ubiquitous roasted squash salad

Its winter. Kind of. It feels more like spring or autumn the past few days, but we have had some cold days. It may not be a popular opinion, but I hope we have more. I want to cook and eat "winter foods" - roasted and braised things, comforting and warming things. I want to spend time on my couch, in my bed, snuggled up and cozy. I want to spend time in my kitchen, spending the day making staples like a batch of brown rice, or beans, or vegetable stock. I need to do this now, before the sunshine pulls me outside to play, before the freshness and beautiful simplicity of summer produce makes me want to eat less "doctored" or transformed foods. I crave the months of cold, snowy, dark time to rest and rejuvenate, to nourish myself and my friends and family, to be quiet. Without that time, and our winters have been getting more and more mild over the past few years, I never feel quite ready for spring. The past few days have been warm - around 6 degrees Celsius (yes that counts are "warm" in Canadian winter). Today its rainy and 11. I still didn't leave the house, instead hibernating on my day off, cooking and lazing about watching movies.

When it has been cold in the last month, I've roasted vegetables. I did brussel sprouts and potatoes with lemon and thyme. Delicata and acorn squashes tossed in balsamic with cumin, chili powder and rosemary. Next up I'm thinking cabbage, inspired by this and this and the half head of savoy and full red cabbage in my fridge. I've also been salivating over Molly's braised savoy cabbage for about a year now, and Nigel Slater's cabbage recipes in Tender are making me swoon (and maybe some dumplings, pierogies, a cabbage galette?). It seems that I just want to eat cabbage lately, and mushrooms. I'm fickle I suppose because a month ago it was all squash and brussels.

Anyway, the boy has been taking an active interest in my blog, and food blogging in general lately. He's after me to post about a salad that I made with the roasted delicata squash. He's also after me to make it again, so he can eat it and I can photograph it. Although there are so many similar squash salads out there lately, I'm sure you can picture it. He says it is the best salad he's ever eaten, and uses it as an example of an original recipe I could post about. I say its just an amalgamation of a bunch of recipes I've seen, but I suppose that is the case with most of what I cook. I get an idea for something I want to make, then search around trying to find a recipe that confirms it/explains a process. I usually end up just reading 5-10 recipes and following a method - perhaps this is a luxury of a mostly-vegetarian, non-baker.

Its supposed to get cold again this week, perhaps there is more roasted squash in my our future.

Spicy Roasted Squash Salad with Pomegranates, Feta, Kale, Parsley, and Sprouts

For the roasted squash:

1-2 delicata squashes (I often cook larger quantities of things than I want for just one meal, perhaps because I bring dinners/lunches/snacks to work. Cook as much squash as you like/will eat.) Halved, seeds removed (and saved to also roast), sliced into 3/4 inch half-moons
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
cumin (to taste, maybe a 1/2 tsp per squash)
chili powder (mine is spicy, probably a 1/2 tsp per squash)
leaves from a sprig of rosemary, chopped
salt and pepper

Roast at 375 F 30-40 minutes, flipping halfway through, until browned and tender.
Eat immediately, or reserve for later use.

I had in my head, and on my To Cook list for awhile, and idea for a roasted squash salad, with wheatberries or farro, arugula, feta and pomegranate. Instead I've done a few all vegetables reincarnations. One night a friend stopped by for dinner, after a day of bubbly and movies with the boy. There was some carrot soup in the fridge, with a side salad of kale, pomegranate, feta, squash, and a little extra balsamic and olive oil. One time I brought a work dinner of roasted squash with radicchio and parsley, with tahini and roasted brussels sprouts and potatoes with horseradish creme fraiche. One time I added quinoa, pumpkin seeds, and radish sprouts.

Like most, this "recipe" is obviously quite flexible, while being easy, healthy, and delicious. I do on occasion find squash to be a bit sweet for my liking, so the addition of smoky cumin, spicy chili, and fresh parsley help to lift it up. And pairing it with bitter radicchio is nice as well, if you're into that kind of thing.

adventures in fermentation, part deux

So I made kimchi. I started October 20th, and left it for about a month and a half to ferment on my counter. I used tips from Well Preserved (LOVE this site!) and (mostly) followed the recipe from Tigress's Kimchi Primer. I decreased the proportions, and used what I had on hand. This meant white cabbage instead of savoy or napa, white radishes instead of daikon, and some carrot. I also added scallions, ginger, garlic, and Korean chili powder. There is a bit of a discrepancy between the salt:water brine ratios used by Tigress (1/4 cup salt - approx. 60 ml - to 1 quart - or 4 cups - water) and Joel (6.5 tbsps - approx. 90 ml to 3 quarts water) at Well Preserved . I usually trust Joel on all issues preserving related, but I figured I would follow Tigress's recipe since I was using her procedure. If anything it should just mean the higher salt:water ratio would make my kimchi saltier and take longer to ferment.

I'm not sure why Tigress advocates a two day process, but I did as well, and I'm pleased with the results. I left the water to sit overnight (for the chlorine to evaporate) then mixed the brine. A good way to do this is to bring a small amount of the water to a boil, add the salt to dissolve, then add the remaining reserved cool water to bring it back down to room temperature. I covered the prepared vegetables (thinly sliced for the roots, large squares for the cabbage) with the brine overnight. The next day drain the vegetables, reserving the brine, add the aromatics, then pack into jars/fermenting crocks/bowls and cover with brine. The important thing is to keep everything submerged. This prevents air contact, creating an anaerobic environment which prevents "bad" bacteria from growing. The salt content prevents bad anaerobic bacteria (such as botulism) from forming before the lactobacteria start creating an acidic environment. Tigress says that as long as you stir once a day, pushing anything floating back into the brine, you should be ok. I don't have a crock so I used a deep bowl, with another smaller bowl set on top to keep things from floating too much. Over this I placed a clean kitchen towel. I stirred every day. For about a month. Then I transferred the kimchi into a large swing lid jar, sealed it and left it on the counter for another 2 weeks. I still stirred everyday, and by this point (end of November) it was quite cold in my kitchen, but this is when I started to see the white scum (a harmless yeast) forming on top sometimes. I just scooped it and any affected vegetables out. I also tasted the kimchi every few days to see whether it had my desired level of sourness. At first it was very salty, but over time this decreased as fermentation progressed. When it was to my taste, I put it in the fridge.

I did find I needed to add more Korean chili powder (probably at least 2 tbsps more, in addition to the 2 tbsps I started with) and its still wasn't spicy. Then I added some brine from my fermented hot peppers, and it still was not really spicy enough. Overall however, I was very happy with the results, and would follow the same process again. It was easy, low maintenance, and has given me a food that helps build healthy gut bacteria. I've been meaning to post about the process, but I haven't really used the kimchi yet, other than stealing a few little pieces once in awhile, something I did more often when it was on the counter instead of tucked away in the fridge. But I've had a recipe in mind for awhile and the other night I finally actually cooked it. And it was delicious! And the most exciting part is I cooked it in the "new" cast iron pan I got for Christmas, that my mother found at a garage sale!!! I got some nice action shots and now I'm finally motivated to post about it.

Orangette's Kimchi Fried Rice

I, naturally, made some changes, although slight. I cooked a bunch of brown basmati rice a couple of days before, so I had that, but only about 2-3 cups leftover. I still used 4 pieces of bacon though lol. And maybe 1.5 cups of kimchi (which I do wish was spicier). Next time I would reduce the amount of bacon if I was reducing the rest because it was a bit overpowering and I really wanted funky kimchi taste.

I also added some diced carrots, and scrambled an or two egg on one side of the pan after adding the kimchi and letting that brown. One of my foodie weaknesses is an aversion to runny yolk (I know, I know!) and I like the extra heartiness of the egg in the rice itself.

Since the recipe is already linked, I'll just say the process I used:

Add bacon lardons (quite uncouth ones I must say) to cold pan and slowly bring to medium heat. Once this is mostly crisp add 1 diced carrot, cook another minute or two, then the kimchi. Let this wilt a bit and brown. Push everything over to one side (my pan is large enough to do so) and add the beaten egg. Once this is mostly set, break it up and add the rice. Turn up the heat, and cook, pushing down on the rice, until it is brown and crispy. Since it was the first time using a cast iron pan I hadn't seasoned myself, I wasn't sure how it would work. Molly says hers usually sticks, but not to use a non-stick because of the high heat. Mine turned out awesome. I took the time to comment on Molly's post before digging in, but the boy, who normally waits, said "no way, I'm eating it NOW!"

Next use for my kimchi - either kimchi tofu soup, or trying to recreate a kimchi and mung dal soup I had the only time I was courageous enough to venture out for Korean food.


I'm having some issues with my computer and uploading pictures, so I'm going to post this now, and add them later hopefully *fingers crossed*

catching up, part one - thanksgiving edition

Well, I have a lot of catching up to do. I would like to offer the "I've been busy with work, and so many other accomplishments" excuse, but I'm afraid that's not really true. I've just been having fun. Enjoying my open schedule and the time it gives me to spend with my man. There have been quite a few kitchen adventures over the past couple of months, as well as other adventures too. October was a pretty busy month with Thanksgiving and my birthday celebrations. I also started a new class - hula hooping! I was proud of myself for joining something new, with new people, something that I struggle to do because it makes me anxious. But I swallowed my fears, and I love it! I knew the people would be nice; I didn't know how much joy I would find in learning new things, grasping new tricks that I had been struggling with, and just generally being playful. It is great exercise for my body and my mind. I find myself feeling more agile, dexterous, and this has translated into more flow in my life, at work, and in the kitchen.

However, all of this means I have had very little time at home alone. And little inclination to post here when I do (instead spending my time hooping, or cooking). But, tonight I have the night off, and I've spent the whole day doing just that - being home, alone. Catching up on some comedies, my favourite food blogs, some kitchen work. So I want to finally make the time to post about the cooking and exploring I've done in the past month or so.

Let's start off with Thanksgiving (oddly, posting this a month late makes it rather timely for American Thanksgiving this week). It was my first time making a turkey - I dry brined our 14lb turkey overnight and it turned out quite well. I somewhat followed this recipe, which was an adaptation of the Zuni Cafe roast chicken I've read so much about. I told myself I wouldn't make WAY TOO MUCH food for once, but that of course did not happen. There were mountains of mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, classic stuffing, slow-braised brussel sprouts (my favourite sprout recipe!), homemade cranberry sauce and some beautiful purple and white roasted root vegetables.

It was a great night, with great friends. What I did manage to do that I'd promised myself was to keep my stress levels down for once, by prepping for 3 days ahead of time, and thanks to my amazing sous-chef. I actually managed to get dinner out only an hour later than I'd originally said.

Naturally, we forgot/had far too much wine to think about it/ to take a picture of the spread. But, I got one the next day (my birthday) of our leftovers for "brunch."
We also started the day off with a lovely bottle of bubbles, courtesy of a very generous friend who'd come for dinner the night before.

My favourite part, as usual, was the mashed potatoes/stuffing/gravy, which I proceeded to eat every day for the rest of the week.

I know its been awhile, but its nice to remind myself how thankful I am for my friends, my family, my love, my ability and desire to spend 3 days prepping and cooking a rather expensive meal for the people I love. And how thankful I am for a "hobby" that I am so passionate about and committed to, that brings me such joy (I meant cooking, but I suppose I can add hooping to the list).

pickled peppers and produce porn...canning madness pt. 1

Along with my gradual acceptance of fall arriving (slowly!), we are coming into the last push of preserving. At least to a certain extent (there are always projects no matter what the season). Today has been 3 weeks since I started my first attempt at fermentation, using this recipe for hot pepper sauce. I have read a TON about fermentation over the last month or so, and most sources do say to use a salt brine to cover whatever you are fermenting. However, I was intrigued by the idea of just bashing the peppers up with salt, and letting their own juices do the work, and it seems to have worked out just fine! I finally tasted them today, and they are SO DELICIOUS!!!! I can't stop snacking straight out of the jar. I don't think I will even go on to the next step of making hot sauce out of them, because I'm happy to just eat them plain.

day one:

day 21!

I went to a family wedding in Waterloo on the weekend. My cousin looked absolutely beautiful, it was so nice to see extended family after a few years, and to meet new family as well! Every detail was lovely.

I lived in Waterloo for 6 years for my undergrad degree, and haven't been back in about 5 years, so I was really looking forward to eating at some restaurants I used to love, seeing some old friends, and revisiting my favourite spots. It was also really nice to take a mini-trip with my parents, like when I was much younger. We were pretty busy with commitments, but I did manage to get a free hour on Sunday to walk around uptown, and wander through Waterloo park, a place FILLED with memories.

Saturday morning I got to St Jacobs farmers market, and finally fulfilled my dreams of picking up a huge amount (ok only a half bushel, but I'm a single girl here!) of tomatoes. To my knowledge, there is nothing of this scale in Toronto, where almost every stall has small to large quantities of everything imaginable. You do have to be careful, because not everything is local. If that's what you're looking for, make sure to check with the farmer/person managing the booth. I was enamoured with the rows and rows of beautifully vibrant peaches and peppers and oddly enough rhubarb.

I also bought LOTS of hot peppers, small beets, a huge bunch of kale, some yellow beans, and potentially the most delicious cherry tomatoes ever.

Needless to say, I've been in mass preserving mode since I got back. I'll talk about the tomatoes another time, but today I dealt with the rest of the peppers (I did two small half pints of mixed pickles yesterday). For 6$ I got about 3lbs of various hot peppers - jalapenos, cherry, habaneros, a few bananas, anaheims, and one other kind I don't remember. Today I started another round of fermentation. Because I love the results of my last attempt so much, I started a double batch of that. I just sliced 1 lb of various peppers (no habs!), put them in a wide mouth jar, mixed in 2 tbsps of salt, and let them sit for awhile to draw out the juices. I'll bash them a bit in awhile to get them even juicier, and if need be add a bit of brine to cover them. Then I fill a ziploc bag with more brine, and wedge it in the top of the jar to keep everything submerged.

I did another batch (with 1.5 lbs of hot peppers, using one habanero in each jar) of whole or halved peppers in a salt water brine, using this as well as several other Well Preserved posts for guidance. I did a 3.6% brine, dissolving 3 tbsps of salt in 1.5 quarts. I first dissolved the salt in just one cup of water, then added in the rest of the room temperature water (I let it sit overnight for the chlorine to evaporate). I wedged the peppers into two quart jars, and covered them with the brine. I'll use brine-filled ziplocs again to keep them under. These ones I will likely turn into hot sauce, by blending them with some brine and vinegar. We'll see which method I prefer over the next couple of weeks!

I'm away this weekend - at Harvest Festival, pretty much my favourite holiday of the year!!!! I'll let you know next week how the peppers are going, and tell you what I did with 30lbs of tomatoes.

pretty lights and a pound of pits, or skrillex and sour cherries

Sour Cherries!!! First time I've ever managed to get them before the season is gone!!! First time I've even really seen them in Toronto (obviously I have fairly poor eyesight). For my trial run, I bought one pound today (for 4.99) at my local veg store, literally downstairs from my apartment. I'm going to try to look around for them a bit more, as I feel that may be a bit expensive. My work schedule is pretty packed for the next week, and they only last for two weeks, so that may or may not happen. Having read, as usual, a fair bit online about sour cherries, pitting sour cherries, sour cherry recipes, etc I decided to use the chopstick method: remove the stem, push the chopstick (thinner end) through the stem end, popping the pit out the bottom. Reading about pitting cherries (especially the softer sour cherries) had filled me with dread, and impatience, and reluctance. However, it was super quick and easy!


I put on some Pretty Lights since I'm going to see him and Skrillex next weekend at Fort York in Toronto. I saw Pretty Lights open for Nero last summer and it was...unexpectedly amazing! I've never REALLY been into hip hop before (don't get me wrong, I do like old school tribe called quest, and the roots, and probably anything else along those lines, and I'm not saying that PL is hip hop by any means) but this was like some great mash-up of hip hop, rock, dub, electro, trance, psy, etc etc, that really got me dancing. So....I put on some Pretty Lights (new track for me, not my favourite, gotta say I'm partial to High School Art Class, Hot Like Sauce, and I know the Truth. ) I suppose I do sometimes question their use/mash up of other tracks, but I find it quite danceable. And great for cherry pitting. Which took all of 4 minutes 39 seconds apparently.

Now what to do with the cherries? I only pitted them because there is apparently a one-minute expiry date on their freshness, and even leaving them in the fridge overnight can result in armageddon. So now I guess I'll freeze them - even though I have imminent plans for jam, infused bourbon, maybe a pie a cake a crisp a clafouti, Sour cherry soup? and perhaps some sort of quinoa or wheatberry salad or pickles??? Lots of plans for sour cherries (and despite my preconceptions, they're pretty tasty for just eating), so I'll keep squirreling them away for now. Also, there are apparently a bunch of things to do with cherry pits, so i'm keeping those too. Nevermind, I threw them in a mini mason jar with some vodka. And I cracked a few open and ate the noyeaux inside...crossing my fingers i don't die of cyanide poisoning.

No good pics! I pitted them too quickly. Maybe next time :)

Also: as part of this being my own keeping-track-journal, I want to write some potential unusual flavour combinations to try, inspired by my re-re-reading of ONE OF MY FAVOURITE BOOKS EVER - The Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit. More about this book in an upcoming post. For now (note to self): sweet corn!

Rhubarb pickles, or, wouldn't I rather be at the beach?

What do other people do when it's 43 degrees (C) with the humidex???
Boil giant pots of water, and smaller pots of vinegar??? Then stand next to them in your tiny, non-air-conditioned, minimal air-flow kitchen for an hour chopping and mixing and measuring???

It seems crazy to me....but I know there are lots of you out there (Probably not many of you dance around to minimal techno while doing so?). That's part of the reason I don't often post to this blog. I spend so much time reading others...it sometimes seems pointless to add more recipes that are almost always riffing off of other people. Anyway, that said, I've always figured this blog is more for me to keep track of ratios and things (rather than my stained, crinkled, losing-its-pages, kitchen journal).

And today I made pickled rhubarb. Couldn't find the recipe I used last year (re: losing-its-pages kitchen journal), so I thought I should keep track of it somewhere I can't lose it for next time. I like to do small batch pickling so I can try different versions and make more based on what I like/don't like. I also rarely eat the pickles (or jams or other preserves I make). Sometimes I question this - am I being wasteful? I do give some away, and *cross my fingers* they are eaten by the giftees. Mostly I just enjoy the process. I don't have a lot of hobbies. Cooking, preserving, reading about food, dreaming about food - these are my hobbies. I also occasionally like taking pictures of food, and i'm sure my facebook friends are getting bored of seeing the few I do post there.

I somewhat followed this recipe from food in jars writer Marisa McClellan, via the Serious Eats series "In a pickle." I did reduce the amount of sugar, as I prefer things very tart, we'll see how that turns out. Also changed the spices based on my memory (and the remnants of last year's jar). This time around I did do a boiling water bath, rather than making fridge pickles. I'm hoping they stay crisp!

Rhubarb Pickles

3 1/2 pint jars
Enough rhubarb to fill said jars (I made a sample piece first to size the rest against).

Boil jars 10 mins.

Put lids and rings in boiled water, with the heat turned off.

Boil Brine:
1 cup cider vinegar
1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar (original recipe called for one cup)
1/2 tsp sugar

To each jar I added:
1/2 dried chili
1/4 tsp of mustard seeds - heaping
1/4 tsp of coriander seeds - scant
1/4 tsp of peppercorns - scant
one jar also got ONE clove.

Remove jars from boiling water bath.
Fill with spices. Fill with rhubarb. Ladle over brine. Put on lids and turn rings *just* finger tight.

Take a picture in case the stalks lose their vibrant colour in the water bath.

Process jars 10 minutes.

Take another picture, happy they are still pink :) But sigh because the pretty pink brine boils up out of the jars all over your white dish towel, because you didn't leave enough head space.

So far this year in rhubarb I've also made:

Rhubarb Wheat Beer Jam (using Shocktop beer, I want to try a batch using Fruili strawberry flavoured wheat beer)

Rhubarb Syrup (I refused to throw out the strained rhubarb mush, so I kept it and ate it on yogurt. I'm so proud of myself for actually eating it all! I'm going to make another batch. Of course, I haven't used any of the syrup yet. I'm thinking cocktails, but I'm more of a beer/wine girl).

Oh and a rhubarb cake, a la Smitten Kitchen. I'm not much of a baker, and I don't really like sweet things, but I'm trying to really make the most of seasonal produce (eating more of it fresh, rather than preserving it for later), and I do love rhubarb. I brought this into work and it got devoured pretty quickly.

Don't worry, I have gotten lots of beach time in this year too!