Always Fluffy Gnocchi

Making pasta has always been one of those things I "get into" once or twice a year. I love the whole process, and the rolling of the dough through the machine is oddly soothing - it's always magical to me how the mixture turns from ragged, flimsy shreds to silky, supple sheets after a few passes through the rollers. However, the excitement only lasts until the dough is cut, when I realize that I definitely don't have enough counter / drying space for any sort of quantity, and while I may be content to have baking sheets of linguini drying on the kitchen counter and dining room table, I know that the rest of the household is very much not. 

Then I discovered how easy (and fun) gnocchi is to make, and since the homemade version is (unlike standard pasta) best frozen before cooking, storing a batch of it is as simple as freezing layers of the dumplings on sheet trays before transferring them to a freezer bag. For me, gnocchi is also a double-winner in the sense that it's something I make that my Italian stepfamily will actually eat! One of the things the extended clan has lamented over the years is the quality of most storebought gnocchi. While I'm sure there are various respectable brands out there, we only have one common option in the grocery store - and it comes shelf-stable in vacuum packs. It's not bad, per se, but they do tend to be a bit on the dense, leaden side and don't soak up sauce very well. If they were matzo balls, they'd be the sinkers. The one truly good thing I've managed to use them for was a baked "mac and cheese" type of pasta and broccoli dish, where their heft managed to bulk up the mixture and add enough texture to be interesting. However, the family here likes gnocchi that float in the pot when they're cooked through, or better yet, sauté to crisp, golden perfection before slipping into a simple pan sauce or meat ragu. It took me a couple tries to get my formula right, but that's one of the great things about gnocchi - it's cheap and filling, and even "failures" are pretty darn good (take it from me: lightly pan-fried with rosemary, garlic, mushrooms, smoked paprika and/or bacon, nothing potato based tastes bad). 

This final batch, though, is way better than anything you'll find in the store! The secret, I find, is adding a mixture of potato starch and baking powder to the flour and egg normally found in the dough - one binds without making the works "doughy" and tough, while the other ensures they puff with the heat of boiling water or a sizzling pan. The other trick, which I use when I make potato candy or waffles, is to either bake or microwave russet potatoes in their skins, then peel and mash. They have to be russets - a floury potato - otherwise the mash is like working with slightly melted crayons (white and red potatoes are called "waxy" for a reason!), and for these purposes moist cooking methods like boiling are not your friend. Exposed to water, the flesh sops it up, making it mushy, not fluffy, and unable to properly absorb the egg and flour without unduly making a tuberous paper maché paste.

It sounds like a lot of fuss and bother, but once you see the recipe you'll notice how simple the components truly are. You can even do what I'm doing this year in class and getting my groups of Home Ec students to work together on batches - they love being ale to "play" with their food by making snakes with the dough, and making the fork ridges appeals to the artists in the group too. 

Have you ever made your own pasta? What was your experience? 

Chocolate Chip Cookie For One

Well, with the first day of school under our belts, the waves of anxiety are (hopefully) starting to ease and the focus can turn to the important (and somewhat more enjoyable) things in life - forming new friendships, breaking out the new backpacks / binders / pencils and of course, bringing back the all important after school snack! Whether you're 6, 16 or 66, days at school and work are long, and some days finding time to eat means breaking up meals over the course of several hours, eating really early (for example, my lunch hour this year is 11-12!) or really late (some of my colleagues don't get their break until 2). When we do get those few coveted moments of peace to sit, sip a coffee or tea and have a bite, making those bites count is critical. 

Enter the decadent, salad-plate-sized "cookie for one". It's not a functional, meal-in-a-cookie Powerbar copycat, by any means, but it is a great way to celebrate a day of fine work by having a ginormous treat all to yourself. While the recipe is written for one cookie, I often quadruple it and freeze the "patties" raw to bake as needed. They only take about 12 minutes from frozen (7 fresh), and who doesn't love a warm cookie full of gooey chocolate chips?

While there are certainly a lot of them present, it's not all fat and carbs in this dessert. First of all, this  cookie is a definite "stick to your ribs" concoction, and comes free of the risk of blood sugar spikes by featuring no refined sugar and lots of  whole grain brown rice and teff flour. The cookies are also gluten free, nut free and vegan, making them perfect for an "allergy-safe" snack on the go.

One major tip that works for pretty much any gluten free baked good is to let the mixed dough rest at least a few minutes before shaping and baking it off. Doing this helps hydrate everything more thoroughly, ensuring moister, less "sawdusty" results. Of course, if you must have a cookie now, I'm not going to know that you baked it immediately. I'm simply passing along my two cents!

Shared with Gluten Free Fridays 

Cheese and Chive Drop Scones

No matter whether you like seafood or not, one thing almost everyone I've met can agree on is that at Red Lobster you are guaranteed to eat well. Case in point - my sister, who until recently would not go near anything from the sea with a 10-foot pole, would eagerly agree to go with us. While I ate my way through a mound of popcorn shrimp (not always with positive results- turns out I was never able to handle tiny shrimp), my dad tucked into trout or salmon and my mom savoured scallops, she would happily binge on a platter of chicken nuggets or spaghetti and about 4 of their infamous biscuits. 

Now, as anyone who has eaten one of the establishment's hot, cheesy, buttery biscuits will attest, it is ridiculously hard to stop at one. They're beyond addictive, and their flavour is complex enough to make you wonder what makes them that good. Luckily, making decadent, just-one-more worthy biscuits from scratch is super-simple, especially if you know how to make regular, cut-out biscuits. These ones are dropped by the spoonful onto baking sheets instead, allowing for less gluten development (read: more tender biscuits), crispy craggy bits and way less mess.

Of course, I had to add my twist to the recipe, and by using spelt flour, Spanish paprika and old Cheddar the flavour and aroma of each drop is just edgy enough to appeal to adults wanting something to pair with wine and fruit at a cocktail party or make mini-tea sandwiches with. They sharpness is not so prominent as to prevent kids from trying to eat the whole platter-ful though - so keep your eyes peeled for the biscuit thieves!

Mallowy Meringues

Meringues are probably some of my favourite cookies. Made one way, they are perfect travelling cookies, long-lasting, light as air and perfect for a sweet bite on the go. However, I much prefer them made on the chewier side, resulting in a crisp shell around a just-baked, almost gooey middle. As someone who loved burning her marshmallows for the same effect, I'm not surprised - but this balancing act was always a tricky one to stick!

Until recently, achieving the combination of textures (while managing to get the eggs cooked) was always a bit of a fluke. Whether the oven was a touch on the cool side, the air was blowing a bit oddly, the air was more humid than normal or the egg whites were too fresh and didn't aerate fully, I never really know until I finally opened the oven door. Then, after browsing through one of the food science books I took out of the library (can't remember which one, sorry!), I stumbled across a trick that made such perfect sense I couldn't believe I didn't think of it - adding a touch of powdered sugar to the egg whites makes sure the batter holds onto just enough moisture to create a marshmallowy interior while keeping a crisp shell. The second trick of mine to get that sought-after texture is a short baking time at a relatively high temperature for meringues, followed by a "cool down" in the oven. Doing this makes the shells crackle slightly, and if you serve them plated, they're a perfect topping for lemon curd, raspberry coulis or vanilla custard (or a combination!). For kids, making pseudo-s'mores with these (top a graham cracker with a scoop of chocolate frosting followed by a meringue) is a great alternative to the campground treat too.

Shared with Gluten Free Fridays

Blueberry Crisp Granola

Are you all prepped for back to school season? As a teacher, this is quite possibly the busiest time of the year - even though I (and most of my colleagues) spend all summer lesson planning, preparing learning materials and generally working, it sometimes feels like we spent the season the way many people think teachers do - on the beach, drink in hand, golfing and/or generally lazing about. 

Regardless, the season of learning starts up again in a few days, bringing with it harried mornings and ever-hungry kids. Personally, I'm not one for scarfing breakfast half asleep while making sure I've got my shirt on the right way and my lunch is packed. Instead, I do what many parents at my school seem to do with their kids - packing grabbable, low-mess, low-fuss baggies of food to eat in the car. My selections range from the "weird" - baby carrots, roasted chickpeas or baked tofu - to the more "standard" - "O" cereal and sliced bananas, a crunchy mix of sweet cereal, dried cranberries and toasted, salted cashews (yes, I wash my hands before going to work!) or, when I'm good at planning ahead on the weekends, homemade granola.

What I love about granola (and I'm sure I've said this before) is that it's almost infinitely variable. I'm almost always inspired by one Toast Topper or another, fleshing out the mix with oats (usually), various grains, dried fruit, nuts and chocolate. This time around, I capitalized on the bright, Summery flavours in my Blueberry Beet Butter, eventually building up to something I could only describe as a "breakfast friendly blueberry crisp". I followed my usual procedure for making granola (simply omitting the nuts and chocolate), but amped up the sweetness of the mix with cookie butter, honey, apple juice and Golden Grahams. Even more texture (and a hint of extra protein) came via a dose of
whole grain Cream of Wheat and kinako , which along with the lemon extract helped temper any overly saccharine notes.

What emerged from the oven was a crispy, crunchy, chunky pan of light-blue tinted delight. Perfectly acceptable to eat out of hand, I also used it to fill the hollows of apple halves before baking them for an impromptu dessert, and Mom has been tossing a bit onto her oatmeal-flax-blueberry porridge in the morning for an extra boost (especially this week, when she's been busy helping both my sister and I prepare to get back to the books). At this rate, I'm not sure if it will last the week!