Archive for July, 2008
I realize there was nothing about today that called for baked pasta. It was 30 degrees outside by 10 am, and is still so hot I have to intermittently go outside and stand in W’s kiddie pool to cool off. But yesterday when an avalanche from the freezer almost crushed Lou it became apparent that we needed to free up some space. Even our ice cube trays were displaced, and today ice could have come in handy. So the first thing that I took out (or rather kind of fell out) was a ziplock baggie of bison and blueberries that I had cooked up before we went away. I thawed it, stirred in the last of the canned diced tomatoes from Vij’s curry, some tomato sauce sauce and boiled some whole wheat rotini. The usual Willem Chow. But then it got cold and he didn’t eat it, and I had gone and made way too much, so I left it all in the skillet, sprinkled it with some cheese and baked it just long enough to rewarm the innards and melt the cheese. I had to turn it on to bake a Key lime pie for tomorrow morning anyway, so at least we got dinner out of it.
July 21 2008 | bison and freezable and one dish and pasta | 2 Comments »
I thought I had my simple curry recipe down just as pat as anything (although strangely enough it appears I haven’t made it yet this year) – turns out I don’t. This one is even better, and doesn’t even call for coconut milk, which is crazy high in saturated fat.
B has been trying to get me to make the chicken curry from Vij’s (one of Vancouver’s best restaurants – Indian fusion on south Granville) for weeks - he even found it online at North American Patriot (who in turn got it from the Globe and Mail) and printed off a copy for me, which has since then been sitting on my desk and now has random telephone numbers and notes scribbled around and in between the text. Every time I see him he gets so excited at the prospect of my trying it, that I don’t want to disappoint him yet again when I see him on Tuesday.
Also, we got in late last night and haven’t brought ourselves to go pick up any groceries, but I did have skinless chicken thighs in the freezer and that container of sour cream I bought before we left with the intention of making this. All that was missing was the fresh tomatoes, but some drained canned diced tomatoes stood in perfectly.
Here is the recipe – I have not messed with it. I will say though that I used about half as much oil and light sour cream instead of the regular stuff – a bit of a gamble, since lower-fat dairy products tend to separate with cooking, but it held together perfectly.
And when I went out to the garden to pluck some cilantro I found it had gone to seed in our absence, and when I reached in to yank out a weed growing up through the middle I extracted the whole lot of cilantro, so I salvaged maybe a tablespoon, far less than the requested half cup, and dispensed a bit of it over each bowl. It was still fantastic.
The 2 cups of water seemed like a lot, but wasn’t; I simmered it down a bit while the thighs cooled, since we were too hungry to let it sit for a half hour. I suspect it will improve in flavour overnight – next time I’ll treat it like chili and make it one day for the next, since it needs to cool down enough to shred the meat off the bones anyway. Not only will a little time in the fridge improve the flavours – I’m sure it would thicken the sauce as well, so that when you reheat it it’s a perfect consistency. Can’t wait for lunch tomorrow.
Vij Family’s Chicken Curry
What you need:
½ cup canola oil
2 cups finely chopped onions (2 large)
3-inch stick of cinnamon
3 tablespoons finely chopped garlic
2 tablespoons chopped ginger
2 cups chopped tomatoes (2 large)
1 tablespoon salt
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1 tablespoon garam masala
½ teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
3 pounds chicken thighs, bone in
1 cup sour cream, stirred
2 cups water
½ cup chopped cilantro (including stems)
What you do:
In a large pan, heat oil on medium heat for one minute. Add onions and cinnamon, and sauté for five to eight minutes, until onions are golden. Add garlic and sauté for four more minutes. Add ginger, tomatoes, salt, pepper, turmeric, cumin, coriander, garam masala and cayenne. Cook this masala for five minutes, until the oil separates.
Remove and discard skin from the chicken thighs. Wash thighs and add to the masala. Stir well. Cook chicken thighs for 10 minutes, until the chicken looks cooked on the outside. Add sour cream and water and stir well. Increase the heat to medium-high. When curry starts to boil, reduce the heat to medium, cover and cook for 15 minutes, stirring two or three times, until chicken is completely cooked. Poke the thighs with a knife. If the meat is still pink, cook for five more minutes. Remove and discard the cinnamon stick. Cool curry for at least half an hour.
Transfer cooked chicken to a mixing bowl. Wearing latex gloves, peel chicken meat off the bones. Discard bones and stir chicken back into the curry. Just before serving, heat curry on medium heat until it starts to boil lightly. Stir in cilantro.
Divide curry evenly among six bowls. Serves 6.
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July 20 2008 | chicken & turkey | 10 Comments »
Despite the fact that we only hit McDonald’s once on this road trip and Subway once on the way out, during the final stretch home we hit Golden at around dinnertime and could not bring ourselves to get fast food again – which were of course the only options on the main drag. We had been munching on the last of the car snacks, bagels, and blueberries and apricots we had picked up at roadside stands along the way (I was very disappointed to not have come across some sort of pie stand loaded down with homemade fruit pies) all afternoon, but we needed a break and something that hadn’t been rattling around the car for two days.
So rather than choose from a sad selection of drive-thrus and gas stations, I got Mike to head into town and I went into Sobey’s. A $3 cheese focaccia passed as pizza to W, who was getting fed up with this whole driving thing (in the end he ditched it after a few bites and ate two pears and a candy necklace for dinner instead), a turkey-spinach wrap that wasn’t as good as it looked, and a small container of grainy salad that was pricey at $4.50 for about a cup, but I may try to recreate at home. Here are the ingredients: quinoa, bulgur, barley, canola oil, apricots, raisins, red pepper, apple butter, apple cider vinegar, green onions, honey, salt, lime juice, parsley and garlic. Interesting, no? I never would have thought to add apple butter to a grain salad. It was really tasty, despite having that tang that salads that have been packaged for too long tend to acquire – I was disappointed to notice as we ate it that it had come from Ontario. There is no reason for a grainy salad - or any salad for that matter – to be shipped premade from Ontario to BC!
For dessert we still had beautiful fuzzy baby-bum apricots from a roadside stand, and I grabbed one of those plastic containers of precut strawberries (again, clearly not the tiny red ones from the area) and blackberries and a container of Liberté dulce de leche yogurt. Liberté is the absolute living end when it comes to yogurt – some varieties are totally extravagant at 8% butterfat (average is 1% or 2%) but makes a perfect example of it all being relative: I have friends who don’t eat it because it’s so so rich and custard-thick and high-fat, but I’d happily choose it over ice cream, which must be a minimum of 10% butterfat (and premium ice creams such as MacKays and Haagen Dazs are usually around 18%). The dolce de leche was divine, but not as mind-blowing as the mocha. I was temped to try the blackberry, which would have been great with the berries. Any kind would be a hit on fruit crumbles, crisps, pies and shortcakes. I still have to make that peach crumble – I went to the beach grocery and bought some, but they were so good we ate them as is. I haven’t had such a well-endowed, slurpy, not-a-hint-of-pulpyness peach in ages.
(Note: dulce de leche is a thick Spanish milk caramel – you can make it by sumberging an unopened can of sweetened condensed milk in a pot of water, bringing it to a simmer and cooking for 2 hours – replenish the water as needed to keep the can covered. Let it cool in the water and when you open it it will be a deep golden milky caramel.)
July 19 2008 | eating out | 1 Comment »
One of these things is not like the other.
In stark contrast with last night’s fabulous SoBo exerience, today we got pulled in by McDonald’s highway tractor beam. Partly because the first thing W said when he woke up this morning was “hamburger?” and then continued to ask for one every hour until 6pm, when we finally gave in. In Hope, there aren’t many non-fast-food hamburger options, particularly with dog in tow, so used the fact that we were on a road trip as reason enough to hit McDonald’s.
Is that enough justification? I feel like I’m in cofession. Forgive me readers, for I have sinned… it has been 184 days since my last confession. We did have sufficiently healthy snacks on board for the rest of the trip – dried fruit, nuts, granola and Mandarin oranges. But at some point you just want to eat something that can’t be classified as snack food.
So I tried the new Angus burger, and at the risk of complimenting McDonald’s, they were actually pretty good. They tasted like real beef, with lots of leafy lettuce and purple onion and slices of tomato that were actually red and tasted like tomato (unlike the anaemic slices of yellow-green tomato accessorizing the burgers we had for lunch at the Wickaninnish restaurant the other day – mine was a portobello mushroom, Mike’s was salmon, and others had regular burgers – I can unfortunately say without a doubt that the McDonald’s burgers were better than those at the Wick). It was like they weren’t even in from the same restaurant, taste-wise, as Big Macs and Quarter Pounders, and astoundingly even looked like the picture on the menu board.
July 18 2008 | eating out | 1 Comment »
You may have heard of SoBo, the eatery in Tofino everyone talks about, and likely the only little purple catering truck to make EnRoute’s Top Ten Best Restaurants (in 2003). We used to visit the truck when it was parked behind the surf shop for “killer” fish tacos, polenta fries (which I have since recreated myself with great success, and which was one of W’s favorite finger foods as a toddler) and the best Key lime pie that could possibly exist. They have since moved into an actual building without wheels, across the street from the liquor store.
When we stopped in this morning for corn bread (again, the Best Ever), they were busy squeezing row after row of golf ball-sized Key limes (named for the Florida Keys, they have a far different flavour than the Persian limes you’re probably used to seeing at the grocery store) for the Key lime pies, and I could hardly wait to go back for a late lunch, which turned out to be so massive that even now at 11 pm I’m still stuffed. But in the best possible way.
So really, it was dinner. The smoked fish chowder was possibly the best soup I’ve ever eaten – I worried that it might be too smoky. It wasn’t. It was so full of thick slabs of fish that I could have finished the bowl and called it dinner. But I had heard about the ceviche (fish finely chopped so as to almost be a salsa, and marinated in citrus juices that “cook” the fish without heat) and couldn’t leave without trying it, and if you go to SoBo it’s just a given that you get a fish taco. On the way in we spied a spectacular salad – one with soba noodles, one without, both piled with sunflower sprouts, and so we added that on too.
Lisa Ahier’s Ceviche
(pictured above – luckily this was printed in the July issue of Tofino Time)
16 oz. halibut fillet, finely diced
8 oz. spot prawns, finely diced
6 oz. scallops, finely diced
3 cups key lime juice
1 cup roma tomatoes, seeded and finely diced
1 cup red and yellow bell peppers, finely diced
1/2 cup chives, finely chopped
4 serrano chiles, finely diced
2 avocadoes, finely diced
1/2 cup cilantro, finely minced
3 tsp. salt
1/4 cup good quality extra-virgin olive oil
In a large glass bowl, combine the halibut, prawns, scallops and lime juice and let marinate for 2-3 hours. Drain and gently fold in the remaining ingredients. Serve with lettuce leaves and fresh corn chips, drizzled with a little more olive oil.
Killer Fish Tacos
(also from Tofino Time)
16 taco shells
1 lb halibut fillet,
medium diced
1 lb wild salmon fillet, medium diced
1/2 cup chipotle chiles
canned in adobo, pureed
1 cup red onion
small diced
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tbsp kosher salt
Dice the red onion and puree or finely chop the chipotles.
Dice the fish into 1-inch pieces.
Pat fish dry and season with kosher salt. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over moderate-high heat. Add the onions and saute them for 1 minute; add the fish and fry for about 3 minutes until just cooked. Add the chipotle chiles, stir for 1 more minute and remove from heat.
Fill taco shells halfway with fish mixture, then top with fruit salsa. Serve immediately.
Fresh Fruit Salsa
1 cup kiwi fruit, small diced
1 cup pineapple,
small diced
1 cup mango, small diced
1 cup papaya, small diced
2 avocados,
small diced
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
2 limes
Prepare the fruit salsa by dicing the ingredients small enough to fit into a prepared taco shell — smaller than a fruit salad, but not so small that the fruit turns to mush. Combine the fruit, avocado and cilantro. Refrigerate until ready to use. The holding time is about 24 hours as the fruit starts to break down. Also note that if you intend to prepare the salsa in advance, don’t add the avocado until immediately before serving, as avocado turns brown quickly.
But the Key lime pie. There are no words. Look at that cream. If only I could find love this pure and uncomplicated with a human being. I’ve finally discovered the secret to a strong and lasting relationship: make sure one of you is a slice of SoBo Key lime pie.
I know a SoBo cookbook is in the works, so I’m going to try to coerce Lisa to share her recipe in the meantime. Check back to see if I’m successful…
July 17 2008 | appetizers and eating out and seafood and snacks | 16 Comments »
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