À la découverte du navet et du rutabaga – Turnip and Rutabaga Discovery

Rutabaga and turnips

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L’automne est propice aux découvertes culinaires. Nous avons parfois l’habitude de sous-estimer le potentiel des légumes racine. Pour cette édition des Bouchardises, je suis parti à la (re) découverte du navet et du rutabaga, des légumes qui sont en quelque sorte cousins. J’en ai parlé avec mes collègues de l’émission Y a pas deux matins pareils d’ICI Radio-Canada Première, Toronto.

Les recettes de tarte rustique aux pommes et rutabaga et le ghanoush aux navets rôtis ont été adaptées  du livre Roots de Diane Morgan.

Rutabaga and apple rustic tart

Tasting the past: Ruth Ann’s cherry crunch

Ruth Ann’s Cherry crunch.

I’ve been trying to get back into the blogging routine after a long hiatus. A Tasting the Past post seemed fitting to rekindle the habit. Ruth Ann’s cherry crunch comes to you courtesy of a hand written recipe from the wooden box.

The recipe itself is quite simple: it’s a cherry crumble. Also, it calls for store bought cherry pie filling. But we’re in Ontario and in the middle of summer where fresh produce is abundant. Foodland Ontario’s – a program part of the province’s ministry of Agriculture and Food – slogan boasts “Good things grow in Ontario”…  In other words, it would wrong to not make our own cherry filling.

We had several sour cherries left over from the week before. We also had about half a pint of currants that were kicking around in the fridge that would ultimately be put to good use.

Tasting the Past – Flora’s Chocolate Molasses Cookies

Voilà! Flora’s molasses chocolate cookies.

Searching the battered blue notebook for a dessert last to bring over at friends proved to be quite intriguing. Flipping through the pages, I stumbled upon four variations of a molasses cookie. I opted for the one that contained chocolate.

This would prove to be quite the kitchen experiment: only the ingredients were listed. There was no method… none whatsoever. I would have to wing it, conduct a bit of research, tweak the recipe if need be.

Tasting the Past: Boston Cream Pie

Brutalism meets baking: Boston Cream Pie

I’ll be honest, it has taken some time to get into gear and actually start cooking for the blog again. However, as soon as I stumbled upon the Boston cream pie recipe in larger notebook, I knew, that’s this was the recipe I wanted to try to get the ball rolling. I’ve tasted some from the bakery or restaurant and had the odd doughnut by the same name, but I’ve never baked a Boston Cream Pie. I was quite excited.

Tasting the Past: Suella’s Brownies

A piece of Suella’s brownies topped with raspberries.

After spending most of the summer out and about or prepping dinner by grilling away on the barbecue, this lazy Labour Day afternoon proved to be the right moment to revisit the wooden box of culinary treasures. It has been weeks since I had taken a peek at it. A handful of recipes had been singled out previously, but none seemed right for the day.

I stumbled upon a folded piece of paper with a brownie recipe with the inscriptions “Suella”, and “Very good” on the top right of the page. There seems to be another two words on the sheet of paper, but I can’t seem to make them out.

Revisiting the wooden box for a Tasting the Past post.

Another interesting detail about this recipe is that I finally may have found some information about the potential original owner of the box. The recipe was written on Circle B Equip. Co. stationary. Even the address of the company was listed: Buffalo Prairie, Illinois. A quick search on Google shows that this community is located about four hours West of Chicago. Finally, a clue as to where this recipe box may have come from. I’ll have to continue sifting through the box for more clues.

Back to the recipe… After thoroughly following the list of ingredients and instructions, I was a little unsure of the outcome. This was based on a little mishap that occurred while trying to remove the brownies from my Pyrex dish. Pieces of the brownies had broken off. I had thought that the texture of the brownies was perhaps more apparent to a chocolate cake. Luckily, upon tasting, the texture felt right. Worried for nothing!

The recipe called for some icing. It was the right time to put my mother’s tried and tested quick icing recipe to work. It simply calls for icing sugar, butter, water and liquor. I simply added a bit of cocoa and voilà!

Brownies

 Ingredients

• 2 cups of sugar
• ¼ cup of cocoa
• 1 cup of melted butter
• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp. of vanilla
• 1 ½ cup of flour
• 1 tsp. of salt
• ½ tsp. of baking powder

Method

• Preheat oven at 375 °F
• Mix sugar an cocoa together. Stir in melted butter, add eggs and vanilla.
• Mix well and add dry ingredients.
• Stir in nuts.
• Bake at 375 °F for about 25 minutes
• Top off with favourite icing.

Quick chocolate icing

Ingredients

• 2 cups of icing sugar
• 2/3 cup of cocoa
• 2 tbs of water
• 2 tbs of liquor (or orange juice)
• 2 tbs of melted butter

Method

• Mix all of the ingredients until smooth.
• Serve with fruit or a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream

Labour Day labour of love: brownies.

Tasting the Past: Ruth Jones’ Custard Pie

Putting some heart into it. While the custard pie cooked, the raspberries made a heart-shaped formation.

It has been a while since I’ve shared at Tasting the Past post, so this post is long overdue. Glad to get back in the kitchen, braving the heat of the over and the Toronto

I had singled out this recipe weeks ago, but never got around to doing it. Summer calls for a light, cool somewhat fluffy desserts, I guess custard pie fits the note just fine.

Ruth Jones’ Custard Pie recipe card had very little information to go on. The card only listed the ingredients and one single instruction: “Bake at 350° F”, no time, or anything. Having never baked custard, a little bit research proved necessary.

Tasting the Past – Myrtle A.’s Date Bread

Myrtle A.’s Date Bread.

Fresh out of the wooden box… another dessert. I went for this recipe this week based on simplicity. Also, I had all of the ingredients in the pantry and in the fridge. In other words, it’s a simple recipe to prepare on a weekday.

Two things in this recipe took me by surprise. First, all the prep for the bread is done in a single bowl. Dry and wet ingredients are often mixed separately before being combined. In this case, after hydrating the chopped dates, everything was thrown into the bowl. Second, the bread is cooked in two phases. The date bread is initially set to bake at 325°F for 40 minutes. The heat is then turned down to 275°F for an hour and 20 minutes.

Tasting the Past : Orange-Nut Cake

The small wooden box is very much a vault filled with recipes that require copious amounts of butter and sugar. This latest instalment makes no exception.

This Orange-Nut Cake recipe is from a certain Mrs. D.A. Wilmott from New Haven, Connecticut. The recipe was visibly printed in a newspaper. It was cut and glued to both sides of a recipe card. On one side, all the ingredients and the method were listed. On the other, a black and white photo of the cake cut into 16 pieces.

Tasting the Past: Ann’s Sour Cream Date Dreams Cookies

Ann’s Sour Cream Date Dreams Cookies

So far, Tasting the Past has made me indulge in my sweet tooth quite a bit. Even Elda’s Rye Bread, was rather on the sweet side. This latest recipe out of the wooden box makes no exception to the rule. Behold Anns’s Sour Cream Date Dreams Cookies!

Ann clearly knew what she was doing. Her recipe had a star ingredient with which dreams are made of – at least of the baking kind: sour cream. I had forgotten how it could enhance so many recipes. The sour cream creates a certain moisture and tanginess. A recent blog post from The Kitchn sings the praises of this ingredient and reminds us of how this dairy product can make a difference in numerous recipes.

Tasting the Past: Elda’s Rye Bread

Elda’s Rye Bread: the finished product.

I really love bread. The smell of warm baked goods is nothing short of amazing… There is something incredibly comforting about fresh loaf bread. At home, whenever I head to the farmer’s market, my first stop is always at the St. John’s Bakery table filled with a great variety of loaves When travelling, I’ll most certainly search for the local bakery to find something delicious fresh out of the oven… Did I say I say I love bread?

I was more than thrilled to find a bread recipe in the wooden box that would be perfect for Tasting the Past. Although my previous ventures into the world of bread baking had been marred by misadventures. Either the dough just didn’t rise or the bread simply didn’t bake long enough… In other words, the odds weren’t necessarily stacked in my favour. But I would this would not want to let that interfere with the process.