Recipe #3 Chocolate-zucchini Cake

The garden in Tavistock produced a wonderful harvest and one of the bountiful fruits was zucchini. The Summer Romanesco zucchini was planted from seed (ordered from Delta, British Columbia). The picture above is one of many zucchini flowers from our garden. The flowers make a delicious appetizer when dipped in a light batter and deep fried. Although the zucchini plant has many uses, our favourite has been this amazing brownie like treat. After a long search, we favoured this recipe from "The Bon Appetit Cookbook", page 522.

Chocolate-zucchini cake

2 1/4 cups sifted all purpose flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1/3/4 cups sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter (I use becel margerine)

1/2 cup vegetable oil (I use sunflower oil)

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 cups grated unpeeled zucchini

1 cup semi sweet dark chocolate chips

1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Butter and flour 13x9x2 in baking pan. Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt into medium bowl. Beat sugar, butter, and oil in large bowl until well blended. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating after each addition. Beat in vanilla. Mix in flour mixture alternately with buttermilk in 3 additions each. Mix in grated zucchini. Pour batter into prepared pan. Sprinkle chocolate chips and nuts over batter.

Bake cake until tester comes out clean, about 50 minutes. Cool completely in pan. Enjoy!

Our youngest daughter - Andrea Pauline

Andrea keeps cooking alive in her kitchen by creating beautiful cakes. Her creativity is endless as your will see when you visit her website: http://www.mamaliciouscakes.com

Each cake is personalized for the special person of the day allowing Andrea to unveil her hidden talents. Like her father, she has no formal training but loves to celebrate food with family and friends! We hope you enjoy too!

Recipe #2 - Fresh Basil Pesto

We live near the Farmer's market in St. Jacobs, so getting a bushel of tomatoes, red peppers or fresh basil is simple. We also purchase our olive oil at the market from a vendor who personally selects his oil in Greece. This year we have used Ariagold and Ionian - both excellent oils. This vendor travels to Greece each year and orders specific types of olive oils direct from the growers. Using a good quality olive oil will make the difference in dishes like Basil pesto or Oven roasted tomatoes and red peppers and will enchance your pasta dishes. Just toss your favourite fresh pasta dish with the pesto or tomatoes, add chicken or shrimp if you like. This is a recipe from a cooking class taken in Florence, Italy - November 2005.

Ingredients for Fresh Basil Pesto

4 cups of Fresh Basil - remove stems & use just the leaves

1 cup of pine nuts

4 gloves of garlic (chopped)

1 -1/ 2 cups Olive Oil

1 cup aged Pecorino (finely grated)

1 cup Parmigiano Reggiano

Chop basil with a sharp knife and then put in a blender. Add pine nuts, chopped garlic and 1 cup of olive oil. Pulse it and then add cheese and remaining olive oil. Blend until just smooth. I keep the pesto in canning jars and cover the top with a little olive oil. Use a small spatula to avoid air pockets. Jars can be refridgerated for a few days but or freeze if you want to enjoy it on a cold winter day.

P.S. We were very fortunate this year to grow our own basil. Our good friends, Todd & Brenda from Tavistock shared their garden plot with us. We all loved cooking with the freshest ingredients. Watch over the next few weeks for recipes featuring garden produce.

Meet our daughter - Kristel Jacqueline

Last week, we saw how Julia Child in "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" influenced Kern. This week, Kristel shows us how new chefs of the day like Ina Garten and Giada keep cooking alive. But still using the freshest ingredients are necessary to produce top notch results. Kristel will call home and ask Dad for instructions on "how to make" a particular dish - like "flank steak" or "salmon steak" or "what spices did you use"? But the answer is often the same - make sure you use fresh and not frozen and you will be pleased with your results. Even Ina Garten and Giada will agree with that, so have fun and cook up a storm. The new chefs of the day put a refreshing bite on cooking but using fresh ingredients remains the standard.

Recipe #1 Scalloped Potatoes

This is one of the first recipes Kern made from "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" and has become an all time favourite at our house anytime of year. Its not a recipe you can just write out and hand over, it takes more time to give instructions than to actually prepare the dish. And yes, the dish is key in making these scalloped potatoes. You need a dish no more than 2 inches deep. We searched for many years to find the right dish and we now have 2 because once we found the perfect dish, we ended the search. The dish we use is an 8" x 10" x 2" heavy botttom Dansk casserole dish. You can find the original recipe on Page 523 in "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" but this is Kern's variation. He uses becel because I insist.

6 cups of sliced boiling potatoes
1 glove of garlic
1/2 cup Becel
1 tsp salt (he likes to use sea salt)
Pepper to taste
1 cup grated Monteray Jack Cheese & old Cheddar
1 cup boiling milk

Preheat oven to 425 degrees

Peel potatoes and slice them 1/8 inch thick. Place in a basin of cold water. Drain when ready to use.
Rub the baking dish with the cut garlic. Smear with dish with 1 tbsp of becel. Drain the potatoes and dry them in a towel. Spread 1/2 in the bottom of the dish. Divide over them 1/2 salt, pepper, cheese and becel. Arrange the remaining potatoes over the first layer, and season them. Spread the rest of the cheese & becel to cover.
Bring the milk to a boil on the stove top and pour over the potatoe mixture. Set the baking dish over the stove top and when the milk has simmered, move dish into a preheated oven. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes or until potatoes are tender, milk has been absorbed, and the top is nicely browned.

My Canadian Cook

Today is Grandparents day. It seemed an appropriate day to start my first blog project. Over the next year, I will post one recipe per week on this blog. And yes, I was inspired by Julie in the recent movie Julie and Julia. The difference will be that these recipes will be a collection of our favourites cooked by my husband Kern - he has a passion for cooking. We have been married for almost 35 years and over that time Kern has been the cook in our home - my family and I have been the lucky recipient of many, many wonderful meals. Kern has no formal training in cooking but enjoys cooking with the freshest of ingredients. Our cookbook "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" was a wedding gift and over the years has weathered its use so well, it needs to be rebound. As well as providing a recipe each week, there will always be a short story to go with the recipe and in this way, you will get to know a Canadian family and how cooking became an important part of our life.