Oscar Hammerstein, Artichoke Bottoms, Brie, Fruit Cake.

Last night we watched a production about Oscar Hammerstein, Out of My Dreams. A fascinating story about a fascinating man. This was on PBS out of Buffalo, WNED, and one of the thank you gifts was 12 DVDs of Rogers and Hammerstein shows fully restored and remastered. All for a donation of $125 which we have meant to do for 38 years. I have often felt guilty for not contributing to WNED before so now I feel much happier. We loved all these shows in our younger days and we can sing practically all the lyrics, albeit badly, but we both know all the words. Carousel, Oklahoma, Showboat and The King and I are amongst the DVDs we are going to get. When I was young I used to be in love with Gordon McCrae, Howard Keel and Yul Brynner. For many years If I Loved You from Carousel was my favourite love song. I hadn’t realised, seeing the shows over the years, how politically involved Oscar Hammerstein was; how he fought in his own way against injustice and prejudice and what a strong social conscience he had. He really was quite a man.

It is still snowing round here, at this rate, it should last over the Christmas period, but the roads are such a mess at the moment. We had to go do some shopping this afternoon, and there is so much dirty slush around, luckily when we look out of our windows, all we see is a park covered in beautiful white snow. One of the things I was looking for today was frozen artichoke bottoms. Vincenzo’s which I have mentioned many times, told me they had frozen hearts so we went there, but they were exactly that, frozen slices, not the cup shaped bottoms of an artichoke. Not suitable for the recipe I posted. Spinach and Brie Topped Artichoke Hearts, however, it turned out they did have cans of artichoke bottoms by Clic from Egypt of all places. I don’t associate Egypt with artichokes, but we live and learn. I gather they need to be rinsed well before using in this recipe.

We also came across some rounds of Brie so I decided to try a recipe I posted for Baked Camembert a few days ago. Having decided to use Brie instead of Camembert I put the cheese into a small round dish to cook. I slashed the cheese and poured some Vermouth on it plus added herbs and chucked a few pecans on top for good measure, it was cooked in the toaster oven. I enjoyed it but the Brie flavour was extremely delicate and Matt swore he couldn’t taste it at all. He thinks it’s because it was cooked, I think it’s because this particular Brie we bought today didn’t have a very strong flavour in the first place. This will be settled later when we eat the second Brie uncooked. Unfortunately this does happen sometimes that some Brie have such delicate flavours one can hardly taste them.

Talking of food, I am one of the few people who like Christmas fruit cake. For some reason hundreds of people in this part of the world don’t like it. There is always a joke about fruit cakes being gifted on all the time passing around for years. A friend came to pick up her Avon today and brought me a piece of her cake which she recently cooked. I knew she included a particular rum in it, she had been talking about it on Facebook, so later, at lunchtime, we tried it (Matt doesn’t much like fruit cake either) and we both enjoyed it. I haven’t made a Christmas cake in 41 years (or since I married Matt) because Matt didn’t like them. Amazing isn’t it. At least he did like my Christmas puddings. I don’t make those either any more. This picture shows one topped with marzipan, I used to use marzipan and then royal icing. I made some gorgeous looking cakes but never took pictures.

I just got this recipe from the Food Network. I like roasted root vegetables and am thinking seriously of doing them this Christmas for a change from the usual Brussels Sprouts.

Anna Olson's Roasted Root Vegetables

serves 6


Seasonal root vegetables get kicked up a notch with a homemade vinaigrette.

Ingredients

Roasted Root Vegetables
1 cup peeled and diced carrot
1 cup peeled and diced parsnip
1 cup diced celery root
1 Delicata squash, seeded and diced (you can leave the skin on)
2 shallots, sliced
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 sprigs fresh thyme
salt and pepper

Warm Vinaigrette
1+ 6 tbsp olive oil
1 shallot, minced
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh rosemary
salt and pepper
2 tablespoons roasted pumpkin seeds

Directions

Roasted Root Vegetables
1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Toss carrot, parsnip, celery root and squash with shallots, olive oil and thyme and season lightly. Place in an 8-cup baking dish and roast for 30 to 40 minute, until vegetables are equally tender. Remove thyme sprigs.
Warm Vinaigrette
1. Heat 1 tbsp oil and sauté shallot for one minute over medium heat. Whisk in mustard, vinegar and rosemary and reduce heat to low.
2. Whisk in remaining 6 tbsp oil in a slow drizzle and season to taste.
3. When ready to serve, toss warm roasted vegetables with warm vinaigrette, garnish with pumpkin seeds and serve.

Have a great day

Easter Treats, Lamb for Dinner, Pizza and Pasta

I have just read French Marilyn's blog (see link this page) which shows a couple of Easter treats from a master chocolatier in Paris. The prices are ridiculous however good the chocolate is. My $5 Lindt gold bunny is excellent value for money, good chocolate, 100 g of it and affordable. We also have some small chocolate eggs which we bought as garnish, their only decoration is the coloured foil they are wrapped in. I do miss the beautiful Easter Eggs of England. Unfortunately our dinner party is off tonight, so we decided to cook our leg of lamb - very much the way I showed in the recipe yesterday, without the rosemary. We will serve it with flat beans sliced in the French fashion and probably roast potatoes of which I will try and restrict myself to one and of course, gravy made by simmering celery, onion, mushrooms and herbs, adding wine and thickening at the end. We have been working our way through a nice piece of Brie the last couple of days, so will probably finish that tonight as well. All of this will be accompanied by a good bottle of wine, don't know which one at the moment. It could well be the Rosenblum Zinfandel which is one of my favourites. We have a 2007 bottle which should certainly be drinkable. It is a deep red wine with lots of excellent flavours and goes well with lamb, as it does with Brie. Terrible news, Chicago is famous for its Deep Dish Pizza, however, the President called in a chef from St. Louis, Missouri, to make DDPs for his guests last night (horrors). The Chicagoans are very upset. One of the anchors on GMA Weekend said it was like going to Wyoming for wine. That is difficult to equate in non American terms, but they are not wine makers there. If you would like to read an article about it click here, one of the partners, Ryan Mangialardo flew to Washington to make the pizzas in the White House kitchens. Lucky man, I wouldn't mind being let loose in those kitchens, not that I would be making pizza. That is something that has always staggered us about North America, their extreme fondness for pizza and pasta. They eat those items more than any Italian in Italy. Pizzerias are everywhere, there are 3 I can think of within easy reach of us and we rarely eat it. I think every North American housewife makes lasagna on a regular basis. I think we have made it twice. Matt once made pizza when we first came to Canada. At the time, a friend of ours, who loves pizza, went nuts on Matt's version. To me it was too rich and had too many flavours on it. Give me a genuine Italian pizza (well how they used to be anyway) with very few toppings so you could actually taste what was there. In my time over here, I have had seafood pizzas and dessert pizzas. Anything goes on top of a pizza crust it seems. After all that I should give you an Italian recipe. Its one of my gripes that real Italian cooking is very under appreciated. It is one of the great cuisines and much of what we consider typical French cooking was introduced to France by the Italian wife of one of the French kings, Catherine de Medici who, when sent to live in the French court found the food appalling so imported some Italian chefs. I thought of giving you the recipe for Osso Buco which is a favourite of ours, but it was a lot of typing. Maybe another day. Here is a basic Tomato and Garlic sauce very much used in Italy for both pizzas and various meat and fish dishes. Salsa Pizzaiola Source: Time Life Foods of the World 2 1/2 Tbs olive oil 4 oz. finely chopped onions 2 1/2 tsp finly chopped garlic (this was written when garlic was not too popular in the UK) 2 1/2 lb canned tomatoes, coarsely chopped, not drained 2 level tsp tomato purée or paste 2 1/2 tsp dried oregano, crumbled 2 1/2 tsp finely cut fresh basil or 1 scant tsp. dried basil, crumbled 1 bay leaf 2 scant tsp. sugar 2 1/2 tsp salt Freshly ground black pepper. Heat the 2 1/2 tbs olive oil in a medium sized non reactive saucepan and cook the onions in it over a moderate heat, stirring frequently, for 7 to 8 mins. When the onions are soft and transparent, not brown, add the garlic and cook for another 1 to 2 mins, stirring constantly. Then stir in the tomatoes and their liquid, the purée, oregano, basil, bayleaf, sugar, salt and a few grindings of black pepper. Bring the sauce to the boil, turn the heat very low and simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, for about an hour. When finished, the sauce should be thick and fairly rough in texture. Remove the bay leaf. Taste and season the sauce with salt and pepper. If you want a smooth texture, purée the sauce in a blender. This may be served on top of beef steak, chops or fish, or with meatballs Now if it were me, I would take that basic pie shown in the picture, which has cheese on it, add some sliced olives and a few anchovies and that would be it for me. Scrumptious. Hope the rest of your Easter holiday is great.