Frittata!

G made a delicious dinner tonight... Every Veggie in the House Frittata!!!

The ideas were planted last night when G and I were trying to come up with some ideas for a full dinner for tonight using some of the asparagus we received. We received it both this week and last in our CSA box, and hadn't been home to use any of it. So we came up with the frittata idea. While I worked late, G made another culinary triumph!


This was a beauty. In yesterday's CSA box we got these incredibly delicious little potatoes, they are so sweet and fresh. She boiled three of those and sliced those into four eggs, a dash of milk, cooked mushroom and red pepper, asparagus, chives and a little bit of cheddar cheese dotting the top. It made two big servings...



And here's my attempt at highlighting the delish factor of this dish...



You can see a little bit of everything in this picture. And the great thing was, it tasted great and was good for us!!! It's been good. All these reviewing of new recipes in the magazines and websites and blogs that I read has been really good for coming up with some ideas when all seems lost. Plus, it helps pull us away from thinking of dinner in terms of meat, starch, peas. (I am from South of the Border, after all.)

IHOP

I wanted to have breakfast, and as Mom and my brother don't eat breakfast out very often, we decided to go to IHOP. I have to say, we decided on IHOP with a little bit of dread, but at the same time, we were going to be out all day, so it was necessary to get a solid breakfast going.

I had the IHOP rip off of the MoonsOverMyHammy. It was solid. But the hashbrowns had a long way to go to get to good.


This picture isn't good, and I didn't check it, so oops!



I don't lie. Bland, eh? They needed ketchup. LOTS of ketchup.

My brother had sausages wrapped in pancakes, which he declared to be delicious!



Mom had biscuits and gravy, which she said were very good, as well. Though if you know me, you know that my biscuits and sausage gravy are the BEES KNEES. Oh yeah, they are THAT good.



I am sure Mom's cardiologist would have had his own coronary had he seen Mom eat this, but she didn't eat it all, and we had a good long walk afterwards.

So the next time I go home, we are going to cook up a storm. As I may have mentioned earlier, my Mom's been quite sick and is just getting really solidly better, so I didn't want her to have to stand around and cook all weekend. But next trip home, it's all cooking all the time.

My last day there called for a solid lunch to get me through the whole day. I picked Johnnie's Charcoal Broiler for some delicious hamburgers because, sorry to say, Canadian hamburgers just do not compare.



Oh yeah. Grated cheese, crispy bacon, phenom pickles, lightly toasted bun, and a hamburger made out of meat with just salt and pepper. No breadcrumbs, no eggs, no nothing but hamburger meat goodness. You can see the big handcut french fries, but I didn't take a solo shot. But I did take an innard shot..



Really nice.

Just another Manic Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...

So my plans to post last week did not come to fruition. I worked late every day, and have been out of town since early Friday afternoon. But, as I am home now and dead tired from the longish drive home, I thought some blogging would fill in the time brilliantly.

Last weekend (which seems like months ago), I went home. Ahhh. It's a struggle when I go home between wanting Mom's cooking, and wanting to eat at the restaurants that I miss from home... It's all good.

Anyway, I flew in and had a massive craving for Zio's Artichoke Spinach Pasta. Yummy. So that was stop number one.


This is their Artichoke Dip with pasta, chicken and diced tomatoes. It was so terrific. It's creamy and the chicken is perfectly grilled. It's really just a lovely dinner. I couldn't eat it all, but I gave it a good try. This is one of my most favourite dinners.

We also ordered pepperoni bread, a Zio's classic.



This is a lot like a calzone. It's really terrific, though this bout of pepperoni was really greasy. My whole family loves this, so it was a must get item.

It was really a lovely lunch/dinner. I enjoyed having the pasta and sitting in the restaurant, which is familiar. I had a great view of the open kitchen...



We were pretty much finished from here...it was a heavy meal after having just flown in, so that night, I pretty much conked out on the futon. It was so great to be home when it wasn't the holidays. I really miss seeing my family, and so it was nice to sort of reconnect with my roots. As Dar sings, "there's some things I finally faced, I finally think I come from someplace" -- that's more or less how it goes, and it runs through my head while I am home.

More to follow.

Outta the loooop

Hey all,

No good update tonight. Just wanted to say that I am still alive and out here... last week was a really nutty week at work and then I went home for the long weekend. On the plus side, I have some good pics to put up tomorrow once I get them ready to go...

Mother's Day in France and Spain.

Yesterday was Mother's Day, and while I won't see my Mother until next week, G's mother came over for dinner last night (with G's father of course).

We struggled with what to make, wanting to make it special, but wanting to cook something fun. So, with much leafing through magazines, we came up with a lovely dinner that was a rousing success.

For the first course (oh yeah, we had to have courses), we served a beautiful soft cheese with a freshly baked (not be me or G) olive baguette. At Kensington Market's Global Cheese store, we were given a lovely French soft cheese to try, being told that it was like a brie but dead on ripe. G had a bite and fell in love. We brought it home, let it come to room temperature, and then served it on the great bread/cheese board that I bought.



From there, our dinner took a turn to Spain. Paella! We made the first batch with chorizo and chicken, and then took out my portion, and added shrimp for everyone else's. We had purchased some saffron while in New York City that we used in this recipe. Basically, you start by browning the chicken and chorizo then putting in onion, red pepper, garlic and rice. It cooks for a minute, then you add broth and the saffron and let it cook away for about 30 minutes. You then take out my portion, and add some shrimps. Cook until shrimp is cooked.

It was great. The smell was amazing and everyone loved it.

Here is the paella with shrimp...


For dessert, we had a fantastic spicy chocolate pavlova with freshly made whipped cream and raspberries. The recipe is from Nigella Lawson's "Forever Summer" cookbook. We used this spicy chocolate called 'Dagoba'. It's a spicy Mexican chocolate. It was really delicious.


Yummmmmmmmmmy. Everyone ate seconds. It was great fun. The only downside to the beautiful pavolva was the extreme (and I mean EXTREME) mess G and I made trying to whip the egg whites. We had a big bowl, but our whisk is crazy powerful and when we tried to whip the whites, the eggs went everywhere. We had it all over our clothes, all over the cabinets, in my hair. GROSS! But we managed despite the mess. It was good fun to make and really great eats to eat, so it was nice.

All in all, it was a delicious meal. I really really enjoyed it, and it was really a fun meal to make.

Corn Fritters.

Food magazines sometimes allow us a chance to try things we might not have thought of...

For example...dinner one night last week was delightful, and here's the story...

Dinner was leftover chicken cooked with bbq sauce, served with chickpea salad (a staple in this house, as we also had it with dinner tonight), and some lovely corn fritters. The fritters were great... A little corn meal, a little corn, some eggs, lovely lovely lovely. And honestly, a quite different little meal for the likes of us girls.

Have a see....



Tasty!!!

What's in YOUR fridge?

The food blog becks & posh posed the question... what's in your fridge? Now I am a bit envious of their orderly and swanky looking fridge.

Mine? A mismatch of everything under the sun. Don't believe me?



There's wine, and veg, and organic milk, and leftover spaghetti in convenient lunch sized portions, bubbly water, stock, condiments, hemp oil, whey butter, weight watchers berad (1 point for TWO slices! score!), leftover yaprax, just peanut peanut butter, organic free range eggs, tons of cheese in the drawer ... yikes. We never want for variety.

Also, if you are so inclined, please scroll down, I have made a few posts this evening... check out the cute pic of the cat eating onions...

All the best!!!

Another Tuesday night on the town...

Tonight was actually a really warm night. The first really warm, you-could-wear-shorts-if-you-weren't-perpetually-cold-like-me warm. So G and I decided to go out and sit on a patio. We went to Margarita's in Cabbagetown. We have that charity coupon book with the two for ones, and it's such a bargain! We have used quite a bit of it, and will continue to use them... we've easily saved $50!



Oh yeah. It's all good. This is actually a really decent restaurant. They have a lot of vegetarian options, so we tend to eat there with our friends P & D.

Anyway, tonight, I had the Tacos Casero. They were strips of meat, cooked with peppers and onions, served with a little queso fresco on soft corn tortillas. I like it and my diet likes it too! The meat was a teensy bit tough, but the flavours were really good. I ordered it with a side of refried beans that I shared with G, as the dish didn't come with any sides, and I like to add the beans to my tacos.


My last bite was actually a crazy hot jalapeno, and it set my mouth afire! The beans were really good, a little spicy and really creamy. I love refried beans, and for some strange reasons, they love me...


They don't look so great, but they were awesome! G had the chorizo enchiladas. There's are weird, they come in this bowl-y casserole dish, but it's good.

She gets the green sauce for the top. It's really nice, the lettuce adds a crunchy bit (of course, when I order it, I get it sans lettuce because I hate lettuce in food that's not salad), and the sour cream is artfully squeezed on top.

It's weird because to get to the patio, you have to walk through the kitchen. I wonder if that's some sort of health violation? Well, at least they aren't afraid to have you peek inside! Today, we say lots of marinating veggies for the veggie dishes. They looked dang good, too!

Spring Rolls, Chicken, and Mexican.

Sunday night, G and I went out for dinner to Spring Rolls, a bit of a Toronto institution in terms of the chain asian restaurant. I ordered what has to be one of my all time favorite dinners... tom yum kai soup with steamed white rice. I usually order spring rolls, but tonight we opted for two different types of dumpling, one lightly fried and one steamed.

The soup is great. It's a really flavourful spicy/sweet broth with floating chili's pieces of chicken, mushrooms and tomato just melding together to make a fantastic dinner. I really like to have it with rice, where you can just pour some of the broth onto the rice and eat the whole thing up. Yummmmy. It's really such a lovely soup.



I did take a picture of the rice. But it's a white bowl of white rice. Nah.

I ordered a roasted rice green tea. The presentation here is key...



It's odd and never overwhelmingly hot, but it's still good. G had ordered the Thai tea or something, which looked really....neon.



G ordered what used to be my fave thing at Spring Rolls. The beef ho fun. It's delicious fat rice noodles cooked dry with beef, egg, bean sprouts, gigantor onions, and delicious mushroom soya (I think). It's such a nice flavour, and I had the best of both worlds, since I stole a bite of G's. She brought the leftovers home for lunch and said that they were still good a couple of days later, so it MUST be good. (I had no soup left...)

Beef ho Fun, please present yourself!


And there you have it.

Last night, we wanted to have something easy peasy, so we sat out some organice free range local chicken and baked that with a tiny bit of the President's Beer BBQ sauce, served with chickpea salad and the ubiquitous frozen peas. G made some bok choy from our CSA box for her dinner, but as I don't like bok choy, I did without.

Here's the chicken breast version...




And for those of you who are thigh folk....


Oh yeah, and a mountain of peas. What can I say, another good meal from G. I have just had the will to cook. It's good that G gets home before me, because it means dinner isn't too late, but I miss cooking. And the last few weekends have been crazy... oh well. Do for me, buy for me, lift me carry me... (I love Funny Girl!)

All cute things.

Bello needed a snack, obviously! I may have mentioned it before in my goings on about Bello and his supreme cuteness... but he loves the chives that we grow in our garden. (Okay, G grows them. Whatever.) Anyway, he loves to jump up on the bench and snack away. He'll come to greet us in the morning with the nastiest onion breath, but it's all so aw shucks that we muddle through... tell me you wouldn't kiss this onion boy!

A quiet night and Friday night.

This week has been a bit hectic, so the food pics have been sparse. We had a going away lunch at the office and I was too shy to take pics of the food, the blog's not something I necessarily talk about at the office...

Anyway, Wednesday was an easy night, G was out at a concert I didn't want to go to, so I took that opportunity to have no dishes and a relaxing lie about. President Choice makes a "blue menu" chicken and spinach pizza. One pizza is 500 calories, on the smallish side, and absolutely fantastic. Instead of being cheesey, it has little blobs of ricotta that are really lovely.

As you can see, it's not overly spinachy, just enough to give it a little flavour and make you feel virtuous. The chicken is plentiful, and there are roasted red peppers and add a nice touch. Honestly, I could eat this pizza all the time. Unfortunately, when G and I went to Loblaw's today, there was nary a box of this pizza in sight. Grrrr. That's just how good they are!!!

Last night, we had a big dinner at G's parents house. G's mom pulled out all the stops and made everyone's favorite, Yapraks. It's kind of like dolmades, but with ground beef AND rice inside, stewed with beans. It was fantastic.

G's mom must have been rolling grape leaves all day, because we had this whole big thing, and she said that there was this much again in the kitchen! She served this with rice and also made roast chicken and roast vegetables for the little kids, but the little kids love the yapraks, so it wasn't necessary! I ate roast potatoes and carrots because G's mom makes the best.

Otherwise, it's been a slow food week. We had brunch with a friend at Sneaky Dee's but as I have spoken about this before, I am not going into it here... Otherwise, it's all good.

As I have also mentioned before, I read alot of British food magazines, and they have lots of ads for Fairtrade foodstuffs. Now, I don't see that we have tons of Fairtrade items available here in Canada, and I guess you do start to get into that quandry regarding buying local vs buying Fairtrade vs organic. It's hard to say what's the what. We are buying almost exclusively local produce right now, though we aren't diehard about finding organic. But if there were Fairtrade bananas for example (which don't seem to be for sell here, but feature prominently in ads in the British mags), I would buy that over something that's neither local or organic.

Anyway, I suppose this is the battle we all have. Email me (or comment) your suggestions.

Scarmoza and Potato Ravioli TRIUMPH!

When in London (I am sensing a theme here), as I have already mentioned, we ate at Jamie Oliver's restaurant Fifteen. There, G had an amazing potato and scarmoza ravioli in marjoram butter sauce. G has talked about making it every since, and last night was the night.

She 'cheated' on the ravioli by using egg roll wrappers, but we rocked the scarmoza. I was working late last night, so I have no idea how it was made... but man alive it was delicious!!!!!



It was really really good. Scarmoza is a lovely smoked mozarella, in case you, like me, were wondering.

G knows I am not a fan of the big green salad, so she made up a little salad of boccicini, local tomato, cucumber and peppers, in a lovely balsamic and oil. It was so tasty...



G really outdid herself, and on a weeknight no less. Really, it was so fantastic. The picture of the ravioli doesn't do it justice, but it was really such a great meal. Well done G!

The Best Beef Dinner Ever --- no good pics.

Our friend from London (and her lovely lovely baby) were visiting, and G and I wanted to put together a nice spread. So we went to the market... wait...I've been through all that...

So the dinner was amazing. G just seasoned the beef tenderloin with salt and pepper and browned it then roasted it. It was amazing. Good beef makes such a difference. It had a really amazing flavour and was just perfectly cooked. My potatoes were a bit dry, but the cooked zucchini and mini peppers was absolutely lovely. I also bought a beautiful fresh bread from a local bakery to have... Here's the pics...





Yes, I had already begun eating. I am terrible. It looks not so nice and G will be outraged that her beautiful meal gets such shoddy treatment. BUT.......

Anyway... we had Bakewell Tarts. Now. First let me say how much I love the Bakewell Tarts. The same friend introduced them to me at her home in London, and when I saw freshly baked ones at the market, well, yes, I had to buy them for our dessert. She was delighted, said she never haves them so fresh made ones were a right treat! And they were...


Lovely. Really a nice treat.

Sunday found us not wanting to do dishes after a trip to the home renovation store to discuss our kitchen renos. I had a craving for hamburgers, so we decided to make some up. For toppings, we had jalapenos, mashed avocado, local tomatoes and CSA box lettuce, pickles, ketchup, mustard and mayo. Now we each had our own combination of that... Anyway, we just went for baked tortilla chips and salsa for the side. Nice...



Now, unlike most Canadian hamburgers I have had, I do not put anything in my hamburger patty but salt and pepper, and that's even on top. I think, if you use good meat, isn't that the point? And the insides prove it... tastyyyyyy... look at this sexy innard shot...


Oh yeah. Yummy. Overall, a good weekend for food. Nothing too crazy, but all too delicious!