wordsfromanneli

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Category Archives: Food


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Simple Sushi

Professional sushi makers will roll their eyes, but I don’t care.  The only thing I’m interested in rolling are the sushi rolls. These are the easy do-it-yourself sushi rolls – not fancy, but easy to make and good to eat.

I don’t care for the idea of eating raw fish, but I’m told that when it is used, it has been frozen  enough to kill anything that would make me nervous. Still, I prefer to use cold-smoked salmon (which has also been frozen, but is also salted and cured).

The ingredients you’ll need are dried seaweed sheets (sushi nori), mayonnaise, sticky rice (I prefer Kokuho Rose, but you can use regular rice by soaking it in warm water for half an hour before cooking it), and your choice of fillers. I like to use cold-smoked salmon, carrots, and asparagus, but you can substitute all sorts of things.

I pre-cook the carrot strips and the asparagus just slightly – a minute or two in the microwave in a dish with a bit of water. Drain and cool those before using.

The rice, cooked earlier, should be chilled. I have a bowl of water handy to dip my fingers in, so I can press the rice onto the seawood sheets without too much rice sticking on my hands.

On the cluttery photo below you can see the things you’ll need. I had already made one roll, and then decided to cram all the things I was using into one picture to show you.

First, spread some mayo to coat the dull side of the seaweed sheet. I’m sure yours will look neater than mine did. Then put on a handful of rice and spread it  as evenly as possible so the seaweed is covered except for the last half inch that is farthest away from  you. This is where you will stick the last part of the roll to itself.

Make a little ditch in the rice and place your filling ingredients into it as shown in the photo below.

Begin to roll the sushi away from you, using the bamboo mat to help make the first roll evenly and press it down before continuing to roll toward the farther end of the seaweed sheet. You might want to push any stray rice grains into the roll before pressing it closed.

For this next step you need a very sharp knife. Cut the roll in half, then cut each half in half again, and repeat that until you have eight pieces. The photo shows some the progress of cutting the pieces.

Place all the pieces on a platter, cover with plastic wrap and place in a cool place to chill before serving.

The condiments you may want to use with the sushi are pickled ginger root, soya sauce, wasabi (powdered horseradish with water added – or you can sometimes buy it already mixed in a tube), and some toasted sesame seeds. Have a small dish to place your sushi on, and add the condiments to it as you eat the sushi pieces one by one.

A platter of sushi like the one below took five sheets of seaweed and I used one cup of rice (two cups of water). You end up with 40 pieces of sushi (5 rolls of 8 pieces each).

Enjoy!


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Scones – So Easy!

 

 

I have copied two recipes here. I have ended up combining them and making small changes. I’ve put my own (easier) version at the end of this post, but feel free to try out these recipes straight from the book. Beware of the ingredient list saying to use lard and/or margarine. I didn’t notice that it says that on the recipe until a commenter pointed it out. I always use butter, even though it has fat problems of its own. But margarine makes me shudder (sorry, if you’re a margarine fan) and lard is probably a quicker path to a heart attack than butter is, but that’s just my humble opinion.

The scones are very easy to make if you have a food processor to mix the butter with the flour. The old pastry blender method is just too much work.

Some changes to the recipe?

I only use the baking soda if I add a squeeze of lemon (and I usually do add lemon).

I use two eggs if I have them to spare, rather than only one. One time I completely forgot to put the eggs in and they still turned out okay. The biscuit is very forgiving that way.

You can add grated cheese instead of currants. Probably there are a lot of things you could add if you wanted (chopped nuts, dried cranberries, raisins), but preferably not all in one batch.

One thing you don’t want to do is handle the dough too much. It makes the biscuits tougher if you do.

Here is my version of the recipe. You can substitute and change things without fear of doing too much damage.  I like to use a lot of sour cream and less milk, but it depends what’s in the fridge that day.

Scones

All the dry ingredients go into the food processor:

3 cups flour

1/2 tsp. salt

3 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda (if using a squeeze of lemon for flavour)

3 Tbsp. sugar (optional)

Then add about 3/4 cup (or up to 1 cup) of butter and pulse the food processor until the butter is cut into the flour mixture evenly.

Pour the dry mixture that now has the butter in it, into a large bowl.

Add the currants or whatever additive you’ve decided on (dates, dried cranberries, nuts, or cheese) and stir them into the flour mixture.

Next step:

In a large measuring cup, stir an egg (or two if you like) with a whisk, reserving some of the egg mixture for a wash on top of the batter before putting it in the oven.  Add enough milk to make a cup. At this point I also add, as part of that one cup of liquid, whatever I have on hand (yogurt or sour cream) and a generous squeeze of lemon or lime – just to get the baking soda working well. You may have to add a drop more liquid if you use sour cream or yogurt. Mix the liquid well with a whisk.

Pour the liquid into the large bowl with the dry ingredients and mix gently (more like folding it in).

Pat the dough together and flatten it on a buttered cookie sheet. Use your lightly floured hands to press it out into a rectangle about half to three-quarters of an inch, and paint with the egg wash. Cut the batter into about 15 squares (two lengthwise cuts and four crosswise cuts). Put into the preheated oven at 400 for 25 to 30 minutes until they are golden brown.

Make yourself a cup of tea or coffee and enjoy.


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Easy Plum Squares

This is a repeated post because I’ve been making a lot of these plum squares and because some friends have been asking for the recipe. They’re so good with (or without) a dab of ice cream or whipping cream.

List of ingredients is at the end of the post.

Don’t be fooled by this butter picture. I tried to use less than the recipe called for and it didn’t work. You need the full cup of butter for the crumble to stick together.

So! Put one full cup of butter into the food processor. Then add the flour, salt, and cinnamon. Give it a few pulses until the butter is finely mixed with the flour mixture. THEN add the sugar and rolled oats and give it a couple more very short pulses – just enough to mix it all in.

Why not put it all in together? If you put the sugar in sooner, it makes the butter smear a little, and if you put the rolled oats in right away, the blades will cut the flakes up into a fine oat mixture. I like to see the flakes and keep them coarser, but if you want them to be smooth, you know what to do.

Another option is to sprinkle the cinnamon and brown sugar on top of the plums before putting the crumble topping on, rather than putting them into the flour and butter mixture.

Go ahead and experiment. You really can’t do much wrong with this recipe.

Pour about two-thirds of the mixture into an ungreased pan and press it flat with gentle pressure using your hands.

Now for the plums. I have plum trees in my backyard so in the fall, I wash, cut and freeze the plums, 24 to a bag because that’s how many it takes to make a cake. They thaw easily in warm water  for use in this recipe. If you have plums available in the store you can buy them to make this cake. If not, you may want to substitute some other fruit at this point. Apples, pears, apricots, and dates should work well for this dish. I wouldn’t try it with berries as they would make too much liquid, but most other fruit is very forgiving as a substitute.

I’ve tried it with apples and pears and they work very well. With pears, I’ve used powdered ginger instead of cinnamon.

Notice that the plums are placed skin side down, so the juice doesn’t soak into the bottom layer of crumble.

Sprinkle the last third of the crumble mixture over top of the plums (or whatever fruit you use).

Bake at 350 degrees for 40 to 45 minutes. Usually when the fruit starts to bubble, it’s time to take the cake out of the oven.

When the cake is cool, cut it into squares and top with ice cream, whipped cream, or have it just plain. It’s good no matter how you serve it.

Ingredients:

1 cup flour

1 cup butter

2/3 cup brown sugar (I cut this down from 1 cup)

1 and 3/4 cups rolled oats (large flakes – I like the sprouted rolled oats by “One Degree”)

1/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon (or ginger if using pears)

24 plums (or enough of whatever other fruit you use to make one layer)

Bake 350 for 40 to 45 minutes.


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Crispin’s Christmas Dinner

Hi, I’m Crispin.

Time for my Christmas dinner. I know that little seed in front of me doesn’t look like much, but there are more in the jar.

I’m just saying grace before I eat this special meal. See how I put my hands together to say grace? I don’t care for turkey so I’ll stick to sunflower seeds for this Christmas. All you turkeys out there, you can thank me later.

 

I put my hands together

And say a little prayer

Of thanks that in this weather ,

My dinner’s always there.

 

I know that I could look for,

And find my food alone,

But no one needs to cook for

This lad; I’m on my own.

 

My dinner is a yummy seed,

I’ve many in the jar,

My hostess knows just what I need,

She’s never very far.

 

So merry Christmas holiday,

Be thankful for your lot,

Appreciate your meal today,

Be glad for what you’ve got.

 

 

Here I am eating my Christmas dinner. Seasons greetings to you all.

 

Anneli sends her apologies for the last few seconds of blur when she tried to zoom in and messed things up.

But in the Christmas spirit, I forgave her because, in the first part of the video, I think I look pretty cute.


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Apple Time

It’s apple time again.  If you’re lucky enough to have an apple tree, it’s practically your duty to make a pie or two.

Here we go:

Peel and cut up the apples into a big bowl. Save your peelings for the compost.

In a small bowl, mix up some brown sugar (maybe two to four tablespoons – depends on how sour the apples are), two tablespoons of flour, and a generous sprinkle of cinnamon.

Add the sugar/cinnamon mixture to the apples and stir to coat the apples.

In a food processor, put two cups of flour, a cup of butter, a pinch of salt, and a quarter cup of sugar. Pulse it a few times to blend.

In a measuring cup put one egg yolk and add cold water to make about 3/4 of a cup.

Mix the egg yolk and water with a fork and add to the food processor. Pulse it just a few times to mix it and then put the dough onto a board for rolling out.

Put the egg white in a dish and add a dash of half and half cream for brushing the top of the crust before baking (so save that for a bit later when the pies are almost ready to put in the oven).

Handling the dough as little as possible, press it into a big lump. Cut it in two (for two pies) and cut each piece in two once more (for the bottom and top of each pie – so, four pieces).

Roll out the pieces of dough, doing the bottom layer first so you can put half of the apples in each pie dish. I’ve found that an easy way to move the dough from the board to the pie plate is to fold it in half, lay it on half the dish, and then unfold it.  Don’t worry if the rolled out dough has rough edges. Those will be trimmed off after the “lid” is put on.

Brush the top of the pies with the egg white mixture. Cut some slits into the pie crust to allow steam to escape while it’s baking.  Have the oven preheated to 450. Bake for 12-15 minutes until the top crust begins to brown. Turn the oven down to 350 and bake for another 30-35 minutes, until you see juice bubbling as it tries to get out of the crust.

It’s best to let the pie cool a bit before trying to cut it and putting it on a plate, but once it has cooled slightly, it will hold together better. That’s the time to serve it up and enjoy!

 


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Bran Muffins Plus

I’ve made these muffins a few times now, and  find they are very forgiving, so I get braver each time.

This time I’ve added cranberries, coconut, pecans, and dates to the main recipe, but you don’t have to do that. You probably could add a lot of other things instead, if you felt adventurous. If you have a nut allergy, of course you would leave out the nuts. Just put in what you feel like adding.

The bottom line is, they are very easy to make and taste great.

The basic recipe is at the bottom of the page.

The loaf tin has hardly anything in it, but that’s where I always put the extra batter I have left over. Nothing is ever wasted.

Bran Muffins (Basic Recipe)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a big bowl, mix:

2 cups flour

2 cups bran

1 and 1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

3/4 cup shredded unsweetened coconut (optional)

1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

1 cup raisins (optional)

I add the cranberries and dates to the measuring cup with the wet ingredients (below), mainly so the flour doesn’t stick to them and make white lumps in the batter.

1 cup cranberries (optional –  I use frozen cranberries that I thawed out in a small measuring cup with hot water – drain the water, of course)

1 cup chopped dates (optional, but really good)

In a big measuring cup:

2 cups milk with the juice of half a lemon

1 egg (lightly beaten and added to milk)

1/2 cup molasses

About 3 Tbsp. melted butter (use it to brush the muffin tin and the loaf tin and add the rest of the butter to the liquid.

***

Add liquid ingredients to dry ones in the bowl and mix as much as you need to, the less the better.

Fill muffin tin to about the top of each “cup” and pour the leftover batter into the loaf tin. The batter will be a bit on the runny side.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

** The muffins will get higher if you add fewer of the optional ingredients, but the texture still came out good even with all the heavy things I added.

If you don’t have molasses in the house, you could probably substitute a half cup of brown sugar and put it into the bowl with the dry ingredients.

Best enjoyed with a friend visiting, but tastes great all alone too.


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Focaccia Bread

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp. sugar

2 cups warm water

1 envelope dry yeast (7 g), or 2 tsp. fast rising yeast

5 cups plain flour

2 Tbsp. olive oil

1 tsp. salt

You can make the dough the old-fashioned way, or if you have a bread machine, you can put in the wet ingredients, followed by the dry ingredients, and put the yeast on top of the flour. Then use the dough setting to mix the ingredients and let them rise in the machine.

After the dough is mixed and set aside to rise (or the machine is doing all this for you), crush a clove of garlic into 1/3 cup of olive oil.

In a separate bowl, place two medium white onions, thinly sliced, and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon coarse salt, and set aside.

When the dough is ready, having risen in a bowl or in the bread machine, punch down the dough  and divide it in half. Roll out each piece to make 30 x 25 cm rectangles (it works out to cover two of my smaller baking sheets). Place on the greased baking sheets. Cover and let stand  about 15 minutes.

At this point, preheat the oven to 450 F.

Using the handle of a wooden spoon, press indentations all over the dough about a half inch (or 1 cm) deep. Brush the dough all over with garlic oil and sprinkle with half the onion mixture on each baking sheet.

Bake at 450 F for about 15 to 20 minutes.

Cut into pieces to serve.

If you freeze it later on, you can take out what you need and put it in the toaster.

The batch in this picture could have been done a minute or so longer to be more golden brown, but it is still good.

Goes very well with any soups or stews, or just as a snack with a piece of cheese. It’s perfect with a glass of white wine.

If you don’t like garlic, you can substitute and sprinkle some chopped rosemary onto the dough before baking.


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Hazelnut/Almond Pie Bars

This post is a repeat of one from June of 2018 (pre-Covid) but I’m still baking these almond pie bars because they’re so quick and easy to do. It works well if you have company coming, any time of year, or if you just feel you want to indulge yourself.

Here it is again. I just made a batch today but I used hazelnuts instead of almonds because that was what I had on hand. Also, I added some shredded coconut in the batter and on top.

This is a very easy recipe (ingredients listed at the end), but I have to warn you, it is really sweet. I cut back on some of the sugar and it is still sweet.

*** You can easily use half the sugar or less and it will still be good. I’ve tried it.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

First, put into your food processor, 2 cups of white flour, 1/2 cup of icing sugar, and a cup of butter. Pulse it a few times to cut the butter into the flour mixture so it is evenly mixed and is the texture of soft sand.

Put the mixture into a 9 by 13 baking dish (I like my glass one), and gently but firmly press the mixture down to flatten it. This will be the crust which will resemble shortbread. No need to grease the pan.

While the crust is in the oven baking for 10 to 15 minutes (until it is just turning a pale golden brown), chop one cup of almonds (or you can use already sliced almonds).

Break four eggs into a measuring cup and whisk them around with a fork. Add 2 cups of sugar (I put much less and I had to substitute some brown sugar because I ran out of white), the cup of chopped almonds, 1/3 cup of corn syrup (you could probably use honey), 1/2 cup of melted butter, 2 tablespoons flour, and 1/2 teaspoon almond extract (or vanilla or lemon or whatever you want).

Pour into the food processor and give it a couple of pulses. Then check on your crust to see if it is golden brown yet.

Take the baking pan out of the oven and be ready to pour the egg and almond mixture onto the hot crust.

As soon as you have the liquid mixture poured onto the crust, put the baking dish back in the oven, still on 350, and bake for another 25 to 28 minutes.

When the time is up, the topping should be a rich golden brown and be slightly puffy. This will collapse in a few minutes as it cools, and that’s fine. It’s what you want it to do.

As soon as you can no longer stand to wait, pour yourself a cup of coffee (or tea), and cut some squares from the pan of almond bars.

Enjoy!

Ingredients:

Crust –

2 cups flour

1/2 cup powdered sugar (icing sugar)

1 cup butter

Topping –

2 cups sugar (I think it’s way too much… I only use 1 cup)

1 cup chopped almonds

4 eggs, slightly beaten

1/2 cup melted butter

1/3 cup corn syrup (or honey?)

2 tablespoons flour

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

 

The finished squares freeze well on a paper plate inside a ziploc freezer bag. Funny thing is though, they disappear quickly no matter where you store them.

  • Remember, you can use any kind of nut substitutions you want. I recently used pecans instead of almonds and it worked really well.
  • LESS sugar!!!

 

 

 


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Saving Seeds

It’s that time of year when the leaves of squashes die and the squashes are lying around waiting to be picked.

I think this one is called a green egg squash.

A friend gave us several varieties of squash last autumn  when he harvested his garden. They were so good that I decided to try growing some myself the next growing season. I saved the seeds of the gift squashes and planted them this spring.

I was thrilled to see the seeds sprout and turn into little squash plants. It wasn’t long before they were big squash plants. Then squashes grew where yellow flowers had attracted some bees. I was so happy to see the babies of the gift squashes growing in my garden.

It was time to harvest them and I saved the seeds of the second generation. Next spring I’ll plant those and hope to grow a third generation of these green egg squashes.

They are so tasty. I like to cook them two different ways. One way is to cut the squashes in half and peel them. Then I slice them into one-inch pieces that look like a crescent moon. I put all the pieces in the microwave for three or four minutes while I sautee some chopped onions in butter in a frying pan. Then I place the crescent-shaped pieces of squash in the pan with the onion bits and fry them to a golden brown colour.

The other way is more traditional. No peeling necessary, but I give the squash a good wash. Cut the squash in half lengthwise, clean the seeds out of the center, and cut each half crosswise.  Paint the inside surfaces with melted butter, sprinkle on salt and pepper, and bake at 350, peel side down, until the squash is tender. Depending on the size of the squash, it may take 45 minutes to an hour. I cover mine with tin foil for the first half hour. If they need more baking time, just keep the heat to them until they are tender.

I’m looking forward to planting the next generation of these squashes.

I have another kind of squash that a friend in Montana gave us in 2015. I saved those seeds and have kept them going year after year ever since. That was a buttercup squash. Here is a picture of one of its descendants.

Not only is it fun to watch continuing generations of plants growing, but saving seeds is a good habit to get into. You never know when we may have hard times ahead.


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Oyster Mushrooms

We had a nice surprise today. A friend had been out in the woods picking oyster mushrooms and had a bunch to give us.

I’ve picked chanterelles but I didn’t know much about oyster mushrooms so I’ve never picked them. With mushrooms, you can’t take chances because many kinds of mushrooms have lookalikes and many of those can make you very sick (or worse).

So here is a picture the friend took to show us how they grow. See them there on the trunk of that dead alder tree?

The pictures were all taken by my friend with his phone, except for the two photos in my kitchen.

If you thought mushrooms always grow on the ground, think again. Here they are again, going way up the tree.

They almost look round like a tennis ball, but if you look carefully, you’ll see that they are flat and often seem to grow overlapping each other.

Because they are off the ground, they are much easier to clean than chanterelles.

I just took a pastry brush and cleaned off a few specks of dirt. No need to wash them and make them soggy.  My dryer has five layers so I filled those up with the flat mushrooms and gave my attention to the rest of them which, temporarily, are spread out on a couple of baking sheets. (They are not going to be baked.)

I put a tiny bit of butter in a pan and put the mushroom pieces in it. This is just the start of what I put in the pan. I filled the pan enough so the whole bottom of the pan is filled. One thing I learned is that it is much easier to tear oyster mushrooms than to cut them.

Once they were sauteed just until they were cooked through, I put them in a big bowl to cool off while I cooked the next batch. After the sauteed mushrooms were all cool, I put them into plastic tubs and froze them. The sauteeing ensures that the mushrooms are not rubbery when you thaw them out to add to stir fries or gravy or whatever dish you want them to be in.

A couple of the bigger pieces were perfect for adding to a sandwich. So good!

If you find the energy to go out into the woods to look for mushrooms, you might be rewarded with the sighting of a large animal – at least the sight of its hind end. I’ll spare you the guesswork – it’s an elk.

Paved road, wildlife viewing, and a load of mushrooms for dinner. What could be better?