Five simple ingredients, one delicious sauce

Booking a hotel with a kitchen is a great way to save money while on vacation.  Unfortunately, most hotel room kitchens do not come fully stocked with all of the basics that an at-home kitchen contains...creating the potential need to re-invest in many of those basics in order to create delicious meals.  This creates a bit of a conundrum: do I spend money on seasonings to keep the food delicious, or do I save and run the risk of cooking something bland and boring?

Neither.  I have a solution to the problem!

Or rather, I should say, the French have a solution.  The answer is "beurre blanc", an emulsified butter sauce that requires a mere five ingredients:

-dry white wine
-lemon juice
-shallot (or a small onion)
-butter
-salt

(Some recipes also use cream, which helps prevent the sauce from breaking.  I might go this route if I made the sauce again at home, but while on vacation the fewer ingredients I had to buy the better!)

Bonus: This is a sauce that goes particularly well with fish, and fish is a meat that goes particularly well with white wine...meaning that the rest of the bottle won't go to waste.  Also, lemon juice is merely a suggestion...you can really use any kind of citrus (or vinegar) in it's place to change up the flavour.

To make a beurre blanc.....

1) Combine 1/4 cup white wine, 1/4 cup lemon juice, and 2-3 tbsp finely chopped shallot in a small saucepan.

Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and let simmer until the liquid has reduced by about half and has a syrupy consistency.

At this point you may choose to add heavy cream in order to prevent the sauce from breaking.  If you do go that route, add 1/3 cup of heavy cream and bring the mixture back to a boil for 1 minute.  Then continue with the next step.

2) Cut 1 cup of chilled butter into tablespoon sized pieces.  Add butter a few pieces at a time, whisking constantly, and adding new pieces before the the previous ones have completely liquefied.

Don't let the mixture get too hot or else the sauce will break.  To prevent that from happening, lift the pan from the heat occasionally to cool the mixture.

3) Once all of the butter has been added your sauce should have a thick hollandaise-like consistency. Some people like to strain the sauce to remove the shallot, but I don't think that's necessary. (Plus, what kind of fancy hotel kitchen has a medium-mesh sieve?)  Season to taste with salt, and serve warm.

Like I said....delicious with fish!

The quantities given above are only a suggestion, and result in about 1 cup of sauce.  If you don't need that much simply try reducing the quantities by half.  Also, you don't have to use half white wine and half citrus juice: you could just as easily use all white wine or all citrus...it won't change the process, just the flavour of the final sauce.  Feel free to experiment and, as always, enjoy the deliciousness that you have created!!

Meatless March: Week 2

I'd like to say that my first week without meat was a success.  However, I did learn something about myself: I'm not the kind of person who wants to ask questions about the food I order, hence cheating-by-poutine.  Also, I'm not the kind of person who wants to give up food that I love simply because it may have been made with meat hence, again, cheating by poutine.  But I digress.....

To mark the end of a (semi) productive reading week, I decided to make myself something delicious (and comforting) for dinner on Sunday night...and I went with a vegetarian pot pie.  Super simple...just make a couple of changes to this recipe: omit the chicken (obviously) as well as the chicken stock, and replace those with mushrooms (add at the same time as the potatoes in the original recipe) and vegetable broth.

Option to add more mushroom flavor: instead of going with fresh mushrooms, pick up some dried ones.  Since you have to soak them before cooking you can use the soaking liquid (strained of course) in place of vegetable broth.

I had leftovers on Monday, so I didn't cook again until Tuesday when I decided to haul out the slow cooker to make a nice big batch of marinara sauce.  And by big I do mean BIG...the recipe I followed makes 12 cups of marinara...I froze half of it immediately and still had enough to try it out in several different ways during the.

Ingredients
-3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
-3 cups chopped onion
-3/4 cup diced carrot
-1/2 cup diced celery
-3 tbsp chopped fresh oregano (or 3 tsp dried)
-1/4 tsp crushed red pepper (red pepper flakes)
-2 tbsp tomato paste (or ketchup)
-1/2 cup dry red wine (such as cabernet sauvignon)
-5 1/2 pounds plum (roma) tomatoes, peeled and chopped
-3/4 cup chopped fresh basil (or 3 tbsp dried)
-1 1/2 tsp salt
-1/2 tsp black pepper

Directions
Heat oil in a large skillet.  Add onion and next 5 ingredients (through red pepper); saute 8 minutes.  Add tomato paste; cook for 2 minutes, stirring frequently.  Add wine; cook 2 minutes or until liquid almost evaporates.  Combine vegetables and tomatoes in slow cooker.  Cover and cook on low for 8 hours.  Remove 3 cups tomato mixture and place in blender; blend until smooth; return to slow cooker. (Alternatively, use an immersion blender to achieve your desired consistency.)  Add basil, salt, and pepper.  Cook uncovered on high for 30 minutes...then enjoy however you like!

Recipe makes about 12 cups...6 for now, 6 in the freezer for later!

Making this reminded me of how much I love my slow cooker!  It's brilliant...you throw all of the ingredients together first thing in the morning, turn it on low, and leave...and when you come back in 8 hours you have created something delicious.  And in the case of marinara sauce, all you really have to do when you get home is boil water for pasta.  I, however, decided to try a different way to enjoy my marinara sauce: I used it to poach an egg (heat sauce to simmer, add egg).  The motive behind using eggs is simple: they're cheap, as well as a great source of protein.  But while breakfast for dinner is delicious, I'm just not the kind of girl who wants to eat fried eggs in the evening.  The idea of eggs with marinara sauce was just a little bit fancier...and turned out to be not even a little more time consuming (once the sauce is made of course).

Served with toast...and some of the red wine that I used to make the sauce :)

Wednesday and Thursday each brought with them new applications of this lovingly made sauce...

Wednesday: Open faced eggplant sandwiches with mozzarella and marinara

Thursday: Simple and straightforward...spinach and cheese ravioli tossed with marinara sauce.

By Friday I was starting to get tired of tomatoes, and I was starting to crave something just a little bit meatier.  And I thought to myself: how about a veggie burger?  So I tossed some lentils and mushrooms into my food processor; added salt, pepper, and dijon mustard as well as an egg and some breadcrumbs to bind the mixture together and then threw the result on my handy indoor grill!

They certainly look right...

Honest verdict?  While they had the right amount of "meat-y" substance to them they lacked the texture that I was craving.  Suffice to say that bean-based burgers will probably not make my menu again; next time I think I will go with a grilled portobello instead.

Friday night's results brings me to an important point about cooking at home: mistakes are going to happen.  Every so often you're going to make something that either doesn't work out or just isn't that great...and that's okay.  Every home cook goes through that learning process.  There are the rare recipes that work brilliantly the first time, but for the most part cooking is a process of trial, error, and improvement.  Don't let one poor showing put you off of cooking for life: take note of what happened, try to figure out what went wrong, and you'll do better next time.

Trust me though...it's worth the effort!

Anywho, after Friday night's somewhat disappointing veggie burger debacle, Saturday demanded a pick-me-up in the form of an old favorite: pizza.  Grilled eggplant tossed with BBQ sauce, roasted mushrooms, and green onions.  A perfect end to the week!

Delish.

Perfect end to the second week I should say.  Thus far I must say that while there are certain things I miss (a perfect, juicy, burger for instance) that going meat free has actually been quite delicious.  Where will next week take me?  You'll have to come back and find out.....

Meatless March: Week 1

Well the first two days of the month went by without too many problems, which left me looking forward to my first full week as a (temporary) vegetarian.

Sunday afternoons I go to yoga, which requires me to consume a larger than normal breakfast (to prevent passing out in the studio).  My usual go-to would be something like bacon and eggs...but that is not a possibility this month.  Slight change: veggie and cheese omelet.  I've got some broccoli stems in the fridge (worth not throwing away...I also used them in the fried rice that I made last week), and no fewer than three different kinds of cheese on hand.  

(Nervous about omelets?  That's what YouTube is for!)

As for dinner...given that I hadn't seen the sun in at least a week I was in the mood for something warm and comforting.  And, as is my Sunday evening tradition, something that would provide me with leftovers for the week to come.  After some careful thought I decided to go with a nice pot of chili (featuring zucchini, quinoa, and chipotle peppers), paired with homemade buttermilk biscuits.

I decided to go with biscuits because (a) I wanted some starch with my meal and (b) I had buttermilk in the fridge from the last time I made muffins.  They are a super easy recipe, which I'm happy to share on request.

Monday was another lazy day...preview for the week, since it's spring break.  So I have more time on hand then usual, leaving me with time to experiment.  I decided that this would be a great time to try out a recipe that's been on my mind for awhile: spinach and kale turnovers.

I used the original recipe as an inspiration, but made several small changes.  For starters, I made my own crust using the fantastic whole wheat and flax pizza dough recipe featured here.  Second, I subbed a mixture of parmesan and mozzarella in place of feta, omitted the nutmeg, and added a little pizza sauce to make the turnovers more calzone-like...

Served with caesar salad.  Lots of green, lots of delicious.

When I opened my fridge to make dinner on Tuesday, extra zucchini (from the chili) and kale (from the calzone) were staring me in the face.  I decided that I had better use these ingredients before they went bad, and so I began to scour the internet in search of ideas.  Before too long I found what I was looking for: I would use the zucchini to make fritters, which I would serve with pasta and a pesto made out of kale.

You're probably at least a little familiar with pesto, at least the classic garlic, parmesan and basil version.  But "pesto" literally just means "paste", and so you can make it out of anything you want.  Here's the recipe that I used to make my kale pesto...

Ingredients
-1/2 bunch kale
-2 cloves garlic
-1/4 cup olive oil
-1/2 cup grated parmesan
-1/2 tbsp lemon juice
-salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Blanch garlic cloves for 2-3 minutes, remove with a slotted spoon.  In the same water blanch kale for about 30 seconds, drain.  Puree garlic and kale in a food processor.  Add olive oil, parmesan, and lemon juice; blend well.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Keep refrigerated in an airtight container for up to one month.

This recipe makes about 1 cup of pesto...enough for several different applications.

The great thing about pesto is that it can be used in any number of ways.  There are the obvious choices, like toss it with some pasta, and the not so obvious choices, like spreading it on fish (or chicken) before covering it in breadcrumbs and baking it in the oven (which is probably what I would be doing with my leftover pesto if I hadn't given up meat for the month) or using it as a substitute for pizza sauce.

Wednesday night was a too-lazy-to-cook-so-will-reheat-leftovers evening, so I didn't venture back into my kitchen until Thursday.  And this was when I hit my first wall...what to cook?  I couldn't decide what I was in the mood for (though I knew I didn't want pasta, since I had it yesterday and was planning on making it again tomorrow), and I was not going to leave the apartment to buy groceries...so whatever dinner was, it was going to be made with things that I already had on hand.  That's when it hit me...tacos.  They require very little effort, are always delicious, and I knew I had the ingredients on hand (tortillas in the freezer, cheese and lettuce in the fridge, taco seasoning in the cupboard with my spices, and chickpeas in the pantry).

Sometimes you just don't have the energy to whip up a masterpiece.

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, on Friday I found myself making pasta for some friends who had come over to study (and drink).  I decided to go with this particular recipe because it's delicious, quick, yields fancy results for little effort, and is relatively light on the calories.  I usually make this pasta with shrimp, but it was just as good sans shellfish...to further change things up, I threw a good spoonful of kale pesto into the cream sauce...

Ingredients
-1 tbsp butter
-1 or 2 cloves of garlic
-1 tsp lemon zest
-2 tsp flour
-1 cup milk
-2 tbsp cream cheese (I like to use the fat free herb and garlic kind)
-3/4 cup parmesan
-1 cup frozen peas

1) Cook whatever pasta you desire as per package directions (I usually use 4 cups of uncooked penne...the quantities given above make enough sauce to comfortably cover that much pasta).  Drain, but reserve 1 cup of the pasta water.

2) Melt the butter in a small saucepan.  Add garlic and lemon zest, cooking until fragrant.  Add flour and mix well to form a paste.  Add the milk slowly to prevent clumping (add a little, stir until smooth, add a little, stir until smooth.......).  Cook until just thickened.  Add cream cheese and parmesan cheese; stir until melted.  Add frozen peas and cook until the peas are warm.

3) Toss pasta and sauce together.  If the sauce is too thick, use some of the pasta water to loosen it.

Looks fancy, but doesn't take a "fancy" amount of effort!

Saturday: Not gonna lie, I cheated a little.  Rather than cook for myself this evening, I took a drive out to the country with some friends for poutine.  

(Why would I drive out into the country for poutine?  If you have to ask me that question, then I obviously haven't brought you with me to this little gem of a place.)

While vegetarian poutine is certainly not outside the realm of possibility, I will admit that I do not know whether or not what I ate for dinner on Sunday night was made without meat.  However it was delicious, and was well worth the drive.

While my poutine may or may not have been vegetarian, I did forgo my usual hot dog in favor of a  delicious vegetable panini!

And that's one full week down...three to go.  Thus far I have not found the change that burdensome as I have simply omitted the meat from recipes that I already know and love.  Next week more challenges await...among them, the quest to make a delicious veggie burger!