A Little Bit of Paris in Liverpool. . .

This could be dangerous.

Artisane, a new French patisserie has recently opened its doors in my neighbourhood.  It's only a five minute detour from my daily walk to work.  They sell lattes.

And lots and lots of tempting pastries.  I highly recommend their little chouquettes which are just visible in the bottom left hand corner of the photo. A bag of ten only costs £1.50 and they are light, airy and very addictive.

They also have stunning patisseries.  I am mad about anything with lemon and their tarts are fantastic. They also sell lemon eclairs, filled with lemon curd and decorated with piped meringue on the top and one teeny, tiny lemon macaron.  Their regular sized macarons are also delicious, particularly the pistachio.

Did I mention the bread?

I bought a small loaf of their dark Nordic rye and wholegrain bread (that's healthy right?), which you can see in the foreground.   A Finnish friend suggested I grill it with thinly sliced leeks and cheese on top.  Absolutely scrumptious and this may become my regular weekend lunch.

I also love their hot drink loyalty card.  After purchasing six drinks, you don't get a seventh drink free.  Oh, no, you get a free pastry instead!  Brilliant.  And dangerous. It's a good thing I have an hour's walk to work.

Food, Glorious Food. . .

I'm obsessed with a cooking site called Food 52 that I've only just discovered, which has a TON of wonderful recipes all showcased with fantastic photography and pulled from a multitude of blogs, sites and contributors.  Check it out here. They are also hosting The Piglet Tournament of Cookbooks, inspired by and using the format of the Tournament of Books that I follow each year (that'll be starting in March - details and the list of this year's battling books here.)  Judges for the Piglet include foodies from magazines and also Stanley Tucci!  Lots of fun and a great way to check out new cookbooks.

In the meantime to beat the winter blues, I'm craving all things lemony.  Type "lemon" into the search engine at Food 52 and you'll get, well, a list to keep you happily occupied for months. Snow peas with lemon-chili breadcrumbs, grilled lemon and herb flatbread, a leek and lemon quiche and of course the perfect lemon tart are all going onto the must-try list.  In the meantime, I'm quite chuffed with my first ever attempt at lemon meringue pie. It came out a wee bit tart and the meringue wasn't quite as thick as I'd like it, but it was still quite tasty and much easier to make than I'd anticipated.

Curry Flavour. . .

My favourite magazine this week is the latest from Jamie Oliver.  The Brits and my Liverpud love a good curry so I snapped this up as soon as I saw it on the stands.  He's done it again - this issue is just packed with wonderful recipes (not all of them curry related).  I particularly liked the article "Tradition With a Twist" which blends Indian cooking with traditional British recipes such as Fish & Chips, pasties and Yorkshire Pud.  There are also very useful recipes for making five different curry pastes from a Korma to a Vindaloo.

The only curries I've ever done have either involved a sauce from a jar or using pre-made curry mixes, but this magazine totally inspired me to try one from scratch. I chose the Chicken Tikka Masala and just mixing up all the aromatic paste ingredients was so much fun.

And hooray, I did it! And it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought.  I added some spinach and served it over brown basmati with some (store bought) naan on the side and a good bunch of coriander on top.  Spicy and yummy.  I'll be trying some lentil curries next.

Hitting Shelves Soon. . .

Marmite with edible gold flecks - how can one resist?  I haven't seen this in the supermarket yet, but apparently it's due to be out by Christmas.  Reminds me of the gold postboxes being painted around the country in the home towns of British Olympic and Paralympic gold medallists.  Sparkly Marmite on toast -mmmmmmm.

My Favourite Telly Program. . .

Tuesday night, my Liverpud and I are stuck to the settee watching The Great British Bake Off.  It's such a wonderful and refreshing reality cooking show, trying to find the best amateur baker in the U.K.  I really like the fact that the focus is on the baking - both sweet and savoury - and the contestants have been chosen because they all really enjoy cooking, and not because they are nasty and would make good television. There's a range of ages and backgrounds, but all of them are so nice and inventive that you find yourself rooting for all of them and gutted when one gets into trouble.  The judges - Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood - are critical but not mean.  And you get tons of good baking tips. 

I immediately went out and bought the accompanying cookbook, the Great British Bake Off: How to Turn Everyday Bakes into Showstoppers by Linda Collister (it's a bit strange that it's come out before the end of this season so you do get a bit of a preview of the challenges to come, although no spoilers are given in terms of the winner).  It's quickly become one of my favourite cookbooks - there are SO many recipes I want to try.  This show is really inspiring.  This week's episode focused on flatbreads - the contestants had to come up with both savoury and sweet ones, and the flavour combinations they concocted had my mouth watering.  So I gave making homemade naan a try, adding lime and coriander.  It wasn't perfect - it could have used more seasoning and the dough was a bit thicker than I would have liked, but still never having done any kind of bread baking before, I was quite chuffed with the results.

Liverpool is hosting a Food and Drink Festival at the beginning of September which I'm really excited about. Paul Hollywood will be attending (he's originally from the Wirral) and judging a Merseyside Bake Off and there will also be a chef demonstrating Malaysian cooking, lots of beer and wine tasting and something called a Heavenly Chocolate Garden.  Can't wait!

Cozy Against the Cold. . .

It's turned bitterly cold this weekend and I was determined to hibernate at home and just knit, read and cook comfort food.  Until I realized I'd run out of butter (an essential ingredient for ALL comfort food) and had to venture out to the store.  Since I'd bundled up anyways, I took the opportunity to take a photo in the natural light of my new, cozy cowl that I finished Saturday morning.

This was made from two skeins of Rowan Colourscape Chunky, designed by Kaffe Fassett and I just LOVE the colours which remind me of all the shades of pink and purple that one finds in winter sunsets. The repeats are quite long, so I tried all sorts of different stitch patterns and scarf ideas before settling on a big cowl that is stretchy enough to wrap around my neck twice.  It just makes me very happy to look at the colours, although I realize now that I need a matching hat for the-head-that-seems-to-defy-all-pattern-sizes.  Stay tuned.

I'm very pleased with my knitting progress so far this year.  My first sweater is coming along. I've knitted the front and back and blocked them, and have started the first sleeve.  I'm a bit worried it's too small for me, in which case it'll be a gift for my Mum, but we'll see.  I also finished a pair of Fetching mitts from the Knitty pattern located here, which is a gift for my friend K's birthday.

And as for that comfort food:  It was Mac n' Cheese in the slow cooker.  Yes, the slow cooker.  You may not get all the breadcrumb crunchy bits from the traditional oven method, but this is the creamiest mac n' cheese I've ever tasted.  And there was plenty to freeze away for future lunches.  The recipe is from the Canadian Living: Slow Cooker Collection by Elizabeth Baird.

And I found a great new podcast to listen to while getting on with my projects.  A Playful Day is by a woman who lives in London, England, and is a relatively new but good and enthusiastic knitter, who also loves great food and likes to talk about both.  I listened to a number of her back episodes and really enjoyed them.

I'll top off this weekend with dinner at my Mum's and then we'll watch the next episode of Downton Abbey.  How many more weekends till spring?

One For The Sweet Tooth. . .

One of my weaknesses is definitely the marshmallow.  I once had dreams of opening up The MarshMellow Cafe, a place devoted to hot chocolate, s'mores and rice crispy squares, and where urban dwellers could gather around a roaring fireplace and roast their marshmallows all year round without worrying about mosquitos.  Then someone pointed out that it would never pass fire codes.  Oh well, another dream dashed.

So you can understand why I got excited about the latest recipe posted by Smitten Kitchen for Sweet Potato and Marshmallow Biscuits. Take a look - honestly, they look really good!

My favourite marshmallows in Toronto are the passionfruit ones made by Bobbette & Belle located in Leslieville.  Their toasted coconut ones are also delicious (not to mention their cupcakes and lemon meringue tarts).  If you order a hot chocolate they will toast a marshmallow with a blowtorch and add it on top. Brilliant.

Fall Back. . .

How did you spend your extra hour today?  My friend K. and I went for a long walk in Toronto's ravines enjoying the mild weather, lovely sunshine, fall colours and the crisp leaves scrunching under our feet.

But all roads these days seem to lead me to French pastry! I'm greedily devouring Pastry Paris: In Paris, Everything Looks Like Dessert by Susan Hochbaum.  She's cleverly travelled around the city photographing famous buildings and beautiful architectural details along with French art and fashion, and pairing them with equally delectable shots of creative French concoctions complete with a culinary history of each.  You can see a slideshow of her work here (but don't click on the link if you're hungry).

In Toronto, nothing really looks like pastry but I did my best.

If you squint a bit, these leaves look like the grapefruit slices that top this beautiful tart with Earl Grey and almond mousse, purchased at Nadege.  At any rate, it was the closest I could get to edible fall colours and it was a delicious (and well earned)  reward at the end of a long walk.

A Spaetzle Saturday. . .

Some days it's all about the quest for that perfect meal.

Yesterday morning, I was reading one of my favourite food blogs - Smitten Kitchen - and there was this post about how to make spaetzle, a type of German noodles that I'd never heard of or tasted before. As someone who has long wanted to try making homemade pasta but who lacks the required counter space, equipment and patience, this seemed a perfect and easy alternative. However, as the blogger rightly pointed out, it helps to have a Spaetzle Maker.

I was shortly due to meet a friend for a long walk, en route to a farmer's market (where a basket of organic onions would come in handy later). Enthusing about my sudden obsessive need to make spaetzle that night (which she completely understood; she's known me too long), I enlisted her help in checking out several local kitchen gadget stores in search for this elusive tool. Either the spring weather has created spaetzle fever, or Smitten Kitchen has a lot of Toronto readers, but I heard from more than one retailer that they'd either just sold out, or didn't carry them, but had recently had inquires. I'd nearly given up, but thankfully I remembered The Pepper Mill and yes, they had them (see above) and yes, they still have more in stock.

Okay, so why did this recipe torment me all day, apart from the fact that it's really fun to say?

1. Easy ingredients. Flour, eggs (a lot of them - I used Omega 3 ones) and milk. Combine.

2. They are so much fun to make! Once the batter has cooled in the fridge for an hour, you just bring a large pot of salted water to boil, put the spaetzle maker over the top and pour the batter into the little box. Then you slide the box back and forth and the batter falls through the holes into the hot water, creating little squiggles of noodles.

3. They cook incredibly fast. You'll know when they're done when they rise to the top like this. It only takes a minute or two. I did them in several batches, or else it gets too crowded.

4. They are so versatile. Drain them in a colander and then you can use them in any recipe calling for pasta. I fried up some onions and pancetta in some melted butter and then added the spaetzle, some ground pepper and thyme and there was the dinner I'd been happily anticipating all day.

5. As hoped, it was absolutely delicious!

A couple of things to note. The recipe which I followed from the Smitten Kitchen post above, makes a LOT of spaetzle. It could easily serve four if used as the main dish, and six-eight if you were serving is just as a side dish. I'm going to use the leftovers to bake a large Spaetzle n' Cheese dish for dinner tonight. I may never buy macaroni again. Also, when moving the spaetzle maker back and forth, be careful so that the batter doesn't go down the side of the pot where it'll hit your stove element and start to burn. It did get a bit messy at times and you have to work fast, but it was completely worth it.

UPDATED: I used the leftover spaetzle in place of macaroni and it was fantastic. The spaetzle doesn't dry up overnight and takes the sauce really well. It just adds an extra creaminess to the whole dish. This is definitely replacing my old Mac n' Cheese standard.

(The Boeuf en Daube was a perfect triumph). . .

My new fall toy is a slow cooker that I bought this weekend and the first recipe I had to try was Boeuf en Daube. Now, this isn't exactly Mrs. Ramsay's version (or her cook's, I should say) which took three days to prepare. My recipe only needed the beef to marinate in wine and herbs overnight. I decided to omit the optional pig's trotter. The next day it was just a matter of cutting up the vegetables and popping it all into the crockpot.

Six hours later, I had this:




And she peered into the dish, with its shiny walls and its confusion of savoury brown and yellow meats, and its bay leaves and its wine, and thought, This will celebrate the occasion . . .
'It is a triumph,' said Mr Bankes, laying his knife down for a moment. He had eaten attentively. It was rich; it was tender. It was perfectly cooked. How did she manage these things in the depth of the country? he asked her. She was a wonderful woman.

Shiny walls, check. Savoury brown meats, check. Yellow meats - no (maybe the pig's trotter?), but I did add some potatoes even though the recipe didn't call for them. So there is some yellow. Hmmm, no bay leaf in the recipe but there is parsley. And white wine. It was rich, the vegetables were very tender; the meat, just a tad overcooked, but still delicious. I managed in the heart of the city and I feel quite full and wonderful. I certainly have lots of leftovers and I'd definitely make this again for a dinner party. One tip - have some crusty bread on hand; there are lots of tasty juices to mop up.

The recipe was taken from this book.