northern reflections
taphouse charcuterie and ways to enjoy the weakest link in the squash family
Hello from the odd feeling of a Friday stat holiday. It throws the whole week off, doesn’t it? I personally felt disoriented every day except Monday, and daylight saving time making the sun set at 4:40pm, not to mention the fact it was cold enough for a bit of snow (!!), didn’t help matters. At least this sudden onset of winter means I can start wearing my hand-knit toques again.
I went out to The Magnet with Liang, a lovely spot on Pender Street with an impressive beer list and good share plates. Liang was set on the charcuterie platter, though it was a bit different from what you usually expect from a bar charcuterie— no cheese, for one. While it was more meat-heavy than I’d generally go for, it was all uniquely enjoyable: farmer’s sausage in pastry, melt-in-your-mouth duck rillettes, house-made mortadella, and of course a variety of pickles and sauces, with warm baguette, crisp on the outside and soft inside.
We finished the bread before all the meat was gone, so we ordered fries, using them to scoop up the last bits of the rillettes in the absolute height of decadence, along with an order of the delicious brussels sprouts with crispy shallots and miso-white bean purée. Physically we didn’t need to order this much food, but spiritually, we did. On the way home we texted each other as we admired the huge and beautiful full moon in the northeast, which felt like a special blessing bestowed on me for leaving the house in 3°C weather.
Over the weekend, two friends we hadn’t seen in almost a year came over for dinner. We made pizza— it’s fairly low-effort and always makes everyone happy. We were too busy chatting for me to remember to take a picture, but they were prosciutto and roasted red pepper with pineapple, and hot capocollo with mushrooms and olives.
I didn’t have time this week to do much other cooking, but I have finally started roasting some of the plethora of spaghetti squash our garden produced for no reason over the summer— there are about a dozen of them hanging out in the dining room. We didn’t plant spaghetti squash and didn’t ask for it, and yet, there they are, waiting, haunting me. Its texture makes it inappropriate for many of the regular variety of squash dishes, and eating it like noodles in some kind of pasta sauce is absolutely one of the most cursed food items imaginable, but I do have a couple of things I enjoy making with it.
Firstly, while using spaghetti squash as pasta is horrible, using it in pasta is fine! It works well in my smoky vegan squash mac and cheese. It won’t much change the colour or thicken the sauce the way a squash purée does, but the sauce is already creamy enough without it. I definitely added more than the ½ cup than in my original recipe, and it was quite good, adding a bit more vegetable content and some texture.
The recipe is really versatile, as many pasta recipes are: this time I couldn’t find the smoked cheeze I like, so I bought a plain vegan cheddar instead and added a bunch of smoked paprika on top with the breadcrumbs (which get nice and crispy under the broiler at the end). The smoky flavour wasn’t as prominent, making it a more traditionally savoury mac with lots of veg and a little curry kick. Ideal November meal, and it makes a lot, so if you’re not feeding a family, you can put half in the freezer and thaw it out in the oven another time.
The MVP of spaghetti squash recipes is this gratin with potatoes and thyme. It’s so straightforward and still has loads of flavour. I use coconut milk here instead of cream usually because that’s what I keep around, and it works well both ways. A mandoline or the slicer attachment on a food processor is a must for this one, though, unless you want to be cutting potatoes til the end of time. I like lots of black pepper in this, and sometimes I cook some sliced onion in the pan before making the rest of the sauce, too.
The recipe doesn’t tell you to do this, but I also like to squeeze some of the moisture out of the squash after roasting and before layering it into the gratin. This way, the bits on top get a little crispy, and the bits on the bottom don’t make the potatoes come out soggy. I used a mix of pecorino and parmesan this time, and also a torn-up slice of prosciutto since we had some left from making the pizzas. On the side I usually like a crisp and acidic salad, but I had some shishito peppers to use up, so I blistered them under the broiler and served them with a drizzle of lemon mayo on top. A bit of an unexpected pairing of dishes, but it worked pretty well— the tartness of the lemon and the mild spice of the peppers cut through the creaminess and salt of the gratin.
Also this week I fed my neglected sourdough starters, which I’ve been ignoring for a few weeks and eating bread we bought at Costco and put in the freezer. But at this point they’re almost impossible to kill— it’s only my guilt staring back at me every time I open the fridge. I keep one at 70% hydration for bread, and another at 90% hydration for pizza crust, focaccia, and sweet baking (I’m planning on making cinnamon buns with it tomorrow). Before I do it, I always feel so defeated by the idea of weighing the starter and water and flour and everything in order to feed it and make something, but as with many things, the real problem is just actually getting started. Once I do, it’s as easy as anything else.
Media:
I’ve been doing a lot of writing this week so my brain has been absolutely fried for reading anything longer than 240 characters, thus I have nothing to share! Instead I’ve been decompressing by scrolling through seasons of various Star Trek series, choosing my favourite episodes of TNG or TOS or DS9 to watch at random like a comfort viewing buffet. Incidentally I’m also back on tumblr, if you’re over there too.
Thanks for reading— if you enjoyed this newsletter, please smash that like button below, or share it with someone new! I like providing this to you for free, but it does still involve time and effort, so donations I can use towards cookbooks or future treats are much appreciated. And now, if I had to read this and suffer, so do you.