Trifle Day 2014

Happy birthday to me! I kind of can't believe I turned 29 on Saturday. My last year before my thirties. My first year having a child, owning a house. 29 is marked as a pivotal point in stereotypes - eternally 29! - but I think it will be pivotal to me for how much change it brings into my life. I may remember 29 as the year of being broke and sleep-deprived!

I always find birthdays, along with New Year and the start of September, make me reflect on the year past and consider the goals I need to be working towards. Some goals I want to keep in mind for 29 are to stay strong on the budgeting front and really focus on sticking to cash purchases. No more credit! I want to be focused on my fitness both before and after baby - ideally I'd like to be back to my pre-pregnancy weight by Christmas. That means not letting my pregnancy weight gain get out of control, and being diligent about actually exercising. I'll admit I've never been good at that. I want to keep up with this blog (I say that every time I set goals, but I struggle to follow through with any regularity). Most importantly, I want to be better about connecting with family and friends. Making dinner parties, brunches, and get-togethers happen more often. Being better about picking up the phone or shooting off a quick e-mail or note. I know that a lot of people find it difficult to balance having a child with their pre-child relationships, and I don't want that to happen to me. My friends are an extended family that has been with me through so much. I don't want to lose any of these people through neglect.

But enough about goals and reflection - my birthday is always celebrated with an annual Trifle Day! Tim and I stopped in town Friday night to pick up trifle supplies. I make enough trifle to really comfortably feed twenty people, or that can be stretched to feed thirty. I make it in a large glass punch bowl/cake plate that I bought at Knock on Wood back in university for this exact purpose. We had twenty-one this year and there was only the tiniest bit left over - I have it in the fridge for a snack. It does feed a lot of people, but I'll warn you that it isn't cheap. I usually spend between $50 to $70 each year, plus it takes an hour or two to prep and assemble if you're doing it on your own. Without any further ado:

Laura's Birthday Trifle

Ingredients:
2 - angel food cakes
2 - 170 g clamshells of blueberries
2 - 170 g clamshells of raspberries
2 - 1 lb clamshells of strawberries
6 kiwis
2 - 1 L containers of Cool Whip, thawed
1 - 500 mL container of sour cream
1 cup of milk
2 - 4 servings pkgs of vanilla pudding mix

1. Prep your cake: Cut the angel food cakes into approximately 1" cubes.
2. Prep your fruit: Wash the berries. Cut the strawberries into chunks the same size as your blueberries and raspberries. Peel the kiwis and cut into chunks the same size as your berries.
3. Prep your cream: Mix together sour cream and milk. Thoroughly mix in both packages of vanilla pudding mix. Fold in both containers of Cool Whip.
4. Cover the bottom of your trifle dish with cream, then a layer of cake, then a layer of fruit. Repeat until you've used up all of your ingredients. I can usually get three layers in my large dish.

From this:

To this:

To this!

Have a happy trifle day!

Dinner Tonight - Tomatillo Braised Chicken

Tim and I have been doing better this summer than last at finishing up our By the Bushel veggies. However, that isn't to say some things don't stump us (especially not since Tim threw out a bag of unidentifiable green goo - it might have once been lettuce - and a particularly rotted bag of tomatoes tonight). Tomatillos looked to be going that way until I stumbled across BevCooks' Braised Chicken in a Tomatillo Sauce. Part of the allure here was that I had everything to make it already in the kitchen, with a few adjustments.

Bev uses canned tomatillos. I'm not sure one could find canned tomatillos in Lakefield, plus I had a whole bag of them on my counter just waiting to mould. She also uses hominy. While she says that it is delicious (and I have no reason not to trust her), I don't know the first thing about it, including where to get it. Plus that would negate me making this from things I already had on hand. Crucial, given our newly tightened "Let's buy a house" budget.

The chicken is great - I love using chicken legs for braises like this. Perfect portion sizes and really cheap. The sauce is amazing. I could eat tonnes of this over rice. It has a little spice to it (although that will on some level depend on the heat of your jalapeno, they do vary) and a really great acidic sourness. Very different from anything I've had before and I really enjoyed it. 

Tomatillo Braised Chicken

Ingredients:
A dozen ripe tomatillos - make sure they fill the husks
1 small jalapeno pepper
Olive oil
2 chicken legs
Pinch cayenne pepper
1/4 large red onion, diced
2 medium cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
Lime juice, mine was from a squeeze bottle, I will not be ashamed
1 cup jasmine rice, uncooked
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat your oven to broil on high. Cover a baking sheet or dish with aluminum foil, making sure it comes up the sides. The tomatillos will release quite a bit of juice as they cook, and you want that juice for your sauce. Remove the husks from your tomatillos. The fruit inside is quite disagreeably sticky. You'll want to rinse that off, I don't really know how. I washed mine in a bowl with lukewarm water and white vinegar and they were still kind of sticky. I don't like it. However, get over your (my) aversion and put them stem side down in your prepared baking dish. While you're at it, wash your jalapeno and throw it in the baking dish as well. Put the dish under the broiler for a few minutes until everything blackens. Take out the dish and turn each item over. Put back under the broiler and wait until that side blackens. I do not recommend leaving your kitchen for this stage. Every time I leave the room when something is under the broiler, it is instantly charred past the point of no return. I don't understand the physics to this, but it's true.

Once everything is nicely charred, remove from the oven. Pull the stem out of the jalapeno. If you don't like heat, a) you maybe shouldn't have used the jalapeno, or b) slice it open and remove the seeds. I just left the seeds in because Tim and I both like a little bit of heat. Transfer the jalapeno, the tomatillos, and all liquid in the dish to a blender. Puree it until there aren't any chunks. I did all of this the day before and threw it into the fridge, but at this point it's ready to use.

Cook your rice according to your favourite method or the instructions on the bag. 

Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a deep-sided heavy frying pan (that you have a lid for) over medium-high heat. Add a bit of butter if you want your chicken to brown really nicely. Season the chicken with salt, pepper, and a bit of cayenne for more heat. Obviously skip the cayenne if you are not into spicy. Brown the chicken on both sides in the frying pan. It should take a few minutes per side. Remove the chicken to a plate and add the onions and garlic to the frying pan. Stir them around and let them cook down a little bit, maybe another five minutes. Pour in the tomatillo puree and add the chicken back in, then season with salt and pepper. Put the lid on and turn the temperature down to medium-low. Let this cook for about 25-30 minutes. When that's done, toss in the cilantro and a couple of tablespoons of lime juice. Serve over rice.

Makes two portions.

Our Wedding Food (plus recipe links!)

While most girls probably focus on the dress or the decorations or the guest list for their wedding (not that those weren't all heavily discussed in our household over the past eight months), for me, it was all about the food!

I was frequently asked, "So who is doing your catering?" Every single time, everything inside of me was yelling in response, "Me! Me-me-me!! I'm catering my own wedding!!" (I'm a bit of a control freak sometimes.)

Unfortunately, everyone around me thought (and was probably right) that that was a terrible idea, so I was slowly reigned in. We wound up hiring Tim's friend Carlos to do the ribs and chicken at $10 a head. He was incredible. The chicken was roasted, while the ribs were slow-cooked and then finished off on the grill. He also made three sauces that people could choose from to sauce their own meats. One was a hot and sour sauce, there was a traditional BBQ sauce, and then a honey-garlic sauce. We chose to do the sauces separately because of a serious garlic allergy among our guests, and it worked out SO well. People could have no sauce, tons of sauce, one sauce, all the sauces. Loved it. Carlos and his wife Andrea were also so crucial to keeping the whole dinner running smoothly. They were there to answer any questions, refill everything, and direct the other two kitchen helpers, Marie and Renee, that Wendy had hired.

Wendy contributed to the buffet as well. She made the caprese salad with mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil. I know there was a last minute panic on Thursday to find the perfect local tomatoes, and she bought a ridiculously good $30 bottle of balsamic from Chasing the Cheese for people who wanted extra drizzle. She also catered in the potato salad from BE Catering in Peterborough. It had heirloom potatoes, red peppers, celery, green onions, red onions, grainy Dijon mustard, vinegar, salt and pepper, parsley, dill, and a little bit of Miracle Whip. (Miracle Whip? Really? I would have used mayonnaise.) Both salads were delicious.

Wendy's friend Betty-Ann added a kale salad and my Mom made two different types of green salads. I think Dean picked up buns at Costco.

Photo by Ree Drummond (a.k.a The Pioneer Woman)

Even though I was downgraded from my original plans of doing everything, I still made the pasta salad. I'm so glad I wasn't allowed to do more, because it's amazing how much of a mess that was! We had about six containers left over, but this is how much I originally made for 140 people:

• 5 x 900 g bags of pasta
• 2 kgs of Bothwell smoked cheddar cheese from Chasing the Cheese
• 6 quarts of currant tomatoes from McLean's Berry Farm
• Leaves from 18 stems of basil from Twin Pine Farm
• 6-1/2 cups of mayonnaise
• 3-1/4 cups of whole milk
• 3-1/4 cups of white vinegar
• 6-1/2 tsps salt
• Lots of freshly cracked black pepper

I don't know how I would have done this without my Kitchenaid stand mixer and Shannon's big canning pot to cook the pasta and mix everything in. I just used my hands to mix it all together. None of my spoons were long enough. It fit PERFECTLY into 20 of the extra-large Foodland deli containers, which they sold me for 10 cents each. The currant tomatoes were PERFECT because they're so teeny-tiny! I didn't have to cut them, which saved tons of time.

Here's the recipe, in semi-normal proportions: Spicy Pasta Salad with Smoked Gouda, Tomatoes, and Basil. 

Photo courtesy of Lisa Soltermann

For dessert, Shannon busted her butt making miniature cupcakes all week, half chocolate and half vanilla. Angel, Blaire, Sarah, and even Owen helped to ice them at the rehearsal dinner at Dean and Wendy's. Uncle Bob performed quality control by eating any that didn't look up to his standards. The cupcakes were more of an addendum to dessert, though, since I knew all along that what I really wanted for the wedding dessert was trifle! For nine years now we've been making a gigantic trifle in honour of my birthday. For the wedding, we just moved them into individual mini champagne glasses from Costco. Angel, Sarah, Shannon, and Owen worked their way through half of them on the day before the wedding, until we realized there just wasn't enough time to finish 150 of them. Luckily Kendra, Teri, Kristy, and Jess stepped in the morning of the wedding and finished the rest of them off. Everyone loved them!! They were so adorable! I was so excited to get to share the trifles with everyone. The trifle has a bit of folklore status with my friends after being made every year ONLY on my birthday for so long.

The recipe can be found here: Joy's Prizewinning Trifle. I usually mix the pudding mix with enough milk to make it smooth before adding in the sour cream and Cool Whip.

Sunday supper: Smoked Pepper Striploin, Corn on the Cob, and a Beet, Arugula, Goat Cheese and Pecan Salad

This is one of those quintessential summer meals that tastes so much more amazing than usual because everything is just so fresh!

Beet, Arugula, Goat Cheese and Pecan Salad

Wash four or five small to medium sized beets from your local farmer's market or co-op. Ours are a little of both - some from the Peterborough Farmer's Market and some from our farmer's co-op, By the Bushel. Trim the tops and bottoms off. Drizzle with a bit of olive oil, then roast at 375 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour, at least until you can pierce them easily with a fork. Cover with foil and let them sit for at least fifteen minutes to a half an hour - the steam will help loosen the skins. Once they're cool enough to handle, rub the skins off with your fingers or a dish towel that you don't mind becoming irreparably stained. I like to roast off a big batch of beets on a Sunday and then use them throughout the week. 

Cut your beets into quarters if they're small, or sixths if they're a bit larger. Arrange on a plate. Top with arugula, pecans (we actually wanted to use walnuts but didn't have any), and goat cheese. Drizzle with walnut oil (or any good quality salad oil) and balsamic vinegar (the one we used is from Oliviers & Co). Season with maldon sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper.

Smoked Pepper Steak

Buy a top quality P.E.I. striploin steak from Primal Cuts. Then buy a tub of smoked black pepper from Firehouse Gourmet. Rub a small amount of black pepper (it's really strong) and some sea salt onto the steak. BBQ until rare/medium rare. Let rest for at least five minutes while you boil the corn.

Corn on the Cob

Pick up some new August peaches and cream corn from a market or roadside stall. Husk it. Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil, add a few tbsps of salt. Add the corn and cook for five minutes or so. When the steam smells like corn, you're done.

Sunday morning brunch: Strawberry Cream Cheese Streudel

I started making this streudel for brunch this morning yesterday afternoon with our market strawberries from McLean's Berry Farm, only to remember that I don't actually own a rolling pin. I sent Tim to his parents' house to get a rolling pin, only to find out that theirs is missing a handle! I made it work. 

Strawberry Cream Cheese Streudel

1 brick full-fat cream cheese, at room temperature

1/3 cup sugar

2 egg yolks

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp salt

Cream together the cream cheese and sugar with a beater, or if you're lucky like me, in your KitchenAid stand mixer. Scrape down the sides and bottom into the mix a few times. When it's completely incorporated, add the egg yolks, vanilla, and salt. Let it mix until everything is fully integrated - you'll have to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl a few more times. Chill the cream cheese mix while you do the rest. 

10 (approximately) medium sized strawberries, washed, DRIED, and sliced

Please wash and dry your strawberries really well. Any extra water on them could make the pastry mushy.

1/2 pkg Tenderflake puff pastry, THAWED

Couple tbsps of milk or beaten egg white

 

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Rip off a piece of parchment paper big enough to cover your baking sheet. Lightly flour your rolling pin and the parchment paper. Roll out the puff pastry to approximately a 9x12" rectangle on the parchment paper. Arrange it so that the shorter side is facing towards you. Spread the cream cheese mix down the middle about 3" wide. Yes, use it all. Tim thought it was too much, but it isn't. Arrange the strawberries on top. Cut the side edges into horizontal strips up to the filling that are about 1 cm wide. Alternate folding those edges over the filling so that you have something of a braid. Use a little dab of milk or egg wash on each piece to help it stick to the next one. We used milk because I stupidly threw out the egg whites left over from the yolks for the custard. 

Transfer the pastry on the parchment paper to the baking sheet. Bake for 35-40 minutes. It should be lightly brown. Remove from oven and cool completely. A completely cool streudel will allow the glaze to actually stay on the surface instead of soaking into the pastry and becoming soggy.

1 cup icing sugar

Few tbsps of milk/table cream/heavy cream

Whisk little bits of milk into the icing sugar until you have a thick glaze. Drizzle the glaze over the streudel once it's completely cooled.