Supper!: Easter week!: baked oatmeal, mushroom gratin, hazelnut cheesecake & Easter dinner

Wow, I appear to have dropped off the face of the planet. What actually happened is I have been blissfully on vacation: simply at home for 10 days with next to nothing going on. I did some cooking, but a lot of easy meals or meals I've already blogged about. Oh, and of course, Zach was here for 4 days. Let's get to the yummy food we've had this week:

April 26th: baked oatmeal, mixed mushroom gratin, hazelnut cheesecake

The Baked Oatmeal was a breakfast recipe from Heidi Swanson's super natural every day, via Martha Stewart Living: a banana, blueberry, almond, baked oatmeal. It takes a bit of time, so for breakfast it's not so great, but for brunch, fantastic. I thought it was great-tasting; the rest of my household was a little indifferent. If you eat it right away, it's loose and oatmeal-textured. If you let it sit, you can slice it into slightly stiffer squares. Top with maple syrup for decadence!

Bananas on the bottom
(For the non-banana fans, I'm thinking apples?)

Then blueberries (or other berries)

Oat mixture
Then pour over milk mixture and top with more berries and nuts (not pictured)

Post-baking

Slice and serve

I made the mixed mushroom gratin, which was featured in the Ottawa Citizen, for supper and served it with no-knead bread (this time I used a recipe from Steamy Kitchen). The baked mushroom-cream-Parmesan-panko crumb recipe said it served 4, but I had my doubts and doubled it. Good thing; I could have quadrupled it easily for the 4 of us! This was so delicious; we will definitely be making it again. The recipe comes from 3 Chefs: The Kitchen Men.

Mixed Mushroom Gratin

1 tbsp (15 mL) olive oil
1/2 cup (125 mL) thinly sliced shallots
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 cups (1 L) sliced mixed mushrooms
salt and pepper, to taste
1/4 cup (50 mL) 35% cream
1/4 cup (50 mL) grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup (50 mL) panko breadcrumbs
1/2 tsp (2 mL) chopped thyme leaves

Heat olive oil in a sauté pan over medium heat. Sauté shallots and garlic until light golden brown, about 5 minutes. Add mushrooms and increase heat to medium-high. Sauté quickly, seasoning with salt and pepper. Pour in cream and reduce by half.

Transfer mushrooms to an ovenproof serving dish. Combine Parmesan cheese, panko crumbs and thyme; sprinkle over mushrooms.

Place under preheated broiler until crust becomes light golden brown. Serve immediately.

Serves 2-4.

Mushrooms and shallots cooked and ready to go

Topped with panko crumbs, Parmesan & thyme

Broiled and ready for eating

As mentioned, Zach was here, and offered in advance of his visit to make cheesecake, an offer I gladly accepted. And so he arrived, frangelico in hand, to whip up a chocolate hazelnut cheesecake. In turn, I offered him the opportunity to guest blog, and so ... here goes:

Verdict:

Hazelnut-chocolate cheesecake - a keeper

Easter dinner - Fo Sho's the same [see more below]

I was just hanging around in Upper Canada this week, and happened to stop in to Ottawa - Kirsten was all like, "Write me a guest blog?" and here we are. It's been a good time - O remains an excellent kid (although with a tempestuous demeanour occasionally [she still needs her naps {as does her mother, geez! DETAILS CENSORED BY KIRSTEN}]). It was a relaxing trip, spent mostly in the house, doing nothing - a perfect vacation. O and I got to stand next to a window one night, and listen/watch a thunder, lightning and rainstorm. Memorable quotes:

"Will there be more flunder and lighting?"

"Why it raining in the house?"

"Aye aye, ma'am!"

I was giving her naval substitutes for words; this last was "yes mommy". She had more trouble with bulkhead and porthole; she remained convinced they were walls and windows. Stubborn girl. Like her mother. And her grandfather. And her aunt. All on the Sellers side.

Both of the meals/foods I helped prepare were old(ish) favourites. The first was brought to the table, if you will, by myself; the second by Kirsten.

My Heavenly Chipped Chocolate and Hazelnut Cheesecake recipe was from allrecipes.com. If you want to try it for yourself, I recommend also following their general tips for cheesecake baking. I don't know if I followed all of those steps exactly, but the water bath is important.

This was the third time I'd made this cheesecake - unfortunately, it was also the worst of the three; things just didn't go well. I decided to try, at Natascia's suggestion (from the second time I'd made it) not to put the chocolate chips into the actual cheesecake batter. It was fine. I prefer with the chocolate chips, but both are acceptable. What went wrong was a leaky water bath. The whole bottom half of the cake appeared to get soaked. It wasn't really noticeable after it had drip-dried, cooled, been garnished and then eaten. However, the knowledge that it had happened kind of put me off the whole thing. Be warned: make sure that tinfoil is waterproof.

Zach/cheesecake

April 27th: Easter dinner

And so we come to the main event of the week: Easter dinner! Usually I make Easter dinner for my family of three (and previously, two) on Easter weekend, but what with taking the week off work and having Zach arriving on Easter Monday, I decided to postpone my fancy dinner till Zach's last night here, that being Wednesday. And since I also offered to sub a class on Wednesday afternoon, I had to request my unwitting guest take over the cooking in my absence. And so we prepared:

Lemon and pepper roast pork
Herbed goat cheese soufflés
Tangy tomato salsa
Collard greens
Whipping cream-smashed potatoes

For the roast pork, I highly recommend making the lemon pepper rub from scratch. I've made the roast with both homemade and store-bought rub, and homemade is infinitely better. Whichever way you make it, I recommend omitting or reducing the salt in the main recipe. Minus the collard greens, which were a stand-in for my usual steamed yellow and green beans, this is the same Easter dinner menu, from April 2004's Chatelaine, that I've been making yearly since 2004. Every year we declare it delicious and agree to repeat the following year. This year we added a new voice to our accord.

More from Zach:

The second meal was truly Agent K's - I just helped her out with a few parts of it. It was delicious. Everything about it was tasty. The soufflés didn't come out of their dishes very well, and appeared a bit raw, but still tasted good. K-dot suggested the pork was slightly overcooked - I think that's just a fascination of Sellerian women: always they find a way to complain about the cooking of a fancy meal's meat dish. Always. It's like a fun pass time or something. I've always found them all delicious, and this was no exception. However, if anyone's looking for advice? I recommend more lamb.

In the end, I rubbed down and cooked the pork, made the salsa, and dealt with the final stages of the soufflé. It all went off without a hitch, and Kirsten found herself more able to enjoy the meal, with the reduction in cooking stress. I really enjoyed the salsa, especially after having just made it, before it sat and the flavours melded. Definitely a recipe I'll take up.

Here are some Pictures! Yay food!