Plum Sorbet with Sloe Gin

I almost never make dessert because I’m not a baker of any sort. But, I lifted this plum and sloe gin sorbet from a Jamie Oliver cookbook I have and I couldn’t have been happier with the result. It takes only a handful of ingredients and a couple of simple steps to impress your guests!

Plum sorbet with sloe gin

2 pounds mixed plums

Zest of 1 orange

5 tablespoons sugar

1/4 cup sloe gin, plus extra for serving

Keep in mind that you could substitute pretty much any kind of fruit – paired with an appropriate fruit based liqueur – in the below recipe.

Sloe gin is a liqueur made with sloe (or blackthorn) berries, gin and a few additional flavours.

To make the sorbet, cut the plums in half and remove their pits. You are going to blend the plums with the other ingredients so putting them in the freezer first will give you a more slushy, less juicy texture for the sorbet. Place the plums in a freezer bag and put into the freezer for at least 2 hours or until frozen solid. An hour before you want to make your sorbet, put a serving dish into the freezer to get really cold.

Once you’re ready to roll, put the plums into a food processor with the orange zest, sugar and sloe gin and pulse until smooth. Scoop into your frozen bowl or dish and use a spatula to smooth out the surface. Throw that in to the freezer, and bingo bango!

Once you’re ready for a flavour explosion, remove the sorbet 5 to 10 minutes before serving so it softens slightly. Serve in big scoops, with a  swig of sloe gin over the top if you like.

 

Buccatini with Meatballs. The Don Draper of Pasta Dinners.

Buccatini and meatballs is a classy spin on an old classic. I don’t think I’ve met anybody who does not like a good ol’ bowl of pasta and meatballs. For me, it’s one of those few meals that I crave if I go too long without. I guess that’s one of the defining characteristics of comfort foods in general…

But I have to say, this is one of the best bowls of pasta that I’ve had in a long time – at a restaurant or at home! In the past year or so, I’ve started to try and remember my favourite types of pasta. I still love the classics – spaghetti, linguini, penne – but there are so many interesting kinds, it’s easy to find a few other favourites.  If you can get your hands on buccatini, I would highly recommend it. It’s basically just like spaghetti but with a hole in the middle, making it a tube.

I almost always have some of this tomato sauce in my freezer. It’s a good starting point for a pasta dinners and marinara sauces and can just be defrosted the day before.

The meatballs can be made ahead of time to save some trouble, or just thrown together before you start cooking – my typical M.O. The lemon zest in the meatballs here really brightens up the pasta and works perfectly with the bit of heat from the chilies.

Buccatini with Meatballs

For the pasta:

250 grams Buccatini

Tomato sauce (recipe follows)

1 cup mushrooms, cleaned and sliced

For the meatballs:

1/2 lb good quality ground beef

1 dried red chili

small pinch of cinnamon

2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped

Sea salt & ground pepper

Small handful of freshly grated Parmesan

Zest of 1 lemon

Small handful fresh basil

To make the meatballs, mix together all of the meatball ingredients and form in to large marble sized balls. As I’ve said before, unless you’re making meatloaf, you do not need to mix the meat too much. Just fold it over enough times to incorporate the ingredients. The more you smash up the meat and play with it, the more dense it will cook. The idea is to get tender meatballs that fall apart, not mini-meatloafs. The same goes for rolling them – just enough to shape them. To help them hold their shape and to help you roll them, run your hands under cold water every few meatballs.

Once you’ve rolled the meatballs, add a little olive oil to your pan of choice and heat over medium-high. Cook the meatballs until they are browned on all sides (about 6-8 minutes). It is not necessary to roll and shake the meatballs around constantly. You want each side to get some colour, which means letting it sit without moving. You only need to roll the meatballs around 3 or 4 times for this step. When finished, remove to a plate with paper towel while you deal with the sauce.

If you’re using dried pasta, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook to your liking. Buccatini, like all pasta, should be cooked to al dente.

Add the sliced mushrooms to the pan the meatballs were in and cook until softened, about 3 minutes. This is a good point to add more garlic if you’re so inclined. Otherwise, add your tomato sauce to the pan with the mushrooms and get your meatballs back in to the sauce. Allow the sauce to heat all the way through and wait until the meatballs are cooked through to turn off the heat, about another 8-10 minutes. Taste the sauce and adjust for seasoning if need be. You may want to add more salt, pepper or chili flakes to your taste.

Drain the buccatini and reserve a bit of the cooking water. It is always a good idea to keep a cup of the pasta cooking water as it can help to loosen up the pasta and sauce if it is too ‘sticky’. Toss the pasta with the meatball sauce and add a spoonful of butter, the Parmesan cheese and half of the ripped up basil leaves. Add a splash of the pasta sauce if you like.

Serve up the pasta in large bowls and top with the rest of the basil leaves and grated Parmesan.

Buon appetito!

 

Basic Tomato Sauce

4 tbsp olive oil

1 large onion, cut to small dice

4 or 5 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

3 tbsp chopped fresh thyme leaves or 1 tbsp dry

1 medium carrot, shredded

1 dried red chili, crushed (or red pepper flakes)

2 large cans whole plum tomatoes

Sea salt

For the tomato sauce:

In a large sauce pan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and cook until soft and slightly coloured, 8 minutes. Add the thyme, carrots and chili and cook until the carrots are quite soft, about 5 minutes more. Add the tomatoes by crushing them by hand into the pan. You can just grab them out of the can and squish them through your fingers, making sure to get all the juice in the pan as well. Bring this to a boil, stirring often. Lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Season with salt to taste.

This will keep in the fridge for 1 week or in the freezer for 6 months.

You’re $#!*ing Me?! Baby Carrots?!

 

This is the fist of a new series I’m going to appropriately name You’re $#!*ing Me?!

Basically, I will attempt to shatter your perfect world with little gems of BS and other remarkable food facts from the world. (A side note: I disapproved of the word “remarkable” and use it here only to illustrate how not to use it. For some reason, people generally use it to describe something pretty amazing that happened to them. To me, the fact that most people wear socks is remarkable. Buses are remarkable. Simply worthy of remark. That’s it. I’m going to blow your mind with these posts, which is better than remarkable.)

Our first You’re $#!*ing Me?! moment is brought to us by Baby Carrots. You know, the baby carrots that many people think are actually baby carrots and not just shaved down versions of big carrots?

Those little cute carrots you buy in little cute bags for 3x the price of regular carrots actually start out for the most part as big, crooked, deformed carrots.  Those heinous excuses for vegetables are thrown into a big machine designed to chew them up and spit out as perfect little bite-sized morsels of veg. Since your kids won’t eat crooked, deformed carrots and you don’t feel like cutting a carrot into four sticks, “baby” carrots account for the majority of (overpriced) sales.

Sorry to cut this short, but I’m going to grab my iPod mini and head down to the market for some “big” carrots. Now where’d I park my Mini Coop?

You’re $#!*ing Me?!, right??

 

 

Pickled Red Onions

Pickling never really crossed my mind until recently. I guess I’ve always felt that anything involving canning, jarring or preserving was for grandmas, you know? Great to have on hand for the apocalypse, but otherwise, just too much work. Turns out, it couldn’t be easier. Now that I’ve made these pickled onions many times I can see the slippery slope ahead of me. I suspect that within two months I’ll be eating nothing but vinegar soaked veggies.

Pickled Red Onions

2 red onions, sliced whole

3/4 cup red wine vinegar

3/4 cup white vinegar

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

2 dried bay leaves

1 tsp whole fennel seeds

4-5 whole allspice berries

4-5 cloves

1 dried red chili

In North America, “pickle” almost always refers to a pickled cucumber. The word actually comes from the Dutch for “brine”, and almost any vegetable, or any perishable food for that matter, can be “pickled”. I’ve never actually gone through the trouble of jarring these since I always use them within about two weeks.

It is important to point out here that, much like most of the cooking I do, nothing is exact. Especially with pickling. You can use whatever spices you want and have on hand. Most recipes for pickled red onions use only white vinegar, but I really like the sweet tanginess that red wine vinegar imparts on the onions, so I use a mix. The only reason I mix it is because white vinegar is much cheaper. In the end, you just need enough vinegar to cover to the top of the onions in the pot you’re using. If your onions are larger, use more if you need it!  I like to slice the onions whole – I think the full rings look better for serving – but cut the onions in half first if it’s easier for you.

Add the vinegar, sugar, salt and spices to a pot on medium-high and heat until the sugar & salt are dissolved. Add the onions to the pot and stir them around for about 3 or 4 minutes. You only need to blanch the onions and soften them up. Allow the onions and pickling juice to cool enough to safely add to a jar or airtight container.

Since the first time I made these onions, I’ve had a jar in my fridge at all times. I’ve served them with all kinds of grilled meats from pork chops to jerk chicken to steaks. They’re great with burgers, hot dogs, fish tacos or even just with a spread of meats and cheeses!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lamb Kefta with Tomato, Cucumber and Bell Pepper Salad

Lamb is so cute. How can it taste this good? I’ll tell you how…cumin and paprika and some herbs and some spices fired under a broiler with a crisp refreshing salad to dance with.

As far as I can tell, lamb is an all-or-nothing food. Like cilantro. I don’t know anybody that sort of likes lamb…it’s either love it or hate it. It is a fairly strong tasting meat, but Kefta is a bit milder than, say, a straight up lamb chop given the mix of flavours in the meat. Give these a try if you’re not sure about lamb. Or, if you love it!

Skewers are a good family style meal and great finger food. A couple of these left over Kefta would make a great next-day sandwich with some thick yogurt, cucumber and pickled onions!

Lamb Kefta

  • 1/2 medium onion
  • Small handful fresh parsley
  • Small handful fresh cilantro leaves
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1 teaspoon paprika
  • Pinch cayenne pepper (depends how spicy you lika-da-meatball)
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 lb lean ground lamb

Kefta – Put  all ingredients except meat in a food processor and pulse briefly. Add the meat and pulse again until mixed. Alternatively, grate the onion, chop the parsley and cilantro finely, and mix with the other ingredients.

Divide into 18-24 pieces and roll each into a little ball. Mold each ball around a metal skewer, pressing the meat gently yet firmly into a sausage shape. Do NOT use wooden skewers as you’ll be putting these under the broiler and you’ll burn your house down.

Place under a preheated hot broiler and cook for 3-5 minutes on each side until browned. The crunch and flavour you will get from the char on the outside of these Kefta is amazing!

Tomato, cucumber, and bell pepper salad

  • 1 garlic clove
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • Some fresh mint leaves (5 or 6ish)
  • 2 tbsp lemon juice
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 small onion, sliced into rings
  • 1 cup of cherry tomatoes, about 12-14 (or 3-4 medium sized tomatoes), peeled, seeded and diced
  • 1 medium green bell pepper, cored, seeded and diced
  • 1/2 small cucumber, unpeeled, seeded and diced
  • Handful finely chopped parsley
  • Pinch of black pepper

Salad – To make the dressing, put the garlic, salt, and mint in a mortar and pound with a pestle until creamy. Gradually incorporate the lemon juice and oil. If you don’t use a mortar and pestle, you can just throw the ingredients in to one of those little choppers or food processors and give it a buzz.

Put the onions, tomatoes, bell pepper, cucumber, and parsley in a salad bowl and sprinkle with pepper, if using.

Add the dressing and toss well before serving with the lamb Kefta on top and garnished with a sprig of fresh mint.

Related Posts with Thumbnails