‘Uncategorized’ Category

  1. Pumpkin Spice Toaster Oven Scones and Wok Parathas

    April 17, 2013 by MaryAnne

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    Given that it’s already, oh, mid April and the skies are light and fluffy and sometimes blue, and temperatures have already soared into the high 20s and it’s definitely shirtsleeve weather, I fear that the title of this one is a terrible misnomer.

    It isn’t though. I’m just a terrible, terrible procrastinator.

    [ETA: I've just edited the title so it's less confusing! It used to be visibly part of the Eating My Way Through Winter series; now it's just in the category]

    You see, this has been in my drafts folder since last November.

    My drafts folder, I might add, is ridiculously plump with unfinished posts.

    This one? This is actually the third time I’ve hauled it out to write up. The previous two attempts were just me going on in really vague terms about how crappy I was feeling and how hard it was to write about pumpkins without letting my malaise seep into the text.

    Which is tedious as hell to those who are not emotionally invested in my life.

    Like, all of you.

    The pumpkin scones themselves were baked, photographed and eaten about two months ago.

    I was going through a rather brutal and cataclysmic change in my life at that point, which I dealt with through lots of creative experimentation with pumpkins and squash.

    See the size of the ones you can get at the market up the street? The one in the photo below is the size of a small toddler.  You have to really whack at it ferociously with a massive cleaver to cut it into roast’able rings. That one made a ton of scones, parathas, curry, mash, fritters, and hash.

    I roasted it in slices, ring by ring, rubbed with olive oil and whatever spices took my fancy. The paneer curry spice mix my aunt sent me ages ago was my favourite. My Moroccan blend from a spice shop in Fes was also amazing.

     

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    Would you believe, this thing cost me about a buck in the market…

     

    I’m doing much better now and so don’t need to rely on the catharsis of hacking up a poor defenseless gourd to feel at least somewhat sane.

    I am, however, still buying smaller segments of gourd from the market and making wok parathas to go with whatever soups or stews or random leftovers find their way into the fridge.

    I don’t normally do two recipes in one post but I figured I might as well in this case. After all, you just need to roast up some pumpkin and, lo! You have the makings of two really awesome- and yet not at all the same- quick breads! (more…)

    Category Baked Things, Eating My Way Through Winter, Improbable Things, Sweet Things, Uncategorized | Tags: ,,,,,, | 4 Comments

  2. Eating My Way Through Winter: Coconut Spice Bread

    December 12, 2012 by MaryAnne

    spice bread

     

    This is going to be a new series, if I can get my act together.

     

    At the moment my act is very obviously not together, but more about that later.

    I’ve decided that the best way to deal with an unwanted winter is to ignore it entirely, to stay in bed as much as possible, and to bake as if I was in a place full of trees, fresh air and lovely white blankets of snow, rather than in a huge city where the daily pollution readings declare it Unhealthy and where it doesn’t tend to snow but it sure loves to be cold and damp.

    This obviously means I need to bake more. I need to make more warm and happy comfort foods. I need to totally regain all of the  8kg I lost doing that detox back in October. I’m nothing if not diligent. (more…)

    Category Baked Things, Eating My Way Through Winter, Uncategorized | Tags: ,,,,, | 10 Comments

  3. Stuffed Cabbage (Because it’s Cabbage Season)

    November 26, 2012 by MaryAnne

    cabbage rolls

    The wind is just howling out there. Last night, I was kept up until the uncivilized hours by the noise of it just whipping around the building, slamming against the balcony that juts out, catching on the corner. Being on the 16th floor is loud. I had no idea before we moved here. I’d always been a first or second (or 5th, at most) kind of gal.

    Anyway, it’s still noisy this morning and I’m tired and it’s Monday.

    It’s also grey and grim and cold, as is to be expected here at this time of year.  I really should get a stock photo for this, to put on every post between now and next April. (more…)

    Category Baked Things, Soupy Stewy Things, Spicy Things, Uncategorized | Tags: ,,,,,, | 5 Comments

  4. Spicy, buttery rearranged cheese biscuits

    November 23, 2012 by MaryAnne

    And then there were (eventually) none. I started out with 27...

    Apparently I’ve been on hiatus.

     

    I popped by here yesterday to update my plug-ins and noticed I hadn’t done anything in two whole months. You’d think I was starving to death or something.

    Which I was, for a while.

    After we came back from a gluttonous week in Hong Kong in early October, I sentenced myself to a 30 day detox, cutting out everything that was fun in the universe: no grains, no dairy, no sweeteners (not even honey), no starchy veggies, no nothing. I lived on veggies… and veggies and tuna and coffee and grilled chicken enlivened by the spice rub I brought back from Morocco.

    Somehow I survived.

    I didn’t do much inspired cooking though. Certainly nothing worth noting here.

    Oh, hey, look, it’s another freaking tuna salad!  I can’t wait to document it for posterity!

    Oh, no, wait. Never mind.

    Anyway, I’m back. I’ve dusted off the oven and prepped myself mentally to regain the 6 or 7 kilos I lost over the past 2 months. After all, it’s winter now and I need to be ready for  the long, unpleasant season of hibernation. Shanghai is bad at winter.

    See?

     

    Today’s forecast: dire, with a chance of grim extending to the weekend. Highs of meh, with a projected low of get me the hell out of here.

    (more…)

    Category Baked Things, Milky Cheesy Things, Uncategorized | Tags: ,,,,, | 4 Comments

  5. Killing My Crock Pot Softly With Yeast Breads

    September 26, 2012 by MaryAnne

    It's remarkably hefty, that bread.

     

    I’m not, I admit, one of those pretty food writers. I’m not talking about me and my bad hair and naked face and un-manicured nails, mind you- I’m talking about my food styling abilities, or lack thereof.

     

    I’m also not good at pretending that things turned out okay.  Like that time I made those Suzhou hockey pucks. Or the biryani that was a bit, well, stodgier than anticipated.  Or the crackers that weren’t quite as crackery as hoped. As long as it’s on the high end of edible, I’ll post it, looks be damned.

     

    Look, irregularly lumpy scones!

     

    Which is why I’m writing about my Great Crockpot Bread Experiment.

    Which, well, didn’t go quite as planned. (more…)

    Category Baked Things, Uncategorized | Tags: ,,,, | 4 Comments

  6. Awesome Nanjing Klepto-Banana Bread (and Pudding)

    September 25, 2012 by MaryAnne

    banana loaf

    I’m a bad food blogger.

    While I’ve been blathering away over yonder about mops and Chinese demolition sites, I’ve been neglecting to talk with y’all about food. Because I have been cooking, believe it or not. And baking. And blowing up the kitchen. Daily!

    I just didn’t have the time or energy to take the pictures and blog about it.

    Since we got back from Morocco, I’ve spent nearly every weekend being shipped off to 2nd and 3rd tier cities around the East coast of China for work (in addition to my Monday-Friday job, so yeah, hello exhaustion).

    The last thing I felt like doing in my rare free time was uploading photos of mashed bananas.

    This recipe is a two-parter: banana bread and banana bread pudding.

     

    The first one was sent to me in an email by my mother back in August, when I was having a supremely bad week (I forget why, but if it necessitated an email containing my childhood favourite banana bread, it must have been fairly rough). It’s from our Harrowsmith cookbook, which is well thumbed and streaked with batter.  They have really good oatmeal cookies too, for the record.

     The second was to use up the aforementioned banana bread that I couldn’t actually finish (Doug doesn’t like banana bread) and it was starting to go stale. I decided to attempt to use semi stale banana bread in a bog-standard bread pudding recipe. It worked. Yay!

    The bananas used in the recipe were nicked from my hotel room in Nanjing, where I had been shipped off to for two weekends in a row. There are only so many complimentary bananas that a gal can eat, especially when she’s not actually a fan of fruit. If they left me a plate full of cucumbers and peppers, I might be more appreciative. (more…)

    Category Baked Things, Milky Cheesy Things, Sweet Things, Uncategorized | Tags: ,, | 13 Comments

  7. Made in Jiānádà: Suzhou Porky Mooncakes

    August 31, 2012 by MaryAnne

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    Hello. I’ve been away for a while, haven’t I?

    It’s been a very hot,  busy summer, much of it nowhere near a kitchen to call my own.

    We were in Morocco for a month, which was lovely in spite of the fact that it was 46 degrees in the shade AND Ramadan for most of the time we were there. Whoops.

    Anyway. I’ve been back in Shanghai for nearly three weeks now and have yet to dust off the oven and check to see if it even still works. Poor thing. I’ve made chili and tacos and a ton of wok tortillas, but those aren’t new things so I can’t exactly re-write posts for them just for the sake of it.

    This one… this is one I made back in Canada just before I left, but never posted.

    Why?

    Because I royally screwed it up.  Kind of. I made Suzhou pork hockey pucks.

    You know, the Canadian interpretation. Like, say, chop suey or bison fried rice.

    Apparently my skillful light touch and intuitive cooking skills don’t apply to pastry.

    I love Suzhou mooncakes. In China, however, it isn’t worth the energy to actually make them at home because they are so good, so fresh and so cheap here.

    For the past two mornings, on my long, hot trek out to the Entry-Exit Bureau in deepest, darkest Pudong to renew my residence permit, I’ve stopped at a tiny stand at the bottom of our street to buy a little brown bag containing exactly two mooncakes, still hot and flakey and filled with lovely, juicy, umami seasoned ground pork, fresh from the oven. 6 kuai (under a buck) for a very solid breakfast.

    I was too busy eating them to take pictures, but below is one I took a few weeks ago when I was actually in Suzhou. See the little red stamp on the ones below? They stamp their mooncakes, yes. Much more low key than all the fiddly crimping and dough-engraving that goes on with the classical lotus paste and duck egg filled Cantonese style ones that are exchanged (and then re-gifted and re-gifted, like fruitcake) during the mid-autumn festival (coming very soon). (more…)

    Category Baked Things, Improbable Things, Made in Jianada, Uncategorized | Tags: ,,,,,, | 5 Comments

  8. Made in Jiānádà: Homestyle porky Eggplant (家常茄子)

    July 11, 2012 by MaryAnne

    We took ours camping. It reheats very well in a cast iron fry pan over a propane camp stove. Just so you know.

    Eggplant (茄子 or qiézi) was one of the first words I learned in Mandarin back in early 2009, partly because we ordered it so often that it inevitably had to stick in my head, and partly because it sounded like a hybrid between cheese and chaise (as in longue). Kind of like ch’yay’zuh.

    Except not really.

    If you are anything like me, your tones will be so inconceivably wrong that you could say it every day for three years and still only get it right half the time.

    And I do get practice saying it. We eat spiced deep fried eggplant slices, stewed umami eggplant fingers with sizzling red and green peppers, dry fried green beans with long melty lengths of lightly spiced eggplant with just a hint of pork crumble. At home, I’ve baked it and fried it and breaded it.

    When I lived in Turkey, I lived on it.

    And the thing is, until a decade ago, I thought I hated eggplant. I loathed it, in fact. It was on the list of things I told people I didn’t like, alongside all sorts of fungus and organ meats.

    What I failed to realize, however, was that 1. I just hated those big spongy bitter eggplants normally sold in Canada and 2. I hate big spongy chunks of poorly prepared eggplant.

    Those little tiny thin Asian and Turkish purple-black eggplants, properly sauteed or baked slowly and drizzled in olive oil? Those I like.

    This recipe is astonishingly easy to pull together and really quite tasty, even for those who think they hate eggplant. It’s not at all spongy and it’s not at all bitter. It tastes even better, reheated over a propane camp stove three days later, eaten plain with a spoon in little unbreakable bowls in the wilds of Vancouver Island.

    This is, as the name says, simple homestyle eggplant (家常茄子 – jiācháng qiézi). This is comfort food. (more…)

    Category Improbable Things, Made in Jianada, Spicy Things, Uncategorized | Tags: ,,,,,, | 6 Comments

  9. Made in Jiānádà: Pork and Green Beans, China-Style

    July 8, 2012 by MaryAnne

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    I’m not actually anywhere near my kitchen right now. In fact, I’m out in the wilds of Vancouver Island with my family, camping outside the gates of the Island Music Fest. My laptop is being powered by one of my dad’s spare car batteries and I’m stealing wifi from one of the sound stages. Music is drifting across the Grassy Knoll. No, not that grassy knoll. The other one.

    This recipe is one I made last week, before we drove up island to the Comox Valley for a week. Our culinary excursions here have consisted of reheating things we had made earlier on the tiny propane burner in the tiny little camper.

    For the record, eggplant with minced pork (to be posted when we get back) reheats fabulously.

    This is a whole other deal, though working within the porky paradigm. This is one we have eaten many times in Shanghai, though I have to limit my intake as Doug’s less of a green bean fan than I am. If I could, I’d live on spicy minced pork with green beans (and eggplant!).

    It’s very easy to make and the prep can be done in instalments. Do a little bit, walk away, come back later and do more. Assemble and cook when you’re ready.

    It goes well as a side dish or as a main dish with rice. We actually chopped up the leftovers into little pieces and used it to fill fresh Vietnamese rice rolls (you know, the discs that you soak briefly in warm water to soften), along with fresh cilantro, vinegared onions, scallions and a squeeze of fresh lime. Gorgeous. There are no photos of this because we ate EVERYTHING.

    They call these dry fried string beans in English in the recipe (technically it’s dry stirred- gān biān 干煸 - whatever that means) but they’re actually fried in oil, which isn’t exactly parched.

    Go figure.

    I kind of want to call out a square dance with this one, but with a hearty sìjì dòu instead of a do-si-do.

    Ladies and gents, I give you pork ‘n beans. Kind of. (more…)

    Category Improbable Things, Made in Jianada, Spicy Things, Uncategorized | Tags: ,,,,, | 5 Comments

  10. Made in Jiānádà: Lanzhou Lāmiàn (broth!)

    June 30, 2012 by MaryAnne

    The Super-Sized dinner version

    This is part 2 in my noodle series. Part 1 (the hand pulled noodles) is here.

    This is quite possibly the best broth in the whole universe. Except, perhaps, for a fine Tom Yam with all the bark and twigs still nestled at the bottom of the bowl. This one has its own mighty collection of bark and twigs, and plays the role of hearty autumn and winter to Thailand’s fierce summer in the Cartesian dialectic of soup broths.

    This is a broth that will make you pick up the bowl and sip away at the broth until it’s gone, leaving only a few stray chili seeds at the bottom, long after the noodles and greens have been spooned/chopsticked away.  The rich beefy scent, umami’d up to the hilt with soy, garlic, star anise and cinnamon, needs to be brought up close to your nostrils as you sip. The chilies and garlic will sternly resolve any colds you may have stubbornly residing in your system.

    Keep a few Tupperware containers of this stuff in your freezer for a cold, rainy day, then note how your mood significantly lifts after you heat up a bowl of it. Seriously. This stuff is mood altering, up there with crack and bath salts. (more…)

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    Category Made in Jianada, Soupy Stewy Things, Spicy Things, Uncategorized | Tags: ,,,,,, | 7 Comments

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