Date and ginger loaf

The thing I like about loaves is that they're basically cakes, but somehow so much easier.

I made this loaf especially for my dad, who happens to love dates. And I happen to love ginger, so I thought it was a good combination.

This is the kind of damp, cake-like loaf that keeps very well and holds its flavour. It's very good with a cup of tea or coffee. I made this loaf on a very cold, very wet early spring weekend and it was the perfect late afternoon snack, just before a nap.

Start by soaking the dates in hot water and an Earl Grey tea bag. Not the most visually appealling step of the process, I admit!

Then you add the steeped mixture into the other ingredients and stir it all up.

All ready for the oven!

And here's the finished product, complete with drizzled icing and more ginger. Yum! (Someday I'll figure out how to rotate the pictures on here!)

All ready for a tea break! Note the pieces of ginger studded throughout.

Date and ginger loaf (from the LCBO Food and Drink magazine)

1 c. coarsely chopped pitted dates
1 c. boiling water
1 tsp. baking soda
1 Earl Grey tea bag
2 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
¾ c. packed brown sugar
½ c. unsalted butter, softened
1 egg
½ c. finely chopped crystallized ginger
½ c. plain yogurt

Glaze
½ c. icing sugar
2 to 3 tbsp. water
3 tbsp. finely chopped crystallized ginger

1. In a medium bowl, combine dates, boiling water, baking soda and tea bag. Let cool to room temperature. Discard tea bag.

2. Preheat oven to 350ºF.

3. Grease and flour a 9x5” loaf pan.

4. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, ginger, baking powder and salt.

5. In a large bowl, cream together sugar and butter until pale and fluffy. Beat in egg. Stir in date mixture, crystallized ginger and yogurt until well combined. (Batter may look curdled.)

6. Add flour mixture to creamed mixture. Stir just until combined and dry ingredients are moistened. Scrape batter into prepared pan, smoothing top level. Bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted into the centre of loaf comes out clean. Let cool in pan on wire rack for 5 minutes. Remove loaf from the pan and let cool completely on wire rack.

7. For glaze, in small bowl, stir together icing sugar and 2 tbsp. water until smooth, adding a little more water if necessary to make the glaze thin enough to drizzle. Drizzle glaze over loaf and sprinkle evenly with crystallized ginger. Let glaze set before slicing loaf.

Baked feta with beetroot and chickpeas

I'm always on the lookout for good, healthful recipes that are easy and will provide leftovers for lunch. As I work in an office with one grungy microwave servicing many, many people, if that lunch doesn't have to be warmed up, all the better.

I'm also a big fan of food writer Nigel Slater, and so, when I stumbled across his recipe for a salad of feta and beets, I was intrigued enough to give it a try.

The recipe seemed to combine things I likeed, and I already had the chickpeas and blood oranges on hand, so all I needed to get was the feta and beets. I took more than few liberties with the intial instructions, but I think my version turned out just fine.

I used far fewer chick peas than called for in the recipe, and less cheese as well (400 g is a heck of a lot of cheese -- especially for two servings!). And I skipped the mint and opted just for parsley instead.

I must say that the salad is best when the feta is warm and wobbly. Let me just say that a baked slab of feta, draped in thyme and olive oil will be a revelation for you. It certainly was for me.

The salad kept very well for lunch the next two days (this made a lot), though the beet juice stained all the chick peas a lovely scarlet red and tinged the cheese pink as well. If you don't mind a purple meal, this could be the ticket for you.

BAKED FETA WITH BEETROOT AND CHICKPEAS
Serves 2

For the chickpeas:
2 medium beetroot *I used three
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
3 small shallots *I used red oninon
1 tbsp Dijon mustard *I used grainy mustard
a pinch of sugar
5 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp chopped parsley
1 tbsp chopped mint
1 x 400g can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed *I used peas cooked from dry, probably about a cup or so total
2 blood oranges


For the baked feta:
400g feta *be warned..this is a lot
a few sprigs of thyme
a little olive oil

Trim the beetroot but do not peel them. Boil them in deep water (or bake wrapped in foil) for about 40 minutes, till tender. Peel, cut into thick wedges and leave to cool.

Meanwhile, set the oven at 200C/gas mark 6. Place the feta in a small baking dish, add the thyme leaves and trickle over a little olive oil. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the cheese is soft and wobbly.

For the dressing, put the vinegar in a small bowl, stir in a ½ tsp of salt, then peel and very finely chop the shallots. Add the shallots to the dressing with the mustard and sugar, then beat in the olive oil. Stir in the chopped parsley, mint and chickpeas. Season with black pepper.

Peel the blood oranges and slice them thinly. Divide the dressed chickpeas between two shallow bowls. Add the oranges and beetroot. Divide the warm feta between the dishes. Pour over any juice from the baking dish (there may be very little) or trickle with a little fruity olive oil.

P.S. I recently read Nigel Slater's Eating for England, which is a collection of playful stories and recollections about the British and how they eat. It's a charming account of culinary icons, not all of which will be familiar to Canadians, but the affection with which Slater writes crosses borders.

Butterscotch Pudding

I think of myself more as a chocolate gal, but sometimes butterscotch just hits the spot. I had a bowl of this luscious stuff recently at a restaurant and when I mentioned to the server how good it was, he offered up the recipe! Score!

Now I'll be able to make it at home whenever I want. It really is so much better than anything you would get from a mix. Perfectly smooth, fantastically creamy, rich and not terribly sweet either.

The best part is that you probably have all the ingredients on hand. Well, maybe that's not such a good thing.....

Anyway, start by making the caramel.

Melting the butter and dark brown sugar. Such a delicious beginning!

Then you add in the cream, milk and egg/cornstarch mixture and stir, stir, stir until the mixture thickens and the real butterscotch colour is revealed.

And the finished product! Okay, so it might not win awards for presentation or looks (I admit it closely resembles baby poo), but you could easily tart it up with some chocolate shavings, some berries or bananas, or even a splasy of whiskey or rum as it cooks.

I like it best served cold, but you could easily serve warm -- after you've removed the pudding skin. The very best part of course!

Butterscotch Pudding
4-6 servings

Adapted from Ripe For Dessert by David Lebovitz

4 tablespoons (60g) butter, salted or unsalted
1 cup (200g) packed dark brown or cassonade sugar
3/4 teaspoon coarse sea salt
3 tablespoons cornstarch
2½ (625ml) cups whole milk
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract


1. Melt the butter in a medium-sized saucepan. Add the dark brown sugar and salt, then stir until the sugar is well-moistened. Remove from heat.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the cornstarch with about 1/4 cup (60ml) of the milk until smooth (there should be no visible pills of cornstarch), then whisk in the eggs.

3. Gradually pour the remaining milk into the melted brown sugar, whisking constantly, then whisk in the cornstarch mixture as well.

4. Return the pan to the heat and bring the mixture to a boil, whisking frequently. Once it begins to bubble, reduce the heat to a low simmer and continue to cook for one minute, whisking non-stop, until the pudding thickens to the consistency of hot fudge sauce.

5. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla. If slightly-curdled looking, blend as indicated above.

6. Pour into 4-6 serving glasses or custard cups and chill thoroughly, at least four hours, before serving.

Pan co'Santi - Walnut Bread

Let me start off by saying that had I not pulled this lovely loaf from my very own oven, I’m not quite sure I would have believed I actually made it. In fact, I’m still not certain the whole experience wasn’t a fluke. The bread is that good, people.

Before I share the recipe, let me tell you a bit about it. If any of you are like me, and scour the internet for food-related articles, you’ll have no doubt heard about the revolutionary bread-making technique that was discovered several years ago and caused a bit of a sensation on the old Internet. Jim Lahey’s infamous no-knead bread garnered a lot of e-press from foodies, and after reading about it for months, I was curious to try it myself. I admit to being a bit sceptical about the process, not to mention wary of the removal of what can be the most therapeutic and satisfying part of the whole bread-making process.

Now I do not consider myself a bread-baking expert by any means. Over the years I have made a few loaves, but it’s not something I do regularly. One of the reasons is that I always feel I can buy a better loaf from a good bakery than I could ever produce at home. The loaves I have made have been tasty, and fill the house with an amazing smell as they bake, but the crust produced in a standard oven is always too soft for my liking. And my loaves often rose too high, then fell, resulting in a sad looking flat, defeated top.

So I was expecting similar lacklustre results with this bread. But boy was I wrong! This bread is unlike anything I’ve ever, ever made at home before. This bread is substantial and glorious, with a toothsome crust that crackles under your knife and gives way to your teeth. It looks rustically handmade, but impressively interesting at the same time. You know those loaves of artisanal bread you stumble over in French bakeries or farmers’ markets, for which you happily fork over $5, then rush home to cut off a slice to smear it with softly ripened cheese or chevre, or just plain old unsalted butter, sprinkled with a bit of sea salt? This is that loaf!! And you can make it yourself. It takes time, but the entire recipe is as easy as stirring together the dry ingredients, adding water and yeast and letting chemistry do its thing.

The next day, you have to do a bit of loaf forming, and another rise, but really, minimal effort is required. The secret, I think, is baking in a pre-heated cast iron pot in a ridiculously high oven. It produces a blast of heat that must crisp the crust almost immediately. The only negative thing I can say about the technique is that I couldn’t really smell the loaf as it baked, likely because the pot was literally smoking hot and it’s that I could smell rather than the bread itself (which could be a function of my retro oven). But that minor quibble is really just that, and what you’re left with is a fragrant loaf, studded with plump fruit, nuts and spices. It’s tasty as is, and even more delightful toasted up for breakfast the next morning. I opted for the cinnamon raisin variety for my first attempt, but now I’m eager to try just a plain white loaf, and whole wheat, into which I’d love to throw a bit of honey and some dried figs I picked up on the weekend.

Here's how it starts...

Combining dry ingredients. I used some pretty dried out rasisins I had lying around, and they plmuped up nicely during the long rise.

Wet ingredients added, resulting in a wet, sticky, blob.

And 18 hours later, you get this! It's like a science project on your kitchen counter. It rises again, this time in loaf form, then gets popped in the oven until you get.........

This! Amazing, right?

Even better sliced. Look at those beautiful slices.

So here's the timeline I used.

6 p.m. Assemble ingredients and leave dough to rise.

10 a.m. the next day. Prepare bread for second rise.

11:30 a.m. Put cast iron pot in oven to pre-heat.

Noon or so. Bake loaf

1 p.m. You'll have a fresh loaf of bread begging you to eat it!

Here’s how to create your own bread magic.

Pan co'Santi - Walnut Bread

recipe- The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method by Jim Lahey
Yield: One 10-inch round loaf; 1 1/2 pounds

Equipment: A 4 1/2- to 5 1/2-quart heavy pot
· 3 cups bread flour (I used all purpose and it seemed to work fine)
· 1/2 cup raisins
· 1 1/4 teaspoon table salt
· 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
· 1/2 cup walnuts
· 1 1/2 cups water
· 1/2 teaspoon instant or active dry yeast
· pinch fresh ground pepper
· wheat bran, cornmeal or additional flour for dusting (I used cornmeal)

1. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, raisins, walnuts, salt, cinnamon, yeast, and pepper, mixing thoroughly. Add the water and, using a wooden spoon or your hand, mix until you have a wet, sticky dough, about 30 seconds. If it’s not really sticky to the touch, mix in another tablespoon or two of water. Cover the bowl and let sit at room temperature until the surface is dotted with bubbles and the dough is more than doubled in size, 12 to 18 hours.

2. When the first rise is complete, generously dust a work surface with flour. Use a bowl scraper or rubber spatula to scrape the dough out of the bowl in one piece. Using lightly floured hands or a bowl scraper or spatula, lift the edges of the dough in toward the center. Nudge and tuck in the edges of the dough to make it round.

3. Place a tea towel on your work surface and generously dust it with wheat bran, cornmeal, or flour. Gently place the dough on the towel, seam side down. If the dough is tacky, dust the top lightly with wheat bran, cornmeal, or flour. Fold the ends of the tea towel loosely over the dough to cover it and place it in a warm, draft-free spot to rise for 1 to 2 hours. The dough is ready when it is almost doubled. If you gently poke it with your finger, it should hold the impression. If it springs back, let it rise for another 15 minutes.

4. Half an hour before the end of the second rise, preheat the oven to 475 degrees F, with a rack in the lower third, and place the covered 4 1/2 - to 5 1/2 -quart heavy pot in the center of the rack.

5. Using pot holders, carefully remove the preheated pot from the oven and uncover it. Unfold the tea towel and quickly but gently invert the dough into the pot, seam side up. Cover the pot and bake for 30 minutes.

6. Remove the lid and continue baking until bread is a deep chestnut color but not burnt, 15 to 30 minutes more (It took me about 15). Use a heatproof spatula or pot holders to gently lift the bread out of the pot and place it on a rack to cool thoroughly.

Is your county agreeable?

Ever thought about it? Maybe you should. Cover story from Carelton's spring edition of Research Works.

And check this out too!

Brown rice and cranberrry pilaf

Out of potatoes, or simply bored of the starchy tubers? This is a great side dish, and you'll likely have all the ingredients at hand. I only buy brown rice these days -- it's more filling and satisfying than the ordinary white stuff. It takes a bit longer to cook, but definitely worth the effort.

Brown rice and cranberry pilaf
from Whole Grains, Every Way, Every Day by Lorna Sass

Nuts:

1 Tbsp butter or olive oil
1/2 cup of walnuts (I used pecans and an extra handful of almonds)
1/8 tsp cinnamon and a dash of allspice and nutmeg
1/4 to 1/2 tsp salt, or to taste

Rice:

3 cups of cooked brown rice (1 cup of rice to 2 cups of water – cook on low heat for 40 minutes).
3 Tbsp Marsala wine
3 Tbsp dried cranberries
Method:

Cook the brown rice. You can do this ahead of time since it takes about 40 minutes for it to cook.

Prepare the nuts in a frying pan with the oil and spices –- they should toast up in a couple of minutes. Keep your eye on them.

Toss cranberries and wine into the rice – allow it to cook for a few minutes until the wine is absorbed. Stir in the nut mixture. Serve!

Hot Cross Buns

Happy Easter! This has been one of the warmest weekends on record, with temperatures pushing 30 degrees here in the nation's capital. Today was a bit cooler, and tomorrow's calling for rain, but still, we're pretty lucky -- especially those of us fortunate enough to get a four-day weekend.

As much as I'm enjoying the nice weather, I think the plants outside are liking it more. I can practically see the leaves growing on my trees, and there are new snowdrops appearing almost by the minute.

So, what, you might ask, was I doing inside baking on such a gorgeous day?

Well, let me remind you that it was a bit cooler today, and I was up early, the buns don't take much time to make -- and hey, what's Easter without Hot Cross Buns anyway?

Now, I haven't always been a fan of these springtime buns. I think the dislike stems back to childhood, when I can remember being in Toronto and getting some buns from a bakery, biting into one, and finding a toothpick baked inside, which then got lodged into the roof of my mouth. Ouch, right? Between that scarring experience and years of medicore store-bought buns, it took a while to rekindle an affection for Hot Cross Bun.

But then I stumbled across the yummy and easy recipe from Donna Hay. Her version creates fragrant, soft buns that aren't too sweet and are sastifying to put together.

Here's how they start....

Mixing up the flour and spices. The recipe calls for mixed spice, so I threw in some nutmeg (1tsp), ground ginger, allspice, ground cardamon and a dask of ground cloves. This recipe really is a good excuse to delve into your spice rack and get creative.

Next comes the dried fruit. The recipe calls for sultanas and candied peel, the latter of which I didn't have. I used raisins, currants and some chopped dried apricot.

Here's the dough after kneading, all oiled up and ready for a rest.


And here it is about an hour later. I let it rise inside the microwave, into which I placed a mug of water, heated on high for one minute. With the door closed, it's a veritable steam bath for the mound of dough!

And here are the finished beauties, fresh out of the oven and drenched in glaze. I was a bit heavy handed with the old crosses, but I figure that makes me extra religious, right?

And here's the one I took from the batch. Can you see the juicy rasins and delicately spiced texture? How about the butter ever so slightly melting into the warmth? Apologies for the blurry photo, but I was in too much of a hurry to devour this.

Hot Cross Buns
From Modern Classics 2 by Donna Hay

2 tablespoons dried yeast*
¼ cup (55g) caster (superfine) sugar
1½ cups (375ml) warm milk
4¼ cups (635g) plain (all-purpose) flour
2 teaspoons mixed spice
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
50g butter, melted
1 egg
¼ cup (55g) caster (superfine) sugar, extra
1½ cups (240g) sultanas
⅓ cup (55g) candied mixed peel, optional

Crosses
½ cup (75g) plain (all-purpose) flour
⅓ cup (80ml) water

Glaze
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon powdered gelatine
¼ cup (60ml) water
*this isn't the same recipe as in the book, but as the book makes too much glaze, I'd suggest using this one instead. I didn't have any powdered gelatine, so I used a leaf,

Combine the yeast, sugar and milk in a bowl. Set aside for 5-10 minutes or until bubbles form on the surface.

Combine the flour, mixed spice, cinnamon, butter, egg, extra sugar, sultanas, mixed peel and yeast mixture in a large bowl. Mix with a butter knife until a sticky dough forms. Knead on a lightly floured surface for 5–10 minutes or until it feels smooth and elastic when pressed. Place in an oiled bowl, cover with a tea towel and stand in a warm place for 30–40 minutes or until doubled in size.

Lightly knead the dough again, divide into 12 pieces and roll into balls. Place in a 23cm-square cake tin lined with non-stick baking paper. Cover with a clean tea towel and set aside in a warm place for 25–30 minutes or until doubled in size.

Preheat oven to 375ºF. To make the crosses, combine the flour and water to make a smooth paste. Place in a piping bag** and pipe crosses onto the buns. Bake for 30–35 minutes or until well browned and springy to touch.

To make the glaze, combine the sugar, gelatine and water in a saucepan over medium heat and stir for 2 minutes or until dissolved. Brush warm buns with the glaze and serve with butter. Makes 12.

* You will need this amount of yeast because of the amount of sugar in the recipe.
** To make a piping bag, fill a ziplock bag with the cross mixture and snip off one corner.

Toasted couscous and pumpkin salad

Okay, so I readily admit that pumpkin isn't the springiest of vegetables, but we're still early in the season and there's not too much green stuff on the shelves just yet.

But when I stumbled across this recipe in The Star, I realized I had all the ingredients on hand, save for the pumpkin, so it seemed like a good idea to tackle.

And good idea it was! This is a tasty, colourful salad that holds up well after a few days and can easily be packed into lunches.

It starts by toasting some Israeli couscous in a bit of fragrant olive oil. This was my second time toasting these little balls of pasta, and I kept a much better eye on them this time around. They can get too brown too quickly if you don't watch them.

After they couscous is browned, you cook it in some apple juice. I never buy the stuff, so now I'll have to find other uses for the leftovers. Anyway, make sure you test a spoonfull or two for doneness, of the batch might be too al dente for your liking. I tested just one grain and it was well cooked, but overall, I had many that were not done. Lesson learned!

Into the cooked couscous goes the pumpkin -- in this case I substituted butternut squash -- and the fennel.


And here's the finished product. So colourful, right? Next time you have to take a salad somewhere, bring this little beauty. Everyone will love it!

Toasted Couscous & Pumpkin Salad

Found in The Toronto Star, and originally found in Pumpkin: A Super Food for 12 Months of the Year, by Dee Dee Stovel

1-1/4 lb (600 g) chunk unpeeled pumpkin, seeds and fibres removed, flesh cut in 1-inch-wide pieces

1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

1/2 lb (225 g) Israeli couscous (about 1-1/3 cups)

1-1/2 cups apple juice

1/2 tsp sea salt + more to taste

1/3 cup finely chopped fennel

1/2 cup finely chopped parsley

1/3 cup dried cranberries, chopped

1/4 cup minced red onion

2 tbsp each: grapeseed oil, red wine vinegar

Freshly ground pepper to taste

Microwave pumpkin pieces on high 3 to 5 minutes, or until almost tender. Cool briefly. Peel. Cut flesh in 1/8- to 1/4-inch cubes. Measure 2 cups. (Keep remainder in fridge or freezer for other uses.)

Heat olive oil in deep skillet on medium. Add couscous. Cook, stirring, 2 to 3 minutes, until slightly browned. Stir in juice and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Bring to boil, then reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer 15 minutes, until liquid is absorbed and couscous is just tender, stirring occasionally.
Add pumpkin and fennel. Cover and cook 2 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Transfer to serving bowl. Cool 5 minutes. Add parsley, cranberries and onion. Drizzle on grapeseed oil and vinegar. Add pepper. Stir to blend. Taste and adjust salt.

Cool to room temperature before serving.

Makes 6 servings.