Break From Feasting Soup

After three days of baking (and tasting) and gearing up for three Christmas dinner festivities, the shortest day of the year necessitated the lightest meal of the season.

Into Best of International Cooking book I dove and over to Spain I flipped for a very basic vegetable soup from Spain.

So easy...

Saute green onions, add beef stock or broth (you can easily make it with a vegetable broth too) and boil.

Now add shredded cabbage, peppers, carrots and potatoes, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

After that, add tomatoes cut in quarters and peas, simmer another 8 to 10 minutes and you are ready for a major stomach-body-friendly meal.

For more body and flavour, I added some fresh-from-an-Ontario-jardin special lovage, a gift from a special person.

And now I can let the Christmas feeding festivities begin....

 

Mom's Cookies for Christmas

Mom used to make those cookies when we were kids and they bring back childhood memories. 

She calls them "healthy biscuits" in her recipe book . And I used her recipe to make Christmas cookies today.

According to the blog's stats, three percent of those of you reading the blog every day can probably follow mom's original Arabic recipe on the left.

For all the rest, here is the translated version for you to experiment with. But before you start, this is a messy, not straight-forward recipe and requires lots of manual labour and time.

But on a vacation day like today, me and cats had all the time in the world to make cookies and clean the mess afterwards.

So here you go...

1. Mix 4 cups flour, 3 tsp baking powder and 1.5 cups sugar.

2. With your hands, crumble in 1 cup butter.

3. Add grated orange (or lemon) zest, 1 tsp vanilla and 4 eggs already well mixed.

4. Knead for 15 minutes until all turns to dough.

Now roll the dough in between sheets of wax paper and cut into the shapes you want.

My mother would typically use a drinking glass to cut circles. But it is Christmas and I want to show off all those interesting molds I have.

And the challenges begun.
 

Very quickly I realized that I needed to change the wax paper after each roll.

The dough was too buttery that some molds simply would not lift well. I had snowmen with chopped heads, trees with no trunks, stars with one side chopped off, and on and on.

I found out very quickly that the easiest way to do this is to (a) roll the dough on the thick side and (b) use simple molds (like the shape of a mitten).

Baking was the easiest part of these cookies.

Just put the cookies on ungreased cookie sheets and bake in a 350 oven for 10 minutes.

If your cookies are on the thin side, drop down the time to 9 minutes or so. If the cookies are on the thick side, then leave them in closer to 12 minutes.

Once out of the oven, transfer off the cookie sheet within 5 minutes so they don't stick.

Three hours later, dozens of those cookies were made (minus a dozen that I ate along the way).

And with no help from cats.

Now my Christmas baking is all done and time to start eating and feasting. Stay tuned.

Festive Cake Recipe For You

This is not your traditional Christmas cake, but a fail-proof recipe that I have been making for close to 30 years. It is unique, it lasts for few weeks and easy to make.

It all begins with lots of shopping. And since I wanted to gift some of them, I quadrupled my shopping.

The best quality & value for all you need for this cake is at Famous Foods (1595 Kingsway in Vancouver).

Prepare mixture "Fruit"

2 cups shredded coconut
1.5 cups candied cherries
1.5 cups candied pineapples
1.5 cups light raisins
1.5 cups almonds
1 cup flour

All mixed together, put aside. (I also added a bit of candied orange peels).

Prepare mixture "Flour"

1.75 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

Prepare "Batter"

Cream 1 cup butter and 2 cups sugar
Add 4 eggs one at a time

Now add to "Batter" the "Flour" mixture gradually alternating with 1 cup of pineapple juice.

Blend in the "Fruit" mixture and mix all very well. You will end up with a beautiful cake batter ready to bake.

Baking it is a process on its own. Grease a 9" X 6" loaf pan, line it with foil paper and grease the foil paper as well.

In the oven, have a pot of hot water and keep it in throughout the baking period (not sure why, but it works).

Bake at 275 for 2.5 - 3 hours, until nicely brown on top.

Let it cool down, then pull it out and peel the foil paper off. 

It comes out perfectly easy, no mess and fuss and it is ready to serve right there and then or wrap well and keep in a cool place.

While the cakes lined up nice and proper, the mess the production created was not as lined up and nice.

Now quadrupling the recipe I have here created a lot of batter that I ran out of pans.

Into cupcakes the leftovers went. They bake slightly faster (close to 1.5 hours).





Wonder which follower will be the fist to bake this before Christmas? Enjoy.

Sunday Night With Nigel

Nigel came into my life on my birthday few months ago. I could not resist anymore. I touched him, for the first time, tonight.

A cook with his vegetable patch, Mr. Slater, Tender, appealed to my passion for experimentation, organization, way of cooking and food sensuality.

I first went for his tomatoes. And who knew that he had so much beef there. He said "those tomatoes sharpen up in the searing heat, their skin catches and burns". 

I went wild on the tomatoes, spiced things up with boiling onions, garlic, and bay leaves. I smeared the beef with oil and in a dark stove all went.

Time in the dark stove went very fast, but that seems to always be a recipe for success.

After 30 minutes of heat, sometimes high, sometimes lower, a perfect tenderly rare beef was all you can see.

What was left where we laid out the beef was where to go next.

Everything round and tender, like onions and tomatoes, was passionately squashed.

All was thick and almost creamy. But that is when the Madeira wine was poured and allowed all to simmer; ready to enhance the rare beef waiting to be devoured.

Something was still missing though. That is when I pulled this out of my bag.

What is this you are wondering? Is it natural? Is it alive? Can one munch on it? Would these balls fall off? Is this really 20 inches long? 

Yes to all of the above. It is made in Brussels and sprouts are stubborn enough to remain on the stalk no matter how much you manipulate them. Well, only until you are ready to put them in your mouth.

Time to raise the heat real high. I drizzled the stalk with oil, I kept on turning it around, warming up one side for a minute or so, until it could not take it anymore, and moved to the other side. When it could not take it anymore, lemon juice spurted and calmed down the fire.

Ah what a night with Nigel.

Festive Brunch at Trafalgars Bistro

A dear friend and I wanted to have a special Christmas brunch. So when I called Trafalgars Bistro to make reservations, the woman on the phone said no need, they are usually quiet till noon on Saturdays. 

Little did we know that at 10:30 am we'd have the charming place all to ourselves.

Our amazing waitress got our good mood going with complimentary biscuits (or are they scones?).


They had raisins and some fruit peel, but were not excessively heavy nor excessively sweet - a perfect starting touch.

I had the Smoked Salmon Challah  - poached eggs with hollandaise sauce served over house smoked lois lake salmon on a freshly baked Challah and a side of a really nice arugula salad.

A side dish caught my eye on the menu - baked beans - so I ordered it. 

It seems to be a new addition to the menu. It was perfectly spiced and went really well with the eggs. The beans could have been a bit more cooked, but otherwise a perfection of baked beans.



Now you'd think this will be enough. But it is Christmas, a perfect ambiance and our cheerful waitress tempted us with their dessert menu, and we succumbed.

I had the Mango Coconut Roulade (to the left) and my friend had her all-time favourite dessert, the Lemon Dacquoise (to the right). Decadence at its best. The frosting on mine was simply delicious - it was very hard to restrain from eating it all.

I should remember this place more often for lunch, brunch or dinner.

Trafalgars Bistro

2603 W. 16th Avenue

Vancouver, BC

www.trafalgars.com

Bearkfast Festivities

If one is to have an early business breakfast meeting and it is with a wonderful business associate, then one may as well turn it into part of the season's festivities.

We opted for the Bacchus Restaurant at the Wedgewood Hotel. I arrive just before 7:30 and was welcomed by the beautifully lighted up trees warming the dawn.

If you have not tried this restaurant, I highly recommend you do. If you don't want to eat there, you can go for afternoon tea or an evening drink and enjoy the most cosy and elegant eating room in the city.

Their breakfast menu is complete with all the usual items you find in many hotel restaurants. However, the prices are slightly lower than many fancy restaurant hotels and the food is definitely a step up.

Some of you may have read about my interest in egg whites omelettes. 

But not every restaurant can make a good one; Bacchus does.

They call it Cholesterol-Free Omelette - egg whites omelette stuffed with spinach, tomatoes and mushrooms with fresh tomato coulis. To make it feel less cholesterol-free, I added a bit of feta cheese to the stuffing.

A very pleasant dining experience, a tasty start of the day. Bonus the festive atmosphere surrounding us.

Bacchus Restaurant @ The Wedgwood Hotel

845 Hornby Street

Vancouver, BC

www.wedgewoodhotel.com

Let the Festivities Begin

Exactly 3 months ago, my employer took us all on a cruise (see 10 Years Anniversary).

Today, the first of hopefully many Christmas celebrations' events began with another company cruise.


Same route but different boat, food and weather. Nibbling on finger foods throughout the trip, here are highlights of the best and the worst.

The Best

Potato cakes

One would never guess looking at them, but they were soft, tasty and nicely presented.

Vegetable Kabobs

Cucumbers, peppers, onions and some other unidentifiable vegetables in a tasty peanut sauce.

Hot Corn Bread

Nice chunks of corn bread soaked with spicy sauce.

The Worse (which I did not taste so cannot say much about them except unappetizing looking)

A crab mush on crackers

A mush of shrimps on a mush of corn

On the other hand, the views were great, until the sun set and the waters got rough. 

But that is when our charming social committee members entertained us with raffling 23 gifts, out of which I won none.