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

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.

Squid: Prepping and Cooking Sea Monsters

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.

Magical Salmon, Where Are You?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Finale of the Calgary Eats

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.

Long Time No See, Sorry It Was a Food Adventure

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.

Using the Greens

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.

Joys of Summer

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.

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

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.