I know that judging by the contents of my blog over the last month or so, one might think that we've been eating only jam, pickles, bread and desserts.  It's not exactly true.
Over the last couple of months I've discovered that my life was incomplete before using Hoisin Sauce and I've set out to complete myself by using Hoisin Sauce in just about everything I can get my hands on.  Really... that stuff is off the effing chain peeps.  I've also realized that cabbage has this wonderful substantialness and sweetness (kinda like me) that works beautifully when it's slowly caramelized with some onions and bacon (yeah... I said bacon), then just barely bathed in cream and generously sprinkled with parmesan.   Yup.  It's good.  I've also made some pretty disgusting turnip and potato patties that I took pics of but felt so gross when I ate it that I couldn't bring myself to use them.  If I ever post it I will be tagging it as a disaster - if I can stomach posting it.  Lastly, there's this idea I have for a Focaccia bread thing of goat cheese, roasted tomatoes and roasted Cavalo Negro Chard that I'm tot's gonna steal from my kids school garden (seriously, nobody is using it and it's gonna go bad - I'm all ready to run over there during the night and cut it all down).  Sounds good doesn't it?
Even though all of that is going on I just can't seem to bring myself to post any of it.  The turnip/potato crap for obvious reasons.  The cabbage elixir I haven't posted yet because I haven't been able to get some good pictures of it.  The Hoisin Sauce perfection - well,  I kinda feel like I've posted a lot of that kind of thing already.  I guess I just feel kinda guilty and dumb.  I haven't actually committed the Cavalo Negro crime at the school garden yet.  The post will of course follow the crime... and the final product.



I'm posting these cookies instead.
It took me a while to figure out that they were called Monster cookies because the recipe called for making them BIG.  Duh.  Whateve's people, I'm tired these days.  I can deal with something so inane taking me a long time to figure out.  The original recipe called for M&M's.  I didn't have any and to be totally honest, I kinda like the idea of this better.  I would also totally add something crunchy, like a flake cereal or something.  That would be fun.


So my cookies weren't monsters but more like almost normal sized one's.  As a result, it makes a truck-load of cookies.  If you don't want as many cookies (just a p.s. on that though - you're still using the same amount of dough) then just make them bigger and watch them more carefully cause they'll need a couple of more minutes in the oven.  Otherwise, set up a network of friends and family who are happy to take baked goods off of your hands.  People like you when you share and it makes you feel good.
So, I'll be getting to some savoury, healthy, seasonal, colourful recipes soon.  In the meantime, I'm going to run a half marathon (no jokes) and eat some cookies.


Monster Cookies with Dark and Milk Chocolate adapted from 'Baked'
makes about 4 doz med sized cookies

1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 tbsp baking soda
dash of salt
5 3/4 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup cold, unsalted butter in cubes
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar
5 lg eggs
1/4 tsp light corn syrup
1/4 tsp vanilla
2 cups creamy peanut butter (I used organic/natural)
1 cup milk chocolate chunks
1 cup dark chocolate chunks (about 80% cocoa solids)

Combine the flour, baking soda and slat together in a large bowl.  Add the oats and mix well.  Set aside.
Cream the butter until smooth and pale yellow (you can use a mixer).  Add the sugars and mix on low until just blended - DON'T OVERMIX.
Add the eggs, one at a time and beat for until it's incorporated (15 seconds or so) - scrape down the sides of the bowl after each addition.  Add the corn syrup and vanilla and mix lightly.
Add the peanut butter and mix until just blended.  Add the oat mixture in three additions, mixing on low until just incorporated (I actually did this part by hand though).
Fold in the chocolate chunks.  Cover the mixture and refrigerate at least 5 hours (or overnight is what I did)
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Line a cookie sheet (parchment or silicon liner).  Scoop out the cookie dough in about 1 1/2 tbsp balls onto the sheet.  Keep about 2 inches distance between each.  Bake for about 12 - 14 minutes, turning the cookie sheet half way through baking.
Remove from the oven once they look browned on the top and not completely wet anymore.
Let them cool for a minute and then carefully remove them to a cooling rack.
Will keep for about 4 days but taste best the first two days.

It still happens.  I learn stuff.
Here are some of the things that I've learned this week:
1.  If I boil old, nasty smelling kitchen wipe rags then they're good to go and they won't smell.  Very Handy.
2.  Don't go food shopping when you have a head cold and are craving comfort food.  Very Bad.
3.  Doing a long run when you think you might be getting a cold might just bring it on.
4.  I can make my own saline solution to spray up my nose so that my head cold feels a little less wretched.
5.  Sometimes it can be 26 degrees on October 8th in Toronto but if you have a nasty sinus cold then you might not enjoy it as much as you wish you could.

As you might have been able to deduce by now... I HAVE A COLD... and it BITES.
So, yeah, I had all these plans for my Thanksgiving weekend and the only thing that I'll really be digging into is doing a whole lot of nothing and spraying crap up my nose, praying that by tomorrow I won't feel like every crevice above my teeth has been stuffed with socks (I don't know why socks... it just makes sense to me right now).  This truly bites because it is uncommonly warm here.  I'm not going to go into how it makes me feel about the state of our climate these days because it makes the knot in my stomach a little tighter.  I'm going to do my best to live in the moment and stare at the sun through my bedroom window, feeling just a little bit sorry for myself.


However, doing nothing isn't all bad, I caught up on some movie watching that had been badly ignored over the last few weeks.   Secondly, I had to make this cake.  I had to make it because we were having dinner with my parents.  It's Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada.  That means dinner with family and I had to make stuff to take.  I can't show up at someone's house (even my own parents place) without something in my hand to give them.  I volunteered to make a dessert and a veggie dish.  I still haven't figured out the veggie dish yet but I'll be sure to take pics and get it up here when I do.
This cake has been sitting in my 'must try' bookmark for a long time and for some reason I just haven't gotten around to it.  It sounds easy and looks great in the blog picture.  As usual, I don't have the exact ingredients but I figure that anything with honeyed pecans and glaze on the top will be pretty forgiving, so I'm forging ahead.



The cake rises beautifully, this tempting, bubbly brownness that makes you want to put your finger into it.  Once you add the stuff on the top... it's a beautiful thing.
We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves...
except for kid #1 who declared that he doesn't like nuts... so he got gross rolo ice cream instead because apparently that's what kids get when they are at their grandparents place on Thanksgiving.  Another thing that I learned this week.


Pear and Apple Cake adapted from 'In Praise of Leftovers'
makes 1 9x13'' cake

2 cups sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
4 med apples (or pears or mixed), cored and sliced thin
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
3 cups all purpose flour

Glaze:
1/2 - 3/4 cup candied pecans or walnuts, chopped (optional)
4 tbsp melted butter
1 cup icing sugar
2 - 4 tbsp milk or cream

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
Lightly butter or grease a 9x13'' cake pan.
In a large bowl combine the sugars, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, vegetable oil, eggs and vanilla together.  Mix until well combined.  Add in the fruit and mix until the fruit is incorporated well.
Add in the nuts and the flour.  Mix until the flour is completely incorporated.  The batter will be pretty thick.
Pour into the prepared pan.  Bake for about 1 hr 10 min but start checking after an hour.  I gave my cake a quarter turn after about 35 minutes too.  Once the cake looks good and a tester comes out clean (test the cake in the middle of the pan please people) then remove from the oven and cool for about 20 minutes.

In the meantime:
Mix together the butter, icing sugar and 2 tbsp of the milk or cream.  If you need more milk or cream then add it until the glaze is the consistency that you like.
Sprinkle the chopped, candied nuts over the 20 minutes cooled cake and then pour the glaze over top of everything.

Since this blog is called 'When I'm not at Work' I feel that it gives me some freedom to work outside the 'food blog' box sometimes.
It's 9 in the morning.
I've already run 16k.
I've already had two showers (don't ask).
I'm starting on my second breakfast.
I have time because my breakfast date bailed - it happens, it's Thanksgiving, it was a long shot anyway.
So, not being one to waste time when it's given (I know, right!)... I'm blogging.
You might recall that I've talked about some of the trips that we've taken.  Some of the crazy things we've done and some of the random craziness that is... ME.


This is Canadian Thanksgiving today, Monday October 10th.  We had a lovely day yesterday outside of the city, with my parents... and I played a lot with my camera.  It's been eerily warm here in Toronto and although I'll be the first to admit that it's weird, I'm taking advantage of every moment of the sun and warmth.  Normally these plants wouldn't be outside still.  Normally we wouldn't be wearing shorts and sleeveless tops.  Even though it's far from normal, I wanted to share some of my day with you.

Why Art exists...

Happy Kid #2 with his Grandpa.

A funny thing happened to me recently.
One of my work colleagues was having a dinner party.  My colleague knows that I have this food blog and occasionally tells me that she checks it once in a while.  However, with a dinner party imminent she cornered me and we ended up sitting down at the computer checking out some possibilities.  She was hand wringing just a little about what to make and how fancy and all that.  My suggestion to her was to go toward the polar opposite of fancy and make food that was homey and rustic.  It's food that doesn't feel fussy and it's nostalgic - people like that and you don't feel stressed out - it's win/win, I told her.  (I think... or something like that... paraphrased).
I didn't really think about after that aside from asking her a little later in the week how things were going.  A few days later though she pulled me into her office (which is a rather large library) and starting telling me what a success the whole thing had been.  How all her friends were raving about the shepherd's pie that she made from my blog (I hardly feel responsible for a good shepherd's pie recipe) and that they were all checking my blog.  Then she told me that I had to meet someone and pulled me into another part of her office where I met this lady who starting raving about my blog (huh/what?!) and how she's got her daughter's onto it and all that.  Then another teacher poked her head out from behind a wall and started cooing about my blog too... how creative (she's the Art teacher) with the words and the pictures and again I'm paraphrasing... and I walked out of there a few minutes later feeling like a million bucks.
I know from looking at my stats that occasionally people read my blog... sometimes from really diverse places... which is cool.  I don't necessarily do it for the notoriety (thank god because I'd be in a bit of a slump after seeing my 20 readers for the day stats and all) but to think that someone could get ideas for a dinner party or to feed a friend, or to get their lunch at work more exciting, or to make something sweet to munch on.... well that gets my juices flowing.
I soaked all of the compliments up of course... 'Oh, it's nothing', 'It's just a totally different kind of creative outlet for me', 'I started doing it for my sister' - not sure why that one came out - 'I'm so glad that you like it' ... and all that.  It hit me though, that I'm really doing this thing.  I'm really typing these words and posting these pictures that I take (good or bad) and putting it out there... for anyone to check out.  It's so easy to press the 'publish post' button (which, as I'm sure you know by now, I often do without even proof-reading my work) and not think about it... because it's effing scary if you do think about it... but when you do (think about it that is) you start to think about how cool it is to connect in this way that didn't even exist 20 years ago (for all intents and purposes) and how happy I am because, even though I don't know you... it's really special that you're here right now.


These are the pudding bars that were going to be my birthday post... before I got all freaked out about chronological order and all that crap.  Truth be told, I burnt the crust so watch it carefully when you are baking it and if you smell something that smells like burning don't sit back and tell yourself that there is another 5 minutes on the clock so it can't be burning yet.  Just don't.
Also, I would use just a little bit more milk chocolate than I did.  I mix of dark and milk would be nice.  Aside from that, these things are decadent and you can cut them as small or large as you like to accommodate that decadent craving.



Chocolate Pudding Bars adapted from 'Chewy,Gooey, Crispy, Crunchy' by Alice Medrich
makes a 9 inch square pan

Crust:
7 tbsp butter melted and still warm
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt
1 cup all purpose flour (I use unbleached)
2 oz dark chocolate (I used 55% cocoa) chopped coarsely (or use chips)

Filling:
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder (I use dark 'Cocoa Camino' stuff)
2 tbsp cornstarch
pinch salt
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
5 oz dark chocolate (about 60% cocoa solids)
1 tsp vanilla

Line a 9 inch square baking pan with foil on the sides and bottom.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Combine the melted butter, brown sugar, vanilla and salt together in a bowl.
Add the flour and mix.  (dough will be oily).  Press the oily dough evenly into the bottom of the lined baking pan.  Bake for about 15 minutes (I baked mine for about 13).  The crust should just be golden brown.
Remove the crust from the oven and immediately sprinkle the 2 oz of chocolate on top.  Let it sit for a couple of minutes and then spread the melted chocolate evenly over the crust.
Cool the crust while you make the filling.

In a heavy bottomed saucepan whisk together the sugar, coca, cornstarch and salt.  Add in the milk 2 tbsp at a time, whisking constantly, until it forms a thick paste.  Whisk in the remaining milk and cream.  Heat the mixture over medium heat until it starts to bubble.  Should take about 5 or 6 minutes.
Add in the chocolate and vanilla.
Whisk briskly for about 2 minutes to make sure that the mixture doesn't get lumpy.
Remove from the heat and pour the pudding on top of the crust.  Spread evenly.
Set aside to cool at room temperature for about an hour.
Cover and chill in the fridge for at least 3 hours or overnight.
Lift from the pan and cut into bars.  Sprinkle with a little icing sugar.  Store leftovers in the fridge.

As I sat writing this post, I found myself starting out the window.  This is not unusual for me.  Here's what I was thinking:
Wow, the grass is still really green/I wonder if I should make this post about Thanksgiving/Are gardens supposed to be this green at Thanksgiving?/Should I rip up my garden next weekend?/I wonder if those blossoms on the cherry tomato plant will get a chance to turn into tomatoes/what am I making for lunch tomorrow/Wait/I have to work tomorrow/I wonder how people save tomato seeds... and so on.  I kinda got stuck on the seed thing.
I'm going to research it.  How people save seeds from tomato plants.  It doesn't seem straight forward to me but I guess it must be kinda simple enough that tomatoes have thrived over the last thousand years or so, give or take.  I've started saving bean seeds over the last couple of years.  I've been saving dill, basil and parsley seeds since I realized that I could (let's say more than a couple of years).  I thought about how saving seeds has become a corporate and retail venture.  Most farmers aren't 'allowed' to save seeds.  If you purchase from the big guys (one such company starts with an M... look them up) then you can't save the seeds that those plants produce.  Many farmers have gotten slapped with lawsuits, some of them didn't even plant 'M' seeds they just got flown in by a bird or bee.
Then I started thinking about Vandana Shiva.  She is someone I first started hearing about in the 90's.  She grew up in the Himalaya's and studied at Western U.  She realized that things were terribly wrong very early on in her life.  I don't know if you are old enough to remember when, during heavy deforestation of the Himalaya's, a group of local Women (yeah, I'm using a capitol for them) chained themselves to the trees to that the cutting would have to stop.  That was headed up by a young Vandana Shiva.  She has gone on to write a lot of books and is now at the helm of a movement in India to reclaim their seeds and farming.  Corporate Western farming has pushed out many small farmers and many who would just farm to feed themselves and their families.   What's happened over the last 20 years or so is that many of the old traditions of saving and storing seeds were lost, many indigenous vegetables gone and livelihoods destroyed.  Then people move to cities and so the cycle goes.  Vandana is working to change all of that, to take patents off of seeds, to retrain those interested in old farming practices again and the push for greater protection of land and food in India from both foreign and national corporations.  She is a hero to me.  She heads up an organization called Navdanya International.


So I'm thinking about tomato seeds.  She's thinking about an entire cornucopia of seeds.  I have much to learn.  I'm going to start with tomatoes.
This bread has nothing to do with tomato seeds but it's really good.  This is one of the best bread recipes that I think I've made yet.  That doesn't mean that I'm like brilliant for making the bread.  Anybody could make this bread and should make this bread.  I loved it.  I could eat it plain, nothing helping it out.  In fact, I did just that last week.  Plus it makes two loaves so that you can either freeze one for later or share with a friend (much more appealing if you asked me).



Pilgrim's Bread adapted from 'More with Less'

Combine:
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp salt

Add in and stir constantly:
2 cups boiling water

Add:
1/4 cup oil
Cool to lukewarm (about 10 - 15 minutes)

Dissolve together for about 10 minutes:
2 pkg. dry yeast
1 tsp sugar
1/2 cup warm water

Add the yeast mixture to the lukewarm cornmeal mixture.
Add in:
1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
Add in 4 - 4 1/2 cup unbleached all purpose flour.

Knead on a floured surface until it's smooth and elastic.  Place in a lightly greased bowl.  Cover and let it rise about an hour or until doubled in size.
Punch it down.  Divide the dough in half and knead each half again for about 3 minutes.  Shape into loaves and place into greased loaf pans.  Cover and let rise again for about an hour or until doubled in size.
Heat oven to 375 degrees F.
Bake for about 40 - 45 minutes.

This post is overdue.  Way overdue.
I got distracted.
I'm sure that you are wondering what could have been so big that it distracted me from getting this post done.  And since you've asked then I suppose that I'll fill you in.  A bit.
I was celebrating.
My birthday.


I know that in my last post I told you all that I was beyond it, that I had matured and I was ok with things being a little more subdued than usual.  I didn't feel the need to have elaborate gifts this year (cause we're broke mostly) or go out to a fancy joint for some fancy food.  Truth is though that maybe I wasn't as mature as I'd hoped.  The gift thing... well, yeah.  It's nice to get something but maybe I am truly moving past the whole gift thing (love and hugs to those of you who gave me AWESOME gifts BTW).  I was lonely though.  I missed my friends both near and far.  I missed them a lot and I'm including family as my friends p.s.
D made it special... champagne and some chocolates from my favourite local (Torontonians into chocolate must frequent this place... MUST).   I had about 52 (not that I counted them or anything) birthday wishes on FB (I don't have a ton of 'friends' on FB ok - I'm choosy, Jeez).   Then I was thrilled when I got to go out with my BFF KT a couple of nights ago.  Just us... here, eating, drinking and having a great time together.  THEN... my other bestie T came over and cooked a meal for me... just ME.  And he brought champagne... 2 bottles (eek).  Then we sat back and had a great night.  Just eating and drinking and talking and lots and lots of laughing.  My kids made me the awesomest card and Kid #2 is just old enough now to write in his name.  It's the best.  So, with all of that going on I just got... distracted.  Who wouldn't with great friends like that around.
Can you imagine what this post would have been like otherwise... depressing.
Make these squares.  If you don't count the cooling in the fridge time then it will probably take you about 15 minutes (the fridge time adds another hour or so but the silver lining is that you don't have to sit in the fridge with these puppies and do anything to them).  Don't do what I did and forget to add the butter to the syrup stuff and then panic and spread butter over top of the pressed cereal in the pan.  Yeah that was weird but at the end of the day nobody cared 'cause they're damn tasty.



Crispy Rice, Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking
1 square pan of bars

Crust:
1 3/4 cups crispy rice cereal
1/4 cup sugar
3 tbsp light corn syrup
3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted (I totally forgot this BTW)

Filling:
5 oz good milk chocolate coarsely chopped
1 cup creamy peanut butter (can I just tell you that I was VERY generous with this)

Topping:
3 oz good dark chocolate (at least 60% cocoa solids) coarsely chopped
1/2 tsp light corn syrup
4 tbsp (1/4 cup) unsalted butter

Crust:
Grease an 8 inch square baking pan.
Place the crispy rice in a bowl and set aside.
Pour 1/4 cup water, sugar and corn syrup into a heavy bottomed small sauce pan.  Gently combine with a wooden spoon.  Heat the mixture until a candy thermometer ready 235 degrees F.
Remove from heat and quickly add the butter.
Mix this with the crispy rice just until the rice is all coated.
Press into the bottom of the baking pan.
Cool to room temperature and make the...

Filling:
In a metal bowl (nonreactive) mix the chocolate and peanut butter.  Place over a pot of simmering water.  Stir until the mixture is smooth.  Remove from the pan and cool just a minute or two.  Pour over the room temperature crust.  Refrigerate for about an hour or until it's hardened.  Then add the....

Topping:
In another nonreactive bowl combine the chocolate, corn syrup and butter.  Simmer over a double boiler until it's melted and smooth.  Remove from the simmering water and cool just a minute.  Pour over the hardened peanut butter layer.  Refrigerate about an hour or until the top layer is hardened.
Cut the bars into squares and store in a tightly covered container.

I have a lovely square recipe that I was going to use as my birthday post.  Then I felt bad about taking things out of chronological order.  I have a little 'thing' about chronological order.  I have to read my books in the order that I purchase them.  I don't know why.  It doesn't even make sense.  I've never really taken it seriously because... well, I just didn't.  Maybe I thought it was one of my fun/quirky things.  Except now it seems that my 'quirkism' (my word - duh) is bleeding into other areas of my life.
So there I was with my great sweets recipe, thinking that it could make such a lovely birthday post because I'm not making a cake for myself and then it hit me BAM.  I couldn't do it.
Maybe it's a product of age.
This got me wondering what else is a product of age.  I wonder if
 - not caring about toilet seats and toothpaste lids
 - worrying more about a blog post than a clean floor
 - not going out on a weeknight 'cause I won't be home by ten.
 - caring more about champagne than birthday cake
 - caring more about seeing my friends (you know who you are you two) than getting presents (that's a new one for sure)
... if this is all a product of age.  If so I guess it's ok to be a year older.  If I start not caring about wearing dirty underwear and talking to myself on the subway then that's cause for concern.
For now I'm just going to roll with it.

Plums and sugar soaking up some sun...

Last week I thought I was ordering 5 plums.  Cool.  I ordered 5 pounds.  Not so cool.  Fortunately they were lovely local plums that I didn't feel guilty about but really... product of age I ask you.  Not one to fuss to much about these things and also not going to see them go to waste I got proactive.  When life gives you plums then you make... plum jam.
The ground cherries (also known as gooseberries) just looked interesting so I ordered them in the food box and they were lovely.
So a weird happy birthday to me.  I'm not going to tell you which one because I'm sure that you don't care, I sure as hell don't.  Let's just toast a slice of homemade pilgrims bread (recipe coming soon), butter it and slather it in plum and ground cherry jam... with a candle stuck in it of course.


Plum and ground cherry jam from Hitchhiking to Heaven

9 cups sliced plums
1 pint ground cherries (i had a little less so I mixed mine with the last of my wild blueberries)
4 1/2 cups sugar
2 oz (juice from about 1 1/2 medium lemons) lemon juice

4 500ml canning jars and lids

Prepare the plums: slice and combine with sugar and lemon juice in a large bowl.  Cover the bowl tightly and set aside for about 24 hours (or 4 if you are like me and don't want to wait that long and decide that the process will go faster if they sit in the sun... p.s. it works).
Combine in a large pot with the ground cherries (and blueberries if you screwed up on that one too).  Boil down at med/low heat for about an hour or until the whole things starts to thicken up.  I cooked it for about an hour but it could easily have gone longer.
Sterilize the jars.  Place the jam into the hot sterilized jars.  Seal the lids until they are just sealed but not super tight.  Place in a boiling water bath for about 10 minutes.
Set on a clean towel and cover with another clean towel.  Lids should be sealed so that they didn't click or give when you push on them.
Let them rest under the towel for about 24 hours to set.
Place in a cool dry place.  They will keep for up to a year.

This has nothing to do with plum jam... it's just me and kid #2 on vacation.  I'm reminiscing.