My Mother's Bread

My mother has been making her own bread for most of her life, using the same trusted recipe that she's perfected over time. I called her up several months ago asking for it and jotted it down hastily as she narrated it over the phone. I've made bread in the past, but it never turned out like my mother's - her loaves were always perfectly formed, with dark brown exteriors that weren't thick or crusty or hard to slice through. They were always baked evenly throughout, and even though they were made with whole wheat flour they weren't too heavy or dense, but had a light crumbly texture.

I missed my mom's bread, so I decided it was time to get her recipe and see if some of her bread making wisdom had rubbed off on me over the years. I've watched her make bread ever since I was little and could have used her bread mixing bowl as a winter sled. She taught me how to knead bread and form it into loaves (although mine always end up looking a little odd). She showed me the trick of using your wrist to gauge the temperature of the water for proofing yeast: "If it's warm enough to wash a baby, it's the right temperature". (I'm still not sure that I would trust myself to wash a baby though.)

Of course, the main thing with making bread is patience. My mother always used to make bread on the weekends, on a lazy Saturday or Sunday. The big bread bowl would come out, along with the bread pans, darkened with use, and the entire morning or afternoon would be dedicated to the making of bread. She'd occupy herself with other chores or just relax in between rises - even though the bread takes about three hours to make, the majority of that time is spent waiting. My father and I would always wait impatiently, both of us looking forward to that first slice of fresh bread, still warm from the oven, smeared with melting butter.

So be warned, this bread requires time and patience, but it's more than worth it, if only for that first glorious slice.

Spicy Black Bean Dip

Happy Cinco de Mayo! Apparently, today is not much celebrated in Mexico, but I will take any excuse I can get to invite people over to eat a ton of Mexican food. (It goes without saying how amazing it is.)

For example: black bean dip. You wouldn't think such a humble appetizer item would be worth getting excited over - I didn't. That was, until a month ago, when I sampled some innocuous-looking "black bean spread" from Mad Mexican. Holy shit. That stuff was fantastic. I may or may not have consumed an entire package of it in one night.

It was so damn good, in fact, that the very same night I went home determined to recreate that magical black bean spread. So at 11 pm, I strode into my apartment laden with tortilla chips, black beans, and various other grocery items, and made a beeline for the kitchen and my food processor. In a matter of some minutes, I had created my very own black bean spread. While it was by no means a recreation of the taste experience I'd had earlier, it was still delicious and awesome in its own right.

This spread has a lot of zing to it, and it's packed with a few of my favourite things: garlic, cilantro, cumin, jalapeños, and lime. Honestly, with all of those things together, it's hard to go wrong.

Creamy Tahini Breakfast Polenta

I love breakfast. I love the ritual of it, the smell of my first cup of coffee, the morning light, of having that moment to settle into the day just as it begins.

However, this romantic dreamy breakfast fantasy is not much of a reality. At least not in my life. I'm lucky if I manage to make a cup of coffee and finish it before I run out the door. I'm having an especially good day if I have time to eat an orange or a few spoonfuls of yogurt (straight from the container). Usually I'm running on caffeine for the first three hours of the day before I manage to shove a bagel or a granola bar in my mouth.

Gone are the days when I used to awake at 6 am, eat a balanced breakfast, then head to the gym before going to work. I have no idea how the hell I managed to pull that off without drugs or magic. These days, if I manage to pull myself out of bed at 7 am it's a freaking miracle.

So breakfast doesn't always happen for me these days. Sometimes I get up early like an adult and eat an egg on toast, but most days I just stare at the contents of my fridge in vain for something that I can whip up and eat in five minutes, cursing myself for not having made breakfast ahead the night before. However, the other week I whipped up a batch of this creamy breakfast polenta, and for a few days, I had breakfast all ready to go. No more staring sadly into the fridge, no more running out the door on an empty stomach. I felt like a pro.

Of course, as soon as I ran out of it, I fell back into bad habits. I'm not fretting - it's all about finding a good morning rhythm. Eventually I'll fall into a better one, that involves coffee, breakfast, and enough extra time to check my Twitter feed. Maybe I'll even start doing pushups and planks - but let's not get too ambitious just yet. For now, let's just eat some polenta.

Thai Green Curry + Vegetarian Thai Green Curry Paste

Several weeks back, when Toronto was experiencing Winter's Last Hurrah and the idea of spring was seeming more and more like some cruel joke, I found myself in the north of the city with my friend Anna, both of us hungry for a warm dinner. It was rather fortuitous for us, then, that we also happened to be walking along a strip of Yonge Street populated with Asian restaurants and noodle joints. It still took several minutes of wandering (not including a stop for sweets at an Iranian bakery) before we could decide which kind of hot and spicy dinner we were craving, but eventually we walked into a fusion restaurant and ordered some Thai green curry.

I have to say, if there's something in this world that can both warm your Canadian-winter-beaten soul and brighten your senses, it's a Thai curry. Most comfort food I grew up with was of the heavier variety - mac'n cheese, potato soup, scalloped potatoes, hamburger soup - it was hot, filling, and always delicious, but it also almost always made you want to take a 4-hour nap afterwards.

But a Thai curry...it's comforting, but it also has the ability to set your mouth on fire (depending on how adventurous you are) and it's rather difficult to take a nap when it feels like a part of your body is in flames. (I recently ate an entire Thai green chile on a dare, which caused me to experience such intense sensations that I cried against my will, shoved crackers into my face, then stood in the hallway and emitted a noise that can only be described as that of a baby dinosaur who's been abandoned by its mother.)

Suffice to say, the dinner Anna and I had that day (which also ended in a snowstorm) made me realize the deficiency of Thai curry in my life, a lack I henceforth decided to remedy.

I have since made this recipe three times, so I think I have thus far done a good job of remedying my Thai curry deficiency. I hope it brings some slightly fiery comfort to you as well in these early wet days of spring.

Breakfast Strata, or Savoury Bread Pudding

This started out as French toast, but at some point was derailed and turned into what I was calling savoury French toast, until I realized that it was an actual thing called a strata.

It all began with a breakfast meeting at work that featured a baked challah French toast. Now, I've never been very partial to French toast. In my experience, it's always been store-bought slices of bread dunked in a mixture of eggs and milk and fried, then served with a generous helping of maple syrup. Nothing wrong with that, really, but as far as I'm concerned, utterly boring. There are many other things I'd rather eat in the morning than spongy bread soaked with syrup.

But this French toast - this was something different. It was closer to bread pudding, with thick cubes of challah bread soaked in a vanilla flavoured egg and milk mixture overnight, topped with just a drizzle of caramel sauce, baked until golden and crispy on top and custardy underneath. Before that meeting, French toast did nothing for me, but that challah French toast changed everything.

And, rather fortuitously, I had only just been given a homemade loaf of challah. Clearly the stars had aligned for this French toast. It was destined for me.

So I arrived home and triumphantly announced that I'd had a French toast revelation and knew exactly what we'd be having for breakfast on Good Friday. Only, a certain roommate of mine, who has issues about eating sweet things in the morning, put in a request for a savoury version.

And so, because I am a mostly good friend and roommate, I made a savoury breakfast strata, or bread pudding, or whatever else you might want to call it. Partly also because my roommates and I are all in agreement that if you add cheese to something, it will be awesome.

Which it was - very awesome.

Kale Palak Paneer + Homemade Paneer

My good friend and roommate, Lianne, was born in India and spent her early childhood there, and while she claims she is a "bad Indian" (since doesn't speak Hindi or eight other languages) she does know how to make a good curry. And while curry is as exciting to Lianne as mashed potatoes and gravy is to me, she indulges both me and my other roommate every now and then and cooks up a curry for us, a cause for great joy and cheer.

Once, however, I was craving curry something fierce and Lianne was out of town and unable to teleport herself back into our kitchen to make us curry (to our everlasting sorrow), so I went ahead and attempted to make the recipe myself. Lianne's "recipe," however, is not so much a recipe as "put these things in a pot and then add spices until it tastes right." Upon asking her how much spice to use, I received these instructions: "Hard to say. Lots of turmeric and cumin, medium garam, a little coriander. Chili powder to taste. Sorry I can't be more specific."

Yet in spite of her cryptic instructions, I managed to make a pretty good curry. It was not the same as her curry, of course, but as I have discovered, if you use the "Magic Five Spices" Lianne swears by (turmeric, cumin, garam masala, coriander, Indian chili powder) you're going to end up with something delicious.

As I mentioned, though, Lianne does not share the same love of Indian food that the rest of our household. Except, that is, when it comes to Palak Paneer, which is her favourite Indian dish ever. It's a rich & silky spinach curry with cubes of paneer (Indian fresh cheese) stewed in it. It is, quite simply, delicious, and once Lianne made it for us I determined that I also had to learn how to make it, because it is a dish our household cannot be without.

But because whenever I make something I have to change it, I decided to switch up a few of the traditional ingredients, using cashews instead of cream, and kale instead of spinach. I have never been much of a fan of cooked spinach (it has a strange earthy bitterness I don't like), and so decided to use kale (which also just happened to be in the fridge at the time). When cooked, though, kale mellows out, losing most of its bitterness and becoming, dare I say, rather palatable. (Because let's face it, raw kale just doesn't taste good.) Paired with yogurt, cashews, and the Magic Five Spices, this dish is something of a revelation.

I think even Lianne would agree.

Making Bagels, Roasted Garlic Parsley Butter & Honey Butter

Making Bagels with Anna from Liz Mochrie on Vimeo.

You may recall me talking about my friend Anna the other week. She, like me, is obsessed with baking things and taking pictures of said baked things and posting them on the internet.

You may also recall that I mentioned we made bagels this one time - well, she made bagels. I watched and took pictures and made a video, because food blogger friends take pictures of food blogger friends (it's how we roll).


Anyways, back to more important things: bagels. Specifically, black sesame seed bagels and chocolate chip bagels. Even more specifically, bagels with roasted garlic parsley butter and honey butter.

Thing is, however, I can't tell you how to make bagels. (I was more concerned with eating them than being helpful.) But Anna can, so if you're craving some bagels in your life, head on over to her blog Cupcakes Always Win for the recipe!






In the meantime, I can offer you pictures and recipes for delicious spreads (to be smeared on bagels, toast, or other appropriate surfaces).