The First Little Bit

Welcome!


At the request of a few friends, I decided to share a few of my culinary adventures and experiments with anyone who is interested. This post will be a summary of a few of the things I have done over the past year or so. I don't cook professionally, or even that well, but I do like to try different things and take pictures of them. I hope you enjoy!


Please do comment if you can. I'd love hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback.


For future posts, I will share the recipe if possible, giving credit where credit is due. However, for this post, I will refrain because I made most of these things so long ago that I don't even know where the recipes came from. In most cases, I also alter the recipe. When that's the case, I'll let you know.


Tiramisu

The date stamp on that picture is wrong-- I'm pretty sure I made it last fall. Please forgive the less-than-professional quality pictures and food staging.


I think this recipe is from my trusty old Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. There were some shameful substitutions, including cream cheese instead of mascarpone, but I was still pretty happy with it. The hardest part by far was getting the 3 layers to be even in width. My tool was a bread knife. Lesson learned: if I want my cakes to be top-notch, I'm going to need a cake slicer. I saw one at the Bulk Barn last week and nearly drooled. But I refrained. I don't think I make enough cakes to necessitate that. 
By the way, Lara, I still owe you a cake. You can hold me to that!


Pane all'Olive: No Knead Bread

I've been experimenting with no-knead bread since I got this book by Jim Lahey for Christmas last year. This photo shows off the Olive Bread that I made using that method. 


Honestly, this bread is the easiest thing in the world to make.


The idea is to use a small amount of yeast and let it rise for up to 24 hours-- a long time by regular bread-making standards. Then you cook the bread in a large pot or dutch oven, to avoid making the crust too heavy. According to Lahey, that's how bread was made in ancient times, over wood fires. Modern-day methods make bread seem more difficult and time consuming than it has to be. 


Although the history is cool, I was attracted to this recipe because although I enjoy baking, I don't know that I want to lose entire weekends to bread making. 


I've been experimenting with it and adjusting my method for about 6 months now and I think I've got it to a point where I'm happy with it.  Part of the secret to this particular recipe is that the added oil in the olives really softens up the bread. The Olive Bread was one success I have yet to re-create-- the second loaf I made had a strange alcoholic flavour to it. I'm not sure why.Here are a few more pictures:

Essentially this is a mixture of flour, water, salt, olives, and a small amount of yeast. There are also green and black olives, and some pickled [sweet] peppers that were in the jar with them. A very small amount of yeast is used, so the dough rises slowly over a very long period of time.


This picture was taken after the dough had risen.

Those long strings are the strands of gluten that have been developing while it rises. When you knead bread, you are breaking down those strands so that the bread is less chewy and more soft. The no-knead bread has a bit more texture than regular bread because there is so little kneading.

This is a terrible picture, but you get the idea. After the first rise, you dump the dough out onto a floured towel, and shape it a bit to fit the pot.

At this point, I alter the recipe a little. I don't mind doing a bit of kneading, so I usually give the dough about 10 turns or so. This essentially means folding it over and pushing it into the work surface with your palms. The kneading makes the bread a bit softer, which I prefer.


Once it rises a bit more on the towel, you pre-heat the oven and the pot, and then transfer the dough to the hot pot. Bake for 30 minutes or so, and it's done!


You can tell that bread is done cooking if it sounds hollow when you knock on the bottom of it. I learned this baker's secret from my wonderful boyfriend, who learned lots of secrets during his 2 week stint working in a bakery a few years ago.


Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie

I love pie. But who doesn't?


The recipe for this crust actually came from a book I read, which was self-published by Ross's Aunt Tamara, who ran a tea room in Paisley, Ontario, for several years. The tea room is closed now, but the tea and the book that tells its story are both still available. The book is a lovely history of the family's time at the tea room, and is filled with delicious recipes. I would recommend it-- this is probably the best pie crust recipe I've ever tried. The pastry is very easy to work with, and comes out light and flaky. Tamara is obviously an expert in dessert-making.


The filling of this pie was made from fresh local strawberries and some rhubarb from our garden! It was pretty watery, because the strawberries were so fresh. It's always a good idea to let your strawberries dry out in the fridge for a few days if you can, before trying to do anything with them. I learned that the hard way when I made this jam:


Strawberry-Gooseberry Jam

It tastes pretty decent, but is watery for a few reasons. First, the strawberries were very fresh. Second, I was experimenting with making my own pectin from boiled apples. This was a method I learned in a jam-making demonstration at the Guelph Local Food Fest. The demonstration was done by the proprieter of From These Roots, a local maker of hand-made jams and salsas named Krista Harrington.
Her recipe was delicious and 100% local, which was really neat!


But the pectin part didn't work out so well, even though I also added some gooseberries from our garden, which are also supposed to be high in pectin. Still, I think the flavour is the most important thing. In the future I don't think I'll be so hesitant to use store-bought pectin.


We've been experimenting with canning this summer, as well. It will be nice to continue enjoying the fruits of our labor for months to come!


Well, that's it for now-- I think this was a long enough first post. I hope this entices you to return for my next feature: A home-made birthday cake, complete with cherry pie filling made from fresh cherries!


Happy trails!