Dinner for two

I love to cook. But cooking for one person somehow seems depressing. Its not cooking for one that matters so much, but rather the prospect of eating alone. And I'm really bad at measuring out portions for just myself. So you can imagine how excited I was the other night when I got to cook for someone other than myself.

I was originally going to make a white fish in the oven with fennel and cherry tomatoes, but as luck would have it, the Poissonerie closed before I could get there. So instead, I made Escalope de Dinde with a tomato and olive sauce and boiled potatoes on the side. I had the idea for this recipe because its one that my father makes on weekends when he feels in the mood to cook. It never tastes the same, but almost always involves the same ingredients. Its a beautiful recipe.

Escalope de Dinde avec sauce au legumes.


For the meat:

1 filet of turkey per person. heat olive oil in the pan and sear on both sides. You will finish cooking it in the vegetable sauce.

For the sauce:


2 tomatoes
olive oil
1/2 jar of tomato sauce
3-4 shallots
1/2 c. black olives
2-3 cups uncooked spinach
spices/herbs (hint: this is what varies the recipe, so try different things. I am a fan of herbes de provence, thyme, basil, and oregano)

Dice shallots and tomatoes.
heat 1 T olive oil in a pan and add shallots
Cook until shallots are clear and add tomatoes
lower heat and simmer 5-7 minutes
add uncooked spinach and wait until spinach has reduced.
add tomato sauce
add spices/herbs
let simmer for 3-5 minutes.
add olives
lay turkey filet in the pan
let cook on low flame for another 5-7 minutes or until the turkey is cooked through.



I serve this with either boiled potatoes or rice. Take your pick.

Zany, Zesty, Zippy Zucchini

A little while ago, a friend bought more zucchini than we knew what to do with, and the next day she started a crazy diet so we had a whole bunch of leftover zucchini. So today, I took advantage of my lazy sunday and found creative ways to use up the zucchini.

I made my mother's zucchini and "Vache Qui Rit" soup and replicated (with adjustments) my friend S.'s zucchini bread (which you can find on her blog Curries and Cakes). The soup is a simple recipe that warms my soul in a way that chicken noodle soup heals sickness and tomato soup and grilled cheese brings out the child in you.

Soupe de Courgettes

Ingredients:

Water
Zucchini (one per person/serving)
fromage Vache Qui Rit (one triangle per zucchini)

slice the zucchini. cover with water. bring to a boil, add Vache Qui Rit. Blend. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot.

While the zucchini was cooking, I was busy grating the rest for the bread. Usually, bakers will tell you that you need to follow recipes to the letter when baking, whereas there is more liberty to be had with cooking. I am here to tell you that this is absolutely not true. My zucchini bread was made almost entirely of substitutions, because, being sunday, the supermarkets are closed and I could not go get any of the right ingredients.

Zucchini Bread (adapted from S.)

Ingredients:

2 c. grated zucchini (best left to drain for an hour or so)
3 c. Flour (I used a homemade gluten free mix)
1/2 t Baking powder
1.5 t Baking soda
2 t vanilla extract
3 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
1.5 c. sugar (I ran out of sugar and used an indeterminate amount of powdered sugar)
salt
1 c. oil (supposedly vegetable oil, but all I had was olive oil)
1/2 c. milk (again, I used rice milk to substitute for dairy milk)

(as it turns out, this recipe is egg free, dairy free, gluten free, nut free...) a perfect recipe for the growing number of people allergic to everything.

mix milk, oil, vanilla, and sugar. In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients and fold in the grated zucchini. Add the wet ingredients, making sure to fold in the flour mix evenly to avoid clumps of flour.

Pour into bread mold (I made it in a brownie tin because I don't own a bread mold). Bake at 180 degrees celsius/350 degrees fahrenheit for 45-60 minutes, checking after 30 min. it is done if when you insert a knife in the centre (or a toothpick), it comes out clean.

Let cool. Eat (or eat hot with some salted butter...yum)

Cookbook?

Hi. As you may know, I came home from Morocco last year with a plan to write my own cookbook featuring recipes I learned from the many women I met there. And 18 months later, I have finalised the recipe list and the sections. You'll have to wait (and hopefully buy it) for the actual book, but I wanted to share with you all the joys of cooking some of these foods. Obviously, the most popular could be a couscous or a tagine, but for me, its not so much the food itself but the circumstances in which I discovered the recipes.

Let me take you back. I'm in Fez, march 2010. A friend and I arrive at a hostel on the edge of the medina after a 3 hour train ride. Luckily, we had friends who had been there before, so when we told the owner, he was quite effusive in his welcome. He quickly displaced some Moroccan men to put us in a nicer room and promptly invited us for friday couscous the next day with his family. The next day, Fez, a historical centre of religious learning was buzzing in the morning until shops closed and the streets emptied for midday prayer. We followed our host out of the medina and into a french-built building onto a beautiful terrace and into a cozy living room where his mother and pregnant wife were setting the table.

During the course of this delicious lunch, we were invited by our host's wife to come back to their apartment and take a nap, after which she would teach us how to cook ghraif. We were hesitant to accept this generous hospitality, but I'm glad we did, and it turned out to be one of my favorite memories. After settling us into their formal living room with pillows and blankets, the three of us (my friend, our host's wife, and I) took a couple hours nap while the hostel owner went back to work. A couple of hours later, I was squatting on the floor of this very basic kitchen, learning to cook. I was very honored when I was asked to make tea, and after struggling to light the stove, the tea came out ok. (Now that I've had practice, it's much better).

We made so many ghraif, some spiced and some plain that I wasn't sure if they were for our consumption or to sell. A little later, our hostess's mother-in-law came with a kik fresh out of the oven, and following her, an aunt and some neighbors with their teenage daughters. It was a grown women's tea party with laughter and talking in rapid-fire Arabic. After being stuffed for the second time that afternoon, we packed up some food and were ushered out the door, where the group of us proceeded to go sit in Fez's version of the Jemaah al-Fna-a central square filled with food carts, street performers and dozens of couples, groups of young men and families. Unlike Marrakesh, this was distinctly a locals attraction and I feel honored to have been included.

At one point, we were all sitting on some steps talking and some young men, distinctly of the wall leaner category, (an unofficial expression for the young unemployed Arab men who spend their days holding up the walls, the ones responsible for the start of the Arab Spring), kept coming to sit closer. In a gesture of solidarity, the two older women of our group-our host's mother in law and her neighbor-moved to come sit on our other side, a move which blocked us from the view of these men. It was just about the nicest sign of caring and protection.

To give you a piece of this wonderful day for yourself, here is a recipe for ghraif.

Ghraif (غريف)

Ingredients:

2 cups wheat flour
2 cups coarse semolina flour
1-2 cups boiling water
salt
vegetable oil

Mix first four ingredients until you get an elastic and firm dough. The amount of water is not specified, but the dough should look like bread dough. Knead to get rid of air bubbles. You can do this by folding the dough in over on itself, and you will hear the air pop out. Separate your down into balls approximately 10-12cm in diameter. Let rest for 10-15 minutes. Coat your hands with oil and form into 2.5-3cm balls by squeezing between thumb and forefinger. (Form an "OK" sign with your hand and squeeze the dough through it). Using more vegetable oil (or a mix of oil and butter if you prefer), flatten dough into a square (until its stretched thin) and fold into thirds and then into thirds again.
There is possibility to flavour the ghraif with oil or spices in this phase. Once the dough is flattened the first time, brush with spices and fold it into thirds, brush with more spices and fold again. Flatten again and cook in hot skillet with some vegetable oil until golden. Eat hot or reheated.