Family Vacation

I haven't updated this blog in a while, I know. That's because I was away for a week visiting family in Southern Ontario. So, I guess I will mention a few food related highlights. Actually my sister complained that it was a week of sitting around and eating. But, I'd say we weren't just sitting there and I don't mind eating.

Over the first few days in Mississauga we enjoyed sausages, kabobs, and a "happy cake" made by my grandma. It was a very Paula Deen style cake using yellow cake mix with canned mandarins mixed in and a Cool Whip, vanilla pudding, and canned pineapple topping. But it really was pretty tasty, moist and smelled like a creamsicle.

Our next stop was in Uxbridge. At lunch we had amazing tarts from a place that I think is called Butter Tarts and More. I had a blueberry one. Dinner included some amazingly sweet corn. Afterwards we went to Kawartha Dairy for ice cream. My dad's cousin was told that she wouldn't be cool if that's the only place she took my sister and I. But, I think ice cream is pretty awesome. A whole bunch of us went and we all got "baby size" ice creams. They were still pretty big to me and a bargain at $1.90 each. There were a ton of flavours and I chose Heavenly Hash. It was quite good with big bits of chocolate covered almond, chocolate ice cream, and marshmallow swirl.

Next we went to Waterloo. The most interesting and best things that I ate there were a peach and tomato salsa for pork that my aunt made and lots of fresh, wild blueberries with vanilla ice cream for dessert and in my cereal for breakfast. They were super tiny and berry tasty.

Later we went to downtown Toronto for an afternoon. For lunch I had a pulled pork sandwich at the Hard Rock Cafe. It might seem lame and touristy, but I think they knew what they were doing with the mountain of pulled pork. It was tender, vinegary, and just so good. There wasn't too much sauce and the meat really shone though. The beans on the side were also very tasty, the fries were crisp, and the coleslaw was okay. It was pretty good value, too at about $11.

Back in Mississauga with another uncle, we ate really well. Dave was a fantastic cook and host. The first night we went to his favourite pub, The Crooked Cue in Port Credit, for dinner. I'd been there before years ago. My dad and I split a Greek Pizza and a Greek Salad. They were both a good size and well prepared. The salad was perfectly dressed, not over dressed. The pizza, my first in months or so it seems, was good with a thin crispy crust and tasty toppings. Dave says that all the food there is generally well prepared.

The next night, my uncle made spaghetti with red sauce and a choice of fixings. Most of us had it with hot Italian sausage, red bell pepper, and zucchini. It was really good. Man do I love pasta.

The following night was a serious feast thanks to this contraption:
This is a smoker from Texas also known as a real "barbecue." My uncle made smoked chicken and sausage with maple and cherry woods. It was amazing as was his vinegary barbecue sauce. The side dishes were pretty good as well with green salad, potato salad, German coleslaw, bread, German mustard, and pickles. It was completely fascinating to watch the smoking process and eat the results. The meat was extremely tender and flavourful after it's low, slow, and smokey cooking. It was a serious privilege to have real Southern barbecue made just for us.

The Biscotti Process

I decided to make biscotti as a special gift for some very special people who I'm visiting starting tomorrow. I actually made them on Monday because biscotti, being dry by nature keep well in an airtight container. Actually, that's why I like them as an edible gift. They don't need to be consumed immediately.

I actually baked biscotti in December as a Christmas gift for friends. I used essentially the same recipe then as I did now, so I had a better idea of what I was doing and they turned out better than before. The recipe is Sarah Moulton's Raisin Almond Biscotti found here, be prepared to spend some time on it. (That's why it's a biscotti process.) I follow it pretty closely except I find that 3 eggs is inadequate to bring the dough together and 1 whole egg is too much eggwash.

Basically, my modifications to the recipe this time include:
-soaking the raisins in the juice of one orange (instead of Cointreau, which I'm sure is lovely, but. . . expensive).
-adding the zest of 1 orange with the eggs and vanilla for even more orange flavour
-using 4 large eggs instead of 3 to bring the dough together
-only using as much eggwash as seems necessary

These are my two just golden, shiny (eggwash!) biscotti logs after their first half hour bake in a 325 F oven:

It's important to shape the logs very square so the ends won't result in undersized cookies. I did a much better job cutting uniform slices this time for more beautiful slices. It's best to cut straight a cross, not on an angle. I think I made that mistake last time.

Slices reveal a pretty yellow tinge from the zest/egg combination:
After baking for 12 minutes on one side and 10 minutes on the other, the dry, golden brown biscotti are a beauty to behold:
To ensure the quality of my gift, I ate a couple of end pieces with a nice cup of Earl Grey tea (sorry coffee makes me sick). They were very crispy but softened nicely in the tea. The flavours of orange, raisin, and toasted almond went well together. Overall, these are great cookies for with hot beverages and relatively healthy with no butter or oil at all.

I actually ate many of the biscotti I made in December myself. A biscotti and a cup of (decaf) tea was a remarkably effective (and pleasurable) relaxation ritual before bed during the exam time.

Mowing Down on the Sunday Chow

From the title you might think that the Sunday chow is some slow-cooked home style feast like pot roast or Sunday gravy. But really it's just some tasty stuff I had today that I want to share with you, my readers. (Do I have readers?)

Anyways, first up is a simple, easy and tasty sandwich that I made myself for lunch.

It's a super-tasty grilled cheese with Havarti, tomato, and basil. I made it by grilling a sandwich of cheese, tomato, and basil and mustard in a pan with a little olive oil. I adore the crunchy bread, gooey cheese and moist tomatoes. It was excellent from start to finish. There are few things as easy and tasty as a good grilled cheese.

I got my dinner at the Cariwest Caribbean Arts Festival in Churchill Square after an appetite-building afternoon of shopping. The festival had lots of Caribbean flavour in the entertainment. I heard steel drums, saw dancers, and heard other festive music as well. But, the main thing on my mind was getting some food 'cause I was hungry. There was a bit of a mish-mash of food on offer from Italian sausage to ginger beef to enchiladas. But, I only had eyes for the Caribbean food because isn't that what the festival is all about.

I lined up at the tent set up by the Sit and Chat Caribbean Restaurant. I wanted to get the oxtail but it was not available (at least for me). So, I went with the choice of the Caribbean guy in front of me in line and went with the colossal curried goat roti for $10. Here it is in its entirety:

I was also a bit thirsty and curious what an authentic Jamaican ginger beer would taste like, so I got one for $3:

First, what's in a roti? What is a roti? I'd say it's like a Caribbean burrito with a flaky wrapper and a filling of curried potato, chickpea, and goat. Here are the insides because you know you wanted to see them:This was a rib sticking tasty concoction. The potatoes and chickpeas offered up their tender starchy goodness and the goat was flavourful and on the bone. I ate it mainly with a fork. I don't see how you could really pick it up without it falling apart. Especially since you have to gnaw meat off the bone, an activity that I increasingly enjoy. The curry flavour was tasty but not overly spicy. Overall, I enjoyed eating my roti while soaking up the sights and sounds of the festival.

The ginger beer was much sweeter than I would have thought with over 40 grams of sugar in 300mL. But I drank it all because of the intriguing strength of the ginger flavour that was sort of in the background. So, those are the highlights of my tasty Sunday chow.

Some Interesting Homecooking

Today I'm going to introduce you to two of my more intriguingly delicious creations and one recipe that I tried, but maybe didn't get quite right. It's interesting nevertheless.

First off, another "fried rice" creation. It's not rice but millet and I've used some cut up deli ham, red bell pepper, summer squash, onion, green onion, and an egg. The sauce is the usual with soy, a little rice wine vinegar, and very little or no sambal oelek. I really liked how the saltiness of the ham worked in this. It was a really tasty lunch and of course the egg really enriched the sauce. Next up is my first attempt at a recipe I was curious to try from Super Natural Cooking by Heidi Swanson. She has a recipe for Baked Purple Hedgehog Potatoes with Yogurt-Mint Dipping Sauce. I prepared a slightly modified 1/4 recipe utilizing 2 small red potatoes (about 8 ounces total) in place of purple potatoes. She states that any type of new potato may be substituted and these were the best I could see, although they didn't look that good. I'd expected to find better potatoes at the store. Basically, I made thin slices part way through the potatoes that you can see here in my photo of the potatoes pre-baking.
Into the slits in the potato I put thin slices of garlic from the garden coated with a mixture of olive oil and sambal oelek. I used the sambal in place of harissa, the Tunisian hot sauce that Swanson recommends. I think the substitution worked. I then sprinkled the potatoes with salt and pepper and baked them covered for 25 minutes and uncovered for about 25 minutes at 375 F.

I prepared my own version of the dipping sauce by combining a half cup of yogurt with a chopped garlic clove, salt, pepper, and a bunch of chopped basil. I used basil because that's what I had although I'm sure mint and cilantro would be good, probably better. The whole recipe seemed good in that garlic-is-good way. I like dipping things in cool, creamy, tangy yogurt and also used the dip for a pork chop and some grilled patty pan squash.

There was a problem, though. The potatoes were crispy and undercooked. Clearly much more than the 45 minutes of total baking time in the recipe is required, at least for 4 ounce potatoes. I might try this recipe again, but I will be way more careful to cook the potatoes enough.

Finally, the Thursday-night thrown together dinner that was unexpectedly really, really delicious. This is my millet and clam superbowl. Umm, yeah. That's the name. I started by sauteing a quarter of an onion, 3 sliced mushrooms, and a couple of pinches of red chili pepper flakes in a little olive oil. I added a minced clove of garlic and some chopped red bell pepper and sauteed a little more. Then I added 2 chopped smallish tomatoes, 2 chopped green onions, and a small can of chopped ocean clams (about 80 grams). Finally I added 1 cup of cooked and cooled millet and a splash of chicken broth. I broke up the chunks of millet and warmed everything through before adding a bunch of torn basil and mixing it with grated Parmesan cheese in the bowl. It was of course seasoned with salt and pepper to taste. And here it is:

It was sooooo tasty. The bell pepper and tomato added irresistible sweetness. That was balanced by a slight spicy kick from the pepper flakes. The clams had an intriguing salty taste of the ocean and pleasingly chewy texture. The basil added fragrance while the Parmesan added complex cheesy flavours and richness. The mushrooms were tasty and meaty as well. Altogether, this was one unexpectedly delicious bowl of light, summery dinner.

Now you have it, three things that I've tried cooking lately.

Heritage (Foods) Festival

On Sunday afternoon, Ryan and I went to the festival that I have the fondest memories of from last summer. The Heritage Festival takes place over the Heritage Day long weekend in Hawrelak Park. It's highlight is the over 40 tents from different ethnic groups serving the foods of their culture.

That's a lot of food, obviously, which is bought with a ticket system. Especially later in the day, there were long lines for both food tickets and much of the food. The array of foods was staggering and we were only able to sample a tiny fraction of what was on offer. Of course there a some foods I'd rather avoid at the festival like Chinese ginger beef or Italian penne with tomato sauce as these either lack authenticity and/or are boring dishes. Their availability makes me wonder a little about the authenticity and quality of some of the food, but it's a seriously fun time.

Here's a rundown of what we ate:

-Ryan got a Kyikyinga spicy marinated beef skewer from the Ghana Site. We didn't deem it photogenic but he seemed to think it was tasty although one bit may have been too tough to chew.

-My first pick of the day was Maatjes Haring, a salted herring and onion sandwich from the Dutch Site. The fish was very salty, tender, and cool in temperature. It went well with the onions, but I opted not to eat the entire hot dog bun it was served on. It did not disappoint and is pretty exotic looking, more so than the Patat Frites (French fries) they were also serving. -Ryan looked forward all year to the Meat Pie from the Turkey Site. From this shot right down the hole it seems to contain ground beef, onions, parsley, and spices in a tortilla. I tried a little last year and it was good. Take a good look right in it's cavity:

-Next we hit up the Korea Site, which was a bit of a mistake at least in my opinion. I'd heard so much about Korean style pancakes, especially the seafood ones. The vegetable pancake I got was not so good though. I ate it, but it seemed like an ordinary pancake with green onion and bean sprouts mixed in. It was served with soy sauce and seemed a touch undercooked in the centre. Overall, this is the one think I kind of wish I didn't get. Ryan got the bean sprout salad, which looks like the one you get at any Korean restaurant with your kimchi. He ate it but didn't say much.
-We then headed to the Caribbean Site, which seemed to be mainly Jamaican. I had been unable to obtain Curried Goat last year because they ran out. So, this is what I'd been waiting for all year:It wasn't quite as I expected, since curries are usually saucy. But it was really good with tender chunks of mildly to moderately spicy curry flavoured goat on the bone. It came with white rice. I enjoyed the goat but found it to lack any distinct or gamy goat flavour. Last year the highlight of the Caribbean Site for me was the Jerk Pork, which I encouraged Ryan to try. This is it:It's better than Jerk Chicken because it's meatier and the chicken has too much skin. (Last year I was actually served a chicken back, which had very little meat.) Last year I found the Jerk Pork insanely spicy, but Ryan didn't comment about intense spicing although he got a snow cone afterwards.

-The Eritrea Site was next and Ryan got the Alicha, which is mixed vegetables with injera. Injera is the distinctive flat bread with kind of a sourdough flavour used as a utensil in Ethiopian and evidently Eritrean cuisine. The bread was okay, but the vegetables were disappointing. It's yellowish so I thought it might be curry flavoured. But, really it's just bland, mild vegetables like carrot and cabbage tasting mainly of cooked cabbage. Ryan got this and we both didn't want to finish it. Perhaps a spicy or meaty dish would have been better.
-I have been curious about green papaya salad for a while now, so we went to the Lao Site so I could get some. I have to admit it wasn't quite as I expected, not that I really knew what to expect. It consisted of slender strips of green papaya, carrot, and tomato in a sauce. The dominant flavour of the sauce was insanely spicy. It started a fire in my mouth, which I did not expect. Despite that I ate the whole bowl 'cause I'm all for the endorphin rush of spicy food pain. I think it was also a bit salty and probably contained fish sauce.
-Ryan wanted a giant mango on at stick or "Mango Loco" so we went to the Guatemala Site and he waited about half an hour for it. I wandered around a bit, while he waited. The mango was sprinkled with lime juice and "spicy" spices, perhaps chili powder. It was very juicy and made a mess. I assume it was pleasantly sweet as well.
-With my last ticket, I elected to grab Bara Brith at the Welsh site because it was one ticket and there wasn't a line up like there was for the Pakistan Site's Jaleeb. The Bara Brith was a buttery cake with dried and candied fruits. It was tasty as all buttery cakes are, although I think if you don't like dried and candied fruits it would be something to avoid. For me, it was a good dessert to end the festival.
Heritage festival also includes cultural performances and souvenir type sales. This year, I got chopsticks at the Hong Kong tent. I'm so glad I have some now. Is it really pathetic that I didn't before?

Magical Salmon, Where Are You?

It's finally that fleeting time of year when wild Pacific salmon is available fresh at the grocery store. It excited me, so I bought a couple of good sized steaks of fresh Sockeye Salmon. And I cooked both the next day. Salmon for lunch and salmon for dinner.

For lunch I improvised a salad topped with noodles and the salmon. The salad was cucumber and mixed lettuce with rice wine vinegar, soy, and sesame dressing. It tasted fine. The rice noodles had some soy sauce and vinegar as well as sauteed garlic and green onion. They tasted okay, but once again clumped together. Clearly, I don't really know how to handle them. But, "noodle cake" is not so bad although I did accidentally dump in a bunch of pepper. I need a new pepper shaker. The salmon was cooked in a skillet after seasoning with salt and pepper. I thought the magic of sockeye salmon would shine through. Here's my salad:
Alas, the salmon was much milder in flavour than I'd anticipated and could have used more. . . added flavour. But, the awesome thing was when I peeled the skin off the cooked steak and late crisped it up in a hot skillet. It was a crispy, fatty, fishy snack of great deliciousness to end the meal. Salmon skin really is a treat.

For dinner I went with a "real recipe" and I followed it pretty closely. Really, I did. And I think it's a winner. The recipe is "Baked Sockeye Salmon with Bell Peppers and Capers" by Marcella Hazan and is available here on Epicurious.

This is how it looked out of the oven and just short of being fully cooked:
I made about 1/4 of the recipe. I roasted and peeled one small red bell pepper, used a few spoonfuls of capers, and put one whole clove of garlic in the olive oiled dish with a salmon steak. I found that the recommended baking time of 16 minutes was woefully inadequate for my thick steak. It actually took closer to 25 minutes (I think), but should you make the recipe you should check on your unique piece of fish. The recipe is actually recommended for a long skin on fillet.

Anyways, let's talk about the flavours. I really think that the sweet, sightly smokey roasted bell pepper and the salty, slightly tart capers gave the salmon the flavour kick it needed. Actually, I really like roasted pepper and caper anyways. I also paired some bites of salmon with a bit of the garlic, which was also good. I don't think I ever would have thought to pair roasted bell pepper with salmon, but it's a great idea and I'm glad I found this recipe. It's a great on for baked salmon.

But, I am a bit sad that I couldn't have grilled salmon like we usually did at home because I don't have a barbecue. One of my favourite meals at home was a whole salmon (usually a wild pink salmon) stuffed with lemons and herbs and grilled wrapped in foil. If you have a barbecue and enough companions to warrant a whole salmon, I recommend trying that.

And finally, an update on a recipe that I posted previously here for some excellent blueberry muffins. I modified the recipe to make blueberry-maple-oatmeal muffins by omitting the lemon zest, reducing the oil to 2 tablespoons, using 1/4 cup packed brown sugar and 1/4 cup maple syrup for the sweetening, and adding a trace more baking soda. The results look pretty good:

They tasted pretty damn good too and had excellent muffin texture. However, I found the maple flavour to be pretty subtle. I don't think I could be sure it was there. Maybe, considering the expense of maple syrup lemon zest is a better flavouring option.

Rice and Not So Rice

I've been meaning to write for a while about one of my favourite quick dinner fixes. It has seriously become a fixture on my menu, so much so that I've stopped photographing its every incarnation. I've been making "fried rice" as I think of it. By no means do I claim that it's "authentic." It's not even always rice. That's a sacrilege if ever there was one. Basically, I've taken to tossing cold, cooked grains in with my stir fries at the end and mixing it with soy sauce, seasoned rice wine vinegar, sambal oelek, and/or oyster sauce. The other ingredients are pretty much what's on hand although onion, garlic, and ginger make and appearance pretty much every time.

I often cook grains the night before. It's important that they be cooked and cooled or it can get. . . soggy, I'd say.

I'm going to describe, to the best of my recollection what's in each photo:
This may be my original not-rice "fried rice." It's pot barley with tofu, green onions, celery, carrot, onion, and Anaheim chili pepper.

This one is millet, which Heidi Swanson recommends for making "fried rice" in her cookbook Super Natural Cooking. I don't pay attention to that recipe though, aside from using millet in this way. It also has chard, onion, parsnip, and some white meat that's either chicken or pork. I really like parsnip for it's unique flavour. I think stir frying it made it taste sweet too. It was good.
This is the first rice "fried rice." It also contains some beautiful summer squash from the garden, onion, and pork I believe. This one was really good because of the rice, which makes for a stickier and more richly carbalicious creation. It reminded me that I really like rice, it might be love.
This is some fried millet that I used as a bed for some salmon marinated in soy sauce. There's chard, summer squash, and onion in the millet. I remember I used to much sambal oelek chili sauce in this one. I could eat it, but it was a bit much with the salmon.
This was an excellent fried rice creation. I used lost of stuff from the garden like green and yellow beans, snow peas, and half of a green chili pepper. There's also onion, garlic, and ginger of course. The pepper was very hot, luckily I tasted it and discovered that after Travis told me it was sweet. Actually, it was super fiery. So, I used half of it and didn't add any chili sauce. Thus, it provided the perfect level of spice. This fried rice was mixed with a raw egg near the end of cooking, which is what we did when Albert and me made fried rice at his parents' house. There's nothing quite like egg as sauce, and don't worry the egg got cooked. If you've never tried mixing an egg with something to enrich the "sauce" try it with noodles or rice or anything. I also quite like eggs in case you can't tell.

And now. . .

One final dish incidentally with rice and eggs. But, I didn't make it. I had my first (hot stone) bowl of bibimbap at Ga Ya Korean Restaurant, which is a tiny restaurant near the university on 87th Avenue. It was a black stone bowl of rice topped with sections of fine strips of carrot, cucumber, ground meat, and a fried egg in the centre. There might have been other veggies I didn't identify. The egg was topped with the loveliest strips of dried seaweed waving in the convection currents off the hot food. It was beautiful and I wished I had a camera. Mixed with copious amounts of gochujang Korean hot sauce, it was a meal quite to my taste as I love a good hot sauce and I may be falling for rice especially sticky Korean rice. I also enjoyed the salty, mild bean sprouts and spicy, pungent kimchi that came with my meal.

The ZenKimchi Korean Food Journal had some good descriptions of bibimbap, if you're curious what it's all about. I guess I had the dolsot bibimbap, although the egg didn't begin raw. That would be cool to me, better than a fried egg with an essentially solid yolk, which is what I got. But, maybe a raw egg on hot food would violate some kind of health rules. I'm intrigued by Korean food. I may go back and try some other dishes. The ones I saw were all appealingly red with hot sauce.

Can I Call This A Frittata?

I decided to try something new for dinner on Monday night, something oven baked with eggs, fritatta like. It would utilize some prime pattypan squash from the garden as well as squash blossoms, new nugget potatoes, basil, and tarragon. This is what I created, ahahaha:Looks pretty good, eh?

I've looked at many frittata recipes and most start cooking the eggs on the stove and transfer to the oven to broil. But, I don't think I have the right skillet for that. So, inspired by the Fava Bean and Mint Frittata in the Chocolate and Zucchini Cookbook, I baked mine in a cake pan. Here's what I did:

I got two frying pans going on the stove (for speed) with a little olive oil in each. In one pan I cooked thin slices of patty pan in a single layer seasoned with salt and pepper until tender and slightly brown flipping them once. I took about three batches to cook the rather large squash I had on hand. I layered the squash slices in the bottom of a greased 8-inch round cake pan. You could also use another type of summer squash like zucchini in place of the patty-pan, which is a bit unusual but very delicious.

In the second frying pan, I pan fried thin slices of nugget potato (about 150g) with salt and pepper until they were lightly browned and tender. I layered these over the squash in the cake pan. I also added about 1/8 of a yellow onion sauteed on top of the potatos and 3 squash blossoms also sauteed for a very short time.

In a bowl, I beat 2 eggs with 2 or 3 tablespoons of milk, some grated Parmesan, coarsely chopped basil and tarragon, salt and pepper. I poured the egg mixture over the veggies in the pan and popped it in the oven for 16 minutes until the egg was set and beginning to brown. I cut it into quarters and ate the whole thing with a nice sliced tomato.

Here's one splendiferous slice: It was good. What's not to like out of eggs, potato, and summer squash. I loooove summer squash. Actually, I quite like winter squash as well. It was my first time eating squash blossoms and they were. . . kind of unremarkable in this form. They looked pretty but the dish would still be tasty without them. I guess they'd be good deep fried, but I don't deep fry at home. The squash itself was silky and slightly sweet while the potatoes provided their satisfying starchy goodness, amped up by the pan frying.

It was quite a special little supper for me and I'll probably make something similar again.