Dinner in the Yellow House

Dia de los Muertos Post-Mortem, Part II

Hello!  Nearly six months ago, I posted the first part of the post-mortem of our Dia de los Muertos feast.  I never posted the second half.  The text and photos for it have been sitting on my hard drive for a long, long time, and finally, today, they are getting out. 

This recipe for Chiles Poblanos was written by my mother in memory of her mother, who was born in Puebla and died on Dia de los Muertos 2004.  My mom took the photos too.  Thanks, Mom!

Chiles Poblanos (Stuffed peppers in the style of Puebla)

2T olive oil

1/2 cup of chopped onion
2 cloves of garlic

1 lb ground pork

salt to taste
1 small can of tomato paste
2T of prepared mole paste (available in Mexican food specialty stores)

1 disc of Ibarra chocolate

1 chopped apple
1 chopped peach
1/2 cup of raisons
1/4 cup of chopped pecans
1/4 cup of chopped almonds

save enough pecans to decorate

1 can of roasted and peeled poblano chiles

Jalapeno Jack cheese
1 pomegranate

Take chiles out of can carefully and drain.  They will be roasted, peeled, and most of the seeds will have been removed. 

They will be stuffed through the slit that was made to take the seeds out.  Set aside while you make the stuffing.

Sauté onion and garlic in oil until it begins to get transparent.

Add ground pork and cook until well done.

Season to taste with salt.

Heat the tomato paste seperately and add the mole and chocolate.  With a fork, mix thoroughly before adding to the meat mixture.  Be sure all the lumps of mole and chocolate have broken down because they would be difficult to find in the mixture.

Add apple, peach, raisins, pecans and  almonds and cook long enough to soften the fruit.

Scoop a few spoonfuls into each chile and arrange on a baking dish.  Pup a piece of cheese on each chile and a pecan half. 

Bake in oven long enough to melt the cheese.  Sprinkle pomegranate seeds on each chile and serve.

These chiles can be served with chicken in mole and guacamole with tortilla chips.

I never thought I'd like any stuffed chiles as much as the standard, plain, Anaheim chiles stuffed with Monterey Jack and fried in batter.  These are real comfort food for me.  But this recipe for Chiles Poblanos takes it to another level:  a more interesting and elegant level.  These can also be served as a main course with beans and rice.  I figure on two chiles per adult and one per child.  And please, feel free to experiment with different fruits, canned fruits, whatever.  But the pomegranates are, in my opinion, non-negotiable. 

Un oeuf!

This blog has gotten pushed to the backburner of my life, I'm afraid.  Even though I still love cooking and writing about it, I have started putting more time into my paid work and other writing.  But last week something happened that I couldn't resist reporting here.  I hope this is the beginning of a return to more steady, if not exactly frequent, food blogging.

Last Monday, I was able to leave a message on my spouse's work voicemail that I've been wanting to leave for a long time.  Just two words, but they represent a lot of hope and investment:  "Un oeuf!"

After seven months, one of our chickens had finally an egg. 

When we bought the chickens, we were told that they would start laying when they were about six months old.  They were six weeks old at the time.  Their six month birthdays came and went with still no sign of any eggs.  We consulted various experts and all of them said the same thing:  they won't start laying until the days get longer or we put a light in their coop.  The woman who advises me on their feed at Borden Mercantile said they need to be getting 14-16 hours of light a day in order to lay.  We talked about installing a light, but were dragging our feet on it.  Running a long extension cord across the yard with a two-year-old running around seemed like a bad idea, and installing electricity in our shed would be a major undertaking. 

As it turns out, we won't be installing a light, at least not this winter.  Even without the requisite 14 hours per day of light, our chickens are now laying gorgeous, light-brown, perfectly formed little eggs.  Since the initial lay last Monday (we got dressed up and had a fancy dinner with an expensive bottle of wine to celebrate Egg Day) we have had three more. 

So it's been an exciting week.  The only bad part was that the picky eight-year-old, who does most of the chicken-care, was not the one to discover the first egg.  I went out to clean the coop last Monday and I was the one who found it.  She wasn't the one to discover the second or third eggs either, partly because she became discouraged and stopped wanting to go out to the coop to feed the chickens for fear of being disappointed again.  Finally, on Sunday morning, she found an egg.  And then, all of a sudden, it was worth it. 

I've been thinking about the importance of kids feeling connected to their food and food sources and feeling that keeping these chickens is a big step in the right direction.  In the above photo, two-year-old M'hijo is thanking the chickens for laying the egg so that he could eat it.  He has seen, in books, that eggs come from chickens, but actually holding that egg in his hands, and then seeing my fry it up later, made it so much more real for him.  I think so, anyway.  I have to admit it that it was a learning experience for me too, and I thought I already knew that eggs come from chickens.  There was something about actually getting that egg from our coop, from our chickens, that made me see the situation in a whole new way. I thought "Okay, I EAT reproductive byproducts that come out of birds.  This is WEIRD."  Not weird enough to make me a vegan, though. :)

So far, I haven't eaten any of the fresh laid eggs myself, giving my daughter the chicken keeper that honour.  I am looking forward to seeing whether I actually notice a difference in the taste between a fresh egg and one from the grocery store.  I'm also looking forward to the day when our chickens lay enough eggs each week that we can stop buying eggs altogether.  This may mean getting a couple more chickens.  I'll have to start thinking about new names. 

Merry Christmas

The only thing that could make standing in a long lineup bearable -- even, dare I say it, fun -- is that it is Christmas Eve and the lineup is at the butcher and an adorable young apprentice is serving treats on a tray wearing a Santa Claus hat and constantly wishing everyone a Merry Christmas.

Which is to say that I did not forget to pick up the turkey this time.

I doubt I will get a moment to post more tonight or tomorrow, even though I have lots to write about.  Even now, my family is anxious for me to come away from the computer and attend to their myriad Christmas Eve needs. 

So, Merry Christmas to you and yours!  I hope yours is merry, delicious, and most of all, peaceful.

(Above, my picky-but-no-longer-vegetarian-eight-year-old works on our Christmas Eve yule log)

Latkes and Applesauce

My friend Anna will shout "LATKES! LATKES! LATKES!" in her livejournal, but will not deign to post a latkes recipe on her blog.  So it falls to me, the unqualified gentile, to post a latkes recipe. 

I got this out of a picture book that my children love called, appropriately, Latkes and Applesauce: A Hanukkah Story. 

1.  Grate 6 medium potatoes, 2 medium carrots, and one large onion, in that order so your eyes don't sting longer than necessary.  Put the gratings in a huge bowl and stir in 2 eggs, 1/4 cup of matzo meal, and plenty of salt and pepper. 

2.  Heat vegetable oil in a pan till it's quite hot, then plop spoonfuls of the mixture onto the pan and shape them nicely with a heatproof spatula.  Cook until browned, then flip.  Keep the latkes hot in a 250-degree oven while you finish the rest. 

The recipe in the Joy of Cooking for applesauce was too long and had too many ingredients.  I took the very lazy route and three 3 pounds of cored, peeled and chunks Gala apples in a pot with 1/4 cup of margarine (we are out of butter!)  and cooked them over low heat for the time it took to make the latkes, adding about a cup of water and 3-4 tablespoons of brown sugar during the process.  At the end, most, but not all, of the chunks had turned to mush.  I was actually quite pleased with the result, considering that I used no apple juice or spices.  It tasted extremely appley, and I liked the chunkiness. 

A friend of the yellow house is celebrating her first Hannukah without her mama, so we made these for her.  Oh, who am I kidding?  While feelings of goodwill toward our friend may have initially inspired the latke-making, we made these to eat ourgreedyselves, and also managed to save a plateful for our friend.

I'm not going to lie to you: all that peeling and coring and chopping and grating makes this meal a bit labour-intensive.  But it's a real crowd-pleaser here; M'hijo couldn't be bothered with utensils and ate his portion -- applesauce and all -- with his fingers.

 

Cassoulet and Mercurey

The first time I had cassoulet was at a 50th birthday party for the painter Carol Frank, who is a friend of my dad's, when I was sixteen years old.  The theme of the party was A Moveable Feast, and the host read bits from the book while his helpers served us the dishes described in the text.  This was the same night that I first made the acquantaince of raw oysters and I've loved them ever since.  My memory of the cassoulet, however, was of a rather bland, unpleasantly beany dish; I couldn't understand why all the adults were crazy about it.

I next tried the classic dish in my own kitchen, following a recipe from the my inaugural cookbook*: Reader's Digest's Eat Well, Stay Well.  It's not a glamorous volume but it was just right for me at the time and I still use several recipes from it. The Reader's Digest cassoulet is certainly not authentic but it is tasty, and definitely has the gist of what a cassoulet is supposed to be.  With some crusty bread and cheap red wine, it warmed our bellies on many a cold night during our stint in freezing Waterloo, Ontario.

When I lived briefly in France, I tried the ultra-lowbrow canned cassoulet from the Miniprix.  It was basically the equivalent of Heinz pork and beans but I reasoned that since everything in France tasted better, even the frozen and canned food, it would probably be good.  Nope, I was wrong.  There are reasonable canned cassoulets, but the cheapest one on the shelf really is bad, it's Frenchness notwithstanding.

This weekend I finally hit the cassoulet jackpot. We picked it up from Choux Choux, and paired with a bottle of 1999 Champs Martin Premiere Cru Mercurey and a baguette from House, it made a memorable Friday night supper.  I'm not exactly sure what all was in the cassoulet but my  best guess is this: haricots blanc, Toulouse sausage, duck confit, and salt pork.  A very carnivorous meal!

The Mercurey was delicious:  lots of spiciness and hardly any tannins (it's age may have had something to do with that) and not much fruit.  So, definitely different from the sweeter and fruitier Oregon and California Pinots that tend to reside in the Yellow House liquor cabinet.  Tobias called it "flawless" and who am I to argue?  I thought it perfectly complimented the cassoulet, especially the duck.

Victoria people:

If you would like to order a cassoulet from Choux Choux, they only do them from time to time so it's best to call ahead (382-7572).  As for the wine, well, the Champs Martin Premiere Cru is a little on the pricey side here in the Great White North: our friend Jeff picked ours up for less than half the price in San Francisco.  You might try the also delicious Chateau de Chamirey Mercurey, which you can get at the Oak Bay liquor store.  It's still a special occasion wine, at 40 dollars, but cassoulet is a special occasion, at least in my book.

 

*The first cookbook I cooked from in my early days in the kitchen, just after I got married.

German Apple Pancake for the first day of Advent

Tomorrow is the official start of Advent, but several factors contributed to our celebrating a day early:

• My spouse, Tobias, leaves for London this afternoon
• The kids' advent calendar -- I splashed out on a fancy Playmobil one this year -- starts today
• Doing anything fancy for breakfast on a church morning is not something I want to contemplate.  It's all I can do to get the children and myself washed and dressed in a timely fashion

Last year I bought the Cook's Illustrated Holiday Baking issue but didn't make even one thing out of it.  M'hijo was just one last December and holiday baking was not really something I could manage at the time.  But this year he's much more self-reliant and I'm hoping to make several things from the magazine.  This German apple pancake was the first. 

Which Apples?

The article accompanying the recipe talks about apple choice, indicating that McIntoshes are absolutely the wrong kind to use, and Granny Smiths and Braeburns are the best.  Well, what I had in my fruit bowl was 2 BC Braeburns, 1 Gala and the last apple of the year from our big backyard tree, which is an unknown but very, very tasty red, sweet-tart variety that I love.  This wasn't quite the 1.5 pounds I needed, but luckily our SPUD order came last night, and included a couple of Pink Ladies, and I added one of them.  So, quite a melange of apples, and you know what?  They turned out great.  None of them lost their shape, in fact, they were pleasingly firm in the final dish, and there was a really nice, strong appley flavour. 

The Recipe

This is really easy to make!  I cracked open the magazine at about 7:40 am and we were sitting down to a delicious hot, aromatic, and cozy breakfast at 8:20am. 

1)  Peel, core and slice your 1.5 pounds of apples.  1/2 inch slices are recommended in the magazine.  As you can imagine, I did not get out a ruler, but sliced 'em like I like 'em. 

2) In a 10-inch cast iron or nonstick pan, heat 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter till it sizzles.  I used salted; the world did not collapse.  Put it in the apples, along with 1/4 cup of brown sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon.  And here is why Cook's Illustrated rocks: cook for 6 minutes if using cast iron, and 10 if using regular nonstick!  And also, heat the oven to 500 degrees if you're using nonstick and 425 if you're using cast iron.  Aren't they smart?  They think of everything!  You should probably stir the apples around while they cook.

3) Now get out two bowls and a whisk.  Into one, put 1/2 cup of flour, 2 tablespoons of granulated white sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of salt and whisk it.  Into the other, put 2/3 cup of half-and-half, 2 large eggs, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla and whisk that.  Add the liquid to the dry, and whisk until you have a smooth, lump-free batter.   

4) When the apples are golden and there's a nice brown sauce at the bottom of the pan, take it off the heat at add 2 teaspoons of lemon juice.  I forgot this step and the the pancake was still great, so don't feel too bad if you have no lemons.   

5)  Pour the batter over and around the apples and pop the skillet into the oven, turning down the temp to 425 if you're using nonstick.

6)  After 18 minutes you will have a beautiful custardy, appley treat that you can flip over onto a serving platter and dust with icing sugar.

For our start of Advent celebration, Mother Nature cooperated with her own dusting of white stuff onto our back porch.  We turned off the lights in the kitchen and watched the snow while we polished off the whole, big German pancake, Canadianized slightly by the addition of maple syrup.

In our tradition, the first candle in the Advent wreath, which will be lit tomorrow morning, symbolizes hope.  In the spirit of Advent, then, I wish all DITYH readers a hopeful week.

 

Dia de los Muertos post-mortem, Part I

The first annual Yellow House Day of the Dead celebration is over, with smiles all around.  The Herbivore declared the event "so fun!" mostly, I think, because she was allowed to have three of her neighbourhood cronies attend.  After dinner they held an impromptu dance in the living room. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Before the dancing and before the eating, there was the cooking.  I made the filling and sauce for enchiladas, the Herbivore built the enchiladas, and the baby helped scatter the cheese over the top.  The recipe for the sauce and filling follow.  They are based on Mollie Katzen's recipes from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest.

Vegetarian Enchiladas with Salsa Verde

2 large onions, chopped

2 large red peppers, chopped

1 large zucchini, chopped

8 cloves of garlic, chopped finely

10 tomatillos, chopped

1 large poblano chile

1 handful chopped green onions

1 handful chopped cilantro

1 handful chopped basil

salt and pepper, cayenne, oregano, basil, cumin, chili powder

olive oil

1.  Put one medium saucepan and one large frying pan on your stove and pour 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil into each.  Turn on the heat to medium, heat up the oil, then add half of the onions and half of the peppers to each pan.

2.  Into the saucepan, which will hold your salsa verde, now add 5/8 of the garlic.  Into the frying pan, add the remaining garlic and the zucchini.  Now saute the veggies for about eight minutes.

3.  Into the frying pan, which holds your filling, add the spices.  You can do as I do and use a bought spice mix.  Mine is called Shannon's taco seasoning mix and I pick it up at For Good Measure.  Or use salt, pepper, cayenne, oregano, basil, cuming and chili powder to taste.  This dish gets a lot of flavour from the salsa verde, so don't season the filling as strongly as you would if you were making tacos.  Turn the temperature down to low-medium and cook for another five minutes or so.  Then allow the mixture to cool. 

4.  Into the saucepan, put the chopped up chile and green onions and cook for another 5 minutes. 

5.  Now add the tomatillos to the saucepan, put the lid on, and heat to boiling. Then turn the temperature down to medium-low and cook for 10-15 minutes. Allow the mixture to cool. 

6.  Once the filling (in the frying pan) is cool, add 1-2 cups of shredded monterey jack cheese, with or without chiles as you like. 

7.  Once the salsa (in the saucepan) is cool, scrape the contents in the bowl of a food processor, add the basil and cilantro and puree.  Add salt, cayenne and black pepper to taste. 

To build the enchiladas, get yerself some child labour.  I find that the Herbivore is willing to help me with a dish provided that later, when folks are eating it, I give her 100% of the credit, even if I did 90% of the work.  This is something I am totally willing to do!  In the case of the enchiladas, she even farmed some of the work our to her little brother.

The finished dish (with low lighting, unfortunately):

More post-mortem coming soon, including my mother's recipe for chiles rellenos in the Puebla style. 

A Dia de los Muertos Menu

Hallowe'en is great fun for los ninos, but as an adult who is not crazy about mass-produced candy, I prefer Dia de los Muertos.  Our family doesn't have a tradition of celebrating this holiday, but we've decided to start one.  So, here is the menu for our first ever Dia de los Muertos feast:

Green veggie enchiladas

Stuffed poblanos in Puebla style

Tamales from ¡Orale!

Spanish Rice

Tofu mole (for the eight-year-old herbivore)

Pan de muertos

Mexican-style hot chocolate

Photos and recipes to follow on the weekend.

Feliz Dia de los Muertos!

Happy turkeyless Thanksgiving

I ordered my lovely heritage bronze -- or whatever they call it -- 12 lb. turkey from the Village Butcher weeks ago.  And then yesterday, I got sick and spent the day on the couch, and completely forgot to go pick up my turkey!  So, to the uttter glee of the vegetarian eight-year-old in the house, tomorrow we will be eating all the fixins, but no actual turkey.  (Yes, I know I can just go to the grocery store and pick up a frozen turkey, but I'm too picky.  The whole point of ordering the turkey in advance is so that it will be fresh and free-range and a heritage breed and all that.)

Don't feel too bad for me: it would have been my third Thanksgiving turkey this year anyway.  I attended a turkey dinner fundraiser at my church last week, and my mother-in-law is making one tonight.  So it's probably for the best that we'll be turkey-free tomorrow.  Our plates are going to look hilarious, though, with stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, yams, carrots, greens, and no meat!  Ha. 

Cajeta in the Great White North

As a child growing up in Puebla, my grandmother loved to eat cajeta.  When she moved to Winnipeg in her thirties, of course, she couldn't buy cajeta at the store.  I'm not sure why she didn't make it herself but it could have been many things: caring for her five children in a freezing foreign country took all of her time, she had no source for goat's milk or vanilla beans, or she simply didn't know how.  Instead, she resorted to spreading condensed milk on graham crackers, which is what she gave me for a treat when I visited her house in Winnipeg when I was a child.  I thought it was absolutely delicious. 

A couple of weeks ago I was shopping alone (heaven!) at the Market on Millstream and noticed that their Mexican foods section was much better than any other grocery store -- and I do believe I've examined the Mexican food section at every grocery store in town very closely!  Not only did they have Herdez salsa verde in the big bottle, and Mole, but they had cajeta!  I've never even seen the real thing, but I knew that I would love it.  "I might even share a little with the kids", I thought as I put the jar in my shopping basket. 

Since then, it has become a popular breakfast treat in our house, for both the kids and me.  Tobias has yet to take the plunge, but I suspect he will become more interested once I try my hand at a homemade version, which I plan to do soon, with the aid of this recipe from vanilla.com 

As for Abuelita, she died in 2004, and didn't get a chance to see prepared cajeta on the shelves of a grocery store here in the great white north.