Farm to table

Last week we journeyed out to a local farm together and this week I am pleased to invite you to my table. With the amount of rain that has been falling here on the coast, hearty comfort foods have seemed like the best use of the produce that I had picked up on the farm.

Three vegetables that really shout out fall and comfort to me are: artichokes of course, brussels sprouts and pumpkins. Now I want to talk about these three guys for a few different reasons, firstly because artichokes are my favourite and I don’t think enough people eat them, secondly brussels sprouts are delicious and should show up of your table more often than just at Thanksgiving and finally because a stuffed and baked pumpkin is an amazing show stopper of a dish.

Here are a few of my current favourite ways to prepare these fall lovelies:
Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Raisins 


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Braised Artichoke with Griddled Polenta Cakes with Caramelized Onions, Goat  Cheese, and Honey

Pumpkin stuffed with everything good, take a look at Ginger’s version that she shared with us last fall and of course Dorie Greenspan’s recipe which inspirered all this pumpkin craziness in the first place.

I hope that these lovely (if I do say so myself) dishes from my table will inspire you to partake in some of the bounties of fall.

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The first frost

I just about cried when I realized that the frost got my garden the other night. I suppose one might say that I’ve grown a little too attached to my garden. And now that I think about it, it’s not so much the garden I was missing, it was my dahlias. Fall is the best time for the dahlias—the colors get more brilliant and the blooms are plentiful. In the cool fall air, the blooms out in the garden seem to last forever, usually right up until the end of October around here.  I hoped for one more sunny afternoon in the garden with a magazine and a drink under those happy plants. It’s always just “one more,” right? But there they were, gone just a few days into October. The only flowering plant that remains untouched is nestled up beside the house, still wildly vibrant in the crisp air.

It’s not just the garden—a little planted patch of land in the backyard. It’s the stillness of digging in the cool earth on a sunny morning, pulling weeds, gathering greens and other goodness that I’ve been nurturing. I think it transports me. It’s a quiet place to think amidst the swirl of my daily activities. I miss that when I’m not in the garden.

In the middle of all of this sadness about the end of another gardening season, I’ve been thinking about all that I love about the autumnal season. After all, I do have an extensive scarf collection that’s just waiting for the cool weather. I love turning on the oven for most evening meals, roasting, braising and baking warmth and deliciousness into the cold night. Sunny afternoon walks crunching through the falling leaves. Long evenings when it is a tough choice between a hot bath or a good book and a pot of tea. Not to mention how cozy my slippers feel right now.

Not everything in my garden has been frosted yet. Oddly enough, there is still plenty of basil that made it through the chilly nights. In my experience, that is usually the first thing to go, so at the first threat of frost, I was out in the garden collecting armloads of basil to make pesto. Silly me, I should have been picking flowers. Happily the mint and the strawberries are growing steadily in the cool weather. Turns out all is not lost, I can still enjoy some delicious Moroccan mint tea and handfuls of tiny strawberries.

So when the warm weather hit this past weekend, I decided not to delay any longer on that pitcher of sangria I’d been planning on all summer. The ingredients have been seasonally adjusted to include apples and cider as crisp and refreshing as an autumn afternoon. I’m hoping there are more glorious days of fall for you to enjoy this recipe!

Hard Cider Sangria

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1 small apple, quartered and thinly sliced

1 navel orange, quartered and thinly sliced

1 1/2 cups chilled apple juice

2 tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice

1/4 cup brandy

1 22-oz. bottle of hard apple cider

In a pitcher, combine the sliced apples and oranges. Add the chilled apple juice, lemon juice and brandy. Allow the flavors to meld in the fridge, if time allows.

Just before serving, add the cider to the pitcher and stir to combine. Spoon some of the prepared fruit into tall glasses and fill with ice. Top with the apple cider mixture.

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Fable


What happens when you mix a farm with a table? You get a fable! hahahahah. Anywho, farm to table is a term that you hear thrown around alot these days. So when I went to the farm I decided that I would have to bring home a bunch of stuff that you are sure to see on my table in the not so distant future. The farm is an excellent place to spend a warm fall afternoon, not only are there often big hairy cows, goats and donkeys, but you can sometimes find really cool things like a real live artichoke patch!

I have been an artichoke addict for my whole life, seriously, since I was a small child I have always loved them. Ginger and I grew up in a small town where artichokes were few and far between. When they did show up in the grocery they were a very special treat. Thinking back to my childhood, the thing that strikes me as funny is that some how we never grew artichokes in our garden. We had a huge garden filled with just about anything you could think of, but for some reason, no artichokes. Crazy I know, being that all four of us love them. Anyway, you can imagine my delight when as we drove onto Westham island I spied a sign that read: Organic Artichokes, next right.

We turned right and took the farm by storm! We explored the pumpkin patch, visited the animals…

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Until we found them, the beautiful rows of flowering artichokes…

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Crispy smashed potatoes

Apparently, a lot of us like crispy food. At least according to a few of the food magazines I’ve been reading lately. I found myself questioning whether I would really fall into the crispy food category. But then I got to thinking about one of my all-time favorites, popcorn, I began to wonder. Crunchy and undoubtably crispy, popcorn has definitely got texture. And then, I made these crispy potatoes that have been a summer-time favorite around here for a few years now. And with that, I suppose there is no denying it. I’m one of those kids who likes the crispy food.

A few summers back, I found a recipe in Gourmet that was a revelation to me. Sure, I like potatoes—they grace summer salads and winter curries and I’m not above the french fries. Mashed potatoes are a holiday favorite and cheesy gratins make autumn just that much better. But potatoes, just potatoes as a mainstay at dinner?

But once my favorite stall at the farmers market starts bringing in their fresh potatoes, I can’t resist them. New red and white potatoes, purple and fingerling potatoes. I have to find a way to use them all. This recipe looked simple and delicious. It’s been a favorite ever since…

Over time, I discovered that I like to use the fingerling potatoes in this recipe best of all. They seem to stay together a little bit better as they are cooked. Near as I can tell, they are called Rose Finn Apple fingerling potatoes. The trouble is that these potatoes are not readily available in most grocery stores, so try it out with the most lovely potatoes you can find. Also, the number of potatoes you cook will depend on the size of the potatoes and the number of people are you cooking for. I’ve included some rough estimates to get you started.

Crispy Smashed Potatoes
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Adapted lightly from Gourmet, August 2009

 

6 oz. potatoes per person, scrubbed clean

Parmesan cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

Place potatoes in a medium saucepan and generously cover with water. Salt the water and place on high heat. Boil until potatoes are almost tender, but err on the side of uncooked. Drain immediately and allow the potatoes to cool.

When the potatoes are cool enough to work with, set them on a cutting board. With the flat edge of the knife, gently press on the potatoes to flatten them, keeping them together as much as possible.

In the meantime, heat a large frying pan at medium heat and add enough olive oil to coat the pan. Place potatoes in the pan and let cook undisturbed for about 15 minutes, turning once. Once both sides are golden brown, remove from the pan. Serve potatoes with a generous shower of freshly grated Parmesan cheese and pepper.

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Sun savouring

Summer has been good to me this year. But with fall finally upon us, I find myself looking for ways to squeeze ever last bit Normally, intimate inability continued for cialis generic overnight 40 weeks after-treatment was concluded. Here cialis without rx are some important components of guidance to help you out in the bedroom, because they contain chemicals, fibres and vitamins that prevent cancer of the prostate, like lycopene and phytoestrogens. They can free prescription viagra get the right path only by choosing the right kind of course from a reputed university. You can place the order for this herbal oil from the comfort female viagra canada of home or office using a credit or debit card. of summer out of the slowly cooling sun. With this little video I wanted to capture those relaxing and magical afternoons at the ocean.

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The oven that didn’t

Turns out I may have spoken too soon about my oven. Just when I was telling you about how it was going to be my constant friend once autumn rolled around, it gave out on me. With a blinding flash of light and loud pop, perhaps even a hiss, the element blew out. Technically, I don’t know if that is the right way to describe it, but it is fair to say that my oven is broken. And talk about timing—this happened with dinner in the oven and on the eve of a special birthday I was intent on baking a cake for. Not to mention that I was hosting my favorite sister for a bit of a holiday. Anyway, with the help of a kind neighbor, dinner baked on, but the cake will have to wait for another day.

As it happens, on the day my oven exploded, I had been roasting tomatoes. My little garden plot is in its tomato-producing prime right now. The plants are resting heavily on their stakes and I try to help matters out by picking them frequently. I only have six plants, but I can pick 20 pounds of tomatoes without searching around too much. Tray after tray of tomatoes have been slow-roasted with olive oil, thyme and a thin sprinkle of sea salt, only to be stowed away in the freezer for a cold winter day. There really is no magic recipe here, just the simple equation of home-grown tomatoes mixed with a low heat oven for the better part of a day. The results are stunning—a rich intensity of flavor without the chewy sun-dried tomato texture. But with the oven explosion, I had to change things up—I’d have to dispatch with the tomatoes in some other way and turn my winter-hoarding attention on something else.


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Turns out I had been collecting some plums for the arrival of Tina, who is known by many for her great love of plums. Our farmers market carries several varieties of plums and I had been gathering a sampling of them all on the week leading up to Tina’s arrival. She only had one baking request for me, plum kuchen, and I didn’t want to dissappoint. Luckily I got that baked before the oven catastrophe, but I was left with more than a few plums in the aftermath. So, I turned to preserving and managed to put away a few jars.  I don’t really put too much effort into summertime canning—after some of my previous exuberant forays into jam making, I try to keep it to a handful of jars for whatever fruit I am working with. But the pretty jewel tones of the plums are hard to resist.

It’s kind of funny how one takes things for granted. Whether it is the constant of reliable appliances and conveniences or the certainty of family that I come to rely on, I suppose there is some good in being reminded of all that I have to appreciate. Like tonight when a certain someone replaced the faulty element in the oven for me—there’s a lot to be thankful for it. Now I’d better get back to baking that birthday cake!

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Snapshots from september






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September has been a busy month and the range of images showing up in my Instagram feed tell the story of all the amazing adventures that I have had. This month I returned home to my parents in the Okanagan, visited the site of a forest fire, went to a dear friends wedding in wine country, hopped across the border to my lovely sister home, biked thru corn fields & wheat fields, toured old towns and so so much more. To keep on top of things you can find me on Instagram @bittadesign.

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Baked eggs

At about this time of year, I can finally turn the oven on without inducing my own personal heat wave in the kitchen. In fact, a little burst of heat in the kitchen first thing in the morning is actually cozy. And it’s about this time when I start to think about what I might bake for breakfast.

Sure, when fall truly rolls around, the oven is my best friend. After a summer hiatus, most weeknight meals include a broiled or roasted vegetable of some kind. Weekends find the oven warming up the kitchen for hours at a time. This is the season where the kitchen really feels like the center of my home. It is the warm room that sends delicious wafts throughout the house, drawing everyone in. See, despite my surprise at turning the corner into September, I really do love this time of year. So while the weather is still nice, I’ll be taking my breakfast out on the patio. And this is one of the best dishes I can recommend for a perfect autumn breakfast.

The best thing about the dish is that I never make it the same way twice. There are some dishes that I rely on to clean up the fridge. This is one of those dishes. Maybe there is a little bit of cheese that needs to be enjoyed, or a teaspoon of sun-dried tomato paste left in the jar. No matter, when you are working with a ramekin, you don’t need much to do the trick. So, the variations are endless, just go with what sounds best in the moment. And don’t just think breakfast, I’m thinking a savory egg could be a welcome addition at any meal where something warm and comforting is needed.

Based on previous experience, my ramekins hold two large eggs, plus a few additions. One ramekin per person usually fits the bill, providing that there are a few extras to go along with the meal. And while I can’t quite call this a recipe, here are some ideas to get you started…

Baked Eggs

Preheat oven to 400°. Prepare ramekins by giving them a generous coating of butter. Fill with your choice of toppings. Put the ramekins on a baking sheet and place in the center of the oven. Let bake for about 12 to 14 minutes, depending on your preference for the eggs. Remove from the oven and serve immediately.

Flavor ideas (don’t overdo it, sometimes simple is better!)

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Sun-dried tomato paste

Salsa

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Enjoy!

 

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Perfecter chocolate chip cookies

Nothing quite soothes the soul like a warm chocolate chip cookie on the first rainy evening in September. There is something so comforting about cookies, they seem to bring you right back to the good old days when you got to help your mom bake. Tasting the dough, watching the cookies slowly turn golden and eventually sitting down with a fresh cookie and glass of milk. In my case baking cookies seems to conger up memories of the time that my mom was baking cookies for guests that were arriving later in the evening and I did a super giant sneeze into the mixing bowl.

Anyway, enough about me and my cookie dough tragedies. This is a story about what may be the best chocolate chip cookie ever. In the world. Ever. You maybe wondering how on I came across the this recipe. Well, on Saturday Scott and I went on a Instagram walk and on that walk we met Jeff of @lostinkits. Jeff had ever so kindly baked cookies and brought them for all of us nerdy IGers.

After I ate my cookie I immediately had to chase down Jeff and get the recipe. Here is what he told me to do: mix the Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe from Cook’s Illustrated with David Lebovitz’s Salted Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies and you’re done. The result was pure magic: sweet, salty, rich, nutty, caramel… I could go on. This one will from now on be my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Perfecter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from David Lebovitz, Cook’s Illustrated & Little Nest 

Ingredients
1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
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1/2 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cups packed dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel + additional salt for sprinkling
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 1/4 cups semisweet (or bittersweet) chocolate chips or chunks
3/4 cup chopped pecans toasted

Instructions
In a medium mixing bowl whisk together the flour and baking soda. Next, over medium high heat, melt 10 tablespoons of butter in a light coloured sauce pan so that you can monitor the changing colour of the butter. Once the butter has melted continue cooking and swirling the butter until it is a dark golden colour and the butter develops a rich nutty aroma. This should take about 1-3 minutes. Once the butter has browned transfer into a heatproof bowl. Add the remaining 4 tablespoons of butter to the hot butter and stir until completely melted.

To the melted butter add both sugars, salt and vanilla, beat until fully mixed. Add the egg and additional yolk to the sugar mixture and whisk until no sugar lumps remain approximately 30 seconds, then let the mixture stand for 3 minutes. Repeat this process of 30 seconds whisking and 3 minutes resting 2 more times. The mixture will be thick, smooth and shiny. Using a wooden spoon stir in the flour mixture until just combined, about a minute. Add the chocolate chips and nuts until both are just mixed.

Set out two pieces of plastic wrap. Scoop the dough onto the plastic wrap and form into two large logs and wrap tightly. Place in the freezer and allow to cool for at least one hour, perferably over night.

Once the dough is fully cooled, heat the oven to 375 degrees and prepare cookie sheets with parchment paper. Cut the dough into 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch thick rounds. Place on the cookie sheet with room between the cookies as they will spread. Top each slice with a small sprinkle of fleur de sel. Bake for 10 minutes or until golden.

*The dough will also keep nicely in the fridge for about a week.

 

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Sweet September

When I turned on my phone the other day and it said “September 1”, I was pretty sure there had been a mistake. Some silly data mix-up that was feeding my phone nonsense information. Turns out it is true—September is here to stay, it seems. Where has the year gone! And let me add that there is nothing wrong with September, I think it is likely my favorite month of the year. There are so many good things packed into this month. Some of my favorite people have birthdays in September. The cooling temperatures along with the beautiful light make it a great time of year to be outside. And it is also a prime month for travel, especially when it is a non-stop flight to Paris. Sigh…

It certainly does not hurt to welcome in a new month with a long weekend. Since I am a bit of a list maker, I had a few goals that I wanted to get to over the weekend. I didn’t bother with trivial cleaning and ordering tasks. I had big plans, like picking out a birthday cake recipe for the birthday boy. He’ll be three years old this week! After a few discussions, I think he has finally made up his mind on a chocolate cake. I still feel like I can take a few creative licenses with his cake, so I think we’ll be going with some kind of chocolate layer cake. I did do a wee bit of organizing as I cleaned out his shoe box though, so we could share with friends. The collection of those shoes is making me a bit nostalgic.

I’ve also been working on a little bit of late summer preserving. I don’t get too carried away like I have in years past, but I can’t help but think I’m doing my family a bit of a favor with a few jars of beautiful peaches (my first effort on my own). They are joining the apricots that I already stashed away and will soon be followed by a whole lot of tomatoes, which are easily my favorite fall preserve. So perfect for winter soups, baked beans or some of the best sauces anyone could ask for.
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The other thing that has been most welcome around here is a Mexican-inspired meal. A month of so ago, Saveur sent out their Mexico issue. I would tell you I’ve been cooking my way through it, but that wouldn’t be quite accurate. I got stuck on a few dishes, especially the recipe for sopa seca. This may not be the dish that speaks the loudest of all that is Mexican cuisine, but it is delicious. I’ve been making it once a week! Just go easy on the chipotle peppers!

And while September might be here, this picnic season is far from over. September has room for some of the best picnicking weather anyone could ask for. We’ve been trying to fit in a picnic dinner most weeks. The unexpected surprise of a portable dinner with not much clean up (bonus!) is something that cannot be overlooked in the last days of summer. Mark Bittman’s recent article highlighting the four main food groups in his picnic basket inspired me to be a little more thoughtful of my approach. With great organization comes plenty of room for creativity. So pack up a picnic and get out there!

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