When the weather turns warm, my palate shifts from rich cold weather offerings to fresh light goodness. This year we happily rounded out the cold season with a comfort food potluck for one last hoorah…savory meatballs with pine nuts and raisins in a red wine tomato sauce, perfectly baked mac and cheese, spinach salad with a warm bacon vinaigrette and blue cheese, freshly made minestrone with garlic crisps, soft sauteed zucchini with mozzarella, and of course, chocolate bread pudding for dessert. Of course this event ended up being perfectly timed for the first properly hot day of the year and the nine of us, cozily squeezed around my small dining room table, were reminded why we don’t eat these delicious riches when the season turns to hot. The post dinner food coma was inevitable and the heat accelerated its effect. Totally worth it…

With a proper farewell to the days of cold weather eating, we christened the grill shortly thereafter with a new recipe from Bill’s Open Kitchen, by Australian superstar chef Bill Granger. I’ve waxed on before about my love for all things Bill, and his recipes continue to find their way into my regular kitchen rotation. Simple. Fresh. Delicious.

The warm weather menu: Bill’s Marinated Coriander Chicken with Cucumber Relish served with my own Mango and Herb Salad. This simple grilled chicken scented with fresh cilantro, peppercorns, citrus, and the sweetness of the grill, pairs perfectly with his Asian inspired cucumber, shallot, and chili relish that is tangy with a hint of sweetness. The fresh addition of my ripe mango salad with herbs and a light acidic dressing made for a lovely combination that I will certainly visit again and again.

Bill’s Marinated Coriander Chicken with Cucumber Relish

Mango Herb Salad

For the salad:
2 ripe mangoes cut into bite size pieces (the organic ones from Planet Organic are amazing!)
1 head of fresh butter lettuce washed and torn
2 green onions sliced
handful of chopped fresh cilantro
tbsp of chopped fresh dill
1/4 cup of sliced cucumber
1 avocado sliced

For the vinaigrette whisk together:
4 tbsp good quality olive oil
1 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tsp honey
1 finely diced shallot
freshly ground pepper to taste

Combine all of the salad ingredients in a big pretty bowl and toss lightly with vinaigrette just before serving. Happy sunshine days!

In preparation of a simple Sunday supper for a friend and I, I was hit quite strongly as to why I’ve become attached to food and cooking these past few years:  love.

Cooking for others has become the most tangible way for me to tell them that I love and care for them without directly saying, “I care about you and want to do something to show you that I do.”  It’s done not by thinking those words, but by feeling them.  This is hardly revolutionary.  But as someone who is trying to put that caring toward herself (Solo Suppers Beyond Cereal), I need to regularly remind myself.  It’s not about keeping up with the Culinary Jones’, but keeping on top of making my special peeps feel as special as I can make them.  Food is nourishment.  For the body and the heart.  The act of sharing it with another person or showing a little love to yourself is so basic, yet so important.  It is nourishment for the soul.

The act of making a simple supper made me happy, made me busy.  The simple supper made someone else happy after a long week.  Thus, it was one of the best of recent memory.

Cornmeal-Crusted Tilapia

3 bowls:  One, about 0.5 cup of flour, salt and pepper.  Two,  a beaten egg.  Three, about 0.5 cup of cornmeal.
Dip tilapia fillets (washed and dried) in flour, then egg, then cornmeal.  Place on greased, tinfoil-lined baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes at 450 degrees.  Then broil for about 3 minutes until lightly browned.
Serve with sauce made with 0.75 cup of plain yogurt, 1 minced garlic clove, 1/4 cucumber, seeded and chopped, juice of 1 lemon, salt and pepper.

Shaved Asparagus and Fennel Salad

I skipped the capers, topped with shaved Piave Vecchio.

Last-Minute Salad

8 halved cherry tomatoes, 3/4 cucumber, seeded and thinly sliced, 1 sliced mango, few teaspoons of chopped mint.  Dressing of 3 parts sesame oil, 1 part rice vinegar, 1/2 part honey, 1/2 part Sriracha.

Rice pudding and Blueberry-Lime Compote

Compote:  1 cup of frozen blueberries, zest and juice of 1 lime, 2 teaspoons of sugar.  Simmer everything together for about 20 minutes. Cool completely.

If there is one thing in my repertoire that I do as often as cereal, it’s pasta.  It’s easy cooking, satisfies carb cravings and is an excellent vehicle for cheese of pretty much any variety.  I like red sauce, but I rarely have any in my fridge or pantry.   I almost always have aglio e olio ingredients, however.  On this occasion, I also had an open bottle of red wine that was past its drink-by date (I know, how could I?  Believe me, I do know.) and some green veggies.  I took a nod from my David Rocco cookbook and made this drunken pasta.

Dining companion:  No Reservations:  New York’s Outer Burroughs

Cook pasta of your choice in boiling salted water until about 2-3 minutes shy of al dente, which is usually at least 2 minutes less than what the package tells you.
During the last minute or so of cooking, drop in your chopped asparagus and broccoli.
Meanwhile, saute a chopped clove of garlic and some chili flakes (to your heat preference, I do at least a teaspoon) in a few teaspoons of olive oil over medium heat in a pan, until fragrant and garlic is golden.
Add about two-thirds of a cup of wine and then raise the heat slightly.  Be careful of splatters.  Add the par-cooked pasta and veg to pan.  Stir pasta with sauce until wine has been absorbed by pasta/reduced to almost nil.
Salt, pepper, cheese.

Every time I go into Starbucks, the banana bread tempts me.  The moist fruit “bread” on the other side of the looking glass tricks me into thinking she might not be cake.
But, for all intents and purposes she is.  Made in some industrial kitchen and made to look like all the other slices of SB banana bread around the world.
I only give in when I’m at airports.  After an uncomfortable flight to/from who knows where, I want some familiarity.  I want some cake.

Not (yet) at a point where I bake a whole loaf of banana bread for myself, I found an excuse to bake one for others when some ladies were coming over for wine and conversation.
To the internet I went to search out a recipe that used butter and not oil.  I’ve found in the past that with quick breads (quick cakes?), oil can sometimes make things, well, oily.
Lo and behold, what do I come across? A recipe from The Best of Bridge.

Growing up in 80s Alberta usually meant your mother referred to either The Best of Bridge or Company’s Coming cookbooks for her cooking projects.  BoB seemed more for entertaining, CC for specific items (Muffins and More, anyone?).  I often remember flipping through my mom’s BoBs, comparing the pictures of the BoB ladies from year to year — Did she cut her hair? Did that one colour her hair? — and being transfixed by the handwriting script used in the books.  The non-sequiturs and jokes at the bottom of each recipe were always over my young head.  “Taxes are what old people worry about.”  At that time, a picture was not required for every recipe and olive oil was a fancy ingredient.

For these sentiments, my search would end at this “Best Ever” banana bread.  And pretty best ever it was.   A soft, dense middle.  A crunchy, sweet crust.  OTT with a slathering of soft butter.  The airport treat of my dreams.

Best Ever Banana Bread
Adapted from The Best of Bridge

0.5 cups butter
0.5 cup white sugar
0.5 cup brown sugar
1.5 cups mashed banana (about 3 very ripe)
2 eggs, well beaten
1.25 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
0.5 teaspoon salt
0.5 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add bananas and eggs and beat until well mixed. Mix dry ingredients and blend with banana mixture, but do not overmix. Pour into a lightly greased loaf pan. Bake 55 minutes to 1 hour; test for doneness (toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean) and cool on rack for 10 minutes before removing from pan.

The difference between a tax collector and a taxidermist is the taxidermist leaves the hide.

Food memories from happy travels are some of the things I carry most fondly in my archives, and San Francisco is certainly a mecca for such food memories. One place that I MUST visit on every trip to that pastel hued hilly city is the Tartine Bakery. Nestled in the heart of the Mission district, its unpretentious decor, efficient “out the door” line up, and freshly baking perfume wafting down the block, make it irresistible. Simple, yet high quality offerings, such as rustic crusty breads, warm bread pudding, perfect scones, cakes, and cookies, make it a San Francisco jewel. On my first visit to Tartine I sampled their Almond Lemon Poppy Tea Cake, and it was love at first bite. All the things I love in one slice of heavenly carbohydrate came together…the richness of delicate almond paste, the zing of citrus, the moist syrup of a cake drenched in sugary juices while hot from the oven. A tea cake of dreams. Thank goodness they have a cookbook. It’s an essential addition to any baker’s collection with precise tips on successful execution of even the most complex baking endeavors, beautiful pictures, and perfect sweet and savory offerings.

With Easter Monday tea planned for some of my favorite ladies, it was an easy decision. Upon tracking down the best and freshest French almond paste I’ve found to date in Edmonton in the baking section at the Italian Centre Shoppe, this Almond Lemon Poppy Tea Cake was my finest specimen yet. Oddly the recipe in the Tartine Cookbook pictures the cake with poppy seeds just as I found it in the San Francisco bakery, yet the poppy seeds have been omitted from the recipe. I have made the simple addition and love the delicate crunch of those little ebony seeds, but you can easily make this without if you prefer. A word of caution: you may be tempted to not share a single bite.

Almond Lemon Poppy Tea Cake
Serves 8 to 10

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature (plus some for preparing the pan)
3/4 cup pastry or cake flour, sifted (plus some for preparing the pan)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
5 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup almond paste, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
2 tablespoons poppy seeds
3 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons orange juice
3/4 cup sugar

1. Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly butter and flour a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan, knocking out the excess flour.

2. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt twice. In a small bowl, combine the eggs and vanilla and whisk together just to combine.

3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the almond paste on low speed until it breaks up. This can take up to a minute, depending on how soft and warm it is. Slowly add the sugar in a steady stream, beating until incorporated. If you add the sugar too quickly, the paste won’t break up as well.

4. Cut the butter into 1-tablespoon pieces. Continue on low speed while adding the butter, a tablespoon at a time, for about 1 minute. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Then turn on the mixer to medium speed and beat until the mixture is light in color and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. With the mixer still on medium speed, add the eggs in a very slow, steady stream and mix until incorporated. Stop the mixer and again scrape down the sides of the bowl. Turn on the mixer again to medium speed and mix for 30 seconds more.

5. Add the citrus zests and poppy seeds and mix in with a wooden spoon. Add the flour mixture in two batches, stirring after each addition until incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl one last time, then spoon the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the surface with an offset spatula.

6. Bake until the top springs back when lightly touched and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 60 to 65 minutes. Let cool in the pan on a wire rack for 5 to 7 minutes while you make the glaze.

7. To make the glaze, stir together the lemon and orange juices and the sugar in a small bowl. Place the wire rack holding the cake over a sheet of waxed paper or aluminum foil to catch any drips of glaze, and gently invert the cake onto the rack. If the cake does not want to release, run the tip of a small knife around the edge to loosen it. Brush the entire warm cake with the glaze, then let the cake cool completely on the rack. The cake breaks apart easily when warm, so don’t attempt to move it.

8. When the cake is cool, transfer it to a serving plate, using two crisscrossed icing spatulas or the base of a two-part tart pan to lift it. Serve at room temperature. The cake will keep, well-wrapped, for 1 week in the refrigerator.

This post is pretty simple.  I made bagels. I made bagels.

What more is there really to say?

Let’s try this:

I recognized the specialness of bagels when I was about eight years old on my first family visit to Ottawa.  My aunt made a special trip to Bagel Bagel near the Byward Market for bagels and lox one morning.  It was then I acquired a taste for cream cheese and fell in love with the donut-shaped baked good.  Most of the Edmonton bagels I ate were buns with holes—too airy, not chewy. I fondly remember The Bagel Tree.  But that closed down.  There were years with paltry substitutes from The Great Canadian Bagel, but then Dr. Atkins rained on that parade.
I did not have a decent bagel again until I moved to Toronto.  My bagel shop of choice was Kiva’s.  Grad studies’ stress meant that I was a big fan of the oversized poppy twister.
In the last few years, I’ve been lucky to have friends bring me Fairmount bagels from Montreal on a regular basis.  And now in Vancouver, I have both Solly’s and Siegel’s to rely on for stocking my freezer with real bagel goodness.

And by real, I mean boiled.  Not misted, not glazed.  Boiled.

So, why try making my own when I’m now essentially in Edmontonian bagel heaven?
I don’t really know.  I just did it as a February baking project.  And after taking that baking course at NAIT last winter, I knew I could do it.

The results?

Wonderful.

But… a lot of work.  Time, elbow grease, patience, research.
Because of the number of people who have blogged about baking bagels via Peter Reinhardt’s famous baking book, I decided I would use that recipe.  Lots of blogging means lots of information on pitfalls, tips and tricks.
I read that a bagel is a bagel because of 1) the boiling and 2) the flour used.  High protein/gluten flour gives bagels their distinctive chewiness.  A bagelry will often have flour of a higher gluten percentage than bread flour.  Where did that leave me?  Adding vital wheat gluten to all purpose flour.  I don’t have the space for a five kilo bag of bread flour, but I do have the space for a small bag of gluten (found at both Save-on Foods and Whole Foods).  Information on how much to add was inconsistent, but I went with one teaspoon for every one cup of flour.
The dough was stiff.  Too stiff for a Kitchen Aid and almost too stiff for my weak arms.  But I ploughed through.  All by hand.  All on my little counter.
It’s a two-day affair, with about four to five hours needed on the first day, and about one hour on the second.  I referred most strongly to the notes I read on The Fresh Loaf (where recipe is from) and Smitten Kitchen.

Peter Reinhardt Bagels
Makes one dozen bagels.

Sponge:
1 teaspoon instant yeast
4 cups bread flour*
2.5 cups water

Dough:
0.5 teaspoon instant yeast
3.75 cups bread flour*
2.75 teaspoons of salt
2 teaspoons of malt powder (or 1 tablespoon malt syrup or 1 tablespoon honey*)

1 tablespoon baking soda
Cornmeal
Toppings (sesame, poppy seeds, etc)

Day 1:

1. Stir the yeast into the flour in a large mixing bowl. Add the water and stir until all ingredients are blended. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for two hours.

2. Remove the plastic wrap and stir the additional yeast into the sponge. Add 3 cups of the flour, the malt powder, and the salt into the bowl and mix until all of the ingredients form a ball. You need to work in the additional 3/4 cups of flour to stiffen the dough, either while still mixing in the bowl or while kneading. The dough should be stiffer and drier than normal bread dough, but moist enough that all of the ingredients are well blended.*

3. Pour the dough out of the bowl onto a clean surface and knead for 10 minutes.*

4. Immediately after kneading, split the dough into a dozen small pieces around 4 1/2 ounces each.* Roll each piece into a ball and set it aside. When you have all 12 pieces made, cover them with a damp towel and let them rest for 20 minutes.

5. Shaping the bagel:  punch your thumb through the center of each roll and then rotate the dough, working it so that the bagel is as even in width as possible.

6. Place the shaped bagels on an oiled sheet pan, with an inch or so of space between one another (use two pans, if you need to). If you have parchment paper, line the sheet pan with parchment and spray it lightly with oil before placing the bagels on the pan. Cover the pan with plastic and allow the dough to rise for about 20 minutes.

7. Test the bagels:  Drop one of them into a bowl of cool water: if the bagel floats back up to the surface in under ten seconds it is ready to retard. If not, it needs to rise more.  When ready, place the pan into the refrigerator for the night.  The dough can rest in there for up to two days.

Baking Day:

8. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Adding one tablespoon of baking soda to the pot to alkalize the water is suggested to replicate traditional bagel shop flavor.

9. When the pot is boiling, drop a few of the bagels into the pot one at a time and let them boil for a minute. Use a large, slotted spoon or spatula to gently flip them over and boil them on the other side. Boil the tops first.

10. Before removing them from the pot, sprinkle corn meal onto the sheet pan (you can keep parchment from overnight rest). Remove them one at a time, set them back onto the sheet pan, and top them right away, while they are still slightly moist. Repeat this process until all of the bagels have been boiled and topped.

11. Once they have, place the sheet pan into the preheated oven and bake for 5 minutes. Reduce the heat to 450 degrees, rotate the pan, and bake for another 5 minutes until the bagels begin to brown.*  Remove the pan from the oven and let cool for at least 15 minutes.

Notes:

Sponge and dough—I wanted whole wheat bagels, so I made the following substitutions for the all purpose flour:  2 cups of whole wheat flour in the sponge, 1 cup of whole wheat + 0.5 cups oat bran in the dough.  I also added 0.5 teaspoon of cinnamon to the dough.
Vital wheat gluten—I added one teaspoon per cup of flour and REMOVED 1 teaspoon of regular flour (I was worried the dough would be too dry otherwise.)
Flavouring—I added honey.
Step 2—I ended up having to add a few tablespoons of water in the mixing process to get the dough smooth.
Step 3—I kneaded for 15-20 minutes.
Step 4—I made smaller bagels, ~100 grams each, and got 16 out of this recipe instead of 12.
Step 11—After turning the heat down, my bagels baked for an additional 8 minutes, not 5.

I have to say that I  am quite proud of myself for pulling this off.  A Sunday brunch of fresh bagels from your own oven is a beautiful thing.  I had my first toasted one yesterday and it was perfect.   So chewy I could cry.

My oven did that!

Vietnam still holds me.  I miss the food, I miss the weather, I miss the people, I miss the noise, I miss the energy.

So when an opportunity arises for me to somehow connect back to it, I grab on.

At the last book club meeting I hosted, we were discussing a book that took place partly in Cambodia.  And for my purposes, Cambodia is close enough to Vietnam to make a culinary cheat leap when deciding what to make for snacks.  The book does mention a character often eating a baguette sandwich… which of course is Vietnamese banh mi by any other name.  So really, I wasn’t cheating all that much.  And when I found the perfect recipe for a banh mi mise en place, the menu was shaping up perfectly.

While the chicken was well flavoured from the marinade, the standout ingredients were the pickled carrots and fresh bread.  I kept to the recipe closely with the exception of the onions, daikon, lime (a member’s allergy caused me to use lemon), and the salad.  I marinated the carrots for about 6 hours and everyone raved about them.  I placed a special order at Cobs for the small baguettes.  They were all chewy, golden goodness.

Unexpectedly, banh (loosely, bread/cake) became another theme of the evening.  While walking aimlessly one night in Hue, I decided to try a sweet I had seen a few times in display cases.  Simply labelled “banana cake,” it had the look of an upside-down cake; caramelized bananas atop a moist, white cake.  The flavour, however, was more like a bread pudding.  When I started searching for a recipe, I found that the cake I had tasted and had wanted to make for book club was called banh chuoi nuong.

Like any good bread pudding recipe, eggs and milk make over stale bread.  And like many good dessert recipes from tropical climates, coconut and banana have leading roles.

After a few bites, you immediately understand why banh is such a widely used prefix in Vietnamese cooking.  Everything it touches turns delicious.

Banh Chuoi Nuong

8 bananas

2 day-old/stale French loaves (not baguettes)

2 eggs

1.25 cups sugar

2 cups milk

2 cups coconut milk

4 tablespoons melted butter

1 tablespoon vanilla

0.5 teaspoon cinnamon

Slice bananas and mix with flour, 0.25 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons of the butter, and cinnamon.  Beat eggs with the remaining cup of sugar.  Then add coconut milk, milk, vanilla, and remaining butter.  Remove crusts from bread.  Slice into 0.5-inch slices.  Grease a 9-inch glass pie plate.  Quickly dip the bread slices in the egg mixture and lay the slices into the bottom of pan to create the first layer.  Squish bread down as much as you can.  Add half of the banana slices.  Repeat bread layer, squishing down again.  Finish off with the rest of the banana slices.  You may have leftover bread and banana slices.  Bake at 350 degrees F until golden, about 45 minutes.

Let cool completely.  Serve at room temperature.  A scoop of vanilla ice cream wouldn’t hurt it.

Ten years ago in the month of May, I drove down an alley and peered over a white fence to scope out the backyard of a house for sale on our list of possible properties. Being the organization freak that I am, I had a sheet printed from the MLS for each property so that I could jot down essential notes and details. Apple tree? Check. Lilacs? Check. Raspberries? Check. Peonies? Check. Rhubarb? Check. All of the essentials that reminded me of my childhood backyard were there in abundance. The note on the sheet for the little Allendale house built in 1948 read “So cute! We’ll take it!” and we did.

Thankfully, since gardening is not my forte, I have quickly learned that one does not have to be a gardener for things to grow in abundance. As a result of my well established garden, and despite my garden negligence, I enjoy fresh mint in my mojitios, chives on my baked potatoes, sweet fresh raspberries for jam and snacking, and perfect red rhubarb that is always turned into my Mom’s recipe for Rhubarb Crisp at least a few times a year. It’s a bit like a time capsule, and to me is one of the ways to carry on the tradition of beautiful things made by the hands of those we love that are no longer with us. So last week, as I prepared to bid farewell to my newly sold childhood home, with thoughts of my mother, my lovely sister’s birthday, and a plethora of fresh rhubarb standing tall in the garden, there was no better moment to go back in time with the taste and smell of hot fresh Rhubarb Crisp. Hot from the oven with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, I know my Mom was there saying “Happy Birthday Mindy Maude”!

Linda’s Rhubarb Crisp

For the Rhubarb Layer

4 cups chopped rhubarb

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup flour

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 cup water

For the Crisp Layer

1-1/2 cups flour

3/4 cup quick rolled oats

1-1/2 cups brown sugar

3/4 cup melted butter

good quality vanilla ice cream or pouring cream to serve

Combine rhubarb, sugar, 1/4 cup flour, and cinnamon. Spread out mixture in an 8×8 buttered baking dish and sprinkle with the 1/2 cup of water.

In a bowl combine 1 cup of flour, oats, brown sugar, and melted butter. Mix to make a crumb mixture. Sprinkle over rhubarb.

Bake in a preheated oven at 375 degrees for 35 minutes. Serve warm with pouring cream or good quality vanilla ice cream.

Because food made with love is the best food of all.

Mondays. Sigh. The start to the week, the official end to the weekend. When the days turn balmy, I find myself feeling ever so slightly lazy and in search of simple fresh food in the kitchen. Though tempted to melt in the heat and get take out, I persevered with the planned menu for the evening, turned again to Bill Granger in “Bill’s Open Kitchen”, and quickly sorted out a pretty, fresh, and delicious dinner. A perfectly light  follow up to last nights delicious but heavy parpadelle with spicy Italian sausage pasta dinner (a future story unto itself for a cooler day), which was the  prelude to kicking off another season of Bill Compton and Sookie Stackhouse with Cream and my main squeeze.

Simple pan fried fish, in this case a basa fillet, paired with a tangy lemon potato salad. The lightness of the lemon dressing paired with the crisp diced peppers, hints of chili, fresh mint, and cracked pepper, make this a salad that works with anything. The fish is beyond simple, but still something I find is often poorly executed. I nearly always follow the same formula for pan fried fish, prawns, or scallops, with excellent results. There is nothing I dislike more than a soggy piece of fish that’s been soaking up oil in a frying pan. Here are my simple tips for perfectly seared fish or seafood.

1. Pat fish/seafood dry with a paper towel.

2. Drizzle with olive oil to ensure all surfaces are lightly coated. Coating the fish with oil rather than throwing it into an oil filled pan is a great way to get a nice crisp salt and pepper sear while keeping it soft and tender on the inside.

3. Sprinkle generously with coarse sea salt and fresh cracked pepper on both sides.

4. Heat your pan on high…get it good and hot so you get a nice sear when it hits the pan. The goal is a nice golden brown on each side.

5. Don’t over cook it! Fish, prawns and scallops cook quickly. A few minutes on each side (or less depending on the fish) will do the job.

This is a great base for making any seafood taste great with a drizzle of lemon when it comes out of the pan, or tossed with fresh made pesto, spiced up with a few dried chillies, or hit with the freshness of parsley and cilantro.

Tonight’s version from the pan will be on heavy rotation this summer.

Pan Fried Fish with Lemon Potato Salad

For the fish:

olive oil

basa fillets or other firm white fish fillet, skin removed

coarse sea salt

fresh cracked pepper

lemon wedges

Follow steps one through five above for perfectly pan fried fish.

For the lemon potato salad:

one pound bag of baby potatoes cut in half

1 tsp coarse sea salt

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/2 fresh squeezed lemon juice

freshly ground black pepper

1 yellow pepper, finely diced

2 red chilies, seeded and finely diced

1/4 cup fresh chopped mint

1/2 cup chopped Italian parsley

6 green onions, finely sliced

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil over high heat. Add potatoes, reduce heat to medium, and simmer for 8-10 minutes until potatoes are tender. Remember not to overcook them as they will continue to cook when removed from the water.

Mix olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper in a bowl and stir to combine. Pour half of the dressing over the hot potatoes and stir gently. Leave the potatoes to cool. Once cooled, add yellow pepper, chili, mint, parsley, green onion, and remaining dressing and stir gently.

A nice ending to another manic Monday. I wish it were Sunday, cause that’s my fun day…

Having a name that rhymes with banana meant I had to decide early on if I was going to be its friend or faux.

I chose friend.

As the start of my day, sliced over ice cream, or mashed into muffins, few fruits rival the toothsome give of a banana’s starchy-sweet flesh for me.

And for that reason, it makes an excellent ingredient for a pie—especially, ahem, a Cream pie.  Nestled between layers of crust and cream, banana slices retain their shape yet can be easily cut with a knife.  Cream pies also tend to be a favourite of mine because they require little, if any, baking.  I ate many cream pies growing up that were nothing more than instant vanilla pudding poured into a store-bought crust.  Slice some bananas and reach for the Reddi-Whip, and you’ve got your classic no-bake banana cream pie.  I’ve not let that kind of ease go completely, but with the task of bringing dessert to a friend’s and wanting that dessert to be a banana cream pie, I looked for something slightly more arduous.

Knowing that my hosts were chocolate fans, I narrowed my search to finding a chocolate-banana cream pie.  The one I found was outstanding.

Many no-bake pies are made with crumb or pastry crusts that have been quickly baked and then cooled before the cream filling is added.  This was truly no-bake in that it was simply melted butter and chocolate added to chocolate crumbs and then cooled until firm.  The chocolate became the magic binder that only added to the decadence of the pie.  Layers of banana and a vanilla pastry cream are to be expected, but atop a layer of chocolate ganache?  Sinful.  For nostalgia’s sake, I bought a can of “Real Whipped Cream” to accompany the topping of sliced bananas.

While perhaps sacrilege to some, for those of us in the room that were slightly intoxicated and singing 80s rock tunes with PVR karaoke, the canned cream was more than fine.  I provided backing to Livin’ on a Prayer while slicing the pie and then joined the silence during Paradise City as we all became enthralled with my pie’s creamy goodness.  So much so we threw caution to the wind, went for seconds (which finished off the pie), and declared Love in an Elevator one of the greatest songs of all time.

While the light of day tends to change your opinion on some things… there is still no question for me that this pie is top notch.

Black-Bottom Banana Cream Pie

The recipe came from Bon Appétit.  A vanilla pastry cream recipe is provided, however I made the one I learned in my recent baking course.  It’s so good you will want to make extra just to eat out of a bowl with a spoon.

Next time around, I likely will put all the ganache on the bottom instead of marbling it.  I made the pie one day ahead of time.

Vanilla Pastry Cream

50 g sugar

20 g unsalted butter

300 g whole milk

60 g whipping cream

30 g cornstarch

1 whole egg

1 g salt

5 g vanilla

Combine butter, cream, milk, and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat.

In another bowl, whisk cornstarch, egg, and salt so that all the cornstarch dissolves.

Slowly whisk (to temper) the boiling cream mixture into the cornstarch mixture.

Return to the heat, bring to a boil again and cook for 1 minute.

Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

Pastry cream needs to be cooled before using.  To prevent a skin, sprinkle sugar on the top and then tightly cover with plastic wrap.

This makes enough for one pie.