Fixing Today

Honestly, I should have known. I should have foreseen just how today was going to go, how many instances of bad luck and general craptasticness (yes, craptasticness) could occur in a 6 hour window. When the first bit of dread hit this morning after I realized I had been driving my mom's car for 10 minutes with the emergency brake on, I could have cut bait, gone home and gone back to bed. But I didn't. Ohh, no. That would have been too easy.

Instead I went about my morning, innocently forgetting about that early blip. It could happen to anyone, I told myself, it's no big deal, and the car's fine. No one has to know. But as I was consoling myself over that, I was also merging onto the highway. My poor judgement and depth-perception on that on ramp meant I began merging into a lane where there was an SUV humming along in my blind spot. I realized as I was moving over and so avoided any contact, but my nerves were rattled and my heart was racing - not helped by the fact that the other driver seemed to lean on his horn with enough force to push his steering wheel through the windshield. As if things couldn't get any better along that stretch of road, the same driver pulled up alongside me while his passenger whipped out her cell phone and began taking pictures of me and my license plate! I spent the rest of the drive, and the majority of the day, in an anxious fog peppered with panic attacks, my mind racing as to what they would do with those pictures. Would they call the cops? Could they charge me? What would my fine be? And how the Hell would I explain it to my mom if I got called into traffic court?

My sister told me to calm down. So did my confidants on Facebook and Twitter. But I couldn't. I hate the overbearing feeling of the unknown, especially where the law (and potentially money) is concerned. Once I got home my bad mood continued thanks to a myriad of complications on a reservation site I was using to book a night in Niagara on the Lake. I was fed up with the day. I needed something... anything... concrete that would prove to me that I wasn't a complete failure at life today, and that the bad moments were, in fact, moments. I needed to do what I knew how to do. I needed to bake.

I started off by prepping a simple sweet dough tart shell and baking off a thin sponge cake in anticipation of assembling a fruit flan for one of my mom's co-workers later this week. With both applications done without major complications, and my self-confidence gaining a little stronger footing, I turned to another "pet project" I had wanted to try... chocolate avocado cake. I was able to pick up three super, almost to the point of too-overripe avocados at the Asian grocery store today as part of a "quick sell" bag, and having had Joy the Baker's recipe saved for ages I finally had an excuse to try it out.

Looking at the recipe anew, though, I realized that it made more cake than I would easily be able to part with... and since I had no intention of making the frosting (which I'm sure is delicious, but I suck at frosting manufacturing and I wasn't about to push my luck that far today) I knew some bastardization modification was in order. I cut the original measurement of flour to two-thirds of what it started with, halved the sugar and used a banana that was beginning to lure an alarming amount of fruit flies in place of the 1/4 cup of oil. As I dug into the depths of my cupboard for my cocoa powder, I also came across my stash of wheat germ, so in went some of that too, as well as some toffee pieces that were languishing with the vanilla (I don't attempt to rationalize my pantry organization). To bump up the flavour of the chocolate I tossed in the dregs of that morning's vanilla-hazelnut coffee too. I poured the batter into a loaf pan, wondering for a moment if maybe it was just a bit too full, but barged ahead anyway and popped it into the oven, setting the timer for roughly what I baked my banana breads for.

Lo and behold, the mischief making gods were at it again - as I was cleaning up (this will sound familiar...) and typing the re-worked recipe into the nutritional calculator, I came across my note for 1 1/2 tbsp balsamic vinegar (Joy's calls for white, but I dont actually have any). Vinegar. Um, why don't I see that on the counter? Right... because I never took it out. So I never put it in. Damn. Well, it was too late, so there was nothing left to do but cross my fingers, wait the hour and hope for the best.

In the end, chocolate was the one thing today that didn't let me down. Even with all the snags and snarls the rest of the day, there was comfort wrapped up in a blanket of dark cocoa, velvety fruit and golden, melting toffee. Did it look like the cover of a Gourmet magazine? Was it going to be the next Food Network star? Well, probably not. But you know what it was? The best cheap substitute for Valium ever.

Choco-Cado Cake with Toffee

Makes 1 loaf, 12 slices

1 cup flour

1 cup barley flour

1/3 cup wheat germ

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 cup sugar

1 small, over-ripe banana, mashed

1/2 cup soft avocado, well mashed, about 1 medium avocado

2 tsp vanilla

1 cup water

1/3 cup strong brewed coffee

1/2 cup toffee bits, divided

1. Preheat oven to 350F, grease a loaf pan.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flours, wheat germ, cocoa, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl beat together sugar, banana and avocado. Add vanilla and beat well.
4. Add half the dry mixture, followed by the water and coffee, then stir in the remaining dry ingredients and 1/3 cup of the toffee bits, blending gently but thoroughly.
5. Scrape into the prepared pan and top with remaining toffee pieces.
6. Bake for 55 minutes, until a tester comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

Amount Per Serving

Calories: 231.9
Total Fat: 5.9 g
Cholesterol: 6.7 mg
Sodium: 43.2 mg
Total Carbs: 42.8 g
Dietary Fiber: 4.1 g
Protein: 3.5 g

Blueberry Blogging

I can't believe that I've gotten to the middle of July without making a single Summer fruit pie yet. It's quite shameful, but I guess I'll chalk it up to the fact that I've spent my berry-baking days this year trying out a ton of new and unique recipes that I had found after buying tons of the local fruit at the market. Pie can be so, well, mundane... crust, filling, crust, voila. Not much variation on that front. But bars, cakes, bread, and banana loaves?... those can be messed with. And I did!

So when I finally got down to the business of "pie", I still had a large bag of perfectly delicious blueberries sitting in my freezer that I had been dipping into for periodic smoothies and general brain-freeze inducing snacks. The only reason that I was originally hoarding them, though, was so I could try my hand at making my very first blueberry pie! I know... how could I have been baking for over 15 years and never made a simple, blueberry pie? Well, I think it has something to do with the ridiculous ideals I set myself surrounding the end product. Even though I am not really a fan of blueberry pie (I'd eat it, but if there was cherry or apple there too they'd be my first picks), I had memories of the kind of pastry that I can only really describe as "diner pie". It was the type of dessert where the filling was cohesive, but not like balls in purple Jell-O, and not spilling out in a juice-puddle and leaving diners with an empty crust. Getting that balance with berry pies is always so tricky to me! After what felt like eons of Googling and cross-referencing millions of recipes, I settled on a blend that seemed to give me more or less what I was looking for. Along the way (on Baking 911) I found something interesting, too (which is probably the culprit of runny-pie syndrome): blueberry skins have something called oxalic acid in them. While I've only known it as a causer of kidney stones and other un-fun side effects, it also attacks starch in it's raw form. Meaning that thickeners like the traditional cornstarch common in pie will be rendered more or less useless.

Okay, so cook the berries we must. But I really didn't want something like blueberry paste in a pie crust. I opted to cook some of them, though, just enough to give me something to add my sugar and thickeners to (I used a blend of cornstarch and tapioca flour). To accent the perfect blueberry flavour, I finally got to break out a combination of citrus that I had been dying to try: orange and lime! Instead of water in the starch slurry, I reamed an orange and mixed it with the starches, and I also stirred in the zest of both fruits. In the crust as well I wanted a little touch of tangy citrus going on, so I used the rest of the orange juice as the liquid and a little of the rinds made their way into the dough too!

The pie baked like a dream - no boil-over, no runny filling, and a perfect amount of whole berries to squish deliciously with every bite. Even my lattice crust looked great, if I do say so myself!

Amusingly enough, two days after I made this pie (and saw it demolished) I received a little bit of info from a B.C. Blueberry birdie about a contest they're running this Summer for food bloggers! For cash even!! If you're a Canadian food blogger pop on over to their site and check it out between now and August 15 and  join my pie in the fray!

Blueberry-Citrus Pie
Makes 1 pie, 10 servings
3/4 cups flour, plus extra for rolling
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp orange zest
1 tsp lime zest
1/2 cup Earth Balance "Buttery Sticks", cold and cubed
1/3 cup vegetable shortening
3 tbsp cold, fresh orange juice
2 tbsp cold, fresh lime juice
4 cups blueberries
1 tbsp water
2/3 cup sugar
2 tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsp tapioca flour (not granules)
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
1 tsp grated orange zest
1/2 tsp grated lime zest
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 tbsp cornstarch mixed with 2 tbsp cold water

1. In a large bowl combine flours and zests, whisking well.
2. Cut in the Earth Balance and shortening until a coarse-meal texture forms.
3. Add orange and lime juices and gently mix to form a flaky pastry dough.
4. Divide into two portions - one 1/3 of the mixture, the other 2/3 of the dough.
5. Wrap dough pieces in cling wrap and chill 30 minutes.
6. Roll out the larger portion of dough, fit it into a 9" pie plate and set into the refrigerator while preparing filling.
7. Preheat the oven to 400F and place the oven rack in the lowest position.
8. Combine 1 cup of blueberries, water and the sugar in a small pot and place over medium heat.
9. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is melted - 5 minutes.
10. In a small bowl, whisk together cornstarch, tapioca flour and orange juice.
11. Stir starch mixture into the cooking berries and cook gently until the mixture thickens and turns clear.
12. Remove from heat and stir in the zests and nutmeg, then fold in remaining berries and pour into the pie shell.
13. Roll out remaining pastry and cut strips from it.
14. Brush edges of dough with the cornstarch mixture.
15. Weave a lattice pattern with the pastry strips on top of the mixture and brush with remaining cornstarch mixture.
16. Place pie on a baking sheet and place in the oven. Reduce temperature to 375F.
17. Bake 40-45 minutes. Cool completely (minimum 12 hours) before cutting.

Amount Per Serving
Calories: 319.0
Total Fat: 15.9 g
Cholesterol: 3.8 mg
Sodium: 100.7 mg
Total Carbs: 41.9 g
Dietary Fiber: 3.0 g
Protein: 3.0 g

By Popular Demand

Sometimes baking with favourite ingredients can breed dangerous things... especially when you make it public that those ingredients include peanut butter, honey, bananas and chocolate! But when I saw that very notion on Delightful Bitefuls the other day, I just had to do it! So that's exactly what went into these goodies, along with a handful of oatmeal and wheat germ that I tossed in to counteract the moisture from the roasted bananas. I had already taken the measure of "draining" the bananas of their liquid post-roasting before adding them in, but wasn't sure the batter was "tight" enough to give me the kind of "traditional" peanut butter cookie I was looking for. The extra ingredients had an added bonus, too - giving me enough dough to encapsulate boatloads of chocolatey goodness!

Since I can't leave a recipe with "just" chocolate chips well enough alone, especially with a bagful of mini peanut-butter cups hanging around, I had to play! I quartered a handful of them and stuck them into the freezer with some pure semisweets so that they wouldn't just "mush" when I folded them in. Eventually I got every little bit of decadence crammed into the dough and stashed it in the fridge while I fired up the oven (yeah, that whole "forethought" thing? Not happening). Although, as with most oatmeal cookie doughs I've worked with, the texture of this one improves as it chills and rests, allowing the oats to sop up the moisture and melt into the dough a bit more. Chilling this dough with the peanut butter cups also re-solidified them - probably an unnecessary measure in the winter months, but when it's 35C outside those things were melting as fast as I could unwrap them!

As the dough chilled, the oven heated and I was cleaning up, I realized that I hadn't added any salt to the batter - probably due in part to my thinking that the peanut butter was salted already, but when I was scratching out the ingredients I also hadn't accounted for the extra chocolate in the mix. I didn't really want to re-work the dough, so instead I went slightly along the "frou-frou" road and sprinkled the tops of the chunky cookies with a little flaked sea salt before squishing them down and baking them. I think it made for a unique "pop" to traditional peanut butter cookies, even though standard chippers, caramelly drops, and full-blown chocolate cookies have been doing it forever.

I swear, though, I made the biggest mistake upon putting the first tray of these in the oven... I popped onto Twitter and announced I was baking peanut butter, honey, banana, oatmeal and chocolate chip cookies with peanut butter cups. And that I had way more than I could deal with...  particularly since neither I nor my sister would eat them. Well the sweet teeth out there popped out of the woodwork on my feed, some of them demanding (nicely, by the way) cookie-age. And really, I didn't help matters much by posting the photos either! Joel lucked out, in the end... there are 6 cookies stashed in my freezer with his name on them come market-crawl time!

So yes. Make these cookies... trust me. Just don't tell anyone you're doing it, or be prepared to share them all!

"Gild the Lily" Cookies

Makes 30

3 ripe bananas, cut into chunks

2 tsp honey
1/2 tbsp vanilla
1 cup flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup wheat germ
1/2 tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsp ground flaxseed
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup smooth peanut butter (not natural)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup chocolate chips
10 miniature peanut butter cups, quartered and frozen
Sea salt, for sprinkling

1. Preheat oven to 400F, lightly grease a small baking dish.
2. Place bananas into the dish and bake for 30 minutes.
3. Drain the excess liquid from the baking dish, add honey and vanilla and mash completely. Set aside to cool slightly.
4. In a large bowl, combine the flours, oats, wheat germ, cornstarch, flaxseed, baking soda and baking powder. Set aside.
5. In a large bowl, beat the butter, peanut butter, and sugars until smooth.
6. Add the egg and mix well.
7. Add the mashed banana mixture and blend in, then add the flour mixture and beat thoroughly.
8. Stir in the chocolate chips and peanut butter cup pieces.
9. Cover and refrigerate dough 1 hour.
10. Preheat oven to 350F.
11. Portion onto an ungreased sheet and sprinkle with sea salt.
12. Bake one sheet at a time for 11 minutes (keep remaining dough in the fridge). Do not over bake!
13. Cool completely on the sheets.

Amount Per Serving
Calories: 197.4
Total Fat: 10.5 g
Cholesterol: 15.4 mg
Sodium: 82.6 mg
Total Carbs: 25.6 g
Dietary Fiber: 2.1 g
Protein: 4.6 g

For When The Tomatoes Come In

It's the time of year where gardeners everywhere are anxiously out in their beds every day, hoping for the first ripe, juicy and tasty tomatoes to be waiting on the vines. Depending on the year's weather, and what sometimes feels like the mood of Mother Nature, the fruit may wait until well into August to start blushing or be so early that you're caught unprepared for the harvest! Our plants are still being far outshone by the neighbouring peppers, beans, carrots and radishes, especially mine - I'm trying my hand (again) at growing a few kinds from seed. If they take, and flourish, I'll have some of the tastiest tomatoes in the world (I sampled all of them before planting!) - Black Prince, Sasha's Altai, Green Zebra and a "grab bag" mix that I bought along with some Cossack Pineapple Ground Cherries from the awesome folks at Salt Spring Seeds. I was desperate to have something other than the boring (but still tasty) slicers, cherries and San Marzanos we grow, and since I couldn't find any of the heirlooms or my other favourite - Juliet tomatoes - as seedlings I ponied up the cash based on my garden-magician aunt's recommendation. So now I wait, and wait... and cross my fingers that the wonky rain -> overbearing heat -> rain weather we've been having here wasn't sealed their fate.  

But if you know, or you are, one of those avid veggie gardeners that's blessed with an early harvest, what do you do when that first basket of tomatoes comes in the door? Chow has a topic devoted to the subject if you need help answering that question - provided that you've already savoured them au naturel first, preferably warm off the stalk! I know in my garden I don't even have to pause long enough to wash the beauties before biting in like an apple, since we don't use any sort of chemicals on our plants and the rich soil bed left from the potato farm that used to be here is our main fertilizer!

In the end though, when we have more than we can willingly eat plain, we usually turn to the tried-and-true Tomato Sandwich. Like I've said before, it never seems to matter what really surrounds the tomato in that combination, be it toasted Wonder Bread or the best Poilâne miche, though I still favour a crusty sourdough myself... the idea is that the tomato is the star.

But why not take the opportunity to have that perfect tomato on slices of equally delicious, home made bread? Beyond just a simple sourdough, I took the opportunity to add some traditional (and not so traditional) elements to my free-form boule that I adapted from Jeffrey Hamelman’s book Bread. Along with some (okay, a bunch of) tangy Parmesan and a sprinkling of oregano, I added a smoky note reminiscent of the also-Summery B.L.T.'s bacon with smoked Spanish paprika. And what goes with smoky, rich bacon? Well, cornbread of course! So when I made my flour mixture, I sprinkled in some cornmeal and yellow corn flour too for extra good measure!

As this bread (submitted to YeastSpotting this week) came together, rose and finally baked to crusty, golden perfection, the smell was intoxicating - I could just imagine what sandwiches could be made with it... from thin, dainty slices surrounding a club sandwich, to thick slabs toasted under the broiler, rubbed with garlic and topped off with a juicy tomato and a touch of balsamic. We have the bread. We have the balsamic. Now all we need around here are those darn tomatoes!

Yeasted Cheesy Corn Bread

Makes 1 large loaf, 30 slices

16 oz active sourdough starter

4 oz cornmeal
4 oz yellow cornflour (not cornstarch)
5 oz 12-grain flour
10 oz all-purpose flour
1/2 tbsp kosher salt
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tbsp instant yeast (optional if your starter is very strong)
1 cup 2% milk
1/2 cup warm water
1/4 cup melted butter
6 oz grated Parmesan cheese

1. Combine the sourdough starter, cornmeal, cornflour, 12-grain flour, all-purpose flour, kosher salt, smoked paprika, basil, yeast, milk and water in a large bowl or stand mixer, stirring gently. Let stand 10 minutes.
2. Begin mixing on medium-low speed, for about 5 minutes, then add butter and knead in.
3. Continue kneading for 10 minutes.
4. Allow dough to rest 5 minutes, then knead 1-2 minutes further.
5. Cover bowl and allow to rest 45 minutes.
6. Deflate dough and knead briefly to re-distribute the gluten.
7. Shape into a smooth ball and place on a greased baking sheet.
8. Cover and allow to rise for 1 hour.
9. Preheat oven to 450F and place a pan of hot water on the bottom rack.
10. Slash the top of the loaf 1-2 times and place in the oven.
11. Bake 25 minutes, then remove the pan of water.
12. Bake a further 20 minutes.
13. Remove immediately from the sheet and cool completely on a wire rack before slicing.

Amount Per Serving
Calories: 156.0
Total Fat: 4.1 g
Cholesterol: 8.8 mg
Sodium: 111.9 mg
Total Carbs: 24.5 g
Dietary Fiber: 3.2 g
Protein: 6.2 g

Something Smells Fishy...

Whenever my family would go out to eat when I was a kid, instead of asking for garlic bread or mozzarella sticks for an appetizer I would invariably order a Caesar salad with lots of fresh cracked pepper on top. While it was certainly not the healthiest option out there, it was still a salad... so my parents were more than happy to let me have at it - and I would clean the bowl, with the exception of the ever-present croutons. I still cannot understand the appeal of adding cubes of stale, tooth-shattering bread soaked in oil to a perfectly decent bed of greens, but mind you I also abhor adding fruit, nuts or seeds to my salads too. I'll chalk it up to a texture thing.

But anyways, with all my Caesar ordering, I shuddered at the thought of allowing anything like anchovies onto my dinner plate. I had never tasted them, but from what my mom told me about them I really did not want to know for myself. So I would badmouth the tiny, salty sea creatures and express a kind of disgusted awe at the fact that my grandfather loved them on his pizza and would order them if given the chance. Little did I know that I had been eating the dang things for years, simply mashed up and blended into a creamy dressing or sauteed with onions and garlic before melting into the marinara sauce on my seafood fettuccine!

Well, once I found out, I wasn't really about to give up eating Caesars - I mean, I'd been loving the taste for that long, and it wasn't like the taste had changed at all! But I had never made my own creamy Caesar from scratch before. At home, Caesars were made from a head of romaine and a bottle of dressing - it seemed too much of a fuss to make the vinaigrette from scratch, what with all the egg yolk business! Then I stumbled across Lydia's (from The Perfect Pantry) recipe for "Caesar Salad with Shrimp", which in addition to utilizing the anchovy in paste form (yay, no mashing!) also used either prepared mayonnaise or Miracle Whip - one of my vices that I get a craving for every so often. So I bought the tube of fish paste, the jar of Whip and a carton of baby romaine lettuce, thawed out some "salad shrimp" I had in my freezer and gave it a whirl. Holy cow was it good! It's become a no-cook Summer supper staple for me, especially these days with the insane temperatures! This is also my submission to Marye's Real Food... Real Quick event and Meals on Mondays this week.

Creamy Garlic Shrimp Caesar

Serves 2

1/4 cup Miracle Whip

2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese

2 tsp anchovy paste

1 tsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp lemon zest

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp Worcestershire

12 oz baby romaine lettuce

7 oz cooked salad shrimp

1. In a small dish combine Miracle Whip, 1 tbsp Parmesan, anchovy paste, lemon juice, lemon zest, garlic powder and Worcestershire. Chill 1 hour.
2. In a serving bowl, toss lettuce with the chilled dressing until well coated.
3. Divide between two bowls and top each with an equal portion of salad shrimp.

Amount Per Serving
Calories: 235.6
Total Fat: 9.6 g
Cholesterol: 212.3 mg
Sodium: 912.9 mg
Total Carbs: 8.8 g
Dietary Fiber: 2.9 g
Protein: 28.3 g