Archive for February, 2010
(Drum roll please) and the contents of this morning’s mystery freezer bag: strips of chicken for satay! Flavoured with West African Citrus Spice blend created by our friends/neighbours who opened a spice company called The Silk Road Spice Merchant and who -by the way- are opening up a hip little shop by Caffe Rosso in Ramsay in a few months. So after you grab your latte you can pick up some true cinnamon, or ras-el-hanout, or fennel pollen, or berbere, or Cubeb berries, or Turkish baharat.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: on Halloween they dressed up as Han Solo and Princes Leia, and their toddler daughter as an Ewok. Their homemade costumes were brilliant. When we went trick-or-treating and rang the bell at their house, K answered the door as Leia (and she totally pulled it off, by the way) a few springs in Mike’s head popped loose and he blurted out something along the lines of “what is this, Christmas? My teenage fantasies are coming true?” at which point she opened the door an inch wider and said, “Mike, I’d like you to meet my Mom and Dad…”
The West African citrus blend has a base of mustard and paprika with nutmeg and allspice for sweetness, ginger and chiles for heat and dried orange peel for tartness and flavour. How delicious does that sound? It’s killer on fish and grilled chicken, which is likely why I shook some into my baggie of chicken strips and squished it around before tossing it in the freezer to marinate as it sat in wait. Any meat cut into strips thaws much more quickly than a big lump, so it’s easy to pull out, thaw, thread onto bamboo skewers and cook in about 5 minutes under the broiler. The grill would have been better, but it was cold and I was lazy.
Because in other news: I’m sick. Snotty, phlegmy, sore throat, sore head. Sneezes that feel like they just might blow my head off my body. It could be that over the past few days my defenses were knocked down while every last reserve of energy was channeled toward digesting.
Alison brought soup. Creamy broccoli with chunks of unpeeled new potatoes and grated cheese melted in. She makes it like so: dumps a 1L carton of chicken stock into a pot, brings it to a simmer with a bunch of chopped broccoli and halved baby potatoes. When the veggies are tender she throws in a handful of grated old cheddar and a couple cups of half & half. If it needs thickening, she adds a quick slurry of flour and water and lets it bubble.
Soup always tastes so much better when someone else makes it for you. Even better yet while watching The Office online, on your laptop in bed, and coming across one you haven’t seen yet.
February 22 2010 | leftovers | 21 Comments »
Honestly, I haven’t been this excited about a new restaurant opening in a very long time.
CHARCUT Roast House, which has been in the works for in the neighbourhood of 3 years now, is finally about to open. Like, tomorrow. John invited me down for a sneak peek on Friday night, and I arrived to find his mom and a dozen or so others (and a few of their moms) hard at work cleaning, organizing, installing and yes – even starting the prepping in anticipation of Monday’s opening.
Yes, it’s a carnivore’s Disneyland. But there’s a lot on the menu for non-meat-eaters too. I already know what I’m going to have first: Romaine and Crispy Chicken Skin with Buttermilk Dressing.
(Love the hand-written note: because you can’t have any salad without meat.)
I could easily end there, with a side of Raclette (!) and house-made pickles. (The Raclette comes with a little cast-iron pan of brioche knots with garlic butter, served pull-apart style.) But if you move over to the left you’ll notice BONE MARROW GRATIN. Just roll that around for awhile – bone marrow gratin. Further down, Crispy Fois Gras Croquettes. Duck Fat Poutine. House-made sausages and cured meats. I’m going to need bigger pants.
There are wonderful people at the helm here – a lot of very big hearts. The menu will change daily as they play in the kitchen. You have the option of your own table, a seat at a long communal table (a thick slab of wood that came all the way from San Francisco) or to saddle up to the bar at the kitchen to watch them cook as you eat. Everything is made from scratch. And the prices – they’re about on par with Earl’s. Cheap, as John puts it – he and Connie are the chefs at CHARCUT, and they just want to feed people – to let them share the experience of wonderful, real food. It seems to me they’re going to succeed. (Four friends – two couples – have paired up to make it happen – the founders of CHARCUT are Chef Connie DeSousa, Chef John Jackson, Service Director Jean Francois Beeroo and Carrie Jackson.)
Everything in the restaurant has a story, from the reclaimed wood to the communal table and cow painting – I don’t want to spill all the beans yet though – I’m doing a story for the FFWD Bar & Restaurant Guide, so have to leave some stuff to the imagination.
The calm (and clean) before the storm:
Copper bowls make great bathroom sinks:
Come to think of it, I didn’t even get a photo of the enormous custom-made iron chandeliers that incorporate glass mason jars – they hadn’t been hung yet, and still sat on the cement floor by the entrance. I imagine it’s been a mighty busy weekend around there.
CHARCUT opens tomorrow. I’ll pay them another visit at my earliest capability and report back. As a personal favour to you guys. In the name of research, of course.
February 21 2010 | eating out | 12 Comments »
Sorry – I fell asleep at close to 1am trying to post this. When you read what I had for dinner you’ll understand why.
We’re in a dinner club. How cool is that? The last dinner, which we missed, was 80s themed, complete with dress code, old photos and mix tapes. Tonight the theme was cheesy (as in corny, not Whiz-based) Kraft recipes, preferably vintage, and none of us had trouble coming up with disgusting courses of processed food-like product (the meal would have come straight from Michael Pollan’s worst nightmares), all of which was served on a long cheese-slice-covered table.
We started with Harvey Wallbangers topped with a blop of marshmallow Fluff:
Then – Shake n’ Bake chicken strips with Velveeta fondue, spiked with blue cheese dressing and Bac-Os. (SALT!Y!)
And then Kraft dinner surprise (the surprise being bits of broccoli D’s mom used to sneak in between layers of “cheese” and shells):
And a salad – a 7-Up salad, to be precise (Jell-O, 7-Up, marshmallows, Miracle Whip, Cool Whip, pineapple chunks):
Jaws was projected onto the ceiling above the table (some hadn’t even seen it):
And later, Fantasy Island.
A and I were on dessert duty. She made a layered frozen orange sherbet thing from the cover of the Kraft cooking magazine:
And I made Candy Bar Pie and a Chips Ahoy! Tiramisu (of sorts) in which you fold together instant chocolate pudding and Cool Whip (we bought the generic kind, because who cares? On the ingredient list: beta carotene, for colour. Colour? Have you seen anything whiter than frozen whipped topping?) and then layer it in a pan with rows of chocolate chip cookies. When you refrigerate it overnight the cookies soften and you can cut it into soft squares. Disgusting, but I liked the concept, and might try a shortbread – fruit fool (saucy fruit and cream) combo.
Chips Ahoy! Tiramisu (of sorts)
adapted from the Kraft foods website (they called for 3/4 cup milk, which made a thick paste and wouldn’t have worked, I think)
1 1/2 cups milk
1 pkg. (4 serving size) Jell-O Chocolate Flavor Instant Pudding & Pie Filling
1 (8 ounce) tub Cool Whip, thawed
27 Chips Ahoy! Chocolate Chip Cookies
Pour milk into large bowl. Add dry pudding mix. Beat with wire whisk 2 minutes or until well blended. Gently stir in whipped topping.
Arrange 9 of the cookies in single layer on bottom of 8″ square dish; top with 1/3 of the pudding mixture. Repeat layers 2 times; cover.
Refrigerate several hours or overnight. Yield: 9 servings
Candy Bar Pie
from the Kraft foods website
4 oz. (1/2 of 8-oz. pkg.) Philadelphia Cream Cheese, softened
1 Tbsp. milk
1 tub (12 oz.) Cool Whip Whipped Topping, thawed, divided
1 (2.07 oz.) chocolate-coated caramel-peanut nougat bar, finely chopped (I used Rolos)
1-1/2 cups cold milk
2 pkg. (4-serving size) JELL-O Chocolate Instant Pudding
1 Oreo pie crust (I made my own, with pulsed Oreos and a drizzle of canola oil – every bit helps!)
Mix cream cheese and 1 Tbsp. milk in large bowl with wire whisk until well blended. Add 1 1/2 cups of the whipped topping and chopped candy bar; stir gently.
Pour 1 1/2 cups cold milk into another large bowl. Add pudding mixes. Beat with wire whisk 2 minutes or until well blended. (Mixture will be thick.) Gently stir in 2 cups of the remaining whipped topping. Spread half of the pudding mixture onto bottom of crust; cover with cream cheese mixture. Top with remaining pudding mixture.
Refrigerate 4 hours or until set. Garnish with remaining whipped topping. Store leftover pie in refrigerator.
If I’m to be perfectly honest here, all of this is the stuff of my childhood dreams (as in – this was the stuff we weren’t allowed to have). A few decades later, I think it’s safe to say we all felt like crap after dinner, and left to head home with pianos tied to our asses. This morning I think a virtuous breakfast is in order, and a nice long walk. Sorry, gut.
February 21 2010 | dessert | 23 Comments »
This is me and my pal Pierre A. Lamielle (wouldn’t it be cool to have the initials P.A.L.? I thought so too). He wrote a cookbook, then flew to Paris and got a big fancy award for it. Which he totally should have – Kitchen Scraps is bloody brilliant. It’s like no other cookbook you’ve ever seen – totally readable in bed, good for a laugh, each page a literal work of art. Stories, jokes, morals, humour. Whorehouses, the three bears, cupids, Roman soldiers with six-packs – it’s got it all.
So to celebrate I got a copy to give away for that happy event of days gone by we used to call Free Stuff Fridays. I figured it would only be fitting to make something from his book for dinner tonight, but Mike had a show, W has a birthday party (he got his first real invite from a kid at school – not a relative or friend of ours – sniff) and I went to get a sneak peek at the new CHAR CUT (it opens on Monday!) and then to judge the Lawson Lundell Celebrity Hors d’ Oeuvres Competition (a fundraiser for ATP) – which is my long way of saying there was no need to cook dinner tonight. And tomorrow night we have a fabulously cheesy dinner party to attend (don’t worry – you’ll get a full report) – so I had resigned to making a batch of brownies (not much of a let down, that) when I noticed instructions on how to make ricotta down at the bottom of a page containing a risotto recipe.
I’ve made mozzarella from scratch before, and pseudo-mascarpone, but ricotta has been on my to-make list for eons. I love how Pierre’s recipe fits in a little box – this is why we get on so well – he doesn’t use too many words. (And the words he does use are well-thought and hilarious.) Making ricotta is not at all complicated, nor does it require rennet tablets or other odd ingredients called for in other cheese-making processes, and I did it while unloading groceries. Dumped a 4L jug of whole milk into a pot and cranked it up as I unpacked, and when it came to a simmer pulled it off the heat, stirred in 1/4 cup of vinegar (you could use lemon juice, even – but Pierre says plain vinegar is the most neutral) and lidded it for an hour. Longer, in fact, because I completely forgot about it, and when I got out of the shower with 10 minutes before I had to leave and remembered the ricotta I ran down to the kitchen in my robe and scooped the curds out of the pot into a sieve to strain, not even bothering with cheesecloth. And it worked: I had freshly-made ricotta.
(They whey, by the way, is very nutritious – don’t dump it out, but keep it to use in pancakes, muffins, waffles etc. – I funneled it back into the milk jug and still had about 2 1/2L.)
So to recap:
Homemade Ricotta
Bring 4L whole milk to a simmer (190°F) in a large pot. Remove from heat, add 1/4 cup white vinegar, stirring only once. Put the lid on and leave it for an hour. Gently scoop out the curds with a slotted spoon into a sieve (Pierre suggested a cheescloth-lined colander, which would work too, but if you don’t have cheesecloth no biggie) – if you like, let it sit in the sieve overnight in the fridge to drain – you can leave it until it’s as dry as you like. Keep the whey in the fridge and use it for baking, soup, etc. Makes about 1 lb. fresh ricotta.
And now, as it’s well past midnight and I’m far too busy digesting far too many different types of animal (11 restaurants x 2 or 3 hors d’oeuvres each, and some I might have had seconds and thirds of) I can’t tell you about them all. But I do want to mention the ones that really stood out – the winners we chose, and the things I ate most of – chef Darby Kells from the Concorde Restolounge in Aspen Woods made killer braised lamb shank tarts with brandy soaked cherries and wild game reduction – the reduction takes him 3 days to cook down into an essence of meat with the consistency of maple syrup – and the lamb shank is braised at 250 degrees for a full 8 hours. Marvy. The Main Dish did cherry pink bacon with aged cheddar on grilled panini topped with cherry braised pork belly (AND HOW DID I MISS OUT ON SECONDS OF THAT?) chased by sour cherry ice cream floats. Dandy. Open Range made Mexican tamales with braised beef and cheddar, wrapped in banana leaves – open faced duck ravioli and espresso ice cream on flat, chewy chocolate chip cookies. But the most memorable thing I ate tonight was the pink lemonade cocktail (served in a shot glass) topped with a strawberry-mascarpone Swiss roll covered in Pop Rocks – yes, Pop Rocks! – created by Kristin, Mariah and Jenna of Trader’s Grill in the Marriott. It may sound hideous, but it totally worked – the sweetness of the cake followed by an intensely sour shot of lemonade, and the Pop Rocks – it was like the scene in Ratatouille when Anton Ego takes a bite and is instantly sucked through a wormhole to his childhood. They popped pleasantly in our mouths – not noisily, as they do straight – up – adding a sort of effervescence to the experience. It was fab. And so rare to come across something edible that was totally original!
So – it being the bleak midwinter and all (in Calgary, anyway), and my freezer once again overfloweth, I thought I’d start a new game next week – another rousing rendition of Name That Frozen Baggie. I really do need to reduce the contents of my freezer, and so thought we could have some fun with it – so next week I’m going to pull stuff out in the morning and post it on Twitter, and see if anyone can guess what’s for dinner that night…
And so for Free Stuff Fridays – for a copy of Pierre’s fabulous new cookbook, Kitchen Scraps, what’s in your freezer?
February 20 2010 | cheese | 110 Comments »
Just home from emceeing the Food: Today, Tomorrow, Together conference, where I ate many things – perhaps most notably absolute perfection in the form of a salted caramel macaron (from the new M at the Calgary Farmers’ Market), meaning I didn’t make dinner, left M and W to their own devices and thus have nothing to offer, recipe-wise. But last weekend Sue fed me a suitably grainy-yet-delicious salad of the sort that makes one feel virtuous, well balanced and light on their feet. I even took photos, and totally meant to tell you about it. But then I thought rather than ask her for the recipe I’d ask her to do a guest post, since that seems to be a thing other bloggers do. And it sounds fun.
Figures she’d have to throw in a preface being all complementary of me. As if I wasn’t wearing rugby shirts (and crushed pink shimmery synthetic shirts with tails from Le Château, with my painstakingly crimped hair – I bet I have a photo somewhere in the basement) right alongside her.
So without any further ado, I give you Sue (hey, that rhymes!):
Hi everyone! My name is Sue, and like many of you I’ve been riveted to the computer for the last couple years, reading every Dinner with Julie post I could get my eyes on.
Julie got me hooked on food and cooking right from the start of our friendship, and I’ve known her for a few decades now. I still find myself amazed when I look at one of her new recipes (SO simple! SO PERFECT!), floored by her work ethic, and more often than not absolutely slayed by her humour. The thing about Julie I know best though, is her capacity for friendship. Julie has been an amazing friend to me since we met in Junior High. She never laughed at my appalling Grade 8 fashion sense (rugby shirts and brown-tinted glasses), or at my horrific first boyfriends when they finally appeared a few years later. We’ve both grown up a bunch, or at the very least we’ve quit drinking Southern Comfort and switched to wine.
It’s because Julie is an amazing and generous friend that she invited me to do this guest-post, and I’ll try really hard not to screw it up. I’m hoping that if you can bear having a sub from time to time, it might mean that Julie can take a night off work and just hang with Mike and W, and isn’t that something we’ve all been asking her to do? But not too often, I promise.
Introduction now aside, I’d love to tell you about this salad I make. This is a salad that’s really great to have on the table when you have things like ribs or burgers or smokies there too. Rich meat dishes, especially the all-indulgent ribs are one of life’s great pleasures after all, and I prefer my eating pleasures to be unsullied by guilt. This is a magical, guilt-erasing elixir of lentils, whole grains and raw vegetables and it’s full of lemony flavour (definitely use fresh lemons if possible!), and there’s feta too. Whenever I’ve ever served this salad to people outside my immediate family, they always take the recipe home.
And it’s one of those salads that keeps well for a few days in the fridge, so you can dip into it for lunch the next day, have a couple spoonfuls when you get home from the gym and put it back on the supper table the night after that.
Like most things of this nature, the proportions and ingredients are extremely fluid. I love the wild rice in it because the texture stays that little bit crunchy, and really, it only needs about 1/2 cup uncooked, but wild rice is stupidly expensive. Feel free to substitute brown rice or omit it altogether. Other times if I need to feed a crowd, I’ll keep the wild rice but bolster the salad with some whole wheat couscous. Some of the vegetables should be crunchy, and if you’re planning on leftovers it’s best to cut the core (ie the watery bits) out of things like tomato and cucumber so as not to have an unappetizing soggy mess the day after tomorrow. Other than that, use what you already have in the fridge, or whatever looks good at the store.
You may notice in the photo a total absence of tomato and fresh herbs. That’s because I live a half hour’s drive to the grocery store, and I was already a glass of wine to the good when I started making this. The salad was fine without, and don’t you think it’s good to be happy when things turn out differently every time you make them? One last thing: you may want to keep an additional lemon on standby, or I suppose a couple tablespoons of red or white wine vinegar would work fine too. I’m always wanting to add that little bit more, but then I’m a bit obsessive with all things lemony.
Lentil & Wild Rice Salad
1/2 cup French blue lentils (green/brown lentils have worked fine in the past – they’ll likely need a little extra cooking time)
1/2 cup wild rice
2 med carrots (grated, but I suggest you grate the carrots when most of the salad is assembled so as to prevent that slight greyish brown colour they’ll otherwise acquire)
2 sticks celery
1/2-1 red, yellow or orange bell pepper
2-3 roma tomatoes
1/2 english cucumber
4-5 green onions, sliced thinly
1/4 cup fresh dill, chopped or 1 tablespoon dried
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
150 grams (about 5 oz) feta, crumbled
juice of 1 lemon, seeds removed
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and black pepper to taste
In a small saucepan add the lentils to about 1 1/2 cups of water. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down to med-low and cover. Cook for about 15 minutes or to taste, but don’t cook so long they lose their shape. Drain and cool.
In the same pan (no need to wash it), add the rice to about 2 cups of water. Add a good pinch of salt and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to med-low and cover. Cook for about 35 minutes, then turn off the heat and let the rice rest in the pot, on the stove for about another 5 minutes. At this stage I usually find that some, but not all the grains have split open. I like the soft crunch at this stage, but if you prefer all the grains open, by all means let it rest for an additional 5-15 minutes. Drain and cool. (I suggest cooking the rice and lentils in the morning, or even the day before if you like, and keep them in the fridge until you’re ready to proceed).
Put the rice and lentils into a large bowl. Chop the celery, pepper, tomatoes, and cucumbers into smallish chunks (bigger than 1/4″ but less 1/2″ works for me), add to the cooled rice and lentils. Add the green onions, herbs, feta, and lemon juice and give the salad a good toss. Add the freshly grated carrots, the olive oil, sugar and a good grinding of black pepper. Taste before you add salt as the feta often does the job! Chill for however long you have, or up to a few days. Makes about 8-10 cups.
February 19 2010 | grains and salads | 23 Comments »
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