Birthday Brownies

Auntie Sach-
(Guest Post by Finn)

Happy Birthday. You are hilarious. We made Birthday brownies for you. But you're not here. So I will eat them. They are chocolatey. Come on the ferry boat and see me. Bring me candy.

I love you,
Finn

Buckwheat Waffles

Rach-

Finn is a little put out with you right now - he fully expects you to hop on the ferry on Thursday morning and pop over to Chilliwack for your birthday celebration. He was quite disconcerted to find out that the only participation he will have in your special day is card-making and well wishing. His almost-3-year-old egocentricity is in full-swing.

I still have a bag of buckwheat flour, just waiting to try your buckwheat bread recipe. In the meantime, I made buckwheat waffles. They turned out amazing, the best whole grain waffle I've made. I followed this recipe. My only changes (I couldn't resist a little tinkering) were to swap maple syrup with the sugar and to use whole wheat pastry flour in place of the all purpose. I doubled the recipe and served them with a raspberry sauce and more maple syrup. Yum.

My exciting find while making this recipe was a whim I had to use my hand-held immersion blender to beat the egg whites. My trusty soup puree-er and baby-food mashing side-kick came into use again. Inspired with this discovery, I successfully whipped up a cup of whipping cream later on in the day. One more piece in my lazy cook arsenal.

OK Rach, Have a great day on Thursday. Your card may make it to you next week, it might be a record. Might.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Rach-

I have a bowl of flour and yeast sitting in my pantry waiting to be sourdough starter - Thanks for the post, I have been wanting to try sourdough for awhile but needed a push. Mike loves anything sourdough - I have to confess that I'm on the fence, but am hoping to be won over by a homemade product.

The rainy weather had me craving soup this week. Grey skies, combined with a bag of 5 avacados, and the cilantro growing like a weed in my little garden, pointed me in a Tex-Mex direction. This soup recipe is a template - it's very versatile and can be tailored for one's pantry. This was last night's version:

In a soup pot with maybe a tsp of canola oil I sauteed 1 roughly diced onion, 2 cloves garlic, and the tip of a jalapeno (optional). I also threw in half a sliced tomato (leftover) and 2 other roughly chopped tomatoes. I added in one large chicken breast. I stirred the vegetables and flipped the chicken breast once to brown.

Then I added approximately 2 litres of chicken stock (I use msg and salt-free powdered chicken soup base because it's easy to have in my cupboard - this chicken would taste great with homemade stock).

Seasoning (you could substitute taco seasoning instead of the following):

I added 1/2 tsp cumin, 1 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp ground pepper, and about 1/8 tsp of ground chipotle pepper (1 tsp ground chili pepper would work instead).

Oh, and I had about 1 cup of leftover tomato sauce so I added that too. I let this whole mixture simmer for about 45 minutes.

I then removed the chicken and shredded it. I used my hand-held blender to puree the vegetables (again, I do this because Mike hates any texture, you could chop the veggies finely and skip this). I seasoned the soup with more salt and pepper to taste, added a shot of garlic powder to boost the garlic flavour, and added the chicken, 2 cups of corn and 2 cups of cooked black beans.

To serve: This is the fun part, everyone can add their own topping according to preference. I even leave out the beans sometimes and let people add their own.
Toppings we like:

• cilantro (you love it or hate it. I love it!)
  
• shredded cheese
  
• sour cream
  
• tortilla or corn chips - I cut up strips of tortillas, brush with oil and broil them for a few minutes
• sliced avacados- my favourite

Everyone around the table - even our littlest 8-month eater- loved this meal.

100% Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread

Hi Haley,

I have been a negligent sister of late, which is why I’m giving you a particularly juicy post. Don’t expect a lot of words, here. It’s 8:11 on my kitchen clock. It’s been some time since we’ve lived together but you might remember that I’m not exactly a barrel of sunshine in the wee hours. And when one starts one’s work day at 10:00 at the earliest, that makes 8:00 the equivalent of 6:00. So instead of feeling guilty for sitting here in a tattered green robe with no inclination of brushing my hair for at least another hour, I’m pleased by ---kettle boiling---my early rise and this industrious start to the day. Oh, and there’s Caleb, doing a monkey dance in purple underwear. This is my world.

Time for an Americano or two and a piece of toast.

This is my country whole wheat sourdough bread.

It’s nearly 100% whole wheat, save for the starter which is made from all purpose flour. It’s really good. The crust is crusty! The texture is open--it’s a very rustic bread with not much of a sour flavour to it; the starter is fairly mild and overrun by the flavour of whole wheat. You can use the starter to make other types of sourdough bread.

You need to take a week in advance to make the starter, which you can then keep indefinitely in your Frigidaire. You also need to be flexible and ready to pay attention to your intuition.

Starter:
1 and 3/4 cups flour
1 cup warm water
¼ tsp active dry yeast

Mix, then let stand at room temp until tripled in volume, 8 to 24 hrs. Refrigerate for three days.

Add:
½ cup water
¼ cup flour

Cover and refrigerate for three more days.

It’s ready to use. Every time you use it, you must feed it. To feed the starter, divide it in half. Half you will use for your recipe, and the other half you will feed and return to the fridge. After dividing add 1 cup flour and ½ cup water and return the starter to the fridge.

Bread:

Preferment:
½ your starter
½ cup water
1 cup flour
Combine these ingredients. Let the preferment sit at room temperature from 8 to 12 hours. It should be bubbly and have risen noticeably.

Add to the Preferment:
5 cups whole wheat flour
3 tsp salt
3 Tbsp honey
3 Tbsp olive oil
2 cups water (you may need to add an extra ¼ cup water if dough is too stiff)

Mix using a wooden spoon. Then use your hands to lift and fold the dough over on itself. This is to ensure that all the ingredients get incorporated throughout the dough. The dough will be quite wet and sticky. It will get all over your hands. If you want to minimize the dough to hand stick, wet your hands before touching the dough.

First Rise: Cover the bowl and let the dough rise for 8 to 10 hours. The dough will have risen but it doesn’t need to have doubled.

Flour your counter top then use a spatula to scrape the dough onto your counter. Use a knife to cut it in two. Flour your hands and shape each dough hunk into a boule (fancy word for ball). Flour two cotton tea towels and set each in a colander or bowl. This is where you will place your dough to rise. The bowl/colander will give the dough shape as it rises.

Second Rise: Let the boules rise for 2 to 2.5 hours. They will have risen noticeably and look sort of puffy. They will not necessarily double.

Baking: Half an hour before you plan to bake the dough (ie, when the dough has half an hour left of rising time), place two round casserole dishes or over-safe pots into your oven and preheat the oven to 450 degrees. If you don’t have round pots you can use square but round are much preferred.

After 20 minutes to half an hour of preheating time. Put on your oven mitts and remove the pots from the oven. Gently put your hands under one boule and tip it into a pot. Put the lid on top and place it gently in the oven. It will deflate a bit. Don’t bang the pot into the oven as you don’t want to add to the deflation. Repeat with the second boule. Bake the boules with the lids on the pots for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes remove the lids and bake for another 10 to 15 minutes.

Let the bread cool completely before cutting in to it.

Mojito Monday

Rach-
How was your long weekend?
Mine was great.
Mike and I capped it off with a pitcher of Mojitos ala Bryan. I added some raspberries to my glass, just because I'm like that.
Oh, and the mint leaves? They're growing in a pot on my sundeck. So yes, the Campbell deck is officially open for good times 2010.

Rach- just needed to share my set-up for a blissful next hour:

1) 2 sleeping babes
2) 1 cup of tea
3) 1 homemade date square
3) 6 chapters into my latest library hold arrival - The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (the first chapters are awesome if you are into who-dunnits)

OK, I can't waste anymore precious, precious 'nap' time.

Lemon Ricotta Pancakes with Whole Wheat Pastry Flour

Hi Rach-

Inspired by Joy The Baker's sharing a 10-year ago card from her sister, I dug into my yahoo email archives to see what type of correspondence I was having with my siblings a decadish ago. I had some good laughs while reading old emails; I won't reprint my favourite - you debating the pros and cons of entering into a relationship with your bud Caleb.. There seem to be some extreme email personalities- Carmen and I were all pumped about email as a new medium for silliness, Brent's emails were almost always responses to mine, and I love the polite sense of response obligation that he brought to the task. Here's a few copy and pastes-

From:	carmen reems ... View Contact
To:	haleyree@yahoo.com

---

you are the butter icing on my cupcake, the moon rays that guide me through dark and stormy nights. How i could ever live without you, i just cannot fathom the notion. i think of you, my princess, labouring endlessly over your paper,and my thoughts rest with you, as i pray that peace and serenity will come to you. SERENITY NOW, my haley rebecca, SERENITY NOW



From: haley reems <haleyree@yahoo.com>
> > > > Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2001 14:21:58 -0800 (PST)
> > > >
To: Rachel Reems <sach@japan.com>
> > > > Subject: Re: hey there hot stuff..
> > > >
> > > > > hey rach. just so you know for future
> > reference,
> > > > mom
> > > > > does not peel cucumbers.

		yahooooooooo ... From: Rachel Reems ... View Contact To: haleyree@yahoo.com have a great thanksgiving Mooch, my turkey beats steadily for you and you alone. Re: to my dear brother.. ... From: Brent Reems ... View Contact To: haley reems thanks for the message mooch. Things are pretty good here, been playing a lot of frisbee, mostly ultimate. Its alright, not my favorite, but something that everyone - to some extent - can do together. Anyway, I will see you soon enough, Love Brent

Ah, good times. In 10 years from now I'll post Reems Eats highlights.

I've always been someone who needs to eat breakfast - none of this 'I'll have a coffee and grab something mid-morning.' No, I wake up and say good morning to my stomach. When Finn was around one-year, I traded in my morning granola for porridge - oatmeal with blueberries, sliced banana and honey is our daily fuel. However, there are days when Finn and I wake up and we both know that this needs to be a pancake morning. Sometimes this is because we are both feeling awesome - the sun is shining, Squirrel Birrel is running along the back fence, and life is good. Sometimes this is because I have a grumpy almost-3 year old who needs to be brought back to life with some good ol' Mommy lovin'. And nothing says Mommy loves you like a banana, oatmeal, whole wheat pancake with blueberry sauce (seriously - these actually taste good- stop rolling your eyes!).

However, on a Saturday morning I don't even consider dishing up a bowl of oatmeal. No, Saturdays, in time-honoured Joan Reems tradition, are always pancake mornings. Because Mike is a part of Saturday morning breakfasts I usually scale down on the whole grains and definitely need to forget about slipping any mashed yams, bananas, or sweet potatoes into the batter. No these are all about enjoyment. This past weekend I had a cup of ricotta leftover in the fridge but no white flour. Instead of using half all purpose and half whole wheat I used all whole wheat pastry flour. The results tasted delicious, and I hereby declare that I will never put white flour into pancakes again.

Ricotta Lemon Pancakes - Makes a good sized batch
Combine-
1 cup ricotta cheese (I use the lowest fat one - I think it's 7%)
2 eggs
3 T maple syrup
2 T lemon juice (fresh or from a bottle - if you use a fresh lemon add 1 tsp of zest)
11/2 cup milk

Then add the dry ingredients:
21/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 T baking powder
pinch salt

Mix and then drop ladles onto a greased hot skillet. Flip when bubbles form on the surface of your pancake.

Serve with blueberry sauce, maple syrup, and if you really want to be in pancake nirvana make up some cream cheese syrup. I take about a third of a cup soft cream cheese, cream in a third cup maple or other breakfast syrup, and then add some milk until I have my desired thickness. Yum.