A Lovely Fall Cassoulet!

I went to a beautiful casserole party the other night for a sweet friend's birthday. Everyone brought warm dishes of casserole delights, delicious ingredients nestled in earthenware or glass pans. It was the perfect party to get Fall rolling along. I had a few ideas but ran out of time for my initial idea (a cold layered sushi casserole!), so I went with a lovely vegetarian dish: a white bean and leek cassoulet with oven dried cherry tomatoes, topped with olive oil-rich crunchy roasted garlic croutons. To serve, place white bean mixture into your prettiest dish, and top generously with croutons. Don't put the croutons on too early as you don't want them to get soggy. Top with a sprig of beautiful rosemary if you are feeling jaunty! This can easily be a delicious, elegant and filling vegan dish as well - simply omit the butter when making the mire poix (carrots and leeks).


WHITE BEAN & LEEK CASSOULET with OVEN DRIED TOMATOES

Ingredients:

3 cans of white cannelini beans
3 large carrots, diced into cubes
2 leeks, white and light green parts only, sliced thinly in rounds
A pint of cherry or grape tomatoes
Fresh parsley
Extra virgin olive oil
Vegetable broth (I used Whole Foods organic brand, in the Tetra-pak)
A few tablespoons of unsalted butter
Sea salt and fresh ground pepper
A bulb of garlic
A crusty baguette

1. Oven-dry 2 cups of halved cherry or grape tomatoes on parchment paper on a baking sheet at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Set aside.

2. Next, in oven, roast 1 bulb of garlic with extra virgin olive oil in tin foil, for 25-30 minutes at 375 degrees (or until garlic is soft). Remove from oven, remove garlic from skin and chop finely, setting it aside.

3. While you're roasting stuff in the oven: Combine the sliced leeks, cubed carrots, 1 tablespoon of butter and a few glugs of extra virgin olive oil in a cast iron pot. Cook leeks and carrots on medium heat, stirring occasionally, until tender and caramelized, about 15 minutes. Add 1/4 cup- 1/2 cup vegetable broth to deglaze pan.

4. Add your three cans of white cannelini beans. Simmer on low for 20 minutes, allowing beans to heat. Add half of the roasted garlic to the mixture. Use potato masher to partially mash beans into broth and mixture. Season with sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste.

5. Tear apart a crusty French baguette into crouton-sized pieces. Toss with 2 tablespoons or a few glugs of extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, the rest of the roasted garlic and some chopped fresh parsley. Bake in oven until crispy, 15-20 minutes on 325 degrees.

6. To assemble: fold in oven dried tomatoes (reserving a few for decoration), to bean and leek mixture. Top with garlic and parsley croutons. Place a few dried tomatoes amongst the croutons, and sprinkle with some more fresh, finely chopped parsley. Decorate with two sprigs of fresh rosemary, and serve!

Sir Chomp-a-lot: Pizza Crazy!

So this post will eventually be about pizza. Scroll on down if you want to just get straight to the dough recipe. Real easy. Casual times pizza night. You'll feel like a little genius in the kitchen.

What is your favourite food? Burgers? Cake? A fancy French dish? Pad Thai? a crunchy, sour pickle?

I feel like I have so many favourites. I like to break it down categorically: savoury and sweet.

Sweet: definitely ice cream. I love ice cream. I love ice cream cakes, BIG TIME. I love ice cream sundaes, I love vanilla soft serve billowing out of a machine onto a pale, almost-tasteless cone. I even love that almost-tasteless cone, and how soft serve fills its every last hollow crevice. Chomp chomp. I'm an ice cream maniac.

But I also love a beautiful slice of pie, with a buttery perfect crust, fruit and sugar caramelized inside, topped with... sure, a scoop of vanilla ice cream!

Frozen yogurt? Bring it on. It was my dream when I was twelve years old to work at a frozen yogurt shop. I even had an interview, but because my parents only allowed me to work one day a week, the job went to another twelve year old eager beaver. Sad. Frozen yogurt pre-formed into icy blocks get unwrapped and placed into a machine, frozen fruit is thrown in... it mixes with the pull of a handle and out blobs swirls of perfection.

A perfect, rich with cocoa-powder and fudgey brownie? Yes please. But don't make it too cakey or I'll be realllly sad.

Annnnnd what about a chocolate chip cookie fresh from the oven, crisp on the bottom with melty chocolate chips?

Yes, yes and yes again. I am nuts about treats. (I also like nuts - toasted almonds, walnuts in my salad, caramelized pecans, peanut butter out of the jar...)

I'm also nuts about savoury items.

Crunchy salty, thick ridged chips, or the kettle-cooked variety? Friggin' popcorn with sea salt, fresh ground pepper, melted butter and nutritional yeast (ok, and Sciracha hot sauce).


But perhaps one food that I can really go for again and again: PIZZA. Love it. Love the tang of the tomato sauce, the crispness/chewiness/burntness of a perfect crust. Cheese bubbling from a hot wood fired oven. Maybe some fresh arugula and basil thrown on top. I made a pretty good pizza the other day which I will share with you... the reason for this post... a nice and simple pizza that will shine even harder when crisp-baked on a pizza stone.


Super Simple As-You-Like-It Pizza

Place your pizza stone or pizza tile or pizza whatever in the oven. Blast the oven on to 500 degrees. Let stone heat up BIG TIME before you put your pizza on. Turn oven down to 425 when it's time to bake your pizza.

Easy tip: I roll out my pizza dough onto a sheet of parchment paper, which makes it super easy to transfer to the pizza stone - I just bake it on the paper too, on top of the stone. Still crisps up no problem.

DOUGH RECIPE:

1. In a bowl, combine 1.5 teaspoons of active yeast with 3/4 cups of warm water and 1 teaspoon of sugar. Leave to hang out and mingle for ten minutes.

2. In a large bowl, mix to combine 2 cups of pizza flour (00 flour - or all purpose flour is fine too) and 1 teaspoon of salt .

3. Pour yeast mixture into the flour mixture with a few glugs of extra virgin olive oil. Form into a dough and knead for a good few minutes. Form into a ball and set bowl aside (covered with a damp tea-towel) to rise for 1 hour in a warm spot.

4. After 1 hour, knead again and let sit for another hour (if you have the time). If you're super hungry and feeling too impatient to re-knead, I've totally just rolled out my dough and dressed my pizza at this point - and if you're not type-A-pizza then you can go ahead and bake it!

THINGS YOU CAN PUT ON A PIZZA, IN ANY COMBINATION:

San Marzano tomatoes, crushed up, with sea salt. You can find these canned at your grocery store, or a specialty Italian grocery.

Fresh balls of white mozzarella, sliced.

Basil leaves, torn and tossed right on.

Oven-dried cherry tomatoes. Set your oven to 325, slice cherry tomatoes in two and place on a parchment-paper covered baking sheet. Let dry for 1 hour in the oven (may as well do this while the pizza dough is rising!) These are so easy to make, and are total flavour blasts!

A sprinkle or some super-thin slices of salty parmigiano reggiano.

Arugula leaves, thrown right on top once the pizza comes out.

Toasted pine nuts! A total winner!

A typical pizza (duh) starts with tomatoes or tomato sauce (you can even use a can of store-bought pizza sauce), then throw on your toppings, and pop in the oven.

Bake your pizza at 425 degrees (turned down from the inital 500 degrees) for 7-10 minutes, watching closely to ensure it doesn't burn.


My pizza I made: tomato sauce, oven dried tomatoes, toasted pine nuts, sliced spicy veggie Tofurkey sausage, fresh basil leaves, blobs of goat cheese and a light sprinkle of parmigiano reggiano, fresh arugula added post-bake.

Chompity chomp chomp. Dinner was good. Pizza is easy. Until next time...! xo

Summer Food

Garden offerings. Green and yellow beans with a crunch and a snap, both fibrous and fresh. Aromatic basil and skinny-thin chives brighten any meal!

Arugula and spinach salad with paper-thin cucumber, toasted pine nuts, local blueberries, garden chives and basil.

Grilled grape tomato skewers with sea salt, balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil! Sour, juicy, BBQ-smoky and sweet.

Backyard buddies... ahhh summer.

Dogs 'n Cakes

People love their dogs. People love dogs. Dogs love people? Dogs tend to hate cats. People make dogs into cakes. I am one of those people. And these people are those people... ! Enjoy!

"Spread 'em!" This pup has intense eyes. It's my party, please don't eat me! He kind of has a look of terror in his eyes. Yikes. Or maybe he's just having a very intense acupuncture session.

Masters Degree in Wienerology! Congrats, buddy!

"I like big butts and I cannot lie" - Sir Mix A Lot.
This pup's a real rump shaker, with salon-manicured black talons!

I made this one - purple pup!
Sometimes I think these look like severed heads on a plate.

I love this guy! Gak, he's just cute and smiley!

Chinese New Year!

As I get older I really worry about losing my Chinese-ness. I grew up both as Chinese and Canadian here in Vancouver, BC... my parents were also born here, as were 3/4 of my grandparents... but as the older generations get older and the newer generations get more lofan, I sometimes wonder if my own grandchildren will be at all Chinesey whatsoever. I need to hang on to the bit of culture that I still retain... and one of the ways I can do that is through the food and memories...

Lee Kum Kee oyster sauce, the only and the best.

Gin duey split two ways (ha)

Doing Chinesey stuff was always just a part of who I was when I was a kid. Red envelopes stamped with gold symbols with a crisp, flat folded bill tucked inside. Back in the 1980s, we would have to hold up our laycee to a light. One dollar? Two dollars? FIVE dollars? Ooooh our grandparents always spoiled us with fives, and then a little later those purple tinted ten dollar bills... what a thrill for a little kid. "Opening it is bad luck" we were told. We didn't know why... so we stashed them away and opened them later when no one was looking. Spent the money on Archie comics and sour coke bottle candies.

A little boy with his lucky money and monkey tee!

egg foo young, with bits of shredded charsiu pork, dripping in salty buttery-flavoured gravy

paddlin' away to thick brown molasses-y oyster flavoured sauce heaven

duck salad from Foo's Ho Ho, lovingly rearranged from takeout container to plate by ME!

For the Lunar New Year, we always ate wedges of Chinese grapefruit, and only my Gonge gonge could peel them properly. It was sort of his job, to cut into the pocked pomello and extract the thin-skin covered boats of not-quite-orange, not-quite grapefruit flavoured fruit. Flat large seeds were picked out and the grapefruit eaten, along with gin duey, a.k.a. greaseballs (sesame sweet rice flour balls with a dark red bean filling) and shrimp chips, crisp and thinly sliced and styrofoam-like in texture, "shrimp fishy" in flavour and pale coloured: light green, pink and white. My Poh poh would drop the shrinkie-dink like shriveled and dried shrimp chips in to hot oil and they would sizzle, puff up and expand, floating, scooped up and laid onto a paper towel to drain. The same delightful chips would be served with a platter of crispy skin chicken at a restaurant, tucked in around different pieces of chicken.

massive amounts of vegetarian chow mein for my tall white lo-fan husband!

8 treasures buddha's feast, made by my Auntie Lorraine. Fungi galore!

Dumplings and duck salad

Sang choy bao (lettuce wrap filling made by my mom)

A mini dumpling and my dad, Go-go (short for Gonge-gonge, grandfather on mother's side)

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CNY at my mom's this year was a hybrid of homemade dishes made by my mom and auntie, mixed with old favourites from spots around town: Foo's Ho Ho (duck salad), Kent's Kitchen (veggie chow mein), Newtown Bakery (gin duey a.k.a. sesame balls a.k.a. greaseballs). My mom made lettuce wrap (sang choy bao), her filling smokey from the oysters and crunchy from water chestnut. Spoon this mixture into a crisp piece of iceberg lettuce, blob a good dollop of dark sweet hoisin sauce on there and roll up your Chinese burrito!

I always wondered if the duck salad was a Chinese Canadian hybrid dish. You don't see it on any super Chinesey menus, but places where there's sweet and sour pork and lemon chicken (such as Foo's) tends to have it.


CNY ended this year with my mom's "almond float": pale green, sweet almond flavoured gelatin squares bobbing around with canned lychee and canned peach slices in a generations-old serving bowl, and a mountain of gin duey and fresh New Town apple tarts with its layered pastry, waxy-on-the-tongue finish and not-too-sweet apple filling.

Sweet Chinese New Year dreams...

Pizza Stoned

I would like to now talk about the delightful virtues of the pizza stone. I'm not even talking about the $40 version you have to buy at a gourmet kitchen store. I just mean a slab of stone, maybe it's an oversize floor tile sample, large enough to be placed in a conventional domestic oven, preheated at 500 degrees and waiting patiently to sear a crisp, perfect edge onto a rolled out piece of pizza dough.

So I had a pizza party the other night for my good pal Christa. Not only was it a pizza party but it was a secret mini living room show with her favourite musician in the world, Joel R L Phelps playing.

But since this is a post about pizza I'll save the music story for another blog.

Christa is as nuts about pizza as I am... always searching, always hoping for that great slice of perfect pizza found somewhere in one of Vancouver's gobs of dollar slice pizza shops, Italian job restaurants and modern cuisiney type places. My favourite pizza place in Vancouver is Lombardo's... we've been going there for years with my family. It never even occurred to me that it was in a weird half-empty, fairly ugly mini-mall until Rich pointed it out to me one time. Anyhow the legend goes that it was once run by a married couple, until the husband cheated and they got a divorce. The wife kept Lombardo's, the husband opened an exact copy of Lombardo's just a few blocks away but in a more jazzed-up setting, making it a snootier affair with not so great service. Garbage. Give me Lombardo's anyday over the new joint!

Lombardo's has a woodfire burning oven, the KEY to great pizza. Perfectly crisp, yet chewy too, sometimes charred on the bottom, misshapen but lovingly formed circles of dough, scattered with artichoke hearts, ham, olives or classically prepared with tomato sauce, sliced fresh mozzarella and torn basil leaves. A wooden paddle slides under the pizza and with one fell swoop blasts it straight into the hot fires of the oven's mouth, minutes away to pizza heaven.

Christa, in her pizza seeking obsession, sent me this link for the pizza party! Since we had recently had a popcorn ball-making mishap together (I sometimes like to pepper recipes with my own non-touches) there was a clear inclination that the recipe was to BE FOLLOWED!!!

Diligently I gathered the ingredients, choosing to go to the Italian foods megamart Bosa Foods (though I think I could've found everything much cheaper around where I live)... canned San Marzano whole tomatoes, extra virgin olive oil, fresh fragrant basil, balls of plump Mozzarella nestled in water, salty Italian prosciutto, a hunk of Asiago cheese and grated (I felt lazy) parmiggiano reggiano. And, of course "00" pizza flour and dry active yeast for the dough!

Balls of dough were pre-made and chilled overnight in the fridge. I was freaked because some balls seemed hard and dense and other balls were light and soft like a yeasty pale balloon. I feared I may have messed up this temperamental dough...??

Paranoid as I was, I made a "test" pizza a few hours before the party the following day on a regular old circular pizza pan, the kind with holes dotted throughout it. GARBAGE! The crust was like that of a cheap frozen pizza, thick, white, not crisp and not good. I was scared... but...roll it out and bake it on a piping hot pizza stone??

The pizza stone saves all!!!!

You get the the crispest crust, a nice char in bits, still a bit of chew... the perfect crust. The mozzarella bubbling into the crust, everything coming together to form a perfect new entity of melded together ingredients. Hot, crisp, salty, tangy, pizzaperfect party time. And a chocolate cake with mocha buttercream and homemade espresso ice cream for dessert.

All hail the pizza stone. I am a convert and a half, times infinity to the highest power.

"PEEEEEEEEZZZZZAAAAAAA!!!"

xo Lyndsay

Pizza Party

Can a swingin' rap-style commercial with a "Mario and Luigi" type pizza fat guy save how not-fun this game looks? Maybe!!!