“Mother” soup

Grainews

April 2021.

Before the polar vortex returned and the morning thermometer read -40 C, I spent some time splitting birch for the wood stove in the kitchen. We live in a house that’s over one hundred years old, and my mom thinks that it was originally assembled from two grain bins bolted together; three steps lead down from those two rooms to the kitchen. Each room has its own temperature and climate, and walking through the house is like entering and departing adjoining countries, each with its own warm or chilly welcome.

On days like that, the big kitchen is not warm unless I keep the fire bustling in the wood stove and have pots on all four burners of the gas stove, located at opposing ends of the kitchen’s long acreage. My upstairs studio can be hot in summer and chilly in winter, with its south-facing wall of glass. So too the sunroom, faced on three sides with glass windows, but busy nonetheless, containing Dave’s office, our dining table, my orchids, herbs, fig tree and desert succulents, but it’s made bearable in deepest winter by a little gas fireplace that the cat loves. My studio and kitchen are my favourite rooms all the same. The warmest room, to my surprise, is often the centrally located living room, where the internal conversations of thousands of books on our shelves generate sparks and fire.

Well, okay, maybe that’s not the real reason, but it sounds better than the pragmatic scientific facts. The facts, just the facts, are hot air rising from the kitchen up those three steps, the living room’s high number of doorways – five – and the presence of a bamboo-bladed ceiling fan that circulates air from one room to the next. And the sunlight. The living room too faces south, and on high winter afternoons, curling up with a book in the big armchair while the sunlight induces a snooze is a brilliant way to get through the cold snap.

Of course another good way to survive the cold is to cook. I’ve been spending a lot of time in the kitchen, and I recently asked Dave to give me a list of what he’d like to eat. Generous man, he immediately asked why. “I love all your cooking, sweetie,” he said. “I want to stay out of the rut,” I said. “If I keep track of what I’ve made and you give me that list, I’ll be less likely to repeat myself.”

This of course triggered a long conversation about the joy of leftovers and of eating favourite dishes regularly. But the truth is that every cook falls into a rut. Having a list of ideas to offset creative dry spells, as I used to when I ran my Calgary restaurant several lifetimes ago, is like walking from one room into another, a pandemic-sized metaphor for travel. Dave asks for Japanese ramen and curry bread, pad thai, Korean fried chicken, a swathe of Italian pasta, French classics like duck confit, bouillabaisse, and leek and potato soup. But he asks for the cold version – vichyssoise – ignoring the fact that leek and potato soup appears regularly on our table, albeit in disguise. Want North African chickpea soup? Add chickpeas, cumin, ginger, paprika, cilantro, preserved lemon. Want cheese and cauliflower? Yep, stir ‘em in. Want clam chowder? You got it. Coconut curry? Add coconut cream, fish sauce and kaffir lime leaves, maybe a bit of peanut butter.

Leek and potato soup is the mother soup of all soups. And on this bitterly cold day, I want all the calories I can cram into the pot, so I add grated cheese, chopped roasted cauliflower, leftover roast chicken, and a drizzle of cream to the pot. Antidote to the polar vortex? Maybe not. But it fuels us, and brings pleasure to a bitter day. First we eat, then we plan a post-pandemic vacation somewhere warm, with bamboo fans and sand.

dee’s Mother Soup

French cooks are used to the idea of “mother sauces”, basic sauces that are embellished with a host of ingredients, changing names as they change their stature. This soup works the same way – make it plain or add what embellishments you fancy. I use a hand-held immersion wand to puree half the soup, relying on the potatoes to serve as self-contained thickening agent.

butter or oil for the pan

1 head garlic, minced

1 leek or onion, minced

1 tsp. dried thyme

½ cup white wine (optional)

4-6 potatoes, cubed

6-8 cups chicken stock

salt and pepper to taste

cream to taste

Heat the oil or butter in a heavy pot, add the garlic and sauté until fragrant but not coloured. Add the leek or onion and sauté until tender. Add the thyme and wine, then stir in the potatoes, stock and seasoning. Cover and simmer until tender. Puree half the soup to thicken it. Garnish as preferred.

Cooking for Comfort

Grainews

December 2020. Pandemic or not, worrying about food is part of the zeitgeist, especially for those of us who feel responsible for others – our elderly friends and relatives, new moms with a babe in arms, immune-compromised cousins, kids at university or on a tight budget. Dropping off a meal is still one of the best ways to administer a long-distance hug. But even as we debate whether or not  – and how – we will celebrate our holidays, our daily bread and sharing is still a necessity.

So how do we safely share food with friends or family outside of our immediate bubble? After your gift of grub is cooked and cooled, transfer it to a washable food container or wrap it carefully in foil or plastic. Delivery needs to be contactless – wearing your mask, set the packet on a neutral spot like a bench or table at least two meters from your friend or beloved. Then send those virtual hugs along when your gift is picked up.

If you have received a gift of food, set it on an empty counter and transfer the food to your own plates or bowls. Refrigerate or store the food. Wash the emptied container, then wash the counter and your hands. When you eat that gift, your “thank you” will reach your benefactor, no matter the distance.

What food to share depends only on what you have on hand and what your beloved might enjoy. If you have it in your head to give dinner instead of seasonal treats, then homemade pizza is a great idea. It’s easy to make multiples in whatever size suits, and extras can be frozen. And it’s just so much better than anything store-bought or even picked up from a pizzeria. Pizza is one of those things that I never buy. You won’t either.

If you grew tomatoes last fall – or know a gardener who did – you might have made some roasted tomato sauce for the freezer part of your pantry. It’s an indispensable staple, hands-down the best instant sauce. It’s not too late to make some now: even out of season Roma tomatoes from far, far away make a roasted tomato sauce that outshines anything premade.

If you are delivering a pizza, underbake it marginally so that your beloved friend can reheat it without compromising the quality, and keep the arugula garnish on the side.

That’s all it takes. So first we eat, and then we can make plans for a meal together after the pandemic. Be careful out there. Feed your family and friends and yourself well this season.

dee’s Pizzeria Pizza

Spread out the work over the day to make assembly a quick job. Makes 4 rounds or 2 large rectangles

Dough:

1 tsp. yeast                                                                
1 tsp. sugar                                                                
1/2 cup warm-to-hot water                                        
 4 cups all-purpose flour                                           
1 Tbsp. kosher salt                                                    

½ tsp. dried thyme or oregano                       

2 cups warm water, more as needed                                      

2 Tbsp. olive oil                                                         

Roasted tomato sauce:

3 lb. ripe Roma tomatoes                               

2 onions, sliced                                              

1 head garlic, peeled and sliced                                  

2 Tbsp. olive oil                                             

salt and pepper to taste

Toppings:

2 Tbsp. olive oil

1 head garlic, peeled and sliced

2 onions, sliced

1 bell pepper, diced

8 mushrooms, sliced

salt and pepper to taste

1 cup sliced sausage or salami, optional

2 cups grated cheese (Gruyere, cheddar, asiago, Fontina)

2 cups arugula, optional

Combine the yeast, sugar and water. Let stand for about 5 minutes until it is puffy. Add the flour, salt, herbs and remaining water. Mix until the dough is smooth and elastic. Add the oil to the bowl, swirl it around to coat the sides and bottom, and roll the dough so its entire surface is oiled. Cover the bowl and refrigerate the dough to rise until doubled in bulk or until needed.

Set the oven at 450 F. Lay the tomatoes in one layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet, spread the onions and garlic over top, drizzle with the olive oil and add salt and pepper to taste. Roast until the tops are charred and the vegetables are tender, about an hour. Remove from heat and coarsely chop in a food processor.

Heat the oil in a sauté pan, then add the garlic and onions. Fry until half-done, then add remaining vegetables and optional meat. Cook over high heat for several minutes.

Remove dough from the fridge, cut in half or quarters, and shape into 4 thin flat rounds or 2 large rectangles, working with oiled hands directly on top of parchment-lined baking sheets. Let rise while you prepare the toppings.

To assemble the pizza, preheat oven to 450 F. Spoon ½ cup of sauce onto each pizza shell and spread thinly, then add layers of vegetables, sausage and cheese on top. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until nicely browned. Let cool before slicing, then top with arugula.

Hand-made

Grainews

May 2020. Before the pandemic, I spent an afternoon at my neighbour Sharon’s house, teaching her how to make pasta. Her house is about 100 years newer than mine, and has fewer eccentricities, like the small ceramic tiles covering the only work surface big enough for rolling out pastry, tiles painstakingly installed by my late dad in one of his periodic re-dos. Those tiles catch flour in the grouting crevices, but they are perfect for hot pans straight from the oven. Sharon and I drank wine and told stories as we cooked, although Sharon stopped talking, her lips set in concentration during her first effort at feeding a strap of dough into the pasta maker. When she caught the first handful of noodles as they emerged from the cutter, she sighed in relief and resumed telling me about her donkeys.

I first made pasta at a tiny nouvelle cuisine restaurant where I worked during the 1980s in Calgary. I experimented with adding all kinds of vegetable purees and herbs to the dough, although Calgary diners back then were just not ready for garishly pink beet-stained pasta, although they liked the saffron version, yellow stains that bled across the dough like paint on a canvas. In my own restaurant in the 1990s, we bought fresh pasta after learning we just couldn’t keep up with making our own. Since then, fresh pasta is a made-at-home event.

A food processor is best for combining the dough. For rolling and cutting, use a machine attachment for your countertop mixer, a hand-crank pasta machine like my Italian beauty (if you are willing to jury-rig it a bit to keep it from wiggling about as you crank the handle) or a knife and rolling pin (but only if you use doppio, or “double zero” Italian-style flour, which is super-finely ground flour, but make sure you choose a grade milled specifically for pasta, not bread or cake). I use all purpose flour when I make pasta and roll it in my stainless steel Imperia. Good Italian-made pasta makers are easily ordered online.

Judging by the state of the nation’s grocery shelves, we all have flour in our houses, so between bouts of feeding your sourdough starter and shaping loaves, cranking out some noodles is a good use of time. Like bread-making, the end result is something that offers succour as well as sustenance. And truly, there’s nothing like a fresh bowl of pasta dressed in butter and Parmesan cheese, or in a Bolognese that spent hours in the oven.

But if you quail at the time outlay, consider: if you amortize the time spent making (an hour, but half that spent letting the dough rest) with the time spent cooking (2 minutes, maybe less, depending on thickness), fresh pasta begins to look like an ideal supper for folks confined to home with an appetite and time to put in. So let’s get to it. First we eat, then tell me what’s new with you in your socially distant home.

Hand-made Pasta

Pasta is made of only a few ingredients. Weighing those ingredients is the best choice for the most consistent texture: flour can be compressed or aerated, and eggs vary in size. The more often you make pasta, the sooner you can make it intuitively, by feel, like an Italian nonna. Until then, weigh your ingredients, including the liquid. Makes about 500g, enough for 2 – 4 servings

300g all purpose flour

salt to taste

3 large eggs

2 large egg yolks

water as needed to bring the egg volume to 185g

Aerate the flour and salt in the food processor for a couple spins, then add the liquid. Mix until blended. The texture should form a rough ball. If it is pebbly or sandy, add water, a spoonful at a time. If it sticks to the bowl, add a little more flour. Turn out on the counter and knead, but not like you knead bread. Use smaller motions and only pinch over a bit of the dough at a time, almost like pleating, then turn the dough a few degrees and repeat. Knead for 8 – 10 minutes, until smooth and supple. Wrap well and let rest at room temperature for half an hour.

Dust the pasta with flour, ground semolina or rice flour to minimize sticking. Divide into 4 or 6 pieces, keeping the extra pieces wrapped up so they don’t get too dry. Flatten one piece with the heel of your hand, dust again, then feed it into the pasta maker’s aperture, set at its widest opening. Lay the dough on the counter and fold the two ends to meet in the middle. Turn it 90 degrees. Flatten the leading end with the heel of your hand before feeding it into the aperture. Send it, flattened narrow end first, through the aperture a second time, still set at the widest setting. Repeat the fold and roll 4 times, dusting with flour as needed.

Advance the aperture by one click. Pass the dough through twice, flouring as needed, but do not fold it in between. Advance the aperture again, and roll through twice. Cut each piece in half when it gets too long to handle. Continue rolling until the dough is thin, perhaps stopping at the second-last setting.

Let stand uncovered on a floured countertop or floured tea towel for 15 – 30 minutes, until the top surface is almost leathery, then turn over and dry the other side. Put a pot of water on to boil and salt it very generously.

Attach the cutter. Move the crank to the cutter mechanism and position the dough so it lays flat and feeds though smoothly. Crank, catching the noodles as they emerge from beneath the cutter. Lay them on a tea towel dusted with flour. Repeat with the other pieces. Cook for 1 – 2 minutes in boiling salted water. Taste to determine when the noodles are just cooked through, or al dente. Remove from the pot using tongs, not by dumping the noodles and water through a strainer. Toss in sauce and serve immediately.

Comfort

Grainews

April 2020

April 2020. Dave and I live rurally. Just us, our dog Jake, housecat, and the barn cats. But there are the birds who visit our feeders. And the deer that graze at dawn and dusk just south of our house. The coyotes lurking. And the porcupines that stop by some nights, usually about midnight. But we keep the glass between us, so there’s no danger of breaking our social distancing compact. It’s good to see them clambering into our deck chairs, or picking up spilled birdseed, singing some incomprehensible versions of 1960s ballads to each other.  They will doubtless stop coming by once we start spending our evenings outdoors, but I like that they feel at home enough to occupy our chairs in our absence.

All those animals notwithstanding, it sometimes it feels like we are far from the madding crowd – a good thing – and other times, the crowds seem to jostle right up our long driveway and make themselves comfy too.  That jostle is life right now. Even though we are under pandemic lockdown, even though we are used to spending most days with just the two of us, the ghosts of thousands of Covid-19 victims from around the globe feel too close for comfort.  I don’t fear them. But I am not ready to join them, and I want them to rest more peacefully.

It’s been awhile, this isolation. We are praying, as everyone is, for wellness on the planet, a flattening of the curve, a drop in infections, for no more deaths, for a resumption of life as it was. But life will never be the same. This virus has made sure of that.

So what do we do?

We comfort one another. We go about our lives as best we can. We practice kindness and calm. Comfort includes cooking. Many of us have bursting pantries, stockpiles of groceries to stave off the threat of illness. Feed yourself. Feed your family. Cook food you love. Pour the wine. Steep the tea, make the coffee. Bake your favourite chocolate and ginger coffeecake, your best braises, all the beloved recipes that are marked up with spatters of love in your cookbook or indelibly imprinted on your memory. Make extra. If you can do so safely, drop some off – but honouring social distancing, and no contact! – to the porches of friends and neighbours, to elders who are shut-ins, to friends who don’t cook as much as you or who don’t have a bursting pantry.  Feed people. And as you bake or braise or broil, remember that stirring the pot with love is another way to flatten that curve. It’s love that is going to get us through. Not panic. Not hoarding. Not bullying or pointing fingers.

So spread around some love. My favourite breakfast right now as spring tiptoes toward us is a muffin that is endlessly adaptable.

This recipe began as a cake, my beloved auntie’s favourite carrot cake that she made for her family’s and friends’ birthdays in and around the Bay area of California. It is one scrumptious cake, loaded with butter, nuts and coconut, topped with cream cheese icing. The kind of cake that makes a baker’s name as a baker. Then I took a few liberties with it to make it less cake-y. Less butter, less sugar, swapping some of the all- purpose flour for whole wheat.

These days I use barley flour mixed with spelt flour, but it’s just fine made with wheat flour.  Paper liners for your muffin cups are advisable when using barley flour, because the muffins are crumbly. I sometime add an extra egg to help with the cohesion, but you don’t have to.

These muffins freeze well, and can be dressed up with cream cheese icing if you want them to masquerade as dessert one late evening as you watch another solo round of Netflix. Be well. Be calm. Be kind. Be good to each other. First we eat. Then we heal the planet.

dee’s Morning Muffins

Take on changing this recipe to suit your own preference. Like blueberries best? Use them instead of cranberries and chopped dates.

Makes 14

2 large eggs

½ cup melted butter or vegetable oil

½ cup brown sugar

3 cups coarsely grated carrot, apple or pear

1 ½ cups milk, orange juice, buttermilk or alternate milk

3 cups flour (a mix of barley, spelt, wheat, or any one)

1 Tbsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 tsp. ground ginger

½ tsp. ground allspice

¼ tsp. ground cloves

½ cup dried cranberries

1 cup chopped dried dates

Set the oven at 375 F. Line muffin cups with parchment liners.

Mix together the wet ingredients in a large bowl. Stir in all the dry ingredients and mix gently with a large spatula. Spoon into muffin cups. Bake for 22 minutes. Best served warm with butter and company.

Grainews: First We Eat: Winter Greens

Grainews

In winter, when arugula and other salad-ish greens travel thousands of miles, have been contaminated with E. coli or are too costly to be borne with good grace, I turn to sturdier greens for warm salads and robust vegetable dishes.

Mustard greens, or flowering gai lan, a Chinese form of broccoli, are assertive and blend well with strong tastes. When I want a faceful of flavours, I steam gai lan, drain it, and add a couple tablespoons of good marmalade diluted with orange juice to the pan just as the vegetables are nearly done. No marmalade? Use plum or sour cherry preserves and lemon juice.

Sui choy, Nappa or Savoy cabbage are my go-to for tender, mild cabbage. They cook the same as cabbage, but are tender and slightly higher in water content. For a milder flavour, choose baby bok choy.

For more European flavours, I turn to chard, kale or Brussels sprouts.

The Brussels sprout makes an annual winter appearance, but is often ignored as being “too cabbage-y”. Far better to find it in late autumn at a farmers’ market, when you can appreciate its garish Martian-spaceship design of balls clinging to a stalk. But by midwinter, you will only find the bulbs, those perennial keepers, in the supermarket. Like its cabbage cousins, this mini head loves the company of pork, but is reduced to sulphurous fumes if overcooked. Brussels sprouts are utterly divine roasted. Quarter or halve each head, roll in good olive oil with salt and pepper, and roast in a single layer on parchment-lined paper until slightly charred, turning once or twice. Next best is to thinly slice the little buggers, and quickly fry them with bacon, onions and garlic until tender, adding small amounts of water to create steam. Add a drizzle of cream if you like.

Think of chard as two vegetables – the dense stalk and the soft, pliable leaf. Fold each leaf in half lengthwise along the stalk, cut the stalk out, chop up the leaf and set it aside. Chop the stalk and sauté it with onion and garlic. Add the chopped leaves, a bit of water, a handful of dried cranberries, and quickly cook until the leaves wilt. Then add some toasted chopped pecans and maybe a bit of Parmesan or chevre, and toss it on linguini. It’s a riff on a classic Catalan combo of greens with nuts and raisins, so vary it however suits your pantry.

Kale soup shows up from Portugal north to Scandinavia, nearly always partnered with pork, sausages or ham, and dried beans. Be sure to cut out and discard the thick central rib from large leaves. Kale doesn’t reduce its volume as much as other greens, so one bunch is enough to add to the pot. Kale can be braised or stir-fried, but it is dense, and takes awhile to become tender. Be patient. Otherwise, soup is a convenient vehicle. Kale  too is delicious roasted, so separate the leaves, toss them in seasoned olive oil and spread them out on a tray to roast until crispy.

They tell me that winter will end eventually. This year I am not so sure. But until we can pick our own arugula and romaine again, these sturdy greens will sustain us. So first we eat, then we peruse the seed catalogues.

Winter Greens in Coconut Milk

Any sturdy greens will work in this mellow Thai-style dish: my favourites are gai lan, followed by Nappa cabbage. Serve with plain or coconut rice or finely-textured noodles, or as an accompaniment to curries, grilled meats or fish. As with any stir-fry, have all the ingredients sliced and measured before you begin to cook.

Serves 6 as a side dish

1 T. sunflower oil

½ onion, finely sliced

4 garlic cloves, minced

1 T. grated ginger root

4 kaffir lime leaves (use the zest of a lime if you can’t find lime leaves)

½ red bell pepper, julienned

1 coarsely grated carrot

1 tsp. finely minced jalapeno or to taste

½  head sui choy or Nappa cabbage, julienned, or gai lan, left whole

1-14 oz. tin coconut milk

1 tsp. shrimp paste, optional

1 T. fish sauce or chopped anchovies

1 T. honey

the juice and zest of 1 lime

salt and hot chili paste to taste

minced cilantro for garnish

Heat the oil in a large sauté pan, then add the onion, garlic, ginger, lime leaves, bell pepper, carrot and jalapeno. Cook over high heat, stirring, until the vegetables are tender and transparent, about 5 minutes, adding small amounts of water to prevent browning. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Cook, stirring, until the greens are tender. Cook a few extra minutes to reduce and thicken the liquid if desired. Garnish and serve.