Sometimes a small change can make a big difference. For some reason, I eat the same thing for breakfast almost everyday. Anyone else out there do that? Let me know what you eat for breakfast! Inquiring minds want to know.
My problem with most vegetable soups is that they can be a bit flat and one-dimensional. After a few spoonfuls you are bored with the flavour and texture. This Moroccan spiced carrot soup is most decidedly not boring. I was inspired to create this soup, by the very talented Sarah over at snixykitchen. My version has a bit more heat and spice, I used leeks instead of onions and I opted for pistachios as my crunch element, in place of her hazelnuts.
If you follow my blog, you already know that I am a big proponent of different textures in all dishes. Yes, making the spiced nuts for this soup adds more time and work for you, but I believe the payoff in flavour and texture is worth it. Plus, the recipe makes more than you will need for garnish, so there are leftovers to top salads with and snack on. Everybody wins.
For the spiced pistachios, I used a mix of salt, sugar, Aleppo pepper and cinnamon. A bit of beaten egg white will help the spices adhere to the nuts. Toast in the oven for about 15 minutes.
I often use leeks in place of onions in soups and stews. I prefer their more delicate flavour. Plus, they don’t make me cry. If you have never used leeks before, they can be quite sandy between the layers. Cut off the dark green part and discard. Cut the leek in half, lengthwise and then cut across into 1/4 inch thick slices. Place sliced leeks in a bowl of cold water and swish them around. Lift out the leeks and discard the sandy water in the bowl.
This soup had added protein in the form of white beans. Since the soup is pureed, you don’t realize they are there, but they add great body to the soup. A big squeeze of lemon juice at the end adds a welcome hit of brightness. A dollop of yogurt or sour cream adds a creamy element to balance the heat. And the crunch of the spicy pistachios are perfect.
This is a grilled cheese sandwich for grown-ups. For me, grilled cheese is a once in a while indulgence, when I feel the need a big food hug. The inspiration to add strawberry-rhubarb to my sandwich came from my daily breakfast habit. I roast a batch every week, as I like to mix a big spoonful of it into my morning yogurt and granola.
I made the bold decision to add a smear of the compote to my sandwich. I threw in a few slices of pickled jalapeno for fun.
I was surprised to see fresh rhubarb at the grocery store. It was certainly not local, as Ottawa is still burried under a ton of snow. It was undoubtedly “forced rhubarb”. Most of the year, I use frozen fruit. Rhubarb begs for the addition of sugar. I added 1/3 of a cup for a 6 cups of diced fruit.
The melting qualities of Havarti cheese made it an ideal candidate for this sandwich. While making a grilled cheese sandwich seems to be a fairly simple thing, here are a few tips that can take your sandwich from meh to yeah!
Grate or thinly slice the cheese. If you opt for slicing, dip your knife in cold water before each slice. It prevents the knife from sticking to the cheese.
Butter the outside of bread, rather than just putting butter in the pan. You will get a more even golden crust.
Low and slow for the heat. Don’t be impatient and crank up the heat. You will just end up with buttered toast and unmelted cheese.
Sandwich the strawberry-rhubarb and jalapeno between two thin layers of cheese. rather than just one cheese layer. It helps to hold the sandwich together better and makes for more even melting.
Indulge your inner child today and make these. The outer layer of crunch yields to a center of melted goodness. The tart fruit and spicy jalapenos are a wonderful surprise.
After almost 35 years of marriage, what passes as a romantic gesture changes with the progression of time. Many years ago, his expression of love was was a gorgeous bouquet of tulips, since he learned that I hate roses. Mine was bringing him coffee in bed. These days we convey our affection a bit differently. I surprise him with a “morning, noon and night” pill tray, and he arranges to have the divots I have made in our new wood floors fixed, all with a smile on his face. (I dropped my marble and my wooden photography backdrops a few too many times.)
Valentines Day is not a big celebration in our house, but I can’t pass up an opportunity to bake something photographic and pink! These citrus and brown butter shortbread cookies are from Mindy Segal’s book, “Cookie Love.” I decided to sandwich these cookies with some strawberry jam and make them fancy with a pink top.
Start by browning some butter in a pot on the stove. Whe your kitchen begins to smell like heaven (or toasted nuts), it’s time to pull the butter off the stove and chill it. The dough uses lots of citrus zest. I incorporated lemon, lime and orange.
I decided to make round and square sandwich cookies with a heart cutout on the top cookie.
For decorating the cookies, I decided to do two versions. The first was to make pink powdered sugar to sift over the top cookie. I bought freeze dried strawberries and using my spice grinder, I ground them up in with some icing sugar. Most health food stores carry freeze dried fruits. They are also a fantastic way to naturally flavour and colour buttercream.
The second variation is to make a glaze. Grind up the freeze dried strawberries with powder sugar and mix in some citrus juice. I used a combo of lemon, lime and orange, since I had already zested them for the dough. It makes a lip puckering glaze that is perfect with the sweet cookies.
As I was scrolling through Instagram the other day, someone asked us to fill in the blank to this statement. “I am happiest when…..” My quick response was, “when I am finished spin class!” But I got to thinking seriously about this.
I feel deep satisfaction when i create order out of chaos. I think it has more to do with creating beauty where there was none before. I am an acutely aesthetic person and i feel a strong desire to create beauty. Author Alice Walker once said, “Whenever you are creating beauty around you, you are restoring your own soul.”
I choose to express my creativity using the medium of food. When i saw these peanut butter squares on Martha Stewart, I knew I had to recreate them. This is my twist on her version. I swapped out her shortbread crust for a pretzel crust. All that sweetness needed some salt for balance. I created a velvety smooth middle layer with white chocolate, peanut butter and butterscotch chips. A crown of bittersweet chocolate topped these beauties off.
Here’s how it all comes together:
You could of course make these without the mold. Just spread melted bittersweet chocolate over peanut butter layer and chill. But, if you need more beauty in your life, you can order the mold from here.
One of the most beautiful ways to showcase the glorious blood orange, is to make a curd. You can use the curd to fill a pie or tart, spread it between two cookies, sandwich it between cake layers, swirl it into ice cream, stuff it into donuts or cupcakes…. you get the idea. Curd is glorious and versatile.
The juice and zest of about a dozen blood oranges are packed into this dessert. Start by reducing 2 cups of juice in half. You want the tart to pack an orange punch! The curd can chill while you make the crust. For the meringue topping I looked to Stella Parks for advice. Her swiss meringue is foolproof. It whips up into a perfectly light, yet stable topping. You could, of course, blanket the entire top with meringue, but I didn’t want to cover all that gorgeous orange curd, so I left some spots bare.
Leave the meringue snowy white or torch it for toasted goodness.
We’re deep into citrus here at saltandserenity this month. I bought every type of citrus I could find at Farm Boy last week, and I’ve been having fun exploring and shooting them. Without a doubt, blood oranges are the darling of the citrus world. But, like most drama queens, you never really know what kind of mood they’ll be in. Sometimes you cut one open and you get a glorious blaze of crimson. Other times, she’ll be in a tamer mood and it’s just a hint of fire.
But I’m here to tell you about her shy cousin, the Cara Cara orange. A member of the navel family, they’re a cross-cross-polination of the Washington Navel and the Brazilian Bahia Navel. While they look like a regular navel orange on the outside, inside, their flesh is a lovely pink colour. They’re sweeter and less acidic than a regular navel orange. They have a delicious “berry-like” flavour. They’re available from December – April. Seek them out, you won’t be disappointed. I decided to make a simple pound cake to highlight the Cara Cara. I adapted one of my favourite pound cake recipes (lemon pound cake) from Daphna Rabinovitch’s book “The Baker in Me.”
Butter, sugar, eggs, sour cream, flour and of course lots of Cara Cara orange zest for flavour. About halfway through mixing the batter, it will look like it has curdled. Don’t panic. Once you add the flour mixture, it will all smooth out. Daphna instructs you to cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer for quite a while. You want to aerate the batter. When it comes time to add in the dry ingredients, she instructs you to remove the bowl from the mixer and switch to a wooden spoon, so that you don’t overwork the batter. Listen to her. She knows her stuff!
I decided to add an icing sugar glaze to the cake. Powdered sugar, cara cara juice and just a touch of lemon juice to amp up the acidity. If you want the glaze to stay shiny when it dries, add a spoonful of white corn syrup to the glaze. I added an optional garnish of dried orange slices. I really like how pretty they make the finished cake. They are available online from several different sources, but it’s pretty simple to make your own.
If you want to try, thinly slice about 4 oranges. Arrange on parchment lined baking sheet, in a single layer. Sift a heavy layer of icing sugar over the orange slices and bake in a 200°F oven for 4-5 hours.
Making falafel at home is not something I ever considered doing until recently. Falafel eating was reserved for trips to Israel. Where the falafel originated is up for debate. Israelis, Egyptians, Palestinians and Lebanese all claim it as their own. But no matter the origin, finding falafel in Israel is as easy as finding a Timmy’s in Canada.
Everyone has their own favourite falafel joint. During one of my first trips to Israel, I fondly recall exceptional falafel in the town of Abu Gosh at The Lebanese Restaurant. On our last trip, we inhaled the falafel at Falafel Hakosem in Tel Aviv. A great falafel has a nubbly texture, moist and fluffy on the inside with a crunchy shell.
The main ingredient in falafel is chickpeas. You must use dried chick peas. Canned chickpeas will give you mushy falafel. Start with soaking dried chickpeas overnight. Once they have soaked for at least 8 hours (and up to 24 hours), drain them and transfer them to a food poriocessor. No need to cook the chickpeas. Chickpeas are quite bland so load up on the flavour. Cumin, dried corriander, sumac, salt and a pinch of cayenne to bring the heat. You need lots of onion and fresh herbs for flavour and freshness. I like the combo of cilantro and parsley, but feel free to just use parsley if you are cilantro averse. The problem is that all this moisture makes them fall apart. Flour is a commonly used binding agent, to help hold the falafel together. However, flour alone as a binding agent leads to dense falafel. The genius folks at Cook’s Illustrated borrowed an Asian bread-baking technique called tangzhong. It involves mixing flour with water and then cooking it briefly in the microwave until it forms a paste.
Here’s the scientific explanation from Cook’s Illustrated, if you geek out like I do at this stuff:
“When the paste is cooked, the flour’s starch granules burst and form a gelatinous web that locks the water in the paste in place, preventing it from making the mixture even looser. Meanwhile, cooking the flour also greatly increases its ability to absorb water, so we can add less flour overall to act as a binder. The result: fritters that are well seasoned, moist, and easy to form.”
Traditionally, falafel is shaped into balls, fried and served stuffed into a pita. I decided to go a bit rogue and make falafel slidfers. I formed them into patties and fried them.Let’s build a slider.
Lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, onions (raw or pickled), tahini sauce or tzatziki are all fine additions. Pickled beets or turnips would also be delicious. In Israel, you can top your stuffed pita with fries. Although I am a french fry lover, I draw the line on stuffing fries into my falafel. It makes them too soggy. I just ask for them on the side!!
This recipe is inspired by my new niece, Danit. She is a very welcome addition to our family and we were all thrilled when she agreed to marry our nephew Ben. They live in Florida and last month they welcomed a sweet baby girl into the family. The first of the next generation. I am now a great aunt, although if you were to ask some of my 24 nieces and nephews, I think that at least one or two would say I have always been a great aunt!
We finally managed a visit to Florida, a few weeks ago, to see the baby. She is adorable, and the most chill baby I have ever met. I’m convinced this is due, in no small part, to her relaxed parents. Their laid-back attitude was so unusual to see in a new parent. When we walked in, Danit immediately asked us if we wanted to hold her. Once I had her in my arms, sniffing in that delicious new baby scent, Danit proceeded to make lunch for us.
She made oven baked cilantro salmon, roasted shredded brussels sprouts, rice and a salad. I don’t recall being capable of making lunch for myself, let alone guests, when my first born was 5 weeks old! Everything was delicious and that sweet baby lay quietly in her bounce chair, dozing, while we ate lunch.
This is my take on Danit’s salmon. I used a mixture of tender green herbs, including cilantro, Italian parsley, mint and basil. Dill would be an excellent addition. This is a very flexible marinade. Cilantro haters, feel free to omit the cilantro and add more of the other herbs. Make it your own. I added some toasted pistachios to the mixture for a bit of texture, lime juice for fresh acidity and honey to balance the tartness. I put the carrots in the oven before the fish, as they need a longer roasting time. They were simply dressed with salt, pepper, olive oil and cumin. Carrots and cumin are a really delicious pairing.
Fresh light and bright, for when the comfort foods of January fail to satisfy.
They say it takes a village to raise a child. I say, it takes a child to build a village. Luckily my daughter was visiting this week to help me create this gingerbread village.
We had a lot of fun putting this together. We started with a big batch of my favourite thick and chewy gingerbread dough, from Cook’s Illustrated. I cut some of the dough into houses using these cookie cutters. Instead of piping the doors and windows, I discovered these stencils. You do not require any special skills to use them. They are so simple and the results are quite dramatic.
A few tips for stenciling success:
Practice a few times on parchment paper, so you don’t waste cookies.
Your royal icing should be the consistency of toothpaste.
A small offset spatula makes the job a bit easier than a regular knife. Put the icing on the bottom-side of the spatula.
Use one hand to hold the stencil in place and the other hand to gently spread icing. I found it easiest to start in centre and work my way to one end, then switch and do the other half.
Scrape off excess icing, but don’t scrape it clean. Just a thin coat is enough.
Try not to let stencil lift while applying icing. If you mess it up, remember that mistakes still taste good.
Wash stencil between cookies. Just place wet stencil on towel and pat dry. Be gentle with stencil.
For the snowflakes, I used these cookie cutters. I wanted an assortment of sizes and shapes, as no two snowflakes are alike in nature! If you want to hang your snowflakes, be sure to put a hole in them before baking. I used the small end of a size 3 piping tip. We piped simple decorations on these cookies and sprinkled on coarse sanding sugar while they were still wet.
We filled a wooden box with” snow” (coarse sanding sugar) and used spice jars to support the houses. I trimmed some of them to have varying heights.
To hang the snowflakes I built two towers from my oxo good grips containers. Then I duct taped three wooden dowels across the top of the containers. We threaded the snowflake cookies with fishing wire and hung them. The tricky part was getting the snowflakes to all face front with their pretty icing side. My daughter turned them the right way and I was behing the camera ready to hit the shutter as soon as she moved her hands. We were almost successful. I photoshopped out the fishing wire in editing.
We decided to try making it snow. It made a huge mess but we got the shot!
You need lots of onion and fresh herbs for flavour and freshness. I like the combo of cilantro and parsley, but feel free to just use parsley if you are cilantro averse. The problem is that all this moisture makes them fall apart. Flour is a commonly used binding agent, to help hold the falafel together. However, flour alone as a binding agent leads to dense falafel. The genius folks at Cook’s Illustrated borrowed an Asian bread-baking technique called tangzhong. It involves mixing flour with water and then cooking it briefly in the microwave until it forms a paste.
Let’s build a slider.
