Dinner.

It's nearing the end of September, and I'm suffering greatly from the tail end of a doozy of a cold, that lingering unpleasantness that leaves you blowing your nose in vain and coughing endlessly for the next few weeks. Needless to say, I'm not feeling too sexy. The best solution I could come up with was to make sweet potato and coconut soup. It was a really good idea.

1 tbsp canola oil
1 small onion, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 thumb-sized piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced
2 medium sweet potatoes, chopped
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp ground coriander seed
1/4 tsp cinnamon
4 cups vegetable stock
1 400ml tin coconut milk
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

In a large soup pot, heat oil over low-medium heat. Add onions and celery, cover, and steam for 5 minutes or until they have begun to become translucent. Add garlic and ginger and cook for another minute. Add sweet potato, curry, coriander, and cinnamon, and stir, steaming for another minute or two. Add stock and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes, or until sweet potato has become soft. Whizz until smooth with an immersion blender, or whizz in batches in a blender or food processor. Add coconut milk and stir to combine, cover, and simmer 5 further minutes to warm through. Serve with a bright, autumnal salad (my favourite is mixed greens with thinly sliced apple, dried cranberry, pecans, and balsamic) and enjoy the heck out of it. Nom nom nom.   

Sami Kelsh Eats Toronto

Exactly what it says on the tin, really: I came, I saw, I ate. Ravenously, and with reckless abandon. I also got rained on frequently, listened to Doctor Who audio dramas on my ipod (highly recommended, though be sure you know you'll be able to contain your giddy excitement at the especially adventure-y bits if you're planning to listen in public), and filmed more or less everything, which can be seen here in a convenient playlist for your viewing pleasure:

Strawberry Shortcake Milkshake

This works well when you’ve got a ridiculous hankering for something that tastes like pure summer fun, in the most ostentatiously rainbow-sparkly way possible.



Take a handful of fresh strawberries, rinsed and hulled, chuck them in with a scoop or so of party cake ice cream (which is basically vanilla with rainbow sprinkles, a ripple of frosting, and cake chunks)



and top up with enough milk to cover.



Whizz until more or less blended, serve, and feel really, really good about yourself.

Fourth Friday, Woop!

This past Friday - which was also my birthday, hooray for 28 years of Sami Kelsh - I was invited to participate in downtown Guelph's regular Fourth Friday festivities. The idea behind the event is to host many different cultural happenings in various locations around the city centre. As for me, I was blessed with the opportunity to set up a little art show at the Casual Gourmet on Carden Street. If you're in town, do check them out. They've got some gorgeous kitchen stuff going on, and seriously excellent taste in cheese and crusty bread, nom nom nom.






A friend of mine also asked me to make a video for my birthday. Funny, asking someone to do more work on their special day, but suffice it to say it was a labour of love, with a musical score from the classic Doctor Who serial Tomb Of The Cybermen.



(If it's strange that I just have various musical scores from classic Doctor Who serials on my ipod, I don't want to be normal!)

The really exciting news is that my art is available for viewing at the Casual Gourmet until about the end of June, but if you can't make it in person, there's always prints available on etsy and my website.

What I Did This Weekend, With Peob Bear

Peob and I spent Saturday night and most of Sunday lunchtime putting together a gorgeous black forest trifle. Here's how it went:




















We started with a base of brownies (made with lots of really good dark chocolate and sweetened with maple syrup) baked in the wee hours the night before and left to cool until morning, then topped with half a jar of sour cherries and their juice, then topped with chilled vanilla custard cooked while we baked the brownies, then we whipped some cream and spooned generously over the other ingredients, and garnished with a sprinkling of dark chocolate. Perfection.

You can use pretty much any recipe you like for any of the components of this dish, but here are some you might find helpful:

Brownies

1 1/2 c. flour
2 tbsp. cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 c. maple syrup
2 squares unsweetened chocolate, chopped roughly
1/4 c. water
1/3 c. oil
2 tsp. vanilla
Preheat oven to 350, and line an 8"x8" dish with parchment paper. Sift together flour, cocoa, salt, baking powder. Combine chocolate, maple syrup, water, oil, and vanilla in a small saucepan and warm over low heat, stirring gently, until chocolate is melted. Allow to cool slightly before adding to dry ingredients, stirring to combine. Batter will be very thick. Spoon over parchment-lined dish and bake 20-25 min. Cut into squares and let cool completely before assembling trifle.

Custard

3 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. heavy cream
1/2 c. plus 2 tbsp. sugar
one vanilla bean, scraped, or a good slug of vanilla extract

Combine all ingredients in a double boiler (if you don't have a double boiler, a metal bowl set over a saucepan works just as well - just be sure the width of the metal bowl allows it to sit on top without falling into the water below) and warm over simmering water on medium-low heat, stirring frequently, until custard has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon. Be sure not to overcook, or cook over too-high heat, or the egg will curdle. That said, don't sweat it if a few lumps form! Just give it a really good go with a whisk to smooth out the lumps and you're golden. Place in the refrigerator to cool before assembling trifle.

Whipped cream

1 c. heavy cream
sugar to taste
a little vanilla extract, if you like

This is such a no-brainer I'm not sure if it even warrants being a recipe. Using an electric hand-mixer, whip cream until it goes solid and creamy. See above for the kind of texture you're going for. Add to trifle as pictured above. And there you have it, ladies and gents, trifle!

Jam Thumbprints

Oh my giddy aunt, but these cookies are flipping fab. I admit, I'm something of a slut for taking baking recipes and "ruining" them by spoiling the fun and making them considerably less unhealthy, yet deceptively every bit as delicious as their waistline-ruining counterparts. This is a rare recipe that didn't actually require any healthy tweaking from me (notwithstanding a few substitutions based solely on what I happened to have in my kitchen storecupboards) and is wheat-free, vegan, and absolutely glorious. Though I might go crazy and add a little flaxseed to the mix next time to see what happens. *insert diabolical laughter here*





Jam Thumbprints

(loosely adapted from Gwyneth Paltrow's mum kinda)

Makes exactly 43

1 cup white spelt flour

1 cup whole spelt flour

1 1/2 cups raw whole almonds, blitzed in a food processor until smallish powdery chunks (it's ok to leave some bits in, as this makes life more interesting)

1/2 teaspoon salt (DO NOT fuck up and put a whole teaspoon in by mistake. If you do, carefully scoop half of it back out. This will in no way affect the overall fabulousness of your cookie. Trust me. *whistles innocently*)

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 cup canola oil

1/4 cup agave syrup

1/4 cup maple syrup

some jam: just about any jam will do, as long as it's not too runny. I used a crabapple blend my grandmother made recently, but it works beautifully with apricot or raspberry, and now that I'm thinking about it, I bet prune butter would be drool-inducingly gorgeous in these as well.





Here's how they're done:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Combine everything but the jam in a large bowl and stir until the dough comes together nicely. Place in tablespoon-sized balls on a cookie sheet, and use your thumb to make a well in the centre of each cookie. Fill each of these wells with a little jam. Bake until the cookies are beginning to brown, about 15 minutes or so. Place on wire racks to cool. Tuck in voraciously.

Dispatches from the American Wilderness

Author's Note: I found this looking at poorly-labeled old word documents in search of a writing sample. This was meant to be a guest entry for another blog, written when its usual author was very busy; as it turns out, too busy to post guest entries. As such, I present it to you now, as a look at what I was up to way back in August of last year. Exciting times!

I am a notoriously terrible tourist.

This is the first time I’ve ever been in New York City. When friends asked what my plans were in the city, my response was always the same: food. Are you planning to see the Museum of Such-And-Such? they would ask me; Be sure to get photos of the Big Important Building! they would instruct me.

My response: today, I took the train from my hotel near Times Square (which I visited entirely by accident) in order to visit La Villita, a small Mexican bakery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, that appears to have had the same sloping, sunburnt cakes on display in their front window since the 1980s (yet produces surprisingly good - and cheap - pastries). Yesterday, I had travelled even further afield to Bushwick in order to go to Roberta’s, a restaurant smack dab in the middle of apparently nothing, with only the vaguest hint of a sign above the door and a kitchen that produces some of the best pizza in America.

No, really. I’m of the firm belief that you can judge a pizza kitchen by the quality of their margherita, and I’ve been unimpressed and heartbroken more often than not in my culinary travels. The plain pie, it turns out, is deceptively difficult to get right precisely by virtue of its simplicity. The key - and Roberta’s understands this well - is to use very good ingredients very sparingly. A thin crust - at once delicately chewy and with just the right amount of charred bits - is topped with a thin layer of fresh tomato sauce, accentuated with fresh mozzarella and fresh basil. The cheese is not applied with a heavy enough hand as weigh the slices down or render them greasy and soggy; the basil is plentiful enough as to actually have an influence over the flavour without overpowering the mild cheese or the bright acidity of the tomato. The balance of flavours is truly impeccable. It amazes me that people would moan about having to schlep all the way out to Bushwick for a pizza, as I would happily trek across the Okavango Delta on a unicyle for a pie this good.

Because why? Because life is too short to eat bad food. Passing through Times Square this morning, it struck me that there are people there, visiting one of the most vibrant and diverse cities in the world, eating at any number of chain restaurants where the bland fare is indistinguishable from any other branch of the franchise anywhere else in the world. What’s the point? Maybe not everyone is so devoted as to plan their entire holiday around where to eat (like I did, admittedly) but with a little research and a little openness to adventure, you might find something truly special.

Since I’m staying near the theatre district, many people have asked if I planned to see a Broadway show during my stay. Nope, but tomorrow I’m venturing to the east village just so I can blow everyone’s mind by having ice cream for breakfast.

Sami Kelsh Eats New York, Day Seven: The Hurricane Times



It was, in actual fact, the best hurricane ever.

Sami Kelsh Eats New York, Day Six: The Mahavishnu Orchestra and the Almost Hurricane Times



So that was a good day, all things considered. Got a pony from a lady and I think I spent more time in the museum gift shop than I did in the exhibit itself.

(I couldn't finish that cupcake. It was basically pure sugar.)



I'm pretty sure this is Mercer Street, and there are prints of it here

I should like, if I may, to present to you a sexier waldorf salad.

It's one of those foods that just feels like a thing I want to eat this time of year: the contrast of tastes and textures and shapes and colours appeals to my foodie sensibilities, but to be honest, most usual waldorf salads kind of creep me out. For this one, then, I swapped out the objectionable ingredients for things that didn't frighten me so much (and shaved off some unnecessary calories in the process!) and came up with something I'm quite proud of.

What you do:

Take a good handful of greens (whatever salad leaves you fancy, really), top with half an apple sliced into thin wedges, a handful of halved red grapes, half a dozen or so roughly crumbled pecans, and a tablespoon or two of crumbled feta. The dressing is made simply by stirring together about a tablespoon of plain yoghurt, half a teaspoon of honey, and salt and pepper to taste. Perfection.

Sami Kelsh Eats New York - Day Five



(In hindsight, it turns out this day was our first date.)

Here's the thing about pancakes: I'm really fussy about them. A good pancake is fluffy, but not dry, but not greasy; sustaining but not heavy. It should not need syrup or other accoutrements, but should still be well complimented by a drizzle of maple, a pat of butter, or a portion of berry coulis. And the pancakes above did. Perfection.

It was likewise a risk on my part ordering chocolate pancakes, as my rules governing chocolate are quite specific as well: it should never be grainy, or crumbly, or be melted to the point that it resembles nuclear waste. It should appear to hold its shape, but yield upon contact, becoming a gloriously oozing mess as your knife and fork pass through. It should be perfectly smooth, and creamy. It does not need to be bittersweet. I suspect that it may well be somewhat anathema to foodie wisdom to suggest that milk chocolate has as much merit as its dark counterpart, but Gosh damn, it does. I don't think it makes me a philistine to say that sometimes I just like milk chocolate better.

As for the animated shenanigans you watched us get up to there, here's the fruits of our labour:

Sami Kelsh Eats New York - Day Four



Conclusions: Vanleeuwen ice cream = LEGENDARY. Frenchly rude patisserie macarons = overrated. Stand4 veggie burger: I suspect contained trace amounts of mushrooms, but only experienced minor swelling and numbness.

Sami Kelsh Eats New York - Day Three



My relationship to Williamsburg was, it turns out, odd. I did buy a hat to fit in with the flocks of trilbied locals I saw walkign about, but felt distinctly odd during my time there. Maybe it was the heat, or the notable lack of shade anywhere I ventured in the neighbourhood, and then it turns out most of my photos from that day got X-rayed real bad and didn't turn out. Oh well.

But here's Peob on the L train:

Sami Kelsh Eats New York: Day Two is a festival of goodness. No distance is too great (provided it's accessible via subway) when it comes to seeking out the seriously damn best food ever.



My travels are guided primarily by the needs of my tummy.