Strawberry Jam and our first meal in Almeria

On a recent trip to Europe, our dear friends Paul and T met us in Almeria to spend a few days together at my cousin Lucy’s flat in San José, Spain.

We stayed one night in Almeria because the flat was already booked. We stumbled upon Joseba Anorga Taberna quite by accident and had one of our most memorable meals in Spain (not counting the one star Michelin, but that’s another story). The Tapas were excellent and beautifully presented. It was a ridiculously hot and humid evening in Almeria so we didn’t want a heavy meal to weigh us down so sharing tapas was the perfect solution.

Joseba Anorga Taberna is a contemporary restaurant rated as one of the top ten in Almeria, what luck we had finding it! These are just a few of the tapas we enjoyed our first night in Spain. Buen Apetito.

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Just before we left for Europe, I found the last of the Ontario strawberries at my local grocer and they weren’t even overpriced! I bought a few pints and decided to make strawberry jam out of them to enjoy over the winter. I used a pectin-free recipe using a 3:1 ratio, three parts fruit to one part sugar. The jelling will take longer than a full-sugar version but it’s worth it. It’s not a sickly sweet jam, which is just fine by me!

The jam is rich with strawberry flavour, just like Mom’s!

Strawberry Jam

Yield: 500 mL or 2 cups

Ingredients:

• 936 g strawberries, washed and hulled
• 309 g sugar
• 1/4 cup lemon juice, about 1 good size lemon
• zest of 1 lemon

Directions:

1. Combine all of the ingredients in the bowl of your 10-cup food processor. Plus until desired consistency is achieved (see notes).
2. Pour content into a non-reactive, heavy bottom pan (I used my Le Creuset). Slowly heat until the sugar is dissolved and bring very slowly to a boil. Remove foam as it appears (see notes).
3. Boil until the jam reaches 105° C (220° F) and has thickened up and reached the jellied stage (test a small amount on an ice cold plate and if you can wrinkle the jam, it’s done!)

We like this jam a lot.

Notes:

• I reduced the sugar according to this website (see last paragraph). To get to the jelly stage will take a little longer than the full sugar version, but it’s worth it.
• I do not have a potato masher, instead of pulsing you may mash the berries with said masher, add the remaining ingredients and mix well.
• Apparently, foam contains a lot more air than the actual jam so leaving it may reduce the shelf-life of your jam (source here).

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Coconut Pumpkin Soup

Sorry guys, I’m a day late with this post…it’s been a little busy!

It’s definitely fall up here in the big smoke; the weather went from 25°-30° C (77°-86° F) to 5°-10° C (41°-50° F). That’s chilly. Mind you, it would help if I started wearing socks in my shoes, I just can’t bear that claustrophobic feeling my tootsies get all confined in socks/shoes/boots. How about you, do you dread confining your dogs in socks and shoes?

This soup came about because I bought a couple of smallish pie pumpkins for social media; I actually carved a client’s logo into one of the pumpkins! It turned out really well and I had an entire pie pumpkin left over. Then I got two more social media clients (bittersweet, story to come) who sells Caribbean food and sauces so I was dying to try their organic coconut milk! I checked my dear friend Lorraine’s blog for an easy pumpkin roasting technique and a delicious starter was born for thanksgiving dinner. This soup would be lovely with butternut squash if pumpkins aren’t in season. I suggest smallish portions (125 mL or 1/2 c) because it’s quite rich.

Makes about 875 mL (3.5 cups) depending on how thick you wish to have it.

Ingredients:

• 1 small pumpkin, oven roasted
• 1/2 onion, oven roasted
• 2 cloves garlic, oven roasted
• 2 tbsp coconut oil
• 2 cups vegetable stock
• 3/4 c coconut milk
• 1/2 banana
• 1/2 tsp curry powder
• 1/4 tsp ginger
• Pinch of nutmeg

Directions:

1. Pre heat oven to 350° F (177° C). Prepare pumpkin as Lorraine does in this post. Lightly coat onions and garlic with the coconut oil. Roast until soft.
2. When Pumpkin is cooked through, onions and garlic are soft, add pumpkin flesh, onions and garlic to a blender contain with the vegetable stock, coconut milk, banana, curry powder, ginger and a pinch of nutmeg. Pulse blender until completely smooth. Set aside.
3. Minutes prior to serving, re heat soup and pulse in blender once more to ‘lighten’. Serve immediately.

The banana adds a very subtle flavour, try not to overdo it as it will overpower the soup.

Notes:

• Sadly cottage season is over and we’ve closed it down.
• The banana is an interesting undertone, omit if you don’t care for bananas.
• To have a lighter soup, don’t use full fat coconut milk or reduce the amount and replace the difference with skim milk.
• A seared scallop would be a wonderful garnish in this decadent soup.

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Guinness Beef Stew with Butter Biscuits; Progressive Dinner #4, Beer

We celebrated our fourth Progressive dinner a few weeks ago with our lovely neighbours. During the last dinner the boys dreamed up our next theme: Beer! I was lucky enough to be next up for the main course so I was excited because I don’t often cook with beer and I don’t often make stew; I was thinking Guinness Stew!

We started at house one with a variety of beer cheeses and beer candied bacon (definitely on my list to make!), they also served a delicious Steam Whistle Butternut Squash Soup garnished with bits of the candied bacon and a splash of cream, very tasty indeed. Then of course it was our place and then at the third house we enjoyed dessert which was a fantastic Beer Brownie, it was definitely moist and flavourful. All of the dishes were wonderful and the company was great. We’ve even determined our next theme: Mad Men! We’re going to have fun with that as far as I could tell, all they did was eat cake and drink. Should be an interesting party!

Guinness is by far my favourite beer; thick, creamy, caramel tones and even a little liquorish flavours are a perfect pairing with the hearty, earthy beef. My friend Angela (of Titanic Anniversary, Truman Capote’s Black and White, James Bond 60th Anniversary dinner parties) served up this Beef and Guinness Stew for the Bond party and I knew it would be the recipe I wanted to make. Plus it has Guinness in it. Did I mention it has Guinness in it?

I made this stew the day before because stews always taste better the next day and I would urge you to do the same. JT confessed he likes this stew better than his Bœuff Bourguignon! Make sure you refrigerate overnight and then bring it to room temperature before you reheat. I also added carrots because one of our neighbours is not a mushroom eater so I wanted another vegetable in it and it tastes and looks amazing. I used eye of round which is a rather tough cut of beef, but I wanted to bake it longer at a lower temperature and I wanted a meat that would stand up; it was amazing, totally fork tender keeping its shape for serving. I also added a bit of beef stock when I reheated because the sauce thickened up a bit too much, use your own discretion on how thick or watery you want your sauce to be. Guinness’ website offers up a recipe that looks very watery but it’s entirely up to you.

The biscuits were perfect for this type of stew

Guinness Beef Stew

Serves 6-8 (it’s a filling meal, so you may even get 9 out of it!)

(original recipe is by Executive chef John Cordeaux of The Fairmont Royal York Hotel in Toronto as published in Canadian Living) I have altered the original recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 lb (907 g) eye of round beef roast, trimmed and cut into 5-8 cm (2-3″) cubes (I like bigger chunks of meat, serving size is 2-3 per person
• 2 tbsp (30 mL) vegetabIe oil
• 6 slices chopped bacon
• 2 tbsp (30 mL) butter
• 1 medium Vidalia onion, finely sliced
• 4 cups (1 L) small mushrooms, either halved (if large) or whole (if small)
• 2 cups carrots, sliced in 2-3 cm (1.5″) chunks
• 2 tbsp (30 mL) tomato paste
• 2 tbsp (30 mL) all purpose flour
• 1 can (440ml) Guinness draught beer
• 1 tbsp (15 mL) grainy mustard (I made my own here)
• 1/4 tsp (1 mL) salt
• 1/4 tsp (1 mL) white pepper
• 1 cup of beef stock (to be added when reheating the stew)
• Fresh Rosemary to garnish

Directions:

1. In ovenproof Dutch oven, heat oil over medium-high heat and brown the beef in batches, transferring to bowl using slotted spoon (don’t drain, you’ll want the liquid from the beef too).
2. Once the meat has been browned and removed, cook the bacon until crisp, 5 to 8 minutes; remove bacon with slotted spoon to a piece of paper towel to drain and then reserve.
3. Drain off the pan fat and melt the butter over medium head. Add the onions and sweat until translucent. Add the mushrooms and cook until all the liquid has evaporated. Reserve the mushrooms (I was concerned that they would over cook over the 3 hours in the oven).
4. Stir in the tomato paste and cook continually stirring for 2 minutes. Sprinkle with flour and cook stirring for another minute. Whisk in Guinness, grainy mustard, salt and pepper until smooth.
5. Return beef and bacon and juices to the pan, cover and bake at 250°F (121° C) until beef is tender, about 2.5-3 hours.
6. In the meantime, peel and cut carrots into chunks. Roast on a cookie sheet for about 1 hour (not 100% done).
7. When beef is cooked, add the carrots and mushrooms and allow to cool to room temperature. Refrigerate until day of serving.
8. Remove beef from the refrigerator and allow to come to room temperature (2-3 hours).
9. Pre heat the oven to 200°F (93° C). On the stove top, warm beef slowly to boiling, adding beef stock as required. Fold instead of stirring to avoid breaking apart the meat.
10. Cover and put into the oven until ready to serve.
11. Serve with Cauliflower Celeriac “Mashed Potatoes” and a Butter Biscuit (recipe).

Thick, rich Guinness Stew, I know you want some!

Note: Don’t be concerned that the stew might be bitter, the long cooking process, sweet tomato paste and onions certainly round out what ever bitterness there may have been. Allowing to rest overnight also helps round out the flavours.

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Apple Cranberry Cake, an Autumn Celebration

The aroma that wafted through the cottage was intoxicating. Or maybe it was the wine.

My family has always been cake people; JTs family are pie people. I always thought it was the difference between Europeans and the English. We usually had some fruit with or in our cakes whereas JTs family always had some pastry with their fruit. This was never a big deal for us because I’m not much of a dessert eater, but it did pose a challenge because I had to learn how to make a pie! Now that we’re more accustomed to each other, I make a variety of cakes and pies and JT happily samples them.

Recently, my friend Barbara Bamber from Calgary author of Just a Smidgen posted a gorgeous Martha Stewart recipe for a fall apple cake and I was smitten! When I suggested that I bake this cake to take over to my niece’s cottage-fest on our last weekend at the cottage JT was all over it. It’s moist and quite flavourful, the perfect mix of fruit and cake. We served it warm and at room temperature and both were very tasty. Although cake is always considered a treat, this could be perfect as a breakfast muffin, made in smaller portions.

Martha Stewart’s Apple-Cranberry Cake

makes one 9″ spring-form pan cake

Ingredients:

• sugar for dusting pan
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 6 tbsp butter, unsalted and melted, plus a bit more for the pan
• 3/4 cup dark brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 cup milk (I used skim)
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 3 Golden Delicious or Janagold apples, peeled, cored and sliced into 2 mm sliced wedges
• 1/4 cup dried cranberries
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tbsp butter cut into pieces

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 375° F. Butter a 9″ springform pan and line the bottom with parchment. Sprinkle with sugar and shake the pan to coat.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.
3. In a medium sized bowl, whisk together melted butter, 3/4 cup brown sugar, milk and eggs.
4. Slowly fold the butter mixture into the flour mixture, just stirring until blended.
5. Spoon the batter mixture into the prepared springform pan, smooth the top evenly.
6. Arrange the apple slices and dried cranberries as you wish onto the cake batter. Then press each piece of fruit gently down into the batter.
7. Sprinkle over with the 2 tbsp brown sugar and cinnamon. Top the brown sugar by dotting the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter over.
8. Bake until top is golden and the fruit has softened, about 35-50 minutes in a convection oven (fan oven for my European friends), or until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

Notes:

I added cinnamon to the batter, the original recipe did not have it.

Next time I will shroud with foil so that the top doesn’t darken as quickly.

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Another Seafood Paella; Spooky Story Series Continued

October is slipping through our fingers very quickly. Socially, we are already booking into November which never ceases to amaze me. Blogs are filling the virtual world with comforting fall recipes, halloween decorations and stories. My dear friend Kelly (a fellow Canadian who recently moved to California , the delightful writer and creative genius of Inspired Edibles) made a comment on my last spooky story about a haunted house tour in London she participated in several years ago and that reminded me of my own haunting experience in the UK. So I would like to continue with the Spooky Story series on my humble blog (to be honest, I had no idea I had so many of them!) Please pardon the photos in this post of our trip to the UK, they were before digital cameras and I simply took an iPhone photo of them for this post!

It was about 4 years into our marriage and JT and I were vacationing in the UK; we rented a car and drove from  town to town from the south-west to the south-east culminating our adventure in London for a few days (as a side note: we saw the Queen Mother speed along in her Rolls Royce while we were walking to Buckingham Palace). We specifically chose to stay in old mansions and guest houses on this trip, it was not only budget friendly but it also was much more fun than the large international hotels.

Bibury Court Hotel

This was high fashion in 1990! Well, at least my hair was high.

One such town was Bibury which is a quaint little picturesque town in the heart of the Cotswolds. We stayed at a very large, very old manor house Bibury Court Hotel, incidentally the same manor house that JT and his dear Mom stayed in several years earlier. “The hotel is found on the edge of the famous village of Bibury, once described by William Morris as ‘the most beautiful village in England” taken verbatim from their website!

On these holidays, one of the things JT really loves to do is visit old castles and there were plenty of them in England; of course his favourite part of the castle was always the dungeon! As you can well imagine, my young self was not thrilled at such prospects, but as a good young wife, I accompanied him through many a dungeon throughout England and each one gave me the willies — some worse than others.

After our visit to Warwick Castle, I was particularly spooked. Not sure why, but as soon as I entered the very ghoulish dungeon I had an uneasy feeling and some very cold air wafted over me (of course, dungeons are cold and damp so that wasn’t entirely unusual).  The uneasy feeling was so overwhelming that I was unable to spend more than a second in the dungeon and we had to cut our time short. We retreated to our lovely manor house on the edge of town.

This was the creepiest room by far in the dungeon.

We rented a lovely room which was pleasantly decorated and reasonably spacious for the time. But the view was something to be desired, particularly by someone who was recently spooked by dungeon spirits; our room over looked the grave yard (cue scary music). JT was nice enough to see if there was another room facing a different direction but sadly they were fully booked so we were stuck. I said it didn’t bother me, but you know it did.

We had a lovely dinner in the converted restaurant coach house and an after dinner drink in the quaint little bar tucked in beneath the grand old staircase in the manor house. And then it was time to retire. I tried not to think of the old cemetery, but it weighed heavily on my mind.

That was the window that the wind and ghosts were pouring in from. The grave yard was directly outside.

Eventually, I drifted off to sleep but it wasn’t a restful sleep. As I lay curled up on the comfy bed, snuggled under the generous duvet, the large windows facing the grave yard at the foot of the bed flung themselves open and the curtains wafted menacingly in the cold fall winds sending a chill throughout the room. But it wasn’t just wind blowing in; there were ghosts…lots of them. Apparently that is the moment I jumped out of bed and screamed to shut the windows. Of course, the windows were not open and nor were there cold winds nor ghosts blowing in. Occasionally, when I am stressed I talk in my sleep and the only way to console me is to agree and remedy, however ridiculous it may be. JT learned this lesson with the bed spiders (sorry Chgo John, that’s a whole other story). So JT simply got up and pretended to whisk out the ghosts,  close the windows and lock them down tight, explaining what he was doing along the way.  That seemed to be good enough for  me and I was able to continue my sleep with the consolation that the grave yard and ghosts were on the other side of the locked windows. The next morning, JT took quite the delight in telling me the story but I had no recollection!

I’m sure it was the heavy, meat laden meal I had that night which no doubt contributed to my restless night; had I chosen something lighter, such as vegetarian Paella, I may not have had such vivid dreams of ghosts and grave yards!

I have documented several paella recipes on my blog (please see here, and here)

A traditional Paella Pan is essential to make this authentic dish

Seafood Paella with Salmon Chorizo

Original recipe from Matiz La Bomba Paella Rice on back of bag. This particular bag of rice was a beautiful gift from our biscotti neighbour, wasn’t that thoughtful? This was only the second time I made this dish the authentic way on top of the stove. Nothing was even remotely over cooked!

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

• 1/2 c dry white wine
• 1 tsp saffron
• approximately 650 g of seafood, I used Shrimp, Bay Scallops, Salmon and Cod
• 1 Salmon Chorizo (for recipe, please click here)
• 4 cups vegetable or fish broth, warmed
• 1/2 vidalia onion, chopped
• 1 red pepper, chopped
• 1 cup diced tomatoes (I used unsalted)
• 3 large cloves garlic, minced finely
• 1/4 c green peas
• 1/4 c sweet corn
• 3/4 cup of La Bomba Pealla Rice
• 2 tbsp EVOO

Directions:

1. About 1 hour to 1 day prior tocooking the Paella, add the saffron to the white wine and refrigerate.
2. In a Paella Pan, on medium heat, add 2 tbsp EVOO and sweat the onions until translucent, about 5 minutes.
3. Add the chopped red pepper and cook for 3-4 minutes. Add the garlic, diced tomatoes  and white wine saffron mix and simmer for another 5 minutes. This is the Sofrito.
4. Add La Bomba rice and stir until the rice is thoroughly covered with the Sofrito.
5. Slowly add the broth to the paella, moving the rice around gently until it is evenly distributed throughout the pan. The instructions indicate not to stir the rice after this point.
6. After about 10 minutes of simmering, add your selection of seafood into the mixture, evenly distributing and gently burying it within the rice. After 15 minutes, add the peas and corn and cook for another 10 minutes.
7. Once the broth has been completely absorbed, remove from heat and cover with a lid or aluminum foil and allow to sit for 10 minutes.
8. Serve in the Paella pan garnished with lemon and lime wedges (which I forgot!).

The rice is short grain and soaks up the vegetable stock like a risotto rice would, making a deliciously creamy dish;jl

Our neighbours were kind enough to bring us back authentic Paella rice called La Bomba.

I even used Saffron from Morocco! The dish was perfect in every way.

I thought you might enjoy some photos from the Thanksgiving weekend in Muskoka:

Unfortunately, the colours were just past their prime.

Some of the golden colours were still quite beautiful.

The scenery made for a beautiful drive.

A few leaves still hanging on for dear life!

Sunrise from the boat house at my brother’s place

The setting sun still produces an incredible effect in the sky.

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Creamed Butternut Squash Velouté (kinda-a-sorta)

It’s raining cats and dogs as I type this. It’s been raining for two days and they are predicting more. Me. Not happy. This is the not so pretty part of autumn.

We’re having JTs “step brother’s” over for dinner tonight; Alan is from Vancouver and Peter is from Wasaga Beach. Our nephew Brian (the one we visited in Calgary in June, just moved back to Toronto and is staying with us for a couple of weeks) is also joining us. Wow, that’s me with four handsome men! I decided to make an all time favourite that really only works with a crowd, Paella.

But first our appetizer: the beautiful fall inspired butternut squash velouté. What’s a little different about this soup is that there is no Roux, or cream, just vegetables. And a Granny Smith apple (you see how I snuck that in?). I always oven roast my vegetables for the most flavour, and for this one, I also roasted an entire head of Ontario Garlic. The roasting happened a little quicker than expected because of all the moisture in the pan from the onions and the apple, I didn’t get the anticipated caramelization on the squash. Next time, I’ll roast the squash and potato separate to the apple and onion; it still made a mighty fine autumn soup. I have modified the instructions as such.

Going into the oven at 400°F

The recipe is really just to taste, if you love something, add more, hate something, omit it!

Ingredients:

• 1 large butternut squash, cut into cubes (save the seeds)
• 1 medium Yukon Gold potato, peeled and cubed
• 1 medium Vidalia, or Mayan onion, peeled and chopped into eighths
• 1 head of garlic, remove some of the outer peel, leaving the cloves intact
• 1 Granny Smith apple, washed and cut into similarly sized cubes as everything else
• Chicken or vegetable stock (we used no salt stock, we’re getting back into home made chicken stock time soon).
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)
• Sea Salt and Pepper to taste

Squash Seeds:

• 1/4 tsp paprika
• 1/4 tsp all spice
• sea salt to taste
• 1 tsp EVOO

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
2. Make sure your vegetables are cut to similar size so they cook similarly.
3. Roast potatoes and squash drizzled with EVOO and salt in one pan; the onions and apple drizzled with EVOO in another for 30-45 minutes until soft.
4. Put the trimmed garlic head in a ramekin that just fits it, drizzle with EVOO (about 2 Tbsp) and salt lightly. Cover with tin foil and bake until bulbs are soft, about 45 minutes.
5. Combine everything in a large high sided bowl (the apple skins should just peel off, but don’t worry if the don’t) and purée with an immersion blender until smooth, adding stock to desired consistency.
6. Press through a fine sieve or chinoise strainer, so it’s velvety smooth. Keep warm or refrigerate for later. Reheat before serving.
7. Clean off the reserved squash seeds, drizzle with EVOO, sprinkle on the spices and bake until slightly toasted (or when they begin to pop).
8. 8. Serve in soup cups with the squash seeds as garnish.

The soup, excuse me, velouté

Happy Friday Everyone, I hope you enjoy your weekend.

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