Recipes, techniques, and other food-related things
This last summer I had a bit of a mania for looking for old-school cookbooks in secondhand shops. My rules were simple; I was not allowed to buy any books that: depend on name recognition to sell (i.e. no celebrity chefs or bloggers); were published to promote a product or…
I’ve been remiss at keeping track of the recipes I’ve been trying out over the last few months, and in my defence, well, this blog isn’t exactly widely read or generating income, so I’m sure all three readers will forgive me if this lies fallow for a bit. Also, I’ve…
This was an easy one to do. The birthday girl, who has problems with digesting wheat, specifically asked that I make the Hippie With a Minivan black bean cake for her, since the last time she had it some years ago it left quite an impression on her. There were…
The first time I learned of this recipe was a few years ago, when a friend with celiac disease shared it with me, gushing all the while about how easy it is to make. When I first tried making it, I made my usual mistake of failing to follow the…
I want to get better at making cakes, so I’ve volunteered to make them for any interested friends to get the practice in. Related, a recent visit to a secondhand bookstore led to my acquiring The Art of Fine Baking by Paula Peck (1961), which contains several classic Northern and…
It’s the gent’s birthday tomorrow, and in his honour, we’re planning a tea party. Among the items requested was clotted cream, which currently goes for $7 for a 200 mL bottle at the local grocery store. That won’t do at all. For starters, an entire litre of whipping cream costs…
One of the best ways to determine whether you’ve managed to really nail the theory behind a process is to successfully generate an end result with it, without referring to your notes. This last Easter weekend, I managed to do just that at a retreat in a tiny cabin on…
I don’t remember when it was that I got it in my head that I needed to try making cassoulet, but, long story short, I finally broke my obsession with it when I got it right, which only involved one failure — which still ended up being quite tasty, even if…
I was looking for a recipe to use up a large container of cottage cheese that had gone untouched in the fridge for several weeks. It was starting to go sour, which meant that nobody in the house was going to eat it as is (we are picky about our…
I needed a quick and easy recipe for a thickened custard to use in trifle, and I didn’t want to go to the trouble of separating eggs and cooking to a very precise temperature. This recipe fits the bill. At some point, it might be worth making this custard and…
