chewy granola bars

When I work the super-early shift on the radio – please don't even ask me what time I have to get up – I get ravenously hungry by the time my break rolls around just before 9 a.m.

At that point, I've usually eaten breakfast and at least one snack, but all that food always feels like it's part of the very distant past. I need my black tea and more snacks now.

A few weeks ago, I walked over to Credo, which makes some of the best Assam tea in Edmonton. I love how they actually brew the tea for me, so I don't have to fiddle around with extracting a sopping wet tea bag from my too-full cup.

Credo had the usual muffins out, but then I spotted a big silver pan of warm granola bars. I tilted my head and considered it. Honestly, I had never understood the appeal of homemade granola bars when I already make my own granola.

But I find muffins to be almost universally disappointing and I needed to eat something now, so I took a chance. (I know, it is a daring life I lead.)

The girl behind the counter cut me a bar that was almost as big as my hand and put it in a little white paper bag. I looked at it dubiously and thought I could probably save it for snacks for the next two days.

I sat down in a big armchair while my tea was steeping and cautiously took a bite.

It was warm and oat-y and there was just a bit of chocolate and it was exactly the right chewy thing. I had eaten the whole bar before I left the café ten minutes later.

Then I remembered reading about chewy granola bars on Orangette more than a year ago. I dug up the recipe and tried it out.

They turned out a bit different from Credo's – for one thing, I try not to cut as big pieces – but they're really, really, really wonderful. You drizzle this mixture of peanut butter and honey and vanilla and melted butter over a tumble of oats and chocolate chips and whatever dried fruit and nuts you have around, stick it in the oven, and you're in business.

I guess I go through snack phases (hummus and crackers, yogurt and honey, etc.), and this is my current snack phase. When I need a snack, these are all I can think about. Luckily, I have at least two snack times scheduled each day.

P.S. I like the way Molly keeps these oat-centric, with just hints of nuts and dried fruit. She was also brilliant enough to add chocolate. But it appears that the original King Arthur Flour recipe lets you use lots more nuts and fruit, if that's your thing.

one year ago: loganberry vinegar and hop & go fetch it: pacific rim edition
two years ago: blueberry rhubarb rum jam and tomato cheddar soufflé with asparagus
three years ago: chocolate peanut butter oatcakes and chilli pasta

chewy granola bars
slightly adapted from Orangette, Smitten Kitchen and King Arthur Flour

1 2/3 c. (155 g.) quick-cooking oats*
1/3 c. (35 g.) oat flour**
1/3 c. (65 g.) brown sugar
scant 1 c. (100 g.) raw pecans or other nuts, chopped as roughly as you like
1/2 c. (85 g.) chocolate chips
1/2 c. (25 g.) coconut chips or flakes***
1 – 2 tbsp. ground flax (optional)
1/4 c. (40 g.) dried fruit (cherries, raisins, currants, prunes, etc.), chopped
1/2 tsp. fine salt
1/3 c. (85 g.) nut butter
1 tsp. vanilla extract
6 tbsp. (85 g.) butter, melted
6 tbsp. (120 g.) honey
1 tbsp. water

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter an 8 by 8 inch baking pan. Cut a piece of parchment paper into a rectangle that will line the bottom of the pan and overhang on two ends.

Take out a big bowl and mix up the oats, oat flour, pecans, chocolate chips, coconut, flax, dried fruit and salt. In another bowl, whisk the nut butter, vanilla, butter, honey and water together. Drizzle over the oats and friends, and mix well. Dump the mixture into your prepared pan. Use a piece of plastic wrap to press it down evenly.

Bake for about 30 minutes. Start checking on them after about 25 minutes. The edges will get golden and (hopefully) the top will also get a bit golden (although not as much as the edges). Put the pan on a rack and let cool completely. Then put it in the fridge for a few hours. Do not attempt to cut them into squares before they are thoroughly chilled or you will freak out because they'll all fall apart and you'll think you've made granola cereal instead of granola bars. Of course, if you need to cut a bit out while it's cooling to taste, that is absolutely recommended. Just don't stress about its crumbly nature when it's warm.

I keep mine in the fridge because it's almost summer, but I hear they're fine wrapped on the counter, too. They've certainly held together for hours in my lunch bag outside of the fridge.

* I've also used regular rolled oats and they were good, but a bit more crumbly. If you are gluten-free, make sure you get oats that are labelled "pure" and "wheat free." This means they have not grown next to wheat or been processed in a factory that also processes wheat.
** If you don't have oat flour handy, you can just grind them in the food processor
*** Unsweetened is best, but sweetened is fine, too (that's all I could find!)

asparagus and cheese sauce on toast

Once, on Prince Edward Island, someone fed me asparagus and cheese sauce on toast.

I had a boyfriend whose mother was from the Island, and maybe it was one of his relatives. I can hardly remember anything about that trip – it was maybe 15 years ago – except that it was Easter and it was cold and snowy and someone fed me asparagus and cheese sauce on toast.

I had never heard of such a thing.

I mean, I had heard of each individual thing: asparagus, cheese sauce, toast. But I had never heard of putting them together and then eating them with a fork and knife for dinner.

I remember going home and making it a couple of times at my little apartment in Halifax where I was studying. And then I don't remember ever making it again, even though I obviously liked it.

But this week in my Prairie city, that is almost as far and as different from Halifax and Prince Edward Island as you can get in Canada, I thought of it again.

We had half a bunch of asparagus sitting in the fridge and no plan for dinner. I suddenly remembered putting asparagus and cheese sauce on toast back on the east coast (rhyme not intentional).

As a good western boy, Scott had never heard of such a thing, but he was game. Twenty minutes later – bread toasted, asparagus steamed, cheese sauce whipped up – we were eating dinner and happy as (PEI) clams.

I made the recipe up out of my head because this is not a complicated business. I did try to look it up on the Internet to see if there was some quaint Island name I could attach to it.

I found absolutely nothing related to asparagus and cheese sauce on toast and Prince Edward Island. So, as Anne Shirley would say, the name for this dinner is plain prose and not poetry.

But I think you'll like it.

P.S. If you're from PEI and you know what this is properly called, could you please tell me?

one year ago: Chinese-Canadian lettuce wraps and loganberry vinegar
two years ago: Oregon hazelnut salad and blueberry rhubarb rum jam
three years ago: ripe bean soup and chocolate peanut butter oatcakes

asparagus and cheese sauce on toast
serves 2

4 – 5 pieces of bread
enough asparagus to cover the toast (maybe 15 stalks)
1 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. wheat flour
     or gluten-free: 1 tbsp. sweet rice flour*
1 cup milk, heated
1 c. old cheddar cheese, grated
salt and pepper to taste

Start by making the cheese sauce. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Whisk in the flour and let it simmer for 1 – 2 minutes to cook and bind together. Slowly whisk in the heated milk. Turn the heat up to medium and bring to a simmer. Simmer for a minute or two until it's thickened somewhat. Whisk in the cheese a bit at a time until it's incorporated. Add salt and pepper to taste.

In the meantime, put the asparagus in simmering water and cook until bright green and tender. Alternatively, steam it until tender.

Toast the bread.

Set the table with butter, asparagus and cheese sauce. Butter your toast. Lay the asparagus on top. Pour cheese sauce over to taste. Eat.

*If you don't have any sweet rice flour, you can use white or brown rice flour but your sauce won't be quite as smooth.

cauliflower and mull cheddar soup

Have you heard of a Scottish genius called Nick Nairn?

Growing up in Canada, I had not – until I found his big glossy book at a bookshop in Inverness a few years ago. I carted New Scottish Cookery back across the pond and he has joined us for quite a few dinners here in the new world.

Scott especially has made outstanding (and time consuming!) dishes from Nick's recipes. I'm talking baked filet of halibut with cabbage, smoked bacon and a tarragon cream sauce, not to mention lasagne of smoked haddock and peas, which is much more elegant than it sounds and involves a homemade vegetable butter sauce.

There's also a genius spicy salmon broth that comes together very quickly and has lemongrass and chillies practically bursting out of it.

For my birthday weekend this year, Scott offered to make me a new recipe from New Scottish Cookery. I opened the book with great anticipation, but only got three recipes in.

The bright green herb oil drizzled over the white cauliflower and mull cheddar soup got me.

Looking at it, I thought that maybe, just maybe, this might be the cauliflower cheese soup I have been searching for all my life. This might be the one that wouldn't break into watery pockets of bland cauliflower purée. This might be the one that would be supremely creamy and still have lots of cheesy flavour. This might be it.

It is.

And it's so simple that we are now making it regularly on weeknights. It really just has five ingredients: onion and garlic softened in a good amount of butter, cauliflower and some kind of nice cheddar cheese. We like an Irish cheddar called Kerrygold Reserve, although it is possible I was seduced by the handsome wrapper.

Yes, we've made the herb oil too, but you know what?

Aside from looking pretty, it's not really necessary. The soup itself has so much cheesy-cauliflower flavour that it doesn't need any fancy herb oil to gunk up my immersion blender. Adding a bit of chopped parsley also looks pretty and is a lot less work.

Thank you, Nick Nairn, for your new Scottish cookery.

one year ago: mango love on oahu
two years ago: sour cream coffee cake and dutch marzipan cookies
three years ago: chocolate nut balls

cauliflower and mull cheddar soup
slightly adapted from New Scottish Cookery
feeds six

50 g. (2 oz) butter
1 onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 large cauliflower, chopped finely (1 – 2 cm pieces)
140 – 175 g. (5 – 6 oz) Mull Cheddar, Kerrygold Reserve Cheddar or other aged white cheddar,    grated
freshly ground sea salt and black pepper
1 tbsp. fresh parsley, finely chopped, to garnish

Warm a Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pan over medium heat. Add the butter and let it melt. Add the onion. Stir often and cook until it's translucent, golden and almost softened, about 8 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook for another minute.

While the onion and garlic are cooking, fill a kettle with 1 litre (4 c.) of water and set it to boil.

Add the cauliflower and boiled water to the onion and garlic. Bring it to a boil, and simmer until the cauliflower is tender, about 20 minutes. Take it off the heat.

Purée the soup with an immersion blender until it's quite smooth. Return the pot to the element and turn the heat on low. Add a small handful of cheese and stir it in until melted. Repeat until all the cheese is melted in. (If you add it all at once, it will clump.) Turn the heat off.

Serve with fresh cracked pepper and chopped parsley on top.

Note: Nick Nairn says that if you'd like to freeze the soup, don't add the cheddar. Instead, add the cheddar when you reheat it.

spring in a jar: rhubarb syrup

The rhubarb has been waiting patiently for me.

Just before running out the door to catch my plane out of Comox, I remembered the rhubarb. Dad rushed out to cut me some big, happy stalks. We pushed them into a plastic bag, and carefully laid them in my carry-on next to the kale and stinging nettles.

That was the end of April.

Since then I have planned a live radio show on board a streetcar and gone to Saskatoon to celebrate my sixth wedding anniversary. It's been a busy few weeks.

But, as I mentioned, the rhubarb has been a model vegetable,* quietly waiting at the back of the fridge.

Yesterday, I chopped it up and turned it into a slightly-sweet, ruby-red syrup.

In other words: spring in a jar.

I make this syrup every spring because it's such a nice way to process rhubarb and looks so pretty. It's also incredibly easy – about 20 minutes from stalky start to syrupy finish.

What to do with the syrup?

Well, it would be a darn good excuse to make panna cotta. I also like it drizzled on a dollop of thick Greek yogurt. And, in just three days, the weekend will be here and we'll try it dibbled on pancakes.

bonus photo: this is rhubarb just pushing out of the ground in February

Really, you could spoon it over anything . . . what food isn't happier with a bit of pink syrup on top?

*You may call rhubarb a fruit. That's OK, too.

one year ago: mango love on oahu
two years ago: dutch marzipan cookies
three years ago: putting asparagus on pizza and chocolate nut balls

rhubarb syrup
slightly adapted from Canadian Living

makes about 1 cup / 225 ml syrup

500 mL (2 c.) fresh or frozen rhubarb, chopped
125 mL (1/2 c.) white sugar
125 mL (1/2 c.) water
1 strip lemon peel

Put all the ingredients in a pot with a heavy bottom. Bring to a light boil over medium-high heat. Turn the heat down a bit so it can simmer comfortably and stir every so often. Cook until the rhubarb has broken up, but isn't a dead pulp, 8 – 10 minutes.

Strain through cheesecloth or a fine-mesh sieve suspended over a bowl. If you like your syrup a bit thicker, return the syrup to a clean pot and simmer for 8 – 10 minutes. It will reach the consistency of maple syrup once it's cooled. (Simmer it longer if you want it even thicker; but don't simmer it so long that it loses its fresh flavour.)

Cool and refrigerate. Keeps for at least a week. Lovely on yogurt, panna cotta, anything that needs a little injection of spring.

iranian desert figs

See these funny-looking dried figs?

My dad and I found them in a little Middle Eastern shop in Victoria. They were sitting in a giant basket right by the door. We peered down at them, curious.

Dad brought me up eating dried figs and dates, but we had never seen any quite like this. They were pale blonde and I was fascinated to see that each one was split into a Y, baring its little seeds to the world.

Usually, I like dried figs that are soft and pliable. These looked tough and crunchy . . . but also kind of intriguing.

The owner saw us looking at them and said we should try one. We took one to share, but he insisted we each had to eat our own because "they are too good to share."

As we were chewing – these figs are chewy, but all that chewing leads to a kind of sweet tenderness – he told us that they were very special figs because they only grow in the desert in Iran.

We were hooked. Dad found a plastic bag and filled it to the top. The owner told us we could also  soak them overnight in milk and have them for breakfast.

Despite their funny looks, these are not cheap little figs. The owner told Dad that he gave him a $2 discount so he wouldn't have a heart attack over the price.

Still, they were worth it. We treated them like jewels, with a limit of three at a time. We did try them one morning soaked in milk and they were softer and gave the milk a nice fig flavour . . . but we agreed we like them best in their chewy, dried-out state.

What kind of fig is this, you may ask?

I wish I knew. I scoured the Interweb, but to no avail. However, I can tell you is that the Iranian word for fig is "anjeer." Maybe I'll have to go on a fact-finding mission to the Iranian desert to get the exact name of this particular fig? I wonder what else grows there.

P.S. If you live in Victoria, the shop's name is Mediterranean / Middle Eastern Deli and it's on Pandora Street.

one year ago: grilled chicken sandwiches
two years ago: 8 hours in san francisco and sour cream coffee cake
three years ago: swedish tea cookies

stinging nettle soup

I always remember visiting my great aunt Marjorie in the spring. After dinner, at twilight, she would send me out into the garden with shears and tell me to pick flowers to take home.

The grass would be wet with evening coming on, and I would find little white daffodils with orange faces and big tulips with pointed red petals. I'd bring them in and we'd wrap them in damp paper towel and plastic wrap, so I could transport them safely home.

Marjorie died just over a week ago.

We knew it was coming for a few weeks but, of course, knowing is different than attending the memorial service. Knowing is different than going out for a big dinner with your family and seeing that Marjorie isn't there.

But for those two days while I was there, Victoria was glorious with spring. The sky was a perfect blue of sunshine and everywhere I looked, there were fat pink globes of cherry blossoms and riots of yellow daffodils and red tulips in the garden and bluebells nodding in the grass along the road.

Knowing how she loved her garden, I think Marjorie would have been pleased that we were all there remembering her, chatting under blossoms and shading our eyes in the sun.

Now that I am back in dusty Edmonton where we have just one-inch shoots of tulips to promise spring, I think more about death and that she is gone. Grief is a funny thing, how it can sneak up on you when you think it's gone away.

After the memorial service, I went up to Courtenay with my dad for a few days.

It seemed like everywhere we went, people were talking about stinging nettles. They grow in ditches and in the bush and in all kinds of places where you might accidentally brush against them and get stung.

We found out that as long as you process the nettles in boiling water, they shed the toxin that stings.

So, an hour before we had to leave for the airport yesterday, Dad and I hurried down to the beach. We got out bags and put on gloves and I brought a little bounty of stinging nettle home.

Today, I made stinging nettle soup. It is a simple little soup, and was inspired by this lovely video.

It tastes like spring.

recipes from Marjorie: loganberry jelly and lemon loaf and butter tarts
one year ago: gouda and roasted red pepper dip
two years ago: a baked banana revelation
three years ago: chocolate cheesecake and tom yum pak




stinging nettle soup

note 1: you must wear rubber gloves when touching the nettles before they've been processed
note 2: you must boil the lentils and rinse them and throw away the boiling water

1 very small onion or two shallots, minced (equals about 1/4 c.)
2 tbsp. butter
2 c. packed nettles (top 4 – 6 leaves only), rinsed
2 c. chicken stock
salt and pepper to taste
4 – 5 tbsp. plain Greek yogurt or sour cream

Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed pot over low heat and add the onions. Let them cook slowly in the butter until they're golden and translucent, about 10 minutes.

In the meantime, bring a big pot of water to boil. Add the nettles and boil for about 3 minutes, until they're a bit greener and darker. Strain and rinse them. Chop the nettles on a board a few times to avoid having them clump on the immersion blender. (If you're using a real blender, you can skip the chopping.)

Add the chicken stock to the onion and butter pot. Add the cooked nettles. Blend until the nettles are very fine specks of green. Heat the soup up and add salt and pepper to taste. Stir the yogurt in and check your seasonings one more time before serving.

night circus mice

Look at these mice scurrying across the plate.

I think I might start a whole new category in the recipe index: something like Possibly Too Cute to Eat. Scott suggests they should be filed under Possibly Too Creepy to Eat.

I love looking at these little mice, but actually I love eating them even more. Under their milk chocolate fur, their innards are crispy peanut butter. These are sort of like the animal version of a peanut butter cup – but a lot better because these mice were born with real peanut butter and lovely, melty milk chocolate.

I made these mice for book club last week. We had just read The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and we all brought circus-themed treats. I was intrigued when I read about the chocolate mice with licorice tails.

(I was also planning to attempt caramel corn but I couldn't find any naked popcorn to dress up with caramel – and my household is sadly lacking a popcorn popper. Well, it's a good thing, because four (!) friends came bearing bowls of caramel corn. We essentially had a caramel corn tasting party and discussed the book in between bites.)

The mice are a bit involved because you have to chill the innards before you can dip them in a thick coat of milk chocolate. But they're also pretty simple: mix the peanut butter with a bit of melted butter, icing sugar and crispy rice cereal and you can shape your little mouse bodies.

Then you lay out tails on the pan, dip your chilled mice in melted milk chocolate and attach them to the tails . . . Chill a bit and dab on white chocolate eyes.

Done. And cute to boot.

one year ago: paska for easter and zeppelin pancakes
two years ago: gumdrop cookies
three years ago: butterscotch pudding

chocolate mice with licorice tails
adapted from rock recipes

breeds 16 – 20 mice

1/2 c. smooth peanut butter

1 c. icing or powdered sugar

2 tbsp. + 2 tsp. melted butter

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 c. crispy rice cereal (optional), crushed a bit*

about 40 sunflower seeds or sliced almond pieces for the ears

heaping 1 c. milk chocolate pieces

1 – 2 tbsp. white chocolate pieces

licorice, cut into tails**

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Set aside. 

Mix the peanut butter, icing sugar, 2 tablespoons melted butter and vanilla extract together. If it feels too dry and crumbly, add the other 2 tsp. of melted butter. However, you do want a somewhat crumbly "dough" to shape – but you need to be able to work with it. Stir in the crispy rice cereal.

Shape the mice so that they have a somewhat pointy nose and rounded bum. Set them on the prepared pan. Poke "ears" in with sunflower seeds or sliced almonds. Chill in the fridge for about 2 hours. 

In the top of a double-boiler or a bowl suspended over boiling water, melt the milk chocolate. Scrape it into a small deep bowl that's just big enough to roll a mouse around. (If your bowl is too wide and shallow, it will be tough to coat the mice and you'll need more chocolate.)

Place the licorice tails on the prepared pan where each mouse will go. Using two small spoons as tongs, dip each mouse in the chocolate and place each on a tail.

Chill for 1 hour until the chocolate has set. Melt the white chocolate and use a toothpick to dab on the eyes. Let set in the fridge. Eat!

*To crush, you can put them in a plastic bag and scrunch them 

**Licorice has wheat flour, so these are not gluten free if they have tails. But you can always genetically alter them to be tail-less and gluten-free.

spiced red lentil stew with greens and lemon

One of the things that drives me bonkers about women's magazines is when they advertise recipes for "dinner in 20 minutes flat!"

They're everywhere and they're generally completely unrealistic. I mean, do these magazines think we have a sous-chef who's right beside us in the kitchen, chopping vegetables faster than the speed of light and measuring spices into little prep bowls?

In my experience, a good meal takes between one and two hours to make. (The only way around this I've found is the humble sausage. Frying sausage, boiling potatoes and few veggies can be done in about 40 minutes. But I cannot eat sausage every night.)

When I say "good meal," I mean one that feeds at least two people and leaves lots of leftovers for lunch the next day and tastes good. It also usually includes all of the food groups.

So I get pretty excited when I find a recipe I can make in just under an hour that meets all those requirements. These recipes are not usually very sexy.

Case in point: when I was looking through the lovely Laura Calder's newest cookbook, I was about to flip right by her recipe for spiced red lentil stew with spinach and lemon.

Yes, I do eat a lot of lentils, but I wasn't exactly looking for lentil inspiration in a French cook book. However! Laura knows me well and the headnote to the recipe began, "Please do not overlook this recipe . . . " and proceeded to list why I should make it.

Merci, Laura. I made this recipe soon after and it has become one of the best recipes we've discovered in the last while. In fact, I do believe we've made it at least five times in the last five months.

It is a brilliant recipe and I can make it all in under an hour. (Imagine how much faster I'd be with a sous-chef!) The lentils cook down in their spicy broth and remind me of dahl. I am not really a spinach or greens lover, but even they just work piled on top of the lentils. Then the bits of lemon juice squeezed on top wake it all up and make each bite different. I like to put this all on a bed of short-grain brown rice – you know the kind that almost pops in your mouth?

It's all divine. If I had my own magazine, I'd advertise, "dinner in just under an hour!" and I'd know you really could do it by yourself – and enjoy it.

How many copies I'd sell would be another story.

one year ago: cheddar corn chowder and lemon gumdrops
two years ago: grand forks borscht and up island
three years ago: canadian boterkoek and sophisticated marshmallow squares
lentil-love: dahl for dinner, dahling and parsley lentil pasta and salmon with sugar-salt rub and Mark Bittman's lentils

spiced red lentil stew with greens and lemon
slightly adapted from Laura Calder's Dinner Chez Moi

brown rice (I like this short-grain brown rice best)
2 tbsp. (30 ml) olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 jalapeño pepper, minced (or peperoncino, crushed, if you can get it)
2 tsp. (10 ml) ground cumin
1 tsp. (5 ml) ground coriander
1 tsp. (5 ml) curry powder
pinch of turmeric
1 c. (200 g.) red lentils
398 ml (14 oz.) best-quality canned tomatoes
3 – 3.5 c. (about 700 ml) chicken stock*
salt and pepper
100 – 200 g. (4 – 8 oz.) Swiss chard, spinach or other greens, stems trimmed
lemon wedges for serving

Get your rice going, so it can cook while you prepare the lentils and greens.

Put a Dutch oven or large heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Add the oil. Stir in the garlic, jalapeño, cumin, coriander and curry. After about a minute, the garlic should be light brown. Pour in the lentils, tomatoes, stock and turmeric. Cover and bring to a simmer, stirring every so often, until the lentils have broken down and become a purée, about 20 – 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Next, prepare the greens. Wash them and put them into a big pot with water droplets still on the leaves. Cover the pot and turn the heat to medium-high. Steam them for 3 – 5 minutes, tossing them with tongs a couple times to make sure they don't stick to the bottom of the pot. Once they are just wilted, turn off the heat.

Ladle lentils over rice in wide shallow bowls. Top with a tangle of greens. Serve with lemon wedges on the side to squeeze over.

*If you add 4 cups of stock, you will have a stewy soup and you don't need to serve it with rice. But I like the rice!