One of the Strangest Things I Ever Made: Dehydrated Butternut Squash

Starts like this:

Turns into this:

Then turns into this:

 

Weird, huh? Yeah, I thought so too. So you take a butternut squash, peel it, cube it (1-inch cubes), soak the cubes for 8 hours in cold water (or overnight), drain, put them on a baking sheet, and stick it in the oven (or dehydrator. Imagine! What luxury) on the lowest possible temperature with the door open for about 16 hours. Turn the pieces over about halfway. Better yet, put the pieces on a rack so they dry on all sides at once and you can cut the dehydrating time in almost half. 

Of course, I can't follow a recipe for the life of me. So I forgot to soak the squash, which is the whole point; it makes it easier to digest. I then puréed the whole thing for some reason (I guess I figured the liquid would evaporate more easily that way?) and lined a baking sheet with the purée. God was it hard to blend that thing. Took forever. I had to coax my blender into cooperating by promising it something liquid later, such as a juicy smoothie with no ice cubes. I tell you, that thing's a workhorse, though. Wouldn't trade it for anything, not even a VitaMix. (Wouldn't trade it, but would accept a VitaMix as a gift).

Then I stuck it in the oven as per the instructions above. Took forever to dehydrate, more than 16 hours. I added fresh thyme, though, which was a lovely idea for once. You need to stir it in or it'll just dry out and be bland, though. 

Hours and hours later I sort of flipped the stuff over and broke it up a little. It's the inside that doesn't dehydrate well so the more surface area exposed to air the better. I even stuck it back in the blender after about 12 or 16 hours to break it more. It ended up looking like a strange kind of granola and the colour got bright orange, though the flesh had originally been pale. The taste is really interesting! Usually squash is mild and sweet, but this was a lot more pungent. With an acid (vinegar), it would work REALLY well. So I'd use this as a garnish for salad with a vinegar dressing. Kind of like raw croutons. They take a fair bit of chewing, but they're interesting. Originally the recipe from Rawmazing said to wrap it up with sage and some raw nut cream but that didn't sound like a good idea, so I just snacked a little. Just want to say that I'm glad I'm not actually "raw", and experimenting with these things is just fun and not a "life or not-eating" (aka death) thing...

Lemon and Thyme Roasted Fennel: "How Did I Get So?"

Dear Fennel,

I feel as though a beautiful song by Ingrid Gatin aptly reflects how I feel about our relationship. Please watch this video before reading the rest of my letter:

"Time swelled the moment that we started"...I washed you and cored you carefully, then thinly sliced you because what we had was new and fragile, and you always tiptoe at the beginning of a new relationship, tread softly. So I wanted to roast you long and slow at 450 degrees Fahrenheit for 35 minutes, turning you only once so you didn't burn. I saw you as something so naturally beautiful that all I wanted you to wear was a little oil (olive), cologne (thyme), and your own sweat (sprinkle of salt). My small hands cautiously explored your skin while I dressed you slowly.

"Make way for love, make way for heart-ache"...At first you seemed so sweet to me, but every conversation became a little more bitter, as if you were being bathed in lemon juice. I only wanted a little since the sweetness had been overpowering, but there was no substance to your words and your body turned from strong and firm to weak and watery. But I was the one whose eyes were close to tears.

"How did I get so"...fooled, lead astray, disappointed...underwhelmed? I wanted your lips to taste like licorice and your skin to yield to me its sweetness. Alas, it was not to be.

Fennel, I hoped we could have something real, but you weren't ready for me this year. Maybe a year apart will help you grow - mature, even - and next summer we'll be at a place in both our lives where we'll be ripe for each other. If you run to California and drive the long distance back to me once my city of Montreal has melted away the cold, I'll never want to see you again. You can't have the best of both worlds. Stay, instead, here in the ice and the storms, ride out the winter, and if in summer we run into each other again, I'll again chase the candy of your lips.

With love, always.

One Love Fennel: Roasted Pasta Sauce or Ragout

I went to my fruit guy in Jean-Talon, Leopoldo. He doesn't do local. Neither did he have ataulfo mangoes (though he did the next week), and I knew the white peach and white nectarine seasons were over, so why did I go back to him? Because that's my Sunday. He makes my Sunday a happier day, what with his slightly intimidating self-assured nature that inspires trust.

And it turned out that white nectarines are back in season in California!!! I nearly died of joy.  Leopoldo said they were good, so I bought them. They were better than the Ontario ones, he said (and he was right, since I haven't had a really good Ontario one all season for some reason...you can't get the sweeter white ones from there now anyway, and I'm very picky). Unfortunately he was wrong about them being good, and my world collapsed a little, my heart tore at its tender seams, and I felt a bit spiritually lost.

Every last nectarine tasted like starch. It's true they weren't ripening properly in my frigid kitchen (1 degree celcius yesterday! That's madness) but they just turned to mush and went bad. There were a few that were almost trying to be flavourful, but they failed miserably...

But this post is not about nectarines. It's about fennel. Those too I found at Leopoldo's before I knew how crushed my heart could be by a man and his nectarines.

I have an ongoing love affair with fennel. I used to hate the anise flavour of the vegetable until I found a recipe a few years ago that said to roast it and then add a tiny, tiny bit of lemon juice and the natural sweetness of the vegetable comes out and the bitterness gets roasted away. I ate a whole fennel bulb that way and again nearly died of joy. I suppose I have a lot of near-death experiences with fruits and vegetables...

In Quebec this season the rain hasn't been right for fennel growing. I bought local, organic ones only once this summer and braised them with fibrous, wiry results (recipe #2 in my "Recipe For Disaster" cookbook?) AND they were really expensive! $3 or $3.50 for just one dwarfed heart.

But Leopoldo had a sale on. $5 for 3 of the big, juicy ones. I was sold. Even on the last organic farmers' market day of the season of Marché Fermier I chose to take up valuable granny cart space with three big bulbs of non-local fennel. That's how much I love these things.

So I decided to roast two of these guys according to my roasting bible in a recipe meant for pasta sauce, but which I would just have just with bread, and then I'd roast the third bulb according to my standard, simple roasted fennel with lemon recipe. Here's the first:

Roasted Fennel with Tomato (Pasta Sauce or Bread Topping or Sandwich Filling...or Snack)
2 bulbs fennel
1 head garlic (mmm...roasted garlic...)
1 tbsp fennel seeds (overkill, but nice)
2 tbsp olive oil
4 plum tomatoes, chopped (I used fresh green ones...bad idea! They weren't nearly sweet enough and they weren't plums, so the acidic, bitter juices got into the fennel and killed them in their over-heated sleep. You're also only supposed to end up with 2/3rds of a cup, but I had about a cup and a half of tomatoes to use up, so that's what went in...again, not a good idea. Try to cut the tomatoes evenly so they roast evenly, and again, smaller is better)
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
kosher salt (or other) and ground black pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 450 Fahrenheit. Cut the fennel bulbs (wash them first) through the core and into quarters. Then cut out the tough core of each. Finally slice the outer layers into 1/8" slices. It doesn't really matter how thickly you slice them. They'll just take more or less time to cook, but I find the thinner ones end up crisper and the bigger ones are more watery, so slimmer is better in this case. In a BIG baking sheet or roasting pan toss the fennel slices with everything else and spread it as thinly as possible in the pan.

Once the oven is preheated, roast the fennel for 35-45 minutes. Don't stir or turn unless it's looking as though it'll burn at any second and it's not quite done yet. Voila dinner.

If you want to make this into pasta sauce, cook some pasta, drain it and return it to the pot. Add the roasted mixture, scraping in all the delicious blackened bits. Add about 2 more tablespoons of olive oil, then tear a cup of fresh basil leaves from their stems and add those. To serve, toss in a little mozzarella or parmiggiano reggiano (please, please, please do not use pre-powdered "parmesan" cheese. You'll break my heart more than the nectarines and Leopoldo did).

You know, I was expecting the fennel to make up for the lacklustre nectarines, but again, I was a little disappointed. I mean, they weren't bad, but I think I cut them too thickly and they ended up too watery. I also think my tomatoes were too juicy (and I used too many), but really the fennel flavour should have still been strong and dreamy, and I should have fallen in love with the aroma from my kitchen. In and out, in and out...I know, it's a bad cycle.

Alas, food is fickle and my heart is not a plaything. I also feel as though maybe I deserved this for buying so much imported fruit and vegetables. Surely the flavour just couldn't be as good as what I could get organic and local. Maybe I'm the fickle one, since the next day I fell in love with eggplant all over again. Well, to be fair, I fell in love with eggplant in sesame oil, so I mostly fell in love with a quarter cup of sesame oil. That sponge-y local, organic eggplant just soaked it all up and caressed my broken heart (and stomach).

Herbes Salées and Roasted Potatoes

Salted herbs: take some herbs and add salt. Or buy a small container of minced herbs preserved in salt. I found a nice bottle at an organic place I like and decided to give it a test drive. Seems to wasteful, I know, but there had to be something special about it. See, there are vegetables in this herb mixture too, so I figured it would be a higher vegetable-to-salt ratio than if I just added salt by itself. So maybe the sodium content is actually lower than an equivalent amount of salt because you're diluting it with vegetables. Maybe not. Basically it's overpriced salt, but you pay for the convenience of not chopping and mincing all these vegetables yourself. Ah, modern day consumers.

I had some organic new potatoes that tasted divine, so I chopped them a little, threw them in a roasting pan with a teaspoon or 2 of olive oil and maybe 1/2 a teaspoon of herbes salées. That stuff is pungent. Or just sprinkle with salt, oil, and your dried herb of choice. You can also add other vegetables but good luck mincing them like those in my container of French salted things. Toss to coat and place in a preheated 400 degree Fahrenheit oven for about 15 minutes. Take them out of the oven, use a lifter (you may need to scrape) to turn them over, and stick them back in the oven for another 10-15 minutes. They should be soft. Test one and if it's soft enough for you it's done. If you chop them all the same size, they should all be done. If not, test a bigger one because if a bigger one is done, then the small ones definitely will be too.

You can roast at a lower heat for longer if you have the time, or higher heat (and watch them carefully so they don't burn) for shorter. It also depends on the size of your potatoes. The smaller they are the faster they'll roast.

Use good quality potatoes and you'll be very, very happy. Yes, potatoes taste like something, and small new potatoes taste sweet and smooth. A tiny bit of lemon juice is good to add at the end if you like a more acidic potato. Mediterranean-style. I didn't feel up to it. Felt more French. The French would cry.

The Plateau Farmers Market and My Negotiations with Garlic Scapes

Last week my roommate and I had house-guests (not including the cat currently residing with us temporarily. She makes herself way too much at home to consider as a guest...). The guests we had, the good kind, were just in town for a few days, but that was enough time to make our way to the city's best farmer's markets. I need to clarify something here. "Farmer's Market" to me doesn't exactly mean Jean-Talon. Sure, it's a huge market, but there are lots of shops that are not owned by farmers or farms. To be fair, most smaller farmer's markets, the kind where small booths are set up in an area on a specific day and all the vendors drive in for it) isn't always all farmers, but this one actually is. Even a nice man who sells his nature photography at the Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue farmer's market every Saturday morning isn't even allowed to sell at the Plateau farmer's market every Sunday from 10am-2pm.

Everything being sold at that market is food or drink, local, and organic. Jean-Talon is far from organic. As much as I love my fruit guy, Leopoldo, I know what I'm buying. Most of those vegetables were sprayed with things that shouldn't really be eaten. Save a few stalls, there isn't a whole lot of organics being offered by the farmers and not farmers of the city's biggest markets.

I had a point once.

Oh, my point was that I hate garlic scapes. I need to say it now to make sure I get back to it. These house guests and I went to the Plateau farmers market, and purchased all sorts of lovely things.
We sat down to a really nice picnic lunch of the organic gazpacho with sprouts and whole grain toasted bread offered by the Market's main stall. Our guests also purchased a container of garlic scapes pesto. One was vegan and this cheese-free pesto was perfect with the baguette from a delicious bakery stall.
They offered to share their pesto but I really hate garlic scapes. In French, they're called "fleur d'ail". They're the twisted, long green things that look like green onions in the picture below. You can use them in soups, salads, stir-fries, anything where you'd use garlic. They're supposedly milder than garlic, but I always seem to eat them in raw form (salads and spreads) and the bad breath stays with me all day. I also find they're often very tough and not chewy, so even in soups they don't want to soften up enough to not ruin the texture. They are great, however, if you purée them. Still, I politely declined my house guests' offer to share the garlic scape pesto.
When they moved on from Montreal they left the rest of the bottle of pesto in my fridge. What am I going to do? I don't like this stuff, but it's high quality, local, and organic. Hmm...well, it's swimming in oil, so the next time I need to sautée garlic for a recipe, I'll just toss in a tablespoon of the pesto. PERFECT!So I decided to make a risotto. I didn't buy wine that day at the market, since my house guests also left about half a cup of an organic local kind you can find at the SAQ ("Orpailleur". I've taste-tested the whole line, but they don't offer the best ones at the SAQ. The white and red you can fine are perfectly fine table wines, though). I could have used a nice honeywine from Desrochers winery and honey farm if I'd wanted something sweeter, but carrying bottles of wine home on my bike is not my ideal bike trip. I had oyster mushrooms and a beautiful shallot from the Ethiopian farmer at McGill's Organic Campus, so I cheated with a bit of chicken broth leftover from some amazing pho' ga from Pho Lien and I even used basmati rice. This was going to be a weird risotto.

Since this really turned into a post on the Farmer's Market, I'll give the risotto recipe tomorrow. If you're not a patient person I'll spoil the results for you and say that the risotto was just okay. It was sticky and delicious in texture, but if I hadn't served it with grilled fish with fleur de sel, it would have been bland. Thank goodness for sea smelt. "Grilled fish" sounds so much nicer, doesn't it? Ah, North American expectations.

Roasted Sweet Potatoes

This is the best side dish in the world, possibly besides roasted sweet potato fries. All you need is:

As many sweet potatoes as you want
Aluminum foil to wrap the sweet potatoes
A fork
Salt
Pepper (optional)
Other spices (optional)
a teaspoon of oil (optional)
An oven (definitely not optional, unless you have a BBQ)

In most recipe books that means that all you need is sweet potatoes because it's assumed that you'll have the rest. Geez, you don't even need a baking sheet. I used a knife because I wanted to shorten the cooking time, but you don't even need that. You certainly don't need a knife to eat the result. They will be soft and taste like candy.

Instructions:
1. Wash the sweet potatoes. Don't you dare peel them. The skin is the best part.

2. Prick the sweet potatoes with a fork (they'll explode in the oven if you don't prick them...)

3. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

4. Sprinkle the sweet potatoes with the salt and pepper (and oil if you want, but you don't need it). I actually sprinkled them with sake even though you don't actually need any liquid, because that's what I had leftover from the Asian-Inspired Dinner Party...you'll see an antena of that part in the corner of the picture above...recipe post to come...

You can also add other spices, like the ones you would use to make sweet potato fries, like paprika, cayenne, oregano, basil, garlic powder. Almost anything, but keep it simple the first time and experiment after you've had your first success. The potatoes are great plain, or served with butter. The melted butter made a whole lot of sense with the antenna part of the meal (see bottom right corner of photo above)...I also had a bit of chili-garlic paste left over that I used as a kind of dip...mmm...garlic.

5. Wrap the sweet potatoes in aluminum foil (shiny side facing in. The shiny metal in theory keeps the heat in and roasts the sweet potatoes more evenly, instead of reflecting the heat out of the foil), tightly, and place directly into the oven. Roast until tender, about an hour and 15 minutes. You can also roast at a higher temperature, say 425 degrees, and cut the roasting time to about 45 minutes, but I like the long and slow version and I actually had enough time for once. If you want them to cook a fair bit faster, or you just don't want whole roasted sweet potatoes, cut them into similarly-sized pieces before wrapping them in foil. You can wrap them individually or in packets.

6. The sweet potatoes are done when you open the foil and you can easily insert a fork into the flesh. They shouldn't be too mushy and falling apart, but they should be softened. Just like baked regular potato. In fact, you can make this recipe with any kind of potato, but the sweetness is amazing...Also sweet potatoes have a higher water content, I'm pretty sure, so they cook faster.

Enjoy summer and sweet potatoes and barbecuing!!!