Category Archive

Did you think we were gone? We’re still here, though it seems that we’re barely eating and barely keeping up with life as we anticipate some big changes that all of a sudden are sitting there like mountains, just feet away. Oops.

Anyway, I’m breaking the silence to tell you about Arfi and her interesting blog HomemadeS. After having so much fun browsing through someone’s back recipes with last month’s Taste and Create, hosted by For the Love of Food, I couldn’t wait to play again. This month I got to browse through an exotic (to me, anyway) collection of recipes. Arfi posts a lot of Indonesian recipes, and I can’t wait to go through her archive and do some more cooking. Bubur Injit, Sambar Telur Manis, and Empal Panggang are on my must-try list now, but I have to admit that I settled on slightly less adventurous choices. I couldn’t resist making two things: corn fritters and ginger tea.

The corn fritters were lovely. Arfi brought exciting flavour to a nice simple base of corn, flour, and egg with the addition of crispy fried shallots, feta, and celery leaves. Yum! I can’t wait to make them again. The only change I made to her recipe was the addition of some buttermilk, which I added because I found the mixture a bit too dry to work with. I liked the tangy flavour it added, and I thought it went well with the creamy feta. We ate the fritters alongside tomato soup.

After finding the corn fritter recipe, I did some more digging and found a recipe for ginger tea concentrate. Again, nice and simple with a great result. I mixed the concentrate with straight lemon juice and diluted it with water in a one-to-one ratio. I loved the combo of lemony sour, spicy ginger, and sweet palm sugar. I just wish it were summer, so I could appreciate it from a sun-dappled picnic table in a park somewhere. Thanks so much, Arfi!

I have something to tell you. Up to now, this blog has been decidedly positive. We tell you how much we love a food item, give a little run-down on why we like it, maybe give a glowing description and a couple preparation suggestions. Then you get the recipe. This is good. And positive. Everything’s all right here at Supper in Stereo.

 

But here’s my confession– I’m not generally sunny. I’m a whiner, a complainer, a look-on-the-dark-side kind of person. I complain about my job, curse the cloudy weather, call my cat stupid.

Actually, I only did that last one once. And I felt really bad afterwards.

 

 

 

I’m working on it, I am. But sometimes Carlo’s and my self-imposed exercise of listing three good things that happened every day ends up sounding something like this: Today is over. I survived today. I can go to bed now. This, my friends, is not positive.

 

Sometimes when you’re busy feeling grey like this, food falls by the wayside. Oh, we still eat, of course. But cookies turn out tough and floury, soup tasteless, meat dry. And we dutifully shovel it in, to get enough energy to slog through another day. January and February are especially bad when you live in a wintry climate. We’re lucky to get one sunny day a week and the rest of the days are plodding and overcast. They’re not even grey, they’re just… nothing.

 

Have you had enough yet?

 

Then listen: every once in a while, even I have to poke my head up and say “wait, this is pretty good.” The other night, Carlo and I were contemplating a beautiful pan of chicken parts scattered with chunks of lemon and rosemary that we were about to roast (the recipe was yet another gift from my generous aunt and uncle, and I’ll pass it on to you soon). It was gorgeous, even uncooked, and we could tell just by looking that it was going to be delicious. Carlo said “man, we have it pretty good.” And I agreed.

 

I had another moment like this the other night, standing in the kitchen, sticking my tongue out while I took a paring knife to the skins of our last Meyer lemons. I was sticking my tongue out because I was concentrating on only getting skin and not pith, so that the mini batch of limoncello that I was preparing wouldn’t come out with any bitterness at all. To be honest, the task of carefully peeling thin-skinned lemons isn’t really all that fun. I was tense and my shoulders were aching. But at the other end of the counter, Carlo was preparing a batch of one of our favorite ice creams. He was talking himself through the steps, pretending to host a cooking show (sample instructions: “…then you take a thing… or a spoon… and you move the stuff in the bowl around with it.” Sample banter: “I’m okay! Do you like me? You’re okay!”). If I wasn’t concentrating so hard, I would have been giggling. Carlo finished preparing his ice cream, and I finished peeling my lemons (it took me 30 minutes for four lemons– that’s dedication). Then Carlo put his ice cream into the ice cream machine and I put my limoncello in the cupboard to steep.

 

 

 

It’s just a little jar, mind you. I only had four lemons left (and incidentally, the more-than-half-empty bottle of vodka on our bar had the exact right amount of alcohol left, which was a nice coincidence). When the limoncello’s finished, it will be enough for a few sips, not much else. But I still like knowing that it’s sitting in the cool darkness of our cupboard, getting more and more delicious, waiting for us. You can steep your limoncello anywhere from two weeks to four months. I’m leaving mine there for all of February. We’ll see how I feel come March.

 

I’ll let you know how the limoncello turned out in a couple months. And Carlo’s ice cream? It was perfect, perfect. Life is good and we are lucky. I just don’t feeling like talking about it.

 

BROWN SUGAR SOUR CREAM ICE CREAM

We follow the recipe for brown sugar sour cream ice cream from Mercedes at Desert Candy faithfully. The last few times, we’ve used panela instead of brown sugar, just because I found panela in the store and felt that it needed to come home with me. I highly recommend this variation, as the panela has a great intense smoky, molassesy flavour. However, you MUST try the original recipe as well. It’s great! I love the addition of bourbon to the mix, but you could easily leave it out and still have a great ice cream. Plus there’s no custard to fiddle with (Farhan, I’m thinking of you…).

 

 

LIMONCELLO

If you want to make limoncello, here’s the recipe I used. I used vodka, as it’s what we had around, but if you can find a grain alcohol, that would probably be better. The linked recipe makes a huge amount, but I scaled it to the following proportions:

 

4 lemons, preferably unsprayed and unwaxed
350 mL vodka or grain alcohol
1 1/4 c. water
1 1/3 c. sugar

 

Wash and dry the lemons, then peel them. Place them in a mason jar with the alcohol. Make sure the lemon is fully covered. Put the mason jar in a cool, dark place, shaking it once a day. Leave this for at least two weeks, but I’ve read you can go up to four months.

 

When your lemon concoction has steeped to your satisfaction, it’s time to sweeten it. Bring the water to a boil and add the sugar. Stir until the sugar has dissolved, then remove from the heat and allow to cool. When the mixture is room temperature, put a strainer over the saucepan that’s holding the sugar syrup and strain your steeped lemon mixture into the sugar syrup. Combine the liquids well, then place the mixture back into a mason jar. Put the mason jar back into your cupboard and repeat the first process, shaking twice every day for about three weeks.

 

Finally, after all that time, it’s ready to taste! The Washington Post recommends storing your limoncello in the freezer, where it will turn a milky yellow.

 

WASTE NOT!

By the way, I juiced the lemons after I peeled them and boiled the juice with sugar in a 1:1 ratio to make lemon syrup. You could use this syrup to make lemonade, or you could pop in a vanilla bean and do a bit more fiddling to make something like this (which looks super-lovely).

 

 

Carlo’s wandering around the living room muttering “stupid nablopomo,” and “I hate writing.” And I’m pretty tired today too, so here’s a teaser instead of a full post. We bought our dinner again, but this time, no regrets. Well, none but the inevitable junk food hangover. Oh, but it’s so worth it. Do you know what we ate today? It’s all wrapped up inside this package:

Now Carlo’s reading a children’s book about latkes. He’s giggling. Which is not the same thing as writing. So that’s why you’re going to have to wait a bit to learn about poutine. One note: it’s pronounced poo-teen. It’s popular in Canada, but mostly in Quebec. And I don’t know why it’s not better known outside of Canada*. Once when we were visiting Oregon, my sister tried to order it at a fast-food restaurant. The cashier looked at her, blinked a couple times and said “I’m sorry. You want poo what?”

Carlo will tell you more about poutine later. I apologize for the live-blogging experience. I feel like a hockey announcer, narrating the most boring game ever. I promise not to make it a habit.

*There are some notable exceptions to the Canada-poutine rule. Kris of To Be Mrs. Marv recently asked me about my experience of poutine in Montreal. I’m doing some research to give her tips for home prep, as we (and people in general, in the land of poutine) generally get our poutine take-out. I’m still working on the poutine project, Kris!

Okay, so we didn’t make anything today. We ate frozen pizza. It wasn’t good. The toppings were unbalanced. It was supposed to be Quattro Stagione (four seasons), so four even quarters, with different toppings on each. But it was like Canada– one season dominated. All the vegetables were huddled together on 1/3 of the pizza, and the rest was covered in (rubbery) prosciutto. Carlo made this picture about it. You’d think a robot could at least be symmetrical.

Anyway, right now I have ice cream churning, so tomorrow you can expect something interesting. This month is going to do us in!

Originally posted May 18th

 

My wife left for a family trip about a week and a half ago. Since then, it’s been beer, cheeseburgers and NHL playoff hockey. I’ve roasted asparagus under the broiler as a side. That’s cooking, right? Whatever dude. Anyway. If I’m not eating frozen pre-packaged burgers (meat pucks), I’m tapping my freezer’s reserve of store bought pizzas, ignoring the homemade crusts Hanne left for me to eat (with instructions and suggestions for toppings).

 

Sure, it sounds and actually has been great, but I’m wearing down, my fast metabolism be damned. Also, I had big plans (which didn’t include trying to pass Zelda before the wife returns), cleaner arteries and an apartment that didn’t reek of meat before I was left to fend for myself. I was hoping to prove, by starting this food blog, that I could take care of myself. Turns out I can feed myself, but taking care of myself has taken on a sinister tone.

 

So instead, here is my low point, complete with a wicked picture of my someone else’s day-old meat-caked George Foreman Grill, snapped amateurishly with my camera phone stolen from this blog because I can’t find my usb cable. Hello world! Seriously, this food blog has nowhere to go but up!

 

Check out the rest of Receding Hairline’s Fat Cat vs. George Foreman pictures here. I feel your pain, Fat Cat.