Simple comfort foods

Sometimes the simplest things in life are the best, like tomato soup and a cheese sandwich.

After a long day of organizing, it was just the perfect "lunch"

Brie sandwich in the back while chive cheddar sandwich is being made.

A variation on the soup is the roasted tomato soup.

Roasted tomatoes: chop ripe tomatoes, drizzle with olive oil and season .. bake on a low temperature until the flavours concentrate, peel and use in dishes. Puree for the soup with some stock.

To accompany it is a creamy artichoke garlicky grilled pita sandwich with some olives, very Mediterranean.

Project Pantry - Done!

So so so excited about this!!! The project came together beautifully - a custom built cedar heavy duty shelf perfect for all the kitchen things for a functioning kitchen while cabinets/counter tops get renovated/installed.

If you're like me and love to organize then this is a dream come true.

The walls are done in Lowes Valspar "Peach frenzy" which looks like a creamsicle.



A little stocking there... little snacking here...

Raspberry dark chocolate cake!

I rarely go all out and make a cake, that's more my sisters department as she's an excellent baker but today I've had some help, for the most part and this cake was practically instant.

The cake part is a recipe for black forest sponge cake, recipe here The last time I've used this recipe was for a black forest cake and it was really delicious, light and spongy, like a bakery style cake.

The filling is pink, you may not be able to see that much in the picture but right now, about 24 hours since I've made it the color has darkened in the fridge. It's basically a whipped cream with homemade sweetened raspberry puree that I defrosted from last years raspberry picking trip.

When the cream comes to the soft peak stage the defrosted fruit puree is added in and then it's whipped up, the site here explains adding fruit purees to whipping cream, I was very worried about this stage because my buttercream split last time I mixed it with whipping cream so the thought of adding anything liquid to whipping cream terrified by but it went very well.

Finally it was frosted with a frozen ganache I had in the freezer as well for about 4 months now, I left it in the fridge overnight then let it come to room temperature and beat it with the paddle attachment while slowly adding some heavy cream to make it softer and more buttercream like (because ganache can be very stiff and hard)

A thin crumb coating went on first, then I let it sit an hour in the fridge and then the final layer was applied with the decorative raspberries and chocolate curls.

Super super easy cake, the dark chocolate raspberry combination is classic, do give it a try!

Yellow

Lots of yellow going on today.. it first began with a bit of turmeric root I picked up at the local chinese supermarket.

Have been holding onto it for a while but couldn't quite figure out what to do with it other than throw it in some soup while I had a cold last week to hopefully extract some of benefits and help with a speedy recovery.

Here is a family favourite recipe I grew up with, to be perfectly honest I didn't enjoy it as a child, something about it was too sweet and I'm a savoury person all the way but now having grown up I can really appreciate it. Not exactly sure of the origins of the dish but it was a recipe that my fathers Iraqi cousin had taught my mother who has made it ever since and it's known as "Dajaj Maghrebi" to us "Moroccan Chicken" but I'm unsure of it's authenticity in Moroccan cuisine, never the less it is delicious!

- Started out by caramelizing some onions as you see below (note all the yellow leaves covering my deck this morning, beautiful! )

- To the onions I've added some raisins and a bit of broth to moisten, seasoning it and adding a bit of sugar. Setting aside this mixture on a plate.

- Turned the heat up in the pot and covered the bottom with a good amount of salt, and added the chicken pieces when it was hot. The chicken browned while I kept an eye on it flipping it once and then adding broth and turmeric root, salt, black pepper and letting it simmer with the lid on.

*** If you don't have turmeric use ground turmeric spice, it is what we traditionally use anyway but since I had the root on hand I thought I'd give it a try. Also if you're using the root wear gloves when cutting/peeling because it stains the fingers badly.

- Prepared a baking dish and placed the pieces of chicken in a flat layer then spooned the delicious onion mixture on top of the pieces and poured in some broth. Add some finely minced preserved lemon to this if you wish, I did.

- Baked this on 375 until chicken was fully cooked, throughout the baking process you can baste it with the broth on the bottom.

- Once it was out of the oven I threw a bit of butter cubes into the small amount of sauce/broth in the bottom and mixed it until it was glossy then spooned the pieces of chicken over a bed of couscous.

As you see above the way we served it was without the parsley but I decided to garnish it with some parsley too and I found the flavours very complementary!

What a great Autumn dish!