apple & blackberry schlumpf

I was cleaning out my freezer and I found the last of some of last summer's blackberries buried at the back. A little sad and freezer burned, but still just about salvageable. The perfect opportunity to try the schlumpf from the excellent cookbook A New Way to Dinner that I have been wanting to make since I got the book. 

It's just like a fruit crumble but with an amazing fruit to topping ratio of about 1:1. So you get to really maximize on all that toasty, cinnamonny crumb goodness. Plus schlumpf is way more fun to say. You can switch out the fruit, add nuts to the topping - the variations are endless. I threw my sad blackberries in with some granny smith apples and a bit more sad freezer fruit, a little syrup poached quince I found hiding under the blackberries. Whatever you have hiding out in there will be immensely improved by inclusion in a schlumpf. And it will assuage your guilt over having let them get lost for months in the freezer. 

apple & blackberry schlumpf:

adapted from A New Way to Dinner  

topping:

• 2 cups flour

• 1 cup + 2 tbs butter, cut into cubes

• 1 cup brown sugar

• 3/4 cup rolled oats

• 1 tsp cinnamon

Blitz everything but oats in a food processor until will combined and beginning to form sandy looking clumps. Add oats and pulse the food processor a couple more times. 

filling: 

• 6 cups sliced apples

• 2 cups blackberries

• 1/4 cup flour

• 1/4 cup sugar

• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Toss all ingredients in a large bowl until fruit is well coated. 

Preheat oven to 350 F. Spread fruit in a quarter bun pan. Sprinkle the topping over the fruit, breaking up any too-big clumps into pea sized bits. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until the topping is golden and the fruit is bubbling up from below. 

Serve with a little cream or ice cream. 

best ever tahini dressing

I always loved tahini dressings I tried when other people make them, and I always thought they were kind of bland and disappointing when I made them. But I discovered that the answer is to just throw all the bright, salty, umami, herby flavours I can think of into the dressing: nutritional yeast, miso, herbs, jalepenos and garlic. It was the tahini dressing of my dreams. It brightens up winter roast vegetables, but it's light and perfect for summery salads. It's also a great dip for raw vegetables or falafel. I sometimes just eat a whole sliced cucumber dipped in this sauce for my dinner. After all the energy you put into making elaborate holiday dinners, you deserve something easy and healthy. Or you can really go for it and actually put together a salad, if you feel ambitious.  

You can double or triple it and make a big batch. Use it to motivate yourself to eat vegetables all week long. 

best ever tahini dressing:

• 1/3 cup tahini

• big handful each parsley and cilantro

• 3 tbs flaked nutritional yeast

• 1/4 cup olive oil

• 2 tbs miso paste

• 2-3 cloves garlic

• 4-5 sliced pickled jalepenos

• 4 tbs lemon juice

• 2 tbs apple cider vinegar

• 1 tsp cumin

• salt and pepper

• a few tbs water, thin to your desired consistency

Combine all ingredients a food processor and blend until totally combined. Serve over a big green salad roast vegetables, cucumber sliced or whatever you like. 

chocolate cake with praline frosting

Are you looking for a dessert for New Years Eve? Or for any other time? This cake is fancy enough for a big celebration, but it's also appropriate pretty much any time. Rich chocolate cake layers with fluffy, caramelized, toasty, nutty praline, offset with a wee bit of salt. 

This cake is how you should be ending 2017. 

Lately I have been using ermine frosting more than Italian or Swiss meringue buttercream. It has a few different names, boiled milk frosting, flour buttercream...it's just about the weirdest frosting I have ever made, and I think it's also the best. It starts with a flour and milk mixture, cooked up until thick and puddingy. It is flabby and weird looking. It seems like it would make an effective wallpaper paste. It does not seem like it will become a delicious, fluffy, light-yet-rich frosting. 

But then you cool the milk goop, and whip up some butter and sugar and incorporate the strange goo and it's just magical. The stodgy flour mess becomes so unbelievably fluffy and light, it's utterly transmogrified. You have to try this frosting, it will win you over. Promise.

chocolate cake: 

adapted from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking

Note: this makes about twice the cake batter you will need. You can either make a huge cake, or freeze the extra for later. 

• 3/4 cup dark unsweetened cocoa powder

• 1 1/4 cups hot water

• 2/3 cup sour cream

• 2 2/3cups all-purpose flour

• 2 teaspoons baking powder

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 3/4 cup butter, room temperature

• 1/2 cup vegetable shortening

• 1 1/2 cup granulated sugar

• 1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

• 3 large eggs, at room temperature

• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

Heat oven to 325°F. Prepare 3 6 inch cake pans, either butter or line with parchment. Combine sour cream, hot water and coco in a small bowl, mixing well. 

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. In a stand mixer, beat butter and shortening on medium speed until fluffy. Add sugars and beat for another 5 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl between eggs. 

Alternating, add flour and coco mixtures in three additions each. Mix on low until well combined. Using about half the batter, divide evenly between prepared pans. 

Bake until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Set cakes aside to cool. 

praline paste:

adapted from Joe Pastry

• 1 cup plus two tablespoons granulated sugar

• 1/4 cup water

• 1 cup blanched almonds

• 1 cup hazelnuts

• big pinch flaky salt

Toast nuts in a pan over medium-low heat, shaking them frequently. When they are toasty-coloured and fragrant, remove from heat and place nuts on a parchment lined baking sheet. 

Melt sugar and water together in a small pan, swirling until it is a medium amber colour. Pour over the nuts. Let cool and smash up into rubble. Blitz in a food processor with the salt, if you have a mini food processor it will be a bit easier. It takes quite a while to get the praline to form a paste;  keep on pushing the mix down into the bottom and blending until it stops looking sandy and forms a slightly oily paste. Be patient, it will work eventually. 

praline ermine frosting:

adapted from Martha Stewart

• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

• 1 cup whole milk

• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

• Pinch of salt

• 2 sticks butter, room temperature

• 1 cup sugar

• 3-4 tbs praline paste

Combine milk and flour in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir continually until the mixture thickens to a pudding-like consistency. Let cool completely. 

In a stand mixer, whip butter and sugar for about 2 minutes, until pale and fluffy. Add in milk mixture and beat until the mixture is very light and fluffy. Add praline paste and beat until well incorprated. 

Note: If the flour mixture or butter are slightly too cold the frosting may not want to come together and stay kind of grainy and wet looking. I solved this by passing a blowtorch with a low flame rapidly around the side of my metal (not glass!) mixing bowl, while whipping on high. If you don't have a blowtorch, I think a hairdryer on hot or a very hot towel wrapped around the base of the bowl would work too. You want to use the heat just until you see the mixture come together and become visibly fluffy. Don't keep the heat on after or you could melt the butter too much. 

assemble: 

Trim cakes as required to flatten the tops.

Place one cake layer on a 6" cake board if you have it, or a flat plate or cake stand. Cover cake with a generous layer of frosting. Sandwich next cake layer on top and frost, repeat with the final layer. Chill the cake to set the frosting in the layers. Put a couple skewers through the cake if the layers are sliding around. 

Frost the chilled cake quickly all over with an offset spatula, making sure to cover all exposed cake. Adding more frosting as you go, use an offset spatula, or bench scraper to tidy up and give the cake some nice clean angles. Sprinkle a few chopped toasted hazelnuts around the top of the cake. 

Practice saying "Yes I made the praline myself." with just the right amount of humility and a slight glow of pride. Your guests are so impressed.

amaretto & sour cherry sour

I hate maraschino cherries. They are too sweet and rubbery and I can't understand why anyone would ever use them as a cocktail garnish. I recently found a way better cherry garnish: sour cherries in light syrup. They come in a jar and they don't have a very sweet syrup, so the cherries retain some tartness and still taste like actually cherries, instead of nasty, gummy sugar balls. I have also used them in pies and as a cake filling, mixed with some other fresh fruit and they are always delicious. 

In these cocktails, I used the juice the cherries are packed in, as well as the cherries for garnish. The tartness from the cherries and lemon is perfect against the near cloying sweetness of amaretto. Excellent for a festive cocktail party or for ringing in the new year. You can easily multiply the recipe to make a pitcher for a bigger crowd (or a thirstier crowd). 

amaretto sour cherry sour

serves 4

• 4 ounces amaretto 
• 2 ounces lemon juice 
• 3 ounces sour cherry juice
• 5 dashes bitters
• sour cherries for garnish 

Shake everything but the cherries in a cocktail shaker with ice and pour into four glasses with an ice cube in each. Garnish with a skewer of cherries. 

Cheers!

pumpkin soup

I have learned that soup, and lots of it, is the key to a calmer, more organized, Konmari-ish and just generally better life. Specifically, making lots of soup and keeping it in the freezer is the trick. There is an incredible soothing effect from having a filling, healthy meal always ready to go in about 10 minutes. Plus, they are pretty inexpensive and you can feel really smug about getting lots of vegetables. 

Especially as the holidays bear down upon us all like a huge, looming, twinkling thing - soup in the freezer is the way to stability. If you can manage to make more than one type and freeze both, so you have soup variety in your life, you level up. Might I recommend tortellini chicken soup, roasted tomato or cream of mushroom to add some variety? 

This soup is a great way to use up any straggler pumpkins left over from Halloween. If you have one hanging around, hurry up and use i or you might get an unfortunate liquefied pumpkin ooze mess, as I did this year. You can also use butternut, kabocha or any similar squash, or a mix. 

pumpkin soup:

• about 2 pound pumpkin

• grapeseed or vegetable oil

• 3 cloves garlic, smashed with the flat of a knife

• 1 shallot, quartered

• 1 tsp ground coriander seed

• 2 tsp ground cumin

• 1 tsp chili flakes

• salt and pepper

• 3 cups chicken stock

• 1/2 cup heavy cream

• fresh cilantro and limes to serve

Heat oven to 400°.  Halve the pumpkins and scoop out seeds and stringy pumpkin intestines.  Brush with oil and sprinkle salt and pepper all over the flesh. Roast skin side down until flesh is very tender, about 1 hour. Let cool until the pumpkin isn't too hot to touch and peel off the skin. Set pumpkin flesh aside. 

In a large stock pot, sauté the garlic and shallots in 2 tbs oil. When the garlic and shallot are soft and starting to colour, add the cumin and coriander seed, and sauté a couple more minutes, until the spices are very fragrant. Add chicken stock and pumpkin. Blitz with an immersion blender or in a food processor until very smooth. Return to low heat and add cream and salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with some fresh cilantro and a squeeze of lime. Freeze in single serve portions and rejoice. 

Pumpkin magic. Bibbity bobbity boo.

tortellini chicken soup

This soup is a deluxe, upgraded version of classic chicken noodle soup. I love chicken noodle soup, especially if I'm feeling on the cusp of getting sick. I like it pretty classic, broth, shredded chicken, a couple thin carrot slices and a bit of parsley on top. For the ultimate cold remedy, I add A LOT of garlic and chili flakes, it really clears the sinuses. 

This essentially has the same elements, but all dialed up to 11. The soup gets a vegetable kick from celery, tomatoes and shredded kale, the broth gets a boost from a bit of tomato paste, and creamy white beans for a bit more protein.  And the pasta gets the biggest upgrade: cheesy, plump pasta dumplings bobbing around cheerfully. 

I was a bit worried that the tortellini would go soggy after sitting around in the soup, but it held up really well. Even after freezing and reheating, it didn't turn into a mush. So save and freeze your leftovers at will. 

tortellini chicken soup: 

• 4 cloves garlic, smashed

• 1 shallot, chopped

• big pinch chili flakes

• 1 tbs oil

• 4 cups chicken broth

• 1 packet fresh or frozen cheese tortellini

• 2 chicken breasts

• 1 tin white cannellini beans

• 4 carrots, thinly sliced

• 4 stalks celery, thinly sliced

• 4 medium tomatoes, chopped

• 4 cups chicken stock

• 2 tbs tomato paste

• 2 cups kale, very finely shredded

• parmesan and parsley to garnish

In a large heavy pot, heat oil over medium high and add garlic, shallot and chili. Sauté until fragrant and just beginning to colour. Add tomatoes and cook a couple more minutes. Add broth and chicken, reduce heat to medium and simmer until chicken is cooked through.

Remove chicken breasts and set aside. Add beans and tomato paste to the broth. Finely shred chicken using two forks. Increase heat and bring soup to a boil. Add tortellini, carrots and celery. Cook about 2 minutes or until pasta is tender. Add kale and remove from heat.  

Serve with a big sprinkle of parsley and parmesan.