Category: cooking

summertime… and the living is (gr)easy!

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Well, summer must finally have arrived in Ontario, as attested to by the new copy of the Bible that I found at the All Hallowed Store of Liquors yesterday:


(ducking to avoid mass chunk of ice which will inevitably fall on my head, resulting from freak late June snowstorm and provoked by tempting the Fates!).

This was perfect timing, as I’m trying to plan my mid-August party. Now, between all the delicious recipes in this mag and those in another book I recently got from the library:

I now have a ridiculous number of new recipes to try. JJ, cringing at my evergrowing scrawled list of “must-makes”, reminded me yesterday that were I actually to make all the food I wanted to make for this party, I could likely feed … oh, the whole building and the two next door besides!

So, what’s the problem! Opa!!

Speaking of “opa”, I had to laugh because the Bible featured a feta and watermelon salad as a “new trendsetting item”. I have been making this for at least two years and Nigella Lawson had a version in one of her books at least five years ago. Try it out – her recipe is at this link, and I’ve had at least 40 rave reviews by now.

But, actually, this discussion is altogether too healthy, given the provisions laid in yesterday for kickoff of Summer in the House of Brouhaha:

Get this! New, scottish-style beer! And it’s one of the “bargain priced” ones. Go figure:

This beer went very well indeed with a very greasy (and very delicious) indian buffet we got to pig out on at a party last night…lamb vindaloo and meat samosas and all the naan you could hide in your purse stomach.

And, more guid news – the Laundry Room drought is over!!

Check out the fancy unopened mango bath products gift box!

And, in light of my whine about meetings the other day, this was a particularly welcome find:

Here’s the original poster from Despair, Inc.:

There is some peculiar truth to that. Must be some mathematical equation out there regarding quantum of intellect and how it flies out the window during meetings!

But why am I talking about meetings, anyway?! It’s Sunday. Off to eat some chips make some breakfast, kick JJ’s lazy @$$ out of bed and see what the day holds.

Happy Sunday!

no soup for you!

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It might seem paradoxical to write about soup at this time of year, when the temperatures (at long, long last) are climbing.

Well, welcome to my tortured world. For some reason, I suffer intense cravings for soup once the temperature climbs past 25C/77F/40million with the humidex.  These cravings continue all summer and finally wind down around – oh, October or so.

So, what is a girl to do when she works in an increasingly chi-chi foo-foo part of town where the average bowl of soup sets you back – oh, $10 or so? Which, by the way, she has no intention of shelling out at any point, let alone where such things as “apricot” and “lentil” are included in the ingredient list for one fancy dan soup?

Why, make up her own fancy award-winning recipes, of course!

And, I lied in the subject line.  That’s just what I told JJ yesterday when he called me a right weirdie for attempting to make soup out of the leftover curry from dinner.

Never without a witty riposte (don’t you hate that?!) he said “Ye know ah can’t stand that Seinfart wanker.”  Well, if he hates Seinfeld so much, why the hell does he know who the Soup Nazi is, I ask you?!

But I digress.  There will, however, be soup for you – that is, if you’re crazy enough to try this recipe.  Drumroll, please…

Mulligastrone a la brouhaha

What, you ask, is “mulligastrone”?  Well, obviously it is a combo of mulligatawny and minestrone.  (Oh, and you don’t think I saw you rolling your eyes?!?  Well, if Rachael “too chipper by half TV chef” Rae can make even more millions by adding water to spaghetti and meatballs and call it “stoup” (“thicker than soup, thinner than stew, hee hee, old family recipe, tee-hee!”), then why the hell can’t I take some liberties?  Eh?

Now, because I’m Greek and we don’t believe in written recipes, there is no actual recipe for this.  But that makes it more fun, doesn’t it?

First off, take some stock which you have slaved over a hot stove preparing or have pulled out from your freezer, having slaved over a hot stove preparing it some time back:

Now, so as not to lose my future multimillion dollar TV chef credentials, I assure you that prepackaged stock never actually gets used in my house.  However, so as not to intimidate those less culinarily gifted than me, I always put my “product of slaving over hot stove for several hours” stock into recycled tetrapaks which I … oh, never mind.

Put your stock in a saucepan and heat until it is at a low boil (or, as us TV chefs are wont to say, a rrrrrrrrolling boil!).

Oh, I almost forgot.  If you like super-spicy food or, like me, your tastebuds have been almost completely destroyed by chainsmoking, you might want first to heat a small amount of canola or other plain oil in said saucepan then add a heaping spoon of this stuff:

Turn down to low and cook about 2 minutes or until it starts to break down and smell fabulous.  Then add your stock.

Second, put in some small soup-sized pasta:

How much? you ask?  Hell, I don’t know.  As much as you want.  Somewhere between a handful and the whole package will do… probably closer to the former, though.

Simmer (at the same low rrrrrrrrolling boil) for 10 minutes or so.

Third, add in your leftover curry.

(This, by the way, was beef vindaloo that I bought pre-made because it was on sale.  I also added half a can of chickpeas to it.  Chickpeas or some other kind of beans will be essential for the “strone” component of the mulligastrone.)

Put as much in as you want.  If you want a thicker soup, put in some of the curry sauce too.  If, like me, you like thinner broth, shake most of the curry sauce off before putting in the saucepan.  Cook for 5 minutes or so.

Fourth, turn off the heat and stir in some leftover rice from the same curry dinner:

Again, how much is up to you.  Not this much, though.

That’s it!  And now, for little effort, you have a lovely soup that looks like this:

Add some of this, if you’d like:

… and chow down.

Now, the mulligastrone, like most highly spiced dishes, will benefit from sitting overnight.  At least, I think it will.  You see, I have a confession to make – I haven’t actually yet sampled it.  I’m bringing it to work for lunch today and it is the first time I’ve made this recipe.

However, I’m very confident that it will be guid.  Why?  Well, I am Brouhaha, after all.  And don’t you think I look better than Rachael Ray?!?

I’m sure the Food Network will be calling any day now.  Really.  Please wish me luck in my new and exciting career…

And, in the meantime, a very happy Thursday to you all!

social responsibility and … booze?

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Well, summer has arrived!!!

How do I know? Because the LCBO has come out with its early summer issue of the Food and Drink magazine!

Now, this has got to be the best free mag going! Not only does it have lots of free yummy recipes:

(A note: if you’re trying to diet, never, ever look at this magazine. Although the photos look so good that you could probably end up eating the paper they’re printed on…)

…but also lots of important lifestyle tips. I mean, I don’t know how much longer I can survive without buying some chocolate covered sunflower seeds:

…Dufflet chocolate bark:

…or a $32.00 lemon juicer!

(But here, gentle reader, I must confess that I actually now own one of these. In my defence, JJ bought it for me as a gift, knowing how much I love lemon, and it cost quite a bit less than $32.00 where he got it.)

And, here’s the perfect hostess gift for the next time you need one: a “chip ‘n dip” set

Only $240.00!! (Hmmm… how many bags of chips could I actually buy with that, though – and hey, they taste the same coming right out of the bag, no?).

Now, the only reason that the LCBO can actually offer this mag for free (which, by the way, has in past inspired a complaint to the Ombudsman from companies which actually sell their magazines) is that it is government controlled.

That’s right, folks – here in Ontario the government sells us our liquor. At a premium, of course.

What cheeses me off more though of late is that we’re also paying to get lectured while buying booze these days. For example, the LCBO used to have plastic bags like this:

Now, let me tell you, these bags were famous. They were the best plastic bags ever. This was the topic of many of those banal smoking area or elevator chats. Seriously. You could have a whole five minute conversation on “Don’t the LCBO have the best bags?”. I even know one landlord rep who used them as briefcases!

Well, alas, no more. Seemingly overnight, they discontinued the plastic bags in order to save the environment. So, instead, you can get either a free (paper) bag – great if you’ve driven in your gaz guzzling SUV to the liquor store, not so great if you are walking any distance – or, you can have one of these “enviro-bags”:

…which costs $1.95.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I think it’s a good idea to do away with plastic bags. However, because they didn’t bother to announce that they were doing this but landed it on us, I was actually forced to buy one of their bags when I stopped in on the way home from work one day.

But then perhaps whinging like this is not socially responsible of me. As a consumer, however, I’m just getting tired of corporations taking the moral high ground, lecturing me about my (lack of) commitment to the environment, then turning a profit from it.

It strikes me that if the LCBO were really serious about encouraging people to use these bags (rather than paper, which as I understand it, involves trees being cut down), they would sell them at cost. And although I don’t know for certain I would venture to say that the LCBO does not itself pay $1.95 for each bag.

I mean, it’s not as though they’re hurting any!

The LCBO transferred a record $1.275-billion dividend, not including taxes, to the Ontario government in fiscal 2006-07. It is the 13th straight year the LCBO has increased its dividend to the province and the fourth consecutive year the dividend has topped $1 billion.

I’d love to know how much of next year’s billion plus “dividend” (is this a fancy word for “profit”?) relates to the sale of enviro-bags, myself.

And is it “socially responsible”, pray tell, to hawk $240 chip bowls rather than encouraging people to donate that kind of money to – oh, I don’t know – Mothers Against Drunk Driving, perhaps?!

Humph.

**************

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My wish for you this weekend: that you have lots of time to..

Huh?

Well, courtesy of Gawker, I bring you these fabulous photos of bygone times, when people seemed oh so happy and funloving.

For example, they seemed to take pleasure from the smallest little humdrum things:

“Look, honey, Saran wrap!!!! AND enough sandwiches to feed a small army!!! Whoo-hoo!”

Great and inexpensive transportation methods…

“Hey gang!  See how fun it is to drive to the ball game in these newfangled convertible thingies? But I’m wondering if I should have bought the pickup truck instead…”

Women enjoyed all sorts of exotic delights and pleasures not available to us today…

“Ooooooh!  Fabulous pink shampoo!  I think I’ll use that and then go out and order myself a big old Pink Lady!

“And maybe after five or six of those, I’ll meet a great guy who will want to stroke my silky smooth pink shampooed hair!”

Now, I know that they lacked certain creature comforts in that era, such as personal computers and TiVos.  But hey, who needed the Internet when you could have a fancy dan car stereo?!

And 8 track technology to boot!  Wow, man.

So, why not take a step back in time into the late 60s and have yourself some guid old fashioned fun?

I’ll even provide you with the step guide.  Loud orange shirt not included though.  Sorry.

Happy weekend!

Big Friday, redux

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I’m feeling lazy today…I’m taking a day off for religious observance. That’s right, folks – it’s Big Friday for all us Greekish types (see my post this past Good Friday if you want to know why this is so).

So, being the high holy day in the Orthodox calendar, I’m spending the whole day in church, right?

Yep. The Church of Icarus.

(Oh, what’s that? You don’t think that knitting is a real religion? Check out this recent blog post by fellow raveller Genuine: The Sacraments of Knitting: A Simple Tract. I was a skeptic too, but she persuaded me and I’m a lawyer and all – I don’t believe anything, really.)

Anyway, if that excuse doesn’t work, my back up excuse is that I need to finish Icarus ASAP so that I can start on a test-knitting project that I’m doing for Susan of Sunflower Designs! The project in question is called Sherwood:

So, of course I had to go out and buy some new yarn for it today at Amerigo:

Llama!

I know, I know – it’s not really my usual type of colour choices. Unlike, for example, the llama I already bought from Amerigo a month ago…

… or the Handmaiden Sea Silk from the stash that I had already designated for this project.

But I figured, what with the forest-like name and all, that I should go with a bit more natural hue. Makes sense, eh?

Sherwood also calls for 1300 beads to be strung on. Here they are:

I figured I’d have to get a bit of zip in with the beads, at any rate. That’s fair, right?

And hope I’m not jinxing Icarus.  I’ve just finished the 3rd chart and now have only 20 (very long) rows plus the edging left.  Decided to pin part of it out to shore myself up last evening:

JJ just said to me “Aren’t ye glad ye didnae throw it off the balcony, hen”.  So I am. And I will be praying this Big Friday – if only to the Goddess of Knitting to ward off the dreaded Frogman.

So, that’s how my Big Friday will pass. Oh, and am I going to observe the traditional Big Friday fast (i.e. no meat, no dairy, no oil, no food that tastes remotely edible)?

Am I hell! (as JJ is wont to say). In fact, I’ll be hooking up with some friends on the Danforth for a big fat Greek meal which will involve as much pork souvlaki, saganaki (fried cheese) and galactoboureko (custard phyllo dreamy treat) as I can manage to ingest.

Hey, we can’t all be saints, eh?

A happy Friday to you all!

Don’ts for Wives

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It’s 9:00 a.m. on a Saturday
and I do not have to work
so here I sit, smoking cigs and s**t,
and fig’ring what duties to shirk…
(apologies to Simon and Garfunkel)

So, what can I do instead of getting out my steamshovel and clearing away all the crap currently filling my apartment? I promised myself I wouldn’t knit anything until at least the living room and spare room were done…

I know – I could read. That’s educational, anyway.

This should be fun. Let’s have a look:

From the intro:

Art is a hard mistress, and there is no art quite so hard as being a wife.


Damn tootin’!

Moving along to the main text:

Don’t worry about little faults in your husband which merely amused you in your lover. If they were not important then, they are not important now…

Faults? Hmm… such as bugging me to comb my hair all the time? Wanting to be given a medal for washing the dishes? Never throwing out an empty toilet paper roll? who says those aren’t important?!?!?

…besides, how about yours?


Mine?!? My faults? I don’t have any faults!!


Hmm… on second thought… hey, how do you like my loud hawaiian-style elephant shirt, anyway?


Scored it in Thrift Villa in Parkdale some time back for $5! Not really something a housewife in 1913 would have worn, though, I guess…

But I digress. Back to my reading.

Don’t live on top of a spiritual mountain. Try to be “a creature/not too bright and good/for human nature’s daily food”.

What?!? That doesn’t even rhyme? What the hell is this supposed to mean? I’m confused. But then I don’t live on top of a spiritual mountain, so I guess I don’t have to worry about it.

Let him be as messy as he likes in his own home…

Sure… that is, until I get tired of it and throw away all of his “important paperwork” that he keeps hoarding (junk mail, old newspapers, etc.) later today.

Don’t spend half the morning in bed because “there is not enough to get up for”. The day is not long enough to do all of the things you might do if you liked.

Oh – such as cleaning up after your husband?!


Anyway, the only reason I sleep in half the morning is that I’m suffering from a bit of the Tenant Advocate cheer the night before. But I guess that wasn’t the housewifely done thing in 1913, either. Good thing the list of tips doesn’t say: “Go out with the Tenant Advocates for several beer and Irish nachos every Friday after work.” I don’t think I could stick to that one.

Don’t greet him at the door with a catalogue of the dreadful crimes committed by servants during the day.

No fear of that. This is the only servant in the house:

Or is that “helpmeet”?

(Don’t feel too sorry for me, though. I think I may have mentioned before that I don’t even know how to operate this iron…and I’ve never quite mastered putting up the ironing board, either. Anyway, substitute “clients” or “boss” [in past!] for “servants” and that is probably a tip I could learn from.)


Don’t object to your husband getting a motor-bicycle; merely insist that he shall buy a sidecar for you at the same time.

Hmm – I wonder how JJ would look in a sidecar? What do you think?


JJ – King of the Household.

Don’t buy expensive food, and have it ruined in the cooking. If your cook isn’t up to French dishes, be satisfied with English ones cooked to perfection.

Well, since I had to let the cook go, the Husband will just have to content himself with this:

At least it fits the “not too expensive” category!

Don’t permit yourself for a single instant that nothing is more annoying to a tired man that the sight of half-finished laundry work. The remotest hint in your home of a “washing day” is like a red rag to a bull.

Bull, indeed. Two answers for that guy:
(a) do it yourself, then; or
(b) drop it off at the Wash n Fold!

Anyway, I think I’ve read enough. Time to get off my lazy @$$ and clean the damn house. I guess I’ve learned something from the book, eh?

helpmeetly duties in the 21st century

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When perusing recently the communal book swap/library at the office, I was thrilled to find this:

A vintage cookbook. I love these things. Never mind that this book swap was in great part set up because Jennifer and I felt we had to divest ourselves of out-of-control amounts of cookbooks at our respective pads… I just couldn’t resist!

No date on the book, alas. I’d put it at early 1950s. But I guess it really doesn’t need a date, because the information it contains is timeless, not to mention priceless.

I mean get a load of this:

Where on earth are these vegetables grown, anyway?! (Actually, it’s not on earth. Rather, you’ll find them in the The 49th Dimension, where the corn is puny and the shrimp are raw.)

But really, I shouldn’t jest. Maybe if I actually consult this book, I will acquire some gourmet hausfrau tips. Goddess knows I could work on some of those helpmeetly skills. I mean, I have the knitting and crochet down pat (although sewing does present a bit of a challenge), but as I near my 40th year I can’t help but think that some other essential skills are lacking. And if I start working on them now, I should be Queen of the Homemakers by 2010 when I turn 40!

And besides, the women all looked so happy back then!
Um… well, most of the time they did. Unfortunately, there is no caption for this picture. And check out the bottle!

I mean, I’ve never had kids, so I don’t really know… but it strikes me that it’s not appropriate to heat a baby bottle to boiling point. Am I wrong?

And… is that a fist I see hiding under the dishcloth?

Ah – it’s all crystal clear now (NB: I don’t really know what “crystal clear” means. I have no crystal in my house. I did have some but some wanker smashed it one night at a party when I was playing greek music. Plates, you moron, plates – not glassware!!!). Where was I? Oh yes.

This must be the missing caption:

“That’ll teach you for making me play ‘airplane’ for the 57th time today, kid… “ 

Would you just shut up and eat, already?!?!?!? If Mommy misses seeing Victor and Nikki’s wedding again on Y&R, you’re going to your room until you turn 18 and I kick your worthless @$$ onto the street…” 

As you can see, there are very good reasons why I’ve chosen not to have kids!

And now for a short break from our sponsor… the back of the Presto book!
I want to be a model for a Presto ad! 

Look how fun it is to do housework!!!

(where is that #$&*^$#&@*#$&^#* comb?! I bet JJ found it under the toilet tank and confiscated it lest I glue it to a table or something…)

Hmm… I might not be dressed quite the part, though…


Maybe they’d go for something like this instead?

Um… maybe not. Unless, of course, the product is called “Mommy’s Dirty Little Secrets”…

Sigh – I’m not really picking up this hausfrau thing too swiftly, am I?

Well, I’m not quite sure how to operate the iron, anyway. My mother gave it to me when visiting eight years ago or so. She was horrified when she went looking for my iron only to find that I didn’t have one. I had lived alone for five years at the time. To spare her feelings I lied and said that the ex got the iron in the split-up. She then reminded me that the split up had happened three years previously. I am a bad, bad daughter.

Oh well. I’d rather use the iron like this, anyway.

And now back to Law and Order SVU Season 2, which I’ve seen at least three times already…

Or, rather, back to the Presto Cookbook. I love these old cookbooks. The photography is so appetizing. Let’s see – I haven’t had breakfast yet (unless you count the nougat bar with jujubes…) so perhaps I can find something tasty here:


Then again, maybe not.  I can just picture this offering in the local greasy spoon: “Would Madame rather have the mucilage or the Elmer’s with a side of milk, then?”  Although I appreciate the cute bowl with the balloons, that just doesn’t cut it.

On that note, I’d better start planning dinner…how about some soup? It’s chilly today…


Hmm… blood and bile with swirls of pus? Nah…but let me see if I can find anything that appeals within the section…

– Oyster Chowder
– Southern Okra Gumbo
– Gumbo… maybe… but with oysters? Nope.

To top it off, the Soup and Chowder section is in that mysterious land where any spice save Salt and Pepper apparently fear to tread.

Next – meat. Well, there’s plenty of that in the deep freezer…


Hmm… all I can really say is that I’ve never seen a roast beef served on a bed of cucumber and whole radish before. Hmm. Well, I’ll turn the page (skipping the photographed selections, methinks…).

A bit more exotic than the Soup section, at any rate:

– Norwegian Meatballs (which appear to be meatballs boiled in milk and cream. Next…)
– Swiss Steak No. 1
– Swiss Steak No. 2 (which appears to be the same as Swiss Steak No. 1 except that it also features a cup of tomato soup and “2 T. cornstarch”. 2 tablespoons?!?!? Must be a hangover from the Cereal page…)

Another exoticism: Porcupine Meatballs – oh, those racy 50s housewives! What were they doing, hanging out at the side of the highway looking for roadkill??

Moving on…some items that no 50s cookbook would be complete without:

– Savory (sic) Beef Neck
– Economy Pork Steak
– Beef Liver
– Devilled Lamb Neck Slices (have you ever had lamb neck? I make it quite often as I love lamb and it’s a cheap homestyle greek dish. However, if you don’t do it in the crockpot or, failing that, in the oven for about five hours, you might as well buy a pack of chewing gum and save yourself the trouble. This recipe calls for 15 minutes cooking time. I’m sceptical…)
– Stuffed Beef Heart (the minute I left home, I vowed that never again would organ meat pass my lips. It is perhaps the one vow I have never broken).
– Fresh Tongue (nah, although I’m sure it’s far better than that stale tongue in all the other cookbooks…)

and finally (drumroll, please…)

– Pigs in a Blanket. That time honoured favourite. However, paradoxically, this recipe calls for round steak wrapped in bacon. So, shouldn’t it be “Cow in a Blanket”?

The next section, luckily, looks intriguing:

“Combination” of what? you may well ask? I certainly did, looking at the above photo. Vegetables and vegetables? Meat and blobs of unknown origin? Meatballs and blood?

Let’s peek within to try to shed some light on this mystery:

More international exoticism!!!
– Belgian Stew (with beef neck and carrots)
– Sauerbraten (German beef stew)
– 3 – count ’em – 3 versions of Chop Suey!!!!! (American, Fancy and Plain. The only difference I can see is that the Fancy has three types of meat instead of one. All share copious amounts of canned vegetables in common. And, isn’t chop suey all American anyway?)

And some more stuff I’ve never heard of before (with good reason, in my opinion):
– Corn Cabbage
– Squash with Pineapple

Chicken is starting to look pretty good right about now…

Check out the cooking time table!!


Let’s zoom in, shall we?

Qu’est-ce que c’est “gosling”? I have no idea. Where is JJ when I need him – he’s up on all this weird anglo food. I would call him at work but undoubtedly I’d either interrupt the Spider Solitaire Security Guard Classic Championship Finals, or wake him up. This will have to wait…


Well, that’s one way to get them onto the plate, I guess. I can just hear JJ now: “Puir wee pheasant, smothered before its time. Are ye planning to make a mosaic effigy with the bones, then, lassie?”


Shiskabugs!!! Where’s my Hasen Pfeffer?!?!?!

Puir wee Bugs Bunny. I don’t want any harm coming to him. He did have the guts to go around in
drag in the 1940s, after all. You might call him a role model of mine…

Next…

I’ve got some frozen shrimp I scored at Loblaws a while back …


Frozen shrimp, blood and Ritz crackers – all hauled in by a serf. No thanks.

I don’t really like vegetables, but I’m getting desperate here:
The flowers look nice anyway.

There are recipes for 28 vegetables. The recipes are all identical except for the main ingredient. Here’s a sample:

Potatoes (small)
small whole new potatoes
1 cup water
salt

I kid you not. Oh wait, I lie to you. Some of the recipes are a bit different:

Peas (green)
Fresh peas
1/2 cup water
salt

I guess it’s dessert for dinner again…

What the hell is “steamed bread”??? Is it that stuff that weighs about a pound for a small slice and sits in your stomach for days afterward? Not in this house…give me a Viennetta or some Cadbury’s any old day.

And finally…

Maybe I’m out of it, but isn’t a “fruit recipe” a dessert? (by the look of the photo, maybe not – especially when served swimming in Vaseline and food colouring).

Damn it all.

Lazy weekend…

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Ah, the lengths I will go to in order to avoid cleaning house!

But first, I feel that I must pay some tribute to my UFO, which is feeling lonely and unloved given that I have not worked on it for about 6 days…

Truth is, I’m rather bored with this one. I should just finish it off now (it could be either a tunic or a dress, depending upon when the yarn might run out). Hard to tell the bottom shape because it’s on 24″ circular needles. Yarn is Ranee by Kerzner. Pattern adapted from a tunic pattern in the most recent Knit.1 mag. I thought the main colour was all black… instead it turned out to be all midnight blue except for one skein. Oh well. I shall persevere…

… and now back to my latest obsession: PRESERVES!

Far more colourful than my current knitting (which is probably why the digression, I would imagine).

And here they are, one by one (drum roll, please…)

1. Giradiniere Pickles (Italian Garden Pickles) – recipe by Lucy Crubb, in Delia’s How to Cook, Book 3:

Ingredients: red onions, zucchini, egplant, fennel bulb, red, yellow and orange bell peppers, mushrooms, grape tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, white wine vinegar, bay left, rosemary, thyme and peppercorns.

2. Moroccan Preserved Citrus – original recipe for preserved lemons by Elizabeth David (I think)
Although you can’t really see them here, I added limes and oranges as well as the lemons. Other ingredients: coriander seed, cumin seed, bay leaf, lots of sea salt, water.

3. Giardiniera – The Spicy Gardiner’s Wife (adapted from #1, above)

This is what happens when I run out of white wine vinegar and have precious little other vinegar left. I stuck in red wine vinegar and some leftover shallot sherry vinegar I had made before … and a ton of red chilli flakes. My name for it is a play on the “giardiniere” in the original recipe, which means “gardiner” in italian.

4. Pickled Green Onions – my recipe (and damn and blast that Loblaws does not seem to know what wild garlic is)

Ingredients: green onions, white wine vinegar, whole garlic cloves. That’s it. But I’m still really craving toursi (pickled ramps or wild garlic shoots…) SIGH.

5. Sour Dill Pickles – Delia in How to Cook, vol. 3

DH will have to tell me how these turned out because I do not like dill pickles! Ingredients: fresh dill, coriander seed, cucumber, cippoline (the recipe called for shallots, but $#&@*$(&*@#(&* Loblaws didn’t have them in either! What’s going on?). Don’t know if they will be less sour with the cipolline. Oh well. I don’t eat them anyway! 😉

6. Roasted Vegetables in Oil – my idea

This is a bit of an experiment. I’m actually trying for a flavoured oil with roasted veg flavour. I took the leftover veg from the Giardiniere (#1, above) minus the grape tomatoes, added some sundried tomatoes, panroasted the veg then covered in boiling oil (PurOliva – half canola, half olive oil so that it will refrigerate better, it is hoped). I will let this sit for about a week and see what happens.

I’ve also prepared a 7th thing, which is flavoured extra virgin olive oil (the cheap kind – Gallo – I buy it in the 3 or 5 litre tin). It’s not quite ready yet. It is my own recipe and called “Pink Lady”. The name comes from the name of the main herb (rosemary) plus pink peppercorns – not the colour of the oil.