Celeriac Velouté (or soup)

This is a wonderfully creamy soup that has no cream in it. The Hungarians know only celery root, they really don’t eat the stalks like we do (the stalks are an amazing snack, I ALWAYS keep some washed in a sealed container in the fridge for snacking. I once read that it takes more calories to eat one that the calories in the stalk!). I do add a bit of Olive Oil (EVOO) to the soup and I used butter to toast the croutons, but there is no other fat in this dish.

It’s creamy and rich without a drop of cream!

Celeriac Velouté

Serves 4 (one cup portions)

Ingredients:

• 1 celery root, cleaned, peeled and cut into relatively equal cubes.
• 1/2 a large sweet onion, cut into quarters
• 1 small head of garlic, bottom chopped off and excess skin removed.
• 3 tbsp EVOO
• Vegetable stock
• Salt
• Non-stick cooking spray
• Left over onion confit focaccia cut into diamond shapes
• 1 tbsp butter
• sea salt

Directions:

1. Spray a large cookie sheet with non-stick spray and distribute the onion and celeriac cubes evenly. Roast in a pre-heated oven set at 350°F until soft.
2. Add the EVOO to a small ramekin and place the garlic cut side down. Salt with sea salt. Cover with aluminum foil and bake with the rest of the vegetables until soft.
3. In a large pyrex bowl, add the cooked vegetables with the olive oil from the roasted garlic, and squeeze the roasted garlic into the same bowl. Add vegetable stock and purée with your immersion blender until very smooth. Press through a fine sieve to make sure your soup is very creamy.
4. Melt the butter in a small frying pan and toast the focaccia so that it is crispy on all sides.
5. Reheat the soup to serve; pour into your rimmed soup bowls, garnish with the focaccia toasts and enjoy.

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Celeriac and Potato “Mash”

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad
(today would have been their 52nd anniversary)

We don’t often buy potatoes; it’s not because I don’t like them, I do, but they are carbs and I would prefer to eat other vegetables with less carbs and a lower glycemic index. But I bought two medium sized potatoes two weeks ago and only used one for a recipe. I had that potato sitting on my counter for another week before I figured out what to do with it.

I also had a 1/2 celeriac (celery root) in the vegetable crisper just waiting to get brown and tossed so I decided to take my celeriac cauliflower “mash” and change it up a bit with the potato. Since I didn’t have a head of cauliflower either I just made Celeriac Potato Mash. Now I love roasting vegetables because it really brings out the sweetness, so I simply roasted the celeriac (and a few cloves of garlic), boiled the potatoes and presto; what a “mash” this turned out to be! LOVE it!

Celeriac has fewer calories and carbohydrates than a potato as well, it is lower on the glycemic index than a potato so keeping the celeriac ratio higher than the potato was the right decision for me. The potato adds creaminess that you expect from mashed potatoes. This is a bit more labourious than normal mashed potatoes, but I promise you it is worth it. I hope you enjoy it. To see a whole mess of mashed potatoes head on over to Greg’s blog, he has gone all out with this savoury dish.

The star of this photo is the mash, not the pork. The pork is a Primadonna!

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 1 medium yukon gold potato, peeled and diced
• 1 medium celeriac, peeled and diced
• 4 medium cloves of garlic, peeled to the outer skin
• 2-4 tbsp EVOO
• salt to taste
• chicken stock or milk or cream, depending on how healthy you wish to make it.

Directions:

1. Pre heat oven to 400° F. Spread the celeriac evenly on the pan and very lightly coat with olive oil and salt.
2. Put garlic cloves into a small ramekin and add about a finger’s depth of EVOO and salt.
3. Bake the celeriac and garlic until both are fork tender. About 30-40 minutes into the roasting, add about 1/2 cup of water to the celeriac roasting pan and give the celeriac a good stir. When the water evaporates, they should be fork tender (if not, then add another 1/2 cup of water and repeat until fork tender)
4. While the celeriac is baking, in a large stock pot add enough water to cover the potatoes entirely, salt generously. Cook until they are fork tender.
5. Drain potatoes and allow to sit for a minute so that all of the water evaporates. Either rice with a potato ricer or mash gently with a fork (you don’t want to develop the starches so for heavens sake, don’t blend this with an immersion blender). Don’t add any liquid as the celeriac mash will be a touch wetter than necessary and we’ll need the potato on the dryer side. Set aside
6. When the celeriac is fork tender, remove from the pan into the immersion blender container, squeeze out the roasted garlic, pour in the oil from roasting the garlic and blend. Blend until it is smooth, smooth, smooth, adding chicken stock, milk or cream to achieve a mashed potato consistency. Celeriac doesn’t have the same level of starch as the potato so this is the only way you will get it smooth. Push through a fine sieve and fold the mashed potatoes into the mix. Keep warm over a bain marie. Serve with the most amazing Fig Stuffed Pork Tenderloin ever (link won’t be active until Nov 21).

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Gluten Free and Vegetarian Quinoa Mushroom Risotto

I would have never thought that eating vegetarian would leave me so satisfied. And I don’t have the afternoon snackie feeling either. I’ve done well, down 3lbs this week…but I’ve also been working out like a fiend. 16km each day on my bike on Tuesday and Wednesday, and working out cardio and weights everyday this week (don’t worry, I mix up the muscle groups that I work on!). But I am tired…not quite 25 anymore (who am I kidding, I’m not even 35 anymore!!!).

The foods we have prepared are tasty but I must admit it is a bit of a challenge when you have to find recipes each day to cook (kinda like learning to cook again!). I came up with the Quinoa Mushroom Risotto because I was in the mood for a risotto and I didn’t want the carbs that rice has (and I’m still not eating meat during the week). I also came up with a great idea on how to achieve the creaminess that Arborio rice brings to the table, without adding cream or butter!

Pull up a chair and enjoy.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 1 cup red and white Quinoa uncooked
• 545 g variety of mushrooms
• 3 small shallots, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp roasted garlic purée (see note below)
• 3 tbsp navy bean paste (see note below)
• 100 mL water
• 1/4 tsp thyme
• 1 tbsp low sodium soy sauce
• Parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. In a cast iron pan, toast the quinoa until they begin to pop, remove immediately. Cook as per directions on package.
2. In cast iron dutch oven, give a good squirt of cooking spray and heat. Add the Shallots and cook gently, adding a bit of water if the oil dries up. Add the mushrooms and cook until soft.
3. Mix the roasted garlic purée with the navy bean paste, adding enough water to make a thick sauce (like a roux). Pour it into the mushroom mixture and stir well.
4. Add the cooked Quinoi, thyme and soy sauce to the mushrooms and stir until everything is coated with the garlic bean purée.
5. Serve with freshly grated parmesan cheese.

Quinoa is a super food, but you still shouldn't wear a cape if you eat it.

Notes:

Roasted garlic purée

Take a head of garlic and roast with olive oil and sea salt in the oven until soft (I usually do it in a ramekin, not foil). Pop the cloves out into an immersion blender jar and purée until smooth. Add vegetable stock or water to make the consistency you need. I usually roast a bunch and freeze in special ice cub trays — pop out into a zip lock bag and return to freezer (don’t do it in your regular ice cub tray, otherwise your gin and tonic will taste garlic-y!)

Navy bean purée

Cook dried navy beans until soft. Purée with an immersion blender until you have a very smooth paste adding only as much water as the blender needs to continue the purée. Store in a glass container in the fridge and use as needed. I have used this paste as a roux for many things.

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White Bean Dip

We’re invited to a surprise benchmark birthday party this weekend for a long time friend of our’s. I wanted to make an easily transported, no fuss dip. JT absolutely loves Bar Mercurio‘s white bean paste that they serve instead of butter with their focaccia, so I knew I had to make it! I wanted to make it a few days ahead to allow the flavours to really blend.
The picture doesn’t do it justice. This dip is SOOOOOO creamy, you would think there is gobs and gobs of butter in it, but there ISN’T! So incredibly good, and creamy.

White Bean Dip

Ingredients:

• 1 cup dried navy beans (if you use canned, make sure you rinse really well)
• 5 cups LS chicken stock or a mix with water
• 2 tbsp panchetta
• 2 tbsp shallots
• 2-4 tbsp lemon juice
• Sea salt to taste
• 1 head garlic
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 3 tbsp LS chicken stock

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Remove most, but not all excess outer skin from garlic bulb. Put into a tightly fit ramekin. Drizzle with the olive oil and 3 tbsp chicken stock. Seal tightly with foil and bake for 30-45 minutes or until garlic is soft.
3. In a large Dutch oven, fry the panchetta until crispy. Remove from pan but reserve the fat in the pan.
4. Cook the shallots in the reserved bacon fat until translucent.
5. Rinse the beans (it is recommended not to soak over night as that apparently increases the propensity to cause gas, and no one wants that!). Add them with the stock into the pan with the shallots. Cook the beans until very soft and mushy (1 1/2 to 2 hours. Or you can reduce this time significantly by cooking in a pressure cooker). Allow to cool to room temperature.
6. When the garlic has cooled to room temperature, squeeze each clove out of its skin into a large food processor bowl. Add the beans, the liquid from poaching the garlic and panchetta. Add lemon juice and sea salt to taste. Process until smooth and creamy. . Serve with pita chips or bread sticks.

As a note, I thought I would want to press this mix through a fine seive, but JT reminded me that those bacon bits would be lost, so I processed a bit longer so the bacon bits are a lot smaller. It has a very smooth and creamy texture.

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