"Lemon... see through in the sunlight"

Know what always always always makes me happy when I make it?

Lemon curd.

Yeah, it's kind of unknown or unacknowledged here in Canada, but I had it first in the United Kingdom and have counted myself among its most loyal followers ever since. It's delicious - very tart, but very creamy and utterly delicious on shortbread. It's not hard to make, and it keeps well in a refrigerator. It's also a beautiful buttery colour.

Lemon Curd

6-7 tbs unsalted good butter
1 cup of sugar
2 big eggs
2 big egg yolks
2/3 a cup of fresh (that means squeeze-it-yourself) lemon juice (this is usually about 2-3 lemons' worth)
a pinch or two of grated and finely chopped lemon zest

In a big, cool glass bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until smooth. Add the eggs and the egg yolks. Beat with creamed mixture for about a minute or until fully combined. Add the lemon juice - it's going to look pretty rough & curdled there, but don't worry, it'll smooth out in the next step.

Pour the mixture into a heavy pot. On low, and stirring constantly, cook the mixture. You'll see that as it heats up, it loses its curdled look. Turn the heat up to around medium, and keep stirring - it needs to cook for about 13 minutes so it can thicken up. Don't let it boil, though. It should leave a coating on your stirring utensil when you take that utensil out of the mixture.

Remove the pot from the heat, and add that pinch or two of lemon zest. Stir to combine.

Now, get some jars. Pour the lemon curd into them and let cool.... or take some of the slightly warm stuff and slather it onto some shortbread. So tasty!

You can also use it for a filling for tarts or for a larger shortbread crust tart.

Holi Guacamole

Today is Holi, the Indian festival of colour - Holi Hai!

My boyfriend's family are lovely, and they cook beautiful Indian food that I am only too happy to eat. However, I don't have any tried and tested recipes for Indian food of my own, so I decided to post a recipe for a colourful food instead. There's not much to it, but gosh it's tasty.

Guacamole

3 hass avocadoes, insides scooped out and pit removed
1/2 tomato, chopped and deseeded
1/2 jalapeno, chopped (can also use ancho chile powder if jalapenos are hard to find)
1-2 tablespoons of chopped onion
1 garlic clove, minced
3 squeezes of lime - it works out to be about half a lime's worth
salt to taste (usually about 3/4 of a tablespoon)

Mash all these up together to a dip-like consistency... eat with corn chips... nom.

Mousse, mousse, mousse...

So I made a delightful chocolate mousse one night when I was entertaining a gluten-intolerant friend. We had post-work wine and snacks (corn tortillas and homemade guacamole), and I felt like we should have something sweet to finish... so I chose mousse. It was crazy chocolatey, but also crazy delicious.

Dark Chocolate Mousse

5 ounces of bittersweet chocolate
1 1/2 cups really cold, heavy cream for whipping
3 large egg whites
4-6 tsp white sugar (depending on how sweet you want this to be)

In a double boiler or bain marie (I used a stainless steel bowl perched over a big pot of boiling water), melt the chocolate, stirring periodically. Once melted, turn the heat off but leave the bowl over the water to keep the chocolate in its melty state.

Whip the cream to normal whipped cream consistency - it'll stand on its own if you dip a spoon into it and draw it out.

Whip the egg whites in another bowl. When they're foamy and kind of thinking about getting a little bit more difficult to whip, add your 4-6 tsp of sugar. Then keep beating the eggs until they are quite stiff, and can stand on their own in little egg white mountains.

Combine the chocolate and the egg whites - just dump the chocolate into the egg whites in one go, and stir away until they're just about fully combined. Then add the whipped cream - I added it slowly while still mixing - mixing by hand, I should add. When completely combined, cover the mousse and let it chill out in the fridge for at least an hour, or however long you need it to be chilled for. It's a pretty good make-ahead dessert.

Serve it with whipped cream (whip the cream with sugar - it'll help sweeten things up for those who aren't giant fans of dark chocolate).

It's reliably delicious, which is kind of excellent when entertaining.

I've been waiting so long...

I'm back... mostly just to tell you what I've been cooking/eating, and to say hello.

Hello!

I've been running around crazily for the past few weeks, attempting to coordinate and action my workplace's presence at a stakeholder conference. I'm really glad it's over because now I have time for people and places and food. I haven't really been able to make too too much in the last little while, but my list includes:

Lemon curd
Best cheap roast beef supper
Guacamole
Dark chocolate mousse

Recipes for all will follow. I also had an excellent Valentines' Day Supper at Table 17 (www.table17.ca), which is just about my favourite restaurant in Toronto due to its simplicity and friendliness. It's out on Queen East, close to Carlaw, and does simple bistro-y food with delicious results. The staff are exceptionally accommodating, and will remember your face with ease after your first or second visit.

On this occasion, I enjoyed the diver scallops to start, garnished with guanciale and just the loveliest amount of bearnaise. The scallops had a delicious browned edge with a sort of sweetness that I wasn't expecting, but was very pleased to find. My boyfriend had a beetroot salad which was delicious, filled with pretty red and yellow beets. Then, I moved on to an unctuous braised short rib of beef, served over pureed parsnip. The pureed parsnip was so far beyond anything I ever hoped to find in a parsnip. My boyfriend enjoyed the striploin, cooked beautifully. We shared a bowl of frites with lemony mayonnaise, as we can't go to Table 17 without having them. The only slight disappointment for me was the lemon tart - while the lemon curd was tart and delicious, it seemed to require something more substantial than a very thin, phyllo-type of cup to hold it. However, I ate it all so it definitely wasn't a dealbreaker!

Anyway, that's about it for now. I hope that anyone reading this is well, and enjoying March so far.

Sugar, Spice, and Everything's Alright

So this week all I can think about is sugar. It's weird and not cool - I really shouldn't eat sugar in large quantities. Today I gave in to myself in an effort to keep the sugar-filled visions at bay - had a donut for breakfast and a piece of chocolate mousse cake for lunch. Ugh. My stomach is in full-on revolt now but at least the craving seems to be at rest. I just hope that the rest will continue.


This week I made a recipe from another blogger's repertoire - Hollow Legs' Vietnamese Pork and Aubergine (eggplant to North Americans). It was delicious and easy and inexpensive and gluten-free, and it can be found here: http://lizzieeatslondon.blogspot.com/2008/11/vietnamese-spicy-pork-aubergine.html

I'm heading out to my folks' house tomorrow, and they've asked that I make a beef stew while I'm home. I'm thinking of something with red wine... and maybe I'll put a crust on the top of it to make it pot pie-ish. Winter is the best best best time for meat pies, just like summer is the best best best time for fruit pies. It's just a fact - dispute it if you dare.

And as for tonight, the bad-for-me food fest is continuing with Pub Night for Strongbow and wings. We go to the Bishop and the Belcher at Church and Bloor http://www.bishopandbelcher.com/ - haven't found any better in the city, and it has a complete genealogy of the British royal family and Trivial Pursuit cards on the tables. I can't think of better mealtime entertainment, personally.

beautiful bolognese (with or without tagliatelle)

made a very pleasant, home-y tasting bolognese last night... and ate it for lunch today.

it contained:

about 2 tablespoons of butter
a tablespoon of vegetable oil
1 half a regular sized cooking onion, chopped
1 chopped carrot
1 chopped celery rib
1/2 a package of extra lean ground beef - probably like 1/4 to 1/2 a pound
salt and pepper - to taste - i probably used about half a teaspoon of both, maybe a little more
1/2 a package of ground pork - same as above -
1 cup whole milk (I cheated - 3/4 cup 2 percent, 1/4 cup whipping cream)
tiny bit of grated or ground nutmeg
1 cup white wine
1 tin of Italian tomatoes - San Marzano are good

after heating the (large, stainless steel) pan on medium-high heat, i put the oil and the butter into it and allowed the butter to melt and foam. then i added the onion, carrots and celery, and let it cook for a couple of minutes. then i added the meats and seasoned with the salt and pepper, then i cooked the mixture until the meats... weren't raw. then i added the (fake) whole milk and let that simmer away to nothing - roughly 8-10 minutes. i sprinkled the little bit of nutmeg in - it was honestly like an eighth of a teaspoon - then i added the wine, and let it boil away - same amount of time as it took the milk to boil away. then i added the tin of tomatoes with the juices included, and i also cheated a bit and added some tomato puree (the more watery stuff, not tomato paste).

i transferred the lot to my slow cooker and, on low heat, let it simmer very very quietly for about 5 hours. you don't want it at a roiling boil or anything - just some bubbling round the edges. it will not be saucy, so don't expect that - it'll kind of be like a tomato-y, meaty stew.

you should eat this with the pasta of your choice - tagliatelle is wonderful. i had a whole wheat tagliatelle and it was superlative. if you're gluten free, i would imagine that an egg noodle type pasta might work out okay. cook the pasta in salted water to your own preference for doneness. once you've drained it, swirl some butter into it and ladle it out onto plates. add the bolognese and mix it all up together with some grated parmesan.

nom nom bolognese nom.

Just Say No

... to sodium laurel sulfate, that is. And parabens. And the host of nasty things that they put in soaps and shampoos because no one has really proved that they're not really very good for some people to apply topically.

Further to my last post, I've gone even further down the path of the unwilling consumer. Figured out that my eczema-ridden skin was angry because I was exposing it every single day to those chemicals listed above. Who knew a shower could be so toxic?

Now, here's my disclaimer: most people don't react badly to sodium laurel sufate, parabens and panthenol. That's why they're omnipresent in personal hygiene products. They're also cheap cheap cheap - great for mass production and keeping costs low. However, for those of us who just can't deal with the chemical onslaught waged by everyday life in North America, finding stuff that works just as well but doesn't end up with us scratching like we have fleas is a challenge. So, I've compiled my own list of Stuff That Won't Hurt.

Shampoo - Desert Essences or Prairie Naturals

Soap - ha! Fooled you. Can't use soap - it foams. Go for an oil or a homemade salt scrub. Take some organic sunflower oil (takes about 4-5 tablespoons) and combine it with plain old sea salt (4 tablespoons-ish). You can add a drop or two of grapefruit essential oil if that makes you happy. Scrub down. Rinse off. If you find you're still oily when you get out of the shower, it's cool. Just rub it into your skin as best you can - it'll absorb eventually. Herbal Choice Detergent Free Natural Body Wash is another option.

Dish Soap - always wear gloves. Seriously. I use Method dish soap as it works pretty well, but I still don't touch it.

All-Purpose Cleaning Product - Vinegar and Water. Get a sprayer thing from the dollar store and make enough of this stuff to last you through the winter. It's just one part water, one part vinegar - equality rules.

That's the short list. I don't think anyone actually reads this so I'll keep it brief. I think I'm getting healthier as I make these daily choices, and if anyone is reading this then maybe they'll think about their options, too. Maybe.