Cucumber Guacamole - It's easy being green

I make my fresh Guacamole with avocados and cucumber. I'm not crazy about tomatoes and the addition of English cucumber to the guacamole makes the dip even more refreshing, and more green.

Here's a fast and easy recipe for my extra-green "Guac"

2 avocados, not too hard, not too soft.
1/2 English cucumber, peeled and chopped into small pieces
Juice of half a lime
1 tablespoon chopped coriander
1/4 tsp garlic paste
pinch sea salt

Halve the avocados. Remove pits. Scrape avocado flesh away from its skin. Whirr all ingredients together in a food processor or with an emersion blender. Add more lime juice or salt or a dash of Tabasco if the guacamole isn't tangy enough. Try to enjoy it fresh. Adding the pit to the leftovers will stave off the inevitable browness.

photo: wikimedia

La Mosquee de Paris

 

After posting the last couple of pictures of the Paris Mosque I got a couple of comments on The Clever Pup, "A mosque that's a restaurant?" and I realized I should have explained myself. La Mosquée de Paris is a mosque, but it also has a restaurant, a salon du thé, a hammam (spa or turkish bath) and a souk (market). I visited the Mosque early one morning in October but I was really to timid to do anything but take photos.

I'm going to paraphrase freely here from Wiki. The Great Mosque of Paris, la Grande Mosquée de Paris, is located in the 5th arrondissement at 39 rue Geoffrey St. Hillaire. It's the largest mosque in France and the third largest in Europe. It was founded after World War I as a tribute to the 100,000 Muslims in France's North African colonies who died fighting against the Germans. It was completed in 1926. During World War II it served as a refuge for those persecuted by the Axis powers and provided safe-shelter and passage and even fake Muslim birth certificates for Jewish children.

It really is a fascinating place. Anyone who's seen the film Paris Je t'aime has seen the Muslim girl and her grandfather leaving the restaurant.

Here's a link to the French site. and a slightly more irreverent bilingual site which romantically details the drool-worthy menu and describes the souk and the hammam. I know next time I go to Paris (when ,and not if) I'll try a lamb tagine with prunes, almonds and onions and maybe with my mint tea I'll have the Sheherazade icecream bowl; strawberry,coconut sorbet with almond milk and fruit salad. I can't recommend the spa, because I didn't indulge but it does sound intriguing.

Paris Mosque 2010

Hooray for Hazel

I have such a goofy, old-fashioned, maiden-aunt name that it's funny to me that Hazel hs been used in three songs. Oh and the lyrics are so spot-on in every case. Riiight!


http://www.bobdylan.com/sites/www.bobdylan.com/themes/dylan/player.php?song_nid=360&album_nid=6262




If your interested enough to hear some of the real Bob version, it's on Planetwaves or you can click here.

Baba ghanouj

It's hard to take a good picture of baba ghanouj.
That's it on the bottom right. Photo copyright Hazel Smith.

Baba ghanouj is a Middle eastern eggplant spread. I love it. I like the smoky creaminess of it all. I also relish in the fact that it looks kind of disgusting. I have a penchant for eggplants. I buy them occasionally because they're so beautiful. I love that shiny, intense purple; the dolphin-like smoothness of them and the thunk you get when you tap them. Like lilac, violet and grape, eggplant purple has its own colour in the paint store - Aubergine. I bought myself a Murano glass eggplant so I'd stop wasting them.

thedailygreen.com

Before my beautiful eggplant goes to waste I end up making some of the dip. But usually I don't  make baba ghanouj from scratch. There's a Toronto brand I really like from Sunflower Kitchen. It can be found in health food stores around Ontario and it contains only eggplants, tahini, filtered water, sunflower oil, garlic citric acid and sea salt.

By mistake I bought a tub of store-brand baba ghanouj from my grocer and the stuff was execrable. Not only did it contain sour cream, mayonnaise, and "mayonnaise-like" dressing but it was obviously seasoned with artificial smoke. Yuck. What's so hard about making it the right way?

Here's a recipe I use when I do make baba ghanouj from scratch. 

2 medium eggplants halved
Juice of one lemon
2 garlic cloves crushed
3 tablespoons tahini
1/2 tsp ground cumin
salt, pepper


-Prick the skins of the halved eggplants with a fork.
-Rub the exposed sides with salt.
-Place them on a baking sheet and bake them for about 45 minutes at 400oF. The skins should be blistered and the flesh soft. Remove from oven.
-Plunge into cold water and remove. This helps with the peepling.
-Peel the eggplants, this is messy and because of all the seeds, it's kind of like skinning an octopus.
-Chop up the eggplant flesh and place the eggplant and all the other ingredients except the salt and pepper into a food processor and blend into a smooth puree. I use a hand-held immersion blender.
-Then add salt and pepper to taste and stir up.

-Pour the baba ghanouj into a bowl and garnish if you like with parsley or olives. 

Pita is the best accompaniment for baba ghanouj although sometimes I toss it with some pasta.

A restaurant that serves baba ghanouj just the way I like it, is the slightly down-at-heel  Momo's at 196 Robert Street at the corner of Harbord. Just to the west of the University district, Momo's is a pretty, authentic Middle-Eastern restaurant.  I gets prettier all the time and has developed a splendid patio. In the summer you can sit under their own grapes.  I've been going there for years. They have great Turkish coffee.

Momo's 196 Robert St. Toronto. weblocal.ca

Sunflower Kitchen also has really good hummus and an extra spicy Zesto-Pesto made with coriander. Have I told you how much I love coriander?...

Chocolate Guinness - Goodness Gracious!

I don't hold much with St. Patrick's Day. There are a lot of other Patron Saints out there (David, Andrew, George, speak up. I can't hear you); Saint Patrick must have a good P.R. man. I recently learned in my History class that a nation's identity can be partly defined by a country's struggle and by their heroes. So I really can't hold it against the Irish; they deserve a party. I don't partake in the green beer but I do like Guinness. After recently searching the web for Guinness recipes - you know there's "a steak in every can" - I stumbled upon a Guinness pudding. I altered it a bit, because I couldn't understand the chef's instructions. (ie. how can I tell if the beer and cream is bubbling around the edges, you just told me to whip it?)

Now what follows is extremely rich. The result is a chocolate pudding with a definite "stout" edge to it. I divided the recipe in half for my family of three. It was very popular among my guys, but none of us could finish it. So next year I think I'll serve it in shooter-sized glasses. Here goes.

8 egg yolks

1 cup sugar

1 can Guinness

3 cups whipping cream

7 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into small chunks.

In a heavy-bottomed saucepan whisk together egg yolks and sugar. I used the whisk attachment on my hand-held mixer.

Open the can of Guinness stout and pour it into a large glass measuring cup while trying to reduce the foam.

In another heavy-bottomed saucepan pour exactly half the Guinness and 2 cups cream and whisk. Heat over a medium heat, until just below boiling. Remove from heat. Add the chocolate and whisk until smooth.

Now slowly pour this Guinnessy-chocolate into the eggs whisking constantly to prevent curdling. Cook over medium (don't let it boil) and whisk with the electric mixer for a very time-consuming 10-15 minutes until the mixture has a pudding-like consistency, as thick as a bechamel. This was one of the messiest procedures ever. Chocolate was everywhere!

Pour into glasses. Don't use pint glasses or you'll go into a coma. Small glasses with "waists" would look best, but I don't know what to call them. Leave an inch on top of each.

Cover with wrap and refrigerate until set. I'd say 3-4 hours.

The last step. Pour the remaining Guinness into a a pan (you should still have 1 cup, hopefully) and bring to a boil, Reduce heat and let simmer until the beer is reduced to 1 tablespoon. Beat the remaining 1 cup of cream and add the syrupy Guinness reduction and fold together. Now top up the glasses with the cream and hopefully the whole thing looks like a glass of Guinness.

I did say we couldn't finish it but that doesn't mean we threw it away. I intend on finishing my pudding when the sun's over the yardarm. Whatever that means! Enjoy!

Birthday Cake #17 - Strawberry

I made this for my son's birthday. He wanted a strawberry cake and strawberry it was. This is a pretty simple recipe and easily found on the web. Now I know the secret of J.E.L.L.O the possibilities are endless. Could a grape cake be next..or lime?


I topped it off with Seven Minute Frosting and cooked the left-over frosting into little tiny meringues. Some sliced berries went between the layers.  


 Stawberry Cake


2 cups sugar
1 package strawberry Jello
1 cup soft butter
4 eggs
 2 ¾ cups  flour
2 ½  tsp baking powder
1 cup whole milk 
1 tb vanilla 
½ cup strawberry puree made from frozen strawberries. 


Preheat oven to 350o.Butter and flour 2 9-inch round pans. 


In a large bowl cream butter and sugar together with the Jello powder until unified and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time. 


In another bowl, combine the flour and baking powder. Stir in the dry ingredients into the pink batter alternately with the milk. Blend in the vanilla and strawberry puree. Bake for 30 minutes. 

When the Pieces Fall into Place

I have to  see this because I love this kind of art history mystery.

"Where I Was Born..."

A Photograph, A Clue and the Discovery of Abel Boulineau

March 5-August 21

Art Gallery of Ontario

Vanessa Fleet, a Museum Studies M.A. student at the University of Toronto (yay!) was taking her internship at the Art Gallery of Ontario last summer. While at the AGO, Fleet was charged with researching an anonymous collection of photographs of French regional life from the turn of the last century. The assistant curator of photography at the AGO asked for Vanessa's help in determining who the photographer of these works was because Vanessa could read French and she had previously written an essay about Eugene Atget, another French photographer.

Fleet began her investigations by carefully reading the inscriptions on the backs of the photos. She found people's names, addresses and even a birthdate. She contacted the parish responsible for the records of Auberive, a place name found on the back of one of the photos. They confirmed that the birthdate on the back of the photo was for Abel Boulineau, a recognized Paris-based painter.

There was nothing to actually connect Abel Boulineau with the photographs at the AGO until Fleet, nearing the end of her internship, came upon a picture that made her stop in her tracks. While going through the final binder, she found an image of women and children, doing their laundry in a river. It was Vanessa Fleet's "Aha!" moment as she found the photo very familiar. The photo was almost identical to a Boulineau painting had seen on-line two months earlier called "The Washerwomen", and she had found the key to the photo's attribution.

Boulineau is unknown to me but he is now in the league of 19th Century painters, like Degas, who used photography to create a source of material for painters.

Source: Looking for clues, bY Sara Angel March 03, 2011 Eyeweekly.com

Polly's Pig

Artist and fellow blogger Polly Jackson has had her illustration of a little pig unwilling to get his feet wet used in the Huffington Post. So cool, Polly! Congratulations! Click here to read the article. And go visit Polly's website, pollyjackson.com . You will be amazed and delighted.

Author Lynne Truss looks spookily like me in this picture. My husband jumped when he saw it. After some poking around on the internet I found that it's just a hair and nose thing.