The Funky Kitchen

As I have mentioned before, the Mister is allergic to nuts. All of this is much to his chagrin; his nut allergy is not very severe and so he had the opportunity to enjoy lovely nutty food before he found out about his allergy. He knows what hazelnuts taste like, and he likes them a lot. But, he cannot have any, due to concerns that if he exposes himself to them too often that his allergy could become anaphylactic. His doctor says that Mister is one of the few patients he has who actively wants to involve himself with what he is allergic to.

What Mister wants the most is: Nutella. He laments about the chocolatey, hazelnutty goodness that comes in that jar. He wants some on his toast, knows how yummy it would be, but alas, no Nutella for him.

Which is why I was so excited when I read a recipe for Tahini Nutella on Taste of Beirut. A recipe for a version of Nutella that didn’t contain anything he was allergic to? I’d hit the jackpot.

We went on our hunt for tahini (stores never seem to put it in a logical place) and got out the chocolate from the pantry. I set up a bain-marie, got the butter and chocolate melting…

and the power went out.

So we improvised, got out our flashlights, used an eggbeater instead of a food processor, made toast for the taste test directly on one of the burners on the stove. Here is a record of our adventure:

No Nut Nutella

(adapted from Tahini-Nutella by Joumana at Taste of Beirut)

1/2 Cup butter

200 grams dark chocolate

10 oz sweetened condensed milk (I opened a 14 oz can and froze the rest for later use)

1/3 Cup tahini (or more to your taste, Mister decided it was nutty enough with 1/3 Cup)

• On the stove, if you don’t have a double boiler, set up a bain-marie by filling a pot part way with water, placing it on the stove top, and putting a heat safe bowl over the pot. Turn on the element or burner, and allow the water to come to a boil, then reducing the heat so that the water simmers.

• Melt the butter (by placing it in the bowl over the pot, and letting it melt in the heat. Stir occasionally, if you wish).
• Add the chocolate, in two portions to the butter, also allowing it to melt. Stir often, so that you end up with a smooth chocolate-butter mixture.

• Add the sweetened concentrated milk to the bowl, stirring until mixed.
• Beat with an egg beater, or if you have electricity perhaps a blender or food processor, until smooth.

• Beat (yes, with the egg beater) in tahini slowly, stopping to taste test, until your no nut nutella has reached the desired level of nuttyness.

After you allow the no nut nutella to cool, you can put it in a jar to be kept in the fridge. Or, if you’re feeling impatient in the dark, you can dip toast soldiers, apple slices, and banana bites into the still warm concoction, for a tasty nutella-like fondue.

In the morning, when the power was back on, Mister had toast with no nut nutella on it for breakfast. He says he tastes the difference, it’s not hazelnut-y, but that it is a good replacement. The chocolate and nutty tahini flavor still make for good toast!

If you’ve got someone in your household with nut allergies, or just want to give tahini-nutella a try, I’d really suggest the recipe. It’s pretty darn tasty!

People from Manitoba have an innate tendency to talk about the weather. It probably comes from living in a province that ranges 70°C on an average year. We get frigid weather to super sweaty and everything in between, so we talk about it. All of the time. I try to avoid doing it here, because all of you are in different climes and probably aren’t that interested, but just bear with me, I do have a point.

It is officially HOT! We topped out at 32° C today, and around these parts when it gets hot it also gets humid. It’s muggy and sweaty and my hair has reached epic proportions of enormity, but still, it’s way better this way than the 40° below it will be in January.

It’s the type of hot where, on the seven minute walk to the farmer’s market, you’ll sweat from your elbow pits and the backs of your knees. Being as fair as I am, days like this are the ones where I feel the tingle of sunburn creeping in under my layer of sunscreen.

When it’s this warm out, all additional effort required to get things done is questioned and debated over. Is it worth it to go to the farmer’s market? Of course it is, there’s treasure abounding in the market this time of year. Will it take too much energy to walk? Well, the walk isn’t that long, but it will be hot. It just seems a waste to start the car for that short a distance. I planned on baking something today, do I want to heat up the oven? No.

But you know what? Despite summer bringing sunburn, giant hair, and avoidance of activity, it also brings something glorious. Tomatoes. This is a way to highlight their tomato-y glory with very little effort and good results.

Summer Tomatoes with Feta and Balsamic

2 ripe tomatoes

a chunk of feta cheese, about 1.5 inches square, or ~2 Tbsp

1 Tbsp of reduced balsamic vinegar

black pepper, freshly cracked

• Slice your tomatoes, about a quarter of an inch to half an inch thick, perpindicular to their radial symmetry (or, latitudinally rather than longitudinally).

• Arrange the tomato slices on a plate, overlapping slightly on the edges, in a single layer.

• Crumble the feta cheese over top of the tomatoes, making sure to distribute it evenly. It’s no fun to have all of the tasty cheese only on the middle tomatoes.

• Drizzle the tomatoes and feta with the reduced balsamic vinegar, once again, paying attention to even distribution.

• If it doesn’t take too much energy to do on these hot summer days, crack some black pepper over top.
• Savor!

And there you go, in five minutes, hopefully with little to no sweat being shed, a gorgeously tasty way to use up the tomatoes of summer.

Now, should I get the oven preheated for that baking I wanted to do? Nah, maybe it’ll be a little cooler tomorrow, tomorrow will be the day for baking.

What are your favorite things about potatoes?

The comforting umami flavor in a baked potato? The dreamy creamy softness of a mashed potato? The crispy bite of the exterior of a roasted potato? That they go well with almost anything? Their divine pairing with butter? The carbohydrate content? (I know I’m not the lone carbohydrate addict out there).

All of the above are my favorite things about potatoes.

When I was a littler girl than I am now, my mom, brother and I would have supper at my Grandma’s every Wednesday. I would get to choose the menu one week, then my brother would choose it next. My choice was always roast beef, cloud potatoes and gravy. I didn’t really care too much about the roast, except that it allowed for gravy to be made. I really did like the gravy (and still do) but it was important because of the giant pile of cloud potatoes on my plate. Yes, they were really just mashed potatoes, but with the imaginative flare my grandma imparted into us, they were clouds on our plates. Cloud potatoes were my favorite.

Maybe it was the years of cloud potatoes, maybe it’s my Irish-Ukranian heritage, but potatoes are such a perfect food. So many of my favorite meals still include potatoes of some sort. And these potatoes hit the spot! Once again Nigella Lawson has just the right thing. A potato that offers comforting potato flavor, lovely potato cloudy softness, crispy edges… All of these things that I adore about potatoes, in addition to being easy to prepare and looking like striped potato caterpillars.

Hasselback potatoes are the potatoes that can do it all! And here is how:

Hasselback Potatoes

(adapted from Hasselback Potatoes in Nigella Lawson’s Forever Summer)

2 medium sized potatoes, scrubbed but not peeled

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 Tbsp Butter

1/4 tsp salt

• Preheat the oven to 400° F.
• Place one of your potatoes into a large spoon, so that the bottom of the potato is cradled in the spoon.
• Take a knife, and cut across the potato, through to the spoon, at as small of an interval as you can easily manage (~ a few millimeters). The spoon is serving as a cradle during the cutting process, so that all of the ‘leaves’ that are cut in this step are still attached to the ‘spine’, if you think of your potato as a book.

• Heat the olive oil and butter to sizzling on the stove top and brown all sides of your potatoes, starting cut side down (or, spine side up, if that helps you visualize).
• Place the potatoes in a roasting dish, cut side up (or spine side down, for those of you following along) and spoon the fat over them.
• Sprinkle with salt.
• Pop the potatoes into the oven for 40 minutes.
• Then, turn up the heat to 450° F, and continue to roast them for 10 more minutes, or until the potatoes are cooked through and tender, but the edges of all the ‘leaves’ are crispy and browned.
• Remove from the oven and serve.

This recipe only makes two potatoes because I was only cooking for two people. It should multiply linearly very easily to feed whatever size of party you are cooking for. Mmm… just thinking about these makes me want to go downstairs and sneak a couple of crispy bits from Mister’s that is waiting for him to come home.