Friday, March 28, 2008

Outlaw Breakfasts: Ensaymada with Creme Fraiche and Marmalade

This is my tribute to John Thorne's awesome breakfast feature on his website Outlaw Cook, which features unconventional breakfasts like sausage skins and a five-month-old croissant. I like his breakfasts because they are hearty, often fried in butter, and utilize leftovers, which to me is the best and most creative part of cooking. I felt our vernal equinox dinner required a sweet, eggy sort of bread and conveniently happened upon ensaymadas at Costco. These are a rich, sweet eggy bun often topped with butter, sugar and cheese. This ones didn't have a sweet topping, which I was rather sad about because that's how my mom makes them but beggars couldn't be choosers. We shared one after our dinner, but it was hard going since we were completely full of ham and perogies by that point. So, I ate the rest for breakfast for the rest of the week, topped with leftover creme fraiche and marmalade I made that week. The marmalade came from giant bags of oranges my husband hauled back from a friend's backyard. My aversion to wasting food is acute, so I made marmalade. I have to say the beautiful burnt orange color of the marmalade really makes this breakfast, as well as the bitter orange caramel flavor on the cream and faintly sweet bread.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Masses of Perogies

Perogies are a sensitive topic to me. This is because I come from Saskatchewan, the breadbasket of North America, home to the largest population of Ukrainians outside of the Ukraine, and smack dab in the middle of a perogy, cabbage roll and kielbasa vortex. My mother-in-law made four kinds of homemade perogies for Christmas: buttered cheese, onion-and-butter cheese, cheese with cream sauce, and cheese with mushroom dill cream sauce. I've only just lost the weight. You can get perogies at the rink, deep-fried perogies at the pool, and perogies for brunch. There is a perogy section in the freezer aisle at the grocery store. My mother gathers at her neighbor's place for perogy-making day: bacon, onion and cheese-flavoured. Vera, my mom's neighbor, has six deep freezers. San Francisco was a horribly rude wakeup call of perogy deprivation. In desperation, I mixed up my first batch in a kitchen equipped with two pans and cutlery stolen from my roommate. My husband and I ate them on the floor, washed down with a Molson. Still, the sour cream, butter and egg dough was horribly rich and tore easily and my filling was lumpy. There had to be a better way. My mom-in-law pointed me towards the oil-and-egg dough that most ladies use back home. I lifted this recipe from the Growing Alberta website and never looked back. It works like a dream, stretches forgivingly and cooks up soft. The sight of masses of plump-bellied perogies floating in hot water never ceases to make me smile greedily.

Perogy Dough
Makes about three dozen.
3/4 c. warm water
2 tbsp. oil
1 well beaten egg
2 1/2 c. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
Mix water, oil and egg. Sift flour and salt. Add liquid to flour and mix well. Knead on board until dough is smooth. Cover and let stand two hours in a warm place. Later, roll out dough, cut into rounds and place a small spoonful of filling in the centre. Fold over and pinch to seal.
To cook, place perogies in boiling water with 3 tbsp. oil. When they float to the top they are ready. Scoop out, toss with butter/oil to prevent sticking together. Serve with fried white onions and sour cream. To freeze, coat generously with flour and freeze individually on pans, then in freezer bags.

Potato and Cheddar Filling
2-1/2 lb medium red or Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut in half
2 c. mild or medium Cheddar cheese, shredded
1 tbsp. salt

Boil potatoes till soft; drain well. I then placed the pan over the heat to dry off any excess moisture. Rice the potatoes to remove lumps and mix in cheese while hot to melt the cheese. Add salt to taste.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Guilty Pleasures: Semi-Ambrosial Salad

I called this semi-ambrosial not because it is not ambrosial, but because I omitted one of the four total ingredients: coconut. I just don't like those chewy, dried out little bits of coconut hanging around in what should be an ecstatically creamy, fruity experience. This salad always presented itself to me in American cookbooks - it just seemed the sort of thing ladies in the South might serve alongside a ham dinner as a faint, fleeting gesture towards fruits and vegetables. I buy sour cream only to make this salad, and stock up on the rest of the ingredients at the drug store. This also seems like an American sort of gesture towards cooking for a buffet. Let this salad sit in the fridge overnight before you serve it - that way the marshmallows soak up the fruit juice and sour cream and get squidgy and creamy.
Semi-Ambrosial Salad

1 20 oz. can of pineapple bits, well drained
2 11 oz. can mandarin oranges, well drained
1 16 oz. bag mini marshmallows
1 cup sour cream

Mix together the fruit and half the bag of mini marshmallows. Fold in the sour cream. Refrigerate overnight. Serve. Beautiful.