raisins

1. Preheat oven to 350. Heat oil in large sauté pan and brown chicken pieces. Remove chicken to oven proof casserole dish.
2. Sauté mushrooms and onions. Add tomatoes, cranberries, onion soup mix and raisins and stir until combined and hot.
3. Pour mixture over chicken. Cover and bake for 1 hour.

Easy Custard Flan

Ok, so I'm guessing that all the Barefoot Bloggers are making custard this weekend. If you missed that post, on Thursday we all made Pavlova Chantilly which called for four egg whites. Now everyone has these egg yolks sitting in their fridge, just begging to be made into creamy custard with a sweet caramelized sauce. Well that's what our egg yolks were asking for. So, my mom and I listened to those little yellow guys and whipped up a batch of delicious custard.

Since I have never made custard flan, (I don’t even think that I have tasted it before) my mom led us into this little adventure, and she says that we 'cheat' by using condensed and evaporated milk. Whoot, I wish I could ‘cheat’ that easily into a good grade in physics. (Damned you gravity).
Disclaimer: stay in school kids, don’t cheat, I don’t.



Easy Custard Flan

½ cup sugar
3 tbsp water
-
11 egg yolks
1 egg
1 can evaporated milk
1 can sweetened condensed milk
Zest of 1 lime

1. Preheat oven to 350. Mix sugar and water in a saucepan over low heat until bubbling and light golden. Pour into 6 custard cups coating the bottoms. Let cool.
2. Beat eggs, evaporated milk and condensed milk together. Strain mixture to eliminate bubbles. Stir in lime zest.
3. Pour egg mixture into custard cups and cover loosely with foil. Place in a water bath with boiling water at least 1 inch deep.
4. Bake on top rack for 30 minutes. Test for doneness with a knife inserted in the centre.
5. Cool on a wire rack to room temperature and then refrigerate.
To unmold, run a knife around the edge then invert onto a plate