Mató & Maple Syrup

Te Aro

I ran into Thiago, the barista from La Merceria, at Manic Coffee yesterday morning. I hadn’t seen him in a while and he told me he no longer worked at La Merceria, that he was now learning the roasting side of the business at a place called Te Aro. I confessed I had never heard of the place and he encouraged me to drop by. Te Aro is a new cafe in Leslieville known for roasting its own beans in a very impressive hot air roasting machine. Since we had a day pass yesterday, Alan and I decided to go check out the place during our afternoon break. My only caveat is that they didn’t have cortados but the macchiato was pretty good. Click on the picture below to see a slideshow of the few pictures I took in the place.

Special dinner

I was so inspired by my husband’s gift that I had to make something quick but special tonight. Out came millet with cranberries and walnuts, accompanied by mushrooms stir-fried in garlic and butter and a salad made with spinach, blood orange, thinly sliced carrots, fennel, celery, radish, and seasoned with a lemon & olive oil vinaigrette. It was awesome.

Mushroom walnut risotto

I was feeling overwhelmed by work this evening and not at all inspired to cook. Since I haven’t made rice for a while, my immediate thought was to make a simple risotto. Alas, I had neither butter nor parmesan cheese but I decided to go ahead with it anyway. I did find some gruyère cheese in the fridge so I grated about 1/4 cup of it. My first thought was to make a butternut squash risotto but once I opened the squash, I realized I had let it sit on the counter way too long. It was all porous and dark inside so I had to discard it. Luckily, I had bought some mushrooms at the market this morning so a mushroom risotto it was. But first I prepped the short grain brown rice to render it risotto-ready: I simply parboiled 1 cup of rice for 12 minutes, drained, and set it aside. I had made a batch of a simple vegetable stock (just onions, carrots, celerey, parsley stems boiled for an hour) so I mixed 1 cup stock, 1 cup water, and 1 cup white wine to a small pot and let it simmer.

I pulled out my paella pan and stir fried 1 small onion and 3 garlic cloves in a tablespoon or two of olive oil. When the onions were soft, I added 1 tsp dried oregano, some salt & pepper and 250g of mushrooms, cleaned and chopped. I stir fried the mushrooms for about 2 minutes, incorporated the rice and then added 1/2 cup of the sock mixture. While the rice cooked (I stirred every once in a while), I felt something was missing in it so I roasted about 1/3 cup of walnuts, chopped them and set them aside. I continued to cook the rice, adding more liquid whenever it dried. Half way through (about 10 minutes in), I mixed in the walnuts and 1 tbsp tamari sauce. My vegetable stock had no salt, you might want to skip either the tamari sauce or the salt at the beginning if you use a commercial vegetable or chicken stock. Once all the liquid had been absorbed, I added 1/3 cup chopped parsley, the gruyère cheese, adjusted the salt and pepper and served it immediately. It was the best risotto I have made so far. It would probably serve 2-3 people so you might want to double it to serve more.

Kale and sundried tomatoes cornbread

It is no secret on this blog that I love my cast iron skillet and inventing different cornbread recipes. So here’s today’s version: Kale and Sundried Tomatoes Cornbread.

Recipe below the fold

Continue reading Kale and sundried tomatoes cornbread

Sunday breakfast

Accompanied by some nice Quebec cheese and some rooibos tea.

Making the most of winter vegetables

Mark Bittman’s recent column on roasting winter vegetables inspired this simple, yet very fulfilling meal. I chopped a few small carrots, one parsnip, some sunchokes (aka Jerusalem artichokes), and a sweet potato. I added a few whole garlic cloves (with skin), drizzled some olive oil, sprinkled some fleur de sel, black pepper, oregano and roasted them in the oven, pre-heated to 450 F for about half an hour.

Meanwhile I cooked a cup of quinoa with half a cup of dried cranberries in 1 1/2 cup of salted water. While the quinoa cooked (it takes about 15 mins) I roasted a handful of walnuts and chopped a half cup of fresh parsley.

In a cast iron skillet, I stir fried a red onion in a tablespoon grapeseed oil (or any plain vegetable oil). When the onions were translucent, I added a small purple cabbage, chopped, and two tablespoons tamari sauce. I cooked it for a few minutes (I like it crunchy so I sauteed it only till it warmed through) and then mixed in 1tbsp toasted sesame oil, a few dashes ume plum vinegar, and sprinkled some sesame seeds. I then removed it from the heat and set it aside.

When the quinoa absorbed all the water, I let it sit for 5 mins, and then mixed in the chopped parsley, chopped walnuts, and seasoned with a few dashes of ume vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper.I also added a bit more olive oil and some balsamic vinegar to the roasted vegetables.

Orzo with kale, sun dried tomatoes, mushrooms, and caramelized shallots

Ingredients

2/3 of package of Orzo
2 shallots, sliced
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tsp oregano
1 bunch kale (I used red kale), washed and chopped
handful or more of dried mushrooms, reconstituted and chopped
4-5 sundried tomatoes, reconstituted and chopped. Reserve the tomato water.
2 tbsp capers, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup parmesan cheese, optional
olive oil
salt & pepper to taste

1. Prepare the orzo according to package directions.

2. Meanwhile, caramelize the onions in skillet with olive oil or butter over medium-low heat. Separate the onions when ready. Add another tbsp olive oil and the garlic. Once the garlic starts to brown, add the tomatoes, mushrooms, and oregano. Cook for a few minutes, add the capers, and then mix in the kale, a handful at a time until it is all wilted. Use the water you reserved from reconstituting the tomatoes to add some moisture and steam Add salt and pepper to taste. Mix in the caramelized onions.

3. When the orzo is ready, drain, and stir it in the kale mixture. Add the parmesan cheese and serve immediately.

Books for Christmas

I have decided to give books as Christmas gifts to friends and family. Many of them will be getting books on food or cooking so I ordered multiple copies of the following online:

I’ve had this book for a few months now and it’s really great when you just want to look up an ingredient, or discover some basic ways of cooking any kind of vegetable. But beyond the basics, Bittman offers great variations for cooking any kind of dish from the most basic mac and cheese to Indian dhals to making your own cheese and yogurt. The book is clearly organized, with lots of recipes that can be made in less than half an hour for those busy weekdays. But what I like most about this book – and Bittman’s recipes in general – is that the recipes are always very flexible. He teaches you the basics and allows you the freedom to change ingredients at will. This is great when you are trying to cook with what you have available at the house or at the market.

In the process of researching How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, Mark Bittman discovered the incredible effects, both for his own health and that of the planet, of eating more fruits and vegetables and reducing the consumption of meat. After much research, he wrote this short but insightful guide on how to take a minute to consider where your food comes but also how to step beyond the conflicting advices of nutritionists and scientists and simply start eating as if food matters. Michael Pollan goes into more depth in many of the issues Bittman raises, but I find this book is a better introduction to the issues to those who are not yet invested on the issue.

This next book is my favourite cookbook this year. Everything I’ve tried from it has been incredibly tasty and I’ve learned some very helpful tips from it such as how to reduce phytic acid, a substance that interferes in the absorption of zinc, calcium, iron, and other essential minerals, from rice and other grains and how to add extra minerals into food by simply cooking them by simply adding an inch of kombu. The recipes are beautifully organized according to seasons and since the author lives in New England, I can find all of the ingredients here in Ontario.

Cortado

I love coffee. I’m not addicted and usually have my first coffee of the day some time in the afternoon and I don’t usually have more than two a day. Some days I have none and that’s fine. But I really love the taste of a good coffee and in Barcelona I learned that my favorite way of drinking coffee is what the Spanish call a cortado (tallat in Catalan). It’s usually served in a small glass and in Spain at least half, if not two-thirds, of the glass is filled with espresso and then topped with steamed milk. I like it better this way because the coffee taste is not drowned out by too much milk as in the lattes and capuccinos commonly available in North America. In France I learned that the closest thing to a cortado is a petit crème. Here in Toronto it’s always a bit tricky. Technically, the closest thing is a macchiato, which is an espresso topped with some milk froth. So I usually order a macchiato and ask them to add steamed milk rather than just froth. Call it a wet macchiato. We used to have a perfect cortado every saturday at Ozzie’s but unfortunately he stopped serving them in the little glasses since they broke so easily. Now we have our cortados in half-filled capuccino cups, which is not quite the same.

But lately I’ve noticed that some of the baristas in Toronto know exactly what a cortado is and I can even order it that way – simply asking for a cortado and not explaining how to alter a macchiato. So far I’ve had great cortados at the Dark Horse, La Merceria, and Sam James Coffee Bar. The latest one – the one on the photo above – was from Manic Coffee. It certainly brought me back to Barcelona.

Comfort food

Wikipedia defines comfort food as “familiar, simple foods that are usually home-cooked or eaten at informal restaurants.” What constitutes familiar, simple foods that elicit a certain emotional response from those who eat them of course changes from culture to culture. Whenever he is feeling under the weather, Alan likes having toast and tea because that’s what his mom used to make him whenever he was sick. One of my grandmothers used to make me a very creamy oatmeal porridge and the other polenta with black beans. Despite the strong associations that specific dishes have with different moments of my childhood, I don’t really think of anything in particular when I look for comfort in food. When sad, many men and women seek sugary or high caloric foods such as chocolate, ice cream, cakes, or the like. When I’m blue, I especially crave healthy, wholesome foods. Yeah, I’m weird that way. I can only really gorge on chocolate and cakes when I feel good; when I’m feeling low, I can’t stomach junk food. Today was one of those days. A lot have been happening, I lost a dear aunt two days ago, my work hasn’t been progressing as I planned, so I just felt like eating something nice. Since the day was unseasonably warm, with bright blue skies, I wanted something light but satisfying. I ended up with this:

Scrambled tofu & carrots, red kale stir fried with caramelized onions, pine nuts, and seasoned with tamari, and watermelon radishes marinated in a raspberry vinaigrette. It all made my day much brighter.

The mix of colours was sooo nice:

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