Winter

It's the end of November and the weather has yet to turn cold. The temperatures are manageable during the day, and its only when the sun goes down and the wind howls that the biting cold sets in. I can't believe Thanksgiving was a week ago and I did not even manage to post some delicious recipes for my favorite holiday.

Here are a few items from my Thanksgiving menu to catch you guys up:

Cran-Orange relish

1 cup Fresh Cranberries (this makes me miss Massachusetts a bit...New England cranberry bogs are just so beautiful and the fruits taste so good.)
1 orange, peeled and sliced
1 tsp. diced fresh ginger
sugar (its definitely necessary, but add as much or as little as you like. I am a fan of dark brown sugar)


Put all ingredients in a food processor and pulse until everything is combined, but not smooth. You want individual pieces of fruit.

Serve in a pretty bowl on a decorated Thanksgiving table.

Fall Quinoa Stuffing:
(Adapted from Epicurious, makes 10 healthy servings)

3 bay leaves
2 cups quinoa
1/4 cup olive oil
2 small zucchini - cut into cubes
1 butternut squash - peeled and diced (I used pumpkin)
2 bunches green onion - chopped (I used regular white onion, and caramelised them a bit before adding to quinoa)
1 cup dried apricots
1 cup dried cranberries (I left these out and while the final product was delicious, I'm sure the cranberries would have added a wonderful flavour)
1 cup fresh parsley - chopped
1 cup fresh mint - chopped (I left this out...I didn't think the taste would have gone well)
1 lemon

boil 4 cups water. season with bay leaves and salt. add quinoa and return to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer about 20 minutes, until quinoa absorbs water. remove from heat, remove bay leaves and let cool. Meanwhile, heat 3 T oil. sauté zucchini and squash (cook squash first as it takes a bit longer than zucchini. combine vegetables and quinoa. Add onions (either raw green onions or caramelised white onions), dried fruit, and herbs. Add lemon juice, salt & pepper to taste.

This dish is meant to be served hot, but it is delicious as a cold dish as well.

Grapefruit

delicious, no? refreshing, tangy, sweet...
I love grapefruit. It can be eaten in quarters, used in a marinade, made into juice...the list is endless.

But my favorite is just plain. Cut in half and eaten with a spoon.
How do you cut your grapefruit?

I have some wonderful memories of my mom cutting a grapefruit. First in half, and then, with a sharp paring knife, showing her love by taking the time to cut around each individual section to make it easy to eat.

Afterwards, the best part was always squeezing the juice into a glass of water and enjoying those last perfect tastes.

I'm picturing a sunny kitchen-maybe its painted yellow...ours always was-a child eating a grapefruit, legs dangling from the chair, toes just touching the floor, talking to her mom...her best friend...and eating a lovingly cut grapefruit.

Merci Maman...j'ai tellement hâte de te voir! Et Papa aussi bien sure :) Vous aimes +++

Birthdays and Punkin Pie

A day before my birthday post:

I love fall. piles of leaves, crisp weather, apples, thanksgiving, my birthday, and of course pumpkin pie.


Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients:

for the pie crust:
2 cups all purpose flour (I used a homemade GF mix)
1/2 c cold butter
1/2 c cold water

put the flour in a mixing bowl. add the butter (cut into chunks) knead with your hands and add water as necessary until you can form a ball. let rest in refrigerator while you make the filling.

for the filling:
2 cups cooked pumpkin (or 1 can)
- see below for instructions on cooking a fresh pumpkin
1 teaspoon each of ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, allpice and cloves (or 4-5 teaspoons of "pumpkin pie spice")
12 oz can of evaporated milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
3/4 cup of sugar
3 eggs

Mix all ingredients together and whisk until smooth.

roll out pie crust (approximately 1cm larger than your dish) into your dish. (make sure to butter the pie dish to avoid sticking). poke holes with a fork to avoid air bubbles.
pour pumpkin mixture into dish.

cook at 200 degrees celsius (400 degrees fahrenheit) for 45-60 minutes. sticking a knife into the middle should come out clean when cooked.

optional: cover the edges of your crust with foil if you are afraid of the pie crust burning.


Cooking fresh pumpkin
cut the pumpkin in half (if you dont want it to explode in your oven--its happened to me...not a fun clean-up), scoop out the seeds, lay face down on a baking sheet. cook at 350 degrees fahrenheit/180 degrees celsius for 30 minutes or until soft (check after 20 minutes).
peel the skin off and let cool. puree the pumpkin (it works great with a hand mixer)
at this point, you can easily freeze it for later.


What's the ratio of a pumpkin's circumference to its diameter?
Pumpkin Pi (3.1428571428571428571428571428571)

Cheesecake Brownies

The other day I was feeling like I needed to bake. I wanted to, and although I often bake as a stress reliever, I don't do it because I'm stressed, I do it because I enjoy it.

So, after consulting with my roommate T. we settled on making cheesecake brownies.

Cheesecake Brownies

I adapted my recipe from David Leibowitz's blog "Living the Sweet Life in Paris"



Ingredients:

6 tablespoons (85g) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
4 ounces (115g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
2/3 cup (130g) sugar (I used brown sugar because I like the taste...and that's all I had)
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 cup (70g) flour (Mine was of course a GF flour mix)
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup (80g) chocolate chips

8 ounces (200g) cream cheese, at room temperature
1 large egg yolk
5 tablespoons (75g) sugar
1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract

This recipe is good for one 20cm square pan (8 inches)

Melt butter and bittersweet chocolate over low heat. Remove from heat and beat in sugar and eggs. In a separate bowl, mix dry ingredients plus chocolate chips and vanilla. Slowly add the mixed dry ingredients to your chocolate-butter-sugar.

Spread in a non-stick (or buttered) pan.

In a separate bowl, mix the cheesecake ingredients together. Spread on top of brownie mixture and with a spatula or a toothpick, swirl cheesecake into brownies until evenly distributed.

Cook for 35-40 minutes at 180 degrees celsius (350 Fahrenheit) or until a knife comes out clean. Let cool. Serve

Sur les quais du vieux Paris...

A recent five day weekend brought my roommates and I to Paris. It was A. and C.'s first time visiting so I took them to all of the typical attractions, from the Sacré Coeur to Notre Dame, the Marais district and Montmartre, and of course, La Tour Eiffel.



We also went on a city-wide hunt for Macarons. A. had heard of Ladurée, and when we walked by their Champs Elysée location and they were closed, we walked down to Place de la Concorde and onto Rue Royale for their other store. The line outside scared us, out the door and basically around the corner, so we took some photos and left to find macarons somewhere else. In the end, we stumbled into a store with this in the window:




And good news! I finally looked up a recipe for macarons and they look relatively simple. Meringue cookies with a filling. The trick is to cook them so they are soft in the middle...and deciding which flavours to make and how to best pair them together.