Trooper has developed a really adorable habit on our walks. Dandelions are his enemy. When he comes across them in his path he pounces on them and gets all snarly bounding and leaping from weed to weed, biting off the blooms, leaving the wreckage behind him.

What dandelions ever did to him, I don’t think I’ll ever know, but he sure is adorable in the process. Trooper the Wonder Puppy is a friend to gardeners and a scourge to the dandelion population.

Trooper is also very interested in salads when they smell like bacon.

Spinach and Bacon Salad with Pickled Red Onion and Feta

(adapted from Chef Michael Smith’s Kitchen: 100 of My Favorite Recipes)

For the onions:

1 Cup sugar

1 Cup apple cider vinegar

1 tsp sriracha sauce

1 tsp freshly cracked pepper

pinch of salt

1 large red onion

For the salad:

8 slices of bacon

2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp Dijon mustard

salt and pepper

12 ounces spinach

6 ounces feta cheese

Directions

• Pickle the onions first. This can be done a day ahead. In a small saucepan, boil together the sugar, apple cider vinegar, sriracha, salt and pepper.
• Cut the onion into very thin rounds (if you have a mandoline, this is the perfect time for it.
• Add the onion to the pickling liquid and continue to simmer for 2 minutes.
• Allow to cool.
• Cook the bacon in a pan, reserving 1 Tbsp of the fat once finished.
• Dice the bacon.
• Whip up a vinaigrette using the reserved bacon fat, vinegar, olive oil and dijon. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
• Toss the spinach with the vinaigrette, and then garnish it with the cooked bacon, crumbled feta cheese and some slivers of pickled red onion.

This recipe gives you way more of the pickled red onion than you need to use in the salad. It’s been really tasty to sneak into other salads, and sandwiches as well. The difference a quick pickle can make, yum! Just store what’s left of your pickled red onions in a jar in the fridge.

Normally, I’m a stickler for a salad having good toothsome crunch, and spinach isn’t really the green to use for that. Still, this salad brings together smoky, sour, sweet, salty, and briny flavors perfect for an (almost) summer day.

Mr says that the pickled red onions go really well with the vinaigrette.

This time last year: Sour Cream Ice Cream

And the year before: Roasted Butternut Squash

Normally, such an open ended set of expectations would have sent me into a whirlwind of worry. How do you know if you’re doing it right if there isn’t a specification of what you are supposed to be doing? How do you ensure doing well at something if there aren’t really guidelines?

From my now doubled age (gasp!), I understand that the point was to write, improve our writing skills, and learn new things about it. But at the time it seemed like a somewhat crazy assignment; do this action for 20 minutes every day and you’ll eventually get scored on it.

The thing was, after the initial worry fest, I really grew to enjoy writing and the freedom of getting to do so on topics of my own choice. Getting notes in the margins about having a “strong voice” made a person feel pretty awesome, but the gentle reminders that proper paragraphs do serve their purpose, though somewhat frustrating , did improve my writing a lot.

Sometimes I wonder if falling in love with writing via sixth grade notebooks helped to lead me here, writing about food and life to you guys in the internet ether.  Either way, Mrs. Bollegraf, for making me fall in love with writing (and many other reasons), you are one of the teachers I hold in highest esteem through my illustrious educational career. I’m sorry my penmanship was so terrible back then.

Sundried Tomato, Snap Pea and Gouda Skewers

(recipe from Flavours: The Cookbook)

8 oz gouda

A package of snap peas

Sundried tomatoes

Directions

• Cut the gouda into pieces approximately 1″x1″x1/2″ in dimension.
• Trim the ends off of the snap peas and cut them into halves.
• Place the sundried tomatoes in a strainer and run under cool water to drain off the oil.
• Using a bamboo skewer or a tooth pick, pierce a sundried tomato, then 2 snap pea pieces, and then a cube of cheese. The cheese will be a steady base for these tasty morsels.
• Arrange on a platter and serve.

5714

You can have a plate of these together for a party in about 8 minutes flat, which is great in and of itself. The thing that makes these really worth making, though, is that the flavors are sensational together. The creamy gouda and rich, deep tomato flavors from the sundried tomato are offset by the bright greenness and crunch of the snap peas.

Mr liked them better without the snap peas, so he took his apart and ate the peas on their own.

This time last year: Chicken Thighs with North African Spice Paste

And the year before: Cardamom Honey Chocolate Tart

On Monday morning when he headed out, he left with a container of Fudge Drop cookies in his bag. They are kind of a cookie-brownie hybrid, gooey and unctuous but still cookie like enough to hold together. From what I hear, Mr and his fellows quite enjoyed them.

Fudge Drop Cookies

(Recipe from King Arthur Flour)

8 oz chocolate (I used 4 oz dark (70% cocoa), 4 oz milk)

3 Tbsp butter

1 Cup sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp espresso powder

1 tsp vanilla

1 Cup flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 Cup chocolate chips

Directions

• Melt together the chocolate and butter.
• In a second bowl, beat together the sugar and eggs until they are frothy.
• Combine the chocolate mixture with the egg mixture, and then stir in the rest of the remaining ingredients.
• The batter will be very loose, it will look like brownie batter. If you try to form it into cookies now, you will end up with puddles. So pop your cookie ‘batter’ into the fridge so that it firms up into a dough (~1 hour).
• Spoon the dough onto cookie sheets, to your desired size, and bake until just set (~11 minutes) in a 325° oven.

What I really love about these cookies is that they are covered in the shiny, cracked top that brownies have when you bake them. So cute! The espresso powder in these is a little bit much for me, coffee flavor makes my stomach turn, but it does intensify that chocolate (and Mr loves his coffee).

Mr says: These are like brownies disguised as cookies; soft insides with a nice crusty outside.

This time last year: How to Hard Boil an Egg

And the year before: Potato Salad Revisited

One week it would be my younger brother’s turn to pick, and he would pretty much invariably choose macaroni and cheese with breakfast sausages and carrot sticks. And the next week it would be my turn and I would ask for mashed potatoes and gravy.

I can hear your thoughts now, “But Dana, that isn’t a meal. That’s a side dish.” Which is true, but it was the part of the meal I cared about being on the table. So she would roast something, make gravy, and make her unbelievably awesome mashed potatoes. She made these lusciously smooth mashed potatoes, affectionately called cloud potatoes, because somehow using heavy things like  potatoes, butter and milk she made them gorgeously light, almost ethereal. Grandma’s are magical that way.

These aren’t her mashed potatoes (though now I feel I should make a phone call and find out how she does it), but from one mashed potato fiend to and of you lurking out there, these ones are pretty darn good too!

Browned Butter Mashed Potatoes

2 pounds potatoes

1/4 Cup butter

1/4 Cup milk

salt and pepper

• Peel half of your potatoes (or all of them if you are opposed to skins) and cut them into rough chunks.
• Boil until tender, then drain well.
• Place a saucepan over medium heat and brown your butter: After the butter melts it will foam up, but as the foam subsides, watch for the milk solids to start browning. Remove from heat.
• Mash the browned butter, milk, salt and pepper into the potatoes until luscious and smooth.

I’m going to love a potato pretty much no matter how it is presented to me, and like I said above, there is a special place in my heart for a potato that has been mashed. Adding browned butter to your mash is a really simple way to amp up the dish with extra flavor without adding too many extra steps. Nutty, buttery, creamy potatoes? I’ll have seconds!

Mr says: Brown butter makes everything better.

This time last year: How to Hard Boil an Egg

And the year before: Potato Salad Revisited

xoxoxo

Happy anniversary my dear handsome Mister. The last four years have been the best, and here’s to hopefully at least 60 more. I think we’re going to be adorable old people together. There isn’t a better best friend, or person to be in love with, I could ask for.

Blackberry Lemonade Popsicles

1 punnett blackberries

1/3 Cup sugar

6 ice cubes

2 lemons

water

Directions

• Put the blackberries and sugar together in a small saucepan.
• Mash the berries (a potato masher does the trick nicely), and place the pan over medium-low heat. Cook until the juices are bubbly and the sugar is completely dissolved.
• Remove the pan from heat, then add the ice cubes. They will cool the berry syrup quickly so that the flavor stays more fresh.
• While the ice cubes are melting, juice the lemons into the berry mixture.
• Blitz everything through the blender to break up any chunks, and then pour it through a fine mesh sieve to strain out the seeds.
• Add enough water that the recipe will fill your popsicle molds (~1/2 Cup).
• Pour into popsicle molds and freeze.

A few days before Easter I got a phone call from Mr’s mum. She was looking for a recipe for a curried chickpea salad; something she could whip up a batch of and keep in the fridge for a few days while bringing portions of it to work for lunch. I told her I was sure I could find something and that I’d make a batch for Easter supper, so we could try it out, and she would have some left to start off taking it for lunch.

I was pretty happy with how it turned out, as was Mr’s mum and the other Easter guests. The chickpeas take up the spicy, tangy vinaigrette really well. Next time, I would suggest a little more curry, because I would like the flavor to be a little more prevalent, but that’s just me.

There was one person who was downright unenthused about our curried chickpea salad, Mr. He’s the apple of my eye, but decidedly not a fan of chickpeas; nor does he enjoy curry. In his eyes this was pretty much salad gone wrong. Luckily, the Easter feast provided a lot of other options for him, so he could abstain from the chickpeas and the curry without missing too much of the meal.

Curried Chickpea Salad

(recipe adapted from Quick and Dirty in the Kitchen)

1/2 Cup sultanas

2 – 15 oz tins chickpeas

1 red bell pepper

2 tsp apple cider vinegar

2 Tbsp lime juice

1/4 Cup olive oil

2 tsp curry powder (I’ll increase to 1 Tbsp next time, I like a little more heat)

2 tsp maple syrup

1/2 tsp salt

1 punnett alfalfa sprouts

Directions

•  Soak the sultanas in some hot water so that they will plump up.
• Drain the tins of chickpeas and rinse them well.
• Dice the bell pepper.
• Put the three aforementioned ingredients together in a large resealable bowl.
• Add the apple cider vinegar, lime juice, olive oil, curry powder, maple syrup, and salt to a bowl and whisk together the vinaigrette.
• Drizzle the vinaigrette over the chickpea, sultana and pepper mixture, and seal the bowl. The longer you let it sit the more married the flavors will be.
• Add the alfalfa sprouts just before serving, so that they don’t get soggy, tossing to coat.
• Serve!

They are pretty much the best breakfast ever!

No, we aren’t eating babies for breakfast at our house; these awesome popovers turned pancakes just have a rather unique name. The batter gets poured into a piping hot pan and then baked off until it reaches a delectable equilibrium of fantastic fluffiness and browned crisp.

You can eat it with butter and syrup like a regular pancake, but what really makes it is serving it with lemon wedges and icing sugar. The sweet, tart, crisp and puff make for a special way to start the day whether it be for breafast, or for those late risers, brunch.

Here’s the secret to a good Dutch baby: the hotter the pan is, the better it rises. When it comes out of the oven, it should be bowl shaped, not flat like a regular pancake. This means that you need a pan that can go into your oven (no plastic handles in the oven!). I am a cast iron lover, and feel that it achieves the best crisp, but if you don’t have a cast iron pan any oven safe pan will do or even a pie plate or round cake pan. Try to stick with metal, though, I’ve tried Dutch babies in glass pie pans, and it just isn’t the same.

Dutch babies are what we eat for Christmas mornings at our house, and for other breakfasts and brunches through the year. If you haven’t had one yet: carpe diem!

Dutch Babies

(recipe adapted from Alton Brown’s Good Eats)

2 Tbsp butter

1/2 Cup flour

3 Tbsp sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 Cup milk (2% is what I used)

2 eggs

a lemon, cut into wedges

icing sugar for sprinkling

Directions

• Set the oven to 475° F. Put your pan into the oven to let it come up to heat as the oven does as well.
• Melt 1/2 of the butter, and put it into a mixing bowl with the flour, sugar, vanilla, salt, milk and eggs. Whisk until completely smooth.
• Once the oven, and therefore the pan, are up to temperature, pull the pan out and add the remaining butter. Once it melts spread it over the inside surface of the pan. The butter will keep your Dutch baby from sticking and also will help it brown.
• Pour the batter into the hot, buttered pan. It should sizzle and spatter a little. Return the pan to the oven and bake until your dutch baby is puffed and brown (~12 minutes).
• Serve with lemon wedges and icing sugar.

He is a sweetheart. His favorite things include: burrowing under blankets, snuggling, chasing leaves and chewing on his octopus.

I started out babysitting him while Mr was still away, and now, through a series of fortunate events, Trooper is ours! He already knew how to sit when he came to our house, but he’s already figured out dropping the ball when he brings it back for fetch, and we’re working on the command stay (which he is really not a big fan of at all).

He’s a lovely lovely boy and I’m sure he’ll be making more appearances at The Funky Kitchen as time goes by. In honor of our wee little guy, I made some cupcake sized lasagnas.

Lasagna Cupcakes

(Concept from Cruft)

1 lb lean ground beef

1 Tbsp garlic infused olive oil

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 small onion, minced

salt and pepper

2/3 Cup cottage cheese

1/2 Cup grated mozzarella cheese

1 Tbsp basil

1/4 tsp salt

1-12 oz can of tomato sauce

1 package of wonton wrappers

Directions

• In a pan, brown the ground beef in the garlic infused olive oil together with the minced garlic and onion, salt and pepper. Set aside.
• Combine the cottage cheese, mozzarella cheese, basil and salt in a fine strainer, allowing the excess moisture to drain away.
• If using metal cupcake trays, brush with a little bit of the garlic infused oil. If using silicone trays, continue, skipping this step.
• Use a basting brush to spread some tomato sauce around each muffin cup.
• Press a wonton wrapper into the bottom of each cup.
• Add a tablespoon of the ground beef mixture, followed by a tablespoon of tomato sauce (I found having different spoons for all of the filling steps helped keep things a lot neater).
• Top with an additional wonton wrapper.
• Spread a tablespoon of the cheese mixture on top of the second wrapper, and top it with a third wrapper.
• Do another layer of meat and sauce, followed by a wrapper, and then top with a little tomato sauce and sprinkle over the remaining cheese.
• Bake in a 375° oven until the cheese is browned and everything is gloriously bubbly.

I really liked the concept of these lasagna ‘cupcakes.’ They’re a good serving size, and if you’re really hungry you can just have two or three. The wonton wrappers do not quite have the texture of standard pasta, but getting all the layers in requires something thinner than the pasta I could find (this may call for some home made pasta, rolled painfully thin, next time. I hope you enjoy!

Mr says: Finger food lasagna? What’s not to love? These would be good to make ahead and freeze for later.

He also suggests that these should be baked inside a bacon cup, but he’s kind of crazy. Loveable, but a little crazy.

This time last year: Lemon Raspberry White Chocolate Cake 

And the year before: Chocolate Guinness Cake

Due to a knee injury he got sent home early, so he’s been back for a while. His knees are still a little bit messed, but from the looks of it there won’t be any permanent damage and he’ll be back at 100% soon.

As I said last time, which feels like it was a year ago, I have a really hard time when he’s gone away. This time was especially difficult for me, I’m still in a really dark place a lot of the time, and I’m working on that. Because it all started with him leaving, I thought it things would go back to normal when he came home. He’s been back as long as he was gone for, and here I am, still a mess.

Everyone has been really awesome, understanding, and supportive and I am so thankful to everyone for helping me get through whether it was anxiety ridden late night conversations or convincing me to get out of my pyjamas. I haven’t been here much because I haven’t really managed to cook much of anything, and I really didn’t know what to say. Nobody wants to read posts about falling to pieces and shaking from the worry.

It’s time to not be frozen anymore. Things were bad and they are still pretty rough, but right now I’m taking the approach of trying to keep up with life. Hiding under blankets and sobbing hasn’t put me back to normal. It’s time to get back to the kitchen, back to happy, and back to life.

Pear Ginger Jam

4 lbs pears

2 Tbsp lemon juice

4 Cups sugar

3 Tbsp finely chopped candied ginger

2 Tbsp fresh ginger

1 package no sugar added pectin

Directions

• Peel, core, and chop the pears.
• Put the pears into a large saucepan and drizzle the lemon juice over top, tossing to coat. This will prevent the pears from oxidizing.
• Next, stir in the sugar and chopped candied ginger.
• Put the saucepan on the hob over medium heat. Stir regularly, until the sugar has dissolved.
• Add the fresh ginger, and keep the jam boiling until the fruit starts to come apart.
• If you want a smooth jam, whiz with an immersion blender or run the jam through a blender in small batches.
• Once everything is blended, stir in the pectin, returning your jam to the boil.
• Seal in sterilized jars.

This jam is so tasty and fun. The ginger flavor is pronounced, but a tingly warm heat rather than a burn. It’s ginger flavor more on the  ginger ale scale rather than the zing of gingerbeer. Using both the fresh ginger as well as the candied you achieve a really well rounded ginger flavor profile. The floral, juicy pears are up front and center too, and paired with the ginger it makes for a delightful jam to spread on a toasted (however vaguely) English muffin.

Mr Says: This jam is really tasty on toast with peanut butter and honey. (What a sugar addict!)

This time last year: French Bread

And the year before: My First Post!

and I would feel a wave of anxiety wash over me. Even though he’s been gone before, and even though he’s been gone for this long before, I was so scared to have him go this time. As that amalgamated pile of kit, the boots in every room of the house, became more organized and packed away it counted down to when I would have to drive him to the airport and kiss him goodbye. I drop him off at the airport and cry the rest of the way home each and every time.

It might have been so scary watching him prepare to go because the plan kept changing every day: the date he was leaving, how long he would be gone for, what part of the country he was going to. They all changed, some of them multiple times. That continued flux, not knowing what was going to happen but knowing that it was going to, was so very difficult because it is hard to have a solid plan of action when the itinerary is constantly shifting.

Mr is gone for now, he’ll be gone for a while, but things are going alright. Things seem to be pretty set as to what is going on and I have a date to count down the sleeps to until he comes back home. I’ve got friends (who are awesome) coming over or sleeping over so I don’t feel so alone, and we’re starting to get into a routine. I’ll admit that I’ve spent a fair bit of time feeling sad and huddling under blankets, but I promise the regularly scheduled cooking will resume soon.

Him being gone isn’t so scary now that we know when he’s going to come home. That isn’t to say that it isn’t hard having him so far away, but with a settled plan it really is easier.

Black Pepper Cookies

(adapted from the recipe in Supercook: The Complete Encyclopedia of Cooking ©1978, by Marshall Cavendish)

3/4 Cup butter

1 Cup sugar

3/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

3/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1 egg

1 1/2 Cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

3/4 Cup cocoa

Directions

• In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.
• Add in the pepper, cinnamon, cloves, vanilla, and egg. Mix to combine.
• Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa into the wet mix, and mix until a firm dough is formed.
• Roll the dough into balls roughly 1 inch in diameter, and set them onto baking sheets, about 1 1/2 inches apart from each other. Gently flatten each of the balls with the heel of your hand.
• Bake the cookies in a 375° oven for 10-12 minutes.
• After removing the cookies from the oven, press hatchmarks into their tops with a fork.
• Allow to cool and serve.

These cookies were actually made before Mr left; they’re really nice with tea, reminiscent of gingersnaps because of the cinnamon and cloves. Black pepper flavors mellow in cooking, so I can assuage you of the fear these are truly bitingly peppery cookies. The pepper and chocolate make a cookie with a really sophisticated flavor profile that takes really minimal effort in the making.