» The sisters

This past week marked the passing of the best day of the year. July 12, also know as my birthday. When I was a kid I remember birthdays as being a pretty big deal. Friends would come over, sleepovers would be had and best of all my mom would make a treasure hunt and yummy goodie bags for us to search for. The anticipation was unbearable! It seems that as the years pass, birthday celebrations have become more and more low key.

Lucky for me my family is pretty on top of all things birthday and they often just give me a call and let me know that they are coming to visit on the big day. Things came to a new low this year when I didn’t realize just how close my birthday was until it was only two days away. No party was planned, no friends invited over, nothing. Although I really have been a party planning slacker this year, I did still manage to have a perfect day anyway.

Picnics are one of my favorite parts of summer and this year on the evening of my Birthday Scott and I packed up a picnic and biked down to the beach to watch the sunset. At the time I was mentally planning my post. I imagined that I would have spectacular photos of our fantastic picnic set up and I would give you Tina’s Step by Step Guide to a Perfect Picnic. However the evening had other things in mind and shortly after arriving at the beach it became apparent that the real star of the show wasn’t the picnic at all but the evening. On that note I’ll shut up and let the photos do the talking.
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Nothing beats a summer Birthday!

Lately, I’ve had a little time on my hands. Watching the tour for a few hours every night has me sitting down, ready for any little task to keep busy with. And with the help of a few pounds of peas and a few more pounds of fava beans, I’ve already occupied a few evenings so far.

Both peas and favas have a very short season in the late spring and early summer. It always seems that just before I’ve had my fill of them, they are gone, not to return again for another year. Maybe there is some good in that—for all of its virtues, the asparagus season seems to last a little longer than my appetite for it and I’m left with a few wilty stalks tucked away in the back corner of my produce drawer. But that won’t be happening with the favas this year.

I found the favas at the market last weekend and quickly scooped up a few pounds. The peas in the garden have also been producing enough for some happy additions to our meals. So with a bag of pods, I got down to shelling. I know shelling is a tedious activity, but I like the quiet repetition of the task. And since I am not going to make anyone else join in, I think I can have my quirks on this one!

The tricky thing with favas is that they get shelled twice. I know, two rounds of shelling does sound a little arduous for a little bean, but I have devised a plan to make the effort worthwhile. This is one of those times when I go all out. I don’t just shell a few beans for one meal—I shell a few pounds. Yes, it takes a little while, but the beans keep nicely after their first shelling for a day or two. I tuck them away in a plastic bag in the fridge, let my fingers recover a little and start planning what I’ll make next.

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Once I have recovered my strength and decided what to eat, I usually blanche the favas for a few short minutes, then drain and cool them in an ice water bath. Then I get to shell them all over again, but since a day or so has pass, I don’t mind it so much. And the second shelling is usually a little easier. I’m still working on my technique, but it can be kind of tricky trying to get those little beans out of their shells while keeping them in one piece. But not to worry, over the course a few pounds of favas, there is plenty of time to get it figured out.

What remains is a lovely bowl of brilliant green beans, ready to be added into whatever is being cooked next. Toss the shelled favas into some boiling water with fresh peas and cook for a minute or two—delicious! Top a toasty piece of bread with a few mashed favas, seasoned as you wish, and enjoy. Or make a meal of it and throw the favas and peas into a pot of pasta that’s a minute or two from being cooked. Complete it with a poached egg, a little cheese and some fresh mint and it is a one-plate dinner. Quick—get shelling!

What can you make with eggs, milk, sugar, flour, vanilla and nutmeg. Why a Boston Cream Pie of course!

With the much anticipated summer finally here, it may seem like a fruit dessert of some sort would be the natural choice for a dessert but no, I had to make something else. Something light, chocolatey, custardy and all around yummy. To be honest this Boston Cream Pie, which is basically a Boston Cream donut turned into a layer cake, has been on my radar since I first laid eyes on it in the Volume No 6 of Canal House Cooking. Lucky for me when Scott’s birthday came around this year it seemed like the perfect cake fit for the guy who loves himself a good Boston Cream donut. It did not fail to delight.

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Round about July, there is a great sense of excitement at our house. Summer is making itself known with long days and hot weather. The farmers market is bursting with goodness and the dahlias are just starting to bloom out back. The patio has finally come together and there is no better spot to spend a lazy afternoon. But at about this time every year, we pack it up and move indoors.

I know, it sounds a little crazy, but it’s a long-standing tradition around here. You see, for three weeks ever year, we become fervent followers of the Tour de France, which only happens to be one of the most prestigious cycling stage races in the world. Camped out on the living room floor, we watch the recap of a day’s worth of bicycle racing across the French countryside. We know the riders, we know the teams and after years worth of watching, I’m getting the hang of the strategy.

Usually, we watch the evening showing of the race. In France, the racing is long over of course, so the real challenge becomes staying out of the news long enough to be surprised by the results. Some of us do this better than others. But when we are talking about three hours of television viewing that starts at 5 p.m., dinner plans must be made. Thank goodness for technology and the addition of the DVR to our home! It makes cooking a little more fun at this time of year and now the days of the scorched pans of béchamel are behind me, I think!

Over the years, our tradition has evolved beyond just watching the tour. During this three-week stretch, I like to think about cooking along with the tour. Granted, my skills in french cooking are not very extensive, so I like to think about cooking in a french style, with plenty of fresh ingredients and who could forget the wine? Sometimes we’ll keep things simple with a light picnic meal—a baguette, some cheese and whatever else I might find in the pantry—a handful of cherries or juicy tomato. Other evenings I might get a little more inspired and whip up a soufflé or even a simple omelette to compliment something from the garden. But the first dish that ever made it onto our tour menu was the crepes. And every year since, they have been a hit.

Crepes might not be the first thing you think of when you’re trying to come up with something to eat for dinner, but they should be! While preparing the crepes does take a little prep work, the batter comes together in a flash. And talk about versatility, a batch of crepes will give you dinner and dessert! Now that got your attention, right?

We’ve all had our share of sweet crepes, rolled up around glossy berries or thick smears of nutella, happily topped with billows of fresh cream. But what about a savory crepe, filled with sautéed golden mushrooms, a simply scrambled egg with a sprinkle of Gruyère cheese or maybe even a handful of the earliest green beans, topped off with a spoonful of creamy sauce? These versions of the savory crepe are all summertime favorites around here. And happily for me, the beans are almost ready!

In case you were wondering, the Tour de France starts on Saturday, June 30, and runs for the next three weeks. And you can probably also guess what we’ll be making for dinner tonight!

Crepes

From Epicurious

The crepes from this recipes are as happy with sweet treats as they are with savory items, so don’t be afraid to plan a meal around them. Over the years, I’ve added a few pieces of crepe-making equipment—a pan, some flipping implements, etc., but overall, no special equipment is needed.

• 1 1/3 cups whole milk, room temperature
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 3 large eggs
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

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• Extra butter, for cooking

Combine all ingredients and mix until smooth. Ideally, use a blender, but a mixer or a whisk will work equally well. Cover the batter and chill for 15 minutes, or up to one day.

Heat a skillet over medium heat. Place a thin sliver of butter in the pan. Let melt, then wipe the pan clean with a little bit of paper towel. Pour in just enough batter to coat the bottom of your pan and swirl gently until it reaches the edge. You might have to practice with this a bit until you figure out the right amount for your pan.

Cook the crepe until it looks set and the edge begins to slight brown, about one minute. Gently loosen the edges and flip the crepe over. Continue cooking until golden brown spots appear, about another minute.

Transfer the finished crepe to a plate and continue cooking the remaining crepes, buttering the pan as needed. Top with any fillings you wish. Cooked crepes will keep well for one day at room temperature.

Today marks the start of 3 weeks of cycling around here. Yup, the Tour De France got underway this morning. While I am not dedicated enough to get up early to watch the stages I certainly am game to spend my evenings cheering on Ryder Hesjedal. What better companion for the evening that a refreshing drink. Enter the Maillot Jaune. What is more fitting than a yellow drink when following the yellow jersey?

you’ll need:
1 part Saint Germain
1 part freshly squeezed grapefruit juice
3 parts sparkling wine
2 part club soda
a splash of saffron simple syrup

First let’s make the saffron simple syrup. In a heavy bottomed sauce pan add 2 parts water and 1 part sugar and bring to a boil. Using a mortal and pestle grind a pinch of saffron into a fine powder. Spoon about a tablespoon of the syrup into the mortal and dissolve the ground saffron then return all of the liquid into the sauce pan. Boil for a few minutes to make a nice syrupy sauce. Remove from heat and allow to fully cool.

put it all together:

• Fill a tumbler about half full of ice.
• Add equal parts freshly squeezed grapefruit juice and Saint Germain.
• Top with 3 parts sparkling wine and 2 parts soda.
• Add a dash of saffron syrup to colour and lightly sweeten the cocktail.
• Serve topped with a few strands of saffron and lemon to garnish.

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It was my birthday last week and I got a little caught up in the celebrations. The older I get, the more I have to celebrate, I guess. This cake was certainly a great way to celebrate another year. That’s all I have to offer by way of explanation since I haven’t been here for a little while. But since I last posted, strawberries have come in season here! And that right there is reason enough to celebrate.

I probably don’t need to tell you that I have a strong preference for local produce for all kinds of reasons. But in this case, my main concern is flavor. Of course, strawberries are pretty much available year round. But there is nothing that can compare to the bright red jewels that grow in backyard patches or local berry farms. These berries are almost always smaller and more fragile than the giant fruit that can be found at the store. But what they lack in size, they always make up for in flavor.

This year, I planted a really tiny row of strawberries, knowing they would do nothing to satisfy our enormous need for berries in the summer. Instead, I figured the few plants would provide a happy evening activity for my son and I. Most evenings he happily pokes through the plants, looking for berries that he figures are ripe enough to eat. And when we find a ripe one, we immediately pick it and eat it, crouching out there in the garden together. There might only be a few berries a night, all of which go to him, but it’s the most enjoyment I’ve ever had from a berry or two I don’t get to eat.

I’d been waiting anxiously for the local berry farm to start selling their berries—calling every few days for an update. And on the happy day that berries were in stock, I sent my mom out early in the morning to ensure we got our flat of strawberry goodness. During those first few days we managed to enjoy a full flat of berries every day or two. And while strawberries are a treat on their own, I had plenty of chances to try a few strawberry recipes I’d been saving up for just this time of year.

One of the first recipes that I reach for is one for strawberry shortcake from Bon Appetit. It has been in my recipe folder for a few years now and when the strawberries arrive, I stock up with cake flour, which I only seem to use at this time of year. So if you are running low on your supply, head for the store right now.

For some reason, I can’t seem to be won over by individual shortcakes. Try as I might, biscuits seem to scare me just a little. But this cake is an easy one to whip up and slice into thick wedges, just waiting to be spooned up with juicy red berries and a generous dollop of cream. And the crunchy sugar crust is something not to be missed. Don’t delay!

Strawberry Shortcakes

Adapted from Bon Appetit, May 2008

Nonstick vegetable oil spray
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1 ½ cups cake flour

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar

4 ounces cream cheese (half package)

¼ cup (half stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

¾ cup whole milk

2 large eggs

¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

Zest of half a lemon

Preheat oven to 350º F. Spray a 9-inch cake pan with nonstick spray. Generously sprinkle the bottom and sides of the pan with sugar, tapping out any excess.

Whisk the flour and baking powder in a medium bowl. Use an electric mixer to beat 1 cup of sugar, cream cheese and butter in a large bowl. Whisk the milk, eggs, vanilla and lemon zest in another medium bowl to blend. Pour the milk mixture into the cream cheese mixture and beat to combine. Add the dry ingredients and beat until smooth. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and shake slightly to even out the batter. Sprinkle the top of the cake with the remaining tablespoon of sugar. Feel free to add a smidge more to give everything a nice coat.

Bake the cake until golden brown on top and a tester inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Allow the cake to cool before serving. Slice and serve with strawberries or other fresh berries. If you don’t eat it in one go, it keeps nicely covered at room temperature for a day or two.

After reading an article on the blog Design Observer a few weeks back about the amount of food that is wasted in America, I decided to create a little challenge for myself. Too often I head down to the grocery store and pick up a few things for dinner and only end up using a quarter of the bunch of mint, 2 out of the three leeks and half of the lettuce and by the time I finally come up with a dinner plan that uses the left overs, some or all of the ingredients that remain have gone to waste. To make matters worse, I find that there are always a few items that are just a little more difficult to fully use up while they are still fresh. In my fridge you will often find a odd half of a lemon or lime, an expired half full sour cream, yogurt with a few tablespoons left in it the bottom, nearly finished cheese blocks and a few other such items that some how always seem to get left behind. I even have one of those smaller european fridges, I can only imagine what would happen if I were in charge of a full sized fridge.

So with the wasteful side of me in mind, I decided to create a challenge for myself: buy a whole chicken and really use it to its full potential. And no eating the same chicken dish over and over all week long. This challenge was about creativity and each dish needed to be significantly different. I’m actually pretty impressed with the results. Not only did I do a good job of using the whole chicken but we also ate pretty diverse meals every evening. All and all I think the challenge was a success. Here is what I did with one Chicken and a few other things:

Night 1: Herbes de Provence Rotisserie Chicken

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Night 2: Quick Singapore Noodles

Night 3: BBQ Chicken Pizza

And finally with the bones I made a stock which was the base for Lemony Spring Soup with Peas & Rice which was lunch.

Everyone has a dish or two that comes loaded with memory. Chances are that when you stop and think about it, there may be a whole handful of foods that fall into that category. Maybe it tastes like summer or reminds of a special event or time. Either way, you revisit it to remember that feeling or keep a tradition alive. Maybe it is an infrequent event—special ingredients are required or a lot of preparation is needed. Or maybe it is a weekly event—a special menu that is prepared no matter what.

I’ve got my fair share of those meals myself. There are plenty of food memories that come from my childhood, like the spaghetti dinners Tina talked about here, or the Friday night waffle routine that some of us still might be scarred by! But I don’t think that anyone is afraid of this springtime favorite. As a kid, I remember my mom making this dinner in the late spring with the freshest vegetables we had picked from the garden. And while I can’t speak authoritative of where this dish comes from, it seems to me that it might come from my mom’s side of the family. I think I’ve heard that my grandmother made this dish when my mom was a child.

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I am not quite sure if this should be called a soup or a stew. Or maybe it is more of a medley of spring vegetables in a cream sauce. Either way, I remember it being ladled out into bowls at dinnertime, finished with a generous sprinkle of dill. While I don’t remember if anything else came along with the vegetables as a kid, I’ve played with a few different variations in the years since. Sometimes the vegetable portions favor the potatoes, who can hold their own in this dish. Biscuits were a big hit last summer in a veggie-centric version of biscuits and gravy. On this particular evening, I went with a small pasta in hopes that it would be kid-friendly. This summer, I can’t wait to try a cornbread.  And with only a few days until the next farmers markets and the official start of summer, I can’t wait to try it again.

One of my favourite columns on the Bon Appetit blog is the Fake it or Make it column. They test homemade items against their store bought counterparts, comparing cost, time commitment and taste. Good times! I personally like the idea of making whatever I can from scratch but sometimes that just doesn’t happen…

Case in point, the other day while at the grocery store I found myself facing a dilemma right out of the fake it or make it column. Cake mix and premade icing were on sale for 1$ and my very eager shopping companion insisting that we needed both items or we would face certain death. I’m not sure what the emergency was all about, but I could only assume that it had something to do with the impending zombie apocalypse that I was hearing about. I guess zombies don’t like chocolate cake?!?! Here I was thinking that guns were your only option against zombies. Anyway, the whole cake and icing thing turned out to be a big decision for me. On one hand I would much rather make a cake from scratch, I’m not sure if it is true, but deep down I feel like a homemade cake is healthier. On the other hand, over 2 years ago I bought two 9″ round cake pans because I was going to start making layer cakes. I still haven’t made a single layer cake. So, in all honesty what was the likely hood that on a Monday evening I was going to head home, make and ice a cake all from scratch. Not likely.
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So into the basket went the cake mix. But I drew the line at canned icing. Zombies or no Zombies I was not eating canned icing. So, I faked the cake and made the icing. Where do you draw the fake it or make it line?

*If you ever find yourself being attacked by zombies and you try to ward them off with a cake and it doesn’t work, it’s not my fault. I’m just throwing out ideas here.

The Sound of Music may have had a significant role in my childhood, but I am not going to break out into song as I tell you about the lovely green hills out my back door. Every spring, I have this crazy wish to go drive through the countryside and soak in the green. The fresh color is fleeting and soon turns to golden yellow, then stubble. I do love the transition, but I think the spring green has to be my favorite.

Anyway, a week or two back, I convinced the powers that be to join me for a little picnic and country drive. I know, it is hard to argue with a picnic! And after a busy weekend of yard work and shrub planting, a little time away from the house was not a bad idea. We drove through some of the more quiet cycling routes around the valley. So beautiful!

Since I’ve been digging around in the yard and staying out of the kitchen, I thought I’d share a few links with you instead of a recipe this time. I hope you enjoy!

Round out your taco bar with one of these.

Drawing inspiration.

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Walla Walla Sweet onions are in season and I’ve been dying to try this.

I’ve already planted a few maple trees this week, but I wouldn’t mind adding one of these.

This salad is becoming a regular at our house.

Pondering life and rhubarb.

Oh, you have a sweet tooth, too? Check this out!