Warm, cheesy and super easy
Food: Cauliflower Gratin
A stray cat looking for warmth on a frigid winter's day serves as a furry reminder about the importance of comfort food, such as cauliflower gratin
By Louise Crosby
Late last winter, as the snow was melting, a strange creature appeared at our back door. Turns out it was a cat, or more accurately, half a cat, with bony haunches and huge matted clumps of black fur. He had obviously survived a terrible ordeal, an unusually harsh Canadian winter, apparently with little food. We fed him, of course, and he stuck around, making our back deck his home through the spring, summer and fall. And what an appetite. By late November he was as solid as a little black bear, with a good, thick coat. We called him Charlie because he’s male and because it rings nicely with Chicklet, the name of our official cat. He’s a lovely guy, just a little skittish, and particular about who approaches him and from what angle, and he absolutely, positively, will not come ...
On Leonard Cohen and Pistachio Cranberry Icebox Cookies
Food: Pistachio Cranberry Icebox Cookies
There is a crack, a crack in everything, which makes icebox cookies soft, chewy, and beatifully malformed treats.
By Louise Crosby
Most people know that perfection is an unattainable goal, that striving for it is futile. It’s the flaws that make life interesting, as Leonard Cohen reminds us in his beautiful song Anthem: “There is a crack, a crack, in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” And so it is with icebox cookies. Such a wonderful invention – you prepare the dough, form it into logs, wrap them in plastic and refrigerate until you have a hankering for a little something sweet. Then you slice and bake, and voilà, fresh-baked cookies in less than half an hour. Not to put you off making these – because they are easy and delicious and cute as buttons – but as in all of life, there’s another side of the story. When you add nuts, chocolate chips, dried fruit and other solid things to icebox cookie dough, a ...
Pecans make a Mexican Wedding Cake
Food
Christmas can make anyone a nutcase, but this delicious cookie recipe offers a case in how specific nuts are used in various regional cuisines
By Louise Crosby
We no longer exchange gifts at Christmas in my extended family, except for the little ones. That simplifies things: no need to shop malls, get stuck in traffic, or go into debt. It leaves me, at least, free to get serious about baking. This year’s baking bonanza started with these powdery Mexican Wedding Cakes from Alice Medrich’s Chewy, Gooey, Crispy, Crunchy, Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cookies. They aren’t actually cakes, they’re cookies, and according to Medrich they go by many names depending on what kind of nuts you put in them: if you’re using pecans, you have Wedding Cakes, or polvorones; if almonds are your choice, you have Viennese crescents or Greek kourabiedes. Walnuts produce Russian tea cakes. I’ve also seen them called Butter Balls and Melt-a-Ways, Snowballs and Sandies. Whatever you want ...
Malaysia to-go: Spicy Coconut Sweet Potato Soup
Food
Inspired by an extended stay in Penang, The Ex-Press's resident chef cooks up an enticing mix of Asian flavours with Spicy Coconut Sweet Potato Soup
By Louise Crosby
I lived for awhile in Penang, Malaysia, where the mix of Malay, Chinese and Indian cuisines makes for some fantastic eating. The food at roadside stalls, known as hawker food, was so delicious, inexpensive and safe, we hardly ever cooked at home. Compared to our bland Western diet, it was hot, pungent, fragrant, sweet, salty, sour, tangy, an explosion of flavour in the mouth. I loved all that but loved it even more if there was coconut milk involved, its creamy sweetness balancing the heat. Fresh-pressed from the coconuts that grew all around, it took food from heavenly to sublime. Just thinking about it makes me want to go back. Back here in Canada, I use canned unsweetened coconut milk, which is perfectly fine, adding it to curries and noodle dishes and soups like this Spicy Coconut Sweet Potato Soup from ...
Potato Gratin (Pommes Dauphinois)
When you spend all day braising lamb for a dinner party and it’s the potatoes your guests rave about, you know you’re on to something.
By Louise Crosby
Indeed, this potato gratin, known as pommes dauphinois in France, or plain old scalloped potatoes in my family, is easy to put together but altogether dreamy and delicious to eat. The recipe is from Dorie Greenspan’s Around my French Table and is made of layers of thinly sliced potatoes bathed in garlic-infused cream and topped with cheese, then baked until the cheese melts and the potatoes turn soft on the inside, slightly crusty on top. The dish lends itself to much improvisation, as Greenspan explains in her “Bonne Idée”: for a dash of colour, try substituting sweet potato for an equal amount of russets, or add a layer of cooked chopped spinach or chard, sautéed mushrooms, or steamed small broccoli florets. Bits of cooked bacon or strips of lightly sautéed pancetta would also work well, and in place of the ...
Make Christmas Crunch with Maple Granola
Olive Oil & Maple Granola
Retailers waste no time putting up the wreaths and red bows, but surviving the holiday season can be an emotional marathon that demands a hearty breakfast
By Louise Crosby
Apparently Christmas is coming. Here we were, meandering our way through a long, leisurely fall full of colour and unseasonably warm temperatures, gorgeous afternoons with soft light, long shadows, beauty all around. Then suddenly, out of the blue, it seems, we’re bombarded with evergreen boughs, sparkly lights and commercial enticements to spend money. Bing Crosby and I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas piped over the sound system in my grocery store five weeks before the big day. It’s enough to put you off the whole thing. Grumble, grumble. Christmas will get you in the end, though. It’s inevitable that one of these days a switch will go off, and I’ll be all for it, heading out to get a tree, setting out the candles, baking cookies. In fact, I’m already planning the ...
Squash and Swirl
Pumpkin Bread with Toasted Walnut Cinnamon Swirl
Like little woodland creatures preparing for winter, now is the time to gather your nuts. And like a human about to hibernate, bake a warm toasty pumpkin bread.
By Louise Crosby
You don’t need me to tell you that squash is a superfood, packed with carotenoids, particularly beta carotene, which the body converts into vitamin A. And you already know that squash is high in fibre, potassium, vitamin C and magnesium, that it is important for good vision, bone growth and healthy reproduction, and that it helps maintain healthy blood pressure, lowers cancer risk, and boosts immune function. Bottom line, you’ll agree: we should all be eating more of it. So, in addition to turning squash into soups, adding it to stews and risottos, stuffing it into pasta, and just plain roasting it, squash can be a key ingredient in baked goods, such as this Pumpkin Bread with Toasted Walnut Cinnamon Swirl, tweaked ever so slightly from At ...
Hip, Hip! Pipérade!
Eggs in Pipérade
Cracking a bright yellow yolk into a fragrant tomato mélange is just one variation on an old world theme that never gets tired, is easy to prepare and always hits the spot
By Louise Crosby
My Dad was never much of a cook, but in his later years he started making Chinese stir-fries. Shrimp stir-fry was his signature dish, worthy of special family dinners. This was good; it gave my mother a break from the kitchen and it gave him a new interest in his retirement. Another dish my Dad knew his way around, because he was practically raised on it as a boy in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, was fried potatoes and bologna, with sliced bread and molasses on the side. Good, honest food, I guess. Later, after most everyone stopped eating bologna, he would make his own lunches when he was home by emptying leftovers into a fry pan (hopefully there was potato!), giving it a sizzle, and then breaking an egg over the top. He was definitely on to something. Eggs cracked over food, ...
Ode to Leila and Her Butter Patties
What makes china fine
Packing up mom's possessions can mean a rediscovery of life's simple pleasures, such as solid and generous friends, sipping tea from flower-like cups, and tiny little plates used solely for butter.
By Louise Crosby
My mother was raised on a farm in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley, near the town of Aylesford. She attended Acadia University in nearby Wolfville, where she met my Dad. They got married in 1949 and proceeded to have four children as they made their way west and settled in Ontario. Mom is now 89 years old and, following the death of our father, Ron, earlier this year, she is about to sell their home and move into a seniors’ residence. Her name is Leila Kathleen. Her sister is Iona, their mother was Etta, and she had aunts named Marjorie and Mabel. She came out of a farm culture, where people made do, lived simply, and held to strong values. She painted watercolours and taught piano, and was a wonderful mother, sweet and full of ...
Get all pesto with a ritzy risotto
Oven Risotto with Kale Pesto
Treat your vegetarian friends to a bright green dish that will not only fill their tummies with a healthy treat, it will lift their spirits with its lush color as it comforts the soul with its warm, cheesy texture
By Louise Crosby
Round about this time of year, with the winter chill setting in, it’s nice to get away, not necessarily to a warm, sunny beach, but somewhere with a different view. Not too long ago, I went with two friends to New York City and got a whole new world. As anyone who has spent time there will know, it is a noisy, exciting, inspiring and exhausting place. And the food is delicious if you find the right spots. My friends are vegan fitness trainers whose idea of a perfect Sunday morning is to run a half-marathon or sprint up and down the CN Tower. So we typically left our hotel room in the morning and didn’t return until late at night, having walked at a fair clip the entire day to our various destinations. There was a ...
