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QuickTime video
We started out with the best intentions: whip up a layered sponge cake to celebrate our friend Paul’s 30th birthday.
He’s back in Australia, we’re here in Canada, but we’d just eat it on his behalf we reckoned.
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Well, that was the plan. You see, it seems there must be a secret to making sponge cake – and we’re not in on it. Continue reading ‘Sponge blob square pan’
When Cristy came to visit from Australia (via Ontario) she brought a packet of earthy, wholesome “wild rice” grown in Manitoba. Technically it isn’t rice at all, but the seed of some kind of water plant.
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A pilaf seemed like the right thing to make, so we came up with this recipe using ingredients that were pretty much straight out of the earth: fresh asparagus, fried and chopped; crimini, or brown, mushrooms, quartered and browned; lovely vine-ripened tomatoes, roasted; shiitake mushrooms sliced and cooked in a soy-based sweet and sour jus; and roasted sweet potato, cubed. Continue reading ‘Earth to Pilaf! Earth to Pilaf!’
Rule number one of crepe making: there’s NO SHAME if the first one’s a failure. Rule number two: when the crepes hit the table, GET IN QUICK!
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For years, I’d made my “pancakes” according to a simple recipe: one cup of flour, one egg, one cup of milk. Lenny and my friends thought they were pretty good. But I suspected the results were a bit heavy, a bit tough. Not what you could really call crepes.
Then, while we were in the UK, I grabbed one of Delia Smith’s recipe books off a friend’s shelf. Or maybe I saw her cook crepes on her TV show. Anyway, dear old Delia turned my world upside down. My basic ratio went out the window, butter was added, and the result was a much lighter, much more delicate pancake than I had ever produced – something that could truly be called a crepe. Continue reading ‘The great crepe debate’
mp4 video (small)
Go to the recipe for chicken soup
When Lenny’s feeling a little bit under the weather she gets a craving for soup. Actually, pretty much ANY excuse to make this simple, hearty chicken soup will do. You just start with a whole chicken, remove the skin and simmer it with tasty vegetables until the flesh is tender and comes away easily from the bone (Lenny calls this the “fall-apartability” test.
Removing the skin as Lenny does in this video might a familiar process to people who’ve basted a “chook” by getting their hands under the skin to rub a mixture of butter, garlic, herbs and what-not on the flesh. Continue reading ‘Chicken soup from scratch’
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I could eat hummus (aka “hommus”) all day, as long as someone keeps putting this tasty chickpea and tahini paste in front of me. But I used to be indifferent to tabouli (aka “tabouleh”), having mostly experienced it as the padding between the meat and the wrapping in some pretty pedestrian donair kebabs.
Never liked parsley much as a kid as it was. But my tastes have mellowed; I now realise that parsley has its place, and that place is tabouli. Making it is a lot of fun and it’s easy. Ditto for the very tasty hummus (especially if you have a bigger blender than ours!). Continue reading ‘Excuse our pork’