Eat the fruit

There's a nice side effect of this project: we eat a hell of a lot more dessert than we used to. So while Christina was busy stirring up that delicious lentil soup (which we made again last night, and will be making again and again and again...), I turned my attention to what would follow it: apple crumble.



Everybody loves apple crumble, so when it came time to choose our hundred recipes from the book, this one easily made the cut, even though I must've had hundreds of apple crumbles over the years. And besides, we had to see what Gordon would do to tart it up.



First trick - mess with the texture by grating half of the apples instead of just chopping them into chunks. For future reference, grating apples while you've got three fingers in a splint is not a great deal of fun.



Second trick - caramelise the sugar! Never done this before, so obviously I made the classic beginner's mistake of stirring the sugar, and just about ruined my skillet in the process. After a brief interlude of boiling water in the pan to get all the toffee unstuck, I started again. Much better the second time, but I was still fairly terrified of burning the sugar, so I probably didn't do it long enough. Still, it smelled like caramel, and I think that's what we were going for.



Then in with the apples and cranberries - cranberries being the third trick, messing with the texture again - and let them stew for a bit with the cinnamon, lemon juice and vanilla seeds - trick four - before covering it all with the crumble.



If I have a complaint about this dish - and again, we're splitting hairs, obviously it was delicious - it would be the crumble topping itself. I found it to be much too fine in texture, and the granola mixed in didn't really add anything. Overall it got lost, and it was more a dish of stewed apples than a crumble.



Again, though - delicious.

Mmmmmm soup

Our lentil salad was such a success that we were feeling pretty confident about spiced lentil soup. I took the lead so Robin could devote his full attention to the apple crumble (stay tuned!).



This recipe is SO easy; I totes drew the long straw tonight. All you have to do is saute some onion and garlic, mix in tomato puree and yummy spices (cumin, coriander, garam masala, ginger, and turmeric)...



...add the red lentils and broth, and simmer for half an hour until it gets soupy (you can throw it into the blender for a few seconds too, but I didn't find it made much difference).



Top with yogurt and cilantro and enjoy!



The soup was hearty and tasty enough on its own, but the yogurt brought it to a whole new level and kept us going back for more. Lentils are a hit in this house!

Hope you saved room for dessert!

Flavours of the East

What are you to do when a difference in terminology - or an unscrupulous butcher? - means you end up with twice as much lamb as you needed? Well, you could do a lot worse than moving a Moroccan tagine forward in the rotation and discovering a whole new world of taste.



That's a lot of ingredients, but we didn't actually have to buy much that we didn't have already on hand - working your way through a cookbook tends to really improve your spice cupboard. Though I'll admit we did have to go find some saffron, the king of spices. Which turned out to be on sale for 33% off; strangely disappointing, if easier on the wallet.



Once the lamb was diced up into stew sized portions, it was in to the pan with some oil to get a bit of colour on it.



That done, it was everything else's turn! Tagine might be a fancy name, but it's a stew at heart, and stews are not renowned for complexity of method. Ingredients, pot, cook.



At the risk of losing style points, let me list what we threw in the pot: red onion, garlic, ginger, saffron, coriander, cumin, paprika, fennel, cinnamon, bay, tomato, sweet potato, raisins, stock, and of course the lamb itself. Complexity of method, no - complexity of flavour, oh my yes.



Throw on some parsley to give it that touch of freshness, and dive into a whole new world of flavour. I can't say I've much to compare it to, but if ours was anything close to an authentic tagine, Morocco just climbed a few spots on the travel list.

Twofer!

THE LAMB SAGA: PART I

I’ve never been a huge fan of lamb. That being said, this slow-braised stuffed lamb and the upcoming lamb stew were life changing.

The recipe calls for three lamb breasts but the butcher at Rain Shadow Meats gave us a huge hunk of lamb shoulder. Since we intended to stuff and roll up the meat before cooking and Robin’s right hand is pretty much useless these days, I went right to work carving usable breast-like pieces from the shoulder. I think I might have a future in butchery, but I’m not quitting my day job just yet.



Next we seasoned the breasts with salt & pepper (immature giggle) and gave them a healthy sprinkling of oregano, red chili flakes, lemon zest, and anchovies. I wasn’t crazy about that last one either but trust me - it all works out in the end.



Then we carefully rolled and tied each one so they wouldn’t fall apart during cooking and browned them for a few minutes on each side.



We set them aside and cooked up the onions, garlic, kalamata olives, capers, wine, and canned tomatoes...



...then all we had to do was throw the lamb back into the pot and let it do its thing in the oven for a couple hours.





We sliced up the lamb rolls and, just to be fancy, decided to serve them up with a side of sautéed kale. Nom.



The flavors were awesome, the lamb was super tender, and the anchovy stuffing melted in my mouth. My only complaint was that the combination of anchovies and olives made the dish taste really salty.

Thanks to the butcher's up-selling, we had more than enough leftover lamb for an extra recipe (coming soon!). But first, mac n cheese with cauliflower...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

HOW THE ENGLISH DO MAC N CHEESE

With the stuffed lamb cooking away in the oven and Robin watching Cricket in the other room, I decided to tackle the macaroni and cauliflower bake on my own. I knew this would not be a problem since I am a renowned mac n cheese master chef.

Gordon uses three kinds of cheese in his recipe, two of which are obscure English cheeses that can only be found in specialty stores here. Robin said he had to ask for them at the counter and I’m pretty sure he also flashed his British passport or did the secret handshake or something to prove he was legit. In any case, we ended up with Lancashire, Cheshire, and aged cheddar.



I’ve never met a cheese I didn’t like. However, Cheshire cheese is, to borrow a phrase from the totally awesome Buffy musical, a skeazy cheese. It’s very similar to bleu cheese, which has never been my favorite. But hey, they can’t all be winners, and cheese is cheese!



First you have to boil the cauliflower until it’s tender and, if you’re smart, you’ll save the hot water for the pasta. Then you can simultaneously cook the pasta and prepare the sauce. Check out this multitasking:



The cheese sauce is pretty straightforward. Just combine butter, flour, whole milk, mustard powder, cayenne, and cheese in a saucepan. Let it get all melty and creamy before pouring it over the cooked macaroni and cauliflower.





Finally, sprinkle it with a mixture of breadcrumbs, thyme, and more cheese and bake until the top is golden brown and crisp.



Of course I loved this because it's mac n cheese, but I will say that the Cheshire was a bit overpowering and the cauliflower didn’t bring anything to the dish. I don’t have anything against veggies, I just think it would have been better on the side. And, if we're being nit-picky, it could have used more cayenne, too.

Oh baby. Lamb stew is up next!

More dessert!

We're falling behind, here, and that's my fault. Life be crazy. We're keeping to our cooking schedule, though, worry not! There's a whole heap of tasty morsels heading your way, and here's the first: Gordon's version of rice pudding, wherein we weave in all manner of flavours to create a very upscale version of something I've always considered very homey. For the better? Make your bets now!



Why yes, that is whole milk. Heavy cream? Yep. Coconut milk? Check. Eggs? Two. Mascarpone? Why not! If you can think of anything else to make this even richer, we'll probably throw that in too! Gordon don't play.



Into the pan with the spices, to start up an aroma that will fill up your kitchen and make you happy down to your very soul. Fresh vanilla, cardamom, cloves and cinammon, none overpowering the others, just... lovely.



Once everything's nice and fragrant in the pan - don't want to burn them! - in with the milk... and the cream... and the coconut milk...



Ah! Gordon, you clever man. Lime zest, cuts right through all that richness. Once that's all boiling, we can throw in the rice. Unfortunately we couldn't find proper pudding rice here, so we went with arborio instead. No complaints about the results!



It's a very quick dish, this one, which is good, because throughout the time we were cooking it, we wanted to be eating it. Just 5 minutes on the stove before it's time to mix in the mascarpone and egg yolks (thought we'd forgotten about them?) and throw the whole thing in the oven for 15-20 minutes.



Success! Somehow very similar to my memories of rice puddings of yesteryear, despite all the fancy ingredients. And even better reheated the next morning for breakfast!

Desert Dessert

Finding ourselves falling behind schedule due to injuries, work travel, and life in general, we decided to take the show on the road with us to Scottsdale, AZ. Special thanks go to Grandma Lena for sharing her kitchen with us, and also to our sous chef, Houdini.



We were able to turn the ingredients for chocolate mousse with chili and mango into a tasty dessert, but we might need to work a bit more on our technique since what we made could hardly be called a mousse.



Everything started out great...ish.

Melt butter and infuse with red chilies for 30 minutes or so. Check.



Remember to wash your hands thoroughly so you don’t burn your eyeballs while taking out your contacts later. Fail.

Pour infused butter (chilies strained out) over 72% dark chocolate and melt over a double boiler. Check.



Remove chocolate and combine egg yolks and sugar over the double boiler. Beat with an electric mixer for 10 minutes or until your hand feels like it’s going to fall off. Check and check.





Fold egg mixture into the melted chocolate, along with hand-whipped cream. Fail.



(Why, yes, that is an In-N-Out cup you see on the counter)

This is where we realized things had gone awry. The mixture was either overcooked or over-beaten, causing it to be somewhat chunky, for lack of a better word. It’s not really as bad as it sounds, but there was less folding and more stirring needed to get the lumps out, which made it difficult to keep the mousse fluffy.



Nevertheless, finally satisfied with the texture, we spooned the mousse into serving dishes and let it chill in the fridge for a couple hours while we went wine tasting at Scottsdale’s first (and only) winery.



Houdini had it under control so when we came back all we had to do was top it with slices of fresh mango and serve to our eager diners, Mom and Pat.



The lumps managed to work themselves out of the finished product but the consistency was more like ganache than mousse (some fancy terminology I picked up from Iron Chef). Letting it sit out for 15 minutes to soften up made it taste much more moussey (moussier?). The chili butter gives just the right level of heat and the mango cuts through the richness of the chocolate. Who knew mangoes and chocolate would make such a great team?! And, since it’s got fruit, this chocolate mousse is good for you too!** Yeah, I would try this one again.

Continuing with desserts, Gordon’s rice pudding is coming up next.

**This statement has not been verified by the FDA.

Sunday Roast

You'll have to forgive me for not having many pictures for you today - Christina sprained her ankle fairly horrifically on the day, so I had to fly solo while she went into shock on the couch. Throw in my broken finger and things were fairly hectic.



Gordon calls this his Roast Sirloin of Beef. As you can see from the picture, we're going to call it Roast Steaks of Sirloin. Apparently getting a whole sirloin was a bridge too far for our supplier. But sirloin is sirloin, so we (I) soldiered on!



While the beef was in the oven - prepped with a drizzle of olive oil and a healthy salt and peppering, nothing too crazy - I got to work making the gravy. Shallots found themselves frying away with some flour thrown in to give them some body. That done, in went the red wine!



And yes, that was boxed wine. Don't judge me. It's pretty good wine - and better for the environment! And my wallet. Moving on! The wine was joined by the balsamic and the herbs, and then we got our reducing on. NB: I'm terrible at reductions. This plate was shot at a very flattering angle - much wetter than it appears.



The nice thing about this dish - other than it being super delicious - is that it was super easy, and gave me time to make some veggies on the side. There's no plate that isn't improved by a generous helping of duck-fat mashed potatoes.

Next time, we indulge our sweet tooth with some chocolate mousse!

Meat Good

Warning: The following post contains graphic images of insanely delicious meat that may be too shocking for some vegetarian readers.

We claim to be vegetarians for simplicity’s sake but, technically, we’re ethical omnivores. This basically means we’re willing to pay through the nose for meat that comes from sustainable, humane sources in order to recreate Gordon Ramsay’s slow-cooked beef short-ribs. Oh my.

We picked up our beautiful Skagit River Ranch beef ribs at the Central Co-op and I finally made it over to the Batali family’s famous deli, Salumi, to get some pancetta. I had called my order in ahead of time so I wouldn’t have to wait in that long line which, sadly, meant that I did not get to try one of their sandwiches. Oh well, there’s always next time!

The first step was browning the ribs to give them some nice color before going into the oven.

We quickly realized that the roasting tray couldn’t handle direct heat from the burner as advertised and had to switch to our beautiful new ceramic pot (thanks Dad!).

Next we threw in a whole head of garlic (no chopping required), tomato paste, veggie broth, and an entire bottle of red wine and let it simmer for a while to reduce. You wish you had smell-o-vision right now.

Then we moved everything back into the roasting tray and put it in the oven for, like, four hours until the meat was tender and almost falling off the bone. That was a really long four hours but don’t worry - I kept myself busy studying for my Series 7 exam.

Just as the ribs were coming out of the oven we fried up that pancetta with some mushrooms.

Then we smashed up the garlic into the cooking juices and drizzled it back over the ribs, garnished with parsley, and served them with the pancetta/mushroom mixture. Mouth-watering.

After one bite I understood why Gordon was giggling like a little girl when he made these ribs on his show. They are seriously that good.

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