The Last Post of 2010

This year has been an extraordinarily long one, filled with some ups and a lot of downs. It is easy to focus on those downs when it feels like we are faced with so many so while I am happy to let go of this year and all of its difficulties I am most definitely looking forward to what 2011 can possibly be. I haven't properly prepared to write this post and I feel a touch fragile about it, mostly because an ending makes me feel prickly and touchy, disoriented in my own skin and so with that, some of my favourite food photos from 2010:

An extravagant caesar salad.

The beginning of wasabi aioli.

Pre-baked gluten-free chocolate chip cookies.

In the new year I will broach the subject of gluten, it disappeared from my life for a while and after things fell apart (remember how 2010 wasn't that great?) it came back with full force. And that's okay.

Orange Shortbread Cookies

A month and a bit ago I inherited a lot of cookbooks from my father. I knew that he liked to cook and I think everyone who knew him knew that he loved food but I didn't realize that he had amassed a pile of cookbooks. Flipping through the Laura Secord Canadian Cookbook I found my dad's name and the date in his precise cursive on the title page, 1973, I think this particular cookbook is my favourite. Through his travels, his storytelling and his search for the new, Dad kept testaments to his past hidden on the bookshelf. What we know of ourselves and how we reveal it is in the titles on our bookshelves and standing in my father's quiet bedroom, this nearly 40 year old volume of recipes in my hands, these thoughts swirled in my mind. The cookbook, with its wide array of traditional recipes that border on the quintessentially wacky (Pink Snow Bars - which I want to make purely out of a sense of homage) are my father. The other cookbooks are too, but he held on to this one for 37 years, through all the changes, the moves within the city and out of the country, when he was no longer a teacher and once again a student, all of it; this little cookbook sat on the shelf.

The recipe I used was actually called "Lemon Biscuits" and was a lovely basic recipe for lemon shortbread but since I had neither lemons or a love for following a recipe I made mine with orange. I know I have orange extract somewhere but whenever it is needed it always disappears so I had to rely on orange juice and if you plan on making these, I'd ensure you have orange extract. The zest and juice do add a lovely flavour but it's not enough to explode orange, it's more of a persistent and gentle murmur. I had originally intended these cookies for Christmas but I have been promising Miss N the chance to decorate some cookies and we have all the icings and sprinkles but not the time. It took her about three seconds of turning her big (and gorgeous) brown eyes on her Daddy and they broke into the tin of cookies. It was completely worth it. Not only that, but the bold splashes of colour across cookies was an even more perfect homage to my father.

Enjoy.

The Recipe

Adapted from "Lemon Biscuits", Laura Secord Canadian Cookbook.

Preheat oven to 375º.

3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

pinch of salt

3/4 cup butter or shortening, room temperature

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

zest and juice of one orange, medium sized

2 eggs, room temperature

1. Sift together the dry ingredients.

2. In a separate bowl cream the butter or shortening. Slowly add the sugar and mix until fluffy. At this point add the zest and juice of the orange.

3. Add the eggs and mix well.

4. Ad the flour and blend together until it is a stiff dough.

5. Roll out on a lightly floured surface and cut into squares or use cookie cutters. This is the time to break out the Christmas tree cutters!

6. Bake 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. The directions call to lightly grease the cookie sheet, I lined mine with silicone baking sheets which keeps the bottoms significantly lighter than parchment paper.

If you are so inclined you can ice these babies with some fantastic icings. I'm looking forward to working with some royal icing; this time I used packaged icing scribbles which were great for small details but still had a bit of a weird flavour from the colouring.

Beef Tongue Tacos

It's a funny thing about beef tongue - it really looks like tongue, complete with taste buds. It is also very large, again not terribly surprising but still a lot to wrap your head around. As Mr. said, "You know that a year ago we were vegetarians and now you have a beef tongue in the sink." Of course I used the innocent brown eyes tinged with a bit of indignation, of course I have a beef tongue in the sink! Of course I'm going to eat it! Of course it freaks me out because it kind of feels like pinching my own tongue in a very over-sized sort of way but I was determined to do it. As much as my hubby loves me and no matter how adventurous he may be, Mr. made himself a vegetarian taco that night.

This hasn't been the greatest lead up to dinner. What you may not know is that beef tongue is incredibly tender with a very subtle beef flavour that easily soaks up flavour. For the quantity of meat you can get out of the tongue it is very economical. I know a lot of people use the meat in sandwiches and I can see why, the tender slices are a nitrate-free, natural alternative to lunch meat. To be honest, the reason I made tacos was to disguise some of the more "tongue-like" features and I would highly suggest it. There is a reason why mothers never tell their kids what it is until after it has been eaten, it's tasty but can give you a bit of a shaky knee reaction.

I am still torn about the experience. I enjoyed preparing and eating this dish. It was undeniably delicious and to think that such a large portion of meat was not carelessly thrown away is reassuring when so many people are quick to throw away, particularly in light of the offal movement. I gave up being a vegetarian because of something a friend said to Mr. and I: "You're proud of your vegetarian for ethical reasons but is it environmentally friendly? You got your protein from imported almonds or whatever but it's not from here. My meat from down the hall from a fellow farmer. I traded him vegetables for it." We were standing in the farmer's market when we ran into Ted, the lanky farmer from whom we bought our vegetables and he made a valid point. We meekly stated that our tofu was local but was it enough? As much as we enjoyed our vegetarianism in some respects we had an uneasy relationship with it. So much was imported, shipped in from dots on the map. We slowly started incorporating meat from local producers, people we knew and had worked alongside at the market. We knew the farmers, their ethics and views on how to properly raise animals without the use of antibiotics, growth hormones and anything funky. I do not fault anyone for being a vegetarian, how could I? I do believe that we need to think about where our food comes from and what we do with it, eat natural foods in their whole state (despite my ravenous sweet tooth) and just start thinking about our impact on the world.

A note: We have a policy of full-disclosure with our children (kidded down of course), so after pretending to lick Miss N's face with the cooked beef tongue and explaining what it was, the kids still ate it. In fact, Bubs had seconds.

The Recipe

one beef tongue

one onion, diced

250 mL red wine

2 overly ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped

2-3 cloves garlic, finely minced

cumin

salt and pepper to taste

1. Boil the beef tongue in water for about 3 hours.*

2. Once you are able to handle it, you will have to peel the skin off of it. I made an incision down the centre of tongue then using a paring knife peel it kind of like a apple. The skin will peel off fairly easily but it does take some encouraging. Reserve.

3. Heat olive oil on medium heat until it slips easily across the bottom of a high-sided frying pan. Add the onion, cook until translucent.

4. Dice the tongue and add to the pan. Lightly sear and add the wine. Keep the temperature high for just a few minutes to burn off the alcohol.

5. Add the tomatoes, garlic, cover and allow to reduce on low heat.

6. Add the cumin, salt and pepper. All of this is to taste.

7. Serve with ribbons of spinach (instead of iceberg lettuce!), diced tomatoes, grated cheese and any other favourite taco toppings. Enjoy!

The Humble Pea

Firstly, allow me to apologize for my absence these past few weeks. Mr. has been engaged in an incredibly exciting professional course (it's exciting because we won't be poor students raising children) that has sucked up every last moment of our time; at the end of the day once the kitchen is cleanish and the little people are sleeping I could just about muster the energy to watch Law & Order re-runs. The weather has been beautiful, the sunlight a perfectly muted gold that warms your arms and cheeks but pulls back before it cooks you. That type of weather begs to have children run around in it, happy and free of a cold Nova Scotia winter.

Miss N. and Bubs greatly appreciate a birthday and this past Thursday was Canada's birthday and while we made it down to the fireworks (they were mesmerized and smitten), we spent the early evening eating fresh peas and strawberries. The crazed week of driving around, too much takeout and the scramble to just get around melted away with the snap of each pea. I think this was my favourite part of the day, never mind the excitement of the harbour front, being able to sit with my babies and eat fresh produce from a farm just a short distance away was my highlight.

The giggles, the mess and the sweet sharing between brother and sister who will easily fight over a broken toy was because of the humble pea. The stress of the week, that palpable mess of constant activity without result split apart with each pea and was cast aside into the growing pile spent shells.

Gluten-free Red Velvet Cupcakes

I am a private person. I bristle when my life is discussed, when my sense of self is put on display and fodder for others interests. And then I have this outpouring and everyone is so kind that it amazes and makes me cry. I sometimes tire of my gluten intolerance and it's frustrating, mostly because I cut out gluten for one reason and when that didn't work I couldn't just go back to eating bread and all kinds of good wheaty things and that sucks. I know that makes me sound like a 15 year old but it's true. My gluten intolerance wasn't linked to my bipolar, it didn't fix my brain but it certainly fixed the rest of my body. It's a good thing that I stopped eating gluten. It really is.

As a way of breaking out of this baking slump I took the advice of Chef Dennis and wandered back into the kitchen. I poked around in the cupboards, watched an episode of Triple D, snooped in the kitchen and went online. It was while I was monitoring Twitter for any suspicious behaviour, such as recipes I had not yet seen, I discovered Jenna from Eat • Drink • Pretty and her Red Velvet Cupcakes. Obviously I would not be able to follow her recipe exactly but I was able to make this gluten free and I was really proud of the delicate texture and flavour of these cupcakes.

However, I'm not going to share with you. Yes, I am. The recipe is below. There was a mishap with the notebook which contains the recipe.

The Recipe

note: I think I might be overzealous with my flours but this garnered a fantastic texture.

57 g rice flour

57 g quinoa flour

37 g chickpea flour

70 g teff

30 g corn flour

3 tbsp. cocoa powder

one teaspoon baking soda

one teaspoon salt

one teaspoon guar gum/xanthan gum (I prefer guar gum, use what you like!)

one cup goat milk w/ tablespoon of vinegar*

2 eggs

1.5 half cups sugar

3 tsp. vanilla (seems like a lot - I find I need more with gluten-free baked goods)

half cup oil (should be neutral, I did use olive because it's all we had)

one tablespoon red food colouring

*This is instead of buttermilk. My babies (all three of them) are intolerant of cow's milk but they can have goat. If you do not imbibe any dairy, the same ratio applies to soy milk in order to make the curdled buttermilk!

1. Mix together the dry ingredients. Those are conveniently separated in the first batch!

2. Mix together the wet ingredients, the batch of all wet stuff in the last grouping.

3. Add the dry to the wet, alternate with the buttermilk. Since this is gluten-free it is extraordinarily runny, I don't remember wheat based cakes being this runny.

4. Fill lined cupcake pans. Bake at 325* for 15-20 minutes. Remember my tremendous muffin tins? I also have super small cupcake tins. Yup, only extremes around here ... we shan't mention the crazy. :)

Traditionally, red velvet cake is served with cream cheese icing. Like usual, I have used goat quark. I love quark because it is a lot lower in fat than other cream cheeses, my beloved babies can eat it First, allow me to apologize for the Wikipedia. In my other life as a university student it is seriously frowned upon, though I do have an unhealthy addiction to it!

The Icing

4 tbsp. quark

1.5 cups icing sugar

hot water (splash)

Mix all ingredients together. The hot water is there to thin it out if you find the icing is seizing and will not mix.

The crumb on these cakes had me so impressed and -dare I say it- proud of my new baking skills. I love baking, the properties of gluten free baking have pulled the rug out from beneath me. It's a journey, and we never really get there, but isn't that the point?

A Lament for Gluten

A lament for all the food I will never have, a sigh for all the recipes that will remain locked in between the tattered pages of my beloved cookbooks. It is in these moments of sorrow that I second-guess my decision to divorce gluten. Chewy dinner rolls that tear under the weight of butter will no longer patiently sit at my table, their yeasty scent enticing my diners. It is into this self doubting hell that I descend and it is precipitated by only one thing or perhaps many: I remember that my dream to live in France and attend cooking school is probably a bad idea. My kids are away for the night, my hubby is at work and I am left to my own devices to cook for myself (I am unabashedly lazy about cooking for myself). I start flipping through my stack of cookbooks and realize that I can't just walk into my kitchen and whip up any given recipe, I'll have to do some math, use a million flours and hope for the best. Why?

Why does it matter if I don't eat gluten? In a very small voice I will sometimes ask Mr., "Do you think it matters, I mean, really? What if we went out for brunch tomorrow and I had toast. Real toast with crevices for pools of butter, so sweet and milky and just the perfect size for a fairy to swim in, or enough to make me sigh with pleasure ...." and Mr. doesn't say anything. He just smiles because my eyes are going to fill with tears and he knows I won't do it.

I sometimes feel like my gluten intolerance has gotten out of hand, as if it is no longer in my control. A few months ago I went off my medication for bipolar disorder. I was tired of feeling sick all the time, the horrid headaches, the hand tremors and the brain fuzz. I am a writer and I couldn't always spell or tie together complex ideas. That is not exactly helpful to a Literature and Women's Studies student. Instead, I started doing research into alternative treatments for my disorder and one of them is to forgo gluten because gluten has been linked with mood swings. Let me just say, I do not, in any way, ever, at all recommend going off of psychiatric medication. It will lead to The Incident.

Whenever I have my big doubting moments about living gluten free, the times where I lay on the floor and sigh dramatically Mr. will gently remind me that the digestive problems I have dealt with my entire life are finally gone. The debilitating leg pain and headaches have faded away. If all of this isn't enough, Mr. will take me down to Pete's and buy a bundle of cheese, gluten free crackers and a lovely bottle of wine which we will eat in the sun on our balcony. That makes gluten-free life a little easier, doesn't it?