Tea Whizz

These are great drinks for a hot day. Lighter and simpler than smoothies; they are very refreshing. They're quick to make, but you do have to remember to make the tea ahead of time.

I find there is a bit of an art to matching the right tea to the right fruit. I like an apple-cinnamon tea with peaches or apricots, and a fruity tea with raspberries. Blueberries would be good with an anise or licorice based tea. I don't generally add sugar to peach and apricot tea whizzes, but raspberries are more acidic and I find a little bit necessary. These may separate as they sit, but a quick stir will fix that.

2 tea whizzes
12 hours - to make the tea and freeze the fruit in advance. Then 5 minutes to whizz.




1 1/2 cups frozen fruit, about
3 cups cold herbal tea
sugar to taste

Put the frozen fruit in a blender with about half the tea. Blend until fairly smooth. Add the remaining tea and blend again. Taste, and blend in a little sugar if you think it needs it. If you have used raspberries, you should strain or decant the tea to remove most of the seeds.




Last year at this time I made Raspberry & Peach Sorbet.

Roasted Green Beans

Beans are very good this way; succulent and flavourful.

2 servings
30 minutes - 10 minutes prep time


2/3 of a quart basket of green beans*
2 tablespoons sunflower seed oil
sea salt
black peppercorns, crushed
1/2 teaspoon crushed red chiles (optional)

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Wash the green beans and trim off the ends. Put them in a baking dish. Toss them with the oil, and spread them out in a single layer, pretty much. Season them with the sea salt, black pepper and crushed chiles, if you are so inclined.

Roast the beans for 20 minutes, until tender and showing a few brown flakey spots. Serve hot.



* or, really, whatever quantity you think you are going to eat.



Last year at this time, it was Zucchini & Tomatoes Sautéed with Garlic, and Eggs with Tomatoes, Chinese Style.

Worst. Poet. Ever.

And he's ours, all ours, in spite of his having been born in Scotland. Well, he may be tied with William McGonagall - another Scot, hmm, verrrry suspicious - but James McIntyre emigrated to Ontario at the age of 14, and died in Ingersoll at the ripe old age of 79. In between times he was a farm hand, undertaker, cabinet maker, upstanding citizen and civic adornment to the town of Ingersoll, husband to 3 wives (sequentially, I hasten to point out) and famous Ontario cheese poet. Yes, I said cheese poet. You know; he wrote poems about cheese. It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

And he did it... um, hilariously. He had no intention of being hilarious. He was plainly quite deadly earnest, which only makes it all the better, or is that worse? His most famous opus is his Ode on the Mammoth Cheese Weighing over 7,000 Pounds - one of the great classics of cheese poetry - but I thought I would share one of his less well-known works today. I have noticed that there is something of an artisanal cheese-making renaissance happening in Ontario at the moment, and proffer this work in the hopes that it may still be useful to those who would make cheese in Ontario.




Dairy Ode

Our muse it doth refuse to sing
Of cheese made early in the spring,
When cows give milk from spring fodder
You cannot make a good cheddar.

The quality is often vile
Of cheese that is made in April,
Therefore we think for that reason
You should make later in the season.

Cheese making you should delay
Until about the first of May.
Then cows do feed on grassy field
And rich milk they abundant yield.

Ontario cannot compete
With the Northwest in raising wheat,
For cheaper there they it can grow
So price in future may be low.

Though this a hardship it may seem,
Rejoice that you have got the cream,
In this land of milk and honey,
Where dairy farmers do make money.

Utensils must be clean and sweet,
So cheese with first class can compete,
And daily polish up milk pans,
Take pains with vats and with milk cans.

And it is important matter
To allow no stagnant water,
But water from pure well or stream
The cow must drink to give pure cream.

Canadian breeds 'tis best to pair
With breeds from the shire of Ayr,
They thrive on our Canadian feed
And are for milking splendid breed.

Though 'gainst spring cheese some do mutter,
Yet spring milk also makes bad butter,
Then there doth arise the query
How to utilize it in the dairy.

The milk it floats in great spring flood
Though it is not so rich and good,
Let us be thankful for this stream
Of milk and also curds and cream.

All dairymen their highest aims
Should be to make the vale of Thames,
Where milk doth so abundant flow,
Dairyland of Ontario.

James McIntyre





Last year at this time, I made Sautéed Corn with Bacon, Peppers & Green Onion.

Turkish Zucchini Pancakes (Mucver)

Damn, we loved these little darlings. Lordy, but they were good. I'd seen variations of the recipe around a few places in the last few years and I'm so sorry I didn't try them until now.

I made them bigger than they are supposed to be - I only got 7 - but they worked fine. It was what we ate for supper, so it's not like it mattered how many there were. However, I think they are generally supposed to be an appetizer type thing, in which case making them smaller would be a good thing. Although I highly recommend just making a heap of them and chowing down. Did I mention that they're really good?

I want to try these with chick pea flour, which would allow me to serve them to my friends with wheat allergies. I think they might be a little heavier, but I think it would work. If anyone tries this, please let me know!

14 pancakes
45 minutes - all spent working, sorry


450 grams (1 pound) zucchini (1 large or 2 medium)
2 to 4 green onions, minced
1/3 cup minced fresh dillweed
1/3 cup minced fresh parsley
2 tablespoons minced fresh basil and/or mint
salt and pepper
4 extra-large eggs
1/2 cup soft unbleached flour
150 grams feta cheese
1/4 cup sunflower seed oil

Wash and grate the zucchini. Put it in a colander in layers, sprinkling salt between each layer. Set it aside to drain as you prepare the remaining ingredients.

Wash, trim and mince the green onions, the dill, parsley, basil and/or mint. Put them in a large mixing bowl, and season with the salt and pepper. Beat in the eggs.

Rinse the zucchini and drain well. Then, take it by handfuls and squeeze it thoroughly, into a little ball, being sure to get out as much moisture as possible. Once each handful of zucchini is squeezed dry, add it to the herbs and eggs. It is really important to do this; they will cook much more quickly and evenly. When the zucchini is all in, mix in the flour and the feta cheese, crumbled.

The batter can be made ahead, kept refrigerated and covered until wanted (the same day.)

Heat the oil in a large skillet, or better, 2 large skillets, over medium heat. Preheat the oven to 300°F. Use a 1/4 cup* measuring spoon to scoop out the batter. Place them in the hot oil, then press down to form neat 1/2" thick pancakes with the pancake lifter. They will cook fairly quickly, about 5 minutes per side. They should be a good dark golden brown. As they cook, put them on a plate padded with paper towel in the oven to keep warm. Serve them hot, with yogurt or light sour cream with garlic mixed into it if you like.


* I used a half cup measuring spoon, which is why I got seven.



Last year at this time, I made Chicken Stuffed with Basil, Dried Tomatoes & Goat Cheese.

Blueberry Buttermilk Coffee Cake

Mmm, nice! Not too sweet, but moist and full of berries. I threw in some raspberries because I bought them on impulse as the last of the season at the market, and they did not look like they would keep well.

Blueberries are notorious for sinking to the bottom of whatever baked goods they are put in; the method in the recipe for flouring them and adding them to the batter in two parts helps keep them dispersed throughout the cake. I also used a pastry flour that was about halfway between white flour and wholewheat flour. I don't generally like cakes and breads made with white flour any more. Once you have gotten used to whole wheat flour, products made with white flour seem pasty or chalky.

8 servings
1 hour - 15 minutes prep time



1/4 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
2 extra-large eggs
the grated zest of 1/2 lemon

2 1/4 cups soft unbleached or whole wheat (pastry) flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup buttermilk
2 to 3 cups fresh blueberries
2 tablespoons flour

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter and flour a 9" x 9" baking dish. Wash and pick over the blueberries, and drain them well.

Cream the butter in a large mixing bowl. Beat in the sugar and the eggs, one at a time. Beat in the lemon zest.

In another bowl, mix the flour, baking powder and salt.

Measure out the buttermilk. Toss the blueberries with the two tablespoons of flour.

Beat half the flour into the butter and egg mixture, then half the buttermilk. Repeat with the remaining flour and buttermilk. Gently fold in half the blueberries. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan, and spread it evenly into the corners. Sprinkle the remaining blueberries evenly over the batter, and press them down gently until they are level with the batter.

Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, until it passes the ol' toothpick test. You could also bake it as a loaf cake, in which case be prepared for it to take an hour and a quarter to bake. I doubled the recipe, and baked it in a 9" x 13" pan, and it took an hour pretty much exactly to bake.

Spinach, Apricot & Feta Salad

Another salad with fruit and cheese. I do like the combo and it makes a great light meal. As such, we ate it all ourselves, but it would probably make up to 6 side-salads.

Apricots are probably one of my favourite fruits, but they are around for such a short time. Put them in everything while you can! In retrospect, this would have been even better with a handful of dried cranberries and chopped nuts added.

2 to 6 servings
20 minutes prep time


Salad:
8 cups fresh young spinach
12 to 16 small fresh ripe apricots
150 grams (1/3 pound) feta cheese

Clean the spinach carefully - soak it in cold water, then pick it over, discarding any tough stems or damaged leaves. If the leaves are large, tear them up a bit. Dry them in a salad spinner.

Arrange the lettuce in the serving bowl or bowls, and arrange the washed and chopped apricots and crumbled feta cheese over it. Drizzle the salad dressing over the salad. That's it; you're done.

Dressing:
1/4 cup hazelnut or walnut oil
1/4 cup raspberry or other fruit vinegar
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
salt & pepper
1/16 teaspoon cayenne

Put the above in a jar and shake, or whisk together.

Cold Spinach with Miso & Tahini Dressing

I love spinach, but it's a bit of a bummer how much it shrinks down. You are looking at the mortal remains of 2 quarts of spinach in the photo there - and we licked our chops and looked around for more when we were done with it. This is a very tasty Korean-style dish that we first had in a local restaurant, and found it very easy to duplicate at home.

2 servings
15 minutes prep time


2 quarts (8 cups) raw spinach

1 teaspoon light miso
1 teaspoon tahini
1 tablespoon water

Wash the spinach in plenty of cold water. Drain it and pick it over, removing any damaged leaves and tough stems. Wash it again and drain it well.

Steam the spinach in any residual water left on it from washing. As soon as it is wilted, remove it to a strainer and rinse it in cold water until it is cool. Squeeze it well to dry it. Chop the spinach.

Meanwhile, mix the miso, tahini and water in a mixing bowl. When the spinach is cooled and chopped, stir it into the dressing. Serve at room temperature or slightly chilled.

Frozen Yogurt, No Ice-Cream Maker Required

The best way to eat yogurt! I've never wanted to store an ice-cream maker, on top of all my other kitchen gadgets, in my quite small kitchen. A food processer does a perfectly respectable job for frozen yogurt. It's a little more dense than you would get from an ice-cream maker, but very smooth and tasty.

6 servings
20 minutes prep time in 2 stages, plus freezing time


1 1/2 cups plain nonfat or low fat yogurt
2 cups frozen blueberries, strawberries or other fruit in small pieces
the juice of 1/2 lemon
3 tablespoons blueberry, strawberry or other complementary jam
1-4 tablespoons sugar

Prepare the yogurt by putting it into ice-cube trays to freeze. Prepare the fruit by cleaning it and cutting it in small pieces (unless it's berries) and laying them in a single layer on a tray to be frozen. You can also use frozen fruit to start with, of course.

To make the frozen yogurt, put the yogurt cubes, fruit, lemon juice and jam into a food processor. Process until very smooth and well blended; this will take several minutes. Taste the mixture and add sugar as you see fit. Process again until well blended.

The frozen yogurt can be returned to the freezer until serving time; if that is not shortly, you may need to temper it by putting it in the fridge for a short time until it becomes scoopable again. You can certainly put it into a sealed tub and keep it in the freezer for a week or two.

Danish Celeriac Salad

In our house, we say that everything is better with bacon, unless it's better with whipped cream. There are also a few select dishes, generally Danish, which are better with both. This, I think, could be one of those recipes. I keep picturing it with bacon bits... On a more healthy note, I think it would also be nice with a couple tablespoons of minced parsley or finely grated carrot for a little colour. On the other hand, the classic recipe is just fine too.

You may note that the dressing is easily scaled per cup of grated celeriac, although I suspect that much less than the 3 tablespoons called for would be very hard to beat stiff. I used light mayonnaise, pointless as that may have been, just because that's what was in my fridge.

3 to 4 servings
20 minutes prep time


3 tablespoons whipping cream
3 tablespoons mayonnaise
3/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard
salt & pepper
3 cups grated celeriac
3 or 4 lettuce leaves (optional)

Peel and grate the celeriac. If it seems tough, you may wish to blanch it briefly by putting it in a colander and pouring boiling water over it. Drain well. If it is new and tender, which it should be at this time of year, it can be left raw.

Put the whipping cream in a small salad bowl, and beat it until stiff. Beat in the mayonnaise and the mustard briefly. Season with a little salt and pepper, then fold in the dry, grated celeriac. Serve chilled, over lettuce leaves if you like.

Yes, but the Clutter

from "Vagabond's House"

When I have my house I will suit myself
And have what I'll call my "condiment shelf"
Filled with all manner of herbs and spice,
Curry and chutney for meats and rice,
Pots and bottles of extracts rare -
Onions and garlic will both be there -
And soya and saffron and savory goo
And stuff that I'll buy from an old Hindu.
Ginger and syrup in quaint stone jars,
Almonds and figs in tinseled bars,
Astrakhan caviar, highly prized,
And citron and orange peel crystallized,
Anchovy paste and poha jam,
Basil and chili and marjoram,
Pickles and cheeses from every land,
And flavours that come from Samarkand;
And hung with a string from a handy hook
Will be a dog-eared, well-thumbed book
That is pasted full of recipes
From France and Spain and the Caribees -
Roots and leaves and herbs to use
For curious soups and old ragouts.

Don Blanding

Well, here is (part of) a poem that is snare and a rebuke to the would-be shop-at-home cook. And yet, this poem, first published in 1928 and meant as a kind of unattainable fantasy, now merely describes the standard contents of a North American fridge and pantry. And as I begin to clear mine out in advance of our move next month, I find that I am very typical; very typical indeed.

In the fridge vegetables and fruit get two shelves, then there are the eggs and milk and a plastic tub with cheese and meat. The rest is a forest of jars, bottles and packets, consumed at a snail's pace in dribs and drabs. Yes, I've bottled quite a lot of it myself: the ketchup (tomato and red currant), the various jams and jellies, the pickles and chutneys. But on top of that there's the mayo and mustard, the horseradish and steak sauce, the roasted hazelnut oil, the mint sauce, the tamarind paste and apple butter, and on and on and on. (No caviar, I'm sorry to say, although I did discover a tiny bottle of white truffle oil that I bought on a whim for $18 and have never used.

! )

The wasteful and ridiculous excess continues in the cupboards. Pasta, canned beans and tuna, okay. But then there's the wheat-free buckwheat noodles (six bucks for a little box! Too expensive to actually eat!) the tapioca noodles, the rice noodles, the bean thread noodles, and the rice paper wrappers. Rosewater, vanilla, almond extract, glycerin (glycerin?) cornstarch, arrowroot, dried shiitakes, three kinds of sea-weed, four kinds of sugar and four kinds of rice. (The flours all get a tub of their own in the freezer.) An entire shelf dedicated to salt, pepper and capsicum products; other spices on another shelf. Dry beans, lentils and barley; all good. But also four tetrapacks of coconut milk, a box of black tapioca (for bubble tea, never made although the minute tapioca and tapioca starch get used somewhat regularly,) hazelnut and sunflower seed butters, white and dark baking chocolate, Ovaltine, and about 20 different kinds of tea; loose and bagged, herbal, green and black. There's more, of course, but you start to get the picture.

I am a hoarder. It is true. Food, uh, issues do run in the family. My father is the son of a woman who was nursed until she was six and suffered from rickets because there was so little food to wean her to, and he was brought up during the depression. These things do echo down the generations. I'm not happy unless there is enough food in the house to withstand a three month seige. But this is ridiculous.

So as usual I resolve that when we move, I am going to pare all this stuff down. There is no sense in having stuff sit in the shelves for years getting stale. We're going to start a new regime, where regularly-used items are bought regularly, in small amounts. Unusual items will be purchase in even smaller amounts, as required by a planned menu.

But you'll have to pry the chipped licorice root, agar-agar, eleven kinds of vinegar, and Iranian saffron out of my cold, dead hands.

Potato & Green Bean Salad

Here's a slightly different potato salad; no mayonnaise and lots of herbs. I'm saying 6 servings, but that would be as a side dish. We tend to eat it all ourselves, as our complete meal.

6 servings
45 minutes - 25 minutes prep time


Salad:
6 cups baby red-skinned potatoes
1 1/2 cups yellow wax beans
1 1/2 cups green beans

1/2 cup minced parsley
2-4 green onions, minced
2 tablespoons to 1/4 cup minced fresh dill or basil

Wash and trim the potatoes, and cut them in half if they are larger, or leave them whole; the final result should be fairly uniform in size. Put them in a pot with water to cover and bring to a boil. Boil for 15 to 20 minutes, until tender.

Meanwhile, wash, trim and cut the beans into bite-sized pieces. Add them to the potatoes about 5 minutes before the potatoes are done.

Make the salad dressing in the salad bowl. Prepare the parsley, green onions and dill or basil, but keep them separate at this point.

When the potatoes and beans are done, drain them and rinse them briefly in cold water. Drain well and toss them with the salad dressing. Let them sit for 10 minutes or so, to soak up the dressing and cool down. Now mix in the chopped herbs. Serve at room temperature.

Dressing:
1/4 cup sunflower seed oil
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns, ground
1 teaspoon sweet Hungarian paprika

Whisk the dressing ingredients together in a large salad bowl.

Jerk Burgers

I didn't actually make these this week, as my crazy times continue, so I pulled this photo from my archive. I sure wish I could have had one though! Would have been great, sitting outside with a burger, some salad and some grilled corn. Soon, maybe...

4 servings
40 minutes - 20 minutes prep time



Spice Mixture:
2 teaspoons allspice berries
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper

Toast the allspice berries in a dry skillet until fragrant and lightly browned. Grind them with the black peppercorns, and mix all the seasonings together in a large bowl.


To Make the Burgers:
1 clove garlic
1/4 cup minced chives
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 lb ground turkey or lean ground pork
1 egg
1 cup fresh breadcrumbs

By fresh breadcrumbs I mean crumbs you make yourself with stale bread, just not those dusty floorsweepings you can buy in a tub.

Peel and mince the garlic, and mince the chives. Add them to the seasonings with the vinegar, meat, egg and breadcrumbs. Mix well - I find it much the easiest to do it with my hands. Divide the mixture into 4 equal parts, and form them into patties.

Fry or broil them on both sides over medium heat until done (the juices will be clear if you poke them.) The exact time will depend on which meat you use and how thick you make the patties. Turkey will cook quicker than the pork, and be sure not to overcook it or it will be dry.




Last year at this time, I made Hilda's Summer Borscht - a family favourite of my sweetie.