COCO BEAN

Mint Pesto with Zucchini and Feta

2010-07-23T16:06:00.002-04:00

I had written this great post over a year ago, but never actually published it. I don’t really know why... maybe because I was too lazy to spell check it. Anyways... here is some of it...

Now that the summer has arrived I, and consequently Ian, are on this local food diet where we are trying to buy our produce from the farmers markets.

This whole craze we're on now stemmed from my reading two books, In Defence of Food, and Animal Vegetable Miracle. I love to read, and lately I have been getting myself into some stellar books that have seriously made me consider the way I live my life. Yes I know, this is probably a phase but please humour me here. Of course the very first book I read about the foodie culture was Julie and Julia, the book that pushed me to take up Ian’s idea of a food blog. Yup, that’s how Coco Bean came about!

The next was one called "The Brain that Changes Itself”, you may have seen this on the shelves a year or two ago. It’s a book about brain plasticity and how science is finally starting to learn how to help people with strokes and learning disabilities overcome their problems by using the healthy areas of their brains. It all seems like it’s out of a sci-fi book, because they teach blind people to see and work with a seemingly normal girl who is missing the whole left side of her brain! The author writes in a very simple and engaging tone, not pompous as many tend to be, well worth the time to look for at your local library.

I then moved on to “In Defence of Food” where I wasn’t expecting much, but by the end I was hanging off of every word Polain wrote, even if it was a little condescending and self riotous.

Ok, back to July 2010… so that’s as far as I got. Yes I am still shopping at farmers markets, buying free run organic eggs, trying to buy my meat from local butchers and farms, and really make an effort to buy locally.

I realized that it hasn’t been as hard as I thought it would be, and I just had to change the way I thought about my food. Maybe our brain is plastic and we can fully change our ways.

By the way... this is the best pasta for a local foodie dying from the summer heat and was just as good the other day as it was last summer.

Mint Pesto with Zucchini and Feta
Jose DiStasio's pasta book- amazing!

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2cloves garlic, minced
5-8 small zucchini, cut in half lengthwise and sliced ½-inch (1-cm) thick
1/2 tsp salt
1 lb pasta
175g feta coarsely crumbled
mint pesto
handful of toasted pinenuts (about 1⁄3 cup)
freshly ground black pepper

Mint pesto:
3/4 cup packed fresh mint leaves
2 tbsp feta
grated rind and juice of one lemon
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1⁄3 cup (75 mL) extra virgin olive oil

In a food processor, chop mint, feta and hot pepper flakes. Add lemon juice and rind, salt and pepper. Add oil and blend, but leave it coarse. Heat oil in a large skillet and add garlic and zucchini. Sauté over medium-high until lightly golden, 4 to 5 minutes, adding a bit more oil if necessary. Add salt.
Cook pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until tender. Drain well, reserving ½ cup cooking liquid.Toss pasta, feta and pesto in a large bowl, adding a little reserved liquid if sauce seems dry. Season to taste. Sprinkle with pine nuts

Fennel and Citrus Sea Bass al Cartoccio

2010-04-11T00:35:00.002-04:00

Once again over the Holidays I used every chance that I could to take pictures with the new camera that Ian bought me. Unfortunately this season I couldn't make it home until Christmas Eve and had a horrible time waiting in endless line-ups at the airport. So when I entered through the door of my childhood home I was ecstatic to see that my brother (with the never wavering aide of my mother, the sous chef) had decided to create the traditional Italian Christmas Eve dinner called the Feast of the Seven Fishes (festa dei sette pesci).

There were Salted Cod cakes, shrimp, pasta with anchovies, salmon, mussels in broth, a whole salt crusted fish, and finally this Sea Bass al Cartoccio. The dinner was fabulous, even my grandma loved it, where as other years she has promptly asked for a hamburger instead. (I still think those years were great mom!)

I learned quite a few things about Cartoccio from my brother, who in turn learned this recipe from the four star Italian restaurant that he works at in Toronto. Al Cartoccio basically means the same as En Papiotte, the fish is folded neatly in parchment paper and steams within the package for a short while. The result is a very soft, flavourful fish that melts in your mouth. This Cartoccio was such a hit my brother had me and my father, who was out in Victoria visiting family, calling him to beg for the recipe within a week!

Fennel and Citrus Sea Bass al Cartoccio

1lb Branzino, 2lb Orata, or other European Sea Bass. Ask for it scaled and gutted.
1/2 fennel bulb
1 garlic clove, sliced thin
1 orange, half juiced, the other half sliced thinly across into rounds
1 lemon, half juiced, the other half sliced thinly across into rounds
1 handful of fresh mint
1/2 cup white wine
1-2 tbsp. olive oil
2 pinches of salt
3 foot long piece of parchment paper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Slice the fennel thin and create a mixture of fennel, garlic, and mint. Place mixture in the center of the parchment paper. Lay down half of the lemons and orange slices. Stuff the fish with the rest of the oranges and lemons. Lay fish over the mixture, in the center of the parchment paper. Sprinkle salt onto fish. In a measuring cup combine the juice of one half orange, half a lemon, white wine, and olive oil.
To fold the parchment paper, pull together the center of each short end of the parchment paper. This should create a triangular tent over the fish lengthwise. Fold over the paper ½ an inch, then again, till the paper is flush with the fish and there is no room left. Place your hand down on one end of the fish and twist the parchment till tight. Tilt up the open end then pour the liquid into the opening. Twist tight to seal off the packet. Bake for 15-20 minutes for a 1lb fish, or 20-25 for a 2lb Orata.

Martin Picard's Au Pied De Cochon Cabane A Sucre

2010-04-04T21:39:00.008-04:00

Last weekend Ian and I had the quintessential Quebecer outing... we went to the Caban au Sucre, or Sugar Shack. Growing up in Toronto, I had never heard of these magical places filled with maple syrup and childhood memories, but Ian was all too familiar with the mounds of food and sticky tire d'erable (frozen maple syrup on a stick).

Last year we went to an extremely large Cabane with my family because we didn’t really know what to expect from the experience. But of course this year we had to go all out, and with the help of the Montreal Food Bloggers, we enjoyed the true Quebecois brunch in style!

We all decided on Martin Picard’s Au Pied De Cochon Cabane a Sucre in the early summer of 2009, but even that early the sugar shack was sold out. Luckily the clouds parted and we were able to secure 25 highly coveted seats at the sugar shack, and boy it didn’t disappoint!

Pea soup usually starts off a sugar shack meal, but of course it wouldn’t be Martin Picard’s without large cubes of foie gras in the traditional winter soup! Then came the creton, a traditional slow cooked ground pork butt terrine. Then foie gras pancakes, gravlax, Oreilles de Christ salad, and maple syrup chickens feet.

For the second course a traditional puffy omelette was served but of course, it had the wild chef’s flair! Baked into the omelette was smoked sturgeon and slow roasted pork. It was an incredible addition. For the third course we had a pork and lobster stuffed cabbage dish with lentils that Ian just called a "freak of delicious", because really, there isn’t any other way to describe it. Also accompanying the "freak" was cow tongue and a wonderful maple syrup roasted chicken with baked beans. And finally, of course we had to order the famous Québec Tortiere that bore the most delicious crust I have ever had.

And then... then there was dessert. It started off with pancakes fried in duck fat, Ian couldn’t get enough of them, then tire d'erable, the crispiest and creamiest maple milles foulle, and finally maple ice-cream topped with homemade maple marshmallows, cashew brittle, chocolate, bananas, and maple sugar cotton candy!

This was truly an experience that I will never forget, especially sharing it with people as passionate about food and photography as Ian and I are. Remind me to call tomorrow for 2011 reservations!

Happy Anniversary to my Ian

2010-02-14T00:48:00.001-05:00

Today Ian came by and brought me the most beautiful tulips, why you ask... cause he's the best! In Montreal everything is a dull shade of grey and covered in either snow or salt. We haven't seen a living plant for three months so I was so excited to see these bright vibrant flowers, it reminded me that spring is just around the corner!

I was so thrilled that I gave him his Valentine's Day / 2 year Anniversary present early... The River Cottage Meat book. This is the second time that I have bought this book in the past month; the first copy went to my brother for Christmas.

Later in the afternoon I noticed that Ian was missing in the apartment and when I went into my room I found him cuddling with his new book. Too cute eh!

I'm glad you like it babe, thanks for being the best boyfriend any girl could possibly ask for, Love you.

Chocolate Ginger Banana Bread

2010-02-06T17:03:00.000-05:00

Have you ever seen that Simpsons episode where Homer goes looking for his soul mate? He realizes that it was Marge all along when he walks off for a couple days and she finds him at a lighthouse down by the water. He asks her how she found him and she says, “Well, I was sure you'd be on foot, because you always say public transportation is for losers. And I was sure you'd head west, because Springfield slopes down that way. And then, I saw the lighthouse, and I remembered how you love blinking lights. Like the one on the waffle iron.”

Well this Christmas Ian bought me a camera, and we had one of those little moments. I asked him how he picked out such a great gift and he said, “Well, I brought a Christmas ornament to a camera store and took pictures of it with every camera I could test so that you would get a camera without flashback, and I know how frustrated you get with lots of buttons, so I picked out the simplest one, and I knew that you would scratch the screen so I ruled out the touch screen camera, finally, I know how much you like fuzzy backgrounds, so I looked for a camera with a good range of F stops, and this is what I came up with!” Yes, he is my soul mate. Mine mine mine, get your own!

So, as my roommate threatened daily to throw out my frozen brown bananas from the freezer, I decided to finally make this wonderful banana bread that I read about in Molly Wizenberg’s book, “A homemade life”. I love this book and the romantic approach that she has to cooking and baking; each recipe has a wonderful story about the impact it had on her life. Since Ian wasn’t around I thought it would be a great chance for me to use my new camera and put to use all the little techniques he has told me about over the past year of food photography. Now by no means are my photos anywhere near the quality of his, but I’m really enjoying taking some of my own photos, and not having to fuss with a million buttons! Oh, and this banana bread is so good, I will never try another recipe...ever!

Banana Bread with Chocolate and Crystallized Ginger
Adapted from “A Homemade Life” by Molly Wizenberg

6 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips (or a chopped up bar)
1/3 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger
2 large eggs
3 ripe bananas, mashed
1/4 cup well-stirred whole-milk plain yogurt (not low or nonfat)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Set a rack in the center of the oven, and preheat to 350F. Grease a 9 by 5 loaf pan with cooking spray or butter.

In a small bowl, microwave the butter until just melted. (Be careful and do this over medium power in short burst because it can explode or splatter and that is a big mess.) Or melt it in the preheating oven. Set aside to cool slightly.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. Add the chocolate chips and crystallized ginger and whisk well to combine. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, lightly beat the eggs with a fork. Add the mashed banana, yogurt, melted butter, and vanilla and stir to mix well. Pour the banana mixture into the dry ingredients, and stir gently with a rubber spatula, scraping down the sides as needed, until just combined. Do not overmix. The batter with be thick and somewhat lumpy, just make sure all the flour has been incorporated. Scrape the batter into the loaf pan and smooth the top.

Bake into the loaf is a deep shade of golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 50 mins to an hour. If the loaf seems to be browning too quickly, tent with foil.

Cool the loaf in the pan on a wire rack for 5 mins. Then tip out onto the rack, and let it cool completely before slicing (if you can wait that long).

The loaf freezes well wrapped in plastic wrap and again in foil to protect from freezer burn. Try it cold, sliced fresh out of the freezer with a glass of milk or a cup of tea. Divine.

COCO BEAN TURNS ONE!!!

2010-01-31T23:36:00.007-05:00

Happy Blogiversary! Coco Bean the Blog is One full year old!

To celebrate Ian and I made the same dinner we had one year ago, enjoyed the company of some blogging friends, and watched the much anticipated Canadian Michael Smith vs. Bobby Flay Iron Chef event.

Looking forward, Ian and I spent some time jotting down a list of 100 things we would like to cook over the next year. I was hoping to get more into bread baking and learning the basics of some dishes, like how to make a really good roast chicken, or simply try my hand at making butter.

Thank you to all the wonderful people we have met over the year, You have all made it an extremely memorable one and we are looking forward to the next!

100 Dishes for Coco Bean

Breads
Focaccia bread
English muffins
Challah
No-Knead bread
Panettone
Sour dough bread
Brioche
Bagels
Baguettes
Croissants
Donuts
Cornbread in a skillet
Irish Soda bread
Pizza
Pita bread
Bread pudding
Orangette’s Banana Bread - Completed

Soups
Shrimp bisque
Cream of mushroom soup
French onion soup
Tom Yum Soup
Chestnut Soup

Vegetables
Scalloped potatoes
Ratatouille
Fennel Salad
Singaporean Slaw Salad with Salted Apricot Dressing‏
Stuffed cabbage
Spaghetti squash
Baked beans
Risotto
Fettuccine Alfredo

Preserves and dips
Caramel sauce
Dolce de léché
Apple sauce
Butter

Cheeses
Fresh mozzarella
Goat Cheese
Mascarpone
Feta

Breakfast
Croque Monsieur/Madame
Crêpés
Buttermilk Scones

Seafood
Moules Mariniere
Lobster
Clams
Seared tuna

Meats
Chicken pot pie
Tortiere
Rabbit
Frittata
Beef Bourgeon
Soufflé
Chicken parmesan
Ossobuco
Tamales
Roasted Duck
Red curry chicken
Braised Short Ribs
Veal Liver
Coq au Vin
Perogies
Roast chicken
Beef Wellington
Quail
Quiche from Tartine

Desserts
Decorate Cookies
Cannois
Gingerbread house
Lemon Squares from Tartine
Meringues
Profiteroles & Éclairs & Gougers
Fudge
Orangettes
Home made marshmallows
Panacotta
Pots de Crème
Clafoutis
Trifle
Truffles

Cakes, Pies, & Tarts
Angel food cake
Carrot cake
Chocolate Friands
Chocolate Lava Cake
Black Forest Cake
Lemon meringue pie
Key lime pie
Pumpkin pie
Tiramisu + Homemade Lady Fingers
New York cheesecake
Flourless Chocolate cake
Boston Cream Pie
Cake pops
Mixed Berry Shortcake
Genoise
Bavarian
Fruit Galettes
Portuguese custard tarts
Shaker lemon pie
Chiffon Cake
Banana cream pie
Tarte Tatin
Fruit tart with pastry cream
Sugar pie

Cookies
Black and Whites
Madeleine’s
Blondie’s
Snicker doodles
French Macrons

Recently Finished
Gingerbread cookies
Steamed Pudding
Linzer Cookies
Scottish Shortbread
Frangipane Tart
Crème Brulee
Nanaimo bars
Guacamole
Homemade onion rings
Potstickers/Dumplings
Whoopee Pies
Salt crusted fish
Pickles

Recently Finished Redo’s
Ricotta
Yorkshire pudding
Mayonnaise
Carbonara Sauce
Crab legs
Cassolet
Gnocchi
Homemade pasta
Paella
Pecan pie
Biscotti
Pecan pie

Nanaimo Bars

2010-01-27T21:12:00.005-05:00

Nanaimo bars are part of the great Canadian experience; both Ian and I grew up with this classic snack. Here in Canada they can be found in every cafeteria, buffet, snack bar, hockey rink, school event, children’s party… well pretty much everywhere, and over the years we have both eaten our fair share of the good, the bad, and the ugly (bars that is).

Even though these bars are so prevalent in our chilly Canadian diet, it never dawned on me to try to make them. I guess there has always been a constant supply of them that there was no reason to try.

Boy was I happy I did. I halved the amount of coconut and added a cup of bing cherries to the bottom layer. These had to be the best Nanaimo bars that I have ever had, Ian and my roommate Adam agree. Adam agreed with them so much that he set up most of the props for the photos of the Nanaimo bars just so that he could get at them faster! They were a hit!

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca.

Nanaimo Bar Recipe

Bottom Layer
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup sugar
5 tbsp. cocoa
1 egg beaten
3/4 cups graham wafer crumbs
1/2 cup Oreo crumbs
1/2 cup finely chopped almonds
1/2 cup coconut
1 cup chopped cherries

Second Layer
1/2 cup unsalted butter
2 Tbsp. and 2 Tsp. cream
2 Tbsp. vanilla custard powder
2 cups icing sugar

Third Layer
4 squares semi-sweet chocolate (1 oz. each)
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1 tbsp. cocoa powder

First layer
Melt first 3 ingredients in top of double boiler. Add egg and stir to cook and thicken. Remove from heat. Stir in crumbs, coconut, and nuts. Press firmly into an ungreased 8" x 8" pan. Cool for half an hour.

Second layer
Cream butter, cream, custard powder, and icing sugar together well. Beat until light. Spread over bottom layer. Cool for an hour.

Third layer
Melt chocolate and butter overlow heat. Cool. Once cool, but still liquid, pour over second layer and chill in refrigerator. Cool overnight before slicing or else chocolate will crack.

Turkey noodle soup

2010-01-03T17:18:00.004-05:00

Dont you love soup? It doesnt have to be an entree, it can very easily be turned into a delicious meal. I decided to take some of the leftovers I have from the holiday season and give them a second life rather than let them go to waste. What to do when you have leftover turkey? Why not soup!

Turkey noodle soup

6 cups of Chiken broth
Bouquet of fresh Thyme, Rosemary and Sage
2 Celery Stalks, chopped
2 Carrots, cut into 1/4 in slices
1 1/2 cups of small torn up leftover turkey
1 cup of your favorite pasta (egg noodle works great)
Bread rolls
Salt & Pepper to taste

-In a large pot, add broth and herb bouquet,bring the broth to a near boil, and lower the heat so that the broth is at a gentle simmer, and allow to infuse for approx 1o minutes. Remove bouquet, and strain to remove bits of herbs if desired, though simply removing the big bits works for me.
-Add in veggies, and cook until the carrots are cooked through (a fork should easily pass through one), though still firm.
-In a seperate pot, bring some water with a pinch of salt to a boil, and add pasta. Once cooked, strain and add to the broth.
Serve with finely chopped flat leaf parsley sprinkled on top or and a nice bread roll
-Enjoy!

Winter is for Soup

2010-01-03T16:10:00.004-05:00

I love winter, its my favorite season. Winter means cold walks, warm sweaters, hot chocolate, skating, hockey, I can go on and on. One of my favourite things about winter is a good old blowing snowstorm, there is something about them that reminds me of being a little kid and staring out of windows during thunderstorms in the late summer.

With this in mind, when I woke up this morning I was very excited to see several inches of fresh snow. I decided to grab a camera and take the 30 or so minute walk over to my local grocery store, snap a few pictures and get a few odds and ends to make some soup. What could be better than a nice, hot bowl of soup after a cold walk.

Enter problem #1 - Ive never made a homemade soup (at least a real one).
Solution? - Using some simple ingredients, including some leftovers, cobble together
a basic soup and go from there. Oh, and read Christie's book about soup.
Yeah, that would help.

So, back on track to the soup. This time last year, I watched Christies brother Eric cook a beautiful pot of broth. This pot of broth simmered away for quite some time, and when it was ready to eat, everyone excitedly got together and ate a soup I had never seen before. The result was one of the simplest, and yet delicious soups that I have ever had. Here is my take on it

Tortellini Soup

6 cups of Chiken broth
Bouquet of fresh Thyme, Rosemary and Sage
2 Celery Stalks, chopped
2 Carrots, cut into 1/4 in slices
400gm (small package) of your favorite Tortellini
Parmesan
Salt & Pepper to taste

-In a large pot, add broth and herb bouquet,bring the broth to a near boil, and lower the heat so that the broth is at a gentle simmer, and allow to infuse for approx 1o minutes. Remove bouquet, and strain to remove bits of herbs if desired, though simply removing the big bits works for me.
-Add in veggies, and cook until the carrots are cooked through (a fark should easily pass through one), though still firm.
-In a seperate pot, bring some water with a pinch of salt to a boil, and add Tortellini. Once cooked, strain and add to the broth.
-Grate some fresh Parmesan and sprinkle over the soup.
-Serve with finely chopped flat leaf parsley or chives and a nice bread roll
-Enjoy!

Christies Cookie Exchange

2010-01-01T23:38:00.003-05:00

Happy Holidays everyone! Its peanut butter cookie time! Okay, I admit it, Im pretty excited about cookies recently. Christie had the brilliant idea to host a Cookie exchange just prior to xmas this holiday season, and it was alot of fun. The concept was simple, bake up five dozen cookies (which sounds like alot, but really, its only 2 batches or so of cookies) and exchange said cookies at a gathering over home brewed coffee, a warming bowl of homemade soup, and some great conversation. Its a really great time of year to have a cookie exchange, everyone is settling into holiday mode, and who doesnt need overflowing cookie tins?

It all sounds so simple, so cozy. That is until it dawned upon me that in attending, I needed to actually bake cookies(P.s Id never baked a cookie from scratch,ever). Uh oh. I could have ridden Christies coatails and said "Christie and Ians cookies" but as i wasnt helping her make hers, I decided to suck it up and learn how to make some cookies.

The only thing going in to this that I knew, was that I did not want to make chocolate chip cookies. Dont get me wrong, I love chocolate chip cookies, but I wanted to try something a little different, something that I could be proud of. I think a scenario played through my head while deciding this that kind of went something like this

-Ian enters room. Places cookie tin on table.
-Christie opens tin, looks inside, slowly takes out mystery cookie, turns it over in her hand, looks one over. Gives a quick smell, looks again, looks at me, bites cookie.
-Empty moment of impossible strain on Ians face, clock ticking in backround out of focus comes into focus. Ian sweats and fidgets.
-Christie chews, closes eyes, softly says,
"mmmm, this is a good cookie, congratulations on baking your first cookies honey!"

-VICTORY SCENE (required props list below)
Fireworks
explosions
wind machine
dudes giving Ian high fives
Ian giving dudes high fives
cool google earth camera zoom in from space
squirels in partly hats

So....back to my cookie decision. The mystery cookie, I needed to figure it out, this was the key to my glorious victory scene. But where, who? I typed "cookie recipes" into google and got 15,700,000 results, I needed some narrowing down. Then Anna Olson saved the day. I went to the Canadian Food Network website (check it out on the link at the bottom of this post, it really is a neat and really well made site) where a picture of Anna Olson was displayed for an ad of some sort, and I remembered her show "Sugar", as well as practicaly drooling on Christies floor watching the cookies and deserts she was making. Using the fancy new website, I was able to sort through her recipes and find first timer cookie magic, the Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookie (beams of light came down from parting clouds and cleared up all the bad things in the world for me at the very moment I found that recipe. Ok no, not that dramatic)

The recipe was really simple, straighforward, though time consuming for a first time cookie baker. I of course cut my cookie a little too thick for my first batch, so they all grew quite large and touched the edges of the sheet, though after that setback I figured out the right size and placement on the sheet to avoid that again. The step that was the most time consuming was spreading the filling, as I was worried about using too much at first, got 1/4 through my cookies, and realized I had barely used any spread, so I had to go back and put more in each. It didnt help that I was nervous at each step and took extra time to make sure each step was done properly.

On to the big unveiling. I had so many questions, were my cookies good enough? was anyone going to eat any? Or were they destined to sit on a plate, lonely and neglected like a gifted storebought holiday fruitcake? I had Christie try one right away, and she actually liked it! Hooray, (insert bad man dance victory dance). The rest of the cookie party was okay, but really, the highlight was my cookies, since all the other cookies ran away when they saw how awesome mine were. Okay, no they didnt.

The party was alot of fun, Christie made some fresh squash soup for everyone, and handed out cookie tins for everyones efforts. If you have a chance, and are looking to plan a little holiday something, think about a cookie exchange amongst friends, or at work even. If I can bake cookies, anyone can.

Anna Olsons Peanut Butter Sandwhich Cookies

Food Network Canada

Beer Battered Sole with Sweet Potato Fries

2009-12-22T23:58:00.004-05:00

Hi everyone,
Although this is usually the busiest time of year, I had no idea just how busy we would be. Christie has been busy working 6 day weeks, and Ive been, well, busy cooking and apparently not posting. I know, bad Ian. Since I have last posted, I have baked my first ever batch of cookies from scratch, co-baked/decorated nearly 50 cupcakes for the cupcake cake, roasted everything from pork to blade roasts to two more turkeys, including a whopping 20lb bird for which I tried out a whole new approach, though of course after a really long day of cooking and running around, I somehow forgot to take any pictures of the Bird out of the oven.

One really fun thing I have been doing is a weekly get together with my mother. At least one day a week we get get together and I cook something up for her. One fine afternoon, while a blizzard whipped about outside, my mother taught me how to cook pork's feet, not something for everyone, but I learned (to my relief) that the hoof isn't used, and its actually the leg that is used.

It was at one of these weekly get together that I had decided to revisit a fish & chips recipe that I had really enjoyed

This time around, I switched out Halibut with Sole, a nice, light and inexpensive alternative, as well as switching the russet potatoes out for sweet potato fries, and Ive got to say, I actually preferred this dish over the original.

For the recipe, please view the original posting HERE
and just remember to switch out the Halibut for Sole, and Russet Potato for Sweet (approx 1 sweet potato peeled and cut into 1/4 in fries lenghtwise along the potatos)

Enjoy!

Jam Swap

2009-11-25T22:52:00.001-05:00

Hello everyone, Ian here!
Do you like jam? I like jam, alot. Unfortunately the most common kinds involve strawberries, and as I am allergic to them, I am usually scared to eat any red jams haha. So when Aimee from Under the High Chair extended an invitation to Christie and I to attend and participate in her annual Jam Swap event, we were, to say the least, very excited. The requirements were simple enough, make Jam, bring said jam, and exchange said jam with others at a fun get together. Sounds simple enough? Yes, though quite quickly afterwards, Christie and I realized that neither of us had ever made any jam.

Our first idea was to make batches of Christies homemade chocolate & hazelnut spread, though we realized that the sterilization and jarring process was going to be 50% of the challenge of making a jam. After a nice weekend visit to the Atwater market that weekend, we decided to change the original plan once we laid our eyes on some local cranberries. Neither of us had any idea that cranberries were produced locally, and were quite happy to discover that there were abundant amounts apparently. Christie and I have been doing our best to select as many locally grown/produced food products as possible, thus using local cranberries made far more sense to us than imported chocolate and hazelnuts.

Cranberries chosen, Christie and I settled on her classic Cranberry and Port sauce, which, although technically not a jam, was acceptable as the Jams were varied from classic fruit jams, to delicious salsas, mmmmmmmmm (can you tell that I loved the salsa?). Making the sauce itself was alot of fun, as we had never made that much of it before. The jarring process seemed intimidating at first, and our first test attempt failed, though we quickly realized that this was due to a small amount of sauce being found on the rim of the jar when we screwed the lid on before the boiling process. Once we had found that out, each batch went swimmingly.

Needless to say, the jam swap went really well, there were so many absolutely delicious creations there, with my favorite easily being one of Aimee's amazing pumpkin preserves. If you ever have the chance to try this, jump on it, you wont regret it. Christie made sure to get me some, and I am hoarding the stuff.

On a side note, please take a moment to visit Aimee's wonderful website (link at the bottom of this posting), you really wont regret it.

Thank you very much again from Christie and I to you and your family Aimee for the wonderful hospitality! Hope everyone enjoys the photos as much as we all had fun at this event.

Ian

Under the Highchair

Creme Brulee

2009-11-12T23:15:00.001-05:00

Yay, we made crème brulee for the BB's!

It was actually really simple and fast although in the end we were a little disappointed. Our "crème" was really eggie and Ian called it sweet scrambled eggs. Not something you particularly want to hear eh!

I wasn't sure how to caramelize the sugar because we didn't have a torch For days I searched all around the web and stores for a reasonably priced one but couldn't find any. Then when I had finally given up, one went on sale at good 'ol Canadian Tire so I asked someone to pick it up for me today. The moment I step into the house I opened the box to check out my new contraption and of course it needed butane.
Sigh, so my new gadget is still in the box and we had to experiment with the broiler. There was a little more "burning" than caramelizing but I think I have figured it out. Tomorrow I get to really go nuts with the torch on the last three brulees!

Recipe is here

Candy Apples and Halloween Parties

2009-11-02T23:24:00.010-05:00

Happy Halloween Everyone!

For a second year running Ian and I found ourselves knee deep in 60 pounds of apples that we picked during the notorious apple season in Quebec. Lately we’ve been searching high and low for the best recipes to use up these apples, hence the past two posts! As Halloween grew nearer we figured “Hey, what else have we got in the cupboard that could accompany these apples?”

sticks…. check
sugar….check
light corn syrup… check
red food dye… check
apples… double check

And within 20 minutes, these gorgeous red candy apples were born! Yes seriously, from the beginning till the time that the first one is in your tummy there is a grand total of 20 minutes spent.

Not only are they simply delicious, but they truly do bring back memories of being four feet tall and crying until someone bought you one of those large red apples. If you have any extra apples leftover and can successfully check off the above list, give them a try, they’re worth it!

Also, this being a Happy Halloween post, here are a few pictures from a truly ghoulish Halloween party put on by our friend Marc. I’m pretty sure that when he moved into his apartment he only brought boxes full of Halloween decorations because the second we walked in we were transported to another nightmarish universe! Every single inch was decorated and the details were incredible! Ian went as a 1940’s press photographer and was able to get some amazing shots; while I was a Cigarette Girl from the 1920’s who handed out Popeye candy cigarettes.

Candy Apples
adapted from Martha Stewart

2 cups sugar
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 teaspoon red food coloring
12 apples

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and spray with cooking spray. In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, water, corn syrup, and food coloring. Bring to a boil over high heat. Insert candy thermometer and continue to boil until temperature reaches between 300 degrees and 310 degrees (hard crack stage), about 10-15 minutes.
Insert a wooden stick into the top of each apple, pushing about halfway through; set aside. When mixture reaches temperature, immediately remove from heat. Working quickly, dip apples in sugar mixture until completely coated. Transfer to prepared baking sheet; allow to cool for 5 minutes.

Ian’s sweet and smoky Pork loin with baked apples & garlic mashed potatoes

2009-10-29T02:48:00.001-04:00

Apples, apples, apples, so many apples. Christie and I have apples everywhere, and as much as I can eat apple crisp every day (really, I can, Christies apple crisp is just that good), I thought of trying out some of the apples within a main course, as opposed to a desert, just to try to mix things up.
As usual, i get to the point where I am beginning to think about recipes, and I just throw caution to the wind and fly by taste, making things up as I go along. The first image that came to my mind when I tried to conjure up images of apples in main courses was that of the cartoon image of a whole roasted pig on a giant platter with an apple stuffed in its mouth, uncovered as a master piece where the guests collectively gasp and applaud. Hmmm...first problem is getting a whole pig, and its a strange impulse buy no? Also the apple seems more symbolic that anything. Idea number 1 out of the window.
Idea 2. Pork chops with apple sauce. Okay, now this is totally doable, this is more like it, though all the walking around the neighbourhood that I have been doing lately, seeing all the brightly colour leaves on the ground, the fresh rain and the smell of fireplaces being lit for the first time was inspiring me to be a little more seasonal, a little more adventurous. Enter the Dutch oven.
I purchased a perfectly good Kitchenaid cast iron Dutch oven a few months ago at a local Canadian Tire store on sale from 100$, for 25$. Who can refuse that? My only regret is to not have picked up 2-3 more of them now. It is a quality addition to my kitchen. So, Dutch oven in hand, I had decided to add these elements of autumn to my dish. I wanted a nice, smooth smoky flavour to the pork, but I also wanted to make it nice and tender so that I could pull it apart with a fork and serve it piled up loosely. By cooking the apples along with the marinated pork within the Dutch Oven, I was able to preserve the flavours of each, and get plenty of apple juice to keep the pork nice and tender.
When I served this dish, I knew I had done well when all I could hear from the dining table was muffled mmmmm’s and pleased eating sounds. You can be sure this dish is going to be one that I will continue to make for years to come

Makes approx 4 servings (using 2 small 1lb pork tenderloins, fat cut off)
Preheat oven @ 325. Prepare the Pork marinate by combining all marinate ingredients into a bowl, mix well. Pour half of the marinate onto the Pork tenderloins and brush on until coated. Refrigerate and allow the pork to marinate for approx 6-8 hours in a closed container for optimal results, though not necessary. Place marinated pork in the Dutch oven, and pour in remaining marinate as desired.
Wash the apples thoroughly, remove stems and core for each apple. Cut apples into approx ½ inch wedges, and place in a mixing bowl. Once all apples are cut and ready, add the brown sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice as well as cinnamon and nutmeg, and toss by hand until thoroughly coated. Place apples on top of pork tenderloin in Dutch Oven and cover with lid. Place in oven for approx 2hrs, or the pork reaches the approx temp of 160degrees.
Wash, cut and peel the potatoes. Cut into 1/8 and place in a bowl of cold water for approx 10 minutes. Drain the water and gently boil the potatoes, draining once ready (when a fork can easily push through the center of a piece, they are ready). Add the butter to the pot so that the potatoes do not burn to the bottom, and add the potatoes & chopped garlic and salt. Slowly add skim (or your preferred milk, even sour crème), until desired consistency is achieved
Once pork is ready, spoon apples carefully into a serving dish, and remove pork from the dutch oven. Place the Dutch oven on a burner on medium high heat, and pour a few glugs of inexpensive whiskey ( I used a locally made whiskey) into the juices left from the pork and apples. Slowly add 1-2 teaspoons of cornstarch to help thicken, all the while whisking in order to prevent lumping. Once the sauce has thickened, remove from heat and strain to remove any lumps.
Pull pork apart with a fork (should be nice and tender from the closed Dutch oven cooking). Serve a spoonful of the apple mixture from a serving dish onto the shredded pork, and drizzle the apple whiskey gravy on top (including the garlic mashed potatoes). Enjoy

Pork Loin Marinate
• 1 cup of your favourite BBQ sauce
• 1 teaspoon of worchestershire sauce
• 1 teaspoon of Louisiana style hot sauce
• 5-6 drops of liquid hickory smoke
• ½ teaspoon of celery seed
• ½ teaspoon of cumin
• Salt & Pepper to taste

Apples
• 6 large sweet apples
• 1 cup of Brown Sugar
• Juice of 1 squeezed lemon
• 2 teaspoons of cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

Garlic Mashed potatoes
• 2.5 lbs Potatoes
• ¼ stick unsalted butter
• ½ cup low fat milk
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• Salt to taste

Apple Whiskey gravy
• 3-4 glugs of inexpensive whiskey
• Pan juices (see above)

Caramel Apple Crisp

2009-10-25T21:34:00.009-04:00

Caramel...goooooood, Apples...goooooood, Caramel+Apples+Crisp... Awesome!

This isn't the first apple crisp in this household over the past week. The first one we made was in the oven for 10 minutes before the apartment buildings fire alarm blaringly forced us out of our apartment while I freaked out trying to figure out if it was me that set it off. All I could smell was burnt apples which didn’t make me feel any better about the situation. Luckily it wasn't, but the trouble wasn’t over yet. I followed the smell down the hallway to find that my friend across the way was trying to make her first apple pie with a recipe that I had given to her.

Fortunately crisis was averted and her pie joined my apple crisp in our oven while the fire fighters were called off. By the end of the night we each had two servings of our freshly baked apple crisp and there was nothing to show for it but an empty dish to wash and some satisfied bakers!

The second time I made this crisp I ended up standing over the dish with spoon in hand at the end of the night. I was originally just going to put it away but ended up spooning bite after bite into my mouth. I finished off a good half of the dish.

The third one was made late last Friday night. My roommate Adam was leaving for Quebec City for the weekend and wanted to bring something sweet to his family. Unfortunately he didn’t mention anything about this until 12:00am so I had my pj's on and was about to crawl into bed when the idea came up. If this was any other recipe I don't think I would have done it but I couldn’t withhold this wonderful dish from anyone, and I'm glad I lost sleep over it!

So yes, this is the fourth apple crisp this week therefore Ian and I thought that we might switch it up a little. We were contemplating cranberries or pears, but no. We intended to go all the way so we stopped in at Confection Sparkles, the local (and largest in Canada) candy store where we found every different shape and kind of caramel. Deciding to keep this batch simple, we stuck to the little square caramels. When they came out of the oven I brought down one of these little ramekins to the candy connoisseur, the owner of Confection Sparkles, and we will soon know if our little addition passes the test!

Caramel Apple Crisp
Loosely adapted from Martha Stewart
Tip: use a deep 8x8 inch pyrex dish

Topping:
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
2 tbsp. brown sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. granulated sugar
4 tbsp. unsalted butter, cold, cut into small cubes
2/3 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

Apples:
8 apples,cored,peeled, and cut into slices or enough apples to fill your pyrex dish.
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tbsp. cornstarch
2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/3 cup chopped square caramels

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In your pyrex baking dish toss apples with lemon juice, cinnamon,nutmeg,cornstartch, and sugar. In a large bowl mix together flour, caramel pieces, salt, and both sugars. Cut butter into flour until mixture is the texture of coarse meal. Add oats and squeeze mixture together to form a couple clumps. Sprinkle the topping mixture over the apples. Place baking dish on a baking sheet, and bake until golden and bubbling, 55 to 65 minutes. Let cool 15 minutes before serving.

It All Started With an E-mail.... Thanksgiving in Montreal, Stuffing and Cranberry Sauce

2009-10-13T01:35:00.004-04:00

Thanks Giving Dinner among friends... Friday Oct. 9
From: Christina Dillane (christina.dillane@live.ca)
Sent: October 2, 2009 10:39:06 PM
To: ten friends
Message:
Hello Everyone!

Ian, Adam, and I are cordially inviting you ten friends to a special Thanks Giving Dinner on Friday Oct. 9th held at my apartment! Now you know me and when it comes to food nothing will be boring and traditional!

This year I wanted to follow the Slow Food movement so we three pitched our money together to pay up the arss for an Organic Heritage Turkey. What is that you ask? Well these days 95% of the turkeys sold are from a single breed that has an unusual and unhealthy large chest (for breast meat) and is dumb as a stump. Because of this, these turkeys can't even procreate. This year we want a turkey that can have sex, so we opted for an almost extinct heritage breed of turkey that originated from Quebec and once roamed the vast frozen land with the Buffalo's.

For those of you who don't care if you turkey has enough brain power and correct weight distribution to do the deed... well I can tell you that it is supposed to taste freakin amazing. Does that help?

Because we are pouring most of our resources into this very happy turkey we were hoping that some could help out an make the sides. We need a stellar potato dish, some rockin vegetables side dishes, something with sweet potatoes, something else that I'm missing for a thanksgivin dinner but can't remember right now, and of course the pumpkin pie!
Thanks all, I'm really looking forward to next Friday!!!

-Christie

THE Stuffing
adapted from Martha Stewart

675 g Italian bread, torn into bite-size pieces
8 oz. bacon, sliced into 1-inch pieces
4 celery stalks, thinly sliced
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
Coarse salt and ground pepper
1/2 cup dry white wine
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 cups of reduced-sodium chicken broth
2 tsp. ground savoury
1 tbsp. ground sage
1 large apple cut into pieces

Leave out bread for 24 hours. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a large saucepan, fry up the bacon. When browned remove from pan and add celery, shallots, and garlic; season with salt and pepper. Cook until vegetables are softened, 5 to 7 minutes. Add wine, and cook until evaporated. Transfer to a large bowl. In the bowl add the bread and eggs. When mixed through add spices and apples, then stir to combine. Mix in half of the broth, then continue to add in more just until stuffing is moistened but not wet (there should not be any liquid in the bottom of the bowl). Place stuffing in a large baking dish and cover with foil. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, then uncover and bake until golden, about 15 minutes more.

The Best Cranberry Sauce
adapted from Emeril Lagasse

2 cups cranberries
Juice and chopped zest of 1 orange
1/4 cup Port
1/2 cup sugar, or more if needed
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon cornstarch

In a saucepan combine cranberries, orange juice and zest, port, sugar and cinnamon. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to simmering and cook until cranberries pop and are tender, stirring occasionally. In a small cup make a slurry with cornstarch and 1 tablespoon water. Whisk cornstarch mixture into cranberry sauce and cook, whisking, until sauce thickens. Taste and add more sugar, if necessary.

Variation: I couldn't find the orange I bought this year so I subbed in 1/4 cup of apple cider and it was equally as spectacular!

Italian Supper Club, the Vino

2009-09-16T00:19:00.002-04:00

Hi everyone, Ian here again. So Christie and I had the great pleasure of being invited to Montreal's first Foodie meetup, where we got to meet and have lunch with alot of really great people. It was so much fun, and really nice to get together with poeple that are so easy to get along with, and are passionate about the same thing, food! It was a really great opportunity for all of us to not only discuss our blogs, but to also duscuss the reasons why we have all started along this path, and exchange information. I really cant wait for the next meetup, its going to be alot of fun.

For todays post, im putting up the pictures of the different types of red wine that was brought by each of the guests at a recent supper club held by Christie. To add a little something to the get together, Christie asked that each guest, or couple, brought along a bottle of their prefered red wine, as tastes and preference for red wine vary from one person to thhe next, and it seems that everyone has their own favourite kind. I hope everyone enjoys these as much as we did, unfortunately my head did not appreciate it as much the following day.... sigh...

As a side note to all those present at the foodie meetup, I have a little something that I am putting together as I had received so many inquiries about light boxes and their uses for food photography.

Ian

Italian Supper Club continued

2009-09-09T22:28:00.002-04:00

Hi again, Ian here!
As promised, here are some more pictures of Christies wonderful supper club get togethers. We really do have so much fun at these get togethers, and although they are very stressful in the lead up for Christie, she is thrilled once the party kicks off. There is a reason that it is pretty much the same core group of people that keep coming back to these time and time again, they cant get enough of the great food :D

For the next installment, I am going to hit everyone with a whole bunch of photos. Although food is the piece de resistance of the supper club get togethers, the company present is always great, and the Italian themed supper club was no exception. To celebrate the occasion, Christie came up with the brilliant (or was that terrible?) idea that each person attending should bring a bottle of a prefered wine. Without giving out too much ahead, there was an impressive assortment of wines that night, and I somehow, through a fog of red wine, documented each and every type! Until then :D

Ian

Italian Supper Club part 1

2009-09-08T22:51:00.003-04:00

Hi everyone, Ian here :D
Run run run, thats all everyone has been able to do lately. It seems the more we try to get done ahead of time, the more we end up needing to get done, am I right? So this past weekend, the thankfully long, or painfully short (3 days still just isnt enough, I want more) Labour day weekend proved to be a great chance to get a few things done that I keep meaning to do, namely sleep, eat, relax, and relax some more. In between all the glorious napping and coffee sipping, I got to catch up on a mounting backlog of photos, namely some shots taken at a recent Supper Club event put on by Christie. So today, I present to you part 1 the Italian supper club. I had to break the posting up as there are just too many photos, and well, I think it will only do justice to all the planning and work that Christie puts into these events to post pictures of all her hard work. Without further ado :D

Enjoy! (but probably not as much as my taste buds did... I want more of all of this)

The wonderful story of Ian & the Sweet potato

2009-09-01T00:38:00.002-04:00

So Christie has still been really busy, but thats no reason for me not to post more often. I found something really neat this evening, and I decided to have a little fun with it and challenge myself with some shots, so here goes....

And so it all began with a Potato. While I was merrily cooking up a basic stir fry for supper this fine evening, I happened to look over and to my surprise, find what seems to have been a completely forgotten and lonely sweet potato. Perhaps due to the unusual humidity, or simply because it had been there for some time now, the sweet potato in question had begun to sprout. There were stalks, leaves, a whole little new potato plant growing right there. I wasnt sure if I was to feel bad that I had left this poor guy to get this far along. Either way, I am sure that the potato was very pleased to have been found by someone at last.

I wasnt sure what to do, do I stick it in some soil since I felt so bad? Do I throw it out? Do I try to see if I can salvage some and figure out if sweet potato is good in a stir fry? No way, this thing is neat!

I had so much fun using this old character filled potato as a subject this evening, it really got me playing around with my all my gear, and what with everything going on lately, it felt really good to pick up my camera and just have fun. The top image is actually a panorama stiched together from 5 different shots taken with a 200mm lens, and the closeups are shot on a 60mm Micro Nikkor that I absolutley love, and apparently rediscovered that it focuses MUCH closer in manual than auto. I Also threw alot more light on this potato than I usually would, and I am really happy that I did, the extra oomph on the white backround gives the phots a really graphic quality. Hope you guys like em :D

I miss CocoBean

2009-08-27T15:35:00.002-04:00

Well hello Strangers,
Ok, so it is actually Christie and I that have been the strangers and we quite frankly feel terrible about it. I have been going back and forth between Montreal and Ottawa to spend time with my brother, so I have been just so busy and distracted by all of this. Here is my update, my brother ended up having what is called a degenerative Mitral valve, which required immediate surgery as the valve had actually ruptured. Luckily Ottawa has a state of the art Hospital/Research center dedicated to the study and health of the heart, and the chief of surgery himself was going to be performing my brothers surgery. The surgery went well, and the surgeon was actually able to repair rather than replace the valve, which is excellent news as the recovery and long term quality of life are better with your original valve over a porcine replacement. Christie, along with my mother and I headed out to spend four days with him while in the hospital, and on the last dayhe was released. Unfortunately, shortly after my 2nd visit, my brother was brought back into the hospital and once again admitted due to unusual chest pains. It was found that he had a fluid buildup around the heart, which was dangerously constricting on it. A new sugery was performed yesterday, at which point almost 1 full litre of fluid was drained....

So, as you can imagine, Christie and I have been very worried and concentrating on various other concerns for a little while. On the bright side, Christie has found some employment that is close to home, although not in her field, she is still happy about it, and she can continue her search for work in her field while worrying a little less about bills. As for me, I have have decided after a long stint at my current job, where things just keep getting worse and worse, to find new employment as well, something which I have been looking into every night after work lately. A positive out of all this is that I've decided, with Christie's loving support, that I should pursue photography professionaly, and I am enrolling in a highly regarded Commercial Photography program at a local college :D

Balsamic Baked Onions & Potatoes with Pork Loin

2009-08-12T00:58:00.006-04:00

Well hellooooo everyone!
Got some good news back today, my brother Scott had his heart surgery this afternoon, and the surgeon was able to repair the valve rather than have to replace it, which is really great. Its still scary that he had heart surgery, but such a relief to know that it went well. Thank you so much for all the wonderful vibes, I’m sure it all helped. Christie and I are heading out to spend some time with him this week, and hopefully the extra company will cheer him up and get him going on the path to a full recovery.
Now I know you’ve been waiting for Food, am I right? Well we’ve got some. Over these past few busy weeks, I have actually been stockpiling photos that we just have not had the time to post, such as the event photos from the past two “Supper Club’s”, and all the wonderful, and I really mean wonderful homemade ice cream Christie has been making (hello Chocolate Guinness ice cream, and get in my belly cantaloupe sorbet!!). So here for today is a little something I decided to try out myself. A short while a go, I headed on by a grocery store nearby my work in order to find something interesting to make for dinner, and ended up walking out with a nicely large Pork Loin. Of course by the time I got it home, I decided to try something different with it, and finally, yes finally try out cooking a Jamie Oliver recipe myself. I watch Jamie’s many shows on Food Network Canada whenever I see them, but it was that day that I realized that I had never actually made anything based on one of his recipes.
I found a dizzying array of recipes for Pork loin by Jamie Oliver (try googling Jamie Oliver Pork Loin and you’ll see) , but just couldn’t resist a really interesting recipe calling for quite a lot of Balsamic. I had the feeling that I would somehow mess this recipe up totally and absolutely, and that it would end up turning out awful, with me confused about where I went wrong. Surprisingly, it didn’t go that way at all. I followed the recipe pretty closely, only making a small change in the onions (I left some in the roasting pot with the loin, and then mixed those in with the baked balsamic potatoes and red onions afterwards).

For the full Jamie Oliver recipe, please click here

Speaking of the Food Network, Christie came across an recent posting on their website that uses and talks about one of our postings, and uses one of my pictures! Seriously, how cool is that? Check it out here

A Review for the Daring Kitchen

2009-08-09T15:19:00.001-04:00

A month ago Ian and I were asked to write a review for a very summer-ie cookbook from Bobby Flay called Burgers, Fries, and Shakes. We were so excited and had a great time cooking and eating our way though the book.

Please click here to read the review and see all the beautiful pictures that Ian took. Also check out the Daring Kitchen website while you're at it!

Get better soon Scott

2009-08-03T23:57:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone,
Ian here. Christie and I have not been kidnapped, so don’t worry, we are okay! Phewwwww, now that that is over with, I can tell you that Christie and I have had our hands so overwhelmingly full it’s unbelievable. Since graduating, Christie has been hustling every day from morning till night working on writing and sending out resume(s) for various jobs in her field. As you can all imagine, she is fairly upset that she hasn’t had the time to post anything, but she needs to prioritize and find a job first, which is exactly why it has been my responsibility as of late to keep the blog up to date, which of course you can see I have failed miserably at.

On to the bad news, a little over a week ago, I had received a phone call that my brother had fallen ill during a camping trip, but I didn’t take it too seriously as I was told that it was just a bug or something of the sort. Since then, I have found out that it is more serious than a simple cold, and that a problem has been discovered with my brother’s heart. He has developed a type of infection on a valve, as well as a problem with the valve itself, and it may very well require some sort of heart surgery. I really hope the problem can be solved with a medication/antibiotic, but we won’t know anything until the result of some tests he had come in this week.

He had a pretty bad string of luck with injuries and the like over the past few years, recently been doing so much better, and things had begun to brighten up for him until this. I am not really a church going, prayer kind of guy, but he is in my thoughts, and I feel that if I hope hard enough, maybe everything will be alright for him. If anyone reading this is inclined to do so, any little thought, any little prayer, or any little shared hope or whispered word that he will be okay would be much appreciated.

Daring Bakerless

2009-07-27T12:17:00.001-04:00

OOpps, serious baking problems have left me Daring Bakerless. The cookies I made were really sad. I will try again tonight, wish me luck!

Peach and Blueberry Oat Crisp

2009-07-23T19:56:00.002-04:00

So you didn't think that we ate ALL those blueberries did you? Well yes, we did get through 3/4ths of the basket by just grabbing handfuls and popping those juicy blueberries into our mouths... but... I did save some for this succulent peach and blueberry crumble!

The Quebec and Ontario peaches are just starting to arrive in big baskets here so this was a lovely way to show case local ingredients. To go along with this dessert I made something special that I'm sure Ian will love, some Super Lemon Ice Cream. I just pulled it out of the ice cream maker so it didn’t make it into the picture but just imagine us enjoying some sweetly sour ice cream with our local faire!

I'm usually not a big fan of a crumble so I switched it up with a nice oat crisp. This was a magnificent summer dessert, thanks to Aggie's Kitchen for the wonderful BB pick!

Peach and Blueberry Oat Crisp
adapted from Ina Garten

Fruit
2 lbs firm, ripe peaches (6-8 peaches)
2 tsp grated lemon zest
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tbsp vanilla
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup fresh blueberries (1/2 pint)

Crisp
adapted from Ungourmet
1 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup butter, softened

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Immerse the peaches in boiling water for 30 seconds to 1 minute, until their skins peel off easily. Place them immediately in cold water. Peel the peaches, slice them into thick wedges, and place them in a large bowl. Add the lemon zest, lemon juice, granulated sugar, and flour. Toss well. Gently mix in the blueberries. Allow the mixture to sit for 5 minutes. Spoon the mixture into ramekins or custard cups. In another bowl combine the oats, flour, and brown sugar. Cut in the butter. Spoon over the fruit. Place the ramekins on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and back for 40 to 45 minutes, until the tops are browned and crisp and the juices are bubbly. Serve warm or at room temperature.

An Open Letter to Quinn Farms

2009-07-19T23:50:00.002-04:00

Dear Quinn Farms,

I am truly sorry for all the berries I ate off of your bushes today instead of putting them in my basket. I understand that I was only supposed to nibble while I picked but I couldn’t resist, they were so very tasty.

Yes I know, we left with two huge baskets of blueberries and raspberries but you should have weighed me before and after to find out how many really left in my belly.

Ian and I came across blueberries the size of quarters that burst with sweet ripe juice when you bit into them. Brilliantly bright red raspberries hid beneath thousands of deep green leaves, just waiting to be picked. Every time we found a raspberry you could hear my roommate and I yelling "ohh a piece of candy!"

Once again Ian was a real trooper considering uncooked berries don’t sit as well in his stomach as they do in mine. I guess I ate his portion eh. It turns out he is a master blueberry picker who devised plans to find only the ripest berries and doesn’t get detoured by eating them.

Really, you are all so nice so to make it up to you Quinn Farms I will bake my little heart out. I will bake raspberry custard tarts and blueberry pies for Ian; I will make berry sorbet and eat blueberries in milk for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Sincerely,
Christie

P.S. There are probably a ton in my roommate Adam's belly too. Sorry.
Check out his post for another account of Ian, Christie, and Adam's great berry adventure!

A Degree in Cell and Molecular Gastronomy?

2009-07-14T20:44:00.005-04:00

Yes, I finally graduated from my BSc in a Specialization of Cell and Molecular BIOLOGY! But these days as I search for jobs and cook I find myself falling further into the culinary aspects of the molecular world as opposed to Genomics. This whole Molecular Gastronomy craze both annoys and intrigues me. I truly believe in a whole and healthy meal; you know those ones that have been prepared the same way for generations. On the other hand I am constantly interested in the 'what, why, and how can I mess with it to make it better' aspect of life.

In comes this month’s Daring Cooks challenge, a recipe from Alinea the leading edge cookbook on molecular gastronomy. Supposedly this is the easiest recipe in the book as it doesn’t call for any ingredients or instruments that would have to be checked out of the lab. The idea was to present five different powders made from simple dehydrated ingredients to accompany a lush burre monte poached Skate wing.

For this challenge I decided to powder Capers, Lemon, Red Onion, Cilantro, and Field Strawberries from last weekend’s Quinn Farms raid. Everything was going well until the last minute of dehydration. You see I was one of the participants that didn’t own a dehydrator and had to “wing it” with the microwave. Each ingredient that I painstakingly attended to tried eagerly to burn in mere seconds after almost 30 minutes on low. Luckily I caught them before they all burnt to a crisp and most were salvaged. Needless to say I spent most of Sunday making and ruining powders.

Despite the small setbacks everything turned out wonderfully. The burre monte poached skate was tender yet juicy and each powder added a burst of flavour to every succulent bite. I really only made the strawberry powder for aesthetic reasons, but in the end it was one of my favourites. The lemon and red onion powders were transformed into an intensely flavourful complement to the Skate that I wasn’t expecting.

After the two days of dehydration and prep that went into this dish I don’t think that I will be making it again anytime soon, but I'm so glad to have tried it. Thanks to Sketchy's Kitchen for picking such a wonderful challenge and you can find the recipe for this and other challenges at The Daring Kitchen.

Strawberry Ice Cream/Sherbert and Strawberry Picking

2009-07-12T23:46:00.005-04:00

Over the past month my roommate Adam and I have been following La Ferme Quinn's blog eagerly anticipating the upcoming strawberry, raspberry, and blueberry picking season. Well last week they posted some succulent pictures of plump raspberries and strawberries so we set the date.

Saturday July 12 we drove west, just across the Montreal Bridge and onto a beautiful island called Ile Perrot. Quinn Farm is only about 25 minutes by car (including a Tim Horton’s coffee stop) so it was the perfect outing for a Saturday afternoon. Ian was a real trooper and joined in the fun even though he is allergic to strawberries.

(picture of my roomate Adam)

Quinn Farm is such a beautiful and vast place with old rustic farm houses and miles of vegetable and fruit patches. When we arrived we were given two large baskets and put on a waggon that drove past the raspberry, apple, blueberry, pumpkin, Christmas tree, current,and asparagus fields (I think I even saw zucchini blossoms) right up to hundreds of rows of strawberry plants.

But of course, when we started picking the sky turned grey and it started to drizzle. Because Ian couldn't pick the strawberries he stood behind me the whole time with a giant umbrella pointing out where he saw some big juicy berries. He's the best eh!

By the time we were finished with the strawberries it was too wet to slosh our way through the raspberry bushes (what an insane storm!) so next weekend we're heading back over the bridge to fill up on all the other berries. I can't wait!

Lately I have become an Ice Cream queen due to David Lebovitz's "The Perfect Scoop" so the second we arrived back at home I started on the Strawberry Sour Cream Ice Cream. I couldn’t help myself so I doubled the amount of strawberries called for, not the best idea in terms of texture and I ended up with more of a sherbert, but all those field berries made the tastiest strawberry "sherbert" that I have ever had!

I had a hard time picking between the Strawberry frozen yogurt or ice cream and in the end the ice cream won out. But, here is the frozen yogurt recipe, it looks very similar and I will be trying it soon.

(Note from Ian: The large, shirtless man on the right hand side of the photo was a very sweet man. He had actually taken his shirt off because it was raining, and he had brought the tiny girl semi hidden at the center of the photo Strawberry picking, but it started raining and she was cold, so he took his shirt off and drapped it on her. She then ran around the field picking and eating strawberries, it was really cute, she ran by me and had a whole face smeared with strawberries and the biggest smile ever. )

Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomatoes

2009-07-09T20:36:00.006-04:00

Once again I am thoroughly blown away by the savoury recipes that Ina creates. I know I am constantly commenting on the amount of butter and fat that she adds to her recipes, but once I get over the shock and just lower the amount, I am time after time left with a bold melody of flavours that work perfectly against each other.

This recipe was no exception. Like the couscous we gladly ate two full servings, smiling the whole way though (even though Ian hates uncooked tomatoes).

One thing though, was it just me or were the measurements of the ingredients entirely off? I knew to double the amount of pasta but I had to cut down on the tomatoes, oil (no surprise there), basil, cheese, olives, and completely cut out the large chunks of sun dried tomatoes from the salad.

Either way, we were very happy. Thanks Ina and thanks to Cat of Delta Whiskey for choosing this week’s recipe.

Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomatoes
adapted from Ina Garten
this is my version of Ina's dish

Pasta
1 pound fusilli pasta
1/2 pound ripe tomatoes, medium-diced
1/2 cup good black olives, such as kalamata, pitted and diced
200g fresh boccnchini, torn into pieces
1/2 cup basil leaves, julienned
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan

Dressing
6 sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained
1-1/2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
3 tablespoons good olive oil
1 garlic clove, diced
1 teaspoon capers, drained
3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water. Drain well and allow to cool till warm. Place the pasta in a bowl and add the dressing with the parmesan. Mix together well. Add the tomatoes, olives, mozzarella, and basil. Toss to mix everything around.
For the dressing, combine the sun-dried tomatoes, vinegar, olive oil, garlic, capers, and pepper in a food processor until almost smooth.

Pad Thai and June’s Book Club Pick -- Hungry Monkey

2009-07-06T21:37:00.007-04:00

So here is a little tidbit about me, I have to read for at least half an hour every night or else I can't fall asleep. Some might think that I would go through book after book, but I read at such a slow rate that it's kind of like a cruel joke. Also, after 30 minutes I am out like a light and only a few pages closer to finishing the book. Because of my reading narcolepsy and slow pace I only get through a book or two a month making Noëlle’s Simmer Down Book Club right up my alley. Each month a book related to cuisine is chosen and read by participants all over the globe. At the end of each month several questions about the book are posed by Noëlle.

This month’s steamy read (ha, I’m so funny… or sad) was "Hungry Monkey" by Matthew Amster-Burton. The story is a hilariously cute and comical tale of what my father and I like to call a "Daddy's Little Princess" (can you guess what I am?!?) and her dad on a culinary adventure to feed a toddler "real" food. Amster-Burton and little Iris explore everything from Sushi to Pad Thai... oh, and plain cheese pizza! Yes, in the end we find out that no matter what eccentricities and spices you introduce to a child in their younger years, they will always gravitate back to the repulsive basics.

I thought it would be nice to make a recipe from each book that we read, plus I have been looking for a killer Pad Thai lately and with a couple of tweaks to suit my tastes I think I found it.

Oh, also because I don’t have a child, I decided to comment on my cats eating habits.

(Coco also likes cooking from my A la Di Stasio Cookbook...)

Question 1
Food obviously plays a huge role in the Amster-Burton household. What role does food have in your household? Do you feel that kids need to know "where food comes from" and participate in food preparation, or is it enough just to make sure they're eating reasonably healthy foods?

Well since the only child that I have is my cat I will elaborate on her. My cat is getting fat. She can lie on her back with her legs in the air... buutttt the food that I feed her has gotten rid of her gingivitis (yeah, who knew). It's very expensive food and I would put her on a diet but trust me, a cat without food at 3am is probably just as bad as a screaming child. Once I put her on a diet and now she has anxiety attacks every time her bowl is half empty. I have thought long and hard about her food but seriously, she doesn’t care where it comes from, just as long as it’s there. She does like dolphin safe tuna though.

Question 2
Not every family can spend the time and money the author does to introduce his daughter to so many foods. What can working parents or parents with less means do to bring cooking and diverse foods into their children's lives? Or do you feel this is even important?

Really, I only have a cat, and I would do anything for her. Unfortunately when we change her food it doesn’t go well. That all I have to say on the subject.

Question 3
Both the author and myself had some pre-conceived notions about picky eaters. Did the book change any views you may have had, or (for those of you who are parents) reinforce what you already knew to be true from experience?)

I didn't think that one could accomplish what Matthew Amster-Burton has. I just figured that most tastes had to be acquired and no child would enjoy sushi in their first years of life. I guess I was wrong!

Question 4
The author confesses that he was, in fact, a very picky eater as a child, but turned out to be an avid food-lover. Most of you reading this are probably adventurous eaters; is this something that you came to on your own, or did your parents nudge you in that direction? Do you think being a "food lover" is innate or learned?

I think that being a food lover is learned, all I wanted to eat when I was a child was ketchup sandwiches and luke-warm milk, now look at me! My dad actually steered us away from vegetables because he didn’t like them. We would be alienated at the table if either my brother or I were caught with a piece of broccoli on our plates! Not that this bothered us, no veggies, great!! We did eat a ton of fruit growing up and now I love veggies as much as fresh cherries or any fruit out there.

Question 5
The author describes being forced to try sushi as a kid and almost throwing up, but trying it again in college and loving it. He credits this to the fact that the second time he tried it, he expected to like it. Do you agree? Can you think of a food that you probably liked because you expected to like it, or anything you didn't like in spite of thinking you would?

I remember the same thing happening to me with sushi. Everyone was eating it so I gulped it down the first time and the next day I wanted more. I think it was probably peer pressure! One thing that I didn’t expect to like was mussels. Once when my brother and I were younger we dared each other to eat a mussel at a local buffet. I did it and have loved them ever since, where as he didn’t and got into trouble for wasting food. Ha. Score one for the big sister!

Pad Thai
adapted from Hungry Monkey
this is the way I like it to make it

Pad Thai Sauce
1/4 cup concentrated tamarind paste, without seeds, sold in a plastic container
3/4 cup boiling water
1 tbsp. Sesame seed Oil
1/2 tbsp. peanut oil
2 tbsp. fish sauce
1 1/2 tbsp. rice vinegar
3 tbsp. sugar

Pad Thai
1/2 cup pad thai sauce
1 chicken breast chopped into 1 inch pieces
20 shrimp (optional)
1 cup Firm Tofu, cut into 1 inch squares
10 oz. Rice Noodles
2 eggs
2 tbsp. chopped cilantro
1 tbsp sesame seed oil
2 Handfuls of bean sprouts
1 tbsp green onions
1 lime quartered
4 tbsp. crushed peanuts

Pad Thai Sauce
Pour boiling water over the tamarind in a bowl mixing to get rid of large chunks of paste. Add all other ingredients to tamarind in a bowl and stir until the sugar is dissolved.

Pad Thai
Cook the noodles as directed on box, but make sure to cook till al dente. Heat the oil in a large pan or wok. Toss in chicken and tofu, cook for two minutes. Push everything off to the sides and in the middle crack the two eggs. Scramble the eggs vigorously, then continue sautéing everything until the chicken is cooked. Add the noodles, shrimp (if using) and sauce, sauté until all the liquid is soaked into the noodles. Place on plates and top with chopped green onions, bean sprouts, cilantro, crushed peanuts and a slice of lime.

Cherry and Homemade Nutella Bakewell Hazelnut Tart -- Daring Bakers

2009-06-27T17:31:00.013-04:00

Let me just start off by saying that I have now made and eaten the whole Frangipane tart, but I still for the life of me have no clue what it is nor could I explain it to others. That being said, I LOVE FRANGIPANE. It’s so light and fluffy, very similar to a nutty sponge cake crown. This months DB was challenging because I really had nothing to base it on. Frangipane is not a word that we throw around often here in Canada, wait, scratch that, we NEVER throw it around. That doesn’t mean that I was going to sit this challenge out, it’s "Daring" Bakers, not “Wussy” bakers.

So to start off I made some homemade nutella. Yes, you read that right, you can easily produce nutella in your very own home and it is so very very very delicious (very). Alright, I'm jumping the gun, first came the tart dough. Warning to the wise, do not make short dough with cold butter on a 30 degree day. It’s a bad and oily idea.

So after that mess of a tart shell was pressed into its mold and cooled forever, in went a thick layer of homemade Nutella and a second substantial layer of Bonne Maman's Cherry Jam. Finally it was time to top the tart with Hazelnut Frangipane. I switched the ground almonds for hazelnuts to complement the nutella and once the final product was out of the oven and cooled, was I ever glad that I did!

From the cherry jam and nutella, to the frangipane, everything came together to create a very gourmet tasting tart. I’m pretty sure that I filled my tart too full because it leaked everywhere when I cut into it, but really who cares, the flavours were sensational. Thanks DB's.

The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England.

Note: I will post the nutella recipe in the next few days!

Cherry and Homemade Nutella Bakewell Hazlnut Tart
adapted from Daring Bakers June 2009 Challenge

Sweet Shortcrust Pastry
1 cup all purpose flour
2 tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, frozen
2 egg yolks
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1-2 tbsp. cold water

Filling
1/2 cup nutella
1/2 cup Bonne Maman Chery Jam

Frangipane
125g (4.5oz) unsalted butter, softened
125g (4.5oz) icing sugar
3 eggs
1/2 tsp almond extract (optional)
125g (4.5oz) ground hazelnuts
2 tbsp. all purpose flour

Sweet Shortcrust Pastry
Sift together flour, sugar and salt. Grate butter into the flour mixture, using the large hole-side of a box grater. Using your finger tips only, and working very quickly, rub the fat into the flour until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Set aside.Lightly beat the egg yolks with the almond extract (if using) and quickly mix into the flour mixture. Keep mixing while dribbling in the water, only adding enough to form a cohesive and slightly sticky dough. Form the dough into a disc, wrap in cling and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Frangipane
Cream butter and sugar together for about a minute or until the mixture is primrose in colour and very fluffy. Scrape down the side of the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. The batter may appear to curdle. In the words of Douglas Adams: Don’t panic. Really. It’ll be fine. After all three are in, pour in the almond extract and mix for about another 30 seconds and scrape down the sides again. With the beaters on, spoon in the ground nuts and the flour. Mix well. The mixture will be soft, keep its slightly curdled look (mostly from the almonds) and retain its pallid yellow colour.

Assembling the tart
Place the chilled dough disc on a lightly floured surface. Flour the rolling pin and roll the pastry to 5mm (1/4”) thickness, by rolling in one direction only (start from the centre and roll away from you), and turning the disc a quarter turn after each roll. When the pastry is to the desired size and thickness, transfer it to the tart pan, press in and trim the excess dough. Patch any holes, fissures or tears with trimmed bits. Chill in the freezer for 15 minutes.Preheat oven to 200C/400F. Remove shell from freezer, spread as even a layer as you can of nutella, then cherry jam onto the pastry base. Top with frangipane, spreading to cover the entire surface of the tart. Smooth the top and pop into the oven for 30 minutes. Five minutes before the tart is done, the top will be puffy and brownish. Remove from oven and strew flaked hazelnuts on top and return to the heat for the last five minutes of baking.The finished tart will have a golden crust and the frangipane will be tanned, puffy and a bit spongy-looking. Remove from the oven and cool on the counter. When you slice into the tart, the almond paste will be firm, but slightly squidgy and the crust should be crisp but not tough.

Gazpacho

2009-06-25T00:00:00.002-04:00

Phew is it hot out there! I know that I shouldn't be complaining considering where we are situated in the world, but I was extremely thankful that this week's BB recipe picked by Meryl was Ina's crisp and cool Gazpacho.

Yesterday afternoon Ian and I walked around the area, him in surfer shorts, and me in another summer dress. All the yards right now have these stunningly bright and brilliant flowers in the most vivid pinks, blues, purples, whites, and yellows. Although the flowers were beautiful, our reason for being out there was more than just flower gazing. Ian was teaching me (yes me!) how to use his old Nikon D40. Most people don't know this about me but even though I have been through four years of a BFA in Painting and Drawing, I can't take a good picture to save my life. So it was very nice of him to give me a short lesson and teach me the basics of his old "baby".

After my lesson and running a few errands I quickly whipped up this fast and incredible gazpacho so that everyone could cool down. It was so flavourful and refreshing, especially served beside a rustic style roast beef sandwich. Of course I made a couple changes such as lowering the olive oil to a tablespoon, adding Mexican hot sauce to spice it up a bit, incorporating a couple of squeezes from some key limes, switching the onion for a milder tasting leek, and changing up the white wine vinegar for some pure Quebec Apple cider vinegar.

If you are looking for a quick dinner to cool you down this summer, look no further, you won't be disappointed. Plus you won't have to eat your vegetables for a week!

Gazpacho
this is my version of Ina's Gazpacho

3/4ths of an English cucumber
2 red bell peppers, cored and seeded
4 Italian tomatoes
1 leek
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 cups Motts Garden Cocktail Tomato juice
1/4 cup Apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp. cup good olive oil
1/2 tbsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1-1/2 tbsp. lime juice
2 tbsp hot sauce, or Franks Red Hot

Roughly chop the cucumbers, bell peppers, tomatoes, and leeks into 1-inch cubes. Put each vegetable separately into a food processor or blender fitted with a steel blade and pulse until it is coarsely chopped. Do not over process! After each vegetable is processed, combine them in a large bowl and add the garlic, tomato juice, vinegar, olive oil, hot sauce, lime, salt, and pepper. Mix well and chill before serving. The longer gazpacho sits, the more the flavours develop.

Dimply Plum Cake -- Sundays with Dorie!

2009-06-20T22:37:00.004-04:00

Right now Ian is sitting in front of me on the floor contorted in strange positions striving to capture the perfect picture for the second ever Sunday with Dorie. If you are a little lost and scratching your head about the day, let me explain.

One of our favourite bloggers Hilary and I have not been accepted yet into TWD after waiting and politely sending e-mails for seven weeks now. We just couldn't wait another week longer and with book in hand, decided to start our own baking club. Ok, so my book hasn't arrived in the mail yet, but I was too excited to start! Plus this week was my turn to pick the recipe and I have had my eye on this bright plum cake for a while. Hilary wrote an incredible open letter in her Sunday with Dorie post last week which pretty much sums it up.

I can't really tell you much about the cake right now except that it smells insatiable and I am having a very hard time not eating it off of Ian’s photo shoot. What I can tell you is that the cake is much lighter than expected...oh wait, he's done shooting... Be right back....

....as I was saying, now that I have tasted more than just the crumbs from the pan, I can tell you that the cake is more like a fluffy and airy version of a pound cake accenting the sweet and sour plums perfectly. A hint of cardamom added to the batter pulls the fruit and cake together. The lighter texture could be due to the fact that I switched the oil for the same amount of no-fat yogurt. Yes, I am on a blogger diet, basically meaning that there is no way around all the baking and eating but I know enough kitchen science to play around with the ingredients/calories.

Since I am still waiting on my cookbook I found the Dimply Plum Cake recipe at Smitten Kitchen, where Dorie Greenspan’s cookbook ”Baking From My Home to Yours” never stays on the bookshelf for too long.

Now go check out Hilary's blog Let Her Bake Cake for some more dimply goodness.

Pork and Purple Flower Chive Dumplings -- Daring Cooks

2009-06-14T16:32:00.007-04:00

As I am typing this I am sitting on my patio looking out onto a trendy little shopping village in the west end of Montreal called Monkland village. There's an orange mojito at my side and the hammock is set up and ready.

Why am I telling you all this? Well if you don't know already Ian and I live in one of the coldest cities in the world. Minus 30 is pretty normal here so when nice weather hits, every Montrealer rubs their eyes and comes out of hibernation. That means patio season!

When my roommate and I moved into this apartment it was September and patio season was over. We have been waiting desperately through the fall, winter, and spring, staring out the window at an unused shared patio that spans more square feet than our apartment. Lucky for this Montrealer the nice weather is here, so if you want to join me just yell up from the street and I'll greet you with a mojito and the hammock.

Since the weather was so nice yesterday Ian and I decided to take a long walk through the neighbourhood. Actually, he wanted Popsicles and I wanted Ice cream so we devised a plan in which we would both get what we wanted. On our way I remembered that some purple flowered chives were wildly growing on someone’s property (not in their garden, on the side of an ally) and had to have them for the chive dumplings we were making later on.

So here is the scene, Ian on the street, looking out, telling me that he is going to caw like a bird if anyone starts to look suspiciously at us. Then there is me in my pretty green summer dress wildly climbing though tall grass and picking the chives. So if that was your property, I'm really sorry, but in all seriousness, you should have gotten to them first!

The dumplings were delicious, especially after all the hard work of picking the chives! The first ones we steamed with a bamboo basket and I wasn’t really happy with them. Ian on the other hand could not stop eating and proclaimed the dumplings to be his new favourite dish. We froze about 15 uncooked dumplings and cooked them in boiling water today. These were truly quite amazing. I just don’t think that I'm crazy about the whole steaming business, the dough turned out sticky and tough where as when I boiled them the texture was perfect. Lately I have been frequenting this restaurant in China town that makes their own dumplings in front of a big glass window and you can watch them roll out perfect discs of dough then pack them with a succulent pork and chive filling. When we boiled the dumplings they came out almost exactly like the restaurants, making me one happy camper.

As a side note, since Hilary from Let Her Bake Cake and I have not been accepted into TWD after six weeks of waiting and are feed up, we decided that we are going to make the best of it. So go check out the very first Sunday with Dorie at Hilary’s blog! She made Dorie’s incredible Banana Bundt cake that has my mouth watering! Happy Patio Season to everyone!

Thanks to Jen of Use Real Butter for hosting this delicious dumpling cookoff!

Pork and Chive Dumplings from the Daring Cooks

dough:
2 cups (250g) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (113g) warm water
flour for work surface

pork filling:
adapted from Gourmet Oct.2008
1 pound fatty ground pork
1 tablespoon wine
1/2 teaspoon Asian sesame oil
1 teaspoon Vietnamese chili-garlic sauce (preferably Huy Fong brand)
3 teaspoons finely grated peeled ginger
1 teaspoon rice vinegar (not seasoned)
4teaspoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Pinch of pepper
6 tablespoons finely chopped cilantro stems
6 tablespoons finely chopped flowering chives, flat Chinese chives, or scallions

dipping sauce:
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup rice vinegar
a few drops of sesame oil
1 tsp.chili garlic paste
1 tbsp. minced chives

Making the filling:
Combine all filling ingredients (except cilantro stems and chives) in a large bowl, then stir in cilantro stems and chives. Set bowl in a larger bowl of ice to keep chilled while forming dumplings.
Make the dough:
In a large bowl mix flour with 1/4 cup of water and stir until water is absorbed. Continue adding water one teaspoon at a time and mixing thoroughly until dough pulls away from sides of bowl. You want a firm dough that is barely sticky to the touch. Knead the dough about twenty strokes then cover with a damp towel for 15 minutes. Take the dough and form a flattened dome. Cut into strips about 1 1/2 to 2 inches wide. Shape the strips into rounded long cylinders. On a floured surface, cut the strips into 3/4 inch pieces. Press palm down on each piece to form a flat circle (you can shape the corners in with your fingers). With a rolling pin, roll out a circular wrapper from each flat disc. Take care not to roll out too thin or the dumplings will break during cooking - about 1/16th inch. Leave the centers slightly thicker than the edges. Place a tablespoon of filling in the center of each wrapper and fold the dough in half, pleating the edges along one side. Keep all unused dough under damp cloth.
To steam:
Place dumplings on a single layer of napa cabbage leaves or on a well-greased surface in a steamer basket with lid. Steam covered for about 6 minutes.
To boil:
Place dumplings in salted boiling water for 6-8 minutes.

Curried Couscous with Grilled Chicken Breast

2009-06-11T14:36:00.007-04:00

It's bikini season, oh yes it is! Lately I have not been eating the best foods in the world so it was a nice surprise when Ina of all ladies, came up with this bikini inspiring curried couscous. We just tossed in some grilled chicken and it made a superb dinner for three... and uh, lunch, and ummm dinner, lunch, dinner. Yes, it's the couscous that keeps on giving.

Ian and I switched out the carrots and extra onion for some blanched green beans, finely chopped red bell pepper, chick peas, and a small grilled chicken breast. Plus we figured that the oil could be cut down to half, considering it is a Barefoot Contessa recipe!

It was so delicious we are going to make this again tonight with quinoa (the trendy grain) and eat it for another week!

Thanks to Ellyn of Recipe Collector and Tester for restoring my faith in Ina.

Curried Couscous with Grilled Chicken Breast
adapted from The Barefoot Contessa
this is our version of the recipe here

1-1/2 cups couscous
1 tbsp. unsalted butter
1-1/2 cups boiling water
1/3 cup plain yogurt
1/8 cup good olive oil
3 tsp. apple cider vinegar
1 tsp. curry powder
1/4 tsp. ground turmeric
1/8 tsp. cyanne pepper (optional, if you like spice)
1-1/2 tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup red bell pepper, finely chopped
1/2 cup minced fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup dried currants
1/4 cup blanched, sliced almonds
2 scallions, thinly sliced
1 cup blanched green beans, cut to one inch
1 cup drained chickpeas

Place the couscous in a medium bowl. Melt the butter in the boiling water and pour over the couscous. Cover tightly and allow the couscous to soak for 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork. Grill and cut the chicken into 1 inch pieces. Whisk together the yogurt, olive oil, vinegar, curry, turmeric, salt, and pepper. Pour over the fluffed couscous, and mix well with a fork. Add the grilled chicken,green beans, parsley, currants, almonds, scallions, red pepper,and chickpeas, mix well, and season to taste. Serve at room temperature

Fluffy Cinnamon Rhubarb Muffins -- Lower Fat!

2009-06-07T21:50:00.008-04:00

B-Bakes up fluffy and delicious
E-Everyone wins!
S-Starts your day off right
T-Tested four batches just this week!

R-Reliable and quick
H-(w)Hole Wheat goodness
U-Utterly delectable with a cafe au lait
B-Better way to use up that rhubarb
A-Are low fat, Whoot
R-Right, I said Low Fat!
B-Believe it, they are good for you.

M-Mouth watering
U-Undeniable
F-Fantastic for an afternoon snack
F-Fluffy fluffy fluffy!
I-Insatiable cinnamon sugar topping
N-Never had a better muffin (oh it's true)
S-Serve warm, you won’t be sorry!

What else could I say? I first saw these in "fine cooking" but I couldn't take all the fat and sugar, so I played around with the recipe till it was just right! I have been waiting to put these up for a week, but we keep eating the batch before any pictures can be taken. I had to refrain today and keep four aside for photos. With the delicate sprinkle of cinnamon sugar on top, there is no way to stop yourself from devouring each and every muffin. Good thing they are low fat! No really, it’s a good thing or else I would have to join the gym.

Fluffy Lower Fat Rhubarb Cinnamon Muffins
adapted from www.finecooking.com

1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup
2-1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup zero fat natural yogurt
4 Tbs. unsalted butter, melted
1 large egg
1 egg white
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups 1/4-inch-diced rhubarb
For the topping:
1-1/2 Tbs. granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

Heat the oven to 400°F Spray muffin tins with oil. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt and blend. In a medium bowl, whisk together the yogurt, melted butter, eggs, maple syrup, and vanilla until smooth. Lightly stir the yogurt mixture into the dry ingredients with a spatula until the batter just comes together; do not over mix. Gently stir in the diced rhubarb. The batter will be thick. Divide the batter among the muffin cups. The batter should mound a bit higher than the tops of the cups.In a small bowl, combine the sugar and cinnamon and mix well. Sprinkle a generous 1/2 tsp. of the cinnamon-sugar mixture over each muffin. Bake the muffins until they’re golden brown and a pick inserted in the center comes out clean, 18 to 22 minutes. (mine took 18) Rotate halfway through baking for even muffins. Transfer to a rack and let the muffins cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Carefully lift the muffins out of the pan. Serve warm.

Cinnamon Buns !!

2009-06-03T13:21:00.012-04:00

Oh yeah! This was my first EVER yeast bread experience. After tasting these succulent cinnamon buns I don’t know why I waited so long! I have to say, I was really afraid to make these since neither my 'Baking with Julia" nor any of my other cookbooks covered cinnamon buns. So I headed to the place that I had seen them made first, Smitten Kitchen. As with a lot of you out there, this was the first blog that I ever followed, but lately I haven’t been back (so many other blogs to check out). It was at an earlier Supper Club that someone alerted me to the buns, and the bun in HER oven (Congrats!).

I was still a bit weary, especially since the 1055 comments on the buns post were all congratulations and not about the actual cinnamon rolls, so I headed to Smitten Kitchens source. Of course, it was Molly Wizenberg of Orangette, and the book I have been reading, "A Homemade Life". If you haven’t picked up this book, run to the bookstore right now. It is such a wonderful read and after every chapter she gives a mouth watering recipe.

Cinnamon Buns After Second Rise

Anyways, back to the point, I read the 96 raving reviews and started. For some reason I thought that I would need a stand mixer so I employed the help of my friend Alex (yes, a man with a Kitchen Aid!). But even though Alex makes mounds of cookies each week he does NOT own measuring spoons or dry ingredient measuring cups, making the exact addition of 2-1/2 tsp of yeast tricky. This is a man who is doing his PhD in cell biology with yeast, so he should know that even 1/24th of a tsp. extra can mean hundreds of thousands more cells. Ug, but we had no choice and had to approximate it using a regular spoon. Everything I have learned in the past 4 years of lab work about precision went down the drain! Oh well, we got lucky and the dough still turned out great!

When we served these at supper club they were highly praised, I will be making these again.

Just some notes:
1. Make the full amount of sugar cinnamon filling, plus 1/2 more.

2. You don’t need a stand mixer, but if you have a friend with one it makes for a fun afternoon.

3. The best way to do a rise is to put the dough in a 150 degree oven for 30 min to an hour.

4. I cut the rolls, put them in the Pyrex baking dish, and then placed them in the fridge over night so that I could bake them the next day. For the second rise I took them out of the fridge and put them into the 150 degree oven until they were big and squished together. (See second picture)

5. Use PYREX, I did a couple in a metal pan and the bottoms burnt so badly. Someone else in the 96 comments mentioned this also. She was right!

6. Use your favorite cream cheese; don’t worry if it’s the fluffy kind. I used the supper fluffy cream cheese and added 250g instead of 4oz. The glaze was perfect.

For the Recipe:
I didn’t change much of the recipe besides the notes above, so please check it out at the Bon Appétit website; this recipe was created and written by Molly Wizenberg. Just click the link!

Picture Tuesday

2009-06-02T14:40:00.006-04:00

Well hello everyone, Ian here! Christie and I have been so busy cooking, eating, taking photos and enjoying the nice weather that has come at last. So far this season, Christie and I have managed to get out to the Atwater Market, a local farmers market, twice. I absolutely love the Atwater market, I have fond memories of my mother taking me there to shop for fresh produce and meats when I was a child, and to this day I always use the same butcher that my mother would purchase her meats from. So on weekends, when it is nice out, Christie and I have been heading out there to get our fresh produce, and to enjoy all the beautiful flowers that are on sale this time of year.

Christie Biting into a Sausage sandwich at Atwater Market

Christie inspecting the goods at a Fruit & Vegetable stand

Besides our weekly trips out to the market, Christie has been keeping up her wonderful “Supper Club” parties, which has just completed a successful fourth incarnation! Each one of the Supper Club get together follows a theme which Christie devises, the last one being “Breakfast for supper”. It went off wonderfully. Approximately 14-16 people show up, and there is a door charge of about 4-5$ depending on what is on the menu, which is a real steal if you ask me. The money covers the ingredients used, and Christie cooks enough food for 16 people each time, wooosh. Just as they were a big hit on the blog, the Eggs in a Basket were definitely a favorite. As a matter of fact, partially due to the fact that I ate prior to taking any pictures, and mostly due to the popularity and general deliciousness of each creation, I actually did not get the time to photograph each of the courses before they were gone, which made my camera sad. You know what they say though, what makes the camera sad only makes the belly happy, ok, I made that up.

Eggs in a Basket

Eggs in a basket about 3 seconds before they were gone

Ive got to bug Christie to post the recipe that she used for the Cinnamon Buns (moved the photos up a post to go along with the recipe, and also so they arent doubled up), but for the Eggs in a Basket, see here for the recipe from a previous post. Stay tuned, Im finally buying myself a "Pro" account on Flikr, and will be posting all of the Flower pictures that I have been taking, notably the anticipated "Forget me nots" that Christie has been getting me to photograph every chance I get.

Outrageous(ly Fattening) Brownies - Barefoot Bloggers

2009-05-27T23:18:00.007-04:00

Seriously, are you surprised by the amount of fat and sugar in these brownies, it IS Ina. This is the lady that puts half a stick of butter in her burgers. Even though, I think she has outdone herself this time. Let’s see how we can kill a person with one simple dessert:

i) 1 POUND of Butter... go Ina,
ii) 2 POUNDS of Chocolate, ok, I love chocolate, but two pounds?!?
iii) 6 EXTRA LARGE EGGS, ugg, the cholesterol
iv) 2.5 CUPS of Sugar, really, as if the 3 pound of butter and chocolate isn’t enough
v) 3 CUPS of walnuts, lets just keep tacking on the fat, why not?

I'm not saying that these weren’t amazing, because they were, but after a couple of these puppies don’t expect your heart to pump normally ever again. I remember watching her make these on TV a year back and wanting to throw something at the screen because I was sure that just watching that much fat go into one dessert was terribly terribly wrong.

If you want to live on the edge, first book your hospital stay, then make the recipe here. Nice knowing you.

Fiddleheads in a Garlic Butter Lemon Sauce

2009-05-26T00:02:00.001-04:00

Breakfast for Supper! Well that is the theme of the next supper club we are holding so Ian and I thought we would get into the spirit early and try these poached eggs on asparagus and fiddleheads for supper. That day my Gale Gand "Brunch!" cookbook came in the mail and we couldn't resist all the full page glossy photos of breakfast.

Fiddleheads are in season here right now and I just love them so we added them to the recipe. I hope that they freeze well because they would be great all year round. If you don't know what fiddle heads are, they are basically a type of fern that is picked at a young age. If the fern is straight it is too old to eat, but if it is curled around itself like a fiddle head, they are tender and delicious.

This dish was scrumptious, but I think the star of the show was the light butter, garlic, and lemon sauce that was drizzled over the asparagus and fiddleheads. The next day I made the sauce again for the fiddleheads alone and it was just as stunning. I don't think that I could eat them any other way. I will post the sauce below, try it, you won’t be disappointed!

P.S, the recipe for the Fennel Sausage Pasta has been posted.

Fiddleheads in a Garlic Butter Lemon Sauce
adapted from Gale Gand's "Brunch!"

20-40 Fiddleheads
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 tbsp. Olive Oil
2 tbsp. butter
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt and Pepper

Cut the brown end off of the fiddleheads and let sit in cold water for 3 minutes to clean away any unwanted dirt. Blanche the fiddleheads by bringing salted water to a boil and cook for 4-6 minutes. Drain the fiddleheads and water, and then set aside. In the same pot heat the olive oil and sauté the garlic for 1 minute. Turn off the heat and add butter. When the butter has melted add the lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Drizzle over the fiddleheads and serve.

Fresh Fennel and Italian Sausage on Casarecce Pasta -- Ian and Christie's Great Fennel Adventure

2009-05-21T23:52:00.010-04:00

I Hate Fennel. There, I said it. I asked Ian if he liked it but I forgot, if he hasn't eaten a certain food before his answer is always "No". So, in an attempt to expand our culinary horizons we boldly trekked into the vegetable store and bought a bulb of fennel.

We then picked out this great looking fennel sausage pasta from the Pasta et Cetera a la Di Stasio cookbook that looked delicious. It also looked like it would mask the taste of the fennel. I think it was a good starting point.

Ok, that was the easy part, but cutting the fennel was a little tricky. Seasoned fennel lovers out there will think I'm crazy, "how could she not know how to cut fennel, it's so easy" well, if you have never seen it cut before, how do you know what to save for eating, and what to throw out. Plus I hate liquorice so the smell was annoying.

To get rid of that bitter liquorice taste we sautéed it with crisp red and green peppers, onions, garlic, and Italian sausage until it was soft and caramelized. Take that fennel! Let me tell you, if fennel always tasted like that Ian and I would be big fans. I don't know if I actually like fennel or if Josée Di Stasio is just brilliant at creating wonderful recipes, but this pasta was a winner. I can't believe I just said that.

If you would like the recipe I would be more than happy to post it but I urge you to take out this book from the library, or buy it, or even borrow the book from a friend. Every recipe looks and tastes amazing! I just bought her other book A la Di Stasio because I took it out from the library three months in a row and didn't want to bring it back. Another great pasta recipe that we make every week (seriously) by Josée Di Stasio that is very similar is the Sausage and Spinach Shells.

Ok, by popular demand, here is my version of the recipe, but still go out and get the book!

Fresh Fennel and Italian Sausage on Pasta
adapted from "Pasta et Cetera" by Josee Di Stasio

500g, about 3 Italian Sausages (good quality, go to your butcher!)
1/2 to a full bulb of fennel (depending on if you like fennel), cut into strips
1 of each red and orange pepper, total two peppers, cut into strips
1 clove of garlic, chopped
1 tsp. fennel seeds
500g dried pasta
3/4 cup low sodium chicken stock
1/4 cup pasta water
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and Pepper

In a large pan remove skin from the sausage and sauté until no more pink can be seen. Remove the sausage but leave the fat from them in the pan. Sauté the fennel and peppers in the fat for 10 minutes or until the fennel becomes soft and caramelized. Add the garlic, fennel seeds, salt, and pepper and cook for 2 minutes. In a large pot boil salted water and cook pasta until al dente. During that time add the sausage back to the pan with the fennel and add the chicken stock. Cook until 2/3rds of the chicken stock is gone. When the pasta is done take the ¼ cup of pasta water and add it to the sausage and fennel mix. Add the grated Parmesan cheese and the drained pasta. Mix together and serve.

Olive Oil and Balsamic Strawberry Cupcakes with a Herbed Mascarpone Cream -Iron Cupcake Earth: Savoury

2009-05-19T16:04:00.009-04:00

So here it is, this month's addition to Iron Cupcake Earth: Savoury Cupcakes! And no, Savoury isn't spelled wrong, for some reason certain words are spelled differently in Canada like 'flavour', 'savour', 'favourite', and 'colour'. Anyways, I am the last person that should be telling anyone how to spell so I will just say that Ian and I are both still amazed that this little blog won the last Iron Cupcake Challenge, and thanks to all of you who voted!

I was a little afraid to make savoury cupcakes after seeing one entry that was a meatloaf cupcake with mashed potato topping. Could I live up to that? Did I want to live up to that? That cupcake will get my vote for sure!

The other night Ian took me out for dinner at this chic little restaurant down the street where I had a delightful appetizer. It was a strawberry and bocconcini caprese salad tossed in fresh basil pesto and aged balsamic vinegar, then topped with a light and fluffy herbed whipped cream. Yum, it was so different, yet so delightful I had to recreate it in a cupcake.

The cupcakes are made with a strawberry and aged balsamic vinegar syrup mixed into a vanilla cupcake batter. I substituted half of the butter for a deliciously fruity Extra Virgin Olive Oil that gave a great savoury taste to the whole cupcake. Once they cooled I drizzled some thick aged Balsamic over top.

I obviously was not going to add bocconcini to the cupcake so I used thick Mascarpone Cheese and blended it with some whipped cream to create a lighter texture. Then I minced up some basil and oregano to make a wonderful herb infused topping for the cupcake.

So that is the story behind these savoury cupcakes. But, if you know anything about Ian, you know that he is allergic to those lovely strawberries so I switched out the syrup for some lemon zest and watched him stuff one after another of the lemon olive oil cupcakes into his mouth. I guess they were a hit no matter what the flavour!

Voting should be open on Saturday, May 30 at 8 p.m. at NO ONE PUTS CUPCAKE IN A CORNER, and will be open through Friday, June 5 at 12 noon. I don't really think that we can win anything again, nor would it be fair, so go and check out all the other entries and vote for your favourites!

And now for the sponsors:
A sweet cupcake ID bracelet by INSANEJELLYFISH, something sweet and dangly from CHERRYCREEKCHARMS .
a sweet surprise from Sweet Cuppin' Cakes Cupcakery,
PLUS, IronCupcake:Earth can not forget our good friend, CAKESPY, who is now going to be doing a piece for our winner each month until further notice - sweet!
Last and certainly not least, don’t forget our corporate prize providers: HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS, HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson, JESSIE STEELE APRONS ; TASTE OF HOME books; a t-shirt from UPWITHCUPCAKES.COM . Iron Cupcake:Earth is sponsored in part by 1-800-Flowers

Olive Oil and Balsamic Strawberry Cupcakes with a Herbed Mascarpone Cream

Strawberry Balsamic Syrup
adapted from A Good Appetite Blog
1 cup strawberries, fresh or frozen (frozen worked really well)
1/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp. balsamic vinegar

Olive Oil and Balsamic Strawberry Cupcakes
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup fruity Extra Virgin Olive Oil
3/4 cups sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup milk
1-1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
Strawberry balsamic syrup
aged balsamic vinegar for drizzling on top

Herbed Mascarpone Cream
2 tbsp. fresh oregano minced
4 tbsp. fresh basil minced
1/3 cup mascarpone cheese
1/4 cup whipped cream, no sugar added

Strawberry Balsamic Syrup
If using fresh strawberries cut them in half & remove the stems. If using frozen thaw them. Mix the strawberries with sugar & let stand for about 15 minutes. Place in a small saucepan & add balsamic. Let simmer over medium for about 15 minutes. The strawberries should create a syrup. After 15 minutes of cooking puree until you have a uniform syrup.

Olive Oil and Balsamic Strawberry Cupcakes
Preheat oven to 350°. In a large bowl, cream the butter, olive oil and sugar until smooth and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Combine the flour, salt, and baking powder then add in four parts, alternating with the milk, strawberry balsamic syrup and the vanilla extract, beating well after each addition. Line two 12-cup muffin tins with cupcake papers. Spoon the batter into the cups about three-quarters full. Bake until the tops spring back when lightly touched, about 20 to 22 minutes. Once cooled, drizzle with aged balsamic vinegar.

Herbed Mascarpone Cream
Gently mix together the whipped cream and mascarpone until smooth. Add in the minced herbs.

Ricotta Gnocchi with Lemon and Sage Buerre Sauce - Daring Cooks

2009-05-14T00:25:00.004-04:00

So here it is guys, the first ever Daring Cooks Challenge! This one was exciting because I was finally pushed to make fresh ricotta. And you know what; it was one of the easiest and fastest foods I have ever made. I poo poo on those $6.95 tubs of glue like cheese now. Seriously, all you need is a 2L carton of whole milk, a 1 cup carton of cream, 1 lemon, a splash of vinegar, and a pinch of salt. Presto, in five minutes you have ricotta.

The gnocchi on the other hand was long and intensive. As you can tell the main ingredient is ricotta and these are not the normal potato gnocchi that we all love. These little buggers are each hand rolled with (decreasing) love; each dipped individually in flour, and cooked in small batches.

Even though the gnocchi took a day to make, the taste was sensational and we ate them all in one sitting. They were so soft and fluffy, and every time you bit into one it would burst delicious ricotta into your mouth. I have never had anything like these and I would encourage everyone to try ricotta gnocchi at least once in your life. Just don't ask me to roll them; you’re out of luck there.

Zuni Ricotta Gnocchi
adapted from The Zuni Café Cookbook.
Makes 40 to 48 gnocchi (serves 4 to 6)
Prep time: Step 1 will take 24 hours. Steps 2 through 4 will take approximately 1 hour.(lies)

For the ricotta:
2L whole milk
1 cup cream
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1-1/2 tbsp. vinegar

For the gnocchi:
1 pound fresh ricotta (2 cups)
2 large cold eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon (1/2 ounce) unsalted butter
2 or 3 fresh sage leaves, or a few pinches of freshly grated nutmeg
½ ounce Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated (about ¼ cup very lightly packed)
about ¼ teaspoon salt (a little more if using kosher salt)
all-purpose flour for forming the gnocchi

For the gnocchi sauce:
6 tbsp butter, sliced
2 tbsp olive oil
Zest of 1 lemon
10 Sage leaves, chopped
Salt, pepper

Tips:
- If you can find it, use fresh ricotta. As Judy Rodgers advises in her recipe, there is no substitute for fresh ricotta. It may be a bit more expensive, but it's worth it.
- Do not skip the draining step. Even if the fresh ricotta doesn't look very wet, it is. Draining the ricotta will help your gnocchi tremendously.
- When shaping your gnocchi, resist the urge to over handle them. It's okay if they look a bit wrinkled or if they're not perfectly smooth.

Step 1: Making and Preparing the ricotta

Line a large sieve with a layer of heavy-duty (fine-mesh) cheesecloth and place it over a large bowl. Slowly bring milk, cream, and salt to a boil in a pot over medium heat, stirring occasionally to prevent scorching. Add lemon juice and vinegar, then reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring once half way through, until the mixture curdles, about 2-4 minutes.Pour the mixture into the lined sieve and let it drain for 1 hour. After discarding the liquid, chill the ricotta, covered; it will keep in the refrigerator 2 days.

If the ricotta is too wet, your gnocchi will not form properly. To remove some of the moisture, line a sieve with cheesecloth or paper towels and place the ricotta in the sieve. Cover it and let it drain for at least 8 hours and up to 24 hours in the refrigerator. It’s recommended that you do this step the day before you plan on making the gnocchi.

Step 2: Making the gnocchi dough.

To make great gnocchi, the ricotta has to be fairly smooth. Place the drained ricotta in a large bowl and mash it as best as you can with a rubber spatula or a large spoon (it’s best to use a utensil with some flexibility here). As you mash the ricotta, if you noticed that you can still see curds, then press the ricotta through a strainer to smooth it out as much as possible.

Add the lightly beaten eggs to the mashed ricotta. Melt the tablespoon of butter. As it melts, add in the sage and nutmeg. Then add it all to the ricotta mixture. Add the Parmigiano-Reggiano and the salt. Beat all the ingredients together very well. You should end up with a soft and fluffy batter with no streaks (everything should be mixed in very well).

Step 3: Forming the gnocchi

In a large, shallow baking dish or on a sheet pan, make a bed of all-purpose flour that’s ½ an inch deep.With a spatula, scrape the ricotta mixture away from the sides of the bowl and form a large mass in the centre of your bowl.Scoop up about 1 teaspoon of batter and then gently roll into a log and toss into the bed of flour. Use your fingers to very gently dust the gnocchi with flour. Gently pick up the gnocchi and cradle it in your hand rolling it to form it in an oval as best as you can, at no point should you squeeze it.

Step 4: Cooking the gnocchi.

Have a large skillet ready to go. Melt the butter and oil for the sauce in the skillet and set aside. In the largest pan or pot that you have, bring at least 2 quarts of water to a boil. You need a wide pot or pan so that your gnocchi won’t bump into each other and damage each other. Once the water is boiling, salt it generously.Drop the gnocchi into the water one by one. They will sink and then bob to the top. From the time that it bobs to the surface, you want to cook the gnocchi until it’s just firm. This could take 3 to 5 minutes.If your gnocchi begins to fall apart, this means that the ricotta cheese was probably still too wet. You can remedy this by beating a teaspoon of egg white into your gnocchi batter. If your gnocchi batter was fluffy but the sample comes out heavy, add a teaspoon of beaten egg to the batter and beat that in.
When the gnocchi float to the top, you can start your sauce while you wait for them to finish cooking. Place the skillet over the heat again. Add the lemon zest, sage, salt and pepper. With a slotted spoon, remove the gnocchi from the boiling water and gently drop into the butter sauce. Carefully roll in the sauce until coated. Serve immediately.

Pita Chips

2009-05-12T20:28:00.005-04:00

Where oh where is my boyfriend... have you seen him? The hockey rink you say? But it's not hockey season.

Yes, that's true, it is Canada and hockey season never really ends, but Tuesday night? Didn't his team just play on Saturday... and watch hockey on TV every other night?

Ok, yes I did know what I was getting into when I started dating a Montreal Canadiens fan... but I need a picture taken. No luck you say eh. Humm.

Oh well, I guess we will all just have to take back seat to hockey once again, I'm just honoured to be equal in his mind to his love of hockey.

So today there are no Pita Chip pictures, but I can tell you that these are the perfect party snack. I served them at the latest Supper Club thinking that they would be a small addition to the massive platter I had made, but for some reason they got most of the attention.

I think the key is to use good sea salt. My ‘go to’ salt is Gris Sel du Mer de l'ile de Ré that has been harvested from the clay bottoms of the French Atlantic salt marshes. Grey Sea Salt retains calcium, potassium, magnesium, copper, iron, and iodine for good nutrition. Neither treated nor washed, it’s totally natural and has a great sea water taste. It is also pretty cheap so don't worry, but it makes even plain pasta taste incredible when cooked in a pot of grey salted water.

Anyways, they are super simple and you will never buy those processed fried tortilla chips again. I promise. So, have you seen my boyfriend yet?

Simple Pita Chips

5 Pita's
4 tbsp. (aprox) Extra Virgin Olive Oil
5 tbsp. Italian Spices
5 tbsp. Grey sea salt
2 tbsp. garlic salt (optional)

Cut around the pita's edge and separate the two sides. Cut each side with scissors in to different shapes. Brush with olive oil on the inside of the pita shape. Sprinkle with Italian spices, garlic if using, and sea salt. Repeat for all of the pitas. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 6-8 minutes, or until the chips turn brown around the edges.

Chocolate Dipped Cherry Almond Biscotti for Mother's Day

2009-05-06T22:40:00.003-04:00

So if you didn’t know, this Sunday is Mother's Day and I thought that I would send out a little reminder to everyone to buy or bake something for your mommy.

I love my mom, and even though we live in different Provinces, I call her all the time and talk to her for hours. She is always there for me, no matter what is going on. Seriously, there are a million things I could tell you about her but she doesn’t like all that sappy stuff so I will just say that she is THE BEST!

I wanted to send something special for Mother's Day and usually I would send a drawing, but this year she is getting the most amazing biscotti that I have ever tried. You know those delicious chocolate cherry Kashi bars that are incredibly addictive? Well imagine those in cookie form. Yes. So good. I have to send them in the mail tomorrow so look out for Canada Post on Friday mom. Hopefully the mailman won’t eat them before they get delivered.

So Happy Mother's Day, I Love you Mom!
Ian also loves his mommy and we will be having dinner with her on Saturday, where he can tell her in person.

Chocolate Dipped Cherry Almond Biscotti
adapted from Martha Stewart's Cookies Book

1 1/4 cup dried cherries
1/2 cup amaretto
3 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp. Baking powder
1/2 tsp. Salt
4 tbsp. Unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
4 large eggs, (3 whole, and 1 lightly beaten)
2 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 cup whole blanched almonds
4 oz. good quality chocolate, chopped

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Heat cherries with amaretto in a saucepan over medium-low heat,stirring some, for 8 minutes. Drain, and keep 2 tbsp. liquid.Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Whisk butter and granulated sugar together. Mix in 3 eggs then mix in cherry liquid and vanilla. Gradually add in flour mixture. Stir in cherries and nuts. On a lightly floured surface, divide dough in half. Shape each half into 12 x 2 or so logs. Flatten logs to 1/2 inch thick. Transfer to two baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Brush logs with the beaten egg; sprinkle with sugar if desired. Bake 35 minutes and let cook for 20 minutes. Cut each log on the diagonal into about 3/4 inch slices. Transfer pieces to baking sheet, standing them up. Bake at 300 degrees, for 14 min. Let cool until crisp. Dip into melted, tempered chocolate and let dry overnight at room temperature.

Photo Tuesday

2009-05-05T22:46:00.005-04:00

Can I say yayyyy? Well yes I can, so yay! Christie and I won the Ironcupcake challenge for April, and we couldn't be happier. Except of course if I had found out 1 1/2hrs after I had gone to bed, and then woken up 1 1/2hrs before I was set to wake up... sigh. It was a long day. I've missed a few Photo Tuesdays, and I was pretty sad about it, so even though I am in need of sleep badly, I just could not let another week go by without doing one of these. So yaaaarrrr, here she be (said in a pirate tone). Christie seems to hate almost all photos of herself, so I took one and told her I was just "testing" something out, and "jazzed" it up a bit. It's been awhile anyways that there has been any picture of Christie up on the blog, so why not right now. By the way, if it weren't so late already, and I weren't so tired, I was going to post a second version of this photo with Antlers coming out of Christie's head just for the fun of it, but I will get to that later this week :D

**EDIT**

Ok, it was done in about 5 minutes, and badly since I'm so tired, but once I posted the picture I realized that a photo of Christie with antlers on the blog made by me may be a bad idea on my part. Lets just say I learned my lesson before I paid the consequences. hahaha

!!!!WE WON THANKS TO ALL OF YOU!!!!

2009-05-05T01:09:00.007-04:00

No seriously, if you don't believe me check it out at 'No One Puts Cupcake in a Corner' who is the wonderful host of Iron Cupcake Earth. All the votes were put into a randomizer and one of our 65 votes was picked! AMAZING, this stuff never happens to me. Now I guess we have used up all our luck and won't be winning that trip to the Bahamas any time soon eh! I think I want the cupcake paraphernalia more than a trip actually!

Thank you all. Thank you thank you thank you.

White Wine and Cream Steamed Mussels

2009-05-01T21:38:00.007-04:00

Don’t these look amazing, well they taste amazing and are extremely simple to make.

I want to start off by saying that these are my favourite mussels and even though I order them in restaurants any chance I get, nothing tastes as good as these. Plus, if you have ever read Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, as I am now, you will know that mussels in a restaurant are not always kept in the most sanitary of conditions.

On that note, it turns out that mussels in an un-named fish store near my apartment are not being kept in the most sanitary of conditions either. Yesterday I wanted mussels, and seeing as I have hardly cooked anything in close to a month thanks to school, I was hoping for a nice quiet night. Me, Ian, some CSI, and a plate of mussels for two was all I was really asking for. Thanks to the store downstairs this did NOT happen.

I started the wine and cream sauce and wonderful smells wafted through the apartment. Then, I added the mussels and to everyone’s surprise the place filled with the most horrid stench you could ever imagine. Pardon my French, I promise I have never and will never swear on this blog again, but the smell was an exact match to someone taking a S*!T in the pot. It was so bad my roommate locked his door and didn't come out for five hours. We threw it straight into a garbage bag and I walked down the street to get sushi instead. The worst part was that my stove top fan pumps all the air out onto the street and Ian and I could smell that horrible 'merde' a block and a half away. If you were on Monkland yesterday... I am truly truly sorry, it was not me.

I have made these mussels a million times before, doubled, even tripled this recipe, and have never come across bad mussels. Usually I buy them from the grocery store, not the fish store, and so today, refusing to give in to defeat, I went back to the good old grocery store and bought the mussels flown in from PEI for 3.99/2 pounds.

They came out FANTASTIC! Just as they always do. I don’t want to turn anyone off of making their own mussels because they are so easy and never really give you problems. On the contrary, I wanted to post these because it is one of my favourite all time recipes, that’s why I went at it again today, just to prove that yesterday’s batch was a fluke, a one time problem.

I guess the moral of the story is that you should always buy any type of perishable from a place that you know has a large turnover and everything will turn out great.
(Sorry again for the swearing)

White Wine and Cream Steamed Mussels
adapted from Jen's Step-Mom's Recipe

2 pounds of mussels (1 bag)
1 tbsp. butter
1 cup 10% cream
2/3 cup dry white wine
2 tbsp. vermouth
1 tomato
1 package white button mushrooms, sliced
½ an onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
3 tbsp. chives, chopped
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper

Place mussels in cold water and discard any that will not close when you knock the shell on the counter a couple times. Melt butter over medium to high heat in a large stock pot. Cook onions and garlic for 2 min., then add mushrooms and cook until browned, about 8 minutes. Deglaze with wine and vermouth for 3 minutes, and then add the salt, pepper and cream. Bring to a light boil, strain the mussels and add them to the simmering ingredients. Cook uncovered for 5-8 minutes, or when all have opened up. Add the chives to the mussels and discard any mussels that do not open during cooking.

We're Back!

2009-04-30T13:57:00.003-04:00

Ok, two things to note here....
1. Check out Ashley's blog, she made some super cute Chrry Coke Float Cupcakes also!
2. Voting is open at Iron Cupcake, please click on the badge in the right hand corner (thankie to you all!)
3. Ian and I are BACK! Exam's are over and summer is here, we are very excited.

Key Lime Cheesecake -- DB's

2009-04-27T17:15:00.007-04:00

Ian and I have been waiting to post this for quite a long time now; it's the Birthday Cake that I made for him... which also doubles as the Daring Bakers Challenge this month. As you probably know by now Ian looooves citrus, making this his new favourite dessert.

I once made a key lime pie with an Oreo crust and candied limes on the top so I knew this combination would turn out great. I just switched out the recipe for key lime cheesecake then baked them in my mini springform pans and they tasted so creamy and delicious. And yes, this was the dessert that I was making when the thumb injury occurred. Watch your fingers around a mandolin…

I heard that cheesecake could be made with a few less calories so I used two regular bars of cream cheese and one low fat bar. I also switched the full fat cream for 15% and I don’t think anyone knew. It tasted like it was a heart attack waiting to happen, just as a cheesecake should.

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake:

crust:
2 cups / 180 g graham cracker crumbs
1 stick / 4 oz butter, melted
2 tbsp. / 24 g sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
** I substituted 2-1/2 cups of Oreo crumbs with 1/2 stick of butter for the crust.

cheesecake:
3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each (total of 24 oz) room temperature
1 cup / 210 g sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup / 8 oz heavy cream
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)
1 tbsp liqueur, optional, but choose what will work well with your cheesecake
**Key lime - add zest from one lime to sugar before mixing with cream cheese. Substitute lemon juice, alcohol, and vanilla with key lime juice.

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. Set crust aside.

3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.

Pan note: The creator of this recipe used to use a springform pan, but no matter how well she wrapped the thing in tin foil, water would always seep in and make the crust soggy. Now she uses one of those 1-use foil "casserole" shaped pans from the grocery store. They're 8 or 9 inches wide and really deep, and best of all, water-tight. When it comes time to serve, just cut the foil away.

Cherry Coke Float Cupcakes! Iron Cupcake Earth

2009-04-23T23:22:00.006-04:00

Hey guys, so Ian and I just joined this challenge called Iron Cupcake Earth and as you can see the theme for this month was SODA, or in Canada... POP!! (Why don't we say soda?)

It turns out that we can win a ton of great stuff (see the super cute aprons, Hello Cupcake book, and other cupcake paraphernalia below)but we need your help... you need to click on the IRON CUPCAKE badge on the top right hand side of the blog and VOTE! The polls open on April 29 at 8 p.m. and will be open through Monday, May 4 at 12 noon. Thanks guys!

I tried to remember my favourite pop growing up and all I could think about was cherry coke floats. We even had an old school fridge in the basement dedicated to holding all things Coca Cola. My dad used to get out the big beer steins and drop a great big scoop of ice-cream into them. My brother and I loved seeing the pop fly everywhere; my mother on the other hand... did not.

These cutie cupcakes are made with cherry cola, and even have a cherry baked into the center of them! The cupcake was glazed with a cola icing for the “float”, then topped with cherry buttercream, the “ice-cream”…and a cherry of course!

If you want to be one of the cool kids and bake your little heart out with us you can sign up at http://www.ironcupcakeearth.com

The April ETSY PRIZE-PACK is from artists:
A creation by FRUITFLYPIE,
a pair of cupcake earrings from LOTS OF SPRINKLES.
a sweet surprise from Sweet Cuppin' Cakes Cupcakery
PLUS, IronCupcake:Earth can not forget our good friend, CAKESPY, who is now going to be doing a piece for our winner each month until further notice - sweet!
Last and certainly not least, don’t forget our corporate prize providers: HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS, HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson, JESSIE STEELE APRONS ; TASTE OF HOME books, a t-shirt from UPWITHCUPCAKES.COM . Iron Cupcake:Earth is sponsored in part by 1-800-Flowers, .

Cherry Coke Float Cupcakes
adapted from Nigella Lawson's 'How to be a Domestic Goddess'
makes 12 cupcakes

Cupcakes
1 1/2 Cups flour
3/4 Cup sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 large egg
1/2 Cup buttermilk
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup unsalted butter
3 Tbs cocoa powder
3/4 Cup Coca-Cola
1/4 cup marachino cherry syrup
24 marachino cherries

Cola Icing
1 cup Icing sugar
2 tbsp cola

Preheat the oven to 350 F.In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. Beat the egg, buttermilk, and vanilla in a second bowl. In a saucepan, boil the Coca-Cola, and cherry syrup gently for five minutes. Melt in the butter and cocoa powder. Pour into the dry ingredients, stir well with a wooden spoon, and then add the liquid ingredients, beating until everything is blended.
Pour into the cupcake pans and push a cherry into the center of each cupcake. Bake for 15 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.
When cool drizzle over the Cola Icing and let dry. Top with cherry buttercream and a cherry.

Lemon Tea Cakes!

2009-04-21T23:51:00.005-04:00

Are these not the cutest things you've ever seen! Last time I was in Toronto I saw this super cute tea cake pan and had to have it. I have been meaning to use it for the past month, but truth be told, I was a little afraid. The man that sold it to me said that if I didn’t oil and flour it just right the little guys would stick and create a crumbly mess. Then I actually saw a sticky catastrophe on someone else’s blog and really got scared.

I decided that I needed something dense and that wouldn’t rise very much so that the suckers would just pop right out. Pound cake it was, and Ian is a lemon fanatic making it an easy choice. I looked at Martha Stewart’s recipe, and then heard about the Barefoot Contessa’s. Well it turns out that the two recipes are the same, and Ina actually took Martha’s! Oh the horror! I wouldn’t mess with Martha, she’s got a record.

Anyways, they didn’t stick at all! Oh, and the taste was amazing, I made these for the Supper Club and while everyone was mingling, Ian’s roommate would tiptoe into the kitchen and steal one or two at a time for Ian and himself. Then they would stand in the corner and eat their contraband snacks. Sneaky guys, very sneaky.

If you are interested in the recipe you can find it here.

Mashed Potato Gratin with Carmelized Onions

2009-04-20T12:38:00.006-04:00

Last night was the second gathering of our new Supper Club and it was quite a turnout. I don’t know about all of you but I had a blast! Ian and I wanted to pick something simple that everyone would like, so we went with the same menu as his Birthday dinner... RIBS! On Saturday I went to the Maitre Boucher and picked up 10 POUNDS of ribs, then proceeded to cook them all in my tiny oven.

Even though ribs were the star of the show, many people couldn’t get enough of the supporting actor, the mashed potato gratin with caramelized onions. Basically this dish is made from Ian’s delicious mashed potatoes with a generous layer of caramelized onions in the middle and topped with grated 2 year old port soaked cheddar.

This mashed potato recipe has been a winner since the first time I made it, and whenever my mom or I have to bring a side dish to a party, we make this. Plus it is so easy and can be made well in advance. For years people have been asking for the recipe so here it is guys, use it wisely! Usually I make them with grated Asiago on top instead of the cheddar which gives a great punch but some people don’t like strong cheese so old cheddar is a great alternative.

Ian and I just wanted to thank all of you for a great night, and especially Kelly who made a killer beer and caraway seed bread and her little darling two year old Mason, who tuckered himself out making butter from whipping cream for the bread. Also, big thanks to Alex who brought a super decadent flourless chocolate cake and perfect apple pie. We couldn’t have done it without you guys!

Mashed Potato Gratin with Caramelized Onions
adapted from a really old LCBO magazine
this is my half recipe that serves 4-5 people

1 tbsp olive oil
3 cups sliced sweet onions
Salt and pepper
1 tbsp sherry vinegar
2/3 cup chicken or beef stock
Freshly ground pepper
1-1/2 lbs yellow fleshed potatoes, peeled and cut in even-sized chunks
10% cream or a couple spoonfuls of sour cream
2 tbsp butter
Salt and freshly ground pepper
½ cup grated Asiago or 2 year old cheddar cheese

Heat oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add onions and salt and sauté until onions start to soften. Add half a cup of water and continue to cook until the water has evaporated. Add a second half cup of water and repeat, stirring occasionally, until onions turn golden brown. Stir in vinegar and stock. Raise heat to high and reduce until stock almost completely disappears. Remove from heat, season with salt and pepper and reserve.
While onions are cooking, place potatoes in boiling water to cover and bring to boil until potatoes are tender. Drain well and mash potatoes with a potato masher while beating in enough cream to make a smooth mashed potato, and the butter. Season well with salt and pepper. Preheat oven to 350.In a large gratin dish layer a half of potatoes and the onions. Layer on the rest of the potatoes and sprinkle with cheese. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until top is browned and potatoes are hot.

cough.... take 3

2009-04-16T23:09:00.003-04:00

Ok, so why not. I had the chance tonight, and Christie is still really busy with studying exams, so I played around with some of the other Photos I took during yesterdays Strawberry & Milk attempt, and I wanted to post these as well. If anyone likes these, you should head on over to Junglefrog's website and take a look at what she did with this project, great photos :D

Picture day (Part 2)

2009-04-16T00:08:00.002-04:00

Hello everyone, back for the results :D
So, if there is something that should have been obvious to me from the start, its that I AM ALLERGIC to strawberries (I swear I view strawberries as a really cute little child straight out of fairy tale that actually secretly eats Kittens or something similarly evil), and handling them constantly while trying to take photos is a real pain. I had to wash my hands every 2 minutes, and keep an eye on anything that came in contact with them and clean it up. The biggest pain was when I had the brilliant idea to try to drop a strawberry ito the glass of milk to catch a nice splash effect. Yeah, seems like a great idea, unless you cant really touch the fruit, then it may be a bad one.

Ive got to say, this was really challenging, you expose properly for the white backround and the Strawberries look like, well, terrible (which pleased me, showing their true evil nature like that). Expose the strawberries properly, and the white goes all funny... sigh. It took quite a few test shots to get it "right", but I think that I found a pretty good balance, and got a few shots that I like before it was too late and I broke out in hives. I ended up having to switch around the lighting that I had planned, and used Junglefrog's suggestion to light the backround at the same time (I held a piece of cardboard up to block the extra light, and set the flash to its widest setting). You can really see the difference that lighting the backround made when you compare the picture above with the one below, big thanks to Junglefrog for the helpful pointer(s)! Next time I try something like this, it will be with a non evil fruit or berry. I could almost hear the strawberries mocking me.

Picture day :D (part 1)

2009-04-15T13:59:00.003-04:00

Hi everyone! Christie and I have not disappeared, no worries, we’ve just both been absolutely swamped. Christie is in the middle of exams, and I have been working long hours trying to organize the logistics of a large project at work, fun fun.

For this weeks Picture Tuesday, I wanted to do a little something different. The result is a photo, but the challenge for me was to add a new step to my photo taking process. When I photograph food, I tend to just set something up quickly as far as my lighting is concerned, and then begin to make my adjustments as I go, with no real idea of composition or lighting/setup before I start. This kind of leads to hit and miss scenarios, where the lighting is good in one photo, but the composition is off, or vice versa, not to mention the random little things that come up like “honey…. The plate fits into my frame but that jar that you really want in there doesn’t”. It’s a real pain to carefully style a plate, and then realize that the lighting you just set up is actually cut off by that glass, or napkin, not to mention how things like forks and knives reflect light in ways which can throw a photo right off and create unwanted hot spots.

I needed a plan, not a set of instructions that I would make, but a starting point that I could make adjustments to, and provide me with an overall starting point. For this purpose I decided to use MS Paint, yes, I didn’t make a typing mistake there, I am actually using that bit of software listed under Windows “Accessories” that seems to just sit there. I could have used a bit of paper and a pen/pencil, but this way I can keep a digital record of my “set-ups” in case I would like to refer to one in the future.

This past weekend, my brother and his girlfriend paid me a whirlwind visit from Ottawa, and one of the things that I found in my fridge afterwards was a container of fresh strawberries. Now, to most this would be pretty exciting no? Not for me, I am actually allergic to strawberries, and trust me, I have heard all the lines, and received all of the sympathetic pats on the shoulder I can handle about this allergy. Worst of all, it is the only allergy I have, hooray for me.

I did not want to simply throw the fresh strawberries out, as that’s just wasteful, but its not like I am going to eat them, and Christie cant either as we are both just so busy she is not going to put her studying on hold to come and get some strawberries. Photo time!
Last night I entered my apartment after a really long day of work, and had the whole setup planned out to take a Red on White picture, using the fresh strawberries on a white background. The thought was there, but I ended up falling asleep on the couch shortly after getting in and missed out on taking this dangerous picture. So to make up for it, I am putting up the little plan I have for this photo, and when I get in tonight I will take the picture, post it and include any changes I made to the scheme :D Till tonight everyone!

**Updated** Just a quick note, I got the idea to take a Red on white image from Junglefrog's photostream on Flickr. I found a White on White image of a glass Jug full of Milk and thought about how challenging that picture must have been to take. Take a look at her photostream, its really inspiring :D

Happy Easter - Sugar Shack Time!

2009-04-12T22:38:00.013-04:00

There is this great tradition in Quebec, if you haven’t heard of it, it’s called Sugaring Off. Since 90% of Quebec is rural, the province is probably your number 1 producer of pure maple syrup. The time to collect maple sap from the sugar bush (forest of maple trees) is when the sap in the trees thaw, which is around March and April here in Canada. So every Quebecer at one time or another during the two months makes their way to their favourite Cabane a Sucre, or Sugar Shack. Each place serves their own maple syrup from their harvest along with a crazy amount of traditional Québécois food.

This Easter there was no beautiful ham or roast beef, no gravy, no Yorkshire pudding (of which my mom makes the best!) and no wonderfully mashed potatoes. This year my parents and my brother packed up the house and drove up to Montreal for the long weekend. Once here we have all proceeded to stuff our faces with everything from Shish Taouk from Boustan's, steamies from La Belle Provence, breakfast at St. Viateur Bagels(one of the best Montréal bagel places in the world) another mound of French toast, eggs Florentine, bacon, ham and sausage breakfast at Cafe Orange, dinner at a tiny dinner that only 13 people can fit in and is known as one of the greatest poutine places in Montréal (guess what we had?), and finally a wonderful dinner at Taverne, where dessert was none other than a maple chocolate bread pudding and mascarpone maple walnut cheesecake.

As if that wasn’t enough we ran into a store that sells only Brome Lake duck… in all of its many forms. My brother went crazy with joy and had a duck poutine made with duck gravy, duck confit, fries and squeaky cheese curds. You can tell that the cheese curds are fresh because when you eat them they sound like two balloons making love.

Now you would think that we would never want to see Québécois cuisine for at least a little while, but you would be wrong. This Easter we picked up Ian and piled into the car for a 45 minute drive into the Laurentians. We ended up at the ‘Cabane a Sucre Constantine’ which was a massive place, much bigger than most family run places, but we didn't have reservations and we were only there for one thing... the brunch. The event (yes this was definitely an event) started off with creton, fresh breads, coleslaw and four different preserves, pickles, pickled beets, pickled onions, and a very traditional melange of tomatoes and vegetables that they call Ketchup, but is definitely not of the Heinz family. Then came the pea soup, known to keep French Canadian lumberjacks warm. Next they brought out this HUGE fluffy omelette made of at least 10-15 eggs that our family shared topped with maple ham and craquelins. On the side we had maple sausage, maple baked beans, and some simple potatoes. Then you were supposed to drizzle maple syrup all over everything, so I did, I didn’t want to disappoint. Finally for dessert we had a Tarte au Syrup d'érable (maple syrup tart), crêpes with maple syrup and pouding au chômeur which I still am not sure as to its contents, basically I just think it's like a sponge cake baked with maple syrup then covered in more syrup. Needless to say we were stuffed.

After the brunch Ian and I took a stroll down to the tire d'érable hut, a place where they boil down maple syrup until it is very thick, then they drizzle it on snow and when it’s cold you roll it up with a stick and eat it. Brilliant eh!
It’s huge here, so I just wanted to show another picture of when Ian and I had it in Quebec City.

So that was my weekend, I hope you all had a great Easter and I can’t wait to hear about everyone’s holidays. Oh, and I'm sorry about this month, exams are starting and even if I do bake or cook, it's in between studying so Ian hasn't been around to take pictures. Booerns. But come April 29th at 10pm I will be freeeeeee and Coco Bean will resume its normal posting.

Asian Chicken Salad - Barefoot Bloggers

2009-04-10T22:18:00.005-04:00

Sorry BB's, this is posted late. But I made it five days early.... does that count?
This was one of the best tasting chicken salads that I have ever had. Maybe it was the peanut butter in it. How can you go wrong with peanut butter? Oh yeah, that's right, you can't! What did you think?

Asian Chicken Salad
adapted from Barefoot Contessa
serves 5

1kg grocery store roast chicken
olive oil
salt and black pepper
1/2 pound asparagus, ends removed
1 zucchini, cut in coins
1 orange bell pepper, cored and seeded
2 scallions (white and green parts), sliced diagonally
1 tablespoon sesame seeds, toasted

For the dressing:
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup good apple cider vinegar
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp dark sesame oil
1 tbsp honey
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp peeled, grated fresh ginger
1/4 cup smooth peanut butter
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Remove the meat from the chicken, discard the skin, and shred the chicken in large bite-sized pieces. Cook the asparagus and zucchini in a fry pan for 10 minutes until crisp-tender. Cut the peppers in thin strips. Combine the cut chicken, asparagus, zucchini and peppers in a large bowl.

Whisk together all of the ingredients for the dressing and pour over the chicken and vegetables. Add the scallions and sesame seeds and season to taste. Serve over rice noodles.

Picture Tuesday

2009-04-07T23:33:00.002-04:00

Hi ho, its photo Tuesday everyone, yayyyyyy (flailing my arms wildly above my head like Kermit the Frog)! For this weeks Photo Tuesday, I decided to play around with a Self Portrait that I had taken a few weeks ago that needed a lot of work, with the intended outcome of having a painterly feel to the final image. See, I spent roughly 10 years in post secondary schooling studying and practicing Painting and Drawing, then suddenly found myself out in the real world where painting 4x4 foot portraits was just not a feasible way to pay my rent and bills. Now that I have spent a few years in an actual “career”, I have found myself slowly but surely floating back to my artistic passions, and photography has become the focus of that passion over the past year or so, with a real centered focus and commitment being made by me to get better at this medium over the past 3-4 months.

When I first joined Flickr, I was spending hours at a time just searching through Photostreams of these incredibly delicate, painterly images made through various processes. Sure, you can pick up a Photoshop magazine and learn how to quick paint with cloning brushes, but what fun is it if you let the computer do all the thinking for you? The chances of getting something that may give you that unexpected look is there, but if you want consistent results you really need to study, and more importantly play, with these new software’s, and work on your lighting as that really is the key to good photography, lighting. Getting back to the Flickr images, I started out trying to achieve painterly effects by layering textures over images I had already, and some of them worked alright, but nothing more than fairly cool looking graphic work, the images, for the most part, missed that warmth that I love to bring into my painting work. I kind of gave up on making quality images of this sort soon after, crediting a fair part of the work I was praising so much to far superior photoshoping skills then I possessed.

Fast forward a few months, and here I find myself having to use functions in Photoshop I didn’t even know existed in order to work on the Cocobean blog photography (note that my Photoshop skills were limited to rotating and applying filters from the preset menus previously). I have to point out here that it has helped me tremendously to have Christie there supporting my learning of various software’s as well as lighting, she even looks up images and articles that she thinks I would find interesting or inspiring and shows them to me. For Xmas this past year, Christie got me a Wacom Graphics tablet, which I now refer to as “my preciousssssssss”, as have a hard time imaging myself without one now.

Back on topic. Adding all these factors up, I decided this past Monday night to play around with a bit of everything, lighting, Photoshop and my Wacom tablet, and I am actually pretty happy with the results, I finally got that painterly feel that I aspire to get so much (I think). It was really fun seeing how comfortable I have become working in the software, and to see how much I have learned. it’s a good measure for me, having started out a few months ago frustratingly trying out different textures and modes of blending trying to hit the jackpot, to being able to use the tools and make what I want the image to be is great. Hope you guys like it as much as I enjoyed making it.

Technical stuff:

I started out with an underexposed image, about 2 stops too short, so it was going to be a good challenge. Luckily I had shot the image in RAW format, so it provided a lot of flexibility as far as exposure. For the Self Portrait itself I used the following setup

-Camera (Nikon D40 for this) on fully extended Tripod with 28-80mm set to approx 35mm F8, set to be triggered by remote (I had a small working space so wide was good for what I wanted to do)
-Vivitar 285HV flash on light stand, shot through a white umbrella at 1/16th power to my left, above my head and pointing at my face (about 3-4 feet away)
-Cheapo Vivitar flash with 4 Kleenexes held over the head of the flash with an elastic band to diffuse the light set behind me, pointing at my upper back
-Cheapo Ebay Cactus radio remote triggers
-Camera set to -1 ev to saturate the background :P

Photoshop work
Upped the exposure to +1.7 (anything more was going to blow out the darks)
Curves layer for further adjustment
Smart blur layer to smooth out the details
Some Shadow-Highlight tinkering
Crop
Rounded edges

Painter X
Traced the Jpeg using Wacom Tablet
Painted the image using an Acrylic dry brush

:D

Baby Back Ribs for Ian's Birthday

2009-04-05T22:03:00.006-04:00

OK, so I lied. The pictures are actually being posted today, two days after we ate those beautiful baby back ribs. And the reason, well you see I am a secret spy and I was called away on a mission. Ian is also a spy but he works for a rival company and our code names are Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I have big lips and Ian looks very similar to Brad Pitt. This business that needed to be attended to, code name "sit on the couch and be lazy all weekend" was a very tough and complicated one. I can not tell you anymore, other than I was fighting off the evils that threaten our dear country, not anywhere near the living room or DVD player.

Ok, Ok, you got me...there is no need for spies in this country because no one would threaten Canada, what could they possibly want, our Maple Syrup? If they asked nicely we would give it to them.

The truth is that Ian and I had a nice quiet day inside eating delicious leftovers after he partied his birthday night away.

As you can probably guess the night of Ian's birthday was quite a blur for him. Luckily we had a nice dinner for two before the antics started. I knew that ribs were going to be on the menu because we watched this new show on Food Network Canada called "Chuck's Day Off" and Ian was practically licking the screen when Chuck made his signature ribs. Now this guy Chuck has a four star restaurant down in the Old Port of Montreal but the episode aired last Monday night and I knew that I would never be able to get reservations for Friday.

So, I called my mom and begged her for her rib recipe. My mom makes THE BEST RIBS EVER. Everyone knows it, and no one would ever dispute it. But it just started to get warm here and the BBQ's won’t be running for at least another couple weeks, so she sent me a revised version that uses the broiler. I didn’t want to make Chuck's because it was long and involved where as my moms recipe was super simple and I knew it would come out great. I also bought some amazing racks from our wonderful butcher down the street and the result was some fall off the bone, pure heaven ribs. If Ian had his way we would be eating these every day of the week.

My Mom's Amazing Ribs

2 racks Pork back ribs (makes enough for 4)
2 cups hot water
Kraft BBQ sauce
(some BBQ sauces are very strong and will overpower the ribs but this one has a subtle flavour. Use your favourite if you like.)

Pre-heat oven to 325°F
Remove thin, translucent membrane from the non-meaty (concave) side of ribs. This will allow flavours to penetrate more effectively, and give a more tender end product. The best way to do this is to loosen a little of the membrane at one corner using your fingernail. Then, with a paper towel, grasp the membrane firmly and pull it away from the ribs.
Place ribs covered lightly in BBQ sauce, meaty side up, in a 2-inch (5 cm) deep baking sheet or dish with water and cover with foil. Bake in oven for about 1 1/2 hours, or until meat begins to shrink away from the bone tip, and meat is easily pierced with a knife point. Remove from oven and at this stage, ribs can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.
Slather ribs with BBQ sauce and place on baking sheet lined with foil. Move oven rack up close to the top elements. Turn oven to Broil.
Baste and turn every few minutes or so until ribs are nicely coated and hot. Barbecue sauce burns very easily, so keep a close eye on them.
OR
Slather ribs with BBQ sauce and place on baking sheet lined with foil in the oven at 325°F (in one layer - no water) and check every 15 minutes until they are coated and sticky.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY IAN

2009-04-03T19:53:00.006-04:00

Well if you can't tell from the title.... it is Ian's Birthday today. I made him two beautiful racks of Baby Back Ribs and my famous caramelized onion mashed potato gratin. For dessert I created these two cute little key lime cheesecakes with candied lime slices on top(I also took a chunk out of my thumb with the mandolin while slicing them, hence the "thumb head injury" in the pic!). Pictures will be posted tomorrow... if there is anything left!

Picture... uhhh... Tuesday?

2009-04-01T22:32:00.002-04:00

Yayyyy is picture Tuesday…. Umm… I mean Wednesday? Alright, so I was really tired yesterday and didn’t post, so my picture day has been pushed back to Wednesday this week, but I am still calling it picture Tuesday because this here is the interwebz and I can do what I want, well, almost. One thing you are going to notice right away is the lack of a picture in the context of this posting, and that’s kind of the point for me today. I’m getting ahead of myself, let me explain.

Flashback to this past Sunday, relaxed, nothing out the usual, Christie and I decided to venture to the downtown center of Montreal to do a little bit of shopping and to return a book at Chapters. Turns out the weather wasn’t so great, it was cold damp and rainy, not a fun day to be strolling around. Now Chapters isn’t exactly my favourite place to find books, I am one of those guys that prefers the second hand, musty disorganized type over the latte serving sort (not that there is anything wrong with that, I’m just a sucker for that old book smell). I seem to be like that with most things, and very much so with photography. I prefer my old, clunky heavy metal film cameras over digital, heck, I have a Mamiya M645 medium format camera that is in amazing shape, and this includes my flashes, old, battery heavy, and in need of large cables and plungers to get it all going off camera. This is why this recent upgrade to a Nikon D80 has been such a breakthrough for me, for the first time, I am embracing the technology, and that means learning all the things I can do with it. When I was avidly running around with my clunky Pentax KX, off camera flash meant studio lighting and equipment that was far financially out of my reach, but suddenly, for a nominal fee, I can have a high end flash, and it can be used off camera wirelessly, without any accessories… OMG. Seriously, to most of the photographic world this is now the normal, expected with almost all “Pro” Nikon digital SLR camera bodies, and this is just amazing to me. 10 years ago I would have needed long cables and diagrams and… ughhh… tons of expensive equipment, now you just need a good Nikon and a Speedlight or two or three. Amazing.

So, going back to Chapters here, I decide to take a little peak at the books in the Photography section while Christie is shopping about, and I stumble upon something totally unexpected. As you may have read previously, or assumed by now, I have become quite a fan of David Hobby’s blog, Strobist. On this site a few days or so ago, I read an article about a book that was reviewed and highly recommended, “The Hot Shoe Diaries” by Joe McNally. I was pretty surprised to find it, and had to pick it up to take a peak. Two flips later and I had to have it, I swear I put it under my arm and rushed down two flights of stairs to find Christie and show her my prize. I lied to myself for a minute that maybe I wouldn’t get it since it was 47.99 Canadian, but something told me I found it for a reason, so of course I got it.

Now back full circle to why I am not putting a picture here that has been specifically made with today’s post in mind. I know diddly squat, nothing, nada, about lighting. Really, I thought I was learning pretty quickly and getting on well enough, and honestly, I was seeing the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Did I mention that this book showed me that I know nothing? Yeah, I did, but wait, hold on here, it’s a good thing. I’m on the right path, and already I’ve learned that I am using wild light, not directing it or shaping, or even coloring the light. Damn. Be warned, if you are a Canon camera user, this book deals specifically with Nikon camera equipment as far as the setup is concerned, but it is a valuable tool nonetheless. My plan? I have a lot to learn, and I am in the middle of drawing up plans to make some of my own equipment to help me, such as diffusers and softboxe(s), snoots, grids etc. That’s a lot of jargon, but go ahead and do a quick search on Flickr for any of those terms and put “DIY” before it (ie DIY softbox), and you will get tons of results showing you completed plans and sample pictures of the results, you will be amazed at what a few pieces of plastic and cardboard with tape can do for your photos if you have a flash. You can also get a pretty nice bit of the book for free in PDF format by going to this site and clicking on “sample”, and there is always the completlely free lighting course on the Strobist blog, just click on Lighting 101. Go ahead, check Flickr, get the sample, read the lighting 101 course, you wont regret it, and I will keep everyone here posted with my results and my builds as I go.

Resources:

Strobist: http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/
The Hot Shoe Diaries (click sample): http://www.peachpit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321580141
Some amazing DIY equipment made by a very talented Flickr user: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickwheeleroz/sets/72157604254959243/

Smoked Salmon, Dill, Goat Cheese, and Artichoke Quiche - Magazine Mondays

2009-03-30T22:02:00.008-04:00

While browsing around Cream Puffs in Venice’s blog I came across this great Challenge. Basically you rummage through all those old foodie magazines that you have lying around or squirreled away from who knows when, and you finally make one of the recipes. This way you are trying something new AND getting some use out of that bookshelf full of dusty "meant to make it" recipes. (Seriously, it’s a bookshelf.)

If you know me then you know I am a crazy food magazine addict. I check the newsstand daily for my favourites, even if I know they won't be coming out for another month. I even buy them in French because it forces me to practice the language. Needless to say, the semester that we were studying grammar and names of food products I got an A+.

Even though I love reading these magazines, there are just too many and I completely forget to make any of the recipes. That is why this challenge was right up my alley. And even though I didn't use one of the French recipes I still re-read three of the magazines today searching for the perfect premier recipe. Yes, my French teacher would be proud.

This recipe came from Fine Cooking Magazine, a pretty expensive magazine (10 bucks in Canada) that is really worth the money. I only came across it a couple months ago when Ian was sick and I needed something to read and pass the time. Wow though, it's like a new little cook book every month. When I heard caramelized onions, goat cheese, dill, artichokes, and smoked salmon I knew there was no way I could go wrong.

We really didn't feel like making the crust for the quiche...so we bought it Gaaaaaspp! Whatever, it was so worth it. Two gourmet quiches with minimal effort, umm yes please.

Smoked Salmon, Dill, Goat Cheese, and Artichoke Quiche
adapted from Fine Cooking Magazine, April/May 2009 #98
makes 2 quiches

2 deep dish frozen pie crusts
1 tbsp. unsalted butter
1/2 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 386ml can of artichokes, drained and cut in quarters
4 large eggs
1 cup 10% cream
1/2 cup milk
3 Tbsp. roughly chopped fresh dill
salt and freshly ground pepper
Pinch nutmeg
6 oz. smoked salmon, roughly chopped
4 oz. fresh goat cheese

Preheat the oven to 400F. Prebake the two pie shells for 8 minutes on a baking sheet.
Melt the butter in a sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook until soft and turning translucent. Add the artichoke hearts and cook until softened and slightly browned, another 4 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat. Beat the eggs in a bowl with the cream, milk, dill, salt, pepper, and the nutmeg. Pour 1/44th of the egg mixture into each crust. Bake in the oven until the filling is partially set, about 15 minutes. Scatter half of the onion and artichoke mixture, the salmon and the goat cheese over the partially set egg mixture. Pour on the remaining egg mixture and then scatter the remaining onions, artichokes, salmon, and goat cheese over the egg. Bake until the center is set, another 20 minutes. If the crust is browning too fast, cover it with strips of foil. Cool for 5 minutes before cutting. Garnish with extra dill.

Peanut Butter Jelly Time...umm.. I mean Bars

2009-03-29T20:16:00.007-04:00

Before I met Ian I was a real wild child. Eccentric to the bone. No one could stop me. OK, really, how much trouble could one little molecular biologist in training get herself into. So I wasn't as much of a renegade as I like to think I was. BUT, I did enjoy running around (at 23 years of age) singing 'peanut butter jelly time... peanut butter jelly time' (sing it Jen!!!) to anyone and anything that would listen. I have no clue why, I guess I am just 6 years old at heart and my roommate was totally into the childish song too. Now three years later, I am a tame and mature woman who still finds herself singing 'peanut butter jelly time!'

So even though I was in a baking stupor yesterday and did not want to go near the kitchen I was pulled in once again by "The Cookie of the Day" on the Martha Stewart website. It didn’t help that there was an 8x8 glossy photo staring back at me when I went searching for the recipe in my Martha Stewart Cookie’s Book. And the kicker that really did me in was that I know one of Ian's favorite things in the whole wild world is Peanut butter and Jelly Sammie's.

So girls, if there is one easy way to a man's heart, it is to make their favourite dish into a dessert (not that I don’t already have the key to Ian’s).

As one of Ian's best friends put it "they are like eating the PERFECT toasted and buttered peanut butter sandwich." Actually, I didn't totally make these just for Ian; I made them so that I could sing Peanut Butter Jelly Time.....

Peanut Butter Jelly Time Bars
adapted from Martha Stewart's Cookie's Book

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 1/2 cups smooth peanut butter
1-1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups raspberry jam
2/3 cup salted peanuts, roughly chopped
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9-by-13-inch pan with parchment paper. Whisk butter and sugar in a bowl until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add eggs and peanut butter; beat until combined. Mix in salt, baking powder, and flour till combined, then add vanilla. Transfer two-thirds of mixture to prepared pan; spread evenly with offset spatula or fingers. Spread jam on top of peanut-butter mixture. Drop pieces of remaining third of peanut-butter mixture on top of jam. Sprinkle with peanuts. Bake until golden, about 45-55 minutes, turning half way through. Cut into about thirty-six 1 1/2-by-2-inch pieces and refrigerate for 30 min.

Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna with an Abruzzi Flair - Daring Bakers March 2009 Challenge

2009-03-27T19:56:00.005-04:00

I knew this month's Daring Bakers Challenge was going to be a long and tedious one, but I was up to the task. I also figured that if I was going to put so much effort into one meal Ian and I should share it with friends. And just like that, Supper Club was born.

The idea of supper club came from my brother who holds one every 3 weeks in Oshawa. Basically one person or couple cooks, then old and new friends get together for a delicious home cooked meal. Different people host every time so that it doesn’t get too hectic and new people are always popping in.

Of course I had to make this lasagna for the first club, but I changed it up to reflect my background. The Italian side of my family comes from the region of Abruzzi. There the area makes their lasagna with hundreds of teeny tiny meatballs in the tomato sauce instead of a simple meat ragu. My brother and I have all these great memories of our aunts and cousins making this dish for big family dinners. The Abruzzi version is a very simple layering of mini meatball tomato sauce and paper thin strips of fresh pasta. There really isn’t a lot of cheese involved, nor does there need to be.

My version has the hand made fresh spinach egg pasta and the béchamel sauce of the region of Emilia-Romagna, but with a little Abruzzi flair!

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

Cherry Tomato and Goat Cheese Tart

2009-03-26T22:50:00.007-04:00

Hey BB's. What to say about this tart? Well how about crazy amazing. Or maybe insanely good. I guess just simply tasty will do. Anne Strawberry picked this Ina inspired tart (of course made with butter filled puff pastry) that BB's all over the world lovingly made and enjoyed.

I made three sizes of the tarts thinking that I could eat a couple small ones with my hands like appetizers, ummm...no, they were so good I ate all three sizes with my hands. Nuts to utensils.

The tomatoes were like fresh berries, they burst at every bite releasing delicious juice in your mouth. It was nice to have a 'summery' dish to remind us that winter (horrid horrid winter) is over and of what's to come.

Cherry Tomato and Goat Cheese Tart
adapted from Ina Garten's book 'Back to Basic's'

1 package (17.3 ounces/2 sheets) puff pastry, defrosted (PC makes it pre-rolled)
Good olive oil
4 cups thinly sliced yellow onions
3 large garlic cloves, cut into thin slivers
salt and black pepper
3 tbsp. dry white wine
2 tsp. minced fresh thyme leaves
4 tbsp. freshly grated Parmesan
4 ounces fresh goat cheese
20 mini tomatoes, cut in half
3 tablespoons julienned basil leaves

Unfold a sheet of puff pastry on a lightly floured surface and roll it lightly to an 10 by 10-inch square. Using a 6-inch wide saucer, cut 1 circle from each sheet of puff pastry, discarding the scraps. Repeat with smaller round plate, and possibly a cup, until most of the pastry sheets have been cut out. Place the pastry circles on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and refrigerate until ready to use. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat and add the onions and garlic. Saute for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring frequently, until the onions are limp and there is almost no moisture remaining in the skillet. Add salt and pepper, the wine, and thyme and continue to cook until the wine has evaporated and the onions are lightly browned. Remove from the heat. Score a 1/4-inch-wide border around each pastry circle. Prick the pastry inside the score lines with the tines of a fork and sprinkle a tablespoon of grated Parmesan on each round, staying inside the scored border. Place some of the onion mixture on each circle, again staying within the scored edge. Place the cherry tomatoes on top of the onions. Crumble goat cheese on top and brush the tomato lightly with olive oil and sprinkle over some salt and pepper. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown. Once baked add the basil on top of each tart. Serve warm or cold.

Rum-soaked Current Coconut Cookies

2009-03-25T21:30:00.005-04:00

I just got this wonderful call from my grandma all the way from Victoria BC. Yesterday I sent her a bunch of these cookies through the mail, all perfectly wrapped in super cute paper with little pink polka-dot bows and placed gently in a tiny square box.

I wasn't sure if it was worth the trouble to send 20 cookies all the way across Canada ( they wanted 30 dollars at first for the tiny box but I haggled them down in price and crammed them into a flimsy ugly brown envelope) but when I got that phone call I knew it was worth it.

I blindly assumed that I wouldn’t like this cookie mainly because the only food on this planet that I hate is coconut. Also I am not a big fan of the taste of booze in my sweets, but these scrumptious cookies didn't taste like either.

They did however have so many different depths of flavour that I couldn't stop eating them and I really did not think that there would be enough left for the picture.

The cookies in the picture that you see here were the last ones, and at the time of this post...well... they are gone.

Rum-soaked Current Coconut Cookies
adapted from Martha Stewart’s Cookie’s Book

1/2 cup dark rum
1 cup dried currants
16 tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup confectioners' sugar
finely grated orange zest from one orange
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup finely shredded (powder)unsweetened coconut
1 teaspoon coarse salt

Combine rum and currants; cover, and let stand at room temperature overnight. Drain, reserving 2 tablespoons rum. Whisk butter, sugar, and orange zest until white, creamy and smooth. Add vanilla and reserved rum, and beat until combined. Add flour, coconut, and salt, and stir to combine. Stir in currants. Form dough into 2-3 logs, each about 1 1/2 inches in diameter; wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate 1 hour Preheat oven to 300. Remove plastic. Slice logs into 1/4-inch-thick rounds, and space about 1 inch apart on baking sheets lined with parchment. Bake until pale golden, about 12-14 minutes

Picture Tuesday!

2009-03-24T22:56:00.002-04:00

Hi everyone! No, Christie and I have not vanished, we have both come down with nasty colds, and the only thing going on outside of our respective daily responsibilities has been rest and sleep. I’m not going to let that stop me from my photo Tuesday though, I was adamant about that. I woke up early this morning to make sure and take a dose of daytime cold meds, and pack up some camera gear to take along with me to work. When the time came for me to take a lunchtime stroll around work to snap some pictures, I wasn’t so sure it was a wonderful idea as it was cold and breezy, as well as muddy. I sucked it up and went out anyways, I mean, it would have really defeated the purpose of having brought along gear to work right?

So off into a large, muddy field out behind my work I went in search of any signs of spring. Not a green blade of grass anywhere. Seriously, everywhere I looked there was only brown crunched up vegetation and mud. No real colour of any sort to find. I trudged around with my camera out for what seemed like 10-15 minutes before I noticed that there were all kinds of things to take photos of around me, I just had to look. There were these shrunken berry looking things on the ends of some branches, and plenty of tall, dried out grasses for me to get creative with. It helped that the light just happened to be rather pleasant, and the sky a nice baby blue.

I walked around and had some fun playing with depth of field, bokeh (that funky, pleasing blurry effect), and the textures of my surroundings that were emphasized by the natural sunlight. What began as a sniffling, cold walk around without much hope had quickly turned into something I was really very happy about, I just had to be a little flexible on what I was trying to capture. When I first set out I had the idea concreted in my head that I was going out there to find some magical shoot of green grass poking out of a muddy puddle, or a single bud on a branch beginning to open up, and instead of being totally discouraged when that idea didn’t pan out, I took in my surroundings and found something I had not thought of finding. It really is a good lesson, even with careful planning and well thought out shots, a photo session, whether an interior shot that is all setup, or an outside search for that perfect capture, it is always a good idea to keep yourself open and let a little bit of randomness enter that creative process.

St. Paddy's Day Lemon Vanilla Cookies

2009-03-19T23:46:00.007-04:00

In Montreal we all celebrate St.Paddy's Day the Sunday after the actual day because that is when the whole city shuts down for the giant parade. These are a homage to that wonderful time when we drink on the streets right along side the cops.

P.s. One of these cookies is for Jen, her first St.Paddy's away from the big M.

St. Paddy's Day Lemon Vanilla Cookies
adapted from Martha Stewart's Cookies Book

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
6 tbsp.unsalted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar
1/2 vanilla bean, split, seeds scraped and reserved
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
1 large egg
Icing
2 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar
7 1/2 teaspoons meringue powder
2-3 drops of green food colouring

Preheat oven to 375. Put butter, granulated and confectioners' sugars, vanilla seeds, and zest into a bowl, whisk until pale and fluffy. Mix in egg. Add flour, baking powder, and salt in 3 batches; mix until combined. Roll out dough between 2 pieces of parchment paper to 1/8 inch thick. Cut cookies with clover cookie cutter then refrigerate until firm, about 20 minutes. Remove shapes from dough. Re roll scraps, and cut out. Space cookies 2 inches apart on parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake until pale golden, 5 to 6 minutes. For the royal icing: Put confectioners' sugar, meringue powder,a couple drops of green colouring, and 1/4 cup water into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment; whisk for 10 minutes. Transfer to a pastry bag fitted with a small plain round tip. Decorate each cookie with icing.

Beer Battered Onion Rings

2009-03-18T22:07:00.009-04:00

I guess my health kick is out the window. But who can blame me. Onion rings, come on, these are not an everyday food item and I had to bend the rules. Ian and I made these for the Food Network Canada's monthly challenge. They were large, perfectly browned, and the onion inside the crispy shell was sweet and tender. Plus, they were beer battered which made them great for St. Paddy's Day. I drew the line when green beer was mentioned.

Ricardo's Beer-Battered Onion Rings
adapted from Ricardo and Friends, www.foodnetwork.ca
makes 4 servings

1 large Spanish onion, sliced into 1-cm rounds and separated into rings
1/4 cup cornstarch
Batter
1 cup flour
2 tbsp cornstarch
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup pale ale
Oil for frying

Preheat the deep fryer to 190°C (375°F). Place a cooling rack on a baking sheet or line a baking sheet with paper towels.In a paper bag or large bowl, toss the onion rings in the cornstarch to coat well. Set aside.
Batter
In a bowl, combine the flour, cornstarch, baking powder and salt. Whisk in the beer.Using your fingertips or a wooden chopstick, dip the rings in the batter, 4 or 5 at a time. Shake off excess batter and deep-fry for about 3 minutes, turning half way through cooking. Drain on the baking sheet. Season lightly with salt. Repeat with the remaining ingredients.

Picture Tuesday

2009-03-17T23:26:00.004-04:00

Not only is it St-Patricks day today, but it is also picture Tuesday! I have been extremely thankful for all the positive feedback Christie and I have been receiving in regards to our blog, so much so that I have rediscovered my passion for photography through the constant encouragement I receive from my Flickr contacts, close friends, and especially Christie (love ya). I love my cameras, really, I do. Since I went digital 4-5 years or so ago, I began to slowly but surely slow down as far as quantity is concerned, and in hindsight it really is rather odd since digital photography as a medium should, technically, open the way to making more rather than less. Unfortunately digital photography, at least the digital cameras with the same configuration options as film cameras, cost a mint, and I just could not invest a small fortune into that kind of equipment as I am not exactly making a living off of it. Enter my “end of production line” Nikon D80. I love this camera, it reminds me about what I was so excited about when I first began reading about “the future of photography = digital”. I can control pretty much everything I want with this camera, and it meets my needs. That’s an important one right there, it meets my needs.

The change has been so quick, so drastic, that suddenly not only have I become an avid Strobist reader http://www.strobist.blogspot.com , but I have also dusted off both my Holga 120 as well as my Mamiya M645 medium format film cameras. A short while ago, I decided to make the leap into wireless flash photography thanks in large part to the Strobist blog. I put together my first kit using odds and ends reviewed on the blog, and have been very happy with the results. Living in a city where finding an apartment offering the kind of natural lighting required for daily food photos costs a premium, I needed a different solution, off camera flash. I ordered my kit from China, and received it promptly one week later. I have been happy with it until now. Using only one lighting source has resulted in similar lighting results almost every time, and it was time for a second flash. But seriously, they are just pretty damn expensive (about 350-400$ Canadian for 1 flash unit).

I found myself at a local photo supply store last week, just about to suck it up and buy one, when I decided to “think about it”. I am very happy that I did. By complete random chance, I decided to browse over to Strobist this afternoon to take a peek, and lo and behold, and answer for my budget http://strobist.blogspot.com/2009/03/manual-flashes-two-debuts-and-adoption.html)! Mpex, a photo retailer in the US, has teamed up with Strobist to create a manual flash (the LumoPro 120) for people that require the flexibility of off camera flash, and removed the bells and whistles in order to reduce price significantly! I really could not be more excited, really, if you are interested in the least bit in lighting, I highly suggest taking a look at the Strobist blog, and take note of the post linking you to this wonderful new inexpensive flash. I am going to be ordering a new kit this week with an extra flash so that I can really work on lighting.

To celebrate today’s wonderful discovery (the Strobist created LumoPro 120 Flash), I decided to go through a binder of hand processed b&w negatives that I took using my modified Holga 120 camera. I have a full box of 120 format B&W film that needs to be used, and 2 lonely medium format cameras that are calling out to me to be used, so don’t be surprised to see me start to delve deeper and deeper back into photography, and I am loving every minute of it.

Raspberry Lemon Almost No-Fat Mini Muffins

2009-03-16T21:29:00.007-04:00

I'm still on my health kick today so in keeping with the whole grain aspect I baked these wonderful little Raspberry Lemon muffins. And guess what... they have almost NO fat in them! How amazing eh!

They do sport a lot of baking powder and apple sauce to bind everything together which makes the batter light and fluffy. Not to mention all the berries I jam packed into them creates a melt in your mouth muffin. I love the berry right on top just like a beautiful jammy jewel.

Since raspberries are almost five dollars for a half pint right now I would advise buying the frozen ones. I was afraid that they would suck, but they actually really did the trick! Just don’t buy the ones frozen in their own juice or else you’ll end up with red muffins (which is not appropriate since Valentine's Day was a month ago).

Raspberry Lemon Almost No-Fat Mini Muffins
adapted from www.ilovemuffins.ca
makes 24 mini muffins

1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole-wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tbsp. baking powder
1 tbsp. lemon zest
1 egg
2/3 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 cups frozen raspberries

Preheat the oven to 400° F. Put 24 mini muffin papers in a mini muffin tin.
In a large bowl, mix together the all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour, sugar, baking powder and lemon zest. In a small bowl, beat the egg until foamy. Stir in the buttermilk, applesauce and vanilla. Add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture and stir just until moistened. Gently fold in the raspberries right at the end and don't stir too much or the batter will turn red. Spoon the batter into the prepared cups and place one raspberry right on top of each muffin. Bake for 15 minutes.

Apple Cinnamon Baked Oatmeal

2009-03-15T21:55:00.007-04:00

After all the butter, sugar, and just plain fatty foods that I have consumed since starting this blog, I am finally starting to feel it. I am NOT craving cookies, cupcakes or chocolate and it's really scary! All I want is some veggies and a couple days of low fat meals.

I've been dying for some good ol’ healthy and delicious oatmeal and remembered that "everybody likes sandwiches" had this to die for vegan baked apple oatmeal. I really don’t think that I would make a good vegan, but if I could eat this every day, all day, it wouldn't be hard. Needless to say I made it more omnivorous, but the idea is the same. The best part is that the apple cider and milk bake into the oatmeal. Next time we are defiantly adding toasted pecans and raisins.

Apple Cinnamon Baked Oatmeal
Adapted from everybody likes sandwiches blog
1 1/4 cup of instant oats
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. maple syrup
1 tbsp. brown sugar
1 1/2 large apples, diced
1 cup 1% or skim milk
2/3 cup apple cider or juice

Preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl, combine everything. Place mixture into a baking dish. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Serve with additional milk and yogurt.

Itty Bitty Chocolate Persian Sable's with Cherry Filling

2009-03-14T23:13:00.006-04:00

And now for the best cookies ever! Well, maybe not the best, there is still something missing if you compare them to those perfect little cookies from Nocochi. But these are extremely close. (Please do not judge me on the horror that was yesterday’s events.)

I tried to remember what I loved about the cookies and realized my favourite part is the extremely short dough that they use. It’s so light; it literally melts in your mouth. So I pulled out the big guns, well actually the tiny ones. I found this book by Flo Braker called 'Sweet Miniatures' at Winners for seven bucks (steal!). It seems that she has her finger in every pie because I also noticed that she made a large contribution to the ultimate "Baking with Julia" cookbook.

She says that rice flour is the key to a distinguished shortbread. I had come across this ingredient in many of the Persian cookie recipes and gave it a try with the addition of cardamom and rose water to keep that Persian taste.

They came out so, so, so good. Although cutting out each tiny cookie, cooling the dough, punching a hole in the cookie, cooling them...again, baking them, cooling them...a third time, powdering a million little tops, then finally filling them with cherry jam and squishing them together(pheeeeewwphhh) took four hours.

So I think next time I will just spend the money on the real ones and save the time. I am still going to use this recipe, just not on such a teeny tiny cookie.

Itty Bitty Chocolate Persian Sable's with Cherry Filling
adapted from Flo Braker

1 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup rice flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 cup dark cocoa powder
1 stick plus 6 tbsp. unsalted room temp. butter
1/2 cup of powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. ground cardamom
1 tbsp. rose water
1 cup cherry jam

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Whisk butter for one minute, and then add sugar and whisk until light coloured and fluffy. Add vanilla, cardamom, and rose water. Mix until blended. Add both flours, cocoa, and salt in three increments, mixing between each addition. When dough is combined, lay out on a plastic sheet and roll until 1/8 inch thick. Cut out tiny shapes with cookie cutter, punching a hole in half of them. Cool the rolled out dough with the cut shapes for 10 minutes so that the pieces lift easily from the plastic sheet. Cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper and place pieces on it. Cool for another 10 minutes. Bake for 9 minutes. In the mean time strain 1 cup of cherry jam into a small pot, boil for 7 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes. When the shapes with the hole are cool dust with powdered sugar. Place 1/8 tsp. of jam on bottom piece of cookies and squish together.

Worst Cookies Ever

2009-03-13T20:59:00.003-04:00

Well, as you might have guessed from the title, I just made the WORST cookies on the face of this earth. They looked so pretty and I spent three hours making them, but one bite and I threw the whole batch out.

You see, I had the best little sable cookies at this place downtown called Nocochi. On my way home I ate all the cookies that I bought and vowed to find out how they got them to melt the second they touched your tongue.

It turns out that they are Persian cookies made with clarified butter, chickpea flour, powdered sugar, rose water, and cardamon. I should have known better with the clarified butter( I hate the smell of it) but I pressed on.

Arg, I'm so disappointed. Oh well, I'll try again tomorrow. By the way here is a nice photo that Ian was playing around with. It's much better than stinkin cookies.

Chicken Piccata

2009-03-12T22:00:00.006-04:00

Hey there Barefoot Bloggers. So this is the second challenge that I have participated in with the BB's and let me tell you... it has been so much fun! This Thursday Noodle Nights and Muffin Mornings chose Chicken Piccata.

For those of you out there that don’t know the fancy name, it’s basically classic breaded chicken (no shake n' bake allowed) with a lemon sauce. Oh yeah, and butter. Lots, lots, lots of butter. I even cut the amount of butter in half, and still the sauce was buttery. What did you expect from Ina, really!

I truly enjoyed this dish, but I wasn't so fond of the three steps, three bowl breading catastrophe that left the walls and floor of my kitchen covered in egg, flour, breadcrumbs and salmonella.

I think it was worth it though. You should have seen Ian's face when he took the first bite, he was in pure heaven. For him, breading + chicken + lemon = win. Mind you, he was the kid in kindergarten that ate the left over lemon and lime candies that all the other kids wouldn’t touch.

Chicken Piccata
adapted from Ina Garten's book 'Barefoot Contessa at Home'

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 extra-large eggs
1 tbsp water
2 cups seasoned dry bread crumbs
4 tbsp. olive oil
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
Freshly squeezed juice from 3 lemons, lemon halves reserved
1 cup dry white wine
Sliced lemon, for serving
Italian Seasoning, salt, and pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
Place each chicken breast between 2 sheets of plastic wrap and pound out to 1/4-inch thick.
Mix the flour with salt and pepper in a shallow plate. In a second plate, beat the egg and water together. Place the bread crumbs on a third plate with Italian seasoning. Dip each chicken breast first in the flour, shake off the excess, and then dip in the egg and bread crumb mixtures.
Heat 2 tbsp. of olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium to medium-low heat. Add 1-2 of the chicken breasts and cook for 2 minutes on each side, until browned. Re-oil the pan with another 1 tbsp. of olive oil and repeat. Place the chicken on the sheet pan and allow them to bake for 5 to 7 minutes while you make the sauce.
For the sauce, wipe out the saute pan with a dry paper towel. Over medium heat, melt 1 tablespoon of the butter and then add the lemon juice, wine, the reserved lemon halves, salt and pepper. Boil over high heat until reduced in half. Off the heat, add the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and swirl to combine. Discard the lemon halves and serve 1 chicken breast on each plate. Spoon on the sauce and serve with a slice of lemon.

About Coco Bean Chanel

2009-03-11T20:21:00.020-04:00

Let me tell you about Coco Bean Chanel.
Some have been asking about Coco so here is the story of the most loved cat in the world.

Exactly four years ago, almost to the day, I was living downtown Montreal in a really crummy apartment, but I didn’t care. I was a student in the center of the biggest party town, I had no debt (because I was still living off my parents) and I didn't know how to cook, anything, but that didn’t matter because I was young and Kraft dinner tasted just fine to me.

Now, I have this thing where I always have to stop into pet stores to see the kittens, so I ducked into this one down the street from my apartment, and there she was. She was so tiny, in this large cage, all by herself. As I got closer to her she started to play with me through the cage. Her little tongue was sticking out (now a Coco trademark) and she kept getting her tiny claws stuck in my sweater.

Ok, so because I was living off my parents, I went straight home to call my mom. "No" she said right away. But that didn't deter me. You see, my dad and brother were coming up to visit from Toronto that weekend for the St. Patties day parade. I knew I had just one chance if I was going to own that little bundle of fur.

So, when my dad was leaving the house that Saturday morning to drive up to Montreal, the last words my mom said to him were " Don't you dare buy her that cat"

He bought the cat.

Come on, she was so cute, who could resist her?? We all made a pact, let’s not tell mom anything until a week later, then dad would break it to her. Unfortunately that night Coco didn't want to be alone so she slept on my brother’s back and kept him up all night. When my dad and brother left that Sunday, my brother was dropped in Oshawa, about an hour before Toronto. There is one thing you must know about my brother. He can not keep a secret. Ever. It has always been that way, since we were young. So when my mom called him to ask how the weekend was he said "great, but the cat kept me up all night". Busted.

But it's all ok now. No one can resist Coco Bean. She is a Tortie and is still very tiny for a cat. Her tongue sticks out when she is happy and she is always purring like a motor. Every single night while I am reading she joins me before bed and tries to block my book. Same with whenever I study. Or use my laptop.

Every night she also sleeps under my arm and will nudge my shoulder until I let her in. She purrs for a long time then falls asleep with her head on the pillow. She carries around a small stuffed lion like it is her baby, and every day moves it to the living room in the morning, and back into bed at night.

One time she ran away. It was the worst three days of my life, but I found her down the street, hungry and needing to use the litter box. I trained her well.

She loves Ian, and men in general. She will sit on anyone’s lap and show off by rolling around if you are new.

(Coco in her Montreal Canadiens Hockey Jersey)
So that is the story of my favourite animal, my Coco Bean Chanel.

Picture Tuesday!

2009-03-10T22:58:00.002-04:00

Yayyy! It’s picture day again. Christie and I were talking about our blog, and she pointed out that it is our blog, and that I didn’t necessarily need to post food/recipe(s) every time I posted. She even suggested that we make Tuesdays “Photo day”, where I can post any sort of picture I’d like accompanied by a little blurb or random Ian babbling as I have a tendency to do. As a result, I lay in bed last night staring at my ceiling, thinking hard about what I’d take a picture of, was I to take a walk at my lunch time this afternoon and hope to “find something”, or pick up some nice flowers on my way home from work and prepare an elaborate-ish (yes I made that word up) setup? I had too many ideas, and needed to focus down to one. So this morning I woke up extra early and packed a camera bag with just the essential equipment that I figured I would need, and set off for work at 6:15 am as usual… sigh.

My first reaction at that time in the morning, especially with the recent daylight savings change which makes it feel like5:15am, is usually a “This bus better be here soon”, and a “I want to be back in bed” feeling, except this morning something in my head shouted out…. Ian…. This is picture day… don’t forget… and somehow I mustered up the wakefulness and clarity, although still very much fuzzy, to notice that the lighting was great, and actually pulled out my camera and snapped a shot before my bus came. Trust me, the random high school student waiting next to me did not expect it either, and I caught him trying to catch a glimpse at my cameras viewing screen.

Turns out I was lucky I did. I had a really rather busy day at work and had to skip on my lunch break, and besides, it was dark and muddy out, not exactly the conditions to be trudging around for an hour outside in ankle high slipper type shoes if you ask me. After work, I ate some left over Spaghetti sauce with some elbow macaroni and fresh parmesan topping that my roommate and I made last night, and fiddled with my early morning picture a wee bit, and the picture above was the result. I hope you like it, as I am looking forward now to Picture Tuesdays every week.

*EDIT* Wednesday morning here now, and I kept thinking last night about how I should maybe include some pictures of the setup(s) I am using to take the photos for our blog. What do you guys think? Any interest? Any and all feedback is always warmly welcomed!

Mocha Orange Wafers

2009-03-09T21:42:00.005-04:00

Yes... I am still on my chocolate binge
Yes... I have added coffee to this binge
Yes... I made these the second the last of the other chocolate cookies were eatten (by me)
Yes... they are a deep dark chocolate shortbread.
Yes... I practically doubled the cocoa that the recipe called for.
Yes... I ate these as a meal today.
Yes... they will satisfy your chocolate craving, for the moment.

Mocha Orange Wafers
adapted from Martha Stewart's Cookies book

1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp. finely ground espresso
1 tsp. salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon finely grated orange zest
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Coarse sanding sugar, for sprinkling

Beat together butter, confectioners' sugar, orange zest, and vanilla in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually add flour, cocoa, salt, and espresso until just combined. Transfer dough to a 12-by-16-inch piece of plastic wrap; shape into a log. Roll the wrap around the log, and twist the ends. Chill at least ½ an hour to overnight. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Cut log into 1/4-inch-thick slices; transfer to baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Brush tops with water; sprinkle with sanding sugar. Bake until set, 9-11 minutes.

White Chocolate and Pomegranate 'Pot de Creme' with Passion Fruit - In The Bag

2009-03-08T17:58:00.005-04:00

So, this is the second installment for the challenge In the Bag, where you are given three ingredients and have to come up with some sort of meal. This month it was white chocolate, passion fruit and pomegranate. I would like to start off by saying that this is one of the best tasting desserts I have ever had. Remember that while you are reading through this recount of my Saturday afternoon, night, and Sunday morning.

My problem was the passion fruit. Do you know where to find a fresh and ripe one (or even what a ripe one looks like) in Montreal? I certainly didn’t, but I wasn’t going to let that detour me. First I went on a three hour search through the streets of downtown Montreal to find a passion fruit. Then I realized that the only time I had ever seen a passion fruit was in the Galapagos where I fell into some bushes trying to pick the fruit off a vine and had to head back, sans passion fruit, sporting some cool new scrapes. Needless to say I didn’t even know how to open the little fruit. Of course, once I showed the boys what the inside looked like, I had a very hard time convincing everyone that it was not going to taste like snotty brains.

On that note, I would like to point out that passion fruits taste so amazing, basically like all those tropical fruit juices that Tropicana is making now, but much more intense. It's sad that no one caries them because I think they would be a hit!

Now, for the pot de crème. I saw Ricardo make a version of this on TV about 5 months ago and thought to myself, "nuts to that, who would be that crazy to spend all their time making a single dessert" Well, now I am the crazy one, and I had to make it twice because the gelatine didn't set the first time. (soupy mess + me upset = bad)

Things I have learned about gelatine:
1. It needs to sit longer in a liquid that the 5 minutes everyone says.
2. Sometimes you need to use twice as much gelatine than what everyone says.
3. Just stick with jello for all your jiggly fruit juice needs. They have been doing this much longer that you have.

That is not to say that this wasn't an extremely easy dessert to make, and well worth the work, look at how stunning it looks! And the taste, I feel like I am having dessert at a four star restaurant! The problem is the waiting time, and the praying to the food gods that your gelatine sets.

White Chocolate and Pomegranate Pot de Crème with Passion Fruit
adapted from Ricardo and Friends on the Food Network Canada
makes 4 pots

3/4 tsp gelatine
3 tbsp. water
4 oz premium white chocolate, like Lindt
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
1-1/2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 cup 35% cream, warm
2 tbsp. milk, warm
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

For the Jelly
3/4 tsp. gelatine
3/4 cup pomegranate juice
1/2 tbsp sugar
Topping
4 passion fruits

For the Pots de Crème
In a bowl and sprinkle the gelatine onto the water. Let soften for 15 minutes. In a double boiler, melt the chocolate and butter. Off the heat, whisk in the eggs. Add the cream and milk. Return to the double boiler and, whisking constantly, continue cooking until slightly thickened, about 5-10 minutes. Add the gelatine and stir until completely dissolved. Pour the mixture into 4 martini glasses. Refrigerate for about 3 hours.
For the Jelly
In a small saucepan, sprinkle the gelatine onto (1/4 cup) of the juice. Let soften for about 15 minutes. Add sugar and heat gently while stirring until the gelatine and sugar have dissolved and a light boil starts. Add the remaining juice and stir well to combine. Pour gently onto the pots de crème. Refrigerate for about 3 hours. Add passion fruit to top just before serving.

Cocoa Charms

2009-03-07T18:06:00.004-05:00

So pretend you are on a chocolate binge. Just pretend. And, for names sake we will call you... umm… Christie. Now pretend you go on a mad search for the deepest darkest and most intense chocolate shortbread cookie. Say you found it. Imagine sprinkling 100% cocoa powder on top of those deep dark charms. Now imagine how many cookies you, as hypothetical Christie would eat.

Now do me one favour. Do not imagine the scale the next day.

Cocoa Charms
adapted from Martha Stewart's Cookie's Book

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup dark cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Whisk butter until very light and fluffy, about 5-7 minutes. Add sugar and beat into butter until the mixture is a very light colour. Add vanilla and mix in. Sift in flour, salt, 1/4 cup cocoa powder and mix together until uniform. Form into 1 inch balls and place on a lined baking sheet. Place baking sheet in the fridge for 10 minutes. Transfer baking sheet to oven and bake for 12-17 minutes (depending on your oven). Once cooled dust with reserved 1/4 cup dark cocoa powder.

Egg, Ham, and Cheese Cups

2009-03-06T20:48:00.007-05:00

I am so hooked on the 'á la di Stasio' cookbook by Josée di Stasio (see yesterdays post). That is why today we had breakfast for dinner. But this wasn't any normal dinfast, or breakner, we turned it into a little craft, and a tasty one at that.

Get out your cupcake pan, because that is how you make these little cups of goodness. Just start layering bread, black forest ham, and spinach, then spoon in some goat cheese and crack an egg in the middle. You can add anything you want to the cup, I just love goat cheese and spinach with my eggs. These are so much fun to make, and even more exciting to eat.

Egg, Ham, and Cheese Cups
adapted from Josée di Stasio's book 'á la di Stasio'
serves 4

8 slices whole wheat bread, crusts removed
1 tbsp. butter
8 slices black forest ham
8 large eggs
1 cup baby spinach
4 tbsp. young goat cheese
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. With a rolling pin or wine bottle flatten the bread slices, and then butter one side. Place bread slices one by one in each cupcake cup, butter side down. Layer a ham slice over each bread slice, pushing into the cup. Add spinach to bread and ham cup. Place 1/2 tbsp. of goat cheese in the cup, on top of the spinach. Top the cup off by cracking one egg into the centre. Season with salt and pepper. Bake in oven for 20-25 minutes or until eggs are done.

Sausage and Spinach Shells

2009-03-05T21:47:00.007-05:00

Guess where the cheapest and latest cookbooks are found? The library. I say cheap, not free because I always take the books back late and have to pay a couple cents each time.

That is where I found the book 'à la di Stasio' by Josee di Stasio. I have probably passed the book a hundred times in the Quebec book stores, but until recently it was only in French. Not that I can’t read French, it's just that at the time I didn't know who Josée di Stasio was. I still don’t really know who she is, although I bet all the Quebecois chefs out there would smack me for saying so.

Anyways, the photography in the book is beautiful and I am always a fan of cooking tips from chefs of this Province so I took a chance. Delicious. Just simply delicious. This pasta was so simple, and if you use good quality sausage from a butcher, you can’t lose.

If you are in Montreal, check out the Maitre Boucher on Monkland, we bought one medium Italian and one Toulouse échalote sausage for this dish. Any butcher will do, just don’t buy random sausages from the supermarket (barf).

Sausage and Spinach Shells
adapted from Josee di Stasio's book "a la di Stasio"

1 large sweet onion cut in thin slices
1lb sausage, different types
1-1/2 cups low sodium chicken stock
450 g small shell pasta
5 cups baby spinach
Salt and pepper
1/3 cup grated parmesan

In a very large frypan add olive oil and slightly brown onions. Take sausage out of casing and break it up, then add to pan and cook until no longer pink. Pour in 1 cup of the stock and reduce for a couple minutes. Start a pot of boiling salted water and add pasta, cooking until al dente. Strain the pasta, reserving ¼ cup of the pasta water. Add pasta and baby spinach to frypan along with the ½ cup of stock and reserved pasta water. Season with salt and pepper then stir in cheese.

New Camera Day

2009-03-04T16:50:00.005-05:00

My hands are up, I’m guilty, I did it, I purchased another camera. The new addition brings my current total up to 9, though realistically only 3 are digital, the remaining 6 being various 35mm as well as pro medium format film cameras (120 format). Now don’t get me wrong, I love my Nikon D40, really, it’s a great camera that takes really wonderful pictures, I’ve just been missing some of the features that are found on more “professional” calibre camera bodies that really don’t make a huge difference to the everyday user, but I am finding more and more that I am wanting these features in a digital slr. Add to this that Christie really wants to learn to use the D40 in order to start taking and exploring photography, and its hard to separate me from my equipment, and it easily adds up to this equation (Ian + new camera = win). It’s a really rare occurrence that a couple can find a common ground through passion for things that go so well together, such as Food and Photography, and Christies passion for cooking has inspired me to really think about food differently. Well its my turn, I’ve got to step it up and help Christie with photography by sharing my passion for it with her, and hopefully become a wee bit better with my communication about the choosing and finishing of the photos as a team with Christie.

So what better camera for her to use as a learning tool than a Nikon D40? Seriously, the Nikon D40 has been my most used camera since I purchased it about 2 years ago, its nice and small, so its easily portable, and its really jam packed with features for a little guy. If you are looking for a wonderful camera that will allow you to jump into the digital slr world, at a price of about 500$ Canadian dollars brand new you cant go wrong (its not much more than most point and shoot digitals), and the difference that a large image sensor makes is just stunning. Point and shoot cameras are great to have, don’t get me wrong, I have one to put in my pocket and carry around for snapshots (a Samsung NV10), but even a 10 megapixel point and shoot cannot give you the quality of a 6 megapixel D40. Why you wonder? Point and shoot cameras use a tiny image sensor, about the size of a stamp, so even at 10 megapixel, it does not record as much detail as a much larger sensor on a digital slr, and the ability to change your lenses doesn’t hurt.

Armed with an empty bank account and a credit card, I set off Monday morning to pick out and buy a new digital slr and surprise Christie when I picked her up at the train station that afternoon with a brand spanking new camera. It wasn’t meant to be, first, the subway went down, so when I got to the store I did not actually have time to comfortably make up my mind. Another day right? I couldn’t do it. Once we dropped Christies luggage back off at her appt, we headed right back out to the store to look as she was excited too. The store was all out of what I wanted (a Nikon D80) and had replaced it with the newer D90, which they were also out of. I almost went for the D300 (1600$ body only geez) but the stores internet was down, leaving them with cash only sales, so I sat on it. Tuesday morning, I decided to check out Montreal’s largest Photo Equipment distributor, L L Lozeau. Wow, I love the place. I spoke with a sales rep for almost an hour, going over what I wanted to do, and what I needed vs. what I did not need. He let me know Id be crazy to buy a D300, and a D90 was just not necessary. The nice salesman actually advised me to save 600$ on a D90 by going for a D80, ½ the price, and it is what I wanted in the first place! Plus the extra money saved allowed me to buy a really nice Micro Nikkor lens, which will do food so stunningly I will want to eat the pictures. I will certainly go back there for any of my photo needs.

Christie has exams all day today, and is busy studying and generally stressing out about school, so she asked me to just write something up about my new, beautiful camera for the blog today, rather than make and photograph a recipe. So, rather than food, I decided to see what I could do with the camera on its first picture. Looking all over for something to shoot, I figured to mull it over in a hot shower… wait…. Found it. So hope you like the first shot with my new spanky, shiny Nikon D80

Pancakes!

2009-03-03T16:43:00.012-05:00

Oh pancakes, how I love you. When I was back visiting my parents in Toronto, Mardi Gras was happening. So, on Fat Tuesday my mom made pancakes. They were so good, and no one can beat my mom’s pancakes. I guess it just reminded me of being a kid again, fighting with my brother over who could eat the most pancakes in one sitting.

The next day I begged for pancakes again, but the power went out for a couple hours and we had to go out for dinner. But I was hooked, and on Thursday we made a double batch, but still, it wasn't enough. I whined on Friday for pancakes again, but everyone was sick of them by then.

So, what was the first thing that I made for Ian and me when I got back to Montreal? You guessed it. This picture is actually the plate that I ate. I still think that I could eat them again today.

Mom's Pancakes
adapted from a super old dairy goodness milk calendar
makes 12 pancakes

3/4 cup all purpose flour
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1 cup milk
2 tbsp butter, melted

Stir together flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in a medium bowl. Beat together egg, milk and butter; add to dry ingredients all at once; stir just until moistened. Spread 1 level tbsp batter in hot, lightly buttered frypan. Cook until bubbles appear on the surface; turn and brown underside. Serve with (real) maple syrup.

Retro Saucy Chicken

2009-03-01T21:24:00.005-05:00

When my mom first made this meal that could feed an army, the recipe only called for four ingredients. Four. And three of those come out of a can or package! Seriously, how can something that tastes so good and homemade come from a can of tomatoes, a can of cranberries, a packet of onion soup, and a ton of chicken? It’s an enigma, but I guess it has been passed around for a very long time because I just heard that the old school original recipe used salad dressing instead of tomatoes. Eww. Who ever thought to switch that ingredient up is a genius.

In keeping with the tradition of altering the recipe as it is passed on, I often brown some mushrooms and green pepper before tossing everything together. But feel free to switch this up any way that you would like, it’s such a fast and easy dinner. Just promise me no salad dressing.

Retro Saucy Chicken

2 tbsp vegetable oil
4 lbs skinless boneless chicken thighs or drumsticks
1 lb button cremini mushrooms
1 green pepper sliced
1 can whole berry cranberries
1 can (28 oz.) diced tomatoes
1 envelope Lipton’s onion soup
1 handful of raisins

1. Preheat oven to 350. Heat oil in large sauté pan and brown chicken pieces. Remove chicken to oven proof casserole dish.
2. Sauté mushrooms and onions. Add tomatoes, cranberries, onion soup mix and raisins and stir until combined and hot.
3. Pour mixture over chicken. Cover and bake for 1 hour.

Easy Custard Flan

2009-03-01T21:01:00.007-05:00

Ok, so I'm guessing that all the Barefoot Bloggers are making custard this weekend. If you missed that post, on Thursday we all made Pavlova Chantilly which called for four egg whites. Now everyone has these egg yolks sitting in their fridge, just begging to be made into creamy custard with a sweet caramelized sauce. Well that's what our egg yolks were asking for. So, my mom and I listened to those little yellow guys and whipped up a batch of delicious custard.

Since I have never made custard flan, (I don’t even think that I have tasted it before) my mom led us into this little adventure, and she says that we 'cheat' by using condensed and evaporated milk. Whoot, I wish I could ‘cheat’ that easily into a good grade in physics. (Damned you gravity).
Disclaimer: stay in school kids, don’t cheat, I don’t.

Easy Custard Flan

½ cup sugar
3 tbsp water
-
11 egg yolks
1 egg
1 can evaporated milk
1 can sweetened condensed milk
Zest of 1 lime

1. Preheat oven to 350. Mix sugar and water in a saucepan over low heat until bubbling and light golden. Pour into 6 custard cups coating the bottoms. Let cool.
2. Beat eggs, evaporated milk and condensed milk together. Strain mixture to eliminate bubbles. Stir in lime zest.
3. Pour egg mixture into custard cups and cover loosely with foil. Place in a water bath with boiling water at least 1 inch deep.
4. Bake on top rack for 30 minutes. Test for doneness with a knife inserted in the centre.
5. Cool on a wire rack to room temperature and then refrigerate.
To unmold, run a knife around the edge then invert onto a plate

Ricotta & Spinach Cannelloni

2009-02-28T19:23:00.011-05:00

Things I love....
-Pasta
-Ricotta
-Spinach
-Tomato sauce
-Béchamel sauce
-Anthony Sedlak
-yes, you too Ian, the most.

Things that I ate for dinner...
-Pasta
-Ricotta
-Spinach
-Tomato Sauce
... you get the point.

Yes, I took this pic myself, sans Ian so it isn't as nice, but it's getting better. I think.

Ricotta-Spinach Cannelloni
adapted from Anthony Sedlak's book "The Main" 2008
serves 4
Spinach Ricotta filled Cannelloni
4 6x5 inch fresh pasta sheets
8 ounces spinach
1 tbsp butter
2 cups fresh ricotta
1 egg
pinch nutmeg
salt and pepper

Béchamel Sauce
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
1 1/4 cup milk
bay leaf
salt
freshly ground pepper

Tomato Sauce
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 x 690 ml jar good quality Italian brand strained tomatoes
1 tbsp Italian dried herbs
salt and pepper to taste
1 egg white
1 cup grated parmesan
1/2 cup grated mozzarella

Spinach Ricotta Filled Cannelloni
Wash and drain spinach. In a pan, melt butter over medium high heat.
Add spinach and cook until leaves are wilted. Season with nutmeg to taste. Drain cooked spinach in a colander, pressing down firmly to remove excess liquid. Finely chop drained spinach with scissors and gently combine with egg and ricotta. Season mixture with salt and pepper.

Béchamel Sauce
Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir in the flour and cook, stirring constantly, until the paste cooks and bubbles a bit but does not colour, about 2 minutes. Stream milk in, whisking as sauce thickens. Bring to a low simmer. Add bay leaf, salt and pepper to taste, lower the heat, and cook, stirring for 2 to 3 minutes more. Remove from heat and cover with Clingfilm.

Tomato Sauce
Heat olive oil and garlic in a pot over medium heat. Gently fry garlic for a minute; add strained tomatoes and Italian herbs. Simmer gently about 10 minutes. Season sauce with salt and pepper. Remove from heat. Preheat oven to 375.

To assemble
Lay pasta sheet on a flat surface. Spoon 2-3 tbsp of spinach filling evenly along bottom edge of each sheet. Brush egg white along top edge of sheet. Gently roll bottom edge up and around to form a tube shape. Spread 1/2 cup tomato sauce on the bottom of a medium, oven safe dish. Arrange filled cannelloni on top and pour béchamel sauce over. Spoon remaining tomato sauce just to cover. Sprinkle parmesan and mozzarella cheeses on top and bake until tomato sauce is bubbling and hot around edges, about 20-30 minutes.

Homemade Perogies with Port aged cheddar filling

2009-02-27T22:48:00.002-05:00

Homemade Perogies with Port aged cheddar filling

Good evening, Ian here. So, as promised earlier, I managed to convince my dear mom over today to make up a batch of her homemade perogies! My mother learned how to make these from her mother, a first generation Lithuanian immigrant who used perogie making as an all day long family activity for my mother and her siblings. My mother, when asked about any “ secret family recipe” couldn’t actually provide me with any sort of handwritten recipe, as she informed me that she “used ingredients for this by feel, not measurements”, so this is an effort to capture accurately a record of this really special recipe. I have really fond memories of spending afternoons with my mom when I was little making these and just chatting about my school, and her work, really just the best kind of childhood cooking memories. So, without further ado, here is the recipe for these absolutely delicious result of my mothers family perogie recipe, with a little twist added by myself (p.s it’s the port aged cheddar).

Dough
4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 cups warm water
Salt to taste

Filling
4-5 Yukon Gold Potatoes
½ Brick of Port aged Cheddar (aged cheddar will do fine), Grated
2 tablespoons of Butter
½ cup of 1% milk
Salt to taste

ONION AND BACON
4-5 strips of bacon, fried & finely chopped
1 whole white onion, finely chopped and fried

DOUGH
In a large bowl measure 4 cups of flour. Make a well in the center of the flour, add the oil into the well. Slowly pour the water into the flour and oil, mix with hands and kneed dough until the dough forms into a soft ball. Cut dough ball in half and set one half aside. Sprinkle a cutting board with flour. Place half dough ball onto flour board and roll out dough until the dough is the same thickness as a pie crust dough. Use a cookie cutter, or a medium sized glass to cut out circles in the dough ( you can use any shape here, circles, squares, preferably something that can be folded in two).

PEROGIES
Place 1/2 teaspoon of the potatoe mixture into the center of the dough. Fold the dough together forming a half moon shape. Firmly pinch edges together to seal the perogie. Place formed perogies aside on a plate and arrange so that they don't stick together. Cover with another to prevent the perogies from drying out.
Take the remaining half dough ball and repeat the DOUGH and MAKING PEROGIES steps.

ONION AND BACON
Finely chop onion and add to a frying pan. Fry onion until done. Add bacon strips and fry until crisp, then chop finely

COOKING PEROGIES
Boil water in a large sauce pan. Gently drop perogies into boiling water. Boil for 5-minutes or until perogies float to the surface. Drain perogies using a collander. Place perogies into large serving bowl. Pour onion and bacon mixture over the perogies making sure the perogies are well-coated. This prevents the perogies from sticking. Sprinkle chopped, cooked bacon over the perogies. Serve with sour cream.

Pavlova Chantilly

2009-02-26T22:22:00.008-05:00

Hey there, it's Christie from Toronto. I'm still on my break, but yesterday I finally received an e-mail from "The Barefoot Bloggers" telling me that Ian and I are officially members! Hurray! And what does this membership entail you ask? First, that you have a ton of butter on hand. Second, that every second Thursday of the month you bake, brown, roast, whip, stir, or burn (hopefully not) a specific recipe by Ina, the Barefoot Contessa.

So for the first challenge picked by BMK of Reservations not Required, we had these light and fluffy Pavlova's. The ingredients are simple enough, egg whites and sugar basically, but you have to bake them at a very low temperature for two hours, and then let them sit for another four.

Ha ha, nuts to that. We ate it after one hour of sitting and they were amazing, although the berry stew of strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries, plus the orange scented whipped cream didn’t hurt. The Pavlova melts in your mouth, it is just so light.

But, unfortunately you can only eat one of these beauties, because in following with the practices of the Barefoot Contessa, everything should have at least enough sugar and fat in the dish to kill a small Moose. (Nice Canadian reference there eh.)

Oh, by the way, I took this picture by myself! Im getting better eh! (please say yes Ian)

Pavlova Chantilly
adapted from the book ‘Barefoot In Paris’, 2004
makes 6

4 large egg whites, at room temperature
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
Kosher salt
3/4 cups granulated sugar, divided
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Whipped Cream with Orange, recipe follows
Stewed berries, recipe follows

Whipped Cream with Orange
1 cups (1 pint) cold heavy cream
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 tbsp orange juice

Stewed berries
1 half-pint fresh blueberries
3 half-pints fresh raspberries and strawberries, divided
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon orange zest
2 teaspoons framboise (raspberry brandy)

Pavlova
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Using a small glass and a pencil, draw 6 (3 1/2-inch) circles on each piece of paper. Turn the paper face-down on the baking sheets. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt on medium speed until frothy. Add a 1/2 cup of the sugar and raise the speed to high until the egg whites form very stiff peaks. Whisk in the vanilla. Carefully fold the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar into the meringue. With a large star - shaped pastry tip, pipe a disc of meringue inside each circle. Pipe another layer around the edge to form the sides of the shells. Bake for 2 hours, or until the meringues are dry and crisp but not browned. Turn off the heat and allow the meringues to sit in the oven for 4 hours or overnight.
Spread some of the sauce from the stewed berries on each plate. Place a meringue on top and fill with whipped cream. Top with berries and serve.

Whipped Cream with Orange
Whip the cream in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. When it starts to thicken, add the sugar, vanilla and orange and continue to whip until the cream forms stiff peaks. Don't overbeat.

Stewed Berries
Combine the blueberries, one-half pint of raspberries, and one half pint of strawberries with 1/3 cup water, the sugar and zest in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and cook uncovered over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, for 8 to 10 minutes. The juice will become a syrup and the berries will be slightly cooked. Off the heat, stir in the remaining raspberries and the framboise. Set aside.

Beer Battered Halibut with Chips and Tartar Sauce

2009-02-25T21:17:00.003-05:00

Beer Battered Halibut with Chips and Tartar Sauce

I did it, hit one right out of the park so to speak. Let me fill you in. My roommate and I have been mentioning on and off for the past few weeks how we should make a dinner of homemade fish and chips, being both huge fans of the meal. So this afternoon, while getting ready for my daily walk, I decided to take a quick look at my new favourite Food Network Chef, Michael Smiths website for recipe ideas. Lo and behold, right there, a recipe for fish and chips, I was excited. Not only had I found a recipe that had piqued my interest, but I had also found something productive to do with my evening.

I found everything I needed at my local grocery store, minus the Halibut. Though there was some halibut labelled “fresh” on the packaging, it also had a special “for quick sale” label next to it, not worth the risk for fish thank you very much. Off to the local fish market I went, and found that they also were out of “regular’ halibut, and only had the “Wild Atlantic” sort, which was actually a very large piece of fish on ice in the counter, when I say big, I mean 4 feet long big, seriously, that’s a big piece of fish. The wild Atlantic Halibut is a wee bit expensive mind you, so stick with the usual supermarket type if possible, saving the wild stuff for special occasions (at 35$ for 4 smallish parts its costly). Any kind of fish that you want to do will suffice, but I have a hard time imagining myself eating Salmon battered and fried (I am also from PEI, so I have seemingly grown a taste for saltwater fish, and detest freshwater fish in most cases). The important thing here is to get yourself nice, thick de-boned cut as they have less risk of being overcooked. For the Chips I went for a no brainer, Russet potatoes. So, without further ado, here is the recipe as adapted from Michael Smiths original. I hope you like it as much as Tom and I did. What are you waiting for? Seriously, get away from your computer and make this tonight, you wont regret it.

Fish
4 x 8-ounce halibut filets
1 cup all purpose flour
½-cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 x 12-ounce bottle of your favorite beer
Salt and pepper to taste
More flour for dredging

Tartar sauce
½-cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons green hot dog relish
1-tablespoon capers
4 green onions, thinly sliced
Juice of 1/2 lemon

Chips
1 small bag of Russet potatoes, peeled

Heat a deep fryer with vegetable oil to 375 degrees and carefully maintain oil until ready to fry.

Chips

Peel the potatoes, approx 2-3 medium sized potatoes per serving is fine. Cut the potatoes lengthwise into ¼ inch fries, then place into a bowl of cold water and allow to soak for 20 minutes. Drain water and pat dry with a paper towel. Cook in fryer until golden brown. Place in oven at 200 degrees on a baking sheet to keep warm until fish is ready to serve. Salt as desired to taste.

Fish
Whisk together flour, cornstarch, baking powder and salt and pepper. Add beer and stir just until combined. If batter is over mixed, it will be tough.

Dredge halibut in flour then dip in batter. Allow any excess batter to drain away, then slowly, carefully, dip the fish into the hot oil. Fry until golden and crispy and fish is cooked through, approximately 8 to 10 minutes. The oil temperature will drop a bit, 365 degrees is ideal.

Tartar sauce
Whisk together the mayonnaise, relish, capers, green onions and lemon juice. Serve with the fish.

Simple Roast Beef

2009-02-24T18:50:00.003-05:00

So, Christie has hopped onto a train headed to Toronto this morning to spend some time with her much missed family, and that leaves poor me to entertain anyone reading this with my shenanigans. First things first, I would like to come correct about this whole “eating baloney sandwiches” business that Christie noted.. I have not actually eaten a baloney sandwich since I was a little kid in elementary school. Okay so I feel better now. On to it.

Since my surgery two weeks ago, I have not been able to play my weekly games of hockey, which take place Thursday evenings & Saturday afternoons, leaving me sorely missing my weekly testosterone sessions. One thing a few of the guys tend to do every Saturday is to come back to mine and my roommates appt after 2 hours worth of running and immediately order the greasiest food possible, which as you can imagine just ruins the whole exercise in the first place. So this past Saturday I decided to do something a little different since I could not attend, I used the time to cook up a healthy meal for 6, and also give Christie a break for a night.

My roommate had picked up a family sized Roast Beef the evening before, and with his permission, and the loads of veggies Christie brought over that she had kicking around in her fridge I managed to put together a pretty delicious and healthy dinner.

Please note: All of the veggies were fresh, you can choose to remove any, or even add any as you like. It’s always easier to use your standard Veg here, but seasonal veggies are always a good addition.

Simple Roast Beef

1 Family sized Roast Beef (enough for at least 2 slices for each person)
2 cups of Beef Broth
1 whole white onion
3 Cloves of Garlic, chopped
Carrots, peeled and quartered
Brussell sprouts, chopped in half
Whole White Mushrooms
Celery root, chopped into squares
Fresh Rosemary, chopped
Virgin Olive oil
Salt
Pepper

-Preheat Oven to 350 degrees (note, I chose this temperature rather than 450 because a) I had the extra time to let it cook, and b) a lower temperature reduces the shrinking that happens at higher temperatures with roasts, we want this as juicy and tender as possible no?)
-Prepare veggies, then toss in a bowl while pouring Olive oil until lightly covered
-Place roast, fat side down, on a cutting surface and make 3-4 small cuts (approx ¼ inch deep) from side to side along the roast
-Pour 1 cup of the beef broth into a large roasting pan
-Put the Roast, cut side down into the broth, and let it sit in the broth for just a minute, then turn over
-Sprinkle the freshly chopped rosemary along the top of the roast, making sure to put more into the cuts that were made earlier. Add salt & pepper as desired
-Place the prepared veggies around the roast, making sure to create an even layer all around the roast.
-Cover, place in oven.

Now, depending on the size of roast the cooking time(s) will vary, about 35 minutes a pound for medium, so every 45 minutes or so check your roast by opening the lid and adding a little more broth as needed to make sure the veggies don’t burn, for my roast I needed the whole 2 cups. The best way to check if your roast is done is to use a meat thermometer, 150-160 degrees for medium rare, and 160-170 for medium. I am a little lucky as my dear mom taught me to check meats by feel at a young age, and speaking of my mom, she just may help us out by coming by and making her famous Perogies from scratch, so stay tuned!
Once the roast is done, slice a few pieces starting at an end, and place all the veggies together in a serving bowl, voila!