Urban Harvesting

As much as I am a city girl, I do love being out in the "country". For me the real appeal lies in the necessity and ability to plan, plant, tend and harvest your own food. I have been accused of taking this concept a touch too far in my own personal life. In an upcoming post I'll go into more detail - but I made strawberry marshmallows. From scratch of course. And the strawberry flavouring? From the jam that I made from the strawberries that I painstakingly picked from the farm. A true full circle moment that Martha Stewart would be proud of - not that she would admit it. She would probably smile, put her hand on my shoulder and tell me that I should have strained the jam before stirring it in. Anyway, I didn't have an opportunity to pick blackberries this year. The trip out to the farm is pretty long and I couldn't justify going solo just to pick a couple pounds of fruit. I was lucky that the local grocery store had a special on and I managed to get my blackberry fix.

I finally got to make a recipe that has been sitting in my book for a couple of years now; waiting for that day when I would come home with a few buckets of freshly picked blackberries. So maybe not this year, but there is always next.

I made Martha's blackberry shortbread squares - and they were so good. The dough incorporates ground almonds and orange and as I pressed it into the pan, I inhaled the scent, an intoxicating melange of almond, butter and sugar. Even the ground almond meal gave off that very distinct smell that only seems to come out when the nut has been pulverized, allowing the oils to release. It's a pretty basic dough that you pat in the pan and then sprinkle 4 cups of blackberries on top (whole). A cup of dough is reserved to sprinkle on top. Even though it came out great, I think it could've used another 8 minutes in the oven just to really crisp up the middle. It came out a touch soft (no matter when served on a plate with ice cream) but I think a few hours in the fridge should solve this nicely for tomorrow's distribution.

As you can see, I had a terrific time taking pictures of these beauties. When the light is good and the product is fresh, it's effortless, the best models you can get.

The Vibrant Summer Colours

Strawberry season on the West Coast is short.

But very sweet.

I made a vow a few years ago that I would not eat strawberries outside of June, and for the most part, I have stuck to that promise. Sounds drastic, right? But once you've tasted a local strawberry - you'll understand why the 10.5 month wait is worth it. Many of the strawberries available year round are enormous and lack the true panache of flavour a strawberry in June has. First of all - it's not even red on the inside! And the flavour is so watered down...I feel bloated after eating a handful and only barely tasting 'strawberry'. But a local strawberry is small and so, so, so red. On the outside and the inside. These little jewels are only available at their peak for about 6 weeks (max) and during those precious 42 days I eat as many as I can - usually burning out by the end from tasting too much fruit!

This year I did my annual pick in the local fields and came back with 10lbs. And a plan = jam, sorbet, bake, freeze and eat. All in that order too. I should note that I understand why strawberries can be expensive - they are extremely difficult to pick! Unlike blueberries which grow on very comfortable waist-to-shoulder high bushes, strawberries are grown on small shrubs really, I mean they're more like leafy hedges actually - but you have to squat to get them. Yes, squat. Low. In the sun. For hours. And then paw your way through the dirt, through the leaves and vines to get those precious berry gems. I've learned to carry a small paring knife to pick the berry by the stem and not crush the fruit off the stem with my fingers. My friends laughed at my when they saw my "set up" - a big plastic box lined with a tea towel for end-of-row storage and a smaller cardboard carry-along for my picking. Every 15 minutes or so I'd empty my cardboard box into the bigger one to be weighed at the end. The tea towel cushions the berries and provides a barrier from the hard and hot plastic. Once you get them home - you must "deal" with them right away. 5 lbs were gently rinsed and put in a large pot for jam. Another 2lbs were also rinsed and put in a smaller saucepan to make my sorbet reduction. The remaining fruit was distributed between baked good, the freezer and my tummy :)

(1 3/4 cups juice, 3/4 cup syrup)

I decided this year to reduce the strawberries over heat to really extract as much pure flavour as I could. Normally I would blitz them in a blender and then strain it - but I really wanted a more complex and bold strawberry flavour. It took a while, but it was worth it - let the berries cook and release their juice. Their ripeness was perfect and in no time I had a saucepan of red juice. I strained it and let it cool.

I mentioned before that you need a sugar syrup for the sorbet - so I used the leftover ginger-infused syrup and the combination was simply divine. Really very refreshing and bold - exactly what I needed to keep me motivated to wait those next 10.5 months.

June 2012 can't come soon enough!!

Cake & Ice Cream

It's a classic combination, isn't it?
I recently celebrated a friend's birthday and after a terrific dinner at a local izakaya joint, we went back to mine for cake & ice cream. The cake was a multilayered fruit&cream&ganache tower, finished off with a scoop of butter caramel ice cream swirled with dark chocolate. Although the cake was awesome, I was really excited to see my friends' faces when they sank their tongues into the ice cream.
I can't tell you how happy I was to see that they enjoyed it as much as I did. Butter Caramel Ice Cream (from David Lebovitz) - it's a winner!

I managed to take some blurry photos of the actual making of the ice cream, I'll share them later this week.

Ice Cream as an Art Form

In an issue of Gastronomica, there's an article on whether food can be considered art. I wholeheartedly agree with this notion, but I understand if others do not. After all, food, for all intents and purposes, is sustenance for our bodies. It's fuel - plain and simple. But I do believe that food is also pleasure - and when done well can be just as or more affecting than art. I don't know if I've ever been moved to tears by food - but there have been bites that have been life-changing. Sometimes it has been a "perfect" bite - the ultimate blend of the senses, others have been the realization and product of superior technique and pure ingredients. And sometimes, it's just damned good. I don't need to explain that food is beautiful - I mean, go check out any issue of Bon Appetit or back issue of Gourmet or even food blogs out there - you will see pictures and food styled and crafted so well, it is hard to fathom that it actually exists in real life and is edible!!

Anyway, I went into this long introductory story to set up another story of a conversation I had with the Mothership. I was lamenting the lack of freezer space due to some overzealous ice cream making and she said, "well, why don't you just stop making ice cream?"

I froze (not literally, hahaha). I was also shocked and hurt. The Mothership is an artist, if anyone were to understand my need to create, invent, and experiment with desserts of the frozen variety - it would be her! I coolly asked her, "well then, you should stop painting. Goodness knows you have enough artwork around the house? Why do you need more? Why do you do it?"

"Ice cream is MY art. It may be unconventional, but it's what I do to express myself and be creative."

It's Been a While!

Yep, I know - it's been too long! I can guarantee you that I haven't been idle in the kitchen - I've actually been really busy cooking away! I'm doing a lot less baking as the weather is slowly getting warmer and I've been doing a lot more cooking - but not a lot of it particularly blog-worthy. Yet.

As the season is getting warmer, it's time to bring out the ice cream maker again. Wheeee! Not that it has stopped me in the winter - but now I have opportunities to bring a pint or two over to friends to enjoy.

There are a few times in the year when ataulfo mangoes are ripe - it's a short season but I try and take advantage of it by eating as many mangoes as I can. This year I decided to make a mango sorbet. This dairy-free treat can be just as amazing as their more creamy cousins, but the trick is to get really ripe fruit. Again, consider that the flavour must concentrate, so anything less than taste perfection is unacceptable. A local market was selling "ripe" mangoes for 99cents/lb (vs the more firm less ripe ones for double the price) - I promptly picked up 5. Martha Stewart (of course) has a fantastic recipe for sorbet - which is essentially 2 cups of fruit puree to 1 cup of sugar syrup. For the mango sorbet recipe - it was 2 cups puree + 1/4 cup water + 1 1/4 cups simple syrup. I sliced up some fresh ginger and infused it into the simple syrup to give the sorbet a bit of a kick - and yes, it was delicious!

Mmmmm...cookie. Shiba approved (not tested).

 

No Shibas consumed any chocolate in the making of this post! Only some intent sniffing.
Long weekend = extra time to bake = blog-stravaganza! :)

First Memories

As a child, I loved to read. When my family made trips to the mall, they would leave me unattended in the bookstore for hours while they did their shopping. I'd bury my head in the tales of Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, Nancy Drew, Anastasia, and Tintin. But these days the books I read are more of the culinary variety or...also whatever catches my eye. One of the very first recipes I ever made (with the assistance of the Mothership) was Pee Wee cookies - a recipe from the Pee Wee Scouts series (a literary equivalent to the Girl Scouts if you will). For a long, long time, it was the only recipe my family ever made. Part of it had to do with the fact that the Mothership really liked these cookies and another part of it was that it was really one of the only cookie recipes we had in hand. And that it's darned easy to make.

In honour of Mother's Day, I whipped up a batch of Pee Wee cookies for the Mothership and presented it to her, along with a Sudoku book and some Belcolade chocolates.

*chomp*