The Gallumphing Gourmand

A Little Sauce on the Side (Ribs), or, Taking a Bit of a Ribbing

2010-03-16T09:00:00.002-05:00

One night a couple of weeks ago, I was sitting at home reading when Dar came home from doing the grocery shopping. After taking her coat and boots off, she looked at me and said, "I bought some presents for you..."

"For me???? You shouldn't have..."

Dar then rummaged around in one of the grocery bags and proceeded to pull out a package of pork tenderloin, and a rack of pork side ribs.

My baby loves me.

Now, as incredible as it may sound, I had never cooked ribs before. I don't think that there's a specific reason for this, but I think that the lack of a BBQ grill is one of the factors. Turns out, the oven is fine place to cook your ribs. As with most things in life, it's not the equipment that matters, it's what you do with it.

Ahem.

Since I have spent a serious amount of time watching the Food Network, I have come to believe that the best way to cook ribs is 'low and slow'. This means that the ribs should be cooked at a low temperature for a longer period of time. This method results in very tender, fall-off-the-bone meat which, really, is what I look for when I order ribs at a restaurant.

The cooking instructions on the package said to cook the ribs at 375°F (190°C) for about 75 minutes. Hmmm... no. If I wanted pork chops, I would cook pork chops. SO, I did a little research online and decided to go with the slower route and try cooking them at about 250°F (135°C) for closer to three hours.

But first... the marinade. Oh yes. Since I was completely winging this anyway, I decided to marinate the ribs overnight with a dry rub first, then baste with a smoky BBQ sauce while they cooked.

The dry rub I used was as follows:

GG's Wonderful Rib Rub

Mix together in a medium-sized bowl -
About 10 cloves of garlic, crushed and finely diced
Equal measures (around 2 tbsp each) of:
- freshly ground black pepper
- kosher salt
- brown sugar
- cumin
- chili flakes
- cayenne
- paprika

Yummy.

I cut the rack into two pieces, rubbed this wonderful stuff well into the meaty side of both pieces and placed them, meat to meat, in a Ziploc baggie. I let them sit in the fridge overnight so the flavours could marinate and co-mingle and stuff.

Cooking them was pretty simple, really. I put them on a Pampered Chef stoneware pan (love the stoneware) and covered them with some smoky BBQ sauce I picked up at the One-Of-A-Kind Show in Toronto back before Christmas. Into the oven they went at 250°F (135°C) and I just let them cook, checking them every 30 minutes or so to make sure they hadn't dried out and to baste them with some more sauce.

We actually popped out to run a few errands while they were cooking and when we got back the whole apartment (and most of the hallway) smelled AMAZING. At about three hours of cooking time I took them out and tested the meat with a fork. Not quite fall-off-the-bone, but pretty close. The meat was cooked all the way through, was very tender and smelled wonderful. Close enough for rock-n-roll as far as I was concerned.

The hardest part was letting them cool down a bit before getting right in there. The first half rack disappeared pretty quickly and I had the other half for dinner the following night, much to the chagrin of my Facebook friends after I posted the pictures.

Taking Some Pizza For a Spin

2009-11-27T14:00:00.002-05:00

In July we had our annual family BBQ party at my parents' cottage. It being a potluck affair, I was expected to bring some sort of food item. They didn't have to twist my arm. However, I was faced with the problem of cooking something that was different than my previous summer offerings. I talked it over with Dar, and originally thought about making some sort of pinwheel sandwich but wasn't terrifically enthused until I thought about making pinwheel PIZZA sammies. I checked the internet for recipes, but was only really concerned about how hot to have the oven and how long to cook the little suckers. Turns out, the general consensus is 400F (205C) for 15 minutes. OK.

Now for the toppings. I decided to keep them vegetarian as I have some family members who are veggie, and it just makes it simpler. This of course meant - no bacon. Oh well, there'll be other times and other pizzas...

...what was I saying? Oh yeah, the toppings.

I first sauteed some sweet red peppers and red onions in some olive oil and crushed garlic. Gotta have the garlic. While they were cooling, I tackled the pizza dough.

I actually went to the trouble of buying a couple of balls of pizza dough instead of going with my first instinct - easy-peasy Pillsbury all-you've-gotta-do-is-unroll-it pizza dough. But NOOOOOOO.... I had to get 'authentic'. Not a mistake I'll make again. If I ever use real spin-it-around-your-head-while-trying-not-to-hit-yourself-in-the-face pizza dough, it'll be because I made it from scratch.

Anywayyyy....

I mixed the two balls of dough together, and finally wrestled them into some semblage of a pizza crust and placed it on my plastic wrap-covered upside-down baking sheet. The plastic wrap is supposed to make the rolling up part 'easier'. We'll see.

After spreading a mixture of cream cheese and pesto on the pizza crust, I added some nice black olive tapenade, and then the cooled veggies.

On top of that, I added (as it turned out, not quite enough) shredded cheese then took a step back and thought over how I was going to tackle rolling up this squidgy, gooey yummy thing.

Turns out, it's a lot like rolling up a sleeping bag. You've got to keep tucking in the middle of the roll to keep it aligned with the outside edges as you roll the thing up. Plus, you've got to be careful that you don't tear the dough. D'oh!

So, OK. I got it rolled up and fully wrapped in the plastic, and it looked like this:

Nice, right? I thought so. In to the freezer it went, and there it stayed overnight. Why, you ask? Well, let me ask you this - have you ever tried to slice room-temperature raw pizza dough? I bet you haven't, or if you have you know that you just end up with a pile of yucchh on the table. Slicing it when frozen is so much easier.

After that, it was into the 450F oven for 15 minutes, or until the cheese started to bubble. These can be served hot or cold, and they taste fantastic. Next time though, I'll use a lot more cheese, because they tended to fall apart pretty easily.

Bacon Makes The World Go 'Round

2009-07-07T07:00:00.000-05:00

So I've had this particular recipe burning a hole in my consciousness for about a year now, and this past weekend I finally got around to it. Those of you who are familiar with this blog will know about my views on bacon as the perfect food and of my efforts to use it in my cooking in as many ways as possible.

Here's one for ya - Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies.

There's really only one thing to say to that: "Ooooohhhh yeahhhh...."

Now, I know that I am not the first to discover these gems of chocolate porkulence, but I just may be their biggest fan. Yes, I just may...

The first step in this endeavour was, of course, to make the bacon bits. This was my favourite part, but you knew that didn't you? I had two frying pans going at the same time with a growing mound of crispy bacon piling up on the table. Not too shabby. 'Course, it made the entire apartment smell like bacon for about three days afterward. Normally this would be a good thing, but Darlene and I have both been trying to watch what we eat just lately and there's nothing that kills your resolve like a bacon-flavoured apartment. heh.

So that was my task for Friday night. We were heading to Niagara Falls the following day to hang out with some friends and I'd promised to bring a batch of these cookies with us. I figured that it wouldn't take very long to put everything together on Saturday morning as long as the bacon was ready to go.

Other than the bacon bits, this is yer basic chocolate chip cookie recipe, so it was pretty straightforward. The cookies came out smelling WONDERFUL, and were cooled and ready to go by the time we were ready to hit the road.

Now, the recipe for the glaze calls for Maple Extract. I looked, but the grocery store I was in wasn't very good, and they didn't have any. Being pressed for time, I improvised. I figured that since the bacon I bought was already maple-flavoured (Oh yes. This is a good thing.) that maybe it wasn't so important to have maple flavouring in the glaze, too. So, I just used a full tablespoon of the vanilla extract instead.

OK. Now we come to the good part - tasting the little suckers. We each tried one, and although I really liked them Dar wasn't sold. She didn't actively DISlike them, but it was more of a 'meh' thing. I decided I needed to try a second one just to verify my findings. You will like them. I promise you.

The thing is, you can't taste the bacon specifically. You get a sense of the saltiness of the bacon, which nicely balances the sweetness of the chocolate. And of course the cinnamon glaze on the top adds an extra 'oomph' to the cookie.

We had to stop on the way to Niagara at my cousins Ted and Sue's place to drop off a saxophone I'd borrowed. That's a story for another day, but suffice it to say we brought the cookies in and had them try one. After the initial, "Bacon? And chocolate? Really?", they both tried one and seemed to really like them. I was feeling optimistic, as so far three outta four ain't bad.

When we got to Eliot and Claudia's place in Niagara Falls, the first thing we did (after cracking a beer of course) was to bring out the cookies and let everyone try one. It was pretty much unanimous. Bacon cookies good. GOOOOOD....

Now, a word about the rest of the food. The first thing we noticed when we pulled into the driveway was a medium-sized smoker sitting in front of the garage. We had been told that (six pounds of) pulled pork was on the menu for that night, but what we didn't realize was that Eliot had also prepared a brisket for the smoker as well. Damn. It was difficult waiting for the meat to be ready, because we could smell it cooking from the back yard.

Here's Eliot sampling his masterpiece. Diet? What diet? We're talking PULLED PORK here, people.

With the oven-baked potatoes and the best gol-durn brisket I've ever tasted AND salads and bread, we really didn't do a whole lot of moving after dinner. It was great.

Oh yeah, the cookies. Here's the recipe. Once again, I don't remember where I got it, so if you recognize it let me know and I'll credit you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies

The Cookies
1 C butter, softened
2/3 C packed brown sugar
2/3 C granulated sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
2½ C all-purpose flour, sifted
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
2 C semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips (or whatever kind you like)
2 C bacon bits
*NOTE* If you want to make your own bacon bits (which I recommend), it takes approximately 2 lbs. of bacon to make 2 C of bacon bits.

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F/180C/Gas Mark 4.
Beat together the butter, the sugars and the vanilla until smooth.
Beat in eggs one at a time, until the mixture is creamy.
In another bowl, sift together the flour, the baking soda and the salt.
Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and stir together. The dough will be slightly soft.
*ANOTHER NOTE* The recipe I used suggests that for a 'cakier' cookie, you should add another ½C of flour, but the ones I made (with 2½ C of flour) were nice and light, so govern yourselves accordingly.
Add in the chocolate chips and bacon bits and stir to combine.
*YET ANOTHER NOTE* The recipe suggests putting the dough in the fridge for at least an hour, but I didn't 'cause we were in a hurry. Didn't seem to affect them.
Place parchment paper on the cookie sheet.
Roll a walnut-sized ball of dough in your hands, place on the parchment paper and flatten slightly with two fingers.
Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the dough starts to turn golden brown.
*AND STILL ONE MORE NOTE* For soft chewy cookies, it is very important that the cookies NOT look completely done when you pull them from the oven. If they look golden brown all over, those cookies will be crunchy when they cool. I'm speaking from experience here.
Allow cookies to cool on a rack while you ready the glaze.

The Maple-Cinnamon Glaze
2 C powdered (icing) sugar
1 tbsp maple extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp cinnamon
enough water to make a thick glaze (I used about 3 tbsp)

Directions:
Mix all ingredients together until smooth and creamy. If lumpy, use a whisk.
Spread a small amount of the glaze on the top of each cookie.

Cross-Border Holiday Weekend

2009-06-26T09:00:00.003-05:00

So about a month ago, we here in Canada celebrated Victoria Day weekend. Or, as it's commonly called - May Two-Four. Some would say that this is because Victoria Day is traditionally observed on or about the 24th of May, but we all know the truth, don't we? Yes we do - a 'two-four' is a case of twenty-four bottles of beer. 'Nuff said about that.

So, we finally have some beautiful weather, it's a holiday weekend, and what do I do? That's right - I go to Michigan.

Huh?

Y'see, Darlene's great-aunt just turned 90 and there was a big birthday blow-out, so we went to where the party was. Just so happened it was in Pontiac. Hmmm... it's always the last place you look.

Well, after the party, a stay in a pretty nice Best Western just off the interstate and a trip to the Detroit Zoo, we headed home. On the way home, Dar suggested stopping to eat at a little place in Mexicantown right near the Ambassador Bridge call Xochimilco. For those at home, that's pronounced "so-she-MIL-co".

Xochimilco is a cool little Mexican restaurant that was absolutely packed when we got there. So much so that we had to wait in the lounge and have a few drinks before a table was available. Not really a hardship, as we'd spent the day wandering through the Zoo, so we were ready for some cold ones.

We were seated at a long table, and chips and salsa were dropped on the table immediately. Yummy. Of course, the whole point behind the 'free' chips and salsa is to make you thirsty and thus buy beer, so we did. They really didn't have to twist our arms. I ordered a Negra Modelo beer (hey, when in Rome and all that) and surveyed the substantial menu.

We started with some guacamole, because it's one of my favourite things. It was pretty close to the best guac I had ever eaten. That title goes to El Sol Restaurant on The Danforth in Toronto. It's our favourite Mexican restaurant in the city. This stuff was still fantastic, though. Since I was feeling ravenously hungry after our busy day and because everything on the menu looked great, I ordered a combo plate. Combination Plate #3, to be exact.

"And what exactly is Combination Plate #3?", I hear you ask... well I'll tell you.

THIS is Combination Plate #3. Ohhh yeahhh....

The plate had one soft beef taco, a steak burrito and a cheesy chicken enchilada along with rice and refried beans. Everything a growing boy needs. It was yummy, but damn was it a lot of food.

Having said that, I still wanted dessert so I ordered a cherry empanada. I guess I was picturing yer basic fruit pie that you can get in a corner store, but what I got was the behemoth of empanadas. Feast your eyes...

I tell ya, after polishing off that bad boy, I was well and truly full. It was a good thing we still had an hour in the car, because I needed a nap. Sadly, that was not to be as I was the one doing the driving. Ah well. It was a good weekend.

Finally Back At It.

2009-06-17T11:17:00.003-05:00

Ok, so I've been neglecting the blog. Certain contributing factors including, but not limited to, Facebook, apathy, moving to a new apartment, have resulted in me not posting anything since back in September.

I have now remedied the Facebook part of the equation by recently ditching all of those stupid time-sucking 'social networking'-type games and by removing all of the people on my friends list who I had added for no other reason that to increase my crew or mafia or clan or whatever. So, if you're still on my Facebook friends list, there's a good chance I've either actually met you or have had at least several conversations with you via e-mail or telephone.

As a result of all of this, I'm seriously backlogged with stuff I'd like to post, and with folders full of pictures from things I've done over the last six months. I will now be getting to these things so please stay tuned.

Things to watch for over the next little while:

* Our recent Victoria Day weekend excursion to Michigan
* Gallumphing Around China (yes, THAT China)
* A new contributor to the Blog - my fiancée Darlene.
* And hey, I might even cook something...

The Weekend From Hell, or The Worst. Move. Ever.

2008-10-02T13:31:00.014-05:00

Well, the move happened. Eventually. Turns out we hired the worst moving company in the city. Who knew.

Buckle up, it's going to be quite a ride.

First of all, because of a family emergency out of town, the move had to be pushed back from September 13/14 to September 27/28. No problem, as we both still had our old places until the end of the month. Dar called the moving company and made all the arrangements, and was told that two guys in a big truck would arrive at her place on Saturday morning at 8:00am. Sounded good to me.

The plan was for them to pack the remainder of her kitchen stuff, load the truck with her stuff and then come to my place. They would then load my stuff, proceed to the new apartment and unload everything into the new place. Done and done. Sounds simple, doesn't it?

That's not exactly how it happened.

Naturally, when moving out of a high-rise apartment building (as Dar was doing), arrangements have to be made to reserve an elevator so that your stuff can be loaded out as quickly as possible. Of course, being the end of the month, there were others moving out on the same day who had also reserved an elevator and consequently, the elevator was booked solid.

They didn't show up at 8.

At about 8:45am, I was still at my place frantically throwing the last of my stuff into garbage bags and anticipating the arrival of the truck for about 10am. I got a call from Dar to tell me that they hadn't arrived yet, and that she had called the moving company to investigate. Apparently, the boss had no idea where they were, but assured her that they would be there soon. Uh huh.

Dar had reserved the elevators for 8:00am - 10:00am, and the window was rapidly closing. Another phone call at about 9:30 reveals that the boss still doesn't know where the guys are, but assures us they'll be there soon. Are you sensing a theme here?

They didn't show up at 10.

The elevator reservation time has now passed, and Dar is on the phone to the super, trying to make alternate arragements about the elevator. Turns out, the people who have reserved the elevator from 10:00am - noon had their truck arrive early, so they were done already. As long as our guys arrived fairly soon, it would still be OK.

They didn't show up at 11, and this is the point where the day started seriously to go downhill.

In addition to getting stuff ready for the moving truck, I had been loading my car with things that I didn't trust them to move. Things like my bass and my electric piano, the remainder of my hockey card collection that hadn't already gone to my brother's place for safekeeping. Y'know, stuff like that. To do this, I had to pull the car up in front of the house and park it with the four-way flashers on while I loaded it. Somewhere around 11:30am, I come outside with an armload of stuff to find the neighbours across the street standing beside their car and staring at mine.

I was greeted with, "Is that your car? I've just run into it, and we need to exchange information."

Crap.

I walked around to the other side of the car, and sure enough, she'd backed the SUV out of her driveway, failed to see my car, dented the hell out of the front passenger-side door and broken the side mirror. The only damage to the SUV was a broken tail-light.

If this is starting to sound like a rant, I apologize, but there's still more. Oh yes. Please bear with me.

So, fine, we exchanged information, I used some packing tape to re-affix the side mirror, finished packing the car and drove to Dar's to see what the hell was going on there.

I arrived at her building at about 12:30, and on my way in I meet her with the movers (let's call them Lenny and Squiggy) in tow, who had only just arrived themselves. Their excuse for showing up four and a half hours late? "We couldn't find the place."

Right. In this day and age is this still a viable excuse? I don't think so.

Anyway, the entire day's schedule was now completely out the window. The move that we thought was going to be over and done with by 4pm, is just getting started at 1pm.

But wait, there's more.

As the guys were finishing loading Dar's stuff into the truck, we're told that there's not enough room for all of my stuff, and that we're going to have to stop at the new place and offload some of it BEFORE going to my place. When asked why, they responded, "We didn't expect so much stuff, and we packed the truck wrong." Lenny and Squiggy had now become Lloyd and Harry.

What could we do? We went to the new place and dropped some stuff off. We had to sweet-talk the super at the new place, because we'd now missed our window there as well. AND, we had to tell him that we'd be making another trip in a few hours. He wasn't pleased, but said no problem.

So, instead of unloading everything from the truck like a normal person, they unloaded what they figured was just enough stuff to make room for my stuff. Turns out, they along with us were watching the day slide slowly south, and didn't want to lose the little leverage they had against us finally losing it and refusing to pay. This wasn't going to happen, but they didn't know that.

So it's now getting on for 6pm, and we're at my place loading my stuff. We'd already missed the technician who was supposed to set up our phone/cable/internet at the new place, and we're really starting to get pissed now. About halfway through the load-out, we're told that again, there's not enough room in the truck for all of my stuff and we're going to have to come back for the rest of it.

Idiots.

Now Dar's on the phone to the company demanding a refund or discount or something, because of course we're paying these guys by the hour, and this will mean three extra trips that we shouldn't have had to make. The boss is now seriously cheesed with Lloyd and Harry and tells us that he's willing to work something out.

The night dragged on, and included such highlights as a yelling match between our guys and some other people who were also moving in to our building, and who we apologized to afterwards. On top of that, as 10pm rolled around, Lloyd actually had the balls to start whining about how late it was getting, and that they had a one-hour drive ahead of them after they were done.

By 11:30pm, we just wanted them out of our place. They finished shortly afterwards, and the deal we worked out with their boss had us paying for 7.5 hours on a twelve hour move. It was the only bright spot in the day.

Gallumphing To A New Location

2008-08-27T09:55:00.013-05:00

Well, it's official. In a couple of weeks, I will be abandoning my underground lair for more spacious digs. I've been inhabiting the lair for about six years now, which has been great, but I'm ready for a change. The prospect of having some natural light in the place is nice, not to mention that Dar will be there, too. Co-habiting after so long on my own (and for that matter, on her own) presents its own set of challenges, but I'm looking forward to it.

For about a month now, after finally finding a place, I've been as busy as a one-legged man at a butt kicking contest. She has too, but she has a lot less stuff than I do. The last time I moved, my collection of stuff had been pared down to a fairly manageable size, but after living in one place for six years, I was astounded at the sheer volume of crap (um, I mean 'valuable collectibles') that I've amassed. Every morning for the last two weeks, I've been loading the car with at least a couple of boxes of stuff to be dropped off at Goodwill on my way home. The thing is, my place is still looking as cluttered as ever. Sheesh. I've packed six file boxes full of books that I'm keeping, and got rid of two more boxes, and I still have almost two full bookcases.

One good thing I did was to buy a large CD wallet which holds 224 CDs and booklets, then dumped all of the jewel cases into the recycling bin. It's amazing how much space those things take up.

Side note: Thank you to whoever carted away the CD towers (with a note reading, "FREE - Please Take Them") that I left on the street in front of the house. They were gone in less than two hours.

For a move, of course, one needs boxes and lots of them. Both Dar and I have been harassing our respective offices' Mailrooms for empty file boxes and printer paper boxes. I have also been staking out my local LCBO (that's the liquor store for those outside of Ontario) for boxes, and have made out like a bandit there, too. A mistake I made on one past move was to pack all of my stuff into a few large boxes, which then needed two people each to lift them. I almost threw my back out trying to heave a television-sized box full of books onto the truck. Ah well, live and learn.

The major challenge in this move is going to be the actual moving date. We take possession on September 15, but the place might be ready before then. You see, the current tenants move out on the first of the month, and then the place will be completely renovated before we move in. This means a completely new bathroom, new floors, new fridge and stove, and new kitchen cabinets. Nice. If the place is ready before the 15th, we can move in early which is what we're aiming for. Y'see, this year September 15 falls on a Monday, which means that we wouldn't be able to move until the Wednesday or Thursday, which I had already booked off work anyway as it is my birthday (yay!). We can't do it the following weekend, because I'll be out of town with the boys for our annual Golf Weekend, which we'd arranged months ago. Ideally, we'd like to move the previous Saturday or Sunday (the 13th or 14th), because then we could hit up our friends to help out. We could probably handle it ourselves if need be, but the thing is - we'd rather not. And, it's more fun with more people. We have to wait until a week before the 15th to hear for sure when we can move in.

Does anyone need some spiffy IKEA bookcases? Seriously. You can have them if you come and take them away.

Great Googly Moogly, Look At That Burger

2008-08-11T07:00:00.003-05:00

On the spur of the moment, Dar and I went out for dinner at a place called The Yellow Griffin in Bloor West Village. This place boasts "at least 35 burgers" on the menu, and they're not lying.

I had been there once before with some friends about three or four years ago, and had been meaning to go back, so I'd been talking up the place to Darlene. She said "well, why not right now?" She's so smart. Why not indeed?

You can get almost anything you want on your 8 oz (!) burger in any combination, and if that isn't enough, you have a choice of 8 kinds of patty, including salmon and bison. There is also a vegetarian patty for those so inclined.

Of course, what would a burger be without a side order of something tasty? The choices are many and varied (check out the menu here for more details): "Grif-fries, sweet potato fries, fresh greens, traditional coleslaw, red baron kraut-slaw, the Village potato salad, Zucchini Sticks, Breaded Pickles or our awesome breaded onion rings!" Also, you can upgrade to poutine for an extra $2.75. Ah, poutine, that evil evil delicacy. They have three varieties to choose from, but I went right for the Hogtown Poutine which is fries, cheese curds, brown gravy and bacon.

Despite the allure of the "English Breakfast Burger", which comes topped with (to quote the menu) "Buckingham baked beans, HP Sauce and crowned with a royal fried egg. Jolly good!", I went for the New Mexican burger, which comes topped with salsa, guacamole, peanut butter, shredded sweet potato and chopped coriander. Oh. My. God. Sounds weird, tastes fantastic. Dar wasn't sold on the idea of peanut butter on a burger, but I let her try some, and the look on her face was priceless. "Oooooh," she said, "that's GOOD."

Darlene got the Cheezzzy Triple Cheese burger, which comes with "Lots’a feta crumbled under mounds of melted mozzarella and cheddar …it aint easy bein’ a cheesy triple cheese", and the onion rings. There were only 5 onion rings on the plate when it arrived, but they were HUGE.

Here are some examples of the more unusual offerings:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Big Apple Deli
Empire sliced cinnamon apple, caramel black treacle, Swiss cheese and Mannyhanny coleslaw

Reuben Burger
Slices of Pedro’s Pastrami - who’s Pedro? ole’Kraut-sauerkraut, topped with smoked Gouda cheese

Kung Fu Burger
Hay-ya scallions, Fu-man-chu peanuts, Kung Pao nut sauce and kick in some mozzarella

The tag-line on the menu reads: "Our burgers take 20 minutes to cook, but it's definitely worth the wait for the very 'un-fast-food' taste!" Very true. The burgers were phenominal, and the portions are huge. Between the 8oz burgers, the poutine and Dar's onion rings, we were most definitely full when we left.

'Course, we have to go back. Goes without saying, really. I want to try their "Burning School House" burger with chili peppers, red peppers, onions and smoky cheese. Maybe even on a bison burger.

The Yellow Griffin Pub is located at 2202 Bloor St. West in Toronto. You should check it out.

A Little Something I Whipped Up

2008-08-06T10:00:00.002-05:00

Last weekend I was sitting at home and thinking about what I should make myself for lunch. Of course, this decision is always largely based on what food I have on hand. As I walked into the kitchen I spied the small bag of new potatoes that I had acquired recently, and which I figured should probably be used up before too long. But what to do with them?

Since I had a bunch of other veggies in the fridge, I decided to make potato vegetable soup. Frighteningly logical, eh? I cut each potato in half, and chopped up a pile of carrot, celery, green onion and garlic cloves and dumped everything into a pot. I added a spoon of bacon fat (a little goes a long way), some salt and pepper, some chili flakes (gotta have the heat), some basil and oregano and just enough water to cover everything.

After that, I brought the liquid to the boil, then turned down the heat to medium-low and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. Tasted it, added some more pepper and chili flakes (ooh yeah), and let it simmer another 15 minutes. Since I didn't want the potatoes to turn to mush, that's as long as I cooked it.

It turned out really well, and was nice and spicy. The only thought going through my head as I ate (besides "Mmmmmmm...."), was "I should have made more".

Getting Silly At Czehoski

2008-08-05T07:00:00.013-05:00

You, I'm sure, have been waiting with baited breath to hear about my outing to Czehoski last month. And, I'm also sure, you are anxiously awaiting the promised photographs of said meal. Well, here it is and here they are.

Neither Darlene nor I had been to Czehoski before, so despite seeing the pictures on the website were unsure as to what to expect. When we arrived, we were seated at a booth just beside the kitchen. This is not as bad as it sounds, as Czehoski has an open kitchen setup, and we got to watch the four kitchen staff going full-tilt boogie for the hour or so we were there. It was really kind of neat.

We both started off with a beer. For me this goes without saying, but Dar doesn't drink much beer so it was something a little different for her. I would like to tell you what kind of beer I drank, I really would. However, I can't remember except for the fact that it was Austrian, it was tasty, and I'd never tried it before. Darlene had a strawberry-flavoured number that wasn't bad at all.

The first challenge of the evening came when we realized that the menu they placed in front of us bore very little resemblance to the menu we had scouted on the Summerlicious website, or in fact, the menu posted on the Czehoski website.

This meant of course, no Satan On Horseback (salted pork belly wrapped in double smoked bacon) for me. Instead for an appetizer, I went for the Poutine with Bacon Gravy.

For those of you not familiar with this gem of French-Canadian cuisine, it is french fries with cheese curds and brown gravy. Normally it would be chicken gravy, but they had to be evil and serve it with bacon gravy. Oh my god was it good. It was a large partion, too.

Darlene ordered the Mission Figs stuffed with chutney and wrapped in double smoked bacon. Do you sense a theme here? We were a little put out when it arrived, because they really should have said Mission FIG with chutney, etc etc. There was only one of them, but it was one of the largest figs I've ever seen. I don't have a picture of it, because I'm a far better cook than photographer, and the picture I did take was out of focus. Oh well. The fig was delicious. I was allowed a small taste, and the bacon really complemented the fig (you are SO good looking).

For the main course I had a rough time. When going to these events, I like to stretch myself and try new things, but the two menu items that kept jumping into my face were the char-grilled burger and the flatiron steak cooked sous vide. When we asked the waitress her opinion on the matter, she said,

"Oh, try the steak for sure. It comes with a gorgonzola cream sauce that's just silly!"

Silly, eh? I'd never heard a sauce described quite that way before so, intrigued, I ordered the Flatiron Steak with gorgonzola cream sauce and mixed greens. You'll notice that in the picture at the top of the post, the steak came with frites (pronounced 'freets'). Apparently, the steak is normally served with frites, and they had changed it to mixed greens for the Summerlicious menu. However, she said that the kitchen staff was prone to serving it with frites anyway, so she would put a note on the order. Well, when the order was up, sure enough, there were frites with it, so she gave me the mixed greens as well. Not that I object to frites you understand, it's that I'd just polished off a large plate of poutine.

Darlene really had no problems with her selection, and ordered the Truffled Brie hand-made Pierogies with crème fraiche and riesling braised sauerkraut. Yeah, I thought it sounded pretty good, too.

I don't know if any of you have ever had pierogies made with brie before, but damn. They were really tasty.

OK, I have to tell you about the steak and the silly sauce.

First of all, I tried the steak by itself. I ordered it medium-rare, and it was the most tender steak I have ever eaten in my life. It practically melted in my mouth. I find myself saying this a lot lately, but it was a superly cooked steak. Now, normally the gorgonzola sauce would be something I would cross the street to avoid, not being a fan of stinky cheese, but since I was supposed to be stretching myself, I tried it. It wasn't bad. It was creamy and tangy and set off the steak nicely. I don't know if it was silly or not, but it was yummy.

By this point, we were both getting rather full, due to the deceptively large portions, but still had dessert to go, as it was part of the prix fixe menu. I ordered the Chocolate Terrine, and Dar ordered the Lemon Polenta Cake.

Not much to say about the terrine, except that it was very very creamy, and very very tasty. The lemon polenta cake, now that was interesting. It's exactly like it sounds - a cake made from polenta, and flavoured with lemon. Not something I've ever seen on a menu before, but I liked it. Not quite cornbread, not quite lemon loaf.

The sevice was fast and friendly, the food was excellent, and the bill came to about $100, including taxes and tip. Not bad at all.

Czehoski is located at 678 Queen St. West in Toronto. You should check it out.

Anticipation

2008-07-09T11:30:00.001-05:00

Summerlicious has come to Toronto once again, and once again the girlfriend and I will be tasting some prix fixe menus at some VERY nice restaurants around the city. Tonight we're going to Czehoski on Queen St. West.

This is a new restaurant that has opened in an old building, and they've kept the original hand-painted sign. The original Czehoski was a neighbourhood butcher shop and deli that apparently was also the site of some of the city's most notorious card and craps games.

It had been sitting empty for quite a few years, and I remember riding past it on the streetcar on my way to work and noticing the wooden sign with the large block letters - CZEHOSKI, and wondering what the place was. The new restaurant, after about two years worth of renovations and restorations, is a very hip-looking place with lots of hardwood and original brick.

The dinner menu being offered for this event is set at $35. It's really interesting, and I'm going to have a tough time making choices. Here it is:

$35 Dinner (plus taxes and gratuity)

mixed mushroom soup with truffled whipped cream
or
baby arugula and walnut vinaigrette salad
or
a cheesy tart: organic quark cheese and semi-dried tomato tart
or
smoked miso poutine
or
mission figs stuffed with chutney and wrapped in double smoked bacon
or
satan on horseback: salted pork belly wrapped in double smoked bacon

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
chargrilled burger of naturally raised beef, cheddar and our own milk-bread buns
or
quinoa, white bean and chickpea veggie cheese burger
or
smoked ricotta gnuddi and squash gnocchi with marjoram
or
banger and mash
or
truffled brie hand-made pierogies with crème fraiche and riesling braised sauerkraut
or
roasted black cod with bouillabaise, chickpea frites and shredded fennel
or
black rice risotto with artichokes raw and cooked, and an onsen egg
or
cumbrae farms flatiron cooked sous vide with lemon-dressed roquet
or
roasted little chicken with lemon-thyme spaetzle and vervaine and pepper jus

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
praline crème caramel
or
michel cluizel chocolate semifreddo
or
lemon white chocolate parfait

It's a hell of a selection, and possibly the largest variety I've seen for any of the over 130 restaurants participating this summer. I particularly like the look of the 'Satan on Horseback' appetizer selection. A restaurant after my own heart.

I'll post a recap tomorrow, and I might just take some pictures this time.

Yet Another Use For Bacon

2008-06-23T10:15:00.002-05:00

Here's a quick snack idea using simple ingredients.

I never get tired of finding new ways to incorporate bacon into the food I cook. I think I may have mentioned this fact before once or twice, but I've always been told to write about what I know and I KNOW that I love bacon.

My new favourite "toy", as it were, in the kitchen is Pillsbury Crescent rolls. I've found that pretty much anything tastes better wrapped in flaky pastry.

I cooked up and crumbled a bunch of bacon, shredded some imitation crab legs and some havarti cheese, along with some salt, pepper and garlic powder. Then, I just mixed it all together and spooned some of the mixture into each piece of pastry and folded them into little packages. If you can't find the imitation crab meat (or the real stuff, if that's the way you roll), then cocktail shrimp would work just as well. In fact, it doesn't really matter what goes in them as long as the mixture isn't too wet, and the edges are sealed with maybe a little air-hole so your yummy snacks don't turn into little grenades in the oven. Trust me on this one.

Baked them according to the package instructions (or until they looked golden brown on top), et voilà! - snacks. I used some nice grainy mustard as a dip, and had them with a bottle of beer.

Pesto Is The Best-O

2008-04-15T11:30:00.001-05:00

For the last few years, one of the birthday presents I've received from my parents has been cooking classes at the Culinary Arts School of Ontario. Though these classes are exactly that, one day (well, three hour) classes, the amount that I've learned has been very helpful in my day-to-day cooking exploits. Knowing something as simple as the proper way to chop vegetables has both sped up my food prep time, and reduced (but not completely eliminated - that's another story) the number of nicks and cuts I inflict on myself with my brand-new, very sharp 7" Santoku knife I got for Christmas from my girlfriend. It's very nice. But I digress.

The last class I took was entitled 'Classic and Contemporary Sauces', and oh my god, did I ever end up with some good food at the end of that class. The chef gave us a choice at the beginning of the class; he said,

"You will get to take home a little bit of everything we make today, so we can do this two ways: either you guys can make the sauces yourselves, in which case we'll get about six done, OR you can watch me make sauces and help out, and we'll get about twelve done."

We took Option B.

Yes, I know, it's supposed to be a cooking class where we're the ones doing the cooking, but we all (10 of us) acted as sous-chefs and were more involved than we thought we were going to be. The sauces we ended up with included (but were not limited to) Hollandaise, Alfredo, Chocolate Ganache (oh yes), Three-Pepper Veal Reduction, and Pesto.

Ah, pesto. It's simple, really. All you need is fresh basil, salt, good olive oil, garlic, pine nuts and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Then blend everything until smooth. How can you go wrong with a list of ingredients like that?

We got right into it, and ended up making a vat of pesto. Seriously, it was a vat. Everyone in the class went home with a huge plastic tub of pesto under their arm, including myself. As far as I'm concerned, pesto goes with everything. At least, I used it with everything. Mmmmmm... pesto...

A few days after the class, I stopped in at the Grocery Palace on my way home from work, and they had some really nice-looking artisanal pizza bread for sale in the bakery section. I immediately thought "Pesto Pizza!", and went about finding the rest of the ingredients that I thought would go well with the pesto sauce.

I settled on the following:

thick layer of Pesto Sauce
Chicken legs, baked and shredded
red onion, roughly chopped
green olives with pimento, sliced
more garlic cloves
mozzerella cheese, shredded
mediterranean cheddar with olives and sundried tomatoes, roughly torn
fresh black pepper

I baked it at 400F for about ten minutes, until the cheese was bubbly and slightly browned. Served with a nice bottle of white wine, that was a great meal.

There's Nothing Like A Free Lunch

2008-02-21T15:45:00.002-05:00

I was treated to lunch today. The department I work in hosts a team lunch every month or so, and this time around we went to Akasaka restaurant for some Teppanyaki.

Although I quite enjoy Japanese cuisine in general, and sushi in particular, I had never before experienced a Teppanyaki meal. The concept is simple: as Wikipedia will tell you, the word "teppanyaki" is derived from teppan, which means "iron plate", and yaki, which means "grilled". That's exactly what happened. Everyone sat at a counter around two large metal griddles, and they cooked the food in front of us. Very cool to watch.

The lunch menu was pretty reasonably priced (although that wasn't a concern today, huzzah huzzah). The dinner menu, however, gets a little pricey when you start including items such as Angus beef, Filet Mignon, or King Crab legs. Mmmmmm.... King Crab legs....

There was a choice of ten set lunch specials (check 'em out here), or you could be brave and order à la carte. Each special starts off with miso soup, a green salad, and the daily maki, which they happily upgraded to California Rolls upon request, and rice and grilled vegetables are included with the meal.

I went for Special H, which is Beef Sirloin Steak, Shrimp and Salmon. Yummy. The salmon took no time at all on the smoking-hot cooking surface, and was a little crispy on the outside while still being perfectly cooked in the middle. The addition of salt and pepper, and some oil (which the chef ignited producing a ball of flame and a suitably impressed 'ooooohhhh' from the crowd) produced a nice flavor and texture.

The shrimp were really good. Again, they took a very short time to cook, and within minutes were on my plate. They disappeared rather quickly.

The sirloin was fantastic. The chef put the steaks on after asking everyone how they wanted them cooked (mine was medium-rare), and then proceeded to remove most of the fat and gristle before cooking it further. I have to admit, my first thought was "Dude! You're cutting off the best parts!", though I didn't say that as, well, he had a really big knife in his hand. I needn't have worried, as the result was a small pile of sirloin nuggets that were some of the tastiest pieces of meat I have ever eaten. Along with some soy sauce and a little wasabi (loooove the wasabi), I was a happy camper.

The meal finished off with a nice pile of julienned vegetables (bean sprouts, carrot, zucchini, red bell pepper) that had been cooked with some garlic and oil, and for dessert there was ice cream.

The choices for the ice cream were: ginger, chocolate, vanilla or green tea. Feeling as if I'd been adventurous enough for one day, I went with the chocolate. It's always a solid choice in my opinion.

Now, a word about the picture at the top of the post. This is taken from the Akasaka website, and is a picture of their Beef Roll. This was a very cool thing to watch being assembled, as it took less time than the shrimp to cook. The chef took a thin slice of the beef, placed it on the grill, immediately flipped it over, placed a small pile of roasted garlic, green onions and some other stuff on top, rolled it up, sliced it with the spatula, and placed it on a plate. Seriously, it was that quick. My co-worker who was sitting beside me ordered it, and I heard him say "oh, here comes the beef roll". I looked up to see the chef place the meat on the grill, looked down to take a bite of salmon, then looked up again, and it was on his plate and he was eating it. Neat.

This place is definitely worth a second look, as the lunch specials run from $8-$16, which includes everything. I walked out of there feeling full, but not overly so, as has happened in the past when the gang goes out for Dim Sum. So tasty, yet so easy to eat waaaay too much.

Now it's time for a nap. Unfortunately, they frown on that at my office (who knew?), so here I am bravely soldiering through the rest of the day with a double espresso sitting beside me.

Winterlicious 2008 - Truffles Restaurant

2008-02-04T11:53:00.001-05:00

Every winter the city of Toronto holds an event called Winterlicious, which presents the average person the opportunity to dine at some very fine establishments on the cheap. Over a hundred restaurants in the Toronto area present prix fixe menus, so someone like myself can actually afford to dine at a high-class joint (heh) such as Truffles Restaurant at the Four Seasons Hotel. This place has earned the CAA/AAA Five Diamond award for the fourteenth consecutive year. Nice.

Oh, yes. For the princely sum of $35 apiece plus wine (plus taxes and gratuity), my girlfriend and I sampled some VERY fine food.

The set menu is as follows:

Butternut Squash Veloute
w/ Spiced Apple Relish, Bacon Chantilly
OR
Warm Dates Stuffed with Goat Cheese
w/ Bitter Greens, Pistachios, Blood Orange Vinaigrette
~~~~~~~~~

Organic Carrot & Chestnut Cannelloni
w/ Parmesan Snow, Watercress Emulsion
OR
Pan Seared Atlantic Salmon
w/ Green Lentils, Golden Beets, Mustard Vinaigrette
OR
Beef Bourguignon
w/ Truffle Pomme Puree, Red Wine Jus
~~~~~~~~~

Baileys Crème Caramel
w/ Bruleed Bananas, Vanilla Espresso Caramel
OR
Warm Molten Chocolate and Raspberry Cake
w/ Cashew Nut Ice Cream

I had the Veloute, the Salmon, and the Crème Caramel. My lovely companion had the Dates, the Cannelloni, and the Crème Caramel as well. The waiter commented that not many of the Winterlicious guests had not chosen the chocolate. Hey, what can I say, we know what we like.

Quite simply put, the Butternut Squash Veloute is the best soup I have ever eaten. Full stop. It was smooth and creamy with small chunks of apple, hints of cinnamon, and topped with a dollop of cream and a perfectly cooked slice of bacon. And you know how much I like my bacon.

I took a chance with the entree, as I don't normally go in for either salmon or beets, but I thought "What the hell, you only live once". I'm glad I did, because it was absolutely delicious. There was a thick slice of golden beet with a mound of lentils, and the pan-seared piece of salmon on top. My god it was good. I'm even re-thinking my previous stance on beets, and how I don't really like them that much. I guess it's all in the preparation.

I'd been looking forward to the Crème Caramel ever since I first saw it on the menu on the website. Crème Caramel is (along with Crème Brûlée) my favourite dessert, and I was hoping for something magical. It was OK. It was perfectly prepared, with the brûléed bananas and the caramel sauce, and was very tasty, but I guess I'd been building it up in my head to be something mind-blowing, and it was only great. It seems weird to say "only" great, but that's how it felt.

Unaccustomed as I am to fine dining, the service was pleasantly impeccable. I guess the staff was motivated to get us in and out, but our reservation was for 9:00pm, and we were in the car by 10:05. It was nice, actually. As soon as we were finished one course, the server was there to clear the dishes, and to present us with the next one.

You may notice that there are no pictures with this post. I couldn't quite summon the nerve to take a camera with me to the restauarant. There were others taking pictures while we were there, and it didn't seem to be an issue, but I was just as happy to simply enjoy the meal without worrying about that, too.

Including the very nice glasses of Chardonnay (me) and Merlot (her), and my four-dollar cup of coffee (!), dinner was $120 with taxes and tip. Not bad at all.

Winterlicious 2008 runs from January 25 - February 7.

A Little Golf And A Lot Of Meat

2007-11-13T12:30:00.002-05:00

For the last five years, three of my friends and I have spent a weekend at my parents' cottage in the late summer. Ostensibly this weekend is a golf weekend, and we do actually play golf, but it's mostly an opportunity to hang out, relax, and eat LOTS OF MEAT.

The four of us all know how to cook to some degree or another, but with Rob in charge of buying the meat, and because he gets it at the St. Lawrence Market, we always end up with a bit of an extravaganza on our hands.

Here is an exerpt from the e-mail thread going back and forth the day we left.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hello all,

Our meat is procured. The total bill came to $192 for:
1. 2 4lb chickens and 1 slab of bacon ($31)
2. 1 lb smoked wild salmon ($24)
3. tub of cream cheese ($7)
4. wedge of apple smoked cheddar ($6)
5. 4 1lb USDA Prime Delmonico steaks ($85)
6. 100 pepperettes ($34)
7. dozen bagels ($5)

We shall eat like kings -- bloated, constipated kings.

Rob
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Keep in mind, this food is for two days (Friday evening to Sunday afternoon). Oh, Mylanta...

Over the last couple of years, we have streamlined the meals somewhat. We found that cooking a full fry-up breakfast in the morning, though tasty, took up too much time when we had to make an 8:00am (or 7:30am, DAVE...) tee-off. In addition, we would drive everyone in the surrounding cottages crazy with the smells of bacon and coffee at 7am. Mmmmm.... bacon and coffee... So, with an eye for speed, breakfasts are now bagels, cream cheese and smoked salmon. Oh, and the requisite Breakfast Caesar. Gotta have your vitamins.

Lunches are mostly easy meals that can be cooked on the grill. Fire GOOOOOOD. This past year, I made up some of my Stuffed Mozza Burgers, which we ate with relish. Among other things. Ah, I kill me. These lunches are a very laid-back process. As we have just finished playing a round of golf, and as we are all in our 30s (though Dave won't be for next year's trip, heh), and most importantly, since we are ON VACATION, a little bit of sitting around doing absolutely nothing is a welcome part of the day.

Then there's the snacks.

Did I mention the snacks? The core snacking ingredient of every one of our golf weekends are pepperettes from the St. Lawrence Market. We got a hundred of them. No, really, one hundred. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, pepperettes are small, dry, pepperoni sausages that come mild or hot. We normally get fifty of each. For some reason, they just seem to go really well with beer. In addition to the meat snacks, there's the Hickory Sticks, the Clodhoppers, and other random goodies.
Dinners are the main culinary focus of the weekend. Saturday dinner is normally more of a production than Friday's, as we all drive up after work on Friday, and we're still getting settled in.

This year, Rob outdid himself with the meat purchasing. Upon his arrival, he presented us with four, 16 oz., USDA Prime steaks. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. We grilled those bad boys up, cooked a huge pot of mashed garlic potatoes (half of a 7 lb. bag) with chunks of crispy bacon in it and did up a big pile of vegetables in tinfoil right on the grill. Nice. That was without question the best steak I have ever eaten. There are no pictures of the steak dinner, because as soon as they came off the BBQ, we inhaled them. It wasn't pretty.
The pictures you see are Saturday's dinner - Beer Can Chicken. This was Rob's brainchild, so I guess he gets the credit, seeing as he bought the meat, prepared the meat, and cooked the meat, while almost burning himself several times. The Food Network's version of the recipe for this can be found here, though it's really not that difficult.

Take a whole (not too big) chicken, remove the giblets, pat the outside dry. Rub the chicken with a little oil, then rub the chicken inside and out with your favourite dry spice rub. Then take a can of beer, empty out about half of the beer(I find the best way to do this is drink it :-{>), then set the bird down on top of the can. Cook on the grill , or in the oven at 190C (375F) until the juice runs clear when stabbed with a sharp knife (about 1 - 1 1/4 hours).

We cooked two 4-lb chickens in the oven, as the BBQ wasn't big enough. The tricky part in all of this was to move the birds around in the oven without knocking them off of their precarious beer can perches (please refer to picture #2). Rob eventually had to wrap the oven mitts in aluminum foil so that he could actually handle the birds without knocking off any of the spice rub. Ingenious, really.
The menu for Saturday dinner looked like this:

Beer Can Chicken
Grilled Mixed Vegetables in tinfoil (onion, green onion, red and orange bell pepper, radishes, garlic cloves, butter, salt, pepper, ground chipotle pepper)
Sauteed Mushrooms
Roasted Asparagus
Mashed Garlic Potatoes with Crispy Bacon

What a weekend. All I could think about on the way home was, "I think I'll have a salad".

Mmmmm... Brownies

2007-09-10T13:30:00.000-05:00

OK, so I've been away for a while. Partly due to a crazy summer schedule, and of course, partly due to apathy, but I'm back now. No, really.
Although I didn't get too ambitious in the kitchen over the summer, one of my few culinary exploits concerned chocolate. And cheesecake. And more chocolate.

The recipe is a result of the World Nutella Day event I participated in back in February, and is courtesy of Mary at AlpineBerry. It can be found here.

The family summer party/picnic/softball game was once again held at my parents cottage, and of course, I was expected to contribute something tasty to dinner. It's always a challenge for me to come up with something interesting (and different from past years' contributions), and that will survive the hour-and-a-half drive north.

In the past, I have made some spicy samosas or other similar appetizers, but this year I thought that I would make a dessert. Enter the brownies.

These are not only brownies, they are CHEESECAKE brownies. And they're not only cheesecake brownies, they're NUTELLA cheesecake brownies. The bottom half is a nice chocolatey brownie mixture, which includes a few healthy dollops of Nutella. Mmmmm... Nutella... The top layer is a chocolate cheesecake concoction, which also contains - you guessed it - a few healthy dollops of Nutella. Then, as if that wasn't enough, I topped the incredibly decadent, and really quite evil, brownies with some shaved white chocolate.

The only problem with making two pans of evil cheesecake brownies, is that after bringing one of the pans to the cottage party, I was still left with a whole pan for myself.

Now, I can hear you saying, "but Ian, how can that possibly be a problem?" While I realize that most of you would welcome this kind of 'problem', I've been on kind of a weight-loss kick just lately. I've found that eating a whole pan of brownies by oneself (while immensely satisfying), is really not conducive to actually LOSING weight. Lots of extra sit-ups were required. Now... I say 'required', but not really 'performed'. There's a hitch in that plan somewhere... hmmmm...

So, as I mentioned before, the summer was a bit slow for me cooking-wise, but I'm back at it and will try to post more often than once a month. Cheers!

A Walk In The Woods

2007-06-19T09:30:00.000-05:00

Once again, it all came down to momentum. Most of my really good walks take place after I get off the streetcar on my way home from work, and this time was no different.I just felt like walking. I had no plan, no destination picked out, so because I was facing east when I got off the streetcar, that was the way I went. I walked along Queen St. until I got to Glen Manor Drive. One of the best things about Glen Manor, besides being in a fairly swanky neighbourhood, is that there is a series of parks and nature trails leading from Queen St. all the way north to Kingston Rd. This is where I headed.As I walked up the path, I was struck by how quiet is was. Here I was, not a hundred feet from the bustle of Queen St., and all I could hear were birds and the barking of a few dogs.Having passed through the first little park, I crossed Glen Manor Drive, and walked up into the second park, which among other things is apparently a very popular dog park, as there were several people out with their canine companions running around (the dogs that is) and enjoying the late afternoon sun. Halfway up is my favourite feature of this particular park - the wooden foot bridge. There is really nothing special about this bridge, but as a child I remember thinking that it was so cool to see something like this smack in the middle of an otherwise bustling urban neighbourhood. Of course, I didn't phrase it in my mind quite like that at the time. It was more like, "Cool... a wooden bridge...".On through park number two, and I arrived at the most interesting part of this trek; the nature trail. This is less of a park, and more of a path through a wooded ravine. When I was in high school, this was a popular spot to come to hang out, or have a smoke, or whatever, with a fair expectation of privacy. I was happy to see that there was a small brook running beside the path, and it actually looked clean and didn't have any crap floating in it. Always a bonus.It had been years since I'd walked through here, and once again I was struck by the sense of stillness and apart-ness from the surrounding city. I could just see the tops of the houses through the trees at the top of each side of the ravine, yet could not hear any street noise.Occasionally, I would pass someone walking their dog, or who was just out for a walk, and we'd nod or say "hi" as we passed, but for the most part, I was alone in the woods. That sounds a lot scarier than I meant it, considering that it was 6:30pm, and still essentially broad daylight. As I crossed the foot bridge, I saw what I can only describe as a gnarly tree. "That tree is totally gnarly" I thought, and so I had to get a picture of it.On my way up and out of the ravine, I stopped to turn around and look back at the path. I stood there at the top of the stairs, and just enjoyed the view. I find it amazing that there are still places like this in the city, when sometimes it seems that undeveloped natural land in the city of Toronto is becoming a thing of the past.

Aaarghhh - And I Mean That.

2007-05-20T22:15:00.000-05:00

It's now 9:45pm on Sunday of a long weekend, and I'm in the office. I've been here since 9:00am, and I'm starting to feel a little crispy around the edges. My department has been working on a hyper-important yet still very silly project all weekend, and now I've had enough.

I'm tired, I ate WAY too much catered food, and I'm tempted to find a quiet corner in the nice air-conditioned computer room and catch a few ZZZZs.

They tell us that we'll out of here before midnight, but I really don't think THAT's gonna happen...

Despite the witty name of this Blogsite, I'm trying my best NOT to gallumph around the office like a grumpy grizzly bear that's been woken up from hibernation two months early. Ahhh... hibernation...

Speaking of the catered food, we got a bunch of potstickers and salad and submarine sandwiches and stuff for lunch. All very tasty, but the problem was that we didn't get lunch until about 1:30pm, and then dinner arrived (lots and lots and lots and lots of pizza) at about 5:30pm. It felt like I was eating solidly for about five hours straight. Did you know that you can get broccoli on a pizza? I mean, I knew that, but had never actually seen it. It just looks wrong somehow.

Oh, great. Now I'm babbling.

I don't think I'll have to come in tomorrow (holiday Monday), but again, at this point in the evening all bets are off. Thank god for taxi chits - at least my ride home is taken care of.

Whenever that may be.

Gadgets & Toys Part I - Salad Dressing Cruet

2007-05-09T08:30:00.000-05:00

At a miniscule 25¢, this is definitely one of the better bargains I have ever got from a yard sale.

Over the last year, I have been making a concerted effort to both drop some weight and to cut down on my spending. One of the easiest ways I found to do both of these things was to stop buying commercially produced salad dressing. Even the ones that claim to be 'Low Fat' or 'Calorie-Wise', still seemed to have quite a lot of fat and calories. I think I've said this before, but it's worth repeating - nothing ruins the good intentions of a nice green salad like a splat of creamy high-cal dressing.

Since I got the sweet baby pictured above, I have been making my own balsamic dressing. It's really easy. I know, I know, it's possible to make dressing without a Good Seasons salad dressing beaker, but I know I never did. It's foolproof. Well, as much as anything's foolproof. The lines on the side indicate where to fill each ingredient to, then you shake to mix it up. Um, after firmly snapping the lid on. Don't ask.

My favourite combination so far has been extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, water, a splootch of honey-dijon mustard and some fresh-ground pepper.

Ready, Set, Cook! #34: Feeling A Little Chicken

2007-05-07T23:00:00.000-05:00

...or maybe I was just feeling a little flaky.

The feature ingredients in this month's edition of Ready, Set, Cook! hosted by Anne at Cooking With Anne are:

* Chicken Breasts
* Onions
* Sour Cream

The rules for the event can be found here.

I approached this challenge a little diiferently from past editions, in that I didn't create the recipe before going to the grocery store for the ingredients. I decided to go to the grocery store, and just wait for something to catch my attention.

I was actually out for a walk after getting off the streetcar on my way home from work, and as I passed the ValuMart on Queen St. East, I remembered about the event, and that posts were due by Tuesday (which is tomorrow, as I write this).

As I wandered through the produce department, I decided that I wanted to incorporate puff pastry or something similar into the recipe. So after grabbing some nice-looking produce (mushrooms, onions, new potatoes), I was heading towards the meat department to find some chicken, when I noticed that they had Montreal Smoked Meat on special in the deli department. Smoked Meat is one of my favourite foods, though I don't eat it that much. It's the moderately fatty meat in addition to the spices that makes it good, you see. I made an exception this time, as it is second only to bacon on my Favourite Foods list. It's a large list, and the thing is that because of this blog it just keeps getting larger. The challenge is making sure my waistline doesn't.

So, the Smoked Meat was in, and I found some nice chicken breasts to go with it. Along with the onions and the sour cream that are the other theme ingredients, I decided to add mushrooms and some chopped cubanelle pepper. Not to mention the chili sauce that I seem to be using in everything I cook lately.

Despite making an entire chicken casserole, I decided not to bake all six shells as I would just have to eat them, and it's easier to store leftover casserole than it is to store leftover pastry.

These are some tasty sandwiches, or pastries, or whatever, but my point is THEY TASTE GOOD. I highly recommend them. Here's the recipe that I used:

Flaky-Bakey Chicken Sammies
Makes lots

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut up into bite-sized pieces
100g (4oz) Montreal Smoked Meat, chopped up
2 medium onions, chopped
3 large white mushrooms, sliced
3 tbsp light sour cream
juice & zest of one lime
2 tbsp honey mustard
1 good-sized splootch sriracha chili sauce (or any hot chili sauce)
salt & pepper
1/4 C water
3 frozen patty shells

450g (1 lb) small whole new potatoes - I had about eight of them
2 green onions, chopped
light sour cream
salt & pepper

Preheat the oven to 400F.
Place the frozen patty shells on a baking tray, and bake for 18-20 minutes.
Remove from oven. With a fork, cut out removable tops and save to use as lids, and let cool on a rack.

Reduce oven heat to 375F.
Place the rest of the first group of ingredients into a medium-sized casserole dish, and gently mix to combine.
Bake at 375F for about 60 minutes.

While the chicken is cooking, place the potatoes into a medium-sized saucepan and just cover the potatoes with water. Cover and bring to a boil, then reduce heat and tip the lid. Cook over medium heat for about 15 minutes or until potatoes are cooked through and soft.

When chicken casserole is ready, spoon a healthy amount into each shell, and place lid on top. Cut an 'X' into the top of each potato and pinch the sides slightly. Top potatoes with a small dollop of sour cream and chopped green onions.

Blog Party #21: Currying Favour - or - Hold On, I'm Cumin

2007-04-18T13:00:00.000-05:00

Bite-sized beauties and Turtle Punch, too!
When I saw the post announcing this Blog Party event, I was excited because this gave me a chance to try out a couple of things I'd been considering lately. Namely, Chicken Wings and specifically, some spicy spicy sauce I've been working on. Plus, it gave me an excuse to mess around with my standard potato salad recipe that was becoming a bit tired. The theme of this month's event is: Picnic Food!

I was originally planning to make a bunch of different stuff for this event, but due to time and budget constraints, I settled on two dishes and one cocktail. Nothing says 'Picnic Food' to me like potato salad and cold chicken, so I made Spicy Chicken Drumettes and Devilled Potato Salad with Turtle Punch (it's much like Rabbit Punch, but not quite as fast :-{>).

You would think that it would be easy to find raw chicken wings at any grocery store, but NOOOOOO.... I had to go to three different places before I found a single tray of about a dozen chicken drumettes. Of course, it was the Grocery Palace, where I should have gone in the first place. Oh, well. Maybe it was the fact that it was a Sunday night and the meat counters were all half-empty. Or maybe.... maybe it was an evil conspiracy to prevent me from cooking tasty food for this event. Or maybe I've just been drinking too much Turtle Punch.

Over the last little while I have developed a taste for cumin, and have been putting it in pretty much everything I cook. For the wings, I wanted to make a really good coating, so I decided to make a masala from cumin seeds, coriander seeds, black peppercorns, asafoetida and kosher salt. Here's how I did it:

Killer Curry Masala

1 tbsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp coriander seeds
1 tsp asafoetida powder
1/2 tsp black peppercorns
1/4 tsp kosher salt

In a dry skillet, over high heat, dry-roast all ingredients for 30 seconds to a minute until the coriander seeds start to darken, and the cumin seeds start to pop. You will really be able to smell the fantastic aroma.
Remove from skillet and whiz to a powder in a spice grinder.

*NOTE: Dry-roasting the spices is very important. You COULD just mix everything together and grind them up, but you wouldn't get the same depth of flavour, or great aroma.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

OK, back to the chicken.

To make these drumettes easier to handle, I cut off the knobby end of the bone and pressed the rest of the meat down, leaving a ball of chicken meat with the bone sticking out. Then, flour, egg wash, then tossed in the masala and breadcrumbs and baked in the oven at 400F for about 45 minutes. They may look blackened, but the meat was still moist, and the coating was nice and crispy (and darn tasty).

Ah, potatoes. I love potatoes. I could eat potatoes at every meal. For this meal, I wanted to combine two of my favourite party/picnic foods: potato salad and devilled eggs. I started off by hard-boiling some eggs, and boiling and mashing a medium-sized Yukon Gold potato. While the eggs were cooling, I fried up a couple of pieces of crispy peppered bacon, cut them into square pieces and set them aside. To the potatoes, I added some fearsome sriracha chili sauce (ah yeah, that's good lovin'), then some of the masala, a chopped green onion, some grainy mustard, a little mayo, a little butter, some crushed garlic, and a splash of Worchestershire Sauce. Mix until smoooooth. I peeled the hard-boiled eggs, and cut them in half. I removed the yolks and added them to the potato mixture, and roughly mixed them in.

So. The egg halves made a perfect little serving vessel for the mashed potato salad, and with a piece of bacon added in, and a slice of cocktail olive to top it all off, there you have Devilled Potato Salad.

What's that? The punch? I haven't explained the punch, you say? Alright, alright, I'm getting to it.

I find it more difficult to invent cocktails than food recipes. I don't know why. Maybe it's the fact that while I was in university, I would concoct various libations that only I seemed to find tasty. I mean, really. Homemade red wine mixed with Diet Pepsi should work, shouldn't it? It certainly worked for me at New Year's Eve 1989.... people tell me. But I digress. Here's the formula.
Turtle Punch
Makes one pitcher of punch

1 pot of tea, cooled (I think it's Orange Pekoe)
2 C citrus drink
2 C peach drink
2 C rye whiskey
1 C sherry (I ran out of rye)
1/2 C sugar (trust me on this one)

Stir to combine, and chill in fridge.
Serve in frosty glass, and top with chunks of Turtles ice cream bar on a toothpick.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A big thank you to Stephanie at Dispensing Happiness for doing such a great job organizing this event.

Best Of Blogs 2006 - I'm a finalist!

2007-03-30T14:30:00.000-05:00

Hey Kids!

Just found out that The Gallumphing Gourmand is one of eight finalists at the 2006 Best of Blogs Awards in the Best Food, Wine and Cooking Blog category. How cool is that? Click the link above to place your vote (it would be cool if you would vote for me, hint hint) until midnight Friday April 13, 2007.

Thank you to everyone who enjoys my blog, it's been fun to do.

Here are links to some of the posts I had the most fun with from the past year:

Large Chef At Home - March 14, 2006

Weekend Cookbook Challenge #4: Easter Brunch - April 12, 2006

Food Fit For A King - June 14, 2006

Ready, Set, Cook #20: Bite-Sized Bacon Bundles - Booya! - October 30, 2006

World Nutella Day 2007 - Nutella Sugar Stars - January 31, 2007

Large Salads and Small Pork Chops

2007-03-20T12:00:00.000-05:00

In an effort to both eat healthier and to save some cash, I have been making a concerted effort lately to bring my lunch to work with me every day.Also, because I have better things to think about in the morning, and because my brain is still in low gear until my first coffee of the day, I tend to make the same thing pretty much every morning - a big salad and a little pork chop.

I decided recently that I should really get on this whole 'losing weight' thing, and a friend suggested that a good way to do that would be to go vegetarian. Now, I don't have anything against vegetarians or vegetarianism, it's just not a choice that I would make for myself. To be honest, I like meat way too much to do that. To even consider living without steaks or chops or burgers, the mind boggles. Not to mention bacon. Ahhh, bacon. But I'm getting a little off-track here.

As a child of the '70s and '80s, the phrase "You may not" is not one of my favourites. My instinctive response is "Don't tell me what to do", and then nothing gets done. However, I've had to rethink my whole decision-making process as it applies to menu creation, and cooking healthy meals. I've found that if I take "You may not" and change it to "I don't want to", things tend to work a bit better. I could spout some inspirational rhetoric right now, but I just find that if I truly want to do something (or not do something), then I can make it happen.

So, although the veggie route is not one I will be taking, I have been making a concerted effort to increase my vegetable intake at every meal, to make sure that I eat my leafy greens, and also to reduce the amount of meat eaten in a day. All it takes to do this, is a little preparation when I get home from the grocery store.

If I buy a large package of ground beef, then before it goes into the freezer I divide the meat up into three- or four-ounce portions. With chicken legs and pork chops, I wrap them all individually. My old system, which was to cook a bunch of food and then "save some for later", never really worked that well. It used to be "OK, I guess I'll thaw the entire pound of ground beef, because I don't feel like trying to saw through it when it's frozen." Then of course, I would just end up eating the whole thing. Not good.

Since I started this blog over a year ago now, and since I've taken a more active interest in cooking, I've found that several things I used to buy pre-made are really easy (and cheaper) to make myself. Take salad dressing. Nothing ruins the good intentions of a nice green leafy salad like some creamy, high-cal dressing. All you need is oil, balsamic vinegar and water, and you've got salad dressing. Oh yes, and a funky vintage Good Seasons salad dressing cruet with measuring lines on the side. Heh. Found it at a yard sale for a quarter. I use it all the time, it's one of my favourite kitchen gadgets. I just add the vinegar to the line, add the water to the next line, then fill with oil. Add a little fresh ground pepper, and a small splootch of honey-dijon mustard, et viola! A tasty balsamic vinaigrette.

The salad is assembled as follows:

Gallumphing Gourmand's Tasty Lunchbox Salad
serves 1

* Red leaf lettuce
* one plum tomato, chopped
* two green onions, chopped
* two radishes, chopped
* 1/4 green pepper, chopped
* three or four medium mushrooms, chopped
* small squirt of balsamic vinaigrette
* one small grilled pork chop, sliced

It's taken some adjustment to go from standard food court grub like rice-and-two-items combos or large pastrami sandwiches to eating the salad every day. But I find that after a few weeks of doing this, I've gotten used to it. And now that I've started to incorporate actual exercise into my daily routine, I'm starting to feel the results, if not actually see them yet. I look forward to the salad, because it makes me feel good.

WCC #14: A Salad By Any Other Name...

2007-03-05T23:00:00.000-05:00

...would still taste like salad. Unless, of course, you use gelatin to make that particular salad. For this edition of Weekend Cookbook Challenge, I decided to take a bit of a retro approach to the Salad theme.

I dug out my vintage Better Homes & Gardens cookbooks (Copyright 1963), and selected the volume entitled Lunches and Brunches. The clever subtitle is "Luscious lunches, best brunches". Whoever thought that one up MUST have been getting paid the big bucks.

This entry is based on the 'Make-ahead Luncheon' found on Page 13 of Lunches and Brunches. I say 'based on', because I didn't make the entire menu suggested for this luncheon. What I did make was:

Chilled Tomato Juice
Ham & Swiss Roll-ups
Devilled Eggs
and the pièce de résistance:
Confetti Relish Mold

Sounds so good, you can almost taste it, hmmmmm?

The devilled eggs are pretty self-explanatory, and the ham & swiss roll-ups are just that - a piece of cooked ham, a piece of swiss cheese, some grainy mustard, a little wasabi, and ROLL UP. The recipe calls for horseradish, but I don't have any, and wasabi is basically horseradish on crack anyway, so I used (a tiny bit of) the wasabi.

The Confetti Relish Mold was the fun part. For all you fine people who are just dying to make a gelatin-mold salad, here's the recipe as printed in the book:

Confetti Relish Mold
serves 6

2 beef bouillon cubes
1 3-oz package of lemon-flavoured gelatin
1 C boiling water
2 tbsp tarragon vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
1 C dairy sour cream
(as opposed to library sour cream, maybe?)
1/2 C chopped unpared cucumber
(I peeled it anyway)
1/2 C finely chopped green pepper
1/4 C sliced radishes
2 tbsp sliced green onions

Dissolve bouillon cubes and gelatin in boiling water. Add vinegar and salt. Chill until mixture is partially set.
Add sour cream, beat smooth. Add remaining ingredients. Pour into a 3-cup mold. Chill until mixture is firm.

OK, that was what the book said. This is what I actually did. I made a few common-sense (to my mind, anyway) substitutions. Instead of boiling water and bouillon cubes, I just used Campbell's Beef Broth, and instead of tarragon vinegar, I used white wine vinegar with 1/2 tsp of tarragon leaves. Oh yes, instead of the dairy (!) sour cream, I used plain yogurt.After boiling the broth, dissolving the gelatin (lemon-flavoured Jell-O), and adding the vinegar and salt, I put the saucepan into the fridge for about an hour. I then added the yogurt, and used electric beaters to 'beat until smooth'. I then added the rest of the stuff, stirred to combine everything, then poured the mixture into five individual little glass bowls. I don't have a jelly mold, and since I don't plan to ever make this again, I didn't think that there was any point to buying one. Since I had several of the little suckers, I decided to experiment a little bit. I put two of them into the freezer, and the other three went into the fridge.

I really wasn't sure how long they would take to set properly, but after three hours, they seemed fine. The book provides helpful tips for turning out a jelly mold:

Loosen edges with top of knife. Place platter over mold; invert. Wring towel out of hot water; lay over mold. Lift off mold.

Whaddaya know, it worked. I don't know why the beef flavour was included, because the lemon completely overpowered it. The jelly tasted about how you'd expect: creamy lemon jello with crunchy bits in it. Surprisingly, it wasn't too bad.

A big thank you to Tami at Running With Tweezers for running this event, it's always fun to look through the old cookbooks.

Success Is A Dish Best Served With Relish

2007-03-05T09:19:00.000-05:00

Or mustard.

As a follow-up to my last post, and the deep-fryer meltdown incident, here is my second attempt at Mashed Potato Poppers.Thanks to a comment from Vicki, this time I didn't add any butter or cream to the potatoes before I deep-fried them. They turned out perfectly. Well, they turned out how I expected them to turn out, which I guess is pretty much the same thing.

The recipe is pretty simple. I'll run it down for you.

Mashed Potato Poppers

4 medium potatoes, boiled and mashed
1 tbsp red pepper flakes
1 tbsp garlic powder
(I didn't have any fresh garlic on hand or I would've use that instead)
salt and pepper
1 good-sized gloop of Worchestershire Sauce
(pardon the technical jargon)
1 small gloop of Tabasco (to taste)

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl. Form into 1-inch balls and deep-fry 6-8 at a time (depending on the size of the deep-fry unit) for about 4 minutes.
Remove from oil and place on paper towels to blot some of the oil.
Serve with mustard or whatever tickles your fancy.

I don't know about you, but my fancy is fairly ticklish, so in addition to the mustard, I tried mayo, wasabi, hot sauce, Nutella (why not), and peanut butter. All turned out to be acceptable choices, but I guess the mustard is my favourite.

Blog Party #19: Take Comfort

2007-02-16T01:26:00.001-05:00

Ahhh... Comfort Food. It's always fun to cook comfort food. It's not about nutrition (necessarily) or presentation or culinary genius, it's about making a big pile of stuff that tastes great and make you feel good. A big thank you to Stephanie at Dispensing Happiness for organizing this cool event.

The outline for this event can be found here, but the basic idea is to take your favourite comfort foods, and turn them into appetizers. This includes at least one appetizer and one cocktail.

For the purposes of this event, my favourite comfort foods are: Rice-A-Roni, mashed potatoes and hot dogs. In addition, I thought that I would whip up a cocktail that I invented (I'm pretty sure) called a Flux Capacitor. Mmmm... tasty...

Of course, the challenge was to figure out how to convert what I would normally eat out of a really big bowl into bite-sized appetizer-type finger foods. I have to admit that I agonized over this for a while before settling on a couple of ideas.
First of all, for the Rice-A-Roni, I normally add a couple of eggs to the pan when I add the water and the oh-so-tasty flavour packet, and it ends up looking like a rice frittata. So, I thought that I would just cut up the frittata and serve it on small pieces of toast with a piece of smoky bacon, and a little bit of grainy mustard. And thus, the Bacon 'n Egg Rice-A-Roni Canapé was born.

Secondly, I love hot dogs. I especially love to pack everything I can possibly think of on the top. So, I got out my package of handy-dandy bamboo skewers, and proceeded to de-construct the hotdog by skewering a combination of: green bell pepper, wiener pieces, cubes of mozzerella, sliced mushrooms, black olives and red bell peppers. Served with a dip made from grainy mustard, a little mayo, Worcestershire sauce, Louisiana Hot Sauce, some lemon juice and some freshly ground pepper. Voilà, a Weenie-Kabob!

For the third apetizer, I ran into some problems with the execution of my idea. My original thought was to make up some nice, creamy, garlicky mashed potatoes, roll them into balls, coat with breadcrumbs, and deep-fry them for a couple of minutes. This would theoretically produce crispy golden balls of tasty potato. Hmmmm.... It should have worked... but it didn't. I made up the potato balls and rolled them in breadcrumbs, but when I submerged them into the hot oil, all they did was disintegrate into a sloppy mess. Crap. So, I decided that since the potato was already fully cooked, that I would simply roll the balls in the breadcrumbs and call them done. And call them Potato Poppers. Not bad at all, especially with the (yes, you guessed it) mustard dip.
Now for the beverage portion of evening. As I mentioned before, I made a Flux Capacitor. "But Ian," I hear you say, "what is a Flux Capacitor?"

I'm glad you asked.

The name comes from one of my all-time favourite movies - Back To The Future. The drink is made with one part Ouzo to two parts Sprite. Garnish with a maraschino cherry and some lime peel, and you've got one tasty cocktail. Plus, as an added bonus, when you drop the toothpick with the cherry and lime peel into the drink, it starts to fizz up quite a bit, and the cherry bounces up and down in the glass. Very cool effect. I have two reasons why I call this drink a Flux Capacitor. First, if you drink several of them, it will really Flux you up. Plus, again directly quoting the movie, "the Flux Capacitor... which is what makes time travel possible..." By this I mean, Time Flies When You're Semi-Concious. And it even tastes good. The Ouzo tastes like licorice, and has a pretty intense flavour. But, when mixed with the Sprite, which tastes like lemon-lime, the licorice flavour still comes through, but the intensity is muted somewhat. Now, this can be viewed as either a good or a bad thing. Both for the same reason - because the cocktail goes down real easy.

I will add a link to the event round-up when it's posted on Saturday.....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

....and here it is!

After some technical difficulties, the round-up for this event can be found here. Check it out!

World Nutella Day 2007 - Nutella Sugar Stars

2007-01-31T11:30:00.000-05:00

If at first you don't succeed... try changing the recipe.My participation in this event can be chalked up to coincidence and good timing. Nutella is one of my favourite things in the world, and I have been looking for a tasty way of incorporating it into a recipe, and I finally found one.

After my first unsatisfying experience making sugar cookies back before Christmas, I wanted another crack at them, so I adjusted the recipe slightly by adding a bit more flour and reducing the cooking time from 10 minutes to 6 minutes (and didn't roll the dough quite so thin), and they turned out beautifully. Buoyed by this success, I decided to tweak the recipe further by replacing the almond extract with orange extract, and adding chocolate. Ahhh chocolate. For my first attempt I used cocoa powder, which was good, but I thought that Nutella would be an ideal addition and would add another dimension of flavour to the cookies. So I did. Unfortunately, the cocoa and Nutella completely clobbered the orange flavouring, so I left it out the next time.Not only did I add Nutella into the cookie dough, but sandwiched two cookies together using more Nutella as the filling.

And it was good. Oh my, was it good.

All of this brings me back to the fact that at that point I still didn't know about this event, and just happened to be talking to my friend Rob from Hungry in Hogtown. When I mentioned that I had just made some Nutella cookies, he said, "Oh, are they for the World Nutella Day event?" I promptly replied, "They are now!" Click the picture on the right to view the World Nutella Day website, and the event wrap-up on February 7.

What a great idea for an event. Despite knowing a few lost souls who actually dislike Nutella, and for whom I have nothing but pity, everyone I know who likes Nutella, LOVES Nutella. In my opinion it has supplanted ambrosia as the Food of The Gods. One of my favourite things in the world is a thick layer of Nutella and raspberry jam on warm whole wheat toast. Pure joy.

Chocolate Sugar Stars
makes about 8 dozen

1 C granulated sugar
1 C softened butter
1/3 C cream cheese, softened
½ tsp salt
1 tsp orange extract
½ tsp vanilla
1 egg yolk (reserve white)
2¼ C all-purpose flour
¼ C cocoa powder
1 big (OK, huge) spoonful of Nutella (about 2 tbsp)
colored decorative sugar (I used white for these ones)
more Nutella for spreading

In large bowl cream together the sugar, butter and cream cheese.
Add the salt, extracts, egg yolk, cocoa powder and Nutella; blend well.
Stir in flour until well blended. Chill dough for 2 hours.
Pre-heat oven to 350F/180C.
On lightly floured surface, roll out dough one-third at a time to 1/8-inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes with lightly floured cookie cutter (I used a star-shaped one). Place 1 inch apart on cookie sheet covered with parchment paper. Leave cookie plain, or brush with lightly beaten egg white and sprinkle with colored sugar. Bake for about 6-7 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool completely on wire racks.
After the cookies have cooled completely, thinly (or thickly) spread some Nutella on one cookie, then cover with another, sugar sides out. Press together lightly so that the cookies adhere. Chill in the fridge in a sealed container until ready to serve.

RSC#23: Maple Pork Roast with Raisins and Dark Chocolate

2007-01-26T18:15:00.000-05:00

Pork and chocolate. Two of my favourite things, yet they are not normally used in the same recipes. For last week's Ready, Set, Cook! event, instead of the normal three feature ingredients, Anne provided a selection of five ingredients, from which the participants could choose two or three for their recipe. The five ingredients were: salmon, maple, pork, tomatoes and chocolate. As soon as I saw that, I knew that I had to try making something with both pork AND chocolate, because no-one else likely would and because I love a challenge. Now, I did a bit of searching on the internet for any recipes that used these two ingredients because I didn't want to blindly throw something together if it was just going to taste like crap. You see, from past experience, I have come to realize that there are some combinations of ingredients that just don't work. At this point I will reference my teenaged experiments with omelettes, and just what was possible to mix with eggs in a fry pan. Keep in mind here that I was around fourteen and had no finesse in the kitchen, and when I say "omelette", I mean I cracked a couple of eggs into a pan and threw some other stuff in with them. There was no whisking, or blending or even measuring (although that's not necessarily a bad thing), but I found that the combination that I hated most was eggs and chocolate. Looking back, I'm still not sure why this didn't work, but it sucked sure enough.

I wanted to avoid that this time.

I found a neat recipe for a sauce that involved red wine vinegar, sugar, raisins and dark chocolate. The best part was that this sauce was meant to be used with meat, and in this case, pork. I think that the secret to this sauce was that there really wasn't that much chocolate in it, that it wasn't a 'chocolate sauce'. It was a very nice reduction using chocolate for a flavouring rather than a base. It worked really well with the roast I cooked, and I will definitely be keeping this recipe on file.

The recipe I originally created can be found here in the wrap-up for Ready, Set, Cook #23. As normally happens, it got modified slightly when I actually attempted it. The recipe I actually used can be found below.First of all, I bought a cheap pork shoulder roast for about six bucks from the grocery store a few blocks from my house, along with some red wine vinegar and some maple syrup. I already had the raisins and the chocolate from my recent cookie-baking explosion from before Christmas. The original recipe also called for roasted pine nuts, and I went to the trouble of buying some, but when I cooked the roast, I completely forgot about them and left them out. Didn't really make much of a difference, as the pork was unbelievably tasty even so, but it irked me to have forgotten.

I cooked the meat in my handy-dandy cast-iron dutch oven (I love my dutch oven), with the veggies, the chicken broth, the wine and the maple syrup. I was expecting more of a maple-y taste from the roast, but I guess it got overpowered by the wine. As you can see from the picture above, the meat came out beautifully. It was falling off the bone, and was easily shredded with two forks. While the meat was resting (before I shredded it), I made the sauce.

I have to mention here that boiling vinegar is not one of my favourite smells. In fact, it is probably one of my least favourite food-related smells, along with boiling beer (that's a story for another day), and frying liver. My mother would always try to fool my brother and I by cooking bacon with it, but we knew, oh we knew... waitaminnit... where was I?... oh yes, the boiling vinegar. I DON'T LIKE THE SMELL.

The dark chocolate (I used chopped-up dark chocolate chips) melted nicely into the sugar-vinegar mixture, and gave it a rich taste that I really liked. The raisins also added some more depth of flavour, and a bit of texture, and of course raisins always go well with pork.

This is a good recipe, and one that I will actually consider cooking for other people. I have somewhat of an eclectic palate, and as some of my friends are not as culinarily adventurous as I am, I have to take this into consideration when I say "Try this!".

Maple Pork Roast with raisins and dark chocolate
Preparation time less than 30 mins
Cooking time over 2 hours
Serves 6

2 tbsp olive oil
1½ kg (3 lbs) pork shoulder roast
2 medium onions, sliced
3 carrots, peeled and sliced
1 C red wine
1 C chicken stock
½ C maple syrup
salt and freshly ground black pepper

¾ C red wine vinegar
¼ C sugar
2 tbsp dark chocolate, chopped
½ C raisins
enough rice for 6 people

Pre-heat oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.
Place a large saucepan, or dutch oven on high heat.
When very hot add the olive oil and brown the roast on all sides. Remove the roast from the pot and set aside.
Add the onion and stir on heat for a minute until the onion is slightly golden.
Add the roast back into the pot, then add the sliced carrot, red wine, chicken stock and maple syrup, and bring to the boil.
Season with salt and pepper, cover, and place in the pre-heated oven.
Cook for 2 – 2.5 hours, until the meat is tender and falling apart, basting every 20-30 minutes. Make sure the liquid does not completely boil away, adding some more chicken stock or wine if necessary.
While the meat is cooking, place the red wine vinegar and the sugar in a small saucepan, stir till the sugar dissolves and then boil for two minutes.
Add the chopped chocolate, stir it, add the raisins and then set aside to allow the raisins to plump up in the liquid.
When the meat is cooked, shred with two forks and add the chocolate/raisin/vinegar mixture.
Serve with rice.

WCC #13: Coconut Chicken Curry

2007-01-25T17:45:00.000-05:00

When I decided to participate in this month's Weekend Cookbook Challenge, I felt a bit daunted. The theme this time around is to cook a recipe from a recently acquired cookbook, and the one I acquired most recently is The Joy of Cooking - the 75th Anniversary Edition. Which has 4500 recipes in it. This thing is huge, and to work my way through it will take quite a while. Not that I'm complaining.I got it for Christmas from my parents, and I had been meaning to leaf through it anyway, but to choose just one recipe out of so many would take forever, so I took a shortcut. The old 'recipe lottery' approach. I closed my eyes, flipped open the book at random, and dropped a finger to the open page. Why not? My finger dropped on the recipe for "Coconut Chicken Curry" on page 431. Yum. I am a big fan of curry, but have not actually cooked many curry dishes, so this seemed an ideal choice.

This is really a pretty straightforward recipe, but of course it required a trip to the Grocery Palace for supplies, and to the Bulk Barn for a can of coconut milk, which I don't normally stock in my pantry.

One change I made to the recipe was to make my own curry powder. The recipe calls for a tablespoon of 'curry powder' but I thought instead that I would try out another new kitchen gadget acquired at Christmas (also from my parents); a really cool stone mortar and pestle. I took a tablespoon of cumin seeds and a tablespoon of coriander seeds, placed them on a baking sheet and cooked them for a few minutes at 400F until they darkened a couple of shades. Then, I removed the tray from the oven, placed the seeds into the mortar along with a teaspoon of asafoetida, and bashed it good. So aromatic, especially with the asafoetida, which smells like a combination of garlic and onion, although a bit more pungent.

Everything else was a breeze. Some of you may be thinking that this was perhaps not much of a 'challenge' for the Weekend Cookbook Challenge, but it was nice to cook something that didn't have me tearing my hair out for a change. And the payoff was that I ended up with enough tasty chicken for two more meals.

Coconut Chicken Curry
from The Joy of Cooking – 75th Anniversary Edition

2 lbs chicken thighs or breasts
salt & pepper
2 tbsp oil
1 C chopped onions
1 large carrot, peeled and sliced
½ C peas, thawed (if frozen)
2 green onions, chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded & chopped
1 tbsp fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
2-3 garlic cloves, crushed and minced (I used 4)
1½ C (or 1 can) unsweetened coconut milk
½ C golden raisins
1 tbsp curry powder
1 tsp salt

Heat oil in large skillet. Add chicken and brown on both sides. Remove from pan.
Add onions, carrot, peas, green onions, jalapeno, ginger and garlic. Cook until the vegetables are soft, about 5 minutes.
Add the coconut milk, raisins, curry powder and salt, and bring to a boil.
Add the chicken, reduce the heat, and simmer for 20 minutes for breasts, or 25 minutes for thighs, or until the sauce is thickened and the chicken is cooked.
Serve with rice.

Again With The Cookies...

2006-12-29T14:00:00.000-05:00

Christmas is over for another year. I tell you, coming back to work feels like a rest. It's not easy entertaining two nephews and niece who are all under the age of five. I love them all dearly, and love spending time with them (and my parents and my brother and sister-in-law, of course), but HOLY COW, those kids do not tire easily.

At one point on Boxing Day I was trying to sit quietly for a few minutes, and young James (who is two-and-a-half) found me, grabbed my finger and kept repeating "play Uncle Ian, play". For some strange reason, when I tried to explain to the boy that Uncle Ian was tired, and maybe he should jump on Uncle Monkey Face (don't ask, it's a long story), he just kept saying "play Uncle Ian, play". So of course, I smiled and said, "OK, let's play".So, with a full house of sixteen people, including five children under ten, we had a very nice buffet-style turkey dinner. My brother has a big dining room table, but not big enough to sit sixteen. As my contribution to the meal, I had prepared gift boxes of cookies for everyone. Tell me you're surprised.

Each box contained some Cinnamon Snickerdoodles, some Chocolate Toffee Holiday Cookies, and some Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies. This was the first time I had attempted the sugar cookies, and I vowed at the time that I would never make them again.Let me tell you why.

When it comes baking cookies, flour and I have an amiable relationship most of the time. However, when a certain Ms. Rolling Pin gets involved, things tend to get messy.

As you may have noticed, all of the cookies I have baked lately have been drop cookies, as in "drop the batter by spoonful on to the cookie sheet". I have taken some liberties with this, but that's basically what they are. These sugar cookies were my first foray into the murky world of rolling pins and cookie cutters. It wasn't really an auspicious start, let me tell you.

I really wanted these to work out. I went out and bought some funky new cookie cutters and some red- and green-coloured sugar and was all set. When I made up the cookie dough, it seemed to me that it was a little sticky and loose, but I thought that a couple of hours in the fridge would fix that. That was wishful thinking, apparently.

For this last explosion of cookie-baking, I have been using parchment paper instead of greasing the cookie sheet, and without exception it has been a huge improvement. It's essentially a non-stick surface, and means that I don't have to do anything more than wipe off the pan with a paper towel afterwards, if that.

This dough had other ideas.

I guess the dough didn't have enough flour in it, because it stuck to everything. EVERYTHING. The rolling pin, the kitchen table, the bowl, the parchment paper... AAAAGGGHHHHH! I managed to get about six snowmen cut out and on the cookie sheet before I gave up with the rolling pin. I ended up simply taking a small spoonful of dough, rolling it into a ball, wetting my finger slightly, and patting it down until it was about an 1/8 of an inch thick. Sixty times.The pictures at the top of this post show the sugar cookies that came out of later batches. You'll notice that they're fairly light in colour, and don't have too much coloured sugar on them. The cookies in the picture above were one of the first pans out of the oven. I oversugared them somewhat, and to me, it looked like the cookies had been in a horrible horrible accident, and the lines of melted sugar looked like blood-spatter. I call them "Drive-By Cookies". Look for them soon in a supermarket near you.

The one thing that saved these cookies was that despite their appearance, they tasted wonderful. Made me re-evaluate my "never again" stance, so I will likely have another go at some point.

Here is the recipe for these cookies. May you have better luck with them than I did.

Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies

1 C granulated sugar
1 C softened butter
1/3 C cream cheese, softened
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 egg yolk (reserve white)
2 C all-purpose flour

In large bowl combine sugar, butter, cream cheese, salt, extracts and egg yolk; blend well. Stir in flour until well blended. Chill dough for 2 hours. Pre-heat oven to 375F. On lightly floured surface, roll out dough one-third at a time to 1/8-inch thickness. Cut into desired shaped with lightly floured cookie cutter.
Place 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Leave cookie plain, or brush with lightly beaten egg white and sprinkle with colored sugar. Bake for 7-10 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool completely on wire racks.

Craziness. Absolute craziness.

2006-12-22T15:00:00.000-05:00

'Tis the season to be REALLY REALLY busy.

During the rest of the year, I find myself sitting at home evenings thinking, "I know I could be doing something constructive right now, but Trailer Park Boys is on in ten minutes...."Well, careful what you wish for. Over the last two weeks, I have conducted and performed with a small brass ensemble for a Carol Service at a local church (incidentally, the same church at whose book sale I scored a whole pile of cookbooks), organized the annual holiday potluck lunch at my office, baked about fifteen dozen cookies and a four-pound lasagna, and still managed to (almost) finish my Christmas shopping. Oh yeah, and my full-time job.In addition to all of this, the friend of mine who I visited in New Orleans back in May flew into town for the holidays (and boy are his arms tired), so copious partying was required.

The cookies pictured above are an adaptation of the Minnesota Munchers I mentioned in my last post. However, after some more modifications and alterations I have made these my own now, and they will now forever be known as (drumroll) "The Gallumphing Gourmand's Chocolate Toffee Holiday Cookies". Kinda trips off of the tongue, doesn't it? The reason I don't have more pictures of these, is that the little suckers tend to disappear quickly when I bring them to work with me.I have to tell you about the lasagna, though.

I got the idea (and the basic recipe) from my friends Rob & Rachel at the incomparable Hungry In Hogtown, but as a good meat sauce is different for everyone, I consulted several recipes before settling with the one below. Plus, instead of the standard ricotta cheese, I made a nice Béchamel sauce, and bought a big chunk of fresh parmigiano reggiano cheese. The bonus in this whole thing, however, was the fact that the mother of one of my co-workers offered to make me some fresh pasta (thank you, Mrs. Ignagni).She made me sixteen noodles that were about six inches wide and between ten and twelve inches long, and they were all individually wrapped in plastic wrap. This was the most beautiful pasta that I have ever worked with, and definitely improved the taste of the lasagna.

Now, to the nuts & bolts:

Lasagna Bolognese

First, I made the meat sauce and let it rest in the fridge in a sealed container for a few days.
Ragu Bolognese (the meat sauce):
500g (1 lb) extra lean ground beef
500g (1 lb) ground veal
500g (1 lb) mild italian sausage
125g (¼ lb) pancetta, diced
5 tablespoons canola oil
3 tablespoons butter
1 carrot, finely, diced
1 medium onion, diced
1 rib celery, finely diced
4 cloves garlic, crushed and diced
1 can whole roma tomatoes, with liquid
1 C milk
1 C chicken broth
¼ C sherry
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Parmigiano-Reggiano, for grating

* In a 6 to 8-quart, heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat the olive oil and butter over medium heat.
* Add the onions, celery, and garlic and sweat over medium heat until the vegetables are translucent and soft but not browned, about 10 to 15 minutes.
* Add the ground beef, veal, sausage, and pancetta and stir into the vegetables.
* Turn the heat up to high, stirring to keep the meat from sticking together until it's all browned.
* Add the tomatoes, milk, wine and sherry and stir to combine. Snip the tomatoes into smaller pieces with kitchen scissors. Simmer over medium-low heat for at least 3 hours. You could even turn the heat right down to low, and let that bad boy go the whole day. I simmered my sauce for only three hours due to time constraints. Season with salt and pepper, to taste, and remove from the heat.
* If not using it right away, place in sealed container and store in the fridge. This can also be frozen for up to a couple of months.

On the night before the potluck lunch, I decided to assemble the lasagna, but not cook it until the next morning. So I whipped up some Béchamel sauce to go with the meat sauce.
Bechamel Sauce ~ A Traditional Recipe
1 small yellow onion, peeled and cut into small dice
1 small carrot, peeled and cut into small dice
½ celery rib, cut into small dice
½ C unsalted butter
1/3 C unbleached all purpose flour
4½ C milk
salt and freshly ground black pepper
freshly grated nutmeg
small bouquet garni

* Scald the milk. Remove from heat and set aside.
* Heat the butter in a small saucepan until the foam subsides, then add the diced vegetables. Saute until the onions are translucent.
* Take the pan off the heat and stir in the flour. Put the pan back on the heat and cook about 5 to 7 minutes, stirring occasionally.
* Remove the pan from the heat and slowly whisk in the scalded milk.
* Return to heat and bring up to a boil, stirring constantly with a woodem spoon.
* Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Add the bouquet garni, lower heat and simmer for 35 minutes.
* Remove and strain the sauce, without pushing on the vegetables.
**Note: I pushed on the vegetables. I couldn't help it. I'm sorry.
* Cool the sauce in a cold water bath and store in the refrigerator for up to 2 days. May be frozen for up to 3 months.

Now, for the assembly.
* Preheat oven 400°F.
* Cook lasagna in abundant boiling water. When not quite al dente, stop cooking, drain and lay each noodle on a damp towel in preparation for assembling.
* Using a baking dish about 2 inches deep, butter bottom of dish. Line with layer of lasagna. Cover with a thick layer of meat sauce, a little béchamel and some grated parmigiano cheese. Repeat layers in same order. Spread last layer with bechamel and dot with butter.
* Bake in preheated 400°F oven for 20 - 30 minutes or until very browned. Let rest for 10 minutes before serving.

The lasagna turned out great, and as you can tell from the picture at the top, it went very quickly.

Gotta go now. Only two more days of craziness before I can relax.

Blah

2006-12-06T10:00:00.000-05:00

Sick. Feeling yucky. Baked cookies. Slept a lot. Thinking in monosyllables. Um, except for that one. Why is that such a long word? Anyway, back at work today after being off since Monday afternoon, but as I sit here typing this I'm questioning the wisdom of that decision. Got my orange juice and DayQuil sitting on the desk beside me, and I'm thinking about making some soup.... what was I saying?.... Oh yeah, the cookies....

Tried out another new cookie recipe yesterday, but in my weakened condition, decided not to bother taking pictures. The cookies are called Minnesota Munchers, and I got the recipe a while back from the repository of all good things - Christmas-Cookies.com. Here is the original recipe. It looked like a good enough recipe as is, but me being me I took the liberty of simplifying it a bit.

Minnesota Munchers
makes about 4 dozen cookies

1 C butter, softened
1½ C brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2½ C all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
1½ C crushed Skor bars
½ C semisweet chocolate chips
1 C chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease two cookie sheets.
In a medium bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Beat in eggs, one at a time, and then stir in vanilla.
Combine flour, baking powder and salt; stir into creamed mixture.
Fold in semisweet chips, Skor bars and pecans. Drop by tablespoons onto cookie sheet.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in preheated oven. Cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to cool completely on wire racks.

The recipe originally called for a cup of milk chocolate chips and a half a cup of toffee bits. Well, that sounded suspiciously like Skor bars to me so I just used a cup and a half of crushed up Skor bars instead. There's nothing quite so relaxing as smacking the hell out of a ziploc baggie full of Skor bars with a wooden mallet, if it wasn't for all the racket.

As you may be able to tell from the recipe, these are just jazzed-up chocolate chip cookies, but the addition of the pecans and the toffee really gives them an extra something. I was planning to use an incredibly pithy and descriptive word there, but my brain hurts right now. However, the pecans give an extra crunch, and the toffee melts, leaving little pockets of crispy toffee crunchies in the middle of the cookies. If I think of it, I'll take some pictures and insert them later. After my nap.

A Cornucopia Of Cookies

2006-12-01T11:00:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned in my last entry, I've started my Christmas baking, and to this end I'm trying out some new recipes and playing around with some old recipes this year. My co-workers and friends have been the biggest beneficiary of this, as I've been giving away dozens of cookies, and bringing some to work with me as well. The two kinds of cookies I've been concentrating on lately are Lime Macaroons and Christmas Cheer Cookies. The macaroons are pretty self-explanatory, and the Christmas Cheer cookies likely are so named because of the maraschino cherries on the top of each cookie which are so festive. Or, maybe it's the half cup of rum. I'll let you decide.

I've made the Christmas Cheer cookies several times before, and I'm starting to get the hang of them. I've found that they really benefit from chilling the cookie dough in the fridge for a few hours, even overnight.

This is a huge recipe, and will yield about eight dozen cookies, depending on how big you make each one. When I whipped up the batch of cookie dough, I baked a few dozen right away without refrigerating the dough. The results are pictured above. They turned out absolutely fine and tasted wonderful, but the next batch I made the following day, after chilling the dough overnight, had a certain je ne sais what that really made them spectactular. The cookies were almost flaky.Now, a few notes about the recipe.

First of all, I found the original recipe here at Christmas-Cookies.com. I took the liberty of making a couple of minor substitutions, replacing the 1/2 cup of whisky with rum. Not a big deal you would think, and I certainly don't have anything against whisky (see previous posts about my adventures with whisky here and here), but I found that the rum gave the cookies a fuller, richer taste. Also, the recipe calls for 'golden raisins'. I used sultanas, because they were on sale at the bulk food store for $.29/100g (about $1.30/lb). Another thing I tried, was to roll the dough into a log, then slice it into little puck-shaped cookies instead of the spoonful-drop method. I found it easier with this method to control the size of the cookies, and to figure out how many I would end up with when I ran out of dough.

So here's the recipe I used:

Christmas Cheer Cookies
makes 8 dozen cookies

1 C butter, softened
1½ C brown sugar
3 eggs
3 C un-sifted flour
1 tsp baking soda
500g (1 lb.) dates, chopped
500g (1 lb.) walnuts, chopped
250g (½ lb.) sultana raisins
½ C dark rum
about 250g (½ lb.) maraschino cherries, drained and cut in halves

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs. Beat until ingredients are combined. Mix flour and soda. Stir in dates, walnuts, raisins and rum. Batter will be stiff.
Refrigerate dough a few hours, or overnight.
Preheat oven to 350 F (180 C).
Drop by teaspoonful onto ungreased cookie sheet, or roll dough into a log and slice cookies about 1/2 inch thick. Top each with cherry halves.
Bake 10-12 minutes. Store in airtight container.

Now, for the macaroons. This is THE simplest cookie recipe I have ever made. Four ingredients and minimal prep time make these cookies a breeze.I made a couple of batches of these, and I discovered that it's best to let these cool completely before trying to move them or lift them off the parchment paper. Otherwise they just fall apart on you. I like macaroons quite a bit, but I had never tried the lime-flavoured variety. The tartness of the lime zest really compliments the sweetness of the coconut and sugar. The taste is delicate, and they go really well with a cup of coffee (as I discovered this morning). 'Nuff said, here's the recipe.

Lime Macaroons
makes about 15 cookies

2 C desiccated coconut
½ C sugar
2 egg whites
2 tbsp shredded lime zest

Preheat the oven to 180ºC (350ºF).
Place the coconut, sugar, egg whites and lime zest in a bowl and mix to combine. Roll the mixture into balls. Place on a lined baking tray, flatten slightly and cook for 10-12 minutes or until light golden. Let cool completely.

I can't for the life of me remember where I found this recipe, but it's been sitting in my 'to do' pile for quite a while now. I'm glad that I finally got it, because this recipe is a keeper.

A Few Changes...

2006-11-23T13:19:00.000-05:00

Hi guys, GG here. You may have noticed some changes with my blog. I am currently in the process of converting to the new 'Beta' version of Blogger, so it may take a few days to work out all the kinks. Technical difficulties are temporary (I hope).

Meanwhile, here's a fantastic and simple recipe for Cinnamon Snickerdoodles.
I found the recipe at "In The Kitchen With Krista" - here. My Christmas baking has officially begun. These are VERY tasty cookies, and one of the easiest recipes I've ever found. The most important part of this recipe is to refrigerate the cookie dough for at least four hours (I had them in the fridge overnight) before baking. It seemed to make the cookies fluffier.

Ultimate Snickerdoodles
Makes about 4 dozen cookies

1 C Butter (please, no substituting this!)
1½ C Sugar
2 eggs
2¾ C All Purpose Flour
2 tsp Cream of Tartar
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
2 tbsp PLUS 2 tsp Cinnamon (divided)
2 tbsp Sugar

* In a small bowl mix the 2 tsp Cinnamon and the 2 tbsp Sugar, set aside.
* In a bowl, lined with a sifter or sieve, place flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt and 2 tbsp Cinnamon. Set aside.
* In large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs 1 at a time, continue to beat. Scrape sides as necessary. Add flour mixture - 1 cup at a time to the butter mixture until well blended.
* Refrigerate dough for at least 30 minutes (see note above).
* Preheat oven to 375.
* Form dough into walnut sized balls. Roll balls into sugar/cinnamon mixture, coating well.
* Place balls 2" apart on a cookie sheet.
* Bake about 10 mins until a golden brown. Remove and cool on rack.
Note: they will puff at first when cooking, then flatten - this is normal.

Ready, Set, Cook! #21: Spooky Chili

2006-11-08T12:00:00.000-05:00

November has arrived, and it has started to get coooold here in Toronto. No snow as of yet, but it can't be too far away. What a perfect excuse to make some hot, tasty, stick-to-your-ribs kind of comfort food. Of course I'm talking about chili. I had just gotten home from the football game on Sunday - the Toronto Argonauts had beaten the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in a stunning fourth quarter come-from-behind victory to advance to the next round of the playoffs - and I thought that a big pot of chili would be just the thing to help celebrate. This was another first for Yours Truly, and completes the trifecta of Ready, Set, Cook! recipes I have created over the last month or so.The recipe is for Pumpkin Chili, and in celebration of Hallowe'en, I decided to serve the chili in a hollowed-out pumpkin. Isn't that SPEC-ial. The eyes are the tops from the jalapeno peppers. I used the bottom half of a yogurt tub to line the pumpkin, because I really didn't feel like eating chili out of a raw pumpkin. The thought gives me the chili-willies. Ha! I made a funny. The original recipe can be found here at the incomparable Anne's (of Cooking With Anne) site. The recipe I actually used has been reproduced below. For once, I stuck almost exactly to the original recipe.

Pumpkin Chili
makes 1 ginormous pot 'o chili

500g (about 1 lb.) ground beef
1 large onion, chopped
2 medium orange bell peppers, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 798ml(28oz) can crushed tomatoes
1 15oz can pureed pumpkin
1 large can of red kidney beans
1 C sherry (or red wine, or chicken stock)
4 large jalapeno peppers with seeds, chopped
1 small can of niblet corn
1 tbsp chipotle pepper flakes
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp salt
fresh ground black pepper
grated Monterey Jack cheese
toast pieces

* Heat a little oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the onion, bell pepper, garlic and some fresh ground black pepper. Cook until the onions and peppers have started to soften, about 5 minutes.
* Add the ground beef, and cook until the beef has completely browned.
* Add the sherry, the tomatoes, the kidney beans, the pumpkin, the jalapenos, the corn and the spices. Stir to combine.
* Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and let simmer, covered, for anywhere between four and twelve hours, depending on how patient and/or hungry you are. After asking around at work today, the concensus is that you should let the chili reduce by about an inch or so. I was both impatient and hungry, and declared it done after 1 1/2 hours.
* Spoon into your handy-dandy hollowed-out pumpkin (or a bowl if you don't happen to have one handy) and top with grated cheese.
* Serve with toast or pita bread or toritlla chips.

For a first attempt, I was pretty happy with the way this turned out. The hardest part of this whole deal was carving the pumpkin. Oh, and waiting for it to be done. A friend at work suggested the distraction method for making sure the chili cooks long enough: while the chili is cooking, make a casserole for dinner so you're not constantly jonesing over the chili.The pumpkin was an interesting addition. I couldn't really taste it in the final product, but it seemed to add a nice creamy texture. Also, the next time I make chili, I will add a chunk of smoky bacon to the pot. And maybe omit the corn.

With the addition of the four whole giant jalapenos (including the seeds), plus the heaping tablespoon of chipotle pepper flakes, there was some heat, but not as much as I expected. I guess simmering longer would take care of that. I found that the chili was hot enough to leave a nice tingle on the tongue and in the back of the throat, and made my nose run a little bit, but I didn't start sweating profusely, or have all of my sinuses drain at once. Oh well, maybe next time. The best thing about this chili is that it has lasted for three days, and been five meals. I'm going to take a break from chili now.

Ready, Set, Cook! #20: Bite-Sized Bacon Bundles.... Booya!

2006-10-30T18:00:00.000-05:00

Oh yeah, and some noodles. Another one of my creations from Ready, Set, Cook! looked so appetizing, that I had to attempt it.The original recipe from the event can be found here.

After looking over the recipe, I decided to simplify a few things. First of all, the tasty-sounding ginger-sesame dressing was axed in favour of a much less complicated and slightly more subtle spicy mushroom sauce. Secondly, I had overestimated the pliability of green onions, and after several futile attempts to "tie one on", so to speak, I decided to toothpick them in place.More on that in a bit, but first here's the revised recipe.

Seafood Bacon Bundles with Noodles
serves 2 or 3 (or just one if there's a hockey game on)

Bacon bundles:
1 227g (8 oz) package of imitation crab meat
1 can sliced water chestnuts, drained
12 slices bacon
bunch of green onions, sliced lengthwise

Noodles:
4 bricks dry ramen noodles, with flavour packs ("Oriental" is my favourite)
3 large brown mushrooms, sliced thinly
1 tsp ancho chili flakes
2 green onions, chopped
1 tsp freshly-grated lemon zest
freshly ground pepper
fresh basil (for a garnish)

* Preheat oven to 350F.
* Place one piece of crab meat with two slices of chestnut (one on either side) on a bacon slice and roll up. Wrap with a piece of green onion and secure with a toothpick. Repeat for all peices of bacon.
* Place bacon bundles on a lightly greased baking sheet and cook for 40 minutes at 350F.
* When the bundles are almost done, prepare the noodles as follows:
* Put 6 C of water on to boil in a large pot.
* While the water is boiling, empty the flavour packets into a large bowl, and add the mushrooms, the chopped green onion, the chili flakes, the lemon zest and the pepper. Toss to combine.
* When the water boils, remove about 1/2 C of the boiling water, pour it over the seasoning mix and stir to combine. Place the dry noodles in the water and cook until separated and soft, about 3-4 minutes.
* Drain the noodles, dump them into the bowl with the seasoning mix, toss to combine, and cover with a towel to keep warm until the bacon bundles are ready.
* Remove the bundles from the oven, and check that they're not stuck to the tray.
* Place some noodles on a plate, then arrange four (or more) of the bacon bundles on top, with some fresh basil for a garnish.
One thing you might want to check when starting out is that the toothpicks you're using are not the minty variety(!). Unbelievable. When I popped the first one in my mouth, I had a bit of a shock, and it's not even the same as if I'd put fresh mint in, either. This was the taste of nasty synthesized mint essence-type flavouring. Yeesh. Good thing there was lots of sauce. Also, I have a package of wooden skewers that I bought over a year ago and hadn't found a use for, so I tried threading four of the little bundles of joy onto a skewer as well. That was harder that I thought it was going to be. The green onion kept ripping, and I had to re-skewer a couple of the bundles several times. I almost pulled out the duct tape. It was a close thing.Despite all of that, the bacon-bedecked bundles of beauty tasted absolutely excellent, with the nice creamy texture of the seafood contrasting the crunchiness of the water chestnuts and the smoky salty taste of the bacon. Oh, and the ghostly minty taste from those flippin toothpicks.

Ready, Set, Cook! #17: High-Class Spuds

2006-10-02T19:00:00.000-05:00

It's fall once again, and Anne over at Cooking With Anne has started up her Ready, Set, Cook! events every Tuesday. The rules are simple: using the three ingredients provided, and whatever other ingredients you want, create an original recipe. No actual cooking is required to participate, just the submission of the recipe.Last week, the three theme ingredients were:
* any kind of mushrooms
* heavy cream
* boiled ham

My original recipe submission can be found here. The recipe looked so tasty, I decided to actually attempt it. Here is the revised recipe that I actually used.

High-Class Spuds
Makes Two Huge Potatoes

2 large baking potatoes
1 small celeriac (celery root), peeled and cut into chunks
2 C chinese mushrooms (any kind will do), cleaned, trimmed, and sliced
3/4 C cooking sherry
(for company I would use cognac, but for myself, the cooking sherry was fine)
1 C 35% heavy cream
2 tbsp + 2 tbsp butter
150g sliced ham with rosemary (I got some nice stuff from the deli section at the Grocery Palace)
2 large slices swiss cheese, whole
2 large slices swiss cheese, julienned
2 green onion, chopped
Worcestershire Sauce
fresh ground pepper

* Preheat oven to 400F.
* Bake the potatoes for about 60 minutes until done.
* While the potatoes are cooking, do the following:
* Place the celeriac pieces into a pot, just cover with cold water. Boil, covered, then reduce heat to half, tip the lid, and continue cooking until the pieces have softened.
* Remove from heat, drain, and set aside.* Dry sauté the mushrooms in a medium skillet over medium-high heat for a couple of minutes, then add 2 tbsp of the butter and sauté for another few minutes. Add the sherry, bring to a boil, and reduce liquid by half, about 3-4 minutes. Lower heat to medium, add cream, and simmer 5 minutes. Remove skillet from heat and set aside.
* When the potatoes are done, let them cool a little, then cut a 'cap' off the top of each one, and scoop out the insides leaving about 1/3 inch of potato all the way around each one.* Puree the potato with the celeriac, the garlic, 2 tbsp of the butter, a splash of Worchestershire Sauce and some fresh ground pepper.
* Place a few slices of the ham into the bottom of each potato skin. Then place one slice of the swiss cheese into the bottom of each potato.* Using a piping bag (or a spoon), pipe the mashed potato mixture evenly into each potato skin. I found some cheap piping bags at the local Bulk Barn. I think they were about $1.29 apiece.
* Pour some of the mushroom-sherry reduction over each. With the addition of the celeriac, there will be LOTS of filling, so don't overdo it. You'll probably have a bit left over.Sprinkle the remaining ham, grated cheese and green onion on the top of each one.
Bake at 425F for 15 minutes.

AS I mentioned before, with the addition of the celeriac, there was WAY too much filling. Also, there was WAY too much mushroom-sherry reduction for only two potatoes. If doubling the recipe for four potatoes, do not double the mushrooms, and still only use one small celeriac. I made another whole meal from the leftovers. Mmmmmm....

Ready, Set, Cook! happens every Tuesday at Cooking With Anne. Check it out, it's fun!

A Walk On The Beach

2006-09-11T18:30:00.000-05:00

For some reason, today I was moved to write. So I'm writing. It doesn't happen often, and like most positive impulses, I've learned to run with it. Interesting things happen when you let momentum take over. You'll notice I didn't say GOOD things happen, but how much fun would life be if only good things happened to you?

Today, the momentum started with a mistake. I missed my stop on the way home from work. I actually got a seat on the streetcar, and was right into the book I'm currently reading ('Calculating God' by Robert J. Sawyer). When I finally looked up, I was three stops past my street. Not really a problem, as I like to take a walk after work, so I got off and decided to keep walking in the same direction the streetcar was travelling.Normally, when I start walking after dismounting from the Red Rocket, I simply walk east along Queen St. until I feel like turning around, then walk home. Sometimes I walk a few stops, and sometimes I get all the way to the end of the streetcar line at Neville Park. Today, on a whim, I decided instead to walk down to the beach and stroll back along the boardwalk.This is my favourite time of year to walk on the boardwalk. It's started to cool down enough that I wore a jacket to work today for the first time since May. Because of this, the tourists who have been flocking to the beach all summer, have now all gone home to Markham or Mississauga or Mimico, and the beach is mine again. It's so nice to be able to sit on a bench facing the water with a nice breeze from off the lake blowing in my face, and just hear the quiet. Not that it's silent by any means, with the rollerbladers on the bike path and people walking their dogs, and of course the gulls fighting over dropped hotdogs or ice cream cones from the Beach Snack Bar, but still and relaxing.As I walked past the Leuty Ave. Lifeguard Station, I couldn't help but think about bonfires on the beach at that very spot and stolen kisses in the dark back when I was a senior in high school. The Eighties seem a long way off from where I'm standing, and if I had realized how much tougher life was going to get, I would have had a lot more fun at the time.As I continued west along the boardwalk, I could see what appeared to be a bunch of people flying kites up ahead. As I was snapping some pictures anyway, this seemed a fun thing to get some shots of. As I approached, however, I realized that it wasn't just people flying kites, but kitesurfers. I had never seen this before, and I was amazed at the speeds these people were achieving. I saw one guy get pulled completely out of the water and glide through the air for about ten feet. Now, I don't know for sure that it's actually called kitesurfing, but it seems a logical enough name. I hung out there for a few minutes, watching what must have been about twenty people doing this. More power to them, because all I was thinking was that it was going to be chilly swim back to shore.

I realize that this is not in fact a food-related post, but the beach and the boadwalk are part of who I am and where I come from. The most important ingredient in any recipe that you make is you, and what you bring to the table. Also, expressing myself by written word is a relatively new thing for me, and I've found that as with most things, the more I write, the more I get used to writing, and the better I become. Hopefully as my cooking progresses, so too will my writing and my photography. I can only hope.

New Toys

2006-09-06T14:00:00.000-05:00

Well, congratulate me. I broke my first coffee grinder this past weekend. Blew it up REAL good. I had just spent the day wandering through Kensington Market, and had picked up a big bunch of STUFF! Namely, three or four kinds of dried chilis, some tortillas, some tomatillos, and some sun-dried tomatoes. And of course, what would a trip to The Market be without a stop at El Gordo's for some killer empanadas? Their Mexican Chorizo variety are my favourites. Anyway, when I got home with my swag, I headed straight for the grinder to render the dried chilis into a more usable format. This part of the plan went off without a hitch. Seeing as the chilis are, well, dried and fairly thin, the grinder could handle them no problem. The problem was with the sun-dried tomatoes. Crazy, I hear you say? Perhaps, but while I was grinding the chilis, I was munching on the tomatoes and thinking to myself, "Gee, these sun-dried tomatoes bear a striking resemblance to the chilis. I bet if I ground them up, they'd be a lot easier to use."

So, after I finished with the chilis, I snipped the tomatoes up a little so they would fit in the grinder, and had a go.

The first batch came out OK. Emboldened by this, I kept going and tried to ignore the telltale warning signs the grinder was giving me. For one thing, it was starting to sound like an old outboard motor, and there was an odor that didn't smell like sun-dried tomatoes. Another man might have stopped at this point, and transferred the tomatoes to the handy-dandy blender I had sitting on top of the fridge. But no, there were only a few left, so I pressed on.

Then, not unexpectedly, disaster struck.

I heard a snap, and the sound that the grinder was making went from a labouring outboard motor to a high whine. Upon inspection, the rotating blade had bent almost in half, and had completely broken off from the motor assembly. Oops.

Soooo.... I transferred the remaining tomatoes to the handy-dandy blender from the top of the fridge.... Yes, yes, I know....

Now, to the point of this post (yes, there is one). I was then faced with the task of buying a new grinder. Excellent, new kitchen stuff. I looked around in several places, the first being Canadian Tire, because really, I don't need much of an excuse to go there and wander around. Oddly enough, even after looking at Zeller's and The Bay, I still couldn't find one that suited me.

So I came back to work on Monday dejected and still grinder-less, and what do I find but a store in my building called Personal Edge, which is just packed with some very cool gadgets and doodads, including three different models of grinders. I picked up a spiffy new Hamilton Beach model with variable speeds and a retractable cord. OutSTANDing.

Cottage Party!

2006-08-10T13:00:00.000-05:00

My whole family recently held our annual summer get-together at my parents' cottage, and as it was a potluck type affair, I was expected to bring some nibblies.For a bit of a change, I decided to make some Spicy Potato Samosas. I happen to really like samosas, and spicy ones especially, but they're not the kind of thing that normally makes an appearance at one of our family functions. More about these later.

After a swim and the traditional game of softball in the nearby park, the food came out.The normal menu for one of our shindigs goes something like this: Burgers and hotdogs cooked on the BBQ (normally by my brother, my dad or myself), with a few veggie patties thrown in for my cousin Kristen who's a vegetarian. (Side note: veggie pattie technology must have made great strides in the last few years, because I tried one at this year's party and it was pretty darn tasty. But you didn't hear that from me.) Then a cornucopia of salads including green salads, potato salads, a few pasta salads, and my personal favourite - the marshmallow Jell-O salad. In addition to these, there are always lots of potato chips, the mandatory spinach dip served in the sourdough bread bowl, my mother's excellent crab dip (which is specifically requested by my cousins), shrimp rings with seafood sauce, and whatever weird concoction I've decided to whip up for the occasion.

Then there was dessert. Trays of brownies, lemon squares, Rice Krispies squares, a raspberry-rhubarb pie (love the rhubarb), slices of watermelon and other stuff which I can't remember.

As I metioned above, this year I made Potato Samosas. I found the recipe in a great cookbook I picked up at a church book sale a few months back, called "Street Food". It features recipes for common street food from around the world.My experience with making these samosas was similar to that of making pierogies for the first time back in February. I made the dough, and while that was resting covered with a damp towel, I made up the filling.Mmmmm. That's some spicy comfort food. There's an entire large jalapeno pepper in there. I was hoping that it wouldn't be too spicy for the gang, but everyone seemed to like them.

Rolling out the dough and assembling the samosas was a bit of a chore. This was actually my second attempt at making the dough, because the first time I did something wrong, (I'm still not sure what it was) and the dough just would not stay together. It kept crumbling on me, and no matter what I did it would not adhere to itself and allow me to roll it out. I added a bit more water, then it was too wet, so I added a little more flour, etc etc. Anyway, I ended up chucking the whole thing into the bin. This time however, everything went OK and I had some really nice-looking dough to work with. One thing I changed concerned the butter in the dough. The recipe calls for ghee or clarified butter, but ghee is really expensive and clarified butter is a royal pain to make, so I just used regular butter softened in the microwave. It seemed to work just fine, so I'm going to continue doing it that way.

I ran into a bit of a problem when the recipe said "with a large cookie-cutter or glass, cut out about four six-inch circles." Do you know anyone who owns a glass with a six-inch diameter? Seriously, that's a big glass. None of my cookie-cutters were big enough either, but I discovered that the lid of my food processor is exactly six inches across, so I used that.Assembling the samosas took a couple of tries before I got it right. You take a semi-circle of dough, make it into a cone by moistening and joining the edges, spoon a little of the filling in, moisten the top then fold it over and seal to form a tight little triangular package. The diagram in the cookbook makes it look easy, but it took a little stretching and adjusting of the dough to get the look I wanted. Anyway, I managed to get 27 regular sized samosas and four or five large ones.I deep-fried them all in my handy-dandy deep fryer for about 3 minutes apiece, but they weren't really golden brown when they come out. They were nice and crispy, and they tasted great, so I didn't worry about it too much. Of course, then they had to go into the fridge overnight, and survive a trip to the cottage the next day.

When I got to the cottage, I took them out and had a look. They'd gone a little soft, so before I served them, I put them into a 400F oven for 15 minutes. This worked like a charm and they came out looking like the picture at the top of the post. Fully cooked, nice and crispy and golden brown. Because the family had been nibbling before the rest of the gang arrived, y'know, just to make sure they were OK, I only had about 20 left when the time came to serve them. Everyone got one, and everyone seemed to like them, so mission accomplished.

Like the aforementioned pierogies, due to the messy nature of this recipe, and to the pain-in-the-ass factor of rolling and assembling them, the next time I will double or triple the recipe, make about a hundred of 'em, and just freeze the lot for a rainy day. I think next time also, that I will try the lamb variation in the cookbook.

Spicy Potato Samosas
Makes: 32 Samosas

Pastry
3 C All-Purpose flour
½ tsp salt
3 tbsp ghee or clarified butter
¾ C ice water

Spicy Potato Filling
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 medium-sized onion, finely chopped
3 C frozen peas, defrosted and drained
1 tbsp finely grated, peeled fresh ginger root
1 fresh hot green chili pepper (I used a jalapeno)
3 tbsp finely chopped cilantro (fresh coriander or Chinese Parsley)
3 tbsp water
1½ lbs new potatoes, boiled in their jackets, peeled and lightly mashed
1½ tsp salt
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp cumin
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 C vegetable oil

* Sift the flour with the salt into a deep bowl. Add the butter and combine with your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Pour the water over the mixture all at once, knead vigorously,and form the dough into a ball. If it crumbles, add up to 4 more tbsp of water, one at a time until the particles adhere. On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough by folding it and pressing it down and pushing it backward for about 10 minutes, until it is smooth.
* Making the dough can also be done in a food processor. Place the flour and salt in the work bowl. Add the butter, and process with 10 to 12 on/off pulses. Pour in the ice water and process until the mixture becomes a dough. Add a little water, if needed. No vigorous kneading is necessary.
* Form the dough into a ball, brush it lightly with butter or oil, and place it in a bowl. Cover with a damp towel to keep it moist. Let it rest for about 30 minutes. The dough can remain at room temperature for up to 5 hours.
* While the dough rests, prepare the filling. Heat 2 tbsp oil in large skillet. Add the onion, and stir-fry over medium heat for a few minutes, until the onion is lightly brown. Add the peas, ginger, green chili, cilantro, and water. Cover and simmer until the peas are cooked, stirring ocasionally and adding a little more water, if mecessary.
* Add the potatoes, salt, ground coriander, garam masala, cumin, cayenne, and lemon juice. Turn off the heat and allow the mixture to cool. Cover and refrigerate 30 minutes.
* To shape the samosas, divide the dough into fourths. On a lightly floured board, roll out one piece of dough as thinly as possible (very important). Keep the unused dough covered. With a large cookie cutter or a glass, cut out about four six-inch circles. You should be able to get about four circles from each piece of dough. Cut each circle in half.
* Moisten the edges of the dough with your finger dipped in water. Holding the semi-circle of dough in your hand, shape it into a cone. Fill the cone with 1 tbsp of the filling. Moisten and press the top edge over the filling to form a tight triangle. Repeat with the remaining dough and filling. The pastries may be kept on a lightly floured plate, covered, for 2 to 3 hours before they are fried.
* To fry the samosas, heat the 2 cups vegetable oil in a deep heavy skillet, or deep fryer to 375F. Deep-fry the turnovers, a few at a time, for 2 to 3 minutes, turning once, until they turn golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Serve hot. They can be kept warm in a 200F oven in a baking dish lined with paper towels.
* These samosas can be frozen. To reheat, place frozen into a 400F oven for 25 to 30 minutes.

Canada On Our Plate: Home Is Where The Pot Roast Is

2006-07-30T20:00:00.000-05:00

This post is for an event called Canada On Our Plate hosted by Chris and Lea at Canada Eats. The idea is to blog about a recipe that is, in your opinion, typically Canadian. I chose Pot Roast. But this is no ordinary pot roast.An odd choice one would think, and perhaps not specifically Canadian, but this has become a favourite of our family, and it is frequently requested for birthdays and holiday meals. I know I'm at home if this pot roast is on the table.

This recipe is called "Old-Fashioned Pot Roast", and my mother clipped the recipe from the Toronto Star newspaper some years back. The recipe is by Bonnie Stern, who is also Canadian, and who is the founder of the Bonnie Stern School of Cooking here in Toronto. The recipe is at the bottom of this post.

First of all, I would like to say that although I have been at numerous family occasions at which this roast was served, I had never before cooked this myself. So, I found myself on the phone to my mother at several points along the cooking process to make sure that I was doing this the same way as she does. Normally I don't worry about this so much, as I tend to experiment with recipes, but for the purposes of this post, I wanted to duplicate my mother's recipe as closely as possible. Not least because I really REALLY like this particular recipe.

The first thing I had to do for this recipe, aside from buying the ingredients, was to get my hands on a Dutch oven. I found an excellent cast iron model at Zeller's for $11. Can't beat that. After conditioning the pot as per the directions, I had at it.

I rubbed the spice and flour mixture on to the roast, and browned it on all sides in the Dutch oven.After removing the roast from the pot, I added the veggies, gradually adding the wine and the tomatoes. I have to tell you that the smell that was eminating from my kitchen and premeating the house, was just unbelievable. This is the aroma that I smell when I walk in the door of my parents' place when I arrive for a family birthday. Perhaps it's this aroma more than even the roast itself that says "home" to me. Here's a picture of the veggies, then the veggies with the wine added, and then with the tomatoes added to that. Mmmmm....After this, everything was pretty straight-forward. The roast went back into the Dutch oven, the lid went on, and the whole thing went in to the 350F oven for about 3 1/2 hours. I checked the roast periodically to ensure that the liquid wasn't evaporating too fast, but I never had to add any extra water or wine.

The roast came out looking like this:I've got two words for ya: Yeah. Baby. This roast was so tender it was falling apart, and I could cut it with a fork. Instead of slicing it as the recipe suggests, I took two forks and just shredded the roast into pieces. I then scooped all of the lovely vegetables from the pot into the food processor, and pulsed until the mixture was fairly smooth. It's almost worth making this recipe just for this sauce as it is obscenely good, and it goes with anything.
Old-Fashioned Pot Roast

1 beef pot roast (4 lbs), trimmed of excess fat, tied
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp cumin
2 tbsp all-purpose flour
2 tbsp olive oil
3 large onions, sliced (about 2 cups)
2 carrot, sliced
1 head garlic, in cloves, peeled
1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 bay leaf
2 C dry red wine (or beef or chicken stock) (I used wine)
28oz (796ml) can Plum Tomatoes with juices
2 tbsp coarsely chopped fresh parsley
salt and pepper to taste

* Preheat oven to 350F
* Pat roast dry. In small bowl, combine salt, pepper, cumin and flour. Rub mixture into roast.
* Heat oil in Dutch oven in which roast will fit with about 2 inches to spare around the roast.
* Add roast; cook over medium-high heat, turning until browned on all sides. Remove roast and all but about 1 tbsp of fat from Dutch oven.
* Place onions, carrots and garlic in Dutch oven over medium-high heat and brown slightly, about 5 minutes. Add thyme, oregano and bay leaf. Add wine or stock; bring to a boil and cook uncovered about 5 minutes. Add plum tomatoes, breaking them up with a wooden spoon. Bring to a boil. Add roast. Spoon vegetables and juices over top. Cover tightly and cook 3 to 4 hours in a 350F oven or until very tender.
* Check roast every half hour and add water or stock if liquid is evaporating too fast. There should always be about 2 cups of liquid in the Dutch oven.
* When roast is very tender when pierced with fork or tip of knife, remove from oven. Transfer roast to platter. If there are more than 2 cups of juices, cook over medium-high heat, uncovered, until reduced to about 2 cups. Remove fat from surface, either by skimming with spoon or, after chilling, by lifting off. Discard bay leaf; strain or puree juices.
* Slice roast; place in casserole dish. Taste juices; add salt and pepper to taste. Pour oven roast. Sprinkle with parsley.

White Chocolate and Green Fingers

2006-07-25T20:00:00.000-05:00

It seems that most of my cooking successes of late have been the results of happy accidents, projects that went awry, or just changed plans.I had originally intended to make some little chocolate cakes with a melty, chocolate centre comprised of a combination of white chocolate and pistachio paste. This of course requires that I make the chocolates first, then embed them into the cake batter. However, after making the little chocolate morsels, I decided that I really didn't feel like making the little cakes, as I now had a nice pile of tasty pistachio chockies.
The first step to making these chocolates was a trip to the local bulk food store (handily located inside the Grocery Palace) for some supplies. I picked up a good-sized bag of white chocolate wafers, one of dark chocolate wafers, a plastic sheet containing fifteen little chocolate rosette molds, and a big bag of pistachios. I then proceeded to shell the nuts, turning my fingers an attractive shade of bright green. What fun.
The next step was to create the Pistachio Paste (recipe below, picture above) that would be mixed with the melted chocolate. I got the recipe for this from a site called The Accidental Hedonist (recipe here). According to the recipe, this concoction is supposed to end up resembling marzipan. Yeah, right. I think it was a combination of not grinding the nuts finely enough, and adding too much water, but my stuff looked more like a mixture of cheap peanut butter and grainy mustard. It tasted fantastic, just looked a little oogly.I then melted some of the chocolate wafers in the microwave. I found that this was the easiest method, rather than messing around with a bain-marie or a double boiler. The instructions that came with the plastic molds say to melt the chocolate for 30 seconds at a time, mixing after each time. It took on average four to five times to get the chocolate smooth enough to work with. The trick with the chocolate was that I had to be quick on the draw after mixing in the pistachio paste, as the mixture cooled rapidly. I spooned a dollop of the mixture into each little mold, attempting to fill in all of the nooks and crannies (a difficult job, let me tell you), and then smoothed off the tops. The sheet went into the fridge for 15-20 minutes to set.
They came out looking like this. I was so pleased with the result, I ate several in celebration. It was at this point that I decided to bag the whole cake plan and make some more chocolates. I repeated the process with the dark chocolate, with equal success. They tasted similar to a crunchy peanut butter cup, although I must say that these were tastier.

Since I already have the plastic mold, and the chocolate wafers are only about $.75/100g (about 1/4 lb), this seems to me to be a cheap way to enjoy one of my favourite things.

Egg Foo Yum

2006-07-01T11:00:00.000-05:00

OK, so maybe it's not strictly Egg Foo Yong, but in my opinion a bean sprout omelette with meat in it is pretty close.Once again, I had a craving but no recipe so I tried to re-create this dish from the memory of my last Chinese food takeaway order. In addition, since I had some nice mozzarella cheese (and for that matter, some tomatoes) left over from the Tomato Mozza salad that I made a few days ago, I incorporated those into my creation as well.

Now normally, Egg Foo Yong contains chicken and shrimp, but I didn't have either of those things on hand so I used a pork cutlet instead. Mmmmmm....pork cutlet....

OK, here's the recipe.

Ian's Egg Foo Yum
Serves 2 people or 1 hungry monkey

1 3oz breaded pork cutlet
2 large mushrooms, thinly sliced
1 large shallot, sliced
1 handful of bean sprouts
4 eggs
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ tsp ground chipotle pepper (optional)
salt & pepper to taste
4 or 5 (or 6 or 7) thinly sliced chunks of fresh mozzarella cheese

* Fry the pork cutlet in a little oil over medium heat until cooked through and the outside is nice and crispy. Slice thinly and set aside.
* Drain some of the pork grease, reserving some for frying the other stuff.
* Increase heat under frying pan to medium-high, and add the sliced mushrooms and shallot. After a few minutes, add the garlic and the pork. Toss to combine evenly.
* Beat the eggs together in a small bowl with the salt and pepper and chipotle.
* Pour the egg mixture over the veggies and pork and stir once or twice to incorporate.
* After the egg starts to solidify, sprinkle the bean sprouts on top, and press down with spatula. Let cook for another few seconds, then flip the whole thing over. Continue cooking for another minute, or until egg looks set.
* Place mozzarella cheese on half of your creation, then fold the other half over, sandwiching the cheese in the middle. Cook for another few seconds until cheese starts to melt. Remove from heat.
* Serve with sliced tomato and some fresh basil.

I really like the combination of fried egg and bean sprouts. This seemed a better way to achieve that, rather than just throwing some egg and some bean sprouts into a pan and making a bean sprout omelette. It turned out really well, and it tastes as good as it looks.

Normally, I have strict rules about combining eggs with cheese; namely, I never do it. It's something about the texture. However, the mozza really worked well with the eggs, and really, who doesn't like ooey-gooey mozzarella cheese?

"C" Is For Cookie

2006-06-30T11:30:00.000-05:00

....and that's good enough for me.

I was looking through a food blog called Milk And Cookies, and the latest entry is about a test you can take to determine what kind of cookie you are. Since I am a fan of cookies...um OK, I'm the president of the Cookie Fan Club.... I thought that I would give it a try. Apparently, I am a Chocolate Chip Cookie. See, it says so right there.

You Are a Chocolate Chip Cookie

Traditional and conservative, most people find you comforting.
You're friendly and easy to get to know. This makes you very popular - without even trying!

What Kind of Cookie Are You?

Nice.

You Say "Tomato" - I Say, um, "Tomato"

2006-06-29T12:00:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, taking a chance can pay off. I'm not normally a big fan of most kinds of cheese, but I've seen this salad on various food shows, and I thought that it looked pretty tasty. The cheese in question is fresh mozzarella cheese, and while I am definitely someone who enjoys a pizza from time to time, I have a hard time simply munching on pieces of cheese. I don't know why this is, but I've been like this for as long as I can remember.
Anyway, this is a Tomato Mozzarella Salad, and after making it a couple of times, I came to realize that, to my complete surprise, the most important ingredient in this recipe is the kosher salt.

"How", you may well ask, "did you come to this conclusion, O wise one?" Well, I'll tell you. But first, the recipe.

Ian's Tomato Mozza Salad
serves 2

2½ C (1 pint) cherry tomatoes, halved
2 large brown mushrooms, thinly sliced
150g (4 or 5 oz) fresh mozzarella cheese, broken into bits
fresh ground black pepper
pinch of kosher salt
olive oil
fresh basil, chopped
fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped

* Mix the tomatoes, mushrooms, cheese together in a bowl.
* Add the pepper, salt and herbs and mix to combine.
* Drizzle some olive oil over the top.

The measurements are only a guideline, as I really wasn't paying attention to exactly how much of everything I was using. I've made this salad a few times over the past week, and the first time I made it, I didn't add any salt. It was tasty, but there was something missing. When I added the kosher salt to this version, the flavour of the tomato really popped, and it made for a much better salad.

I find this odd that plain old salt was the missing ingedient. The salad didn't taste like salt, it just tasted more like tomato. I know, I know, this is common knowledge, but I've never seen it demonstrated quite as emphatically before.

Get stuffed!

2006-06-15T11:00:00.000-05:00

This is another recipe coming as a result of my trip to New Orleans last month (read the original post here), specifically from the burger I ate at a place called the RiverShack Tavern in Jefferson Parish. They serve a burger called the Shank You Burger, which is a patty of beef and one of hot sausage. It was a good burger, but I thought to myself at the time, "I can do better than this". So, upon my return to the Big Smoke, I endeavoured to put together an exceptional burger.The first stop on this journey, as with most of my culinary exploits, was the Grocery Palace. My intention was to create a burger with a combination of ground beef and pork, so I picked up a pound of lean ground beef, and because the Palace for some reason didn't have any ground pork available, I got four large honey-garlic sausages and just removed the casings later. In addition to the meat, I thought that it would be worth while to have some good bread for the burgers, so I got a nice baguette. Now, here's the fun part. I've noticed lately on various cooking shows, and in some cookbooks, that stuffed burgers are all the rage, so I bought a chunk of smoked mozzarella cheese for the filling. Mmmmmm....smoked mozzarella cheese....The trick with these is to make two thin patties, place the filling in the centre, then mush the two patties together, making sure that the edges are completely sealed so that none of the ooey-gooey goodness escapes prematurely. Here is the recipe I used.

Booya Burgers
Yield: 6 large burgers (and I do mean large)

500g (1 lb) lean ground beef
4 large honey-garlic sausages, casings removed (about 1 lb)
1/2 C oatmeal
1 large egg
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tbsp honey dijon mustard
1/2 tsp cumin
ground black pepper
1 serrano chilli, finely diced (optional)
100g (4 oz) smoked mozzarella cheese, cut into small chunks
** Approximate amount - use enough cheese for the six burgers

* Place all ingredients except the cheese together in a large bowl. Mix gently with your hands (rubber gloves might be an idea), until all ingredients have been incorporated and the mixture looks fairly uniform.
* Place in an airtight re-sealable plastic bag and refrigerate overnight to let the flavours combine.
* Remove from fridge, and form meat mixture into twelve (12) thin patties.
* Place a small mound of the mozzarella cheese on six of the patties, sprinkle with some ground black pepper, and cover each with the remaining patties, forming six large burgers.
* Work each burger with your hands until all of the edges are sealed, and pat down slightly so that the burgers are not too thick.
* Cook on the barbecue until well done. These are pretty big burgers, so they'll take longer than you'd expect.
* Serve on crusty baguettes, with your choice of toppings (I suggest sliced tomatoes, sliced dill pickes and mushrooms)

Now, I had to decide how to cook these wonders of carniverous engineering. Pan-frying them on the stove seemed like a waste of time with burgers like these, so I decided to break out my camp stove, and cook them in the driveway. I love my camp stove. I haven't had a chance to go camping yet this summer, so it was a good opportunity to pull it out of storage and fire it up one or twice. Besides, the smell of the cooking burgers would drive the neighbours up a wall.After cooking the burgers, I dropped the french bread on the grill for a minute to crisp it up a little. There's nothing like fresh bread to go with barbecued burgers. I then garnished my creations with some sliced tomato, dill pickle and some mustard, and had at them. I can honestly say that I have never had a better burger. There was no way I could eat all four of the burgers I cooked, so I wrapped two of them up and put them in the fridge for the next day's lunch and dinner.

Food Fit For A King

2006-06-14T11:00:00.000-05:00

As an epilogue to my two previous posts (read them here and here) about my trip to New Orleans, I thought that I would say a few words about the trip home. Since we were heading back through Tennessee anyway, and since it only added about an hour or so to the trip, we thought that it would be pretty cool to stop at Graceland on our way through.We didn't actually eat in any of the restaurants at Graceland, but while we were there I had the strangest craving for a deep-fried peanut butter and banana sandwich. I made a mental note to attempt it when I got home.
I was quite impressed by Graceland, not so much for the mansion in and of itself, but for the sense of walking in the footsteps of greatness. In fact, I was a little disappointed by the house, because although it's a very nice house, it's not unusually large or particularly tricked-out. This, I came to realize, is not the point. There's no flash photography allowed inside the mansion, so I don't have any pictures of the Jungle Room or the Media Room, but just the implied activities that probably went on there were enough to make me stand in one spot, looking around with a goofy grin on my face. Elvis was a very cool guy, and it's too bad he's not still around.When I got home, my plan was to improvise some sort of deep-frying apparatus using a large pot and various lifting implements, so it was off to Canadian Tire to purchase a wire mesh lifter and possibly some sort of wire basket for inside the pot. Well, the stars must have been in alignment. When I got to the store, there was a clearance sale happening for a large pile of merch whose packaging had been either slightly or very damaged. What did I spy, but a deep-fryer unit with all of its parts in a really beat-up box, marked down from $129.99 to $60 then to $30! Sold. I drove off with my swag, giggling like an imbecile. The next stop was the Grocery Palace, for the requisite ingedients. I thought that Wonder Bread would be a good choice for the PBB sammies, so I picked up a loaf, along with a couple of bananas, and a jar of Kraft Creamy peanut butter. Booya!

Now, I checked out the 'official' version of Elvis' favourite sandwich, and it requires that you pan-fry the sandwich in a large amount of butter. I thought that I would try a slight variation on this theme, by coating the sandwich in batter, then deep-frying it in my new toy. Here's the recipe I used.

The Gallumphing Gourmand's Deep-Fried PBB Sammies
Yield: 8 little Nuggets of Joy

Sandwich Makin's
4 slices White Wonder bread
1 ripe banana, mashed
Kraft smooth peanut butter

Batter courtesy of CDKitchen (find it here)
½ C corn starch
½ C flour
1½ tsp baking powder
¾ tsp salt
1 dash sugar
½ C milk
1/3 C water

* Fill the deep fryer with oil and preheat.
* Spread some peanut butter on each piece of bread, covering right to the edges.
* Spoon a thick layer of banana on to two of the pieces, and place the other pieces of bread on top, making two sandwiches.
* Cut each Sandwich into quarters.
* Combine together the dry batter ingredients, then add the liquid and mix well.
* Dip each piece of sandwich into the batter and coat well, letting the excess drip off before placing in fry basket. Deep fry two at a time for about 2-3 minutes.
* Remove from deep-fryer to absorbent paper towels, and blot to remove any extra oil.
* Cut each piece in half diagonally, and dust with powdered suger. Devour immediately.For a 'what-the-hell' kind of recipe, these turned out really well. I was initially concerned that the batter was going to be too heavy, but it was just right, giving the sandwiches a bit of crunch, with the gooey PB and banana centre melting in the mouth. Also, I wasn't sure whether or not they would stay together in the hot oil, but they did, and came out golden brown and very very evil. This is not a sandwich to be eaten every day, but it's definitely worth a try at least once. You'll thank me.

Gallumphing Through The Big Easy - Part II: Laissez Le Bon Temps Rouler!

2006-06-09T11:00:00.000-05:00

Let The Good Times Roll!While the remaining four days of our excursion to New Orleans were action-packed, we still managed not to rush around too much. It was simply too hot for that. After the first few days, we got ourselves into a good routine; stay out really late bar-hopping and catching some really excellent jazz and blues at numerous little clubs, then heading for home and sleeping late (the phrase for the week was, "It's 3pm, time for breakfast!"). Then we would take our time getting up in the morning, go to some neat little cafe or restaurant for breakfast, then spend the day touring around the city in the car, either getting a good look at the damage done by Hurricane Katrina in the Lower Ninth Ward and the surrounding areas or simply exploring, and checking out various places of interest.

One of these places was Jean Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop on Bourbon Street.Of course, it's now a bar. According to the plaque inside the place, this is the oldest bar in the United States, dating back to 1772. It looks it. There's not much in the way of electricity in the place, as the back room where we sat was completely in darkness until we lit some candles.
One of my favourite places we went to was a tiny little bar called The Spotted Cat on Frenchmen St. in the Marigny district, which is right beside the French Quarter. This place has a bar, a few chairs and a small stage. But the music that came out of that place was unbe-frickin-lievable. We caught a band called the Washboard Chaz Blues Trio (on Thursday? Friday? I can't remember), which was a harmonica player, a slide guitar player, and Chaz himself playing, you guessed it, a washboard. It was the nicest couple of hours I spent in a bar in recent memory.
Of course, we also sampled the local cuisine in our ramblings, and one of the places we went to was Mona's Middle Eastern Cuisine, also on Frenchmen St. In addition to the traditional Middle Eastern dishes, Mona's also serves local favourites, like po' boy sandwiches and such. I'm a little embarassed, because for the life of me, I can't remember what I had to eat there. I know we started off with hummus and tabouli and pitas as appetizers, but after that all I remember is that I didn't have the catfish, because I'd had it the night before and was looking for something different. Oh well, it must have been good, or I would have definitely remembered what it was. Y'know, they say the memory is the first to go. I think. Anyway, did I mention that beer is available 24 hours a day, from every store? There's got to be a connection there somewhere......
OK, one other place we visited, on the insistence of Paul's friend George, was the RiverShack restaurant in neighbouring Jefferson Parish, which apparently is the "Home of the Tacky Ashtray". We all had what was listed on the menu as a "Shank You Burger", consisting of a patty of beef, and one of hot sausage. Quite tasty. In addition to the burgers, we had Gator Bites (alligator sausage), and Fried Pickles.
After almost a week packed full of shenanigans, we had seen and done a lot, but not nearly as much as we had wanted to. As Paul put it, "That's OK, it just means you'll have to come back." Yes, it does.

I'll leave you all with a picture of the sun setting over Lake Pontchartrain.Ahhhh.

Gallumphing Through The Big Easy - Part I: The Descent

2006-05-30T16:21:00.000-05:00

You may have noticed that I haven't posted anything for a while. I was on vacation, you see. For this I apologize. Ummm... for the not posting part, not for the being on vacation part. My friend Joe and I hopped in his car and headed wildly off in all directions, or at least in the general direction of New Orleans, Louisiana to visit a buddy of ours. We had been feeling kind of bad, as this buddy had been living in the party captial of the world for the last few years, and we hadn't managed to get our act together sufficiently to go visit. I am happy to report that this grievous oversight has now been remedied.

First of all, I have to say that I LOVE NEW ORLEANS. Whew, that feels better. What a great town. We arrived on the 16th of May after Cannonballing right down the middle of the States - 26 hours in the car including coffee breaks and naps. This was a part of the USA I personally had never visited before. The route went something like this: West from Toronto on the 401 to Detroit, then south through Toledo, (in the pouring rain, no less) dinner at Denny's somewhere in Ohio, on through Cincinnati, Louisville (still raining), Nashville (sun at last), a two hour nap at a service station in northern Alabama (or was it southern Tennessee?), on to Birmingham, then west through the great state of Mississippi including lunch at a Waffle House in Picayune, then finally, New Orleans.

Normally, when on a road trip with friends, we play the LCBO Game to pass the time. For those of you not familiar with this game, I will explain. In Ontario, the only place you can buy liquor is the LCBO store (Liquor Control Board of Ontario). Consequently, there is an LCBO outlet in every single little town in the province. The game is to be the first person to spot the LCBO sign as you pass through each little town, shouting out "LCBO!" and pointing at the sign. Of course, when road tripping through the States, this doesn't really work so well, but after driving through Ohio for a while, we noticed that there seemed to be a place called the Waffle House in pretty much every single little town along the interstate. So, we played the Waffle House Game. I am the king of the Waffle House Game. To be fair, Joe did all the driving, so he couldn't exactly spend all his time searching for the signs, buy hey, a win's a win.

Anyway, after spending all of that time playing the game, by the time we got to Mississippi and we were looking for a place to eat, we thought, "Why not the Waffle House?" Why not, indeed. So, we found one in the lovely little town of Picayune, Mississippi. It's too bad I didn't take a picture of my lunch that day, 'cause it was truly a sight to behold. I had a double order of hashbrowns with pretty much whatever they could throw at it on top. There was chili, tomatoes, mushrooms and ham. I think that was it. The ensuing week has since blurred my memory of exact details from the trip down. Long story short it was everything a growing boy needs. It was REALLY good.

We got into Nawlenz at around 5pm, but it took us a bit of time to find our friend's place, because about 25% of the street signs had been Katrina casualties. Combined with the rush hour traffic (such as it was), and the uneven roads (Katrina again), it took us the better part of an hour to find the house.

We stepped out of the car into what we considered to be beautiful weather. It was about 80 degrees, with a nice breeze and clear skies. Ahhhh yeahhh. Paul was still at work, so we reclined in our camping chairs outside his place under some enormous oak trees. When he finally got home, after saying hello and all that, Paul apologized for the weather. Huhnh? Apparently, New Orleans had been experiencing somewhat of a 'cold snap' for that time of year, and the extremely nice 80 degrees was a record low for May. Must be nice. We had just come from Toronto, where at that point, the weather was still in the high fifties. Of course, now in Toronto it's at least 90 and damn humid, but that's a story for another day.

Paul wasn't exactly expecting us until the next day, because we had originally planned to go camping somewhere on the way down, but we had been making such good time, we really wanted to just get there. Because of this, Paul hadn't booked the next day off either as we were expected the next evening. So Joe and I amused ourselves for the day at the Audubon Zoo, which is right across the street from Paul's place. Nice. I took a pile of pictures while at the zoo, but of course, forgot to get more than one or two with me actually in them.

After baking in the sun all day, we regrouped at Paul's place, hooked up with his friend Frank, then headed into the CBD (Central Business District) for Wednesday At The Square, which turned out to be a big crowd of people having a great time eating and drinking accompanied by some live jazz courtesy of a band called The Iguanas. I had some crawfish etoufee and some beans and rice, and a really good local beer called Abita Amber. I was in heaven. After that, we went to a little Cuban place Paul knew where I had the best catfish po'boy sandwich I had ever eaten. OK, it was the ONLY catfish po'boy sandwich I had ever eaten, but do I ever like catfish. I'd been in the city two days, and already I had decided that I could happily live there.

Stay tuned, the Gallumphing continues...

WCC #5: Cinco de Mayo, eh?

2006-05-10T14:14:00.003-05:00

When I read that the theme for this month's Weekend Cookbook Challenge was "Cinco de Mayo", I was a little concerned. While I have certainly consumed a fair amount of Mexican cuisine (mostly from Taco Bell), I have never really cooked any. Oh sure, I've fried up some stuff, put it in a flour tortilla and called it a 'soft taco', but nothing that could be identified as definitively Mexican.
Luckily, I recently acquired a cookbook entitled "The Mexican Mama's Kitchen" by Sofia Larrinua-Craxton, which I have really enjoyed reading, as it outlines how to make some basic Mexican staples, such as Pico de Gallo, Refried Beans, and of course, tortillas, along with some very tasty-looking full meals.

For this Weekend Cookbook Challenge, I decided to make Swiss Enchiladas (Enchiladas Suizas). In case you were wondering (and I know you were), in Mexican cooking, ‘Swiss’ refers to any dish that features cream as one of its prominent ingredients. Here, sour cream provides a lower-fat alternative to double cream. In addition to the enchiladas, the cookbook suggests that refried beans make a good accompaniment for this dish, so I made some of that as well.

Now, before I get into the recipes, my ingredient-gathering expidition was just as entertaining as the cooking part. The weekend before, I happened to be walking through Kensington Market, which is possibly the most multi-cultural section of Toronto with people from at least 30 different cultural backgrounds, including Portuguese, Ethiopian, East Indian, Carribean and Mexican. And all packed into about eight square blocks just west of downtown. Needless to say, grocery shopping, and shopping in general in the Market is a real eye-opening experience.

I found a little grocery shop called Perola's on Augusta Ave., which features products and produce from Brazil and Mexico. They have such an unbelievable selection of fresh peppers and dried chilis, that I just had to stock up.
Here are some pictures of some of the stuff I picked up. The enchiladas recipe calls for serrano chilis and tomatillos, neither of which I was familiar with, but Perola's had some. I also got some lovely smoky chipotle peppers (why not?), some dried ancho chilis, some poblanos, some guajillo peppers and some blue corn tortillas. This is also where I got the pinto beans for the Refried Beans recipe.

I made the beans a day ahead of time, because it takes a while for the beans to soak before you can cook them. The recipe is below. Actually, there are two recipes, because you have to cook the beans first, then mash them up and fry them again. These are so tasty and they go with everything. I only ended up using a little bit of the beans with the enchiladas, so I had to find creative ways to use about four cups of refried beans. Ahhh....if only all decisions in life were as easy....

Back Burner Beans (Frijoles de la Olla)

400g (about 1 lb.) pinto, borlotti or black beans (I used pinto beans)
2 litres (1 gallon) water
1 large onion, quartered
3 whole cloves garlic
2 bay leaves
1 small bunch of fresh herbs
salt

Put the beans into a large saucepan and cover with the water. Let soak overnight.
The next day, put the pot on the stove and bring to a boil. Skim off any film that comes to the surface. Add the onions, garlic, bay leaves and herbs. Partially cover and simmer gently for about 1 hour or until the beans are fully cooked and soft. Once cooked, season with salt.

Refried Beans (Frijoles Refritos)

2 C Frijoles de la Olla, with a little cooking water
(or the same quantity of canned pinto, borlotti or black beans, rinsed and drained)
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp corn or vegetable oil
salt or vegetable bouillon powder

Lightly mash the beans with a potato masher until they form a soft and lumpy paste.
Saute the onion and oil in a medium-sized frying pan until translucent, add the beans and cook for a further 2 minutes. Add water or bean stock if the mixture is too dry.
Season with salt or vegetable bouillon powder to taste.

The next night, I started in on the enchiladas. The first step, I thought, was to make the tomatillo puree that is required as part of the enchilada sauce. You may notice that in the recipe below, it says to "remove the outer leaves from the tomatillos". Well, this is my own correction and clarification, as the original instructions in the book say to "peel the tomatillos". I took this to mean that the outer skin should be removed, so there I was with a vegetable peeler, trying to peel the tomatillos. Yeesh. This semed a little odd to me, so I checked some other recipes for tomatillo puree online (the next day, of course), and found out that removing the leaves was what was meant by "peeling". Oh well. Live and learn. To make a long story short, I ended up with less tomatillo puree than I expected, but just added some more water to the sauce to compensate.

Tomatillo Puree

½ lb fresh tomatillos
1 tsp baking soda
water

Boil the water with the baking soda. Remove outer leaves from the tomatillos, chop in half and add to water. Cook for 2-3 minutes until they turn yellowish and soft, then puree.

Allrighty then. With all of my ducks now in a row, I started cooking the chicken and making the sauce. The recipe for the sauce calls for the serrano chilis, but I was a little hesitant, as I was unsure of their relative spiciness. I have heard that the rule of thumb for chilis is "the smaller the chili, the hotter the chili". The serranos are pretty darn small, so after chopping one up, and carefully removing the seeds from one little piece, and with a large glass of milk at the ready, I popped it in my mouth. Whew, it wasn't really that hot. I mean, it was a spicy little pepper, but I was expecting to break out into a sweat, and have my sinuses all drain simultaneously. Nope. I would say that the serrano is slightly less spicy than a jalapeno. Excellent. OK, moving on.

After the chicken was finished cooking, I had shredded it and put it aside. The recipe calls for one boneless skinless chicken breast. I didn't think that that sounded like enough, so I used two. Next time I'll use three.

After all of the constituent parts were cooked, the assembly went smoothly. I fried the tortillas in some oil, dipped them in the enchilada sauce, spooned some chicken into each one, folded it in half and placed them into a baking dish. I then covered the tortillas with the sour cream and grated cheese, and, emboldened by my experiment with the serrano, sliced up two more chilis and sprinkled them over the top.Yummy, yummy.

After that, it went into the oven for about 15 minutes, and came out looking like this:
Swiss Enchiladas (Enchiladas Suizas)

The Chicken
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
750 ml (1½ C) water
2 tbsp onion, chopped
1 tsp salt
1 bay leaf

Enchilada Sauce
3 tbsp corn or vegetable oil
½ medium onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
250ml (1 C) tomatillo puree (see below)
1 tbsp fresh coriander (or ½ tbsp dried coriander)
1 serrano chilli, finely chopped
½ tsp salt
½ tsp sugar
½ tsp baking soda
salt and pepper

Tortillas
250 ml (1 C) vegetable oil
6 soft blue corn tortillas

Topping
300g (1¼ C) sour cream
100g (½ C) grated cheddar cheese
2 serrano chillis, sliced thin

1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF/180ºC/Gas Mark 4.
2. Put the chicken breasts in a saucepan and cover with the water. Add the 2 tbsp chopped onion, salt and bay leaf. Bring to the boil and skim anything that comes to the surface. Boil gently for 20 minutes, until the chicken is cooked. Leave to cool and shred lightly with your fingers. Reserve.
3. While the chicken is cooking, make the sauce for the enchiladas. In a medium saucepan, heat the oil and add the onion. Sauté for 5 minutes, until soft. Add the garlic and sauté for a little longer, making sure that the garlic does not burn. Add ¾ of the tomatillo puree, most of the coriander, the chilli, salt, sugar and baking soda. Cook for 10 minutes, until the sauce no longer tastes too acidic. Add some of the chicken stock to obtain a fairly liquid sauce. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
4. Heat the 1 C of vegetable oil in a frying pan and put the tortillas in one at a time. Try each tortilla for 15 seconds and place on a plate lined with kitchen paper. The tortillas should remain soft.
5. Dip each tortilla in the sauce and place on a medium-sized baking dish. Put a little of the shredded chicken on each tortilla and fold in half. Repeat the process with each tortilla. Top with the rest of the tomatillo sauce, the sour cream, the cheese and the sliced chillis. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes, until the cheese turns golden brown.
6. Garnish with the remaining coriander and serve warm. They taste delicious when served with refried beans (see recipe above).

Weekend Cookbook Challenge

Let's Try That Again, Shall We?

2006-05-05T08:40:00.000-05:00

After making the batch of muffins last week (see post here), I was a little disappointed that they didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. They tasted and looked OK, but they didn't rise very much, because I had added an extra ¼ cup of milk to the batter in an effort to make it less 'gloopy'. So I decided that since I like the recipe, and they tasted pretty darn good, that it was worth another attempt.

The first time, I thought that it was the proportions that were the problem, as the batter came out really thick and sticky. Well, I think that's pretty much how it's supposed to be.

This time, I went exactly by the recipe plus added a handful of raisins, but this time greased up those muffin cups really good, and only baked the muffins for 19 minutes (yes, 19 - it seemed like a good number) instead of the 25 minutes I cooked them last time. Success! Not only were they not black and charred, but they rose nicely in the pan and popped right out with only a little coercing.

And the aroma! I baked these this morning, so when I come home from work this evening, the first thing I'll smell when I walk through the front door will be the lingering smell of fresh cinnamon-raisin muffins.

Another Very Civilized Evening

2006-05-02T08:26:00.000-05:00

Last night I spent some quality time at my local pub, The Feathers, tasting some very nice single malt whiskies. This was the final of their Whisky Challenge series until the fall.

At the last Whisky Challenge, which was back in February (see post here), I didn't fare so well, so I was determined to put forth a better showing this time.

The theme for last night's event was "Mostly Peatless", which meant that very few of the selections would be from the Island (or Islay) region, which is largely responsible for the production of 'smoky' or 'peaty' whiskies. I didn't particularly mind this, for while I certainly enjoy a nice smoky malt from time to time, I really prefer a nice full-bodied Highland malt.

Ian (the Publican, not me) certainly uncorked the good stuff last night, as six of the eight malts served were Cask Strength, and all of the malts were at least 18 years old.

Here are explainations for some of the abbreviations used in this post.

C.S. (Cask Strength) - Meaning bottled straight from the maturing cask without chill filtering or the addition of water. Generally a fuller tasting, stronger dram.
D.B. (Distillery Bottling) - Single malt whisky bottled by the distillery is known as a distillery bottling or an official bottling and is usually bottled with an age statement (The Macallan 12 Years Old) or a vintage year (Glen Rothes 1989).
R.M. (Rare Malt Series) - Pretty much self-explanatory.
Sig. (Signatory Vintage) - Check out the link here

Here are the malts that we tasted in the order they were served. The first comment for each malt is the description provided by the distillery. The second comment is my own impressions.

1) Auchentoshan 25yr. C.S. (D.B.) - A triple distilled single-cask bottling from the Bowmore Group. Light mahogany in colour with soft lemon and vanilla undertones. A palate of toffee and butter, some fruit and a delicate, sweet finish.

I liked this one a lot. Full-flavoured, with a hint of banana. Seriously. 7

2) Macallan 1985 18yr. (D.B.) – This Speysider is just a lovely dram and should dispensed with a heavy hand. Deep chestnut in colour with a glorious honey and sherry nose, a big bouquet with nuts and floral notes and a superb dry, warming finish.

I just love Macallan of any vintage, but this one was truly excellent. I actually guessed this one correctly. 8.5

3) Benrinnes 1974 21yr. C.S. (R.M.) – This big beauty has only been bottled as a single malt by the distillery since 1991. Bright gold in colour with almond – vanilla flavours, some nuts and oil, quite creamy and a spicy, sweet lingering finish.

This one completely bamboozled me. This is a nice, light-tasting dram with a bit of spice on the end of the tongue. Really quite pleasant. I guessed this as the Bladnoch, below. rrrr. 8

4) Bladnoch 1977 23yr. C.S. (R.M.) – The southern distillery is close enough to England to affect its quality. Gold in colour with a sweetly perfumed nose. Light and smooth with honey and citrus, somewhat gentle yet crisp – a good aperitif.

Another spicy one. I've never tasted a malt quite like this one. Very complex full palate with hints of lemon. Nice nice nice. 9

5) Glenmorangie Sauterne 1981 (D.B.) - From Tain in the Northern Highlands. Chestnut in colour with a rich toffee and ripe fruit nose and a body suggesting hazelnuts, honeycomb, even vanilla ice cream. The finish is exquisite, gentle and sweet.

An OK malt. Very subtle, with a taste of vanilla, and just slightly nutty. 7

6) Royal Brackla 1975 C.S. (Sig.) – Founded in 1812, the year as Napoleon invaded Russia. Fresh grains on the nose, then fruit and spiciness becoming hot and peppery. Quite robust with a restrained, malty finish.

That's a SPICY meatball. I am really starting to like the peppery malts. A lovely dram - too bad a bottle costs several hundred dollars. 8.5

7) Royal Lochnagar 1973 23yr C.S. (R.M.) – From the Eastern Highlands and a favourite of Queen Victoria. Quiet on the nose, soft-textured and appetizing, some dry nuttiness and just a hint of marzipan. An elegant, subdued finish.

A hint of peaty goodness, with a slight taste of toffee. A little smoky, yet still a Highland malt. Yummy. 8

8) Talisker 1982 20yr. C.S. (D.B.) – From Skye’s only distillery and rated highly by Robert Louis Stevenson. Gold in colour with a distinct coastal nose, peppery and slightly sour with a heat that slowly gains in intensity. A more refined finish than younger versions.

What can I say about Talisker? I love this malt. Heavy-duty smoke and peat, so good it was almost crunchy. Booya. 9

The list that was provided to each of the participants actually contained 10 malts, of which we were served eight. Here are the other two from the list that were not served.

Auchroisk 1974 28yr. (R.M.) – Gentle liquorice and toffee aromas introduce a smooth, soft-bodied dram with sweet malty shortbread and cinnamon flavours. A warming, long finish.

Bruichladdich 20yr. (D.B.) – An abandoned ruin of a distillery miraculously brought back to life. Complex nose of melon balls in honey, lemon meringue and kiwi and sweet oak and barley sugar. A finish both graceful and smooth.

Normally, there is at least one malt served that I just don't care for. It's not that it's a bad whisky necessarily, it's just not to my taste. This wasn't the case last night. Everything that was served was absolutely top-notch.

OK, the scoring system is simple. If you guess the malt exactly correct, you get 3 points. If guess the malt incorrectly, but get the region (Highland, Lowland, Island) correct, you get 1 point. If you're completely wrong, you get bupkus.

The rating system for scores, as provided by The Feathers, is as follows:
18-24 Points - Nae chance!
13-17 Points - Splendid!
9-12 Points - Very respectable.
5-8 Points - Not too bad.
1-4 Points - Tonight's Pudding!

Out of a possible 24 points, I scored a 12. I guessed malts 2, 5, 6 and 8 correctly, and got the rest completely wrong. It's not great, but it's an improvement on the 9 points I scored at the last one. I don't mind getting a bad score, but I always strive to avoid being the Pudding. So far, it hasn't happened. Yet.

The other two in my party fared slightly better than I did. Pat scored a 15, and Mike (our resident expert) scored a 16. The evening's winner scored 21 points - 7 out of 8 guessed correctly. For his efforts, he won a bottle of Dalmore 12yr. Nice.

Boy, with six of the malts being cask strength (meaning higher alcohol content - probably in the 50-60% ABV range), I was feeling very OK by the end of the night. In addition, we had someone guarding the chandeliers, because it was looking like our friend Pat might be doing some dancing on the tables. Woo-hoo!

Baking Is Hazardous To Your Muffins

2006-04-28T11:02:00.000-05:00

Last night, I made muffins for the first time in a very long time. I don't do much baking, really, but the other night I was flipping through one of my cookbooks featuring recipes for muffins, cakes, quickbreads, etc. and I found a recipe for Coffee Cake Muffins that looked pretty easy. Best of all, I already had most of the ingredients on hand. On the way home from work yesterday I picked up some milk (the only thing I was missing), and I was away to the races. Sort of.
The first batch I made did not exactly come out as planned. There are no pictures, as it was just too horrible. I put the muffin pan into the oven picturing fluffy, golden coffee cake, but what I got was cinnamon-flavoured charcoal. Harrumph.

So. I decided to modify my approach somewhat. The directions say to bake the muffins for between 20 and 25 minutes. Just a tip - 25 minutes is TOO LONG. For my oven, anyway. Plus, the batter seemed really gloopy and sticky. I had a hard time getting the stuff from the supposedly non-stick silicon spatula into the muffin cups. In addition to that, the directions say to 'lightly grease' the muffin pan. Well, OK, I admit it, I have a crappy muffin pan. But, I faithfully 'lightly' greased the cups, and then needed a cold chisel to get the little suckers out.

My second attempt was this morning. Armed with the knowledge gained from the miserable failure of the previous evening, I set out to make some edible muffin-like cakey things. Now, they weren't what I would call perfect, but as I generally prefer NON-crunchy coffee cake, I declared them a success.

First of all, I smeared those muffin cups with a generous amount of butter. Not an outlandish amount, but they knew they'd been smeared. Then, I decided to add a bit more milk than the recipe calls for in an effort to make the batter a little less gloopy and thus easier to work with. This did work, but the muffins didn't end up rising quite as much as the first batch. I'm still tinkering with the formula. This will require additional experimentation, but I'm sure my co-workers (on whom I've been recently foisting my baked goods) will not mind.

The additional lubrication on the muffin cups worked a charm. And, I suppose, only baking the muffins for exactly 20 minutes helped as well. They came out golden instead of black, and were easily extracted from the pan. Now I just have to get them to rise a bit more.

Oh yeah, you guys probably want to know the recipe, don't you? OK, OK, keep it down, here it is.

Coffee Cake Muffins
from Company's Coming - Muffins & More by Jean Paré
Makes 12 Muffins

Muffin Batter
1½ C All-purpose Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
½ tsp Salt
¼ C Butter, softened
½ C Granulated Sugar
1 egg
¾ C Milk (2nd attempt I used 1 C milk)
½ tsp Vanilla

Preheat oven to 400ºF. (200ºC)

Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Stir. Make a well in the center. In another bowl combine butter, sugar and egg. Beat well. Mix in milk and vanilla. Pour into the well in the flour mixture, and stir just to moisten. Spoon part of batter into lightly (heh) greased muffin cups 1/3 full. Sprinkle Spice Mix over top. Spoon rest of batter over top filling to 2/3 full. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes.

Spice Mix
½ C Brown Sugar, packed
2 tbsp All-Purpose Flour
1 tsp Cinnamon

In small bowl combine all ingredients. Stir well. Sprinkle over batter as directed above.

Food From The Ether Part 1: Orange You Glad I Didn't Say Banana?

2006-04-25T10:05:00.000-05:00

I recently participated in a weekly blog event hosted by Anne of Cooking With Anne called "Ready, Set, Cook!" Every Tuesday morning Anne provides a list of three special ingredients, and the idea is to create a recipe off the top of your head using those three ingredients. You can use anything else you want, but you must use those three ingredients.
The three ingredients for last week's event were: farfalle (bowtie pasta), chicken and mandarin oranges. Now, it's not a requirement of this event that you actually cook your creation. However, the recipe I came up with sounded pretty tasty, so I thought that I would attempt it.

When it came to actually preparing the recipe I did end up changing a few things because reality, unfortunately, does tend to intrude into the creative process. My original recipe can be found here, with the other submissions. The recipe I prepared last night is below.

Chicken Farfalle with Spicy Orange Sauce
Yield: 2 entrees, 4 appetizers, or 1 Big Honkin' Bowl

½ lb. boneless chicken breast, cut into chunks
1 can (10 oz) mandarin orange segments, with juice
1 C white wine
pinch of paprika
1 tsp crushed chili pepper flakes
salt & pepper to taste
2 tbsp + 2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
¼ C slivered almonds
small handful of sesame seeds
2 C farfalle (bowtie pasta)

Brown chicken in butter, remove from pan and set aside.
Add some more butter to the pan, and mix in the flour. Add the can of orange segments, the wine, the paprika and the chili flakes and mix to combine. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium low.
Meanwhile, put a large pot of salted water on to boil for the pasta.
Place the chicken back into the pan and simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the sauce reduces by about 25%, about 10-15 minutes.
When the water boils, cook the pasta until just al dente. Place the pasta on a plate or bowl and add the chicken and sauce. Sprinkle with the almonds and the sesame seeds, and toss to combine. Serve immediately.

I really didn't know what to expect with this dish, but it turned out really well and tasted amazing. The wine and the oranges worked really well together and produced a nice light-tasting sauce combined with a spicy hit from the chili flakes and paprika. The almonds and sesame seeds added some more flavour and provided a bit of crunch.

All in all, I was very happy with this and will be adding this to my regular repertoire of dinners.

The Voices In My Head Win Again

2006-04-17T22:58:00.000-05:00

Harry: Repeat after me. Pepper.
Sally: Pepper.
Harry: Pepper.
Sally: Pepper.
Harry: Waiter, there is too much pepper on my paprikash.
Sally: Waiter, there is too much pepper on my paprikash.
Harry: But I would be proud to partake of your pecan pie.

I've had this snippet of dialogue from "When Harry Met Sally" rolling around in my head for about a week now (pee-can pieeeee), and it has reminded me how much I like chicken paprikash. (How's that for a segue?) I tried paprikash for the first time about nine years ago at a Hungarian restaurant here in Toronto, and it has remained one of my favourite comfort foods. Don't ask me which restaurant it was, I can't remember. This was during my "Find-a-new-restaurant-featuring-foreign-cuisine-I've-never-tried-before" phase. Hmmm. I guess I could have called it my "Exotic Foreign Cuisine" phase, but that would have been too easy. Come to think of it, I'm still in this phase.

But I digress. In addition to making the paprikash, I had been wanting to try to make gnocchi. Gnocchi tastes best with sauce I'm told, and paprikash goes well with noodles or dumplings, so I thought that the two things would work well together.

I downloaded a recipe for chicken paprikash from Cooks.com. Find the recipe here. The recipe I used for the gnocchi is adapted from a recipe scrounged from Rob & Rachel at Hungry In Hogtown. I say adapted, because instead of the russet potatoes called for in their recipe, I used sweet potatoes. Have I mentioned that I really like sweet potatoes? But, aside from scaling back the quantities a bit, that was the only substitution I made.

The paprikash itself went pretty much according to plan. The recipe requires that the chicken be browned in quite a lot of butter (¼ C) . Now, I like butter, but I thought that ¼ C was a bit excessive. So, I cut back a bit and only used about 2 tbsp to cook the chicken, and added a bit more for the onions. While the chicken was simmering, I started on the gnocchi. I had already cooked the sweet potatoes, and pureed them in the food processor. Rob and Rachel mention in their post that they prefer to bake the potatoes rather than boil them, as this reduces the amount of moisture in the potatoes. I decided to boil them anyway, but after I drained them I returned them to the empty pot on the stove over reduced heat to attempt to cook out some of the excess moisture before putting them in the discombobulator. Never having actually tasted gnocchi before, I really don't know whether this made any difference.

After the potatoes were ready, I added the nutmeg, flour and egg and mixed up the dough. I'm not sure how much flour I ended up using, but the dough didn't stick to the sides of the bowl, and after kneading it a bit, it became nice and pliable and easy to work with. I split the dough up into about four pieces, and started to roll out each piece between my hands. Despite having the directions in front of me, I was unsure as to how big to make each nugget o' gnocchi, so I settled on the size of my thumb. Upon talking to some people at work this morning, I found out that I should probably have made them about half that size, but oh well, live and learn.

At this point the water for the gnocchi was boiling, so I dropped in a bunch of the little suckers, swished them around with a big spoon to make sure that they weren't sticking to the bottom of the pot, and shifted my attention to the paprikash.

It had been simmering for about twenty minutes, so that meant only one thing - time to add the flour/water mixture to thicken the sauce, and the sour cream to give it some body. Having done that, I mixed everything around a bit, then covered the pan and removed it from the heat. I had read over several recipes for paprikash before settling on this one, and although this particular recipe didn't specify, I removed the pan from the heat at this point because one of the other recipes had said that if the sour cream is allowed to boil, then it will curdle in the pan. Eeeeuwww. So, off the heat it came. The gnocchi was also finished cooking at this point, so I drained them, put some on the plate and poured the lovely paprikash over the top.

The whole thing turned out very well, and it was certainly tasty, but the jury is still out as to whether or not I actually like gnocchi well enough to make them again. I don't know whether it's because I made them wrong, or whether I simply prefer mashed potatoes, but the meal seemed awfully heavy. I think my next assignment is to find an Italian restaurant and try some real gnocchi. Life is rough.

I'm also planning to make some pee-can pieeee. Stay tuned.

Weekend Cookbook Challenge #4: Easter Brunch

2006-04-12T12:51:00.000-05:00

This recipe was a colossal pain to make, but as with most recipes like this, the result was worth the effort.

This is Chilled Seafood Lasagna with Herbed Cheese. I found it in a cookbook I've had for a very long time, yet this is the first recipe from it that I have attempted. The cookbook is The Treasury of Creative Cooking, and it features recipes that have won various invitational cooking competitions around the United States. This recipe, apparently, was a prize winner in the "Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board Supermarket Chef Showcase". Whew. Say THAT five times fast.

I've been meaning to submit something to the The Weekend Cookbook Challenge for a while, and this is the culmination of my effort. When I first found this recipe, there was no doubt in my mind that I was going to attempt it, I just needed an excuse because, well, smoked salmon and caviar are not items I normally stock in my kitchen.

First of all, here's the recipe.

Chilled Seafood Lasagna with Herbed Cheese
Makes 24 First Course or 8 Entrée servings

2 C ricotta cheese
1½ C mascarpone cheese
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp fresh basil, minced
1 tbsp fresh dill, minced
1 tbsp fresh tarragon, minced
¼ tbsp white pepper
8 lasagna noodles (2 inches wide), cooked and drained
1 lb. smoked salmon
¼ lb. whitefish caviar, gently rinsed

1) Place ricotta cheese, mascarpone cheese, lemon juice, herbs and pepper in a food processor, and process until well combined.
2) Line terrine mold with plastic wrap, allowing wrap to come over the sides.
3) Layer 1 noodle, ½ C of cheese mix, 2 oz. of lox, 2 rounded tsp of caviar, and repeat, ending with a noodle on top.
4) Refrigerate several hours until firm.
5) Carefully remove from mold, and remove plastic wrap.
6) Slice with warm knife.
7) Garnish with strips of lox rolled to look like roses.

Okay, back to my original comment. This was a pain simply because I don't currently own a terrine mold, so I had to freehand the Leaning Tower Of Pasta, as I came to call it.

My first obstacle, however, was cooking the lasagna noodles without breaking them.None of my large pots were quite large enough to handle the noodles, so I used a roasting pan on top of the stove burner. That actually worked pretty well. I then drained them and put them aside.

Next came the cheese mixture. This was pretty staightforward, I just dumped the cheeses and the herbs into the trusty food processor, and blended. Just a side note here - I've haven't had much experience working with fresh herbs before, and it was just incredible to me how much of a difference in aroma there was between the fresh basil and the dried basil I normally use. Also, I really liked the pungent liqourice-like smell from the tarragon.

Now came the tricky part. The assembly. Everything started out well; I had all the respective parts measured out and prepared. How could everything have gone south so quickly?
I started out by placing a piece of aluminum foil down, and on top of that, a piece of plastic wrap. The trick was to remember not to place anything like spoons or spatulas on the plastic wrap while the assembly was in progress, as they would stick, and thus disturb the increasingly precarious Leaning Tower when I picked them up again. And so it began. The first layer went OK, but it was when I placed the second noodle that I realized what the challenge was going to be.You see, the cheese was holding the lower noodle in place, but all that was touching the upper noodle was smoked salmon and the spoonful of caviar. Not exactly a sturdy arrangement. Of course with a terrine this would be a moot issue, but as the layers increased, I kept having to adjust the stack to keep it from falling over.

Another side note - my local Grocery Palace actually stocks caviar. I was thinking I would have to make a pilgrimage to the St. Lawrence Market to find some, but happily, they stocked both red and black lumpfish caviar. I chose the red stuff. The recipe calls for whitefish caviar, but since that's what they had at the store, that's what I used. Besides, I thought it would go well with the orange of the smoked salmon and the white of the cheese.

When I finally placed the final noodle on the top, I breathed a sigh of relief. But then it struck me. The piece of plastic wrap that the lasagna was sitting on was now not wide enough to wrap around it completely. I panicked for a second, then realized I could just add another piece.I then wrapped the aluminum foil around the package, and gingerly transported it to the fridge on a piece of cardboard cut to fit the lasagna. Then I had a scotch. Wow. Through this whole ordeal, the thought that was running through my mind was, "This had better taste good."

I left it to chill overnight in the fridge. In the morning I took it out, carefully removed the wrapping, heated my chef knife under some hot running water and cut a slice. Very very tasty.In addition, I had some of the smoked salmon and some of the cheese mixture left over, so I made some toast, and had a quite enjoyable breakfast, all things considered.

The next time I make this, and I likely will, I'm not doing it without a terrine mold. That's all there is to it. And despite my bitching and moaning, this was fun to make, and I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Weekend Cookbook Challenge

Say The Magic Word, And I'll Show You My Noodle

2006-04-10T10:13:00.000-05:00

I've always liked the soup made from those bricks of dried noodles that are sold for three or four for a dollar. I think part of it is the cool little 'flavour' packets that are included. It almost seems like a magic trick. You start with cooked noodles in hot water, then sprinkle the magic flavour dust over the top, stir, and voila! - you have soup. Now, I've never really been able to tell the difference between the different flavours, except by the different colours of powder - 'chicken' is yellow, 'beef' is brown, 'oriental' is reddish, etc. etc. Whatever, it's all good. Recently, I have been reacquainting myself with the joys of 'noodle magic', and have been using them as the base for some pretty tasty experiments.

Since I had just made a trip to the Grocery Palace, my fridge was loaded with some fresh veggies so I was good to go. I started out with three packages of the dry noodles, and I decided to go with the classic 'pork, pork, chicken' configuration for the basic flavourings. I put about 6 cups of water on to boil, dumped the flavour packets into a large bowl, then added some fresh ground pepper, some garlic powder, and some crushed chili flakes. I then sliced up some mushrooms, grabbed a handful of bean sprouts, and tossed them both into the bowl with the flavourings and lightly tossed them so that they were nicely coated in the good stuff. When the noodles were ready, I just dumped them into the bowl with the seasoned veggies, stirred, and Voila! - soup. I added some more bean sprouts on top, sprinkled some oregano over everything and let it sit for a few minutes to let the flavours combine, and also to let it cool a bit. There's nothing worse than slurping up some hot soup noodles, and getting the whiplash effect that leaves a burning line up the centre of your face. owie.

Other variations on this theme have involved adding an egg or two into the boiling water with the cooking noodles, and getting kind of an egg-drop soup effect. Also, I tried adding a packet of instant onion soup mix into the boiling water with the noodles. That worked well, and certainly worked better than just dumping the onion soup mix in after the noodles were coooked. Let's just say that the taste was a little intense.

I realize that this is not exactly revolutionary cuisine, but it was fun to make and it tasted good. That's pretty much all I aim for when being creative in the kitchen.

Around The World In A Meme

2006-04-05T11:57:00.000-05:00

When I was tagged for this meme last week by Stephanie of The Feast Crusade, I knew I had my work cut out for me.
For while I've been doing this blog thing for a couple of months now, I haven't really taken the time to explore a whole lot of other food blogs. Oh sure, I have my two or three favourites that I check regularly, but beyond that I really haven't checked out many sites.

"So," I thought, "time to go exploring."

I dusted off the trusty pith helmet and set off into the wilds of Foodbloggia. A week of exploring has netted me the following culinary jewels. Off we go.

1-Please list three recipes you have recently bookmarked from food blogs to try
Scrounged Recipe #1
Once again, I found an excellent recipe at Hungry In Hogtown. Seems my friend Rob took a break from from his seemingly endless string of El Bulli molecular gastronomy masterpieces to make this really REALLY tasty looking Vanilla Loaf.

Scrounged Recipe #2
While casting about for some new food blogs to peruse, I found a truly amazing (and simple) dessert at Station Gourmande. The author simply calls the dessert "Banane Surprise". This is an enjoyable site, but a little challenging as it is written completely in French. Here is a transcription of the dessert in English. I'm fairly sure I got this right, but if not, it's still close enough for rock 'n roll.

Banane Surprise
Banana
Dark Chocolate
Shredded Fillo Dough (Kataïfi)
Cooking Oil

Slice the banana in half lengthwise, then cut it in four or five pieces.
Place a piece of chocolate between each banana segment.
Loosely wrap each segment with some of the Kataïfi. This looks sort of like fresh angel-hair pasta, but being fillo, is much more fragile.
Heat some oil in a very hot skillet. Place a few of the bundles into the skillet, and brown on both sides.
Remove from skillet onto some absorbent paper towels, then serve immediately.

Ohhhh yeah!!!

Scrounged Recipe #3
Sausages and Sparrows. No, not those kind of sparrows. In this case, that means spätzle. Yeah, baby. I found this recipe at a neat site called A Chicken In Every Granny Cart. Ever a fan of German and Austrian cuisine, I'm definitely trying this one.

2-A food blog in your vicinity
Recently, my friend Sue told me about a site authored by a friend of hers located here in Toronto called Once Upon A Feast. So I checked it out, and was impressed by the variety of recipes, and the posts about her love of kitchen toys and gadgets.

3-A food blog located far from you
When I search the FoodPornWatch site, I look for blog names that catch my eye, and one of those was MonkeyBites, which is located in Seattle, Washington. The subtitle of the blog is "Don't throw poop, eat pâté....a food blog". I was hooked right there. The blog is a good read, and includes interesting recipes, including one post featuring several recipes using dried Hibiscus Flowers.

4-A food blog (or several) you have discovered recently (where did you find it?)
Aside from the blogs mentioned above in the recipe section, I have been bloggening my horizons, so to speak, by scanning the FoodPornWatch website. For those of you unfamiliar with this site, it is a list of registered food blogs that have recently submitted a post. I figured that since I took the trouble to register my site here, I should avail myself of the service as well. Here is what I found:

Stirway To Heaven. This site features some pretty remarkable-looking desserts. Although this site is from The Netherlands, and the author primarily writes in Dutch, an English translation of the recipes is supplied. Nice.

Naughty Curry. The ladies at this site take everyday dishes and spice them up with primarily Indian flavours. Some very funky stuff here. The posts are written in a conversational style that is very engaging, and they totally draw you in to their world. This is a current favourite of mine.

5-Any people or bloggers you want to tag with this meme?
No, I think that about does it. If anyone I've tagged is bugged about it, I apologize, I just really dig your sites, and I want to share them with others.

Pork Chop Adventures Part II: Top of the Chops

2006-03-30T10:12:00.000-05:00

Pork chops are one of my 'happy' foods. If I'm in a bad mood, cooking a pork chop for dinner will make me feel better. Of course, I don't need to be in a bad mood to have an excuse to make pork chops, such as last night.

My first instinct with pork chops is the shake-n-bake approach, but since I had already tried that recently, I thought that I would throw caution to the winds and try something new.

With no real plan in mind, I started grabbing stuff out of the fridge and just started to cook. When I opened the fridge, the first thing I saw was the big pile of fresh rosemary and the balsamic syrup I had left over from the Parmesan Cream recipe. I'd been trying to figure out what to do with the syrup, and this seemed as good an idea as any. Everything else was based around those two things.

After a flurry of chopping, dicing and simmering, this was the result:

Côtelette de Porc Gallumphante avec Rotini
(It sounds more impressive than "Gallumphing Porkchop with Rotini")

INGREDIENTS:
1 boneless pork chop
1 sprig of fresh rosemary, stem removed & chopped
¼ C fresh parsley, chopped
½ tsp basil
1 C cremini mushrooms, diced
½ C onion, diced
4 cloves of garlic, sliced
chicken stock
balsamic syrup (find recipe here)
1 plum tomato, chopped
freshly ground black pepper
sesame seeds
rotini

DIRECTIONS:
* Heat a little oil in a skillet. Add rosemary, parsley, mushrooms, onion & basil. Drizzle a little bit of the balsamic syrup over the top, add some pepper and stir to combine.
* Saute over medium-high heat until onions are slightly translucent.
* Make some space in the middle of the pan, add the pork chop and spoon some of the mixture over the top.
* Reduce the heat to medium, and cook until the pork chop is just about cooked through, turning once.
* Add tomato, garlic and enough chicken stock to just cover the chop. Sprinkle a small handful of sesame seeds over the top.
* Cover and simmer on medium-low heat for about 10 minutes, occasionally spooning some of the mixture over the top of the chop.
* Meanwhile, put a large pot of salted water on to boil. When water is boiling, add rotini and cook until pasta is al dente.
* To serve, place the pasta and the chop on a plate, and spoon the sauce over both.

The chop turned out pretty well. The fresh herbs added a nice flavour to the meat, and the taste of the sesame seeds was a really nice addition as well. Even if the chop was maybe a little over-cooked, simmering it in the chicken stock kept it tasting moist, and that was good enough for me. The next time I make this, or try something similar, I won't cook the chop for quite as long before adding the stock and simmering.

Stay tuned, more Pork Chop Adventures to come....

The Recipe Collection Meme

2006-03-27T13:46:00.000-05:00

I love church book sales!
I got tagged last week by my friend Rob at Hungry In Hogtown, and I had taken some pictures of my modest mound of cookbooks, when I found out about a giant book sale happening at a church in my area. So, off I toddled with the thought "oboyoboyoboyoboyoboy..." rattling around in my head, and about $20 in my pocket ready to plunder and pillage the cookbook table. Well, I made out like a bandit. You'll notice the large red book on the right side of the picture. That's the Culinary Arts Institute Cookbook, containing a stunning 4400 recipes. One dollar. Then there's the Martha Stewart Living Cookbook. Also one dollar. I ended up with fourteen various cookbooks for a total of $10! My 'to do' list has just multiplied exponentially.

On that note, here we go...

Where do you obtain the recipes you prepare?
Right now it's about even between the internet, and my cookbooks. I've found quite a few neat recipes on the Food Network website, on Epicurious.com, and various other sites. I also get several of the recipes I use from my mother, from food I remember eating as a child.

How often do you cook a new recipe?
I try to cook a new recipe at least once a week, free time and budget permitting. Occasionally, I get on a bit of a roll, and cook several new things all at once, then take a break for a while.

Where do you store your favourite recipes?
I have a binder that I've started recently. It's organized in categories for the most part - Appetizers, Condiments & Spices, Main Courses, Desserts, etc., although there is a section at the back for Miscellaneous New Recipes. Most of these are also stored on my home computer, so if the page gets covered in gravy or hollandaise sauce or a balsamic vinegar explosion, I can just print out a fresh copy.

How large is your recipe pile? Is it organized? How?
Aside from my cookbooks, I have thirty-two recipes on my computer in the aptly named "recipes" folder. This is organized much like my binder (see above).

What is the oldest recipe in your to try pile?
Oboy. Not sure, but I think it's a recipe for marinated pot roast I got from my mother, that was clipped from a newspaper.

Are you really ever going to make all those recipes in your to try pile?
As it stands right now, probably not. Y'know, unless I win the lottery and have a LOT more free time to work with. It'll be fun trying, though.

Do you follow a recipe exactly or modify as you go?
As much as possible, I like to attempt a recipe "as is" the first time I attempt it. After that, all bets are off.

What is one new recipe that you're scared to try?
I really can't think of any recipe I'm scared to try. There are several that I'm simply ill-equipped to try in terms of kitchen gadgets, etc., like making homemade sausages. My relative inexperience in the kitchen makes me more or less fearless when it comes to new recipes.

Tag at least one new food blogger for this meme ("new" as in only blogging a few months)
I've only been doing this myself for a few months, so I really don't know any other 'newbies'.

Tag at least one food blogger you visit regularly but never interacted with:
Well, there aren't really any sites that I visit regularly that I haven't interacted with at all, but I haven't actually left any comments for MM at Mana Makan - The Feast Crusade. She has left some very nice comments on my blog, and I've responded, but I haven't actually left any comments on her site. I feel shame now.

Tag at least one food blogger you constantly visit and leave comments:
That would be my friends Rob and Rachel at Hungry In Hogtown. This is my favourite food blog. Rob has such a bent sense of humour, it's just too bad he doesn't golf as well as he cooks. Oh, I'm gonna get it for that one.
Another one of my favourites is Michelle at Je Mange La Ville. The quantity of material on that site is staggering. She's a cooking machine. And she, and her sig.oth. jwa both have a very enjoyable writing style. I got an excellent recipe for perogies from JMLV.

Tag anyone else you want:
I would be remiss if I didn't mention Kalyn's Kitchen. My first blogger event was her 'cheese sandwich blog' thingumawhatsit. This site is a constant source of inspiration for me.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Breakfast

2006-03-22T17:03:00.000-05:00

Christmas is such a magical time of year. I have so many fond memories of past Christmases with my family - gifts exchanged, happy faces, but most of all, the FOOD!

Within the last ten years, a new tradition has been established in our family with respect to Christmas morning breakfast. My mother found a recipe for a wonderful casserole designed to be prepared the night before, and then popped into the oven when you get up, saving you from having to worry too much about food when there are more important things (I can't believe I'm saying this) to be done. The name of the dish, as I received it, is "The Christmas Morning Wife-Saver". However, I think I'll just refer to it as "Breakfast Casserole".

One of the good things about this casserole are the ingredients - peameal bacon, cheese, eggs, bread, onion, pepper and cornflakes. What says "breakfast" more than that? And, all in one place.

First of all, here's the recipe. It's dead simple. This version of the recipe is slightly different from the version I got from my Mom, as I used whatever was in the fridge, rather than buying stuff I didn't really need just because it was in the recipe.

Breakfast Casserole
Serves 4-8, depending on how hungry everyone is

About 16 slices of Wheat 'N Oats bread, crusts removed
8 slices of Canadian Back Bacon, or whatever you need to cover the bread
2 C cheddar cheese, grated
2 C mozzarella cheese, grated
6 eggs
3 C cold milk
1 healthy dollop of Dijon mustard
1 large shallot, minced
1 C red bell pepper, finely chopped
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 dash Tabasco sauce (or to taste)
heavy pinch of salt
freshly ground black pepper
125g (¼ lb) butter
crushed corn flakes

A note on substitutions -
* The original recipe called for White Bread. I didn't have any, but I did have a whole loaf of the Wheat 'N Oats.
* You can use sliced ham if you can't find back bacon, but I really recommend using the back bacon - it just tastes better.
* The original recipe calls for 8 slices of sharp cheddar cheese (or enough to cover the bacon. Again, I didn't have any, so I just grated up the marble cheese and the mozza that I had in the fridge. I find that grated cheese tends to melt better.
* The original recipe called for 1 tsp of dry mustard, but you guessed it, I didn't have any, so I used Dijon.
* The original recipe called for only ¼ C of both onion and green pepper, but I really like both of those things, so I increased the quantities somewhat.

Directions:
1) Place eight pieces of the bread in a lightly greased 9"x13" glass baking dish, or however many you need to completely cover the bottom of the dish.
2) Cover bread with slices of back bacon.
3) Completely cover the bacon with the grated cheese mixture, then cover that with the remaining bread to make it like a sandwich.
4) In a bowl, beat eggs, salt and pepper.
5) To the egg mixture, add the mustard, shallot, bell pepper, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, and milk. Mix together, then pour over the bread, making sure that every bit of the bread gets hit with the egg mixture.
6) Cover, and let stand in the refrigerator overnight.
7) In the morning, preheat the oven to 350F.
8) Melt the butter. Pour over the top of the casserole, then cover with the corn flakes.
9) Bake, uncovered for 1 hour. Let stand 10 min. before serving.

The best part about making this dish is the aroma that permeates the kitchen and the whole house while it's cooking. It's such a happy smell. I popped the dish in the oven this morning, and within 15 minutes, I was flashing back to Christmas morning. Seriously. I was.

Although the directions say to chill the casserole in the fridge overnight, I think in a pinch, 2-3 hours will do nicely. Here's what the sweet baby looked like when I took it out of the fridge this morning, before I put the butter and cornflakes on top.
Notice how the bread has soaked up most of the egg mixture. Mmmmmm....egg mixture....

This was definitely a breeze to make, and now I have breakfasts for about a week. Some nice sliced tomato goes really well with this dish, too. Give it a try, you know you waaaaaanna.

Large Chef At Home

2006-03-14T08:32:00.000-05:00

Savoury ice cream. Not something you run into every day. I saw this recipe being prepared on the Food Network on a show called Chef At Home with Michael Smith. He also has a show called Chef At Large, hence the witty title of my post.

While this might look like a picture of ice cream with chocolate sauce, it is in fact Parmesan Cream with Balsamic Honey Syrup. Here's the recipe.

Parmesan Cream with Balsamic Honey Syrup

Ingredients
For the Parmesan Cream:
* 1 C of 35% whipping cream
* 1½ C of grated Parmesan cheese
* 1 tsp vanilla extract
* 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary

For the Balsamic Syrup:
* 2 C balsamic vinegar
* ½ C honey

Directions
For the Parmesan Cream:
Heat cream with vanilla and rosemary. Turn heat down, cover and let infuse for about 10 minutes. Pluck out the rosemary and stir in the cheese until it is thoroughly mixed. Pour into a bowl. Put in fridge to set.

For the Balsamic Syrup:
Pour into a saucepan and reduce by two thirds, until it reaches a thick syrup-like consistency. Refrigerate until cool. Store in a jar in the refrigerator.

These are some deceptively simple-looking directions. The whole premise of the show is that chef Smith is whipping up some dinner for his family, and (apparently) kind of wings it without using recipes. I had my work cut out for me.

I had no problem making the parmesan cream, but it was when I started on the balsamic syrup that the adventure started. Come along with me, won't you?

The entire preparation of the balsamic syrup is expressed in one sentence. I wasn't entirely sure what was involved with "reducing", so I checked the (online) dictionary. This is what I found: The Epicurious.com food dictionary defines "reduce" as "Culinarily, to boil a liquid (usually stock, wine or a sauce mixture) rapidly until the volume is reduced by evaporation, thereby thickening the consistency and intensifying the flavor. Such a mixture is sometimes referred to as a reduction." Hmm. Boil rapidly, eh? I can do that. So, I poured the balsamic and the honey into a saucepan, covered it, and turned on the heat to full, intending to reduce the heat to half when the liquid reached the boil.

I puttered around for a few minutes, and as I was pondering my next move, I was thinking to myself "I wonder how long it takes for balsamic vinegar to reach the boil?". Well, as I thought the word "boil" - it did. I saw some steam starting to escape, so I removed the lid just in time to witness a balsamic volcano that boiled over onto and all over my stovetop. Yikes. There was smoke everywhere. I quickly turned off the burner, and turned on the range hood fan to full. One of the disadvantages of living in a basement apartment is that the ventilation is not wonderful. Anyway, after I got the kitchen largely de-smoked and the stovetop cleaned off somewhat, I put the pot back on a different burner and turned the heat on to half.

And waited.

It took about twenty minutes for the concoction to reduce enough for me to call it 'done', and remove it from the heat. The consistency was fairly thick at this point, and I figured that when it cooled it would be even thicker.

I let the parmesan cream and the balsamic syrup chill in the fridge overnight, and when I got up this morning, everything looked peachy. Despite the fact that eating parmesan cream for breakfast is probably not wisest dietary move I could make, I had to try it. It was delicious, but it took me a few spoonfuls before I got past the "It looks like ice cream, but it doesn't TASTE like ice cream" factor. I'm glad I made this, but I'm not sure whether this would be something I would make on a regular basis. Although, now that I have about a cup of the balsamic syrup already made, making the parm cream itself was a breeze by comparison.

Oscar Night 2006

2006-03-06T09:57:00.000-05:00

Last night, some friends of mine held their annual Oscar Night party. Recently, at their annual Superbowl party, I volunteered to provide the food for last night's wingding, and I came up with a menu that I thought would keep everyone happy.
I didn't want to get too fancy, yet I wanted to impress, so I chose pierogies, chicken quesadillas, a really nice recipe for seared tuna loin, and Death By Chocolate which I had made for previous parties and was a request from several of the partygoers.

I had made the Death By Chocolate, the quesadillas and the pierogies at least once before, but I had never made the tuna recipe, so I was a little nervous about that one.

I'll start with the pierogies, as I have mostly covered my misadventures in a former post. As related in "Happiness Is A Warm Pierogi", that first batch came out perfectly, or certainly as well as could be expected for a first attempt. This gave me confidence going into the second attempt, and yet, the best laid plans and all that... well, the result was some tasty, yet remarkably ugly-looking pierogies. First of all, I doubled the recipe, and ended up making about 100 of the suckers over the course of a Friday evening about a week ago. However, since I didn't need all of them right away, I decided cook up about half of them, and to freeze the rest for the party. What I didn't know, was that I should have laid out the pierogies on a cookie sheet in the freezer and actually let them freeze before putting them in the Ziploc baggie. This finally did occur to me when the second batch was ready for the freezer, but by that point the first bag was a solid pierogi log. Yeesh. I made an initial attempt to separate them, but all I ended up doing was breaking some of them in pieces. So I decided to just leave them, and worry about it when the time came to cook them. So, just to recap, Bag 1 contained a big log comprised of about 36 pierogies, and Bag 2 contained about 17 individually frozen pierogies.

When the time came to boil them up, I had placed Bag 1 in the fridge overnight to attempt to loosen the log somewhat, and it actually worked - to a point. I managed to get most of the pierogies saparated, except for a few that were completely fused together, and several that just fell apart. No matter, I still had about 40 viable pierogies, so from there I was cruising. I boiled them all up, and placed them in a sealed container to be fried up at my friends' place. Done and done.

The tuna loin seemed deceptively easy to prepare. The recipe was courtesy of Alton Brown from his show Good Eats. It involves marinading the tuna overnight in a mixture of soy sauce, honey and wasabi, then rolling the tuna in sesame seeds, and cooking it in a very hot pan for about 30 seconds per side. The idea is to sear the outside of the tuna, and leave it rare through the middle. Simple, right? Well, the marinading went according to plan, but I over-cooked the tuna just slightly. OK, I cooked the tuna right through. It didn't end up mattering that much, as it still tasted amazing and everyone seemed to like it, but I was disappointed with myself.

The quesadillas, on the other hand, turned out beautifully. The recipe is adapted from one I found in the Toronto Sun newspaper of all places, in an insert concerning Superbowl snacks. This recipe is just the way I like them - really simple, and really tasty. Here's the recipe:

Ian's Three Cheese Chicken Quesadillas
Makes 16-24 wedges

Ingredients
* 8 8-inch tortillas
* 500 g (1 lb.) chicken breasts
* 150g (5 oz) marble cheese, grated
* 150g (5 oz) mozzarella cheese, grated
* 150g (5 oz) smoked gouda cheese, grated
* 1/2 a large onion, sliced
* Honey mustard
* Crushed chili flakes
* Vegetable oil
* Freshly ground pepper

1) Place four of the tortillas on a large baking tray, and spread some mustard on each one.
2) Fry onions with a sprinkling of the chili flakes in a skillet with a little oil until golden brown. Drain and set aside.
3) Brown chicken in skillet until cooked through. Shred with two forks and set aside.
4) Divide the cheese, onions and chicken evenly between the four tortillas. Season with pepper to taste.
5) Cover each with the remaining tortillas and gently press them together.
6) Heat some oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the quesadillas one at a time to the skillet and cook until tortillas are a crispy golden brown and the cheese has melted, about 1 - 1½ minutes per side.
7) Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate. Cut each quesadilla into four or six wedges, and serve with guacamole and sour cream.

Now for the dessert. I got the recipe for Death By Chocolate from my mother - thanks, Mom! As I stated above, I have made this many times, always to rave reviews. And it's so simple to make. Very little actual cooking is involved, the tricky part is in the assembly. Here we go.

Death By Chocolate

Ingredients
* 2 packages (4 envelopes) Dream Whip, or other whipped dessert topping
* 2 packages Oetker Double Chocolate Mousse
* 1 large Chocolate Brownie mix (I used Double Chocolate Supreme)
* 4 Skor chocolate bars, crushed
* 1 225g bag of Chocolate Clodhoppers, crushed
* 1 225g bag of Vanilla Clodhoppers, crushed
* 1/3C liqueur (I used Amarula, but have used Kahlua, Frangelico, etc.)
* 2 C + 2 C cold milk (for the Dream Whip and chocolate mousse)

1) Prepare the Dream Whip, the chocolate mousse and the brownies as per package instructions.
2) When the brownies come out of the oven, prick all over with a fork and pour the liqueur over the top. Let sit for 5-10 minutes to let the liqueur soak in.
3) Mix together the crushed Skor bars and clodhoppers in a bowl.
4) Break up the brownies with a fork, making a loose pile.
5) Assemble the dessert in layers in a trifle bowl (or other large dessert bowl) as follows:
* Half of the brownies
* Half of the chocolate mousse
* Half of the Chocolate bar mixture
* Half of the Dream Whip
Repeat, and top with shaved semi-sweet chocolate OR chocolate chips

It should look something like this:

*NOTE* A trifle bowl, as called for in the recipe, is narrow with high sides, but the bowl I used is shallower with a wider bottom, so I had to adjust the quantities somewhat. One batch of brownies just won't stretch far enough for two separate layers, so if you're planning to use a bowl with a wider bottom, I would suggest making 2 batches of brownies, and using one for each layer. Same with the candy bars. The original recipe called for only 8 Skor bars, but I found that that was insufficient for two good-sized layers.

This dessert is something else, and if you're jonesing for your chocolate fix, I can't think of a better way to get it.

The food all went over very well, and although I spent my entire Sunday in the kitchen and was beat by the end of the party, I was happy with the results. More importantly, so were my friends.

I'm Nutty For Pork Chops

2006-03-04T21:47:00.000-05:00

Necessity, once again, is the mother of invention.

When I bought some nice butterfly-cut pork chops the last time I was at the Grocery Palace (ah, the Grocery Palace....), I had intended to cook them shake-n-bake style with breadcrumbs or cornflakes or something. So, tonight, I decided to have the pork chops for dinner and defrosted them, then started to look around for something to coat them with. Alas, no breadcrumbs, no cereal, what IS a hungry lad to do?

I then remembered that I had a bag of pecans that I had bought at the bulk food store last week and decided that that sounded like a tasty alternative. So, I put a couple of handfuls of the pecans in the food processor, pulse pulse pulse, and I had a nice pile of crushed pecans. I put the pecans into a Ziploc baggie, added a little brown sugar, some fresh ground pepper and some garlic powder and shook the bag to combine the ingredients. I then made an egg-wash for the chops from one egg and a little milk. I coated each chop in the egg mixture, then put it in the baggie, sealed it, then shake shake shake, I coated the chops in the pecan mixture. Then into the oven at 375°F (about 190°C) for 40 minutes.

After the chops went in the oven, since I was in full-on cooking mode anyway, I thought that I would attempt a recipe I'd been meaning to try for a while - Celery Root Puree. I'd never had it before, but I'd been assured that it tastes similar to mashed potatoes, so how bad could it be? I got the idea for this from my friend Rob, but he got the recipe from here. It turned out beautifully and I'm going to be making it again for sure. I had briefly toyed with the idea of just mashing the mixture instead of blending it in the food processor. I'm really glad that I didn't, as the texture was lovely and smooth, and it was suprisingly light-tasting. Of course, since I was just cooking for me, I halved the recipe because, as much as I like it, I really didn't want three pounds of it to deal with afterwards.

Since I had gone to the trouble of making the yummy chops and the very creamy puree, a salad seemed like a good idea, too. So, I threw one together with some romaine lettuce, some baby spinach and whatever fell under my hands when I reached into the fridge - mushrooms, tomato, shallots, orange pepper and some freshly grated parmesan that I picked up this morning from Chris's Cheesemongers at the St. Lawrence Market here in Toronto.

I do love shopping at the Market, but Saturday morning is not the ideal time to go. Well, unless you like huge crowds of people.

From Yucky To Yummy In One Easy Step

2006-03-01T00:22:00.000-05:00

OK, it's officially winter, 'cause I have a bad cold. There's nothing like a head cold to make you feel yucky, and what do you eat when you feel yucky? Soup!

I got home from work last night, and for some reason the only thing that was going through my head was "Sooooooup....you want some soooooup....". I didn't have any instant soup mix in the cupboard, but I did have some chicken stock, so I decided to wing it and try to concoct something resembling soup from ingredients on hand. I'd never done this before, but I figured that if I screwed it up too badly, I'd just throw in a couple of eggs and call it Scrambled Egg Surprise. That turned out not to be necessary this time, but I'll have you know that I am the master at making Scrambled Egg Surprise.

I started by chopping up two large shallots and frying them in a little oil. After they had been frying for a couple of minutes, I chopped up a portobello mushroom and a plum tomato and threw those in, too. For seasoning I added some freshly ground pepper, about a teaspoon of dried rosemary, some basil, some paprika and some garlic powder. Gotta have the garlic powder. When this mixture looked like it had been cooked enough, I poured in about half of a cup of cream and two cups of chicken stock. These measurements are approximate, as I didn't really measure anything, but it sounds better than "I put in some cream and then I put in some chicken stock." I brought it to a boil, then lowered the heat to medium-low and let it simmer for a while. I tasted it, and decided that it still needed something, so I added more fresh ground pepper, and some oregano. At this point I was unsure as to how long to let it simmer, but upon tasting again, I decided that it was fine and declared it done. This was mostly because I just wanted to eat it. A little grated parmesan mixed in and some oatbran toast completed the picture.

And what a picture. Me sitting on the couch, wrapped in a large comforter, gleefully dunking the toast in the soup and watching CSI. Joy.

A Very Civilized Evening

2006-02-28T13:29:00.000-05:00

Nothing beats spending an evening in your favourite pub, sampling various varieties of single-malt scotch whisky. Except for maybe sharing the experience with twenty or so other like-minded individuals.

The owner of my local pub, The Feathers, holds a Whisky Challenge event every month or so between October and April. The Feathers boasts the largest selection of single-malt scotch whiskies in the province of Ontario at over 450, and I've been doing my best to try them all.

The Challenge works like this: Each event has a theme to which all the malts adhere. Last night's theme was "Malts found at the LCBO", indicating that the malts being served are available at the local liquor store. Ian Innes, the owner, privately imports most of his stock, so a lot of the time the only place you will be able to find a certain whisky that you sampled at The Feathers, will be - at The Feathers. Upon arriving at the event, each participant is presented with a list of ten malts, including the name of each malt, the region the malt is from, (Highland, Lowland or Island) and a brief description about the nose, body, colour, etc. Everyone is then served eight of the malts from the list, in random order, and your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to guess what it is you're tasting, based on the descriptions on the page, and your own experience. Three points are awarded for a correct guess, one point is awarded for an incorrect guess but from the correct region, and zero points for a completely incorrect guess.

The person with the most points at the end of the evening is declared the winner, and wins themself a bottle from Ian's Private Stock. However, no-one really loses, as everyone gets to sample eight very fine whiskies.

I normally go to these events with a group of friends, but due to a combination of short notice and scheduling conflicts, I was flying solo last night.

Here is what we tasted, the description provided, and my impressions. I am not by any means an expert on the subject, but I am an enthusiast.

*NOTE* C.S. indicates 'Cask Strength'. This means that it was bottled straight from the maturing cask without chill filtering or the addition of water - generally, a fuller tasting and stronger dram.

1) Glenkinchie 10yr. - "A charming wee distillery just east of Edinburgh. Aromatic nose of cut grass, sweet lemon and melon, a somewhat light body with gentle spices, cinnamon and a short, bry fragrant finish."

Muscular and very tasty. I didn't get any cut grass or lemon, but I definitely tasted licorice and toffee. I was very impressed, and I will definitely be picking up a bottle of this. I give it an 8.

2) Auchentoshan 3 Wood - "A triple distilled whisky in the classic Lowland style. Deep chestnut in colour with a rish orange zest nose, oil and marshmallow, with some perfume and cashews. A creamy finish of raisins and fresh oak."

Full flavoured, yet a gentle finish. Quite sweet. I liked this one a lot. I guessed it wrong, but I liked it a lot. A solid 8.

3) Glengoyne C.S. - "Only a few miles from Glasgow but regarded as a Highland malt. Soft and sweet on the nose, some vanilla and cream, very smooth and a total absence of peat. This malt offends no-one and may be a pleasant surprise."

Bright, flowery nose. Intense body with a lingering finish. An OK malt. I give it a 6.

4) Glenfarclas 105 - "This distillery has the biggest stills on Speyside. Pleasant note of butterscotch and raisins, a robust body with rich nectar, some sweetness and honey dryness. A muscular, long, rounded finish."

This was my favourite of the evening. Big, fruity full taste. Perhaps not as muscular as I was expecting from the 105, but quite acceptable for all that. Warms on the way down. 9

5) Aberlour C.S. - "A wonderful dram, also from Speyside. Rich and pungent in character with dried fruits, citrus rind, Oloroso casks, camp fires and molasses, all in a magical Highland wedding!"

And the hits just keep on coming! Though technically a Highland malt, I guessed this as the Bowmore, below, which is an Island malt. Lots of yummy smoke and peat. This malt possesses definite kaboomatism. 8 1/2

6) Bruichladdich 20yr. (pronounced BROO-ICK-LAD-ICK) - "An Islay distillery brought back from the dead. (You should have seen it before!). Nose of melons and honey, exceptionally smooth with sweet oak, apricots and just a hint of Islay's fresh sea air."

For sure an Island malt, but also for sure not a cask strength. A little spicy, but otherwise a nice, gentle rock on the ocean. Also, the first one I guessed correctly. rrrr. 7

7) Bowmore C.S. - "This Islay distillery is absolutely brilliant, a must visit for a whisky lover. A nose of chocolate, mild medicine cabinet, seaweed and brine, progressing to layers of dry grain, tobacco, smoke and mild iodine. A somewhat fiery, oaky, sweet finish."

Basically like the description says. It's so smoky, it's like you're drinking it from a sweaty leather shoe, while sitting in the middle of a campfire and being beaten about the head and neck with seaweed. So you know it has to be good. 8

8) Talisker 20yr. C.S. - "From Skye's only distillery but what a distillery! Gold in colour with a distinct coastal nose, very peppery and slightly sour with a heat that slowly gains in intensity - goes down with all the horns blowing!"

What can I say about this peaty monster? It slapped me around from the inside on it's way down. This malt is a cure for the common cold. 9

And now... here are the descriptions of the two malts from the list that were not served.

Dalwhinnie 1980 Dbl. Wood. - "This distillery is perched up in the Cairngorm Mountains, just the place to get high! A very complex malt with licorice and sherry on the nose, sweet with toffee, honey, and cut grass. A lovely, balanced finish with just a hint of peat and smoke.

I guessed this one for the first two selections, which turned out to be the Glenkinchie and the Auchentoshan. I swear I tasted licorice.

Highland Park 18yr. - "From the Orkneys and Scotland's most northerly distillery. Fragrant smoke and oak on the nose, remarkably smooth with a body of heather, honey and garden bonfires and a beautiful dry, spicy finish. I feel this is a dram with everything!"

I thought that the Bowmore was this one. They're really very similar, and it's a shame that this wasn't served, as it is truly a top-notch malt.

This was a bit of an off-night for me, as I scored 9 out of a possible 24 points. The winning score for the evening was a scintillating 22 out of 24. I don't know what the prize was, as I was concentrating on getting a pound of spicy wings into me at that point.

Just as a bit of an indication of the Single Malt inventory at The Feathers, here's a picture of a part of one wall of the pub. Happy happy. If you find yourself in the area, I highly recommend that you check this place out.

Cold Comfort

2006-02-24T09:23:00.000-05:00

Well, crap. On Wednesday, the Canadian Men's Hockey Team was eliminated from medal contention at the Turin Olympics by a far superior Russian squad. I'm not going to go into my thoughts on this disaster, as it would take pages and pages to properly express my feelings.

Soooo..... I decided instead to go home and cry into my beer. However, when I got home, I realized that I didn't have any beer on hand, so it was off to the LCBO (the liquor store). Since I was buying some beer anyway, I thought that it was a good time to resurrect a tradition I started this past September - The Weird Beer Tour of the World.

Perhaps I should explain. My birthday falls in September, so this past year I declared the entire month of September to be "Ianpalooza". On each Friday night during Ianpalooza, I went to the LCBO, and selected three or four interesting-looking beers from a specific country. I then brought them to my friend Joe's place, and we would each sample them. We were fortunate, as September 2005 contained five Fridays, so we toured fairly extensively.

Getting back to last night - I decided that the most appropriate first stop for the tour this time would be - Canada. And more specifically - Ontario. Since I had to work this morning, I only selected three beers. Two of the beers I had not previously tried, and the other one I hadn't had in a while. The three beers on the menu were -

Hockley Dark Traditional English Ale - Hockley Village, ON
Dark and Dirty. Very tasty with a full flavour. Meat & potatoes in a bottle.
Hockley Village is located about 30 minutes NW of Toronto. I actually had to look it up, as I had never heard of the place.

Headstrong Pale Ale - Guelph, ON
A bit lighter tasting the the Dark, but with a nice crisp bite to it. Also, at 5.7% ABV, a serious bottle of beer. I would have included a link with this, but oddly, I couldn't find one.

Creemore Springs Premium Lager - Creemore, ON
I wasn't impressed with this one at all. It had kind of a funky taste to it. I know several people who swear by this beer, but I don't get it.

Well, two out of three ain't bad.

More installments to follow.

Happiness is a Warm Pierogi

2006-02-20T17:23:00.000-05:00

I recently volunteered to provide the munchies for the upcoming annual Oscar Party at a friends' place. More on the party in a future post. One of the dishes that I plan to make is Sweet Potato, Rosemary & Cheese Pierogi, adapted from a recipe from Je Mange La Ville. I have included the recipe below.

Due to the fact that I have never actually made pierogi before, let alone completely from scratch, I decided that I should attempt the recipe at least once before serving them to my friends. I really had no idea what I was in for.

First of all, I needed to buy some equipment, namely a rolling pin. So, off to Zeller's to peruse their not-too-expensive kitchen stuff. Now, I fully intended to buy only a rolling pin, but since I was there, I ended up buying a new colander, a pastry blender (which ended up helping immensely), a spiffy new 8" chef knife and a McFarlane figurine of Grant Fuhr in the 1987 Team Canada uniform. Hee hee.

But I digress. Here's the recipe.

Sweet Potato, Rosemary & Cheese Pierogi
This recipe makes about 50 peirogi

Pierogi Filling

1 sweet potato, peeled and cubed

1/2 C (measure generously) ricotta cheese

1/2 C fresh Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, grated

1 small shallot, diced fine

1 clove of garlic, minced

1 tsp of fresh rosemary (or 1/4 tsp dried rosemary)

dash of red pepper flakes

zest from 1/2 lemon

salt & pepper

Add cubed sweet potato to a pot of hot water. Bring to a boil and cook until fork-tender, about 10-15 minutes. While the potato is cooking, combine all other ingredients in a large bowl. When the potato is cooked, drain and return to the hot pot and stir a little over medium heat to dry out a bit. Add potato to cheese mixture, and mash to combine. Add salt & pepper to taste. Set aside until needed to fill pierogi.

*NOTE* The original recipe called for feta cheese instead of ricotta cheese. Normally, I attempt recipes for the first time exactly as written, but in this case I had to make the substitution, as I absolutely despise feta cheese. I affectionately refer to it as "Satan's toejam". But enough about that, on to the....

Pierogi Dough

2 1/4 C All-Purpose Flour

1 C Light sour cream

2 tbsp butter, melted

2 tbsp canola oil

1 egg + 1 egg yolk

2 tsp salt

Place flour in large bowl. Add salt. In a separate bowl, combine the sour cream, the melted butter, the oil and the eggs. Mix all wet ingredients together, then add to dry ingredients. Combine using a (brand-new spiffy) pastry blender. Turn out dough onto a floured surface, and knead for 5 minutes until it's soft and pliable.
Divide dough in half, wrap in plastic wrap and let it rest for 10 minutes.

Roll dough out on a floured surface until about 1/4 inch thick. I used a 2-inch circular pastry cutter to cut the dough into circles, but a large drinking glass will work just as well. After cutting out the first batch of circles, re-roll and cut more circles from the scraps. You should be able to get 50 circles.

Place one rounded teaspoon, or thereabouts, on each dough circle. Moisten the edges with water, and fold over to make a half-moon shape. Crimp with a fork to seal the edges.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, and boil pierogies in batches for about ten minutes, or until the pierogies float to the top. I found it was a good idea to stir every couple of minutes to make sure nothing was stuck to the bottom.

Since the pot I was using could only handle about 12 pierogies at a time, and assembling them was time-consuming, I put one batch in the water while assembling the next batch.

When the pierogies are ready remove from the water, and drain in a (darn spiffy-looking, brand new) colander.

At this point, some would call them done. I tried one at this stage, and they were certianly tasty, but there was a certain je ne sais quoi that was missing. Of course - more grease!

I finished these in a frying pan with a little oil and some nice pancetta. They crisp up really quickly, so turn often to make sure they haven't burned. Serve with sour cream.

I took them over to my friend Joe's place so we could both "test" them to see if they met our high standards. They disappeared in record time. The mixture of the sweet potato with the two cheeses was really nice, and the lemon zest really cut through and added an extra hit of flavour.

I really enjoyed making these, but they're not something that I would make on a regular basis as they're time-consuming and SO MESSY. I've made messes before while cooking, but as soon as you add flour to the equation it adds a whole new dimension of mayhem. Because, as everyone knows, as soon as any moisture is added to flour, that's right, you get paste. It was everywhere. The next time I make these, I'm going to quadruple the recipe, make a couple of hundred, and put the extras in the freezer. It never hurts to have a huge pile of incredibly tasty pierogies on hand, should unexpected company arrive, or if you just don't feel like cooking.

This Post is Toast!

2006-02-20T09:15:00.000-05:00

The Gallumphing One was feeling kinda cheesy over the weekend, and with all this 'cheese-sandwich blogging' hoo-ha going on, I decided to weigh in with my own take on the cheese sandwich.

Now, normally I'm not particularly fond of cheese sandwiches, as I'm really not very fond of most kinds of cheese, but here's a little something that my mother used to make for my brother and I when we were kids. They're called Cinnamon Cottage Cheese Toasties.

The recipe is simplicity itself, and I found that it's easiest to make this in a toaster oven. You need: one piece of bread, some cottage cheese and some cinnamon.

1) Toast the bread.
2) Spread a generous amount of cottage cheese on the toast, so it's completely covered.
3) Sprinkle the cinnamon over the cottage cheese to taste.
4) Place the toast under the broiler for a few minutes until the cheese starts to bubble.
5) Cut the toast into nine pieces, like a tic-tac-toe board, for easier handling by little fingers.

Et voila!

I made this dish for the first time in probably over twenty years, and it tastes just as good as I remember it.

Food Court Is In Session!

2006-02-16T14:59:00.000-05:00

The verdict is in. Today, I had THE best food court meal ever. I'm talking about a new place in the TD Centre food court called MB Co. - La Boulangerie de Montreal. Now, I admit, I had intended to go to Quizno’s for a sub, but as always, the line-up was absolutely huge and I really didn’t feel like waiting twenty minutes for my food. As I walked past Quizno’s, I noticed this new place right at the back of the food court – MB Co. It’s a very bright, clean looking restaurant; all the walls and tables are white, and the menu was unusual for a food court restaurant. This is not a place I’d eat at every day, as my lunch came to just under $25, but it was certainly a breath of fresh air after countless burgers, rice-and-two-items combos, and slices of pizza.

I had the Lobster & Shrimp Quesadillas with Aged Cheddar and Caper Berry Salsa, a very nice White Chocolate Cheesecake and a bottle of iced tea. Lobster and Capers and Shrimp, oh my! Put simply, the food was excellent. The sandwich was made fresh when I ordered it, and was delivered to me in an attractive display box with the salsa and some herbed mayonnaise. The cheesecake was similarly packaged, and came with fresh berries and a tasty fruit sauce.

The service was pretty good. The place was packed, but the line seemed to move fairly quickly, and my food didn’t take that long to get to me. The staff were all very friendly, especially the big guy at the ‘to go’ counter. He asked me what I’d ordered, and when I told him, he assured me that I’d made an excellent choice, and said that I was “really gonna enjoy your sandwich”. Tasty food and service with a smile – that’s all that anyone can ask for.

I felt a little self-conscious taking pictures of my food while sitting in the middle of the food court, but if my friend Rob can do it while eating at Canoe, I can certainly handle the scrutiny while in the food court. Besides, the lighting is better than in my kitchen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Later that day....

Above I mentioned the "big guy at the 'to go' counter" who was so friendly. Turns out this is Giovanni Prioriello, a partner in the company, and the proprietor of the TD Centre MB Co. Now I know where the rest of the staff get their friendly attitude. Cheers!

Here's One For The Bachelors

2006-02-14T09:29:00.000-05:00

Over the past few days, I have been worrying that I haven't been cooking very many "blog-worthy" dishes lately. However, it's not every day that I feel like making risotto or coq au vin, or something similar that takes a long time to prepare.

Then it hit me. Why not do a post based on one of the easiest dishes I know how to prepare? I'm talking about a personal favourite of mine, which definitely falls into the realm of comfort food - Baked Chicken Leg with Minute Rice. Oh, and a nice green salad to go with it.

When I get home from work, unless I have something specific planned for dinner, most of the time I don't really feel like chopping and mixing and spending a lot of time worrying about what I'm going to eat. Don't get me wrong, sometimes I do enjoy doing just that, but last night was not one of those nights.

This dish can be as easy or as complex as you like. Here's what you need:

Ian's Baked Chicken Leg Casserole with Minute Rice

Casserole:

1 chicken quarter, thawed
2 Cups frozen vegetables OR 2 Cups fresh vegetables, chopped
1 10-oz can of Cream of Mushroom soup
1/2 Cup Cheddar or Mozzarella cheese, grated
pepper, garlic powder, oregano, etc. to taste

Preheat oven to 375F. Place chicken in casserole dish or baking pan, and cover with vegetables. You can use any vegetables you like - last night I used 6 or 7 large mushrooms, half an onion and one plum tomato. I've indicated that you should use 2 cups of vegetables, but that's just a suggestion. The veggies should just about (but not quite) fill the casserole dish, leaving enough room for the soup and the cheese. Empty the can of mushroom soup over the vegetables, and spread so it covers the entire casserole. Season with pepper and garlic powder and sprinkle the grated cheese over the top. Bake for 45-60 minutes.

Minute Rice:

1 Cup Minute Rice
1 egg
1 Cup water or chicken stock
1/2 tsp pepper

You can make as much or as little rice as you like, as long as you use an equal amount of liquid.

Bring the water or chicken stock to a boil. Add the rice, the egg and the pepper, and stir for a couple of seconds so everything is mixed. Cover and remove from heat. Let stand for at least five to ten minutes so all the liquid has been absorbed.

There you go - dinner in less than an hour with about five minutes prep time.

If you happen to be feeling ambitious, a salad might be a nice addition to the meal. Now, I know what you're saying - "But Ian, doesn't that involve a lot of chopping and mixing and stuff?" Well, yes, but not too much. Again, salad can be as simple or as complex as you like, or based on what you have in your fridge. I used one romaine heart, a handful of baby spinach, a half-dozen chopped mushrooms (I really like mushrooms), a chopped plum tomato, two diced shallots, some fresh grated parmesan cheese and a little light Caesar dressing. Tasty and moderately healthy.

Dinner doesn't have to be fancy, but it should be tasty.

He Shoots, He Scores!

2006-02-08T09:15:00.000-05:00

I'm very excited right now. Let me explain. About a month ago, I decided that I wanted to get my hands on a copy of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" by Julia Child. However, despite being an incredibly popular book, none of the book stores I checked had one in stock.

After several fruitless forays, it was now time to check out "The World's Biggest Bookstore" in downtown Toronto. Yes, that's the name of the store. My friend Dave and I went there on our lunch hour yesterday, and had a look at the cookbook section - all twelve racks of it. Man. We browsed through their stock, and couldn't find it. Oh, we found some Julia Child cookbooks, but not THAT one. Just as I was about to give up, Dave says, "Is this the one you're looking for?", and lo and behold THERE IT IS!! I start to flip through it, getting more excited by the minute, until I check the price. Sixty bucks!! I put it back on the shelf, muttering something not nice under my breath.

I got back to the office feeling dejected, and on a whim I decided to check eBay for the book. I entered "julia child cookbook" in the search bar, and at the top of the list - there it was again! The very book. But wait, the auction had less than a minute left, so I clicked on the link and, joy - SIX BUCKS!! And no other bids. I can't believe my luck. I'm all over that like a seagull on a hotdog. Even with the exchange to Canadian dollars and the shipping charges, it still ends up being less than twenty dollars.

I was going to wait until it actually arrived before I wrote this, but I figured that this book alone is worth multiple posts, so here it is.

To be continued.....

Ri-sott-OHHHHH!!!

2006-02-07T09:25:00.000-05:00

I love risotto. Loooove it. I was introduced to this Italian ambrosia by a friend of mine a year or so ago, but I hadn't attempted to make it myself until just last week. I found a tasty-looking recipe for Mushroom Risotto, ventured to the local Grocery Palace to attain the needed ingredients, and had a go. Now, the recipe called for SEVEN cups of chicken stock for 1 1/2 cups of arborio rice. This seemed a little excessive to me, so I checked with my aforementioned friend. He assured me that four cups of stock should be enough, but that it was really not such a big deal, as I could just use water if more liquid was needed after I ran out of stock.

This particular recipe calls for the mushrooms to be sauted in cognac and heavy cream, and boy, does that ever make for some tasty mushrooms.

I had been informed that this is not a difficult dish to make, it's just time-consuming and involves a LOT of stirring. Yes, well, I thought I was getting carpal-tunnel syndrome from working at a computer all day, but that's got nothing on stirring rice for 25 minutes straight.

Happily, my hand didn't fall off, and I ended up with a big pile of rather tasty, and very creamy risotto.

Thanks to Elise at Simply Recipes! for the recipe.

The Desk Takes a Sharp Right Turn

2006-02-06T11:01:00.000-05:00

Hi All,

You may have noticed that I haven't been making regular posts lately. This is due to the fact that most of what I have posted so far has been utter crap, and I was really getting tired of looking at it.

I've now deleted most of the former posts, but I've left some of them as I detect small nuggets of possible brilliance in among the felgercarb.

Having said that, I will now say this:

I have spent quite a bit of time lately doing some cooking and experimenting with new recipes. I think that my time would be better served by relating my culinary experiences and exploits to you, my Devoted Readers, than to continue posting drivel.

Well, we'll see how it goes anyway.

"The Desk Beckons" now becomes "The Gallumphing Gourmand".

Cheers,

Ian

A Weekend in the Blast Furnace

2005-06-13T13:56:00.000-05:00

Who'd a thunk that June would be so friggin' hot in Toronto? Played golf on Friday with the boys in alternating 35 degrees (Celsius) heat and pouring rain. If there's one thing I hate, it's playing golf in the rain. For any Americans that may be reading this, 35C is about 95 degrees Farenheit. And humid.

Anyway, played possibly one of the WORST rounds of golf in my life. I shot a 131, yet still managed to capture the coveted "Low Net Score" trophy. It goes something like this - based on how horribly you played, a certain number of holes are removed from your overall score. I was almost embarrassed to stand up and accept the award. Almost.

Saturday was spent in a fair amount of pain recovering from said round of golf in the air-conditioned comfort of my underground lair.

By Saturday evening I was sufficiently restored to join some friends at The Gladstone Hotel for several pitchers of beer and some karaoke. Uuuuuuuuu. Paid for that on Sunday. I should realize that I'm not 20 anymore. Anyway, avoided the inevitable hangover by sleeping until 1:00pm. Ahhh, bachelorhood.

Needless to say, Sunday was spent on the couch in front of the tube watching episode after episode of Stargate SG-1: Season 4, and trying not to think too much.

At about 6:30pm, I ventured from my hidey-hole in search of food. I was once again assailed by a wall of heat, which made me wish that I'd actually bothered to shower that day. Oh well. Climbed in the car, which was roughly akin to trying a volcano on for size, and made a dash for the local Grocery Palace (aka Loblaws Superstore). Mmmmmm.......Grocery Palace........

Took my time buying the groceries, because of the lovely jacked-up A.C., then returned to the lair with my swag. By this time the AC in the car had finally kicked in, but was still struggling with the outside heat, and I found myself in the ridiculous situation of driving with the AC full-on, and the windows down. I could almost hear the air-conditioning unit swearing at me.

Now, of course, I'm back at work because once again, The Desk Beckons.

And so it begins...

2005-05-17T12:25:00.000-05:00

What a weekend. A marathon of Angel: Season 2 episodes on DVD, and too much junk food. Still feeling like a bag of hammers, even though it's now Tuesday. Holiday weekend coming up, so probably more of the same.

The new Star Wars thing opens this week. Hopefully it won't suck as bad as Attack of the Clones. The previews look encouraging. I'll probably see it in the theatre eventually, but I refuse to stand in a ridiculously long lineup just to be able to say I saw it on the first day.

Brain cramps setting in, must sign off.