It’s pouring rain and I’m curled up on the couch under a quilt trying to get better. 🙂
Feeling perfectly blechy I will simply share a photo today, one of my absolute favorite tarts: Blueberry Cherry Tart with Maple Cream. Gnite!
The perfect thing to made a sick day better
Welcome to Fabulous Friday where I feature a beloved cook, be they friend, family member or stranger.
With the launch of www.ramblingtart.com I simply had to feature the woman who taught me how to cook: my Mums. I love this picture of her, so happy surrounded by her kids and hubby.
I have so many amazing food memories with Mums – chocolate porridge, Vietnamese noodle soup, and Hungry Man Casserole – but I think my favorite is Sunday dinner.
Mums is the queen of idyllic Sunday dinners, rising early in the morning to slather up chickens with olive oil, stuff them with whole heads of garlic or chunks of lemon and sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper.
She would never dream of roasting the birds without first browning them beautifully, letting the high heat melt away the fat and turn the skin crisp and salty.
While the chickens roast a while on their own, she busies herself washing and chopping veggies – fingerling potatoes, turnips, parsnips, sweet potatoes, great chunks of onion and more garlic. Tossing them together in a big metal bowl, she glugs olive oil over the lot, adds salt, pepper and fresh rosemary from her garden, then nestles them in around the roasting chickens, pops them in the oven and dashes off to church.
This week Mums coated the veggies with heavy whipping cream instead of olive oil and the results were divine! Even the potatoes were moist and tender, their skins a lovely golden brown from the cream.
All of us kids love visiting Mums and Dad on Sundays, my brothers oh-ho-ho-ing appreciatively as they come in out of the cold to a house filled with the scent of roasted chicken.
After hanging up coats and scarves we natter away while setting the table with Mums’ cobalt blue dishes, carrying platters of steaming food from the stove, settling in to our usual chairs and bowing our heads for prayer. A quick one, lest a skin form on the gravy. 🙂
We linger longest over Sunday dinners, everyone getting seconds, the occasional hand snaking out for just one more potato, one last slice of chicken as we visit.
Afterward we adjourn to the living room for British murder mysteries and hot cups of Earl Grey tea with cream and maple syrup.
Thanks for making Sundays so beautiful, Mums. I love you!
My beautiful Mums
Welcome to Plucky Thursday, the day where I attempt culinary feats that scare, daunt or otherwise befuddle me.
This week I faced the soufflé, that beautiful, airy dish whose very name causes me to inwardly tremble.
Naturally reticent to experiment before a crowd, I forced myself to make them not just for me, but for my entire Culinary Experimentation Group – a band of marvy friends who meet every Monday night to cook, imbibe and engage in lively conversation
I settled on Gluten-Free Spinach Goat Cheese Soufflés to accommodate the gluten-free diet of one of our members.
Arriving at Don’s house – the scene of our convivial evenings – on a particularly blustery night, I struggled through the buffeting winds, my arms loaded down with eggs, soft goat cheese and bags of spinach.
Greeting one and all I put on a brave face, calming myself with the familiar routines of chopping, steaming and grating. Finally the ingredients were assembled, hand-whipped egg whites folded in and I poured the mixture into twice-buttered ramekins and slid them into the oven.
I tried not to look for the first 15 minutes, and when the timer beeped I was appalled to discover the soufflĂ©s hadn’t risen a smidge! I paced to and fro in front of the oven, willing them to poof, PLEASE POOF!!! But they just sat there, in all their gooey, cheesy goodness, getting hotter but not bigger.
Mike and Darren hovered close by, ricing potatoes and stirring sticky lemon chicken.
“Just give it a little more time,” Darren suggested as we peered in through the glass door. We waited another five minutes. Nothing.
Mike urged me to do the “poofy dance”, sure that would do the trick. He obliged us with a demonstration which produced much hilarity but no poofing.
Another three minutes passed, then five, and then HUZZAH!!! Up they came! Golden brown and wondrously poofy!
Soufflés, you are my friend!
Gluten-Free Spinach Goat Cheese Soufflés
Ingredients:
Softened butter, to grease the ramekins
1 bag organic spinach, washed
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 Tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 Tbsp butter
3 Tbsp finely chopped onion
1 tsp finely minced garlic
2 Tbsp sorghum flour
2 Tbsp potato starch
A pinch of Cayenne pepper, or to taste
1 cup milk
7 ounces soft goat’s cheese, crumbled
2 tbsp finely grated Parmesan
4 large eggs, separated
Directions:
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