Family Vacation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And More Eating. . . Same Weekend

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.

The Rest of the Ratatouille Party

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.

The Risotto Revelation

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.

Highlights (not) For Children

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.