Jambalaya

Sour Cabbage Rolls (Holubtsi)

Rolls:

• 1 whole head SOUR cabbage (about 3 pounds)
• 2 pounds ground beef
• 3/4 cup finely chopped onion
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 cup raw rice, cooked and cooled
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper

Sauce:

• 1 800ml can crushed or pureed tomatoes
• 1/3 cup strongish beef broth
• 1 can condensed tomato soup, undiluted
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed

When handling a whole head of sour cabbage, the souring solution can rritate your skin, so wear food grade latex or rubber gloves.

Remove cabbage from wrapping (in the sink, it will be very wet) and carefully peel each leaf away from the head. Cut the thick center stem from each leaf, separating the larger leaves into two pieces. The smaller leaves can be left whole but, depending on the thickness of the centre rib, you may want to pare it down.

In a large steel bowl combine meat, rice, egg, , chopped onion, garlic, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.

Dampen your hands, take a small portion (3 Tbsp) of meat mixture and roll it in your damp hands to make an oblong/oval shape. place at one edge of a cabbage leaf piece and roll the leaf around it, tucking the open ends in toward the center.

Place each roll seam side down in a large roasting pan or lasagne pan. (If you are left with extra leaves, you can line the bottom of the pan with them and put the rolls on top, or stuff them down the sides of the pan.)

Mix sauce ingredients and pour over cabbage rolls. The sauce should almost come up to the tops of the rolls withiout totally covering them. If there is not enough sauce to reach this level, add water until the appropriate level is reached.

Bake, loosely covered with foil, in a 350 farenheit oven for 1 to 1.5 hours, depending on the size of the dish. If you're unsure as to the appropriate length of time, my mother's rule is to assume they are done when the sauce has been bubbling well for 30 minutes. If the sauce looks like it's getting so low it might burn, add a little more water, just enough to avoid burning. When they come out, the sauce volume should be drastically reduced.

Serve with a little of the sauce in each dish.

As a variation, I have been known to add sauteed musrooms to the meat mixture.

Morroccan buttermilk chicken

Ingredients:

For the Chicken
Roasting chicken ( use 1.5 kilograms )
1 litre buttermilk
1/3 cup honey
2 pieces lemon rind (1 cm by 3 cm each)

For the stuffing
1/4 cup butter
1/2 sweet onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, diced
1/2 cup whole almonds
6 medjool dates, pitted and chopped
1 cup couscous
1 - 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 tablespoon honey
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
juice of one lemon
1/4 teaspoon zested lemon peel
1 large egg

For glaze
1/3 cup butter
1/4 cup honey
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon pepper

For sauce
2.5 cups stock
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 onion, thinly sliced
juice of half a lemon

Method:

To prepare chicken:

Marinate clean, rinsed chicken at least 24 hours in buttermilk, honey and lemon peel. Drain chicken and discard marinade. Place chicken in roasting pan ready for stuffing. Pre-heat oven to 400 Fahrenheit or 200 Celsius.

To prepare stuffing:

Melt butter in large stir-fry pan. Add sliced onions, garlic, almonds and dried spices. Cook and stir over medium heat until onions are translucent and almonds have begun to toast, about 6 to 8 minutes. Add the couscous and stir for 2 minutes more. Add all the remaining stuffing ingredients except the egg, stir until bubbly, cover and remove from heat. Allow to sit, covered, for 5 minutes. Remove cover and allow to cool slightly, for 10 minutes. Prepare the glaze while the stuffing is cooling.

To prepare glaze:
Place all glaze ingredients in a small microwave safe bowl and microwave on high for 1 minute. Stir together to combine, set aside until required.

Stir the egg through the cooled stuffing. Spoon the stuffing mixture loosely into the chicken's cavity. skewer cavity closed. Heap remaining stuffing (if any) into a small glass or metal loaf tin. mix all the sauce ingredients except the lemon, and pour them in the bottom of the roasting pan.

Brush chicken with glaze mixture and pop chicken and extra stuffing into oven.

Use the glaze mixture to baste the chicken once every 20 minutes until the glaze is used up.

Roast the chicken for 30 minutes plus 20 minutes for each 500 grams. This should include the weight of the stuffing. This stuffing is relatively light so I cook a 1.5 kilogram chicken for 100 minutes.

Remove from oven and allow chicken to rest under foil. Use a fork to squash garlic cloves into sauce in bottom of the roasting pan. Scrape pan and pour juice through a sieve into a medium saucepan. Heat the juice until it is reduced in volume to about 1/2. Add the lemon juice and stir. Alter the seasoning for your own taste

Scoop out stuffing on to the centre of a platter. Slice chicken and place slices around the stuffing. Drizzle a bit of the sauce over both chicken and stuffing and serve the rest of the sauce on the side.

Jambalaya (makes 8 generous servings)

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 + 1/2 cups chopped onion (about 1 medium to large)
• 1 + 1/4 cups chopped celery (about 3 large ribs)
• 1 red pepper, diced
• 5 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 cups sliced spicy sausage (like andouille or chorizo)
• 1 cup diced smoked ham
• 2 teaspoons of the darkest Hungarian paprika you can find. (mine is a deep scarlet colour)
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 boned and skinned chicken breast, cubed
• 5 cups chicken stock
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 2 + 1/2 cups long grain rice
• 5 cups diced tomatoes (I used yellow, orange and red)
• 1/2 cup chopped parsley (plus more for garnish)

Heat oil in large (8 to 10 litre) dutch oven until hot. Add onion,celery, red pepper and garlic. Cook and stir over medium heat until softened and browned, about 8 minutes. Add sausage, ham, paprika,and pepper flakes and black pepper. Continue cooking over medium to high heat, stirring frequently until for a further 10 minutes. Stir in chicken, chicken stock and rice and combine thoroughly. Bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer 20 minutes until liquid is absorbed. Check several times during the 20 minutes cooking time to make sure there is still enough liquid. If the liquid absorbs too quickly, and the rice starts sticking to the bottom of the pot, pour in 1/4 cup or so of water to stop the rice from sticking.

This is a perfectly yummy one dish meal. Just spicy enough and absolutely packed with fresh, tangy veggies and loaded with spicy meat!

After the 20 minutes is up, stir in the tomatoes and parsley. Cover and, turn off heat and allow to stand on burner 5 minutes. Garnish servings with more chopped parsley.

Spicy Creole Sausage

Makes 22-24 small sausages (about 15 cm long by 3-4 cm diameter)

• 680 grams (1.5 lbs) lean ground pork
• 424 grams (1 lb) lean ground beef
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 5 ml (1 teaspoon) fresh ground pepper
• 10 ml (2 teaspoons) salt
• 5 ml (1 teaspoon) ground chili powder
• 5 ml (1 teaspoon) ground cayenne powder
• 2.5 ml (0.5 teaspoons) cumin
• 10 ml (2 teaspoons) dark paprika
• 2.5 ml (0.5 teaspoon) sugar
• 10 ml (2 teaspoons) hickory flavour liquid smoke
• 2.5 ml (0.5 teaspoons) allspice
• 1/3 big bunch parsley, coarsely chopped (about 3/4 cup)
• 1 medium onion, minced (about 1/2 cup)
• 80ml (1/3 cup) red wine

Squish all ingredients together in a big bowl using your hands, for several minutes until the mixture is well blended and the meat fibres start feeling quite sticky and the meat holds together well when you squeeze a ball of it in your hand.

Using wet hands, work 1/3 cup amounts between your hands to make roughly sausagey shapes. Try to make them a little longer and skinnier than you think they should be as they get a bit shorter ans fatter during cooking as the heat makes the little protien fibres shrink a bit. Roll the formed sausages on a damp cutting board to smooth them out. Place them on silicone baking paper, or waxed paper that you've sprayed with a little oil. nIf you're going to freeze some of these for later, you can just pop the baking paper onto a cookie tray and chuck it in the freezer. When the sausages are all frozen, you can package them up in plastic or foil. Make sure you separate them again when you thaw them.

If you're cooking them all straight away you'll need to do them in batches, unless you have a gargantuan frying pan. I wouldn't recommend that you do these on a grill, as they might fall apart, but if you want to do them on the barbie, you could do them on the griddle part.

Heat your pan or griddle up to just before the smoking point, place your sausages in the pan and, every 30-40 seconds, rotate them a quarter so that all sides are seared. After this step they'll retain their shape very nicely. Turn the heat down to medium and jiggle the pan back and forth to move the sausages around until they are fully cooked, about 3-4 minutes. They should still be exuding some nice clear juice. Don't over-cook them as they will be very dry - they have no bread crumbs added to retain moisture, and they are made from lean meat, which dries out more easily.

Per sausage: 89 cal, 3.7 fat grams, 2 WW points (a reasonable serving is between 2-3 of these sausages)

We ate these with a great tabbouleh salad! The fresh, green, lemony salad really worked well with the spicy sausages.

Two-For-One Sausages

Chili and Black Olive Chorizo

Will make about 20 to 25 sausages if you use 18 mm casings

• 800 grams organic ground pork
• 600 grams organic ground beef
• 150 ml red wine
• 5 cloves garlic minced
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 3/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 3 teaspoons sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
• 1 cup minced pitted semi-dried kalamata olives
• 1 teaspoon liquid smoke
• 1 1/2 cups cooked arborio rice
• 1 cup minced fresh organic parsley

Mix really well. Before you stuff into casings, take a tablespoon or so and fry it up quickly in the frying pan so you can taste whether the seasonings are what you want. Then you can adjust the seasonings because there's not much half for a badly seasoned sausage once its in the casing. Once you're happy with the taste, stuff into soaked, rinsed casings. You could also roll these into roughly sausagy shapes if you don't have the equipment for stuffing casings, but in that case I'd add a raw egg or two in to help the sausages stick together better.

Garlic, Rosemary and Mustard Seed Sausages

Will make about 20 to 25 sausages if you use 18 mm casings

• 800 grams organic ground pork
• 600 grams organic ground beef
• 150 ml beer
• 5 cloves garlic minced
• 1/2 tablespoon crushed dried rosemary
• 2-3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh rosemary
• 1/2 cup seeded Dijon mustard
• 3 teaspoons sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon cayenne
• 2 teaspoons chili pepper flakes
• 1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
• 2 teaspoons liquid smoke
• 1 1/2 cups cooked arborio rice
• 1 cup minced fresh organic parsley

Follow the same directions as for the spicy black olive chorizo.

Seafood cobbler with potato dumpling crust

Serves 6-8

• 600 ml white wine
• 2 cups fish stock, reduced to 1 cup
• Bay leaf
• Cracked black pepper
• 450 g white fish fillets
• 250 g small peeled shrimp
• 250 g small scallops
• ⅓ cup flour
• ⅓ cup butter
• 3 garlic finely cut cloves
• 4 large finely cut shallots
• ⅓ cup chopped parsley
• Small courgette, thinly sliced
• 2 ½ c. sliced mushrooms
• 200 ml thick cream

Preheat oven to 425 º F.

Over medium heat, simmer stock, wine and bay leaf for 5 minutes. Poach fish fillets for 3 minutes in wine, until partly cooked and warmed through. Remove fish fillets, cut into cubes and set aside. In a second pan sauté courgette and mushrooms over high heat until browned, remove pan from stove and add a splash of wine to deglaze.

Place scallops, shrimp, cubed fish, mushrooms, courgette and parsley into baking dish.

Sauté garlic and shallots in butter and then make roux by adding flour. Remove bay leaf from stock and then add stock to roux and whisk. Heat, stirring for 2 minutes, or until thick. Remove sauce pan from heat and stir through cream and cracked black pepper. Pour sauce over contents of baking dish and mix through.

Cobbler crust:

1½ cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

¾ cup grated cheddar cheese

⅓ cup butter

2 potatoes, peeled and grated

2 tablespoons sour cream

Directions:

Combine flour, baking powder, ½ of the grated cheese and salt in mixing bowl. Rub in butter until the mixture is crumbly. Set the remaining ¼ cup cheese for the top of the cobbler.

Boil the grated potatoes for 4 minutes and drain in colander, rinsing with warm water.

Mix cooked potatoes and sour cream into the dough mixture. Mixture should form a wet and sticky dough.

Shape cobbler topping into small pancakes with wet hands and distribute, overlapping slightly, over the top of the seafood mixture in baking dish. Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake in centre of oven for 45 minutes. Allow to cool 5 minutes before serving.

Pitas (makes 4 to 8 breads):

3 1/2 cups unbleached bread flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp active dry yeast
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 1/4 cups cool water
Directions:
-Mix together all ingredients either in the bowl of a mixer with a dough hook, or in a bowl with a spoon or your hands.
-Once the dough starts to come together, change the speed on the mixer to medium and let it mix for about 8 minutes or until the dough is elastic or, if mixing by hand, turn the dough out onto a floured board and knead by hand until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes or so (I did mix this by hand as I felt a need for some good dough therapy).

-Place the dough in an oiled bowl turning it to coat the top with oil. Cover the bowl and set aside to rise for about 1 to 1 1/2 hours or until doubled in size.

-Preheat oven to 475 f with either a baking stone or an upside down sheetpan inside.
-Turn the dough out onto a cutting board, flatten slightly and divide into 4 to 8 pieces.
Form each piece into a ball and set on an oiled surface, cover with plastic wrap and allow to rest for about 30 minutes.

-Once the dough has rested, lightly flour a surface and roll out the balls one at a time, placing them into the oven(it's a bit more like a light toss onto the baking stone or onto the back of the heated sheetpan) and baking them as you go. They should be rolled to about 1/4 inch thick.
Watch the magical puffing of the pitas as you go. These don't take that long to bake..it is 5 minutes or less for each one.
They are done as soon as they inflate to the size of a balloon.
Use caution when removing them from the oven, as they may tear a bit and some steam will escape. It hurts when steam burns you! I know! And, as you remove each from the oven, layer them with a piece of towel or paper towel, so that as they begin to deflate, they steam themselves. This makes the flexible soft pita that we all know and love.

-Once done, set aside and work on falafel mixture

Bourbon Street Bread Pudding

For the Pudding:

Ingredients:

• 1 large loaf good French bread, cubed
• 1 quart milk
• 3 egg
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
• 5 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup raisins

For the Sauce:

• 1 stick buter
• 11/3 cups powdered sugar
• 1 egg
• whiskey to taste (actually, we used rum, but you could also use bourbon)

For the pudding

Soak bread in milk, crush with hands till well mixed. Then add eggs, sugar, vanilla, and raisins .Pour butter in bottom of pan and bake at 375 Farenheit until firm, about 1 hour. Serve with whiskey sauce.

For the sauce

Cream sugar and egg until well mixed. Add melted butter and continue to dissolve. Add whiskey or rum to taste which should make sauce creamy smooth.

wild mushroom ragout

(serves 4)

• 1/2 sliced onion
• 2 large cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 teaspoon ground sage
• 1/2 teaspoon cracked pepper
• 6 cups mixed sliced mushrooms (cremini, oyster, shitake)
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 + 1/4 cup white wine
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 1/2 cup grated good quality Parmesan cheese
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1/3 cup cream

• fresh, crusty bread cut in very thick slices and toasted

In a large saute pan over medium-high heat, cook and stir the butter, onions, garlic and sage for five minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the mushrooms and pepper and continue cooking until the mushrooms start to cook down and get a bit brown. Add the soy sauce. Shake up the flour with the wine and pour into the pan. Stir until sauce starts to bubble and thicken. Add parsley and Parmesan cheese (reserving a little cheese top sprinkle over the top of the plated servings), cook and stir 2 minutes more. Remove from heat, stir in milk and cream.

Serve the ragout hot atop fresh toasted bread and sprinkle with a little additional cheese.

Tomato and Edam Tart for Gram

Enough for a 30 cm tart pan

for the Pastry
180 grams flour
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
90 grams butter
2 Tablespoons cold buttermilk (or more, depending on the flour you use)

Sift first three ingredients together. Cut cold, cubed butter into flour with a pastry cutter until it resembles crumbs. Slowly add the cold buttermilk until the dough sticks together into a ball. Refrigerate until well chilled. Sandwich the dough ball between two layers of cling film and roll out to the desired shape. Peel away one layer of the cling film and place the pastry gently over the tart tin, remaining cling film facing up. Remove the cling film from the top of the dough and press dough firmly, but gently into the tin, trimming the edges even with the top of the pan. Set lined tart tin aside in the refrigerator until required.

For the Filling:
1 large sweet onion, thinly sliced
1/2 tablesoon butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cloves garlic, minced
200 grams edam cheese, shredded
5 ripe, firm juicy tomatoes, ends discarded and sliced into four or five slices each

Cook and stir onions, garlic and butter in a non-stick frying pan until golden and soft, (about 10 minutes) over medium heat, add salt. Arrange cooked onions in bottom of tart shell, covering the base evenly. Sprinkle shredded cheese evenly over the onion. Top onion with overlapping tomato slices. Bake tart in a 350F/190C oven for 60 minutes. Feed it to someone you love. Or me. Yes, feed it to me.

Bannock and wild blueberry jam

For the Bannock:

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 Tablespoon baking powder
• 2 Tablespoons sugar
• 1/3 cup vegetable shortening
• 1 cup water

Sift together dry ingredients and cut in butter the same as you would for pastry or baking powder biscuits. When mixture resembles crumbs, add in enough water to make a dough heavier than drop scones or biscuits, but lighter than rolled scones or biscuits. The dough should not be overly sticky. Separate dough into 2 balls. pat each ball out into an oval shape, about a half centimetre thick and drape each oval over the clean end of a long birch branch thick enough to support the weight of the dough. Cook the dough in a campfire by holding it near the glowing coals until the dough is puffy and cooked. If you're lazy, of if it looks like your dough might fall off the stick, you can lay it on top of a grill, or fashion a grid out of smaller birch branches, woven together.

Eat the bannock hot with butter and blueberry jam.

For the wild blueberry jam:

• 1 + 1/4 cups wild blueberries
• 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 + 3/4 cups sugar
• 1/ 2 envelope liquid pectin

Pick over fruit, removing any stems and leaves.

Put into a large heavy pot. Add lemon juice and sugar. Mix well. Heat over high, stirring, and bring to a full rolling boil. Boil hard for 1 minute, stirring constantly.

Remove from heat; stir in pectin at once. Skim off foam, stir and skim off foam again.

Ladle into hot, sterilized jars and seal. This jam will keep for a month or so if finished like this. If you want the jam to keep for a longer time, I recommend you process the jam in the jars for at least ten minutes.

Warm Berry Compote

2 Tbsp flour

2 Tbsp butter

1/3 to 1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 Tbsp pomegranate syrup

1/2 cup orange juice

2 cups mixed berries (strawberries quartered)

In a large, nonstick skillet, make a blond roux with the butter and flour. Stir in the orange juice, sugar, vanilla and pomegranate syrup and allow to bubble. add in the berries and allow to simmer gently for 3 or 4 minutes, until berries are cooked, but not mushy. Adjust liquid and sugar if necessary.

Remove from heat.

Arrange scones, cream and compote on plate and eat while both scones and compote are warm!

The Warm berry compote and the rest of the cream did double duty the next morning reincarnated into pancakes!