The Hunger Struck - Confessions of a Food Fanatic.

It feels so strange to acknowledge this but until Saturday I hadn’t set foot in my kitchen in over a month. A MONTH. That has got to be a new record. It has been a crazy summer full of unexpected surprises that have been literally making it impossible to even think about cooking. I’ve heard other equally enthusiastic cooks describe similar situations but I never thought it would be possible that anything could affect me in this way. Oh boy was I wrong. And I’m not out of the woods yet so I apologize for the light posts which may continue for just a few more weeks while I process this ciaos, everything should be back to normal though by September. Fingers crossed.

So to mark this strange month of no cooking I decided I needed to bake a cake. Not a fancy cake either but a cake that can be eaten for breakfast lunch and dinner for as long as it can last in our current home cooking deprived house. This ended up to be 2 days which was one day more than I expected. In situations like this I do not have time to mess around looking through recipes as I normally would so I did the only natural thing and turned to Dorie Greenspan. Lets be honest here, if you’re looking for a no fail recipe, one that whether you’ve made it before or not you know it will not disappoint, Dorie Greenspan’s Baking From My Home To Yours is the best possible reference.

This apple cake is so easy and really amazing. It’s the perfect kind of coffee cake, not too heavy and extremely moist which also makes it an idea breakfast, if cake for breakfast is you thing. The combination of apple butter and grated apple gives it an incredibly deep apple flavor, so if you can try not to substitute then apple butter for just regular apple sauce, I don’t think you would achieve the same result.

Its almost like I have an unconscious wish to get really really fat. I’ll spend hours at the gym the weekend baking and eating and still find myself a bit confused when my jeans fit tight on Monday morning. The best part is that by some miracle I am able to ignore this and use absolutely no common sense when I see recipes like Brown Butter Ice Cream. Obviously ice cream base on its own isn’t rich enough so lets add a stick of butter to it. Sounds good to me!

In all seriousness, am I the only one that sees the genius of this? Brown butter on its own is magic and can add so much to a dish. I routinely use it when I make rice.

This is another recipe from Chez Pim and I have to say I was instantly attracted to it. It just made perfect sense to me. Brown butter, sugar, cream could there be a better combination out there? Seriously email me asap if you you know of one. This was one of the recipes that I knew would be amazing the second I laid eyes on it and I was right.

I love to bake and have always longed to be one of those bakers who can produce perfect aesthetically magnificent creations. This is a bit strange because in other ways I’m not exactly what you would call a perfectionist. This desire for baking perfection may stem from the fact that baking is something I was very comfortable with at a young age. I worked in a bakery for a while after high school and prior to that spend many days in the kitchen baking cookies, pies, tarts etc. Baking came to me easily, I only struggled with the aesthetic.

It doesn’t seem to matter how much time I spend calculating circumference or carefully cutting sides of puff pastry, somehow it always comes out looking a bit rough. I know there is appeal in a rustic looking free form tart, but sometimes, maybe even just once, I would like to make something that looks as amazing as it tastes, something refined.

I love gooseberries. It seems like only two years ago they were a rarity in Vancouver. I remember seeing tiny little baskets of them, with their fragile paper leaves priced outrageously and wondering if they would ever become economical enough to really consider using as I would other berries, for things like tarts, galettes and pies which require larger quantities.

They have come down a bit in price, though they are still quite expensive. You can now buy them locally in Vancouver in larger bushels, without their paper leaves, which I personally don’t care for as I think it takes away some of their charm even if it does save me sometime. But they aren’t for everyday, though I desperately wish they could be. I splurged a bit on these as I was in the market for something special for a dessert on mothers day.

Well finally here it is. I know, I made you wait for it. I can be mean like that sometimes. But it’s worth it right? Now all you have to do is get through this string of short sentences and you can have it. It’s really that easy. Well maybe not quite that easy, but seriously if you have an oven and 4 hours to spare you can easily pull this off. That’s the great thing about braising, aside from the addition of some flavors the oven does all the work for you and the best part is you get the credit.

Seriously though, I heard the words “best tacos I’ve ever had” escape my mothers lips when she tasted these. Granted we’re Canadian – not exactly known for our Mexican cuisine - but the woman has traveled all over Mexico and on top of that shes a great cook. So I would say that these come as close to perfection as any small Canadian home cook can get.

Want to challenge me Canadian home cooks? I’m totally up for that.

This is the second celery root slaw recipe I’ve written about. I guess it goes without saying that I’m quite fond of this root. While I’ve made it as I would any other slaw – a side to a summer BBQ type meal or just by itself -  these days I have an obsession with celery root slaw paired with tacos.

From fish to pork tacos there’s something about celery root that  is a refreshing change from your everyday cabbage slaw. Now don’t all you slaw lovers get your knives in a bunch over that last statement. I have nothing against cabbage based saws, in fact on the contrary I love them. I also think the pairing of cabbage and tacos is a great one, it is a classic after all but lets keep an open mind shall we?

I have to say I feel a bit silly posting such a basic recipe for salsa. But its a good one and one that I make often. Salsa is just so simple to make, and for me the fresh taste of tomatoes and cilantro are what make a great salsa stand apart from the rest.

Sure I’ve enjoyed my fair share of store bought salsa. My hubby prefers it to the home made variety so I actually eat it quite often. Recently though, due to an over abundance of fresh tomatoes supplied by my mother-in-law, I’ve found myself whipping up a quick batch for one quite often. Of course these impromptu salsas are at the mercy of whats available in my refrigerator on that particular day and are often quite simply tomatoes, cilantro, lime juice and some variety of spice.

This recipe however is what I make when I’ve actually planned to make salsa, generally for a special occasion or when I have dinner guests. It’s still simple but with the addition of fresh jalapenos, shallots, and a few other things it is absolutely delicious. Make sure to use the best tomatoes you can find!

The list of seasonal fruits and vegetables that are highly anticipated and enthusiastically discussed in our household are endless. We spend many an hour discussing what we are excited to make with certain ingredients throughout the year that when they finally show up in our farmers market we can hardly wait to get back home and bring all of those daydreams into reality.

A few weeks ago we found some beautiful first pick rhubarb at the market. The stalks were thick, a shiny dark red and I just knew that they would require very little to produce something amazing. But against my better judgment, after several months of anticipation I had my mind set on a rhubarb cake that I’d worked out in great detail and that’s what I was going the make, the end.

I truly wish I had been able to slow down for a moment or two to take a picture of this rhubarb because you really need to see it to understand the tragedy that followed. But alas, in that moment I couldn’t seem to find a second to pick up my camera and to tell you the truth I’m not great with process pictures. I was in the rhubarb cake zone and nothing was going to stop me. It’s taken me several weeks to get over this indecent enough to put these words down, and it’s not even the way the cake turned out that truly eats me inside, but the fact that I knew ( I KNEW!) this was not the rhubarb to use in such a high risk baking experiment.

Ugh, must everyday be a lesson in stubbornness for me?

The title of this post should be the BEST chocolate chip cookies in the world, because these are as close to perfection as any one cookie could be. I have to warn you though, they are definitely not the sort of cookie with staying power and they have the ability to tempt and conform even the most stubborn cookie hater. Does anyone have one of those in their lives, or am I the only one? There are some strange people out there and if there’s one thing I have never quite been able to figure out it’s how is it even possible to not have a sweet tooth? Any insight on this is always appreciated.

It’s funny how certain individual tastes have such an ability to annoy me. While I’m not even close to being a fussy eater, there are a few things that I cannot imagine ever developing a taste for (Lamb or any sort of mutton for example), yet I find myself judging people who insist that they don’t have a taste for anything sweet. To me this isn’t possible. What is more probable is that they have some sort of undetected physical disorder that has stunted the growth and development of their taste buds. Or maybe this is the a sign of a more serious mental condition? I regress… but after years of contemplation, I’m no closer to any conclusion and I don’t accept that this is just a symptom of individual taste.

I’ve been hearing the praises of oatmeal for breakfast for many a year, starting from childhood, and have successfully managed to ignore or at least fain disinterest. While I was attracted to the health benefits and the possibility of staying full for longer than I was used to,  I suppose it was more out of a bored feeling I would get at the thought of reintroducing this into my breakfast routine.

You see, my childhood was one that was over populated by bowls of bland oatmeal. Even though there was plenty brown sugar and milk available to perk it up, it was never enough to get me excited about eating in the mornings. I remember begging my mother for anything but oatmeal for breakfast, followed by several dramatic demonstrations of my dislike once I didn’t get my way.  I also remember that I secretly thought it wasn’t terrible when I eventually did eat it, because I must confess I’ve never been one to starve myself even out of protest. Yet despite not hating it completely, like I wanted people to think, it didn’t inspire me or get me excited like I thought all food should. To be quite honest it still doesn’t.