I live to eat (and not the reverse) and wanted to share my eating experiences, whether they be cooking or eating out. I also like to share projects around the house. I currently live in Hamilton, Canada and grew up in Montreal so you can find restaurant reviews from both cities!
It was actually a balmy 18C today. However, a week or so ago, it was getting cold and I was watching an episode of Chef at Home, in which Michael Smith was making a Mediterranean chicken soup. I thought it'd be nice to try another version of chicken soup, even though I really enjoy my tried and tested homemade recipe. I was not 100% sure how I would feel about ingredients such as red pepper and olives in chicken soup, but it was enjoyable and I would definitely add this to my soup rotation.
Mediterranean Chicken Soup Adapted from Chef at Home. I searched in vain for Israeli couscous. I decided to replace it with barley and really enjoyed it - I've been adding barley to other soups as well. I also reduced the amount of garlic and chicken (the original recipe uses a whole chicken). Otherwise, the quantities can be taken as suggestions - I only used half a head of fennel (leftover from the homemade ketchup).
oil 1 onion, peeled and chopped 3-4 garlic cloves, minced 1 head fennel, chopped 1 zucchini, chopped 1 red pepper, seeded and chopped 2-3 fresh tomatoes, chopped salt and pepper, to taste 1 L (4 cups) homemade chicken broth, or store-bought 1 cup barley 2 bay leaves 1 tbsp dried oregano 6 sprigs fresh thyme dried chili flakes 1 cup chicken, cooked 1 can chick peas, drained (398mL) a handful of olives, pits removed
In a large pot, add some oil and turn on the heat. Cook the onion and garlic until softened. Add the chopped vegetables: fennel, zucchini, red pepper and tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Once the vegetables have softened a bit, pour in the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Add the barley, bay leaves, oregano, thyme and dry chili flakes. Once the barley is cooked, add the chickpeas, olives and chicken until heated through. If the soup is too thick, add water. Taste and adjust seasoning accordingly. Tada!
The cold weather is coming and I like to find refuge in soups. I thought about bún mộc (vermicelli & pork meatball soup) and realized I never made it last year. I had also recently seen the recipe on the food blog Ravenous Couple. It consists of bún (rice vermicelli) and mộc, which are meatballs made of pork and studded with wood ear mushrooms - I like the addition of the mushrooms which add a crunchy texture to the meatballs.
This soup definitely can stand alone as a meal. It's also one of those very easy recipes, especially if you buy the ready made meat as I did. I just throw in some napa cabbage for added vegetable even though it's not traditional. I'm actually not sure what's traditional. I had it in Vietnam and it was basically noodles and pork.
So I've thought about writing a post about chả; however, I have gotten around to it. Let's say it's in the works... The basic chả is in pork form and is the basis for many Vietnamese dishes, such as chả giò (spring rolls - and I can't believe I still don't have a post about this!) and cơm tấmchả (broken rice with pork meatloaf). You can buy chảsống (literally raw meat), pre-seasoned ground pork in the freezer of your Asian grocery store to make this dish. I'm sure you could grind your own pork to make this dish but I was looking for a specific texture that I knew the frozen stuff would provide. The 1 lb package is a bit steep at $4.99 but I used a quarter of it to make 2 good portions.
Bún Mộc (Vermicelli & Pork Meatball Soup)
handful of wood ear mushrooms, soaked and drained 100 g chảsống (pre-seasoned ground pork mixture), thawed 4 cups Vietnamese flavoured chicken broth 2 cups napa cabbage, thinly sliced bún, cooked rice vermicelli green onion, sliced thinly as garnish
Mix the ground pork with the rehydrated mushrooms. Shape into small meatballs. Heat up the chicken broth. Drop the meatballs into the broth. Add the napa cabbage. When the cabbage and meat is cooked (about 10 min), turn off the heat. In a bowl of rice vermicelli, ladle soup over it. Garnish with green onion and top with ground pepper. Tada!
Meat mixture and cooking the meatballs.
Perfect for a cold night!
For other Vietnamese soups that can stand alone as a meal:
Because we didn't get enough of fritters, we made more... Well, I had planned on making this recipe when I spotted it on The Oprah Magazine Cookbook (by the way, I really enjoyed this recipe compilation - every recipe had an accompanying tantalizing picture - and there are recipes from numerous chefs). It seemed I found every pumpkin recipe that exists when I was searching for Thanksgiving recipes. This one caught my eye because of the use of pumpkin purée and because it's a fritter! Who's going to turn down deep fried dough, rolled in sugar?
Pumpkin Fritters - Makes 10 servings (about 20 fritters) From The Oprah Magazine Cookbook by Chef Colin Cowie. I halved the recipe since we were only 6 people but we could easily have eaten it all had I made the whole recipe! The batter is quite wet so my sister suggested adding a bit more flour (and baking powder). I don't think it's necessary; it's just the nature of the recipe.The fritters puffed up nicely in the hot oil. We demolished these in seconds!
Cinnamon Sugar 3 tbsp sugar 1 tsp cinnamon
In a small dish, stir together sugar and cinnamon until combined and set aside.
Pumpkin Fritters ½ all-purpose flour 3-4 tbsp granulated sugar 2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp ground cinnamon ½ tsp salt 2 large eggs one (15 oz) can 100% pure pumpkin or homemade pumpkin purée (under 2 cups) canola or vegetable oil, for frying cinnamon sugar
In a small bowl, stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk eggs and pumpkin until blended. Add the flour mixture and mix until combined. Heat up oil in a small pot. Frying 4 at a time, drop batter by heaping (measuring) tablespoons into pan. Fry until golden brown, turning occasionally, about 4 min. Using slotted spoon, transfer fritters to paper towel lined plate to drain. Repeat with remaining batter. Fritters will puff up, then deflate slightly when removed from pan. To test doneness, press lightly on fritters; they should spring back. Roll each fritter in cinnamon sugar. Serve with ice cream. Tada!
Getting all the ingredients to make the wet batter!
Nothing nicer than deep fried goodness! Cinnamon sugar for added goodness!
A Thanksgiving meal wouldn't be complete without some squash! I spotted pretty squashes at the Farmer's Market and thought they would help dress my table. However, nothing should be left uneaten, so we cut it up and roasted it (more specifically, my sister L). Nothing better than decoration that doubles as food! I searched the internet and it seems these orange striped squashes are carnival squashes. They tasted awesome and I really liked the spotted peel!
Roasted Carnival Squash - Serves 6-8 My sister also suggested using maple syrup instead of brown sugar.
2 small carnival squash 2 tbsp oil 2 tbsp brown sugar salt, to taste freshly ground black pepper, to taste rosemary from 2 sprigs, chopped
Cut the squash in half and remove the seeds. Cut the squash in slices and place in a bowl. Add all of the remaining ingredients and mix until the slices are coated. Place the slices on a baking sheet, in one single layer. Bake at 375F for 30 minutes or until the squash is cooked and soft. Tada!
Tourtièreis a Québécois (French Canadian) meat pie traditionally served at Christmas. I'm not actually sure where I ate it but I remember having it regularly as a child. I'm guessing at daycare or else, it was store bought, because we definitely never made it at home. I have been craving tourtière since last year. My sister talked about making it for Christmas but she ended up making an Asian influenced meal instead. You need a crowd to make it since it is a whole pie and it is a colder weather dish; Thanksgiving seemed like the perfect opportunity. When I told my sister of my plans, she stated that I should make homemade ketchup to go along with it. She's a bossy one! The tourtière was quite easy to make and everyone enjoyed it. The ketchup was also easy but I thought rather labour intensive.
Homemade Ketchup - makes 1 cup From Jamie at Home. The original recipe requires putting the ketchup through a sieve twice. Once was enough for me - this was the step I thought labour and time intensive. I also skipped the cloves because I didn't have any. Add some if you like. My sister thought it was good because it tasted like... ketchup! So is this worthwhile if it tastes like the store-bought stuff? Well, if you're worried about ingredients (which are really not that bad, the weirdest one being liquid sugar), sure. If I made this again, I would add more chili to make it spicier and more interesting.
½ large red onion, peeled and roughly chopped ¼ bulb of fennel, trimmed and roughly chopped ½ stick of celery, trimmed and roughly chopped olive oil ½ thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped 1 clove of garlic, peeled and sliced 1 fresh red chili, deseeded and finely chopped ½ bunch of fresh basil, leaves picked, stalks chopped 1-½ tsp coriander seeds salt and pepper, to taste 1 lb cherry or plum tomatoes, diced roughly ¼ cup red wine vinegar 2-½ tbsp brown sugar
Heat up the olive oil in a saucepan. Place all the vegetables, ginger, garlic, chili, basil stalks and coriander seeds into the pan. Season with salt and pepper. Cook gently over low heat for 10-15 min until the vegetables have softened, stirring every so often. Add the tomatoes and ¾ cups of cold water. Bring to boil and simmer gently until the sauce reduces by half. Add basil leaves, then purée sauce in a food processor. Push the sauce through a sieve with the back of a spoon. Place sauce into a clean pan and add vinegar and sugar. Turn on the heat and simmer until it reduces and thickens to consistency of tomato ketchup. At this point, adjust the seasoning to taste.
All of the ingredients that went into the ketchup.
Putting it through a sieve was a pain.
Tourtière - Serves 6-8 As I mentioned above, this was very easy and quick to make. My sister's fiancé D made pie dough from scratch but you could just use store-bought pie dough.I think any mixture of ground meats can be used, but traditionally pork is used. I bought a tray of beef, veal and pork, and added more pork to it. Again, I didn't have cloves but the recipe did call for it.
oil 1 onion, diced very small 1 garlic clove 200 g ground beef 200 g ground veal 400 g ground pork 1 potato, grated ½ tsp ground cinnamon ¼ tsp ground nutmeg thyme leaves from 5-6 sprigs, or to taste salt, to taste ground pepper, to taste 2 pie doughs, homemade or store-bought 1 egg yolk 1 tbsp milk
Heat up oil in a large pan. Cook onions and garlic until softened. Add all of the ground meat and all of the spices. Season with salt and pepper. Break the meat apart until cooked. When the meat is cooked and any liquid has evaporated, turn off the heat. Taste and adjust seasoning. Mix in the grated potato and let the mixture cool. Place one pie dough into a 9" pie pan. Add the meat mixture on top, evening the surface with a fork. Roll the second pie dough on top and pinch the edges of the crust to seal. Cut some slits or a hole in the middle, to allow the meat to steam. Mix the milk and egg yolk together, and brush the top of the pie with it (oops, we forgot this step). Bake in the oven at 400F for 10 minutes. Decrease the temperature to 350F and bake for another 20 minutes. Tada!
Ok, ground meat does not look appealing but it tasted good, I swear!
Everyone really enjoyed this dish. My sister liked it even better than the turkey and had seconds! I can't wait for another occasion to make it again.
While we made gravy from the stuffed turkey breast, I thought having a cranberry sauce would be a nice addition. Some people just stuck to gravy; I topped my piece of turkey with gravy and added cranberry sauce on the side. It's so quick and easy to make your own cranberry sauce, so why not just make it at home? I liked this recipe because of the added flavours, but for a basic sauce, you just need cranberries and sugar.
Cranberry-Orange Sauce From Martha Stewart Living, November 2005. This is a third of the original recipe because I did not want any leftover sauce.Feel free to make more if you have more guests.
1 cups fresh cranberries ⅓ cup sugar ⅓ tbsp finely chopped peeled fresh ginger ½ navel orange, peel and pith remove, flesh cut into segments with a sharp knife
Stir together cranberries, sugar and ginger in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until sugar has dissolved and cranberries begin to pop. Add 1 cup of waterand simmer, until thickened slightly. Remove from heat. Stir in orange. Let cool. Tada!
It's as easy as adding the ingredients into a saucepan!
I had been planning to make mushroom soup before Thanksgiving but never got around to it so I still had leftover mushrooms. In addition, we scored very inexpensive shiitake mushrooms during our visit to St. Jacobs Farmer's Market (we had our eye on the mushrooms and when we returned at the end of the day, the price had gone down!). Therefore, mushroom soup seemed like a perfect starter for our Thanksgiving meal. My sister's fiancé D doesn't like the texture of mushrooms so we figured we would purée it, drawing inspiration from our soup at La Foumangerie.
Mushroom Soup - Serves 8 I made this soup dairy free for my mom and it was very good. However, you could start off sautéing the mushrooms in butter and add cream at the end. I don't have exact measurements but you don't really need it...
oil (or butter) 4-5 cups assorted mushrooms, washed and sliced roughly (we had button, shiitake and oyster mushrooms) salt, to taste pepper, to taste thyme leaves from 5-6 sprigs, or to taste 1 cup white wine, or to taste 2 cups vegetable broth or chicken broth
Sauté mushrooms in oil in a large pot. Season with salt and pepper. Add thyme leaves (you can also add the stalks but remember to remove them before puréing it). Once the mushrooms are cooked and softened, add the white wine. Bring to a boil and allow the wine to reduce. Add broth and bring to a boil again. Purée the soup in batches and return it to the pot (or use an immersion blender if you have one). If it's too thick, add some water or more broth. Taste and adjust seasoning. Garnish with thyme and sour cream. Tada!
There were double the people this Thanksgiving (six in total) compared to last year's, so not only did we double the amount of food but the amount of dishes also! My mom really liked last year's stuffed turkey breast, so we stuck with that recipe. I've been craving tourtière (Québécois meat pie) since last year, so figured this was the perfect occasion to make it.
The Thanksgiving menu is outlined below, with individual posts to follow in coming days:
We have already determined that my mom spoils me by cooking great meals when I visit. I like to repay the favour and try to spoil her when she visits. She does not make easy, always trying to come in the kitchen and help. She also has specific likes and dislikes. One thing she loves are apple desserts, such as apple pie, apple crumble and chaussons aux pommes (apple turnovers). Funnily, she loves apple McDonald's apple turnovers so I thought I would make some for breakfast. I got the perfect compliment after my mom bit into one and stated that they taste just like McDonald's! Thanks Mom!
Apple turnovers are very easy to make once you've purchased puff pastry! You can buy puff pastry made with butter or hydrogenated oil. The latter is not good for you but makes for a good vegan version (or if your mom dislikes dairy). I love turnovers and my only complaint when buying them is that there is never enough filling. I learned why when I made them: it's hard to fit a lot of filling!
Chaussons aux Pommes (Apple Turnovers) - Makes 4 turnovers Adapted from Laura Calder's Chaussons aux Pommes and allrecipes.com. I reduced the amount of apples from the original recipe since I had leftover filling. However, eating the filling on its own is pretty good. My sister also ate her turnover with some added filling. Finally, it would be great on French toast or vanilla ice cream!
lemon juice water 2 apples (I used Golden Delicious) 1 tbsp vegetable oil or butter ½ cup brown sugar ½ tsp cinnamon ½ tbsp cornstarch ½ (200g) package frozen puff pastry 1 egg yolk + a bit of water
Add lemon juice to a bowl of water. As you peel and slice your apples into small pieces, add them to the water to prevent from browning. Drain the apples. Cook the apples in some vegetable oil (or butter if your mom enjoys dairy...!). Add sugar and cinnamon, and mix them in until apple pieces are coated. Stir together the cornstarch with 1/2 tablespoon of water. Pour the cornstarch mixture in - this will help thicken the apple mixture. Cook until sauce has thickened and apples are cooked. Remove from heat to cool down. Meanwhile, if you bought the puff pastry in a block like I did, use a rolling pin to roll it down. Cut four squares out of the puff pastry. Add a couple of tablespoons of the apple mixture. Fold the pastry in half, either to make a rectangle or a triangle. (I made them into a rectangle so they'd look like McDonald's...). Cut some slits to allow the steam to come out. Mix the egg yolk with a bit of water, and brush the mixture over the turnovers. Bake for 10 minutes at 425F, then another 10-15 minutes at 375F until puffed and lightly browned. Tada!
I always struggle to find ideas about what to do when my family visits. This time, I thought we could head to St. Jacobs. St. Jacobs is a little town near Waterloo (home of RIM and blackberry) known for its Mennonite community. There's a farmer's market and the town has a quaint strip for shopping.
The market was surprisingly busy. I guess it was not such an original idea to come to St. Jacobs on Thanksgiving weekend. The St. Jacob's Farmers' Market also includes a flea market. We just walked around the farmer's market and looked at the various produced offered.
Then when we started to get hungry, we headed to the food stalls. As we drove in near Waterloo, there was a lot of unexpected traffic. Then we saw the Oktoberfest signs and it all made sense. Nearby Waterloo hosts the largest Oktoberfest outside Germany. I have never attended Oktoberfest but I thought I should at least have an Oktoberfest sausage! My sister and I shared a sausage. It was good, but nothing special.
Oktoberfest sausage topped with sauerkraut.
Next, we were very excited to have apple fritters! This is what I associate St. Jacobs with! There was a long line waiting outside. My sister and I waited for probably 45 minutes, at the amusement of our family. Apple fritters are made up of fresh apple rings that are deep fried, then coated with cinnamon and sugar. They are made from scratch and when people come in to buy them by the dozen, it's a slow process! But we thought it was worth the wait!
Line for apple fritters!
Our reward for waiting!
We got a half dozen apple fritters, and one serving with ice cream. We inhaled those apple fritters very quickly compared to our wait. The cooked apples had softened and the dough was piping hot, a perfect combination with the ice cream. If you do come to St. Jacobs, you must have some apple fritters!
