Chocolate PB & J Pillow Cookies

A few months back, I received a shipment of jams and jellies from Uncanny Preserves and I promised Lindsay that I would make something using them.

But... you know... then they were too delicious and I just kept eating the jams directly out of the jars. The chutneys disappeared in a flurry of cracker crumbs and tidbits of cheese.

In spite of myself, I managed to restrain myself from opening the last remaining jar of sweet goodness until a few weeks ago. The blackcurrant jelly sat in my cupboard while I waited for divine inspiration to strike.

And then, voila: in my google reader feed over the weekend I spotted Angela's, from Oh She Glows, peanut butter chocolate cookies (she adapted them from Post Punk Kitchen - another great vegan resource) and I thought to myself, sure you could have chocolate and peanut butter, but what if you took it up a notch and threw in some sweet, tangy blackcurrant jelly.

Oh.

My.

God.

The jelly addition was a revelation. It took a recipe that was good and elevated it to a whole new level by balancing out the sweetness found in the two doughs.

Next time, I'm totally trying this with hazelnut butter and orange marmalade. Can you imagine?


Chocolate PB & J Pillow Cookies

(adapted from Post Punk Kitchen)
makes 24

Ingredients

Chocolate Dough
 
1 cup all purpose flour
½ cup finely ground oats
1/3 cup cocoa powder
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda
scant ½ cup canola oil
1 cup granulated sugar
¼ cup maple syrup
3 tbsp non-dairy milk (I like almond)
1 oz dark chocolate (72%), melted
½ tsp vanilla

Peanut Butter Filling
 
½ cup natural peanut butter
2/3 cup confectioner's sugar
½ tsp vanilla
2 tbsp non-dairy milk

6 tsp blackcurrant jelly


Directions

1. In a medium bowl, stir together flour and oats. Sift in cocoa powder, salt and baking soda. Set aside. In a large bowl, mix together oil, granulated sugar, maple syrup, non-dairy milk, chocolate and vanilla. Stir dry ingredients into wet. Mixture should form a smooth ball. If not, add additional flour, 1 tbsp at a time. Set chocolate dough aside.

2. In a small bowl, mix together peanut butter, confectioner's sugar, vanilla and non-dairy milk. Mixture should be smooth and malleable.

3. Preheat oven to 350º. Line a large baking tray with a Silpat mat or parchment paper.

4. Divide doughs into 24 balls each, rolling to making a sphere.

5. Take a chocolate ball and flatten it out to form a circle.

 Place ¼ tsp jelly on the centre of the dough and then top with a peanut butter sphere. Pull the chocolate dough up over the filling and pinch to close.

 You make want to roll (gently!) the ball in your palms to smooth everything out. Repeat with remaining dough and jelly. Bake, 8 cookies at at time (they spread a lot - leave 2" clearance around each) for approximately 10 minutes.

Let cool on pan for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

Pork, Pumpkin & Tomato Laksa

Holy moly - it's been ages since my last recipe post! November has always been my least favourite month for many reasons: Remembrance Day rehearsals (actually, I don't mind that, it's just that they take up a ton of time), report cards, and that weird in-between stretch of blahness that stretches from Thanksgiving (Canadian) through Christmas. There's just nothing to celebrate about November. The leaves have fallen, the sky is dark in the morning when you leave for work AND when you get home, and there's no snow to lighten the whole place up.

Which is what makes warming, vibrant recipes like this one so important. It's easy to subsist on soothing comforting food throughout November - wrapped in a blanket of polenta, smothered with tomato sauce. But, it's important, in my oh-so-humble opinion to mix together the comfort with something zingy and exciting.

Laksa (that's a spicy, coconut based curry soup) is where it's at.

This was one of those meals that started off one way and then ended up very differently. I'd intended to make pork burgers. And then I'd changed that to pork lettuce wraps. But I really, really wanted some noodles (there are rice noodles buried under that soup) and so this recipe ended up being the winner.

It's a variation of a Nigel Slater recipe I've been thinking about making for a couple of years now, but never got around to. Thanks to a pie pumpkin I've had sitting in the corner of my kitchen (bought with grand intentions that have long been forgotten), it was finally possible!


Pork, Pumpkin and Tomato Laksa

(adapted from Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries)


Ingredients

½ lb peeled and seeded pumpkin (squash would be equally at home here)
1 lb lean ground pork
4 cloves garlic
3 hot peppers, seeded if you want a milder laksa
1" thumb of ginger, grated
1 bunch cilantro, both leaves and stems washed
5 lime leaves
zest of one lemon
1 tbsp canola oil (approx)
4 tomatoes, cored and cut into hunks (I got 16 from each tomato)
1 14oz can light coconut milk
2 cups chicken stock
juice of half a lemon
2 tbsp fish sauce
4 oz (125 grams) rice vermicelli
small palmful mint leaves, chopped
¼ cup cashews, coarsely chopped

Directions

1. Over a pot of boiling water, steam pumpkin for about 12 minutes, or until flesh is almost tender. Set aside

2. While the pumpkin is steaming, place garlic, ginger and peppers into a food processor and pulse until finely chopped, scraping down sides as necessary. Add in half of the cilantro, both leaves and stems, lime leaves and lemon zest. Pulse again, adding a little canola oil to bring mixture together into a paste. Set aside.

3. In a large wok over high heat, cook pork until almost browned, stir in spice paste and stir fry for 1 minute. Add in tomatoes, pumpkin, coconut milk and chicken stock and cook for 7 minutes, or until tomatoes begin to fall apart.

4. While laksa is in the last few minutes of cooking, cook rice vermicelli according to package directions.

5. Add lemon juice and fish sauce to laksa and let cook 2-3 minutes further.

6. To serve, divide rice noodles between bowls. Ladle laksa broth over noodles and top with extra cilantro leaves, mint leaves and chopped cashews. Eat with chopsticks and a spoon!

You know what else depresses me about November? The disappearance of natural light. Bah humbug.

Sakashita Photo Week: Kawa Ue

This is Dragon Falls, just north of Sakashita in Kawa Ue.

Yes, the weird foreigners jumped off it on a regular basis until the locals put up fencing around it to keep everyone in.

Let me tell you, that water is cold.

See the guy on the bottom left? That's where I jumped off from. It's about a 6 foot drop down, and that was more than enough for me. And, let me tell you, I thought I was pretty badass even doing that...

... at least until I slipped on the rocks, fell to my knees and almost bashed my head. Then, I felt distinctly less badass and much more scared for my life. I should have taken my clumsiness into account!

That was the first and only time I got into the waterfall, but I loved watching people jump into it. Such a magical, prehistoric looking place.

Miso Ramen with Poached Egg and Spinach

Unlike many students who were forced - out of poverty - to subsist on a diet of dehydrated ramen noodles throughout their university years, I was lucky enough to live at home and, you know, eat healthily. That's not to say that I didn't have the occasional msg and sodium laden convenience product. My brother and I would regularly split a package when we watched WWE Raw that we would stir fry with veggies instead of turning it into soup.

Yes, I said WWE. I love Shakespeare, Jane Austen and the WWE. I also play video games. It weirds my students out to no end, but I like to say that my interests don't fit into nice, neat boxes.

The first time I went out and ate ramen noodles outside of my house was in my husband's town in Japan. There was a great shop in Toki-shi along Route 19 that served the most gloriously gigantic bowls of noodles. The first time we ate there, it was a painfully chilly, rainy Sunday night in November. The rain was pounding umbrellas with icy fury and we were both exhausted. We'd come back from Nagoya and with a long line at our regular Sunday night sushi joint, we decided to brave the vicious weather and try somewhere new.

Let me tell you, ramen is the perfect antidote to combat the bone chilling rain of an autumn storm. When your monster sized bowl arrives, you're immediately bathed in steam from the broth. On first bite, the noodles are so hot you almost burn your tongue, but you slurp them down anyway. And then, as you begin spooning the salty broth into your mouth, a warmth uncurls itself in your belly and begins to radiate throughout your limbs.

Frankenstein's monster could have been brought to life with ramen. If he had been, he probably would have been in a much better mood.

That first night, I had miso-butter ramen with corn, an egg, and bamboo shoots. And though I tried many other different varieties in my time there, I always returned to the comfort of miso ramen to warm myself.

I don't make ramen much for myself these days - only a handful of times for those chilly days in autumn and winter. The dehydrated stuff just doesn't do it for me. Luckily, there's a company in the GTA (Marufumi Foods) that makes fantastic fresh ramen and freezes it. Their stock base is a miso based paste, not a powder. If you can get hold of fresh or frozen ramen, you're working in a whole new ballpark of awesome.


Miso Ramen with Poached Egg and Spinach

(serves 1)

Ingredients

1 package ramen with seasoning mix (preferably miso)
1 tbsp white vinegar
1 egg
1 handful baby spinach leaves
shichimi, or chili-garlic paste to taste


Directions

1. Cook ramen according to package directions. Meanwhile, bring a pot with 1" water in it to a boil. Add vinegar and reduce heat to a gentle simmer. Crack egg into a small dish and slide into simmering water. Cook for 1-2 minutes or until your desired doneness.

2. Add spinach leaves to ramen and broth. Cook for 30 seconds, just until wilted. Ladle into a large bowl. Remove egg from poaching water with a slotted spoon and place on top of noodles. Sprinkle with shichimi to taste.

Seven Years Ago Today (A Haiku)

Autumn city, my

imagination captured

in breathless embrace

The Golden Pavillion

The boat house of the Golden Pavillion

Temple in Nara

My husband and I seven years ago. I wish I was still that skinny!

Last week, during Saturday's drama class, we were focused on the topic of home. We talked, and talked about where we'd been and how many places we've called home (my count: 14).

But, we really got to sharing stories of what it was like to move away from home. And, although I moved out of my parents' house a year before I left for Japan, I feel like I really didn't leave home until I left the country.

I only have a few pictures of those first few months in Japan - for some reason, at that time, I didn't realize that you needed a large memory card to take pictures, so I could only take 12 at a time. The ones I've posted today were of my first trip (of many!) to Kyoto back on October 22nd, 2004. We went with friends and explored the city and, I remembered thinking to myself that this was what my life was supposed to be like. Adventure and exploration and beauty.

Also on this trip, in the lobby of our guest house (yes, I still remember where we stayed!), we met a mid-30s American man who'd arrived in Kyoto the previous day and hooked up with a prostitute in a love hotel ("I didn't think either would cost so much!"). He'd run out of money and had only brought his debit card (bad idea, as the bank machines are on incompatible networks).

I'll be honest, I didn't feel particularly sorry for him.

I believe he decided to cut his trip short and head home early.

So, now we've circled back around to home. Tell me, can you remember all the places you've lived? Were some of them more home than others? What place was the first place you remember being your own home?

Dorie's Provençal Olive Fougasse

It's been one of those weeks where I start to consider bringing a paper bag everywhere I go, just, you know, so I can deal with all of my hyperventilating. We're gearing up for both Hallowe'en and Remembrance Day at school (although, we've been banned from using the word Hallowe'en) - both of which were things I didn't involve myself in before, but as one of teachers attached to the student council, I'm involved in all of their activities this year, And, since my drama class was doing the bulk of the work for Remembrance Day, I decided that it was easier and less stressful for me to manage the whole thing.

We'll see if that thought holds true.

We also got news that we'd have a news crew at our school for the Remembrance Day assembly, so the pressure is on!

I used to find the stretch between Thanksgiving and Christmas to be the longest and most painful to teach, but being so busy this year is making the time fly by too quickly. I never thought I'd hear myself beg for more weeks of school, but I could definitely do with some extra days.

Alas, my own schooling is taking up a ton of my time. We had both Saturday and Wednesday classes this week, so I'm thoroughly looking forward to a weekend that's longer than one day. I will say that, if I have to be in school on top of working, there's no place I'd rather be than taking drama. Yesterday I realized how sad I'll be to have this drama class be my last at the university/teacher's college level. It's nice to meet new people, learn lots and bond in a short period of time!

Knowing how little time I'd have to myself this week, I made some bread on Sunday with the intention of munching on it throughout the week. I returned Mario Batali's Molto Italiano to the library and took out Dorie's Around My French Table, and was immediately taken with her recipe for Provençal Olive Fougasse.

You've probably noticed my love of dough by this point (bread is so easy to make, and everyone is terribly impressed when you do it because they think it's hard) and my love of olives means that I spend way too much on Whole Foods' olive bar... I wish I could quit it, I really do. They're just so bloody tasty.

Turning bread into shapes (other than little round buns) isn't something I'd tried before. Fougasse typically has slashes through it to make it resemble a leaf. Again, easily done, and it makes the bread dead easy to pull apart.

You can find the recipe and directions here. I made absolutely no adjustment to the recipe, though next time, I'll go for the orange rind instead of the lemon, I think. And, I'd love to try this out with green olives too.

Pumpkin Biscotti with White Chocolate and Ginger

As the leaves fall, this autumn is becoming busier and busier for me. Not only is my infinite pile of marking getting larger by the minute, but my Wednesday & Saturday drama classes have begun (I'm taking my specialist in drama right now), leaving me with less and less time for baking and cooking and, by extension, blogging. So, fair warning, the prolific 5-6 posts a week is definitely going down to 2-3.

It's exhausting. We also had our school's curriculum night last week, so I feel like I've barely seen our apartment since returning from the cottage last Monday.

Our apartment.

We've been living here for just over 4 years now. It was built back in the 1800's as one of the original landowners mansions in Toronto, served as a convent for a while and was transformed again into a 5 apartment unit back in the '70s. When my husband (then-boyfriend) and I did a scouting trip to Toronto back in '07, we spent the first day of our trip looking at soulless concrete highrises off of Yonge.

I was going to be a student at University of Toronto, while my husband had yet to find employment. And although we had the money saved up for rent, no one in any of those soulless, cramped spaces would rent to us.

It was easily one of the most depressing, spirit-destroying days I have ever spent in this city.

But, like most things in life, what originally seemed like disaster turned into a great blessing (also see: moving to Japan, getting into teacher's college, having my first LTO finish early, getting bumped from my high school to my current school), we were SO lucky that no one in those buildings wanted us.

On day two, we stepped back out into the smoggy world of Toronto, and had an early morning appointment for a place in the Annex. For the first time in more than 24 hours, we were walking down tree-lined streets. I felt as though I could breathe again. And then, we were at a huge house. It was set back off the street on a green grassy lawn, with bright, wide windows. And when we stepped inside, we loved it instantly. It felt like home. Those same windows, viewed from the inside, reminded me of the windows in my grandparents' house in Victoria. We signed for it on the spot. Our landlady liked and trusted us enough to rent to us.

We've been really, really happy here. But, as we've grown busier and older (read: have more stuff), we've outgrown our space. At some point in the nearish future, we'd like to have an addition to our family. So, we've known for a while that we'll have to give up this space.

I've been scouring the MLS site for more than a year now. All I can say is that the Toronto real estate market depresses me. The reality is we cannot afford to buy a place that allows us to have the lifestyle we want to live (pedestrian friendly). More to the point, we're not interested in raising a family here. I desperately want to get back to Ottawa within the next 5 years.

So buying can't be an option right now. And the reality of having to move into a lesser quality apartment was looming in front of us.

Then: magic once again. Our next door neighbours on our floor decided that they would be moving out, meaning their 2 bedroom + solarium + wood burning fireplace 1500 sq ft space was up for grabs.

We grabbed it. I'm excited to say we'll be moving the shortest move in the history of moves (approximately 5 feet from our door to theirs) to a flat that is simply spectacular. I couldn't be happier! I intend to get a Christmas tree this year as we'll suddenly have space for it!

This brings us all the way (via the long, windy route) to today's recipe! It's here I made because we're hoping that tonight will be the last showing of our apartment. I hope to entice some awesome new neighbours into the space, who will love it as much as we have (and as much as the tenant before us, who was here 7 years)! And nothing says love me quite as much as the scent of cinnamon, chocolate and pumpkin, right?

I hope you're all warm and cozy in your home tonight!

Pumpkin Biscotti with White Chocolate and Ginger

(adapted from Chatelaine)

Ingredients

2½ cups all purpose flour
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup packed brown sugar
1½ tsp baking powder
1½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp ground cloves
¼ tsp grated nutmeg
¼ tsp salt
¼ cup minced crystalized ginger
2 eggs
½ cup canned pumpkin puree
½ cup unsalted butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ cup white chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 300º. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a silpat mat.

2. In a large bowl, stir together flour, sugars, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, salt and crystallized ginger. In a separate bowl, stir together eggs, pumpkin puree, melted butter and vanilla. Pour wet ingredients into dry and mix until almost combined.

3. Stir in white chocolate chips, until evenly distributed. Divide dough in half. Gently form each half into a log shape, about 15" long and place on prepared baking sheet. Bake in oven for 30 minutes.

4. Remove tray from oven. Reduce temperature to 275º. Let logs of dough sit for 5 minutes. Carefully remove one log from the pan, and, using a serrated knife, slice diagonally into ½" slices. Place, with cut side down back on baking sheet. Repeat with the second log of dough.

5. Return biscotti to oven to bake for an additional 35 minutes, or until dried and crispy. Let cool on rack.

You could glaze these with the spice glaze from the pumpkin scones, if desired.

Pumpkin Angel Food Cake with Salted Cinnamon Caramel

One of the challenges of cooking at the cottage is we don't have access to clean running water. Each weekend, we lug up three gigantic blue jugs and use that water to wash our dishes, fruits and vegetables.

And that has a huge impact on what we make up there. There's a limited amount of dishes we want to get dirty, because we can only do a limited number of dishes.

I don't know what Thanksgiving looks like at your house, but at ours, it's mess-tastic.

So, when we're at the cottage, it's often easier to turn to recipes that involve pre-packaged ingredients. It's not something I usually do at home; but up there, it's the sensible thing to do.

Thankfully, there are amazing recipes out there that turn packaged mixes into home-cooked delights.

This recipe comes from Grin and Bake It, and was a total hit. Angel food cakes and my family go way back. When I was a teen, I'd always ask for my birthday cake to be an angel food cake covered with whipped cream that had been mixed with crushed up Crispy Crunch Bars.

Be still my beating heart.

So, there was a big cheer when we brought angel food cake back into the fold this Thanksgiving. As I cut it at the table, it was universally declared to "wobble seductively".

Who doesn't love a good seductive wobble?

Pumpkin Angel Food Cake with Salted Cinnamon Caramel


(source)



Ingredients


1 package angel food cake mix
1 tbsp.  all-purpose flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. ginger
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
1/8 tsp. cloves
¾ cup canned pure pumpkin
1 cup cold water


¼ cup butter, salted
¼ cup dark brown sugar
¼ cup granulated sugar
½ cup whipping cream
¼  tsp. sea salt
2 tsp. cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Place all cake ingredients (food cake mix through water) in a bowl and beat with a hand held mixer for one minute. Pour into an angel food cake tin and bake for 35-45 minutes, or until cake is browned and bounces back when lightly poked. Remove from oven and place upside down on the neck of a glass bottle. You'll do this because you don't want the cake to fall at all. Let cool for at least 2 hours.

2. To make the glaze, heat butter with sugars in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, then stir in cream. Bring back to a boil and let cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, stir in cinnamon and sea salt. Let cool to room temperature before pouring over top of cake.

Might I recommend some whipped cream on the side?