Blintzes

When we moved to Scotland, we quickly discovered that there are several sets of words that are all one-removed from US words: things like fries, which here are chips, and chips, which over here are crisps; or menswear, which is a veritable landmine of words that exist in both American and British English, but have different meanings in each: American suspenders are British braces, but British suspenders are an American garter belt; an American vest is a British gilet or sometimes a waistcoat if it’s fancy, but a British vest is a American tank top and a British tank top is an American sweater vest. American pants are British trousers and British pants are American underwear. It’s best just not to try to shop for menswear in the UK, and most definitely best not to ever discuss your legwear.

Relatedly (bear with me), tomorrow is Pancake Day here in the UK, which means it’s Fat Tuesday, Lent is about to start, and it’s time to use up all those pesky ‘luxuries’ in your pantry by… making a batch of pancakes? This is a tradition over here in Europe, and although I know it persists in some parts of the US, it definitely wasn’t a tradition I was aware of before moving to Scotland. Confusingly, though, the ‘pancakes’ served on Pancake Day over here are typically served with lemon and powdered sugar, and while they’re not usually as thin as a French crepe, they’re also definitely not as thick as American pancakes… which brings me to the confusing verbiage: in the US, we use the term ‘flapjack’ and ‘pancake’ interchangeably, but here in the UK, a flapjack is thick, soft, usually oat-based insanely sweet confection that I would most liken to a homemade granola bar. (Incidentally, I hate British flapjacks.) So the pancakes you eat for Pancake Day aren’t exactly crepes and they’re not exactly pancakes and they’re most definitely not flapjacks… so where does that leave us?

As discussed last year, my go-to Pancake Day will be, probably for the rest of time, my mom’s crepes, but in the interest of keeping things new and fresh around here, this year we went with blintzes instead, and apparently this is far more likely to be a historically accurate choice for someone like Eleanor, whose heritage was almost exclusively Eastern European. ‘What’s a blintz?’ you may be asking, if you are neither Jewish nor Eastern European, which, according to my research, are the two groups of people who most deserve credit for the wonder that is the blintz.* A blintz is a yeasted pancake (as opposed to a non-yeasted French crepe), thinner than a pancake but thicker than a crepe, and traditionally eaten this time of year to celebrate the end of winter and the beginning of Lent.

Basically, it’s a double-whammy of awesome: you take a pancake, and instead of just topping it with things that are delicious, you also fill it with things that are delicious (sweetened cottage cheese with just enough lemon essence to brighten the whole thing up), and then you can even eat it for dinner if you want to. Traditionally, they’re fried after being filled with delicious cheese filling, but since this recipe came from an article about tailoring ‘blintzes to your diet,’ this version is slightly healthier as they’re baked instead of fried at the end. And they’re delicious. Even my sweet-phobic husband, who hates sweet breakfast foods, was wild about these.

*This recipe definitely takes the cake for the most offensive newspaper article so far found in the box: it starts out 'You don't have to be Jewish to love blitzes [sic]. But you'd better be skinny, because blitzes [sic] are plenty fattening, prepared according to the usual Jewish-mother tradition.' So... we'll just ignore that part and focus on the recipe at hand.

The verdict:

5 spoons out of five. They’re the perfect balance of crisp and soft, warm and toasty without being overly heavy, and they’re delicious. We topped ours with apricot preserves, lemon curd, and cherries in kirsch syrup (just so we could test a variety of toppings, but you could equally use warmed honey, any kind of fruit pie filling, a dollop of yogurt, or warm applesauce. (My favourite, though, was apricot preserves). Make these and celebrate Pancake Day—even if you’re not celebrating Lent.

Pancake Day, Previously: Check out my favourite crepe recipe over here, perfect for celebrating Pancake Day British-style!

The recipe:

Blintzes

The directions:
Blintzes:

Combine flour and salt, then stir in milk, water, and eggs gradually.
Beat until smooth (a few very small lumps or air bubbles are okay).
Heat a nonstick skillet until warm, then drop in a tiny sliver of butter and let melt.
Preheat oven to 175C/350F.
Use a small ladle or measuring cup to pour about 2 tablespoons of batter into the pan, swirling the pan as you pour to distribute the batter evenly. 
You should have JUST enough batter to cover the bottom of the pan and no 'extra' that would make the blintz too thick.
Cook about one minute, until top dries and bottom is lightly browned.
Without flipping over, turn blintz out onto a towel and set aside until you run out of batter.

Filling:

Blend all ingredients together and beat until of uniform consistency.
Put a spoonful (or 2, depending on the size of your blintzes) of filling into the centre of each blintz, and roll them 'envelope-style.' 
First, fold in sides slightly, then roll from top to bottom to make a secure pouch. 
Place filled blintzes seam-side down on a cookie sheet and heat until warmed through.
Serve with apricot preserves, lemon curd, or whatever you can think of!

The ingredients:
The blintzes:

3 c flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 c skim milk
1/2 c water
3 eggs + 1 egg white (yolk reserved for filling)
Butter for brushing the pan

The filling:

3 c cottage cheese
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
Zest from one lemon
1 egg yolk (reserved from blintz recipe above)

the topping:

Apricot preserves (Blair's favourite)
Lemon Curd (Judson's favourite)
Cherries in Kirsch syrup (totally delicious!)
Warmed honey

Twice-Cooked Broccoli

I found this recipe written on a torn-off sheet from a daily calendar dated 10 March 1984. There are only four steps to make this, and combined with the 4 ingredients, it makes for a pretty easy side dish, or dinner if you live in our house. (As an aside, we've realised lately that we eat a lot of broccoli in this house, and often end up eating an entire head of broccoli with dinner, which seems both strange and unlikely, considering I was once the child who refused broccoli unless topped with-- ahem-- American cheese.)

Anyway, sometimes there’s nothing quite so exciting as a vegetable side dish, especially if you’re in the throes of Christmas baking and have eaten nothing but sweets for weeks on end, and especially if you've been making lots of complicated candy recipes that require particular temperatures, specific timings, and detailed ingredient lists… which is why I was so excited to make this broccoli dish after the Christmas holidays.

We don't do a lot of variety when it comes to vegetables in this house—or at least we didn't until I started this blog—but this time of year it’s nice to have something to vary up the ‘roasted veggies with olive oil, salt, and pepper’ that is our mainstay side dish during winter months, and this casserole definitely does that... even if it does so at the cost of upping the butter content. So I was happy to make this, even if it does involve soup mix and butter, both ingredients I contend are not necessary for making veggies tasty and nutritious. I broke my own rules and mixed it up a little when I realised I had bought fresh broccoli instead of frozen, but if the produce section at your local supermarket is as empty as mine has been recently, then no one is going to bat an eye if you use frozen. Also, I looked everywhere in Edinburgh and couldn't find water chestnuts, so for the love of all things good, if you know where I could procure some in this country, please let me know! In their absence, we used celery, which didn't stay as crisp as water chestnuts would have, but it added a nice texture and flavour, so I regret nothing.

It’s not glamorous and it sure is a pain to photograph, but this recipe is tasty and easy, and since we’re always looking for new ways to eat an entire head of broccoli for dinner, this one definitely fits the bill. Note that in the ingredients below I lowered the butter levels to a more manageable amount that's less likely to give you a coronary and also more likely to allow you to eat this as your main course later this week. It's that good.

the verdict:

3 spoons out of five. This is super tasty and definitely easy. It'll become a go-to for us over the next few months, I'm sure!

the recipe:

Twice-Cooked Broccoli

the directions:

Preheat oven to 175C/350F.
Steam fresh broccoli until green but still firm (if using frozen, saute without salt and drain).
Combine steamed broccoli and water chestnuts or celery in an oven-safe dish, then dot with butter.
Sprinkle onion soup mix over the dish and toss slightly to coat.
Bake 25 minutes or until veggies are tender.

the ingredients:

2 heads broccoli, chopped into florets (or equivalent in frozen broccoli)
1 c water chestnuts or coarsely sliced celery
2 tablespoons butter (or 1 tablespoon olive oil/1 tablespoon butter)
1 envelope dry onion soup mix

Garbanzo Bean Soup

I tried to make this recipe in time for the snowstorm that blanketed all of my American friends over the weekend, but alas, as I am no weatherman, I didn’t make it until Sunday and have been sitting on it ever since, unsure of what to say about it.

I’ve been excited about this soup for weeks.* In the throes of the Holiday Almanac project, when all I wanted was to cook something that wasn’t a dessert, the thought of this soup sustained me. ‘Just make it til January,’ I told myself, ‘and then you can eat garbanzo soup stewed with a ham hock and a pinch of saffron, spiced with chorizo and a whole lot of herbs, delicious and hearty and warming and cosy.’

But then I made the soup (first step: determine where to procure a ham hock in this town), and it was only… well, meh. The first round of it included a dried chorizo sausage, which, upon being boiled in soup, rendered all of its fat, leaving the broth oily and tasteless. The chorizo, though, was optional, so I tried again sans chorizo, with extra garbanzo beans and less potato, and even threw in a handful of greens I had on hand, and the result was super tasty.

So I’m including the second version below—it’s tasty and since it needs to simmer for several hours, it’s a perfect weekend dish when you can fire up the slow cooker or put a pot on a low simmer, then wash all the dishes you dirtied while prepping it. By the time it’s ready, your kitchen will be sparkling, and, if you’re anything like us, you can curl up with a steaming bowl of soup, a glass of red wine, and a new episode of the X-Files while you watch snow flurries tumble by the window onto the street below.

*I feel it's only fair to tell you that at least 40% of my excitement over this soup came from the fact that the first ingredient literally says '1 pound dried garbanzos,' and then has a tiny arrow with a note that reads 'they look like tiny hazelnuts.' I just love the idea that you might not know what chickpeas are, but you DO know what a hazelnut looks like. What?

The verdict:

3 spoons out of five. It’s delicious (when made as below), but I’m deducting 2 spoons for the fact that the first version of the recipe required me to boil a chorizo. Plus, I have really high soup standards. But major props to this soup for filling the house with an amazing roasted pork smell, and also for making so much soup that I will likely never have to make soup again. I’ve frozen half of it (a solid 4 servings), and still have enough left for 4 hearty servings. Make this when you want a cosy winter meal that’s low maintenance, tasty, and filling—aka every time you’re stuck in the house during a snowstorm.

The recipe:

Garbanzo Bean Soup

the directions:

Wash beans, then soak overnight.
Wash well the next morning, then set aside.
Place the ham hock in your crockpot or a large saucepot, then cover (barely!) with cold water.
Add beans and start cooking slowly over low heat.
Meanwhile, cut up onions, garlic, and green pepper and saute in olive oil until just softened.
Add sauteed veggies, bay leaves, and saffron to the pot and continue cooking slowly.
When beans are al dente (after several hours in a crockpot or a couple hours over low simmer), peel and chop the potato and add it to the pot.
Turn heat to high and allow to simmer until potato is cooked.
Season with salt and pepper and let simmer until thickened, adding water if liquid levels get too low, but remember that it should be very thick.
Once potatoes are cooked and beans are tender, serve with a nice glass of red wine and enjoy!

the ingredients:

1 pound dried garbanzo beans (chickpeas), make sure to use dried beans and not canned
2 pound ham hock
4 large onions
2 cloves of garlic
1 green pepper
3 tbsp olive oil
2 bay leaves
Pinch of saffron threads
1 large potato
Salt & Pepper to taste