Walnut Pasta Squared

What follows are two recipes for pasta with walnuts. The first has an olive-oil based sauce, the second sauce is cream-based. I actually made a variation on these recipes today by using Farfalle pasta with the walnut-garlic-rosemary-cream-based sauce and omitting cheese altogether. 

Walnut Farfalle

I happen to like bow-tie pasta, also known as Farfalle. You don't have to use Farfalle but it's best to use some form of short pasta for this recipe.

Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup of walnuts, very finely chopped or whizzed in a blender or pounded with a mortar and pestle
- 1 clove garlic, finely minced
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 3 tablespoons marjoram, chopped
- 3 tablespoons parsley, chopped
- 1/2 cup pecorino Romano, grated
- salt & pepper to taste
- 1 pound of short pasta

Instructions:
Start by heating a large pot of salted water. In the meantime, toast the walnuts in a 350F degree oven until they are golden, 8-10 minutes. Place the garlic and salt in a mortar and pestle, and pound everything to a fine paste. Add the walnuts to the mortar and pestle and pound, again into a paste. Alternately, you can do this in a food processor or just chop everything finely by hand as I did.  What's a little tendinitis, here and there.

Transfer the nut mixture to a bowl. Stir in the olive oil, then add most of the herbs. Stir in the pecorino, taste, and adjust the seasoning. Essentially, you have made a pesto with walnuts.

Cook the pasta al dente. Drain and reserve a big cup of the pasta water. Toss the walnut pesto with the pasta, and thin out the sauce with the reserved water as necessary. Serves 6.

Walnut Linguine

This is another delicious recipe that uses toasted walnuts with pasta. I had it tucked away in my recipe binder. I actually prefer it to the one posted above. Could it be the cream?

Ingredients:
- about 1 cup of finely chopped toasted walnuts
- 2 tablespoons of butter
- 2 cloves of garlic, finely minced
- 1 and 1/2 cups of heavy cream (35% B.F.)
- 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh rosemary leaves
- 1 lb of linguine (450 gm)
- 1/4 cup of finely grated Parmesan
- salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
Sauté garlic in the butter, then add the nuts, cream and rosemary over a medium low heat until the sauce is slightly thickened. In the meantime, boil a large pot of salted water and cook the pasta. Drain the pasta and combine with the cream sauce. Add the Parmesan cheese and mix well. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Roasted Baby Roots with Sherry-Shallot Vinaigrette, from the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook

The salad that I made for friends today was a slight variation of a recipe in Deb Perelman's Smitten Kitchen cookbook. Basically, I left out the quinoa that she put in. By the way, it was the first time I had tried roasting radishes....and hey, they're not just for raw veggie trays anymore.



I served this dish at room temperature but suspect it equally good if served warm or cold.



Ingredients:
- 3 small shallots
- olive oil
- 1 and 1/2 pounds of mixed root vegetables ( I use baby turnips, radishes, potatoes and carrots)
- juice of 1/2 lemon
- coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

For the vinaigrette:
- 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
- 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar plus more for finishing
- 2 big pinches of coarse salt
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- pepper

Instructions:
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.

Peel the shallots and separate the cloves. Place the shallots in a square of aluminum foil, coat with olive oil, then wrap the foil around the cloves to create a packet and place it in the oven.

Arrange the rest of the vegetables in one layer on a baking sheet and coat them with olive oil. Squeeze lemon juice over the vegetables and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Place the vegetables into the oven with the packet of shallots and roast until tender and slightly caramelized. (Perhaps 30 minutes). 

Remove the vegetables from the oven and set aside. Toss the cooked shallots into a blender along with the sherry and balsamic vinegars and salt and pepper. Drizzle in the olive oil and blend thoroughly. Adjust the seasonings to taste, then spoon the vinaigrette over the vegetables. I 'finished' the dish before serving with some drops of reduced balsamic vinegar. 

Getting carried away by Cinderella's Pumpkin

I first posted the following story several years ago. It's a tale of seasonal woe so I thought it reasonable to re-post it as we enjoy Canadian autumn. FYI: So far this year I've only purchased two (rather large) pumpkins.

Getting Carried Away.... 

My friend Suzie was visiting this past weekend, so I took her to see our colourful local market with its abundance of fall produce. Rejoicing over the bounty of the harvest, I proceeded to load up on way, way too many vegetables. Our last stop was at the stall of an organic farmer who frequently arrives at the market in the fall with a cartload of (incredibly interesting) designer pumpkins, squashes and gourds. Having already purchased a perfectly acceptable Halloween pumpkin at Loblaws for $2.50, I'd pretty much convinced myself that additional pumpkin purchases were both unnecessary and wasteful. That was before I spied a large, squat, green and orange specimen sitting on the ground beside the cart, looking for all the world like Cinderella's carriage, and topped with a perfectly twisted, 'artisanal' stem. With elbows out and adrenaline surging, I ran to grab the pumpkin and hoisted it to my chest by the fragile stem. Clearly under unreasonable strain, the stem promptly broke, allowing 300 pounds, or so, of vegetable matter to free fall to the cement. Remarkably, the pumpkin remained largely intact with only a couple of splits in its taut skin. (In retrospect, I realized that the flesh was about 6 inches thick all 'round and that it would've taken a jack hammer to cause any real damage). The owner of the pumpkin, who had carefully watched these antics, sauntered toward me. Recognizing an idiot when he saw one, the farmer informed me of the rarity of the vegetable genre. That's a "Russian fairy tale pumpkin de Provence" he mumbled, looking me straight in the eye. It sounded something like that, at any rate. After a brief lecture on never lifting a pumpkin by its stem, he suggested crazy glue for easy repair, then charged me $10. He offered to keep the brutish vegetable at his stall until I could drive by with my car to pick it up, however, I was so mortified by the whole encounter that I could hardly wait to take off. I therefore refused his kind offer and struggled, hump-backed with pumpkin in arms, over the 200 yards to my parked vehicle. Thank God for strength training.   

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My friend Suzie was visiting this past weekend, so I took her to see our colourful local market with its abundance of fall produce. Rejoicing over the bounty of the harvest, I proceeded to load up on way, way too many vegetables. Our last stop was at the stall

Draft

When I finally got the pumpkin home, ( and realized that I didn't own crazy glue), I began to view it in a less illustrious light and so decided to pop the thing in the oven. Five hours later it was cooked. As a result, I have enough pumpkin in my freezer to feed a small village until well into next year. What can I say, I'm a sucker for foodstuff that is either really big or really small and has the word miniature, Mennonite, maple, fairy-tale or Provence in its name. For example, I frequently buy sweet-looking miniature aubergines. Since I don't know what to do with them, I keep them in my fridge until they rot, then put them in my green bin for composting.  

Pumpkin in the oven. I know that it looks like I'm baking a troll's bottom, but I really wasn't. My cell phone camera distorts things.

Later that same day....with new footwear and feeling like Cinderella.

Avocado, Mango and Grapefruit Salad

I bought a mango when it was green to make a green mango salad. Things got out of hand and the fruit ripened, so I decided to make a more substantive and colourful salad by adding avocado and grapefruit. Hey. Whatever works.

Ingredients:
- 1 ripe mango, peeled and sliced in bite-sized slices
- 1 ripe avocado, peeled and cubed
- 1 grapefruit, peeled and sectioned, and its juices
- 1/2 small white or purple onion thinly sliced
- juice of 1/2 a lemon
- about 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil
- kosher salt
- coarsely ground pepper

Instructions:
Gently mix the fruits and onion together in a serving bowl. Dress with the lemon juice and olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Trust me, you can make a salad out of just about anything.

Apple Rosemary Jelly

My sister Sylvia and her family went apple picking over the Thanksgiving weekend (Canadian, obviously) and ended the holiday by making two apple crisps. Using the remaining apple peels and cores, she rose to new heights in the jelly-making stratosphere with the following recipe for Apple-Rosemary Jelly. 
http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/canning/apple-rosemary-jelly-e28093-no-pectin/

 Waste not, want not, people.

From the skins of this ruby red fruit.....

...and a somewhat suspect-looking pot of stewed compost materials....
 

....arose this gem-like jelly.

Smoky Black Bean and Sweet Potato Chili

This recipe is drawn from Food 52:Vegan by Gena Hamshaw. I don't prepare vegan food per se,(in fact, I just finished eating a toasted bacon sandwich), but happen to be very fond of sweet potatoes, and am not averse to black beans, which are two primary ingredients in this recipe. Plus, it seems like a nice kind of warm and earthy dish to eat at this time of year.

The suggested topping for this dish is sliced avocado and chives, but since I had only hard rock-hard avocados available when I made it, I  decided to photograph the chili with some sour cream on top.

Ingredients:
- 1 tbsp. olive oil
- 2 cups chopped white or yellow onion
- 4 cups peeled and diced sweet potatoes, cubed
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 chipotle in adobo, finely chopped
- 1 tbsp. chili powder
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
- 1 14.5-oz (398 mL) can diced tomatoes
- 3 1/2 cups (875 mL) cooked black beans
- 1 1/2 cups (375 mL) vegetable broth, plus more as needed
- salt
- 1 avocado, sliced, for garnish
- a handful of thinly sliced chives or green onions

Instructions:
Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté until tender, then add the sweet potatoes and garlic and sauté for another 8 to 10 minutes. Add the chipotle in adobo, chili powder, cumin, and paprika and cook, stirring constantly. Next, stir in the tomatoes, beans and broth and bring to a boil. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sweet potatoes are tender, (30 to 35 minutes). Add more broth if the chili becomes too thick, and finally, season with salt to taste. The longer this chili sits, (within reason), the more the flavours will come together. Serve it topped with avocado and chives.

Editorial Note: If your chili tastes too acidic, add a tablespoon of white sugar to the pot. I also like adding a spoonful of cocoa powder to all of my chilis, vegan or not.

Thanksgiving weekend in Ontario

Pastry, then pumpkin pie....

The French terms for pie pastry are pâte brisée or, the sweeter, pâte sucrée. These use butter as the fat and have a different taste and texture than the typical Canadian pie pastry described below. Many inexperienced bakers are intimidated by pastry. However, the technique is easier and more forgiving than you might think. The thing to avoid is over-manipulation of the dough. There are 2 types of fat that the typical Canadian home baker will use in pie crust; lard or vegetable fat (aka: Crisco). Both are generally found in 1 pound blocks in the baking section of the grocery store and will usually contain a perfectly acceptable recipe for pastry on the packaging. What I am providing below is basically the recipe on the Tenderflake lard box.

Step 1- Assemble your tools
- a large mixing bowl
- a pastry cutter or 2 knives
- a rolling pin
- a measuring cup

Step 2- Assemble the ingredients
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 5 ½ cups all purpose flour
- 1 pound of fat (lard or vegetable fat)
- 1 tablespoon white vinegar (not balsamic or otherwise flavoured)
- 1 egg lightly beaten
- approximately 1 cup of very cold water

Mix together flour and salt. Cut in the fat with a pastry cutter or 2 knives until the mixture resembles coarse oatmeal. Add the lightly beaten egg and vinegar to the water and gradually add the liquid to the fat and flour, stirring with a fork only until the dough begins to cling together. (Too much liquid will make it tough but too little, simply causes frustration). Gather into a ball and divide into 6 equal portions. Wrap each of the 6 balls in plastic wrap and pat to form flattened discs of dough. Each disc forms a single crust.(So, an apple pie will need two discs and a pumpkin pie only one). Refrigerate for ½ hour before using or freeze for up to 3 months.

To roll out the dough, flour both your rolling pin and the rolling surface.Roll to an even thickness of approximately 1/3 cm. If the crust breaks apart, simply patch it together. Patched pastry has an attractive rustic look anyway. Balling it together and re-rolling too many times will make the pastry tough. In my experience, perfectionism impedes progress.

To make pumpkin pie, purchase a can of pumpkin puree and follow the directions on the inside of the paper label on the tin. If you do so, you will end up with the perfect pie, such as that shown above. 

Editorial Note: Some of you may feel the need to purchase a real pumpkin, bake it, peel it, seed it and mash it rather than buying a tin of pumpkin puree. You do so at your peril; pumpkin prepared in this manner is frequently both coarse and watery. Buy the tin. Follow the directions.Trust me on this one.

Butterscotch Pudding

This recipe is taken directly from food blogger Deb Perelman's blog. I've used her cookbook (The Smitten Kitchen) a lot, and find that her recipes appeal to me as a home cook.

The pudding you see in the photograph was made by my friend Janice, who yearns for the butterscotch pudding her mother used to make. According to Janice, Perelman's recipe was pretty close to the real deal.   

Ingredients:
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
- several pinches of sea salt 
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
- 3 cups whole milk (or 2 & 1/2 cups of milk and 1/2 cup of heavy cream)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Instructions:
In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the brown sugar and reduce heat to medium-low. Let it heat and bubble for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Don’t let it smoke or burn, which brown sugar is always very eager to do. Reduce heat to low. Add salt and cornstarch, stirring until combined — it’s going to look like a thick paste. Switch to a whisk and add the milk in a thin drizzle, whisking the whole time, so that no lumps form. Once all of the milk is added, you can switch back to a spoon. Cook over low to medium-low, stirring frequently, until the mixture comes to a gentle simmer. Let it simmer for a full minute, stirring, it should clearly thicken at this stage, although it will finish thickening in the fridge. Off the heat, stir in the vanilla extract. Divide into glasses or pudding cups and let chill in fridge for 1 to 2 hours, until set.

Aggression Cookies

When I was a teenager, my sisters and I came upon a special recipe for very buttery oatmeal cookies. We thought it was hilarious that they were called 'Aggression Cookies',(because the dough is mixed together with your hands and you thereby release all of your pent-up aggression). Not sure why I found that so amusing. What can I say, it was a more naïve time of life. This recipe is drawn from my sister Sylvia's memory, which is better than mine.

Ingredients:
- 1 & 1/2 cups of softened butter
- 1 & 1/2 cups of sugar (half white sugar and half brown)
- 1 & 1/2 cups of flour
- 3 cups of oatmeal, or more if the dough is too sticky
 
Instructions:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Cover your baking sheets with parchment paper.

Dump the cookie ingredients together in a large bowl and get mixing (with your hands). Feel the tension flow from your shoulders into the bowl. Hopefully, you won't get all tense again when you realize what a mess you've created. Anyway, roll walnut-sized cookies and space them a couple of inches apart on your baking sheets. Using the dampened bottom of a glass dipped in sugar, flatten each cookie somewhat. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking racks. These buttery cookies are delicate, so handle them carefully after baking.


Cookies in progress....first as balls, then as flattened discs

   

Apple Butter - It's simply a matter of concentration

 

Apple butter is a bit of a misnomer ‘cuz there’s no butter in this low-sugar-added fruit spread, simply intense apple flavour. It’s basically very concentrated apple sauce. The more you cook it, the darker and thicker it becomes. There are a number of ways to make apple butter. In the end, it all boils down (no pun intended) to personal preference and the equipment you have available to work with.
 

The end product.

These are some of the options: 

You can peel and core the apples but this is not a necessity. Apple cores contain pectin, which firms the ‘butter’, and there is a lot of flavor and colour in the apple peels, so you might want to leave them in the mix. You do have to quarter the apples, add a bit of water and start turning them into sauce by bringing them to a boil in a large pot on the stove, then turning the temperature down to simmer for about 20 minutes. Given the process of making fruit ‘butter’ is all about reduction, you have to begin with a lot of apples (and a little water) so use a large pot.

Shhh...the applesauce is trying to concentrate.

After the apples are sauced, you will want to ensure a smooth consistency to the end product. If you’ve made the sauce with unpeeled and un-cored apples, then you must use a food mill or sieve to get rid of the cooked skin and cores. If you’ve peeled and cored the apples prior to saucing them, then you can simply use a blender or immersible whizzer to ensure there are no lumps in your sauce.

 

Once the apple sauce is pureed, slowly reduce it using the same cooking pot on the stove over a low heat, stirring frequently. Or, if you have a slow cooker, use that for the reduction process. This is all about evaporation. You can add whatever small amount of seasoning (cinnamon, cloves or allspice) and sugar you wish to add. Alternatively, you can add nothing at all. Remember, apples contain fruit sugar and those natural sugars are condensed during the cooking process. By not adding more sugar, the final product will be lovely and tart. Some recipes add apple cider vinegar to the mix, others use a splash of fresh lemon juice. Pour the butter into hot, sterilized canning jars and seal with sterilized lids. If you plan to store the apple butter un-refrigerated, make sure to follow proper preserving procedures (i.e. a boiling water bath after bottling).

 

 Ingredients:

-  4 pounds of a good saucing apple such as Cortland or McIntosh

-  1-2 cups of water

-  brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves or allspice to taste (or none at all)

-  cider vinegar or lemon juice to taste (or none at all)

Applesauce Cupcakes

Autumn is apple season in Ontario, so apple-based recipes are in order. I was at the lake for a brief visit when my sister Sylvia made these very moist and delicious cupcakes. She found the following recipe in the October 2015 edition of Zoomer magazine, you know, the magazine for "Boomers with Zip". It's a tagline that I happen to really dislike.  Anyway, Boomers make great applesauce cupcakes.

 Cupcakes for Boomers with zip (and other more normal people)

The beautiful and mighty Lake Huron...a place where Boomers hang out.

Ingredients for cupcakes:
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1&3/4 cup flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup applesauce.

Instructions:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Cream the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl. Mix together the flour, soda, salt, and cinnamon in a separate bowl. Then beat the egg into the butter and sugar and stir in the remaining ingredients, ending with the applesauce. Spoon the batter into muffin cups. Bake for 15-20 minutes, depending on the size of your muffin cups and the way your oven heats. Cool the cupcakes after they come out of the oven and ice.

My Sister's Brown Sugar Icing:
A cream cheese icing would be great on these cupcakes, but I doubt if any icing will suit them better than my sister's brown sugar icing.

Mix together 1 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup butter, 1/4 cup cream, and a pinch of salt in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and bring to a boil. Then turn down the heat to low and stir for a minute. Cool somewhat before stirring in 1 tsp vanilla and 2 cups icing sugar.


PEI Potato Chocolate Cake

Chocolate cake looking like a prop used in film noir

I'm back to the Prince Edward Island theme of baking with potatoes with this recipe for a moist and delicious chocolate cake, again taken directly from a PEI website featuring the flavours of the province.

Ingredients:

- 1 cup	yellow-fleshed potatoes, mashed & hot
- 1 cup	water, lukewarm
- 2/3 cup	butter, softened
- 2 cups	brown sugar
- 1 tsp	vanilla extract
- 4	eggs
- 3/4 cup	cocoa
- 2 cups	all purpose flour
- 2 ¼ tsp	baking powder
- ½ tsp	baking soda
- pinch	salt
- ¾ cup	semi-sweet chocolate chips

Instructions:

Preheat your oven to 350F.  Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking pan and dust with cocoa powder. Remove any excess cocoa powder and set aside. 

Whisk the water into the mashed potatoes to form a smooth mixture.

Beat the butter, brown sugar and vanilla for 4-5 minutes with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add 2 eggs and mix until blended, scrape down sides of bowl; add remaining eggs and continue mixing until well blended. 

Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt, then stir to combine.

At a low speed, alternate adding the sifted dry ingredients with the potato mixture until incorporated into the butter, sugar and eggs. Fold in the chocolate chips. 

Place the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 30 minutes (or more), until the cake springs back when pressed lightly and begins to move away from the sides of the pan. 

Cool in the pan on a rack. Sift confectioners sugar over the cake.

Ravioli with Butter and Sage Sauce

In Italian, this dish is known as Ravioli di Pasta alla Ricotta, Burro d’Alpeggio alla Salvia. Sounds complicated, but it's remarkably easy to make homemade ravioli. A much more difficult task is writing a simple explanation of how to do it. Here goes nothing.....

 

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 3 fresh eggs
• about a tablespoon of olive oil
• pinch of salt
• 6 tablespoons fresh sheep’s milk ricotta cheese
• 6 tablespoons mascarpone cheese
• 3 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
• Grated zest of one lemon
• 5 ounces (150 grams) unsalted butter (This seems like a lot of butter to me. Change the volume at your discretion)
• pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
• several fresh sage leaves

Instructions:  
 

Prepare the pasta dough by piling the flour on a countertop and making a ‘well’ in the flour into which the eggs, salt and olive oil are placed. Use a fork to gradually mix the wet ingredients into the dry. Knead the dough until smooth, adding more flour if the dough is too sticky to handle easily. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest for 20 minutes. While the dough is resting prepare the filling by mixing the ricotta, mascarpone, and parmesan cheese, nutmeg and lemon zest together. Add salt and pepper to taste.

 

Roll the dough for the ravioli very thinly with a rolling pin into a rectangular shape.

 

Place the filling into a pastry bag or plastic freezer bag. (If you use a plastic bag, cut the tip off one of the corners to allow the filling to be squeezed out).  Repeatedly squeeze teaspoon-sized lumps of the filling on to the pasta about 2 cm apart until you have covered the lower half of the rolled out pasta rectangle with lumps of the cheese filling. Brush the top half of the pasta rectangle with water then fold it over the blobs of filling on the lower half. Use your fingers to press air pockets from between the ravioli then cut the dough between the little packets of filling using a pastry wheel or sharp knife.

 

Prepare a large pot of boiling salted water and cook the ravioli for about 3 minutes. While the pasta is cooking, melt the butter with the sage in a large skillet. Drain the ravioli and gently toss them in the sage butter mixture.  

Honey Oat Cookies

Rasha Mourtada provided the recipe for these cookies in an April 2015 edition of the Globe and Mail. They are apparently sold at the Back in the Day Bakery in Savannah, Ga.

They were good, and it felt like I was doing something vaguely healthy when eating them, but it's not my all time favourite oatmeal cookie recipe. I was sucked into making them by seeing 'honey' in the name.....and of course, I saw the chocolate. 

Ingredients for cookie:

- 1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats (not quick-cooking)

- 1 & 1/4 cups sweetened flaked coconut

- 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar

- 3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

- 1 teaspoon baking soda

- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

- 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into chunks

- 1 tablespoon honey

- 1 tablespoon water

- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Chocolate topping ingredients:

- 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

- 1 teaspoon vegetable oil

- Pinch of fine sea salt

Instructions:

Preheat your oven to 350 F.

 

In a large bowl, whisk the oats, coconut, brown sugar, flour, baking soda and cinnamon together thoroughly. Set aside.

 

In a small saucepan, combine the butter, honey, water and vanilla and heat over medium-low, stirring until the butter is melted and the mixture is thoroughly combined. Remove from the heat.

 

Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and pour in the butter mixture. Fold the butter mixture thoroughly into the flour mixture and let sit for 5 minutes. Scoop about 2 rounded tablespoons of dough per cookie on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, leaving 1 inch between the cookies. With the palm of your hand, flatten each cookie into a 3-inch round, about 1/2 inch thick. Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through, until they are a deep golden colour. Let the cookies cool completely.

 

In a small pan, combine the ingredients for the chocolate coating and melt over low heat, stirring constantly. Using a spoon, top each cookie with some of the topping. 

Concord Grape Jelly

I was very happy when several litres of Concord grapes arrived on my doorstep. My husband accepted them gleefully, stating his fondness for blueberry pie, thereby illustrating his ongoing issue with fruit identification. This morning while proudly handing me the Fall 2015 issue of the LCBO Food and Drink magazine, he commented on the "summer drink with lobster" on its cover, which I later identified  as a very autumnal "Johnny Apple Cocktail" garnished with, guess what, apple slices. I hope he's just trying to amuse me.

Back to the grape jelly.    

Concord Grapes...perfect little globes of purple goodness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concord_(grape)

Ingredients:
- 4 litres of Concord grapes
- 1/2 cup water
- 6 and 3/4 cups of granulated white sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon butter (to reduce foaming)
- 1 packet of liquid pectin (like Certo)

Instructions:
Stem the fruit and place in a large and heavy pot along with 1/2 cup of water. Crush the fruit well with a potato masher. Simmer for 10 minutes stirring occasionally.

The simmering mash



Pour the cooked fruit through a dampened jelly bag or a cheesecloth lined sieve. Let the juice drip undisturbed for at least 2 hours or overnight (refrigerated). As per my friend's recommendation, I strained the juice a second time prior to measuring it for use in jelly-making. In a large heavy-bottomed pot add the sugar and butter to 4 cups of grape juice. Bring the mixture to a rolling boil. Then add 1 pouch of liquid pectin and boil hard for 1 minute stirring constantly. Fill and seal sterilized canning jars (as per previous instructions on this blog... see http://princessbubba.blogspot.ca/2015/06/strawberry-jam.html )

Getting ready to strain the mash



The dusky dark purple jelly

PEI Potato Soda Bread

I returned from a recent vacation in Prince Edward Island enthralled by the red soil of the potato fields. This recipe was taken directly from a PEI website featuring the flavours of the province.

Ingredients:

- 1/2 cup	yellow fleshed potatoes, mashed and hot
- 1/2 cup	raisins (I used currants)
- 1 cup	buttermilk or 1 tsp. vinegar & 1 cup milk
- 2 cups	flour
- 1/4 tsp	salt
- 1/2 tsp	baking soda
- 2 tsp	baking powder
- 2 tbsp	sugar
- 1/4 cup	butter, softened
- 1/2 tsp	caraway seeds- omit if you don't like 'em

 

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400ºF.
Soak raisins in warm water for 5 minutes; set aside.
Whip mashed potatoes and buttermilk together until no lumps remain using an electric mixer.
Combine flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and sugar. 
Cut in butter until the mixture has the consistency of cornmeal. (See below)

Stir in raisins and caraway seeds . 
Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients; add the potato-buttermilk mixture and stir gently with a fork .
Turn dough onto lightly floured board and knead gently 8-10 times . 
Pat into a loaf shape and place in a lightly greased bread pan.
Score top of bread with a knife; bake for 28-32 minutes (or more depending on your oven), until golden. Remove from oven and serve warm or cold.    

While I was away in picturesque Prince Edward Island .....

...my husband bought me a new set of dinner plates. I adore them. They are my new favourites.  This is Weatherby Ware in a pattern called  "Riverina" by J.H.W. and Sons, Hanley, England.

Fish Camp Chicken Wings

My husband would prefer it if I accompanied him to various fish camps and did the cooking for him and his fishing buddies. Not a chance. I'm sure he'd like me to wear a French maid's outfit too.

However, I do provide prepared food for one meal on these adventures. As per usual, the meal is protein-heavy. This one will start with chicken wings and end with chili.

I reminded my husband that many restaurant-style chicken wings taste so good because they are deep-fried prior to saucing. I don't have a deep-fryer so this recipe is an alternative way to produce crispy wings in the absence of proper kitchen equipment. It worked pretty well.

Ingredients:
- about 4 pounds of chicken wings
- a large pot with sufficient water to cover the wings
- salt and pepper
- Club House La Grille spicy pepper medley or anything similar
- olive oil
- your preferred barbecue sauce(I used Diana's)

Use this or something similar. I'm sure there are zillions of available 'medleys' out there.

Instructions:
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.

Place the wings in a large heavy-bottomed pan and cover with water. Salt and pepper liberally. Simmer the wings in the water on the stove top until cooked through. It really doesn't take long to poach wings. They'll look rubbery and fairly disgusting at this point. Drain the water and coat the cooked wings with olive oil, then sprinkle them with the "spicy pepper medley" of your choice. Place the wings on oiled sheet pans and bake them in a hot oven until crispy and brown. (I used convection heat to speed things up). Remove from the oven and coat with your favourite barbecue sauce. 

These wings will be frozen for transport to the camp, then thawed and re-heated at a low temperature. They will simply get stickier and crispier the longer they stay in the oven.