It used to be that if I added butter to a too hot pan and subsequently it turned brown that as far as I was concerned I had burnt the butter and it was no good to be baked with.  Now we call it 'browned butter'.
Granted, in this case I didn't put the butter into a pan that was too hot.  It cooked in there for a good 10 minutes.  But still, it's now something that I want to do.  It's a thing.  Browned Butter.
It's quite an amazing thing.  All dark brown and flecked with stuff (I don't know what the flecks are - fat maybe).  The taste intensifies as well.  All in all it's pretty amazing stuff... that I used to think was a dumb mistake.


I'm now at the tail end of the March Break and I'll be honest with you, I can't wait to get back to work.  I love me kids, don't get me wrong.  But we're all about ready to put each other through a wall.  It's that whole 'You-need-to-entertain-and-feed-me-all-day-every-day' kinda thing.  I'm done.  Plus, kid #1 is quickly approaching the age when things can become weird and volatile fast.  Ugh.  It's exhausting.  I get 'mommied-out' pretty fast admittedly and I've never been the go-to-the-park type.  Adult space is pretty important for me.  And it's been a good while since I've had any serious amount of it.  Now, here I am bawling about my lack of 'adult space' when I know full well that some of you never get it.  I don't know how you manage.  My heart goes out to you.  You deserve an award.  And now I will stop.


The highlight of our week was definitely D getting his Canadian citizenship.  We all hauled ourselves out to east Toronto (Scarborough) early (for a March Break) Friday morning and sat through the ceremony that will finally give D voting rights in this country and a passport which requires significantly fewer visa applications than his Trinidadian one.  Best part:  he can hold dual citizenship.  We celebrated with some of this, hung out with a friend for a while and then generally had a quiet (aka boring, if you're 11 yrs old) day.  We still have a couple of things planned - a library trip (provided it's open on a Saturday - thank you budget cuts) and a trip to see friends in Orillia.  Outside Orillia really... on 40 acres of trees and animals and insects and blackberries (oh the blackberries).  My friend C is always so inspiring.  She inspired me to get into canning last year.  She encouraged me to start getting an organic food box delivery and educated me about CSA's.  She's pretty cool.  I'm looking forward to tomorrow.  I'm going to be making something to take with us when we go because I think it's pretty lame to show up empty handed but in the meantime we've been munching on these guys throughout the week.


I'm just about done with the canned cherries from last year and the combination here was perfect.  The chewy browned butter cookie dough went well with the cherries too.  I thought of using white chocolate here but then I thought it might be just too sweet and went for the dark.  I'm glad I did.  I'm going to get a little picky here and tell you that using maraschino cherries will get you a completely different result.  Not necessarily a bad one but definitely a different one.  If you try it please let me know how it turns out.  Generally though, this managed to stay in the not-too-sweet-and-therefor-Wanda-pleasing category.  I would totally use this dough for plain old chocolate chip cookies too.  Dang, I would use this dough in ice cream.  I would use this dough in...


Browned Butter Cookies with dark chocolate and cherries adapted from 'Completely Delicious'
makes

1 cup unsalted butter
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup cherries dried or preserved (I used my home canned cherries)
1 1/4 cup dark chocolate chunks or chips

Over low heat, melt the butter in a heavy bottomed sauce pan.  Continue cooking the butter over low heat until it turns brown and gets little dark brown flecks in it.  Remove from heat and cool.  Continue cooling until the butter begins to solidify again.  It shouldn't be hard though.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment or a silicon liner.  Set aside.
Combine the flour, baking soda and salt together in a bowl and set aside.
Cream together the butter and both sugars until light and fluffy.  Add in the eggs and vanilla and continue to whisk until completely incorporated and smooth and fluffy.  Mix in the flour into the butter mixture and until completely combined.
Add the chocolate chips and cherries and stir just until they're evenly distributed.
Spoon by large tablespoons onto the cookie sheet, leaving some space between the mounds.  Bake 10 - 12 minutes.  Remove the cookies from the cookie sheet onto a cooling rack.  Cool and eat.

This is my life... and I'm here, in it, living it.
I read a post recently in which the writer put something like that out there into cyber space.  Do we ever think about it?  Seriously?  Of course it's sobering to think that I've got stuff to do and each day that goes by will never come back again.  But the scariest (and therefor most motivating) thought is that even when I'm not consciously making a decision about how I'm going to live my life, I'm still deciding how I'm going to live it.  Yeah.  Yikes.  In other words it doesn't matter if I put off deciding anything, it doesn't matter if I label it procrastinating.  I'm still deciding.  Creepy.


I'm thinking a lot about this lately because I have an 11 yr old.  Now it's not that I feel old having a pre-teen or anything like that.  It's the child herself.  We've had a lot of 'talks' lately with her.  We are essentially telling her the same thing that I just wrote one paragraph ago.  It's a huge thing, this life we are given, and it's short.  Incredibly short.  And before you know it 10 years have slipped by and you want to be able to see what you've accomplished in that time.  I want for my kids to be able to look back and feel proud and have a deep sense of accomplishment in whatever they choose to do.  I guess I'm saying that I want them to do their thing (everything that they decide is 'their thing') with everything they've got.
What I see a lot is that kids get rewarded when they do a good job.  With school, sports, music... whatever.  Nothing wrong with getting a prize.  Prizes are cool.  But sometimes I think we overdo it with the prize and rewarding thing.  When that happens it can get pretty easy to forget how damn great it feels to do something well.  You know you worked hard.  You know that you did it really well and other people have recognized that too.  It feels effing amazing... whether or not I get a present afterwards.  That feeling, that amazing feeling can motivate somebody to move on to bigger, better and hopefully deeper, more meaningful things.  Those are the accomplishments that I value at this point in my life and I'm pretty sure that those are the accomplishments that my kids will value later as well.  The only problem is how to communicate that to an 11 yr old kid.  And I would guess that's how we all fall into the 'present trap'.
However, I figure that my kids are going to blame me on way or another so I would rather that they blame me for pushing them too hard rather than not hard enough.  If that makes me a tiger mom (although I hardly think so) then I'm big enough to handle it.  I'll take the chance.


This bread turned out much better than I had hoped because I really did take some liberties with the recipe.  If I make it again (and I might just) I would go free form and make a dome shape instead of a loaf.


White and Whole Wheat Bread adapted from 'Kitchen Simplicity'
makes 1 large loaf (that I really should have done free form but didn't)

Combine:
2 1/4 tsp yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
3 tbsp honey
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

Mix and set aside in a draft free spot for about 30 minutes.  It will get all bubbly and spongy.
After 30 minutes add in:

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
3 tbsp brown sugar (not packed)
1 tsp salt

Mix well and turn out onto a lightly floured surface.  Knead until just smooth and no longer totally sticky.  I needed to add about a 1/4 or so more flour while kneading.  Place the dough in a lightly floured bowl, cover with a clean cloth and set aside to rise in a draft free spot for about 1 hr or until doubled in size.
Punch down and shape into a loaf.  Place in a very large, lightly greased loaf pan (VERY) or instead you could reform the dough into a blob shape and place on a lightly greased cookie sheet.  Cover with the cloth again and set aside to rise in a draft free spot for another hour or until doubled in size.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Bake the bread for about 35 minutes or until the bottom is nicely browned and sounds hollow when you knock on the bottom.
Cool slightly and enjoy.

I bought this book.  Yup.  At the end of winter... what the hell.
It's awesome.  I don't know why I didn't think of this before.  It makes so much sense to obtain a book specifically for seasonal cooking.  I only just got it and already the pages are all dog eared and it has inspired 2 recipes out of my kitchen.  This is one of those recipes.
Jerusalem Artichokes have been a part of our lives recently because they've been available in our food box.  This is the last week that they're being offered (so far as my muddled brain can tell) so I've taken advantage of it by using them... twice.  That's twice more in one week than I've ever cooked them before.  EVER.  Feeling pretty proud.


We're approaching that time of year when the weather is starting to change and spirits are lifting and with it expectations are starting to rise.  I'm anticipating food... thinking about garlic scapes and fiddle heads and parsley growing again.  But for now it's the dregs.  Cleaning out the freezer, working through the cold room.  That kind of thing.  I am definitely looking forward to the days when I can pick fresh green beans from the garden and slice a tomato and smell that smell.  I am looking forward to fresh veggies being exciting again.  But for now, I am looking at my jars and freezer bags and trying to get through.
Winter 2012 has marked a big change for me.  I now have a winter salad.  I usually eat green every day - at least I try to.  I've now adapted my summer fresh greens to winter 'thinly sliced cabbage and shredded carrot' salad.  I officially like canning.  It's been a success.  I also officially like beets and L O V E beet pickles.  That's a big one.  I've been able to skip my food box for a week here and there because of all the garden veg and that's a savings for sure.  A shift has happened.


So back to Jerusalem Artichokes.  This recipes takes advantage of how potato-esque they can be.  It's also simple.  Ridiculously simple.  We have a local mushroom grower who provides mushrooms year round here in Ontario making the dish local and almost fresh - as fresh as you'll get in March.  The recipes was a total success as far as I'm concerned.  I served this as a main course and therefor was happy to add bacon - when am I not happy to add bacon.  However, if I were serving this alongside another dish and/or wanted it to be vegetarian then I would leave the bacon out and I'm sure that the dish would stand up well.
So, with my new winter cookbook, I feel well armed... ummm... for winter (?)


Jerusalem Artichoke and Mushroom Roast adapted from 'Winter Harvest Cookbook'
serves 4

2 cups mushrooms (I used local button) quartered
2 lbs jerusalem artichokes, scrubbed and cut into large chunks
vegetable stock
3 rashers bacon, chopped
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt, pepper (to taste)
4 dashes of nutmeg
2 dashes of ground ginger or 2 tbsp freshly grated ginger
1/3 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
1/4 cup parmesan, shredded
few dabs of butter

Place the jerusalem artichokes in a pot.  Add vegetable stock until the artichokes are almost covered.  Bring to a boil and then turn the heat down to a simmer.  Keep them simmering for about 15 - 20 minutes or until they soften but aren't yet mushy.  Remove from heat.
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
Heat a medium skillet or pot over medium heat.  Add the bacon and fry until just beginning to brown.  Add in the onion and saute together until the onion just begins to soften.  Add in the garlic and the mushrooms.  May need to add a little more oil because the mushrooms will absorb a lot of oil.  Saute another 3 - 5 minutes.  Add the artichokes and about 1/2 cup of the liquid from the artichokes.  Stir and add the nutmeg and ginger, salt and pepper (check the tastes first with the salt and pepper because if you are using stock then the quantities of salt may vary depending on the brand - start by adding a little salt at a time).
Pour the whole thing into a casserole dish.  Sprinkle the cheeses over the top.  Dab about 4 - 5 dots of butter on the very top.
Bake for about 20 minutes.  The cheese should be all melted and bubbly.
Serve with rice or mashed potato.

And then it was done... I missed it.
It's friday night.  I am making pizza's for our friday evening's pleasure.  We are settling in to watch 'Tangled' and then I'm getting up and it's Monday a.m. at some ridiculously early hour and I am feeling hung over even though (unfortunately) I am not.  And what happened.
Oh yeah... I remember... just a little... these happened.


By about 3:30 Monday afternoon I was so glad that these happened.
I am saying goodbye to citrus season slowly but surely.  What I ride we've had this year.  I'm still dreaming about the lemon curd that I made before Christmas and scheming to make more next year and maybe freeze it.  Lemon cupcakes... yeah... those were amazing too.  But these cookies.  These cookies...
Jeez - don't you hate it when someone writes like that?  YOU HAVE TO MAKE THESE COOKIES NOW OR ELSE YOU MIGHT NOT MAKE IT THROUGH ANOTHER DAY - YOU HAVE NEVER EVEN EATEN A REAL COOKIE UNTIL YOU EAT THESE... that kind of writing.  Why must we constantly make things more and more amazing.  Look good is good and these cookies are/were good.  'nuff said.  Sometimes good is just good.  I don't need these cookies to blow my world, I just need them to do what cookies are supposed to do.  Be good.  My head is in a weird space today and I'm tired from dealing with my own brain.


Allow me to demonstrate:
Today at work one of the conductors that I work with said to the grade 4 choir that as a musician you are always doing one of two things:  1.  Getting better and working towards getting better OR 2.  Getting worse.  No in between.
It hits me like a ton of bricks.  Dang - I've got to ponder that for a while.  I'm sure that the grade 4 class just took it in the conductors words and may someday remember that little gem but I was thinking about it for a long time afterwards... I'm still thinking about it.  I need to think about it for a while and roll it around.  It sounds profound but I'm not sure - I might just be over-thinking it.  I'm immediately standing there in the class with the grade 4 boys thinking about whether I'm a number 1 or a number 2 (that sounds weird).  I'm analysing my past and present and thinking about how to change my future.  I'm wondering if I need to jot down some ideas about how I can place myself squarely in the number 1 slot.  I'm feeling an immediate need to journal.  In short... I'm seriously over thinking this.  And that's only about 3 minutes of my brain's day today.  Eek.


So when it comes to the cookies, I'm not going to wreck them by overstating that I love them and that even though they corn starch in them and I thought it was weird that they turned out really well.  I'm not going to go on and on about how I can take them with me to school because they're nut free and they're also small so I can eat like about 12 and not feel too guilty.  I'm definitely not going to ramble about how they are perfect for me who's a non-sweet-tooth disguised as a sweet tooth and how happy I am that over the last 4 days I've now baked two things that I actually like to eat.  Nope... not gonna do it.
These cookies are good.  There.  Done.  Simple.  Happy Monday.

 


Lemon Melting Moments with a splash of orange adapted from Two Tiny Kitchens and an Australian radio or tv show (?)
makes

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature and cubed
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 1/2 cups all purpose unbleached flour
1/2 cup corn starch (!)
1 tsp vanilla
zest of one lemon and one orange (it's a lot, I know)

Icing

11/2 cup icing sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature and cubed
zest and juice of 1 lemon

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.  Line a cookie sheet or two with parchment or silicon liners.  Set aside.

Combine the flour and cornstarch together in a bowl and set aside.
Mix the butter, salt and icing sugar together until light and fluffy.  Add in the vanilla and lemon and orange zest.  Fluff together.  Add in the flour/corn starch mixture.  Mix until well combined.
Form into about 30 little balls (about a 1 1/2 tbsp worth) and place on the prepared cookie sheet.  Press each ball down a little with your finger or using a fork but only until it leaves a print.
Bake for about 20 minutes - it should just be slightly golden on the bottom of the cookie.
Remove from the oven and place each cookie on a cooling rack to cool completely.
Once the cookies are completely cooled then plop a little bit of icing onto the top of each one.  You can also spread a good amount of icing on the bottom of one cookie and then sandwich it together with another cookie.
Icing:
Combine together the icing sugar and butter together - I used a fork to max it all together little by little.  Once it's mixed well then add in the lemon juice only a tbsp at a time until it's the right thickness to use for the cookies.

Things I've learned from being a musician:
1.  The gifts you are born with only take you so far.  Hard work and perseverance take you the distance.  Every single time.
2.  Practice is a waste of time if your hearts not in it.  That doesn't mean don't bother, it means collect yourself and get some work done.  Discipline in the deepest way.
3.  It's not getting out there into the 'real world' that's hard.  It's getting off your ass and swallowing your own fears... that's the hardest.  And you don't do that just once, you do it over and over and over.


Sure I could have and probably would have learned those same lessons being a history major or in engineering... but I'm a musician.  I've been one all my life.
All my early music memories are from church.  My first music disaster at the ripe old age of about 6 when I pushed the organ peddle too hard during the offertory and woke the ENTIRE church.  I cried.  My Dad hugged me afterwards and gave me a candy to suck on.
My first singing adventure when during my Sunday School solo my Dad sat at the back of the church and smiled at my whilst simultaneously dropping his denture.  I could never quite figure out why my Dad wanted to make me laugh while I was singing.
I hated having to learn to sing harmonies.  My Mom taught me very early in life so that I could do trio's with her and my Dad.  Now I have a good ear.
Singing and playing in Festivals and doing exams.  Jeez - it never stopped.
I'm still doing it.  Still singing, playing, teaching, passing it on to my own kids, listening to everything I can get my hands on, living music.  Music got me into biking and running oddly enough.  Biking, because I used my bike at university to get around instead of the subway... I was broke.  Running, because practice taught me that something hard could eventually be overcome and even fun.  The biggest thing that music has given me though is my sense of self.  I'm not sure how in a school of neurotic and insecure singers I found myself but I did.  It's taught me to roll with change and to look at my own weaknesses.  Crying in a practice room because I didn't want to do that audition and then going out there and doing it anyway (and sucking BTW) taught me that I can do it and still be me afterwards AND I can always get better (and I did).  When I think about how much fear drives our culture and our 'selves' I feel very thankful for that.
I had a conversation recently with a friend and we were talking about positive and negative experiences in our lives.  About how hard the hard stuff really can be.  What I ended up blurting out was that it's the hard stuff that's given me more and taught me more deeply than the easy stuff or even the happy stuff.  In fact, it's made me appreciate the good times even more.  I think it's partly because it makes us feel so deeply.  It's also made me way more comfortable with making hard decisions that I know are the right thing... even though they're hard.  For all that I'm thankful.  Very thankful.


I'm also deeply thankful for this bread.  And deeply satisfied.  I needed this bread.  After the slew of sweets that I found lacking for me this bread was just what the doctor ordered.  I've already eaten two pieces and it just came out of the oven a little while ago.  No too sweet.  A perfect crumb and a texture hefty enough to stand up to a good cup of tea... before I go and practice.



Sweet Squash Bread adapted from 'Simply in Season'
makes 1 loaf

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
pinch each of ginger, nutmeg and cloves

1 1/4 cup squash puree (I used some frozen butternut squash puree from my freezer)
2 eggs
1/3 cup oil
streusel topping (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Grease and flour a loaf pan.  I have two loaf pan sizes but I don't know what the measurements are for them.  For this recipe I used the smaller of the two pans.
Combine the flour, whole wheat flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves together in a bowl.  Set aside.
In another bowl combine the squash puree, eggs and oil.  Mix well.
Add the squash mixture to the flour mixture and stir until combined.
Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan.  Sprinkle with the streusel topping (if you want).  Bake for about 50 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.
Cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before removing to cool completely.

Oh Jeez - me and my soup again.  It's an addiction I think.  I need counselling.  I need rehab.  I need SUMMER.

Peeps, meet my new friend 'Jerusalem Artichoke'.
Jerusalem Artichoke, meet all my reader Peeps.

You'll all become best friends too.  I know it.
You might have heard of these little tubers before.  Possibly under the alias: Sunchoke.  My new friend will happily answer to both.
Pretty much until yesterday I had no clue what the label 'Jerusalem Artichoke' or it's alias meant in real terms.  What the thing was.  What it looked like and certainly no idea what to do with it.
I learned yesterday - thanks to the genius of this thing called the internet - that this weird looking (sorry new friend but if this friendship is going to last then we gotta be real here) little tuber thingy was pretty damn sweet when cooked.
It can be roasted.
It can be braised.
It can be gently and lovingly cooked in some broth until it's all soft and blendable and then made into a soup which blows your socks off.
I choose the soup.


Not being one to know my limits, I threw in some freshly roasted cauliflower and turned the whole thing into a bit of sweet mess but it was a tasty sweet mess and no one complained.  Just make your roasted cauliflower pieces a little more bite sized... trust me on that one.


The pictures of the soup bite.  No pun intended.  I mean they blow chunks.  HARD.
I'm not going to go on about it but this winter/no light/ B.S.  needs to stop soon.  I had to take the pictures at night (which occurs here at the ungodly hour of 5:45 or so when it's cloudy... there, I said I wouldn't go on about it) because I did.  Don't let the sucky pictures deter you from a date with my new friend.


Jerusalem Artichoke Soup with Roasted Cauliflower (optional) adapted from 'Green Market Recipes'
makes about 6 cups.

1 large leek, sliced thin (about 1 1/2 cups)
3 cups (about 2 - 3 lbs) jerusalem artichokes
4 tbsp butter
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth (add a boullion cube if it's a weak broth)
1/2 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup milk
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 - 4 cups roasted cauliflower broken into med/small pieces (roast the cauliflower by tossing the florets in oil, placing on a baking sheet and baking at 350 for 35 - 40 min)

Peel the jerusalem artichokes and place in a pot of water with 1 1/2 tbsp vinegar if you are not going to be using them right away.  Slice them very thin.
Heat a large soup pot over medium heat.  Melt the butter in the pot.  Turn the heat down just a bit and add in the sliced leeks and the jerusalem artichokes.  Cook together for 7 - 10 minutes.  The veggies should be just a little golden and the leeks will be getting quite wilted.  Add in just enough broth to cover the veggies.  Turn the heat down to low and cover.  Simmer at low heat for about 1 hr.
Once the jerusalem are very soft then pour the whole pot into a blender and puree until smooth and creamy.  Add back to the pot and keep the heat low.
Add the rest of the broth, the cream and the milk.
Add the salt (and a little bit of pepper and pepper sauce if you're so inclined).
Add the cauliflower.
check the tastes and adjust if necessary.
Taste your new friend.