First meal in Mexico

After 15 hours or so of travelling by plane, car, and bus, I finally arrived in Puebla, Mexico. Everything was pretty excellent and smooth except for a headache, which I think was due mainly to the altitude - Mexico City is at 7,200 ft above sea level. So the whole thing left me a bit breathless, literally, but otherwise quite excited to see it all.

The first meal of the trip was actually BBQ in the airport in Houston, which wasn't too bad. The sliced brisket was a bit salty but still better than anything available in Toronto! The potato salad had not too much mayo and a hint of mustard and the place, Pappas Bar-B-Q, also had a great cucumber salad which is unusual for a BBQ joint and was perhaps my favourite part of the meal. Topped it all off with sweet tea and I was good to go for the rest of the day.

By the time I arrived in Puebla, some six or eight hours later, I was ready for my first Mexican meal. I had sussed out some restaurants before leaving Toronto and was glad of it as I was tired and pleased to already have my destination picked out so I wasn't messing around trying to figure out where to eat. Mesones Sacristia was one of the places where I'd been looking at going to cooking school but decided against. However, I was intrigued by their menu, so made it my first stop for a Mexican meal. I arrived at about 8:30, which is apparently quite early for dinner and was the lone diner in the pink courtyard (which has hotel rooms above it).
No worries, everyone was very nice and I stumbled through with my not-so-excellent Spanish. As it caters to tourists, though, the restaurant thankfully had a menu in English, so I didn't have to sit there like a dweeb with my dictionary figuring out what everything was. So I started off with quesadillas with Oaxan cheese and squash blossoms because I just wanted to eat squash blossoms and that was the menu choice. They were fantastic. Came with a little bowl of guacamole as well as the fresh and tomatillo salsas that come to the table. Alone they were excellent. Smothered in the guac and tomatillo salsa, even better. Not much too look at but really great.
Puebla is the home of mole poblano, the complex sauce made with chocolate and served usually over chicken. I was keen to try it but there were also a few other moles on the menu, one a speciality of the house made with chipotles (oh how I adore thee) and red and green pipian which are nut-baseed. I wanted to try them all and luckily for me, they had a combo platter.


No vegetables in sight (well there were two slices of radish) but a good helping of all four. I found that, not surprisingly, I enjoyed the house special chipotle-based mole the best. I thought the mole poblano would be bitter but it was actually quite sweet and I found it a bit too cloying and heavy even in the small portion that I had. Enjoyed both the green and red pipian. None of them were particularly spicy so tried a few in the hot, fresh corn tortillas that came with it sprinkled with some of the salsas, also very tasty but I really couldn't eat too many tortillas, it was just too much.

There was no room for dessert, so no report on that end. Overall, not sure how I'm feeling about moles. I do hope we'll learn to make one while at the cooking school but they seem to be very complex to create without the taste punch that I would have expected.

This is not pizza

Tonight we went to a little shindig at the law society and afterwards just decided to grab a quick bite before heading home. There's a place on Yonge Street across from the Eaton Centre called the 3 Brewers (it's 3 Brasseurs in most of the French world where the restaurant chain has most of its outlets) that we had been thinking about going for a while. Since we were down there without any other solid plan, we gave it a go. There was a promise of something better than pizza.

It's called a flamm. This "tarte flambee" is better than a pizza, they claim, and from Alsace. Well who wouldn't want to try something billed as better than a pizza as pizza is already such a great thing. As the name would suggest, it is a brew pub so I ordered a half pint of their wheat beer, which was pretty good. It starts off with quite a sweet hit but then settles in. Never bitter though, which is important to me being the big beer drinker that I am. We also ordered a couple of flamms. J had a bacon, raclette, and onion one and I had smoked meat and gruyere topped with pickles (not cooked, I had to check).

Basically what ye olde flamm is is a thin oven baked flatbread, topped with a bit of cream (which you can barely see or taste) and then the cheese and other toppings. It's pretty crispy and tasty but I wouldn't go as far as to say it's better than pizza. I think it's more a something that would work cut up into squares and served as an appetizer rather than as the whole event. Not bad, not particularly ground breaking but we've tried a new place, which I always feel good about.

Sporty snacks

The World Cup is upon us and that, of course, calls for snacks. And why not mix our love of sport with the love of Mexican food. On Friday night, I made a roast turkey breast in this fantastic New Mexico chile/citrus marinade -- no pix so no blogging about it :(. There were leftovers, so what better use for them than some nachos that also used up the remaining corn tortillas and a bunch of queso fresco that were in the fridge.

One of the things I like to do when we buy whole bags of tortillas is to use them up by cutting them into 6 triangles and baking them in the oven. I just shake them up in a bag with some salt and chile powder or whatever then put them in a 400F oven on the pizza stone for 10 or so minutes. That gives us low fat but delightfully crispy tortilla chips.

Anywho with those in hand, J and each built our own pile of nachos. Mine included said chips, a couple of other chipotle tostadas broken up, some light cheddar, some queso fresco, chopped green onions, red pepper, green onions, and canned green chiles (one of J's faves that I'd never tried before), and of course some turkey. All baked in the oven for about 10 minutes then topped with some daubs of the creamy green homemade guacamole. Oh yeah!

J had a similar conconcotion but added black beans and some rice (more excellent leftover usage). That and a cold Diet Coke and you're made in the shade for some footie-watching fun. Although kudos must go out to our friends who hosted the England-USA game the day before and had soccer-themed cupcakes, lots of cheesy and dippy treats, and a great decorating spirit.

Welcome back oh beautiful chick pea

This may be in the realm of too much information but stomach troubles have recenetly kept me from eating the beautiful chick pea. Well things are better and I was feeling brave so decided I wanted to have a go with the garbanzos. I had been looking through the cookbook from Vij's Indian restaurant in Vancouver realizing that we'd only ever made one thing out of it -- the lamb popsicles (which are lamb but not frozen, just creamy and a real treat for the tastebuds!) A recipe for a green onion and chick pea curry was found near the back of the book and it looked relatively simple and piqued my interest. So I did it. And it was excellent, easy, and fast. It's made with coconut milk but I used a low fat version so felt virtuous about the whole thing.


And as I may have mentioned, never will there be only one veg curry at a time. There was a load of green beans in the fridge crying out to be used, so I made one of my favourite Indian side dishes which I have been making for years and I think may have originally come from Julie Sahni's Classic Indian Cooking.

Basically you take a whole lotta green beans and clean the ends off. Then put them in a frying pan that has just enough boiling water to cover the beans and a teaspoon or so of tumeric in the water. Boil them for a few minutes until tender crisp then drain and put aside. In the frying pan, heat up a bit of oil and when hot toss in a teaspoon or so of black mustard seeds. Add 1/2 a chopped up chile (either dried or fresh), a few pinches of unsweetened shredded coconut, the beans, a bit of salt and fry for a few minutes until the beans are a bit crispy. Lovely.

Put it all on a plate with some rice and a colourful, quick, and not too spicy Indian vegetarian meal is ready to be enjoyed.

The first fruits of the season

We are once again signed up for a veggie box from our friends at Coopers CSA Farm in Zephyr, Ontario! Last week we got our first box, which included thyme, sage, oregano, russet potatoes, lettuce, and asparagus. J had a craving for potato salad so I boiled up the taters and served up some salad borne of my mother's recipe, which, in my opinion is the best in the world. I shall share it, because I'm that kind of a gal!


Cut up some potatoes into 1/2" squares - as much or as little as you want -and boil them until tender. Depending on the potato, I usually don't peel the skin off but in this case, it was necessary.

Finely chop an onion (which will be enough for a salad for about 6-8 people, use a half if you're making less). Chop a whack of parsley. I use probably about 1/3 to 1/2 of a cup for 6-8.

Once the potatoes are cooked, drain them and put hot into a bowl. Right away, squeeze at least half a lemon over it and add about 1/4-1/3 cup of plain vegetable oil, canola is best. Add two teaspoons salt (or to taste), the parsley, and onion and gently mix it up. It should be good and lemony, so add to taste. It's best if it sits in the fridge to cool for an hour or two before serving.

It was most delicious and made with parsley from my indoor herb garden and the beautiful potatoes from the farm. As such, it was part of a fantastic little "we don't have a bbq but we're still going to eat like we have one meal" that had a bit of steak and corn on the cob to round it out.

Feeding the Soul.

Yesterday, we went to see some friends who just moved into a beautiful country house.  We had tickets to see a play in Stratford, and were excited to head over and see the house, stop in at our favorite Stratford spot, Pazzo, and then see the play.  We struggled with whether it made sense to stay the night with our friends and head out in the morning, or to just drive home.  A number of factors weighed, we determined that we would drive home last night.  Which meant, impromptu breakfast at home before our second softball game of the season!

What to make?  You guessed it, one of my faves... BREAKFAST BURRITOS!

Yum!  I took three eggs and two egg whites, mixed them with some salt and pepper and a splash of water.  Set it aside while I cooked some chopped white onion with a little bit of diced chorizo.  Once the onion and chorizo were toasty and delish, I plopped in the eggs and scrambled the lot.  Divided it between mine and G's plates, with mine on a smallish whole wheat tortilla bought at Kensington Market and topped with a bit of low-fat shredded cheese and ketchup.  Really good!!!  (Oh, the softball game?  Lots of fun!  We lost something like 14-2 BUT I hit the ball and made it on base BOTH TIMES I was up to bat!  That's right!  I'm going to be sporty yet!)


One of our goals for this week is to eat at home more.  When I was in the midst of losing the 30 pounds I have lost, we ate at home most meals.  The last couple of months has seen a bit of an eating out fiesta that must stop.  I am pleased to say that I haven't put any weight back on (good fortune and running, I think), but I don't want to lose sight of all my healthy changes!  So we are using up what we have in the house and eating at home.

First up, must use the slider buns we bought forever ago that have been lounging in the fridge... so sliders it was for dinner!

G made an amazing onion marmalade to have with them.  I cooked the slider patties under the broiler (a bit too long, sadly) and topped them with more shredded low-fat cheddar (shredding really lets you feel like you are getting a ton of cheese for not a ton of WW points), tomato slices and the FANTASMAGORICALLY delicious onion marmalade.  Toasted the buns, had some garlic pickles and baked lays on the side, and woo hoo, a points friendly feel-good dinner that we all could enjoy. 

On the whole, it's been a good weekend!  

Friday afternoon treats

On Fridays my office closes at 1:30, which is lovely. Most of the time I leave some time after that but it's always a lot earlier than any other day of the week and so is always something to look forward to. And on many Friday afternoons, I treat myself to a little Sri Lankan nibbly on the way home. There's a little bakery on Parliament St. just south of Wellesley called the Absolute Bakery. They make lots of the usual breads, cakes, and pies -- most of which I admit I have never tried. I go there only for their rolls and rotis. My favourites are the beef pancake rolls, a bit of spicy beef stuffed into a roll made I think of potato and covered in something crispy then fried. They have said rolls also with fish and sometimes vegetable. The other delicacy is the little rotis. Most often I have the veggie roti, which again is a bunch of spicy vegetable stuffed in a little roti and then fried up into a little package. Today I went for the chicken. Mmm. Good. And cheap. A nice treat on a sunny Friday afternoon.

I feel like chicken tonight...

As a girl who has only recently embraced the vegetable as friend, I am still finding ways to incorporate them into my life that will trick my brain into eating them happily.  Case in point?  BBQ chicken dinner night with twice-baked potatoes.  Oh sorry, were you wondering where the vegetable came in?  No silly reader, it's not JUST the potato!  Them there potatoes had SPINACH lurking within!!!

Oh yes, bbq chicken is lovely.  And green beans lightly steamed with some salt, pepper, and lemon is a delight.  But the twice baked potato was DIVINE!!!  I sauteed some spinach (or did I microwave it?  hrmph) and, after baking the potato sans foil in the oven for about an hour, I cut the spud in half, scooped out the innards, mixed in some light laughing cow and spinach (and salt and pepper), and then stuffed the shells with the filling.  Sprinkled a little bit of grated old old cheddar on top (grating gets you the feeling of lots of cheese for very few points) and baked for about 15 more minutes.  You can't beat that sort of feel-good comforty food!!!  And pretty points friendly!  (I don't know about you, but I tend to save about half of my daily points for dinner.  It's how I eat and how I am comfortable keeping track... you???)

Life...

G's been doing an excellent job posting all of the DELICIOUS food that we've been eating the last few weeks... and how does a girl like me, who's reached her goal weight due to counter all this eating?  RUNNING!  But new gear was needed... and of course, I thought I would blog it...

Yep, a few running shirts, a running skirt, some Teva flip-flops recommended to me years ago by a friend and I never picked any up (and they are COMFORTABLE!!!)... I had already picked up some pants.  But that's not all, no sir.  The warm weather we've been having has meant that even MORE kit was needed...

Right... since I am no longer wearing jackets, I have no place to put my iphone when I run... there's the arm strap.  I needed a visor to help shield my face from the sun AND wipe up sweat (which this one does admirably) and a water belt.  The water belt.  I've debated this one over and over.  I run with a bottle that fits into your hand that's perfectly comfortable.  But it's been so hot that I can't stand carrying it the whole time.  Plus, I am going to need the ability to carry more water soon as my training kicks it up for the half.  So, water belt.  Thanks to all those on the dailymile.com who recommended Nathan products.  It's an absolute dream to wear!

Any running gear YOU particularly love?  Next up for me is a new pair of shoes.  I have been married to my Asics for some time now, but tried on a pair of Brooks Glycerin 8's yesterday and really, it was a swoon worthy moment.  They were amazing but PRICEY!  I don't know anyone who wears them...

And for a blast of food... I took my Mom to NY Fries today for her first taste of poutine.  She loved it!!!  No photos, but trust me, it was good.  :) 

Breakfast for dinner, Mexican style

We often have breakfast for dinner because it's generally fast and easy and we have the necessary ingredients around the house. So tonight we decided was a breakfast for dinner night as we were without any other dinner plan. But I didn't just want scrambled eggs and homefries or whatever, so put a bit of a Mexican (can you believe it?!!) twist on the whole affair. I'd been reading about chilaquiles but they are usually fried and that's not on right now. But the idea of them was in my mind . . . This is what I did. It's easy. It's tasty. This is pretty low fat. It's the way to go.


Took 4 whole corn tortillas and sprayed them lightly with cooking spray then put them on the pizza stone in a 400F oven to crisp up.

In the meantime, I found about a half a cup of frozen roasted tomatillo salsa (having the sauces and salsas in the freezer really makes it easy to whip up the dishes in a hurry) and heated it up. We had a few bits of leftover chicken, which got sliced up and added to the salsa with a little squeeze of lime juice. Also mashed up an avocado with some chopped green onion, salt, pepper, and the juice of half a lime. No chili because I didn't want to compete with the tomatillo salsa. Grated some queso viejo duro (old strong cheese, really, I don't make this up that's what is says on the package) which is a strong and dryish cheese so you don't need much. Last but not least, fried four eggs (if you put them in a good Teflon pan with just a splash of water and cover it, you don't need any oil here either!).

Then put it all together in layers on top of the crispy tortillas and serve with the avocado on the side.

It's 10:30 pm - must be time for snickerdoodles

Well J had a hankering for cookies last night and it could not be denied. Her focus had been on trying to make the cookie part of a Twix bar. We didn't happen to have the ingredients for that adventure on hand late on a Saturday night but we did have everything two gals needed to put together some snickerdoodles, which just happened to be J's favourites anyway.

We perused a number of recipes and decided the classic from the Joy of Cooking was the way to go. So we mixed it up - basically eggs, butter, sugar, a bit of cream of tartar, baking soda and Bob's your uncle. Make 'em into balls and roll them in sugar and cinnamon, then bake.

Out they come and feast on the deliciousness, not to mention the house smells fantastic all night!

More on the schnitzel front

So there's this place Schintzel Queen on the somewhat sketchy corner of Sherbourne and Queen streets in downtown Toronto. I'm always intrigued by places that seem to have been around forever and are kind of a bit rundown and homely looking from the outside. So I've always wanted to stop in and give the schnitzel there a try. Problem is it's not really open for anything but lunch during the week, which when it's at the edge of sketch downtown and you work 50kms away, it's not so easy. Well today I was working from home and my planned lunch got cancelled. I decided to grab the scooter and head down the few blocks and give it a try.

The menu consists of series of different schnitzel sandwiches (traditional and chicken) with various kinds of toppings including the basic mayo, tomato, and lettuce to cheese, roasted onions, and more. You can also just grab a piece of schnitzel or have a dinner that includes sauerkraut and potato salad. Well I just went for the basic sandwich but substituted mustard for mayo, as I'm not too keen on the may-o-naise. It's a big sarnie, let me just say.

It comes on a triangular multi-grain bun. I decided that there really was no need for the bun. It was just too much. So I had a stripped-down version of the schnitzel, tomato, and dijon mustard. It was actually very delicious. The schnitzel was light and crispy and not deep fried like at the last place where we had it. Usually I like to have lots of lemon juice squeezed on the meat but it was different and quite tasty with the mustard. Next time I'll try the potato salad because I've heard good things about it.

I had mine to go but there is a counter in the tiny little mom-and-pop shop where a few people can sit. I understand it gets quite crazy in there at lunchtime. I think when I arrived today, they'd just had a run of customers as the owners seems quite out of breath! But they were very pleasant and it homey inside and I liked it! You just have to get over the location and head in.

Classic chicken soup

Someone at work asked me for my recipe for chicken soup, so here it is. It's dead easy, just takes a lot of time on the stove. You can use this as soup or strain everything out of it and keep it as stock. I usually save it in 1 cup portions in baggies in the freezer, which makes it really easy to use.

Classic chicken soup

• 1 whole chicken cut into pieces (if you're using it for soup) or any amount of leftovers and carcasses if you're just making stock
• 2 or 3 ribs of celery
• 3-4 unpeeled garlic cloves
• 2 leeks roughly chopped
• 2 mediums onions, sliced into chunks
• 3 large carrots, cut up
• 3 bay leaves
• 2 sprigs of rosemary
• 8 sprigs of fresh parsley
• 5 springs of fresh thyme
• 10-20 black peppercorns
• optional: 1 whole chile pepper

Put it all in a very large stock pot and fill with enough water to cover. Bring it all to the boil and then turn down to simmer. Skim the foamy stuff off the top when necessary and continue to simmer for about 4 hours.

Cool a bit and then strain it all so you have the veg/chicken and liquid in two separate containers. If you're going to be serving it as soup, save some of the carrots and shred some of the chicken and return it to the soup. If you're just looking for stock, then toss all the solids. Once it's totally cooled, you can seperate it and then freeze. It will keep for a few days in the fridge but quite a few months in the freezer.

Now if you're looking to add some matzoh balls to that soup, I've got a bit of a Mexican twist, of course, that you can use. This is especially excellent when you're in a week of eating a lot of matzoh-flavoured foods and need a little something different.

Poblano matzoh balls

• I do not make my balls from scratch - use any boxed mix and this will work.
• 1 large poblano pepper

Take one poblano pepper and either grill it on a bbq or in the oven until the skin is black. Take it out of the oven and cover it with a kitchen towel for a few minutes while it cools. Peel the skin and remove the seeds. The flesh of the pepper should be pretty soft and mushy.

Once you have prepared the matzoh ball mix, simply add and mix the poblano in well. Then, refrigerate and then make the balls and cook as per the instructions on the box.

They're not spicy but the pepper adds a little extra zip.

Sorry no pics for this one, but I'm sure it's not hard to imagine a steaming hot bowl of chicken soup with a couple of green matzoh balls floating in the middle . . . divine!

The stuffing was excellent

I had bought the ingredients to try another Rick Bayless recipe: Ancho chiles stuffed with potato and chorizo with escabeche, which in this case is sort of like a quick sweet and sour pickle sauce. Well it sounded interesting and gave the opportunity to try some different techniques and flavours. I wouldn't say it was the most successful ever but I did learn something, so all good.

The escabeche was basically frying up some carrots, adding ground allspice, garlic, cider vinegar, piloncillo (unrefined Mexican sugar), water and onions. You get a sweet-tart sauce and into it let the ancho chiles sit and rehydrate for a while. Then cook up some potatoes and chorizo, split and clean the rehydrated chiles, then stuff them with the potato-chorizo mixture.

It is actually an appetizer but I made it as the main so we had a few each instead of just one and served it with salad and corn. Pretty good but not the best ever. I think there were a couple of reasons: 1. the ancho chiles I had were of varying quality. Some were really wrinkled and didn't soften up evenly, some had really thin skin and tore too easily, etc. etc. So every one was totally different. 2. The escabeche was okay - very tart and sweet - but I was not sure whether to serve it cold or warm. I didn't really want cold liquid on my dinner so heated it before serving.

But I try some new techniques: softening the dried chiles on a hot griddle, splitting and stuffing them, etc. And the potato and chorizo stuffing was really easy and can be translated into other things in the future for sure.

Again with the champagne and chocolates

Another law firm hosted a champagne and chocolate event tonight. This one at Moroco choclatiers in Yorkville. It was a very fun event hosted by the firm's women's group and it was almost universally women clients. There were four different sparkling beverages - one was a hard cider from the Loire Valley in France, then there were three champagnes, of which I don't remember the names of any except the Veuve Cliquot. Along with that many, many, many kinds of chocolates. My favourites were the truffle balls with the fleur du sel liquid centre, truffle with strawberry and balsamic, the raspberry cream one and the marzipan with orange and brandy. There were a whole lot more but honestly, I couldn't keep up they were coming so fast. Each one had a different design on it - here are a couple of them. I believe the hearts was the raspberry cream and the dots were espresso.


We were greeted upon arrival with a glass of champagne and there was a table of sweet goodies ready for the guests that included: Maroc's famous homemade marshmallows, macrons, brownies on a stick, shortbread cookies, meringues, chocolate-covered pretzels, mini cupcakes, and more.



We also got a little goodie bag at the end that had some treats from Maroc and little bottle of French Cross sparkling wine.

All in all, I'm giving the law firms the thumbs up on these events and letting them know I'll be happy to attend your events if they continue in this fine style. And in keeping with the fact it's work . . . all pics taken with the work BlackBerry . . .

Pot roast under pressure

I may have mentioned how much I adore the pressure cooking. Using it more, I'm getting used to how it works, how much liquid etc is needed. Pressure cookers are not really the cool kids of the kitchen, so there's not a tremendous number of recipes available for them out there. The recipe book that came with it is mostly Indian curries, which I like but . . . Ours is also pretty small. The combo makes it a bit complicated to figure out how to make things. But it's kind of fun to try.

Anyway with all that preamble, I'd been wanting to have some pot roast so pot roast it was. I cobbled together something quite delicious from a bunch of different sources that accomplished what some might consider the perfect Sunday dinner . . . pot roast in a mushroom wine sauce with potatoes and carrots. All cooked in about an hour!


A thing of beauty really, for the tummy anyway.

Who Me?!

Yes folks.  It's official.  I completed my first 10K this morning!  I met my goal of running the ENTIRE race.  I exceeded my time goal.  I had wanted to finish in one hour and twenty minutes, but I ran it in one hour and 7 minutes!!!!!!

Here's me at the finish line...

Yeah, it's a bit blurry, but it's because I was sooo fast!  :)  I felt great!  Honestly, I felt really strong, really solid on my feet and totally pain free.  My breathing was steady, my mind was clear.  I kept trying to stay relaxed and focused on my breathing and my pace.  Thank you Nike+ for not letting me get carried away at the start!!!


I am a lucky girl.  G came to the finish with one of our friend's in tow and waited it out through the constant threat of downpour for me to finish.  Another friend was also running the race (he ran in 48 minutes!), and he waited to see my after.  It was brilliant and I was so happy to have so many smiling familiar faces cheering me on! 

Here's P and I at the end...

Yep.  There we are, wearing our medals and brimming with pride! 
Before the race, I was pretty nervous and could really only eat about half a WW bagel with some peanut butter... I brought my own water bottle to the race, and a few of the carb/electrolyte jelly beans that I got at the Running Room.  My stomach started growling before I'd even taken off!!!

But the race was run, and since it was my first, I had a PB!!!  Go me!

After the race, you corral through this area where there's food and whatnot.  First stop, gatorade.  Blessed fruit punch flavour.  Love it.  Then, off to the food bar.  Bagels, cookies, juice boxes, bananas. My stomach wasn't sure I wanted anything, but my mind told my stomach to get over it and eat something.  So a bit of a bagel, a juice box, and a delicious banana were enjoyed. 

It's nice that they give out food.  I mean, I suppose it only makes sense that they would, but it's nice that there's so much there to eat.  You're tired after running, even when it's "just" 10K, that having that little bit at the end really kept you from just wanting to lie on the ground and sleep.

From there, it was off to Cora's for a celebratory breakfast.  By then, my stomach was having some cramping, but I think I was just too hungry and too worked up.  It feels better now. 

A year ago I would never have dreamed that this would be possible.  I have made so many positive changes in my life, and I am really just so freaking proud of myself.  I have a few 5K's and 10K's this summer that I've already registered for, and then it's the big one.. the half marathon in September!!!!  Watch this space, I will keep news coming on the training, the food, and the fun of it. 

Nothing goes together better than chocolate & chili

I had been jonesing to make make a chili chocolate cake for some time and during Passover last month, I found this one online and decided to make it when we had guests from out of town. It was the dessert for a Mexican-themed seder-type meal (which was very delicious but did not have an hour of pre-amble from the Haggadah before we could partake of the repast, so to speak.) Anywho . . . more on that at another time! This cake doesn't have any flour or other leavining agents so it was perfect for Passover but that's not to hold me back from making it any time because it is SO delicious!

For my version, I used good quality Belgian chocolate and ground the dried chipotles myself in the mortar and pestle so the flavour was still strong and smokey. I definitely used more spices than the original recipe called for and also had goose eggs in the house so used those (1 goose egg = 4 regular eggs), which I think makes it richer. It comes out a lot like a brownie but with a bit of a kick. I could eat the whole thing myself, so it's a good thing there'll be others to share it!

Chipotle Flourless Chocolate Cake

• 285g of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
• 7 tablespoons (100g) of unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 5 large eggs (or 1 goose egg and one regular egg), room temperature
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons of chipotle chili powder
• Dash or more of cayenne pepper
• Pinch of salt
• Powdered sugar for dusting (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line the bottom of a 9 ½ inch springform pan with a circle of parchment paper. Grease the sides and the parchment with butter or non-stick cooking spray.

Melt the chocolate and butter together over a double boiler stirring occasionally until smooth.

Whisk together the eggs and the sugar in a large bowl, and then slowly, a bit at a time, whisk in the melted chocolate. Add the salt and spices and taste, adjusting the spices if needed.

Pour into the springform pan and bake for 25-32 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let it cool completely on a wire rack. Dust with powdered sugar and serve.

A good 'ole Jewish breakfast

Today we went to Caplansky's deli for breakfast. We'd been for lunch with friends a few weeks ago and had some great smoked meat and tongue sandwiches. The breakfasts looked good too, so since we were up and at 'em early today, off we went. J also needed to get her strength up for her 10K tomorrow (so you know, any excuse!)
I had the smoked meat hash. I love corned beef hash and I will say it sure comes in many varieties of not good. This one was great! They use all the leftover bits from making sandwiches and then fry it up with some potato sticks and herbs. Add fried eggs, challah toast and presto. I ate it with some of the delicious brown mustard - one of may varieties of mustard on the table - and it was heavenly.

This pic was taken with my new Sony Ericsson Xperia Android phone, which has an 8MP camera. Not bad for a phone. It's my first personal smartphone and it rocks (a recently acquired BlackBerry is for work and I don't really want to carry work e-mail around with me all the time so bit the bullet and got this groovy tunes phone!)

J. had the fried salami and scrambled egg breakfast. It was also very delicious - with a lot of crispy fries! Definitely will go back again when looking for a particularly hearty breakfast. It's not an every week kind of deal. The heart would not go on, if you know what I'm saying.

The best Mexican restaurant in town

Last Saturday J & I had some old friends and their kids over for dinner - we hadn't seem them in ages and I was excited to have some adventurous eaters over so I could cook with some gusto. So I'd planned the meal for ages and was excited to once again dive into the Rick Bayliss-inspired Mexican.

A few weeks ago I made some tamales that were okay but I used the wrong corn masa so despite not really wanting to have another bag of ground corn in the cupboard, I did bite the bullet and buy the right one for tamales - it has a coarser grain - which made all the difference. I made green chile chicken tamales. Now I don't want to toot my horn, but they were fantastic!! We ate the whole lot of them (save one tiny little one that made it as a lunch snack the next day).

The filling was really easy. I whipped up some tomatillo salsa (a can of tomatillos, one roasted jalepeno, few cloves of garlic, half a white onion, big handful of cilantro all wazzed up in the blender). Then put it all in a pot, added about a tablespoon of masa harina and thickened up the sauce a bit and then just mixed it with some shredded cooked chicken.

The corn husks were boiled for a few minutes and then left to sit soaking in the water for about an hour. I just followed the instructions on the tamale masa package for making the dough.

Now I don't have any type of steamer so I jerry-rigged this one last time that is essentially a big colander set in the top of our biggest pot and then filled with tamales, covered it up with leftover corn husks and the lid and steamed it all for about an hour and a half. Presto, delicioso. Time consuming, for sure, but I sure do like seeing all the little soldiers standing up ready to be counted in the steamer.

The other main dish I made was one of the first Mexican dishes I found: braised short ribs with poblano peppers, tomatoes, and herbs. Ordinarily this would take forever to braise in the oven but I used the fabulous and fast pressure cooker and the whole thing cooked in 15 minutes.

I can't say enough about the pressure cooker's efficiency. Let it cool for a few minutes and you have fall-off-the bone meat and saucy deliciousness ready to be wrapped in a tortilla!! The poblanos give it an extra taste dimension that's less spicy than chiles but also just a bit more fortified than bell peppers.

The meal was rounded out with a few salsas: quick tomato-chipotle that had quite a bit of bite, classic semi-pickled onions and cilantro, and a crunchy tomatillo avocado salsa that was just a slightly different take on the beautiful avocado than the regular guacamole. Refried beans and rice rounded out the offerings.

I would like to report that our guests said the tamales were some of the best they've ever had. The kids were gung ho and got stuck into everything and a great time was had by all.

Schnitzel the size of a dinner plate

The quest for schnitzel is low-grade but continuous. We've found a couple of okay places but nothing great. The other day when scooting around town I noticed this place on Bloor Street that I vaguely remember going to when I was a kid. So on Sunday J and I went to give Country Style Hungarian Restaurant a go. It is old school!!

 I also love the pierogies and there were some on the menu served up with Hungarian sausage so we had to have a try. They could have had a tad more potato and cheese filling but came with tremendous amounts of delicious and crispy fried onions with a smokey little sausage on top and some sour cream on the side! Lovely and not for those on a low-fat diet.

 Then the star of the show, the schnitzel. I ordered the regular and J ordered the chicken. They were deep fried and we got them with dumplings. We also got a small salad to start and I had the sweet and also vinegary thinly sliced cucumber salad and J had the coleslaw, which was not of the creamy variety and she said was quite delicious. Anywho . . . HUGE and DEEP FRIED. Wow. Pretty good right out of the fryer but really heavy duty. Underneath there somewhere are the edges of the plate, which are barely holding in the dumplings.

Did not eat it all (and it was not good warmed up the next day) in order to leave space for the dessert: Hungarian pancakes or palacsinta. You can have them with all manner of fillings but I opted for the walnut/sugar combo.

Absolutely delicious but really just a bit too much after all of this. Good thing J is carbo loading for her run coming up this weekend. Me . . . well just loading on the carbs with this meal anyway.

Service was really friendly. What I also enjoyed was that in addition to salt and pepper, there's a shaker of paprika on the table! It's cash only though and while not expensive, not overly cheap. The main courses run about $17.

I made a pretty salad

J had been saying that she wanted to have some roasted beets, so I was happy to oblige. Give me some inkling of a plan and I'm on it in the kitchen these days. She'd been away on business and hadn't had a home cooked meal in ages. So after a day of battling with an errant computer on the work front, I was happy to come home to kitchen and excercise some creativity. So I put together this lovely roasted beet salad.

It's a bit time consuming but pretty easy overall.

Roasted beet salad with walnuts and watercress

3 small beets (or 1-2 larger ones)

tomato

watercress

yellow pepper

handful of walnuts

honey

goat cheese/feta

Preheat the oven to 425. Peel the beets and if they are big, cut them in half. Season beets, wrap them in foil and add a splosh of oil and a bit of water (which helps them steam and makes them less oily than if you use only oil). I put them in a baking dish because there is always some sticky red beet juice that escapes and the oven cleanup from that is not pretty.  Cook for about 45 min to an hour until they are tender.  (I tend to roast extra and then have for another salad or some other recipe over the next few days.)

In the last few minutes the beets are in the oven, toast the walnuts. Watch them though because it only takes about 3-5 minutes or they'll burn and be bitter. I coated mine with a bit of honey once I took them out of the oven. It's faster and easier than making proper candied walnuts and adds that hint of sweetness.

Once the beets are cooked, slice them into wedges and let them cool.

Clean some watercress (get rid of most of the thick stems which are not so delicious) and place it on the plate. Add some colour by alternating the beets with tomatoes and peppers. In this case, I used some crumbled feta we had on hand but soft goat cheese is really the best mixing its sharpness with the sweetness of the beets. Sprinkle the walnuts over the top of it all.

Now I'm very hit and miss with the dressings - could be that I just make it up and hope for the best most of the time but here, I didn't want it to detract so actually got the oil and vinegar mix right! And, importantly again, to balance the sweetness, it had shallots which bring that necessary onion flavour to the mix.

Shallot vinaigrette

1/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil (use the good stuff, it's the dressing)

3 tablespoons cider vinegar

1 small shallot minced

1 pinch sugar

1 pinch salt

1 pinch ground black pepper

1 tsp mustard powder

1 tsp water.

I put it all in a small jar and shake it up so you get a good emulsified mix. If you can make it at least an hour in advance of eating then the shallots have time to impart their flavour more to the dressing.

We had it with some linguine and bolognese sauce (which fulfilled my chili intake for the day with just a little hint of heat) and used up some of the herbs from the window herb garden, which always gives a little sense of extra joy!

Scootin' to Koreatown

I couldn't resist the weather outside and had to head out on the scooter tonight. J is away, the house has just been cleaned and I didn't want to dirty up the kitchen. And when scooting, it always helps to have a destination and it being dinner time I thought I'd try one of the restaurants in Koreatown to have some bibimbap. So I headed off to Buk Chang Dong Soon To Fu at the corner of Bloor and Clinton (which may become my favourite corner in the city as Tacos El Asador is across the road).

First it came with many sides, which I think were soy beans of some nature, daikon, sprout and carrot salad, kimchee, miso soup, and hot sauce/paste (pic taken with my new BlackBerry that has, well the capacity to take photos, how revolutionary!).

The bibimbap was delicious. Used the whole load of hot sauce in there. It was not oily at all and the vegetables were all delicious. The hot stone bowl was very hot and crisped up the rice fantastically. It was a lot of goodness in a bowl.

That and a coke for $9. Or you can go crazy and have a beer there for $3.02! Good deal and good eats. Service is fast and pleasant. And chilis acquired for the day!

Butter chilies . . . I've never heard of them

G again at the keypad . . .

Tonight, and some other nights for inexplicable reasons, I felt the need to make a selection of veg curries for dinner. Unlike making a meat curry, I feel you can't just have one kind so if it's going to be veg, there's gotta be a selection. So it ends up being a bit of a madhouse in the kitchen and not always a roaring success.  The least successful part of this evening was the mushroom/pea/potato curry. I used pre-prepared curry powder and well it just ain't that good and there was not any thickness to the sauce. Sprinkled with some raita it was alright but I think I'm going to give the mushroom curries a pass from now on as I can't seem to get it right.

Second I made some butter paneer. I will admit it was pre-packaged sauce here too (I did make it all in a hour after getting home late!) and it was pretty good. The sauce was Mother's brand in a foil packet if you happen upon it. I bought it at Ambal Trading on Parliament St., where I get most of my south Asian goodies, including the roti/paratha and fresh paneer. There's also a fresh fish market in the back but I've not ever tried anything from there as I'm not so bold on the fish front.

But in my daily chili quest, I had to do something with the latest chili find I made last week at Ambal: butter chilies. Feast your eyes on these white babies.

And so tonight's effort was a red lentil dal that came out pretty terrific in the end. Here's my recipe - and it makes about 4 servings.

1 cup red lentils

3 cups water

3 dried butter chilies, chopped finely

1 small onion chopped finely

1 1/2 tbsp chopped ginger

3 tbsp oil

2 cloves chopped garlic

1 tsp tumeric

1 tsp cumin whole

3 tsp garam masala

1 1/2 tsp salt

Put the lentils and water on to boil for about 20 minutes. In the meantime, prepare all the other ingredients.

Add oil to a small frying pan and once hot add the onions and sautee for about 5 or 6 minutes. Add cumin and chilies and fry for a minute or so. Then add the garlic, ginger, garam masala and tumeric and fry for a few more minutes. You should have a nice soft, oily spice mixture.

Once the lentils are soft and cooked, turn off the heat, stir in the onion and spice mixture and add salt to taste.  Let is sit for a few minutes for all the flavours to get jiggy with each other and then serve and enjoy.

Wine & chocolate & extraordinary women

G here again . . . feeling the need to share on the nibblies front.

Last week I was invited by a law firm to it's "5th annual extraordinary women's wine and chocolate extravaganza." I'm supposing it's because I'm so extraordinary that I made it on to the invite list . . . hmm.

Anywho, walked in the door and was met with a glass of champagne with a little raspberry in the bottom and really, that's the way to start off any event. In fact, I think each workday should begin in that fashion and it would all just be so much more pleasant.

The chocolates on offer were from Stubbe Chocolates and choclatier Daniel Stubbe was on hand to chat about his creations. There were six chocolates paired with wines. Now I will say that I tried all the chocolates but not all the wines, although I did give a couple a go.

First up (and I did not take any photos) and because I may have mentioned that I'm on a chili binge, I had the rasampatti chili with bittersweet chocolate. This was a ganache filled offering made with a not-too-hot Indian chili that gave a sweet first taste then gradually left you with a bit of the chili heat. It was paired with Ricossa Moscato D'Asti, a sweet dessert wine that really added a depth and roundness to the chocolate. I had a few tastes of this one! It was my favourite. Daniel said he had spent quite a lot of time using different chilis to get one that worked with this and that it's always a bit of a challenge using chilis which get spicier as the days go by. This was still fairly mild as he said they'd only been made a few days before.

Secondly I tried the solid pink peppercorns on dark semisweet chocolate, which was also delicious. It was paired with the Muskoka Lakes Windery Red Maple, a dessert wine made with cranberries and maple syrup. Again a nice sweet wine against the spicy chocolate. Liked this one as well. The chocolatier again said he'd experimented with different types of peppercorns and finds the pink ones to be the best for the chocolate as it is more delicate than black or white.

The most unusual one I tried was the hard lemongrass in bittersweet chocolate, which actually had a really refreshing taste to it, just as you would imagine lemongrass would. Nice and light. The third and last of the hard chocolates was a wild fennel in semisweet chocolate, which was not too licorice-tasting and really quite pleasant.

There were two other ganache-filled options: Tanzania dark chocolate, which was a straight-up deliciously deep chocolate and balsamic vinegar in dark chocolate, a taste sensation. The trick to the balsamic filling is using a vinegar that's about 5 years old, nothing to dense or fancy, apparently. You need to have a bit of the tartness and if you use well-aged balsamic it's too sweet and often too viscous.

All in all a really fun evening chatting about chocolate and ingredients. And we got a little box of treats to take home.

Kitty Litter for the Kitties.

The lovely folks at Matchstick asked me if I wanted to try a new cat litter product, Purina Maxx Scoop, that is made for the toots' who live in small spaces.  Free litter?  Bring it!

I got a big box of goodies, a Cozy Corner Cat Litter Box, a Purr-fect Paws Litter Mat, a new Rubbermaid scoop, and some cat treats in addition to the coupons for the litter.

Problem 1, finding the litter.  Had to go to a Walmart in the burbs to get it and it took some time.  Not driving a lot, it's hard to just "pick-up" cat litter!  Plus, the cat litter box was broken when it arrived, but workable.

Nevertheless, we found the litter last weekend and have been using it for about a week now.  First impressions:

Litter box, useless.  It's huge but not a lot of cat-sitting-on-the-butt space, and with how shallow it is, our cats have managed to get litter EVERYWHERE.  It's all over the house.  And Beanie likes to eat that mat, so I have found little brown pieces everywhere.  Sigh.  Beanie eats everything.  She's a mess.

But the litter itself is fantastic!!!  Really tops.  It doesn't smell like litter, even though the litter itself has a sweet smell, and the price is right compared to the expensive stuff we buy at the pet store.  I don't know if the tracking is because of the size of the litter, but I really suspect it's because they take a runner out of the box, and it's just everywhere.  So, we're going back to their Ye Olde Box.

Honestly, though, the litter seems good.  A week in and while I've been out of town and the cleaning has been less diligent, there's no litter smell.  So yeah for Purina Maxx Scoop coupons.  Email me or leave a comment if you want a coupon, I have three to give away!  (First come first winners in this one.)

Thanks Matchstick and Purina!

Goat chops alla diavolla

Again, J is away so it's time to break into the goat that is still in the freezer from the farm. This time it's chops. I'd not opened the packages so was not sure what to expect but I think they were loin chops. Anywho, was going to do some Indian-style but that required hours of marinating and a lot of ingredients and I was in the mood for quick. So I adapted an Italian lamb chop recipe I found online and it was pretty good and had a bit of a kick to it as well, so that fit the bill for my current need to eat chilis every day (and I don't mean the restaurant chain!)

So here it is:

If you have one, toss the chops onto the bbq, if you don't then settle for the frying or grill pan like I did. Cook them to your liking.

The sauce is simple. A few cloves of garlic sauteed in olive oil with some hot pepper flakes. Now I was only making one serving and used two cloves of garlic, which wasn't enough, so use as much as you need for your liking of the garlic and pepper flakes. Once the garlic gets a bit brown, splash some white wine in there. Chop up a good handful of parsley and once the wine has burned off all the alcohol and evaporated a bit, toss in the parsley just so it gets covered in the hot-garlicky oil and gets the flavours. You don't really want the parsley to cook.

Once the chops are done, put the parsley sauce over the chops. I served it with some steamed asparagus. Add a bit of fresh lemon juice to the whole thing and serve. The entire preparation of the dish took maybe 20 minutes.

And while goat may not appeal to most people, it is really delicious. The flavour is less strong than lamb but with a bit more oomph than beef. It is also much less greasy, and lower cholesterol than lamb. I can't account for comparison with pork chops . . .  Try 'em if you find 'em, you never know.

Origin Restaurant -- Toronto.

Last night, a group of us strolled down the street to Origin Restaurant, the new place from Claudio Aprile (of Colborne Lane).  I didn't take photos.  It was a social outing with good friends and I didn't want to mar it by snapping shots, BUT, the food was so amazing, I had to share it anyway...

The menu is divided into different parts with starters, a raw bar, a mozarella bar, hot dishes, and desserts.  I think I am missing something, but whatever.  We ordered a lot of food over the course of the 3 hours we were there... starting with a drink called a Ploughman's Cocktail or something similar.  This was very weird.  I've been reading a lot about savory cocktails and when one presented itself on the menu (featuring hickory bitters, crisp pancetta and mustard) I knew I had to try it.  And now that I've tried it, I can safely say I probably won't be trying it again... it tasted like Easter ham juice.  Mmmm.  It just SOUNDS good, doesn't it?

But from there it was all out of the ballpark. 

I can't say that I remember everything we ate, but there was an amazing beat and cheese salad, crostini with buffalo moz and preserved lemons, potatas bravas, devilled eggs, all followed by the most amazing black cod, chinois duck, manchego rice with poached egg and chorizo, and chili beef with black bean.  It's a small plates kind of place, so there was lots of sharing going on (though with one of us with a nut allergy, another celebrating passover, and two vegetarians, we had a lot of rules at our table)... which just meant more for me. 

The food was out of this world.  Everything is very straightforward, very reasonably spiced and full of flavour.  The chinois duck was tender and spicy, the manchego rice was an amazing risotto with a delicious creamy poached egg mixed in (I could eat a whole one of this all by myself), and the black cod was melt in your mouth tender and just absolutely amazing.  I really enjoyed everything so much, I can't wait to go back!  (Mom, maybe we'll go here when you visit???????)

Dessert was a delicious saffron sorbet with manchego cheesecake and marinated berries.  Sometimes, you just have to let it go and rock on with the deliciousness of it all.  I can't think of the last time I enjoyed a meal out quite so much... Claudio is a freaking genius and I am so glad we went to his 'simple' restaurant to enjoy his food!  It isn't crazily expensive, though it certainly isn't cheap.  We probably over ordered (though I couldn't have eaten more of some things) but it was worth every single penny!!!

You must go, so go go go!