Rutabaga with Bacon, Mushrooms, & Onions

Finally, we grew some successful rutabaga last summer. It generally hasn't done well for us, because as a member of the brassica family it doesn't like our soil much, our soil contains worms that do like rutabaga just fine, and I am pretty terrible at thinning at the time of year when  things should be thinned.

Is there any vegetable that doesn't go well with bacon, mushrooms, and onions? Maybe? None I can think of off the top of my head. So no new culinary ground is being broken here, but that's okay. Nothing wrong with the tried and true. If there is any difficulty with this dish, it's that it contains enough bacon to make it too rich to be your usual side dish, but not quite enough to be a main dish. It makes an excellent breakfast or brunch, along with some toast, or serve it with simply cooked lean fish or chicken and a green vegetable for a more substantial meal.

4 to 6 servings
1 hour prep time

450 grams (1 pound) rutabaga
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 medium onions
200 grams (1/2 pound) bacon
100 grams (1/4 pound) button mushrooms
freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/2 teaspoon sweet Hungarian paprika
1/4 teaspoon rubbed savory or thyme

Peel the rutabaga and cut it into 3/4" dice. Put them in a pot with water to cover, and the salt, and bring to a boil. Boil steadily for about 30 minutes, until tender.

Meanwhile, peel and chop the onions. Chop the bacon into bite-sized pieces. Clean, trim, and slice the mushrooms.

Cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium heat; it should cook quite slowly for about 10 to 15 minutes. Stir occasionally. If it renders more fat than will nicely coat the bottom of the pan, drain some of it off. After 10 or 15 minutes, when the bacon is about two-thirds cooked, add the chopped onions and the mushrooms. Continue cooking slowly, stirring regularly, for another 10 minutes or so, until the bacon is quite done and so are the onions and mushrooms. If things look like they are cooking too fast, reduce the heat as needed.

When the rutabaga is tender, drain it well and add it to the pan of bacon, etc. Mix and mash it in fairly coarsely, and season with the pepper, paprika, and savory. You may wish to add a little more salt, but contemplate the nature of your bacon first. Heat through, and transfer to the serving dish.







Last year at this time I made Curried Squash Soup.

Parsnip & Cheese Soufflé

Soufflés in general are not as difficult as their reputation would suggest; the hard part is getting your diners to the table before the inevitable collapse of your soufflé. Better to have people wait upon the soufflé, than to have the soufflé wait upon people.

This one was particularly easy to make, since so much of it can be done right in the cooking pot, and it deflated slowly, with dignity, and not excessively. And was very tasty, and well received!

Our parsnips were not great this year, as I they came up spottily and yet I did not thin them as required, so simultaneously sparse and crowded. However, the seeds must have blown around a bit, as I found several good ones growing in the bean bed when I cleaned it up, and a really magnificent one growing in the compost pile. A clue; but I already knew they like rich, moist soil. It's finding them some that is the trouble.

6 servings
1 hour 10 minutes - 40 minutes prep time

500 grams (1 pound) parsnips
100 grams (1/4 pound) peeled celeriac
200 grams (1/2 pound) Edam, Gouda, or Gruyere cheese
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons soft unbleached flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds, ground
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
4 large eggs
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

Clean, trim and slice the parsnips, about 1/2" thick. Peel and slice the celeriac to match. Put them in a fairly large (1 quart) pot with water to cover them - about 1 1/2 cups - and bring to a boil. Boil until tender, about 15 minutes.

While they cook, cut the cheese into fairly small dice. 

Drain the cooked vegetables, saving the cooking water and keeping them in the pot. Return the pot to the stove over medium heat, and add the butter and flour. Mix it in well, then add the salt, the cumin seeds ground, and the mustard. Add 1 cup of the vegetable cooking water, stirring it in well. Stir constantly until the mixture thickens slightly, then remove it from the heat and let it cool for about 5 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Butter a 1 to 1 1/2 quart fairly shallow baking pan.

Separate the eggs, adding the yolks to the pot of parsnips, etc, and the whites to a clean non-plastic mixing bowl. Mix the yolks into the the vegetables thoroughly. Mix in about 1/3 of the cheese cubes.

Add the cream of tartar to the egg whites, and beat them with an electric mixer until very stiff. Fold them gently into the vegetable mixture. When they are in, scrape it all into the prepared baking pan. Sprinkle the remaining cheese cubes evenly over the soufflé, poking them down just a little.

Bake the soufflé for about 30 minutes, until puffed and brown. Serve at once!

Dad's Barley & Cheese Meatloaf

I've done my Mom's Meatloaf; this one is from my Dad's recipe collection. I have adapted it a little. The original called for rice instead of barley, fewer seasonings, and didn't have any eggs in it. Even with the eggs, it's a bit delicate and crumbly, probably because of the barley. The barley is surprisingly unobtrusive though, and in my opinion makes the meatloaf very digestible and not too rich. The cheese is surprisingly subtle, but definitely adds to the appeal. Dad would definitely have put in the olives and I would have liked them, but I left them out here because Mr. Ferdzy is not a fan. You might want to scale back on the salt a little if you do add the olives.

It occurs to me that this mixture would be excellent used as a filling for cabbage rolls.  

8 servings
1 hour 45 minutes - 20 minutes prep time
not including cooking the barley

Cook the Barley:
1/2 cup raw pot barley
2 cups water
1/4 teaspoon salt

Put it all in the rice cooker; cook. Alternatively, it can be cooked in a pot on the top of the stove. Bring it to a boil, then reduce it to a very low simmer. It should take about 40 minutes. Either way, do this some time ahead (up to a day or two refrigerated) so that it is cool when you start.

Make the Meatloaf:
1 large onion
3 cloves of garlic
2 teaspoons mild vegetable oil
1 medium large carrot (1 1/2 cups grated, about)
100 grams (1/4 pound) old Cheddar cheese
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon rubbed oregano
1 teaspoon cumin seed
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
2 large eggs
1 cup tomato sauce
1/3 cup chopped green pimento olives (optional)
500 grams (1 pound 2 ounces) very lean ground beef
1/2 cup tomato sauce

Peel and chop the onion finely. Peel and mince the garlic. Heat the oil in a small skillet, and cook the onion until soft and translucent, about 10 minutes over fairly low heat. Add the garlic for the last couple minutes. Turn off the heat and let them cool. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

In a mixing bowl, put the at least partially cooled barley. Peel and grate the carrot, and add it to the barley, along with the onion and garlic once it is fairly cool as well. Dice the cheese and add it. Add the spices, grinding the cumin and peppercorns first. Add the eggs and tomato sauce, and the olives if you are using them. Mix well, until everything is evenly distributed and coated in the eggs.

Mix in the ground beef. I find this easiest to do by hand, mixing and squeezing to be sure everythin is well mixed. Pack the mixture into a 4" x 8" loaf pan, mounding it up over the top to make a nice loaf shape. Glaze it with the remaining tomato sauce.

Bake the meatloaf at 350°F for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes, until well set. Let rest for 15 minutes before serving.




Last year at this time I made Pasta "alla Pizza".

Beet, Carrot & Pineapple Salad

Pineapple! Not exactly local, but it gives zip and sweetness to the old familiar beets and carrots. So colourful and refreshing.

This is a very simple salad to make; all the simpler if you buy your pineapple already peeled and cored. I found this was best the day it was made; there was a little leftover, and it was good enough, but the ginger flavour had faded.

20 to 30 minutes prep time
PLUS 45 minutes to cook the beets
6 to 8 servings

3 medium beets (450 grams; 1 pound)
1 medium-large carrot
1/2 of a fresh pineapple
1 teaspoon finely grated fresh peeled ginger
3 tablespoons hazelnut, almond, or walnut oil
salt & freshly ground black pepper to taste

Put the beets in a pot with water to cover by at least an inch, and bring them to a boil. Boil steadily for 40 to 45 minutes, until tender. Allow them to cool. Best to do this a day ahead.

Peel and grate the cooked beets quite finely; there should be about 2 cups. Put them in a bowl. Peel and grate the carrot in the same way, and add it. Peel, core, and chop the pineapple quite finely, and add it along with any accumulated juice. Peel and mince the ginger and add it.

Drizzle over the hazelnut oil, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Toss well. Serve chilled.




Last year at this time I made Lamb Chops with Coffee Gravy.

Bubble & Squeak

As I made this, I reflected that it is not the easiest thing to make, and requires a somewhat experienced cook for it to turn out well. It's been a while since I have made this, or any other fried leftover potato hashy dish, so mine was not quite as perfect as I would have liked, although it was good enough.

This is traditionally a dish of leftovers. The potatoes and cabbage are obvious, but you will also need some bacon fat saved from previous bacon cookery. But you do that, don't you? After all, unless you bought really crappy bacon or found one heck of a sale, you paid at least $6 per pound for that bacon fat; you might as well use it. It also makes fried potato dishes so much better than frying them in some anonymous vegetable oil. Keep it in a jam jar in the fridge. When you have one full enough to be using to cook, start a second to avoid the phenomenon of having the bottom inch of bacon fat sit around for years.

So what makes this dish so tricky? Partly it's that the ingredients are so fluid. How much fat, salt, and moisture are in your potatoes already? Some, I would imagine. At least. You will need to take those into consideration when judging how much to add.

I further find that you must put in enough bacon fat at the start of cooking them that your potatoes aren't sticking, but avoid putting in so much that as the water cooks out of them and they shrink down, they don't revert to oozing with grease. On the other hand if you have not added enough, you will know it as your potatoes will scorch and turn black instead of a nice rich brown. You also need to know about things like wringing out your cabbage. But much of this is hard to describe and relies on experience to recognize. And of course, you will adjust your cooking times according to whether you are someone who likes your potatoes just lightly browned, or if, like me, you figure the more crunchy brown bits the better, right up to the point that it is actually burnt.

Cooking the bacon separately seems finicky and pointless, but in my experience (and cast iron pans) cooking the bacon then using the same pan to cook other things in only leads to welded-on, unevenly cooked messes. Your pan may vary, of course. But to me it's better to clean 2 easy pans than 1 horrific one.

4 servings
45 minutes prep time not including pre-cooking the vegetables

1 large onion
1 clove of garlic
2 to 4 tablespoons bacon fat
4 cups leftover mashed potatoes
2 to 4 cups leftover cooked cabbage, Brussels sprouts, or kale
4 to 6 slices bacon

Peel and chop the onion. Peel and mince the garlic.

Heat the bacon fat in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add the onion, and cook until softened and translucent, then stir in the garlic. Crumble in the leftover mashed potatoes, and mix. Let cook for a few minutes, then turn and mix them about, scraping up any browned bits, and let cook again.

Chop the bacon into bite-sized pieces, and cook them separately in another skillet, again over medium heat. When they are fairly crisp, remove them from the pan and set aside. Add (some of) the fat from them to the pan of potatoes, if it seems they need it, or add it to your store of bacon fat.

When the potatoes and onions have cooked for a bit and are starting to accumulate a reasonable amount of crisped brown bits throughout, add the cooked cabbage or other vegetable, and the cooked bacon pieces. Before you do so, squeeze the cabbage to remove as much moisture as you can, and chop it if it is too coarse. Mix well. Press the mixture into the pan fairly firmly and evenly, and leave it to cook undisturbed for about 5 minutes. Turn it, as carefully as you can and patching it together if necessary, press down again, and cook the other side for about 5 minutes as well. Loosen the Bubble and Squeak, and turn it out onto a serving plate. 





Last year at this time I made Tartar Sauce.

Red Cabbage with Cranberries & Lemon

I don't know why red cabbage so often ends up with sweet and sour flavours - well, yeah; they go so well, but surely other things do too - and here they are, yet again. Nice, though.

By now, when I say "fresh cranberries" I expect them to be frozen. That's fine. I just didn't mean the dried ones, although I bet you could, if you omitted the honey and added a little more liquid.

This is nice and zingy and like most sweet-sour braised red cabbage dishes is the ideal accompaniment for rather rich meats, like duck, turkey, or pork, although it will taste just fine with chicken or fish. These are smaller servings than I usually do of vegetables, but it's a bit richer and more intensely flavoured than most of my vegetable dishes as well. 

6 servings
30 minutes prep time

3 or 4 medium shallots
3 cups finely shredded red cabbage
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup water or apple cider
1/4 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
the juice of 1 lemon
1 cup fresh cranberries
2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon fennel seed
1/4 teaspoon black peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon salt

Peel and slice the shallots thinly. Clean and shred the cabbage.

Heat the butter and water in a mid-sized skillet over medium heat. Add the shallots and cabbage, and cook slowly, stirring regularly, for about 20 to 25 minutes. Meanwhile, add the other ingredients as you prepare them; first the lemon zest and juice, then the cranberries and honey, then the fennel seed and black peppercorns ground together with the salt.

When the cranberries are all popped and cooked down, along with the cabbage and shallots, and the liquid is mostly evaporated or absorbed, remove the cabbage to a serving dish. 




Huh. Last year at this time I made Quick 'n' Dirty Pan-Braised (Green) Cabbage. And served it in the same dish... I'm so predictable, what can I say?

Gluten-Free Pan-Fried Chicken Fingers

Well, these are your pretty basic chicken fingers, although I like the combination of quinoa flour and chick pea flour as being a little different from the usual. It makes the coating more robust, and also gluten-free, which may or may not be handy. I have to admit my use of these flours is because they have been sitting in the cupboard for a while and I thought they had better be eaten. They gave the coating a rich, nutty flavour that we enjoyed.

In spite of all the fiddling around, this does not really take much longer than just slapping your chicken breasts in a pan and cooking them, because they cook so quickly when cut in fingers.

4 servings
20 minutes prep time

2 large skinless boneless chicken breasts (600 grams; 1 1/4 pounds)
1/3 cup buttermilk or yogurt
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1/2 cup quinoa flour
1/2 cup chick pea flour
1 1/2 teaspoons sweet Hungarian paprika
freshly ground black pepper to taste
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon rubbed savory
1/2 cup mild vegetable oil to fry

Lay a chicken breast out flat on the cutting board, and cut it into 1/2" wide strips. The longest bits from the middle should be cut across in half to make 2 pieces. Put them in a small bowl with the buttermilk and 1/4 teaspoon salt, and let marinate for up to several hours in the fridge.

You can continue right away though. Break the eggs into a deep plate or shallow bowl, and whisk them well. Mix the flour and seasonings in a similar plate or bowl. Heat the oil in a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat.

As it heats, lift the pieces of chicken out of the buttermilk, a few at a time, and dip them first in the egg and then in the flour. Repeat dipping them in the egg again, and the flour a second time, then place them in the now-hot oil in the skillet. Continue with the remaining chicken until it is all in the skillet. Keep an eye on the cooking chicken pieces while you are coating the remaining ones - they cook very quickly and will need to be turned after just a few minutes. The coating should be a nice dark (but not too dark!) brown. Remove the finished chicken fingers as they are done to a platter or - better - a wire rack lined with paper towel. In theory you can keep them warm in a 200°F oven as you work, but they cook so quickly it does not seem worth the trouble to me.




Last year at this time I made Beet & Potato Salad.

Leeks & Mushrooms in Saffron Cream

Here is a very simple but rather luxurious dish, and for those of us who love saffron, a real treat. I would say it goes best with simply cooked chicken or fish, but it would certainly work with beef or lamb, or as part of a series of vegetarian dishes... very flexible, in other words.

I didn't throw in a clove of garlic, but you could; you certainly could.

6 servings
30 minutes prep time

3 medium leeks
250 grams (1/2 pound) button or other mushrooms
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2/3 cup 10% cream
1/4 teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/8 teaspoon saffron strands
1 tablespoon flour

Trim the leeks, and cut them in half lengthwise. Cut into 1/2" slices the other way. Put them in a strainer and rinse and drain them well. Clean the mushrooms and cut them into quarters.

Heat the butter over medium heat in a large skillet. Add the dry leeks, and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes, until quite soft but not browned. Reduce the heat if it looks like they might!

Add the mushrooms, and continue cooking, stirring a bit more frequently, until the mushrooms too soften and look cooked to your liking. You may wish to increase the heat slightly when you add them - they do cool down the pan considerably.

Meanwhile, measure the cream and add the salt, pepper, and saffron, rubbed firmly through your fingers, to it. Set it to the back of the stove to warm slightly, or put it in the microwave for 20 seconds or so.

When the leeks and mushrooms are done to your liking, sprinkle the flour over them and mix it in well, and let it cook for a minute. Slowly stir in the seasoned cream. When it is well mixed in and starting to thicken, remove the leeks and mushrooms to a serving dish at once - it will continue to thicken slightly in the dish. 

Cabbage with Pepitas

When it comes to fresh green winter vegetables, cabbage is pretty much it around here. So this is the kind of idea that I love to have: simple, quick, and yet a blend of flavours and textures that are just right. Indeed, this really made us sit up and take notice, and that's a great thing to be able to say about something that was on the table in 20 minutes.

4 servings
20 minutes prep time

1/4 cup raw unsalted pepitas (green pumpkin seeds)
4 cups finely shredded green cabbage
2 teaspoons butter
1 tablespoon tamari or strong soy sauce

Heat a heavy skillet over medium heat, and toast the pepitas, stirring frequently, until they are lightly toasted. They may be inclined to "pop" and jump around a bit. Once they are done, turn them out onto a plate to cool.

Wash, drain, and shred the cabbage. Put it in a pot with a little water and cook it until done to your liking. Drain it thoroughly, and return it to the pot with the butter and tamari, and cook for another minute or so until they are both well absorbed into the cabbage. Mix in half the toasted pepitas, and turn the cabbage out into a serving dish. Sprinkle the remaining pepitas over it. Serve at once.




Last year at this time I made Mushrooms on Toast.

Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

Quantities given are per sweet potato; you can do as many as you like, obviously.

These are a little funny - they don't seem quite substantial enough to be a meal in their own right, but they are too much to be just a side dish, although I suppose you could. What I think they need to go with them is some soup, or you could use them as a fairly substantial first course.

I have to admit these are pretty much Stuffed Baked Potatoes, but it's surprising how different the use of sweet potatoes makes them. In spite of the length of time (mostly going towards getting the sweet potatoes baked) these are an easy, low-effort dish.

1 or 2 servings (per sweet potato)
1 hour 30 minutes; 15 minutes prep time

1 large sweet potato (300 grams; 10 to 12 ounces)
1 slice of onion or a small shallot
2 or 3 button mushrooms
1 or 2 slices of bacon
OR 1/2 of a raw sausage
1 teaspoon mild vegetable oil
30 grams (1 ounce) old Cheddar cheese
salt & pepper to taste
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon savory

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Rub the sweet potatoes lightly with oil, and prick in several places with a fork. Bake for 45 minutes, until quite soft.

Meanwhile, peel and chop the onion or shallot fairly finely. Clean and chop the mushrooms. Cut the bacon or sausage into small pieces.

Heat the oil in a small skillet. Or, if your bacon or sausage is rather fatty, render it in the pan instead of using the oil, then add the onion or shallot, and mushrooms. Cook all together, stirring frequently, until everything is softened and cooked down. When it is, remove the pan from the heat and leave to cool a bit. This really shouldn't be done  until about 15 minutes before the sweet potatoes are baked.

When the sweet potatos are baked, remove them from the oven but leave it on. Holding them with a pot holder or tea towel, cut each sweet potato in half lengthwise. Scoop out the flesh to 1/4" of the skin, and mash it coarsely. Add it to the pan of onions, mushrooms, and sausage or bacon, and mix well. Dice the cheese and mix it in, along with the seasonings. Divide the filling evenly between the sweet potato halves, mounding it up neatly.

Return the sweet potatoes to the oven for another 20 minutes or so. Serve when the potatoes are hot through and the cheese is bubbling.

Celeriac Dip

We got another very good celeriac crop this year, and one of them did very well made into this dip. We served it cold the first time, and then grated a little more cheese over the top of the leftovers, broiled it, and served it warm the second time. Good both times!

Celeriac is pretty subtle; I don't know that I would pay the ridiculous price that grocery stores charge for celeriac to make this. If you can grow it yourself or get it at a farmers market where prices are reasonable, however, it's well worthwhile.

2 cups - 8 to 12 servings
1 hour - 20 minutes prep time

2 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon unsalted butter
1/2 cup mayonnaise (light is fine)
140 grams (4 ounces) chevre
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
the finely grated zest of 1/4 lemon
the juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 teaspoon cumin seed, ground
1/4 teaspoon celery seed, ground
2 cups peeled and finely grated celeriac

Peel and mince the garlic, and cook it gently in the butter in a very small skillet over medium heat until the garlic is cooked and fragrant but not browned. Turn it out into a food processor at once.

Add the mayonnaise, chevre, mustard, lemon zest and juice, Parmesan cheese, and the seasonings, first grinding the cumin and celery seed. Pulse to blend.

Peel and grate the celeriac, then add it to the food processor. Blend again, until well blended but still with texture.

Pack the dip into a serving bowl, cover, and refrigerate for 30 to 45 minutes to allow the flavours to blend. Serve with crackers or crudités.




Last year at this time I made Brussels Sprouts & Carrot Copper Coin Salad.

Signing Off for the Holidays

Probably a little earlier than usual. However, Dad died earlier this week so I am quite busy at the moment. I am a little embarrassed about how calm and accepting I have been about the whole thing so far, but the last few months of his life were so truly dreadful  that it became really clear that death is not the worst thing that can happen to a person.

I'll be back sometime in January, not sure exactly when. In the meantime I hope everyone has the holidays that are all they could wish for. See you when the days are getting longer!