Peach Caprese Salad

I have been wanting to post a really great Raspberry Curd that Claire and I made for more than a week now, but I had a very sad mishap with my camera. I think it might be dead forever due to some contact lens solution spilling on it :(... The only upside to this was that I had no choice but to go out and upgrade to an iphone. The camera on it is decent enough to get me through until I can buy a real camera, and it also functions as a phone! I have to say I've had it for two days and its even better than I hoped. I missed my skytrain stop this morning because I was so engrossed.  All these pics were taken on it.

In the meantime here is a quick post about a perfect summer salad that I have been eating for the last 4 nights straight (and for lunch too!). I got the inspiration from Joy's crostini over here. Caprese Salad is something my parents make every summer, and once I tasted this version I couldn't stop eating it. Seriously, the sweet flavour of peaches mingling with the slight acidity of balsamic vinegar and tomatoes, the bright basil and the neutral soft cheese to balance, is off the hook.

My suggestion for the best possible salad, is to get the most ripe and juicy peaches and tomatoes you can find in your store. They make the salad. Don't settle for something too firm, is what I'm saying! You might be skeptical about savoury stuff on a peach (a grind of pepper and a sprinkle of salt) but it works, trust. 

Peach Caprese Salad Recipe:

3 ripe peaches

3 ripe tomatoes

8-10 basil leaves

2 balls of soft boccocini cheese

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

coarse sea salt

pepper

Slice the peaches and tomatoes thinly and lay out on a platter. Chiffonade the basil (ie. roll all the leaves up like a cigar and then slice through). Rip up the soft cheese and sprinkle throughout the salad, then add the basil. Sprinkle the vinegar over top, and top with a healthy amount of sea salt and a grind or two of pepper. Let it sit in its juices for a few minutes, then enjoy! 

Tastes like summer.

I enjoyed it as a side with some great homemade burgers and a glass (or two) of white wine in my garden last night. Weirdly Matt put the salad IN his burger. He said it was good?

Matt put his salad IN his burger. Something to try?

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes

The other day I had a craving for something chocolatey and delicious, so I started thumbing through my friend's cupcake book and came across these. And I knew it was meant to be because I had ALL the ingredients. This. Never. Happens. I'm always out of something or other, or am missing the secret ingredient, in this case stout. But I had it all! Including a homemade stout from a friend. Serendipitous indeed.

Ok, technically I did not have all the ingredients since it is a vegan recipe, so I substituted 1% milk for the soy milk. Hilarious? I think so. 
The recipe was easy and straight forward, mix your wet, your dry and then mix them together. What I really enjoyed is that it has a crumb topping that you sprinkle on before baking, so once they have baked and cooled, they are ready to eat. No icing required. 

Crumb topping, so easy! Just a 1/4 c of flour, cocoa, sugar combined with oil.

Ready for the oven

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes 
from vegan cupcakes take over the world by moskowitz & romero

Ingredients

Crumb Topping
1/4c all-purpose flour
1/4c cocoa powder
1/4c granulated sugar
2 tblsp canola oil

1. Sift together flour, cocoa and sugar. 

2. Slowly drizzle in oil, mixing with a fork, and crumbs will start  to form.

3. Once all oil has been added, toss and stir the crumbs with your fingers, to make as many as possible. (If the mixture is already clumpy before all the oil has been added, don't add it all).

4. Set aside. 

Cupcakes
3/4 cup milk
1 tsp   apple cider vinegar
1 cup plus
2 tblsp all-purpose flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 cup stout

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup canola oil

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Whisk together milk and vinegar in a large bowl. 
2. In a separate bowl sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix. 
3. Add stout, sugar, oil, and vanilla to milk misture and beat until foamy. 
4. Add dry ingredients to wet in batches and mix. 
5. Pour batter into liners, filling them 3/4 of the way. Sprinkle with crumb topping, so that they rest on top. 
6. Bake 20-22 mins at 350 C, or until a toothpick comes out clean. 
7. Once cooled you can sprinkle with confections sugar for extra pizazz, or eat as is.  

Raspberry Explosion Scones

I am in love with my garden, but one of the best parts is something a lovely previous tenant planted, the tangle of raspberry bushes along the back fence. I haven't ever pruned them, but I will try this fall. Nonetheless  they have finally started to ripen after a damp June and while I let the sprinkler water the garden I managed to collect about 2 cups of them! They are really tart probably because of the lack of sun, but so SO good! Since they don't last long I threw them into these really yummy scones to make them last the week. 

Raspberries being sandwhiched into the scone dough. 

They are called raspberry explosion scones because not only are raspberries mixed into the batter, but the scone dough is also rolled a bit thin so that I could sandwhich an entire layer of raspberries inside (thanks to Joy the Baker for the idea)! Its so good, and you really do get a lot of raspberry per scone bite. Although I admit they are a bit messy, still really nice warmed up for my breakfast each morning this week. 

Backyard harvest, raspberries, pak choy, kale, radishes and snap peas.

This picture is the other nights little garden harvest. And I have been sharing with the neighbours too.

I have to say this buttermilk scone recipe is off the hook, and my addition of orange zest is great with raspberries. Next time I may add coconut.

Raspberry Explosion Scone

Adapted from Joy the Baker

makes 8 scones

3 cups all-purpose flour


1/4 cup granulated sugar


3 teaspoons baking powder


1/2 teaspoon baking soda


3/4 teaspoon salt


1/2 cup unsalted butter, cold and cut into cubes


1/4 cup vegetable shortening, cold and cut into cubes (if you don’t have shortening you can certainly substitute unsalted butter)


1 egg, beaten


3/4 cup buttermilk, cold


1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract


1 cup of raspberries, rinsed


1/4 cup buttermilk, for burshing


2 tablespoons granulated sugar


1 teaspoon orange zest.


Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 400 degrees F.


Mix the dry and wet ingredients together each in a different bowl. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir one time with a fork, then stir in a few of the raspberries. Gently knead the dough together, and turn onto a flat surface.


Roll the dough about 1/2 inch thick, brush with buttermilk, sprinkle with sugar and then spread the remaining raspberries on half of the dough. Fold the dough over, creating a raspberry sandwich of sorts. Slice into scones, and transfer to baking trays with parchment. Bake about 15 minutes.

Simple Tomato Tart

About to go into the oven

I made this quick tomato tart for my lunches this week. I have been trying to put a big effort into packing my lunch for the week, its just way more satisfying as the lunch options around my office are limited. Its also a good chance to be healthy. The thing is, it only works if I make a huge batch of something Sunday night to last me the week- otherwise I just scramble the whole week to find something. Anyways, this whole tart will easily last me for a week of lunches. 

This tart is really simple, I just used some frozen phyllo dough, defrosted it and piled on a bunch of ricotta, caramelized onions and fresh summer tomatoes. Tastes amazing! I think it would go even faster if you had puff pastry waiting for you in your freezer. 

Out of the oven. Sorry for my gross oven mitt.

I love summer tomatoes, and its so nice to finally be getting them here, even if they had to be grown in a hot house. I bought red, yellow and orange, and let the onions caramelize while I prepped the phyllo and tomatoes.

Recipe for Simple Tomato Tarts
by me!

• 4-5 tomatoes
• 2 sprigs of Thyme
• 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
• 2 cups of ricotta
• 2 eggs
• 2 onions
• 1/2 package of defrosted phyllo dough
• 4 tablespoons of melted butter. 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Slice the onions finely, place in a pan on medium heat and let soften and brown for about 4 minutes without any oil (this is a little trick for speeding up your caramelizing onions).

Defrost the phyllo (mine said you had to let it defrost in the fridge, but I needed to use it right away and used the microwave, it was fine). Melt your butter. Using a pastry brush lay out a layer of phyllo on your tart pan, brush with butter, add another layer and repeat until you have put abut 7-10 layers of phyllo. You need it to be fairly sturdy to hold all the delicious things you will put inside.

While you  work on the phyllo check back on your onions and add some oil or butter and salt... turn the heat to low and just let them get nice and brown and sweet.

Prepare the filling. Mix 2 cups of ricotta cheese with two eggs, salt and pepper to taste. Spread on phyllo, and then lay the onions over top. Slice your tomatoes and layer these on top next. Finally finish with a generous sprinkle of salt, fresh ground pepper and just a couple dabs of balsamic vinegar. 

Bake for about 50 minutes. I then turned down the heat and left it in the warm oven for a bit longer to let a bit of the juices from the tomatoes evaporate.

Brussel sprouts are amazing!

Despite the never ending dreary rain in Vancouver this spring, the garden is doing pretty good. Its mostly the plants that like rain which are thriving, the kale, spinach, radishes and potatoes. (The squash plants however are flailing a bit).

When I was in the garden store, I picked up a six pack of brussel sprouts seedlings as my 'experimental' plant for the year on a whim. I have never grown them and know nothing about it, but I thought I'd try it for fun.

They are doing great, and are the coolest little plant! Sunday when I was out in the garden I discovered little baby sprouts. Who new they grow in the arm pits of the leaf branches!? Its so cool!! The plants are getting so big and leafy that I removed some leaves and sauteed them with Kale and they tasted great. Bonus! Anyways, I'm really charmed by these cute little buds. What a strange place to grow a fruit/flower**. It looks like you are actually supposed to remove the leaves to allow the buds to grow even bigger eventually.

I love gardening for so many reasons, one being that I'm always learning something new and getting to love my veggies more.

So in anticipation of the sprouts that will one day be, here are some great recipes. I think they brussel sprouts are so under-appreciated! Probably because we are used to having them boiled to death, but they are great roasted and Tess has a traditional family recipe that is amazing and is basically just tossing them with Newman's Dressing!

• Crispy brussel sprouts with garlic aioli
• Shredded brussel sprouts with bacon
• Roasted brussel sprouts with toasted almonds
• And in the WTF catagory... A brussel sprout door wreath (a waste of good sprouts if you ask me). 

** I got this awesome note from my botanist roomie/co-gardener, Tess, after I posted this:

ALSO: i noticed that you called a brussel sprout a fruit/flower, and so in light of your search to learn more about the plants you are eating, it is actually a perpetually dormant bud:

In botany, a bud is an undeveloped or embryonic shoot and normally occurs in the axil of a leaf or at the tip of the stem. Once formed, a bud may remain for some time in a dormant condition, or it may form a shoot immediately. Buds may be specialized to develop flowers or short shoots, or may have the potential for general shoot development. A terminal bud occurs on the end of a stem and lateral buds are found on the side. A head of cabbage is an exceptionally large terminal bud, while Brussels sprouts are large lateral buds.

Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake

I can't get enough of rhubarb this spring, I find myself bringing it home by the pound and looking for as many different recipes as possible to use it! I mean I know rhubarb pie is nice, but I have managed to make the barb into an amazing curd, a tart, compote and a couple of cakes this season. I made this cake for a big BBQ. Its really easy and fast, pretty and tastes great.

I got this recipe from Martha Stewart, and added a layer of strawberries I had kicking around to the top. They didn't stick around because the cake takes almost 50 minutes to bake, so they pretty much turned to jam, but they added to the flavour and really upped the brilliant red of the rhubarb. There is a second best secret part to this cake- the bottom has a crumb topping on it! It adds a bit of salt and crunch to the cake that is really, really nice. The recipe also calls for orange juice and zest, and I think its the perfect compliment to the tart flavours of the rhubarb.

The rhubarb is macerated in 3/4 cups of sugar, which I thought at first was a lot, so cut it down a bit. My cake topping was quite tart, which I loved! But if you like a sweeter rhubarb you could safely up the sugar a bit.

When the cake first came out of the oven, I almost didn't want to flip it over because that crumb coat looked so pretty! I have been using my spring-form pan to great success with upside-down cakes lately because removing the sides of the pan makes flipping the cake that much less scary.

Martha has done it again, this is such a lovely cake. It would be great served with a bit of creme fraiche. 

I also made this rhubarb cake recipe earlier in the spring, and it was a great transition between a warm winter cake and spring, with the addition of cinnamon and brown sugar- I turned this one into an upside down cake as well, and cut the rhubarb up into smaller pieces for the top. When Sasha was visiting she made the cake again for guests, and people loved it.

If you are as obsessed with rhubarb as I am I would recommend also taking a gander through the Martha Stewart website's 'Rhubarb Recipe Slideshow"  here and I dare you not to run out and grab the last of the rhubarb stalks that are left out there. It has such things as a mouth watering rhubarb meringue pie!

Upside-down Rhubarb Cake
Adapted from Martha Stewart

• For the Topping

  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
  • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • Coarse salt

• For the Cake

  • 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for buttering pan
  •  1.5 pound rhubarb, trimmed and cut on a very sharp diagonal about 1/2 inch thick
  • handful of strawberries
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • Coarse salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon finely grated orange zest plus 1 tablespoon fresh orange juice
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 cup yogurt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Make the topping: Stir together butter, flour, sugar, and 1/4 teaspoon salt until moist and crumbly.
   
2. Make the cake: Butter a 9-inch round cake pan (2 inches deep). Dot with 4 tablespoons butter (cut into pieces). Toss rhubarb with 1/2 cup sugar; let stand for 2 minutes. Toss again, and then slice the strawberries. Place the strawberries on the bottom of the pan, and then the rhubarb, trying to make the red parts face down as much as possible
   
3. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt. Beat remaining stick butter and cup sugar with a mixer on medium speed until pale and fluffy. Beat in zest and juice. Beat in eggs, 1 at a time, until incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl. Beat in flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with sour cream, until smooth. Spread evenly over rhubarb. Crumble topping evenly over batter.
   
4. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean and top springs back when touched, about 50 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes. Run a knife around edge of cake, and invert onto a wire rack. Let cool completely.
   

Building Ships

I came upon this quote in the book I'm currently reading, which I can't put down, by Tamar Adler called An Everlasting Meal. Her writing makes me itch to get home and cook my next meal, reminds me to linger over the spicyness of a radish or the luxury of a bit of olive oil on bread. Reading the book is making me look at my fridge, pantry, grocery store and garden in a whole new way and realize the endless possibilities that can come from just a few beautiful eggs or a left over leek.

The book reminds you of how food and eating is so much more than fuel for your body, but an integral way we interact and enjoy the tangible world around us and how the food we eat is a way we come to understand our histories and ourselves. But like all amazing books her philosophies of food are reaching out to touch other parts of my life.

This quote is at the beginning of a chapter where she talks about how to rediscover you passion for cooking and eating when it starts to become an every day chore, which happens to the most devoted food fanatics. Instead of thinking of the chopping, the washing, the sauteeing, she says to rember true love for the exprience and eating of food itself. And she explains it much more eloquently than I am here.

But the quote stuck with me because it makes a lot of sense in another realm of my life, which is politics. Sometimes I think we ask ourselves and others to knock on doors, make phone calls and raise the money without reminding ourselves of the deep longing that drives those mundane chores. For me and other progressives I think that deep longing is for a more just and equal society, and its just as immense as any sailors longing for the sea. Yet somehow it can be easy to lose sight of.If we can teach others to long for this, and remind ourselves of it daily hopefully building our ships will become just a bit easier. 

Just my small thought of the day.

Over and out, Caitlin

(got the ocean picture here)