Scenes from Sunday

Easter Sunday turkey dinner went over really well and I 'm confident we're on the road to building another tradition for our family. Here are some photos from the weekend.

And here is how I do my dressing (not stuffing) and it has been adapted in past dinners to be both vegan and gluten-free. You just have to be aware of the type of bread you use, butter/margarine, and stock. First, I fried one onion which has been diced finely until it is translucent. I added one apple and a few mushrooms, both also diced finely. Once the onions are starting to caramelize, I added some (a dash) salt, pepper and thyme as well as a good palm-full of savoury (a Newfoundland tradition).

Then I added this mixture to coarsely chopped (or blitzed in the food processor) stale bread. I added even more savoury (I love the stuff) and then a few tablespoons of vegetable stock along with a little butter. Stir everything together and bake it in the oven, covered for the most part, until golden. The stock and butter help the flavour plus keep the dressing moist. I've had dressing that is like sawdust it's so dry. I just like this kind better. The proportions are vague because I kind of just toss everything together. It always tastes good and I just adjust more or less depending on how much dressing I'm making.
  

We're still having turkey sandwiches and I've had a request for turkey soup with the frame I froze after the meal was enjoyed on Sunday. Waste not, want not. Hope you all had a happy Easter!

Jamaican me hungry! For burgers!

This post has been a long time coming. I made these Jamaican bean and rice burgers with a friend last month and they turned out deliciously wonderful. I took photos and recorded the whole process...and it took me a month to post it all up here. But hey, better late than never. And re-hashing the recipe has made me jones for these tasty, and vegan, burgers again.

The recipe was found by my friend who has been on the look-out for alternative and healthy recipes to try. And if you want to try new food, cooking and eating, I'm your gal!

There seems to be a lot of ingredients at first but they're simple enough and there's not much fuss to assembling the patties. And warning: the amounts called for in this recipe makes a lot of burgers...more than the 6 noted (unless you make jumbo ones).

You'll need:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 1/4 cups chopped onion
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 hot pepper (the original recipe recommends habanero pepper!), chopped
• 1 1/2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger root
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon ground allspice
• 3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2 1/4 cups cooked black beans, rinsed and drained
• 2 1/4 cups cooked long-grain white rice (this can be left-over or made just before)
  
• 2 1/2 cups dry bread crumbs
• 6 hamburger buns, split

We followed most of the recipe to the letter except for one thing. My friend's father happens to have a connection to a local gardener who just harvested a pile of various hot peppers. And he's a hot pepper freak so we used a whole bunch (more than the one which the recipe recommends) and it made the burger a little spicy but mostly tasty and flavourful.


What you do with all the ingredients is add them to a frying pan in layers according to how long they take to cook through. First, saute the onions and garlic. Then add the peppers and you can add the seasonings too just to they don't taste so raw (this is called 'blooming').

Then you transfer all the ingredients to a big bowl and add everything else; toss together and then mix with your hands once the mixture is cool enough to handle. Smooshing the beans and everything else together with your fingers is not only a satisfying feeling, but it serves as a great way to bind everything together. The mixture can be a bit loose so be gentle...you can add a bit of water or an egg if you feel it's too loose.

You can form patties now and return each to the frying pan (or BBQ) to fry for a few minutes on each side. Then put the finished patties on your buns and top with whatever burger toppings you'd like!


This recipe surprised me because I expected the rice and breadcrumbs to make the burgers mealy or grainy. Instead, the burgers are soft and were very tasty. And filling!! The Jamaican flavourings were not overwhelming and I'd be tempted to increase the amounts of all the flavourings next time I prepare this dish.

We ate our big burgers with sweet potato fries and asparagus.

KISS (keep it simple stupid) Onion Soup

Problem: limited supplies, cold night, laziness. Solution: Onion soup!

All you need to do is chop up a bunch of onions. Careful this will cause tears...take off your glasses if you wear 'em, light a candle and bear through it. If none of this works, stick your head in the freezer. Seriously. I didn't believe it work work but it does. I hate that it works. But it does!

Then put the onion slices into a frying pan with a little butter, slat, pepper and whatever else you have on hand that you'd like in your soup. This time around, I threw in a dash of the beer I was drinking, some balsamic vinegar and a little cumin. You need to wilt the onions down a lot. This is called caramelizing your onions. It will seem impossible at first but then, after 15 minutes or so your big batch of onions will caramelize and wilt down into yumminess.
In a pot on the stove, simmer some stock, traditionally beef stock. Add the onions and simmer some more. That's your soup. Simple as can be. Not necessarily the best, fanciest or refined recipe but it works. If you want to French it up, add some bread and cheese on top. Broil for a couple seconds and enjoy. Seriously. It will be tasty. And careful not to get too close to anyone afterwards - it may be KISS soup but its still onion soup!

War wounds and weapons

I'm taking a break from recipes to recount the amount of injuries I've encountered while trying to make food. I feel like I constantly have a band-aid on some finger or other. Most common finger-cutting mistake: bagels. My thumbs usually gets the brunt of abuse but I recently sliced right into my right palm. No stitches needed and no scars it either, thankfully.

More than once, I have fooled myself into thinking I have the asbestos fingers of a well-seasoned chef. I do not...and this has resulted in many scorched fingers on ice.

I do have not one, but two identical scars on my right arm and both are from taking pies out of the oven. Different occasions of course...I'm not one to learn a lesson easily. These from Lee Valley would help me out so I'm putting them on my "must get" list of kitchen items.


I have also caught tea towels on fire at least three times and often forget about above-mentioned finger cuts and go right ahead and juice lemons or limes anyway (ouch).

Cutting onions is also a injury-inducing experience and not at all helped by my glasses (I swear vapors get trapped between the glasses and eye and just linger!). These onion goggles may help the stinging and crying but may not be a help in the style department.


Also it is wise to keep your knifes sharp and safely stored. Both sharp, improperly stored knifes, and dull knifes of any kind, are dangerous. And get new oven mits. When was the last time you bought oven mits? Serious, you can't remember, can you? Get a new pair now. Silicone is popular now, as is the Ove Glove. And if you are prone to arm burns or will be doing any BBQing, try a longer glove. America's Test Kitchen did a test of their favorites and the Kool-Tech came out on top, with the less-expensive Parvin Flameguard Oven Mitt a close second.



And if you're just as accident prone as me I offer some advice from the Daily Fork. And advice from myself? Think ahead and cook responsibly!

Non-recipe onion soup recipe

Every now and then I end up with large quantity of one item in our pantry. This week it was onions. So, I thought to make onion soup. Now, I don't have a recipe for this since I have just made it from instinct since as long as I can remember. I can recall my mother making this when we were kids and putting bread on top, and cheese, and broiling the soup in little French onion soup bowls which were only used for that purpose, and that purpose alone.

I can remember what went into that soup and, although I don't own any of those little bowls, I think my version tastes pretty good. Secret weapon: large-mouthed coffee cups which can be stuck under the broiler (if you choose to put bread and cheese on top...crusty bread and Swiss please!).

So my non-recipe recipe is as follows:
- Melt some butter and olive oil in a large pot. Butter (or margarine) for flavour and olive oil because it can stand more heat and keeps the butter from burning.
- Slice up a couple onions and put them down in the pot. The other night I used up everything I had left, which was about five medium onions. Less onions will make your soup less onion-y and more onions, well, you get the drift.
Time-saver tip: the food processor does an amazingly quick job of slicing onions. And no tears!
- Stir to coat them in the butter/oil and cover the pot and let the onions soften for about 5 mins.
- Add whatever seasoning you want: salt, pepper for sure, some basil or oregano, garlic...
- Then put in a bunch of beef broth. "A bunch" is about one of those resealable cartons sold next to the soups. You can add more or less broth, depending on the amount of onions you've got and how watery you want your soup. You can also add water to the broth if you want a less intense flavour. I got for low-sodium broth. You can also use chicken or veg. broth I guess but beef is the traditional ingredient.
- Simmer that for a while (see how non-recipe this recipe is?!) about 20 mins.
- To serve, put some soup in a bowl or mug (preferably one that's oven-proof).
- Added bonus: top with bread and cheese and put under broiler for 2-3 mins. until cheese is melted and slightly browned.
Enjoy!