Spring is here!!
Spring and summer at our house is about grilling and pairing grilled creations with a great salad. As usual, Food Network Canada is always a source of inspiration - and what else is there to do on a cold and damp Victoria Day than watch Food Network? So here it is, a spinach salad inspired by Michael Smith.
Victoria Day Spinach Salad with Strawberries with Raspberry Vinaigrette Dressing
For Salad
Baby Spinach
Strawberries, quartered
Red onion to taste, cut in thin ribbons
Pecans, toasted
Arrange beautifully in a bowl like the one Dara and Peter gave us when we got hitched...
For Raspberry Dressing
Really good white wine vinegar- 1 part
Yummy olive oil - 2 parts
A handful of raspberries
Brip (use a hand blender to blend, but I like to call it bripping) and serve over salad.
Enjoy!! And feel free to experiment with different fruit!!
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Sunday, November 25, 2007
A dip that's better than it looks!
I used to read Bon Appetit magazine all the time, before they went online with www.epicurious.com. They have this great section where you can write in and tell them about a recipe you've encountered at some restaurant, and the magazine will contact the restaurant and see if they'll give it up to you. So I tried the Bon Appetit recipe request on Christmas for a friend who had taken me to this little wine cellar restaurant in Siesta Key, Florida called Gastronamia. She loved the fabulous dip they served as an appetizer, with crusty bread. The folks at the restaurant were lovely, and happy to oblige and I gave the recipe (and the a bowl of the dip) to my friend for Christmas, and it's become a staple at dinners and parties.
I made the dip for my friend Jo's birthday party last night, and Janet kept telling people to try the dip, saying 'it doesn't look like much, but it's really good.' She won over several converts, so I thought I'd post it for them, and for you, gentle reader, who may be looking for a fresh, Italian influenced dish to get your appetite going.
Gastronamia Starter
1 part freshly grated Parmesan ( I add more)
1 part fresh basil, chopped
1 part fresh chopped parsely
2 skinny cloves garlic, crushed
salt and pepper - dash
3 parts olive oil (I use less)
Aged Balsamic Vinegar - to colour brown
Emulsify the olive oil and vinegar. Add ingredients to emulsification, allow to marinate. Serve with fresh crusty bread.
Bon Appetit!
I made the dip for my friend Jo's birthday party last night, and Janet kept telling people to try the dip, saying 'it doesn't look like much, but it's really good.' She won over several converts, so I thought I'd post it for them, and for you, gentle reader, who may be looking for a fresh, Italian influenced dish to get your appetite going.
Gastronamia Starter
1 part freshly grated Parmesan ( I add more)
1 part fresh basil, chopped
1 part fresh chopped parsely
2 skinny cloves garlic, crushed
salt and pepper - dash
3 parts olive oil (I use less)
Aged Balsamic Vinegar - to colour brown
Emulsify the olive oil and vinegar. Add ingredients to emulsification, allow to marinate. Serve with fresh crusty bread.
Bon Appetit!
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Margaux's Lamb Stew
It's late and I should be heading to bed, but I have been thinking about posting about food and how devoid some traditions are of including food around big life events. My brother and his wife recently had a baby, and they live far enough away that I wasn't around the first week they came home to help family with the cooking and provisioning I have come to associate with the first week baby comes home. But that's a new association, one I've only come to as an adult, as I moved away from how and where I was raised.
I lived on Toronto island, with family I only came to know as an adult, for two great years. In that time, I learned a lot about community, the kind that comes with proximity, and shared value of place, and people you find where you find your place. On the island, when and islander has a baby, they can depend on their family and/or neighbours organizing the first week of meals for whomever they share their lives with in their home. It's like a birthright of the child. You come home, your community immediately greets you with love and support, welcomes you in with the gesture of beautiful home cooked meals, that are as varied and spicy as the folks that prepare them. It's a simple legacy, but elemental.
So when I showed up at my brother and sister-in-law's place two weeks ago, to hang out with the 8 week old baby, I couldn't do it empty handed. It mattered to me that I go and leave their fridge and freezer a little fuller than when I came so that in some small way my nephew had a sense of that islander legacy, that connection of thinking about what to cook, preparing the food and provisioning that links the joy of that homecoming to a meal prepared with the intention of welcoming the new baby into the community and offering support to the new parent(s) and family that child is coming home to for the first time.
So welcome Wyatt, and Margaux to our family. I'm looking forward to many, many more meals in your company!!
Lamb Stew to Welcome Margaux
(The recipe is based on Julia Child's "The Way to Cook" Knopf, 2003, Tenth printing. I blended the Beef Stew and Lamb Stew recipes for this one - I'll get into my cookbook favourites in another post...watch for it!!)
3 1/2 pounds stewing lamb - lean - trim fat if necessary
(Flour for dusting the lamb in a dish for browing)
2 cups sliced onions
2/3 cups sliced carrots
2 to 3 cups chicken stock
3 cloves garlic, smashed
2 cups tomatoes (1 can drained Italian plum tomatoes)
1 cup dry white wine
1.2 tsp rosemary
In a fry pan, just sweat off the onions and carrots until tender (about 5 minutes). Put them into the casserole.
Put about 1/2 cup flour in a bowl, coat lamb, shake off excess. Brown the lamb pieces a few at a time in a frying pan, transfer them to the casserole when they are browned, and repeat for all the lamb. Deglaze the pan with the wine, pour into casserole. Ass to the casserole the garlic, rosemary, tomato, and enough stock to cover the ingredients. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Simmer 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or if you are Janet and I, open a bottle of pink cava, toast the birth of Margaux, and enjoy the meal of curry and dal cooked earlier that evening, and forget about the cooking time, causing the stew to cook for about 3 hours!! It was wonderful!! Bon appetit!!
I lived on Toronto island, with family I only came to know as an adult, for two great years. In that time, I learned a lot about community, the kind that comes with proximity, and shared value of place, and people you find where you find your place. On the island, when and islander has a baby, they can depend on their family and/or neighbours organizing the first week of meals for whomever they share their lives with in their home. It's like a birthright of the child. You come home, your community immediately greets you with love and support, welcomes you in with the gesture of beautiful home cooked meals, that are as varied and spicy as the folks that prepare them. It's a simple legacy, but elemental.
So when I showed up at my brother and sister-in-law's place two weeks ago, to hang out with the 8 week old baby, I couldn't do it empty handed. It mattered to me that I go and leave their fridge and freezer a little fuller than when I came so that in some small way my nephew had a sense of that islander legacy, that connection of thinking about what to cook, preparing the food and provisioning that links the joy of that homecoming to a meal prepared with the intention of welcoming the new baby into the community and offering support to the new parent(s) and family that child is coming home to for the first time.
So welcome Wyatt, and Margaux to our family. I'm looking forward to many, many more meals in your company!!
Lamb Stew to Welcome Margaux
(The recipe is based on Julia Child's "The Way to Cook" Knopf, 2003, Tenth printing. I blended the Beef Stew and Lamb Stew recipes for this one - I'll get into my cookbook favourites in another post...watch for it!!)
3 1/2 pounds stewing lamb - lean - trim fat if necessary
(Flour for dusting the lamb in a dish for browing)
2 cups sliced onions
2/3 cups sliced carrots
2 to 3 cups chicken stock
3 cloves garlic, smashed
2 cups tomatoes (1 can drained Italian plum tomatoes)
1 cup dry white wine
1.2 tsp rosemary
In a fry pan, just sweat off the onions and carrots until tender (about 5 minutes). Put them into the casserole.
Put about 1/2 cup flour in a bowl, coat lamb, shake off excess. Brown the lamb pieces a few at a time in a frying pan, transfer them to the casserole when they are browned, and repeat for all the lamb. Deglaze the pan with the wine, pour into casserole. Ass to the casserole the garlic, rosemary, tomato, and enough stock to cover the ingredients. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Simmer 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or if you are Janet and I, open a bottle of pink cava, toast the birth of Margaux, and enjoy the meal of curry and dal cooked earlier that evening, and forget about the cooking time, causing the stew to cook for about 3 hours!! It was wonderful!! Bon appetit!!
October 13, 2007
Chicken Soup - where else would I start??
Janet's sick. It's a chilly, October Saturday and she woke up with a flu that started at the roots of her hair...well, you know what that's like. So when I got the call to join my Dad, and two of my little sisters at St. Lawrence Market for breakfast, and was dashing off, car keys in hand, Janet raised her head and said, "Would you make me chicken soup?" Of course I would, I'd do anything to ease that nasty flu. So I ran down to the kitchen, pulled out "Barefoot Contessa Family Style" and consulted the ingredients in my favourite chicken soup recipe. Off I went to the market for a breakfast of a ham foccacia and fresh squeezed orange juice. A quick trip to my favourite fruit and veg stall, and upstairs to my chicken selling friend and I had the makings of a healing meal.
I love recipes. When we bought our first house just over a year ago, my partner bought me one of the most beautiful cookbooks I've ever seen for a housewarming present, and between pulling up flooring from the 1930's onward, I sat in our tiny backyard on my Muskoka chair reading the recipes and pouring over the photos, soaking up the promise of meals to come from my new book. I also love food blogs. I've been thinking about doing this for some time, in fact, since I discovered Chocolate and Zuccini, and started spending way too much time at work following Clotilde's links to other blogs. So I'm doing it. I'm going to focus on what I love about food, that's researching recipes and creating time together well spent with family and friends both cooking, and enjoying what those recipes yield. This blog will focus on the recipes I've come to love, and those I am discovering with you. I'll include tried and true favourites, and all the tried and failed experiments. I'll also introduce you to some of the people in my life who are equally as passionate about food and the moments that are created around sharing the same. But right now, I've just added the noodles, Janet's risen from her sick bed, and I've got soup to serve.
T.O. Grrl's Adaptation of the Barefoot Contessa's Chicken Soup
(from Barefoot Contessa Family Style, by Ina Garten)
1 whole chicken breast, bone in, skin on
1 Cup chopped onion
3 stalks medium-diced celery
3 medium carrots, same size dice as the celery
olive oil
Koser salt
1 Tbsp fresh thyme
Freshly ground pepper
2 quarts (homemade, or good organic) chicken stock
2 cups wide egg noodles (or too taste)
chopped parsely.
Preheat oven to 350. Put chicken on s cooking sheet, rub all over with olive oil. Sprinkle inside and out with salt and pepper. Roast for 35 to 40 minutes, or just until cooked through. (Meantime, start on the veg below.) Cool, or use tongs and burn the heck out of your hands, shred meat, or chop it in cubes, whatever you like in your soup.
Put olive oil in soup pot, about a tablespoon. Sweat off onions, add carrots and celery to soften. Put in chopped thyme to release oils, cook for a few minutes. Add chicken stock, bring to a simmer. Add chicken and allow to simmer for at least 10 minutes uncovered. Check for seasoning, add salt and pepper if needed. (If you are like me, this will finish cooking your chicken and allow time to bring the flavours together.) When you are ready to serve, add noodles, simmer until cooked. Serve with freshly chopped parsley. Check seasoning and adjust.
(Yesterday I took the chicken breast that had been stripped of meat for my soup and put in in a pot, covered it with water, added the ends of my onion and carrots and simmered that bad boy down for a couple of hours. I find the good Contessa's recipe needs more stock the next day as the noodles soak up all the original stock.)
Bon appetit!!!
Chicken Soup - where else would I start??
Janet's sick. It's a chilly, October Saturday and she woke up with a flu that started at the roots of her hair...well, you know what that's like. So when I got the call to join my Dad, and two of my little sisters at St. Lawrence Market for breakfast, and was dashing off, car keys in hand, Janet raised her head and said, "Would you make me chicken soup?" Of course I would, I'd do anything to ease that nasty flu. So I ran down to the kitchen, pulled out "Barefoot Contessa Family Style" and consulted the ingredients in my favourite chicken soup recipe. Off I went to the market for a breakfast of a ham foccacia and fresh squeezed orange juice. A quick trip to my favourite fruit and veg stall, and upstairs to my chicken selling friend and I had the makings of a healing meal.
I love recipes. When we bought our first house just over a year ago, my partner bought me one of the most beautiful cookbooks I've ever seen for a housewarming present, and between pulling up flooring from the 1930's onward, I sat in our tiny backyard on my Muskoka chair reading the recipes and pouring over the photos, soaking up the promise of meals to come from my new book. I also love food blogs. I've been thinking about doing this for some time, in fact, since I discovered Chocolate and Zuccini, and started spending way too much time at work following Clotilde's links to other blogs. So I'm doing it. I'm going to focus on what I love about food, that's researching recipes and creating time together well spent with family and friends both cooking, and enjoying what those recipes yield. This blog will focus on the recipes I've come to love, and those I am discovering with you. I'll include tried and true favourites, and all the tried and failed experiments. I'll also introduce you to some of the people in my life who are equally as passionate about food and the moments that are created around sharing the same. But right now, I've just added the noodles, Janet's risen from her sick bed, and I've got soup to serve.
T.O. Grrl's Adaptation of the Barefoot Contessa's Chicken Soup
(from Barefoot Contessa Family Style, by Ina Garten)
1 whole chicken breast, bone in, skin on
1 Cup chopped onion
3 stalks medium-diced celery
3 medium carrots, same size dice as the celery
olive oil
Koser salt
1 Tbsp fresh thyme
Freshly ground pepper
2 quarts (homemade, or good organic) chicken stock
2 cups wide egg noodles (or too taste)
chopped parsely.
Preheat oven to 350. Put chicken on s cooking sheet, rub all over with olive oil. Sprinkle inside and out with salt and pepper. Roast for 35 to 40 minutes, or just until cooked through. (Meantime, start on the veg below.) Cool, or use tongs and burn the heck out of your hands, shred meat, or chop it in cubes, whatever you like in your soup.
Put olive oil in soup pot, about a tablespoon. Sweat off onions, add carrots and celery to soften. Put in chopped thyme to release oils, cook for a few minutes. Add chicken stock, bring to a simmer. Add chicken and allow to simmer for at least 10 minutes uncovered. Check for seasoning, add salt and pepper if needed. (If you are like me, this will finish cooking your chicken and allow time to bring the flavours together.) When you are ready to serve, add noodles, simmer until cooked. Serve with freshly chopped parsley. Check seasoning and adjust.
(Yesterday I took the chicken breast that had been stripped of meat for my soup and put in in a pot, covered it with water, added the ends of my onion and carrots and simmered that bad boy down for a couple of hours. I find the good Contessa's recipe needs more stock the next day as the noodles soak up all the original stock.)
Bon appetit!!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)