Sweet as Cherry Pie

Everytime I make a cherry pie I sing this song. Everytime I ever made a fruit flan, you know the ones, unbaked with kiwis and strawberries and the like, all shiny with glaze, anyway...everytime I made a fruit flan I would sing strawberry fields forever. Everytime, for like twenty years.

Anyway, I love mid summer for its peaches and cherries. I will admit to a guilty pleasure that my local corner store has in the form of pre made cherry pies.  I have no idea who makes them, they are packaged discretely in brown boxes ( unlike the porn in my 'hood , which is in the store windows) But regardless, as good as the mystery pie is, nothing beats fresh made, it goes without saying.

The one thing that you may not have that you def will need is a stoner. No, not the guy you sat beside in college, a cherry stoner, or pitter as they seem to be called now. Now, if you are having a pie emergency and have cherries but no pitter, you can use a chopstick..it is messier slower and a pain in the butt, but if you must McGyver it, thats how. That said, I sure wouldn't want to have to do a whole pies worth that way

 Here's a pretty one..

Alright, stop your whinging, I know its a little bit of work to pit he cherries. But if you want to go buy a can of cherry pie fill, please , just don't. Listen, Im no chefy snob , I cheat, I actually have powdered stock mix in the cupboard, I am not always a purist. But if it makes a dramatic difference, well you just have to respect your palate.

S0, pit the darn cherries, and get over yourself, its just a few minutes work :) When I worked at The Senator ( diner, steakhouse, jazz club) I used to sit in the back alley on a milk crate and pit a couple of baskets of cherries and peel a bushel of apples, in one sitting. 

My chef never understood how someone with so little patience could do things like that.

I am not going to talk about pie crust. I'm just not in the mood, maybe another time :) I would cover a cherry pie. You can make a lattice top, but I think a fully covered cherry pie is better, save the lattice work for smaller berries like the blues and rasps.

As far as baking a fruit pie, they are basically all the same. I use about 325F. Preheat your oven to 375F and when you put your pie in, turn down the heat. Now the pie is done when you see bubbles. And I like to see bubbles right in the centre of the pie, not just on the edges.  The starch that you use, whether it be flour or tapioca or corn starch, has to come to a boil ( more or less) to become an effective binding agent and give the juice of your delicious pie the correct viscosity.

Class dismissed...heres your recipe

Ingredients

2 cups pitted fresh dark sweet cherries, such as Bing or Lambert
1/3 cup bottled cherry juice (or apple or pomegranate or any similar juice)
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 pastry for a double-crust 9-inch pie
1 tablespoon butter, cut into small chunks

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F 

In a bowl, mix the cherries, cherry juice, almond extract, brown sugar, white sugar, and flour until the sugar has dissolved; allow to stand while you prepare pastry dough, about 15 minutes.

Line a 9-inch pie dish with a pastry crust, and fill with the cherry filling; sprinkle small chunks of butter over the filling. Top with the remaining crust, and crimp the edges to seal; cut several steam vents into the top crust with a sharp paring knife.

Reduce oven to 325F and bake until the cherry filling is bubbling and thickened and the pie crust is browned, 35 to 40 minutes. Allow to cool( if you can) before serving.

Triple Chocolate Cookies...need I say more?!

OK, I admit I have been a very boring diner the last few days, Israeli CousCous, mostly veggie. Nothing to write a blog about!

So as a way of paying a penance for not being more creative I am sharing with you my favorite, best most scrumptious Triple Chocolate cookie recipe.

You will notice it is dead easy to make, really. The secret, the difference between amazing and mundane is in the baking. More precisely, the secret is when to stop baking.

With most cookies, you take them out when they are a-l-m-o-s-t set and just a wee bit soft in the middle. Well with these beauties, once the outer edge of the cookie is set up and a good part of the middle is very soft, so soft you fear they are not baked ( but remember the outer edge will be set) This is whenthey come out. Trust me they will set up as they sit ont he hot baking sheet..always let these bad boys cool on the sheet.

Enjoy, they are sinfully good!

Ingredients 

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup Dutched Cocoa Powder( this is the darkest brown cocoa you can find, not the reddish kind like Frys)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (1/2 lb) butter or margarine, softened
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 2/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups Milk chocolate chunks
• 1 1/2 cups White chocolate chunks 

  
  

  
  

  Directions

  Preheat oven to 325 degrees
  Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside. 
  Cream the butter and all sugars until fluffy and lighter in colour than when you started.
  Add eggs one at a time, mixing in thoroughly before you add the next egg ( the vanilla always goes with the eggs, btw)
  Slowly stir in the flour mixture.( slow so you dont end up with flour, everywhere)
  Stir in chocolate chunks. 
  place 2 inches apart on parchment-lined baking sheets. 
  Bake until cookies done :)
  Let cool 5 minutes. 
  
  
  Cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.

Late breaking Yogurt news!

Revisiting Kensington

I realize I have already covered tonights topic in previous posts, but something has happened that rocked my taste buds so hard, I had to share it with you.

I decided to go to Kensington Market to pick up some groceries the other day. I will admit to being a bit like a bird, that is I am attracted to the pretty shiny things, like the Maple Leaf Gardens Loblaws, but Kensington IS better, and cheaper, and well just more fun. So I hopped on my bike, which I recently "fixed" so now the front brake rubs and it is twice as hard to ride, and off I went.

I picked up some leafy green things and stopped at the spice shop. I got some amazingly good Colombian coffee for 8.99 lb ( its 11 a Lb at the bulk barn here) I was honestly a little disappointed with the fruit, but picked up some black and blue and raspberries. As I am trying to avoid dairy to lose some weight, I walked by it once, then twice, then I had to go in...Yea, you know it...Global Cheese

Global Cheese - Kensington Market

Global Cheese is a long standing tradition in Kensington, there is also Cheese Magic, but Global seems to be everyones favorite. Cheese shops in Kensington are always an experience. If you are shy, or the least bit inhibited, I recommend the 18 foot wall of ( Over priced) cheese in MLG Loblaws. It is an experience in its own way, just not nearly as gritty and fun.

I find the best way to enjoy Global is to walk n as if you have known the guy behind the wall of cheese your whole life. All you have to do is say, "so, whats good today..?" And faster than a fat kid on cake, an arm will shoot out from some hole in the cheese you hadn't previously noticed, dangling a sample of something exotic, or something on sale. And it happens over and over again, Mmmm.

On this particular day I noticed they had crumbled Feta on for some crazy low price, so I got that. Althought its fattening I cheated and got some baba ganoush. Then, I saw it, the sign that read "our own Greek style Yogurt" Well as we all know,I am a nut for Greek style yogurt, and now the cheese shop has made its own!? Well sign me up.

As the friendly clerk is reaching over to hand it to me he is in mid conversation with another customer and I hear him say, Yes, its half goat half cows milk. Oh Oh...Once I went to get yogurt at the store, I wasnt wearing my glasses, and I accidentally bought "goat" instead of "greek". I saw the G and ran with it...

Shhh, never mind the comments, I also do the dishes without glasses now and again and you dont want to know about that!

I tell the guy, Hmm I dunno, and of course, he whips off the lid and gives me a sample.

OK, words are only weak feeble things and can do no justice to the sheer heavenly joy to the palate that this miracle concoction is. it really is more like creme fraiche than yogurt. Its so sinful tasting I fear I may have to go to confession for just savoring one spoonful.

The stuffs pretty good :)  I imagine because they are a small shop not only do they make it themselves they can hang it with care in a way that even my beloved Liberte can not do to its size. That and the darn goat milk, I guess. Although it did not at all have the typical muskiness that the goat milk usually imparts.

Just brilliant...

Put on your shoes, and get up 

and go,
run, 

 to Global Cheese

Thank you, Chef Paul

I admit, when it comes to spicy, hot foods, I am a wimp. I love curries but mostly when I make my own so I can control the heat. When I make chili I always pull a little out to the side for myself  before I properly season it for everyone else. Being a chef AND a wimp, is no easy task. Cooks are a competitive lot and many hours are spent exchanging "war stories" usually about the worst injury you worked through, the most you ever drank, or the hottest thing you ate. Being a light weight drinker and a wimp lost me respect points with the boys, for certain.

Over the years my palate has grown a little heartier, I do love chipotle peppers, I still find them too hot but love the flavor. And I have developed a fondness for blackened things :) I recall watching chefs take chicken,or shrimp and rub it with something mysterious and sear it in hot hot pans, preferably cast iron, until smoke filled the air and you could smell the spices. I found it intriguing but at the time I did not favor such flavors and carried on.

Since I have toughened up and have realized how dreadfully easy it is to blacken things, it has become one of my go to "fast-food" meals.

Blackened Tilapia

Last nights dinner...Blackened Tilapia, 5 grain rice, mashed rutabaga, and, as usual, Tabbouleh salad.
Theres two things I want to talk about in regards to that dinner.. Well three, it was delicious, first of all.
But for real...don't get fooled by Tilapia..It was once nothing and is now the most farmed fish in the United States. In the food business they call it "Aquatic chicken" because because it breeds easily and tastes bland, tilapia is the perfect factory fish; it happily eats pellets made largely of corn and soy and gains weight rapidly, easily converting a diet that resembles cheap chicken feed into low-cost seafood.
Thats all well and good but the trick comes in nutritionally..Although it is a good source of protein without the saturated fat of red meat,unlike most other fish, tilapia contains relatively little of the fish oils that are supposed to be oh so beneficial, the Omega 3's

But whatever, its still not an evil choice :)

 Heres the other point I am compelled to share..as romantic a notion it is to think of old cajuns pull in off the river after a day of alligator hunting and whipping up a big pot of jambalaya and blackened gator...I am sorry to report thats all it is, a romantic notion.

The blackening process was invented and perfected by Chef Paul Prudhomme, at K-Paul's in New Orleans. Though Chef Prudhomme is all about Louisiana , he actually introduced blackening less than 30 years ago. It quickly caught on, and became pretty darn trendy. Apparently Chef Paul first blackened a Redfish, as the legend goes.

So lets blacken the sucker!

here's a recipe that you can start with:

2 tsp. kosher salt;
1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper;
1 ½ tsp. cayenne;
1 tbsp. paprika;
½ tsp. thyme;
 ½ tsp. oregano
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. onion powder
1 tsp. white sugar

Mix it all together..coat your fish, chicken, shrimp, whatever, generously with the mix

Now this is a base, you adjust it as you like, make it hotter, or dont..experiment with the balance, make it your own.

Melt butter in a cast iron pan
Add your coated food
fry on both sides until done.


Told you it was easy...now if you'll excuse me, its almost the close of alligator season...

Well thats just peachy

There are more things to love about summer in Toronto than I can name atm, but two of my absolute favorite harbingers of the dog days of summer are cherries and peaches.
Oh I hear my friends on the left coast yelling about the superior quality of their fruit. Im not denying that. But I will also stand by Ontarios produce.



♪Good things gro-oo-oow in On-Tar-i-ooo♪

Hahah remember hat annoying commercial? Of course you do, I have a friend who would acutally get visibly angry when it appeared, seemingly every commercial break, on Tv , a while back. Hahaha

So, I picked up a couple of Ontario peaches at the corner store. Now gentle readers, I live in the very heart of the gayest neighborhood in the entire country, so you must know my corner store is better then yours :) OK, calm down, I kid..but really there's exotic fruit ( the produce not the customers) a wide range of cheeses,beautiful flowers and croissants baked daily, you get the picture. OMG The chocolate selection!!! I ll save that for another blog....

OK, so I get home and decide to have these peaches with my beloved Liberte Greek plain yogurt. Sounds like nothing, right?

Wrong.

I may still be quivering from sheer unmitigated joy...Sers, how can something so sinfully good, not be bad for you. I swear this is unprecedented. A satisfying sweet creamy decadent snack that is not only NOT bad for you...it is actually GOOD for you. I want to weep.

I thought tonight I"d drill down about into the peach, figuratively, I ate all the ones I had on hand :) Even when I was a pastry chef at the distillery, when I asked the sous chef in charge of ordering, to get me, specifically "Freestone" peaches, he grumbled something ordered just peaches and got me baskets of unusable product. When I went to him to complain and ask what was up, he said he just asked for peaches, he didnt know there was any difference.

Well there is a difference, a great deal of difference as a matter of fact
( and that's why I was so specific in the first place, but hard to be a blond in the kitchen sometimes, but that's another story for another day! )

Its quite literal and so, not hard to get...

Freestone: 

The flesh comes easily away from the pit, making these the perfect peaches for eating out of hand. They are not quite as juicy as clingstones. But eh easiest to use for baking imho.  They arrive later in the season, about mid-August and stay until the end of September.

Clingstone: 

The flesh clings firmly to the pit, or stone. They are soft in texture and very juicy. Fabulous for baking and for making jams and jellies, they are worth the work if you have the patience. These are the peaches that find their way into cans.




Besides those, there are yellow- and white-fleshed peaches.

Yellow-fleshed peaches are deeply coloured on the inside. They are sweet, but also slightly tangy in taste.

White-fleshed peaches, which are sorta trendy right now, are pale-coloured and super sweet, with lower acidity levels than yellow peaches. And their flesh is smoother-textured, almost creamy.

Among the craziest-looking of the white-fleshed peaches are the small, saucer peaches that look like squashed doughnuts. Very popular in France, where they are called pêches plates.

They are super-sweet, with floral aromas and a hint of honey flavour. Their skin is fuzz-free and feels like velvet. I think I have seen these kicking around being called Donut Peaches..you gotta love marketing for the status quo ( which seems always rather low)
But I digress....

I am awaiting the return of someone dear and I have decided to make a peach pie for his return, solely based on the exquisite nature of this seasons crop. Ill keep you posted  :)

I just can't get enough

**warning**

COMPLETELY UNRELATED TO TODAY'S BLOG ENTRY :)

Sorry, I couldn't resist. Once I titled todays entry I couldn't get the darn song out of my head. Hopefully, now, its also stuck in yours :p

What I cant get enough of are these fun and funky, beautiful and brilliant kitchen gadgets. So I thought I'd toss a few more of them your way.

How cute is this? And yet still fully functional. These are my fav peelers, the ones that look like razors. And if they look like groovy little carrot men, all the better.

Aren't the best ideas always the simplest? This is much more efficient than laying the spoon across the pot. I have a gas stove, I have "branded" alot of wooden spoons :)

Again, simple, elegant...Function meets form.

WINE PURSE!!!  o.m.g.

I know more than a couple of girls that would enjoy this :)

This is "Boiley", the microwave egg boiler.
Prepares soft, medium and hard cooked eggs in 3 to 5 minutes.
I love the stunned look on his face :)

Strip your fresh corn with this mouse-shaped tool. The stainless-steel notched blade strips the sweet kernels off cobs, trapping them in a container that empties through a hole in the top.
I just use a french knife, but its kinda geeky cute.

Another juicer, oH so pretty!!
Its got a nice tight clamp to get max juice extraction, AND it strains out the seeds. Love it !

Eggsactly

My meals of late have been rather unremarkable so I thought tonight I'd pay homage to The Egg.
You gotta love an egg, as a pastry chef I grew to have an unusual reverence for the humble egg, it is present in so much pastry work. And in so many different fashions, with so many different applications. It truly is remarkable. From bread to mousse, from ice cream to cookies, you need the egg for all of them.

There is a story that the hundred pleats in a chefs hat are supposed to represent the number of ways to use an egg. 100, thats alot. Im guessing alot of them are archaic and nothing we would know about...

Eggs got a bad rap what with the Cholesterol thing, but now we know that it is perfectly acceptable to have one egg a day. Unless of course you have some issues, and then, well, move along...nothing more to see here ;)

In training young staff over the past couple of years I was astounded at the lack of basic culinary knowledge. So a bit of an egg primer can't hurt.

First off, Sunny Side Up


Way too many young people I have encountered weren't quite sure what a sunny side up egg was...really?! OK well if you see a picture of a fried egg 93% of the time it is sunny side, because they are so pretty.

For traditional sunny-side up eggs, melt 1 or 2 tablespoons of butter in a 8-inch non-stick omelet pan or skillet over medium heat. Break open eggs into pan and immediately reduce heat to low. And I mean low. So many green cooks think every thing has to be on the highest heat or speed. I realize instant gratification takes too long these days, but patience is still a virtue in the kitchen Cook slowly until the whites are completely set and the yolks begins to thicken, but are not hard.
Voila.

Now stay with me here..over easy means, flip the egg over and cook it a short period of time on the opposing side, so the yolk remains somewhat runny.
Over medium, over hard..figure it our dear readers, I know you are a clever bunch

Myself, Im a fan of scrambled, and I have it perfected for my pan at home, exactly the right way to season it.
Now I will be frank, I have a method  I always use, then I cam across this Gordon Ramsay clip and I am intrigued. Not mystified, mind you, just intrigued. He makes it rather like a pastry cream, or custard. I never would have tried it, but now I must.
Plus this is a great clip showing us Ramsay is not just a TV chef, and he burns the toast, teehee