Since we’ve been back home, I’ve been making soup for our dinners at least twice a week and as a result, most of my reserve of chicken stock was consumed. Chicken stock seems to be one of the constants in virtually all of the soups that I make and as such I make stock in large quantities and keep it in the freezer for months at a time.

I used to use store bought chicken stock that comes in boxes and for the most part it is a reasonably good option if you have nothing else. However about a year ago I decided to try and make my own stock and have found that I much prefer the taste of my own and of course like the fact that there are no preservatives or unknown ingredients in mine.

Chicken stock is really quite easy to make but admittedly there’s a who process to it that many people will not want to do. First of all you need to have a huge stock pot ideally over 10 litres in size. Of course you can make your own stock in any size pot but I think that if you don’t make a large quantity then the amount of stock that get (from a smaller pot) from the effort involved may not be worth it. Of course, you’ll ultimately have to be a judge of that for yourself.

Once you have your large stock pot, it’s really just a matter of throwing in the ingredients, filling with water, then simmering for several hours. I think that the most important step in the stock making process is to use a spoon or wooden pestle to push all of the liquid through the colander. It’s all of the remaining chicken and vegetables that contain the delicious flavour and while it takes a bit of muscle power, its a necessary step if you want your stock to taste the very best.

You can find the recipe and method for my home made chicken stock here.

Baden

Two years had gone by after we had come back from Spain when gazpacho was re-introduced into our lives by our friend Anna. By this time we had shared meals with Tony and Anna several times and had gotten used to always having very unique and delicious dishes at her table. When Anna happened to serve gazpacho for us as a starter, I knew that I had to re-introduce this back into our lives after a few years on hiatus.

Like most simple dishes, gazpacho has as many variations as there are cooks. The recipe that Anna gave me contained mainly cucumbers, tomatoes, garlic, red peppers, fresh basil and parsley and all went into a food process for about 30 seconds. Literally, the most amount of work was cutting up the vegetables.

This all gets me to the part of the story as to why there was a two year gap between having gazpacho at Tony and Anna’s and me starting to make it again myself. The key missing ingredient was a food processor.

I had always had my eye on a food processor but for a variety of reasons held off on buying one. I didn’t want to just add another kitchen appliance if it wasn’t going to get some kind of regular use. So it was a few months ago when my birthday was coming up that I happened to come across the email from Anna with her gazpacho recipe that I thought that the time was right to finally make the plunge to add a food processor to my kitchen.

I already had a smaller Black and Decker food processor (about 2-3 cups in capacity) but it really never got much usage as I have found that for most jobs that small it was often easier to do it by hand start or one of the other appliances that I have like the blender. When I found that there was a 12 cup KitchenAid food processor available through our Save on More points, I started dropping subtle hints* to Barb that it would be a good birthday gift.

* Subtle hints in our house are emails to Barb with a link to the item on the Save on More web site with the subject of “Get this for me for my birthday”.

Because of all of the vegetables and herbs that are the heart of gazpacho, it carries a very fresh taste and I find that it is a perfect replacement for salad. The fact that it is served cold adds a refreshing aspect to it that is perfect on a hot summer day.

With us now having a fresh supply of basil and parsley in our herb garden just outside of our kitchen door, making gazpacho is easier than ever and makes a regular appearance as a starter to our dinners instead of a salad. If gazpacho is the reason why you’ll go out and buy yourself a good food processor (or get one with your Save on More points), it will all have been worth it.

The recipe for Anna’s Glorious Gazpacho ca be found here.

I have made some very minor changes to the recipe. The one thing that I have omitted from Anna’s email to me in my posted recipe is that Anna has specified that organic vegetables be used wherever possible because the taste was superior. While I do use a lot of organic food in my cooking, it is my opinion that there is very little to no taste difference between organic and non-organic food and it is not for taste reasons that I choose to cook with it. I may do a more complete article on this subject in the future but no doubt I will be hearing some comments from Anna on this subject.

Baden

According to my research, Pikelets were stated to be Scottish in origin but most of the references of the name seemed to be from Australia and New Zealand.

Over the years, I had made a variety of different types of pancakes but what was different about this recipe was the fact that the batter would rest in the refrigerator for about an hour (minimum) but preferably overnight. This resting period would allow time for the baking soda and baking powder to act and add air into the batter. The end result is that the pikelets are very light and don’t have that dense texture that pancakes will often have.

The pikelet batter is ladled into a hot frying pan (brushed with butter) just a little at a time so the resulting pikelets are only about 3 or 4 inches in across.

Serve them hot right out of the pan along with your preference of maple syrup or, more traditionally, a dollop of whipped cream and a small centre of jam on top of the whipped cream.

After you try pikelets, pancakes will definitely be off the menu.

You can see the recipe for pikelets here.

Baden

Ever since hearing about cooking a chicken by using bricks, I was intrigued about it and after seeing it on a cooking show a few weeks ago I decided that it was time to try it myself. The first thing that I needed to do was get some bricks and picked up a number of them at my local Home Depot.

The theory behind cooking chicken with bricks is that you start with the skin side down and the bricks on top, applying constant pressure to the chicken and the pan. The end result is that the entire chicken skin browns to a perfectly crispy colour and the rest of the cooking occurs in the oven in the second stage of the cooking.

What results when you remove the chicken from the oven is the most moist chicken that you have ever tasted. The marinade that the chicken basted in overnight imparts just a slight garlic and herb taste that perfectly compliments the crispy texture.

If you’re panning on having guests over for dinner and are looking for a unique way to prepare a chicken, the Chicken under a Brick recipe adds a distinctive way of doing so that is sure to be a crowd pleaser.

You can see the recipe for Chicken under a Brick here.

Baden

The conversation generally went along the lines that Peter and Arlene’s garden was producing a bounty of fresh vegetables – in contrast to our own garden that was producing vegetables but in much smaller quantities.

To my pleasant surprise, Arlene brought along a small bag of some of their garden’s produce for me and prominent in the bag was a large zucchini. On the drive home from the picnic, I was rolling around different ideas in my head about how I would cook the zucchini, considering several different options.

It was just a day or so later that my other friend Angie happened to email me a story about how she had just made a large batch of zucchini soup and she had sent along the recipe in her email. Intrigued and in the mood for a good tasting soup, I decided to cook up a batch of this zucchini soup as it also gave me the opportunity to use some of the garlic that I had just harvested from our garden a few days earlier. In addition to the garlic, fresh basil and oregano from my herb garden were also used and I can definitely say that the whole result was quite extraordinary.

Since Barb is still away on her trip, I think that I’ll probably have about 3-4 days worth of soup for myself.

Not such a bad deal when you think about it.

You can find the recipe for zucchini soup here.

Baden

One of the things that impressed me about this recipe was how it used the parts of the asparagus and leeks (the butts and the green parts) that I would normally would be throwing out. Both of these were first sauteed then simmered in the water to form the basis for the stock of the soup – extracting the maximum flavour from all of the ingredients.

As usual, we pickup some really nice crusty bread to eat with our soups and settle in for a delicious dinner. You can find the Cream of Asparagus Soup recipe here.

Baden