A Year in Lucy's Kitchen

For those not in the know, Lucy Waverman is the food writer for the Globe and Mail. She is the author of eight cookbooks. The newest one is called "A Year in Lucy's Kitchen". A common trend in some new books coming out is the idea of cooking in season. Of course this is not a new idea, but recently, things have come full circle. With the wide spread Slow Food Movement and the emergence of Farmers Markets, cooking in the season and becoming more aware of the foods available locally is on more peoples radar.

Lucy Waverman's new book is not only divided by season, but month to month. Being that the class was in April, I decided to keep in the early spring months with recipes from March, April and May sections of the book. Here is what we cooked:

Lyonaise Salad
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Fiery Fiddleheads with Penne
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Maple Infused Salmon with Watercress Salad
Fingerling Potatoes with Herbes de Provence
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Banofee Pie



A traditionally French salad. Nothing really different in this. A classic mixture of crisp lardon, mixed greens, garlic croutons, a poached egg, and a simple vinaigrette.
Tasted as you would imagine it would.






Next was something a little more interesting. Fiddleheads are common this time of year in Quebec, parts of Ontario and New Brunswick. But most people are a little confused as what to do with these young ferns. I loved the fact the author adds a few recipes for fiddleheads in the book. In this case we made a quick pasta incorporating the fiddleheads, sun-dried tomatoes, anchovy and chili. To finish we grated on some pecorino cheese. For fiddlehead fans, this is a winner, colourful and fresh.




The main was another simple seasonal dish that incorporates one of Quebecs favorite ingredients, Maple Syrup. We marinated the salmon and a mixture of maple, vinegar, wine and lemon and then seared in a pan. It had a nice balanced flavour with the sweet and sour.
The side for this was a salad of watercress. We also roasted some fingerling potatoes spiked with Herbes de Provence. I figured I would combine the 2 and make a warm fingerling and watercress salad. Came out very nice.



Dessert on the other hand was more of an experiment. I think I chose to make this purely out of curiosity and the name "Banofee Pie" intrigued me. In my mind, I could not imagine this would turn out that great. I'm pretty good at reading recipes now. Lets just say it was an acquired taste. Also, it would be a diabetic nightmare. A mixture of sugar, sweetened condensed milk, bananas and milk. Now I like sweet, but this was off the charts!

Real Cajun

Nothing is hotter right now than Cajun. A recent featured city during the Montreal High Lights Festival, New Orleans style of Cajun food has been getting a lot of press. Most specifically Donald Link's book real Cajun has been a popular go-to reference for authentic Louisiana Cajun recipes.
We recently did two nights of Real Cajun. Here is what we made in no particular order.

Old School Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya
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Fried Chicken Livers
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Lake Charles Dirty Rice
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Chicken and Andoulle Gumbo
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Peach Buckle


The Jambalaya didn't really turn out like the picture. Mostly because I was a little short on time and cooking it for as long as the recipe asked for just wasn't time sensitive. I will say the flavour was there. The recipe calls for smoked sausage like andoulle. We don't get that sausage here in Montreal so I substituted Chorizo. It gave it the smoky flavour we needed. It definitely had a paella-ness to it.



When I mentioned fried chicken livers to the guests, there were a few strange looks. But once you have one bite, you're hooked. Anything deep fried is good. Especially chicken livers. They were soaked in buttermilk and dredged in flour and served on a crouton. Some chili on top and voila. They were awesome. One thing though is that the really spat up when frying. So use a net over the oil.


Give me a bowl of rice and I'm a happy boy. But when you fry up ground pork and ground chicken livers, fry them up and fold them into rice, you had me at fry! This is like nothing I've ever had. Reminiscent of Chinese fried rice, this incorporates pork, chicken livers, chili and vegetables folded into perfectly steamed rice. The flavour was deep and rich with a mild liver taste. A definite winner.



It wouldn't be a Cajun class unless we put together some gumbo. In this case, we fried up some chicken and sausage gumbo. This rich, thick, meaty stew is a staple and can be difficult to make. I tried to cook it as fast as I could for the class and it came out pretty good. I had attempted this recipe the weekend before and it was the same. Served over rice, it was very hearty. But it was a certainly big bowl of brown.



For dessert we made a typical southern Peach Buckle. It is essentially a simple cake batter with fresh peaches folded in. One tip. Don't make this outside of peach season. Use fresh, in-season peaches and it will be an amazing dessert. But we made it, and it came out OK for off season. But in season, it will blow your mind.

Chef at Home - The Jolly Maritime Giant

You can't really miss Chef Michael Smith for two reasons. 1) He is on the Food Network Canada 10 times a day and 2) he's a full 6'7" of chef-ness.
I honestly didn't have too high hopes for this class. When Michael Smith cooks on tv, it all looks very simple, tasty and fun. But the translation into book just doesn't do it for me. But that's not his fault.
Due to the popularity of the Chef at Home, I had to do a class on the newest book. I have to tell ya, everything came out awesome! Everything from the soup to the dessert was very tasty and simple to make.
Here is what we did.

Maritime Clam Chowder
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Southwestern Bean Salad
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Cornmeal Crusted Salmon with Basil Mussel Broth
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Bread Pudding

The Clam Chowder was simple. Canned clams, vegetables, some cream and milk. It took all of 20 minutes to put together. It was creamy without being thick and rich like some other chowders. I prefer mine thin so I put in a bit more milk that cream.



The next was a simple bean salad done "Southwestern" style. I used a mixture of Black Eye Peas, Black Beans, and Red Kidney Beans, along with blanched green beans, red pepper and some corn. It was brought alive with a very simple lime vinaigrette. The difference with how I did it was I used dried beans rather than canned which is what the recipe calls for. You get a better texture that is not mushy like canned beans can be.


The main course was probably my favorite of the night. Simple crusted organic salmon with cornmeal with a mussel broth. The cornmeal gives an amazing crunchy texture to the salmon and the broth from the mussels was full of flavour. The hardest part of this recipe was after cooking the mussels, you have to remove the mussel meat from the shell. But once that is done, it's a simple preparation.The broth is mixed with some pesto and I added some baby spinach to it. The salmon was crisp and the broth was full of basil and mussels. Very nice.



Dessert on the other hand wasn't my favorite. But that could have been my fault. I think the bread i used wasn't the best. It was a fairly dense levain like bread that being day old was even more dry and hard. I'm more accustomed to using croissant for bread pudding. Also, I'm not too keen on putting raisins in bread pudding. But that's just me.

The Best of Chef at Home is a pretty good book. Loads of recipes for the family, comfort foods with simple preparations. What I think most people will like about this book is Michael Smiths easy going attitude and unpretentious recipes. Your week night cooking just became a lot more tasty!

Tardy

As you have noticed, me and updating a blog do not go together.
All this writing makes my head spin. I'd much rather be in the kitchen cooking than be chained to this computer. So, in order for me to appease everyone, I'll be reformatting the posts' in a way that will satisfy me and the 2 people that read it :)
I have been taking pictures of this seasons food and will post them along with a short description. Not the lengthy, time consuming write up as before. If you want to cook it, you'll just have to come in and pick up the book.
Happy reading!
Jonathan