Did you just watch Breakfast TV Calgary? Thanks for checking out the recipe…

Click the pic to go watch the video at Breakfast TV Calgary…

If you have more mouths to feed, check out the Lazy Loafer’s Meatloaf.

TURKEY PATTIES

300g ground turkey

1 egg

¼ cup  crumbled crackers, raincoast crisps rosemary, raisin, pecan

½ tsp poultry seasoning or assorted fresh minced herbs (parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme)

salt and pepper

vegetable oil or duck fat for frying

Get a large frying pan on the stove over medium heat to warm up.

In a medium bowl combine ground turkey with crackers, poultry seasoning and egg. Mush it up really well with your hands. If you want to check it for flavour and seasoning, just pick a little bit out and fry it til it’s cooked and taste it. Add more salt, pepper or seasoning if required.

Divide the mess into 2 large patties or 4 small patties.

Pour some oil in the hot pan and place the patties in gently. Fry until it gets a crispy brown bottom, then flip it over and cook until it’s done. Set it aside to rest while you whip up the Brussels sprouts.

BRUSSEL SPROUTS

4 slices of bacon, chunked

10 brussel sprouts

1 clove of garlic, grated

zest and juice of 1 orange

a few craisins or dried cherries

nob of butter

salt and pepper to taste

Get a large frying pan over medium high heat and pile in 4 slices of bacon cut into small chunks. Fry the bacon until crispy, then remove, but leave as much of the fat in the pan as possible. Crank up the heat and toss in 10 Brussel Sprouts that have been pulled apart into just the leaves and one whole clove of garlic. Add the zest and the juice of 1 orange (or ¼ cup of OJ), a few craisins, a nob of butter and swirl until it makes a nice creamy sauce. Season with salt and pepper and serve with crispy bacon on top.

CARROT COINS

2 carrots, cut into coins

2 Tbsp butter

1 large nob of ginger, grated

1 tsp honey, optional

salt to taste

Place a small pot over low heat. Pile in the carrots, butter and ginger. Place a lid on top and cook for 15-20 minutes until the carrots are tender and the butter creates a lovely orange sauce. Season with salt and serve.

Check out the menu for this Fall’s Hands-on Couple’s Cooking Classes at the Cookbook Company.

• Twisted carrot and parsnip latkes with ginger cream and bright parsley salad

• Nutty quinoa citrus supreme salad with bright basil mint

• Meaty halibut baked with zesty peperonata with herby butter homemade gnocchi

• Juicy fresh grape streudel with bright basil and coriander+orange chocolate sauce

Here’s an action video from a class…

Classes are hands-on, 6:30-9:30, $90 per person. Call to 403-265-6066 register.

These hands-on Bistro classes are great for learning about food in a fun social environment.They offer an opportunity to cook all 4-courses instead of other classes where you are restricted to just one of 5 courses.

Here are the dates for this menu.

Friday, October 14

Friday, October 28

New Menu to starts on…

Saturday, November 5

Saturday, November 12

Saturday, November 26

By golly, do you have a busy family? We invite you to try this super-supper that is nutritious-delicious, tasty-hasty— oh gee!

Kassler smoked pork chops—taste the superb ‘just right’ blend of smokey-salty flavour through and through with old-world Kasseler pork chops—ready to heat and eat! Combining the slow-cooked flavour of ham with the convenience of a pork chop, Kassler chops are a meal the whole family can enjoy without going to the bother of opening a single can— boy howdy!

Kassler Stroganoff

2 Kassler chops

10 brown button mushrooms, cut into thick slices

1 onion, diced

1 glass of white wine

½ cup sour cream or crème fraiche

1 Tbsp Dijon mustard

pinch of ground nutmeg

pinch of Salt

fresh cracked Pepper

PROCEDURE

It’s about to get real homey up in this kitchen, homey.

Preheat the oven to 350˚F.

Get a large frying pan on the stove over medium heat, for 5 minutes. Place the Kassler chops in the hot and dry pan.

Fry for 4 minutes a side until nicely browned. Remove from the pan and place on a baking dish big enough to accommodate both chops and deep enough to pour some sauce into.

In the same pan pour some oil and add the mushrooms in one even layer. Leave them still so they have time to get nice and brown, about 3 minutes. Add the onions and toss it all about. Continue cooking until onions soften and start to get caramelized.

Before you add the white wine, consider the relationship between heat and alcohol. Alcohol is flammable, especially at high heats.

To lessen your chance of a surprise flambée remove the pan from any open flames (gas stove) before adding the white wine.

If the wine does ignite, don’t panic, just call it a flambée and extinguish it by placing a lid on top to starve the flame of oxygen. You could also just wait a couple more seconds for the flame to subside, it doesn’t take long for the alcohol to burn off.

Whatever you do, don’t douse it in water or that will cause a grease explosion fire bomb.

If it doesn’t ignite, continue cooking over medium heat until the boozey smell evaporates and the wine reduces by half.

Remove the pan from the heat and add the Dijon, sour cream and nutmeg.

Pour the mixture directly onto the pork chops. Blap the whole mess into the oven for 10 minutes, until the top is golden brown and the chops are heated through.

Serve with simple boiled potatoes or just some good bread on the side for slopping up the sauce.

Geez, that’s tasty!

FOR ALL KINDS OF EXTRA INFO ON KASSLER CHOPS

CHECK OUT THE NEW SWERVE WEBSITE

Homemade butter! It’s an old school skill but its not beyond modern understanding and appreciation.

Homemade Butter

2 cups heavy whipping cream (to make butter)

To make butter, pour the cream into a glass jar with a tight fitting lid. Shake the jar until you have butter (this can take 5 minutes and it helps to share the shaking with a partner. Hold the jar near the lid, holding the jar on the glass will warm up the cream. Butter forms between 12-18˚C.

First stage: the cream becomes whipping cream.

Second stage: the whipping cream gets lumpy

Third stage: the fat globules separate from the liquid and start to form butter clusters.

Fourth stage: the clusters amass and form one large lump of butter.

Remove the lump of butter from the jar and run it under cold water for 3 minutes while you knead the lump. This helps remove the buttermilk which ensures a longer lasting butter that won’t spoil quickly.

Boter koek, Dutch Butter cake

Bonus Butter Cake recipe from Caren and Patrick who took cooking class called Better with Butter at the cookbook Co. way back in November. Thanks to my co-chef Kevin Kent from Knifewear and the 10 fearless attendees who ate 12 course of butter kissed food the class could not have been better.

Botterkoek, Dutch Butter cake

2/3 cup soft, room temperature butter

1 cup sugar

1 tsp almond extract

1 egg, beaten

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

topping

1 egg

1 tsp milk

slices of blanched almonds

PROCEDURE

Preheat your oven to 325˚F.

Grease a 9-inch cake or pie pan.

In a Stand up mixer with a paddle attachment cream butter and sugar. Creaming means whip em around on high speed until the butter gets all fluffy and the whole mess turns a couple shades lighter. Scrap the chunky bits off the sides if necessary.

Turn off the mixer and add the egg and the almond extract. Fire up the mixer slowly until the egg’s all mixed in.

Using a spoon or a spatula, add the flour and baking powder. Stir it all until smooth and transfer the mess to your pre-greased baking pan.

Mix together the egg and milk with a pastry brush.

Isn’t it against some kind of globally-recognized gluttony rule to eat healthy vegetables with ravenous rapture? Cabbage, the crispy vitamin filled orb defies the rules because everyone loves cabbage. Korea and Germany love to ferment it, China gobbles it with reckless abandon, Americans saw it and slaw it and you sure can’t beat the Leutonian classis combination of cabbage rolls and coffee… Mmm-mmm good!

Leutonian cabbage rolls

INGREDIENTS

1 head of green cabbage

1 cup vinegar for the steaming method

2 pounds ground pork

2 eggs

1/2 tsp ground juniper

1/4 tsp ground cloves

pinch nutmeg

½ onion, finely minced

2 cloves of garlic, grated

1 700ml can of plain tomato purée

1 700ml can of plain stewed tomatoes

Serve with sour cream and boiled potatoes or bubble and squeak

PROCEDURE

There are two ways to properly remove the leaves from a head of cabbage, hot or cold.

Hot method: Boiling/steaming. Fill a big pot with 2-3 inches of water bring it to a boil and add a cup of white vinegar. Place a round metal cookie cutter in the bottom of the pot so the cabbage is propped up and not touching the bottom.  Steam it with the lid on tight. Every 5 minutes you can take out the cabbage and remove the soft outer leaves, 3-4 leaves. Careful it’s hot. Then pop it back in the pot to steam the next few outer leaves. Add more hot water as needed.

Cold Method: Freezing. It used to be common practice to toss a head of cabbage into a snow bank. Once it was frozen solid, it would be brought inside, thawed and the leaves would be softened and ready to roll. You can do the same thing in your freezer at home.

In a large bowl combine the ground pork meat with 2 eggs, spices, finely chopped onion and garlic. Mush it all up with your hands until thoroughly combined.

Preheat the oven to 375˚F.

Get a large, deep baking dish (or two medium baking dishes) and add the stewed tomatoes in a single layer in the bottom of the pan.

Once you have a nice big pile of 12 cabbage leaves it’s time to start rolling. You can save the rest of the cabbage to make Bubble and Squeak (Quick Fire, look right).

Place the first leaf on the cutting board with leaf’s natural curve downwards. The bottom of the center stem is at 6’oclock. Place a palmful of meat in the center. Fold in the side flaps, and holding them in, fold up the bottom flap over the meat. Then go with this flap’s momentum and continue rolling until you end up with a cabbage roll.

I like to pack mine really full to brimming with meat.

Place the cabbage roll in the baking dish. As you add more rolls, keep them in nice tidy rows.

When the pan is full, pour on the tomato puree and blap the whole mess into the oven. Bake for 45-60 minutes depending on how full they are. The only way to find out if they are done is to cut one open and check the middle to make sure the meat is cooked and no longer pink.

After they come out of the oven, let them rest for 15 minutes to disperse the juices and settle down.

Eat them when they’re hot with loads of sour cream and plain boiled potatoes or Bubble and Squeak (Quick Fire, look right)..

* If you are a fan of the happily wandering Schmenge Brothers, you can have your cabbage rolls with coffee… Mmm-mmm good!

gets along with

Apple, Bacon, Beef, Butter, caraway seeds, dill, fennel, garlic, ham, juniper berries, mustard, nutmeg, onion, parsley, sausages, potatoes, sour cream, walnuts, vinegar.

fresh pick

Get tight cabbages with taught skin, no soft spots, especially around the stems. It should feel heavy for its size. Green or red cabbages should be bright and clean. Surface scuffs might be alright if they are superficial but check to make sure there are no burrowing critters that might be digging deep. Loose leaf varieties like savoy cabbage should be clean and bright.

quick fire

Bubble and squeak. Peel, quarter and boil 3 russet potatoes until tender, drain and let them release steam in the warm pot for 10 minutes before mashing roughly. In a large bowl combine mashed potato with the remaining cabbage core, roughly chopped and season liberally with salt and pepper. Get a large (ideally cast-iron) pan over medium heat  — nothing in the pan— and let it get hot for 10 minutes. Form little burger sized patties of potato mixture and place them on a sheet while the pan heats up.

Add either lard, duck fat or grapeseed oil to the hot pan so it forms a nice slick covering the bottom of the pan. Gently place the patties in the pan being careful not to splatter hot fat on anyone. Don’t over crowd the pan.

Leave the pattie alone so it gets to form a nice crusty bottom before flipping it. Flip it and top with a little nob of butter and leave it to finish cooking.

Unlike a pancake, bubble and squeak likes it when you press down on it once in a while. You can tell because it makes bubbling and squeaking noises.

nerdbyte

In French, it is a term or endearment to call someone mon p’tit choux (my little cabbage). The word chouette (cute) was also plucked from the cabbage patch.

Beets are bloody lovely this time of year with their sweet, sticky sanguine appeal. For die-hard carnivores beets offer a gateway vegetable to help supplement their meaty diet and for the opposing side it can help vegetarians fulfill their animalistic blood lust. For omnivores stuck in the middle… if you can’t join either of ‘em, beet ‘em.

Beetball subs

INGREDIENTS

10-12 small beets or 4-5 medium beets

700 ml tomato sauce puree

10 whole garlic cloves, peeled

salt, to taste

drizzle of extra virgin olive oil

700 ml bottle of tomato purée

4 hoagie/sub buns

sub sauce

200 g goat cheese

1 heaping Tbsp of mayonnaise

2 Tbsp finely chopped chives

horseradish, to taste

salt, to taste

PROCEDURE

Preheat your oven to 350˚F.

Chop the top ½ inch off the heads of garlic and place the garlic and beets in a deep baking dish. Pour ½ inch of water into the pan and cover tightly with tinfoil.

Roast the beets for 2 hours. Shake the pan around every half our or so.

Check to see if they are done by poking the point of a sharp knife into the beet and if the beet is soft and the knife slide back out easily the beets are done. If they’re not done roast for another 30 minutes and check again.

When the beets are done let them cool while you prepare the tomato sauce and the goat cheese.

Place the goat cheese, mayonnaise, chives, horseradish and a pinch of salt in a sealable sandwich bag. Mush it all up and snip off one of the corners to make pouring easy.

Get a large pot on the stove over medium heat and pour in the tomato sauce. Squeeze out the roasted garlic cloves into the sauce and season with a good pinch of salt. Let it simmer away while you peel the beets.

To avoid getting caught red handed you can peel the beets under trickling water in the sink or you can use rubber gloves. You won’t need a peeler because the skins are soft enough to just rub off with your thumbs.

Plop the beets into the pot of tomato sauce and cook for 5 minutes. If you have medium sized beets, you might want to quarter them to make eating possible.

Get a nice soft hoagie/sub bun and squeeze on some of that awesome goat cheese sub sauce, pile on the saucy beets and as much tomato sauce as you can handle and then scatter on a few left over chives. If there’s any room left drizzle on some really good olive oil.

Get some napkins handy, disconnect your jaw and take a big bite, careful it might be hot! If you were ever going to wear a bib, now’s the time.

gets along with

Apples, butter, carrots, chives, soft cheeses, cream, garlic, goat cheese, honey, horseradish, olive oil, orange, pinenuts, smoked meat, sour cream, walnuts, vinegar.

fresh pick

Go get some Alberta beets out in Bowden at the Eagle Creek Farm (eaglecreekfarms.ca)

Pick beets with tight, dry skins. They should be hard with no soft spots. Ideally you can get them with dark green leaves on top, which are lovely fried in butter with garlic and a splash of balsamic or sherry vinegar.

They come in loads of different colours from yellow to pink to candy striped. But the best beet flavour comes from the dark crimson red beets.

quick fire

You can enjoy beets raw with this simple BEET TARTARE. Peel 2-3 beets and grate it into a bowl. Add a splash of olive oil, some orange zest, a little scoop of Dijon mustard, 10 capers, 1 finely chopped gherkin pickle. Use a 4 inch metal ring (Or take both rounds out of a tuna can) to shape the beet mixture into a nice round shape on a plate. Top with little chunks of soft goat cheese and a fried egg and some freshly chopped chives and lots of fresh cracked pepper.

nerdbyte

Red alert…

No matter how often I eat beets, I am constantly alarmed the next day to discover that I am urinating blood . . . or so it seems. The dye in beets gives your urine a faint red tint and may come as a shock if you are not expecting it.

You’ve been warned.

Project Food Blog Challenge #3 – (200 competitors remain) Luxury Dinner Party: How to host a dinner party.

*Project Food Blog is the first-ever interactive competition where 2000 Foodbuzz Featured Publishers are competing in a series of culinary blogging challenges for the chance to advance and a shot at the ultimate prize: $10,000 and a special feature on Foodbuzz.com for one year.

Luxurious Dinner Fable

Once upon a table there lived a gnarly ogre and a friendly, pretty witch. Someone cast a spell which compelled them to throw a luxurious party. We had four guests including the prince, princess and their distinguished pixie guests. The party was luxurious, full of fable-ulous stories and some legendary food.

Kids are excellent dinner guests gauges. They are unapologetically picky eaters, have unrefined eating habits and lose interest in sitting for more than 10 minutes…. basically if you can impress kids you can impress anyone! If your dinner party is boring or uninteresting, kids will be the first to let you know. Here is a kid-friendly menu that will absolutely impress your most distinguished guests of any age.

TIPS// Make as many things ahead of time as possible/make a music playlist/ create conversation prompts/ print out individual menu cards so everyone has an idea of what’s coming, but keep some surprises to keep them interested/ the hosts should designate a table person and a kitchen person to help draw the responsibility line/ after each course get a different guest to help you clear the table and that person can help plate the next course and serve it, it’s a great chance for the cook to visit with each guest/ with four story based courses, we had each guest read off one of the stories for each course

golden eggs

A farmer discovered that his free-range chicken had laid a golden egg. Thinking the chicken must be full of gold, he killed the chicken and looked inside. He was kind of disappointed to discover that it was just a chicken, until he used the entire chicken to make golden chicken nuggets and everything was golden again.

TIP// Freeze the breaded nuggets for frying up any time.

INGREDIENTS

1 whole free range chicken

2 carrots

2 celery sticks

1 onion

2 cloves

1 bayleaf

sprig of rosemary, thyme and parsley (or any other herbs you might have)

3 packages of gelatin

breading

6 eggs

2 cups flour

salt and pepper

2 cups panko bread crumbs

frying

1 Litre of canola or corn oil for frying

honey mustard

1/2 cup honey

1 cup mustard

1 tsp ground turmeric

garnish

edible gold leaf (optional)

honeycomb

PROCEDURE

To make the honey mustard mix honey with mustard and turmeric. You knew it was that easy…

Place the chicken and all the other ingredients in a large pot. Cover the chicken with enough cold water to cover plus 1 inch more.

Crank up the heat to full… but be careful! The second you see steam coming off the top, drop the temperature down to a gentle simmer. Poach the chicken for 2 hours. When you remove the chicken, if the juices are running pink, keep poaching for another 30 minutes until the juices run clear. Remove the chicken from the liquid and leave it to cool for 30 minutes. Meanwhile you can strain the cooking liquid and bring it to a rapid boil to reduce it and concentrate the flavours.

When the chicken has cooled place it in a large bowl. Remove the skin and discard. Get two other bowls handy: one for bones and cartilage and the other for meat. Start picking apart the chicken and placing all the nice big pieces of juicy chicken meat in one bowl and all the tough, gooey, veiney, boney, cartilageous bits in the other bowl. Chuck all the nasty bits.

Get a small pot on the stove over high heat with 3 cups of the chicken stock. Add the gelatin and whisk until the gelatin dissolves.

(1) Finely chop all the chicken meat and place it in a bowl. (We tried using a food processor once, but it works much better if the chicken is chunky-chunked, instead of a smooth consistency). Add fresh or dried herbs (rosemary, thyme, oregano) to your liking. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper. Add 3 cups of stock to the chicken and mix to distribute. Pour in the gelatin evenly all over and mix it all together with your hands making sure everything is thoroughly incorporated.

Use an ice cream scoop to scoop out even golf ball sized lumps of meat and place them on a plate or baking sheet. Once they are all scooped out roll them between your palms so they are nice and round. Pop them into the freezer to firm up slightly while you set up your breading station.

(2)** chef trick: for even shaped balls get a square of plastic wrap and plunk the chicken in the middle. Draw the 4 corners together to form a bag and twist them all tight until it forms a nice tight plastic bubble ball of chicken. Chill it in the plastic wrap for 2 hours before breading.

(4) Set up your breading station with three dishes: one for flour, one for beaten eggs and one for bread crumbs.

Get a clean baking sheet at the end so you have somewhere to put all your bread chicken nuggets.

Choose a dedicated ‘dry hand’ and a ‘wet hand’. With the dry hand pick up the nugget and place it in the flour, rolling it around until it is evenly coated. Then plop it into the beaten eggs. Do one more coat of flour, and one more egg dunk before finishing in the panko bread crumbs. Then lift it onto the final baking sheet.

(6) Continue until all the nuggets are breaded. You can either fry them immediately and eat them or you can freeze them on the baking sheet and once they are frozen transfer them into ziploc bags for use at a later time.

To fry the nuggets, put the oil in a large pot and using a thermometer, bring the oil up to 375˚F. If you don’t have a thermometer you are bound to burn or boil a few while you adjust the temperature to provide perfect crispy golden frying.

Fry the nuggets a few at a time to avoid over crowding and having the temperature drop too much when the cold nuggets go in.

Remove the golden nuggets with a slotted spoon and place them on a wire rack or a paper towel lined plate. Salt them immediately.

To serve, brush the serving plate with honey mustard and place a golden nugget down. Put a few little flakes of edible gold leaf and a little chunk of honey comb on for garnish.

Everyone was starving. So when a stranger showed up and started making soup from a supposedly ‘magic’ rock, the hungry townsfolk wanted a little of that action. Everyone was able to toss a little something into their soup to make it better and collectively they made a pretty darn tasty soup.

TIPS// Cut everything very small so the little pieces disperse beautifully throughout the soup/ Keep your bowls warm by running them in the dishwasher and leaving them in there until you serve/ Make fresh stock or use some of the cooking liquid from the poached chicken in the golden egg recipe/ You can use any ingredient your imagination can muster. Just dice it nice and fine and if you can’t cut it super fine at least cut it small enough to fit on a spoon/ if you are using meats like chicken or Italian Sausage make sure they are pre cooked before you serve them to your guests/ Take the serving one step further by pouring the stock from a pitcher into each person’s bowl or find small individual teapots and fill with stock for self service.

INGREDIENTS

4 Litres of light flavoured chicken or vegetable stock

for garnishes choose between 6-8 pre-cooked ingredients

1/2 cup finely diced carrots

1/2 cup finely diced celery

1/2 cup finely diced chives

1/2 cup finely diced ham

1/2 cup finely diced mushrooms, sauteed in butter

1/2 cup finely diced, fennel

PROCEDURE

Dice all your ingredients well ahead of time. If you do it the day before just make sure you don’t use things that will oxidize and discolour like some squashes and or apples. Keep everything in airtight containers all together in the fridge.

By cutting the veggies very small you won’t have to cook them ahead of time. Simply putting them in the hot broth will be enough to warm them through and the veggies will still keep their crunch.

Serve the ingredients in small, elegant bowls or teacups with little dainty spoons. They are fun to pass around.

You can either serve the broth at the table from a large soup terrine or pour the hot broth from a pitcher or from individual pitchers or teapots.

There once was a large, slightly edgy and very demanding wolf chef who had a penchant for ethically raised pork. He went to a big box grocery store and all they had was pork from a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation. So he huffed and he puffed and demanded free-range heritage pork.

He then went to a conventional butcher only to discover the butcher didn’t know where the pork came from causing the wolf chef to huff and puff once again.

Finally he found another butcher who worked directly with a farmer to produce happy, well-raised pigs. So he shelled out the extra money to support them without any huffing or puffing.

TIPS// Make the ketchup well ahead of time, it keeps in the fridge for ages and it’s easy to adjust the flavours to the way you like it / pork burger patties, pork kebabs and pork pies can be cooked ahead of time and reheated in the oven

pork Hambourgers with straw fries and homemade ketchup

INGREDIENTS

1/2 pound of ground pork, divided into 12 burger patties

salt and pepper

2 potatoes

salt

canola oil for frying

ketchup for garnish

PROCEDURE

This is like a Hambourg hambourger in the way that it is just the patty, but you could easily make little sliders by putting them on mini buns.

Peel and pre-cut your potatoes into tiny strips and put them in a container with cold water and a good pinch of salt, this can be done a couple days ahead of time. When you are ready to fry make sure you drain off the liquid really really well or the oil will boil over and make a dangerous hot oil mess.

Get a pot of canola or vegetable oil over medium high heat and bring the oil up to 350˚F. Make sure the fries are really super dry before you fry them. Fry in small batches until golden brown and crispy. Remove the fries with a spider (slotted spoon, with lots of tiny holes). Place on a paper towel lined plate and season immediately with salt.

Meanwhile make the burgers. Hambourgers are super simple. Season your meat and divide into golf ball sized chunks. Flatten them out and fry them off in a really hot cast iron pan.

Serve a little ketchup on the plate with the burger on top and cover with a nice pile of straw fries. Drizzle on a little more ketchup.

pork kebabs with baked bean dip

INGREDIENTS

1/2 pound of ground pork

baked bean dip

pinch of cinnamon

pinch of cloves

1 can of white navy beans

1/2 cup barbecue sauce of choice

PROCEDURE

To make the baked bean dip. Drain the beans and place them in a food processor with the barbecue sauce. Blend until very smooth. Add hot water a little at a time until it reaches the consistency of creamy bean dip. Season with salt and pepper and any other spices if you like.

Preheat the oven to 425˚F.

Season the ground pork with salt and pepper. Divide the pork into 12 meatballs.

Shape the meatballs into slightly longer oblong balls like rugby balls. Insert a skewer lengthwise and squeeze the meat so it adheres to the stick. Line the kebabs up in a baking dish. You can keep them in the fridge raw or you can pre cook them well ahead of time and re heat them for serving.

pork pies with apple jelly bricks and apple butter

INGREDIENTS

1 pound ground pork

salt + pepper

pinch of ground cloves

pinch of allspice

pinch of nutmeg

pinch of cinnamon

hot water crust

250 g all purpose flour

pinch of salt

1 egg

100 g unsalted butter

90 ml water

garnish

1 cup apple juice

1 packet of gelatin

apple butter (optional, but highly recommended)

PROCEDURE

To make the meat bricks combine the ground pork with salt, and spices in a bowl.  Mix with your hand until the spices are well distributed.

Place the ground meat mixture into a small straight sided loaf pan or baking dish. The idea is to make it evenly squared and about 1 inch thick. If you don’t have a dish the right size simply do your best to shape it up nice and square on a flat sheet. Place the meat in the freezer for 1 hour to get firm.

Meanwhile make the hot water crust by placing flour and salt in a medium sized bowl. Make a well in the center and put in the egg, scattering some flour from the edges to cover the egg.

Get the water and butter in a small pot an bring to a boil. As soon as the butter is completely melted remove it from the stove bring it to the flour bowl. Using a dinner knife to mix pour the hot water and butter into the flour bowl while mixing. Once the mixture is smooth… even though it’s really quite soft. Place it on a piece of plastic wrap and wrap it up nice and tight. Put it in the fridge for 1 hour to chill out. Now you can make the apple jelly bricks.

Pour 1/2 cup of apple juice into a bowl. Sprinkle on the gelatin powder. Place the remaining half of the apple juice in a small pot and bring to a boil. When the juice is boiling, pour it in with the gelatin and juice. Whisk until the gelatin has dissolved. Pour the liquid into a square container and place in the fridge to set for at least 2 hours, but better over night.

Now take the chilled meat out of the freezer and since it is slightly frozen it should be easy to cut into 8-10 brick shapes.

Roll out the pastry dough using plenty of flour until it is 1/8 of an inch thick.

Space the bricks of frozen meat out so they have enough pastry to wrap them up. (See diagram above) Cut out a cross shape and brush the edges with water or a beaten egg. Fold in the sides (match up the letters on the diagram) and pinch the edges tightly closed. Cut a hole or three in the top of the brick and line them back up on a sheet. Freeze until solid. Put them back into the freezer to freeze before baking.

When the jelly is solid, turn it out onto a cutting board and with a long sharp knife cut it into little rectangles.

To bake, preheat the oven to 425˚F. Place the pies on a parchment lined baking sheet and pop them in the oven. Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350˚F and continue baking for 20-25 minutes, depending entirely on the size you ended up with. Test for doneness by inserting a metal skewer into the center of the pie for 10 seconds, pull it out and press the metal that was in the center against your bottom lip. If you jerk it back immediately, it’s ready. If it is cool or tolerably warm, it’s not ready.

Serve the warm pies with a smear of apple butter on the plate and some randomly placed jiggly little apple jelly bricks.

After running all day from people who are trying to bite you head off, it’s nice to just relax in a soothing hot tub… especially if that hot tub is full of soothing ginger hot chocolate and whipped cream.

To simplify dessert you can also just serve the hot chocolate on it’s own. Ginger is great for helping to digest a heavy meaty meal. People go crazy when they drink this ginger hot chocolate… watch your guest’s eyes when they take the first sip. Crazy eyes!

TIPS// You can set every thing up well ahead of time; get the milk steeped and infused with vanilla/Place the chocolate and ginger in a spouted container for easy pouring/ Finely chop the ginger for the whipped cream and have it ready to go when you whip the cream at the last moment/ after you serve the hot chocolate you can pour coffee right into the same cups and make a kind of mocha/ serve the hot chocolate in coffee cups or little individual fondue pots/ bring the whip cream to the table for any whipped cream fiends.

gingerbread men

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup  butter, room temperature

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup fancy molasses

2 ½ cups all purpose flour

2 tsp ground ginger

pinch cinnamon, allspice, salt

½ tsp baking powder

PROCEDURE

In your standup mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg and the molasses.

Sift together flour, baking soda, salt and spices.

Add the dry stuff to the mucky mix in thirds, stirring to incorporate thoroughly. At the third addition, you may have to use your hands to combine the stiff dough. Form the pile into a smooth dough ball and divide into 2 even balls. Wrap the balls and blap em in the fridge for an hour to firm up.

Preheat oven to 350˚F.

Place one ball in the center of a large piece of parchment paper or silpat.  Dust the top with flour and use your rolling pin to roll out from the center until you have a flat whack of dough about 1/3 inch thick. Place the parchment with the dough on a baking sheet and cut out your little gingerbread people. Remove the scraps and ball them up and blap back in the fridge for more cookies later.

Bake that batch while you roll out the next ball. Combine all the scraps to make more gingerbread men. Obviously the dough is already dark and gorgeous, so when you bake them the colour change will be subtle. Bake each round for 10-13 minutes until they get goldener-browner, but not burnt and hard to the touch. Remove, slide the parchment onto a cooling rack and let them cool. They will become crispy as they cool.

ginger hot chocolate

(aka; whacky crazy coocoo cocoa)

INGREDIENTS

1 cup milk

½ cup cream whipping cream

1/4 cup white sugar

1 vanilla pod, split lengthwise

8-10 oz dark chocolate

2 tsp freshly grated ginger or 1 tsp powdered ginger

whipped cream

2 cups whipping cream, whipped to soft peaks

3 Tbsps candied ginger, very finely chopped

PROCEDURE

Whip cream 2 hours in advance. In a chilled bowl, using a balloon whisk, whip cream semi-firm. Add the icing sugar and whisk until slightly firmer, but still quite soft. Fold in the candied ginger.

Bring the milk, cream, vanilla pod and sugar to a simmer over medium high heat.

Stir until the sugar has dissolved. Turn off the heat and let the vanilla infuse for 10 minutes. This can be done very early and left on the back burner for a quick reheat when it’s dessert time.

Pour hot milk over grated chocolate and fresh ginger in a spouted container and stir until it melts.

Serve hot chocolate in a small espresso or capuccino cup with a messy dollop of whipped cream on top and some cocoa powder dusted on top.

Random party tips

• come up with a theme whether it is Fables, Scottish Harvest or Kevin Bacon. Having a theme gives guests an idea of what to expect as well as an automatic conversation orbit.

• Keep a broom, spare clean clothes and bandaids handy, accidents are likely to happen.

• On the days you are doing most of the prep, drop the temperature of your fridge a couple of degrees because you will be going in and out of the fridge constantly and warming it up.

• Instead of trying to do the dishes during the dinner party, set up a rubbermaid container and a garbage so you can quickly unload the scraps into the garbage and stack the plates for washing later. You can also put all your dirty dishes in a tucked away place.

• Get more disposable plastic containers than you think you will ever need and use them to put all your food in so you can organise your fridge.

• Organise your fridge by course. Keep all your salad stuff together, all the soup stuff together, etc, etc.

• Same for dishes, organise them by course. Use a handy cupboard as a dedicated dishes cupboard for the night. Put the dessert plates in the back and the appetizer plates in the front.

• Here is the biggest tip: Give yourself permission to do all the cleaning up the next day so you can enjoy the evening.

Asparagus officinalis has been cultivated and coveted by gastroristocrats since the days of Ancient Greece. Throughout history it has been prized as a difficult to grow, luxury vegetable. If you feel like flashing a little culinary bling you can razzle dazzle some guests with grilled asparagus doused in fancy-pants orange-enhanced Béarnaise. The grass doesn’t get any greener.

grilled asparagus with orange Béarnaise

INGREDIENTS

15-20 small to medium asparagus spears

Orange Béarnaise

3 egg yolks

2 Tbsp fresh squeezed navel orange juiced

1 tsp white wine vinegar

1/2 pound cold butter

pinch of salt

2 sprigs of tarragon, leaves only, finely chopped

serve with a grilled porterhouse and some boiled new potatoes

PROCEDURE

Fire up barbecue and get it screaming hot.

Boil some new potatoes while you get going with everything else.

To make the Béarnaise: Put the yolks, orange juice, vinegar and butter into a cold medium-sized pot. Get out your whisk and put the pot over medium-low heat.

Stir dilligently—you don’t have to stir hard, you don’t have to stir quickly, you just have to stir constantly. Don’t think you can walk away for a second.

You’ll notice the sauce starting to get smooth and creamy, but still quite thin and runny. Just be patient and keep stirring. It will start to thicken up.

When it is nearly the rich, velvety consistency of hollandaise, remove it (and keep it away) from the heat source. Stir in the tarragon.

Ideally you want to use it immediately, but if that’s not possible just make sure it doesn’t sit around for more than half an hour.

If it becomes too thick as it sits, whisk in a couple drops of warm water to loosen it up.

Head over to the barbecue with your steak and asparagus. Drizzle the asparagus with oil and sprinkle with salt to season before you pop it on the grill.

Roll the asparagus when it starts to get charred.

Grill the porter house to desired doneness, let it rest on a clean cutting board for 5-10 minutes and slice it nice and thin.

Serve up the grilled asparagus, boiled potatoes and grilled steak all smothered with loads of orange Béarnaise sauce.

gets along with

bacon, butter, chives, eggs, ham, olive oil, orange,  parmessan, new potatoes, smoked salmon or smoked trout, sour cream, tarragon and walnuts

fresh pick

Asparagus will perish quickly. So ideally you want to get it on the day it was picked so it is firm and sweet. Damaged leaves, flimsy stems or frayed bottoms are not worth getting. Thicker stems will need peeling to remove woody skin at the bottom, but thin stems should be crisp and tender.

quick fire

Drive up to the Edgar Farms Asparagus Festival on May 29-30 and hop on the ‘wagon’ ride. Learn lots of interesting trivia about asparagus while you bounce along the dirt road. Hop off, run over to the field, snap off a spear and take a bite. You will be stunned by the sweet juicy crunch of perfect fresh asparagus.

Check out www.edgarfarms.com or call (403) 227-2443 for time, location and event details

nerdbyte

Thanks to asparagusic acid, some folks produce strong smelling urine after eating asparagus. Oddly, not everyone can perceive the strong odour even if they produce it.

Click here to check out last year’s asparagus recipe

It’s mushroom hunting season.

If you are brave enough to head out into the wilderness in search of the fungi make sure you wear your hunting mushroom cap and take along your pepper spray… mushrooms taste better with pepper. Just be warned the perils are great if you decide to face the spores outdoors. There are plenty of poisonous mushrooms just waiting for an unsuspecting human to come along to send on a psychedelic journey to the afterlife.

Unless you know your way around the mushroom kingdom, it might be best to leave the Big Game mushrooms to the expert hunters. 

But that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy mushrooms cooked in the hunter’s style. Mushroom Cacciatore (Italian for hunter’s style) is a great way to prepare a pack of portobellos as a main course.

INGREDIENTS

4 portobello mushrooms, stems removed

cooking oil

6 cloves of garlic

1 cup of robust red wine

3 cups of tomato puree

1 cup grated gruyere

1 cup bread crumbs

salt and loads of fresh cracked pepper

PROCEDURE

Preheat the oven to broil.

Get a great big frying pan (all metal, so it can go in the oven) on the stove over medium high heat. Let the pan get hot for 5 minutes. Pour in enough vegetable oil to grease the pan and immediately place the mushrooms in with the gills facing down. Toss in the garlic cloves all willy nilly.

Cook the shrooms for 5 minutes until they get nicely crispy brown around the edges. Flip the mushrooms over, season liberally with salt and pepper. Add the white wine and cook away the boozey smell. Add the tomato sauce around the mushrooms and season again with salt and pepper. Bring the whole mess to a boil.

Top with gruyere, bread crumbs and a nice drizzle of olive oil.

Pop it in the oven until they are golden brown and crispy on top.

Serve hot with some mashed rutabaga and “hot-under-the-collard” greens.

Further reading…

Jamie Oliver Magazine is looking fantastic! I haven’t missed an issue yet and I’m especially thrilled with the offering of the illustrated Make Me in the back of the mag. It is the illustrated recipe page with outstanding illustrations by the young and talented French illustrator Emma Tissier. I just discovered she has a tonne of books available on Amazon (french). 

Incidentally, when the magazine first came out with the first illustrated backpage by Jose Reis de Matos (awesome illustrator from Pork and Sons and French Feasts), I made every effort to become one of the contributors to that page. After some back and forth with the art director I sent in a hopeful submission for an illustrated variation for Mushroom Cacciatore… but to no avail. Emma was too well established and she continues to improve with marvellous contributions to the magazine every issue. 

For the sake of interest, here is my original contribution to the magazine… it’s not quite as timely as it was a couple months ago, but part of me was holding out for the chance to get into the mag. Well done Emma, I love your stuff!

Dividing up the Neapolitan ice cream can be a real three-way tug of war. The tension builds throughout the meal as to who will be the first to pick out their favourite flavours and leave the dregs to the plebs. 

The Chocolate fiends are the type who aggressively attack with a spoon to get their fix. The Strawberry fans use their seductive powers to lure the ice cream over to their spoon. The Vanilla hoarders are puritans, but they use their sense of entitlement to demand their vanilla share.

Here is a recipe for everyone to enjoy eating a little bit of chocolate, strawberry and vanilla… but it’s not for dessert, it’s the main event it’s…

Cocoa pork tenderloin, roast strawberries and vanilla potatoes* 

INGREDIENTS

pork

1 large Pork tenderloin

½ cup Cocoa powder

1 oz Brandy

Veg oil

 strawberries

20 Fresh or frozen strawberries, shucked and left whole

½ red onion, finely diced

Drizzle of oil

good pinch of salt

Just a little splash of balsamic

potatoes

2 large russet potatoes

¾ cup heavy cream

½ Vanilla bean, split and scraped

good pinch of salt

2 Tbsp Butter

PROCEDURE

Preheat oven to 425˚F. 

Strawberries

In a baking dish combine strawberries and diced red onions. Drizzle with vegetable oil and sprinkle on the salt. Toss a bit to coat evenly with oil. Blap them into the oven and roast until the strawberries just get slightly brunt on the tips.

When the strawberries are just slightly burnt on the tips, remove from oven and splash on the balsamic. Serve warm or room temperature with pork (put any leftovers on a sandwich with brie the next day). 

Vanilla Potatoes

Peel and quarter the potatoes and put them in a large pot. Cover with cold water and get the potatoes on to boil. Bring them up to just about a boil and reduce heat so it doesn’t boil violently and rough up the potatoes.

In a small pot combine cream, vanilla and salt. Bring to a simmer, shut off the heat and let the vanilla flavour infuse.

When the potatoes are fork tender, drain and put them back into the pot to let off some steam for 5 minutes. 

Run the potatoes through a ricer or a mouli into a large bowl. Remove the vanilla pod and mix the cream into the potatoes.

Cocoa pork tenderloin

In a bowl combine cocoa powder, brandy and pepper to form a loose paste. Brush or rub the surface of the pork tenderloin liberally with the cocoa paste.

Get a frying pan on the stove over medium heat and let it get nice and hot for at least 5 minutes. Sear the pork on all sides to add colour (be careful not to burn the cocoa) and transfer the whole thing directly into the oven. Cook until the middle of the tenderloin registers 145˚F. Remove from the oven, transfer to a cutting board, cover loosely with tinfoil and let it rest for 10 minutes.

To serve

Get a nice ice cream scoop of potatoes on the plate, drizzle around the strawberries and place a lovely piece or two of pork tenderloin on top. Sprinkle a little finishing salt and some pepper on top.

Serves 4 as long as nobody fights over the flavours.