Pears poached in red wine

When shopping on the weekend we found these beautiful little pears.  They were about half the size of a normal pear, and we thought it would be a good idea to poach them for dinner. This was really easy and spectacularly good.

1 pear per person, we cooked 7 for 5 people as they were small

Equal quantaties of red wine and water I used 2 cups of each

1 cup of sugar for 4 cups of liquid

1 cinimin stick

5 cardamon pods

1/4 cup of toasted almonds to serve

Peal the pears leaving whole and the stalk on the top. I sliced a little off the bottom of some of the pears so that they would stand upright for serving.

Mix all the ingredients in a deep sided pot and bring to a boil.  Add the pears and turn down to a simmer, there should be enough liquid to cover the pears, though they do tend to float.

Cook until a sharp knife slides easily into the pears, they should be cooked through and soft but not falling apart.

The pears will now have taken on a beatiful red purple colour as well as absorbing the flavours form the poaching liquid.

Take out the pears and place on the serving dish, to cool down.

Crank up the heat under the poaching liquid and simmer down to about 1/2 cup of syrup.  You really need to watch at the end as it can go too thick very quickly. Pour the syrup over the pears.

Just before serving sprinkle with toasted slivered almonds these not only look good, but add a crunchy texture to a soft desert.

This would be delicous with vanilla icecream, but as we did not have any we served it will vanilla greek yogurt and actually that was very good too.

slow cooked pork with apples and garlic

Fall is here with full monsoon rains.  Gone are the long evenings eating on the deck, summer dresses and sandals, time for comfort food, sweaters and boots.  I am trying to embrace this change, though this year for some reason I am finding it harder than ever.  The only way is to cook some really good comforting food and buy some new warm weather clothes.

I made this last weekend up at Pender Harbour where it was pouring rain, and we had spent the afternoon in front of a roaring fire playing quidler and drinking a full bodied red wine. It was so simple and cooked away all afternoon filling the house with the most glorious smells. Bring on winter.

1 pork butt roast, this one was fairly small and fed 4 with some left over
3 apples peeled and chopped
1 onion chopped
1 whole head of garlic cut in half
1 tablespoon of fennel seeds
1 1/2 cups of white wine.

Add all the ingredients except only add 1/2 cup of wine, with a little salt and pepper to a large cast iron pot.

Put on a tight fitting lid and place in a 300 oven.  You could also do the same thing but place in a slow cooker. Cook for at least 3 hours, but 4 or more is really better.

Chicken cacciatora

I believe I got my love of food from my father, though he never really cooked, getting good food was always important.  Today he sends me recipes that he sees on the Internet that he thinks I will be interested in.  I take this as a request for me to cook it for him, and so being the dutiful daughter I made the chicken cacciatora recipe from The Guardian newspaper that he had emailed me recently. Though of course I changed it a little, I just can't help myself, I get that from my mother!

2 tbsp olive oil
4 chicken legs, divided into thighs and drumsticks (skin removed if desired)
1/2 heads of garlic, cloves cut in half
1 small onion chopped
Small bunch of rosemary
1 carrot, peeled and diced
Half a glass of white wine
250ml decent chicken stock
1/2 quart home canned tomatoes or small can of chopped tomatoes

Heat the oil in a large, heavy-based casserole dish over a medium-high heat. Fry the chicken in batches until golden brown on all sides.

Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside. Fry the garlic, onion, rosemary and carrot, with a little more oil if necessary, for a few minutes until slightly golden.

Fresh corn chowder

Fall is here and we are just coming to the end of the all the wonderful local crops such as corn and tomatoes, so now is the time to make the most of them.  I can only eat so many boiled buttered ears of corn, never mind how good they are, I can not say the same for husband however, who could eat fresh buttered corn for dinner every night and I mean just corn!

After the Terry Fox run a couple of weeks ago, there were 6 for lunch, so I used the 5 ears of corn that I had left over from the previous night to make soup.

I am sure you can buy some special gadget for stripping corn, but I do not have such a thing so I had to do it with a knife.  This works fine but does make quite a mess.

Soup for six

4 slices of back bacon (regular bacon would do, but I am trying to cut out fat)
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 onion chopped
5 ears of corn stripped
5 small yellow potatoes chopped into about 2" chunks
6 cups of chicken stock
1 tablespoon of chopped fresh sage
1 cup of milk

Apple pie with pecan crust

I was asked to make an apple pie for Thanksgiving and decided to try out something that I have been thinking about for a while, creating a crust using ground nuts in place of some of the flour. Pecans seemed to be the nut that most complimented apples so I used ground pecans.

First I roasted 200 gms of pecans until they were just becoming fragarent.

Then I ground these in my small food processor until finely ground, but stopped before they started to turn to pecan butter. I kept out a few for decoration.

Coq au vin

Coq au vin is just the french way of saying chicken cooked in wine.  This is normally red wine, which gives a very dark rich casserole. It is not a difficult or complicated dish and should not be intimidating to make, but is well worth making for a warming winter or fall evening.

1 chicken cut up in to pieces or the equivelant in already cut up chicken
1/4 cup of salt pork or 4 rashers of bacon cut up ( I used pancetta)
1 tablespoon of flour
1/2 a bottle of red wine (something that you would drink but it does not have to be a great wine)
1 sprig of fresh thyme or teaspoon dried
1 bay leaf
1 cup of sliced mushrooms
1 cup of peeled pearl onions

Place the chicken in a frying pan skin side down and brown on both sides, there should be no need to add fat as the chicken skin will provide quite enough on its own.

Remove the chicken and place it in a large casserole dish, then in another frying pan or the cleaned out one already used fry the bacon pieces until crispy and drain on some kitchen paper. Reserve a little of the fat for later.

butterflied roast chicken with stuffing

It was Saturday night and 5:30 and Connie and I felt like roast chicken for dinner.  We did not want to eat too late and so I decided to butterfly the chicken before roasting to speed up the process.  This put us in mind of the time that at 5:00 we decided to make cassolet for dinner!  Traditionaly this is a dish that takes about 3 days, but undeterred we we made it and were eating cassolet before 8:00.  I am not really sure how, just put it down to the kitchen Gods and determination.

Butterflying a chicken is much easier than it sounds, but it does require a good pair of kitchen scissors see roast butterflied chicken and potatoes.

Apart from cooking quicker than an un-butterflied chicken, the other advantage is that if you lay the chicken on top of a suitable ingredient the juices from the chicken will be absorbed by it.  Last time I had roasted the chicken on top of potatoes.  This time I decided to make a quick stuffing from some bread that I had that was past it's best.

2 cups of bread roughly chopped
1/2 onion chopped
1 sprig of sage chopped
1 lemon
2 tablespoons of olive oil


In a bowl, I mixed together the cut up bread and onion chopped and a sprig of fresh sage finely chopped. I laid this in the roasting tin and topped it with half a lemon sliced.

Roasted beet borscht

I love the taste of beets, but I hate how they stain your hands (and everything else) when you peel them. Maybe that is why they are mostly sold already cooked in England.  One way to avoid this is roast them and then the skins slip off easily, but it also really enhances the flavour. I bought some beautiful looking beets the other day and wanted to make a big pot of borscht, to take for lunches at work. More a beet stew than a soup really as I cut the beets in to large chunks.

This made enough for 4 lunches for one or one lunch for 4

• 3 large beets
• 1 onion chopped
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 2 small potatoes
• 4 cups of beef broth
• 2 tablespoons of dried dill ( or a sprig of fresh)
• 1/2 white cabbage shredded
• Yogurt or sour cream to serve

A salad for fall with pear dressing and pecans

Though the temperatures belie it, fall is well and truly in full swing, and even if it is still warm and sunny somehow I still feel like fall flavours and want to be wearing boots and wool skirts.  So when I was making a salad on Saturday night I was inspired by the beautiful pears sitting in the warm autumn sunshine on the counter.

Several years ago I saw Jamie Oliver make a salad dressing by grating pears and so I though I would give it a go.

Pear salad dressing

• 1 Pear grated (with out the peel)
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• Juice of one lemon
• 1 teaspoon of sugar
• 2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar

Cabbage and apple salad

This weekend is thanksgiving in Canada, and there are many family recipes and traditions that surround this celebration.  For one of my best friends it would not be a turkey dinner with out this salad that her mother used to make, so I asked her to write it up to share.

Gillian has asked me to be a guest blogger to feature this family favourite so here goes.

We all have some tradition that we bring to our festive meals.  My signature dish known to all who shares my turkey dinner has been this salad, which has been passed down by mother, and I believe my grandmother.  The crisp texture and fresh taste an excellent complement to the comfort flavours and soft textures of a turkey dinner.  The other bonus is that this salad is equally good for at least the next day or two.

The salad is generous portion that is perfect for the extra meals the next day.  While proportions can vary I suggest the following ingredients.

• 
  
• 1 medium green cabbage, chopped 
• 2 apples, firm varieties i.e.: granny smith, Spartan or 1 of each
• 2 stocks celery, diced
• 4 green onions, chopped
• ¼ cup Italian parsley, chopped, with some sprigs for garnish
• Optional:  ¼ cup toasted almonds and/or ¼ cup dried cranberries

Dressing

• 1 lemon
• Mayonnaise, ½ cup
•         ½ tsp. Dijon mustard
• 1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar or white wine vinegar
• Salt, 1 tsp.
• ½ tsp. curry power
• 1 tsp. sugar

Simple tomato soup and grilled cheese

I am wallowing in the glut of tasty fresh tomatoes this fall.  I have been canning and freezing enough tomato puree and roast tomato sauce to get me through the winter.  But last weekend I needed some lunch and really wanted to enjoy some of these wonderful tomatoes in season instead of just putting by for the winter. So I made my husband and I some fresh tomato soup and used up some left over brie to make a grilled cheese accompaniment, because tomato soup does love cheese sandwiches.

To make enough for 4

• 1 tablespoon of garlic
• 1/2 onion chopped
• 1 garlic clove thinly sliced
• 6 large tomatoes cut up (I do not bother to peel)
• 1 handful of fresh basil chopped.
• 2 cups of chicken stock
• 1/4 cup of cream or milk
• Salt and pepper

Cook the garlic and onion in the olive oil in a large pot on medium heat until the onion is transparent. Add the chopped tomatoes, basil and stock.

Borlotti bean soup

When shopping at the Red apple on Hastings I came across these very beautiful beans and had to buy them.

They have several different names, depending where you come from, the Italians call them borlotti beans but they are often called cranberry beans in North America.  I suspected (and was correct) that like purple beans they loose their colour and beauty when you cook them.  I decided to make soup as this seemed to be the way that they were often cooked when I researched them. The shells are very hard so you have to shell them first before cooking.

I also picked up some beautiful local red chard as I thought these two flavours would go very well together.

1 small onion chopped
1 clove of garlic thinly sliced
1 tablespoon of olive oil
3 cups of chicken stock
1 bay leaf
A sprig of rosemary
A sprig of sage
2 cups of hulled borlotti beans
1 bunch of red chard

Lighter chicken parmasan

I am again trying to eat lighter and exercise more, this is almost an annual thing for me, as I have a tendency to gain weight and after all I love food, and would rather eat and cook than almost anything else. I committed to lose 8 lbs before going on my next big trip in late October, 3 weeks in and I am down 3lbs with 5 more to go in just over 4 weeks. So comes the challenge to create tasty food that is low in calories and fat.

I saw the idea for this on pinterest, but the version there was using prepackaged items and was not particularly healthy so I have changed it up a lot and came up with a dish that fits my brief of using fresh ingredients, and I will definitely make it again.

For 4

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut in to quarters
• 1 bunch of fresh basil
• 1 garlic clove
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 cups of tomato puree or tomato sauce
• 1/3 cup of breadcrumbs (I used panko)
• 1/4 cup of grated parmasan cheese

Place the basil, garlic and olive oil in a small food processor.

Wizz up to make a nutless pesto.

Spread all this mixture on the bottom of baking dish.

Green tomato chutney

My house faces due south and therefore my back yard is due north, in the middle of summer this is often a good thing as there is always some shade and it does not get too hot.  On the other hand it means that it is not very good for growing vegetables, especially tomatoes. My front deck however is not only good for growing tomatoes, it is also a good place to display my first jar of green tomato chutney.

As well as facing south there are no trees shading it, and the glass front on the deck shelters all the plants and works almost like a mini green house.  This extends the growing time as well as the sitting out time to almost any sunny day in the year.

Up to now I have grown only cherry tomatoes, but this year I bought a plum tomato plant as well as some other variety of larger tomato.  The plum tomato plant has been very prolific and I will certainly plant more of these in the future, I have eaten many beautiful red tomatoes off it this summer, but now in late September I am afraid those green tomatoes are never going to ripen.

So fearing the worst, Connie I decided to turn the remaining unripened tomatoes in to green tomato chutney. I have never made this before so I had to hunt on the Internet for a suitable recipe. I found one on the River Cottage website which is from England and is all about less dependence on the outside world, food integrity, and the consumption of local, seasonal produce.

All the green tomatoes left on the deck

I have changed the recipe a little as I wanted more spices and I did not have enough raisins or malt vinegar, but any way this is what we did and it turned out beautifully. We made 4 times the recipe, but I have given the ingredients for the original quanaties.

Sunchokes or Jerusalem artichokes

A good friend from work who shares my passion for food came for dinner on Saturday. She hunted and gathered the  vegetables to go with roast pork that I was cooking At the winter market in Vancouver.  She came with the largest and most amazing sunchokes that I had ever seen.

I have cooked these before but not too often and have usually made soup with them.  I did a little research and found that these are indigenous to North America and were cultivated by the Native North Americans long before the Europeans arrived.  It is the root of a particular specious of sunflower.

We washed them and then cut up in to equal size pieces and boiled until they were tender. Then I mashed like a potato with a little butter and salt.

They have a distinct artichoke flavour, but we decided to serve them with 2/3 mashed sunchoke and 1/3 mashed German butter potatoes.

These were served along with roasted Brussels sprouts which had also been picked up at the winter market still attached to their stalk.

Roast pork - Plain and simple

In England all pork roasts come with the skin on, but here in North America it is a rare treat.  A well roasted pork with crackling is both a wonder to behold and treat to eat. This week I discovered that one of the butchers at Granville Island sold not only suckling pig! but loin roast with the skin on, so I had to get one.

You do not have to born in England to enjoy crackling, we shared this with a friend from work and her husband both of whom were born in Canada and we were fighting over the crackling. (in a very polite Canadian kind of way) There is I believe a misconception that you cook pork on high to get a good crackling.  Pork really benefits from a long slow cooking to keep it moist and tender. This is how I cooked this pork roast, and the meat was moist and flavourful, and the crackling was everything crackling should be.

I rubbed the whole roast with a healthy helping of salt then placed it on a bed of fresh sage.

Conveniently the butcher had scored the skin all over and tied up the roast so I was saved from doing this. I placed the pork in a 400 oven for 30 minutes and then turned down the heat to 325 for 2 and 1/2 hours. and this is how it came out.

Roasted Parsnips

Parsnips are a much underrated vegetable here in North America, I am not sure why, but at this time of year along with the potatoes, carrots, beets and other root vegetables they are the kings of the farmers markets. My favourite way to cook parsnips is the same as many other vegetables, roasted.

This is dead easy.  Peel and cut the parsnips in to equal sized pieces place in a roasting tin, drizzle over olive oil and grated Parmesan cheese.

Pot Roast plain and simple

Sometimes it is good to keep things simple, and on the weekend I got a cross rib roast from Hopcott's and I decided to cook it with my home canned tomato puree. As these were both really good flavourful ingredients I decided to keep it really simple and not add a lot in the way of herbs or spices.

So the ingredients list is short.

4lb pot roast
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon of hot pepper flakes
1 quart of home canned tomatoes (or a can of crushed tomatoes)
a handful of chopped parsley

Brown the beef on all sides in a large frying pan.

Then place it in a large casserole dish, or you could use a slow cooker. Then in the same frying pan that you browned the roast in saute the onion and garlic until soft and translucent.