The Letter S

Pardon me while I get sappy.

You see, this week I've also been recovering from a medical issue. It's made me tired, shaky, and mopey. So this afternoon, after I put some tomato sauce in a slow oven to come together, I took a nap. Wrapped in the arms of my husband. It was the best nap ever.

So tonight's dinner was spaghetti and meatballs, and for dessert, strawberry ice cream. More specifically, strawberry sour cream ice cream. It was the slightly more elegant version of Baba's berries and cream. It was all comfort food.

The ice cream recipe comes from, who else? David Lebovitz. All the recipes in my books were custards and I didn't have many eggs in the house. So a little search led to many, many descriptions of this ice cream from The Perfect Scoop. It seemed like fate considering the pounds of strawberries I bought at the market and my own need for comfort. 

But no amount of comfort food can replace the love of your best friend.

Strawberry Sour Cream Ice Cream

(With great thanks, perhaps literally as I don't actually own The Perfect Scoop, to David Lebovitz.)

1 pound strawberries

3/4 cup sugar

1 tbsp vodka

1 cup sour cream

1 cup heavy cream

1/2 tsp lemon juice

1. Rinse, hull, and quarter your strawberries. Toss with the sugar and vodka. Let sit for an hour or so.

2. Add in sour cream, cream, and lemon juice. Blitz with a hand blender, leaving it as chunky as you want.

3. Chill for an hour. Process with ice cream maker. Freeze until ready to eat.

Cookies, Cookies, and More Cookies

You might not consider it a downfall, but one of the downfalls of freelance food writing is developing stories totally out of season. Today I made a spider cake for Halloween, sugar cookies, meringue cookies, and hot cocoa with marshmallows. On at +25C day. Good times.

In truth, dinner was a plain old cheese quesadilla and a handful for cherry tomatoes to soak up the sugar. Despite all those cookies though, I reserved a few of these for a post-the-girls-finally-fell-asleep-and-I'm-exhausted-after-two-weeks-of-single-parenting chocolate chip cookie snack.

These are the first things I ever learned how to make. I may have been about 9. My mom worked fulltime and we three kids were competitive swimmers. Food was about fuel - how much could we get in at any one point, how much could mom buy and cook to hopefully get us through the week. Fed up with purchased cookies I asked if I could make cookies myself. No clue who found the recipe or where it came from. But I was left alone in the kitchen.

I found the entire experience both comforting and empowering. Woohoo, I was in the kitchen and left to my devices! There was butter and chocolate involved. It was the start of something great.

From that point on these were my go-to cookies. My go-to sleepover cookies. My go-to watch TV in the rumpus room cookies. My go-to console a friend whose boyfriend dumped her cookies. My go-to chick-flick cookies. My go-to rainy day and single parenting cookies.

At 35 I have to find people to share these with - I do not need a cup of butter to myself. Thank goodness my kids are happy to help me with that. Now they've become my go-to get in the kitchen and bake with the girls cookies.

Chocolate Chip Slab Cookies

Makes 1 9 x 13 pan

1 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

1 cup chocolate chips.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9 x 13 pan.

2. Cream butter and sugar. Add vanilla. Stir in flour and chocolate chips. Press dough in pan.

3. Bake 2-25 minutes until lightly browned. Cool slightly, but cut when still a bit warm. Cool some more before you dig in.

(This post is also a part of Gluten Free Girl's round-up on the first foods we learned how to make.)

Maintaining the Idea of Spring

Biba Caggiano taught me how to make risotto when I was 19. It was summer break during university. In between multiple jobs to save for tuition I found the time to watch PBS on Saturday afternoon. "Biba's Italian Kitchen" was always on. So I would sit in my Dad's office, taking notes, and watching Biba on a 12 inch screen.

When I went back to school and suddenly found myself alone in a basement suite, craving something more than a hearty salad I always turned to risotto. It was the comfort food that got me through my last year of university, in between thesis writing, working, and running a muffin business.

People are always so scared of risotto.  I blame the recipes for this.  Read a recipe for risotto and it is enough to scare off anyone - they are always so wordy and make it sound complex.  But risotto is not complex. Nor does it require endless stirring.

Tonight we returned home from a weekend away, visiting family.  We stopped at Edgar Farms on the way home for Asparagus Fest.  There was a break in the rain and snow, so it worked out perfectly. We caught up with Doug, Elna, Keri, and Randy of Edgar Farms. We chatted with Wade and John. We ate, we pet animals, we jumped in puddles, and we definitely grabbed some asparagus. First from the field and then my mother-in-law treated us to a few bundles to take home (awfully generous of her since she also babysat for us last night!)

When we walked in the door at 6, everyone was exhausted from a busy weekend and an afternoon outside.  To be honest, I was real tempted to give in to Hubby's request for the pizza man delivery. Then I decided we needed to eat more asparagus, but we also needed something warming. Something to fill our bellies but still feel light enough to remind us that it is indeed still spring. Risotto! Lemon Asparagus Risotto to be specific.

I'm not going to give you a recipe. Risotto, I think, is more of a basic technique than a recipe. Now, I've never served to an Italian grandmother, so mine could totally suck.  But we all love it. In fact, risotto is the only way The Monster will eat rice. So, don't be scared, here is my technique for risotto.

1. Finely dice a small/medium onion. Toss in a tall sided frying pan with a generous swig of olive oil or knob of butter. or both. Sweat them out on medium heat.

2. While the onion is cooking mince a couple of cloves of garlic. Add to onions and stir.

3. Immediately add your Arborio rice (available in most grocery stores and definitely in an Italian market). I use about a handful a person. Stir in and get the rice coated with the oil/butter.

4. If you happen to have wine in the house, pour a generous slosh of it in the pan and let it reduce. No wine? So what.

5. Once your wine has reduced, if you've used it, start adding in hot chicken stock, veggie stock, or water.  Yes, I think it is okay to use water, you will just have to season really well at the end. Add in the liquid about a ladle at a time.  Stir well before and after each addition.

6. Add a ladle of liquid every few minutes or so. The goal is to have the liquid be absorbed slowly. So when it looks like you have little liquid, add more. After about 15 minutes, start tasting. Risotto should have a bit of "tooth" to it. In other words, you don't want it mushy, but it should be creamier than regular rice.

7. When it reaches the right consistency, turn off the heat. Stir in some more olive oil or butter - whichever one you used with the onions - another good swig or knob. Also stir in some cheese - parmesan, manchego, asiago - a grated hard cheese is my preference. Serve immediately.

Tonight I also stirred in some asparagus that I blanched for a bit and some lemon zest. Another night I might stir in roasted butternut squash, or sauteed mushrooms, or maybe peppers and zucchinis. Cook's choice. I just recommend that you cook the veggies separately so they don't get overdone or mushy in the cooking rice.

Okay, now that I've written that out it does seem wordy and complex. Trust me, it's not.

After a quiet evening of movie watching we then had a pre-bed snack with the girls.  I also picked up some rhubarb at Edgar Farms so I made this lovely Rhubarb Upside Down Cake.

Atrophy

It seems that your quads are the first muscle to atrophy when you wreck your knees. Despite the layers of insulation covering those large muscles of mine it is quite noticable that they aren't so large anymore. Neither are my calves. But sadly, my ass is still as big as it ever was. Needless to say, ice cream is probably the last thing I need right now.

But oh how I need ice cream. The last 6 weeks have certainly screamed out for comfort food. My mom make us pyrohy, we've eaten countless bowls of pho after The Monster's dance class, managed more than one batch of cookies, and indulged in a heck of a lot of beer during the Olympics. Not once, however, have I been able to convince Hubby to buy ice cream. Bloody diet nazi.

So I added heavy cream to the grocery list. Ha Ha! Combined with the very large bar of bittersweet Bernard Callebaut chocolate in my cupboard and I got him back. The girls and I set out to chop chocolate, dissolve cocoa, cook a lovely custard, and anticipate the ice cream. They were diverted from cooling time and the churning with snow play.

I did save the first taste of ice cream for an Olympic hockey game.  At least my brain hasn't atrophied. Kids and a bowl of cold ice cream means nearly a period of peace for Hubby and I. It worked so well that we used it repeatedly throughout the Games. Minus the bowls I snuck for myself.

The recipe I used was absolutely phenomenal.  It was so decadent and rich, and just perfect. In truth, it was exactly like a frozen pudding. With a bit more effort on my part I could have enjoyed it with a brownie and salted caramel sauce. The knees however can't hack that much work yet. And my ass can't handle that much in the absence of a good workout.

With thanks to David Lebovitz and The Perfect Scoop.  I followed the recipe word for word and it was perfect. And thanks to Tara at Seven Spoons for the photo inspiration on that top picture.