Pork and Cider Stew

Stews may be the oldest dish on Earth. Every culture and local cuisine has one or more recipes for stews, which is essentially meat and vegetables, slowly cooked in their own juices. Cassoulet, tagine, goulash and chili con carne are all examples of stews. Old and versatile!

What's wonderful about stews is that once you master the basic principles, you can throw virtually anything in a Dutchoven (or slow-cooker, if you swing that way) and get a rich and delicious meal after a few hours of simmering. Tougher cuts of meat are preferred for stews, as the long simmering softens it better than other methods of cooking. A savy way for cooks to make sure no meat is wasted!

In the colder months of the year, knowing a few stew recipes comes in very handy, because a proper dosage of meat and vegetables will give you a complete and satisfying meal with relatively little effort. A stew is obviously more filling than a soup, so if you are going to serve it with a side dish, keep it nice and light.

This recipe has a British taste to it: pork, sage and cider are a traditional match. Add to that a few chunks of potatoes, carrots and onions and you have yourself the kind of food served by every self-respecting pub in England (or self-respecting Irish pubs in Montreal). You can either cook it in the oven or one stove top. I prefer the latter technique, if only to have the enticing smell fill the kitchen!

From "Jamie's Food Revolution", slightly altered.

2 large Russet potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
2 medium yellow onions, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
Olive oil
1 heaped tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 (14 ounce) can diced tomatoes
Sea salt and ground pepper
3 sprigs fresh sage
1 pound diced stewing pork
2 cups medium-dry hard cider (I used L'Éphémère cider, from Unibroue)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, if you plan on cooking the stew in the oven. Put a Dutchoven over medium-heat. Put all the veggies and herbs in with 2 lugs of olive oil and fry for 10 minutes. Add the meat and flour. Pour in the booze and canned tomatoes. Give a good stir, then season with a teaspoon of sea salt and a few grinds of pepper. Bring to a boil, put the lid on and either simmer slowly on your stove top or cook in the oven for 2 and a half hours. Stir occasionally. Remove the lid for the last hour of simmering, also stirring a couple of times. This will reduce the liquid and thicken it. Add a splash of water if it looks a bit dry. Remove herb stalks, taste and adjust seasoning as needed and serve.

I like to keep my veggies chunky, but even if you like them smaller, try to chop them in equally-sized pieces so that they cook evenly. The cider and sage give the pork a nice, rich and comforting taste. I love the texture of the meat cooked this way: it becomes very tender and breaks apart so easily you can almost say it melts in your mouth.

My boyfriend and I enjoyed this as our New Year's dinner, with a garden salad, crusty bread and a few slices of Bois Blond cheese. A dry red wine goes very well with this stew (we had Celeste, a delicious Spanish red).

Poule de Luxe Cupcakes

Just as my dislike of Christmas is well-known (refer to the blog entry about gingerbread cookies), my love for friends, good times and good food is equally famous. And since the Holidays are supposed to be about sharing, every year I organize a pot-luck for my friends. Everyone brings a little something and we have a great time geeking out.

Obviously, I make cupcakes for that pot-luck. Because I. Have. To. Make. Cupcakes. It's kind of an addictive thing to bake... This year, Sam (who is becoming my muse for the "out of the box" cupcakes) suggested I try to bake eggnog cupcakes. I vaguely remember taking a sip of eggnog from my grandfather's glass when I was little and going "yuck!". But now that I am older, I can appreciate a rich, creamy and boozy nightcap on a cold winter night. I faced a few skeptical eyebrows, but come on! Cream, rhum, nutmeg? Can you really go wrong with those guys?

I was stunned by the quantity of recipes I found researching these. I found this one on Sharyn Carlson's blog, Living Artfully, and it sounded so yummy, I didn't even modify it!

Cupcakes:

1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 cup dark rum
1 cup eggnog (regular, low-fat or soy)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°F and line a cupcake pan with liners. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and nutmeg. In a separate bowl, combine the rum, eggnog, vegetable oil, apple cider vinegar and vanilla extract together. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and beat just to combine. Fill the cupcake liners. Fill about 2/3 of the way if you want flat cupcakes and 3/4 of the way if you want rounded tops. Bake for about 18 minutes, until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely.

Frosting:

1/4 cup unsalted butter (or nonhydrogenated margarine), room temperature
2 to 2-1/2 cups confectioner's sugar
3 tablespoons eggnog
2 tablespoons rum
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

In a large bowl, using a stand or electric mixer, whip the butter for a minute or two, until light and fluffy. Slowly add the confectioners sugar, mixing as you add the sugar. Continue adding sugar until the mixture becomes stiff. Add the eggnog, rum and nutmeg, and whip until combined. Frost cupcakes as desired.

I doubled the quantities, because my friends can be just like a swarm of locusts when they get hungry. Better safe than sorry, especially with a few gluttons on the guest-list! The cake turned out moist and chewy. For those who haven't tried, rhum flavored desserts are delightful and extremely tasty.

I was also pleased to see how easily veganized the recipe is, so anyone can enjoy this little Holiday sweet!

I must confess that I got a bit too heavy-handed with the eggnog in the frosting, so it turned a little more runny than I wanted. If you want to have perfect, stiff frosting, keep a close eye on your quantities... but what's the fun of baking if you can't make a sugary, sticky mess? They still looked adorable sprinkled in freshly ground cinnamon.

The verdict was that those cupcakes were were good but very sweet. Since they are full of eggnog and rhum, this is no surprise. My personal opinion was that I preferred the cake to the icing, and that I am greatly looking forward to making rhum-cakes with vanilla icing!

Also, I realized that I love to bake with booze! The little tasty and decadent hints of the rhum you get in every bite was just (for lack of a better word) sexy. I can't wait to make other boozy cupcakes with more alcohols and liqueurs I like.

Shepherd's Pie

In Québec, every family has their recipe for shepherd's pie (commonly known here as pâté chinois - more on that in a minute), and they will each insist that their version is the real shepherd's pie. In that aspect, people here are very much like Italians, who all claim to make the original (and the best) minestrone or bolognese or pizza, or whatever. Every version is probably delicious, but family traditions are big deals in Italy, as they tend to be here in Québec.

It's no wonder that this dish became popular here after the massive waves of Irish immigrants settled in Canada after the potato famine, as it's very similar to Irish cottage pie. But it is called pâté chinois because during the railway construction in the late 19th century, English bosses taught their crew's cooks how to prepare it for the workers, who were predominantly Chinese. Those workers brought the recipe back to the cities and villages, and tada! It became known as Chinese pie.

Nothing says "homey winter food" like a steaming plate of shepherd's pie. It's one of those staples of Québec cuisine that makes winter a little easier to deal with. Hearty, filling and comforting; those recipes are priceless when the harsh January weather is around the corner (like today's -31).

This recipe is the bare-bones, uber-simple comfort food dish that my mom makes. We are a weird family, so we stray from tradition by putting the corn on top of the potatoes. Crazy, huh? It serves 4 to 6.

2 1/2 pounds Russet potatoes, peeled and coarsely chopped

1/2 cup milk

2 to 3 tablespoons butter

1 pound ground beef (or a mix of ground beef, pork and veal)

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 yellow onion, finely chopped

1 (24 ounce) can creamed corn

Olive oil

Sea salt and ground pepper

Bread crumbs (optional)

Place the potato chunks in a large pot and cover with water. Boil until the potatoes are easily pierced with a fork. Drain in a colander and put back in the pot along with the milk and butter. Mash until creamy and set aside. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Preheat the olive oil a frying pan over medium heat. Add garlic and onions and sauté until the onions are soft and golden. Add the ground meat, season with salt and pepper, and cook for 7 to 10 minutes, until crumbling. In a Pyrex or casserole dish, put the meat and onion mixture in a layer. Cover with the mashed potatoes. Spread well to cover the meat. Add the creamed corn as the top layer. Sprinkle with bread crumbs, if using. Place in the middle of the oven for 30 to 40 minutes, until the top layer is golden and bubbling. Serve with ketchup, if you must.

This is the way my mom taught me to make it, but it's easily spiced up. Here are some ways to shake it up:

• substitute one pound of the Russet potatoes for sweet potatoes
• add another clove of garlic and use ground lamb instead of beef (technically, it is shepherd's pie only if mutton meat is involved - the proper name for this dish with beef is "cottage pie", not that anyone cares...)
• add a small can of corn nibblets to the creamed corn
• sprinkle with grated aged cheddar or Gruyère before putting the dish in the oven

Shepherd's pie can easily be frozen and re-heated later. It's surprisingly delicious reheated in the frying pan. Now, I know some other shepherd's pie recipe make a very firm casserole that you can artfully cut out and get a perfectly layered piece in your plate. Mine isn't like that at all, as you can see.

But the messy look has it's advantages! I prefer to generously sprinkle my plate with freshly ground pepper and vigorously mix the whole thing so that I can have a bit of every ingredient on my fork in every bite. If you want a nice, more photogenic shepherd's pie, I am told that the key is to bake it at a lower temperature, for a longer period of time.

Coconut Snowball Cupcakes

Yes, I know that coconut is not a traditional Christmas flavor. No, I don't really care. I happen to love coconut, but I also decided to make these specific cupcakes for my family's Christmas lunch because here in Montreal, we barely got any snow so far this year. And with shredded coconut on the icing, these cupcakes look like little snowballs! It was the least I could do to give my family the illusion of a white Christmas (of course, it started snowing the minute I got around to baking these, thus defeating my original purpose... but what can you do when Mother Nature steals your thunder?).

No one can say I am not trying to get into the Christmas spirit!

I sneaked the original recipe from Cupcake Rehab, but I substituted the buttermilk for 1 cup of good old milk, to which I added a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar. Since I have very few recipes in my arsenal that call for buttermilk, I never buy it because I know I'll end up loosing a ton (and I hate wasting food). This simple little substitution works just as well (just let the mixture sit for 10 minutes before using it in your recipe), and works with non-dairy milks, too. Thanks for the tip, "Vegan with a Vengeance"!

Coconut cupcakes:
¾ pound (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
5 large eggs at room temperature
1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 ½ teaspoons pure almond extract
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
14 ounces sweetened, shredded coconut

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar on high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. With the mixer on low speed, add the eggs, 1 at a time, scraping down the bowl after each addition. Add the vanilla and almond extracts and mix well. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In 3 parts, alternately add the dry ingredients and the buttermilk to the batter, beginning and ending with the dry. Mix until just combined. Fold in 1 cup of shredded coconut. Line a muffin pan with paper liners. Fill each liner 2/3 of the way. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the tops are brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Remove to a baking rack and cool completely.

Coconut buttercream:
½ cup unsalted butter
½ cup shortening
4-5 cups confectioner’s sugar, sifted
3 teaspoons coconut extract
4 to 6 tablespoons milk

Cream the butter and shortening in a large mixing bowl. Add 4 cups of the sugar and then the milk, coconut extract and vanilla. On the medium speed of an electric mixer, beat until smooth and creamy, about 3-5 minutes. If too stiff, add some milk and if too liquid, add confectioners sugar until desired texture is reached.

You'll get 20 to 24 cupcakes with this recipe. Decorating them is quite easy: leave what's left of your shredded coconut in it's bag, add a few drops of food coloring and shake the bag up until the coconut becomes lightly colored and spread it in a large plate. Frost the cupcakes, then gently dunk and roll them in the tinted coconut.

Voilà! Cute little snowballs that you can eat! Coconut lovers everywhere will go mad for these at any time of the year! But you may want to warn them about these cupcakes' highly addictive taste...

Mrs. Scrooge and the Gingerbread Men

I am not a Christmas person. At all. Several years of working retail during the Holidays and being subjected to Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas" twenty times a day left me with some permanent psychological scars. Here is a short list of Christmas-y things that I genuinely love, despite my allergy to the most wonderful time of the year...

• Frank Sinatra singing Christmas songs. In my worldview, only Frank should be allowed to sing those sappy songs, and sadly, he's dead. Others who attempt to emulate him ought to have their lips sewn shut (I'm looking at you, Justin Bieber!).
• Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" (especially the Muppet version). Ironic, I know, given the fact the I am Mrs. Scrooge herself. But this story is about the true spirit of the Holiday, i.e. sharing and caring for each other. That Christmas spirit has been flat-lining for a while, as far as I can see when I look at the rabid masses of consumers who soured the season for me. I am sad to say that I can count the people who hold that old-school Christmas spirit on the fingers of one hand.
• Holiday baking. Although, that's really just my gourmande streak speaking, as I bake all year long. But I do admit to having lots of fun with Christmas-themed baking (two cupcake recipes with special Holiday flavors are coming soon!).

Which brings me to my all-time favorite Christmas goodie: gingerbread cut-out cookies. I am ginger-crazy, so my love for those cookies goes without saying. But I am especially fond of gingerbread men (and women; I don't discriminate) because I can go all Dexter on them! I just love to dismember, decapitate and waterboard (or milkboard, in this case) my gingerbread men before eating them.

Yes, yes, I have issues, I know. But come on! Didn't you love the Gingy torture scene in "Shrek"? Now you can do that at home! This recipe was originally from "Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar", then reworked by Marilla of Cupcake Rehab, then played around with a little by me. Whew!

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour, sifted
½ cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
2 ½ teaspoons ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground allspice
1 to 1½ teaspoon cinnamon
1 egg
½ cup molasses
1/4 cup milk

Unroll a fairly large piece of plastic wrap and sprinkle lightly with flour. Set aside. Cream the butter & sugar until light and fluffy. Mix flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, allspice and ginger together in a medium bowl; set aside. Add egg and molasses one at a time to butter/sugar mixture, beating after each until combined. Add flour mixture gradually, until a sticky dough forms. Add the milk and mix well by hand. Form a dough into a ball the best you can and place it on the plastic wrap, rolling it up tightly. Chill for an hour or two. Remove dough from fridge and if too firm, let sit for 20-25 minutes before rolling out. The dough will be quite sticky, so have flour on hand. Preheat oven to 350° degrees. Roll out the dough onto lightly floured surface to about ¼ – ½” thick. Using cookie cutters, cut out shapes and using a thin spatula, carefully place onto cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. The cookies will be soft and sticky, so be careful if you want the shapes to stay nice. Re-roll the scraps left over until you haven’t got enough left to use. Just be careful to give your cookies plenty of space on the sheet and don't place them too close to the edges of the pan (bake in multiple batches, if needed). Bake for 8 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool on the sheet for 5 minutes, then move to a wire rack to cool completely.

I can't warn you enough about how sticky this dough gets. You will curse, and may require help. I thought that ball of dough would never let go of my hands. But once it was chilled, working it on the floured surface was no problem. Re-roll it into a ball and dust it with flour as soon as it becomes temperamental and you'll win.

They don't expand that much, but the shape gets funny if they are too close together. Also, when they come out of the oven, the cookies will be soft. Give them a few minutes to cool and they will solidify. Do not be tempted to overcook them, or they will lose their chewy bite. Depending on how thick you make your cookies, and how big your cookie-cutters are, you'll get 24 to 36 cookies out of one batch of this dough.

Of course, you can use cookie-cutters of any shape, and go as crazy or as minimalist as you want with the decoration. I did not have a lot of time of my hands, so I sprinkled red sugar, rainbow and chocolate sprinkles on the cookies before putting them in the oven. Easy-peasy. But if you want to go crazy with decorating, I suggest making some of the following simple royal icing, and getting your hands on a few different colored sugars. I personally love the white icing with brightly colored sprinkles on top.

4 cups powdered sugar

4 tablespoons milk or water
4 tablespoons meringue powder

Mix all ingredients together in a medium bowl. If too thick, add more liquid, if too thin, add more sugar. Add food coloring if desired.

Keep the cookies in an air-tight plastic container when they are not being tortured and eaten.

Chicken Breast with Asparagus and Cherry Tomatoes

And the "Lazy-Ass Roast Chicken Breast" technique is back! And it features some of my favorite things in life: asparagus, cherry tomatoes and white wine. Who says laziness doesn't have it's rewards?

The evening my Christmas vacation started, I was delighted, but exhausted. All I wanted was my plush robe, my cat and a drink (it happens to punks, too). But I was also hungry... Lucky for me and other lazy bums out there, this dish comes together in a matter of minutes; then you toss it in the oven and eat it. Plus, once you have that bottle of white wine open, why not drink what you don't use to cook?

Asparagus are one of my favorite veggies: crunchy yet soft, with a delicate flavor. I generally prefer them steamed with a squeeze of lemon juice, but the roasting gives them a nice crunchy bite. As for cherry tomatoes, can you find a cutest vegetable than these guys? They are some of the only tomatoes out there that still tastes of anything (unless you grow them yourself). You can toss them in salad, pasta sauce or just pop them as a snack. What's not to love?

This recipe serves one, but it is easily doubled and can make a great romantic meal! It's simple and elegant, and it's so delicious that no one will ever guess it was so easy to make. The chicken is great by itself, but a bit of wild rice makes a perfect side-dish. Originally from "Cook with Jamie", by Mr. Oliver:

1 boneless chicken breast
8 sticks of asparagus, trimmed
6 cherry tomatoes, halved
1 small bunch fresh rosemary
Olive oil
Sea salt and ground pepper
Dry white wine (C'est La Vie chardonnay-sauvignon is my favorite wine for this recipe)
Balsamic vinegar

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Put the chicken breast in a large bowl. Add the sticks of asparagus, the cherry tomatoes and the leaves from 1 sprig of rosemary, plus a whole sprig of rosemary as well. Drizzle some olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and toss everything with your hands. Put the vegetables at the bottom of a small, square Pyrex dish, and place the chicken and the whole sprig of rosemary on top. Season well. Add a few glugs of dry white wine and cook in the middle of the oven for 25 to 35 minutes. Serve drizzled with balsamic vinegar.

You can give it a Greek twist by adding a handful of pitted Kalamata olives to your veggies, then crumble some feta cheese over the chicken when it's fresh out of the oven.

When I cook chicken like that, it is always incredibly tender and juicy, and the little tang of the balsamic vinegar balances out the sweetness of the vegetables, of which there are plenty to feast on. The cooking juices get soaked up in the rice... So yummy! The meat will dry out if re-heated, however, so only makes as much as you need.

Keep this recipe up your sleeve for nights when a quick, nutritious and awesome meal is called for... or for when you want to seem like the greatest chef ever without lifting a finger!

The Infinite Possibilities of Marinara Sauce

I used to eat a lot of jarred pasta sauce. I know, I know! What was wrong with me? I used to be really lazy about food, which, in retrospect, is no excuse, as the amazing and versatile recipe I am sharing today is so easy and quick to prepare. I now see the errors of my former ways, and I redeem myself with my marinara sauce!

Jokes aside, it is easy to be seduced by the convenient aspect of jarred sauces. I'd be lying if I said I didn't agree with the fact that when you are in a hurry, the stuff comes in pretty handy. But then I think of the preservatives, the high salt content, the bland taste… and I think it's worth 20 minutes of my precious time to make "real" sauce.

Marinara is one of the simplest pasta sauces, and you dress it up or down depending on your appetite, or the contents of your fridge. According to folk tales, the sauce was invented by Neapolitain sailors shortly after the tomato was introduced to Europe in the 1600's, and originally contained nothing more than tomato, onion, garlic and a few spices. The high acidity-level of tomatoes made it practical for long voyages at sea, as it kept very well. Hence the name alla marinara - the mariner's way!

The recipe below contains very little fat and very little salt, so it's super-healthy, to boot. I first found it in Isa Chandra Moskowitz's "Appetite for Reduction" and tweaked the spices a bit.... I tried many of her variations (and combinations of variations, because I am outrageous like that), and I was never disappointed. I'll start with the uber-basic, and move on to creative additions.

The quantity of sauce serves about 4 and goes on any type of pasta. Play around with complementary shapes and tastes, and forget about boring pasta-nights! No such thing exists!!

1 teaspoon olive oil
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon savory
1 tablespoon thyme
Freshly ground pepper
1 (24 ounce) can of crushed tomato
1/2 teaspoon salt
Red wine vinegar

Preheat a 2-quart pot over medium-high heat. Sauté the garlic in the oil for about a minute. Add the herbs and some pepper and sauté for a minute more, adding a splash of water if necessary. Add the tomatoes, salt, and a splash of red wine vinegar, and stir everything together. Cover the pot, leaving a little gap for steam to escape, and cook for 10 minutes. Taste for seasoning and adjust, if necessary, and serve over al dente pasta.

Once you've made this once, you'll want to try lots of other options. Here are my faves:

Spicy: add 1/2 teaspoon of chili flakes at the same time as the garlic.

Marinara Olivada: add 1/4 cup chopped kalamata olives when you add the garlic.

Mushroom Marinara: after preheating the pot, sauté 16 ounces of finely chopped cremini mushrooms in the oil; add splashes of water if needed; stir in the garlic and proceed with the recipe.

Roasted Red Pepper Marinara: when you add the tomatoes, also add finely chopped roasted red bell pepper.

Sautéed Onion Marinara: before adding the garlic, sauté a small, finely chopped yellow onion for 5 minutes; add splashes of water if necessary; proceed with recipe.

Spicy Cajun Marinara: add 1/2 teaspoon chili flakes along with the garlic, add 1 tablespoon Cajun spice blend along with the tomatoes and add hot sauce at the end, to taste.

From there, you should be able to go nuts with whatever extra ingredient tickles your fancy (eggplants, cauliflower, lentils and peas are great ideas!). And combining those variations can give spectacular results. Pictured here is spicy mushroom and onion marinara, with some fusilli.

Use the basic version in a lasagna, serve it with meatballs (or beanballs!) or over simple pasta like I did here. Jarred sauces will loose all their shine once you get a taste of this fresh and flavorful sauce. Salute!