Peter Piper Puts Peppers into Pesto..

Finn and I happened upon a beautiful vision of peppers today. Well, a beautiful stand with bags of peppers just waiting to be gobbled up. I got to work roasting the peppers and making a red pepper and spinach pesto, as well as a red pepper hummus. I've always loved roasted peppers but hate, HATE taking the peel off them. I have solved this problem -why bother? There is nothing wrong with a bit of skin. After you've taken the charred bits off you can just chuck the lot in the blender and be done with it.

To roast your beauties-
I sliced them in half, seeded, and rubbed, no 'massaged', a little oil onto the peppers. I placed them on an oiled cookie sheet and popped them under the broiler for about 5 minutes. Don't stray too far, when they start getting nice and blistery (charred little black spots) take them out and pop them into a bowl, cover with saran wrap and let cool. When cool you can skin them or, take a note from a lazy cook and if you are using them in a sauce or dip just chuck them into your blender or food processor.

Peter's Pepper Pesto (say that one three times fast)
For my pesto I put 2 peppers (4 halves) into the blender. I added the "juice" from the pan, about 2 tablespoons olive oil, about a 1/4 c of pine nuts, 2 handfuls of spinach, garlic, salt, and pepper, a dash of balsamic vinegar, and a crumble of feta cheese. Add a little bit of water if necessary, until you get your desire consistency. I would definitely say that this was more of a Mediterranean pesto. It would have been prettier without the spinach but I need to resort to trickery to get sir Mikey to consume his veggies.

Pepper hummus.
Make hummus. Add roasted red peppers. Done.

Butter and Apples


More than once this fall, I've pulled out a bowl, a canister of flour, and a pastry recipe only to find, alas, that I cannot lift my hand to cut the butter (or lard, according to some recipes). It seems that my mother's lessons in health have been carved with fire upon my soul. "Too much," her voice screams through my mind. "Too much." And so I closest the block of butter back in the fridge before rummaging for the oldfashioned oats to make a crisp. A few days ago, my vision of pastry was forever changed when I checked out a book from the library titled Perfect Light Desserts. Amongst other low fat and delicious-looking recipes, I found a lighter pie dough, which still uses butter. I'm not a huge fan of the oil crust. I'm not going to give you the recipe as I haven't tried it yet; although a pumpkin looms on top of my fridge, so the time may be neigh. But last week, after casting aside yet another pie crust recipe with a sob, I made this lovely French Apple Cake. The recipe comes from The Joy of Cooking but I've tweaked it to my liking.

Here's what I did:

French Apple Cake

Spray a deep 8 inch pie pan or a deep round casserole dish. Cover the bottom with:
3 cups sliced apples (you could up it to 4)
Sprinkle the fruit with:
1/3 cup sugar
cinnamon
1 Tbsp flour

In a bowl, sift:
1 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

In another bowl, beat together:
2 egg yolks
1 Tbsp melted butter
1/4 cup milk
Add to the dry ingredients and beat with swift strokes just until blended. Cover the fruit with the batter. Bake at 375 for aprox. 30 minuted. Reverse on a platter and cool slightly.

Make meringue:
Beat until frothy:
1/8 tsp salt
2 reserved egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tarter
Add gradually:
4 Tbsp sugar
Whip until stiff and glossy. Be sure to whip continually. Heap onto cake and bake at 300 for 15 or 20 more minutes.

Pad Thai--

This is a go-to meal at our place. I started making pad thai from a Moosewood recipe awhile back. I have adapted it through the years so that I'm not sure how close this recipe is to the original. There are lots of instructions here and even more brackets but that's just to make the recipe look like way more work than it is. Pad thai is very forgiving, I am always playing with the ingredients depending on what I have on-hand.

I like to serve this garnished with strips of omelette, green onions, peanuts, and prawns.

First your protein bits:
Saute cubed tofu, or chicken, or prawns, and set aside (you could skip this step if you want vegetarian pad thai). I add a shot of asian chili sauce or soy sauce for flavour. When it's just our little Campbell trio I just use tofu, but for company I typically use prawns as well.

Mix Sauce ingredients:
lime juice from 1 lime (I substitute lemon juice sometimes or skip this if using a vinegary asian chili sauce), 3 T asian chili sauce (that sweet, vinegary red stuff you see on the table at Vietnemese restaurants. If you don't have it use ketchup), 1/4 cup soy sauce, 2 T natural peanut butter, 1 tsp red pepper flakes (I just usually put a few shakes of hot sauce in instead), a shot of water (maybe 3 T) and 2T fish sauce (you could skip the fish sauce but it definitely is better with it). I also add about half a teaspoon of dried ginger if I don't have fresh, ditto for garlic.

Get those noodles ready:
Pour boiling water over one package of rice noodles (flat noodles, not the really skinny ones - these are in the Asian food section at most grocery stores). If you are just making this for 2 people you only need about half a package but break the noodles in the package!!! I learned this the hard way and was finding little noodle bits months later). Let soak for about 5 minutes while you get going on the next step and then drain.

Start wokking:
Heat a wok or deep frying pan with a half T or so of veg or peanut oil, add 3-4 cloves minced garlic and a few teaspoons of finely minced or grated ginger.
(Optional: If you want to add shredded carrot, sliced cabbage, or julienned peppers add now and stir fry. I typically add a cup or two of grated carrot). Then make a space and scramble 2 eggs (I often cook the eggs like an omelet beforehand and cut them into strips and then add at the end with the peanuts).

Next add:
bean sprouts (as much as you want, I probably use about 4 cups), the noodles, and the sauce. Stir for a few minutes - if it doesn't seem like enough sauce I add a bit of water, and another squirt of chili and soy sauce.

Finally:
Stir in the meat or tofu, about a cup of chopped green onions, and about a half cup chopped peanuts. Sprinkle on some reserved green onions, peanuts, sprouts, and egg for garnish. Serve with lime wedges.

Eat!

COOKIE?

I think about cookies, a lot. Mostly, I think about eating cookies. When, where, how many? I ask myself. Is eight thirty a.m. too early? Is obesity a possibility? These are all difficult questions, which I eventually ignore and simply eat cookies. My favourites include oatmeal chocolates chip in all its splendid varieties (Have you been to Pure Vanilla Bakery and tried the Kitchen Sink? Go! Go!), double chocolate, and peanut butter. Yes, this is a predictable list. I’ve come to accept that I’m not the most creative person. Quirky, yes, but I’m unimaginable to a fault, routine to the brink of boring.

A few weeks ago I lay awake at three in the morning. To calm my revving brain I invented ice cream flavours. I came up with apple pie.

Two nights ago, yet again, I lay awake at three in the morning. This time I brainstormed cookie recipes. After over an hour I had created two combinations. One involved oats, one involved chocolate. Why not use a pre-existing recipe, you are probably wondering, as over one million chocolate and oatmeal cookies already exist in the world? Despite the banality of my ideas, at three in the morning I felt the excitement of creativity, which is highly addictive and enabling, a word I hear spoken with reverence these days. So I enabled myself.

Besides, I like thinking about cookies. They are chewy. And sweet. Like fat little men. Or baby heads.

I tried the oatmeal recipe, which I’ve titled Honey Nut, and the cookies were truly tasty, and wheat free, for those poor, poor, allergy-suffering souls. I thought about selling the recipe rights to Martha Stuart for disgusting amounts of money, but then I’d be a SELL OUT, so instead, I’ve posted it here for your gorging enjoyment.

Honey Nut Cookies

1 cup barley flour

1 cup slivered almonds

1 ¼ cups old fashioned oats

1/2 cup coconut

1 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp salt

¾ cup honey

¼ cup applesauce

¼ cup oil

1 tsp vanilla

½ cup chocolate chips.

Mulch the oats in a food processor or a blender. Place them in a bowl. Do the same to the almonds. Add the almonds to the oats. Add the cinnamon and salt and mix.

Combine honey, applesauce, oil, and vanilla.

Add the dry mixture to the wet, mix and add chocolate chips.

Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Take out the cookies even if they seem a bit soft. They will harden up as they cool.

Yum! I found the recipe a little sweet so I’m going to try cutting the honey to a half cup or upping the amount of barley flour.

cooking frenzy--

I have a mini-me. Seriously, Finn loves his food. This kid can put it back just like his mom. Fortunately for me, Finn is showing more of a Reems approach to food (MikeyC being the most "particular" eater ever. Not an exaggeration). Unfortunately for me, the little food-monster is a beggar, and so I need to cook when he is having his afternoon siesta. Lately these hours have become a full-blown cooking frenzy. Today I made two loaves of banana bread, a batch of corn chowder, and cheese scones.

Now my new town, Chilliwack, is the land of corn. Cows and corn. There is a "corn drive-through" on every corner. There are entrepreneurial five-year olds sitting behind mounds of corn. To live here, you have to love your corn. We've eaten enough cobs for awhile and so I decided to try a chowder.


Chilliwack Chowder-

Chop up some celery, garlic, and onion - red pepper would be great too.

Saute this in a few tablespoons of butter over low heat.

When nice and limp, and smelling oh, so lovely, stir in a few tablespoons of flour.

Next, add a few cups of water. Then add a diced potato or two (I used left-over roasted potatoes chopped fine). Cook until potatoes are tender.

Then add cooked corn-off-the-cob- as much as you have. Today I had two cobs. Season with salt, pepper, thyme, chili powder, or whatever else you want to jazz it up with. If you want you can put everything into the blender at this point, or you could leave it a bit chunky. I like the best of both worlds and use my hand blender for a rougher texture.

Finally, add a few cups of milk, and heat through. Garnish with green onions.

Voila. Lift up a ladle to Chilliwack.

PLATEFULS

It's Sunday morning and I'm a little groggy. The guy downstairs decided to play, no, blast, base-loaded hip hop last night at three in the morning. Yup, thanks. So I hope this blog makes sense. Regardless, my stove-top espresso and these pictures are softening my jagged nerve endings.

Here's a bit of what I' ve been doing with my spare time. The great thing about substitute teaching is no marking, no preparation, and more time for cooking.





Shrimp and Coconut Curry
This one (above) is a new recipe I improvised from the Vij's cookbook. Vij's is an award winning Indian restaurant in Vancouver, which I am dying to try. Anyhow, the basic gist is puree two tomatoes and heat them in a saucepan with some spices. I used graham marsala, cayenne pepper, salt, and tumeric. Let the mixture simmer for about three to five minutes. Add half a cup of water. Simmer for another ten minutes. Add a cup of coconut milk and simmer for yet another ten minutes. Throw in 15 to 30 deshelled prawns and cook for four minutes. The prawns will turn pink. They really don't take long to cook.

Serve the prawns and curry bowls over brown rice along with steamed veggies.


Dinner on the deck
We bought and old ironing board at a thriftstore last week. It makes a perfect table.

September Slacking

Recently, people have been telling me that they love September. I can see their point. The air is warm, the sun is shining, the apples are ripening, and the blackberries are falling off the bush into my pail. Also, the crowds of tourists and teenagers have nearly disappeared. For these reasons September makes me happy. But September is also a month of change, back to school, back to work—new jobs, new people, new responsibilities. Suddenly I have a tummy ache. I haven’t truly started September. My first day of work is Friday (tee hee) so Caleb and I have still been playing at summer. And when it’s hot, because it is, and I’m spending my days on my bike or at the beach, I don’t like to eat large hot meals. Last night, Caleb and I whipped up what we’ve taken to calling the Quick and Dirty Salad, a mound of fresh rice and veggies topped with cheese and protein. The recipe is very simple and, naturally, very flexible depending on what you’ve got in the crisper but I provide the recipe as a guide, a starting point, and a source of ideas.

Also, I wanted to post this stunning photo.

Quick and Dirty Salad

Salad

Usually, I have most of the ingredients that require cooking left over from a previous meal. For example, I wouldn’t make rice specifically for the salad as it needs time to cool. Instead, make a little extra for your stir fry and save it in the fridge for your salad.

4-5 large leafs of Romaine lettuce, washed and chopped

Half a carrot, grated

Quarter of a beet, grated

1 tomato, diced

1 cob of corn, cooked

Half a red pepper (not green! Yew)

Half an avocado, sliced into slender pieces

2/3 cup cold cooked brown rice (optional. It depends on how hungry you are.)

3/4 cup chickpeas, cooked (or/and two boiled eggs.)

1/3 cup feta, crumbled

2 to 4 Tbsp pumpkin seeds

Assemble the above ingredients on two plates or pasta dishes. I suggest putting the cheese and seeds on top.

Dressing

This recipe comes courtesy of Joan Reems (my mother). I believe it’s the best one she’s ever given me. I always have a batch in the fridge as it’s so simple to prepare and so much healthier than commercial dressings. Oh, and it tastes good.

1 cup yogurt

2 garlic cloves, diced

2 Tbsp olive oil

2 Tbsp water

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

2 Tbsp dried dill

Combine, adding more water depending on desired consistency.

Reems Breakfast of Champions-

OK, I've had a reader request for the coveted Reems granola recipe.

Background here - The go-to-brekky of choice for any Reems is a good, hearty, home-made granola. This is the breakfast for champions.. and let's face it - for those of us who need nourishment to make it no, not until lunch time, but until that mid-morning-banana-muffin coffee break.

Now I realize that there are different types of cooks out there. Those that adhere strictly to the recipe, and the rest of us - those that choose to use a recipe as a helpful guideline, some suggestions that leave much to the cook's discretion. The past few weeks I have been living without any cookbooks and with stolen, intermittent internet. This makes for fun in the kitchen. This granola recipe is Reems-based, from my memory.

GRANOLA, REEMS BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS-

Step 1-
Combine your dry stuff- again, this is a guideline, fiddle with the amounts and the ingredients-

6 cups oats (Reems oat of choice is the large-flaked here but I suppose you could use quick oats)
1 cup bran
1 cup wheat germ
1 cup coconut (optional)
a good shot of flax seed
1 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup peanuts or almonds or pecans etc. etc.
good shot of cinnamon

Step 2-
Your wet stuff-
This should equal around a cup and a half to two cups. Combine the following in a glass measuring cup and heat in the microwave until hot. I have substituted Rogers Syrup for honey, I have also added a very runny plum jam (my first, and to date, only jam-making attempt). I am going to try a cup of apple sauce in here at some point. You could also use brown sugar instead of the honey. If you like a richer, sweeter granola you can up the honey and the oil.

1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup canola oil
3/4 cup water

Step 3
Combine until all the dry stuff is moistened. You can add a shot of water if needed.

Step 4
Spread over 2 cookie sheets. Bake in a low oven - maybe 250 degrees for an hour and a half or so (stir around a few times if you remember). If you like a drier, crunchier granola you can leave it in a turned off oven for awhile afterward. Otherise just let dry on the counter and then ladel into one giant container.

Step 5 (Sorry Heather).
Optional, but I feel that it would be criminal to miss this step. The raisin step. Add as many or as little as you like. For Calgarians - you may just want to add raisins in on a daily basis as I found that they dried out quickly. I love this with dried cranberries as well.

That's it. Now all you have to do is scoop yourself out a beautiful bowl of granola each morning. I eat mine with a few blueberries from the freezer, sliced banana and some plain yogurt.

Sorry about the lack of pictures here, our memory card does not like our laptop.

Getting Fresh

In Toronto there is a restaurant called Fresh, which, go figure, focuses on fresh food, such as salads, rice bowls, veggie burgers, and wraps—all my favourites. Their smoothies are delicious and I didn’t get a chance but would love to try their selection of caffeinated blended bevies. (Is a drink still a smoothie if it does not contain fruit?) I was excited to find that the owner/chef has released not one, but two cookbooks. I, too frugal to purchase a copy, checked out cookbook two, Refresh, from the Victoria library. The veggie burgers look juicy and I’m intrigued by the vegan cookies but so far I’ve only experimented with one recipe. Caleb and I collaborated on a batch of Indian Dosas. We followed the basic recipe but made some changes to the filling based on the ingredients that we had on hand. The Dosas are curry-spiced crepes stuffed with a chickpea-veggie filling. Yeah, beans!

Indian Dosa Pancakes

Dosa Pancakes

1 cup flour (you can use spelt, whole wheat, or white)

½ tsp salt

½ tsp baking powder

½ cup milk or soy milk

½ cup to ¾ cup water

1 Tbsp oil

Combine ingredients and fry on a skillet.

Dosa Filling (Based less than loosely on the Refresh recipe)

4 cloves garlics minced

1 Tbsp fresh ginger mince

1 onion diced

1 carrot diced

1 red pepper diced

1 tbsp cumin

1 tsp masa harina

1 tsp coriander

2 tsp turmeric

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp allspice

(I chose the spices based on what I had in the cupboard. Also, I wanted to create and Indian flavour. Adjust the flavouring to suite your palate and ingredients).

4 cups cooked chickpeas

Heat a shot of olive oil in a pan or wok, add garlic, veggies, and spices. Cook until veggies just begin to soften. Add chickpeas and cook until mixture is mushy, then mulch in the food processor along with the juice of one lemon. Return to the pan and reheat.

Assemblage

Dosa Pancakes

Chickpea Filling

¼ cup toasted pumpkin seeds

2 Tbsp feta cheese

Half a carrot, grated

½ cup mango, peach, or apple chutney (You can use store bought chutney; I’ve been making mine with the not-so-good-for-eating fall apples.)

Fill your dosas with chickpea filling, chutney, and a little carrot, roll up likes pancakes, top with carrot, pumpkin seeds, and feta. Enjoy!

Back on the Scene (Bearing Carrots)

I have returned from my cross-Canada adventure and herby recommit myself to blogging. Haley says I can no longer slack. She also says someone not of Reems kinship is reading and commenting on the blog. This is very exciting news. We have a readership. And so, without a photograph (all good foodblogs have tempting visuals), I post my latest dessert, a fat-free, VERY TASTY, carrot cake. When Haley came to visit last week I made this dessert to impress her and our excessively health-conscious mother. I have moved into number one daughter position. Perfect. In reality the praise goes to the Moosewood Collective who created the recipe and published it in their Book of Desserts in the first place, although, I adjusted the carrot content of the recipe and added pineapple.

Fat-Free Carrot Cake

1 ½ cups packed finely grated carrots

¾ cups canned crushed pineapple

1 ½ cups packed brown sugar

1 ¾ cups water

½ cup chopped dates

½ cup raisins

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 cups white flour

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp allspice

½ tsp ginger

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

In a saucepan, bring the carrots, brown sugar, water, dried fruit, and vanilla to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat, cover and let stand for at least an hour. According to the Moosewood Collective, the longer you let the mixture stand, the more the mush will absorb the water. I could only afford an hour but they suggest over night. My cake turned out quite nicely.

Combine flour and spices.

Preheat the oven to 300 and oil and flour a 10-inch bundt pan.

Stir the carrot mixture into the dry until just combined. Ensure no traces of flour are left.

Cook for about an hour or until an inserted tester (knife, toothpick, or what-have-you) comes out clean. Cool for 10 min in the pan before inverting onto a wire rack.

I topped the cake with a lemon glaze, which consisted of the juice of two lemons and ¼ cup of sugar. I warmed the ingredients in a small saucepan until the sugar had dissolved and then poured it over the cake. This sauce is very liquidy and moistened the cake considerably. I recommend the lemon sauce but I’d like to try a simple dusting of icing sugar or cinnamon. The cake was quite different than the typical carrot cake, moist and fruity, almost dark in flavour. I loved it!

I think I’ve hit on a fabulous whole-wheat peanut-butter cookie recipe but I need to make a couple of adjustments before posting. Stay tuned!

(Hi Haley!)