Milk Chocolate Frozen Yogurt

I queried a class of grade sixers: Who believes someone loves Mrs. Speller enough to send her a giant heart-shaped box of chocolates? A box so big it eclipsed the entire surface of the round table?

From a class of fifteen, four hands shot up, waving frantically: see me, I believe in you. Or maybe, I believe in love? Or maybe, I'm in love with chocolate?

I am in love with chocolate. I can relate. But not to the other sixers who stared at me blankly. Except for one who said, that's a lie.

My father, a teacher, was loved enough to receive a giant box (as big as the top of a round table) of Purdys Chocolates every Valentines Day. No, not my mother, a wealthy family of Malaysian descent who bought up the top of Broadmead Hill, cleared the houses and build a mansion. They were very kind, throwing parties, giving gifts, launching teachers into retirement with in-mansion mini dramas. I still find small remains of those days amongst my things: a canvass bag, a parrot-topped pen...

This milk chocolate yogurt is not as good as the giant chocolate heart. Nothing is, really. But it's delicious enough.

Milk Chocolate Frozen Yogurt

1/3 cup plus 1/4 cup milk
1 cup heavy cream
6 ounce milk chocolate, finely chopped
2 cups plain yogurt
1 large pinch kosher salt
3 tbsp sugar
3 ounces dark chocolate, finely chopped

Heat the milk and cream in saucepan over medium heat until almost simmering. Remove from heat and whisk in milk chocolate. Transfer to a bowl and whisk in yogurt, salt, and sugar. Let cool.
Regerate until cold, about two hours. You can also hold the mixture in the fridge overnight.

Freeze the chocolate pieces.

Churn the yogurt according to the specifics of your icecream maker.

Fold in the chocolate pieces.

Kitchen Challenge Take Two

A rush of wildlife sightings have occurred of late in my neck of the woods. The deer were not deterred by the snow and continued to camp out under the evergreens at the edge of the yard. If you read my last post you know wildlife encounters are not always pleasant in these parts, but neither Caleb or I have been attacked or molested by a deer, anyways. I'm still keeping an eye out for the gray squirrel, who I neither trust nor encourage to roam freely about the property, which he does. I spotted him bounding along the roof of the cabin the other day and my blood ran cold.

Perhaps I'm hyper aware of the creatures around me due to the viewing of two nature embracing films. The first was The Cove, very chilling and sad and makes one wonder about sushi. The second was Winged Migration, quite the opposite, rather inspiring and beautiful in a boring sort of way. Although my opinion on nature documentaries is not to be trusted. In all honesty, I find Blue Planet ho hum. Look, not a popular point of view, I know, but the truth.

With winged migration in mind I was particularly impressed when upon walking up to Elk Lake on Victoria's single blissful snow day, hoards of duck and geese were winging in and out of the lake. The honk of the goose is quite chilling in the snow as wind whips across the lake. If only I could learn to imitate it. But some things are not meant to be.

It is with these wonderful creatures in mind that I propose the next challenge.

Haley: Prepare yourself. This will be wonderful. Consider the call of the goose, and prepare to prepare your:

duck, duck, duck Goose! duck.

Bibimbap

I know that putting a fried egg on top of a bowl of pretty much anything is pretty trendy right now, a trend that I've embraced wholeheartedly in the past few years. I've been cracking eggs on risotto, on fried rice, I've even cracked a few on a pizza (I know you're skeptical, but it was good). I may be jumping on a foodie bandwagon, but full credit to this one goes to the Koreans. They've been cracking eggs on top of rice bowls for years.

It's Lunar New Year today, and to celebrate we had my first attempt at a traditional Korean dish - Bibimbap. Made from scratch it is a bit fussy, though according to Grace, in Korea this meal is made with leftover side-dishes, ones that are present with every Korean meal. This is Grace's dad's go to meal when her mom is away-

Campbell-Choi Bibimbap

Ingredients:

Veggies-
2 carrots, cut into thin strips
1 zuchinni, cut into thin strips
1 handful of sliced mushrooms (more if EVERYONE in your family likes mushrooms)
bean sprouts (handful per person)
spinach - I used aprox 3 cups fresh

ground beef, aprox 1 pound

eggs, 1 per person

Korean chili paste, found in your city's Korean grocery store, unless you live in Chilliwack.

Sesame oil, with a pinch of salt and pepper

Get Cooking:

1) Make some sticky rice - Korean rice has a stickier texture than Chines, from my Korean taste testers I have found that Calrose rice is the one that most approximates Korean rice texture.

2) Fry the ground beef. Grace reports that this should not be seasoned, as the seasoning comes later but I couldn't resist and added a shot of soy sauce and a pinch of sugar.

3) Cook your veggies. Now, in some of the recipes I saw online some of the veggies were sauteed in sesame oil, but we made Choi-style Bibimbap, which means that veggies were blanched in boiling water. I used one pot with salted boiling water and just rotated the different veggies through, pulling them out with a slotted spoon to a platter when the preceeding veg was cooked.

4) Fry the eggs, sunny-side up style

5) Assemble. On a bowl of rice add the veggies, the beef, a shot of sesame oil, a shot of chili paste, and finally an egg.

6) Mix! See the second photo of our lovely Korean model for the proper mixing technique. I offered to go get chop sticks but was informed that this meal is NOT eaten with chop sticks.

Rach - I'm still waiting on that reciprocal challenge. Guess you're just afraid with what I'm going to come back with. And you should be, afraid that is. Very afraid.

Turnip and Parsnip Latkes with Pomegranate Seeds

It's been brought! If you read our last post, you know that Haley threw down the gauntlet and Rachel was to respond by crafting a dish combining the two seemingly contradictory ingredients, of turnips and pomegranate. Read on to discover the surprisingly delicious results.

Dearest Haley,
Yikes:
A massive squirrel is shimying down the tree outside my window. He's huge. Hmmm. Perhaps this nature sighting could prove insightful for the challenge I put forth to you. In France they eat pigeon...

Ever since Dad declared war on the grey squirrel dominating our neighbourhood and theiving from our cherry tree, I've found the rodents rather repulsive. They're so sneaky. And greedy. For instance, this squirrel in the tree outside my window, he's a big boy, like mondo, overweight, bottom heavy. Oh gross. He just pooed. Sorry.

Anyhow, turnips are a bit like gray squirrels with me. A tad repulsive. Sure, I'll toss one back in a stew and later mistake it for a potato, but I've never consciously thought, 'Mmmm. Turnips.' Have you? Well, after you challenged me to pair the frumpy turnip with the delicious pomegranate, I think I developed a new appreciation for that rather plain veggie. I discovered it has a little spice, a little more something-to-it than your potato. Nonetheless, it is happy to take the role of backdrop, providing a canvass, so to speak, for other showier veggies, fruits (in this case), or meats.

With this in mind, I created a dish composed of turnip latkes, topped with coconut curry sauce and a pomegranate salsa. I was so bold as to offer up this startling combination to dinner guests and, my goodness gracious, they loved it!
Turnip and Parsnip Latkes
4 medium potatoes, grated
2 turnips, grated
1 parsnip, peeled and grated
(2 pounds of vegetables in total)
1 small onion, thinly sliced
1 tsp salt
1 tsp curry powder
1/4 cup flour
1 egg, lightly beaten

Combine all the ingredient in a large bowl. Shape into small paddies and place on two greased cookie sheets. Bake at 370 for thirty minutes, flipping the latkes half way through baking time, or until golden brown.

Good toppings include: pomegranate seeds with balsamic vinegar, sour cream, butter, cheese, anything you'd like!

Kitchen Challenge

Rach,

Channel yourself back to your grade 8 self.

You're at a slumber party, probably at the DeBoer's.

Truth or Dare? Do you pour your heart out, or prank call Caleb Speller? You chose the dare of course.

Now back to 2012, it's time for the first round of Reems Eats Truth or Dare. Truth would be fun, but let's save that for my visit at the end of the month. Here is your first dare: I'm going easy on you with my first foodie challenge, we have to gain momentum after all. All this requires is a quick jaunt down to your favourite Red Barn to shop for the following 2 items that you need to include in a single meal this week:

Go!

(I'm not sure why I thought that photographing myself would lend anything to this post - this particular shot was culled from a ridiculous amount of wasted memory card space - I tried to look tough, which resulted in a strange facial grimace; I tried to give a challenging stare, which brought out an astounding amount of wrinkles, including some odd ones in my neck. Trust me, my face behind paper was the best option)

Stollen worthy..

The Chilliwack to Victoria Reems phone lines had a flurry of activity this week. Rachel and I logged in a record number of calls over a topic very dear to our hearts and stomachs, stollen. We came away from last year's stollen baking class with a wonderful, but cryptic recipe; so as we baked our stollen batches, in kitchens a ferry ride apart, much consultation was needed.

Important questions such as: Anise or no? How much simple syrup and rum to soak the dried fruit? To peel or not to peel? Is your sponge looking a tad dry? In response were wise insights, gems such as: Don't skimp on the almond paste. Organic citrus for the best zest...

It might take years before we nail down just the right steps to post a recipe for this wonderful bread. So instead I'll tease you with this lovely stollen photo. If you spend time with us these holidays and share a stollen, count yourself stollen-worthy. If not, there's always next year.

Merry Christmas!

Crockpot Cider

Last night was Chilliwack's Santa Parade. Attending with Coby and Finn makes parade viewing secondary to the entertainment right next to me - little frosty fingers waving for the candy hand-outs, little bodies bobbing to jazzed up Christmas carols, saucer-eyes beaming at flat-beds decked out with lights. Finn's favourite- 'Mom that one has a gorilla AND a monkey.' Santa definitely took a back seat.

Coming back home to a crock pot full of apple cider is a lovely treat - something that I like to prepare a few times over the Christmas season. It's easy, feels special (particularly to a 4-year-old), and makes the house smell amazing. If you don't have a crock pot, or are staying home just let the cider simmer in a pot over low heat.

On low for at least two, but as many as four or five hours - Pour in one or two cartons of 100 percent apple juice (definitely use real apple cider if available) and add a teaspoon or so of whole cloves per carton, and few cinnamon sticks (I used two last night for one carton - I would count on one per child, they make a great stir stick). For extra pizazz add sliced apples or cranberries to the mixture.