Cookbook Fixation

I've Moved!

2011-01-30T22:25:00.000-05:00

After a hiatus I am starting to blog again. I'm changing the focus of my blog to getting in shape and eating delicious food. I am now at http://chocolateandfitness.blogspot.com/ and I hope you will come visit!

Random Meal Pictures: Part III

2010-09-09T22:53:00.001-04:00

Chunky vegetable soup with dill. A delicious way to use up all of the veggies in the fridge.

Soft and chewy chocolate chip cookies. Since I can’t find a recipe I completely, absolutely love, I am inventing my own. I’ve started by combining a few of my favourites; I’m getting there!

Blueberry crisp with homemade butterscotch ice cream.

The makings of Mexican pizza.

Charcuterie plate from a restaurant.

Spicy red lentil soup.

Mexican queso.

Chunky guacamole.

Homemade cocoa and black cherry ice cream.

Garlic scape pesto with gnocchi, roasted salmon and salad.

Massaged kale salad with roasted veggies tossed in tahini dressing. This was the one and only time I ever found kale in a supermarket. Why must it be so hard to find kale in Montreal?

S’mores brownies. Yes, I actually tried the Perfect Brownie Pan and no, I do not recommend it unless having brownies cut in perfectly sized pieces is a priority for you. I thought that the brownies would all have crispy edges but they didn’t. The pan is also quite small and doesn’t hold much batter. I usually make brownies in a 9 x 13 pan and this one was much smaller and quite shallow.

Buttermilk pancakes with summer raspberries.

The makings of hummus.

Chinese chili chicken.

Buffalo chicken pizza.

del.icio.us Tags: Food pictures

Creamy Crab and and Goat Cheese Pasta

2010-08-26T22:37:00.001-04:00

I don’t really like pasta (I can practically hear an audible gasp here), but for whatever reason I really was craving it last week. I have a habit of buying bottles and other sundry food items and taking my sweet time to use them up, so lately I’ve really been making and effort to use up more items; this pasta is a result of me trying to cook out of my pantry.

Red pepper.

Green onions, salt and pepper.

Minced chillies.

A can of crab meat. I envy people who can get fresh crab meat in bulk. That mean pretty much everyone south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Cooked through with tomato sauce added.

Delicious goat cheese.

Melted through.

With cooked spaghetti and fresh parsley added in at the last moment.

Creamy and delicious. Bliss my friends.

del.icio.us Tags: Pasta,Crab,Seafood

Chewy Cherry Chocolate Chip Cookies

2010-08-19T22:40:00.001-04:00

I think all foodies must have an elusive holy grail of recipes that they are constantly searching for. Mine is the oh so humble but very delicious, chewy chocolate chip cookie.

I have tried many recipes but still haven’t found one that I love.

I love cookies that are big and thick yet chewy but not too sweet. Is that too much to ask? I’ve gone through every recipe on Martha Stewart’s website and for these cookies I tried the ones on the back of the milk chocolate chip bag http://www.hersheycanada.com/en/recipes/recipes/detail.asp?id=6624&page=6&per=25 but I found them too sweet. I eat things that would probably put a diabetic person in a coma so that’s saying something. Or maybe it was the fact that I very generously eyeballed the chocolate chip amount? Nah…. Anyways, dear readers, I have a request:

Can anyone steer me in the direction of a really great thick and chewy chocolate chip recipe? I and my stomach would be forever grateful.

Japanese Curry

2010-08-19T22:26:00.001-04:00

Curry is one of those foods that is very popular outside Japan but virtually unknown outside the country. Recently, I was in a Korean supermarket and they had a small Japanese food section in which they sold Japanese curry mix. I practically did a happy dance in the aisle and then ran home to make this recipe. Japanese curry tastes quite different from Indian curries, it is a lot milder and slightly sweet, but quite delicious.

To start off with you brown onions and carrots in a pot.

Followed by mushrooms.

And potatoes and garlic at the last moment.

Most curries I have had are made with pork, but honestly, since I don’t really like meat I ended up using chicken.

At this point you add in your curry mix. It might say hot on the package but it is incredibly mild. I would have to spike it liberally with chillies to come anywhere near hot.

The curry basically looks like a gigantic chocolate bar and has the consistency of a boullion cube.

Now you add water to your veggie and meat mixture, and the curry. It will sort of melt into the water and form a stew.

At this point in time it will be very soupy but if you let it cook for a while it will thicken up.

Like this.

Usually curry is eaten with pickled vegetables and rice. I love pickled lotus roots but all they had at the store was pickled radish. They look a bit like lemon candies when sliced up, no? I wasn’t a big fan as they were too sweet for my tastes.

I also made some quick pickled green onions on the side.

I hadn’t eaten this in years so I was really happy to finally have found the mix to make it. I usually don’t cook from pre-made mixes but I wasn’t able to find a Japanese curry recipe and since everyone in Japan uses the mix, that’s good enough for me. It’s not the most photogenic picture but it sure is tasty.

Black Currant Pound Cake

2010-08-12T20:46:00.001-04:00

Whenever I see a fruit or vegetable that I don’t recognize in the grocery store I have a compulsion to buy some and then I’m not quite sure what to do with them. Usually if it’s a veggie I roast them, and if it’s a fruit I chuck them into a pound cake.

Seriously, you cannot go wrong with pound cake. When I saw these black currants I immediately wanted to try them.

But when I tasted one they were unpalatably sour. Since I adore cranberry pound cake, I decided to give the black currants the same treatment.

I always use Martha Stewart’s recipe. It is delicious, but you must absolutely use butter, no margarine. Maybe in some other recipes you can get away with margarine but in this recipe it is crucial.

Golden and delicious, the tart taste of the currants made an excellent contrast to the sweetness of the bread. Next time I see black currants in the grocery store, I must buy some and try this out again.

del.icio.us Tags: Pound Cake,Black Currants

Japanese Chili Pork Ramen

2010-08-07T23:42:00.001-04:00

You’ll rarely see me post pasta recipes because honestly, it’s just not my thing. I do however, have a thing for ramen noodles, even though it has been years since I have had some. Traditional Japanese ramen is a huge bowl of broth, ramen noodles, and different vegetables and meats depending on the recipe; each region in Japan has their version. You’ll notice there is no broth in my version. This is just personal preference as I have never particularly cared for the broth and have always felt that it just made it messier to eat.

For this recipe you will need:

Ramen noodles	Minced pork
Sambal Oelek or another chili sauce	Green onions
Fresh cilantro	Minced garlic
Roasted sesame seeds	Salt and pepper
Baby spinach

First of all you cook your pork until nearly browned.

Then add minced garlic.

Roasted sesame seeds and salt and pepper.

Once the meet is cooked thoroughly you put in a few tablespoons of Sambal Oelek. If you don’t have any feel free to use another type of chili sauce or you could even puree red chillies and use that instead.

Next, green onions and spinach go into the pan.

I usually use frozen baby spinach, since I can never finish the fresh kind before it goes bad.

And also some fresh cilantro, right at the end.

Give it a good stir and you’re ready to serve it. If you like your green onions very well cooked leave it on the heat a while longer, personally I like when they still have a bite to them as it makes for a good textural contrast with the meat and noodles.

While all of that is going on you can start your noodles. Try to get actual Japanese ramen noodles and not just the no name stuff in the styrofoam containers.

Since I don’t care for the broth I used just enough water to cook the noodles and two of the flavour packets that came with them. If you like the broth, use more water and all the flavour packets.

To serve just take some noodles and broth, if you’re using it, put them in a large bowl and add a generous amount of the pork mixture on top.

I really enjoyed this. It had been so long since I had eaten ramen so it really hit the spot. And I finally bought a pair of chopsticks to eat it properly. The Husband can’t eat with them so he thinks I have some kind of amazing talent to be able to do it. Poor boy, so gastronomically sheltered. I’ve tried to expand his horizons, but alas, no dice. This made lots of leftovers and overall it is a really cheap meal that can easily be stretched out. The biggest expense is the ground pork but the noodles are a buck or two per package and you could add more noodles and keep the same amount of meat. This meal is both tasty and budget friendly.

del.icio.us Tags: Japanse food,Ramen

Japanese Broiled Salmon

2010-08-04T20:18:00.001-04:00

Ok my friends, prepare to be introduced to one of the most delicious, easy and dummy-proof salmon dishes ever. You will need:

Big filet of salmon	Sake
Pepper	Soy sauce
Ginger	Garlic
Spicy mayonnaise or regular	Furikake or nori
Roasted sesame seeds

First you start with the marinade: pepper, sake, soy sauce, ginger and garlic. I just eyeballed a generous amount of sake (since booze makes everything better), a splash of soy sauce and some garlic and ginger.

Marinade.

Salmon filet.

Marinate the salmon for 15-30 minutes. I don’t like to leave it in the marinade too long because the flavour of the salmon can easily get overwhelmed.

The special ingredient. Thai hot chili mayonnaise is life changing. If you can find it, buy some.

Take the salmon out of the marinade and slather it with mayonnaise. I know, mayonnaise on salmon? I too was skeptical when I read the recipe, but I saw the light after I tasted it. And it was good.

Now you sprinkle on the furikake, (mixture of seaweed, bonito flakes and sesame seeds usually) or crumbled seaweed.

And a generous amount of roasted sesame seeds.

Put the filet in the oven at 400 degrees until it’s cooked and flaky. How long it takes depends on how thick your fish is.

This is bliss my friends. The mayo, seaweed and salmon go so well together and I love the flavour of the roasted sesame seeds. This recipe requires very little prep and tastes amazing. You really don’t need much more than some steamed rice and some veggies alongside. This is a great dinner party recipe since you can easily double the servings by getting a larger filet.

del.icio.us Tags: Salmon,Japanese Food

Random Meal Pictures: Part II

2010-08-01T21:39:00.001-04:00

Mini appetizer pizzas.

Lamb chops marinated in garlic, lemon, rosemary and olive oil served with broccoli and cheesy twice baked potatoes.

A salad. Just for proof that I do eat veggies.

Oven baked fries and a carmelized onion burger. Grinding you own meat is the key, my friends.

Barley and duck confit soup.

Buckwheat pancakes and berries.

Cajun dirty rice.

Something for The Husband involving meat and copious amounts of cheese.

Rosemary rubbed leg of lamb.

Butternut and apple soup.

Blueberry muffins with a brown sugar soy nut topping.

Tacos. The filing is hiding under the greenery.

Baby back ribs.

Home-made cherry cheesecake ice cream.

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Byblos Cafe- Restaurant Review

2010-07-24T22:07:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago I went to a cafe called Byblos in Montreal’s Plateau neighbourhood with a friend.

Byblos is a very cute Persian cafe with a really cozy atmosphere. The menu isn’t large but it’s divided into main courses, a brunch section and a section with yogurt and legume based dips.

To start off, I ordered a rosewater sherbet. The syrup was at the bottom and you had stir it to mix everything up before drinking it.

The little black bits are chia seeds. I really enjoyed this as I like rosewater but the flavour can sometimes be so overpowering that it feels like you are drinking perfume. This was perfect, not too strong and not too weak.

My friend Alex had a mint tea which came with lumps of sugar. I wanted to try this but the day we went it was 35 degrees outside and there was no air conditioning in the restaurant.

We ended up ordering a few items to share. This was a trio of dips: hummus, a lentil and eggplant dip and another lentil dip. The first two were good but the last one was really bland. Neither of us liked it.

This was a trio of yogurt dips: a beet one, a spinach one and another one which I can’t remember. We liked all of these; very refreshing in the hot weather.

There was also a generous amount of pita bread.

We also ordered these chicken and mushroom pastries. These were a tad overdone and the filling was very dry. In general a lot of restaurants tend overcook chicken, unfortunately.

I would go back again. I liked the atmosphere and some of the menu items were rather unique. I liked the commensality of sharing dishes as it’s a fun way of trying new things. The service was a little slow and I had to flag down waitresses more than once to make sure we were able to order or get more water. The prices were fair and it’s a nice place to go catch up with a friend.

del.icio.us Tags: Byblos Cafe,Montreal restaurant reviews

Okonomiyaki- Japanese Savoury Pancake

2010-07-13T22:47:00.001-04:00

This my friends, is Okonomiyaki, a Japanese pancake that usually comes filled with cabbage, green onions, pork or seafood. This is super quick to make at home and while it might require a trip to an Asian supermarket you can make this without the harder to find ingredients and it will still be delicious.

You will need:

Roughly 2 cups of flour	Roughly 2 cups of water
Japanese or regular chili powder	Bonito (dried fish flakes)
1 or 2 eggs	Nordic shrimp
A head of Chinese cabbage	Green onions
Sliced pork cutlets	1/2 of Panko
Tonkatsu sauce or BBQ sauce	Japanese or regular mayo
Furikake or seaweed flakes

To start off you mix 2 cups of flour with 1 cup of water or dashi stock (Japanese stock). I actually used chicken stock but plain water is fine.

As you can see it’s not the smoothest dough at this point. Since you’ll be adding a lot of wet ingredients it is better to leave it on the dry side at this point.

Next you add in your shrimp.

The panko. This is actually a substitute for tenkasu which are little fried bits of tempura batter since I couldn't find them.

One head of Chinese cabbage, chopped.

Japanese chili pepper.

For four portions I used 4 thin pork cutlets cut into strips.

At this point you mix everything together. You will need to add more water to get everything to stick; the batter should glue everything together and shouldn’t be too runny. I actually ended up adding a bit too much water and had to add a little more flour.

I cooked this in a crepe pan. If you don’t have one try to use a low sided pan. Cook it on medium and put a lid on it. This helps the inside cook since you want to make sure that your pork is thoroughly cooked.

After 8-10 minutes remove the lid and check the bottom to see if it is browned.

I use the “cover the pan with a plate and flip method”. I’m always scared I will drop something but it generally works. At this point cut two slits in the pancake and do not cover it so it won’t get soggy. In another 10 minutes it should be done.

The toppings: bonito flakes, furikake, tonkatsu sauce and Japanese mayo. If you can’t find these products just use some BBQ sauce, regular mayo and crumble some seaweed on top.

Layers of toppings.

This is one of my favourite Japanese meals. The toppings really make the meal and it is really filling with the shrimp, pork and cabbage. This would make fun party food with an electric griddle. You could have everyone cook their own pancake and customize them. This recipe make enough to feed an army so you will have plenty of leftovers.

del.icio.us Tags: Japanese Food

Italian Poached Eggs

2010-07-08T23:09:00.001-04:00

In the list of things that are tasty but photograph badly Italian Poached Eggs are pretty high up. This is one of those recipes for which anyone can eyeball the proportions, no matter how little cooking experience you have. This is extremely hard to mess up and oh so tasty. If you have practically nothing left in your fridge I can guarantee you will probably have the ingredients to make this. You will need:

-Tomato sauce, or the ingredients to make one

-Fresh basil (nice but not absolutely necessary)

-Eggs

-Cheese, I like smoked gruyere but you could use any Italian or non Italian cheese

-A nice baguette for mopping up the tomato sauce

I rarely have pre-made sauce on hand since making some is rather easy. After I browned an onion and some garlic I poured in some pureed tomatoes and let it reduce. Once that was done I cut some fresh basil in a chiffonade and seasoned with salt and pepper. If you have pre-made sauce just throw it in the pan, heat it and add the fresh basil if you are using it.

At this point you crack your eggs into the hot sauce, spacing them evenly apart. I was serving them for brunch so I used two per person. Bring the sauce to a boil, cover and then crank down the heat.

The eggs only take about 5 minutes to cook. Before they’re done take your grated cheese, distribute it on top and let it melt.

This isn’t going to grace the cover on any magazines any time soon but it is really good. It’s fun to grab a piece of bread and get all the sauce or you could make some polenta and ladle this on top. Either way it’s a really quick and delicious brunch main course.

del.icio.us Tags: Eggs,Brunch

Honey Cake

2010-07-02T01:00:00.001-04:00

I have a deep abiding love for Bundt cakes. Maybe it’s the texture? I do love cakes with something of a heft in them so when I saw a recipe for Honey Cake in a recipe book and offered to make it for The Husband he was enthusiastic. Apparently he had been reading a fantasy book in which the elves ate honey cakes to sustain themselves which made him want to try a real one. Yes, we are geeks and have a basement full of Star Wars posters to prove it.

The recipe I used is a lot like this one except I used coffee instead of milk, beat the egg whites separately and didn’t use whiskey. I’d type the one I did use but I don’t want to have to pawn off my KitchenAid mixer should I get sued for copyright infringement.

Whipped egg whites.

Flour, cinnamon, ground ginger and nutmeg.

I just had to show you guys the pretty hand painted jar in which the honey came.

Milk. The colour looks weird because I had measured the honey in there as well.

Wet and dry ingredients plus the egg yolks.

All mixed up together.

Carefully cutting the egg whites in.

Ready to go in the oven.

Since I am incorrigible I made a glaze with icing sugar, honey and some milk.

Before icing.

After. I made too much glaze and it ended up running off the plate. I took one for the team and ate the excess off a spoon.

This cake was delicious. Usually I’m a chocolate dessert kind of girl but the spices and the honey went together wonderfully. It was very moist, dense and kept really well. The Husband was very please except he was expecting mini cakes since apparently that is what the elves in the fantasy book ate. No, I am not making this up, even after 10 years, he still cracks me up.

del.icio.us Tags: Dessert,Honey Cake

Mustard Roasted Fish

2010-07-02T00:26:00.001-04:00

I’ve been on an unplanned blogging hiatus for the past month, slowly filling up my camera and biding my time until I had a chance to sit down and finally get down to business. Happily, my night classes are over for the moment (hooray!), so I finally get to blog without a nagging little voice in my head reminding me that I really need to finish my homework.

Sometimes when I’m posting I struggle to find good pictures of certain dishes because alas, not everything is photogenic in proportion to its deliciousness; Mustard Roasted Fish being a prime example. The recipe is here and is from Ina Garten. Although she rivals Paula Deen in lavish and sometimes gratuitous use of butter, I can’t remember ever having made a bad recipe from her and this one is no exception.

Creme fraiche is 40% milk fat which is why it is so good. It’s not available everywhere so if you have a hard time finding it you could substitute full fat sour cream or full fat Greek yogurt. My parents actually make their own but they’re hard core foodies that way.

If a recipe calls for white fish, I always end up using tilapia. It thaws quickly and has a really neutral flavour; you can’t go wrong.

Capers, green onions, Dijon mustard and grainy mustard. I always drive The Husband mad because I always have 4-5 kinds of mustard in the fridge at one time but they come in handy in recipes like this.

All mixed up together.

Poured over the fish and ready for the oven.

You’ll know it’s ready when your kitchen smells amazing and the fish flakes easily with a fork.

Unfortunately once plated it’s not as pretty looking but it tastes amazing. The green onions and the capers did a good job of cutting through the richness of the creme fraiche and the mustards paired perfectly with the fish.

del.icio.us Tags: Fish

Kitchen Sink Cookies

2010-05-19T23:05:00.001-04:00

Some people do yoga to relax but I like to bake; it is my tasty form of meditation. I’ve seen a recipe floating around the internet for “Compost Cookies”, basically chocolate chip cookies into which you add whatever sweet and salty ingredients that you happen to have on hand (i.e. chocolate chip cookies and potato chips). Since I’m not a big fan of sweet and salty mixed together I made this all sugary, gooey version. I based my version on this Martha Stewart recipe.

I wanted to add toffee chips to my cookies. Since I couldn’t find any, I improvised.

I unwrapped a bag of toffee candies.

Chucked them into the food processor.

And voila! They weren’t all perfectly uniform in size but close enough.

In addition I decided to use white chocolate chips, milk chocolate chips and marshmallows. Because clearly, I believe in moderate amounts of sugar.

White sugar, brown sugar, butter. My brown sugar decided to turn into a brick so I had to microwave it to try to soften it up. I beat all of this really well, until it was super fluffy, since I’ve read that it helps the cookie texture.

The eggs. Oops, forgot to take a step of the flour stage.

Adding in all the glorious mix-ins.

I had a taste of the raw cookie dough. For quality assurance purposes, of course.

I tried to make sure that I got a nice mixture in each cookie.

These cookies were absolutely glorious. The toffee bits and the marshmallows became really gooey and added a really great texture. They spread more than I wanted them to but they were so good. I gave away a lot of them and everyone loved them. You cannot go wrong with toffee chips, white chocolate, milk chocolate and marshmallows.

del.icio.us Tags: Cookies

Afternoon Tea Pudding

2010-05-07T22:22:00.001-04:00

I am pretty good at “reading” recipes. Meaning I can usually tell by looking at the ingredients and the proportions if the recipe will work out or not. Last week however, I made a recipe for Southern biscuits that didn’t turn out that well. They were too flat and not fluffy enough, so while I am still looking for a good biscuit recipe I decided to hunt around for something to do with the leftovers. I found a recipe for “Afternoon Tea Pudding” which is basically bread pudding made with jam and scones. While biscuits aren’t scones, they’re fairly close so I decided to make it.

Leftover biscuits.

I cut them in half in order to make more layers.

I buttered a dish and spread strawberry jam on each of them and stacked them with the jam side facing up.

For the custard I started off with 3 whole eggs and 1/3 cup of sugar.

Vanilla extract.

Whisked together.

To that I added 1 and 1/4 cup of heavy cream and 3/4 cup of regular milk mixed together and heated up in the microwave.

I added it gradually to the eggs while whisking to make sure that I didn’t end up with scrambled eggs.

I slowly added the milk/egg mixture to the biscuits and let them soak for 10 minutes to allow them to soak up some liquid.

To cook the pudding I put it in my largest lasagne pan and added in boiling water around it. It went into the oven for 35-40 minutes at 350 (or it might have been 375, sorry, I can’t remember).

When the top was golden and the custard was cooked thoroughly I took it out of the oven and let it cool down.

This was really good. The custard was sweet but not overly so and the biscuits were soft but not mushy. The jam was a nice touch as well, adding and extra layer of flavour and texture. I had some Devonshire cream so I added a dollop on the side. Surprisingly enough this tasted even better the next day and it was even good cold. This is a really great way to use up leftover scones or biscuits which are going stale that you might have laying around the kitchen.

del.icio.us Tags: Scones,Biscuits,Bread Pudding

Chicken Liver Pate

2010-05-06T22:30:00.001-04:00

Let me start off by saying that even though I will eat pretty much everything I will not eat liver. I love trying pretty much anything but I would have to be on Survivor and have to eat some to have immunity and even then I would choke it down. Why then did I make chicken liver pate? Because the husband requested it. So without any further ado, here is my no recipe version of chicken liver pate loosely based off of a version from Gordon Ramsey.

After trimming the chicken livers I left them soaking milk overnight. Why do this? I have no clue, but since I don’t know anything about cooking liver I followed instructions.

Before cooking them I let them drain thoroughly for a few minutes. I think that it would take a whole passel of photographers to make damp chicken livers look good.

When in doubt, start off with bacon.

I crisped it in the pan and saved the fat.

For a change and for the flavour I decided to use French shallots instead of plain onions.

As Martha would say, “frying onions in bacon fat; it’s a good thing”. Hmmm I think I just unleashed my inner Paul Deen with that sentence.

Once the onions were browned I chucked in the chicken livers.

I also added in salt, pepper and thyme.

Once all the liquid had evaporated and the chicken livers were cooked thoroughly I pureed them in the food processor until the mixture was smooth. This is completely random but in French a food processor is called “un robot culinaire”. “Culinary robot” sounds much more interesting than “food processor” don’t you think?

All done.

The Husband enjoyed his pate although it made a lot more than I was expecting. Poor guy, he’ll have to finish it off on his own because this time, since it involves liver, I’m not taking one for the team!

del.icio.us Tags: Pate

Baked Tofu and Soba Wakame Soup

2010-04-29T22:38:00.001-04:00

I collect food like other people collect knick knacks. While I plan out the week’s menu in advance and shop accordingly it still doesn’t stop me from tossing in various other things into the grocery cart. Lately, to use up some of the surplus, I’ve been trying to cut back on the pre-planned meals and improvise in order to use up everything I’ve been hoarding. This recipe was the result of me poking my head into the pantry and trying to figure out what I was going to have for dinner at the last minute.

I’m one of those people who actually likes tofu, even though it is pretty tasteless by itself.

Instead of adding in plain tofu I decided to marinade it before I tossed it into the oven to bake. I used a mixture of garlic (sorry, I was having a lazy food blogger day and used the stuff from the jar), ginger, sesame oil, maple syrup and rice vinegar. I was short on time so the tofu ended up just soaking for five minutes.

Going into the oven.

After 10 minutes at 450 I took them out of the oven to turn them.

After 20 minutes they were done. They look a little burnt but it’s just the marinade that makes them look so dark.

Instant soup. *gasp*. I can’t find dashi or dried wakame where I live so I ended up using instant soup packets. Even though I try to avoid using pre-packaged food sometimes I don’t have much of a choice.

I had some soba noodles that had been hanging around the pantry for a while that I decided to add to the soup. I love soba even though I don’t think about using it often. The noodles are made out of buckwheat flour and have a hearty texture and a slightly nutty taste.

Also some green onions.

I threw all the ingredients into the pot and let them boil away until the noodles were tender.

For an improvised meal this was pretty good. I liked the flavour of the tofu but next time I will let it marinate a lot longer so that the flavour gets stronger. The broth was savoury and went perfectly with the taste of the noodles. For a veggie meal this was rather filling. I don’t make a lot of Asian meals so this was a nice change.

del.icio.us Tags: Asian Food

Double Chocolate Jam Brownies

2010-04-25T22:55:00.001-04:00

I am currently learning how to drive at the ripe old age of 28. Unfortunately we are still in the stone age and own a manual car. This leads to much cussing and me holding up traffic while I try to get the blasted car started again. Since chocolate will magically smooth away all crankiness I came home from a particularly rough driving lesson and made these brownies. While I wish that I had much more constructive way of coping with stress, say jogging or cleaning like some people I know, baking does have its own rewards. This recipe comes from a cookbook called “Cook in Boots”. I could not find a recipe online and since I don’t want to get sued I can’t post it. Sorry!

Ingredient collage: butter, semi-sweet chocolate, brown sugar, white sugar and eggs.

As much as I love all things sugary made out of white flour they make my blood sugar crash. Since whole wheat flour makes baked goods taste more like hockey pucks I am trying out an enriched white flour blend. It has the texture of white flour but the fiber of whole wheat. Other than the fact that it is a little darker than white flour it pretty much has the same texture.

Here are all the ingredients together with some vanilla extract.

The batter.

The chocolate melted along with the butter.

All together now.

A handful of chocolate chips, hence the double chocolate in the recipe title.

I had just opened a new jar of jam which I wasn’t super crazy about. It was good but way too tart, so I decided to mix it in to the brownies for extra flavour.

I had to mix everything really well since the jam came out in one big gelatinous blob.

Ready to go in the oven.

After 35 minutes. I actually ended up using a bigger pan than what the recipe originally called for. Next time I will use an even bigger pan so everything cooks more evenly.

These came out very dense and are halfway between fudgey and cakey. The jam added a nice subtle flavour although next time I would add white chocolate chunks for more contrast instead of the chocolate chips. These are really good and they most definitely made up for my bad day!

del.icio.us Tags: Brownies,Chocolate

Cheesy Beef Noodles (a.k.a. Homemade Hamburger Helper)

2010-04-25T21:21:00.001-04:00

This is another recipe to put in the “Husband Friendly Food” file. I’ve never actually had hamburger helper but I image that this is what it tastes like. This recipe is pretty basic: cheese, noodles, sauce and meat but it’s pretty tasty and economical.

First off onions. I think there are very few recipes that don’t start off with chopped onions.

While that was going on I started boiling some egg noodles.

The original recipe calls for ground beef but The Husband bought ground bison instead. I personally like ground bison better than beef, it is actually leaner and has a nicer taste. It’s becoming more and more available. If you see it in the supermarket do give it a try.

I browned the meat along with the onions in a pan and added salt, pepper, minced garlic and chilli powder.

Also a dash of Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce.

To make the sauce I threw in a heaping tablespoon of flour and roughly a cup of chicken broth as well as a generous amount of cheddar cheese.

I let everything come to a boil until the cheese was melted and the sauce had thickened.

Once the noodles were done I drained them and stirred them into the sauce. I turned the heat on low and let the pasta sit so the flavours could come together and everything could thicken further.

This a nice change from the usual tomato based meat sauce and comes together really quickly. It really is one of those recipes for which you do not need to measure and pretty much any meat loving spouse or small child will eat.

del.icio.us Tags: Noodles,Beef

Spicy Seafood Romanov Pasta

2010-04-19T22:36:00.001-04:00

I love scallops but I rarely think about making them. On a whim I decided to buy them at the supermarket this week without having any specific recipe in mind. One of the things I like to do when I don’t know what to do with an ingredient is to go on foodnetwork.com and look for recipes and get ideas. Looking around I found this recipe for creamy spicy seafood pasta. I decided to play around with it, keeping in mind that a lot of the reviews said that it was bland and try to “kick it up a notch” a la Old School Emiril.

Ingredient collage: Garlic (as much as you can stand), onion, red chilies, pureed tomatoes, chopped parsley and lots of vodka. Notice I put the most important ingredient in the middle? Booze makes pretty much everything taste better.

First of all, as usual, I browned the onions along with salt and pepper. Right before they were done I added in the garlic to cook quickly. I loathe burnt garlic so I don’t mind if it is under rather than over cooked.

Next was a big glug of the pureed tomatoes along with a splash of cream, a cheerful amount of vodka and the red chillies. I let it reduce a bit until it had a smooth creamy consistency.

I decided to rinse my scallops really well, I’ve eaten scallops that still have some sand in them and it does not make for a happy meal.

All the scallops went for a swim in the creamy sauce which resulted in them getting poached. On the plus side this makes for less dishes and faster prep, on the negative side this waters down the sauce. Next time I will pat the scallops dry with a paper towel and then sear them before adding them to the sauce.

Once the scallops were cooked I threw in the parsley and gave the sauce a taste. I ended up adding plenty of smoked Spanish paprika (buy this, it will change your life), a pinch of oregano and a pinch of dried basil as well as more salt and pepper. I taste everything as I’m cooking and constantly adjust the seasonings. Obviously, I don’t do this when there is raw meat involved as I have no interest in ending up in the hospital.

Make this. Impress the in-laws, the parents or just yourself. Unless you’re one of those lucky souls who lives near the ocean and has access to cheap seafood this isn’t exactly budget friendly as a family meal. This would work equally well with Nordic shrimp or shredded imitation crab. The ingredients are pretty much pantry staples and the whole thing takes less than half an hour to pull together. Definitely a repeat.

del.icio.us Tags: Seafood

Cauliflower and Potato Curry- Aloo Gobi

2010-04-19T20:46:00.001-04:00

As you can probably tell from my blog, I love Indian food. I’ve tried many different kinds and when I saw this curry in William Sonoma’s “A Taste of the World” cookbook I knew I wanted to try it. In the description it said that this is a mild curry which is very popular with children but since I like heat I ended up adding chilies to the recipe.

The ingredients: potatoes, onions, chopped red chilies, coconut milk and fresh tomatoes.

I started off the recipe by cooking onions over low heat along with the chilies, cinnamon, coriander, cumin, cayenne, ginger, ground coriander and minced garlic. Most Indian recipes call for ghee (clarified butter) but since I don’t have any and can’t be bothered to make some I just use regular butter.

Once the onions were browned and soft I added two tomatoes which had gotten too soft to eat raw and a few heaping tablespoons of tomato paste.

At this point I added in the cauliflower, the diced potatoes and the coconut milk. I let the mixture come to a boil and then put the lid on and lowered the heat.

After roughly 20-25 minutes everything was done and I added in a generous amount of chopped coriander right before I served the curry. I love adding cilantro at the last moment, it gives dishes that nice bit of green. I know a few people that absolutely loathe cilantro, among them The Husband, but to me not eating cilantro is a bit unfathomable.

This curry was really mild with the tomatoes and the coconut milk. It would be something that you could make for someone who doesn’t like spicy food to help ease them into the world of Indian food. As much as I liked this dish I have to confess that two hours after eating this I was absolutely ravenous since there is pretty much no protein in this dish. If you’re someone like me who required protein to feel satisfied I would add some chicken breast or tofu to make this into a full meal.

del.icio.us Tags: Indian Food

Turkey Bacon and Mushroom Macaroni and Cheese

2010-04-18T00:28:00.001-04:00

There is a show that comes on Food Network Canada with two sisters who try to redo recipes to be healthier. One of them is brown haired and flaky and the other one is blond haired and bitchy and I always want to smack her. Anyways, I digress. This recipe comes from that show (the original is here) and is their take on macaroni and cheese. While I love a good straight up macaroni and cheese this version, full of veggies and turkey bacon is actually pretty good.

This recipe is a good way to sneak vegetables onto the plates of small children or spouses that still eat like small children. I have one of those and this dish works on him. There are mushrooms, petit pois and onions. I always use petit pois instead of peas since we both find peas way too starchy. Since I didn’t feel like grating my cheese I just cut it up into cubes.

While there is butter in the cheese sauce it is mostly made with evaporated milk and flour which allows it to get a thick consistency but be a lot lighter than a traditional béchamel. The recipe calls for dried mustard but I always chuck in a generous amount hot English mustard instead.

The finished result. I always put macaroni and cheese in the oven to broil in order to get a crunchy top.

I actually like this recipe better than run of the mill mac and cheese recipes since it has more things in it. The mushrooms and turkey bacon go really well together and the extra veggies make it more of a main course rather than a side.

del.icio.us Tags: Macaroni and Cheese

Cranberry and Chocolate Chip Buckwheat Cookies

2010-04-15T22:03:00.001-04:00

My posting has slowed down a bit, sorry! My life has been very hectic and stressful lately and it’s a bit hard to find time to post. You will probably see shorter posts but I should be able to post more often. Ok, now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

One of the thing I like to do is take a pre-existing recipe and try to make it healthier. I actually like healthy food but unfortunately for me I also like unhealthy food. I don’t discriminated, I’m an equal opportunity eater. ;) Anyways, this recipe is a healthyfied version of the chocolate chip cookie recipe on the back of a bag of milk chocolate chipits. The original is here.

Whee! I’ve discovered the joys of Picasa so now I’m playing around with making collages. Here are the ingredients I decided to sub in: buckwheat flour, flax meal (basically ground flax seeds), dried coconut and dried cranberries. When subbing in dried ingredients you can generally sub in an equal amount. As an interesting note we get our buckwheat flour from a stone mill nearby. It’s the oldest working stone mill in North America and grinds everything old school, with water power and giant stone plates.

Instead of using brown sugar like in the original recipe, I used agave nectar which is a lot sweeter than sugar so you can use a smaller amount; I used 1 cup of agave to sub for 2 cups of brown sugar. The only problem with agave is that since it is liquid you will have to add extra flour in order to make sure that your recipe isn’t too runny. There were also eggs.

Not to be forgotten, the baking power, baking soda, milk chocolate chips and vanilla extract. At the end after I had mixed everything together I added more flour until everything had come together.

Another shot of the texture of the cookies.

I cooked them around 10-12 minutes until they were starting to brown. Since buckwheat is so dark it’s a bit hard to tell when they’re browning though.

I love the bright red colour of the cranberries. Unlike whole wheat flour which can produce very dense cookies, buckwheat produces light almost crumbly cookies. It has a nice nutty taste so it add an extra layer of taste. I also loved the taste of the flax seed meal, it adds texture as well. Don’t get me wrong, I love white flour chewy chocolate chip cookies like everyone else but sometimes it is nice to go for something different. They’re quite filling because of the whole grains and they make a good snack to take to work.

del.icio.us Tags: Cookies

Restaurant Review- The Oyster Shack

2010-04-11T20:45:00.001-04:00

I love seafood so I was really happy that the blogger meetup group to which belong was going to The Oyster Shack. Then again, I did pick the restaurant. ;)

The Oyster Shack is a restaurant which tries to replicate the food and the atmosphere of an East Coast seafood shack. I think they succeed and the inside is nice and cozy. We went on a Friday night and it was lively but not too loud.

When we got there we found out that Martinis are only 5 dollars on Fridays. I had had a rough day on that Friday so this instantly made me perk up. My friend Irina had a dirty martini.

I had a lychee martini. They didn’t have any lychee juice so they used cranberry, hence why it was pink.

For my second martini I had a melon one.

I was starving by the time we ordered so I was more than happy when the bread was brought to the table. It was warm and crusty. I really appreciated the fact that it was warm since most restaurants serve stone cold bread; it was a nice touch. Service was a bit slow and it took roughly 45 minutes for all the appetizers to come. Unfortunately that always seems to be the case when eating out in a large group.

Fried Calamari.

Oysters Rockefeller.

Crab cake.

Clam Chowder.

I hadn’t ordered an appetizer and after seeing everyone’s food I was really wishing I had. Lucky the main course came soon after.

Mussels.

Fish and chips.

Lobster and steak surf and turf.

I had a bucket o’ scallops. Sorry about the blurry picture. It was deep fried scallops on top and fries on the bottom.

It actually came in a little silver bucket which was rather cute, along with two dipping sauces.

Lobster roll and fries.

The food was really good and the seafood was of good quality. The scallops were nice and tender with a light, crisp batter. Everyone else also really liked their food.

Since I had skipped the appetizers I decided to have dessert which was only two dollars more. I had a Tia Maria vanilla cake with chocolate icing. The cake came with candied citrus peel sprinkled on top and it was really good and not too heavy.

Vanilla custard. The custard had a top layer of caramel pudding with vanilla custard underneath.

Chocolate profiteroles. I forgot to ask whether or not that was ice cream or whipped cream.

All in all the food was delicious and more than worth the price. The seafood tasted fresh, not frozen and the scallops in particular had a great texture and were not rubbery like some restaurants make them. Everyone was happy with their meals and I most definitely will go back.

del.icio.us Tags: Seafood

Maple Mille Feuille

2010-04-05T22:56:00.001-04:00

A week ago I went to a Sugar Shack and I had a completely amazing Maple Mille Feuille. Ever since then I’ve thought about recreating the recipe. Since Easter was coming up I decided to try out my version this weekend. I’ve never made a Mille Feuille before so I played around with a version that I found in Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook and adapted it to a maple syrup version.

To start off I rolled out a package of puff pastry.

A lot of Mille Feuilles have three layers of pastry but I decided just to make two. The puff pastry I buy comes scored down the middle so that’s why it looks like two sheets side by side rather than just one.

I baked both layers until they were golden brown. The pastry puffed up a lot so I just patted them down a bit so that they were even.

You can find the pastry cream recipe here. Pastry cream sounds intimidating but it is really easy. The recipe calls for whole milk but since we buy 2% I just mixed some of it with a few tablespoons of heavy cream.

The recipe also calls for egg yolks.

White sugar.

and cornstarch as well as a pinch of salt.

All mixed together.

Ok, the next part is where you have to be careful or you will end up with scrambled eggs. You need to heat up the milk and then carefully pour it bit by bit into the egg mixture. By raising up the temperature of the eggs gradually you make sure that they don’t cook on the spot and you don’t end up with little eggy bits in your cream.

You then need to pour it back into the pan and bring it up to a boil while whisking constantly to make sure that you don’t end up with lumps. Normally there would be a vanilla bean in the milk at this stage but since I wanted to flavour the pastry cream with maple I left it out.

After a few minutes it was nice and thick with a lovely sunny colour.

Since maple syrup would make the filling too liquid I decided to use maple butter. Maple butter is basically maple syrup which has been reduced until it is a spreadable consistency. In spite of the name there isn’t any butter or dairy in it, it is just pure maple syrup.

To finish off the pastry cream I added in a generous amount of maple butter and a tablespoon of cream.

I used a beater to incorporate the maple butter and kept on tasting and adding more until the maple taste was strong enough.

I put the pastry cream in the fridge to thicken with plastic wrap directly on top to make sure that it didn’t form a skin.

In addition to the pastry cream I wanted to put whipped cream in the middle. To add another bit of maple flavour I added some to the whipped cream to sweeten it.

Since I wanted to make sure that the whipped cream didn’t become liquid I didn’t add too much maple syrup.

Now for putting the Mille Feuille together: first, a layer of puff pastry.

Followed by a thick layer of the maple pastry cream. I left a slight border around since I knew that the weight of the top layer would push the filling outward.

Next was the whipped cream.

It was already starting to look really good.

Then the top layer. It looks like a gigantic Passion Flakie doesn’t it? (For you non-Canadians it is one of these.)

For the icing on top I used icing sugar, a splash of milk and maple syrup.

Since puff pastry flakes easily and isn’t the easiest surface on which to smooth out icing I made it more liquid than usual.

A bit ended up dripping off the sides but not too much.

The Mille Feuille was amazing. Flaky cream + smooth maple filling + slightly sweetened whipped cream = amazing. This made a ton and even right now we have at least half sitting in the fridge. I suggested to The Husband that we could freeze it and he gave me a look and said “are you crazy?! I’ll eat it!”. So The Husband is taking one for the team and finishing it off. lol. I might be helping him to make a dent in it though.

del.icio.us Tags: Mille Feuille,Pastry,Dessert

Pasta e Fagioli (Pasta and Beans)

2010-04-04T21:22:00.001-04:00

I love chickpeas. They are incredibly versatile and are part of my “I forgot to plan dinner and am stuck rummaging around the pantry” arsenal. For this recipe you just need a few pantry essentials and you can pull it together in less than 20 minutes.

First off a chopped onion.

Once that is cooked a generous amount of pureed tomatoes.

And some fresh garlic.

As well, some red chillies that were hanging around the fridge.

Some salt, pepper and dried basil.

You then need to let that bubble away for a few minutes until it thickens.

Now for the beans part of the recipe. You can use whatever you would like but I’m rather partial to chickpeas. I always rinse them since I can’t stand the liquid that they come in.

Stirred into the sauce.

I used penne for the pasta but you could just use spaghetti.

After giving it a taste I decided that something was missing and grated in a generous amount of parmesan cheese.

Fast and cheap. What is there not to love about this? And since there is no such thing as too much parmesan, I added some on top at the end.

del.icio.us Tags: Pasta

Pied du Cochon Sugar Shack

2010-03-28T23:35:00.001-04:00

In Quebec during the maple syrup season families traditionally go to sugar shacks to eat endless amounts of traditional foods such as pea soup, smoked ham and maple syrup pie. This year the food bloggers group to which I belong decided to go Pied du Cochon’s Sugar Shack. Martin Picard’s take on a sugar shack menu is decidedly more decadent than a traditional place and if I have to beg, borrow or steal I need to find someway to go next year. 3 hours worth of non-stop good food had me in foodie heaven.

Like all sugar shacks the seating was fairly rustic. We all sat at long picnic tables and the food was passed around family style. It was nice in a big group but it must be a bit awkward if you’re sitting with complete strangers.

Our sitting was at noon and I arrived just in time. I was so worried that I was going to miss the first course but I got there as everyone was ordering coffee and tea. Since I saw that they had Kusmi tea which is excellent, I decided to have some.

I picked the sweet love tea which is a blend of black China tea, ginseng and liquorice roots, spices, guarana seed and pink pepper.

It was really good. I need to buy some for the house.

We had bottles of maple syrup on the table to pour over our food since most sugar shacks have pretty much everything from sausages to dessert drenched in syrup but strangely enough it went pretty much untouched throughout the whole meal.

To start off with we had a traditional tourtiere, which is a savoury meat pie accompanied by a home made tomato ketchup.

We had one pie for the entire table of roughly 15 people so we each had a small slice but since there was so much food yet to come it was more than enough. As you can see from the pictures there were generous chunks of meat in the filling. The home made ketchup was a bit plain, it was diced tomatoes with onions and some seasoning but it did a nice job of cutting through the richness of the meat and the pastry.

Up next was the pea soup with chunks of Foie Gras. This was one of my favourite dishes of the night. Pea soup is traditionally peasant food so I loved how they took something so humble and added such a decadent ingredient.

The chunks of Foie Gras were pretty generous and went surprisingly well with the peas.

Up next was some salmon gravlax.

We also received some buckwheat pancakes to eat with them.

The salmon was really fresh and of great quality but it tasted very plain, almost like sashimi from a Japanese restaurant.

Next up was a salad of mixed greens with chunks of ham and cheddar topped with pork rinds.

I had one bite of the pork rinds and then proceeded to pick them off my salad. They were very puffy and crisp so I would image if they’re your thing that you would love them. The salad was strangely enough, one of the few items other than the desserts that actually had maple syrup. The dressing was a tangy maple syrup mix which tasted amazing. For me the salad was one of my favourite parts of the meal.

There was also cretons which is a ground pork spread.

Usually you eat this spread on toast. I thought that this was just ok. It was very grainy and a little bland.

These were chicken feet cooked in barbeque sauce. Ok, I have to confess I didn’t even try them or think about trying them. The thought of eating chicken feet freaks me out, I was afraid I was going to end up swallowing and chicken foot nail and the thought of that makes me shudder. Those who were more adventurous than me and gave them a go said that they were good.

This was an omelette with smoked mackerel and other mixed seafood. I didn’t catch the description of everything that was in there since the waiter was talking at the other end of the table. This was good but it tasted almost like an egg custard rather than an omelette.

This was one of my favourite parts of the meal, lobster and pork meat stuffed in a cabbage with French lentils. There were nice chunks of lobster meat and the sauce was very rich.

There was also a chicken cooked in maple syrup with maple syrup baked beans. This was good, the chicken was moist and tasted as though it had been brined and the maple beans were not cloyingly sweet which was good.

This was beef tongue with celeriac slaw. The slaw was good, it was tossed in a creamy sauce but I just couldn’t bring myself to try the tongue. Especially since you could see all the little taste buds poking up.

Finally, we got to the best part. Dessert! This was maple taffy which I absolutely love even though it is so simple. It is made by boiling maple syrup and then pouring it on fresh snow, or in this case ice chips. A popsicle stick is then twirled around in the syrup to pick up the taffy.

I think I did a pretty good job of getting all the taffy.

These were pancakes absolutely drenched in maple syrup. They were very eggy and puffy which made me wonder if they were actually just fried egg whites

This was a banana split with maple ice cream, maple cotton candy, chocolate sauce and chunks of maple sugar. The combo of the chocolate sauce with the ice cream and the maple cotton candy was really good and a lot of fun but the bananas weren’t ripe enough and I just ate around them.

Last but not least was maple mille feuille. I could have sat down and eaten this whole thing by myself or at least eaten the filling. It was delicious although the actually puff pastry was a tad over cooked.

There were food items to take home but at that point I was so full that I didn’t want to think about eating anything else. It actually took me 24 hours to eat anything after that massive pig out.

All in all the food was delicious and well worth the 50 dollar price tag. I thought the chicken feet were an odd addition to the menu though and I’m willing to bet that they went mostly untouched at most of the tables. The one thing I was slightly annoyed at was the fact that coffee and tea were not on the drink menu so everyone assumed that it was included in the price but it was extra. Other than that I have very few qualms.

From the outside the sugar shack looks very rustic which belies the gourmet cooking within.

The sugar shack was really in the middle of nowhere though. There are just open fields all around. I couldn’t even get cell phone reception it was so far. I had to ask the waitress if I could use their landline to call my husband so he could pick me up. I had a great time and hopefully I will be back again next year!

del.icio.us Tags: Sugar Shack,Au Pied du Cochon

Southwestern Chicken, Cheese and Corn Skillet

2010-03-23T21:51:00.001-04:00

And easy way to get The Husband to eat something is to either cover it in cheese or encase it in pastry. For this recipe I chose to take the former route. I ended up making this when we had come back from grocery shopping and I needed to get lunch on the table quickly. The ingredients are pretty basic and most people have them on hand. Start to finish this takes roughly 25 minutes with all the prep time included.

To start off I made the coating for the chicken. In the bowl there is cumin, chili pepper, salt, pepper and flour.

Chicken breast pieces from the grocery store.

While you could skip the step of rolling the chicken in flour before pan frying it, it gives it a nice texture and added taste.

I added a little bit of oil to the pan and coooked the chicken on both sides until it was browned and cooked through.

For me anything Tex-Mex or Southwestern pretty much demands diced green onions.

A few minutes before the chicken was done I added the green onions. Chopped poblanos would be good in this as well.

Since I was using frozen corn and I didn’t want my chicken to dry out I removed it from the pan and put it to the side.

The corn went into the pan.

I added in one chopped red chili. If The Husband wasn’t eating this as well I would have added more but he’s a wuss when it comes to eating hot food. I’m slowly working on increasing his heat tolerance by sneaking chilies into food.

I love how quickly frozen corn thaws. It has made my life easier on more than one occasion.

Once the corn was heated through and there was no significant amount of water left in the pan I added in a generous splash of lime juice.

I dumped the chicken back in, gave everything a stir and added a generous amount of cheddar on top. This would also work really well with Monterey jack or pepper jack cheese. Once the cheese had melted it was done.

This was really good, except I added too much cheese. When I told the husband this he said that there is no such thing as too much cheese. Spoken like a true guy. I served it with a side of cornbread but you could put it in a tortilla or with a side of Mexican rice.

del.icio.us Tags: Chicken,Chili,Southwestern

Fish Tacos

2010-03-22T22:35:00.001-04:00

One of the reasons I love fish is that it is so quick and easy to cook. However, I actually don’t cook it that often so I am always trying to think of new ways to prepare it. One if my favourite ways is to make fish tacos. While I grew up eating tacos since my family is Latin American, I had never actually heard of fish tacos until I saw them in an Americanized Latin food cookbook. These are supper easy and can easily be put together in less than 20 minutes, perfect for a fast dinner.

For your fish you can use pretty much any kind of boneless, skinless, white fish fillets. I always use tilapia though since it is inexpensive and thaws quickly. I would avoid using cod however, since the flavour is so strong.

I can’t even remember when I bought this bottle of Worcestershire sauce but I finally got to the end of it with this recipe.

I added a few generous splashes to the fish along with some salt, pepper and minced garlic. This then went into the fridge to marinade while I prepared the chipotle sauce and the garnishes.

To go inside your tacos you need cucumbers cut in long thin strips.

And fresh cilantro.

The sauce for fish tacos is usually made with a base of mayo but to lighten the recipe I decided to use non-fat Greek yogurt. This stuff is such a staple for me, I buy two tubs every week and use it often to replace sour cream in recipes. It is also amazing mixed with some honey and granola sprinkled on top for breakfast. If they every stopped selling this stuff I might have to chain myself to the dairy section of the grocery store in protest.

I scooped around a cup of the yogurt into a bowl and added a generous amount of minced chipotle in adobo.

I gave that a stir and mixed in salt and pepper as well as a heaping tablespoon of mayo.

I gave that a taste and decided to put in a few generous squirts of lime juice.

Last but not least, some chopped green onions.

At this point I started to cook my fish. You could either dip the pieces in flour and then fry them or just cook them in a pan. To make it healthier and cut down on the prep time I just chucked the fish in a hot pan for a few minutes.

All done. It flaked a bit but that’s ok.

Assembly time now. First the fish.

Then the cucumbers and the cilantro.

Finished off with a generous amount of the chipotle yogurt sauce.

Do try this for dinner. I love the crunchy cucumbers with the soft fish, fresh cilantro and the cool, creamy yogurt sauce. It is really good and you really don’t need a recipe to prepare this. If you use a very neutral flavoured fish you could even make this for someone for isn’t a fan of fish. I’m still working on getting The Husband to try fish though!

del.icio.us Tags: Fish Tacos,Fish

Le Cartet Restaurant Review

2010-03-21T22:25:00.001-04:00

*Sorry I’ve been a bit scarce lately, The Husband was really sick for the past two weeks and I’ve been playing nursemaid and doing the housework. But happily he is back on the mend so I should be back to my regular blogging frequency. :)

This past Saturday I went out with my friend Roxy and we ended up going to Le Cartet for brunch in Old Montreal. The place is surprisingly big and bright and they have a small section of food made to take out and some gourmet products.

When we arrived we waited around 5 minutes which wasn’t bad for a Saturday at 11 am. I had tried to call ahead to try make reservations but they don’t take them, ditto for a few other places I tried to call for brunch.

I’m a sucker for small details so I though that it was cute that the water came in a glass bottle. What can I say, when it comes to glassware I am easily impressed.

While their menu has a la carte items like French toast the highlight is a large set price meal with includes drinks and a “starter”, which was what we both ended up ordering.

To being we were served a square of bread pudding each. I really can’t say that I am a connoisseur of bread pudding but Roxy said it was good. It was cold which I found off putting but it wasn’t too sweet which was nice since I don’t like a sugar rush at breakfast.

The set price meal comes with freshly squeezed orange juice which was so good. The concept of juicing is sort of moot in Montreal unless you want to spend 6 dollars on fruit for one glass. Alas, fruit, especially citrus is very expensive here for the vast majority of the year. One time in the middle of winter I bought a small bag of cherries for which I ended up paying 13 bucks. Trust me, I almost choked after watching the cashier scan it through and seeing the price.

The meal also included a cup of Illy coffee. I had always read that Illy coffee is amazing but I found that it was just ok. It almost tasted like they had not used the right proportion of coffee grounds to water though. It took 15 minutes for us to get served coffee which did not impress me. In general we had a hard time flagging down the waiter for service even though we were in a table near the front, close to the kitchen counter.

I ended up ordering the “Le Cartet” brunch which included potatoes, ham, bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, toast, butter, jam and some fresh fruit.

The savoury part of my meal was served in a super hot mini cast iron pan which was nice since eggs can cool down very quickly and the pan kept kept my meal nice and warm.

Roxy ordered the brunch “L’Atlantique” which came with a salmon croquette with an herbed yogurt sauce, a small salad, some fresh fruit, a dried fig, two kinds of cheese, a croissant filled with ham and an egg. Check out the photo that she took on the first try. My friend Roxy has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Montreal restaurants, maybe one of these days I’ll talk her into becoming a food blogger. Since I thought my meal had too much meat and she thought that hers had too little we ended up swapping items so we each had a taste of everything. Here are my notes on the different items:

-The eggs were ok, nothing special. I like mine either poached or cooked low and slow if scrambled. You could tell that these were cooked rather quickly on high heat.

-The meats were all good quality and cooked really well. The bacon in particular was nice and crispy.

-The beans tasted homemade since they didn’t have that awful cloying taste of canned beans and they did a good job of cutting the richness of the meat in my meal.

-The potatoes could have been more crispy but I suppose breakfast potatoes are always on the soft side.

-The bread was ok, but it was completely cold when it came to the table.

-The fruit was good quality considering that none of it was in season. It was a slice of kiwi, a slice of cantaloupe, a strawberry and some pineapple. I can’t eat pineapple or kiwi so unfortunately half of the fruit went to waste.

-The croissant was buttery and flaky and a perfect pairing with the ham. I had some of the cheese and it was nice an sharp.

-I really liked the salmon croquette. Roxy is not a fish person so I ended up with most of it and happily drenched it with the yogurt sauce. I could taste potatoes in it as well. It was breaded but didn’t taste deep fried or greasy.

All in all the food was tasty and the ingredients were of good quality. We both paid around 18 dollars with tax and tip which is a pretty decent price considering that it includes coffee and freshly squeezed orange juice. The service really could be improved since it shouldn’t take 15 minutes to get a cup of coffee at a brunch place. Overall I was happy though and will probably go back eventually.

I’ll leave you guys with some pictures that I took while we were walking around Old Montreal.

del.icio.us Tags: Brunch,Le Cartet

Homemade Gyros

2010-03-12T22:36:00.001-05:00

I love Greek food but I don’t get to have it often. A few weeks ago I stumbled upon an Alton Brown recipe for Gyros and decided to try it (you can find it here). Honestly, Gyros was one of those things that I never thought about making at home since the meat is usually cooked on a vertical roasting spit but this recipe calls for making a meat loaf which suits me a lot more.

To start off with: garlic, dried marjoram, rosemary, oregano, salt, pepper and grated onions. Make sure to wring your grated onions in a dishcloth or else they will give off too much liquid and the meatloaf might not hold together well.

After I had mixed the ground lamb in I put it on a baking sheet to cook. When making meat loaf I usually put a rack on top of a baking sheet, cover it with aluminum foil, spray it with Pam and then poke small holes into the foil. This allows the air to circulate better and the fat to fall down below.

While that was in the oven I started on the tzatziki sauce. You grate a cucumber and then wring it out in a dishcloth to get the liquid out. Keep in mind that the longer you leave the sauce in the fridge the better it will taste so if you can make it ahead of time do so.

Then you add Greek yogurt, salt, pepper, lots of garlic, lemon juice and mint. I also added dill afterwards.

All mixed together.

All gyros need tomatoes, cucumbers and sliced red onions as an accompaniment.

I actually have a rather hard time finding Greek pita bread at my supermarket, they tend to usually just have flat Middle Eastern style pita but this weekend I was in luck.

I put in a meat thermometer into the lamb to make sure it was cooked properly. Some of the juices puddled on top of the meat which looks a bit weird in the picture but the meatloaf was cooked through.

One big difference between this recipe and the gyros you will get in a restaurant is that the meat in these is a lot less dense so you will have to cut the meatloaf in fairly thick slices so it doesn’t fall apart.

To assemble them I cut two slices of meat, piled them along with some tomatoes, onions and cucumbers on top of a warmed pita bread (I just microwaved them for 10 seconds) and spooned on some tzatziki sauce.

These were good. I was really craving Greek food so I was really happy with these. The flavour of the meat is pretty much spot on what you will get in a restaurant. The texture is of course different but it is still tasty which is what counts. I piled on more tzaziki sauce after I took this picture since it is pretty much my favourite part of eating gyros. With the garlic and the raw onions this is not first date food but happily I am married so I get to eat smelly food whenever I please. This was surprisingly fast to make, the prep was maybe 15 minutes in total and it is a very easy recipe to make for a crowd since it doubles easily.

del.icio.us Tags: Greek Food,Gyros

Flourless Nut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

2010-03-10T22:13:00.001-05:00

This past weekend I had a craving for chocolate chip cookies in the evening but I didn’t feel like dragging out the mixer and making a huge mess. I had seen a gluten free cookie recipe in a magazine that week so I was inspired to try to make flourless chocolate chip cookies and came up with the following recipe. You cannot mess this up and it literally takes 5 minutes to put together with minimal mess. Within 20 minutes from start to finish you can be eating hot chocolate chip cookies out of the oven.

To start off you need a cup of your favourite nut butter. Because of the husband’s nut allergies I always end up soy nut butter but feel free to use whatever you want.

I decided to go with chocolate soy nut butter for extra chocolate.

Next you add between 3/4 to 1 cup of brown sugar. If you’re using unsweetened nut butter I would use a cup. Since I was using pre-sweetened soy nut butter I added 3/4 of a cup. If you want add a splash of vanilla extract. As well, you need 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda.

I also added roasted soy nuts.

And oats in addition to chocolate chips.

In total I added around a cup of extras. Feel free to add whatever you want: dried fruit, different nuts etc. I ended up using two eggs to help everything come together. If you want to add more than a cup of extras add a few more tablespoons of nut butter and another egg.

Everything all mixed together.

I then used my trusty mini ice cream scoop to make small cookies. They went in the oven at 350 Celsius for roughly 12 minutes until the edges started to brown.

Be careful not to overcook them since they can get hard very quickly.

I was pleasantly surprised by these cookies. They were nice and chewy and in spite of my fears that they wouldn’t come together they had a great texture. There are a lot of gluten intolerant people now and this would be a great recipe to make if you’re baking for someone who can’t have gluten. Most oats can contain traces of gluten so I would leave them out and add something else instead in that case. The fact that this recipe is so fast and easy to make is a huge plus. I’ve been bringing them to work as a snack and even after a few days they are still chewy.

del.icio.us Tags: Chocolate Chip Cookies,Gluten Free

Fried Mozzarella Sticks

2010-03-03T22:20:00.001-05:00

While I love the finer things in life I am also an ardent fan of pub food. One of the things The Husband and I love are fried mozzarella sticks and I can confidently say that if you haven’t had one, you haven’t lived. They’re ridiculously easy to make and are an integral part of any sports related junk food menu.

First of all, obviously, a block mozzarella cut in finger width pieces. You could use cheddar but mozzarella is the standard for this recipe.

Next you set up your breading line: flour, eggs and bread crumbs.

For this recipe I actually used corn flake crumbs. Usually I am not the biggest fan because they have the faintest sweet flavour but they’re perfect for this since when fried they turn extra crispy. I also added dried parsley, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and paprika.

After breading the sticks I put them in the freezer for half an hour. You cannot skip this step or else you will end up with a puddle of melted cheese when you try to fry them. If you leave them in a little longer and they start to freeze you will still be ok.

I put in half an inch of oil in a pan and quickly fried my mozzarella sticks. They really do not take very long, 30 second tops per side. You have to watch them carefully so they neither melt nor burn.

Usually I make marinara sauce with this but this time we just ate them with chili sauce. These are rich, they are of course, solid cheese and even I can’t eat more than a couple at a time. The Husband, happily inhaled quite a few of these while watching the Superbowl. They are so good, crispy on the outside and gooey and melty on the inside. Best eaten hot soon after they come out of the pan.

del.icio.us Tags: Cheese,mozzarella sticks,superbowl

Pear, Blood Orange and Vanilla Bean Jam

2010-03-03T21:38:00.001-05:00

They say that necessity is the mother of invention but sometimes cheapness can also do the trick. There is this artisanal jam that I love, but unfortunately it is super expensive for a teeny tiny jar that lasts for three meals. Given than 3$ dollars worth of jam per occasion is a little beyond my income bracket I decided to do the next best thing and make my own.

I remember my parents making jam after we had gone strawberry picking as a kid but I had always found the idea of sterilizing jars a bit daunting. Since I don’t have any of the equipment to make jam on a large scale I decided to make one jar’s worth and keep it in the fridge so I could skip the whole canning process.

I bought random pears and let them get super ripe then peeled, cored and sliced them. Pretty much any kind of pear will work, although maybe not so much Asian pears since they are less sweet.

I had originally planned to use grapefruit segments but since they had blood oranges at the supermarket, first time they’ve been on sale there, I decided to use them instead. As well I squeezed the juice of two lemons and added that to the pears.

I decided to zest the lemons, grapefruits and blood oranges and chuck that into the pot.

The blood orange segments.

Vanilla Beans.

I split the vanilla beans and scraped out the seeds and added them to the fruit. I also added the pods to the pot.

The sugar. I didn’t bother measuring it. I also added a splash of water.

I stirred the pot and let everything bubble away for half an hour or so. You’ll notice that I didn’t add any pectin. All fruit has pectin, some more than others and I just decided to depend on the pear’s natural pectin to thicken everything up.

My kitchen smelled amazing at this point, like the world’s best scented candle. I came back and stirred the pot every five minutes or so to make sure that nothing was sticking. I also gave it a taste at this point and added a bit more sugar.

I really should not have added that splash of water. The pears threw out more liquid than I had been expecting and after 45 minutes of cooking I was fretting that it was not thickening up enough. The husband suggested that I mash some of the fruit up to see if that would help.

Mashing everything seemed to do the trick. The blood oranges turned everything a nice pinkish-red colour and you can see all the flecks of vanilla seeds throughout the jam.

I cooked the jam until it was getting thick but was still fairly liquid as I knew it would thicken further as it cooled down.

I poured everything into a tall mason jar that I had and put it in the fridge. I decided to leave the pods in there to infuse the jam further.

Now that I know how easy and good making jam from scratch is I might quit buying it from the store. The flavour is excellent with a perfect mix of sweet citrus, mellow pear and fragrant vanilla. I’ve been eating it mixed into Greek yogurt for breakfast and on toast. I’ve had my bottle in the fridge for a couple of weeks and it is still keeping well. One word to all of you low cal people out there, do not try to make this kind of jam and skimp on the sugar as it helps to preserve food and prevent spoilage. Once I’m finished this bottle I am going to try experimenting with different flavour combinations, I’m thinking of trying raspberries and Grand Marnier next.

del.icio.us Tags: Jam

Chicken Tikka Masala

2010-03-01T23:16:00.001-05:00

I love Indian food. Strangely enough I’ve never actually had it at a restaurant though. I actually started cooking Indian food when I got the Jamie Oliver cookbook “The Ministry of Food” from my mom and I’ve been hooked ever since. While you can always find bottled sauces in the supermarket it is so incredibly easy to make them at home and so worth it, especially if you want to amp up the spices like me.

First of all, garlic and lots of of it.

Next up, chillies. I used jalapenos and red chillies since that is all that they sell at my supermarket. I like heat so I always leave in the seeds.

Didn’t I do a good job prettying up the spices for my photo? From left to right: the chillies, cumin, paprika, garam masala, black mustard seeds, cayenne pepper and garlic.

I decided to use boneless, skinless chicken strips to make my life easier. I also chucked in a good amount of Greek yogurt although regular yogurt will also do.

After it was all mixed up together I put it in the fridge for half an hour to marinade.

While that was in the fridge I started preparing the sauce. I melted some butter and sautéed some sliced onions on low heat along with black and yellow mustard seeds. I love black mustard seeds and hoard my little stash since my Mom sent them to me since I was having a hard time finding them here.

For the sauce I also ground up some soy nuts. The original recipe called for cashews but given The Husband’s nut allergies I end up using soy nuts for pretty much everything. In case you’re wondering soy nuts are roasted soy beans, they actually taste pretty nutty though.

You will see that there is chicken broth in the pan. This is because I was cooking two things at the same time and poured the chicken broth in the wrong place. Sometimes my own brilliance astounds even me. It is a very good thing that I wasn’t making dessert at the same time or else things could have turned out rather ugly. Also in the pan are the ground up soy nuts and some tomato puree.

I let that bubble away on the stove for a bit.

While that was going on I cooked my marinated chicken in a pan. I basically just dumped everything in, including all the yogurt.

Here it is all cooked. It’s not the most photogenic thing ever but my kitchen smelled amazing at this point. It drives The Husband nuts when I cook without turning on the kitchen fan but one’s sense of smell is so helpful for knowing if something is cooked or if it needs more seasonings etc.

After the sauce had reduced a bit I added a generous splash of heavy cream.

Then the chicken.

And some chopped cilantro.

All done.

This was so good. I loved the mix of the spices and the heat from the chillies balanced with the smoothness of the creamy tomato sauce. I usually make coconut milk based curries but this recipe was amazing. Definitely a repeat.

del.icio.us Tags: Indian Food,Chicken Tikka Masala

Bistro Justine Restaurant Review

2010-02-21T22:22:00.002-05:00

This past Friday I went out to catch up with my good friend Roxy and she took me to her favourite restaurant. Since Roxy has great taste in restaurants I was really looking forward to this meal and it did not disappoint.

Justine’s is a bistro owned by a Frenchman. His aim is to have a restaurant as close to a Parisian bistro as possible on this side of the pond and I would say that he has succeeded. The restaurant is small but very intimate. I loved the decor with the exposed stone walls and the muted lighting.

Bistro Justine is also a well stocked wine bar. They have a huge selection of wines from all around the world available by the glass. Unfortunately I know next to nothing about wine other than the fact that I don’t like white wine.

I explained to the waiter that I usually take Bordeaux but that I wanted to try something different and he said he had an idea of what he was going to bring me. The waiter poured me some wine but I found that it was too dry so he brought a second bottle which was perfect. The bistro gets their stock from their own private importers so they have a lot of hard to find bottles. I have to add though that the service was impeccable, the waiters are very welcoming and helpful. They do not rush you and they take their time answering any questions that you might have. Roxy has been going there for years and said that they have had the same people for years which is no surprise given how good they are.

I liked their wine glasses with their names etched on.

While we were waiting for our food we munched on some bread. It was really good quality, it tasted almost like sourdough. The butter was rock hard though. It’s a small pet peeve of mine in restaurants when the butter is stone cold and you have to scrape it over your bread.

The menu is very reasonably priced with small “French sized” portions. As Roxy said, the portion sizes are the real reason that French women don’t get fat.

To start off Roxy ordered the foie gras crème brulee which is basically a foie gras mousse with a caramelized sugar topping. I personally have a thing against sweet and savoury mixed together so I just tried a bit of the mousse on a piece of bread and it was delicious; very smooth with an excellent taste.

I ordered trouted salmon gravlax with fennel salsa. This was great, the fish was excellent and matched perfectly with the salsa.

It sounds crazy but I was really impressed with the dicing on the salsa, everything was perfectly uniform in size. From what I could make out it had raw fennel, French shallots and pieces of fresh orange in a citrus dressing. I was really pleased with this dish.

To follow up we both had the blue marlin tataki niçoise. This was a bit of a miss, although I have to say that I have yet to have a good salad in a restaurant. The quality of the fish was acceptable but the lettuce was the same spring mix that every single supermarket stocks and the dressing was too heavy on the vinegar. I remember Jamie Oliver saying that he found that even at ultra posh restaurants that salads were an afterthought on the menu. I can’t judge too harshly though since the fact that we are in the middle of winter probably puts a dent in the availability of salad greens and veggies.

I rarely order steak in restaurants bit I decided to give the filet mignon a try. I loved the presentation for all the dishes, very chic.

To accompany the steak there was gratin dauphinoise cut in a perfect square.

Ratatouille, which strangely enough had no tomatoes.

and a wine pan sauce.

On the bottom of the steak there were sautéed snow peas and mushrooms. Overall I was happy with this main course, The gratin had perfect super thin layers and the ratatouille was good and not greasy at all. The absence of tomatoes allowed the more subtle flavours of the zucchini, red and orange peppers, eggplants and onions to shine through. The pan sauce was delicious and I dunked every piece of steak in it. The only slight downside was the steak itself. I had asked for medium and it came closer to done, as well it was completely unseasoned. I always season my steaks with sea salt and pepper so plain steaks always surprise me. Without fail I usually have trouble with the “doneness” in restaurants since medium can either be practically raw at one place and nearly done at another.
There were some amazing sounding desserts but Roxy and I were too stuffed to order anything else. The price was extremely good, for a glass of wine, appetizer, salad and steak main course I paid 44$ including tax and tip. This is a place that has what I consider honest food. There is a lot of attention to detail and while the food is beautifully presented it is not a stuffy, pretentious restaurant. The atmosphere is very welcoming and it is an excellent place to relax with a good friend for a long dinner and a good chat.

del.icio.us Tags: Restaurant review,Bistro Justine,French restaurants

Caramel Fondue

2010-02-21T00:51:00.002-05:00

As I mentioned in my last post, The Husband and I had fondue for our anniversary. Here is the caramel one I made for him. The recipe comes from here. It is only in French but you can run it through the translator here.

First of all check out our super retro fondue pot. Since we pretty much eloped (I got married in jeans, at city hall, no I am not joking) and did not have the benefit of having a registry, pretty much 90% of our dishware comes from The Husband’s grandparents. Being the frugal bunch that they were some of their stuff dates back to the 50’s. It is quite amusing pulling out random kitchen utensils and trying to figure out to which war they date back to; World War II? Vietnam? Korean War? Fun times.

Sorry about all the shadows. The pot has high sides that slope in so it was a bit rough trying to take pictures. Anyways, you start off with water, sugar and corn syrup then bring it to a boil.

I’m always nervous whenever I have sugar boiling on the stove. Being accident prone I always envision some kind of disaster occurring.

You let the caramel boil away until it reaches the desired colour. The darker it gets the stronger the flavour will be. If it gets too dark it will just taste burnt though.

The butter goes in then.

Followed by heavy cream

and some milk with cornstarch mixed in.

You bring it back up to a boil until it is thickened and smooth. The whole process takes around 10 minutes, tops.

The Husband dipped pound cake and apples into his fondue and was very happy with his dessert. For my tastes I let the caramel brown a wee bit too much but he thought that it was perfect. The leftovers reheat well although it really thickens upon cooling down so you need to add more cream to thin it out and then bring it to a boil again. Fondue is a fun dessert and not very difficult to make at all, It’s definitely a repeat for next valentine’s day.

del.icio.us Tags: Fondue,Caramel Fondue,Dessert

Chocolate Dulce de Leche Fondue

2010-02-17T22:37:00.001-05:00

This past week was The Husband’s and mine 9th year anniversary. Go us! and what better way to celebrate it than with stuffing our faces. For dessert I wanted to make fondue but since he doesn’t like chocolate, silly boy, I made two different ones: caramel for him and chocolate dulce de leche fondue for me.

This recipe is dangerously easy to make. I say dangerous because you can easily make it in less than five minutes in the microwave; you don’t even need a fondue pot.

To start off you need chocolate, bittersweet or semisweet, whatever floats your boat. Personally I always use semisweet chocolate. Avoid using chocolate chips as they have stabilizers in them and don’t work as well as baking chocolate. As well you need to add enough heavy cream to cover the chocolate halfway, you want it thick but still liquid enough to coat whatever you are dipping easily.

As you can see, I changed bowls. I originally started melting the chocolate on the stove but got rather impatient and decided to do it in the microwave. I put it in at 30 second intervals, stirring each time until everything was smooth.

All melted.

Since melted chocolate wasn’t enough I decided to add dulce de leche. It was a very happy day for me when they started selling this stuff in the supermarket, I think I almost started doing a happy dance in the middle of the aisle.

As you can see at this point I had poured the chocolate back into the fondue pot. I added a generous spoonful of dulce de leche and stirred until everything was incorporated.

I meant to buy strawberries and bananas for dipping but I completely forgot so I made pound cake and used marshmallows.

del.icio.us Tags: Dulce de leche,chocolate,fondue

This was so good. Chocolate covered pound cake = instant winner. Don’t worry, I didn’t finish that entire vat in one shot. Do make this at home for your significant over and impress them. I still can’t believe how ridiculously easy it is. You even really don’t need a fondue pot. We actually borrowed my in-law’s in order to have two dessert fondue pots but chocolate doesn’t cool down so quickly that you absolutely need one. I have to say adding dulce de leche was a great move; chocolate and dulce de leche were meant to go together.

del.icio.us Tags: Chocolate,dulce de leche,fondue,dessert

Yorkshire Pudding

2010-02-14T22:19:00.001-05:00

I have always wondered why the British seem to refer to everything as pudding. Pudding can be a dessert, a savoury meat dish (blood pudding) or a baked good such as Yorkshire pudding. Being Canadian a pudding always makes me think of a soft custard based dessert. Anyone have any idea why the word “pudding” has become such a culinary catchall in Britain? Anyways, given my love of all things British, Yorkshire puddings were next on my list of things that I wanted to make.

This recipe was ridiculously easy to make. The ingredients: flour, salt and dried rosemary. You can leave the rosemary out but I toss it in on a whim.

In a bowl to the side: eggs, melted butter and milk mixed together. Traditionally pan drippings would have been used instead of the melted butter which would of course have give it much better flavour. Note to self: start saving pan drippings.

The wet and the dry ingredients then made their acquaintance.

When it was all mixed together it was extremely soupy.

I forgot to mention that before you pour the batter into the ramekins you need to pour a teaspoon of oil into each and put them in the oven until they’re sizzling hot. The batter was so runny that I was worried that they were not going to rise.

I should have had more faith because halfway through the cooking time they were coming along nicely.

Nice and golden. I have no idea why they were lopsided though. Very weird.

We ate them with sausages and gravy which made a most appropriate accompaniment. They were nice and crisp on the outside and fluffy and eggy on the inside. They were perfect for mopping up stray gravy on my plate. Next time I make a roast beef I am definitely making this on the side.

del.icio.us Tags: Yorkshire Pudding

Superbowl Cheese Dip

2010-02-13T22:40:00.001-05:00

This isn’t calorie or waist friendly and isn’t very pretty but boy is it tasty. I’ve always thought that the reason that non-football loving people like to watch the Superbowl is that it makes an excellent excuse to spend an entire afternoon eating greasy food. At The Husband’s request I made this dip for Superbowl Sunday and we both happily gobbled it up while watching the game.

The ingredients: Cheddar cheese

Mayo. Not the travesty that is Miracle Whip.

Softened cream cheese. Notice how I used light cream cheese and light mayo? Every little bit helps, people!

The cheese, mayo and cream cheese (I used more or less the same amount of each) went into an ovenproof pan along with chopped green onions, English mustard, cayenne pepper, salt, pepper and Worcestershire sauce. Hot dips are pretty forgiving in terms of the proportions between the cheeses and the mayo. You really can just eyeball everything and not screw up.

After mixing everything together I smoothed it out and put it into the oven at 350 Celsius.

I checked on it after 15 minutes but decided to put it back so it would be more bubbly.

After 25 minutes it was perfect. This picture is courtesy of the husband since I was cooking something else at the time so he was the one who actually took it out of the oven. He has a thing with overhead shots for some reason but is a sweetheart for getting dragged over often to take pictures of food.

Tortilla chips are pretty much a prerequisite for eating this. This is cheesy, hot and savoury and is perfect party food. I really need to find an excuse to make this again soon!

del.icio.us Tags: Dips

Acras (Fish Fritters) with Spicy Herb Sauce

2010-02-10T21:47:00.001-05:00

The real name of the Spicy Herb sauce is actually “dog sauce”, but since I didn’t want anyone to freak out I chose to baptize it as Spicy Herb sauce. It’s funny how some names translate very badly from one language to another. Anyways, this is one of the few fish recipes that I have made in a long time. I like fish, I just somehow never get around to making it very often. I subscribe to a couple of food magazines and this month Ricardo’s magazine had a recipe for Acras (Fish Fritters) which I really wanted to try since I have a deep abiding love for most fried things. Luckily the recipe is online and in English, you can find it here: http://www.foodnetwork.ca/recipes/Appetizer/Fish/recipe.html?dishid=10247

As usual, I didn’t follow the recipe to the letter but made a few modifications. I’m not a big fan of cod, I find the flavour too strong so I used tilapia instead and skipped the poaching and soaking steps since that is designed to get the salt out. Tilapia is the tofu of fish, it doesn’t taste like much and it easily takes on other flavours. It is pretty cheap, thaws super quickly and is absolutely great to have on hand for whipping up last minute meals.

In the bowl there is Italian parsley, fresh thyme, green onions, garlic, salt, pepper, lime juice (from a bottle because I’m not paying a dollar per lime in the middle of the winter) and a diced jalapeno. Lately my supermarket only brings in jalapenos which makes me cranky. They used to bring in a mixed pack of hot peppers but it seems that I was the only one buying them. If they quit bringing in jalapenos I’m staging a sit-in.

I diced the tilapia and added it to the herbs raw. It cooks super quickly and the fillets are very thin so I wasn’t worried about them not being pre-cooked.

Pastry flour, baking powder and cornstarch went in.

The original recipe calls for whipped egg whites but my mixing bowl and the paddle were dirty and I didn’t feel like washing them so I just added in the whole eggs. I also hate throwing again egg yolks. Egg whites you can at least eat by themselves but an egg yolk omelette is a tad heavy.

All mixed up. When I first started mixing I thought I would need to add some liquid but the three eggs was enough for everything to come together.

In the original recipe the fitters are very small, but since I wanted to make this for dinner rather than for an appetizer I decided to make them a lot bigger. I thought about baking them but I was short on time so frying was the way to go.

After flipping them they were nice and golden.

For the Spicy Herb sauce (Dog Sauce) I mixed green onions, parsley, garlic, lime juice, salt, pepper, boiling water and a bit of oil. I was really surprised to see that the base of the sauce was boiling water. After everything had time to soak however, the liquid was full of flavour.

Yum. I really liked this recipe. It didn’t take a lot of time to put together and tasted great. Next time I will try baking them instead of frying. I loved the sauce; the herbs, lemon juice and green onions were a nice contrast to the hot fritters. Alongside this I made spicy jalapeno rice which was a perfect accompaniment.

Flickr Tags: Acras,Tilapia

Brunch at The Sparrow- Review

2010-02-07T22:41:00.001-05:00

I have been known to be rather harsh on restaurants, if there is a culinary weak spot I will probably spot it. This time however, I went to eat at a restaurant where I could barely find anything wrong. I would have loved to say that it was flawless but there was one teensy-weensy thing that could be corrected, but however, as far as restaurants go my meal was nearly perfect.

The restaurant’s decor is rather charming. There is lots of dark wood, framed picture and books shelves with books and knick knacks on them. I loved the wallpaper with the embossed birds on it. The menu is British inspired and it definitely felt as though I had wandered into my non-existent British aunt’s cozy drawing room.

I went to brunch with a group of Montreal bloggers. You can see their happy shiny faces above. It had been a while since our last meet up so it was nice to see everyone again. If you’re a Montreal food blogger drop me a line so we can include you in our next get together.

One thing I have to hand to The Sparrow is their attention to details. I loved the fact that they had lumps of cane sugar and their cream was served in a little jug. Ok, here comes the one bad thing about the food at The Sparrow. The coffee was not very good, but it was not very bad either, it was just mediocre. It tasted very weak. In my books brunch deserves a good strong cup of coffee. But then again, the coffee was included in the price of the food so I can’t complain too much.

Ok, now that that unpleasantness is out of the way you will see that the rest of my review will be positively glowing.

The menu was very minimalistic which can be annoying if the servers aren’t willing describe the items but we had a super friendly waitress who took her time to go through each item and answer all of our questions. The service here was excellent, even though the restaurant was full when we went we didn’t have to wait overly long for our food and our coffee and water were refilled at regular intervals.

I was torn over a few items but decided to order the custard doughnuts and the sausage and egg roll. The French toast made with brioche really tempted me but I will save that for my next visit.

One thing I have to say was that the plates were gorgeous. It added to the feeling of having a meal at a relative’s house, that is, a relative who happens to be a fabulous cook.

The doughnut were nice and airy, not heavy or greasy at all. I had ordered custard ones but I traded one away for a taste of a chocolate doughnut. The chocolate was just ok; I felt the chocolate taste was not strong enough. If they had put in more cocoa powder the taste would have been perfect. As well, the chocolate doughnuts were under filled compared to the custard doughnuts. Ok, so I lied, there were two things that I found that could have been better.

The custard filling was amazing. It almost tasted like crème patisserie and you can even see the little black flecks of the vanilla bean seeds. I could have happily eaten a few more of these.

One thing that I was really impressed by was the fact that all our meals were brought out at the same time and nothing was cold or overcooked. This is especially impressive given that most of us had ordered eggs which overcook and cool down quickly, and as there were 13 of us this was quite the feat. Most places have a very difficult time handling serving a big group at the same time.

Up above is my meal. It was a sausage patty on a soft milky bun, with a sunny side up egg, lettuce, tomato, cheddar and I think mayo or some other kind of sauce.

I am seriously salivating looking at these pictures as I am typing this. This sausage and egg roll was incredible. The sausage patty was perfectly seasoned and still moist and juicy. The egg was was perfectly cooked, the whites were firm but the yolk was runny and perfectly oozy. The cheddar was appropriately strong and the soft milkyness of the bun brought the whole thing all together. A lot of thought and care went into this sandwich. Like I said, this place really pays attention to the details.

I had also ordered bubble and squeak which is a potato and cabbage dish. This was also really good, the potatoes were soft and savoury with an incredible golden crust on top.

The following are the items ordered by other bloggers:

Crumpet with jam. This looked absolutely scrumptious. I’ve only ever had crumpets from the supermarket and this one definitely looked a million times better.

This was baked eggs, celeriac and oyster mushrooms with some toast.

This was the full English breakfast, otherwise known as the meat bonanza: bacon, sausage, blood sausage, beans, bubble and squeak (if I’m not mistaken), eggs and toast. This was most definitely the heartiest of the dishes.

This was scrambled eggs with smoked salmon.

This was eggs Florentine with smoked salmon. The slices of salmon were generous and looked lovely.

Doesn’t this look absolutely amazing? As Evelyne said to the waitress as she was ordering this, “you had me at Brioche”. The French toast came with caramelized pears, apples and cranberries all doused in maple syrup. I’m definitely getting this next time.

Perhaps the best part of this meal was the cost. The doughnuts, the sausage and egg roll, the bubble and squeak and coffee with tax and tip was 20$ which was an absolute steal considering the quality of the ingredients and the service we received. I will most definitely be back for brunch again soon, hopefully before the lineups get too long since I am sure this place will keep on getting more and more popular.

Technorati Tags: Brunch,Montreal,The Sparrow review

Duck, Mushroom and Asparagus Vol-au-Vent

2010-02-05T22:59:00.001-05:00

The Husband is strictly a meat and potatoes man; give him a bloody steak and he is happy. The only exception to this rule is duck confit. Duck confit is duck which has been poached in its own fat. Sounds strange but tastes amazing. Given how much he loves it I am always on a hunt for new recipes that use this ingredient. I am pretty lucky in that our grocer is marvellously well stocked with wild game so I have no problem finding it on a regular basis. I don’t have a link to this recipe online but you can just eyeball all the ingredients. Since duck can be hard to find and is a tad expensive you could also make this recipe using leftover dark chicken meat or you could cook up some chicken thighs.

Now for the ingredients. First up is asparagus. I use the snapping method to get the ends off. You take an end of the asparagus spear in each hand and then start to bend. It will break off in the right place ensuring that you do not get any woody parts.

Ah, pre-washed, pre-cut mushrooms how I love thee.

Chopped onions. I don’t bother dicing them too daintily.

Chopped baby carrots.

All the aforementioned vegetables get cooked together in a pan along with some olive oil and salt and pepper until they are browned.

Duck confit taken off the bone and with the skin removed. I hate doing this job so I just pawn it off on the husband. This is one of the pluses of being married. Once we have a kid I can get him to take out the garbage and thus avoid doing all the unpleasant kitchen chores. My plan is brilliant isn’t it?

Once the veggies were cooked I added a few tablespoons of flour to the pan and stirred.

I then chucked in some white wine and chicken broth.

A generous splash of cream also went in there.

I then mixed everything until the sauce came to a boil and thickened.

The vol-au-vents are courtesy of the freezer section at the supermarket. While I will spend obscene amounts of time cooking, puff pastry and vol-au-vents are two things that I won’t bother making on a regular basis. I still feel vaguely guilty whenever I buy them pre-made though. I read an interview once in which Jamie Oliver said he used pre-made puff pastry which was a sop to my guilty cook’s conscience.

The Husband being a guy he asked to have french fries with this meal. Given the choice he will always choose potatoes as a side dish in some form. I have to admit I didn’t really get to taste this since I made myself something else but from the tastes I had of the sauce when I was adjusting the salt and pepper it was delicious. The Husband was rather happy with this meal and I was stuck having food envy since I had made myself lentil stew. Isn’t meal envy the worst? It’s even worse when you go to a restaurant and you end up ordering something that is just ok and the person you are with orders something amazing and you have to watch them ooohing and ahhhing over their food. I like lentil but it’s not definitely as good as duck confit!

Technorati Tags: Duck,Vol-au-vent

Pulled Pork Gorditas

2010-02-03T22:58:00.001-05:00

I love Tex-Mex food. Oh how I wish there was decent Mexican food around these parts. Every single Mexican food restaurant that I have been to in Montreal is either bland or very bland, unfortunately. Since I had a craving for Mexican food I decided to make Gorditas. I actually made this recipe a few weeks ago so I am sitting here trying to remember what I put in them. Strangely enough gordita means “little fatty” in Spanish. This is also a term of endearment for chubby women (no, I am not kidding. We’re not very politically correct in Spanish). I cannot imagine a scenario in which a man will call his wife “little fatty” in English and not end up sleeping on the couch for a week. The recipe for the tortillas is here.

The tortilla part was easy to make. You mix masa, flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl.

The recipe calls for adding some cotija cheese to the tortillas. Since Italian cheese is what passes off as exotic at my local cheese counter I ended up using feta instead.

I also added some corn kernels. I took some frozen corn and nuked it in the microwave until it was thawed and tossed it into the bowl.

I added enough water to bring everything together so that the dough was stiff but not crumbly.

Traditionally you fry gorditas but I decided to bake them instead. I scooped out the tortillas with an ice cream scoop and patted them down with moistened hands. I put them in the oven at 350 Celsius which the standard temperature that I use when I am baking something which is usually fried.

To top my gorditas I made pulled pork and once it was shredded I mixed it with browned onions that I had cooking on the stove as I took care of the tortillas.

To make a sauce I added in tomato puree, cumin, coriander, chili powder, salt and pepper as well as some Mexican spice mix which I had in the pantry.

I had no idea how long to cook the tortillas so I left them in the oven until they were firm and golden.

To assemble the gorditas I topped them with tomatillo salsa (from a bottle, but it comes from Mexico, Old El Paso’s travesty of a salsa has not yet darkened my doorstep), fresh cilantro, guacamole and some feta cheese. The tortillas were nice and tasty with the sweet corn kernels providing a nice counterpoint to the saltiness of the feta cheese. Tomatillo salsa and guacamole are always winners in my book and they make everything better. This meal was most definitely a repeat. It didn’t take long to make and made quite a bit of leftovers. The only downside was that this is not the kind of thing that I could take to work for lunch, however it made a few excellent meals to have during the week.

Technorati Tags: Mexican,Tex-Mex,Tortillas,Pork

Thai Chicken Fried Rice

2010-02-01T21:33:00.001-05:00

Lately I have been in a cooking rut. After the holidays I swore I would cut back on making so much indulgent yet heavy food but alas, this left me without any inspiration. Vegetables just don’t excite me. I was flipping through a healthy foods cookbook and I saw a recipe for this Thai Chicken Fried Rice. It is not too bad on the caloric front (in spite of the word “fried” in the title) and while I cannot attest for the authenticity, it looked like it would be fun to try and a change from the usual Chinese Chicken Fried Rice.

The key to any stir fry/fried rice is to make sure that all your ingredients have been cut up before you start cooking. That way you can dump them in quickly and nothing will burn while you’re busy chopping.

First up were red peppers. The recipe called for red Thai peppers but since they don’t sell them in my supermarket I just ended up using red bell peppers.

Then some cilantro. I love cilantro, The Husband thinks it smells like death though. Sadly that rules out me making out most Latin American food for both of us.

Then some fresh basil. I know I should have picked off each leaf from the stem and tightly wrapped them in a nice little bundle and delicately cut them into ribbons but I couldn’t be bothered so I hacked at them like a maniac.

I started off by cooking my green onions. There was also half a red onion hanging around the fridge so I ended up chucking that in as well.

When the onions were done I took them out of the pan and cooked my chicken. I had taken two chicken breasts and sliced them thinly with a sharp knife. If you have problems slicing chicken finely put it in the freezer for a few minutes. It will stiffed up a bit and be easier to cut.

Once the chicken was cooked I added in some cooked basmati rice. If you’ve never tried basmati rice do give it a go. It is fragrant and good even plain. It is my go-to rice for all kinds of dishes.

The herbs, red pepper and onions then went back in.

For flavouring I added in a few tablespoons of oyster sauce and fish sauce. I just kept on tasting and adding more as needed. Since there is a lot of sodium in fish sauce I just added a touch of salt at the end. I had to buy a new bottle of fish sauce since The Husband threw away my last bottle by accident. He was cleaning out the fridge (by himself may I add. I married him for his cleaning skills) and opened it up and sniffed it. He thought it had gone bad and threw it away. Only later when I was looking for fish sauce and he told me what he had done did I enlighten him to the fact that fish sauce always smells funky. I wonder what it smells like when it really does go off.

Yum. This was good and very easy. It is also an excellent way of using up cooked chicken should you have some leftover from a roast chicken dinner. This could have used some heat and next time I am adding in some red chilli peppers. I think I like this much more than Chinese fried rice. The fresh herbs went really nicely in this and it is quite nice to find a recipe that uses basil that is not Italian.

Technorati Tags: Basil,Thai,Chicken,Fried Rice

Hoisin Glazed Chicken with Marinated Green Onions and Cucumbers

2010-01-24T23:04:00.001-05:00

I have to confess that once in a while I have a disastrous cooking day. Usually I take pictures of several meals and post the best looking ones, since there are some things that might be delicious but are not terribly photogenic. This weekend I had several cooking mishaps due to a really bad recipe and a screw up on my part so I went through the pictures that I had not posted and found this recipe. This comes from Martha Stewart’s “Dinner at Home” which I got from my Mom at Christmas (thanks Mom!). I couldn’t find the recipe online but this is really one of those meals that doesn’t require precise measurements.

You start off with hoisin sauce, minced garlic, minced ginger and diced chillies. I like heat so I left the seeds in.

I also added some fresh cilantro.

Everything mixed up together.

I decided to use chicken breasts, which is my favourite cut of chicken since I hate fighting with bones and skin.

I slathered my chicken in the sauce and put it in the oven since I didn’t have enough time to let it marinade.

To accompany my chicken I made marinated cucumbers and green onions. I simply cut my cucumbers in long strips and cut the green onions in roughly the same length. Since I can't get enough chilli, I decided to add some in here as well.

I then covered them completely in rice wine vinegar. They sell several flavours in the supermarket but I always get the plain flavour. The longer you marinade the veggies the more “cooked” they are. Eventually the cucumbers soften a bit but the green onions also have less of an acrid bite.

To make sure that my chicken is not overcooked, since chicken breasts can dry out easily, I usually put in an oven thermometer.

To accompany the veggies and chicken I made rice. This was a really easy and quick meal. The actual meal prep took around 10 minutes and the chicken took around 45 minutes to cook. If you want your chicken to cook faster you can just cut it into smaller pieces. This was really good. The chicken had just the right mixture of heat and savoury flavour from the ginger, garlic and cilantro. Rice wine vinegar is a lot milder than regular vinegar so the veggies had a pleasant crunch without being too acidic. I had some very tasty leftovers for my lunch the next day.

Technorati Tags: Asian Food,Chicken