dutch babies and turning 3

A few years ago, I was lucky enough to share a house in Vancouver with a family from Atlanta, Georgia.

Joy introduced me to the joys of cast-iron skillets and southern food. There was fried chicken and fried green tomatoes and a breakfast food I had never even heard of: the Dutch baby.

But after one bite, I was soon begging for the recipe.

The thing I love about Dutch babies is that the process is just as fun as the final result (which is very funny looking).

First, you heat your oven almost as high as it will go, to about 450 degrees Fahrenheit. While you're doing that, you've got your cast-iron skillets in there, getting sizzling hot.

Because you haven't woken up enough to juggle too much at once, you get all the ingredients out. (Some of you might already do this for every recipe. I am not so disciplined and always think I can "catch up.")

Next, you take a break. You pour yourself a glass of orange juice (or apple, if that's what you've got) and you drink it.

Once you've had your juice, you're ready to get back to cooking. Basically, you just mix all those ingredients together, melt a copious amount of butter in those hot(!) skillets and pour your batter in.

The batter looks thin and unremarkable, but you hardly notice because you're still rubbing the sleep out of your eyes . . . and you know what's coming next. You slide your hot skillets into the oven and then – this is seriously part of the recipe as Joy told it to me – you pull up a chair in front of the oven and you watch the Dutch babies poof up.

Sitting in front of the oven is probably the best part (well, I guess except for eating). You just drink your juice and think about the day and peer through that oven door to look at the babies' progress.

Can you see it growing?

After about 15 or 20 minutes, your Dutch babies have grown into giant, crispy pancakes with their own mountain ranges and silky innards. At this point, you really should call someone over who will be properly amazed at what you've already done this morning.

Then you quickly sprinkle a bit of icing sugar on top and slice them into big pieces. Once you've got a now-fallen-but-no-less-delicious Dutch baby on your plate, you squeeze lemon over it.

And that's all. It's so easy. Just eat it and have a good day. Oh, and if it's your birthday, you can celebrate: dollop of cream has just turned three!

P.S. Many thanks to the lovely Joy for sharing this recipe with me. Speaking of whom, you might like to see Joy's blog. She's a creative director and stylist and creates the most beautiful worlds . . .

one year ago: gumdrop cake
two years ago: bacon-wrapped dates with almonds and olives and whisky marmalade (could someone please tell me where to find Seville oranges in Edmonton?)
three years ago: muesli and lemon loaf

dutch babies
from joy
bakes 2 dutch babies in 8 – 10 inch skillets,* serving 4 – 5**

4 eggs
1 c. milk
1 tbsp. neutral oil (such as canola or grapeseed)
1 c. flour
     or gluten-free:
     48 g. pure oat flour
     36. g. potato starch
     36 g. tapioca starch
     20 g. corn starch
     1 tsp. guar or xanthan gum
1 tsp. vanilla
1/8 tsp. cinnamon
a good grating of nutmeg (let's say more than 1/8 tsp.)
about 5 tbsp. butter
1 – 2 lemons, cut into wedges for squeezing
2 tbsp. icing sugar for sprinkling
(optional: glass of juice)

Put your two cast-iron skillets in the oven. Turn the oven on to between 425 and 450 degrees Fahrenheit. (I have a good oven right now and I like 440. But I know not all ovens will be that exact and it doesn't really matter, as long it's really hot.)

Get all the ingredients out.

Have a glass of orange or apple juice, whatever you have on hand.

Beat the eggs for one minute, but no longer. Slowly add the milk. Slowly add the oil. Slowly add the flour.

Stir in the vanilla, and then the cinnamon and nutmeg.

Put on your oven mitts (yes, both of them). Carefully, take out the hot skillets and put them on the top of the stove. Drop about 3 tbsp. of butter in your larger skillet and a bit less in your slightly smaller skillet. Watch it melt. Wearing your oven mitts, tilt the pan a bit so that it's coated with butter.

Pour in the thin batter right away. Don't worry about the melted butter that might sneak up along the side and over the batter – it's all good.

Wearing your oven mitts, carefully slide each skillet back into the hot oven.

Pull up a chair and your glass of juice and watch them poof up. Bake for about 15 – 20 minutes, until they are mountainous and browned and the sides have pulled away from the skillet.

Wearing your oven mitts, take the skillets out of the oven and set them on a rack. Call someone over to see what you've made. Try not to worry when it all falls down (in about 30 seconds). Sprinkle each Dutch baby with icing sugar through a fine-mesh sieve. Slice and serve with lemon wedges. Eat immediately.

*Yes, you must use a cast-iron skillet. I've tried a stainless steel skillet and it just didn't crisp as well.
**This recipe halves perfectly.

chocolate ginger cookies

In the small town of Courtenay on Vancouver Island there is a very, very good farmers' market.

There's something about the town that seems to draw old and young hippies who are gifted bakers and farmers and coffee-bean roasters.

Even Scott – who could definitely use an attitude adjustment when it comes to hanging out at farmers' markets – trails along happily behind me and my dad at the Courtenay farmers' market.

We always end up at the gluten-free baking booth, where we buy a loaf of maple oat bread for Scott and chocolate ginger cookies for all of us. We usually save the cookies for whatever adventure we get up to that afternoon: canoeing around Jim Mitchell Lake or walking the beach at Royston or forging trails in the bush on my dad's land.

And the cookies are always just right: rich and chocolatey, with a good kick of ginger and molasses to perk you up. In short, they do exactly what a cookie is supposed to do mid-afternoon.

This fall, my dad told me that the mother-daughter team behind the booth, Sweet Surprise, was publishing a cookbook. Now, we haven't been able to go to the Courtenay farmers' market since we moved to Edmonton in September – the commute is just too long.

So what do you think I thought about first?

That's right. These chocolate ginger cookies.

Luckily, my dad gave me the cook book for Christmas and it had the recipe. (Thank you, Heidi and Alex, for including it!)

People, I am here to tell you: these chocolate ginger cookies are even better than we remembered. I make them a bit smaller and possibly bake them for a bit less time . . . and they are chewy and bright with ginger and the chocolate is melting on our fingers and I always think I haven't made nearly enough.

Now we are set: I will keep making these chocolate ginger cookies and they will tide us over until we can get back to Courtenay (fingers crossed!) in the summer.

one year ago: gumdrop cake
two years ago: whisky marmalade (Does anyone in Edmonton know where I can find Seville oranges?)
three years ago: ugly vegetables make beautiful soup: creamy celeriac soup

chocolate ginger cookies*
slightly adapted from sweet surprise and martha stewart
bakes about 34 cookies

80 g. (1/2 c. + 2 tbsp.) brown or white rice flour
42 g. (1/4 c. + 1 tbsp.) sweet sorghum flour
54 g. (1/4 c. + 1 tbsp.) potato starch
40 g. (1/4 c. + 1 tbsp.) tapioca starch
3/4 tsp. xanthan gum
1 tsp. ground ginger
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tbsp. cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
90 g. (1/2 c.) room-temperature butter or coconut oil
1 tbsp. fresh ginger, peeled and grated
1/2 c. brown sugar
175 g. (1/2 c. + 1 tbsp.) molasses
200 g. dark chocolate, chopped
3 tbsp. white sugar or coarse blonde sugar for rolling


Whisk the dry ingredients together in a bowl so that they mix well. Set aside.

With your mixer, beat the butter, ginger, brown sugar and molasses until it's very creamy. Then slowly mix in the dry ingredients. Add the chopped chocolate and mix. Try not to worry about how wet the dough is at this point.

Take out two rectangles of plastic wrap. Divide the craggy dough in half and put each half on one of the rectangles. Use the plastic wrap to form a log on each rectangle. It should be about 5 cm (almost 2 inches) in diameter (roughly). Chill for at least one hour or overnight in the fridge.

When the dough has chilled, prepare 3 baking trays with parchment paper. Put the white sugar into a small bowl. Slice the dough into even pieces – about 16 to 18 per log. Roll each slice into a ball and flatten it slightly. Roll that in the sugar. Place the dough balls on the tray about 6 cm (2 inches) apart. Let the dough balls chill in the fridge for a further 10 minutes.

While the dough balls are chilling, move the rack in your oven so that it's in the upper half. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.** Bake for about 10 minutes. The top will have a crinkle appearance and the cookies will look somewhat set, but will still be very fragile – this is key for a chewy cookie.

Let the cookies rest on their tray for about 10 minutes, until they are coherent enough to transfer to a rack to finish cooling (they will be much stronger at this point). Let cool.

Note: Sweet Surprise says the unbaked dough keeps in the fridge for about a week, if you like to do that. I always need to bake them right away because it never seems like there's enough . . .

* I have only tested these cookies with gluten-free flours since that's how Sweet Surprise wrote the recipe. The Martha Stewart version with regular wheat flour is very similar – try it if you don't need to go gluten-free.
** My mom tried this recipe and found the cookies baked better (and chewier) at 325 degrees Fahrenheit in her oven. If you think your oven runs hot, try that.

black-eyed peas with kale and bacon

I am a reformed vegetarian.

Between the ages of 12 and 28, I followed various denominations of vegetarian: full, pescetarian, chicken-atarian . . .

Then I lived in a house full of people from Oxford, England and Atlanta, Georgia. Suddenly, bacon was frying in a heavy black cast-iron skillet all the time.

And the smell – well, the smell was irresistible.

Needless to say, bacon was my gateway meat.

Now, I am a proud omnivore and no denomination of vegetarian will describe me at all. Of course, we still do eat a lot of vegetarian meals . . . old habits die hard.

Which is why I'd like to offer you this almost-vegetarian dish – a dish whose genius lies in its use of bacon.

You see, you start with just a few slices of bacon and fry them up, until they're crispy and you can't resist doing a few taste-tests while they're draining on the paper towel. But – and here's the genius – you leave the little bit of bacon fat that has seeped out in the pan.

Yes, exactly! And then you cook your onion and carrot and celery and garlic in that bacon goodness. The veggies soak up that bacon goodness like a sponge and become glistening and full of flavour – all ready to hang out with their good friend, the black-eyed pea.

Do you know the black-eyed pea?

It's my favourite bean, possibly because it's my favourite card in my favourite card game – Bohnanza – but also because it's so tender and beautiful at the same time.

The black-eyed pea is yet another bean that is so much better bought dried, and then soaked and cooked. You know that strangely slimy, gushy texture canned beans have? Well, dried beans don't get that (unless, I suppose, you cooked them forever and ever). Instead, a dried bean plumps up and maintains its shape even while it gets tender on the inside. To say that I like dried beans would be an understatement (see, the vegetarian in me lives on).

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking you don't have time to deal with dried beans. That's what I thought, too – I'm never on top of life enough to soak dried beans over night. But it turns out you can cut that time right down to an hour with the same results as soaking: just bring them to a boil, turn them off and let them sit for 1 hour.

Anyway, back to this black-eyed pea dish. I call it a dish because I like to leave just a little liquid to dip my bread in, but otherwise I like it thick and substantial. Magical things happen here: with that bacon and the cumin and these beans and even the kale.

This is, unapologetically, a deep-winter dish that you might find yourself waiting for all year round – vegetarian or not.

one year ago: lemon syllabub
two years ago: rosemary gruyère baked eggs
three years ago: shortbread in january

black-eyed peas with kale and bacon
adapted from eating for england and for the love of cooking

feeds 4

2 c. dried black-eyed peas
5 – 7 slices bacon, chopped (easiest to do frozen)
1 small onion, diced
3 carrots, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
15 oz. canned whole tomatoes, best quality you can get
salt and freshly-ground black pepper
1 tsp. cumin
pinch of crushed red pepper (or Korean red pepper)
3 1/2 – 4 c. chicken broth
2 – 3 c. kale, chopped finely

First, prepare the black-eyed peas. You have two options.

Option 1: Put the black-eyed peas in a big pot with lots of water. Soak them for at least 8 hours.

Option 2: Put the black-eyed peas in a big pot with lots of water. Bring them to a boil. Turn off the heat, cover and wait 1 hour.

Drain your prepared black-eyed peas and rinse them well.* Set aside.

Put a big heavy-bottomed pot (like a Dutch oven) over medium heat. Cook the bacon until it's just cooked and a bit crispy. While it's cooking, prepare a small plate with a paper towel on top. When the bacon's done, use a slotted spoon to take it out and put it on the prepared plate.

Add the onion, carrot and celery to the bacon fat left in the pot. Fry for 2 – 3 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook for 1 more minute. Add the tomato, salt, pepper, cumin and crushed red pepper and cook for 2 – 3 minutes. Break up the tomatoes with your spoon a bit while everything's cooking.

Pour in the chicken broth and prepared black-eyed peas. Bring to a simmer and cover. Let it simmer for about 30 minutes, until the black-eyed peas and veggies are tender, but not too soft.

Stir in the kale and bacon and simmer for 5 more minutes. Serve – we like this with crusty bread or homemade cheesy garlic toast and a glass of red wine.

*Apparently, if you rinse beans, they are less likely to cause gas.

pan de yuca

Pan de yuca – warm, salty and a little bit chewy.

What more could you ask for in a quick little bun?

Not much, I'd say. Which is why these are quickly becoming a new standard at my house.

These little buns literally mean "bread of tapioca" and they use tapioca starch and copious amounts of cheese for their structure. (Hmmm, could that be why I like them so much?)

The original recipe calls for queso fresco, but here on the Prairies, queso fresco is not stocked in my grocery store. I used feta instead and it gives them a good, salty heft.

Now, my Colombian friend tells me that I can make queso fresco and that it's much like ricottta, so I'll have to try that next time. But, honestly, I'm pretty happy with these feta darlings -- although I do see they get more rise in the original queso fresco version.

They are truly simple – faster than whipping up a batch of biscuits, I'd hazard.

Just whiz the feta, tapioca starch*, baking powder and a teeny bit of sugar in a little food processor (mine is called the mini-hachoir!). Blend in an egg, pull it out . . .

The dough is wet and craggy, but easy enough to roll into little balls.

The buns only take 15 minutes to bake (while you're putting the finishing touches on your soup, say) and they're perfect warm out of the oven.

And – bonus! – they're also good cold with your lunch the next day.

*You should be able to find tapioca starch at most grocery stores. Look in the gluten-free section.

one year ago: tomato sauce with onion and butter
two years ago: glorious hummus for bean month
three years ago: shortbread in january

pan de yuca (colombian tapioca buns)
adapted from my colombian recipes
bakes 12 nice little buns

1 c. tapioca starch
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. sugar
250 g. mild feta cheese, broken into a few big chunks
2 eggs, beaten

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Stir the tapioca starch, baking powder and sugar together. Pour into the food processor. Add the feta and pulse until mixed well. Add the egg slowly and pulse until just mixed.

Pull the dough out and shape 12 balls. Place them on the prepared pan. Bake for 14 – 15 minutes, or until golden brown on top. Serve warm.

carrot and fennel soup

This is the kind of recipe I could see my mother being attracted to. She would look at it and think it would make a fine soup, if only she could add some lentils or dark leafy greens.

Mom, don't do it!

This is a simple soup, and it was meant to be a simple soup.

In fact, as I was perusing The Essential New York Times Cookbook, looking for a good January soup, I thought it might be too simple. (By the way, have I convinced you to buy this cookbook yet? You really should.)

But Amanda Hesser hasn't let me down yet, so I headed off to find the best fennel fronds I could. This is rather a spectacular fennel-frond specimen, isn't it?

The fennel glistened in the melted butter while I chopped and chopped the carrots and garlic. A little more frying to bring out the sweetness of the carrots and garlic, and then a chicken stock and water bath. After 25 minutes, everything softened up and I stirred in a bit of orange juice, sour cream and chopped fennel fronds.

I was a bit concerned at this point – I mean, acidic orange juice and sour cream? Can you say curdle?

Well, I needn't have worried. The sour cream does separate a bit, but it just doesn't matter. It seems to like to sit on the top of the soup in a buttery-brothy layer. Which means that every time I dunked my spoon in, I got some. And it was lovely.

Scott says it reminds him of a Mennonite soup (possibly because the only Mennonite seasoning appears to be sour cream), except that he's pretty sure that Mennonites don't eat fennel.

It reminds me of a kohlrabi soup we had at the Literaturhaus Café in Berlin, sitting outside in the garden, as the summer sun slowly set. The soup had such a fine, silky broth with big nuggets of kohlrabi and carrots and potatoes.

This soup is kind of like that. It is simple, but it's also much more than the sum of its parts. The broth is lovely and thin, and the carrots and fennel slices are big and soft, just waiting for your spoon to find them.

one year ago: glory bowl and tomato sauce with onion and butter
two years ago: glorious hummus for bean month and naomi's granola
three years ago: shortbread in january

carrot and fennel soup
slightly adapted from The Essential New York Times Cookbook by Amanda Hesser
serves 4 to 6

2 tbsp. butter
1 medium fennel bulb, trimmed and thinly sliced, about 1 c. fronds reserved and minced
680 g. (1 1/2 lbs.) carrots, peeled and sliced about 1/2 cm thick
1 large garlic clove, thinly sliced
2 c. chicken stock*
4 c. chicken stock
1/2 tsp. salt + more to taste
1/3 c. orange juice**
1/4 c. sour cream
freshly-ground black pepper

Set a big heavy pot (like a Dutch oven) over medium heat. Once it's heated, add the butter. When the butter has melted and looks foamy, stir in the fennel slices. Cook for 8 – 10 minutes, stirring every so often, until the fennel has softened.

Stir in the carrots and garlic and cook for 1 more minute. Pour in the stock and water, and season with salt. Let the soup come to a simmer and cover it. Let it simmer until the carrots are very tender, which should take about 20 – 25 minutes.

Take the pot off the heat. Stir in the orange juice, sour cream and reserved fennel fronds. If your carrots are soft enough, use the back of a spoon to mash a few against the side of the pot. If they're tender but firmly intact (as mine were), push a potato masher down a few times to break them up a bit. However, this is completely optional, as this soup is meant to have a silky, fine broth with big nuggets of carrots and fennel slices. Season with lots of freshly-ground pepper, and more salt if necessary. Serve.

* The original recipe just calls for water here. If you don't have chicken stock, use water and season accordingly. But I do think the chicken stock gives a rounder, richer base to the soup.
** The original recipe calls for fresh orange juice. I obviously didn't see that when I bought a big jug of Tropicana. It was still lovely.

happy things in the new year

I returned home in the morning on New Year's Day.

As I carefully lugged my bulging suitcase – full of imported B.C. wine – up the front steps and into the house, I was happy to be back.

The sun streamed in and I looked fondly on my Christmas decorations and the shiny new pot my favourite husband had given me for Christmas.

And I went back into my favourite part of this house: the kitchen.

First, I made those Ottolenghi spice cookies* I'd been drooling over for the past month.

They are divine. I don't think an hour goes by when I don't think about them. Currants bathed in brandy, rough bits of dark chocolate in a dense, spicy dough with a slathering of lemon glaze . . . it doesn't get much better than this. I am attempting to limit myself to two a day. But I might break.

Then, while the tomatoes were roasting for this deep and dark soup, I tried making pan de yuca. These are Colombian cheese buns that are made with tapioca starch and queso fresco.

Edmonton is not exactly a Latin food mecca, so I had to sub in mild feta instead of the queso fresco. But – no hay problema! – they came out soft and salty and perfect for dipping in the soup.

So that was one dinner. The next night, I knew I was dining alone, so I went kind of crazy and bought barley! With gluten in it! Wild times, I know.

I've been thinking about barley risotto ever since I ate it almost a year ago at the Twisted Fork in Vancouver. It was creamy and cheesy and the barley had such a nice bite . . .

After a bit of searching, I found this recipe for Meyer Lemon Risotto with barley. I adapted it a bit – with a regular lemon, asiago cheese and no greens or nuts – and it was just exactly what I hoped for. (This might make me live on the wild side a bit more often.)

Because the risotto was enough work, I wanted to cheat and only make one vegetable for the side. A fat head of cauliflower stared at me from the fridge, and I found this recipe for roasting it with olive oil, lemon, garlic and parmesan.

By the time the cauliflower had baked up golden with singed brown tips, it was perfect with my barley risotto. Of course, this kind of dinner called for good wine, and I had a glass of one of my favourite wines in the whole world.

For dessert, I ate a slice of chocolate cheesecake that my mom sent home with me.

I am now living on leftovers and am one very happy girl come mealtime.

2013, I feel good about you so far.


one year ago: glory bowl
two years ago: naomi's granola
three years ago: shortbread in january


*I adapted the spice cookies to be gluten-free. Let me know if you'd like my GF flour substitutions.

P.S. My husband kidnapped the camera. If the ransom goes through, I expect it will be back tomorrow. The pictures on this post are from our stay in Ucluelet this summer. But isn't there some lucky omen to starting the new year with shells?

skiing toward christmas . . .

Early in 2012, snow suddenly blanketed Victoria. 

The city shut down and we took the opportunity to go skiing in the field right across from our house.

I'm not sure what exactly is chasing me, but I like to think it might be a falling star.

That was our Christmas card this year and I'd like to send Christmas greetings your way, dear reader.

I made you some cookies . . .

But they weren't quite good enough to share with you. So I thought I'd remind you about a few other good things and let you know what I've been looking at lately:

How to buy Christmas gifts for foodies. Whenever I need a giggle, I look at this photo.

I just made this almond-scented boterkoek for a Christmas Eve potluck tomorrow. It's lovely and buttery for Christmas.

Don't these spice cookies look heavenly? I wonder if I'd need to go to the work of making the candied orange peel, or could just leave it off . . .

Tipsy rum balls. 'Nuff said.

This chocolate cheesecake would make a fine Christmas Day dessert.

We made Madhur Jaffrey's chicken biryani for the eve of Christmas Eve dinner tonight. We served it with homemade mango chutney, raita, roasted almonds and slices of banana. It is certainly an involved recipe, but it is so incredibly good. As Madhur says, "Biryani is quite definitely not an everyday dish . . . It was, and is, a dish worthy of a king."

My friend has said I really must try Colombian cheese buns, called pan de yuca. I've got this recipe earmarked for the new year.

Along the Indian theme – because the holidays are a good excuse to cook whatever we want – I am longing to make Bademiya's justly famous Bombay chile and cilantro chicken from the Essential New York Times Cookbook. The sauce includes cilantro, garlic, jalapeño, walnuts, lemon and cumin. Mmmn . . .

I hope you get to do lots of skiing or whatever your favourite thing is to do around Christmas.

(Now that we live at what we affectionately call the North Pole – Edmonton – there's a lot of skiing happening around here.)

Merry Christmas!

one year ago: nougat marzipan cookies (for your leftover marzipan!)
two years ago: butter lettuce for a break and spicy cajun almonds

hot lemon honey tea

I work in a radio newsroom.

But for the last four days, I've only heard silence.

I've been at home, recovering from the flu. Listening to the radio and following the news seemed like too much for my weakened state.

This afternoon, I thought I should check what's happening, as I get ready to plunge back into the newsroom next week.

And suddenly all I could see and hear was this – the school shooting in Connecticut.

While I am safe and warm in my little home, feeling sorry for myself because I have the flu, this unimaginable horror is tearing through lives in Connecticut.

I wanted to give you this – my simple family recipe for lemon honey tea, in case you're not feeling well, either.

one year ago: cheesy grapes
two years ago: tipsy rum balls

hot lemon honey tea

juice from 1 regular lemon
a good dollop of honey (about 3 tbsp?)
a splash of rum

Fill the kettle with cold water and turn it on. While it's coming to a boil, juice the lemon and pour the juice into the bottom of the teapot. Add a good dollop of honey and a splash of rum (whisky would also work). Pour over the boiling water to almost fill the teapot. Stir everything together. Taste and add more lemon or honey, as you like. Don't be afraid to add more honey – you want to enjoy this drink, not be making puckery faces.