Panaderia Canadiense

I'm planning Empanadas de Verde with spiced queso fresco filling for the weekend - these have a savoury, soft green plantain-based dough, and are fried in just a tiny bit of oil in a cast iron frypan. I've baked them before but was unimpressed with the results; however, other doughs hold up beautifully to baking. In my book, the difference between an Empanada and a Pastie is the dough. Empanadas should have a soft, unleavened dough (and for some reason, I feel a bit cheated if it's not plantain dough, but that's just me), while Pasties must have a puff-pastry type shell that's quite flaky. The way they're cooked doesn't come into it - Empanada translates as "covered in bread" and Pastie is a corruption of Pastry - but the dough does.

Fresh golden queen tomatoes on a whole-grain bagel with artisanal gouda and golden avocado mashup.

Kim - thanks. Unfortunately for me, it's winter here, so the roasting thing is a great boon in heating the house. Bleh - I hope we get summer again sometime soon. This rain is killing me! This said, I'd give my eye teeth for your biscuits. My ham 'n cheesers never turn out that nicely. Here's last night's dinner - potage of beets and carrots with ginger and fresh 7-grain bread. Tonight's is likely to be less inspiring. edit - oh, oh, that was so not the right picture for the potage....

Honey or blackstrap molasses, and on special occasions I'll dip into my reserve of Maple dark B. I'll also pile fresh-cut fruit on there.

Well! In talking about Quinua flour, which I take for granted, I've found that it's a rare ingredient everywhere but here, and I've probably got some others too (dried Epazote and Horchata Tisane come to mind). Equally, there are things that I just can't find here, like real maple sugar or syrup, jasmine tea, and chestnuts. I'd propose starting an ingredient swap! I have access to most Latin American ingredients, including the aforementioned Quinua in grain and flour, but also various herbs and spices, raw cocoa nibs, mother of chocolate, really amazing coffee, and other dry goods that bear shipping. Would anybody out there be interested?

Maybe it does come down to location, location, location. Amaranth is a very similar "grain" which is cultivated in Nepal, but the flavour is widely different between Amaranth (slightly bitter) and Quinua (smooth and nutty). The costs for flour vs. whole grain don't make a whole lot of sense to me either, and I only see it with quinua. Other flours, including machica/tsampa (roasted barley), black corn, and morocho, are much more expensive than the whole grains. I'd love to do an ingredient exchange - you have access to a whole range of dried mushrooms that I've been sorely missing here, good jasmine tea, and King To Nin Jiom Pei Pa Koa in the red boxes!

I learned it as lee-chee, which is how my Vietnamese friend Kim's mother used to pronounce it.

Sure - surgical scalpels are absolutely invaluable for garnishes and other fine cutting applications (I'm back to cake decoration; I use a scalpel to cut out fondant decorations), and you can maintain perfect sterility by simply replacing the blades once you're done.

I've never thought of quinua as being hard to find - even in Canada my local specialty shops stocked both the grain and the flour, and certainly down here I'm not lacking. I pay about $1.60 USD for 500g prepackaged bags of flour from the mill about 15 blocks from my house (I do love living in this city!) All quinua is washed before being milled; I can buy unwashed grains at the market, or washed ones, and generally I opt for the washed because I'm a lazy bum. Ecuador is the world's largest supplier of quinua flour, so if it's going to be in specialty markets, it's most likely from here. For whole grains, which I like mixed with wild rice, thrown into soups, and incorporated in to wholegrain breads, they're about $2.00 for 500g prepackaged bags (I have no idea why they're more expensive than the flour, but there you go!) I can get both grains and milled quinua at the bulk markets, but I can't ship bulk bags out of country as they have no sanitary registry. I can ship you a couple of the storebought bags if you're interested in trying it, though.

I have a cold-water flat. So, subsequently, I boil my kitchen towels in a big pot along with lye soap, then rinse before I toss them in the washer with bleach and regular detergent. When they're really crusty (ie if Dad's been cooking), I'll pull them out of the boiling pot and scrub them on my washstand with a stiff brush and blue soap (which is a better grease-cutter than yellow or white) until they're no longer icky, then rinse gently and into the washer with detergent and cold water. I change my towels about once a week, or more frequently if they're getting grotty.

Hey, if you've got Ecuadorian relatives, tell them to send you a box of ILE Horchata (Industrias Lojanas) - it's the hands-down best of the packaged varieties. Other than that, a very good blend can be had at Cafe Galleti in Quito; she blends her own 42 herbs and it's quite a pleasant mix. However, you have to go to the cafe (on Vicente Ramon Roca between Juan Leon Mera and Reina Victoria in the Mariscal) in order to buy it; it's by weight. Nice herbal blends? I'm very fond of lemongrass with hibiscus, and also if you can find it, dried pepper leaves with fresh basil and stevia is a real winner. Today's starter tea is likely Coca Leaf with jasmine, as it's cold outside and I'm feeling a bit fatigued. If it continues cold, I'll have some Tibetan style sweet chai at lunch and probably continue it into dinnertime (if I'm going to the effort, I'm going to wring every cup of goodness out of the spices.)

If the Stevia is making your tea taste metallic and artificially sweetened, you've used water that was too hot to steep it. Like Yerba Mate, boiling water bruises Stevia and causes the release of some rather unpleasantly flavoured bitter alkaloids. Try using water that's hot but not boiling next time, and you'll find that the bitter metallic taste disappears. Depending on where you are, you shoud be able to find live plants at specialty nurseries - it's becoming a popular landscaping shrub in the US. If not, I can certainly send you dried leaves.

The whole point of Horchata is that it's not only quite tasty (and each person blends it differently, so it's quite distinct between families) it's also very good for whatever ails you. In Loja, the saying is that with a cup of Horchata each day, you can live past 100. Apart from the canonical 32, I vary the ingredients in Horchata as well - now that I live at 10,000 feet, I find myself including Coca Leaf in place of Fuchsia more often than not (it's extremely useful for altitude-related troubles), and I have a friend who uses wild violet flowers in place of Calendula (I'm not sure I like it as much with the violets - they're very bitter.) ETA - Bougainvillea is a strong vermifuge and liver tonic; the purple bracts also add a nice pinkish colour to the final brew.

Richard asked me to post this recipe here. This is traditional Lojano Horchata, a 42-herb blended tisane that's usually served iced. I mix up a big jar and just dump 2-3 tablespoons in my diffuser pot, and drink it hot (scandal!) 1. Ataco (Amaranthus muricantus) - 1 TSP 2. Dried bracts of purple or red Bougainvillea - 1 TSP 3. Dried petals of red Hibiscus - 1 TSP 4. Dried petals of Rosa rugosa or similar aromatic rose - 1 TBSP 5. Dried flowers of Marigold (Tagetes spp) - 1 TBSP or 1 flower, if you dried them whole 6. Malva olorosa (Marshmallow) - 1 TSP; I like the dried flowers, but others swear by the leaves. 7. Toronjil (Melissa officianalis) - 1 TBSP 8. Basil - 1 TSP 9. Horsetail (dried frondlets) - 1 TSP 10. Chamomile - 1 TBSP; I like the dried flowers, but whole-herb is good too 11. Hierba Luisa (Lemongrass) - 7-8 long blades or 1 TBSP of dried 12. Mint - 1 TBSP 13. Peperomia congona - 1 TSP 14. Blackberry leaf - 1 TSP (Raspberry may be substituted; they have the same properties.) 15. Cedron (Aloysia triphylla) - 1 TBSP 16. Lantana camara - 1 TBSP; I prefer a mix of leaves and flowers 17. Matico (Piper anduncum) - 1 TBSP; leaves 18. Mariapanga (Piper peltatum) - 1 TSP; leaves 19. Ishpingo (Cinnamon flower) - 1, crushed 20. Passionflower (P. ligularis) - up to 2 dried crushed flowers 21. Arrayan (a true myrtle) - 1 TSP; leaves are best, but berries are great when you can find them. 22. Hierba Buena (Lemon Verbena) - 1 TBSP 23. Hoja Dulce (Stevia) - 1 TBSP 24. Paico (Epazote) - 1 TSP 25. Senna glandulosa - 1 TSP 26. Boldo - 2 TSP 27. Ilex guayusa - 1 TBSP 28. Flor Blanca - 1 TSP 29. Sanguarachi (Amranthus cruentus) - 1 TSP (leaves) 30. Rosemary - 1 TSP 31. Oregano - 1 TSP 32. Vervena - 1 TSP 33. Valerian root - 1/2 TSP 34. St. John's Wort flower - 1 TSP 35. Calendula oficianale flowers - 1 TBSP 36. Berries from Fuchsia dependens - 2 or 3, dried and powdered 37. Mortiño berries - 3-4, dried and powdered 38. Joyapa berries - 2-3, dried and powdered 39. Achupalla flowers - 1 TSP 40. Cat's claw bark - 1 TSP 41. Poma Rosa leaves - 1 TSP 42. Chrysanthemum flowers - 1 ETA - Ingredients 1-32 or so are considered the canonical root of the tisane and aren't changed from province to province. Further north in the highlands, dried spices (cinnamon, gingerroot, cardamom) start to replace the paramo berries.

Darienne, I'd think that unless you were willing to really kill your coffee grinder you wouldn't get the same results as using a stone wheel mill or other grain mill. Quinua grains are crazy hard.

My personal favourite for beschamelles and other white sauces is Quinua flour, which thickens without introducing any "floury" flavours into the sauce. In fact, Quinua gives a nice, subtle nutty hint to the sauce which I'm quite fond of. For creamy soups, I like plantain flour or in a pinch fecula de achira (canna root starch, similar to true arrowroot). Again, these flours add no discernable floury flavour, but do boost the flavours present in the soup already.

May I ask if you keep a dedicated pair in the kitchen? I have a dedicated "personal grooming" kit in a little stainless-steel case that lives in the kitchen and is only used for kitchen tasks. Ugh - I'd never use something on almonds that also saw use on my toes....

Dakki - what a neat idea! I'd definitely buy an eGulleteer Cookbook if one were available and featured the recipes I'm seeing here in Dinner as well as in Lunch, Breakfast, and Daily Sweets / Bread.... I was lazy about downloading my camera, but here's dinner from the past couple of days: Oven-roasted Criollo chicken with yogurt-whipped Atahualpa potatoes, whole-wheat sage stuffing, and steamed carrots, smothered in white mushroom gravy. (Wednesday) Lazy Lasagne Primavera. (Thursday) Although I can now make a lasagne from scratch in about 3 hours, I still have yet to perfect the technique lifting a slice out of the pan and getting it plated without it collapsing, but the effect in this case was kind of deconstructionist and nifty. And the lasagne itself was scrumptious. Tonight's will be Mom's famous creme des carottes with my fresh-baked 5-grain honey whole wheat loaves - I'll definitely get a picture of that before it disappears.

It's really 42 herbal ingredients, both leaf and flower. Horchata (and if you search on it, you'll end up mostly with a Mexican rice beverage - that's not it) is a traditional herbal tea from Ecuador that I got hooked on my very first visit down. The recipe I use is from the Loja province (where the tisane originates); technically I should allow it to cool completely and drink it iced, but I enjoy it hot. If you're interested, I can post the blend.

Today starts with senna in cinnamon-bark oolong; at lunch it will be black spice chai blended according to the recipe given to me by a Tibetan friend, and for teatime probably a 42-herb Horchata.

... and that's why I lose at baseball ...

Add another to the "absolutely I smell my food before eating it" column. Even at the mom 'n' pop restuarants here, there's something to be gained from sniffing the food. I use it as part of the meditation and reflection on the food before I cram it down my gullet. And I'm also another person who uses her nose to tell her about the done-ness of baked goods. I think Linda has it right - when you smell that hint of toast, it's time to poke the cake.

Well, Upton is in Pennsylvania. Who do we know from there?

Pilfer, all the way. It's horrible to let food go to waste, especially garden-grown food.

Ice that large can easily be made in either a cleaned tetra-pack (like for juice) or by freezing water in big supperware containers. I'll third the reccomendation to go to a Latin American store and find a Raspador. This will produce the shaved flakes you're looking for. (So yes, the short answer is that a hand-cranked model is best for home use).