Many a bake sales ago, my mother made turkish delight for me to bring to school. When she was finished, every counter in our kitchen was covered with icing sugar.  She then proudly presented me with a tupperware full of misshappened brown powdery bites to take to school the next day.

When I returned from school, mom asked how much her turkish delight sold for and was very disappointed to find out that they went for "25 cents".  We did not come from a culture of bake sales, and it was unfathomable that something so unique and time-consuming would have yielded so little.

For my kids' bake sale, I decided that simple was best and made Red Velvet Christmas Kiss Cookies. There are two recipes.  My first was infinitely more complicated than my second (just like everything else in life).  The first recipe was crisper, crunchier and the second more mellow and creamy.  The first recipe is shown below.

They were no turkish delight, but was easy to make and (for no other reason than inflation) sold for 75c. 

If your really zoom in, you can see my cookies on the pedestal.  And for 1/2 the cookies I used Kisses and 1/2 I used Christmas chocolate mints.  

I reminded my mom of her turkish delight caper more than 20 years ago and we both agreed that rice krispie squares was the way to go.  Keep it simple, silly.

And to this day, I have never encountered turkish delight at a school bake sale ever -- yet another way my mom has "made history".

Snickerdoodles

So I've always made Cinnamon Sugar cookies via Mrs. Field's Copycat recipe. But this time, I decided to look up Snickerdoodles as I've had many comment that Snickerdoodles are the actual original "cinnamon sugar cookie". So...

The only two ingredients I know that are included in this recipe and not my previous attempts are cream of tartar and ..wait for it, shortening.

So this was the first time I used shortening.  I am proud (not proud?) to say that I have never made anything that requires shortening.. or maybe stayed away from it because of the whole "health factor".  But then the cookies turned out so soft and chewy. I don't think I can go back!

Sure went fast at the 2015 Bailey X'mas at the Cottage!

Fresh Chantrelles from the Brickworks Farmers' Market

There's almost nothing better than fresh Chantrelles still moist from the ground. Still moist from the plane ride from beautiful British Columbia is not bad either ! So we picked some up from the Farmer's market at the Brickworks some weeks ago.  It's the first time we had Chantrelles and we were so excited.  I offered Julian some since this mushroom is heavily featured in one of his favourite books (Ikea's "The Hedgehog Leaves Home", where by a hedgehog leaves home and encounters a number of adventures, one being the discovery of the yucky poisonous toadstool mushroom and the yummy Chantrelle  mushroom in the wild.)

They were surprisingly underwhelming.

I cooked them natural, brushed the dirt off them (no washing as per micologist best practice), but them in half, check for worms and then fried them in the pay with a bit of oil and butter, salt and pepper.

I must prefer morels or trumpet as the more fragrant mushroom.

So in the end, the texture was different but taste is comparable to a cremini i can get at any supermarket.
1 pint = $10 is also quite a hefty pricetag. However, $10 lesson is a cheap one.

Persian Lamb Bites

One of my favourite things to eat in the world is Kabab Koobideh. It's a Persian meat dish introduced to me at a Persian party at Queen U about a hundred years ago by one of my best friends.  Same friend's parens got me an Iranian cookbook years later and still remember when I stuffed myself at said original Persian party.

Basically i'ts minced lamb, sumac, saffron, and onions mixed together, and barbequed over an open charcoal flame.

I've got all the ingredients at home except the open charcoal flame. So I cook it stove top fry and it's still awesome. Serve with garlic yogurt dip and dill saffron barberry rice.

1lb lamb

1 onion minced

1/2 tsp saffron, minced

1 tbsp sumac

1-2 tbsp soya sauce

Mix all together, marinade overnight ideally. The form into little footballs (I find this size cooks best stovetop). Shape it once and leave it alone. Handle it more and it will fall apart because of the heat from your hands.  Oil a pan generously over high heat. Cook 1 -2 minutes each side until browned nicely (usually three sides). Then on low/med heat for 1 - 2 mins. Let it rest.

Garlic Yogurt sauce:

1/2 cup yogurt
2 tsp minced garlic. Mix.

Best (Blueberry) Buttermilk Scones

So there was a bit of a hiatus from this lovely blog. Don't know what I was thinking!
I know, I wasn't thinking.  I was doing.  Doing things for the kids.  Doing work.  Doing and going, and moving, and doing without thinking.  And when I did have a minute, I watched Netflix to numb the pain of "constant doing".

So what better time to break the cycle than the end of Fall and the height of baking season?

I've baked so many things this season, but my proudest moment so far has been these blueberry scones.

 I used a recipe that I found earlier on. I remember tasting a batch of scones that my neighbour baked and trying to recreate them. I remember the bitter metallic taste that I couldn't reproduce batch after batch. After two batches of scones.. I took a break from baking.

So, now I'm back. And found that the best way the get that metallic bitter taste that makes scones soooo good!
Baking Pow(d)er!

3 C flour
3/4 C butter (frozen for 5 - 10 mins, then grated)
1 C buttermilk
1.5 C blueberries
5 tsp baking powder
1.5 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Steps:
- set the oven to 400F
- mix well all dry ingredients together in a large bowl
- grate the frozen butter into the bowl on top of the dry ingredients
- use fingers to incorporate butter with flour until a large dough forms
- roll out the dough into a large rectangle shape on a floured surface
- sprinkle blueberries throughout, then roll up the dough like a jelly roll, then flatten so that the blueberries are trapped
- cut into desired shapes
- bake for 18-20 minutes. Do not overbake.

I have to admit, I actually wrote this post months/ like a year ago but for some weird reason didn't post it? What doesn't make sense!

Slowcooker / Oven Cabbage Rolls

I love making things without a recipe.  I read more than 20 recipes for Ukranian/Polish/Eastern European cabbage roles before starting out on my own.  This is my favourite process.

Bought a fresh cabbage from the St. Lawrence market which lasted a good two weeks in the fridge -- these things seem to last forever!  It was a large cabbage that I didn't end up finishing. This recipe made about 12 - 14 cabbage rolls. If I had used only the largest leaves it would have been about 10. The cabbage was so fresh that i had no idea what i would make with it when i bought it, just knew that i had to eat it. So this really is homage to the "fresh" cabbage.

This wasn't bad for the first try.  I usually get these (made cabbage rolls) from the St. Lawrence market too. I've tried the beef and buckwheat flavours. Ian likes the beef, never the buckwheat. I like both. Sometimes preferring the buckwheat..something about the combination of sweet and sour that isn't exactly true of the beef. Anyway, I basically tried to reverse engineer it with a little help from existing recipes from allrecipes, food.com, and epicurious (the usual suspects).

So the basics are cabbage, meat, rice, tomato sauce, some herbs. Bake it in sauce (braise) and serve. It's basically all the food groups in one thing, which I love. So then when it came time to actually do it, I just winged it, thought about what's inside the ones i like, and I tried to recreate it from feel. (the most rewarding kind of cooking, in my humble opinion)

Surprising though, I think there were as many recipes for how to make the cabbage rolls as there were videos/recipes talking about how to take the leaves off the cabbage while keeping them intact.  The gist is to get a big pot of rolling boiling water going, make sure the pot is big enough to completely submerge the cabbage.  Turn the cabbage until the root side is up. Then cut out the core in a wide circular shape as deep as your pairing knife will go without puncturing through to the other side.  Put the cabbage into the boiling water leaves side down. As the cabbage boils, loosen the leaves with long tongs and pull out and drain one by one. this is the most time consuming part. once done, you are home free.

Rolls:
1 cabbage

1/2 lb each pork and beef (lean/med)

1/2 cup dill chopped fine

1 -2 tbsp herb de provence/italian seasoning

2 - 3 tbsp soya sauce

1/2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
Pepper - 6 turns on a pepper mill -- maybe 1 tsp 

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp minced garlic

3/4 cup carrots grated 

1 med onion diced/grated
olive oil

Sauce: 

1 bottle ragu tomato sauce

1/2 tbsp worcestershire sauce

1/3 cup red wine

6 -8 tomatoes

2 tbsp sugar
1.5 cup water or enough to ensure liquidity of the sauce

Equipment:

Food processor (at least 5 cup)
Slowcooker or oven

What I also did was add cider vinegar which made the sauce a tinge too tart. I will skip this next time :)
I've omitted this from the recipe.

Instructions:

1. Marinade the meat with soya sauce, worchestershire, dill, garlic, herb de provence, pepper, salt.  Let it sit while you shred the carrots and onion in the food processor with a little olive oil.
2. Mix the carrot mixture with the meat mixture
3. Mix the sauce ingredients in the processor, blend until smooth
4. Make the rolls. ie put the mixture in the middle of a large cabbage leaf, pat down, fold from the bottom one, then fold the sides to the middle, then finish by rolling the rest of the way till the leaf runs out. make sure to keep the hold tight but not break the leaf
5. Laddle a generous amount of sauce into the bottom of the crockpot. about 1/2 in to cover the entire bottom. Place rolls down tightly packed until full.  Repeat until full. Top the entire pot with the rest of the sauce.
6. Cook on low 8 or 10 hours/overnight
7. I heated 6 rolls for good measure in oven for 1 hour at 350 F.

Delish!

by the way, if i were to reverse engineer the buckwheat ones, i think I would use onion, pickled olives, a combo of mushrooms, cabbage, and carrots for the other mixture, maybe use chicken stock for the filling.  And the outside sauce... same i guess.