Well Seasoned Blog

CONGRATULATIONS ! We have a winner….

We are looking forward to seeing you tonight at the class, you have been notified by direct e-mail.   Thanks to veryone for playing !

Angie

leave your name and e-mail address in the comment section, we will randomly draw a name and give away 2 seats in this great class !! Good Luck !!

Simply Impressive Desserts • with Pastry Chef Tina Bacon
Tuesday March 9th, 2010 @ 7:00pm

You’re having a dinner party and are dreading the dessert and possibly so is your company. You serve the same stuff every time and frankly it’s getting kind of boring. Well tonight Chef Tina shows you how some simple preparations and a little planning can go along way to change up your routine. Create a signature Crème Brulee, once you have a good foundation you can create a million variations that will bring them back for more every single time. Individual Dacquoise – fancy schmancy rounds of nut meringue layered with a variety of delicious fillings, Super Extravagant Brownie Torte with Chocolate Ganache & Raspberry Coulis. Finally Apple Tartlet’s made with store bought all-butter puff pastry – the ultimate in convenience.

Today is my friend Lisa’s birthday so I thought I would contribute to the celebration with a cake….we are going to eat chicken wings & watch the Oscar’s but who doesn’t  love a cake !!  I was up early and inspired to get baking… I have a 3 hour conference call starting at 1pm and I know sitting that long will suck the life out of me so I thought I should get cracking early.   I decide to do a red velvet, the old school way with beets.  So I get all the stuff out, puree the beets and realize I don’t have any white sugar…dammit – so I modify me recipe for brown sugar…yeah, that should work.  Get the batter made and go to get out the cake pans – dammit – they are all at work…all I have at home are 8×8, 9×13 and a bundt pan.  oooohhhh, Bundt – that could be fun. Okay so I need to adjust the cooking time a little, no problem right ? We shall see – cake is in the oven now….

Okay, checked it at 35 minutes…not ready, give it another 15 but it’s looking good…smelling good too.

FYI….the Black Eyed Peas are great cake baking music…

still not quite there….another 5 minutes….

Okay – cakes out of the oven, listening to Melodie Gardot, also good Sunday morning baking tunes !

Will let it cool while I conference, ice it and take it with me to the party….I will report back.

Velvety Beet and Cocoa Bundt Cake

3/4 cup butter
2 cups brown sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup valrhona cocoa powder
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup whole milk
1 ½ cups pureed canned beets, juice drained off and ½ cup reserved
½ cup reserved beet juice

Heat the oven to 325′F. Cream the butter, sugar and beat in the eggs until light, pale and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt – add in alternating amounts with the milk. Add the beets and the beet juice; mix for a couple minutes until very smooth. Pour into greased Bundt pan and bake for about 50+ minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from the pan – cool and ice with cream cheese frosting

Cream Cheese Frosting

1 x 8 ounce brick of cream cheese, softened
¼ cup butter, softened
1 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Chocolate shavings for garnish

In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until creamy. Mix in the vanilla and then gradually stir in the confectioners’ sugar. Cover the cake with the frosting, garnish with chocolate shavings and serve

The Olympics were good to us weren’t they ?

Hours of entertainment on the tube, incredible Canadian patriotism, the likes of which this country has never seen and with that came of course the Canadian beer & wine…and boy did it flow. Apparently we drank more the first week of the Olympics that they did in Salt Lake and Torino COMBINED. Yes!, we are Canadian – the land of swinging singing mounties, giant flying beavers, poutine and Bill Shatner – we enjoy tossing back a cold one occasionally….or not so occasionally depending on what’s on TV.

Weather you enjoyed the games from the comfort of the lazy boy lounger in your living room or like me with a lazy boy lounger around town I am sure there are more moments you enjoyed than you can remember.

We laughed (first medal on Canadian soil), we cried (women’s figure skating), we nearly died (25 seconds left in the game) but when it was over and the lights a BC Place went out I couldn’t help but feel a sense of loss. My friend Erinn said, she felt like she was saying good bye to a good friend leaving town. I think we all feel like that Erinn. I am not sure anyone really knew what to expect, I mean Vanoc tried to explain how many people would be here, they told us there would be excitement, days filled with action, drama and memories that would last a lifetime, alas – they were right.

I didn’t really get into the games until they started, in fact I contemplated going away….leaving town. I was dreading the traffic, the political shit storm I knew would ensue and frankly I just couldn’t imagine it having much appeal for me but boy was I wrong.

As the torch entered BC getting closer and closer, there was almost a tangible build up to its arrival in Langley. I stood on the street waving my flag, cheering and choking back a tear I felt like my heart would burst. As a Canadian I have always been proud, always worn the flag on my lapel and shot down those persistent rumors of dog sled taxis while enjoying beverages at the pool in Mexico but somehow this was just different. Everyone was going to see we weren’t a bunch of hosers eating back bacon and curling. Okay, well maybe not – we ARE hosers, we do eat back bacon and we think curling is cool (mostly because you can drink while you do it). We hosted the world – they saw why we live here….the ocean, the mountains, the trees and most importantly the people that make this country so amazing. They all want to live her now but they can’t, like us they have jobs, kids, homes and ties to the cities they live in now. They can’t just pack up and move here but they can come visit us anytime they like, they can spend some money, eat our food, drink our beer and even practice saying Eh! In their fake Canadian accents – it’s pretty cute and while they are here they can spend time fantasizing about what it would be like to live here all the time. I am pretty sure we will go back to taking it for granted again pretty soon so it will act as a good reminder to us if we stop long enough to listen to the oohing and the ahhhhing.

So, in the wake of the final hockey game and an obviously entertainment challenged closing ceremonies I am pretty sure that Canada not only owned the podium but come Monday morning we also owned the porcelain.

The real Olympic hangover will likely last for a while but I hope we don’t slide back to where we were, we need to show a little gratitude, keep waving that flag and keep the beer cold – the world will be back.

Oh, I know how tempting they are…I see them all bright red and glorious looking in their little clear clamshell boxes on display in the grocery store like fine jewels from faraway lands – they are, they really are. You know I am talking about all those winter berries that started arriving just before Valentine’s Day and will now stick around until the sweet locally grown flavours of spring start to arrive.

I avoid those tempting looking berries at any cost; they always look so good but have a flavour reminiscent of wet cardboard and a texture similar to a pencil eraser – the pink kind, not the white ones. They are overpriced and they always under deliver. I preserver and don’t allow myself to be drawn into the bad berry vortex, eating seasonally is important to me and although it feels like early April most days it is still only February and we are sadly still many weeks away from enjoying the Fraser Valley flavours of spring. We have to work with what we have….and what we have right now is more root veg. than we can shake a stick at! That’s right super exciting things like beets, potatoes, turnip, yams, onions carrots and celeriac plus the fruit that remains from fall like apples and pears. Fortunately for me, I love all of those things but they can get a bit tiresome and let’s face it, we all get stuck in cooking ruts – making the same things over and over again to less than rave reviews from the diners at our table. Yesterday, I hauled a few of my favourite cookbooks – armed with a bag of turnips, a few spuds and a couple of not so great looking pears I went in search of culinary inspiration.

It didn’t take me long to find it – a delicious turnip and pear puree. Cut the turnip and the potatoes into cubes – steam for about 12 minutes until fork tender. Add the chopped peeled pears to the steamer and steam for another 3-4 minutes until they are all nice and mashable but not over cooked. Transfer the steamed veggies to a large bowl and mash on, add some butter and a little cream, season with some salt & pepper and serve immediately as a great side dish.

Simple, satisfying and delicious. All the inspiration you need to change things up is there if you look for it – transform basic ingredients into something great – break out of the box. Pick up a cookbook, open the pantry and get cooking.

Oven Roasted Mushroom Soup

Roasting the mushrooms before you add them to the soup, intensifies their earthiness adds another incredible layer of flavour. Once you have taken this extra step – there will be no going back.

8 oz fresh shiitake mushrooms
3 cups fresh cremini mushrooms
4 cups fresh button mushrooms
3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 tsp dried thyme
salt and freshly cracked black pepper to taste
1 cooking onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
6 cups homemade or best quality chicken stock
1 cup of cream
¼ cup minced fresh flat leaf parsley
¼ cup of dry sherry

Cut the cremini & button mushrooms into quarters or halves if they are small. Remove the stems from shiitakes and discard (they are too woody for this soup) cut them into quarters. Transfer the mushrooms to a small roasting pan and toss with 2 tbsp of the oil, ½ of the thyme and a sprinkling of salt and pepper.

Put your pan in a 400°F oven and roast for about 30 minutes, moving the mushrooms around occasionally until they are tender and golden brown.

Meanwhile, on top of the stove in large saucepan heat 1 tbsp of olive oil over medium heat and cook the onion, garlic & the rest of the thyme along with another sprinkling of salt and pepper. Cook until the onion is soft and translucent – you aren’t looking for any color here and be careful your heat isn’t too high, you don’t want your garlic to burn, it will make your soup bitter. Just before your onions are cooked stir on the sherry and let that reduce slightly. Finally, add the stock, the half of the contents of the roasted mushroom pan. With an immersion blender (or transfer to a regular blender) puree the stock with ½ of the mushrooms. Reduce the heat and continue simmer. To finish the soup, stir in the cream and the rest of the mushroom quarters – simmer for another 10-15 minutes.

Garnish with fresh flat leaf parsley and serve with fresh crusty bread & soft butter.

Double Chocolate Pancakes with Strawberry Syrup

It must be Valentine’s Day – you are getting chocolate for breakfast. How sweet it is.

½ cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
3 Tbsp. best quality unsweetened cocoa powder
½ tsp. baking powder
Pinch of salt
¼ cup semi sweet chocolate finely chopped
1/3 cup plus 1 Tbsp. whole milk
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, cut into bits
1 large egg

Into small bowl, sift flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. Add chocolate chips and blend well with a wooden spoon.

On the stove top in small saucepan over low heat, combine the milk and butter stirring often just until butter is melted; milk should be warm but not hot. Remove from heat. With fork, beat the and gradually add to the milk and melted butter mixture. All at once, add liquid mixture to dry ingredients. Stir just until combined.

Heat your non stick frying pan over medium heat until a few drops of water scattered on it move around rapidly before evaporating. Drop the pancake batter onto heated griddle by rounded tablespoons, spreading the batter slightly as you do so. Leave enough room between the pancakes for them expand during cooking. Watch pancakes carefully. As they cook, they will puff up and become full of bubbles. When the done the edges will appear set and small bubbles will appear on the surface. Gently flip the pancakes over; cook until lightly browned on second side, about 45 seconds to 1minute. Keep pancakes that are done on heatproof plate in preheated 200 degree oven until they have all been cooked.

Serve the chocolate pancakes hot, with butter and your favourite fruit syrup or with warm chocolate sauce and whipping cream topped with fresh strawberries.

Simple Strawberry Syrup

4 cups of thawed frozen strawberries
1 cups sugar
¼ teaspoon lemon juice

Place your thawed strawberries in a food processor and process until smooth. Pour the strawberry puree through a fine wire mesh strainer to remove the seeds. Transfer your seedless puree to a sauce pan, add the sugar and the lemon juice stirring well to combine. Cook over low heat stirring constantly until the sugar dissolves. Turn up the heat and boil over medium high to thicken, reduce the heat, simmer for 5 more minutes and transfer to a bowl to cool.

Serve the syrup at room temperature with your pancakes.

I have been trying to figure out how it all started and according to Wikipedia, it seems to have started in 1988 when the website “BBQ Addicts” posted their recipe for the mother of all bacon recipes the Bacon Explosion on their website. That is apparently the day bacon went viral.

Now it seems to be appearing just about everywhere. I’ve seen everything from bacon flavoured lip gloss to bacon flavoured envelopes creates so you can even get your fix while you’re paying your bills! Don’t get me wrong, I am definitely not complaining – I love bacon, absolutely everything about it and it seems to have taken on a life of its own not just in my world but around the globe.

As a joke about 18 months ago I added crispy cooked bacon into a chocolate chip cookie for a friend’s birthday, a fellow bacon lover I thought would appreciate my thoughtfulness. The cookies have become a great selling item at Well Seasoned, we stock them in frozen unbaked dough balls and have had folks come from as far as Kelowna on a day trip to buy them.

Fast forward to now and it appears that millions of other folks are starting to appreciate that whole sweet salty combination that makes the bacon work so well in desserts. When the bacon is well cooked and the fat has been rendered out adding it to a recipe just adds another really interesting layer of flavour – people who don’t know it is in the recipe usually mistake it for nuts…I guess the crunchy texture and meatiness make them think they might be eating walnuts instead.

I hear from non bacon eaters (vegetarians) that bacon is really one of the only meat items they miss…I guess bacon is like a gateway drug for carnivores. In my mind bacon is one of those perfect foods, I always have it on hand – it can be defrosted quickly to transform a pasta dish in minutes, it can be cooked crispy and turned quickly into the ultimate BLT and who among us has never had breakfast for dinner?

I can’t stop adding bacon to food where it previously didn’t belong; it’s a slippery slope of porky goodness. I am doing it partially for the shock factor I suppose, trying to freak out my friends & family and partially because it is really cool to see how well it works in absolutely everything….I have made a brown butter cake with cream cheese bacon frosting, chocolate bacon bark, caramel bacon popcorn and even bacon baklava. It is so much fun and everyone seems to be getting a real kick out of it…when you consider the other culinary disasters I could be creating these ones do sound pretty good.

So – stop by the butchers pick up a pound or two of the best quality bacon he has available, double smoked thick cut is my drug of choice and get cooking – let me know what you come up with. Get on the bacon bandwagon, all the cool kids are doing it !!

I am sad that I have been missing out on the Olym**c hype around town this week – I have been in Toronto at a trade show eating rubber chicken from the Chalet Suisse unfortunately.
On the upside, I have been invited to an Olym**c Opening ceremonies party this weekend and want to take along a fun drink…what is a good Canadian girl to do when she can get her hands on a case of Moosehead !! I know – check out the Olym**c sponsors Jackson-Triggs and find some inspiration there…they have a ton of brilliant ideas but here’s where I am going..

Emerald Ice
1oz Jackson-Triggs Vidal Ice Wine
1/3 of a fresh kiwi fruit (homage to Colleen)
5 fresh tarragon leaves
1/4 oz simple syrup
3 oz sparkling wine
Fill shaker with ice, add kiwi & tarragon and crush. Add simple syrup and shake the heck out of it. Strain into a champagne glass and top with bubbly.
Cheers to the Canadian athletes bringing home the gold.

(sorry for the *** but the last thing I need is Van*c in my program I have enough blog trolls already)

I have been on a bit of rampage lately, frustrated by the insurgence of designer cupcakes on the market and the pitiful shortage of actual cake. I’m sure you know those of which I speak…a cake, made with flour, sugar, eggs & butter. Some are multi layered, some are made in regular old square pans, and some are iced, some are not and, if you play your cards right you can even get a Bundt. My friends are sick of my cake vs. cupcake rant so I am not going to bore you with it her but suffice it say I have taken the bull by the horns. Recently searching for sweet inspiration in some of my favourite old cookbooks, I came across a recipe for Red Velvet Cake, the old school kind that uses cooked beets to intensify the color & add moisture. Apparently, during WW ll when foods were being rationed bakers grated boiled beets into their cake batter to replace the color, moisture & flavour they would otherwise get from the fat and cocoa powder. Enter, the mighty Beet. Part of the amaranth family, the beet doesn’t ever really get the kind of play it deserves, in my opinion, it is completely underrated. Just when I forget how great they are I come across them in a recipe or on a menu in a restaurant and it takes me back to wanting to eat them more often. Now, I will acknowledge they are a bit of a pain – there’s all that washing, peeling, cutting, boiling and of course, cursing those crimson juices that seem no matter how careful you are, to end up exactly where you didn’t want them. Well, I have a quick fix for that, beets come in a can and rarely are there casualties from opening a can! Now, they aren’t going to have that same fresh from the earth vibrancy of flavour that they have when you go to the trouble to cook the fresh ones & you aren’t going to enjoy that sense of accomplishment one gets when they have conquered a pile of beets but these ones for my little Red Velvet plan were just the ticket. So, into the recipe go the 1 cup of pureed canned beets along with the rest of the ingredient, a mix, a good scrape of the bowl and 1,2, 6 my cake is in the oven. After nearly exploding waiting for the cake to cool I am finally able to apply the generous layer of cream cheese frosting not just once but twice, I am pretty sure this is why the layer cake was invented – it is a brilliant way to increase your frosting intake. I think this alone is a great argument for cake vs. cupcakes … I digress. The old school Red Velvet was a revelation and the beets although you could taste them I am not sure if you didn’t know they were there if you could actually identify them. The cake was moist & perfectly delicious; I was able to take an extra bit of pleasure in it knowing I was eating my veggies for dessert. The world needs more cake.

A new franchise opened recently in the Fraser Valley – a fairly new Western Canadian based franchise with less than 15 locations (just to put it in perspective). Let’s for the sake of argument say this franchise sells widgets for $3.50 each and super widgets for $4.50. There are other widgets in town, in fact all over town if you look close enough but these ones are new and they claim to have the “best widgets in the world”. So a family buys this widget franchise from Widget Central – they want to make tons of money selling widgets, have no experience with widgets and likely wouldn’t know a “super” widget if it bit them in the ass but they see the current trend in widget sales and want a piece of that widget fortune. Well, this is going to take some capital – buying a widget franchise isn’t cheap so 3 f them get together to pool their resources and pitch in to buy their dream widget outlet. They rent a brand new building in a shiny new strip mall surrounded by homes of thousands of unsuspecting people they will coax in and hopefully get hooked on their widgets. After many months of negotiations with the landlord, expensive leasehold improvements, delays getting city permits, construction challenges and signage problems the dream widget location finally opens its doors and hangs a big generic sign out front that says “Now Open”. There is no brand and no sign to be seen anywhere letting people know exactly what it is that just opened – it isn’t until you drive up to the front door do you realize it is a Widget outlet and apparently you can get the worlds greatest widgets inside – well, thank god it is finally open. I didn’t know I really needed a stand alone widget outlet until now but hey, what the hell let’s give it a go. Inside the place is very sterile, empty actually…well, it’s new it will take them a while to settle in right? One sign on the back wall identifies where you are – there are a single row of well lit showcases where you can look at the widgets, there are tiny signs that say if the widget is a regular or a super widget…you can’t touch the widgets, smell the widgets or even get close to them, there is no description about how the widget is made, what is inside of it, how to use it or how to treat it when you get home. And apparently they even make Jr. widget but you have to special order those, clearly they don’t want to downgrade a potential sale.
So I order a regular widget and a super widget to go…they are carefully removed from their designated Plexiglas glass display case and put inside a plane unbranded cardboard box. There is no hope of knowing once you get home where those widgets came from, what they are used for, which one is the regular and which one is the super…it is all very confusing to a new widget buyer like me.
So now the widget outlet has been open for just about a month – they barely have a sign identifying them, they do not have any branded collateral material inside the outlet – they don’t care to find out who you are or where you came from or how you stumbled upon them they just want the $8.00 for your two unidentifiable widgets and to send you on your way.

I want to know who sold this franchise and what did the people actually think they were buying?

They certainly didn’t buy a recognizable brand…no one knows those widgets from a hole in the ground. They didn’t buy a turn key operation with signage, an opening strategy and a plan. In fact – if you can grasp this, they aren’t even allowed to make their own widgets on site…the franchisees even have to call and order their widgets 2 days in advance. They must then wait for them to be delivered everyday by a courier from the widget factory. So if they run out of widgets in the middle of the day they are screwed…god forbid they order way too many widgets – what happens then? I am pretty sure you can’t send them back. They corporate widget office have convinced the franchisee’s that the widgets must come from their warehouse to maintain “quality control”. You don’t want to make your own widgets – that is too much work…leave it to us, we are the widget experts.
Really?
Widgets are easy to make and if you made them in the new outlet people would be excited to see them being made and maybe want to buy even more. The corporate office wants to maintain control all right – control over everything their dumb little franchisee’s do and sell. WTH ?
They don’t sell anything but widgets – no widget accessories, no widget upgrades, no widget swag…just widgets. They don’t even have frequent buy cards for the hardcore widget addicts.

Wow – is this really what people think owning a business is?

I don’t know who the sales person is that sells these widget franchises but they are obviously very good at their job to have sold these franchisees absolutely nothing. An unrecognizable brand, an inaccessible product, no apparent strategic plan, no collateral material, no marketing strategy and in my opinion a sadly inferior widget. Why did these people buy this widget outlet? They could so easily make their own widgets…probably from a pre-fab mix like the rest of the world does, they could have branded themselves and atleast made the widgets on site…where customers could have a relationship with the widget – see them being made & created on site by the folks running the outlet. Instead they purchased a place that for all intense and purposes could be selling bulk staples instead of widgets.

For the love of god…give the franchisor’s back their license and get on with your life – you could do much better on your own, they will never let you make more money they they think you should. They will control the cost of your widgets if they think you are selling too many so they will always make more money than you…what are you thinking? What part of this deal was remotely attractive to you? This widget franchise is a pipe dream and unless you evolve and are nimble & flexible in your business you will die on the vine like millions of others widget outlets before you. You don’t have a business – you are an outlet to sell widgets for “the man”. What a shame that you spent all that money.
You got my $8 once but I don’t need anymore widgets and unfortunately I won’t be back…don’t worry, apparently I wasn’t your target market anyhow.
Good luck to you and your widgets, I wish you success in your new endeavor but if someone…anyone could help me figure out what was remotely attractive about this franchise I would be grateful…why would people buy into something like this that they could very obviously do better themselves. I just don’t get it.
Thanks for your input…

Everyone around me is proclaiming their 2010 resolutions…”no more chocolate for me”, “that’s it! I am off desserts”, “I am going to the gym everyday”, “no more caffeine”, “I am only going to drink 2 glass of wine a week”…give me a break!
Every single one of these resolutions are temporary, we all fall off the wagon eventually – usually sooner rather than later and really isn’t it all just about getting a better offer? Sure we’ve all probably “over done it” a little during the holidays and just that fact that you feel like you need to make a resolution tells me you are paying enough attention to what is going on in your life that you are likely going to change that behaviour without stomping your feet, throwing your hands on your hips and announcing your feeble intentions to anyone that will stand still long enough.
Well, I resolved a long time ago not to make any resolutions, ever. I know ate too many butter tarts last month, well guess what? They are all gone and my mom isn’t sending anymore so that isn’t going to be a problem, I know I ate too much cheese last month, well guess what? It’s all gone and I will have to drive into Vancouver to get more so that isn’t likely to happen anytime soon either. I drank too much wine, but hey – let’s be real, that isn’t going to change anytime soon. I am going to keep drinking coffee, eating chocolate, fantasizing about bacon and sleeping late when I should be at yoga but I am going to do my best to do everything with a bit more moderation this year. I am aware of my vices and need to be able to manage them but hey, life’s short and I am not going to be jumping on and off the resolution wagon because it’s the start of a new year and hey guess what? There will be another one next year. So eat, drink and continue to be merry we shouldn’t just have that much fun with our friends and families once a year, we should be doing it much more often and have more reasons to make resolutions more often. Happy New Year !