Veritable Vegetable Extravaganza

before	after

The veritable veggies, clockwise from top-left: Brussels sprouts with hazelnut butter, maple-cardamom roast turnips, sauteed kale, Swiss chard and feta pie.


I have been trying to write this post for about 2 weeks. In fact, I think I have been trying to write it for so long that I think most of the veggies I intended to write about are no longer in season...well, ok maybe it hasn't been *quite* that long.

So, at the time of year when it's starting to get wet and cold and dismal, what on earth could have caused a vegetable extravaganza? Let me explain: the start of the veritable vegetable extravaganza was coincided with the arrival of the Thanksgiving special of Fine Cooking magazine. Now, your average Thanksgiving special contains about 2 turkey recipes, and 6+ vegetable sides, and Fine Cooking was no exception. If one were to *actually* make every side dish for Thanksgiving dinner, there'd be no need for a turkey! Now to be sure, the vegetables have always been my favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner, and I personally think the idea of a vegetable medley for Thanksgiving sounds kind of cool, but I know others tend to be partial to the bird.

And so, rather than making all 6+ veggie dishes for one meal, I figured I'd start early and work my way through them gradually. And thus began the veritable vegetable extravaganza (hereafter referred to as VVE).

One vegetable that shows up around this time of year is the infamous Brussels sprout. I say infamous, because like spinach and broccoli and other unfortunate victims of poor preparation, Brussels sprouts can indeed be fairly vile if they aren't done right. This is really too bad, because if you do them right, Brussels sprouts can be quite tasty.

This year, Fine Cooking has cornered the market on creative ways to dress up Brussels sprouts:
Brussels sprouts with Dijon walnut crumbs
Brussels sprouts with toasted hazelnut butter
Brussels sprouts with brown butter and lemon
Brussels sprouts with herbs and shallots
Brussels sprouts with pancetta and lemon

So far, I've only made the first two--but as long as the sprouts are in season, I plan to keep working my way down the list.

The next two vegetables on the roster for the VVE are repeat offenders: kale and Swiss chard. I know, I know, everyone's tired of hearing about my adventures with kale, but this really a delicious (and straightforward) recipe.

For quite a while, now, I've been trying to find a way to make the kale taste the way it does in the roasted chicken and kale dish, without having to make enough chicken to feed a small army. Not that there's anything wrong with the chicken...but sometimes I just crave the kale. Anyways, this seems to be just the ticket. I've made it a couple times now and really enjoyed it. This particular time, I decided to skip the pasta altogether and just make a big pot of sauteed kale (it makes a delicious lunch).

There's a stand at the farmer's market in my neighborhood every Saturday that has absolutely delicious (and enormous) kale. The same stand also has delicious Swiss chard, and so, whenever I stop by there to buy kale, I almost always come out with a giant bunch of Swiss chard as well. The Swiss chard became part of a delicious phyllo pastry pie, along with some onions and feta cheese. If you've never had Swiss chard and feta, I highly recommend it. It's like spinach and feta (think spanikopita) but even better. My only objection to this recipe is that I think the phyllo pastry is more fuss than its worth. Maybe next time (and rest assured there will be a next time) I'll try using pizza dough.

This brings us to the last veggie of the VVE: Turnips. The recipe was another FC special: Roasted turnips with maple and cardamom--how could I pass that up? I couldn't. Next time, though, I'll be sure to buy the right kind of turnips. The tangy red ones--the type you often get in falafel sandwiches or shish taouk--do not lend themselves very well to the subtle flavors of maple and cardamom...oops.

And so we conclude the first installment of the VVE. However, I'm barely halfway through the veggie dishes from Fine Cooking, and the X-mas issue of Food and Drink just arrived in the mail, so I expect the extravaganza is far from over.

Culinary Hacks Pt. 1: The Magnetic Knife Rack Dilemma

The magnetic knife rack is a brilliant invention. In addition to keeping knives sharper and cleaner than its predecessor the large-wooden-block knife rack, it also is a small, and easily implementable step towards my dream kitchen (which in case you were wondering, looks something like a cross between Julia Child's kitchen, with her ever-so-functional peg boards, and the classic Ikea kitchen, with stainless steel everything, and the metal bar on the wall that you can hook things over or hang things on)--but I digress.

The fatal design flaw with the magnetic knife rack is how one goes about attatching it to a wall. This is less of an issue of you own your house/condo, but for us renters, it gets difficult. Clearly drilling through the tile backsplash above the counter was not an option (why on earth does everyone put tile there anyways?), and drilling through the wood cabinetry was, but seeing as its not our cabinetry, I felt it was kind of a jerky move. Anyways, this was clearly a job for google.

Query: "How to put up magnetic knife rack without drilling through tile"
Answer: (Besides several dangerous but unhelpful ads for cool culinary stuff): "Two-sided tape"

Really? Thats the best we can come up with? I find it hard to believe that two-sided tape would actually hold a 1' long strip of metal...let alone all the knives. And then there's the issue of pulling the knives off the rack without pulling the rack off the wall. And finally, if you've ever tried to work with two-sided tape, you know it makes everything it touches permanently sticky. Google Fail.

Now this is the part where the "hacking" starts. Normal people would conclude one of two things:
1) I guess I'll go buy a large wooden block that takes up valuable counter space and dulls my knives.
or
2) Screw it (no pun intended), I'm drilling into the tile/cabinetry anyways.

Hackers are not normal people. When part (most, really) of your job is to build things using parts that others before you assembled and usually failed to document, you have few if any qualms about using things in a way that was perhaps not their intended purpose. For most of us though, rather than being a skill we learned on the job, this resourcefulness is an innate quality, for which we finally found a use (besides annoying our S.O.'s). And you can't turn it off when you leave the office. This has lead to skates being repaired with zip-ties, rusted out wheel-wells being covered with duct-tape, "drapes" (actually bedsheets) being hung with self-adhesive hooks, string and paper-clips etc. I think its that "just make it work" attitude.

And so, that was how I found myself wandering around the kitchen, knife in one hand rack in the other, placing the rack on various surfaces to see if it could possibly fit there. The (accidental) stroke of genius came when I held the rack up against the side of our metal Seville shelf from Costco, and realized that the *back* of the knife rack was magnetic too, and was now stuck, quite securely to the metal shelf!

Unfortunately, knives are made of metal too, and while the magnets in the knife rack were strong enough to hold the shelf in place under normal conditions, they were not quite strong enough to keep it there when a metal knife was being pulled off the rack.
And so a strip of wood found under the sink, and zip-ties (second only to duct tape on the quick-fix-for-everything scale) were employed to restrain it. Success. Elegant? No. Functional? Very much. A hack? Totally--but a damn sight better than two-sided tape.

I realize this is not terribly exciting to most people. But I thought I owed it to the internet at large to offer a better solution to the magnetic knife rack dilemma than two-sided tape. So there.

Deliciously Vicious Cycle

I believe xkcd said it best:


This is where I have been for the past week, although lucky for me, my cycle has involved more diverse (and nutritious) fare than cheese and chips.

It all began with a butternut squash soup that I made before I started my new job last week (figuring it would be the last chance I'd have to cook for a while). I bought a fairly massive squash, and ended up using only half of it in the soup. Now, given how long it took me to peel, cut and clean that squash, there was no way I was only using half of it. And so the cycle began.

The answer to the squash dilemma lay in the latest issue of Fine Cooking. A recipe for a quick and simple autumn soup that involving tomatoes, squash, chick peas, onion, carrots and kale (although I think one could substitute just about any autumn veggies in here and it would work just as well). This particular combination makes for a very festive colorful soup though.




The more I cook, the better I am getting about judging weights and quantities of things that don't easily fit in measuring cups (herbs, veggies, etc.), or maybe its just that I can't be bothered to measure out exact quantities anymore, and am content just to ballpark it. However, there is one area that still illudes me entirely: Leafy greens. I once took a guess at how many bunches of spinach it took to make 1lb, and was off by a factor of 3. Pathetic. It's no surprise then, that I ended up with excess kale after making the autumn soup. And so the cycle continued.

There are a *ton* of cool things you can do with kale (although I'm not big on the kale smoothie), but since the last few culinary projects had been predominantly vegerarian, I decided to change it up a little and revert to an old favorite:

Roasted chicken legs with potatoes and kale is one of my standbys because it's just so *simple*. Tear up some kale, chop up an onion and some potatoes, and toss the whole lot in a roasting pan with 1/4c of EVOO and some salt and pepper. Then, season chicken legs with salt, pepper, and paprika and nestle them on top of the veggies. Pop the whole thing in the oven and roast it 450 for 20 min covered, and 30 min uncovered. The result is that the chicken gets nice and crispy, but still moist inside, the potatoes get infused with onion, kale and chicken-ness, and the kale becomes nice and tender. Its a full meal (meat, veggies, and potatoes) all in one pot. True comfort food.



Of course now we have leftover chicken legs and potatoes, which can only mean one thing: curry. The cycle continues...actually come to think of it, maybe cycle isn't the correct term, maybe it's more of a "sprint".

A Tribute to Julie, Julia, Canadian Thanksgiving and My New Kitchen

First of all, can we all just take a moment to admire the awesomeness of my new kitchen? I am fairly certain that this kitchen has more counter space, and more cabinet space than all of my previous kitchens combined. Not to mention a gas stove! Prior to this weekend, I had only attempted minor cooking feats in this kitchen. But even on a small scale, I was impressed by how quickly and easily things got done. Pasta was once again a quick fix (as the water boiled in 15 min. rather than 45 min.), stews could be made to simmer (as opposed oscillating between a rolling boil and not boiling at all), ingredients could be kept within arm's reach of the stove, but not on it, etc. etc. It was all very exciting.

And so, I decided to celebrate both my kitchen and Thanksgiving (the Canadian one!) by cooking a turkey dinner. A whole turkey seemed a bit overkill though (especially since it was only feeding 4 people) and so, I took a page out of Julie Powell's book (or rather, an entry out of her blog and a page out of Julia Child's book) and attempted to make Boned, Stuffed and Roasted Turkey Breast.

Now, full disclosure here, this recipe does not come from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I am not that brave. Instead, it comes from The Way to Cook, in which Ms. Child has toned things down a notch. Further full disclosure: I toned things down a few more notches. Amongst other sins, I simplified the stuffing (you really don't need anything but bread, onion, sage and spices), I basted with chicken broth rather than butter, I made a gravy base with chicken broth and added the juices from the turkey to it at the very end (turkey breasts really don't have the juice to make enough gravy for 4 people), and I skipped the deglazing business when I made the turkey stock from the bones (personally, I think I should get points for even *making* the stock).

Ok, so after that rap sheet of culinary short cuts, what I am about to present probably doesn't seem quite as impressive, but I'm proud of it, so I'm going to write about it anyways.

The first challenge of this culinary endeavor began outside of the kitchen. I had been warned that unless it's X-mas or Thanksgiving (which its not, in the US right now), that turkey breasts can be hard to come by. So when I found one in a store on the other side of town, I bought it immediately, without giving any thought as to how I might haul it home. Well, I made it about as far as UW on the bus, before giving up and calling for reinforcements (and a ride) to get myself and the turkey breast home. They are heavy little buggers.

Then came the skinning and deboning. This was actually not as scary as I expected it to be. A good knife, a large cutting board, and an extra pair of hands proved very useful.


After some careful knife-work, I was left with two massive boneless skinless turkey breasts, and an equally massive breast bone (which went directly into the stock pot, no questions asked).


Now we come to the fun part: stuffing and wrangling. I say wrangling because that is truly what it is. It took two of us, poking excess stuffing into the cavity and yanking at the cheese-cloth to beat the thing into submission. Afterwards, just to be sure, we secured it with some embroidery thread and a few knots I remembered from sailing (actually, I think it was mostly just a creative use of half-hitches). Anyways, Julia suggested sewing it...really? Sewing cheese-cloth? I think not.


(Turkey breast wrangling: before and after)

I was truly amazed that we'd made it this far without anything exploding, and the kitchen, considering the carnage that had just taken place, really didn't look that bad. However, we'd reached the part of the recipe that scared me the most: the cooking part.

I like stews. You begin by sauteeing some veggies, add some sauce or broth, some spices, maybe some meat and a few more veggies, and let the whole lot cook. Its a very gradual process, and if at some point in that process you decide the stew needs more salt, or cumin or whatever, you just add it in, and to test when it's done, you can try little bits of it. Roasting anything (especially meat or poultry) requires a certain leap of faith that just doesn't exist when you're cooking a stew. For me, this is the most terrifying part of roasting a turkey: that 2.5 hour stretch where you sit there, basting and checking diligently as the recipe tells you to, and praying to the culinary gods that you don't undercook, or worse yet, overcook the turkey. A meat thermometer is a huge help in such situations, but really there's no way to know for sure until you haul the bird out of the oven, remove all the hardware used to hold it together, and cut the first slice.

Luckily, the culinary gods were smiling on us that day, and we managed to get it just about right. We even timed it so that the potatoes, the turkey and the green beans were all ready at about the same time. It must have been beginner's luck.

Sunday afternoon at Marche Jean-Talon

Summertime visits to the Jean Talon market usually leave me with two thoughts:
1) I should come here more often
and
2) I should do more interesting things with my veggies
On this particular visit, I decided to focus on what was most in season, which happened to be veggies. Although the summer fruits --peaches, nectarines, apricots etc--were beginning to appear, it is still a bit early for the locally grown stuff. So aside from the requisite bag of Alphonso Mangos (which I have become hopelessly addicted to), and a basket of golden cherry tomatoes (it's still a bit early for the tomatoes..though I can't wait for the heirloom tomatoes to arrive in full force), I picked up some asparagus, some zucchini, and some summer squash.

So what does one do with asparagus, zucchini, and summer squash? Grill it, of course! In fact, the asparagus is so fine and so fresh, that I have been munching on it raw, dipped in hummus, but for the zucchini and summer squash, I decided to attempt a variation on this recipe.

Lacking fresh mozzarella and flat-leaf parsley (and not planning on eating 2lbs of grilled squash in one night), I only went as far as the grilling and tossing with garlic and wine vinegar...But not I have a whole container of garlicy, grilled zucchini in the fridge, waiting to be employed to dress up a pizza or a panini.

A 30k Bike-ride, Lunch, and Dinner (in that order)

It was supposed to rain today, but depending on which weather source you consulted, you got a different ETA for the rain. Despite this, we decided to brave it and go out for a bike ride anyways.

About biking, ever since I discovered this awesome site bikely.com, biking has become way more fun. Bikely lets you map out routes on google maps, and search a database of routes as well. The end result is that you can reasonably estimate the distance you rode (or are planning on riding), and you can benefit from other people's knowledge by looking at the routes they've posted. This is especially useful in Montreal, where conveniently placed highways and traintracks can really make life difficult for cyclists.

Anyways, this was the route we did today. Unfortunately, unless one feels like going all the way around the eastern tip of the island, there's no direct route back...which is why the path gets a bit wobbly towards the end.

Upon returning home, it was unanimously decided that food was in order. We decided to try a nearby vegetarian place La Lumiere du Mile End. It's amazing that you can live half a block from a place like this for two years and not eat there...of course, if you were to eat at every interesting restaurant you saw in this city, you'd be eating about six meals a day. La Lumiere du Mile End was really good though. I had a sandwich on dark rye bread with olive tampenade, cheddar, and roasted red pepper, and DP had a quinoa burger which he said, restored his faith in veggie burgers, after an unfortunate run-in with Provigo's frozen ones. And they make killer cookies =)

I try to eat more vegetables than non-vegetables (hence the lunch choice), but every once in a while, especially when a 30km bike ride is involved, I just need meat. Tonight was one of those nights, well, that and the fact that the flank steak idling in the fridge needed to be dealt with. Anyways, a couple days ago, I had hauled it out of the freezer and marinated it in garlic, EVOO, balsamic, and herbs, with a dash of red wine vinegar for good measure. So the plan was to grill it up tonight and make wraps. Then I found this:

Fresh Herb Risotto from the New York Times.

Despite the fact that I didn't actually have any of the herbs they suggested in my fridge, I decided to give it a try. Turns out, it's a pretty flexible dish. I used arugula, sage, thyme, scallions, oregano, and some pesto that was in the freezer, in place of the recommended herbs (chives, basil, rosemary etc.), and it worked pretty well--and went great with the steak. The wraps will have to wait for tomorrow night.