Week Two

Well, this week is a short one and a bit of a wash already but we’re still doing our best to stick to this meal planning effort. Our Toronto trip of last weekend went the way of Canadian winter storms and had us barely sleeping above the beep of the weather alerts coming off the iPad. We managed to keep a head of most of it, enjoyed a nice tour of the Jackson Triggs winery and a pleasant drive the following morning, but we got completely overrun by Sunday evening and Toronto. One late checkout later and a white knuckle drive counting stalled and overturned cars down the 401, we ended up overnighting in Kingston Monday and finally made it home on Tuesday. 

Dinner in the Kingston Delta restaurant was great. A window seat overlooking the water and a nearly full moon climbing a blessedly clear sky. 

So it’ll be a short week, starting with a very late dinner Tuesday since Rujira had to cover her hours despite our late arrival and so was in the office till 8:00. 

Tuesday

• Grilled cheese with pear, bacon and caramelized onions, and Boston lettuce salad with cucumbers, green onions and sesame seeds

Wednesday

• White bean soup with pancetta (starter and lunches)
• Mussels and shrimp with fettuccine

Thursday

• Sweet and spicy beef jerky (for snacking)
• Pork, ginger and cabbage stuffed dumplings with chicken curry

Tuesday

Talk about fails. After the drive back from our weekend, I’d planned a simple dinner. Tasty ingredients, and bacon, what could go wrong? Nothing much, you’d guess, but you’ll need to take my word for it because I didn’t take any pictures. 

At Niagara on the Lake we’d stuck our heads into a small cheese shop to warm up and left with five nice little selections, including an aged balsamic cheese. My dinner plan revolved around this cheese. I thought it would pair nicely with pear and yield a savoury sandwich that’d complement a crisp vinegary salad nicely. 

The only trick here is to cook the bacon first, caramilize a little onion in the fat, and then assemble a bacon, pear, onion and cheese sandwich to be grilled in the same skillet. I start with the heat low, flip quickly to be sure each side is coated in a bit of fat (we keep the butter in the fridge, so I don’t bother buttering the outside of the bread and risk tearing it apart) and then cook at a low heat with a lid on until the cheese warm and mets and binds everything together. Once I’m sure the sandwiches won’t start falling apart, the heat is increased to get a nice colour on the bread and I flip and press the sandwiches flat with the spatula. 

The salad is Boston lettuce, cucumber and sesame seeds. I’d usually add some citrus or something but we’ve got that covered with the pear in the sandwiches. For a vinaigrette, I use an immersion blender to roughly mix and chop a finely diced green onion, a small handful of flat-leafed parsley, salt, pepper and a dash of dried tarragon with some olive oil and a tablespoon-ish serving of white wine vinegar. It yields a tasty green, herby sauce I coat the salad with myself before serving, tossing with my hands to make sure the leaves are properly covered. 

It’s a late dinner, and we eat in front of some Netflix. 

Before we go to sleep, I remember to cover 2 1/2 cups of dried great white northern bean with water in a bowl I set aside on the counter. We go to sleep dreaming about tomorrow’s soup. 

Wednesday

Today’s a bit of a prep day, where soup is made with an eye towards days of warming lunches and beef is marinated for the guilty pleasure of jerky.

Supper itself takes very little time, but we’ll start with the prep.

Beef jerky. Where has this been all my life? Rujira and I have started gorging ourselves on it during long drives between Montreal and Toronto. Salty, beefy goodness. I tried making it at home once last year, and it was a success, maybe slightly over-salty, but that didn’t stop us from eating our way through two pounds of the stuff. 

For this outing, I got a 1 kilo piece of rump steak. I froze it for about an hour to make slicing it easier. Once ready, with a sharp knife, I trimmed off the fat as much as I could, and cut against the grain to yield nice quarter-inch thick slices.  

The recipe I’m using is basically from “Food and Wine,” honestly, my go-to spot for ideas. Mix together 1 1/2 cups of strong coffee and Coke, 2 cups of soya sauce, pepper, two star anise pods, a spoonful of sriracha sauce and a clove or two of garlic. I added extra red pepper flakes. Because of the saltiness last time trying this, I have opted for reduced sodium soya sauce and I’m not salting the marinade. I figure we can salt after the fact, if really needed. 

I’ve got this all mixed in a corning ware dish. The beef is added, the dish is covered, and I do my best to forget about it until tomorrow. 

For the soup, I pat myself on the back for remembering to soak the beens the evening before. I saute a thinly sliced onion, add some pancetta (we got a nice 8-dollar piece at half price from the same cheese place in Niagara on the Lake that yielded the backbone of Tuesday supper), and cook it for a few minutes with plenty of garlic. 

Now, my idea is to really just showcase beens and pancetta, but I want a bit of veggie goodness in there in an non-distracting way. I throw two celery stalks in nearly whole. Same thing for two carrots. The idea is to fish them out after everything cooks down for an hour or more. I fetch the dregs of some fresh herbs and throw them in the same way, not bothering to chop. I will fish them out, too. I’ve saved the stalks from some sage I’d bought the week before and have a few sprigs of oregano. I add the beans, salt, and cover with chicken stock. I simmer with the lid on for a good hour, maybe more. My final addition is some parmesan rind to add a punch of flavor. 

I’ve decided the consistency is a bit soupier than I want, so I’m going to thicken. Using the food processor, I’ve reduced a cauliflower head to the consistency of bread crumbs. Cauliflower was on sale. I want to freeze some for a soup down the line, and I’ll add a good cup or so to the pasta later, but I figure it won’t hurt to bolster the soup with another cup. There’s enough to go around. After another 30 minutes, the broth has cooked down and the beans are starting to loose their consistency. 

I fish out the veggie chunks, the herb stalks, and the parmesan rind. More stock is added, and I take the soup off the heat. When I warm it up for supper, I’ll add maybe more stock and about a cup of cream (maybe more pepper). 

With all that behind me, I bide my time till dinner. Supper revolves around mussels, and I expect everything to be ready in the time it takes to boil the water and cook the pasta. In a large skillet, I melt some butter and saute a handful of green onions, another handful of pancetta, a thinly sliced medium-sized zucchini, and some garlic. I add about a cup of white wine and then the mussels, and I reduce to medium and cover for 7 minutes to steam the mussels. 

I’ve got the salted water for pasta going at medium so it doesn’t boil too quickly. At 7 minutes, the mussels are removed and the wine and veggies are cooked at a higher temperature to let the wine cook down a bit. The pasta is cooking. I add about a cup of cauliflower to thicken the sauce. As I’m pouring out the cooked pasta in a colander, I add more butter to the wine and some pre-cooked small shrimp and chopped flat-leaf parsley. (I want to make sure the seafood flavour of the pasta is front and centre.) 

The cooked noodles are added into the sauce and everything is tossed, with the addition of some parmesan, until it’s nicely coated. I plate and top with some toasted breadcrumbs, mussels along the side, and excess sauce drizzled over the top of everything. Rujira goes back and polishes off the mussels I was silly enough not to find room for on our plates. 

Tomorrow’s leftover lunch has been reduced to just shrimp and pasta in wine sauce. 

Thursday 

Utter fail. The jerky dried out and a late night of work led us to a nearby restaurant. Afghan food: great lentil soup, lots and lots of rise, and falling-of the bone lamb in a garlicky tomato sauce. 

Travel tomorrow. We’ll be better next week, I promise. 

Week one

I’m starting this week, despite the fact that it’ll be a short one for us. We have friends in from India and we’ll be hosting a small group for wine and snacks before we head out with the visitors towards Niagara and Toronto. A short week to plan for, but challenging. We’ll need to organize ourselves to cook just enough to empty out the fridge before a weekend away, and to somehow avoid cooking too much for to-do since we’ll be leaving the following afternoon.

Monday

• Chicken roasted with Brussel sprouts, potatoes

Tuesday

• Tomato and beet soup (using leftover chicken and carcass)
• Roasted spaghetti squash tossed with kale, parmesan crusted tilapia 

Wednesday

• Cod “Brandade,” baguette and green salad with apples

Thursday

• Vegetarian snacking spread for 9-10 people 
• Baguette
• 4 or 5 cheeses, mix of hard and soft
• Store bought antipasti selection (olives, marinated artichokes, mushrooms)
• Baked quinoa-cauliflower balls
• Apple cheddar pizza with caramelized onion and walnuts, cut into small portions
• Butternut squash pizza with sage pesto and balsamic glaze, cut into small portions

Monday

The plan was to get as much shopping done as possible Monday. Fish, tilapia or whatever is on sale, will get picked up fresh Tuesday. Baguette and antipasti will be left until Thursday itself.  The idea behind chicken is to get the week rolling and to give me a head start flavour-wise when I salvage the carcass for a soup on Tuesday. 

February’s issue of “Food and Wine” has a one-page spread with four easy Brussel sprouts recipes. Nothing fussy, just a reminder from the friendly editors that Brussel sprouts are out there. A fact I’d almost forgotten since Christmas dinner. 

Today’s plan is to tweak the “Food and Wine” roast chicken with 40 Brussel sprouts recipe. I didn’t count out 40 sprouts but I’ve made sure I’ve got enough for dinner tonight and lunches tomorrow. I figure about a big handful for each of the meals. 

Traditionally, I’ve roasted chickens at 350 at 20 minutes a pound. It has always worked. I take recipe ideas for the flavour combinations and then just cook my way. Lately, though, I’ve been following the recipe more closely when they suggest cooking at a higher heat. I haven’t gotten a handle on how long to do it per pound without a recipe guide, but the couple of times I’ve done it, I’ve gotten good results and a much crispier skin. 

In this case, working with a 4-pound bird, we roast at 450 for 30 minutes. I’ve melted butter and mixed it with some olive oil, brushing the skin thoroughly. Salt and pepper goes inside and out, and the cavity is stuffed with sprigs of rosemary and thyme, a quartered onion, half a lemon, and some garlic. I’m using roast garlic I’ve picked up from the antipasti bar at the grocery store. I slice a few more pieces and tuck them under the breast skin. Finishing, I sprinkle the chicken with paprika and wedge a few slices of lemon next to the wings, near the legs. I’ve cut a few more slices and arranged them on the breasts. In a half-hearted way, I’m hoping they’ll candy. Not sure it’ll work, but it’ll help moisten the breast, at the very least. I still don’t quite trust the high heat cooking method. 

After 30 minutes in the oven, I add the cleaned Brussel sprouts. I’ve tossed the sprouts with the remaining olive oil and butter mix, and I’ve tipped in some of the oil the roast garlic was sitting in. Salt and pepper, and nearly a teaspoon of ground caraway. Cook for 20 minutes. 

Meanwhile, I’ve parboiled some potato wedges and tossed them with butter and oil. Salt. These get added to the oven at the same time as the Brussel sprouts. 

After 30 minutes, take the chicken out. Let it sit for 15 minutes. I returned the roasting pan with the sprouts to the oven after adding the juice of half a lemon. Once the 15 minutes were up, the potatoes and sprouts were removed and everything plated. 

If the potatoes need a bit more time, take it. The sprouts can be kept warm and the chicken tastes great even as it cools. Because it’s roasted at a high temperature, we ate in just a little more than an hour. Lost of downtime to chat after the first day back to work. 

Tuesday

Come winter, I make a soup every week. It’s the easiest way to ensure simple lunches or a quick midweek meal, and it helps finish up any veggies or herbs I may not have used the week before. Plus, it warms the apartment on a chilly day. 

This week’s no exception and the soup is going to make use of some fennel, three pre-cooked beets and a head of cabbage. I’ve got the luxury of starting early in the day and letting it sit before dinner, so I do. I take the long way around, though, and make a stock from scratch with the veggie-bits I’ve been stockpiling. I add garlic, two bay leaves, some salt. It’s heavy on mushroom ends, so it’ll have a woodsy flavour, and I add half a salvaged fennel bulb as well as the chicken carcass Monday. I’ve saved the chicken pieces for later and trimmed the fennel fronds for a garnish. 

The stock simmers merrily for about two hours before I strain. A onion is browned before I add two cubed carrots and one of the beets. Next comes a can of diced tomatoes and the broth. I add close to a teaspoon each of cumin and cayenne, and a bit of salt. I’ll add pepper later once I see how the spices develop. 

After about 30 minutes, I puree with an immersion blender to make a richer, thicker base, and then I add the remaining two beets, diced, and half a head of thinly sliced cabbage. After ten minutes I add the chicken. It’s pretty much ready, but I leave it going for another 10 minutes and add the pepper. 

While this is happening, I empty half a package of salted cod pieces into a glass bowl and cover it with cold water and then plastic wrap. I’ll keep the bowl in the fridge and change the water at least three times before cooking with the cod Wednesday night. The cod I buy comes in 1-pound packages. Costs about $5, so it’s a nice treat at low cost. 

Spaghetti squash is great for mid-week roasting. Martha Stewart has taught me it takes about an hour at 425. There’s no fuss to it, so you can have it in minutes as you step in from work. Cut it in half lengthwise, scoop out the seeds, drizzle some olive oil, salt it. Place it facedown on a baking sheet. Take it out when the skin is soft. Leave it aside to cool before scooping out the flesh. 

In this case, I want to toss it with a few things. I blanch maybe three cups of the red kale and set it aside after tossing with salt and red pepper flakes. I add a bit of white wine and chicken stock for flavour. I’ll drain this before using the kale later. 

Sure enough, tilapia was the best buy when I passed by our local fish monger. so I nabbed two big pieces. Enough for one big portion each, or, if we exercise some self control, enough for a lunch as well. I’m not too worried, since there’s soup, in any case. 

In the end, I’m going to toss the squash with a caramelized onion, garlic and butter. I’ll fold the kale in along with just a few toasted bread crumbs to add a crunch. 

I still want the parmesan bite, but I don’t think the squash needs it. I was going to just cook the fish in lemon, but I decide, instead, to crust them with bread crumbs and parmesan (to get my fix). Beating one egg, I douse the salt-and-peppered fish, top and bottom. I’ve got two dishes set up and dredge each piece first though the cheese and then next through the breadcrumbs. The fish is skillet fried in a bit of oil and butter for about 4 minutes a side. The outside crisps up nicely yielding a nice crunch when you bite down. 

Supper is served in stages. Soup first, to take the edge off, giving me time to fuss with the fish and squash. Roasting aside, the meal is ready in less than 30 minutes. 

Wednesday 

This one’s easy. I take the recipe from Jody Williams’ “Buvette” cookbook. It’s called cod “brandade” and I’ve never really had anything like it on a menu anywhere. It’s a thick spread served warm, mixing cream, cod and potatoes. Kind of a seafood chowder minus the liquid. 

Drain the cod and cut it into smaller pieces. Dice a large, peeled potato. Cover the potato in a cup of cream and a half cup of milk. Bring it to a low simmer and keep stirring for 15-20 minutes. If the dish is fussy at all, it’s that you don’t want it the milk to burn on the bottom of the pot. I’ve added maybe four chopped cloves of garlic. The recipe in “Buvette” calls for sal, but I’m holding back since I’m not sure how salty the cod will be. 

After the 20 minutes, add the cod. Keep stirring. It will cook for another 20 minutes or more. Eventually, the potatoes will loose their consistency and the contents will coalesce into a thick spread. I’ve actually tipped a bit more milk in midway to thin it out a bit this time around. 

This warm spread is really the centrepiece but I’m going to serve it with a salad of Boston lettuce. Joining the greens are two tablespoons each of sesame seeds and grated cauliflower. (The cauliflower was a quick job at the food processor and I’ll be using it tomorrow but I just didn’t want to be bothered cleaning the food processor on the day itself when people were coming for the evening.) I also add a diced cucumber and a sliced granny smith apple. I leave skins on. 

A baguette rubbed with a bit of olive oil toasts in the oven on a baking sheet with the heat set at 425. It takes about 10 minutes to keep the crispiness I’m after. 

I take the brandade from the heat and let it sit while I make a vinaigrette. I add a sliced green onion to a few tablespoons of olive oil. It sits for a few minutes to marinate while I check on the bread and bring the dishes to the table. I combine a tablespoon each of sherry and red wine vinegars to the olive oil. A bit of dijon joins the mix, along with salt and pepper. Stir, and toss to coat the salad. The apple is the last thing I slice, so that it doesn’t lose its colour. 

Thursday

So we ended up with six cheeses, and more charcuterie than a largely vegetarian gather strictly needs. But what can you do? 

Pairing with that, we planed to set out two flavours of vegetarian pizza, bread for the cheese, olives, and quinoa-cauliflower cheese balls. I was worried we wouldn’t have enough, since we were hosting right after work, but we ended up with leftovers. 

To ease up on tasks for the day itself, I prepped the cauliflower ahead of time, cooked the quinoa while eating breakfast and made the sage pesto on Wednesday. I also cheated on the pizzas by getting store-bought crusts. Further score, I picked up four President’s Choice thin crusts at 50% off because they were a day old. 

For the quinoa balls with cauliflower and cheese, I cooked 2/3 cups of quinoa and grated 1 and a half cuts of cauliflower. In a large bowl I combine quinoa, cauliflower and 1 and a half cups grated halloumi cheese, 2 thinly sliced green onions, 2 tablespoons of Italian herb flavoured breadcrumbs, 1 tablespoon of flour, 3 garlic cloves, salt and pepper. Mix. In a separate bowl I combine 2 teaspoons of lemon juice, 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda and a large, beaten egg. This is then added to the dry mix. 

The recipe makes about 25 ping-pong ball sized portions. It’s pretty much shot for shot a recipe out of February’s “Food and Wine” magazine. It’s my first time trying it, but it’s easy and it was a hit. What more can you ask for? Set the balls on a lined baking sheet and cook for 30 minutes at 375. Serve warm. (Really, warm. I mean it. As they cooled the halloumi took on a bit of a waxy/rubbery texture.)

Each of the pizzas were assembled in almost no time. It took just the time it took, about 30-ish minutes, to caramelize the onions ahead of time. Removing the onions from the skillet I quickly toasted the walnuts, removed them, and then warmed a knob of butter and cooked one honey crisp apple per pizza. Once softened, I drizzled about a tablespoon of maple syrup over the sliced apples and let the sugar cook away for another two minutes. I combined all these parts, with some sharp, old cheddar, on the crusts and baked for 8 minutes at 425. 

If we want to call these the sweet pizzas, the savoury option was the butternut squash and sage. 

I’d made a small batch of pesto out of a few handfuls of sage leaves combined with some parsley, salt, parmesan and olive oil the day before. I added the parsley to cut the sage flavour, which not everyone likes in quantity. The butternut squash roasted while I was caramelizing the onions for the other set of pizzas. 20-ish minutes of cubed and oil-tossed squash at 425. I don’t want them overly soft, since they’ll cook another 8 minutes once on top of the pizza. I assembled the pizzas with the pesto as a base, a sprinkling of parmesan, the squash and finally some thinly sliced red onion. The final bit of topping, completely forgotten with the first pizza, was a drizzle of balsamic. The pizzas baked with their cousins for 8 minutes at 425. 

New Year Resolution

A holiday gift to myself was Gabrielle Hamilton’s, Prune. I enjoyed her memoir of a few years back and looked forward to this recipe book after it popped up on a few food sites rounding up year-end best-of lists. Candidly, I’m not sure I’ll do many of the recipes, but I really like the conceit of the book. It’s written as notes to kitchen staff. There are tips on how to plate, what to substitute where and when, and what to set aside for other uses, other meals. How not to waste. The business of running a restaurant.

They’re good tips, and it’s made me look at what goes to waste in our kitchen. So I’ve been making it a point to set aside the tops of celery, the ends of things, the stems of mushrooms, the shells of shrimp. These are stored in various bags in the freezer and come in handy for homemade stocks. It’s a small step.

Another read, Twelve Recipes, by Cal Peternell, is hitting my sweet spot even more than “Prune” did. Effortlessly written, it’s just a pleasure to read. The idea stems out of Peternell setting out the kitchen basics for a son who’d left home. Each chapter has one basic recipe, and then several variations on the theme. He describes the goal, “if you could pare it down and learn just twelve recipes, one from each of the chapters, […] you’d be pretty set. Another dozen would broaden your options, and with each added dozen, your perception of cooking itself would broaden…”

This idea of small, incremental steps that tip towards change, slowly, and eventually change they way you interact with a thing, this is my sweet spot. It’s what I’m after when I take up anything, and what I hope a good book will do for me.

2015 started off rocky, one cold after another, deep freezes and bad sleeps. The spirit of “Twelve Recipes” is to eat simply and well, and to wrestle one thing down to size and grow it from there. The idea is to take the activity and leverage an examined approach into different areas of life. Cooking is already relaxation for us, so the lesson needn’t be that. We’re not afraid to try new things or switch the direction of a meal midway. But there’s been a lot of that going on, which breeds a little too much focus on just one meal or one day at a time.

Our little step, our resolution, if you will, will be to plan the week forward more carefully. To be more aware of waste. Through this activity, to add more structure to the pace of a busy life. To make ourselves healthier and more budget-minded through approaching stuff in a more conscious way.

Challenge accepted.