Image courtesy of Sara Chan

The internet is a great source for all things foodie, and we’re constantly bookmarking, starring, and emailing intriguing recipes, food porn, and inspiration. Here’s a selection of clippings we think are worth checking out.

I’ve realized recently that I’m a big fan of onions, even raw ones have their place. So when I saw that my friend Sara posted a recipe for pickled onions – they make a great gift – I knew I had to share.

Custard + cornbread = Me deliriously happy.

On Coronation Street, I’ve heard them talk about Eccles cakes, but I’ve never actually seen or tried one. Maybe I should just make a batch?

Melissa Clark is one of my favourite food writers, and her recent focus on Sunday soups is so perfect for this time of year. With this recipe, she had me at parsnips.

If you’re not making a soup on Sunday, I think a rich and slow-cooked Bolognese should be at the top of your to-do list.

Chicken leftovers #2.

Few things warm you up the way a bowl of chicken noodle soup does on a winter’s night. So, with leftover chicken, time and a craving for the sense of being in hot, sticky Ho Chi Minh City (instead of cold, clammy Vancouver) on my side, pho ga it would be.  Yes, while not as popular or ubiquitous as the bovine-centric pho bo, pho with chicken (ga) does exist and can serve as a nice deviation from your everyday chicken noodle soup.

I do know that a good pho relies heavily on a good broth. And it’s with my broth that I must insert the “faux.” For ease and quickness, I passed over the grilling (or broiling) of bones and vegetables and simply infused some of the chicken broth I had made with necessary aromatics.  Missing out on some rich smokiness wasn’t so bad when faced with a bowl that smells heavily of cinnamon, cardamom and star anise.  I took cues from both Mark Bittman’s Hanoi Noodle Soup in How to Cook Everything and the pho recipe I learned at the Red Bridge Cooking School in Hoi An, Vietnam.

Dining companion:  Misfits

Easy Pho Ga

2.5 cups chicken broth
1 star anise
1/2-inch chunk of ginger, peeled
1 cinnamon stick
1 cardamom pod
1 clove of garlic, sliced lengthwise in half
salt and pepper
rice noodles (the ones that look like linguine, not rice vermicelli), enough for one
shredded, cooked chicken, about 1/2 a cup
fresh cilantro
pickled onions and chilies (same recipe as here, just with a chopped Thai chili added)
lime wedges
chili sauce

Add spices, garlic and ginger to broth in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil, then turn heat to low and simmer for an hour.
Cook noodles according to package directions.  The most common method is to soak noodles for 20 minutes in hot water, then drain.  Place in soup bowl.
Once broth is ready, strain out aromatics and then add salt and pepper to taste. Add chicken to broth to warm up.
Pour broth (there may be extra) and chicken over noodles in bowl.  Top with onions, chilies and fresh cilantro.  Serve lime wedges and chili sauce on the side.

I wish I could sexy up this post somehow for you; come up with a charming story about this soup and its origins.

Is there charm in wanting healthy food after a weekend full of pumpkin pie, whipped cream, mashed potatoes, turkey and bottomless glasses of red wine?  Not particularly.  It just is.

As a chill has entered the air (so salad just wouldn’t cut it), I took to making myself what amounts to a diet soup.  Like a diet salad, it’s full of high-volume, low-calorie ingredients that are chock full of vitamins, flavonoids, antioxidants and heart-healthy fibre.  See?  Not sexy.  Delicious, however, and the perfect thing to eat as you’re coming down off your tryptophan high.  And the perfect thing to eat before indulging in another piece of leftover pie.  Okay.  That might be the sexy bit.

Dining companion:  Boardwalk Empire

Tomato, red pepper and barley soup

• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 4 shallots, finely chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons crushed red pepper
• 2 carrots, halved then chopped
• 2 red peppers, diced
• 28 oz can of plum tomatoes
• 2 cups of chicken stock
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 0.25 cup hulled barley
• salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil in large saucepan over medium heat.  Add shallots, peppers and carrots and sweat down for about 5 minutes.  Add garlic, oregano and crushed pepper and saute until fragrant.  Add tomatoes (with juice) and break up with the back of a wooden spoon.  Add some salt and pepper to taste here.

Add stock and bring to a boil.  Add barley, reduce heat to a simmer and cook soup half-covered for about an hour — until barley is cooked, may only take 45 minutes.  Check seasoning and adjust to taste.

The beauty of food legacies is something I hold close to my heart. Each time I make a dish that has been a part of my childhood and family tradition, I put a little extra love into it. I fondly remember the feeling of sitting at my Grandmother’s big dining room table at the little house in Beverly, watching her make Sunday morning pancakes for a dozen people, flitting about taking care of every one’s needs, hand making dozens of pyrogies and tiny cabbage rolls with hands raw from the acid of the sour cabbage, and never actually sitting down to enjoy her beautiful creations until everyone had been fed. My Grandmother has always expressed her love for her family with beautiful food. Hungry or not, she would open a jar of her homemade borscht the minute I arrived so she could feed me. Made fresh from the bounty of her garden, she fed more than my hunger. Years of watching my mother carrying on that tradition by making my Grandmother’s recipe for borscht, and learning myself how to execute her delicious variety of that hot pink goodness, I feel like I am carrying on a part of my family legacy every time I whip up a batch.

So with harvest celebrations upon us, and much gratitude for my little bundle of girlie delight and all of the beautiful women in my family that have taken the time to pass on their love through cooking, what better time to share a delicious and very “pink” way to bring the fall harvest together into one delicious dish!? Now to try and write down a recipe that never finds itself on paper, but in true family recipe tradition, is born from a little of this and a little of that…

Borscht…according to “Sugar”

3 tbsp butter
5 beets, cut into chunky matchstick sized pieces
1 onion, diced
2 shallots, finely diced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
2 carrots, quartered and chopped
5 baby garden potatoes, quartered and chopped
1 cup of garden peas in the pod, sliced into 1/2 inch pieces (or you can use frozen peas if needed)
1 cup of string beans, sliced into 1/2 inch pieces
juice of 3 lemons
1 tsp dry dill
2 tbsp fresh dill, finely chopped
1L of vegetable stock
2 cups of water
1 cup of heavy cream
1 tbsp kosher salt
freshly ground pepper to taste
sour cream, to serve

In a large dutch oven (I use my Le Creuset for this dish) or soup pot, melt butter and saute onions, shallots, and garlic until soft (2-3 minutes). Add beets, carrots, and potatoes, and saute until they begin to soften (10-12 minutes) stirring regularly. Add more butter if necessary to keep vegetables moist. Add peas and beans, and saute an additional few minutes. Next add lemon juice, kosher salt, pepper, vegetable stock, water, and dry dill. Bring to a gentle boil and reduce heat to medium to slowly simmer. Simmer for 20-30 minutes until vegetables are at the desired tenderness. Lastly, add cream and fresh dill. Stir well and serve with a dollop of sour cream.

Nostrovia!

There are times in life when loving Me is important.  And as attractive as that easy lever can be, I know that putting a little elbow grease in for tonight’s dinner might just make life a little rosier.

I can easily go overboard on my lust for carbohydrates, so I’ll just say that my white bread needed to be on the menu.  Pasta could be an obvious accompaniment, but that screams  emotional eating.  Especially when I had decided that I would make rice pudding for dessert.

Soup, then.

I wanted something healthy and hearty.  Not a cream soup.  And not a puree.  I just wanted to dump everything into a pot and wait.  This barley, lentil and chard soup from Bon Appétit did the trick.  I halved the recipe, but kept the same amount of tomatoes and topped up the red chard I was using. 

It was delicious.  The fresh dill was a nice change from a more expected herb like basil.  The lentils added a hidden body, and the barley gave the substance I was after.  You feel no guilt about a meal when it has something like red chard in it.  The soup nicely coated my bread when dipped—coat rather than soak is to me the mark of good bread and appropriate soup thickness.  The crusts served their purpose of pre-cleaning the bowl before dishwashing later.

I ended with what I can only call a Quick ‘n’ Dirty Rice Pudding.  Not much thought, only the effort of stirring, and hardly perfect.  But it was what I wanted:  sweet and creamy and chewy and vanilla-y.  And after being completely cooled in the fridge, it also had the sticky, glutinous texture I (maybe not you) love in rice pudding.

I sat at my table alone eating dinner, listening to Carlos Gardel, and reading a magazine.  I lit a candle and enjoyed the sunshine of the longer Alberta days.

I felt the warmth of the soup in my body and the love that was made just for me.

Quick ‘n’ Dirty Rice Pudding

Makes two generous servings.

0.5 cup Arborio rice

2 cups milk

3 tablespoons sugar

Pinch of salt

Seeds of one vanilla bean

1 egg yolk, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon butter

Bring rice, milk, salt, sugar, vanilla seeds, and now-empty vanilla bean to a boil.

Reduce heat to low and cover, stirring often, until rice is tender and pudding is to desired thickness—more milk may need to be added.

Take pudding off the heat.  Remove the bean pod.  Continually stir the pudding as you slowly add the egg yolk, which further thickens the pudding.  Stir in butter.

Enjoy warm or cool completely in the fridge (with plastic wrap pressed onto pudding for skin prevention).

I finish with a little cream as I like my pudding extra thick.