The Hunger Struck - Confessions of a Food Fanatic.

Well this post has been a long time coming. After many dramatic weeks of trying to find my camera in this whole moving mess, I finally find it only to discover that I’m unable to login to my website. What is up with that? So after a few days of panic deleting of random files in my database that I think are responsible for the lock out, I manage to really screw things up and had to call in a professional to rebuild. I don’t know what I was thinking, I have absolutely zero skill in this department and apparently no common sense either.  Who randomly deletes file on the off chance that they might get lucky and by some miracle solve the problem? I surprise myself sometimes. But everything seems to be back to normal around here so I figured that before everyone is complely off of the holiday sweets I would slip in a post on our holiday baking.

I am a huge pecan pie fan and I think it is underrepresented in canada as a part of holiday baking. I always want to make a pecan pie for thanksgiving but somehow never mange to out of fear that the traditionalists would be forever traumatized by the absence of either pumpkin or apple pies. So after a certain family member received an amazingly huge box of pecans as a gift, apparently some of the best pecans to be had, I seized the opportunity. Unfortunately, I was unable to use any of these pecans because a certain someone hid them from me, so these bars were made with some very ordinary Vancouver pecans. I’m not bitter about this at all and they turned out fantastic despite that.

This is a Martha Stewart recipe and one I highly recommend if you’re craving pecan pie but don’t want to commit to eating an entire pie.

I know what you’re thinking and it’s either what the hell would I want to make butter for? Or why isn’t she posting something that is more seasonally appropriate like holiday cookie recipes? Well I have to admit this was not my top choice for the first post after a rather long break from blogging, due to a month of packing and moving. Thanks you for your patience I will be getting back to a more regular posting schedule in the next week or as soon as I locate my camera, which of course has to be the only thing that has gone missing during the move. To tell you the truth I’ve been holding onto this post for a month or so, I’ve just found it so hard to find time to write with everything that is going on. But things are slowly starting to get back to normal around here. Well as normal as things can get living at your parents house 7 months pregnant. Sigh.

So Butter! Why  make butter at all?

Well first off if you have ever in your life tasted the glory that is French butter or any European butter for that matter, especially that originating from Brittany you will know just how lacking our north American butter can be. I find it especially disturbing here in Vancouver, a city that has an absolute amazing variety of artisan food products, how hard it is to find good fresh butter. Sure there are a few local farms where you could find it out in the valley but that’s not the kind of accessibly I require, so one afternoon about a month ago while contemplating this problem, rather than let my frustration get the better of me I realized that while fresh butter may not be the easiest thing to locate in the city, fresh local organic cream is readily available.

It is so easy to make butter you guys and its really worth it if you can, if only for a special occasion. All you need is some good fresh cream and your stand mixer or hand mixer or even just a jar with a tight fitting lid if you want to be really primal about it.

This is my absolute favorite beef stew recipe. I make it frequently in the winter months and it’s one of those recipes that I can do in my sleep. It always turns out fabulous, I’m not sure if this has to do with the years I have been making this or the fact the beef stew is just one of those easy things to make.

I would put this recipe somewhere between Hungarian and German Goulash. It’s definitely not traditional, it contains tomato paste and I like to add carrots, both of these ingredients are not common to traditional Hungarian Goulash and I know my family (German) would not add either. So what makes this goulash for me then? It all comes down to one ingredient and trust me the better quality you can get the better this recipe will turn out: Paprika. Both the sweet and hot varieties are equally important and are what give this stew its edge. I’m not sure why but hot paprika is relatively hard to find in Vancouver, when I do find some I stock up. I recently received some as a gift from a friend who was in Budapest and I immediately knew what I would be using it for.

Happy Tuesday everyone!

I was very excited to receive a call from Martha Stewart Living Radio last week to make a small guest appearance on their show Living Today. You can listen to the interview below, I think it goes about 8 minutes in total.

Martha Stewart Living Radio Interview

These chanerelles were some of the dirtiest mushrooms I’ve ever purchased. If any of you are familiar with chanterelles you’ll know that they are not exactly the easiest variety of mushroom to clean. They have all kinds of groves almost like gills underneath the top that seem to be able to hold a plethora of dirt and grit, so they are definitely a mushroom variety that takes some extra time to clean up. I bought a whole bunch at the farmers market last week and it was like they came with the earth they grew in.

Once I did manage to clean them up, which took me a few days after purchasing, it was clear that these were going to be cooked simply. I think I must be going through an extremely lazy phase right now because a few dirty mushrooms never really caused me any cooking anxiety before. I had planned from the point of purchase to make a Mushroom Cheviche, inspired by the flavors common to traditional ceviche. Chanterells are truly one of the most delicately flavored mushrooms, they are quite rich and are perfect when they are simply sauteed in some butter. I thought a little bit of lime and cilantro would be just the thing. This is definitely not a mushroom you want to mix with a lot of strong flavors, they are best when kept simple. This recipe has only a few ingredients and is an absolute perfect appetizer for the season. We ate these for lunch and were  really happy that we didn’t have to share.

Honestly, there is nothing bread like about this Pumpkin Pudding Bread except for maybe the loaf shape so lets just get that out of the way straight off. If you’re looking for a recipe that has a dryer texture, is easily sliceable and perhaps a wee bit lower in fat than your average cake this recipe is definitely not for you. But if you are in search of a loaf recipe that is so incredibly moist you can look past the fact that it’s difficult to get it out of the pan in one piece, or better yet if you’re like us and are completely comfortable going at it with a spoon then look no further because this my friends may not be pretty but it is absolute pumpkin heaven.

In the interest of full disclosure those are mini loaf pans otherwise we really might have been in trouble. I polished off one before Sat even realized I had baked something and he was just lucky that out of concern of contracting Gestational Diabetes, I decided to exercise some self control.  The only thing that maybe maybe needs some rethinking is the baking dish itself, I mean why would I want to change something that is pretty near perfection already? I found myself thinking that since this ‘bread’ didn’t turn out like bread at all and instead of adding say 1/2 cup of extra flour to help it turn into that, I would really like to try baking this in small individual ramekins and serving it straight up as a dessert. I mean you could even make it with a sauce! I’m thinking a maple one. Or a caramel one, or a maple caramel one… did I go too far?  This probably needs to happen soon. I’ll keep you informed.

Until then here’s the recipe in its current status.

I told you I was on a pumpkin kick this year. Well it’s more of an obsession than anything else, which means that there will be at least one more post on the topic before I officially put the pumpkins away until next year. You can handle the right? I promise it wont be pumpkin pie!

This post is really an ode to my brand new food processor. It is truly a thing of beauty to watch this machine turn a bunch of seeds and nothing else into this perfectly smooth, thick spread. It’s magic and I am so glad that I finally decided to try this. We are huge almond butter fans and its safe to say that breakfast at our house is not complete unless there’s some variety involved. Actually, I’ve been a lifelong devotee of nut butters in general and the sole reason I waited so long to get it together and do this at home is due to a long line of semi broken old second hand food processors (rip). I finally for the first time in my life have a brand new cuisinart food processor and let me just say that the 2 months we’ve been together have been some of the happiest of my life. I can’t imagine how I survived as long as I did without it.

This recipe is the perfect example of why everyone should have one of these machines. Not including roasting time, this butter took all of 10 minutes to whip and man is it good. No, it’s truly great! Try it on toast with a little honey, or even bananas and honey or just by itself. The best part is it really maintains that beautiful roasted pumpkin seed flavor and with the addition of just a pinch of salt this may just make me forget about almond butter forever.

I have been on a pumpkin kick recently. It’s that time of year I know, but I have to admit I haven’t always been the hugest pumpkin fan. We just had thanksgiving here in Vancouver last weekend, and it was the first in a long time where the traditional pumpkin pie was not present for dessert and I have to say I really didn’t miss it. I do enjoy pumpkin pie and have really grown to appreciate pumpkins in their various forms – I especially love pumpkin risotto and pumpkin spice muffins are one of my very favourite! But I didn’t grow up eating pumpkins other than in the form of pie. My grandmother made pumpkin pie around this time of year, but unlike her apple pie I always felt sort of unattached to it. It was only later in life that I truly embraced pumpkin pie and considered it a viable dessert option. It definitely took me about 20 years to develop a taste for it. Strange I know.

Call it a strange pregnancy thing but since about 2 days following our thanksgiving dinner, I have seriously not been able to think about anything but pumpkin pie, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin cheese cake, pumpkin anything that’s sweet and it was driving me crazy. So, this morning at the grocery store I found myself loading my basket with can after can of organic pumpkin puree. Its funny because I always hear stories about super markets running out of the stuff around thanksgiving so I really went in with this panic mentality this morning. Of course I have never experienced this myself, every time I need pumpkin puree its always available and the shelves of my local grocery store were stocked full of it. But I’m glad I have it because I did promise my in laws a pumpkin pie for Halloween and I’m in the process of convincing Sat that we need muffins asap – he’s been trying to ease off the sweets which is hard to do when you’re married to someone who loves to bake.

I know it’s officially fall but I couldn’t resist one last summer dessert before moving on to all the fall favorites. I’m absolutely dieing to make apple pie this year and have a new recipe I have extremely high hopes for. It’s funny because I have been dieing to make pie of any kind for the last 2 weeks but have been holding out until closer to thanksgiving as I have a tendency to over do it right at the beginning of the season. Well at least according to my husband. Personally, I’m not one to have too much of anything. Is there even such a thing where pie is concerned?

There have been an abundance of berries this year and though the season is really over and perhaps it would be more appropriate to be making things like pie, I thought one last summer tart would be just the distraction I need from from certain things made with apples, pumpkins or squash. Though I will admit I couldn’t resist baking my favorite Harvest Butternut Squash Loaf over the weekend.

Well I’m officially back in my kitchen and couldn’t be happier about it. I really hope to forgo such long blogging breaks in the future. In my defence, it was however quite an unglamorous and difficult summer I endured, one where the maintenance a food blog proved impossible. They really don’t warn you about these things, or maybe they do and I just didn’t listen. Either way I hold myself accountable for thinking that the transition into such major change would be smooth, uncomplicated and altogether enjoying. As it stands all of those ideas of what I thought these months would bring couldn’t have been more off base. This was extremely frustrating at the time but of course now that I am on the other side I feel that it was all worth it.

What am I hinting at? Well after almost 4 miserable months we are officially delighted to tell you that in early March we are expecting a brand new addition to our family of 3 and we couldn’t be more excited and terrified about it. Excited for all of the obvious reasons and terrified because this will be our first non fur baby and we are starting to wake up to the responsibilities that that entails. But we are delighted by the challenges that it will bring and are in a bit of a panic searching for new digs that will accommodate our new addition.