scovillian sacrilege

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So I ate something so hot last night I almost couldn't breathe. I've never had anything burn quite like that before....

I'm actually quite peeved, because the cause of my pain, misery and wretched burning was not actually even a hot pepper, as far as peppers go.

It wasn't the mighty habanero that seared my entire mouth and esophagus, but the lowly jalapeno. The heat of a chili pepper is measured in the amount of capsaicin it has (in parts per million), in Scoville units. I like a nice pepper, and often fill curries with Serrano peppers (technically, like 5 times hotter than jalapenos). I have no problems with amounts of Serrano peppers in my food.

But the blasted jalapeno is the most inconsistent beast. It drives me NUTS. Sometimes I buy a jalapeno and it's so mild, it's more like a bell pepper than anything else. No spice whatsoever. And other times, it's SO spicy it actually makes the food have an almost 'chemical' taste to it. It's not a tasty pepper. (Case in point: last night).

So......as a sauce to go on my wraps (which were awesome, eventually), I thought it would be tasty to mix together fat-free plain yogourt and minced jalapeno pepper, thinking that the yogourt would cut a lot of the heat. Maybe it does, but not enough.

I actually even attempted to bbq - the shrimp for our wraps was marinated in a yummy yogourt chipotle marinade, and then skewered and grilled. Hubs wasn't really up to grilling outside, so I decided to give it a whirl. I don't seem to have great luck when it comes to outdoor grilling (usually end up charring something beyond all recognition because I forget to go check it), and this incident did nothing to improve my track record.

After what seemed like an eternity out in the arctic blast, I thought the shrimp were done (though it was FREEZING and snowing, so it was hard to see, so I brought them back inside. I made a very pretty looking wrap with them, but when I cut it, I could see that the little guys were not cooked enough....decided lack of opacity the whole way through. So I took the remaining shrimp and shuttled them back out onto the grill.

But I didn't want to waste my yummy wrap that I'd already put together, so I decided to eat a bit of it (undercooked shrimp and all). The first bite was wonderful - tangy shrimp, sweet mango, the distinctive taste of coriander, and a pleasant, creamy bit of heat from the jalapeno yogourt. Delightful. Eagerly, I scarfed down the rest of that half of the sandwich.

And that's when things started to go wrong. What started as a pleasant level of heat just escalated and escalated until I actually had trouble breathing. My whole throat felt like it was swelling shut, my eyes were streaming and on top of this, the stupid shrimp were still out on the bbq. So I'm wildly grabbing the first creamy thing I see in the fridge (a large tub of vanilla yogourt) and forcing it down my throat, while grunting and gesturing to hubs to go save the rest of the shrimp.

It took two pounds of yogourt and nearly 30 minutes for me to be able to talk again. All from a STUPID jalapeno. Hubs was laughing at me, and I couldn't even yell at him, because even a five second break from yogourt scarfing caused my throat and mouth to absolutely burn. It was the worst thing ever.

Needless to say, my second wrap had NO jalapeno.....just plain yogourt. Hubs didn't have a single problem with scarfing down the hot peppers.....I'm not really sure why I did, as normally, I quite enjoy reasonable amounts of heat in my food.....this just wasn't pleasant though. I don't mind a burn where I sweat a little, but the whole "I think my throat is closing" feeling just sucked the big one.

But the wraps are AWESOME. This really is a yummy combination. And winter bbq'ing is always such a lovely treat. I LOVE the taste of grilled food, so this wrap was almost like a little touch of summer to liven up the cold. If you don't eat shrimp, you could easily use chicken, or even marinated roasted veggies for this. Highly recommended. Just maybe not the evil jalapeno......

Tandoori Shrimp Wraps with Chipotle and Mango!

1 pound shelled shrimp
1 cup plain yogourt
2 T fresh garlic, minced
2 T ginger, minced
3 chipotle peppers, minced
2 t adobo sauce (from chipotles)
2 T fresh lemon juice
1 T fresh lime juice
1/2 t cumin
1 t curry powder
1/2 t salt

1. Combine yogourt, garlic, ginger, chipotles, adobo sauce, lemon and lime juices, cumin, curry powder and salt. Let marinate for 1 hour (prepare your toppings in the meantime).



2. To cook, skewer the shrimp (unless you find it fun to have them all slip through the grill and burn!) and cook for 3-4 minutes per side, until shrimp are done.

Here are my mostly-cooked shrimp....not quite cooked....back on the grill they went!


Toppings:
1 cup diced mango
1/2 cup chopped red onion
1/3 cup chopped coriander
1/2 cup yogourt (mixed with 1/2 jalapeno, at your discretion)
1 cup baby greens
8 flatbreads

In this picture, if you look carefully, you can see the little green pieces of jalapeno that led to my demise....my throat itches just thinking about it...gah.


To make tasty sandwiches......
1. Warm up your flatbread. Top with baby greens.
2. Add one skewer of shrimp (about 6-7), some mango, red onion, coriander and a bit of yogourt sauce. Again, hot peppers at your own risk.
3. Wrap up and enjoy!



Loved this. Will make again, but sans jalapenos.....burn, baby burn.........

redemption...sweet squash pepper redemption

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The cheese incident yesterday was not boding well for my cooking this week....the lingering odour when I got home from work today had me wishing we had one of those ionizing air filters to rid the house of all vestiges and memories of that putrified dairy product.

But today brought new food and new scents to the kitchen. Lovely, sweet, veggie scents. Soupy yummy scents. The taste and colour of spring, providing a bright spot in a dim, dreary winter.

Is there anything more cozy-smelling than soup bubbling away on the stove-top?

I'd argue there isn't (though roast turkey comes close). Soup is such a warm, filling comfort food....and puréed vegetable soup is a personal favourite of mine. When I was trying to come up with our menu plan this week, I was flipping through Cooking Light and came across a pumpkin-yellow pepper soup recipe that someone else has been so kind to post on RecipeZaar for your perusal. What attracted me to this recipe was not the pumpkin, but the fact that it could be adapted to use the 400g block of no-longer-frozen squash I had sitting in my fridge. Initially I defrosted it, thinking to use it in ravioli...but then I filled my ravioli with crab and had this squash.....sitting purposeless...

So I made squash pepper soup with smoked paprika. And while I was in the midst of making it, I decided that parsley leaves (initial garnish idea) were boring, and that persillade was the thing to top this soup. Persillade is kind of like a French version of pesto - fresh herbs, garlic, lemon and salt. Very simple, but a little blast of fresh flavour and a flash of colour.

Also, the initial recipe called for pumpkin seeds (that my discount grocery store didn't have) so I used wee little sunflower seeds to make mine look pretty. I served this with my classic green salad (using baby arugula and a red wine vinaigrette) and a few little cherry tomatoes. Yum. Hubs says two thumbs up. I concur. If you like soup, you'll love this. The bonus is that it offered me a chance to use a little bit more of the fabulous smoked paprika I bought a couple of weeks ago.

You should all throw out your regular paprika right now. Toss it! Find yourself some good spanish smoked stuff and you'll never look back. Ever. Again. Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmy.

Sweet Squash Pepper Redemption with Persillade
1 T olive oil
3.5 cups chopped yellow pepper (about 3 medium)
1.5 cups chopped carrot (about 2 big ones)
1 chopped red pepper
1 cup chopped onion
2 cloves chopped garlic
3/4 t smoked paprika (I used bittersweet)
900 mL low-sodium broth (I used chicken, you could use whatever) (about 3.5 cups)
16oz/400g container squash purée
2 T lemon juice
black pepper to taste

1. In a large pot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add peppers, carrot and onion. Sauté for about 10 minutes, until the veggies are softened and *just* starting to fuse to the pan.


2. Add garlic and smoked paprika and stir to combine.



3. Add broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes (or until veggies are soft). *If you're making persillade, now is a good time to do it. :)

4. Using an immersion blender, purée the softened veggies until relatively smooth. Add the squash and lemon juice and purée a little more. I like my soups relatively thick, so this was a perfect texture for me. If you like your soup thinner, simply add a little more broth or water and blend a little more. Yummy! Heat through.

To serve, top with persillade and a few sunflower seeds. This will warm you up on a winter night fo sho.


Persillade
1/3 cup (packed) flat leaf parsley
1/2 t lemon zest
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 t fleur de sel
3 T olive oil



Put everything in a container and blend away. :) You can drizzle this on chicken, fish, or soups. I've actually had it on pizza (with sliced cooked potato) and it was amazing. I need to do that again sometime....



This dinner totally redeems yesterday's mess. I can't wait for soupy goodness for lunch tomorrow. :) Provided, of course, it doesn't explode all over my briefcase before I get to work...stay tuned for indian-mexican fusion tomorrow....chipotle....tandoori...shall the twain ever meet?

Thanks for reading!

if it smells bad, it tastes....

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...worse.

I've long been a believer in the power of involuntary memory. Sometimes, the mere scent, sound or taste of something can have the power to literally transport you (or your consciousness at least) to some other place.

For some people, it could be the smell of a campfire, or the taste of some long-forgotten treat. While songs tend to be a trigger for me, there are certain scents that have marked themselves indelibly in my memory, and whose reappearance never fails to bring about a strong bout of nostalgia.

In the literary sphere, Marcel Proust wrote a TON about this, devoting one entire portion of his giant epic, À la recherche du temps perdu, to characters who lived their mundane lives, enlivened only by the appearance of this type of memory (like in Du côté de chez Swann). But um....it's a really long long LONG book. You don't want to read it. I only had to read like 100 pages of it, but it was so dense I nearly lost my mind.

But I digress....where was I.....oh....involuntary memory. The thing with this is that it has the propensity to strike in the most unusual places. Like Costco. That evil big box behemoth where I now longer purchase oh SO many things due to factory farm support. Hubs and I were wandering the aisles, in search of laundry detergent and frozen shrimp, when I decided to head over to the cheese aisle, thinking I could pick up some gruyère or emmentaler for our crêpes this week.

Lo and behold, I spotted what looked like a beautiful little Camembert sitting in its wooden box, beckoning to me. I was drawn to its simple, european rusticity, so devoid of shrink wrap and industrialization. It seemed fated - the small alluring box, the $2 off sign overhead. This was meant to be.

And so I picked it up. And sniffed gingerly at it.....and instantly, I wasn't in Costco. I was in a French market, surrounded by the hustle and bustle of artisanal produce....not the shove and bully of massive carts overstuffed with such wares as toilet paper, chips and pop. I had to have this cheese. The seductive earthen scent drove me to madness....



I should have known better.

The thing is, as 'sophisticated' a palate as I attempt to have. I REALLY don't like very many cheeses...I really haven't evolved much beyond cheddar. Mind you, I love a good, really old crumbly block of balderson or perron...but still cheddar. It has a particular taste....one that I love and crave. But, I thought I would try to branch out.

I actually enjoy many sorts of brie and camembert (mild cheese, admittedly), generally on some nice baguette. I thought that mixing this kind of cheese in with egg, sauteed veggies and galette de sarrasin (buckwheat crêpe) would really be quite lovely.

And to some people....perhaps....it would have been. But OMG....that was awful. It was almost as bad as the time that hubs and I ended up on a six course tasting menu in France. One of the courses was a cheese course, and as we still like to remember.....one of them, the "ass-cheese" (as hubs so eloquently dubbed it), just kept on tasting and tasting and tasting. A lot of value for your buck, that one.

YUCK. So....not only did I stink up the car on the way home from Costco, I stunk up the fridge (despite me putting the offending ball of rot in a ziploc), and I've now stunk up our entire house. Seriously, it's pure raunch. If I could open the windows and not die, I would. GAH.

So....moral of the story is, artisanal raw-milk camembert and I do NOT go together. I tried...I really did. But holy nasty.

That said, those of you who actually enjoy this type of cheese (think normal Camembert times about a trillion) would probably have LOVED this dinner. The crêpes were yummy, the veggies were delicious, and once I pitched the stench and replaced it with (discount, yellow) cheddar, I had a yummy meal on hand.

So I'm sure you all want to try this now. ;) Keep in mind that crêpes can be filled with anything. This Breton special is so flexible - ham, cheese, vegetables, eggs, fruit, ice cream, etc. - you can have anything your heart desires in a galette or crêpe.

Before I share the recipe, here's a little primer on how these are usually consumed in France...a main course crêpe is called a "galette de sarrasin" and is made with buckwheat flour. Normally, you would have 2-3 items inside your galette, and they don't typically have a sauce on them - just pure delicious ingredients. To accompany, you would order a nice french cidre. For Canuck readers, buckwheat flour can be found in abundance at Bulk Barn, and cider is a little harder to track down, but if you're wiley and tenacious (today I was both), you can procure it in the Vintages section of the LCBO (Vintages 2022). Not easy to find though.

Dessert crêpes are called "crêpes de froment" and can be filled with all manner of wonderful things (particular favourites include nutella/banana, caramelized apple and plain old sugar and lemon). Of course, in a pinch, you can sub one kind of crêpe for the other and you certainly will live to tell the tale.

And will all of that ramble and blather.....here is the recipe!

Galettes de Sarrasin
350 g buckwheat flour (about 2 cups, from what my measuring cup tells me)
10 g fleur de sel (about 2 t sea salt)
75 cl cold water (3 cups)
1 egg

1. Combine the flour and the fleur de sel.

2. Using a whisk, add in the cold water. Whisk away until no lumps remain.
3. Whisk in the egg and combine throughly. Allow batter to rest for at least 60 minutes. Not sure why, but everyone says you have to. So do it.

Meanwhile......prepare your fillings....

Sautéed Veggies
1 pound asparagus, trimmed and cut into 2" pieces
1 red pepper, chopped into 2 inch strips
12 oz oyster mushrooms, chopped in strips
1 clove garlic
1 T olive oil
salt and black pepper to taste

1. Heat oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Add vegetables and sauté to desired doneness. Season to test with salt and pepper.


Galettes (continued)

1. Heat a 12-inch skillet over medium/medium-high heat. The skillet is hot when you can have drops of water "dance" on it (when you flick them).
2. Have a small bowl of oil, and a 1/2 cup measure handy. Dip a paper towel in the oil and rub it on the skillet, so you have a very thin brush of oil over the whole surface.
3. Using the 1/2 cup measure, scoop just under 1/2 cup of batter into the hot skillet, and swirl it around with the other hand, to spread the batter out. Don't worry if it's not perfect (and the first one definitely won't be!).....it all tastes the same in the end.
4. Watch the galette carefully.....when the edges start to pull away from the pan, slide a spatula underneath and flip it over. Give it about 30 seconds and remove from the pan. (I just pile them all on a plate). It's better if your crêpe is a teeny bit underdone, because it will go back in the pan to warm up the filling later.
Here's one of my rounder specimens...


5. Repeat until you run out of batter, re-oiling the pan before each one. You may need to adjust the heat, if you find the crêpe is getting too crispy at the edges before the centre is done.

To make filled crêpes:
1. Make sure the pan is hot (though turn it down to just below medium for this...not super hot) and oiled.
2. Put your crêpe in the pan. If you are using an egg for filling, you should crack it onto the crêpe now (TIP: If you are like me and skeeved by food that runs away from you, lightly beat the egg in a bowl beforehand - this enables you to get eggy goodness without yucky, runny yolk).
3. Once the egg starts to set (I find this is aided by putting a lid on your pan), add the other filling ingredients (if you're not using an egg, start with cheese and put others on top).
Here is hubs' galette that he didn't eat. That cheese is seriously poison. I know it looks innocent....it's NOT.

4. To serve, try to fold the edges over, so that only the centre of the crêpe is showing and then toss it on a plate. Here is mine, with my MUCH-needed cidre. Bah, that was so nasty.

5. Enjoy! Or.....if you're like us, bravely try to eat a bite or two and ooooooze sophistication....then give up and toss on the chedda.

The second crêpe was much better.....even if the cheese was orange (I let hubs pick out his fave this week since I didn't think I'd have to eat any).....


I also made a little 'dessert' crêpe by taking one of the leftovers, sprinkling vanilla sugar and then drizzling lemon juice. Yum. Maple syrup is also wonderful (I'm saving that for brekkie.....)

Thanks for reading through my fromage-laced rambling tonight. This will teach me not to pretend to be a gourmet cheese connoisseur, because clearly, I am not.....and hopefully the next time a scent transports me through time and space....I'll remember that absence makes the heart grow fonder....it's selective memory like this that allows for me to do this time and time again...come back tomorrow for adventures in soupitude.

Love the comments!!!!!

gourmet seafood in a can

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Ugh. I really have to stop spending my weekends eating garbage. I eat healthy, tasty food all week, but then the weekend comes and BANG....I have a ridiculous urge to eat crap.

I was on my own for dinner last night, so I came up with the uber-creative perogies and sautéed zucchini. I was tempted to order pizza, but perogies and zucchini didn't turn out to be as bad a combo as I had been fearing. Actually, it was kind of good. Or maybe the half bottle of chardonnay that accompanied it made it good.

Of course, it would also be that same half-bottle of Chardonnay that led to the demise of all semblance of healthy eating later that night - hubs went out and bought chips and dill pickle dip. And of course it was the large container. Yum. I guess the goodness of the dip made up for the absolute crappiness of the movie (the second Pirates movie). I loved the first Pirates movie, but this was utter crap. I hated it. Meh. But I'm thinking that my hips probably could have done without all those yummy chippies.....but hindsight being what it is....they were tasty.

And brekkie today wasn't much better, what with hubs making me bacon, eggs and OJ. You know it's bad when the cooked bacon is like 10 per cent of the size of the raw pieces.....

Dinner was better though. I had some wonton wrappers leftover from last time, so I decided that I would make ravioli.

Thumbing through my various back issues of Cooking Light, I found a recipe for crab ravioli with a red clam sauce. Given the Ottawa seafood situation (flown in twice a week, at best), I appreciated that this recipe allowed for the use of canned seafood (actually it even benefitted from it)...I know it's not the same as fresh crab or clams, but in this recipe, it's super tasty, and your wallet will thank you for not making the trek to your friendly neighbourhood fishmonger.

Of course, hubs had to throw a bit of a wrench in my plans. I was all set to make the red clam sauce, but he wheedled and cajoled me into making white instead. To boot, this was AFTER we went grocery shopping and I picked up all the ingredients for a tomato-based sauce. But he's awfully cute, so I humoured him.

Hubs says I can make this one again anytime - he scarfed it down pretty quickly, and I would be willing to make a bet that tomorrow's "lunch" won't make it much past 10AM. This recipe is a little time-consuming (mainly the ravioli-stuffing part), so don't try making this on a weeknight unless you're cool with eating at nine. I'd say this took about 90 minutes, start to finish (about 40-45 being dedicated to ravioli creation).

I have yet to tackle making my own pasta, so I was just using purchased wonton wrappers. One of these days, I'll find myself a pasta roller and tackle the task of homemade pasta, but in the meantime, I'm relatively content with the wonton wrappers.

Crab-Ricotta Ravioli with White Clam Sauce

For Ravioli:
2 cans (125g each) lump crabmeat, drained
1/2 c ricotta cheese
1/2 c finely diced red pepper
1/2 shallot, minced
2 T italian breadcrumbs
salt, pepper
40 wonton wrappers

1. In a bowl, combine crab, ricotta, red pepper, shallot and breadcrumbs. Add some pepper (and salt if desired).


2. Keeping remaining wonton wrappers covered with a damp towel, take about 1/2 T of filling and place it in the centre of one wrapper. Moisten the edges with water.


3. Fold the pasta over the filling and seal the edges, being careful to push out any air pockets. It might take a good smoosh or two to get those pesky edges to stay together.

4. Moisten the sealed ravioli along the long end. Fold the sides over, to make a cute little package.

5. Repeat ad infinitum, until you run out of wrappers, filling, patience or all three....


6. To cook pasta, bring water to a gentle boil and cook for approximately 4 minutes. Drain. Serve hot with sauce.

White Clam Sauce
1 T unsalted butter
1 onion, chopped
1 shallot, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced (I think this was too much garlic, but hubs says not enough....)
1 can clams, drained with liquid reserved
1/2 cup white wine
1/3 cup low-fat sour cream
2 ounces light cream cheese
3 T chopped flat-leaf parsley
fresh ground black pepper

1. Melt butter in a 10inch skillet over medium-low heat.
2. Add onion, shallot and garlic (again, don't necessarily follow these directions.....I think the garlic was a bit too much...but one of my cloves was ginormous, so this could also explain a bit...).
3. Once the aromatics are translucent (4 minutes or so), add the white wine and bring to a boil. Then add the clam juice and the clams.
4. Stir in sour cream and cream cheese (to make your life easier, cube the cream cheese beforehand....it doesn't melt all that quickly). (At this point, drop the pasta in the boiling water).
5. Add parsley and black pepper. Serve sauce over hot yummy ravioli. This sauce would also be good on linguine if you didn't feel like going to the bother of ravioli (and it is a bother).



This serves four - 10 ravioli per person. Hubs isn't the only person looking forward to lunch tomorrow. Stay tuned tomorrow for adventures in galettes, stinky cheese and asparagus.....

Thanks for reading!

a new look

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Okay....so it's 6pm and I've done precisely nothing today. I've eaten frozen waffles and a can of tuna...and I got a little carried away playing with colours, options and logos....what do you think? Are the new colours good? bad? ugly?

Let me know what you think! I will cook something tasty tomorrow when hubs is home. :)