Carrot Vichyssoise

It's been a pretty long time since I've posted. Not really for lack of cooking, but mostly out of laziness and incredible lack of free time. It turns out that a Masters degree require work! Who would have guessed that? But in the spirit of getting back in the game, I have several recipes and pictures on my computer that will be coming out in the next few days.

The first of my recipes needing to come out is a simple, elegant, easy, and above all tasty veggie soup dish that I love. Vichyssoise is just a fancy name for pureed soup with leeks and cream and stock, i.e. a soup. I highly recommend an immersion blender for this recipe because it helps achieve the velvety smooth texture that you just can't get with a blender when you're forced to blend it batches because the batch is too big and the blender is too small. Been there before. Also that way you risk having your soup explode out of the blender much like the Great Tomato Disaster of '05.

What You'll Need:

3-4 tbsp butter
2 leeks
4-6 carrots
chicken stock (or stock concentrate)
water
1c. milk
paprika
lemon juice

Putting It Together:

Let's start with the leeks. These belong in the same family as onions but have a milder flavour. Bigger isn't always better and the thinner leeks tend to be more tender. Take the leeks and cut off the roots and all the green leaving only the white portion. Slice it in half lengthwise and give it a good rinse under cold water. Leeks are grown in sandy soil and the whole sandy texture just doesn't go well with the soup. Once rinsed, cut them into rough chuncks about a half inch thick. While you're at it peel and chop the carrots into similar sized bits and set aside for later.

Now melt the butter in a pot and toss in the leeks. Season well with salt and pepper. Cook the leeks over medium heat until translucent. The idea is to soften the leeks but not caramelize and the salt helps the process along.

When the leeks look good and translucent (about 10min, but keep an eye on them!), add in the carrots and water/chicken stock. Because I'm cheap I but the concentrate so I toss in water and a few tbsp of the concentrate. With everything added, the temperature can be raised to a boil and left to cook.

The cooking time will depend on the size of the carrot pieces. But once tender (maybe 20min?) the soup is almost done. As a warning learnt over time, it can be great to cut big pieces if you want a late dinner but keep an eye on the pot! I've burnt a few soups by not checking the water level every so often.

Ok, the soup is now cooked and bot burnt and we're ready for the finishing touches. Remove the soup from the heat and while still hot, blend the whole mix with the milk added. The hotter the soup when you blend it, the smoother it will come. The last step is to add paprika and lemon juice to taste. Once it tastes the way you want it, you're ready to eat!

Some extra notes on the subject:

The soup goes great with some sliced baguette! Or other tasty dipping bread.

The same idea for the soup is pretty universal and can be used for any type of veggie soup you want. You can add tomatoes, celery, onions, etc. to the pot and call it veggie soup. Another good one is to start by fring bacon bits in the pot and use that oil to start the leeks (bacon bits removed), then add a few veggies and a lot of peas for a tasty pea soup topped with bacon. The possibilities are pretty much endless!

November's Cupcake Club Colaboration

For the past few months, whenever I would find myself in Indigo, I'd spend most of my time flipping through cupcake books, particularly the Martha Stewart Cupcake book (That or WWZ but since this is about cooking and not being a nerd...). A few weeks after the book staring started, I found a friend of mine who had also been eyeing the same book. And when we found out a mutual friend had the Martha Stewart book and would lend it to us, we started a cupcake club! It started something like this;

"OMG I LOVE CUPCAKES!!"
"ME TOO!!"
"OMG THIS ONE IS SOOOO CUUUUTTTEEEE!!!! EEEESJKHFSLHFS"
...and then our excitement went somewhere above the decibles audible to humans. We agreed to meet once a month to bake themed cupcakes and improve our baking/decorating skills. For our first meeting, we found a marble cupcake recipe with instructions to pipe pansies and sweet peas (a mother's day inspiration according to Martha).

What you need:

1 3/4c. cake flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 c. milk
1/3 c. heavy cream
1/2 c. unsalted butter
1 c. granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 c. cocoa powder
1/4 c. boiling water

Putting it together:


Start like most recipes; preheat the oven to 350F, line cupcake tins with liners. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in one bowl and milk and cream in another. In yet a third bowl, cream the butter and sugar together. Creaming the butter and sugar takes a few minutes and results in a light an fluffy batter that will help leven the cupcakes. Then add in the eggs one at a time followed by the vanilla. Lastly, add the flour mix and milk mix to the butter alternating between the two.

Now that the vanilla batter is done, it's on to the chocolate batter! Measure out 1 c. of the vanilla batter into a new bowl. In another bowl (the 5th used! Yikes!), mix the boiling water and cocoa which helps bring out the chocolate flavour, then mix the reserved batter and cocoa mix together.

In the cupcake tin, alternate 1 tbsp vanilla batter and 1 tbsp chocolate batter, ending with a last dollop of vanilla batter. Try not to pass the 3/4 mark of fullness in the cupcake liner. Swirl the betters with a knife or skewer to create the marbles effect. Cook for 20min and allow to cool on a rack.

Icing tiiiiiime!!! For this recipe I tried a new icing; Swiss meringue buttercream. It has all the buttery flavour of a buttercream but with the addition of meringue which stabilizes the icing making it softer to eat but more supple to pipe with. Whisk 1 1/4 c. granulated sugar into 5 egg whites over a bain marie (a bowl over gently simmering water). Whisk over heat until the egg whites are warm and the sugar has completely disolved. Remove from heat and beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and the mixture has cooled. Slowly beat in 1lb butter by the tablespoon and 1 tsp vanilla until the icing is smooth.

Then just ice the cupcakes and decorate at will! We found the panies to be deceptively hard to pipe but the sweet peas are fairly easy and beautiful. I also used some dried coconut shavings to make a third, easier flower that is equally pretty.

Additional Notes:

This makes about 16 cupcakes. It had a really soft crumb but was maybe a bit dry for my taste. But they rose nicely and were great canvases for some decorating practice.


And for your viewing pleasure, here's pictures of the icing process, followed by some of our finished products. First a tray by my friend filled with pretty flowers. Then a punnet square of sweet peas (yes, that was a heredity/Bio30 reference), and some coconut flowers.

Jaime Oliver Pasta

I found this recipe on one of my marathon Food Network viewings. It struck me because it seemed pretty healthy and also used a ton of garlic. And I do love a garlic-y dinner. This dinner does take a while to put together but it's relatively cheap and can feed a crowd.

What you need:

Filling:
1 head broccoli
1 head cauliflower
6-12 cloves garlic
1 tsp dry chili flakes
2 tbsp concentrated chicken broth
3 dashes worchestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste

The rest:
1 pkg oven-ready cannelloni
750 ml (one jug) tomato juice
1 pkg creme fraiche
1/3c. grated parmesan
salt and pepper
extra grated parmesan and mozarella

Putting it together:

The first thing to do is to cut up the broccoli and cauliflower into florets and boil them. Any stalks or leaves left in are fine. Boil them for a good 20min. They should be mushy and falling apart.


In a pan, fry up the garlic and chili flakes with a bit of salt and pepper in olive oil for about 30sec or until they're fragrent. Spoon the soft broccoli and cauliflower in with a few ladels of water, and add the chicken broth concentrate, and worchestershire. Let the mix simmer until it's a good consistency for filling. The filling can always be mashed if it's too chunky. And salt and pepper to taste. Then let the mix cool until it can be handled.

In a separate bowl, mix the creme fraiche with the parmesan and salt and pepper. If it seems too thick, add a dash of milk. It should be about the consistency of...melted ice cream? lava? Something liquidy enough to be poured but still with some thickness...you get the idea.

Now for assembly time! pour a bit of tomato juice into the bottom of the casserole dish you use. Stuff the cannelloni with the cooled stuffing. Then top off the casserole dish with the rest of the tomato juice. The cannelloni should be covered. Then pour the creme fraiche on top and top it all with the grated cheese.

Cook the casserole at 350F for 30-45min or until the cheese is slightly browned on top.


Additional Notes:

Really not too much to add to this one. If you like spicy food you can always add more chili flakes to the filling. It's just really tasty. The cream mixes down into the tomato juice so you get these tasty layers of just juice, then a mix, then the cream...and with the spicy veggie filling it cuts the richness of the cream.

Oh and in the original recipe, it calls for 2 anchovies to be added when you fry up the garlic and chili flakes. Apparently you don't even taste anything fishy, it just adds some salty-ness... I just wasn't sold on fish in my dish so it got left out.

Sweet Coconut Cupcake

It's time for something sweet! I love baking and these were super sweet and adorable cupcakes. The cupcakes came about for two reasons;

1. I promised my lab I would bring in sweets
2. I found a coconut sale at the grocery store

As it turns out, opening coconuts is difficult and messy. Luckily there are many many video tutorials on the web for situations like this. I recomend draining the coconut water by poking out the eye holes and draining, then put the coconut in a towel and whack it like there's a prize inside (spoiler: there is!)! I didn't use my coconut water mostly because it needs to be filtered and I own nothing capable of filtering it well because I don't drink coffee. But I did make my own coconut milk! It's done by boiling equal parts shredded coconut meat and milk until it froths for 5min, then strain and cool. I don't think opened coconut product has a good shelf life so I'd use everything within 2-3 days max.

So carrying on, lets get to the good stuff! I used a recipe from Vanilla Garlic which by the way has some great stuff.

Ingredients

3/4 c. of unsalted butter

1 1/4 c. sugar

3 eggs

1 c. coconut milk

1 tspof vanilla extract

2 1/4 c. flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

3/4 c. dried coconut

6 oz chocolate

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350F. In an interesting side note, I read that preheating to 375F and then lowering to 350F when you put the cupcakes in produces more moist (moister?) cupcakes but I haven't tried yet...we'll get back to you on that one.

Cream together the butter and sugar until it's light and fluffy. It will take a few minutes so don't rush it. Add the eggs in one at a time beating very well between each addition.

In a separate bowl, mix up the dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder) and in yet another bowl mix the coconut milk and vanilla. Alternate adding dry and wet ingredients to the butter mix starting and ending with wet if you please. Try not to overbeat or the gluten will start to develop and it will be breadier and not as short. Fold in the dessicated coconut. Here I split the batter in half and added melted chocolate to half the batter because, I mean, choices are really the spice of life!

Scoop the batter in to the liners to just over 3/4 full and bake them for 18-22min. Don't bother waiting for the vanilla guys to turn golden brown. Those suckers are pale and delicious!

Decorating

I completely ignored the frosting on Vanilla Garlic because....7 whole minutes? With egg whites? Pass. Instead I did a buttercream which is delicious with just about everything. It's mainly just room temperature unsalted butter mixed with powdered sugar. For all the cupcakes 1/2c. butter should be enough. Add sugar until it suits your taste. Then I add a bit of vanilla (~1tsp) and a bit more coconut milk (~1tbsp) to thin it out. Make sure the milk is room temperature though or you could separate your frosting. Once the cupcakes have cooled, frost away! Although when frosting, remember that this is the only time that less is not more. For extra specialness I dipped the frosted coconut into dessicated coconut.

I'd had this idea of piped chocolate toppers for a while so I tried my hand at chocolatiering and while it looked good, didn't even come close to proper tempering. You really need a good thermometer and lots of patience and high air conditioning. So they were pretty but totally out of temper. But for your info, I melted a few ounces of chocolate (first white then semi sweet) in the microwave. A site claimed this would keep the chocolate in temper which...it did not. Anyway, once it's melted, pour the chocolate into small folded piping bags made of parchment paper and pipe onto more parchement paper into whatever design you feel like. I attached the cooled chocolate with extra buttercream.

Extras

I think the cupcakes were coconuty but they could have been coconuty-er. Next time I'd add 1 tsp coconut extract to beef up the flavour. They turned out really light and tender which was delicious and since the batter makes about 20 cupcakes, plan on sharing or long term cupcake consumption.

And a quick decal explanation; the first is a kitty face because I thought it would be cute (totally was!). The second is some doodles and hearts when I ran out of good designs and started just messing around. The third is my nerd toppers for work. We work with HeLa cells and when you stain them they kind of look like that under the microscope. And lastly, doesn't the coconut just look all fluffly like freshly fallen snow? Answer: Yes, very much.

Stir Fry

A stir fry is one of my favourite things to make when there are people coming over for supper. It's extremely cheap and you almost always end up with leftovers. This version should feed 4 people on an average night, or 3 extremely hungry people. The ingredients for a stir fry are extremely malleable based on your own taste preferences, this is just my personal favourite set.

What You'll Need

For the sauce:

- 3/4 cup water

- 3/4 cup packed brown sugar

- 3 tbls. soya sauce

- 2 tbls. corn starch

- 1 tbls. honey

- 2-4 cloves of fresh garlic, chopped finely or run through a press

- 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes

The rest:

- 2 large carrots, peeled and chopped how you like

- 2 good sized medallion steaks cut into small strips

- 1/2 head of cauliflower cut into bite sized pieces

- 1 head of broccoli also in bite sized florets

- 200g of sugar snap peas, with tips cut off (my preference)

- 1 can of bamboo chutes

- 1 cup of rice cooked in 1 and 1/2 cup of lightly salted water (you can use chicken broth or coconut milk instead of water if you prefer to flavour your rice)

Putting It Together

The sauce first!

Combine the dry ingredients together first, adding the brown sugar to the corn starch and stirring until mixed evenly. Add the water, soya sauce, honey, red pepper flakes and freshly chopped garlic and put it to boil stirring constantly. Let the sauce reduce until it is a little bit thicker than you want it to be after adding it to the rest of the dish, as it will thin out a bit from the moisture in the meat and vegetables. Once this is done, set it aside for later.

Time to get everything going!

The rice is the first thing that needs to go on to the burner, however at the same time it's best to get some water boiling in a larger pot in preparation to steam the vegetables. The lid must be left on the rice at all time while it's cooking. Once the water in the pot begins to boil, remove the pot from the burner and shut it off so the rice doesn't overcook, leave the lid on to let the boiling water steam the rice and cook it through over the next 10 minutes or so. As you take the pot of rice off the burner, put the vegetables in a strainer or steam tray on top of the pot of water that should now be at a rolling boil. As soon as the veggies are on, put a pan with a dash of olive oil on the oven at medium-high heat. 4 minutes into steaming the vegetables, add the strips of beef to the hot pan, stirring quickly to make sure all sides get browned. 3 minutes should be enough to cook all the meat, and the vegetables are now steamed after a combined 7 minutes, so take them off the burner. If there's a lot of fluid in the pan with the meat, drain it or your sauce will be very thin. After this is done, add in the vegetables to the pan with the meat, and pour the sauce over the combined ingredients stirring as you go. Make sure everything is covered in sauce to your liking before turning off the burner. When it's ready to go, it should look like the picture to the right.

Time to serve up!

Get some rice on the plate, poor your favourite drink and layer the food on the plate. Eat to your hearts content because it's actually a pretty healthy meal.