January 26th: Chicken curry soup

I can't explain why on earth this soup is so good but it is so, so good! Canned broth, brown rice, frozen vegetables, what could be the secret ingredient? As far as I can tell, it must be the curry powder and ground cumin; they add just enough flavour that the soup is elevated.


I had forgotten I finished up the frozen peas when I made Russian potato salad, so I subbed in frozen corn, which I prefer in any case. I think I'll use corn always. I had a bit of baby spinach left in a giant tub in the fridge, so I threw the last leaves in the soup at the end with the green onion and it was fantastic. I will be making this soup again without a doubt.


I think the sweet potato tasted so much better than the carrots you usually have in chicken soup, but that could be simple taste preference. I used chicken breast, as recommended, but think I'll switch to thighs in future. Yum yum!


Apparently from December 2009's Chatelaine, repeated in January 2012's Chatelaine: Chicken Curry Soup. 

January 25th: Cherry Walnut Bars

Greg had a bad cold this week and was out of commission. After taking on as much parenteral responsibility as I could muster, I had worn myself out by Tuesday night (okay, so I didn't muster much) and Wednesday I decided to take a sick/rest day. Wow, awesome. Olivia and I laid in bed in the morning snuggling, and looked through my Company's Coming 150 Delicious Squares cookbook, finding several we thought we should make. I took her into daycare late, spent the day tidying and resting, then O and I had fun making non-baked squares after supper.


These are cherry, walnut, coconut and graham-filled bites of deliciousness. They are also suuuper sweet; I'm going to try cutting the sugar back to 3/4 cup the next time I make them. Greg said he loved them and he's not even a cherry fan. Of course, he can't really taste anything right now. I toasted my walnuts in advance. Actually, I burnt them. I recommend toasting, but not burning.


Cherry Walnut Bars


9-12 whole graham crackers


1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup milk


1 1/3 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup medium unsweetened coconut
1/4 cup chopped maraschino cherries, well drained


Icing
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
3 tbsp butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 tbsp milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
1-2 drops red liquid food colouring


Line ungreased 9x9" pan with graham crackers, cutting to fit if necessary. Set aside.


Combine next three ingredients in small, heavy saucepan. Bring to a boil on medium, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer for 2 minutes. Remove from heat.


Add next 4 ingredients. Stir well. Spread evenly over crackers in pan. Cool.


Icing: Beat all 5 ingredients in medium bowl until smooth, adding more milk or icing sugar as necessary until spreading consistency. Spread evenly over bottom layer. Let stand, covered, for at least 6 hours or overnight until crackers are softened.


Makes 36 squares.

Icing : square = reasonable

January 24th: Salmon Cakes

I'm going to make a quick note of this one for Mama's sake: from the cookbook you received for Christmas: Salmon Cakes. These were good but not quite great enough for me to keep the recipe. It took too long to make for a weeknight (my bad) and I didn't enjoy the aioli as much as I had hoped. I did like it better the next day when I ate leftovers; the flavour of the garlic-lemon-mayo had time to blend and was less harsh.

Prior to cooking.

Fried and ready to eat.

Served with Roasted Cauliflower Soup.

January 18th: Carrot Salad & Spinach and Pine Nuts

My friend Susan recently started a blog tracking her progress of eating 100 salads in 100 days: a noble goal. I thought her quick recipe for carrot salad, inspired by her days in France, sounded good and gave it a go tonight. She didn’t post a recipe per se, so here’s what I did:

Carrot Salad

4 carrots, grated

½ cup raisins

¼ cup toasted pine nuts or other nuts

2 tbsps olive oil

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Combine all ingredients. If time allows, leave salad to sit at room temperature (or overnight in the refrigerator) to allow the flavours to blend.

Makes 4 servings.

Except, when I made it, I forgot to add the nuts. Susan says in her post she had added almonds. As I was eating the salad, I was saying, this is good, but it could use something. Since I had pine nuts on my plate in the spinach dish, I scooped a few over to the carrots and voilà, the carrot salad was complete. I simply should have read the post more closely! Don’t leave out the nuts!

Also on the menu was a spinach, pine nut and garlic stir-fry which was tasty. Seemed to please my spinach-loving sister guest. I recommend reducing the salt, perhaps by half, and you’ll be good to go.

Served with rice and “Fearless” Fried Chicken.

January 17th: Russian Potato Salad

When we had the chalet at Mont Tremblant three years ago, two of our regular guests were a couple, of whom the husband was Russian. During one of these visits, I remember they brought along a Russian potato salad to eat over the course of the weekend. I don’t remember much about the salad, and I didn’t have any of it, but I know there was a discussion about mayonnaise-based salads and I think there were peas in it. It all sounds vague, but I’ve never forgotten this salad. This is the way it is with me and food. In any case, when I came across this recipe for Russian potato salad on smitten kitchen, I decided to give it a go.

First of all, the dressing for the salad is just mayonnaise. That’s it. Immediately, red flags went up. I don’t trust a salad with just mayonnaise for the dressing, even though I have a love-love relationship with my jar of Hellman’s. I was relieved, therefore, that the three little pickles and the red onion that go into the salad meld their flavours with the mayonnaise and take it to a whole other level.

Next, the salad has peas and carrots. I don’t like peas and carrots and can’t imagine what they would be doing in a potato salad. However, they are good for me and my family, and my child likes them, so I added them in. To my immense surprise, I couldn’t taste them, what with the overwhelming mayo-pickle-onion taste. Bonus.

Third, I put in waaaay too much red onion. The recipe calls for one small red onion, finely diced. I had a large one, so used half. I should have used a quarter because it was one potent onion. Then, because I did such a good job of finely dicing it, I had to spend a lot of time digging out minute pieces of onion from Olivia’s plate, and then from mine, because it was even too much onion for me, and that’s saying something. So I recommend using common sense when deciding how much onion to put in this salad. Maybe a half cup.

Despite all of the above, I absolutely loved this salad and I will definitely make it again. This came as a complete and welcome surprise. I recommend you give it a go too!

Served with Chili-coconut Shrimp (thus, the plum sauce in the picture!).

January 15th: Chicken Noodle Stir-fry

Another one from Mama's Christmas-present cookbook: Chicken Noodle Stir-fry. Stir-fries always pretend they're going to be simple, but can be tricky. This one, for instance, called for slicing the baby bok choy in half lengthwise. I did, thought they still looked too big, but left them. Sure enough, I later had to pull them out of the hot pan to cut them smaller, because they weren't cooking properly. Go with your gut, Kirsten.


I bought two packs of Mr. Noodles for the ramen noodles called for in the recipe. I was really excited about this, as I used to loooove Mr. Noodles, but wow, they kind of suck. They taste on the processed side. Next time, will try to source out good quality ramen noodles. Does this exist?


The recipe was good, though, don't get me wrong. All three of us enjoyed supper tonight. A few tweaks, and I'll definitely make it again.

January 13th: Cucumber, Dill & Havarti Grilled Cheese and Laura Calder's Apple Chicken

Two yummies for today. First, for lunch: a slightly fancied up grilled cheese from Cooking with my Kid: Cucumber, Dill & Havarti Grilled Cheese. This came together quickly, which was great, as I was just coming in the door and starving, and Greg and Olivia were about to head out, and starving. It hit the spot, for all of us.

For supper, I made Laura Calder's Apple Chicken, which I pulled out of the Ottawa Citizen. Back in my maternity leave days, I watched a lot of Food Network, and French Food at Home was one I enjoyed. I was pleased with this recipe; it seemed on the plain side for the first few bites, but by the end I was licking up the sauce. I altered the sauce to make it non-alcoholic, for the toddler and the preggers mama. I replaced the apple brandy and hard cider with equal parts apple cider and chicken broth. Quite tasty, as noted. Olivia and I also enjoyed munching on the apples, both cooked and raw (I couldn't fit all the slices in the pan, so we ate some as supper was cooking).

Apple chicken from Laura Calder's Dinner Chez Moi

Laura Calder says this beautiful Norman dish is incredibly simple to make, but luxurious-tasting and elegant, the kind of thing that reminds you why French food really never goes out of style.

Makes: 4 servings.

For the chicken:

4 slices bacon, cut into lardons (widthwise strips)

1 tablespoon butter

4 small bone-in chicken breasts, with skin

salt and pepper

1/4 cup Calvados or other apple brandy*

1 cup hard cider*

1/2 cup creme fraiche**

a small handful of finely chopped fresh parsley

For the apples:

2 Granny Smith apples

1 tablespoon butter

1 teaspoon sugar

Fry the bacon in a saute pan until cooked but not crisp; remove and set aside. Add the butter for the chicken to the pan. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and brown the skin side, about 4 minutes. Turn the chicken. Pour off all but 1 to 2 tablespoons of fat. Deglaze the pan with the Calvados and boil to reduce. Put the bacon back in, pour over the cider, cover the pan, and cook over medium-low heat until the chicken is done, about 20 minutes, uncovering the pan for the last 5 minutes to reduce the liquid to about 1/2 cup. If longer time is required to reduce the liquid, remove the chicken and bacon.

While the chicken cooks, prepare the apples. Peel, core, and slice them into 1/4-inch rings. Melt the butter for the apples in a frying pan over medium-high heat and fry the apples on both sides until golden and tender, a matter of minutes. Sprinkle with the sugar and continue cooking, turning the apples once, for a minute or two until the sugar has melted and slightly caramelized.

Stir the creme fraiche into the chicken sauce and heat through. Place the chicken breasts in a warm serving dish. Taste the sauce and adjust the seasoning. Pour it over the chicken and arrange the apple pieces on top. Sprinkle with the parsley, and serve.

*I used 1/2 cup + 2 tbsps each apple cider and chicken broth
**The recipes suggests if you can't find creme fraiche, use half cream and half sour cream. That's what I did!

I made the full recipe for 2 chicken breasts.

Served with crisp roasted potatoes, which also tasted awesome dredged through the creamy apple sauce (not pictured). Note: the potatoes only took about 45 minutes to cook, not 60. I think I'll make them again, without the rosemary. Better all on their own.