Z: (Stuffed) Zucchini

Here we are, folks!  After about three and a half years on the Alphabake train, we have finally arrived at letter "Z". What a culinary journey it has been!

For the final pick I decided to go with this stuffed zucchini recipe from Plenty: Vibrant Recipes from London's Ottolenghi by Yotam Ottolenghi.  I have not whipped up too many savoury recipes on the blog so this made for a nice change. It was also such a breeze to prepare compared to the yogurt bread I made for the previous food entry.

These stuffed zucchinis would make a lovely little starter or an accompaniment with a main. There were some great flavours in this dish; the kitchen smelled amazing.  The recipe said that the rice should be "al dente" and that was the result I got.  My two taste testers and I were not entirely pleased with the slightly crunchy texture of the rice filling.  The rice is supposed to get "cooked" while it is inside the zucchini and steaming the zucchini any longer than what the recipe calls for would make it mushy and not very nice to serve up.  If you would like to try this recipe and want to have a softer rice filling, I would cook it a bit, but not fully, before scooping it into the zucchini "boats".

I made this recipe and took the photos while I was staying in San Francisco in early March of this year.  At the time I was working with local commercial photographer, Philip Harvey.  Due to this, I had the exciting opportunity to shoot the final results from this recipe in his professional photography studio.  I have to send a big shout out to Phil's intern at the time, Victor Tseng, for helping me out with the equipment and a lot of the setup for this shoot.  I learned a lot in that session and I am really happy with the photos we got from it.

T: Tea Party (Bonus Post)

Tea for…more than two…

It was quite a while back but my last birthday was certainly one to remember.  I had a wonderful time that was spent with friends and family.  I went to a concert on the night of my actual birthday so I decided to host a little tea party beforehand in order to celebrate with those who could not make it to the show, as well as an attempt to class things up a bit.   

I grew up with my mother throwing beautiful afternoon teas so I wanted to see if I could do hers any justice.  Alice in Wonderland was my theme since it seemed like the obvious choice for a birthday celebration.  Tea was certainly served, as well as a plethora of edible goodies (featured after the jump), however I think the sparkling wine was probably the most popular beverage of the evening!

I started preparing for the party about five days in advance, doing a little bit every day, while trying to juggle that with my work schedule. I prepared some of the food items in advance and then placed them in the freezer. I also tried to get an early start with making the decorations and purchasing the necessary party supplies.  

       

Q: Queen Olive Cheese Balls

Wooaaaaaaaaah, time sure does fly! In exciting news, Alphabake recently celebrated its one year anniversary (and we still have not gotten through the entire alphabet--oops). The other thing that reflects time's quick passing is that I actually made this recipe and took the photos for this post last Christmas Eve (I think my style has changed a bit since). I realize that making a quiche or something with quinoa would have been a better match for the letter 'Q' but these Queen Olive cheese balls were  made in honour of my sister's dog, Olive. I felt that I needed to make letter 'Q' before I left for Scotland in order to get the puppy photo op.

The recipe comes from Hors D'Oeuvres by Eric Treuille and Vitctoria Blashford-Snell.  The main reason I decided to try this recipe was because it was one of the very few I had that started with 'Q'.  I did not expect them to be particularly tasty but I was pleasantly surprised and everyone at the dinner really liked them. HRH Queen Olive Cheese Ball herself tried to get her paws on a few!

E: Ebelskivers

I first heard about Ebelskivers a couple of years ago when I was taking one of my usual walks around the aisles of Williams Sonoma. I saw a peculiar pan that consisted of seven small wells. Propped right next to it was a book about Ebelskivers. I opened it up and read that they are small stuffed pancakes that come from Denmark. If you are aware of the mini Dutch pancakes, Poffertjes,these are very similar except that they are slightly bigger and are filled, traditionally with apples. The book contains a variety of both sweet and savoury recipes. Immediately I fell in love with both it and the pan and luckily for me my birthday was just around the corner!
 
Since then I have hosted the occaisional Ebelskiver event. When you make the batter, you separate the yolks from the whites and blend the whites until they are stiff. This meringue mixture is mixed into the batter which results in a very light and puffy pancake. You can really use your imagination for the filling. Options are jam, fruit, chocolate, leftovers, etc. This time around I experimented with the following fillings:

1. Feta, sundried tomatos, spinach, and pesto
2. Pear, blue cheese, and candied walnuts*
3. Smoked salmon, corn kernals, and dill

My only hesitation with Ebelskivers is that they are very time consuming since you can only make seven at a time. I think I have only made them when I have had other people over. Even though I normally prepare the fillings in advance, it can be a bit challenging to carry out a conversation while making these. If you are planning on making them for other people, it probably would not hurt to make them in advance.

Ideally one would use an Ebelskiver pan for this recipe. The pan has small wells that are deep enough to fit a tablespoon of batter followed by a tablespoon or less of your choice of filling, followed by another tablespoon of batter. If you do not have an Ebelskiver pan you could always try using a metal circular cookie cutter to hold the batter in place but I am not sure how well that would work and it would probably be a little more time consuming. If anyone ever feels like experimenting with that method let me know how it turns out!