Books of 2009

One of my favourite things about the end of the year -- or in the case of this year, the end of a decade -- is the best/worst lists that inevitably pop up, detailing everything from movies and food trends to fashion faux pas and celebrity quotes. I've been reading a bunch of book lists lately, and thought it might be a good time to compile my own. So here are a few of the books I enjoyed this past year.

The Outcast by Sadie Jones

The novel takes place in post WWII London, and is a story about a young man whose life was changed by the tragic death of his mother when he was 10 and his subsequent search for forgiveness and redemption. This is the author’s first novel and it’s heartbreakingly good.

My Booky Wook by Russell Brand

A memoir of sex, drugs and stand-up from a British comedian with unruly hair and literary flair. Extremely rude in parts, but surprisingly well written.

A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon

A hilarious novel about a 61-year-old hypochondriac and his dysfunctional family.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

A novel written entirely in letters, it’s a charming story of a community under German occupation during the Second World War, how they survived, and the author who wants to tell their story.

When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

A series of droll essays on everything from dealing with pesky mice in an old Normandy home, to quitting smoking in Toyko.

A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg

Writing about food and recipes from the author of Orangette.

The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver

Written in a two-pronged narrative, a novel about a woman’s imagined future post-infidelity and her present reality.

Here's to more reading in 2010!

Sausage and lentil supper

There's something comforting about a slow cooked, hearty meal on a winter night. I tend to cook a lot on weekends, preparing for the week ahead, and I made this a while ago, then enjoyed it for several days after.

The recipe come from Nigel Slater , a British food writer I really enjoy. His cookbooks are very well written, as is his autobiography. His new book about growing and eating vegetables is on my wishlist.

Here's how it starts. How can a pan full of crisping bacon be a bad thing?

Then come the vegetables.

And here's the finished dish! My sausages weren't as appetizing as the ones in the orginal recipe (and in fact, look dangerously like overgrown worms), but they were good.

The final dish keeps and reheats well, and will fill you up after a day in the cold.

SAUSAGE AND LENTIL SUPPER (from The Guardian and Nigel Slater)

The parsley is crucial, as is a good meaty sausage. Serves 4.

2 tbsp olive oil
120g streaky bacon, diced
1 onion
1 large carrot
a rib of celery
300g green lentils
1 litre chicken stock
2 bay leaves
8 plump pork sausages
chopped parsley

Warm the oil in a deep, heavy casserole. Put the bacon in and let it cook over a medium heat so it colours lightly. Meanwhile, peel the onion, chop it finely and add to the bacon. Cut the carrot and celery into rough dice, and stir them in, letting them soften a little. Don't let them colour. Tip in the lentils, pour in the chicken stock, then tuck in the bay leaves and sausages, cut into short lengths if you prefer, and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat so the liquid simmers gently, season, then leave it for 30 minutes, stirring from time to time. Check the seasoning (I like it peppery), and stir in a handful of chopped parsley.

Jerusalem artichoke soup

A week ago, I went to the Carp Christmas market on Friday night. It's a lovely spot in the daytime, but at night, it's a different experience altogether to walk around with snow falling softly overhead. There are few outdoor stands at this time of year, but those who brave the cold offer up a feast for the senses: piles of evergreen wreaths decorated with bows and bells, sturdy pine Christmas trees begging for ornaments, sizzling elk sausages plumping on the grill, crispy bacon piled high on squishy buns, spicy chili bubbling away in pots, and cups of sweet, cinnamony apple cider looking to warm both hands and bellies.

There were lots of Christmas crafts for sale, along with jars of jams and preserves, and some very good looking pies and other baked goods. There are also are a few farmers who come out to get rid of the last of their apples, turnips or root veggies. I came across one farmer selling Jerusalem artichokes and I decided to buy some.

If you've never had the pleasure of eating Jerusalem artichokes (sometimes called sunchokes) before, you should seek them out. They're almost a cross between water chesnuts and potatoes, and they have a slight nutty flavour. They're nice to roast, in the same manner you would with potatoes, and they're great in soups too. That's what I decided to do with mine.

Here they are. You can see they look like fingerling potatoes, or giner root. They're a real pain to peel, so I just cleaned them and chopped them up.

Here they are in the pot, browning with a potato.

And here's the final result, all blended and topped with some toasted walnuts. Yum!

Jerusalem artichoke soup

1 lb. (approx.) Jerusalem artichokes, chopped into 1/4 inch pieces

1 large yellow-fleshed potato, peeled and chopped

4 large shallots, chopped (or use an onion and garlic, neither of which I happened to have)

4 c. or so of chicken stock

salt and pepper to taste

1 tbsp. olive oil (approx.)

splash of cream (optional)

1. Start by adding the oil to a large soup pot. Once it shimmers, add the shallot, artichokes and potato and cook for about five minutes until the shallots have softened and become transluscent.

2. Add enough stock to cover the veggies. Cover and simmer until everything is soft -- about 20 minutes or so.

3. Remove soup from pot and place in blender to purify, or use an immersion blender to do the same. I found some of the skins remained and didn't get blended, but I didn't mind that. They tend to lend a grayish colour to the finished soup, but don't affect the taste at all.

4. Add some cream if you like, or leave as is. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Top with nuts of your choosing.

Spiced bundt cake

'Tis the season for gingerbread! There's something about falling snow and cold nights that call for spicy sweets on the table. If rolling and pressing out cookies is too much work for you, why not try this fragrant cake instead?

This cake is heavy and dense, and very reminiscent of gingerbread, with a slight smokiness and heat from the Chinese five spice powder and the crystallized ginger. This thing has serious bite. I mean, how often do you bake a cake that calls for a hefty dose of black pepper?

So, let's get started, shall we?

First I tackled the ginger. I buy it at the Mid East Food Shop, where you can get all sorts of dried fruits and veggies -- quite inexpensively too. The recipe calls for the ginger and sugar to be blitzed in the food processor, but I opted just to chop instead. I love these wee bites that manage to be both hot and sweet at the same time.

And a note about the sugar: the recipe specifies white, but because there was molasses going in the mix, I opted for half and half of white and brown sugar. I think it worked out well.

Once the wet and dry ingredients had been blended together, I dumped everything in my new silicone bundt pan, which I had buttered and floured, just in case. It came out a breeze.


Ta da! Finished cake, sans pan and lightly dusted with icing sugar. But don't ask me why the picture is vertical instead of horizontal.

And this picture of a slice doesn't quite do it justice, but you can just make out a tiny piece of ginger tucked inside. This cake keeps quite well and I think gets better with age.

Spiced Bundt Cake (recipe Rachael Ray Magazine Nov 2009)

3 cups flour
1 tablespoon Chinese Five Spice powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 cup granulated sugar (or half and half with brown sugar)
1/2 cup packed crystallized ginger
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter at room temp
2 large eggs, at room temp
1 cup dark molasses diluted with 1 cup hot water
icing sugar, for dusting

1. Position rack in the lower third of the over and preheat to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 10 cup bundt pan. In a bowl, whisk flour, five spice powder, baking soda, salt and pepper.

2. Using a food processor, mix the granulated sugar and ginger until the ginger is coarsely ground (or chop it up like I did)

3. Using an electric mixer, beat the butter, sugar-ginger mixture and vanilla at high speed until fluffy, about 5 mins. With the mixer at medium speed, add 1 egg at a time, beating after each addition. Mixing at low speed, add the flour mixture alternately with the molasses in 3 batches until combined. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and bake until the cake begins to pull away from the side of the pan and is springy to the touch, about 1 hour. Transfer to a rack and cool for 20 mins. Invert cake onto a rack and cool completely. Dust with the icing sugar.

Enjoy with a cup of coffee!

Comfort food Sunday

This has been a long, tiring week. I had to work very late on Tuesday night, then spent all day Saturday in my wine class and then had to go back into work for most of today. It was pretty tedious too, making small talk with strangers for hours on end. Ugh. But what helped get me through it was the thought of coming home to something yummy.

I decided that after such an arduous week that a little meatloaf was in order. I don't really follow a recipe for this, but this is how it started today. A pound of lean ground beef, a chopped shallot, a handful of oatmeal, an egg, seven or eight chopped (in the food processor) mushrooms, a couple dashes of worchestershire sauce and some salt and pepper.

I mixed all that together, and added my secret ingredient.

Yep,that's right. Blue cheese. Stinky, smelly blue cheese -- or to be specific, gorgonzola. I crumbled up the whole lot and added it in, then formed the mess into two loaves. No real reason for the pair, other than they're easier to handle.

Here's what they look like after an hour or so in the oven. I'll they probably won't win any beauty contests, but they're tasty little things. And let me just say the combination of blue cheese and meat sounds odd, but trust me when I say you will want to climb into the oven as this bakes, because it smells so unbelievably good!

Here it is served up on my plate with some mashed potatoes (sweet and yellow) and beans. Again, it tastes better than the grey blobs indicate.

Oh yeah, I was pretty industrious this afternoon. While my meatloaf was baking away, I cooked this stock using a chicken I cooked last weekend. Here it is ready to go on the heat. Imagine all the soups I'll get from this pot!

Make yourself a meatloaf this week. You'll be happy you did!

Chickpea soup with Israeli couscous

I think I've reference my recent obsession with dried chickpeas here before. Well, now I'm keen to try them out in just about any kind of recipe, so when I stumbled across this one, I knew I wanted to give it a try.

I managed to track down Israeli couscous at a local Middle Eastern market, where the package was actually labelled "Jerusalem" couscous. The grains, if you can call them that, are about the size of peas, so they cook up like little doughy balls in the soup. If I were to make the recipe again, I'd skip the method suggested, and just boil them up in the broth until tender, before adding to the soup.

I also found I needed to add more liquid to the soup than called for, and I found the overall flavour a little bland. I think I will bump up the garlic and spice quotient next time. And I didn't have any fresh oregano to add (or dried for that matter), but I don't think that was the missing link.

Flavour aside, this recipe makes a ton of soup, so I have lots of leftovers in my freezer. It's an incredibly hearty meal on its own, what with the chickpeas, veggies and pasta-y couscous floating around. That being said, a bowl is made infinitely better with a generous mound of parmesan, which will slowly melt into the welcoming goodness, and will add a nice salty kick at the same time.


Chickpea soup with Israeli couscous

2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup chopped zucchini
2 cloves minced garlic
2 cans chickpeas, well rinsed and drained, or about three cups of chickpeas, cooked from dry
1 14 oz. can Italian tomatoes, chopped
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon chili powder (depending on how spicy you like your soup)
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano
6 cups vegetable broth
1/4 cup chopped flat leaf parsley
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon cumin
sea salt to taste

Couscous:

3 1/2 cups vegetable broth
2 cups Israeli couscous
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint

1. In a large soup pot over medium-high heat, heat olive oil. Add onions, carrots, and dry spices and saute until onions are a bit caramelized, about 10 minutes. Add zucchini, tomatoes (with juice), lemon juice, garlic and fresh herbs and continue to cook for about five minutes longer. Cut the tomatoes in half with a wooden spoon while the soup continues to cook.

2. Add vegetable broth and chickpeas, bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

3. While the soup is cooking, make couscous. In a medium sauce pan with a lid, melt 1 tablespoon butter over medium heat, add couscous and lightly brown (about 5 minutes). Add 3 1/2 cups vegetable broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer, cover and cook for approximately 20 minutes or until most of the stock has been absorbed. Fluff cous cous up with a fork and add chopped mint right before serving. Serve soup with a scoop of cous cous, garnish with additional herbs if desired.