The From Scratch Era v.2: Minted Mushy Pea & Braised Leek Risotto

After my diagnosis with celiac disease, Daniel and I made a decision to dive headfirst into celebrating all the beautiful, healthful and delicious foods that I could eat, instead of focusing on the negative and dwelling on the foods that were now off limits. We made a concerted effort to expand our culinary horizons and began researching “new” dishes that were celiac friendly but that we had never tried before. Forcing myself to step outside the confines of our gluten-centric, North American cuisine, I discovered a whole world of choices and flavours that I had never even imagined existed.

As a team, Daniel and I started experimenting with new grains, new spices and new cooking techniques. We started making Thai-style rice dishes, whizzing up spicy, green curry pastes from scratch. We started mixing together corn flour, water, milk and salt for homemade arepa (the recipe brought to us straight from Cali by our dear Colombian friends). We started creating our own pizza doughs, with garfava and tapioca flours, to create gorgeous crispy-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside crusts perfect for piling high with hand-torn chunks of fresh mozzarella, black olives and local basil, spinach, onions and tomatoes.

We also started making risotto.

Oh, risotto! Decadently flavourful and creamy. Hearty and comforting. A seemingly fancy-pants dish that, in reality, is extraordinarily easy — and fairly pocketbook friendly. If you can ladle and you can stir, you can risotto. (And, you can also, apparently, turn nouns into verbs).

When we first began making risotto, we relied solely on other people’s recipes, following their instructions step by meticulous step as we honed our skills. Now, nine months since our initial foray into the wide world of Arborio rice, stock, butter and parmesan, we are, more and more often, leaving our cook books on the shelf and trying out our own recipes.

We have come to realize that a well-made risotto bianco is the perfect blank canvas for experimenting with new flavour combinations. From a basic risotto recipe, I can be as imaginative and creative as I desire, adding fresh herbs, dried herbs, seafood, bacon or roasted, boiled or puréed veggies. When it comes to risotto, the world is truly my oyster. (Mmm, oyster risotto. I’ve never tried it but I’m willing to bet it’s great. Oysters with butter, garlic, pepper, white wine…it’s perfect! Ooh, smoked oysters! And maybe some fresh parsley. I can definitely do something with this…but I digress).

It was with this sense of freedom and creativity that Daniel and I approached the dinner party we hosted last Wednesday night. Surrounded by good friends, good wine and good music, we chopped up farm-fresh leeks, picked fresh mint leaves from their stalks and mashed up the last peas of the season (we’d shelled and frozen them a few weeks prior). This was our first time trying this combination of flavours.  This was our first time inventing our very own risotto recipe. And it was a success.  We hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

Minted Mushy Pea & Braised Leek Risotto

For the Braised Leeks

3 cups good quality chicken stock (we like to use Pacific Foods)
good pinch of salt
4 leeks, trimmed and sliced in half lengthwise

For the Minted Mushy Peas

4 or 5 handfuls of peas (fresh or frozen)
1 handful of fresh mint leaves, stalks removed
3 good knobs of butter
salt & pepper

For the Risotto

the 3 cups of braising liquid plus 1 cup more chicken stock
olive oil
½ onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
10 oz Arborio rice
1 glass white wine (we always buy the largest and cheapest bottle available)
small handful grated Parmesan cheese
1 knob of butter
salt & pepper

Braising the Leeks

Bring stock and good pinch of salt to a simmer on stovetop. Once simmering, add leeks. Let simmer for 15 minutes, covered. Carefully remove your leeks from stock, drain off excess liquid, and set aside on a plate. Remove stock from heat and set aside for making the risotto.

Minting & Mushing the Peas

Toss your peas into boiling water and let them boil for approximately two minutes. Tear any large mint leaves into smaller pieces, add all the mint to the pot and let boil for about one minute more. Once your peas are tender with a slight pop, drain the peas and mint into a colander. Put your peas and mint back into your pot. Add butter, salt and a good crack of pepper and mash everything up with a potato masher. The peas don’t need to be mashed to a purée; we mashed until our peas were mostly mushed with some whole pea bits. Cover pot to keep the minted mushy peas warm while you make your risotto.

Making the Risotto

Add one more cup of chicken stock to your braising liquid and place over low heat on the stovetop. In another (large) pot, heat up a good glug of olive oil over medium heat. Add your chopped onion and garlic. Sauté until soft. Turn up heat and add rice. Keep stirring so your rice doesn’t stick. When your rice is toasted (it will turn somewhat translucent and become more fragrant), add the glass of white wine. Once the wine is fully absorbed into the rice, turn down the heat to a high simmer and begin adding your stock, one ladleful at a time. Be sure that each ladleful of stock is fully absorbed before adding the next. Continue adding stock, and gently stirring the rice, until your rice is almost fully cooked (it should have a bit of an “al dante bite”). This takes about 15 minutes. At this point, chop your braised leeks and add them to the pot with the minted, mushy peas. Gently stir until well combined. Remove from heat and add your butter, Parmesan, salt and pepper. Stir gently, cover and let sit for five minutes. The risotto will become wonderfully creamy and decadent.

Serve with extra Parmesan for grating a sprig of fresh mint for garnish.

Serves 6.

The From Scratch Era, v.1: Pumpkins.

Editor’s Note: For more information on the From Scratch Era, please read this introductory post from earlier this week.

With the days getting shorter and the temperature dropping, Daniel and I have recently been gripped with the unmistakable feeling that winter is almost upon us.  The days are grey — damp with drizzly, coastal, late-autumn rain.  Oaks and maples cling to their few remaining leaves.  And, yesterday, we saw the first Juncos of the season, pecking at the leaf litter on Daniel’s campus, newly arrived for their annual stay.

Despite the fact that nature is gearing up for another shift of season, here in the Brandes household Daniel and I are clinging to autumn for all it’s worth.  And, for us, that means pumpkins, pumpkins and more pumpkins!  Orange winter squashes, round in shape with orange flesh — Daniel and I just can’t seem to get enough of them.  We buy our pumpkins direct from the local, Saanich Peninsula farmers who grow them, searching through large, wooden crates, overflowing with all manner of squashes, until we’ve found the perfect one for our culinary needs.  Over the past month, we have moved far beyond the traditional Sugar Pumpkin trying varieties such as: Rouge Vif D’Étampes, Sun Spot and Ambercup.

According to the Joy of Cooking, “Americans think of [pumpkins] first as pie and next as soup…”  We think this is funny.  Mostly, because it’s true.  However, pumpkins are extraordinarily versatile.  Complimenting both sugary baked goods and more savoury pastas and risottos.

Throughout the month of October, Daniel and I have been making a point to expand our pumpkin prowess: We’ve baked gluten-free pumpkin pies and muffin-tin sized pumpkin tarts.  We’ve baked gluten-free pumpkin-carrot-applesauce muffins and gluten-free apple-pumpkin-hazelnut muffins.  We’ve made a rice pasta dish with roasted pumpkin, tomato and Italian sausage.  We’ve concocted all manner of pumpkin soups (some with coconut milk, some with sautéed sage, some with spoonfuls of thyme and, still others, with puréed apple).  We’ve made spiced-pumpkin hot cocoa with whipped cream.  We’ve also simply enjoyed this colourful autumn vegetable on its own — appreciating the subtly sweet flavour of it roasted, in a hot oven, with olive oil, a crack of fresh pepper and a crumbly pinch of Kosher salt.

Out of all of our experimentation, the crowning achievement of our recent love-affair with pumpkin is our roasted winter squash soup with leek and bacon.  (As it simmers, be sure to lean over the pot and breathe in the lovely mingling fragrances of the coriander and sage — intoxicating!)  When we first made this soup, Daniel dipped a teaspoon into the golden-brown purée and had the first taste.  His eyes closed, he stepped back, he uttered, “oh my” and, then, he excitedly dunked the spoon back into the pot, this time offering it to me.  I tasted. I sighed. Our eyes met and we both started to grin. This soup is good.

Roasted Winter Squash Soup with Leek and Bacon
(inspired by Jamie Oliver’s incredible roast squash risotto)

For the Roasted Squash

1 small vine pumpkin (we used Sun Spot, but any sweet, orange-fleshed squash would work well)
1 good drizzle olive oil
1 Tbsp coriander seed
1/2 Tbsp crushed red pepper flakes
good pinch of salt
10 slices good back bacon

For the Soup Base

1 good glug olive oil
2 slices good back bacon, roughly chopped
2 leeks, halved lengthwise and finely sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 carrots, halved lengthwise and chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped
2 Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and quartered
1 Tbsp dried sage
salt and pepper
1 litre stock (vegetable or chicken)
2 cups spinach, stems removed and roughly chopped

Roasting the Squash

Preheat oven to 400°F.  Bash together coriander, crushed red pepper and salt in mortar and pestle.  Cut your squash into 8 equal slices and scoop out seeds.  Place slices in roasting dish, flesh side up.  Coat squash with a good drizzle of olive oil.  Sprinkle your spice mixture over the squash and roast for 30 minutes.  Remove from oven, lay bacon slices over squash and roast another 10 minutes, or until bacon is crisp.

Making the Soup

While your squash is roasting, heat olive oil in large soup pot over medium-high heat.  Add chopped bacon and sauté until browned.  Add leeks and garlic and sauté until leeks are soft and translucent.  Add carrots and celery and cook until soft, about five minutes.  This is called sweating the vegetables; the carrots and celery will become beautifully glazed in appearance.  Add your potatoes.

At this point, your squash should be close to done.  When it is nice and tender, remove from oven, place bacon aside and scoop squash flesh into the soup pot.

Add sage, salt and pepper to soup pot and give all the veggies a good stir.  Pour in your stock and let simmer until potatoes are fork tender (about 30 minutes).  When the potatoes are done, the soup is ready to be puréed.  If you have an immersion blender, now’s the time to bust it out.  Otherwise, you can ladle the soup into a blender or food processor and whiz it up in small batches.

Once your soup is blended, return to stovetop.  Give your crisp bacon a rough chop and add to the mix along with your chopped spinach.  Stir until the spinach is nicely wilted.

Serve with fresh cornbread and tuck in to this lovely meal.  It’s perfect for a dark, chilly autumn night.

Approximate CHO = 20g/cup

Gluten-Free Blueberry Banana Muffins

Today’s favourite number?  Twelve.  As in one dozen scrumptious blueberry banana muffins…

I have always loved to bake.  Cakes for birthdays, crumbles as seasonal desserts, cookies at Christmas, and apple and pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving dinner…I have made a lot of baked goods in my lifetime and, while I don’t want to toot my own horn, I also don’t want to lie.  I am a hecky-darn good baker.  I started baking before I could even reach the counter.  In the recesses of my mind, I can vaguely remember standing on a kitchen chair with a tea towel tied across my front, serving as my apron.  I would wield a rolling pin too heavy for my small arms to lift and I would help my mother and grandmother roll out pastry dough.  However, despite this long history and love of baking, after my diagnosis with celiac disease, I stopped.  Why?  Gluten-free baking just seemed too daunting, too difficult and too different…

Never in my life had I ventured down the specialty baking aisle.  Never had I heard of xanthan gum.  Is that what robots chew to maintain fresh breath? Teff flour?  What’s that? Sorghum, garbanzo and tapioca flour?  Huh? Potato starch?  That’s kinda weird, isn’t it? In my pantry, it was wheat flour all the way (except for once a year, at Christmastime, when I would buy a single bag of white rice flour, a necessity for the proper re-creation of my mum’s famous shortbread).

However, after six long months without baking, I began to miss it.  I missed watching the raw ingredients morph into sinfully decadent and wonderful smelling, fresh-from-the-oven indulgences.  I missed sharing my creations with friends, family and co-workers.  And, on top of everything else, I really wanted a freshly baked cookie!  So, I decided to conquer the specialty baking aisle and I dove, headfirst, into the wide world of gluten-free baking.

After I began pouring over gluten-free baking recipes, I quickly realized how many amazing flours and exotic whole grains my wheat-centric pantry had been lacking all those years.  I made a long list and went on a specialty baking aisle shopping spree, stocking my barren pantry shelves with a vast array of gluten-free flours.  Teff? Yes. Sorghum, garbanzo and tapioca?  Of course. Sweet rice, brown rice, buckwheat and corn?  You bet!

On Friday, I made my first-ever batch of sorghum peanut butter cookies.  And, on Sunday morning, sitting around the breakfast table with Daniel and two of our friends, we slathered butter and homemade raspberry jam over freshly made (and gluten-free) warm blueberry banana muffins.  Being my first foray into gluten-free muffin making, I anxiously held my breath as everybody took their first bite…and, looking around the table, I saw nods of approval and heard exclamations of praise.  I let out a sigh of relief and I dug in.  The muffins were moist.  They were flavourful.  And they were mmm mmm good.  Crunchy, nutty flax seeds, fresh blueberries bursting with gooey sweetness, subtle banana flavour and overall muffiny goodness.  (And, as an added bonus, these muffins don’t make my blood sugar spike – always, always a good thing.)

So, for your gluten-free baking pleasure, here is my variation of the Bob’s Red Mill Mighty Tasty Muffin recipe. Enjoy!

½ c. natural whole cane sugar
½ c. mashed, overripe banana (about 1½ bananas)
1½ c. milk
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
2 Tbsp. oil
1 c. white rice flour
½ c. tapioca flour
¼ c. potato starch
⅔ c. Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free Mighty Tasty Hot Cereal
¼ c. whole flax seeds
2 tsp. baking powder
1½ tsp. xanthan gum
125g fresh blueberries (about 3/4 c.)

Preheat oven to 350̊F.  Mix together sugar, banana, milk, vanilla and oil.  In different bowl, combine flours, potato starch, cereal, flax, baking powder and xanthan gum.  Add dry ingredients to wet and stir until almost blended.  Add blueberries.  Stir until just blended.  Do not over mix.  Oil muffin tins, fill ⅔ full and bake 20 minutes.

Makes 12 muffins.  Approximately 40g carbohydrate each.