Corn bread in a cast-iron skillet

A year or so back I read a piece in the Vancouver Sun extolling the virtues of the cast-iron skillet. The article made it sound like a real wonder-tool: an all-purpose frying pan that would pay back a little love and attention with a unique cooking experience that flimsy modern non-stick pans just can't match. It piqued my interest on a number of levels, but could I really justify the expense. Back in the days when I was paid commissions and didn't have 3 kids I used to love going and scouting round the fancy cookshops, where you'd spend $20 on the latest silcone non-stick easy grip teaspoon measure or some such nonsense. Now, though, I was back with a mortgage, a baby on the way and these kinds of thing just weren't really essential.

A week or so later I was walking up Main Street with one of the boys. For some reason we had to go to the dollar store, Welk's, at 19th & Main. It may have been halloween, I don't know. Anyway - imagine my surprise when amongst all the plastic food savers and toys designed to fall apart on their second use, I saw a selection of cast iron frying pans. There I was, expecting to have to shell out at least a hundred bucks and the dollar store had the most fantastic, simple, heavy cast-iron 12 inch skillet for only $14.

Needless to say, I bought it. I had great fun seasoning it - rubbing it with vegetable oil and then baking it in the oven upside down at 350F for half an hour. Job done! Ever since, it has given sterling service not only as a frying pan, but also for baking, especially corn bread.

Traditional southern corn bread served with a meal like meatloaf or roat chicken can make a great alternative starch. The kids love it because it's a bit sweet, and it's really easy to make. Cooking it in a skillet gives the crust a really nice caramelized chewiness.

This is the recipe I used for the one in the picture. I like it with less sugar than many of the American recipes I've seen.

4 oz butter
1 cup natural yogurt
1 cup milk
2 tbsp brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp salt
1 cup cornmeal (polenta)
1 cup maize flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder

Heat oven to 350F

Melt the butter in the skillet, swirling it around well to coat the pan. Whisk eggs, milk, yogurt and sugar together and pour in the melted butter. Don't worry about scraping it all out of the skillet - what's left in the pan will lubricate and cook the outside nicely. Put the skillet back on the stove to keep hot, but don't burn the butter in the pan.

Stir in the dry ingredients and mix to a thick batter and pour it into the skillet. Leave it on the stovetop over a low heat for a few minutes until you can see the edges starting to cook. Transfer it to the oven and bake for about 30 mins or until a skewer poked in the middle comes out clean.

It's probably possible to cook the whole thing over a lowish heat on the stove, if you have a suitable lid for the skillet. I'm going to try this soon and report back.

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A fountain in our yard

We moved into our house about 18 months ago. It's an old house. You'd like to think it had seen better days, although in reality I suspect it's been a bit run down and off-kilter ever since it was built. This is one of the older neighbourhoods outside of downtown, as far as I can tell. I've seen maps that show our street basically surrounded by forest wilderness on at least 2 sides, around the turn of the century.
The neighbourhood probably hasn't always been as pleasant as it is now. It's definitely changing, but you don't have to look far to see signs of a recent, less affluent past. That's why Main Street is such a fascinating blend of modern trendy and 70s shabby.
One of the consequences of this past is some rather creaky water services around here. In the 18 months we've been here we've had to call the city out 3 times to fix leaky water pipes, two within 20 yards of each other in the large water main that goes up the street alongside us.
The first leak appeared within a few days of our arrival in the house, in September 2007. This is not the kind of thing you want to see when you've just paid over the odds for a house you're only just beginning to realise isn't quite as nice as it looked when you walked round with the realtor. The first signs were a slightly squelchy patch on the front lawn, just off the sidewalk. Over a couple of days this became a fully-fledged water feature.
We called out the city, unsure as to whose responsibility these things were. They dug a hole, which exposed the leak, causing the delightful fountain you see in the picture. Fortunately the leak was on the city's side of the shut-off valve - the junction between their pipe and ours. They fixed it and went on their way.
Has anyone else noticed how the City seem to have a never ending supply of sterile grass seed?

Multigrain loaf

In the end, the secret to making a decent loaf with the 8-grain flake mix was to reduce the amount of water a little and cook it on a shorter program.

300g water

120g milk

150g 8-grain rolled grain mix

25g butter

1tsp salt

1tsp brown sugar

450g all-purpose flour

1tsp yeast

Cooked on the 'sandwich' program, 2.5lb, which lasts for 3h05 overall. The result was pretty good, the different grains giving a different quality to the loaf than the oatmeal. I think overall it still needs work, though. I wonder what happens if you cook the mixture first...

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Dragonfly

Dragonflies have to be my favourite insects. Their sleek, colourful styling is more like a futuristic spacecraft than an ancient insect species.
In the summer, dragonflies seem to thrive around British Columbia. This was one of a pair that were flying around a reed bed on the edge of Whiteswan Lake in the Kootenay region of Southeastern BC, not far from the Alberta border. We visited this area in August 2005, our first summer in Canada, on our way back from a stay in Edmonton.
I stood in the water on the edge of the lake and just waited for the right moment as the dragonflies hovered around, darting from side to side. I seem to remember things weren't helped much by two young boys chucking things in the lake from the water's edge. Still, dragonflies aren't scared easily and so I managed to get some nice pictures.

Sea to sky highway

The Sea-to-sky highway, Highway 99 north from Vancouver, is the main route to the Olympic skiing centre at Whistler. After passing the ferry terminal at Horseshoe Bay, the road hugs the coastline of Howe Sound all the way to Squamish.
This is the view you get as you leave Horseshoe Bay on the ferry to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, or to the Sunshine Coast. You can see the line of the road just above the water. The mountains rise up here towards Cypress Mountain, and further along towards the Lions, the iconic twin peaks that dominate the northern skyline in the city of Vancouver.
Driving along the Sea-to-Sky can be breathtaking on a fine day, but for me nothing can beat standing on the top deck of the Langdale ferry as it passes Bowen Island and crosses Howe Sound. Even on a rainy day with limited visibility, the shadowy hulks of the islands and mountains have an awesome magic of their own.

Disaster strikes

Heady with the early success of my oatmeal bread in the machine I was all ready to try something new. At Famous Foods last week my attention was caught by an 8-grain mixture of rolled wheat, barley, triticale, spelt, soy and a bunch of other things. It looked like it would be an interesting substitute for the rolled oats in my recipe.

I bought a 1lb bag and tried it out earlier this week, substituting the oats weight-for-weight with this new 8-grain mixture in my original oaten bread recipe (not the 'rustic' one). As you can see from the picture, the results were less than inspiring. I guess the fact that the oat bread was a litle bit deflated should have been a warning, but I just wasn't prepared for this.

The problem is that the dough is too light and the bread machine program leaves it proving for too long. I'll have to try a different program (this was done on the standard, basic loaf program) and maybe a little less water.

As old Freddie Nietszche said, Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker. Mind you, he never tried making bread in a bread machine.

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Indian Pipe - plant, fungus or what?

The first time we went camping at Porpoise Bay, on BC's Sunshine Coast, I spotted this odd, white growth on the floor of the forest. It was just off the main path from the campground to the beach. I was amazed by the fact that it was totally white - not a hint of green at all.

At first, I thought it must be a fungus, because I didn't understand how it could photosynthesize without chlorophyll. I took this photo as much for reference, so I could look it up when I got home.

It turns out that it does indeed have no cholorphyll but it is in fact a flowering plant. This plant apparently gets all its nutrition from a symbiotic relationship with a fungus that itself is dependent on the roots of certain species of tree, including some of the big conifers that grow here in the Pacific Northwest. The plant is called the Indian Pipe, presumably because of its resemblance to clay pipes for smoking.

To find out more about this amazing plant, check out this article, which is ironically from right over the other side of the country.