Synthesize My Breakfast

Let's Just List Off Some Good Things, Eh?

2007-10-17T20:51:00.000-06:00

It's been a while since I've posted here. I've actually cooked and eaten a lot. . . but I've been a bit too busy to post. So I'm just going to list off some highlights.

1. The "Gourmet" Dinner for my sister:

I saw some really nice green beans in the store, so I decided to make Clotilde's Salade de Haricorts Verts, Noix De Pecan & Jambon Cru from the Chocolate and Zucchini book. I made about a third of her recipe for the two of us. It was pretty fabulous what with the rich, toasty walnuts and the salty, porky prosciutto I used. I didn't have any cider vinegar, so I subbed red wine vinegar. I think there were no ill effects from this, but sometimes I wonder about my palate. The combination of crisp-tender beans and rich accouterments made for one delicious salad. It's a great way to enjoy green beans.

For the main course, I served Marcella Hazan's Baked Sockeye Salmon with Bell Peppers and Capers, which I talked about previously here. The recipe is on Epicurious here. It's a delicious salmon recipe and worked well with the sockeye fillets I bought. The sides were some fresh, grainy bread and a roasted potimarron squash. The squash was a beauty:

It was actually grown in Edmonton in the Campus Community Garden. The flesh was really creamy and sweet. It was quite fabulous.

2. I'm a muffin making machine:

Well, not really. But, I did make these apple-cinnamon-pecan-oatmeal muffins. I used only whole wheat flour, which might have made them a little drier than usual. It was a variation on my blueberry muffin recipe with a chopped apple and a few tablespoons of toasted pecan in place of blueberries and some cinnamon rather than lemon zest. They were pretty decent.
I also made pumpkin muffins, which came out very moist and delicious, but I didn't take a picture. Imagine muffins that are orange through and through with the sweet taste of pumpkin. I used this recipe from Better Homes and Gardens. I was pretty keen to bake with pumpkin. Actually, I think I've been wanting to since last fall and winter. It seemed the perfect time at Canadian thanksgiving. I followed the recipe aside from substituting wheat flour for the buckwheat and using approximately 50-50 white and whole wheat flours. They were successful and relatively healthful recipe. I recommend trying the recipe for a tasty seasonal breakfast. My can of pumpkin was huge, so I also made a simple pumpkin soup one night and still have some leftover in the freezer, probably for a future batch of those tasty muffins.

3. Random bar cookie making:

Last Thursday, I baked some oatmeal-raisin bars during Grey's Anatomy. They are a tasty, buttery, not too sweet cookie. The recipe was in my Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook and I can't find it on-line. I used whole-wheat flour for the cookies and made a half-batch in an 8-inch round pan. It's say they're good. I think they look good:
Basically, they have a butter, sugar, flour, and oatmeal base a bit like shortbread with raisin filling and more of the oat mixture crumbled on top.

My Fishy, My Whole Fishy

2007-09-29T22:10:00.001-06:00

My blog is a bit behind the times, considering I'm going to talk about my dinner from a whole week ago. But, school takes up a lot of time. Last Saturday, I bought myself a whole rainbow trout for dinner because I like to eat whole animals, so I quite like to cook myself a whole fish. I tried to make one once before, and I think I overcooked it a bit and didn't quite make the most of it. This time, I looked around a bit to find a recipe, not so I could follow it, but so I could get a good cooking time and method. I think I did a pretty decent job, so I'll tell you what I did and show you what a real fish with a head and tail looks like.

I decided to go with a baking method. So, I preheated my oven to 400 degrees F.

I seasoned the inside of the fish with salt and pepper (or actually I should have but I almost forgot until the fish was stuffed so I sprinkled some on then). I stuffed the fish with thin slices of lemon, a handful of chopped flat leaf parsley, one or two chopped green onions and some capers.

Then I put the fish on an oiled baking sheet. Here's the fishy before he went in the oven:
I baked the fish for 20 minutes at 400 F. It came out pretty nicely cooked, at least it wasn't dry and overcooked. The fish flaked nicely and went well with the tartness of lemon juice I squeezed on it. The sea-like briny capers really complement fish, although I guess this is a freshwater fish (maybe it's not right for it to be briny). There were some presentation problems, though. I guess I didn't use enough oil on the pan because the fish skin stuck a little, not that that's a huge problem when I'm serving myself. But, it could be embarrassing when serving guests. If you want to be sure your fish won't stick, oil generously.

The cooked fish found his way to my plate and looked different and more eatable than the raw fish:
I had a great time tearing the fish apart getting out the good edible parts while removing the head, tail, bones, and skin. I really like the way fish flakes. I think it makes it more fun to eat than meat, sometimes. Is that a weird thing to say? Does anyone else think eating fish is fun?

Trying New Things: Chayote

2007-09-23T21:26:00.000-06:00

I like new foods. I pretty much want to try anything, especially fruits and vegetables, because that's totally guilt free. It's not like trying say, Southern fried chicken. I honestly can't remember ever having eaten that. But, I have eaten chayote. I found it sitting amongst the ordinary produce at Safeway and could not resist. It was pretty inexpensive, too. I'm reluctant to spend a lot of money when I don't know something will be good. Here's what it looked like before I got to cooking it:
It was light green, firm, and pear shaped.

I wasn't really sure what chayote was like or how to cook it. But, that's what the Internet is for. I found this promising recipe on Epicurious. By a twist of fate, I had all the ingredients on hand. It's not that surprising though, since you only need chayote, garlic, parsley, green onions, and of course salt and pepper for seasoning. Basically, it's a quick saute to yield crisp tender results. I included the pit and skin because I read that both were edible and I'm all for eating the whole thing.

It looks pretty good, don't it?

The flavour and texture were superb. There was a nice crispness to the texture, almost like a perfect apple. The flavour of the chayote was sweet and accented perfectly by the sweetness and richness of the butter. It was plenty buttery and I used less than the recipe recommends. So, you can cut back a little. . . or you know go nuts. The garlic added a nice, garlicky flavour, that complemented the sweet chayote. It should not be skipped. The green onions and parsley seemed more like garnishes, which I suppose they were. But, they look and taste good.

Trying new things is fun and rewarding, especially when you take a chance on something as tasty as chayote. According to Wikipedia, it's a member of the gourd family and is an important part of the Mexican diet. But, Wikipedia claims the flesh is "mild." I'd say it has a pleasant subtle sweetness. Moral of the story, if you see chayote looking all nice in a store or market, but it and try it. You won't be disappointed.

Squid: Prepping and Cooking Sea Monsters

2007-09-22T21:58:00.000-06:00

That's right, squid. It's an ingredient Albert, a Korean, was concerned my Italian family would not be able to stomach. But, we like it and have ordered plenty of calamari appetizers. You know what we don't do? Cook it at home. But you know who did?

That's right me. And the squid I cooked didn't come cleaned and prepared. To make my squid salad, I had to clean and cut the squid. Why did I buy squid? Because I like it, because it was cheap (less than 2 dollars), and because I was inspired that I could do it based on an episode of Alton Brown's show Good Eats on squid of course.

Prepping squid is not for the faint of heart. I could see how the whole process might dampen a weaker, more squeamish appetite than my own. But, I was not deterred. Here's how to prep squid:

First you have to pull the tentacles from the tubes. Next, you can chop the tentacles from the body and maybe cut them in half. I like to eat tentacles, mmm, tentacles. Then, you prep the tube by fishing out all the guts with your clean fingers. Yes, they're slimy. Make sure to remove the quill, which is cartilage I think. It should slide out. Finally, you need to skin the squid tube by peeling it with your fingers. You may need to slit the skin with a knife. Pulling off the fins on the side is optional. The squid can then be cut into rings or strips with a sharp knife.

But cutting the squid isn't half as important as cooking them. Squid will become rubbery unless they are cooked either very quickly or for a very long time. I went with fast cooking, partly because I couldn't find any slow recipes.

I boiled the squid for my salad for about 1 minute then drained them and put them in an ice bath. This stopped the cooking process rendering my squid very tender. They tasted of the sea and complemented a salad of greens, tomato, red bell pepper, green onion, and homemade croutons perfectly. I dressed it simply in red wine vinegar and olive oil. I was pretty impressed with myself for cooking squid. Here you can see a little of my salad:

The following day, I cooked the remainder of the squid by seasoning it with soy sauce and stir frying it for about a minute. It wasn't quite as tender as the day before, but it wasn't bad either.

If you're a squid lover and not squeamish, try cooking squid. It's an adventure in every package. Besides, the sea is full of them, so it's a sustainable choice.

Little Italy, A Little Risotto, and My Little Sister

2007-09-16T22:23:00.000-06:00

Wednesday afternoon was a really enjoyable, really foodie time. Once classes were over, my little sister and I met up to shop for and cook dinner. I've been meaning to check out the Italian Centre Shop in Little Italy for quite some time. I'd heard it was awesome with so much Italian food and excellent prices. It was a bit of a journey from the University on the LRT and a really old-school electric bus. We thought it was like a journey back in time what with the old bus and the state of the Little Italy neighbourhood, which is maybe a touch run down. The store was absolutely awesome, though.

There was a lot of food you don't see elsewhere like goat stewing meat. There was a ton of dried pasta in every imaginable shape, a pretty much exhaustive selection of Italian cheeses and cured meats, and an olive counter. I found treasures like cheap figs and fennel bulbs in the produce department. There were also piles of Italian cookies and chocolates including single Bacci chocolates available at the checkout counters.

My sister and I bought ingredients for a recipe by Giada Di Laurentiis for Dirty Risotto, that features pancetta, hot Italian sausage, mushrooms, red bell pepper, onion, and Italian flat leaf parsley. For the two of us, we prepared essentially half the recipe with a few alterations. We used less than a tablespoon of butter and one approximately 4 ounce link of the Italian Centre's fresh hot sausage. We skipped the white wine due to the expense and the fact we wouldn't drink the rest but added a chopped clove of garlic with the vegetables. We also didn't add any salt. . . but that's a matter of taste. Leslie was a fantastic sous-chef and the dish came together beautifully. She even cut all the mushrooms really, really carefully into slices.

Here's our masterpiece:
The pork products added a ton of flavour to the risotto, which was also wonderfully creamy and starchy. Both my sister and I like starch so we really enjoyed this. The bits of sausage were very tasty, clearly the Italian Centre knows what they're doing making it. I think it was comparable to what I tasted in Southern Ontario. Freshly grated Parmesan also added delicious flavour.

I think this was my sister's first risotto and she liked it. As a side dish we had a plate of heirloom tomatoes with pepper and basil. It was an excellent choice to cut some of the starchy richness of the risotto. All in all, it was a really successful shopping trip and supper with my sister.

Harvest Time And A Bonus Recipe!!!

2007-09-12T21:08:00.000-06:00

I'm back in Edmonton, now, and I'm finally starting to accept summer's end and the coming of fall and winter in the far, far North. This may not be Iqaluit but it's as far North as I ever go. My return to Edmonton brought a return to gardening in the Campus Community Garden, which is of course coming rapidly to an end for the season. (There's a frost warning tonight that should spell the end.) Perhaps because I know it's about to end, I've really been enjoying the last of the garden's bounty. In the last week or so, I've enjoyed cucumbers, summer squash, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, Swiss chard, and herbs from the garden. I've also participated in a massive planting that will turn into a virtual garlic farm next summer.

The summer squash and cucumbers are gone now and I will miss those sweet, fresh veggies. I don't know why, but I really like summer squash.

Swiss chard was something I tried for the first time from the garden last summer. I really enjoy the unique flavour and the virtuous knowledge that I'm eating dark, leafy greens. Last Saturday, a large crop of chard remained to be picked on the garden's farm plot. I couldn't bear to leave it there, so I took a couple of big bags home, mostly for freezing as fellow gardeners suggested. I'm not sure how that worked out, but I blanched and froze 4 good-sized packets of chard that I plan to make veggie lasagna and soup with. I also enjoyed some of the chard fresh, sauteed into a veggie mixture to top my favourite smoked chicken tortelloni from Safeway. It actually looks pretty good:

It was good, as I really like my stuffed pastas. The green flavour of the chard went well with the acidity and sweetness of garden fresh tomato and the freshness basil (from the garden of course), onion, and garlic.

Alas, we've torn up all the basil and tomatoes in an effort to avoid losing it to frost. I took a number of green tomatoes home when we ripped out the tomatoes on Saturday that looked like this:

Despite my best efforts to ripen them in my apartment, which is rather lacking in sunlight, only some of these tomatoes have ripened. The ones that have ripened have displayed the dramatic variety of what a tomato can be. With the focus on heirloom varieties in our tomato patch, I've gotten to try some rather unique specimens. The ripe colours range from reddish brown to "tomato" red to yellow. I suppose my taste buds are poorly developed because they all taste like good, sweet, slightly acidic tomatoes to me. Maybe yellow is a little more acidic than red, but I couldn't be sure. The shapes of the tomatoes range from round cherries to long "sausage" tomatoes. Even the tomato skin texture varies with one variety having not the usually smooth skin but peach-like slightly fuzzy skin.

I wanted to share my modest bounty of heirloom tomatoes with my sister, so when we cooked together today, I had her prepare this plate of tomato slices with basil and black pepper as a "salad." She was surprised that all the fruits I gave her to slice were tomatoes and even slightly afraid of the brownish one that I think she found tastiest. Here's a picture of her tomato arranging handy-work:

I think it looks awesome, Leslie has lots of patience for making things look good. I am so thankful for the opportunity to explore heirloom and unusual varieties and just vegetables I wasn't raised eating through the garden. I've met some interesting people and some real food people there too.

Even the carrots at the garden were unusual since we grew some red carrots. I cut into one fat red carrot and was surprised to find its yellow flesh:

The red carrot joined fingerling potatoes from the garden, garlic, mushrooms, and parsnip in a roasted root vegetable side to steak. It was very tasty, so I'm going to share my method.

Root Vegetable Roast

Ingredients

1 large button mushroom cut in quarters

1 medium carrot cut in large chunks

1 small parsnip cut in large chunks

4 fingerling potatoes, larger ones halved (or chunks of ordinary potatoes)

1 large garlic clove, cut in half

a few sprigs of fresh thyme, some with leaves removed, some whole

salt

black pepper

olive oil

Method

Toss the vegetables and garlic with some olive oil and thyme in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Put in an oven safe dish. Here's mine:

Roast uncovered for 50-60 minutes at 400 F, stirring once, until tender. It will serve one with a small steak and look like this:

Obviously, you could make more if you are lucky enough to have an eating companion.

It's delicious because the oven caramelizes the outsides of the vegetables while on the inside the carrots remain crisp while the potatoes get soft, creamy, and starchy inside. Those fingerling potatoes were delicious, too bad I have none left. And the garlic, oooh that soft, mild roasted garlic. It is so good.

Winter is coming, so appreciate the harvest while you can. Although you might have a lot more time than I do in the frigid North.

Cookie Monster's Cookie Variations

2007-09-10T21:01:00.000-06:00

I suppose there isn't much of a new story to this, since I've talked about this basic recipe before. Then again I did make some changes and take some pretty pictures, so I suppose it warrants a new post. For the food porn alone:There's nothing quite like looking at a tin of freshly baked cookies. These are oatmeal cookies, clearly and are based on Nick Malgieri's recipe that David Lebovitz blogged about. I've also blogged about them here. Anyways, like I said I made a couple of changes when I baked up the cookies for Robyn's barbecue.

I found my initial batch too sweet so this time I used 1/4 cup of granulated sugar instead of 1/2 cup. They still seemed sweet enough to me. I also used 1/2 cup whole wheat flour and 1/2 cup white all-purpose flour in place of 1 cup of white flour. I really don't think I could tell the difference with this, but I guess it made them even healthier. I also added a bunch of zest from an organic orange to the batter in the wet ingredients. This added a intriguing dimension to the cookies with orange flavour and fragrance that I really think goes well with raisins and oatmeal. It had my friends wondering just what that intriguing flavour element was. I baked the cookies for 9 minutes on an ungreased, non-stick cookie sheet and got a yield of 30 cookies.

The cookies were pretty popular and all the ones I brought to the barbecue got eaten. But, I saved a few for myself and for my sister, the zest-aholic to try. They're frozen now. I actually really enjoyed eating the previous batch straight out of the freezer. Is that weird? Nothing like a frozen cookie on a hot day, not that there are any of those left. (Hot days, not cookies.)

Here's a bonus close-up of one of these scrumptious soft, slightly chewy cookies:

Visits To Some E-Town Favourites

2007-09-09T11:34:00.000-06:00

While my parents were up in Edmonton recently moving my sister back to residence, we partook in 3 meals at some of my go-to Edmonton restaurants.

First, we went to Dadeo on a Sunday night. My dad had the Combo Dadeo of meat jambalaya, barbecue beans, and blackened chicken that he enjoyed last time. He nearly finished it, which is quite impressive. My mom and sister went with po'boy sandwiches and sweet potato fries. I partook in some of the fries, which were as good as ever. They seemed to enjoy the sandwiches they chose: blackened catfish for mom and Andouille sausage for my sister. I have yet to try either but I think I'll have the catfish on my next visit, with fries of course. I had the shrimps creole. It will satisfy any shrimp craving with a generous blend of larger and smaller shrimp on rice in a sweet and slightly spicy tomato-based sauce. I enjoyed it, being in a shrimpy mood. It's definitely better than the seafood jambalaya.

The next day, I took my parents to Chinatown for lunch at Pagolac, my go-to Vietnamese restaurant in Edmonton. It was as good or better than I remembered and quite busy on the holiday Monday. We started with the Vietnamese spring rolls. They were meaty and tasty in that lovely fried way and served with the usual sweet and sour Vietnamese sauce and sambal oelek chili paste. I ordered the special beef pho with all those lovely bits of cow again. It was really good again. But other things look so good I might have to order something else next time. My parents had noodle soups with sate sauce and beef. They really liked them and our visit to Chinatown. We left absolutely stuffed with delicious food for quite little money.

For dinner that night, we went to the Sugarbowl near 109th Street. I hadn't eaten lunch or dinner there in a while. I wanted to try the bison chili that some of my classmates had when we were celebrating after a lab exam. It looked good. It still does look good. Unfortunately, it was bland with a level of spice well below what I expect from anything called chili. My mom's bowl of chicken curry suffered from the same problem. The pita bread on the side was pretty good, though. The chili also wasn't quite hot enough temperature-wise. The one entree that didn't disappoint was my dad's lamb burger with Gouda cheese. He really liked it, I think. I know I liked it when I had it.

There was redemption for the disappointing chili, though. It came in the form of a very, very stupendous dessert. It was the Sugarbowl souffle made with Callebaut chocolate. It takes 15-20 minutes to be made but is, unsurprisingly worth every moment of waiting. The souffle is very rich in deep, dark chocolate flavour while being fairly light in texture. It was very warm on arrival and I nearly burned my mouth. The texture ranges from a little crusty (in a good way) on the outside to oozing with molten chocolate goodness on the inside. Everyone tried a bit, while I finished it off and all were impressed. It is perhaps the best thing at the Sugarbowl and one of the best desserts ever.

Tapas in M.H.? Seriously Twist-ed

2007-09-09T10:48:00.000-06:00

My parents took my sister and I to a new restaurant in Medicine Hat. It was a new Spanish Tapas place downtown called Twist. The space used to be my beloved Vietnamese Submarine*, but is now virtually unrecognizable with its classy makeover. We sat at a tall table for four with a banquette on one side and tall chairs on the other. We ordered a number of tapas dishes including mushrooms with sherry, rosemary-yogurt flatbread, lamb meatballs, patatas bravas, a special salad, and two orders of chorizo sausages. It was too much sausage, but that didn't stop us from sharing a Spanish orange cake for dessert.

The meal began with a small dish of various delicious olives and bread. The olives were very good and my dad is now very into olives. The bread was okay, but pretty ordinary white baguette. It continued to come with pretty much every dish including the potatoes, talk about starch on starch.

The meat balls, mushrooms, and flatbread arrived first. The meatballs were deliciously moist lamby tasting and came with a garlicky dip. The mushrooms had a delicious taste of sherry and were also very enjoyable. The flatbread was warm and beautifully charred in places with flecks of rosemary. It was really good, much better than the complementary baguette and worth the extra couple dollars in my mind.

Next we got the patatas bravas and the salad. The patatas were well browned with a golden crust and soft, starchy innards. Served with the same garlic dip as the meatballs, they were close to potato heaven. I really wanted to order the potatoes, because I think they are one of the tapas I liked in Barcelona about seven years ago. The salad included greens, creamy morsels of blue cheese, sliced pear, and large pieces of pecan. It was nicely dressed and perfect for the pungent blue cheese lover in me.

Finally, we got our two dishes of chorizo at a time when we really only needed one dish. They were garlicky and rich with oils, really tasty in general although the meatballs may have been my favourite meat dish.

By this time we were fairly full but debating getting a slice of their rich, flourless chocolate cake to share. My family had tried it on a previous visit. But, when we inquired after a slice, we were told it was unavailable. However, we easily agreed to try the Spanish orange cake. Personally, I'm glad we did because it was a unique cake in my cake eating experience and quite enjoyable. My sister, newly in love with citrus zest flavours did too. The cake was richly orange flavoured, moist and not too heavy, unlike what I heard about the chocolate cake. The neat thing about it was its granular texture, which I hypothesize is due to the use of either cornmeal or semolina. Either way its was excellent and we devoured it along with the smooth, creamy counterpoint of vanilla ice cream. I think it's worth saving room for dessert at Twist.

Twist seems like an excellent addition to downtown Medicine Hat, which was really wanting for restaurants until a few recent openings. It's certainly unlike what's available elsewhere in town. You'll probably meet the friendly owners if you go.

*If anyone can point me in the direction of a good banh mi (Vietnamese sandwich) in Edmonton, I would be super happy with you.

Dad Isn't Afraid of Yeast: Making Pizza

2007-09-05T21:15:00.000-06:00

In my last post I conquered my fear of separating eggs and whipping egg whites. I still haven't started making food requiring yeast. My dad on the other hand uses yeast enough to have a brand preference so strong that he'll make a separate visit to a different supermarket just to get some of the right brand. But hey, that's okay with me if buying yeast means he will make one of my favourite foods. . . PIZZA!!!!

I think I request pizza pretty much every time I'm at home now, but really who doesn't want pizza? He made extremely loaded pizza for Christmas Eve. That was pretty traditional pizza with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese. But this time, he was up for an experiment in the form of an attempt to recreate a Murrieta's flatbread he had once in Canmore at home. Needless to say he was impressed by the restaurant's creation. I believe it must have been the "Chorizo" with sun dried tomatoes, roasted mushrooms, black olives, and goat cheese. Incidentally, he must have forgotten about the mushrooms since he didn't suggest including any. But, what do you expect from a guy who persists in calling chorizo "chorozo"? Anyways, mushrooms or none, my dad makes a mean pizza and the experiment was a success.

I was semi-involved in the process so I'll tell you more or less how it went down:

My dad prepared a sauce of fresh Roma tomatoes, garlic, salt and pepper. He put it in the fridge until we were ready for the pizza making. He also cooked up some Spolumbo's chorizo sausages and sliced them and let them brown nicely. I think these were also chilled until the main event.

Next, came the magic I know not as he made a whole wheat pizza dough crust. This was actually the first time I had his pizza in it's new whole wheat form and it was a winner with more flavour than a white crust. I also know that the crust utilized the fine buckwheat honey we bought at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto in place of sugar. The honey flavour was too subtle for me to notice despite using the "Guinness of honeys," buckwheat honey.

The oven was preheated to 450 F with a ceramic pizza stone inside while the pizzas were prepared. The tomato sauce was spread over the dough, which was shaped by hand. Next the topping were arranged on top including sausage slices, strips of sun dried tomato, and pieces of kalamata olive. Finally, large crumbles of soft goat cheese were added. We to reconstitute the sun dried tomatoes in boiling water for 2 minutes and pit the olives. To pit the olives my dad smashed them with the side of a knife like you would with garlic. It really makes the pits easier to remove.

This is the pizza before baking on a sheet metal pizza paddle with cornmeal for easy transfer to the stone in the oven:
And this is the delectable pizza after baking. . . a little longer than my dad wanted to 'cause I like a crisp crust:
It was really good and different from the usual pizza. There was much less cheese but the cheese that was on the pizza was creamy, tangy, perfect goat cheese. The crust was crisp and tasty with it's light smearing of fresh tomato sauce. The toppings: olives, sun dried tomatoes, and chorizo were all very flavourful. Needless to say, I did my part in eating the pizza. My dad was disappointed with the minimal leftovers with me home and eating pizza.

For the record, my mom also makes great food. I couldn't get enough of her Caesar salad the night before we returned to Edmonton.

Macaroons

2007-09-04T19:43:00.000-06:00

My general approach to picking recipes for baking had long included avoiding anything that would require me to separate egg whites from yolks and especially anything calling for the magic of whipped egg whites or yeast for that matter. At school, I don't have an electric mixer so I avoid any recipe requiring whipping. But, at home with an electric mixer at the ready, I got gutsy. . . sort of. . . and it was time to conquer my fear of separating eggs.

I did so with a recipe from this very '80s cookbook:Many of my parents' cookbooks are "classic" like this. I decided to make the "french coconut macaroons." I prepared half the recipe due to a limited supply of coconut.

Here's how it went down:

I separated two eggs with my (clean) hands. (The yolks were remarkably reluctant to burst.)

I whipped the egg whites with a hand held electric mixer until (miraculously) stiff peaks formed. (I think they were stiff peaks, they didn't fall when I moved the beater. The whites whipped really easily, kind of like when I discovered that it's easy to whip whipping cream. That's why it's whipping cream, I guess.)

I added a half teaspoon of (my parents' artificial) vanilla extract. I beat it some more. I added 1/2 cup of icing sugar in several additions, beating well in between. I beat the whites some more until they were stiff and glossy.

I folded in a quarter cup of (whole-wheat) flour and a cup of coconut flakes.

I dropped 14 cookies onto a greased and floured cookie sheet and popped them in a 325 F oven. The recipe said to leave them 25 minutes or until lightly browned. Mine were brown after about 15 minutes and looked like this after I let them cool a little and lifted them off the sheet with a spatula.

These disappeared rather quickly as my family enjoyed their light, soft texture and coconutty flavour. I think they were pretty successful and the perfect way to conquer my fear of separating eggs. I still don't know if I could whip the whites by hand though. . . perhaps I will find out.

Family Vacation

2007-08-29T22:01:00.000-06:00

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

2007-08-17T22:46:00.000-06:00

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

2007-08-12T18:53:00.000-06:00

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

2007-08-11T20:19:00.000-06:00

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

2007-08-07T21:54:00.000-06:00

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?

2007-08-06T21:03:00.000-06:00

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

2007-08-03T21:44:00.000-06:00

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?

2007-08-02T21:49:00.000-06:00

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.

My Zucchini Carpaccio

2007-07-31T21:58:00.000-06:00

Before I get to the carpaccio utilizing zucchini from the garden, I bring you a freak from the garden. A Siamese-twin type green bean. I found this one and somebody else found another. Take a gander: Now, the carpaccio:
I was inspired by the recipe for Zucchini Carpaccio with Raspberry Vinegar in the Chocolate and Zucchini Cookbook by Clotilde Dusoulier. But, I think I strayed far enough with the basic concept to call it my own. To her, I owe the idea of arranging thin slices of zucchini, sprinkling them with an herb, salt, pepper, olive oil, vinegar and cheese.

The addition of sliced tomato was entirely my own. While her recipe calls for thyme and I could have gotten some, I was using tomato so why not put basil on it. I think it worked. Tomato, basil, and zucchini are all summertime flavours. They should work together and to my mind they did.

The original recipe calls for raspberry vinegar, but I wasn't about to buy some (and it really wouldn't go so well with tomato). So, I subbed in some red wine vinegar and it tasted good to me. The Amateur Gourmet made the recipe truer to Clotilde's vision with balsamic vinegar and liked it, actually she recommends balsamic as a variation in the book. (Looking at his photo, I'd say my knife skills were better than his. Those are some thick slices. Too bad I'm not such a good writer.)

As for the cheese I sprinkled on top, it's Parmesan, nice and Italian to go with tomatoes and basil. Clotilde recommends the use of Parmesan in variations on this dish. So, I guess I didn't stray too far. Basically, you layer up the ingredients, put on the oil and vinegar dressing, and sprinkle some salt and pepper. Then, you cover it with plastic and let it stand at room temperature for 10 minutes. This is what you get:

What you're probably wondering about is how it is to eat raw zucchini. It's important to use fairly small and very fresh zucchini, mine was cut that day. It's crispy and slightly sweet, really enjoyable and totally different from cooked. I love the idea of eating things in an unconventional state, like raw zucchini or perhaps conversely cooked cucumber.

So, if you're confronted with a glut of zucchini right now as many gardeners are, consider cutting some young and tender ones and experiencing them raw. As a bonus, you don't have to turn on the stove on a hot day to make this. I made it on a very hot day and appreciated the dish's coolness.

Weekend With the Sister

2007-07-29T20:48:00.000-06:00

Fully one week ago I played host to my sister for a weekend. It was lots of fun and we ate some good stuff, so I'm going to tell you about it.

On Friday night my sister and I had dinner at Dadeo and commenced a drinking tour de Hudson's. I wasn't blown away by my seafood jambalaya at dinner. I guess it was just too much rice and not enough other stuff or. . . intense flavour. Leslie really enjoyed the pulled pork po'boy and sweet potato fries, but I had that the week before.

At first we thought we might drink at Julio's Barrio 'cause Leslie was interested in margaritas. . . of the fishbowl variety. But there would have been a wait. So we headed to the Hudsons Canadian Taphouse on Whyte. I had a pint of Rickard's White. It was a bit fruitier and less bitter than I usually have my beer. It was also strangely opaque. I think it seemed summery. It didn't come with an orange wedge like the server said it would though. Later at another Hudsons location, I had a pint of Big Rock Grasshopper. I came with a lemon wedge and tasted more like I'm used to my beer tasting. A little more bitter and less sweet but still light for summer. Anyways. . . two pints was a lot for me.

The next day the main food action was the Taste of Edmonton Festival. My sister and I met up with my friends Ryan and Joel for an afternoon of eating from the tents set up in Churchill Square. Leslie and I split a sheet of 30 food tickets for $30, although I used more of them than she did. Here's a rundown of what I remember eating myself or other people eating:

-Fairmont Hotel Macdonald's Mac Scones w/Saskatoon Berry Compote (4 tickets): My sister got this for dessert, but it was huge and we all dug in. The scone was soft and buttery with a load of whipped cream and tasty saskatoon berry sauce. It was an excellent selection.

-Firestone's Butter Chicken w/ rice (5 tickets): My sister had this but I got a taste. It tasted good with tender chicken in a rich, spiced Indian sauce. She freaked out at the richness of this although she loved every bit.

-Firestone's Fresh Fruit Kabobs w/Chocolate Dip (3 tickets): I was full and looking to use up 3 remaining tickets on a light dessert. The fruit wasn't very good, mainly cantaloupe that hardly goes with chocolate and on token strawberry. The chocolate sauce had a sort of grainy texture and my sister said she tasted wine and did not like it. I should have gotten something else.

-Hoang Long Restaurant's Beef Lemongrass Skewer (4 tickets): Ryan and I got these skewers fresh and hot off the grill. They were hot, juicy and had a tasty, spicy marinade. They were not to be missed and possibly the best thing I ate.

-Hong Kong Bakery's Green Onion Cakes Chocolate Passion Fantasy: I didn't try either of these, but I think Ryan put raspberry sauce on Joel's green onion cake. The sauce was for the chocolate dessert. It was kind of funny. I don't like green onion cakes myself, they're too greasy.

-Hudson’s Canadian Taphouse's Alberta Beef Mini Cheddar Burger (3 tickets): I had to try this after observing a delicious looking but enormous burger at Hudsons the night before. The burger was good with crisp lettuce, ripe tomato, real cheddar cheese, and a tasty beef patty. The cheese however was completely unmelted, which I guess is okay. The bun was cold but tasty. Perhaps there was a touch too much bun, though. Overall it was good and satisfied my (mini)-burger craving.

-Korean Village's Vegetable Tempura: Ryan seemed to enjoy it.

-Old Spaghetti Factory's Cajun Chicken Alfredo: I think Ryan and Joel found this boring and perhaps bland.

-That's Aroma's Garlic Chicken Satay: Ryan and Joel had this. I think the sauce was garlic and peanut flavoured. It looked like lots of sauce.

-That's Aroma 's Garlic Tomato Salad (3 tickets): This was like very garlicky bruschetta tomato mixture on iceberg lettuce. There was so much garlic, which tastes so good. Plus, it was well suited to the heat of the day.

-The Creperie's Beef Tenderloin w/ Peppercorn Chocolate Sauce (5 tickets): I quite liked this although the filling for the crepe could have been warmer. The sauce contained pink peppercorns, which had a milder and delicious pepper flavour. It was quite good although Ryan couldn't get past the idea there was chocolate in it. I found the chocolate virtually undetectable, though. It was like a good pepper sauce.

The Taste of Edmonton Festival was and interesting and tasty afternoon. It's a little hit or miss and not ideal conditions for serving food, but it's fun. Next weekend I look forward to the food tents of Heritage Festival in Hawrelack Park.

On Sunday morning, I made french toast served with real maple syrup and blueberries, which we all enjoyed. Around noon we went to Leva for gelato. I had a tasty Chocolate Banana Nut single. It mainly tasted of chocolate and nut, though. The banana didn't cut though, but it was really good. Leslie raved about her peanut butter cookie gelato and her boyfriend enjoyed an unusual double of mint gelato and pina colada sorbet. He seemed to like the combo, though.

My sister and I had an excellent lunch on Sunday at Flavours Modern Bistro on Whyte Ave. The lunch menu is quite reasonably priced with salads, sandwiches, and other dishes from $8-14. The setting was classy and we got a two-top with comfy high backed chairs. We each ordered a sandwich and traded halves. I got the smoked salmon bagel while she ordered the smoked turkey baguette.

We both got the creamy tomato and herb soup for a side. It was heavenly and super-tasty. There was lots of tomato flavour. I hadn't had soup in a while and this was a very good, obviously house-made one.

The smoked salmon bagel was a multi-grain bagel with cream cheese, baby greens, smoked salmon, raw onions, and enormous capers. I had never seen capers so big before and enjoyed them. I was impressed with the generous serving of smoked salmon, but Leslie thought it was too much. That's crazy though, right? The smoked turkey baguette had tomato, tasty roasted bell pepper, and a generous pile of tasty turkey on a good baguette bread. Flavours Modern Bistro provided a delicious lunch for two for about $20 before tip. The food quality and surroundings were excellent. I know I'll be back.

"Best Muffins Ever"

2007-07-25T20:52:00.000-06:00

I made blueberry muffins last Thursday because:
a) It's blueberry season, a magical yearly event. and
b) my sister and her boyfriend were coming to visit and I knew they would appreciate muffins/ I would not be forced to eat a dozen myself.

I can't remember ever having made muffins with fresh blueberries, perhaps because peak season for them is usually the hottest part of the summer. Actually, it was hot last Thursday but I pressed on with making muffins anyways. Little did I know how good they would be. My sister declared them the best muffin she's ever had. I find that hard to believe but make no mistake, they were very, very good. The texture was quite soft and there was a hint of acidity from lemon zest and yogurt that's hard to describe. Of course the fresh blueberries were awesome. I think the oatmeal adds a little extra complexity to the flavour as well. I can't really describe it that well. But, they were delicious.

Here they are right out of the oven:
And here's a field of perfect, delicious muffins:
Now that the food porn is out of the way, I'll get to the recipe. I followed the BHG recipe for Oatmeal-Blueberry Muffins but made some key changes, so I'll write it out my way.

Blueberry-Oatmeal Muffins

Ingredients
1.5 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup rolled oats
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/4-1/3 cup milk
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons cooking oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
zest of 1 lemon
1 cup fresh blueberries (or frozen if you must)

Instructions
1. Grease twelve regular 2.5 inch muffin cups.

2. Stir flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Form a well in the centre of it.

3. In another bowl mix egg, yogurt, milk, brown sugar, oil, vanilla, and lemon zest. Add all the wet ingredients (ie: egg) to the dry (ie: flour) and stir until moistened, just. Do not over mix!!!! Fold in the blueberries. Fill the muffin cups 3/4 full.

4. Bake at 400 degrees F for 16-18 minutes. (I think mine took 15.) They're done when a tester comes out dry/ they're golden brown. Cool them a bit then remove from the cups. Eat.

If you study the recipe you'll notice the yogurt and lemon zest are my additions. Plus, I cut the oil slightly and added some extra blueberries. Seriously try making these this blueberry season. I heart blueberries.

And More Eating. . . Same Weekend

2007-07-18T21:04:00.001-06:00

On Saturday night we had dinner at Wild Tangerine Cucina Domestica, which is kind of an Asian fusion restaurant that I wanted to try for a while. We couldn't make a reservation because they wanted to keep tables for walk-ins. So, we decided to try our luck and walk in. We found that it was no problem to be seated around 6:30. They weren't very busy. I think there were only a couple of tables occupied although it is quite a small restaurant.

I was immediately impressed with the modern, slightly funky, slightly Asian decor. But don't ask me to recall details. One thing that was immediately nice on such a hot day was that they leave coloured glass bottles of water on the table. It's very convenient for thirsty people, like me.

Before going, I had of course examined the on-line menu. I must note that it's not current as to prices. Anyways, I was intrigued by the "Grilled Five-Spice Octopus Salad with Spicy Tangerine Vinaigrette." So, that is what I had to start. My mother also ordered it. It was really good. The octopus was very tender unlike any other I'd ever eaten. It was more like pulled pork than say tako from a Japanese restaurant. The flavour of the octopus just said "Chinese food," which I guess is what you get from five spice. It reminded me a bit of the Chinese barbecue I had in Calgary. Besides the pieces of octopus, the salad also had some crispy pieces or fried. . . root vegetable. . . I think for a tantalizing contrast in texture. The salad component was julienned bell pepper, celery, apple, and other vegetables in a sweet, tangy, and slightly spicy dressing. My mother also enjoyed the salad. My dad started with the Caesar Salad with Ginger and Oven-dried Tomato. I think he thought it was good, but I also think that the octopus outshone it. He might have wished he'd been more adventurous, it looked pretty ordinary for a Caesar salad. I didn't taste it though so it could have been really good.

For a main course I had the red curry mussels with linguine. It came in a big bowl with plenty of mussels on top, although I think four were closed and of course not eaten. There was a fair but not excessive amount of linguine underneath. The red curry sauce was delicious. It created a mild burn at the back of the palate and was sweet with onions, bell pepper, and tomato. Unlike some curries that have a lot of coconut milk or cream, the sauce was very light and pleasing on the hot day. I ate the entire dish and enjoyed it immensely. I was tempted to eat the remaining sauce with a spoon. It was that good.

My dad had the Thai green curry with prawns and tortiglioni. It contained large prawns, a light curry sauce, an assortment of vegetables, and large tubular pasta. He said it was good. My mom had the "Lemon Chicken" breast stuffed with red dates, ricotta, and spinach. It was served with so much seasonal green vegetable mixture that she didn't finish her veggies. The chicken breast was very lightly breaded and then stuffed. I think she enjoyed it and found the preparation refreshingly light.

All in all, it was an excellent meal at Wild Tangerine. On our way out we met the owner who was very friendly and chatty. He had once taken chemistry at the U of A and had also lived in Medicine Hat, where I'm from. That was pretty cool. I'd love to go back, although the downtown location isn't really close to the LRT and so isn't super convenient.

My final meal with my parents was lunch on Sunday. We decided to go to our favorite standby Murrieta's, which I think is a good restaurant. When we walked in I immediately saw Beth, a girl I lived in residence with who serves there. She immediately volunteered to serve my family and said we were VIP. She provided excellent service.

I was going to rely on the on-line menu for verbatim descriptions of what we ordered but they aren't current. Anyways, I have a good memory for food. My dad and I both went for the bison short ribs with bacon cassoulet. My mom had a prawn tempura sandwich. Before the mains, we were served warm and delicious multigrain bread and butter. My mom's sandwich arrived on a huge platter with lots of fries and salad. The sandwich itself was large, too. Some of it wasn't eaten, there was so much. I can only comment on the fries since I tried one and it was good and crisp on the outside.

The bison short ribs dish consisted of four pieces of bison on the bone and four thin pieces of lightly cooked asparagus atop a generous serving of the cassoulet. Both of us finished the serving. I'd say the sandwiches are for the really, really hungry. The short rib meal was excellent. The bison was tender and meaty tasting with a bit of subtle barbecue sauce. The cassoulet was a feast for bean lovers as it was mainly beans, some veggies like carrot, and a bit of bacon. The smokey taste of bacon infused all the beans. It was a joy to eat and felt like really good cowboy food. If you like to eat meat off the bone and beans go for it. Just don't expect too much greenery.

Once again Murrieta's did not disappoint.

Incidentally, there is also a bison short rib dish on the menu at Wild Tangerine that intrigues me. But, it seemed to heavy for that hot day. It was still hot on Sunday, but somehow bison seemed appropriate. Go figure.

A Weekend of Eating

2007-07-17T19:14:00.000-06:00

I haven't got any pictures to go with this, but my parents were here last weekend. That meant lots of eating out.

It started with dinner at Dadeo on Friday. It's one of my favourite restaurants in Edmonton, conveniently on Whyte Ave. The decor is diner style and they serve Louisiana-style Cajun and creole food. To be honest I can't speak to its authenticity, only its tastiness. I'm no expert. My mother had been there once before along with Albert and I. She enjoyed it then. It was my father's first time at the restaurant despite numerous recommendations. I think he had something against its small size and interesting decor.

Instead of the usual bread, they serve small biscuits with pepper jelly. It's always a tasty start to the meal.

I knew exactly what I wanted to order: pulled-pork po'boy with sweet potato fries. It's probably my favourite, although I do enjoy other options. But it had been a while, and the sandwich called to me. A hearty portion of juicy, falling apart pork, in a lightly spiced pork juicy sauce is sandwiched in a soft white roll with mayo and lettuce. The roll is a delicious sponge for the meat juices. It's pretty much the perfect meat sandwich. The fries are a masterpiece on their own. I knew I had to get them despite how rich and huge they would make my meal, just so my parents could try them off my plate. Enjoy them they did. Lightly battered and seasoned, topped with chopped green onion and served with a mayo based dip, they're the ultimate in fries. Between the three of us, we ate all that was on my plate. It also had a bit of coleslaw but wasn't really a fiesta of vegetables.

My mother decided to order the shrimps creole served on white rice. It was perhaps a slightly lighter option. I didn't taste it, but she seemed to enjoy it and cleared her plate.

My father wanted jambalaya. I convinced him to get the Combo Dadeo so he would get the meaty bayou jambalaya along with blackened chicken and beans. The jambalaya was chock full of assorted meats like Andouille sausage, shrimp, and ham. But, what he couldn't stop talking about was how good the beans were. I knew he'd like them since he's a bean-aholic along with me. They're the reason I knew he should have the combo and not straight jambalaya. The beans are red kidney beans in a spicy sauce with onion. They're really good.

The next meal out was lunch on Saturday, which we had at Cafe Select. I've mentioned it before, so I just have a couple of comments. My father again had the bistro burger, which he says he likes because it tastes like real meat like the burgers he makes. It's served with their shoestring fries. My mother and I had grilled vegetable sandwiches also served with the fries. I found them a bit limp and oily, but I still ate quite a few. The sandwiches also came with spinach salad, which was nice but not really remarkable. The sandwiches though were really good. They had a heap of hot, grilled vegetables--zucchini, mushrooms, onions, red bell peppers--along with good white cheddar cheese and a red spread that was tasty. They had to be held together with a toothpick containing a huge green olive, which was a nice touch. It was a really good sandwich on a nice whole wheat kaiser. A tad messy though, with so many delicious veggies some fell out. All in all it was a good lunch.

Later that afternoon, we went to Leva for gelato/sorbet. I discovered that my Peach-Apricot treat was actually a dairy free sorbet. My mom enjoyed a single pina colada sorbet--she's extremely lactose intolerant. I think she really liked being able to eat something that looked like ice cream and didn't have a weird soy taste. My father and I had double gelatos. His was pistachio and hazelnut. Mine was pistachio and maple walnut. The gelato was excellent, the two flavours were a nice contrast and nothing was an unnatural colour. It has a lighter texture than the sorbet but is unsurprisingly creamier. Either gelato or sorbet is a good choice. But, only sorbet is a good choice for my mom.

We actually had two other meals out, but I think I'll post about them later to give them my full attention. You can look forward to hearing about Wild Tangerine and another meal at Murrieta's. Both were really good.

The Rest of the Ratatouille Party

2007-07-12T21:58:00.000-06:00

I figure I should finish up talking about my little dinner party since it was nearly a week ago. So, here goes. To start with I offered my guests whole-wheat mini pitas with home-made tzatziki.

I loosely followed this Epicurious recipe for tzatziki, the yogurt based dip and sauce. The major differences between mine and the recipe were that I used 2 cups of 3% Balkan-style yogurt, no olive oil, and probably less than a pound of cucumber. I think it was decent with the pitas and for dunking the main course in. Then again, I really like yogurt.

I also served a green salad from the garden dressed simply in red wine vinegar, olive oil and black pepper. Possibly I liked that better than anyone else. Greens that good may be an acquired taste, because well they taste. Travis was talking about that at the garden the other day. Some are bitter or spicy or they just have a lettuce flavour that supermarket greens don't have.

Finally, for the main course (along with ratataouille of course) I served "grilled" souvlaki-style chicken and pork skewers and "grilled" mushroom and onion skewers. They are "grilled" because I only have a George Foreman Grill. It's so not the same, but it had to do.

I marinated pieces of chicken thigh and pork loin in a mixture of lemon juice and zest, olive oil, black pepper, red pepper flakes, garlic, rosemary, thyme, oregano, and salt. I used a similar marinade for mushrooms and onions. The marinating lasted about 4 hours. After that, I put the meat and veggies on separate skewers and "grilled" them until cooked.

The chicken was especially good, but you were probably expecting me to say it was the pork. But, chicken thigh has a delicious juiciness from a bit of fat. It was superb. The meat comes out a little tart, a bit spicy, and fragrant from the herbs. Marinated kababs are a very good idea for imparting flavour to meat and you could vary it to your own taste. I also liked the grilled mushrooms and onions. The onions get quite sweet. I guess I'm an onion-lover, maybe now I'll have trouble finding a human-lover, hehe. Anyways, I made one big mistake by letting meat juices get on the mushrooms and onions and making them unappetizing for the vegetarian who eats fish I intended them for. Big oops, I felt pretty bad.

Here's a pick of the food I just described as leftovers the next day:
Finally, there was dessert. I made something quite similar to Clotilde Dusoulier's recipe for Creme De Ricotta A La Mangue, Croustillant De Macadamia (aka: Creamy Mango Ricotta with Macadamia Crunch)from the Chocolate and Zucchini book. The one key difference between my dessert and the recipe is that I left our the nuts due to one guest's nut allergy, but she didn't stay to try dessert. So, mine was more "Creamy Mango Ricotta with Maple-Oatmeal Crunch". It was good anyways. Besides, nuts get caught in my throat all the time. Here's a picture of it:
And a close up of the "crunch":
There are essentially three components: the crunch, the cream, and the fruit. I made all in somewhat increased quantity for six dessert portions. The crunch was oatmeal tossed with melted butter, real maple syrup, and lime zest then toasted in the oven. The cream was a half-kilo of ricotta cheese mixed with some half and half, icing sugar, and a touch of vanilla. The vanilla was my idea. Finally, the fruit in the bottom layer was simply chopped mango tossed with a little lime juice.

I really enjoyed the dessert. The oatmeal topping was crisp and sweet. I had leftovers of it and they were delicious, essentially homemade granola. It was a pleasing contrast to the rich, creamy ricotta layer, which was not overly sweet and slightly grainy with the ricotta texture. The mango was sweet and fragrant. It's still one of my favourite fruits.

Anyways, at the party two people left before dessert. I'm not sure what they were thinking. That left me with two superfluous desserts. I ate one at the party in a fit of piggishness that left me slightly over-stuffed. Then, I ate the other one the next day. All three that I ate were excellent, although they are probably best eaten one at a time.

All in all, the dinner party was pretty successful. The Chocolate and Zucchini recipes for dessert and ratatouille were highlights, although I think I mix up a damn fine chicken marinade.

Emergency Gelato Update with Corrections

2007-07-12T21:46:00.000-06:00

I took myself out for gelato tonight (but ended up with sorbet) because it was a freaking hot day, all days over 30C are in Edmonton. I went to Leva, which is on 111 Street and about 86th Ave. They make their own gelato and sorbet and had a fair assortment of flavours. I decided to go with fruity gelato again and ordered a single Apricot-Peach Sorbet (or was that Peach-Apricot) for $3.50 although I was tempted by the blueberry gelato. This is probably the best value for gelato and sorbet although portions are not especially generous. . . but it's sensible and bigger than it looks. If you must be a pig, you can buy a half or full litre of gelato.

Anyways, their sorbet is super thick. I would say that it has a really low air content. The texture was so incredibly dense and smooth. The flavour was sweet, fruity, and I believe natural. Certainly the subdued colour suggests a lack of artificial flavours and colours.

Needless to say, I will be back probably soon and probably back to my nut gelato eating ways.

Update: I recently had a double of pistachio and maple walnut gelato that was excellent. The gelato was a bit less dense in texture but very smooth and very tasty.

Rice: Risotto and Sushi

2007-07-11T21:55:00.000-06:00

That's right, the last two things I want to talk about from Albert's visit have something in common: rice. Therefore, it is not a stretch to put them in one post. I've already talked about both so let's call these updates.

Update #1: Risotto with Prosciutto and Peas

I said that I wanted to make risotto with/for another person. I fulfilled that desire when Albert and I recreated risotto with prosciutto and peas. He was very useful for stirring it. . . I really didn't do any of that. A risotto stirring slave. . . or assistant is a good thing. He's the risotto stirring pro modelling the finished product:
This risotto improved on my original by actually using the lemon zest and dry white wine. The "stock" I used was not so nice though since it was from bullion (naughty me). The prosciutto Albert obtained was sliced thicker than the stuff I got before. This might have actually been better in the risotto for the chunkiness, which might be better with slightly cooked prosciutto. In addition, the cheese I added for this risotto was indeed Parmesan.

We ate it with a simple salad of fresh organic greens straight out of the garden. It was ready for its close up:

Update #2: Sushi

Albert hadn't had sushi in quite some time. So, on his last night in Edmonton we went for sushi at Kyoto Japanese Cuisine on 109th. I've talked about it before and once again it was good, although we were not served water to drink although it was a hot day. The server was way too busy, so I guess it's excusable.

I had a spicy seaweed salad that was really spicy. I didn't quite expect that from Japanese food. It was a refreshing contrast to the sushi though in its texture and flavour. The texture is hard to describe. It was somewhat firm and not exactly crisp. I also had a raw oyster on the half shell, which I think was my first raw oyster. It tasted all right. I drizzled it with lemon juice but passed on the Tabasco sauce provided. I figured it would mask subtle flavours. Albert started with tofu, which he ate so I guess it was good.

For the main meal we had sushi. The salmon was fresh, rich, and good. Albert ordered a beef sushi that was just slightly seared and definitely blue-rare. It was kind of chewy and could not be bitten in half (the meat anyways). I thought it was a decent Alberta sushi. I also had surf clam sushi, which was really tougher than I would have thought. It was more like octopus than scallop. Mmmm, I love scallops but I didn't have any that night. I also had salmon roe, which I'd had before at other places. This salmon roe however was a bit of a revelation. I loved how each orange ball burst to reveal an intense taste of the sea, quite salty. Albert also had unagi, which I didn't try any of. The final sushi Albert ordered was a salmon skin roll. It seemed to contain fried tofu and salmon skin with a bit of a sweet and salty seasoning. It seemed richest of all the sushi and was quite tasty. We also received some small spicy rolls complementary that we didn't order. I honestly don't know what was in them, but they may have triggered a touch (and just a touch) of Albert's shellfish allergy.

Conclusion: Kyoto is still my preferred Edmonton sushi restaurant, not that I've tried many. But, one thing I do wonder about is why so many sushi pieces are so large but nearly impossible to eat in multiple bites.

Ratatouille: Au Four and the Movie

2007-07-10T21:59:00.000-06:00

Ladies and gentlemen, I have become obsessed with Ratatouille. I decided to host a small dinner party on Saturday with hopes of going to see Ratatouille after because I heard it was a good food movie. The dinner party part went off fine and I had five friends over for a meal that I will probably describe over several posts. The revelatory dish that I made was incidentally ratatouille. It's the dish I felt was "must make" to fit my theme, not to mention I was curious about it. Here's my ratatouille from that night:

Actually, that's leftover ratatouille because I forgot to take any photos that night. It's freaking good leftover anyways. I used Clotilde Dusoulier's recipe for Ratatouille Au Four in the "Chocolate and Zucchini" book, because well I wanted to use her recipe since it worked so well for her. There's a recipe here on her blog, but it's not quite like the book one. The recipe in the book is. . . larger, even as I made it with only 5 or 6 tomatoes and two zucchini. Actually, it's really large and i couldn't fit it in my largest mixing bowl to mix or in a single baking dish. It's a variation on traditional ratatouille because it's oven roasted.

I didn't get a lot of browning on the vegetables for the dinner party, but the results were. . . amazing. I absolutely loved it and my guests enjoyed it too. It produced plenty of sweet, intensely flavoured veggie juices. The onion became very sweet, the yellow and red bell pepper strips were really sweet and tasty as well. I liked the tomato, zucchini and eggplant pieces as well. There were fabulous contrasts in texture and flavour in the large vegetable chunks. They retained a lot of character of the individual vegetables while being enhanced by the "sauce" of veggie juices, herbs, salt, pepper, and olive oil. I suppose it could have been better if I used fresh rather than dried thyme. I highly recommend this recipe, though. It's tasty and easy.

Unfortunately seeing Ratatouille didn't' work out in conjunction with the dinner since dinner went to long and some people had to leave early. But, I did have a special "chef experience." I got a minor burn extracting the ratatouille from my oven. I know you want to see it:

You mean you didn't want to see that? Well, it's my blog and I feel I have a public responsibility to warn people not to touch the inside of a hot oven's door like I did.

After my dinner party was over I still wanted to see Ratatouille. So, I went downtown on Sunday afternoon and watched it by myself like the pathetic, obsessed person I am. I really liked the movie, but not the loud children in the theatre. It's really unlike other children's movies. The plot is not really predictable and. . . I'm not a movie reviewer. It's a good movie to see if you like food and are fascinated by restaurant kitchens.

Looking at what what in my fridge in the aftermath of the dinner party, I was excited to find most of the ingredients for another ratatouille au four. I had a remaining zucchini, a tomato (not in the fridge of course), a green bell pepper, rosemary, onions, and garlic. Yesterday I bought a small eggplant and a second large tomato. Today I cut a medium to large zucchini from the garden. I combined all these ingredients into another, smaller ratatouille. This one was not quite so juicy. Perhaps this is due to there being fewer tomatoes or a bit less olive oil. The eggplant browned quite nicely, though. The batch was still enormous, requiring two baking dishes. Using green peppers made it perhaps slightly less colourful and sweet than with red and yellow peppers, but the green pepper adds a savoury complexity that the other peppers lack.

Anyways, here's a pick of my second batch of ratatouille this week:

You know it must be good if I made it that quickly again.

Finale of the Calgary Eats

2007-07-08T21:54:00.000-06:00

As I alluded in my breakfast post, we didn't really have lunch on Saturday in Calgary. Instead we had:
Gelato! I read a little on the Internet about Fiasco Gelato and how it was supposedly the best gelato in Calgary and made fresh every day. I didn't do a thorough survey myself, but my small cup of Strawberry Cheesecake gelato at the 17th Ave location pictured above was quite good. It was a generous portion. . . the mediums looked absolutely enormous. Plus, it was really smooth and creamy with the fruity flavour I was craving. Albert went with a medium passion fruit in a waffle cone, which he found refreshingly fruity and really big. It comes in peace.

By supper time we were quite hungry and ventured into Chinatown. We decided to go to a place specializing in Chinese barbecue meats called Happy Valley (I think) that was pretty busy. It was a very casual place that strangely served hot tea in plastic cups. We ordered 10 pork dumplings, a platter of barbecue duck and pork, Chinese broccoli in garlic sauce, and steamed rice. The whole meal really hit the spot with me as I was craving a good mix of meat, vegetables, and carbs. The dumplings were tasty if a little oily and I ate three. Albert played the hero and ate seven.

The meats were pure deliciousness, fatty in a good way atop a tasty sauce and peanuts. The outsides of the meat were seasoned in ways both new and delicious to me. It was my first Chinese barbecue. The dipping sauce with the meat was too sweet and added nothing, so I didn't really eat it. I think I preferred the pork to the duck partly because it was boneless and therefore easier to eat. Sometimes I'm lazy. Chinese broccoli was crisp and garlicky, perhaps a bit oily but overall very good. It's great when you're all enjoying the deliciousness of garlic, then nobody needs to feel stinky. Steamed rice was needed to fill out the meal and was also tasty to me as I have a bit of thing for rice now. Service was not great, but I didn't expect much and overall it was acceptable.

For our final meal in Calgary before the horrors of the bus to Edmonton, Albert and I had an early dinner at Murrieta's in the lounge area. The restaurant was pretty much dead as far as the number of customers, even when we left around six. Our server was attentive though and I found the meal well paced. To start with we shared the Courtyard salad of greens, small tomatoes, and fennel. The greens, tomatoes and fennel were top notch. However, the dressing a "Citrus Fennel Vinaigrette" was rather oily however with very little acidity. This was my only problem with the meal.

After the salad we were brought a small plate of fresh, warm!!! multi-grain bread and butter. I limited myself to one piece, not wanting to gorge myself on the bread, and it was delicious. For the main course we both opted for pasta dishes. Albert had the lamb meatball spaghetti. He really enjoyed it oddly preferring the spaghetti to the meatballs although he said both were good. I decided to try something new, the "Roasted Squash & Chevre Ravioli Brown Butter Verjus Sage Sauce." It was a really enjoyable dish, perhaps my favourite of the trip. The ravioli were topped with fried sage leaves, shavings of a hard and salty cheese, and sauteed bits of squash and zucchini. The sauce was buttery with that distinctive brown butter flavour. The ravioli themselves were large; filled with creamy, smooth squash filling, and perfectly al dente. I relished every rich, buttery bite. We emerged from our excellent meal ready to face the trials of travel by bus to Edmonton and more food.

Let's Talk Good Breakfasts

2007-07-08T09:32:00.000-06:00

During our weekend in Calgary, Albert and I essentially skipped lunch opting instead for gargantuan breakfasts at Avenue Diner, which a waitress at Milestone's (closed at the time) recommended. This turned out to be an excellent breakfast spot.

On Sunday morning, there was a short wait to get in around 10. Interestingly, there were about a dozen firefighters eating at the counter. They must have known it was good. I took their presence as a good sign. On this morning we went with traditional, hearty breakfasts of two eggs, maple bison sausage, hash browns and toast. My poached eggs were perfectly cooked with delightful runny yolks in which I dipped some of the multi-grain toast. The rest of the toast was slathered with an in-house berry jam that was absolutely delicious. Hash browns were very good, well seasoned and of the pan fried variety. The bison sausage was also excellent as it was no overly greasy and quite tasty. Maybe that's not a very good description, but I'd eat it again. Albert ate the same thing with eggs over easy.

On Monday morning, our breakfast was quite late but I think breakfast is served well into the afternoon. I went with a super-sugary breakfast this time, the banana split waffle. No ice cream was involved but the four pieces of waffle were between the halves of a banana and covered in lots of whipped cream, chocolate sauce, strawberries, and some chopped walnuts. There's nothing like chocolate at breakfast and I really enjoyed the strawberries and banana. The waffles were good, so good I sort of wished there was less chocolate and whipped cream on them so I could taste the waffle for itself. I felt a little guilty about this breakfast though, too much sugar and not enough substance. Albert ordered the Avenue French Toast stuffed with brie and bacon and served with sauteed granny smith apples. This dish had been mentioned by the server who recommended the diner. It seemed not as generous as other breakfasts, although perhaps very rich, as it was only two halves of one stuffed thick slice of bread. I tried a bit and thought it was good. Albert however commented that it might have been a little over cooked to his taste. Overall, breakfast at the Avenue Diner was very good, even if the chairs were slightly uncomfortable. Service was good and we were recognized on our second visit.

Before Albert left Edmonton on Thursday morning, we had some breakfast the the Sugarbowl. I've mentioned it many times and I need only say that the half cinnamon bun and fruit salad did not disappoint. The bun was a delicious blend of textures--soft and crisp-- with caramelized bits once again.

Long Time No See, Sorry It Was a Food Adventure

2007-07-07T23:17:00.000-06:00

I haven't written in a while because I went to Calgary with Albert last weekend and his visit continued until Thursday. Then, I was busy preparing for a bit of a dinner party tonight. First, I'll talk about Calgary. (I actually forgot to take photos at the party, so I will take some of the leftovers. . . I'm a bad blogger).

I was really hungry (and crabby) when I got to Calgary. I'd read some good things about the Cafe in the McNally Robinson Bookstore on Chowhound. It was nearby, so I decided to go there. . . at about 5 o'clock. I ordered the pear and blue cheese salad for about $10. It came with a slice of multi grain bread, which I ate along with the entire salad. A large, late snack don't you think? Anyways, the bread was good, blue cheese is always good, the greens were fresh, and the berry vinaigrette was tasty (but I had to ask for it). The pears, well, they seemed like canned pears. That was a bit disappointing. . . of course I could be wrong. Albert had some sort of chocolaty, boozy dessert coffee while we were there. He found it too sickly sweet to finish, but should have known better perhaps.

That night, we ate at PiqNiq Bistro above the BeatNiq jazz bar. It was the fanciest meal we had. It started off with a couple of tasty little rolls with butter. They had an intriguing flavour that we argued over the source of. I was reminded slightly of winter squash. Caraway was brought up as a possibility. We moved straight to mains after that. I had the catch of the day, which was seared Ahi tuna. It came with really tasty baby potatoes, julienned vegetables, and fennel that may have been pickled. The fish though was underwhelming for the price. I heard the waitress describing it as blue rare. That would have been great. What I got was a shade under well-done in my books and many bites tasted dry. I was too timid to complain since I've never actually had seared tuna before. . . maybe I should have. Albert had
"Truffled Butternut Squash and Goat Cheese Ravioli, Fresh Tomato Coulis." It included some asparagus spears as well. He said it was a playful dish and seemed to enjoy it. The best part of our meal came last with a chocolate cheesecake that we split for dessert. It was rich and creamy, chocolaty, and not too sweet. It was very, very good. Down in the jazz bar afterward, I enjoyed a most excellent Caesar in honour of Canada Day and Albert had a pint of the local brew on tap.

There's still more to talk about (and it gets better) . . . but that's all I'm going to say for now.

Not Much of a Story But . . . Highlights

2007-06-29T23:02:00.000-06:00

Isn't it just like me setting up low expectations? They prevent disappointment.

Anyways, first dish up is the buttermilk pancakes I made for last Sunday breakfast. They're from the same Epicurious recipe as before. Once again they were pretty good. These ones have pineapple on the side and marmalade and butter on them. Mmmmm, butter. I'm starting to not like them too sweet. . . the pineapple was almost too sweet. Anyways, this took care of the pancake craving.On Monday, I made banana muffins using the Low Fat Banana Bread recipe on Epicurious. This used up some of the leftover buttermilk and 3 super-ripe bananas. I pretty much followed the recipe except I didn't flour the tins, I used about half brown sugar, I added a teaspoon or so of cinnamon, and I used slightly less sugar than called for. Of course, the other change is that I baked it as muffins rather than a loaf. I don't own a loaf pan. Anyways, it made a dozen muffins that baked up in about 22 minutes. Here's how pretty they looked:
The muffins got an excellent rise and had good texture for low fat, I think. My only beef is that they are too sweet for my taste, 3/4 of a cup of sugar is a freaking lot. Next time i would use less than half a cup and probably all brown sugar. I froze many of the muffins for later. We'll see how they hold up. I'm crossing my fingers.

This week I also ate my first Fuyu persimmon, that I know of. When I bought it, the lady asked what kind of tomato it was. That was a little funny. Anyways, it had mild, fragrant, firm almost crunchy orange flesh. It wasn't a particularly sweet fruit. It was subtle, really. I didn't think too much of it while I was eating it, but I kinda want another one. Only problem is that they're pricey and I don't want to eat ones from China and it's hard to tell which are. The sign said California. . . I hope that's true. I think it cost $1.50 and that's the cheapest I've seen.

Finally, my dinner tonight based on Quinoa and Creczenza with Sauteed Mushrooms in Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Cooking. I had to add a bit of rice 'cause I ran out of quinoa. I enjoyed the crimini mushrooms. The fried egg was my addition 'cause the girl needs protein. I didn't have Creczenza, a type of cheese I've never seen, so I used some grated provolone and asiago. Aside from the mushrooms with chili flakes, it was mild and needed more pepper. Of course that's my fault. The texture of quinoa was a pleasure as always in this dish. Here's a photo of my creation.
I also stirred in a little parsley for colour and flavour. The book this is from is pretty inspiring even if some ingredients are. . . out there.

Zucchini Absorption Pasta

2007-06-23T23:14:00.001-06:00

Zucchini Absorption Pasta with Sliced Pork Chop, originally uploaded by lisbear18.

I ordered a bunch of cookbooks online. . . plus one novel. One of the books is Chocolate and Zucchini: Daily Adventures in a Parisian Kitchen. It is a really cute book with a lot of inspiring ideas. I haven't read it all, but I quite like it. The only problem is that it's hard to keep open, say when you're cooking from it due to its small size and binding style.

Anyways, above you see my version of the Pates Par Absorption, Courgette & Cacao from the book, which is like risotto-style pasta. However, I made 1/4 of the recipe to serve one. I used Asiago instead of Parmesan, omitted the cacao nibs (don't know where to find those), added some flat-leaf parsley at the end, and put skillet cooked pork chop slices on top 'cause this girl needs some protein too. Anyways, this recipe worked pretty well and was tasty in a starchy-creamy way. I like carbs so it was good. It was a nice use of zucchini, which is one of my favourite vegetables. At the end I found that I had to turn up the heat and uncover the pot so the dish wasn't too watery. I liked that it was faster to make than rice risotto.

Hmm, I seem to be on a risotto-type kick. I might try making risotto-style barley like Heidi Swanson suggests. Her book, Supernatural Cooking, is one of the other books I ordered.

Using the Greens

2007-06-23T22:56:00.001-06:00

Pork Chop and Rice Noodle Salad, originally uploaded by lisbear18.

I'm getting more and more excited about the garden produce. So far I've used some parsley and chives, the garlic shoots, and a fair bit of salad greens. Today, I tasted a few early strawberries. Yes, Edmonton is that far north that strawberry season is beginning as it ends elsewhere. Unfortunately, one of the strawberries wasn't that great. But they're still better than the ones in the store, which I don't buy.

Anyways, I planted some chard today and I'm excited about that. It was delicious last year and totally new to me. I'll be looking for some good recipes for it. I'm also on the lookout for green bean recipes since I'm confident that they will be abundant later in the summer. In the grocery store I'm looking for blueberry season to start. I think they're actually my favourite berries. I'm especially stoked to make blueberry pancakes and maybe oatmeal-blueberry muffins.

This photo is a main course salad that I made using mixed greens for the garden. I dressed them in rice wine vinegar and sesame oil and added some sliced cucumber. I topped that with rice noodles that I mixed with sesame oil, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, and sambal oelek. I also added sauteed garlic shoots and onion. The meat on top is a pork chop that I skillet cooked after marinating it--for too short a time really--in soy sauce. The meal was pretty good except the noodles were clumpy. Clearly I don't quite know how to handle them right. . . kind of like at that inferior Vietnamese restaurant.

Yin and Yang: Quinoa and Sausage

2007-06-21T21:37:00.000-06:00

Quinoa is supposed to be this super-healthy grain-like substance that contains all the essential amino acids. I've been meaning to try it for a while. If it tastes good what's not too like. Now, you might think I'd incorporate it into some super-healthy dish. But, that's not quite what I did. You see, at the same time I bought the quinoa at Save-On I also bought some Spolumbo's Spicy Italian Sausage.

Thus I created a sort of sausage "ragout" perhaps and served it over quinoa. It also may have been good over pasta. Anyways, what I did was to boil the sausage until it was mostly cooked. Then I sliced it and sauteed it in a little olive oil with about one medium chopped onion; seven large, chopped crimini mushrooms (the brown ones), and a couple of chopped garlic cloves. I sauteed for quite a while to try to get things browning. Then I added a 14 ounce can of plum tomatoes that i stabbed up a bit (stabbing is a good cooking technique, you should stab the sausage with a fork while you boil it). I added some pepper, thyme, and oregano and let it simmer for a bit. Towards the end of the simmering I added a chopped red bell pepper and some crushed chili pepper flakes. Finally, at the very end I stirred in some fresh parsley. I served it over quinoa (cooked by boiling for 15 minutes) and garnished with parsley and grated Asiago cheese.

This is what my concoction looked like:

It was quite delicious, spicy from the pepper flakes and sausage. Sweet with red bell peppers. Aromatic from the herbs. Meaty-tasting chunks of mushroom and of course the incorporable joy of pieces of sausage.

You might be wondering about the quinoa: Did that "grain" work? It worked wonderfully. It has this fantastic slightly chewy texture and a subtle flavour. I liked the way it stuck to the bits of meat and vegetables in this dish. This is what cooked quinoa looks like if you're curious:

I cooks up fast, tastes good, has an appealing texture, and is very healthy as it is high in fibre and protein. I can see myself buying more quinoa and making it a regular part of my dining at home. Actually, I ate quinoa today as sort of a "salad." I sauteed peas, garlic sprouts, and green onion and mixed that with quinoa, canned sardine, pepper, soy sauce, and rice wine vinegar. I thought it was pretty decent for something thrown together and quite enjoyed the quinoa. But, no photo of that.

What I call garlic sprouts are shoots cut off the green part of the garlic growing in the garden. They tasted garlicy but not really strong.

Quinoa must be rinsed thoroughly prior to cooking to remove its bitter outer layer.

I Found My Vietnamese Fix

2007-06-20T22:56:00.000-06:00

I was basically having a crisis here in Edmonton trying to find a decent Vietnamese Restaurant, specifically on that I liked. Yesterday, I found one in Chinatown. Pagolac was mentioned a few times on Chowhound as a good choice for Vietnamese. There is also a location on the Southside.

How do I know it was good? Excellent question: I know it was good because today, the next day, I think fondly of my bowl of Pho and want to eat it all over again. I think that's good enough, even if the food isn't absolutely perfect.

My dining companion, Albert, and I started by splitting "Vegetarian Egg Rolls". The order consisted of six fresh, hot mainly noodle filled spring rolls. They were good in the way fried things have of being good. I think we all know that way. Anyways, no complaints and they'd satisfy any spring roll craving.

Albert ordered a bowl of rice noodles with some meats and fried rolls on top. He downed it really freaking quick so it must have been tasty. But, there was some pink, not as in rare, meat that he didn't want to talk about after. Apparently that bit wasn't very good and perhaps should be avoided.

I had a beef Pho, the "special, deluxe" one or something. It had plenty of sliced beef, some of it rare, a meatball, tendon, and tripe, green onions, and rice noodles in a tasty broth. I added plenty of Thai Basil, bean sprouts, chili peppers, and hot sauce to spice things up. The regular portion was impressive for about $8. The noodles were not stuck together in a giant clump!!! It was incredible filling but I could not stop eating because I kept finding more tasty beef. I finished my meal incredibly stuffed, but hey rice noodles and broth should digest fast and easy, no?

Later that night, I sipped a glass of Cabernet sauvegeon at the Sugarbowl. It's a fabulous place for an evening drink. Plus, a brick of Pho in the stomach helps with alcohol tolerance, hehe.

The Risotto Revelation

2007-06-20T21:58:00.000-06:00

For a while I have been thinking that I'd like to try my hand at making a risotto. It seemed like it would be something of an accomplishment to do, that it would prove my cooking skills. One thing that was stopping me was that I could not remember ever having eaten a risotto, I believe because my I remembered my father saying it was gross. . . maybe. Anyways, I tried my first risotto in memory at Quarry in Canmore. It was a creamy delicious almond risotto described here. The other thing I wanted before I made risotto was a good chicken stock. The chicken broth (made from bullion, naughty me) that I used to braise chicken thighs for sandwich meat seemed to fit the bill. I chilled it, skimmed off the fat, and froze it for my future risotto.

For the risotto, I also bought short grain rice. It's not aborio but calrose. I'm pretty sure that's okay, right? Anyways, it worked. I looked for a simple risotto recipe on Epicurious in which I could use my "chicken stock". The recipe I chose was this one for Risotto with Peas and Prosciutto. I of course made a few alterations, basically make a third of the recipe. I used
less butter than called for and didn't add any to finish as it already had a creamy texture and the comments with the recipe suggested it was unnecessary. I believe I also used less cheese than would be 1/3 of the recipe and used Roman in place of Parmigiano. People on Epicurious commented that there was too much cheese in the original recipe and it made for a sticky risotto. I omitted completely the white wine, as there wasn't enough reason to buy a bottle for my risotto experiment and I omitted the lemon zest. . . because I'm lazy? Hell, this was my special Sunday lunch, I'd do whatever I wanted.

I prepared the risotto as directed otherwise, but found that instead of 20 minutes it took a good 45 minutes for the rice to be of an edible tenderness, which I think was still al dente. That's a lot of stirring, risotto will beef up your stirring arm boys. My finished product looked pretty good:
It was a creamy, starchy bowl of bliss. However, I found myself adding quite a bit of black pepper, because it needed the slight kick. I also think that more peas would be good what with the colour, sweetness, and healthfulness they add. The prosciutto was really tasty too, nice and salty. The elements of this risotto really go well together, not surprising since peas and prosciutto is pretty classic. I would love to make it again in a larger portion to share with a friend. I think it would be really impressive. . . and we could use the wine and lemon zest for a more complex flavour, especially the wine. Anyways, I'm sure this won't be my last risotto.

Joys of Summer

2007-06-18T22:25:00.000-06:00

Before I get into some more recipe oriented posts, I thought I'd take a second to reflect on the wonders that an Edmonton summer can bring to the food obsessed.

First off, there is some good that the rain and perpetual threat of rain during the month of June does. By the way, I don't think I'll ever get used to rain, I think I'm some sort of desert creature--although I require a lot of water to drink. But, the plants that are just starting to grow in the Campus Community Garden are not desert creatures and the rain helps them grow and flourish. Some of the first plants available for eating--what good is a plant you can't eat?--are the lettuces. Look at this assortment of mixed baby greens I cut on Saturday:

You can't find that in any grocery store, seriously. They were so colourful and tender. And amazingly tasty what with the peppery arugula and other milder greens mixed together. A little red wine vinegar, olive oil, and pepper and I had one delicious salad.

I'm also thrilled by the thought of the other wonderful things the garden will produce for me to eat--if I put in a little work helping with the weeding and watering. There will be strawberries and raspberries, so sweet that I won't touch the ones in a store after tasting them. There will be sweet peas, green beans, yellow beans, spinach, chard, cucumbers, and at the end of it all garlic and tomatoes. Plus, I can pluck fresh herbs every now and then to make my food truly special.

Now, garden fresh veggies and berries are the healthful joys of summer. I am also partial to another summertime treat, gelato. Gelato makes ordinary ice cream seem . . . inadequate when compared to its smooth, rich texture. I really like gelato. But, I've had it just once so far this season at a new cafe called Da Capo on 109th Street. The mixed nut flavour was a generous portion as a small to stay and was so nutty and so delectable. I am very partial to nut gelatos. If you don't have allergies, try them. Gelato is also available at Block 1912 on Whyte and at Leva on 111 Street. I think both are good. Gelato is never really cheap but it's so worth the expense.

Oatmeal Two Ways

2007-06-16T20:28:00.000-06:00

I realize that the title of this post might not inspire much excitement. Oatmeal. . . ooh porridge, yawn. But really, there are variations in the preparation of oatmeal that are quite delicious and unique to oatmeal. I actually got the recipes and ideas for both these "dishes" if you will from other bloggers much better than myself.

First off, a yummy breakfast with a recipe from Chocolate and Zucchini. This is the post with the recipe that Clotilde calls Oatmeal Breakfast Clafoutis. Anyways, I of course do not follow it absolutely exactly. I always halve the recipe and make it in an 8 inch round cake pan. I also don't think of it as Clafoutis, which really has no meaning to me, but as Breakfast Cake. It's a cake I can eat copious amounts of for breakfast without feeling that I'm eating unhealthily.

This time I didn't use any dried fruit and put in a chopped banana and a chopped nectarine. I also didn't use nuts and only had about a cup of oatmeal left, so I put in some crushed bran flakes . . . a bit odd i know. The texture seemed right on the first few pieces with a nice crust on the edge that I quite like. However, either because there wasn't enough oatmeal or because of the fresh fruit mixed in, it was a bit mushy in places. This hasn't been a problem on previous occasions making this recipe. I also reduced the sugar a little bit as I don't like my food too sweet. Probably the main thing that kept my creation from being really good was that the nectarine was a dud, as was the other one I bought. It tasted like. . . nothing. It was a disappointment but not surprising. Anyways, I still like to have cake for breakfast, here's what it looked like fresh from the oven:
Next up, oatmeal cookies. I really like oatmeal cookies. There's just something about the oatmeal flavour in a cookie that's really comforting and delicious. In the past, I've made them with raisins or chocolate chips. Shockingly, raisins make better oatmeal cookies than chocolate chips, they just work perfectly with their sweet chewiness.

Anyways, I found the recipe for these on David Lebovitz's site. I'd never tried any of the recipes he posts, but he is all about dessert, so the cookie recipes he posts must be good. The recipe, from a cookbook by Nick Malgieri, is low fat with some apple sauce in the base, which intrigued me. I've had success with applesauce to moisten muffins, so why not cookies. I did not alter the recipe aside from using dark brown sugar in place of light brown sugar and cooking some of the cookies on an unlined, ungreased, new, nonstick cookie sheet (which caused no problems).

I don't have any electric beaters, so creaming the butter and sugar with a fork and a wooden spoon was a bit of work. But it was so worth it to create this luscious batter:
Even the cooking time for that batter given in the recipe was very accurate. (I often find recommended baking times for cookies are too long). This is what the finished product looked like:

If those don't look good to you, why?

Anyways, I sample a couple last night and they were quite good. I brought them to the Campus Community Garden this morning and people said they were quite good. (People were impressed that I made them. Hey, they're just cookies. But if you can impress people that way. . .) Nobody guessed that they were low fat either with their desirable chewy, moist texture. I also brought some to the Edmonton Gay Pride Parade this afternoon, which was a good time except when it poured rain. My friends quite liked them and almost fought over the last one I brought.

This recipe is a definite keeper. For the record, I got 31 cookies out of it, although the last 3 were rather large.

Highlights (not) For Children

2007-06-12T20:35:00.001-06:00

Last week I was in the mood for a burger. Serendipitously, my friend Ryan brought over a patty for a turkey cacciatore burger a la Rachel Ray. I think it must be this recipe, although I don't know what substitutions were made and it was served on a bun--a whole wheat kaiser as shown below. I'm not going to get into the merits or sins against food of Rachel Ray. All I'm going to say is that with mustard, sauteed mushrooms, spinach and tomato this was a tasty burger. I absolutely love mushrooms with burgers. It's freaking awesome and if you don't agree you're crazy. It may also have stopped me noticing the chopped veggies in the burger and the fact that it was made of turkey. As for the bun, I think a whole wheat kaiser is really good for a burger. There's not too much bread and I like the texture. Thanks for the burger Ryan!Now I want to mention one of my comfort foods. Fried eggs on toast:
I used to eat a variation on this for breakfast on weekends pretty often as a kid. I used to require Cheese Whiz, an egg, and ketchup or salsa on a toasted slice of bread. On my own, I come up with some variations that might be a little more grown up. This one has ham under the egg, black pepper on it, and some shaved Romano cheese on top. The key to all of this is a runny yolk, you can't beat it. I eat this with a knife and fork by the way. If it were French I suppose it would be a tartine.

For a weekend meal, I cooked a rainbow trout--complete with head. It was okay, but really needed the lime juice I squeezed on it. I think I overcooked it slightly. I did eat the meat from it's cheeks though and it was particularly succulent. . . as I think fish cheeks are supposed to be. My side dish of roasted new nugget potatoes was awesome though. I made them based on Heidi Swanson's recipe for Black Pepper and Lime Oven Fries. They look pretty nice below:I didn't really measure anything and I forgot the cheese on the ones above--but they were still delicious. A sprinkling of Romano was a nice touch though once I remembered. Anyways, the chili and black pepper flavouring was good. To be honest, I think the nugget potatoes were so good that they would have made great oven fries no matter what I seasoned them with. There was just so much potato goodness.

To finish up this post, I want to talk about some damn good poultry. You might have thought I only like pork, but I also adore dark meat chicken. That's right: DARK meat. Not white, not what's in Chicken McNuggets (the gold standard for nutrition). My dad will not buy chicken thighs. But when he eats them, he seems to like it. Anyways, I've been using chicken thigh meat that I cook myself for my sandwiches with blue cheese and mustard. Pretty much any cheese would be good on the sandwich though. I used to love turkey, cheddar and mustard sandwiches. Anyways, to make the chicken I brown skinned thighs well. This step looks delish below:

When the chicken is well browned I add some chicken broth made with bullion 'cause I'm a cheater until the chicken is partially covered. Then I simmer the chicken until it's tender, about half an hour. I think this may count as braising. Finally, I take the meat off the bone and shred it. I froze some of the meat for future sandwiches and it seems to keep well. Sandwiches with this chicken are awesome because there's so much real chicken flavour and texture. The liquid left over seems intensely chickeny and I saves some for a possible future risotto in the freezer.

Another great use for chicken thighs is chicken curry. It starts with browned skinned (but bone in) chicken thighs but lots of veggies an seasoning go in as well. This one has carrot, onion, ginger, curry powder, chicken broth, and spinach. I kind of make it up as I go along. I think it's important not to be afraid to experiment in the kitchen. Chicken curry is a warming, filling, and satisfying meal with some rice.

My Version of Snout to Tail Eating

2007-05-29T21:42:00.000-06:00

Why no posts in so long?
Simple, I didn't have an Internet connection for a while plus I felt sick.

Anyways, about two weeks ago I decided to go for it and buy the pork hocks I often see and Safeway and cook them up using a modification of this Bon Appetit recipe that can be found on Epicurious. It's a recipe for "braised and roasted pork shanks with prosciutto and porcini mushrooms" but don't worry, I didn't actually use most of those exotic ingredients. I didn't use porcini mushrooms or any mushrooms at all. I cooked about 700 grams of hock. . . I think that's almost the same as shank. There was no leek or prosciutto. The herbs were oregano and thyme. I used a famous Belgian beer shown here in place of red wine:
What did this have to do with the recipe then? Well, I followed the braise then roast method. Here are the piggy bits in their braising liquid:
I did the braising and roasting on two separate days. When the liquid cooled, I spooned the fat off the top and noticed that it was like Jello. Is that the gelatin in the animal bits?
Here's a glamour shot after it was all roasted up and placed on the braising liquid:

The one big problem? That liquid was really beer-bitter. And while I like to drink beer, I couldn't bring myself to eat much of it. I had sweet potatoes on the side, and that might have made it more difficult with the contrast. The meat was okay though. But there wasn't too much of it for all the bone, skin and fat. I guess it was tasty and okay for a three dollar experiment. It looks pretty crazy. I like that.

Anyways, the second piece that I ate the next day had less meat and I didn't want to eat the liquid and vegetables. So, I stir fried the meat and some skin (yes skin) with zucchini and onion and probably some other stuff and mixed it with rice.

This is probably extremely unhealthy and makes me feel guilty. But pork skin has some appeal.

And that's how I ate a piggy part that many people wouldn't. I hope you were amused.

Final Comments on the Canmore Trip

2007-05-28T19:49:00.000-06:00

I want to mention a few things about the breakfasts on the Canmore trip. Come to think of it, I really don't talk about breakfast as much as you'd think. That's probably because I usually eat cereal, which I enjoy more than I should and fruit. There's not too much to say, although Shreddies are awesome. That's not very gourmet of me is it?

Anyways, the first two mornings in Canmore, we ate breakfast in the rented condo. It was pretty ordinary with a strong raisin theme. I ate Raisin Bran and some sort of raisin bread product both mornings. I also had an egg, some banana, and an orange. All of this seemed too ordinary, and like I was eating too much. It was accompanied by a guilty pleasure. What could that be? Perhaps processed creamy peanut butter my parents brought. I tell myself I love natural peanut butter, and it is good. But I couldn't get enough of the salted, sweetened taste of the processed stuff, especially that first morning.

By Monday morning, I was tired of eating in like I was at home every morning. So, I asked for and received a promise of breakfast out. We chose a place that my parents had eaten at for dinner before and thought was good. I'm going to omit the name. We were seated fairly quickly, our orders were taken, coffee brought (not for me), and then we waited. And waited. For an hour. Yes, an hour for breakfast. I think it was crazy. At breakfast people haven't eaten in perhaps twelve hours. I was very hungry. We got excuses from the server that seemed to suggest the kitchen was understaffed or something and couldn't keep up.

Eventually, I did get my cheddar and apple crepes from the extensive breakfast menu, they were pretty good. I ate way more than I should have. It was tasty but perhaps too syrupy inside with the apples and the cheddar could have been better. The hash browns were deep fried and I prefer pan fried ones. But, for the price it was quite a good breakfast, if only it could have appeared in a shorter time frame.

How long do you think is reasonable to wait for breakfast?

Fine Dining: Quarry Bistro and Wine Bar

2007-05-25T18:53:00.000-06:00

In Canmore with my family this weekend I was looking to indulge in what makes for a good vacation in our family: physical activity followed by a lot of delicious food, because we work up an appetite. It rained on Saturday, so my "physical activity" was wandering around Canmore and through some shops before the previously mentioned pizza.

But on Sunday, we got lucky and there was some sunshine and plenty of "not raining" to go around. We hiked about 15 km at Lake Minnewanka (or Lake Willy Wonka if you're eating chocolate, which I was). Lunch was a ham and cheese sandwich, an orange, and some chocolate along the trail. I took some pictures of the scenery, so here's one since I didn't take pictures of restaurant food:

Okay, so I saw some pretty mountains and worked up a monster appetite for dinner. As a result, I was the only member of my family to complete three courses.

We went to a really nice local restaurant called Quarry Bistro. It features local and organic ingredients much like the pizza place, except more formal and upscale. Of course, it never gets too formal in the mountains. Anyways, they say they specialize in French and Italian cooking, which I'd agree with.

To start with, we all shared PEI Mussels and Frites. The mussels were huge and tasty in their white wine, butter and capers. The frites were cut thin and featured some sweet potato fries, which I thought was a nice touch. I've never really discussed my love of sweet potatoes, but I really like them. The fries were topped with aioli, I'm pretty sure. That was rich and tasty and perfect for my very hungry stomach. My sister started with the soup of the day, which I think was tomato and bread. She loved the tomatoes and thought the bread was good. She also claimed the soup filled her up so she could barely eat her pasta entree. The soup did appear very thick to me.

After the mussels, we were brought some foccacia bread. I only ate a little, wanting to save room for other things, but it was really tasty with plenty of olive oil and salt on top. Anyways, they have good bread, which really I would expect.

Next up were the entrees. Before they arrived, I noticed the spectacular red Mohawk of one of the cooks through the pass. It was pretty sweet. My mom had the special which was lobster, duck confit, and (white?) beans. She ate it all I think, so it must have been good. My father and sister had Penne all'Amatriciana. It was penne with a spicy tomato sauce and bacon. My sister once again loved the tomatoes. I tried a piece of pasta and a bit of bacon and it was indeed quite tasty. Neither of them could finish the pasta, I would have expected more from my dad.

My entree gets its own paragraph, because I'm important, kidding. I had the Sooke Hills Rainbow Trout served with almond risotto and green beans. I was trying to branch out and I believe it was my first risotto and my first trout. The green beans were lightly cooked so they were still crisp and sprinkled with balsamic vinegar. The vinegar was a nice touch and I would have been sorely disappointed if the beans were overcooked. The trout, was served with the skin and was seasoned with plenty of pepper and some butter. It was really tender and tasty. I wouldn't hesitate to have rainbow trout again. The best part of my entree was the risotto. It was really soft and creamy. . . I thought it was supposed to have a bit, but like I said I've never had it before. Anyways, it was really delicious and creamy and had plenty of delicious almonds mixed in. It will not be my last risotto.

I had a glass of Italian red wine that my parents ordered with my food. It was drinkable and good and apparently from grapes grown of vineyards sloping towards the sea in Abruzzo. Anyways, as a result I was slightly drunk by the end of the meal, lightweight that I am.

So, after devouring my entire entree, I wanted a sweet treat. I knew that there was a single scoop of homemade semifreddo (ice cream) available. So I ordered that in chocolate, for a little something. This is the course I was alone in eating. Anyways, texture-wise it wasn't too spectacular. It was good but nothing like the smooth creaminess of gelato. Where it really shone was in the flavour, which was given a twist with some cinnamon. Of course I ate the whole scoop, loving it all. They're really smart to have such a small dessert on offer. I wouldn't have gone for anything larger.

Anyways, the Quarry Bistro has good food and a nice atmosphere right on Main Street in Canmore. Incidentally, I found this video on You Tube of Chef David Wyse from Quarry telling Kelly Hrudey how to make carbonara. It's kind of fun, maybe you should watch it.

Pizza!!! From a Wood Burning Oven

2007-05-24T22:30:00.000-06:00

I'm a fan of pizza, and last Satuday I hadn't eaten it for a while. My parents suggested that we go to Rocky Mountain Flatbread Company for pizza. I was psyched, even more so when I saw the big woodburning oven in the corner of the restaurant. It was a crowded place and I figured the wait would be worth it. I'd say we waited half an hour or 45 minutes for a table with me staring at the oven hungrily. The restaurant is pretty casual, as you'd expect a pizza place to be. There is a big emphasis on organic food and revealing the source of ingredients. Although, the special pizza that night featured Atlantic salmon, which to my knowledge is almost exclusively farmed and contains an order of magnitude more contaminants than wild Pacific salmon. Anyways, it was a pretty cool place.

I should get to the food. I was with just my mom and dad since my sister foolishly opted out of this meal and ate Quizno's instead. For the 3 of us we ordered 2 regular pizzas, the Nemo and the Naturally Meaty (I think, it's not listed on the website). I started out drinking just water, but my dad said his beer--a local pilsner--was really good and "European" in style. So, I ordered a half pint, because I'm a lightweight, and enjoyed it with my pizza. It was not sweet and not heavy; it's too late to describe it now but it's worth a try if you like beer. The Nemo came first, you might guess that it featured seafood, and you'd be right. The website describes it as "Brushed with pesto and tomato sauce and topped with king prawns, artichokes, red onion, cilantro and asiago cheese." This is not quite right as the shrimp weren't that big, there were crayfish (or something like that), and I don't think there was cilantro or asiago. Anyways, it was as described on the menu in the restaurant. The crayfish things were especially tasty as was the very strongly tomatoey sauce. I also quite like artichoke. Anyways, it was freaking tasty. The crust was thin as expected, but less crisp and more limp than I might have guessed coming from that oven. I ate some pizza with a knife and fork, which is a sacrilege for me. But I repeat it tasted really good.

Next up was the "Naturally Meaty" featuring the same crust and delicious sauce. It also had green peppers, fresh tomato, ground beef, and sweet Italian sausage. It was also really tasty, with a particular emphasis on that spectacular pizza sauce. That sauce was really important to me as a big tomato fan.

As a final comment, the pizza is not inexpensive at up to $20 for a regular. But it is really tasty and the larges might be more economical. All I can say about the pizza is that it's tasty because there was so much good flavour going on. And it goes with beer. My mom almost didn't want to wait for this pizza experience, but I insisted and it was sooooo worth it!

Edmonton Stuff

2007-05-24T22:12:00.000-06:00

I'll start with Wednesday and the remains of Ryan's ANTM Finale Party. He got an "ANTM" Dairy Queen log cake and served Diet Coke. I don't drink Diet Coke. . . or regular Coke for that matter. I don't really like sweet drinks and I can't stand the aspartame after taste . . . or Splenda aftertaste for that matter. But Dairy Queen cakes, those are good. I enjoy my Dairy Queen, although Blizzards make me sick from too much ice cream. I hadn't had an ice cream cake in ages, although I used to have them for every birthday. So, I guess there's a lot of pleasant memories attached. The cake was much appreciated!

On Friday before I caught my bus to Calgary, I ate at Kabsa downtown, based on reviews like this in the local media. I went alone and ordered the lamb, which cost about $13. It came with what I think was the vegetable Kabsa. There were potatoes, carrots, and some other veggies in a really tasty sauce. The lamb had a lot of bone and fat. . . real lamb and it was tender. . . but disappointingly weak lamb flavour. Although, I might have overpowered any of that by dipping it in the homemade hot sauce. That sauce was good, cool tomato and cilantro, but spicy. Actually, quite spicy. I really liked it. There was also a salad of finely chopped marinated vegetables that I also enjoyed for its tartness and vegetableness. Finally, there was (a mountain of) rice, probably some of the oiliest rice I've ever eaten but so tasty with onions and peas, and delicious fat. The portion was huge and I didn't eat it all. I'm thinking the fish or chicken might be better. Anyways, it was an interesting experience. I don't know if I'll go back, but I might if I were hungry and downtown. I don't think I'd get lamb though. It wasn't that great and other meats are cheaper.

After that meal, I got on a bus to Calgary then drove with my family to Canmore. I'll talk about some food there next.

Dinner Party Part 3: Dessert (AKA: The Main Event)

2007-05-16T22:36:00.000-06:00

If you've been reading my Blog--and I know you probably haven't--you would be able to figure out what I made for dessert for my dinner party. Want a hint? I ate three of them on Monday. It was brownies!!!

These are my dark chocolate brownies. They're mine because I sort of combine and modify two recipes, one from Epicurious and one from the BHG New Cookbook (not very gourmet, I know). Anyways, this is quite a chocolaty brownie with a crumbly texture and medium density (neither lead nor aluminum, hehe) I like them and my friends dug in at the party, so they must be alright. Brownies are super easy, everyone should make them. They will impress your friends with minimum effort.

Here's how I do it:

6 tablespoons butter (I use salted, I'm not a proper gourmet, but I don't add extra salt later)

4 ounces coarsely chopped unsweetened chocolate

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Melt butter and unsweetened chocolate over low heat, stir it a lot, use a saucepan. When it's all melted, remove it from the heat and cool it somewhat.

2. Grease a 9-inch square cake pan.

3. Stir the sugar into the chocolate and butter goodness in the pot. Add the eggs individually and stir well between each addition. Add vanilla, stir again.

4. Stir together the flour and baking powder with a fork. Add this to the chocolaty goodness. Stir until it's combined, do not over-stir. Put the batter in the pan, really that's the best place for it.

5. Bake for 23-25 minutes. Take it out, cool it, cut it into brownies. (I broke mine flipping it out of the pan. But rustic brownies are good, so it was fine.)

Here's a gratuitous shot of the unbroken brownies in the pan:

Somebody should try to lift it out and eat the whole thing. But, that would be piggish, but delicious. And it would break. . .

Dinner Party Part 2: Main Dishes

2007-05-15T21:59:00.000-06:00

I did a really bad job of photographing the main dishes I made for my dinner party. So all you're going to see is the mango chutney above. It was served with an oven roasted pork tenderloin made using this recipe, with a few changes. The changes were that I used ground cumin and added it with the turmeric, I roasted the meat at 450 F to an internal tempertature of 155 F, and I omitted the cilantro because I don't really like it. This was the second time I made this reciped and it's good. Obviously that's why I made it again. The roasting probably took at least half an hour, but I wasn't timing it.

Anyways, the result was very good. Tender and lightly curry flavoured pork with a sweet, tart, and spicy chutney. I don't know about its authenticity as Indian food, but my Indian friend thought it was good and not totally Western. Anyways, the recipe tastes good and the chutney can be conveniently made in advance and served at room temperature.

In addition to the pork, I made shrimp. I like having pork with seafood. It just seems right, I think I've mentioned this before. Anyways, I used a pound of large shrimp to make "Border-Style Shrimp." I reduced the recipe to about 2/3 of the original amounts, but used all the spices. I also used a little olive oil instead of cooking spray as I don't own any and it's not my style. Anyways, I was too busy eating the shrimp and making the pork to photograph them. But they were good, a little tart from the lime, a touch of spice, and some buttery goodness. They were really fast and easy too, but I think shrimp sautees generally are. One could definitely do worse. Then again, I find shrimp intrinsically delicious and tastier than lobster. Lobster provides for my exciting eating though, what with all the shell cracking and digging for meat.

A break from the Dinner Party Talk: Let's Talk Luck and Randoms

2007-05-14T21:52:00.002-06:00

I want to share some random stuff. You may remember my post about a delectable mango variety. Well, I found them again at Save On Foods and bought two more. They're called Ataulfo. These ones were maybe not as perfect looking as the first one, but the one I ate this morning had the same delicious flesh. I think they're more orange inside than the most common mango variety. If you find these mangoes, buy them. They are much less fibrous than typical ones and who wants a more fibrous fruit? Crazy people, that's who.

Next random comment: Why can I not help myself when presented with three remaining chocolate baked goods? The rest of the time i tend to eat one or two cookies or brownies at a time. . . usually one. But the last two times I've baked chocolate treats, I've eaten the last three all at once. It feels gluttonous. It happened with the chocolate and Mini Egg cookies I made. It happened again tonight with the remaining unfrozen brownies. I rationalize it like this: I eat two and there's one left. I figure if I eat it now I just won't eat it later so it's fine. Plus, I was planning to work out after each mini-binge. But now I have no more delicious brownies. . . more on them later.

You might be wondering where luck comes into this. I went to buy a few essentials at Safeway tonight: milk, eggs, bread, Shreddies, family size Fruit and Nut Dark. Actually, it's probably lucky that family size Cadbury bars are on for a dollar. But I had more luck. You know how nobody ever wins on those contest cards at Safeway? Well, I never had except Airmiles, which I don't collect. Tonight I won!!! A rather fancy pen, well fancier than anything I already have. It has a lifetime warranty, but I'll probably lose it. That's why I don't have nice pens. Anyways, who doesn't like to win?

My third stroke of luck came when I knocked my favourite water glass on the floor and it didn't break. I have the magic touch . . . maybe.

Dinner Party Part 1: Appetizers

2007-05-13T17:34:00.000-06:00

On Saturday I hosted my first ever dinner party. I think it was tasty and fun for me and four of my friends who decided to attend. First up were the appetizers: I made two different toppings for baguette slices: a "classic caponata" and garlicky roasted bell peppers with feta cheese. Interestingly rumor has it one of my guests would eat an entire baguette with spinach dip given the opportunity.

First up, the peppers. This is my variation on a recipe that my uncle learned from a Greek neighbour. My uncle and father make this by barbecuing the peppers to blacken them. I'm not equipped for that, so I use my oven following the guidelines of Clotilde. Bell peppers take nearly an hour to roast at 400 degrees, with several turns. I used two green peppers and one red, since I wanted a mix of colours and flavours. After sweating the peppers in foil and peeling them, I sliced them into strips and tossed them with about two tablespoons of olive oil, a minced clove of garlic, salt, and pepper. I then refrigerated them overnight as these things get better with time. It's key to roast the peppers on foil as pepper juices can burn and pretty much ruin a baking tray. I know because it happened to me a few months ago. These are my peppers after roasting and sweating, don't be alarmed at the burnt spots because they peel off for the most part when you skin the peppers by hand.

I really like the taste of the peppers combined with feta cheese slices and bread. I've eaten that combo four separate times in the last two days because I had leftovers since three peppers is more than five people need. Every bite is good with it's combination of salt, creaminess, breadiness (bread is good, don't you know?), and the indescribable but so good flavour of roasted pepper. As a variation, you could use hot peppers like my uncle does. In this case, the feta is a necessary cooling agent. Even so, three years ago I could barely eat one piece of his roasted chili. It was freaking hot.

I made the caponata from this recipe on Epicurious. I'd never had caponata that I know of, but it sounded good and I like eggplant. Plus, the recipe was well rated. I made a bit less than the full recipe, which was nevertheless a lot. I used a one pound eggplant, 3/4 of an onion, two tablespoons of red wine vinegar, and a little less than the recommended amount of olive oil. I omitted the pine nuts since one of my guests was probably allergic, plus I'm lazy and cheap (actually I'm not sure if they're expensive). Also, I boiled the mixture considerably longer than recommended. I think this helped the flavours to meld together and to soften the eggplant. Here you can see the onions, garlic, and eggplant sauteing. It looks pretty good right there.

This was a good make-ahead appetizer. My guests seemed to like combining it with feta cheese as well, which is fine by me. I'm really not a food Nazi who tells people exactly how to eat my cooking. I actually just want people to enjoy what I make for them. The flavour of the caponata is a bit tart with plenty of eggplant texture. The capers in it add a tart and salty dimension. If you haven't tried capers, you really should. I'm experimenting with mixing the leftovers with pasta for lunch tomorrow.

In conclusion, tasty things on bread are a winner as starters for a dinner party. Plus, they can be made the day before and I'm pretty sure my friends liked them nearly as much as I did.

Too Much Sushi

2007-05-13T13:39:00.000-06:00

I've been to Japan, but Japanese food is not an obsession of mine, although I like it once in a while. I find it a bit. . . lacking in spice and strong flavours compared to other Asian cuisines. Anyways, I've eaten Japanese food probably 3 times in the last six weeks, thanks to my new favourite sushi restaurant.

Kyoto Japanese Cuisine on 109th Street near the University was recommended by an old friend who evidently loves sushi. My first visit was with my sister, for sushi. I had sake . . . big mistake as it was nasty stuff. To me, it was floral plus alcohol equals nail polish remover. . . or maybe hairspray. I was really impressed with the diverse dinner menu of sushi and other Japanese things. I had toro, spicy tuna, unagi, and scallop sushi. I enjoyed all of them. I especially liked the scallop, which I could not remember having before. It was very tender and I really liked the texture. The flavour was characteristically mild. I also tried the jellyfish salad, which was very tasty with a lot of sesame flavour. My sister and I split some fried squid to start with. It seemed okay.

On my second visit, I was pretty disappointed with the tempura in my tempura udon. I ordered it because my throat was sore. The broth and noodles hit the spot, but the tempura were too greasy. . . I know they're fried but still. They weren't fried well.

So, on my third visit with my mom, we avoided fried foods. We also ordered way too much. The yakitori (grilled chicken skewers), were unremarkable as the sauce lacked flavour. We both agreed that this was the element that should have been left out of the order. We also had meat gyoza (dumplings). To me, they were a bit bland. But my mom liked them as she's a dumpling fan and I still ate three even though I was stuffed. We tried some special salads. I had the Kyoto one and she had the seafood one. I enjoyed the presence of salad greens in an otherwise nearly vegetable matter free meal. My salad had four large pieces of barely seared (ie nearly raw) fish and some black fish roe. For sushi, I had scallop, salmon, and baby tako (baby octopus). Scallop and salmon were good as expected. The baby tako was quite striking in appearance with two reddish purple baby tako on each roll. They were difficult to eat delicately due to their size. However, the tako was very tender and not too chewy. All in all, it was a very good meal. My mom seemed to enjoy her spicy tuna rolls and unagi. I challenge anyone not to like unagi. Seriously, barbecued eel is good. Now I definitely know where to go for sushi, if not for Japanese fried food.

In Japan, I went to one sushi restaurant of the rotating-sushi-track variety. I don't remember what I ate except for some rolls topped with clear, colourless worm-like things with black eyes that I was told were baby eels. I ate them even though it was a roll that my Japanese host family wouldn't touch. I was a crazy eater even at 15.

2 Quick Dinners in the Colour Yellow, Plus a Random Chinese Baking Comment

2007-05-12T21:51:00.000-06:00

I think I'm pretty behind on my blogging, not that a lot of people would notice. But, a lot of what I've been up to is food related, so I foresee three posts in the next couple of days, at least.

I talked about going to T&T Supermarket a week ago. When I go there, I like to buy Chinese-style baked goods. Last week, I got a taro bun with almonds. There weren't many almonds, but I didn't really care because I got that topping to avoid the sickly sweet "pineapple" topping on so many of the sweeter buns. Not that it's terrible or should be avoided, but I didn't feel like eating it for breakfast on Sunday. Chinese baked goods, judging from T&T's and things other people say are usually very soft. Buns like the taro bun are soft and slightly sweet. They're a nice change from other bread products.

The taro filling was purple and pleasantly sweet with a starchy texture. . . I think, it was a while ago. Anyways, I liked it. I think I may still prefer red bean filling, though. I think I'm the only white person I know who enjoys red bean sweets, I tried feeding red bean candy to my family and nobody really liked it. My sister in particular was disgusted and didn't finish her piece. Personally, I think it like it because I'm just that big of a fan of beans. If I can have bean texture in sweet form, it's fine by me. Probably the most revelatory baked good that I've bought at T&T was called "cumin bread." I only saw it once. It was a soft bread, not sweet, spiced with cumin and topped with cumin seeds containing raisins and walnuts. It was a very good breakfast. The reason it was a revelation was that it gave me the idea to spice oatmeal with cumin since if it works in a "raisin bread", why shouldn't it work in oatmeal. . . like cinnamon. That may not make sense but it's how my mind works. I'm a big fan of cumin, needless to say.

I didn't think I would have that much to say about the bun, but on to Tuesday. I made a couple of fried eggs on top of sauteed spinach and onion plus corn on the cob. First the corn,

I hadn't had corn on the cob in recent memory. Boiled and then spread with some butter, It was really good. I liked the sweetness and the sensation of biting into it. Plus, that bright sunny yellow is visually appealing. I will have to eat more corn this summer. Actually, it was kind of funny because I tried to boil the corn in a not terribly large pot. It didn't fit until i cut off some of the stem. So, use a big pot to boil corn.

On to the eggs and spinach. They were tasty as the onions were nicely caramelized. I messed up one of the eggs and broke the yolk, which was a big disappointment. I guess my point is that I looooooove runny egg yolks and the perfect over easy egg. I have a friend who is disgusted with runny yolks, but they have been a great pleasure to me since I was a kid. I remember eating over easy eggs on toast on the weekend when I was little. I used to save the yolk till the end and relish every bit. So here's a gratuitous yolk shot:

On Wednesday, I made some vegetarian comfort food, and no I'm not a vegetarian, but I find beans and legumes very satisfying. Anyways, I felt like some lentils and had leftover dried red lentils from making this soup. I decided to make a curry soup also using the remainder of my bunch of spinach. I began by sauteing about half an onion in some olive oil. Then I added two cups of water, a teaspoon of chicken bouillon (not so vegetarian after all. . . oops), and a heaping teaspoon of curry powder. I added a half cup of rinsed red lentils and boiled it for fifteen minutes. Then I added some torn spinach, probably about three cups, and cooked it until that wilted. It looked, a little bit gross perhaps:

But that doesn't mean it didn't taste good. And it did taste good, or else I wouldn't mention it. It had a good lentil texture, I guess it's the starch and protein, the leguminess. (Made up words are fine.) The curry flavour worked well and the spinach provided a nice contrast in colour and texture as well as a mild flavour. I thoroughly enjoyed eating this.

Signs of Spring. . . My Salad Can Kick Your Salad's Ass

2007-05-07T21:43:00.000-06:00

So, making a salad for dinner tonight I thought I would blog about it and call it "my salad can kick your salad's ass." Needless to say I was pretty confident about my salad. It was going to be freaking awesome. How could it not be? I was sauteing shrimp, onion, and garlic. I was making my own croutons. It was going to have fresh spinach and tomato. Anyways, we'll see how it turned out.

I've been thinking about making more salad, because it's spring. Did you need to be told?

Anyways, I also made a good salad a while ago with leaf lettuce, shredded carrot, canned herring, bottled roasted red pepper salad dressing, and toasted tortilla. It was good because the oily fish and crunchy tortilla were distributed in pretty much every bite. Plus bottled dressing is pretty well balanced.

This salad I made tonight:
Actually, I was pretty good. It looks good. Actually, I suppose the only flaw was the way I dressed it. I tried to make my own dressing which was about 1 part Dijon mustard: 4 parts white vinegar: 2 parts extra virgin olive oil. I mixed it with a fork, and my not have gotten it quite right. I think i left a lot of the oil behind, let's just say it was a touch too vinegary. Solution: I need to get some better vinegar like red wine or balsamic. Other than that, the croutons were crisp after being tossed in olive oil, salt, pepper, and thyme and baked at 350 until toasty. The onions were nice and sweet, the shrimp were perfectly cooked, and the tomato was enjoyable if not super tasty. The spinach was fine, too.

Anyways, all of this reminds me how good salads future will be. Why? Because soon I will be gardening and have freshly picked greens. They are so nice and tender. Plus, there should be ones with interesting flavours, shapes, and colours. And late in the summer, there will be tomatoes, fresh and tasty, even yellow ones. Honestly, I can't wait until I can stop relying on mediocre supermarket produce. Maybe I will perfect the art of making a vinaigrette by then, or maybe I will just cave and use bottled.

On Obsession and the Nasty Bits

2007-05-06T22:27:00.000-06:00

I want to talk about two things that are. . . vaguely related and definitely food related. First off, I am a little bit obsessed with finding the best food I can to eat and not wasting my time with mediocre crap. And mostly, with not being able to tell when I'm eating mediocre crap. Well I guess mediocre isn't crap, but it's "just okay." I think really, that a lot of what I eat is just okay, but I like to eat and I think I pick up on something to like in most things.

This really came to a head yesterday when I went for a day of shopping. Of course with the numerous trips I was making back and forth across West Ed acquiring my assortment of clothes and shoes, I got hungry for lunch. Actually, that would have happened anyways, I can't really skip meals. Anyways, I went looking for some Asian food and ended up sitting down for Vietnamese pho at Pho Hoa, which turned out to be part of a massive chain. I figured it would be okay because most of the clientele were Asians. Anyways, sitting alone, I could tell that my order was forgotten about and waited at least half an hour for my soup. When it came, I was hungry so I ate it all. The broth seemed okay to me, but needed a lot of hot sauce. There seemed to be a reasonable amount of meat, more on that later. The noodles, well, they were stuck together really bad. This was my main complaint, along with the waiting. Anyways, a quick search on this Internet when I got back revealed comments that this chain is among the worst possible places for pho and something about a "big bowl of MSG." I don't think I can tell if I'm eating MSG and I couldn't tell that it was terrible. So, I don't know about my taste and questioning whether I have decent taste was. . . troubling. Anyways, on the bright side, I was only out $8 including a perhaps over-generous tip through the whole thing and had energy to shop.

Anyways, I would like to find some truly good pho or other Vietnamese foods like Bahn Mi (if that's sandwiches). Any tips would be appreciated.

You might wonder what the "Nasty Bits" part of my title is. It's a reference to parts of animals people don't like to eat. I'm an unapologetic omnivore. I do worry about the conditions of animals raised for meat, but shamefully not enough to do anything about it and find humane, hormone free meat. I remember learning in elementary school about the uses that First Nations people had for all the parts of the Bison. I thought it was smart to put everything to good use, and it shows respect for the life of the animal to use everything. Anyways, I am intrigued by the idea of eating offal, which Offal Good describes as "those parts of a meat animal which are used as food but which are not skeletal muscle." Examples include organ meats, feet, and heads.

Anyways I guess the first experiences I have had with offal were of the turkey variety since my mom puts the heart and liver in her stuffing or gravy at Christmas. I prefer it in the stuffing. When I played soccer, there was one girl who I tried to put off her game by talking about eating turkey heart. I thought that was funny and it grossed her out. At a hot pot restaurant, I remember eating chicken gizzards and tripe. These two types of offal were remarkable for their unique textures and I guess I like unusual textures, but not so much that of tripe. Tripe is the stomach lining of a cow or other ruminant animal.

When Albert was last here, we got something labeled pig's huff at T&T Supermarket. I think they meant hoof, as it was pig's foot prepared in a salty Chinese way. The flavour and texture were very interesting to me. I ate a lot of it despite the obvious fattiness. It had a tart dipping sauce. I think I would eat a bit of it again. Incidentally, Korea has restaurants specializing in pig's foot. If I ever go to Korea, I think I will try to eat in one. Incidentally, offal is much more popular across the Pacific than in North America, where most people have an aversion to it. While eating the foot, I became interested in offal and found the Offal Good website.

That was the end of my offal eating until yesterday, at the mediocre Vietnamese restaurant. They listed options for meat to be in the soup as for beginners, regular, and adventurous. What am I if not adventurous? I'm talking about food here, I might be pretty boring otherwise. Anyways, I ordered soup with steak, flank, tendon, and tripe. There was plenty of rather ordinary beef and tendon, which was pretty gelatinous. I enjoyed the textural contrast of the tendon. There was one piece of tripe, I think. I appreciated its texture but would have liked another piece to be sure.

And then there's the future of me and offal. And that is that I think I might try cooking liver and onions some time. I don't know if I like it but maybe I should find out.

What's for Dinner?

2007-05-04T23:06:00.000-06:00

I thought I'd talk about one surprisingly good think i whipped up for dinner this week and what I mad tonight, which was also pretty good (and got photographed). The point of this is that cooking for one is an everyday activity, for me at least.

On Monday, I decided that I would whip up some fried rice with sticky rice left over from the Bul Go Gi House. No, the rice wasn't fresh. I fried up some onion, tofu, mushrooms, garlic, and a small zucchini in olive oil (very Asian I know). Then I added a bunch of rice and some hoisin sauce and garlic chili sauce. No, there wasn't egg. Does that make it not fried rice? I don't know. Anyways, it was good mainly because of the taste of the rice. I didn't know rice could taste that good. Is that taste telling me that sticky rice is bad for me?

Tonight, as I was walking home from work I composed a pasta in my head using broccoli and pork. At home, I sauteed a quarter onion in olive oil and added broccoli and a clove of garlic (minced of course). I sauteed that a bit and added some finely sliced pork chop, seasoned with black pepper and cooked the pork, added a splash of pasta water, and stirred in some al dente tortiglioni. Then I put it all in a big ass bowl and sprinkled it with grated Romano cheese. Later, I decided it needed a touch of salt as well. This is what it looked like:

I noticed several good things about this dish. The onions got nicely caramelized and were quite sweet and delicious. The cheese got fairly well distributed and contributed saltiness and creaminess, a bite with cheese was a good bite. The pork was also moist and tasty. It's actually been a while since I cooked meat, so there was a bit of novelty there. The broccoli remained crisp and it did not have a nasty broccoli pasta flavour, perhaps because it wasn't cooked to death. Finally, that pasta. Pasta tastes good to a carb lover like me. Plus, isn't that shape fun. Trust me, it's fun to eat. Don't you like stuff that's fun to eat? Overall, this was a pretty decent quick dinner for after work.

And now, couple of other food notes from this week:

You know when you think somebody will bring donuts to a meeting? And then they bring strudels and turnovers instead. And then you choose some giant strudel sprinkled with peanuts and covered in vanilla and butterscotch icing, probably the richest, sugariest one. And you eat it all even though you're not that hungry. And then you feel a little sick from sugar overload. But you had to eat it all because it was there, a gift to you. That's about what happened to me on Wednesday.

Then tonight, I went to the Sugarbowl and ate most of a bowl of Elk and Mushroom soup. I'm not sure how smart it is to order soup at 10:30 at night, it's been sitting it that pot a long time. Anyways, the mushrooms were plentiful and not your ordinary mushrooms so that was good. There was a lot of rice in the mild but tasty broth. Then there was the elk. It was ground and I can't say I tasted anything distinctive about it. Oh well, at least I can add it to the list of animals I know I've eaten. . . cow, pig, chicken, duck, alligator, lamb, baby cow (I know I'm evil), ostrich, bison, deer (I think), boar (I think), . . . maybe more I can't think of. This list excludes any animal of the sea, because that's a whole other issue. Plus, I was only vaguely aware of what I was eating in Japan, especially seafood, which may have included baby eels and a sushi of my creation featuring two generations of salmon. What animals won't I eat? Endangered species, bear, and shark. Didn't anyone ever tell you bears and sharks are our friends?

Cheeeeeese 2

2007-05-03T22:09:00.000-06:00

This is where I continue my list o' cheese:

Gouda: A nice flavour in a cheese, I can't really describe it but it's good. Sometimes in the afternoon, it's Gouda time, just ask my sister.

Swiss: This cheese was my enemy for life. I really didn't like the taste when I was little. But now, I'm quite okay with it. It has a taste, I like that in a cheese. It's good on sandwiches. Besides, who doesn't enjoy looking at a cheese with holes.

Pecorino Romano: A hard, salty Italian cheese that I grate on my pastas right how. Pasta is way better with some cheese. I'm sure Parmigiano is also good. Much better than cheese from a can. This cheese appears in the photo above.

Mozzarella: This cheese is a lot bland for me in it's industrial form, which is most of what I've eaten. Those fresh ones people talk about might be nice. Otherwise, this is only for pizza. But don't get me wrong, I love pizza.

Gruyere: I bought a Swiss imported Gruyere. It's quite mild and perhaps a bit nutty.

Cottage Cheese: I like the tartness of cottage cheese but have not eaten it recently.

Cantenaar: My cheese of the moment. This is a Dutch cheese. I'd say it's semi-hard. It's lower in fat than many cheeses but it has a really satisfying tang. I guess it's a bit sharp. It's good for sandwiches. . . actually the description in the store said it was. That's why I bought it. It's photographed above.

That's all I can think of for now folks. Please, tell me about your favourite cheeses.

Cheeeese!!!

2007-05-02T22:45:00.000-06:00

Over the last year, I've been on a bit of an informal and admittedly not very efficient cheese tasting mission. You see, after leaving Lister--land of the plastic cheese--I could buy my own cheese. Good cheese, flavourful cheese. I discovered by something of a random occurrence that I actually love strong cheese even the dreaded blue cheese. I ate some during lunch on my first day volunteering in the campus community garden last may. It was really good and I was driven to expand my cheese horizons. Here are a few of my notes about cheese, they're a little random because it's late:

Brie: I like this more for soft, creamy texture than flavour, but it's good.

Blue Cheese: Strong, smelly cheese flavour and a little goes a long way. . . mmm. This is why I like the salad in the previous post.

Cream Cheese: Excellent on bagels, cheese cake is pretty darn good too. I love the creaminess and slight tang.

Cheddar: This was my main cheese growing up and I still love it. The sharper the better. Mild cheddar is a no go.

Camembert: Also soft and creamy but mild.

Double Gloucester: Orange and British, it looked like cheddar, but the flavour was disappointingly mild compared to an old cheddar. It grew on me, though.

Edam: It had a red wax coating, the texture and flavour were not bad but not remarkable either.

Feta: I really like salty feta on pizza and with marinated roasted peppers on bread. It's the star of Greek salad, which is really and excuse to eat cheese.

Goat's Cheese (Chevre): I love the tang and the sort of creamy texture. To me it's like cream cheese gone wild. Wild is good.

Consider this the start of a list. More tomorrow perhaps.

Restaurant Notes

2007-04-30T21:52:00.000-06:00

I'm going to summarize the three other meals I had with my parents during their visit.

First off, lunch at Cafe Select on 109th. I have some ambivalence toward Cafe Select. This stems mainly from having dinner there before the Phantom of the Opera. My duck breast entree was completely inadequate for my appetite and I ended up being hungry during the show. My friend Mark was also hungry after his beef fillet entree. I'm pretty sure there wasn't even a bread basket. My other previous meals at Cafe Select included a mind bogglingly fluffy omelet and a too cheesy duck pizza.

Anyways, on Saturday I ordered the "shrimp and blue salad" featuring blue cheese, shrimp, and lettuce. This was obviously another light selection with the potential for a still empty stomach afterwards. Not that it was really "light" being heavy on the blue cheese and creamy dressing. I'm a fan of blue cheese and this salad was generous with the stuff so I was happy. The shrimp were tasty as well and the greens were fresh. Afterwards, my mother and sister were examining desserts after their hot squid salads. So, I of course got in on the action ordering a creme brulee all for myself. It was good, although I haven't eaten any other ones recently. The sugar was nicely caramelized on top and the custard part was very rich and not too sweet. Overall, I was quite a satisfying lunch.

For dinner that night, we went to Murrieta's on Whyte Ave. I like this restaurant, the food is really good. The service is good too and we were moved from the lounge area to the dining room due to a draft that I couldn't stand. To start with we had an order of steamed PEI mussels. We've ordered the mussels numerous times and it is always a generous serving with a delicious sauce around it. This time, the sauce was updated to feature a citrus tomato sauce and bacon. With the mussels, we got the complementary bread. It was a delectable mulitgrain, perfect for dipping in the mussel sauce.

Now for our mains, my mom had the duck breast, my sister had seared scallop linguine, my dad had lamb meatball spaghetti, and I had the Westcoast paella. The duck was not too large a portion and my mother appreciated this and ate it all. The seared scallop linguine featured really good scallops but my sister didn't eat it all because it was heavy on the olive oil. The spaghetti is good, I know because I've had it before, but not nearly as many times as my dad. He loves it, and it's good if you like lamb and spaghetti, which I do but I was looking to branch out. The serving seems to be slightly smaller before with six meatballs instead of eight. But really that's okay, because I always made two meals out of it before. The paella was delicious and I ate all of the rice in sweet tomato sauce. It contains a variety and seafood and chorizo sausage. I really liked being able to eat large shrimp, a little salmon, succulent scallops, and mussels in one dish with the perfect pork chorizo.

The next morning, at way too late for breakfast (about 11), we went for brunch at The Sugarbowl. I also like this restaurant both as a good place to drink beer and eat chili lime popcorn, and for breakfast and dinners like their lamb burger. On this particular morning I went with the spinach and feta omelet. It came with pan potatoes and a piece of whole-wheat toast. The potatoes were good, with some kind of red seasoning/sauce, which left them devoid of the need for ketchup. The Sugarbowl also serves pan fried potatoes with sandwiches. The toast did not come heavily buttered, unlike at most places and I enjoyed it with raspberry jam. The omelet was laden with green spinach and salty feta. I quite liked it. As if eating all that wasn't enough, my dad ordered a cinnamon bun in addition to his breakfast for us to share. I had been wondering about these big buns. They looked goooood, but I'm not usually up for that much sugar. And here's my conclusion: they are good. The cinnamon sugar on the outside is crispy and caramelized in places and the bread is deliciously soft. Go ahead and order one of those bad-boys, if you can eat it all without a sugar induced stomach ache, I'll be impressed.

The Conclusion of Papaya Watch 2007

2007-04-30T21:33:00.000-06:00

I promised an update when my Hawaiian papaya ripened. And I'm sure you waited and checked here constantly like it's Facebook for the results. Actually, I'm sure nobody did, but it is my sworn duty to report.

First we get a look at the ripe papaya. I actually decided it was ripe on Sunday, but then I put it in the fridge until today, because it wasn't a good eating opportunity.

The ripe papaya is mostly yellow and was somewhat soft to the touch. So, I cut it open.

The flesh is orange, I remember something redder before, but I think this is the right colour for a Hawaiian papaya. Correct me if I'm wrong. Note the round black seeds, these reminded me a bit of seeds in a winter squash. They were easily removed with a spoon. This brings me to a "my stupid dad" story. He saw a freshly cut papaya in Hawaii a few months ago and asked "What's that stuff in it?" I thought we all expected seeds in fruit.

Anyways, the papaya texture was quite soft. The flavour, was not very sweet and maybe too subtle for my taste. It seemed kind of fragrant and I guess it was nice but, the mango's taste kicked it's a$$. Papaya watch 2007. . . worth it only for curiosity's sake. Eat more mangoes.

Mmmm. . . Korean. . . Good Times at The Bul Go Gi House

2007-04-27T22:22:00.000-06:00

My parents are here and everyone knows what that means. . . free restaurant meals. It's been about a year since my last visit to the Bul Go Gi House and I've been craving some more Korean food. Why? Probably because I get to wanting a little bit of all foods, plus there was the memory of a delicious spicy pork dish. A delicious spicy pork dish that led me to a massive pig out on pig last summer. Bul Go Gi House serves more or less family-style platters of meat dishes of the sort that would be expected to be shared by several people. Somehow, I ended up eating the vast majority of a platter of their Doah-Ji-Bul-Go-Gi last summer, which the menu translates as marinated spicy pork with vegetables. Now, why would I eat a whole platter of one meat? I discovered the answer today. It's not surprising. It's because that stuff is amazing. The pork is extremely tender and the sauce is a masterful blend of spicy, sweet, and tart. My parents agreed that it was really tasty and it was the only dish we finished. So try it, even if you doe enjoy it too much and need a long wander down Whyte Ave. to digest it.

Maybe I should backtrack to the beginning of the meal, but that pork was so good it snuck to the start of my post. The meal began with a round of Hite Korean beer followed closely by sticky rice, kimchi*, and bean sprout salad. The Hite was not my favourite kind of beer, it was a little too light and "American." My father noted that even the bottle seems American since it is shaped like a Miller bottle. Nevertheless, after two weeks without a beer for finals, I enjoyed it and thought it went alright with the food. I like the way the side dishes of kimchi and bean sprout salad come out early with the rice. These things make tasty appetizers and give you a little something to eat before the tasty dishes to come. I guess the big mistake you could make is to really fill up one rice. I think it would be tough to eat too much of the other two.

I've noticed that the order they bring out dishes is pretty random, but that's okay when everyone is sharing. Possibly it is the order in which the dishes are ready. First out in our order was Jap-Chae, which the menu describes as "fried, soft clear noodles with black mushrooms and vegetables." This is pretty accurate, if fried is interpreted as stir fried. This was by far our mildest dish, which I expected. In the sauce, the dominant flavour was soy sauce, I think. The vegetables included broccoli, carrots, black mushrooms, and possibly some others I don't recall (alcohol was served). The noodles were good. I sometimes cook Korean sweet potato starch noodles at home in ways that Albert thinks are inappropriate. The texture and character of my creations is similar to what we were served. The difference was mainly the sauce and the fact that I rarely if ever stir fry broccoli and usually include some meat or tofu. My mom was pretty impressed by the black mushrooms, which are tasty and chewy and mushroomy. I think my dad thought they were just okay.

The final dish to appear at our table was O-Jing-Uh-Bock-Kum, fried squid and vegetables. It was stir-fried in a tasty spicy sauce and the vegetables included broccoli, zucchini and cabbage. The squid was present in copious amounts as large pieces. We enjoyed this. There were many comments about the sheer volume of squid. I seriously wonder how many squid it takes to make an order of this dish. My family likes squid and we liked this dish, which featured plenty of reasonably tender squid.

At the Bul-Go-Gi House, although the service was friendly and the food delicious, the decor is pretty bad. I think it's been updated though because before the art on the walls was mountain paintings and this time it was flowers. Anyways, on a Friday night it was quite busy because good food brings people in.

Bul-Go-Gi House
8813-92 Street, Edmonton, AB

* Note: Kimchi is spicy, pickled cabbage and a quintessential Korean food. I heard a guy at a table next to ours describe it as "sauerkraut with a Korean accent" although I don't find it much like sauerkraut at all since it's not as sour. I didn't find the kimchi all that spicy. If you're curious about kimchi, ZenKimchi Korean Food Journal summarizes its history here.

In Praise of Mangoes (plus Papaya Watch 2007)

2007-04-26T21:27:00.000-06:00

I mentioned my "special" grocery shopping trip in my porky post. Now I'm on to the magic of produce. I bought a couple of tropical fruits, a mango and a papaya. I love mangoes. I've only ever had the typical mangoes that tend to be large and coloured red and green. But, I saw some much smaller, yellow mangoes. This piqued my interest, so i bought one. They had a name, but I can't remember it. If you happen to be a mango expert, fill me in on what you think this is:

There's nothing there for scale, but I think it was about half the size of the typical mango variety. And when I cut into it, the flesh was so beautiful.

Well, it doesn't look that special, just golden and juicy like a mango should be and I guess a mango is special. And you're probably wondering: what about the taste? I don't buy mangoes for looks and I devoured this one with my breakfast. The texture was unusually smooth aside from the fibrous bits near the pit. The flavour was sweet and mangolicious, better than most mangoes. (Mangolicious refers to the uniquely delicious flavour of mangoes.) Plus, it was small enough to eat in one sitting without feeling like a mango hog, which is rather convenient. If you see a little yellow mango, but it, it will be delicious assuming this single mango was a representative sample of all little yellow mangoes, perhaps a dubious assumption. The only downside was a slight bitterness near the skin, best not to try to shave the flesh off too close to the skin, but I think I've noticed this with all mangoes.

And now, onto my other tropical fruit, the Hawaiian papaya. I ate some papaya in Hawaii two Decembers ago, it was out of season and not that amazing. I think it had potential for deliciousness though and the rest of my family raved about ones they'd eaten earlier, while I was enduring final exams. Wanting to give papaya another go, I bought one. It was hard and quite green when I bought it. To be honest, I didn't know what qualities I was looking for. At home, I read that a ripe papaya is mostly yellow and yields slightly to gentle pressure. Mine was mostly green and hard. Right now it's ripening, and this is the progress (on the yellowest side):

Will it ripen? When? How will it taste? Come back next week. . . or whenever it happens. Same bat channel, same bat time. (You may wonder, "What's with the Batman references?" I think i live in a cave.)

You Are What You Eat

2007-04-24T22:04:00.000-06:00

In that case, what am I you might ask? Assuming I'm not a grain, fruit, or vegetable.......I'm probably a pig. That's me....

Living in Alberta, you would think I would eat a lot of beef. Or being a North American in general, a lot of chicken. . . because everything else tastes like chicken anyways. It's not that I never eat those things, it's just that in the last couple of weeks I don't think I've eaten chicken or beef since April 13. I know I ate burgers on that day.

So if I've been chicken and beef free, what have I been eating for that all important protein? As far as animal protein goes mainly pork and a touch of lamb. I've also been eating eggs and various seafood. Plus, I've had beans in my delectable vegetarian chili. I prefer it to my beef chili. I guess that's just because I love beans. But today, I want to talk pork.

I think pork is incredibly varied in its applications. A lot of people think of bacon when they think of tasty pig flesh. I'm not really a fan of bacon, I eat it on occasion and never make it at home. I do like back bacon though, that stuff is lean and tasty. Pork is also found in sausages, hams, pork chops, pork roast, cured meats, and many other things. I would love to cause someone with a religious ban on eating pork to lapse. . . I'm a little evil like that. I also want to see vegetarians lapse.

Anyways, I went on a "special" food shopping trip yesterday. The stuff I bought mainly fell into three categories: produce, cheese, and pork. Obviously, Canada's Food Guide recommends that we all eat mainly full fat cheese and pork. I'm probably going to post about cheese later, so let's talk about the pork products.

I'm a very, very frequent sandwich eater. So naturally, I got something made of pork for my sandwiches....hot, lean capicollo. It's pretty good stuff, I like the spiciness. It beats my usual hams because of that and makes me feel like a proper Italian, even if my mom doesn't make great cannelloni all the time.

I was more excited about the sausage I got, a Spolumbo's spicy Italian sausage. This is the most decent Italian sausage I know of in Alberta. I always hear about how great the sausages are at the Italian grocery stores my uncles visit in Ontario. I haven't been there in three years, so I don't know much about them. Anyways, I was inspired to combine my sausage with a really long eggplant, pictured here:

You might notice a theme with this meal....everything is a bit phallic. So anyways, I cobbled together my culinary not-quite-masterpiece by roasting the chopped eggplant with olive oil, pepper, and salt in a 400 degree oven for about 25 minutes until it was a bit brown. Meanwhile in the bat cave, I partially cooked the sausage by boiling it in a frying pan. . . kinda weird I guess. Then, I cut it up and browned it in a saucepan. When the sausage was cooked, I added a chopped zucchini (phallus number 3), and a chopped clove of garlic and sauteed those a bit. Then, I added about half a cup of water to deglace the pan--that means to remove the brown tasty bits stuck to the bottom of the pan. When the eggplant was ready, I stirred it in and kept it cooking a bit longer. The end result, severed on a piece of toast because I always need me some carbs, looked like this:

It looks weird and not necessarily appetizing. You might wonder how it tasted, or you might not care. Either way, I'm going to say: it was okay. The sausage was good, but somehow I think it's better in a tomato sauce on pasta. I quite enjoy zucchini, so it's good if you like that. The eggplant though is interesting. I like it, but I could see how a lot of other people would be turned off by the texture. It can be a touch slimy, but I like unusual textures so it was good. Maybe this would have been better with couscous, but I'm out of that. Also, I think the sausage wasn't spicy enough to flavour everything like I thought it would.

I'm sure you're dying for one more pork related comment. My favourite cut of plain pork is the tenderloin--so tender, so lean, so delicious if you don't really, really overcook it like Albert and I did once. I once made this pork tenderloin with mango chutney for Leslie. I cooked the pork in the oven, not on a barbecue. It was really good, easy, and pretty impressive.

That's enough about my pig eating habits, I'm sure you agree.

Sticking Things on Chocolate Cookies

2007-04-23T20:19:00.000-06:00

Cookies are one of my favourite things to make. When I was in high school and living with my family, I used to make a batch pretty much every week. At home, we could go through forty, sixty or more cookies in the week. That's because my sister and dad were cookie fiends, plus I ate at least two a day. Since I am away at school, if I bake things, including cookies it seems like I have to eat them all. So, I don't make cookies that often. Except, in the last month I've made chocolate cookies twice for gatherings of friends. I reduced a recipe by a third to come up with this simple recipe:

1 egg
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1.5 ounces unsweetened chocolate
2.5
tablespoons cooking oil
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon
vanilla
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
extra granulated
sugar
toppings

Melt the chocolate in a medium microwave safe bowl, in the microwave. Mix egg, sugar, oil, baking powder, and vanilla into the chocolate until combined. Stir in the flour. Cover and chil dough for at least an hour. Roll dough into 1-inch balls. Roll balls in sugar to coat them. Place balls on an ungreased cookie sheet. Press "toppings" into the balls. Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes. Tops will crack and edges should be set. Makes about 20 cookies.

I made a couple of variations on these cookies. First before Easter, I used one Cadbury MiniEgg on top of each cookie for Ryan's Shortbus viewing party. The cookies were like little nests made of chocolate. Who doesn't want a cute nest made of chocolate cookie? The cookies go well with The Star Spangled Banner. Most of you probably don't know what that means.

Oh, see how the eggs cracked? I think the chocolate is hatching. There might
be a chocolate monster coming soon or just delicious Cadbury's milk chocolate.

I decided to make these cookies again for Robyn's barbeque on the last day of
classes. It was after Easter and as good as out-of-season Easter candy is, I decided to go with M&Ms as a topping. These cookies were extremely popular--I saw Adam eating two at once—and quite delicious although I only got to eat one. These cookies are crisp on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside, and very chocolaty.

Speaking of out of season Easter candy, how much better do CremeEggs taste when they’re 50 cents? I actually eat much more Easter candy after Easter than before. For anyone else who loves CremeEggs, check out this GIANT one made by some crazy British people.

Why "Synthesize My Breakfast"?

2007-04-22T16:54:00.000-06:00

The name is pretty random but, I have this organic chemistry professor who likes to add completely irrelevant stories to his lectures. Usually they were about Britain, but one time he went into this description of how to make porridge for his breakfast. I didn't sound very good, but since we learn about synthesizing compounds in organic chemistry I said they were instructions on how to synthesized his breakfast. For my blog, I will show how to "synthesize" breakfast and many other meals. I much prefer this to organic synthesis. I will also talk about food "synthesized" by other, probably more skilled people.

And this is how you synthsize breakfast for lunch: AKA Buttermilk Pancakes

2007-04-22T14:28:00.000-06:00

So, for my first entry I'll tell you about making pancakes instead of studying. Pancakes are one of my many, many favourite foods. I have strange memories of myself as a child trying to eat at least ten pancakes at breakfast on the weekends. I think my dad made them really small when I was younger. As I got older I got confused as to why I couldn't eat as many as I did when I was younger. Was it possible that my breakfast eating capacity--really an enormous capacity--was shrinking while I grew? I think that's quite impossible.

Anyways, now that I live on my own I rarely make complex breakfasts like pancakes for breakfast. Usually, I upgrade them to lunch. Yesterday I decided that I wanted pancakes for lunch. I hadn't eaten them since a breakfast at the High Level Diner almost two months ago. Those pancakes were okay....but oddly tough. I ate them all anyway. The Amateur Gourmet once raved about buttermilk pancakes using this recipe from Epicurious. I always liked buttermilk pancakes from restaurants but had never bought and used buttermilk myself. So I decide that I would go to Safeway and actually buy some buttermilk to make pancakes.

Later, I stirred together the ingredients for half the recipe with a fork--no whisk for me. I dropped the batter into my beloved frying pan and the cooking pancakes looked like this:

I accidentally undercooked the first batch, but don't they look good with some random accouterments:

As I side note, I'm usually more fond of ham than bacon.....unlike my roommate.

The second round of pancakes were cooked to a more perfect consistency. They look lovely in close-up:

These pancakes were really soft and puffy and delicious. You should make them. They're super easy, as long as you let them brown up enough that they're not raw in the the middle. And buying buttermilk is worth it for the pancakes. I was curious about it so I tasted it plain and it was like drinking the juice in cottage cheese, very odd. And that is the story of my synthesis of a pancake breakfast....or lunch.