Lameness Rules.

So I have never claimed not to be entirely lame.

Wait, is that right?

I admit I am totally lame.

I want this...

And there's this....

And I got really excited about this...

LOOK AT THAT CRAZY GIANT PACK OF KETCHUP!!!!  Yeah, it came with my veggie Hero burger the other day at lunch and I had to take some photos with my phone.  LOVE IT!  

And the Han Solo in Carbonite ice tray?  

Get yours here...

http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/kitchen/e845/

Ride in Dalek?

http://www.scificollector.co.uk/

Happy shopping!!!

Gail picked a peck of peppers

So it's the first year with my own outdoor garden. Didn't do a whole lot because, well, I don't know much about either gardening or the ins and outs of light etc on the garden in our new house. But we did put a few things in the ground and mostly, it's giving me joy to pick the few things that are growing.


We got a banana pepper plant that is going full tilt and giving us tons of peppers. Also got and planted a bit late a couple of red pepper plants. Not doing quite as well as the bananas! So far only one real pepper and I had to cut it off today even before it turned red because the slugs are snacking on it. But I'm sure it'll be delicious!

The Best Fish Sandwich Ever.

I just got back from a short but enjoyable trip to Nova Scotia. Towards the end of the trip, while driving back to Halifax, we eye-spied a fish truck and made a quick pit stop to refuel. And the, my friends and family, was the most wonderful fish sandwich ever.




Oh yeah! That is awesome! So I ordered, you guessed it, the fish sandwich and G ordered the fish and chips. Mine was total money, as Guy Fieri would say. See it glisten...





Yeah, it had a big ol' slice of American cheese on it and tartar sauce. With handcut fries that were the best fries in NS hands freaking down. The fish was absolutely delicious and I could not believe our good fortune.

G's fish and chips also glistened in the sun....





Ooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh yeahhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Honestly, one of my favourite food moments of the whole weekend.

You gotta try it!

Tagine in a tagine

Our friends Joanna and Gary bought us a tagine as a housewarming gift. I have not used one although I'm very intrigued. As it required a bit of beyond the ordinary, the gift ended up sitting on the shelf for a few months. So Friday, I decided I would give it a go and found a recipe online that actually cooked it in a tagine -- versus a slow cooker -- so I was ready to rock.

So you can actually use certain tagines to cook in, rather than just serve in, and the one we were given was a cooker. But that didn't make me any less nervous about putting the clay bottom right on the gas. I was somewhat buoyed by the memory of seeing big clay pots sitting over gas and coal cookers in Mexico recently so I off I went. There were a few weird things, and I'm not sure if once it's been cured and used a few times that it will be different. But the main thing was that putting oil in the bottom, it got hot but wehn I put the chicken in to brown I didn't get much sizzle. There seemed to be quite a lot of liquid. So the chicken didn't brown but it didn't matter much. The whole event was quite fun and I must say that I deboned that chicken with quite some skill!!

Anyway everything gets chucked in there and then it boils way for a bit with the lid on and steam escaping through a little vent in the top.


The final product was very delicious although I will likely mess around with the spice mixture becaxuse that's what I do. It's got preserved lemon in it, which is classic, but I'm not so sure about it. Regular lemon may just do the job. The recipe I used also doesn't include any fruit, which is also classic, but I don't really like fruit in my food, so I was happy about that.


Served over some lovely couscous. It's a meal worthy of a king! Or at least two happy-go-lucky gals on a Friday night.

Lavash pizza on the bbq

J loves pizza and we've discovered the great joy of making it on the BBQ. We've done it a few times now using lavash as the pizza crust. It's ultra-thin, which I love, and very low point, which J loves, so everybody wins. And they take no time at all to cook. We whipped up a few for a quick lunch today. Max 8 minutes cooking time on the pizza stone on the grill.

Here's mine. It was light bocconcini cheese, a few really thin slices of hot genoa salami, black olives, some thinly sliced onion, tomato and hot banana peppers from the yard. Dee-licicous.

Time to blog about it....

Sigh.

Double sigh.

It's been such a weird year.  So fresh on the high of having lost weight, I promptly forgot everything I learned, got ridiculously stressed out and depressed, and gained a bit back.  And by a bit I mean an entire stone.  I say a stone because I can't face the fact that I let myself gain 14 pounds back.

Ridiculous.

But I've learned, right?  I know what to do.  Weight Watchers works.  Exercise works.  When I work, it works.  And so slowly, I am getting back in the swing.

I've lost 4 pounds, I've run a 5K and an 8K race, and tried to stick to running 3 times a week and doing at least one Wii strength workout.  I can already see the difference in my body, and I feel better too, so I know it's working.

But for f-ck's sake, does it ever freaking end?  Is it ever just, "oh yes, there you are, normal weight, normal girl" life?

So while I relished the positives of it all...

Look at me, back in the swing!

And the post race amazing turkey sandwich, tomato and cheese salad, and potato salad...

I still feel like a giant tub o' lard.

So yeah, there's a million positives, but I still feel like a giant fatty who's kidding herself into thinking that she had ever made this whole weight loss thing work.  I mean, never mind the fact that I haven't been this weight (even THIS weight) for more than a decade.  Never mind the fact that as of my WW weigh-in this morning I am only 10 pounds over goal.  Never mind any of it.  I am just so freaking tired.

I read the book "The Amazing Adventures of Diet Girl"... have you read her blog?  So basically she lost half her body weight.  She looks amazing and has certainly had her share of ups and downs.  Parts of her story I completely related to and other parts just made me angry.  She dismisses doing Weight Watchers for the same reasons that I would never ever go to meetings, but also talks about how it is a crutch and she should be able to do it herself.  (And to her credit, she has done, so well done, mate!) but I find that I need that accountability.  I need to see those points moving along and tallying up.  I need that in order to know that I am on the right track.

One major change of the last almost two years on WW?  I love shrimp now.  I mean, this is a food that I literally would gag on and I absolutely love it now!  So score one for losing weight (while not 2 stones 2 pounds, I still can say I have lost 1 stone 2 pounds, which is pretty impressive)!

A little garden bounty

In our first garden in the new house, I planted just a few things and tonight's dinner includes a bunch. I made a potato and golden beet salad with veg from our neighbourhood farmers' market. But I dressed it with parsley and onions from our yard. Yay! Also along with our delicious hamburgers, we will have hot peppers also from our gardoonie.

Yay for Italian Food!

As mentioned in my last post on San Diego, G and I ate at Bencotto Italian Kichen twice.  It was amazing and while not cheap, it was worth every single penny and would have likely cost double had we had this same meal in Toronto.

Anyway, we read about this restaurant and decided that we absolutely had to eat there.  And we fell in absolute love.  So much so that when we were leaving, we made another reservation to return for our last dinner in California!

And what a dinner it was.

Sheesh man.

I started with stuffed squash blossoms.

Delicious blossoms stuffed with ricotta cheese.  They were then lightly battered and fried.  Served on a parmesan cream sauce that I would pay to just dip my fingers in it and lick off, it was amazing. The sauce had some sun-dried tomatoes scattered over the top.  Heaven!!!  Absolute heaven.

I was really excited about my second course.  Asparagus gnocchi with cream sauce, bacon and more asparagus.  Fan-freaking-tastic.

Oh yeah.  Every single bite of gnocchi was beyond amazing.  Seriously, it could not have been better had it been even much better.  Even thought it was a huge plate of food, I still cut each gnocchi into threes just to make it last longer.  I didn't realize that I was ordering two creamy dishes, but it happens.  And it was amazing...

If you are in San Diego, I highly recommend this place.  Our first time there, I ordered two appetizers, a glass of bubbly red (which I love), and a HUGE plate of baked pasta.  With another appetizer and G's main, our bill was still only about $70 or so.  Which is a lot, I understand that, but the quality is just out of control.

San Diego.

I went to a conference in San Diego recently and took an extra few days to spend vacationing with G.

What an amazing city!  First up, we knew we had to try fish tacos.  Staying in La Jolla, we were THISCLOSE to the beach, so off we went to a little beachside taco place to have the first round...

Tooooo yummy!  Lightly fried fish, avocado, fresh salsa and shredded cabbage wrapped in two corn tortillas.  Fantastico!

But this was not the only memorable meal in San Diego...

We also ate at this fabulous place called the Whisk N' Ladle in La Jolla...

I didn't take a photo of the food, but I had an amazing charcuterie platter followed by fish taquito's that were absolutely OUT OF THIS WORLD.  And this place has the same quote on their menu that I have on my blog, so they are obviously cool like me.  (As cool as I am, I thought you'd know this already...)

We also went to the famous Fish Market, which was really pretty decent, but the Bob Hope and Life Magazine photo tributes were better....

Super neat... we enjoyed the view while sipping some local brews...

I also had to try the local favorite, Hodad's for a good ol' fashioned American hamburger!  OMG what an amazing hamburger and fries it was...

We ate at the bar and just took it all in.  Really a great place but super small inside and we had to wait in line for about 15 minutes outside before we got a table!  But it's not too expensive (especially compared to the #1 ranked 'burger place in San Diego, the Burger Lounge), lots of fun, and a really nice vibe.  I enjoyed every bit of that burger.  (And didn't have to think to hard to figure out how I gained back a few pounds while in California!)

The conference hotel was near Little Italy, and so off we went to the farmer's market.  This is an AMAZING market and if you live there and haven't been, you really should sort it out and get there ASAP.  It's beyond fantastic.

We had some amazing tastes of local food, and bought a few treats.  I bought a vanilla macaroon that was the size of a person's head!  Only in America!

And the most amazing spicy green chile pork tamale...

Gracious, I could eat a few more of those right now!

I also almost got eaten by a shark...

But I survived.

And good thing to, because we discovered what could be my most favourite restaurant ever... Bencotto in Little Italy.  I am going to devote a whole post just to that big smackin' bunch of delicious Italian food like never ever in my life previously... Stay tuned!

Happy Canada Day!

Ahhhh, beach day.  We spent Canada Day hanging out with our fellow Canadians at the beach.  This is the end of our main street.  That's right.  10 minutes and this is at our feet.

We're too lucky by half.

Happy Canada Day and Happy July 4th!

Tijuana taco hunt

It's been a bit of time for the blog, I miss it. Not sure if you miss us . . .

Well we went away to San Diego for a week so we've a few food-related things to say about it. J was down there mostly for a conference and I was there mostly to tag along, mess around, and do no work. I succeeded on my end.

I did not realize that San Diego was as close as it is to the Mexican border. But it is. You can take the trolley/streetcar from downton San Diego to the border. It's a bit of a slow go at 45 minutes, or you can drive it in about 15 minutes. I also did not realize that a friend of ours who we met on the folk fest circuit also lived in San Diego. And he was most obliging and agreed to take me on a taco tour of Tijuana.

Thus Jimmy G and I set out on the trolley for the Mexican border. We had been down a few days before to an outlet mall and were suprised to see the "border fence" going right through the parking lot. So that a bit set the mood for me. Anywho, big red trolley down to the border and then toodle across by foot. It's easier than getting on the subway, because you don't have to pay. You just walk through a couple of turnstiles, no border check, no immigration officers, nothing. Bienvenidos a Mexico!

So Jimmy G and I wandered the streets of Tijuana for many hours and stopped at quite a few taco stalls along the way. We avoided the most touristy area and wandered through the town's nice and not as nice parts. It's surely not the prettiest place but the food was good. We had a few tacos and also tried some paletas, Mexican fresh fruit popsicles, which were delicious. I was wary of the ceviche on the hot street and the delicate disposition of my stomach, so I did not take the chance. My only disappointment was that I didn't get to have a taco de lengua. Next time.

Off all the ones I tried, the best came from our first stop at Asadero el Abuelo. It was carne asada cooked right there in front me over a charcoal grill. Kept simple with a bit of onion, cilantro, guacamole and hand-made corn tortillas. Toss in a bit of radish and a spritz of lime and perfecto!


Along with it I had my first (of many that day) aqua frescas. This is why you go with someone who's more familiar, because they'll make it feel safer to try stuff you might not otherwise. The first was horchata, basically cold cinnamon rice milk. Very refreshing and delicious. Over the course of the day I also tried papya, tamarind, and flor de jamaica (hibiscus flower). By the end of our wanderings, my legs were ready to fall off but one last treat as we approached the long line to cross back into the USA: freshly made churros!! The best ones ever.

So while Tijuana is not exactly what I would call one of my favourite places, the street food was fantastic! Oh and I got a new comal and some fabulous pottery bowls for next to nothing, so I am ready for more Mexican at home!!

Ah... Lavash Pizza At Last.

Years ago, before coming to Canada, I saw a cooking show where the person used lavash to make sandwiches.  I couldn't ever seem to find it.

Then, years later (or circa now), I started seeing WW bloggers talking about the awesomeness of lavash pizza because lavash is usually pretty low point.

Then even more recently, we moved and the local grocery store CARRIES LAVASH!  SCORE!  After grilled pizza (haven't read that post, it's down the line a bit), we had leftover fixin's so I made up some low point lavash pizza's on the pizza stone in the over.  And it was a total freaking hit!

See that huge pizza???  That is a SINGLE SERVING!  Now I dipped into my weekly points for some extra cheese lovin' but the whole thing was very very low point.  The lavash sheet is only FOUR POINTS!  FOUR!  FOUR!

You get the picture.

So it's been a meal twice this week and I really love it.  Go try it as I am sure you live somewhere cooler than I've ever lived (until now) and are able to get your hands on some lavash.

BBQ Pizza.

Look at that beauty!  My first pizza on the bbq.  We made two and you can just see in the corner there the charcoal of the other pizza, but even burned, it was delish!

We bought a ready made pizza dough at the store this morning.  Brought it home, stretched it out into two pies.  Heated the grill to super duper hot and oiled one side of the pizza dough and plopped it on the grill.  Leave the lid open and let it cook for just a few minutes.  Don't do like I did and let it burn.  It sounds like a cool idea, I know, but it just doesn't taste nice.  And really, we get enough carcinogens from the fresh air we breathe.

After the dough seems done (just a couple of minutes), lightly oil the other side and flip her over.  TOP TOP TOP!  Sauce, cheese, veg, salami... it's YOUR pizza so make it your way.  Close the lid and let cook.  Again, notice I say COOK not BURN.  Do as I say, not as I did.

Take her off the grill after a couple of minutes, let it set and slice it up and eat it.  You will be in pizza lovin' heaven.

I got the beets

I roasted a whole package of beets last week and it was really A LOT. So we made our regular and favourite beet salad the first night and then I didn't know what to do with the surfeit of leftovers. They sat in the fridge for a few days as I could not come up with another option but didn't want to toss 'em. So finally on Sunday I decided to make borscht. J said she was not keen on it but I wanted it and nothing else was going on in the kitchen on that dull and rainy afternoon.

I have not made it before so went to the bible - Joy of Cooking - to see what it had on offer in terms of recipes. There were a couple but neither seemed just right so I ended up doing a bit of a hybrid.

Now don't let the picture scare you, it was actually quite delicious and turns an excellent fuschsia colour when you stir in the sour cream. It also turned out to be totally vegetarian as somehow I ended up instead of buying regular veggie stock cubes getting ones that were veggie-beefy flavour. Anyway, it worked in this case as the stock needs to be, well, beefy. And it's quick.

G's roasted beet borscht

• 3 small or one large roasted beet (make extra when you're doing them for something else), slivered (leave a few chunks for colour purposes)
  
• 1/4 red onion, chopped
• 4 cups of beef stock - chicken stock does not really have enough umph!
• 1 potato, cubed
• juice of about 1/3 of a lemon
  
• sour cream and dill for garnish
• salt and pepper to taste
  

Put the stock in a pot and bring to the boil then add the few chunks of beets, onion, and potato and simmer until the potato is mostly cooked. It should be a nice purply colour. At this point, you can take out the chunks of beet as they have done their work. Add the slivers of beet and the lemon juice then cook for about five more minutes. Taste and season to your liking then serve with a dollop of sour cream and dill.

It's easy peasy and a good hearty soup. I didn't even bother to brown the onions, they just cook up nicely in the stock and float around. I also don't add cabbage, carrots, or even peppers like some recipes. I was pretty pleased with how it came out. A do-over for sure.

I've got green balls

Now you're reading this!!

So last year I wrote about making poblano matzoh balls but there were no pictures. Well I had to recover from my matzoh ball disaster of last week as well as wanting to try making the green balls again. Am happy to report that after a good weekend of cooking, I feeling like I'm moving away from the sense of disaster that had been haunting me in the kitchen recently. Anywho, I also have to get out the good camera, the phone camera is not really optimal - but it is easy.

So to make the green balls, first thing is to char the skin of the poblano, which is easily done over the burner of the gas stove.
Using this method, it didn't get quite as soft as when you char the skin under the broiler. So in order to soften it up so it's easy to mush, I just put it in the microwave for a couple of minutes. Then mushed it up, added to a regular mix of matzoh balls at the point just before you make the balls and put them on to boil.


I will say that I made perhaps one of the best batches ever of chicken soup and these green-tinted matzoh balls make a nice change. I will probably be making them every year and maybe next year even try some red ones made with another type of chile.

The highs and lows of cooking for Pesach

It seems there's been a lot of highs and lows for me lately in the kitchen and Pesach was not to be passed over, so to speak, on this front.

My mom asked me to make a cake or some manner of sweetness for Monday's seder. I was happy to oblige and my search for an interesting and different option began. You'd be surprised by how few options there are out there on the internet and baking is just not something that I'm comfortable making up. Anyway, I ended up using a Nigella Lawson recipe from her book Feast for damp apple and almond cake. It worked out quite well (no pics, however) but would have probably been better if I'd had the right cake pan. But not bad for a first try.

This year, I also wanted to do something different than going out and buying dem coconut macaroons, jellied fruit slices, or Manischewitz kosher for Pesach chocolates. J bought a Bonnie Stern cookbook that had a few gems in it. Although her recipe did lead me astray on the issue of whether or not to stir the caramel as it cooked (you stir constantly btw), I did get a particularly tasty treat to share with friends and family.
Basically whip up some caramel - that's 1 cup of butter and 1 cup of brown sugar - then spread it over a few matzahs. Let it get all nice and bubbly, get it out the oven and sprinkle a bag of chocolate chips (kosher for passover, of course), wait five minutes and give it a nice schmear to cover it all up. Let it cool, which usually takes a few hours, then break it up into small pieces. Let the oohs and ahhs ensue as everyone enjoys the matzah crunch.


Oh yeah, so that was the high. The lowest of the low: matzah balls like golf balls. They were not a delight. I shall try to remedy that before the week is over. Following the instructions properly will likely help.

The highs and lows now that we're cooking with gas

Having lived in the new house for a couple of months, we are still getting used to cooking with gas. For the most part, I love it. For instance, I've always wanted to make my own baba ghanouj but I like it really smokey and have had neither a bbq nor a gas stove . . . but that has now all changed. So the other day, I picked up some beautiful aubergines, eggplants, berenjena - whatever you may call them - and set to.

The most important part of the whole operation, according to Nigel Slater and I'm middle eastern cooks the world over, is charring the skins of the fruit so you get that awesome smokey taste. So basically I took the two eggplants that I had and put them right on the burner of the gas stove and charred the heck out of them until the skin was burnt and the flesh was all soft. And oh how fabulous the kitchen smelled.

Next step - put the piping hot fruits into a colander resting on a bowl. Once they've cooled a bit, peel the charred skin off and discard. During the process, your eggplants will be leeching some water, but you want to get rid of most of it because it's kind of bitter and who needs that! So you can either just sort of mush the flesh with a fork until you've got rid of most of the liquid or sort of chop it up a bit and then mush it. Either way, get as much liquid out as you can and discard it.

You now have a nice load of mushy eggplant. Add to this:

• 3-4 tbsp tahina
• 2 garlic cloves chopped as fine as you can
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• juice of one small or 1/2 of one large lemon
• salt and pepper

Most of the recipes I read for this say you don't need to use a blender but depending on the quality of your eggplant, you may want to. I think mine may have either been a bit old or had some bruising because I got a couple of nasty hard bits that couldn't be mushed with just a fork. And getting little hard bits in your creamy dip is not pleasant, so if you need to, waz it up with the blender if you want to. Finish it off with a sprinkling of fresh chopped parsley.

I served it with some chicken grilled on the bbq after a bit of a greek marinade (lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, and oregano) as well as a green salad and rice.

So you'll see in the photo above some fluffy white rice and that brings me to one of the lows of cooking with gas. Now, you see, I have been cooking rice perfectly for many, many years. I took the knowledge passed down to me from my mother and others and then made it work for me (1 cup basmati rice, 2 cups water, pinch of salt and a drop of oil/2 tsps of tomato paste if you want. Bring water to boil. Add rice and bring back to boil. Turn down to low, cover, and cook for 17 minutes). My rice came out perfect every time. Every time. My rice mojo, however, is now lost. I've made mushy rice, I've made some absolutely charred rice, and I've made some passable but mediocre rice. I have not made perfect rice with this gas stove. So there is much to learn. For now, I'm tending more toward the potato!

I'm a Geek.

Yep.  Royal Wedding tea and my Wills and Kate mug.  Very much a moment of excitement at our local tea shop to find the mugs.  I wanted the tea cup set but at just around $80, I could not justify it.  The morning of the wedding you will find G and I, Royal Wedding brew in hand with a full English breakfast.  Because that's how we roll in this town, baby.  :)

The Burgers Priest.

I've been seeing the naturopath and am supposed to be following a "clean" diet.  But I have been really really really wanting to try the Burgers Priest, and so, tonight was the night.

And the photo was taken with the iPhone.  Sorry.

I got the doublemeat based on the recs from Chowhound but it was wayyyy to much for me.  So off came the second patty and down went the burger and fries.  Really good!  Kind of a cross between the Shake Shack and In-n-Out, so not a bad thing to be a combo of!  Enjoyed it but it was wicked heavy.

Tomorrow - back on track!!!

Barley Risotto.

One of my favourite blogs, Girl Interrupted Eating, has such a way with food and words.  And she just seems so totally British.  She seems to make the things that I see the contestants on MasterChef make, just because she's creative and in love with local ingredients.  I just love her blog and for the first time ever have made one of her recipes.

Should have known it would be delicious... how could it not be?  Barley, stock, chicken, carrots, all cooked together in the over?  Bring it...

I made a few tweaks on her recipe... but here's the overall picture of the meal...

Pearl Barley Oven Risotto with Chicken 


You need:


2 carrots chopped
3 shallots diced
1 clove of garlic (I used the press bc while it's wasteful, my hands don't stink)
2.5 cups of chicken broth
2 chicken breasts, boneless and skinless, cut into cubes
200g of barley
14 ounces of tinned chopped tomatoes
Goat Cheese, soft, to taste


Cook the chicken cubes to just starting to brown.  Remove from pan and soften the shallot, carrot and garlic in the pan adding salt and pepper and a little bit of oil.  Add water as necessary to keep from burning or over browning.  Once softened, mix in the broth, barley, and tomatoes.  Add the chicken back to the pan and give it a stir.  Bring to a simmer, cover and bake at 350 for 45 minutes.  When ready, put a little bit of the soft goat cheese on each plate to mix in and make unctuous.  


So it was delicious and just a happy tasty bowl of goodness.  I highly recommend it.  I am not sure if barley is given the a-okay on my clean plan, but it's an ancient grain so I am saying oh yeah.

Hope you like it.