apple mint salad

Fresh green salad with pistachios and apples with a lemon, mint & gin dressing — this is really good with leftover turkey. The original recipe calls for turkey, but this is a good green salad on its own and would be refreshing in the summer. I think next time I will try it with pink lady apples instead of granny smith.

flatbread & egg pizza

This is an idea taken from the kitchen counter cooking school: flatbread and egg pizza. Spread olive oil on flatbread, crack an egg on top. Add in leftovers. Top with a little cheese, salt and pepper + any herbs or spices. Bake at 350 C until the egg is set. We're going to keep some frozen flatbread in the freezer from now on for this. I think it's about 3 minutes of prep + 10–20 minutes cook time.

bread

I must have pinned this recipe on pinterest at least 4 times: Mark Bittman's no-knead bread originally from the New York Times and laid out in clear steps on simply so good. This takes less than 5 minutes to prepare, but it does take about 19 hours to be ready. It turns out really well.

breakfast chocolate

I've put up two recipes for hot chocolate on the windy blog today — one with solid chocolate & cinnamon and one with cocoa and vanilla. We like the Snowy Cocoa for breakfast sometimes. It's good with leftover gingerbread.

pink grapefruit curd with breakfast gingerbread

Healthy breakfast gingerbread from Diana Shaw's Essential Vegetarian Cookbook with homemade pink grapefruit curd sweetened with honey.

brown butter & sage

In my ongoing search for very quick recipes which don't really require me to look at a recipe: Pumpkin ravioli in a brown butter sage sauce (^ these are leftovers for lunch). This would be good with any squash pasta.

Recipe: Chop up handful of fresh sage. Melt a few tablespoons of butter in a heavy pan — melt. When the butter is just turning golden drop in sage (+ 1 thinly slice clove garlic, optional) and let it crisp for a minute. Toss in cooked, drained pasta.

kitchen counter cooking school

I picked this up last month and have been reading bits and pieces when I have a few minutes. The Kitchen Counter Cooking School by Kathleen Flinn is sort of a book version of what I wish Top Chef was. It's a book about cooking, but not so much about recipes, but just how to actually cook and become the type of person that can glance in the fridge and whip something up.

The book is structured around a series of free workshops and cooking classes that Kathleen gave to 9 women.

I really love this soup

I am in love with this smoky, spicy apple & squash soup recipe from Jeanette Ordas of everybody likes sandwiches at  poppytalk. It's really easy and really good, and I don't usually like squash soup.

(I put up modifications at the windy blog if you have a small child or baby in the house, because it has some spice to it.)

yellow is magic

 This morning, Auggie told us that yellow is magic. I think he's right.

Some notes on thanksgiving menus to my future self:

spinach walnut pesto

This is a nice early fall dish — easy. It's really good with a crunchy salad that has a little bitterness, acid or spice (like cucumber salad with lemon and chili oil). Also really good with butternut squash pasta or grilled salmon. I started making this for my son as a break from noodles and cheese, so I've been making it a lot.

This pesto needs a generous hand with the salt and pepper. Course salt on the table is a good idea, it's easy to over- or under-season. Try not to put too in much spinach or it will lose its delicate flavour.

Spinach walnut pesto
serves 4 – 6

Ingredients 

Cooked pasta

1 clove garlic (maybe more if serving to cool hippie children or adults)
3/4 cup walnuts
3 oz spinach (about 3 handfuls)
1/2 cup grated parmesan
3 – 4 Tablespoons olive oil
4 Tablespoons cold water
bunch fresh basil, stems removed
1/2 lemon:  juice + zest
1/2 teaspoon sea salt + more for the table
pepper

mint ricotta frittata

You know when you have a handful of things in your fridge and you google them to see if there's a good recipe to use them up? I did that yesterday and found: baked ricotta frittata with fresh mint. I had 7 eggs, and exactly 1 cup of ricotta and 3 tablespoons worth of fresh mint. It was like winning a tiny little lottery. I put in some purple potatoes we had leftover from some salad, too.  I used up all the odds and ends in the fridge! It's so, so satisfying to use up things. 

We had it with spinach and tarragon salad and chili oil. Auggie helped me make it — it's a good kid recipe. But he didn't want to try eating it. Oh well. 

I'm a bit crazy about purple potatoes and a bit less crazy about tarragon. We've had it four times this week and that's really enough. Although it's good with mint, actually.

Homemade cheese crackers

I tried making these cheese straw-ish crackers for a little party (our tiny moomin birthday), and I think it's a good back-pocket recipe. It's a nice healthy snack that holds a cookie cutter shape well, so it's nice for lunchboxes or party plates. The original recipe is here at 101cookbooks. I don't have much to add, other than: roll the dough as thin as you can. If these were for adults, I would add in a ton of cracked pepper and some rosemary. (The shapes are snufkin & moomintroll — our moomin cookie cutters are half gifted and half from ebay).

Watermelon stars

A nice and cool snack for a beach picnic: slices of watermelon + cookie cutter = watermelon stars. Watermelons punch out shapes cleanly, and they'll hold the shape and juiciness more than a day. Summer's almost over, you have to slurp it up quick!

mix mix rice

We took home a book from the library recently that really caught Auggie's imagination, which was Bee Bim Bop by Linda Sue Park. The story is about making bibimbap (which she calls mix mix rice because you mix everything up at the end) for dinner. At the end of the book is Linda's family's recipe, split into tasks for a child and an adult. We copied the steps in the book, going shopping for the ingredients and making the dish together. Auggie was really enthusiatic for all the steps, especially mixing up the ingredients at the end in his dinner plate. He wasn't so interested in really eating much of it. However, that is true of all non-noodle food and he has been more into rice, since. It was fun and maybe another little step towards being a less picky eater (sheesh). I found a simplified vegetarian recipe, Vegetable Bibimbap, via pinterest as well.

Lassi

I love lassi. Here is how you make a decent one.

Crush up 2 cubes of ice + 1/2 cup yogurt + 1/2 cup ice water + 1 teaspoon sugar  + tiny pinch salt + a few drops of rosewater + fresh mint leaf in the blender.

Some people like cardamom or cumin and some like half a mango or a handful of fruit added in.

This one has some green melon in it. It's not bad. Mango, blueberries or strawberries is better. Plain is best. This is a good recipe for kids to make.

Frutas

Mexican street food: fruit (melon, jicama, mango, cucumber) + pure ground chili, lime zest & juice + tiny bit salt & sugar, in a cup. Not too spicy — perfect. Also good on a peeled mango on a stick.

Summer herbs

I found some shiso leaves on sale, and I got to make a true version of my favourite summer dish, which is marinated tofu + ricotta + shiso (usually I use basil and mint instead of shiso), from Harumi Kurihara.  

The sauce is 1/4 cup soy sauce + 2 teaspoons superfine sugar + 1 Tablespoon mirin (or sake with 1 teaspoon sugar) + 1/2 Tablespoon grated ginger. Add in a little chili, lemon or lime if you want. Lightly heat the sauce. Then pour over soft or silken tofu topped with ricotta. Sprinkle on fresh shiso leaves, toasted sesame seeds and a handful of bonito flakes. 

This is so good with spinach and feta salad dressed with olive oil and lemon. I also love it with chili oil on top. The basil and mint option is easily just as nice as the shiso version. 

I think this is a good recipe for children to make, as the ratios are very flexible and there is a lot of pouring and sprinkling and little heating or cutting. Or to make yourself and maybe have some beer with lemon as you work away. Maybe the kids are at camp! Summer!

Chili oil

We are definitely going to make it through the whole bottle this summer. It is good on everything. We are the three bears when it comes to how much we like spice, so this is perfect on the table.

Buttermilk

Buttermilk is a very pretty word. It seems like it should taste a bit better, given the name. Anyway, I feel like whenever I buy a litre of buttermilk I use half and don't finish before the expiration date. This is a list of recipes that, together, use one full litre. Of course, there are always pancakes (Snowy & Chinook ones), too...

Cocoa buttermilk cupcakes, un-iced. I tried some buttermilk icing, it was good, but these are best plain.

Chocolate cherry oatmeal cookies (add teaspoon or two of regular milk if the dough doesn't hold together).

I used the homemade cupcake liners (see below) for these cornbread muffins (via apples & butter) — however, to tell the truth I was multi-tasking and used twice the amount of baking soda on this batch by accident and they were slightly horrible. The recipe is good, though, I promise ^_^

You can make cupcake liners by smooshing a square of paper over a glass. About 6" is a good size of paper for a liner. You can use origami squares, for example. I would try to choose paper that is not too chemically treated and coated — this is parchment paper.

Hot lemon drink for a spring cold

Every few months someone I know has a cold and this recipe, from an old Martha Stewart is the recipe I want to give them. The recipe isn't online (until now, I guess).

First my (lazy) version and then the original. The lazy one is good for sick people bumping around the kitchen. The ginger simple syrup from the original is a nice get-well gift for an ill one.