let's get ready to rhuuuuuubaaaaaarrrrrb!

the pile of rhubarb gifted by my mother-in-law just weighed in at 4 lbs.

i washed all the rhubarb and prepared for today's plan: strawberry rhubarb and ginger jam, and rhubarb chutney.

rhubarb is purty

while i was washing and chopping, i went ahead and took on a pound of strawberries. i was going to use blueberries, but i ate them in my oatmeal. and made bread. with rhubarb*.




so, i had to get more fruit and strawberries were on sale. big, juicy, must-bedevoured strawberries. perfect for me!


i dumped a cup and a half of sugar on the fruit and let it hang out for an hour. then i turned my eye to the other pile of rhubarb.

the sugar, vinegar, garlic, ginger, and spices were combined together and cooked until the sugar dissolved. then i added the onion, rhubarb, and cranberries. i didnt realise we were out of raisins. both kinds.

i let that cook and cook and simmer and cook until it was all nice and mushy.  once it was cooled, i bottled it, and threw it in the fridge until i made dinner. the chutney featured nicely alongside a veggieburger with cheese, avocado, spinach, onion, and tomato.

the jam turned out beautifully too.

once it was in the saucepan, i added a good knob of ginger, and stirred that in.


then i had to try it.  to make sure it was safe.
what my relatives dont know is that im returning the rhubarb to them this weekend...
just in a  different form





*this is round 2 and 3 from my mother in law. we've already eaten round 1!

it's another potato sunrise

this week i made this curry for lunch. two days in a row.  it is going to become a staple, methinks. it is easy, fast, and intoxicating. imagine this: golden onion smell commingling with coriander, cumin, cayenne, cardamom, and fresh ginger... and that is just the beginning. enter tomato paste and chickpeas and coconut milk. i might have been caught sneaking spoonfulls of leftovers...and someone else might have finished off the second batch...  clearly this is a sign.  we are hooked.  and since i regularly have chickpeas, coconut milk, and onions at my disposal...well...

so delicious.

also this week, i made two kinds of vegetarian sausage. first up, a spicy sausage from the PPK for us to eat with bell peppers and pesto rosso.

later in the week, i made a sage apple sausage for dinner -- a favourite. this time i served the sausage breakfast style, along with a twice baked breakfast potato. since the sausage recipe calls for mashed potatoes, it felt like a perfect match.

two potatoes were baked in advance. then i lopped the top off and scooped out the guts.


i put down a layer of mushrooms, some fresh parsley, and some gruyere cheese.

next, i cracked an egg inside the potato cave and shoved it in the oven at 175/350 for what seemed like forever. in reality, it was only 25 minutes.

and dinner.


bon app!

ginger up!

right now in the oven are yesterday's pumpkin cinnamon rolls. im warming them up to devour. my mother-in-law gave us some puree for soup (there's not a lot of pumpkin creativity here--it's soup or soup. boggles the mind. i'm all, people! this is a PUMPKIN! do you know what you can do with a pumpkin?!), and while i do adore a lovely pumpkin soup (the mister made a delightful soup with potato and parsley), i also had some fun with the orangey goo. i made pumpkin macaroni and cheese, the afore mentioned cinnamon rolls, and a sponge cake with ginger cream.

because ginger is glorious. first, i made a simple syrup--one cup water, one cup sugar--and then i added huge chunks of ginger.

i let that cook for a long time.



the flavour was sharp and gingerlicious.

the cake itself was based on what i've done before, but i wanted to be sure i got the ratio right. adding chocolate is one thing. adding pumpkin is another. i found a recipe that suited my needs and the only thing i changed was adding less sugar.

for the filling, i whipped 2.5 dl of cream, and slowly poured in a few glugs of my ginger syrup.

then the mister and i ate some ginger chunks. it was an important part of the process!

the cake was almost pumpkin pie-ish, with the added texture of the hazelnuts. delicious!  everyone enjoyed it.

but oh! my stars! i still had syrup left over! and pumpkin!!

what's a girl to do but keep on baking. the next morning, i was on a cinnamon roll mission.

brown sugar doesnt exist here, so i used some sucre complet de canne i found in france.

 i added some orange juice to the syrup and boiled it down.


when the rolls came out, i poured the glaze over them... and lo we had a fabulous breakfast

and a bonus: orange ginger candy

take a bao: 包子! 素的! 美好!

baozi is love.

hard to believe i left china three years ago... and not a day goes by that i dont miss the food. oh! the food. the fragrance, the texture, the flavour...

longman grottos

ive been experimenting with recreating chinese food ever since i got back from the middle country. ive done huge chinese new year dinners with friends and family, cooking up favourite dishes the best i can, and sometimes i'm triumphant. the dishes always taste good, but sometimes there's magic. ive been quite successful with my jiaozi.

lots of folks are familiar with jiaozi--moon shaped pasta stuffed with delicious. they're commonly called dumplings, but they're more like ravioli than anything else. jiaozi are made with fresh pasta dough and are boiled, and then sometimes pan fried (pot stickers)--it's a regional thing. i only had pot stickers once in china, the best pot stickers ive had in my life, in luoyang, henan, in december of 2006. the food memory of that cold, foggy breakfast is strong. those pot stickers were special.

i ate jiaozi on a regular basis. jiaozi is gooooooooood. we'd always go to a certain place, creatively called the jiaozi place, and usually we'd get a cold salad with tofu, peanuts, lotus root, and celery to accompany the dish.  i never got mine in soup because the broth was meaty, but my friend chris, also a vegetarian, and i could get a heaping plate of veggie jiaozi.

it's possible to find good jiaozi in places outside of china. but sometimes, what i really crave is baozi. and baozi is harder to find. baozi is steamed bread stuffed with scrumptious. it's commonly eaten for breakfast, but it's also a snack food. i considered it an anytime food.

oh, how i miss baozi.

for me, baozi is not a dim sum item. dim sum is more of a thing in the south, and i lived in the north. for me, baozi was street food. glorious, glorious street food. i have fond memories of stacks of steamers and the smell of yeast. i had to make baozi possible. lo, i decided to do some experimenting.

adam buying a baozi snack in xi'an

 i found an article in the LA times that inspired and encouraged me...  and provided me with a dough recipe:

1 1/2 teaspoons instant dry yeast
3/4 cup lukewarm water
2 tablespoons oil
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
3 cups flour

I put the yeast in a small bowl and added water. it sat for a moment, and then I whisked in oil and a pinch of sugar, and sat it aside.

in my kitchenaid, i combined the sugar, baking powder, and flour. then i slowly poured in the yeasty mixture and kneeded the mass until the dough pulled from the side of the bowl. i oiled a glass bowl, added the dough, covered it with a kitchen towel, and sat it in the sunshine for an hour.

meanwhile, i prepared the filling.  i wanted to make two fillings--one with greens and one with tofu--but the market did not provide.   sometimes in the market here, one can find 青菜 qīngcài(bok choy), but not always. i didnt see any inspiring leafy greens, so i went for tofu and mushroom instead.



for the filling i combined:
finely chopped ginger
1 shredded carrot
120 g chanterelles
2 slices of pressed tofu
chives from balcony garden
soy sauce, honey, black vinegar

after an hour, i brought the dough inside and punched it flat so it could rise again.

after another half hour, i divided the dough into balls and then began preparing the baozi.

using a rolling pin, i flattened the dough ball into a circle shape. i kept the dough thicker in the middle and continued to roll the perimeter. i cupped the dough circle in my hand and scooped the filling inside. then, i closed the bao.

i can best describe closing the baozi as a series of pinches.


pinch a small bit of dough together, then grab another small fold of dough and pinch it to the first crease and keep going around and around.


i let each baozi rest on some parchment paper as i worked.  then i covered them with the towel and let them hang out while i prepped the steamer.  of course, a bamboo steamer is ideal,  but i havent got one here.

before steaming

i cut small squares of parchment and placed them on the bottom of each bao before placing it into the steaming steamer. i closed the lid and let each batch of 4 cook for at least 15 minutes. then i removed the steamer from the burner and let it sit for another few minutes before removing the lid.  and, boy howdy, did we chow down.

christian found some black vinegar at a local asian grocery.

black vinegar is grain based and malty and perfect with baozi.  i dont think the woman at the grocery was used to people buying the stuff though, as she questioned christian, "are you sure that's the vinegar you want?"

ooooh yes.  quite sure.

LUNCH. 

and how did christian find the baozi? did they satisfy his cravings? indubitably.

presto rosso

two years ago, when i moved here, we had a very limited kitchen.  and by limited i mean it wasnt really a kitchen.  it was a room that had a gas fueled two-burner stove top (read: camping stove) and an oven the size of a microwave.  and no water.  or sink.  we lived in an attic apartment, a mansarde, which provided us with lots and lots of rooms... but not a kitchen per se. the mansarde is home to the offices of le Groupe de la Riponne, a group of troublemakers philosophers, writers, and translators.   many members of the bœufsteak gang* have lived there over the years and they've made some renovations to the place, insulation for one (when they first got the place, you had to wear your winter gear inside), but it's just next to impossible to install water.  it made things tricky, this perilous walk down the hallway with a pot of freshly boiled noodles needing to be strained in the shower.  doing the dishes was always interesting too.  however, a powerful shower nozzle is pretty efficient for dish washing, i must say.   it's like a mini car wash for plates.


cooking in the quirky kitchen was entertaining.  of course, everything was exciting when i first arrived in swissyland.  new language, new country, new food... amongst the new things i tried was pesto rosso.  i was well schooled in pesto genovese making and eating... but this... this pesto was different.  on a whim i bought the sauce and bell peppers, not knowing whether or not it was a sound combination.  it was.  and it quickly became one of our staple dishes.  the bonus was, it was an easy dish to make in our quasi-kitchen.  i could boil noodles on one burner and sauté bell peppers on the other.   once we acquired a real kitchen, my cooking repertoire expanded, but we still love that dish.  of course, now i have the ability (and tools!) to make my own pesto rosso.


the rough recipe i use is as follows.  in a food processor, combine:
nuts (christian is allergic to walnuts so i usually use almonds, or sometimes cashews)
basil
lots of garlic (we are junkies)
sundried tomaters (at least two generous handfuls)
olive oil


i usually decimate the garlic first, then toss in a healthy handful of basil.  then i add the nuts.  you dont want to use too much--maybe start with a quarter of a cup and go from there.  i usually use almost an entire bag of the sundried tomatoes (i like the kind that comes packed sans oil) because i enjoy the zing of the garlic and tomato together.  i slowly stream in some olive oil and let it all mingle.  you dont want it to be too thin, but maybe that's just a matter of my taste.  i like thick sauces.

presto! rosso

these days i enjoy roasting our vegetables.  the intense flavours are great for pasta, soup, salad... or... well, anything.  i put chopped veggies on a cookie sheet, spray it with some olive oil (i have put some olive oil in a spray canister [the balsamic vinegar comes in one! brilliant! so i just waited until we were out of vinegar, washed it, and filled it with olive oil] and love it), and throw it in the oven at 220°C for about 20-ish minutes.  

roasted peppers and garlic

eating pesto rosso always reminds me of those early days in Switzerland.   im always experimenting with recipes, but this is one we dont touch (though i will occasionally toss in some fake chicken for protein).  it's just so lovely comme ça.  

someone *hem* likes it so much, he tried to steal mine!

hey, buddy! you have some already!

i decided to follow up one common dinner with a common dessert--cupcakes for two.  i stumbled upon this recipe last february and ive never looked back.  it's great for lots of variation.  

mix dry ingredients and wisk in wet ingredients.  pour into cupcake containers (i have some fabulous silcone ones) and bake for about 18 minutes at 160°C/325°F 

making the batter

this time i broke up chunks of choc'late to put in the batter.  they are tasty without any addition, but my favourite has got to be small bits of crystalized ginger.  ive also been known to add cinnamon and cayenne for a mexican chocolate taste.  


for a frosting, i like to make a ganache with a little butter, a little milk, and chocolate.  


again, im sorry for my lack of precise measurements... 


we had just a smidge of butter left (maybe a little less than 1 tbsp?) and i melted that and poured it over some broken up chocolate bits.  i wisk wisk wisked until the chocolate had melted and combined with the butter.  you want to wisk until the mixture is shiny.  


i let it rest for a few and once the bowl was cooled, i stuck it in the fridge until the cuppiecakes were baked and toothpick tested and done.

slowly i added a splash of milk and wisked wisked wisked.  it was not too late to whip it and whip it good. 



ganache is my new favourite frosting.  i love it mostly for it's versatility, but also because we usually have a chocolate bar and milk in the houes, so it's pretty much on hand.  since i only make a monster batch of cupcakes for friends and dinner parties (unless i make a whole cake, which also happens for friends and dinner parties), making a little for the two of us is just perfect.




just perfect.

bon appétit <3

*i refer to them as the beefsteaks because sometimes, if they go out after a meeting, they will almost all get steak.  i sometimes join them but they dont always frequent restaurants that have something for me, a pescatarian.

cabbage noodles

i was hot to trot to make this for myself when... what's this? a christian? home? for dinner?

HURRAY.

here he is nomming.  nom nom nom.  a friend of mine once joked that i should make a webpage totally devoted to christian's food consumption, entitled what's-christian-eating-dot-com.  i just happen to have an amazing photo collection of christian eating.  poor chap.  but before christian sat down on our balcony to sink his chopsticks into his bowl of noodles, i had to make them.  here's that story:

along with the chard and rhubarb and cherries we got from christian's parents were two heads of napa cabbage.  im sure the mister had visions of kimchi dancing in his head, but that's a project for him.  i try and eat the stuff but i just cant handle it.  i do enjoy cabbage though, in general.  i do like slaw and i ate a great deal of cabbage in china (oh, 辣炝莲白, you are missed! i would often order that dish with 西红柿炒蛋 from the teacher's cafeteria for lunch... both are very much homestyle chinese cooking).

i was talking with my mom about what to do with the cabbage and she said to grate an apple and grate the cabbage.  that got the ol' wheels spinning.  i started thinking of the afore mentioned chinese cabbage dish and how easy it is to stir fry the vegetable... and then i thought about noodles and how we love to eat them. especially soba or udon.  and before i knew it, a dish was born.

we have boringly named the dish cabbage noodles.  but it does not taste boring.

i prepped some tofu--ive read about folks using a plate and a paper towel to squeeze the water out, but i prefer to just use my hand and a towel.   after slicing the tofu, i lay it on a towel on a flat surface.  then i roll the tofu up and press with my hand.  the water goes out and the flavour can come in.

for a marinade, i picked, in order of appearance (and quantity), mirin, sesame oil, soy sauce, and honey.  i swished around the mixture and added more of the first three ingredients.  i put the tofu in and prepped everything else while it could soak up the goodness.

i washed and chopped the cabbage, grated the apple, boiled the noodles, chopped some garlic, and was lucky enough to find just a bit of ginger in the fridge.  i love ginger.  love it.  if you have a sore throat? slice up some ginger root and throw it in a pot with some boiling cola.  no, really.  especially during the winter months. it's just the bestest thing. 

i warmed up some cooking oil in our skillet. next, i took each piece of tofu and liiiiiiightly coated it in a little cornstarch. once the oil said it was ready, i added the tofu to the hot pan and cooked each side until it was golden.

 once all the pieces were cooked, i transfered them onto a plate and added the ginger and garlic to the pan. i gave them a good swirl and added the apple. then i added the cabbage and stir fried until the leaves were just wilting. then i poured in the rest of the marinade, gave that a good swish, and added the noodles. i removed the pan from the heat and continued to mix everything together.

And that's all there is (there isn't any more).

bon appétit <3