Chili for Charity

Last August there was Sundae for Charity.

Today, too cold for ice cream, we were warmed up by a chili cook off. Four generous souls donated their time and specialty chili creations, dozens of employees ate (many having multiple bowls, including myself) and all proceeds (matched by the company) were donated across four not-for-profit organizations.

Not only did we eat, but we also voted on the creations for a winner of a Chili Cook Off Boasting Trophy. 

The four contestants were:

Described as "the perfect antidote to our dreary weather today", this was a freshly made basic chili.


It had a bite, and it was served with decadently shredded cheese.

"Delectably sweet with a chili kick and snappy in all the right places".

Spiced with roasted Ancho chili based Adobo sauce and erved with cilantro and cheese, it was a "masterpiece for the mouth".

I heard of and ate Hawaiian pizza, but never Hawaiian Chili. Huge chunks of pineapples sweetened up this spicy chili that, as someone said, "it makes your taste buds stand up and say 'whoa - hello there".

Traditional Colombian chile with plantain, roasted tomatoes and even a touch of cinnamon.


Thoroughly enjoyed over rice, someone said "I'd like the buy the chef's grandma a beer".


As typical research geeks, we did an online survey to choose a winner. Results came in quickly and the winner was Anita's Ancho Chili Chili. 

  
And four charities walked out with about $100 each.

Lumberjack Meal

After screening through half a dozen firewood providers and dealing with an abundance of lack of professionalism, overpricing and attitude, I stumbled upon a great provider via Craigslist.

A friendly efficient guy who chops wood and cures it in his spare time will deliver and stack it for you. The stack included alder, black walnut and other variants that my shed now looks and smells like a German farmer's shed.

He also throws in a box of kindling and a flat of fresh farm eggs from his chicken farm, including double-yolk ones. 



Anyone interested in firewood, email me at somervillekitchenwindow@gmail.com and I will forward to him.

With temperatures below freezing, both the wood and the eggs were put to work immediately.

A beautiful crackling fire was started and the idea of a lumberjack breakfast for dinner was in progress.

Sunny side up fried eggs, steak and roasted potatoes. 

Those eggs were the best I have tasted in close to 30 years. I may be craving them for breakfast daily on those cold mornings.



Ah, the stomach was pleasantly full with a tasty high protein dinner.

  And a curious neighbourhood kittens was happy to explore the new wood.

 

Thank you B!

Contestant Winners Enjoy Lebanese Brunch Cooking Class

Last month I ran a contest to increase blog traffic - Win a Lebanese Brunch Cooking Class.

Today, four winners enjoyed learning, making and eating "a wonderful array of culinary firsts", according to one attendee.

To get all brains focused, we kicked off the class with making "Turkish" coffee. 

One of the key lessons about making Turkish coffee is to ensure that it does not boil over the stove. To get the point across clearly, I succeeded in boiling it over!

We were now all set to proceed to the first course - Sahlab. 

A breakfast drink, a starter of fancy Lebanese salons' brunches; this is milk cooked with salep flour (you can read all about this at Wikipedia's link). 

Easy to make, but you need to find the authentic brands (look for Sahlab, Salep, or roots of orchids mascula on the ingredient list). We made and drank it hot, sprinkled with cinnamon.

We then moved to learning the techniques of making Manakeesh.

While a detailed recipe and instructions on how to make it are on the blog (see Sunday Home Made Manakeesh entry), nothing beats getting your hands dirty (literally) pounding the zaatar and oil mix into the dough.

We baked and ate them hot. Great work "girls", they turned out excellent.

Everyone was then put to work one way or another. One poor contestant was stuck with squeezing lemons on somerville kitchen's cute hand squeezer that can do one lemon well, then becomes completely dysfunctional.

Lemon was used to make Foul Moudamas - fava beans dressed with a lemon, olive oil, garlic and salt. We sprinkled chopped parsley on it. Some even experimented with it on top Manakeesh. 

But nothing made the participants more proud of themselves than their perfect Lebanese Baked Omelette. Packed with shallots, parsley, diced zucchini and green peppers.

It must be your excellent chopping, buttering and whisking!

No Lebanese brunch is complete without Kanafeh. There are two versions, one that you can see at Breakfast in Toronto (my favourite), but difficult to make. The other is easier, using shredded dough (Kataifi).

Hands were busy buttering the baking dish, buttering the dough, layering it all. It baked as we cleaned up and geared up to end our learning and feasting.

Kanefeh was drizzled with Kater (Lebanese sugar syrup) and it was enjoyed hot from the oven; served with cafe blanc. This is hot water with a tiny bit of sugar and a tsp of orange blossom water - the ultimate in Lebanese brunch sophistication.


As one participant put it "Wow!!! Great brunch menu! Lots of great flavours!! A very enjoyable way to learn and taste new things!"

All had fun, all were well fed and everyone walked out with a little care package: a can of Foul Moudamas, an envelope of Sahlab and the full recipes of all we cooked.

Thank you all for coming, being great sports, having a big appetite and making this a fun day.

Special thanks for the pictures "girls". As I was busy running the workshop, the participants were helping documenting our fun day.

And glad to hear you enjoyed your time; after all you deserve it, look at the traffic you generated in October - the highest ever with close to 2500 visits in one month. Thank you!

Soup in the Snow

Today, I woke up to this...

A perfect scene to make a nice warming soup, but what do I have to cook with? What kind of soup? A lost-in-the-clutter recipe sheet popped up for me.

Real easy...
- Shred cabbage to make 4 cups; dice 3 potatoes and 2 carrots and chop off some shallots
- Melt a combo of 1 Tbs butter with 1 Tbs olive oil; saute all vegetables, except cabbage, for 5 minutes or so
- Stir in 3 Tbs flour for one minute then add the cabbage along with 2 cups water and 2 cups chicken broth and simmer away

The recipe also includes dill, so I rescued some ready-to-freeze jardin dill from the snow and added to the soup.

And just two days ago, I received this lovely gift of dried lovage from Ontario, so used a bit of that instead of salt. It gave it less of a salty taste but more of a nice thickness to the flavour.

All was enjoyed in front of a wonderfully beautiful fire.

Nfld's Classic Beef Stroganoff

I featured this cooking book(let) called Newfoundland Homestyle & Traditional Recipes on my first month of somerville kitchen (see feature at Newfoundland Cooking).

On a busy cold work night, this came handy for one of the quickest Beef Stroganoff recipes I found. Here it is.

It starts with dusting beef chunks (1 lb) with flour and salt and browning them "very quickly" on all sides. Don't make the mistake I made - choose the best sirloin and have the chunks small given little cooking time they have in this recipe.

Add 1 cup sliced mushrooms, 1/2 cup chopped onions and 1 clove garlic. Cook for 5 minutes. Remove.

Now start the sauce: Melt 2 Tbs butter in same pot, add 3 Tbs flour and 1 Tbs tomato paste. Add 1.25 cup beef broth slowly and cook until thickens.

Return the beef/mushroom mixture to the pot, add 1 cup sour cream and 2 Tbs Sherry. Heat briefly and keep warm until ready to serve.

As you see, it turns into a beautiful looking Stroganoff, but you don't have a lot of cooking time for the meat. So the choice of tender meat is key in making this an exceptional dish.

I served it over noodles and it was delicious, despite the roughness of the meat. A great recipe for a fancy meal in 30 minutes on a workday.

Tête-à-Tête Wedding

You miss attending the wedding of a very special person in your life, so what one does?

One throws a special one-on-one mid-week evening wedding celebration. 



Elegance, food, champagne, wedding cake; all was on at somerville kitchen tonight.

Bride's favourite flower, a (dried) jardin hydrangea, surrounded an elegant mezza: humus, tabouleh, moudardara kebbeh, and fatayer.

But nothing beat the funky elegance of the groom's attire.

Upon special request, dinner was shish taouk grilled right there on the spot with home made baba ghanouj.

But no wedding is complete without a fancy white, chocolate and raspberry cream Anita Wedding Cake.

Served with the appetizing original wedding champagne - Elephant Island Orchard Winery Pink Elephant 2009 - all had a fantastic evening, second helpings of cake and licked their plates clean.

Congratulations bride & groom!

More at Almost a Wedding Night

Yum Lemon Bread

Bon Appetit Magazine calls this recipe Lemon Bread, but it is more like a cake. A sweet cake drizzled with a delicious sour lemon topping. Perfect for a cold afternoon with a nice Shaktea tea and a good book.

It is an easy good recipe and now that I tried it, passed the product for others to taste, it is time to share the recipe with all. Enjoy.

In one bowl, cream together 1/2 cup shortening (I used butter) and 1 cup sugar.

Beat in 2 eggs, one at a time, until the mixture is smooth.

In a separate bowl, mix 1.25 cups flour, 1 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp salt. Mix.

Measure 1/2 cup milk.

Alternate the flour mix and milk into the eggs/butter batter stirring until just combined.

Stir in 1 tsp lemon zest and 1/2 cup chopped walnuts. You probably can add other kinds of nuts or dried fruit, but I did not want to be experimental, not yet.

Bake in a well-buttered 9X5 inch loaf pan for 1 hour in a 350 oven.

It came out perfect and slipped out of the pan with no effort. I immediately made few pokes in it with a skewer and drizzle, while hot, a mixture of 1/4 cup lemon juice and 1/4 cup sugar. 

Let it soak, cool, cut and indulge.