The Risotto of Perfection.

Many years ago I used to live in Victoria with two darling girls who are both still darling friends. We used to pretend Michelle was our house cleaner (odd, but we thought it was funny) and Pia loved vinyl records, singing the Rent Soundtrack, and cooking with me (just to name three out of one million loves of hers). My favourite things that we made were her grandmother’s mango curry (via telephone, in real time, between Victoria and Bangalore, India!), a yummy Italian sausage and chick pea soup, maple syrup baked beans on toast with fried eggs, and lastly, risotto!! I happily passed my strict instructions on how to make a pancetta and mushrooms risotto on to her, and we now inform each other whenever we make it. Apparently she and her grandmother, on a recent visit to Canada from India, got to make our risotto together! Full circle!

And this afternoon, I got to write my old friend a note reporting that I had made risotto for dinner - for the first time in perhaps two or three years. A momentous day!!

Yesterday I was watching my new current favourite television show, Dinner Party Wars (I was in serious procrastination mode as it is final exam time again), and one of the many quirky/totally random guests made risotto for dinner. It’s something that hadn’t been on my radar for a while, having spent the summer thinking about the barbeque and fruit and the last bit of fall obsessed with squash*. Being a wet, gray day in the middle of the exam period I deserved a delicious, warming meal and was more than happy to invest an hour of stirring!

Risotto happens to be one of my very favourite things to make; I get huge satisfaction out of turning a bag of rice into a pot of smooth goodness just by stirring in chicken stock. I am also the first to admit, as done so earlier, that I am a strict risotto cook. I insist that the stock is added in small half cup doses, that the risotto is stirred almost constantly, the liquid is allowed to be fully absorbed before adding more, and that no cream is to be added! What happens is the outer bit of the rice absorbs the stock, which breaks it down and naturally creates the creamy texture. My way is totally different from in a restaurant where it may be made classically, stored for a day or two, then when an order comes in it has to be heated with cream to recreate the what happens naturally. My way definitely takes an hour of standing over a hot stove but it is more than worth it... This dish makes me swoon every time.

So risotto was on the menu for last night, as was a flank steak I had won at the meat draw at the Rendezvous Pub in Langley on Friday night (!) and whatever vegetables I could find in the back of the crisper (which turned out to be not many – old green beans and carrots).
Flank steak is a thin side cut of meat and needs to be marinated for quite a while before cooked at a super high heat and left slightly red in the centre. If you do it right, it’s tender and flavourful all the way through. A total treat and not as heavy as regular sirloin. I love it. I would usually marinate it in asian flavours: sesame oil, lime juice, soy, garlic, but that wasn’t going to work last night. To complement the mellowing creaminess of the rice, I put it in some dijon mustard, lemon juice, olive oil, and a big handful of rosemary and left it for the time it took to go to a yoga class.


RISOTTO WITH CREMINI MUSHROOMS
*all measurements are approximate because I never, ever measure when I make this.

• 1 big, finely chopped white onion
• 4 or 5 finely chopped heads of garlic
• Cremini mushrooms, sliced (I used maybe 3 cups??)
• ¼ cup red wine (optional)
• 1 cup of Arborio rice (Depends on how much leftovers you want!! I also cannot give you strict rice to stock ratios as I have no idea. You have to constantly be tasting and checking the texture.)
• Approximately 1 litre of stock (may take more or less) (you can use whatever kind of stock you like – this is your opportunity to make the dish fully vegetarian or not at all) (lastly, please use a good quality stock with no salt added. This will make a huge difference in your final product)
• 1 cup parmesan cheese
• Lots of salt and pepper (salt is risottos best friend! Well, at least three-way-best-friends with parmesan...)

How you do it:
Set a medium sized saucepan onto a burner and put your stock in on very low heat; allow to warm.

Sauté your onion in some olive oil in a large saucepan, and once it starts to get fragrant add the garlic. Allow it to brown slightly, which may take ten or so minutes.

At this point add your sliced cremini mushrooms and maybe a hit of red wine and let everything cook for a while. Liquid is going to come out of the mushrooms after a while, but just let it cook away. This is only going to encourage more flavour in them and the onions.

When nearly all of the liquid is cooked off, add the Arborio rice and cook, while stirring, for a while. You want it to absorb some of the liquid and they should start to look translucent with a spot of white in the centre.

Now you may begin to add the warmed stock, half a cup at a time (if it is cold, it will hit the hot pan and immediately evaporate – not what you want. If it is warm, it will be slowly absorbed by the rice.)

The procedure should be as follows: ladle in the stock, and stir. Not some wimpy little circling about, but a serious stir to get everything in your pot moving around. You can also scrape down the sides once in a while. Stir until most of the liquid is absorbed. At this point you can set down your spoon for a minute or two to continue with the rest of your dinner if you need to, but not too long! Once that half cup has been absorbed, add another half cup. If you run out of stock, use warm water.

Your rice is finished when you taste it and it has an al dente texture: the outside should be soft and broken down, and the centre should have a slight bite to it. When you reach this point, stop adding stock and stir in your parmesan cheese and lots of salt and pepper. The rice has provided the texture of your dish, and these last three ingredients are going to boost its natural flavour until making it AMAZING!

Done!

Serve hot with the flank steak that was seared on the hottest barbeque you can get your hands on for only two or three minutes per side – please do not cut into it to test doneness! Allow the steak to rest fully (the juices need to calm down after that hot, hot heat!) by putting it on a cutting board and covering with aluminum foil for ten minutes.
Maybe you are also going to serve it with those vegetables you found in the back of your fridge, steamed and served with butter, pepper, and some salt with black truffles that your boyfriend’s mom brought back from England for you. Just to dress them up a bit.


We ate this last night in utter silence. You know it’s a good meal when no one says anything and just eats and tastes and loves the food.




*I once made a squash risotto and it turned out to be bright orange. Palatable but totally unappetizing. Don’t try.

Reasons Why I Love Ratatouille:

ONE:
I got home last night absolutely beat having just finished a five hour drive home from Kelowna in Thanksgiving traffic and still fighting a cold that started over a week ago. I needed food, quickly, and it needed to be comfort food. I had twenty dollars in my pocket and in my head I was torn – Do I go for Pho (the fourth time in a week, the best comfort food in the world when you have a cold)? Or do I go to the grocery store? The grocery store won out for the sole reason that I wanted to pack a lunch for school the next morning.

My grocery bill: two zucchinis, carrots, garlic and orzo. The menu for the evening? Ratatouille.

I would never consider what I make comparable to the classic French dish but it’s warm, healthy, and full of flavour. Making it on a rainy night when your head is a bit hazy causes the living room windows to completely fog over with steam and delicious smells – what a wonderful way to wind down before a silly midterm week.

TWO:
The fantastic Disney movie called Ratatouille. So cute!! Dull ending, but the rat is so cool. And he loves French food. Ooh la la...

THREE:
I passed along a recipe exchange from an email I got from a dear friend named Heidi – the new school chain letter that you will actually get something good out of (what were you supposed to get out of old school chain letters? Pen pals?). No surprise, I sent a nice easy one for (no surprise) Ratatouille. In return, I was lucky enough to receive two (out of the four I eventually got – some of you never passed it on!*) slightly different and intriguing recipes for the same thing, both of which I look forward to trying.

*I was supposed to get 36 recipes and instead I got two for ratatouille, one for squash porridge (which, unfortunately, I probably will never make) and one for a tasty sounding veggie-lentil soup. Damn chain letters!

FOUR:
I recently listened to a Spilled Milk podcast with my sister about fried eggs and how awesome they are on everything except beer (?). These two amusing talkers/cooks both really like fried eggs on ratatouille AND the girl (the author of the Orangette blog) likes to pronounce it “Ra-TA-TA-ooey”! Personally, I find it a bit tricky to get the “ta-ta”s out and smoothly off your tongue, but it sure sounds cute.


MY RECIPE EXCHANGE RATATOUILLE RECIPE:

You need:
1 big white onion, chopped
A few heads of garlic
2 carrots, chopped up
2 zucchinis, chopped up
1 eggplant, chopped up also
1 can of tomatoes
Dried oregano, rosemary, basil and bay leaf

Saute the onion over medium until it starts to smell good, then add the garlic. Cook until soft and maybe let it caramelize a little bit.

Add the carrots and cook a bit, then the dried herbs (maybe half a teaspoon of each and one bay leaf). Then add the entire can of tomatoes, juice and all. You may choose to add a bit of water so that the liquid just covers all of the vegetables. Stir it all in, adjust the heat so the mixture is simmering.

Meanwhile, put your chopped zucchini and eggplant onto a baking pan with some salt and pepper onto a baking pan and pop under the broiler for five minutes or so (If these were to cook along with the carrots, they would disappear just to mush so cook them separately).

When your tomato mixture has reduced a bit to a stew-like consistency, add the roasted zucchini and eggplant. Stir it all up together and let these new vegetables soak up some of the herby tomato sauce, then season with more salt and pepper.

I like to serve this on top of orzo that has been cooked in nicely salted water and last night I had it with some grated old cheddar and one of the Belgian beers that Chambar Restaurant had brewed specially for them.

Select pictures from me to you...

Over the last few weeks I have been on a boat trip up the Sunshine Coast, to the wild of Northern BC, to a lovely wedding in a garden, visited with my sister and countless friends, and witnessed a beautiful sunset. What do I take pictures of? My breakfast, new shoes and my garden.


My current favourite breakfast. Soft boiled eggs on toast with dijon mustard and a spoonful of pesto.




The coolest new shoes ever.



Evidence of my successful canning journey. I cracked the first jar of pickled beans last week and they are delicious. I rushed straight out and bought some clamato.

And my garden...

I accidentally planted about six tomato plants into one container this summer. When I planted the seeds I was so sure that they were onion seeds. How wrong I was... But the six to a pot worked fantastically - less watering!

...

...

Can the *bleep* out of it!

It’s been a beautiful, hot, dry summer. Short, as it only lasted less than two months, but I loved every minute of it. I won’t even complain that I had to work the whole time and as a result, my tan seriously suffered. At least I got to swim in the river every few days.

Sooner or later we needed some rain and it came a few Saturdays ago – the first rain in over eight weeks. All of my beach-y hopes and dreams for the day were slashed and I needed a good, wholesome, domestic task to pass the time. So I canned.

I was not a first-timer canner. I have done it before in my mom’s kitchen, canning things like tomatoes, dill pickles and brandied peaches. I still have a few jars of some pickles we made two years ago and they are still delicious and crunchy. We dodged the botulism bullet. This time around I had a few less resources at my disposal, being in my miniature apartment kitchen. I have no dishwasher to sterilize jars with and a tiny little stove with FOUR small burners – no big one to get that big pot of water really cranking. ‘Whatever,’ my head said and out I went to buy up all the supplies needed for such a project.

As I drove I not only figured out what I was going to can (peach chutney and pickled vegetables), but also the logistics of the job ahead of me. Canning requires:
-zero bacteria in the jars or the contents of the jars (done by putting the jars through the dishwasher or washing then putting them into the oven for a long time to sterilize),
-a hell of a lot of boiling water to sterilize everything else, and
-some toasty acidic conditions where nothing nasty can grow.
And that’s the basics.

I bought a big huge pot for boiling the jars, a jar-picker-upper and 24 jars, followed by a whole bunch of peaches (to cook and eat), pickling cucumbers, green beans, carrots, cauliflowers and a big handful of red chillies. Not to mention multiple litres of pickling vinegar, apple cider vinegar and pickling salt. Good to go.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that everyone should go off and can the shit out of everything they can get their hands on. Jars of pickles in the grocery store are easy, tempting and delicious. When I was a kid I used to sneak pickles from the fridge without my mom finding out because I loved them so much and figured they were treats. Therefore, I love having the power to make dill pickles with my own hands!
Bottom line, I don’t want you to feel like this is something you need to know. I just invite you to learn the basics of canning, so if the mood strikes one day you are up to the task.


First off, I had to make the chutney. Chutney doesn’t need to be canned unless you want to store it out of the fridge for months on end, so you could make this for yourself to put on top of your curry whenever you feel you have the time.
Here’s how:

PEACH CHUTNEY
Heat some olive oil in a big dutch oven until it’s hot and then throw in some mustard and cumin seeds. They will start to toast and kind of change color and when they start to go ‘pop’, it’s time to add a whole chopped white onion. Let that cook until it goes a bit soft, then add a few cloves of chopped garlic, around an inch of chopped ginger, and a chopped jalapeño. Let it cook on medium heat until it all smells fantastic.
Then in goes around four pounds of peeled*, de-pitted and chopped peaches. Let this cook right down on low (an easy simmer) so there is almost no liquid left in the pot, just syrupy, savoury peaches.
At this point add your spices. A few tablespoons of curry powder, a bit less of cumin powder, and a bit less again of turmeric. Maybe you want more heat? Some cayenne can’t hurt. Stir it all around and let the powdered spices heat up and cook a bit to release their flavours.
Next I added around four cups of apple cider vinegar, but if you aren’t canning that much isn’t necessary (it must be an acidic environment to can) along with about a cup of brown sugar. Let that cook uncovered and on low to reduce for about an hour. Stir regularly, until it hits a consistency of, you got it, chutney.

*Want to know how to peel peaches? Slice an x into the bum end of the fruit and drop into a pot of boiling water. After a minute in there, put them straight into a bowl of ice water. If they are fresh, the skins will slide right off and you will have naked peaches skidding all over your chopping board. If not, it might take a bit more effort to get the skins off.

To can, wash out your jars with hot soapy water then put into a hot oven for ten minutes or so, and sterilize the brand new sealer lids in a pot of boiling water. Next, put the hot chutney into the hot jars leaving about a half inch at the top, wipe the sealer lids dry and screw into place with the screw top lid. Then boil the jars, not touching, in a big huge pot of boiling water. Maybe around five will fit in the pot at once, and there must be enough water to cover them all by at least an inch. This is called processing. You want to process a jar of chutney for fifteen or twenty minutes. Then take them out using your jar-picker-upper (or maybe you have more high tech canning equipment than I do) and put them on a dish towel on the kitchen table, again not touching. The lids need to seal, meaning the sealer lid will pop down. You will hear them, sitting on the table, all popping down. If they don’t pop, they aren’t sealed.

So that was down, next up was the pickled vegetables. Pickle whatever you want, I have already told you my choices.

The basic principles of canning apply to making pickles as well. Hot liquid into hot jars, topped with sterilized sealing lids. In this case, the canning liquid is one cup water, two cups white vinegar and three or four tablespoons of pickling salt (or a similar ratio). Take out one hot jar, stuff in as many vegetables as will fit (you want as little air room as possible) and any extras you want to add (garlic, chillies, mustard seeds) and quickly add the hot vinegar liquid. On goes the lids, and then move onto the next jar. Fill only as many as will fit into your big pot of boiling of water and process for ten minutes, then let cool just like above. And continue until you have filled all your jars, or run out of vegetables, or vinegar, or whatever comes first. The vegetables should be pickled and delicious in two months.

Easy, right? Twelve jars of each took about eight hours.

Giraffes are my favourite animal.

Check out my new kettle!!!!

Summer Food.

So it’s seven o’clock, it’s still sunny out and I can’t wait to go outside and read my book, but I want to write something real quick first. I went to Kelowna last weekend for a cousin’s wedding celebration (garden party!) and in the midst of swimming, visiting and winery-ing, I had the time to buy a twenty pound box of peaches and ten pounds of cherries.

The drive home was stunning, the smell of peaches overpowered the car every time the roar of the wind got too much for us and we rolled up the windows – blam! Nothing like it.

But honestly, after sharing half the fruit with Kristopher’s parents, what are two people to do with ten pounds of peaches? It is truly a feat to try and eat that much fruit before it goes off... Basically, we ate peaches for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It’s not that hard.

How do I eat them for dinner? Well I don’t just bite into it like an apple while I’m eating my barbeque. They go onto the grill as well! Just like anything else I cook like this, it’s just a bit of olive oil and some salt and pepper onto the halved and pitted peaches and on they go. Don’t be afraid to give them a good amount of tasty salt (try Maldon Sea Salt, I can eat it straight it’s that good), it will balance well with the sugars. While they get the char lines the insides get even sweeter and juicier than before they were cooked. I insist on eating them with grilled pork (which always goes well with cooked fruit, ever had it with apples?), and have also had them in a salad with arugula, lettuce and prosciutto.

Being that we bought them six days ago, I discovered tonight that a few had some extra and unwanted blue fuzz on them. Not wanting to lose even one, I peeled them (put an X on the opposite end from the stem, submerge in boiling hot water and then again in ice water and the peels will rub right off), sliced them and froze them – along with two freezer bags full of blueberries that I bought at the farmer’s market yesterday. I love buying mass amounts of fruit when it is so fresh and in season, and obviously hate to let even a little bit of it go off... Freezing the bounty while it’s perfectly fresh will allow you to enjoy it in the fall. The rain will be falling and you will be munching on an Okanagan peach.

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This afternoon I went shopping in Whole Foods, which is a major treat for me. That and H&M which I love equally, but that’s another story. I originally went into WF for their sausage selection, which is out of this world. I get excited about this sort of selection... With maybe ten or fifteen selections, how could a girl not? I got some spicy pork chorizo ones and on the way out, was sidetracked by the cheese selection, namely, the bocconcini. Thus sparked the beginnings of the another ultimate summer meal.

This came first:

Lemongrass soda. To die for... The company, called Dry Soda , also makes a rhubarb soda (among other equally amazing flavours)! I have a friend who is a buyer for Loblaws and had told me about these tasty drinks many moons ago, but I had yet to discover and see them for sale until today. It was worth the wait. I also love that the box recommends you to drink it out of a champagne flute and gives food pairings.

And perhaps you can see what came next right in the background of that photo...
The above mentioned bocconcini cheese, two mind numbingly delicious heirloom tomatoes (a yellow one with red hues, and a red one with dark green stripes, both about the size of a softball), and basil that I only recently planted but is growing fantastically. If you have yet to eat a salad with these ingredients in your lifetime, I urge you to do so as soon as possible. That is what tomatoes are supposed to taste like. Oh, it’s good.

And finally, came the last two grilled peaches and the chorizo sausages along with a Georgian baguette (they are just flat baguettes that are a bit chewier).

I made mini chorizo sandwiches, mopping up the juices from the sausages with the bread.

Oh it was a fine meal. Please do try it soon!

And now I shall retire to the patio to continue reading. And yes, I am reading Pamela Anderson’s fiction novel/attempted secret autobiography. Hey, I read everything I can get my hands so if the hot pink cover attracts me in the library stacks, I read it!

The First Few Summer Days...

Last Tuesday (that would be the sixth day of July) the clouds in Vancouver finally parted, the temperature jumped about twenty degrees, and the entire city was slammed into summer over night. I finally got to leave my wool socks and sweatshirts at home and wear shorts to work, rock the sunhat and start getting some color on my still winter white legs.

I love love love summer time. I love the heat and swimming underwater in the ocean for as long as I can hold my breath, I love sundresses and playing croquet on the beach with my friends, leaving the doors and windows open all day, and then I really love barbeques and tasty cocktails in the evenings. I really really love that it’s still a bit light out at 10 o’clock making for days that go on forever. Love it.

I found this list by someone on a blog out there, someone’s summer-must-have list. I think I just made mine.

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This weekend we played in a softball tournament and the weather was perfect - I got just enough sun to stay on a healthy cusp of a sunburn. My highlights would be hitting two line drives over the boys heads, the cooler full of lemonade and vodka that one of the guys brought and lounging in the park all weekend with good people. The softball part was lots of fun but considering we lost three out of our four games I’m not going to say it was a highlight.

It’s no surprise that getting home both evenings I was in no mood to cook after a full day in the sun and running the bases. Saturday night entailed a guilty trip to the grocery store that resulted in smokies, coleslaw, greek salad and seven layer dip. I was starving and basically wanted to eat everything that I could find (sweet and sour pork from the deli? Thank god I held back). Unremarkable, really, but I solidly enjoyed it.

Sunday afternoon we got home after an unfortunate loss (and a delicious breakfast burrito from the concession) and I had all the energy in the world! I had big plans to make a big batch of chana masala to last for a while into the week. And then I accidentally had a really good nap...then insisted on going to the beach for a quick swim. Again, the drive to cook a big meal was gone! However, after feeling the guilt from eating an entirely pre-packaged meal the evening before I needed something to brighten me up. While I was napping Kristopher had nipped out and came home with some huge pieces of chicken marinating in something tasty and a bag of new potatoes. I rinsed off the salt water, gave my head a shake, and found corn, zucchini and cauliflower in the fridge.

I figure if you have a huge bunch of random vegetables that don’t necessarily fit together, forget trying to make one big dish and make a few vegetable side dishes.

Here’s how it went for me:
-Corn shucked and straight onto the barbeque, completely plain. I let it get a bit charred and hot, then cover it with a bit of butter and some salt.

-Zucchini tossed in a bowl with some olive oil, balsamic, and salt and pepper and straight onto the grill as well (pretty typical for me). Again, it gets some black lines on it and it’s good to go.

-The cauliflower got a bit exciting! Considering I had it on hand for the chana masala, I figured I could follow along that line. I chopped the big head into florets, put it on a big baking sheet and gave it a shot of olive oil. Then on went some cumin, coriander, turmeric, curry powder and cayenne – all my typical curry spices - and gave it another toss. Into a 400F oven it went, and when it was starting to turn a bit dark and toasty in spots I took it out. I had previously read a recipe that served roasted cauliflower with a sort of salsa verde (kind of like a dressing), an idea I liked the sound of. Instead of a salsa, I had some plum apple chutney from the farmers market (again, a bit of Indian flavours) and it was heaven.

-Lastly, Kristopher’s new potatoes. Normally I like new potatoes boiled and served with just a bit of butter but I had just bought some pesto (guilty again – I didn’t make it. Basil doesn’t grow on my sunstarved balcony this year!) and I wanted to make something my mom used to make. Boiled new potatoes, blanched green beans, red onions and pesto all stirred together. Try it! I made it without the beans and while I missed the crunch, it was still delicious.

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There you go: four vegetable side dishes that took about twenty minutes to cook. You get benefits of lots of different flavours, and it’s easier to get in lots of tasty healthiness. Admittedly, firing up the oven on a hot summer day isn’t exactly ideal but in hindsight the cauliflower could have been done easily on the barbeque – it’s just a big oven wouldn’t you say? We ate that dinner on the patio, no talking just eating and occasional sips of a pinot grigio in the evening shade - a wonderful finish to a summery weekend.

And that’s that. I just finished my mojito, and it’s time to take the dog for a swim!
What are your favourite summer recipes?