Make yourself a dang quesadilla!

Quesadillas are a great, simple meal that I often forget to make. Tortilla shells just look so plain and white sitting there that they seem like a long way from appetizing. I'm fact, they're very simple—even Napoleon knows how—and tasty and, just as importantly, flexible enough that you can fill them with all kinds of leftovers. Refried beans (which I attempt to make—with debatable success—in the video below) are growing more important in my mind as a useful staple to have around: they're cheap, flavorful, healthy and store in the pantry forever. They are also substantial enough to be filling while adding an almost creamy texture that's not actually butterfat. You'll also see in the video that, with everything else going on in the quesadilla, two chicken breasts provide enough meat for the whole family.

• This is the recipe for the ones I make in the video, but you could replace virtually any element in his recipe with another.
• Roast some vegetables, in this case peppers and onions. Lightly toss cut veggies in oil and roast for 45 mins at 350. (I know this looks like more than a "30 minute meal" when you add the roasting time, but honestly, it takes almost nothing to start; and, frankly, if you're only ever beginning to think about eating 30 minutes before you want to be sitting down to eat, you're pretty much never going to cook well)
• Chop up some meat into smallish bits.
• Grate some cheese
• Open a can of refried beans (or try to make your own at the last minute ;-)

Peel the peppers and chop them into pieces about as large as the chicken pieces (think stir-fry sizes)
Lay the tortilla shells in a large pan at medium heat or just below. Spread a large spoonful of the beans on half of the shell before it gets too hot to touch (or do this step on a cutting board before putting the shell in the pan). Add some of the chicken/veggie mixture to the bean-spread side and then sprinkle cheese over the whole shell. Let the shell brown on the back and wait about 30 seconds to let the cheese melt. Flip the cheese-only side over top of the beans/veggies/meat-side and give it all a bit of a press with the back of your spatula/lifter. Flip once to check the other side for done-ness and transfer to a cutting board. Cut into thirds and serve with salsa and sour cream (or guacamole if you've got it on hand.)

Fine!

Miss Manners?

This being American Thanksgiving, there are lots of interesting articles on food-related questions. One of the best sites, believe it or not, is the venerable New York Times. The Dining section has a great series of short videos presenting their take on the classic turkey and stuffing dilemmas.

What caught my eye this morning was a post on the Motherlode blog about teaching children table manners in anticipation of visiting family and being under that particular kind of scrutiny that can only be found amongst parents at family gatherings. The post is clever and true enough, but the comments to follow were what fascinated me most.

As you can imagine, many people chimed in with horror stories about "the youth of today" and the general decline in manners that is often invoked. One woman posted near the top of the comments how she had been "shamed" by the parent of a childhood friend for the way she held her utensils at dinner, and that from that moment had vowed to teach her children properly to avoid a similar fate for them.

But then a whole host of critics began to criticize the mother from the story for being "cruel" and "presumptuous" enough to "impose her values" of "proper" manners on a child, and a visiting child at that.

Now, I don't want to make too much of this, but in a way, you can see the dissolution of society written right into the comments on this tiny corner of the internet. That is, our society seems to be at this inflection point where we lament the loss of a particular standard, while simultaneously acknowledging that we have lost the nerve to even maintain those standards. I wrote the following as a comment to the blog, but I'm not sure if it's up yet.

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I'm also raising four children under 12 and table manners are an important daily conversation. What makes it hard to persist is the feeling that you're "majoring on the minors" which is to say, putting over-emphasis on things that don't really matter. Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to teach children habits of any sort without traveling well-past the boundary of what is seen today as bald-faced coercion.

Witness the comments here that, on one hand, lament the loss of social niceties, but pounce on someone who recounts a story of being forced (or shamed, or whatever you want to call being made to conform to a structure not of your own immediate choosing) to follow "proper" table manners. Even the notion that there is any universal measure of propriety is challenged, so the very foundation of the system of passing on cultural values is undermined. Whose values? Yours? Mine? The kids'? Who's to say.

No parent or teacher who has ever taught children cursive script, or to chew with their mouths closed, or to practice an instrument long enough to master it has ever been able to stay entirely on the "friendly" side. One of the greatest costs of parenting is the realization that you will occasionally have to seem like a monster in order to teach your children well. The Bible points out well enough that "no one likes discipline"; what it's taken me a while to realize is that no one really likes meting it out either.

Farmer sausage, garlic mashed potatoes and glazed carrots.

Speaking of garlic, it plays a pretty big role in tonight's dinner. I saw that garlic farmer sausage was what was thawed on the counter when I got home and that started the wheels turning. We usually do Helmi's perogies (cottage cheese only, if you please) with farmer sausage, but tonight the "garlic" label seemed to be calling out for a change. I had wanted to try a recipe idea that I had read about in Cooks Illustrated about rinsing potatoes halfway through cooking to get them less gluey and tonight seemed like as good a time as any. I also got a new potato ricer from Ikea that I haven't used much yet, so garlic mashed potatoes it is.

• Start the farmer sausage on a pan in the oven at about 350-400, add a garlic bulb (top cut, drizzled with olive oil and wrapped in foil) for roasting
• Leave the jackets on the potatoes and just cut them into about golf-ball sized pieces.
• Set some water boiling and steam the potatoes for about ten minutes.
• Cut up some carrots into finger-length pieces.
• At ten minutes rinse the potatoes at the sink and return to the steamer, adding the carrots.
• Set the timer for 15 minutes and let carrots and potatoes continue to steam.
• Remove the steamer with the potatoes and cover with a clean cloth to absorb steam
• Add carrots to the empty steamer base pot with some butter, honey (or Rogers Golden!), a splash of lemon juice and salt.
• Let the liquid reduce while getting the garlic out of the oven (should roast for about 45 mins)
• Set the carrots aside and begin "ricing" the potatoes and roasted garlic
• Add butter, cream, milk, cheese, spices, whatever you want to your potatoes as you stir/mash them over medium heat
• Done!

We ended up eating most of the potatoes, but left-over mashed potatoes work pretty well in soups as leftovers. They can give body to a soup and add a creamy consistency in a way that doesn't need to be quite as rich as achieving the same with cream or a flour-based roux.

OK, is "roux" too fancy for this blog—let me know and I'll tone it down ;-)

Mennonites and garlic?

To my recollection, garlic was not really a part of Mennonite food culture—at least as it developed in the Ukraine. My grandma cooked with plenty of onions, but that distinctive flavour of garlic was pretty rare. I guess we had garlic bread sometimes and I remember that the spice cupboard had a jar of garlic salt (that lasted at least a decade), but I don't think we ever cooked with fresh garlic. If any of you are food anthropologists I'd be interested to know your thoughts. When did garlic first make its way into your cooking? Is there a "garlic generation gap" of sorts between those who grew up second or third generation? Or maybe I'm out to lunch here and garlic played a bigger role in Mennonite food than I think.

Coffee Break, Part 2

If you're hitting this page first thing Monday morning, sit back and take a quick course on high end coffee via the most exotic method I've ever seen. Thanks Kristina and Johannes (and Liz & Jordan) for a great evening.

Simple, Frenchy-style Chicken Drumsticks

Cooking drumsticks is a great weeknight dinner option—especially if your wife has set them out and thawed for you when you get home (thanks, Babe!) They're cheaper, and better tasting than chicken breasts (more fat, more flavour every time) and they're almost impossible to overcook and dry out like chicken breasts usually end up being. That makes drumsticks (and thighs) perfect for nights when you might not want to attend to every dish all evening.

Of course, you can shake 'n bake, but really, it's mostly a gloppy mess for not much of an increase in flavour in my books. A quick toss in olive oil with a generous salting and some pepper will get you all the flavour you need. I also found some baby potatoes and those baby carrots and an onion to add and pretty much threw them all in the oven on a baking sheet for an hour at 350. I'll flip them halfway through, but even that's probably unnecessary.

Though you could certainly eat it straight like this, I suddenly thought about making a bit of a french-style (I think) sauce. So I threw the whole works in a pan with a little butter, a few fresh herbs (thyme) and gave everything a bit of browning. With the pan nice and hot I decided to add some cream, but on the way found some leftover white wine. Not that I want to advocate "cooking with sin" as my Mennonite Grandma once scolded her daughter (the full story on that quote is on my cousin's blog).The wine gives "a bit of acidity' as they say on cooking shows and the cream is awesome because it's just, well, cream. I let the liquids reduce somewhat to form more of a saucy consistency and served it up.

You've gotta love the kids' enthusiasm at the end of the video!

Butternut Squash Soup (with secret ingredient!)

This is one of my favourite soups, partly because of the way it starts with a weird gourd that I would pretty much have never thought was edible. Also, of course, because it has this luxurious texture and a taste that's almost the perfect distillation of a warm, cozy gathering on a cool autumn evening.



Fall vegetables are the core of a soup like this so squash, carrots, onion and garlic get prepped first.

• Cut and core the squash chopping into 2-inch chunks 
• Cut the onion into strips, because the little diced ones are a real hassle to pick up later with the tongs. 
• Peel and cut the carrots into 2-inch chunks, splitting the larger end in half (I used four long carrots for this) 
• Cut the top off a bulb of garlic, drizzle with oil and wrap in foil The key to much of the flavor in the soup is the roasting process that comes next. Toss the veggies in a bit of olive oil and roast at 350/400 for about an hour or until everything's soft (you should be able to push a paring knife easily through a well-roasted carrot). 

Meanwhile... clean up a bit. Once the roasting is close to done:

• Bring a litre of chicken broth to a boil and add a bay leaf 
• Peel the skin off the squash and transfer the veggies to the pot 
• Squeeze the roasted garlic out into the pot and make a disgusting noise while you do so to irritate your wife (or get your kids to help with the sound effects) 
• Add a cup or so of cream (and/or egg nog, if you dare. I'd never used egg nog before, but it worked out great!) 
• Simmer until the veggies are really soft—like, 20 minutes or maybe 30 while you set the table and get out the blender. 
• Pour the soup into a large bowl and ladle about half the mixture into the blender. USE THE LID OF THE BLENDER! This is hot soup and the thickness can easily create viscous bubbles that will splash molten squash purée on you and everything else in the kitchen (this is not a hypothetical scenario) 
• Purée the mix until it's smooth, adding as much hot water as it takes to get it all moving. 
• Pour the first half back into the (cleaned) original pot and repeat. Add salt, pepper, sugar, syrup or whatever else you want to taste. 

Serve it up with fresh bread and just think what a great meal can come from such funny looking foods.

Dedicated to Andi Murray who is, in part, responsible for the origins of this blog.